Specialization? Daniel Barenboim on Edward Said's Musicianship

Daniel Barenboim in the Guardian writes about his friendship with Edward Said, who was (as is well known) an accomplished pianist as well as a world-class intellectual.

The best thought in this essay is also one that raises questions for me:

His fierce anti-specialisation led him to criticise very strongly, and very fairly, the fact that musical education was becoming increasingly poor, not only in the United States - which, after all, had imported the music of old Europe - but also in the very countries that had produced music's greatest figures: for example, in Germany, which had produced Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner, Schumann and many others; or in France, which had produced Debussy and Ravel. Furthermore, he perceived a sign that bothered him exceedingly, a perception that was to unite us very quickly: even when there was musical education, it was carried out in a very specialised way. In the best of cases, young people were offered the opportunity to practice an instrument, to acquire necessary knowledge of theory, of musicology, and of everything that a musician needs professionally.

But, at the same time, there existed a widespread and growing incomprehension of the impossibility of articulating the content of a musical work. After all, if it were possible to express in words the content of one of Beethoven's symphonies, we would no longer have a need for that symphony. But the fact that it is impossible to express in words the music's content does not mean that there is no content.

Again, the enemy is specialization. Within literary theory -- and particularly, in Foucault -- the enemy has in recent years come to be "discipline."

The fact that I do a blog where I write about such a disparate array of topics suggests (I hope) that I myself am opposed to the plague of specialization. But at the same time, I wonder about whether Said isn't being too idealistic: isn't it only possible to make a successful critique of specialization from the vantage point of professional accomplishment? Aren't strong technical fundamentals required in order to play Beethoven -- or write a paper on Joyce -- in a manner that others will find compelling, and correct?

Practically speaking, how does one teach technical basics and universal meanings at the same time? Earlier in the semester I attempted to teach formal and technical aspects of poetics (rhyme, meter, poetic form) in my "Intro to the English Major" undergraduate course. The subject is difficult enough for me that it took nearly all of my concentration just to ensure that I was correctly scanning the poems that I was asking my students to scan. There wasn't room left, after noting the metrical deviations in Browning's "The Last Ride Together," for what the poem means, and why they should read it to begin with. (I should say I do find the balance easier to achieve when teaching prose.)

I think the critique of specialization works best when students already know all these basics -- either because someone else taught it to them, or because they learned it on their own out of a natural proficiency and enthusiasm for the subject.
In effect, the kinds of knowledge that are often derided as mere specialization are every bit as necessary as the general humanist competency that makes someone seem like a serious musician or literary critic. The two pull away from each other -- and seemingly contradict one another -- but both are essential to success.

(Of course, I haven't said anything about how the demands of the market -- which are often compelled by delusion -- skew even the most modest attempt to talk about ideals and practicalities in pedagogy)

The Mysterious Jargon of Baseball

This is for my readers abroad, and for readers here in the U.S. who find the metaphors of baseball a little mystifying.

I should say that I've been a bit of a baseball fan since high school, when my family sometimes went to Baltimore to watch the Baltimore Orioles play in their old stadium. Imagine a Sikh family timidly hanging out at one of these events with all the tobacco-chewing, beer-drinking fans. Parents look confused, kids are trying to act like all of the random events actually make any sense. Well, that was us, eating hot dogs up in the cheap seats.

I even briefly played baseball in high school. It was just for a year, on the Junior Varsity, and I was so bad that the Quaker coach -- who normally espoused a philosophy of "everyone gets to play, even if we lose to St. Albans by 20 runs" -- barely ever let me do anything. I later went on to do sports like Cross-Country, where my badness was a non-factor.

I've been listening to some of these playoff games on WCBS radio, partly because I've been driving a lot, but also because I get pretty poor reception at the place where I stay in Bethlehem. The experience of just listening to the game is interesting. The fact that you can't see means you have to pay more attention to how the game is narrated. It's renewed my interest in the language, especially since radio announcers are allowed to get a little more carried away with jargon than the TV guys. It also probably doesn't hurt that the same guys have apparently been announcing these teams for decades, so their announcing patterns are reflexive, like the chanting of veteran Buddhist monks or American academics reading scholarly papers.

