by Brooks Riley
The US and North Korea: Posturing v pragmatism
by Emrys Westacott
On September 19, Donald Trump spoke before the UN general assembly. Addressing the issue of North Korea's nuclear weapons program, he said that the US "if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, . . . will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea." And of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, he said, "Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and his regime."
There is nothing new about the US president affirming a commitment to defend itself and its allies. What is noteworthy about Trump's remarks is his cavalier talk of totally destroying another country, which implicitly suggests the use of nuclear weapons, and his deliberately insulting–as opposed to just criticizing–Kim Jong-un. He seems to enjoy getting down in the gutter with the North Korean leader, who responded in kind by calling Trump a "frightened dog," and a "mentally deranged dotard." Critics have noted that Trump's language is closer to what one expects of a strutting schoolyard bully than a national leader addressing an august assembly. And one could ask interesting questions about the psychological make-up of both men that leads them to speak the way they do. From a moral and political point of view, though, the only really important question regarding Trump's behavior is whether or not it is sensible. Is it a good idea to threaten and insult Kim Jong-un.
As a general rule, the best way to evaluate any action, including a speech act, is pragmatically: that is, by its likely effects. This is not always easy. Our predictions about the effects of an action are rarely certain, and they are often wrong. Moreover, even if we agree that one should think pragmatically, most of us find it hard to stick to this resolve. How many parents have nagged their teenage kids even though they know that such nagging will probably be counterproductive? How many of us have gone ahead and made an unnecessary critical comment to a partner that we know is likely to spark an unpleasant and unproductive row? And if one happens to be an ignorant, impulsive, narcissist, the self-restraint required in acting pragmatically is probably out of reach. Which is worrying when one considers how high the stakes are in the verbal cock fight between Trump and Jong-un.
STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH EU? “CENTRISM” IN THE UK AND BEYOND
When the writer Paul Mason was booked to appear at the annual conference of Progress earlier this year, he was more or less assured a rough reception. Progress, after all, is a Blairite "ginger group" within the British Labour Party – formed in 1996, one year before their boy won power – and Mason the quasi-Marxist author of the excellent Postcapitalism and a strong supporter of Jeremy Corbyn. But I doubt he was prepared for just how bitter and self-pitying the right wing of the party has become since Corbyn set about transforming Labour into a genuinely social democratic movement with broad appeal amongst the young and the poor. Referring to anti-Blairite tweets Mason had sent in the wake of the May election, one audience member complained how "intimidated" she now felt at Labour Party meetings. Another demanded Mason apologise. (He didn't.) But things got really interesting when the panel chair suggested that Mason had "entered the Labour Party behind Jeremy Corbyn" – a not-so-veiled reference to the Trotskyist tactic of "entryism" whereby radical groups affix themselves to larger mainstream organisations in order to influence policy. Mason reminded the assembled comrades that he'd joined the Labour Party at nineteen years of age, and that his grandfather was of the generation who'd founded the party in 1900. He then invited the Progress faithful to consider whether they wanted to remain in Corbyn's Labour Party at all. As he put it, to boos and jeers from the floor:
In case you're misunderstanding me, just listen. If you want a centrist party, this is not going to be it for the next ten years. If it's really important to you to have a pro-Remain party that is in favour of illegal war, in favour of privatisation, form your own party and get on with it!
There weren't many takers for that last proposition, and to an outsider Mason's peroration might sound like a triumphalist taunt. But the notion that a new party could emerge in the wake of the Brexit referendum is not entirely fanciful. Inspired by the example of Emmanuel Macron, Tony Blair himself has established an entity called the Institute for Global Change, a "policy platform" that aims to refill "the wide-open space in the middle of politics", while Paddy Ashdown, one-time leader of the centrist Liberal Democrats, has helped establish More United, a "political start-up" that raises funds for politicians of a centrist, pro-EU persuasion, regardless of party affiliation. Furthermore, in August, former Tory aide and political editor of the Daily Mail, James Chapman, suggested that a number of Conservative MPs had responded warmly to his idea for a new centrist party called The Democrats. "They are not saying they are going to quit their parties," Chapman told the BBC; "but they are saying they understand that there is an enormous gap in the centre now of British politics."
