In Outlook India, will Brahmins lose their near-monopoly on the clergy in Hinduism?

The thorn in social revolutionary Periyar E.V. Ramasamy’s heart has been removed, claims Tamil Nadu chief minister M. Karunanidhi. On May 23, the Tamil Development, Culture and Religious Endowments department issued Government Order (GO) No. 118 by declaring that “Hindus belonging to all castes possessing suitable qualifications and training will be appointed as priests to Hindu temples”. This was in pursuance of a 2002 Supreme Court judgement upholding the appointment of a non-Brahmin as a priest in Kerala. Though political observers see it as a symbolic gesture, the move, if translated into action, could have important repercussions for the practice of Hinduism where priesthood has traditionally been a Brahmin preserve.

Via Critical Inquiry, a lecture by Fredric Jameson on “What’s Left of Theory?” It’s from a few years ago, but still interesting.

(Hat tip: Maeve Adams)

From Lens Culture:

Isabel Muñoz has always used her camera to move in close to her subjects — closer than we would permit ourselves. She’s done this so well with sensuous dancers in her series on the rituals of the Tango, Flamenco and traditional Oriental dance. She has captured exquisite “fragments” of the acts of intimacy and seduction with striking interplays of bodies, limbs, shadow and light.

In her most recent work, shown here, she has challenged herself even more by venturing into southern Ethiopia to photograph 21st century Surma, Nyangatom, Bodi, and Topossa tribal members. Some of the warriors, like the first one shown at right, kill their neighboring tribesmen as a matter of pride.

Working with a portable photo studio (three cameras, backdrops, generators and lights), Muñoz gets in close again, with striking photographs that are rich with details: the leather-like textures of skin, drips of sweat, patterns of scarification, piercing, mud and body paint, and elaborate decorative body art. But these are not intimate portraits. Her subjects stare directly into the camera with mask-like faces, fierce dignity and palpable distrust in their eyes. The effect is especially unnerving because the photographs and the people are so pristinely beautiful.

More here.

From Nature:

Robots are one step closer to having a human sense of touch, thanks to a thin, flexible film that mimics the sensitivity of a human finger. The device may become useful in the next generation of robots and in automated tools used for microsurgery. Touch is one of the first senses that humans develop, but because of its complexity it has been one of the last to be tackled by robotics. Touch has to relay information about the surface of an object, and also the amount of pressure needed in order to grasp it.

Previous touch sensors have had big problems with rigidity and durability. When constructed out of hard materials such as silicon, they were not able to contour to the robotic ‘hand’, while the daily wear and tear of touching also tended to bend and scratch the delicate materials. Robots clearly need something “more like human skin,” says chemical engineer Ravi Saraf from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. “And we’re getting there.”

More here.

The following is the text of an email from my friend Alex Cooley:

Another four years, another marker that we are sadly obsessed footy fans emailing our mates about a tournament in Germany. BUT IT’S HERE!

This year has been extra tough, what with coming back from our European junketts and actually having to teach and talk to students for a whole academic year. I apologize for the late notice this time (the Germans kick off in just a few hours), but I’ve been finishing my book ms. and actually earning my cushy ivory tower pay check. Tomorrow I’m off to Berlin where I will be sharing a flat with the charmingly belligerent Mark Blyth and some friends – please, if you haven’t heard from me by July come and unplaster me from the floor of that seedy drinking hole in Friedrichshain.

As you may all remember or hopefully not since some of you actually have lives, Cooley had a great World Cup last time round..the French failed to score, the Argies had to bow to the boot of Beckham, and the Yanks swept into the last 8 while making our greatest rivals spend more time worrying about head-butting Cobi Jones rather than defending our counterattack. That, plus the comedy provided by Italian and Spanish fans looking at a sea of South Korean fans chanting “Korea is a great nation..” 9,875 times a game. Brazil won again and that was a bit of a downer, but don’t fear..its not going to happen gain!

So, if you haven’t done so already, its time to get out your charts, spreadsheets and predictions – look at the picks below, then go to the bookies in the time that’s left and put your money on..exactly the opposite teams..its guaranteed..

GROUP A Germany, Poland, Ecuador and Costa RIca

Manager Juergen Klinsman is causing quite a stir with his carefree lifestyle, “have a nice day” smile and laid back attitude. Apparently Franz Beckenbauer and other members of the German FA establishment don’t appreciate Juergen sunning himself and picking loads of players who don’t play for Bayern Munich. Well, they may not have the top 5 team on paper, but they will have the top player in the tournament (Michael Ballack) who will single-handedly take this team very, very deep.

Poland is a very tough 2nd tier team and may even push the hosts for the top slot. Don’t pick Ecuador – they only qualified because they take massive points at home because of their high altitude. Costa Rica, sad to say as a CONCACAF fan, is weaker than 4 years ago when they played pretty well. Germany and Poland go through in that order.