Some interesting jargon (and the rules that make the terms meaningful):

Sac fly: Sacrifice fly. The batter is out on a fly ball, but if there are fewer than two outs, runners may advance after tagging the base.

(Batter) takes: The batter refuses to swing. This is oddly intransitive.

(Pitcher) deals: Again, intransitive. An odd turn of phrase; it suggests that pitching is a little like playing cards.

Breaking ball: As far as I can tell, this is the same thing as a curve ball. "Breaking" is a little more descriptive than "curve," as it tells you a little about the nature (and shape) of the curve.

Slider: I never really knew what this was, so I looked it up, and found the following fascinating (but vague) definition):

A slider is a pitch in baseball, sort of halfway between a curveball and a fastball, with less break but more speed than the curve. It will tend to drop less and move toward or away from the batter more than a curve. The extra speed can fool the hitter into thinking it is a fastball, until too late. Some pitchers also use a cut fastball (or cutter) which is one step closer than the slider to the fastball on the spectrum between fastballs and curves. A pitch that has movement similar to both a slider and a curveball is sometimes called a slurve.

The slider is also sometimes called "the great equalizer", as its development caused pitchers to regain some dominance over hitters. The slider also causes great stress and wear on a pitcher's arm.

Getting behind (a batter): If the pitcher throws more strikes than balls to an individual batter, he is "ahead" of the batter. If not, he is "behind" in the count. Sometimes the announcers simply say "The pitcher has to watch out about getting behind this guy."

Action in the bullpen: If the pitcher is doing poorly and is likely to be replaced, the back-up pitcher needs to warm up for 20-30 minutes in the "bullpen." Action in the bullpen is thus a sure sign that the current pitcher is soon going to be replaced.

2-hole: The second spot in the batting line-up. I don't know why this is (sometimes) called a "hole."

Contact hitter: A hitter who often connects with the ball, even if he doesn't always get on base.

(Hitter is) jammed: The pitcher gets the batter to hit a pitch off-center. Usually leads to a fly ball and an easy out.

Fielder's Choice: The act of a fielder who handles a fair grounder and, instead of throwing to first base to put out the batter runner, throws to another base in an attempt to put out a preceding runner.

So there you have it, some strange baseball phrases for your entertainment. Go Red Sox!

Manjul Bhargava, genius

On NPR. Small quibble: the reference to The Da Vinci Code I could have done without.

Eminem goes ballistic for a good reason

Check out Eminem's latest music video, Mosh -- it's something else. And while Wonkette brings it back to earth with a characteristic snark, this is still a pretty dramatic entry into politics from someone who had seemingly washed up on shoals of redundancy. (She also has links to some other mirror sites where you can view the video)

I had written this guy off as effectively a clown from hell after his other recent single, "Lose It." I found the latter to be at once: boring, annoying, dangerously exploitative of children, gratuitously homophobic (no surprise, but it still needs to be said), redundant, poorly produced, tacky, and overly derivative of his other chart-topping hits.

Since when did Clown from Hell become so politically righteous? And do we believe he's sincere? (Isn't it perhaps a little opportunistic?)

What is an "extreme" case of Murder?

BBC reports that the honor killings code in Pakistan has been reformed so that the defendent actually goes to jail, but only in "extreme" cases. As it stands now, usually it is the tribal custom that a payment to the victim's family is given in lieu of punishment.

Ok, I know this is supposed to be an improvement. But remind me -- what is an extreme case of murder? Are there any non-extreme murders?

Back from Vancouver: the raven who freed the sun from a box

Vancouver: a pretty town. And the conference was fun, though I always come away from MSA feeling like a bit of a half-wit. Favorite papers were on topics like Ginger Rogers ("Ginger Rogers in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"), the Caribbean writers coterie who all wrote for the BBC "Caribbean Voices" program in the 1940s and 50s, and a paper on ethics in Jacob's Room.

