Agraphia

Popping Kernels with Cell Phones

2008-08-30T10:11:00.002-04:00

I have no idea how this is done, but I am eager to try it myself.

Lazy Summer Days

2008-08-19T18:23:00.004-04:00

I truly have a hard time finding the motivation to post regularly on this blog. My hope was that it would encourage me to express my thoughts more effortlessly and improve my unrefined writing style, but thus far neither objective seems to have been achieved. Perhaps if I were to get in the habit of writing regularly I would find the flow of thought to arrive much more readily, cause at the moment it feels as though I have a logjam of thoughts that have built up unexpressed.

I've been reading a fair amount lately. Just finished Ron Suskind's book "The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism." Overall I thought it was a good book. I particularly liked the way he uses individual characters to demonstrate how US foreign policy (the decisions of the few) can directly affect and in some instances afflict the lives of the many. Which is why we should be deeply concerned when the pretenses that our FP decisions are made on are, or in this case, later found to be, false. This is of course what is causing the most buzz in the media, but I think the underlying message of the book, of overcoming cultural boundaries and ideological differences, finding human and humane solutions between different people and citizens, should not be lost to the more immediate reaction of anger and general frustration that many feel towards how the Bush administration has completely and utterly disgraced and disregarded the values and principles that America was founded upon. It is sad that this administration continues to be incapable of accepting responsibility, admitting failures and past mistakes, and just being honest with the American people.

But politics aside, in the end Suskind's book offers a brief glimmer of hope. While his book may not answer all of the problems in the world, it at least attempts to start a global conversation.

It invokes the thought that perhaps we the people really can overcome these cultural clashes of differing world views and prescribed life-styles, if we simply engage in an ongoing dialogue based upon mutual understanding, respect, and most of all, tolerance.

It doesn't take a genius after all to realize that only when we put down our guns and open up our ears, our mouths, our hearts and our minds to one another will we finally enjoy lasting peace.

The Wearable Dog Toilet

2008-07-31T21:04:00.002-04:00

I had to go in for surgery today and now Im laid up in bed, seriously considering buying this for myself:

My Brain Made Me Do It

2008-07-30T16:53:00.010-04:00

I just came across this interesting discussion on the implications of neuroscience on policy and law held at the Institute of Ideas in London, which I recommend checking out (in particular chapters two, six, and seven).

Raymond Tallis opens the floor with what I think was a pretty fair rebuke of those 'who wish to blame their brains for their misdemeaners' using the recent research in neuroscience as proof. Tallis argues that this research does not answer philosophical questions pertaining to free will or legal questions about the allocation of blame. Moreover, Tallis continues on a more philosophical tact, 'if you wish to blame your brain for bad behavior, why stop there'? Since the brain is a physical entity it is therefore wired into nature and thus one could go so far as to say "the big bang made me do it".

I think Tallis makes good points. Previously I had been under the sway of 'well, we might as well hold criminals accountable for their actions, regardless of the free-will question and the obvious failures of our justice system, because it just might have a minor effect on their decision to commit or not commit a socially unaccepted offense or crime. An effect, however small, nevertheless beneficial'. But Tallis and Magistretti have helped clarify the personal responsibility stance for me. Holding people accountable for their brain's decisions is thus potentially beneficial (behavior modifying) and intellectually justifiable (at least until I'm swayed otherwise).

Anyways check out the vid. In chapter 6 there's some brief commentary on Benjamin Libet's interesting work, as well as some of the philosophical thought dilemma's such as the 'trolley problem'.

Feel free to share your thoughts on this topic in the comments section below.

Falling Slowly - Glen Hansard

2008-07-29T10:29:00.001-04:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

Adam K - Coconut Skins

2008-07-27T20:13:00.005-04:00

Todays song of the day, is me covering a Damien Rice song:

(My voice cracks at one part and I fuck up a few times on guitar, but I'm too lazy to rerecord it and it also takes way too long to upload vids on youtube, so endure and hopefully enjoy.)

Congressional Hearings on Executive Power: To Impeach or Not to Impeach

2008-07-26T12:41:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I tuned in and out of the House Judiciary Hearing on the limitation of executive power. Summary: long, partisan, and unproductive. Bush has clearly flouted many of our constitutional laws, continues to circumvent congress on a number of national security issues, but so far as I can tell he has not committed an impeachable offense.

Bruce Fein (who was perhaps the most impassioned witness at the hearing) did a diavlog with Firedoglake blogger Jane Hamsher on bloggingheads.tv recently where he overviews the President et al's crimes and why they should be impeached. Fein explains why the war on terror does not or at least should not classify as a true war by way of analogy, shares his hypothesis as to why the American public doesn't care, and proposes that we return to a constitutional government.

Also Rush Holt had a piece over at TPM cafe, though it seemed to gloss over much of the legal controversies.

Much of the news and discussion about this surveillance legislation has to do with immunity from lawsuits for telecommunications companies that may have followed the President's request and overstepped the law. Generally, I believe that people and corporations should be held responsible for their actions. More important, though, is the other part of this legislation that would set the law for surveillance in the future.
Any change to FISA must strengthen our ability to gather reliable, verifiable, and actionable intelligence on real enemies versus imagined or assumed enemies. I am not aware of any historical examples where a "fishing expedition" approach to intelligence collection has made our country safer. To the contrary, fishing expeditions are sloppy intelligence. There is an age-old principle used to avoid imagining someone is an enemy or a danger to society. The people who would seize persons, papers, and communications are not the same people who determine that the target should be suspect. A court considers the particular facts and then issues a particular search warrant. Neither police, nor intelligence agents should decide who is suspect. It is an important principle that is part of what makes the United States of America what it is: the government does not regard any American with suspicion first. Only after a due process is a person treated with suspicion. No individual, no class, no religion, no immigrant is lesser in the eyes of the government.

One of the commenters had a pretty succinct post below the article where he/she writes:

With respect, any bill that is debated that includes retroactive immunity for telecoms make a mockery of our laws, our Constitution and our values and so everything else you have to say is really academic and serves only as a distraction. That is the issue and it is an easy call. I am horrified and outraged that the bill is even being allowed on the floor of the house for one minute let alone being debated! It is an abomination, a sellout, and yet another examply of the pathetic cowardice of the Democratic Party at a moment that demands courage.
We, the people, understand quite clearly that this administration (with Democrats aiding and abetting at every step of the way) has trampled our Constitution and used "fighting terror" as the cover story and excuse for it. Time and again have Democrats capitulated in the face of the intimidation and lies of that pack of criminals running the White House and the Republican Party. Democrats did so when authorizing the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq which is itself a Crime Against Peace--the worst of all war crimes! Democrats have done so repeatedly during the reign of terror presided over by Bush and his henchmen.

But the sad truth is that at almost every turn, the Democrats could have stood in the way of tyranny and the destruction of our most cherished Constitution. Frankly, I don't give a damn about the rest of the details of the bill you and your colleagues will debate tomorrow. If it contains retroactive immunity for telecoms in any form whatsoever it is an affront to respect for the laws and Constitution of the United States and no Democrat with any spine at all should be caught dead supporting it. We Democrats are supposed to believe in the rule of law! Giving the wealthy, powerful corporations yet another way to avoid responsibility for their criminal actions is reprehensible to say the least.

You make some good points here, but it is all beside the point if once again the Democrats demonstrate how weak and craven and calculating they are. I am so disgusted with Pelosi, Hoyer, Reid and Rockefeller that I can't even put into words how I loathe them and their failure to stand up to that criminal tyrant Bush!

This is not a close call Congressman. You don't need to read what the "compromise" language is in the bill. The bill is a total and complete capitulation. It is a disgrace! Don't dance on this: oppose it. It is the right thing to do for America. If you or any Democrat votes for this bill it will constitute an open and willing failure to uphold your oath to defend the laws and Constitution of the United States.

Link.

Big Spanish Castle

2008-07-26T12:39:00.002-04:00

I just came across this cool optical illusion today. Enjoy.

Brain Magic

2008-07-26T12:08:00.007-04:00

Magician Keith Barry, who has made a number of appearances on various tv shows, recently did a performance at TED, in which he show-cased a number of cool 'mindreading' and 'mind-control/misdirection' tricks.

A number of psychologists and philosophers have started looking into these cognitive tricks to gain insight into the workings of the mind and have produced a pretty interesting body of literature (I just hope they're not putting magicians out of their jobs).

When I took theory of mind last year we read a good article by Dennet, Explaining the Magic of Consciousness, which was a rather valiant attempt by Dennet to dismantle or you could say dethrone Chalmers' so called hard problem of subjectivity. In the article Dennet uses a famous trick by Ralph Hull called 'the Tuned Deck' to demonstrate how words themselves can often mislead our minds.

