Most Listened to in 2011

Wilco, live in concert
This won't be a top 10 albums list, because my listening habits are too quirky and insufficiently up to date, but here goes: what I've listened to (and listened to, and listened to) in 2011.

1. Wilco - The Whole Love (2011) and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002). Biggest obsession: Jesus Etc. Here's the official video and a nice live performance.  Next biggest obsession:

Young Pilgrims

I'm gearing up for a post about the music I've been listening to lately, but I'm too zonked from being in the car all day.  For the time being, how about a song?  I just recently discovered The Shins and love this--



This too (but they should fire their videographer)--



Both from Chutes Too Narrow.

The Elf on the Shelf

One of the topics for my procreation and parenthood class this past semester was lying to children: is it less bad than lying to adults?  One of my students told of a currently popular type of lie, illustrated by the picture above.  Actually, there are two lies here, one addressed to adults, and one to children.  The lie to children involves the elf figurine, who is supposed to be set on a shelf,

The Escalator of Reason

When I wrote some scattered comments about Steven Pinker's book The Better Angels of Our Nature last week, truth be told I had not quite finished the book -- I had about 70 pages to go.  That wasn't the best time to make a final assessment of such a thick book, like the way you should never evaluate a backpacking trip while the pack is still on your back.  It so happens it was especially unwise

Philosophy of Food

The University of North Texas, right up the road from me, has produced a really nifty website about the philosophy of food. Lots and lots of topics and links, and nice graphics too.  (via Leiter)

The Believer's Atheist?

There's something just a little bit right about Ross Douthat's description of Christopher Hitchens as "the believer's atheist" in today's NYT.  Douthat says religious believers particularly liked Hitchens because of "his willingness to debate with Baptists and drink with Catholics and be comradely to anyone who took ideas seriously."  On a deeper level, ... many Christian readers felt that in

Goodbye to Hitchens

Ian McEwan's column in the NYT is so perfect.  I'll miss Hitchens because he was one of the four horsemen, but more than that, because he was the consummate lover of books, ideas, writing, talking, and debate.  What a great writer and talker.  I'm enjoying all the encomiums here and here.

Atheists Untrustworthy, Study Says

art by Tracy Emin
See here.  The strange thing is that not only do religious people trust atheists less, according to this study, but atheists trust each other less too.  Is there any way to make peace with this?  Maybe we can, by focusing on the word "trust".  To trust someone you have to have a pretty confident idea about what they'll think and do in various situations.  Both religious and

God Talk

In honor of the Plantinga article in the NYT today, I'm republishing a post I wrote when he visited SMU last year (2/4/10).  I think the talk covered some of the same ground as his new book.

***

No, God didn't talk at SMU yesterday, but Alvin Plantinga did.  He gave a talk called "Science and Religion: Where the Conflict Really Lies."   


From that title, you'd expect to hear Plantinga

Getting Better All the Time

Brian Rea (NYT)
I wish I could gush more about Steven Pinker's book The Better Angels of our Nature.  (Here's Peter Singer's extremely enthusiastic review.) The book has a provocative thesis--that violence has declined over the course of human history.  It offers a rich variety of explanations, many with implications for how we can reduce violence even more.  Its sentences (all 50 billion of

Adoption

In my last post about reproduction, I tried to explain why we may reproduce, even in a crowded world, in terms of the right of self preservation.  Having a child (and I don't mean 10 children) is a means of survival. Not literally, of course.  We don't lengthen our own lifespans by having children.  But children feel to their parents a bit like second selves, so mortality is easier to face,

Plan B

Just  a quick post to register revulsion about Kathleen Sibelius's decision to stop "Plan B" from being sold as an over-counter-drug. Here's what President Obama had to say about this (quote lifted from Jerry Coyne, who's been doing a fine job of covering the topic)--


What?  No, I'm a parent, and don't feel the same way. In fact, Obama's reasoning is terrible.  An 11 year old girl can go into a

Watch the Throne

My kids survived being chaperoned to the big show by Mom - no disguise needed, and they didn't even try to keep a distance.  Hey, they're only 14, and who knows what stupid thing they might have done without me. 

