AnalPhilosopher

Steve Rugg has two predictions about the hurricane and its aftermath. See here.

This is the view from the back of the peloton when the riders at the front are hammering. I assure you that the riders at the back are suffering. If they get dropped, they're in trouble, because they might not make the cutoff time. Australian Bradley McGee leads the Vuelta after five stages.

Cindy Sheehan has a blog. Wink, wink. See here.

Kevin Stroup brought this to my attention.

Here. And here. And here.

What should be done about looters in hurricane-stricken areas? I'm tempted to say that they should be shot on sight, but maybe that's a little harsh. Another possibility is the imposition of martial law. See here for a story about looting.

Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery (as it was known) has crossed the Continental Divide into the Pacific watershed. The long ascent of the Missouri River (from its mouth near St Louis) is over. The boats have been sunk into the Beaverhead River for retrieval on the return trip. Horses and at least one mule have been purchased from the friendly Shoshones for the transport of equipment and trade goods. Winter is fast approaching, and game is scarce, so the Corps must find a way through the mountains as soon as possible. William Clark's reconnaissance of the Salmon River showed it to be impassable by either land or water, so the Corps must proceed northward. Luckily, they've secured the services of a Shoshone guide, whom they called Old Toby. The Corps will make its way across Lost Trail Pass and into the Bitterroot Valley. It will cross the Bitterroot Range at Lolo Pass, near present-day Missoula.

I mention the expedition today not because anything remarkable occurred, but because this is the second anniversary of Meriwether Lewis's departure from Pittsburgh, where he had supervised construction of the expedition's 55-foot keelboat. It would be several weeks before Lewis reached his friend Clark in Clarksville, Indiana Territory. As of today, therefore, Lewis has traveled from Pittsburgh to the Continental Divide—first on the Ohio River, then on the Mississippi, then on the Missouri. He would not return to civilization (St Louis) for another 13 months. You might think that three years is not a lot, but Lewis lived only 35 years (1774 to 1809). If you date the onset of his adult life at 20, then he spent three of his 15 adult years—one-fifth of it—on the expedition, devoid of creature comforts. Clark, by contrast, had a long life after the expedition. Here is Lewis's first journal entry. It's dated 30 August 1803, but the editor, Gary E. Moulton, says in a note that it's probably an error for 31 August. You have to wonder whether Lewis thought the incidents of that day were a bad omen!

To the Editor:

"Free Judy Miller" doesn't acknowledge the fundamental point of civil disobedience: in breaking the law for a principle, you accept and even expect the consequences.

You cannot have it both ways. Either you break the law, go to jail and make your point, or you obey the law and try to change it.

William D. Priester
New York, Aug. 29, 2005

To the Editor:

Your stance on Judith Miller is not based on constitutional law, since the courts have long held that a grand jury is entitled to information on the details and substance of a criminal act, even if that information is known by a reporter.

If Judith Miller tells what she knows, newspapers will still get leaks. If the leaker breaks the law, the leaker and the reporter who receives the information will have to obey the law, just like the rest of us.

Michael E. Miller
Dallas, Aug. 29, 2005

Peace, n. In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.

O, what's the loud uproar assailing
Mine ears without cease?
'Tis the voice of the hopeful, all-hailing
The horrors of peace.

Ah, Peace Universal; they woo it—
Would marry it, too.
If only they knew how to do it
'Twere easy to do.

They're working by night and by day
On their problem, like moles.
Have mercy, O Heaven, I pray,
On their meddlesome souls!
Ro Amil.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Here.

8-30-85 . . . At work, I notified my client, Richard T., of the state’s dismissal of his D.U.I. charges. He was pleased as punch. “If you weren’t so far away,” he said, “I’d run up and kiss you.” I just laughed. How nice it felt to be able to give good news to a client. Now Richard won’t have the possibility of jail time and a fine hanging over his head. He can resume his normal activities with a clear mind and conscience. I, too, have a clear conscience. The [Arizona] D.U.I. statute is designed to keep intoxicated drivers off the public highways. Richard, however, was sleeping in his truck in the parking lot of a Tucson bar when he was apprehended and arrested. Although he could have gotten up and driven down the road in an intoxicated state, he didn’t. He did not fall within the spirit or letter of the statute. I’m glad to have been of service to him.

. . . After work, I drove to the [Pima County] jail to meet with incarcerated clients. One of them, Donn M., is incarcerated for stealing a twenty-dollar roll of stamps from a post office. He is down and out, living on the streets, and he wanted to get help with his alcohol problem, so he decided to get himself incarcerated in a federal facility. That’s why he stole stamps rather than something else; he thought that stealing stamps was a federal offense. It isn’t. I told Mr. M. that I’d help him get into an alcohol-treatment organization before he gets out of jail. We had a nice, long talk and then parted. It’s the first time that I met someone who wants to stay in jail. There’s something wrong with a society in which help with alcoholism can be gotten only by committing a crime. Mr. M. said that he was rejected by several local alcohol-treatment centers before stealing the stamps. Now, having broken the law, he may get the help that he wants and needs.

There is a man at school, Herb S., with whom I’ve had many interesting conversations over the past two years. Herb is old, maybe fifty-five, but he’s funny and he’s still taking courses in logic and philosophy of biology. Today I learned that Herb’s son recently died of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). I haven’t mentioned AIDS in this journal, but it’s a newly-discovered disease which afflicts mostly homosexuals, Haitians, and individuals who’ve had blood transfusions. As the name suggests, AIDS involves loss of immunity to most common diseases and viruses. Those who contract it catch colds, influenza, and even cancer. The mortality rate is extremely high. Herb’s son, a homosexual and a popular actor in Tucson, came down with AIDS and finally succumbed to it. I expressed my condolences to Herb and then spent a good hour talking about his son’s last days. The son, apparently, went out with dignity, giving speeches and working hard to find a cure for AIDS. Herb and I agree that because of its association with homosexuality, AIDS will not receive the public funding that it deserves. That, in itself, is a tragedy.

Politics, n.pl. 1. The continuation of war by other means. 2. The art and science of misgovernment.

See here for a précis of Richard Swinburne's book Is There a God?

To the Editor:

"In Re Grammar, Roberts's Stance Is Crystal Clear" (front page, Aug. 29) describes John G. Roberts Jr., the Supreme Court nominee, as a "ruthless" editor, "refusing to tolerate the slightest grammatical slip." As proof, the article cites Judge Roberts's insistence on the difference between "affect" and "effect," on agreement between a subject and its relative pronoun, and on the correct spelling of "Namibia."

These judgments are fine, but they hardly explain his alleged reputation for scrupulousness. Instead, they depict a person who demands nothing more than basic literacy.

Judge Roberts may indeed be rigorous and exacting, and I hope he is. But if these examples show "an obsession with rhetorical precision" that places him in the "upper tier" of American justices, then our standards are depressingly low.

Pamela Wynsen
Columbus, Ohio, Aug. 29, 2005

I was talking to a student today about law and politics. He said he’s interested in—even attracted to—both of them, but that he’s repulsed by their unscrupulousness. I pointed out that the unscrupulousness resides in the practitioners of these professions, not in the professions themselves. If good people shy away from law and politics, then law and politics will be enclaves of bad people. I have never understood the complaint that politics is unworthy. Politics is the noblest of professions. It is the means by which we forge a collective identity. I have always been able to separate the profession as it can and should be from the profession as it is. The same is true of baseball. Someone said that baseball is a perfect game played by imperfect people. How can I love the game when all one reads about in the newspaper are performance-enhancing drugs, corked bats, salary negotiations, egotism, criminal mischief, and labor battles? Easy. I ignore them. My love for the game has nothing to do with these accidental properties. I love the game: the pitching, the hitting, the running, the throwing, the statistics. I love the grass, the leather, the wood, the dirt, even the spittle. Everything else gets filtered out. My advice to those who are contemplating a career in law or politics is to ignore the bad aspects of these professions. Bring integrity to them. Transform them. Leave a trace of yourself in them. Subsequent generations will benefit from your magnanimity.

Here.

Decide, v.i. To succumb to the preponderance of one set of influences over another set.

A leaf was riven from a tree,
"I mean to fall to earth," said he.

The west wind, rising, made him veer.
"Eastward," said he, "I now shall steer."

The east wind rose with greater force.
Said he: "'Twere wise to change my course."

With equal power they contend.
He said: "My judgment I suspend."

Down died the winds; the leaf, elate,
Cried: "I've decided to fall straight."

"First thoughts are best?" That's not the moral;
Just choose your own and we'll not quarrel.

Howe'er your choice may chance to fall,
You'll have no hand in it at all.
G.J.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

This week's link is to Philosophy Today.

My friend Norm Weatherby (a.k.a. Quantum Thought) had a fast and furious (but safe) Hotter 'n Hell Hundred this past Saturday. See here. Norm's average speed was higher than mine. Damn you all to hell, Norm! But seriously, check out Norm's blog. He managed to take many photographs of the event, even while riding. It will give you a feel for what it was like. I might add one thing. The large number of participants (more than 9,000) leads people to believe that there are long lines for everything. Nope. I've never waited for anything at the Hotter 'n Hell Hundred. It runs like clockwork. If you ride a bike, you need to do this event. It will be the highlight of your year.

Ten years ago this month, I did a week-long bike tour of Colorado with eight friends. We called it the Bike Binge. Mike Pawlowski, who put the thing together, called it a "planned ordeal," and that it was. You'd be amazed how much bonding occurs during a planned ordeal. Incredibly, I remember most of the conversations during that week, both on the bike and off. On the second night, we stayed in a motel in Hot Sulphur Springs. As darkness descended, several of us walked to the hot springs. Mike, who has a great sense of humor, told us about a movie he had seen, My Cousin Vinny (1992). He recounted some of the scenes. I remember thinking, "That sounds like a good movie; I'll have to watch it." But I didn't. Until the other night, that is. I was channel surfing on my 42-inch Dell high-definition plasma television (read it and weep) when I came across the movie on TBS. (I was looking for the Atlanta Braves baseball game; evidently, it was over by then.) The first scene I saw was hilarious. So was the second. Before I knew it, I had tears streaming down my face. I couldn't see! To make a long story short, I watched the rest of the movie. Mike was right: It's hilarious. Now I need to buy it on DVD and watch it from the beginning without editing. I want to hear all the swear words. Maybe I'll learn some new ones.

Taken at face value, the consequentialist conception of responsibility is highly expansionist and thoroughly non-restrictive. It requires individuals always to act in such a way as to produce the optimal state of the world from an impersonal standpoint. In so doing, however, it seems to many people to make wildly excessive demands on the capacity of agents to amass information about the global impact of the different courses of action available to them. Faced with this objection, the most common consequentialist response is to treat it as another reason for arguing back to a more conventional demarcation of individual responsibility, thus abandoning the attempt to provide a non-restrictive conception of responsibility, except at the foundational level. This is, of course, just an instance of consequentialism’s well-known normative schizophrenia: its tendency to alternate between presenting itself as a radically revisionist morality, on the one hand, and as a possibly surprising but basically conservative account of the foundations of ordinary moral thought, on the other. This very schizophrenia testifies to the difficulty of producing a credible alternative to a restrictive conception of individual responsibility.

(Samuel Scheffler, Boundaries and Allegiances: Problems of Justice and Responsibility in Liberal Thought [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001], 43)

Paul Krugman* is the picture of pessimism. He has to be. If he adopts an optimistic (or even a realistic) attitude toward the economy, he'll be praising President Bush, and that's unthinkable. See here for Krugman's latest pessimistic screed. I don't know about you, but I have more faith in Alan Greenspan than in Paul Krugman. By the way, economics is supposedly a social science, and hence a science. Scientists make testable predictions. Wouldn't it be nice if Krugman—a trained economist—made some testable predictions? Not "X might happen" or "X is going to happen sooner or later," but "X will happen by time T." He won't, of course, because if his predictions aren't realized, he'll lose whatever credibility he still has among leftists. (Nobody but leftists takes the man seriously.)

* "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" (Daniel Okrent, "13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did," The New York Times, 22 May 2005).

It transpires that Judge John Roberts is a stickler for language. See here. This is good. The more I learn about him, the more I like him. I have a question for my readers. Do you detect a sneering tone in the New York Times story? The reporter seems to be mocking Judge Roberts, as if to say that, by attending to grammar, punctuation, and style, he neglects substance. But that's a horrid fallacy. Michael Dummett is one of the best philosophers in the world, by any standard. He is also a stickler for language. Indeed, most analytic philosophers are sticklers for language. Perspicuity and perspicacity are the twin virtues of analytic philosophy. They should be the twin virtues of law as well.

To the Editor:

What ever happened to that old cliché "the truth shall set you free"? Bob Herbert is right ("Truth-Telling on Race? Not in Bush's Fantasyland," column, Aug. 25).

The Justice Department can run, but it can't hide from unpleasant truths about racial profiling by law enforcement officers. And demoting the messenger, in this case a department official who wanted to highlight the facts about a higher arrest rate for black and Latino drivers than for white drivers, does not change the facts about racial profiling.

As the N.A.A.C.P. found out in its own study several years ago, blacks and Latinos are much more likely to be arrested following a traffic stop than a white driver. The problem of racial profiling cannot be wished away.

The Justice Department should support, and Congress should pass, legislation that will outlaw profiling by law enforcement.

Bruce S. Gordon
President and Chief Executive
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Baltimore, Aug. 25, 2005

The New York Times wants Judith Miller to be released from jail. See here. The only thing keeping Judith Miller in jail is . . . Judith Miller. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, she has always had the power to go home. All she has to do is testify before the grand jury. Journalists are not above the law. Unless and until there is a federal law that confers a reportorial privilege, she's a lawbreaker. Lawbreakers belong in jail. What part of this does the Times not understand?

Here.

Pilgrim, n. A traveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was one who, leaving Europe in 1620 because not permitted to sing psalms through his nose, followed it to Massachusetts, where he could personate God according to the dictates of his conscience.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

8-28-85 . . . In the morning I taught my second logic course of the semester. The students are lively and well-motivated, but I suspect that some of them will get bored with the subject pretty soon. There are always some who stay on top of things, while others seem never to understand what’s going on or even to care enough about the course to get involved. My job, as an instructor, is to make the subject interesting, so that attention doesn’t wane and the students are able to master the material. This, as you can imagine, is hard to do in a course like logic, where there are loads of difficult concepts and technical rules of inference to remember. Wait until the topic of fallacies comes up; I’ll dazzle the students with its practicality and amuse them with my many examples of fallacies. That should be fun.

I went immediately from the classroom to the courtroom this morning. Remember the Proposed Stipulation of Facts that I filed with the city prosecutor the other day? It paid off. I got a call from Jan Lahr, one of the prosecutors, telling me that I was right: The case falls squarely within the Arizona Supreme Court’s Zavala ruling. Accordingly, she dismissed the D.U.I. charges pending against my client on her own motion. Great! This is the first time that I’ve made a “black and white” difference for one of my clients, the first time that my own work has resulted in charges being dismissed or a verdict of “not guilty” being rendered. That, as you can imagine, gives me a good feeling inside. I’ll call the client later, when the dismissal is filed with the court. Until then, the prosecutor can change her mind (although morally, it would seem, she is bound by what she said).

This afternoon I argued my first motion in which testimony was introduced. I had filed a motion to suppress certain items of evidence (specifically, my client’s incriminating statements to a police officer) on grounds that it was obtained in violation of his Sixth [sic; should be “Fifth”] Amendment privilege against compulsory self-incrimination, as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court in Miranda. In motions to suppress, the state has the burden of showing by a preponderance of the evidence that the evidence in question was lawfully obtained. This meant that the state had to call witnesses. The only witness called was Officer John DeConcini of the Tucson Police Department, whom I had interviewed several times in our office. The prosecutor asked him specific questions about the procedures that he followed in arresting my client, and then I cross-examined him to test his memory and truthfulness and to bring out additional facts that were relevant to my motion. I handled the cross-examination like a professional, even though the courtroom was full of defendants, attorneys, and spectators (maybe twelve, altogether). Judge [Clifford] Hofmann sat on the bench.

At the conclusion of Officer DeConcini’s testimony, the state rested and I told the judge that I had no witnesses to call. He then decided to take the matter under advisement, which means that he’ll render an opinion later. Robb Holmes told me later that this is a good sign—that usually, if defense motions are going to be denied, they are denied right away, in court. But I think that Judge Hofmann simply wanted to get on with other matters. This explains why he didn’t issue an opinion right then. In any event, I learned a good deal about cross-examination and motion practice this afternoon. One day I’ll look back on this and smile, having had countless other court appearances—even trials—under my belt. A person has to start somewhere, and today I got my start arguing motions and cross-examining witnesses.

American George Hincapie, a member of Lance Armstrong's Discovery Channel team, won a major race in France today. The French audience, in keeping with the French reputation for classlessness, heckled and booed. See here for the story and results.

Addendum: Here is a beautiful scene from today's second stage of the Vuelta a España (Tour of Spain).

This week's word is "barrel." Please post sayings that contain this word or a cognate. Here are two to get you started:

• Arguing with feminists is like shooting fish in a barrel.

• She's a barrel of laughs.

Don't cheat!

See here for an interesting (but confused) letter about Intelligent Design.

To the Editor:

In "Why This Band Plays On" (Op-Ed, Aug. 24), Mikal Gilmore presents a lyrical and evocative look at the explosive emergence of the Beatles back when he and I were young.

But when he tries to draw lessons for our own time, he jumps the rails of his fine exploration. In lamenting the lack of a similar tumultuous jolt now, he misses two realities.

One is demographics. All that earthshaking screaming and hysteria back in 1964 and '65 constituted the first powerful stirring of the baby boom bulge making its way through the American population like a pig through a python. That force of numbers was to rock America's cultural consciousness with its revolutionary sensibility in a host of ways—many still with us.

Absent such a bulge tied to the exuberance of youth, prospects for a Beatles-like cultural assault remain slim.

The other reality is the nature of today's society in the wake of the great cultural revolution presaged and stirred by the Beatles. The country that was stormed by the Fab Four was reflected in a popular culture so antiseptic as to be utterly lacking in realism.

Today's America is reflected in a popular culture so debauched as to be equally lacking in realism.

It's hard to see what kind of opportunity that leaves for a playful band of singers bent on shocking the nation into taking notice.

Robert W. Merry
Washington, Aug. 24, 2005

Two days ago, in Brussels, Belgium, Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele broke his own world record in the 10,000-meter run. Fourteen months ago, he ran a 26:20.31. Friday, he ran a 26:17.53. The mile pace of the latter is 4:13.86. Think about it. It wasn't long ago that human beings dreamed of a four-minute mile. Bekele can run more than six times that distance at a 4:13.86 pace. I believe there will be a four-minute pace at the 10K distance. Perhaps it won't be in my lifetime, but it will happen. The mile pace of the 5,000-meter record holder—also Bekele—is 4:03.75. It will go under four minutes in the next 10 years; mark my words. The two-mile record has already gone under four minutes (Daniel Komen, 3:59.30). I'm fascinated by world-class athletes (except in soccer, which isn't really a sport). They are pushing the human body to its limits.

Addendum: According to the news report in The Dallas Morning News, Bekele ran almost half of his record-breaking race alone. Had he been pushed, he would have taken even more time off the record.

Quill, n. An implement of torture yielded by a goose and commonly wielded by an ass. This use of the quill is now obsolete, but its modern equivalent, the steel pen, is wielded by the same everlasting Presence.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Here.

As strange as it may sound, I read several books at once, slowly and carefully. Right now I'm reading Nicholas Biddle's 1814 narrative of the Lewis and Clark expedition (in real time, 200 years after the fact); Andrew Altman's Arguing About Law: An Introduction to Legal Philosophy, 2d ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 2001); Louis P. Pojman's Justice, Foundations of Philosophy Series, ed. Tom L. Beauchamp (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006); and Russ Shafer-Landau's Whatever Happened to Good and Evil? (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004). The book by Altman is excellent. The book by Pojman is incompetent. The book by Shafer-Landau is intellectually dishonest. (I'll support this harsh judgment later, when I finish the book.) Today, in addition to these books, I read a short essay by Marine colonel Dr Keith Pavlischek entitled "Just and Unjust War in the Terrorist Age." Here it is, in PDF format. The essay is superb, both in terms of content and in terms of style. Anyone who wants a summary of just-war theory and its rivals should read it.

Here.

Yesterday, I did my 16th consecutive Hotter ’n Hell Hundred in Wichita Falls, Texas. At least 83 things could have gone wrong, but none of them did. Having gone to bed at nine o’clock the previous evening (to do which, I had to tire myself out by running 3.1 miles in the heat), I rose at four. Everything had been prepared the day before, so, after dressing, perking coffee, and doing the usual morning stuff (including taking the girls out), I jumped in my car and drove off. It was 4:30. For the next hour and 50 minutes, I drove 70 miles per hour—in the dark—in a northwesterly direction, sipping coffee all the way. I reached Wichita Falls (121.8 miles from my house) three minutes behind schedule (6:23), found my favorite parking spot, and leapt into action. It was still dark. I got the wheels out of the trunk and the bike frame out of the back seat, put everything together, loaded up the bottles, put my shoes and helmet on, gathered my gear (toothpicks, handkerchief, PowerBars, flip-up sunglasses, and bike pump), and rolled off to meet my friend Joe Culotta at the flagpoles. I found him, got my ride number from him (he had picked it up for me the night before), and hastily pinned it to my jersey. At 6:40, we were rolling.

Most of the 9,000 or so riders start together, in a pack that stretches for hundreds of yards down the street. I did that a few times before getting wise. Now, I ride ahead of the crowd on side streets and get onto the course early. I’m not racing, so it’s not cheating. It’s a matter of avoiding dangerous conditions. Also, the sooner you get started, the sooner you finish. The weather was superb: dry, warm, and not too windy. It feels drier in Wichita Falls than in Fort Worth, perhaps because it’s farther west. Joe and I cruised out of town, thanking police officers at every intersection. You wouldn’t believe the spectators. Just about every house along the course has people outside, sitting in lawn chairs or on vehicles. They wave, applaud, and yell. It’s festive. I think of it as Great Plains hospitality.

One of the nice things about leaving early is that everyone has to catch and pass us. It’s fun to see how long it takes. First the professionals and category 1 and 2 racers caught us. (They were flying. It was impressive.) Then the category 3 racers caught us. Then, about an hour into the ride, the category 4 racers caught us. Joe and I moved to the right of the road as the category-4 pack flew by (or maybe it was category 5). I was thinking of getting on the back of the pack, but couldn’t move over because of a rider in front of me. Just then I saw and heard a crash to my left. It was the most horrific sound I’ve ever heard. It sounded like metal snapping, although—I hate to say this—it may have been bone. Then more: grinding, crunching, smashing. I heard someone scream. Then more crashing and snapping. Everyone behind the rider who fell was hitting the pavement. Joe later said we were going 28 miles per hour, so you can imagine how much damage was done to bodies and bikes. I instinctively moved to my right to avoid any bikes that came my way. I rode in the grass for a few seconds before getting back on the pavement. Once I was past the carnage, I looked back for Joe. Luckily, he, too, made it through. The two-lane road was completely covered with bodies and bikes. Whew!

Although we weren’t tired, Joe and I stopped at the 20-mile rest stop to have our pictures taken by rally volunteers. Someone uses a Polaroid camera to take pictures of riders in front of a prop consisting of hay bales and an outhouse (I believe it’s a Lil’ Abner theme). These pictures are given to the riders as souvenirs. Joe has my picture, so I can’t post it, but I will when I get it from him. At this point the course turns northward. That’s when we noticed the changing weather. There was lightning in front of us. It looked like walls of rain on the horizon. I wasn’t worried about the lightning (never have been), and rain actually sounded good at that point, with the heat rising. At about 30 miles, we reached our first real rest stop, in Electra. Dozens of people were milling about the tents, eating, drinking, using the porta-potties, talking, and filling their bottles with water or sport drink. I ate a PowerBar, used a porta-potty, and filled a bottle with cold water. Within minutes, Joe and I were back on the road. My plan was to stop one more time: in Burkburnett.

The rain began shortly after we left Electra. It wasn’t heavy, but it made the road slick. The worst part of riding in the rain is road spray: the plume of water that flies up from a rider’s rear tire. If you’re riding behind someone in the rain, it’s miserable. Think of all the disgusting substances on a roadway—animal parts, tobacco, spittle, dirt, oil—and imagine them in your mouth. Yuck. Luckily for us, we weren’t in a pack. We rode side by side most of the way. A few miles later, with rain falling off and on, we turned east for a long stretch of road into Burkburnett. By this time, all the racers and the faster rally riders had caught and passed us, but packs were still coming by every few minutes. I told Joe that I wanted to ride in a pack on this stretch of road, to keep my speed up. We hopped onto the back of a pack and flew toward Burkburnett. The rain appeared to be off to our left (north of us), but I got soaked at least twice. It felt good—except for the wet feet. The temperature dropped dramatically during this time. Alas, Joe’s group dropped me on a hill, but I rode hard on my own (at 20 to 26 miles per hour) until I caught back up. I was feeling good by this time. My lungs were open and my legs hadn’t begun to tire. My breakfast of oatmeal and a banana appeared to be kicking in.

Once I caught Joe and we fell in with another pack, I hammered. It’s incredible how good I felt. I got into the drops of the handlebars at the head of the pack and powered along the wet road. People behind me—there were dozens—must have been struggling to stay on my wheel. I calculated that I would reach Burkburnett at 9:57 A.M., but I was there at 9:50. As I said, I intended to stop in Burkburnett, but by then I was almost done for the day and still feeling good, so I rode past. By then, Joe had been dropped. I don’t blame him for not trying to stay with me, since he was doing the 100-mile course and I was doing only 74 miles. Let me explain. Four years ago, having done the 100-mile course 12 times (four times at over 20 miles per hour, the fastest at 21.69 miles per hour), I decided to make my own course. I ride the 100-mile course to Burkburnett, then go straight back to Wichita Falls. I intersect with the 100-kilometer course in a couple of miles. By riding only 74 miles, I cut out two hours of suffering and get home two hours earlier. I could have ridden 100 miles yesterday, easily, but I stuck to my plan. I hope Joe and my other friends had a safe and enjoyable ride.

