Category: the value of X

shades of meaning

A little Anglo-specific: I don’t know enough about some of the current events/affairs to be sure I picked the right response.

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You go out of your way to build bridges with people of different views and beliefs and have quite a few religious friends. You believe in the essential goodness of people , which means you’re always looking for common ground even if that entails compromises. You would defend Salman Rushdie’s right to criticise Islam but you’re sorry he attacked it so viciously, just as you feel uncomfortable with some of the more outspoken and unkind views of religion in the pages of this magazine.


You prefer the inclusive approach of writers like Zadie Smith or the radical Christian values of Edward Said. Don’t fall into the same trap as super–naïve Lib Dem MP Jenny Tonge who declared it was okay for clerics like Yusuf al–Qaradawi to justify their monstrous prejudices as a legitimate interpretation of the Koran: a perfect example of how the will to understand can mean the sacrifice of fundamental principles. Sometimes, you just have to hold out for what you know is right even if it hurts someone’s feelings.
What kind of humanist are you? Click here to find out.

great minds?

The Washington Monthly:

And should we index the minimum wage to inflation? Of course. But I’ll renew an even better idea I proposed a year ago: index it to congressional salaries. Assuming a normal 2000-hour work year, congressmen make about $75/hour right now. How about simply making the minimum wage equal to 10% of that? Congress can then increase their own salaries anytime they want, but only if they’re willing to help out the working poor at the same time. Seems fair to me.

Hmm, I never saw Kevin’s idea, but it’s interesting how similar — identical? — they are in the details. Looks like I came up with mine after his but never saw it.

The comments to Kevin’s post are interesting.

I’d feel better if he had lived up to it

Inaugural Address:

And I can pledge our nation to a goal: When we see that wounded traveler on the road to Jericho, we will not pass to the other side.

America, at its best, is a place where personal responsibility is valued and expected.

Encouraging responsibility is not a search for scapegoats, it is a call to conscience. And though it requires sacrifice, it brings a deeper fulfillment. We find the fullness of life not only in options, but in commitments. And we find that children and community are the commitments that set us free.

Our public interest depends on private character, on civic duty and family bonds and basic fairness, on uncounted, unhonored acts of decency which give direction to our freedom.

Sometimes in life we are called to do great things. But as a saint of our times has said, every day we are called to do small things with great love. The most important tasks of a democracy are done by everyone.

I will live and lead by these principles: to advance my convictions with civility, to pursue the public interest with courage, to speak for greater justice and compassion, to call for responsibility and try to live it as well.

Continue reading “I’d feel better if he had lived up to it”

How old do you feel?

BELOIT COLLEGE’S MINDSET LIST® FOR THE CLASS OF 2009
Most students entering college this fall were born in 1987.
1. Andy Warhol, Liberace, Jackie Gleason, and Lee Marvin have always been dead.
2. They don’t remember when “cut and paste” involved scissors.
3. Heart-lung transplants have always been possible.
4. Wayne Gretzky never played for Edmonton.
5. Boston has been working on the “The Big Dig” all their lives.
6. With little need to practice, most of them do not know how to tie a tie.
7. Pay-Per-View television has always been an option.
8. They never had the fun of being thrown into the back of a station wagon with six others.
9. Iran and Iraq have never been at war with each other.
10. They are more familiar with Greg Gumbel than with Bryant Gumbel.
11. Philip Morris has always owned Kraft Foods.
12. Al-Qaida has always existed with Osama bin Laden at its head.
13. They learned to count with Lotus 1-2-3.
14. Car stereos have always rivaled home component systems.
15. Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker have never preached on television.
16. Voice mail has always been available.
17. “Whatever” is not part of a question but an expression of sullen rebuke.
18. The federal budget has always been more than a trillion dollars.
19. Condoms have always been advertised on television.
20.
They may have fallen asleep playing with their Gameboys in the crib.
21. They have always had the right to burn the flag.
22. For daily caffeine emergencies, Starbucks has always been around the corner.
23. Ferdinand Marcos has never been in charge of the Philippines.
24. Money put in their savings account the year they were born earned almost 7% interest.
25. Bill Gates has always been worth at least a billion dollars.
26. Dirty dancing has always been acceptable.
27. Southern fried chicken, prepared with a blend of 11 herbs and spices, has always been available in China.
28. Michael Jackson has always been bad, and greed has always been good.
29. The Starship Enterprise has always looked dated.
30. Pixar has always existed.
31.
There has never been a “fairness doctrine” at the FCC.
32. Judicial appointments routinely have been “Borked.”
33. Aretha Franklin has always been in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
34. There have always been zebra mussels in the Great Lakes.
35. Police have always been able to search garbage without a search warrant.
36. It has always been possible to walk from England to mainland Europe on dry land.
37. They have grown up in a single superpower world.
38. They missed the oat bran diet craze.
39. American Motors has never existed.
40. Scientists have always been able to see supernovas.
41. Les Miserables has always been on stage.
42. Halogen lights have always been available at home, with a warning.
43. “Baby M” may be a classmate, and contracts with surrogate mothers have always been legal.
44. RU486 has always been on the market.
45. There has always been a pyramid in front of the Louvre in Paris.
46. British Airways has always been privately owned.
47. Irradiated food has always been available but controversial.
48. Snowboarding has always been a popular winter pastime.
49. Libraries have always been the best centers for computer technology and access to good software.
50. Biosphere 2 has always been trying to create a revolution in the life sciences.
51. The Hubble Telescope has always been focused on new frontiers.
52. Researchers have always been looking for stem cells.
53. They do not remember “a kinder and gentler nation.”
54. They never saw the shuttle Challenger fly.
55. The TV networks have always had cable partners.
56. Airports have always had upscale shops and restaurants.
57. Black Americans have always been known as African-Americans.
58. They never saw Pat Sajak or Arsenio Hall host a late night television show.
59. Matt Groening has always had a Life in Hell.
60. Salman Rushdie has always been watching over his shoulder.
61. Digital cameras have always existed.
62. Tom Landry never coached the Cowboys.
63. Time Life and Warner Communications have always been joined.
64. CNBC has always been on the air.
65. The Field of Dreams has always been drawing people to Iowa.
66. They never saw a Howard Johnson’s with 28 ice cream flavors.
67. Reindeer at Christmas have always distinguished between secular and religious decorations.
68. Entertainment Weekly has always been on the newsstand.
69. Lyme Disease has always been a ticking concern in the woods.
70. Jimmy Carter has always been an elder statesman.
71. Miss Piggy and Kermit have always dwelt in Disneyland.
72. America’s Funniest Home Videos has always been on television.
73. Their nervous new parents heard C. Everett Koop proclaim nicotine as addictive as heroin.
74. Lever has always been looking for 2000 parts to clean.
75. They have always been challenged to distinguish between news and entertainment on cable TV.