What a FANTASTIC spectacle.  The show started with Kanye West and Jay-Z on separate platforms rising out of the ground, with green lasers shooting down on them from above and

Disguises

Tonight I'm taking my kids and a friend of theirs to "The Throne" -- the big Kanye West and Jay-Z concert.  I'm an unexpected fan of their music, so this is gonna be fun. Only I have one small problem--how to prevent my kids from looking like kids being escorted by their middle-aged mother.  This significantly lowers the cool factor of getting to go (on a school night, even!)  The solution is a

Reproduction and Self-Defense

We live in a crowded world, so someone might think they're obligated to have no children.  Then again, we live in a world that's becoming disproportionately elderly, so someone might think they'd better have children, so there will be enough young people around to support the aged. Then again again,  it would be odd if someone did their family planning entirely in such terms.  But why's it so odd

More Wilco

Forget philosophy, let's have more Wilco.  They were fantastic at Fair Park Music Hall last night. (Not my video, by the way.) Next week, for something very different, we're seeing Kanye West and Jay-Z. Possible topic for my next column--Wilco vs. The Throne. Title: "The Rough and the Shiny"? Like "The Raw and the Cooked"? Right, well, I haven't had any coffee yet.  Too bad about the bad sound

New Free Inquiry

I'm going to have to get my hands on the latest issue of Free Inquiry, which includes a forum on "enhancement."  Russell Blackford writes for the defense (his article is online), and Adrienne Asch for the prosecution (among other authors). There's also a column by PZ Myers on my favorite time-waster and yours, that elevator matter of yore.

Jesus, Etc.

Going to the Wilco concert tonight ...  grin!  You have to love this song--

The Power of "How?"

As a result of a recent column by Julian Baggini (lots of links here), I find myself thinking about the power of "how?"--as in, the power to induce skepticism that lies in there being no explanation how a purported event happens.

So ... Santa Claus supposedly circles the globe on Christmas Eve and invades houses through chimneys, leaving presents for good boys and girls.   I can't say how,

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm in "Happy Valley" for Thanksgiving--home of the infamous Sandusky mess.  Go ahead and judge me -- because yes, we did a little Sandusky tourism yesterday.  We call this place "MOP" for short (Middle of Pennsylvania) and absolutely nothing ever happens here, so it was amazing (amazing!) to see NBC news trucks downtown.  I hang my head in shame, but we did drive by Joe Paterno's house.  There

What Science Can't Know

This short column by theologian Keith Ward generated a sprawling discussion at atheist blogs over the weekend. Let's see if I can summarize the discussion in less than 10,000 words, and maybe clear up a few things.

Ward's main assertion was this:  "many religious statements are naturally construed as statements of fact...."  More precisely, they're naturally construed as purporting to be

Everyone should see ...

... this terrific news report about factory farm egg production.  I have the greatest admiration for people who go undercover like this. So much for Sparboe eggs--no longer bought by McDonalds or sold at Target.

video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player

Procreative Beneficence

the perfect baby
ANNIE
We all think a pregnant woman should protect her probable future child, A.  Annie should get good prenatal care, stop smoking, absolutely not engage in binge drinking, go on bed rest if needed to avoid premature delivery, etc.  She ought to try to bring A into the world without any abnormalities she can prevent.

BETTY
Now suppose Betty isn't pregnant yet, and she's

Everyday Rebellions

From David Brooks:
First came the atrocity, then came the vanity. The atrocity is what Jerry Sandusky has been accused of doing at Penn State. The vanity is the outraged reaction of a zillion commentators over the past week, whose indignation is based on the assumption that if they had been in Joe Paterno’s shoes, or assistant coach Mike McQueary’s shoes, they would have behaved better. They

Pinker on Violence (4)

I'm busy today, so I'm going to let Steven Pinker write a post for me.  Here's a really interesting passage from The Better Angels of Our Nature (highlighting unintended)--









When I call myself a moral realist, it's this kind of a picture I have in mind.

Why are there so few women in philosophy? (again!)

The powerpoint (you-tube-ized) from my talk a couple of days ago is here.  I presupposed a picture of female attrition that I'm now less sure of.  Based on this graph from "Gender and Philosophical Intuition" (Buckwalter and Stich), I assumed women are less attracted to philosophy classes starting very early on.

 
Then there's also attrition after the undergraduate course series. You see it on

Where were you at 11:11:11 on 11/11/11?

