Only Human

May 21, 2006 – 11:40 pm

We should never underestimate the pervasiveness of human nature. Among the many drives that motivate us is the desire for status, which in primate groups like ours is obviously correlated with one’s reproductive prospects. This yearning to increase our standing in the group affects our behavior even in the most rarefied spheres of endeavor, for example the practice of philosophy.

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By Malcolm | Posted in Reason and Philosophy | Comments (9)

More Good News

May 21, 2006 – 12:57 am

Want strong, healthy bones? Of course you do, and I have the answer. Learn more here.

Oh, and you can take that part about “moderation” cum grano salis, as they say. I certainly do.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (1)

Guesswork

May 19, 2006 – 2:40 pm

From time to time I mention amusing or imaginative Web sites in these pages. I’ve just stumbled across a good one; it’s an artificial-intelligence engine that plays (and usually wins) the game of Twenty Questions. It has just managed to guess that I was thinking of a snail, a pair of sunglasses, a pencil, and a grapefruit.

Click here to give it a try.

By Malcolm | Posted in Technology, Shameless Filler | Comments (0)

There Goes the Neighborhood

May 18, 2006 – 11:13 pm

It having been a long day – it’s eleven p.m., and I’ve only just got home from the kung fu school – I’ll just leave you tonight with an interesting tidbit from today’s paper.

Apparently, recent study of the human genome has turned up an interesting kink in our lineage. It seems that the human-chimp divergence wasn’t quite as neat and tidy as was once believed; it now appears that after the human and chimp lines had parted ways, they rejoined, thereby producing chimp-human hybrids for a while (not sure what you’d call them, maybe humps). In other words, proto-humans, and then female chimp-human hybrids, crossbred for a while with the proto-chimps.

This is bound to give some people fits, which of course tickles me no end. I haven’t checked to see how the chimps feel about it. Read more here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Darwin and Biology | Comments (1)

On Our Minds

May 17, 2006 – 1:20 pm

As it happens, the featured article on the front page of Wikipedia today is Philosophy of Mind. In the article we find the question:

“How can the subjective qualities and the intentionality (aboutness) of mental states and properties be explained in naturalistic terms?”

Small world.

By Malcolm | Posted in Mind and Brain, Reason and Philosophy | Comments (1)

Intentional Grounding

May 16, 2006 – 11:09 pm

One of the knottier topics in philosophy of mind is intentionality. The term refers to the way our thoughts are about their objects, and intentionality is often considered to be an exclusive hallmark of the mental. A thought can be “about” Paris, but a stone, or a lampshade, cannot be.

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By Malcolm | Posted in Darwin and Biology, Reason and Philosophy, Pretty Good Posts, Mind and Brain | Comments (11)

Skunk Works

May 15, 2006 – 1:13 pm

We had a little Steely Dan playing on the PubSub office jukebox today, and as we listened to Jeff “Skunk” Baxter’s outstanding guitar playing on “Reelin’ In The Years“, I had occasion to reflect on what an extraordinary fellow he is. Not only is he one of the most capable rock musicians of the last several decades, always in demand as a producer and sideman (and one of my favorite soloists), but he is also a self-taught defense-technology expert, who has become a widely respected D.O.D. consultant on such matters as counterterrorism tactics and missile defense.

If you’d like to find out more about this remarkable autodidact, Baxter’s Wikipedia entry is worth a peek.

By Malcolm | Posted in Music and Recording | Comments (1)

Mixed Message

May 14, 2006 – 5:35 pm

Sorry not to have posted anything yesterday; I spent the whole day in the ‘B’ room at Avatar Studios, doing some mixing with my old pal, guitarist Steve Khan. We were mixing two takes that didn’t make it onto last year’s album The Green Field (which featured Jack deJohnette, John Patitucci, and Manola Badrena). At the tracking dates, back in May of 2005, we wound up recording more material than would fit on a CD, so the two songs we mixed yesterday – Henry Mancini’s Dreamsville and McCoy Tyner’s Blues for Ball – will just have to wait till next time around.

