WRONG PAGE (See Below)
7 years ago
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. (Mark Twain).
"I’ve never joined any organization — not even the ones I’ve organized myself. I prize my own independence too much. And philosophically, I could never accept any rigid dogma or ideology, whether it’s Christianity or Marxism. One of the most important things in life is what Judge Learned Hand described as 'that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you're right.' If you don't have that, if you think you've got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated. The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by such religious and political and racial fanatics, from the persecutions of the Inquisition on down to Communist purges and Nazi genocide."
speechby:obama attitude:positive "Saul Alinsky".I.e. "speechby:" and "attitude:" don't exist, but could, I believe be implemented pretty accurately, to see in this case if we can find any instances of Obama praising Saul Alinsky.
I just have to give an example of the strange places some Americans have gone fishing for the truth. Psycho-history once had its day, but that day is long past, except in right wing daemonizations of Obama which are big sellers. If you're tempted to buy this, let me suggest looking at this review of another book by the author called A Mother Gone Bad: The Hidden Confession of JonBenet's Killer Here is one excerpt from the review "he concludes that the misspelled word "bussiness" all by itself indicates that a woman did it because of several random words that he himself, out of the blue, associates with that word. Yes, it really is that bad!" |
Trying to get a handle on truth in and of itself seems to me a lot like wrestling Proteus, or the "Old Man of the Sea", as described by Menelaus in the Odyssey. The Old Man can answer any questions if captured, but capturing him means holding on as he changes shapes from a horse to a serpent to water to fire to whatever until he is worn out if one has the strength to wear him out. |
A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History The title of Wente's article: It takes aim at a troublesome postmodern-ish tendency of the last decade or so of calling race a "social construct". One of its major themes is a favorite meme of the right: "Why can't liberals be rational about race?" Why all these taboos on what words are proper? Why can't we just follow science wherever it leads (supposedly)? I can sympathize with one reaction to the "social construction" construct. Aren't there really a lot of differences in skin color, hair, shape of facial features which we did not strictly speaking imagine? |
Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk
The book does quite a thorough job of covering the many ways facts and science lose out in the popularity wars. Also, it mentioned many issues and people I've thought about over the years, and made strong connections to my most recent thinking. So I went to look at the author's blog, http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/ only to find he ended it 3 months ago (in March 2014). |