12 in 12

Great things I discovered in 2012 (possibly after everyone else)--

The state of California.
Trees (the fall issue of The Philosophers' Magazine contains my paean to trees).
Bjork--esp. Homogenic and Biophilia. Can't get enough of Joga and Cosmogony.
Joanna Newsom--daughter turned me into a total fan in the past 24 hours!  Try The Book of Right On.
The problem of personal identity. It used to be

West Texas

You must, if you live in Texas, visit the Fort Davis area.  Who knew there were so many riches a mere (ahem) 10 hours' drive from Dallas?  Most of the drive is either boring or hideous, but there's something pretty neat about seeing bumps, and then hills, and then high mountains rise out of the plain. By the time you get to the far west end of the state, the landscape has become truly beautiful,

A Nation of Idiots

Idiot #1 - Wayne La Pierre
I knew yesterday's announcement would be depressing, but underestimated the man. Armed guards. That's the way to prevent another Newtown.  Let the bad guys keep their guns, and give more guns to the good guys. He wants trained volunteers to guard our schools.  Now--I would not reject that idea entirely. If off-duty police officers wanted to guard our neighborhood

All I want for Christmas is ... life and death

So ... I'm being ridiculed by my family just because three items on my holiday wishlist include the words "life" and "death" --

Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
Jill Lepore, The Mansion of Happiness:  A History of Life and Death
Bernd Heinrich, Life Everlasting: The Animal Way of Death

Gloomy, me? Oh come on. I also asked for the book

Law and Order (and the vigil)

New York Times

Our political leaders need to reinstitute the assault weapons ban that lapsed in 2004.  This might really be possible, in the aftermath of the Newtown massacre, especially if gun control advocates sell the idea in the right way. When President Clinton signed the assault weapons ban in 1994, he was something new and different--a "law and order" Democrat.  In addition to signing

Light

Last night the rabbi spoke about light in a time of darkness as people lit hundreds of menorahs in our temple's lovely sanctuary. It's hard to hold onto a feeling of life's basic goodness in the face of yesterday's massacre of completely vulnerable little children and their teachers. I can't think of anything insightful to say except the obvious:  gun control, now.

Losing My Religion

It's Friday, so let's have a song. This, from The Sandy Relief concert on 12-12-12, was amazing.

Must Philosophers Be Parents?

Philosopher Justin E. H. Smith rebels against pressure to be a parent here. He resents the fact that philosophers are always telling him there are things he just can't know, because he's childless.

All the hyperventilation about parenthood can be excessive, but how can it not be the case that parenthood gives people special experiences and insights?   For example, parenthood makes you think

12 X 6 = Time for ... What?

It's just about 12:12:12 on 12/12/12, so it's an auspicious time to ... what? That's the the only problem. I can't figure out how to use this obviously precious moment!

The Metaphysics of Corpses

Continuing to explore whether I was ever a zygote (or embryo, or fetus) ....

Current favorite picture of things:  I am an organism, essentially (so: Animalism). But must I think I began to exist as a zygote? Maybe not. First there was a zygote, which developed and grew into an embryo, and then a fetus (etc.) and at some point the fetus became me.  There's a lot to say about why that picture is

More Kerfuffling

Let us not kerfuffle endlessly, especially during winter break, when all good academics get vast amounts of work done (right?).  But I can't resist noting that Jerry Coyne weighs in here on the topic du jour.  If I'm reading between the lines correctly (I'm not betting large sums on that), he thinks Rebecca Watson is too rough on evolutionary psychology.* I'm prepared to believe what he says on

Feminist Science Criticism, 300 BC

Yesterday I happened to be reading Aristotle's account of reproduction, and came upon a nice example where having a feminist science critic on the scene would have been helpful.  Let us imagine one Kallista, (imaginary) champion of women from 300 BC, responding to this passage from Generation of Animals (Book I, ch. 21, trans. Platt) --



Aristotle says here that a female is passive and a

Feels Like We Only Go Backwards

It's Friday, so time for a great song...and great video!  Makes me think about John Lennon. Finder's credit: RAG

Becoming

Was I ever a a fetus? I continue to read and think about this.  So far I'm inclined to go along with Eric Olson's animalism, which says that the entity I am right now did start to exist as a fetus, way back when.  I think there are some excellent arguments for that view in his two books. But it does make me a bit queasy.  It seems odd to suppose that I was once a millimeter long. The oddity is

Feminist Science Criticism

Update 12/6: Here's a vastly more exhaustive response to Watson and Clint than mine. Great stuff.

For your viewing pleasure, I give you a controversial talk by feminist skeptic Rebecca Watson:






A lot of people seem to be impressed with this excoriation of Watson, by one Ed Clint, but I'm not so impressed. In fact, I'm amazed.  If Watson's talk amounts to "science denialism" then there are

Taking Persons too Seriously

In Persons and Bodies Lynne Rudder Baker says the Constitution View takes persons seriously, and other accounts of what we are don't take them seriously enough. I would say, rather, that the Constitution View takes persons too seriously. On the Constitution View, persons (like us) are persons essentially.

What makes a person a person, Baker contends, is having a first person perspective (FPP).

Favorite Philosophers

Philosophy Bites asked a lot of philosophers "Who's your favorite philosopher?"  Most of then chuckled first and then said ...

Hume
Aristotle
None
Montaigne & Nietzsche
Sartre, None
Aristotle
Carnap
MacKinnon
Hume
Descartes
Nietzsche
Frege
Kant
Hobbes, Rousseau
Aristotle
Aristotle
Thucydides
Socrates
Hume
Wittgenstein
Hybrid of Wittgenstein, Marx, Mill
Hybrid of Armstrong, Smart, Lewis

Survey on the Good and Meaningful Life (Results)

My class on the meaning of life did something novel this semester--we collected the public's responses to a set of 21 questions about the good and/or meaningful life.  First, an explanation of what the point was. Then I'll tell you the results.

THE POINT
Primarily, the idea was to "problematize" the appeal to intuitions in our readings.  Here's how it goes. An author is defending an account of

Survey on the Good and Meaningful Life

Results of the survey will be here tomorrow!

Evil Achievements

Gwen Bradford's article on evil achievements (also available online) is just one of the goodies in the latest issue of tpm.  The issue includes a forum on disagreement with articles by Catherine Elgin, Russ Shafer Landau, Graham Oppy, Cain Todd, and Jennifer Lackey.  To pick out just a few more tasty items: Jennifer Saul has an article on women in philosophy, there's an interview with Frank

Entification

Over Thanksgiving I got to thinking a lot about entification, for a lack of a better word. We take a lot of long walks when we're in Central Pennsylvania, and what's a long walk for but to get some things figured out? Plus, you have a captive audience.  In this case, mostly my son, who has an amazing tolerance for discussing strange things.

