Will Pay to Work for Free

Un-friggin-believable this is, if true.

According to mediabistro.com, Room to Grow is celebrating its 10th anniversary at Christie's in NYC. Among the festivities: internships at Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone to be auctioned off. In other words, you can buy your way into an unpaid temporary position.

Just for fun - OK, and to procrastinate a little - I did some snooping. Room to Grow is indeed having their wing-ding at Christie's, and indeed there is an auction. But what they're auctioning isn't disclosed on the website. If it turns out to be true, though, that's a bit troublesome to me.

It wouldn't be the first time: in May the Associated Press reported that a man got an internship at GQ Magazine for his son. How? By paying more than $30,000 - on EBay.

Unless this is common practice, I take this as a bad sign. And if it is common practice, it seems like a pretty iffy one. My understanding was always that internships (and paid jobs) were landed on the basis of merit, not moolah. Readers, I'm appealing to both of you to enlighten me on this point.

In Memoriam: Aimee Alcarez Cowan (1975-2008)

I was blessed to know her in my first two years at TMC. I heard how she did right, teaching at Tufts - she must've been a good professor. Today she passed away. A bright little light has gone out, but I was lucky enough to see. I was lucky enough to be her friend. My prayers go out to her family and friends, but so do my memories. We've all been blessed to know her.



Brian Eno and Harold Budd, "Late October"

Awakenings

I just realized something. In 1988 I was a god-damn no-good dope-smokin' tie-dye wearing long-haired starry-eyed hippie freak.

Well, twenty years later I don't smoke - anything. I don't wear tie-dyes anymore, and my hair's not so long.

So I guess I look different.

Do I regret any of it? Am I ashamed?

Not on your fuckin' life.

Links, links, links

I don't have time for this, but I'm gonna take time anyway. It can't be said strongly enough: Tuesday was one of the biggest days in recent history, not just American history but world history.

Whatever I say really can't do justice to the significance of all this; instead let me offer links to various thinks...Obama said this was a long time coming - just ask Amanda Jones. Courtesy of Agent Intellect, who got it courtesy of Instapundit. Parasitic, these blogs.) The Onion, known for its satire, manages to tell the truth here and here.

For those who think all the racist bigots have gun racks in their pick-em-up trucks - and why the election is so important - check out this by Untravel, which took place right here in so-called cultured Europe, and his friend's little encounter in Moscow. (Stupidity knows no bounds, probably because it can't read a map.) Agent Intellect has rightly said that we should pray for Obama; he couldn't be more correct.

Lots of people have great expectations for Obama; some doubt he'll do much in the Oval Office. I think this: he's there. Obama. Is. There. And that speaks volumes, both for him and the nation that elected him. Never mind quibbles about his being half-black; get real, it doesn't matter. What does matter is - something is happening...

Out of the Mouths of Babes

"Sweetheart, what do you want for your birthday?"

"A president that doesn't suck."

"That's nice."

Done? Well, I'm getting close...

Please accept my apologies, dear readers; I don't want either of you to think I'd been ignoring you. The dissertation is almost finished (yay!), but it's going to take a lot of work (boo!), which means I have no time to blog (hiss!).

One of you - or both, I forget - might've been told the work was almost done. And I forget how many times I might've told you that. Really, I must sound like Bullwinkle...hey, now here's something I hope you really like!

Something good had to come out of the financial meltdown

This must be read to be believed.

Hedge fund investor Andrew Lahde retired in style at 37, leaving behind the ripest farewell letter you ever saw. You can read the whole letter here. The whole financial sector gets lambasted, from Lahde's rivals (whom he candidly calls "idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale and then the Harvard MBA") right down to their very lifestyle.

It's only right that somebody as jaded as Mr. Lahde would go into a field he would prefer not to, become one of the players and succeeds wildly by playing the game to the hilt, and then reveal the game for the dysfunctional burning house it is. It's too bad the word could only come out of the ashes.

I can't say the financial sector is inherently evil; that seems more ideological than factual. But certainly there were folks who thought they could work the system in their favor. And the consequences of such short-term thinking, by so many people, came together in an awful way. They were in it for the money, and so was Lahde. The difference: Lahde knew what he was about, and he knew what the game was all about. His fallout rivals knew neither.

Moo

Um, this was just too utterly bizarre - had to post a link to this little animation I ran across:



Wow.

Another chapter in the cautionary tale that is moi

Here's something I just figured out; I wish I'd learned it sooner, but better late than never. Hopefully it'll help you too, either by making you recognize the problem in yourself or by spurring you to identify the root of your problem. And we all have problems.

One of my problems is procrastination. Particularly, as Eliot so nicely put it, "Distracted from distractions by distractions." Here I am, sitting in my dank little studio, the rough draft of my dissertation sitting before me. The deadline hangs over my head like the sword of Damocles. And I'm surfing the Internet. Do I realize this? Not always: sometimes it only hits me that two hours have slipped by while giggling my way through LOLCats. (Yes, it's true - I love that stuff.) Of course the time can't be recovered, so I have no choice but to drag my discouraged ass away from the monitor and...work. But it's 11pm or whatever, so no point.

Last night I ran across two long paragraphs that need serious work. Not putting the same material into new words, but recasting the whole damn thing from scratch. It went in the direction I wanted it to go, but the elements were wrong and the formulation unclear. I have to rewrite it from the ground up. - Ouch. (I should be used to it by now, having rewritten half a chapter already. But apparently some things you just don't get used to.) Did I start that rewriting? No, I checked my email. And Facebook. And did searches on authors that have no relevance whatsoever to my dissertation. In between Web pages, I'd jot down something on the back of an envelope, vaguely dissertation-related. But you can't get anything done that way. As soon as I realized the absurdity of it all, I packed it in. It was 11pm, and I couldn't think straight, so I just went to bed - not that I got any sleep.

Today I picked up where I'd left off, and got through a few more pages. This time I tried to work out a logical question: why conditionals are asymmetrical. Why does P imply Q, but not the other way around? The truth table describes the asymmetry, it doesn't explain it. I finally got it (it has to do with dependence), but my scribblings and citations didn't quite bear out. Hmmm...what about those files I've been meaning to organize?

And then it hit me *dork!*: I distract myself when something doesn't fulfil my expectations. Since nobody's around to kick my ass back on track, two hours can easily get lost before I know what happened. It's like I said, "Oh, that didn't work. Screw it." The rational response would be to say, "OK, why didn't it work out? What's the real answer, as opposed to the one I'd believed?" Then and only then would I stand to learn something new, better than what I'd thought before.

So now it comes down to this: I'll find a way to make a habit of asking that question whenever experience runs counter to my expectations. Or die trying. (Better the former than the latter.) It's not my only problem, but it'll be one less to worry about when I get over it.

There's a lesson here. (I dislike moralizing, but this seems important enough to add.) If you've got the same kind of problem, take up the same solution. But even if you don't distract yourself when events let you down, you probably have other problems you need to solve. For what it's worth, I'm suggesting you keep watch for them. Find that nasty habit - big or little, it doesn't matter. Dig up the reason why you do it, and find a way to get yourself back on track. You'll be glad you did. Because you'll discover - no, experience a bit more of the real meaning of "The truth will set you free." You don't have to be religious to know how true that statement is.

Blog for your life

Dear readers, allow me to invite both of you over to a new blog of mine, CriticalFitness. I've wanted to put that together for some time, and have decided to take the plunge. Hope you enjoy it!

Another modest proposal: sleep your way to the top!

How many times have you heard about the problems surrounding work before you realize something has to change? It's not easy finding a job you love, let alone a career you love. Considering you spend one-third of your life at work, you'd better find something you can be happy doing, right? Trouble is, not everybody can find a job: Barack Obama has gotten a lot of mileage out of the fact that unemployment in America is at a five-year high.

