The great French Algerian/Jewish intellectual Jacques Derrida is dead at 74.
See Michael Berube for a brief intro to what Derrida was on about. I may do one of these myself sometime soon (I first have to get some grading, book-writing, and teaching preparation out of the way).
Also see: Balkin, and the New York Times (via Crooked Timber).
Further links from Adam Kotsko: reactions from France; Spurious; Infinite Thought; and of course, Adam Kotsko himself.
And then via Kitabkhana, I found a link to this entertaining article about JD from 1991 (Headline: "DECONSTRUCTING JACQUES DERRIDA; THE MOST REVILED PROFESSOR IN THE WORLD DEFENDS HIS DIABOLICALLY DIFFICULT THEORY")
"Just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else." --Toni Morrison
Glenn Gould: Asperger's Syndrome, Marshall Mcluhan, and Walter Benjamin
Some friends in graduate school introduced me to Glenn Gould, initially through a biographical film called 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould, and then through his many recordings of Bach, Mozart, and Brahms.
Gould was the first classical pianist I really clicked with, partly because his style seemed so radical. He sharp anti-romantic tendencies are evident in his approach to Bach in particular, and were made famous by his 1955 recording of the Goldberg Variations. It appealed to the electronic music aesthetic; I still think there is a kind of unconscious affinity between radical electronic music composers like Autechre, Squarepusher, and Aphex Twin, and Gould's Bach. Since then, my taste has broadened some (I like more conventional players), but I am still pretty much a dodo when it comes to classical music.
I liked Michael Kimmelman's recent New York Review of Books review of Kevin Bazzana's new biography of Gould. I was interested about the speculation that Gould might have had Asperger's Syndrome.
Asperger's Syndrome has been on my mind after listening to an audiobook of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (about which a post may be forthcoming; I need to get a hard-copy of the book so I can quote).
Bazzana's biography apparently links Gould to that other famous Torontonian -- Marshall Mcluhan, and also speculates on possible links between Gould's famous renunciation of stage performance in 1964 with what has happening in the art world in the 1970s -- conceptual art especially:
Despite the parallels, I find it difficult to place Gould alongside the rest of those names above. The sharpness of his playing does fit well with minimalism in a certain way, and his refusal of the concert piano form, and "dial-twiddling" are not to be overlooked. But mostly I think Gould was completely off on his own -- not a conceptual artist at all. Remember, Gould is most famous for his recitals of baroque music from 300 years earlier, not of original compositions.
The most conceptually interesting point made in Kimmelman's review is whether Walter Benjamin was right about the "era of mechanical reproduction." Kimmelman thinks not, and argues that Gould's own theatricality and endless self-contradictions cancel out his interest in going mechanical:
This last point -- is it really true? People do fetishize the "live recording" (whatever that is), the live performance, etc. But isn't it true that when one goes to hear live music, one is always comparing it to the CD one has in the car?
People do pay $100 to see live music. But I often think it's become more a social ritual for rich people (dress up; see and be seen) than a bona fide site where music is experienced. For most people who take music seriously, that usually happens alone, in spaces where sound is contained and controlled: headphones (the Ipod), or the car.
[Speaking of serious music, but otherwise completedly unrelatedly, I'm very happy with my new M83 CD.]
Gould was the first classical pianist I really clicked with, partly because his style seemed so radical. He sharp anti-romantic tendencies are evident in his approach to Bach in particular, and were made famous by his 1955 recording of the Goldberg Variations. It appealed to the electronic music aesthetic; I still think there is a kind of unconscious affinity between radical electronic music composers like Autechre, Squarepusher, and Aphex Twin, and Gould's Bach. Since then, my taste has broadened some (I like more conventional players), but I am still pretty much a dodo when it comes to classical music.
I liked Michael Kimmelman's recent New York Review of Books review of Kevin Bazzana's new biography of Gould. I was interested about the speculation that Gould might have had Asperger's Syndrome.
He was born Glenn Herbert Gold on September 25, 1932, an only child in a Protestant family of furriers who by the late 1930s had begun to call themselves Gould, perhaps to avoid being mistaken for Jews. The Toronto where Gould grew up, Bazzana recounts, was a small, peaceful, puritanical, Anglophilic city. Canada was achieving a degree of cultural independence in those decades, increasingly through the radio and television. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was pioneering and experimental. Gould was among the few classical musicians (Toscanini and Leonard Bernstein were others) who, early on, recognized and exploited the potential of the new technologies.
