HUCUL SIGHTING: On the first floor of Mason. Not as good as seeing him that day on the way to work. What were you doing on my turf anyway?

this weird feeling that that was what I was waiting for

It's bad writing that annoys me most of all

QUOTE: from AmericanHeritage.com's list of most overrated and underrated things:

"Overrated
Any novel published, to critical acclaim, during the last 50 years that “reveals the torment� of the dysfunctional American middle-class family. Despite all the whining self-therapy (failed, failed! ) in prose, and the apocalyptic warnings that suburban marriage, especially, is a doomed institution, the American family looks a lot stronger these days than does the American novel. Now, family dysfunction is real enough, but the Book of Genesis did a perfectly satisfying job of nailing it in short-story format (“Uh, Mom, Abel just had an accident out in the field … can I have an apple?�), and King Lear said anything additional that wanted saying, and it’s time for our self-important, pity-me-because-my-mommy-yelled-at-me scribblers of fiction to do a Huck Finn and head out for territory that ain’t so civilized …

The pity of it all isn’t the waste of talent. In a nation as large as ours, talent is cheap. But the contemporary American novel should be a grand and glorious thing indeed, given the subject matter available to us. Our novelists are the citizens of the most powerful, innovative, complex, and various nation in history. They don’t have to approve of American power and prowess, but one wonders why they insist on writing little exercises in self-absorption when such a wealth of themes and settings lies all around. We have plenty of novels by Americans these days, but where are our American novels? We live in an age of endless, turbulent, dazzling human frontiers, yet our novels can’t seem to get beyond the fears of the child’s bedroom. Where is the collision of glory and vainglory, where is the bigness of it all, and where, for that matter, are our novels of empire?

Smallness isn’t always a virtue. Sometimes, smallness is just small."

QUOTE: Andrew Sullivan on Hitch's defection:

"At some point, when you look around and see that this is the quality of one's ideological allies, you have to break ranks, if only for the sake of personal moral hygiene. "

FROM THE JOURNAL: 09/28/01:

"My impartial critique is that the conversation went on a little too long and the part at the end where I got momentarily goofy (not in relation to anything) was FUCKING STUPID. But I self-judge rather harshly. "

GO YANKEES!:

"Game of the year
And finally, it's time for Year in Review to pick its official Best Game of the Year. And the winner is ...

The tremendous, 13-12, 14-inning, 494-pitch classic between the Yankees and Twins on May 17 -- a game that ended with Jason Giambi's epic walkoff grand slam, one which made Giambi the second American Leaguer in history to hit a game-ending extra-inning slam with his team trailing by three. The other: Babe Ruth.

When Giambi's slam returned to earth, it had turned what looked like a 12-9 loss into an unforgettable win. But not for everybody.

We would like to report that nobody on the Yankees will ever forget it. But that's not exactly true -- since one member of the Yankees never even knew it happened. Not for another 10 hours, at least.

He was the next day's starting pitcher, Ted Lilly. The Yankees sent him home in the middle of the game so he could rest for his start the next afternoon. And nobody can't say Ted Lilly doesn't follow orders.

They sent him home to get some sleep. So he went to sleep, as ordered.

You might have thought the first thing he would have done the next morning is jump out of bed and turn on Sportscenter, log onto ESPN.com or at least check the newspaper. But instead ...

At 10:30 the next morning, he and teammate Randy Choate were waiting for their ride to the ballpark in front of their apartment building, when Lilly turned to Choate and asked: "By the way, who won last night?""

NOTE: It always seems like I'm reading the right book at the right time. To wit (from Lucky Jim):

"'Don't be silly, Christine," Dixon said irritably. 'You're talking as if you were the one who initiated everything. If anyone was responsible for all sorts of trouble, as you call it, it was me. Not that I think I'm much to blame for anything, any more than you were. It was all perfectly natural. All this self-reproach strikes me as a bit forced.'"

THE DECENT LEFT: Christopher Hitchens shows us the way:

"I am much more decided in my mind about two further points. I am on the side of the Iraqi and Kurdish opponents of this filthy menace. And they are on the side of civil society in a wider conflict, which is the civil war now burning across the Muslim world from Indonesia to Nigeria. The theocratic and absolutist side in this war hopes to win it by exporting it here, which in turn means that we have no expectation of staying out of the war, and no right to be neutral in it. But there are honorable allies to be made as well, and from now on all of our cultural and political intelligence will be required in order to earn their friendship and help isolate and destroy their enemies, who are now ours--or perhaps I should say mine.

Only a fool would trust the Bush Administration to see all of this. I am appalled that by this late date no proclamation has been issued to the people of Iraq, announcing the aims and principles of the coming intervention. Nor has any indictment of Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity been readied. Nothing has been done to conciliate Iran, where the mullahs are in decline. The Palestinian plight is being allowed to worsen (though the Palestinians do seem to be pressing ahead hearteningly with a "regime change" of their own). These misgivings are obviously not peripheral. But please don't try to tell me that if Florida had gone the other way we would be in better hands, or would be taking the huge and honorable risk of "destabilizing" our former Saudi puppets.

Moreover, it's obvious to me that the "antiwar" side would not be convinced even if all the allegations made against Saddam Hussein were proven, and even if the true views of the Iraqi people could be expressed. All evidence pointed overwhelmingly to the Taliban and Al Qaeda last fall, and now all the proof is in; but I am sent petitions on Iraq by the same people (some of them not so naïve) who still organize protests against the simultaneous cleanup and rescue of Afghanistan, and continue to circulate falsifications about it. The Senate adopted the Iraq Liberation Act without dissent under Clinton; the relevant UN resolutions are old and numerous. I don't find the saner, Richard Falk-ish view of yet more consultation to be very persuasive, either.

This is something more than a disagreement of emphasis or tactics. When I began work for The Nation over two decades ago, Victor Navasky described the magazine as a debating ground between liberals and radicals, which was, I thought, well judged. In the past few weeks, though, I have come to realize that the magazine itself takes a side in this argument, and is becoming the voice and the echo chamber of those who truly believe that John Ashcroft is a greater menace than Osama bin Laden. (I too am resolutely opposed to secret imprisonment and terror-hysteria, but not in the same way as I am opposed to those who initiated the aggression, and who are planning future ones.) In these circumstances it seems to me false to continue the association, which is why I have decided to make this "Minority Report" my last one."

Harrowing.

LINK: Hitch on Iraq, and the best possible reason to fight a war there.

LINK: I also have a dream...

QUOTE: Tom Hayden in The Nation; read for yourself, if you can. But for fun, let's see how many clichés he can pack into one paragraph:

" The world of BS--"before Seattle"--was a dizzying can-do era of overnight millionaires with fantasies of wiring the planet in a grid of greed. Then came the protests, the greatest civil disobedience of the era, with thousands of people teaching the masters of the universe that they could no longer conduct business as usual, and the fantasy world began to shudder."

QUOTE: from this article on Orientalism in classical music:

"Before you throw away those tickets to Madama Butterfly (and cancel that pre-concert meal at Wagamama), you might want to consider one episode in the history of musical "Orientalism." Three centuries ago, Europe was obsessed with "Turkish" music. Ottoman ambassadors visiting Europe often brought along their own ceremonial bands called mehter. The musicians blew piercing wind instruments, crashed cymbals and triangles, and most dramatically, thumped on an enormous bass drum. For those accustomed to the more refined sound of European court orchestras, the effect was thrilling. Before long, Turkish fashion swept European capitals. Many European courts employed their own mehter, and Western music underwent subtle (and not so subtle) changes. The piccolo grew in orchestral prominence, while fortepianos came accessorized with pedals that could operate "Turkish" cymbals or bells. The Turks, meanwhile, did some cultural appropriation of their own, abandoning their straight trumpets for the looped-tube variety invented in Europe.