Studio B is a nice little room, with a cozy live area that’s just right for a small rhythm section (among others, Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards recorded a string of hits in there, back in the 80’s) and an expansive Solid State Logic 9000 series console.

I was a staff engineer there from 1979 until 1987, back when the place was called Power Station, so I always feel right at home.

By Malcolm | Posted in Music and Recording | Comments (1)

UN-biased Reporting

May 12, 2006 – 3:26 pm

I’ve been getting a little back-channel heat about my tendency, lately, to make unkind remarks about the UN. So, for the record, I’d like to say that I have always felt that the only hope for the world, in the long run, was some sort of universal government, and that I think the historical tendency of “non-zero-sum” cooperative arrangements to emerge at larger and larger scales makes such an arrangement practically inevitable, sooner or later. I used to be a big defender of the UN, back when US foreign policy seemed to consist mainly of propping up whatever foul despot would take our side against the Reds (although it seems we are still not above cozying up to a few who will take our side against the jihadists).

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By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (1)

Luna Blu

May 12, 2006 – 1:42 pm

Most of what happens in our lives conforms fairly closely to what we’ve come to expect. Most Tuesdays are, generally, rather a lot like most other Tuesdays, and the news most days is not significantly more or less notable than most other days. The weather is, generally, about what you’d expect for the time of year, and most lunches are not significantly more or less enjoyable than most other lunches. Memorable events are rare, and, almost tautologically, the truly salient events in one’s life – the things that come along “once in a blue moon” – are extremely rare. When they do happen, they are generally either thrilling, wonderful, electrifying moments that will glow happily in our memory for the rest of our lives, or they are the great tragedies and calamities that take the measure of us all.

We are blessed, I think, that the natural order of things – perhaps it is Zipf’s Law at work – spares most of us from too many of these extremes. Roller coasters are popular, but nobody wants to live on one.

When the big, bad things happen, we can be thankful that they are rare. And when the good ones do – and how sweet they can be – we should simply be thankful to be here at all.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (0)

Seedy Neighborhood

May 11, 2006 – 11:35 pm

There are several American Elm trees on my block in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and just as they do every spring, they are squandering their resources in profligate and futile excess.

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By Malcolm | Posted in General, Pretty Good Posts | Comments (1)

UN-Acceptable Behavior

May 10, 2006 – 2:42 pm

A story in yesterday’s New York Times brings to our attention once again the fine job that the United Nations is doing to make the world a better place:

Liberian girls as young as 8 are being sexually exploited by United Nations peacekeepers, aid workers and teachers in return for food, small favors and even rides in trucks, according to a new report from Save the Children U.K.

Of course, the entire civilized world, its patience already stretched to the limit by US abuses at Guantanamo, immediately rose up in outrage, and anti-UN rioting paralyzed the world’s capitals.

Oh wait – well, actually, that didn’t happen. Nobody seems to be bothered, particularly, except for Save the Children, which recommends a swift and severe response (emphasis mine):

Save the Children said Liberia and the United Nations should set up an office to investigate cases of the sexual exploitation and to work to ensure that the behavior stops, prosecuting the offenders, among other steps.

It also said United Nations workers accused of sexual exploitation should “go through judicial proceedings,” and if found guilty, should not be sent elsewhere as peacekeepers.

That’ll teach ’em.

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (1)

Sunni Disposition

May 9, 2006 – 2:34 pm

In an April 16th raid near Yusufiyah, Iraq (in the so-called “Triangle of Death” ), US-led forces came upon a trove of al-Qaeda documents. One of them was a memorandum assessing the state of their efforts in Baghdad in less-than-rosy terms:

At the same time, the Americans and the Government were able to absorb our painful blows, sustain them, compensate their losses with new replacements, and follow strategic plans which allowed them in the past few years to take control of Baghdad as well as other areas one after the other. That is why every year is worse than the previous year as far as the Mujahidin’s control and influence over Baghdad.

Read the full translation here.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (7)

Ajami on Lewis II

May 8, 2006 – 6:48 pm

Johns Hopkins professor Fouad Ajami was on the Wall Street Journal’s television program, the “Journal Editorial Report”, over the weekend, to discuss the conference held recently in Philadelphia to honor the 90th birthday of the great Mideast scholar Bernard Lewis.

