In one of my favorite books — In Tune With the World: A Theory of Festivity — German philosopher Josef Pieper takes up the question: What is a feast? On this, Thanksgiving Day, it seems worth looking at his answer… Pieper acknowledges that feasts are typically associated with “having a good time.” And what is
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It is easy to overlook how much we are supported by the world; how little we give and how much we get. My local organic farmer gambled this year with late plantings, and the weather cooperated. In mid-November he picked for us bushels of kale, mustard greens, and bok choy. He took the risk; he
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Is the study of classic literature and languages like Latin and Greek dead? Many would answer that question with a yes. After all, it’s cooler to have a degree in woman’s studies – or at least some type of diploma that can land a person a decent paying job. But recent developments at the University
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During the recent election, most of you were probably called either a “conservative” or a “liberal”. And in many cases, this categorization of you was attempted as a subtle, or not-so-subtle, insult. Other examples of backhanded categorizations that may have been hurled at you in recent months include “religious”, “serious”, “foodie”, “homebody”, “hipster”, “crunchy”, or
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Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury Signifying nothing. Does this wonderful passage from Macbeth signify that Shakespeare believed that human life was idiotic and utterly
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Social networks do best when they tap into one of the seven deadly sins. Facebook is ego. Zynga is sloth. LinkedIn is greed. ~ Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn (2011) The Atlantic’s Robinson Meyer suggests that Hoffman’s tongue-in-cheek comment from five years ago may contain more than a kernel of truth. Using Dante’s Inferno as a guide, Meyer outlines
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