I’m taking a few interesting classes this semester and thought it would be a decent idea, if I ran up against a particularly striking passage from any of my readings, to make a blog post. My first comes from my class on Phenomenology. Specifically, the passage below appears in Otto Bollnow’s essay “Lived Space.” Here he is talking about the necessity of a dwelling place, specifically a house, for humans: In every case the first step is to carve out of chaotic space a definite area set apart from the rest of the world as a holy precinct. The Latin word tem-plum, meaning something cut out, is an apt expression of this. Cassirer stressed it a generation ago in his Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, unfortunately almost forgotten: “The consecration begins when a certain area is taken out of the rest of space, distinguished from other places and in …
From AP: The president tasked Vice President Joe Biden with leading the administration-wide effort to create new gun control policies. Obama also wants his team to consider ways to improve mental health resources and address ways to create a culture that doesn’t promote violence. The departments of Justice, Education, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security will all be part of the process. Biden’s prominent role in the process could be an asset for the White House in getting gun legislation through Congress. The vice president spent decades in the Senate and has been called on by Obama before to use his long-standing relationships with lawmakers to build support for White House measures. This is a great first step. This seems like the logical step from someone who was just named Time’s Person of the Year. Watching him, I just get the sense that the President is someone who gets …
Words, just words, that is really all I have. And I honestly cannot even come up with much to say. I was in the middle of taking a break from the Handle to finish up finals and to visit a friend in New York when I, like you all, were jolted by the revolting news of another mass shooting. Everyday since, the shooting and everything tangential to it has dominated my discourse, been at the fore of my mind. My heart hurts every time I see a picture of the victims, hear their stories. I offer all the sympathy I have and more, even though I know my sympathy can never truly be enough for the families and the community of Newtown. I once lived in, and still annually visit, a town in Connecticut, not too far from Newtown — school teacher Victoria Soto, who shall be forever remembered as …
November 19th was International Men’s Day. What does it mean to be a man today?
An original poem conveying my thoughts and feelings following the election results
A few last words before the election, and a prediction