Extremes of Good and Evil

"On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammelled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains."

-Cicero, 'The Extremes of Good and Evil', written c. 45 B.C.

Quite a mouthful and especially appropriate today. This quotation from Cicero begins to hint at more modern concepts of evil, such as Hanah Arrent's 'banality'. Evil, or unintentional pain on oneself and on others, walks in when you are not paying attention. So one must avoid getting into those situations in the first place.

Words to live by, and ones that should be read every day. Actually they are, for this is the source of the famous 'Lorem Ipsum' phrase used as placeholder text by typesetters and graphic designers for the past 500 years. (h/t Janni - thanks for the cool link)

Signs of the Apocalypse, Part II

Echidne of the Snakes has the YouTube of the ABC news preview of the new Magnolia Pictures Jesus Camp.

Soldiers for the Gospel. Worshipping the President. One doesn't know where to start. As TBogg puts it, "No wonder Jesus hasn't Returned. These people are nuts and He wants no part of them."

Tribute in Light

After having been quite intimately involved in the clusterfuck that is the redevelopment of the World Trade Center Site for the past five years, I can say that the Tribute In Light is the most eloquent memorial that could have been constructed. The first time it was lit, back in spring of 2002, I had the fortune of seeing it from the air on a plane landing at LaGuardia. It was spectacular; a beautiful, simple and haunting beacon that can be seen from the entire city.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has guaranteed funding through 2008, but beyond that the fate of the Tribute is up in the air.

Conan the Ovarian

As most of you know it often takes me a long time to get around to doing things, and a post along these lines is no exception. My sister-in-law sent me an email several months ago as part of research into the latest book she is writing, ‘She’s Not the Man I Married.’, asking questions about relationships and gender. I never got around to responding to it, mainly because the questions were deserving of well-thought-out answers, and I didn’t have many of them:

1) Why do people pursue long-term companionship? (marriage, commitment, partnership - whatever you call it in your universe.)

2) Why, specifically, did you (if you did)?

2b) If you didn't, why didn't you?

3) How close is what you intended/imagined it to be to what it actually is?

4) Do you "feel like" a man or a woman (depending on which you are, or not)?

5) What is it that makes you feel that way? Something internal or external? Abstract or concrete?

6) How do you imagine your life would change (or if it would) if you woke up the opposite of what you are, tomorrow?

7) How much do you think your being a man or a woman has to do with the kind of relationship you prefer to be in (whether you're in one or not, whether the one you're in is the type you'd prefer to be in or not)?

Quite truthfully, most of these questions I could only answer, ‘I don’t know,’ which is unfortunate. I have been mulling them over in my mind for the summer and haven’t made much progress. Why did I get married? Because I couldn’t imagine it any other way. Why? Ultimately, it beats me. I can list all sorts of pragmatic and non-pragmatic emotional reasons, but adding them up doesn’t yield much. Too much is unobservable, sort of like the dark matter comprising the majority of substance in the Universe.

Why am I a man? Well, that’s easy – As I replied to her earlier, I have an average-sized Mr Happy between my legs. Beyond that it’s all externally defined. Why do I consider myself a man, and what makes me a man (other than the basic hardware) are the better questions, and more along what she was interested in.

Seriously, in most of this country I wouldn’t be considered much of one. I collect fabulous neckties, art deco dishware, and routinely shave my head. I have just about zero interest in watching sports, although I have enjoyed playing them. Lately I’ve been a voracious reader of religious and political history. This is not exactly ‘driving my enemies forward and hearing the lamentations of their women.’

Of course all those things are mostly fluff – the above listed affectations and their counterparts (NASCAR, John Wayne, Steak) are used more in making assumptions of someone’s sexual orientation instead of gender, though they are obviously linked, if only rhetorically. ‘Male’ and ‘Female’ are more often referred to by attitude instead of affectation – Sort of like that Justice/Mercy dichotomy popularized a couple of decades ago.

