LINK: Dan Savage (who some of you may know from his weekly column carried in The Onion AV Club Savage Love (not for the easily squeamish!)) says interesting things!
"What do you read in your spare time?
[Laughs.] National Review, The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The New Republic, The American Prospect, The New York Review of Books, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic Monthly. Those are my subscriptions right now. I'm a news and politics junkie.
It's a surprise to people sometimes when they ask me what I am reading and I hold up the National Review. I don't give a shit about Penthouse Letters. I would rather read the Misanthrope's Corner by Florence King, which is my favorite column. I think she rocks!
What political figure do you dislike most in America today?
Good lord. It's strange for a gay guy who was really politically active in the late '80s, early '90s to see how feeble Jesse Helms has become. I want to say George W. Bush. I hope he gets his ass handed to him in two years. But I'm all for the war, which puts me to the right almost as much as Ann Coulter. [Laughs.] When she said we should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity, I'd been running around saying that we should invade the entire region and depose everybody. The woman who wrote the constitution for Japan, she's still alive. We should fly her into the Middle East, bang out 30 or 40 constitutions and then sit there for 50 fucking years, just like we sat there in Germany and Japan. We were sort of benign imperialists, and we should do that again. It would be the best thing that ever fucking happened to the Arabs!"
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
31.7.02
QUOTE: From Salon.com:
"Sept. 21, 2001
It is but days after the nation has been shattered, and on every network, even the ones that don't matter, Bruce Springsteen is the first performer to appear on something that is called, with hushed tones of reverence, "America: A Tribute to Heroes," even though a lot of us still aren't sure whether this is political doublespeak because, hey, up until a few days ago, everything was. As a hardened music critic, guys like Sweeney bear a certain duty to be ready to chop their heroes at the knees in moments like this, when the portent is gooped like greasepaint. But as the screen goes from black up to churchy orange and Springsteen, surrounded by candles, black ladies and his wife, lurches into the first few bars of "My City of Ruins," Sweeney finds that he is a puddle.
This goes against everything writing about rock 'n' roll has taught him. This goes against everything one could reasonably assume in the rock world about a man like Bruce Springsteen and his relevance in the years 2001 and 2002. After all, the future of rock 'n' roll was made to be torn down by riot grrrls 10 years after the fact, in the sense that whatever used to matter is always torn down by trends whose most explosive, creative moments have already passed. Which is to say that the women-with-guitar bands of Ladyfest should be way more important than this white guy from New Jersey singing fake gospel -- with his wife, of all people.
But none of this matters because fuck you: Bruce Springsteen is healing a nation. Not the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Not Moby. Not even, since we are traveling in descending altitudes of coolness, the fucking Goo Goo Dolls. Bruce Springsteen is on the television -- every television -- and he is healing us. Because we have been hurt. And because Bruce Springsteen not only cares about America, he is America, and what's even better, he understands just how fucked up it is and has always been to be an American, the ridiculous mix of the grand and pathetic, the painfully self-aware and the mockworthy clueless spiritual state that has gotten us so far ahead and so sadly behind the rest of the world. Some sick mojo the man has is melting us on our couches, making us into puddles of microwave-popcorn butter and that nasty aloe shit they put on Kleenexes now. We are a tired, huddled mass, punch-drunk and lucky as fuck that it wasn't us. And as Bruce is so humbled to remind us, well, it wasn't us this time, at least. And hey, remember the mantra: It ain't no sin to be glad you're alive."
"Sept. 21, 2001
It is but days after the nation has been shattered, and on every network, even the ones that don't matter, Bruce Springsteen is the first performer to appear on something that is called, with hushed tones of reverence, "America: A Tribute to Heroes," even though a lot of us still aren't sure whether this is political doublespeak because, hey, up until a few days ago, everything was. As a hardened music critic, guys like Sweeney bear a certain duty to be ready to chop their heroes at the knees in moments like this, when the portent is gooped like greasepaint. But as the screen goes from black up to churchy orange and Springsteen, surrounded by candles, black ladies and his wife, lurches into the first few bars of "My City of Ruins," Sweeney finds that he is a puddle.
This goes against everything writing about rock 'n' roll has taught him. This goes against everything one could reasonably assume in the rock world about a man like Bruce Springsteen and his relevance in the years 2001 and 2002. After all, the future of rock 'n' roll was made to be torn down by riot grrrls 10 years after the fact, in the sense that whatever used to matter is always torn down by trends whose most explosive, creative moments have already passed. Which is to say that the women-with-guitar bands of Ladyfest should be way more important than this white guy from New Jersey singing fake gospel -- with his wife, of all people.
But none of this matters because fuck you: Bruce Springsteen is healing a nation. Not the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Not Moby. Not even, since we are traveling in descending altitudes of coolness, the fucking Goo Goo Dolls. Bruce Springsteen is on the television -- every television -- and he is healing us. Because we have been hurt. And because Bruce Springsteen not only cares about America, he is America, and what's even better, he understands just how fucked up it is and has always been to be an American, the ridiculous mix of the grand and pathetic, the painfully self-aware and the mockworthy clueless spiritual state that has gotten us so far ahead and so sadly behind the rest of the world. Some sick mojo the man has is melting us on our couches, making us into puddles of microwave-popcorn butter and that nasty aloe shit they put on Kleenexes now. We are a tired, huddled mass, punch-drunk and lucky as fuck that it wasn't us. And as Bruce is so humbled to remind us, well, it wasn't us this time, at least. And hey, remember the mantra: It ain't no sin to be glad you're alive."
30.7.02
I WON'T BE making recourse to my same arguments again, but rather suggest a couple of things:
1. Part of the difference between us is the question of whether the statement 'x is a falsifiable statement which is scientific and thus the area of study which produces x is scientific' is existentially quantified or universally quantified, and, I want to stress, this is ultimately a philosophical-linguistic debate and hence there is no one verifiably correct answer. Political scientists can (and do) predict voter behavior accurately all the time. The inability to come up with such an instance proves rather more about the person arguing than the field in dispute.
2. Read Micromegas by Voltaire (less than 25 pages) and tell me what you think. He seems to get it, in the most fundamental of senses.
1. Part of the difference between us is the question of whether the statement 'x is a falsifiable statement which is scientific and thus the area of study which produces x is scientific' is existentially quantified or universally quantified, and, I want to stress, this is ultimately a philosophical-linguistic debate and hence there is no one verifiably correct answer. Political scientists can (and do) predict voter behavior accurately all the time. The inability to come up with such an instance proves rather more about the person arguing than the field in dispute.
2. Read Micromegas by Voltaire (less than 25 pages) and tell me what you think. He seems to get it, in the most fundamental of senses.
29.7.02
THE BOSS: will be making some waves. Go out and buy it tomorrow... as if you have better things to do with your money.
QUOTE: Paul O'Neill, who gave up a great job playing for the Yankees to become Bush's Secretary of the Treasury (oh... wait... not that Paul O'Neill), has apparently been spending too much time travelling around Africa with Bono (that's actually true, of course) and not enough time... you know... doing good things for the economy. Tim Russert, who has never, in his life, been nice to anyone (although he is more amiable than Chris Matthews, who famously dragged his sons around Berlin so they could find the site of Hitler's bunker and urinate on it...), was particularly mean to the Secretary:
"Here's how one typical exchange went:
Russert: You're not spending the Social Security surplus?
O'Neill: I don't think, Tim, that the American fiscal position, that is to say, surplus or deficit, comes from raising taxes.
Russert: But you're spending the Social Security surplus. The facts are important, Mr. Secretary.
Soon, Russert had O'Neill fumbling for new rationales as to why the deficit had gone up. Now it wasn't congressional spending that had pushed the federal budget into the red. It was the response to 9/11:
Russert: But, Mr. Secretary, the deficit is $165 billion. You're spending the Social Security surplus. And your own figures from the Office of Management and Budget show that nearly 40 percent of the surplus over the next 10 years is being used by the tax cut.
O'Neill: I would say this to you, Tim, we're not...
Russert: Those are your numbers.
O'Neill: We're in a deficit position because of 9/11 and the money that's necessary...
Russert: And not the tax cut?
O'Neill: No. I think we're spending money that is necessary to provide for homeland defense, to provide for additional resources for the Defense Department. I haven't found any Americans who say, "We're spending too much money on the wrong things," and what's happened to us is our revenues have gone down because the economy slowed down, but they will come back and growth will restore the surpluses.
Russert was no gentler when it came to the issue of O'Neill's fitness for office. Russert played a clip from December 2000, just after President-elect Bush had named O'Neill as his Treasury secretary. There, Bush had said: "We must have a steady voice coming out of our administration, someone, should the economy take a downturn, who can calm people's nerves, calm the markets, calm the--you know--those who would speculate in the dollar." Noting that O'Neill had been visiting former Soviet republics during the recent stock market fall, Russert turned Bush's words against O'Neill: "Calm people's nerves. Calm the markets. That's what he wanted you to do. When you're away visiting the Soviet republics, you can't possibly be doing that back home here." O'Neill insisted that communications technology allowed him to stay in touch, then retreated to his mantra about the economy's fundamentals being sound."
"Here's how one typical exchange went:
Russert: You're not spending the Social Security surplus?
O'Neill: I don't think, Tim, that the American fiscal position, that is to say, surplus or deficit, comes from raising taxes.