Read More »

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Politics | Comments (0)

Scrutable

May 7, 2006 – 11:46 pm

My friend Jon Mandell has sent along a link to a story about the rapid rise of blogging in China. It is estimated that by the end of the year, exotic Cathay will be home to sixty million online scribes.

What is remarkable to me about the technological revolution of the last few years is the way that it enables us to ignore traditional barriers of scale. Just as we can, with Google Earth, take in the whole world from space, then in seconds swoop all the way down to our own rooftop, with tools like PubSub and Google we can survey the entire Earth-girdling ocean of human expression, and zoom in on any given drop.

It is easy to imagine that some emergent event, some critical mass, must be approaching as the worldwide interconnectedness of everyone with everyone else increases. In chemistry, solvents are used to provide a medium in which molecules may react; as the reagent concentration increases, the number of reactions per second does too. What we are doing here is putting an ever-increasing number of highly reactive molecules – people – into solution. And the Internet is the solvent.

This is, of course, an imperfect analogy. Perhaps a better choice might be Boyle’s Law, or nuclear fission.

I’d prefer not to dwell on that last one.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Technology | Comments (1)

The Wright Stuff

May 6, 2006 – 11:15 pm

Sorry, I’m just too tired tonight to write anything worth reading. But I don’t want anyone who has taken the trouble to pay us a visit to go away empty-handed, so here’s an interesting link: a website where author Robert Wright (whose insightful book Nonzero I have just begun reading) has posted video clips of his interviews with an impressive assortment of prominent thinkers.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Reason and Philosophy, Shameless Filler | Comments (1)

There He Makes Men

May 6, 2006 – 12:33 am

My friend Mike Zaharee, who works in PubSub‘s Granite State Research Kitchen up in Nashua, NH, reminded me the other day that New Hampshire is the only state in which the Right of Revolution is written right into the Constitution. Here it is, Article 10:

Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.

This is the same state about which Daniel Webster once said, referring to the iconic (and recently departed) Old Man of the Mountain:

Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoemakers hang out a gigantic shoe; jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but in the mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes Men.

My kind of place.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Politics | Comments (1)

Platonic Relationship

May 5, 2006 – 12:27 am

Well, I seem to have got myself into quite a scrap over at Bill Vallicella’s place, to the extent that I’ve worn myself out writing comments over there, rather than confecting something interesting or amusing for waka waka waka.

The argument is about whether abstract, Platonic objects, such as the number 7, really have an autonomous, mind-independent existence. Most philosophers, I think, would say, perhaps grudgingly, that they do, but the matter is not settled, and I am playing Devil’s advocate, to the best of my dilettantish ability, to see if the non-platonist view – that such things exist only insofar as there are minds to instantiate them – holds water.

Please feel free to let me know what you think about this.

By Malcolm | Posted in Reason and Philosophy | Comments (1)

Condemned to Live

May 3, 2006 – 11:11 pm

I see that Zacarias Moussaoui has been sentenced to life in prison, which I think is the correct decision. I am generally opposed to the death penalty anyway, and in the case of a fundamentalist Muslim fanatic eager for his chance at martyrdom, a death sentence is effectively the same as throwing Br’er Rabbit into the briar patch. Under this arrangement he will have to wait a very long time for his 72 virgins.

By Malcolm | Posted in General, Society and Culture | Comments (1)

Old News

May 2, 2006 – 11:49 pm

My friend George Beke, in an online discussion of the Gospel of Judas, quotes G.I. Gurdjieff’s book Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson. The story takes place on the spaceship Karnak, where the horned Beelzebub, returning much older and wiser to his home planet after millennia of exile in our solar system for his youthful transgressions, is telling his grandson Hassein about the strange beings who dwell on the planet Earth.

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By Malcolm | Posted in Marginalia, Inner Work | Comments (1)

The Swamps of Turtle Bay

May 1, 2006 – 4:39 pm

From the notes for the United Nations’ Disarmament Commission 2006 Substantive Session 269th & 270th Meetings (AM & PM):

In other business, the following delegations were elected as Vice-chairpersons, by acclamation: Chile, Uruguay and Iran.

