why dave bergman is neat

BIG TURNOUT IN IRAQ (LvM).

there is a new blog up and running from conservative philosophers called, well, the conservative philosopher (LvBL). the subheading of the blog reads 'Defending Tradition with the Weapons of Analytic Philosophy'. it was started by keith burgess-jackson and includes such figures as roger scruton and francis j. beckwith. i'll add a link on the right (no pun intended).

SO APPARENTLY TOO MUCH CRITICAL THEORY MAKES YOU AN APOLOGIST FOR MURDER: ok, so i guess nazi apologist paul de man, who called hitler's war "a revolution that aims at organizing European society in a more equitable manner", had already taught us that. but now terry eagleton wants to do his part too (LvM) in a column romanticizing homicide bombing. bombers are compared to hunger strikers who die because they have no other choice. in fact, their death is part of the injustice. injustice toward whom? one may think, 'well, of course, it is unjust toward the innocent bystanders who die because of this despicable act'. but one, of course, would be wrong:

They kill themselves because they can see no other way of attaining justice; and the fact that they have to do so is part of the injustice.

in eagleton's eyes, killers are in the same camp as the people who had to leap to their death from the world trade center:

Those who leapt from the World Trade Centre to avoid being incinerated were not seeking death, even though there was no way they could have avoided it.

this leaves aside the unpleasant fact that homicide bombers are killers, while the people jumping from the building were the killed. the people trapped in the world trade center had no choice but death; the killers did. but let's pass over that; i'll just close my eyes, dream away reality, and believe that people commit such acts not out of the wickedness in their hearts,

but in the name of a more abundant life all round.

eagleton makes the same type of agency equivocation when he compares bombers to martyrs:

Suicide bombers also die in the name of a better life for others; it is just that, unlike martyrs, they take others with them in the process. The martyr bets his life on a future of justice and freedom; the suicide bomber bets your life on it.

this, again, is leaving aside an important point: martyrs are not active agents of their own deaths; they are passive (cf. 'the passion (from latin patior, to suffer, experience) of st. so-and-so'). bombers, on the other hand, are active instigators of their own and others' death, taking the instruments of life-termination into their own hands. in eagleton's formulation, the two seem to be the same, except that bombers tend to pile up a few more casualties. but they're not: martyrs are willing to give up their lives for someone else. homicide bombers are willing to take others' lives, along with their own, to further their own group's politico-relgious agenda.

later, he waxes romantically philosophical ('But it proclaims that what your adversary cannot annihilate is the will to annihilation') before comparing cold-blooded murder to a trendy cosmopolitan art scene:

There is a smack of avant garde theatre about this horrific act.

hmmm. tell that to the people whose arms and legs are getting blown off and to the parents whose small children are ripped to smithereens.

he seems to enjoy it most because it adds depth to our shallow and boring society:

In a social order that seems progressively more depthless, transparent, rationalised and instantly communicable, the brutal slaughter of the innocent, like some Dadaist happening, warps the mind as well as the body.

a dadaist happening? how sick is this guy?

earlier in the article, eagleton writes that

blowing yourself up for political reasons is a complex symbolic act... .

well, perhaps it's all just a question of semiotics. and perhaps it is time for someone to perform the complex symbolic act of lobotomy on poor mr. eagleton.

for some reason i was browsing around michael moore's website and came across the following question:

Are you a teacher planning on showing F911 to your students?

the obvious answer to this, of course, is:

Then you should be fired immediately with termination of benefits, given an afternoon nap, and sent back to preschool to try that whole 'education' thing one more time.

that, i'm afraid, is not mr. moore's answer. his answer is:

Then the FAHRENHEIT 9/11 TEACHER'S GUIDE is for you.

well, at least the teacher's wouldn't have to have any ideas of their own. they could just parrot his.

so i clicked on the link. the first paragraph says:

The lessons and activities in this GUIDE are designed to help students develop a critical analytical ability, historical perspective, and applied math skills that will open their minds beyond the current issues covered in Fahrenheit 9/11.