As a boy, he was a loner, polite, gangly, and disheveled, already an insomniac, amusing when he chose to be but also a young fogy, intolerant of his friends' smoking, drinking, and flirting. There has been some speculation about Asperger's syndrome. He was the sort of teenager who affected a German accent after reading Nietzsche and who claimed to identify with Tonio Kröger, Mann's fictional aesthete.
Asperger's Syndrome has been on my mind after listening to an audiobook of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (about which a post may be forthcoming; I need to get a hard-copy of the book so I can quote).
Bazzana's biography apparently links Gould to that other famous Torontonian -- Marshall Mcluhan, and also speculates on possible links between Gould's famous renunciation of stage performance in 1964 with what has happening in the art world in the 1970s -- conceptual art especially:
Gould's attitude toward his recordings, as Bazzana points out, was actually akin to McLuhan's toward his books, which McLuhan once described to Playboy as "the process rather than the completed product of discovery; my purpose is to employ facts as tentative probes, as means of insight." Likewise, Gould approached the studio, or at least liked to say that he approached the studio, without fixed ideas about a performance, trying out different approaches—this is what he enjoyed about recordings as opposed to concerts, notwithstanding that his various takes might be nearly indistinguishable to anyone except him—while he regarded the finished album as something listeners could modify according to their whims by fiddling with the hi-fi. "Dial twiddling," he pointed out, is "an interpretative act."
He imagined producing kits of variant recordings for listeners to assemble their own preferred version of a performance. He had the Brechtian idea of recording Scriabin's Fifth Sonata with pairs of microphones around the studio in order to produce an album in which the sound would be perceived as shifting from one place to another, as if to simulate someone moving through the room, making the physical space of the studio part of the recording.
He compared this concept with a filmmaker's mixing of long shots, close-ups, and zooms. But this was also the era of Conceptual art, of Rauschenberg's collages, of Fluxus and John Cage. Sol LeWitt was devising works consisting merely of instructions for other people to follow. Donald Judd was asserting the inextricable relationship between sculpture and the space around it. Jim Dine and Claes Oldenburg and Yoko Ono were staging happenings. Gould, enough aware of what was going on in the art world, called the performance in which he sprawled across the piano lid the first happening in southern Ontario.
Despite the parallels, I find it difficult to place Gould alongside the rest of those names above. The sharpness of his playing does fit well with minimalism in a certain way, and his refusal of the concert piano form, and "dial-twiddling" are not to be overlooked. But mostly I think Gould was completely off on his own -- not a conceptual artist at all. Remember, Gould is most famous for his recitals of baroque music from 300 years earlier, not of original compositions.
The most conceptually interesting point made in Kimmelman's review is whether Walter Benjamin was right about the "era of mechanical reproduction." Kimmelman thinks not, and argues that Gould's own theatricality and endless self-contradictions cancel out his interest in going mechanical:
Walter Benjamin predicted that the proliferation of reproductions of art would eradicate the aura of the original. Following Benjamin, Gould believed that musical recordings would vitiate the public's longing for live performance. "When Aunt Minnie can turn on her four-screen television and watch the Berlin Philharmonic we will have reached total inwardness on the part of the audience," he told a reporter in 1962.
Just a few months after Gould left the concert stage, Horowitz ended a dozen-year sabbatical and made a widely publicized return, at Carnegie Hall, after which Columbia Records, which was also Horowitz's producer, rushed out a "live" version of the recital. Gould disdained everything about Horowitz's recital and the recording—he despised the Horowitz cult, Horowitz's choice of music (Scarlatti, Mozart, Chopin, Rachmaninoff), not to mention the spectacle of his return. For some years he pondered making a parody album of Horowitz's comeback. He speculated about his own historic return someday being a recital filmed in an empty Carnegie Hall. He felt live recordings mixed up the art of performing with the art of recording. The two were distinct. The recording studio, Gould said, had "its own laws and its own liberties, its quite unique problems and its quite extraordinary possibilities." It even had, he believed, a higher moral purpose than a concert, which celebrated a player's ego. "I think that the finest compliment one can pay to a recording is to acknowledge that it was made in such a way as to erase all signs, all traces, of its making and its maker"—which of course applied to no recording ever made by either Horowitz or Gould.
Like Benjamin, Gould was wrong. That live recording of Horowitz's return was itself a technological fiction. In the studio Horowitz rerecorded passages he had muffed on stage. But now Sony has reissued the album and restored the mistakes, arguing that the public wants the real experience, the authentic performance. The aura of the original, it turns out, has only increased, not diminished, with the proliferation of reproductive technologies.
This last point -- is it really true? People do fetishize the "live recording" (whatever that is), the live performance, etc. But isn't it true that when one goes to hear live music, one is always comparing it to the CD one has in the car?
