Russell ignores Epicurus?
Bertrand Russell shows deep understanding of Epicuranism and Epicurus as a philosopher in his “History of Western Philosophy”.
Yet in “The Conquest of Happiness” – a wonderful litlle book of Epicurean inspiration – he ignores Epicurus almost totally. (He does NOT disparage him, though, as Epicurus did Nausiphanes.)
Does anybody have a clue why the basically Epicurean Russell ignored Epicurus in this work?
This is the question I have just ported on Facebook:
Computation of Time from Down Under
My aunt sent us from Melbourne a clock that has the shape of Australia. My daughter was very happy because she could tell me the time without having to refer to boring digits: “it’s long Darwin short Sydney”
I must admit that it took me some time (and a walk to the map) until I grasped the deeper meaning of this announcement. (Yes, it was 5 p.m.)
identifying a nightly visitor
Yesterday evening I came with my son home from the library and we wanted to move the garbage containers onto the street for the weekly collection. As I opened one of the containers to dump a trash bag into it, a pair of glittering eyes were fixed at me. I thought our cat might have gotten somehow out of the house and into the container. I wanted to call her name, but it jumped out and I saw that it was no cat at all. First I thought it was a squirrel but it did not end so fast: It was something much bigger and longer and grayish and it scuttled on and then off the railing and disappeared under the porch stairs. I told my son that it must have been a badger. “Why a badger?” he wanted to know. “We are in Wisconsin and this is the “Badger-State”. “I’d rather think it was a coon. I have seen something like this already.” “Back in Germany?” I inquired. “Yes, back in Germany on TV in SpongeBob”.
He thought I would prize the scientific benefits of his addiction, and I almost did. But then I remembered that I am his homeschooling teacher so I gave him the assignment to write a report on raccoons and how to keep them out of garbage cans.
saving the daylight ruins hearts
In many states they will start saving the daylight tonight: they will rob one hour of sleep and increase heart attacks by 5%, admitted Brian Williams in the NBC news.
Who are the winners – excepting the cardio-vascular and the watch-maker industries?
a sagaciously modest proposal
A Berliner politician has made a sagaciously modest proposal:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,596705,00.html#ref=rss
PIED PIPER PROPOSAL
Berlin’s Poor Should Catch Rats, Says Politician
A Berlin politician has come under fire for suggesting that poor people should be encouraged to catch rats by offering them €1 per dead rodent. The intriguing idea entails some gnawing practical problems and has been called “inhuman and cynical”.
Picture the scene — hundreds of poor people armed with clubs chasing rats through the streets of Berlin.
There’s something Dickensian about the notion, but it has been proposed by a Berlin politician who is now being criticized for suggesting that the city’s poor should be enlisted to tackle the growing rat infestation in the center of the German capital.
———–
The proposition could be made Swiftian by requiring the poor not only to catch and kill the rodents but to cook and eat them as well. This version would have considerable
- economic effects: the food needs requirements of the poor would go down dramatically, saving the city council millions of euros
- ecologic effects: recycling of the rodents would shorten the food chain and lower the energy costs necessary for finding, transporting and preparing non-rodent food
- stress-FREEDOM effects: the rodent hunters and eaters would not have to worry about their next meal
For the above reasons we support the politician’s sagaciously modest proposal and hope that other politicians and CEOs (especially of banks) will follow our advice in adopting the extended version.
FREE Report about stress
Download instantly your copy!
