February 14, 2008 – 10:54 am
Our friend Charles, proprietor of the website Liminality, shares with us his reaction to the deliberate destruction by fire of South Korea’s “Number One Treasure”, the ancient wooden gate known as Namdaemun.
I was reminded of our own shock and horror here in Gotham at the obliteration of the Twin Towers, although of course the two events are obviously quite different in important ways, first and foremost being that nobody was killed in the arson attack on Seoul’s historic landmark. But Charles’s post conveys the same sickening sense of the seemingly solid ground moving under one’s feet, of being confronted with the awful fact that all of our attachments are in vain.
February 13, 2008 – 11:34 pm
Don’t trade in that gas-guzzling Detroit road boat just yet. The Cassini space probe, which has been buzzing about the Saturn system gathering data, has revealed that the giant moon Titan has hundreds of times more combustible hydrocarbons just lying around on its surface than are in all the known oil and gas reserves on Earth.
Could get mighty interesting, as well as being bad news for Hugo ChÁ¡vez and the House of Saud. Learn more here.
February 13, 2008 – 5:57 pm
In today’s London Times we read the following:
The acting director of a Baghdad psychiatric hospital has been arrested on suspicion of supplying al-Qaeda in Iraq with the mentally impaired women that it used to blow up two crowded animal markets in the city on February 1, killing about 100 people.
Iraqi security forces and US soldiers arrested the man at al-Rashad hospital in east Baghdad on Sunday. They then spent three hours searching his office and removing records. Sources told The Times that the two women bombers had been treated at the hospital in the past.
“They [the security forces] arrested the acting director, accusing him of working with al-Qaeda and recruiting mentally ill women and using them in suicide bombing operations,’ a hospital official said.
Ibrahim Muhammad Agel, director of the hospital, was killed in the Mansour district of Baghdad on December 11 by gunmen on motorbikes. Colleagues suspect that he was shot for refusing to cooperate with al-Qaeda. Even before Sunday’s arrest, US officials believed that al-Qaeda was scouring Iraq’s hospitals for mentally impaired patients whom it could dupe into acting as suicide bombers. They said that al-Qaeda had used the mentally impaired as unwitting bombers before. “We have fairly good reason to believe this is not the first time they have recruited mentally handicapped individuals,’ said one senior officer, though he did not think there had been more than half a dozen cases.
That the responsible parties can imagine such acts to be morally justified, as I am sure they do, and can believe themselves to be righteous servants of God, should give us plenty to think about.
February 12, 2008 – 6:32 pm
No post this evening; the lovely Nina and I are off to see The Seafarer.
Back in harness tomorrow, or as time permits.
February 11, 2008 – 11:00 pm
There has been a good deal of excitement lately about global warming, as readers may already have noticed. It having been announced that the cause is an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide due to human activity, various segments of society have whipped themselves into rather a frenzy, and some of those in the public eye have made noble and ostentatious gestures of self-sacrifice — even going so far as to arrive at televised awards shows in Toyota Priuses, and to retrofit their palaces with compact fluorescent bulbs.
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February 10, 2008 – 11:25 pm
There’s been quite a ruction lately about comments made by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, that called for Britain to adopt Islamic Sharia law as part of its legal system. This sort of supine acquiescence is the road to cultural suicide, it seems to me, and he has been roundly castigated by all, as he ought.
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February 10, 2008 – 11:01 pm
Well, your humble correspondent had an album up for a Grammy this time around: Borrowed Time (Tiempo Prestado), by guitarist Steve Khan, which was nominated in the Best Latin Jazz Album category — but the award went to another outstanding artist, Paquito D’Rivera.
Sorry Steve! We’ll get ’em next time.
February 9, 2008 – 8:22 pm
Putting aside the pressing issues of the day for a moment, it’s time for a personal item. My 19-year-old son Nick, having taken up the guitar about three years ago at the urging of his old dad, has been writing music like mad. He spends most of his time playing his Dean Evo, but has just sent me a clip of himself playing a little Celtic-style ditty that he wrote a little while back on the 6-string acoustic. (Think Bron-Y-Aur Stomp.)
February 8, 2008 – 10:47 pm
Yesterday I offered readers a link to a video of a thought-provoking conversation (transcript here, video here) between J. Craig Venter and Richard Dawkins (if you haven’t found the time to look at it yet, I do hope you will). In the ensuing thread, however, rather than discussing any of the forward-looking topics that had come up, our commenters focused exclusively on the various ways that people found Dawkins annoying or disappointing, and I piled on as well.
Yes, he can be a bit of a pill. But in that video, I saw something that shouldn’t go unremarked.