"Alla turca" music became the rage. Mozart's 1782 opera, The Abduction from the Seraglio, is one of the best-known examples, though countless symphonies and sonatas of the time were also embellished with "Turkish" themes or movements. By the time of Beethoven, experimentation with Turkish instruments hardly raised an eyebrow — they had been swallowed up in the standard European orchestra. When was the last time you heard the ecstatic finale of Beethoven's Ninth, and identified the section with bass drum, triangles and cymbals as a "Turkish" march?

There's much to celebrate in this story. Both cultures were enriched by their encounter, both were changed, both were "guilty" of cultural appropriation. Cultural promiscuity is almost always a profoundly creative act. Music and the arts thrive when they open themselves up to foreign influences. When they remain insulated and protected, they often become fossilized rituals devoid of emotional relevance."

QUOTE: The transcript in which Ari Fleischer tries to pretend President Bush didn't say what he actually did:

"Q The President, whenever he talks about homeland defense on the stump, says something to the effect of the Senate is more interested in special interests than in the interests of the security of the American people. On Monday, and at least one other time this month, he has said instead that the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington, and not interested in the security of the American people. When he said that Monday, and he said it in Kentucky, did he misspeak? Or does he really believe that Democrats are not interested in the security of the American people?
MR. FLEISCHER: Ron, this is a policy debate, where people have said of the President, in terms of his positions on these flexibility measures that I just cited, they have differences with the President. And the President has differences, and he's working with the Democrats and Republicans to bring people together so that we can have a homeland security department. And that's where the President is on this.
Now, in terms of what the President said, I'm aware of the debate that is taking place on Capitol Hill, and the accusations that have been made about the President on this. And now is a time for everybody concerned to take a deep breath, to stop finger-pointing, and to work well together to protect our national security and our homeland defense.[more Ari-babble]
Q I appreciate that. But the question wasn't about what Senator Daschle said; it's what the President said in that speech and in one in Kentucky, where he says -- I'm taking his words literally -- "the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington, and not interested in the security of the American people." Did the President mean to say that the Senate is not interested in the security of the American people, or did he misspeak?
MR. FLEISCHER: There is no doubt about it. If this does not pass into law because special interest provisions will have prevailed, the Senate will not have acted in the best interests of the American people. And the interests of the special interests will have been put ahead, and the result will be that the Senate will not have acted in that interest, for the national security.
Q Sorry, I don't want to be argumentative here, but you're not responding to the question, because that's not what the President said. The President said, "the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington, and not interested in the security of the American people." Did he mean to say that the Senate is not interested in the security of the American people, or did he misspeak? It's one of the two.
MR. FLEISCHER: The President is stating the fact that unless and until this passes, the Senate will not have acted in the interests of the security of the American people. Homeland security is just that; it is the security of the American people.
Q That's not what he said. He said, "the Senate is not interested in the security of the American people." He didn't say "if" or "whether" or "but."
MR. FLEISCHER: He made that --
Q He said, "the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington, and not interested in the security of the American people." Did he mean to say that, or did he misspeak?"

QUOTE: Jay Nordinger:

"One of the great clichés is, “Freedom is indivisible,� and it’s true. Solzhenitsyn, a Russian former schoolteacher, inspired strugglers all over the world, and he still does. When Armando Valladares publishes Against All Hope, about Cuba, it lifts dissidents in some dungeon in China.
So I was moved to read about Vaclav Havel’s recent meeting with Cuban exiles in Miami. Here is an excerpt from Carol Rosenberg’s report in the Miami Herald:
“Among the Cuban dissidents who greeted Havel at the Freedom Tower was Ramon Colas — just eight months in Miami. A founder of the independent library of Las Tunas, he said he discovered the Czech thinker in 1998, when a copy of ‘The Power of the Powerless’ arrived among donated books.
“‘It was extremely emotional to meet him,’ said Colas, 40. . . . The former child psychologist said he lost his job at a Cuban hospital because he worked with opposition groups inspired by Havel’s books. ‘Havel showed me the power of living in the world of truth. He told me that, even in the middle of the Castro dictatorship, I was a free man.’�...
While we’re on Eastern European heroes, I noted that Lech Walesa has just started a TV show on fishing. And isn’t he entitled? That is a fruit of freedom: Rather than risk your neck for liberation, you can talk about fishing — or do it."

LINK: Interesting

QUOTE:

"The Israelis and the Palestinians are scared to the point of de-shitment"

-from The Daily Show

QUOTE: Josh Marshall reports something I pretty much already knew:

"Christopher Hitchens is finally leaving The Nation. He'll apparently make the announcement in a column in the magazine's next issue. Hitchens seems to no longer believe the Nation audience is a receptive or congenial one for him, given his hawkish stands on the war on terrorism and Iraq and -- I would imagine at least -- more or less everything he's written for the last half dozen years or so. The Nation released the following statement -- which will apparently also run in the next issue -- to TPM Wednesday afternoon ...
We note with keen regret that this week marks the final appearance of Christopher Hitchens's column, "Minority Report." We have been publishing Christopher for more than twenty years, and the relationship with him has been a rewarding one for this magazine and for our readers. That is testimony to the fact that Christopher has always been completely free to express his views, and differences he has had with the editors he has honorably ventilated. We will miss his eloquent and passionate voice and his elegantly crafted prose. We'll be reporting more on this as it develops"

LINK: Something to reflect upon

LINK: The Frogs, doing something right? Stranger things have happened.

LINK: Tom Daschle let's 'em have it, and with good reason, too. The real, burning question on everyone's mind: what the hell were you thinking with that tie? Pink? Seriously...

QUOTE: Derb!

"The English have nothing to be ashamed of in this regard, having been exceptionally hospitable to the Jews since re-admitting them in Oliver Cromwell’s time. (A marvellous story in itself, told in Part Four of Paul Johnson’s History of the Jews.) English philosemitism has continued in a direct line of descent since then, enlisting such notable figures as Sir Walter Scott, Queen Victoria, Charles Dickens, George Meredith, David Lloyd George and Margaret Thatcher. Most Americans would consider it a wonderful and striking thing if a Jew were to be elected President of these United States. Pooh: we Brits had Benjamin Disraeli as Prime Minister 133 years ago. (Yes, I know, his father took the whole family to Christianity when Benjamin was 13. But Dizzy was born a Jew.) I was a bit disconcerted some years ago, when some different Jewish friends took me along to a Kol Nidre service, and I discovered that the only reference to England in the prayer book was to the 12th-century pogrom at York. Come on, guys: that was eight hundred years ago. Isn't there a statute of limitations on pogroms?"

THE EPITOME OF IDIOCY:

"Hello everyone,

The next philosophy club meeting will be Thursday, the 26th at 7pm in the
basement of the Coffee Beanery (formerly Cava Java) on South University. Bring
your favorite ethical dilemmas, real or imagined, for everyone to ponder.
Here's an example stolen from the movie "Magnolia":

Johnny hates his life. His parents fight all the time and make being at home a
horrible experience. When his parents fight, his mother always picks up his
father's shotgun and threatens to shoot her husband. Johnny knows this, so he
loads the normally unloaded shotgun in the hope that his mother will actually
kill his father and all this horrible fighting will come to an end right there.
Johnny's parents don't fight for a long time and Johnny forgets about the
loaded shotgun. Then one day his parents do get in a terrible fight. Johnny
can't take it anymore so he goes on the roof of their apartment building to
jump off and kill himself, suicide note in his pocket. The very moment Johnny
jumps off the building to kill himself, Johnny's mother is downstairs arguing
with her husband. She picks up the shotgun and threatens to shoot her husband.
The gun goes off and the bullet flies out the window and hits Johnny in the
chest on his suicidal fall towards the pavement. What Johnny didn't know was
that some workmen had set up a safety net for some window washers coming by the
building later. Johnny would have survived the fall had he not been hit by the
bullet fired by his mother as he fell from the roof.

