A a ah!; at; to; in abandon abandon; desert abaris avarice; greed abdomen abdomen; belly abe have; enjoy; hold; possess; own; property; there is/are; ago; ~ ne without; abe nul you're welcome, don't…

What does it mean to be a Christian? Among other things, a Christian is quite simply a follower of Jesus Christ—one who submits to Him as Lord and Savior, who joyfully puts themselves under the yoke…

The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer, is a popular and delightful book that promotes the idea of a reciprocal gift economy. I included the Gift…

Preface. Ever since reading Gibbons “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” I’ve been fascinated by the complexity of reasons for why the Roman Empire fell. But so many books and writings…

The readings for Sunday, May 10, 2026: First Reading: Acts 17:22-31 Psalm: Psalm 66:7-18 (Psalm 66:8-20 NRSV) Second Reading: 1 Peter 3:13-22 Gospel: John 14:15-21 In today's Gospel, we get a hint of…

Early this year, I wrote about wanting to donate a series of letters written to my grandparents and my mother by a family in England. The correspondence began when a widow walking her dog met my aunt…

It feels naïve to insist, long after writers first came to understand the full co-optive capacities of capital, […]

纽约禅堂 白天的纽约禅堂 一、傍晚，熙熙攘攘的人群和车流间，我从南曼哈顿骑车到上东区。人群越来越稀少，金碧辉煌的银行、医院与宾馆越来越高大。粉紫色的晚霞褪去，昏黄的路灯亮起，明晃晃的车灯来来去去。空旷起来的街道上，一个流浪汉大喊大叫，路过的情侣们攥紧彼此的手。我在高楼脚下停好自行车，找一个叫纽约禅堂的地方，今晚有初学者的坐禅。走过几个街区，来到一个圆形的门洞，两扇半圆的木门紧闭。圆润的木色、圆润的…

What is Islam's perspective on the notion of play, leisure, and how does it relate to the Montessori school of thought

While the issue of gender representation has gained increasing recognition across various academic disciplines, existing knowledge about the current state of gender representation in peace and…

Black: Agent generated; Red: Added by human

In my previous blog entry , there were some photos of a cast iron address stamp for Balintore Castle sent to me by the purchaser of this historic item. The enigmatic initials A.B. appear on the…

Orginal post: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Peter Oliver was born before 1678 and died in Rochester, Plymouth County, Massachusetts 5 April 1717. 1 He married in Rochester 3 February 1704, Susannah Sole .…

a person who is exceptionally well-behaved, obedient, and virtuous, often in a way that is seen as annoying, self-righteous, or smug The phrase originates from a 1765 children’s story, The…

It's 04 May.† Fifty-six years ago today, ill-prepared and ill-led members of the Ohio National Guard fired on a group of protesters against the Vietnam War at Kent State University, killing…

Sparky powered by talkie-1930-13b-it, a 13B model trained only on pre-1930 text.

The forgotten castles of the Garamantes lie buried beneath the Libyan sand, the ruins of a civilisation that built cities, traded with Rome, and raised pyramids in the Sahara. The post The Forgotten…

New York City Says No To Coal Or Oil Burning Trains – 1934 In the 1970s practically every apartment building had an incinerator to burn its trash. New York City’s sky had a constant haze…

Lessons from stoic philosophers on control, anger, discipline, death, and steadier action when ordinary life gets messy.

Translated from french (please notify us of errors) Athens, around 430 BCE. On the theatre stage, masked actors perform The Runaways, a comedy by the comic poet Cratinus of which only a few fragments…

This is a paper on Marx's notion of "capitalism" and Frank Knight's notion of "civilization" and why both leave much to be desired.

There's a lot to unpack with this card.It’s the first in a long series of postcards from World War I.First, it’s interesting that it says "War 1914." This was at the very…

The Waste Land by TS Eliot Liveright 1922, reprinted I thought I was rereading TS Eliot's The Waste Land , but after finishing it, I'm certain of a couple things. First, I'm sure I never read it…

Coffee With A Codex is an informal lunch or coffee time to meet virtually with a curator and talk about one of the manuscripts from Penn’s collections. Each week we’ll feature a different…

What kind of person does that? This is a simple question – one that goes to the heart of Orthodox moral thought. For some, “morality” is a question of what is right and what is…

             The First World War tested the fiscal systems of all belligerent countries, usually in unprecedented ways. Governments had to…

By Michael Kelley The type of lens makes all the difference. The most common type of lens is single-vision. It has the same prescription over the whole surface. But a person might also need bifocals.…

Cædmon was a cowherd, who turned poet and saintly monk in 7th century Northumbria. Although only one hymn in Old English is preserved, it is venerated for its beauty. Find the literature here The…

Martínez, Miguel A. (2026) Squatter life: Persistence at the urban margins of Buenos Aires, by Javier Auyero and Sofía Servián: Durham and London, Duke University Press, 2025. Journal of Urban…

The Connector That Became the Floor Try to think about a problem without using language. Pick anything — a project at work, a worry about someone you love, what you want from the next year. Watch…

I used to do debate. You might be surprised by how often that was used as a response to me whilst I was in a heated “discussion” (Argument? Dialogue? I know, footnote). Something along…

Stuart Reid's latest offering via Partizan Press is a regimental history of the Covenanting Armies. This hardback is beautifully presented, but appears to have been poorly proof read. There are a…

An analysis of 200,000 similes from popular fiction.

A group of counterfeiters once tried to steal Abraham Lincoln’s body and hold it for ransom. This episode explores one of the strangest and most unbelievable plots in American history, […] The…

In today’s page of Talmud, we are deeply engrossed in the question of who is qualified to be a shochet, one who slaughters food in accordance with Jewish law. A baraita (a set of oral teachings that…

The post argues that many people reject Christianity not because the tradition lacks depth, but because they were handed stripped-down, insufficiently formed versions of it by teachers who themselves…

A nice collection of books from last month (published in the UK in hardback) ranging across time and space. Three I am particularly attracted to are: The Black Death: A Global History, by Thomas...

Considering the usefulness of genealogy

When Peter described us as being born of imperishable seed from the Word of God, that was not an innovation on his part. Jesus often equated the word of God with seeds. Probably the best-known…

In comments I suggested: IP is Not “Not Property” Intellectual Property Rights as Negative Servitudes “Conversation with an author about copyright and publishing in a free society” IP: The Property…

The Bridge of Sighs in Glasgow, built in 1833 by James Hamilton, crosses the Molendinar Ravine and connects Glasgow Cathedral to the Necropolis. Its name echoes the Venetian bridge, but here the…

In possibly the quickest third party publication arrangement ever by a genealogical platform, Ancestry ( www.ancestry.co.uk ) has added the 1926 Irish Free State census, launched online just two…

In Vietnam, many families and businesses keep a songbird. Housed in ornate bamboo cages, these birds are the centerpieces of a Vietnamese tradition known as chơi chim cảnh (‘playing’…

Because most folkloric tales are passed down through oral tradition, it’s difficult to centralise these myths and fables. Yet, a common theme seems to be the valley as a liminal space.

"The result is less a polemic against the present than a gentle yet firm invitation to remember what we have nearly forgotten—that the good life is not a solitary pursuit of personal authenticity but…

"It is an introduction to the pedagogical life of a classical school. It is a philosophical argument for a particular approach to being a classical teacher. It is a work of cumulative experiences…