Wittgenstein's Poker

Just finished Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten Minute Argument between Two Great Philosophers -- specifically, Karl Popper and Ludwig Wittgenstein, with Bertrand Russel intervening at one point, in a small room in Cambridge, England on Oct. 25, 1946, as chronicled by BBC reporters David Edmonds and John Eidinow. It's not so much an account of the argument itself as the contentious personalities and lives of the participants and the conflict of ideas they represented. For those who are interested, here's a brief review from the Guardian to fill you in on the details. Amazing how they can get 300 pages worth from a mere ten-minute encounter, but they managed to hold my attention throughout. Altogether a fascinating and enjoyable book, even for those who don't particularly enjoy philosophy.

Michael Moore - Bowling for Journalistic Integrity?

I haven't read Michael Moore's Stupid White Men, nor have I seen the movie "Bowling for Columbine" -- although I expect I'll rent the movie (simply because a good number of my friends or co-workers have raved about it ), and will undoubtedly never get around to reading the book (more substantial things to read than one man's tirade against America). At any rate, Michael Moore apparently has a tendency of playing fast and loose with the facts.

Back in April 2002 Ben Fritz's blog "Spinsanity" documented some of Moore's errors in Stupid White Men, the cause of which he believes is "Lazy cribbing from media outlets and the Internet." (Just so you're aware, Spinsanity goes after the lies and distortions of those on the ideological left and right). On November 19, 2002 and Nov. 25, 2002, Fritz exposed additional errors and/or deliberate misrepresentations in Moore's "hard-core analysis" in the movie "Bowling for Columbine", including Moore's altering of a Bush/Quayle campaign advertisement by inserting a caption which did not appear in the original version, the staging of a scene in a bank handing out guns to new customers, and some slick editing/splicing of two separate speeches by Charleton Heston at an NRA convention.

According to Spinsanity on 9/23/03, Moore has apparently admitted the false caption, which he corrected in the DVD release, defending himself in his latest column. However, a quick surf of the web reveals enough critiques on Moore's film that makes me more than a little wary of believing anything "Bowling for Columbine" suggests:

• "Michael Moore and The Awful Truth:" Volume One,
• Volume Two and Volume Three, by Anthony Zoubek, "a series examining ‘Bowling for Columbine’and what it implies of truth in the documentary film genre."
• Bowling for Columbine: Documentary or Fiction?, by David T. Hardy -- focusing on Moore's misrepresentation of Charleton Heston and deceptive use of footage from various NRA rallies.
• BowlingForTruth.Com - scene-by-scene analysis of "Bowling for Columbine."

P.S. I'm not disputing the fact that Michael Moore may have some legitimate concerns about various social issues -- but his attempt to convey those concerns in what appears to be a shoddy "documentary" seems to be counter-productive.

Opus The Penguin Returns!

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! -- boy, this just made my day. I'm so happy that Berk Breathed, creator of Bloom County (my absolutefavoritist comic strip as a kid) is returning with a new comic strip featuring Opus The Penguin!!

THE SUNDAY-ONLY STRIP, to be called “Opus,” begins Nov. 23, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

It will be syndicated by The Washington Post Writers Group.

A 1987 Pulitzer Prize-winner for editorial cartooning, Breathed stopped drawing the daily “Bloom County” in 1989 when it was running in nearly 1,300 papers.        

He began a Sunday strip, “Outland,” with many of the same characters — including the penguin’s hairball-hacking sidekick, Bill the cat — but quit that in 1995.        

Partly chalking it up to artistic burnout, Breathed said at the time that cartoonists “die and go to cartoon hell for working beyond that magic intersection of art and fun.”        

He has since written children’s books and sold the rights to an Opus movie that could start filming by the end of the year. [MSNBC News.com]

• Interview with The Onion A.V. Club
• A Great Returns, by Radley Balko. National Review Sept. 25, 2003.