SO, who's fault is it that Johnny died?"

LINK: What Blair may have to look forward to by virtue of doing the right thing.

QUOTE: Michael Walzer on TNR Online about inspections in Iraq:

"If the inspectors had been forcibly supported, their employer, the U.N., would be much stronger than it currently is, and it would be very difficult for the United States or anyone else to plan a war without going through the U.N.'s decision-making procedures. But the failure of the '90s is not easy to rectify, and it doesn't help to pretend that the U.N. is an effective agent of global law and order when it isn't. Many states insist that they support the renewal of the inspection system, but so long as they are unwilling to use force on its behalf, their support is suspect. They profess to be defending the international rule of law, but how can the law "rule" when there is no law enforcement? When the Bush administration worries that the return of the inspectors would be (in Vice President Dick Cheney's words) "false comfort," it is reflecting a general belief, shared by Saddam, that our European allies would never agree to use force in order to ensure that those inspectors receive unfettered access to possible weapons-development sites. Indeed, until this last week, the Europeans were not seriously trying to renew the inspection system--probably because they were reluctant to face the enforcement question. U.N. negotiators dithered with Iraqi negotiators in a diplomatic dance that seems to have been designed for delay and ultimate failure. It still isn't clear that the dance is over.

Delay is dangerous because once Saddam has weapons of mass destruction and effective delivery systems, our threat to use force against Iraq will be far less plausible than it could be today. But as I have stipulated, Saddam doesn't have them yet. If the administration thinks that Iraq is already a nuclear power, or is literally on the verge of becoming one, then the past months of threatening war rather than fighting it would seem to represent, from the administration's perspective, something like criminal negligence. If there is even a little time before Iraq gets the bomb, the rapid restoration of the inspection system is surely the right thing to aim at--and immensely preferable to the "preemptive" war that many in Washington (including this magazine) so eagerly support."

QUOTE: James S. Robbins, writing on NRO, about the Dossier:

"It is true that much of the same information was covered by a report from the International Institute of Strategic Studies, released a few weeks ago. And the new material (such as the 45-minute deployment window for Iraqi biological and chemical weapons) is not clearly marked as such, though the phrase "we now know" seems to indicate a more recent vintage. But even if everything in the report was something previously known, simply saying "there is nothing new" is not an argument against the validity, veracity, or importance of the document. Violations are violations, whether newly discovered or previously noted. What this position does show is the critics' perspective, one of acceptance. They are willing to allow Iraq to violate arms-control agreements and do nothing about it. The report is comprehensive — it is hard to deny the charges — so these critics do not even try. They do not say the facts are wrong, they simply are not interested in them. Since the opponents of taking resolute action against the emerging Iraqi threat have no case to make, they make a virtue of their resignation.

Some have challenged the factual basis of the report. For example, the Iraqi government called the document a "sheer fabrication" and is offering to let British journalists tour the named WMD development sites to see for themselves. To see what, one wonders? Would journalists — or congressmen for that matter — be able to identify tanks of banned anhydrous-hydrogen-fluoride gas (used in nuclear-weapons production) if they were sitting right in front of them? Or a "filament winding machine which could be used to manufacture carbon fiber gas centrifuge rotors?" I doubt I could, but that's what we have inspectors for."

LINK: I find this funny, but it probably only works if you're familiar with Zagat's. Oh well.

QUOTE: David on Kyoto:

"The earth's tempertaure is a complex chaotic system that probably contains many bifurcation points (points at which tiny changes drastically effect its future value) with respect to the many variables that it depends on. One thing that Chaos theory teaches us is that alternation is a signature of a "well-behaved" complex system. It seems that the earth's temperature has gone up and down ever since temperatures were first recorded (if you trust their accuracy, which many global warming advocates do). It seems then that this alternation is not only to be expected, but is actually a sign that the earth's temperature is not out of control. Also, there are many factors that affect the earth's temperature that have not really been studied. One such example is sun spot activity. The changes in sun spots may account for this alleged .6 K temperature increase."

I think he makes a lot of sense. Anyone care to disagree?

LINK: Tony Blair, America's best ally. You can read it all here. Leave it to the Brits to look after our best interests. To return the favor, I suggest pressing Labour hard when they try to vote to join the European Union.

LINK: One of the benefits of living in the dorms (well, Couzens, at least) is getting the New York Times everyday, and one of the reasons that getting a physical copy often leads you to read things you'd ignore if you only read the online version. To wit this, which only heightens my respect for the principles of the current Administration.

(to my more Liberal friends: don't worry, they still do a lot of stuff I don't like)

QUOTE: Jonah sounds off:

" This illustrates why, for example, the talk we hear from the paleo-Right and the anti-American Left and most places in-between about the American "empire" is so disingenuous. In fact, if you look really, really closely, you'll discover that when American lefty intellectuals prattle about American imperialism it is mostly a metaphorical argument. They confuse our cultural dominance with the Roman Empire's dominance, skipping right over the fact that the Roman Empire installed Roman governors, collected imperial taxes, imposed Roman law, conscripted colonial subjects into the Roman army (eventually), and generally considered Rome the supreme and final authority on a important question.

Sure, the U.S. has military bases all over the world — which are often compared to Roman garrisons — but unlike Roman garrisons their host countries can get rid of them by asking them to leave. The same holds true for our overly hyped "imperial" holdings, like Puerto Rico. They are one referendum away from independence.

Anyway, my point is simply this: Saying we rule the world doesn't make it so. We don't rule the world. We lead the world-this is a huge distinction to people who live outside the intellectual menagerie of an Ivy League English department. If the coolest guy in school wears a leather jacket and all the other kids follow suit, that's hardly the same thing as the coolest guy forcing them at gunpoint to buy a leather jacket from him.

Now, the fact that we are not an empire, but could be one if we wanted to, confuses the dickens of all sorts of people. Indeed, some people find the idea so confusing they willfully refuse to believe it and just go on insisting we are an empire the way the guy in the Monty Python skit just kept insisting the parrot wasn't dead. Other folks don't use the word "empire" but they are just as confused about America's behavior. Marxists, for example, have a hard time fathoming that America doesn't behave according to their straight-line predictions about how a capitalism "hegemon" should behave. So they mine the data. They ignore the inconvenient and misinterpret the unignorable."

QUOTE:

"Every pop singer reacted to Sept. 11 a little differently. Alan Jackson felt confused, maybe a bit weepy, so he wrote "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)?" Toby Keith, on the other hand, went with angry and jingoistic in "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue." Bruce Springsteen offered comfort and reassurance. Now comes the singer-songwriter Steve Earle, and if you don't mind, he'd like to jam his thumb in your eye.

At least that's the impression you get right off the bat from his new CD, Jerusalem (Artemis). And it's not because of "John Walker's Blues," the song that got so much attention for its sympathetic take on John Lindh. The unsettling lead-off track is called "Ashes to Ashes," and it's a bizarrely fatalistic number that compares the collapse of the World Trade Center towers to the meteor that killed off the dinosaurs. "It's always best to keep it in mind," Earle sings, "that every tower ever built tumbles … And someday even man's best-laid plans/ Will lie twisted and covered in rust/ When we've done all we can but it slipped through our hands."

In a way, this should not come as a surprise. After all, Earle likes to cast himself as a lefty maverick who speaks unpopular truths. (He publicly pines for the days when the anarchist Emma Goldman was denouncing World War I as imperialist oppression.) And Artemis owner Danny Goldberg did ask him for an "overtly political" record, according to Earle, because "there were some things that needed to be said, especially now, in the world after 9/11." But surely what needed to be said, especially now, was not: Hey, shit happens. Those building were bound to come down eventually, so quit your bellyaching.