The tempting idea that there is a Hard Problem is simply a mistake. I cannot prove this. Or, better, even if I can prove this, my proof will surely fall on deaf ears, since CHALMERS, for instance, has already acknowledged that arguments against his convictions on this score are powerless to dislodge his intuition, which is beyond rational support. So I will not make the tactical error of trying to dislodge with rational argument a conviction that is beyond reason. That would be wasting everybody's time, apparently. Instead, I will offer up what I hope is a disturbing parallel from the world of card magic: The Tuned Deck.

For many years, Mr. Ralph Hull, the famous card wizard from Crooksville, Ohio, has completely bewildered not only the general public, but also amateur conjurors, card connoisseurs and professional magicians with the series of card tricks which he is pleased to call "The Tuned Deck"...

Ralph Hull's trick looks and sounds roughly like this:

Boys, I have a new trick to show you. It's called 'The Tuned Deck'. This deck of cards is magically tuned [Hull holds the deck to his ear and riffles the cards, listening carefully to the buzz of the cards]. By their finely tuned vibrations, I can hear and feel the location of any card. Pick a card, any card... [The deck is then fanned or otherwise offered for the audience, and a card is taken by a spectator, noted, and returned to the deck by one route or another.] Now I listen to the Tuned Deck, and what does it tell me? I hear the telltale vibrations, ... [buzz, buzz, the cards are riffled by Hull's ear and various manipulations and rituals are enacted, after which, with a flourish, the spectator's card is presented].

Hull would perform the trick over and over for the benefit of his select audience of fellow magicians, challenging them to figure it out. Nobody ever did. Magicians offered to buy the trick from him but he would not sell it. Late in his life he gave his account to his friend, HILLIARD, who published the account in his privately printed book. Here is what Hull had to say about his trick:

For years I have performed this effect and have shown it to magicians and amateurs by the hundred and, to the very best of my knowledge, not one of them ever figured out the secret. ...the boys have all looked for something too hard [my italics, DCD].

Like much great magic, the trick is over before you even realize the trick has begun. The trick, in its entirety, is in the name of the trick, "The Tuned Deck", and more specifically, in one word "The"! As soon as Hull had announced his new trick and given its name to his eager audience, the trick was over. Having set up his audience in this simple way, and having passed the time with some obviously phony and misdirecting chatter about vibrations and buzz-buzz-buzz, Hull would do a relatively simple and familiar card presentation trick of type A (at this point I will draw the traditional curtain of secrecy; the further mechanical details of legerdemain, as you will see, do not matter).

His audience, savvy magicians, would see that he might possibly be performing a type A trick, a hypothesis they could test by being stubborn and uncooperative spectators in a way that would thwart any attempt at a type A trick. When they then adopted the appropriate recalcitrance to test the hypothesis, Hull would 'repeat' the trick, this time executing a type B card presentation trick. The spectators would then huddle and compare notes: might he be doing a type B trick? They test that hypothesis by adopting the recalcitrance appropriate to preventing a type B trick and still he does "the" trick - using method C, of course. When they test the hypothesis that he's pulling a type C trick on them, he switches to method D - or perhaps he goes back to method A or B, since his audience has 'refuted' the hypothesis that he's using method A or B.

And so it would go, for dozens of repetitions, with Hull staying one step ahead of his hypothesis-testers, exploiting his realization that he could always do some trick or other from the pool of tricks they all knew, and concealing the fact that he was doing a grab bag of different tricks by the simple expedient of the definite article: The Tuned Deck.

I am suggesting, then, that David Chalmers has (unintentionally) perpetrated the same feat of conceptual sleight-of-hand in declaring to the world that he has discovered “The Hard Problem”. Is there really a Hard Problem? Or is what appears to be the Hard Problem simply the large bag of tricks that constitute what Chalmers calls the Easy Problems of Consciousness? These all have mundane explanations, requiring no revolutions in physics, no emergent novelties. They succumb, with much effort, to the standard methods of cognitive science. I cannot prove that there is no
Hard Problem, and Chalmers cannot prove that there is. He can appeal to your intuitions, but this is not a sound basis on which to found a science of consciousness. We have seen in the past – and I have given a few simple examples here – that we have a powerful tendency to inflate our inventory of “known effects” of consciousness, so we must be alert to the possibility that we are being victimized by an error of arithmetic, in effect, when we take ourselves to have added up all the Easy Problems and discovered a residue unaccounted for. That residue may already have been accommodated, without our realizing it, in the set of mundane phenomena for which we already have explanations – or at least unmysterious paths of explanation still to be explored.

The “magic” of consciousness, like stage magic, defies explanation only so long as we take it at face value. Once we appreciate all the non-mysterious ways in which the brain can create benign “user-illusions”, we can begin to imagine how the brain creates consciousness.

Argument to Beethoven's 5th

2008-07-26T11:51:00.002-04:00

I thought this was pretty creative:

The Zutons - Valerie

2008-07-26T11:37:00.001-04:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

Back to Blogging

2008-07-26T00:22:00.004-04:00

After receiving millions of requests to return to blogging and occasional death threats if I don't, I suppose it is time to announce that my summer hiatus is officially ended. Im back!

Now I know many of you missed me, so I will try to make it up to you by posting as frequently as possible--at least sometime in the coming weeks, I promise.

In the meantime here are some of the books that I've recently finished and recommend adding to your summer reading list:

The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace - Ali Allawi

The Brothers Karamazov - Dostoevsky

Collapse of Complex Societies - Joseph Tainter

Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies and Collapse - Jared Diamond

The Ingenuity Gap: Facing the Economic, Environmental, and Other Challenges of an Increasingly Complex and Unpredictable Future - Thomas Homer-Dixon

Who's Afraid of Schodinger's Cat - John Marshall and Danah Zohar

Currently reading:

This is Biology: The Science of the Living World - Ernst Mayr

PostWar: A History of Europe since 1945 - Tony Judt

Capitalism and Modernity - Jack Goody

What is Life? - Erwin Schrodinger

Enjoy.

When The Roses Bloom Again - Wilco

2008-05-18T17:09:00.000-04:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

The Kentucky Derby: An Ominous Portent for Hillary Clinton?

2008-05-07T09:44:00.005-04:00

Well after staying up late last night watching the results come in from the Lake County district of Indiana it seems the Kentucky Derby allegory is becoming more than metaphorical.

For all those who did not watch/are not familiar with the Kentucky Derby all you need to know is that a female horse, named eight belles, entered the race (not the usual sex of steed) and the day before the race Hillary, sharing a common sisterhood with the horse, decided to put money on her.

So the next day at the race Eight Belles ran an incredible race, came from behind, and ended up crossing the line in second place, behind Big Brown, a less experienced horse, who many said should not be in the race. Sadly, Eight Belles had to be euthanized because she broke both her ankles.

In other words, the best race that Eight Belles ever ran, would be the one that killed her.

Link.

Thought of the Day

2008-04-29T21:10:00.004-04:00

So today I found Kierkegaard. I've only read a few of his journal entries thus far, but one of them in particular spoke acutely to where I am right now (excluding the Gods will and Christianity references, but replace that with life and it pretty much sums up my current existential crises).

What I really need is to get clear about what I am to do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge must precede every act. What matters is to find my purpose, to see what it really is that God wills that I shall do; the crucial thing is to find a truth that is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die. Of what use would it be to me to discover a so called objective truth, to work through the philosophical systems so that I could, if asked, make critical judgments about them, could point out the fallacies in each system; of what use would it be to me to be able to develop a theory of the state, getting details from various sources and combining them into a whole, and constructing a world I did not live in but merely held up for others to see; of what use would it be to me to be able to formulate the meaning of Christianity, to be able to explain many specific points--if it had no deeper meaning for me and for my life?

Currently my answer to the question what am I to do is: learn. But then if learning is the only thing I can believe in, the only thing I feel worthwhile, my fear is that, since living life doesn't appeal to me as much as understanding life, by the time I get to be old and gray, I may be wise, but I won't have lived in a meaningful sense, in a purposeful sense, because I haven't found an idea, belief, illusion, whatever to live for.

Dear...

2008-04-28T19:33:00.000-04:00

Via RadarMagazine:

In the late '90s, pop-culture historian Bill Geerhart had a little too much time on his hands and a surfeit of stamps. So, for his own entertainment, the then-unemployed thirtysomething launched a letter-writing campaign to some of the most powerful and infamous figures in the country, posing as a curious 10-year-old named Billy.

To his surprise, replies soon started pouring in. Everyone from Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld (on tree-fort diplomacy) to Oprah Winfrey, Mister Rogers, Janet Reno, and members of the Supreme Court had words of wisdom for Billy. ("I like the Egg McMuffin," wrote Justice Clarence Thomas when asked about his favorite McDonald's food. "Actually, I like almost everything there.") Responding to Billy's idea for a "Hustler for kids," Larry Flynt wrote back encouraging the fourth grader to "Hang in there. You'll be 18 before you know it." As it turns out, no group hates to disappoint a child more than convicted killers, all of whom responded promptly to Billy's questions about dropping out of school.

