Noted scholar of religion, Karen Armstrong will speak here in Madison on 22 April. Her talk will be another installment of the David P. Lyons Lecture series at First United Methodist Church which is downtown. Information on the lecture can be found here. The title of her talk is "The Great Transformation" which is also the title of her forthcoming book due next month. Here's the publisher's blurb:
In the ninth century BCE, the peoples of four distinct regions of the civilized world created the religious and philosophical traditions that have continued to nourish humanity to the present day: Confucianism and Daoism in China, Hinduism and Buddhism in India, monotheism in Israel, and philosophical rationalism in Greece. Later generations further developed these initial insights, but we have never grown beyond them. Rabbinic Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, for example, were all secondary flowerings of the original Israelite vision. Now, in The Great Transformation, Karen Armstrong reveals how the sages of this pivotal “Axial Age” can speak clearly and helpfully to the violence and desperation that we experience in our own times.
Armstrong traces the development of the Axial Age chronologically, examining the contributions of such figures as the Buddha, Socrates, Confucius, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the mystics of the Upanishads, Mencius, and Euripides. All of the Axial Age faiths began in principled and visceral recoil from the unprecedented violence of their time. Despite some differences of emphasis, there was a remarkable consensus in their call for an abandonment of selfishness and a spirituality of compassion. With regard to dealing with fear, despair, hatred, rage, and violence, the Axial sages gave their people and give us, Armstrong says, two important pieces of advice: first there must be personal responsibility and self-criticism, and it must be followed by practical, effective action.
In her introduction and concluding chapter, Armstrong urges us to consider how these spiritualities challenge the way we are religious today. In our various institutions, we sometimes seem to be attempting to create exactly the kind of religion that Axial sages and prophets had hoped to eliminate. We often equate faith with doctrinal conformity, but the traditions of the Axial Age were not about dogma. All insisted on the primacy of compassion even in the midst of suffering. In each Axial Age case, a disciplined revulsion from violence and hatred proved to be the major catalyst of spiritual change.
I attended last year's lecture by Elaine Pagels and it was most interesting. She gave a facinating talk and it was also neat because she fielded questions by the audience. So register now (well, before 1 April) and save yourself $10.
12 February, 2006
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2006 Friday Night With Jim White and The Handsome Family
A couple friends of mine from Milwaukee came into town Friday night for the Jim White and The Handsome Family show at the Orpheum Stage Door. I'd never heard any music by either prior to the gig but had at least heard of The Handsome Family whilst lurking on alternative country websites. So I kinda sorta knew what to expect. Kinda. We arrived rather early, I guess, because we were amongst the first folks there and had our choice of seats. (After grabbing a couple beers first, of course.) I'd never been at the Stage Door before and it was a nice intimate venue. And, considering it is a cinema, the sound was quite good.
My fellow Madisonian, Ryan, has a brief review of Jim White's set over at Muzzle of Bees with some pictures. Looking back, I'm kind of ambivalent about White as I found his set to be hit or miss. I liked the songs he did on his Banjocaster but found some of his other tunes to be mediocre. While I liked his minimalist approach with just his reverbed-out guitar and sampling equipment, there was very little that really jumped out at me. He would sample something from a melodica or a vocal and set it on a loop which he'd play guitar over and sing. I thought the samples were really effective but much of his guitar playing just came across as noodling to me. Still, I would like to hear more of his stuff as some music just needs time and repeated listenings to grow on me.
On the other hand, I was immediately drawn to The Handsome Family. THF are Brett and Rennie Sparks along with a rotating third party. Brett plays acoustic guitar while Rennie plays bass, banjo, and melodica. On Friday, they were given a hand by a guy's whose name I cannot recall - Steve something-or-other, I believe. Mr. X played pedal steel, violin, and mandola. THF play a very dark and off-kilter brand of modern Americana. Brett reminded of Penn Gillette with his rather large stature. He and Rennie (of smaller stature) engaged in quite of bit of between-song banter which was quite funny with a very weird and, at times, morbid twist. Their music, which was augmented by a drum machine on a Mac, was simple but fantastic. Very melodic with the contrasting harmonies of Brett and Rennie. There's a very gothic element to their music - a bit like 16 Horsepower - but it's more goofy, more eccentric. The lyrical themes are familiar, such as drinking in "So Much Wine" to the darker realm as with "Down in the Ground". THF definitely revel in the murder ballad but, with lines like, "Cry for the toy trains lost in the snow", you know you're not dealing with folks who are content merely rehashing traditional songs and themes.
I liked THF so much, I went out and got some of their shows and I'll be posting one of them soon. Very soon, in fact.
Happy Darwin Day
Happy Darwin Day! Unfortunately, I missed the celebrations down on campus yesterday due to illness. But it's Sunday, so let's take a look at what some of my fellow atheists have been up to.
Last night Christopher Hitchens "debated" Playthell Benjamin, a writer for The Black World Today. I put debated in quotes because it was apparently not much of a debate. The New York Daily News reports*:
The catcalls started almost from the moment the prickly Brit began defending the Iraq adventure during Wednesday night's squabble at the Ethical Culture Society.
"Make zoo noises!" Hitchens taunted. "Bear in mind, if you had been listened to, Bosnia would part of greater Serbia, Afghanistan would be run by the Taliban, and Saddam Hussein would still be in charge of Iraq."
For good measure, he added: "British intelligence was quite right to say that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium in Niger. That you can look up."
To which a peacenik screamed: "F- you!"
"Shut up," Hitchens retorted. "You're rude and silly. And ugly."
An eyewitness account of the night can be found at The Accuser:
Hitchens opening was clean, concise, well-thought out and argued. In fact, an actual opening statement. He set out, and this is important because it was the only point he was allowed the make the entire debate and not be interrupted, why he supported the war and why the war was just. He mentioned the four conditions under which a country is allowed to be invaded (of which Iraq had broken all). He mentioned the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, the legislation unanimously passsed by the US Senate (and near-unanimous House).
Playthell, on the other hand, did not make a single argument. And for an atheist, he certainly preached an awful lot. And... like a bunch of trained seals, the audience learned to bark at the right comments (PNAC, Blood for Oil, George the Second, etc). Hitchens came to debate, and instead, he got to watch a grown man yammer on and had to endure an audience that preferred Playthell's ranting to a reasoned debate.
It's the sort of thing one goes to Church for... to listen to someone who says exactly what you believe. But that is because people are afraid to listen to reasoned arguments. Because to discuss something using reason, means to open yourself up to the possibility of being wrong. It means you have to think about what you believe, instead of just believing it.
Sam Harris has a new screed up at Truthdig in which he bears down on "the Reality of Islam":
Let us take stock of the moral intuitions now on display in the House of Islam: On Aug. 17, 2005, an Iraqi insurgent helped collect the injured survivors of a car bombing, rushed them to a hospital and then detonated his own bomb, murdering those who were already mortally wounded as well as the doctors and nurses struggling to save their lives. Where were the cries of outrage from the Muslim world? Religious sociopaths kill innocents by the hundreds in the capitols of Europe, blow up the offices of the U.N. and the Red Cross, purposefully annihilate crowds of children gathered to collect candy from U.S. soldiers on the streets of Baghdad, kidnap journalists, behead them, and the videos of their butchery become the most popular form of pornography in the Muslim world, and no one utters a word of protest because these atrocities have been perpetrated “in defense of Islam.” But draw a picture of the Prophet, and pious mobs convulse with pious rage. One could hardly ask for a better example of religious dogmatism and its pseudo-morality eclipsing basic, human goodness.
Noted apostate from Islam, Ibn Warriq, weighed in on the cartoon controversy last week:
A democracy cannot survive long without freedom of expression, the freedom to argue, to dissent, even to insult and offend. It is a freedom sorely lacking in the Islamic world, and without it Islam will remain unassailed in its dogmatic, fanatical, medieval fortress; ossified, totalitarian and intolerant. Without this fundamental freedom, Islam will continue to stifle thought, human rights, individuality; originality and truth.