So, entification. I've been reading The Metaphysics of

Save me

I've become obsessed with the movie Magnolia, the soundtrack, and this song by Aimee Mann.  Enjoy!

Are we more than animals?

I am overwhelmingly unconvinced by an argument in Lynne Rudder Baker's book Persons and Bodies, to the effect that we are not just animals. She writes--



The argument seems to be:  (1) A human organism is just a survival machine.  In fact, all organisms are mere survival machines, "if evolutionary biology is correct" (p. 12).  But (2) a  person is more than a survival machine. Most importantly

Is Richard Dawkins an Asshole?

It seems to me that Aaron James captures at least a lot of what it is to be an asshole in this three part definition from his book Assholes: A Theory.  An asshole...



Now, a book about assholes would be no fun if it included no examples, and James doesn't disappoint.  But I do wonder about some of his examples.  Is he really applying his own definition when he identifies Richard Dawkins as a

Pictures at an Arboretum

Don't miss the Chihuly installation at the Dallas Arboretum, if you happen to live in the area.








 

Bill and Lou

Spencer Lo has a very readable and thorough editorial on the controversial oxen here.  Is it particularly wrong for Green Mountain College to eat these two animals, as opposed to eating two other animals? In terms of harm done, it's better than eating two factory farmed animals, and roughly the same as eating two anonymous humanely farmed animals. So not particularly wrong.  It's strange,

Assholes: A Theory

I'm currently reading and very much enjoying Aaron James's book Assholes: A Theory.  It's that rare thing--a philosophy book that's laugh out loud funny. Eric Schwtzgebel has a post about the book, and I see James has an asshole blog.  What fun!  I think my next TPM column (an arts column) is going to be about assholes I have known and (not) loved--especially at live music venues.  So far I've

"Obama Won and I Helped!"

I've always been intrigued by the voter's paradox: the difficulty of explaining why you should vote, if there's just about no chance you will cast the deciding vote.  One way to go is to give up the idea that we vote to have an impact.  We can just capitulate and say the only reason to vote is for the enjoyment of being with our neighbors and participating in democracy.  Or some such. But that

Looper, Explained

Wow, this is great!

More Proud Mama

Credit: Becky Groves

Tying up Democrats in Red Tape

One of the most maddening Republican political strategies these days is trying to increase the difficulty of voting.  If you make voter registration more difficult or require picture IDs, for example, some people won't make it over the hurdle.  Those who fail tend to have lower socio-economic-status and more often vote Democratic.  The argument on the other side is that it's not difficult

Survey on the Good and Meaningful Life

In the class I'm teaching, we're doing a bit of "X-Phi" on issues having to do with the good life and the meaningful life.  It would be wonderful if you would take our survey AND spread the word, wherever you hang out -- Facebook, Twitter, your own blog, whatever. Here's the link-- https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/moljk

THANK YOU!

Update 5:21 -- The comments here, at Pharyngula, and at Twitter

Lumps and Statues

I'm still thinking about "first contact"--whether seeing blobs on an ultrasound is seeing our children for the first time. Or is that just an organism we see, and does the organism only later come to "constitute" (but not literally become) a child/person?  Which means I am reading and thinking a lot about ...  you guessed it ... lumps and statues.

The constitution view says a lump is one thing

The Reasons of Love

Reposting, because I'm discussing this book in my class today. The title has become pleasantly fused in my mind with "The Hazards of Love" from The Decemberists--enjoy!

What a lovely book. The second chapter has a rather compelling objection to the sort of view of the good life that I defend in my book The Weight of Things. I defend what Parfit calls "the objective list view." There are

Eating Meat, Raping Women

The long comment thread triggered by Gary Francione's Philosophy Bites interview degenerated in predictable ways, but did get me thinking about one of the standard abolitionist "moves".  Francione and another commenter toward the end of the thread argue that supporting "humane" animal products is like supporting "humane" rape, or supporting "humane" child molestation. I got to thinking about

Sexists in Atheist-Land

Rebecca Watson's Slate article is a must read, but will it convince everyone she's been treated abysmally?  Ha! The problem with the sexists in atheist-land is that they cannot imagine that they have their own biases and blindspots. We're super-smart skeptics, right?  If you look at what Watson has been through (if the Slate article isn't enough, look at her page o' hate) and think someone else (

The Meaning of Life

The religious view of the meaning of life is wonderfully stated at the end of one of my favorite movies of all time (and I do mean it)--THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN! Haven't seen it? You must!

Space Pasta

click to enlarge


My "book" (manuscript, so far) on parenthood is going to have a chapter on parental pride.  What's it all about? Why are we entitled to it?  Why is it so enjoyable? Today's occasion for parental pride--"Space Pasta" by my daughter Becky. Think of the wheel on the left as the sun, and you'll get it.

The Thinking Animal Problem

I'm still in "pondering mode" on the question of when we make first contact with our children. I wrote about that topic in July and again in August. Now I'm reading Eric Olson's book What Are We? and ... still pondering.

I'm fond of the animalist view--Olson's view--which says we are animals (or organisms) that come to have mental properties at some point, whether before or after we are born

Loving Life

There's nothing like a health scare to make you love being alive. I love all the pictures in Greta Christina's latest post.  (Hope she won't mind if I borrow one.) Best, best, best wishes to her ... and to other folks I know who are going through this sort of wretched stuff.

Philosophy at the Movies (repost)

Reposting because I just saw Moon again and I'm back to thinking about its connection to the issue of personal identity. Terrific movie!

Last night I watched Moon (2009), the movie Duncan Jones made before Source Code (2011).   Duncan Jones went to graduate school in philosophy for a while, before fleeing to film school, and yes indeed, both movies deal with philosophical issues--in fact, the

Animal Ethics Links

You might be interested in this Philosophy Bites interview with Gary Francione.  Don't miss the first couple of comments by Spencer Lo, who draws on many passages in Practical Ethics (the latest edition, published in 2011) to argue that Francione misrepresents Singer's position on killing animals. Francione at first writes off Lo as a defender of "corporate welfarists" but (fortunately) settles

Looper

I've been discussing the movie Looper with my husband and kids ever since we all saw it last weekend--it takes a lot of talking to get clear(er) about what happened and whether it's really possible.  Plus the movie raises some interesting ethical issues. 

