http://www.nature.com/nsu/020729/020729-2.html Curious coincidence? There seems to be a correlation between linguistic and biological diversity. 13:47
Archives
This month: 35 entries.
http://psychicpants.net/?p=archives/week_2002_07_21.phtml#000113 Marx & Spenser: cute. (Also: Groucho Marx and John Lennon, a 1995 postage stamp from The Republic of Abkhazia.) 09:57
http://www.gadfly.org/02-18-02/comm-fallingwater.html Gadfly was first a print magazine, then an on-line magazine; now it’s no longer a magazine at all. This story, from the archives, is about Frank Lloyd Wright and his “Fallingwater”—another good piece was Deeper Than Deep Throat, which is oddly absent from the archive. 17:15
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13638 Is this a warblogger’s straw man—a deliberately weak and easily refuted summary of an opponent’s argument? Ted Rall writes a particularly retarded critique of the “War on Terror.” 15:52
http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/?020729crbo_books Rethinking the US constitution—just how democratic is it? I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong for 12 per cent of the population to control 44 per cent of the senate (through residing in “small” states)—equality of representation was presumably offered to prospective states in an attempt to alleviate concerns that (once incorporated into the Union) their interests would be ignored and I don’t see why this was ever an especially bad deal for anyone.
(Hertzberg tells us Dahl thinks we should not venerate the founding fathers: “If we worshipped the framers a little less, we might respect ourselves a little more.” One of my favourite Emerson quotes is similar: “Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given; forgetful that that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote these books.”) 00:55
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?id=2069 Did Pius XII do enough for the Jews? ”Perhaps the reason why these charges against Pius XII are so infectious is that they are constructed in such a way that they cannot be disproved. They are what Karl Popper called an unfalsifiable proposition: however many public attacks on Nazism Pius XII did make, one can always say he should have made more. Moreover, the denunciations of Pius today, unlike his own ones of Nazism, are cost-free: unlike Pius’s decisions, on which the lives of millions depended, today’s attacks on him produce a nice pharisaical glow of moral superiority, not to mention extremely profitable book sales.” 00:23
http://old.saturn.org/summer2002/letter.php Jack Saturn applies for his old Pyra job. (More) 17:29
http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,53972,00.html Artists Andrew & Andrew: “For attention-seekers, they were quite reserved, almost shy. They wore the same preppy outfits: red polo shirts, linen pants and yellow sneakers. Their haircuts were cropped short. They drank the same vodka tonics and when they smoked, Andrew lit two cigarettes. Like twins, they finished each other’s sentences.” See their Baked Goods division. 00:47
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1111/1824_304/85882845/
print.jhtml Darius McCollum has an unhealthy fascination with
the NY subway system: over the past twenty years he has been
arrested nineteen times for various offences, including
impersonating subway workers. (From Harper’s;
long.) 12:29
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/22/nyregion/22GHAN.html Ghanians digitise environmental violation tickets written by the NYPD: “… they imagine that the city is sparkling clean. Why else would people be given tickets for not cleaning up after their dogs?” (Also a worthy pro globalisation datapoint.) 12:57
http://www.improvisation.ws/mb/showthread.php?threadid=4475 Nice journal: True Porn Clerk Stories. (Last Post) 16:19
http://www.snopes2.com/radiotv/tv/subway.htm Snopes’ Urban Legends Reference Page combine nice detective work with some good analysis of how and why legends spread. This page, dealing with the rumor that Subway’s pitchman Jared has died, notes that the various false reports of his demise cruelly attribute his 245 pound weight loss “to reasons other than successful dieting and willpower” and that “each of these explanations has a dark component that serves to erode his accomplishment.” (Recent Additions) 14:37
http://timblair.blogspot.com/2002_07_14_timblair_archive.html#79153303 On the Womera escapees: “So the guy lies about where he’s from and why he came here, his family arrive knowing they’ll be placed in detention, and his kids get mixed up with morons who use them for anti-government propaganda … and this is somehow our fault?”
I tend to agree with this, although I can see why people who don’t think asylum seekers should be locked up at all (including me) might be moved by this case—though of course this doesn’t change their legal or moral position (compared to that of two brothers who don’t escape, say).
(Compare the brothers’ story to that of two British PoWs, for example, who escape from a prison camp in WWII and who almost make it back home—you feel for them (and want to hear their story) even as you concede that they were acting illegally in trying to escape, and their captors justified in punishing them.) 14:33
http://www.theonion.com/onion3825/anti-spam_legislation.html “Anti-Spam Legislation Opposed By Powerful Penis-Enlargement Lobby” 11:31
http://slate.msn.com/?id=2068049 Frenchman writes wildly popular 62-page pamphlet, Cowardice of Air France, gets canned by reviewer: “Because Lindon, in this context at least, is a repellent human being—no more worthy of respect than the lemmings of Air France.” 13:20
http://www.sorabji.com/2002/july/16/ Photo: the Mighty Og. 12:26
http://blog.meetup.com/?localeId=861 International Blog MEETUP Day. I don’t know about this. Melbourne bloggers to meet at Starbucks? Huh? (Compare: LA.) 17:04
http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/af/spotlights/starwars/ Entertaining: Star Wars fan films. Troops won the pioneer award. 13:44
http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/?020715crbo_books1 Review of Joseph Stiglitz’s Globalization and Its Discontents. Stiglitz is an ex-chief economic adviser of the World Bank and a Nobel laureate; his book questions the IMF’s policy of urging greater financial and capital liberalisation upon the countries it deigns to help.