People will no doubt be asking you that in years to come, so I suggest making a mental note of it now. I was having a nice chat about music with my physical therapist. (I'm getting cured of the weird affliction known as "frozen shoulder".) It's always fun to discover someone who likes the same music. Thumbs up: Arcade Fire, Wilco, Fleet Foxes, Decemberists, Kanye West, Jay-Z, and (yes)

"Crowds Riot in State College"

You can't imagine how bizarre that headline sounds - to someone who grew up in State College and went to Penn State.  They literally call it "Happy Valley" and it's happy (and just a tad boring) 99.999% of the time.  Perhaps they were right to fire Joe Paterno, tragic as that is--certainly they had to if he knew what his graduate assistant coach had witnessed, and did no more than report it to

Why are there so few women in philosophy?

Links that go with my talk tonight --

Beebee and Saul, "Women in Philosophy in the UK"
Buckwalter & Stich, "Gender and Philosophical Intuition"
Cordelia Fine, Delusions of Gender
Simon Baron-Cohen, The Essential Difference
Lewis, "Where are all the women?"
Last but not least:  The Incredible Shrinking Man 

Powerpoint --

I Like the Cat

I like the cat's tail
It goes swish, swish
I like cat's whiskers
They go twitch, twitch.
I like cat's eyes
They go glisten, glisten.
I like cat's ears,
They listen listen.
I like cat's fur
It's so soft, soft.
I like when cats jump
They go aloft, aloft.
I like cat's paws
They go pad, pad.
I like mysterious cats
They make sound just a tad, tad.
I like cat's mouth
It goes yawn, yawn.
I like all cats

Ways of Silencing, Reasons for Outing

For my course on procreation and parenthood, tomorrow's reading is a chapter from Jenny Saul's book Feminism.  It's about "the politics of work and family" and starts with an important distinction.  A workplace can be discriminatory on the "difference model"--that involves blatant discrimination on the basis of gender.  A workplace can also be discriminatory on the "dominance model."  Everything

The Evolutionary Psychology of Gender

Wednesday I'm giving a talk about why there are so few women in philosophy, so I've been reading around, thinking about various hypotheses.  For people who find the question interesting, this report by Helen Beebee and Jenny Saul is a must-read (I wrote about it here).  They draw on the book Delusions of Gender: How our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference, by Cordelia Fine -

Who's Being Indoctrinated?

I'm starting to contribute to The Secular Outpost, starting with today's post about indoctrinating children. Next week that will be the topic in my class on procreation and parenthood, so stay tuned (maybe) for more on the subject.

If you're wondering, Kitty is resting comfortably.  His surgery went well, and now we're waiting for the pathology report.

Animal Ethics Comes Home

For the past 6 weeks or so, we've been struggling with one of our cats' health  - he vomits about once a day, eats little, hides under beds. He's lost a lot of weight, and this is clearly life-threatening.  We started with blood tests and x-rays, which didn't identify the problem. Then our vet put him on the steroid prednisone, which helped a lot for a few weeks, but the problems came back. Next

Hammers and Songs

So, seven billion ... and counting!  I really enjoyed Toby Ord's recent lecture on population (here) and find much that he said convincing, but what about the hammers and songs? 

Ord argues that there are advantages to there being seven billion people, not just disadvantages.  One of the advantages comes to light when you contrast hammers and songs. One hammer is not easily shared with an

Number Magic

Something interesting and important is bound to happen today, don't you think?

Seven Billion

Today's the big day, says the UN--there are now seven billion people.  Is that too many? Tony Ord gives a really terrific lecture about the question here.  More cool graphics at NPR here.  Cool graphics at The Atlantic here.

Free Will and Divine Foreknowledge -- Mental Masturbation?

These days philosophers who accept Templeton money can expect to be mocked by the atheist community--by which I mean folks other than the 70% of philosophers who are atheists.  Now, I can see that the money itself is just a little dirty -- I can understand objections on that level.  But what's really odd is the way non-philosophers presume to be able to judge the research that gets funded. The

Are Whales People Too?

Some good stuff in here ... but you have to watch the whole thing. See: corporation point!

           

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Whales Aren't People
www.colbertnation.com


Colbert Report Full EpisodesPolitical Humor & Satire BlogVideo Archive

       

Socratic Mama

What a great blog name!  In fact, if I had any sense (I don't) I'd have thought of that as the title of the book I'm working on.  Socratic Mama is Anne Crumpacker's blog for secular parents and kids, which originated as a result of an encounter her daughter had with Christopher Hitchens at the Freethought convention in Houston a few weeks ago.  The whole story was at Jerry Coyne's website.  I

Pinker on Violence (3)

Angels update. I'm making good progress on Better Angels of Our Nature and starting to be a fan.  One of the very likable things about Steven Pinker is that he cheerfully rebels against political correctness and academic fads.  He's not a true conservative, but doesn't mind sometimes sounding like one.  Why did crime rise in the 60s and fall in the 90s?  He doesn't mind putting some of the blame

Empathic vs. Systematic?