And how many times do you have to be reminded that you're tired all the time before you do something about it? It's disturbing, all the numerous reports about how we are overworked and overstressed, yet we aren't getting enough sleep. We're supposed to spend one-third of our lives in bed, and we can't. Any why not? Because of our jobs.

Now business thrives on efficiency. If somebody can find a way to get two things done at once, all they have to do is patent the idea and live off the royalties. One guy has actually designed a treadmill desk so you can walk the whole day while making calls, checking email, etc. And you could lose 57 pounds in a year - with no gym fees! Now that's what I call using your noggin!

OK, here's my bright idea: make sleeping your job. That's right, make money in bed, and without prostituting yourself. How many jobs can you say that about?

Think about it. By combining the two tasks, 16 hours can be whittled down to a mere eight; that's a time savings of 50%! You are then free to do other things, the things you really want to do. The treadmill desk would become obsolete. People would get the sleep they so badly need, and they'd get paid to do it. Oh, and did I mention the flexible hours?

I know a lot of people would be willing to put in overtime. Working on the weekends would be encouraged; the only ones wouldn't are most likely those party animals - and let's face it, they wouldn't want to work weekends. They call it living, I call it shiftless.

Sleeping on the job could get you promoted, not fired. Speaking of getting fired, the unemployment problem would drop to practically zero. Every applicant would be seriously considered - "We are an equal opportunity employer." Imagine the possibilities!

I'm not sure what the pay scale would be, but most probably on the basis of experience and merit. Let's face it: some people just sleep better than others. Would you want to pay someone the same for doing a worse job? Not me. Real Americans have no truck with those socialist practices. If employees don't learn to increase the quality of their output, they shouldn't be rewarded for it.

I have no doubt that everybody would benefit from this plan - and society would be a better place. The crime rate would surely go down. Since everyone gets enough sleep and has a steady job, crime would lose its profit incentive. Legalize it, don't criticize it!

Of course kids and retired folks wouldn't be barred from sleeping; they just wouldn't get paid for it. Child labor laws prohibit the hiring of minors, and senior citizens, well, they can do whatever they please after retirement. Right? So it's just economically unfeasible to keep people working past retirement age. Besides, it's just common sense that older folks don't work as long as younger folks do - but then they need less sleep, so hey, it checks out.

I know what you're thinking: "But Wordverter, who's gonna keep the shops open? who's gonna fix the pipes? who's gonna grow the food, and build the buildings?" The answer, my friend, is...not what you're thinking. No, we're not going to pay anyone for those things. You get paid to do your job; what you do on your own time is your thing. Folks can work it out among themselves who does what - if kids can do that on the playground, why can't adults? You've got 16 hours of down time, you've got a good head on you; so use it! C'mon, you're big boys and girls.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some serious work to do. Do not disturb.

(Image cagily kiped from www.mooqi.com/. Sorry for not getting the full address, my browser's not working the way it ought to. Wait a minute - it is!)

Picking the Spin, Spinning the Pic

A recent article in Newsweek starts off asking, "Could the Montauk Monster have been faked?" But it deals only incidentally with the Montauk Monster; the main issue is with doctored photos. It quickly seques into an interview with John Long, chair of the ethics committee for the National Press Photographers Association.

I have to say that something seems fundamentally wrong here.

According to the article, photojournalists have to work back up to the respectability of the other journalists. But it seems to me the other way around - namely, snapshots have come down to the level of respectability of the rest of the media.

Photos have been perceived as the last refuge of honesty in the media. OK, writers will put a spin on text or sound bites; we're used to that. Even the editing of video - we know somebody's spinning it there too. But now static images somehow seemed...pure. The last few years have pretty much dashed that rosy image.

My guess is the relative difficulty of doctoring photos. To fix a photo, you had to really know what you were doing because the technology wasn't available to just anybody. It was time-consuming and expensive. Even though doctoring photos goes back at least as far back as 1860, digital tech has made it so much easier to pull off. Hence more widespread. It's pretty obvious, just scrolling down and glancing at the dates of the pictures.

(Speaking of, check out the one dated December 2007. The executive editor defended the paper, maintaining that "the photo did not blur the line between news reporting and editorial commentary." Of course not: that line was blasted years ago. I'd love to blame Fox News, but that's probably just me.)

What's effectively happened is an erosion of trust in the media as such. People complain of apathy among students regarding current events, when the media themselves are at least partly responsible for this. And is there any real question why that is? Kids aren't stupid; they know when somebody's trying to put one over on them. Succeeding generations are more media-savvy than ever, and more cynical. This is a natural response, I think. Number one, there are more cameras around than ever; you can make your own video in minutes or even seconds, and post it on Youtube in seconds. People know how easy it is to dress up a picture anymore. Number two, despite this widespread knowledge, there are more visual distortions passed off as genuine than ever. This is lying, pure and simple. And it's not by joke-loving Youtubers or armchair bloggers (Le blog, c'est moi); it's professional journalists, who get paid to inform people about what's going on.

Your friend lies: how do you react after you've been burned?

Somebody you know is a pathological liar: how do you react to anything he/she says?

A one-eyed babysitter depicts lies, cover-ups, and plain old stupidity - committed not simply by subjects of the media, but by the media itself - over and over: how do you react?


I'd like to try and write up some potential benefits from this sort of situation, but - you guessed it - that's another post.

Quote of the Day

I'd like to borrow an honorable tradition from my friend over at Agent Intellect: the tradition of posting interesting quotes.

Today's quote has to do with the economy of research. Sounds dry, but is actually fascinating:

"A leading principle of inference which can lead from a true premiss to a false conclusion is insofar bad; but insofar as it can only lead either from a false premiss or to a true conclusion, it is satisfactory; and whether it leads from false to false, from true to true, or from false to true, it is equally satisfactory. The first part of this theorem, that an inference from true to false is bad, [follows] from the essential characteristic of truth, which is its finality. For truth being our end and being able to endure, it can only be a false maxim which represents it as destroying itself. Indeed, I do not see how anybody can fail to admit that (other things being equal) it is a fault in a mode of inference that it can lead from truth to falsity. But it is by no means as evident that an inference from false to false is as satisfactory as an inference from true to true; still less, that such a one is as satisfactory as an inference from false to true. The Hegelian logicians seem to rate only that reasoning A1 which setting out from falsity leads to truth. But men of laboratories consider those truths as small that only an inward necessity compels. It is the great compulsion of the Experience of nature which they worship. On the other hand, the men of seminaries sneer at nature; the great truths for them are the inward ones. Their god is enthroned in the depths of the soul. How shall we decide the question? Let us rationally inquire into it, subordinating personal prepossessions in view of the fact that whichever way these prepossessions incline, we can but admit that wiser men than we, more sober-minded men than we, and humbler searchers after truth, do today embrace the opinion the opposite of our own. How, then, shall we decide the question? Yes, how to decide questions is precisely the question to be decided. One thing the laboratory-philosophers ought to grant: that when a question can be satisfactorily decided in a few moments by calculation, it would be foolish to spend much time in trying to answer it by experiment. Nevertheless, this is just what they are doing every day. The wisest-looking man I ever saw, with a vast domelike cranium and a weightiness of discourse that left Solon in the distance, once spent a month or more in dropping a stick on the floor and seeing how often it would fall on a crack; because that ratio of frequency afforded a means of ascertaining the value of pi, though not near so close as it could be calculated in five minutes; and what he did it for was never made clear. Perhaps it was only for relaxation; though some people might have found reading Goldsmith or Voltaire fully as lively an occupation. If it were not for the example of this distinguished LL.D., I should have ventured to say that nothing is more foolish than carrying a question into a laboratory until reflection has done all that it can do towards clearing it up -- at least, all that it can do for the time being. Of course, for a seminary-philosopher, to send a question to the laboratory is to have done with it, to which he naturally has a reluctance; while the laboratory-philosopher is impatient to get a whack at it." - C.S. Peirce, "The Essence of Reasoning" Collected Papers 4.69

Which tells me that Dr. Thunderdome was no philosopher at all.

