BC

Tree is a verb. To tree, when hounds chase a raccoon up a tree to meet its doom; as in "The dog treed the coon."

To be honest, I don't know exactly what I mean by "breaking new ground". Louis Moreau Gottschalk broke new ground in the 19th century with pieces that...

There is so much great music available today -- in the various media -- that one need never listen to anything third rate. From early medieval to yest...

Producers in any art form can not continually break new ground over their careers. The most inspired artists have a limited capacity for creation. We ...

A backgrounder... The National Lampoon grew out of the Harvard Lampoon, which was put out by Harvard students being irreverent. The spin off into the ...

"I try to think, but nothing happens."

I like that. Thanks.

Yes, much simpler. Thanks.

It's from the National Lampoon magazine of many years ago. Not funny? I thought it was.

Ciceronianus the White is our resident stoic. He's a long-time member, going back to this forum's previous incarnation. You might want to PM him for s...

There doesn't have to be some 'universally agreed upon' because it is merely my assessment that some people think better than some other people. If we...

Go placidly amid the noise and waste, And remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof. Avoid quiet and passive persons, unless you ar...

The light at the end of the tunnel may be an express train bearing down on you.

If 'ideology' is an organized set of beliefs, principles, and habits, then I think most people benefit from having a positive ideology. (There are neg...

Spanish is more "inflected" than English, meaning words change more, depending on present tense, past tense; first person ("I"), third person ("you") ...

If heathens, pagans and uncircumcised Philistines find something useful and humanizing in what Jesus said, they should be encouraged to make use of it...

The "eye for an eye" principle was first enunciated in Hammurabi's Code. He was the sixth king of the First Babylonian Dynasty, reigning from 1792 BC ...

If indeed most people are hardwired (by evolution's long project) to feel like life is worth it, then perhaps there is something right about people wh...

Saying that some people think better than other people do is a truism. It's like saying "Good food is better than bad food." I think it's obvious that...

I suppose Jesus always knew best, but one has to wonder whether Lazarus, who was already starting to stink pretty badly, really wanted to come back to...

Right. Not sure that Jesus meant that literally. Though some people these days are willing to cut off your hand for you if they think it causes you to...

Obviously getting chummy with the victim might not be appropriate in rape cases. However, I think that perpetrators need to perform sacrificial acts o...

Said in the same vain as what Jesus said to the rich young man who wanted to follow Him: "First, go and sell all you have." The young man went away sa...

Well, one alternative is restorative justice. It's best applied for young offenders and relatively minor crimes. It involves bringing the offender and...

The "eye for an eye" rule was a major step up in ethics. The non-ethical man visits unlimited devastation on those who harm his family, himself, his p...

Right. My self-frenchification program isn't making a whole lot of progress, but one of the best parts of what French I have learned has been by liste...

"Unfortunately, most fundamentalists don't take that particular verse literally", he said unlovingly.

So, what Spanish speaking country are you in, how long have you been there, how is language acquisition going so far, and what method are you using to...

It looks like an automated glitch. When you post a new discussion, there is a little box for "question" and "poll". It might be the case that the "que...

Well, "ease of communication" is a very big deal. But once you are adept in the language, you can expand your cultural repertoire to include the arts ...

There are several ways: I gather you are past the period of time (childhood) when most people pick up languages readily. You should have moved years a...

All our good experiences are in the past. So also are all our bad experiences. And indifferent ones. And unsorted, unclassified experiences. We come f...

90% of his brain can't be gone and him to function normally. "Update 3 Jan 2017: This man has a specific type of hydrocephalus known as chronic non-co...

It's funny. Laugh. Happy to be of service.

No, I think we are actually incapable of dealing with long-term future problems. It isn't just hubris. The reason for this is that we can not "feel" t...

Hubris. We have not done this. We have not tried to do it. It is way too soon to claim the capacity to divert large asteroids. Bear in mind that it wa...

Well, in OUR opinion we are quite bright. Sometimes we are cursed by being too smart for our own good; sometimes we are just too stupid for words. We ...

Today is Saint Lucy's feast day -- she also goes by Santa Lucia. She's a really weird saint for very contemporary times. She was very touchy about unw...

Plants may like a bit more CO2, but they don't necessarily like the added heat that goes with it. Some plants get eaten to death by the insects that a...

Yes, I was aware that those were apokrisis's quotes, but I wanted to address my response to you, since this is your thread. The reason I don't believe...

But isn't nihilism a dogma? It seems like a nihilist has to have this kernel of anti-dogma which repels every other dogma.

Of course.

Could very well be. I tend to like dogma. I googled dogma just to make sure, and G offered this synopsis of the movie Dogma at the top of the page: Wh...

Humans have the capacity to create things such as rights, other animals don't, and we have granted those rights to ourselves, and not other animals. A...

Question 1: What were the goals of the Sexual Revolution? Question 2: Was the Sexual Revolution planned? Question 3: What was/is complete liberation? ...

OK, so why don't we take a vote? It might be (or, it most certainly would be) non-binding, but it might have a beneficial effect. Then again, it might...

There is no end to the problems caused by people obfuscating. You are calling a spade what you see as a spade, which is what honest people ought to do...

I don't think the moderator-apparatchiks can effectively moderate each other. We would have to have a higher layer of moderation devoted to pruning th...

Hopefully that sexual jokes and innuendo is a normal part of life, and that one won't shrivel up and die if one hears a sexual joke, or offends someon...

And inconsiderate, arrogant, snotty and smug comments are posted because some of the forum members are inconsiderate, arrogant, snotty and smug, and s...