http://jerrysummers.com Bits past, present, and future Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:25:56 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Opportunity abounds for historical perspective to triumph! At least in tiny cliques of the historically informed here and there, where the sages cluck their tongues and reiterate endlessly, "Here we go again!" I refer to presidential election politics, "of course." The marvelous journalistic media assure we shall have our ... http://jerrysummers.com/2008/08/07/cheerleader-presidents/ In reviewing the past I have noticed two obvious tendencies -- of creation and destruction -- relative to culture. One occurs when governments use power to create an ideal culture and so they oppress, repress, forbid, and otherwise restrict anything but those elements conforming to ideology. I see ... http://jerrysummers.com/2008/06/08/on-creating-culture/ This morning, Barack Obama is the nominee in a historic process that continues perhaps into the next presidential term. What to make of the Democratic primary and nomination processes? Allison Krauss sings it well: Don't take me because I am faithful, Don't take me because I am kind. If your heart settles on ... http://jerrysummers.com/2008/06/04/take-me-for-longing/ Comments on the China Trip are on the Doc Summers on Tiger Mountain link on this page (may have to click on the Home tab to the left to show links). http://jerrysummers.com/2008/05/27/back-from-china-may-2008/ In his discussion of those philosophers (in the lineage of Descartes) whom he referred to as instead ideosophers, Jacques Maritain wrote, . . . a number of them would prefer, it seems, merely to be a channel for the stream of research, a vanishing instant in its ever changing self-awareness. ... http://jerrysummers.com/2008/02/01/maritain-contra-ideosophy/ It's old news, except in the mainstream. The Associated Press Story ran in the Cox newspapers this week. Donald Miller wrote Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality about five years ago. It's selling like hotcakes (I-Pods?) and has been for some time. He ... http://jerrysummers.com/2008/01/20/blue-like-jazz-the-hard-core-gospel/ From "Goodbye to All That," by Steve Wasserman www.cjr.org/cover_story/goodbye_to_all_that_1.php -- on troubling changes in the culture of literacy: The "most troubling crisis is the sea change in the culture of literacy itself, the degree to which our overwhelmingly fast and visually furious culture renders serious reading increasingly irrelevant, hollowing out the habits ... http://jerrysummers.com/2008/01/20/on-books-their-importance-or-not/ Dorcas Rose McBride, in The Convention, by Will D. Campbell: "This is politics, much as I hate that word. We had an old governor in Mississippi who always said, 'people don't come to political rallies to think. They come to holler.' And he kept getting elected." http://jerrysummers.com/2007/12/31/hollerin-politics/ So, Advent is "Coming," and we grapple with mystery. Some of us with abstractions, others with personal fervor. Can one who has in delight cradled a newborn transfer all the reciprocal sensations into his or her heart -- the center of being, of life? The "Yes" is ... http://jerrysummers.com/2007/12/10/cradle-the-baby/ What about Pentecostal Scientology? It was in the news this morning. I'll bet L. Ron Hubbard never anticipated that combination, but he and his ilk shouldn't be surprised. After all, Scientology is but one of the synthetic, or to use a term Catherine Albanese has used (A ... http://jerrysummers.com/2007/11/11/the-persistence-of-inadequate-ideas/