Busy, busy, busy

It's a busy month, and will be a busy few months, so - if you haven't noticed already - I'll be posting less frequently for a while. Of course, I've said that before. And what happened? I posted the next day!

But really, Dear Readers, I have to concentrate a bit more than usual. I would love to write more, but duty calls.

So, for your meantime enjoyment, here's a little joke - yes, I'm easily amused. Stop me if you've heard this one:

A kid goes to the local whorehouse. "Give me the skankiest hooker you got, the most disease-ridden one," he says to the madam.

The madam raises her eyebrows. She says, "Our ladies are not skanky." The kid pours his piggy bank on the table. "Right this way."

They go the parlor. The madam calls out a vile-looking vixen. "Say, what do you want this one for?" asks the madam.

The kid says, "Because Mom and Dad are going out tonight, and the babysitter has sex with me while they're gone. So she'll get sick."

"Why do you want to get your babysitter sick?"

"Well, when Mom and Dad get back, Dad will drive the babysitter home - he does that every time, and they have sex in the car."

"Now why do you want your father to get the clap?"

"So that Mom catches it when they have sex."

The madam is getting a little worried by now. "What do you want your mom to get the clap for?"

"Because when Dad's at work, she has sex with the mailman, so he'll get sick."

"Why do you want that?"

"'Cuz he ran over my frog!" the kid cries.

What I Learned from Skipping Stones, 25 years later

When I was growing up in North Dakota, Dad often took my brother and me to a nearby lake. We'd fish for a while, and then, when we got bored, would often start skipping stones - which pretty much guaranteed no further bites for the day. For anybody.

The best stones are flat and smooth; they'll sail along for six, even eight skips before coming to rest at the bottom of the lake. Unless you've experienced it, you will never understand the joys of a good skipping stone. They just feel so good in the hand: they fit in the palm of your hand, have a nice heft. And to stroke the smooth surface is particularly gratifying in its way. Some have interesting colors - or maybe you just notice whatever color it is, and it's interesting. Even gray can hold its fascination. (Boys don't think this way; the appreciation is there, the words aren't.)

You can get so fascinated in a stone that you almost forget why you picked it up in the first place. And that's where a problem sometimes comes up: do you keep it and hunt for another,
maybe less pretty rock to skip? or do you give this one a good throw, and maybe beat your personal record of skips? You know that if you throw it well, you're bound to get beautiful results. But if you do, you won't get to admire the stone anymore. It won't be yours.

Nine times out of ten, you throw it; after all, that was the point. Besides, if you put it in your pocket and take it home, what happens? It ends up in a drawer, and you won't think of it again until you're rooting around for a paper clip. You remember the rock-skipping; you forget the rock in your drawer.

- - -

I forgot about all this until almost a year ago. There was a Taize workshop here, my first chance to find out what it was all about. The theme of the day was love, drawing on John 15:11-13. Due to some recent events in my personal life, it was already a pressing theme. So the question kept turning in my head the whole day; I wanted to find some answers.

In the afternoon we had a workshop in clay molding. The leader set some music on a CD player, and instructed us to form the clay as we saw fit. (For you writers out there, a sort of freewriting session, only with clay.) I had no idea what to do with my lump of clay, so - better to just muddle through until something happens. (That's something I learned from freewriting: you can't stay truly aimless for very long. Sooner or later you'll strike out in some direction.)

After a few tries, I discovered that I could make the clay smooth by stroking it. Soon afterward I found that I could make round discs that were smooth just by holding the clay in one hand, covering it with the other, and rotating them in opposite directions.

It quickly became an obsession to make a perfectly round, flat piece, smooth all over. No depiction of anything in particular (so I thought), only the desire to make the perfect form. What was going on around me, I had no clue. The question of love was turning more now. My hands went and did their thing as I kept thinking on the question. Only gradually, as I kept trying to get it right, did the memories of skipping stones arise. The rock hefted in my hand, the soft texture of the hard stone. I remembered the joy of the act - of finding a good stone, winding up for the throw, launching it sidearm, watching it arc and arc again over the water, leaving a line of splashes behind.

The leader called for us to wind it up; I snapped out of the trance. She asked us to place our work on the table in front. I was surprised at how elaborate and - well, how big some of the pieces were. What did I have? A few crappy pieces of meaningless abstract form, and a couple small discs. They'd get lost up there. Maybe be taken as leftovers, rather than a finished piece. The leader encouraged us to talk about our work; if we wanted to, we could explain what the pieces meant. Many did, and some had quite elaborate ideas going on. I had some memories, and that's all.

I put it aside, on a nearby desk. I didn't know anybody there, I hadn't known what to expect there. I wasn't going to embarrass myself by stammering through some disjointed memories and pointing to a little lump of clay that you could barely see. No way.

We packed up and headed out for dinner. Another fellow told me he couldn't think of anything either; I wonder if he wasn't in the same boat as me. As we left the room, I noticed that my lumps were piled together with all the other pieces of leftover clay. It was just as I expected - only an explanation could have saved them, and I'd wasted my chance. Still, it hurt a little to see them treated that way. They weren't much, but I had tried to make something of them.

- - -

A couple nights ago, the memory of all this came up again. It started making more sense this time around, and I felt that somehow it was worth saying. Rather than try and analyze it to death, it seemed better to just place on the table for you to see. If it has anything to say, it will. So, for what it's worth, here you are.

If you're too lazy to exercise, come closer...

Lazy-asses of the world, unite! in emptying your wallets. But relax, there's still time to get over your mortgages and credit card debts before sinking into this hole. Just don't say I didn't warn you.

A recent news item has it that somebody's created "exercise in a pill." According to said item, mice given the drug burned more calories and ran farther than a control group. Whoa! Little fur-bearing Carl Lewises and Jackie Joyner-Kersees, made by a pill? Sounds like training day is about to become a relic of the past, like belt machines, exercise bikes, and Jane Fonda workout tapes.

The author of the article, a medical doctor, adds that the drug would take years to get FDA-approved. Maybe, but I'm not so sure that will prevent idiots from buying it when it does come out. And it eventually will come out, I predict. Because there are enough potential buyers to justify whatever research costs.

Also, he says the exercise drug would have to give all the benefits of real exercise. That would only be true if it were supposed to replace exercise. Do I agree? As you expected, I do not. This sounds more like wishful thinking than anything. I seriously doubt that any synthetic chemical will replace the complex reactions that occur when training. We won't go into all of that, simply because I don't know all of it. And besides, it wouldn't fit into a blog entry. Suffice it to say, the R&D guys will keep trying to satisfy lazy asses by making a pill to do the job - all in the name of progress.

Progress it might be if we discover all the intricacies of the body. But the cynic in me seriously doubts that's the motive behind this. If this pill gets the FDA green light, you know damn well what's going to happen.

Can you say "Bandwagon"? I knew you could.

You know what's going to happen: Fitness magazines and gyms will be falling over themselves to market this stuff. Celebrities will make special appearances on Oprah to say how much it's done for them. Every website will be choking with banners hawking it. Infomercials will run 24-7 like the Rapture's on its way:

New! - Miracle Fitness Pill!!!
Buy now before it's too late!!!!

Yes folks, it's a snake-oil salesman's wet dream. And it's coming soon - break out the umbrella, or better yet, build an ark.

(Image cleverly five-finger-discounted from http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2007/11/17/fat-men/)

Pre-op checkout

Dear readers, I have a confession to make. Today, in about an hour, I am off to the hospital for a bit of minor surgery. And I don't like it, not one bit.

It's not the surgery itself that bothers me so much. It's not the fact that I'm losing time on my dissertation. Nor is it the overnight stay in a room that might have three other dudes. These things do not make me happy, but they're not what's eating me right now.

What really annoys me is that I can't have breakfast. No cereal, no coffee, no juice. No water. Nothing.

