Saturday, June 17. 2006
Take a look at these two scenarios quoted from work by the experimental philosopher Knobe, from a piece by Chris at Mixing Memory, and see whether you can figure out why people respond as they do: Scenario 1: The vice-president of a company went to the chairman of the board and said, 'We are thinking of starting a new program. It will help us increase profits, but it will also harm the environment.' The chairman of the board answered, 'I don't care at all about harming the environment. I just want to make as much profit as I can. Let's start the new program.' They started the new program. Sure enough, the environment was harmed. Scenario 2: The vice-president of a company went to the chairman of the board and said, 'We are thinking of starting a new program. It will help us increase profits, and it will also help the environment.' The chairman of the board answered, 'I don't care at all about helping the environment. I just want to make as much profit as I can. Let's start the new program.' They started the new program. Sure enough, the environment was helped.
Chris begins his comments thus: Most participants who read the first scenario, the vast majority of participants say that the chairman intentionally harmed the environment (a morally bad outcome), whereas when they read the second scenario, very few participants say that the chairman intentionally helped the environment (a morally good outcome). Why is this? I haven't the slightest idea...
It's an interesting question about the ways people intuitively assign intention, and thus guilt. Clearly you lose points in life for indifference to harm, but get no points for doing good with indifference - as in doing the right thing for the wrong reason, or arriving at a correct answer despite faulty logic. The discussion here.
Tuesday, June 13. 2006
What Bird Dog wants for Father's Day is a good Pogo collection. Much as we love Calvin and Hobbes at Maggie's Farm (with well-worn collections all over the house, and with frequent apt uses of quotes from them), the gentle irony and the humble, loving satire of Pogo cannot be beat. Not a marauding marsupial, Pogo was a kind, rationalist, wry possum. "I Go Pogo" was Pogo's campaign theme when he ran for president. Bridgeport, CT's Walt Kelly was the cartoonist's cartoonist. Like poets, cartoonists can capture big chunks of life in a few words and images - and we verbose normal people must envy that skill. Sadly, good collections of Pogo are not easy to find these days. Got any ideas? Email us with 'em. This is all we could find. Since this is angleworm week at the blog, here's a sample: 
Sunday, June 11. 2006
I only have a minute to post, but I 
was amused both by a comment,
and by Bird Dog's response. He should have asked me to do it for him, but he would never bother me on a beautiful weekend. Mr. Anonymous, our critical blog friend and a sporadic reader of Maggie's, seems to feel offended by Maggie's "misogyny" for referring to female's desire to breed. Misogyny? Two out of our five regulars are women, with 7 kids between us two. Breeding is our thing, and semiotics comes second! (joke) I know Bird Dog would be happy to take on another one, too, but counting genitalia is not his thing (as far as I know, but I know him well enough to know that he would not be that wierd). Our blog is not totally into genitalia - mostly into ideas, but we do like humor and irony (despite being a no-irony zone). And we cheerfully defy any PC bull. But let me inform Mr. Anonymous about something his daddy never told him: men are sex objects for women. We spend a heck of a lot of time and money and energy looking for good breeding partners with decent genes and morals, and when we find them, we do not give them a vacation from their manly task: we put them to work and expect that they will give us their all. I wonder what asexual world he grew up in, or what lesbian college orthodoxy he was indoctrinated into, but it is not the real world. Maybe he went to Swarthmore? True, occasionally we enjoy getting one over on you guys with our "boo-hoo-hoo," but it's just a game we play. We do not appreciate males who do not respond to our sexual, feminine selves. In fact, we are painfully hurt and offended if you do not. Truth. (My 16 year-old daughter concurs with this statement.) If we flirt with you, you had damn well better flirt back with interest and some snappy repartee. We lovely, charmin' women women are breeders. We are designed for it - read our hips - and you fellows know you cannot resist our charms. No doubt about it. Sometimes we take an evil delight in toying with you, using our magical, witchy powers. Almost anything else we do is for fun or money - and this is not the time to get into the life of the spirit. Got it? Enough said? Now I have a tennis match - and my pal and I are gonna crush our hubbies. David - now there is a real man and a fine hunk, and I'd love to fantasize about trying to "receive his serve". Rock-hard, I am sure. Nude tennis - there is an idea for the club: nude mixed doubles. A good thing. No distraction whatsoever! Haha - we are not a libido-free zone at Maggie's Farm!
Thursday, June 8. 2006
A plane was taking off from Kennedy Airport. After it reached a
comfortable cruising altitude, the captain made an announcement over
the intercom, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.
Welcome to Flight Number 293, nonstop from New York to Los Angeles.
