(He’s so smart.)
Year: 2004
Checking the facts
SDG here. Haven’t got much to say about last night’s vice-presidential debates, other than that both of these guys come across as more capable, more intelligent, and more presidential than their running partners. Going back to the presidential debates after this will be a real letdown.
I’ve always found Cheney’s low-key, unflappable delivery to be extremely authoritative — he comes across like he’s giving you the straight facts and he doesn’t care whether you believe him or not. He got in some real zingers last night, and my own opinion is that Edwards, as capable and polished as he was, didn’t land punches with the same force as Cheney.
However, Cheney DID make one VERY unfortunate mistake. In rebutting Edwards’ comments about Halliburton, Cheney misspoke in referring to FactCheck.COM when he meant FactCheck.ORG.
FactCheck.ORG is the non-partisan political informational service to which Cheney wanted to refer viewers.
What’s FactCheck.COM?
Before last night, it wasn’t anything. So of course someone snapped it up. To find out who, visit FactCheck.com.
(Don’t worry, it’s not porn. Although some might feel it’s just as evil.)
Thanks to my buds on the Arts and Faith message boards, where these facts came to light for me.
Incidentally, FactCheck.ORG analysis of the VP debates is available at their site. As usual, they find fault with both candidates.
Dumbing down culture
SDG here with a pair of related stories on institutions dumbing down culture.
According to British author Frank Furedi, The Tyne and Wear Museum in northeast England “encourage[s] the display of works from the collections which may not necessarily be famous or highly regarded, but have been chosen by members of the public simply because they like them or because they arouse certain emotions or memories.”
Furedi says he doesn’t like the term “dumbing down,” since his argument isn’t that people are getting dumber and dumber. “‘When I do use the term ‘dumbing down’ I’m primarily talking about institutions, not people. I’m talking about the elite, about the inability at the top of society to provide institutional support for the pursuit of scholarship, the arts or knowledge.”
Interestingly, Furedi’s roots are in the “revolutionary left,” and he is a former contributor to Living Marxism magazine.
In a related U.S.-based story, it seems that Washington, D.C.’s new National Museum of the American Indian
stubbornly refuses to impose any recognizable standard of scholarship, or even value, on the items in its galleries. Precious artifacts are mingled with present-day kitsch, with few if any clues provided about what makes them significant. The museum’s curators regard the very notion of a Native American cultural heritage as anathema because it clashes with the museum’s boosterish message that Native American culture is as vibrant today as it ever was. This isn’t a museum; it’s a public service announcement.
What does the National Museum of the American Indian consider worthy of museum piece status? According to the article,
Among the inaugural exhibitions is “The Jewelry of Ben Nighthorse.” If the name sounds familiar, that’s because the artist is a Republican senator from Colorado, where they call him Ben Nighthorse Campbell. In 1989, Campbell, who was then a House member (and a Democrat), sponsored the legislation that created the National Museum of the American Indian; he later helped provide necessary federal funds as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee… The rings, bracelets, tie clasps, and other tchotchkes displayed reverently are indistinguishable from anything you might buy at a roadside stand in Boulder. What establishes Campbell’s bona fides as an artist of national renown? An informational pillar explains that “Nighthorse was among 20 artists selected by Arizona Highways magazine for a contemporary jewelry issue.”
The writer declares this “a straightforward declaration that the National Museum of the American Indian will sell gallery space to the highest bidder.” He also blasts the museum for making it virtually impossible to actually learn anything about the pieces, their historical or artistic significance if any, etc.
TV Shows I Want To See
The other day I was watching an interview program on TV, and the discussion went something like this:
INTERVIEWER: Do you feel ashamed of what your political party did the other day?
GUEST: I think that what they were really trying to do was signal their concern about this urgent problem.
INTERVIEWER: You didn’t answer my question: Do you feel ashamed of what your party did?
GUEST: I’ll tell you who should feel ashamed of what they’ve done. It’s the other party!
INTERVIEWER: Again, you didn’t answer my question: Do you feel ashamed of what your party did?
