Monday, July 23, 2012
Dreamers ...
... The .Reading Life: Thinking about 'Double Indemnity' - latimes.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Weird ...
... Sanctions drop Paterno to 12th on winningest coach list - The Daily Item, Sunbury, PA.
I have no dog in this fight, but it does strike me as being a bit like how they dug up Cromwell after his death and hanged his corpse. These teams either won those games or they didn't. And if they won them, doesn't taking the wins away punish perfectly innocent players?
I have no dog in this fight, but it does strike me as being a bit like how they dug up Cromwell after his death and hanged his corpse. These teams either won those games or they didn't. And if they won them, doesn't taking the wins away punish perfectly innocent players?
In case you wondered ....
... Crovitz: Who Really Invented the Internet? - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
It's an urban legend that the government launched the Internet. The myth is that the Pentagon created the Internet to keep its communications lines up even in a nuclear strike. The truth is a more interesting story about how innovation happens—and about how hard it is to build successful technology companies even once the government gets out of the way.
Thought for the day ...
Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the professional standing of the critic.
- Raymond Chandler, born on this date in 1888
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Compellingly block-headed...
...You still eat with your hands? Oprah’s magical mystery tour of India
I do, and it's the only way to relish dal-rice.
I do, and it's the only way to relish dal-rice.
Knocking on things ...
... Three Paragraphs of Night Hunting | The New Psalmanazar. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
One more reason ....
... to take the media with a grain of salt: How This Guy Lied His Way Into MSNBC, ABC News, The New York Times and More - Forbes. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
“I knew that bloggers would print anything, so I thought, what if, as an experiment, I tried to prove that they will literally print anything?” he says.I didn't think bloggers printed anything. And I certainly wouldn't post anything. But then I'm an oldtimer.
Beauty and evolution ...
... Adam Kirsch: Art Over Biology | The New Republic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The problem with Darwinian aesthetics and neuroaesthetics is not that art is like religion, something divine that can only be violated by bringing it back to the realm of biology. Aesthetics is different, in that the facts it has to work with are terrestrial, this-worldly. They are the feelings and the thoughts we have in response to works of art, and the feelings and the thoughts that lead us to want to create them in the first place. So it would seem that there is no reason, in principle, why these cannot be illuminated by evolution. But this can only happen if we begin with a full and accurate account of what we are trying to explain.
No inexact praise ...
... Weekly Poem: 'Quarantine' | Art Beat | PBS NewsHour | PBS. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Thought for the day ...
Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways.
- Stephen Vincent Benét, born on this date in 1898
The moral imperative...
...What money ought not to buy
Standing in the queue for movie tickets for hours and getting them was a common childhood experience for many of us. This was clearly a function of demand and supply. Those who did not get tickets but had the money simply bought tickets in black. This is how the asymmetry in the market worked. Those who sold and bought tickets in black possibly suffered from a temporary pang of guilt. However, with economic rationality taking over, we now have dual pricing – and the rent that was sought by the black marketeer is now transferred directly to the cinema hall. The guilt is washed away and there is a price discovery. However, it has also taken away the livelihood of the black marketeer who would have been a poorer intermediary between the multiplex owner and the consumer. Is that something we need to consider from a moral point of view?
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Misappropriation ...
... Getting Améry Wrong (along with Everything Else) - Commentary Magazine. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Interesting fellow ...
... M John Harrison: a life in writing | Culture | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Lee Lowe.)
Not for her ...
... Susan Sontag on Aphorisms and the Commodification of Wisdom | Brain Pickings. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Yeah, sure. Gracián and La Rochefoucauld were commodifiers of wisdom.
Yeah, sure. Gracián and La Rochefoucauld were commodifiers of wisdom.
Thought for the day ...
As a rule of thumb I say, if Socrates, Jesus and Tolstoy wouldn't do it, don't.
- John Gardner, born on this date in 1933
Friday, July 20, 2012
Is that so?
... Climate Center: Northeast to remain abnormally dry.