People do pay $100 to see live music. But I often think it's become more a social ritual for rich people (dress up; see and be seen) than a bona fide site where music is experienced. For most people who take music seriously, that usually happens alone, in spaces where sound is contained and controlled: headphones (the Ipod), or the car.
[Speaking of serious music, but otherwise completedly unrelatedly, I'm very happy with my new M83 CD.]
Wahhabism in South Asia: C.M. Naim
C.M. Naim attacks the Indian Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) in the latest Outlook. Not only is he correct to attack the Board, his essay is pretty interesting and informative, especially for those of us non-Muslims who are trying to make sense of things.
Among the many points he makes, Naim argues that the AIMPLB's judgments are rife with intra-Muslim sectarianism of the most predictable kind.
The main issues on the table right now are: Muslim marriage law (the AIMPLB actually formed in response to the Shah Bano case in 1986), the use of Mosque space by women, and birth control, the use of which the AIMPLB still, unbelievably, opposes. (Also: Funny how these all involve women!)
Naim gives some helpful basic facts on Muslim marriage law:
Also, on whether women can pray in the Mosque, Naim points out that there is evidence in the Hadith (the stories of the Prophet's life) that women did attend Mosque during his times (I gather there is no reference to this in the Quran itself). Naim speculates that the current, "severe" restrictions on women attending Mosque probably came much later. But when? And how universal are the restrictions? He doesn't say.
Naim ends with a proper dismissal:
Among the many points he makes, Naim argues that the AIMPLB's judgments are rife with intra-Muslim sectarianism of the most predictable kind.
As is well-known to those who read Urdu, many people associated with the Nadva have long engaged in anti-Iran and anti-Shi’ah polemic and propaganda. For example Maulana Manzoor Nu’mani, who was much encouraged by Maulana Ali Mian, the former rector of Nadva and the present rector’s uncle. The latter even wrote a highly admiring introduction to the former’s most vitriolic book, Irani Inqilab, Imam Khomeini aur Shi’iyat. Thanks to Saudi patronage, Wahabism of the worst kind has spread in South Asia, and since 1979 it has included a prominent trend of anti-Iran and anti-Shi’ah sentiment. Its horrific results have been evident in Pakistan for some time. The chief reason it has not so blatantly showed itself in India is the secular stance of the Indian state, no matter how faulty the latter may seem sometimes.
The main issues on the table right now are: Muslim marriage law (the AIMPLB actually formed in response to the Shah Bano case in 1986), the use of Mosque space by women, and birth control, the use of which the AIMPLB still, unbelievably, opposes. (Also: Funny how these all involve women!)
Naim gives some helpful basic facts on Muslim marriage law:
As is well known, marriage in Islam is a legal contract and not a sacrament. It does not entail a declaration that the two persons have been ‘joined by God’ and therefore none should separate them. The ceremony requires neither the presence of a mulla nor the premises of a mosque. The only requirements are that the two parties must consent to the marriage freely, and that the groom should pay a mehr or bride-money to the bride—not to her parents—before the marriage is consummated.
Needless to say, in the name of ‘tradition’ or ‘local practice’—why do they always favour the groom?—the two requirements have been diluted beyond recognition to serve the purpose of Muslim patriarchy. Now any non-adult female can be given away in marriage by her father. In fact, even an adult female cannot now give or deny her consent directly but must have a vakil to represent her. As for the requirement of the mehr being paid directly and promptly to the bride, it can now be delayed, paid only partially, ‘forgiven’ by the wife, set too low to be of any use, set too high to be realistically payable, or simply litigated out of existence.
Also, on whether women can pray in the Mosque, Naim points out that there is evidence in the Hadith (the stories of the Prophet's life) that women did attend Mosque during his times (I gather there is no reference to this in the Quran itself). Naim speculates that the current, "severe" restrictions on women attending Mosque probably came much later. But when? And how universal are the restrictions? He doesn't say.
Naim ends with a proper dismissal:
The AIMPLB is not a representative body; nor is it a democratic body. It created itself, and its members have held on to their seats to serve their own agendas. More ominously over the years it has tried to expand its self-proclaimed authority—vide its brief flirting with the perilous idea of an out-of-court settlement of the Babri Mosque issue. In its existence the Board has done nothing to improve the lot of Muslim women who constitute roughly one-half of the community. Many of its members have little individual distinction of their own, and are there only because they gained some hereditary position. It is about time the Indian press gave Indian Muslims a break. Ignoring the Board may be best, but that may not be possible. In that case, the press should give the AIMPLB only the due it actually deserves within the secular polity of the Indian nation—one among many Muslim organizations and not one bit more authoritative than others.