Russert: But you're spending the Social Security surplus. The facts are important, Mr. Secretary.
Soon, Russert had O'Neill fumbling for new rationales as to why the deficit had gone up. Now it wasn't congressional spending that had pushed the federal budget into the red. It was the response to 9/11:
Russert: But, Mr. Secretary, the deficit is $165 billion. You're spending the Social Security surplus. And your own figures from the Office of Management and Budget show that nearly 40 percent of the surplus over the next 10 years is being used by the tax cut.
O'Neill: I would say this to you, Tim, we're not...
Russert: Those are your numbers.
O'Neill: We're in a deficit position because of 9/11 and the money that's necessary...
Russert: And not the tax cut?
O'Neill: No. I think we're spending money that is necessary to provide for homeland defense, to provide for additional resources for the Defense Department. I haven't found any Americans who say, "We're spending too much money on the wrong things," and what's happened to us is our revenues have gone down because the economy slowed down, but they will come back and growth will restore the surpluses.
Russert was no gentler when it came to the issue of O'Neill's fitness for office. Russert played a clip from December 2000, just after President-elect Bush had named O'Neill as his Treasury secretary. There, Bush had said: "We must have a steady voice coming out of our administration, someone, should the economy take a downturn, who can calm people's nerves, calm the markets, calm the--you know--those who would speculate in the dollar." Noting that O'Neill had been visiting former Soviet republics during the recent stock market fall, Russert turned Bush's words against O'Neill: "Calm people's nerves. Calm the markets. That's what he wanted you to do. When you're away visiting the Soviet republics, you can't possibly be doing that back home here." O'Neill insisted that communications technology allowed him to stay in touch, then retreated to his mantra about the economy's fundamentals being sound."
U OF M STUDENTS MAY HAVE SOME INTEREST IN: The trouble Bollinger has just gotten himself into. Of course (as one who has a certain amount of journalism experience and formal journalistic training (kinda)), he's absolutely right. But we can't really admit that, can we?
QUOTE: Andrew Sullivan, feeding us the good stuff, as always:
"THE TIMES AND STALIN: Stunning sub-headline in the New York Times Book Review yesterday. Let's run it through the usual test, as blogger Counter-Revolutionary suggests:
"Nobody likes Hitler, but Martin Amis seems to have a thing about him. In his new book, Adolf the Dread, he attacks the monster as if he were current. Then he offers some tender reflections about Kingsley Amis, his father, who was once a Nazi. What's up here?"Would that headline ever run in the Times? Would anyone ever even think about it? Parts of the American Left still haven't recovered from their softness on Communism, have they? Kinda proves Martin Amis' point, doesn't it?"
"THE TIMES AND STALIN: Stunning sub-headline in the New York Times Book Review yesterday. Let's run it through the usual test, as blogger Counter-Revolutionary suggests:
"Nobody likes Hitler, but Martin Amis seems to have a thing about him. In his new book, Adolf the Dread, he attacks the monster as if he were current. Then he offers some tender reflections about Kingsley Amis, his father, who was once a Nazi. What's up here?"Would that headline ever run in the Times? Would anyone ever even think about it? Parts of the American Left still haven't recovered from their softness on Communism, have they? Kinda proves Martin Amis' point, doesn't it?"
LINK: We can disagree about what may or may not constitutes science, but I think Dave and I can agree that this certainly does. With me on this one, Huc-Huc?
28.7.02
AND, of course, there's the paradoxical element: we're discussing what constitutes science, which is ultimately a philosophical debate. Or perhaps there's a way to objectively prove the validity of Dave's argument: where's the variable we can play around with? Perhaps a Leibniz-like survey of possible worlds?
AND: of course, there's the issue of what Karl Popper called falsifiability, which reveals the deeper, more significant link between science as such and political science. By falsifiability, Popper meant the existence of a statement that could be definitively proven false. For example: the sun revolves around the earth. Now there are a great many theses in political science that are not falsifiable ("democracy is the best form of government there is"), however obvious they may seem for other reasons ("totalitarian systems can never endure"). However, there are many theses about political science that are falsifiable: "the number of people voting in federal-level elections has decreased for the last fifty years," "parties make contact with voters fewer times now than they did 30 years ago," or "those who strongly affiliate themselves with a liberal or conservative ideology are less likely to vote than those who describe themselves as unaffiliated," to name but a few examples (and I choose these quite deliberately: they are all false, and I have the textbook to prove it). Now, you may not want to call this science as such, and may even wish to do so for the reasons Dave has outlined; but it would take a rather steadfast denial of reality to refuse to admit that Political Science can do something very, very similar to science as such.
LINK: Loghorrea at it's finest. Dave manages to completely avoid my arguments, which makes responding to him somewhat difficult. I'd hardly argue with any of what you said: I've been arguing about other, related things, a distinction that is significant if you wish to avoid a certain degree of fatuousness.
26.7.02
LINK: More on Israel and self-defense. A few interesting thoughts:
A fairly serious undercut to the moral posture of the Bush Administration. Who knew they could embrace relativism?
"Echoes of all of the foregoing criticisms could be heard in Tuesday's press briefing with White House press secretary Ari Fleischer. According to Fleischer, "Israel needs to be mindful of the consequences of its actions in order to preserve the path to peace in the Middle East. The president views this as a heavy-handed action that is not consistent with dedication to peace in the Middle East." When a journalist challenged Fleischer to differentiate between Israel's bombing of the Gaza home of Shehadeh and the American bombings in Afghani cities, the press secretary replied, "It is inaccurate to compare the two. And the crucial difference here being that in this instance, in Gaza, this was a deliberate attack against a building in which civilians were known to be located. What's always important is in pursuit of the military objectives, as the United States does in Afghanistan, to always exercise every restraint to minimize those losses of life. But in this case, what happened in Gaza was a knowing attack against a building in which innocents were found.""
and:
"Lastly, some commentators claimed that the Hamas was on the verge of agreeing to a ceasefire with Israel. The unasked question is what is Israel's interest in a ceasefire with the Hamas? The Hamas covenant explicitly calls for the elimination of Israel and the mass killing of Jews. They have pursued that policy doggedly, as their bloody record shows. On the contrary, if the Hamas really was seeking a ceasefire, that is a sure sign that the current Israeli policy of targeted killings has been working and it should be pursued with increased vigor. According to Israeli secret-service reports, the Hamas has already lost its entire leadership infrastructure in Judea and Samaria thanks to Israeli counterterror activities there. Ultimately, a "ceasefire" will be obtained by virtue of the fact that there will remain no Hamas leaders alive or freely roaming the cities of Gaza, either."
A fairly serious undercut to the moral posture of the Bush Administration. Who knew they could embrace relativism?
"Echoes of all of the foregoing criticisms could be heard in Tuesday's press briefing with White House press secretary Ari Fleischer. According to Fleischer, "Israel needs to be mindful of the consequences of its actions in order to preserve the path to peace in the Middle East. The president views this as a heavy-handed action that is not consistent with dedication to peace in the Middle East." When a journalist challenged Fleischer to differentiate between Israel's bombing of the Gaza home of Shehadeh and the American bombings in Afghani cities, the press secretary replied, "It is inaccurate to compare the two. And the crucial difference here being that in this instance, in Gaza, this was a deliberate attack against a building in which civilians were known to be located. What's always important is in pursuit of the military objectives, as the United States does in Afghanistan, to always exercise every restraint to minimize those losses of life. But in this case, what happened in Gaza was a knowing attack against a building in which innocents were found.""
and:
"Lastly, some commentators claimed that the Hamas was on the verge of agreeing to a ceasefire with Israel. The unasked question is what is Israel's interest in a ceasefire with the Hamas? The Hamas covenant explicitly calls for the elimination of Israel and the mass killing of Jews. They have pursued that policy doggedly, as their bloody record shows. On the contrary, if the Hamas really was seeking a ceasefire, that is a sure sign that the current Israeli policy of targeted killings has been working and it should be pursued with increased vigor. According to Israeli secret-service reports, the Hamas has already lost its entire leadership infrastructure in Judea and Samaria thanks to Israeli counterterror activities there. Ultimately, a "ceasefire" will be obtained by virtue of the fact that there will remain no Hamas leaders alive or freely roaming the cities of Gaza, either."
25.7.02
QUOTE:
"A great man has died: Aleksandr Ginzburg, the poet and dissident in the Soviet Union. Famously, he was asked at one of his trials where he was born: "The Gulag Archipelago," he said. He was asked his nationality: "Zek" (prisoner).
But what I didn't know, before reading his obit, was that he, a Russian Orthodox, "adopted his mother's Jewish family name as a young man to protest Stalin's anti-Semitic campaigns." That took my breath away.
Can one imagine oneself doing that? In that environment?
A great man."
"A great man has died: Aleksandr Ginzburg, the poet and dissident in the Soviet Union. Famously, he was asked at one of his trials where he was born: "The Gulag Archipelago," he said. He was asked his nationality: "Zek" (prisoner).
But what I didn't know, before reading his obit, was that he, a Russian Orthodox, "adopted his mother's Jewish family name as a young man to protest Stalin's anti-Semitic campaigns." That took my breath away.
Can one imagine oneself doing that? In that environment?
A great man."
24.7.02
BIRDS OF A FEATHER...