Other tracks on Jerusalem are nearly as grim. There's "Amerika v. 6.0 (The Best We Can Do)," a tiresome rant about an aging radical who's been reduced to firing off letters to the editor, cheating on his taxes, and kvetching about his HMO. And "Conspiracy Theory" dredges up the hackneyed notion that things could be set right, if only the heroes of the 1960s were still around: "What if you could've been there on that day in Dallas … Maybe something could've been done in Memphis/ We wouldn't be living in a dream that's died.""

-Josh Daniel, writing on Slate

TIMES PICKS ON ARABS: [Rod Dreher] New York Press is out this week with its mammoth, entertaining "Best of Manhattan 2002" issue. There's some really funny stuff in there, like this entry: "Best Harrassment of an Arab in the Wake of 9/11: ... It's two weeks after the World Trade Center massacre, and w're visiting our favorite pita place in the former shadows of the WTC. Maybe we're gullible enough to think that we're showing support for a local Arab-American. We ask if he's had any kind of harassment. 'There was this one woman,' he explained, 'who came in from The New York Times. She kept telling me that she understood if I hated America. I finally told her not to come back until she wanted to write about my business.'"

DAMN STRAIGHT

LINK: A Nice overview on the culture wars in English departments, from a writer who shares my literary persuasion, more or less

LINK: David Brooks on The book I just read, which, I must say, was really good.

LINK: Obit for one of the editors of Partisan Review.

Me likely:

"Although he was reputed to be less vehement than Rahv, he never much mellowed from the days when he had accused the "liberal" magazines such as the Nation of "licking Stalin's boots"."

LINK: Interesting take on the Kyoto Accords. Interested in hearing what David or Dara might have to say in response.

FILE UNDER 'THAT WAS FUN. I SHOULD DO THIS MORE OFTEN:'

"ameseliz81: bitch :0
NotByronDorgan: being a responsible student and not skipping class because it's cold out :o)
ameseliz81:
ameseliz81: I'd like to back up my original excuse for skipping class with the following: 1. Its Astronomy. thats right. the same class I had two hours ago. 2. Yes, its cold. And if I get sick then I 'll be even more behind in class than i would be if I didnt skip. 3. Its SEARS for crying out loud! I could cover everything he says in lecture in less than five minutes. Why waste an hour of my precious little life? 4. Going to class requires me to put on shoes, and since its cold, socks too. This could take at least an hour. 5. Again, going to class requires me to put on warmer clothes, so theres another hour changing "outfits" sixteen times. 6. Chances are, if I do go, cute boy wont even be there, and I'll feel like a pathetic loser. likewise, if I dont go, he'll be there looking for me and realize how much he misses me when I'm not there (i know i know --pathetic). 7. Did I mention its cold out?
ameseliz81: In conclusion, it would take me at least 2 hours to get ready for a boring, one hour class in which I learn nothing and could suffer from a drastic self esteem blow when cute boy doesnt show up. SO THERE. "

AND TO THE OTHER: It's never been a real concern of mine (it's not that I don't have opinions on the topic, they just never materially affect how I see myself). But maybe that's a sign that it should be.

TO DARA'S QUOTE: Well, that's exactly what an epistemologist would say, isn't it? :o)

KICKING ASS AND TAKING NAMES: damn straight

OH YEAH: The other point I wanted to make: so let's say you have your utilitarian objection to the Holocaust. Who's to say the things you've listed as 'bad' are actually bad? Couldn't, for example, David Duke (or Edward Said, who'd be more likely to make this claim) come forward and announce that everything you said was bad was actually good? Wouldn't you need moral standards that are non-negotiable to give your claims some traction?

TO DARA (look dear, I increased the people reading your blog by two!):

I can see the thrust of your objections, inasfar as they go, but the thing that concerns me is that there's an obvious weak point: it is easy for us, at the remove of time, to see the vast and unsettling global effects of the Holocaust; I will also grant you that precient contemporary observers of events (including George Orwell, as the Hitch would want me to point out) who were not themselves German and, perhaps, had a grasp of the treatment of the world Jewry in the past and the attendant historical stresses occasioned thereby, would be able to construct a justification for opposing the Holocaust. The question, and I believe it's a key one for moral theory, is whether someone within Germany after 1933, who did not have a complete understanding of the geopolitics of the era, would be able to construct the same justification? And, indeed, even if they could, it is hard to see why they would choose that justification over the simpler and more obvious (and perhaps more obviously right) idea that "murder is wrong."
I would like to do justice to the thoroughness (and cleverness!) of your argumentation, I'd like to look at a couple of things you wrote specifically. First:

"I'd like to point out that while a universal moral standard (whether utilitarian or otherwise) is definitely necessary, the basis on which it is founded makes a great deal of difference. Surely, nearly all cultures and anyone with morals, whatever their origin, will agree that certain actions (let's stick with killing the innocent, for example) are wrong."

The upshot (I think) of what I had argued previously (I said it to Tara, at any rate) is that relativists of all stripes want the benefit of universal moral values to fall back on when necessary without having to deal with the consequences thereof.

"However, there is quite a problem when situations that are less cut and dried emerge."

I think I can let this off with a "perhaps." I've not seen the case convincingly made that one cannot, with a set of hard and fast principles, produce the revevant moral judgments on any situation possible. But moreover, I'm not convinced that the 'less cut and dried' cases are ethical questions in the same way that the clear cases are. And, even supposing that there are grey-area cases, I've not seen any reason to suspend our moral judgments when those cases emerge. To wit: stealing a loaf of bread to feed your family. Whatever final judgment one might render in that case, will it still not be true that stealing is bad and that taking care of people you have responsibility to is good? The murkiness of pragmatics does not seem to make the ethics murkier.


"Though a "moral realist" such as yourself might have an opinion one way or another, I think it is reasonable to accept that this question will not be universally agreed upon. In cases like these, there is no method for resolving differences between those with absolute views about right and wrong."

But again-- what is the point of having values that we acknowledge as paramount in the clear cases, if we're only going to drop them when things get difficult?

But as to the method of resolving point, I would say that I no more need to go above and beyond my argument for, say, the death penalty, then I need to go above and beyond my argument against the Holocaust-- I'm not making an epistemological claim that I must, in turn, justify, but I am rather making an ontological claim about the morality of the universe around us. The argument of a moral realist, then, does not seek to confirm or deny one set of beliefs, but rather explicate the consequences that stem form the world being as it is. I recognize that I just made a rather bold claim about moral systems, so if you would prefer to continue this part of the conversation in person, I wouldn't be offended

FROM MY JOURNAL: 9/20/01:

"I was walking past the peace demonstration in front of the MLB (which, if you were not a part of it, demonstrated your guilt as a racist and jingoist), where they were telling whoever was listening that they opposed the stereotyping of Arab-Americans and the construction of internment camps. Bold stands, both. I was passing some construction workers sitting in the back of a pickup truck nearby. As I shook my head, both nodded their solidarity with me. Said one: "Sounds like they?re smokin? the cheap shit, huh?" "

LINK: Haha. True

TO DARA: But the argument, I think, as it began with David, was not based on how individuals ought to evaluate how they act in a given situation (where your utilitarian model is not terribly different in effect (though vastly different in causes considered) from the one I'd advance). The question is how we are supposed to evaluate the actions of others. In this respect, I'm not sure you differ with me at all: there has to be some sort of slate of moral and immoral actions (not in actuality of course, strictly theoretical) that we can use to make some sort of value judgment. If there does not exist some set standard, it is hard to see how we can have any judgments about morality at all (which would have disasterous effects with, to use a couple of loaded examples, Nazis and Stalinists), or, failing that, it is hard to see why those moral judgments should carry any weight over and above the very little that can be ascribed to an individual's opinion.
For a sense of how non-moral realist schemes are counterintuitive, at least in obvious cases, the following thought-justification: explain why the Holocaust was bad without recourse to any universalizable moral law (e.g., "killing people is wrong"). I can see how it might be attempted on utilitarian grounds, but I'm not sure it can close the gap entirely. However, as Socrates says in the Protagoras, of all men, I'd be most happy to be proven wrong.

Of course, my dear utilitarian counterpart might object to my characterization of those who are not moral realists as gratificationists and moral cripples. But she has a blog herself, and is more than free to prove me wrong.

RAMBLING: David on Cultural Relativism: absolutely right. I've been a moral realist for many years now, and I always find it kind of stupifying that most people aren't. C.S. Lewis wrote a fascinating book on (more or less) this topic, called The Abolition of Man, where he made at least two points that I think are worth considering when moral realists go up against relativists. First, as he spents about a quarter of the book demonstrating, morality is not relative: every culture worth mentioning prohibits murder, stealing, lying and impiety; and we would do well to note that anyone who wouldn't be willing to make these values universal in application (or see why it is critical that we make them universal, e.g. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights) is probably missing a vital component of their humanity.
But this, I think, is not a widely held position. Most people who support moral relativism are really trying to pull a bait-and-switch on moral realists: values are not universal, but we can still make value judgments that carry moral weight. The obvious question is how morality can mean anything without the weight it carries as a unalterable system of right and wrong; otherwise, does it not depend wholly on the caprice of human opinion? Why should we care, in that instance. Lewis pointed out that people who argue this actually want a moral regime not unlike the one moral realists deploy-- they just want to avoid the consequences that come of it, usually because they have allegiance to something else-- be it an ideology, a state or a political agenda-- before they have an allegiance to the equality of man.

LINK: Wonkish detail David or Dara might enjoy, about the think between theory and practice via Heidegger.

"Heidegger did not merely bring the old books alive. He re-energized the meaning of philosophical concepts and the whole point of philosophy. Marcuse wrote to Heidegger that he had taught him what philosophy is. Heidegger freed the traditional topics by seeking to locate them in their ground. He placed words back in the soil from which they grew and were drawn. Philosophy had become academic or scholastic, an ordinary or acknowledged pursuit even if one with special power. Its possibility was taken for granted because its existence was actual in academic life. Heidegger, however, raised the following question: What is the ordinary or basic perspective from which philosophy arises, and how does it originate from this perspective? Philosophy's radical questioning is most unusual because it questions the ordinary. Yet its very activity must somehow originate in the ordinary. The "everyday" itself, however, is mysterious in the sense that it manifests itself less as a single ordinary perspective or horizon than as a variety of peoples, cultures, histories, and political regimes. One important step that Heidegger took to revitalize philosophy was to attempt to root it again in ordinary existence."

LINK: Good news from the Sudan, to go alongside the rumblings from Iran.

"About half the leaders of the resistance groups represented seem to be Arabic speakers and about half English speakers. A majority represents various Sudanese African tribes, and either Christianity or native religions of nature, but a large minority, represents Muslim rebels from different geographical regions, races and social classes. The Muslims are outspoken and emphatic in their disdain for the abuses of the good name of Islam perpetrated by the government in Khartoum. "Our problem is not religion," one after another insists, "but a politicalization of religion, an abuse of religion. They are not true Muslims!"

"But how do you argue," another says, a former professor who came home from a Western country to become a brigadier in the field, "when they quote a text from the Koran on amputation according to sharia law, and ask if you believe in that text? We accept the Koran. We are Muslims. But we do not accept an eleventh-century interpretation of Islam. We are twenty-first century people. We are Muslims, in a country with eleven different major tendencies among Muslims, and we are accustomed to tolerance of one another."

The delegates follow and understand my exposition of John Locke's secular argument for natural rights. "We are with you, we are in favor of human rights, we are with the West on these points ? with the world on these points, the Universal Declaration. But we are not secular. We are spiritual. We are religious. We want tolerance. How should we think about this, and how should we argue, and what arrangement should we propose?"

We want "separation," others clarify, but we understand that everything a Muslim does is done for and with Allah, and we don't want to lose the religious feeling about life. The Christians and those of natural religions nod."

THOSE CRAZY EUROFFS: at it again

LINK: Something to look forward to in a few months

doing my best to fight nihilistic rage; failing miserably

LINK: Does anyone else notice the problem with the picture here?

LINK: Make your own joke for this one

CORRECTION:

"Yes, you did say anti-labor attitudes are a sin. Here is your quote: "well, not only is that kind of attitude anti-labor (a bad enough sin as it is), it's also anti-capitalist..." You should correct this on your site."

Consider it done. I will, however, refer you to the part of my letter to you in which I noted that I could determine the semantic content of what I wrote. Keeping that in mind, the sense in which I used 'sin' was not literal or serious.

QUOTE:

"Well, I'm not sure if there is a God... or a heaven... but the one thing I can tell you for certain is your father is going to hell"

And this leads me to reflect, of course, how many of my classes require you to know quite a bit before you walk in the door. My 17th and 18th century Philosophers class depended heavily on having some knowledge of the Logical Positivists (which I, quite naturally, did not, but I beat the curve anyway). Language and Mind requires me to be familiar with Kripke, or at least with how a posteriori necessary truths function in science as a whole. As you might guess, I haven't a clue about that either.
It extends to other classes, too: British History 1945-1997 requires knowing about what happened before that period, at least in theory, and you won't make it through 17th Century Painting and Sculpture without being intimately familiar with the Bible (I knew 14 years of Sunday School would come in handy one day). The only class that isn't like that is, of course, my Ancient Philosophy class, where they assume we know abolutely nothing, and not without good reason.

A LESSON FOR US ALL: Sometimes you just have to passively resist. After having to read this (and to think: I used to like Ned Block), I steadfastly refused to read this (I did at least glance at it before not reading it). I believe I made the right choice.

FROM MR. HUCUL: who I presume would know about these things. I've done my patriotic duty: will you do yours?

"As we all know, the Taliban considers it a sin for a man to see a naked woman who is not his wife. So, this Saturday at 2:00 p.m.Eastern time all North American women are asked to walk out of their house completely naked to help weed out any neighborhood terrorists. Circling your block for one hour is recommended for this anti-terrorist effort. All men are to position themselves in lawn chairs in front of their house to prove they think it's okay to see other women nude and to show support for their fellow sisters. And since the Taliban also does not approve of alcohol, a cold six-pack at your side is further proof of your anti-Taliban sentiment. The United States of America appreciates your efforts to root out terrorists and applauds your participation. God bless America!! IT IS YOUR PATRIOTIC DUTY TO PASS THIS ON"

LINK: What's not to like about Tony Blair?

AN ADDENDUM FOR DAVID: This should follow at the end of the previous:

And this troubles me, my friend, because it seems such a petty disagreement for us to have when there is so much common ground between us on issues that are very important in the here and now: I suspect we're of one mind about Iraq and the War on Terrorism, and we both despise the sort of soft thinking that has such a prominent place in modern Left-Liberal discourses. There is much in here that we could work on quite productively. Now you, like I, are endowed with the wonderful gift of the Creator which permits us to feel our honor insulted whenever someone so much as hesitates at the infinitely rational products of our minds. And there is a lot to be said for this, when the time comes to have those arguments. But now, on this week, of all times, now is the time for us to find what we have in common: our humanity, our dedication to doing what is right, and our faith in the possibilities of the future. And so, all the best to you now and in the future

MY DEAREST DAVID:

First of all, I should like to point out that you seem to be misspelling my last name; it's T-R-O-E-S-T-E-R. I understand how that might be confusing.
Now, of course, you argue that MLB player salaries should be lowered somewhat. I'd like to point out that this is neither against the position I suggested, nor is it against the position of the MLBPA, which says that players ought to get paid whatever the market (in this case, the owners) will bear: the MLBPA, in fact, rejected a proposal to raise the minimum salary-- is that the sort of thing that money-grubbers do?
Secondly, successful union negotiations benefit all unions, because they provide effective tactics that get shared amongst all labor groups.
Further, I never referred to cutting the salary of anyone as a sin. If I'm wrong, as Martin Luther used to say, point it out to me and I'll gladly correct my mistake.
Anti-capitalist isn't reducible to anti-pure-capitalism, and even if it were, that wouldn't be what I meant (assuming, as I hope you do, that I am capable of determining the semantic content of what I write): what I meant was that opposing the placement of wage floors and ceilings (as the MLBPA did) is wholly consistent with any reasonable definition of what constitutes capitalism. Jeremiads about whether or not pure capitialism works, while valuable in their own right, don't seem to have much place here, because the topic I brought up was specific to one instance
And, a bit more specifically, if I may:

"It's like Nick's argument that language isn't a system of communication but rather reality itself through description because "that's the way its supposed to be." "

Actually, if you recall, I argued that language is both*, a distinction I think you didn't quite grasp at the time because, unfortunately, you were unwilling to do any reading whatsoever on the subject (and a cursory look at Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Philosophical Investigations will suffice to evince the two senses of language of which I speak), and, much as I hold real and sincere affection for you, I do not, even for a moment, feel compelled to justify myself to someone who proudly waves the flag of their own ignorance of the significant literature on a given topic.


*Even that, I'm afraid, isn't quite what I argued. I said that language exists as a set of formal symbols for interpreting the world, which are, by nature, going to be formally incomplete (the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus); and also that language is the subjective means by which we describe the world, where we run into all sorts of problems generated by ineffibility (The Wittgenstein of Philosophical Invesitgations)

ORWELL NOW:

"[T]here is a minority of intellectual pacifists whose real though unadmitted motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration of totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defence of western countries." -George Orwell, "Notes on Nationalism," 1945.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

- John McCrae

A MILESTONE HAS PASSED, AND A MISSION LIVES ON:

"September the 11th, 2001 will always be a fixed point in the life of America. The loss of so many lives left us to examine our own. Each of us was reminded that we are here only for a time. And these counted days should be filled with things that last and matter: love for our families, love for our neighbors and for our country, gratitude for life and to the giver of life.

We resolved a year ago to honor every last person lost.

We owe them remembrance, and we owe them more.

We owe them and their children, and our own, the most enduring monument we can build, a world of liberty and security, made possible by the way America leads and by the way Americans lead our lives.

The attack on our nation was also an attack on the ideals that make us a nation. Our deepest national conviction is that every life is precious, because every life is the gift of a creator who intended us to live in liberty and equality."

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

— Shakespeare's King Henry V, addressing his men before the battle of Agincourt

FROM DARA:

TRANSLATION OF KADDISH


May the great Name of God be exalted and sanctified, throughout the world, which he has created according to his will. May his Kingship be established in your lifetime and in your days, and in the lifetime of the entire household of Israel, swiftly and in the near future; and say, Amen.
May his great name be blessed, forever and ever.
Blessed, praised, glorified, exalted, extolled, honored elevated and lauded be the Name of the holy one, Blessed is he- above and beyond any blessings and hymns, Praises and consolations which are uttered in the world; and say Amen. May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and life, upon us and upon all Israel; and say, Amen.

He who makes peace in his high holy places, may he bring peace upon us, and upon all Israel; and say Amen.

LINK: Rich Lowry on what he remembers most

LINK

To Licinius

You'll do better, Licinius, not to spend your life
Venturing too far out on the dangerous waters,
Or else, for fear of storms, staying too close in
To the dangerous rocky shoreline. That man does best
Who chooses the middle way, so he doesn't end up
Living under a roof that's going to ruin
Or in some gorgeous mansion everyone envies.
The tallest pine shakes most in a wind storm;
The loftiest tower falls down with the loudest crash;
The lightning bolt heads straight for the mountain top.
Always expect reversals; be hopeful in trouble,
Be worried when things go well. That's how it is
For the man whose heart is ready for anything.
It's true that Jupiter brings on the hard winters;
It's also true that Jupiter takes them away.
If things are bad right now, they won't always be.
Apollo isn't always drawing his bow;
There are times when he takes up his lyre and plays,
And awakens the music sleeping upon the strings.
Be resolute when things are going against you,
But shorten sail when the fair wind blows too strong.

-Horace

QUOTE: Abraham Lincoln:

"When we celebrate the Fourth of July, Lincoln told his listeners in Chicago, we celebrate the Founders,

'our fathers and grandfathers, those iron men...But after we have done this we have not yet reached the whole. There is something else connected with it. We have besides these men — descended by blood from our ancestors — among us perhaps half our people who are not descendants at all of these men, they are men who have come from Europe — German, Irish, French and Scandinavian — ...finding themselves our equals in all things. If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,' and then they feel that the moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, and so they are.' "

FROM David Letterman:

"Top Ten Ways Osama Bin Laden Can Improve His Image

10. There's no way he can improve his image. He's a murdering, soul-less asshole"

QUOTE: Larry Miller:

"I've been moved constantly for a year, surprised each time, then filled with remorse at thinking I had seen and heard and read enough. Every story has shaken me: the widows, the children, the parents, the babies, the heroes. You've heard them all, yet they're new each time, aren't they? Each story of the woman praying for guidance and being filled with the presence and the light of her dead husband and hearing his voice, audibly, saying, "Don't worry. I'm with God. Don't dwell on what happened to me." Astonishing. I believe them. I feel sorry for anyone who doesn't."

and:

"I've seen a bunch of architects' drawings for rebuilding on the site of the Twin Towers. Naturally, they all stink. (I don't get contemporary architecture, anyway. It's like modern and post-modern music and art to me, indecipherable and undistinguished.) Besides, has no one noticed? It's a graveyard, a holy ground of pulverized human bodies, a shrine forever where thousands of souls ascended in a great, mass apotheosis. Are we going to put a Starbuck's there? Leave it alone. People will come to pray. And if we're all worried about the loss in commercial land value--nothing wrong with that, by the way--the Americans (and others) who visit in the future will more than make up for it when they stay at hotels and buy food and raise a glass. "

QUOTE: Todd Gitlin:

"Anti-Americanism is an emotion substituting for an analysis, a morality, an ideal, even an idea about what to do. When the hatred of foreign policies sputters into a hatred of an entire people and their civilization, then thinking is dead and demonology lives. When complexity of thought devolves into caricature -- and all broad-brush hatred of any nation, whatever its occasions, is caricature -- intellect is on its way to reconciling itself to mass murder."

QUOTE: King Kaufman:

"A few weeks ago, I told a friend that I'd been lucky enough to see a triple play in a Northern League baseball game in Schaumburg, Ill. He responded by saying that enjoying sports is a matter of suspension of disbelief. If you convince yourself that a triple play in a bush-league game is somehow important, he said, it becomes exciting, just as a triple play in a major league game is exciting only if we've convinced ourselves that it's somehow important.

But the thing is: It's all important. Not because the Schaumburg Flyers really needed to get out of a jam in their game against the Sioux Falls Canaries, but because it gives us something to talk about, something to connect to each other with, something to appreciate. It's important the way Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" is important, not because we need it to live, but because we use it to give shape and meaning to our lives.

I know that sounds silly. A Randy Johnson fastball equals a Rembrandt painting equals a Shakespeare sonnet equals a Kobe Bryant dunk. I can enjoy Rembrandt as much as the next guy. Love what he could do with a dead peacock. But if a tackle-breaking run through the secondary by a tailback gives me the same pleasure, fills me equally with wonder, inspires me in the same way that a Rembrandt painting does, what difference is there? Rembrandt was just as meaningless last Sept. 12 as Emmitt Smith was. "

QUOTE: Andrew Sullivan:

"We will forget.

Researchers have long found that the memory of epochal events fade with time. The remembering of such events even has a specific name: flashbulb memory. As time passes, the chronology gets jumbled up; we fumble on the details; we airbrush some parts and highlight others. We re-imagine the past to make it more coherent, meaningful, bearable. One ongoing study at the University of Illinois Chicago's Psychology Department - of a large, country-wide sample of people - is finding out that we have already forgotten some things about September 11. How much time between the first and second plane? Which tower fell first? What was the flight number of the second plane? Was the Pentagon hit after both World Trade Center Towers? We forget. We conflate. We confuse.

But we also know, of course, that this kind of memory is not the most important one. Some events solder themselves into our consciousness so intensely that they change the way we see the world for ever. The details barely matter. The change itself matters. Your child is killed in a car accident; your mother is diagnosed with breast cancer; your best friend betrays you; your wife is raped. These kinds of events stop your life for a moment; your soul freezes while the rest of the world swivels around you to a new position. Part of you insists: this hasn't happened. Part of you demands: move on. Most of you knows that neither is an option.

And most of us know that there is no moving on from September 11. It wasn't a random tragedy for which grief is a slow-acting salve. It was a massacre - a cold-blooded, fanatical murder of civilians by men possessed by a theocratic ideology. It was an invasion - the violation of sovereign American soil, the erasure of a visible monument to American success and energy and civilization. It was a crime - the filling of the air of a great city with the irradiated dust of innocent human lives. It was a statement - that radical Islam intends to attack and destroy the very principles of the Enlightenment that underpin the American experiment - freedom of religion, of conscience, toleration and secularism. The appropriate response to this act of nihilism and evil is therefore not grief or remembrance or sadness or reflection, although each of those has its place. The appropriate response is rage.

For whatever else September 11 was, it was a declaration of war. That war continues. The totalitarian force of fundamentalist Islam, like the forces of Nazism and Communism that preceded it, has not disappeared. We briefly defanged it in its most important lair in Afghanistan, but even there, it has not been extinguished. Saudi Arabia, the chief exporter of this murderous ideology, remains protected by the West. Saddam Hussein is currently laboring to manufacture weapons of mass destruction which his allies in the Islamist terrorist network would dearly love to use on American soil. The United Nations and much of the civilized world would rather let him do so than face the risks of taking him on. Suicide bombers - ideological comrades of the twisted sociopaths who flew planes into the World Trade Center - have not relented in attempting to destroy the democratic state of Israel. Anti-Semitism, now as in the past a core of the totalitarian mind, has metastasized like a cancer throughout the Middle East and back into its ancient home in Europe. Educated men and women who regularly find the slightest fault in democratic Western societies, vie with each other to provide excuses, justifications and rationalizations for the murderous tyrannies and blood-thirsty mobs of the Arab Middle East. In a welter of arguments, articles, op-eds and books, intellectuals are eagerly laying out the case that the murderers of 9/11 died for an explicable and justifiable cause, that the West itself is in part responsible for what was unleashed against it, that war can be avoided, that there is nothing but shades of gray in this complicated world.

But through all this, we know what that day showed us. It really wasn't complicated. It required no great amount of reflection. That day showed us that we stand deeply vulnerable to a destructive force in some ways more dangerous than even the last two totalitarian powers Americans were called on to defeat. This enemy refuses to fight with honor; it kills civilians not as a by-product of fighting but as an end in itself; it hides and disappears and re-emerges whenever its purposes are served; it may soon have access to weapons that Hitler and Stalin only dreamed of. But it cannot be defeated the way Nazi Germany and Communist Russia were defeated because it is more like a virus than a host, infecting and capturing nation-states, like Afghanistan, and then moving on to others. September 11 showed Americans that for the first time in their history, they stand vulnerable to that force in their homeland. War has been brought to them. And, deep in their hearts, they know it.

That's why I think that, for all the return to superficial normality, Americans really have changed. The illusion of isolationism has been ripped apart. How can America opt out of the world when the world refuses to leave America alone? The illusion of appeasement has been destroyed. Do we really think that by coddling regimes like Iraq or Syria or Iran or Saudi Arabia, we will help defuse the evil that lurks in their societies? The illusion of American exceptionalism has been shattered. The whole dream of this continent - that it was a place where you could safely leave the old world and its resentments behind - was ended that day. The proliferation of flags that day and subsequently was not a function of jingoism. It was the display of a symbol whose meaning had just been changed for ever. The inviolability of America had been destroyed. And the display of Old Glory was a signal not of blind patriotism but a way to show the world and the enemy that we loved it still and passionately, and that we were prepared to fight to restore its honor. A whole generation will grow up with this as their most formative experience - a whole younger generation that knows that there actually is a right and a wrong, and that neutrality is no longer an option. That generational power has only just begun to transform the culture. In decades' time, we will look back and see what a difference it made.

And if we need to humanize this, perhaps we should leave our own memories of that day behind and think of those wives and husbands and children and parents who cannot live a single day without remembering. For them, normality can never return. Every evening when a father doesn't come home, every birthday when a card cannot be sent, every Christmas when a child's mother is no longer there is a rebuke to the very idea of our broader forgetfulness. They are symbols of our wider collective wound, goads to us when we falter in the fight back, emblems of the free society that this new enemy is determined to destroy. To paraphrase Bruce Springsteen, everything is everything and they are still missing. And they demand that our vigilance never end."

GETTING A SMALL THING COMPLETELY RIGHT:
The first thing MTV plays after midnight: "Angel of Harlem" by U2.

QUOTE: Hitch against Amis, kind of:

"Most interesting of all, in my memory, was the direct confrontation this involved with Stalin's heirs. Our faction at any rate was in close touch with student and worker groups in Poland and Czechoslovakia, where open rebellion against the sclerotic Warsaw pact regimes was breaking out. The regimes themselves seemed to get the point. Moscow directly ordered the French Communist party to help put down the rebellion against De Gaulle, and Brezhnev both sought and received Lyndon Johnson's advance assurance that a Red Army invasion of Prague would be considered an "internal affair".

For a short, exhilarating while, it seemed that the permafrost could be melted from below. And this idea did not experience any "death throes". It became subterranean, and re-emerged in 1989. Of the dissident heroes of that later revolution, I can think of several who I first met on or around the barricades of 1968. And many of them also did tremendous work in helping to save the people of Bosnia a few years further on."

and:

"This whole exchange between us comes at an unsettling time for me, because I think that a huge section of the "left" has fatally condemned itself by flirting with, or actually succumbing to, a creepy concept of "moral equivalence" between the United States and its (actually our) enemies - whether Christian Orthodox thugs in the Balkans or Islamic fascists in Afghanistan or national socialists in Mesopotamia. Talk about wincing - I can scarcely bear to read the drivel and bad faith that is now emitted by some of my former comrades. However, and though I am now without allegiances, I still choose to regard the term "comrade" as a title of honour, and one which betrays itself rather than fulfils itself in such negations. It was always a sorrow to me - I can tell you this now - that my dearest friend showed no real interest in such apparent metaphysics, and I'm sorry all over again that you have written on the subject in such a way as to give pleasure to those who don't love you, as I do."

ABOUT THIS: well, not only is that kind of attitude anti-labor (a bad enough sin as it is), it's also anti-capitalist: MLBPA opposes wage floors as well as wage ceilings. Consequence: the price of a player is determined by market forces, in this case, what owners are willing to pay. Which means if people can convince, for example, AOL Time Warner (the Braves) or NewsCorp (Dodgers) to pay less for players, they'll get less money. This is how the system is supposed to work.

And anyway, better baseball than football, where on any given Sunday, any team can beat any other team because they're all mediocre.