The weather ahead is good and, therefore, we should have a smooth and
uneventful flight. Now sit back and relax... OH, MY GOD!" Silence
followed, and after a few minutes, the captain came back on the
intercom and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I am so sorry if I scared
you earlier. While I was talking to you, the flight attendant accidentally
spilled a cup of hot coffee in my lap. You should see the front of my
pants!" A passenger in Coach yelled, "That's nothing. You should see
the back of mine!"
Sunday, June 4. 2006
In the late 1800s, yacht clubs were established along the northeast coast of the US with a dual purpose in mind: yacht-racing, and making sure there were enough sea-wise people to fill the ranks of naval officers in the event of need. Thus these old yacht clubs functioned as an informal naval auxiliary, as does the excellent US Power Squadron. That is the reason that these clubs are commissioned each spring, and de-commissioned each fall; that is the reason for the para-military uniforms worn by yacht club officers on formal occasions; that is the reason such clubs always have a "Ship's Surgeon" and a "Fleet Captain," and that is the reason the chairmen of yacht clubs are titled "Commodore" - the lowest rank of Admiral in many navies. My club, which was my parent's and grandparent's club, founded in 1880 in Westchester County, NY, held its commissioning last Monday. It's always a stirring event (for the non-terminally cynical), and always the same, complete with dressed ships, cannon fire, the national anthem, the first raising of the flags for the year, state and local dignitaries (no Hillary), representative officers from other Long Island Sound yacht clubs within drinking-and-driving distance, a long prayer, recognition of members who died over the past year, recognition and appreciation of the devoted club staff, speeches, etc. Then dinner. It's an unspoken rule that every member shows up in blazer, tie, and good cheer - or have a good excuse not to ... plus the pre-ceremony cocktail hour is "free." Image: That's the fashionable north shore of Long Island in the far distance, where the anorectic women with their fancy horses, and their tall, elegant, seemingly-diffident husbands all speak Locust Valley Lockjaw - aka Connecticut Lockjaw - about 6-7 miles across Long Island Sound. The green spot just offshore is just some little island with a huge egret colony - but of no military significance! 
 All of us at Maggie's accept this honor with great pleasure, which has been bestowed upon us via email by noted Canadian journalist "Ted".
In his electrifying words, which have shaken the entire blogosphere, he says: "You have the most interesting blog in the world, well, maybe except for a few other really good ones that I also check daily." Alas, our friend Ted is neither an influential blogger, nor a blogger at all, but he had some college and rebuilds truck carburetors. You'd be surprised how many trucks there are in Winnipeg: the town is one giant truck stop with a fine S.I.R store just down the road from the MacDonald's, next to the tittie bar and the incredibly busy WalMart. Ted writes a bit of poetry on the side (you may have read his "blue-collar modernist" gem in The New Yorker, a deeply spiritual piece which begins: When my girl is on the nag / should I sleep in my car / or go to the bar?) along with the occasional feature piece on local color for the Winnipeg Free Press. Sad to say, local color is a scarce commodity in Winnipeg other than at Pop's Topless Lounge and Pizza. Ted has been known to shoot a Snow Goose or twenty, or more, on a slow day at work - but, in Canada, every day is a slow day at work unless you live in the US suburb called Toronto. Thank you, Ted, for the honor. We will treasure it always.
Saturday, June 3. 2006
For Sale: A lightly-used 2003 36' Hinckley Picnic Boat for sale in Marion, MA. You know you want her: you know you need her. Details, more photos, price, and specs here. The water-jet drive is the second-best part: her lines are the best part. The perfect week-end powerboat. Not cheap. 
 A Glock with a drum magazine. Perfect for popping rats at the dump, or for protecting your Hinckley Picnic Boat from pirates. Video.
Image: A Glock 18, 9 mm, alas without drum! Not a powerful person-stopper, but intimidating enough for many routine purposes.
Friday, June 2. 2006
It is probably a measure of the comfort - or decadence - of our soft, safe, self-worshipping and easy civilization that the above question could even be asked.  Esolen at Touchstone has written a wonderful piece on the risk that is involved in manliness - the willingness to take risks unto death to do what is needed. One quote:
The humility of risk is perfected in Christ and is, even when marred or hidden by the swagger, essential to natural manhood. The men of all really thriving cultures know that their lives, if truly lived, are not their own. The samurai was taught to relish each day as one won from death, an unexpected boon: For the moment he swears allegiance to his lord, he must consider his life as already forfeit. Thus, he can lay that life down at a nod, whenever the sacrifice should be required. Men who went down to the sea in ships, Viking marauders or Nantucket whalers, knew well they might never return, yet they did go; and the man on the mizzen in the midst of a storm knew that his life literally hung by a thread, and that many of his fellows in just his situation never saw land again, but without him and his obedience there could be no voyage beyond the calm of a bay. The crewmen on the Titanic held it as their duty, once the iceberg’s devastation had been reckoned, to assume that their lives were lost. Only so could they tax their muscles and their broken hearts to the last stretched fiber, to save as many other souls as they could, particularly women and children. The lad who carried the flag in the old fields of war was unarmed and most conspicuous, but most necessary for the rallying and ordering of his comrades. He was indispensable in his choosing the honor of being the single man least likely to survive the battle. The man first up the ladder to scale the walls of a besieged city would likely also be the first man dead beneath; but if he does not go, no one goes. The Spartans at Thermopylae knew they could not hold that pass forever against a Persian army many times their strength, but they held long enough for the Athenians to prepare for the onslaught. And you hold a pass by understanding that your life is not your life. You block the opening. The foe must break through over your dead body.