" The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Wednesday night to expel Ohio Rep. James Traficant after his conviction on federal corruption charges. The vote was 420-1, with the dissenting vote coming from Rep. Gary Condit."
" The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Wednesday night to expel Ohio Rep. James Traficant after his conviction on federal corruption charges. The vote was 420-1, with the dissenting vote coming from Rep. Gary Condit."
QUOTE:
"WHAT'S TO APOLOGIZE FOR? : [Rod Dreher] Surfing the news channels, I caught the Israeli consul general based here in New York saying something that sounded suspiciously like an apology for killing the family of that vicious Hamas chieftain in the Gaza missile strike. I don't get it. It's a pity that innocent children died, but it's their father's fault. The sheikh headed a terrorist organization that had declared war on Israel, and murdered Israeli civilians. The Israelis had every right to nail the SOB when they had him in their sights, and good on them for not worrying what the Belgians or The New York Times might think. If he didn't want his family killed, he should have stayed away from home. I'm sure I'm not the first one to say this, but if the United States discovers Osama bin Laden's hideaway, we should blow it to kingdom come, and let responsibility for the innocent dead shacked up with him be on his head."
"WHAT'S TO APOLOGIZE FOR? : [Rod Dreher] Surfing the news channels, I caught the Israeli consul general based here in New York saying something that sounded suspiciously like an apology for killing the family of that vicious Hamas chieftain in the Gaza missile strike. I don't get it. It's a pity that innocent children died, but it's their father's fault. The sheikh headed a terrorist organization that had declared war on Israel, and murdered Israeli civilians. The Israelis had every right to nail the SOB when they had him in their sights, and good on them for not worrying what the Belgians or The New York Times might think. If he didn't want his family killed, he should have stayed away from home. I'm sure I'm not the first one to say this, but if the United States discovers Osama bin Laden's hideaway, we should blow it to kingdom come, and let responsibility for the innocent dead shacked up with him be on his head."
23.7.02
A WORD: about the need to manipulate variables in scientific testing. Asking a political scientist to re-analyze their data so that (to use Comrade Hucul's example), all voters were over the age of 65 and then seeing what the results would be illustrates a fallacy in the conception of how political scientists do their work. To do so is comparable to asking a physicist to redo all their work on how fast objects drop if g was 1 m/s faster, and some objects fell up for short periods of time, depending on their volume. Does it prove some point about the formal completeness of science if you can (as admittedly abstract as these examples are)? Sure. Is it reasonable to expect a physicist to do so, and declare their work 'unscientific' if they can't? Not unless your standard of what constitues 'science' is unreasonable. But then, silly me, I always thought the point of science was to describe the world as we encounter it as accurately as possible.
Incidentally, I should say there are aspects of Political Science which are in no way scientifc: Locke, Machiavelli and Plato, for example, have nothing to do with predicting shifts in voting patterns. This is why PoliSci 101 is called Intro to Political Theory instead of Political Science. If you want to see the real work, you have to stick around for more.
Incidentally, I should say there are aspects of Political Science which are in no way scientifc: Locke, Machiavelli and Plato, for example, have nothing to do with predicting shifts in voting patterns. This is why PoliSci 101 is called Intro to Political Theory instead of Political Science. If you want to see the real work, you have to stick around for more.
A COUPLE OF NOTES:
1. "Comrade ________!" was the standard greeting of Leninist-Trotskyist-Stalinists, not Marxists (and yes, there is a difference).
2. If you're going to get mad at me for calling you names, you should at least have mentioned when I said you were like a Whabbi mujahadeen, which is infinitely more insulting than either fascist or Marxist.
3. For the record, I'm at least partially fascist in my political tendencies, so I hardly consider that an insult.
1. "Comrade ________!" was the standard greeting of Leninist-Trotskyist-Stalinists, not Marxists (and yes, there is a difference).
2. If you're going to get mad at me for calling you names, you should at least have mentioned when I said you were like a Whabbi mujahadeen, which is infinitely more insulting than either fascist or Marxist.
3. For the record, I'm at least partially fascist in my political tendencies, so I hardly consider that an insult.
YOU KNOW ANY ATTEMPT AT HUMOR IS LOST ON YOU WHEN...
" Nick has responded a little bit to some of my various posts. I think it is kind of funny that he labels me as a Marxist and that he later called me, during an AIM conversation, a fascist when it comes to what is and is not a science. I have achieved a new goal because of this! I was called a Marxist and a fascist on the same day by the same person! My life will be complete if someone calls me anti-anti-semetic, anti-stuff-that-dave-doesn't-like, and pro-hibitionist. "
" Nick has responded a little bit to some of my various posts. I think it is kind of funny that he labels me as a Marxist and that he later called me, during an AIM conversation, a fascist when it comes to what is and is not a science. I have achieved a new goal because of this! I was called a Marxist and a fascist on the same day by the same person! My life will be complete if someone calls me anti-anti-semetic, anti-stuff-that-dave-doesn't-like, and pro-hibitionist. "
22.7.02
QUOTE: As a Yankees fan, I sympathise with this, from ESPN.com:
"Something occurred to me while visiting Fenway Park recently. After one of their three losses to the Braves a few weeks back, the inevitable cadre of dealers were outside the stadium selling "Yankees Suck" T-shirts of every possible permutation. The Yankees have become the scapegoats for everything bad that has ever happened to the Red Sox and their fans and it is beginning to border on obsession.
Is there anything to that? How much of the misery of Red Sox Nation can be traced to the New York baseball team? Can we assign a percentage to it?
What percentage of the Boston fan's misery can we assign to the existence of the Yankees? 10 percent? 25? 50? 90?
If it's anything over 50, then, frankly, those bootleg T-shirts shouldn't read "Yankees Suck." They should read:
MY LIFE SUCKS BECAUSE THE YANKEES ARE GREAT"
"Something occurred to me while visiting Fenway Park recently. After one of their three losses to the Braves a few weeks back, the inevitable cadre of dealers were outside the stadium selling "Yankees Suck" T-shirts of every possible permutation. The Yankees have become the scapegoats for everything bad that has ever happened to the Red Sox and their fans and it is beginning to border on obsession.
Is there anything to that? How much of the misery of Red Sox Nation can be traced to the New York baseball team? Can we assign a percentage to it?
What percentage of the Boston fan's misery can we assign to the existence of the Yankees? 10 percent? 25? 50? 90?
If it's anything over 50, then, frankly, those bootleg T-shirts shouldn't read "Yankees Suck." They should read:
MY LIFE SUCKS BECAUSE THE YANKEES ARE GREAT"
QUOTE:
"My own benchmark for thinking of the uses of painting derives unabashedly from 19th Century bourgeois life, as a somewhat elevated form of decor, one-of-a-kind works, executed within certain technical conventions, for invoking beauty and truth in small discrete doses. I am not being facetious about this, either. Truth and beauty are powerful forces and middle-class people busy operating on spleens and probating estates can only be expected to take so much of them in their leisure.
But there is a general complaint over recent decades that art has forsaken altogether the invocation of beauty and truth as its governing objective. In the train wreck of culture and authority that the twentieth century represented, all the previous sortings of human meaning were left smoking in the ditch of history, and what we have been left with is a trade in debris. That a lot of the artifacts look like debris is therefore relevant -- I am thinking specifically now of a Whitney biennial of the 1990s, which included one "piece" that was a gigantic blob of fabricated plastic vomit, of the kind that used to be sold in Times Square joke shops when I was kid, only ten times bigger. It was an exceedingly political show, with the angry women rampant and anathematizing all other modes of expression except their polemic. "
-James Howard Kunstler, as published in The American Enterprise
"My own benchmark for thinking of the uses of painting derives unabashedly from 19th Century bourgeois life, as a somewhat elevated form of decor, one-of-a-kind works, executed within certain technical conventions, for invoking beauty and truth in small discrete doses. I am not being facetious about this, either. Truth and beauty are powerful forces and middle-class people busy operating on spleens and probating estates can only be expected to take so much of them in their leisure.
But there is a general complaint over recent decades that art has forsaken altogether the invocation of beauty and truth as its governing objective. In the train wreck of culture and authority that the twentieth century represented, all the previous sortings of human meaning were left smoking in the ditch of history, and what we have been left with is a trade in debris. That a lot of the artifacts look like debris is therefore relevant -- I am thinking specifically now of a Whitney biennial of the 1990s, which included one "piece" that was a gigantic blob of fabricated plastic vomit, of the kind that used to be sold in Times Square joke shops when I was kid, only ten times bigger. It was an exceedingly political show, with the angry women rampant and anathematizing all other modes of expression except their polemic. "
-James Howard Kunstler, as published in The American Enterprise
LINK: The always inimitable Chris Caldwell on the very real trouble Republicans are in for this election cycle. Oh, and the possible connection between Dubya and the Saudi mutli-millionaires who helped to finance bin Laden.
I've always been a fan of The Weekly Standard's stable of writers (there has never been politics on TV like there was when Tucker Carlson was on The Spin Room, and David Brooks is as astute a cultural observer as we have nowadays), not least for their willingness to allow common sense to win out over their ideology when the occasion calls for it. To wit:
"For decades now, the "small government" Republican Party has been slamming the corrupt conduct of, say, trial lawyers who just suck money out of the economy and put it in their pockets in the name of the ideal of "representing the little guy." When they talk this way, I?m all ears. But, Jesus, this is what they have to offer in its place?"
