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O&I Statement of Purpose and Intent

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BACKGROUND I initiated Owl & Ibis - A Confluence of Minds as a private critical thinker club in mid-2013. I was motivated to do so by Benjamin Franklin. In 1727, at the age of twenty-one, Franklin formed the Junto, also known as the Leather Apron Club. This was a gathering of like-minded aspiring artisans and tradesmen who hoped to improve themselves while they improved their community. The Junto was a discussion group for issues of the day. Their purpose was to debate questions of morals, politics, and natural philosophy (the sciences), and to exchange knowledge of business affairs. The Junto was modeled after English coffee houses which had become the center of the spread of Enlightenment ideas in Britain. Reading was a great pastime of the Junto, but books were rare and expensive. The members created a library initially assembled from their own books. From this inspiration I invited seven friends to meet in my home and named the private club, Owl & Ibis. I then create

"Earth's Habitability" by John Hendershot

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  Kudos to John Hendershot for his outstanding May 28, 2022, Owl & Ibis presentation! In his in-depth review and critique, John focused on climate change and how it is impacting the habitability of our planet as presented in the book,  The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming   by David Wallace-Wells, 2019. Following is a link and passcode to a video recording of John's Owl & Ibis presentation: https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/r_eAZJv_bdzcitkaByz1Hj1ptfCeCzO3uIRq38pGsYnSQlz4xqRLWmx4xd-aMQE.OeCVHxyN4tOIYO8F Passcode: *rupR!0V Fantastic job, John! Jim }:> & ~:)

"What is Jazz?" by Marcia Dunscomb

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  A sincere thank you and much praise to Marcia Dunscomb, jazz pianist, composer, author, and piano teacher,  for her April 30, 2022 Owl & Ibis presentation, What is Jazz? Marcia’s narrative is  here  and links to videos she showed are below. There is music in all of us, some of it dormant, some as appreciation, and some as we are able to make it. Marcia rekindled our focus on this foremost expression of our emotional life with her superb presentation on but one of music’s modes, that uniquely American music form we call jazz. Thank you, Marcia! Jazz in America, Herbie Hancock https://www.jazzinamerica.org/HerbieHancock (50) Collective Improvisation in New Orleans Jazz - YouTube Count Basie Blues in Hoss Flat (50) Count Basie Orchestra - Blues in Hoss Flat - YouTube Count Basie in a Mel Brooks movie you may remember: (50) Mel Brooks & Count Basie - Blazing saddles (1974) Le Sherif est en Prison - YouTube Dizzy Gillespie and Paquito D'Rivera (50) Dizzy Gillespie - Be Bop - Y

"From Gulliver's Travels to Star Trek - Alternative Realities or a Mirror?" by Mona Leiter

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Kudos to Mona Leiter for her superb March 25, 2022, Owl & Ibis – A Confluence of Minds multi-media presentation, “From Gulliver’s Travels to Star Trek – Alternate Realities or a Mirror?” A list of links to the videos she showed and her original narrative follow. A veteran presenter at O&I, Mona described this, her most recent effort this way: I really appreciated having the chance to work on this as I covered some of the things that mean the most to me - Star Wars, Star Trek, and Twilight Zone. These movies/shows had a big impact on me and the shaping of who I became. I definitely appreciate the power of story and the ability of speculative fiction to help us reflect on where we have been, where we are, and where we may be headed. – Mona List of Video Links for “From Gulliver’s Travels to Star Trek – Alternate Realities or a Mirror?” 1. Star Wars Trailer from 1977 (before the movie came out) a. https://youtu.be/1g3_CFmnU7k 2. Luke Meets Ben (from Star Wars) a. https://youtu.be

Spinoza on Human Nature and Morality, Part 1

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  Background The human pursuit of power, wealth, and empire derives from a fundamental aspect of life on Earth. It originated with life itself as a response to the need to survive and a desire to flourish. At its birth, its coming to life, every organism grows and exploits to the fullest every useable resource it encounters to serve its need to survive and desire to flourish. It does so until it encounters other living and/or physical environmental constraints. This results in that life form being contained or killed, or its continuing to exploit all it encounters to the point of destroying the resources and life systems that give and sustain its life. Humans have been no exception. With our “sapient” emergence beginning about 300,000 years ago we brought this fundamental drive to survive and desire to flourish with us – something genetically inherited and behaviorally learned from all other life forms that preceded and nourished us. What Old World primate has not encountered a tree fu

Cultural Authenticity

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  Image: Francks Deceus, Arco Gallery   To understand culture and any particular culture one must first examine how culture content accommodates the needs of mainstream society and its individuals, because the fit and rules of culture are meant to best accommodate the mainstream. One must also look at how a society’s culture is responded to by groups and persons  not  in the mainstream. It is here that the authenticity of the beliefs, values, and norms of a given time are often questioned and challenged. Does the culture content remain suitable for enough people for the society’s survival and possible flourishing? Sometimes efforts, informal or formal, are undertaken to change the content and power of a culture to better suit the times and needs of more or fewer members of a society. Democratic societies seek to make their respective cultures more inclusive; autocracies favor less inclusion. When minority persons join the mainstream, they expand the inclusivity of society. In doing so