GROUP B England, T&T, Paraguay and Sweden

Ah, Sven’s men come to conquer all!..instapundits like myself are a bit confused this year because, for the first time since the Beatles, England really have a remarkably loaded team..yikes. There are world class players at every position, except perhaps right back and in goal – and Gary Neville is OK too I guess… This midfield is frightening, especially if they find a way to click and solve the destroyer player that they lack. I also don’t really understand why David Beckham takes so much stick when all this guy does every tournament is to serve up at least 4 deadball goals. Beckham, Lampard, Cole and Gerrard may not quite be Brazilian, but they’re clearly second best. If these guys don’t progress it really will be a national tragedy. BTW – 6-7 deputy striker Peter Crouch has to start and score so we can watch him do the 80s “robot” dance and all mimic it as Kraftwerk’s greatest hits blast in our Berlin bars.

Hmphh..the Swedes have been going on about how they’re dark horses to win it all – and Lagerback has been more than a tad patronizing about some Group teams. I’m frankly not that impressed not matter who they have up-front. I don’t think they’ll get past Paraguay who will expose them at the back. Be smart, take the South Americans to come in second.

T&T will be making up the numbers, but these guys will be jacked for the England game – it won’t make too much of a difference, although if they mail it in they might just affect the goal difference among the top three,

England needs the top spot to avoid losing to the hosts on penalties in the second round. They go thru first, Paraguay second.

In fact, England go on to reach the FINAL – but they don’t win it…

GROUP C Argentina, Holland, Ivory Coast, Serbia and Montenegro

The more I look at this group, the sicker it looks – yeah, the US got a bit screwed, but this is on a another level.

Argentina has 19 world class players on their team – unfortunately for them they can only play 11 at a time. The attacking talent is overwhelming and Riquelme will certainly provide the spark that was missing with Veron and Aimar in the playmaking role 4 years ago. Everyone talks about Messi, but Carlos Tevez is fearsome and may be the best flat out talent in the Cup. Given that they had to endure Beckham-induced national shame 4 years ago, I’m not as keen to root against them this time. But I also think that they lack the grit to stick out close games and can fold like a cheap chair, as they did in the Confeds Cup final last year (Brazil) and in their not-so-friendly against England in Geneva in November. I think they go through, but just.

Ah, the Dutch. I would love to them and finally see the Oranje win it all but I can’t (note: this should mean putting big money on them!). I really like how Van Basten has cleaned house and gone with the younger guys – but the flip side of that is that they simply may not have the experience and savvy to stop a tough as nails Serbian team and the Ivory Coast. Holland does not go through from this group and may even finished fourth. Unfortunately for us, this will leave many sobbing and angry Dutch fans clogging up the bars and the mini-pizza stands. Sorry Hendrik!.

The Ivory Coast is loaded, I mean really stacked – I’ve seen these guys play twice and they are overwhelming. Yes, Drogba’s the guy up front (23 goals in 34 national team) but defensively they’ve shut everyone down as well – its scary but Kolo Toure may just be, well, one of the best defenders around. I think they match up well against both the Dutch and Argentinean back lines. GO ELEPHANTS!!

Oh and the Serbs. All they did was win their group (which included Spain and loads of other rough Balkan teams) and hardly even gave up a goal. And yet, we have them coming in 4th – something has to give here.

This group is very, very tough – hats off to whoever gets it right – I’m going with Argentina and Ivory Coast in that order.

GROUP D Mexico, Portugal, Iran and Angola

For all you Euro-snobs, please keep in mind that Mexico consistently goes through to second rounds and they won Italy’s group last time around. As a US fan, I loathe Rafael Marquez, but if he keeps his cool he is a top of the line center back. Borgetti may be the best header of the ball in the tournament, next to Brian McHead of course. I love to watch coach Lavolpe puffing away on his cigs on the sideline, looking utterly bedraggled and making snide remarks, but he has them playing well – they deserve their seeding and will show it.

As a half Greek, since 2004 I’ve become a big Portugal fan. As England well know, Big Phil Scolare may be the best manager in the game – he’s beaten England in the last 2 major tournaments as coach of Brazil and Portugal. Unlike last time when the Portuguese seemed outraged that a bunch of 19 year old Americans were sprinting past them instead of asking for autographs from Mr. Figo, these guys should be ready this time. But, I just don’t see them ever living up to their hype and talent, not in a truly scrappy game.

Angola I’ve never seen, but apparently they play with a more “Portuguese-like flair” or at least that’s the colonial spin I’ve been reading in europapers. Iran is pretty good and may take a point off the Figman and co.

However, after all is said and done, this group goes to official form – 1. Mexico, 2. Portugal. President Ahmedinajad doesn’t get to come to Germany for the second round…bummer.

