Sunday, August 21, 2011

Lucy's First and Second

Couple weeks ago we celebrated Lucy's first birthday with her second pinata:



As my brother-in-law observed, we're wasting no time in teaching her the timeless principle of scapegoating. Excellent.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Aphorgasm #3

I used to think that learning history was like stacking chairs. The more chairs you stacked, the higher you could sit and get a better view of what's been going on. And you had to do it chronologically. Trying to understand WWII without understanding WWI, or trying to learn about the Romans without first learning about the Greeks, was like trying to hang a chair in mid-air. But now I see history as a giant net or web and it pretty much doesn't matter where you dive in. You can follow the threads in any direction. It's not about getting a higher view. It's about being able to feel your way around without getting lost.