in other words, it's designed to give students the exact opposite qualities of those exhibited by the film's director. what is funnier, though, is the second paragraph:

The individual units may easily be adapted to many levels and taught across the curriculum - Social Science, [History, Civics, Psychology, Sociology, Political Science, Economics] Language Arts, Humanities, Drama/Theatre, Film, ESL, Media/Journalism, Speech/Communications, Mathematics...

english as a second language?!? i had never thought of it as a teaching tool for that. when i was in high school, i think we watched indiana jones in spanish overdubs to help us with espanol, so maybe they can use F911 for the same purpose with respect to english-learning, ideally in countries with anti-american sentiments already.

i can't say it sarcastically any better than moore does himself:

So, go do that magic we call education!

if there are people who actually take this seriously, then i tremble for the prospects of education in this country.

BIG NEWS IN THE CLASSICS WORLD (lifted from the campus): a group of scholars thinks that there may be another library yet to be discovered in the villa of the papyri at herculaneum. this is surely a tantalizing possibility (LvBW). here are a couple of excerpts:

All knowledge of the great house was lost until 1738, when workmen sinking a well shaft encountered a mosaic floor. It was too deep to excavate; instead, over the next 20 years under the supervision of Karl Weber, a Swiss military engineer, a network of tunnels was hewn through the debris clogging the great peristyle, the atrium and the Olympic-sized swimming pool. Cartloads of treasures were brought to the surface, destined for the art collection of the King of Naples.

Throughout this time, mingled with the sculptures and glassware, workmen retrieved what looked like lumps of coal which they unthinkingly dumped in the sea. It was not until 1752 and the discovery of an intact library lined with 1,800 rolls of papyrus, that the excavators realised that what they had been throwing away were carbonised books. The site has since been known as the Villa of the Papyri.

from the 1800 rolls discovered previously, some interesting things have been found:

The author chiefly represented in the collection is Philodemus, an Epicurean philosopher of the 1st century BC who taught Virgil, the greatest Latin poet, and probably also Horace. He may indeed have given lessons to both beneath the porticoes of the Villa of the Papyri, for it is known that Philodemus was employed in the household of a powerful Roman senator, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, father-in-law of the dictator Julius Caesar. And it is now regarded as almost certain that Piso — who died more than a century before the eruption of Vesuvius — was the original owner of the Villa of the Papyri.

Apart from the texts of Philodemus, hundreds of other lost works of Greek philosophy — including half of Epicurus’s entire opus, missing for 2,300 years — have been rediscovered. Among them is a treatise by Zeno of Sidon, who Cicero saw lecture in Athens in 79BC. According to Richard Janko, professor of classics at Michigan University [sic]: “This is the first copy of Zeno’s writings to come to light; they had all been lost in later antiquity.”

the late professor marcello gigante thinks that the extant collection represents perhaps only half of the villa's collection.

read all about it here.

PHANTASTIC: commendation goes out the the philadelphia eagles, who have reduced their first two playoff opponents to whimpering puppies and have made their way to the super bowl at last.

thanks go out to dennis for designing the TOTALLY SWEET 'i'm eager for seger' graphic that you should see as the background behind these posts. he's got another graphic in the works that is EVEN SWEETER, if you can believe it, and which rivals derek zoolander's 'blue steel' in aesthetic prowess.

and see here for a sweet seger reference (along with the nuge, another son of the MI).

WHAT HAPPENED TO BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE? (LvM): so apparently one of monsieur 'anti-gun' moore's bodyguards has been arrested for carrying an unlicensed firearm in new york's JFK airport. if he's so idealistic, doesn't he give his employees a litmus-test before hiring them, making sure they assent to the michael moore confession of activist faith in all its guises?

yep, he sure seems to me to be a good choice for the conscience of america.

sorry to keep picking on moore, but he's such an easy target (no pun intended).

UPDATE: correction to the story here via CV.

