Bootsie Barker Bites is close to the perfect childrens’ story book. It has action, conflict, sparse narration, believable characters, and a satisfying resolution. The pictures, admittedly, are outstanding, but not better than the text. I read it with a posh English accent for the mothers, and a drab south London drawl for the kids, but my wife reads it with American accents all round, and it works as well both ways.
Bootsie Barker, Ballerina, by contrast, is close to unreadable. Forgettable story-line, dragging prose, no characterisation. It doesn’t matter how you read it — its better not to.
I’m very hard put to think of another case where outstanding writing is followed up so disappointingly. Candidates?
Niall Ferguson in the Daily Telegraph gives a history lesson :
… in 1917 a British general … occupied Baghdad and proclaimed: “Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators.” … What happened in Iraq last week so closely resembles the events of 1920 that only a historical ignoramus could be surprised. It began in May, just after the announcement that Iraq would henceforth be a League of Nations “mandate” under British trusteeship. … Anti-British demonstrations began in Baghdad mosques, spread to the Shi’ite holy centre of Karbala, swept on through Rumaytha and Samawa - where British forces were besieged - and reached as far as Kirkuk. Contrary to British expectations, Sunnis, Shi’ites and even Kurds acted together. Stories abounded of mutilated British bodies. By August the situation was so desperate that the British commander appealed to London for poison gas bombs or shells (though these turned out not to be available). By the time order had been restored in December - with a combination of aerial bombardment and punitive village-burning expeditions - British forces had sustained over 2,000 casualties and the financial cost of the operation was being denounced in Parliament.
Suppose you’ve been given a sizeable pot of money to fund an annual lecture. Leaving the question of topics aside, who do you invite? Who are the best speakers in academia today? Is there someone you’ve heard speak who you think is underrated—as an academic, or as a public speaker? Now imagine you had to publish the speaker’s talk. Does that change things for you? Or is your top choice still the same?
Brothers and sisters I have none, but that man’s father is my father’s sonMost people can solve this familiar puzzle if they think about it for a while, but only slightly more complex versions have them floundering. Yet the problem described isn’t much more difficult than naming the day after the day after yesterday, which (I think) most people can do instantly. The fact that such a simple problem can be posed as a puzzle is just one piece of evidence that people (at least people in modern/Western societies) have trouble learning about and reasoning about kinship relations.
Last weekend when I realized the NCAA Final Four championships were being played on the first night of Passover, I couldn’t help but wonder whether Elijah would be interested in watching basketball.
I see now that others are pondering similarly important questions with respect to this week’s holidays. The Head Heeb wonders what would be a good Jewish substitute for the Easter Bunny. I think my vote would be to let it be so we don’t add to the ways in which these holidays can be commercialized. But if I want to play along, I’ll say I think we should have little personified matzah. They could have facial features and arms and legs. It would resemble SpongeBob SquarePants. I think it could be cute.
The Washington Post reports on the interesting - but problematic - approach of Virginia to prosecuting spammers. Authorities in Virginia have arrested three suspected spammers from North Carolina. Their basis for asserting jurisdiction: that the spammers ‘went through’ servers in Virginia in order to disseminate spam.
Although all of the suspects are from North Carolina, Cantrell said, “they went through a server in Virginia, and as long as they go through Virginia then we can prosecute them under our Virginia statutes.” Northern Virginia is a major hub for Internet traffic, and because of that Virginia has an opportunity to snag many more “spammers,” Cantrell said.
It’s not clear from the newspaper article how close the spammers’ relationship is with the server in Virginia - whether this is a server that they themselves used intentionally, or merely a server that their mail passed through en route to its final destination. But it certainly sounds as though Virginian authorities are asserting a general right to prosecute spammers (and jail them for up to twenty years), on the basis that their emails pass through Virginia at some point in their travels. Since roughly 50% of world Internet traffic passes through Virginia, that’s a very far-reaching jurisdictional claim indeed. Of course, it’s nice to see spammers getting walloped with serious penalties (although 20 years of jail time would be a bit much). But it’s not at all clear to me that Virginia state authorities should appoint themselves arbiters of the world’s Internet traffic, with extraterritorial reach. If nothing else, it’s likely to lead to competing claims for jurisdiction from other authorities, in the US and elsewhere, and an incredible mess for individuals and firms trying to determine their legal liabilities. As Michael Geist observes, jurisdiction on the Internet is murky enough as it is. It looks as though it’s about to get a whole lot murkier.