GROUP E Italy, USA, Czech Republic, Ghana

OK – let me grant all of you Euro-snobs that the #5 FIFA ranking for the USA is inflated; BUT the Czechs ranked as #2 is even more preposterous. yes, they are good – they have a lovely midfield..I think Rossicky will do really well for Arsenal and I like Nedved’s little flicks and haircut. And at 6-8 it doesn’t really matter whether Koller can kick a ball (and he can). I know these guys are the Euro darlings, but repeat after me the words of the Prophet Bruce Arena – ” “soccer is a young man’s game” – and, by extension, the World Cup is a young [person’s] tournament. Of course I would prefer to get the Czechs all banged up as our 3rd game – but these guys have peaked..we’re not scared.

I’m telling all of you neutrals – you have to watch the US-Czech game. This will be a no-holds barred up and down attack-fest. I think the US can stun them, especially if the Czechs go into this with just Galasek at defensive midfield.

One of the quirks of this US team is that they have an abundance of quality left-sided midfielders. Bobby Convey in particular is an outstanding slashing player with a footballing brain to boot – PSV’s Beasley has more name recognition, but his form has been off. Both of them can fly, as can Eddie Johnson the young forward. Eddie Lewis slots in as left back and can still put in his laser crosses on the occasional overlap. Besides Convey, look for the impact of Clint “Deuce” Dempsey (yes he’s Texan) patrolling the right side and Oguchi Onyewu (aka “Gooch”) who has been the best central defender in the Belgian league over the last 2 years. This guy is phenomenal – athletic, 6-4, 200 pounds – and is learning to read the game better all the time. He’ll handle Koller and Luca Toni just fine.

The Italy game also doesn’t scare me either – yes, the Italians are class, but they are going to be sweating this match big time as the prospect of dropping points to the Yanks looms over them. Totti, Pirlo, Camaronesi – YAWN…Bruce Arena thinks that Italy’s outside backs are vulnerable to our speedsters. I agree – the loss of the injured Gatusso at defensive midfield may be a massive blow for containing US counterattacks. I think this game has draw written all over it, maybe 1-1.

I’m scared of the Ghana game. They are quicker than us (maybe the only team in the tournament that is) and have unbelievable central midfielders in Essien and Appiah. Frankly, we have no one who can stop Essien, unless 5-6 right back Steve Cherundolo bites off his ankle. This has a bigtime loss written all over it.

So in the end, my prediction is: an unprecedented 4 points for every team! As a result, we will go to goal difference and then goals scored. By our high scoring game against the Czechs, the US will claim 1st place with 4 points and will be followed by the always-lucky-at-the group stage Italians, leaving your hero Czechs and the unlucky Ghanians sitting it out.

Of course, you should all feel free to send me your howling laughter via email on Monday after Nedved scores a hat trick and Petr Cech saves a Donavan penalty.

But this is my “final answer”!

1. USA
2. Italy

MAJOR UPDATE!!! So Nicole (the most wonderful woman in the world who I absolutely do not deserve) actually got me an early birthday present – a ticket to the Czech-US game on June 12th. I get to go and heckle “Carol” Paborsky in person! WooWeeeeeeeeeeeee

GROUP F: Brazil, Japan, Australia, Croatia

Ok, I’m sick of these guys..”the beautiful game” and all of these dumb Nike commercials showing a buck-toothed 10- year old Ronaldhino skipping about – even worse is that silly Eric Cantona radio-station hijacking ad in honor of these guys..I never thought I’d miss that Nike ship.

So Jim, Mark and I watched the blue and gold absolutely destroy Argentina last summer in Frankfurt. Adriano may well be the only footballer to play more like a cartoon than his actual Nintendo/Playstation character- TURN, BANG, SCORE…repeat. yes, these guys are loaded, yes they’ll win every game in the 1st round. No, I will never become a Brazil-jocker. Go ahead and get a shirt with “Kaka” on it, not for me, thanks. Repeat after me, “it’s a young man’s game.” Cafu and Roberto Carlos are in their mid-30s – that’s the weakness.

Speaking of our Down Under mates, everyone seems really up on the Aussies and their “competitive spirit”. Funny, if these guys were Uruguay they would be denounced as dirty cheats by the Europress; ah those lovable Aussies..KICK. But I think that the FIFA instructions to referees to clamp down on Aussie rules tackles and the use of lethal weapons may leave them rather exposed. I am NOT on the Waltzing Matilda bandwagon. Take Japan instead – they’re technical and quick and Zico is every bit the tactician as Hiddink. Croatia makes up the numbers this time.

1. Brazil
2. Japan

Brazil wins the group – but then falls to Italy in the 2nd round (or even the Czechs)!!!!!!!!!