GUEST: I’m telling you that the other party need to be thoroughly ashamed of its actions!
At this point, the interviewer gave up and moved on to a new question. I must admit that what he had done thus far was pretty gutsy. He was asking a very pointed, “hardball” question of the guest, and stuck it to him three times. But ultimately, he folded and let the guest have his way in dodging the question.
So I want to give the interviewer credit for that. But by the third non-answer I was so frustrated with the guest that what I wanted the interviewer to say was: “Okay, you’re out of here. Persistent refusal to answer the question.”
That’s at the core of a TV show I would like to see on the air. I know, Bill O’Reilly has his “No Spin Zone,” in which he will reject answers that aren’t directed to the questions he’s asked, but he doesn’t eject guests who persistently refuse to cough up some kind of answer.
That’s what I’d like to see.
I’m so sick of watching political hacks (from *both* parties, though one seems to be worse than the other these days) dodge questions and refuse to give serious answers. This is something I feel particularly strongly about as someone who is called upon to give serious answers to people’s questions every week. Even when the answer is uncomfortable to give, I want to give it as a matter of principle.
But the political hacks who appear on TV these days don’t. In fact, for them doding questions is a studied art form. The better at it they are, the more they are admired in hack circles. But as Scripture says, what is praiseworthy in the eyes of men is abominable in the eyes of God. What they ware doing is a form of dehumanizing manipulation that treats the viewer as an animal to be tricked rather than a person to be persuaded. It does not elevate the discussion and deserves thoroughgoing condemnation.
Thus the idea for my show: People come on. The interviewer asks them a question, and they get three chances to give a straight answer. If they do give a straight answer (and, “I don’t know” is a straight answer) then they get a new question, up to the length of the interview segment. But if they don’t give one then the interviewer declares “You’re out of here. Persistent refusal to answer the question,” and the host brings in a new guest.
Of course, you’d need items lined up to fill the rest of the show in case of guest ejection, but I suspect there would need to be fewer filler-interviews (including pre-taped segements kept in reserve and rotated through so they stay fresh) than you might expect. If the rules are consistently enforced then guests will not make the mistake of refusing to answer. Those guests who are not prepaired to give straight answers will not come on the show, meaning that the show will have almost all quality guests who will raise rather than lower the standard of discussion and will treat the audience like people to be reasoned with instead of animals to be herded.
Is there a country music / suicide connection?
SDG here. As a card-carrying Yankee and confirmed city slicker, I’ve never been into country music — not because it makes me suicidal, although over time I can see where it might begin to, but just because it triggers my guffaw response, sort of the way Laugh-In does for other people. (Man, after this Jimmy ain’t NEVER going to let me blog on his site again…)
Last week, on his way to the Catholic Answers cruise, Jimmy stopped by our house for a night, and on a couple of long car rides we had a chance to listen to a bit of one anothers’ CDs, and I can say that, in spite of the culture gap, I was able to appreciate some of Anthony Smith’s guitar tricks and even lyrics. (I especially liked this sweet little song.)
Unfortunately, this article on “The Effect of Country Music on Suicide” is available only through the subscription Questia.com website. Here’s an excerpt from the free preview:
In this article, we explore the link between a particular form of popular music (country music) and metropolitan suicide rates. We contend that the themes found in country music foster a suicidal mood among people already at risk of suicide and that it is thereby associated with a high suicide rate. The effect is buttressed by the country subculture and a link between this subculture and a racial status related to an increased suicide risk.
What I can tell you, after Googling the authors, is that both are sociology professors, Stack at Wayne State U and Gundlach at Auburn U, and that Stack is chairman of WSU’s criminal justice department, and Gundlach is director of AU’s social science computer lab. (According to Gundlach’s personal page at INeedCoffee.com, co-authoring this paper with Stack was Gundlach’s “fifteen minutes of fame.”)
John Kerry's Extra-Terrestrial Test!