While I was really impressed by most of what I heard, I did have the unpleasure of some very jargony papers that weren't about much of anything at all (most useless word: "intersectionalities"). Folks who criticize English academics for using too much jargon are usually over-simplifying what it is we do and why we do it. But sometimes I do get the urge to 1) Take to the streets to Fight Oversyllabification (i.e., intersectionalities --> intersections), 2) Remind people that not everything can be about race, gender, class, sexuality, and empire, all at once, 3) Reintroduce the profoundly underrated phrase "I don't know" to academic discourse, and 4) Institute a total ban on neologisms for a trial period of 4 years. And those are just some starting provisions.

And did I mention that Vancouver is pretty? Maybe I'll post some pictures soon...

Other Vancouver nicety: it's polyglot and multicultural, as much or moreso than New York City. I met some interesting Punjabi and Ethiopian cab drivers, and a Chinese lady who told me one of the main Native American myths from that part of Canada: of the demon that locked up the sun in a box, and of the raven who disguised himself as a little boy in order to trick the demon and return the sun to its rightful place. (Figures that the most prevalent ethnic icon in Vancouver pertains to the absence of the sun!)

Meanwhile, Sepia Mutiny has had some great posts on India stuff.

Sikhs in France: Cultural vs. Religious Symbols

I promised I wouldn't blog til Tuesday, but I'm sitting in Newark Airport, so what the hey. (What is wi-fi for except for me to use it?)

Sikhs in France are taking the ban on turbans to court. Three Sikh boys in France are arguing that their 'keski' (or under-turban) is not a religious but a cultural symbol.

In the initial ruling, the French court has sent the matter back to the school. Under the current law, schools are required to hold public hearings and also meet with parents before expelling students ("explore all disciplinary options").

After a couple of weeks, however, I think this will be back in court.

On BBC radio, they were interviewing a guy named Kudrat Singh, who is a Frenchman who converted to Sikhism, and who is representing a Sikh advocacy group in France. The weird thing was, when asked "is it really true that the turban is a cultural rather than a religious symbol?" his answer was, "well, for me, it's religious, but we still have a right to wear it."

Now, it's not as if the current argument being put forward by French Sikhs really makes any sense (it's cultural, not religious), but it is the only way to get around the current religious symbol ban. Unfortunately, the chief representative for French Sikhs seems not to be aware of what he's supposed to be arguing!

Oh well. To the anthropologists reading this -- is there really a difference between symbols that are cultural and those that are religious? (I don't think it's possible to say, since religious communities must always in some sense be 'cultural' as well) And to the French litigators reading this -- shouldn't this be a question for anthropologists to resolve?

Ok, now to board my plane.

Karen Armstrong at Lehigh; off to a conference

Tonight I had the great privilege to introduce Karen Armstrong with 300-400 people in the room. And tomorrow I'm off to Vancouver for the Modernist Studies Association. My paper: "E.M. Forster's Orientation to Islam." (If any readers are in Vancouver and would like to meet up on Sunday afternoon, drop me an email.)

Karen Armstrong: Charming lady, and a wonderful lecturer (I blogged about her most recent book over the summer). She lectures old school, Ox-Bridge style -- from notes, off the cuff -- and yet it all makes sense in the end. Again, I was impressed by the number of local Bethlehem-ites that came to the south side for a 7:30 talk.

An academic intro is also a strange document to write; I mean, what do you do with it when you're done? It basically sits in "My Documents" in the "great, congratulations, but of no future use" folder. I remember slaving over intros to Michael Hardt (2002) and Susan Stanford Friedman (also 2002), but then -- after the event -- I threw them out.

Unlike the conference talk, the academic intro is still essentially an occasional document, single use only.

Or maybe... I can also blog it? Perhaps it will be of some interest to readers...