My average speed after three hours was 19.5 miles per hour. My goal for the day had been 18, so you can see how fast I was riding into Burkburnett. When I turned south at Burkburnett, I had a headwind. That slowed my pace, but I was determined to stay over 19 miles per hour for the day. As I pedaled, I calculated that if I averaged 18 miles per hour the rest of the way, I’d make it; and if I did so, I’d finish in 3:51. You guessed it: I finished in 3:51:11. The wind was strange during the final hour. It felt like a headwind at first, which, combined with rough roads, slowed my pace. But then it seemed to shift and become a crosswind. Finally, it began helping me. I flew into Wichita Falls. I passed 50-mile and 100-kilometer riders right and left. Near the end, I rode alongside an older man, who was on the 100-kilometer course. I asked how old he was. He said 58. He didn’t look 58. I told him I’m 48 and would be happy to be riding at his level in 10 years. He said he was a Marine. I thanked him for his service to our country. A minute later, I crossed the finish line to cheers and applause from the spectators. It’s a great feeling to finish a Hotter ’n Hell Hundred, even if one hasn’t ridden the longest course. By riding a shorter course, I’m able to go faster. Like most men, I love speed, dangerous though it may be.

I ended up with 19.27 miles per hour for 74.26 miles. Counting warm-up and cool-down riding (which amounted to riding from my car to the starting line and vice versa), I rode 76 miles yesterday. The Wichita Falls course is one of the flattest of the rally season, so my average speed is usually higher there. For some reason, I’m not a good climber. I get dropped on hills. I’m what Europeans call a “rouleur.” On flat ground, I push a big gear and can go forever (okay, a long way). As evidence of the flatness of the course, my maximum speed for the day was only 30.1 miles per hour. My maximum heart rate was 155. I reached it while pulling the pack into Burkburnett.

As soon as I reached the finish line, I made my way through the crowd and rode to my car. I dismantled the bike, washed up, and jumped in. Within minutes, I was cruising homeward on Highway 287. It’s a divided highway with two lanes in each direction. If you like driving, you’d like this one. The scenery, which I see only on the way home, is beautiful. I usually get tired during the homeward journey, but for some reason I was alert. I listened to the Texas Rangers baseball game and sipped cold water from my Thermos. I stopped in Decatur, 70 miles from Wichita Falls, for bean burritos at Taco Bell (my traditional post-rally repast). I pulled into my driveway in Fort Worth at 1:00, nearly an hour earlier than expected. My girls were happy to see me, and I them. After a shower and a nap, I was up and at ’em. Everything went well yesterday: the driving, the riding, even the weather. As I told Joe, I’d rather have rain during the ride than during the drive to and from Wichita Falls. I’ve now done 19 rallies this year and 363 overall. I expect to have six more rallies this year (through Thanksgiving). Marathon training begins a week from tomorrow with the Labor Day 15K race in Fort Worth. I hope you’re exerting. It’s not only good for you; it’s fun.

Addendum: I’ve done the 74-mile course four times. Yesterday’s average speed of 19.27 miles per hour was just higher than that of two years ago (19.26 miles per hour). But there’s a catch. I have a new (wireless) bicycle computer. Two years ago, I ended up with 73.77 miles. Yesterday, I ended up with 74.26 miles. Two years ago, my elapsed time was 3:49:42. Yesterday, it was 3:51:11. The course was the same (I know every inch of it), so I didn’t do quite as well yesterday as I did two years ago. If the course is really 73.77 miles, then yesterday’s average speed was 19.14 miles per hour, a bit less than the 19.26 of two years ago. If the course is really 74.26 miles, then two years ago I averaged 19.39 miles per hour, a bit more than yesterday’s 19.27. Either way, I did better two years ago. But not much!

Here.

Corsair, n. A politician of the seas.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

To the Editor:

An Aug. 24 letter regarding the connection between Iraq and 9/11 claims that a number of prior terrorist attacks against the United States, like the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, created "the perception that the United States was weak and unable to defend itself."

But the perpetrators of the 1993 bombing were found and are in prison, whereas the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden, was allowed to slip through our fingers in Afghanistan. He is still at large, while our troops are stuck fighting in Iraq.

The Iraq war does not show that we can defend ourselves. It shows that we are easily distracted.

Tom Hitchner
Berkeley, Calif., Aug. 25, 2005

Bill Keezer brought this blog to my attention. Thanks, Bill!

More than 9,000 people are expected to participate in tomorrow's Hotter 'n Hell Hundred bike races and rally in Wichita Falls, Texas. I'll be there for the 16th consecutive year. Rain is expected—and, given the heat we've experienced this month, welcome. See here for images from the 2004 event.

Paul Krugman* can't find anything positive about the economy. It's bad, bad, bad. See here. And if people don't agree with him that it's bad, either they're stupid or they're not paying attention or they've been hoodwinked by the Bush administration. Krugman's relentless pessimism has grown timesome. If his friend won $1,000,000 in the lottery, Krugman would point out that (1) taxes must be paid on the winnings, (2) the money will have to be managed, and (3) friends and relatives will come out of the woodwork to beg. Perhaps one reason Krugman hates President Bush is that President Bush is an optimist. Krugman is an inveterate pessimist. He finds a cloud in every silver lining.

* "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" (Daniel Okrent, "13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did," The New York Times, 22 May 2005).

Moral philosophy no longer needs to present itself as the spectator sport it was in the heyday of analytic ethics. Philosophy departments have not completely caught up with this development. If our universities and colleges were more interested in preparing students for leadership positions than they now seem to be, they might ask more of ethics courses and of courses on the history of moral philosophy than they now do. Philosophy departments themselves might even take the lead in bringing back this ancient and honorable function of their institutions. If they do, they will find that courses on the history of moral philosophy will need to occupy a far more central place than they do now.

(J. B. Schneewind, “Teaching the History of Moral Philosophy,” in Teaching New Histories of Philosophy, ed. J. B. Schneewind [Princeton: The University Center for Human Values, 2004], 177-96, at 194)

To the Editor:

Re "Bob Costas Says No to Hour on Aruba" (Arts pages, Aug. 24):

Here's to Bob Costas. Since cable TV has created more and more competition among stations, news programs have repeatedly taken the low road and appealed to viewers' base curiosity for the stories that one critic in your article calls "emotional pornography": the Natalee Holloway missing-person case, the Laci Peterson murder and the "Runaway Bride" Jennifer Wilbanks.

Finally, a well-known host stands up to the flaunting of human tragedy for ratings and its replacing more profound issues of the day. Thank you for taking the high road, Mr. Costas. It is a start.

Gary Hurewitz
Chappaqua, N.Y., Aug. 24, 2005

Here.

Commonwealth, n. An administrative entity operated by an incalculable multitude of political parasites, logically active but fortuitously efficient.

This commonwealth's capitol's corridors view,
So thronged with a hungry and indolent crew
Of clerks, pages, porters and all attachés
Whom rascals appoint and the populace pays
That a cat cannot slip through the thicket of shins
Nor hear its own shriek for the noise of their chins.
On clerks and on pages, and porters, and all,
Misfortune attend and disaster befall!
May life be to them a succession of hurts;
May fleas by the bushel inhabit their shirts;
May aches and diseases encamp in their bones,
Their lungs full of tubercles, bladders of stones;
May microbes, bacilli, their tissues infest,
And tapeworms securely their bowels digest;
May corn-cobs be snared without hope in their hair,
And frequent impalement their pleasure impair.
Disturbed be their dreams by the awful discourse
Of audible sofas sepulchrally hoarse,
By chairs acrobatic and wavering floors—
The mattress that kicks and the pillow that snores!
Sons of cupidity, cradled in sin!
Your criminal ranks may the death angel thin,
Avenging the friend whom I couldn't work in.
K.Q.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

8-25-85 . . . Speaking of summer, I rode my bike to Colossal Cave (or to some other location in town) for the fourteenth consecutive Sunday this afternoon. I began my streak on 26 May, shortly after school ended for the spring semester, and have gone out in heat, humidity, rain, and mental depression. The fact that I didn’t miss one week during the summer makes me feel good, as if I accomplished something. Today, my gross average speed wasn’t remarkable (10.81 miles per hour), but the heat was. When I left the apartment, the temperature was ninety-nine degrees [Fahrenheit] (officially, it reached 106 degrees). This was the hottest “outbound” temperature that I’ve experienced this year. By the time I got back, however, it had started to rain and the temperature had fallen to eighty-two degrees. This was the third lowest “inbound” temperature of the year (in eighteen rides). What an odd day! I also set another goal for myself this afternoon. I’ve decided to try to ride every Sunday for fifty-two consecutive weeks—a whole year. That would be significant, for it gets pretty chilly on some winter days. But I’m going to give it a shot. I love setting unreasonable goals and then trying to reach them.

Two great philosophers died on this date: David Hume in 1776 (at the age of 65) and Friedrich Nietzsche in 1900 (at the age of 55). Both were atheists. Hume had a healthy, happy life. Nietzsche's life was one of unrelenting suffering.

Peg Kaplan has an interesting post about sex differences in IQ. Peg is rapidly approaching 50,000 site visits. Keep up the good work, Peg!

While I'm at it, here are some of my favorite bloggers (in no particular order):

Dr John J. Ray (Dissecting Leftism)
Steve Rugg (JusTalkin)
Peg Kaplan (what if?)
Jeff Percifield (Beautiful Atrocities)
Ally Eskin (Who Moved My Truth?)
Dr Bill Keezer (Bill's Comments)
Dr Bill Vallicella (Maverick Philosopher)
Michelle Malkin (Michelle Malkin)
Donald L. Luskin (The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid)
Norm Weatherby (Quantum Thought)
Kim du Toit (A Nation of Riflemen)
Glenn Reynolds (InstaPundit)

If you think I'm missing a good blogger, let me know.

I have some shocking statistics to report. Between 1952 and 2004, inclusive, there have been 14 presidential elections. The Democrat candidate received at least 50% of the votes in only two of them: 1964 (61.1%) and 1976 (50.1%). During that same period, the Republican candidate received at least 50% of the votes in seven elections: 1952 (55.2%), 1956 (57.4%), 1972 (60.7%), 1980 (50.7%), 1984 (58.8%), 1988 (53.4%), and 2004 (50.7%). Republicans have won nine of the past 14 presidential elections. (Each party won an election with fewer popular votes than the other party: the Democrats in 1960 and the Republicans in 2000.)

Democrats are in trouble. Their coalition may seem large, since it’s composed of many distinct groups (labor unions, abortionists, teachers, trial lawyers, blacks, homosexuals), but in terms of overall appeal, it’s failing. Repeatedly. Embarrassingly. A party that can’t recruit at least half the American people has the wrong principles and policies for this country. Could that be why the intelligentsia has gone berserk? Even the Democrats who won the presidency haven’t done well. John F. Kennedy received only 49.3% of the popular vote in 1960. Bill Clinton never received half the popular vote. His percentages were 43.0 (the lowest for a winning president during this period) and 49.2. By contrast, seven of the nine Republican winners received at least half the popular vote.

It’s a great time to be a Republican and a terrible time to be a Democrat. Unless and until the Democrat party changes its message, without seeming to do so insincerely, it will be powerless. Here, in case you’re wondering, are the Democrat percentages (from Wikipedia):

1952: 44.3
1956: 42.0
1960: 49.3 (elected)
1964: 61.1 (elected)
1968: 42.7
1972: 37.5
1976: 50.1 (elected)
1980: 41.0
1984: 40.6
1988: 45.6
1992: 43.0 (elected)
1996: 49.2 (elected)
2000: 48.4
2004: 48.3

One more thing. You hear talk these days that there’s nothing wrong with the Democrat platform. The problem, Democrats say, is either the personality of the candidate (think Al Gore) or the inability to articulate what the party stands for (think John Kerry). But there have been many different Democrat candidates in the past 14 elections. Have all of them had bad personalities? Have all of them failed to articulate what the party stands for? It’s the platform, stupid. The American people don’t like it.

I lectured today on Plato's theory of justice in my Social and Political Philosophy course. To Plato, a just person is one whose parts—reason, spirit, and appetite—are integrated and under the control of reason. Justice is the rationally coordinated functioning of the soul (or self). It requires that appetites, urges, and temptations be controlled and channeled. I could have used this story (please register; it's free) to illustrate injustice (disintegration, unruliness). The woman in question sickens me.

Addendum: Here is the "university" from which the woman purchased her "degree." (All she really purchased was a piece of paper.) I assume the woman is not so stupid as to believe that the "degree" she "earned" was legitimate. So she was trying to deceive her employer and rip off the taxpayers. Is there nothing that people won't do for money? And it's not like this woman was starving, which might constitute an excuse. She already earned a substantial salary. Can you say "greed"?

To the Editor:

My niece's husband, age 22, is making plans to enlist in the Army. The family, to no avail, is trying to talk him out of it. He will be taking 15 college credits before he enlists—he has none at this point—because his recruiter told him that he will get paid at a higher scale once he enlists. He says it's no big deal.

He and my niece need the extra money. He has been told that he will be out in two years. Obviously, he's not being told about stop-loss, the policy that can extend soldiers' tours beyond their enlistment contracts.

I shudder when I think of my niece and their 3-month-old son: will her husband see his son grow up?

These young men and women grow up playing video games. Someone has to tell them that war is not a game, and unfortunately, the Army is manipulating them into believing that it is.

Margaret Pfranger
Hillsdale, N.J., Aug. 22, 2005

Soccer is communist football. See here (last item).

In order to prevent differential wear, you rotate your towels, washcloths, socks, and underwear.

Here.

Washingtonian, n. A Potomac tribesman who exchanged the privilege of governing himself for the advantage of good government. In justice to him it should be said that he did not want to.

They took away his vote and gave instead
The right, when he had earned, to eat his bread.
In vain—he clamors for his "boss," pour soul,
To come again and part him from his roll.
Offenbach Stutz.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Does anybody remember the mimeograph? You know, the machine with a roller that produced blue-inked copies? The smell was delicious. The sheets would come out of the machine moist and floppy. The print quality was terrible, but back then, we didn’t know any better. We were just glad to have a way to make copies of our syllabi, handouts, and exams.

The word “mimeograph” comes from the Greek “mimeomai,” which means imitate. “Graph,” of course, comes from the Greek “graphē,” which means writing. So a mimeograph is literally a writing imitation. My dictionary defines “mimeograph” as “a duplicating machine that produces copies from a stencil.”

I thought about the mimeograph this past Tuesday as I distributed copies of my syllabus to my students. The copies made by my office copier are fabulous. The letters are sharp and distinct; the black print contrasts beautifully with the white paper; and the sheets come out of the copier dry and “hard” rather than moist and floppy. What a world! Isn’t technological progress interesting? It’s ratcheted. We could never go back to the days of the mimeograph. We’ve been tainted. But back then, mimeographed handouts seemed perfectly fine. Imagine going back to black-and-white television or film. And how the hell did people survive in Texas without air conditioning? It’s mind-boggling. Nobody who’s had air conditioning could ever live without it—at least in this state.

I'm a bibliophile. I love the heft of books, their smell, appearance, and solidity. I love turning pages slowly and carefully, savoring the thoughts and feelings conveyed, imagining the author writing, engaging the arguments and analyses. I love the serendipity of books, their wonder, their joy, their invitation to other worlds. I love writing in books—leaving traces of myself. I love collecting, organizing, shelving, and retrieving books. I love the idea of books. I love books. See here.

Originality in philosophy often consists not in having new thoughts, but in making clear what was not clear before.

(R. M. Hare, Plato, Past Masters, ed. Keith Thomas [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982], 9)

If obesity is a disease and this country socializes health care, there will be a massive transfer of wealth from those who have enough sense to keep their weight down to those who don't. I hope I'm dead and gone before this comes to pass. See here. Sometimes I think humans are incorrigibly stupid.

To the Editor:

Re "Scientists Speak Up on Mix of God and Science" ("A Debate Over Darwin" series, front page, Aug. 23):

You quote Steven Weinberg, a physicist and Nobel laureate, as saying, "I think one of the great historical contributions of science is to weaken the hold of religion."

This statement is yet another example of how modern scientists hurt their cause of rational exploration into natural phenomena by their unequivocal attacks on belief in God.

Dr. Weinberg and his fellow scientists would find that if they did not strive to push an agenda of unfettered atheism into all aspects of education, believers would feel less need to combat reasonable instruction of generally accepted scientific theory.

The overriding attempt by scientists to surmount human beings' deeply felt and perhaps wholly rational devotion to God could have the unintended consequence of weakening science's aura in our society, much to the detriment of believers and nonbelievers alike.

Theodore Oberman
Brooklyn, Aug. 23, 2005

One of the most common confusions in moral discourse is that between intrinsic and absolute value. The confusion conflates two questions:

1. How is X valued?
2. How much value does X have?

There are two ways to value something: intrinsically (because of the kind of thing it is) and extrinsically (because of its relation to something else of value). The most common sort of extrinsic value is instrumental value. The currency in my wallet has no intrinsic value. Its value (to me) lies in what it can get me. It is an instrument with which I attain other things I value. A given object, such as friendship or knowledge, can be valued both intrinsically and extrinsically. We say that we value these things for their own sakes (even if they aren’t related to anything else we value) and because they do, in fact, lead to other things we value, such as assistance in time of need (in the case of friendship) and useful technology (in the case of knowledge).

Suppose I value X intrinsically. The next question is how much I value it. One possibility is that I value it infinitely. If I value something infinitely, then no other value can outweigh or override it. Let us call this “absolute intrinsic value.” Another possibility is that I value it finitely. If I value something finitely, then, in principle, some other value can outweigh or override it. When this happens, it would be false to say that I didn’t value X intrinsically, for I did. I value it for its own sake. But that doesn’t mean I value nothing else, or that X must always prevail when there is a clash of values. Let us call this “nonabsolute intrinsic value.”

To illustrate, let us apply these distinctions to the case of innocent human life. (I omit the qualifier “innocent” in what follows. It is to be understood that I’m talking about innocent rather than guilty human lives.) There are three positions one might take on the value of human life. First, one might hold that human life has no intrinsic value. Human life is valuable only if, and only to the extent that, it is related to other valuable things, such as subjective experience, pleasure, self-awareness, happiness, and so forth. This is the position of consequentialists, and this is what they mean when they deny “the sanctity of human life.”

Second, one might hold that human life has absolute intrinsic value. This is the position of the Roman Catholic Church. Evil may not be done that good may come. The end, however good, does not justify the destruction of human life. One problem with absolute doctrines is that they lead to conflicts. The Catholic Church has developed sub-doctrines, such as the doctrine of the double effect, to avoid conflicts. It purchases absolutism at the price of ad hocness.

Third, one might hold that human life has nonabsolute intrinsic value. This is midway between the first and second positions. It’s like absolute intrinsic valuation in holding that human life has intrinsic value, but it’s like consequentialism in denying that human life has absolute value. We might think of it as an attempt to incorporate the best of the other two (implausible) positions. A proponent of the third position is willing to allow the destruction of human life if enough evil will be prevented thereby (or enough good produced). How much evil or good is necessary? That depends on how close the valuation is to absolute. The difference between absolute intrinsic valuation and nonabsolute intrinsic valuation is one of degree rather than kind. A weak nonabsolutist might say that a human life may be destroyed if that is the only way to save five other human lives. A stronger nonabsolutist might require that 100 or 1,000 lives be saved. An absolutist would reject killing even if it were necessary to save 1,000,000,000 lives. See the difference?

As I say, intrinsic and absolute value are commonly confused, even by intelligent and well-meaning moral philosophers. They are very different. Intrinsic value is qualitative; it has to do with how a thing is valued. Absolute value is quantitative; it has to do with how much a thing is valued. If we conflate intrinsic and absolute value, we impoverish our moral vocabulary and deprive ourselves of useful analytical tools.

I had a friend—a grown man with lots of money—who could not balance his checkbook. He told me it never came out right, so he just took the bank's word that his account was accurate. This blew my mind, since nothing is easier than balancing a checkbook. First, write every expenditure and deposit in the checkbook. Do it immediately, or you'll forget it. Second, when the bank statement arrives, use a yellow marker to match what's written in the checkbook with what appears on the bank statement. When all items on the bank statement are yellowed out, add the current checkbook balance to the outstanding items. It should match the bank balance. Shouldn't a grown man be able to do this?

Addendum: My bank no longer sends canceled checks to me. At first, I didn't like it. But really, there's no need for me to receive canceled checks. It makes balancing my checkbook even faster. I do it in five minutes instead of eight or ten.

Here.

Rash, adj. Insensible to the value of our advice.

"Now lay your bet with mine, nor let
These gamblers take your cash."
"Nay, this child makes no bet." "Great snakes!
How can you be so rash?"
Bootle P. Gish.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Federal appellate judge Richard A. Posner gives a partial defense of affirmative-action programs (i.e., preferential treatment on the basis of race) here.

8-23-85 . . . This morning, for the first time, I attending [sic; should be “attended”] a video review hearing in [Pima County] Superior Court. Let me describe this strange experience. I entered the appropriate courtroom, which was no different than [sic; should be “from”] any other courtroom except that it contains two large video screens and some microphones, and took my place at the defense table. The judge sat in his chair toward the back, while the bailiff and the prosecutor sat on either side of him. At the appointed hour, a defendant appeared on the video screen from the Pima County Jail, which is located several miles from the courthouse, and spoke into the microphone. I introduced myself as the man’s attorney (we had just been appointed and I had never met him), and proceeded to explain the nature of the proceedings to him. Everything went smoothly. The client pleaded “no contest” to a charge of indecent exposure and thanked the judge and me for our time. Throughout the proceeding, the defendant, the judge, and I spoke into microphones. Everything happened instantaneously. I could see the defendant as he spoke, and he could see me as I spoke. For all intents and purposes, we were present in the same courtroom! We do live in a sophisticated age, don’t we? Who would have thought, when television was invented, that it would serve justice as well as entertain people?

My 14-week summer break is over. As always, I enjoyed it. Today I began my 17th year of teaching at The University of Texas at Arlington. If you count my year at Texas A&M University, it's my 18th year. I began my teaching career in August 1983 at The University of Arizona, where I was a teaching assistant. Where does the time go? One of the students in my Logic course this morning asked me whether I'm still practicing law. I said no; I gave it up for academia 20 years ago. It doesn't seem possible that that much time has passed. I have no regrets about any major decision I've made, including the decision not to be a practicing lawyer. I can't imagine a profession that would make me as happy as college professor. Some people are born to run businesses, others to practice law or medicine, others to teach and write. I'm one of the latter. My courses this semester, in case you're wondering, are Logic (at 8:00) and Social and Political Philosophy (at 9:30). I like to teach on Tuesdays and Thursdays (instead of Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays); I like to teach first thing in the morning; and I like my courses to be consecutive, so I can get back home quicker. I'm a homebody.

Addendum: If you want to stay abreast of what my students and I are discussing, see here. I intend to post all of my course handouts on KBJ Course Blog.

Maybe I'm hopelessly retrograde, but I don't understand the practice of dogs' days at Major League ballparks. My Texas Rangers are having one tomorrow. What's next? Taking dogs to church? They'll get as much out of that as they will going to the ballpark.

American Levi Leipheimer has won the Tour of Germany, besting German Jan Ullrich by 31 seconds. See here for the story. Congratulations, Levi! Keep it up and the French, in their bitterness toward all things American, will begin circulating rumors of drug usage.

Verlyn Klinkenborg, who has no discernible scientific or philosophical credentials (his doctoral degree is in English literature), is the latest person to express his ignorance of Intelligent Design. See here. The insistence that ID is not science reeks of desperation. A desperate person tries to define away uncomfortable aspects of reality. Many moral philosophers, for example, define "moral theory" in such a way that egoism is not a moral theory. How convenient! If it's not a moral theory, then it doesn't have to be taken seriously, much less refuted. If ID isn't science, then scientists don't have to show that it's inferior science. If scientists were at all confident in their own theories, methods, and argumentative skills, they would not hesitate to engage ID—to do the painstaking work involved in showing that it suffers in comparison to its theoretical rivals. Instead, they try to define it out of existence.

Theism, n. The doctrine that God exists. Nothing that exists or occurs being incompatible with it, it asserts nothing.

This week's link is to an interview with political philosopher Michael Walzer. (Walzer's advanced degree is in political science and history, but he's considered a philosopher by most credentialed philosophers.)

If you think religion and science are incompatible, then either you don't understand religion or you have a cramped understanding of science. See here.

To the Editor:

It seems more logical to believe that men are greater consumers of golf than women not because they have inherited a hunter's fascination with hitting targets in the outdoors [see here], but rather because someone else cooks their meals, washes their laundry, cleans their homes, chauffeurs and nurtures their children, supports their job advancement and on occasion says to them: "You've had a tense week. Why don't you play golf this weekend?"

As I watched the end of the P.G.A. Championship with my golfer husband, I yearned for that moment when I can relax, erase my thoughts and swing the club. I looked at my calendar for a six-hour opening: fall 2015, after I drop the youngest at college.

K. Louise Francis
Berkeley, Calif., Aug. 20, 2005

Note from AnalPhilosopher: Why did K. Louise Francis marry a man who won't do housework to her specifications? And if she didn't know this fact about him at the time of their marriage, why did she not divorce him as soon as it became clear? I am sick to death of women bitching about their husbands not doing housework. If you want a man who does housework, find one and marry him!

I’ve just been named commissioner of Major League Baseball. Here’s my first initiative. Starting on 1 January 2007, a little over a year from now, every player on a Major or Minor League roster will be tested for every banned substance four times a year. A list of banned substances will be made available to every player. Any player who tests positive for any banned substance is immediately suspended for one year, without pay, with return conditional on testing negative. The idea is to make the players strictly liable. No inquiry is made into what the player thought, knew, believed, hoped, assumed, or expected. “I didn’t know X contained a banned substance” or “My doctor prescribed X for me” are not excuses. This strict-liability regime will make players (the rational ones, anyway) take responsibility for their diets. They will have to ensure that everything they ingest is licit. As new substances are banned, there will be a one-year “cleaning-out” period. This will put players on notice that they have one year to get the substance out of their systems.

Do I really want to be commissioner of Major League Baseball? No. I already have the best job in the world.

