"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
31.10.03
30.10.03
OKAY: So as part of the neverending parlor game that is my political beliefs, I have a successor to the "Is Nick a Democrat?" question: am I a Marxist? Consider:
Do I believe in history and the expression of the inevitability of human progress? Sure do.
Do I think that competitive capitalism is the biggest progressive force in the history of mankind? Yuppers.
Do I think that monopolistic capitalism is fundamentally retrogressive? yes...
Do I believe that the only way for capitalism to survive is by spreading itself out over as wide an area as possible? Si
So am I a Marxist?
Do I believe in history and the expression of the inevitability of human progress? Sure do.
Do I think that competitive capitalism is the biggest progressive force in the history of mankind? Yuppers.
Do I think that monopolistic capitalism is fundamentally retrogressive? yes...
Do I believe that the only way for capitalism to survive is by spreading itself out over as wide an area as possible? Si
So am I a Marxist?
LINK: So I've been reading the guest posts from this Sara Butler girl on Crescat Sententia, and I've been very impressed, so I finally went to her blog and, well, I'm totally in love.
29.10.03
AND AGAIN: Paglia:
"Instead of writing shrill books, the way the liberals are doing these days, why don't they look deeply into what's happened to the Democratic Party? It's lost its connection with the mass of people and is now driven by a snobbish elite of lawyers, snide journalists and consultants. Bush would be defeated if there was a strong Democratic candidate. But there isn't one. "
"Instead of writing shrill books, the way the liberals are doing these days, why don't they look deeply into what's happened to the Democratic Party? It's lost its connection with the mass of people and is now driven by a snobbish elite of lawyers, snide journalists and consultants. Bush would be defeated if there was a strong Democratic candidate. But there isn't one. "
QUOTE: Camille Paglia:
"Unless there's some huge change, I'll be voting for Dean in the Democratic primary, simply as a gesture for the antiwar side. But I'm not thrilled. I don't think Dean is remotely presidential in manner. He hasn't thought any of this through -- the style of presidential authority. You can't just run around wildly with this dour, dyspeptic, sanctimonious persona. Dean's ability to galvanize a wide-ranging electorate is very limited. I don't see how he's going to inspire or attract African-American or Latino voters, or anyone outside white upper-middle-class professionals and the media elite."
"Unless there's some huge change, I'll be voting for Dean in the Democratic primary, simply as a gesture for the antiwar side. But I'm not thrilled. I don't think Dean is remotely presidential in manner. He hasn't thought any of this through -- the style of presidential authority. You can't just run around wildly with this dour, dyspeptic, sanctimonious persona. Dean's ability to galvanize a wide-ranging electorate is very limited. I don't see how he's going to inspire or attract African-American or Latino voters, or anyone outside white upper-middle-class professionals and the media elite."
28.10.03
HOT STOVE LEAGUE: Before I get started on Nikolai Bukharin's Economics and Politics of the Transition Period, I thought I'd just put out the following entirely plausible speculation on what the Yankees lineup should look like next year:
C: Jorge Posada
1B: Nick Johnson
2B: Derek Jeter
SS: Alex Rodriguez
3B: Bernie Williams
LF: Hideki Matsui
CF: Alfonso Soriano
RF: Vlad Guerrero
DH: Jason Giambi
you can, of course, then say goodbye as you like to Boone, Rivera and Garcia... and, frankly, they should trade Fonzie too...
C: Jorge Posada
1B: Nick Johnson
2B: Derek Jeter
SS: Alex Rodriguez
3B: Bernie Williams
LF: Hideki Matsui
CF: Alfonso Soriano
RF: Vlad Guerrero
DH: Jason Giambi
you can, of course, then say goodbye as you like to Boone, Rivera and Garcia... and, frankly, they should trade Fonzie too...
27.10.03
WE'RE EVERYWHERE: Buffy fans, that is. To wit, from Jonah Goldberg's latest column:
"I feel Jonathan Chait's pain.
Oh, not the flesh-searing agony he clearly feels every time he reads the Wall Street Journal op-ed page. I sometimes wonder whether the poor New Republic scribe has a "pain chip" in his head that goes off every time he hears the words "supply side" or "a rising tide lifts all boats" (think of Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer or maybe the pain collars from "The Gamesters Of Triskelion" episode of Star Trek).
"I feel Jonathan Chait's pain.
Oh, not the flesh-searing agony he clearly feels every time he reads the Wall Street Journal op-ed page. I sometimes wonder whether the poor New Republic scribe has a "pain chip" in his head that goes off every time he hears the words "supply side" or "a rising tide lifts all boats" (think of Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer or maybe the pain collars from "The Gamesters Of Triskelion" episode of Star Trek).
QUOTE: Gregg Easterbrook on the biases of physicists:
"At Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and other top schools, researchers discuss ten unobservable dimensions, or an infinite number of imperceptible universes, without batting an eye. Scientists banter offhandedly about invisible realities that might incorporate trillions of billions of galaxies, and suppose such things are real in spite of there being no physical evidence whatsoever to support such speculation. No one considers discussion of other dimensions to be peculiar. Ten unobservable dimensions, an infinite number of invisible parallel universes--hey, why not?
Yet if at Yale, Princeton, Stanford, or top schools, you proposed that there exists just one unobservable dimension--the plane of the spirit--and that it is real despite our inability to sense it directly, you'd be laughed out of the room. Or conversation would grind to a halt to avoid offending your irrational religious superstitions.
