moving right along...

ah, the feeling of having two papers (of 4) turned in is not quite the exuberence i expect to feel next week at this very moment, but i'm getting there. happily, the stack of books i have to return to the library is larger than the one i still need to comb through. a good sign, my friends. a good sign.

the paper of the weekend is a commentary on the very intriguing book pictured here--the ethics of memory by an israeli professor at the hebrew university in jerusalem, avishai margalit. while his book is broader by scope than by depth, its a fascinating 200-pg read. he distinguishes between ethics & morals saying that ethics is the stuff of "thick relations"--those people in our immediate lives: family, close friends, immediate community members. morals is the stuff of "thin relations" which encompasses all of the rest of humanity.

i think the thing i'm going to tug at his is argument about "moral witnesses" which he says are people who describe how it is to live in evil; not just that evil existed. they, he says, have a special role in "uncovering evil" and offer a sober hope that is realistic. and they must have survived. so while anne frank is definitely a moral witness to the holocaust, she is not what he calls a paradigmatic moral witness because she died. people like marian in the aforementioned "a jew among the germans" are.

okay. it will be an exciting weekend...wahoo! if you call me, chances are extremely high i'm at the library with my wireless card disengaged for the good of my sanity. though greg & i do have a date tonight.

finally, a call for help: i am looking for a moment in u.s. history pre-Reconstruction where class & religion intersect with that moment. any ideas, i am game. that's right, ladies & gentlemen, i'm going to be legally permitted to teach this subject one year from now. scary, i agree. k.