So many of our most difficult choices have been reasoned through and discussed thousands of times through the years. Socrates was already pondering most of the same questions we think about today. And until recently, the issues hadn’t really changed through the years. Ethical problems are human problems, and humans have been the same for […]
Archive | Humanity
Frozen Girl
Has everyone had a chance to talk about Ashley yet? (link) Ashley is a nine year old girl with with “static encephalopathy.†That just means that she’s got brain damage, and she’s not ever going to get better. In her case, her abilities and thoughts are somewhere around a three-month old baby. That is, she […]
Freedom to Lie
Ok, first of all, alert readers may notice that it’s been more than a week since my last post. I’ve been house-sitting, away from my computer, and sick with a cold. As you can see, I subscribe to the shotgun approach to excuses, but coincidentally, they all happen to be true. Onwards: David Duke made […]
Israel Thwarted Due to Its Humanity
The BBC reports that Palestinians stopped a planned air strike because protesters surrounded the house that was to be hit (link). The IDF decided not to strike, because it didn’t want to kill all the civilians (or it didn’t want the publicity headache of killing them). It’s unclear (because the article left it unclear) whether […]
Silliest Theory of the Week (Plus Bonus Thoughts!)
Noting that germ-killing products are all the rage, Allen Salkin in the New York Times (link) present us with an example of journalists scrabbling to find an angle to an otherwise boring story. Why are so many people buying (questionably effective) lotions, creams, water ionizers, UV wands, and other weapons of mini destruction? Is it […]
Fuck
[Too busy to think, so I’m posting yet another old thought of mine from YOY.] Should certain words, devoid of sexual meaning, be banned from TV or radio? Take the word, “fuck,†for instance. When used to mean, “have sex,†it can be argued that it’s obscene. But when you use it like, “that was […]
A Torture Primer
Slate (link on main page) provides a primer on torture techniques used (or allegedly used) by Americans. (link) Click the links at the top of the page to see all the pieces. The most interesting living room conversation is on the “Taxonomy of Torture†page, where they discuss the techniques and their legality. I had […]
Kids and Accents
As I was musing over the Pho post (link), it occurred to me that the way we speak may fall into the same area. That is, we all say things a little differently, but at some point we realize that someone says things differently in a way that makes them really different in a larger […]
Pho
Here’s my first post brought over from Why oh Why, as I said I’d do in an earlier post: My wife and I recently ate at a Vietnamese place. We were the only diners lacking an epicanthic fold. We were almost, but not quite, the lightest skinned people in the restaurant. We were not the […]
Old People
Asians in New Jersey seem to have the key to longevity. Not that they know what it is. (Link) [End of Post]