Monday, September 18, 2017
In the Lumber-Room of My Library
by Michael Liss
A friend asked me that question recently, and I almost found myself stumped.
Reading isn't skimming. It's not staring at a screen, spasmodically flipping back and forth between the New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, Barron's, electoral-vote.com, Foreign Policy, NRO and anything else to which Twitter would lead. It's certainly not dipping myself into the digital inkwell of the Comments section, finding something to be outraged about, and letting it fly. That's not even writing, much less reading for content.
So, what was I reading? Books. I need books, something to stimulate my brain instead of my adrenals. I could, as I have done countless times, head to Strand and wander up and down the aisles looking for things that might pique my interest. There's always something at Strand. Fiction, non-fiction, history, science, art, architecture and music, tomes on various topics. I am a serious tome fan, and Strand is the place where you can amuse yourself just by scanning the blurbs. "Professor Throckmanshire has produced the definitive work on mid-18th Century Cornish snuffboxes." If that doesn't appeal….
Yet, I have enough books. I know, you can never have enough, but I live in a Manhattan apartment, and, short of tethering rucksacks of them to the outside of the windows (a practice frowned upon by both the City and the co-op board) there isn't a lot of space. The bedrooms are filled with them, the living room stuffed. They are piled up on surfaces and double-deep in built-ins. Of course, a few more wouldn't hurt, but a few more are always arriving—gifts from family and friends, odds and ends on which I couldn't resist spending the kids' tuition money. And the dirty secret was I hadn't read them all yet. I'd been too busy feeding my political obsessions. I didn't need to go to Strand—there was plenty to harvest here at home. Clearly, it wasn't the quantity of books; I was falling down on the reading of them.
There was my problem, and my solution. So, I made my way through the vast expanse of my palatial residence looking for ideas—different ones than those that had distracted me for the last year. I started in my daughter's room. Plenty of options, not all entirely interesting to a man of my years. Some were clearly a no. Books on classical music…possible, but perhaps a little esoteric. The contents of my son's room just didn't inspire. Our bedroom…eh, and there was the omnipresent risk of raising dust if I probed too deeply. The living room held the treasures, if I could just get through the piles and obstructions, the vintage speakers, and, occasionally, the plants.
There's a strange feeling when you do this, going from volume to volume, topic to topic. It's almost like reliving past relationships. This love-interest lasted about three months. This one, somewhat longer, but didn't she dump you because you never understood her, or was it that she didn't understand you? Here's a passion that never quite left, and these few…what exactly was I thinking when I made the time and the space?
Take my camel, dear…..
by Leanne Ogasawara
So, when the time came and I found myself back in Los Angeles, I started thinking about–and really started heavy-duty dreaming about– joining one. And not just any bookclub, but I was imagining a kind of glittering evening gathering, which could take place in various refined rooms filled with books and art. And obviously, there had to be alcohol. And definitely my bookclub needed men. Part of my fantasy involved a blurring of bookclub, cocktail party and supper club. I had visions of Turin-style appertivo; discussing Nietzsche over our campari; or a dinner inspired by the gourmand extraordinaire, Detective Mantalbano–featuring my famous caponata (in my fantasy, my caponata is legendary).
My longings finally reached a crisis point last November when I read a really charming post at aNewscafe about a ladies' monthly bookclub in Northern California. The post was about the bookclub's most recent read: A Gentleman in Moscow, about which I was also reading and imagining a dinner party of my own. In my fantasies, I would have prepared a lavish dinner beginning with (of course) champagne and blini and then moving on to the mouth-wateringly-described Latvian stew with Georgian wine of the novel. The author of the blog post, Hollyn Chase, seemed to have it all–a gorgeous dining room filled with books, a fabulous menu plan and best of all, great friends.
Yes, I’m Defending the Millennials, Goddammit
Generational analysis, when done poorly, is half-a-notch above astrology: All the people born at this time are like this!
Of course there's plenty of good generational research and analysis by demographers and other social scientists. However, most people don't delve into that stuff. Most people simply absorb generational analysis from popular culture. That's unfortunate, because you can often get more penetrating insights from a Chinese restaurant paper place mat.
