I wonder about this as I watch the news and the cops surround a car, pulling out guns and barking orders. Someone's child is in that car. Sure, he's 41 years old now, but he is still someone's son. I imagine him as a baby, his mother cradling him in her arms, brushing his cheek with her finger and silently hoping that her son will have all the good things life has to offer.
Jack Handy Has a Posse
Philosoblog - The Melting Pot II - America was founded on liberty, but it's always had its conservative, traditionalist, virtue-pedantic side. The point of liberty is that it allows one to pursue happiness in the way most likely to yield it: the way one prefers. The problem is to determine the degree to which to constrain liberty in order to promote virtues and ways of life that are the best. For the values embraced by adults are mostly fixed. And some preferences are better suited to human nature than others. It is good for everyone to fulfill his preferences, for this is the only chance he has for happiness.
Media Bash
skippy the bush kangaroo - pinin' for the fjords? - ok, ok, you say, but after a year and a half hasn't the op-ed metaphor-stealing statute of limitations run out? perhaps. but gee whiz, it's not like mr. krugman would have had to go very far to find another, even better surreal british sketch comedy group metaphor to make his point:
Opiating The Masses
Shark Blog - Being Fair To Islam - I assure you that I have no ill-will against Islam in particular, and in fact, I am an equal-opportunity critic of senseless murder in the name of religion. So you just watch the next time a group of fanatical Buddhists, for example (and not to single anybody out), kill a bunch of innocent civilians in the hope of achieving Nirvana. You can bet your bottom Dalai that I will write something snide about the crime, e.g. "Religion of Enlightenment strikes again".
Poli Sci
Ravenwood's Universe - Mr. Ravenwood goes to Washington - I enjoy my privacy, and peeking over the walls of my compound might get you some buckshot in the face.
Dustbury.Com - Donkeys and Jackasses - Sometimes I think that if I were, oh, a transgendered African-American who writes antiwar tracts for The Nation and runs an abortion clinic on the side, I could probably get DNC chair Terry McAuliffe to drive me to work every day.
The Kitchen Cabinet - Environmental Fantasyland - Jack Dafoe, a junior at Yale College, does a serendipitous good job at addressing my point about the fantasy world of environmentalism where individuals could make a difference by doing small things.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
Great to have you back Biggy! Super job (as was last week by Amish L) and thanks for the excerpts.