Jim Barcelona's Philosophy and Food Blog

One way to check out if your food at an eating establishment is safe is to check out the Food Violations website for San Francisco. Just type in the name of the place and see if anything comes up. It seems to be updated weekly.

"As for what motivated me, it is quite simple; I would hope that in the eyes of some people it might be sufficient in itself. It was curiosity - the only kind of curiosity, in any case, that is worth acting upon with a degree of obstinacy: not the curiosity that seeks to assimilate what is proper for one to know, but that which enables one to get free of oneself. After all, what would be the value of the passion for knowledge if it resulted only in a certain amount of knowledgeableness and not, in one way or another and to the extent possible, in the knower's straying afield of himself? There are times in life when the question of knowing if one can think differently than one thinks, and perceive differently than one sees, is absolutely necessary if one is to go on looking and reflecting at all. People will say, perhaps, that these games with oneself would better be left backstage; or, at best, that they might properly form part of those preliminary exercise that are forgotten once they have served their purpose. But, then, what is philosophy today - philosophical activity, I mean - if it is not the critical work that thought brings to bear on itself? In what does it consists, if not in the endeavour to know how and to what extent it might be possible to think differently, instead of legitimating what is already known?"

Michel Foucault, The Use of Pleasure, pp. 8-9.

If you're ever in Rome and want where you eat and where you hang out for an evening to be very close, then I highly recommend Cafe della Scala (Via Della Scala 4) and the pizzeria right next to it. Hanging out at Cafe Della Scala is a joy. The tables outside tend to attract really gregarious types, and don't be surprised if a couple of folks ask you if the table is free to sit next to you.

At the pizzeria next door, they make fresh gnocchi which is part of a house specialty called "Gnochetti La Scaletta." It has clams and mussels in a light tomatoe sauce and sea broth.

There's an excellent tutorial on how to read papyri at the University of Michigan website.



The site guides you through Seneca's Medea written in a coptic script.
You can check out the latin of Seneca's Medea to see the papyri in a broader context.

Empathy is feeling and entering into another's feelings. Apparently, neuroscientists have located which sort of neurons are responsible for empathy. These neurons are called mirror neurons, and:

"Mirror neurons suggest that we pretend to be in another person's mental shoes," says Marco Iacoboni, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine. "In fact, with mirror neurons we do not have to pretend, we practically are in another person's mind."