So here I am, killing time, thinking about what to amuse myself with in the hospital, and my stomach is growling. And dammit, I want to do my breakfast ritual! I want to hit the alarm, stumble into the kitchen, get the water going, fix a bowl of cereal, hunt around for a clean spoon. And I can't. Dammit all.

But would they schedule the surgery for 9am or something like that? Nooooooooooooooooooooo - 11am! I've got the whole damn morning to kill. Believe me, it would be nice to get some work done in that time; every minute counts now, really. But it's hard to focus when you know you're going into a hospital, where they're going to put you under, and you won't know what it'll be like afterward, and dammit I want my damn breakfast now give it to me!

*sigh*

Might as well blog.

(Image supernaturally swiped from http://cruelkev3.blogspot.com/2007/04/man-rises-from-dead.html)

Waiter, there's a blog in my soup!

Here's something you might find interesting: Waiter Rant. (It's in Ye Olde Blogrolle too.) Fine writing about working in fine dining establishments. Play catch-up, like me, by going through it (hint: going chronologically helps when reading some posts). One entry I rather like can be found here.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I worked in the kitchens of a few restaurants. I can't say it was my favorite job, but it was a good experience in several ways. So The Waiter has got the Wordverter Seal of Approval for taking that experience - much more than I got - and turning it into something even better: a comment on living.

(Image coolly purloined from http://julesverne-art.nl/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=16)

Film or Fetish? YOU decide.

I've been meaning to work this out, but never quite got around to it. I like movies, a lot. Always have. (There was a falling-out once, but we've made up since then.) And of course it becomes something I think about when I get the chance, which isn't often these days. So this is just trying out some thoughts...

I've had several conversations with folks who will say things like "I don't like war films" or "Drama's stupid, I like comedies." Those kinds of statements never used to make me wonder, but now they do.

"Why?" you ask. Because it seems to me that they are basically saying they have no interest in film. What I mean by this is that they're more interested in a certain kind of movie than in the medium of film itself. If they were interested in the medium, they would want to know what could be done with it - in terms of writing, or cinematography, etc. - in any genre whatsoever. They'd read up on film, take a class. Some do, but many don't. So they prefer this form of the art, not the art itself.

(I'm not talking here about conditioned, negative repulsions. Some people are highly sensitive to violence, and avoid films with a lot of it. I respect that. It's a separate matter that is up to the individual to address. What I'm talking about here is a positive attraction to some genres and indifference to others.)

Now here's where it gets a little tougher for me, because I risk stepping on people's toes. Movies, whatever they deal with, if they have anything to say, say something about the human condition. That goes for your slasher flicks as well as the musicals. If they didn't, there wouldn't be anything interesting in them except the medium itself. Even your animal adventures speak to man, by showing our kinship to the animals. So, in limiting your moviegoing to a few genres, you limit the dialogue that's occurring in the darkened theater.

Also, people tend anymore to identify themselves with their interests. (This is especially true with music.) Some people, when they say they like comedies, tend to be talking about themselves - "I have a good sense of humor, I like to laugh,..." It's the "Soundtrack of Your Life" syndrome: the music for who I am, the movie that expresses me. Le film, c'est moi.

And now for the real toe-stepping: I can think of no other word for this than fetishism. If you say you like movies but you only like certain kinds, that's a fetish. Which, by that logic, would mean there's a whole of fetish going on. (I'm not talking here about conditioned repulsions. Some people are highly sensitive to violence, and avoid films with a lot of it. That is a separate matter that is up to the individual to answer for him/herself. What I'm talking about here is an attraction to some genres and indifference to others.)

"You self-righteous bastard! You think you're better than us?" Am I above this fetishism? Am I saying that I am holier than thou, who callest thyself a moviegoer? In terms of film, yes - but I've got my own fetishes in other departments. Music, for instance: I've got definite tastes there, though little by little I'm trying to get over them. Reggae, for example, I just can't listen to it. But it's very popular, and there are great names in there, so it speaks to many people. So my theory is equally identifying a weak spot in moi-self, even while it's talking about movies.

"So why are you posting this? is it somehow timely or relevant to the news?" No, I just wanted to know what you thought about it. Comments and criticisms are all welcome. Dear readers, both of you and your thoughts matter to me.

Addendum: It might be objected that folks are simply unaware of the medium, which is why they have no interest in it. To some extent I can agree, but the degree of self-consciousness within the media makes this claim hard to uphold. The Simpsons is unbelievably ironic and metacritical. Film in particular has long made movies about...making movies; Singin' in the Rain comes to mind, or Borat today. Or little reminders that jolt us out of the genre - The English Patient, when Kristin Scott Thomas bangs her head against a low beam in a room, and breaks the romantic spell that has been set up to that point. Or the brilliant machine-gun shot in Miller's Crossing - yeah, the one where Albert Finney seems to make a day filling one guy full of lead. The outtakes at the end of every Jackie Chan flick. All these things remind us: "This is film, you guys."

And you know damn well it's going to come out on DVD - most likely with the extra features, including "The Making of ___," which are so obviously planned into the whole production from the beginning! When filmmakers themselves exploit this sort of meta-comment regularly, isn't it hard not to notice it yourself? Or have they effectively buried the message?

(Image involuntarily donated by http://cubeme.com/blog/?s=lynch&x=0&y=0)

Stupidity Running Ramthant

This sort of rant shouldn't have to be written. It's been done before I-don't-know-how-many times, by I-don't-know-how-many better thinkers than me.

If there's one thing that pisses me off, it's New Age claptrap. Let me rephrase that: it pisses me off when New Age claptrap claims to be somehow superior to contemporary science. In reality, such talk often betrays a complete misunderstanding of science. What's especially disturbing about it is its popularity, sort of a Scientology Lite.

Case in point: Water, a documentary film about the substance. In the trailer, our announcer tells us (in deep, dramatic tones, of course) about how essential water is for life and how we the people have so many different uses for it. True enough. But - and here's where the credibility gap yawns wider than the Grand Canyon - he informs us that water "acts outside all physical laws of nature." (Seek to 1:00 if you don't believe me.)

Acts outside all physical laws of nature? Holy Trevi fountain, Batman! You're playing with fire! It's such an obvious fallacy, I'd be surprised if nobody pointed it out.

Have the filmmakers ever heard of fluid mechanics? Apparently not.

Do they have a perspective on what "physical laws of nature" means? Nope. Physical laws are those regularities which govern the behavior of matter. It's the way things are - nature.

Water is about as natural as can be: hydrogen, oxygen. Physical elements. And the relations among the atoms are as common as can be. You can find this stuff in any chemistry book. True, water does have remarkable properties, but supernatural? Come on! If you really believe water defies all physical laws, you don't know anything about fluid mechanics (see above), you haven't opened your eyes to the plain facts around you, and you probably also think bumblebees defy the laws of aerodynamics.

Do the filmmakers understand what science is all about? Not in the least. To say water acts outside all physical laws is to presuppose we understand everything there is to know about physics. But we don't. If you think science is a finished product, think again. Science is a form of inquiry, making rigorous use of the same forms of reasoning that every human being has in their noggin. It is not the body of knowledge that results from inquiry, it is the process itself. What that means is knowledge evolves over time. Einstein's theories of relativity - do they overturn science? Of course not, they're products of scientific inquiry. And that inquiry is highly rigorous, not to beat you down but to identify and test factors of an event.

What this means is, science generally takes baby steps. That manifests itself in at least two ways. (a) Relatively slow progress. Those baby steps may accumulate in a giant leap forward in an overall theory, but you can't forgo the baby steps on that account. We're making much more progress now than before, but that's because we've honed the technique, we're training to do research, and doing a lot more of it now than before. Oh yeah, and we've got more people to do it - overpopulation has its upside. (b) Relative ignorance. We don't know the half about the physical universe. Seasoned scientists are painfully aware of this, which is why they keep doing research.