Divination, n. The art of nosing out the occult. Divination is of as many kinds as there are fruit-bearing varieties of the flowering dunce and the early fool.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Everyone should read this essay. Here's an excerpt:

The fashionable assaults on patriotism, in the end, are failures of character. They are made by privileged individuals who enjoy the full benefits offered by the country they deride and detest—its opportunities, its freedom, its riches—but who lack the basic decency to pay their country the allegiance and respect that honor demands. (page 7)

Amen.

Here.

I spent a year of my life—the summer of 1974 to the summer of 1975—bagging and stocking groceries in my hometown of Vassar, Michigan. It was a good job. It got me out among people, taught me manners and good work habits, and made me feel productive. I was earning the grand sum of $2.50 per hour. The owners of the store—Central Shop-Rite Grocery—would not tolerate slipshod work. We were taught how to fill a bag properly, with heavy items on the bottom and lighter, more fragile items on top. I was fast and good. I took pride in my work. These days, people don't know how to bag groceries, or, if they do know, they don't care. First of all, you don't use plastic bags. They have no shape. Second, you don't throw things in the bag, whether it's paper or plastic. You place them in, taking care to arrange them. This can be done quickly. The more you do it, the quicker you get. I always consider it a good day when I get home with uncrushed bread. Today was a good day.

All we now know is that the West, still with all its flaws the major complex of reasonably free and democratic governments, has become, irreversibly, one would guess, the object of disdain, contempt, and hostility in the greater part of the world. The West is envied for its material wealth but is no longer either feared or respected, much less regarded as model, in the communist and most of the Third World countries. . . .

What is in all ways most devastating, however, is the signal decline in America and Europe themselves of faith in the value and promise of Western civilization. What has succeeded faith is, on the vivid and continually enlarging record, guilt, alienation, and indifference. An attitude—that we as a nation and as a Western civilization can in retrospect see ourselves as having contaminated, corrupted, and despoiled other peoples in the world, and that for having done this we should feel guilty, ashamed, and remorseful—grows and widens among Americans especially, and even more especially among young Americans of the middle class. For good reason or bad, the lay clerisy of the West—the intelligentsia that began in the eighteenth century to succeed the clergy as the dominant class so far as citizen’s beliefs are concerned—devotes a great deal of its time to lament, self-flagellation, and harsh judgment upon an entire history: Western history. Inevitably, the media, television leading the way, reflect the clerisy’s mood and attitudes. With excellent reason, therefore, a widening sector of the population finds itself adopting the same view of American and Western guilt. Clearly, any idea of progress must be precariously based indeed in such an environment.

(Robert Nisbet, History of the Idea of Progress [New York: Basic Books, 1980], 331-2 [italics in original])

It can't reasonably be doubted that Paul Krugman* hates President Bush. Now we're starting to see why. Krugman thinks the 2000 presidential election was "stolen." See here. But nothing he says in this column matters. We can argue until the cows come home about what would have happened if X, Y, or Z were the case. The fact is, the rule of law was complied with. President Bush may not have deserved to win, but he was entitled to assume the office of the presidency. He got more electoral votes than any of his rivals, including Al Gore. What more is there to say? What's interesting is that liberals such as Krugman usually downplay desert. They say it's irrelevant whether the poor deserve their plight. All we should care about, they say, is need—the fact of need. But when it suits their purposes, liberals are more than happy to haul out the concept of desert. To repeat, the powers of the presidency are conferred on the person who gets the most electoral votes, not on the person who gets the most popular votes. Unless Krugman thinks there were violations of the law in Florida (and how would he know? is he a lawyer?), he should move on.

Addendum: Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the 2000 election were stolen in some interesting sense. So what? The American people had every opportunity to throw President Bush out on his ear in 2004, and they didn't. He won handily. Why Krugman keeps bringing up the 2000 election is a mystery. It suggests that he has an unresolved emotional conflict. May I suggest therapy? Then again, perhaps he's already been to a therapist and been told to "let it all out" in his columns.

Addendum 2: Here is Richard Baehr's critique of Krugman's column.

Addendum 3: My friend Peg Kaplan can't believe that The New York Times hasn't fired Krugman. Ha! The Times loves him. He sells newspapers. Krugman's column is the most e-mailed of all op-ed columns, which suggests that it generates discussion. Controversy sells. Truth, civility, and justice be damned.

Addendum 4: In thinking about Krugman's bitterness about the 2000 election, it occurs to me that he may have been promised (or that he may have expected) a position in the Gore administration. Remember: Liberals without power are like fish out of water. Krugman may look at President Bush and see the man who kept him out of power.

* "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" (Daniel Okrent, "13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did," The New York Times, 22 May 2005).

To the Editor:

Re "Feeding More for Less in Niger" (Op-Ed, Aug. 19): While I'm sympathetic to staving people in Niger and other poor countries, it's overpopulation that is the problem. As long as women, through custom, tradition, religion or lack of effective birth control, have too many children to support, the problem will continue.

The path to food sufficiency is paved with effective birth control so that no family has more children than it can feed, clothe, house and educate. The "developed world" cannot keep feeding ever-increasing numbers of the world's poor; the poor countries must embrace birth control and encourage it.

S. R. Richardson
San Angelo, Tex., Aug. 19, 2005

There are two ways to register for a bike rally: by mail (i.e., in advance) and at the site (on the day of the rally). When you enter the registration area on rally day to pick up your packet, you see two signs: “Registration” and “Preregistration.” Those riders who paid by mail are said to have “preregistered.” I used to think this was improper English, and some people still do. Paula LaRocque was once the “writing coach” for The Dallas Morning News. She is now a columnist. In her column yesterday, she wrote:

Doesn’t “pre-register” simply mean registering early? Once you’ve registered, you’re registered.

LaRocque is correct that once a person is registered, he or she is registered. (That’s a tautology.) But there are two ways to register (or two types of registration): by mail and at the site. Rally organizers prefer that people register in advance. It helps them estimate attendance, and therefore helps them order the proper amounts of food, water, and other supplies. It also gives them a guaranteed money supply. People who don’t pay in advance are less likely than those who do pay in advance to show up if the weather is inclement. The more people who pay in advance, the more secure is the rally’s income. To encourage people to pay in advance, various privileges are conferred. First, it’s cheaper—for example, $20 instead of $25. Second, T-shirts and water bottles are guaranteed. Third, there are special lines to obviate waiting. I almost always pay in advance. When I reach the registration area, I go directly to the preregistration line. The line for those who are paying at the site is almost always longer, and sometimes much longer. It’s a quid pro quo. I commit myself to riding in inclement weather; the rally organizers treat me well.

My point is that there needs to be a distinction drawn between those who pay in advance and those who pay at the site. The term “preregister” accomplishes this purpose. And what’s wrong with it? It means previously register. Preregistered riders are those who previously registered, i.e., who paid in advance. Pre-owned vehicles are previously owned vehicles. There’s nothing wrong with that term, either. “Pre” is short for “previously.”

Even “preplan” makes sense on this understanding. If I planned next year’s trip a month ago, then my trip is preplanned in the sense that it’s previously (already) planned. Planning, like registering, is an activity. It takes time. I can plan today or I can plan next week. If I plan next year’s trip today, then a week from today it will make perfectly good sense for me to say that my trip is preplanned, for all I mean by that is that the planning is done. Of course, I could also say that my trip is planned, but that doesn’t inform my interlocutor of the time at which the planning occurred. “Preplanned” conveys more information than “planned.” Sometimes this information is useful.

I'm not sure whether I linked to this. If I did, I'm sorry for the duplication.

Ever heard that expression? Law, by its nature, is general. It concerns classes of people rather than individuals. There’s no law that says Keith Burgess-Jackson may not drive more than 65 miles per hour on I-30 in Arlington, but there is a law that says that no person may drive that fast on that stretch of road, and that law applies to me, since I’m a person. An easy case is one that the law was meant to apply to—a run-of-the-mill case, a typical case. A hard case is one the law was not meant to apply to. The traffic law is meant to apply to me as I drive to and from bike rallies. But what if I’m rushing my pregnant wife to the hospital? That’s a hard case. We’re inclined to say that the law was not meant to apply to people in that situation. When legislators write laws, they should do so for the typical case, not the atypical case.

Cindy Sheehan is demanding that the United States withdraw its military forces from Iraq. She has suffered a personal tragedy: the loss of a son. But surely she doesn’t expect President Bush to make a sweeping decision about Iraq on the basis of her tragic case. If presidents allowed individual cases to determine policy, they would be thwarting rather than promoting national security. I’m not saying that President Bush’s Iraq policy is correct. Nor am I saying that he should ignore Cindy Sheehan. She has every right to express her opinions about the war or anything else. (The rest of us, of course, have every right to tune her out or to express opposite opinions.) I’m saying that whether President Bush’s Iraq policy is correct is not a function of any given individual’s experience, however much it tugs on the heartstrings. Cindy Sheehan’s case is a hard one. Hard cases make bad law. Presidents must do what’s best for the nation as a whole, not just for one individual or for one segment of the population.

Here.

Populist, n. A fossil patriot of the early agricultural period, found in the old red soapstone underlying Kansas; characterized by an uncommon spread of ear, which some naturalists contend gave him the power of flight, though Professors Morse and Whitney, pursuing independent lines of thought, have ingeniously pointed out that had he possessed it he would have gone elsewhere. In the picturesque speech of his period, some fragments of which have come down to us, he was known as "The Matter with Kansas."

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Here is a beautiful scene from today's wet, cold stage of the Tour of Germany. American Levi Leipheimer increased his lead to 33 seconds over his teammate, Austrian Georg Totschnig. There are two stages remaining.

The debate about teaching Intelligent Design (ID) in public schools boils down to a debate about the nature of science. If you think that science is limited to naturalistic explanations of phenomena, then you will conclude that ID is nonscientific; and if it's nonscientific, then it should not be taught in science classes in public schools. If you think science is not limited to naturalistic explanations of phenomena, i.e., that it can provide supernaturalistic explanations, then you will conclude that ID is scientific, for all it does is postulate an intelligent designer who created the laws of nature. It doesn't question the laws of nature; rather, it explains their existence—in terms of the creative activity of a benevolent, all-knowing, all-powerful deity. Many of those who oppose ID are dogmatic in their insistence that science provides only naturalistic explanations. I have seen no convincing argument that it must (or should) be so limited; and I've seen at least one plausible argument (by Richard Swinburne) that it should not be so limited—that the standard methods used by scientists not only do not lead to atheism, but lead to theism. Not that this clinches the matter, but the word "science" means knowledge, not naturalistic knowledge. To assert that science, by definition, is limited to naturalistic explanations is to beg the question against those who believe otherwise. It is conceptual legislation. See here for a New York Times story about the debate.

It's fashionable to be an Indian, perhaps because it's the Age of Victimization. See here.

A couple of my cyberspatial friends—Peg Kaplan and Bob Hessen—brought this essay to my attention, so I thought I'd disseminate it.

Addendum: Here is the original version.

* "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" (Daniel Okrent, "13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did," The New York Times, 22 May 2005).

See here for my post about the difference between conservatism and libertarianism.

This week's word is "house." Please post sayings that contain this word or a cognate. Here are two to get you started:

• A man's house is his castle.

• She ate me out of house and home.

Don't cheat!

Someone wrote to me to say that the Bush administration is anti-science—perhaps the most anti-science administration in American history. I disagree. Let’s distinguish between science, as such, and the politicized science we have. Everywhere you look, scientists are making value judgments. But science has no values. It’s value-free. It’s supposed to describe the world, not change it. It’s supposed to make the theory fit the world, not the world fit the theory. The Bush administration is careful—as it should be—to use proper science in the making of policy. It should ignore politicized science, whether on the topic of climate change, endangered species, stem-cell research, toxic waste, the Strategic Defense Initiative, indigenous peoples, natural selection, or the etiology of homosexuality. If you take your car to a mechanic, do you want your mechanic to give you his or her expert opinion about what is wrong with your car, and all available options, or do you want your mechanic to decide what is best for you?

To the Editor:

Re "Palmeiro's Failed Test Fuels a Witch Hunt," by Murray Chass (On Baseball column, Sports pages, Aug. 18):

Steroid use among teenagers is up 300 percent in the last 10 years. Some kids die as a result of steroid use.

As kids look up to sports stars like Rafael Palmeiro and Jose Canseco—two of the greatest sluggers in Major League Baseball history—does Mr. Chass suggest no correlation between teenage use and player use?

Commissioner Bud Selig told us in the House Government Reform Committee that Major League Baseball would crack down on players who use steroids with self-policing measures, drug tests and harsher penalties.

But just months later, after Palmeiro tested positive for steroid use, Major League Baseball suspended him for just 10 days—not even 10 games—a far cry from the 50-day, 100-day or lifetime suspensions that would crack down on the problem.

Mr. Chass seems to think that the players unions, teams and Major League Baseball have a reasonable approach. But 10-day suspensions are at best a far cry from a reasonable penalty and at worst a wink at a serious problem where the lives and health of our kids are on the line.

Those penalties should be harsher, and it is appropriate for Major League Baseball to revamp its approach to policing measures over steroid use.

(Rep.) Patrick McHenry
Washington, Aug. 19, 2005

Here.

Land, n. A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the superstructure. Carried to its logical conclusion, it means that some have the right to prevent others from living; for the right to own implies the right exclusively to occupy; and in fact laws of trespass are enacted wherever property in land is recognized. It follows that if the whole area of terra firma is owned by A, B and C, there will be no place for D, E, F and G to be born, or, born as trespassers, to exist.

A life on the ocean wave,
A home on the rolling deep,
For the spark that nature gave
I have there the right to keep.

They give me the cat-o'-nine
Whenever I go ashore.
Then ho! for the flashing brine—
I'm a natural commodore!
Dodle.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Have you ever wondered why intellectuals are hostile to capitalism? Ernest van den Haag (1914-2002) explains it here.

Here.

It’s been steamy in North Texas, but the heat and humidity don’t deter die-hard bicyclists. This morning, in Dallas, I did my 18th rally of the year and 362d overall. You might wonder how there could be a bike rally in a city as large as Dallas. Easy. We start on the south side of the city and go into the countryside around Joe Pool Lake. The course today was poorly marked. About halfway in, I was in a pack of 20 or so riders moving along at a good clip. We hadn’t seen any signs or pavement markings in a while, so someone stopped to look at a map. Others pulled up alongside him. I knew that we were at the southernmost point of the course, so I knew that we had to make a right turn and head back. So what if we were temporarily off course, I shouted. We’ll get back on. But nobody followed me. I ended up retracing my route for several miles before getting back on course. I must have passed a hundred people going in the other direction—all of whom were probably wondering what I was doing. I’m sure I got as many miles as anyone else, if not more. All’s well that ends well.

Early on in the ride, I had to chastise a rider for using his aerobars while in a pack. Nothing could be more dangerous. Aerobars are for time trialing, when, if you fall, you hurt only yourself. This rider was threatening every member of our group, including me, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t say anything until I saw him wobbling. Someone had to tell him, so I decided to be the asshole. Sure enough, he resented it. He came alongside with his hands on the bars and asked, sarcastically, “Is this okay?” I said it was. It’s no accident that aerobars aren’t allowed in the professional peloton. They’re dangerous. I know: I used to have them.

My new wireless bike computer works well. This is the second time I’ve used it. It has tenths of a mile for average speed and hundredths of a mile for trip distance. Now I can see exactly how slowly I’m traveling! But seriously, I had a good day. I completed the 60.24-mile course in 3:24:16, which is an average speed of 17.69 miles per hour. That’s my second-fastest rally of the year and also the second-fastest of my seven Chili Pepper rallies, going back to 1999. I’ve been doing Chili Pepper rallies for as long as Lance Armstrong has been winning the Tour de France. My maximum speed for the day was 34.2 miles per hour. Usually, we go down Cedar Hill on this rally, where I approach 50 miles per hour, but today we went down another, gentler hill. It was fine with me. Speed is fun, but also dangerous. My maximum heart rate for the day was 158. Oddly, it came near the end of the ride, when I had a tailwind. I was hitting every hill hard so as not to lose speed.

By the time I reached the finish line, shortly before eleven o’clock (we started at 7:30), the sun was withering. I was glad to get in my car and turn on the air conditioner. It doesn’t work well, but it works. Thirty minutes later, after my stop at Taco Bell for bean burritos (and tacos for my girls), I was home, ready to shower and nap. I’ve been hydrating all day.

Speaking of bike rallies, I neglected to write about the past two. On 6 August, I rode 76 miles near Possum Kingdom Lake in the Tour de Pants. (I have no idea what the name means.) The course was difficult, with lots of hills, including a steep one at the end. I averaged only 15.86 miles per hour. At the start, a man fell over just as I rolled up behind him. His bike struck mine and down I went. (It happened so fast that I couldn’t get my left foot unclipped from the pedal.) Luckily, I had only scrapes. I also lost my bike pump that day. I still have no idea where it went. On the way home, it rained so hard that the traffic on Interstate 30 came to a standstill. Incredibly, nobody near me bumped or crashed into anyone. Try to picture a highway with vehicles parked all over it, waiting for the rain to let up. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.

A week ago, I did the annual Hot Rocks rally in Rockwall (east of Dallas). It was hot, but that goes without saying at this time of year in North Texas. I averaged 16.08 miles per hour for 61.07 miles. My first hour was promising—19.09 miles—but the wind, hills, heat, and rough roads slowed my pace the rest of the way. I had fun riding with my friends Joe and Julius. If all goes well, I’ll have seven more rallies this year, for a total of 25. Marathon training begins on Labor Day, which is—gasp!—only 16 days away. I always do the Labor Day 15K (9.3-mile) race in Fort Worth. As hard as it is to ride a bike in this heat, it’s much harder to run in it. But if you don’t start training in early September, you’ll pay for it later.

Alligator, n. The crocodile of America, superior in every detail to the crocodile of the effete monarchies of the Old World. Herodotus says the Indus is, with one exception, the only river that produces crocodiles, but they appear to have gone West and grown up with the other rivers. From the notches on his back the alligator is called a sawrian.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

To the Editor:

Re "Tony Blair's Antiterrorism Package" (editorial, Aug. 19):

When a people unite to form a government, they do so for a reason—to maintain peaceful coexistence among themselves. In America, we are united under the principle that all men are created equal and that government exists solely to protect our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

But what if someone wants to live among us and yet preaches that the government exists solely to enforce a particular religion because that religion is the source of all law, and that violence is justified to establish that regime?

I say it is the voice calling for a violent overthrow of our government that destroys the concept of freedom for itself, and if we fail in our diligence, possibly for the rest of us.

Bill Decker
San Diego, Aug. 19, 2005

Here.

According to my daily newspaper, the musical guest on Saturday Night Live this evening is Scissor Sisters. If you haven't seen this episode (it'll be my third viewing), you must. The male singer for the band (Jake Shears) is mesmerizing. He has dance moves (bodily movements) that I've never seen before, and a voice that, well, carries. His outfits are bizarre. The band performs two songs, one about halfway into the 90-minute program and one about 15 minutes later. Check it out.

I saw an interesting bumper sticker on the way home from today’s bike rally:

Annoy a Republican
Think for Yourself

Let’s analyze this, for surely there’s a message being conveyed. A person can either (1) think for himself or herself or (2) allow others to do his or her thinking. The former is obviously preferable. To allow others to do your thinking is to abdicate responsibility—to be someone’s dupe. Republicans are said to be annoyed by those who think for themselves. The implication is that Democrats are not annoyed by those who think for themselves. This, in turn, suggests that Republicans prefer a society of dupes to a society of independent thinkers.

Is there any evidence for this, or is it merely a case of Democrat bigotry? Who votes Democrat, anyway? Union members, teachers, trial lawyers, blacks. Are we to think that they do so because they’re independent thinkers? Ha! A better hypothesis is that they’ve been duped by Democrats. Are Democrats opposed to such dupery? Of course not. They love it! The more groups they have in their pocket, the better their electoral prospects. My sense, as a longtime political junkie, is that Republicans are more independent-minded than Democrats. That is to say, they put more thought into their political decisions. They’re concerned with the national interest, not simply their own interests. They’re concerned with the moral tenor of our society, not merely making people feel good. Union members, teachers, trial lawyers, and blacks view the government as a source of wealth and privilege. They vote their personal interest. Or so it seems to me, in which case the bumper sticker couldn’t be further from the truth. I think it reflects a prevailing bigotry—and smugness—on the left.

8-19-85 Some people think of community in spatial terms, so that one’s community is that geographical area in which one lives or works. But Corinne Gilb [1925-2003] once pointed out to me that there is another sense of community. One’s community, in this other sense, is the group of individuals with which [sic; should be “whom”] one shares interests. Joel Feinberg [1926-2004], for instance, lives in Tucson, Arizona, but he is a member of a wide-ranging community of scholars who are interested in social philosophy. When Joel writes, he writes not for those in close physical proximity to him, but for scholars who are interested in the same issues as he is—wherever [and whenever] they may be. The same is true of me. I feel as though I’m part of a community of scholars. It’s a basic fact of life that individuals must write in one place at a time, but that doesn’t mean that one must direct one’s attention to those around one. Community is an attitude, not necessarily a geographical [or temporal] area.

I finally did it. I drafted and executed a “living will.” Although such wills have been legally binding in this state for some time, a new Arizona statute explicitly gives them force, so I took advantage of it. I used most of the verbiage of the statutory will, but made several minor changes (such as adding “moral” to “legal right”). Two associate attorneys at work, Robb Holmes and Bob Bushkin, witnessed the signing of the will for me. What does the will mean? Basically, it means that I am in control of my life and death even when I’m presently incapable of making decisions. In other words, I’ve decided in advance that I do not want to be kept alive by artificial means. If I’m ever diagnosed as terminally ill, such that I’ll die without the assistance of machines, I want the machines removed and/or kept away. As I put it in a letter to Mom and Jerry, I do not want to live an “empty” life. I feel good about this document. It gives me control over an important aspect of my life without adversely affecting anyone else. I hope that family members, friends, and my physician honor my advance directive. [I’ve had a living will all this time.]

In exactly one week I’ll be back in school. Already I’m excited about teaching and [about] attending my two seminars.

Blaise Pascal died on this date in 1662, at the age of 39. He was a genius. See here for a short biography. Here is the website of the university named after him.

Peg Kaplan takes The New York Times to task. See here.

To the Editor:

Edmund Morris ("Conservative Compassion," Op-Ed, Aug. 17) trivializes the death of more than 1,850 American soldiers, the wounding of some 13,000 more, and the death and maiming of untold numbers of Iraqis when he compares these to the tragic blinding of a state trooper in the line of duty.

The casualties in Iraq were optional killings and maimings as a result of a pre-emptive war against a nonexistent enemy.

Pigheaded pursuit of a foolish decision is not courageous. Rather, courage is required to admit one was wrong and to correct the mistake.

Listening to Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, would be a small act of courage that might lead to a larger one. To do so would infuse life, rather than suck it dry.

Samuel W. Shoen
Port Townsend, Wash., Aug. 17, 2005

Paul Krugman* says that "America is more bitterly divided than ever." He should know. With his manipulative, hateful rhetoric, he has done more than any American to make that the case. He also says that "We aren't going to rerun the last three elections [presumably referring to the elections of 2000, 2002, and 2004]." But that's precisely what he does. He seems not to have come to grips, emotionally, with the fact that George W. Bush is our president. Get over it, Paul. Move on. I'm glad, however, that Krugman draws attention to electoral irregularities. No American should tolerate such shenanigans, even if they redound to his or her party's benefit. But both parties have dirty hands in this regard. Krugman makes it sound as though only Republicans are corrupt. This is a recurring theme in Krugman's columns. He sees only bad in Republicans and only good in Democrats. That is the very definition of "partisan."

* "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" (Daniel Okrent, "13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did," The New York Times, 22 May 2005).

Here.

Immodest, adj. Having a strong sense of one's own merit, coupled with a feeble conception of worth in others.

There was once a man in Ispahan
Ever and ever so long ago,
And he had a head, the phrenologists said,
That fitted him for a show.

For his modesty's bump was so large a lump
(Nature, they said, had taken a freak)
That its summit stood far above the wood
Of his hair, like a mountain peak.

So modest a man in all Ispahan,
Over and over again they swore—
So humble and meek, you would vainly seek;
None ever was found before.

Meantime the hump of that awful bump
Into the heavens contrived to get
To so great a height that they called the wight
The man with the minaret.

There wasn't a man in all Ispahan
Prouder, or louder in praise of his chump:
With a tireless tongue and a brazen lung
He bragged of that beautiful bump

Till the Shah in a rage sent a trusty page
Bearing a sack and a bow-string too,
And that gentle child explained as he smiled:
"A little present for you."

The saddest man in all Ispahan,
Sniffed at the gift, yet accepted the same.
"If I'd lived," said he, "my humility
Had given me deathless fame!"
Sukker Uffro.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

I wear an old pair of running shoes during my twice-daily walks with Sophie and Shelbie. Sophie doesn’t get excited any longer by these excursions (pun intended), but Shelbie does. When I get the shoes out of the closet, she jumps up to get them; and when I sit down to put the shoes on, she bites the shoes. She can’t wait to get going. Unfortunately for her, the more she jumps and bites, the longer it takes to get going. I’ve tried to explain that her behavior is self-defeating, but she doesn’t understand.

Liberals are the same way when it comes to helping the needy. They mean well. Nobody questions their motives or intentions. That’s why we call them “do-gooders.” But, by providing for people’s needs, with no attention to responsibility or desert, they defeat their purposes. First, they destroy initiative and create dependency. Why should people strive to better themselves when they know that, even if they don’t, their needs (and even some of their wants) will be provided for? If you subsidize laziness, foolishness, and ignorance, you get more of them. Second, they undermine self-respect, which is a basic good. How can you respect yourself, much less feel good about yourself, if others are caring for you? It turns adults into children. Third, they breed resentment and a contraction of concern among those who are coerced into providing for others. I work hard for my money. Why should I be made to give some of it to people who can, but don’t, work hard?

All things considered, and in the long run, redistributing wealth is self-defeating. Why, then, do liberals advocate it? Well, why does Shelbie slow me down twice a day? She’s excitable. She doesn’t think about what she’s doing.