Their letters, published here for the first time, range from criminally insane to downright sensible, offering snapshots of the personalities behind some of America's most hideous crimes. Recently, Radar asked Billy to follow up with his mentors as a college student. (Click here to skip ahead and read Billy's correspondence with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Larry Flynt, and other non-murderous celebrities)

Thought of the Day

2008-04-28T18:53:00.004-04:00

So I randomly picked up Beckers Denial of Death today in the library and came across this gem of a passage:

The tragedy of mans dualism, his ludicrous situation, becomes too real. The anus and its incomprehensible, repulsive product represents not only phsyical determinism and boundness, but the fate as well of all that is physical: decay and death.

I cant wait to see whats in store as I continue reading. So far Ive had a number of good laughs, but perhaps I shouldnt be so mirthful, since we are all just victims of the ideas of our intellectual era. The ancient Greeks, after all, despite all their rational insightfulness and thoughtful thoroughness, believed that the heart was where thought took place and that the brain was merely a cooling device. And no one needs to be reminded of the state of the universe before Copernicus...

Who knows what ideas and beliefs we hold, people in the future will laugh at us for.

End O the Year

2008-04-27T22:58:00.002-04:00

Well exams are over, the school year has ended, and my scheduled date of departure for home is this Tuesday. I had planned on spending my summer driving vehicles for my dad, teaching summer school special ed, earning money, and learning Chinese in anticipation for my voyage over there come August, where I would be teaching English in Shenzhen for a full year, but this exciting prospect has unfortunately faded into dark oblivion. Due to the Olympics, applicants (ie me) who are applying for teaching programs in China are required to have an undergraduate degree (ie not me). When I was informed of this I was devastated.

China was my warm, red, rescue beacon, the lucky break, adventure, change, that I had been waiting for and looking forward to. I had used the prospect of China to motivate myself to finish the year strong, after a semester of skipping classes, flunking tests, recklessness, drugs, despair, etc.

It worked too. I pulled myself out of the tail spin of failure, got an A in one class, and B's in the rest. But now there's no reward, nothing earned, nothing gained, nothing to look forward to for my effort.

I'm still planning on taking the year off, but I just have no concrete image of what I'll be doing. I'll probably go back to teaching autism again. Work for my dad. Maybe even find a job with state dept or the Smithsonian. The year off actually won't be that bad. I'll be able to indulge myself with subjects I want to learn about, not prescribed and required to read. I'll have some money in my pocket again. And Ill be able to escape to the woods and hills of Virginia again. Go kayaking, rock climbing, and hiking again. I have missed nature terribly since I moved to this city. The only escape is Mount Royal, which offers a serene view of the city skyline, but the park itself is too full of people, orderly, and welcoming. Its like central park, a quick escape from the hustle bustle of the city, but you still feel surrounded by it, an animal in a zoo cage. Its not the untamed wild of the wilderness.

I also hope to refine my writing this summer, as it has become an odious and painful activity. Words still have an appeal to me, as they are certainly incredibly persuasive and useful, when you have mastered the art of manipulating them, but words have somehow lost their allure to me. I want to write expressively, but there's this constant pressure to write impressively, and well to do that, it seems, you have to imitate or (to cover your tracks) synthesize the style of writing or writers that you admire, and I find that, (shameful is too strong of a word), unfortunate.

Bon Iver - Flume

2008-04-27T04:50:00.000-04:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

Assessing the War on (t)error

2008-04-24T15:50:00.007-04:00

So it seems the main conclusion of a recent GAO report entitled "Combating Terrorism: The United States lacks Comprehensive Plan to Destroy the Terrorist Threat and Close the Safe Haven in Pakistan's Federal Administered Tribal Areas" is:

7 years and 10.5 billion dollars later, the US hasn't removed the threat of al-Qaeda, so much as relocated it...

The NIE, The Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland, also found that al-Qaeda had effectively found replacements for many of its senior operational planners over the years. The NIE stated that, in the past 2 years, al Qaeda’s central leadership regenerated the core operational capabilities needed to conduct attacks against the United States. It also found that al Qaeda’s central leadership, based in the border area of Pakistan, is and will remain the most serious terrorist threat to the United States.

The 2008 DNI Annual Threat Assessment and other sources have concluded that the resurgence of al Qaeda terrorists on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan now pose a preeminent threat to U.S. national security. The assessment also examines the impact of not meeting the national security goals. It states that al Qaeda is now using the Pakistani safe haven to put the last element necessary to launch another attack against America into place, including the identification, training, and positioning of Western operatives for an attack. It stated that al Qaeda is most likely using the FATA to plot terrorist attacks against political, economic, and infrastructure targets in America “designed to produce mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks, and/or fear among the population.”

Montreal Hooligans

2008-04-22T22:06:00.008-04:00

So things got pretty wild here in Montreal after the Habs won their first round in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

I came out of the library around 11 to see the celebrations. St. Katherine (the main artery of Montreal) was filled with exuberant fans and honking cars. Police soon showed up and lined up in front of the Concordia Fine Arts building. I assumed to protect people from breaking the glass windows and hurting themselves, but this soon showed itself to be a rather stupid move, since the crowd began to hurl empty beer bottles at them (thus increasing the likelihood of broken glass...). Things soon got even more out of control as word got out that cop cars on mcKay and St Katherine had been set aflame. When I got there everyone was stampeding away from the burning vehicles. I figured they were afraid the cars were going to explode, so I just kept pushing through the masses. When I got to the front I realized everyone was running from the riot police that had lined up at the intersection. You could walk right through their line though, so I slipped through and got a closer look at the burning cars and the rowdy crowd. Fire trucks showed up on the scene and started spraying the three burning cop cars. The police just sort of stood idly by, not really doing much of anything besides making a presence. A few kids near me started kicking in the glass of a reebok store and grabbed the mannequin in the display window who was wearing a Habs jersey and hockey gear.

Eventually more riot police showed up and the crowd started to disperse. I headed back to the library assuming the show was mostly over. When I finally headed home and walked down St. Katherine to see the damage, I was pretty shocked to see how many stores had been looted. A number of clothing stores had their windows broken into, some idiot smashed the window of a western union, then the two SAQ's (liquor stores) had had their windows smashed and looked severely raided. Broken bottles and trash littered the street. One guy I passed had manikin legs (presumably from the one I saw sabotaged)standing upright on his shoulders. A hobo had a manikin hand (presumably from the one I saw sabotaged) and asked me, rather wittingly, if I "needed an extra hand."

Anyways there's a bunch of videos on youtube of the whole affair. This one was shot further downtown from where I was (towards Peel and St Katherine I think):

Here's a recap that I saw them taping today, but it has some footage from last night (including where I was, tho I haven't seen me yet):

I think this just goes to show that mankind really is a synonym for stupid. Why you would want to destroy your town after your team won one for your town is beyond me. It was, confessedly, quite an entertaining spectacle however, since it was certainly something you don't see every day, but I feel bad for the shop keepers and officers who suffered at the behest of drunk, stupid, and unresponsible teens and young adults. Celebrating is one thing, but looting stores and lighting cars aflame is just plain senseless.

The Weakerthans - "The Reasons"

2008-04-14T14:41:00.001-04:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

Tom Waits - Shiver Me Timbers

2008-04-12T12:48:00.000-04:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

San Francisco Running of the Torch

2008-04-09T16:29:00.002-04:00

Update:

It seems the running has been moved indoors...

The torch has yet to leave the warehouse. Things are turning into quite a charade.

Cognitive Dissonance & Choice Rationalization Revisted

2008-04-09T14:00:00.003-04:00

John Tierney has a good piece in the NYtimes on Yale economist Dr. Chen's recent findings that suggest some of the older psychology experiments which showed choice rationalization were really just showing the Monty Hall phenomenon:

The Monty Hall Problem has struck again, and this time it’s not merely embarrassing mathematicians. If the calculations of a Yale economist are correct, there’s a sneaky logical fallacy in some of the most famous experiments in psychology.

The economist, M. Keith Chen, has challenged research into cognitive dissonance, including the 1956 experiment that first identified a remarkable ability of people to rationalize their choices. Dr. Chen says that choice rationalization could still turn out to be a real phenomenon, but he maintains that there’s a fatal flaw in the classic 1956 experiment and hundreds of similar ones. He says researchers have fallen for a version of what mathematicians call the Monty Hall Problem, in honor of the host of the old television show, “Let’s Make a Deal".

Link to Monty Hall game.

Aeschylus' Oresteia: An Interpretive Approach through a Semiotic Analysis

2008-04-08T14:00:00.008-04:00

What is the meaning of life? Why should we be good? What is being good? Why does suffering exist...?

