I’m not quite sure what to make of Occupy C’ville. It doesn’t seem to fit my idea of a protest. The first thing one notices is the smell. From across the street. Then the expensive tents and camping gear. And the woman with the large Irish harp. And that they don’t really want to share the park with other members of the public. They have appropriated it as their own. Yet, the city provides portable restroom facilities. Their message is unclear. What are they protesting? I’m left with the feeling that they are angry and they like camping.

I have much sympathy for the idea of protesting the excesses of the financial and banking industries and the lack of concern and attention from our elected officials. But Occupy C’ville seemed less like a protest against economic disenfranchisement and more like a long-term new age camping experience for entitled middle class youth who don’t like to shower. But even as I write this I hear in the back of my head my parents complaining about hippies and I wonder if this is any different. Am I getting older and more conservative? Or just more aware that this unfocused mob is unlikely to affect any significant political change and more likely to damage one of the few remaining public (i.e., non-commercial) spaces in the area.

Lucy Buck, Belle Boyd, John Mosby, Tom Ashby, Jed Hotchkiss have all left traces all over town and in many respects still seem to live here even today.

I remember it was a bit of a challenge to track down the three volumes of the Divine Comedy. The difficulty of finding basic works of western culture in suburban Nebraska is hard to imagine today in an urban and mobile culture where everything is available on any phone at any time and even esoteric items can be found with little effort on Amazon or Ebay.

Once I had them and started reading I was both amazed and perplexed. I was fascinated with the system of organization and a bit lost reading a work that was complex and open-ended having spent too much time reading simple allegories and adventure stories.

At the most basic level this book taught me the difference between following a recipe and cooking. What made the difference was a simple idea and Rozin called it “flavor principles.” Instead of providing a list of ingredients and a set of directions Rozin broke it down to basic food techniques. These techniques are often related to climate, geography and culture. There are not that many basic techniques and they are easy to remember. They are then modified by the availability of local ingredients, which often go well together, and provided a basis for the flavor principle.

By looking at food in this way it became easy to a) learn how to cook, as it only involved a few basic principles to learn; b) appreciate and understand eating, as one could break down, understand and then recreate most of what one ate no matter how exotic; c) invent new dishes or modify existing ones in ways that would be predictable, successful and adapted to individual preference; d) have a good basis for further learning and investigation; and perhaps best of all d) understand the remarkable and complex relationship between food and geography and culture.

In 1983 it offered a deeper and and more thoughtful approach than G. E. Moore’s “solution” for the problem of certainty. Which for me was a welcome antidote to the dominate Anglo-American materialism and “common sense” approach to philosophy I experienced at school.

In 1991 it presented a deeper and more thoughtful alternative to the shallow and superficial world of fashion, advertising and photography where I spent almost every waking hour.

In 2004 It provided an introduction to the Goethe Institute Philosophy Group which has proved to be one of the great joys of my life providing a better philosophical education than I ever got at school and more interesting social connections than I ever found anywhere.