waka waka waka

From our old friend Peter Kranzler comes a link and a question. The link is to this news item, which tells us that the infamous Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, has been ordered to pay $10.9 million to relatives of a U.S. Marine killed in Iraq, after church members jeered at people attending his funeral.

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I’ve been a fan of Don Van Vliet, alias Captain Beefheart, for a very long time. Though you may not be familiar with him, he is one of the more influential figures in late 20th-century American music, and without question one of the oddest.

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Which animals live the longest? That’s right: clams. And according to today’s Physorg.com newsletter, we have a new champion. Learn more here.

I’ve just watched the debate I mentioned a few days ago: between Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D’Souza on the topic Is Christianity The Problem? It was as interesting as I had expected; these are two sharp minds.

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I haven’t time just now to write at length, but want to draw your attention to an excellent article, by one Sarah Baxter, from London’s Sunday Times. It examines the convergence between the Far Left and radical Islam, which arises from a confluence of several interests, loathing of America and resentment toward Israel being foremost among them.

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It’s late, and I haven’t had time to prepare anything for this evening, so for now I invite you all to go and read two interesting posts over at Kevin Kim’s place. The first is his reaction to the D’Souza - Hitchens debate, and the second is an item about Hugh Everett’s “Many Worlds Interpretation” of quantum mechanics, which has just received a bit of a boost from some recent scientific work. (You might like to read this Wikipedia article for a little background.)

Service will be gappy for the next couple of days; I’ll be on the road, and won’t be back until Sunday. And by the way, I’ve recently gone back over our voluminous archives to create a “Favorite Posts” category, so if you’d like to browse those in the meanwhile, please do. Comments are always open.

On Monday evening Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D’Souza squared off for a debate at The Ethical Culture Society’s Manhattan auditorium; the topic was “Is Christianity the Problem?” I first heard about it from my friend The Stiletto, who sent me a link to an item by D’Souza announcing the event.

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In today’s New York Times is a review, by Michiko Kakutani, of The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America, by the feminist author Susan Faludi. I haven’t read the book, and I am not about to comment on it.

I did, however, read an Op-Ed piece by Ms. Faludi back on September 7th, in which she articulated the principal theme of her book: that America is founded on a mythos of helpless women and protective men, and that the circumstances that originally fostered this mindset — American settlers at risk of Indian attacks as they began to tame the wilderness — were similar enough to the terror-haunted post-9/11 U.S. that this primeval worldview is ascendant once again, in political and popular culture.

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In a recent post at his Maverick Philosopher website, Bill Vallicella responds to the following brief remark by philosopher Jim Ryan:

The reason I’m an atheist is straightforward. The proposition that there is a god is as unlikely as ghosts, Martians amongst us, and reincarnation. There isn’t the slightest evidence for these hypotheses which fly in the face of so much else that we know to be true. So I believe all of them to be false.

I agree with most of what Ryan says here, but consider Bill to be as nimble and astute a theist as one is likely to find, so I was interested to see how he would reply.

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A couple of days ago the Nobel laureate James Watson was all over the news: he had expressed, in an interview for the London Times, his opinion that scientific results indicated that black Africans were, on average, less intelligent than white Northerners. In a subsequent article, we read:

Dr Watson, who runs one of America’s leading scientific research institutions, made the controversial remarks in an interview in The Sunday Times.

The 79-year-old geneticist said he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really”. He said he hoped that everyone was equal, but countered that “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true”.

He says that you should not discriminate on the basis of colour, because “there are many people of colour who are very talented, but don’t promote them when they haven’t succeeded at the lower level”. He writes that “there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so”.

It’s not surprising that this has caused quite a stir. From the Left, we hear cries of racism. And from the Right, we hear that Dr. Watson is being unfairly vilified for refusing to put political correctness before impartial scientific inquiry.

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In a previous post, I commented, perhaps a bit archly, upon the recent decision of the Portland, ME school board to give birth-control pills to young children without parental notification. While it is easy enough (and fun!) simply to jeer and scoff, now that I’ve got that out of the way I suppose we should address the possibility that, however remote it may seem, there was some rational process, some explicable motus mentis, behind the school-system’s decision.

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In my morning visit to Kevin Kim’s place I found this post, in which he calls our attention to a hilarious video clip.

This is not a family-oriented link (except in the sense, perhaps, of creating one). Adults only, please.

In today’s Times we learn that the King Middle School of Portland, Maine, will be doling out birth-control pills to its pupils. Eligible candidates will be as young as 11, and parents will not be notified. If you don’t believe me, take a moment to read the story for yourself.

Readers will, of course, already be aware that I am a reactionary killjoy, a superannuated mossback, a benighted atavism, and am utterly out of step with the brisk accelerando of 21st-century social reform. So it should come as no shock that I think this is breathtaking in its lunacy.