Now playing: Going Down by Jeff Beck from the album “Beckology (Disc 2)” | Get it

genius and it’s roots

Two notes on a similar topic, recently brought to light:

scribble, scribble, scribble…:

Who first ate an oyster? And was he put up to it by a buddy? I’ll give you two shiny rocks if you eat that. Who was the first guy who looked at a horse and thought I bet I could ride one of those, and then jumped on? Who first looked at a round object and a round hole and thought it might be fun to toss the former through the latter? And who first decided to keep score?

The Deep North:

But what we wondered was, how on earth did anyone find out? Anyone who has disembowelled an ox presumably has a fairly hefty day’s work in front of him: in the thrifty Europe of the past, just about everything was used, but the gall bladder and its contents were, even by the standards of the ancien régime, wholly and absolutely inedible. Who on earth, rather than getting on with the unspeakably messy jobs of boiling up the tripe, making salami casings from the intestines, etc., wandered off with the brute’s gall bladder, saying ‘ooo, I wonder what this does?’ and started messing about with ink? And how did he get away with it, when there was so much to do? It’s one of those great human discoveries it is hard quite to imagine coming about, like, IF you get the cyanide out of cassava root, it is quite tasty, and highly nourishing. What Darwin-awardee of remote history went on experimenting after his mate had sampled raw cassava, gone blue, clutched his throat and dropped dead? There should be some sort of medal.

So how do people learn about the capabilities of organs, plants, minerals, etc.? And at what cost?
Continue reading “genius and it’s roots”

the family that smiles together . . .

My daughter, aged 6, and I share the same smile now. I went to the dentist today to get a temporary false tooth installed and it didn’t fit (so much for people saying I have a big mouth). So now I just have a big unsightly gap in the same spot as hers. Once it looks a little less raw, I’ll take a picture to share with the grandparents.
Continue reading “the family that smiles together . . .”

HEADS UP if you mount your iTunes music as a share

It looks like iTunes doesn’t grok the way I handle my music library. I have the library stored on a system with more disk space and then automount the share. The mount point is then symlinked to my ~/Music directory.

It doesn’t see any of it. My iPod is now empty was well as a result of syncing it up just a little bit ago. There was a prompt to re-associate my iPod with this library but I’m not sure that was where I went wrong.

Interestingly, I just copied two files into the Library (the two most recent Beethoven symphonies from the BBC) and they show up in iTunes.

Curiouser and curiouser, there is a ‘Previous iTunes Libraries’ directory in iTunes . . . . and moving Previous iTunes Libraries/iTunes 4 Music Library to ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library seems to fix everything.

Fingers crossed for now. Now to see if my iPod gets refilled . . . .

<updated> Hmm, it looks like the automount is the problem: iTunes is complaining about not being able to find some tracks, but “Get Info” reveals them (and I note that the share is being mounted in the process, thanks to Growl’s alerts).

This could be pretty irritating: a workaround would be keep different libraries (as iPhoto does with albums) but that’s not possible.