SPOILER ALERT! I'm going to ruin the whole thing. Don't read this if you plan on seeing the movie.  Also, feel free to correct me if I have

The Hidden Cost of Following the Principle of Procreative Beneficence

Lately I've been thinking (and writing) about the principle of procreative beneficence that's been advocated by Julian Savulescu (lots of links here). Here's the basic idea, from an abstract to one of his papers--



It seems to me there is at least a tension between following the principle of Procreative Beneficence (PB) and having what you might call a "parental attitude".  But the tension is

Animal Pain

This is a terrifically interesting and well done video responding to the contention that animals can't feel pain.  I'll make some comments below.




1:08 The video starts in a shaky way, speculating that sea mammals may be aware of the feelings of the humans they interact with. Well, maybe. Fortunately that's just the entry point into the main question: do animals feel pain?  Wish I could refer

How many "great books" have you read?

Fun question from James Garvey over at Talking Philosophy.

Looper

Coming soon: discussion of the movie Looper. It's a very entertaining movie with a wildly fun time travel theme, but what I really enjoyed was the way the movie raises questions about our having (or not having) special duties to children.  Stay tuned.

Guilt by Association

Recently observed in certain combat-ridden regions of the internet: overuse of the phrase "guilt by association."  People seem to think who you associate with can't make you guilty, and that's absurd.  Let's say (just hypothetically) that X associates with a racist website.  He likes to criticize Obama, which is of course fine, but does so at White Guys R Us, knowing that this will incite the

Experience Machine Survey

This semester I've added a new component to my class on the good life and the meaning of life: an attempt to discover the public's intuitions on 10-20 cases and thought experiments that drive philosophers' views in both areas.  In another month, I'll be putting the whole survey online.  But for the moment, your comments are welcome on the way we've formulated questions (2), (3), and (4). If you

High Holy Days

The Jewish high holy days created an intriguing juxtaposition for me last weekend. On Saturday I gave a talk at a freethought conference and on Sunday went to Rosh Hashanah services with my kids. What a lovely opportunity for "compare and contrast"! (And there will be more this week--Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is on Tuesday.)

The #1 theme of a sermon at a liberal Jewish temple is (I

Better to have existed than not at all?

A reader sent me the following question about eating "happy cows". I will not be able to get to this until tomorrow or Wednesday, but thought others might like to discuss in the interim.

If I may, I was wondering if I could get your take on a common objection concerning the raising of humanely treated animals, that the alternative is non-existence, and it's better for them to exist than to never

Feminine Faces of Freethought

I was thinking about live-blogging or live-tweeting yesterday's conference, but I'm actually not capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time--so to speak.  No need for a complete rundown, as there will be video of the whole conference soon, I hear. This is going to be mostly reactions to panels and talks, not summaries.

First up was a panel on secular parenting, featuring Jamye Carr,

Is Life Meaningless?

Links for my talk at Feminine Faces of Freethought.

Alex Rosenberg, The Atheist’s Guide to Life: Enjoying Life without IIlusions 
Jean Kazez, Review of Rosenberg in Free Inquiry (August/September 2012)
Leo Tolstoy, A Confession 
Harry Frankfurt, The Reasons of Love 
Susan Wolf, Meaning in Life and Why it Matters 
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – look up
Intentionality; Causal theories of

Repudiate, Excoriate, Disassociate

A quick word about this.  PZ Myers' frustration is understandable, and that's a beautifully written rant, but Ron Lindsay did repudiate the savages.  He said "no one wants them in the movement."  That's repudiating; it's just not excoriating.  Must we excoriate?  I'm not so sure, as my impression is that the savages love the attention. They positively thrive on being excoriated. My view is that

Solidarity

One of the reasons I'm looking forward to the "Feminine Faces of Freethought" conference on Saturday is that for once, I'm (presumably) going to be sitting in a room with women who are happy to make common cause with other women. Ever since I organized a talk on feminism at my junior high school, when I was 13 years old, I've been happy to do that.

Some women--apparently a non-negligible number

It was a happy cow

I adore Nicholas Kristof, and love the way he's taken up the cause of animals, but his column today does make me wonder if he's ready to think carefully about these things.  The howlers (as English philosophers used to say) are so obvious they're almost funny.

Kristof has a friend named Bob who raises dairy cows in relatively humane conditions, giving them names and calling them his "girls".

Misogyny and the Meaning of Life

Next week at the Feminine Faces of Freethought conference in Dallas I'm going to be talking about the meaning of life. Specifically, I'll be talking about an argument in Alex Rosenberg's book The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions -- to the effect that life is totally meaningless.

But first I plan on saying just a bit about the misogyny wars that have been raging lately

Drunken "Consent"

Jeremy Stangroom asks an interesting question over here.  "Suppose somebody says this to you--

I want to want to have sex with you, but I never want sex unless I’m
high or drunk. I can’t relax and I don’t enjoy it. But look, I’ll start
drinking, and hopefully there will come a point where my inhibitions are
sufficiently lowered and I’m relaxed enough so that we can go ahead.
But realize I’m

"I am an animal"

There's a movie about the life of PETA president Ingrid Newkirk, called "I am an animal."  Saying "I am an animal," in that context, is an expression of ethical solidarity with animals.  In my course on animal rights, I use the term "animalism" to encompass all who give more-than-traditional status to animals, whether rights advocates, utilitarians, or people with other perspectives.  So "I am an

What is Civility?

There's been a lot of discussion about that question at atheist blogs recently and I've had a growing sense that a lot of people are on the wrong track. They focus too much on decorum--politeness, name-calling, and the like. Civility has something to do with decorum, but the essence of it is something else.  I like what Robert Talisse and Scott Aikin say about civility in a recent post at 3

What fun ...

... I've not been having, since I posted my blog about the backlash against feminism in the "atheosphere".  Not to be unoriginal, but we really aren't in Kansas anymore.  Moral of the story: watch who you talk to, because there are people out there who basically act like mad dogs (with apologies to mad dogs). They bark, scratch, bite, beg to be petted, whine, and them bark some more.  When you

"I wish my mother had aborted me"

"Aeolus" sent me an article from the Guardian with that very puzzling title. The author, Lynn Beisner, says she's tired of all the abortion deliverance stories that pro-lifers like to tell.  They seize upon accounts of people who were nearly aborted, but whose mothers changed their minds.  She writes--

What makes these stories so infuriating to me is that they are emotional
blackmail. As

The Backlash Against Feminism

Jen McCreight has a long post today about the backlash against feminism within the atheist-skeptic (AS) movement.  I think she's right that there's a backlash, but it would pay to dissect it dispassionately, and not overstate how big it is and who's a part of it.

By a "backlash against feminism" you might think what's meant is that a lot of people have been challenging the positions of atheists

Little Kitty

This is our new little kitty, a cat of three names, since we haven't decided yet. She's either Harriet, Soji (short for Sojourner), or Arietty (of Borrowers fame).  Awww!

Must we read letters from our past selves?

My daughter wrote letters to her future self when she was about 8 years old. She had noticed that perfectly nice kids sometimes turn into grumpy teenagers, and she wanted to tell herself not to do that. Now that she's 15, she refuses to read these letters. She thinks her 8-year-self has nothing to teach her.  Possibly cute, but something of a dolt -- I think that's about how she sees her past

Feminine Faces of Freethought

If you'll be in the Dallas area, please consider attending Feminine Faces of Freethought, a conference being held on September 15, under the auspices of the Dallas Fellowship of Freethought.  More info here.  The program (as it stands so far) reads--



Women
of Reason--Dallas presents Feminine Faces of Freethought, a conference
featuring women speaking about topics that affect the freethought

Pink Boys, Blue Girls

Yesterday's New York Times Magazine had an interesting article by Ruth Pradawer about boys who like to dress like girls ("pink boys" is the phrase the author uses).  Parents get much more concerned about these boys than about girls who want to dress like boys.  Why is that?  One reason is because their futures are less conventional. The author writes--


The studies on what happens in adulthood

Short Story, Manque

Too bad I'm not a short story writer. I think I recently encountered material for a good story.  Alas, all I can do is relate this as an anecdote. 

I went to see The Dirty Projectors last weekend with my husband and 15-year-old daughter.  They were performing at the Kessler Theater in Oak Cliff, which is a very small, consummately cool venue, where it's hard to blend into the crowd. My

Why Philosophy Helps

Massimo Pigliucci has written a fine post today about irrationality and bad behavior in the so-called "community of reason."  Having regularly followed atheist blogs for about 5 years now, this strikes a deep chord with me. I'm much less familiar with "real world" skeptic/atheist groups than Massimo is (I imagine they're much better), but I am continually amazed by the online shenanigans. Massimo

The Creation Evidence Museum

Here in Texas, creationists lurk everywhere, so it seems reasonable to try to understand how they think. A place called the "Creation Evidence Museum" is an hour and a half from Dallas, right near Dinosaur Valley State Park.  At the park you can see dinosaur track fossils in a the bed of a shallow stream --very cool.  A man by the name of Carl Baugh created the museum close by in 1994, presumably

First Contact (2)

So (I was asking, here)--when do we make first contact with our children? Did they exist way back when they were developing in the womb, or do they come into existence only once they are conscious selves or full persons? I'm not quite at the "full conviction" stage yet, but I'm finding Eric Olson very persuasive. His book The Human Animal: Personal Identity without Psychology is a thing of

Complaining about Sexism

Greta Christina says complaining about sexism and other forms of oppression is a Catch-22: if we don't complain, the problem remains invisible, but if we do complain, we

... get accused of “playing the victim card.” We get accused of making
up the marginalization, or exaggerating it, or going out of our way to
look for it, or twisting innocent events to frame them in this narrative
of

First Contact

Ultrasound of twins at 6 weeks (not mine, fyi!)

Question of the week (for me) -- when do people have first contact with their children? I may have seen mine very early on, when I was only about 6 weeks pregnant. I saw two blobs on an ultrasound image, anyway. But was that them--Becky and Sam? 

One thing seems pretty clear--it's not until 20 weeks gestation (very roughly, and at the very least

Are atheist accommodationists hypocritical?

Jerry Coyne finds philosophers very, very, very vexing when they try to reconcile science and religion.  He suspects it's always "political"--

In my estimation, all atheist philosophers who try to reconcile religion
and science are doing so for political reasons—as are organizations
like the National Academy of Sciences and the National Center for
Science Education that engage in the same

A Puzzle About Twins

Suppose people start existing on the first day after conception--just suppose.  Here's an argument that seems to show that identical twins must be an exception.  Take Betty and Casey, who come into existence as my diagram depicts--


Jeff McMahan makes this argument--

[Betty and Casey] ... cannot both be identical with the original zygote for, given the transitivity of identity, that would imply

Progress Report

I've been working slowly on a book (well, so far a WORD file) about parenthood. I'm dealing with topics in the order in which people encounter them, so the first several chapters are about the reasons why we have children, whether there are good reasons not to have children, and how choosy we ought to be about the kind of children we have. I'm trying to delve into the most thorny puzzles about

Faith

Michael Kelly's article about his daughter's marriage in the NYT Style section yesterday was a thing of beauty--try reading it without crying!  He starts with the horror of his daughter's rape 10 years ago and ends with this, on her abiding faith--



Ten years ago, bleeding and alone in the field where she had been left
to die at 24, my daughter got up and stumbled to a house in the dead of

Dear NRA

Words can't really express how I feel about yesterday's massacre, considering that I have teenagers I routinely drop off at movie theaters, so I'll just pass on a letter that came into my possession. It's from an NRA fan by the name of I. Amanidiot.

***

Dear NRA,

Consider, please, my little Swiss Army knife.



The US Government forbids me to carry it onto an airplane. This really upsets me.

Aristotle on Parenthood

Here are some passages from Aristotle that I've been pondering (all from Nichomachean Ethics Book VIII, Chapter 12). Maybe you'd like to ponder too--

A parent is fond of his children because he regards them as something of himself; and children are fond of a parent because they regard themselves as coming from him.
The parent regards his children as his own more than the product regards the

Circumcision Debate

Interesting debate here that touches on my post about religious circumcision at several points. Fuzzy picture quality, unfortunately. How to pronounce "Kazez"? Kuh-ZEZ.  Looks exotic, sounds pretty plain vanilla!

Graphing Ideas

This is beautiful, check it out.

What is Feminism?

For lovers of Scottish accents and feisty red-headed girls, nothing could possibly beat the movie Brave. So funny, so heart-warming, so adorable.  And a feminist movie for kids, too!  Let's just say I'm in love.  Funny thing, though-- after the movie I gently queried my two kids, 15 year old boy/girl twins, about the feminist message of the movie, and discovered, to my surprise, that they

Religious Circumcision

picture from www.brityy.org


I am against infant circumcision. That said, I hasten to add that I don't think circumcising boys is the world's greatest crime.  Many circumcised boys have lived to tell the story.  They are not enormously deprived.  Circumcising boys is nothing like "circumcising" girls.  Still--I think the practice is wrong and should stop.