I've always been a fan of The Weekly Standard's stable of writers (there has never been politics on TV like there was when Tucker Carlson was on The Spin Room, and David Brooks is as astute a cultural observer as we have nowadays), not least for their willingness to allow common sense to win out over their ideology when the occasion calls for it. To wit:
"For decades now, the "small government" Republican Party has been slamming the corrupt conduct of, say, trial lawyers who just suck money out of the economy and put it in their pockets in the name of the ideal of "representing the little guy." When they talk this way, I?m all ears. But, Jesus, this is what they have to offer in its place?"
IF you haven't been watching OLN as religiously as I have, you've been missing out on one of the most amazing physical displays ever. And it happens in France-- who knew?
LINK: A ChiCom update, courtesy of Derb.
"Is there any good news? Well, yes. As the second of those reports notes: "The central government is severely limited by its low tax collections and must resort to deficit financing to meet the country's burgeoning demands." This is to put it mildly. China's economy, in so far as any facts about it are agreed on by the experts, dwells in the shadow of a huge public debt overhang. In the best of times this means that the People's Liberation Army has to fight for its share of the national budget; if there were to be a serious world-wide trade slowdown, China would face acute crisis."
"Is there any good news? Well, yes. As the second of those reports notes: "The central government is severely limited by its low tax collections and must resort to deficit financing to meet the country's burgeoning demands." This is to put it mildly. China's economy, in so far as any facts about it are agreed on by the experts, dwells in the shadow of a huge public debt overhang. In the best of times this means that the People's Liberation Army has to fight for its share of the national budget; if there were to be a serious world-wide trade slowdown, China would face acute crisis."
21.7.02
QUOTE:
"by certain areas like philosophy or political "science." I had to put science in quotation marks because political science is not science. It does not follow the scientific method in that no experiments or manipulation of variables are done by one who studies the field. I will rename "political science" to "political studies.""
-Obviously, he has never read a scholarly PoliSci paper, which is ironic, considering that the University of Michigan Political Science department built it's reputation by meticulously doing research involving all manner of mathematical projection models (with variables, too!)
As Ludwig Wittgenstein said, "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent." Advice worth taking, methinks.
"by certain areas like philosophy or political "science." I had to put science in quotation marks because political science is not science. It does not follow the scientific method in that no experiments or manipulation of variables are done by one who studies the field. I will rename "political science" to "political studies.""
-Obviously, he has never read a scholarly PoliSci paper, which is ironic, considering that the University of Michigan Political Science department built it's reputation by meticulously doing research involving all manner of mathematical projection models (with variables, too!)
As Ludwig Wittgenstein said, "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent." Advice worth taking, methinks.
ABOUT THIS
I can't help but find a violently misogynistic shibboleth at the bottom of all of this: it's assumed, as a matter of course, that women don't want to be with nice guys. Put your money where your mouth is, then: would you accuse your own mother of that?
I can't help but find a violently misogynistic shibboleth at the bottom of all of this: it's assumed, as a matter of course, that women don't want to be with nice guys. Put your money where your mouth is, then: would you accuse your own mother of that?
Comrade Hucul!
I am pleased to see you denouncing the fascist tendencies of the American Right, who seek to opress critical-thinking comrades such as yourself by using such subversive weapons as humor and wit. In truth, however, it is hard to tale seriously someone who criticizes other for writing emotionally (what are we to use to write about politics? Mathematical forumlae?) and then produces a point like the one which follows:
"10. Wow. What can I say to this one? I mean... wow. I would be embarrassed to write her point number 10."
Pot calling the kettle black, eh, comrade?
But more seriously: can you reasonably expect your fellow comrades to write without any tincture of emotion whatsoever? And if so, what would that makes us? It seems reasonable to me that only apparatchiks (who needn't think on their own in the first place) and automatons could do so; and, as your fellow scientific comrades have failed as of yet to create automatons (though knee-jerk college neo-Marxists may qualify), the possibility of writing without emotion seems impossible for the forseeable future. In the next Five-Year Plan, perhaps?
I am pleased to see you denouncing the fascist tendencies of the American Right, who seek to opress critical-thinking comrades such as yourself by using such subversive weapons as humor and wit. In truth, however, it is hard to tale seriously someone who criticizes other for writing emotionally (what are we to use to write about politics? Mathematical forumlae?) and then produces a point like the one which follows:
"10. Wow. What can I say to this one? I mean... wow. I would be embarrassed to write her point number 10."
Pot calling the kettle black, eh, comrade?
But more seriously: can you reasonably expect your fellow comrades to write without any tincture of emotion whatsoever? And if so, what would that makes us? It seems reasonable to me that only apparatchiks (who needn't think on their own in the first place) and automatons could do so; and, as your fellow scientific comrades have failed as of yet to create automatons (though knee-jerk college neo-Marxists may qualify), the possibility of writing without emotion seems impossible for the forseeable future. In the next Five-Year Plan, perhaps?
I COULDN'T RESIST:
"In my narrow view of the world, there are too many right-brained people trying to give commentary about current events in terms of their feelings. This site will give the views of a scientifically-minded person."
Well, I congratulate all of those who are scientifically-minded for having, it seems, dispensed with the necessity of human emotions. A brave new day it is for us, indeed.
"In my narrow view of the world, there are too many right-brained people trying to give commentary about current events in terms of their feelings. This site will give the views of a scientifically-minded person."
Well, I congratulate all of those who are scientifically-minded for having, it seems, dispensed with the necessity of human emotions. A brave new day it is for us, indeed.
20.7.02
19.7.02
LINK: The Guardian, one of the more reflexively left-leaning papers in England, is out with a good piece on the difficult relations between high art and the Left.
Me likey:
"But there is an important difference between questions of the intrinsic value of literary or artistic works in any culture and their social significance to the people who produce them. A cairn of stones, or a figurine of a goat or a goddess might have religious meaning for a community, and be venerated by it, without having or pretending to have artistic merit. But an attentive eye can see the difference between a rough carving and a fine one, whatever its social or religious significance. The latter typically shows more observation and care, and evinces more skill or painstakingness in the working; in short, manifests the marks of quality. A difference in social or religious significance does not affect, still less negate, differences in quality. Those concerned to respect the productions of other cultures are apt not to distinguish these things, thinking that social significance is enough to confer artistic merit, and therefore refusing to allow comparisons on the mistaken ground that doing so implies disrespect."
and:
"A capacity to see these qualities in human cultural productions, especially a developed or (which is the same thing) critical capacity, does not automatically amount to an offensive and exclusive cultural snobbery. It simply means a heightened awareness, and a concomitantly increased enjoyment of what it encounters when it encounters quality; and when quality is at issue, the capacity in question tends to be general and inclusive."
Me likey:
"But there is an important difference between questions of the intrinsic value of literary or artistic works in any culture and their social significance to the people who produce them. A cairn of stones, or a figurine of a goat or a goddess might have religious meaning for a community, and be venerated by it, without having or pretending to have artistic merit. But an attentive eye can see the difference between a rough carving and a fine one, whatever its social or religious significance. The latter typically shows more observation and care, and evinces more skill or painstakingness in the working; in short, manifests the marks of quality. A difference in social or religious significance does not affect, still less negate, differences in quality. Those concerned to respect the productions of other cultures are apt not to distinguish these things, thinking that social significance is enough to confer artistic merit, and therefore refusing to allow comparisons on the mistaken ground that doing so implies disrespect."
and:
"A capacity to see these qualities in human cultural productions, especially a developed or (which is the same thing) critical capacity, does not automatically amount to an offensive and exclusive cultural snobbery. It simply means a heightened awareness, and a concomitantly increased enjoyment of what it encounters when it encounters quality; and when quality is at issue, the capacity in question tends to be general and inclusive."
LINK: Well, the good news is that Everything he said is admissable as evidence against him. Let him fry!
LINK: Camille Paglia weighs in on the personal attacks against Andrew Sullivan and the nastiness of minority infighting (kind of). It's good!
UNLESS, OF COURSE: This is true, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. It even gives us reason to hope for that most hopeless of people, the French. Thus:
On not reflexively hating Israel vis-a-vis the Arabs:
"'The Iranians tell us they're only doing what we did 50 years ago,' said one French official, adding, 'and what you Israelis did, with a bit of help from us. That may be true, but global politics is not based on absolute justice and equality, and even if Sharon has a bomb, that's nonetheless less worrisome than if [Iranian President Mohammed] Khatami has one.'"
And, on Pres. Bush's first-strike policy:
"If we know that Libya is going to launch a missile at Marseilles, we won't wait until [Libyan leader Moammar] Gadhafi pushes the button, but why say so ahead of time?"
On not reflexively hating Israel vis-a-vis the Arabs:
"'The Iranians tell us they're only doing what we did 50 years ago,' said one French official, adding, 'and what you Israelis did, with a bit of help from us. That may be true, but global politics is not based on absolute justice and equality, and even if Sharon has a bomb, that's nonetheless less worrisome than if [Iranian President Mohammed] Khatami has one.'"
And, on Pres. Bush's first-strike policy:
"If we know that Libya is going to launch a missile at Marseilles, we won't wait until [Libyan leader Moammar] Gadhafi pushes the button, but why say so ahead of time?"