GROUP G: France, Switzerland, South Korea, Togo

Everyone is talking about France as a sure lock for 1st. Why? Seriously, is Zidane going to take a miracle youth drug and once gain start covering some ground? The France-Togo game should determine 2nd, not Switzerland – ROK. The Swiss are very tight and confident – they have been playing great stuff and won a tough playoff against Turkey. I think they snag 1st place in the group and leave France in second.

1. Switzerland
2. France

GROUP H: Spain, Ukraine, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia

My dark horse in the tournament is Ukraine. I watched them play in Turkey where they just put on a counter-attacking clinic in Istanbul – 3-0. Its not just Shevchenko. They are tight at the back and plug spaces quickly. An East European-style team always progresses to the quarterfinals. Most people have the Czechs, but now you know now that you should pick Ukraine instead. Spain only gets second, but that actually takes some pressure off them in the knockout phase..oh and the Ukraine game against the Saudis gives Sheva the Golden Boot – ping, ping, ping, ping…

1. Ukraine
2. Spain

2nd ROUND MATCH-UPS

So, then, here’s how it will progress..

Germany X – hosts safely thru (2-0) in a repeat of 2002 last 16.
Paraguay

Argentina X Big Phil’s run of finals ends and we don’t have to see Luis Figo Portugal all sweaty and indignant at the end of games – hurray! (3-1)
–

England X – Tough match, but England win these 2nd rounders usually (2-1)
Poland

Ivory Coast X – This one’s the stunner. Viva los elephants!! (2-1)
Mexico

USA X – Arena’s guys through to the final 8 again..yes, the draw helped! (2-0)
Japan

Brazil
Italy X – the game of the tournament, the Italians do it – Nike stock plummets.
(3-2)

Switzerland
Spain X Spain crumbles at this stage usually; this time they don’t
(2-1)

Ukraine X – Ukraine is better.. really..(3-1)
France

Q-Finals:

Germany 1 Argentina 1 (6-5 after penalties)- Ballack tugs Sorin’s hair for leverage and then towers over him to slam home the last minute tying goal. The game goes to penalties and, well, we all know what happens next..

USA (er..Czechs) 0 Spain 2- Completely unfair Spanish handballs deny Johnson, Dempsey and Eddie Pope clear goals. The foolish and weak Raul takes advantage of the treachery to end the Yank dream.

England 2 Ivory Coast 1 (AET) – England sweat into extra-time in the quarterfinal before Rooney’s magical foot detaches itself to slot home a winner

Italy 0 Ukraine 1 I’m telling you, these guys are good,,,

Semis:

Germany 2 Spain 1

England 2 Ukraine 0

FINAL

GERMANY 2, England 1.

Sad but true. Michael Owen wiggles thru for a 1st minute stunner. Sven decides that the game is won and brings on Hargeaves and Carrick in place of Lampard and Gerrard to bunker for the last 80 minutes. The ploy almost works, but in the 91st minute Theo Walcott hears his Mum calling for him and turns abruptly to knock in a hideous own-goal. Then just a minute later, Germany do a Man Utd-1999 and the mercurial Ballack outjumps a knackered Terry to send the host nation into rapture! The greatest World Cup final ever ends in English misery, while 4 million Berliners rush for a celebratory doner and spot in the queue to get into their local techno club.

On my way to the airport on June 11, a full 36 hours after this great national tragedy, I still see piles of English fans scattered all over the motorway to Tegel sobbing into their stale Newcastle cans.

***
So just to recap – I like Germany to win it, England to get to the final. Ukraine’s Shevchenko gets the golden boot for top scorer.

My “best bets” for surprises are Ukraine and Ivory Coast as well as Brazil getting knocked out in the second round to the Group E second team.

So you see, an American will win the World Cup after all! Juergen will bask in the glory, move back to Florida, and then take over his adopted country’s team..oh, and even if we don’t make it out of the mini-group of death this time, there is this guy named Freddy Adu who can walk on water and turn lead into gold. And in 2010 we really are going to win it all and the rest of the world will just have to deal with it..

Man, I am going to Gelsenkirchen on Monday and am PUMPED UP!!

More from Berlin soon!!!!!!!!!

Alex, we look forward to it. Thanks. Drink a lot of water and take two asprin before bed.

NOTE: All posts at 3QD related to the Aula 2006 ─ Movement event, including this one, will be collected on this page. Bookmark it to stay on top of the Aula meeting at all times for the next week.

The second keynote speech at the Aula 2006 ─ Movement public event will be given by Alastair Curtis. I want to give him just a very brief introduction here.