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There are several things in the news that are worth mentioning tonight; in particular I’d like to ruminate a bit on the James Watson imbroglio. But I’ve just got back from teaching class down at the kwoon, and it’s too late to begin a long post (especially as my forearms are a bit banged up, rendering typing somewhat unpleasant). So the difficult subject of what to do about awkward scientific results will have to wait, I’m afraid.

I’d be remiss, though, if I didn’t pause to thank Joe Torre for all the wonderful years he gave us as Yankees skipper. He will be a mighty hard act to follow.

But you know, of course, that I won’t send you away empty-handed. So here is tonight’s wisp of Internet froth: an engaging optical illusion, complete with pop-psych rubbish about brain-hemisphere dominance.

As I was poking around at the newly added Policeman’s Blog (see our previous post), I came across an item that featured the video below, in which we learn how a proper Musselman is expected to treat the ladies.

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If you’re like me — and I have no reason to assume you aren’t — you’ve been wondering: what is it really like to be an English policeman, anyway?

Well, wonder no more, thanks to the latest addition to our sidebar (courtesy of the estimable Deogulwulf): The Policeman’s Blog.

I took a stroll through town this evening after work: from Grand Central down to the Lower East Side, with a stop at Pete’s Tavern to have a drink with a friend. The night air was enjoyable, and it was good to stir my bones after sitting at my desk in the office all day.

It was good, also, to be reminded of what a vibrant place New York City is. I tend to withdraw, especially lately; I’ve had plenty of hustle and bustle in my day, and have little need of crowds and noise. These days I generally prefer the quiet of our wooded hilltop in Wellfleet to the clamor and din of Midtown, and when the weather is too warm for my liking — as it has been until this week — I find being out in Gotham’s congested streets rather difficult to bear.

But on a clear and pleasant autumn evening it was easy to remember why I love this city. New York comes to life in the fall, and I felt surrounded and buoyed by its bracing, positive energy. Young couples were everywhere, getting about the important business of enjoying themselves, and one another. Two old Cajuns were playing banjo and fiddle at Cooper Square. The Bowery, once a metaphor for destitution, bustled with upscale nightlife. And even the unlovely Lower East Side — Delancey Street, Allen Street, and environs — seemed warm and welcoming, and throbbed with life.

I guess there’s no place like home.

I’ve just read Sam Harris’s Letter To A Christian Nation. It is brief — one can finish it in an hour or so — but pungent.

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Today was the occasion of the 7th Annual Wellfleet OysterFest, and, as usual, folks came from all over to visit our charming seaside village, to browse the displays put up by our many artists and craftspeople, and, first and foremost, to gorge upon the succulent bivalves for which the town is justly famed. The beer flowed, the bands played, the weather was clear and cool — in short, it was a splendid occasion. I wish you all could have been here.

Readers may recall my brief account of last year’s bacchanal, which, though generally a delightful event, was tragically marred by this reporter’s elimination in the later rounds of the annual OysterFest Spelling Bee. Well, at the risk of seeming immodest, I am pleased to report a happier conclusion to this year’s tournament: after many rounds of sanguinary combat with some truly outstanding competitors (not to mention a few heart-stopping missteps, including one egregious error), I managed to come away with First Prize.

There is a tinge of sadness in the realization that one simply has no mountains left to conquer, but for now I’m just savoring the moment.

By now you have probably heard of Second Life, the enormously popular online “world”. I’ve poked around in it a bit myself, but am such a reclusive old grouch that I haven’t been inclined to hang around much. (One of the things I have found off-putting is the lack of a good audio interface, which has meant that one must communicate by typing — though I understand they’re working on that.) But I can see why it’s doing well; you can do and see and build all sorts of creative things, if you aren’t already worn out from writing code all day long at work, and you can certainly meet all sorts of people, from all over the place. (Well, not all sorts, I suppose: you aren’t, for example, likely to meet many technology-shy, bookish sorts, or blind people, or my mother-in-law, or Sentinalese tribesmen. But you get the idea.)

Anyway, it’s easy to imagine that Second Life would be a nice getaway for folks who are confined in one way or another in their real lives: lighthouse keepers, say, or the endungeoned. Now we find, thanks to today’s Physorg.com newsletter, that Japanese scientists are working on a way to make Second Life available to paraplegics by allowing them to control the user-interface with their thoughts alone.

Learn more here.

My friend Wayne Krantz has sent along a link to an item in the New York Times about the social perils of email.

The article, by psychologist and author Daniel Goleman, is entitled E-Mail Is Easy to Write (and to Misread). In it, we learn that:

In contrast to a phone call or talking in person, e-mail can be emotionally impoverished when it comes to nonverbal messages that add nuance and valence to our words. The typed words are denuded of the rich emotional context we convey in person or over the phone.

We are not, of course, startled to hear this. What is interesting, though, is that it should rise to the level of newsworthiness.

