Friday, January 30, 2009
Don't Assume Anything
Well, it's not my habit to show these off. I'm justifying this as a curiosity of English bureaucracy, where everything has a place even when there's nothing there.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Death
From the DrudgeReport:
PELOSI SAYS BIRTH CONTROL WILL HELP ECONOMY
Sun Jan 25 2009 22:13:43 ET
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi boldly defended a move to add birth control funding to the new economic "stimulus" package, claiming "contraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government."
Pelosi, the mother of 5 children and 6 grandchildren, who once said, "Nothing in my life will ever, ever compare to being a mom," seemed to imply babies are somehow a burden on the treasury.
The revelation came during an exchange Sunday morning on ABC's THIS WEEK.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?
PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?
PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.
There are so many things hideous about this statement I couldn't discuss them all without consuming your entire lunch-break, but let me list just the some of the worst:
An utter lack of moral sense (call it conscience). All right, she wants the best interest of the state, but the best interest of the state is evil, and thus not at all best, if built upon the slaughter of innocents.
It's premeditated.
It's shameless. They've dropped all pretense for concern for the woman's welfare.
They're all godless Philistines, damn them.
I'm sure there's some great sentence somewhere in Western literature on this point: once a culture treats its children as liabilities, it is doomed to die. Children are the promise of someone to carry on our work of today into the future, and the hope of greatness surpassing what we accomplished. A woman commits suicide on part of her soul when she allows her child to be killed, and a culture commits suicide when it AIMS at killing its children.
Consequent on the last point: its the last stage of the decay of political imagination. It's like the author who can't figure out what to do with the protagonist, so kills him off. There ARE problems with a booming population, but there are GOOD ways to deal with it, and even to channel to unsurpassed heights the latent energy and power of that most marvelous creation, impossible to manufacture, the human being.
And further: when the Speaker of the House treats citizens as items in a pocket book, you know that 1) she's hopelessly out of touch, and 2) that she hasn't read Dickens. Do we really want such a person governing our country?
PELOSI SAYS BIRTH CONTROL WILL HELP ECONOMY
Sun Jan 25 2009 22:13:43 ET
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi boldly defended a move to add birth control funding to the new economic "stimulus" package, claiming "contraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government."
Pelosi, the mother of 5 children and 6 grandchildren, who once said, "Nothing in my life will ever, ever compare to being a mom," seemed to imply babies are somehow a burden on the treasury.
The revelation came during an exchange Sunday morning on ABC's THIS WEEK.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?
PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?
PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.
There are so many things hideous about this statement I couldn't discuss them all without consuming your entire lunch-break, but let me list just the some of the worst:
An utter lack of moral sense (call it conscience). All right, she wants the best interest of the state, but the best interest of the state is evil, and thus not at all best, if built upon the slaughter of innocents.
It's premeditated.
It's shameless. They've dropped all pretense for concern for the woman's welfare.
They're all godless Philistines, damn them.
I'm sure there's some great sentence somewhere in Western literature on this point: once a culture treats its children as liabilities, it is doomed to die. Children are the promise of someone to carry on our work of today into the future, and the hope of greatness surpassing what we accomplished. A woman commits suicide on part of her soul when she allows her child to be killed, and a culture commits suicide when it AIMS at killing its children.
Consequent on the last point: its the last stage of the decay of political imagination. It's like the author who can't figure out what to do with the protagonist, so kills him off. There ARE problems with a booming population, but there are GOOD ways to deal with it, and even to channel to unsurpassed heights the latent energy and power of that most marvelous creation, impossible to manufacture, the human being.
And further: when the Speaker of the House treats citizens as items in a pocket book, you know that 1) she's hopelessly out of touch, and 2) that she hasn't read Dickens. Do we really want such a person governing our country?
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
A Gentleman and a Gamester
Hilaire Belloc had several selves, even several poetic selves. Some have expressed irritation at the clear pleasure with which he kills off the bad children of his cautionary tale, though for my own part I think their fates largely to be just; consider that of Henry King:
The Chief Defect of Henry King
Was chewing little bits of String.
At last he swallowed some which tied
Itself in ugly Knots inside.
Physicians of the Utmost Fame
Were called at once; but when they came
They answered, as they took their Fees,
"There is no Cure for this Disease.
"Henry will very soon be dead.''
His Parents stood about his Bed
Lamenting his Untimely Death,
When Henry, with his Latest Breath,
Cried, "Oh, my Friends, be warned by me,
That Breakfast, Dinner, Lunch, and Tea
Are all the Human Frame requires...''
With that, the Wretched Child expires.
