Category: Edgewise

Leaving aside everything else about this campaign, I’d like to zero-in on whether the delegates from these two states should or should not be seated. So, I have composed this imaginary statement in the name of the Democratic National Committee: STATEMENT –Barak Obama promised not to campaign in Florida, and he kept his word. He…

Absolutely not. “The U.S. ambassador…told Congress last week that the deal would not establish permanent bases in Iraq nor specify the number of forces to be stationed” there. —Washington Post, 4-15-08 This unspecified number of troops will not be housed in bases, but since they will be stationed there for an also unspecified period, the…

Marxists have long suggested that home ownership is encouraged under capitalism because when masses of people own small-scale properties, they identify with and defend large-scale capitalist ownership of true wealth in the means of production. Homeowners in America, then, are comparable to the land-owning peasantry in the Old Countries, unwitting bastions of reactionary economics. From…

I wrote this in response to an article on another list, but the general attitude I responded to is common enough. It is a recoil at the sight of Barak Obama’s rallies and speeches mostly, but also his political positions. The typical terms include: platitudes, revivalist, naive, empty, credulous, cult, spell, euphoria, fervor, creepy, messianic.…

Resume –Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) Razors pain you; Rivers are damp; Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren’t lawful; Nooses give; Gas smells awful; You might as well live.

A few studies now suggest that marijuana may increase the risk of lung disease–not the marijuana itself, but its illegality, which makes it expensive, causing people to hold the smoke deep inside their lungs. The DEA is all about Public Health. They will undoubtedly now campaign to make marijuana legal and cheap, so the smoking…

Great religious coincidence. Last week I wrote to a friend: “But mainly the sense of Jewish superiority was in relation…to the idol worshipers. It would have been interesting if there were strong contact between Jews and Buddhists, but it didn’t happen. So there were not other high religions [in their world] to [give] respect [to],…

This came in this morning’s Aristotle message: “To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence.” It came as news to me that he had said this. He never mentioned to me before. And if I am remembering the dates right, it must have come before Descartes’…

It could be a very curious experience sitting next to my father watching a bad movie. He thoroughly enjoyed anticipating the next line of a predictable dialog. This involved more than just getting the words right. There was also the timing. It had to be quick, and had to hit on the half-beat in the…

Got this in the email today: The lasting achievement of the Maccabees was not that they won a war but that they rekindled the light of hope in Jewish hearts and saved the faith of monotheism from defeat. – Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, 1997 [Background: Chanukah celebrates the victory in the…

Nobody knows what the Sun really looks like. –DKo

I’ve been getting an Aristotle Quote of the Day on my (Google) home page. Today it was, “Character is habitual action.” And–totally apart from the content–I am thinking, “What guts! To say something so flat out straightforward, so intellectually committed as those four words.” And there is nothing obviously true about these words. Where are…

“In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.” –Aeschylus I wish to Hell I didn’t know what he was talking about. But I do. We all do. Or if you don’t know yet,…

“To the tune of” the stand-up comedian’s standard intonation. How honest WAS he? HE was so honest that when he got the “Bank Error in Your Favor” card in Monopoly, he paid the money back!

This article in today’s Washington Post distills into one and half pages a straight-to-the-point legal history of Waterboarding, and plainspoken descriptions of the actual physical experience. It is worth more than all the other obtuse, vacillating, shallowly researched, tongue-tied, contortedly circumspect coverage I have seen, all of it, combined. The author, Evan Wallach, is a…

[My boldface] Vetoing health care for children. President Bush explained: “[W]ith federal revenues at an all-time high and the deficit declining, now is not the time to raise taxes.” It goes without saying that when federal revenues are low and the deficit rising, that is also not the time. So it’s a lot like Iraq…

At this time of year, nutrition experts urge parents to remember that “snack-size” candy bars only that. There’s just not enough there in one bar for an entire meal.

Even if you slept through most of Social Studies in high school, the word “Extraterritoriality” was almost impossible to avoid. It was going to be on the test. Yet, in the weeks since the mass slaughter by Blackwater in Baghdad, it has been absolutely eerie in its total absence from the news. It referred to…