To modern thought, one extra spiritual dimension is a preposterous idea, while the notion that there are incredible numbers of extra physical dimensions gives no pause. Yet which idea sounds more implausible--one unseen dimension or billions of them? "
"At Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and other top schools, researchers discuss ten unobservable dimensions, or an infinite number of imperceptible universes, without batting an eye. Scientists banter offhandedly about invisible realities that might incorporate trillions of billions of galaxies, and suppose such things are real in spite of there being no physical evidence whatsoever to support such speculation. No one considers discussion of other dimensions to be peculiar. Ten unobservable dimensions, an infinite number of invisible parallel universes--hey, why not?
Yet if at Yale, Princeton, Stanford, or top schools, you proposed that there exists just one unobservable dimension--the plane of the spirit--and that it is real despite our inability to sense it directly, you'd be laughed out of the room. Or conversation would grind to a halt to avoid offending your irrational religious superstitions.
To modern thought, one extra spiritual dimension is a preposterous idea, while the notion that there are incredible numbers of extra physical dimensions gives no pause. Yet which idea sounds more implausible--one unseen dimension or billions of them? "
LINK: Interesting argument about how academic scientists are whores for money and so inculcated with groupthink that it prevents them from doing the sort of interesting research done in the humanities and social sciences.
THE ONLY SOLACE: I have about the upcoming bloodbath in the Bronx is that it's already worse elsewhere, and at least the Yanks won the pennant.
26.10.03
LINK: Fascinating and interesting article by a philosophy professor at Rutgers on how he got hooked into philosophy. Not to imply that this is almost exactly the story of how I got interested in philosophy, though it is:
"The paperback British edition of my memoir The Making of a Philosopher has a photograph on the cover of a man sitting on a bench, placed in a grey and listless landscape. He is overlooking the sea on a misty grim day, and the atmosphere is bleak and melancholy. The man, hunched up, immobile, coiled almost, has a pensive posture, as if frozen in thought. This picture is based on a story I tell in the book about sitting on a bench in Blackpool, aged 18, pondering the metaphysical question of how objects relate to their properties. Is an object just the sum total of its properties, a mere coalescence of general features, or does it somehow lie behind its properties, supporting them, a solid peg on which they happen to hang? When I look at an object do I really see the object itself, or just the appearance its properties offer to me? I remember the feeling of fixation that came over me when I thought about these questions - a kind of floating fascination, a still perplexity. The photograph itself is an exercise in Cartesian dualism, presenting both the outer world of substance and drizzle, and the weightless inner world of thundering thought, so silent and so arresting. I had begun living in those two worlds, suspended between them, as my intellectual interests took root.
When I look back on this period in my late teens, I recall the harnessing of undirected mental energy by intellectual pursuits. Up until then, my mental energy had gone into things like reading Melody Maker, which contained fairly serious articles about pop musicians; I always knew the top 20 off by heart, and studied the articles about drummers intensely, hoping to improve my own technique. I suspect that this kind of swashing mental energy is fairly typical of boys that age. School doesn't seem to connect with it, and it goes off in search of some object of interest, often trivial, sometimes destructive. In my case, it was philosophy that seized that energy and converted it into a passion - though one that took several years to form fully. It is a delicate and fastidious energy that I am speaking of, despite its power, and it will only be satisfied by certain employments, which of course vary from person to person. I had had a similar passion for chemistry when I was ten, and for butterflies and lizards before that. How to harness such passions to formal education remains a great and unsolved problem: how to convert a love of Harry Potter stories, say, into a taste for good literature. The mental energy of young people is not to be underestimated, even when it leads to nothing but an elaborate obsession with piercing."
"The paperback British edition of my memoir The Making of a Philosopher has a photograph on the cover of a man sitting on a bench, placed in a grey and listless landscape. He is overlooking the sea on a misty grim day, and the atmosphere is bleak and melancholy. The man, hunched up, immobile, coiled almost, has a pensive posture, as if frozen in thought. This picture is based on a story I tell in the book about sitting on a bench in Blackpool, aged 18, pondering the metaphysical question of how objects relate to their properties. Is an object just the sum total of its properties, a mere coalescence of general features, or does it somehow lie behind its properties, supporting them, a solid peg on which they happen to hang? When I look at an object do I really see the object itself, or just the appearance its properties offer to me? I remember the feeling of fixation that came over me when I thought about these questions - a kind of floating fascination, a still perplexity. The photograph itself is an exercise in Cartesian dualism, presenting both the outer world of substance and drizzle, and the weightless inner world of thundering thought, so silent and so arresting. I had begun living in those two worlds, suspended between them, as my intellectual interests took root.
When I look back on this period in my late teens, I recall the harnessing of undirected mental energy by intellectual pursuits. Up until then, my mental energy had gone into things like reading Melody Maker, which contained fairly serious articles about pop musicians; I always knew the top 20 off by heart, and studied the articles about drummers intensely, hoping to improve my own technique. I suspect that this kind of swashing mental energy is fairly typical of boys that age. School doesn't seem to connect with it, and it goes off in search of some object of interest, often trivial, sometimes destructive. In my case, it was philosophy that seized that energy and converted it into a passion - though one that took several years to form fully. It is a delicate and fastidious energy that I am speaking of, despite its power, and it will only be satisfied by certain employments, which of course vary from person to person. I had had a similar passion for chemistry when I was ten, and for butterflies and lizards before that. How to harness such passions to formal education remains a great and unsolved problem: how to convert a love of Harry Potter stories, say, into a taste for good literature. The mental energy of young people is not to be underestimated, even when it leads to nothing but an elaborate obsession with piercing."
QUOTE: Interesting physics/politics speculation, from Crescat Sententia:
"From Terry Pratchett:
The only thing known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle. He reasoned like this: you can't have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir instantaneously. Presumably, he said, there must be some elementary particles - kingons, or possible queons - that do this job, but of course succession sometimes fails if, mid-flight, they strike an anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plans to use his discovery to send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to modulate the signal, were never fully expounded because, at that point, the bar closed."
"From Terry Pratchett:
The only thing known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle. He reasoned like this: you can't have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir instantaneously. Presumably, he said, there must be some elementary particles - kingons, or possible queons - that do this job, but of course succession sometimes fails if, mid-flight, they strike an anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plans to use his discovery to send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to modulate the signal, were never fully expounded because, at that point, the bar closed."
INTERESTING FACTS: for ya: Michigan's Political Science department is ranked #2 in the nation, and has been a consistent top 5-caliber program for nigh onto 50 years. Michign's Philosophy department is, I believe, currently #4 in the English-speaking world, and has been a top 5 program for 50 years, as well.
Mathermatics, for those curious, is ranked #8, and physics is tied for #13, which just goes to show that if our math and physics people were as smart as they thought they were, they'd be at M.I.T.
Mathermatics, for those curious, is ranked #8, and physics is tied for #13, which just goes to show that if our math and physics people were as smart as they thought they were, they'd be at M.I.T.
NO ONE DEFENDS THEIR INNOCENCE WITH MORE ALACRITY THAN THE GUILTY:
"DavNiner: what is the deal with this swimsuit models association? and why did "dara" say something about me? am i supposed to know this person?"
Hear that Dara? According to David, you may or may not be an actual person! How's that for philosophical marginalization?
"DavNiner: what is the deal with this swimsuit models association? and why did "dara" say something about me? am i supposed to know this person?"
Hear that Dara? According to David, you may or may not be an actual person! How's that for philosophical marginalization?
IMPORTANT: I've been asked to post the following:
"Gentle Readers:
We have it on good authority that someone has been making comments on weblogs in our name, without our permission and knowledge. We would like to formally renounce the contents of any and all such postings, though we do note that the premise behind them was laughable. We intend to return to our standard David Hucul-avoiding behavior. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely
--International Association of Swimsuit Super Models
IASSM"
Just glad to pass on the good word, girls!
"Gentle Readers:
We have it on good authority that someone has been making comments on weblogs in our name, without our permission and knowledge. We would like to formally renounce the contents of any and all such postings, though we do note that the premise behind them was laughable. We intend to return to our standard David Hucul-avoiding behavior. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely
--International Association of Swimsuit Super Models
IASSM"
Just glad to pass on the good word, girls!
24.10.03
E.G.: what I was talking about earlier, from The Nation:
"When the Senate threw a small log in front of Little Caesar's $87 billion, it seemed of no great consequence. He will clearly get his money for Iraq, regardless. The Senate majority, including eight Republicans, merely decreed that half of the $20 billion for reconstruction funds should be sent to Iraq as a loan, not a gift, from the American taxpayers. The House voted otherwise and will probably prevail in the end.
But I read that Senate roll call as a decisive rebuke to our warrior President and one that will be understood eventually as having pivotal meaning--the beginning of the end for Bush's misadventure. The message from the Senate is: Get out--NOW. If the White House has any sense, they will read it that way. As every authority knows, $87 billion is not the half of what will be demanded from US taxpayers if this war of occupation continues. Eight Republicans came back from recess, their ears burning with constituent anger, and voted with the Dems.
If Bush encounters this level of rebellion with this year's appropriation for Iraq, next year's will be a bloody revolution. Only there won't be another appropriations bill for the war between now and next fall's election. The White House wouldn't dare. The Republicans in Congress would not allow a roll call, not with their own re-elections approaching."
God forbid Bush should ask for more money to keep Iraq from falling apart! Congress should prove American critics right by getting out when the getting's good. Granted, not all of us liberals have quite mastered the art of Stalinism with such perfection, but still...
"When the Senate threw a small log in front of Little Caesar's $87 billion, it seemed of no great consequence. He will clearly get his money for Iraq, regardless. The Senate majority, including eight Republicans, merely decreed that half of the $20 billion for reconstruction funds should be sent to Iraq as a loan, not a gift, from the American taxpayers. The House voted otherwise and will probably prevail in the end.
But I read that Senate roll call as a decisive rebuke to our warrior President and one that will be understood eventually as having pivotal meaning--the beginning of the end for Bush's misadventure. The message from the Senate is: Get out--NOW. If the White House has any sense, they will read it that way. As every authority knows, $87 billion is not the half of what will be demanded from US taxpayers if this war of occupation continues. Eight Republicans came back from recess, their ears burning with constituent anger, and voted with the Dems.
If Bush encounters this level of rebellion with this year's appropriation for Iraq, next year's will be a bloody revolution. Only there won't be another appropriations bill for the war between now and next fall's election. The White House wouldn't dare. The Republicans in Congress would not allow a roll call, not with their own re-elections approaching."
God forbid Bush should ask for more money to keep Iraq from falling apart! Congress should prove American critics right by getting out when the getting's good. Granted, not all of us liberals have quite mastered the art of Stalinism with such perfection, but still...
LINK: Someone's got a devastatingly brilliant insight in the comments section of Dara's blog, though oddly enough they seem to have complimented David Hucul... oh well, no one's perfect.
23.10.03
RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR: From a Salon interview with Viggo Morgenstern:
The question:
"What do you think about the fact that many in the U.S. want part of the money we give Iraq to be considered a "loan" to be repaid with oil revenues? "
I believe there's a term for people who wanted to make U.S. aid into loan form: Democrats. Then the reply:
" [Vice President Dick] Cheney was speaking to a bunch of Republicans the other day, and he said that the U.S. taxpayer would not pay a single cent for the Iraq reconstruction. He said Iraqis would have to do that themselves. I think this is not only a lie -- one that he is quite conscious of telling -- but the statement itself, true or not, displays the horribly arrogant attitude of the current administration. We went into Iraq and made a friggin' mess for no reason at all -- well, for economic reasons that will benefit a lucky few -- and we've seriously undermined any kind of global community. "
Those Democratic bastards! Compounding the folly of trying to help Iraqis write their own constitution and rebuilding their infrastructure by trying to give them money to help rebuild... oh, wait, that was the Bush Administration. Does anyone on the Left even bother with checking their facts anymore?
The question:
"What do you think about the fact that many in the U.S. want part of the money we give Iraq to be considered a "loan" to be repaid with oil revenues? "
I believe there's a term for people who wanted to make U.S. aid into loan form: Democrats. Then the reply:
" [Vice President Dick] Cheney was speaking to a bunch of Republicans the other day, and he said that the U.S. taxpayer would not pay a single cent for the Iraq reconstruction. He said Iraqis would have to do that themselves. I think this is not only a lie -- one that he is quite conscious of telling -- but the statement itself, true or not, displays the horribly arrogant attitude of the current administration. We went into Iraq and made a friggin' mess for no reason at all -- well, for economic reasons that will benefit a lucky few -- and we've seriously undermined any kind of global community. "
Those Democratic bastards! Compounding the folly of trying to help Iraqis write their own constitution and rebuilding their infrastructure by trying to give them money to help rebuild... oh, wait, that was the Bush Administration. Does anyone on the Left even bother with checking their facts anymore?
LINK: Interesting article, but, and I must stress, NOT for the easily squeamish. Don't say I didn't warn you.
SO, SO WEIRD: As reported in Best of the Web Today:
"During September 2003," the Middle East Media Research Institute reports, "mass hysteria spread through Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, which was ultimately quelled by police intervention and statements made by the health minister. The panic was caused by rumors of foreigners roaming the city and shaking men's hands, making their penises disappear." Memri summarizes newspaper accounts of the scare:
Two of the "victims" agreed to tell their story to the London-based Arabic daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi. One of them, fabric merchant S.K.A., said that a man from a West African tribe came into his shop to buy fabric, but an argument quickly developed between the two. Then the West African shook the store owner's hand powerfully until the owner felt his penis melt into his body. The store owner became hysterical, and was taken to the hospital.
While the majority of accounts involved handshaking, another victim, who refused to give his name, said that while he was at the market, a man approached him, gave him a comb, and asked him to comb his hair. When he did so, within seconds, he said, he felt a strange sensation and discovered that he had lost his penis. It was also claimed that once "'Satan's Friend' drains a man's virility," he demands that his victim pay him over four million Sudanese pounds (about $3,000) to get it back.
After going over the evidence with a fine-toothed comb, Sudanese police determined that "what is at issue is not sorcery or magic. The many young men who complained were under the influence of suggestion."
Jafar Abbas, "a Sudanese columnist living abroad," seems to have been taken in:
In his Al-Watan article, Abbas wrote: "Even though what I write today will harm 'tourism' in Sudan, I consider it my duty to warn anyone who wants to come to Sudan to refrain from shaking hands with a dark-skinned man. Since most Sudanese are dark-skinned, he had better avoid shaking hands with anyone he doesn't know . . ."
Focusing on the report of the Sudanese man who lost his penis after contact with a comb, Abbas wrote: "No doubt, this comb was a laser-controlled surgical robot that penetrates the skull [and passes] to the lower body and emasculates a man!!
"I wanted to tell that man who fell victim to the electronic comb: 'You jackass, how can you put a comb from a man you don't know to your head, while even relatives avoid using the same comb?!' "
Abbas adds that the man with the robot comb "is an imperialist Zionist agent that was sent to prevent our people from procreating and multiplying."
"During September 2003," the Middle East Media Research Institute reports, "mass hysteria spread through Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, which was ultimately quelled by police intervention and statements made by the health minister. The panic was caused by rumors of foreigners roaming the city and shaking men's hands, making their penises disappear." Memri summarizes newspaper accounts of the scare:
Two of the "victims" agreed to tell their story to the London-based Arabic daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi. One of them, fabric merchant S.K.A., said that a man from a West African tribe came into his shop to buy fabric, but an argument quickly developed between the two. Then the West African shook the store owner's hand powerfully until the owner felt his penis melt into his body. The store owner became hysterical, and was taken to the hospital.