He also had a violent exuberant democratic self:
On Two Ministers of State
Lump says that Caliban's of gutter breed,
And Caliban says Lump's a fool indeed,
And Caliban and Lump and I are all agreed.
The Pacifist
Pale Ebenzer thought it wrong to fight,
But Roaring Bill (who killed him) thought it right.
And a courteous chivalric self:
A Trinity
Of three in One and One in three
My narrow mind would doubting be
Till Beauty, Grace and Kindness met
And all at once were Juliet.
Juliet
How did the party go in Portman Square?
I cannot tell you; Juliet was not there.
And how did Lady Gaster's party go?
Juliet was next me and I do not know.
And many more which I will introduce in the future.
The Chief Defect of Henry King
Was chewing little bits of String.
At last he swallowed some which tied
Itself in ugly Knots inside.
Physicians of the Utmost Fame
Were called at once; but when they came
They answered, as they took their Fees,
"There is no Cure for this Disease.
"Henry will very soon be dead.''
His Parents stood about his Bed
Lamenting his Untimely Death,
When Henry, with his Latest Breath,
Cried, "Oh, my Friends, be warned by me,
That Breakfast, Dinner, Lunch, and Tea
Are all the Human Frame requires...''
With that, the Wretched Child expires.
He also had a violent exuberant democratic self:
On Two Ministers of State
Lump says that Caliban's of gutter breed,
And Caliban says Lump's a fool indeed,
And Caliban and Lump and I are all agreed.
The Pacifist
Pale Ebenzer thought it wrong to fight,
But Roaring Bill (who killed him) thought it right.
And a courteous chivalric self:
A Trinity
Of three in One and One in three
My narrow mind would doubting be
Till Beauty, Grace and Kindness met
And all at once were Juliet.
Juliet
How did the party go in Portman Square?
I cannot tell you; Juliet was not there.
And how did Lady Gaster's party go?
Juliet was next me and I do not know.
And many more which I will introduce in the future.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Everything Seems to Aim at Some Good (Part 1 - Anime)
I've been watching an anime called Full Metal Alchemist. I highly recommend it - you can find the episodes on youtube.
The combat resolves itself in a way that is mostly alien to our Western imagination. (FMA is somewhat westernized, but I'm going to treat the eastern elements.) Our villains are rarely attracted to the good side. In this anime (and in other Japanese anime films that I've seen) the villains may join the good side at any time, but the switch is not caused by a crisis of conscience. Rather, they realize that their best interest lies in allying themselves with the hero.
From the start, the villains have their own ends and ambitions, only vaguely related to either their master's plans or those of the hero. Thus they make far more interesting -human- villains, who can sustain hours of dialogue and development. They generally have some secret which is the cause of their ambition, and if the hero can discover it, he can use it to persuade them to join him, not because they'll believe in the right, but because with him, they can get what they want. The only villains completely invulnerable to his persuasion are (logically) the ones who are dedicated to the ruination of the project he has at hand.
The villains may even tag along and help the hero accomplish his mission, as long they will have a chance to kill him afterwards. It seems that even the 'boss' villain can be persuaded to change, and the storyline can randomly end with the hero and the ultimate evil just agreeing to stop fighting.
It has some similarity to the Platonic idea that knowledge is equivalent to virtue - when you know enough, you choose rightly. But a person can be unprepared for too much knowledge, because knowledge forces you to choose, and a person is not always prepared to make a difficult choice. Thus masters often hide things from their pupils. The sublime greatness of the pupil usually appears when he makes the right choice in the face of unforeseen knowledge.
An ethical comparison of the characters looks something like this:
Chaos
c) Desiring some good, but have forgotten the Way
b) Desiring some good
a) Desiring some good, and with an inkling of the Way
The Way
Characters develop in either direction, perhaps change direction, through the course of the story. The conflict is between combinations of all three types. Sometimes two characters dedicated to the Way end up fighting, both for the right reasons. This way, there is a possibility of a beautiful fight, and beautiful death; and from the possibility of the beautiful death you get the warrior, whose life is dedicated to war, for the sake of the beauty of war. This is the most alien notion of these anime - the locality of the good. Good can come into conflict with other good. (Hilaire Belloc, incidentally, has the Christian solution - ''There may be shrines and shrines on any land, and sanctities of many kinds. For you will notice, Grizzlebeard, or rather you should have noticed already, having lived so long, that good things do not jostle.") Though the Japanese do have some notion of universal peace - I think this may be the promise of the Emperor of Japan.
The combat makes sense given Aristotle's ancient claim, in the Nicomachean Ethics, that all things aim at some good. All these characters do aim at some good - and it's not only some perceived good, but some real good.