SO NOW OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS GET THEIR POLITICAL VIEWS FROM POPULAR MOCKUMENTARIES?: i didn't know congresspersons gave shout-outs (or 'shouts-out'?) and dedications, but apparently they do, according to monsieur moore himself:

Representative Maxine Waters took to the floor and said, "Mr. Speaker and members, I dedicate my objection to Ohio's electoral votes to Mr. Michael Moore, the producer of the documentary 'Fahrenheit 9/11' and I thank him for educating the world on the threats to our democracy and the proceedings of this house on the acceptance of the electoral college votes for the 2000 presidential election."

so now he's an educator of the world, huh? sounds like the hon. waters has been attending the hatch-specter school of hyperbolical misexaggeroverstatement. in fairness, though, perhaps she soon will lavish the same honor upon rob reiner.

now, there probably are some real threats to our democracy, but i have a feeling mr. moore wouldn't be too interested in examining those.

but i only have one hope for all of the foregoing: that the congress of the united states will award mr. moore an honorary ph.d and endowed chair of misinformation studies at the main campus of the electoral college.

ALL YOU PEOPLE OUT THERE: i saw hotel rwanda this weekend, and i've gotta say--it was pretty incredible. the only thing that is kind of strange about it is that it's all in english. i have no idea how historically accurate it is, but it is very moving.

UPDATE: here is a review of the movie (LvM), which links to this 2003 article about the situation in rwanda and the surrounding countries in the wake of the genocide. according to the article, france has been less than helpful:

The most notable of the enemies are the French, who have never forgiven Kagame for winning the war against the French-backed regime responsible for the genocide, and for thwarting the French military Operation Turquoise which occupied a swathe of western Rwanda trying to preserve its clients. Then in 1996 the Rwandese military attacked the refugee camps in eastern Zaire which were controlled by the genocidaires of 1994, where active military training for another genocide carried on under the noses of international organisations. More than a million peasants walked home and were resettled in an extraordinary feat of organisation for any country, never mind one so very poor.

LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL: in honor of MLK day, i thought i'd post a couple of excerpts from the 'letter' (typographical errors are from original source).

But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I. compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

[...]

Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

[...]

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may won ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there fire two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the Brat to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all"

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distort the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I-it" relationship for an "I-thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and awful. Paul Tillich said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression 'of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

[...]

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.

[...]

In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God-consciousness and never-ceasing devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber.

[...]

But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that an men are created equal ..." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we viii be. We we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremist for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime---the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jeans Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

'W' STANDS FOR 'RIGHT'?: for brian anderson's (quite lengthy) article on the rise of conservatism on college campuses (or 'campi'?), go here. here are the two leading paragraphs:

Throughout 2003 and into 2004, a surge of protests roiled American campuses. You probably think the kids were agitating against war in Iraq, right? Well, no. Students at UCLA, Michigan and many other schools were sponsoring bake sales to protest . . . affirmative action. For white students and faculty, a cookie cost (depending on the school) $1; blacks and Hispanics could buy one for a lot less.

The principle, the protesters observed, was just that governing university admission practices: rewarding people differently based on race. Indignant school officials charged the bake-sale organizers with "creating a hostile climate" for minority students, oblivious to the incoherence of their position. On what grounds could they favor race preferences in one area (admissions) and condemn them in the other (selling cookies) as racist? Several schools banned the sales, on flimsy pretexts, such as the organizers' lack of school food permits.

the article contains observations and statistics on a number of issues--military, economic, cultural, etc. for example, according to UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute, the number of college freshmen who want the wealthy to pay higher taxes is down 16%. support for abortion is down for two-thirds of college students to just over half.

the article also includes this tidbit:

Jordana Starr, a right-of-center political science and philosophy major at Tufts, tartly adds that you can spot a student leftist pretty fast: "They're the ones who appear not to have seen a shower in some time, nor a laundromat."

hey! i resent that! i'm not a leftist!