On the world stage, should we really apologize for Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe? Mozart, Beethoven and Bach? Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Gogh, Breughel, Ter Borch? Galileo, Huygens, Copernicus, Newton and Darwin? Penicillin and computers? The Olympic Games and Football? Human rights and parliamentary democracy? The west is the source of the liberating ideas of individual liberty, political democracy, the rule of law, human rights and cultural freedom. It is the west that has raised the status of women, fought against slavery, defended freedom of enquiry, expression and conscience. No, the west needs no lectures on the superior virtue of societies who keep their women in subjection, cut off their clitorises, stone them to death for alleged adultery, throw acid on their faces, or deny the human rights of those considered to belong to lower castes.
Finally, I want to return to Hitchens and his comments on the cartoon controversy up at Slate. I think he makes several good points but the one that hasn't been made often is in regards to the Bush administraion:
As well as being a small masterpiece of inarticulacy and self-abnegation, the statement from the State Department about this week's international Muslim pogrom against the free press was also accidentally accurate.
"Anti-Muslim images are as unacceptable as anti-Semitic images, as anti-Christian images, or any other religious belief."
Thus the hapless Sean McCormack, reading painfully slowly from what was reported as a prepared government statement. How appalling for the country of the First Amendment to be represented by such an administration. What does he mean "unacceptable"? That it should be forbidden? And how abysmal that a "spokesman" cannot distinguish between criticism of a belief system and slander against a people...Therefore there is a strong case for saying that the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, and those who have reprinted its efforts out of solidarity, are affirming the right to criticize not merely Islam but religion in general. And the Bush administration has no business at all expressing an opinion on that. If it is to say anything, it is constitutionally obliged to uphold the right and no more.
Emphasis is mine. This is a very salient point. The Bush administration indeed has no business at all taking sides here. Does Bush & Co. now want to censor South Park? Does it want to silence atheists? I am offended that one of the branches of our government has gone on record against free speech here (not surprising, though) and repeats the ridiculous piety that religion is exceptional so thusly should be given a get out of jail free card. If anything, more criticism of religion is needed.
*See comments.
Last night Christopher Hitchens "debated" Playthell Benjamin, a writer for The Black World Today. I put debated in quotes because it was apparently not much of a debate. The New York Daily News reports*:
The catcalls started almost from the moment the prickly Brit began defending the Iraq adventure during Wednesday night's squabble at the Ethical Culture Society.
"Make zoo noises!" Hitchens taunted. "Bear in mind, if you had been listened to, Bosnia would part of greater Serbia, Afghanistan would be run by the Taliban, and Saddam Hussein would still be in charge of Iraq."
For good measure, he added: "British intelligence was quite right to say that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium in Niger. That you can look up."
To which a peacenik screamed: "F- you!"
"Shut up," Hitchens retorted. "You're rude and silly. And ugly."
An eyewitness account of the night can be found at The Accuser:
Hitchens opening was clean, concise, well-thought out and argued. In fact, an actual opening statement. He set out, and this is important because it was the only point he was allowed the make the entire debate and not be interrupted, why he supported the war and why the war was just. He mentioned the four conditions under which a country is allowed to be invaded (of which Iraq had broken all). He mentioned the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, the legislation unanimously passsed by the US Senate (and near-unanimous House).
Playthell, on the other hand, did not make a single argument. And for an atheist, he certainly preached an awful lot. And... like a bunch of trained seals, the audience learned to bark at the right comments (PNAC, Blood for Oil, George the Second, etc). Hitchens came to debate, and instead, he got to watch a grown man yammer on and had to endure an audience that preferred Playthell's ranting to a reasoned debate.
It's the sort of thing one goes to Church for... to listen to someone who says exactly what you believe. But that is because people are afraid to listen to reasoned arguments. Because to discuss something using reason, means to open yourself up to the possibility of being wrong. It means you have to think about what you believe, instead of just believing it.
Sam Harris has a new screed up at Truthdig in which he bears down on "the Reality of Islam":
Let us take stock of the moral intuitions now on display in the House of Islam: On Aug. 17, 2005, an Iraqi insurgent helped collect the injured survivors of a car bombing, rushed them to a hospital and then detonated his own bomb, murdering those who were already mortally wounded as well as the doctors and nurses struggling to save their lives. Where were the cries of outrage from the Muslim world? Religious sociopaths kill innocents by the hundreds in the capitols of Europe, blow up the offices of the U.N. and the Red Cross, purposefully annihilate crowds of children gathered to collect candy from U.S. soldiers on the streets of Baghdad, kidnap journalists, behead them, and the videos of their butchery become the most popular form of pornography in the Muslim world, and no one utters a word of protest because these atrocities have been perpetrated “in defense of Islam.” But draw a picture of the Prophet, and pious mobs convulse with pious rage. One could hardly ask for a better example of religious dogmatism and its pseudo-morality eclipsing basic, human goodness.
Noted apostate from Islam, Ibn Warriq, weighed in on the cartoon controversy last week:
A democracy cannot survive long without freedom of expression, the freedom to argue, to dissent, even to insult and offend. It is a freedom sorely lacking in the Islamic world, and without it Islam will remain unassailed in its dogmatic, fanatical, medieval fortress; ossified, totalitarian and intolerant. Without this fundamental freedom, Islam will continue to stifle thought, human rights, individuality; originality and truth.
On the world stage, should we really apologize for Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe? Mozart, Beethoven and Bach? Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Gogh, Breughel, Ter Borch? Galileo, Huygens, Copernicus, Newton and Darwin? Penicillin and computers? The Olympic Games and Football? Human rights and parliamentary democracy? The west is the source of the liberating ideas of individual liberty, political democracy, the rule of law, human rights and cultural freedom. It is the west that has raised the status of women, fought against slavery, defended freedom of enquiry, expression and conscience. No, the west needs no lectures on the superior virtue of societies who keep their women in subjection, cut off their clitorises, stone them to death for alleged adultery, throw acid on their faces, or deny the human rights of those considered to belong to lower castes.
Finally, I want to return to Hitchens and his comments on the cartoon controversy up at Slate. I think he makes several good points but the one that hasn't been made often is in regards to the Bush administraion:
As well as being a small masterpiece of inarticulacy and self-abnegation, the statement from the State Department about this week's international Muslim pogrom against the free press was also accidentally accurate.
"Anti-Muslim images are as unacceptable as anti-Semitic images, as anti-Christian images, or any other religious belief."
Thus the hapless Sean McCormack, reading painfully slowly from what was reported as a prepared government statement. How appalling for the country of the First Amendment to be represented by such an administration. What does he mean "unacceptable"? That it should be forbidden? And how abysmal that a "spokesman" cannot distinguish between criticism of a belief system and slander against a people...Therefore there is a strong case for saying that the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, and those who have reprinted its efforts out of solidarity, are affirming the right to criticize not merely Islam but religion in general. And the Bush administration has no business at all expressing an opinion on that. If it is to say anything, it is constitutionally obliged to uphold the right and no more.
Emphasis is mine. This is a very salient point. The Bush administration indeed has no business at all taking sides here. Does Bush & Co. now want to censor South Park? Does it want to silence atheists? I am offended that one of the branches of our government has gone on record against free speech here (not surprising, though) and repeats the ridiculous piety that religion is exceptional so thusly should be given a get out of jail free card. If anything, more criticism of religion is needed.
*See comments.
08 February, 2006
Ecce, Rabbit!