What actually prompted me to finally write this post is what made the internets today. A complete wanker, David Warren, whom I wasn’t familiar with until today, wrote an idiotic column about the release of the Fox News reporters from captivity (Note: Fox News reporters – It’s always fun to watch conservatives eat their own):

And the two Fox journalists, whom I will not stoop to name, begged for their lives even though, in retrospect, their lives probably weren't in danger. . . . Men without chests, men without character, men who don't think twice.

I don’t want this post to get to crazy long, so I will instead link to Glenn Greenwald’s definitive smackdown, but you should go through TBogg’s link first. Also essential reading is Greenwald’s earlier post which he links to as well. In these posts, Greenwald covers male identity more eloquently than I ever could. Here’s a preview:

Warren has a biography page on his website. In telling us about himself, Warren complains that "the thumb on (his) right hand still hurts sometimes from when it was broken in a dodgeball game," tells us that his favorite sport is cricket, talks of his love for Ella Fitzgerald and Jane Austen, touts his devout Catholicism, confesses that he has "been estranged [from his wife of 18 years] for going on four years," and says he is "fascinated by seeds, small shells, tiny fishes, & insects."

I also read Mr. Warren’s biography page – he does a hundred bullet points describing himself, and it is a laughable list. My eyes lit on #12:

My favourite Epistle, which I incidentally think genuinely by St. Paul, is the one to the Ephesians.

What a pompous twit. How ‘erudite,’ that little aside. Of course, most scholars agree that not only did the Apostle Paul not write Ephesians, almost certainly the Epistle wasn’t originally even written to the Ephesians. The writing style is wrong, and more importantly the author of Ephesians contradicts many of Paul’s earlier writings in important theological points. Also, the earliest copies of the letter don’t mention Ephesus in the first verse. Actually the earliest copy of the complete New Testament that we have, The Codex Sinaiticus, has the words ‘In Ephesus’ written in the margins of the epistle’s text.

The reasons for Mr. Warren’s love of the Epistle are pretty clear. It is the Epistle with the famous verse:

Wives, be in subjection unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, and Christ also is the head of the church, being himself the saviour of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their husbands in everything.

-Ephesians 5:22-24

Can’t argue with the Lord, as they say. Of course, I doubt that Mr. Warren has read that Epistle lately, or at least shortly before writing his vile screed. Here are some other edifying quotes for him to chew on before questioning the ‘masculinity’ of people held at gunpoint:

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Ephesians 4:1-3

Wherefore, putting away falsehood, speak ye truth each one with his neighbor: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: neither give place to the devil.

Ephesians 4:25-27

Let no corrupt speech proceed out of your mouth, but such as is good for edifying as the need may be, that it may give grace to them that hear. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, in whom ye were sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and railing, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, even as God also in Christ forgave you.

Ephesians 4:29-32

Be ye therefore imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, even as Christ also loved you…

Ephesians 5:1-2

The Apostle Paul (and those who wrote letters in his name) had definitive ideas of what it means to be a Christian. Descriptive words include ‘love,’ ‘child,’ ‘sacrifice,’ ‘mercy,’ and, of course, ‘forgive.’

Actually the word 'Mercy' is used over three times as often as 'Justice' in the New Testament. Clearly Christ was a man without a chest, without character...

My Flat Daddy

Dear Jeebus, I wish this were a joke:

From Boston.com:

Maine National Guard members in Iraq and Afghanistan are never far from the thoughts of their loved ones.

But now, thanks to a popular family-support program, they're even closer.

Welcome to the ``Flat Daddy" and ``Flat Mommy" phenomenon, in which life-size cutouts of deployed service members are given by the Maine National Guard to spouses, children, and relatives back home.

The Flat Daddies ride in cars, sit at the dinner table, visit the dentist, and even are brought to confession, according to their significant others on the home front.

``I prop him up in a chair, or sometimes put him on the couch and cover him up with a blanket," said Kay Judkins of Caribou, whose husband, Jim, is a minesweeper mechanic in Afghanistan. ``The cat will curl up on the blanket, and it looks kind of weird. I've tricked several people by that. They think he's home again."

