What the hell is steampunk? Yet another catch-all style term soon to be beaten into the ground:
“Part of the reason it seems so popular is the very difficulty of pinning down what it is,” Mr. von Slatt added. “That’s a marketer’s dream.”
(via The Morning News)
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Verbatim versus gist memories, or, why we sometimes remember sniper fire:
When an event occurs, verbatim memory records an accurate representation. But even as it is doing so, gist memory begins processing the information and determining how it fits into our existing storehouse of knowledge. Verbatim memories generally die away within a day or two, leaving only the gist memory, which records the event as we interpreted it. Under certain circumstances, this can produce a phenomenon . . . in which gist memory – designed to look for patterns and fill in perceived gaps -creates a vivid but illusory image in our mind.
(via The Morning News)
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A list of the many, many reasons to despise Phyllis Schlafly eventually makes its way around to this:
There are conservative scholars who do work that is respected within academia-many economists, for example-and they would not be inappropriate candidates for such an honor. Nor would I have a problem with conservative pundits, so long as they’re sane and genuinely distinguished . . . such as the late William F. Buckley. . . . [However,] it’s a distressing fact that many liberals, anxious not to be seen as “biased” or as condescending to conservatives, in fact bend over backwards to be “fair and balanced” towards them. Such behavior then allows them to congratulate themselves on their “tolerance” and “open-mindedness.” . . .
But this way madness lies. Because, as much as conservatives may whine and scream to the contrary, liberalism and conservatism are not moral equivalents. Because, on the one side you have the thinkers and activists who have advanced freedom, social justice, and human rights, and on the other, you have those who have attempted to thwart all those things. King George III is not the moral equivalent of George Washington. Jefferson Davis is not the moral equivalent of Abraham Lincoln. Joe McCarthy is not the moral equivalent of Walter Reuther. George Wallace is not the moral equivalent of Martin Luther King. And Phyllis Schlafly is not the moral equivalent of Betty Friedan.
So if you’re going to be handing out honorary degrees to political activists, conservatives are always going to come up short. And that is how it should be.
There’s a hole in this somewhere, though, and I think it’s that the author is assuming “liberal” and “conservative” are immutable brackets under which an individual or movement can be fixedly pinned. While it’s true that conservative philosophy by definition is devoted to pulling at the reins, there’ve obviously been situations in which human rights were severely curtailed in the name of social progress, in which instances those holding the reins were praiseworthy. In other words, all champions of human rights are liberal (adj.), but not all liberals (n.) are champions of human rights.
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Jason Kottke’s blogging the New Yorker conference: get the choice bits without having to sit through long talks (or pay for a ticket)!
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What do pacifists have to say about WWII? Nicholson Baker’s controversial novel tackles the question:
This is to be agnostic about the ultimate good or evil in the human soul. It is to be prepared for either. Gandhi, and by extension Baker, strip everything down to that individual human soul and its capacity to suffer and resist and to find its goodness. The only way to enforce the law, from that perspective, is to undergo suffering at the hands of those who would break it.
I’m not convinced, but then, who am I to take issue with Gandhi?
If, like me, you’re not naturally pacific, meditation might help:
Now, a new study from University of Wisconsin-Madison has revealed that meditation can dramatically change brain regions, which in turn can make a person more kind and compassionate. So-called compassion meditation includes concentrating on wishing loved ones and others well-being and freedom from suffering.
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America continues to welcome the huddled masses:
Some 33,000 people are crammed into these overcrowded compounds on a given day, waiting to be deported or for a judge to let them stay here. The medical neglect they endure is part of the hidden human cost of increasingly strict policies in the post-Sept. 11 United States and a lack of preparation for the impact of those policies. The detainees have less access to lawyers than convicted murderers in maximum-security prisons and some have fewer comforts than al-Qaeda terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
But they are not terrorists.
Meanwhile, recruitment agencies make big bucks funneling wealthy foreigners (who pay them for the service) to crappy colleges (that pay them for the students):
“The market range is anywhere from 10 to 25 percent of tuition,” said Visakan Ganeson, director of international programs at Skagit Valley College in Mount Vernon, Wash., which gets about half of its 200 international students through commissioned agents. “How much you pay depends on your position in the market.”
(both via Slate)
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Also, here are sculptures made of chewing gum.
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And finally, everybody’s linking to this, and I am not immune.