Inspired by this report on women in philosophy, I'm going to be speaking to our undergraduates in a few weeks about female flight--so to speak.  Why do women start out being about half of all students in lower level philosophy classes, but then gradually thin out, until they're only 20-25% of all philosophy faculty?

In that report, the favored explanations have to do with "barriers"-- features

Philosophy for Kids

A student of mine has bravely ventured out into the Real World, where he is working with third graders in a low-income area.  Here's what he writes--
I would love to find a way to introduce my students to philosophy in some sense to give them a taste of what it is that I like to do. This has been hard for me to figure out though for multiple reasons. First, since it is a public school, I am

Can Compassion be General?

I've been surprised to find that quite a few people in my class on procreation and parenthood see genetic counseling as "ableist".  We're talking about pre-conception counseling here--there is no baby yet, and not even an embryo or fetus.  Parents, we are to imagine, are undergoing a test to avoid having a child with a variety of conditions.  Perhaps they're using the handy kit you can order at

The Children We Should Avoid Having

from the New York Times, 10/16/11
In my procreative ethics class this week, the issue is whether there are children we should avoid creating, and what means of avoidance are ethically permissible.  We are talking about pre-conception counseling, pre-implantation diagnosis, and prenatal tests like amniocentesis (followed by abortion).  To make the issues vivid, we are also talking about

Pinker On Violence (2)

Progress report.  I'm not even on pg. 100 of Better Angels of Our Nature yet, and I'm feeling just a little weary.  Reason:  Pinker presents himself as a debunker of a Great Myth.  What's the myth?  That over the course of history, humanity has become more and more violent.  But the thing is, I have no great attachment to that myth - if it's a myth - so I don't need 700+ pages worth of disabusing

Pinker on Violence (1) & A Question about Contagion

I'm going to post occasional impressions, as I read Steven Pinker's new book Better Angels of Our Nature (acclaimed by Peter Singer here).  The first chapter is about violence through ages, with the evidence drawn partly from literature.  There's all the ghastly violence in Homer, the bible, and  Shakespeare, for example.

I had no problem with this sort of evidence-gathering until I went to a

What about the Cherubim?

Jerry Coyne tells a nice story [more here] about Christopher Hitchens' appearance at the Texas Freethought Convention in Houston.  I thought pretty hard about going - Houston is just 4 hours down the road - but the timing wasn't good, since yesterday was Yom Kippur. We Jewish atheists have a lot on our plates.

**

While sitting in services yesterday I read the first couple of chapters of

The Green and the Grey

Green Anti-natalists think we should hold back from having a child for environmental reasons.  They think the world population has to shrink, or human life (and all of life) in the far future will be threatened. On the other side of the coin, Grey Pro-natalists see supporting the elderly as one of the reasons people ought to have children.  Saul Smilansky makes the Grey argument in the

Applause

It's very hard for women to talk about their abortions publicly, and lots of nonsense and misinformation festers when something is forced into the shadows. So I want to applaud Katie Stack for writing this brave, truthful, and necessary editorial in the New York Times.  Every day, women are told lies at Pregnancy Crisis Centers, and they're forced into much unnecessary turmoil.  Some of them will

Truth, Metaphor, or Something Else?

I've always wondered about the state of mind of the authors of the bible.  What were they thinking when they told the story of Adam and Eve, stories about 900 year old people and whatshername who got transformed into the pillar of salt and ... all that.  Jerry Coyne's been having a debate with Mark Shea, Ross Douthat, and Andrew Sullivan that's (partly) about that question.

So what have we got?

Goodbye Steve Jobs

Thank you for being such a genius.

Wish Me Luck!

You have to like an author an awful lot to open an 832-page book, but I do like Steven Pinker a lot.  The Language Instinct is a really great book.  Now he's written a history of violence, and why it's declined.  It seems like we've had the worst violence of all time in the last century, so how can that be?  My curiosity about how he answers that question is part of the reason I ordered the book,

Metamorphosis

John Finnis has a very simple argument for fetal personhood (in "Abortion and Health Care Ethics," which is reprinted in Bioethics, edited by Kuhse and Singer) -- 
"Any entity which, remaining the same individual, will develop into a paradigmatic instance of a substantial kind already is an instance of that kind. The one-cell human organism originating with the substantial change which occurs

The Animal Art of Rob Dunlavey

Visit his blog and website for more visual delights.
