This is disturbing on so many levels. I wonder what Tom Friedman thinks. Of course the best part is taking a cardboard cutout to confession. Pretty impressive that a cardboard cuttout can participate in a sacrament. Of course, I'd like to see how it fares with the sacrament of baptism:

John's clothes were made of camel's hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.

-Matthew 3:4-6

Another Example of Better Living Through Chemistry

(Image from the excellent site, Plan59)

Some of you know that high cholesterol runs in my family (Thanks, Mom.) Well, my biology is no exception. Everything was great until about a year or so ago when it went off of the charts. Everything was wrong – not enough ‘good’, far too much ‘bad’, and apparently after my doctor did a high-end blood test to get down to the molecular makeup of my blood, it turns out that of 15 or so cholesterol markers or whatnot, I was off-the-charts bad in 13 of them.

My bad rating was 195. And my diet, while not completely perfect, is a damn site better than most – No Mickey D’s, no Doritos, etc. So it wasn’t lifestyle issues as much as bad genes. In the end my Doctor put me on Vytorin, one of those statin drugs. Two months later he did some new bloodwork.

And my bad was down to 100. Pretty amazing stuff. And it has actually been making me rethink my rather negative views of the pharmaceutical and medical industries.

Except that, even though 100 is a very good level, my doctor wants it down to a super human 70 or less, which according to some of the latest studies would reverse any damage the two years of high cholesterol may have done, eventually allowing me to live forever, or at least longer than any of you suckers.

Or so that’s the theory at least.

So he’s adding monstrous doses of Niacin to the mix. The side effects include flushing of the skin, which means that for the next several days I’ll be turning beet-red on a regular basis. I love how the side effects pamphlets they hand out with drugs always say that the benefits of the drug outweigh any side effects, otherwise the doctor wouldn’t have prescribed them, so chin-up.

Friday Planet Blogging

The week’s biggest story, surpassing even a revival of the Jon Benet Ramsey murder, was of course the demotion of Pluto from the exalted ranks of planetary status. Personally I feel that a true definition of planets should only include four – Neptune (the smallest), Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter. Seriously, it’s a major step down from Neptune to the next largest mote of rock orbiting the sun, which would be Earth – less than 1/17^th the mass of Neptune.

But if we insist on such a geocentric mode of looking at our solar system, allowing our humble home-rock to be lumped into the same category of object as Jupiter (100 times the mass of Earth and with 62 moons so far discovered, only 38 of which have been named), we will of course end up with absurdities such as whether or not a slightly smaller lump of stones (Pluto is actually a quadrinary system of four rocks orbiting each other) is also a planet.

But what the whole event reminds me of is my fascination as a younger lad with the earlier planetary battle that took place back in the 19^th century. (As both of my parents are astronomers, my youthful fascinations tended towards the astronomically geeky). As a kid my favorite solar system object was Ceres, which had the honor of being considered a planet for over 50 years, before it, too, got unceremoniously booted from the club.

Ceres was discovered in 1801, by Giuseppe Piazzi, and it was assumed to be the ‘missing’ planet that the Titius-Bode law said should exist between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It was deemed to be a planet, given a planetary symbol and remained so even after the discovery of Pallas, Juno and Vesta – the next three objects discovered that would ultimately deemed to be asteroids.

In 1828, the book, ‘First Steps to Astronomy and Geography’, lists the planets as "Eleven: Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Vesta, Juno, Ceres, Pallas, Jupiter, Saturn, and Herschel." Herschel was the name used for Uranus for several years after the Astronomer Hershel discovered the planet.

This remained until 1847 when a whole slew of new asteroids was discovered, bringing the number up to 15. Still, even until the 1850s, by which point the number of known asteroids rose past 100, the first 4 asteroids discovered were referred to as planets, avoiding the term ‘minor planets’ until different national astronomical journals slowly adopted the new terminology. Ceres and the other three were viewed as both planets and asteroids until the time of the American Civil War. Unlike with Pluto their status changed not with a bang, but a whimper.

I always felt more affinity for a tiny rock like Ceres than Pluto, as it is much closer to our own tiny rock. It always seemed more accessible and more exotic to me, especially since no one paid any attention to it in our science classes. It was sort of like having your own planet nearby that no one else was aware of

Pretty pathetic, huh?