Let me start with a short quote from the renowned religious studies scholar Diana Eck, who once described our speaker tonight in the following way:

“She has the discipline of someone schooled for years in a convent and she has the freedom of mind of someone who left it. She is deeply rooted in the soil of a particular religious tradition, but she has set herself free like a bird."

Karen Armstrong was raised in Stourbridge, a small town in the industrial midlands region of England, not too far from Birmingham. In 1962 she decided to enter the convent of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. She studied to be a nun for seven years, when, after an extremely painful process of self-discovery, she decided it wasn’t for her. The convent was an extraordinarily difficult regimen – one which she has documented in books like Through the Narrow Gate and, just this year, The Spiral Staircase .

But she didn’t leave the convent just because of the difficulty, or just because of the repressive policies of the Catholic Church at that time (this was before the big liberalizing reforms of Vatican II). She left because she personally didn’t feel strongly connected to faith, or to God. And like James Joyce and George Eliot, great writers who left their religious upbringings behind to enter the secular world, Karen Armstrong decided to pursue a different track.

For several years, Armstrong aimed to have nothing whatsoever to do with organized religion. She pursued a Ph.D. in literature at Oxford, and taught literature for a time at universities and private schools around London. But soon she felt a need to come to terms with her early experiences. In 1980, she wrote a book called Through the Narrow Gate about her convent life. It was very successful for a first book, and it started her -– perhaps a little reluctantly -– down a path which would lead to a prodigious amount of scholarship about religion, albeit written from a critical and intellectual point of view, by a person who is herself thoroughly secular (or at most, as she puts it, a "freelance monotheist").

After the success of the first book, Armstrong was invited to work on British television programs on religion. This in turn led to a new kind of interest in religion, especially in Judaism and Islam, which were both new to her. She also became interested in figures like Paul, and in the uneasy coexistence between the three Abrahamic faiths one finds in present-day Jerusalem. She started to write book after book, each on a different aspect or problem associated with the three faiths. There’s a long series of titles: A History of God; Holy War; Jersalem: One History Three Faiths; The Battle For God; and the list goes on. Each book is different, and each is clear and straightforward in its presentation of ideas, information, and history. To the students in the audience, I would say this about Karen Armstrong’s books: you don’t need to have a strong background in religion to understand them, and if you sit down with just about anything she’s written you will probably find your knowledge of the subject completely transformed.

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, Armstrong became one of the most sought-after authorities on the subject of Islam. Her book on the subject (Islam: A Short History) became a best-seller, as did many of her earlier books. Armstrong became a trusted and credible authority on the relations between different religious communities at a time when it seemed most commentators on television and in the print-media were only capable of a kind of high hysteria about the rising tide of Islamic fundamentalism.

Karen Armstrong’s a hero to me partly because she brought a dose of calm and sanity at a time when it was much needed in the U.S. and England, as well as many other places around the world. (She is internationally known) I also deeply admire her scholarly commitment -– all the more impressive because her formal training at Oxford was in literature, and her unparalleled knowledge of Judaism and Islam is self-taught. And finally, I admire her as a person who has overcome a repressive religious system, and has courageously turned her scholarly lens to the very system that was the source of so much early suffering.

Thoughts? Likes, dislikes?

See you Tuesday.

Fareed Zakaria, Postcolonial intellectual

I linked to Fareed Zakaria's NewsweekEditorial last month.

That piece shares something quite significant with his latest, and that is a consciousness of the follies of empire.

Though I think his book The Future of Freedom is perhaps a bit too sunny (I actually published a review of it in The Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies), and Zakaria positions himself somewhere to the right of where I place myself politically, I like the drift of his thought.

In this case, I also appreciate the literary reference -- Somerset Maugham's criticism of Henry James:

In his novel "Cakes and Ale," Somerset Maugham derided the celebrated American expatriate Henry James for focusing his writings on upper-class life in Europe in the early 20th century. Maugham complained that James had "turned his back on one of the great events of the world's history, the rise of the United States, in order to report tittle-tattle at tea parties in English country houses."

The analogy is not exact. The war on terror is crucial, winning in Iraq is necessary, Middle East peace is important. But I wonder whether as we furiously debate these matters in America, we resemble Englishmen in the waning days of the British Empire. They vigorously debated the political and military situation in remote areas, such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan (some things don't change). They tried mightily, and at great cost, to stabilize disorderly parts of the globe. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the United States of America was building its vast economic, technological and cultural might, which would soon dominate the world.

Then again, this is a piece about America's obliviousness to the rise of Asia. And he has a point that the reduction of all foreign policy issues to Iraq is turning us all into Cyclopeans; we fail to see the substantive structural and attitudinal shift that is to accompany the incipient rise of the Asian economies.

But is Asia-->America today analogous to America-->Europe a century ago? I'm not sure I believe it.

Wonkette, Kos, Powerline Live in Bethlehem PA: Blog the Vote!

[UPDATE: I made a few corrections in response to a reader. FURTHER UPDATE: Here is the Morning Call's coverage of its own event.]

Theme for the evening: Where's the link? (explained below)

This was an impressive this event overall. The Morning Call is not really a paper one thinks of as being cutting-edge, but clearly they have some engaged folks working for them these days. The event was held in what is normally a concert hall on the south campus of Moravian College (right in downtown Bethlehem), and was sponsored by the Morning Call newspaper under the rubric "Blog the Vote."

The Morning Call may be on the ball, but Bethlehem sure isn't. The room was only about a quarter full. There were about five or six laptops out (free Wi-Fi) that I could see. Also, most of the crowd was older -- the average age was 45-55 -- but that's typical of a baseball/school night. The average age in Bethlehem, despite the presence of two colleges, is probably about 50 -- it's virtually a retirement community. The whole component of politically active young people one thinks of as active in the blog-world... well, they don't live here.

There were no major blow-ups. The only significant tension in the room was early on, when Kos talked about his statements in March about the contractors (he called them "mercenaries") who were killed in Falluja, and then strung up in public for display. Kos (Markos Moulitsos Zuniga) was raised in El Salvador (hence his dislike for mercenaries), and also served in U.S. armed forces during the first Gulf War -- though he wasn't actually called to go to Iraq. Also a little tense was the discussion of Sinclair Broadcasting. Kos supports the movement against their advertisers; Jon Hinderaker of Powerline tried to make it an issue of free speech, saying that the left is very wishy-washy when it comes to free speech that says things they don't like. IMHO Hinderaker's wrong: free speech is not the issue here; what's really at issue are FCC regulations about equal time, and about Sinclair's accountability to its advertisers. Wonkette also sided with Kos here, and against Sinclair.

But overall, the vibe was remarkably comfortable. Though Kos had referred to his co-panelist Jon Hinderaker of Powerline as a 'wingnut' before the event, in person all three were quite a bit tamer than their online personalities would suggest. No references to wingnuts or moonbats! The normally potty-mouthed Wonkette tried to avoid repeating the name Jon Stewart called Tucker Carlson on national television! (Kos stepped up and said it)

They also pretty much agree on what blogging is, and how it works as a medium.

In addition to what I record below, topics covered include: Rathergate (which Powerlineblog apparently broke -- I didn't know that before), the current left-blogger movement against the Sinclair Broadcasting Group, the tawdry spectacle of post-Presidential Debate "spin alley," Jon Stewart on Crossfire, the hidden slang meaning of "Santorum," what it was like to blog the conventions, campaign finance reform, voter fraud scam stuff, community-building through blogging, the limitations of blogging vs. 'real' political organizing, the cross-over between radio/TV talk shows and blogging, and why blogger credibility or responsibility is a non-issue. In short, a potpourri that was exactly what you would expect.