 

The Essential Skeptic

This article in Moment magazine reveals there are a lot of Jewish atheists, and many even belong to synagogues--like I do.  I was thinking about this at Rosh Hashanah services on Thursday, for the billionth time. Why am I so comfortable in that setting, despite being a non-believer? Well, I like the music (that's critical), the history and ancient texts, the shared liberalism, the beauty of the

New TPM

The new issue of The Philosophers' Magazine is out (subscription info and select articles here), and it's packed with good stuff.  In the reviews section we have ...

Robert Howell on Julian Baggini's latest book The Ego Trick
John Koethe on Lake Scugog, a book of poetry by philosopher Troy Jollimore
Alan Haworth on The Ethics of Voting, by Jason Brennan
Michael Antony on Reasonable Atheism,

A Puzzle about Procreation

Here's a little puzzle about procreation that's bothering me. Maybe you'd like to let it bother you too.

Suppose it's the case that in Someland, people should have children, but not too many.  Let's keep this simple--they should have children because otherwise the aging population won't have sufficient support, socially and financially.  But not too many, because population growth will result in

Is Parenthood Just Permissible? (part 2)

Marc Quinn - www.marcquinn.com
Some say we have a prima facie obligation to procreate (like Saul Smilansky), but common sense these days says procreation is just permissible.  Yes, yes, there are population worries, but let's set those aside, please.  Not because they aren't pressing and serious, but because they're not relevant to the philosophical questions I'm trying to think about here. 

Is Parenthood Just Permissible? (update)

Mark Quinn -- http://www.marcquinn.com/
Update 9/23:  The discussion continues, with the aid of the following diagram.  See Justin's comment at the end of the comment thread. I'm mid-pondering (and busy today), so will reply tomorrow.  There are two interesting issues here: what we mean by "supererogatory" and what moral valence should be assigned to having children.


***

Originally posted 9/

Death Penalty News

Not to be outdone by Georgia in the area of death penalty barbarism, the state of Texas has decided to stop serving "last meals" to death row inmates.  Think I'm kidding?  No, it's true!  Turns out yesterday's last meal (served to a white supremacist executed for a notorious vehicular dragging murder) was the last last meal.  He ordered too much barbecue, ice cream, and the like, didn't touch any

Report on Women in Philosophy

Thanks to the idiocy of US Airways, I was recently stuck in an airport for six hours, and finally had a chance to read a new report on women in philosophy (in the UK) by Helen Beebee and Jenny Saul.  And grade a pile of papers. And read some short stories. And argue with some managers.  And gee, Au Bon Pain has pretty good sandwiches, did you know?

This is a smart and interesting report, and I

The Stupid Party

From Maureen Dowd this morning, and don't miss Gail Collins either.

Cartesian Ethics

A post at Practical Ethics News has been worrying me for a couple of days.  Michelle Hutchinson argues that pro-life abortion counselors ought to lie to patients heading for abortions. They might, for example, show them pictures of more advanced fetuses, or exaggerate post-abortion trauma, or lie about how early a fetus can feel pain.  After all, the counselor believes that a fetus is a person

9/11 Tribute

photo from The New York Times

A tribute in four songs, chosen by each member of my family.  From my daughter (who says "listen to it--it's not insulting, it's respectful").



From my son--


From my husband--


My choice--





from abc news website

Women in Philosophy

This report on women in philosophy (in the UK) seems well worth reading and discussing.  Will get to it ... soon!

Elevator Story, Quatre

You know you've been waiting for another one. This time, it's courtesy of Jim Houston, a new blogger at Talking Philosophy.  Simple story:  guy and girl romp in elevator at train station in Scotland, thinking they can't be seen.  But there's a CCTV camera, and now they're in trouble with the law.  Did they do anything morally wrong?  What's the punishment that fits the crime ... if any?  Houston

Philosophy through Minimal Images

Via Brian Leiter ... wow....!  More cool images HERE. The designer is Genis Carerras.

Do we have reasons to enjoy music?

Here's an interesting passage from Derek Parfit's On What Matters (p. 53)--
Many people hate the sound of squeaking chalk. I hate the feeling of touching velvet, the sound of buzzing house-flies, and the flattening, deadening effect of some overhead lights.  The oddness of these dislikes does not make me less than fully rational. Whether we like, dislike, or are indifferent to these various

Joy of Cold

If you don't live in Dallas, you won't understand how thrilling this is. 