i thought this was interesting:

"At many schools, [right-of-center] speeches have become the biggest events of the semester," Time magazine reports. One such talk at Duke, by conservative author and former Comedy Central host Ben Stein, attracted "a bigger crowd than the one that had come to hear Maya Angelou two months earlier."

there is also a quote in the article from a classics major at cornell!

according to anderson, the growth in conservatism has to do with the lure of the forbidden:

Conservative ideas take on even greater allure for students when the authorities say they're verboten. From pervasive campus political correctness--the unfree speech codes, obligatory diversity-sensitivity seminars and school-sponsored performances of "The Vagina Monologues'--to the professorate's near-uniform leftism, with faculty Democrats outnumbering Republicans by at least 7 to 1 (at Williams, it's 51 Dems to zero Republicans), everything aims to implant correct left-wing attitudes in student brains.

"There's a natural and healthy tendency among students to question the piety of their teachers," Penn history professor Alan Kors noted a few months back.

i'm a little confused, though, about the williams statistics. i went to the website and quickly counted well over 51 factulty members--unless they have 51 democrats, 0 republicans, and lots and lots of independents/third party members.

anyway, it's an interesting article if you want to check it out.

WORDS IS FUNNY: via M, i went here for comments about sen. ted kennedy's speech yesterday. his comments included the following phrase: 'the corn-bred middle-American voter'. has anyone else heard the phrase 'corn-bred' before? it seems to me to be an amalgamation of two phrases, 'corn-fed', often used to describe, e.g., midwestern football players, and 'corn bread', an edible delight made from such things as corn meal, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, egg, milk, and shortening.

i did a quick google search, and, while i didn't find the phrase 'corn-bred' used to describe midwesterners, i did find this:

Corn-bred pharmaceuticals

Jan 1, 2001 12:00 PM
Karen McMahon

Drugs to prevent herpes and AIDS may be grown in a farmer's field of corn. A collaboration between a well-established drug manufacturer and a new company developing antibody drug products may make corn plants the ultimate pharmaceutical factory.

the article goes on, if you're interested.

so, i have to ask: has noam scheiber (the author of said phrase) ever been to the midwest? does he even know any midwesterners? does he really think we reproduce with cereal crops?

oh, and by the way--i think i figured out the secret key to the rising theocracy in the united states. you see, if you switch around two of the letters in the word 'sacred', you get the word 'scared'. and doesn't that explain all the ignorant religionists in the u.s.? scared of things like 'free thinking', 'ideas', 'tolerance', 'science', 'kittens', 'mittens', and everything else? so they're going to take away ALL YOUR RIGHTS!!! AHHH!!!!*

*please note that the foregoing paragraph contains SARCASM, though i wouldn't be shocked to find such an explanation on conspiracy-theory websites across this here internet superhighway.

THE U.S. THEOCRACY CONTINUES TO BE ESTABLISHED: or not. as reported in the washington times,

President Bush said yesterday that he doesn't "see how you can be president without a relationship with the Lord," but that he is always mindful to protect the right of others to worship or not worship.

in response, andrew sullivan overreacted and overinterpreted:

So, out of his beneficence, he won't trample on others' religious freedom. But the White House? That's for Christians only. No Jews? Or atheists? Notice also the evangelical notion of a personal "relationship" with the Lord. That also indicates suspicion of those Christians with different approaches to the divine. I must say this is a new level of religio-political fusion in this administration. To restrict the presidency to a particular religious faith is anathema to this country's traditions and to the task of toleration. The president surely needs to retract the statement.

please. how on earth does his statement 'indicate suspicion' of 'those Christians with different approaches to the divine'? all he said was 'i have a relationship with the Lord'. an element of 'relationship' is implicit in any sort of dealing with the divine, whether you're talking to Him, angry with Him, or ignoring Him. sullivan actually makes his words more 'evangelical' by adding the word 'personal', which i couldn't find in the article anywhere. moreover, the article gives very little indication of what this 'relationship' actually entails. and as far as i can tell, he's not trying to force anyone to go to church, evangelical or otherwise. here is what the article quotes him as saying:

"I fully understand that the job of the president is and must always be protecting the great right of people to worship or not worship as they see fit," Mr. Bush said. "That's what distinguishes us from the Taliban. The greatest freedom we have or one of the greatest freedoms is the right to worship the way you see fit.