Worse yet, a lot of pop culture generational analysis is passively racist and classist. You know who we're really talking about when we say “Baby Boomers,” right? It's hardly every American born between 1946-1964. Black people? Latinos? Most immigrants? The deeply impoverished? Pushaw. For the most part, we're just talking about the white MCAU (middle class and up), and whoever can pass through their circles. And we're not even talking about them smartly. By and large, we just rehash dumb stereotypes. This generation sacrificed. That generation navel gazed. Bla bla bla.
For example, when I Googled “Baby Boomers are,” the auto complete came up:
selfish
the biggest
entitled
When I Googled “Millennials are,” the auto complete came up:
lazy
the worst
screwed
Indeed, pop culture generational analysis is often so shallow, haphazard, and/or commercialized, that it typically only blathers about every other generation. There's an accordion discourse, which fixates on alternating generations (Greatest, Boomers, Millennials) while largely ignoring the generations between them (Silent, X, Z). As a result, Baby Boomers dominated popular discourse for a long time.
However, Baby Boomers have recently been knocked off their demographic perch. There are now more Millennials than boomers in the U.S. population, and these relative youngens are increasingly the subject of America's generational fascination. As such, they catch a lot of flak, much of it head smackingly stupid. I recently came across a stunning example of this vapid chatter while drinking a blueberry beer in a Lake Placid tavern.
Yes, that Lake Placid, two-time Winter Olympic town and scene of the 1980 Miracle on Ice. And yes, blueberry beer. It was actually quite good, thank you very much, Judgy McJudgerson.
CATSPEAK
by Brooks Riley
A brief tribute to Matt Shoemaker
by Dave Maier
Clicking, we do find another reference to our ballplayer (referring to his “walk up music,” which is typically played over the PA as a batter approaches the plate to bat, although in this case since our man is a pitcher and plays in the AL, that probably hasn’t happened all year). But we also find several references to another person entirely. One of them reports the sad news that this person, an accomplished sound artist with many releases to his name, recently passed away at a tragically young age.
Donald Trump is no Leroy Jethro Gibbs
The Trump campaign is known to have targeted NCIS viewers. Why? What appeal would a show like NCIS have for Trump voters?
The honor to serve
Let’s look at a scene from an episode in season seven, which started airing in 2009. The episode is called “One Shot, One Kill”. It opens in a video game arcade where some teen-aged boys are blown away by the skill of Marine Corps sergeant. We cut to a recruiting office where the sergeant is giving the boys the hard sell about hitching up. He’s talking about Iraq: “Been in the corps 16 years. Closest I’ve ever come to a bullet is…” Shatter! Wham! Splatt! He’s shot. Slumps over on the desk.
Gibbs and his team are called in to investigate. In the course of their investigation the recruiter who replaces the first one is also shot. In both cases, sitting at the desk, shot from long distance, through the window. Sniper.
Gibbs decides he’s got to go under cover. He’ll pretend to be a Marine recruiter, which will be easy form him as he had once been a Marine. To protect Gibbs bullet-proof glass is placed in the window and he wears a bullet-proof vest. Three microphones are placed outside so that, when the shooter fires, their Forensic Specialist, Abby Sciuto, can pick up the sound and use it to triangulate the shooter’s location. We then scoot over there and make the arrest.
We’re in the recruiting office, Gibbs looking sharp in his old Marine uniform. One of his Senior Agents, Kate Todd, is in uniform as a captain. She’s there to profile potential recruits as they visit they office. The major who heads the recruiting unit wants to stay; after all, he’s lost two men to this sniper. Gibbs objects. The major insists.
Monday, September 11, 2017
Moral Tragedy?
by Scott F. Aikin and Robert B. Talisse
Aristotle's insight seems undeniable, but nearly vacuous. To identify happiness as the ultimate aim of human action is simply to assert that we tend to do what we think will bring us happiness. It is to say that when we act, we act ultimately for the sake of what we take to be happiness. As appearances can be deceiving, all of the deep questions remain.