Veganish or Vegetarian?

my favorite cookbook - full of fantastic vegan and vegetarian recipes
Carpe Vegan is a new (pretty new?) organization and website that stands for animal activism and tolerant veganism. Here's some smart stuff from a post called "All Birthday Cake and Alcohol is Vegan"--
If someone smokes a pack of cigarettes a day, they’re clearly a smoker; but if, once or twice a year, they get drunk at a

New Yorker Portrait of Derek Parfit

Beg, borrow, or steal, but if you find ethics and ethicists interesting, you must, simply must, read the portrait of Derek Parfit in the Sept. 5 New Yorker (subscribers only). This is a fantastically, deliciously strange article.  I've got to think the robotic writing style ("He did this. He did that. He did the other."), the choppiness, the absence of "place" and interaction (did Larissa

Heavy Liphting

A couple of days ago my friend "Aeolus" suggested that, what with all the elevator scenarios around here (see "elevator ethics" under "topics"), I ought to ... well, I'll just quote him--
Jean: For your next book, I suggest HEAVY LIFTING: The Ethics of Elevator Encounters. (Alternative subtitle: The Ethics of Small Spaces.) Seriously. It could be a fairly short book, written to be accessible to

Elevator Story, Trois

Seriously.  This is from Philip Galanes' advice column in today's New York Times--

I am a dark-skinned Mexican woman with a baby who has the lighter skin of her American dad. We live in an apartment building on the Upper East Side. Often, I find myself on the elevator with residents whose comments make clear that they assume I am the nanny or a maid on my way to work. Granted, I’m not in my best

James Wood on New Atheism

From now on I'll just say "what James Wood says"  Brilliant, and based on his recommendation, now I have a novel to read next--Niels Lyhne, by Jens Peter Jacobsen.

The Confession of Joel Marks

Joel Marks is a recovering moralist, as he confessed a couple of days ago at The Stone. What I find especially notable about his column is the way it's reminiscent of other confessions--especially Tolstoy's (excerpts here). Only Marks's journey is in the other direction--from belief to disbelief, and what's at issue is objective morality. Here's a very Tolstoyan passage:
A friend had been

Philosophy Phrases That Sound Existentially Exciting but Aren't

How's that for a file folder?  I have just two items to put in it today.

"To be is to be perceived."  Surely this is about today's "look at me" way of life. If you just did something--planted a garden, hiked up a mountain, read a novel--and didn't tell the world on Twitter or Facebook or Google+ or by texting someone (etc) it didn't really happen, wasn't really worth doing.  That's what we're

Google Syllabus

There's already Google Books and Google Mail, and Google Everything Else.  Note to the Google Guys: you ought to have Google Syllabus.  This would be great for people trying to teach themselves things, and also for faculty fine-tuning syllabi for new courses.  You can hunt and peck for syllabi online, but it isn't easy to find what you're looking for, and a central depository would encourage

Elevator Story, Deux

I'm not kidding!  This is a great example of how unconscious assumptions can make women invisible--

I'm at a philosophy conference outside of the US. I think there may be even fewer women in philosophy in this country and its neighbors than in mine. The conference hotel is small, and philosophers don't look quite like most of the other guests. There are no nametags, and the conference just

Today's Talk

Let's not have another conversation about all "that", but this may interest commenters on my "Feminism and Atheism" post.

Today I gave a talk at the Fellowship of Freethought in Dallas, which meets one Sunday morning every month in a church-like manner, complete with potlock lunch, activities for kids, social justice initiatives, activism, and music.  This month's meeting theme was the now

How to Do Things with Moons

In case you missed it.

Travel/Book Log

A few travel pictures, finally, along with a book report.  So I finally decided not to decide what to read on our trip to England and Amsterdam, thanks to being able to bring a bunch of stuff on my ipod.  First up--on the plane--a preview of Amsterdam (well, 17th century Amsterdam).  I read half of Rebecca Goldstein's book about Spinoza.  I promise to read the second half soon.

When we landed in

It's Just Moonplay

Note: I received these photos in an email last week, and can now tell you the photographer's name: Laurent Laveder. More pictures are here and they are also available as postcards and as a small book.


























thanks to rm

Nim Chimpsky

The Troubled Life of Nim Chimpsky by Peter Singer | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books

Haven't seen the movie yet, but it's high on my list.