Effective April 1, 2006, Alastair Curtis is Nokia’s new Head of Design. He replaces the redoubtable Frank Nuovo, who will now be overseeing Nokia’s luxury lines of handsets. Alastair is no newcomer to Nokia, having started working there in 1993, having obtained a Master of Arts degree in Industrial Design Engineering from the Royal College of Art in London, as well as a Diploma of Engineering from the Imperial College and a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Design from Brunel University. In 1996, Alastair was named Senior Designer and in 1997 he moved to Los Angeles to as Global Operations Manager of Nokia’s new Design center there. This was at a time when design was becoming more and more important as a distinguishing feature in mobile telephones, and many of the main manufacturers were racing to invest in expanding their design operations.

After his appointment as Nokia’s Head of Design, Alastair said:

Having a multidisciplinary global team will enhance our ability to combine great user experience design with the latest technology, to create a world-class portfolio for consumers. Ease-of-use and style will continue to be central to our design work and the Nokia brand.

Alastair will be delivering a talk entitled “People Moving” at the Aula event, which I am sure Morgan and I will have more to say about next week.

13hrs and 20 minutes from the first game of the 2006 World Cup, here is a blog (or rather 34 of them) reporting nearly every detail. There are, of course, many, many, many blogs, leading me to wonder whether this will be the most blogged event in history. Betting markets meanwhile are heavily favoring Brazil. I’ll be watching the Germany v. Costa Rica game at Loreley in the Lower East Side with my friend E.Z. (of German extraction), who dejectedly said, “this is probably the only game we’ll win.” But the mood in Germany appears to be exceedingly festive (potential racist attacks notwithstanding). From World Cup Blog:

Fan Fest Berlin was a blast. The strip that runs from the Brandenburg Gate was full of people, old and young, all out for a good time. Plenty of street side bars and snack places selling bratwurst and other German favorites. In front of the Brandenburg Gate a stage was set up and the acts included Brasilian samba band Olodum, who were perfect for the street festival audience. The atmosphere in front of the Brandenburg Gate was of excitement and anticipation. Up to this point I have not seen many Germans wearing their nation’s colors, but at Fan Fest they started to come out.

One great thing here in Berlin is the civilized nature of life. People are cool and there is not a ‘drunken soccer fan’ mentality, as there is in other countries. Of course people here would like to see Germany win, but they also appreciate good football and are open enough to give credit where it’s due.

Philip Gourevitch has a piece on Darfur and intervention, in this weeks New Yorker.

Given the Bush Administration’s contempt for the U.N., and the U.N.’s own dysfunction, it is a measure of how low Darfur’s situation ranks among the Administration’s priorities that it is willing to let the Security Council handle it. And it is a measure of how forsaken Darfur is that Bush has been more actively engaged with its crisis than many Western leaders. (Last month, when the World Food Program, finding itself strapped for funds, cut food rations for Darfuri refugees, Bush noted that the United States, unlike other nations, had met its financial commitment.) Still, one can’t help thinking that the words “Not on my watch” originally carried a bigger promise.

The interventionist impulse—whether it is espoused by liberal humanitarians or neocon hawks—is not much in favor these days. Anti-genocide activists argue that Darfuris should not be made to pay for mistakes made in Iraq, and that “saving Darfur” can redeem America’s international honor. But how do we know that, if we take action, we will do the right thing and do it successfully? “Tough talk” aside, Darfur presents no more of a cakewalk than Iraq did. A major ground invasion would be required to stop the janjaweed’s horse- and camel-mounted killers—and advocates of intervention insist that air power would be needed as well. There are dozens of ethnic groups in Darfur, and at least three fractious rebel movements, in addition to the janjaweed, the Army, and the Air Force, and it is not clear which of them would be on our side, or whose side we would want to be on.

This is welcomed, even if I disagree with their positions on most of the salient political issues of our time.

Conservatives Against Intelligent Design (CAID) was founded to give a voice to Republicans, Independent Conservatives, and Libertarians across the country who stand opposed to the teaching of ‘intelligent design’ and other forms of creationism in the classroom. In recent years Republican legislators at all levels of government have authored, sponsored, and voted for various anti-evolution bills with perceived immunity, confident that those who vote for them are creationists like themselves. CAID is intended as a wake-up call to these legislators, to remind them that the teaching of evolution is not a partisan issue, but rather one of the separation between theology and science.

CAID holds that there is no conflict between evolution and religion because each speaks to a different level of understanding and to a different level of explanation: Namely empirical versus metaphysical. Neither threatens nor invalidates the other. However, by their very nature alternative theories like ‘intelligent design’ rely on the supposition of a metaphysical creator and therefore stand outside the domain of rational empiricism. Science–being based upon the latter–has no room within it for theological supposition; therefore such theories must remain outside the science classroom, being more suitable for discussion in philosophy courses.

Darwinian evolution has continued to gain empirical and theoretical support in the nearly 150 years since the original publication of Origin of Species. Although scientists continue to debate the specifics of evolutionary pattern and process, these represent attempts to refine and clarify extant theory rather than supplant or disprove either evolution or natural selection as the dominant mechanism of change.