Read the whole inspiring, true thing. And let me know what you think: Should a man be willing to risk his life in defense of home, hearth, tribe or nation? Image: Missing Man formation of Air Force F-15s
Not a good place to fall off your water skis. They got some hungry gators there, and they'll really make a mess outta you. 
Wednesday, May 31. 2006
Welcome, visitors from all over the world! Please visit us often - or bookmark us. Check us out, while you are here. We are always interesting, often provocative, and always eclectic and suprising.  For us head-shrinkers, public figures make for great case examples, because there is no confidentiality issue. The downside, of course, is that we don't really know them in any depth. All we have are public words and behavior.
Al Gore offered us a nice example last week when he stated, about his admittedly propagandizing and fear-mongering movie Inconvenient Truths: "...I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous (global warming) is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis."
So it is appropriate to lie? Should we re-name it Convenient Lies? Although this is not the first time Big Al has made similar statements about his choices (the "no controlling legal authority" case), I will not throw stones, because I do not claim to be perfect. Instead, I'll just take a minute to look at the meaning of his statement. I take it as a given that all humans are prone to immoral thoughts and to wrong-doing, or temptations for wrong-doing: there would be no need for laws, rules, or morals if that were not so. And it is known that, while a small fraction of the population lacks any meaningfully-functioning conscience, most people have consciences of varying degrees of strength and effectiveness. Whenever we "size up" a new person, that is always an essential item on the list. The conscience functions by sending up warnings to us when we are heading into behavior we feel might be morally questionable; by punishing us with guilt or shame or remorse when we cross our moral lines; by rewarding us with the wonderful feeling of self-respect when we follow our moral expectations; and by holding up for us an ideal of who and what our best self could be. Living with one's conscience is one of the great challenges of being an adult: we struggle with it, and sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. There are a number of tricks we can play on our conscience, though, in an effort to make it leave us alone and give us a free pass. Our case example of the day highlights one of the most effective tricks: Rationalizing. What Gore said - and I believe that he believes what he said - is that it is OK for him to deceive the public by distorting and cherry-picking and exaggerating facts, because it's for a good cause and because he means well. (No doubt he rationalized illegal fund-raising with a similar justification. Hey - everything can be a "crisis", right?) Translated, this says: "If my intentions are good, or if I have a good excuse, then the ends justify the means and my inconvenient morality can take a vacation." (When you think about it, though, morals are always "inconvenient." Always. The Ten Commandments were a great gift to our better selves, from a God who well knew our weaknesses and flaws, and who longs for the best for us and from us, but who offers us the respect to make our own choices.) That form of thinking is enormously corrupt and corrupting, because it can justify anything - lies, theft, mass murder, adultery, injustice, mayhem, exploitation, cruelty, disloyalty - you name it. To use this trick, all you need to do is to convince yourself that you are aggrieved, or that "everybody does it," or that you are such a superb person that you are on the side of the angels - and you get a free pass from your conscience. No wonder it's such a popular self-deception for those with, shall we say, "flexible" consciences, aka serious moral flaws. If you can believe that the angels are on your side, or that you are a victim, or that you are better than other people - anything goes (especially if you can burnish it with a gloss of phony idealism or victim entitlement). How damnably convenient! Matthew 16: "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Image: I like the image of Jiminy Cricket as the representative of our conscience. We all need him, perched on our shoulder and whispering into our ear, at all times. If you want to enjoy yourself in the short-term - ignore him. He is a party-pooper but, in the end, he is on your side. Editor's note: For an honest and rational discussion of the greenhouse effect, try Junk Science. And click on our blog headline to read more posts this week responding to this piece, and to the commenters on this piece.
Tuesday, May 30. 2006
This great lady, now dying, is profiled here in The New Yorker. H/T, Hewitt
Thursday, May 25. 2006
 She told me we couldn't afford beer anymore and I'd have to quit. Then I learned she had spent $175.00 on make-up. And I asked how come I had to give up stuff and she didn't. She said she needed the make-up to look pretty for me. I told her that was what the beer was for.