So - is water a wonderful substance? Yes. Has it got strange properties? Sure. Is it magical? I don't think so. The hyperbolic gobbledygook that productions such as Water purvey is the kind of thing that makes scientists look kind of laughable, when they deserve a lot of respect. I don't deny that there is a mystical dimension to scientific inquiry - far from it, I think science does bring us closer to huge questions of cosmological and theological import. I'm simply annoyed when somebody reads a few pop-science books and concludes that they know What It's All About. It pisses me off that they think their armchair's a better place to see these things than in the trenches. That's pretty damn arrogant.

Think I'm exaggerating? These are the same folks who made the annoyingly-titled What the Bleep Do We Know!?, and they're members of Ramtha's school of enlightenment. What do we know? Well, sit back and let Ramtha tell you.

What does our friend Ramtha say? "You are God."
What do I say? "That is Horseshit."

"God" is a highly vague name, and there are numerous ways to interpret it, but it's practically impossible to avoid the sense of somehow being superior to all else. What's a God worth if (s)he can't beat Mother Nature? If the filmmakers are going to attribute supernatural powers to water, how much more to themselves?

"Oh, but it's not just us; you too are God." Of course!

See? I make water!

Dude, spare me; calling any one of us God - calling all of us God, for that matter - is an insult to God.

Interlude - Cheap thrills

I love it when some of my favorite things come together - in this case, Youtube, Pan Sonic, and images like you see on the inside of your eyes when you close them. I'm not sure if it's a fan video, but it fits the music and is well done. Enjoy.

An Eventful Non-event

A funny thing happened the other day. It sounds trivial on the surface, and there's probably a reasonable explanation for it. But I haven't found it.

I had two bottles of laundry soap sitting under the kitchen sink. One was almost finished, the other had just been started, so I thought to pour the one into the other. (I'd actually planned this out, but won't bore you with those truly trivial details.)

As I was pouring, I heard something strange, not far away: a soft pat, pat of drops of liquid. What was so weird about it was that it wasn't anywhere near the bottles, but in a quite different location. The drips landed in an area about 7 cm long and 1-2 cm wide, about 36 cm away from the bottle - that is, 20 cm straight ahead from my left hand. When I stopped pouring, so did the drips. The whole thing lasted maybe 10-15 seconds. Maybe: I wasn't timing it.

My first thought was "You're just being sloppy." But I wasn't. If the detergent had gone glub-glub, it would've been a simple matter making the connection. But that would've only been at the start, when the stream first hit the surface; from that point on, all would be quiet. This was an irregular but constant dripping, which stopped when the pouring was done. Besides, the pouring was smooth - easy, gradual, no spilling. Not a hint of suddenness in the action at any point.

Being right-handed, the full bottle was about 36 cm away from where the drips were landing; the bottle was about 25 cm tall, making the rim almost 44 cm away. And, as mentioned, I was careful about pouring - no shaking involved whatsoever. Perhaps it was just lumpy leftover laundry detergent? No, I've never seen laundry soap curdle. And this stuff was uniformly consistent.

Now I was pouring with one hand, and holding a cap from one of the bottles. So it would make sense to figure that the drips came from the cap. After all, I do use it to measure dosage when I do laundry. But I always rinse it when finished, because crusty caps are annoying and disgusting. And I hadn't done laundry in a couple weeks. So no, the cap was dry - and even if it weren't, how could drips travel horizontally from a cap that was being held statically, i.e. in one place?

If anyone has a plausible explanation, I'd really like to hear it. Apologies in advance: If my responses seem contentious, it's not against you. It's just that I'd like to think I've checked every possibility. Nothing seems to add up. (And no, there were no holes in either bottles or caps, as if that could explain drips of laundry soap arcing almost half a meter.) So I appeal to both of you, dear readers, giving as faithful an account as I could.

A Message for Today: "Bomb" is Bob with an M

Bob Newhart is a great comedian you never hear about today, and folks today are worse off for it. Anyone who decides to make a career as a solo straight man deserves applause; anyone who actually pulls it off, though, is a certified genius.

Evidence that we might be better off comes from strange corners. While many folks complain about how badly the war in Iraq is going, I have it on good word that things over there are actually going quite well - for a campaign. How does that support my suggestion? Apparently Catch-22 is all too real in its depiction of things military, and that sort of thing goes way back. And we postmodern civilians don't realize it.

So, with that in mind, it brings me great joy to relay a blast from the past - because things could be worse. Enjoy.

Addendum: Agent Intellect has posted something about these lines; read it here.

All's well that ends, well, soon.

My friend over at Agent Intellect pointed me to a book with a...controversial thesis. It's summed up nicely in the title: Better Not to Have Been - the Harm of Coming into Existence. I haven't read further than what's posted on the Amazon site, but it could be an interesting read when done with the dissertation. Not that I expect to agree with the author. But reading disagreeable arguments is important, as it shines a different light on things, so that we can see with a clarity we might not otherwise achieve.

From what I get out of the short reading sample, Prof. David Benatar is questioning some basic postulates about life and existence in general. The idea is that not existing is worse than existing. But murder and suicide are even worse than that, so we're stuck with doing the time. But we can do the world a favor by not having children, performing abortions wherever possible, and basically working towards total extinction of the human species. Actually, he doesn't stop with people: the more life we can take out, the better. So I think it would be most logical to eliminate plants too, even though they're not sentient: as long as life exists, it can evolve, and the potential for suffering remains.

Now I don't know anything about Prof. Benatar, who states flat out that he believes the case he's putting out for review. If he's got kids, it'll be hard to accept this claim - unless there are a lot of moments in his life like here. It's also hard to accept that he's essentially condemning the universe for making existence possible at all, not to mention any possible creator of the universe. But that's what he seems to be doing.

Aside from more direct questions pertaining to details of the argument, there are some other things I think would be worth addressing. Lest they be taken as irrelevant, I'll argue that if you're going to level such a heavy thesis as what's laid out in the book - and it is a supremely heavy charge - you can't blow off the attendant Big Questions that go along with it:

1. What if it really doesn't matter? The earth isn't going to last more than a few billion more years, meaning we'd better find another home quick. But if it turns out that there's no escape, there appears to be an upper limit to the number of future lives. And if the universe indeed simply ends, without anything beyond, there is no net gain or loss on a universal scale of goodness. So what would it matter if the actual total number of sentient beings were more or less than what it could be?
2. Do you know where we're going? If the universe evolved to the point where life and sentience appeared, and it seems to be moving in a certain direction - towards an end we know not what - it seems presumptuous to make the judgment call what that end is. (And it doesn't matter whether one holds a theistic or atheistic view: development has a direction, and there's always a certain range of possibilities for any outcome. So there seems to be an end implicit in the workings of the universe. I just don't think anyone's that far-sighted to see the ultimate telos.)
3. What grounds value and logic? To say this is overkill is to evade the issue, for the whole argument rides on a value judgment and reasoning. The anti-natal, pro-death argument supposes a certain value judgment; but the basis of value is by no means a settled issue. This means Prof. Benatar must not only justify the case on ethical grounds but also on axiological grounds. This theory of value must ground the argument itself and fit with the general logical theory, which itself carries a host of unresolved problems. In other words, the anti-natal, pro-death argument must be supported by a general theory of logic and value - and it must lead ultimately and inexorably to the thesis that existence in this world is worse than non-existence. Otherwise the argument is (at best) only a possible option, one among many.
   

There are more questions that need to be answered, but I'm just tired; let somebody else pose them.

Whoever thinks I'm treating Benatar's thesis lightly here is mistaken. I do find his conclusion repulsive, frankly, but I also see that repulsion alone is not a sufficient rebuttal. A counterargument is needed in order to meet the case on its own terms. In any case, people will vote with their feet, along with other body parts, so I don't see his argument persuading many folks. However, the philosophical discussion it stimulates make it worth considering.

A Modest Proposal: Blabbermouth Smackdown

One of these days, I'm going to post something meaningful; today, however, I'm going to kvetch about manners. Particularly when it comes to public speaking.

