Archive for the ‘Eureka!’ Category
The Rapture as Self-Abuse
In a moment of weakness I was thinking a little about Pre-Millenial Dispensationalism — you know, that wacko, non-Biblical concept about the end-times, The Rapture, does Jesus some pre-Trib or post-Trib thing invented in the late 19th century, when it struck me that the whole thing is a fantastic sublimation of sexual desire, both by […]
Noah's Rainbow
During the most recent round of Republican gay-bashing — i.e., the national "debate" about the "gay marriage" amendment — I listened to the rehash of the usual vacuous and specious arguments about why gay people should not be allowed to participate in the institution of matrimony, and reflected on some responses. I suffer from l'éspirit […]
Atheistic Lions
According to Reuters:* KIEV (Reuters) – A man shouting that God would keep him safe was mauled to death by a lioness in Kiev zoo after he crept into the animal's enclosure, a zoo official said on Monday. "The man shouted 'God will save me, if he exists', lowered himself by a rope into the […]
Payback & Return on Investment
Avedon Carol with two pieces of insight,* in one post no less, right next to each other! I wonder what really happened when he [George W Bush] was in the TANG [Texas Air National Guard] that makes him hate the Guard so much. I mean, he sure seems to have it in for them. I […]
Viral Gore
For weeks, months maybe, there's been a continuous, low-level buzz talking about Al Gore as the Democratic candidate for president in 2008. There are many little reasons for the buzz: his speeches, the release of his film about global warming, talk about the election he won in 2000, "security flaws" in Diebold voting machines, polls […]
"Noble" Lies
This was an unexpected but perceptive analysis of neocon philosophy from my current reading:* Platonic elitism, unfortunately, is not merely a matter of ancient history; it is still drastically afflicting the human race even in the twenty-first century. The architects of American foreign policy who carried out the imperialist assaults on Afghanistan and Iraq are […]
Call It Macaroni
He [Parson Woodforde, writing in his diary c. 1820, in England] also, on more than one occasion, notes eating a somewhat exotic starch: "Maccaroni," which had been popularized in England by young men returning from the Italian portions of the Grand Tour. (Some of these aristocratic young men, in the mid-eighteenth cnetury, formed a club […]
In: All, Eureka!, Such Language!
Spend Less, Get More
The U.S. Health system looks especially dysfunctional when you consider how much money we spend per capita on healthcare — $6,000 plus per year, twice as much as any other country — and how little we get for it. Canada spends $2,163 and boasts a life expectancy of 79.8 years, two and a half years […]
Condoms Please!
Laura Barcella wrote* about another irritating skirmish in the war against conservative extremists and their encroaching prudery — they just seem to keep getting sillier and pettier and ever-more exasperating, don't they? The war on safe sex in America just keeps heating up – to conservative Bushies' delight. As Suz Redfearn in the Washington Post […]
Becoming the Worst President?
Some time back, I happened to write* that, in my opinion, it is the current president's destiny to be The Worst President Ever. I would claim extraordinary prescience, except that it's such a bloomin' obvious prediction. However, I'm please to discover# that Rolling Stone magazine has jumped on board with "The Worst President in History? […]
One Post, Two …
Okay, check out this cosmic confluence. You may — or more likely, will not — remember my post from some time back, "Sequences of Integers", about Neil1 J.A.Sloane's fascinating project, the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences2 with over 100,000 sequences of integers and lots of exceedingly fascinating details. It appeals mightily to my quirky, geeky […]
In: All, Curious Stuff, Eureka!
Alphabetical Ideology
I happened to be reading some columns by Cynthia Tucker at uExpress.com, which offers political columns by about a dozen, widely syndicated columnists, when I noticed something that I thought odd. In the list of columnists "On the Right", the writers' last names began with these letters: "B", "C", "G", "G", "K", and "L". In […]
In: All, Curious Stuff, Eureka!
People Mulch
When I heard about this from someone, I thought it just sounded really cool (as it were), and would cut down on emission of green-house gases from crematoria, and promote the planting of trees. Another part of it, of course, is that I just like Swedes. A town in Sweden plans to become the first […]
Why There is Something
Why is there Something rather than Nothing? Why, in other words, should anything exist at all? This is a question that has torn great minds asunder, from Leibniz to Wittgenstein. Philosophers seem to have given up on it. When I asked Arthur Danto why there was something rather than nothing, he irritably responded, "Who says […]
Boo! They're Republicans
Just because Maureen Dowd wrote What Hillary has going for her is exhaustion. Exhaustion kicks in with any party in power for eight years, let alone one that tricked the country into war. I can't stop freely associating things like: Republicans are the Hallowe'en Party: every day is Trick or Treat Will they be taking […]
In: All, Eureka!, Splenetics
Celebrity Spokesmodel for President
Continually milling around in my mind are questions like: shouldn't someone in charge of running the country be smarter about a lot of things than I am? Why should I feel safer if the guy in charge is dumber than rocks? If I were having brain surgery, would I like the brain surgeon to be […]
In: All, Eureka!, Splenetics
Haldane on Creationism
The plants generally compete by pushing, rather than biting. […] If the world of Nature is God's plan, then attempts to banish pain are contrary to this plan. So are attempts to perfect human society by eliminating the various evils which men inflict on one another. […] Darwin made it reasonable to reject the argument […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Eureka!
Mystery and Creationism
Someone pointed out this fascinating article in the DC Examiner, in which Robert Vanasse discusses the current ruckus between fundamentalism and (rational) science and points out that it hasn't always been that way ("old time religion" is not so "old time" as fundamentalists would like to imagine), but is instead a rather recent development. Read […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Eureka!
No Recruiting!
Having read that New York Times Magazine feature story about the zealous anti-gay soldiers marching to protect the sanctity of "traditional" marriage (right here in my home-state of Maryland, no less), Stephanie Sandberg summarizes this way: In sum: the anti-gay-marriage activists in the Times story say they are galvanized by fear of contagion. They claim […]
In: All, Eureka!, Splenetics
I Win, You Lose
Geraldine Laybourne ('The NY Times Has No Idea "What Women Want" ') was not too pleased with John Tierney's recent piece in the NYTimes ("What Women Want"): Tierney’s conclusion was women don’t like to compete. Hello? So, she imagines writing a "Dear John" letter from which I lift this excerpt: You understood how talented and […]