The sole fact of experience that demonstrates that life is generally good is that the overwhelming majority of men prefer it to death. For this to be so it must be that in the average existence happiness triumphs over unhappiness. If the relationship were reversed on would not understand either whence arose the attachment of men or life, nor above all how it could continue, threatened as it is at every moment by the facts. It is true that pessimists explain the persistence of this phenomnenon by the illusions of hope.

Roman, who teaches one of the Lindy Classes on Wednesday and the class of '99, recommended the following places to explore in Chicago:

1. The Metro (rock concert)
2. Flying Gayonas (they teach you how to fly the trapeze!)
3. Rainbow Cone (95th & Western)
4. Too Much Light Makes the Baby go Blind (neofuturists.org)
5. Superdawg
6. Hema's Kitchen (Indian food, Devon)
7. Maxwell St. Polish (hotdogs)
8. Music Box Theatre
9. Tango Sun (great steak place to go!) Both of them are near Wrigley's Field
10. Yassa (79th & Cottage Grove). Offers Senegalese food (order the Maffe)
11. Cyanois (French). There exist a French Restaurant near Big City Swing
12. Devil in a Woodpile @ the Hideout (21+ free great for balance)
13. The Green Mill. Jazz Club (21+)

Book that I want to read at some point over Winter break or whenever I get time off for such luxury:

1. The Closing of the American Mind
2. The Selfish Gene
3. Whatever Felipe or Richard recommended the other day, in class.
4. Paul Krugman's new book.
5. Possibly something else that Daniel will recommend because he's pretty sensible on such topics.
6. Atlas shrugged

The study of the concrete, which is the study of the whole, is made more readily, is more interesting and furnishes more explanations in the sphere of sociology than the study of the abstract.

The aim and principle of sociology is to observe and understand the whole group in its total behavior.

All societies with the exception of European socities are segmentary. Rules of friendship and contract are present to ensure the peace of markets and villages.

Societies have progressed in the meausre in which they have been able to stablizie, their contracts adn to give, receive and repay. In order to trade, man must first lay down his spear. When that is done he can succeed in exchanging goods and persons not only between clan and clan but between tribe and tribe and nations and nation, and above all between individuals. It is only then that people can create, can satisfy their interests mutually and define them without recourse to arms. It is in this way that the clan, the tribe and nation have learnt - just as in the future the classes and nations and individuals will learn - how to oppose one another without slaughter and to give without sacrificing themselves to others. That is one of teh secrets of their wisdom and solidarity.

Thus we see how it is possible under certain circumstances to study total human behaviour; and how that concrete study leads not only to a science of manners, a partial social science, but even to ethical conclusions - 'civility', or 'civics' as we say today. Through studies of this sort we can find, measure and assess the various determinants, aesthetic, moral religious and economic, and the material and demographic factors, whose sums is the basis of society and constitutes the common life, and whose conscious direction is the supreme art - politics in the Socratic sense of the word.

Since its first publication in English in 1954, Marcel Mauss's Essai sur le Don has been acclaimed as a classic among anthropology texts. A brilliant example of the comparative method, it presents the first systematic study of the custom - widespread in primitive societies from ancient Rome to present-day Melanesia - of exchanging gifts.

The gift is a perfect example of what Mauss calls a total social phenomenon, since it involves legal, economic, moral, religious, aesthetic, and other dimensions. He sees the gift exchange as related to individuals and groups as much as to the objects themselves, and his analysis calls into question the social conventions and economic systems that had been taken for granted for so many years.

In a modern translation, introduced by the distinguished anthropologist Mary Douglas, The Gift is essential reading for students of social antrhopology and sociology.

Ave Maria

Ave Maria, gratia plena,
Dominus tecum.
Benedicta tu in mulieribus,
Et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Jesus.
Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,
Ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc,
Et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.

Let It Snow!

Oh, the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightful,
And since we've no place to go,
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

It doesn't show signs of stopping,
And I brought some corn for popping.
The lights are turned way down low,
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

When we finally say goodnight,
How I'll hate going out in the storm!
But if you'll really hold me tight,
All the way home I'll be warm.

Oh, the fire is slowly dying,
And, my dear, we're still goodbye-ing,
But as long as you love me so,
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!