In Science:

After more than 2 years of what Harvard Provost Steven Hyman called “the most extensive ethical and scientific review in recent memory,” Harvard University researchers have been given the go-ahead to use cloning to create disease-specific lines of human embryonic stem cells.

Experts say research cloning–known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT)–will give scientists a far more effective tool for studying diseases such as diabetes and Parkinson’s. But some people oppose the technique for religious and philosophical reasons because it involves creating and destroying fertilized eggs, and the procedure is banned in some states. There are no reports of success with SCNT, now that the research of Korean scientist Woo Suk Hwang was discredited (ScienceNOW, 12 May).

In the Daily Star (Beirut), Tzvetan Todorov on “homegrown” terrorism, in the wake of the arrests in Canada.

There have always been fanatical individuals ready to die and kill in the name of their beliefs. But they seem far more dangerous nowadays as a result of technological advances that have “democratized” bomb making. After all, as the London and Madrid bombings demonstrated, a cell phone is all that is needed to time an explosion – or a series of explosions – with deadly efficiency.

Our freedoms and social fluidity also contribute to the threat. People move about the globe cheaply and with relative ease. Immigrants can establish themselves in new societies, and in democratic states they can live completely free of supervision. Our freedoms are their tools.

So how do we fight such an amorphous enemy?

US President George W. Bush has demonstrated one way not to do it: His invasion and occupation of Iraq shows that directly attacking Muslim states only fuels fanaticism. Of course, civilized countries should not give up the fight against extremist Islam because of the bloodshed in Iraq; but we must recognize that war, occupation, and forced submission to military power have merely caused mass humiliation and resentment among many ordinary Muslims – emotions that are then channeled into terrorist networks. British Prime Minister Tony Blair could loudly proclaim that the London bombings of July last year were unrelated to Britain’s participation in the Iraq war, but the terrorists themselves, once arrested, said exactly the opposite.

In Slate, Daniel Byman on what the death of Zarqawi meand for the insurgency.

A new jihadist leader might succeed in uniting the insurgency more effectively. Such a leader could eschew the sectarian vitriol Zarqawi regularly spouted. He might be an Iraqi, making him better able to bring together the strands of jihadism and nationalism. And unlike Zarqawi, who also actively plotted attacks outside Iraq, a new leader may focus the struggle on targets within the country.

Nor does the structure of the Iraqi insurgency suggest that the killing will have a lasting impact. When Israel killed the leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fathi Shiqaqi, in 1995, it paralyzed the organization. Shiqaqi had led a highly hierarchical organization, and his successors squabbled for years over leadership and next steps. The Iraqi insurgency, in contrast, is highly decentralized…

The removal of leaders can also have dangerous unexpected consequences. U.S. officials thought that the capture of Saddam Hussein would deal a major blow to the Iraqi insurgency… In fact, his capture on Dec. 14, 2003, removed a stigma under which many insurgents operated: No longer were they seen as fighting to restore a brutal dictatorship but rather to liberate Iraq from the United States.

Other takes from Hitchens (also in Slate), David Corn (The Nation), and Ron Jacobs (in Counterpunch)

Perry Anderson on Hervé Juvin’s L’avènement du corps, in the New Left Review.

Social agendas in the West are in flux, as new kinds of issues gain salience—pension-systems, immigration regimes, reproductive rights, marital arrangements. Each is giving rise to large blocs of literature. On the left, Robin Blackburn’s Banking on Death and Göran Therborn’s Between Sex and Power stand out. On the right, Francis Fukuyama’s The Great Disruption and Our Posthuman Future were well-received interventions. Ongoing changes have found a vaster anthropological setting in Maurice Godelier’s Métamorphoses de la parenté. In different ways, all these works aim at the forms of social science. L’avènement du corps belongs to another genre: the philosophical essay, illustrated with an abundance of striking—if rarely sourced—data, and delivered with an intellectual mordancy and crisp literary éclat that remain, even today, peculiarly French. Its author, Hervé Juvin, might also be regarded as a local phenomenon. In Anglophone societies business and culture are typically strangers, yielding at best—if we exclude the distinguished example of W. G. Runciman, a throw-back to hereditary wealth closer to the time of Rosebery or Balfour than the cbi—earnest middle-brow apologetics at the level of Adair Turner’s Just Capital; but in France the intellectual executive is a not unfamiliar figure. Operating in the insurance world, Juvin writes without overt political attachments. But in so far as he can be situated, his connexions lie with Le Débat, the country’s liveliest journal of the Centre-Right.