For the third or fourth weekend in a row, I spent last Saturday cooking German. At The Dulcinea's request, I made hasenpfeffer or rabbit stew. Now, I'd never cooked rabbit prior to this though I'd eaten it. The Dulcinea, on the other hand, had never eaten it previously. I found this odd for some reason; I guess I just assume that everyone from Wisconsin (outside of Milwaukee) has had it at least once. A friend of mine had found a rabbit for me at UW Provisions when he went to pick up the goat that he had ordered from the folks there. It was dirt cheap too. This was really nice because it saved me a fair amount of money as I was going to buy one from Bavaria Sausage or Whole Foods where they're about three times more expensive. He presented it to me at work a couple Thursdays ago but I forgot to bring it home so it stayed in the dorm frig there over the weekend. Actually, I tried to go there that Saturday but found that my door card didn't work. Such is the Rodney Dangerfield-esque life of a contractor. I finally remembered to get it home one night last week after having had a few too many at the Brass Ring and finally got it marinating in a haze of Tommy's Porter from Lake Louie. A few days later, it became dinner. Here it is after having been pulled from its bath:
While prepping, I sampled a German brew that I had picked up. It was from Klosterbrauerei and was their Schwarzer Abt or Black Abbot. The label boasts, "During a fast, nothing will sustain you like a Black Abbot." They weren't shittin' me! It is a very rich and malty brew – liquid bread is an apt description. And, as the name implies, it's pitch black. I found it to be pretty good. I have very catholic taste in bier so that I'm not raving about it is revelatory. It was certainly not bad, by any means, but it had a rather prominent sweetness that was not balanced out by carbonation, for instance. It came in a 16oz bottle, if I recall correctly, and it was a bit too much. Twelve would have been fine. Then again, I wasn't eating anything at the time and I think that it would have gone well with beef that was heartily seasoned with pepper.
Anyway, I hacked up the rabbit and then browned the pieces in some Danish butter.
As I was sampling another German brew, Schlenkerla's Urbock smoked beer, The Dulcinea came over. She is a fan of rauchbier and so she was quite pleased. We ate some sausage and crackers along with it and the bier went down well. Rauchbiers are definitely an acquired taste as I can imagine many folks choking on the smoky Reinheitsgeboty goodness. I liked the stuff but probably couldn't quaff down a whole lot of it without some food to balance the situation on my tongue. After consuming a bit, The Dulcinea began to prepare dessert. Meanwhile I fried up some potatoes and prepared some Nurnberg bratwurst.
I warmed up some red cabbage as well as some green veggies and we ate heartily.
For dessert, The Dulcinea made Bienenstich – Bee Sting cake. For some reason, nothing turned out correctly excepting the glaze/topping. The cake didn't rise very much and the filling turned out more like a sauce. While very dense, it was also very tasty. The topping consisted of almonds and sugar dissolved in butter and was put atop the batter prior to baking. It caramelized all golden brown and was just exceptionally good! Here's the end product:
Unfortunately, The Dulcinea mentioned to my roommates, Becca & Stevie, that wabbit was on the menu so Becca abstained from the hasenpfeffer. Stevie, however, liked rabbit and ate it up. The gravy had a little zing from vinegar and really complemented the potatoes which were very rich, having been fried in lard. Not the healthiest of meals, to be sure, but my forays into German cooking aren't meant to be lessons in Healthy Eating for Office Jockeys 101. They're hearty meals meant to complement our lounging next to the fireplace on these chilly nights. In addition, being German, they are for me wee explorations into my heritage.
With Darwin Day, International Festival, and roller derby this weekend, I think my cooking is going to be put on hold for a week. This is probably a good thing as I have no idea what foods to try next.
While prepping, I sampled a German brew that I had picked up. It was from Klosterbrauerei and was their Schwarzer Abt or Black Abbot. The label boasts, "During a fast, nothing will sustain you like a Black Abbot." They weren't shittin' me! It is a very rich and malty brew – liquid bread is an apt description. And, as the name implies, it's pitch black. I found it to be pretty good. I have very catholic taste in bier so that I'm not raving about it is revelatory. It was certainly not bad, by any means, but it had a rather prominent sweetness that was not balanced out by carbonation, for instance. It came in a 16oz bottle, if I recall correctly, and it was a bit too much. Twelve would have been fine. Then again, I wasn't eating anything at the time and I think that it would have gone well with beef that was heartily seasoned with pepper.
Anyway, I hacked up the rabbit and then browned the pieces in some Danish butter.
As I was sampling another German brew, Schlenkerla's Urbock smoked beer, The Dulcinea came over. She is a fan of rauchbier and so she was quite pleased. We ate some sausage and crackers along with it and the bier went down well. Rauchbiers are definitely an acquired taste as I can imagine many folks choking on the smoky Reinheitsgeboty goodness. I liked the stuff but probably couldn't quaff down a whole lot of it without some food to balance the situation on my tongue. After consuming a bit, The Dulcinea began to prepare dessert. Meanwhile I fried up some potatoes and prepared some Nurnberg bratwurst.
I warmed up some red cabbage as well as some green veggies and we ate heartily.
For dessert, The Dulcinea made Bienenstich – Bee Sting cake. For some reason, nothing turned out correctly excepting the glaze/topping. The cake didn't rise very much and the filling turned out more like a sauce. While very dense, it was also very tasty. The topping consisted of almonds and sugar dissolved in butter and was put atop the batter prior to baking. It caramelized all golden brown and was just exceptionally good! Here's the end product:
Unfortunately, The Dulcinea mentioned to my roommates, Becca & Stevie, that wabbit was on the menu so Becca abstained from the hasenpfeffer. Stevie, however, liked rabbit and ate it up. The gravy had a little zing from vinegar and really complemented the potatoes which were very rich, having been fried in lard. Not the healthiest of meals, to be sure, but my forays into German cooking aren't meant to be lessons in Healthy Eating for Office Jockeys 101. They're hearty meals meant to complement our lounging next to the fireplace on these chilly nights. In addition, being German, they are for me wee explorations into my heritage.
With Darwin Day, International Festival, and roller derby this weekend, I think my cooking is going to be put on hold for a week. This is probably a good thing as I have no idea what foods to try next.
Darwin Day Approacheth
This coming Sunday, 12 February, is Darwin Day! So, to celebrate the 197th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, there will be lectures, parties, et al around the world. Closer to home, the UW will be holding a Darwin Day Outreach Symposium on Saturday, the 11th.
Activities include talks present by UW-Madison faculty on topics first covered in Origin of Species, followed by a panel answering questions from the audience. Free materials will be available for teachers.
Free and Open to the Public
Schedule of events
9:15 am - David Baum (Introduction)
9:45 am - Dana Geary (The Fossil Record)
10:15 am – BREAK
10:30 am - Ken Sytsma (Biogeography and Classification)
11:00 am - Sean Carroll (Development)
11:30 am – LUNCH
1:00 pm - Irwin Goldman (Artificial Selection)
1:30 pm - Carol Lee (Natural Selection)
2:00 pm – BREAK
2:15 pm - Tom Givnish (Adaptive Radiation and Island Evolution)
2:45 pm - Elliott Sober (Argument By Design)
3:15 pm – BREAK
3:30 pm - PANEL DISCUSSION: James Crow, Jeffrey Hardin, Ronald Numbers, and Janette Boughman
4:30 pm – RECEPTION
The event will take place Sat. Feb. 11 in B10 Ingraham Hall (corner of Observatory Dr. and Charter St.) on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Entrance to B-floor across street from Linden Drive (at Charter). Parking is available on campus. For information, please contact Dr. Dana Geary at dana@geology.wisc.edu , 263-7754, or Mara McDonald, mamcdona@wisc.edu, 263-8941. Sponsors: L&S, CALS, the Division of Continuing Studies, the Evolution Coordinating Committee, and the departments of Genetics, Botany, Geology and Geophysics, and Curriculum and Instruction.
The Clergy Letter Project has denoted Darwin Day proper as Evolution Sunday.