Nevertheless, the greatest of the characters choose the best of the real goods, and on a rare occasion, they choose to live in the Way, which is to live according to no individual good, to have silence and absence of volition in the centre of being, and therefore to be able to honor every individual good as it deserves, and never to be swayed by the selfish interest. I've an idea that for the Buddhist, individuality is imperfect. And that's as much Eastern philosophy as I shall attempt.
Shrike - Miyamoto Musashi (17th century Japanese swordsman, painter, and philosopher)
"The Way of the warrior does not include other Ways...but if you know the Way broadly you will see it in everything"
The combat resolves itself in a way that is mostly alien to our Western imagination. (FMA is somewhat westernized, but I'm going to treat the eastern elements.) Our villains are rarely attracted to the good side. In this anime (and in other Japanese anime films that I've seen) the villains may join the good side at any time, but the switch is not caused by a crisis of conscience. Rather, they realize that their best interest lies in allying themselves with the hero.
From the start, the villains have their own ends and ambitions, only vaguely related to either their master's plans or those of the hero. Thus they make far more interesting -human- villains, who can sustain hours of dialogue and development. They generally have some secret which is the cause of their ambition, and if the hero can discover it, he can use it to persuade them to join him, not because they'll believe in the right, but because with him, they can get what they want. The only villains completely invulnerable to his persuasion are (logically) the ones who are dedicated to the ruination of the project he has at hand.
The villains may even tag along and help the hero accomplish his mission, as long they will have a chance to kill him afterwards. It seems that even the 'boss' villain can be persuaded to change, and the storyline can randomly end with the hero and the ultimate evil just agreeing to stop fighting.
It has some similarity to the Platonic idea that knowledge is equivalent to virtue - when you know enough, you choose rightly. But a person can be unprepared for too much knowledge, because knowledge forces you to choose, and a person is not always prepared to make a difficult choice. Thus masters often hide things from their pupils. The sublime greatness of the pupil usually appears when he makes the right choice in the face of unforeseen knowledge.
An ethical comparison of the characters looks something like this:
Chaos
c) Desiring some good, but have forgotten the Way
b) Desiring some good
a) Desiring some good, and with an inkling of the Way
The Way
Characters develop in either direction, perhaps change direction, through the course of the story. The conflict is between combinations of all three types. Sometimes two characters dedicated to the Way end up fighting, both for the right reasons. This way, there is a possibility of a beautiful fight, and beautiful death; and from the possibility of the beautiful death you get the warrior, whose life is dedicated to war, for the sake of the beauty of war. This is the most alien notion of these anime - the locality of the good. Good can come into conflict with other good. (Hilaire Belloc, incidentally, has the Christian solution - ''There may be shrines and shrines on any land, and sanctities of many kinds. For you will notice, Grizzlebeard, or rather you should have noticed already, having lived so long, that good things do not jostle.") Though the Japanese do have some notion of universal peace - I think this may be the promise of the Emperor of Japan.
The combat makes sense given Aristotle's ancient claim, in the Nicomachean Ethics, that all things aim at some good. All these characters do aim at some good - and it's not only some perceived good, but some real good.
Nevertheless, the greatest of the characters choose the best of the real goods, and on a rare occasion, they choose to live in the Way, which is to live according to no individual good, to have silence and absence of volition in the centre of being, and therefore to be able to honor every individual good as it deserves, and never to be swayed by the selfish interest. I've an idea that for the Buddhist, individuality is imperfect. And that's as much Eastern philosophy as I shall attempt.
Shrike - Miyamoto Musashi (17th century Japanese swordsman, painter, and philosopher)"The Way of the warrior does not include other Ways...but if you know the Way broadly you will see it in everything"
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Hapless Priests and Princes
1. I don't believe it is a coincidence that the 1662 Anglican Book of Common Prayer to the "Prayer for the Clergy and People," which it situates near the end of the Order for Evening Prayer, asking that God "send down upon our Bishops, and Curates, and all Congregations committed to their charge, the healthful Spirit of thy grace; and that they may truly please thee, pour upon them the continual dew of thy blessing," prefaces the following:
"Almighty and everlasting God, who alone workest great marvels...."2. Shakespeare is subtle. In Hamlet's famous proto-emo speech, he poses what looks like two possible solutions to the ultimate perplexity:
"whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, / And by opposing end them?"But the rest of the speech, hinted at here, goes to show that Hamlet is not really considering both options. The second option is little more than an ironic jest, for in fact it is impossible to fight a sea with force of arms.
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