While the majority of accounts involved handshaking, another victim, who refused to give his name, said that while he was at the market, a man approached him, gave him a comb, and asked him to comb his hair. When he did so, within seconds, he said, he felt a strange sensation and discovered that he had lost his penis. It was also claimed that once "'Satan's Friend' drains a man's virility," he demands that his victim pay him over four million Sudanese pounds (about $3,000) to get it back.
After going over the evidence with a fine-toothed comb, Sudanese police determined that "what is at issue is not sorcery or magic. The many young men who complained were under the influence of suggestion."
Jafar Abbas, "a Sudanese columnist living abroad," seems to have been taken in:
In his Al-Watan article, Abbas wrote: "Even though what I write today will harm 'tourism' in Sudan, I consider it my duty to warn anyone who wants to come to Sudan to refrain from shaking hands with a dark-skinned man. Since most Sudanese are dark-skinned, he had better avoid shaking hands with anyone he doesn't know . . ."
Focusing on the report of the Sudanese man who lost his penis after contact with a comb, Abbas wrote: "No doubt, this comb was a laser-controlled surgical robot that penetrates the skull [and passes] to the lower body and emasculates a man!!
"I wanted to tell that man who fell victim to the electronic comb: 'You jackass, how can you put a comb from a man you don't know to your head, while even relatives avoid using the same comb?!' "
Abbas adds that the man with the robot comb "is an imperialist Zionist agent that was sent to prevent our people from procreating and multiplying."
20.10.03
LINK: Want someone with the courage to morally equivocate about Stalin? The Nation might be your mag of choice, then.
LINK: Michael Ledeen explores the science of curses:
"You will be told that The Curse is not really an explanation, let alone scientific, but in fact it meets all the requirements for good science. First of all, it thoroughly explains the phenomenon: The deranged owner of the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees, and so the baseball gods punished him for his monumental error by causing the Red Sox always to lose. You can't ask for a more complete or convincing explanation than that. Second, the results can be replicated, as they have been for endless decades. Third, the theory accurately predicts future results (the eighth inning, for example, which, as Joe Morgan pointed out, cannot be explained any other way). Fourth, there is no convincing alternative explanation for the data. And fifth, it passes peer review. The players, owners, coaches, and fans of the Red Sox (the same can be said of the other accursed team, the Cubs) may say they don't believe it, but of course they do. They must."
"You will be told that The Curse is not really an explanation, let alone scientific, but in fact it meets all the requirements for good science. First of all, it thoroughly explains the phenomenon: The deranged owner of the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees, and so the baseball gods punished him for his monumental error by causing the Red Sox always to lose. You can't ask for a more complete or convincing explanation than that. Second, the results can be replicated, as they have been for endless decades. Third, the theory accurately predicts future results (the eighth inning, for example, which, as Joe Morgan pointed out, cannot be explained any other way). Fourth, there is no convincing alternative explanation for the data. And fifth, it passes peer review. The players, owners, coaches, and fans of the Red Sox (the same can be said of the other accursed team, the Cubs) may say they don't believe it, but of course they do. They must."
LINK: Give Joe Lieberman some credit: you might not like him, but he says what he thinks is right, consequences be damned. Truly a John McCain for our time.
19.10.03
WELL DUH:
Yoda
A venerated sage with vast power and knowledge, you gently guide forces around you while serving as a champion of the light.
Judge me by my size, do you? And well you should not - for my ally is the Force. And a powerful ally it is. Life greets it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us, and binds us. Luminescent beings are we, not this crude matter! You must feel the Force around you, everywhere.
Yoda
A venerated sage with vast power and knowledge, you gently guide forces around you while serving as a champion of the light.
Judge me by my size, do you? And well you should not - for my ally is the Force. And a powerful ally it is. Life greets it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us, and binds us. Luminescent beings are we, not this crude matter! You must feel the Force around you, everywhere.
17.10.03
THOUGHTS ON THE GAME:
1. Aaron Boone is a sexy bitch
2. Best $100,000 anyone's ever spent. Ever.
3. See Pedro? This is what happens when you beat up on senior citizens
4. (Evil) Empire Strikes Back... and there ain't no Jedi this time
5. As the t-shirt says, "What Rivalry?"
6. Do you believe in curses? I do.
7. Like all good Yankees fans, after Clemens got lifted, I turned off the game and starting drinking heavily and listening to Howlin' Wolf. I thought I was inuring myself to the shock of losing-- turns out I was just getting the celebration going a little early.
8. Mariano Rivera is also a sexy bitch, but was the back-of-head shot of him sans baseball cap not the least flattering thing you've seen for awhile?
9. David Adensik rubs salt in the wounds
10. This is my dream world series-- whoever wins, I'm happy
1. Aaron Boone is a sexy bitch
2. Best $100,000 anyone's ever spent. Ever.
3. See Pedro? This is what happens when you beat up on senior citizens
4. (Evil) Empire Strikes Back... and there ain't no Jedi this time
5. As the t-shirt says, "What Rivalry?"
6. Do you believe in curses? I do.
7. Like all good Yankees fans, after Clemens got lifted, I turned off the game and starting drinking heavily and listening to Howlin' Wolf. I thought I was inuring myself to the shock of losing-- turns out I was just getting the celebration going a little early.