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Here’s a pretty picture:

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I must say this is certainly NOT how I imagined that the early days of October would be. Five weeks ago I scribbled a post in which I gave thanks that the summer’s sticky warmth was soon to give way to the clear cool days of autumn. “The most beautiful months of all”, I said. The skies would be “swept clear of summer’s viscous murk”. The air was going to “sparkle and invigorate”.

Yeah, well, I’m still waiting. Here we are in the second week of October, and it might as well be July. The temperature was hovering somewhere in the upper 80’s this evening when I left the office. The air is damp and greasy. The subway platforms are still sweltering, and the tunnel rats are capering in midseason form in the moldering filth. The leaves on the trees — yes, those would be the ones that I predicted would by now have begun to “flare once again with impossible, incandescent beauty” — are not exactly flaring so much as hanging limply and starting to rot.

To make matters far worse, the Yankees, facing elimination at the hands of the Cleveland Indians, are trailing 6-3 in the top of the 8th.

Feh.

I ran across an odd website the other day. Its purpose is to demonstrate what a completely click-free browsing environment would be like. The authors clearly think it’s better, somehow, but I don’t think I like it at all. How about you? See for yourself here.

I’m sorry to have been off the air yesterday; it’s been a busy couple of days.

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Well, enough politics for now. I’ve dwelt on the topic overmuch lately anyway; folks might get the idea it was something I’m actually interested in. I’m gratified, at least, not to have received the cataract of vitriol that I might reasonably have expected to follow that previous post, though it might be too soon to tell.

So, on to lighter fare. Here’s something nobody saw coming, so to speak: the newest hybrid and electric cars are so quiet, apparently, that they pose a risk to blind people, who rely on their hearing to know when it’s safe to cross the street. Story here.

Neoconservatism takes a terrible pounding these days. The term “neoconservative” itself, and its common abbreviation, “necon”, are more often spat out in fury than with any understanding of what the word actually refers to, which is a coherent and morally informed school of thought that sees the traditional American ideals of liberty and democracy as fundamentally desirable anchors for our foreign policy.

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My son Nick has sent along a link to a video, in four parts, of a marvelous lecture by Richard Dawkins on the topic of Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder. Dawkins is, of course, a controversial figure nowadays for his staunch criticism of religion, but like him or not he is a brilliant communicator, and we see him here at his very best.

The latest NASA newsletter contained an unusual item: it’s a video clip of Comet Encke (looking for all the world like a plucky little spermatozoon), which, having passed too close to the Sun, has its tail ripped off by a “coronal mass ejection”. Have a look here.

Violence declined sharply in Iraq last month. This was such unwelcome news at the New York Times that the story, which opened with the sentence “The number of violent civilian deaths in Iraq dropped precipitously in September compared with the previous month”, was presented “below the fold” on page 10, having been knocked off the front page by a fast-breaking story about how girls in their early teens have become an attractive demographic target for Broadway producers.

One must imagine that gladder tidings, such as a massive flareup in sectarian violence, preferably with heavy coalition casualties, would have been featured more prominently.

Well, it looks like John McCain is done. I don’t suppose that he had much of a shot at the Republican nomination anyway, but now he’s being roasted alive for some candid remarks he made during an interview at Beliefnet.org.

What was McCain’s unpardonable offense? Being a Christian himself, he expressed a wish to have a Christian president. Wasting no time, and with depressing predictability, the Muslims, the Jews, and presumably everyone else on down to the Jains and the Zoroastrians have queued up to bastinado him for his effrontery.

It’s a fine line a candidate has to walk; strait is the gate, and narrow the path. On the one hand, he is required to appear on CNN specials to bawl like a carnival barker about the vital role his “faith” plays in his life, because American voters would sooner elect a carjacking crack addict than a Godless heathen. But if he actually goes so far as to believe the teachings of his religion, and to consider them to be of sufficient worth that he would prefer to see the leader of the free world informed by them — and is honest enough to say so — he is promptly assailed as a bigot.

What appears to be required, then, is a deep and abiding religious faith, with an unshakeable and fortifying reliance upon the guidance and wisdom of the Almighty, but also untainted by any content specific enough to differentiate a Calvinist from a Yazidi.

Small wonder the Europeans think we’re a bunch of lunatics.

Since 9/11, there has been a steady drone of voices from the Left asking “why do they hate us?”¹, and supplying, lest we might be tempted to assign any blame whatsoever to our enemies, a litany of reasons why U.S. influence in the world is toxic and malevolent. They assume that jihadist assaults on the West are purely reactive; that if we had only somehow been nicer, our virulent Islamist foes would instead view us with benign indifference. The truth, however, is that fundamentalist Islam is not, and has never been, a passive agency in the world, but has always had a clear and proactive agenda: the creation of a worldwide Ummah, to be achieved by the elimination of infidels, through conversion or slaughter.

Horace Jeffery Hodges, the Gypsy Scholar, has just written an incisive post on this topic, with a number of illuminating links. Required reading.

1. No, it’s not for the reason this wag suggests.