So now Iran, whose rabid president has declared that his country “doesn’t give a damn” about UN efforts (including possible resolutions) to ensure that it does not arm itself with nuclear weapons, is to be a “Vice-chairperson” of the Disarmament Commission (thanks to James Taranto for pointing this out).

Is there any value in our continued participation in this feckless and corrupt organization?

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (1)

Ajami on Lewis

May 1, 2006 – 11:49 am

In today’s Wall Street Journal is an appreciation, by Fouad Ajami, of the great historian and scholar of Islam Bernard Lewis. Read it here, and then go and read Lewis himself, to gain a better understanding of the cultural and historical underpinnings of the current “clash of civilizations” – which is, of course, but the latest convulsion in a grim struggle that has lasted over 1400 years.

Ajami quotes Lewis on the prospects for Western civilization:

It may be that Western culture will indeed go: The lack of conviction of many of those who should be its defenders and the passionate intensity of its accusers may well join to complete its destruction. But if it does go, the men and women of all the continents will thereby be impoverished and endangered.

-from “Cultures in Conflict: Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the Age of Discovery”

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (0)

Shore Thing

April 30, 2006 – 11:55 pm

Well, we’re back. My daughter ChloÁ« and I had a most enjoyable drive from Ann Arbor to Brooklyn, with a stopover on Saturday night in State College, Pennsylvania.

We traversed a splendid transect of rural and industrial America, and, being in no particular hurry, took a couple of little detours. The first was a brief hop northward from Route 80 to catch a glimpse of Lake Erie; we achieved this in the town of Lorain, a western suburb of Cleveland. This was the third year I’ve made this round trip to fetch ChloÁ« at the end of the school year, and each time I’ve thought about the Shining Big Sea Water just a few miles away, all unseen. This year we decided to take a peek.

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By Malcolm | Posted in General, Pretty Good Posts | Comments (1)

419

April 28, 2006 – 10:44 pm

Your correspondent finds himself tonight in Maumee, Ohio, a suburb of Toledo. The area code here is 419, so it seems fitting to post a link that has to do with the “Nigerian Scam”, which is also known as the “419 scam” after the number of the Nigerian law that the racket violates. This is the familiar email con in which someone in Africa claims to have a king’s ransom that needs depositing Stateside, and that the plan lacks only a trustworthy party (the intended scamee) to provide a safe place for the swag, in return for a hefty cut.

Jess Kaplan has brought to my attention a fellow who calls himself Ebola Monkey Man, whose hobby is scamming the scammers. He pretends to bite, then plays the would-be swindler like a tarpon. He posts the email exchanges on his website; in particular Jess had pointed out this episode. Meet Black Mic – Bitch Honkey Killa and B-Smooth.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture | Comments (3)

Possible Service Interruption

April 27, 2006 – 11:28 pm

Tomorrow I will be hopping in the car and driving from Brooklyn to Toledo, Ohio, the first leg of a trip to Ann Arbor, Michigan. My daughter ChloÁ« has wrapped up her junior year at the University of Michigan, and I am going to pick her up. There may be a brief waka waka waka outage as a result; I will do what I can, though.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (1)

What’s in a Word?

April 27, 2006 – 12:12 am

If you are as fond of our mother tongue as I am, you’ll enjoy the newest addition to the waka waka waka sidebar: the Online Etymology Dictionary, which describes itself as “a map of the wheel-ruts of the English language.”

Read More »

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (0)

Symbol-Minded

April 25, 2006 – 5:35 pm

From my friend Jon Mandell comes this link, to an amusing online parlor trick. Can you see how it works?

[No “spoiler” comments, please – you can email me, though, if you like, and I’ll explain.]