Whoever introduced soccer to this country should be put on a level with Benedict Arnold. You will notice that no one claims to be the father or mother of U.S. soccer. No one wants to suffer that eternal embarrassment. Soccer is a picnic game along the lines of softball and horseshoe tossing.

(Gerry Fraley, sportswriter, The Dallas Morning News, 19 August 2005)

8-18-85 Sunday. When I returned from my aborted bike trip to Yellowstone [National Park], in early August 1984, I had a severe sunburn on my back. In several places, in fact, there were open wounds. I had trouble sleeping on my back and had to put salve and bandages on it for about a week. Then, when the sores had healed, I noticed that there were brown spots on my shoulders, and I spent several days itching. Coincidentally, I heard a radio discussion of skin cancer and immediately concluded that I was going to die. As of today, however, I am blissfully alive. The itching stopped, the brown spots went away, and all of the wounds have healed. But I still worry about contracting skin cancer. My actions belie this worry, though, for I continue to ride each weekend without a shirt, and my back, at this moment, is as brown as can be. I’m guilty, like many people, of underestimating a grave risk. This winter, when the sun is less direct than it is now, my tan will fade and I’ll be less susceptible to the sun’s damaging rays.

For the thirteenth consecutive Sunday I rode my bike at least forty miles. I’ve now pedalled [sic; should be “pedaled”] a total of 1998.2 miles in the state of Arizona, nearly a thousand miles per year for the two years in which I’ve lived in this state. That’s a figure of which I’m proud. It represents 58.4% of the riding that I’ve done in the past four years—since I bought my first ten-speed bike. With nineteen Sundays yet to go in 1985, I have to ride an average of 28.5 miles each week in order to break my 1982 mileage record. That’s an average that I’m more than capable of attaining. All told, I’m fifty-six percent of the way toward my goal. One more note on today’s ride: Three years ago today, I was pedalling [sic] around Mackinac Island after having ridden there from Bay City. I can still remember lying on the rocky shore and watching seagulls flit about, as well as zipping along the northern coast of the island as less fit people huffed and puffed their way around. Some day I plan to retrace my route around Michigan, this time with a special friend. [I haven’t done it yet.]

It is probably easier to analyze another person than it is to analyze oneself, but I spend a lot of time wondering why I am the person I am and why I made the choices that I made in my life. For instance, why did I choose to study history along with law at Wayne State University? And why did I choose to continue my studies in philosophy rather than practice law as a profession? The answer, I have come to think, is this: I enjoy feeling “special.” Lots of people are historians, and lots of people are lawyers, and lots of people are philosophers. But how many people can say that they’re historian/lawyer/philosophers? I can. When I’m around historians, I’m “special” because I’ve studied law and philosophy in addition to their discipline. When I’m in the courtroom or the law office, I’m “special” because I’ve studied the law from both an historical and a philosophical perspective. And when I’m sitting in a philosophy classroom, or teaching my logic students, I’m “special” because I’m a professional lawyer as well as an academician. As I’ve arranged things, I can’t possibly be “just another face in the crowd.” By training, I’m a specialist, and that’s what appeals so much to me about my occupation(s) and career. I’ll have more to say about this bit of self-analysis as the days and weeks go by.

Today is the 211th anniversary of the birth of Meriwether Lewis [1774-1809], the great explorer. I marked the date on my calendar a few weeks ago so that I would not forget it. The more I think about Lewis, the more fascinated I become with him. He was Thomas Jefferson’s [1743-1826] personal secretary before he set out on the expedition, and he was a literate and articulate man. And yet, Lewis was skilled in many other tasks as well, ranging from language to construction of boats and dwellings to navigation to medicine. He was, in modern terminology, a “jack of all trades.” Few people fall into that category today (least of all me), so perhaps that’s one reason why I’m so fascinated by Lewis. He blended civilization with frontier skills as well as anyone I’ve ever heard about. I, too, would like to be an intellectual “backwoodsman.” One day, in fact, I would like to live in a mountain cabin or on a farm. It would be the perfect environment in which to read, think, and write. Meriwether Lewis has inspired me to emulate him.

With all due respect to Peggy Noonan, whom I admire, this column of hers is idiotic. She can't understand why former presidents George Herbert Walker Bush and Bill Clinton are friends. She says it bespeaks an unseriousness on their part. What?! Actually, if you read the column carefully, you'll see that it's worse than this. She's denying that they're friends! Friends don't view their relationship purely instrumentally. If I value you only because you're a means to my ends, and vice versa, we're not friends. We're reciprocal altruists. I'm not saying that friendship is incompatible with instrumental valuation. I'm saying that it's incompatible with instrumental valuation alone. Friends characteristically value each other both intrinsically and instrumentally, i.e., both for the sake of the other and for the sake of what one gets out of the relationship. This is true for lovers as well as friends.

I'm used to hearing conservatives reinterpret everything Bill and Hillary Clinton say and do as self-interested. That's just dogmatism. It's a special case of what philosophers call psychological egoism. But this is the first time I've heard a conservative reinterpret the motives of former president Bush. It's disgraceful. Let George and Bill be friends. By all indications, they enjoy each other's company. In a world as cold and cruel as ours, isn't that something to be celebrated?

The French will not like to hear this, but Americans have won a staggering 10 of the past 20 Tours de France. Greg LeMond won in 1986, 1989, and 1990. Lance Armstrong won seven consecutive Tours between 1999 and 2005. The French have won exactly zero Tours in that time. A critic might say this is misleading, since only two Americans did all the winning. But each year was a different race. Chop and slice it all you want: An American came out on top half the time. And it's not like Americans win only the Tour de France. They have done well in other stage races, such as this year's Paris-Nice. As American cycling grows, there will be even more winners. Today, American Levi Leipheimer took the lead in the Tour of Germany. He will contend for the title in next year's Tour de France. By the way, have you ever wondered how professional cyclists answer the call of nature? See here for the answer.

"Further" and "farther" are not synonymous. "Farther" and "farthest" are used when speaking of physical (measurable) distance, as in "I rode my bike farther today than I did a week ago." "Further" and "furthest" are used when speaking nonliterally, as in "Nothing could be further from the truth" or "I'm further along in my reading than I thought I would be." If we lose this distinction, we impoverish our language.

Federal appellate judge Richard A. Posner, the founder of law and economics (sometimes referred to as "economic analysis of law"), weighs in on the recent Ten Commandments cases—not from a legal point of view but from an economic point of view. See here. With all due respect to Judge Posner, he doesn't understand intelligent design. He calls it "religious dogma" and says (or implies) that it is not science. It's science; indeed, it's robust science, or what we might call "science on steroids." As Richard Swinburne argues in his book Is There a God? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), the scientific method, properly understood and rigorously followed, supports belief in a transcendent being (an intelligent designer) who created the laws of nature, including the laws of natural selection discovered (independently) by Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin. Swinburne is at least as intelligent as Posner. He may be wrong in what he says about science, but he's not obviously wrong. He needs to be refuted, not dismissed. Judge Posner would also do well to read some Alvin Plantinga.

Addendum: Judge Posner is obviously not a football fan. He calls the Dallas Cowboys the "Texas Cowboys."

I just posted a couple of things at Animal Ethics. See here.

To the Editor:

Bob Herbert is right ("No End in Sight in Iraq," column, Aug. 11). We need a serious national conversation about exiting from Iraq.

First, we need to face reality: no good options exist. The American-led occupation is the main cause of the insurgency, not the cure. Yet an abrupt pullout could lead to even more chaos. The last best hope lies in "internationalizing" the peacekeeping forces until Iraq can take over on its own.

Those who object to this path as unrealistic need to explain how we can better extricate ourselves from the biggest American policy disaster since Vietnam.

George Hunsinger
Princeton, N.J., Aug. 11, 2005
The writer, a professor of theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, is the coordinator of Church Folks for a Better America.

Meriwether Lewis, unlike his more gregarious co-captain William Clark, was moody and introspective. On this date in 1805, he celebrated his 31st birthday. Just days before, he had reached the Continental Divide. We know how things turned out for the expedition, but he didn't. For all he knew, the expedition would fail, despite his best efforts. He and his party had yet to reach the Pacific Ocean, much less return to civilization. Lewis's journal entries are businesslike, but the occasion of his birthday prompted him to pen some personal reflections. See here. Lewis would be dead—probably by his own hand—in just over four years. His death, like his internal life, remains a mystery.

Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slave-driver.

As, pent in an aquarium, the troutlet
Swims round and round his tank to find an outlet,
Pressing his nose against the glass that holds him,
Nor ever sees the prison that enfolds him;
So the poor debtor, seeing naught around him,
Yet feels the narrow limits that impound him,
Grieves at his debt and studies to evade it,
And finds at last he might as well have paid it.
Barlow S. Vode.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Here.

Note: For those of you who are new to this blog (welcome!), each day I select one post from the previous year's posts of that date. If you want to read all the posts from a year ago, instead of just the one I selected, type "18 August 2004" (with quotation marks) into the Google search box near the top of this blog.

How many automobiles have you owned? ("Automobile" means self-moving, so pickup trucks and SUVs are automobiles. But let's limit the term to four-wheeled vehicles so as to exclude motorcycles [motorized bicycles].) I've owned six:

A dark blue 1965 Plymouth Fury (purchased in summer 1974)
A light green 1968? Pontiac Catalina
A dark blue 1973 Datsun 510
A dark blue 1973 Pontiac Ventura (purchased on 2 July 1980)
A yellow 1976 Oldsmobile Cutlass (purchased on 16 May 1983)
A light blue 1989 Pontiac Grand Am (purchased on 18 August 1989)

Only one of my six automobiles—the one I now drive—was new when I acquired it. I never dreamed when I purchased it 16 years ago today that I'd still be driving it in 2005! The plan was to drive it 10 years: five with payments and five without. When 10 years passed, the car was running fine. Why replace it? I decided 15 years was more like it. But a year ago, I came to the same conclusion. And now it's been 16 years. The car is still running, although not as well as it used to. It has 126,149 miles on it, which is an average of 7,884.3 per year. I'm pretty sure my next car will be a Honda—either an Accord or a Civic. Given how long I drive cars (and how I baby them), it should last me until retirement.

Note: The images in the links show cars of that year and make, not the cars I owned!

Every night, before you shut down your computer, you delete cookies, knowing full well that it will mean retyping information on various websites the following day.

Here is Ed Feser's latest post at The Conservative Philosopher.

I like to pull the plug in the tub
Sit and watch the water flow down the drain
I like to, I like to
I like to look at pictures in a book
Never read the writing just put it down
I like to, I like to

I'd really like to know
What you would like to do
I'd really like to

I like to watch the telly
With the sound turned down
Listen to the stereo
Turn the channels around
I like to, I like to
I like to eat a sandwich with the lot, yum yum
Putting on everything that I've got
I like to, I like to

I'd really like to know
What you would like to do
I'd really like to

8-17-85 So far as I know, my high-school classmates are holding their ten-year reunion this evening at the Vassar [Michigan] Golf and Country Club. I wouldn’t have attended the reunion even if I lived in Vassar, for reasons that I’ve set forth on other occasions, but let me throw out a few thoughts on the subjects of high school, reunions, and aging in general. It’s a good time to reflect on the past ten years of my life. In all honesty, I’m still embarrassed at what I did at my high-school commencement exercises [in 1975]. I was drunk, obnoxious, and I probably ruined the occasion for several of my classmates and their families. I’ll be embarrassed about this for as long as I live. But my true friends have stayed with me over the years. I include in this group Paul Martin and Jim Stange, as well as Tom Wade, Dan Callahan, Dave Kennard, and Larry Terbush. Many of my high-school friends were either older (as in the case of Tom Riness) or younger (as in the case of Keith Basherian and Greg Morgan) than I was, so they will not be attending the class reunion (Tom and Keith are dead, of course). I have no desire to see anyone else. I do not yearn to be in Vassar.

There is something awfully cruel about class reunions, when you think about it. Obviously, those classmates who have things in common and wish to remain in touch with one another will do so, with or without regular reunions. So the whole point of the event must be to bring together those classmates who never did like (or know) one another, resulting in reopened wounds and feelings of inferiority and/or competitiveness. What can people talk about, except their jobs, their incomes, their families, and their careers and travels? I have no desire to stand around, drink in hand, telling people where I’ve been, what I’ve studied, where I’ve worked, and how many children I have. There is no question in my mind that I have the most education of the entire class, but that doesn’t make me any better than the others. If anything, it makes me the laughingstock of the class. I haven’t travelled much, I’ve made very little money in the past ten years, I’m not married and haven’t been romantically involved with anyone, and I have no children. But so what! Is there some kind of grand competition going on? That’s why I say that class reunions are cruel. They emphasize achievement, and in particular pecunicary [sic; should be “pecuniary”] achievement. For one who cannot or will not keep up, the event is worthless and meaningless. [I still think reunions are about status—about showing one’s high-school peers how far one has climbed up the social ladder. I have never been to a reunion.]

The thought of being ten years distant from my high-school graduation both amuses and bothers me. It amuses me because it seems like only yesterday that I went through the ceremonies. It really does. I recall feeling rebellious and cocky as the days and weeks of the school year wound down, and I remember the feeling of exhilaration that I experienced at being done with high school forever. But it bothers me that I’m getting so old. I’m twenty-eight years old and I feel that I’ve accomplished only a little in my life. I’ve done well in the intellectual arena, and tolerably well in the physical arena [i.e., athletically], but I’ve done virtually nothing in the emotional or romantic arena and am not yet the cultivated, worldly person whom I thought I’d be ten years ago. All this time, I’ve been telling myself that as soon as I got done with school, I’d “live.” I’d travel, get to know people, raise and enjoy a family, and be happy. But so far, I haven’t done any of these things, and it bothers me. I’m twenty-eight years old, well-educated, and yet, I know very little about the world. Before long, I’ll be too old to enjoy life. [Ha! Life begins at 30.]

I purchased a bed today. It’ll be delivered to my apartment next week. As I write this, I’ve gone two years and a day without a bed, so it’ll probably feel strange to sleep on a soft, bouncy surface again. The bed cost $130. . . . [I had been sleeping on the floor.]

I’m a native Michigander. You read that right. A few minutes ago, I checked my Oxford American Dictionary and Language Guide (1999) to see how the word “Michigan” is hyphenated. (My word processor, Word for Windows, broke the word as follows: Mi-chigan.) When I got to the dictionary entry (in the geographical section), I was appalled to see “Michigander” and “Michiganite” listed as names for the state’s inhabitants. “Michigander” is fine. That’s what I heard 99% of the time when I lived in the Great Lake State. Occasionally, I would hear “Michiganian.” But “Michiganite”? Never. It’s an abomination. I decided to test my recollection by putting it to the Google test. Here are the results:

Michigander: 76,600 hits
Michiganian: 5,460 hits
Michiganer: 1,980 hits
Michiganite: 638 hits

Case closed. The person who compiled the dictionary entry had obviously never been to Michigan or spoken to any Michiganders. For punishment, he or she should be put into a cage with a live wolverine. While I’m on the topic, why don’t you post the name for people in your locale? I used to be a Michigander; then I was an Arizonan; now I’m a Texan. When I lived in Arizona, I was a Tucsonan. I suppose now I’m a Fort Worthian. A worthy Fort Worthian.

Addendum: I didn’t know it until tonight, but apparently the word for “name for a people” is “demonym.” “Demo” would mean people; “nym” would mean name. See what you learn by goofing (Googling) around?

It must be hard to be president. We're lucky there are people willing and able to do it. See here for Edmund Morris's op-ed column about "emotional predators."

To the Editor:

Re "Living Large, by Design, in Middle of Nowhere" ("Far and Away" series, front page, Aug. 15):

Where is any critical discussion of the ecological impact of this migration to the exurbs? The preference for large, distant houses rests upon energy-use patterns that are unsustainable in the long run.

There is a certain denial of reality in such behavior.

Henry Wessells
Upper Montclair, N.J., Aug. 16, 2005

I don't care a whit about professional football, but this column by Max Boot is interesting, entertaining, and well-written.

I have said many times in this blog that Paul Krugman is intellectually dishonest. What do I mean by that? How does intellectual dishonesty differ—if it does differ—from regular old dishonesty? Is it a special kind, with attributes of its own, or is it merely dishonesty in the realm of the intellect?

Let me begin with the concept of an intellectual. An intellectual, as the term is commonly understood, is “a person possessing a highly developed intellect” (The Oxford American Dictionary and Language Guide, 1999). The intellect is “the faculty of reasoning, knowing, and thinking, as distinct from feeling” (ibid.). So an intellectual is someone who has a highly developed faculty of reasoning, knowing, and thinking. Intellectuals are thinkers, not necessarily doers. They suppress their emotions because they know from experience that emotions cloud—and sometimes destroy—judgment. Their aim is knowledge, and therefore truth, since truth is requisite for knowledge. John Rawls said that “Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought” (A Theory of Justice, 3). An intellectual who sought something other than truth would be an intellectual in name only, just as a statesman, legislator, or jurist who sought something other than justice would be a statesman, legislator, or jurist in name only.

The commitment to truth imposes discipline on intellectuals. It rules out any methods that are not reliable in producing truth. It casts suspicion on emotions. It imposes strict standards on the investigation, discovery, analysis, and presentation of facts. It requires logical consistency (for if two propositions are inconsistent, then at least one of them is false). It prefers the simpler account to the more complex account, other things being equal. It prohibits certain fallacies, such as evaluating a belief on the basis of its origin and dismissing claims or arguments on the basis of the personal character of those who make them. It requires charity in interpretation, which means, among other things, giving the benefit of the doubt to one’s interlocutors. Intellectually honest people focus on propositions and arguments, not persons, character, or motives. This is not to say that we don’t or shouldn’t care about persons, character, or motives; it’s to say that these things have nothing directly to do with truth.

We might call the items I listed (which are illustrative, not exhaustive) the canons of intellectual honesty. Those who flout these canons—or even disregard them, however unintentionally—forfeit the right to be considered an intellectual. Intellectuals would rather not persuade at all than persuade by disreputable means. They are process-oriented, not result-oriented. They deny that the end of persuasion—changing people’s minds or behavior—justifies the means. The canons of intellectual honesty constitute a set of deontological constraints on inquiry, analysis, and argumentation. They function like rights in moral and political discourse. They express the view that certain techniques may not be employed, no matter how good the consequences.

I believe that any disinterested reader of Paul Krugman’s New York Times columns over the years will conclude that he regularly flouts these canons. His columns are emotional (often in the extreme); he distorts, twists, and misrepresents facts (as former New York Times ombudsman Daniel Okrent publicly said*); he contradicts himself; he dismisses claims and arguments on the basis of the personal character of those who make them; he fails to draw attention to weaknesses in his positions; and, most importantly, he’s uncharitable. Krugman’s main tactic is to impugn the motives of those with whom he disagrees. His objective seems to be to poison the well, i.e., to turn his audience against the person in question. An honest intellectual would never question the motives of his or her interlocutor. Indeed, an honest intellectual would assume the best motives and proceed to evaluate the actions or policies on their merits. Persons are not arguments. Good people can make bad arguments and bad people good arguments. Inferring “X is a bad arguer” from “X is a bad person” is to commit the ad hominem fallacy.

In short, Krugman’s columns read more like propaganda pieces than attempts to ascertain and disseminate the truth. He is a partisan hack, not a dispassionate seeker of knowledge. He is, as I have often said, intellectually dishonest.

Let me turn to some objections. It might be said that while Krugman is an intellectual, he is not merely an intellectual. Why should his New York Times columns be held to the same standard as his academic writings? Can’t he be a partisan political writer sometimes and an intellectual at other times?

The answer is yes. But Krugman was hired by the Times to write about economic matters, not political, religious, or military affairs.** Presumably, this is because he’s an economist. Economics is a social science (albeit a dismal one). Scientists, as such, are committed to the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge. (The word “science” means knowledge.) I suppose if the Times hadn’t hired Krugman to write about economic matters and didn’t mention his economic credentials in his online biography, there would be no problem with his columns. He would be just another Bob Herbert or Maureen Dowd, both of whom are good writers in the technical sense but neither of whom has any particular expertise or commitment to truth. The Times holds Krugman out as an intellectual. Therefore, whether he wants to conform to the canons of intellectual honesty or not, he is bound by them and properly criticizable when he violates them.

It might also be objected that I—an intellectual—flout at least one of the canons of intellectual honesty on a regular basis. After all, I title my semiweekly posts about Krugman “Bush-Hatin’ Paul.” Isn’t this to question his motives by implying that he’s driven by an emotion (hatred) rather than by a concern for the truth? It is, but notice: I have never dismissed a claim or an argument made by Krugman on the basis that he is poorly motivated. What I have said, repeatedly, is that, to the extent that he hates President Bush, he can’t be trusted on matters that are outside the ken of his readers. Why should I trust someone to tell me the truth on a matter outside my field of expertise when I know that it’s not the truth (or not solely the truth) that motivates him or her? That would be epistemically irresponsible. By referring to Krugman as “Bush-Hatin’ Paul,” I do no more than draw attention to his untrustworthiness. It does not follow from this that everything he says is false or that all of his arguments are fallacious—or that I believe these things.

* "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" (Daniel Okrent, "13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did," The New York Times, 22 May 2005).

** Here, courtesy of Donald Luskin, is the blurb published in The New York Times on 8 October 1999:

M.I.T. Economics Professor To Write a Times Column

The New York Times announced yesterday that Paul Krugman, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an author known for his theories on international trade and economics, would become a columnist on the Op-Ed page. Mr. Krugman's column will appear twice a week, beginning in January, and will be The Times's first regular Op-Ed column devoted to economics, business and finance.

Mr. Krugman is the author or editor of 16 books and more then 200 articles in professional journals. He has also edited many books on international trade and finance. In recognition of his work on trade, Mr. Krugman received the John Bates Clark medal in 1991 from the American Economic Association.

Mr. Krugman has also written for a broader audience, including a monthly column, ''The Dismal Science,'' for the on-line magazine Slate. And his articles have appeared in publications like Foreign Affairs, Harvard Business Review and Scientific American.

Mr. Krugman, 46, will remain the Ford International Professor of Economics at M.I.T. He received a bachelor's degree from Yale University and a Ph.D. from M.I.T. He has also taught at Yale University, Stanford University and worked as the chief international economist for the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

(Italics added.)

Here.

Honorable, adj. Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In legislative bodies it is customary to mention all members as honorable; as, "the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur."

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Here.

Donald Luskin directed my attention to this post by Power Line. As you can see, I'm not the only person who thinks Paul Krugman* is intellectually dishonest. Nor am I the only person who thinks Krugman hates President Bush. Do you suppose these two things are connected—that Krugman's hatred of the president causes him to be intellectually dishonest? Emotions cloud judgment. Strong emotions (such as hatred) destroy judgment.

Addendum: In case you missed it, here is the column in which I make the case that Krugman hates President Bush.

* "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" (Daniel Okrent, "13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did," The New York Times, 22 May 2005).

Plato is in the news. See here.

8-16-85 . . . This afternoon Judge Karen Adam of the Tucson City Court gave an informal seminar on courtroom demeanor to the prosecutors and anyone from our firm who cared to attend. Bob Bushkin and I walked up to the fifth floor to see what she had to say. The seminar was informative. Judge Adam, a former defense attorney, told us that we should be courteous and helpful to people in the courtroom, for their brief stay there may be the only contact that they have with the criminal-justice system, or the justice system generally. That struck me as a good point. Judge Adam also requested that men wear ties and that women refrain from wearing slacks. This struck me as a ridiculous and petty suggestion. Finally, Judge Adam reminded us not to argue with the judges and to ask permission to do things (such as approach the bench) while in the courtroom. Fortunately, I have good courtroom habits (mainly because Robb Holmes helped to train me), so I should have no trouble complying with this requirement. According to Judge Adam, City Court is a “training ground” for attorneys, many of whom move on to [Pima County] Superior Court to practice law. I hadn’t realized that, but I suppose that she’s right. Still, I take it all very seriously. To me, a court is a court, whether it’s City Court or the Arizona Supreme Court.

This will sound odd, but I paused today to reflect on the fact that I’m an attorney. It happened when I called a client at his office, a travel agency. Now, I’ve made dozens of such calls in my life, and one gets treated a certain way by secretaries and receptionists. I asked for the client and was told that he was out of the office. Intending to leave a message, I said “Please tell Mr. Warren to call his attorney, Keith Burgess-Jackson.” The secretary immediately changed her attitude. “OK, Mr. Burgess-Jackson; I’ve [sic; should be “I’ll”] have him return your call as soon as he walks back into the office.” When I hung up the telephone, it occurred to me that I had been treated differently simply because I’m an attorney. Isn’t that odd? It made me feel simultaneously important and angry. It made me feel important because people treat me with greater respect, but it made me angry that there should be this status distinction in society. I’m no better or worse, prima facie, than anyone else, so why should I be treated as if I’m better? That’s just one more reason why I hesitate to identify myself as an attorney to strangers. They accord me more respect than I deserve.

Also at work, I interviewed Officer Tony Cox for about the fifth time. As I said before, he reminds me of Paul Martin, so we hit it off well. Today, he asked me to guess whom he had pulled over the previous evening. I played along and guessed that it was the mayor of Tucson, Lew Murphy. “No way,” he said, whipping a computer printout from his wallet. “It’s much better than that: Cheryl Ladd.” I looked at the computer printout and, sure enough, it read “Cheryl Ladd, Beverly Hills, CA.” Cheryl is an actor and former star of the television series “Charley’s Angels.” She is blonde, good-looking, and famous, and Tony pulled her over for speeding through town in a Mercedes. He had a wide smile on his face as he told me about it. But get this: He ended up giving her a ticket! On the one hand, that’s the way it should be, but you’d think that he’d have given her a break, if only to set himself up for a later favor. In any event, I enjoyed hearing about the incident. It broke up an otherwise dull day at work.

John Colter would be famous even if he hadn't accompanied Lewis and Clark on their "tour" to the Pacific. He returned to the West after the expedition and was the first white person to see what is now Yellowstone National Park. Colter and another Lewis and Clark veteran, John Potts, had an encounter with the Blackfeet—raiders on the northwestern plains—in 1808. Potts was killed. Colter was given a chance to run for his life (having been stripped naked) and made a harrowing escape. Here are three accounts.

