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.

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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