“If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it…Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa... Read more
The episode begins in the afterlife with Jack telling Locke he is a candidate for a procedure that might restore feeling to his legs. He refuses. Helen comes in and thanks him for saving him. Later, Jack goes to see Bernard. Jack is looking for medical information about Locke, but Bernard remembers that he too was on Oceanic 815. He tells Jack that another man was in the same accident with Locke, and gives him the name Anthony Cooper. He... Read more
Richard Haynes shared yet another way that one can find 666 in an everyday object. He begins with this: And then combines them to get this: = I wonder whether the person who came up with this is willing to bear the stigma of being wrong. Calling the letter “stigma” is an anachronism, reflecting the use of the character in much later times to represent the combination of sigma and tau together. The character known as digamma, representing a final... Read more
This image was spotted by someone in a church, and uploaded to Reddit: Someone then took the liberty of modifying it: It seems to me that the two different signs encapsulate the diametrically opposing viewpoints expressed in relation to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. There are some who want the right to discriminate, and for some reason they think that if gays and lesbians were not “born this way,” that would justify their discrimination. On the other side, there are those who... Read more
The subject of transgender has been in the news a great deal lately, with much attention focusing not only on famous athlete Bruce Jenner (and his ABC News interview), but on young children who have known that their perception of their own gender was different from what they were defined as because of their anatomy. I think one reason why this issue has not seemed to me to be as difficult a problem as some make it out to be is... Read more
This episode starts with the first meeting of Jack with the smoke monster in Locke’s form. Jack asks him who else he has looked like. He asks him if he was the one he saw when he saw his father on his third day on the island. Smokey says that he was looking out for them. When Jack says that Locke was the only one who believed in this place, Smokey says that John Locke was not a believer, he... Read more
The cartoon is from Inherit the Mirth. It connects nicely to a discussion I had in my “Heresy” class recently. If Jesus was not rebellious in his teen years, if he did not learn to be obedient to his parents the way everyone else does, then is there any meaningful sense in which he was human? This is one reason why the extracanonical stories about Jesus’ childhood are so interesting, and so important. It is much easier to imagine an... Read more
This isn’t something I found online. I actually made the above myself. I saw Facebook offering to translate laughter, and just had to click to see what it offered as the translation. What’s the deeper significance? Laughter is untranslatable? Laughter needs no translation? Bing is useless? All of the above? Read more
It sounds like the opposite of holy water. But it is presumably just a typo. Can you figure out what the student meant to write? Via Reddit. Read more
The story of Hugo Reyes in the afterlife is the starting point of the episode. His incredible success and philanthropy. Dr. Chang describes his life at an event connected with the dedication of a paleontology wing which he paid for. The title contrasts with the earlier episode title, “Everybody Hates Hugo.” At a restaurant where he is supposed to have a blind date, Libby comes up to him. She has wandered off from a group from the Santa Rosa Mental... Read more
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