Public Posts

Avram Noam Chomsky, born in 1928 is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, and politics. In addition to his work in linguistics, since the 1960s. More Chomsky has been an influential voice on the American left as a consistent critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, and corporate influence on political institutions and the media. More

Carl Edward Sagan (1934 – 1996) ~ American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator. He was one of the most well-known scientist of the 1970's and 1980's . He was controversial in scientific, political, and religious circles for his views on extraterrestrial intelligence, nuclear weapons, and religion. His best known scientific contribution is his research on the possibility of extraterrestrial life. He was an advocate for nuclear disarmament and co-wrote and hosted 'Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.'  He was widely regarded as a freethinker and one of his most famous quotations, in Cosmos, was, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  He died at the age of 62 from complications of Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS). More

W. H. H. MacKellar is the most likely originator of this expression based on the 1939 citation in “The Rotarian”. Gil Stern popularized a version beginning in 1967. Other attributions have been made but there is not strong support for them. Read more

Samuel Barclay Beckett (1906 – 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, literary translator and poet. Beckett was a resident of Paris for most of his adult life and he wrote in both French and English. Beckett was a member of the French Resistance group Gloria SMH during WWII and he was awarded the Croix de Guerre. In 1961 he shared the inaugural Prix International with Jorge Luis Borges. In 1969 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. More

Publius Ovidius Naso known in English as Ovid (43 BC – AD 17/18), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus  and was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace and often ranked  with them as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature.Ovid was extremely popular during his lifetime but was exiled by emperor Augustus to Tomis, known today as Constanța, a historical city located on the Romanian coast of the Black Sea, where he remained for the last nine or ten years of his life. Ovid himself attributed his banishment to a carmen et error ("poem and a mistake"), but his reluctance to disclose specifics has resulted in much speculation among scholars.

Source: The Tristia of Ovid

Leo Tolstoy, (Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy) (1828 - 1910} Renowned Russian writer and philosopher born into an aristocratic Russian family. He is best known for his epic novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, which are considered among the greatest works of realist fiction. He is regarded as one of the greatest novelists of all time and a major figure in Russian literature. Tolstoy's writing also explored themes of morality, spirituality, and social reform. His works continue to be read and studied worldwide, influencing writers and thinkers across generations. His ideas about non-violence, social justice, and the importance of individual conscience have had a lasting impact on social and political movements.

Aesop (620 – 564 BC) Greek fabulist and story teller

Image: Aesop  by Diego Velazquez -| Museo Del Prado

“The past only comes back when the present runs so smoothly that it is like the sliding surface of a deep river,” Virginia Woolf wrote some years before she filled her coat-pockets with stones, waded into the River Ouse near her house, and, unwilling to endure what she had barely survived in the past, slid beneath the smooth surface of life."  More at The Marginalian ➜

Mary Ann Evans (1819 - 1880) Also known by her pen name George Eliot, was one of the leading English writers of the Victorian era .

Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886) was an American poet born in Amherst, Massachusetts, known for her unique style and prolific, yet largely unshared, body of work. She lived a largely secluded life, particularly after her early 30s. She composed nearly 1,800 poems, most of which were discovered and published after her death. She also wrote hundreds of letters. Her only publications during her lifetime were one letter and 10 of her poems. Dickinson's poetry is characterized by its unconventional use of punctuation, slant rhyme, and exploration of themes such as nature, death, and immortality. 

Franz Kafka (1883 – 1924) was a Czech Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. His best known works include the short story "The Metamorphosis" and novels The Trial and The Castle.  Kafka's unfinished novels, including "The Man Who Disappeared" (also known as "Amerika" or "The Missing Person"), "The Castle," and "The Trial," were published posthumously. The term Kafkaesque has entered English to describe absurd situations, like those depicted in his writings.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882 - 1945) also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945.  At the age of 39 in 1921, Roosevelt contracted a paralytic illness that permanently paralyzed his legs. It was diagnosed as Polio although there has been some controversy that he actually had Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS ). He was left paralyzed from the waist down.
Eight years after his diagnosis, he returned to public office as governor of New York from 1929 to 1933, during which he promoted programs to combat the Great Depression. In the 1932 presidential election, Roosevelt defeated president Herbert Hoover in a landslide victory. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served more than two terms. His initial two terms were centered on combating the Great Depression, while his third and fourth saw him shift his focus to America's involvement in  World War II. During his first 100 days as president, Roosevelt spearheaded unprecedented federal legislation directing the federal government to implement the  New Deal to combat the Great Depression. More