RICHARD PRYOR has died. So has Eugene McCarthy.
Archive for 2005
December 10, 2005
SHADES OF TIANANMEN: Gateway Pundit has a big roundup and links to audio.
UPDATE: Big blog-reaction roundup here.
ANOTHER UPDATE: A useful observation: “China’s development, though extraordinary, is one that is leaving behind several hundred million people. Though they are not necessarily in worse-off terms than before the economic rennaissance began, in relative terms the gulf is ever yawning. China’s development has become something like an egg – the smooth, hard outside shell gives the impression of stability and depth though it shrouds a fragile interior. . . .Secondly and most importantly, we must remember that Shanghai ain’t China, it’s the glistening, candy shell, and the windowpieces for the passing shoppers to see. The inside of the store, however impressive the window, is in fact quite different.”
A NASTY PLANE CRASH IN NIGERIA: Port Harcourt is the hometown of my Nigerian relatives, though most reside in Lagos now. I haven’t heard any news from them, though.
SO I’VE BEEN READING THE PAGE PROOFS for An Army of Davids, and that’s been fun: No matter how many times you read a manuscript in process — and it’s always a lot — when you see it set in type and formatted as a book it looks fresh and different.
One thing that has struck me is how much of a debt I owe to Virginia Postrel. The book’s topic is different from hers, but themes and ideas from The Substance of Style, and The Future and Its Enemies (and references to them both, along with some of her New York Times columns) just keep cropping up. Virginia’s books have gotten a lot of attention, of course, but I think that in twenty years we’ll still look back and see them as underrated. If you haven’t read them, you should.
Jeff Jarvis and Nick Denton crop up a lot, too. Visionaries all!
AN OPEN LETTER TO HALEY BARBOUR on the Corey Maye case.
SATELLITE RADIO UPDATE: People have asked about reception. It works fine in the car, with the car antenna simply sitting on the dash. (The manual says that may not work well, but driving around West Knoxville it seems to work fine). I haven’t used it like a Walkman yet, with the portable antenna.
NEW SHOPPING TREND: “[S]hoppers have embraced a shift away from traditional gifts, such as sweaters and watches, toward experience gifts such as spa treatments and trips that enhance the lifestyles of friends and relatives.”
Of course, I noted this in 2003.
FROM HOMOSEXUALITY AS MENTAL DISEASE to “extreme bias” against homosexuality as a mental disease, in just a few decades:
Mental health practitioners say they regularly confront extreme forms of racism, homophobia and other prejudice in the course of therapy, and that some patients are disabled by these beliefs. As doctors increasingly weigh the effects of race and culture on mental illness, some are asking whether pathological bias ought to be an official psychiatric diagnosis.
So when homosexuality was unpopular, it was a mental disorder. Now that it’s popular, not liking it is a mental disorder. Evidence for either position? Not much. My diagnosis: How about we recognize a disorder consisting of turning intellectual fashions into pseudoscience? Seems like this is a case of “mental health” consisting largely of agreeing with whatever political opinions psychiatrists hold at a particular moment in time. Psychiatry, heal thyself. (Via Either End).
UPDATE: Heh.
MORE: Related thoughts here:
I might take those who advocate a new diagnosis more seriously if they included hatred of conservatives as another example of pathological bias. But, even then, it’s the individual’s intense hatred that’s the real “disorder” — regardless of its object.
Indeed. Dr. Sanity has further thoughts, too.
Still more here.
MORE: Still more disapproval of this approach.
JIGSHA DESAI videoblogs a Christmas Tree cutting, and offers expert advice on which tree to pick, while Dipti Vaidya interviews people about their favorite Christmas ornament.
NEWSBEAT 1 on the Canadian elections: “The Conservatives are clearly targeting the long-suffering middle-class — too rich to be poor, too poor to be rich. Martin seems content to go after anyone anywhere who might be bribed to vote Liberal.”
Armed with guns and shields, hundreds of riot police sealed off a southern Chinese village after fatally shooting demonstrators and searched for the protest organizers, villagers said Friday. . . .
During the demonstration Tuesday in Dongzhou, a village in southern Guangdong province, thousands of people gathered to protest the amount of money offered by the government as compensation for land to be used to construct a wind power plant.