The Scientific Indian; and Why Indians aren't "Aryan"
Prashant Mullick has started a project he's calling the The Scientific Indian. I think it's a great idea. It's a useful counter to the Vedic Science/neo-astrology/homeopathy trend we've been seeing, a tendency often espoused, surprisingly enough, by people working in high technology and science fields themselves. I've complained about this often, in my readings of Meera Nanda (whose work I like), and in my various rants and critiques of Rajiv Malhotra.
Small digression: some people may wonder why I include homeopathy on the same list as "Vedic Science" ... I'm currently trying to make peace with Ayurveda, though I worry when people begin to take it seriously on its own terms. Some Ayurvedic remedies may work, but if they do, it's purely by accident -- trial-and-error. And even before we can say they "work," we need to see their effects studied through double-blind testing... Has this work been done?]
But back to the Scientific Indian. There, you'll find a link to a post by Razib at Gene Expression, about whether genetics -- specifically mitochondrial DNA can prove the myth that high-caste Indians are actually descended from ancient Caucasian invaders. I'm not a big fan of sociobiology, especially with a libertarian twist. But Razib I like, and here he makes a really interesting point about the relationship of language formation to the story of human migration told by mtDNA.
Small digression: some people may wonder why I include homeopathy on the same list as "Vedic Science" ... I'm currently trying to make peace with Ayurveda, though I worry when people begin to take it seriously on its own terms. Some Ayurvedic remedies may work, but if they do, it's purely by accident -- trial-and-error. And even before we can say they "work," we need to see their effects studied through double-blind testing... Has this work been done?]
But back to the Scientific Indian. There, you'll find a link to a post by Razib at Gene Expression, about whether genetics -- specifically mitochondrial DNA can prove the myth that high-caste Indians are actually descended from ancient Caucasian invaders. I'm not a big fan of sociobiology, especially with a libertarian twist. But Razib I like, and here he makes a really interesting point about the relationship of language formation to the story of human migration told by mtDNA.
Subcontinent roundup
Check out this Indian subcontinent roundup at Winds of Change. It's put together by Robi Sen and Nitin Pai (of Acorn).
Very useful.
Very useful.
Conan O'Brien goes to Bangalore
Conan O'Brien sent one of his deadpan skit comedy hams (Andy Blitz) to Bangalore. In response to a pop-up infestation, Blitz first calls NBC's internal tech support, and gets "Sharon," at a call center in India. He then decides to bring his computer to her to look at in person... so he gets on a flight to Bangalore. He then walks around the city carrying the computer, trying to find "Sharon." Some of it is pretty goofball, but I found it funny -- makes for good timepass.
I'm not sure how long this link will be up. But there you have it.
I'm not sure how long this link will be up. But there you have it.
Parody: A Presidential Candidate Debate "about nothing" PART I
Watching these guys nattering on gets tiresome. And clearly the networks are struggling to maintain ratings (a mere 60 million viewers??? surely they can do better...). So I have devised a two-fold strategy by which to reinvigorate the national presidential debate process. 1) Have a series of schmo-debates, and 2) have the actual candidates have a debate a la Seinfeld.
1. Schmo-debate. It might be interesting to have an "issues" debate between two average joe-schmo guys. Call it the Shlemieliad, the Nobodebate, the Whatever-athon. One should be a republican, the other a democrat. And they should debate all this stuff:
Ok, so it's not so exciting after all.
2. Candidates Have a Debate About Nothing. More exciting would be a debate between the actual candidates, which would be about nothing! Jerry Seinfeld would moderate:
PART II on Thursday
1. Schmo-debate. It might be interesting to have an "issues" debate between two average joe-schmo guys. Call it the Shlemieliad, the Nobodebate, the Whatever-athon. One should be a republican, the other a democrat. And they should debate all this stuff:
Moderator: So what is up with Iraq?
Democrat: I really don't understand it. As long as these insurgents have all these rocket-propelled grenades and such, it seems like it will basically be impossible to win definitively.
Republican: Nuke the place. Pay somebody. Then everyone here is invited to come over and watch it on my plasma TV.
Moderator: Why is the economy so ho-hum?
Republican: Poor people aren't buying enough stuff to keep consumer spending up.
Democrat: It is the curse of the Bambino.
Moderator: Should the tax cuts be made permanent?
Democrat: What tax cut?
Republican: What tax cut?
Ok, so it's not so exciting after all.