On 12 February 2006 hundreds of Christian churches from all portions of the country and a host of denominations will come together to discuss the compatibility of religion and science. For far too long, strident voices, in the name of Christianity, have been claiming that people must choose between religion and modern science. More than 10,000 Christian clergy have already signed The Clergy Letter demonstrating that this is a false dichotomy. Now, on the 197th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, many of these leaders will bring this message to their congregations through sermons and/or discussion groups. Together, participating religious leaders will be making the statement that religion and science are not adversaries. And, together, they will be elevating the quality of the national debate on this topic.
Go here for a list of churches in Wisconsin who will be participating. From Madison we have:
First United Methodist Church
The Rev. Keith Schroerlucke
Trinity United Methodist Church
The Rev. Amanda Samuelson Stein
Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ
The Rev. Dr. Charles A. Wolfe
(For sci-fi geeks: Doctor Who meets Darwin in Bloodtide!)
06 February, 2006
Getting All Biologically Diverse
A couple weeks ago, I got the chance to see and hear E.O. Wilson speak at the Union Theater. Before I comment on him and his speech, I want to go on a mini-rant.
I went to pick up the free tickets one day during my lunch break a couple days beforehand. Entering the Union at the main entrance on the east side, I had to walk to the other side of the building to get to the box office. Now, is it me or is the Union slowly turning into a fucking mall? The main area by the entry has the magazine stand, ATMs, a food stand, etc. and it had all been remodeled to look like a friggin' mall. Instead of trying to go with the dark, Teutonic stone drinking hall look, there was wood paneling and all this crap which didn't fit. What's wrong with maintaining the stone & solid wood interior? Maybe if the university spent less on treating the football players like demigods, they could stop ruining the hallowed Union.
Anyway, The Dulcinea's mom was just a tad late in arriving to be babysitter but we got there in time. We got to the lobby and looked around for Christopher but didn't see him. So I called Marv to get his cell phone number. As I was speaking to him, one of my favorite baristas, Leah, ambled by. I hung up and started dialing Chris when he suddenly appeared out of nowhere. And so we headed to the theater. Holy fuck! The line was a mile long. It was like a goddamn Shackletonian odyssey to find the end of it but we found it all right. Ticket holders were then seated and we ended up in the nosebleed seats. Still, I couldn't complain.
I've only read Wilson's Consilience and knew of the shit storm he caused with his ideas on sociobiology. But the night ended up being more in line with his area of specialty, entomology – biodiversity. He prefaced his lecture as being "Biodiversity 101" and indeed it was. There were a lot of facts and figures thrown out about the number of species on our lovely blue-green orb as well as the number of them being driven to extinction by our activities. Surely everyone is familiar with the apocalyptic declarations about the loss of rain forests. Well, we got a load of that and more. But Wilson was very hopeful and didn't think we as a species had crossed some kind of point of no return. I found it immensely interesting to hear about other life besides we humans. Being his specialty, he glossed over various types of ants including the honey ant with its succulent nectar. He also spent a fair amount of time discussing the great diversity of life in the canopies of trees in the rain forests. Slides were shown of people scaling the enormous trees and he jokingly remarked that it was a good use of graduate students. There were also slides of those huge construction cranes which are being propped up in the rain forests so scientists can better study life up in the foliage. It was indeed a tremendously interesting lecture for me as my formal education in biology is limited to a couple high school courses and Biology 101 in college.
My real critique of the whole thing was that he never fully explained why biodiversity was good, to my mind at least. I recall him giving a moral argument which was, in its most distilled form, that it is morally right to respect non-human forms of life. While he and I have some basic agreement here, I was hoping for a more pragmatic explanation as well. I mean, I wasn't expecting a laundry list of apocalyptic predictions as a result of replacing forests with strip malls but I was hoping to hear about the consequences. How does deforestation affect the climate? Does biodiversity have an effect on global warming? Unfortunately, I don't recall him really addressing this side of things.
The question & answer session that followed the lecture was quite interesting despite a vegetarian going off on a rant and asking nary a question. (More on her later.) One of the questions posed to Wilson was whether or not he was in favor of genetically altered crops & foods. I highly suspect that most of the audience was against it and I also suspect that most of these people were against it mostly the grounds that it's "unnatural". He began his answer by saying that he had investigated genetically modified crops and, to his mind, there was only the slightest chance of some kind of Frankenstein strain of plant resulting. You could almost hear the audience groan with disappointment that he didn't come out fervently against them. Wilson went on to say that he thought they held promise in feeding people who lived in areas that desperately needed the benefits the crops could bring. I've engaged in conversations with people about this issue and it was the case that most people against genetically engineered foods seemed to be so not out of any evidence but rather out of technophobia. Of course, these same people have no qualms with cell phones, televisions, computers, cars, et al but, when it came to food, suddenly technology was evil. I hate to tell these people but humans have been genetically modifying the plants and animals we eat for thousands of years. I'd bet that most of the vegetables you find in your grocery store are the results of man meddling in plant genetics. Carrots, for instance, were more like a turnip back in the day and were not orange but rather white, yellow, red, green, and black. Moving proteins around is the same whether it's done in a lab or in a field.
Now back to the ranting vegetarian. Now, I'll agree with her that reducing consumption of meat or eliminating it altogether from one's diet is a good thing. But she went on and on about vegetarianism being a cure-all and it got tiresome. But she ended, if I remember correctly, on a political note. She remarked on a forthcoming election. Apparently every April, there's an election for two delegates per county for an unspecified position which is held by five people. The flyer she handed out afterwards basically says that hunters and businesses rule the DNR and are evil. The flyer also states lists this bullet point:
The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) deliberate exclusion (sic) of the non-hunting majority public from knowledge of the vote and election and its importance in setting policy
While the DNR may in fact be doing nothing to publicize this election, the flyer says absolutely nothing about the positions to be filled. No title, no responsibilities - nothing at all except that there's five per county and a vague notion of policy setting. If anyone is interested in learning more about this woman's cause, email madravenspeak@aol.com or call 608.981.2287 at The Sacred Bear Art and Nature Academy. A Google search on this turned up nothing about this organization. However, a Google search about the election did. It is the DNR Spring Wildlife & Fisheries Rules Hearing and Conservation Congress County Meeting. There's a mouthful for ya. Here's the description:
On Monday, April 10, there will be 72 public hearings, one in each county starting at 7:00 p.m. where residents interested with natural resources management have an opportunity to provide their input by non-binding vote and testimony to the Department of Natural Resources, Natural Resources Board and the Conservation Congress on proposed fishing and hunting rule changes, Natural Resource Board and Conservation Congress advisory questions through the questionnaire.
County residents have the option to run for election to the Conservation Congress and to elect delegates from their county to represent their county views regarding natural resources on the Conservation Congress. Also, residents have the opportunity to bring forth new conservation issues of a statewide nature to the attention of the Conservation Congress through the resolution process.
Now, considering the notice was on the DNR webpage and not at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard", I'm skeptical of the claims that the evil DNR tried to exclude the non-hunting majority public. While I have no statistical data to back up my assertion, I will opine that the reason most folks don't know about this congress is that most people can't be bothered to look into such matters lest they have to get up off the sofa and go somewhere where the television is out of view. Madison may be a city, but it's not that big. There's hardly a spot here where a 15-minute drive can't get you out in a wooded area outside of town. I've met many a Madisonian who finds the idea of going camping totally repugnant and understands wilderness as this nebulous concept as being a place that is somewhere else, namely, between Madison and Milwaukee, Minneapolis & Chicago.
So there ya go. A call to preserve Wisconsin's biodiversity. For Dane county folks, the congress is at the Alliant Energy Center here in Madtown. Check the DNR page for your county if you're not from Dane.
I went to pick up the free tickets one day during my lunch break a couple days beforehand. Entering the Union at the main entrance on the east side, I had to walk to the other side of the building to get to the box office. Now, is it me or is the Union slowly turning into a fucking mall? The main area by the entry has the magazine stand, ATMs, a food stand, etc. and it had all been remodeled to look like a friggin' mall. Instead of trying to go with the dark, Teutonic stone drinking hall look, there was wood paneling and all this crap which didn't fit. What's wrong with maintaining the stone & solid wood interior? Maybe if the university spent less on treating the football players like demigods, they could stop ruining the hallowed Union.