These are all existential questions that seem to exist deep down in the depths of the collective conscience of mankind. In every culture we can see that various answers and explanations to these deep-seeded questions are provided handily to its members so that they might live in harmony instead of constant consternation. We need these answers to live, because without them life is rendered an imponderable mystery, of happenings and experiences, 'without rhyme or reason'. It is culture that orients us to the world by giving it meaning. As Shakespeare, in his inimitable prose, famously wrote “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances...” If we adopt this notion of the world as a stage, and life as a play, then we can think of culture as being our script—it is the thing that gives meaning and shape to our actions, thoughts, emotions, attitudes, and beliefs; it, in short, gives an essence to our ethos. In the same sense that music gives meaning to sound, dance to gesture, and language to utterance, it is culture that gives meaning to life. Man uses culture to make sense of the senseless, to rationalize the irrational, to establish order in the face of disorder, and to comprehend what is otherwise the incomprehensible. It is this process that enables man to act meaningfully. By attributing a particular meaning to, as Dewey eloquently put it, “the ongoing experience of things,” man is imbued with a certain drive, a sense of purpose to his life which he can therefore act upon and in accordance with.

In the Oresteia, the ancient Greek play written by Aeschylus, we can see just how influential culture is on both the minds and the actions of man. Moreover, the Oresteia serves as a snap-shot, a rudimentary ethnography if you will, of the world-view and ethos embodied by the individuals who lived in that time and place. In that sense, then, the Oresteia is clearly a play that was both written by and for its cultural context. For many this news is unsettling because it means that we can never quite capture the true meaning or interpretation of the play, since our interpretations will always be secondary ones, which, even more questionably, rely upon the reconstruction of ancient Greek interpretations based upon whatever texts we determine to be relevant. In other words, our interpretations will always be merely interpretations of interpretations. This need not, however, be cause for despair, for there are still deeper truths which we can extract from reading this play. Personally, this play is important because it documents a particular people and culture, which could have otherwise been lost and therefore forgotten. It is in this vain that I hope to gain, through an analysis of this play, rough insights into, not only the way in which these people perceived their world, but the way in which they acted, felt, and thought, which is to say, the way in which they lived within their world.

Much has already been said on the Oresteia and in this paper I intend to include a few of these interpretations of the play that have been provided over the years to support my own analysis. The literature on this play, however, largely consists of interpretations that have been reached through a literary or classicistic lens. Although most interpretations differ interpretively, which is to say, they reach different conclusions, the more recent interpretations, such as Goldhill (who is much more anthropological), do not substantively differ from my own, though I will reframe his conclusions hopefully in a more illuminating light.

The early and even more modern analyses focused their interpretations on things such as characters, events, structures, themes, moods, motives, attitudes, beliefs, and/or political and social messages intended by the author. Some interpretations are wide in scope, covering the entire Oresteia, while others are much more specific (to one of the plays in the trilogy, or a character, theme, ode, etc). The result of this myriad approach to interpreting the text is that their conclusions are, not surprisingly, as vast as they are varying. It is clear, however, that what they share in common is the fact that they all seek to ascribe some meaning to or explanation of each aforementioned concept to determine what, exactly, they play (or the author) is saying. Hugh Lloyd-Jones, for instance, in his article The Guilt of Agamemnon, offers an exceptionally well-written expose on the topic of justice in the first play, The Agamemnon, and shows the extent to which the characters in this play become tragically trapped in inescapable moral dichotomies of to do or to don't (Lloyd-Jones 1962). Another view, mostly eloquently expressed by H.D.F. Kitto, but best summarized by Goldhill, see in the Oresteia “a transformation from dike as revenge to dike as legal justice—a move from the bloody repetition of vendetta to the ordered world of the polis and its institutions” (Goldhill 1992: p.32). The Oresteia is thus seen as being a sort of myth of origin of an institutionalized legal system—“a charter for the city” (ibid. p.32). I find Goldhill’s analysis of the play, found in his wonderful book Aeschylus, the Oresteia, to be the most comprehensive because he uses the cultural context that the play was written in to shape his interpretation.

What is clear is that most of these interpretations clearly address the question of 'what is the play saying' through a literary or classicistic lens. My aim is to answer this question by explaining what the play is inherently doing from an anthropological perspective. Through an analysis of the play I wish to demonstrate the extent to which culture determines or at least heavily counsels the thoughts and actions of men.

Max Weber suggested that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance which he himself has spun. And I, like Geertz, “take culture to be these webs”. Culture is, in more definitive terms, and as Geertz put it quite simply, “a system of meanings embodied in symbols.” In this paper I will employ Geertz's symbolic analysis approach, which he used to analyze culture, to analyze Aeschylus' Oresteia, with the intention of constructing my own interpretation of the play. My interpretation will be thus based upon the interpretative representation and—judged by popularity—possible reflection of most of Aechylus' fellow citizens world-view and ethos. My interpretation, however, will be developed using the lens of modern anthropological insight. I intend to treat the Oresteia as a sort of Ethnography, a material document that is itself a symbol which can be used to reconstruct a people’s world-view and ethos.

The Oresteia is riddled with cultural symbols which I will try to point out, but my main goal is to render an interpretation of the Oresteia based upon its cultural background. I do not intend to offer a final verdict or conclusion of what the play is saying, but rather, through my contribution of yet another interpretive approach, hopefully add to the refinement of the ongoing debate. If nothing else I simply wish to show how the Oresteia offers a unique contribution to the ongoing social discourse, composed of the various and varying interpretations of man across time and space, regarding the true meaning of, and way of living, life. My interpretation will focus on many of the same things that Goldhill has focused on, in particular the construction of gender roles, metaphysics, and morality, but will differ in both scope and results (due to the formula of approach) from much of the other literary interpretations of the play.

Based on my reading of the Oresteia I have singled out three aspects which I think will usefully shape the rest of this paper's topics. The first aspect is that the play offers a model-of reality (the real reality of the world or a world-view). The second is that it provides or proposes a model-for reality (a specific life style and particular ethos). The third aspect is that problems or calamities all seem to stem from the apparent conflict between the first two aspects—between the approved style of life and the assumed structure of reality (not surprising of Greek tragedy in particular, and cultural systems in general). I will focus on each of these individually and show how they color the events, attitudes, feelings, actions, and beliefs that emerge as the play unfolds.

Let the doer suffer . . . (Cho. 313)

The plot of the Oresteia primarily revolves around the two pervasive themes of revenge and justice. Revenge, in the Oresteia, appears to be a socially appropriate way of seeking justice. It is also seen as having a patterned and understood reason of occurrence, as opposed to being a random or barbaric act of passion. This conception of revengeful justice is clearly expressed in the choral ode of the Libation Bearers, where the chorus says “as she demands her due loud cries the voice of Justice; 'for murderous stroke let murderous stroke atone'. 'Let the doer suffer'; so goes a saying three times ancient” (Cho. 311-14). This pattern of revenge, where the doer suffers what he deserves, also creates, as Goldhill points out, a “pattern of reversal, where the very act of taking revenge repeatedly turns the revenger into an object of revenge” (Goldhill 1992: p.27). In other words, as a line in a song from a local Montreal band, the Stars, goes, “killers always have killers on their tracks.” This conception of justice is evidently subscribed to by the main actors in the trilogy and heavily influences their actions, feelings, and sentiments. I will thus treat revenge and justice (to the Greeks, two faces of the same coin) as a symbol and briefly demonstrate how it affects the structure and outcome of each play in the trilogy.

In the first play, the Agamemnon, the king, to which the play is named, is murdered by his wife Clytemnestra after returning home victorious from a ten-year siege on the city of Troy. The queen's motive was clearly anger, because her husband had sacrificed their daughter, Iphigenia. But the queen feels her act is socially justified because she is exacting revenge in the approved light of justice. The king killed their daughter, so she therefore has the right to kill the king. Her act is wrong, however, because her conception of justice is, as the Greeks always like to say, off the mark. Iphigenia was sacrificed to allow the fleet to set sail towards Troy in order to avenge the taking of Helen, Menealaus' wife (Agamemnon's brother) and thus breaking of the covenant of host and guest, by Paris, prince of Troy. It is clear from the chorus of this play that the mission the two sons of Atreus were sent out to accomplish was considered just. They compare Agamemnon and Menelaus to the Erinys, sent to exact justice on the “transgressors” with the support of the divinities, including Zeus, the guardian “of host and guest” and head honcho of the divinities (58-64). Thus, whereas Agamemnon's sacrifice is considered just because it was a necessary act that enabled him to accomplish divine commands and restore the social/cosmic order of host and guest, Clytemnestra's act is denuded of this divine garb of legitimacy and is therefore rendered a naked act of shameless passion.