2. Candidates Have a Debate About Nothing. More exciting would be a debate between the actual candidates, which would be about nothing! Jerry Seinfeld would moderate:
Seinfeld: So what is the deal with all this spyware, adware, malware...? Why was my computer faster five years ago than it is today?
Kerry: I think this is clearly a result of the administration's diversion from the real priority of the war on terror. Spyware is the real weapon of mass confusion. The administration has been investing in anti-virus software, which scientists have shown to be utterly useless against the new browser hijackers. Four years of failed policies, lousy freeware, and the surreal specter of adware pop-up ads that promise to help you fight adware and spyware! This administration has failed, and failed again. They don't even have a policy on it. 91% of the computers in the United States in America have it. A Kerry administration would have a Cabinet-level position dedicated to solving this crisis.
Bush: My opponent was for spyware when we were using it as a weapon against the European art cinema and the uncheckered proliferation of bad cop shows. But now that Hollywood has vanquished the specter of Euro-Communism that was haunting Europe, he's suddenly changed his mind. Like that makes it all right.
Seinfeld: Speaking of which, would you ever mix ketchup and mustard? If not, are there any common condiments you might consider mixing?
Bush: Ketchup? I don't eat kraut-food. [Grins slyly; big laugh]
Kerry: I'm opposed to the ketchup-mustard combination. However, I might consider ketchup and mayonnaise under particular circumstances and on certain select dishes, for the brighter future that I know everyone in this room is seeking. The President says he's opposed to "Kraut-food," but that kind of attitude is costing American jobs, here and now. On the dish that I think most of us know as the hamburger, I think most condiment mixing is acceptable in the interest of the stengthening of Our Common Flavour. However, on hot dogs and cheesesteak, it's been well-documented that the over-mixing of condiments only benefits the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. It's time to think about our philosophy of condimentation differently.
Seinfeld: What can be done to halt the spread of reality TV, and restore the 30-minute situation comedy to its rightful place in prime time?
Kerry: I believe in America's future, not America's past. The future is reality television, not some extremist right-wing idea of division, not unity. I am in favor of television about reality, but I have been consistent in opposing the outsourcing of screen-writing labor to these kinds of outfits that hurt working families of people -- good, ordinary folks, in the entertainment industry.
Bush: I think reality television promotes the highest values of America -- the entrepeneurial spirit and the can-do attitude. The small-businesses that made, have make up, for America. Now sure, I reckon--I recognize that some of these shows, where you have people eating shark testicles and all, well they are not in the best taste. [Bush Chuckles.] And I want to remind you, Jerry, and remind everyone out there in TV-Land, that my opponent voted against reality television in the floor of the Senate before saying that he was in favor of reality.
But I don't know what all these big fancy words like "reality" are supposed to men, I mean, mean. Let me be 100% clear: I love reality television. I love its values. But I, my wife Laura, and my daughters are all opposed... to "reality."
PART II on Thursday
A busy few days
[UPDATE: Is it just me or is Blogger getting really slow lately? I just wanted to fix my grammatical errors, and it's taken nearly 15 minutes to get logged in... grr.]
Phew. A busy five days! I added like 30 new pages to my book over the weekend (it is, I hope, nearing completion). On Monday I went to Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster PA to talk about the "Cyclops" episode of Ulysses (thanks for the invite, F&M!).
Monday night, back in Bethlehem, I spent several hours in my office putting together a large 'what I've accomplished lately' file for my department, then graded a stack of papers, then prepared a 'lecture' on T.S. Eliot for my graduate students, and then read a couple of challenging short stories to teach to my undergraduate class (Katherine Ann Porter's "Theft" and Willa Cather's "Double Birthday"). Then I woke up Tuesday and taught. Somewhere in there I slept. A little.
I would especially recommend the Katherine Anne Porter story; she packs real psychological complexity into a character study that only runs 5 pages. The Cather is also intriguing, but it helps a bit if you know your Stravinsky from your Schumann. Both are in the Updike-edited anthology The Best American Short Stories of the Century.
I also missed most of the debate last night, but I have a good reason -- we actually had dinner plans in what hackers like to call "meatspace." It's too bad Cheney can get away with lying about what he said about the Saddam-9/11 connection, but oh well.
Did I mention that I spent 10 hours in my car over those same three days, while trying to get all these things together? Some readers already know this, but every week I drive from New Haven, CT, to Bethlehem, PA, every Monday night, stay in Bethlehem for three days, and then drive back to New Haven Thursday night. I do this because my spouse has a job in Connecticut, and we technically live there. That's about six hours in the car a week -- not too bad considering that most Americans spend more than an hour in the car every day (and some spend more). But if you add in Monday's drive to Franklin and Marshall, 2 hours southwest from Bethlehem, I just spent 10 hours in three days behind the wheel! That means finishing off an audio-book (Josh Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time -- a pleasant listen), lots of NPR, and lots of Hindi songs (today I'm humming "Hum tum/ ik kamre mein band ho/ aur chhabi khojaaa".....)
