Philosophy Adventure

This is a collection of classic stories, with Buddhist ethical teaching, as re-dramatized by Ellen C. Babbitt. Great stories for all ages, drawn from ancient lore in India.

Not too long ago, there was no coming back from death. But now, with revolutionary medical advances, death has become just another serious complication. As a young medical student, Dr. David Casarett was inspired by the story of a two-year-old girl named Michelle Funk. Michelle fell into a creek and was underwater for over an hour. When she was found she wasn't breathing, and her pupils were fixed and dilated. That drowning should have been fatal. But after three hours of persistent work, a team of doctors and nurses was able to bring her back.

America's first African American heavyweight boxing champion, Jack Johnson, has a chance encounter with a mysterious Irishman, named Altamont, when they meet at the boxer's restaurant, Café de Champion, in August 1912. Johnson's new relationship with the unusual man, with beady eyes and hawk-like nose, places him in an unusual circumstance to help Altamont get out of a tough situation.

Back in the mid-1980s when I was teaching in Warren College at the University of California, San Diego, we were required to use Mark Twain's famous book, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in our classes. However, we were cautioned beforehand that certain words that were in common usage in the 19th century (such as the n-word) were no longer acceptable either in speech or print today.

On June 3, 1769, the planet Venus briefly passed across the face of the sun in a cosmic alignment that occurs twice per century. Anticipation of the rare celestial event sparked a worldwide competition among aspiring global superpowers, each sending their own scientific expeditions to far-flung destinations to time the planet’s trek.

In 1910, Mary Acworth Evershed (1867-1949) sat on a hill in southern India staring at the moon as she grappled with apparent mistakes in Dante's Divine Comedy. Was Dante's astronomy unintelligible? Or was he, for a man of his time and place, as insightful as one could be about the sky? As the 20th century began, women who wished to become professional astronomers faced difficult cultural barriers, but Evershed joined the British Astronomical Association and, from an Indian observatory, became an experienced observer of sunspots, solar eclipses, and variable stars.

The first two decades of the 20th century will rank as a most distinguished era in the history of exploration, for during them many of the great geographical riddles of the world have been solved. This book contains a record of some of the main achievements.

I bring up the subject of Gumby and the spiritual claims surrounding him because I am often asked in class about the verdicality of certain metaphysical claims that abound in religious mythologies. My usual rejoinder is that we don’t want to enter into “Gumby Land” when doing philosophy since most of these kinds of questions (how many angels can sit atop an empty coke top?) are literally non-sense (in the precise definition of that term as first coined in the 17th century).

This is the remarkable ship's log/diary of Captain William Bligh, which describes in vivid detail what happened to him and his 18-person crew after the famous "Mutiny" on the "Bounty." In a boat only 23 feet long, Captain Bligh and his men voyaged for 4,000 miles to eventual safety. This book is a partial excerpt from Bligh's work, Voyage to the South Sea, which was commissioned by the English Majesty.

Our purpose is to introduce young listeners to a vibrant world of language while enhancing their vocabulary with SAT-level words. Through engaging stories, this book endeavors to familiarize children with advanced vocabulary, offering synonyms (on the bottom of the page) and easy-to-follow pronunciations (with open brackets behind the vocabulary).

Have you ever thought there are many things that are not taught in schools, even though they are crucial to our children’s development? Have you wondered how to teach a mindset of abundance? A child that learns how to dream big and knows, that they are worthy of receiving the very best life has to offer, will grow up adopting an abundance mindset. What this attitude of mind will provide is the self-esteem, trust, and confidence that, as a person, you can ask for everything you wish for. Thus everything you ask for will be granted.

This is a fascinating tale about old Hawaii and their traditional customs told within a poignant narrative about life, struggle, and survival. Includes an excellent glossary of terms.

The genuine recollections of a gold rush prospector, barber, dentist, and his frontier philosophy. Set during the mostly forgotten Georgia gold rush of the 1830s this tale focuses on Bob - a lucky, but grumpy gold prospector who doesn’t get along with anybody. When Bob’s exiled by the townsfolk and forced to live alone in the wilderness surrounded by bears, he makes uncanny decisions that result in a fantastical story.