I started this blog almost two years ago, on 5 November 2003. I hate to think how many words I've written in it. But it's been a labor of love. I'm a writer. I need both to write and to be read. Perhaps it's egotistical, but that's the way it is. I take solace in the fact that Thomas Jefferson wrote voluminously. He kept meticulous records of everything from his plants to the weather to his letters. Oh, did he love writing letters! He used a device—called a polygraph—that made a copy of each letter he wrote, which he then indexed and stored (along with all letters he received). I have no doubt that if Jefferson were alive today, he would blog. It would be a perfect literary outlet for him, as it is for me.

As readers of this blog know, I'm a student of history. My sense of history is what made me write a journal for many years. I knew that I would die, but my thoughts, at least, would live. It was my way of gaining immortality. I share excerpts of my journal of twenty years ago with you. I keep you up to date on the Lewis and Clark expedition. Starting today, in addition, I will choose one post from this blog of a year ago to share with you. Here is today's post.

Addendum: If you'd like to read an essay (by a professional historian) about Jefferson's letter-writing, let me know and I'll send it to you by e-mail. It's in PDF format and is just over two megabytes in size.

Some people love to move. Others, such as me, love to remain in one place. My family moved often when I was a child. I began school in Metamora, Michigan, in 1962, when I was five years old. I attended kindergarten and first grade in Metamora, second grade in Lapeer, third grade in Mayville, fourth grade in Millington, and fifth grade in Mayville (again) and Vassar. In October 1967, when I was 10½ years old, my mother bought a house in Vassar, which stopped the moving and gave my brothers and me stability. In August 1979, I left the family home to go to law school at Wayne State University in Detroit. I lived in Madison Heights and Pontiac during law school. In August 1983, I moved to Tucson, Arizona, to attend graduate school in philosophy at The University of Arizona. In August 1988, I moved to College Station, Texas, to take a position as visiting assistant professor of philosophy at Texas A&M University. (I was ABD.) In August 1989, having completed my Ph.D. dissertation, I moved to Grand Prairie, Texas, to take a position as assistant professor of philosophy at The University of Texas at Arlington. In December 1992, I moved into my first house, in Fort Worth. I’ve been here ever since. I love being rooted. I love being situated. I love getting to know a place, historically, culturally, biologically, and climatically. I have lived in this house longer than I have lived anywhere else. It is my home, my haven, my castle, my little piece of the Earth. Does anyone else have a special fondness for a particular place? If so, where and why?

Here is an interesting blog.

To the Editor:

Re "Butts in the Street? The Least of Their Problems" (Letter From Flint, Aug. 10):

Look down, and you find cigarette butts strewn practically everywhere. This is another way that smoking imposes costs on society as a whole.

Keep America Beautiful should be praised for its initiative, but it's the tobacco companies that should be out front on marketing "pocket ashtrays" and finding other ways to change the litter-prone behavior of their customers.

Peter Gray
Madison, Wis., Aug. 10, 2005

Lewis and Clark are in the vicinity of the Continental Divide, which (by definition) separates the waters of the Missouri River from those of the Columbia. They must secure horses for the passage across the divide, and to get horses they must find Indians. They prefer to find the Shoshones, for these were Sacagawea's people. Sacagawea was brought along for the sole purpose of translating, although, in the end, she served the Corps of Discovery in other ways. Meriwether Lewis has gone ahead of the main party with three others (George Drouillard, John Shields, and Hugh McNeal) to find the Shoshones. William Clark and the remainder of the party are hauling the boats up the Beaverhead River. The work is difficult, dangerous, and exhausting. When Lewis reached a fork in the river (at modern-day Clark Canyon Reservoir), he left a note for Clark to remain there, since the westernmost river (today's Horse Prairie Creek) was impassable beyond that point. Meanwhile, Lewis and his small party made contact with the Shoshones. The Indians have many horses, fortunately. Lewis must induce the Indians to return with him to the forks of the Beaverhead, where they would barter for horses. The Indians, however, were reluctant to go. They thought it was a trap. They had been driven into the mountains by their enemies and were starving. To induce the Indians to come with him, Lewis resorted to strategem. First, he questioned the Indians' pride and courage. This did the trick. Later, as they neared the forks, Lewis sent Drouillard ahead to retrieve the note he had left for Clark. Lewis told the Indians (falsely) that Clark had left a note for him, informing him that the boats would arrive soon. Finally, to put the Indians at ease, Lewis and his men gave their guns to the Indians, saying that if they were attacked, the Indians could shoot the white men. Lewis was desperate. He knew that if the Indians abandoned him, it could be disastrous for the expedition. Here are the journal entries for this day. When I said starving, I meant starving. Do not read Lewis's entry unless you have a strong stomach.

Dear Keith,

How are you? I just wanted to invite you to look at my new blog, which is now in its second week. It's primarily philosophy, with some other commentary. This one seems to be working out better than the one I started and stopped last year. Anyway, I hope you can check it out. Thanks.

Andrew

Referendum, n. A law for submission of proposed legislation to a popular vote to learn the nonsensus of public opinion.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Swing Out Sister is one of my favorite musical groups, and this—the group's first album—is one of my favorite albums of all time. Listen to the samples and you'll see why.

Political Correctness, n. 1. Prolegomenon to totalitarianism. 2. The bastard offspring of liberalism and power. 3. The dogmatic insistence that when truth hurts, truth must yield.

This week's link is to an interview with R. M. Hare (1919-2002).

Dr. Burgess-Jackson,

One year ago I sent you an e-mail regarding the inspiration you gave me to get me back on my bike. I asked you if you had any training recommendations and you replied quoting Eddy Merckx, "Ride lots." Well this Saturday I will be riding in my first rally, the VineRide in Newberg, Oregon. I thought I'd ask you another question. What do you eat before and during one of your rallies? God forbid I don't want to bonk at the 20-mile mark.

Regards,
Darby Shaw

The central and justifying point of sex is not pleasure (or even the sharing of pleasure) per se, however much sexual pleasure is sought—rightly sought—as an aspect of the perfection of marital union; the point of sex, rather, is marriage itself, considered as a bodily (“one-flesh”) union of persons consummated and actualized by acts that are reproductive in type. Because in marital acts sex is not instrumentalized, such acts are free of the self-alienating and dis-integrating qualities of masturbatory and sodomitical sex.

(Robert P. George, The Clash of Orthodoxies: Law, Religion, and Morality in Crisis [Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2001], 78-9 [italics in original; endnote omitted])

Ryan Drese began the season with the Texas Rangers. He pitched well a year ago, but this year he was 4-6 with a 6.46 earned-run average. (Take my word for it: That's terrible.) To make matters worse, he fought with his catcher (Rod Barajas, a consummate professional) in the dugout during a game. Reporters describe him as "prickly." I recall that when he was acquired by Texas (from Cleveland), he was asked by a reporter whether his name is pronounced "Dreese" or "Dreze." He answered sarcastically: "Do you see a 'z' in my name?" Something is wrong with this man's head.

The Rangers eventually soured on him. He was said to be unteachable. They released him. The Washington Nationals picked him up. He pitched well in his first game, but then he reverted to his old self. As of today, he's 3-6 with a 4.69 earned-run average for the Nationals. Overall, he's 7-12 with a 5.67 earned-run average. It's only a matter of time before Washington sours on him. He is an underperforming cancer.

Imagine my surprise this morning when I saw a full-page story about Drese in The Dallas Morning News. The writer, Evan Grant, says that Drese's departure from the team changed the team's fortunes for the worse. It sent the "wrong message" to the players, namely, that the team is not committed to winning. Let me get this straight. Dumping a bad pitcher with a bad attitude sends the wrong message. I would have thought that it sent the perfect message, to wit: Change your attitude and start performing, or you're gone. The sports writers for The Dallas Morning News are among the worst I've ever read, and I've been reading newspapers my entire life. They almost always get things exactly backward.

Here is the definition of "bigotry" from the Oxford English Dictionary, 2d ed.:

The condition of a bigot; obstinate and unenlightened attachment to a particular creed, opinion, system, or party.

b. concr. A specimen or act of bigotry.

Which political morality has the most bigots: conservatism or liberalism? Support your answer.

8-15-85 . . . I had a short-lived scare in [Tucson] City Court this morning. I had worked out a plea agreement with the prosecutor in which my client would receive thirty days in jail (for a second offense D.U.I.). When we got before Judge [Nikki] Chayet, however, she expressed reservations about the plea. As she put it, “the D.U.I. offenses came too close together.” I didn’t know what to say. If the plea agreement fell through, we would have to set the matter for trial. But I did not want my client to be sentenced to sixty days in jail, either. So I tried to explain the rationale for the plea. I also pointed out to the judge that my client’s wife is expecting their first child in a couple of weeks. Fortunately, the wife was sitting in the courtroom, and she was obviously pregnant. Finally, after hemming and hawing for a couple of minutes, Judge Chayet announced that she would “accept the plea.” Afterward, my client expressed thanks for my work. Thirty days in jail is much better than sixty. For once, I feel that I made a difference in someone’s life. I also learned something about plea agreements, namely, that judges sometimes refuse to accept them.

A few weeks ago I read a 1984 United States Supreme Court case on Miranda warnings, and today I applied it to a particular fact situation by drafting a motion to suppress evidence. My client was stopped and arrested (for D.U.I.) early in the morning of 26 May 1985, on Benson Highway. He was alone in his car at the time, and two police officers conducted the investigation. The client was questioned, made to perform field-sobriety tests, arrested, taken to the police station, read his rights, and given an intoxilyzer test. My claim is that the Miranda warnings came too late, and that, as a result, the incriminating statements that my client made are suppressible. In support of this claim I drafted a motion and brief. It took me two hours to do it. Afterward, I reviewed the secretary’s typed copy and filed it with the court myself. The secretary made several mistakes, including leaving out an entire sentence, but the motion and brief had to be filed today, so I simply wrote in the changes and submitted it to the court. Looking back, I feel good about the brief. I won’t be embarrassed by the arguments that I made, and I may even prevail on it. Only time will tell.

The Tour of Germany began today. The weather did not cooperate. See here.

If the season were to end today, the American League divisional winners would be Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston. Oakland would be the wild-card team. The National League winners would be San Diego, St Louis, and Atlanta. Houston would be the wild-card team. Some teams play better at home than they do on the road. Others play better on the road than they do at home. Among those who play better at home, some play much better at home. Among those who play better on the road, some play much better on the road.

I decided to use these facts to extrapolate records. For example, Cleveland has four more home games than road games the rest of the way. Atlanta has six more home games than road games. Washington has five more. But this shouldn't help Cleveland, since the Indians play better on the road than they do at home. It does help Atlanta and Washington, however, for both play better at home than on the road. The New York Yankees have six more road games than home games the rest of the way. Philadelphia has four more road games. Neither team plays as well on the road as at home, so this will hurt both teams.

My extrapolation assumes two things: first, that each team will win the same percentage of its home games the rest of the way as it has won so far; and second, that each team will win the same percentage of its road games the rest of the way as it has won so far. Surprisingly, nothing changes. The same eight teams reach the playoffs. The Angels will win the American League West by one game over Oakland. Chicago will beat Cleveland by a whopping 18 games in the A.L. Central. Boston will beat the Yankees by seven games in the A.L. East. Oakland will win the wild card easily, by four games over the Yankees.

In the National League, San Diego will defeat Arizona by four games in the West Division. St Louis will beat Houston by 14 games. Atlanta will beat Washington by eight games. In the wild-card race, Houston will beat Washington by one or two games (it came out to 1.6). About the only surprising thing I discovered is that Washington will pass Philadelphia to finish second in the N.L. East. That's because Washington has a more favorable ratio of home to road games.

How could you not love this man? He's athletic; he loves dogs; he loves baseball (the sport of the gods); he loves ranch life; and he's loyal. I guess you could say I have a man crush on President Bush. (See the preceding post.)

To the Editor:

In "She's So Cool, So Smart, So Beautiful: Must Be a Girl Crush" (Thursday Styles, Aug. 11), you suggest that men "are not reared to show their emotions," especially not man crushes, and that men are not supposed to talk about their feelings at all.

Perhaps this is true of older men, but I have found that in my generation—college students—man crushes are more the norm than the exception.

I am rather promiscuous with my man crushes and spread these infatuations most notably among Brad Pitt, Robert Redford and Bill Clinton.

Far from feeling threatened, my girlfriend finds solace in them and would view any young man not admitting to a man crush as uncomfortable with his sexuality.

If the author or quoted experts have doubting minds, I invite them to join my roommate and me the next time Brad Pitt gives a prime-time interview. That is, if they can stand the testosterone.

Tyler Kirtley
Washington, Aug. 11, 2005

Let me get this straight. Judith Miller was jailed for refusing to testify before a grand jury. She still refuses to testify. Her employer, The New York Times, says she will not testify—but then cites this as a reason to release her. See here. Do these people realize how silly they sound? Bottom line: Journalists are not above the law. Unless and until Miller testifies, she should rot in jail.

Paul Krugman* calls Social Security "the nation's most successful government program." See here. By what standard? What if some other program would have achieved even better results? Then, by comparison, Social Security would not be a success. Oops! Krugman and his ilk will not allow an alternative program, one that, for example, allows individuals to opt out. So we'll never know whether some other program would do better. And even if Social Security has been a success, what is the cost of that success? It's coercive. Individuals have no choice but to contribute. Does Krugman even view this as a cost? Most of us do, but egalitarian liberals are result-oriented. If it takes coercion to implement their vision of the good life, so be it. Finally, notice how Krugman bashes President Bush. As I've pointed out many times in this blog, he doesn't credit the president with good intentions; he ascribes bad intentions to him. The president lies (or merely misrepresents, with no intent to deceive) and abuses his authority. Does anyone doubt that Krugman would do the same if he were in power? When he ascribes ruthlessness to the president, he does so admiringly, as if he wishes he and his fellow liberals were in a position to display that trait. Fortunately, most Americans know that President Bush is well-intentioned, however bungled his policy prescriptions. Krugman's hatred of the president prevents him from seeing anything good in the man.

* "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" (Daniel Okrent, "13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did," The New York Times, 22 May 2005).

Bob Hessen sent a link to this interview with military historian Victor Davis Hanson. While I'm on the topic of war, how many times have you heard it said that President Bush "misled" us into war? But he misled us only if we relied to our detriment on his misrepresentations. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that he misrepresented the facts about weapons of mass destruction. To have relied to one's detriment on this misrepresentation means two things: first, that one supported the war; and second, that, had the misrepresentation not been made, one would not have supported the war. I doubt that many of the people who say President Bush misled us into war satisfy these requirements. Many of them did not support the war even given the misrepresentation; and many others wouldn't have supported it even if there were ample evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. In short, most of those who accuse President Bush of misleading us were not themselves misled. So what's their beef?

Addendum: Let me make my point in a different (perhaps simpler) way. A person who was misled by President Bush would reason as follows: "I supported the war in Iraq, but only because I believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. I believed this because President Bush told me as much. But it turns out that there were no such weapons. President Bush misled me!"

Abridge, v.t. To shorten.

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for people to abridge their king, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. —Oliver Cromwell.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

8-14-85 Wednesday. (I’m composing this journal entry on 31 August 1985, two and a half weeks after the fact. I’ve been so busy with work and the beginning of school that I fell considerably behind in my journal entries. I intend to catch up on them this Labor Day weekend, however. I took good notes along the way.)

The trial that I attended five years ago [as a law clerk for Lakeshore Legal Services] made a significant impact on my life. I grew up in a working-class family, one in which there were various authority figures around me. Consequently, I came to accept and fear authority. Although I gradually became a rebel (of sorts), I never did get rid of the feeling that there is little that one can do to change the status quo. If a person bought a new stereo and it malfunctioned, I believed that there was little (if anything) that he or she could do about it. The sale had been made and the person had simply been unlucky. But five years ago I saw a case in point of someone challenging and upsetting the “system.” Margaret DeMuynck, an attorney at Lakeshore Legal Services, challenged a provision in an insurance policy on grounds that it was either unfair or inapplicable, and she won. Here was a “powerless” individual upsetting the powerful medical establishment. At precisely that point, I became aware of the law’s vast power. Even if something is written down in the form of a booklet, I realized, it may run afoul of various other legal provisions. Thanks, Margaret, for teaching me this important lesson.

I conducted two interesting interviews today. The first was with Sergeant C., a member of the Tucson Police Department and also, apparently, a former alcoholic. After we had discussed the case at hand, I put the file aside and started a discussion about drunk driving and alcoholism. Sergeant C., a soft-spoken and intelligent man, seemed more than willing to converse with me. He told me about his own problem, how difficult it is for an alcoholic to recognize his or her problem and stay away from booze, and how sad he is at the death toll on our highways—much of which is directly attributable to drinking. I explained that I come from a family of drinkers, and that alcohol has caused a lot of suffering in my family—ranging from physical assault to wounded feelings to divorce and loss of a father. He seemed to know exactly what I was talking about. But then I confessed ignorance as to how someone could be “ruled” by alcohol. “I’m so strong willed,” I said, “that I don’t quite understand why people can’t just stop drinking. I’ve given up lots of things in my life, from drinking to meat eating to swearing to wearing certain kinds of clothing. Why can’t others do the same?” Sergeant C. just smiled. “It’s hard,” he said. “It’s a physical addiction that’s hard to beat. Many people can’t control their impulses.” We went on like this for a half hour, then parted. Later, Sergeant C. delivered a list of alcoholic organizations so that I’d have someplace to refer my clients. I appreciate his help.

The second interview was quite different from the first, but nonetheless interesting. The case involved an intoxicated Yaqui Indian woman who had driven her car into a curb. The officer, M., arrived on the scene to find her trying to drive away. She was, he said, “obviously snockered.” There is nothing unusual about the case so far, but before he left Officer M. said something about “wasting money on drunks.” I asked what he meant by that, and he said that he and other police officers should have the authority to take a person’s driver’s license and put him or her in jail for a few days if drunk driving is suspected. “That would save us a lot of money,” he said, in all apparent seriousness. Now, I was surprised at this frank expression of the officer’s social views, so I pursued the subject. “Do you mean to say that we don’t need courts, or attorneys, to do justice for these people?” I asked. “Of course we don’t,” he replied. “Most of them are guilty as hell; why should we waste our time coming in here to play this ‘game’? Just let the police officers take care of drunk drivers.” As it turned out, Officer M. is about to retire from the police force. He’s been around, and he’s probably quite right in saying that most people arrested for drunk driving are (or turn out to be) guilty. But I still disagree with him that the solution is to give police officers discretionary power over citizens. We need courts and attorneys in order to see that justice is done in particular cases. I’d rather have a judge and/or jury determine my guilt or innocence than a police officer.

While walking to our cars this evening, after work, I engaged Bob Bushkin in a philosophical discussion about abortion. Bob gave me the standard liberal shibboleths about protecting a “woman’s right to control her body as she sees fit,” and I shattered his arguments one by one. Then, while we were standing in the hot sun by our cars, Bob looked me in the eye and said, “You know, you’re arrogant as hell.” I could not have been more surprised. “What?” I asked, flabbergasted. “You’re arrogant; you don’t wait for people to finish their sentences, you think you know it all, and you don’t listen to what people say,” he said. Of course, I had to defend myself from this charge, so I told Bob that I do make an effort to let people have their say. As for the charge that I “think I know it all,” it’s because I’ve thought so much about the abortion debate that I know what responses to make to certain claims. Simply put, I’ve heard all of Bob’s arguments before, and they’re worthless. We parted amicably, but I now know how Bob feels about me at a private, personal level. He clearly doesn’t like me. I wonder if [sic; should be “whether”] the same is true of other attorneys in the office. My evening was spent reflecting on my personality and on my argumentative tactics.

It's been a rough week for the Texas Rangers and their fans. Our team has lost seven consecutive games, three to the Boston Red Sox and four to the New York Yankees. The worst part is that the two-week road trip is only half over. As I was telling Jeff Percifield of Beautiful Atrocities, my revised goal for this baseball season is to keep the Yankees out of the playoffs. It can be done. Boston must retain its lead in the American League East Division and the wild-card team must come from the American League West Division. So far, so good. The only reason I ever rooted for the Yankees is that they seemed capable of beating the even-more-hated Atlanta Braves. But my hatred for the Yankees has surpassed my hatred for the Braves. Alex Rodriguez is insufferable. Gary Sheffield is a loud-mouthed jerk. George Steinbrenner is a pampered bully who tries to buy titles (and sometimes succeeds). Go Red Sox, Athletics, and Angels!

I'm trying to add a quotation to my blog title. I know it's too big and goes too far to the left. I've asked Chris Lansdown of PowerBlogs to help me. Don't be dismayed by the sloppiness. If I can't get the quotation to look good, I'll delete it.

Rose Nunez is one of my favorite bloggers. Here is her site.

Addendum: Rose brought this blog to my attention. It looks terrific! I will add it to the blogrolls of AnalPhilosopher and The Conservative Philosopher. Perhaps the author will reciprocate.

A reader sent a link to this essay by Tim Wise. I renew my claim—which I have made many times in this blog—that PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) does more harm than good to animals. Why anyone would support it is beyond me.

This week's word is "dog." Please post sayings that contain this word or a cognate. Here are two to get you started:

• The dog days of summer.

• Dog-tired.

This one should generate a lot of sayings.

To the Editor:

Re "All Cultures Are Not Equal," by David Brooks (column, Aug. 11):

Kudos to Mr. Brooks for pointing out that there are many enduring cultural differences among the peoples of this planet and intimating that not all of them are necessarily "equally wonderful."

And kudos for realizing that purely academic pursuits of cultural influences on human behavior are often stymied by "close-minded thugs, especially on university campuses, who accuse anybody who asks intelligent questions about groups and enduring traits of being racist or sexist."

Add to this the likely existence of significant, innate biological differences among individuals and, possibly, among groups as well. In addition to a study of cultural geography, one might also delve into a study of cultural biology.

All men (and women) were apparently not created equal. It is time our universities and academic centers encouraged rigorous and unbiased investigations of these topics.

Jerry Rapp
New York, Aug. 11, 2005
The writer is a professor of biological sciences at SUNY College of Optometry.

To the Editor:

When David Brooks suggests that a cadre of "close-minded thugs"—that is, advocates of multiculturalism—are wandering around college campuses seeking to silence "anybody who asks intelligent questions about groups and enduring traits," he engages in the same name-calling he derides. And it's likely to produce the same divisive results he views as most troubling in our world today.

I teach African-American, Asian-American and Latin American literatures at a liberal arts college, and I would welcome increased interest in other cultures. But American students—even those with "big brains"—do not typically come to the university equipped to ask truly "intelligent questions" about other cultures.

Our secondary schools do a notoriously poor job of educating our youth in world history, foreign languages and basic geography—all of which Mr. Brooks would surely agree are vital to even the most basic understanding of other cultures.

Absent that basic knowledge, most students are left with a kind of knee-jerk ethnocentrism that most professors do feel some need to dispel.

Lori Askeland
Yellow Springs, Ohio, Aug. 11, 2005
The writer is an associate professor of English at Wittenberg University.

Here.

Smithareen, n. A fragment, a decomponent part, a remain. The word is used variously, but in the following verses on a noted female reformer who opposed bicycle-riding by women because it "led them to the devil" it is seen at its best:

The wheels go round without a sound—
The maidens hold high revel;
In sinful mood, insanely gay,
True spinsters spin adown the way
From duty to the devil!
They laugh, they sing, and—ting-a-ling!
Their bells go all the morning;
Their lanterns bright bestar the night
Pedestrians a-warning.
With lifted hands Miss Charlotte stands,
Good-Lording and O-mying,
Her rheumatism forgotten quite,
Her fat with anger frying.
She blocks the path that leads to wrath,
Jack Satan's power defying.
The wheels go round without a sound
The lights burn red and blue and green.
What's this that's found upon the ground?
Poor Charlotte Smith's a smithareen!
John William Yope.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

A couple of weeks ago, I described my new diet. All it involves is limiting my daily caloric intake. Given my age (48), sex (very little), height (5’11”), weight (165 pounds), and activity level (moderate), I need 2,500 calories a day to remain at that weight. (Here is a calculator.) I’ve been consuming only 2,000 calories a day since 4 July, almost six weeks ago. Everything else has been held constant: my activity level (bicycling, running, playing softball, and walking my dogs); the types of food I eat; my sleeping habits; my fluid intake; and so forth. As I explained in my earlier post, I record my weight (naked) every Friday morning. Here’s what I’ve weighed since 1 July:

1 July: 177.0 pounds
8 July: 172.0 pounds
15 July: 169.5 pounds
22 July: 170.0 pounds
29 July: 168.5 pounds
5 August: 167.0 pounds
12 August: 165.5 pounds

This morning, I weighed 164.5 pounds, although I may be dehydrated from yesterday’s bike rally in Rockwall (report to come). The diet appears to be working, wouldn’t you say? I feel great; I have at least as much energy as before; and my gut has decreased in size. Here I am, with my homeboys (Norm Weatherby on the left and Joe Culotta—a Freddie Mercury lookalike—on the right) after yesterday’s rally (click to enlarge):

Today I begin stage two of the diet. I’m increasing my daily caloric intake to 2,100. That’s still less than I need, so I’ll still lose weight; but I won’t lose it as fast. My goal is to get to 160 pounds. I should be there in a month or so. When I reach my goal, I’ll increase the caloric intake again (by 100-calorie increments) until my weight stabilizes at 160. The extra 100 calories will be welcome, since I love to eat. I’ve been very strict about not going over 2,000. Now I can eat a few extra nuts, a banana, a couple of cookies, or real mayonnaise instead of light mayonnaise. As I wrote the other day, the diet has imposed a discipline on my life that was lacking. I find that I eat smaller portions (so as not to consume the bulk of my calories in one meal), that I eat more meals (I used to eat one large meal per day), and that I don’t eat in the evening (since by then I’ve consumed all or most of my calories for the day). Keeping track of the calories is easy—indeed, enjoyable. Anal retentive people like me love keeping track of things.

