Kazin may not intend this, but as he fleshes out his fascinating portrait, Bryan comes to seem the central influence on 20th century American populist politics of all persuasions. His descendants are scattered across the ideological map: FDR and LBJ, and maybe even George McGovern and Paul Wellstone, lie in one direction. Huey Long, George Wallace and Pat Buchanan lie in another. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, different as they may be, are all Bryan's grandchildren.
February 28, 2006
Prairie avenger, mountain lion
A review (or something review-esque) of a book on William Jennings Bryan:
Escapist and Junk
The new issue of The Escapist is out. I particularly recommend "After Sex", an article exploring sex in online communities. Thoughts?
Also, Dan Brottman clued me into a movie review site. Now, I tried to read several of his reviews so I could be fair, and in being fair not all of his reviews are horrible. That being said, some of his reviews are a bit shocking. I recommend his reviews of Freaks and Geeks, and Brokeback Mountain.
Also, Dan Brottman clued me into a movie review site. Now, I tried to read several of his reviews so I could be fair, and in being fair not all of his reviews are horrible. That being said, some of his reviews are a bit shocking. I recommend his reviews of Freaks and Geeks, and Brokeback Mountain.
February 27, 2006
Just because I'm watching it tonight
Is one of my favourite films of a piece with the pseudo-philosophy of Ayn Rand?
Well, sure. Rand's followers like to rail against mediocrity, but of course this is a huge strawman -- does anyone going around defending mediocrity and conformity? Okay, maybe Rousseau, but he also says a community ought to try to kill everyone who's not part of it. Certainly you don't find this in any serious social/political or ethical philosopher of the nineteenth or twentieth centuries (fascist paeans to the glory of a totalitarian state don't count as serious philosophy because they're not). Even Marx's (in)famous dictum starts with the clause `From each according to his ability'.
Next:
Well, er, no. Certainly Syndrome is conniving and manipulative and seeks personal gain at the expense of others, but he works even harder than the Supers to get his power -- he's born with nothing more than a genius for invention, not special abilities, and spends fifteen years building his fortune and developing his weapons. He conducts himself with an utter lack of respect for those he perceives as his inferiors (that is, everyone else), but, in Rand's ethics, that's a virtue of the superior, not a vice.
What's more, consider Rand's 'heroic' character Howard Roark, who destroys a building, killing the people inside, to keep others from taking credit for his work. Does this sound more like the altruistic and self-sacrificing Supers, or Syndome's plan to gain fame by launching a giant robot at the city and pretending to defeat it in battle? (Not to mention Syndrome's fit when the people he's 'rescuing' mistake him for some of the old Supers.)
Certainly The Incredibles calls on us to celebrate and develop our natural talents. But the heroes of the film develop their talents in pursuit of the greater good and classical notions of duty and virtue, not out of Rand's twisted ideal of self-aggrandizement no matter the cost to others. If anything, The Incredibles is an anti-Objectivist film.
the movie revolves around a hero -- a concept that Rand greatly lauded over the muddy protagonists of most modern work. Mr. Incredible is by no means flawless, but he is shown to be exceptional in a world of mediocrity, as are the movie's other superheroes.
Well, sure. Rand's followers like to rail against mediocrity, but of course this is a huge strawman -- does anyone going around defending mediocrity and conformity? Okay, maybe Rousseau, but he also says a community ought to try to kill everyone who's not part of it. Certainly you don't find this in any serious social/political or ethical philosopher of the nineteenth or twentieth centuries (fascist paeans to the glory of a totalitarian state don't count as serious philosophy because they're not). Even Marx's (in)famous dictum starts with the clause `From each according to his ability'.
Next:
On its flip-side, the movie's villain is also a classic Objectivist foil. Voiced expertly by Jason Lee, Syndrome is everything that Rand deplored in her novels -- a conniving, manipulative man who seeks personal gain without honest work or achievement.
Well, er, no. Certainly Syndrome is conniving and manipulative and seeks personal gain at the expense of others, but he works even harder than the Supers to get his power -- he's born with nothing more than a genius for invention, not special abilities, and spends fifteen years building his fortune and developing his weapons. He conducts himself with an utter lack of respect for those he perceives as his inferiors (that is, everyone else), but, in Rand's ethics, that's a virtue of the superior, not a vice.
What's more, consider Rand's 'heroic' character Howard Roark, who destroys a building, killing the people inside, to keep others from taking credit for his work. Does this sound more like the altruistic and self-sacrificing Supers, or Syndome's plan to gain fame by launching a giant robot at the city and pretending to defeat it in battle? (Not to mention Syndrome's fit when the people he's 'rescuing' mistake him for some of the old Supers.)
