Archive for the ‘Common-Place Book’ Category
Moyers on America
I finally found time to read Bill Moyers' latest speech, the one he gave recently here in DC to close the "Take Back America Conference". As one has come to expect, the entire speech is alarming in content and inspiring in expression. This is a tiny excerpt — how to choose only three paragraphs from […]
Not To Be Thrown Away
Without further comment, a very short excerpt from a remarkable essay about being American, and why we might might question whether those who loudly claim their greater love of country are really to be believed. Right after the Abu Ghraib photos surfaced, but before I had had time to truly assimilate them, I was at […]
Heroic Tapirs
Jesus' General is alarmed ("Death rides a two-toned tapir") about creeping, godless secularism in the public schools of Utah, and wonders whether Utah State-Senator Buttars is going far enough to stem the tide: I was very angry when I first heard that you are introducing a bill to mandate the teaching of divine design in […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Splenetics
Cut in Pay
On average, jobs leaving America pay $22,457 more than the jobs being created. Tell that to your kid. [Andy Stern, "A Dreary Day at GM", The Huffington Post, 9 June 2005.]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
"The Battle Against the Truth"
Are we doomed to repeat history? By May of 1973, the White House coverup was unravelling, and the stalking of Richard Nixon by the wider press corps had begun. Woodward and Bernstein had been more than vindicated. The Nixon Administration, mired in a losing war in Vietnam, was also losing the battle against the truth […]
Hot-Headed, Zealous Atheists
I was fascinated by this chronological sequence of quotations from a piece by Don Herzog, "blast from the past (one)" (at Left2Right). Although some of the passionate distrust of atheists like myself has apparently dissipated in the last 200 years (despite the current attempts at a resurgence), hence some of the excitement, I do feel […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, The Art of Conversation
Post-Modern Disassembly
At a press conference on Tuesday, President Bush, speaking about detainees who had complained of being abused, said they were "people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble – that means not tell the truth." Mr. Bush meant, of course, to say dissemble, which really means to deliberately mislead or conceal. Nevertheless, he […]
Drive that F-Rod!
Thank GOD that the American Family Association has finally boycotted Ford for being "the company which has done the most to affirm and promote the homosexual lifestyle"! I KNEW that Taurus I bought always seemed a little swishy going over potholes. Did you know that if you rearrange the letters in Ford, they spell "F-Rod"? […]
Our Evaporating Army
Most reporting has focused on the problems of recruiting, which has fallen far short of goals over the past few months. Serious as it is, however, the recruiting shortfall could be only a temporary problem. If and when we get out of Iraq – I know, a big if and a big when – it […]
Whither the Indictments?
Fed up with statements by reactionary partisans who keep managing to, um, transcend obvious truth, David Brin offered up a short list of issues, of which this was one: Rush [Limbaugh] promised us indictments. Hunneds. Tousens. Milliuns of indictments, as soon as "honest men take over the filing cabinets" in DC. It would be an […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Splenetics
A Private Mandate
Now pro-pre life flaks roam the land; insisting that “taxpayer dollars" not be spent on “false hope”, but on missile shields and drug wars. While the President interprets back to back electoral majorities from the Supreme Court and Diebold as a mandate to define science and reason.[*] [Jerry and Joe Long, "Caesar and Stem Cells", […]
The Blessed Blastocyst
It makes one wonder when miscarriage and menstruation will become manslaughter, too (although it does bolster my argument that married straight couples who fail to produce at least one child every 9 months sin much more, and far more frequently, than any male-male couple ever could): Nature is full of waste. Of all the fertilized […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Splenetics
What Members?
The Chicago Sun-Times report includes the comment from DeLay that made me choke on my coffee this morning when I heard it on NPR: Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) said the embryonic research bill would force taxpayers to finance "the dismemberment of living, distinct human beings." "Dismemberment"? In order to dismember something, doesn't it have […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Weak Fathers
Dobson prefers his electorate nauseated by the noxious fumes of the windbag. He's opined that homosexuality results from a weak father figure–who knew Dick Cheney was such a softy?–and that, if caught early, can be "cured." Dobson also endorses corporal punishment for children. "By learning to yield to the loving authority … of his parents," […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Science & Mystery
Science feeds on mystery. As my colleague Matt Ridley has put it: “Most scientists are bored by what they have already discovered. It is ignorance that drives them on.” Science mines ignorance. Mystery — that which we don’t yet know; that which we don’t yet understand — is the mother lode that scientists seek out. […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Speaking of Science
The Unimaginable Future
Science and the wondrous inventions and perils knowledge and creativity produce blaze around us with such profligacy that I sometimes just don’t notice. I forget how staggeringly lucky I am to live in this miraculous age – at this moment in history. I perhaps forget to laugh at the sheer dumbass irony of the fact […]
To Scratch Naturally
Even more radically [referring to his athieism], [Jeremy] Bentham condemned laws against same-sex relations, commenting, "It is wonderful that nobody has ever yet fancied it to be sinful to scratch where it itches, and that it has never been determined that the only natural way of scratching is with such or such a finger and […]
Bill Moyers on … Important Stuff
Indulge me: this is Bill Moyers. We’re seeing unfold a contemporary example of the age old ambition of power and ideology to squelch and punish journalists who tell the stories that make princes and priests uncomfortable. […] Let me assure you that I take in stride attacks by the radical right-wingers who have not given […]
Behold the Beech
We visited with friends last night, the sorts of friends with whom one has challenging factual discussion that often require the use of reference books, either to settle some contention or to illustrate some interesting if arcane bit of knowledge. Our discussion turned at one point to trees, and they produced a fascinating volume: The […]
In: All, Books, Common-Place Book
Go Beavers!
My favorite moment in sci vs. fi history was when the JPL [Jet Propulsion Laboratory, operated by Caltech] launched the Cassini space probe of [sic*] Saturn in 1997. Soon after, the JPL phone rang; attorneys for clothes designer Oleg Cassini were demanding to know how JPL had the effrontery to name a space probe after […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Speaking of Science