If you want to lose weight, do what I did. Yes, it requires willpower, but you have a will, don’t you? Use it.

8-13-85 As recently as five years ago I was still spouting libertarian dogma. At the time, of course, I fervently believed that the best society is a society in which government participates least. Now I think otherwise. I believe that there is a legitimate role for government in many areas of life, ranging from (1) punishing those who inflict harm or offense on others to (2) redistributing income and/or wealth from rich to poor to (3) teaching citizens the value of assisting others when those others are in need. In a word, I’m a socialist [I would now describe this view as egalitarian liberalism]; I believe that the state is sometimes legitimate and necessary. To argue, as libertarians do, that the state is illegitimate, and also that the status quo is just, is to argue unsoundly. If the state has helped to produce the status quo (it undoubtedly has, through both the common law and statutory regulation), then one is both for and against the state. But one cannot have it both ways. Socialists do not succumb to this problem, for they accept the legitimacy of the state.

I interviewed an interesting client (Joseph V.) this afternoon; let me relate some things that V. told me. First of all, he is charged with assaulting his sister. He is in his thirties, lives at home with his parents and his adult sister, and suffers from a manic-depressive disorder [now called bipolar disorder]. One day, apparently, V.’s sister yelled at him for driving her car and he socked her in the face. The police came, arrested him, and booked him into the jail. We were appointed to represent him on the charge. So far, there is nothing unusual about the case. What is unusual is V.’s intelligence. When I first met him, a couple of weeks ago, he was still in custody. I took him out of the courtroom, where we were present for a review hearing, and asked him what he wanted us to do for him. He told me in no uncertain terms that he did not want to go to a mental institution. “Just let me plead ‘no contest’ and do my time in jail,” he said. “At least in jail they treat you like a person. In a mental institution, they put you in with ‘crazies’ and treat you like an object.” Now, this startled me, coming from an indigent defendant. Most of our clients are considerably less articulate and intelligent than V. I took care of the matter for him and said that we’d be in touch at a later date.

Today V. came into our office for an interview. As soon as I saw him sitting in the lobby, I told him to come into my office to discuss his case. I’ve been wanting to talk to him again ever since our first meeting. I noticed while talking to V. that he does not maintain eye contact for very long. According to a psychiatrist’s report that was in our file, he suffers from a type of paranoia; he thinks that people are out to “get” him. I did my best, during the interview, to put him at ease and to assure him that we were “on his side.” This seemed to help, and after a while we were joking with each other and discussing tangential issues. V. knows exactly what it is that he suffers from, knows what medication he is taking and what it is for, and is willing to see a counsellor [sic; should be “counselor”] on a regular basis in order to deal with his problems. Finally, I explained our options and agreed to call his mother and sister to see if [sic; should be “whether”] they’d attend mediation sessions with him. His mother agreed to do so [informally], and, if she does [formally], we can get the charges dismissed. I enjoyed today’s discussion with V. It’s not every day that I get to interview such a philosophically interesting person.

This evening there was a lively and thoughtful discussion of pornography on a public television station. On one side of the issue were the liberals, who claimed that prohibitions on pornography constitute “censorship” (as if that resolves the issue!), while on the other side were two groups who want to prohibit pornography—or at least certain varieties of it. One group, the conservatives, wants to ban pornography because it constitutes a “blight” on society and may cause harm to others through imitation. The other group, the radical feminists, wants to ban pornography because it constitutes exploitation of women. The conservatives and feminists thus have the same goal—prohibition of (certain varieties of) pornography—but their reasons are different. Personally, I’m with the radical feminists. Terry Mallory, my friend, is with the liberals. Terry thinks that censorship is bad per se, and that once pornography is censored, other innocuous items are sure to follow. I disagree. Intelligent people are quite capable of distinguishing (say) magazines which depict women as sex slaves from magazines such as Playboy. The “slippery-slope” argument just doesn’t apply here. I’ll have more to say about this fascinating subject later.

Odds and ends: (1) The mail brought a large package from Mom. It contained about a dozen shirts, two cans of tuna, and a bag of chewy cookies. How nice! I can sure use the shirts, and one can never have enough food. Thanks, Mom! (2) The high temperature today was 100 degrees [Fahrenheit]. It has been a long, hot summer.

Here is a gorgeous image from today's World Cup race in Spain. The race was won by Spaniard Constantino Zaballa, who covered the 141 miles at an average speed of 26.09 miles per hour.

I’m reading J. D. Mabbott’s book The State and the Citizen: An Introduction to Political Philosophy, 2d ed. (London: Hutchinson University Library, 1967 [1st ed. 1948]). On page 90, he writes:

But other associations may also provide examples of this, and some human beings may achieve these relationships without having membership of any association in common.

Shouldn’t it be “membership in any association”? That’s how most people these days would write it. But when you think about it, Mabbott’s usage is preferable. I’m not a member in an association; I’m a member of an association. So we should speak of my membership of an association.

Addendum: You’re probably wondering why I’m reading a 57-year-old textbook (or 38-year-old, if you date it from the second edition). Hasn’t political philosophy changed a great deal since then? Not really. The issues discussed by political philosophers are perennial. What is the nature of the state? What is the basis, if any, of political authority? What is the proper relation of the individual to the state? What are the limits on state authority? What are the purposes of the state? Mabbott’s discussion of these issues is as timely today as it was when he wrote it. My second reason for reading the book is that I love mid-century British philosophy. I’m an analytic, ordinary-language philosopher. I crave precision and rigor in my philosophy, and that’s what the British of that period strove for. Perhaps I was born at the wrong time and place. I would have been at home in Oxford or Cambridge in the 1940s, 1950s, or 1960s.

See here for my post about two kinds of conservatism.

To the Editor:

One of the reasons that Cindy Sheehan's efforts have captured the public's attention is that she has focused a question in personal terms to George W. Bush. We have heard for several years now the justifications that President Bush has for the war in Iraq. These are the official justifications, expressed in political and nationalist terms.

But Cindy Sheehan poses a personal question. If this war is so important to President Bush, has he spoken with his own daughters about serving their country in this war? Has he encouraged them to enlist in the military? If not, why not?

If the president is asking other families to make the ultimate sacrifice, he needs to consider doing so in his own family. And if he is not able to encourage his daughters to become members of the armed forces, then he needs to reconsider asking other families to do so.

Nathaniel G. Butler
Boston, Aug. 12, 2005

I said that the John Roberts nomination would get ugly, and it has. I'm delighted to see The New York Times repudiate the extreme and dishonest tactics of NARAL Pro-Choice America. See here. This isn't a war; it's politics. John Roberts isn't NARAL's enemy; he's its adversary. Have we lost the ability to make these simple distinctions? Have we lost all sense of decency and civility?

Offensive, adj. Generating disagreeable emotions or sensations, as the advance of an army against its enemy.

"Were the enemy's tactics offensive?" the king asked. "I should say so!" replied the unsuccessful general. "The blackguard wouldn't come out of his works!"

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Cindy Sheehan is disgracing her family's name and dishonoring her son, who volunteered for the military and took a solemn oath to obey his commander in chief. For all we know, he was proud to be engaged in the liberation of Iraq and looking forward to telling his children and grandchildren about the humanitarian work he had done. If Cindy Sheehan respected her son as the adult that he was, she would admire his courage. Instead, she is resentful toward the president. This is classic scapegoating. Worse than that, her grief is allowing her to be used by anti-war groups, who don't give a damn about her or her son. President Bush has already met with her. He should ignore her. See here for James Taranto's take on the matter.

According to this news story (free registration required), Lance Armstrong hasn't voted in at least seven years. He did not cast a vote for president in either 2000 or 2004. Lance is reported as saying that he has no excuse for not voting, and he vows to vote from now on. My reaction? If Lance couldn't find the time to vote, then he shouldn't say anything of a critical nature about politics, policies, or politicians. Isn't that fair? Voting is a license to criticize. If you don't vote, keep your mouth shut and obey the law.

Addendum: Why do you suppose journalists checked Lance's voting record? I'll bet it's because of speculation that he might run for public office. Had he been registered as a Democrat, for example, an inference could be drawn that he's liberal.

To the Editor:

Re "The Virtues of Virtue," by David Brooks (column, Aug. 7):

Mr. Brooks rightly salutes the encouraging trends in personal and family virtue in our society, calling these developments "an improvement in social order across a range of behaviors." But the picture he draws is strangely incomplete.

Does virtue stop at the nation's boundaries? If not, why does declining violence at home not translate into less violence abroad?

Our bloated arms budget and the continuing carnage in Iraq indicate a warrior ethic that is at odds with Mr. Brooks's suggestion that we are in the midst of a moral revival.

(Rev.) Richard Deats
Nyack, N.Y., Aug. 8, 2005

I don't get it. Paul Krugman* repeats in today's op-ed column what he said in his most recent column, namely, that if there weren't a housing boom, the economy wouldn't be doing as well as it is. Duh. Does it take a Ph.D. degree in economics to make such a banal statement? I can't help but think that Krugman wants the housing bubble to burst, which will, if he is right, make the economy decline. But why would he want the economy to decline? Ah; because it would make President Bush look bad. That's the Bush-hatin' imperative: make President Bush look bad. By the way, did you notice that Krugman admitted that the Bush tax cuts have created jobs? He said it ever so grudgingly, but he said it. Maybe we're seeing a new, less partisan Paul Krugman. What do you think?

* "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" (Daniel Okrent, "13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did," The New York Times, 22 May 2005).

Basilisk, n. The cockatrice. A sort of serpent hatched from the egg of a cock. The basilisk had a bad eye, and its glance was fatal. Many infidels deny this creature's existence, but Semprello Aurator saw and handled one that had been blinded by lightning as a punishment for having fatally gazed on a lady of rank whom Jupiter loved. Juno afterward restored the reptile's sight and hid it in a cave. Nothing is so well attested by the ancients as the existence of the basilisk, but the cocks have stopped laying.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Very Small Doses has created a Cindy Sheehan Media Timeline. See here.

Here, in case you missed it, is an interesting column by David Brooks. Only an idiot thinks that all ideas are equally worthy. Why should we think that all cultures, peoples, or religions are equally worthy? Have we lost our ability to discriminate? Must we refuse to grade cultures for fear of being judgmental? Judgment is essential to rationality.

8-11-85 I now have 3380 miles on my bicycle odometer. Forty of them—1.1%—were recorded today, on the way to Colossal Cave and back. I am also more than halfway to my goal of 1235.3 miles (52.8%, to be exact). The conditions today were good, and I made better time than I had expected (13.04 gross miles per hour). The high temperature in Tucson was ninety-one degrees [Fahrenheit], while the wind was insignificant (ten miles per hour); but the relative humidity was quite high (sixty-two percent). I felt sluggish on the way to the cave, probably because I ate a late breakfast and the relative humidity was higher than normal, but the riding on the way back was among the best that I’ve ever experienced. I put the bike in tenth gear [the highest gear] at the cave and kept it there for several miles—until the steep ascent near Saguaro National Monument [East]. At various points along the way I was cruising at twenty-eight to thirty miles per hour. All in all, I had a fine day of riding.

There was one incident worthy of note today. For the first time since I’ve been riding to the cave (fourteen occasions), I did not stop to rest when I arrived. Usually, I plop myself down in the shade of a mesquite bush at the top of the hill after I’ve pedalled my way to the top. But today, determined to do something different and to improve my gross average speed, I rode directly from the entrance to the exit of the cave parking lot. I had stopped for a refill of my water bottle a few miles earlier, and I didn’t feel hungry enough to eat my lunch of “tater tots,” so I continued on my way. From now on, I’ll probably repeat this series of events. I’ll do virtually anything to improve my speed, even suffer physical deprivation.

In thinking over my weekly bike rides, I realize that they provide a link, of sorts, to the days when I was dating Moira [Richmond]. I’ve now ridden my bike for twelve consecutive weeks, since 26 May. That was nine days before I said goodbye to Moira for the last time. I remember telling Moira that bike riding, and music, helped me deal with her impending rejection of our relationship. It’s true. As I pedalled along listening to Ozzy Osbourne and other musicians on my portable cassette player, I became mentally strong. That’s just what I needed to counteract the big hole in my life caused by Moira. Even now, I use music and bike riding as an escape from the drudgery of life. The bike rides permit me to become a “machine” temporarily, and I have long been entranced by machinelike behavior. When I see Tour-de-France bike riders pumping furiously to overtake rivals, or Mary Decker Slaney surging ahead of her competitors in a 3000-meter footrace, or even a tennis player like Martina Navratilova defeating one of her opponents, I shake my head in wonder. To be really good at a given sport requires immense amounts of mental energy and dedication. It really is a case of “mind over matter.” That’s one reason why I ride: I’m interested in how well I can control my body with my mind.

The older I get, the more disenchanted I become with mass media such as radio and television. Years ago, before I thought critically about such things, I viewed television as a companion and valuable source of information. But now, I realize that it panders to the trivial and uninteresting aspects of our culture. For instance, the morning “news” shows are little more than collages of entertainment, light news, and personalities. On a given morning, for instance, the guests on NBC’s “Today Show” may be the commissioner of baseball, a sports agent, Mary Crosby (an actor), a farmer whose land has been sold at auction for repayment of debt, and the spouse of somebody incarcerated or held hostage in another country. The announcers on such shows are invariably clean-cut and good-looking (by popular standards, of course), and few issues are probed with any depth or breadth. There just isn’t time for any detailed treatment of an issue. What is my response to such media? Primarily, I ignore them. I turn the television set on in the morning in order to hear sports scores and headlines, and I listen to the radio in order to keep up with new music, but I’m getting increasingly disenchanted with the whole industry. We live in a shallow and celebrity-worshipping world, and our media, unfortunately, reflect that mentality. [I was anticipating the theses of Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York: Penguin Books, 1986 [1985]), and Neil Postman and Steve Powers, How to Watch TV News (New York: Penguin Books, 1992). I used these books several times in my Critical Thinking course.]

This is funny. (Thanks to Armin Mobasseri for the link.)

Here is Peggy Noonan's latest column. Love of President Bush on the right is almost as strong as hatred of him on the left. In fact, some of the hatred of President Bush derives from the fact that he is beloved by the Right. Leftists can't believe that a man so stupid, vile, malicious, and undeserving can be beloved. This is why they're powerless. They don't get it.

Addendum: In case you're wondering why only one occurrence of "left" or "right" is capitalized, let me explain. The word should be capitalized only when it is used as a proper noun. Thus, "The Left opposes CAFTA." But if I'm using the word to designate a point on (or a region of) the political spectrum, it should not be capitalized. Thus, "President Bush is on the right." If you were to replace "on" with "by" in the expression "on the left," the word "left" would need to be capitalized. Do you see why? Finally, the words "rightist" and "leftist" should not be capitalized. By the way, isn't it interesting how much more frequently one sees "leftist" or "leftism" than "rightist" or "rightism"? Why is that?

Totalitarianism is alive and well in Michigan. See here. I have a feeling that the people of my home state will eventually get to decide whether to allow racial preferences, and I am confident that they will reject them.

I became a card-carrying member of the Libertarian Party 25 years ago today—when I was between my first and second years of law school. I decided that of all the parties on the American political scene, this one most closely approximated my political morality. I’m not really the party-joining sort. After about a year, I let my membership in the party lapse, and I’ve never joined another. As longtime readers of this blog know, I’ve voted for presidential candidates from several parties: Democrat (three times), Republican (twice), Libertarian (once), and Green (twice). I vote for the person, not the party.

I now identify myself as a conservative, but I still have libertarian leanings. I believe in limited government. That’s not a conservative position; it’s a libertarian position. Conservatives, like liberals, want as much government as is necessary to accomplish their substantive purposes. They just have different purposes. Some of my conservative colleagues believe that individual liberty lies at the core of conservatism. I deny it. It lies at the core of libertarianism. Conservatism emphasizes community at least as much as it does the individual. It says that individuals find meaning, identity, and sustenance in community, and it insists that community imposes obligations on individuals—obligations that they have not chosen. Libertarians say that associations are nothing more than the sum of their individual members, and that all obligations are voluntarily undertaken. Conservatives reject this atomism in favor of a more holistic metaphysic.

What attracted me to libertarianism in the first place, and what now repels me, is the single-minded devotion to one political value: individual liberty. As a conservative, I recognize liberty—understood as the absence of constraint—as one value among many. I assign more value to it than a conservative should, but not as much as a libertarian does. Thus, I’m somewhere between conservatism and libertarianism. You might call me a conservative (right-wing) libertarian, or a libertarian—as opposed to a social—conservative.

In Michigan, I would sometimes hear the pitter
patter of rain outside my window while lying in
bed. This morning, I was temporarily transported
to Michigan, for there, when I awoke, was that
unmistakable sound—

drip,
drop,
pitter, patter,
drip,
drop,
pitter, patter. Was I in Michigan?

No; I couldn’t be. I remember going to bed in
Arizona. But when I got up and looked outside, I
decided that I must be in Michigan after all.
The sky was clouded up, the leaves of the trees
were damp with moisture, and the entire outdoors
seemed to be revelling in the onslaught of rain.
It is rare, in Arizona, that we have such sodden
and quiet mornings. Even now, two hours later,
the weather positively reeks of Michigan.

I may be two thousand miles from home,
physically, but whenever it rains like this in
Arizona, I am transported mentally to the place
of my birth. I like having Michigan mornings in
Arizona, and you would, too, if you were here.
It is like being in two different places at once,
and that is always great fun.

To the Editor:

Maureen Dowd, in "Why No Tea and Sympathy?" (column, Aug. 10), says, referring to Cindy Sheehan, a California woman whose son was killed in Iraq last year, "It's amazing that the White House does not have the elementary shrewdness to have Mr. Bush simply walk down the driveway and hear the woman out, or invite her in for a cup of tea."

I do not find this the least bit surprising, let alone amazing.

President Bush's handlers won't let him do what Ms. Dowd suggests for the same reasons they would not let him testify alone before the 9/11 commission and will not let him get within earshot of anyone who disagrees with him.

They realize that the president is someone who is totally driven by unquestioned belief, is disdainful of empirical truths, and most important, lacks the native intelligence to engage in unscripted give-and-take without embarrassing himself.

The most frightening aspect of this whole scenario may be that President Bush may have no idea what Ms. Sheehan is so upset about.

Kenneth Berger
Englewood, N.J., Aug. 10, 2005

Most readers of this blog will have heard by now about Texas Rangers pitcher Kenny Rogers, who brutalized a cameraman several weeks ago. Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig suspended Rogers for 20 games for the misbehavior. Rogers appealed the punishment, claiming that the procedure was irregular. An arbitrator heard his appeal and agreed, reducing the suspension to 13 games. Rogers pitched last night in Boston.

Several people in and around baseball have criticized the arbitrator on the ground that his reduction of the suspension “sends the wrong message.” The message, supposedly, is that it’s not all that bad to abuse people. This puzzles me. It’s not the arbitrator’s job to take account of messages. The arbitrator’s job is to determine whether proper procedures were followed. He ruled that they were not. The collective-bargaining agreement between the owners and players specifies a disciplinary procedure. Commissioner Selig, in his eagerness to appear to be strong (he’s widely viewed as feckless), decided to mete out punishment himself rather than allow the proper authority to do so. Rogers had every right to appeal this misuse of authority. Forget about messages. If Rogers did wrong, he should be punished for it. He shouldn’t be punished more than he deserves in order to send a message, and he shouldn’t be punished less than he deserves on the ground that no good will come of it. The rules are in place; they should be complied with. The procedures are in place; they should be followed.

What we have here, in a nutshell, is the classic debate between utilitarians and retributivists. Utilitarians say that punishment is justified when, and only when, good will come of it, and the amount of punishment should be calculated to secure the good. Desert is irrelevant. Utilitarians would punish the innocent if it produced the best overall consequences, and they would let the guilty go free if no good would come of it. Retributivists (the word means payback) say that punishment is justified when, and only when, it is deserved, and the amount of punishment should be proportional to the gravity of the offense. In this view, the consequences of punishment are irrelevant. Those who say that the arbitrator’s ruling sends the wrong message are invoking utilitarianism. But why should Kenny Rogers be used as a mere means to the ends of others? He should get what he deserves, nothing more and nothing less. All other considerations are irrelevant.

You've logged—and analyzed—every bike ride and run you've ever done.

Scarification, n. A form of penance practiced by the mediæval pious. The rite was performed, sometimes with a knife, sometimes with a hot iron, but always, says Arsenius Asceticus, acceptably if the penitent spared himself no pain nor harmless disfigurement. Scarification, with other crude penances, has now been superseded by benefaction. The founding of a library or endowment of a university is said to yield to the penitent a sharper and more lasting pain than is conferred by the knife or iron, and is therefore a surer means of grace. There are, however, two grave objections to it as a penitential method: the good that it does and the taint of justice.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Why is it "Rock 'n' roll," but "Hotter 'n Hell Hundred"?

To the Editor:

Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, is camped by the side of the road in Crawford, Tex., insisting that President Bush owes her an explanation for his war policies.

So far, the president has refused to meet with her again, sending instead two subordinates, who failed to mollify this "gold star mom."

The reason Mr. Bush will not meet with her is obvious: he cannot explain his policy in Iraq in any way that a growing number of Americans will accept. Weapons of mass destruction? None. Saddam Hussein's link to 9/11? None. Fighting terrorists over there? They weren't there until the United States lured them in.

This war is a classic example of bait and switch, and people are beginning to catch on.

Jim Calio
Marina del Rey, Calif., Aug. 9, 2005

I've never ridden a mountain bike, but it looks like fun. See here.

[I]t is unlikely that anyone in England refrains from bear-baiting or from torture in fear of the police. Even the education of children is probably now accepted as the ‘natural’ thing, and is not due nearly so much as in 1880 to the Attendance Officer. (In many areas he has been abolished.) A custom dies and a new one takes its place. One of the strongest points in favour of much of the legislation protecting animals is just this—that an enormous amount of the cruelty involved is the result of unconscious acquiescence due to simple ignorance or lack of imagination and continuing mainly through convention and fashion. When bear-baiting was abolished other entertainments took its place. The controls of the training of performing animals, of the trapping of animals for fur, of the making of foie gras, if enforced by law would cause only slight changes in what is at its best mainly caprice, the fashions of amusement or clothing or food. Animals which could be trained only by fear or trapped only with prolonged suffering would disappear from the circus and the fur market and in a year or two be forgotten altogether.

(J. D. Mabbott, The State and the Citizen: An Introduction to Political Philosophy, 2d ed. [London: Hutchinson University Library, 1967 (1st ed. 1948)], 67)

My lack of posting is due to an inability to access the Internet. Yesterday, I decided to uninstall Zone Alarm, since it was free and I didn't need it. Now, whenever I use my browser to go to an Internet site, I get a message from Zone Labs informing me that it has restricted Internet access from my machine "for [my] protection." At first, I thought my browser had been hijacked, but I called Zone Labs and learned that the error message is legitimate. A few minutes ago, I followed a technician's instructions about how to eliminate the error message. I'm not sure the problem is solved, since I've always been able to get Internet access for a few minutes after a reboot. If I have access an hour from now, I'll know the instructions did the trick. If I don't, I'll call Zone Labs tomorrow and have a technician walk me through.

The word "magnanimous" derives from the Latin words "magnus," meaning great, and "animus," meaning soul or mind. A magnanimous person is a great-souled or great-minded person, a person who is nobly generous or kind. The word "pusillanimous" derives from the Latin words "pusillus," meaning very small, and "animus," meaning soul or mind. A pusillanimous person is a small-souled or small-minded person, a person who is petty, vindictive, and cowardly. Magnanimity is a virtue; pusillanimity is a vice. Paul Krugman is pusillanimous. In column after column, week after week, year after year, he impugns other people's character, questions other people's motives, and finds fault with other people's actions and policies. Have you ever heard him say anything uplifting? Have you ever heard him praise someone, especially someone with whom he disagrees? Have you ever heard him say, "On the one hand, X, but on the other hand, Y"? He's a petty, vindictive man. If I had children, I would point to Krugman and say, "Don't be like him."

Injury, n. An offense next in degree of enormity to a slight.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Bicycle, n. 1. A two-wheeled contraption used by some people for pleasure and by others for pain. 2. A device used to frustrate, annoy, and anger those who drive but don’t ride.

I have a question for that subset of my readers (I pity you) who also read Paul Krugman’s New York Times op-ed column on a regular basis. Does Krugman care about the needy? We know that he advocates higher taxes on the wealthy and significantly greater social spending for the poor. But why? My sense—and I stand to be corrected—is that he is driven primarily, if not solely, by envy of (or resentment toward) the wealthy. Respectable egalitarians (that’s a proper subset of them) admit that taxation is coercive and that coercion is presumptively wrong. In other words, they hold that taxation is a necessary evil. It is necessary in order to satisfy the needs of others in society. I’ve never seen Krugman articulate this line of argument. What I’ve seen is column after column in which he attacks the wealthy. It’s hard not to conclude from this that he doesn’t give a damn about the poor. He’s really driven by envy of those who build fortunes in our capitalistic economy. Now don’t say that this can’t be right, otherwise Krugman himself would leave academia and build a fortune. Why should we think that Krugman could build a fortune? His knowledge, skills, and aptitudes might fit him for life as a professor (or pundit), but not as an entrepreneur. I know this firsthand, because I would be an utter failure as a businessman. I’m a thinker, not a doer; a theoretician, not a practitioner; an analyst, not a synthesizer. The difference is that I don’t rail against those who have wealth-building skills. I admire them. I respect them. What do you think? Is Krugman fueled by concern for the disadvantaged or by envy of the successful?

8-9-85 Occasionally I wonder whether I am motivated by the same considerations as others when it comes to publishing scholarly articles. The reader of this journal will realize almost immediately that I derive an incredible amount of satisfaction from researching, writing, and publishing manuscripts. Does Joel Feinberg [1926-2004] derive the same amount of satisfaction, or does he view himself as simply adding to the literature that is already extant? Does he enjoy the feeling of seeing his name in print and knowing that others are reading what he has written? If not, then perhaps I’m unusual. For me, there is no greater satisfaction in the world than publishing an article. It serves to justify the hard work that I’ve done, makes me feel like an intellectual, and provides a basis for moving on to bigger and better things, like a law professorship or a judgeship. I may very well be an egomaniac; but if I am, at least I’m a contented egomaniac.

