Monday, October 27. 2014
On our tour of Manhattan, Bird Dog noted the discovery of Robert Henri's home on Gramercy Park.
Henri was a founder and one of the better known members of the Ashcan School, along with several others who were known as the "Philadelphia Four." Among these four artists was Everett Shinn. Everett felt one of our tour stops, Washington Square, was the "most beautiful place in New York."
It certainly is a wonderful place, vibrant and active on nice days. Shinn caught its beauty on a wet and windy night, as well.
(A late note - in our comments, a regional Philadelphia artist clarified that the "Philadelphia Four" is actually the "Philadelphia Five" and inclusive of Henri. It seems information on the intertubes is less than clear about the term, as Henri was mentor to the Four. However, the terms seem interchangeable. Ephemeral New York noted that George Bellows lived near Gramercy Park, as well, on 19th Street. We did not pass his house on our tour.)
Sunday, October 26. 2014
Discussions about free will are too often binary. It does not take a neuroscientist or a philosopher to see that choices of action (or inaction) occur in the context of a complicated web of culture and tradition, peer pressures, character, emotional state, etc.
From Daniel Dennett's Are we free? Neuroscience gives the wrong answer:
What a coup it would be if your neuroscience experiment brought about the collapse of several millennia of inconclusive philosophising about free will! A curious fact about these forays into philosophy is that almost invariably the scientists concentrate on the least scientifically informed, most simplistic conceptions of free will, as if to say they can’t be bothered considering the subtleties of alternative views worked out by mere philosophers. For instance, all the experiments in the Libet tradition take as their test case of a freely willed decision a trivial choice—between flicking or not flicking your wrist, or pushing the button on the left, not the right—with nothing hinging on which decision you make. Mele aptly likens these situations to being confronted with many identical jars of peanuts on the supermarket shelf and deciding which to reach for. You need no reason to choose the one you choose so you let some unconscious bias direct your hand to a jar—any jar—that is handy. Not an impressive model of a freely willed choice for which somebody might be held responsible. Moreover, as Mele points out, you are directed not to make a reasoned choice, so the fact that you have no clue about the source of your urge is hardly evidence that we, in general, are misled or clueless about how we make our choices.
From Is It Another Great Awakening?
China’s atheistic communist government conceded that its Christian population had doubled to 21 million over the past decade, worshiping in 55,000 official Protestant and 4,600 Catholic churches. The underground church, it’s widely known, was much larger—by foreign estimates perhaps 77 million, which means larger than the Communist Party. A Pew Global Attitudes study found only 11 percent of Chinese saying religion was not important in their lives, compared to 31 percent saying it was very or somewhat important. Indeed, everywhere the authors looked outside their European homeland, religion was booming in the early 21st century world.
At Zero, Hillary: "Business Does Not Create Jobs", Washington Does. Well, she's been living off a government check for how long? Works for her. A quote:
People forget, but Hillary was really President – not Bill. Just 4 days after taking office, Hillary was given the authority to start a task force for healthcare reform. The problem was, her vision was unbelievable. The costs upon business were oppressive so much so that not even the Democrats could support her. When asked how was a small business mom and pop going to pay for healthcare she said if they could not afford it they should not be in business. From that moment on, my respect for her collapsed. She revealed herself as a real Marxist.
Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17
90:1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
90:2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
90:3 You turn us back to dust, and say, "Turn back, you mortals."
90:4 For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night.
90:5 You sweep them away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning;
90:6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.
90:13 Turn, O LORD! How long? Have compassion on your servants!
90:14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
90:15 Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us, and as many years as we have seen evil.
90:16 Let your work be manifest to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.
90:17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands -- O prosper the work of our hands!
Saturday, October 25. 2014
We have seen plenty of marble quarries up on high hills around Italy and in Sicily too.
Here's an up-close view (video)
Gramsci's Dream Came True: We Have a Leftist Ruling Class. Funny thing is that they are rich, too.
Proletariat-free zone.
 Frank Serpico speaks
Thirty-Three-Hit Wonder - Billy Joel still lives on Long Island, still rules the Garden.
Big Taxi is doomed
Idaho city ordinance bans distribution of Bible to children
Just Another Day In Las Vegas
Study Says Deer Hunting Helps to Replenish Forests
Problem is that we eliminated their natural predators
Save the fishes! Drill offshore
Prohibition Redux: Pennsylvania to Destroy Thousands of Bottles of Wine - Owner violated archaic liquor laws
From My Vantage Point, Social Security Disability is Totally Corrupt
Houston, We Have a Gender-Blind Public-Restroom Problem
Krauthammer: Barack Obama, Bewildered Bystander - He’s angry, but not angry enough to fix what’s wrong.
Hillary Clinton Says, “Don’t Let Anyone Tell You It’s Corporations and Businesses That Create Jobs”
Hinderaker:
As long as liberals’ hunger for power is stronger than conservatives’ desire to be left in peace, the Left will continue to dominate our public life.
