Anti-Climacus

SATURDAY EVENING POST: Possibly going out later, but I've been informed that it's been awhile since I last posted. Various and sundry:

Now that Georgetown's out, I officially no longer care about college basketball until next winter. This means Ohio State will win.

Spent a large portion of the week working through Grotius' arguments on slavery. In particular, his recognizing the basis of slavery in a law of general custom and the practice of reason-giving rather than natural law looks to me like it could point the way for contemporary philosophy of international law trying to deal with the problem of contrary practice. But this is most likely to end up in a paper or the dissertation. I originally had assumed the importance of the move was just a 'Grotian' argument, rather than what Grotius himself had argued, but a passage in De veritate (explaining the widespread practice of morally culpable acts) makes me think it may be there intentionally. More to come, as I say.

I recognize that the following will now forever be the counterpart to 'you used to hate Uncle Tupelo' when arguing with Becky, but: Pavement? kind of really good.

Also, YouTubery: Blur, "Tender", now the best song I've heard recently (replacing "Autograph" by The Tears). As an Oasis fan, I used to have rules about liking Blur too much (read: at all). But I am mellowing in my old age, and find Blur's pretention reassuring (it also helps that depressed Damon Albarn is less annoying than the younger, manic version). Listening to the song today, I realized that the gospel-choir part is a voice in Damon Albarn's head: "c'mon c'mon c'mon, get through it." Given that the song is about breaking up, and trying to put yourself back together again, it's a perfectly observed detail. What more can you ask?