What a strange thing happened in court today! The prosecutor moved to continue a trial date, and since I had not interviewed all of the witnesses, I stated that I had no objection to the motion. Usually, when two parties agree on something, the judge consents to it. But Judge [Bram] Goldman, to my surprise, denied the motion. Now, think about this for a moment. There are times when the prosecutor makes a motion to continue, I object, and it is granted over my objection. Today, however, I supported the prosecutor’s motion and it was still denied. Try to figure that one out. It just goes to show you how unpredictable the criminal-justice system (and Judge Goldman) can be. I learn subtle things about courtroom procedure every day.

Tonight I went to the Pima County Jail for the second time. Once again, my client was charged with prostitution. I came in through the back corridors of the jail, waited at each door for the guard to let me in, and filled out a sheet requesting an interview with the client. In exchange for my bar card and driver’s license, I received a “visitor’s pass.” After waiting for a few minutes in a small room, the client was brought in. [This is bad grammar.] No sooner did she close the door, however, than she began to cry. She explained that she had been injured during her arrest a couple of days ago. The police officer, she said, had slammed her against his squad car and ruptured one of her breast implants. As she described the event to me, she lifted her breasts repeatedly, as if to emphasize the injury. Before I could proceed to interview her, I had to calm her down. But finally we established a rapport and I elicited the required information. Afterward, I took down a couple of telephone numbers and told the guard, a female, that my client was injured and needed medical attention. The guard promised me that she would receive it. When I got home, I called the numbers and requested that the respondents attempt to bail my client out of jail. What different worlds we live in! I live in a safe, secure world, while my client lives in a world of violence, lawlessness, and fear. I’ll never get used to the difference.

Bill Ramey has a nice comment on the problem of evil. See here. One thing I love about philosophy—one of the things that attracted me to it a quarter of a century ago—is its precision. It analyzes complexes into their constituents, so that their relations to one another and to the whole can be grasped. It reconstructs arguments so that their structure and all of their assumptions and presuppositions are displayed. It identifies fallacious modes of reasoning, including those that exploit linguistic ambiguity. To me, philosophy is a formal discipline, not a substantive discipline. It is applied logic. This is why there can be philosophy of law, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of art, social and political philosophy, philosophy of medicine, philosophy of mathematics, and moral philosophy. Law, science, etc., provide the content; philosophy provides the form. The only truth a philosopher is expert in discovering is necessary truth. Contingent truth is for others, such as scientists, to discover. Think of it this way: Science cannot be done from an armchair. Philosophy must be done from an armchair.

I'm on record as supporting Mitt Romney for the presidency in 2008, but I could easily get behind Florida Governor Jeb Bush, if only to hear leftists such as Paul Krugman wail for another four years. Just think: I could continue calling Krugman "Bush-Hatin' Paul." See here for Brendan Miniter's column about a Jeb Bush candidacy.

To the Editor:

The cloning innovation achieved by a team of South Korean scientists heralded in your Aug. 5 editorial "The Duplicate Dog" should be cause for concern, not celebration.

Genetic duplicates may turn out far different than their forebears. More to the point, with millions of healthy and adoptable cats and dogs being killed each year for lack of suitable homes, it is a little frivolous to be cloning pets.

Behind the cloned pets are far grander schemes to clone animals for use in agriculture and research. Before such projects become the norm, we should all pause and think carefully about where it is all leading—for animals and for humanity.

Congress and regulatory bodies must step in and provide some ethical precepts before the brave new world of animal cloning yields a commercial industry of its own.

Wayne Pacelle
Pres. and Chief Exec., Humane Society of the United States
Washington, Aug. 8, 2005

This week's link is to Film-Philosophy.

I bought my first bicycle—a Sears Free Spirit 10-speed—24 years ago today, for the outrageous price of $125 (counting sales tax). I pedaled it 30 miles the day I bought it. The ride wore me out. The following year (1982), I pedaled the bike 740.7 miles in 10 days. A friend drove me to Bay City (Michigan). From there I followed the Lake Huron shoreline to Mackinaw City. After a day of riding around (and to the top of) Mackinac Island, I resumed my journey down the western side of the state, along the Lake Michigan shoreline. When I got to Manistee, I cut across the state to my parents' house in Vassar. Here I am in my parents' yard, just minutes after completing the journey (click to enlarge):

As you can see, my equipment was primitive by current standards. I rode shirtless, wearing either the green shorts you see in this photograph or a pair of brown cutoff shorts. I had no helmet, no jersey, no gloves, no special shoes, no clipless pedals, and no heart-rate monitor. My odometer was mechanical rather than electronic. I rode 100.5 miles on the final day of the trip, much of it (illegally) along interstate highways. I got stronger as the days went by, if you can believe it. I'm 48 years old now, so I've been a bicyclist for half my life. I love it as much now as I ever have.

Brahma, n. He who created the Hindoos, who are preserved by Vishnu and destroyed by Siva—a rather neater division of labor than is found among the deities of some other nations. The Abracadabranese, for example, are created by Sin, maintained by Theft and destroyed by Folly. The priests of Brahma, like those of the Abracadabranese, are holy and learned men who are never naughty.

O Brahma, thou rare old Divinity,
First Person of the Hindoo Trinity,
You sit there so calm and securely,
With feet folded up so demurely—
You're the First Person Singular, surely.
Polydore Smith.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

8-8-85 . . . Almost as quickly as it began, the baseball strike is over. I heard about it when I arrived home from work and turned on the television news. Good! Now Pete Rose can resume his quest for Ty Cobb’s all-time hit record and the [Detroit] Tigers can make their move on the [Toronto] Blue Jays. I understand that all of the cancelled games will be replayed, resulting in a full season. For baseball purists, like me, that is good news. Things just wouldn’t be the same without a 162-game season. A twenty-game [sic; should be “twenty-victory”] season for a pitcher, for instance, has meaning only when it comes during a full season. [This is badly put. A 20-victory season means a lot in a 162-game season. It would mean even more in a season with fewer games. What I meant to say is that, with fewer than 162 games, there might not be any 20-victory seasons.] And nobody would have even 200 hits if the season were to have ended Tuesday. Two hundred hits is the mark of an excellent hitter. [Until 2004, the Major League record for hits in a season was 257, by George Sisler in 1920. In 2004, the record was broken by Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners, who had 262 hits.]

What is a theory? See here.

To the Editor:

The Democrats' presidential candidate in 2004, John Kerry, adhered to Jim Wallis's policy prescription closely. Senator Kerry opposed tax policies that favor the rich over the poor, championed strong environmental protection and offered more credible international leadership than his opponent. Voters ignored this.

Although writers and political pundits never tire of deriding the Democratic Party for its failure in 2004, it is for some reason verboten to place the blame where it properly belongs: the American people.

Craig Welter
Washington, Aug. 4, 2005

It's nice to see Paul Krugman* writing about an economic issue. See here. Economics, after all, is his realm of expertise, and it's why The New York Times hired him to write an op-ed column. It's also nice to see a column in which Krugman doesn't bash President Bush. But why the pessimism? If I understand him correctly, Krugman is predicting that the housing market will collapse; and when it does, it will take the rest of the economy with it. Krugman's predictive record, by his own admission, is poor (or no better than anyone else's). Let's see how this prediction pans out.

Addendum: There's an alternative reading of Krugman's column. It goes like this. Krugman wants the economy to falter, so he can blame it on President Bush, whom he hates. But the damn housing market has been keeping the economy from faltering. If only the housing market would decline, the economy would falter and President Bush would pay a heavy political price for it. On this reading, Krugman is not so much making a prediction that the housing market will decline as expressing a hope that it does.

* "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" (Daniel Okrent, "13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did," The New York Times, 22 May 2005).

Hyena, n. A beast held in reverence by some oriental nations from its habit of frequenting at night the burial-places of the dead. But the medical student does that.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

8-7-85 There are two interesting features of the Arizona D.U.I. statute. Both, I think, are designed to serve the same purpose. First, the statute provides that people convicted of D.U.I. and incarcerated in jail may be released for up to twelve hours per day to go to work. This is called a “work furlough.” Second, the statute provides that people convicted of D.U.I. may receive a restricted driving privilege during the second and third months of their three-month suspensions. This permits them to go to and from work, and if a person drives while on the job, he or she may continue to do so. The purpose of these provisions is to keep people employed throughout the duration of their punishment; and rightly so. It would be irrational to prevent people from paying their bills and remaining productive, as well as taking care of their families, simply because they were being punished for a D.U.I. offense. Arizonans, conservative as they tend to be, do not wish to undermine the economy or disrupt family life by inflicting punishment on some of their fellows, and I can’t say as I blame them. It’s a wise policy.

Brian Lee, our office receptionist, came into my office this morning and began telling me about his “uncanny ability” to understand people based simply on their astrological signs. He says that he knew I was an Aries as soon as I told him about my musical tastes. I humored him for a moment, then told him that astrology is false. “But I believe it,” he said. “Sure, but people can believe almost anything,” I responded. “The question is, are the beliefs justified?” At that, Brian took on a look of disappointment. He obviously has a great interest in astrology, perhaps for its conversational value, but I wanted to disabuse him of the notion that it is true and that I’m in any way interested in it. While astrology may be fun, it has no basis in fact. I realized this as soon as I realized that Mark (my brother) and I were both born under the sign of Aries. You could not find two people with more different tastes, beliefs, and attitudes than Mark and me. To the extent that astrology puts Mark and me in the same category, it must be false.

I’m sure that I mentioned this before in these pages, but let me say it again. I think that when a person gets “sick” of a certain song, he or she has simply come to memorize it—to understand the words, the structure, the relationship among its parts and of the parts to the whole. In my case, this is almost certainly true. For me to be “sick” of a particular song is to be bored with it, to know all about it. To illustrate, there is a song on the radio right now (Godley and Creme’s “Cry”) which fascinates me. It’s so complex that I can’t seem to remember which part follows another, and for that reason I have a hard time humming it after a few hours. But slowly I’m catching on, not only in terms of remembering the song’s structure, but in realizing just which instruments make which sounds. Before long, I’ll have the song memorized, and at that moment it will no longer fascinate me. I’ll tell friends that I’m “sick” of it. So there it is: my own little theory of music comprehension. It’s probably not original, but I did think of it myself. [I’m not sick of “Cry,” so either (1) I haven’t memorized it yet or (2) my theory of musical sickness is false.]

Mark Spahn pointed out that this feature is not really about clichés but about sayings. This week's word is "head." Please list sayings that contain that word, or a cognate. Here are two to get you started:

• Head over heels (in love).

• In over my head.

Try not to look at a dictionary. Draw upon your experience as a user of the language.

For those of you who don't check The Conservative Philosopher on a regular basis, I like to give a heads up when something appears there. See here for Bill Vallicella's post "What Is Conservatism?" I have already made a comment on it.

To the Editor:

Re "Dear Old Golden Rule Days in Texas" (editorial, Aug. 3):

The Bible can and should be taught in high school English classes. It is one of the three pillars of Western literature, along with Greek mythology and Shakespeare.

I taught the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments, using the book itself plus an excellent series called "Uses of the Imagination," which included poems, songs, dramas and essays centered on the Bible's fundamental dialectical and cyclical principles. The series' supervisory editor is no less a scholar than Northrop Frye.

I made it very clear to students at the outset that the unit had nothing to do with religion per se. Indeed, I cross-referenced similar stories from other cultures. We didn't talk about evolution.

I received no flak and am convinced that studying the Bible is essential for understanding some of the ideas that not only characterize literature but also influence how we think about ourselves.

David A. Rosenberg
Norwalk, Conn., Aug. 3, 2005

Here.

Accuse, v.t. To affirm another's guilt or unworth; most commonly as a justification of ourselves for having wronged him.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

8-6-85 . . . The bad news of the day is that the major-league baseball players have gone on strike. I haven’t followed the negotiations closely, but I do know that the issue between the players and the owners is money. The players want a larger share of the television revenues, while the owners, claiming insolvency, want a ceiling placed on player salaries. From what I can tell, most members of the public are on the side of the owners; but for the life of me I cannot understand why. Without exception, I’m sure, every major-league owner is wealthier than the wealthiest player. And yet, people keep harping about those “overpaid players.” My explanation for this opinion is as follows. The typical citizen has no idea what goes on in a corporate boardroom. To “Joe Sixpack” in Pittsburgh or Detroit, corporate executives earn their money “legitimately,” by running around in three-piece suits and entering into contracts with each other. But baseball players are doing something that everyone can relate to. “Heck,” says Joe Sixpack, “I used to play baseball; it’s not that hard. In fact, I’d play it for nothing!” That’s the root of the problem. Since blue-collar Americans don’t know what corporate executives do, they assume that it must be difficult, and hence legitimate. Personally, I favor neither the owners nor the players. I just hope for a quick resolution of the dispute, and a resumption of play.

See here for a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.

To the Editor:

Re "The Price Is Right," by Pankaj Ghemawat and Ken A. Mark (Op-Ed, Aug. 3):

Wal-Mart saves its consumers $16 billion a year while costing the states in which its stores are located an estimated $2.7 billion a year in public health and welfare costs because of its refusal to offer a living wage and adequate health insurance to its workers.

By offering rock-bottom wages to its more than one million workers (and by depressing the wages offered at other competing businesses in the area), Wal-Mart leaves its workers and other consumers little choice other than to shop its aisles, stocked as they are with merchandise that is dirt cheap in large part because of those low wages.

It's a sick cycle, and one that is hard to fathom defending.

Dana Goldberg
San Francisco, Aug. 3, 2005

As I wrote the other day, Lewis and Clark have reached the three forks of the Missouri River (south of present-day Helena). They decided to follow the westernmost branch, which they named the Jefferson. Now they have come to three more forks. One, which they called Philanthropy River (now the Ruby), flowed into the Jefferson from the southeast, so that could be ruled out as the river to follow. Another, which they called Wisdom River (now the Big Hole), flowed from the west, but upon inspection by Lewis, it was discovered to flow from the north. So Lewis decided that the middle fork, which they called the Jefferson (now the Beaverhead), was the one to take. To inform Clark, who was behind with the boats, Lewis left a note on a stick in a prominent place. This was common practice for the captains. Unfortunately, a beaver chewed down the stick, which was green, and made off with the note. When Clark arrived at the confluence of the Wisdom and the Jefferson, he naturally followed the westernmost branch. For two days, he and his men struggled to get the boats up the fast-moving river. The river was covered with overhanging tree branches, so the men had to hack their way through in places. The water was cold. The rocks at the bottom cut the men's feet. Finally, one of Lewis's party, George Drouillard, found the waterbound party and informed them that they were to have taken the middle fork. This must have overjoyed the men, who immediately turned their boats around to float back (with the current). One of the boats—laden with trade goods and equipment—swung around and knocked Joseph Whitehouse down. I'll leave the rest of the account to Lewis, Clark, and the other journalists, including Whitehouse himself. See here.

Reveille, n. A signal to sleeping soldiers to dream of battlefields no more, but get up and have their blue noses counted. In the American army it is ingeniously called "rev-e-lee," and to that pronunciation our countrymen have pledged their lives, their misfortunes and their sacred dishonour.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

If you like the musical group Madness, you'll like this. I think I've heard only one song by Madness—"Our House"—but I liked it very much.

Have you been wondering why Paul Krugman has been writing about how wonderful France is and about intelligent design? It's because the economy is going well. See here. When the economy is going poorly, it's President Bush's fault. When it's going well, it's time to write about other things.

Just read this; you'll see what I mean.

Here is a way-cool photograph from a stage race taking place in Denmark. And here is one from Belgium.

There are so many mistakes and confusions in Paul Krugman's* New York Times op-ed column of this date that I don't know where to begin. First, he simply assumes, without argument, that intelligent design is unscientific. But many prominent scientists endorse it as science. They say that the scientific method, properly understood and consistently followed, leads to theism, not its rejection. Read Richard Swinburne's Is There a God? It will get you up to speed on the matter. (Take my word for it: Swinburne is much smarter than Krugman—not to mention more honest, intellectually—and he has the benefit of having spent ten years of his life studying what Krugman calls "hard" sciences. Krugman's expertise, by his own admission, is in a "soft" science.) Second, Krugman thinks that only those who "have a deep hatred for Darwinism" support the teaching of intelligent design in public schools. I don't hate Darwinism. I'm a Darwinist! Yet I believe that intelligent design should be taught in public schools in science classes. I'm also an atheist, which gives the lie to the idea that only religious fanatics (or religious people generally) support the teaching of intelligent design. What we're seeing, folks, is a frightened, defensive, and angry liberalism. It seeks control, not just over people's working lives and speech, but over their thoughts. Liberals have a special interest in indoctrinating children. Good people must resist the liberal takeover of society. Third, Krugman implies that only conservatives (or only the religious) take a cafeteria approach to science. Ha! The Left, to this day, ignores or belittles the findings of science when those findings go against the party line. Think about the science of race and human intelligence. Think about the science of sex differences. When I told Brian Leiter that one of his University of Texas colleagues, David Buss, has amply documented sex differences, he dismissed it as "speculation." Leave aside the fact that Leiter, who is trained in law and philosophy, has no scientific credentials. If it goes against leftist beliefs, it must be mere speculation.

* "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" (Daniel Okrent, "13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did," The New York Times, 22 May 2005).

Houston is home to the Johnson Space Center, which is home to the Space Shuttle Program. Let's hope the shuttle returns to Earth safely.

To the Editor:

Re "President Makes It Clear: Phrase Is 'War on Terror'" (news article, Aug. 4):

The administration seems to be expending inordinate effort on what to call its campaign to stem the tide of international terror.

What these policy makers don't grasp is that Americans don't really care what brand name is given to the struggle as long as it achieves results.

We want a credible campaign to reduce the threats to our lives and economy from ideological extremists.

Neither President Bush's rhetorical "war" nor his actual, mistargeted one has accomplished that.

If the president and his advisers had spent their time finding Osama bin Laden, the anthrax murderer or murderers and real threats to American security, we could now be referring to the post-9/11 experience as "the bad old days."

Louie Ludwig
New Orleans, Aug. 4, 2005

According to this New York Times editorial, nearly 80,000 blogs are created each day. I'm afraid I've contributed to the glut. I have six blogs, counting this one. Here are the other five:

The Conservative Philosopher
Animal Ethics
The Ethics of War
Philosophy @ UTA
KBJ Course Blog

I hope some of you find at least some of what I post interesting.

Debauchee, n. One who has so earnestly pursued pleasure that he has had the misfortune to overtake it.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Read this, which was sent to me by a colleague. What does H. L. A. Hart's sexuality have to do with either (1) the consistency of the views he expressed (by which I mean to include the validity of arguments he made) or (2) the truth of the propositions he asserted? I'm genuinely stumped. The only link I can discern is between his sexuality and why he said what he said. But that's an explanation of the sort a social scientist might proffer. It's not something that would interest a philosopher as such. Why I say something and what I say are two quite different things. Nor does it follow from the fact that something has a disreputable origin that it is disreputable. Nagel is right. Romano is wrong. Any philosophy that would take an interest in a person's sexual desires or proclivities, or any conception of philosophy that would bring such matters within its realm, is unworthy of being taken seriously.

See here for Ed Feser's latest post at The Conservative Philosopher. As I'm fond of saying, liberals are totalitarians manqué, i.e., unfulfilled, incomplete, or frustrated totalitarians. The most important task for a conservative is to thwart liberal aims—not for the sake of thwarting them, but in order to preserve liberty, dignity, and responsibility, which liberals are eager to eradicate in pursuit of their egalitarian ends. If we conservatives don't thwart liberals, who will?

8-4-85 Sunday. My first trial (an indecent-exposure case) is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, but for some reason I’m not nervous. Perhaps I will be by tomorrow. Curiously, I have always used a courtroom scenario to bolster my confidence in nonlegal matters. For instance, just before entering a classroom to teach my introductory philosophy courses, I would say to myself, “Come on, Keith, you can’t be nervous. What if you were entering a courtroom to argue an important brief or conduct a trial. That would be grounds for nervousness; but a simple philosophy lecture isn’t.” Somehow, this sort of “inner pep talk” worked for me. In comparison to the pressure imposed by a legal matter, academic teaching seemed to be carefree and easy. But now the tables are turned; I’m in the other scenario, the scary one. How can I bolster my confidence now? Perhaps I’ll use the reverse tactic: I’ll tell myself that academic teaching is really the nerve-wracking occupation and that conducting a trial is easy in comparison. It may not be rational, but if it works, I’ll use it.

There was big news in baseball today. First, Rod Carew of the California Angels stroked his 3000th hit; second, Tom Seaver of the Chicago White Sox won his 300th game. Both events are of some import in the history of baseball, for only a handful of players in the game’s history have reached these milestones. Of the two events, Carew’s accomplishment strikes me as the more significant. I remember when Carew played for the Minnesota Twins and won seven batting titles. What a masterful and graceful hitter he is! Carew stands there at the plate in a crouch, with an exaggerated open stance, the bat poised lightly behind his head, and strokes the ball wherever it is pitched. His 3000th hit, fittingly, came on a line drive to left field. [It was fitting because Carew hit the opposite way for much of his career. He was a left-handed batter.] As for Seaver, I once despised him, mainly because he played for the New York Mets and seemed to get too much attention from the media. But over the years I have come to admire and respect him. He’s a craftsman at his art, and I understand that he puts more time into the study of pitching than any other contemporary player. Congratulations, guys! I intend to tell my grandchildren about you and your achievements. [Then you’d better get going on the children!]

For the eleventh consecutive week I rode my bike at least forty miles [on a single day]. Once again I rode to Colossal Cave and back. I should explain why I ride the same route every week. For one thing, it’s a pleasant and beautiful route. During the first stretch, I’m riding eastward toward the Rincon Mountains, and then the road veers sharply toward the south. This takes me into a long flat valley, and eventually I swing around to the east again and make my way over hills and valleys to the cave. As I pedal along this stretch, I have the Rincon Mountains to my left and an extension of them in front of me. Second, I like regularity. When I was alternating my weekly routes, I had to spend time deciding where I would ride on a given day. The ride to Sabino Canyon seemed to tire me out too quickly, while the ride to Mission San Xavier involves too much riding on the road, with motor vehicles. So I found a good route and have stayed with it. Whatever I lose in variation I more than make up for in familiarity and simplicity. There’s a lot to be said for consistency and regularity.

The temperature when I left my apartment this afternoon, at 1:08 P.M., was ninety-six degrees [Fahrenheit]. It had dropped to ninety-three degrees by the time I returned, three hours and thirty-six minutes later. The official high temperature in Tucson today (at the airport) was one hundred degrees. Probably because the sun was out today, my gross average speed fell off to 11.11 [miles per hour], but I decided early on in my ride to attempt no records this week. So I didn’t pressure myself to get over hills quickly or shorten my stops. I am now 49.6% of the way to my 1982 mileage record—roughly halfway. I must ride an average of 29.6 miles per week for the remainder of the year (twenty-one weeks) in order to break the record, a task that I should have no trouble managing. For me, biking is an escape from the drudgery of work and indoor living.

A few weeks ago the price of a [Sun Tran] bus ride increased from fifty to sixty cents, and today the price of the Arizona Republic, the newspaper that I read every day, increased from twenty-five to thirty-five cents per day (and from seventy-five cents to a dollar on Sundays). Oh well, what’s a few more cents from my pocket every day? Looked at differently, however, the price increase for the newspaper amounts to $44.30 per year, a sum that I could use for many other purposes, including buying books and cassette tapes. As with so many other things in life, the prices of bus rides and newspapers must rise. Ten years from now, I could be paying fifty cents per day for the local newspaper and a dollar per day for a one-way bus ticket. [I have no idea how much it costs to ride a city bus these days. The cover price of my daily newspaper, The Dallas Morning News, is 50¢.]

To the Editor:

Your news article describes "a sharp debate between scientists and religious conservatives" over whether intelligent design should be taught in our schools.

In fact, a growing number of scientists are declaring their support for intelligent design theory. As there are scientists on both sides of this debate, it is certainly appropriate that our children be exposed to both competing viewpoints.

Peter McFadden
Cold Spring, N.Y., Aug. 3, 2005

To the Editor:

Freedom of ideas is one of the pillars on which the greatness of America is founded and which allowed us to flourish as a world leader in science and medicine. The teaching of critical thinking skills to our children is vital to maintaining this freedom and leadership position.

If we allow religious conservatives to confuse the rigor of scientific method with religion, our prospects and our nation's position in the world will be diminished.

Georgianne Arnold
Rochester, Aug. 3, 2005

Here's what's wrong with the Democrat party. It thinks it loses presidential elections because it doesn't frame issues well (or as well as Republicans frame them). See here. Think about this. Democrats believe Americans are stupid. "If we can just use the right combinations of words," Democrats say to themselves, "we'll get our message across; and if we get our message across, we'll win." But this presupposes that people are unable to grasp their meaning. Americans aren't stupid. They see quite clearly that Democrats disregard or discount personal responsibility and desert in their policies; that they scorn religion; that they're beholden to radical groups such as NARAL, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and People for the American Way—groups that won't compromise even on something as abhorrent as partial-birth abortion; that they're reluctant to promote or defend American values around the world; that they look to Europe for guidance on such things as capital punishment (the French and Belgians eat horses; should we?); that they think money grows on trees; that they're intolerant (while professing tolerance); that they think corporations are bad, when in fact they are the engines of prosperity; that they're unwilling to control immigration; that they want to populate the federal bench with result-oriented judges; and so forth. It's not the way Democrats frame their values. It's their values! I sincerely hope they keep thinking it's merely infelicitous presentation, because that will ensure that they never change—or even give much thought to—their values. Democrats are aliens in our midst.

You straighten out your currency at the end of each day, eliminating dog ears, smoothing creases, and putting the bills in order by denomination.

Looking-glass, n. A vitreous plane upon which to display a fleeting show for man's disillusion given.

The King of Manchuria had a magic looking-glass, whereon whoso looked saw, not his own image, but only that of the king. A certain courtier who had long enjoyed the king's favor and was thereby enriched beyond any other subject of the realm, said to the king: "Give me, I pray, thy wonderful mirror, so that when absent out of thine august presence I may yet do homage before thy visible shadow, prostrating myself night and morning in the glory of thy benign countenance, as which nothing has so divine splendor, O Noonday Sun of the Universe!"

