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FTAC – ALW – Why Argue?
This confrontation with thought and power reminds me of an old saying: “You can never win an argument with y our father.” One may, however, some day tell him to piss off. Such table talk is about...
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FTAC – Arguing About the Apple
From this I shall probably hear what yeshiva students have to say about the famous apple. I have never sat in a yeshiva — a school for the study of Torah — and been part of or listened to the arguments...
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FTAC – Rational Divine
Rationality has its kernel in cogent observable and measurable correlation giving rise to hypotheses and theories that may be disproved. The realm of things that may be disproved, like the idea that...
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FTAC – Another Dollop of The Wisdom . . . .
Responding to an assertion having to do with the civilizing effects of one of the monotheistic religions on a remote indigenous people: They were always human and will be always regardless of what they...
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FTAC – A Note on Nelson Mandela and Phenomenology and Journalism
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-23085736 – “”He is much better today than he was when I saw him last night,” Mr Zuma said after speaking to the 94-year-old’s medical team.” – We must put a stop...
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Muzzle Toffee – A Commonplace Regarding Criticism and GB’s Home Office...
To teach well or learn, one asks not for flattery but rather to hear the worst from one’s critics. I’ve quoted myself recasting an ancient commonplace, but not that I’m stuck on myself: there’s plenty...
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FTAC – Asking Questions
In the Jewish tradition,M., questioning is more than admired: it is required and it had better be tough. My rabbi and I got into it yesterday over the origins of a liberal Judaism, he arguing for 19th...
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Four Posts – Compassion, Humility, Inclusion, Integrity
Compassion because concern with the well being of another creates always a more pleasing environment between the two. Humility because while hurtling through space on our “pale blue dot”, we may not...
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FNS – Christopher Dickey on Syria – Political Analysis – And One or Two...
The other great American ally in the region, Israel, has for the most part recused itself from the Syrian conflict. Its only direct action has been to strike Hezbollah supply networks that might have...
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Care and Integrity in Language – and Syria
The lie never serves the listener. The lie always serves the liar in two ways: to conceal discomforting information or though — material that would be embarrassing, impolite, or shameful if expressed —...
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Guilt and Jealousy in Two Lines
Finish your supper. Don’t you know there are children starving in Africa?” * * * “If you don’t finish what’s on your plate, I shall give it to your brother. Guilt has always to do with others, some...
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Move this History Stuff Along, Please — It’s Going Too Slowly –“The Clash”–...
The Clash – Rock the Casbah – YouTube At this point, the clip’s an historic artifact. Curious, that Texas-borne armadillo, but less so the get-ups and the lyrics. * Let’s add to this Billy Joel’s...
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Some Leader Indulge Their Constituents Overmuch
Some leaders indulge their constituents overmuch with license, flattery, and pandering I’ll leave that one (from the awesome conversation) alone except to note that lying in the interest of political...
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Back to the Middle Ages: Viktor Orbán at the Christian Democratic International
Reblogged from Hungarian Spectrum: I have been wondering for some time when it is that the media "experts" in the Prime Minister's Office decide to publish his speeches in full on his own website and...
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FTAC – On Islam in Conflict
The ideology writ culturally large (Quran + Hadith + Sectarian Emotion) affords license and then the character and chemistry of a certain kind of zealot does the rest. Whether that zealot represents a...
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FTAC – More Than 7,000 Ways of Addressing the World
In the arts, we may refer to a certain state in performance as contained and connected and that with God, nature, and the universe. – put together some observations in psychology — Ecstasy: a Study of...
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FTAC – God, Moses, Pharaoh, and Time
Moses merely facilitates God’s design in that story — and keep in mind we read these stories very carefully and a little differently — and what we notice is that God, being God, knows what’s going to...
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Rest in Peace, Nelson Mandela
▶ Remembering activist and peacemaker Nelson Mandela – YouTube - PBS, 18:24 – 12/5/2013. _____ Nelson Mandela Dead: South African Former President Dies – Business Insider 12/5/2013. But wait! Of...
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FTAC – The Idea of Justice – Not On A Whim
That contemptuous phrase “the whims of man” applies well to autocratic societies in which, indeed, the whims of one man control a great swath of humanity, but with those, one knows the methods: to...
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FTAC –“We’ll Wind Up Helping One Another.”
While we figure out how language sustains conflict in the head (and perhaps catch up or re-read — in my case — Benny Morris or Efraim Karsh), perhaps it’s time to transform the Hamas and Fatah sense of...
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