Well, it's been raining steadily here in Tunkhannock since last night and the rain is expected to continue off and in until tomorrow afternoon. The creek down below is burbling away. And the forecast for Philly, I see, calls for rain. As Niels Bohr said, predicting is difficult, especially the future. But humans have an incurable desire to know the future.
Well, it's been raining steadily here in Tunkhannock since last night and the rain is expected to continue off and in until tomorrow afternoon. The creek down below is burbling away. And the forecast for Philly, I see, calls for rain. As Niels Bohr said, predicting is difficult, especially the future. But humans have an incurable desire to know the future.
Indeed we have ....
... and it always seems to sell: Grumpy Old Bookman: Fifty Shades of Grey? We have been here before. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Thought for the day ....
Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good.
- Petrarch, born on this date in 1304
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Philosophy and music ...
... Review of Francois Noudelmann, "The Philosopher's Touch: Sartre, Nietzsche, and Barthes at the Piano" | Inside Higher Ed. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
But Barthes’s passion for Schumann (or Sartre’s for Chopin, or Nietzsche’s for Bizet) involves more than relief at escaping severe music for something more Romantic and melodious. The familiarity of certain compositions; the fact that they fall within the limits of the player’s ability, or give it enough of a challenge to be stimulating; the way a passage inspires particular moods or echoes them -- all of this is part of the reality that playing music “is entirely different from listening to it or commenting on it.” That sounds obvious but it is something even a bad performer sometimes understands better than a good critic.
FYI ...
... Adult fiction ebooks outsold hardcovers in 2011-survey | Reuters. (Hat tip, Joseph Chovanes.)
Who knew?
... Frederick Douglass, Classical Liberal - Reason.com.
It’s true that Frederick Douglass simultaneously championed both civil rights and economic liberty. But the proper term for that combination isn’t Social Darwinism; it’s classical liberalism. The central component of Douglass’ worldview was the principle of self-ownership, which he understood to include both racial equality and the right to enjoy the fruits of one’s labor.
He's back ...
... KEEPER OF THE SNAILS: An Interview with Herodotus. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I still remember the summer in high school I spent reading Herodotus.
I still remember the summer in high school I spent reading Herodotus.
Thought for the day ...
Man cannot live without some knowledge of the purpose of life. If he can find no purpose in life he creates one in the inevitability of death.
- Chester Himes, born on this date in 1909
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Language champ...
... Bradley Wiggins: tin tacks, syntax and Chinese sensibility - Telegraph. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
When wasn't it?
... When everything’s for sale | TLS. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A more general defect is that the historical dimension is patchy or absent from the book. For the most part, we go back no further than the Reagan era. Yet a longer sweep is liable to produce rather more mixed results. Schools, hospitals and prisons have often in the past been owned and operated for private profit. In England, the “poor schools” financed by the pennies of working-class parents did much to spread mass literacy before the intervention of the state. In the developing world today, it is modest fee-paying schools which lead the way in expanding educational opportunities for the worst-off. As for prisons, the Father of the Marshalsea took it for granted that his better-off visitors should finance his cell upgrade.
Good point ...
... Against Condemnation - Aphorisms and Paradoxes by Brian Jay Stanley. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Thought for the day ...
For me, poetry is always a search for order.
- Elizabeth Jennings, born on this date in 1926
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
The desire to create ...
... Love of Beauty and the Birth of the Artist | First Things. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The energy in this portion of Emerson’s essay is palpable, and upon reflection is the same energy I’ve felt exuding from most of the artists I know. People who I consider true artists always seem driven to be constantly creating. Even before one work is finished they are already considering what they want to work on next. Regardless of the physical, monetary, or even emotional sacrifices they need to make in order to do their work as artists, they continue on, the rewards outweighing any losses they incur.
Hmm ...
... God Does Play Dice With The Universe (And The Dice Are Fair).
Einstein and the giants of his day could not settle whether quantum mechanics is the best way to predict outcomes. Einstein's 'God does not play dice with the Universe' is often invoked in these arguments (less well known is Neils Bohr's one-time annoyed response, "Stop telling God what to do").