Pleased with the speech, the king commanded that the mirror be conveyed to the courtier's palace; but after, having gone thither without apprisal, he found it in an apartment where was naught but idle lumber. And the mirror was dimmed with dust and overlaced with cobwebs. This so angered him that he fisted it hard, shattering the glass, and was sorely hurt. Enraged all the more by this mischance, he commanded that the ungrateful courtier be thrown into prison, and that the glass be repaired and taken back to his own palace; and this was done. But when the king looked again on the mirror he saw not his image as before, but only the figure of a crowned ass, having a bloody bandage on one of its hinder hooves—as the artificers and all who had looked upon it had before discerned but feared to report. Taught wisdom and charity, the king restored his courtier to liberty, had the mirror set into the back of the throne and reigned many years with justice and humility; and one day when he fell asleep in death while on the throne, the whole court saw in the mirror the luminous figure of an angel, which remains to this day.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

This, my friends, is one of the best albums ever recorded. "All This Time" indeed.

Addendum: I have all of the albums by The Police and enjoy them very much, but they're childish by comparison to the richly textured, soul-felt music of Sting, Andy Summers, and Stewart Copeland. This may have been a case where the whole was less than the sum of its parts. In other bands, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. If I'm right, then it's a good thing The Police disbanded.

Addendum 2: Let's try something. Please tell me (in the comments section) which bands, in your opinion, are (1) greater than the sum of their parts and (2) less than the sum of their parts.

Here is a plug for a CD by Freedom Folks.

This is sad. Controlling the size of your body comes down to one thing: discipline. Eat less, exercise more. This woman sounds as though she has no clue. She has tried every gimmick under the sun, including surgery. How does the food get into her body? Does it leap off the plate? Does she lack control of her hands? Has she no willpower? I don't get it.

8-3-85 Where has my summer gone? Throughout the school year, I keep telling myself that as soon as summer arrives, I’ll be a more complete person. I’ll visit scenic and historic locations in and around Tucson, get back into the “dating scene,” and in general have a lot of fun. But that has been far from the case this summer. By the time I get out of work each evening, I’m already tired and ready to relax with the newspaper and dinner. Letters and journal entries take up what little time I have during the week. On weekends, I make purchases and/or catch up on my journal writing, relax, and ride my bike. Even if I could afford it, I wouldn’t have enough time to go to, say, Old Tucson [a movie set and tourist attraction west of Tucson]. This is ridiculous! In a few weeks I’ll be even busier than I am now, so my goal of being a more complete person has not been and will not be attained. My priorities simply preclude me from doing everything that I would like. [Actually, it’s because one can’t do everything that one sets priorities.]

As I say, my weekends are occupied, at least in part, by making purchases. After paying my August rent this afternoon, I called Terry Mallory and arranged to have him ride with me to El Con Mall. We didn’t purchase anything, but we did have a good time browsing through the bookstore. I showed Terry the “history” section and laughed at how biased it is toward military history. The “philosophy” section, I pointed out, is similarly slanted—toward religion and eastern philosophy. The books there range from zen buddhism to Christianity to nihilist works in philosophy (such as Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra). But what should one expect from a bookstore that is oriented toward popular tastes? Afterward, Terry and I went to a used-book/used-record store to look at albums [i.e., long-playing records] and tapes. I purchased two cassette tapes, Little Robbers [1983], by The Motels, and Discipline [1981], by King Crimson. Both are superb, and I purchased them on sale for a total of $6.50. Terry agreed that I had made two good selections. [Coming from someone who liked Bob Dylan, The Grateful Dead, and The Rolling Stones, this should have given me pause.]

Earlier in the day, before picking Terry up at his apartment (which he shares with his mother), I walked across Speedway Boulevard to the Gemco department store and purchased two large frames (for my law diploma and a picture of Apache Lake). I also purchased a large, framed picture of grazing buffalo [i.e., bison]. [This picture is on the wall in front of me as I type this, but it’s covered with post-it notes!] Now my office won’t be so barren. Moreover, visitors will know immediately what my interests are. They’ll see a bar certificate and a law-school diploma on the wall behind me, a picture of buffalo on the wall across from me, a line drawing of a cactus and palm tree (courtesy of Moira Richmond) on the side, and two pictures from my 1984 bike trip in other locations. No modern art for this guy! I’m into nature and animals, and beautiful landscapes, but not cities, automobiles, and abstract paintings. The admixture of natural scenes and urban rigidity makes for an interesting combination.

I pay five dollars a month to Web-Stat.com, which counts the visitors to my blog. Until a moment ago, I hadn't poked around on the site. Here is a map showing the location of my readers. I'm corrupting them far and wide!

Addendum: I love the map! By poking around, I learned that I can either display it on my blog or link to it. I tried the display, but it was too big. So I added a link in the sidebar. Look for "Location of Readers." Click the link at any time to see the location of the most recent 100 readers. By the way, I thought about labeling it "Location of Visitors," but since I have only prose (and the occasional image) on my blog, "readers" is better.

Judge Richard A. Posner criticizes Paul Krugman's* latest column here. Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary S. Becker takes Bush-Hatin' Paul to task here.

* "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" (Daniel Okrent, "13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did," The New York Times, 22 May 2005).

Each year, there is a bicycle race to the top of Mount Evans in Colorado. The peak is at 14,264 feet above sea level. See here for the story of this year's race. Be sure to look at the pictures. I climbed Mount Evans with several friends in 1995. It was the final day of a week in the mountains. We had to get to the airport by early in the afternoon, so we drove halfway up the mountain and rode the final 14 miles. It was mid-summer, but snow was falling at the top. There was a mountain goat near the roadway on the final switchback. Once everyone got to the top, we packed our bikes in the van that had been driven up by one of our number and headed down, eager to get out of the frigid weather. I'll never forget the experience. From the top, you can turn around and look down on everything. It says on the website that the road we used is the highest paved road in North America. Neat! Here I am at the top with my late friend Don Tennant (click to enlarge):

Don was 61 years old at the time. I was 38. Don was an amazing physical specimen—and one of the funniest people I've ever known. I miss him very much.

I just read James R. Otteson’s essay “Limits on Our Obligation to Give,” Public Affairs Quarterly 14 (July 2000): 183-203. Otteson begins with a startling claim:

Peter Singer’s famine[-]relief argument has been enormously influential since its first publication in 1972. His argument is widely anthologized, frequently assigned in undergraduate ethics classes, and has been the subject of a number of philosophical treatments. The argument’s influence has, moreover, been warranted: it is a simple and powerful statement of an ethical position that many find intuitively attractive, if hard to adopt. Indeed, some opposition to the Singerian position focuses not on whatever flaws it might have as on the impracticality of the position it encourages. (Page 183; endnotes omitted.)

The argument in question—first presented in Singer’s essay “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”—has as its conclusion that each of us ought to be working full time to prevent and alleviate the effects of famine. Just as it would be wrong to allow a child to drown when one could easily prevent it—even if the effort comes at some cost or risk to the rescuer—it is wrong to spend money on unnecessary goods or activities when one could use the money to prevent starvation, disease, and death. Here is Singer’s principle: “[I]f it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it.” Singer thinks that when you conjoin this principle with the badness of suffering and the facts of famine, it follows that you ought to work full time to prevent and alleviate the effects of famine. If you don’t, you are culpable.

Unfortunately for his readers, Otteson never explains what he means by “influence.” Is he saying that Singer’s argument has persuaded people to forgo luxuries and devote the resources instead to famine relief? Or is he saying that Singer’s argument has generated discussion? These are different! There is no question that Singer’s argument has generated discussion. As Otteson says, the essay in which Singer makes the argument has been widely reprinted (i.e., anthologized). It even appears on the Internet. Nor is there any doubt that philosophy professors around the world teach Singer’s essay in their courses, thus exposing thousands of impressionable young minds to it on an annual basis. I’ve been doing so for more than 20 years, and I’m sure I’ll be doing so for at least another 20. Singer’s essay has generated a lot of discussion, both favorable and unfavorable. There is ample evidence for this.

But is there any evidence that Singer’s argument has made a difference in the way people behave? I’ve never seen any. I’ve never heard a single student say to me—before, during, or after class, in person or by e-mail—that Singer’s argument made a difference in his or her life. (In case you’re wondering, I have had this sort of comment about many other essays I teach, including Singer’s essays on animals.) Singer’s famine-relief argument might make people feel guilty, but unless that guilt prompts a person to act, it’s a net loss, for guilt is an unpleasant emotion. Please don’t say that making people feel guilty is Singer’s goal. He emphatically denies it, as do his defenders. His goal is not to move people emotionally but to persuade them rationally—to show them that they are committed by their own principles to changing their lives. He would not view his essay as a success if all it did was make people feel guilty, with no corresponding change in behavior.

I wish a reputable social scientist would conduct a study of the influence (if any) of Singer’s essay on people’s giving behavior. Until such a study is conducted, it is irresponsible for philosophers to say or imply that his essay has been “influential,” if that means having made a difference in people’s behavior with respect to famine victims. I have a question for my philosophical colleagues around the world: Have you, personally, changed your behavior as a result of Singer’s argument? If so, to what extent? And once you’ve answered that question, answer this one: Have you detected any sign that any of your students have changed their behavior?

Addendum: It occurs to me—now that I’ve gotten up for tea—that someone might misinterpret my remarks. I’m not implying that people should not be persuaded by Singer’s argument. I’m saying that I haven’t seen any credible evidence that many people have been persuaded. In case you’re wondering, I’m not persuaded by Singer’s argument. I’m not persuaded by it because I reject his principle. Someone else might accept it. (Different people accept different principles.) Each of us must decide how to live. If Bill Gates reads Singer’s essay and concludes thereby that he has a moral obligation to give all or most of his wealth to famine victims, it would not concern me. He has a right to do as he pleases with his wealth. I would view his act as supererogatory (above and beyond the call of duty), whereas he, by hypothesis, would view it as obligatory. In fact, I use this example in my courses. Students say that if many people are persuaded by Singer’s argument, the economy will stagnate and whole industries (such as fashion, entertainment, recreation, tourism, and cosmetics) will die. But nobody has a right to continued employment in any industry, and if the economy shrinks or stagnates as a result of millions of voluntary decisions by individuals, so be it. To repeat: I have no stake in whether Singer’s argument is persuasive to anybody. I would be just as happy if many people were persuaded by it as I would be if nobody were persuaded by it.

Why did God allow the tsunami when God could easily have prevented it? See here.

See here for an example of the fallacious appeal to authority.

To the Editor:

Re "President Sends Bolton to U.N.; Bypasses Senate" (front page, Aug. 2):

John R. Bolton's recess appointment as ambassador to the United Nations is just another example in a series of acts that demonstrate the Bush administration's arrogance and willfulness.

Both Republicans and Democrats voiced grave concerns about Mr. Bolton's nomination, but President Bush saw little value in heeding their counsel. Moreover, his administration did not provide a complete picture of Mr. Bolton by refusing to release documents pertaining to his tenure at the State Department.

In short, President Bush failed to achieve a Senate vote for Mr. Bolton and had to resort to a cheap and embarrassing maneuver to install him.

I suspect that the United Nations will realize this and show Mr. Bolton the same respect he intends to show it.

Elliot M. Repko
New York, Aug. 2, 2005

Recruit, n. A person distinguishable from a civilian by his uniform and from a soldier by his gait.

Fresh from the farm or factory or street,
His marching, in pursuit or in retreat,
Were an impressive martial spectacle
Except for two impediments—his feet.
Thompson Johnson.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Here is a new blog devoted to the election of Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney as president in 2008. I've been aboard the Romney bandwagon since mid-May. Note that Romney has both an M.B.A. degree (from Harvard Business School) and a J.D. degree (from Harvard Law School). I hope our collective experience with Bill Clinton didn't sour my fellow Americans on lawyers as presidents. Bill Clinton was bad in spite of his being a lawyer, not because he's a lawyer.

I have no idea what this is, what it means, or why I'm linking to it. See here for other images.

Paul Krugman won't like this.

Philosophy, n. Reflection on reflection on reflection, otherwise known as navel-gazing. Cf. omphalopsychite [Gr. soul], one of a sect of quietists who practised gazing at the navel as a means of inducing hypnotic reverie (Oxford English Dictionary, 2d ed.).

To the Editor:

As a former high-level youth athlete and the author of two parenting books about achievement, I agree with much of what David Brooks wrote. I have two concerns, though.

First, this professionalization of youth sports is beginning earlier and earlier, before children have developed the emotional tools to respond positively to the intense competition.

Second, how children react to such competitiveness lies primarily in the perspective of the parents.

Those who see sports as an opportunity to learn essential life skills, gain an appreciation for commitment and hard work, develop lifelong health habits and just plain have fun are giving their children a wonderful gift that will benefit them throughout their lives.

But those parents (and there are many) who see early involvement in youth sports as the first step up a ladder to fame and fortune are dooming their children to a crushing burden of expectations, unrealized dreams and, ultimately, unhappiness.

Jim Taylor
San Francisco, Aug. 1, 2005

John Bolton has been vilified by the Left. Now the Left has the gall to call him "damaged goods." Hilarious! I have some advice for the Left: Win a presidential election. Then you can get people of your choosing in positions of power. Unfortunately for the Left, its likelihood of regaining power is inversely proportional to its propensity to destroy the character of its adversaries. It's funny, when you think about it. The Left acts irresponsibly, which turns people off, which increases the Left's impotence, which makes the Left even more angry and irresponsible, which turns people off even more. Unless and until the Left grows up, it will be impotent.

This week's link is to the website of Josh Dever.

Proboscis, n. The rudimentary organ of an elephant which serves him in place of the knife-and-fork that Evolution has as yet denied him. For purposes of humor it is popularly called a trunk.

Asked how he knew that an elephant was going on a journey, the illustrious Jo. Miller cast a reproachful look upon his tormentor, and answered, absently: "When it is ajar," and threw himself from a high promontory into the sea. Thus perished in his pride the most famous humorist of antiquity, leaving to mankind a heritage of woe! No successor worthy of the title has appeared, though Mr. Edward Bok, of The Ladies' Home Journal, is much respected for the purity and sweetness of his personal character.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Journalists are obsessed with truth-telling. This obsession causes them to make mistakes. For example, some journalists are saying (or implying) that Rafael Palmeiro lied when he said, under oath, that he had never used steroids. How do we know he lied? Because he tested positive for steroids. But what did he mean by what he said? He said he never used steroids. Surely, he didn’t mean that no steroids had gotten into his body. He meant that he never knowingly ingested steroids—that, as far as he knew, he had never ingested steroids. But this is compatible with his having ingested steroids. There are many ways steroids could have gotten into his body without his knowing it, just as there are many ways drugs could have gotten into your luggage the last time you traveled with it. (Were you watching it all the time?)

Here we have the main problem with drug policies. All that the tests show is that certain substances are present in the bloodstream. They don’t show how the substances got there or what the state of mind of the person in question was when they were ingested. There are four mental states with which an action can be performed:

1. Purposely. The athlete ingested the substance as part of a plan, e.g., to bulk up, and thereby improve performance. In other words, the athlete took the drug on purpose.

2. Knowingly. The athlete was aware that the substance being ingested was banned, but ingested it anyway, although not necessarily in order to improve performance.

3. Recklessly. The athlete wasn’t sure that the substance being ingested was banned, but was aware of a substantial probability that it was and ingested it anyway.

4. Negligently. The athlete was not aware of a substantial probability that the substance being ingested was banned, but should have been. That is, a reasonable person would have been.

These are the four culpable mental states specified by the Model Penal Code. We might also adopt a strict-liability regime in which any positive test, whatever the circumstances, results in discipline. But that seems unfair, for I could be disciplined even if I took all reasonable precautions against ingesting banned substances. This would be the case if someone slipped a drug into my food or drink.

Which standard of culpability should be adopted? Purpose is harder to prove than knowledge; knowledge is harder to prove than recklessness; recklessness is harder to prove than negligence; and negligence is harder to prove than the mere presence in the body of banned substances. This militates in favor of a negligence or a strict-liability standard. But these standards are arguably unfair. The most culpable athletes are those who purposely or knowingly ingest banned substances. What’s more important: ease of proof or fairness? If we require purposiveness, we’re maximally fair to the athletes, but we make proof all but impossible. If we require only negligence (or no culpable mental state at all), we make proof easier, but at the cost of unfairness to the athlete. Perhaps we should compromise these values and adopt a recklessness standard. To escape punishment under that standard, an athlete would have to show that he or she had no reason to believe that there was a substantial probability that the substance being ingested was banned. My aim isn’t to argue for a standard so much as to show that each standard has both costs and benefits. No standard gives us everything we want.

What Rafael Palmeiro is saying, as I understand him, is that he did not purposely or knowingly ingest banned substances. He seems to be admitting, however, that he was negligent, and perhaps even reckless. Is this compatible with what he said under oath? That depends on what he meant when he said that he had never used steroids. If he meant that he had never knowingly used steroids, then it’s compatible. If he meant that he had never ingested steroids, even unknowingly, then it’s not compatible. But how could he know that? Charity requires that we interpret him as saying the former.

If Democrats put half as much effort into persuading Americans to vote for them as they do in complaining about President Bush, they'd have power to wield. One of the perquisites of powerlessness is not having to bear the burden of governing. One can carp, harp, whine, kibitz, complain, and bitch. Americans are seeing the true face of the Democrat party. It has no articulable vision, no moral compass, no organizing principle, and no philosophy of governance. It is a ragtag collection of insatiable interest groups, each clamoring for more money, more power over others, and greater status. President Bush is simply the focal point of their frustration, indignation, and aggression.

8-1-85 I may be unusual in this respect, but I’ve always believed that there is no point in doing a job if it is not done correctly, or if one does not employ one’s best efforts in doing it. But this attitude has had repercussions on other aspects of my life. By trying to do well at law, history, and then philosophy, my social life has suffered. I’ve deluded myself into believing that one day, I’d “catch up” on lost opportunities; but now I realize that I won’t. I’m twenty-eight years old and I have done little travelling, even less dating, and almost no recreating. As I tell my friend Terry Mallory on occasion, neither of us is getting any younger. But what’s to be done about it? I want to do well at what I’m doing (pursuing a Ph.D. degree and eventually teaching law and/or philosophy at a university), but that seems to be inconsistent with all of the other things that I’d like to do. Sometimes tough choices have to be made, and this is one of them. At least I realize that my previous beliefs were delusions. I’ll never regain the years that I lost in study; the most that I can hope for is to spend the next few years in a wider variety of activities.

The Sean D. “fiasco” has now been cleared up. Sean is the client who pleaded “no contest” to a second-offense D.U.I. when he should have been pleading to a first-offense D.U.I. I filed a motion to set aside the sentence, met personally with Judge Hofman to set a hearing date, and then argued that Sean should be permitted to change his plea. Everything went smoothly in court today. Sean, of course, was happy, for it meant that he would have to spend only one day in jail instead of sixty. The judge was understanding, while the prosecutor, M. J., took the change-of-plea in stride. As we walked away from the bench, I apologized to Judge Hofman for having to plead twice on the same case. “No problem,” he said. “I’m always happy to see justice done.” So am I. Justice was done today, and now I can sleep more easily for it.

Our firm has had only three trials in the four and a half weeks that I’ve worked there. Today, Robb Holmes received a favorable verdict (“not guilty”) in a two-day D.U.I. jury trial. I popped into the courtroom at various points during the trial, and almost every attorney from our office was present when the jury returned from its deliberations. The foreperson delivered the verdict to the judge, the judge read it, and our client, a man whom I had interviewed a couple of weeks ago, smiled with joy. Afterward, two of the six jurors shook our client’s hand—an unusual gesture, according to Bob Bushkin. Several of us stood around in the hallway congratulating Robb and the client and telling “war stories” about other trials. It was a grand occasion for the firm, for it is difficult to win a D.U.I. trial under the present statute. Robb did a good job of explaining the law and the issues to the jury, and I learned a good deal about courtroom demeanor just by watching him. I particularly liked Robb’s soft-spoken manner. That is bound to appeal to jurors.

I became a doctor (of philosophy) 16 years ago today, following the defense of my doctoral dissertation. Like many philosophers, I took a one-year visiting position while I completed my dissertation. My position was at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. I flew from College Station to Tucson to take my oral examination. Immediately after it was over, my committee members walked outside with me for photographs (made by departmental secretary Lois Day). Here we are (click to enlarge):

From the left, the people are Joel Feinberg (1926-2004), Ron Milo, yours truly (beaming, naturally), and Allen Buchanan. This is one of the happiest—and proudest—days of my life.

William Clark was born on this date in 1770, which means he celebrated his 35th birthday on this date two centuries ago. The Corps of Discovery has reached the three forks of the Missouri River, south of present-day Helena. The forks were of the same size, so Lewis and Clark thought it best to give them new names. To have called one of them the Missouri would have been unjust to it, i.e., to have given it a prominence it didn't deserve. The rivers were named the Gallatin (after Secretary of the Treasury Albert), the Madison (after Secretary of State James), and the Jefferson (after President Thomas). They retain these names today. Lewis and Clark decided that the westernmost of these three rivers, the Jefferson, was the one that flowed out of the Continental Divide; so that's the one they followed. Today (so to speak), Lewis and a small party have gone ahead overland to search for Shoshones—and horses. It is brutally hot during the day and bitter cold at night. Game is scarce. Clark remained with the main party on the river, the current of which has grown increasingly strong. The men are getting tired from the constant exertion of towing, poling, and rowing the boats. See here for the journal entries of this date. By the way, the following day, Clark noted that his party had passed a creek, which he did not name. Lewis wrote "Birth Creek" in Clark's journal, to honor his friend. It is now Whitetail Creek.

Let me get this straight. President Clinton made 140 recess appointments. President Bush has made 106. Democrats are saying that President Bush's recess appointment of John R. Bolton to be United States Ambassador to the United Nations is "an abuse of power." See here. Was it an abuse of power when President Clinton did it? I don't recall hearing complaints from Democrats back then. The double standard is palpable. Do Democrats even notice their duplicity, or has it become second nature to them? If they notice, then they must not care. By the way, note the bias that runs through the New York Times story. You can see it in the very first sentence, where Bolton is described as "his" (i.e., President Bush's) ambassador to the United Nations. No. He's the United States Ambassador to the United Nations.

Can a dog commit suicide? I ask this question because of this article that appeared in yesterday's Dallas Morning News. (You may have to create an account, but it's free and takes only a few seconds.) I say that a dog cannot commit suicide, and hence that no dog has in fact committed suicide (or ever will). Here is my reasoning:

1. Suicide is the intentional destruction of one's life. (This is a conceptual claim.)

2. One can intend to destroy one's life only if one has a concept of death. (This is a conceptual claim.)

3. Dogs lack a concept of death. (This is a factual claim.)

Therefore,

4. Dogs cannot intend to destroy their lives (from 2 and 3).

Therefore,

5. Dogs cannot commit suicide (from 1 and 4).

What do you think? Everyone has three options. First, accept the conclusion (as I do). Second, reject one or both of the inferences. Third, reject one or more of the premises (1, 2, or 3).

Those of you who—like me—love both bicycling and statistics may find the following interesting. The recently completed Tour de France had 21 stages (in 23 days). It covered 2,232.6 miles, which is an average of 106.3 miles per stage. Lance Armstrong had the best time: 86:15:02. His average speed was 25.88 miles per hour. His average riding time was 4:06:25. That may not seem like much; after all, there are 24 hours in a day. But the effort involved is staggering, as anyone who has ridden a bicycle knows. Lance's accomplishments would be impressive even if he had never been diagnosed with cancer. That he won seven Tours de France after brain surgery and chemotherapy is, well, mind-boggling.

To the Editor:

Verlyn Klinkenborg misjudged the motive for our popular "PETA Kills Animals" Times Square billboard ("The Story Behind a New York Billboard and the Interests It Serves," Editorial Observer, July 24). We simply thought it was time more Americans saw People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals as we do: a group of well-practiced hypocrites who relish throwing stones from their well-financed glass house.

It is certainly hypocritical for PETA to kill 80 percent of the animals that come through its doors, including many adoptable puppies and kittens. PETA raised $29 million last year alone, money that its donors believe is being spent caring for flesh-and-blood creatures instead of staging tawdry spectacles that highlight the supposed evils of not being a strict vegetarian.

Traditional animal shelters near PETA's Norfolk headquarters euthanize unwanted animals as well, but at a rate only one-third what PETA has quietly pursued under the public's radar. PETA's stated goal is "total animal liberation," and Americans deserve to know that this apparently includes "liberating" vulnerable, healthy pets from life itself.

Richard Berman
Executive Director
Center for Consumer Freedom
Washington, July 25, 2005

The best indication that A hates B is that A can't find anything good about B. The next-best indication is that A ascribes the worst motives to B. Paul Krugman* hates President Bush. Krugman has policy differences with the president. That's fine. Many conservatives have policy differences with the president. It would be miraculous if any two people agreed on everything. But most of President Bush's critics believe that he means well. He's trying to protect the American people and promote economic prosperity, even if he sometimes bungles things. Krugman won't concede even this much. He believes that President Bush means ill. Don't believe me? Read this column. Krugman says that President Bush's goal is to reward his friends (and punish his enemies?). In other words, President Bush doesn't give a damn about the American people as such. He pretends to care about them, but that's only a ruse. You might wonder why it matters whether Krugman hates President Bush. It matters because it destroys his credibility. If he wouldn't praise the president even when the president deserves it, why should we take his criticisms seriously?

* "Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" (Daniel Okrent, "13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did," The New York Times, 22 May 2005).

Cerberus, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the entrance—against whom or what does not clearly appear; everybody, sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance. Cerberus is know[n] to have had three heads, and some of the poets have credited him with as many as a hundred. Professor Graybill, whose clerky erudition and profound knowledge of Greek give his opinion great weight, has averaged all the estimates, and makes the number twenty-seven—a judgment that would be entirely conclusive if Professor Graybill had known (a) something about dogs, and (b) something about arithmetic.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)