L’avènement du corps announces a time when the human body has started to pre-empt all other measures of value in the West, separating the experience of contemporary generations from that of all predecessors, and the rest of the world. At the basis of this sea change lies a spectacular transformation of life expectancy. When the Revolution broke out in 1789, the average span of life in France was 22. By 1900 it was just under 45. Today, it is 75 for men, and over 83 for women, and continually increasing. ‘We have every reason to hope that one girl out of two born in France since 2000 will live to be a hundred years old’. This prolongation of life is ‘the present that a century of blood and iron has left us—the present of a life that has doubled’. It amounts to ‘the invention of a new body, against need, against suffering and against time; against the world too—the world of nature, which was destiny’. The gift is restricted to the rich. ‘An entire generation will soon separate Europe from its neighbours to the south, when the median age of its population passes 50 (towards 2050), while that of the Maghreb remains under 30’.

From EGO:

It was about 12am during my Saturday overnight call–the worst night to be on-call. Despite the obvious loss of the weekend, it was also the “night float” interns’ night off, which means four of us held down the fort for the other interns’ patients, while we admitted new ones. I had six patients I was already caring for, some of their problems were clear cut and being treated, others I was clueless about. I had one 40 year old patient in fulminant liver failure. Liver cancer? Infection? Some autoimmune or inflammatory disease? The etiology remained unknown, but fluid was accumulating in his abdomen (ascites) and lungs (pulmonary edema), and now his kidneys were beginning to fail. He was in severe respiratory distress on the brink of being intubated, and all we could do is cross our fingers and await the biopsy while we pumped him full of antibiotics to cover any sort of infection.

My second sick patient was an IV drug abuser with sepsis, who likely had endocarditis–bacteria growing his blood and seeding into the valves of his heart–causing symptoms of a failing heart. His vital signs were barely stable as we tried to control his infection with broad spectrum antibiotics and intravenous fluid support. I had four other patients with everything from an HIV patient with a fungal pneumonia, to an 80 year old man who thought it was 1975 and swore he talked to dead people last night. Such was the scene on a busy night during my first month on the medicine wards as an intern.

Sleep deprived, and overwhelmed with the workload, I felt like I would never sit down, never eat, and my pager would never stop beeping.

More here.

From BBC News:

The creature was of the sauropod type – that group of long-necked, four-footed herbivores that were the largest of all the dinosaurs.

But at just a few metres in length, this animal was considerably smaller than its huge cousins, scientists report in the journal Nature. The team thinks the Jurassic species evolved its small form in response to limited food resources on an island. Martin Sander, from the University of Bonn, and colleagues studied the remains of over 11 sauropods found in a quarry at Oker, near Goslar, Lower Saxony. With total body lengths ranging from 1.7 to 6.2m (5.5-20ft), the team originally thought the dinosaurs were juveniles. But when the scientists examined the fossils closely, they realised they were dealing with dwarf creatures.

More here.

Yesterday I explained what the Aula 2006 ─ Movement meeting next week in Helsinki is about. Today I would like to say a few words about Clay Shirky, the first speaker at the event.

NOTE: The Aula public meeting on Wednesday, June 14th, in Helsinki has been moved to a larger venue and registration is no longer required to attend. For details, go here.

Among many other things, Clay Shirky teaches New Media at New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. For some years now, he has been at the forefront of thinking about the effects of new technologies on social interaction and coined the term “social software.” Among his many influential contributions to this field are “Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality,” “Communities, Audiences, and Scale,” “Half the World,” “Situated Software,” and “Ontology is Overrated,” in which he makes this typically astute observation:

There are many ways to organize data: labels, lists, categories, taxonomies, ontologies. Of these, ontology — assertions about essence and relations among a group of items — seems to be the highest-order method of organization. Indeed, the predicted value of the Semantic Web assumes that ontological successes such as the Library of Congress’s classification scheme are easily replicable.

Those successes are not easily replicable. Ontology, far from being an ideal high-order tool, is a 300-year-old hack, now nearing the end of its useful life. The problem ontology solves is not how to organize ideas but how to organize things — the Library of Congress’s classification scheme exists not because concepts require consistent hierarchical placement, but because books do.

Earlier this year, Clay Shirky responded to John Brockman and Steven Pinker’s question “What is your dangerous idea?” at Edge.org, with:

Free will is going away. Time to redesign society to take that into account.

…consider the phenomenon of ‘super-sizing’, where a restaurant patron is offered the chance to increase the portion size of their meal for some small amount of money. This presents a curious problem for the concept of free will — the patron has already made a calculation about the amount of money they are willing to pay in return for a particular amount of food. However, when the question is re-asked, — not “Would you pay $5.79 for this total amount of food?” but “Would you pay an additional 30 cents for more french fries?” — patrons often say yes, despite having answered “No” moments before to an economically identical question.