8. Mariano Rivera is also a sexy bitch, but was the back-of-head shot of him sans baseball cap not the least flattering thing you've seen for awhile?
9. David Adensik rubs salt in the wounds
10. This is my dream world series-- whoever wins, I'm happy
16.10.03
LINK: The Observer has released a list of the 100 Greatest Novels of All Time, of which I've only read about a dozen. Shame on me!
LINK: This post on amusing student evaluations of their professors reminded me of my all-time favorite evaluation I wrote, for the GSI of my Dante's Divine Comedy class:
"Don't sit there looking like you're bored and just want to leave at the end of the hour. That's our job."
"Don't sit there looking like you're bored and just want to leave at the end of the hour. That's our job."
BASEBALL: I'm pleased to see the Marlins player avoiding the ridiculous recent trend in "nobody believed we could do it," (hitting perhaps a height of stupidity when Miami claimed this after their game against Florida State) suggesting instead that they might have won because--shocker--they had the better team. Go Fish!
14.10.03
13.10.03
12.10.03
OH YE GODS: from Andrew Sullivan
LEFTIES AND TYRANTS: "I think Joe Stalin was a guy that was hugely misunderstood. And to this day, I don't think I have ever seen an adequate job done of telling the story of Joe Stalin, so I guess my answer would have to be Joe Stalin." - actor, Ed Asner, responding to the question, "If you had the chance to play the biographical story of a historical figure you respected most over your lifetime, who would it be?"
LEFTIES AND TYRANTS: "I think Joe Stalin was a guy that was hugely misunderstood. And to this day, I don't think I have ever seen an adequate job done of telling the story of Joe Stalin, so I guess my answer would have to be Joe Stalin." - actor, Ed Asner, responding to the question, "If you had the chance to play the biographical story of a historical figure you respected most over your lifetime, who would it be?"
LINK: Michael Holley, always entertaining on ESPN's Around the Horn, says the only fair and impartial thing said on yesterday's melee in Boston.
11.10.03
WHOA: I feel a psychic prediction coming on... depsite everything the early primary followers would have you believe, the Democratic Party nominee hasn't entered the race yet, and won't until January or February. To do that, of course, it'll have to be someone with national fame and a certain appealing political stature--I'm thinking Hillary Clinton, but you never know who else might pop up *cough*johnmccain*cough*
10.10.03
RESEARCH SUGGESTION: for Dara (contra the claim that you can't do linguistic anthropology and do useful human-rights U.N. sort of things): look into variation in rhetoric and meaning between, say, authoritarian countries and democratic ones, and find patterns in the meanings behind what people say on the issue, and provide the most helpful means of negotiating across hostile languacultural (bwahahaha) boundaries. E.g. look at China's patterns of talking about human rights since Nixon launched detente, then compare that to their actions, and extrapolate therefrom more effective means of talking straight with PRC officials. Just a thought.
8.10.03
7.10.03
6.10.03
BASEBALL II: David Adensik feels my pain:
"SADISTS IN THE DUGOUT: I am a Yankee fan. More importantly, I have been a Yankee fan since the age of six. I suffered along with Mattingly from his first season to his last, not once taking a division title. I watched as my friends celebrated the Amazin' Mets' World Series victory in 1986 as well as their general excellence throughout the second half of that decade.
So when the Yankees started to win again when I was in college, I felt that I deserved it. I was no fairweather fan. But now I have to ask myself, do I really want the Yankees to win yet another World Series? Before answering that question, let me say that I am definitely rooting for the Red Sox to win Game 5 in Oakland. The explanation for that is simple enough: it would be much more gratifying to watch the Yankees beat the Red Sox than to let the A's do the dirty work instead.
But what if the ALCS is a Boston-New York affair? Don't the Sox deserve a chance to win it all after their 40 years in the desert? (More than 40 actually, but precision would've taken away from the biblical metaphor.) My answer to that question depends on whether the Cubs are able to prevail in the NL playoffs. If they are, wouldn't a Cubs-Red Sox series be an event of national importance, worth far more to baseball fans across American than another Yankee assault on the title?
But more importantly -- and this is were the unbridled sadism comes in -- could you imagine anything more delicious than watching the Red Sox lose to the Cubs? It would be another Bill Buckner moment. A series for the taking. A series against the one franchise with a postseason record as dismal as the Red Sox's own.
And so I face the sadist's dilemma: What my matters more? My own pleasure...or my enemies' pain?"
"SADISTS IN THE DUGOUT: I am a Yankee fan. More importantly, I have been a Yankee fan since the age of six. I suffered along with Mattingly from his first season to his last, not once taking a division title. I watched as my friends celebrated the Amazin' Mets' World Series victory in 1986 as well as their general excellence throughout the second half of that decade.
So when the Yankees started to win again when I was in college, I felt that I deserved it. I was no fairweather fan. But now I have to ask myself, do I really want the Yankees to win yet another World Series? Before answering that question, let me say that I am definitely rooting for the Red Sox to win Game 5 in Oakland. The explanation for that is simple enough: it would be much more gratifying to watch the Yankees beat the Red Sox than to let the A's do the dirty work instead.