I was listening to a speech by Richard Rorty; it's quite interesting, and it made take a different view of his thought. (You too can listen here.) After giving the talk, Prof. Rorty took questions. One guy spent I-don't-know-how-many minutes spluttering out his question. I don't know how long it took him, because I was busy hanging laundry. But I know the question was too long, too complicated, or both, because Prof. Rorty himself was a little flummoxed. He handled it well, as expected, but it was an awkward moment. It happened again, with another questioner. What is with these guys?

Of all the things I've been accused of, meanness is not one of them. And anyone who knows me understands that I'm not a person to squash thought and inquiry. But I find myself increasingly impatient with this kind of inconsideration. It's like private and public spaces: let your own place be a pigsty if you must, but clean up after yourself when out and about. Take all the time you want when framing your thought in private, but when several people are involved at the same moment, you'd better get your question out and let the speaker field it so that others get their chance too.

If your thought is too complicated somehow to express concisely, perhaps it would be better handled in a paper - or an email, or article. That's one reason for the literature, folks, to keep a dialogue going. Complicated (or convoluted) thinking needs time to be straightened out. Don't waste anyone else's time.

The consideration of other people is a cornerstone of civilization, more so now than in years gone by. In less charitable moments like this, my mind moves to less charitable sentiments. Such as: If you forgo consideration of others, you forfeit consideration anyone should give to yourself. I'm not saying it's right.

How would I manage the situation? If I had the power, I would make a law requiring questioners to complete their thought in 20 seconds maximum. One question, 20 seconds tops. Anyone who goes overtime - whether they be professor, student, caterer, or me - would be immediately tased. At 21 seconds, bzzzzzzt! People would learn quickly, and it would liven up the scene. If somehow they evaded it, permission would be granted for a public beatdown - bystanders encouraged to join in.

What about speakers who go overtime? When delivering the talk proper, they too risk the buzz. Judging a lecture boring is too subjective; everybody can agree on time. Answering questions often takes longer than asking them, so I figure a minute is enough. Maybe two. Guest speakers should be given advance notice of the disciplinary practice, to avoid surprises. (Residents should know.) Now a taser might not be helpful - it's incapacitating. The speaker should remain cognizant to take other questions. And hey, they're guests; aren't we supposed to be hospitable? Sure we are, but still, we need to learn 'em. So I propose a Milgramesque solution: 40 volts for the first offense, 60 volts the second offense, and so on. Just imagine:

"OK, if you could please clip this microphone onto your lapel - right about there, yes. Thank you. Now for the electrodes..."

Yes, the irony is that Rorty was talking about his belief in moral progress; we do think we've made progress over the ancient Greek position on slavery, to take an example of his. True, and I'll generally go along with that. But don't you wonder sometimes - not always, but every now and then - don't you wonder if, on some fronts, we're being a bit too nice for our own good? OK, it's out of my system now.

(Image lovingly swiped from http://sheepoverboard.com/robots-heaven/index.php)

Cheap Thrills for your Inner Badass

Here's something to kill time and know thyself: the B-movie badass quiz. (Go on, you know you wanna.)

For those of you who are wondering how my score turned out - and you know you wanna - it's this:

If I may say, this is exactly right. In spirit, if not in letter. (And yes, They Live is a fantastic flick. See it - and whichever B-movie you end up being the badass of.)

So what are you doin' here? Get on with it!

(Image slyly shoplifted from www.quizilla.com. Get yours there too.)

Da capo: going around one more time

One thing about getting older (I'm not yet ready to talk about getting old) is that your habits show more. The idea of turning into a crinkly ball of hide-bound habits can lead to the fear that you're not really growing, just getting more accustomed - and crotchety. Fortunately there are moments that put the fear to rest, if only for a moment.

One of those moments concerns an interpretation of music. I grew up listening to Switched-On Bach, a wonderful album of pieces performed on the Moog synthesizer by Wendy (nee Walter) Carlos. I still love it, it truly is a great recording. The second track is "Air on the G String," a popular piece by J.S. Bach that's often found in weddings everywhere. Carlos plays it straight through, from beginning to end, from A to B, with characteristic confidence and charm. And as a kid I thought nothing of it except "This is cool."

When I heard another recording of the same piece years later, a few things went through mey head. First, of course: Oh, I love this piece. Then: the clarity of the surface was not quite like S-O B (heh-heh, get it? SOB). Also, the sound - Carlos used more reed-like tones. And it works very well. Other thoughts: the dynamics could be better...

...and then the musician repeated the first part. And I discovered: it's supposed to be played this way! And then the second part was repeated! "Air on the G String" has an A-A-B-B structure: simple, so elegant.

I'd played piano for 7 years, and percussion for about the same, but I hadn't realized the importance of repetition in music. The reason, I think, is simple: There was no rewind button in Bach's day - so it was worked into the system. And it still is, of course. A drumbeat is a rhythmic motif repeated continually, and it keeps a band together. A chorus weaves verses together.

Or, as in this piece, you get a chance to really appreciate the musical phrases; they don't just pass you by, you can take them in and remember them, savor the notes. In that respect, the parts are like soup - they get better the second time you heat it up.

So, pace Carlos, I wish they could've let you record it the right way, doing "Air" to the fullest. The move is understandable, though. Making an album has certain challenges: you're limited by the medium to how much you can play. CDs can hold almost an hour and a half, which is gigantic compared to vinyl. One LP can get some 20-24 minutes per side, tops. So I imagine they had to decide whether to record longer pieces or more - and the choice was more. In this one respect, I think the album is flawed.

Switched-On Bach is still one of my all-time favorites, and always will be, but somehow it's nice to have observed the imperfections of things known youth. What's actually nice is, I don't mind that; I even like it.

When you're a kid, you know somehow that the world's been around a lot longer than you have. And somehow the world had authority: it was big. So grown-ups are perfect because they've been around - that's why they're the teachers and you're the student. When you grow up (and that takes some of us a little longer than others), you realize that grown-ups aren't so perfect. Never were, maybe never pretended to be. They've got problems, and the world has been fucked up pretty much always. But those things and people you loved then and now, you discover you didn't love them because they're perfect. You love them for what they are - and now, probably even more. And once you realize that, being human isn't so bad after all.

My fellow Americans: Cast your own damn vote

Election Day in the US is months down the road, but it's on everyone's minds. Probably a good time to put some thought into this before stepping up to the plate...

I'm not a political animal, at least not the savvy kind that follows the goings-on of City Hall and Capitol Hill. Over the years, though, I've become more aware of the part I play in things. And with that has come a growing awareness of my responsibilities. I wish you could talk about these things without sounding like a sanctimonious prick, but here goes.

Four years ago, I had a conversation with a fellow that went something like this. See if you can find what's wrong:

DUDE: Who're you voting for, Bush or Kerry?
ME: Neither; I'm calling for Nader. His policies seem better than the rest.
DUDE: I'm voting for Kerry. Nader's all right, but he doesn't stand a chance.
ME: What do you mean, he doesn't stand a chance?
DUDE: If Nader was more popular, I'd vote for him. But voting for him now is just going to detract from Kerry, and I really don't want Bush to win. So I'm going for Kerry.

Have you spotted it yet? It seems to me that the dude erred by playing a numbers game - he was voting for the candidate he thought would win. The safest bet that was close enough to his own position. And I suspect there's a lot of this going on come election day.

One thing votes don't come with is a rationale. You can say who you're voting for, but not why. That's what polls and pundits are for, I guess. But the tacit assumption of the election game, as far as I could ever tell, is that you vote for whoever you want to win, or at least prefer. Isn't this obvious? And if you prefer a candidate who's lower in the polls, it seems those numbers would go up if you stated your preference. Isn't that obvious? Not voting for your preferred candidate, then, is disingenuous.

