The Prof isn't just good at bleeding red ink on your Saxon Grammar paper; he is also great at getting you the deals you need.
Check out these Gevalia "offer" codes; the prices all include two 1/2lb coffee orders.

Go here to redeem codes: Gevalia

100700 - Regular coffee maker, thermal carafe and coffee cup set $24.99
100701 - Thermal coffee maker $10.00
100800 - Robe and coffee cups $14.95
100900 - Thermal carafe and Guggenheim mugs $14.95
100600 - Regular coffee maker and stainless steel travel mugs $14.95
100500 - Stainless Steel thermal coffee maker $19.95
100100 - Thermal Coffee maker $10.00
100300 - 12-cup Programmable coffee maker with S/S travel mugs $14.95
100301 - same as above
100310 - 12-cup programmable with two Gevalia coffee cups $14.95
100320 - same as above
100330 - same as above
100340 - same as above
100350 - same as above
100309 - same as above
100390 - 12-cup coffee maker and mugs $14.95
100810 - Gevalia robe and Gevalia mugs $14.95
100560 - Thermal coffee maker and two Gevalia mugs $14.95
100910 - Thermal carafe and Guggenheim mugs $14.95
100590 - 12-cup coffee maker and two S/S travel mugs $14.95
100790 - robe and mugs $14.95
100780 - Thermal coffee maker $10.00
101000 - Thermal coffee maker and travel mugs $19.95
115436 - Robe $10
139725 - Fleece jacket $10
121863 - Gevalia weekend traveler bag $10
161000 - Outdoor Essentials Package $19.95
166272 - 12-cup programmable coffee maker $10.00
138099 - Stainless Steel thermos and travel tumbler $10.00
128637 - 1.8 liter Airpot $10.00
10% off $60 code PER414
15% off $75 code R2B400
You can sign up and then cancel soon after. Or, you don't have to (since they have good coffee). You can easily manage your account online, including canceling if you like.

Who says your Professor is your enemy?

What The Prof Is Reading Now
How The Scots Invented The Modern World


Who formed the first literate Society?
Who invented our modern ideas of democracy & free market capitalism?
...The Scots.
I have only just picked this book up, but already, Historian Arthur Herman has shown that in the eighteenth & nineteenth centuries, Scotland made crucial contributions to literature, science, philosophy, education, commerce, theology, medicine, & politics.
Fantastic read, even if I do disagree with some of his bits on Calvinism...he presents it in lights which are often harsh and mean (which...perhaps it may sometimes be, to a limited extent), without ever properly examining the beauty and depth of the Reformed Faith which was so prevelant in Scotland at the height of Presbyterianism; although he does discuss the positive political ramifications of John Knox's influence.
It is interesting to note two things regarding Knox and his influence.
The first is the effect he had on the political state of things. His influence on the people created what may be considered one of the strongest democratic situations in the modern world. This was mostly due to his encouragement that the people ought rather to obey God than man. This engendered the idea that the King's power lay, not in his own right, but was vested in him by God. Each man was responsible for his own conscience, and not answerable to a priest, but to God on an individual basis.
This idea ultimately ran over into the political and economic realms, where individual voice and vote began being heard. Knox had, inadvertently, created a democratic system through his religious efforts.
The second thing to note concerning Knox's influence is the state of the Kirk (Church). The Kirk (or respective local Kirks) in Scotland had always been always tightly-knit, especially on the local level, because many remote areas were so cut off from the outside world. This meant de-centralization in religious and political circles, and emphasis on the local level. It was almost as if an entire Kingdom existed within one small area, so that the Scots had nowhere else to go for their needs than their own towns. The Kirk truly was a predecessor to the local governmental infrastructure of post-colonial America. Perhaps this is why many Scotch immigrants found it easy to transition from the Auld Countrie to the New World.
Overall: an excellent read, providing entertainment along with a superb amount of Historical information, giving proper honour and credence to the greatest Nation in the Worlde...
Scotland.

"When Britain first at Heaven's Command
Arose from out the azure main,
This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sung the strain:
Rule Britannia, Britannia rulese the waves!
Britons never shall be slaves."

- James Thompson

From Mocha to Martinique
Some History on Coffee, taken from Henry Wessells

The German botanist and physician Leonhart Rauwolf of Augsburg traveled to Jerusalem (1573-1576), and upon his return published Aigentliche beschreibung der Raiß ... inn die Morgenländer in Lauingen in 1582. Rauwolf's account of his journeys represents the earliest printed reference to coffee in Europe.