But it also means less time to get work done.
Thank God this week is fall break (well, the second half of this week, anyway), so today is, effectively Friday for me. I'm kind of relaxing this morning, but there's more book to be written this afternoon.
I would recommend:
Adam Kotsko's genius mini-post on a recent New Yorker cartoon.
Berube's characterization of Cheney as a "barking loon," pre-debate
Lilith's photos from Budapest. Interesting architecture lesson about 19th century brothels!
And, my friend Ross is a graduate student in the lab at Columbia that just picked up the Nobel in Biology. Cool, huh. Imagine deciding what to research and saying, "Dude, why not do a project that will more-or-less definitively explain the sense of smell?"
Phew. A busy five days! I added like 30 new pages to my book over the weekend (it is, I hope, nearing completion). On Monday I went to Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster PA to talk about the "Cyclops" episode of Ulysses (thanks for the invite, F&M!).
Monday night, back in Bethlehem, I spent several hours in my office putting together a large 'what I've accomplished lately' file for my department, then graded a stack of papers, then prepared a 'lecture' on T.S. Eliot for my graduate students, and then read a couple of challenging short stories to teach to my undergraduate class (Katherine Ann Porter's "Theft" and Willa Cather's "Double Birthday"). Then I woke up Tuesday and taught. Somewhere in there I slept. A little.
I would especially recommend the Katherine Anne Porter story; she packs real psychological complexity into a character study that only runs 5 pages. The Cather is also intriguing, but it helps a bit if you know your Stravinsky from your Schumann. Both are in the Updike-edited anthology The Best American Short Stories of the Century.
I also missed most of the debate last night, but I have a good reason -- we actually had dinner plans in what hackers like to call "meatspace." It's too bad Cheney can get away with lying about what he said about the Saddam-9/11 connection, but oh well.
Did I mention that I spent 10 hours in my car over those same three days, while trying to get all these things together? Some readers already know this, but every week I drive from New Haven, CT, to Bethlehem, PA, every Monday night, stay in Bethlehem for three days, and then drive back to New Haven Thursday night. I do this because my spouse has a job in Connecticut, and we technically live there. That's about six hours in the car a week -- not too bad considering that most Americans spend more than an hour in the car every day (and some spend more). But if you add in Monday's drive to Franklin and Marshall, 2 hours southwest from Bethlehem, I just spent 10 hours in three days behind the wheel! That means finishing off an audio-book (Josh Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time -- a pleasant listen), lots of NPR, and lots of Hindi songs (today I'm humming "Hum tum/ ik kamre mein band ho/ aur chhabi khojaaa".....)
But it also means less time to get work done.
Thank God this week is fall break (well, the second half of this week, anyway), so today is, effectively Friday for me. I'm kind of relaxing this morning, but there's more book to be written this afternoon.
I would recommend:
Adam Kotsko's genius mini-post on a recent New Yorker cartoon.
Berube's characterization of Cheney as a "barking loon," pre-debate
Lilith's photos from Budapest. Interesting architecture lesson about 19th century brothels!
And, my friend Ross is a graduate student in the lab at Columbia that just picked up the Nobel in Biology. Cool, huh. Imagine deciding what to research and saying, "Dude, why not do a project that will more-or-less definitively explain the sense of smell?"
Debate Misstatements--A partisan (but objective!) scorecard
A big part of the spin in the '04 Gore-Bush debates was the myth -- grounded, as all myths are, in reality -- that Gore couldn't resist his tendency to "embellish." Here, it seems that both Bush and Kerry made a few statements that were either factually incorrect, or didn't quite make sense. From a quick survey of this morning's coverage of the debates, it seems that neither are getting nailed especially hard on inaccuracies. Here is a list of 8 important debate misstatements I've seen documented in the media this morning:
1. On whether Bush went to the UN before invading Iraq (Kerry says no, Bush says he did). The LA Times:
But this we knew.
2. On how 10 million Afghans have registered to vote, when there aren't 10 million eligible voters in Afghanistan. (Via Keywords)
3. On whether Pakistan's Abdul Qadeer Khan has been "brought to justice." This was, in my view, the most glaring and horrific of any statement by either candidate. The LA Times again:
4. On whether the U.S. has trained 100,000 Iraqi troops. Here Bush is not as wrong as the Democrats seem to think:
If there's a credible number close to 100,000, the Dems can't do much with this one, even if 75% of them are "shake-and-bake."