But what if you're Jewish? Don't

Jeff

When I taught a course on procreative ethics last year, my students were exposed to all sorts of odd thought experiments.  For example, we talked about a thought experiment devised by Gregory Kavka.  Imagine a couple that uses a sex pill to increase sexual pleasure, with the result that their offspring are born with some minor abnormality.  The intuition is that there's something wrong with this,

Beautiful World

I had my musical interlude, now it's time for natural beauty.  (This is what happens when you try to read an excruciatingly boring book--there have to be a lot of interludes. To protect the innocent, I won't be saying who wrote the book.)  The picture, with credits, is from Jerry Coyne's blog, and he credits it to Jens Kolk.

The Rifle's Spiral

Musical interlude.  At first I thought Port of Morrow was a tad bland, but I've come to love it. No--to be honest!--I'm obsessed with it. James Mercer's voice is perfectly warm and melodious, but with hints of edginess. Reminds me of something from the 60s--but for the life of me I can't think exactly what. 

Conservatives are Happier?

So says Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute in today's New York Times--




WHO is happier about life — liberals or conservatives? The answer might
seem straightforward. After all, there is an entire academic literature
in the social sciences dedicated to showing conservatives as naturally
authoritarian, dogmatic, intolerant of ambiguity, fearful of threat and
loss, low in

Bullying

I've been on the road a lot in the last month, so away from a full-size computer. For rest and relaxation, I've been on Twitter quite a bit. Hey, it's fun compressing messages! Except some things are too complicated to talk about in tiny bursts.

Like Bullying.  Someone started a Twitter hashtag, #FTBullies, meant to call attention to bullying at Free Thought Blogs. If you don't define your

The Freeloader Argument

Hurray for the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act, but now there will be increased zeal to strike down Obama himself and elect Romney, who wants to repeal it.  President Obama really needs to get out there and sell Obamacare, and especially the individual mandate, in a way that speaks to conservatives, not just liberals. It's all wrong to think the individual mandate is a

The American Atheists' Harassment Policy

While we all wait to find out what the Supremes think of the Affordable Care Act, let's have a look at the Harassment Policy hammered out by American Atheists in the wake of the recent online brouhaha about such things.  Here's the core of the policy--


That all sounds exactly right. [Update10:10 am:  Is there stuff to quibble with? I just read this, and maybe so, but it strikes me as being

Mothers at Work

On a recent trip I had a chance to read Anne-Marie Slaughter's much-discussed Atlantic article on working mothers. She says many things that need to be said. For example: we must acknowledge the importance children have for women (and men) and accommodate the demands of parenthood in the workplace.  One nice new point Slaughter makes is that this is no different from accommodating the schedule of

The Dark at the End of the Tunnel

I've been meaning to read James Atlas's book My Life in the Middle Ages for a long time.   I'm finally reading it (well, listening) because  a lot of things are conspiring to make me think about aging, the passage of time, and ... death.  Amazon reviewers complain that Atlas does a lot of moaning, whining, and wallowing. He's self-indulgent in the face of things that everyone has to go through. 

Tree Notes

Addenda to my recent post about trees.

1.  There's an amusing and alarming chapter on naming rights in Michael Sandel's generally amusing and alarming book What Money Can't Buy.  I thought of it when I kept on seeing signs like the one below in redwood groves in Jedediah Smith State Park. 




2.   Here Russell Blackford segues from my recent tree post to an interesting (and sympatico) thing

Blaming the Victim?

What is it with the atheist online community in the summertime?  Last summer "elevatorgate" was endlessly discussed. This summer there's another brouhaha, also involving the treatment of women. Three years ago there was another interminable debate about very, very little.  You might be forgiven for suspecting that the no-God hypothesis leaves atheists with not enough "meat" on their plates,

Thinking About Trees

I'm back from two weeks in northern California, which I spent thinking about two things--(1) trees, and (2) why (on earth) I don't live in northern California.  What a fantastic place.

We started in San Francisco and then drove over the Golden Gate bridge to Sausalito and up the
coast to Point Reyes seashore and then to the redwood state and national parks near Oregon, with a couple of nights

Brief Reviews

This blog's soon going to go silent for a little while, but first a few book notes --

What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets, by Michael Sandel, is really a terrific book, despite the fact that it's almost all "data", with very little "theory".  Most of the book is a journalistic account of what all we can now buy.  It's is stuffed with amazing examples.  Sandel thinks we should be

Rat Walks Again

This picture and story captures what's so heart-wrenching about the whole subject of animal experimentation. 




Rats with a spinal cord injury
that left their hind legs completely paralyzed learned to walk again on
their own after an intensive training course that included electrical
stimulation of the brain and the spine, scientists reported on Thursday.
Obviously the rats don't just have

Conference Behavior

I think this is funny.  So you
give a speech at a conference, and afterwards a couple comes up to you and
hands you a business card, saying (essentially) "care to join
us?"  For details and the card see
here.   Question:  when
should moronic behavior be treated as private vice, to be discouraged
informally; and when should moronic behavior be proscribed by the quasi-legal
standards of a community

My Sweet Lord

Song for the day is "My Sweet Lord" -- we've been having a George Harrison fest, as a result of watching the new(ish) Martin Scorsese movie about his life (which is very good).  There's something utterly ingenious about religious thinking.  I've noticed, as I age, that I'm getting more and more creaky, and it really, really sucks. Being a believer let's you think, as you fall apart, that you're

Attachment Parenting

I guess I have to read Elisabeth Badinter's book The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women, but I think it's going to be supremely irritating, judging by this review and Katha Pollitt's column, both in The Nation.  The bad guy du jour is "attachment parenting," which says good mothers/parents need to be in super-contact with their children, wearing them in slings,

Coyne on Evolution and Religion

Jerry Coyne has a new article out on how religiosity gets in the way of Americans accepting evolution.  I'm surprised he continues a pattern of reasoning that was widely criticized over a year ago.  First he dismisses religious scientists as "proof" of religion-science compatibility--




Some argue that the mere existence of religious scientists proves this compatibility,
but that is specious.