Certainly The Incredibles calls on us to celebrate and develop our natural talents. But the heroes of the film develop their talents in pursuit of the greater good and classical notions of duty and virtue, not out of Rand's twisted ideal of self-aggrandizement no matter the cost to others. If anything, The Incredibles is an anti-Objectivist film.
She Kicks High
It seems odd to me that so many video game --> movie projects have used fighting games as their basis. Yeah, it's a pretty weak excuse to throw some fighting stunts at the viewer, but the source material rarely has any background story and the characters are almost always shallow stereotypes. It's telling that the fighting game with the most source material, Mortal Kombat, is the best of the bunch, though that doesn't say much.
Is that green hair on Zack's head? Yup.
Is that green hair on Zack's head? Yup.
Paper Writing
But I had to pop in to post this both as a fond rememberance of Don Knotts and a humorous jab at the President.
February 24, 2006
The communal responsibility of someone else's kids
Early on in this thread, we find this comment (which starts with a quotation from an earlier comment):
I think looking at this issue in this way is ridiculously short-sighted. Unless you plan on living out in the woods by yourself, everyone depends on other people -- to grow the food, to keep the power running, to build and maintain houses, to keep the peace, and so on. And, unless you plan on dying very shortly, there will come a time when today's children will be the ones primarily responsible for doing all these things you need to get by. Now, it doesn't seem unreasonable to think that the quality of care and education one gets as a child has a significant impact on what one is like as an adult; hence, quality childcare and education is a social good, a benefit to everyone (again, except those who tragically die young). State-subsidized and -licensed child care, for example, guarantees that children of all economic classes can have personal, nurturing care even when both parents are away, and thus will help make the next generation better citizens and contributors to the general well-being (including your own well-being).
That is, it's not a transfer of wealth from childless adults to parents with children; it's a smart investment in your future well-being (that has the happy 'incidental' benefit of enabling greater freedom in the way others live their lives).
'Feminists respond by rejecting what they see as a false dichotomy; only in a society where there are no communal and governmental responsibilities for helping families raise children will women be forced to choose between motherhood and independence.'
Personally, too marxist for me. Not that I have kids, but if I did, I wouldn't want the government interference that comes with the government handout. And since I don't have kids, I don't want to be taxed for the communal responsibility of somebody else's kids.
I think looking at this issue in this way is ridiculously short-sighted. Unless you plan on living out in the woods by yourself, everyone depends on other people -- to grow the food, to keep the power running, to build and maintain houses, to keep the peace, and so on. And, unless you plan on dying very shortly, there will come a time when today's children will be the ones primarily responsible for doing all these things you need to get by. Now, it doesn't seem unreasonable to think that the quality of care and education one gets as a child has a significant impact on what one is like as an adult; hence, quality childcare and education is a social good, a benefit to everyone (again, except those who tragically die young). State-subsidized and -licensed child care, for example, guarantees that children of all economic classes can have personal, nurturing care even when both parents are away, and thus will help make the next generation better citizens and contributors to the general well-being (including your own well-being).
That is, it's not a transfer of wealth from childless adults to parents with children; it's a smart investment in your future well-being (that has the happy 'incidental' benefit of enabling greater freedom in the way others live their lives).
February 22, 2006
Jack Vettriano
Is he Scotland's answer to Thomas Kinkade and Norman Rockwell, or the successor to Edward Hopper?
Incidentally, I find it amusing that Wikipedia refers to my hometown as a 'city'. For you Northwesterners, that's like calling Sequim a city. For you Midwesterners, that's like calling Warsaw (the one in Indiana, not the one in Poland) a city.
Also, South Bend is the fourth largest city in Indiana. I think this is another reason for me to dislike Indiana intensely.
Incidentally, I find it amusing that Wikipedia refers to my hometown as a 'city'. For you Northwesterners, that's like calling Sequim a city. For you Midwesterners, that's like calling Warsaw (the one in Indiana, not the one in Poland) a city.
Also, South Bend is the fourth largest city in Indiana. I think this is another reason for me to dislike Indiana intensely.
One More For The Day
Skipping Class To Sleep
Dan may know a bit more about this, but here's an article about students, professors, and the emails that bring them together. In the article and some of the commentary to this I see a lot of hand wringing about the demystification of the professor, but that's really nothing I ever experienced in my years of education. Granted, I went to a small school, but I always thought that professors that made a big deal about being called "professor" or that avoided being too friendly with students were, to put it mildly, jerks.