5. On why there are so many insurgents in Iraq. Here I go to Slate:
Yes-- "we're losing the peace because we won the war too fast" doesn't exactly inspire.
6. On North Korea--bilateral vs. multilateral talks: Slate and others say that China, South Korea, and Russia are all actually encouraging the U.S. to have bilateral talks with North Korea, so Bush's point that bilateral talks would disrupt relations with China doesn't make any sense.
7. On whether Osama Bin Laden is actually in Afghanistan, as Kerry suggested he is. (Instapundit tried to make something of this.) Who cares? Nab the guy, then we'll have a discussion about where he is, ok?
8. Was the subway running during the RNC? Kerry says no. Everyone in New York City says yes.
Admittedly, this list is a bit partisan -- 6 against Bush, 2 against Kerry (though point #7 is really irrelevant). But then, Kerry hasn't been running the country (even ostensibly) for the past four years. Bush should know better.
1. On whether Bush went to the UN before invading Iraq (Kerry says no, Bush says he did). The LA Times:
Bush, for example, eager to blunt Kerry's charges that he charged unilaterally into the Iraq war, contended that his administration had "used diplomacy every chance we get." In fact, though Bush sought United Nations approval for the war in early 2003, it had become clear that the administration's patience for diplomacy was nearly exhausted. The administration rebuffed proposals from other countries that would have extended international weapons inspections and delayed the March 2003 invasion.
But this we knew.
2. On how 10 million Afghans have registered to vote, when there aren't 10 million eligible voters in Afghanistan. (Via Keywords)
3. On whether Pakistan's Abdul Qadeer Khan has been "brought to justice." This was, in my view, the most glaring and horrific of any statement by either candidate. The LA Times again:
Bush also sought to portray efforts underway as projects completed. Outlining his administration's progress against nuclear proliferation, he asserted that the network of Pakistani physicist Abdul Qadeer Khan had been "busted" and "brought to justice."
However, Khan himself was pardoned by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in February, and of 11 staff members at the top-secret Khan Research Laboratories near Islamabad originally believed to be involved in the nuclear trafficking, none has been charged after lengthy detentions and interrogations. International investigations are still underway.
4. On whether the U.S. has trained 100,000 Iraqi troops. Here Bush is not as wrong as the Democrats seem to think:
Bush said there were currently a "hundred thousand troops trained" — close to the 96,681 trained police and military forces cited in a Sept. 22 statement by the Defense Department.
Though Bush's claim is factually true, it has drawn strong criticism as an overstatement by Democrats in Congress and independent military experts. Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage acknowledged last Friday to Congress that some of the forces were "shake-and-bake" trainees, with three weeks of training or less. (LA Times)
If there's a credible number close to 100,000, the Dems can't do much with this one, even if 75% of them are "shake-and-bake."
5. On why there are so many insurgents in Iraq. Here I go to Slate:
Bush's counter—that the problems exist because Gen. Tommy Franks won the battle for Baghdad too quickly (the Baathists disappeared, now they're coming back and we're fighting the war we thought we'd have to fight last year)—is deeply unconvincing. For one thing, most of the insurgents are not Saddam loyalists. Many are Shiites who hated Saddam.
Yes-- "we're losing the peace because we won the war too fast" doesn't exactly inspire.
6. On North Korea--bilateral vs. multilateral talks: Slate and others say that China, South Korea, and Russia are all actually encouraging the U.S. to have bilateral talks with North Korea, so Bush's point that bilateral talks would disrupt relations with China doesn't make any sense.
7. On whether Osama Bin Laden is actually in Afghanistan, as Kerry suggested he is. (Instapundit tried to make something of this.) Who cares? Nab the guy, then we'll have a discussion about where he is, ok?
8. Was the subway running during the RNC? Kerry says no. Everyone in New York City says yes.
Admittedly, this list is a bit partisan -- 6 against Bush, 2 against Kerry (though point #7 is really irrelevant). But then, Kerry hasn't been running the country (even ostensibly) for the past four years. Bush should know better.
More Live Debate Blogging: Mentioning Darfur
I'm glad they're mentioning the genocide in Darfur; I didn't expect it.
Update: It's too bad they didn't say anything substantial about it. Darfur is just an excuse for more points on Iraq.
Update: It's too bad they didn't say anything substantial about it. Darfur is just an excuse for more points on Iraq.
Wow, this is getting heavy.
I was expecting pre-written scripts and little interaction between the candidates.
