seen in philadelphia

A woman in a Niqab in a liquor store buying a 1.75 liter bottle of cheap white wine.

mach on academia

Similarly, esprit de corps, class bias, national pride, and even the narrowest minded local patriotism may have high value, for certain purposes. But such attitudes will not be shared by the broad-minded inquirer, at least not in moments of research. All such egoistic views are adequate only for practical purposes. Of course, even the inquirer may succumb to habit. Trifling pedantries and nonsensical discussions, the cunning appropriation of others' thoughts, with perfidious silence as to the sources, the metaphorical dysphagia suffered when recognition must be given, and the crooked illumination of others' performances when this is done, abundantly show that the scientist and scholar have also the battle of existence to fight, that the ways of science still lead to the mouth, and that the pure quest of knowledge in our present social conditions is still an ideal.

~ Ernst Mach (1885) Contributiosn to the Analysis of the Sensations

let the people go!

Penn on Obama's drug policy.

1. Yes, beyond hypocrisy.

2. Yes, class and race warfare against African Americans and the poor.

the youth of today

. . . are morally despicable, intellectually lazy, and willfully ignorant.

"mike bigga" = sellout

The passionate and innovative Atlanta rapper Killer Mike has apparently changed his name to, of all things, "Mike Bigga." This is particularly sad / ironic / hypocritical, given Mike's earlier comments on Nas' decision to drop the racial slur from his now "untitled" album:



"If my name had not been Killer Mike, my career would be a lot further now. I was told by people who wouldn't give me endorsements: 'We don't like your name,' but these same people gave endorsements to bands like The Killers. I don't know what separates one black man from being Killer Mike from five white men from being The Killers, but I would be more afraid of five killers than one. . . . "

"As a man, once I've made a decision, if I believe that decision is right and noble then I have to stand by that decision or I risk being not credible in front of people . . . I made my decision and I must stand by it."

Yes, Mike Bigga, formerly Killer Mike, you have indeed lost your credibility. You have left the ranks of rappers like Dead Prez, who refuse to compromise or submit to double standards, and joined the ranks of P-Diddy and the other effete sellouts who care only about their pockets.

Killer Mike, RIP - you will be missed.

war memorial

The claim that war is "bad" for its own sake is profoundly offensive. The history of compassion is drenched in gore ~ blood sacrificed that compassion might be possible, blood squandered in the misguided and hypocritical name of "compassion," blood spilt across centuries, drenching entire continents, simply because two groups have incompatible notions of "compassion." You who protest war simply because it is war deserve the slavery and gas-chambers to which such narrow-minded, close-sighted cowardice inevitably leads. You defecate all over difficult decisions and impede rational debate. You deny history and shun the sacrifices which have allowed you the very liberty to proclaim your facile views in the streets unhindered. To begin to analyze the value of this or that particular war, one must first acknowledge the role war serves in the evolution of human culture. One must acknowledge the occasional necessity of war. One must acknowledge that to refuse war is sometimes the very antithesis of compassion, to refuse war can mean complicity in murder. Furthermore, one must abandon this talk of a "just war"! Justice is a notion defined within a legal framework; wars, by definition are conflicts outside the bounds of legal systems, between legal systems, as it were. To pretend then that there can be such a thing as a "just war" is to persist in a delusion about what one is engaged in ~ to paint the other in one's own colors and presume he will admire you for it. No no! ~ if the notion of "just war" were coherent, there would be no need for war! Let us pray we never see such a day, as on that day we will know that liberty sleeps in her grave.

Not "just war," but "justified war" is the notion needed, with the recognition here that justification is only by our own lights. Then we can debate, then we can engage in rational discussion, we can weigh the cost against the gain . . . . but this cost, this cost! Today we remember the cost, the lives snuffed out by the wind of war, in justified and unjustified wars alike. And their sacrifice is no less, their honor no less in the latter case. For the danger of poor decision making hangs heavy over any rational debate, this very uncertainty is what creates the excitement of thought, the adventure of argument. Often, only in hindsight can one truly measure the value of a particular war, and even then, our judgments may change from age to age. No, the soldier cannot be judged by the value of the war in which he participated, for such is ever indeterminate. Rather, the soldier can be judged by his actions: by his courage to place his life at risk for the life of his culture, for the lives of his compatriots. To be a soldier is to see with keen eyes the distant unfolding of human history, to put others before oneself, compassion in its truest sense. In this country, we ride on the backs of countless dead ~ a revolutionary war, a civil war, two worlds wars ~ "justified" or not, it is impossible to imagine our culture uninfluenced by these wars. We lead lives determined by war, and both the beautiful and the ugly of our culture was birthed in war, is steeped in war, is inextricable from our history of war. Today, at least, we should think of the beautiful, that we might better appreciate the value of deaths which from so many other perspectives seem futile and barren of meaning.