Dems on FEC move to regulate Internet campaigns, blogs, Drudge
The UK wants people to exercise to save $ for the NHS
But aren't people cheaper if dead?
John Kerry Thinks Climate Change Causes Radical Islam
North Korea warns against anti-Pyongyang leaflet drop
Shooting balloons is the most fun you can have in NoKo
 The House Of Clouds I would build a cloudy House
For my thoughts to live in;
When for earth too fancy-loose
And too low for Heaven!
Hush! I talk my dream aloud
I build it bright to see,
I build it on the moonlit cloud,
To which I looked with thee.
Cloud-walls of the morning's grey,
Faced with amber column,
Crowned with crimson cupola
From a sunset solemn!
May mists, for the casements, fetch,
Pale and glimmering;
With a sunbeam hid in each,
And a smell of spring.
Build the entrance high and proud,
Darkening and then brightening,
If a riven thunder-cloud,
Veined by the lightning.
Use one with an iris-stain,
For the door within;
Turning to a sound like rain,
As I enter in.
Build a spacious hall thereby:
Boldly, never fearing.
Use the blue place of the sky,
Which the wind is clearing;
Branched with corridors sublime,
Flecked with winding stairs
Such as children wish to climb,
Following their own prayers.
In the mutest of the house,
I will have my chamber:
Silence at the door shall use
Evening's light of amber,
Solemnising every mood,
Softening in degree,
Turning sadness into good,
As I turn the key.
Be my chamber tapestried
With the showers of summer,
Close, but soundless - glorified
When the sunbeams come here;
Wandering harpers, harping on
Waters stringed for such,
Drawing colours, for a tune,
With a vibrant touch.
Bring a shadow green and still
From the chestnut forest,
Bring a purple from the hill,
When the heat is sorest;
Spread them out from wall to wall,
Carpet-wove around,
Whereupon the foot shall fall
In light instead of sound.
Bring the fantasque cloudlets home
From the noontide zenith
Ranged, for sculptures, round the room,
Named as Fancy weeneth:
Some be Junos, without eyes;
Naiads, without sources
Some be birds of paradise,
Some, Olympian horses.
Bring the dews the birds shake off,
Waking in the hedges,
Those too, perfumed for a proof,
From the lilies' edges:
From our England's field and moor,
Bring them calm and white in;
Whence to form a mirror pure,
For Love's self-delighting.
Bring a grey cloud from the east,
Where the lark is singing;
Something of the song at least,
Unlost in the bringing:
That shall be a morning chair,
Poet-dream may sit in,
When it leans out on the air,
Unrhymed and unwritten.
Bring the red cloud from the sun
While he sinketh, catch it.
That shall be a couch, with one
Sidelong star to watch it,
Fit for poet's finest Thought,
At the curfew-sounding;
Things unseen being nearer brought
Than the seen, around him.
Poet's thought, not poet's sigh!
'Las, they come together!
Cloudy walls divide and fly,
As in April weather!
Cupola and column proud,
Structure bright to see -
Gone - except that moonlit cloud,
To which I looked with thee!
Let them! Wipe such visionings
From the Fancy's cartel
Love secures some fairer things
Dowered with his immortal.
The sun may darken - heaven be bowed -
But still, unchanged shall be,
Here in my soul, that moonlit cloud,
To which I looked with THEE!
Autumn on the Hudson
Friday, October 24. 2014
I believe that evil exists. I have seen it in myself, and I think I understand the human desire to externalize it or to deny it. Denial of evil is dangerous.
From The Guardian (really): The truth about evil - Our leaders talk a great deal about vanquishing the forces of evil. But their rhetoric reveals a failure to accept that cruelty and conflict are basic human traits
One quote from this good essay:
There are some who think the very idea of evil is an obsolete relic of religion. For most secular thinkers, what has been defined as evil in the past is the expression of social ills that can in principle be remedied. But these same thinkers very often invoke evil forces to account for humankind’s failure to advance. The secularisation of the modern moral vocabulary that many believed was under way has not occurred: public discourse about good and evil continues to be rooted in religion. Yet the idea of evil that is invoked is not one that features in the central religious traditions of the west. The belief that evil can be finally overcome has more in common with the dualistic heresies of ancient and medieval times than it does with any western religious orthodoxy.
I know a guy who got an A+ in Physical Chemistry at an elite university, and never went to class. He needed the spare time to practice with his grunge band. He told me he spent 24 hours non-stop going through the textbook with the help of some borrowed Adderal.
I suspect he missed a lot of interesting stuff, but he got the competency.
There are plenty of reasons for "seat time" in many areas of study, but certainly not in all. For example, there really are no valid criteria (in my view) for competency in Art History, or in history for that matter.
Here's the idea: Hacking Higher Ed With Competency-Based Education
Related, competency exams may be racially-biased via disparate impact. Here's that whole story, from Bill McMorris: How the Supreme Court Created the Student Loan Bubble - It all starts with Griggs v. Duke Power Co.