SDG here with a startling clarification from John Kerry about his “global test” debate reference. As quoted in this CNN.com story, Kerry would seem to have a HIGHER authority in mind:
Asked during a town hall meeting in Hampton to explain what he meant, the Massachusetts senator said, “It’s almost sad; it’s certainly pathetic, because all they can do is grab a little phrase and try to play a game and scare Americans…
“And if they were honest enough to give America the full quote, which America heard, they would know that I’m never going to allow America’s security to be outsourced. That’s the job of the president.
“But I can do a better job of protecting America’s security because the test that I was talking about was a test of legitimacy, not just in the globe, but elsewhere.
“If you do things that are illegitimate in the eyes of the other people, it’s very hard to get them to share the burden and risk with you.”
WOW!
John Kerry’s got a way to test the legitimacy of military action against EXTRA-GLOBAL standards?!
Do you suppose he intends to appeal all the way to the United Federation of Planets?!
If so, how much difference does he really think this will make? I hate to say it, but the Klingons have been quietly downsizing their military for decades now.
The Vulcans were in on the kickbacks for the oil-for-food program, and they automatically oppose whatever the Terrans do. They don’t care who is President of one measly super-power.
Heck, the Andorians were actively arming Saddam in the months before the war. And the Kardassians, who actually have the military capacity to make a difference, aren’t even Federation members.
So that doesn’t make sense. Hm, could Kerry possibly have an even HIGHER Court in mind…??!!!
John Kerry’s Extra-Terrestrial Test!
SDG here with a startling clarification from John Kerry about his “global test” debate reference. As quoted in this CNN.com story, Kerry would seem to have a HIGHER authority in mind:
Asked during a town hall meeting in Hampton to explain what he meant, the Massachusetts senator said, “It’s almost sad; it’s certainly pathetic, because all they can do is grab a little phrase and try to play a game and scare Americans…
“And if they were honest enough to give America the full quote, which America heard, they would know that I’m never going to allow America’s security to be outsourced. That’s the job of the president.
“But I can do a better job of protecting America’s security because the test that I was talking about was a test of legitimacy, not just in the globe, but elsewhere.
“If you do things that are illegitimate in the eyes of the other people, it’s very hard to get them to share the burden and risk with you.”
WOW!
John Kerry’s got a way to test the legitimacy of military action against EXTRA-GLOBAL standards?!
Do you suppose he intends to appeal all the way to the United Federation of Planets?!
If so, how much difference does he really think this will make? I hate to say it, but the Klingons have been quietly downsizing their military for decades now.
The Vulcans were in on the kickbacks for the oil-for-food program, and they automatically oppose whatever the Terrans do. They don’t care who is President of one measly super-power.
Heck, the Andorians were actively arming Saddam in the months before the war. And the Kardassians, who actually have the military capacity to make a difference, aren’t even Federation members.
So that doesn’t make sense. Hm, could Kerry possibly have an even HIGHER Court in mind…??!!!
I May Have To Get This Book
The First Idea deals with the emergence of language and thought in our species and in us as individuals. It is reported to offer some new ideas about how these emerged, and ideas that run counter to many of the recent ideas on this subject.
My interest in scient, language, and human origins combine to create a special interest in a book like this, though I’m not sure how well-founded the ideas presented in this book will be.
THIS STORY offers a summary of them, but I’m not putting a whole lot of weight in the article’s summary. One item in the summary sounds too extreme to be something the authors could actually claim–i.e., “That is, language is rooted not in genes, not in the wiring of brains, but in behaviors we have learned over millenniums.” I can’t imagine the authors really claim that, because without genes and the wiring of brains there are no behaviors to be learned over millennia. But then newspaper reporters ain’t always that great about reporting science (or anything else for that matter).
They also don’t always know what is a shocking claim and what ain’t. For example, the authors of the book apparently think that spoken language has pre-verbal predecessors like gestures. That’s not a particularly controversial claim among linguists. The idea that spoken language has gestural precedents (sign langauges) is often talked about in linguistic circles. After all, babies learn to do things like point before they learn to speak, and it’s a lot easier to manipulate our hands than the delicate mechanisms of our mouths and vocal chords (at least with the kind of control needed to produce speech). Is it unlikely that gestural communication preceded spoken communication?
