Read-Think-b4-u-Write

  Have you ever been ghosted? Someone you know, and you thought a friend, for some unknown reason, cuts you off. How messed up is that? Pliny the Younger understands. Pliny the Younger was the only person who wrote an eye-witness account of the eruption of Vesuvius. A pyroclastic cloud killed his uncle, Pliny the Elder, after hanging around Pompeii too long. Being a noted naturalist, he wanted to record the volcanic eruption. Not a good idea. Over at Open Culture they present Pliny the Younger's response to his supposed friend, Septicius, for exhibiting such boorish behavior (You can read the complete text or listen to a reading by Rob Delaney.) You can feel the Pliny's hurt when he says things like, "What joking and laughter and learning we would have enjoyed!" and threatens him with a lawsuit because of the cost of "honey wine cooled with snow (you must add the cost of snow as well, in fact the snow in particular, as it melts in the dish)." Eventually, Pl...

Finally, someone has actually proved that zombies aren't real. I am always amazed how some people believe in zombies, ghost, the paranormal, but then claim there can be no god or spirituality. So, dare we talk about god? I'm sure it will offend someone...okay, let's do it. Here are some scientists who believed in a higher power and how they reconciled those beliefs (thanks Huffington Post ). 1. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). Among his accomplishments (and getting him excommunicated from the Catholic Church) supporting the theory that the earth moved around the sun and not the other way around. I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. He would not require use to deny sense and reason in physical matters which are set before our eyes and minds by direct experience or necessary demonstrations....