Life in the termitary ...
... The Hivemind Singularity - Alan Jacobs - The Atlantic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Religion and literature ...
... Victorian Parables | Books and Culture.
The larger series of which this book is a part—Continuum's New Directions in Religion and Literature—bills itself as offering "a timely critical intervention to the interdisciplinary crossover between religion and literature." Colón's book exemplifies this ambition, proving equally adept in its recounting of and responding to the variety of approaches to the parables offered by biblical scholars such as Dan O. Via and John Dominic Crossan and literary critics such as Frank Kermode and J. Hillis Miller. Colón is particularly concerned to demonstrate how shabby and often nebulous definitions have pernicious consequences for studies of both synoptic and extrabiblical parables.
Long, but well worth your time ...
... Edward Feser: The road from atheism. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I don’t know exactly when everything clicked. There was no single event, but a gradual transformation. As I taught and thought about the arguments for God’s existence, and in particular the cosmological argument, I went from thinking “These arguments are no good” to thinking “These arguments are a little better than they are given credit for” and then to “These arguments are actually kind of interesting.” Eventually it hit me: “Oh my goodness, these arguments are right after all!” By the summer of 2001 I would find myself trying to argue my wife’s skeptical physicist brother-in-law into philosophical theism on the train the four of us were taking through eastern Europe.
Sanity revival ...
... Things Are Looking Up | Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Stillman’s students, like the ones with whom I’m acquainted, are not crazed wantons. Yes, they’re self-important, judgmental, and confused. But isn’t this the nature of youth? Besides, they’re generally quite charming. They spout oracular judgments on everything from religion to table manners and carefully hold only socially approved prejudices.
Thought for the day ...
Every work of art should give utterance, or indicate, the awful blind strength and the cruelty of the creative impulse, that is why they must all have what are called errors, both of taste and style.
- Christina Stead, born on this date in 1902
Monday, July 16, 2012
Ham of God ...
... The True Stardom of Fulton Sheen | First Things. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Despite all the acclaim he received, Sheen strived to maintain “the simplicity of a dedicated parish priest,” said Monsignor. For Sheen, the priesthood was a precious gift that needed to be nourished through continual prayer. Every day, no matter where he was, even if traveling abroad, he made it a point to spend one hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament. It kept his mind constantly on the divine, and fortified his work.
Shared consciousness ...
... Mind bending: Why our memories are not always our own - Features - Health & Families - The Independent. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
... the study of sibling memories also convincingly demonstrates how two forces go head to head in memory. There is the drive to represent events accurately, which means being true to the often vivid impressions we have about what actually happened. And there is the drive for coherence, the need to produce a narrative whose elements fit together. In this case, coherence is a matter of agreement between people. Our stories need to make sense to us individually, but they also need to make sense to those who matter to us.
More on the Barnes Collection
"If Barnes was a progressive idealist, he was also a hard-hearted bastard—litigious, foul-mouthed, the worst kind of control freak. He fell out with everyone he could not dominate, with the exception of Dewey, and demonized anyone who disagreed with him. He became a coprographic crank, and his little institution with its great art collection became increasingly insular—even more so after his death in 1951."
From a recent piece in The Nation.
From a recent piece in The Nation.
Good points all ...
... WQXR: does the Web make criticism meaner? - Classical Beat - The Washington Post. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
How terribly sad ...
... The TLS blog: Amy Turner and the Spider.
... A writer, and a friend, of the highest class.
(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord.
... A writer, and a friend, of the highest class.
(Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord.
Arrival ...
We got to the cabin at about 7 last night, having first done some shopping, then stopping off at the Fireplace Restaurant, where Debbie had prime rib and I had a steak. Once we settled in, though, it was all chill-out time. I slept better last night than I have in months, and it was certainly pleasant after the weather we've been having, to sleep under a blanket.
Thought for the day ...
Old men should have more care to end life well than to live long.
- Anita Brookner, born on this date in 1938
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