By Malcolm | Posted in Tomfoolery | Comments (1)

Needs

April 24, 2006 – 11:13 pm

As Mulla Nasruddin emerged from the mosque after prayers, a beggar sitting in the street solicited alms. The following conversation ensued:

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By Malcolm | Posted in Inner Work | Comments (2)

Bottom of the Tenth

April 23, 2006 – 7:15 pm

Baseball fans of a certain age may well recall the outstanding 1986 New York Mets. In particular, the Mets’ postseason that year provided some of the most memorable games of all time.

My son Nick, a promising young pitcher in his own right, has sent me this fantastic link, to a most unusual reenactment of the final inning of the historic Game Six of the 1986 World Series. As the Mets came to bat they were down 5-3 to the Boston Red Sox, who at the time were still laboring under the curse of the Bambino.

It’s quite a piece of work. Enjoy.

By Malcolm | Posted in Marginalia | Comments (2)

Natural Curiosity

April 22, 2006 – 7:10 pm

My lovely wife Nina was just reading to me some excerpts from an article about one Allison DuBois, who is the real-life sibyl behind television’s popular series Medium. The magazine article gave examples of Ms. DuBois’ abilites; for example, DuBois once told a woman that she saw her recently deceased father sitting nearby, wearing a clown nose – when, as it happens, a box of clown noses had in fact been purchased for the father’s wake. What are we to make of this sort of thing?

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By Malcolm | Posted in Mind and Brain, Reason and Philosophy, Science, Pretty Good Posts | Comments (10)

Ok, That Went Pretty Well

April 21, 2006 – 10:32 pm

Here are a couple of photos from Chinese president Hu Jintao’s vist to the White house. During the reception on the South Lawn (we decided to snub Hu and crew by not throwing a state banquet in their honor; after all, he is only the leader of the world’s most populous nation) Hu was manhandled by President Bush, and heckled by an adherent of Falun Gong. While introducing the Chinese national anthem, an announcer mistakenly referred to the People’s Republic of China as the “Republic of China”, which of course is Taiwan. And once everyone went inside, Dick Cheney apparently fell asleep.

I have to wonder if the whole thing was a prank; I rather hope it was. You can just imagine them all trying to keep a straight face. I still don’t think it tops Bush pÁ¨re vomiting in the lap of Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa back in 1992, though.

What a pack of cards.

By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (1)

Mens Sana in Corpore Kayoed

April 20, 2006 – 2:42 pm

From my old friend P.M. “Nick” Nicholes, who lives with his family in magnificent isolation in Lennep, Montana (pop. about 10) along the Musselshell River, at the foot of the Crazy Mountains, comes word of a brand-new way to measure oneself in both brain and brawn: chessboxing.

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By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Chess | Comments (1)

Burning Bush

April 19, 2006 – 12:29 pm

My friend Jess Kaplan has sent me a link to an essay by Carl Bernstein that, not unsurprisingly, calls for a Congressional investigation of George W. Bush, possibly leading to impeachment proceedings if “high crimes and misdemeanors” are deemed to have been committed. You can read the article here. While Bernstein’s credentials on the subject of ousting Republican presidents are, of course, unimpeachable, one must be wary to some extent, because of his visceral, Krugmanesque loathing for Bush the man.

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By Malcolm | Posted in Politics | Comments (2)

Sphinx

April 18, 2006 – 11:09 pm

Something recently brought to my mind the enigmatic Voynich Manuscript, and I thought it would be worth a mention here, for those of you who haven’t heard of it. It is one of the world’s odder artifacts.

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By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (5)

Peer Pressure

April 17, 2006 – 11:04 pm

Today, having been summoned for jury duty, I spent a few hours as a cog in the machinery of American justice. Admittedly, a case could be made that my contribution was trifling: I showed up at 8:45 a.m. at the Supreme Court building at 360 Adams Street in downtown Brooklyn; sat in a large room, reading, until lunchtime; took a very enjoyable stroll (accompanied by an equally enjoyable sandwich) down to the lovely Brooklyn Promenade overlooking New York Harbor, where I dined al fresco in the delightful spring sunshine; returned to the Central Jury room at 2; sat there reading until the end of the day, at which point I was discharged. Still, despite the fact that my name was not called even once other than to send me packing, I exited the building with that special glow of inner satisfaction that only those who, like me, have sacrificed in the service of their country can really understand. Not pride, mind you, but just the knowledge that one has done one’s Duty, and done it well.

