Category: Autobiographical
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5 K or Marathon: Which is Harder?
Which is harder, to run 3.1 miles or 26.2? They are equally hard for the runner who runs right. The agony and the ecstasy at the end of a race run right is the same whether induced by 42.2 km of LSD or 5 km of POT. Above, I am approaching the final stretch of…
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Welcome to Maverick Philosopher
Online since May 2004. I publish both here and at Substack. I began posting at Substack in early 2021 under the rubric "Philosophy in Progress." The Substack entries are intended to assist educated non-philosophers in clarifying their thinking about matters of moment. My PhilPeople page links to my Substack articles and my weblog Maverick Philosopher:…
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What Socializing and Whisky Have in Common
A little socializing, like a little whisky, is good. But more is not better. The sobriety of solitary silence is superior to the sloughing off of self into the social, and the value of the latter is to enhance, by way of contrast, the delights of the former. Thus spoke the introvert.
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The 26.2 Club
I affixed my 26.2 decal to the rear window of my Jeep Liberty this morning. I've earned and have the right to advertise my entry into an elite club. Sunday's Lost Dutchman was my second attempt but my first success. The first attempt was Boston 1979. My training had been overzealous and my knees were…
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A Platonist at Breakfast
I head out early one morning with wifey in tow. I’m going to take her to a really fancy joint this time, the 5 and Diner, a greasy spoon just dripping with 1950s Americana. We belly up to the counter –where I can keep an eye on the waitresses — and order the $2. 98…
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Augustine and the Child at the Seashore: Trinitarian Metatheory
I was told this story as a child by a nun. One day St. Augustine was walking along the seashore, thinking about the Trinity. He came upon a child who had dug a hole in the sand and was busy filling it with buckets of seawater. Augustine: "What are you doing?" Child: "I am trying to…
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Of Blood and Blog
I don't think my experience is unusual: our blood relatives tend not to give a hoot about our blogging activities. They say blood is thicker than water, but consanguinity sure doesn't seem to translate into spiritual affinity. No matter, the community that we can't find by blood, we'll find by blog. The people who know us…
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Balık baştan kokar
Balık baştan kokar is Turkish for "The fish stinks from the head." Quite apropos of the Obama administration the corruption, incompetence, and stupidity of which boggles the mind. He's done everything wrong. But there is hope: Obama's fiscal irresponsibility and liberty-destroying socialist malfeasance has suffered a massive rebuke in, of all places, the People's Republic of Taxachusetts. Here are…
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Richard Peck, Seeker of Lost Gold
Living as I do in the foothills of the Superstition Mountains, I am familiar with the legends and lore of the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine. And out on the trails or around town I sometimes run into those characters called Dutchman Hunters. One I came close to meeting was Richard Peck, but by the time…
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With Whom Would You Rather Run?
No contest, right? And she's faster than me! She claims a sub-4 marathon (26.2 miles in under four hours). On Thanksgiving 2009 it took me over an hour (1:07:37) to crank through a 10 K (6.2 miles). My excuses? It was unseasonably hot and I was 10 lbs overweight. Plus I have no athletic talent. …
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October in the Railroad Earth
Jack Kerouac reads from "The Railroad Earth," a chapter of Lonesome Traveler. I bought my copy on 12 April 1973 on Bourbon Street, in New Orleans. I had been accepted at East Coast graduate schools and was traveling east from California to check them out, a copy of On the Road in my rucksack.
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Three Friends
The blogosphere has been good to me, having brought me a number of friends, some of whom I have met face to face. For now I will mention just three. Having read my announcement that PowerBlogs will be shutting down at the end of November, Keith Burgess-Jackson kindly sent me a number of unsolicited e-mails…
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Travel Disruptive but Good for the Soul
For me travel is disruptive and desolating. A little desolation, however, is good for the soul, whose tendency is to sink into complacency. Daheim, empfindet man nicht so sehr die Unheimlichkeit des Seins. Travel knocks me out of my natural orbit. Even an overnighter can have this effect. And then time is wasted getting back…
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The Tal and the Short of It
Why, with so many painful losses to my 'credit,' do I continue to submit my aging self to the rigors of tournament chess? Because the strenuous life has a property Bobby Fischer once ascribed to 1. P-K4: it is "best by test."
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If Everyone Were Like Me . . .
. . . there would be no used bookstores: I keep all my books. So it is a good thing for me that not everyone is like me.