As part of a series about philosophers and places, BBC Radio 3 will be broadcasting a programme this Sunday (21.30 GMT, so internet listeners should adjust for location) in which Jonathan Ree discusses Rousseau in Staffordshire . I’m rather hoping that this will clear up a little dispute I had with Chris Brooke . Chris emailed me soon after my Rousseau book came out to tell me that I was mistaken in writing that Rousseau had lived in Derbyshire . Chris wrote, correctly, that the village of Wootton near where Rousseau stayed, is in Staffordshire and that, since the county line there is set by the River Dove, Wootton was almost certainly in Staffordshire in the 18th century too. We both set to consulting out various works of reference, only to reach a stalemate. So for, for example, this 1776 account of Hume’s life has Derbyshire, as does Rousseau himself in correspondence, but other reputable sources insist on Staffordshire. I’m sure you’re all intruigued by this antiquarian mystery! I shall be listening with attention.
(And see The Virtual Stoa for a map of the area).
This is turning into a trend. In the past few weeks we’ve seen new group blogs started by philosophy graduate students at Syracuse (Orange Philosophy), Rochester (What is the Name of This Blog?) and now Brown (Fake Barn Country).
Von at Obsidian Wings has an interesting point about Rice’s testimony.
It seemed that the Democrats were more partisan in their questioning than the Republicans. That is, the Democrats on the panel aggressively challenged Rice (as you might expect). The Republicans, however, didn’t defend — or help — Rice nearly as much as I had expected. Indeed, some of them even launched mild attacks on Rice (Kerry’s comment about “swatting flies,” for example, seemed to resonate).What to conclude? Well, if you take a dim view of human nature (as I do), you don’t conclude that the Republicans were behaving honorably and in a nonpartisan manner. (Though perhaps they were.) You conclude that there may be something in the classified documents that casts doubt on Rice’s defense.
We may know more when the PDB is released. (And it will be released.)
I recently bought the DVDs of the first three series of The West Wing, which make for far too compulsive viewing. Watching it, the same thought occured to me as has occured to many others: namely, how much better President Josiah Bartlet is than any recent real-life incumbent. But it isn’t just Bartlet, 24’s President David Palmer would also get my vote (if I had one) over most post-war Presidents. Fictional Presidents seem to incarnate the ideal virtues of the office. Not so fictional British Prime Ministers, who seem to be either Machiavellian (Francis Urquhart ) or ineffectual (Jim Hacker ). Perhaps only Harry Perkins comes close to matching an ideal in the way that Bartlet and Palmer do. I’m not sure what this says about our different political and televisual/cinematic cultures and I’m sure there are more examples of fictional leaders to play with. Suggestions?
A little bit of CT synergy. In his post about bad explanation in Evolutionary Psychology, Daniel says in passing that “Part of the issue here is that any form of psychology makes a poor sociology.” A commenter asks that someone say more about that. Well, Brian’s post on, inter alia, women in philosophy, provides a good example. There’s a lot of anecdotal and formally—collected evidence that women in Philosophy can have a hard time of it. There appear to be fewer of them in graduate programs and especially faculty positions than we would expect. Why?
I’m sure all the Cool Kids have heard this already, but I only just found out about Skeewiff’s remix of the Soggy Bottom Boys’ Man of Constant Sorrow. That’s a 7.3MB download, but it’s well worth it. It is, at the very least, the best freely available song I’ve heard in a long time. And electronic remixes of bluegrass songs seems like such an obvious idea, I’m surprised it hasn’t been done before. (Or, perhaps more to the point, I’m surprised it hasn’t been brought to my attention before.)
As Sappho’s Breathing notes, Carlin Romano wrote an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education about two recent collections of autobiographical memoirs by philosophers. There’s some interesting, and important points, to be made, so naturally I’d like to start with a cheap joke. Here’s a sample of what we’re likely to see if more philosophers turn their hand to autobiography.
The facility of my pen (I write everything by hand!) has enabled me to produce a system of philosophical thought that is more many-sided, complex, and far-reaching than has been the case with any other living American philosopher. (Nicholas Rescher)
I’d be jealous of Rescher’s philosophical achievement if I wasn’t wittier, more charming, better looking and generally just a more excellent human being than any other living philosopher. No, really.