Kos (which, to my surprise, is pronounced "koss" rather than "Chaos") revealed that he's thinking of writing some books, and also told some interesting stories about his early involvement in the Dean Campaign. But he also says he feels that blogging is made for him -- it's his ideal medium. Wonkette says she's happy doing what she's doing for now, too, even though she did do a stint for MTV at the DNC back in July. Hinderaker is a lawyer, so he probably doesn't need to blog. But I got the feeling that he definitely wants a job in politics down the line.

Wonkette and Kos disgreed on Jon Stewart. Wonkette thought that Stewart's repeated claims that he's just a comedian begin to ring hollow ("He can't keep just saying that his lead-in show is a show where puppets make crank calls"). In fact, his performance on Crossfire shows he does take himself just a wee bit seriously. And after calling Crossfire "bad for America," as he did on Friday, it's likely that the mainstream media will start thinking of him as less of a court jester and more of a "figure." Kos, in contrast, buys Stewart's line that he's just a comedian. I tend to agree with Wonkette -- Stewart can't make serious criticisms of the system of individuals in it and then wiggle out of accountability on the basis of "Crank Yankers." But then, I'm not sure that this little tempest in a teapot will be on anyone's mind in a week or two.

On responsibility and credibility, Kos made the best points about why bloggers don't have to worry about those issues so much, since popularity rules: blogging is a free market of ideas, and people will vote with their clicks. All three panelists all agreed: major bloggers as a whole are actually more accountable than the current mass-media, because everything has to be documented (motto: Where's the LINK?). And when mistakes are made, they are instantly corrected.

Each of the three bloggers on the panel made the point somewhere along the line that the real hope of political blogging (even satirical political blogging) is that people will become more critical about what they hear and read in the media. Everything can turn out to be wrong, whether it's the New York Times or Rising Hegemon.

Wonkette was the most interesting on her experiences at the conventions, especially the DNC in Boston, which she and Kos were both covering. Surprisingly, they found themselves to be the center of the story ("Look, there are bloggers here!"), rather than part of the apparatus that actually cover the event. She was also quite good on recognizing that the conventions may be theater -- but audiences (aka, "voters") actually expect just that. And they want to be entertained. Audiences/voters judge conventions by how well they're organized: "why would you vote for someone if they can't even make the balloons fall on time?"

Hinderaker's best point was on campaign finance reform, which he opposes on the grounds of the first amendment. The most recent round of reforms (McCain/Feingold) have led to, well, more of the same. What is the real difference between soft money contributions to political parties and the ads by the new '527' groups, which can be funded by billionaires on either side? Kos -- in a certain kind of way -- agreed with Hinderaker, with the qualification that he thinks the reforms are an improvement, because now the money is going directly to the ideas and the ideologies of interest, rather than to the political parties. 527s may have the same effect as 'soft-money' ads to people who watch TV in swing-states like Pennsylvania -- but they make a world of difference when it comes to the potential for corruption inside politics.

Enough said; here is a very partial and inaccurate transcription of tonight's event at Moravian.

[All quotations are approximate.]

First question: How did you start blogging?

Wonkette: It's unusual in that I was asked. I was Nick Denton sent me an email: "how would you like to blog for money?"

Hinderaker: We're Three guys who are all older, and lawyers.

Kos: [missed this: he felt urgently he wanted to express himself in response to the build-up to the Iraq war in 2002]

Second question: Credentials.

Wonkette: I don't call myself a journalist. I think of what I do as more commentary and analysis. I hate facts. I hate calling people, I hate being here right now.

I would much rather stay home in my room and make fun of people. There are people like Josh Marshall who are journalists but who like to blog. What blogging has done is open up journalism to something more fluid.

People shouldn't believe what they read just because it's written by a journalist. They should bring critical faculties to bear.

Powerline: There's an enormous amount of diversity in the world of blogging. At powerline what we do is comment on the news. We're commentators.

Kos: I did journalism for a couple of years and I dont' want to go back. I'm an activist. I use it as a tool for activism. Some people may use it to let people know what they're baby's up to. It's a tool, nothing else.