Perhaps this is why Aristotle affirmed also that happiness is the culmination of all of the good things a human life could manifest. He declared that the truly happy person not only derives great enjoyment from living, but also is morally and cognitively flawless. In fact, Aristotle goes so far as to affirm that the happy person necessarily has friends, good looks, health, and wealth. And, as if these advantages were not enough, he holds further that the happy person is invulnerable even to misfortune and bad luck. According to Aristotle, then, happiness is not simply that for the sake of which we act; it is also that which renders a human life complete, lacking nothing that could improve it. It is no wonder that Aristotle also thought that happiness is rare.
Few today subscribe to the view that complete success in every evaluative dimension is necessary for happiness. Surely a person could be happy but not especially beautiful or wealthy. It is important to note, however, that those who affirm this more modest view often take their insight to show that things like wealth and beauty are not really the incontrovertible goods that they often appear to be. That is, the claim that one might be happy in the absence of wealth and good looks is most often accompanied by the rider that these latter attributes are not especially valuable after all. Consequently, the core of Aristotle's second claim is retained, albeit in a moderated form: the happy life manifests not every good that a human life could realize, but all of the really important goods that a human life could realize.
Monday Poem
Antony
—I imagine you still playing
You said to me,
unclejim teach me guitar,
and what little I knew I did
You took it and flew, a musical id,
and the places you flew, the music that slid
from fingers to strings was by god a grace bridge,
the kind walked on in skies where geese are
where love and you are
where god's hid
and all
is
.
Jim Culleny
9/7/17
Parade of Images
by Daniel Ranard
how do you know the moon
is moving: see the dry
casting of the beach worm
dissolve at the
delicate rising touch:
–A.R. Ammons, in Expressions of Sea Level
During the August eclipse, I overheard a funny bit of philosophy. I'll tell it verbatim, I swear. Tree branches had enclosed a stretch of path in Central Park, where sunlight fell through small openings in the leaves. The light cast hundreds of crescent suns along the asphalt: pinhole images, a natural camera obscura. Beside me, a mother and two children stared at the ground, confused, starting to understand. The father ushered them onward. "It's just a representation of the eclipse we tried to see earlier," he said, and they left.
You probably sympathize with the man. Today it's all images, images; and what about the real thing? So I've compiled a helpful list of ways (for next time) to encounter the eclipse as it truly is.
Wines of Anger and Joy (Part 2)
by Dwight Furrow
Last month I argued that it's perfectly intelligible to conceive of wine as expressive. Wine expresses the geography and climate of a region or vineyard, the vintage characteristics, and the winemaker's idea of those. More importantly, wine can sometimes express the winemaker's feelings about wine, especially the inspirational experiences that explain their love of wine that they wish to communicate to their patrons. But the aforementioned wine language suggests a broader notion of expression, one in which wine, perhaps like art, can express fundamental features of human experience.
In aesthetics, this question of how art can express feelings has typically been pursued using music as the prime example, because there is a broad consensus that music is deeply connected to human emotion. In trying to answer this question about wine, it makes sense to use these resources developed in the debate about music. So bear with me as I go on about music and the emotions for a bit; wine will get its due towards the end of the essay.
CATSPEAK
by Brooks Riley
Lying Quotes
by Gerald Dworkin
In three previous columns I have discussed the ethics of lying. I am still working on this topic and, in the course of doing so, have accumulated some interesting remarks. Here is a sample:
Some topics–is it decaf?–require absolute honesty. With others–military secrets, some non-contagious diseases–some legitimate exceptions may be allowed.
—Michael Kinsley
Real love amounts to withholding the truth, even when you’re offered the perfect opportunity to hurt someone’s feelings
—David Sedaris
Can’t come. Lie follows.
—Charles Beresford
Monday, September 4, 2017
Heisenberg on Helgoland
by Ashutosh Jogalekar
The sun was setting on a cloudless sky, the gulls screeching in the distance. The air was bracing and clear. Land rose from the blue ocean, a vague apparition on the horizon.
He breathed the elixir of pure evening air in and heaved a sigh of relief. This would help the godforsaken hay fever which had plagued him like a demon for the last four days. It had necessitated a trip away from the mainland to this tiny outcrop of flaming red rock out in the North Sea. Here he could be free not just of the hay fever but of his mentor, Niels Bohr. Perched on the rock, he looked out into the blue expanse.