The need to sacrifice Iphigenia not only shows an obligation to restore the assumed order, but also shows how this obligation to do what is considered right or just can, consequently, produce intense inner emotions of grief and lead to later troubles. This can be seen in lines 206-211 where Agamemnon expresses his extreme consternation over his seemingly inescapable moral dilemma: “A grievous doom is disobedience, and a grievous doom it is if I massacre my daughter, the pride of my house, polluting with streams of slaughtered maiden's blood a father's hands hard by the altar. What of these courses is free from evil?” Conflict thus arises because the the model-of reality, how the world actually is (its divine-social structure), does not match up with an agreeable model-for reality (Agamemnon is obligated by the former reality to carry out the act, however unwilling; there is a sense that he must do it). It is my suggestion that this ought that governs Agamemnon's actions stems from the is of his conceptual reality.

In the second play, the Libation Bearers, the pattern of justice through reciprocal violence is continued. Cytemnestra and Aegisthus, her adulterous lover and coconspirator in the plot to kill Agamemon, are killed by Orestes and Electra, the son and coconspirating daughter. In lines 298-302 we get a powerful sense of why Orestes feels he must commit the act of matricide “Such were the oracles; and I must not believe them? Even if I lack belief, the deed must be done. For many longings move to one end; so do the god's command and my great sorrow for my father' and moreover I am hard pressed by the want of my possessions.” These lines express the overlap between cultural concepts and personal sentiments and emotions. It is for both divine and personal reasons that Orestes feels obligated to do what must be done. (What he does not realize, however, is that his internal emotions are, if not sparked, at least shaped by the cultural concepts he has inherited regarding justice). Goldhill suggests that these lines express the fact that in the eyes of Orestes he “is fulfilling the god's command to exact vengeance,” but he has reservations and hesitancies because “he is also being forced to kill within his own family” (Goldhill 1992: p.24) My reading of these lines is that Orestes sees congruence between his personal wants and the decree of the divine command for revenge. There is, however, noticeable hesitation later on in the play at having to commit the matricidal act, but in the final climatic scene where he is about to deliver the final blow his intentions are clear: “You killed whom you ought not, now suffer what you ought not” (Cho. 930). Thus, once again the act of vengeance is carried out in the name of ought (the act ought to be done because it is seen as being right in the eyes of those who see revenge to be a just reality). And once again the act of revenge clearly has suffering consequences, as Orestes becomes haunted by the Furies. “The hunter is now the hunted” (Goldhill 1992: p. 30).

In the third play, the Eumenides, the Furies follow the blood-stained scent of Orestes all the way to Athens where a trial court has been established. A panel of judges hears his case, reach a stale mate in votes, and it is left to Athena to settle Orestes' innocence once and for all. Resting on her vote is the very concept of justice. The Furies represent the old mores of 'the doer must suffer', vendetta-type justice', whereas the trial that has been set up represents the new mores of Athens in which an individual is punished based on his responsibility and in the light of a socially approved considerations. Athena votes in favor of Orestes and gives what is, to the modern reader, a rather unsatisfactory explanation of why she voted to free him from the Furies, which thus allows him to escape death and the cycle of reciprocal violence. This outcome in the final play has perplexed a few and concluded for many what the Oresteia is saying, which is, as summarized by Goldhill, that “on both the human and the divine level there is in the final scenes of the trilogy a move away from bloody conflict where each victory leads to disastrous transgression towards an institution and practice that aim to resolve conflict without transgressive destructiveness” (ibid p. 30). I largely agree with this interpretation. The final scenes seem to represent a profound shift in the conception of justice from the 'doer must suffer' to the more legalistic 'doer must be tried'. This also pars well with the cultural context of Athens at the time this play was written. According to Goldhill an obligation or 'commitment to the polis' was a popularly held sentiment and the citizens of Athens in particular felt that there was an ought to act for the good of the polis instead of themselves. The establishment of a court system in which citizens voted on the outcome of fellow citizens clearly demonstrates this sense of communalism.

The female is the murderer of the male . . . (Cho. 1231).

Another pervasive symbol found in the Oresteia is the conception (or what we anthropologists like to call the construction) of gender. Every conflict that occurs in the Oresteia is between male and female counterparts. In the first play Agamemnon is sent by Zeus, a god, to lay siege upon Troy but is held up at port by Artemis, a goddess. As a result Agamemnon, the father, has to sacrifice Iphigenia, the daughter. Then King Agamemnon, the husband, comes home victorious, but is tricked and killed by Queen Clytemnestra, the wife. In the Libation Bearers, Orestes, the son, avenges his father and kills Clytemnestra, the mother. In the Eumenides Apollo, a god, takes responsibility for Orestes' matricidal act and protects him from the Furies, female divinities. The trial at the end of the play also turns on gender related issues, specifically kinship, a topic which I will address later on, because I find it particularly interesting. From these examples it is clear that in the Oresteia there is a clash of, not Huntington's civilizations, but Aeschylus' gender conceptions.

The clash of genders, however, is more a clash within the female-male gender constructs than it is between them, even though a quick reading of the play would make this statement seem erroneous. Based on my reading it is the characters who do not conform to their socially accepted gender roles, most notably Clytemnestra, that seem to be the most socially disruptive threats to the fabric of social order. In the first scene of the Oresteia Clytemnestra's apparent lack of conformity to the dispositions of her gender is suggested by the Watchman who is “watching for the signal of the torch, the gleam of fire bringing news from Troy, and the tidings of her capture; for such is the rule of a woman's man-counseling heart, ever hopeful, heart” (Aga. 10-11). Goldhill translates this passage to 'such is the authority of the man-plotting heart of the woman'. While these two translations seem to be different in tone they both emphasize a seemingly agreeable interpretation: Clytemnestra' command is unusual because she is, namely, a she. Goldhill's analysis of a female's status at the time under the patriarchal society would seem to support the interpretation that this authoritative command coming from a female would have indeed stood out as uncommon or unusual in the audiences' mind—as the words 'female' and 'power' were clearly not synonymous, nor were they even associated with one another. Moreover, according to Goldhill the adjective he translated to 'man-plotting' can mean both 'plotting like a man' and 'plotting against a man'. This “double sense is significant: for a woman to plot like a man – and thus aim at the position of authority – is inevitably to plot against man: against the established order of patriarchy” (Goldhill 1992: p. 37).

Clytemnestra's ability to walk, talk, and act like a man is mentioned on several occasions during the rest of the play. When Clytemnestra appears before the chorus in the Agamemnon they say “I have come, Clytemnestra, in reverence for your power; for it is right to honor the wife of a king when the throne has been made empty of the male” (258-260), which suggests that the only reason Clytemnestra is granted any authority at all is because her husband, a king, is absent. In line 351 the chorus again says to Clytemnestra “Woman you are speaking like a sensible man.” In the scene where Clytemnestra is trying to persuade Agamemnon to walk on the tapestries he says to her “It is not a woman's part to desire battle” (940). This repeated association of Clytemnestra with male attributes suggests that she is certainly not the ideal or stereotypical female that the audience would have expected.

Goldhill suggests that the role of the female in daily life at the time this play was written was indeed very limited. A female was expected to stay inside the house and the only time she could speak in public was during a religious ceremony or in a religious context (i.e. prophecy). Clytemnestra, then, is clearly not the ideal submissive stay-at-home mom and it is both her pursuit for power by deception, persuasion, and guile through the manipulation of language and her sexual corruptness that make her a threat to the social patriarchal order.

In the Oresteia it is always the woman who represents the catalyst of calamity. It is the female who lets her passions get the best of her, followed by a male who has to restore the order. Helen commits adultery and runs away with Paris, Agamemnon is sent by Zeus to lay siege upon Troy respectively. His leave allows Clytemnestra to “dare the undareable” by having an affair with Aegisthus. When he returns he is killed by Clytemnestra for an act that was caused by Helen. Thus, the main calamities that take place in the Oresteia can be causally attributed to the licentious female. This view of the adulterous female seems to have been a common one at that time: “The common ideological association of the woman with the inside of the house is represented repeatedly in Greek writing as a necessary response to the threat of women's desires leading to adultery' and this adultery is represented as a threat to the secure pattern of male inheritance within a patriarchal social system” (Goldhill 1992: p.39). Within the play itself we find evidence of this conception of the female gender: “the desperate passions of women without scruple, fellows of the spirits that wreak ruin among mortals? Unions in wedlock are perverted by the victory of shameless passion, mastering the female, among beasts and men” (Cho. 596-601). Clytemnestra is clearly the embodiment of this licentious threat of shameless passion.

Lastly, there seems to be another appearing pattern that emerges in the play: men act in accordance with and for the good of the polis, while women act in accordance with their passions and for the good of themselves. I think Goldhill puts this point best, so I’ll give him credit by quoting him in full:

“At each point in these conflicts the female tends towards the support of a position and arguments that are based on values of ties of blood to the point of the rejection of the ties of society, whereas the male tends to support a wider outlook of social relations to the exclusion of the claims of family and blood. Thus Agamememnon sacrifices his own daughter, 'glory of the household', to enable the panhellenic fleet to sail. He rejects his duties as a father to maintain his position in society as king and leader of an international military force. Clytemnestra rejects the social tie of marriage, both by killing her husband and by her adultery, in part at least to avenge her daughter. Orestes rejects that apparently most 'natural' of blood ties, between mother and son, to regain his patrimony and reassert the social order of patriarchy. Apollo is a god of state religion, the great civilizer from the international oracle at Delphi. The Furies are depicted as female who seem ready to ignore any claim of society in their pursuit of those who have killed their own kin, their own blood” (Goldhill 1992: p. 42).