The Second Sexism (plus a mystery or two)

I have my eye on the book The Second Sexism -- to read it, or not to read it?  We will certainly review it at The Philosophers' Magazine and Benatar is writing an essay on discrimination against men for the magazine.  If nothing else, the book is intriguing, and it sure has a clever title. But ...

Honestly, I cannot say that I feel the problem of sexism against men looms large, especially

The Republican Brain

Something about the title of this book elicits skepticism. I wouldn't read a book called The Liberal Brain, if it were written by a conservative (did Ann Coulter actually write a book with that title)?  Why expect objectivity from a liberal trying to dissect the Republican brain?  Actually, if you read the book, you do get an answer.  Liberals, more than Conservatives, love to be fair and

#1,000

Erick Swenson, Untitled 2000, The Modern, Fort Worth

This seems to be my 1000th post* here at In Living Color - 1000 in just about exactly 5 years of blogging.  I was thinking I would write a fascinating retrospective but ... zzzzzz. Honestly, it would be boring.  Please.

Instead, let's have some footnotes.  I've been working on my TPM column, which is going to be about the artist Erick

Religion for Atheists

When Alain De Botton gets done building his temple for atheists, I'd like to be appointed the music director.  Let's definitely have a lot of Bjork.  Why?   Because her music creates the sort of experience religious people get to have, and De Botton thinks the godless should have as well.  Or perhaps more like it -- a successor experience. Something grand, emotional, and full of wonder, but

What a Philosopher Looks Like

I'm really enjoying these pictures.  They show that philosophers don't all look the same and don't spend all their time with their heads buried in books.  That's great, but hey--there is a look. Philosophers look a bit more natural, disheveled, and unconventional than most people.  The men are less clean-cut, the women are less coiffed and artificial.  There are more men than women, and white

Breaking -- Obama Defends Gay Marriage!

Joe Biden deserves credit for forcing his hand!

Maurice Sendak Talks to Stephen Colbert

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Grim Colberty Tales with Maurice Sendak Pt. 1
www.colbertnation.com


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The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Grim Colberty Tales with Maurice Sendak Pt. 2
www.colbertnation.com


Colbert Report Full EpisodesPolitical Humor & Satire BlogVideo Archive

Everyone's Talking About ...

Markets. Scott Carney's book The Red Market  is one of the most interesting things I read (and blogged about) last year. It's about the international market in hair, blood, kidneys, eggs, sperm, wombs ... and children.  Carney confines himself mostly to reporting the facts about these strange markets, but you get a strong sense that he thinks there's something fundamentally wrong with them all.

What it's like to spend the whole day grading exams

Yes, those are the fires of hell.

Ethics minus religion = thin gruel?

Didn't see this until now -- "Room for Debate" at the New York Times, with Rhys Southan weighing in interestingly (as usual).

Elsewhere in vegan-world, Gary Francione has an interesting, long essay about moral realism and "new atheism".  It bothers him, as it does me, that new atheists often accept the following equation:  ETHICS minus RELIGION = THIN GRUEL.  In academic ethics, that equation is

NYT Meat Contest Winner

It's Jay Bost, here and below. 




As a vegetarian who returned to meat-eating, I find the question “Is
meat-eating ethical?” one that is in my head and heart constantly. The
reasons I became a vegetarian, then a vegan and then again a
conscientious meat-eater were all ethical. The ethical reasons of why
NOT to eat meat are obvious: animals are raised and killed in cruel
conditions; grain

Must Read

If you read Brian Leiter, you will have read the funniest review on earth this morning.  If you don't read him, today you must.  The reviewer is Nina Strohminger. The book is The Meaning of Disgust, by Colin McGinn.  She didn't like it.  As a book reviews editor I'm just plain jealous.  Why can't I get people to write reviews like this?  (By the way, what's the magazine/journal?  I can't tell

The Geography of Faith

Here's a reason to be a skeptic that holds up at first, but crumbles on reflection:  religious beliefs depend on where a person lives.  Via Jerry Coyne, here are two amusing maps:






If having a belief depends on where you live, the suspicion is that the belief is shaped by non-rational forces instead of being a consequence of the way the world is.  We shouldn't take these kinds of beliefs too

Who to Trust?

I've been watching the debate between Bart Ehrman and Richard Carrier with fascination.  I'm a fan of Bart Ehrman's, based on reading two of his books--Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millenium and one correcting errors in The DaVinci Code.  Richard Carrier is someone I've noticed over the years peripherally, without paying direct attention to him. People seemed to think he was

Martha Nussbaum on Religious Intolerance

She talks about her latest book The New Religious Intolerance here.  I think she goes too far in the direction of "can't we all just get along?"  What she says about martyrdom made me especially queasy.  People who let themselves be killed during the Holocaust, in solidarity with Jews, have no connection with suicide bombers who blow up other people in the service of "jihad".  And no, we don't

Collective Obligation, Personal Virtue

So here's the puzzle I'm scratching my head about (though I ought to be grading papers):  Each society has a more or less ideal birth rate.  Maybe for the US it's ideal if the average couple has two children.  We don't want a higher birth rate for environmental reasons, among others, and we don't want a lower birth rate for lots of reasons -- because new people will be needed to support the

The Case for Meat

The New York Times parade of meat-defenses is in -- let's have a look.  One of them is a defense of eating lab meat, not natural meat, so let's throw that out, no matter how well written it is.  I also happen to know who the author is, and she's actively seeking votes. I think that's a no-no in a contest like this.  The idea is to find out which of the six essays appeals most to Times readers,

The Case against Kids

Overall, Benatar, and Caplan all covered in The New Yorker.  I'm looking forward to reading this ....

Coyne v. Haidt

I thought it was not so nice of Jerry Coyne to dismiss Jonathan Haidt as "a bit of a woo-ish self-help guru". In fact, both unnice and not reality-based. Haidt's book The Happiness Hypothesis is extremely interesting and well-written, and no less valuable because it does have a self-help element (I use it in a course I teach). And that's saying nothing about his extensive and influential research

Children Come from Us

pics on SodaheadI've been thinking-writing about why people want to be parents -- what are the most central motivations and satisfactions?  This is a hard thing to think about without being constrained by a sort of political correctness.  The politically correct view, I think, is that we have children to enjoy nurturing them.  That's PC because nearly everyone who wants to be a parent can have

Why Have Children?

Currently reading:  Why Have Children?, by Christine Overall. Here's a nicely written review.

Texts from Hillary

Grin. 

Easter Blasphemy

I thought I'd indulge in some Easter blasphemy ...