Police started firing into the crowd and killed several people, mostly men, villagers reached by telephone said Friday. The death toll ranged from two to 10, they said, and many remained missing.
State media have not mentioned the incident and both provincial and local governments have repeatedly refused to comment.
Gateway Pundit has more, and notes that some media outlets seem confused as to the location. [LATER: Or maybe not.]
UPDATE: More here.
MORE: Here’s a followup report:
Residents of a southern Chinese village near Hong Kong where police opened fire on demonstrators described a tense standoff in the area on Saturday with thousands of armed troops patrolling the perimeter and blocking anyone from leaving. Frightened villagers said they were either hunkering down at home or arguing with police who are refusing to return the dead to their families.
A Hong Kong newspaper quoted villagers accusing Chinese officials of trying to cover up the killings on Tuesday in Dongzhou, a village in Guangdong province.
Residents said police opened fire on a crowd of thousands protesting against inadequate compensation offered by the government for land to be used for a new wind power plant. Up to 20 were killed, villagers said, while some said dozens more were missing.
It was the deadliest known use of force by Chinese security against civilians since the killings around Tiananmen Square in 1989, which drew an international outcry.
So far, the outcry in this case seems rather muted.
READER ANDREW TICKLE sends this interesting article on lessons from Iraq.
CATHY SEIPP LOOKS AT problems with contemporary parenting.
IN THE MAIL: Finding Serenity : Anti-Heroes, Lost Shepherds and Space Hookers in Joss Whedon’s Firefly.
I haven’t even finished watching the Firefly DVD set yet — last night, after a long day that included going over the first round of page proofs for the book, I sat down with a glass of wine to watch . . . a videotape of a faculty candidate’s “job talk” from Monday, which I missed because I was otherwise engaged. When I finish watching those, I’ll get to the Wonderfalls episodes, but that may be a while.
UPDATE: Here’s a blog review of the book.
A DEBATE ON THE ECONOMY, featuring Larry Kudlow, Andrew Roth, Paul Hoffmeister, Russ Roberts & James Hamilton.
INSTAPUNDIT’S AFGHANISTAN PHOTO-CORRESPONDENT, Major Robert Macaraeg, sends this report and photos:
A few days ago I received a phone call and email from a university student at the newly reopened University of Kandahar. I was asked to help the student with MSgt Radermacher of the USAF to move over three air cargo pallets of books for the new library that the University is opening. Afghan students at George Washington University collected the books and the US Air Force transported them under the Denton Program for no cost. The students arranged for a Jingle truck for the final leg of the journey and with US Military personnel provided the elbow grease to load the truck with the books. The students were grateful for the books and the Air Force and Army personnel were happy to contribute to the growth of Academia in Afghanistan.
Have fun in America and Merry Christmas.
Likewise, Major.
DALTON CONLEY HAS THOUGHTS on a man’s right to choose.
UPDATE: A related post from Jason Smith of Generation Why?
LOTS OF PEOPLE like to pick on Zogby polling, and I remember that some of them used to tout his stuff as really good. But this does seem like a bit of an embarrassment.
TAXPROF has a chart of federal tax revenues since 2003.
DID HE SAY BOMB? Reports differ. Of course, they often do.
SHAVAR JEFFRIES on school choice: “In the current model, public schools have little incentive to respond meaningfully and systematically to the interests of Black parents, particularly poor Black parents, as these parents simply do not have the political capital to impact systematically the way in which public schools deliver education. A choice model, however, consistent with the most basic predicates of freedom and democracy, begins to grant poor people the opportunity to opt out of the public system if it continues miserably to fail their children.”
BLOGS4GOD ROUNDS UP Christian bloggers’ reactions to the Narnia movie.
I SET UP THE SATELLITE RADIO last night, and it was very easy: Charged the battery, called a toll-free number, and was up and running in about 15 minutes. The sound is good (I plugged in my excellent Sennheiser iPod headphones instead of the cheapie earbuds that come with it) and the user interface is quite easy to navigate.
However, on the advice of reader Christopher Fox I ordered the antenna / headphone combination yesterday; I’ll report on those when they arrive. He says that performance is a lot better with those, and the price was low.