Sunday, January 01, 2006

BFA Position

Writing








Faculty

Jack Miller, Ben Franklin AcademyJack Miller

B.A., M.A., M.S., Ph.D.

DEPARTMENT / POSITION

Director of Media Services
Computer Science
Philosophy

CONTACT INFORMATION

Phone Number
Business Phone: 404-633-7404

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Biography
Dr. Miller holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Tulane University and a Masters Degree in Library and Information Management from Emory University. He has served as Director of the Library and teacher of Philosophy and Computer Science since joining the BFA Faculty in 1992. Dr. Miller also serves on the Board of Directors of the Clifton Corridor Transportation Management Association (CCTMA) of which BFA is a founding member. Miller has worked in numerous libraries in Atlanta and Savannah, including Director of the High Museum Library and Supervisor of the Ola Wyeth Library branch in Savannah. He has served on the faculty of Tulane University, Armstrong Atlantic University,The Savannah College of Art and Design, and the Atlanta College of Art. He has published numerous articles and reviews and served as an editor for the national publication of The Art Library Society of North America.

Science

Mathematics

English

Art

Music

Drama

Social Studies

Foreign Language

Associate Dean

Assistant Deans

College Counselors

Director of Media Services

Information Technology Associate

School Counselors

Business Manager & Registrar

Internal Development Assistant

Director of Student Records

Headmaster

B.A. in Mathematics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
M.A.T. in Elementary Education, Emory University
Ed.D. in Reading & Curriculum, Harvard University
Doc Smethurst Headmaster Ben Franklin Academy

Dean of Studies

B.A., M.A., Ph.D.
Martha Burdette, Ben Franklin Academy

Athletic Director

Music Director

Athletics

Director of Accounting

Assistant Business Manager




Posted by at No comments:

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Sitting Still

"Don't just do something, sit there."

--"Buddha Rising," National Geographic
(December 2005)

How encouraging to think that Buddhism is on the rise. Instead of war, peace. Instead of materialism, spirit. Instead of fear, meditation. Healing, on this day of Aids awareness.

The Buddha of Hawaii
(photo by Jameson)

For myself, agreeing with Siddhartha that the way is individual, that my own thought and mind offer the right path to enlightenment, I have sought my own middle way-- between the extremes of hedonism and stoicism. Call it Epicurean Buddhism, meditation in the garden of delights.


Buddha taught detachment from desire as the cure for suffering in the world. For me, detachment involves engagement. Become engaged in the pure delights of Nature. Pay attention to the meandering of a monarch butterfly. Watch as the stars of Orion come into view in the winter night sky. Sit and listen, eyes closed, to the sound of a waterfall. Meditate on moments of love from others.

More active engagement, politics, protest, civil disobedience may be part of the way to enlightenment, as well. The Bodhisattvas postpone personal enlightenment until they help others obtain the path (Dao). There are many Buddhist Masters among us, subtle shepherds offering us guidance. Compassion.

For now, I'll just follow Pan. Listen to music, wander to the waterfall, swim in the ocean of being. Take along some loving friends. Next stop, Kalani, Hawaii.






"It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing."

--Gertrude Stein

(click)

Horoscope for December 1:

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): With a new moon in the skies it is time to reconsider the little things in life that make you happy.


Blessings...

Jameson


Posted by at No comments:

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Hadrian's Eye

A remarkable tribute to the Pantheon in Sunday's New York Times transported me to Rome and reminded me, as I watched the stabbing of Julius Caesar on HBO's finale of Rome, how much I admire the true creator of the Pantheon, the Emperor Hadrian. Once again, as I did with Darryl last summer, I stood in the center of that sacred space, gazing at the shaft of sunlight entering the eye of the dome and piercing the interior to light the stone walls of the temple. An interior touched by the sun's shaft, interior and exterior, man-made space atune to nature, sacred to all the gods, a temple to Pantheism, this holy proportion is the sole remaining complete temple of ancient Rome. Yet it was fashioned by a man who was as Greek in mind as he was Roman, a man of the Hellenistic spirit, bearded Hadrian, lover of Antinous.

Dome of the Pantheon
photo by Jameson






Antinous
from
Athens, National Archeological Museum







Imagine, Hadrian in the Pantheon, his arms around Antinous, blessed by the gods of antiquity. Above the lovers, the oculus of the Pantheon rains sunlight down upon their laurel-crowned heads. Will such a gathering again occur in that sacred space? How preferable theirs to the gatherings in the nearby Vatican, gatherings of loveless judges ready to condemn what they can neither feel nor comprehend, just as they condemned the spinning worlds of Galileo in their dizzy hubris.
If religion is to have any meaning at all, it must find it once again in the reason of Apollo and the passion of Dionysius. Faith is the love of another, and religious ecstasy is mutual orgasm.


Amen.

--Jameson







Posted by at No comments:

Friday, November 18, 2005

Torture

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction" --Pascal


5000 years ago artists depicted the torture of naked prisoners in Uruk, now called Iraq. The clay seal pictured here is one example of prisoners of war being beaten with sticks. The torture continues, today.


“On this cylinder seal impression from Uruk (c. 3200 BC) the ruler armed with a spear stands before naked and bound prisoners.”(12, p. 194)

Bronze Age, Mesopotamia
(http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/religion/arcproj/war/Essaythree.html)
(Note: this link no longer works, but it was the source of the photo and quote above.)

Saddam, Bush, and now the Shia have incorporated torture. The Tigris and Euphrates run red with the blood of millennia of violence. Is it likely to cease?Are we bringing democracy( or more to the point, capitalism) to Iraq; or are we setting the stage for the rise of a new Saladin -- the liberator born in Tikrit-- to free the East from the oppression of the West? Though the Shia continue to torture the Sunnis in revenge for the rule of Saddam, 80% of Iraqis are united in wanting to overthrow the rule of the West, in wanting the U.S. military to depart. Like the Roman Catholic crusaders, the U. S. forces are the enemy of the Moslem world, uniting it as surely as the crusaders united it a thousand years ago. Our meddling in another culture courts disaster for our own.
Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)