The most intersting part for me is always what the hookup was (if, indeed, there was one) between the pre-humans we see in the fossil record and the first true humans. Given the depiction in Genesis of our first parents as rational, speaking beings, I tend to look to the emerge of language as the emergence of our species. In other words, when speech appeared among hominids is where you’ll find Adam and Eve.
Language and human origins? How can I resist?
Liberal head-scratching over Christopher Hitchens' Bush support
SDG here with an interesting interview of Christopher “I hate Mother Teresa, Ronald Reagan, and Mel Gibson” Hitchens (as he was recently described) by liberal Johann Hari trying to wrap his head around Hitchens’ support for Bush and the war on “Islamofascist” terror.
Hitchens is no friend of religion of any kind. But at least he avoids the insanity of certain wackos on the left whose hatred of fundamentalist Christians and traditional Catholics is so great that they consider them as bad as if not worse than head-severing terrorist psychos in black masks.
Some excerpts:
To many of Christopher Hitchens’ old friends, he died on September 11th 2001. Tariq Ali considered himself a comrade of Christopher Hitchens for over thirty years. Now he speaks about him with bewilderment. “On 11th September 2001, a small group of terrorists crashed the planes they had hijacked into the Twin Towers of New York. Among the casualties, although unreported that week, was a middle-aged Nation columnist called Christopher Hitchens. He was never seen again,” Ali writes. “The vile replica currently on offer is a double.”…
He explains that he believes the moment the left’s bankruptcy became clear was on 9/11. “The United States was attacked by theocratic fascists who represents all the most reactionary elements on earth. They stand for liquidating everything the left has fought for: women’s rights, democracy? And how did much of the left respond? By affecting a kind of neutrality between America and the theocratic fascists.” He cites the cover of one of Tariq Ali’s books as the perfect example. It shows Bush and Bin Laden morphed into one on its cover. “It’s explicitly saying they are equally bad. However bad the American Empire has been, it is not as bad as this. It is not the Taliban, and anybody – any movement – that cannot see the difference has lost all moral bearings.”
Liberal head-scratching over Christopher Hitchens’ Bush support
SDG here with an interesting interview of Christopher “I hate Mother Teresa, Ronald Reagan, and Mel Gibson” Hitchens (as he was recently described) by liberal Johann Hari trying to wrap his head around Hitchens’ support for Bush and the war on “Islamofascist” terror.
Hitchens is no friend of religion of any kind. But at least he avoids the insanity of certain wackos on the left whose hatred of fundamentalist Christians and traditional Catholics is so great that they consider them as bad as if not worse than head-severing terrorist psychos in black masks.
Some excerpts:
To many of Christopher Hitchens’ old friends, he died on September 11th 2001. Tariq Ali considered himself a comrade of Christopher Hitchens for over thirty years. Now he speaks about him with bewilderment. “On 11th September 2001, a small group of terrorists crashed the planes they had hijacked into the Twin Towers of New York. Among the casualties, although unreported that week, was a middle-aged Nation columnist called Christopher Hitchens. He was never seen again,” Ali writes. “The vile replica currently on offer is a double.”…
He explains that he believes the moment the left’s bankruptcy became clear was on 9/11. “The United States was attacked by theocratic fascists who represents all the most reactionary elements on earth. They stand for liquidating everything the left has fought for: women’s rights, democracy? And how did much of the left respond? By affecting a kind of neutrality between America and the theocratic fascists.” He cites the cover of one of Tariq Ali’s books as the perfect example. It shows Bush and Bin Laden morphed into one on its cover. “It’s explicitly saying they are equally bad. However bad the American Empire has been, it is not as bad as this. It is not the Taliban, and anybody – any movement – that cannot see the difference has lost all moral bearings.”