"You know something is happening 
here, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?" I have always thought of the capacity for irony as a good, rule-of-thumb IQ test. Language without an occasional twist of irony is like language without metaphor. However, if you don't get the definition of the word correctly, you can't use the concept. The word is only properly used to refer to something addressed to a dual audience, or "as if" to a dual audience: one in the know, and one not. The usage has been contaminated by the illiterate, and is now sometimes used to apply to the "incongruous" or "unexpected", as in "Ironically, we both showed up at the wedding in the same dress." The cutest way to say that would be "Funnily enough,..." One amusing use of irony is to say stupid things, or ungrammatical things, with the assumption that those in the know will figure that you are using irony, while others will figure that you are plain uneducated or ignorant. Start with "nucular." Anyway, world - let's get the usage down properly: there is no excuse for abuse of English, since it has now become our "national language." Ed: Image of Dr. Bliss added to this post, entirely without irony.
Wednesday, May 24. 2006
Bob is 65! But ageless and timeless.  Once upon a time you dressed so fine; didn't you? (video, with Lennon - neither sober in the least)
I dreamed I saw St. Augustine,
Alive as you or me,
Tearing through these quarters
In the utmost misery,
With a blanket underneath his arm
And a coat of solid gold,
Searching for the very souls
Whom already have been sold.
"Arise, arise," he cried so loud,
In a voice without restraint,
"Come out, ye gifted kings and queens
And hear my sad complaint.
No martyr is among ye now
Whom you can call your own,
So go on your way accordingly
But know you're not alone."
I dreamed I saw St. Augustine,
Alive with fiery breath,
And I dreamed I was amongst the ones
That put him out to death.
Oh, I awoke in anger,
So alone and terrified,
I put my fingers against the glass
And bowed my head and cried. ("I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine" words and music by Bob Dylan 1968 Dwarf Music)
 From a fine piece in The New York Sun:
By the early 1950s, Mr. Domino had perfected the basic beat of New Orleans rock 'n' roll: repetitious 16th notes in an insistent triplet pattern.Virtually everything he played, fast or slow, conformed to that motif, which made ballads and rockers alike irresistibly danceable. It was the big beat. Mr. Domino's best music was harmonically simple too. "My Girl Josephine," for example, essentially consists of three chords (B flat, D sharp, and F) over and over in the I-IV-V pattern of the blues.
Read the whole thing.
Tuesday, May 23. 2006
Glenn Reynolds takes a look 
at why people in
industrialized countries have fewer babies. He asserts that, in addition to the cost in money and time, parenthood no longer has the social value that it once had. He does not mention two medical factors: the Pill and the drop in infant mortality. A quote: There's also the decline in parental prestige over generations. My mother reports that when she was a newlywed (she was married in 1959) you weren't seen as fully a member of the adult world until you had kids. Nowadays to have kids means something closer to an expulsion from the adult world. People in the suburbs buy SUVs instead of minivans not because they need the four-wheel-drive capabilities, but because the SUVs lack the minivan's close association with low-prestige activities like parenting, and instead provide the aura of high-prestige activities like whitewater kayaking. Why should kayaking be more prestigious than parenting? Because parenting isn't prestigious in our society. If it were, childless people would drive minivans just to partake of the aura.
The piece is here.
Monday, May 22. 2006
After reading Novak's commments, I decided not to go but, like Bird Dog, I let the family go by themselves while I worked in the vegetable garden. The gave it a 7 or 8 as a thriller, and said the religious aspect was functionally trivial and not worth getting excited about. Shrinkwrapped has a review. This blog will write no further on this silly subject: movies are entertainment. We have bigger fish to fry...or do we?
Saturday, May 20. 2006
Try it. Bressingham Gardens. All of our places should look like this, but Maggie's Farm sure does not: 
Friday, May 19. 2006
Hey, people! It's just the entertainment biz. Big bucks, and just for fun. From a Bainbridge piece at TCS: Jesus Christ as Poache  d Egg. A quote: ...the International Herald Tribune reports, Brown has managed to convince many readers that DVC is "largely true." Indeed, as the IHT also reported, it is precisely the truth claims that attracted the attention of Sony executives: "The amazing thing about this book is it's provocative: Is it all true? Isn't it true?" Perhaps no one has ever captured the basic problem with the truth claims made on behalf of DVC and its ilk better than C.S. Lewis, who observed in Mere Christianity that: "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of thing Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."
All Dan Brown, Ron Howard, Tom Hanks, and that whole crew have accomplished is getting richer by saying that "really foolish thing."
Bainbridge's whole piece here.
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