Anyway, The Dulcinea's mom was just a tad late in arriving to be babysitter but we got there in time. We got to the lobby and looked around for Christopher but didn't see him. So I called Marv to get his cell phone number. As I was speaking to him, one of my favorite baristas, Leah, ambled by. I hung up and started dialing Chris when he suddenly appeared out of nowhere. And so we headed to the theater. Holy fuck! The line was a mile long. It was like a goddamn Shackletonian odyssey to find the end of it but we found it all right. Ticket holders were then seated and we ended up in the nosebleed seats. Still, I couldn't complain.
I've only read Wilson's Consilience and knew of the shit storm he caused with his ideas on sociobiology. But the night ended up being more in line with his area of specialty, entomology – biodiversity. He prefaced his lecture as being "Biodiversity 101" and indeed it was. There were a lot of facts and figures thrown out about the number of species on our lovely blue-green orb as well as the number of them being driven to extinction by our activities. Surely everyone is familiar with the apocalyptic declarations about the loss of rain forests. Well, we got a load of that and more. But Wilson was very hopeful and didn't think we as a species had crossed some kind of point of no return. I found it immensely interesting to hear about other life besides we humans. Being his specialty, he glossed over various types of ants including the honey ant with its succulent nectar. He also spent a fair amount of time discussing the great diversity of life in the canopies of trees in the rain forests. Slides were shown of people scaling the enormous trees and he jokingly remarked that it was a good use of graduate students. There were also slides of those huge construction cranes which are being propped up in the rain forests so scientists can better study life up in the foliage. It was indeed a tremendously interesting lecture for me as my formal education in biology is limited to a couple high school courses and Biology 101 in college.
My real critique of the whole thing was that he never fully explained why biodiversity was good, to my mind at least. I recall him giving a moral argument which was, in its most distilled form, that it is morally right to respect non-human forms of life. While he and I have some basic agreement here, I was hoping for a more pragmatic explanation as well. I mean, I wasn't expecting a laundry list of apocalyptic predictions as a result of replacing forests with strip malls but I was hoping to hear about the consequences. How does deforestation affect the climate? Does biodiversity have an effect on global warming? Unfortunately, I don't recall him really addressing this side of things.
The question & answer session that followed the lecture was quite interesting despite a vegetarian going off on a rant and asking nary a question. (More on her later.) One of the questions posed to Wilson was whether or not he was in favor of genetically altered crops & foods. I highly suspect that most of the audience was against it and I also suspect that most of these people were against it mostly the grounds that it's "unnatural". He began his answer by saying that he had investigated genetically modified crops and, to his mind, there was only the slightest chance of some kind of Frankenstein strain of plant resulting. You could almost hear the audience groan with disappointment that he didn't come out fervently against them. Wilson went on to say that he thought they held promise in feeding people who lived in areas that desperately needed the benefits the crops could bring. I've engaged in conversations with people about this issue and it was the case that most people against genetically engineered foods seemed to be so not out of any evidence but rather out of technophobia. Of course, these same people have no qualms with cell phones, televisions, computers, cars, et al but, when it came to food, suddenly technology was evil. I hate to tell these people but humans have been genetically modifying the plants and animals we eat for thousands of years. I'd bet that most of the vegetables you find in your grocery store are the results of man meddling in plant genetics. Carrots, for instance, were more like a turnip back in the day and were not orange but rather white, yellow, red, green, and black. Moving proteins around is the same whether it's done in a lab or in a field.
Now back to the ranting vegetarian. Now, I'll agree with her that reducing consumption of meat or eliminating it altogether from one's diet is a good thing. But she went on and on about vegetarianism being a cure-all and it got tiresome. But she ended, if I remember correctly, on a political note. She remarked on a forthcoming election. Apparently every April, there's an election for two delegates per county for an unspecified position which is held by five people. The flyer she handed out afterwards basically says that hunters and businesses rule the DNR and are evil. The flyer also states lists this bullet point:
The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) deliberate exclusion (sic) of the non-hunting majority public from knowledge of the vote and election and its importance in setting policy
While the DNR may in fact be doing nothing to publicize this election, the flyer says absolutely nothing about the positions to be filled. No title, no responsibilities - nothing at all except that there's five per county and a vague notion of policy setting. If anyone is interested in learning more about this woman's cause, email madravenspeak@aol.com or call 608.981.2287 at The Sacred Bear Art and Nature Academy. A Google search on this turned up nothing about this organization. However, a Google search about the election did. It is the DNR Spring Wildlife & Fisheries Rules Hearing and Conservation Congress County Meeting. There's a mouthful for ya. Here's the description:
On Monday, April 10, there will be 72 public hearings, one in each county starting at 7:00 p.m. where residents interested with natural resources management have an opportunity to provide their input by non-binding vote and testimony to the Department of Natural Resources, Natural Resources Board and the Conservation Congress on proposed fishing and hunting rule changes, Natural Resource Board and Conservation Congress advisory questions through the questionnaire.
County residents have the option to run for election to the Conservation Congress and to elect delegates from their county to represent their county views regarding natural resources on the Conservation Congress. Also, residents have the opportunity to bring forth new conservation issues of a statewide nature to the attention of the Conservation Congress through the resolution process.
Now, considering the notice was on the DNR webpage and not at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard", I'm skeptical of the claims that the evil DNR tried to exclude the non-hunting majority public. While I have no statistical data to back up my assertion, I will opine that the reason most folks don't know about this congress is that most people can't be bothered to look into such matters lest they have to get up off the sofa and go somewhere where the television is out of view. Madison may be a city, but it's not that big. There's hardly a spot here where a 15-minute drive can't get you out in a wooded area outside of town. I've met many a Madisonian who finds the idea of going camping totally repugnant and understands wilderness as this nebulous concept as being a place that is somewhere else, namely, between Madison and Milwaukee, Minneapolis & Chicago.
So there ya go. A call to preserve Wisconsin's biodiversity. For Dane county folks, the congress is at the Alliant Energy Center here in Madtown. Check the DNR page for your county if you're not from Dane.
I, Davros
The creator of the Daleks, Davros, is getting his own audio drama series! Yes, the folks at Big Finish are giving the all-around evil genius his own series.
In September 2006, Big Finish will release the first part of a new audio drama mini-series that will star Terry Molloy as the Dalek creator, Davros. The series will be released on four single CDs. I' Davros will tell the story of Davros's early life and the events that shaped the man who would become creator of the Daleks.
Each 'chapter' of I, Davros will relate a significant episode in Davros's life that will reveal the previously untold details of exactly how and why he became the notorious creator of the Daleks. The story will begin with Davros's early life as a teenager right up to events immediately prior to the Doctor Who TV story, Genesis of the Daleks. Big Finish have previously released a highly regarded double CD story entitled simply Davros by Lance Parkin. Elements from this story will also be woven in to this new mini-series.
Terry Molloy will once again be playing Davros. The third actor to play the role in the Doctor Who TV series, Terry's version of the crippled scientist appeared in Resurrection of the Daleks, Revelation of the Daleks and Remembrance of the Daleks. Terry subsequently returned to the role for Big Finish in the audio dramas, Davros, Juggernauts and Terror Firma. Terry also played Davros in the Hyde Fundraiser¹s stage production of The Trial of Davros in 2005 at the Tameside Hippodrome in Manchester.
Vatican Comes Out Against Free Speech
Today The Vatican condemned the now-infamous Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed. Along the way, the Holy See saw fit to trash freedom of speech:
"The freedom of thought and expression, confirmed in the Declaration of Human Rights, can not include the right to offend religious feelings of the faithful. That principle obviously applies to any religion," the Vatican said.