Julian Sanchez notes that some of the outrage at Kos is a bit rich, considering it comes from the likes of the LGF crowd. Charles Johnson and friends seem never to have met an Arab they didn’t want to string up. Now Johnson seems to be on a rampage, egging his commenters on to spew filth at Kathryn Cramer’s and Nathan Newman’s blogs. Their tactics include posting Kathryn’s address and telephone number, making death threats, and threatening her children. This isn’t just trollishness - it’s an attempt to intimidate and to silence. Not a proud moment for the blogosphere. Via Rivka.
1 Title borrowed from one of Nathan’s commentators.
Be the first on the block to blog Condi Rice’s testimony, thanks to Stuart Benjamin of the Volokh Conspiracy:
Play bingo at home (or, if you want, make it into a drinking game: one drink for each iteration of one of these words).Of her demeanor, Rice supporters will say she was: “poised,” “confident,” “authoritative,” and/or “polished.”
Of her demeanor, Rice detractors will say she was: “defensive,” “visibly annoyed,” and/or “brusque” ; bonus (if they feel strongly) “petulant” and/or “schoolmarmish”
On the quality of her arguments, Rice supporters will say: “persuasive,” “convincing,” “firm,” and/or “powerful”; bonus (if they feel strongly) “overpowering”
On the quality of her arguments, Rice detractors will say: “unpersuasive,” “weak,” “vacillating,” and/or “shaky,”; bonus (if they feel strongly) “incoherent”
Overall, Rice supporters will describe her performance as: “a home run,” “putting doubts to rest,” “answering all the questions,” “showing Clarke to be a liar,” and/or “letting us get on to the people’s business”; bonus (if they are really partisan) “refuting the demagogues on the other side”
Overall, Rice detractors will describe her performance as: “raising more questions than it answers,” “a missed opportunity to inform the American people,” “vindicating Richard Clarke,” and/or “raising troubling questions about this Administration”; bonus (if they are really partisan) “you’re the demagogue” (followed by: “am not!”; “are too!”; “am not!”; etc.)
From Steven Brust, The Lord of Castle Black, p.128.
“It is sad,” observed Grassfog, “that our friend here is dead, and we have no wine.”
“It is your custom,” inquired Piro, “to become drunk when a friend dies?”
“Not in the least,” said Grassfog. “I was merely making an observation about two conditions that are both true, and both regrettable.”
Our first text for tonight comes from Lionel Trilling’s “Manners, Morals, and the Novel”, delivered in 1947 at Kenyon College and available in your local copy of The Liberal Imagination. The great man had been instructed to inform about ‘manners in relation to the novel’. Here he indicates the proportions of his subject, making points that have all been made before, no doubt, but making them exceedingly well and elegantly:
Some comments to this post by Ted raised the question of the public face of academic disciplines, as seen at Barnes and Noble or Borders. The shelf-test isn’t perfect, of course, because not every field needs to have a public face, even chain bookstores vary quite widely, and Borders and Barnes and Noble are not really meant for academics. But they are meant for everyone, and academics must form part of that category. (This reminds me, by the by, of an example from the late, great Dick Jeffrey. “Everybody loves my baby, but my baby don’t love nobody but me” goes the song. Who is my baby?) So, what can we learn about the social sciences and humanities from a visit to the local book barn?
In Latin, a lucus is a “dark grove”. In the eighteenth century, British etymologists decided that the word lucus came from the root verb lucere, meaning “to shine”. The idea was that a lucus was called a lucus because there was no lucendo going on there. The fact that this explanation achieved currency among schoolmasters gives you some sort of idea of the desperate state of Classical scholarship in Britain in the eighteenth century1, by way of an introductory toccata to a short but ill-tempered discussion on another field in which truly terrible explanations are par for the course; Evolutionary Psychology. People who have read Henry’s comments in the same area are excused this one.
I had a piece on the BBC News site yesterday. A few people have kindly sent me notes letting me know about this so I thought I should blog it so people know that I am aware of my article on the BBC site. ;-)
I should clarify that my motivation for writing this piece - or any other that mentions Google for that matter - is not a reflection of any personal love or hate relationship I may have with Google.. or any other search engine for that matter. My thoughts on the topic are a result of studying how average Internet users (as in not just me, or just some of my friends and colleagues) find information online. I have tried to make this increasingly explicit in my writing in order to avoid people sending me emotionally charged notes about how I am misunderstanding that one particular company. This part seems to be getting better as no one this time sent me messages explaining to me how to use Google to make the most of it. (Believe me, I know how to use search engines, learning those skills was the least I could do while writing a dissertation on how people find content online.:)
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (theology)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Biology/Medicine
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Amity Wilczek (biology)
Theodore Wong
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Irascible Professor
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review