Thursday, October 23. 2014
At Ace.
Aren't they our employees?
It depends on how you define freedom, doesn't it?
Does Everybody Want Freedom? Most do, even those who appear to enjoy slavery.
My experience in life has taught me that many or most people would accept some form of feudalism in exchange for safety and security for themselves and their families. Serfdom, if you will.
Caught as most of us are between a job and the government, it's all still basically feudal is it not? Not what the American founders had in mind.
Wednesday, October 22. 2014
 Pic is this 1959 Porsche-Diesel Junior Tractor
There's More to Life Than Being Happy - Meaning comes from the pursuit of more complex things than happiness
It's about Viktor Frankl
When Aristotle Invented Science
The surprising comeback of train travel
The Externalization of Responsibility: Monica Lewinsky’s Personal Shame
Election season: Dems Backing Sen. Kay Hagan Leave Fliers Warning Of Lynchings If GOP Wins…
Election season: Dildos and Lynchings: Wendy Davis, Kay Hagan Campaigns Go Insane
Election season: CAUGHT ON TAPE: Dem Operative Stuffs Ballot Box in Arizona
Election season: Obama Admin: We May Need 'Surge' Of Millions Of Immigrant Ids 'For Any Number Of Reasons'
Green cards on the table -President Obama lets slip his scheme for a permanent majority
Sweden:
A new law will come into effect in Sweden after Christmas 2014, that will allow people to be prosecuted for criticizing immigration or politician’s unwillingness to tackle the issue.
Future election season: Hillary Clinton Raises Record $2.1M At Jeffrey Katzenberg Co-Hosted Hollywood Fundraiser
Klavan: Knucklehead Row:
Whatever its pretensions, whatever its claims, statism — progressivism, leftism, socialism — is based on the idea that a small elite intelligentsia can run your life better than you can. They know how to spend your money. They know how to educate your children. They know how to run your health care. They know how to protect you from yourself.
You do not have to talk to a statist very long before he will profess an intense dislike, distrust and even fear of ordinary people. Ordinary people spend money on what they want (TV’s restaurants and cars) rather than what the elite know they ought to want (aluminum foil climate change reversers). Ordinary people teach their children that God created the world rather than a random pattern of mathematic realities that came into being through another random pattern that came… well, the elite know: it’s random patterns all the way down! Ordinary people will give jobs and business to those who earn them rather than those the elite, in their greater understanding, know are historically deserving because of past oppression. And so on.
Now, of course, with the very elite of the elite running the country, we find that — what do you know? — this statism dodge doesn’t really work all that well. And there are two reasons for this. The first is that the statist premise is wrong. In fact, ordinary people left at liberty to do as they will are actually better at running their lives and businesses and country than the geniuses in Washington. Central planning works great in the imaginations of the elite, but in the real world… not so much.
And the second problem is that the elite are stupid. No, really. They’re educated and sophisticated and they dress well and speak well. They may even have high IQs. But in the immortal words of Forrest Gump’s mother: “Stupid is as stupid does.” And the elite are stupid.
Tuesday, October 21. 2014
"My therapist (social worker, Psychologist, whatever) asked me to phone to come in to get a prescription."
"Do you take my insurance?"
"Do you take Medicare?"
"I need help with my Disability application."
"I need a doctor to renew my Adderal."
"I'm sorry, no, but I would be happy to talk with you" to all of the above.
This is a 4 year old story discussing why reconciliation is "good", in particular as it applied to the ACA.
Now go to MoveOn.org and take a look at their scare tactics. MoveOn is trying to frighten Democrats and fence sitting voters into a misguided belief the Republicans will misuse reconciliation because reconciliation is "bad".
It is a certainty, as Lord Acton once said, that power corrupts. In many cases of political activity, that corruption isn't just apparent in bribes, graft or other rackets that take place. It's visibly evident in the hypocrisy of power. In reality, reconciliation is probably bad every time it is used. I say this because it was mainly designed to overcome filibusters. Filibusters exist in order to extend debate on contentious issues on which neither side can claim a clear and overwhelming majority agreement (read as "bipartisan" - a term I despise since I view it as a means to push a slow growing Progressive agenda, but which many people think is a "good").
Basically, both parties have plans and don't want the other side getting in the way. Each party has an agenda which is "the other party is bad and will only use these tools that I use to hurt you."
Fact remains, both parties use these tools to hurt us. While MoveOn's hypocrisy is on full display, the Republicans have hidden theirs slyly. Few remember their fight with Harry Reid, slightly over a year ago. Ancient history, to most folks.
If a system's success depends on having the 'right people' in place, there's probably something wrong with the system. As our republic is aging, it seems there is a distinct and overwhelming stench coming from Washington because both parties are putting people in place who are perceived to be the 'right people'. Yet things just keep getting worse.
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You Don't Have to Feel Your Breasts