LINK: I've heard that it'll hit 7000 before the bloodletting stops, which means it'll suck to be a Republican come November (the general incompetence of the Democratic Party notwithstanding)
18.7.02
NICK RESPONDETH THUS:
Well, in the first place, I hope you're not a theist, because (speaking as one) there exists no good argument to prove God exists using simply scientific or epistemological terms, and anyone who tells you there is is either a failure as a scientist, a thinker, or both.
But moreover, as Wittgenstein said, "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent." Certainly, there is much of life (indeed, most of life), which is beyond the purview of scientific reasoning. Think of dating, or forming friendships, or appreciating works of art: totally unique, non-generalizable experiences about which we can form judgments, which are no less true for their applying only to us. The Brothers Karamazov is probably the best book ever written, and that's an opinion no one will ever disabuse me of, because the opinion of others matter precisely not.
I will make one other largely procedural point:
If Hucul is willing to submit to the idea that there exist such things as human constructions of the world around us, he has already undermined his point. Who has the authority to decide what is a human construction and what is the actual world? How do we know they aren't subject to constructions of their own that make them see the world in a certain way? And doesn't this make it theoretically possible for people to hold different views of the world around them without either being false or both being mutually exclusive (we can take a tour through Hegel, memory, and truth, if you like)
Well, in the first place, I hope you're not a theist, because (speaking as one) there exists no good argument to prove God exists using simply scientific or epistemological terms, and anyone who tells you there is is either a failure as a scientist, a thinker, or both.
But moreover, as Wittgenstein said, "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent." Certainly, there is much of life (indeed, most of life), which is beyond the purview of scientific reasoning. Think of dating, or forming friendships, or appreciating works of art: totally unique, non-generalizable experiences about which we can form judgments, which are no less true for their applying only to us. The Brothers Karamazov is probably the best book ever written, and that's an opinion no one will ever disabuse me of, because the opinion of others matter precisely not.
I will make one other largely procedural point:
If Hucul is willing to submit to the idea that there exist such things as human constructions of the world around us, he has already undermined his point. Who has the authority to decide what is a human construction and what is the actual world? How do we know they aren't subject to constructions of their own that make them see the world in a certain way? And doesn't this make it theoretically possible for people to hold different views of the world around them without either being false or both being mutually exclusive (we can take a tour through Hegel, memory, and truth, if you like)
SO SAYETH HUCUL:
"After an intersting discussion with Nick, I have realized that I just can't imagine using non-scientifc thought to solve a problem or to reason something out. It may just be a short-coming on my part, but I don't know (I'd like to think that somehow I am more in touch with the way nature works than human constructions about how it works). Anyways, let me know what you think."
"After an intersting discussion with Nick, I have realized that I just can't imagine using non-scientifc thought to solve a problem or to reason something out. It may just be a short-coming on my part, but I don't know (I'd like to think that somehow I am more in touch with the way nature works than human constructions about how it works). Anyways, let me know what you think."
16.7.02
Now, the commentary: why don't we take Stalin as seriously as we take Hitler? I think there's a lot to be said for a good amount of the Left-- including myself, for a long, long time-- being unwilling to take the historical record seriously precisely because we put so much of our intellectual credibility into backing some form of socialism. It would be hard for those of us who are putatively moral to do so if we took seriously the fact that every attempt to insitute socialism on a grand scale has always been a disaster, and, in the hands of Stalin, was a particular atrocity against mankind. Certainly, there's no shortage of vitriol against capitalist, free-market systems, and some of it with good reason, but that shouldn't excuse shoddy intellectualism and the defense of murderers. So there must be something more at work.
Hitler is easy to vilify because he did something that cannot even have the pretense of being right: he sought the total extermination of the Jews (even today's anti-Semities have more sense than to declare the similarity of their goals to that of Hitler, the same though they may be). Stalin's apologists could at least give him a noble aim. Hmm... something to think about.
Hitler is easy to vilify because he did something that cannot even have the pretense of being right: he sought the total extermination of the Jews (even today's anti-Semities have more sense than to declare the similarity of their goals to that of Hitler, the same though they may be). Stalin's apologists could at least give him a noble aim. Hmm... something to think about.
LINK: Magnificent review of Martin Amis' new book, on Stalin and the left. First, the quote:
" You could fill books with the literary friendships that have broken up over arguments about communism. It may be that Amis' friendship with Christopher "Lenin was ... a great man" Hitchens is one of them. Toward the end of the book is a long open letter to "Comrade Hitchens" in which Amis writes, "So it is still obscure to me why you wouldn't want to put more distance between yourself and these events than you do, with your reverence for Lenin and your unregretted discipleship of Trotsky ... Why? An admiration for Lenin and Trotsky is meaningless without an admiration for terror. They would not want your admiration if it failed to include an admiration for terror. Do you admire terror? I know you admire freedom."
The letter is not without affection. But it is also very sly, Amis having chosen to air this disagreement with his friend in public. No doubt Hitchens' hatchet job lamenting his friend's inadequate grasp of history, theory, the horrors of capitalism, ad nauseam, is still to come. But the question Amis asks him -- "Do you admire terror?" -- is not easily ducked. And it's the question that Amis is asking of all the apologists, all the infatuated."
" You could fill books with the literary friendships that have broken up over arguments about communism. It may be that Amis' friendship with Christopher "Lenin was ... a great man" Hitchens is one of them. Toward the end of the book is a long open letter to "Comrade Hitchens" in which Amis writes, "So it is still obscure to me why you wouldn't want to put more distance between yourself and these events than you do, with your reverence for Lenin and your unregretted discipleship of Trotsky ... Why? An admiration for Lenin and Trotsky is meaningless without an admiration for terror. They would not want your admiration if it failed to include an admiration for terror. Do you admire terror? I know you admire freedom."
The letter is not without affection. But it is also very sly, Amis having chosen to air this disagreement with his friend in public. No doubt Hitchens' hatchet job lamenting his friend's inadequate grasp of history, theory, the horrors of capitalism, ad nauseam, is still to come. But the question Amis asks him -- "Do you admire terror?" -- is not easily ducked. And it's the question that Amis is asking of all the apologists, all the infatuated."
LINK: I'd hate to be Stanley Fish right now. When TAPPED thinks you've gone off the deep end, you're in trouble. To wit:
" In the symposium, Mr. Fish seems to backpedal a bit, arguing that pomo might actually have an effect. It might, he suggests, teach us to understand the opponent not as an evil abstraction but as a fellow human being with his own motivations. Mr. Fish, for example, says that when Reuters stopped using the word terrorism because "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," this policy was mistakenly attacked as pomo-style cultural relativism. Actually, he argues, Reuters saw that the word was "unhelpful" because, in Mr. Fish's words, it "prevents us from making distinctions" that might allow us to get a better picture of whom we are fighting.
But this explanation is disingenuous. Mr. Fish is really saying that he prefers one set of distinctions over another ? distinctions that, in this case, emphasize resemblance, or perhaps even symmetry, between the terrorist and his opponent, while ignoring the central differences, including the fact that this is a war against Islamic terrorism and its totalitarian ideologies."
" In the symposium, Mr. Fish seems to backpedal a bit, arguing that pomo might actually have an effect. It might, he suggests, teach us to understand the opponent not as an evil abstraction but as a fellow human being with his own motivations. Mr. Fish, for example, says that when Reuters stopped using the word terrorism because "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter," this policy was mistakenly attacked as pomo-style cultural relativism. Actually, he argues, Reuters saw that the word was "unhelpful" because, in Mr. Fish's words, it "prevents us from making distinctions" that might allow us to get a better picture of whom we are fighting.
But this explanation is disingenuous. Mr. Fish is really saying that he prefers one set of distinctions over another ? distinctions that, in this case, emphasize resemblance, or perhaps even symmetry, between the terrorist and his opponent, while ignoring the central differences, including the fact that this is a war against Islamic terrorism and its totalitarian ideologies."
LINK: Jay Nordinger, in his latest column, reprints verbatim an e-mail he received from a police officer on racial profiling, and it's well worth reading. It seems to bring up what, inasfar as I've observed, is the forgotten point in all of the 'racial profiling' hype: sometimes the realities of crime enforcement tilt in less than appealing directions. But it's hard to argue that police should be less vigilant so as not to offend anyone. Let's face facts: black people might speed more than white people, or Jews more than Hispanics. It may be the case that blacks who are pulled over are more likely to have committed offenses requiring more severe police responses. And, of course, not unrelated: the vast majority of terrorists may be of Semitic descent. No one is arguing that police ought to pull over or detain every black/arab/male/whatever-looking person. But they should be stopping whoever's suspicious-looking. That's their job. Let them do it!
15.7.02
QUOTE:
"davniner: good update but i made the stupid quote to prove a point, not b/c i believe it"
Oh, I see. You said something you didn't believe in because you really, really wanted to prove me wrong. I would never condescend to say something I didn't believed. I'm shocked-- shocked that you would, much in the way that Rick was "shocked... shocked" to find out gambling was going on in his establishment (in Casablanca)... which is to say that I'm not being even remotely serious.
But you're still wrong anyway.
"davniner: good update but i made the stupid quote to prove a point, not b/c i believe it"
Oh, I see. You said something you didn't believe in because you really, really wanted to prove me wrong. I would never condescend to say something I didn't believed. I'm shocked-- shocked that you would, much in the way that Rick was "shocked... shocked" to find out gambling was going on in his establishment (in Casablanca)... which is to say that I'm not being even remotely serious.
