No class today

  Or tomorrow. Probably not the rest of the week, though that  determination has not yet been made as of 5 AM Tuesday. I hope you are all well, staying warm wherever you are. It’s day three of no power where I live, in Nashville. We’re spending a lot of time bundled and huddled around the fireplace and consuming warm beverages. Last time this happened was the big chill of ‘94. Every 30 years or so is often enough!

Please keep up with the readings and post your comments about them as you are able. We’ll catch up when we can. See you soon. jpo

NYTimes: The Peculiar Magic of a Winter Snowstorm

Our Lyceum guest last Fall, Megan Craig, sees beauty and spirit in the snow (if not the ice & slush).

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/opinion/winter-snow-storm.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

👣Solvitur ambulando

💭Sapere aude

Stephen Fry's “Words Words Words”

https://youtu.be/q62eoxOXHpo?si=Ba1iNai3KhjE8m7a

Midterm report presentations

Select a topic related to the class date's assigned reading (on March 3 you can choose from the entire book). Indicate your preference in the comments space below. Plan to speak for at least ten minutes before opening the floor to discussion, give us a discussion question or two, and a suggested question for the exam.

FEB

3 Richard Ford, Be Mine -p.87. Midterm report presentation: ___

10 Richard Ford, Be Mine -172. Presentation: ___

17 Richard Ford, Be Mine -266. Presentation: ___

24 Richard Ford, Be Mine -342. Presentation(s): ___

MAR

3 Exam. Select final report presentation topic & date. Presentation(s): ___

Questions JAN 27

Feel free to respond to any of these you like, or any questions or comments posted by a classmate, or post your own questions and comments about the readings and class discussion. Each comment gets you a "base on the scorecard" and just showing up gets you on first base, so aim for at least three posted questions/comments prior to class each week. That'll entitle you to "diamond" status, and full participation credit.

On Tuesday we need to get everyone assigned to a date for midterm report presentations, take a glance at the possibilities so you can express a preference on the sign-up sheet above. 

1.  Any thoughts on anything we talked about during our first class on the 20th?
2. If you've looked at the Richard Ford interview, do you have any comment or questions about anything he says? Does it surprise you that he says nothing his fictional characters do surprises him? Do you think other authors who say their creations take on an independent life of their own really mean it?
3. "Lately, I've begun to think more than I used to about happiness." Quite an opening line. Do you find yourself thinking more, less, or not at all about happiness, the older you get? (Notice what Frank says about happiness and aging on  p.11.) Do you think of the pursuit of happiness as your unalienable right? How is your own pursuit going? Does your education (which may or may not coincide with your schooling) contribute positively to the pursuit?
4. Frank says (on p.2) he's "happy enough" to be himself. Are you? Does your personal perception of happiness fluctuate, depending on circumstances of the moment? Or do you think of it in a longer frame?
5. "It's rare anymore to know who lives next door to you." (5) Why do you think that is? Have you ever gone out of your way to encounter a neighbor you haven't met yet? Would our society be less fragmented and polarized if more of us took that initiative?
6. "We don't get to choose our parents, do we? They don't choose us, either. So it works out." (7) Should we pursue technologies that will allow parents to choose and even "design" the traits of their offspring? 
7. Do you, like Frank, have a hard time saying what makes you happy? 8
8. [More soon... meanwhile, go ahead and post any comments or questions you have about the first chapter (thru p.46) of Be Mine.]
9. 
   

The Mattering Map

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, The Mattering Instinct: how our deepest longing drives us and divides us

A Tennessee Dean Had ‘Zero Sympathy’ for Charlie Kirk. She Was Fired.

"If I'm wrong, and this speech is not protected, then I have never understood what the Constitution means and I have never understood what it protects," Ms. Sosh-Lightsy said. "Either I haven't understood it or we are on the edge of completely changing what it means."

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/us/politics/middle-tennessee-state-university-dean-fired-charlie-kirk.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share