On June 20, 2007, NASA hopefully launches the Dawn Mission, a probe that will visit two of these former planets, Vesta in 2011, and Ceres in 2015.

Signs of the Apocalypse

From the July 27^th Economist:

According to the National Police Agency, which oversees the industry, the Japanese collectively spend some 30 trillion Yen ($260 Billion) a year playing pachinko and its upstart cousin, pachislot – roughly equal to spending on health care. Borrowing money to pay pachislot is thought to account for almost half of consumer debt.

Monday Cat Blogging

A good series of kitty shots to keep you all going this week, courtesy of Kathy's new digital camera. I'll be posting more later, but in the meantime if you are jonesing for some new blog reading, you can always head on over to the new blog being run by Imad Moustapha, the Syrian Ambassador to the United States. The politics is to be expected, but it has a series of interesting posts on different Syrian Artists. From Jonathan Schwarz at This Modern World.

Monday Cat Blogging

Well it's been a while for cat blogging as well, and they are back in good graces since Electra snagged that mouse. Though she needs to get some lessons on killing them rather than playing around with them and freaking Mom out. The big news is that Misty is now down from the top floor, and hanging out on the first floor, and as you can see is very happy hanging out with everyone.

Of course now that he eats with the rest of them, we are realizing exactly how many cats we have. Starting to feel like one of those crazy cat people.

Petey and Misty had their annual vet checkups today. Misty may have a Thyroid issue, and Petey has been declared blind, but other than that both are well, especially considering their age.

Pharaoh's Dream

Peter Cornelius: Joseph interpreting Pharaoh's Dream, 1816 (actually Joseph makes the point that he's not interpreting the dream, because only God can.)

Genesis 41:1-8:

"When two full years had passed, Pharaoh had a dream: He was standing by the Nile, when out of the river there came up seven cows, sleek and fat, and they grazed among the reeds. After them, seven other cows, ugly and gaunt, came up out of the Nile and stood beside those on the riverbank. And the cows that were ugly and gaunt ate up the seven sleek, fat cows. Then Pharaoh woke up.

He fell asleep again and had a second dream: Seven heads of grain, healthy and good, were growing on a single stalk. After them, seven other heads of grain sprouted—thin and scorched by the east wind. The thin heads of grain swallowed up the seven healthy, full heads. Then Pharaoh woke up; it had been a dream.

In the morning his mind was troubled, so he sent for all the magicians and wise men of Egypt. Pharaoh told them his dreams, but no one could interpret them for him."

Yes, yes, I know. It’s been far too long since I posted. As you might imagine things have been pretty crazy at work, what with late nights spent working on projects designed to impress and convince people to spend righteous bucks on condominium apartments at the peak of the market.

That’s pretty much the situation right now. Everyone in the residential real estate business is like the Pharaoh after meeting Joseph who successfully interprets his dreams: they are waking up and realizing that the seven fat years of plenty are up, and heading this way are the seven lean years of famine. So time to make the marketing phone calls.

So we are being deluged with these phone calls from panicked brokers and marketers, desperate to set up campaigns to sell their apartments before what will undoubtedly be the last decent autumn selling season. My God, we absolutely HAVE to have these renderings by September or the whole damn world ends.

So I’m taking the work while the going is good, which means a lot of late nights until October when everyone realizes it’s now too damn late and they’re stuck with a whole mess of apartments with Viking appliances and Dog Spas in the building that no one in their right mind would pay a thousand a square foot for.

Smell the fear...

Welcome to Earth!

Well, I got a lot less writing done in LA than I had hoped. Actually none. So it will be a little longer before I can post on the topics mentioned below. But I wanted to welcome two new people to this planet:

First, of course, is Grace, who arrived on the afternoon of Erin and Windy's 2nd anniversary on Monday, weighing a spritely 6 pounds. And now second is Betty's Sister who just delivered a slightly less spritely ten pound (!) baby boy today. Congrats all around.

And Welcome! The per captia national debt today is now $28,229 per person, so get workin'. We'll take it in tens and twentys...