But you're still wrong anyway.
Roger Kimball, one of America's resident geniuses on the subject of, well, everything, has a nice essay up on the New Criterion website.
Me likey:
"The attack on permanence comes in many guises. When trendy literary critics declare that 'there is no such thing as intrinsic meaning,' they are denying permanent values that transcend the prerogatives of their lucubrations. When a deconstructionist tells us that truth is relative to language, or to power, or to certain social arrangements, he seeks to trump the unanswerable claims of permanent realities with the vacillations of his ingenuity. When the multiculturalist celebrates the fundamental equality of all cultures--excepting, of course, the culture of the West, which he reflexively disparages--he substitutes ephemeral political passions for the recognition of objective cultural achievement. 'A pair of boots,' a nineteenth-century Russian slogan tells us, 'is worth more than Shakespeare.' We have here a process of leveling that turns out to be a revolution in values. The implication, as the French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut observed, is that
the footballer and the choreographer, the painter and the couturier, the writer and the ad-man, the musician and the rock-and-roller, are all the same: creators. We must scrap the prejudice which restricts that title to certain people and regards others as sub-cultural. But what seems at first to be an effort to establish cultural parity turns out to be a campaign for cultural reversal. When Sir Elton John is put on the same level as Bach, the effect is not cultural equality but cultural insurrection. (If it seems farfetched to compare Elton John and Bach, recall the literary critic Richard Poirier's remark, in Partisan Review in 1967, that 'sometimes [the Beatles] are like Monteverdi and sometimes their songs are even better than Schumann's.') It might also be worth asking what had to happen in English society for there to be such a thing as 'Sir Elton John.' What does that tell us about the survival of culture? But some subjects are too painful. Let us draw a veil ?
'The history of philosophy,' Jean-François Revel observed in The Flight from Truth (1991), 'can be divided into two different periods. During the first, philosophers sought the truth; during the second, they fought against it.' That fight has escaped from the parlors of professional sceptics and has increasingly become the moral coin of the realm. As Anthony Daniels observed in his essay for this volume, it is now routine for academics and intellectuals to use 'all the instruments of an exaggerated scepticism -- not to find truth but to destroy traditions, customs, institutions, and confidence in the worth of civilization itself.' The most basic suppositions and distinctions suddenly crumble, like the acidic pages of a poorly made book, eaten away from within. 'A rebours' becomes the rallying cry of the anti-cultural cultural elite. Culture degenerates from being a cultura animi to a corruptio animi."
Me likey:
"The attack on permanence comes in many guises. When trendy literary critics declare that 'there is no such thing as intrinsic meaning,' they are denying permanent values that transcend the prerogatives of their lucubrations. When a deconstructionist tells us that truth is relative to language, or to power, or to certain social arrangements, he seeks to trump the unanswerable claims of permanent realities with the vacillations of his ingenuity. When the multiculturalist celebrates the fundamental equality of all cultures--excepting, of course, the culture of the West, which he reflexively disparages--he substitutes ephemeral political passions for the recognition of objective cultural achievement. 'A pair of boots,' a nineteenth-century Russian slogan tells us, 'is worth more than Shakespeare.' We have here a process of leveling that turns out to be a revolution in values. The implication, as the French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut observed, is that
the footballer and the choreographer, the painter and the couturier, the writer and the ad-man, the musician and the rock-and-roller, are all the same: creators. We must scrap the prejudice which restricts that title to certain people and regards others as sub-cultural. But what seems at first to be an effort to establish cultural parity turns out to be a campaign for cultural reversal. When Sir Elton John is put on the same level as Bach, the effect is not cultural equality but cultural insurrection. (If it seems farfetched to compare Elton John and Bach, recall the literary critic Richard Poirier's remark, in Partisan Review in 1967, that 'sometimes [the Beatles] are like Monteverdi and sometimes their songs are even better than Schumann's.') It might also be worth asking what had to happen in English society for there to be such a thing as 'Sir Elton John.' What does that tell us about the survival of culture? But some subjects are too painful. Let us draw a veil ?
'The history of philosophy,' Jean-François Revel observed in The Flight from Truth (1991), 'can be divided into two different periods. During the first, philosophers sought the truth; during the second, they fought against it.' That fight has escaped from the parlors of professional sceptics and has increasingly become the moral coin of the realm. As Anthony Daniels observed in his essay for this volume, it is now routine for academics and intellectuals to use 'all the instruments of an exaggerated scepticism -- not to find truth but to destroy traditions, customs, institutions, and confidence in the worth of civilization itself.' The most basic suppositions and distinctions suddenly crumble, like the acidic pages of a poorly made book, eaten away from within. 'A rebours' becomes the rallying cry of the anti-cultural cultural elite. Culture degenerates from being a cultura animi to a corruptio animi."
QUOTE: On the pledge-ruling psycho.
"This cultural tendency may make judges and certainly makes journalists, the great mythographers of our times, naturally sympathetic to people like the plaintiff in the Pledge of Allegiance suit, Michael Newdow of Sacramento. 'I feel like I am not an American in the eyes of my government because of their religious beliefs,' Newdow told Stefanie Frith of the Associated Press, supposedly while 'sitting in shorts and a t-shirt at his kitchen table.' Naturally, he thinks that 'un-American.' And why, pray, does he think that? Because 'Congress never intended to force people to worship a religion that they don't believe in,' he says, which sounds rather odd coming from a man who would use the courts to prevent Congress from having any say in the matter of what it did or didn't intend...
For if his campaign to stamp out 'all insidious uses of religion in daily life' is based on his own hurt feelings ('Why should I be made to feel like an outsider?' he asks, avoiding the obvious answer that he is one), why should not he, or some half-wit judge acting as his surrogate, decide that the pronouns of the English language hurt his feelings as well and command us all to change the way we speak?"
"This cultural tendency may make judges and certainly makes journalists, the great mythographers of our times, naturally sympathetic to people like the plaintiff in the Pledge of Allegiance suit, Michael Newdow of Sacramento. 'I feel like I am not an American in the eyes of my government because of their religious beliefs,' Newdow told Stefanie Frith of the Associated Press, supposedly while 'sitting in shorts and a t-shirt at his kitchen table.' Naturally, he thinks that 'un-American.' And why, pray, does he think that? Because 'Congress never intended to force people to worship a religion that they don't believe in,' he says, which sounds rather odd coming from a man who would use the courts to prevent Congress from having any say in the matter of what it did or didn't intend...
For if his campaign to stamp out 'all insidious uses of religion in daily life' is based on his own hurt feelings ('Why should I be made to feel like an outsider?' he asks, avoiding the obvious answer that he is one), why should not he, or some half-wit judge acting as his surrogate, decide that the pronouns of the English language hurt his feelings as well and command us all to change the way we speak?"
HAHAHA: On Snobbery (note: this guy published a piece of his book in Commentary last month, and it was exactly as good as the review suggests):
"Turns out ... there were more varieties of balsamic vinegar than American states, possibly more virgin olive oils than actual virgins."
and:
" But he is no less right to warn against the "sour-grapes charge" that equates "elitist" with "snob." "The elitist desires the best; the snob wants other people to think he has, or is associated with, the best. Delight in excellence is easily confused with snobbery by the ignorant." "
"Turns out ... there were more varieties of balsamic vinegar than American states, possibly more virgin olive oils than actual virgins."
and:
" But he is no less right to warn against the "sour-grapes charge" that equates "elitist" with "snob." "The elitist desires the best; the snob wants other people to think he has, or is associated with, the best. Delight in excellence is easily confused with snobbery by the ignorant." "
IF YOU DIDN'T LIKE COCA-COLA BEFORE here's a good reason to start. Not a whole lot to comment on: it just seems to make good accounting (and public relations) sense.
HOWEVER, IN HAPPIER JURISPRUDENCE NEWS:
It seems Pakistan is willing to call evil evil, and take the necessary steps to deal with it. If only (I never thought I'd be writing this) we could take a cue from the seemingly harsh but ultimately fair justice system of the Pakistanis.
It seems Pakistan is willing to call evil evil, and take the necessary steps to deal with it. If only (I never thought I'd be writing this) we could take a cue from the seemingly harsh but ultimately fair justice system of the Pakistanis.
MICHAEL SPANN IS ROLLING OVER IN HIS GRAVE:
And with good reason. What good does John Walker Lindh do for us? He's despicable, by any sane calculation, and as close to an enemy of this country as we have encountered thusfar. The trial was to be held in the Eastern District of Virginia, for goodness' sake, which means a conviction on all 10 counts was a foregone conclusion.
Of course, the really ridiculous thing (unreported in the Times, and I can't say that surprises me) was his father's comment comparing Lindh to Nelson Mandela. The CNN anchorwoman was even forced to say, "I think that's stretching it a bit far..." Wasn't Mandela a good guy, after all?
And with good reason. What good does John Walker Lindh do for us? He's despicable, by any sane calculation, and as close to an enemy of this country as we have encountered thusfar. The trial was to be held in the Eastern District of Virginia, for goodness' sake, which means a conviction on all 10 counts was a foregone conclusion.
