Resolve to become a better person

Instead of the usual New Year's Resolutions, how about a Moral Plan to become a better person? That's the subject of my Project Syndicate column, just out, co-authored with Agata Sagan:

https://t.co/KIBdKRbMJi
(https://twitter.com/PeterSinger/status/1344228570781007872?s=02)

William James's colleague saved Wonder Woman's life

Really, kinda. G.H. Palmer brought James to Harvard and taught young William Marston, whose suicidal impulse was checked by philosophy.

Here's a story I'd like to see on the big screen. But thanks to the negative buzz around WW 1984, I've discovered Jill Lepore's compelling account of the real story behind "Diana Prince"...

"What checked Marston’s hand as he held the vial [of poison acid] was the study of existence itself. There was one course he loved: Philosophy A: Ancient Philosophy. It was taught by George Herbert Palmer, the frail, weak-eyed, sixty-nine-year-old Alford Professor of Philosophy and chairman of Harvard’s Philosophy Department. Palmer had thin, long white hair, bushy black eyebrows, blue eyes, and a walrus mustache. He lived at 11 Quincy Street, where he pined for his wife, Alice Freeman Palmer, who had been president of Wellesley College, an advocate for female education, and a suffragist. She’d died in 1902. He refused to stop mourning her. “To leave the dead wholly dead is rude,” he pointed out, quite reasonably.14 Early in his career, Palmer had made a luminous translation of the Odyssey—its aim, he said, was to reveal “that the story, unlike a bare record of fact, is throughout, like poetry, illuminated with an underglow of joy”—but his chief contribution to the advancement of philosophy was having convinced William James, Josiah Royce, and George Santayana to join what became known as “the Great Department”: Harvard’s faculty of philosophy.15 The key to teaching, Palmer believed, is moral imagination, “the ability to put myself in another’s place, think his thoughts, and state strongly his convictions even when they are not my own.” He “lectured in blank verse and made Greek hedonism a vital, living thing,” Marston said.16 In the fall of 1911, Philosophy A began with a history of philosophy itself. “According to Aristotle,” Palmer told his class, as Marston sat, rapt, “the rise of philosophy has three influential causes: freedom, leisure, and wonder.” For weeks, he raved about the Greeks: they, to Palmer, were geniuses of dialectics and rhetoric. After Thanksgiving, he lectured on Plato’s Republic; by December, he was expounding on how man was “a rational being in a sensuous physical body,” underscoring, as he often did, that by “man,” he meant men and women both. He eyed his class of Harvard men sternly. “Girls are also human beings,” he told them, “a point often overlooked!!”17 The equality of women was chief among Palmer’s intellectual and political commitments, and it was a way, too, that he remembered his wife. George Herbert Palmer, who saved Marston’s life, was faculty sponsor of the Harvard Men’s League for Woman Suffrage."

"The Secret History of Wonder Woman" by Jill Lepore https://a.co/hJ0TTzx

Off-Grid

Man Living Off-Grid in His Incredible Self-Built Cabin

https://youtu.be/ZZmWfvLGjVw

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

👣Solvitur ambulando

💭Sapere aude

Seeing the Whole Earth from Space Changed Everything

https://medium.com/the-long-now-foundation/earth-and-civilization-in-the-macroscope-82243cad20bd?s=02

These Precious Days by Ann Patchett

https://harpers.org/archive/2021/01/these-precious-days-ann-patchett-psilocybin-tom-hanks-sooki-raphael/

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

👣Solvitur ambulando

💭Sapere aude

Adieu, Mark Shields

This is like watching Ted Williams' last at bat. @JudyWoodruff @nytdavidbrooks
(https://twitter.com/RonBrownstein/status/1340113339481878528?s=02)

Carl Sagan

Open your eyes to the wisdom in this incredible speech by Carl Sagan. ✨ #COSMOS https://t.co/e2bfKYtMh8
(https://twitter.com/COSMOSonTV/status/1339631631867506688?s=02)

Barack Obama's 2020 Best Books

As 2020 comes to a close, I wanted to share my annual lists of favorites. I'll start by sharing my favorite books this year, deliberately omitting what I think is a pretty good book – A Promised Land – by a certain 44th president. I hope you enjoy reading these as much as I did. https://t.co/UHk4RA9dow
(https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/1339631669104570370?s=02)

Books for dark times

Jill Lepore, @WakeDivDean, and other writers, thinkers, and professors share the books that guide them through dark times. https://t.co/3hDH5MadiA
(https://twitter.com/NewYorker/status/1339550508789489669?s=02)

Tolstoy’s bicycle

Tolstoy's bicycle, back in the days of the bicycle license https://t.co/7akN2dd0xv
(https://twitter.com/AgnesCallard/status/1339423859762728963?s=02)

Hall of Famers

The seven Negro Leagues elevated to Major League status featured 35 Hall of Famers. https://t.co/XopGDhd56R
(https://twitter.com/MLB/status/1339395541118066694?s=02)

Old mitts

My grandfather's mitts from the Negro Leagues. Felt like a good day to share them. @mlb https://t.co/CpijprC0xS
(https://twitter.com/LaurenceWHolmes/status/1339303550116130816?s=02)

Instagram’s Favorite New Yorker Cartoons of 2020

"Those meetings really could all have been emails..."

"Boy, Time really flies when everyday is joyless and exactly the same."

"Yes, I came back. I always come back."

et al
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/2020-in-review/instagrams-favorite-new-yorker-cartoons-of-2020?utm_source=onsite-share&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=the-new-yorker

Best Podcasts of 2020

The Best Podcasts of 2020—a year when we needed great podcasts. https://t.co/Ko3KNLAn7R
(https://twitter.com/asarahlarson/status/1336681959360180225?s=02)

5 Best Science Books of 2020

The Best Science Books of 2020. "We chose books that make science a meeting place for all, through whatever means, so long as they inspire, excite, challenge and open up new ways of thinking." @AnneOsbourn1 chair of judging @royalsociety prize. https://t.co/gozwCCLvro
(https://twitter.com/five_books/status/1335433791314272256?s=02)

Best philosophy 2020 (@five_books)

"Reading philosophy books is partly about disagreeing with what is said so that you stay alive as a thinker" Nigel Warburton ( @philosophybites) edits our philosophy category. Find all the topics we've covered here:
https://t.co/q81tsoZFDU
(https://twitter.com/five_books/status/1333708672640413703?s=02)

Best of 2020 (@five_books)

Fiction, nonfiction, science, philosophy, kids, business: if you're looking for the best books of the year, we've been working hard to put together an irresistible selection. https://t.co/ip3rkujPZF
(https://twitter.com/five_books/status/1333621846714032130?s=02)

Best books of 2020

https://apps.npr.org/best-books/?s=02#view=covers&year=2020

"Didn't say all the things I said"

Joaquin Andujar's favorite word: "youneverknow"... Johnny Damon on "thinking too much" and "hurting the team"...

https://ourgame.mlblogs.com/they-said-it-maybe-4d7ec1d3715e?s=02