That's why, dear readers, I'm saying to both of you now: cast your own damn vote. Everything is being done to manipulate us into believing this or that about the candidates - whoever's playing or watching has a hand in this. Don't let them distract you. Make up your own mind, by hook or by crook, and cast your vote accordingly. If it happens to be Democrat or GOP, so be it; if not, so be it.

"Well, yes, but the two-party system has gotten so bloated, it can't be changed. Better to work with the system than against it." I can totally understand the sentiment; I felt that way once. It's wrong. The only reason it's gotten that way is that we made it happen. And it's not going to change unless we make something else happen.

"But there are no alternatives!" There are - you may have to look harder, but they're out there. The Democrites and Republican'ts will drown them out with their braying simply because they can; those parties have snowballed their clout by various means over the years. But it's not written in stone that they are the only parties. It's not even in the Constitution.

"But my vote doesn't count - come on, it's only one vote." Again, I've felt the same way. But it's wrong. Votes add up; that's the point. If you want A to win, throw in for A; if B, then say B's your vote. Groupthink will not help. The numbers game is played by people who are second-guessing everybody else, and hence wasting their chance. The upshot of this is an electoral system that does nothing except maintain the status quo despite all the complaints. So - to be blunt about it - if you don't vote, then you have no right to complain. And if you don't vote differently when you could, that might be even worse. If you want a government of the people, by the people, for the people, the people have to speak up.

Who is the people? That's you - and you over there, and me. Individuals vote, not groups; that's why the US has 200 million potential voices, not two.

You're an individual. So vote like one.

On Theories

We are both fascinated by and suspicious of theories. This is one reason why:

"...the important thing about theoretical positions is that they lead you to decisions that you wouldn't have taken otherwise, or that you wouldn't have committed: good taste would have militated against them."

Brian Eno is talking about music, but the same could just as easily apply to anything else.

Sex, lies, and videotape - the latest craze?

OK, I know I said I'd be away for a while, but this dreck awoke me from my blogmatic slumbers. Stupidity has a way of doing that. Remember when ADD was reported, and then suddenly everybody and his dog had it? It was fashionable to be sick. Wait, it still is. But you have to have the right sickness for the time. "Depressed? Omigod, that's like so passe."

Scandals seem to be no different. It's one of those things that just show our world to be getting dumber by the day: a Jimi Hendrix sex tape has supposedly been found. This, after the alleged Marilyn Monroe sex tape. Who's next, Mr. Rogers?

The Marilyn tape has come under heavy fire, and it seems to be Keya Morgan's words against the FBI and Marilyn experts. I expect the Jimi tape will encounter the same fate. Why? Because these things are somehow surfacing all at once, at a time when these sex videos are being made and posted on the Net, I'm just a wee bit skeptical.

We've got a fascination with catching celebrities with their pants down - literally, in some cases. Wouldn't it be cool, then, if we found similar footage of a media icon from the past? Marilyn would seem like prime fodder for this: after all, she did pose nude once, and her affair with JFK is well known. Why not a homemade porno? Well, maybe, but probably not, because it wasn't the fashion it is today.

Jimi could have made such a tape - it was the 60s, right? They were all doing wacky things back then. Why not a hotel-room sex film? Hmmm. I'm not saying it's impossible, only that it's rather unlikely.

And the timing of these "discoveries" is suspicious. So Mr. Morgan won't show the Marilyn tape, so nobody will ever know - though the holes in the claim make it implausible. And we'll have to wait to see if Jimi really did Dallas.

But frankly, it all just smells of trash for cash. We've gotten bored with sex videos of living celebrities, so let's go after the ones who are dead. They're perfect targets: famous people with a racy side who can't defend themselves. How long is this fad going to last? Hopefully not much longer than the Macarena.

Musical Interlude

Encounter with a Gadfly

Just got back from Louvain-la-Neuve, where a highly interesting series of lectures was given by Michael Ruse, a professor visiting from Florida State. He's been quite outspoken on the evolution-creationism debate, particularly as it's been shaped in the U.S., and he's also been quite critical of Daniel Dennett and Richard &^$#ing Dawkins. (Oops, did I say that out loud?) Knowing that, it's no surprise that his lectures were on Darwinism.

Let me just say up front that I found his position refreshing: while firmly convinced that Darwin was correct, he refrains from going the way of Dennett and Dawkins, regarding (and rightly so, in my opinion) their doctrine as another religiosity. Prof. Ruse has single-handedly made me interested in the Darwinian theory, simply by not being ham-fisted about it. Strongly convinced, true, but not in such a way that blindly swept away serious issues connected with it.

His final lecture was on Darwinism and Christianity. To be honest, I was fully expecting the "religion-must-go" shpiel that many Darwinian disciples like to bray. Prof. Ruse gave none of that, thankfully; instead (wonder of wonders!) he gave Christian thought a serious look before coming to his own conclusions. By distinguishing four questions, he put the matter into a clearer light:

1. Does the fact of evolution make Christianity impossible? Ruse says no.
2. Does the fact of evolution make Christianity unnecessary? Again, Ruse says no.
3. Does Darwinism make Christianity unnecessary? Yes, says Ruse.
4. Does Darwinism make Christianity impossible? No.

To this I would add another:

5. Does Darwinism make bad theology impossible? I'd say yes, to some extent, and I'd like to think Prof. Ruse would agree.

6. Does Darwinism make bad science impossible? Again I'd say yes, to some extent.

These are actually nothing more than restatements of important features of his lecture, I think.

Question #3 is especially interesting, because it connects with Yours Truly's #5 & 6: Prof. Ruse holds that Christianity is not needed for explanatory value, since Darwinian theory does that sufficiently well. I think good theology would abstain from trying to give scientific explanations, just as good science would abstain from trying to give theological explanations. They are different universes of discourse. Where those universes overlap, they must agree; if they didn't, we'd be forced to believe that incompatible truth-claims could stand side by side.

We'd have to say, for example, that one fellow could proclaim the world's creation in six 24-hour days while another fellow could hold that it took eons for the world to come into existence - and they would not be disagreeing!?

Obviously, that's impossible as long as scientists and theologians assert that they are after truth. So what I'm saying is this: if it's been pretty well established that the physical origin of the world happened way more than 6000 years ago and took more than six days, the literalist theologian will have to account for that in his/her own work. Not to do so is intellectually irresponsible.

Similarly, a biologist who argues that God does not exist because a benevolent Supreme Being would never allow suffering in the world - i.e. natural evil - is clearly ignorant of the theologians' work on this question.

This would seem to be obvious, but the fact that creationism is seriously considered as a scientific theory by some people only shows that they don't have a clear idea what a scientific theory is. Even if they're practicing scientists. Natural science has the natural world for its domain, and it seeks answers in the empirical domain; a transcendant God stands outside that domain, and therefore is not amenable to the procedures of physics or biology. So don't try to push Him in there under the banner of ID.

By the same token, the arrogance of some scientists to hold forth on matters theological is to overstep their own bounds - especially arrogant when they perceive no need to study religion at all. Just because God is not for empirical testing does not mean He is a delusion, only that He is not an object of natural science. (So put away the prayer experiments, please. Why should God play by your rules, or anyone's?) I wouldn't call ID a scientific theory, but so what? It in no way entails my becoming an atheist.

I believe the so-called debate last year between Kirk Cameron and the so-called "Rational Response Squad" encapsulates much of the controversy: nobody's listening to anybody, everybody's talking past each other, they're slinging the same tired words back and forth. This has nothing to do with truth, and everything to do with power.

(I'd love to sound off about all the "debate" between Kirk & Co., but that's another post. Dear readers, both of you will have to wait.)

So what Prof. Ruse's position achieves is clarification of the fields of science and religion. Imagine that - some scientists and theologians could actually get back to doing what they do best, and not be at each other's throats.

"OK, so where do you get off considering yourself competent enough to pass judgment on science and religion?" I'm neither scientist nor theologian; I study philosophy, with metaphysics as a major interest. But I have a concern for definitions, among other things, and that is a matter common to everyone. The definition of a field of inquiry marks out what it treats; it does this by way of the questions it asks. So ballistics asks what are the characteristics of objects in motion; psychology has other questions to ask. (Let's not digress into the status of scientific explanations. No space for it here.)

