Faith I am rewatching the Netflix series The Crown and finding it great entertainment and chock full of thoughtful issues worthy of contemplation. That is the sign of well-produced, directed and acted movie or series. Being thought-provoking is something I very much value in my movie and TV viewing. It seems somehow easier to do be thought-provoking in a written piece and easier to be entertaining in a visual piece, but the ability to enroll…
Waiting for Enlightenment Life is funny sometimes. Today is the the day before the much awaited arrival of my granddaughters for their Spring Break week-long visit. It has been five years since they were last here. Evelyn was one and Charlotte was four. I think it’s fair to say that this will, for all intents and purposes, be seeing Casa Moonstruck for the first time. Naturally, we’ve seen the girls many times in New York…
Hilltopping This morning I was driving to my favorite rock store, KRC, to pick up some bags of stabilized decomposed granite (DG) and I started noticing that every hilltop I could see, and there are plenty of hills around here to offer hilltops, is fully built out with one or two homes. Finding your own hilltop to command a view of the surrounding environs is obviously very popular. When we were in Italy recently on…
The Young Man Within I am rewatching The Crown, that wonderful Netflix series about the life and times of Queen Elizabeth II. The current episode starts with Winston Churchill speaking with his assistant, a young blonde woman who acts as his secretary. She is apparently infatuated with Churchill and at the suggestion by him that she spend more time with a young man her own age, she has taken to reading Churchill’s biography to acquaint…
Scripto Ergo Cogito Ergo Disco Ergo Sum Rene Descartes started it all in 1637 in his Discourse on the Method, which most scholars consider his seminal philosophical work. I have amended it to read (in Latin), I write, therefore I think, therefore I learn, therefore I am. My default activity these days is to write. I know this especially now because I am finishing a ten day trip to New York and Italy and I…
Sitting in the Garden I visited Green Thumb Nursery in San Marcos today. Green Thumb has suddenly become my go-to local nursery owing to the diversity of products that they offer. My usual favorite nursery is Waterwise Botanicals. They are a very serious nursery that only stocks drought-tolerant plants and a whole array of roses, which are decidedly not doubt-tolerant. In many ways they offer the best quality of a wide variety of plant matter…
Riding in the Hood The childrens’ short story or fable of Little Red Riding Hood is said to have derived from oral histories during the Middle Ages, when demons and evil beasts still roamed the woods of the Black Forrest. I presume these were less about entertaining children than they were about cautioning them about the dangers in the woods. Anthropomorphizing the beasts of the forrest for the purpose of warning children not to wander…
Sleeping-In There are many reasons why I should be jealous of my youngest son, Thomas. He is young and just starting his life. He is engaged to be married to a lovely and brilliant young woman with whom he is currently living in Brooklyn. He and she met at Cornell University and have known each other literally from the first day of their arrival in their dormitory (their rooms were adjacent). They became best friends…
Sonny Boy My youngest son Thomas is coming for a week-long visit on Wednesday. He arrives at San Diego Airport right in the middle of my Ethics class lecture (assuming his flight is on-time). Since the following week is Spring Break and since I do not want to keep my boy waiting too long at the airport (even though it is only a ten minute drive from the campus), I will probably end the class…
Where to Live There are three considerations that have more impact on our lives than any others. We cannot choose when we live as that is the role of the dice we call procreation, whether you believe in the human soul or reincarnation or whatever. I suppose some people can determine actively or passively through their lifestyle choices, how long they live, but that is a very different issue. The other three considerations are the…