• Books Read

    The Trial and Death of Socrates: Four Dialogues

    The Trial and Death of Socrates: Four Dialogues by Plato Published: ~399 B.C. Translated by: Benjamin Jowett Socrates died in 399 B.C. after being sentenced to death by a slight majority of 500 jurymen for corrupting the youth and not believing in the (right) Gods. He was given the choice to either drink hemlock or leave Athens, and he chose to drink the poison in the company of his friends. I know this because my brain decides what it will and will not remember, seemingly at random, and it decided a book report I did as a kid was something to remember. If only I could harness this memory for…

  • Books Read

    Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World

    Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (audio) by Dalai Lama XIV Published: 2011 Narrator: Martin Sheen I really like the Dalai Lama. I never thought I would, to be honest, but the more I read from him the more I see he’s someone with a real grounding in reality and science. I suppose my vision of him has been skewed somewhat by middle-class, new-agey white folk selling cancer-healing crystals at $60 a pop, but there’s definitely sincerity and real intelligence behind his advice. […] as the peoples of the world become ever more closely interconnected in an age of globalization and in multicultural societies, ethics based in any one…