Often questions do cross borders, providing fertile ground for new ideas or even new disciplines - take biochemistry, for example. So I'm not against interdisciplinary studies by any means; in fact it's at the borders where the really interesting work takes place. But asking questions that touch boundaries is one thing, drawing conclusions that cross boundaries is another, and drawing unwarranted conclusions in other fields yet another. I have no problem with the first, or even the second, but the third merely displays a failure to think things through. And when willfully done, it just reeks of disingenuousness.

If philosophy existed for no other reason, the role of intellectual gadfly would be enough to justify it. Socrates pissed off a lot of folks, and went to the tomb for it. Fortunately he did a lot more. Prof. Ruse has done that in a wonderfully constructive way, and then some; I hope there's more to come - preferably without hemlock or anything.

(Image unwittingly courtesy of http://images.google.be/imgres?imgurl=http://www.carolmoore.net/4secretary/Gadfly.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.carolmoore.net/4secretary/controversies.html&h=551&w=547&sz=11&hl=nl&start=1&um=1&tbnid=rqXqvqjbnCNx4M:&tbnh=133&tbnw=132&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgadfly%26um%3D1%26hl%3Dnl%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN)

one of their own said...

In line with the previous post, here is a passage that Mr. Dawkins, Mr. Dylan-Haynes, and all other members of the scientific community:

Find a scientific man who proposes to get along without any metaphysics -- not by any means every man who holds the ordinary reasonings of metaphysicians in scorn -- and you have found one whose doctrines are thoroughly vitiated by the crude and uncriticized metaphysics with which they are packed. We must philosophize, said the great naturalist Aristotle -- if only to avoid philosophizing. Every man of us has a metaphysics, and has to have one; and it will influence his life greatly. Far better, then, that that metaphysics should be criticized and not be allowed to run loose. (Charles S. Peirce, Collected Papers 1.129)

Spoken by a man who knew both the library and the lab.

This Island Internet

Both my dear readers are very busy, so they might have missed out on the news item about the beatdown by Florida teenage girls, which they videotaped and wanted to post on the Web. They might also have missed the discussion that has arisen around it. Apparently everybody involved in the case seems to be saying, "Don't blame me/my daughter, it was the others/the Internet."

And apparently Barry "Men in Black" Sonnenfeld fears the Internet is eroding society. It is so pervasive and hypnotic, he believes, that kids today have no sense of privacy, thus enabling totalitarianism. He might view the Florida incident as evidence of this.

Here's my response...

Point the first: Helen A.S. Popkin, voice of reason and sanity, makes a simple point: you cannot blame the Internet because teenagers sometimes do ridiculous, even horrible things. Teenagers can be like that. (So can adults.) It's not that hard to figure out. You know the old saw, "With freedom comes responsibility"? Well, if you agree with that, you agree with its attendant correlation: with greater freedom comes greater responsibility. This needs to be learned, and it needs to be taught.

Point the second: It does seem that the current generation is more media-savvy than any other. But they do have their limits, as Shakhti discovered recently, and the rest will have to figure it out too.

The take-home lesson here is, I think, that things ain't so simple as we'd like. People are different, they behave differently, which brings me to...

Point the third: Here's my sociological observation. Individuals do not act like groups of people; that's why we talk about mob psychology, as opposed to personal psychology. Seems to me we're forced to come to grips with this stuff called technology, and we have to do it again every day. This means each one of us must deal with it, and society as a whole must too. And these are distinct orders.

Time was when photography was (a) feared because it would put painters out of business or (b) loathed because it wasn't, couldn't be art. Something similar with movies vs. theater. Who would say that now? Why not? Because as a whole, we have learned what we can do with film - the fear and loathing came out of ignorance.

It took a lot of effort and bumbling, but we've learned. And are still learning (as demonstrated by innovative works and stinkers alike). That's what's happening now with computers. We're learning the ropes as we go, as can be seen by the double-edged Youtube and the Florida beating.

My basic point here is that the shifting of responsibility is so human and yet so maddening.

In some ways this is complicated by findings such as this, one where a person's decision-making can be determined prior to that person's awareness of the choice. Interestingly, John Dylan-Haynes (the leader of the study) seems to doubt the reality of free will: faced with an unsavory decision, "We can't rule out that there's a free will that kicks in at this late point....But I don't think it's plausible." (Quoted in Wired.com.) (I'd say the only real thing the experiment proves is there's a delay in awareness, not a rigid determinism. But that's another post.)

But it doesn't complicate everything. Let's assume the experiment is strictly speaking right and decisions can't be changed. Now imagine the following courtroom scene...

Lawyer: Your Honor, my clients could not have been guilty of assault and battery. Sure, they talked about it for days. Sure, they intended to put their appalling act on display for the whole world to gawk at. But so much evidence shows that people do not have conscious control over the decisions they make! Therefore, they cannot be considered responsible for deciding to whup their classmate's ass.

Judge: Oh good, then I'm not responsible for giving them ten without parole. *slam!* Next!

Now, Mr. Sonnenfeld, I'll be the first to admit being mesmerized by the WWW. Look, I've got a blog. But if I don't finish my dissertation, can I really say, "Stupid dumb Internet...kept me from doing my job"?

As for Mr. Dylan-Haynes's comment, I won't go into the hairy issue of free will. I'll only say that he doubts a certain conception of free will, and that is all he can legitimately say. More than that, and he would be committing the same error in philosophy as Richard Dawkins does in theology - namely, assuming that his interpretation of the problem is the only proper one. It is not.

So. Teach your children well, let them make their own mistakes, and hope for the best. Don't blame the Net just yet. But by all means, fear what people can do with it.

Tag, the Reprise

The tag post has generated unparalleled response: a record 4 comments, the highest to date. Thanks to all of you who read, enjoyed, and talked back! I hope there are some similar good sports among you.

Now, some challenges (real or perceived) have been presented among those comments. A certain astute reader - I won't reveal her name, but it begins with Anna-Lys - asked that I dredge up proof of my musical prowess by posting a recording of the James Bond theme on the ukelele. My friend, I would if I could, but alar, and time. And at this point, I've got none of these.

Said astute reader also requested pictures of (a) the no-good, long-haired hippie freak in my past and (b) the ill-fated jeans of my Chuck Norris days. On this I can deliver somewhat promisingly.
s *sigh*, said proof calls for a uke, a recorde
People's Exhibit A: this was shot at Karaoke Night at my alma mater. My partner-in-crime and I were doing our rendition of "Welcome to the Jungle," TMC-style. Ecce Hippie.

(Photo courtesy of moi.)

People's Exhibit B: this is not exactly me, as you can tell by looking carefully. Nor is this the same kick. However, the subject's jeans have met a very similar fate:

(Photo unintentionally courtesy of Failblog, an online shrine to Schadenfreude.*)

It pains me, but it has to be said: I hope I never get that big. However, if a certain other astute reader decides to see just how much cottage cheese I can put away in one sitting, I could end up like this guy. Especially if I practice.

Honestly, I've never tested the limits of this craving, partly because I've feared that it has no end, and partly because I'm a cheapskate - have you seen the price of cottage cheese? If it's going to disappear so quickly, why spend the money?

And yet (correct me if I'm wrong) it seems RKR actually wants to see just how of the stuff Yours Truly can take. Well, if Paul Newman could eat 50 hard-boiled eggs in an hour, I might actually be game to try something similar. Just to see.

Only make it reasonable, otherwise you'll end up on mop detail for sure.

(*Thanks to the lovely and talented Ms. W, who introduced me to Failblog.)

ps - (For truth-seekers everywhere, BBC gives the scoop on the likelihood of Cool Hand Luke's feat in real life. Read this before dishing out the cottage cheese.)