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February 8, 2008 – 11:19 am
Thanks to Kevin Kim for bringing to our attention the World’s Stupidest Comment Thread. It includes such gems as:
When politicians say they are for Change but never explain what the change is we better all be careful. I think Adolf Hitler was elected in Germany on a platform of “Change”.
and
A lot of people have pointed out that Mr. Obama is a practicing muslim, but the thing that a lot of folks have yet to recognize is: sources have told me that Barack Obama is actually a Nazi. I have yet to confirm this, but his comments about terror, Mitt Romney and others seem to lean that direction. Am I saying that he wants to burn the entire Jewish race? I haven’t seen any comment from him on that topic, one way or the other. But his stance of pro muslim, pro terror and anti israel politics seems to indicate as such.
Here it is.
*Update: if you’re just reading this for the first time, you’re too late. The whole comment thread has been taken down, I’m sad to say. -MP
February 7, 2008 – 12:48 pm
Here’s Richard Dawkins, opening a conversation with J. Craig Venter at a recent conference in Germany:
I thought I’d begin by reading a quotation from a famous philosopher and historian of science from the 1930s, Charles Singer, to give an idea of exactly how much things have changed. And Craig Venter is a leader, perhaps the leader, in making that change today. So, this is a quote from 1930, Charles Singer:
“Despite interpretations to the contrary, the theory of the gene is not a mechanist theory. The gene is no more comprehensible as a chemical or physical entity than is the cell or, for that matter, the organism itself. If I ask for a living chromosome, that is, for the only effective kind of chromosome, no one can give it to me, except in its living surroundings, any more than he can give me a living arm or leg. The doctrine of the relativity of functions is as true for the gene as it is for any of the organs of the body. They exist and function only in relation to other organs. Thus, the last of the biological theories leaves us where the first started in the presence of a power called life, or Psyche, which is not only of its own kind but unique in each and all of its exhibitions.”
You couldn’t ask for a more comprehensive destruction of a conventional view than that. That is not just wrong. It is catastrophically, utterly, stupefyingly wrong. It’s wrong in an interesting way, and Craig is the best person to tell us what’s wrong with all that.
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February 6, 2008 – 10:38 pm
Much was made of a National Intelligence Assessment last year that suggested that Iran was not the nuclear threat it had been cracked up to be. In today’s Washington Sun, however, we read:
The director of national intelligence is backing away from his agency’s assessment late last year that Iran had halted its nuclear program, saying he wishes he had written the unclassified version of the document in a different manner.
Intelligence director Mike McConnell told a senate hearing yesterday that if he had had more time to write the document, he “probably would change a few things”.
“Declared uranium enrichment efforts, which will enable the production of fissile material, continue. This is the most difficult challenge in nuclear production. Iran’s efforts to perfect ballistic missiles that can reach North Africa and Europe also continue.”
He went on, “We remain concerned about Iran’s intentions and assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons.”
In other words, let’s not be too complacent. Learn more here.
February 5, 2008 – 11:30 pm
Following on yesterday’s post, here’s a story about another gruesome malady: it turns out that meat-processing workers in Minnesota are developing a strange neurological illness as a result of being splattered with atomized hog brains.
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February 5, 2008 – 12:33 am
My son Nick asked me yesterday if I had ever heard of something called Morgellons disease. I hadn’t, so I looked it up online. It is, as they say in England, a rum business indeed.
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February 3, 2008 – 10:25 pm
What a game! As a New Yorker, I do hope I will be forgiven a moment of undignified exuberance.
Woo-hoo!
February 3, 2008 – 12:52 pm
I note that once again, thanks to the visual acuity of a unusually long-lived rodent from the Keystone State, we may now expect a prolonged interval of wintry weather. While this bothers me not at all — I am far better constituted for cold weather than hot, and I dread, each year, the arrival of Gotham’s summer swelter — I know there are many for whom this is depressing news. There is a simple and obvious solution, of course, but for some reason this annual inconvenience persists.
February 2, 2008 – 2:12 pm
About forty years ago I read a science-fiction book called Wasp. I remember it only dimly, but as I recall it was a corking good read, and the central metaphor of the book has stayed with me: that a small insect, buzzing around the inside of an automobile, can so distract the driver as to cause an accident. A tiny animal weighing less than a gram can cause the destruction of an enormously massive machine and the deaths of its vastly more powerful occupants.
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February 1, 2008 – 11:48 pm
Here, from India, is an engaging example of spontaneous self-organization:
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January 31, 2008 – 11:32 pm
I’ve been nettled for years by the near-worship with which Bill Clinton has traditionally been regarded in these parts; if you ask most of my neighbors in Park Slope or Wellfleet, the man can simply do no wrong. This has always puzzled me, because although he is obviously highly intelligent and possessed of a certain raffish charm, he is also, as far as I can tell, a venal, ill-tempered, philandering rogue.