American Ingenuity

"Even so, we endure. The Iraqis are suspect of this. They cannot imagine that we can operate in our battle gear and armored vehicles in the August sun and therefore another explanation must be given other than our toughness and willpower. Since we are Americans, we must have made some technology that allows us this freedom of movement. Iraqis ask us about our air-conditioned helmets and how they are powered. They talk on the street of our cooling vests and air-conditioned underwear. Despite all our efforts we cannot find these for purchase."

"More from the Front", posted by Porphyrogenitus

The Fight for Terry Schindler Schiavo

Judge Greer has ordered the forced starvation of Terry Schindler Schiavoto begin on October 15, 2003, at the request of her husband, Michael Schiavo.

Terri has been confined to a nursing home in what has been called a 'persistent vegetative state' due to brain damage from a "sudden collapse" in 1990. (This charge is disputed by videotaped evidence that Terri responds to stimulus, such as her presence of her parents).

Terri was awarded $750,000 from this suit and an additional $250,000 from a separate malpractice lawsuit. The money was awarded to Terri for her care and rehabilitation and to be placed in a Medical Trust Fund.  Terri’s husband received his personal award money and Terri’s medical fund money in early 1993. From the date he received the award money in 1993, Michael Schiavo has denied Terri any rehabilitation treatment. Michael Schiavo has confined Terri to a nursing home (currently, Terri is in a Hospice facility) where she is 'maintained.' ¹

Michael Schiavo claims his wife would not want to live this way and has been petitioning to have the feeding tube removed since 1998. He is currently living with another woman to whom he has announced his engagement -- because Terri has no will, in the event of her death he would inherit what is left of Terri’s $750,000 medical fund, which he currently uses to pay for his legal bills.

Terri's parents are fighting to save her life. Their efforts are impeded by the fact that her husband has withheld all medical and neurological information and will not permit any doctor to examine Terri other than the doctors he selects.

Even more disturbing is the fact that there appears to be criminal play behind Terri's "collapse." According to this article:

But Terri's parents have questions about the circumstances of the reported heart attack that caused Terri's brain damage, questions they believe should cast doubt on Michael Schiavo's fitness to be Terri's guardian. They point to an emergency room "admitting summary" from the night the brain damage occurred, which noted that Terri had a "rigid neck." One physician reviewing the records stated that the only other patient he had treated with a similarly "rigid neck" had been the victim of strangulation.

The parents also believe a bone-scan report supports their theory that Terri's brain damage is the result of an assault and not a heart attack. The parties in the dispute hotly contest the bone scan, which was completed 53 weeks after the event that led to the brain damage.

Three physicians have testified that, based upon the bone scan, Terri appeared to have been physically assaulted. The injuries they identified included "trauma to her ribs, her pelvic area, L1 vertebrae, spine, both knees and both ankles...a broken femur and a broken back." ²

According to a petition to Governor Bush, Terri's husband has recently petitioned the court to have Terri’s body cremated immediately following her death. The Schindler Family believes Terri’s cremation is a maneuver her husband will utilize to destroy evidence of his criminal acts.

[Thanks to Michael Dubruiel by way of Times Against Humanity for the news].

Additional Links:

• Interview Bob Schindler, Jr. Terri's brother.
• Terri Schiavo’s Life and Death. National Review Sept. 16, 2003.
• Not Dead Yet, people with disabilities opposed to euthanasia and assisted suicide, have joined in the fight for Terri's life.

1. Source: http://www.terrisfight.org.
2. Florida Woman to Be Allowed to Die Despite Family's Wishes, by Jeff Johnson. CNSNews.com August 05, 2003

Windtalkers

Just saw Jon Woo's WindTalkers, about the Navajo Code Talkers during World War II. The U.S. Navy employed the Navajo language in battlefield communications. The complexity of the language proved extremely frustrating to the Japanese (who were quite skilled in cryptology), and the Navajo code remained unbroken.