Woe betide the faithful because they have such delicate sensibilities!
"We believe a fairy tale to be true so we must be shielded from offensive speech! Oh dear!"
They're just so special so we musn't dare offend them! What the fuck is this nonsense you are spreading, Herr Vatican Spokesperson?! (Presumably the Church has no problem with offensive speech towards the faithless.) It is an exceptionally boring and backwards society that does not allow people to offend others. Besides, there won't be a helluva lot to say if one cannot offend anyone of any religion. I mean, someone always takes offense at something. The whole point of free speech is that it could offend someone.
"Ooh! We're tidentine transubstantiationists so you can't say that!"
And I thought American exceptionalism was bad. Sheesh! Religious exceptionalism trumps that by a mile.
"The freedom of thought and expression, confirmed in the Declaration of Human Rights, can not include the right to offend religious feelings of the faithful. That principle obviously applies to any religion," the Vatican said.
Woe betide the faithful because they have such delicate sensibilities!
"We believe a fairy tale to be true so we must be shielded from offensive speech! Oh dear!"
They're just so special so we musn't dare offend them! What the fuck is this nonsense you are spreading, Herr Vatican Spokesperson?! (Presumably the Church has no problem with offensive speech towards the faithless.) It is an exceptionally boring and backwards society that does not allow people to offend others. Besides, there won't be a helluva lot to say if one cannot offend anyone of any religion. I mean, someone always takes offense at something. The whole point of free speech is that it could offend someone.
"Ooh! We're tidentine transubstantiationists so you can't say that!"
And I thought American exceptionalism was bad. Sheesh! Religious exceptionalism trumps that by a mile.
03 February, 2006
Brokeback to the Future
First it was done to The Shining (Quicktime) and now Back to the Future gets the treatment.
Brokeback to the Future
Brokeback to the Future
Having Your Cake
I just finished blathering on about the great offense taken by many Muslims to caricatures of Mohammed published first in a Danish newspaper and then by other publications in Europe and elsewhere. Yet anti-Semitism in the Arab media is rampant. Just head on over to Anti-Defamation League webpage for examples. Today you'll find this cartoon:
As the Islamic world reacted with anger to caricatures of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper, this cartoon claimed the controversy was a result of "The Penetration of Zionism to Denmark." The cheese, shaped like a Star of David, is labeled "Danish products." The text on the far left reads, "Boycott it!"
Many Arabs violently proclaim to the world that there's something rotten in Denmark but they also give their own media a pass on racist bullshit such as above. Is anyone really surprised that the Jews get dragged into this?
As the Islamic world reacted with anger to caricatures of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper, this cartoon claimed the controversy was a result of "The Penetration of Zionism to Denmark." The cheese, shaped like a Star of David, is labeled "Danish products." The text on the far left reads, "Boycott it!"
Many Arabs violently proclaim to the world that there's something rotten in Denmark but they also give their own media a pass on racist bullshit such as above. Is anyone really surprised that the Jews get dragged into this?
The Mighty Pen
Here are the Danish cartoons that have led to recent violent protests:
In the Arab world, a Jordanian newspaper, Shihan, took the bold step Thursday of running some of the drawings, saying it wanted to show its readers how offensive the cartoons were but also urging the world's Muslims to "be reasonable." Its editorial noted that Jyllands-Posten had apologized, "but for some reason, nobody in the Muslim world wants to hear the apology."
Hours later, the Jordanian government threatened legal action against Shihan, and the owners of the weekly said they had fired its chief editor, Jihad al-Momani, and withdrawn the issue from sale.
It's a vicious circle going on here. Western cartoonists comment on the barbaric, voilent element of Islam and some Muslims respond with barbarism and violence which just feeds the fire. From ABC News:
An imam at the Omari Mosque in Gaza City told 9,000 worshippers that those behind the drawings should have their heads cut off.
As Richard Dawkins once wrote:
To label people as death-deserving enemies because of disagreements about real world politics is bad enough. To do the same for disagreements about a delusional world inhabited by archangels, demons and imaginary friends is ludicrously tragic.
And Douglas Adams said:
Why should it be that it’s perfectly legitimate to support the Labour party or the Conservative party, Republicans or Democrats, this model of economics versus that, Macintosh instead of Windows, but to have an opinion about how the Universe began, about who created the Universe, no, that’s holy? What does that mean? Why do we ring-fence that for any other reason other than that we’ve just got used to doing so? There’s no other reason at all, it’s just one of those things that crept into being and once that loop gets going it’s very, very powerful. So, we are used to not challenging religious ideas but it’s very interesting how much of a furore Richard creates when he does it! Everybody gets absolutely frantic about it because you’re not allowed to say these things. Yet when you look at it rationally there is no reason why those ideas shouldn’t be as open to debate as any other, except that we have agreed somehow between us that they shouldn’t be.
No newspaper editor, no government official, indeed, no one at all owes any Muslim (indeed, any religious person) any respect whatsoever for simply believing a fairy tale to be true. That you believe Mohammed brought the message of Allah to make war on unbelievers or that Jesus walked on water or that some deity forbade his followers to eat shellfish but commanded them to eat barley cakes infused with their own fecal matter does not qualify you for a priori respect. Not surprisingly, the State Department doesn't feel this way. Its spokesperson, Janelle Hiromimus, said:
We call for tolerance and respect for all communities and for their religious beliefs and practices.
I hate to sound all John Galtish because no objectivist am I, but there's not a cat in hell's chance that I will show any tolerance or respect for a person or community that calls for the beheading of cartoonists. ABC also reports:
Pakistan's parliament unanimously voted to condemn the drawings as a "vicious, outrageous and provocative campaign" that has "hurt the faith and feelings of Muslims all over the world."
Since when does anyone have the right to not have their feelings hurt? If this right does exist, then the human rights of every person on the planet are being violated constantly. And how did these cartoons hurt anyone's faith? Someone please tell me because I really want to know. Are Muslims the world 'round suddenly undergoing apostasy? Here we go again with this notion that, because someone believes a fairy tale to be true, their feelings on the matter must be respected and protected at all costs. Here's a couple other ditties:
Muslims have also directed their anger at other European countries, with Palestinian gunmen briefly kidnapping a German citizen Thursday…
"If they want a war of religions, we are ready," Hassan Sharaf, an imam in Nablus, said in his sermon.
If you as an individual think that kidnapping a person is an appropriate response to cartoons carried by a newspaper in that person's home country, then there is something seriously wrong with you. And I think that Sharaf has either completely misunderstood the situation or twisted it purposely. Nothing I have read about the cartoons and their publications even hints at this being Christian vs. Muslim. It's about an idea that is non-religious, namely, freedom. It's perfectly reasonable to argue that the publication of these cartoons was irresponsible on a practical level. One needn't have been a prognosticator to say that their publication would be greeted with hostile reactions so it is fine to argue that offending Muslims would be imprudent but to argue that they shouldn't have been published because they are offensive is ludicrous.
I'm having a hard time even finding agreement with Arab "moderates" on this. (The one's whose statements I've read, anyway.) Also from ABC:
In Iraq, the country's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, decried the drawings but did not call for protests.
"We strongly denounce and condemn this horrific action," he said in a statement posted on his Web site and dated Tuesday.
While I'm pleased that he didn't call for any beheadings, I find it sadly amusing that he describes the publication of cartoons that offend some people as "horrific". Preventing young girls from escaping a burning building and letting them perish in the flames because they aren't wearing prescribed religious garb is horrific. Hijacking jetliners full of people and flying them into buildings with even more people inside them is horrific. Threatening a woman and her family (and perhaps even killing her) for fighting for the rights of Muslim women is horrific. The list of horrific actions goes on with acts committed by Muslims and non-Muslims alike but caricaturing is not on this list. Unless the above is a mistranslation or a quote out of context, I must say that describing the publication of cartoons with the same word which describes the deaths of children is ridiculous and demeaning.
