The Dazzle of the Light
Upon passing a cemetery on the way to play group yesterday, Chloe was prompted to a line of questioning that led to the question of death: not only her death but also the death of…
Christopher LongDecember 4, 2007
Life with Chloe and Hannah 02 – Playing with Dolls
Here is another episode of Life with Chloe and Hannah (LwCH). It is a relatively short recording of the girls playing a typical game with their dolls, putting them to sleep and waking up again.…
Christopher LongNovember 20, 2007
Hannah's 2nd Birthday
Today Hannah Aveline Long turns two years old! To celebrate I have added one of my favorite pictures of her with a new umbrella she received for her birthday.This year we celebrate with visits first…
Christopher LongNovember 11, 2007
Life with Chloe and Hannah 01 – Early Snow
I have posted Life with Chloe and Hannah, episode 01 below. It is the first of what I hope to be an ongoing collection of podcasts that capture something of the daily life of my…
Christopher LongNovember 9, 2007
Fiscal Responsibility: Pay for Educational Excellence
In the Centre Daily Times today (after 11/4, link requires subscription), I noticed a central theme that appears in the answers the State College Vision slate of candidates gave to the question: What would your…
Christopher LongNovember 4, 2007
Save Our Schools (SOS)
The write-in campaign of James Leous and Robert Hendrickson have produced three short, funny YouTube advertisements that highlight some of the differences between their positions and those of the State College Vision slate of candidates.…
Christopher LongOctober 29, 2007
Write-In Leous and Hendrickson
The upcoming School Board election in State College seems to mark an important turning point for our schools. As someone with two young daughters who will enter the district in the next three or four…
Christopher LongOctober 24, 2007
Penn State Atheist, Agnostic Association
Nat Jackson and David Yanofsky have taken it upon themselves to reactivate the Penn State Atheist, Agnostic Association that was started two years ago by Richard Jeffery, a former philosophy major here at Penn State.…
Christopher LongOctober 3, 2007
My New iPod Touch
I received my new iPod Touch the other day and have had a few days to play with it. On the whole, I would say that it is very close to being one of the…
Christopher LongOctober 1, 2007
Gifts of Nature from my Daughters
There is a leaf in my book bag. I found it when I was standing in front of my class of first-year students, taking out my computer and books, preparing to teach. It brought me…
Christopher LongSeptember 10, 2007
Don't be fooled again
Today is Labor Day and there is short quiet before the storm of debate in Washington about the war in Iraq unleashes itself upon us. General Petraeus will give his assessment later in the month.…
Christopher LongSeptember 3, 2007
The Content of Our Character
Martin Luther King dreamed that one day people would be judged "not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." If you listen to that speech again, it is difficult…
Christopher LongAugust 29, 2007
Richard Rorty
This year witnessed the death of Richard Rorty, an important American philosopher and good friend to my own teacher, Richard Bernstein. I embed here a YouTube clip posted by my colleague at Penn State, Phillip…
Christopher LongAugust 24, 2007
Rhythms of Fall
In the distance is the sound of drums and horns. The high school band has begun to practice again behind the football field where young men run and tackle, drilling for the new season. The…
Christopher LongAugust 21, 2007
The Farms of Centre County
The Pennsylvania Association of Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) sponsored its second annual Centre County farm tour today. My family, along with our neighbors, the Erickson's (with whom we share a summer share at the Village Acres…
Christopher LongAugust 11, 2007
Congress in Fear
Last week I wondered whether Congress would have the courage to pursue the question of impeachment. This week we received the unequivocal answer: no. In fact, not only will the Congress not pursue the national…
Christopher LongAugust 8, 2007
A "National Inquest"
In the Federalist Papers #65, Alexander Hamilton articulates the "true spirit" of the institution of impeachment written into the constitution. Article II, section 4 of the United States Constitution, puts the question of impeachment in…
Christopher LongAugust 1, 2007
Passing Moments
AVALON, NJ - This is a place of liminal passages: the pines give way to dunes, the dunes to sea, the sea to the horizon and an openness of possibility. The elements too pass into…
Christopher LongJuly 21, 2007
Imitation and the Power of Story
In the Poetics, Aristotle says: To imitate is co-natural to human-beings from childhood and in this they differ from other animals because they are the most imitative and produce their first acts of understanding by…
Christopher LongJuly 12, 2007
Teaching with Google Tools
I am beginning to think about the significance of RSS feeds and how they might be used in teaching. Google has a number of tools of potential importance for teaching. For example, the Google Reader…
Christopher LongJuly 3, 2007
Jocasta and the Lieutenant General
In the June 25, 2007 edition of the New Yorker, Seymour Hersh reports on the report General Taguba filed chronicling the "systematic and illegal abuse" of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison and its initial…
Christopher LongJune 25, 2007
Community Supported Agriculture
Last weekend my family participated in the annual Strawberry festival at the Village Acres Farm, where we are members of their community supported agriculture (CSA) program. As you can see, the strawberries were beautiful, and…
Christopher LongJune 18, 2007
About the Long Road
The title of this web log is more than a play on the name of its author. It refers specifically to Socrates' insistence in the Republic (at 435d and 503c-d) that the path to truth,…
Christopher LongJune 10, 2007
