The Real Rome Kim booked us for a tour of the working side of Rome. I can only assume that I have done a good job of showing her all of the regular tourist stuff that constitutes the bulk of the Trip Advisor tours she can find on the internet. What she did instead of that was find a woman who proposed a tour of the Testaccio and Ostiense areas of the city, areas that…
The Best Seat Ever I am, once again midway over the Atlantic Ocean on my way to Europe. For the first time, Kim and I are flying directly to Europe from San Diego. We are on our way to Egypt and Jordan for a few weeks of pure tourism. We are with Mike and Melisa and have all decided that the best way to do this is to fly to Rome and spend a few…
The Frustration of Open-mindedness In teaching my ethics course, I spend some time telling students that one of the benefits of the course will hopefully to help them learn the value of keeping an open mind to the views of others, even when they are quite different from their own. I say that the value comes from both gaining the respect of those you interact with and in broadening your own views. The problem I…
We Come and We Go There are two schools of thought when it comes to personality. One is we are who we are and that we never change. I guess you would call that the “nature” camp. The opposite would logically be the “nurture” side which believes that we are all a function of our environment and that we are constantly changing. While I am certain that people think about these issues in the context…
Going Back in Time We all know that time travel is a load of crap. But you don’t have to jumble your molecular structure and go all H.G. Wells (He published The Time Machine in 1895) to take your mind back to ancient times. I have always had a thing about antiquities, probably due to growing up for a few years in Costa Rica, where pre-Colombian art was on most everyone’s mind in the late…
The Palestinian Problem Some problems never go away. And some problems just bubble away under the surface, hiding in wait, biding their time. The problems of the Middle East seem to embody both sorts. History and religion are difficult backdrops for justice and nowhere on the face of the earth has more of both than the corner of the world where three continents meet. Africa, Europe and Asia and their diverse cultures come together is…
Why Humans? I am drawn to unusual articles from sources like National Geographic that challenge the very foundations of our existence on this planet. Today I saw an article that, in some ways, does a better job of challenging those foundations than most. I think we all understand that human life began, for one reason or another in East Africa. A great deal of recent research indicates that this precept is a bit mistaken in…
Rowdy All Over Again Last night was my last class in my ethics class for a month. Kim and I are headed off on Monday to Egypt and Jordan for a few weeks. Normally I try to not miss more than two weeks when I teach, but this time I will miss three weeks, but I get a pass on the last week since it is the official school Spring Break. I have been sure…
Namaste We love our new hilltop community. We like all the people and especially like the diversity of the community. We have Persian, Japanese, Arab, Scottish, Indonesian, French and Nepalese people in addition to a full array of mixed American nuts as well. Almost two years ago, Ramesh and Lili Pandey, who are Nepalese, moved in next door, making them physically our closest neighbors. We have gotten friendly with them, which is nice for us…
Superbloom of Bust There is a natural phenomenon here is Southern California that occurs every few years. The “Golden” state is mostly covered with semi-arid landscape that I like to call chaparral. It creates a lovely golden backdrop on which outcroppings of green scrub oaks and such get highlighted. The other thing that happens is that the weeds that are native to California decide that it’s time to declare their presence the way weeds do,…