In the Arab world, a Jordanian newspaper, Shihan, took the bold step Thursday of running some of the drawings, saying it wanted to show its readers how offensive the cartoons were but also urging the world's Muslims to "be reasonable." Its editorial noted that Jyllands-Posten had apologized, "but for some reason, nobody in the Muslim world wants to hear the apology."
Hours later, the Jordanian government threatened legal action against Shihan, and the owners of the weekly said they had fired its chief editor, Jihad al-Momani, and withdrawn the issue from sale.
It's a vicious circle going on here. Western cartoonists comment on the barbaric, voilent element of Islam and some Muslims respond with barbarism and violence which just feeds the fire. From ABC News:
An imam at the Omari Mosque in Gaza City told 9,000 worshippers that those behind the drawings should have their heads cut off.
As Richard Dawkins once wrote:
To label people as death-deserving enemies because of disagreements about real world politics is bad enough. To do the same for disagreements about a delusional world inhabited by archangels, demons and imaginary friends is ludicrously tragic.
And Douglas Adams said:
Why should it be that it’s perfectly legitimate to support the Labour party or the Conservative party, Republicans or Democrats, this model of economics versus that, Macintosh instead of Windows, but to have an opinion about how the Universe began, about who created the Universe, no, that’s holy? What does that mean? Why do we ring-fence that for any other reason other than that we’ve just got used to doing so? There’s no other reason at all, it’s just one of those things that crept into being and once that loop gets going it’s very, very powerful. So, we are used to not challenging religious ideas but it’s very interesting how much of a furore Richard creates when he does it! Everybody gets absolutely frantic about it because you’re not allowed to say these things. Yet when you look at it rationally there is no reason why those ideas shouldn’t be as open to debate as any other, except that we have agreed somehow between us that they shouldn’t be.
No newspaper editor, no government official, indeed, no one at all owes any Muslim (indeed, any religious person) any respect whatsoever for simply believing a fairy tale to be true. That you believe Mohammed brought the message of Allah to make war on unbelievers or that Jesus walked on water or that some deity forbade his followers to eat shellfish but commanded them to eat barley cakes infused with their own fecal matter does not qualify you for a priori respect. Not surprisingly, the State Department doesn't feel this way. Its spokesperson, Janelle Hiromimus, said:
We call for tolerance and respect for all communities and for their religious beliefs and practices.
I hate to sound all John Galtish because no objectivist am I, but there's not a cat in hell's chance that I will show any tolerance or respect for a person or community that calls for the beheading of cartoonists. ABC also reports:
Pakistan's parliament unanimously voted to condemn the drawings as a "vicious, outrageous and provocative campaign" that has "hurt the faith and feelings of Muslims all over the world."
Since when does anyone have the right to not have their feelings hurt? If this right does exist, then the human rights of every person on the planet are being violated constantly. And how did these cartoons hurt anyone's faith? Someone please tell me because I really want to know. Are Muslims the world 'round suddenly undergoing apostasy? Here we go again with this notion that, because someone believes a fairy tale to be true, their feelings on the matter must be respected and protected at all costs. Here's a couple other ditties:
Muslims have also directed their anger at other European countries, with Palestinian gunmen briefly kidnapping a German citizen Thursday…
"If they want a war of religions, we are ready," Hassan Sharaf, an imam in Nablus, said in his sermon.
If you as an individual think that kidnapping a person is an appropriate response to cartoons carried by a newspaper in that person's home country, then there is something seriously wrong with you. And I think that Sharaf has either completely misunderstood the situation or twisted it purposely. Nothing I have read about the cartoons and their publications even hints at this being Christian vs. Muslim. It's about an idea that is non-religious, namely, freedom. It's perfectly reasonable to argue that the publication of these cartoons was irresponsible on a practical level. One needn't have been a prognosticator to say that their publication would be greeted with hostile reactions so it is fine to argue that offending Muslims would be imprudent but to argue that they shouldn't have been published because they are offensive is ludicrous.
I'm having a hard time even finding agreement with Arab "moderates" on this. (The one's whose statements I've read, anyway.) Also from ABC:
In Iraq, the country's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, decried the drawings but did not call for protests.
"We strongly denounce and condemn this horrific action," he said in a statement posted on his Web site and dated Tuesday.
While I'm pleased that he didn't call for any beheadings, I find it sadly amusing that he describes the publication of cartoons that offend some people as "horrific". Preventing young girls from escaping a burning building and letting them perish in the flames because they aren't wearing prescribed religious garb is horrific. Hijacking jetliners full of people and flying them into buildings with even more people inside them is horrific. Threatening a woman and her family (and perhaps even killing her) for fighting for the rights of Muslim women is horrific. The list of horrific actions goes on with acts committed by Muslims and non-Muslims alike but caricaturing is not on this list. Unless the above is a mistranslation or a quote out of context, I must say that describing the publication of cartoons with the same word which describes the deaths of children is ridiculous and demeaning.
02 February, 2006
Academy Awards 2005
The nominees for the 2005 Academy Awards were announced this week. I admit it - I'm a bit of a movie snob and don't really care about most of the awards. Of the main/more popular ones, I really only care about Achievement in Cinematography. The nominees this year are:
"Batman Begins" (Warner Bros.)
Wally Pfister
"Brokeback Mountain" (Focus Features)
Rodrigo Prieto
"Good Night, and Good Luck." (Warner Independent Pictures)
Robert Elswit
"Memoirs of a Geisha" (Sony Pictures Releasing)
Dion Beebe
"The New World" (New Line)
Emmanuel Lubezki
Of these, I've only seen The New World and it was absolutely gorgeous. The cinematography is an essential part of the story, with Mother Nature almost a character herself.
The Science, Engineering, and Technical Achievement award winners have already been announced. These are the geeks who theorize about CGI and make funky lenses and camera mounts so we get to watch some amazing shots. E.g.:
To David Baraff, Michael Kass and Andrew Witkin for their pioneering work in physically-based computer-generated techniques used to simulate realistic cloth in motion pictures.
Their 1998 paper titled “Large Steps in Cloth Simulation” was a seminal work, providing the key in demonstrating to the industry that the calculations necessary to simulate realistic, complex cloth could be achieved efficiently and robustly. Their work provided the conceptual foundation for many cloth simulation systems in use today.
No doubt Jar Jar Binks' funeral outfit in Revenge of the Sith looked very realistic due to these guys. Here's to the dorks!!
"Batman Begins" (Warner Bros.)
Wally Pfister
"Brokeback Mountain" (Focus Features)
Rodrigo Prieto
"Good Night, and Good Luck." (Warner Independent Pictures)
Robert Elswit
"Memoirs of a Geisha" (Sony Pictures Releasing)
Dion Beebe
"The New World" (New Line)
Emmanuel Lubezki
Of these, I've only seen The New World and it was absolutely gorgeous. The cinematography is an essential part of the story, with Mother Nature almost a character herself.
The Science, Engineering, and Technical Achievement award winners have already been announced. These are the geeks who theorize about CGI and make funky lenses and camera mounts so we get to watch some amazing shots. E.g.:
To David Baraff, Michael Kass and Andrew Witkin for their pioneering work in physically-based computer-generated techniques used to simulate realistic cloth in motion pictures.
Their 1998 paper titled “Large Steps in Cloth Simulation” was a seminal work, providing the key in demonstrating to the industry that the calculations necessary to simulate realistic, complex cloth could be achieved efficiently and robustly. Their work provided the conceptual foundation for many cloth simulation systems in use today.
No doubt Jar Jar Binks' funeral outfit in Revenge of the Sith looked very realistic due to these guys. Here's to the dorks!!
Small Frey
By now, most folks know about the controversy surrounding author James Frey and the fabrications in his Oprah-approved book, A Million Little Pieces.