Blasphemous thought: do Christians really believe today the son of God was resurrected and saved all believers from their sins? If they really took that seriously, would they honor the occasion by focusing on a giant bunny who brings candy to children?

... but then I read Nicholas Kristof ("God Makes a Comeback"), and I think I'm pretty much

Zoopolis (3)

Final post. This is the book that everyone in animal ethics ought to be talking about, and no doubt will be talking about in the fullness of time. You need to read it, if you're interested in the moral status of animals. 

The plot, if you haven't been reading my posts on the book:  Donaldson and Kymlicka argue that all animals have basic rights, but that they also have further rights,

The Dead Have Rights

I was amazed to learn this morning, from a coroner's report, that Whitney Houston was wearing a wig and dentures when she died, and that she had breast implants.    I was even more amazed to realize that a government coroner's office will tell the whole world private information like this, even though it has no connection at all to what they're supposed to be investigating--the cause of her

Exciting Day in Dallas

It's amazing how calm this guy's voice is! 

<p>&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;</p>

Joy of Weird

Those Crazy Philosophers

In the last week I've read an amazing amount of stuff by philosophers that the ordinary person would regard as stark raving mad.  I wonder about this. Is that the job of philosophy--to take seriously what nobody else takes seriously?  Or do academics suffer from boredom, and need to find ever more outrageous things to say? Or does the pressure to publish favor positions that no one else has ever

Role Reversal

Isn't it odd how the debate on the individual mandate makes conservatives forget to be conservatives?  There's a good conservative argument for the mandate.  People without insurance benefit from emergency rooms that are required to give them care.  Even if they never visit the ER in the next year, its existence puts them at lower risk of a medical disaster. If they don't pay for their unused

Zoopolis (2) - Animal Citizens

This morning's New York Times has two horrifying stories about the treatment of animals -- one about horse racing in America, and the other about dog-dumping in Puerto Rico.  In the US, the report says, 24 horses die in horse races every week, mostly as a result of the use of pain medication to mask injuries.  In Puerto Rico, there's a place called Dead Dog Beach, where people abandon surplus

Trayvon Martin

So heart-breaking.  I have a teenage son who goes around wearing hoodies and walks to the convenience store for snacks. I've never worried that he'd be shot by the local neighborhood watch patroller.  Should I mention that he's white? Newt Gingrich recently said it was "disgraceful" for President Obama to mention that Trayvon Martin was black. Now that (Gingrich, that is) is disgraceful. 

NYT: Why is it ethical to eat meat?

The New York Times is running a contest for people who think they have the answer, with a "veritable murderer's row of judges" assessing the submissions, including Peter Singer, Michael Pollan, and Jonathan Safran Foer. What fun, and this should be interesting, but did all five judges have to be men?  There are lots of appropriate women who could have been on that panel, including (dare I say?)

Free Will Free-for-all

The online debate about free will is heating up, thanks to high profile author Sam Harris's new book on the subject. The Chronicle of Higher Education had a nice forum on free will yesterday, starting with an essay by Jerry Coyne. Hilary Bok and Al Mele write in defense of compatibilism, but not in response to Coyne.  His argument is very simple. Restating a bit, the idea is that any mental event

Zoopolis (1)

It's been a while since I've read anything on animal ethics that's new and different, but Zoopolis, the new book by Sue Donaldson and political philosopher Will Kymlicka, is new and different -- and well worth reading.  I'm going to "live blog" the book a bit, as in: write about it as I continue to read it (I'm about 1/3 of the way through).

Zoopolis is a work in the rights tradition of

Give and Take

Some very good philosophers accept money from the Templeton Foundation, which makes me pay attention to arguments why this is a bad thing to do.  One type of argument puzzles me ... a lot.  The argument for not taking their money is that the Templeton Foundation, or at least the family, supports nefarious causes like Rick Santorum's presidential campaign.  Here's how Jerry Coyne suspects

The Bazaarness of Philosophy

Colin McGinn writes in The Stone that "philosophy" is a bad word for philosophy.  It brings to mind someone who works on "unearthing and explicating the 'meaning of life' and what the ultimate goods are" - but philosophers may do nothing of the kind.

I do get this - back in the days when I "did" philosophy of mind and language it annoyed me no end to sit next to someone on a train or plane and

Whole World Goodness

Some people are using their February 29th to do something exotic--maybe hot air ballooning in the desert or visiting sea turtles on the black sand beaches of Hawaii or ... well, dream on. I'm spending it scratching my head about population puzzles. 

Suppose the world had a small, happy population--10,000 people perhaps. Generation after generation, they replace themselves. Their way of life

All Dead Mormons are Now Gay

You have to admit, this is a brilliant project.  I converted someone by the name of Donna Thomson this morning.

It's touching how it says "no converting Holocaust victims" at the bottom. Of course, that's how all this got started. Apparently Mormons have been converting dead Holocaust victims for years--to Mormonism, of course.

Funniest thing ever--Steven Colbert converting dead Mormons to

The Antlers

 Beautiful. Excruciating. Beautiful and excruciating.

Don't miss ...

... this funny business in the land of philosophy. I s'pose I shouldn't be laughing quite so hard, what with the specter of total public humiliation. But. Really.  Or would anyone like to step up to the plate and defend the studly logician?

Freedom to Coerce

"Victims of rape?  Who cares?  Religion is under assault in this country!  Wahhhhh!" (loose paraphrase of both Romney and Santorum last night.)

I've always been puzzled by my university's instructions to students in the event of rape--they are to go to the emergency rooms of specific hospitals.  Why not just any hospital--perhaps the closest one, or one they've been to before?

Last night's

Love, Death, and Powerpoint

A couple of nights ago I gave a talk about love and death at SMU's secular humanist club, with many in attendance from the Dallas Fellowship of Freethought. I'm posting the powerpoint here (HERE), but first, a quick rant. It ought to be possible to convert this to a You Tube video, retaining all the embedded video, sound, and animations, but you can't do that on a Mac.  You can do it if you have

Universal Veganism?

A student in my Animal Rights class asked me several years ago whether I thought humanity would ever be 100% vegan.  Over the years, I've found myself thinking about this, but thinking about it in evolving ways.  One of the reasons my thoughts are in flux is that I've added a course on Environmental Ethics to my repertory.  This makes me focus less on the micro-level, and more on the

Grammy Highlights (says me)

Best thing, this Chipotle commercial. If a big restaurant chain wants to run commercials decrying factory farming, I'm all for it.  What a great commercial, on every level.







Nick Minaj's diabolical exorcism thing. C'mon, Catholic pundits, where's the outrage? I'm hoping to hear some today.




