“In such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners.”- Camus
A day ago a friend told me of a couple she had known for years, college educated, altogether normal in conversation, who believed that Joe Biden, with the help of an undefined ‘they’, was manipulating the climate with contrails to make this spring cold and rainy. When my friend voiced skepticism, they sent her videos and testimonials from others who were convinced of Biden’s omnipotence and evil. They were certain. […]
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We live in a time when binary opinions are expected and when self-righteous indignation is the norm. An issue is black or white, a travesty or a necessity, a terrible injustice or a long coming reckoning. We are encouraged to forget about evidence, reason, logic, facts. Instead, we are supposed to take a side and hew to it. Emotion is truth. To question is akin to heresy. Doubt is forbidden. […]
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I am teaching myself Italian. After 15 days in Rome, Florence and Siena, my wife and I want to return, sooner rather than later, and spend 6 months there. I want to have a minimal command of the language both in speaking and reading. It is a matter of respect and simple manners to be able to do so. I am using Babbel ’s daily lessons, vocabulary lists, memorization, and translations […]
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When we walked into the second hall of the Uffizi, I think I audibly gasped. All work from the 13th century, Cimabue and Giotto’s enormous wood panel paintings of Mary and the Christ child, and especially Duccio di Buoninsegna’s astonishing The Rucellai Madonna ,. It does not loom over you. It encompasses you with its bright reds and umbers, its cerulean, and olive and a deep black robe that glimmers into ultramarine and […]
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