Police reports, court records, interviews with law enforcement personnel, and other sources have put the lie to many key sections of Frey's book. The 36-year-old author, these documents and interviews show, wholly fabricated or wildly embellished details of his purported criminal career, jail terms, and status as an outlaw "wanted in three states."
In addition to these rap sheet creations, Frey also invented a role for himself in a deadly train accident that cost the lives of two female high school students. In what may be his book's most crass flight from reality, Frey remarkably appropriates and manipulates details of the incident so he can falsely portray himself as the tragedy's third victim. It's a cynical and offensive ploy that has left one of the victims' parents bewildered. "As far as I know, he had nothing to do with the accident," said the mother of one of the dead girls. "I figured he was taking license...he's a writer, you know, they don't tell everything that's factual and true."
But all of this is peanuts compared to other literary hoaxes. According to the Guardian, the #1 literay hoax of all-time is The Donatino of Constantine:
1. The Donation of Constantine
This Latin document, used for centuries to justify the popes' power over mere temporal rulers, described Constantine the Great's ceding of his rights to Pope Sylvester I, who had cured his leprosy, in the fourth century. It was probably written in the 760s. A scholar denounced in it 1440, but the argument continued until the 18th century.
Frey may have made up parts of his criminal life and invoked Oprah's wrath, but he didn't have any effect on popes and kings.
Police reports, court records, interviews with law enforcement personnel, and other sources have put the lie to many key sections of Frey's book. The 36-year-old author, these documents and interviews show, wholly fabricated or wildly embellished details of his purported criminal career, jail terms, and status as an outlaw "wanted in three states."
In addition to these rap sheet creations, Frey also invented a role for himself in a deadly train accident that cost the lives of two female high school students. In what may be his book's most crass flight from reality, Frey remarkably appropriates and manipulates details of the incident so he can falsely portray himself as the tragedy's third victim. It's a cynical and offensive ploy that has left one of the victims' parents bewildered. "As far as I know, he had nothing to do with the accident," said the mother of one of the dead girls. "I figured he was taking license...he's a writer, you know, they don't tell everything that's factual and true."
But all of this is peanuts compared to other literary hoaxes. According to the Guardian, the #1 literay hoax of all-time is The Donatino of Constantine:
1. The Donation of Constantine
This Latin document, used for centuries to justify the popes' power over mere temporal rulers, described Constantine the Great's ceding of his rights to Pope Sylvester I, who had cured his leprosy, in the fourth century. It was probably written in the 760s. A scholar denounced in it 1440, but the argument continued until the 18th century.
Frey may have made up parts of his criminal life and invoked Oprah's wrath, but he didn't have any effect on popes and kings.
Ready For Kama Sutra?
The Nyxem/Blackmal/MyWife/Kama Sutra worm is due to hit computers shortly. So don't go opening any suspicious e-mails promising pr0n videos or pictures. If you do get infected, Symantec has a removal tool.
01 February, 2006
Word of the Week
A conversation between two co-workers earlier this week inspired my choice. They were arguing about incarceration and freewill.
procrustean (proh-cruss'-tee-an) adj. 1: of, relating to, or typical of Procrustes (a villainous son of Poseidon who forced travelers to fit into his bed by stretching their bodies or cutting off their legs). 2: marked by arbitrary, often ruthless disregard of individual differences or special circumstances.
procrustean (proh-cruss'-tee-an) adj. 1: of, relating to, or typical of Procrustes (a villainous son of Poseidon who forced travelers to fit into his bed by stretching their bodies or cutting off their legs). 2: marked by arbitrary, often ruthless disregard of individual differences or special circumstances.
31 January, 2006
On the Gramophone
Self-described purveyors of "stupidcore" Fudgie and Fufu provides this week's song. It's called "God Bless America, Especially Florida & Texas" and is an extremely funny poke at Christianity.
30 January, 2006
Prost Gotvin - Part 16
This is Prost Gotvins geometri by Gert Nygårdshaug. The translation was done by Roy Johansen. Nygårdshaug is a Norwegian author and the text has not yet been published in English. Roy is a friend of mine who recently moved back to his native Norway. He has translated a good part of the novel and I'm trying to convince him to finish it.
Here’s Part 15.
Father Gotvin's First Journey (continued)
He wasn't hurt; his glasses fell off; he picked them up, got up, stared at me in astonishment, put out his cigar, bowed, and left the compartment. I was shaking and my knees buckled under me. I sank down on the seat and buried my face in my hands. "Lord, my omnipotent Father, help me. I beg You, Lord Jesus Christ our God, Father of glory to grant all us insignificant humans the Spirit of Revelation to truly know you and grant our hearts enlightened eyes." My mind was roaming freely in the Ephesians, other epistles, scraps of quotes I knew and loved commingled into a clutter of works. Finally I managed to collect my thoughts to a real prayer: "Though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against me, in this I will be confident, dear God Father: I trust you in all things. You are my shepherd and the temptations You put to me I shall resist." Then I wept silently, without tears, for a long time, but I knew I had found my God again, that he was still with me; no one would ever be allowed to remove me from Him. Again I dared look up, rose to my feet, and pulled down the window – the cigar smoke had to get out. I put my head out of the window and beheld the vineyards around Narbonne. I was seized by a strong, intense homesickness. I wished Vanndal would be the next station, that Magnus Stormarkbråten would be there waiting for me, stolid and reticent, but secure. Then we could talk about the water level in the Vandøla river, about fishing grayling and trout and the possibilities of catching the big one, but that's not how it was. The next station was Narbonne, southern France, and the feeling of bliss and terror were fighting a battle in my chest. She was there, would always be there, along with God, but I had struck a human being; not dangerously, but struck nonetheless. I was at the window as the train stopped at Narbonne. I stood there remembering the terror in the face of the toothless garbage man, Pedro Urz. What had happened to the other two infidels? I still stood there as the train again set in motion. I felt like shouting out loud about the glory of God as the train picked up speed through the suburbs. Instead I whispered her name into the air. Then I sank back in my seat and curled up in the corner and fell asleep.
Here’s Part 15.
Father Gotvin's First Journey (continued)
He wasn't hurt; his glasses fell off; he picked them up, got up, stared at me in astonishment, put out his cigar, bowed, and left the compartment. I was shaking and my knees buckled under me. I sank down on the seat and buried my face in my hands. "Lord, my omnipotent Father, help me. I beg You, Lord Jesus Christ our God, Father of glory to grant all us insignificant humans the Spirit of Revelation to truly know you and grant our hearts enlightened eyes." My mind was roaming freely in the Ephesians, other epistles, scraps of quotes I knew and loved commingled into a clutter of works. Finally I managed to collect my thoughts to a real prayer: "Though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against me, in this I will be confident, dear God Father: I trust you in all things. You are my shepherd and the temptations You put to me I shall resist." Then I wept silently, without tears, for a long time, but I knew I had found my God again, that he was still with me; no one would ever be allowed to remove me from Him. Again I dared look up, rose to my feet, and pulled down the window – the cigar smoke had to get out. I put my head out of the window and beheld the vineyards around Narbonne. I was seized by a strong, intense homesickness. I wished Vanndal would be the next station, that Magnus Stormarkbråten would be there waiting for me, stolid and reticent, but secure. Then we could talk about the water level in the Vandøla river, about fishing grayling and trout and the possibilities of catching the big one, but that's not how it was. The next station was Narbonne, southern France, and the feeling of bliss and terror were fighting a battle in my chest. She was there, would always be there, along with God, but I had struck a human being; not dangerously, but struck nonetheless. I was at the window as the train stopped at Narbonne. I stood there remembering the terror in the face of the toothless garbage man, Pedro Urz. What had happened to the other two infidels? I still stood there as the train again set in motion. I felt like shouting out loud about the glory of God as the train picked up speed through the suburbs. Instead I whispered her name into the air. Then I sank back in my seat and curled up in the corner and fell asleep.
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