Edge 166 has reprinted philosopher Daniel Dennett's New York Times op-ed piece from August 28 in which Dennett examines how Intelligent Design has become so popular in spite of the fact it's utterly bogus.
Choice excerpts follow.
Despite considerable effort throughout my adult life to expunge the prejudice and racism of my upbringing, I still find myself making subtle snap judgements and assumptions about people based on the same old criteria.
The other day, I submitted a work request to the carpenter shop for someone to hang a bulletin board and two framed prints in my new office. The carpenter who showed up was a Latino with long black hair, a thin mustache, a Maxican accent, and an enormous toolbelt indicative of his trade. I didn't pay him too much mind and stepped aside to let him get at his work.
After he hung the bulletin board, he started on the prints and asked me how I wanted them hung. I thought it was rather obvious.
"Uh, on either side of the window, centered."
"I mean, vertically," he explained. "Some people think it's more aesthetically pleasing if they are slightly higher than centered. But since you're an engineer, maybe you feel differently."
Damn Canadians. I'm onto their plan. First, it's universal health care; now it's Zombie Flashmobs in Montreal and Vancouver.
The real problem with these faux-Zombie attacks is that when the dead rise for real, we'll all assume it's just a bunch of weird-ass Canadians and fail to protect ourselves and we'll get our brains eaten.
Hurricane Tears Holes in Superdome Roof - Yahoo! News
"I could have stayed at home and watched my roof blow off," said one of the refugees, Harald Johnson, 43. "Instead, I came down here and watched the Superdome roof blow off. It's no big deal; getting wet is not like dying." [Emphasis added.]
Sign that guy up as Philosopher Laureate of the U.S.!
This story almost made Amy pee.
ABC News: Credit Card Letter Addressed 'Dear Palestinian Bomber'
Those were the words spoken by a former colleague of mine about 10 years ago in the Film Studies graduate program at the University of Iowa in defense of academic jargon and the opacity of academic writing.
It was after that that my interest in academic discourse began to diminish. I had always enjoyed trying to parse out exactly what Judith Butler was trying to say, or nail down Fredrick Jameson on some point -- usually to debunk and disprove them. But my colleague's comments forced me to realize that academics not only had little regard or respect for non-academics (which was self-evident) but also they they lacked it for themselves. What my colleague was expressing was his own fear that he would "taken in" by a clearly written and well-argued text -- that he and other academics were no match for the lucid and uncomplicated. They, too, like the Great Unwashed, were passive receptacles into which clear, easy discourse would flow uninhibited by critical faculties and warp their minds to the mainstream/patriarchal/heterosexual/capitalist order of things.
What made me think about this incident was Jim Holt's recent article in The New Yorker on several works published on the topic of "bullshit." I wish that bullshit studies had been so advanced when I was in graduate school; I could have avoided a lot of debt and recognized bullshit a lot earlier in my academic career if it had been.
The other day, Ray and I were at a toy store in Ballard. Ray was wearing his David Bowie T-shirt and his new black Chuck Taylor All-Stars ("Chucks!") and looked like quite the little rocker. Upon entering the sotre, he made a bee-line for a dump truck and started playing his favorite game ("Dump-dump-dump") and I started to browse. But my attention was soon summoned back to him when I heard a man ask him if he could see his T-shirt.
"Wow! David Bowie!! Man, you're my hero!" the guy said to Ray, who was a little startled by all this. I walked up and made some paternal gesture towards Ray (partly to protect him). The guy stuck out his hand to me and said, "Well, actually, you're my hero! That's an awesome shirt."
I shook his hand and thanked him (getting attention, after all, being one main reason I put the shirt on him that morning). We talked a bit about how Ray enjoys listening to Bowie -- even requests him at meal time ("Bo-bo!") and how his favorite album is Lodger and his favorite song is Young Americans.
Turns out the guy is the A-number-1 Bowie fan of the Northwest....
The bus I take to work passes by this frightening billboard every day. I can only assume that it's some updated form of Annie in which she must escape from a hideous, grinning demon.
I mean, look at this guy!
The Seattle Public Library recently added RSS feeds of currently checked-out materials to its website. I added my feed to a channel along the right-hand side of the home page. Now those Homeland Security goons can check up on my library records without all those pesky legal battles!
The description part of the RSS includes an <img> tag, but the images are too big and I can't think of a way to shrink them on the fly. I had to strip it out for now via a regular expression. I'll keep working on it.
I'm in the midst of refinancing my house. I got a call today from my lender who reported that the bank that holds my HELOC (Chase -- bastards!) hasn't responded to her requests for pay-off information and asks me to call them.
In preparation for the phone call, I fire up my trusty web browser, browse to Chase.com and log on to my account to have my account number at the ready.
Only it's not there. All I see is "********7101".
This is a (crappy, phonecam) photo of the elevator at my local library. Note that it only covers 2 floors -- "P" (for Parking) and "1" for the ground (and only) floor of the library.
Why does it need the floor buttons at all? If I'm on "P" then I obviously want to go to "1" and vice-versa. Wouldn't the "Close Door" button serve just fine?
This is actually a rhetorical question, because I know the answers: (1) customers would find the absence of floor buttons "confusing," and (2) it would be a custom design and, therefore, more expensive to leave off the buttons.
With all the discussion of banning cell phones while driving, social reformists have neglected another arena of potential hazerd and danger: cell phone use while interacting with society in any way.
Two anecdotes from recent morning bus rides:
