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Showing posts with the label moderation

Remembering Wisdom

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I'm a Christian. So why, one might ask, am I not denouncing something most folks enjoy: like demon rum or Bingo? Or playing the Grinch for Halloween? Or enjoying a friendly pint with the boys, but adding my voice to the ensemble 'prophesying' the purported perils of fantasy and imagination? Or at least stalwartly refusing to learn anything we didn't know before the 18th century.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Pythagorean Dribble Glasses

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The diagram shows how a Pythagorean cup works. It's a thinking person's dribble glass , sort of. The cup, pan, and ladle in the photo is a yuza no ki . Both are gadgets used for teaching moderation. The yuza no ki is in the Ashikaga District , 足利郡 , in the Tochigi Prefecture . It hasn't been since around 1896. Ashiga District, that is. Not officially. The cup might be. It's a learning tool. Empty, it's tilted. Pour a little water in, and it goes upright. Pour in more, and it tilts again. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Temperance, Catholic Style

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(From O. Herford, via Life Magazine/Wikipedia, used w/o permission.) ("Life" magazine, Demon Rum, and Matthew 12:45 : June 26, 1919.) My household is "dry:" there's no beer in the fridge, wine in a rack, or whiskey on a shelf. That's partly because I drank too much, which was a very bad idea. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2290 ) After that experience, I could get cherophobia and virtue confused — but I won't. Cherophobia, aversion to happiness ; and hedonophobia , fear of pleasure; are real words. But "blessed are the miserable, for they shall spread misery" is not in the Beatitudes. 1 ... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Life, Death, and Love

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You might recognize this as lyrics from Carly Simon 's Have You Seen Me Lately album: the fourth track. " ...And life is eternal, and love is immortal, and death is only a horizon, and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.... " (Quite a few folks) I ran into it as part of a prayer by Fr. Bede Jarrett , who had said he was repeating something William Penn wrote. Rossiter W. Raymond wrote the lines into his " Death is Only an Horizon " poem. I'll get back to a longer excerpt from Fr. Jarrett's prayer: after talking about death, life, love, and all that. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Moderation and a Pythagorean Dribble Glass

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Today's second reading reminded me of Harold Camping's high-profile End Times predictions, a few years back.... ...I've read that Hero of Alexandria used Pythagorean cups in his robotic systems. That's probably a reference to Heron's fountain , Heron is another version of Hero's name, and I am not going to wander off-topic again. Not for another paragraph or two, anyway. Pythagoras of Samos didn't invent the Pythagorean theorem , but he's the first chap to show why it works - -- Let's try this again. It's one of those days. A Pythagorean cup is a thinking person's dribble glass , sort of.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .