Linky Friday: United Thermodynamics
This week! Nature, Food, Obesity, Energy, Death, and Business!
Sassafras
Knowing that it’s time to say goodbye doesn’t make doing it any easier.
Russell Saunders — Giving My Mom the Death She Wanted
A touching piece from our distinguished emeritus writer.
A Sore Test of a New Conviction
Strong is the desire for vengeance. Pretends to be “justice,” vengeance does.
But down that path, no benefit will you find.
T1 – 004: Three Cadaver
We detached the sternocleidomastoid and infrahyoid muscles from their sternal and clavicular insertions. Then, I took a manual bonesaw and cut through the clavicles at their midlengths…
T1 – 003: Two Cadaver
by Christopher Carr, the second part of a series on the dissection of human cadavers
T1 – 002: One Cadaver
by Christopher Carr, the first part of a series on the dissection of human cadavers
Today’s Freakout Moment
Of all the things I could be freaking out over, this is what I settled on today.
The Hardwired Bonds of Nurturing
I have a theory about pets and people without children. This theory is born out of mere anecdotal observation of friends and family, and as such it’s not very scientific. But I believe it anyway. I have known a lot of people, couples and singles, who believe or know they are not going to have…
To Fail as a Son
The last time I saw my father I was twelve years old. Before boarding the airplane that would return me to the home of my mother and step-father, I had sat on the edge of my father’s bed, next to him, upset and uncertain. We were nearing the end of my second six-week visit back…
Inadequacy and the Problem of Misery
[Belated Preface-12/29/2012-: My original intention with sharing the below experience was to set a rather basic philosophic question in a rhetorical situation that might prove more resonant. This is about me, but it actually isn’t. I am faced again and again with the question of what my existence means. But this one is quickly superseded by another…
Loneliness and Loss
Not so long ago, I met a young couple who had unexpectedly lost their newborn baby shortly after birth. Upon my first seeing them, their heads were bowed and their eyes were downcast. Both appeared lost in another world, detached from their surroundings, a millions miles away from the people standing a few feet from…
Draft Protests
Perhaps it’s best to think of our historical opposition to war not as war protest but as draft protest. I’ve been reading Jerome Marmorstein’s “War As a Disease Epidemic” lately with a student I teach over Skype. The article likens efforts at international peace to international public health initiatives and contains this passage: One of…
The First of the Law
And the Padraig spoke, and he said unto the people, “For upon these days, men will come to you with fermented grain beverages that will be the color of the grass in the field. Should the color of the beverage be that of the wheat at the time of the harvest, thou shalt imbibe of…
At My Real Job: DNA and the Death Penalty
This month’s Cato Unbound is especially interesting to me because it discusses how to integrate new facts into an old public policy debate: Now that we (sometimes) have DNA evidence, what does it tell us about our capital punishment system? One answer, of course, is that it doesn’t tell us anything. If you have a…
Fun with Azathoth
You all know that I’m not a religious believer. But you might ask: What fills the God-shaped hole? Something has to, right? It’s a fair question, but my answer is pretty weird. I don’t expect anyone to follow it.
A poem for Wednesday
The Old Fools by Philip Larkin What do they think has happened, the old fools, To make them like this? Do they somehow suppose It’s more grown-up when your mouth hangs open and drools, And you keep on pissing yourself, and can’t remember Who called this morning? Or that, if they only chose, They could…
continuity and the culture of death
1 a: the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body b: a principle or force that is considered to underlie the distinctive quality of animate beings c: an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction ~the definition of Life, from the Merriam Webster dictionary…