Of course, the really ridiculous thing (unreported in the Times, and I can't say that surprises me) was his father's comment comparing Lindh to Nelson Mandela. The CNN anchorwoman was even forced to say, "I think that's stretching it a bit far..." Wasn't Mandela a good guy, after all?
RELATIVELY AMUSING:
"On clichés, George Orwell took a typically severe line: "Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech that you are used to seeing in print." All very well for him to say, but wasn't he, uh, setting the bar rather high? He was a journalist, the greatest of the 20th century, but how many times did an editor say to him, at 7:20 p.m., "We need it by eight o'clock or we don't need it?" I love Orwell, but his advice should be seen in the same light as the Ten Commandments: Mostly admirable in theory, definitely worth bearing in mind, but unlikely to be entirely achieved in practice."
"On clichés, George Orwell took a typically severe line: "Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech that you are used to seeing in print." All very well for him to say, but wasn't he, uh, setting the bar rather high? He was a journalist, the greatest of the 20th century, but how many times did an editor say to him, at 7:20 p.m., "We need it by eight o'clock or we don't need it?" I love Orwell, but his advice should be seen in the same light as the Ten Commandments: Mostly admirable in theory, definitely worth bearing in mind, but unlikely to be entirely achieved in practice."
READ THIS
Naturally. He didn't shoot Jews because he was an anti-Semite, he did it because he was low on money! This explains everything.
Naturally. He didn't shoot Jews because he was an anti-Semite, he did it because he was low on money! This explains everything.
I've never been in a Diesel store, but I experience a similar disorientation when I shop, though generally, it's not from a plethora of options, it's because I can't really tell the men's clothes from the women's. Ahh, fashion...
QUOTE: If you've been following the Bull Moose, this shouldn't have surprised you:
" It was McCain at his best--which is to say, very good. About the only time McCain didn't seem sure of himself came at the end of the show, when Russert asked the by now pro forma question whether McCain was going to run for president.
"Would you ever run as a Democrat for president?" Russert asked.
"No," McCain replied.
"Would you ever run as an Independent?" Russert asked.
"I envision no scenario," McCain said.
"Ooh, that's different," Russert gushed."
" It was McCain at his best--which is to say, very good. About the only time McCain didn't seem sure of himself came at the end of the show, when Russert asked the by now pro forma question whether McCain was going to run for president.
"Would you ever run as a Democrat for president?" Russert asked.
"No," McCain replied.
"Would you ever run as an Independent?" Russert asked.
"I envision no scenario," McCain said.
"Ooh, that's different," Russert gushed."
QUOTE:
Harvey Pitt (the SEC Chairman) was a disaster on Meet the Press yesterday. To wit:
" Sitting back in his seat with a somewhat sleepy look on his face, Pitt tried to convince Russert--and the viewing public--that he was serious about fighting corporate fraud. "I'm the right person for the job," Pitt said in explaining why he would not resign, "and the American public expects me to be there pitching in for them and making sure that they get a fair deal." He argued that the legal work he did in the past for the Big Five accounting firms, brokerage houses, and major corporations did not mean that he could not do his job as SEC chairman--even though Pitt's had to recuse himself from 10 percent of the cases the SEC has heard during his first year in the post: "I represented people when I was in private practice. I gave that up a very long time ago to represent the American public. This guilt by occupation is really a needless diversion." And Pitt tried to turn the tables on the politicians who have called for his resignation, employing one of their own favorite tricks: "I'm not going to listen to the politicians. I'm going to listen to Donna from California, who told me that she and her husband lost a third of their retirement."
None of these defenses were particularly stirring. But perhaps the most telling moment came when Russert asked Pitt, who had just defended President Bush's conduct as a director of Harken Energy back in the early '90s, whether that sort of "passionate" defense of the president would "affect people's view of you as totally independent." Pitt replied, "I'm not passionate in defending anyone"--which couldn't have been much comfort to the American public he's supposed to be defending."
Harvey Pitt (the SEC Chairman) was a disaster on Meet the Press yesterday. To wit:
" Sitting back in his seat with a somewhat sleepy look on his face, Pitt tried to convince Russert--and the viewing public--that he was serious about fighting corporate fraud. "I'm the right person for the job," Pitt said in explaining why he would not resign, "and the American public expects me to be there pitching in for them and making sure that they get a fair deal." He argued that the legal work he did in the past for the Big Five accounting firms, brokerage houses, and major corporations did not mean that he could not do his job as SEC chairman--even though Pitt's had to recuse himself from 10 percent of the cases the SEC has heard during his first year in the post: "I represented people when I was in private practice. I gave that up a very long time ago to represent the American public. This guilt by occupation is really a needless diversion." And Pitt tried to turn the tables on the politicians who have called for his resignation, employing one of their own favorite tricks: "I'm not going to listen to the politicians. I'm going to listen to Donna from California, who told me that she and her husband lost a third of their retirement."
None of these defenses were particularly stirring. But perhaps the most telling moment came when Russert asked Pitt, who had just defended President Bush's conduct as a director of Harken Energy back in the early '90s, whether that sort of "passionate" defense of the president would "affect people's view of you as totally independent." Pitt replied, "I'm not passionate in defending anyone"--which couldn't have been much comfort to the American public he's supposed to be defending."
LINK: Well, I should give credit to Byron York, as unflappable a Bush-backer as any you'll ever find: he believes Bush should turn over the Harken SEC file, if only to shut people up. I agree. Isn't Bill Clinton an object lesson in what happens if you don't give out the whole truth right away? I doubt Bush did anything illegal (at least, I doubt that he did so intentionally), but the longer he holds out, the more serious any malfeasance is going to look. And, given the way the market has been performing, the economic sector could use a good "go ahead and look, I've got nothing to hide" performance. Well, I guess we'll have to wait and see.
SPEAKING OF:
"Meanwhile, in Isfahan -the epicenter of the anti-regime demonstrations (just as it was the eye of the hurricane that brought down the Shah 23 years ago)-there have been numerous proclamations and rallies in support of the regime's most visible critic, the Ayatollah Montazeri. Montazeri, who has been under house arrest for years, issued a fatwah some weeks ago, denouncing the practice of suicide bombing as sinful, and was praised last week by Ayatollah Taheri, who resigned as Imam of Isfahan and issued the most violent denunciation in the history of the Islamic Republic of the evils of the regime. The mounting support for this aged cleric is yet another sign of the disintegration of the extremist religious tyranny that has wrecked Iran at the same time it has devoted enormous resources to the support of anti-American terrorism."
-the aforementioned Michael Ledeen. And "Faster, please" seems to be a fitting "Carthago delenda est" for our time.
"Meanwhile, in Isfahan -the epicenter of the anti-regime demonstrations (just as it was the eye of the hurricane that brought down the Shah 23 years ago)-there have been numerous proclamations and rallies in support of the regime's most visible critic, the Ayatollah Montazeri. Montazeri, who has been under house arrest for years, issued a fatwah some weeks ago, denouncing the practice of suicide bombing as sinful, and was praised last week by Ayatollah Taheri, who resigned as Imam of Isfahan and issued the most violent denunciation in the history of the Islamic Republic of the evils of the regime. The mounting support for this aged cleric is yet another sign of the disintegration of the extremist religious tyranny that has wrecked Iran at the same time it has devoted enormous resources to the support of anti-American terrorism."
-the aforementioned Michael Ledeen. And "Faster, please" seems to be a fitting "Carthago delenda est" for our time.
IRAN, OF ALL PLACES:
If you haven't been following the (largely student-led) reform movement in Iran, pushing for a more responsive government and freedom of speech and the press, you could do worse than ramble on over to NRO and check out the last several pieces by Michael Leeden. BUt if you want an idea of how shamefully the State Department is behaving vis-a-vis this movement, check this out.
If you haven't been following the (largely student-led) reform movement in Iran, pushing for a more responsive government and freedom of speech and the press, you could do worse than ramble on over to NRO and check out the last several pieces by Michael Leeden. BUt if you want an idea of how shamefully the State Department is behaving vis-a-vis this movement, check this out.
IN OTHER WORDS, HE'S DEAD:
"Al Jazeera reports the following: "The chief editor of the Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, Abd-al-Bari Atwan, has cited individuals close to Usama Bin Ladin as saying that Bin Ladin is alive and well after recovering from wounds he sustained in an air attack against Tora Bora in Afghanistan last December. They say that Bin Ladin was hit in the shoulder by shrapnel and that he has completely recovered. They however said that from now on al-Qa'ida leader will not appear on videotapes just to speak but to react to any possible future attack against the United States." "
"Al Jazeera reports the following: "The chief editor of the Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, Abd-al-Bari Atwan, has cited individuals close to Usama Bin Ladin as saying that Bin Ladin is alive and well after recovering from wounds he sustained in an air attack against Tora Bora in Afghanistan last December. They say that Bin Ladin was hit in the shoulder by shrapnel and that he has completely recovered. They however said that from now on al-Qa'ida leader will not appear on videotapes just to speak but to react to any possible future attack against the United States." "
10.7.02
DUMBASS QUOTE OF THE DAY:
"davniner: i have to eat now, but here's an interesting thought: philosophy is like the dark ages of human reasoning"
Riiight. As much as my Philosophy 202 GSI would disapprove of my using this argument, there'd be no science without philosophers. All the early Greeks, Euclid included-- amateur Philosophers. Don't even get me started about Pythagoras. Descartes, who, more than any other man, laid the groundwork for mathematics and physics that came after him, did his most important (and timeless) writing about Philosophy. Newton and Leibniz: both philosophers (Leibniz a particularly interesting one): Newton's groundbreaking treatise was called, after all, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.