People on Kos are saying that Bush is sweating. But I don't get clear enough reception to be able to tell for sure ... ;-(
People on Kos are saying that Bush is sweating. But I don't get clear enough reception to be able to tell for sure ... ;-(
Help is on the way...
Live debate blogging: I think Kerry is doing better than Bush... We'll see if the "spin" agrees...
New links: local and global
I've fallen behind on my links a bit. The following is an attempt to catch up (reciprocity!), though I think I'm still missing some people.
Here are some that I've come across from comments, Sitemeter, and Technorati:
Kathleen Lawton (friend from high school)
Lord of the Links
Zoo Station (I think "Wetware," their URL, is a better title, but...)
Musings from the Lehigh Valley (Now I'm not the only academic with a blog in the Lehigh Valley; philosophy connection)
Bitch Ph.D.
Brayden King
Hypatia (Egypt connection)
Scribbler's Delight (aka Poet; Australian, French connections)
Prashant Mullick (Science connection)
The Leviathan and the Republic (Portuguese connection)
Also, here is my public links list at Bloglines. It is likely to be more up-to-date than the blogroll, which is currently a pain to update.
Here are some that I've come across from comments, Sitemeter, and Technorati:
Kathleen Lawton (friend from high school)
Lord of the Links
Zoo Station (I think "Wetware," their URL, is a better title, but...)
Musings from the Lehigh Valley (Now I'm not the only academic with a blog in the Lehigh Valley; philosophy connection)
Bitch Ph.D.
Brayden King
Hypatia (Egypt connection)
Scribbler's Delight (aka Poet; Australian, French connections)
Prashant Mullick (Science connection)
The Leviathan and the Republic (Portuguese connection)
Also, here is my public links list at Bloglines. It is likely to be more up-to-date than the blogroll, which is currently a pain to update.
Homoeroticism in South Asian Writing
Via QPASAD, I came across this article on gay and lesbian references in South Asian fiction. It's a pretty comprehensive article; the author is given as Emmanuel Nelson. While I was impressed with it (I found out about the painter Bhupen Khakhar, as well as writers Prafulla Mohanti and Andrew Harvey from the site), I do have one slightly major quibble.
Nelson takes Shobha De's Strange Obsession very seriously, but he shouldn't.
Kamala Das's My Story? Yes, worth reading. Ismat Chughtai's "The Quilt"? Also yes. (Chughtai is a real modernist; I would highly recommend the story from an aesthetic/literary point of view)
But Shobha De's novel is of the long and very un-hallowed tradition of pulpy homicidal lesbian thrillers. It does what virtually every story or film in the genre does, which is 1) titillate and scandalize, and 2) make sure the homicidal lesbian dies or goes to prison at the end of the story. It's not gay-friendly, and it demeans the others on the list. Nelson's second paragraph on Shobha De does acknowledge the novel's prurient/titillating/homophobic qualities, but in a rather neutral, equivocal way.
So here's my unequivocal, non-flip flopping, I-wanna-be-Dale Peck response:
My Story and "The Quilt" are works of literature. Strange Obsession is toilet paper.
Also see (or rather, don't see) the Hindi film called Girlfriend.
More controversial is Shobha De's Strange Obsession (1993), a rambunctious novel about lesbian love published by the prestigious Penguin Books of India. Though Shobha De--the wife of a very wealthy Bombay businessman and mother of six children--has been dismissed by the literary establishment as a mere purveyor of filth, her novel has become a national bestseller.
Her commercial success certainly indicates widespread interest among Indian readers in works that explicitly deal with nontraditional sexualities; however, the interest, to some extent, may simply be prurient curiosity.
Nelson takes Shobha De's Strange Obsession very seriously, but he shouldn't.
Kamala Das's My Story? Yes, worth reading. Ismat Chughtai's "The Quilt"? Also yes. (Chughtai is a real modernist; I would highly recommend the story from an aesthetic/literary point of view)
But Shobha De's novel is of the long and very un-hallowed tradition of pulpy homicidal lesbian thrillers. It does what virtually every story or film in the genre does, which is 1) titillate and scandalize, and 2) make sure the homicidal lesbian dies or goes to prison at the end of the story. It's not gay-friendly, and it demeans the others on the list. Nelson's second paragraph on Shobha De does acknowledge the novel's prurient/titillating/homophobic qualities, but in a rather neutral, equivocal way.
So here's my unequivocal, non-flip flopping, I-wanna-be-Dale Peck response:
My Story and "The Quilt" are works of literature. Strange Obsession is toilet paper.
Also see (or rather, don't see) the Hindi film called Girlfriend.
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