"On the other hand, I don't see how you can be president at least from my perspective, how you can be president, without a relationship with the Lord," he said.

and as jonah goldberg said over at the corner,

Well, Sullivan says the new policy is that the White House is for "Christians only." Unfortunately -- or rather, fortunately -- George W. Bush isn't in any position to apply a religious test to any president. Bush has absolutely zero authority to "restrict the presidency to a particular religious faith." He doesn't hire his replacement, Andrew, we do.

moreover, this God-talk isn't new, so everybody just relax. to take two
quick examples cited on the corner, here is ronald reagan in 1983:

“Without God, there is no virtue, because there's no prompting of the conscience. Without God, we're mired in the material, that flat world that tells us only what the senses perceive. Without God, there is a coarsening of the society. And without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under. If I could just make a personal statement of my own -- in these 3 1/2 years I have understood and known better than ever before the words of Lincoln, when he said that he would be the greatest fool on this footstool called Earth if he ever thought that for one moment he could perform the duties of that office without help from One who is stronger than all.”

no democracy without God? michael newdow certainly wouldn't be happy about that!

and here's abraham lincoln:

It is most cheering and encouraging for me to know that in the efforts which I have made and am making for the restoration of a righteous peace to our country, I am upheld and sustained by the good wishes and prayers of God's people. No one is more deeply than myself aware that without His favor our highest wisdom is but as foolishness and that our most strenuous efforts would avail nothing in the shadow of His displeasure. I am conscious of no desire for my country's welfare, that is not in consonance with His will, and of no plan upon which we may not ask His blessing. It seems to me that if there be one subject upon which all good men may unitedly agree, it is imploring the gracious favor of the God of Nations upon the struggles our people are making for the preservation of their precious birthright of civil and religious liberty.

'righteous peace'?! what would today's pundits have to say about that?

oh, and why not one more--an excerpt from FDR's prayer on the eve of D-Day:

And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

'Faith in Thee'? that sounds like a relationship to me!

by the way, i think this kid rock business looks bad. whatever the reason for the cancellation, it comes in the wake of pro-family protests to his performance at the inauguration--so it at least makes it appear that, whoever is making these decisions, his/her/their morality is determined by the presence or absence of protests from others.

UPDATE: while i was joking about the theocracy business in the title to this post, some people are not (LvBL).

BUSH ADMINISTRATION TO FORCE D.C. TO PAY FOR THEIR PARTY (LvM): this seems to me, on first reading, at least, to be a profoundly bad and unjust idea. estimates for what the city will have to spend on the inauguration total $17.3 million (increased from the $8 million it cost them last time), $11.9 million of which, according to city officials, is not otherwise covered and will have to be diverted from homeland security projects. moreover, inauguration officials estimate that $40 million will be spent by private donors over four days, for events such as fireworks, the swearing-in, a parade, and nine balls. $40 million? far be it from me to attempt to force anyone to do anything with their money--but does this seem like a wise way to blow so much cash? finally, federal employees in the area get inauguration day (january 20) off of work as a holiday. the estimated cost of this for the capital area, according to the article? $66 million.

UPDATE: here is some commentary on this (via M) on the 'unfunded mandate':

I agree with Davis that this constitutes an unfunded mandate, although, so far as I'm aware, the federal government typically does not reimburse localities for the additional expenses incurred for presidential visits. Saying this would come out of "homeland security" funds sounds terrible--this is really just a giant party, after all--but the main reason D.C. gets so much homeland security funding is precisely because it's the seat of government and incurs huge expenses for this sort of thing. As Steven Taylor notes, the piece simply doesn't give us enough information to know for sure. Given the OMB's position, though, I'm presuming that inaugural security expenses were already factored in with the 2005 appropriations.

regarding the $66 million--i was a little confused as to how the day off would 'cost' the city so much money. joyner writes:

Although I'm not a federal employee, I'm a government contractor and do get the day off. However, there is zero "cost" associated with this holiday; it's not as if people get paid an additional day's salary. It is true that the taxpayers don't get a day of work in exchange for their money on holidays. On the other hand, work that has to be done somehow manages to get done.

but isn't it the case that they get paid an 'additional day's salary' in some sense, since they're not working and still getting paid? or do they not get paid for the day off? if they're federal employees and are still getting paid, that seems to mean that taxpayers must be paying them not to work on this day, which would mean money is going out for that day and nothing is coming in in return.

JERRY SPRINGER-THE OPERA: via BW, i came across this article arguing for the importance of public taboos. via the same site, here is another article on the same program, which aired on saturday night on BBC2.

i find the reported threats of violence on the part of Christian protesters deplorable. but the discussion of the lack of a level religious playing field in the UK is interesting (see this in connection with the recent Behzti controversy, and the radically different way in which it was handled). the hypocrisy evident in the way the british government treats protests from different religionists is unjust and needs to be pointed out.

more disturbing UN news. but i'm sure it stems somehow from a gun-slinging leo-con conspiracy.

VISIONS OF JOHANNA: i shall now engage in some hyperbole of my own. mr. dylan's visions of johanna is one of the greatest rock 'n roll songs ever recorded. blonde on blonde is vying for my top dyland spot right now with highway 61 revisited and blood on the tracks. of course, for 'visions of johanna', i think the song finds its truest expression (that i've heard, anyway) in the acoustic recording found on the live 1966 album.

HYPERBOLE ABOUNDS AT MEETING OF SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE (via M): in the early part of the proceedings, sen. arlen specter had the following to say (emphasis mine):

As we begin a new term, I pay tribute to my distinguished colleague, Senator Hatch, who has chaired this committee for most of the past 10 years and has been responsible for some of the most innovative and far-reaching legislation which has ever come from the Congress of the United States.

needless to say, i'm not convinced that someone who is, according to specter, responsible for some of the most 'far-reaching' legislation of all time should be the object of unflinching praise.

he then said the following, on which i have no comment:

And he has handled these duties in a (sic) atmosphere sometimes contentious, sometimes difficult, but always with good cheer and always with aplomb and always with a balance. And I have admired especially his stamina. We affectionately refer to him as "Iron Pants," as he has chaired this committee with such great distinction.

'iron pants'?

hatch is, apparently, not one to be outdone in the overstatement department. he responded by saying,

Well, I'm very honored to make that presentation to Arlen Specter, who's one of the best lawyers we've ever had serve in the United States Senate, among a whole raft of very fine lawyers.

one of the best ever? my, that certainly is a high compliment.

BW has a link today to an article in the chronicle of higher education about the recent meeting of the modern language association. the article deals with discussion of the increasing disconnect between the discourse of language and literature scholarship in the humanities and the general public (yes, i'm trying to use as many words beginning with dis- as possible). there seems to be some healthy soul-searching occurring, and a push 'to reconnect teaching with scholarship'. as john david guillory pointed out,

"Our primary audience is our students," he insisted, suggesting that a larger public audience would follow a renewal of commitment to the classroom.

in addition,

Kwame Anthony Appiah, a professor of philosophy at Princeton University, deplored the humanities' inability to give a "publicly intelligible account of what we are doing." If the greater public was uninterested in the humanities, he argued, "it is our fault, not their fault."

to my mind, this is good news indeed. outgoing MLA president robert scholes stated the position of the gathering consensus well:

"I can't say just how long this will take," he said. "But I do believe that this is happening. There is more interest in these things ... grammar, rhetoric, and also logic. ... There needs to be an overall recognition that what you say has to be reasonable. That it has to be answerable to certain disciplinary considerations. Within this discipline, you can only say x if y and z are in fact reasonable suppositions."

via BW, i found a link to this piece in the science section of the NYT, wherein 'scientists, futurists and other creative thinkers' were asked to answer the question 'What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?' richard dawkins, not surprisingly, cites his faith in darwinism:

I believe, but I cannot prove, that all life, all intelligence, all creativity and all "design" anywhere in the universe, is the direct or indirect product of Darwinian natural selection. It follows that design comes late in the universe, after a period of Darwinian evolution. Design cannot precede evolution and therefore cannot underlie the universe.

but if design comes at all, doesn't that presuppose a designer? the word seems to imply to me some sort of conscious intention, but from what i've read elsewhere, dawkins wouldn't assent to the existence of a designer. at any rate, i see no reason to accept his axiom that design 'cannot precede evolution'; it seems perfectly reasonable that design would precede any sort of development, if and only if one first accepts the existence of a designer; if one does, it is more logical to believe that design would precede all else. but, to be fair, a one paragraph blurb in the NYT is not a place to offer substantive support for his claim.

two later answers present good reason to be wary of grand ontological beliefs that stem from research alone. in answer to the question posed above, donald hoffman, a cognitive scientist, replied,

I believe that consciousness and its contents are all that exists. Space-time, matter and fields never were the fundamental denizens of the universe but have always been, from their beginning, among the humbler contents of consciousness, dependent on it for their very being.

to the same question, nicholas humphrey, a psychologist, responded,

I believe that human consciousness is a conjuring trick, designed to fool us into thinking we are in the presence of an inexplicable mystery. Who is the conjuror and why is s/he doing it? The conjuror is natural selection, and the purpose has been to bolster human self-confidence and self-importance - so as to increase the value we each place on our own and others' lives.

the moral of this whole story seems to me to be that scientific research is (or can be) a very, very good thing, but that it does not, and indeed cannot, answer ultimate questions, nor is it designed to. as long as research leads to diametrically opposed unjustifiable beliefs (that is [to take the above example] if humprey's claim that human consciousness is a 'trick' means he believes it to be an illusion, his view would be opposed to hoffman's view of the truly existing consciousness), it appears that some of the grand propositions should be treated with a dose of skepticism. as a side note, i find humphrey's implication that value for human life is a fraud disturbing. i also do not understand why people speak of 'purpose' in relation to an impersonal process such as natural selection. can an impersonal force have purpose, which implies intention, which, (to me, at least) implies consciousness? this is an honest question, so if anyone has any thoughts, please shower them upon the dave.

UPDATE: i was reading jacques barzun on history and science tonight and thought the following relevant to the foregoing:

But we must recognize that our work to attain truth succeeds only piecemeal. Where our hope of truth breaks down is at the stage of making great inferences from well-tested lesser truths. Still, we cannot help inferring. Our love of order impels us to make theories, systems, sets of principles.

earlier in the same selection ('the search for truths', 2000), he urges due caution when the science-incensed convert claims that he 'will mop up all the other nonsense still in your heads and give you cast-iron truth':

This sounds delightful, but even in those disciplines where exactness and agreement appear at their highest, there is a startling mobility of views. Every day the truths of geology, cosmology, astrophysics, biology, and their sister sciences are upset.

yes, it's been a long time.

a really long time.

and, yes, i understand that no one is probably reading this anymore. but i hope, if you are, you had a merry Christmas and happy new year.

what brings me back at the moment is this disturbing story that i came across via DMac at Classical Values. perhaps i'm just really dense and beneath the niceties of lawyering, but it is beyond me why what this young man did (and the girl is left out of it!) is a felony, yet abortion itself is not illegal. don't be mistaken--i think they both should be charged, yet it seems to point up the hypocrisy current in our cultural and legal climate and in the rhetoric of choice.