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January 30, 2008 – 11:04 pm
By now you’ve probably heard that our ex-mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was recently anointed, amid much controversy, by the waka waka waka editorial board as our favorite, has dropped out of the presidential race.
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January 30, 2008 – 10:17 pm
Well, I’m a tad chopfallen tonight. My friend Duncan Werner had mentioned to me yesterday that there was going to be a debate this evening, at the 92nd Street Y, between Christopher Hitchens and one Rabbi Shmuley Boteach on the question Does God Really Exist? I thought this would be a good scrap, so I went online to buy a ticket, but found that they were sold out. Not giving up, I went up to the Y (it’s a short hop on the 4 train from my office), and stood in the “Ticket Cancellations” line for the better part of an hour, but, sadly, failed to get in.
The worst part? Now I’ll have to wait till I die to find out the answer.
January 30, 2008 – 10:48 am
In a touching display of mutual link-love, I urge readers to drop everything and read Kevin Kim’s salty critique of the New York chapter of NOW, which recently issued a girly, self-pitying whinge about Ted Kennedy’s endorsement of Barack Obama. Why they should even mind being spurned by a pompous, Falstaffian cad who left an admiring young woman to drown is beyond me, but couldn’t they just have put on some fuzzy slippers and curled up with a quart of Ben & Jerrys?
Anyway, you can read Kevin’s response here.
January 29, 2008 – 9:42 pm
In today’s mail our old friend Jess Kaplan has sent along a link to some breaking news about happiness.
Apparently, according to a recent study by an international team of researchers, we are least happy in middle age:
The British and U.S. researchers found that happiness for people ranging from Albania to Zimbabwe follows a U-shaped curve where life begins cheerful before turning tough during middle age and then returning to the joys of youth in the golden years.
I can’t say I’m surprised by this result, which agrees well with my own experience. (And in passing I must compliment the breadth of coverage here; as far as I know this is the first such study to span the entire alphabet.)
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January 28, 2008 – 9:51 pm
Are you one of those people who listen to the news all the time? Think you have your finger on the pulse of the nation? If you answered “yes” to these questions, and are also a compulsive gambler, here’s your website.
January 27, 2008 – 10:50 pm
It’s ten p.m., and the memsahib and I have just got back to Brooklyn after spending a couple of days in the outer reaches of Cape Cod.
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January 26, 2008 – 11:41 pm
For you chess enthusiasts, here is a video analysis, by GM Nick de Firmian, of an outstanding game between World Champion Vishy Anand and the rising young Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, from the elite Wijk an Zee tournament.
January 25, 2008 – 10:13 pm
From our old friend Peter Kranzler comes a link to a wildly creative Dutch merchandising website. Have a look here.
January 24, 2008 – 7:50 pm
Dennis Mangan calls our attention to another depressing instance of Draconian speech-policing, this time at Brandeis University.
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January 23, 2008 – 10:28 am
Having wearied, apparently, of cat-burning the Bushies, Times columnist Maureen Dowd has lately found new sport in that “two-headed monster”, the Clintons. It’s a felicitous choice: I’ve had enough of these two to last a lifetime, Bill in particular.
Today’s entry here.
January 22, 2008 – 11:06 pm
There are those who would have us believe that the root causes of Islamic terrorism are poverty and political oppression, and that if we Americans weren’t such swaggering imperialists, and could just get along a little more amicably with other cultures, we’d have less to worry about. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Our friend Jeffery Hodges (is he really out of bed and writing blog posts at 4:09 a.m.?) offers further evidence here.
January 22, 2008 – 10:50 pm
That video clip I linked to yesterday has reminded me of a small triumph from my boyhood.
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January 21, 2008 – 10:53 pm
As sometimes happens, I’ve come to the end of a long day, and the well is dry. But a friend sent me a link that’s worth a few minutes of your time: some awfully dramatic footage taken by a group of tornado-chasers. (Best line: “Oh no… the structures…”)
Have a look here.
January 20, 2008 – 12:52 pm
Today’s Times features a thoughtful article about the presidential campaign and the struggle in Iraq. It’s by Michael Gordon, who has spent a great deal of time there ever since the beginning of the war, and who undoubtedly has a better understanding of the “facts on the ground” than any of the candidates (not to mention high-falutin’ bloggers and commenters).
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January 19, 2008 – 4:04 pm
Here is Bobby Fischer’s obituary, from today’s New York Times.
The renowned chess teacher Bruce Pandolfini ((One of the many blessings of living in Brooklyn all these years was that Pandolfini used to run the chess club at my son Nick’s school, giving Nick the opportunity to learn from one of the best for seven years or so.)) had this to say:
“After 1972, we lost so many great pieces of art,’ said Mr. Pandolfini, the chess teacher, “hundreds of masterpieces he would have created if he had stayed a sane being. We feel the great loss. All chess players do.’