This is not a surprising theme to emerge from a male writer who wrote in a patriarchal society. It is what anthropologists refer to as 'the myth of matriarchy overturned' which Goldhill defines as “a story that tells of the overthrow of female authority or female search for power as a way of justifying the continuing status quo of male authority in society (ibid p.45). Every sub-system in culture albeit religion, politics, ideology, etc. uses symbols such as these to maintain their own existence by providing an acceptable world-view and approved way of operating within the context of that world-view. In this case women are seen as untrustworthy and unable to control their passions, so there is a cultural need to restrain them by relegating them to the household and a need to lessen their power and authority. In other words, the maintenance of their oppression rests upon the myth of their gendered dispositions!

On a final, gender related note, I'd just like to draw some attention to the trial scene in the Eumenides where Apollo lays out his explanation for why the male is the true begetter of progeny. In anthropology we lump socio-family relations and relatedness into the category known as kinship. In this play kinship relations comes up, but I could not quite grasp their conception of relatedness. In line 606 Orestes ask the Furies “And have I the same blood as my mother?” And they respond in turn “How else did she nourish you under her girdle, murderer? Did you disown your mother's dearest blood?” The matter is finally settled by Apollo in lines 656-674 where he says “She who is called the child's mother is not its begetter, but the nurse of the newly sown conception. The begetter is the male, and she as a stranger for a stranger preserves the offspring, if no god blights its birth.” Apollo then uses the ancient story of Zeus and Hera to prove that man by himself can produce progeny. Whether or not this is an accurate representation of the audience's kinship system is questionable, but seeing as how it was a patriarchal society, the view that man is the genitor is certainly not an empirical surprise.

On his course by the counsels of the gods . . . (Cho. 941)

The last symbol I wish to focus on is religion. In the Oresteia the presence and involvement of the divinities heavily influences the actions and events that occur in the play. In the Agamemnon the expedition intended to lay siege on Troy is said by the Chorus to have been sent by Zeus “And thus are the sons of Atreus sent against Alexander by him whose power is greater, Zeus, guardian of host and guest; for the sake of a woman of many men” (Aga. 60-3). The portent of the two eagles feasting on the pregnant hare is interpreted by the army prophet Calchas to be a sign from the gods of the sacking of Troy by the two brothers Agamemnon and Menelaus (Aga. 121-5); before the fleet sets sail it is held up at port by the winds of the angry goddess Artemis causing Agamemnon to sacrifice his daughter (Aga. 185-200). In lines 362-3 after Clytemnestra has informed the chorus that Troy has fallen they say “It is the mighty Zeus, lord of host and guest, that I revere, he that has accomplished this.” The herald also attributes the divine hand of Zeus to the expedition in lines 523-5 “him who has uprooted Troy with the mattock of Zeus who does justice.” When the herald continues his story he reluctantly tells the chorus of the storm that wreaked the fleet on its victorious return. The storm is implicitly attributed to the desecration of Trojan altars and temples and the slaughter of many men and women before the walls of Troy. When Agamemnon returns and speaks before the chorus his first words are directed towards the gods and the events that have just come to pass are all linked to divine purpose and approval (Aga. 810-30). After Clytemnestra murders Agamemnon she initially tries to convince the chorus that her act was derived from her own motives, but then argues that she is an agent of divine forces.

The Libation Bearers opens with both Orestes and Electra offering prayers to Hermes. In lines 269-285 Orestes explains Loxias’ (aka Apollo’s) oracle which supports his want to regain his possessions and seek vengeance on “those guilty of the murder” of his father. When Orestes displays reservations over killing his mother and asks the hitherto taciturn Pylades what to do, Pylades in his only lines of the trilogy says “ Where henceforth shall be the oracles of Loxias declared at Pytho, and the covenant you pledged an oath? Count all man your enemies rather than the gods!” (Cho. 899-903). After Orestes deals the death blow to Clytemnestra the choral ode that concludes the act suggests that it was an act both divinely motivated and ordained (Cho. 935-41).

In the Eumenides, the first scene takes place in the temple of Apollo. The horrible (miscarriage-inducing) Furies appear before Pythia, who then flees, at which point a central door on stage opens revealing Apollo and Orestes inside the temple. The rest of the play demonstrates a continued and palpable involvement of the divinities (of Apollo, Athena, and the Furies). According to Goldhill, this “direct and constant involvement of divine forces in human action” has lead critics to conclude that “this trilogy represents human action as controlled and determined by divine authority” (Goldhill 1992: p. 75). This interpretation, I think, is somewhat dogmatic and oversimplified vis-à-vis the complexity of human actions and dispositions to other cultural concepts that we have seen in the play. It is not, as Denys Page suggests, simply “the will of Zeus be done . . . [man’s] part is to obey” (ibid 76). This play does, however, raise a number of questions concerning human agency. But these questions basically boil down to the following: is free choice and human motivations independent of a divine plan and determined purpose? A direct answer to this question is difficult to ascertain, because the play offers a number of interpretations. I’ll leave the myriad interpretations to the scholars and extract one thread of thought from Goldhill which I think is pertinent to my approach. Goldhill suggests that “the gods as figures become part of humans’ attempts at comprehending things” (ibid p.76). I think this acutely captures the essence of religion.

In Religion as a Cultural System Geertz says that “Religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seems uniquely realistic” (Geertz 1973: p.93). Throughout the Oresteia ritualistic practices are performed for the gods, choral odes are sung to the gods, and characters seem to be acted through or at least, in their minds, with the approval of the gods. Thus the religious symbol has not only gripping affective properties, but also a binding or controlling effect on the actions of men. But the extent to which man is a puppet of divine determinism is somewhat obscure, which is certainly not surprising, since the obligation itself is an imagined reality of numerous puppets: both women and men.

Random occurrences are often dichotomized into good and bad in numerous cultures and the appearance of one or the other is usually associated with divinity. Geertz once again offers insight on religion’s role when he says “as a religious problem, the problem of suffering is, paradoxically, not how to avoid suffering but how to suffer, how to make of physical pain, personal loss, worldly defeat, or the helpless contemplation of others' agony something bearable, supportable—something, as we say, sufferable” (ibid p.90). In the Oresteia we see that suffering is made sufferable because it is explained as a grace, endowed by the gods, that puts men on their way to wisdom “there is, I think, a grace that comes by violence from the gods” (Aga. 182). In the line just above we read “Zeus who put men on their way to wisdom by making it a valid law that by suffering they shall learn” (Aga. 176-8). Thus, the attractive force of religion appears to be the fact that it constructs a reality in which, to quote Max Weber, “events are not just there and happen, but they have meaning and happen because of that meaning” (Geertz 1973: p. 96).

This notioin of man is represented even more explicitly in the scene that follows Agamemnon’s death where Clytemnestra attempts to construct a meaning to the events that have just occurred. First she says “this is Agamemnon, my husband, and a corpse, the work of this right hand, a just workman (Aga. 1404-5); she then shifts her stance and attributes the slaughter to more extrinsic forces “I swear by the justice accomplished for my child, and by Ruin and the Erinys, to whom I sacrificed this man” (Aga. 1432-3); then she claims she was motivated by “the thrice glutted spirit of this race” (Aga. 1475-6) after the chorus mentions the family curse; her final position is expressed in lines 1497-1504 where she says to the chorus “You aver that this deed is mine. But do not consider that I am Agamemnon’s consort! But manifesting himself to this dead man’s wife the ancient savage avenger of Atreus, the cruel banqueter, slew him in requital, sacrificing a grown man after children.” Thus it is clear that the act moves from Clytemnestra’s “right hand” to basically ‘this is the work of the ancient demon or curse on the house of Agamemnon’. As Clytemnestra’s explanations of causation shift, so too, do the chorus’ sentiments of sympathy—they actually point the finger of blame at Helen (Aga. 1455-61); then at the “spirit that falls upon the house and the two sons of Tantalus” (Aga. 1468-70). Thus there is much ambiguity with causation and no clear distinction between actions that would be seen as being derived from purely human motives and those that are seen as being derived from a divine plan. My own reading is that their conception of agency seems to be weighted towards the latter, but I’m not sure if this view represents the views of Aeschylus or the audience who first watched this play. What it represents though, I think, is a universal principle of culture: the human need to ascribe meaning to events. Without meaning we can’t function. For, as Albert Camus put it in The Myth of Sisyphus, “living means doing, no matter how much one attempts to disengage from the spectacle” and doing, I think, requires meaning. A meaningless world of happenstance and unexplained occurrences, of passions and unordered experiences, would render man absolutely functionless and incapable of meaningful, purposeful, conscious action. Clytemnestra demonstrates that the possible accounts of meaning can differ widely, but the fact remains, meaning must be ascribed.

