Archive for the ‘Plus Ca Change…’ Category
The Pitfalls of "Big Data"
I greatly enjoyed this article ("Big data: are we making a big mistake?", by Tim Harford) on the dangers of "big data", which certainly has opened up new avenues of research but nevertheless still requires understanding to avoid statistical pitfalls. Understanding causes beyond mere correlation is still necessary: correlations can predict trends with uncanny accuracy, […]
In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Plus Ca Change...
Hypatia in Texas
Hypatia of Alexandria [c. 370–c. 415] was martyred by being torn to shreds by a Christian mob, partly because she did not adhere to strict Christian principles. She considered herself a neo-Platonist, a pagan, and a follower of Pythagorean ideas. Interestingly, Hypatia is the first woman mathematician in the history of humanity of whom we […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Plus Ca Change...
Thoreau on Credulity
It is remarkable how long men will believe in the bottomlessness of a pond without taking the trouble to sound it. –Henry David Thoreau, Walden [Among his many professions Thoreau could claim surveyor. Early in 1846, while he was living at Walden Pond, he surveyed it thoroughly, including measuring its depth. He related that he […]
In: All, Books, Common-Place Book, Plus Ca Change...
Stephen Fry on the Catholic Church
In some sort of debating context, Stephen Fry (noted actor, intellectual, atheist, and gay man — all of which I think of as very positive attributes) argues persuasively for about 12 minutes — 12 minutes that go by very quickly when his speaking is so electrifying — to support the proposition "that the Catholic Church […]
In: All, Faaabulosity, Plus Ca Change...
Moyers on Obama's Afghanistan Strategy
Sometimes I say I'm a Bill Moyers groupie, but I'm thinking that might not be quite accurate. "Groupie" suggests that I idolize Mr. Moyers and laud whatever comes out of his mouth because I am enamored of his celebrity. However, that's not really the case. I listen to Bill Moyers and hear a great deal […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Current Events, Plus Ca Change...
Morris on Schopenhauer on Winning Arguments
Errol Morris, the film maker who made one of my all-time, top-ten favorite films ("The Thin Blue Line"), writes a blog ("Zoom") for the New York Times. Recently he wrote a multi-part essay on lying ("Seven Lies about Lying"). In a post-essay essay ("More Lying") he discusses some ideas about truth and lies with his […]
In: All, Plus Ca Change..., The Art of Conversation
Health Care: "Reform" = "Universal"
I've been reading and listening to talk about health care "reform" recently. As you will realize, for those of us in the US right now that's not a surprise, since it's the one thing all politicians are talking about while they try to figure out how to do nothing about it. The discussion right now […]
In: All, Current Events, Plus Ca Change..., Splenetics
Tasing & Waterboarding
For at least a couple of years I've been reading, with increasing horror or disgust or something nasty like that, stories of police abusing their tasers. Too many people have been subjected to this twenty-first century style of police brutality, too many have died or been injured, too many have suffered outrageously while law-enforcement celebrates […]
In: All, Current Events, Plus Ca Change...
School-Bus Driver Assaults 10-Year-Old Passenger
I've been hearing bits about this story for a couple of days. Some things simply defy understanding. Here is a summary from the hometown newspaper: A Bourbonnais [Illinois] Elementary School District No. 53 bus driver was arrested Thursday [9 October 2008] for mob action after he allegedly taunted a 10-year-old student and encouraged others on […]
In: All, Current Events, Plus Ca Change...
LHC: Certainly / Bailout: Maybe
In the last few days I was reading someone, speaking of the recent "$700 Billion Wall Street Bailout"* who said "and we don't even know if it will work!" This put me in mind of the Large Hadron Collider, because that's the way my mind works and because I know the laws of physics work […]
In: All, Plus Ca Change..., Reflections
Byzantine Style in Commercial Art
The apse mosaic at the church of St. Paul's Outside the Walls, near Rome, Italy, is a gorgeous work of Byzantine style art. Here is a photograph Isaac took of the central figure of Christ, shown in a variant of his portrayal as "Christ Pantocrator". Near the Christ's right foot is a small, white thing […]
In: All, Music & Art, Plus Ca Change...
Watson on the Bridgewater Treatises
In today's reading from Peter Watson's Ideas (New York : HarperCollins, 2005), the discussion turned on the idea, dawning in the first half of the 19th century, of the Earth's great antiquity. Geology was in the earliest stages of understanding the formation of the Earth, fossils of animals not like those of the day were […]
Top 10: No Top 10
I've just realized that we must have started a new year, at least according to the Gregorian calendar that I and many others currently observe. I know this because of the left-out feeling I get from observing that I have yet to write a post of my Top-10 Anything for 2007. I have not taken […]
Dressing Like a Woman
It's just another resonance with my research. As I was reading about the lavender scare and intense, non-comprehending homophobia in the nineteen-fifties — and before and after — here in the US, I ran across plenty of mentions of laws making it illegal for one gender to wear clothing "generally regarded as appropriate for the […]
In: All, Faaabulosity, Plus Ca Change...
Homos & Other Perverts
I have more research notes, if you'll forgive me. These excerpts are from the report of a Senate subcommittee hearing in 1950; the short form of the title is "Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government".* It reported on the results of an investigative subcommittee hearing chaired by Senator Clyde Hoey (D-NC), an […]
In: All, Faaabulosity, Plus Ca Change...
Therapy or Torture?
While doing some research for a story that I'm writing, I came across this fascinating paragaph describing the use of the drug succinylchloride in "therapy" for "sex perverts", a category that included gay men and straight pedophiles — the latter generally being typically described as "homosexuals" in the first half of the twentieth century. Apparently […]
In: All, Plus Ca Change..., Reflections
No Lessons from Vietnam After All
I was reading something else when it hit me: there had been a rumor that the current president would be making a new, know-your-socks-off, back-in-the-saddle speech about his nice little war in Iraq — and evidently, that speech he gave early last week in which he said that his war in Iraq was, after careful […]
In: All, Current Events, Plus Ca Change...
Sometimes Higher Prices
Isaac and I made a brief visit to Wal*Mart yesterday, in search of something we hadn't been able to locate but were told they had. We went despite feeling that shopping at Wal*Mart is never really a peak shopping experience. As we shopped I thought about a number of the other shoppers, and thought about […]
In: All, Plus Ca Change..., Reflections
A Political Thriller
I've been thinking of writing a novel, a political thriller. The story goes something like this. There's this guy — not a terribly bright guy but easily managed — who comes from a rich, political family. Then there's this group of reactionaries, behind-the-scenes types who conspire to get the Guy elected president through a mixture […]
In: All, Current Events, Plus Ca Change...
Witches & Liberty
I've been enjoying reading Napoleon's Buttons (citation below), sort of the history of the world through the eyes of a couple of organic chemists. More later when I get to the book note. Anyway, what follows is a longish quotation that I found lots of resonance with for some reason — perhaps because it's US […]
In: All, Plus Ca Change..., Reflections