For the last several months, Bohr had followed him like a shadow, an affliction that seemed almost as bad as the hay fever. It had all started about a year earlier, but really, it started when he was a child. His father, an erudite scholar but unsparing disciplinarian, made his brother and him compete mercilessly with each other. Even now he was not on the best terms with his brother, but the cutthroat competition produced at least one happy outcome: a passion for mathematics and physics that continued to provide him with intense pleasure.
He remembered those war torn years when Germany seemed to be on the brink of collapse, when one revolution after another threatened to tear apart the fabric of society. Physics was the one refuge. It sustained him then, and it promised to sustain him now.
If only he could understand what Bohr wanted. Bohr was not his first mentor. That place of pride belonged to Arnold Sommerfeld in Munich. Sommerfeld, the man with the impeccably waxed mustache who his friend Pauli called a Hussar officer. Sommerfeld, who would immerse his students not only in the latest physics but in his own home, where discussions went on late into the night. Discussions in which physics, politics and philosophy co-existed. His own father was often distant; Sommerfeld was the father figure in his life. It was also in Sommerfeld’s classes that he met his first real friend – Wolfgang Pauli. Pauli was still having trouble attending classes in the morning when there were all those clubs and parties to frequent at night. He always enjoyed long discussions with Pauli, the ones during which his friend often complimented him by telling him he was not completely stupid. It was Pauli who had steered him away from relativity and toward the most exciting new field in physics – quantum theory.
Monday Poem
Earthy
.
Religious scripts:
Vedas, Gospels, Surahs,
Qurans, Hadiths, Bibles, Torahs
are tools like any others
which may be used to trip or lift
Not divine in this, but practical as axes,
shovels, guns and drones or verbal tricks
and as earthy as earth's flora and its fauna
.
Jim Culleny
11/6/16
Worms are the perfect pets: 7 reasons why everyone should have a wormery
by Emrys Westacott
Here are seven reasons for keeping worms.
1. Worms are dirt cheap. You don't have to buy them kibble or tinned food or overpriced little liver treats. They don't need shots, collars, leashes, or toys. You never need to take them to the vet, or to the groomer. You don't have to board them when you're away, or hire a pet sitter, or a dog walker. A wormery can involve a one-off outlay of around $80 (less if it's used), or you can make one yourself for virtually nothing.
2. Worms are very clean. They stay in their wormery. They require no house training. From day one, they only poop where they are supposed to. They never throw up on the carpet. They don't roll in deer carcasses, get themselves sprayed by skunks, or bring dead birds into the house.
We Are All Immigrants
by Carol A Westbrook
On Labor Day we honor the contributions of the hard-working people who helped build our nation. Many of them were immigrants who fled war, religious persecution, and poverty, who gave up their own countries to become Americans. This cycle of immigration and assimilation has been repeated since the founding of our nation, and arguably it is one of the most defining aspects of being American. Most of us have immigrant roots.
An elderly Lithuanian woman told me the story of how she moved to America at the end of World War II. Like many Europeans, her family had been displaced due to changing boundaries and Soviet annexation after the war. Though she was only five years old, she remembers this as one of the most fun and exciting times of her life. Her family was housed in a German castle for months with other Lithuanians, where there set up a church and a school; there were lots of other children to play with, and they looked forward to going to America! They had so much fun! I'm sure it was anything but fun for her parents. They had lost their homeland, and the Russians forced them to move. Theirs was an uncertain future, confined to an immigration camp and waiting for resettlement in any country that would take them in.
I nodded in understanding and sympathy.
"Like the Syrians," I said.
"No No NO, " she exclaimed, with a horrified look on her face. "We were not like the Syrians!" She explained that she was, after all, a Lithuanian, and is now an American. She insisted it's not the same!
But isn't it? Resettled World War II refugees like her faced hostility and resistance in the US. They were insultingly called "DPs" (Displaced Persons), and ridiculed for their strange language, peasant clothes, and unpronounceable names. Yet today, they are as American as anyone else. As a matter of fact, almost all of us have immigrant roots — even the founding fathers.
Today's Middle Eastern, Latin and South American immigrants are refugees from war and oppressive governments, or fleeing soul-destroying poverty. We fear their strange customs and clothing, their alien religions, and the threat of terrorism. Yet it's not much different today than it was in the past.
CATSPEAK
by Brooks Riley