Culture, as we have seen, tunes the actions of men to the cosmic conditions of his reality. It gives meaning to our environment so that we can live in harmony with it. When a crime is committed man immediately attributes meaning to it by rationalizing it. For Aeschlyus crime follows a pattern of revenge and reversal—for us today we look to psychological (motives and mental disorders) and socio-economic (race and poverty) explanations which can replace our ineffable consternation with concepts that explain why these bad things happen. Culture, then, gives both a model-of reality and a model-for reality. My aim was to understand, as Geertz put it “how it is that men's notions, however implicit, of the “really real” and the dispositions these notions induce in them, color their sense of the reasonable, the practical, the humane, and the moral” (Geertz 1973: p.84). I have tried to show this by analyzing conceptual symbols found in the Oresteia and elaborating upon how they lead (or even determine) actors to their actions. By analyzing this text I also attempted to reconstruct, as much as possible, the assumed structure of reality and the approved lifestyle within that reality and how these two aspects are related and to some extent interdependent. Believing, with Geertz, that it is only through the cultural context that we can interpret symbols I tried to use what I knew of the cultural background to interpret the Oresteia. Goldhill seems to take up this same approach and the fruitfulness of doing so is clearly evidenced by his book. I do not, however, think that this is the only approach to an interpretation of the text, but I do think it is a good one, because it gets closest to determining what they play is actually saying by recreating and trying to understand the ethos of the audience for whom the play was meant. I also hope that this analysis shed some light on the mechanisms inherent in culture and how man is both shaped and the shaper of these mechanisms. My scope was clearly broad and my page space, unfortunately, is limited, but I hope I revealed some important insights and offered a new way to interpret ancient Greek literature. I hold the opinion that the more interpretive approaches we have the better our conclusions will be. To conclude, and slightly emend a passage from Geertz, Greek literary analysis “is (or should be) guessing at meaning, assessing the guesses, and drawing explanatory conclusions for better guesses, not discovering the Continent of Meaning and mapping out its bodiless landscape” (Geertz 1973: p.20).

Pilate - Alright

2008-04-04T15:18:00.001-04:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

The Internet

2008-04-04T12:41:00.001-04:00

Providing answers to all life's many questions:

Link.

Ride Monkey Ride

2008-04-04T12:30:00.000-04:00

Monkey rides mini bike:

Oasis - Don't Look Back In Anger

2008-04-02T03:24:00.000-04:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

Interesting Thought of the Day

2008-04-02T01:47:00.004-04:00

I found this quatrain today, which I liked and felt like sharing. Enjoy.

The rain falls on the just
And on the unjust fella;
But mainly upon the just
Because the unjust has the just's umbrella.

A Slideshow of Life & Death

2008-04-01T16:10:00.003-04:00

I thought this was pretty eerie/cool.

Link.

Rocks & Thoughts

2008-03-31T14:16:00.003-04:00

Mindhacks has a brilliant post up on his blog that unites elements of psychology with a personal observance that he had (and which I have certainly shared) while rock climbing. Make sure you check it out.

Muddy Waters & James Cotton - Got My Mojo Working

2008-03-31T14:09:00.001-04:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

Just Plain Creepy

2008-03-30T15:41:00.003-04:00

Computer graphics are getting just plain scary realistic. (make sure you move your mouse around).

Link.

Some Good News From Iraq?

2008-03-30T15:04:00.003-04:00

Via the BBC:

Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr has ordered his fighters off the streets of Basra and other cities in an effort to end clashes with security forces.

He said in a statement that his movement wanted the Iraqi people to stop the bloodshed and maintain the nation's independence and stability

. . .

Moqtada Sadr's statement said: "Because of the religious responsibility, and to stop Iraqi blood being shed, and to maintain the unity of Iraq and to put an end to this sedition that the occupiers and their followers want to spread among the Iraqi people, we call for an end to armed appearances in Basra and all other provinces.

"Anyone carrying a weapon and targeting government institutions will not be one of us."

The cleric also demanded that the government apply the general amnesty law, release detainees and stop what he called illegal raids.

Moqtada Sadr also told his followers to "work with Iraqi government offices to achieve security and to file charges against those who have committed crimes".

IPFD

2008-03-30T14:43:00.002-04:00

The NYtimes has a cool slideshow of scenes from various cities on International Pillow Fight Day.

Check it out by clicking here.

Stuff White People Like

2008-03-30T13:49:00.004-04:00

I just came across this website gem, Stuff White People Like, which I highly recommend checking out. Some of the posts are hillarious. Like this one, for instance, on San Francisco:

White people like to vacation in San Francisco because it has beautiful architecture, fantastic food, and it is near the water. They like to live in San Francisco because of its abundance of Non Profit Organizations, Expensive Sandwiches, Wine, political outlook, and most importantly its diversity.

Since many white people either live in, plan to move to, or closely identify with San Francisco it is imperative that you know how best to deal with them.

The City of San Francisco has a very multicultural population that ranges from white to gay to Asian. Within white culture this known as “ideal diversity” for its provision of exotic restaurants while simultaneously preserving property values. The presence of gays and Asians is imperative as it two provides two of the key resources most necessary for white success and happiness. However, it is important to be aware of the fact that regions outside of San Francisco feature many people who are not white, gay or Asian. They are greatly appreciated during the census, but white people are generally very happy that they stay in places like Oakland and Richmond. This enables white people to feel good about living near people of diverse backgrounds without having to directly deal with troublesome issues like income gaps or schooling.

Mocking Atheists

2008-03-30T11:47:00.002-04:00

This video is absolutely hysterical:

Interesting Thought of the Day

2008-03-30T11:06:00.005-04:00

Geertz on Religion in "Ethos, World View, and the Anaylsis of Sacred Symbols":

Religious symbols, dramatized in rituals or related in myths, are felt somehow to sum up, for those for whom they are resonant, what is known about the way the world is, the quality of the emotional life it supports, and the way one ought to behave while in it. Sacred symbols thus relate an ontology and a cosmology to an aesthetics and a morality: their peculiar power comes from their presumed ability to identify fact with value at the most fundamental level, to give to what is otherwise merely actual, a comprehensive normative import . . . The tendency to synthesize world view and ethos at some level, if not logically necessary, is at least empircally coercive; if it is not philosophically justified, it is at least pragmatically universal.

. . .

The force of a religion in supporting social values rests, then, on the ability of its symbols to formulate the world in which those values, as well as the forces opposing their realization, are fundamental ingredients. It represents the power of the human imagination to construct an image of reality in which, to quote Max Weber, ‘events are no just there and happen, but they have meaning and happen because of that meaning.’

Btw, there's an interesting discussion between Paul Bloom and Joshua Knobe on the topic of religion and morality over at blogginheads.tv which I recommend checking out.

Quantum Sleeper

2008-03-30T08:38:00.004-04:00

The bed that turns into a protective coffin:

The basic Quantum Sleeper unit consists of an aluminum bed frame and headboard with polycarbonate, bullet proof plating that is designed to provide a protective barrier (shielding) between a perpetrator or environmental condition and the homeowners or occupants.

The bullet proof polycarbonate barrier is designed to stop bullet penetration, blows from impact, forced entry and provide a sealed temporary safe room and environment from burglars, terrorist or harmful gasses and also provide protection from the destructive forces of tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes and floods. The unit can also be fitted with defensive devices customized to the requests of the purchasers such as tear gas spray, robotic arms, or projectile weaponry. It is designed to enable the person(s) inside the unit to see out and prevent those outside from seeing in.

The unit is equipped with a bio-chemical filter in case of bio-chemical attack and a rebreather system to enable the operator to seal off all outside air and provide breathable air for a specified amount of time. This system is used in such a case where the unit operator may need to release tear gas or another form of gaseous material in defense against a burglar or terrorist. The rebreather system is also useful as the ultimate protection (safe room) from weapons of mass destruction that may be used during biological warfare, chemical warfare, bio-chemical attack or other type gas attack that could release an unknown or new form of hazardous gas. There are doors on either side of the unit next to the headboard that have an emergency release button that when pressed will cause the doors to pop open in case of mechanical failure or loss of power to the operating systems.

Link.

When A Maaan Loves a . . .Table

2008-03-30T08:29:00.002-04:00

Trouble ensues:

BELLEVUE, OH -- A man in central Ohio is accused of having sex with his picnic table.

The investigation began when a tipster gave police three DVDs showing Arthur Price having sexual intercourse with a metal round table on his deck.

The incidents occurred between January and March 2008.

Police say the DVDs show Price involved in a sex act in his bedroom. He walks out to his deck, tilts the table on its side and has sex with it.

Link.