Hall Of Handcramping
IGN has a top ten of worst controllers of all time, and it has a couple contentious choices. It's a hard question. Do you go by how well they hold up today or do you by how innovative they were for the time? The NES controller is absolutely horrid now, but was there any better at the time? The N64 controller looks rediculous as I hold my Xbox 360 controller, but they didn't know how quickly the analog stick would supplant the d-pad as the primary directional control, so it made sense when it was designed. I never had a problem with the original Xbox controller, known affectionately to its fans as "the Duke", and I certainly don't think it was the second worst controller of all time. Personally, I've never been a big fan of the PS2 Dual Shock, with its kid sized proportions and cramp inducing symetrical analog sticks.
Edit: Here's a top ten of worst haircuts in video games. Not nearly as contentious, but amusing nonetheless.
Edit: Here's a top ten of worst haircuts in video games. Not nearly as contentious, but amusing nonetheless.
We're Not Worthy, We're Not Worthy!
In high school and college I would occassionally think to myself, "You know what'd be sweet? If I could play the guitar!" I'd learn a few chords; pluck out a tune or two, but inevitably I'd turn on one of my favorite groups and realize that these guys started earlier and worked harder than I'd ever be able to in order to get as good as they are. Realizing that there are many of their songs that I would never be able to play, I'd give up. While I'm not ready to quit blogging just yet, it is awfully demoralizing when somebody like Dave Neiwert writes something that's just too damn good.
Follow the link. He manages to tie together several current stories along with things running just below the surface into one cohesive post that sums up why I'm a Liberal regardless of politics. There are just too many people like Coulter in the mainstream of the conservative movement and far too many others that disagree with the things she says but tollerate her anyway.
Follow the link. He manages to tie together several current stories along with things running just below the surface into one cohesive post that sums up why I'm a Liberal regardless of politics. There are just too many people like Coulter in the mainstream of the conservative movement and far too many others that disagree with the things she says but tollerate her anyway.
February 21, 2006
I Fear We Need Some Game News
I don't feel like I've posted about video game news recently so here are some tasty tidbits. First, here are a couple new accessories for the Xbox 360. I can only imagine the things people will think of to use the camera for. Also, we have an announcement that the award winning PC game from last year, F.E.A.R., will be getting a sequel which will be appearing on the PC and several next-gen consoles. Along with that we have a rumor that the first F.E.A.R. will be ported to the Xbox 360. It was made by the same team that did Condemned: Criminal Origins and uses a lot of the same tech, so it's entirely possible and extremely exciting.
February 20, 2006
50 weeks in a row?
Piled Higher and Deeper
That's just crazy. Work is to be done in sixty-hour weeks for three months, followed by a month of listless unproductivity. Anything else is just insane.
That's just crazy. Work is to be done in sixty-hour weeks for three months, followed by a month of listless unproductivity. Anything else is just insane.
Hmm
The second decent Salon author interview in as many days is about the financial dire straights of today's middle-class twentysomethings.
Of course, the situation for college grads is a hell of a lot better than it is for the young adults out of the working class; but that just means most everyone under the age of 35 is, at best, in a moderately shitty position.
Not that there aren't some spectacular displays of classist and racist ignorance:
What it is all really about for me is realizing that we are part of the first generation in America that does not expect to and probably won't do better than our parents. It's about taking a step down, and that is a feeling that is terrifying. The American dream has always been about progress and about going up and up -- but we are not making as much money as our parents, and maybe we are a little bit less educated than our parents. We are not achieving the milestones of adulthood at the same time that they did.
Of course, the situation for college grads is a hell of a lot better than it is for the young adults out of the working class; but that just means most everyone under the age of 35 is, at best, in a moderately shitty position.
Not that there aren't some spectacular displays of classist and racist ignorance:
In America, there are no people living on a dollar a day. Even homeless people on the streets in New York are better off than people in Mali.
This is what we did in Kant today
[] is the modal operator 'necessarily' or 'in all possible worlds'
P1. [](x is a substance -> x exists)
P2. Santa Claus is a substance
3. [](x is a substance) -> [](x exists)
4. x is a substance -> [](x exists)
5. Santa claus is a substance -> [](Santa Claus exists)
C6. [](Santa Claus exists)
So Santa Claus exists necessarily, if you believe that being a substance is a sufficient condition for existence.
P1. [](x is a substance -> x exists)
P2. Santa Claus is a substance
3. [](x is a substance) -> [](x exists)
4. x is a substance -> [](x exists)
5. Santa claus is a substance -> [](Santa Claus exists)
C6. [](Santa Claus exists)
So Santa Claus exists necessarily, if you believe that being a substance is a sufficient condition for existence.