Super-sizing is expressly designed to subvert conscious judgment, and it works. By re-framing the question, fast food companies have found ways to take advantages of weaknesses in our analytical apparatus, weaknesses that are being documented daily in behavioral economics and evolutionary psychology…

…in the coming decades, our concept of free will, based as it is on ignorance of its actual mechanisms, will be destroyed by what we learn about the actual workings of the brain. We can wait for that collision, and decide what to do then, or we can begin thinking through what sort of legal, political, and economic systems we need in a world where our old conception of free will is rendered inoperable.

One of Clay’s observations about the blogosphere in “Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality” has been encapsulated by Hugh McLeod as what is sometimes referred to as “Shirky’s Law”:

Equality, fairness, opportunity: pick two.

Clay will be delivering a keynote talk entitled “Failure for Free” at the Aula 2006 Movement meeting. A complete list of his writings can be found here. Stay tuned for more.

Jeff Jarvis in The Guardian:

We need to kill the book to save books. Now relax. I’m not suggesting burning books, nor replacing them with electronic gizmos in some paperless future of fable and fantasy. Instead, I’m merely arguing that the book is an outdated means of communicating information. And thanks to the searchable, connected internet, books could be so much more.

Yet efforts to update the book are hampered because, culturally, we give extreme reverence to the form for the form’s sake. We hold books holy: children are taught there is no better use of time than reading a book. Academics perish if they do not publish. We tolerate censors regulating and snipping television but would never allow them to black out books. We even ignore the undeniable truth that too many books, and far too many bestsellers, are pap or crap. All this might seem to be the medium’s greatest advantage: respect. But that is what is holding books back from the progress that could save and spread the gospel of the written word.

More here.

Ingrid Spencer in the Architectural Record:

Modernist prefab isn’t just for artsy Californians or Europeans these days. The fact that Dan Rockhill has a wait list for his Studio 804 prefab homes in Kansas City, Kansas proves that modernist modular homes are in demand across the country. Studio 804, a self-funded, not-for-profit corporation affiliated with the University of Kansas School of Architecture and Urban Design, has just completed its third such house, called Modular III, which sold for about $170,000 before construction had even been completed. The approximately 1,200-square-foot home, fabricated in six transportable 10-by-20-foot segments in a warehouse in Lawrence, Kansas, and moved by truck to the site, is the eighth designed and built entirely by Rockhill’s graduate and undergraduate students.

More here.  [Thanks to Shabbir Kazmi.]

“Lacking internal support or external legitimacy, writes Hamid Dabashi, the US empire now banks on a pedigree of comprador intellectuals, homeless minds and guns for hire.”

From Al-Ahram:

So there is in fact no absence of interest or insight into how and on what general contours is the American empire navigating its turbulent course. As part of this more general concern about an American empire, with or without hegemony, one might also propose that given the way the US propaganda machinery is operating ever since 9/11, it seems (both domestically and internationally) to be completely contingent on a mode of momentary amnesia, a systematic loss of collective memory, a nefarious banking on the presumption that no one is watching, no one is counting, and no one is keeping a record of anything–that history is dead, as is memory, recollection, experience. This proposition may indeed work and tally well with the principal thesis that set this predatory empire in motion, namely Francis Fukuyama’s notion of “the end of history,” which in this case amounts to the end of collective memory and the effective erasure of shared experiences–even (or perhaps particularly) of the most recent history.

How could one account for this politically expedited collective amnesia –of manufacturing consent and discarding history at the speed of one major military operation every two years?

More here.  [Thanks to Zara Houshmand.]

John Derbyshire reviews Party of Death by Ramesh Ponnuru, in the New English Review:

Can Right to Life (hereinafter RTL) fairly be called a cult? This is a point on which I cannot make up my mind. Some of the common characteristics of culthood are missing—the Führerprinzip, for example. On the other hand, RTL has the following things in common with every cult in the world: To those inside, it appears to be a structure of perfect logical integrity, founded on unassailable philosophical principles, while to those outside—among whom, obviously, I count myself—it seems to some degree (depending on the observer’s temperament and inclinations) nutty; to some other degree (ditto) hysterical; and to some yet other degree (ditto ditto) a threat to liberty. My own ratings of RTL on those three degrees are 2, 6, and 4 out of a possible ten each…

Whether it is a cult or not, RTL is made as presentable as possible in Party of Death, with writing that is engaging and lucid. Will Ponnuru’s book make any converts to the RTL whatever-it-is? That depends on how much exposure it gets outside RTL circles. Just to be on the safe side, the mainstream media are studiously ignoring the book—a sad reflection on the current state of public debate, and of respect for rhetorical virtuosity. RTL-ers are welcoming Party of Death very joyfully, though, and they are right to do so, as it is an exceptionally fine piece of polemical writing in support of their… cause.

More here.  Ramesh Ponnuru has a response here.