You who died that I might freely publish these vain bloviations, that I might wallow in security and liberty and health, that I might have a life filled with opportunity, joy, and pleasure: you are too many for me to ever know your names, but I know your sacrifice and I thank you in the only manner I can, with these impoverished words. thank you.

verboten culture

The practice of forbidding particular words, of enforcing the use of one word over another via sanctions, systematically divests our language of meaning. Language is a holistic system and words carry meaning only in contrast to other words. Thus, to have many different words in use for the same object or property provides many shades of connotation, or subtlety of meaning. When we forbid the use of alternate terms in the public forum (because they are "derogatory" or "offensive" ( = Saxon)) the remaining, permitted word ceases to have any positive connotation, it subsumes negative connotations. Of course, the intended purpose of such regulations is to control thought. By forbidding the use of a derogatory term (the argument goes), we inhibit the spread of the attitude expressed by that term. (comparison: systematically erasing usage of the term "bad" in order to stem dissatisfaction with the government (Orwell, 1984)) Even if such derogatory attitudes are to be despised, surely a less-totalitarian strategy for combatting them could be imagined! In fact, historically, the effect of such sanctions has not been to eliminate prejudice but to introduce further layers of prejudice. Consider the suppression of Saxon terms by the Normans; we still feel the effects today of Norman intolerance in the persistent suppression of the "seven words" ~ it is no accident that they are of Saxon origin, while their Latinate cousins are regularly used in scientific journals and high school health classes! How ironic that our "freedom fries" eating government remains resolutely Francophile in its vocabulary choices! Consider also the case of "dwarf" and "midget" ~ these used to have distinct meanings referring to two distinct physiological types. The medical term midget became pejorative as it was subsumed into popular culture ~ here the causal direction is reversed! Surely the preexisting prejudice manipulated the term's connotation, and its legitimate meaning had little effect on this use. How long, then, will "little people," a term which erases the heterogeneity of medical conditions resulting in less than average stature, survive as a positive term? How long before cultural prejudices tar it with pejorative connotations? ~ when said with a sneer, or an ironic twinkle in the eye . . . when said bitterly, as if a nastier term merely has left the lips with the wrong sound . . .

No, the manipulation of language is a dead end in the quest for acceptance, the attempt to remove one prejudice by introducing another a profound hypocrisy.

a natural history of the janus-faced party

When the great invisible hand of evolution first paired two single-celled organisms and made them one, its actions were inevitable. In particular, no conspiracy, no collusion on the part of the single-celled organisms was needed, in fact, in virtue of participating in a larger organism, their individual identities became lost ~ it is precisely that they continue acting as they had in isolation which nature intended in pairing them together. The cells' awareness of their cooperation is not only not necessary, it is impossible. And so it is also with The Janus-Faced Party. There is no need for its two faces to collude, or even to acknowledge that they are partners ~ their collaboration has arisen naturally through the inevitable momentum of government, and it is precisely the illusion of conflict in which they so sincerely believe which makes The Janus-Faced Party so successful. Wake-up "individual"! ~ only you can see the unity of the two faces, as a bacterium trapped inside the body of Janus, beset by its immune system, you can see Janus for who he is. Surely, now that even the same face of Janus speaks with two mouths ~ purporting "family values" with one while denying the most universally acknowledged moral principle with the other ~ his duplicity will become clear? The wise man says: "the common man buries his head in the sand of comfort and pricks out his eyes rather than see the chains that bind him."

10 environmental commandments

1. thou shalt trust the government in all things

2. thou shalt honor the scientists and keep them holy

3. thou shalt not hold scientists accountable for past proclamations inconsistent with present ones

4. thou shalt feel guilt in every action

5. thou shalt promote socialism

6. thou shalt labor to perpetuate a society which deserves to crumble into dust

7. thou shalt exalt the animal and denigrate the human

8. thou shalt fight against the industrialization of the third world with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might

9. thou shalt exemplify hypocrisy in all thy actions

10. thou shalt presume understanding of chaos where none can be had

you hypocrites!

You hypocrites and amateur linguists ~ you who forbid the use to others of words you use yourselves! You who exult in freedom by depriving others of freedom! You who hide behind the law and wield its bitter hammer in fists that pervert liberty! Freed from all external chains you are now bound by chains of your own making ~ so much more onerous and inescapable are these. Cast off your shackles! The burden of history must be surmounted by us each within our own minds. There is no external palliative; there is no social reform; there is no reparation great enough! Hypocrisy is only a symptom of the oppression within. The wise man hates not the symptom, but the disease. The wise invalid knows that the suppression of symptoms can lead to swifter healing.