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By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Politics, General | Comments (5)

Alison Calder Pollack,
June 4, 1935 – March 28, 2006

April 14, 2006 – 10:58 am

My mother, Alison, died in Oceanside, California on March 28th after, as they say, a brief illness. She was seventy years old.

My mother with little Nick
Alison with my son Nick, 1988

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By Malcolm | Posted in Alison, Pretty Good Posts | Comments (9)

Experts Stunned as Pollack Turns 50

April 13, 2006 – 1:45 pm

Brooklyn, NY, April 13 (AP) –

In a startling development that medical researchers familiar with the history of his early adulthood called “completely unexpected” and “really, I mean, like totally, out of left field”, software developer and erstwhile recording engineer Malcolm Pollack marked his 50th birthday today.

The portly PubSub programmer’s hemicentennial was greeted with happy surprise in other quarters as well.

“We sure never saw this coming, but hey, we’ll take it!” said Hugo Grasping, a spokesperson for the Internal Revenue Service.

Brewery and distilled-spirits stocks rose sharply as the shocking news made its way around the world’s trading floors. Dougal MacCallan, financial consultant for John Dewar and Sons, reached by phone in his office in Spittal of Glenshee, Perthshire, was gladdened by the news.
“There’s nae poackits in a shroud,” he chuckled, contemplating robust sales.

Elsewhere, employees at the Dogfish Head brewery, in Milton, Delaware, briefly interrupted their celebration to talk to reporters. “Whoooo-hooo!!” said one, pumping his fist in the air and gyrating lewdly. “Baby needs a new pair of shoes.”

By Malcolm | Posted in General, Pretty Good Posts | Comments (13)

Sound Reasoning

April 11, 2006 – 11:44 pm

For fans and foes of Daniel Dennett, The Prosblogion has posted a page with links to several audio files of recent interviews and panel discussions with the feisty philosopher.

They are big files, so they take a minute to download and get running. Worth the wait, though, for those who are interested.

By Malcolm | Posted in Darwin and Biology, Reason and Philosophy | Comments (0)

Unnatural Acts

April 10, 2006 – 10:56 pm

In a previous post about C.S. Lewis’s book Miracles we began to look at his treatment of the Natural vs. the Supernatural. In Chapter 3 Lewis rolls out the argument that serves as the necessary underpinning for the rest of the book; he calls it The Cardinal Difficulty of Naturalism.

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By Malcolm | Posted in Mind and Brain, Reason and Philosophy, Pretty Good Posts | Comments (3)

Then Play On

April 9, 2006 – 11:28 pm

I know today’s post was supposed to follow on the previous item about C.S. Lewis, but in this morning’s email was a very interesting note from my friend Gus Spathis.

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By Malcolm | Posted in Reason and Philosophy, Technology, Pretty Good Posts, Music and Recording, Society and Culture | Comments (7)

More Than This

April 8, 2006 – 9:26 pm

It is always with happy anticipation that I begin reading a book; I wouldn’t have taken it up in the first place had I not some reason to think that I would profit by it, and when the writer is someone I admire as much as C.S. Lewis, I know that I will be in the company of a man of immense erudition, elegant refinement of style, and – perhaps most fascinating to me – one who is both a skeptic and a believer. So it was with great interest that I opened his book Miracles, which deals directly with an issue that has been vexing me no end lately – the question of Natural vs. Supernatural.

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By Malcolm | Posted in Reason and Philosophy, Books | Comments (1)

With Friends like That…

April 6, 2006 – 10:23 pm

Having got up and off to work earlier than usual today, gone off to Don Alias’s funeral (a sad affair) up in Harlem at midday, strained my brain for hours afterward writing code, then spent the evening at the kwoon, I’m just too tired to write much tonight. So I will just pass along an interesting item from the New York Times’s website (with a tip of the hat to Eugene): The Gospel of Judas, a manuscript dating back to the fourth century A.D. or so, has just been translated. One of the “Gnostic Gospels“, it paints Judas in a more favorable light; in fact it depicts him as Jesus’s most valuable ally, as the one who made his sacrifice possible. Read more here.