(I find this issue interesting also because the anti-globalisation crowd seem to group the World Bank and the IMF together—here a former World Bank official attacks the IMF in their language. Slate: IMF and World Bank: What’s the Difference?) 10:50
http://www.somethingawful.com/article.php?id=354-2 ”Japanese” movie posters. (Introduction) 12:38
http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?020715fa_fact Pleasant Nick Hornby summary of the World Cup goings-on. He tries to argue that some of the footballers view the World Cup as “an unattractive alternative to a well-earned beach holiday”—I don’t agree. I actually find it cheering that very rich footballers care so much about the World Cup (for which they are not paid at all): they really want to play, they really want to play well, and they really want to win. So it’s about sport, it’s not about money. I suppose this is the way one has to be, if one is to be a great at (any) sport. 14:37
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/07/08/1025667115356.html (My) Vice-Chancellor David Robinson is in plagiarism trouble. (The Vice-Chancellor is equivalent to President.)
(Update: the V-C is to leave! I didn’t think this would happen. He is widely hated though. Last night the English department, at least, was celebrating with champagne.) 11:08
http://tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=express;s=ackerman070802 On that Palestinian toddler dressed as a suicide bomber—what does it mean? 11:02
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/ac20020329.shtml (Going back a few months—I passed up on linking to this when it happened for some reason.) Ann Coulter on Halle Berry’s winning of the Oscar. I particularly appreciate the whining about how Berry is only half black, and the marvelling at how Berry can feel such kinship with black folk when “her white mother … was beaten and abandoned by her black father.” 16:34
http://tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020701;s=peck070102 Reviewer Dale Peck is deeply unhappy with Rick Moody: ”Rick Moody is the worst writer of his generation.” (First sentence, first paragraph). Thrillingly inflammatory! 14:19
http://tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=classic;s=wilson070522 1922 review of Ulysses: “Not content with inventing new idioms to reproduce the minds of his characters, Mr. Joyce has hit upon the idea of pressing literary parody into service to create certain kinds of impressions. It is not so bad when in order to convey the atmosphere of a newspaper office he merely breaks up his chapter with newspaper heads, but when he insists upon describing a drinking party in an interminable series of imitations which progresses through English prose from the style of the Anglo-Soxon chronicles to that of Carlyle one begins to feel uncomfortable.” 13:24
http://www.tonypierce.com/2002/7/7sumervaca/8.htm Running with the bulls at Pamplona. (Click through.) 10:30
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/03/dining/03SECR.html NY’s top chefs sometimes use pedestrian ingredients in their dishes: “One day at Atlas, which closed this week, David Coleman, the chef, and two of his cooks were putting together an order of arctic char. One cook poached the char in goose fat. Mr. Coleman gently folded together micro-sorrel, fennel seed, shallots, cacao nibs and lemon zest to make a delicate topping for the char. Meanwhile, the third cook prepared the foundation of the dish: Quaker instant grits, stirred over heat with milk, shallots and mascarpone cheese.” 17:22
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0205/30/ltm.01.html Chomsky describes the US as “the greatest country in the world”:
BENNETT: … why do you choose to live in this terrorist nation, Mr. Chomsky?
CHOMSKY: I choose to live in what I think is the greatest country in the world, which is committing horrendous terrorist acts and should stop.
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?020708ta_talk_green The Hot-or-Not guys rate women: “ ’Oh my God—these women are all tens,’ James said, looking around the cavernous space. ‘Or at least a disproportionate number of them.’ ” 14:48
http://www.salon.com/ent/masterpiece/2002/07/01/joy/print.html The Joy of Cooking: “Its breadth and pleasantness are unsurpassed. There is no better first cookbook, and it’s a trusted companion even for amateur chefs who’ve been cooking for decades.” I think mine contains instructions for making coffee. 14:51
http://www6.sbs.com.au/home/teams.php3?id=20803 Turkish coach practises diplomacy, comments on the Rivaldo incident: “We know that players can make mistakes on the field during the game, and they can also make some mistakes regarding fair play.” 13:01
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/reference/csalist/csalist.htm The Army Chief of Staff’s reading list. Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War: “The story of the Peloponnesian War has many lessons that continue to be valid today: the destructive ‘imperialization’ of an all-powerful democratic state, the arrogance of great power politics, the lure of conquest even when reason dictates otherwise, the cult of personality in a military at war (Pericles and Alcibiades), and the always delicate balance of power between the military and the political structures of a state.” 14:16
http://www.satirewire.com/news/june02/worldcom.shtml ”… the U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that corporate earnings statements should be protected as works of art, as they ‘create something from nothing.’ ” 14:12