Month: December 2004

Not much time for blogging today, as it is a day in which I must get caught up on that part of real life which is non-Internet-based. But the last post on Alexander reminded me (again) of Belmont Club’s analysis, especially this: The world of 320 BC is as distant from us today as the…

That’s my headline. Maybe I should have said “wags finger.” That befits a cultural dinosaur like me. The BBC was shocked to learn that nearly half of Britons polled had never heard of Auschwitz: Among women and people younger than 35, 60 percent had never heard of Auschwitz, despite the recent popularity of films such…

Amidst the hoopla over the Oliver Stone film (discussed infra, here and here), Christopher Hitchens wrote a very thoughtful piece acknowledging Alexander’s strengths and weaknesses, while touching on the implications for Western civilization: Alexander himself was not above using myth for propaganda purposes. He claimed descent from Achilles, the hero of Troy, and from Zeus…

While I had thought the question of life on Mars had been finally settled, according to this article it seems not. ?Before proceeding with sample returns or human missions to Mars, we must review measures for planetary biological protection.? His warning appears in Science magazine in an article accompanying the first formal publication of the…

The brilliant Sean Kinsell has a must-read post on the topic of homosexuality in Japan. He starts by observing that unlike ours, Japan’s is a shame-based culture: Japan, as you’ve no doubt heard in various contexts, is a shame culture rather than a guilt culture. I love our American forthrightness and sincerity, but (partially on…

Echoing Bill O’Reilly and Hillary Clinton, former CIA Director (and Arafat supporter) George Tenet suggests that only people “who take security seriously” (the “responsible”?) should be allowed access (by “the authorities”?) to the Internet: The way the Internet was built might be part of the problem, he said. Its open architecture allows Web surfing, but…

Maureen Dowd is upset about male authority figures: The networks don’t even give lip service to looking for women and blacks for anchor jobs – they just put pretty-boy clones in the pipeline. “I think we’re still stuck in a society that looks at white males as authority figures,” Mr. Brokaw conceded. Bill Carter, a…

And now for something completely boring and mundane — far less shocking than an oil-covered Canada goose: Why is it that when two cars collide, society calls this “an accident,” and generally attaches no moral evil or shame to either party? Around 40,000 Americans die each year from automobile accidents. As nameless and anonymous as…

My earlier post on Canada geese reminded me of the importance of environmental issues in the last election. According to this survey: 24% of respondants considered the environment as an “extremely important” issue (compared to 53% rating terrorism, the top spot, as “extremely important”). 24% might not seem all that high a figure (and obviously…

My neighborhood suffered a major power outage earlier, when I was in the middle of the last post. Fortunately, I had saved most of it, and was able to finish editing and posting at a local Starbucks. The problem is, this is the second power outage in less than a week, and I heard an…

I haven’t smacked Leon Kass around lately, mostly because I haven’t seen him in the news. That’s a good thing. Still, like mucking out the stables, it’s something that needs to be done regularly. But not always by me! Check out “The Speculist” for a sensible, temperate article on cloning, grey areas, and ethics. A…

Because they face no natural predators and are still protected by the 1916 Migratory Bird Act, so called “Canada geese” are seriously overpopulated in many areas, including the Philadelphia area. Philadelphia International Airport’s proximity to the Delaware River makes it attractive to geese. Airport spokesperson Mark Pesche says that can cause trouble for planes during…

What if something magical happened? What if all our energy worries ended tomorrow, with the happiest of happy endings? What if a new power source came along that was so powerful, so clean, so abundant, that the greenest of green activists couldn’t find fault with it? And what if it was really, really cheap? Who…

I don’t know if I’m the ony person who has Internet-related dreams, but for some time now, my dreams have been taking the form of various web pages, and web-based graphics which appear or disappear, on a variety of subjects. Sometimes I can edit them in the dreams. Other times not. Ho ho hum. Nothing…