But what if the ALCS is a Boston-New York affair? Don't the Sox deserve a chance to win it all after their 40 years in the desert? (More than 40 actually, but precision would've taken away from the biblical metaphor.) My answer to that question depends on whether the Cubs are able to prevail in the NL playoffs. If they are, wouldn't a Cubs-Red Sox series be an event of national importance, worth far more to baseball fans across American than another Yankee assault on the title?
But more importantly -- and this is were the unbridled sadism comes in -- could you imagine anything more delicious than watching the Red Sox lose to the Cubs? It would be another Bill Buckner moment. A series for the taking. A series against the one franchise with a postseason record as dismal as the Red Sox's own.
And so I face the sadist's dilemma: What my matters more? My own pleasure...or my enemies' pain?"
BASEBALL I:
"When Bernie Williams squeezed Cristian Guzman's fly ball for the final out, the Yankees greeted each other on the field as if they had done nothing more than beat the Devil Rays in a mid-August game. They sprayed champagne in the clubhouse but it was only Cook's, nothing expensive. In New York, you don't pop the Dom Perignon just for beating the Twins."
"When Bernie Williams squeezed Cristian Guzman's fly ball for the final out, the Yankees greeted each other on the field as if they had done nothing more than beat the Devil Rays in a mid-August game. They sprayed champagne in the clubhouse but it was only Cook's, nothing expensive. In New York, you don't pop the Dom Perignon just for beating the Twins."
GREAT MOMENTS IN SCIENCE: A team of physicists produces the landmark paper An Analysis of the Forces Required to Drag Sheep over Various Surfaces. Once again, science has bettered our world and advanced the cause of humanity.
5.10.03
WELL: I pass this along, since we're in the season for this sort of thing (first chilly fall day means Kind of Blue, you know), as the best mix cd I've ever made:
"Got to Get You Off My Mind" -Solomon Burke
"Ain't Misbehaving" -Sarah Vaughn
"Bring It On Home to Me" -Sam Cooke
"Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby" -Louis Jordan
"Baby, Now That I've Found You" -Alison Krauss
"I Loves You Porgy" -Nina Simone
"Ain't No Mountain High Enough" -Marvin Gaye
"Ooh Child" -Five Stairsteps
"But Not For Me" -Ella Fitzgerald
"Potato Head Blues" -Louis Armstrong
"Hotter than Mojave in My Heart" -Iris DeMent
"That's How Strong My Love Is" -Otis Redding
"Embraceable You" -Billie Holiday
"It Ain't Necessarily So" -Cab Calloway
"Softly as in a Morning Sunrise" -Modern Jazz Quartet
"Dancin' Cheek to Cheek" -Fred Astaire
"Shine on Harvest Moon"
"Someone to Watch Over Me" -Ella Fitzgerald
"Stardust" -Tommy Dorsey, featuring a young Mr. Frank Sinatra
"Got to Get You Off My Mind" -Solomon Burke
"Ain't Misbehaving" -Sarah Vaughn
"Bring It On Home to Me" -Sam Cooke
"Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby" -Louis Jordan
"Baby, Now That I've Found You" -Alison Krauss
"I Loves You Porgy" -Nina Simone
"Ain't No Mountain High Enough" -Marvin Gaye
"Ooh Child" -Five Stairsteps
"But Not For Me" -Ella Fitzgerald
"Potato Head Blues" -Louis Armstrong
"Hotter than Mojave in My Heart" -Iris DeMent
"That's How Strong My Love Is" -Otis Redding
"Embraceable You" -Billie Holiday
"It Ain't Necessarily So" -Cab Calloway
"Softly as in a Morning Sunrise" -Modern Jazz Quartet
"Dancin' Cheek to Cheek" -Fred Astaire
"Shine on Harvest Moon"
"Someone to Watch Over Me" -Ella Fitzgerald
"Stardust" -Tommy Dorsey, featuring a young Mr. Frank Sinatra
LINK: Only in New York:
"To the sounds of enormous jungle roars, a police sniper rappelled down the side of a Harlem apartment building yesterday and fired tranquilizer darts through an open fifth-floor window to subdue — seat belts, please — a 350-pound Bengal tiger."
(the picture is priceless, by the way)
"To the sounds of enormous jungle roars, a police sniper rappelled down the side of a Harlem apartment building yesterday and fired tranquilizer darts through an open fifth-floor window to subdue — seat belts, please — a 350-pound Bengal tiger."
(the picture is priceless, by the way)
QUOTE: New Democratic Party Frontrunners! From OxBlog:
"FASCINATING. Take a look at the top poll here looking at the race for the Democratic nomination. The CBS News/New York Times poll gave half of the respondents the choice between
Howard Dean, John Edwards, Richard Gephardt, Bob Graham, John Kerry, Dennis Kucinich, Joe Lieberman, Carol Moseley Braun, Al Sharpton, or someone else (with the order of the names rotated).
The other half of the respondents were given the choice between
General Wesley Clark, Dr. Howard Dean, Senator John Edwards, Congressman Richard Gephardt, Senator Bob Graham, Senator John Kerry, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Senator Joe Lieberman, former Senator Carol Moseley Braun, Reverend Al Sharpton, or someone else (again, with the names rotated).