By Malcolm | Posted in Society and Culture, Marginalia | Comments (0)

Bang the Drum Slowly

April 5, 2006 – 9:44 pm

In a further example of what is becoming a depressing trend, another musical friend has left the building. Percussionist Don Alias was only 66.

Read More »

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (3)

Man of Action

April 4, 2006 – 10:28 pm

In the mail yesterday came an envelope from my good friend Jess Kaplan, who is, due to his sharp and perpetually curious mind, a constant source of fascinating material. Inside was a printout of a lengthy essay, by one Arthur M. Young, on the subject of science and consciousness. I am embarrassed to say that I had not heard of the man, because when I looked him up I discovered him to be, quite obviously, one of the brighter lights of the twentieth century, a restless and productive polymath who, among other accomplishments, invented the magnificent Bell helicopter – a task he apparently set himself simply as an exercise for the training of his mind and the growth of his wisdom.

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By Malcolm | Posted in Reason and Philosophy, Science, Mind and Brain | Comments (5)

Heavy Weather

April 3, 2006 – 10:46 pm

I’ve been a bit out of touch, as readers will understand, and have just noticed two recent items in the scientific news. Both have to do with the climatic effects of largish objects colliding with the Earth.

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By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (3)

April, Come She Will

April 2, 2006 – 9:51 pm

It was a beautiful spring day in New York; much-needed balm, as I was deeply weary and full of dark thoughts.

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By Malcolm | Posted in General, Pretty Good Posts | Comments (4)

Back In Black

April 1, 2006 – 10:26 pm

I’m home in Brooklyn once again, and should be able to resume thinking and writing after this mensis horribilis.

Sorry, all, to have let things lapse so badly around here; the place feels neglected. I’ll open the windows tomorrow and let a little spring air in.

By Malcolm | Posted in General | Comments (0)

Bye, Mom

March 28, 2006 – 11:59 pm

It’s over. My mother died today at 12:10 p.m. Pacific time. My father and I were on our way to the hospital; her best friend, Shirley Sherman, was at her bedside.

She had not really been conscious since late Sunday night; since yesterday afternoon she had been in a deepening coma.

It is a great relief that this awful time is over, and that her long years of pain and struggle are at an end. I will write a proper farewell to this extraordinary woman as soon as I can find the right words.

Later this afternoon, something remarkable happened.

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By Malcolm | Posted in Alison | Comments (12)

Kind of a Hard Day

March 28, 2006 – 4:11 am

For better or for worse, this page has temporarily been taken over by my family’s crisis. I know that there are many of you who have been checking in here to see how things are going. So:

My mother is now in an unresponsive state, and is in a Cheyne-Stokes respiratory pattern. She is receiving intravenous saline, morphine to control her pain (at 5 mg/hr.), and no nutrition.

The last coherent words she exchanged with anyone were with me, as I left her room late on Sunday night. She is already gone; perhaps she will still be breathing in the morning.

The staff at Tri-City Medical Center, in Oceanside, California, and her doctors, Daniel Vicario, James Brinkman, and Chris Lewis, are nothing short of saintly. I have seen quite the opposite often enough to appreciate it.

Thank you all. Added to my list of topics to visit upon resuming normal operations here is the book “Miracles”, by C.S. Lewis.

By Malcolm | Posted in Alison | Comments (3)

12:09 A.M., Room 220, Ramada Inn, San Marcos, CA

March 26, 2006 – 3:10 am

I really don’t want to use this space for family updates, but these past few days I have been so completely occupied by family matters that I have had no opportunity for preparing any posts, certainly not the sort of posts I want to be writing.

When I dashed back out to California on Thursday, I had every reason to imagine that my mother would already be gone by the time I got here. However, since all involved have decided to give up on treatment and switch to palliative care, she has bounced back a bit, and although she is terribly weak and frail both physically and emotionally, she is able again to speak with us.

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By Malcolm | Posted in Alison | Comments (3)