Question 3: Filtering, editing. Don't you guys need editors?

Wonkette: Just because something's bland, doesn't mean it's true.

One thing people appreciate about blogs is their passion and their immediacy. Of course, things could also be wrong.

But they can also correct what's wrong. I think on the balance the lack of editing on a blog is made up of the thousand editors you have outside your home.

Powerline: I debated this with Jonathan Kline on a TV show a few weeks back. There are some things as bloggers we can do that newspapers can't. At powerline we never just spout our opinions. We link to a source, and you can verify and decide whether you agree with our interpretation of it.

And there was much more. But as I said, I got tired of typing!

Still, it was a pretty fun evening. Probaby the most fun I've had in town since I got to have dinner at a table with Salman Rushdie a year and a half ago.

More on Anupam Kher: The Hindu

Via Locana, I saw this Editorial in The Hindu, on Anupam Kher.

It basically reiterates the points that people have already made (including many good points made by readers in response to my earlier post), but adds a couple of other incidents to the list of indictments of Kher's tenure:

It has taken decisions that have shown it up as being too priggish (example: it objected to Nagesh Kukunoor's Hyderabad Blues because the word "blue" could be misleading), too arbitrary (Mahesh Bhatt's Zakhm, which went on to win an award for national integration, was initially refused a censor certificate on the ground it could promote `communal disharmony'), and too confused (double entendres and titillating dance sequences are routinely cleared while a close embrace between two adults may attract the scissor). The second issue relates to the need to ensure that appointments to Censor Boards are apolitical and that their functional autonomy is not impaired in any way.

But they also criticize the way in which he was fired, and worry about the continuing potential for political censorship by the Congress Party.

They've outdone themselves: Dishoom

Badmash's latest, a U.S. election satire with some surrealist desi in-jokes thrown in.

Probably the best one they've ever done.

Pledge Protection Act: Latest from Republican Congress

A friend gave me a tip about the Pledge Protection Act, which the House Judiciary Committee has just sent to the full house for a vote.

Marci Hamilton at CNN breaks it down for us:

The Act -- a bill that has many cosponsors -- would deprive all federal courts, even the Supreme Court, of jurisdiction to hear constitutional challenges to the "under God" Pledge of Allegiance.

This is only the latest attempt by Congress to force a pluralist society into a one-size-fits-all set of beliefs.

This is a remarkable violation of the separation of powers and the Establishment Clause. If the Act were to become law -- and if it were, itself, to be upheld as constitutional -- only state courts would be able to hear constitutional challenges to the pledge.

We would therefore have a 50-state collection of views as to what the Free Exercise Clause, and the Establishment Clause, mean in this context. And that would be constitutional lunacy.

Moreover, we would have Congress making its actions that involve compelled speech and religious viewpoint unreviewable!

I have a feeling that the lemmings in the House will pass this, and I'm sure George Bush would sign it. But I don't see it getting through the Senate...

DailyKos and Wonkette in Bethlehem, PA

Uber bloggers DailyKos and Wonkette will be in Bethlehem, PA tomorrow night for a panel discussion on political blogging. A conservative from Powerlineblog -- never heard of it -- will be there too. It will be happening at Moravian College, which is just up the street from Lehigh.

I'm psyched... I hope I can get into the hall where it's happening... If I can, expect a report on the event.

(Thanks for the tip, Anjali.)

Chinua Achebe rejects award

According to BBC, Nigerian author Chinua Achebe has rejected a high honor from his government as a protest against the government's failure to stabilize the country.

Olusegun Obasanjo has been in power for five years, and was hailed as a huge step for democracy when he came into power. But things have not turned out exactly as planned:

"Nigeria is a country that does not work," he said: "Schools, universities, roads, hospitals, water, the economy, security, life." There was a four-day national strike last week over a rise in fuel prices, while more than 10,000 people have been killed in communal clashes since Mr Obasanjo was elected in 1999.