Bon Iver winning best new artist. I love the music, and this was a big win for the nerdy

It's Contraception for God's Sake!

So--the Obama administration is struggling to explain why it's reasonable to require Catholic hospitals and schools to cover contraception in insurance policies for their employees.  Why should Catholics  have to spend their money in ways that run counter to their religious beliefs?  Isn't that a violation of their religious freedom? Romney and Santorum want to think so.

Background fact:  we

Is this Opposites Day?

I hope democrats aren't going to let Mitt Romney get away with this.  It seems he finds it a terrible assault on freedom of conscience that the Obama administration will be requiring religious hospitals to include contraception coverage in insurance for their employees.  What, is this opposites day?  If there were no one trying to purchase contraceptives, there would be no issue here.  Employees

Atheism in America

Julian Baggini traveled around the US interviewing atheists for this article in the Financial Times.  The general picture: not pleasant.  If you live in small town America, you'll most likely want to keep your non-belief to yourself.  Being unreligious will make it hard for you to be part of the community, since so much socializing and volunteer work is organized around religion.

Academic city

Cosmogony

So good, so weird, so beautiful....






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The whole album is cool. Next thing--must have the app that goes with it.

What I want when I want to be free

I would very much like it to be the case that I am free.  But what (I've been wondering) is it that I want?

I don't just want to have choices-- to be able to choose A or B.  Sure, it would be nice if I could have chosen chocolate, though I chose strawberry, but really, so what?  I'm not too distressed by the idea that I'm a strawberry-choosing marionette.

The best way I can explain what I do

Haley Barbour's Pardons

Haley "drunk drivers are my friends" Barbour

When Mississippi governor Haley Barbour left office last month, he created a furor by pardoning 198 convicted criminals.  The New York Times today describes some of the people pardoned, and the connections they had.  This is one of the most shocking articles I've ever read in the Times. That Barbour continues to have respect and influence in the

Atheist Temples

This looks like a tower in which you'd imprison a princess for 100 years, but it's supposed to be a temple to atheism--or more precisely, a temple to science and nature.  More about Alain de Botton's proposal here.  His new book, Religion for Atheists, says religion offers people many needed things, and atheists shouldn't give them up.  We need temples, special days on the calendar, networks

Tightwaddery 101

And I thought my classes were pretty fun and innovative.  Here's Emrys Westacott talking about one of his classes--

I teach a course here at the university called Tightwaddery, the Good Life on a Dollar a Day.
It’s what we call an honours class, a two-credit evening class and it’s
both serious and somewhat light-hearted. We read Epicurus, we read
Thoreau, we read articles about consumerism

Sleep Remedy

This may help you sleep better tonight.  From Real Clear Politics--

Do animals have inherent value?

I haven't read it yet, but this post by Rhys Southan on whether animals have inherent value looks interesting.

Also on my things-to-read list:  "Expected Utility, Contributory Causation, and Vegetarianism" (Gaverick Matheny).  You can find it here.

The Reasons behind Mormon Polygamy and Fecundity

This is fun!  From a book called Favorite Wife, by Susan Ray Schmidt. She was one of 10 wives of a man who had a total of 58 children before she left "the life" (oooh, creepy term!).



So ... you've got God up there creating lots of spirit-children with heavenly Mothers (God is a polygamist!), and it would be a very bad thing if they didn't get to be born into fleshly bodies and raised in Mormon

The Other Border

The innumerable Santorums

Update:  Mark Oppenheimer talks about the large families of the Republican candidates in today's New York Times.  It's more amazing than I realized.  Santorum: 7,  Huntsman: 7, Bachman: 5, Romney: 5, Paul: 5

**

Irony alert. There's something very odd about the fact that Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are so passionate about stopping the flow of illegal immigrants

What's so bad about SOPA?

Should this man get paid for his songs?  (Yes.)

Update (1/19):  I was happy to see this from Brian Leiter today:  "it seems to me that cyber-space is under-regulated by the law, which
explains why it has become a repository for so much garbage, defamation,
and invasion of privacy, as well as copyright violations.  (It's a
shame, but predictable, that only the latter really gets the

The Value of Prayer

Julian Baggini acknowledges the value of prayer, despite being a non-believer:

I do think that prayer, like many rituals, is something that the
religious get some real benefits from that are just lost to us heathens.
One reason is that many of these rituals are performed communally, as
part of a regular meeting or worship. This means there is social
reinforcement. But the main one is that

2012 Discoveries (So Far)

I've made a surprising number of discoveries already in 2012 - apparently it's going to be a great year.  Without further ado:

(1)  Soba noodles.  Really good, do not accept whole wheat as a substitute. Soba noodles contain buck wheat as well as whole wheat.

(2) The world's smallest frog.  Need I say more?




(3)  Portlandia.  Just saying that I watch it establishes that I'm cool.  (Shhh! 

Everlasting Everything

Next time I teach my course on the meaning of life I will have to discuss the lyrics of "Everlasting Everything," a (swoon) fantastic song from Wilco (The Album).

Santorum on Gay Marriage and Polygamy

It looks like Rick Santorum is going to be around for a while.  In fact a horrible thought has entered my mind: he's eventually going to be Mitt Romney's running mate.  So we're going to have to listen to him on the subject of gay marriage and abortion for some time to come.  It's heartening that he was booed over his stance on gay marriage at a New Hampshire event yesterday.  But better

Feminist Philosophy Playlist

Now this is fun.  Via Feminist Philosophers.

I need to create an environmental ethics playlist.  First job: make myself listen to Bjork, Biophilia.  (First impression is merely hmm.)

New Issue of TPM

A nice feature of the new TPM website is that all the reviews are now online.  Check it out!  Here's the line up--

Sticky Music

I'm still on winter break and not quite focused, so pardon my continuing obsession with The Shins. Let's see if we can get a little reflection going anyway.  Question:  what makes their music so damned sticky?!  I adored the song below (from Chutes Too Narrow) the very first time I heard it. This morning I woke up literally hearing it.  What gives, and why is it that so many Shins songs are so

HA!!!!!!!!!!

And now for some super-subtle, astute political commentary.


HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Slam, Dunk, No Free Will?

Here's Jerry Coyne at his blog today, discussing his column arguing against free will in USA Today:
Compatibilists resemble theologians in many ways, not the least of which is that they both engage in endless lucubrations trying to show that something that doesn’t exist, but that is necessary for our psychological well-being, really does exist in some form or another. People hate the idea