John Adams in Tennessee

Stopped in at the Walker Library yesterday, at Middle Tennessee State University, to check out the visiting "John Adams Unbound" exhibition. Don't miss it if you're in Murfreesboro, it'll only be there through September. Adams used to be a relatively unsung revolutionary hero, but David McCullough, HBO, and PBS have chipped away at his obscurity.

Another side of Adams was a bit misrepresented by the religion panel, though, which played up his Unitarianism and portrayed him as a more-or-less conventionally pious pilgrim. In fact, as Jennifer Hecht points out in Doubt: A History, he was a doubter and a skeptic both before and after his affiliation with the Unitarians. Just like me.

As President he declared: "The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation." And as for those who would ban questioning the Bible's allegedly divine origins? "I think such laws a great embarrassment, great obstructions to the improvement of the human mind."

You hear that, Rick & Michelle? Probably not.

MTSU Convocation

We're back, and this time we're "true blue."

Listening is an act

And it's a good one. Dave Isay is on campus this afternoon, talking about his StoryCorps project to get more of us listening attentively and respectfully to one another. His book Listening in an Act of Love was the summer Freshman Read. (It sure beats the Vanderbilt offering my friend from there was telling me about yesterday at the Sounds game, the late Peter Gomes' preciously self-important Good Life.

We'll talk about Listening soon, classes begin tomorrow. Time always begins on opening day. Play ball!

Confessions of an Ex-Moralist - NYTimes.com

Joel Marks is wrong, but in interesting and provocative ways. I wonder if he's read "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life" by William James. There the view is ably defended that although (as Marks suggests) the full set of competing human desires is socially unsustainable, our objective aspirations in morality and ethics remain wholly tenable.

Confessions of an Ex-Moralist - NYTimes.com

Science Friday Archives: Weaving ‘Charlotte’s Web’

Was excited to tune in to NPR's "Science Friday" yesterday and hear old friend Michael Sims discussing his Story of Charlotte's Web... even more excited to learn that he's working on a book about Thoreau and Walden. It'll be great. Can't wait.
Science Friday Archives: Weaving ‘Charlotte’s Web’

What Makes Us Happy? - Magazine - The Atlantic

What Makes Us Happy? - Magazine - The Atlantic

David Deutsch And The Beginning of Infinity | On Point with Tom Ashbrook

David Deutsch And The Beginning of Infinity | On Point with Tom Ashbrook

The Poetry And Philosophy Of Troubled Times | On Point with Tom Ashbrook

You don't often hear a poet and a philosopher on the radio. And at the same time? A first.

Billy Collins can make even a bleak future (past, present) sound inviting. How does he do that?


THE FUTURE

When I finally arrive there—

and it will take many days and nights—

I would like to believe others will be waiting

and might even want to know how it was.

So I will reminisce about a particular sky

or a woman in a white bathrobe

or the time I visited a narrow strait

where a famous naval battle had taken place.

Then I will spread out on a table

a large map of my world

and explain to the people of the future

in their pale garments what it was like—

how mountains rose between the valleys

and this was called geography,

how boats loaded with cargo plied the rivers

and this was known as commerce,

how the people from this pink area

crossed over into this light-green area

and set fires and killed whoever they found

and this was called history—

and they will listen, mild-eyed and silent,

as more of them arrive to join the circle

like ripples moving toward,

not away from, a stone tossed into a pond

New Yorker

The Poetry And Philosophy Of Troubled Times | On Point with Tom Ashbrook

The Transformation of Michele Bachmann : The New Yorker

A profile of the goofball candidate from Anoka.

This would be laughably, parodically entertaining, if only so many "serious" pundits weren't calling her a serious candidate. And now comes the goofball candidate from Texas. Maybe they'll split the goofball vote. But wait, what about the goofball candidate from Wasilla?

The Transformation of Michele Bachmann : The New Yorker

Secularism and Its Discontents : The New Yorker

Terrific piece by James Wood, including Philip Kitcher on the message Plato's "Euthyphro" should convey to those who think you can't be good without God (this "turns morality into God's plaything") and Tom Nagel counseling that we should "approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair." Wood's comment on Nagel: that's "cold comfort in the middle of the night."

Secularism and Its Discontents : The New Yorker