The Code Talkers -- between 375-420 in all -- were part of every major Marine assault in the Pacific. Some say that the U.S. might never have won the war in the Pacific without them. "Windtalkers" has the look and feel of a traditional World War II action movie. Personally I wished they had focused more on the code itself and less on hand-to-hand combat, but all in all it was a fitting tribute. Here's another page I came across by the son of a CodeTalker with a lot of background information.

Johnny Cash - 1932-2003.

I discovered Johnny Cash relatively late in his life, my first introduction being in 1991, when he sung with a punk band called One Bad Pig on a cover of 'Man in Black'. I thought that was pretty cool, although I didn't care much for country music at the time and associated 'Johnny Cash' with all the other old musicians my mom listened to.

My second encounter with Johnny Cash's music happened in 1993, by way of U2's album Zooropa, when he sang with Bono on "The Wanderer", a truly amazing and deeply spiritual song. And he kept re-appearing after that. In the summer of 1994 I recall browsing a friend's record collection and discovering his American Recordings, which stood out in sharp contrast to the rest of his albums (we listened to Slayer, Scorn, Godflesh, The Melvins). But in a way, it kind of made sense. Cash was hard and gritty and real as they came -- and one couldn't help but be impressed by his cover of Danzig's 'Thirteen' (or his subsequent cover of Soundgarden's "Rusty Cage".

A little while afterwards I started listening to his country albums, bought Live at Fulsom Prison and enjoyed his " God, Love, Murder collection, hand-picked by Cash himself.

As he said in the liner notes for American III: "On the question of youth and old age, I wouldn't trade my future for any one's I know . . . The Master of Life's been good to me. . . . Life and love go on. Let the music play."

I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger, traveling through this world below. There's no sickness, no, toil, nor danger in that bright land to which I go. I'm going there to see my Father and all my loved ones who've gone home. I'm just going over Jordan, I'm just going over home. I know dark clouds will gather 'round me, I know my way is hard and steep. But beauteous fields arise before me, where God's redeemed their vigils keep. I'm going there to see my mother, she said she'd meet me when I come. So I'm just going over Jordan, I'm just going over home. I'm just going over Jordan, I'm just going over home. Johnny Cash. 1932-2003

"Obfuscation in a time of terror."

What happens to our passion for literature when any "text" qualifies as literature, when theory is elevated above poetry and the critic above the poet, and when literature, interpretation, and theory alike are said to be indeterminate and infinitely malleable? What happens to our respect for philosophy -- the "love of wisdom," as it once was -- when we are told that philosophy has nothing to do with either wisdom or virtue, that what passes for metaphysics is really linguistics, that morality is a form of aesthetics and that the best thing we can do is not to take philosophy seriously?

And what happens to our sense of the past when we are told that there is no past save that which the historian creates; or to our perception of the momentousness of history when we are assured that is is we who give moment to history; or to that most momentous historical event, the Holocaust, when it can be so readily "demystified" and "normalized," "structuralized" and "deconstructed"?

And what happens when we look into the abyss and see no real beasts but only a pale reflection of ourselves -- of our particular race, glass, and gender; or, worse yet, when we see only the metaphorical, rhetorical, mythical, linguistic, semiotic, figurative, fictive simulations of our imaginations? And when, looking at an abyss so remote from reality, we are moved to say, like Trilling's students, "How interesting, how exciting."

Gertrude Himmelfarb
On Looking Into the Abyss: Untimely Thoughts on Culture and Society

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EXERCISE: Consider this in relation to a dialogue with Jacques Derrida on the subject of 9/11.

"I became the profane pervert Arab blogger"

Salaam Pax writes about browsing and blogging under Saddam Hussein. I wonder if this is the first time a blog has ever been published in book format?

Scraping the bottom the barrel

You know somebody's hard-up for attention-getting spam subject lines when you're greeted with: "Oppressed Arab Women Going SEX-CRAZY!"