Two other points:
1. This argument is a variation on the one famously put forward by Auguste Comte, the founder of sociology, also rather notably completely mentally unstable. I'm not sure which association is worse: endorsing the arguments of a crazy man, or a sociologist.
2. It is clichéd, to be sure, but it bears repeating: had Einstein never lived, someone would've eventually figured out General Relativity; if Bach had never lived, there'd be no Brandenberg Concertos. And, in my opinion, the world would be a worse place without the latter than without the former. But I can understand why scientists (and future scientists) are reticent to accept this: even if they're great geniuses, they're never that far ahead of their time, and someone else would always eventually be able to do their work. Hell, they'll even be surpassed by someone else someday. But Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Beethoven, Socrates: those men are the sine qua non of civilization. If I were going into a profession where I'd be another unimportant cog, I'd be bitter too.
"davniner: i have to eat now, but here's an interesting thought: philosophy is like the dark ages of human reasoning"
Riiight. As much as my Philosophy 202 GSI would disapprove of my using this argument, there'd be no science without philosophers. All the early Greeks, Euclid included-- amateur Philosophers. Don't even get me started about Pythagoras. Descartes, who, more than any other man, laid the groundwork for mathematics and physics that came after him, did his most important (and timeless) writing about Philosophy. Newton and Leibniz: both philosophers (Leibniz a particularly interesting one): Newton's groundbreaking treatise was called, after all, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.
Two other points:
1. This argument is a variation on the one famously put forward by Auguste Comte, the founder of sociology, also rather notably completely mentally unstable. I'm not sure which association is worse: endorsing the arguments of a crazy man, or a sociologist.
2. It is clichéd, to be sure, but it bears repeating: had Einstein never lived, someone would've eventually figured out General Relativity; if Bach had never lived, there'd be no Brandenberg Concertos. And, in my opinion, the world would be a worse place without the latter than without the former. But I can understand why scientists (and future scientists) are reticent to accept this: even if they're great geniuses, they're never that far ahead of their time, and someone else would always eventually be able to do their work. Hell, they'll even be surpassed by someone else someday. But Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Beethoven, Socrates: those men are the sine qua non of civilization. If I were going into a profession where I'd be another unimportant cog, I'd be bitter too.
8.7.02
3.7.02
It is also well and good to remember that we are on the receiving end of a wonderful tradition that fought for hundreds, if not thousands, of years to free mankind: from fear, from want, and to become every great thing the world has ever seen. I believe Bob Dole put his finger rather precisely on this point a few years ago:
"Long before there was an American Dream, there was a dream that was America."
"Long before there was an American Dream, there was a dream that was America."
And one last thing to chew on, if I may. we are the most powerful country in the history of the world. It is not in spite of this fact that we are free and prosperous, whatever history may tell us (Satayana and, for that matter, Gibbon, be damned), we are powerful precisely because we are free, and we want nothing more than to spread that freedom everywhere in the world. We may not always do it perfectly, but there has never been a more noble goal in the history of humanity, and never have so many pushed so far towards that goal.
QUOTE: worth reprinting in full, by Susan Konig on NRO:
"Airplanes are banned from flying near U.S. landmarks on the 4th of July. People are talking about skipping large gatherings, avoiding sunny beaches and fireworks displays, malls and national parks, the cities and mass transit. What if something happens? Will terrorists strike again? Homicide bombers may strike here, at home in America.
The hell they will. Here are the top ten reasons why they won't:
1. We're too ticked off. Americans are emerging from the grief of September 11 and we're angry. We are not in the mood to be cowed. Ever see a couple of average Americans fighting over a parking space at Jones Beach? Don't mess with us.
2. It's America's birthday, the day that celebrates the founding of our country and all the principles that make her the greatest nation in the world. We don't celebrate what is called martyrdom in extremist countries. No one will send a bonus to your parents if you blow yourself up. It's hard to recruit homicide bombers when we have Blockbuster and bowling alleys and diners and Starbucks and paintball. You can work at McDonald's and get health insurance and tuition remission and free fries.
3. We're too nosy. Everyone wants to know everyone else's business so no one's going to get away with making shrapnel bomb belts in their apartment. Total strangers will ask you what you paid for your house and if you had a vaginal birth. It's impossible to get any privacy.
4. We're a nation of squealers. We're ready to turn anyone in. That's why the phone is always ringing off the hook after an episode of America's Most Wanted or Unsolved Mysteries. We want to help, we want to catch bad guys, and we don't want anyone to get away with anything. Look at the Unabomber, he had to live in a shack to get anything done. And he still got turned in by his own brother.
5. The element of surprise is gone. Buying too much fertilizer and trying to rent a Ryder truck? We're onto you ? writing down your license-plate number, getting your picture on videotape, tracing your credit card. You paid cash? Fuggedaboutit, you're busted.
6. No matter what the media would have us believe, disenfranchised groups do not flourish in the United States. Everyone has someone going to bat for him. Want to sleep in the church steps? Be my guest. Don't want to recite the Pledge of Allegiance? Enjoy your godlessness. Too fat to fly? Join a big fat class-action suit of the weight-challenged.
7. Terrorists are probably confused by the First Amendment. They're paralyzed into inaction by what they've learned about American life from the New York Post, Salon.com and Jackass. They were going to blow themselves up but they're glued to coverage of Martha Stewart's financial woes, the Catholic church scandal, and John Gotti's funeral.
8. This ain't France. We don't let people terrorize Jews here. [My note: damn straight! -Nick]
9. We've spent a lot of time trying to convince our kids that they are safe. We're picketing the nuclear-power plants, stockpiling KI, shaking out the mail for anthrax, plotting routes away from disaster, refreshing our Y2K water bottles in the basement. We're ready and whenever we're ready, nothing ever happens.
10. Ozzy, Internet spam, Lara Flynn Boyle's weight ? we've got a lot on our minds. In the summertime alone we have to watch out for Lyme, e coli, West Nile virus.
Terrorists, get in line."
"Airplanes are banned from flying near U.S. landmarks on the 4th of July. People are talking about skipping large gatherings, avoiding sunny beaches and fireworks displays, malls and national parks, the cities and mass transit. What if something happens? Will terrorists strike again? Homicide bombers may strike here, at home in America.
The hell they will. Here are the top ten reasons why they won't:
1. We're too ticked off. Americans are emerging from the grief of September 11 and we're angry. We are not in the mood to be cowed. Ever see a couple of average Americans fighting over a parking space at Jones Beach? Don't mess with us.
2. It's America's birthday, the day that celebrates the founding of our country and all the principles that make her the greatest nation in the world. We don't celebrate what is called martyrdom in extremist countries. No one will send a bonus to your parents if you blow yourself up. It's hard to recruit homicide bombers when we have Blockbuster and bowling alleys and diners and Starbucks and paintball. You can work at McDonald's and get health insurance and tuition remission and free fries.
3. We're too nosy. Everyone wants to know everyone else's business so no one's going to get away with making shrapnel bomb belts in their apartment. Total strangers will ask you what you paid for your house and if you had a vaginal birth. It's impossible to get any privacy.
4. We're a nation of squealers. We're ready to turn anyone in. That's why the phone is always ringing off the hook after an episode of America's Most Wanted or Unsolved Mysteries. We want to help, we want to catch bad guys, and we don't want anyone to get away with anything. Look at the Unabomber, he had to live in a shack to get anything done. And he still got turned in by his own brother.
5. The element of surprise is gone. Buying too much fertilizer and trying to rent a Ryder truck? We're onto you ? writing down your license-plate number, getting your picture on videotape, tracing your credit card. You paid cash? Fuggedaboutit, you're busted.
6. No matter what the media would have us believe, disenfranchised groups do not flourish in the United States. Everyone has someone going to bat for him. Want to sleep in the church steps? Be my guest. Don't want to recite the Pledge of Allegiance? Enjoy your godlessness. Too fat to fly? Join a big fat class-action suit of the weight-challenged.
7. Terrorists are probably confused by the First Amendment. They're paralyzed into inaction by what they've learned about American life from the New York Post, Salon.com and Jackass. They were going to blow themselves up but they're glued to coverage of Martha Stewart's financial woes, the Catholic church scandal, and John Gotti's funeral.
8. This ain't France. We don't let people terrorize Jews here. [My note: damn straight! -Nick]
9. We've spent a lot of time trying to convince our kids that they are safe. We're picketing the nuclear-power plants, stockpiling KI, shaking out the mail for anthrax, plotting routes away from disaster, refreshing our Y2K water bottles in the basement. We're ready and whenever we're ready, nothing ever happens.
10. Ozzy, Internet spam, Lara Flynn Boyle's weight ? we've got a lot on our minds. In the summertime alone we have to watch out for Lyme, e coli, West Nile virus.
Terrorists, get in line."
I LIKE ISRAEL, in case you hadn't figured out. Here's a good reason to join me: Israel loves us, too, and everything we stand for.
LINK: I'm not one to recommend drinking (divisive snickers), but you could do worse than to slip up and toast the Great Experiment.
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