QUOTE: which, I think, accurately sums up my feelings on dating etc:

"We all know that the only reason a true gentleman takes a lady out is for the pleasure of her society, and that the only reason a lady gives her favors is that she is overcome by uncontrollable passion. If the passion seizes her before she has asks him his last name, or if he hopes to implant such a passion by taking her to Paris for the weekend-- well, that does not negate the principle."
-Miss Manners

LINK: This happens to be one of those things which I'd quote front to back, if I thought anyone would actually read it. But it's just blindingly, amazingly put together.

Me Likey:

"I like to cite C. S. Lewis's remark that "if you have only read a great book once, you have not read it at all." My addendum to that remark is that every time you read say, Aristotle's Ethics, even after you have read it 50 or 60 times, you will find something startlingly new in it, something that you never saw before, even though you read it over and over. This morning, for example, I was reading the Second Book of Aristotle's Ethics for class tomorrow. I again came across the following passage, which I had indeed underlined semesters ago. I saw that this passage had previously struck me: "For, first, we do not decide to do what is impossible, and anyone claiming to decide to do it would seem a fool; but we do wish for what is impossible, e.g., never to die, as well as for what is possible." When read attentively, the whole structure of reason and revelation, a topic on which I have often written, is contained in this one brief passage."

RECOMMENDED ESPECIALLY FOR DAVE: Since we were arguing about some of the things relating to this a few weeks ago.

LINK: On here is new york

LINK: Great sports writing. But it was a great match, too.

SILENCE AND RESPECT: Dave Barry says interesting and important things. Next: Britney Spears on Islamism and modernity!

LINK: K-Mart? Cool? Well...

LINK: Or maybe, not so seriously

LINK: Well, it's certainly something interesting to consider

IS FOOTBALL THE NEW WRESTLING? I wouldn't have thought so, but it seems awfully convenient that the Saints-Bucs game went into overtime and ended in time for The Simpsons to start on time. Coincidence? I think not.

OKAY: So I was in my Language and Mind class yesterday, and the professor said something to the effect of "...so you guys better not sleep through class or anything.." and I thought, 'this class is at 2:00 in the afternoon? who could possibly be that lazy?' Then, of course, I remembered the time last year when I didn't make it to my 2:30 class because I was sleeping in. Oops.

QUOTE:

"ameseliz81: hey i gotta get int he shower...i smell
NotByronDorgan: yeah, I was gonna say something about that...
NotByronDorgan: :o)
NotByronDorgan: later
ameseliz81: hey now"

LINK: Tom Friedman (the New York Times' Pulitzer-winning columnist, but you already knew that), referred to this as 'classic.' I couldn't agree more.

QUOTE: David Brooks:

"esterday, I was listening to "The World" which is a left-wing foreign affairs program produced by Public Radio International and which appears on many NPR stations. There was a fawning interview with an American woman living in Pakistan who argued that if the United States goes into Iraq, (A) the Arab Street would explode, (B) the Middle East peace process would be destroyed, (C) a thousand terrorists would arise to replace the ones we topple or kill.

They could have taped that interview 11 years ago. They could have taped it before the war in Afghanistan. They could have taped it before Reagan bombed Libya. And yet there was no hint in the voice of the woman making the remarks or in the voice of the starry-eyed interviewer, that this was anything but the freshest and sagest counsel. This is the real Nile Virus--people developing amnesia about their past false predictions about the Middle East.

And the idea that we should pay attention to the people who took the last invasion of Iraq and turned that military triumph into a stunning political defeat, is simply mind-boggling. But the veterans of Bush I--who should live in ignominy for letting Saddam think the United States doesn't have the guts to take him out, who should hide in disgrace for the way they abandoned the Kurds to their slaughter--instead ride high. It is an amazing example of the establishment's ability to protect their most incompetent members."

QUOTE: Okay kids, let's see who can not cry:

"EDLENE LAFRANCE is not a whiner, though she could be forgiven if she were one. She hasn't told her overburdened son that her doctors are worried she has breast cancer. Having switched nursing jobs earlier this year, she has told no one at work besides her boss that she lost her husband on 9/11. Even her own mother, who is senile and who Edlene doesn't wish to traumatize, has no idea her daughter is now a widow. "When she asks where Alan is," Edlene says, "I tell her he's at work."

I ask her if she blames God for any of this. "Why would I?" she asks, out of conviction or convenience or both, "He didn't do it." She says she's been hitting the Scriptures pretty hard lately--not Job, as you might expect, but all the widows'n'orphans passages. There are a lot more of them than she had noticed before, and she says they present a compelling body of evidence that God won't let her fall through the cracks. So far, she says, He hasn't.

The thing that's changed the most for her is time. She no longer measures it in weeks and months, but in firsts and lasts--the last time she did something with Alan, the first time she must do it without him. She doesn't cry much anymore, but the day before my visit, a light bulb burned out in her hallway. She ended up in a heap on the kitchen floor for 20 minutes. It was a 1,000-hour bulb that Alan had last changed. She has not replaced it.

There are long lists of firsts she is avoiding. She will not go on vacation, and chooses not to go to the movies, since that was Alan's favorite pastime. When she goes to their favorite diner for breakfast, she sits at the counter, since she and Alan used to sit at a booth. She knows she must get over this, and it will be easier to, she reasons, after September 11. Right now, she dreads that date the most. Though she'll be surrounded by extended family, all she really wants to do, she says, "is take some sleeping pills and wake up on September 12th."

After hours of conversation, we set off for the train station on foot, strolling through her neighborhood in a late summer half-light. Another 30 minutes, she says, and she wouldn't be out on these streets. At first, I think she means because they're crime-ridden. But no. "That was the time me and Alan always walked together," she explains. As she says this, I nod understandingly. But I can't understand. Not really. We have all grown rather possessive of September 11, taking it out, reexamining it when it suits us, making it mean what we want it to mean. Edlene doesn't have that luxury. I want to make it easier for her, but that can't be done, so I hold my tongue. She thanks me for listening, and I nod some more, as she puts me on a train that will take me back to my wife and son."

IMPORTANT NOTE: John McCain drinks Coke! And watches the Yankees! why isn't he President?

LINK: a few good arguments about the difference between the Right and the Left:

"A few months ago, I began putting new issues of each side by side on an end table and, to my surprise, discovered that while unread copies of The Nation invariably rose in guilt-inducing stacks, I always read The Weekly Standard right away. Why? Because seen purely as a magazine, The Standard is incomparably more alluring. As gray and unappetizing as homework, The Nation makes you approach it in the same spirit that Democrats might vote for Gray Davis -- where else can you go?"

-From this article. Also:

"One sign of The Nation's disarray is a tiny illustration in the September 2 issue. In an image seemingly worthy of Der Stürmer , it depicts a building that looks like the World Trade Center being smashed by a crane whose frame is the American flag and whose wrecking ball is imprinted with the Star of David. Is the magazine suggesting that the U.S. and the Jews were responsible for 9/11? Of course not, said editor in chief Katrina vanden Heuvel, when I called to find out. The building isn't supposed to be a WTC tower but a metaphor (it's faintly imprinted with a map of the Middle East), and the Star of David is supposed to represent Israel, not Judaism. "We regret any misinterpretation," she said, rather than openly apologizing or having the courage to endorse a drawing that many readers will find offensive."

QUOTE: If you didn't like the Yankees before, here's a good reason to start:

"Wells tore into baseball commissioner Bud Selig, calling him a 'knucklehead' and a 'car salesman,' according to a report in the New York Daily News.

'He's a knucklehead. Man, he's a knucklehead,' Wells told the Daily News. 'He's coming in and trying to break our union, basically. Just some of the things that he's thrown on the table, you just don't understand. To me, that's a knucklehead. I don't think anybody has the (expletive) to say it. But I don't care.' "