The differences are astonishing:
(first number without title, second with)
Wesley Clark 14% 10%
Richard Gephardt 5% 15%
Howard Dean 9% 9%
Joe Lieberman 5% 13%
John Kerry 4% 11%
Carol Moseley Braun 7% 1%
Al Sharpton 3% 4%
Bob Graham 3% 3%
John Edwards 1% 3%
Dennis Kucinich 1% 1%
Other 27% 10%
Don't know 21% 20%"
Boy, if I were a supporter of Other or Don't Know, I'd be urging them to get into the race. They'd crush everyone else!
"FASCINATING. Take a look at the top poll here looking at the race for the Democratic nomination. The CBS News/New York Times poll gave half of the respondents the choice between
Howard Dean, John Edwards, Richard Gephardt, Bob Graham, John Kerry, Dennis Kucinich, Joe Lieberman, Carol Moseley Braun, Al Sharpton, or someone else (with the order of the names rotated).
The other half of the respondents were given the choice between
General Wesley Clark, Dr. Howard Dean, Senator John Edwards, Congressman Richard Gephardt, Senator Bob Graham, Senator John Kerry, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Senator Joe Lieberman, former Senator Carol Moseley Braun, Reverend Al Sharpton, or someone else (again, with the names rotated).
The differences are astonishing:
(first number without title, second with)
Wesley Clark 14% 10%
Richard Gephardt 5% 15%
Howard Dean 9% 9%
Joe Lieberman 5% 13%
John Kerry 4% 11%
Carol Moseley Braun 7% 1%
Al Sharpton 3% 4%
Bob Graham 3% 3%
John Edwards 1% 3%
Dennis Kucinich 1% 1%
Other 27% 10%
Don't know 21% 20%"
Boy, if I were a supporter of Other or Don't Know, I'd be urging them to get into the race. They'd crush everyone else!
4.10.03
3.10.03
LINK: I think I've found a woman who might be appropriate for David (under 'Drezner's Hollywood Minute for Geeks').
QUOTE: I found this amusing in its own right, and also because I read it and went, hey, this mentions someone I know (Prof. Curley, who's writing a letter of recommendation for me), and assumes him to be multiple people. Thus:
"CHRIS BERTRAM POINTS OUT THE HUMOR IN HOBBES AND MARX. He sticks to intentional humor, but if you want a really good laugh, read Hobbes' autobiography in heroic couplets. It begins thus:
In Fifteen Hundred Eighty Eight, Old Style,
When that armada did invade our isle,
Called the invincible, whose freight was then,
Nothing but murd'ring steel, and murd'ring men,
Most of which navy was disperst, or lost,
And had the fate to perish on our coast,
April the fifth (though now with age outworn)
I'th'early spring, I, a poor worm, was born.
And it only goes downhill from there. The editors of the Hackett edition of Leviathan have done the world the immense good service of including the whole thing -- all 411 lines -- on pages liv-lxiv. Check out especially his response to religious critics of Leviathan (lines 265-274):
The clergy at Leviathan repines,
And both of them opposed were by divines. ["both" = Leviathan and De Corpore]
For whilst I did inveigh 'gainst papal pride,
These, though prohibited, were not denied
T'appear in print: gainst my Leviathan
They rail, which made it read by many a man,
And did confirm't the more; tis hoped by me,
That it will last to all eternity.
Twill be the rule of justice and severe
Reproof of those men that ambitious are.Apparently criticism increasing sales isn't a recent phenomenon ... "
"CHRIS BERTRAM POINTS OUT THE HUMOR IN HOBBES AND MARX. He sticks to intentional humor, but if you want a really good laugh, read Hobbes' autobiography in heroic couplets. It begins thus:
In Fifteen Hundred Eighty Eight, Old Style,
When that armada did invade our isle,
Called the invincible, whose freight was then,
Nothing but murd'ring steel, and murd'ring men,
Most of which navy was disperst, or lost,
And had the fate to perish on our coast,
April the fifth (though now with age outworn)
I'th'early spring, I, a poor worm, was born.
And it only goes downhill from there. The editors of the Hackett edition of Leviathan have done the world the immense good service of including the whole thing -- all 411 lines -- on pages liv-lxiv. Check out especially his response to religious critics of Leviathan (lines 265-274):
The clergy at Leviathan repines,
And both of them opposed were by divines. ["both" = Leviathan and De Corpore]
For whilst I did inveigh 'gainst papal pride,
These, though prohibited, were not denied
T'appear in print: gainst my Leviathan
They rail, which made it read by many a man,
And did confirm't the more; tis hoped by me,
That it will last to all eternity.
Twill be the rule of justice and severe
Reproof of those men that ambitious are.Apparently criticism increasing sales isn't a recent phenomenon ... "
2.10.03
QUOTE: From Crooked Timber:
"Hysterical use of language alert: Rachel Cooper in the Spectator , reacting to the suggestion that British universities admit student from rough state schools with lower A-level scores than their peers from expensive private schools:
'Professor Schwartz is happily preparing the ground for a pogrom of the privileged children whose successful grades are the product not only of their hard work and ability, but also the school they attended.'
Those pogroms aren’t what they used to be you know."
"Hysterical use of language alert: Rachel Cooper in the Spectator , reacting to the suggestion that British universities admit student from rough state schools with lower A-level scores than their peers from expensive private schools:
'Professor Schwartz is happily preparing the ground for a pogrom of the privileged children whose successful grades are the product not only of their hard work and ability, but also the school they attended.'
Those pogroms aren’t what they used to be you know."
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