Thursday, October 15, 2009
ACORN Helps Pimps And Their Bitches
World at large
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Every Body Loves A Good Spat
Christina Hoff Sommers and Nancy K.D. Lemon step in to the ring and battle facts in feminist scholarship.
Lemon:
In regard to the rule of thumb, for example, she asserted that Romulus of Rome, who is credited in my book with being involved with the first antidomestic-violence legislation, could not have done this as he was merely a legendary, fictional character, who along with his brother Remus was suckled by a wolf.
In fact, Plutarch and Livy each state that Romulus was the first king of Rome. He reigned from 753-717 BC, and created both the Roman Legions and the Roman Senate. He is also credited with adding large amounts of territory and people to the dominion of Rome, including the Sabine women. The modern scholar Andrea Carandini has written about the historic reign of Romulus, based in part on the 1988 discovery of the Murus Romuli on the north slope of the Palatine Hill in Rome.
Hoff Sommers:
She (Lemon) confidently informs us that Romulus actually existed and ruled Rome from 753-717 BC. That is preposterous. She cites Livy and Plutarch as sources. These first-century writers did not claim to be offering historically accurate accounts of events that took place some 700 years before their time, but openly professed to be summarizing beliefs, myths, and legends that had come down through the ages. She also cites the contemporary Roman archaeologist Andrea Carandini—a maverick figure who discovered what he claims might have been a wall of a palace that could have belonged to Romulus. As the July/August 2007 issue of Archaeology politely notes, his suggestion “represents a sharp break with two millennia of scholarship.”
Ouch.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Those 401(k)s Should Be Left Alone
Apparently, Barak Obama is laying out a new economic plan. I haven’t gone through it thoroughly, but one thing is unsettling.
Penalty-Free Withdrawals from IRAs and 401(k)s in 2008 and 2009. Obama is calling for new legislation to allow families to withdraw 15% of their retirement savings – up to a maximum of $10,000 – without facing a tax-penalty this year (including retroactively) and next year.
I work in financial services. Daily, I work with people dealing with matters of retirement, IRA’s, and 401(k)’s. For many, their 401(k) is the only retirement that they will have. If this aspect of Obama’s economic plan is implemented, there will be many more people who will be insufficiently funded for retirement. If government must interfere, it should interfere on the side of strongly encouraging people to actively plane for and contribute to their retirement, not making it easier for them to screw it up.
Going John Galt
Here is an interesting take on the painfully partisan politics of our day in reference to Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.
Perhaps the partisian politics we are dealing with now is really just a struggle between those of us who believe in productivity, personal responsibility, and keeping government interference to a minimum, and those who believe in the socialistic policies of taking from others, using the government as a watchdog, and rewarding those who overspend, underwork, or are just plain unproductive.
Of course it’s much more complicated than this, but, in general terms, it pretty much sums up what I believe to be the view of many.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Annie Proulx
A great quote by Annie Proulx:
I don’t think of stories around women. And that’s undoubtedly, in these days of political correctness, an enormous flaw in my character. But, baby, that’s how it is.
This was in response to a question about why she showed more sympathy with male characters than female characters. It just goes to show you that a silly question does not always produce a silly answer.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
University Literature Departments Have It All Wrong
Brian Boyd writes this scathing yet interesting article concerning the current state of Western university literature departments.
We love stories, and we will continue to love them. But for more than 30 years, as Theory has established itself as “the new hegemony in literary studies” (to echo the title of Tony Hilfer’s cogent critique), university literature departments in the English-speaking world have often done their best to stifle this thoroughly human emotion.
He is especially hard on Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Harvard English professor, Louis Menand, whose idea of reform for university literature departments draws this reaction from Professor Boyd:
The position you represent has neither the intellectual nor the moral high ground you are so sure it occupies. Until literature departments take into account that humans are not just cultural or textual phenomena but something more complex, English and related disciplines will continue to be the laughingstock of the academic world that they have been for years because of their obscurantist dogmatism and their coddled and preening pseudo-radicalism. Until they listen to searching criticism of their doctrine, rather than dismissing it as the language of the devil, literature will continue to be betrayed in academe, and academic literary departments will continue to lose students and to isolate themselves from the intellectual advances of our time.
Ouch.
I suppose his basic argument is that the literary elite believe that culture is separate from our biology; that somehow, human culture is beyond our natural, biological selves. They believe that empirical thinking somehow inhibits culture and creativity. It’s a common notion of anti-foundationalism. Boyd argues that culture is a product of our biology; nature if you will. That the empirical approach has enhanced culture and the humanities.
I, like others who think that humans need to be understood as more than cultural or textual entities, do not wish to affirm the status quo. But in the four decades since Menand’s “greatest generation,” science and technology have altered the status quo far more radically than anything literature professors have managed. By increasing the world’s food output dramatically, scientists have saved hundreds of millions of people from hunger.
Their labor-saving devices have freed scores of millions from domestic drudgery and allowed countless women into the paid work force. They have raised life expectancy around the world. And if knowledge is indeed power, as Michel Foucault says, then through the Internet, scientists have made possible the greatest democratization of power ever.
He’s right. In fact I’d go so far as to say that the current state of humanities could not exist without the empirical process; foundationalism if you will. Hell, you can believe all you want, but everything that we are, the universe in fact, does not operate on belief. How can one expect to fully realize and benefit from the life we live without an empirical approach? Those who espouse anti foundationalism are, in my opinion, simpletons who lack the imagination needed to view the world as it really is. Think about it, how silly and banal is I think, therefore I am? Yo, René, smoke another one ...
What strikes me is the sheer arrogance of some of the so-called culture elites.
Menand is sure that: (1) the “greatest generation” secured for its “disciples” (these are his terms) the intellectual and moral high ground; (2) the insights of anti-foundationalism would be accepted by all other disciplines, if only they would listen; and (3) the crusade made possible by an understanding of “difference” must continue.
Now, what kind of happy horse pucky is that?
And, alas, here is the money line:
The idea that there is no universal truth runs into crippling difficulties straightaway, since it claims to be a universal truth.
Yeah, this is a real shooting-war between science and the humanities.