Wordplay
I love words. I love words that are fun to say and I love words that let me say the same old thing in a new way. Even more, I love words that I've made up. To celebrate my love of words I'm going to try to jumpstart the comments here by posting a few Words of the Week every week. Everyone that uses a Word of the Week in a substantive comment, that is, not a comment whose only purpose is not a vehicle for using a WotW, will receive 5 Ra Points. You can earn as many points as you like through this manner, subject of course to the afore mentioned restriction on spurious comments. I'll try to choose a mix of more and less common words, though they'll always be words I think we should use more.
This week's words will be: sine qua non, recondite, and capricious. So, I figure I'll give this a try and see how it works. I will be seeing how to balance my desire to have enough WotW that you guys don't have to work hard to fit them into your comments and what I'm sure is the exponential increase in the amount of searching I have to do when dishing out points. I'll also have to try to post enough that you guys have things to talk about. We'll see how it goes I guess.
Finally, while we're here why not make this a contest thread. All you need to do is post a comment to this post where you treat the security letters as a word and post it along with a definition you've created for it. I'll give twenty points to the one I like best.
Excelsior!
This week's words will be: sine qua non, recondite, and capricious. So, I figure I'll give this a try and see how it works. I will be seeing how to balance my desire to have enough WotW that you guys don't have to work hard to fit them into your comments and what I'm sure is the exponential increase in the amount of searching I have to do when dishing out points. I'll also have to try to post enough that you guys have things to talk about. We'll see how it goes I guess.
Finally, while we're here why not make this a contest thread. All you need to do is post a comment to this post where you treat the security letters as a word and post it along with a definition you've created for it. I'll give twenty points to the one I like best.
Excelsior!
February 19, 2006
God is a vengeful berserker
This Salon interview with some academic who wrote a book on justice and revenge takes an interesting turn on page two:
And it goes on. Really, I never understood the savior thing, even in my pre-agnostic high school days, but I couldn't put my finger on what was wrong with it until I read a parody (that may not be at that site in particular) of a Chick tract that put it something like this: "Why would I need to sacrifice Myself to Myself, in order to make Myself change a rule that I made up in the first place?"
You list several instances where bodies or even parts of bodies were used as payment, literally or metaphorically.
Well, what is the Eucharist, for heaven's sake? It's a payoff on a hundred levels. It's paying off God, because God is vengeful. The incarnation and crucifixion and sacrifice of Christ is the law of the talion. You owe a god to a god for a breach of god's rights.
Not only that, but God has to divide himself into more than one person in order to pay himself off. But it's paid on behalf of mankind, who could never pay back what's really owed.
It can't be God just paying God. Christ is also the perfect man, a man who is God and then pays God. So the balance is exactly right, an eye for an eye. Otherwise, God is undercompensated.
But the original 'eye' in this case is the disobedience of eating the apple in the garden, and the life of a god seems like a high price to pay for that.
Well, God was never what we would call a proportionalist. God goes postal a lot, which is what human societies won't let their people do.
So, in a way, the Old Testament God is exactly the kind of vengeful berserker that modern justice systems promise to protect us from.
And it goes on. Really, I never understood the savior thing, even in my pre-agnostic high school days, but I couldn't put my finger on what was wrong with it until I read a parody (that may not be at that site in particular) of a Chick tract that put it something like this: "Why would I need to sacrifice Myself to Myself, in order to make Myself change a rule that I made up in the first place?"
Guest blogging at Pandagon
If you're not a regular reader, check out the guest blogging posts over at Pandagon; Amanda's in Amsterdam for like a long weekend or something, and has put up some very good posts from random contributors around the lefty/feminist blogosphere. For example, this one about false rape accusations.
The Much Requested Random Ten
The kids love the MP3s these days and they sure love their Random 10s too. So let's all load up some music on our computers, ipods, or any other player you might have, set the thing to shuffle or random and then post the first ten songs that come up. We ask only that you try not to make yourself seem cooler than you are by editing the list in any way other than getting rid of audio books or something. This is about our music tastes, afterall, and not our taste in books.
(title - artist)
1. Nothing To Say - Platypus
2. 25 or 6 to 4 - Chicago
3. Speed of Light - Stratovarious
4. Let It Whip - Dazz Band
5. Take Away My Pain - Dream Theater
6. No - Fat Jon
7. E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) - Blue Oyster Cult
8. Blind Faith - Dream Theater
9. The Memory Remains - Metallica
10. For A Million Years - Lynch Mob
(title - artist)
1. Nothing To Say - Platypus
2. 25 or 6 to 4 - Chicago
3. Speed of Light - Stratovarious
4. Let It Whip - Dazz Band
5. Take Away My Pain - Dream Theater
6. No - Fat Jon
7. E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) - Blue Oyster Cult
8. Blind Faith - Dream Theater
9. The Memory Remains - Metallica
10. For A Million Years - Lynch Mob
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