Indeed we do.
January 19, 2008 – 3:53 pm
Having followed a link posted by Kevin Kim that led indirectly to a brief interview with Steven Pinker, I’ve just spent a chunk of this quiet Saturday afternoon watching some other interviews as well. The interlocutor is the irascible buffoon Stephen Colbert, who would be utterly unbearable if he weren’t also so clever. The list of guests is enormous; something for everyone, I think. Have a look here.
January 18, 2008 – 11:43 pm
Here’s something I ran across the other day: the wartime letters of one William Henry Bonser Lamin, an English soldier who fought in World War I. His letters, found by a descendant, are being published 90 years to the day from the time each was sent home. We don’t know yet how things will turn out.
Have a look here.
January 18, 2008 – 12:02 pm
This just in (thanks to my friend Jess K. for alerting me): Bobby Fischer is dead.
January 17, 2008 – 1:22 am
In his recent New York Times Magazine article on the evolutionary and biological underpinnings of morality, Steven Pinker acknowledges the nihilistic shadows nearby, and, like other popularizers of Darwinian naturalism, reassures us that we needn’t worry. I think he’s right — we needn’t — but not for the reasons he suggests.
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January 16, 2008 – 10:39 pm
Here is a short and disturbing story: The Riddle of the Universe and its Solution, by Christopher Cherniak. I sometimes wish I hadn’t read it.
January 15, 2008 – 10:59 pm
NASA’s MESSENGER (Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging) vehicle made a close pass by the innermost planet today, executing a gravitational “slingshot” maneuver in preparation for an orbital insertion on on March 18, 2011, after which it will settle in for some long-term observations. As it passed by, it photographed parts of the planet that have never been seen before.
Learn more here.
January 15, 2008 – 9:45 am
It’s “all Pinker, all the time” in our little corner of the blogosphere at the moment. Kevin Kim, who has among his many interests the puzzle of consciousness, directs our attention to a sally by Pinker against the dualists. Here.
January 14, 2008 – 11:28 pm
I was hoping to have some time for a meaty post tonight about that article by Steven Pinker, but I didn’t get home from work until eleven this evening, and I’m just too tired to spend a couple of hours writing.
So, having mentioned “chi sao” in one of yesterday’s posts, I’ll just share with you another good example, and hope for more free time tomorrow.
January 13, 2008 – 10:52 pm
As promised, Steven Pinker has written what I think will be seen as a a fairly important article for the New York Times Magazine about human morality. Having banged on the topic of morality a great deal myself lately, I encourage all of you to read it. I found little to disagree with, though his attempt to ameliorate the discomfort of moral nihilism by arguing that moral systems such as ours are sort of an evolutionary “forced move” — which I also think is about the most one can do in that department — will be unsatisfying to some. (Then again, the Copernican system was unsatisfying to some, too.)
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January 13, 2008 – 10:04 pm
Having spent the morning judging brown- and black-belt tests out at the Clifton, New Jersey branch of Yee’s Hung Ga, I’ve got martial arts on my mind today, and thought I’d offer those of you who have an interest in this stuff an informative video clip.
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January 13, 2008 – 2:13 pm
Perhaps some of our Korean correspondents might like to weigh on in this odd practice.
January 13, 2008 – 1:10 am
I’ve had no time for writing, so no post today. But if you’d like a little more insight into yesterday’s Surprise Quiz Paradox and related matters, have a look here, here, and here.
The great Martin Gardner (if you don’t know about him, you should) wrote a book long ago called The Unexpected Hanging and Other Mathematical Diversions, and I am now so vexed by this puzzle that I think I will have to get a copy and read it.
January 11, 2008 – 11:04 pm
Here’s an irritating little conundrum.
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January 11, 2008 – 12:07 am
Dr. William Vallicella, the Maverick Philosopher upon whose posts we often comment in these pages, has put up a good one today on the topic of God and evil. He makes an important distinction, one that people often fail to keep in mind, between what is called the “argument from evil” and its close cousin, the “problem of evil”. The former is an attempt to prove the nonexistence of God, and the latter is simply a difficulty that the theist must struggle with.
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January 9, 2008 – 10:51 pm
I’ve just run across a website that might have interesting possibilities. It’s called BigThink, and its aim is to be a sort of online multimedia venue for the exchange of Ideas. I’ve only just started poking around in it, so I haven’t anything much to say about it so far — and being so new that it doesn’t even have a Wikipedia entry yet, it might take a little while to gather steam. It’s the kind of thing that could go either way: I’ve learned how easy it is for these promising ventures to flop. But it could turn into something worthwhile.
Anyway, have a look here.
January 9, 2008 – 4:05 pm
A co-worker just sent me this little brainteaser:
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