Venetian traders in Istanbul were also aware of the beverage, and the Italian physician and botanist Prosper Alpinus took note of coffee on his voyage to Egypt in 1580, and published discussions of coffee in De Medicina Aegyptorum Libri quatuor (1591) and De Plantis Aegypti Liber (1592). The latter volume, on the flora of Egypt, includes the first published illustration of the coffee plant.

The first mention in English (as chaoua) appears in an edition of Linschooten's Travels translated from the Dutch and published in London in 1598. A more recognizable form of the word can be found in Sherley's Travels (1601), in a passage describing "a certain liquor which they call coffe." The spelling was still in flux, for in 1603 the English adventurer Captain John Smith (founder of Virginia) refers to "coffa" in his volume of travels.

The Venetians were in fact the first Europeans to import coffee, in 1615. The Dutch first shipped it directly from Mocha in Arabia the following year, although regular importations were still some decades away. Articles for preparing coffee were among the household effects carried by the Pilgrims on the voyage of the Mayflower in 1620, but not until 1670 was coffee sold in Boston.

Early mentions of coffee are to be found in the works of Francis Bacon, in Historia Vitae et Mortis (1623) and Sylva Sylvarum (1627), as well as in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy (1632). The first botanical description of coffee in English was published by Parkinson in Theatrum Botanicum (1640).

The use of coffee spread rapidly throughout Europe after mid-century. Venice was the site of the first coffee house, opened in 1645, and one was opened in London in 1652. In Lyons in 1671, Philippe Sylvestre Dufour published De l'Usage du Café, du Thé et du Chocolat. Dialogue entre un médecin, un Indien, et un Bourgeois, the first substantial work on coffee in French. The first coffee house in Paris opened the following year.

One of the most important and widely read works on coffee, although somewhat later, is Jean de la Roque's Voyage de L'Arabie heureuse ... (1716), which recounted the history of French expeditions in the Red Sea from 1708 to 1710 and a second mission to the port of Mocha and the court of the King of Yemen during the years 1711 to 1713. La Roque described the coffee tree (with engraved plates), and provided a critical discussion of the history of the introduction of coffee into France in the latter part of this work, entitled Un Mémoire Concernant l'Arbre & le Fruit du Café. The Paris edition was followed by one published in Amsterdam the same year, with newly engraved plates. Gründliche und sichere Nachricht vom Cafée und Cafée-Baum, a German translation of the portion of the work concerning coffee, was published in Leipzig in 1717. An Italian translation of the entire work appeared in Venice in 1721, and English editions in 1726, 1732, and 1742. A notable Italian work dealing with the origins, cultivation, roasting, and preparation of the coffee, Ambrosia Arabica overa della Salutare Bevanda Cafe, by Angelo Rambaldi, was published in Bologna in 1691.

The Dutch were the first to experiment with growing coffee outside Arabia. Early plantations in Ceylon from the 1650s were followed by efforts to establish coffee in Java in 1699. A coffee seedling from Java was successfully transported to Amsterdam in 1706, and a plant grown from a seed of that tree was presented to Louis XIV of France in 1714. It was in this period, 1715 to 1725, that coffee was first grown in Surinam in South America, on the Caribbean island of Martinique, as well as on the island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean. Coffee was introduced to Brazil from the settlement at Cayenne in French Guiana in 1727.
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Need A Light?

The pipe is not merely a wooden or clay tool which some men use to while away their time...it is a tool which corresponds to the soul. & not merely the soul, but the rational area of it.

This explains - consequently - why we tend to think of wise and ancient figures smoking long-stemmed pipes, stroking antiquated beards: the Oxford don, surrounded by massive volumes of dusty books, puffing away contentedly as he theorizes on the meaning of life or the hyperconductivity of some natural element: or even the prestigious Sherlock Holmes, who, in Doyle's original stories, actually smoked various sorts of tobacco, yet is nearly always portrayed with a pipe.

And yet, as I think on the value and emphasis of the pipe, I realise that perhaps one of the reasons pipes are so nostalgic is that, unlike cigars and cigarettes: a pipe endures.

Similarly, the questions of the philosopher far outlast the passing concerns of physical desires (cigarettes) on the one hand and human ambitions (cigars) on the other.

Further, while the cigar is entirely masculine, the pipe has both masculine and feminine elements (the stem and the bowl). This - in contrast to other forms of smoking - corresponds to the philosopher's activity, which is - if it may be put thus - both masculine and feminine: masculine in its pursuit of Lady Truth, feminine (I say this with abashment) in its reception of anything that she discloses.

& Finally, the effect that the pipe has on others is analogous to the effect of philosophizing: the smooth & simultaneously exhilerating fragrance of a pipe, like good philosophy, is a blessing to all who partake.