Black Crowes - She Talks To Angels

2008-03-30T08:20:00.001-04:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

Nasa's New Big Rig Space Buggy

2008-03-29T16:52:00.004-04:00

Looks f*ing awesome:

It turns on a dime and parallel-parks like a dream. On the downside, it’s a little pricey (at $2 million or so) and its top speed is a pokey 15 miles an hour.
Still, there’s a lot to like about the concept car taking shape here at the Johnson Space Center.
Did I say car? The new moon buggy conceived by space center engineers is anything but a car or a buggy. Its official name is Chariot, and this, my friends, is a truck. A heavy duty workhorse of a truck.
“America basically created the truck,” said Lucien Junkin, the chief engineer on the project. And so, he says, why not take a truck to the moon if NASA, as planned, takes humans back, as early as 2020?
It is a beguiling idea, especially as realized in a vehicle infused with the lessons learned from the Apollo-era moon missions and the subsequent success of the Spirit and Opportunity robotic rovers on Mars.
This model took a year to build. It looks kind of like what you’d get if a monster truck had a ménage à trois with a flatbed trailer and a medieval siege engine.

Link.

Interesting Thought of the Day

2008-03-29T16:32:00.006-04:00

In his lucid explanation of why it was that proletarians were more politically oriented than were peasants (though both were poor and exploited), Marx talked about how the individual cottages of each isolated peasant family looked out at the fields they individually worked. In effect, the peasants related to the world as individuals and simply had no effective "window" on the complex realities of social and economic organization. Their lives were neither urbanized nor sufficiently collectivized within production situations. They also resided at a distance from their neighbors; community thus was (in Marx's view) minimal. Television screens, arguably, are not unlike the peasant's window on the fields. They provide a glimpse (in this case a consciously controlled glimpse) of a small part of the world, but also isolate existence, reduce community, and narrow experience, both intellectual and actual.

Television rarely asks questions about the desirability and importance of consumption, or about the structures of society (or media ownership patterns). It just "entertains" in a mildly addictive sort of way, filling silences and providing a substitute for community institutions. It supplies amusing and undemanding friends and highly skilled athletic activity without the need for effort or the risk of injury or personal failure. It is also the ultimate selling machine for both goods and politics. In most developing nations it is, in effect, the advanced guard of globalization—it is at the heart of global-scale economic integration. Access to the airwaves (other than very locally) is all but unavailable to citizens, or to organizations without millions of dollars to spend.
- Robert Paehlke in Democracy's Dilemma

I personally don't think televisions grip over the masses is that intentional, since every day I am more and more convinced that people are just generally stupid and prefer the mindless entertainment that is provided to them on the airwaves over the more important and more thought-requiring topics or issues that they should be concerned about. Its unfortunate because I would much rather excuse their stupidity by saying that they are force-fed this stuff by the people in power, but the reality, I think, is that they actually enjoy this crap.

Interview with Alex Grey

2008-03-29T16:23:00.002-04:00

Via the San Francisco Chronicle:

Alex Grey paints souls. His work shows human bodies — rendered with medical-illustration precision — wrapped in layers of sacred energy. Whether you believe Grey's work depicts the reality of divine auras or a particularly vibrant artistic license doesn't much matter. His paintings have an uncanny effect on viewers, making them sense — or at least consider the possibility of — the subtle energies that surround us and how these personal force fields might change depending on our intention, actions and moods. They are modern-day religious icons and mandalas for 21st century Westerners.

Get-Il

2008-03-29T16:19:00.004-04:00

I want this tee-shirt so bad...

Link.

I smell a Zinger

2008-03-29T16:13:00.001-04:00

Via David Corn:

Here's a good justification for war: you create the conditions for genocide and then you have to stick around to prevent that genocide. In a foreign policy speech on Wednesday, Senator John McCain said,

We have incurred a moral responsibility in Iraq. It would be an unconscionable act of betrayal, a stain on our character as a great nation, if we were to walk away from the Iraqi people and consign them to the horrendous violence, ethnic cleansing, and possibly genocide that would follow a reckless, irresponsible, and premature withdrawal.

What's At Stake in Basra

2008-03-29T15:56:00.005-04:00

Fred Kaplan has a good piece in Slate explaining just why the fighting in Basra is so significant.

The fighting this week in Basra may be a prelude to the moratorium's collapse and, with it, the resumption of wide-scale sectarian violence—Shiite vs. Sunni and Shiite vs. Shiite.

Many Shiites believe—not unreasonably—that Maliki ordered the offensive in Basra now in order to destroy Sadr's base of support and thus keep his party from beating ISCI in the upcoming provincial elections.

Late last month, Iraq's three-man presidential council vetoed a bill calling for provincial elections, in large part because ISCI's leaders feared that Sadr's party would win in Basra. The Bush administration, which has (correctly) regarded provincial elections as key to Iraqi reconciliation, pressured Maliki to reverse his stance and let the bill go through. He did—at which point (was this just a coincidence?) planning began for the offensive that's raging now.

Also this suggestion of why the US supports ISCI--mysterious because it has stronger ties with Iran--would not surprise me if it is actually true:

The current fighting in Basra is a struggle for power and resources between those warlords. It's hard to say which faction is more alluring or less likely to fall under Iranian sway. Neither seems the sort of ally in freedom and democracy that our president conjures in his daydreams. (The lively blogger who calls himself Abu Muqawama speculates that Bush officials have embraced ISCI because, unlike Sadr, its leaders speak English.)

Hurling Headless Sheep

2008-03-29T15:52:00.004-04:00

I def plan on adding this to my list of to-dos before I die:

Ulak Tartysh is the national sport of the central Asian republic. The aim is to hurl the sheep carcass into a tub to score points for your team. The pitch is 300m (1,000ft) long and 150m (500ft) wide.

It is played as part of Nouruz, the Persian new year's day celebration which marks the start of spring.

Link.

Modest Mouse - Gravity Rides Everything

2008-03-29T13:27:00.001-04:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

Controlling the Weather

2008-03-29T13:20:00.001-04:00

I can't tell if this is a joke:

Training with the Olympics in mind, the meteorologists have been practicing their "rain mitigation" techniques since 2006. They have had a couple of dry runs, so to speak -- a China-Africa summit and a panda festival in Sichuan province, among others.

The bureau of weather modification was established in the 1980s and is now believed to be the largest in the world. It has a reserve army of 37,000 people -- most of them sort of weekend warriors who are called to duty during unusual droughts. The bureau has 30 aircraft, 4,000 rocket launchers and 7,000 antiaircraft guns, said Wang Guohe, director of weather modification for the Chinese Academy of Meteorology.

"We have the largest program in the world with the most people involved and the most equipment, but it is not really the most advanced," Wang said. That honor belongs to the Russians, who he says used sophisticated cloud-seeding in 1986 to prevent radioactive rain from the Chernobyl reactor accident from reaching Moscow.

Link

Ryan Adams - Desire

2008-03-28T19:31:00.001-04:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

Four Tet - As Serious As Your Life

2008-03-27T00:47:00.001-04:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

Understanding Quantum Mechanics Through Super Mario

2008-03-27T00:41:00.001-04:00

Enjoy.

Link.

Bush's War

2008-03-26T17:02:00.005-04:00

PBS has recently produced an incredibly informative and illuminating documentary on the Iraq War which I highly recommend watching. The first segment focuses on the important players and policies advancing a war with Iraq and the second segment focuses on the execution of the war and the perils that rapidly ensued. Make sure you check it out.

Link.

Man Man - Engwish Bwudd

2008-03-26T01:03:00.001-04:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

Garfield Minus Garfield

2008-03-26T00:21:00.002-04:00

Simply fantastic.

Link.

Reason #234,568 Why I Love Canadians

2008-03-26T00:12:00.001-04:00

Wish I had called them for my mom's wedding...

Freedom & Justice in Euripides' Electra

2008-03-25T22:44:00.003-04:00

Phoebus, Phoebus – I say no more, as he is my royal lord; wisdom is his but wisdom was absent from the command he gave you.

Electra offers the reader both a nuanced version of an older, but still significantly popular and relevant tragedy-play and a unique chance to become acquainted with the thoughts and opinions of an author who, judged from the hindsight of modernity, clearly had a progressively pensive mind. What seems apparent, after reading the play, is that Euripides wrote Electra in reaction to or, at least, in obvious familiarity with, Aeschylus' second play in the Oresteia trilogy, the Libation Bearers, as numerous references throughout the play unquestionably demonstrate. However, although the similarities and parallels between the two plays seem manifest and, at times, even subtly comical, Electra clearly conveys a serious message and, moreover, imbues the reader with an impression that is thoroughly different from that found in Aeschylus' plays. Richard Rutherford suggests that the differences between the two plays are a result of constraint—Euripides was writing a single play, whereas Aeschylus a trilogy—but I think this suggestion diminishes the significance of the content and intent found within the differences. In Euripides' play the vendetta motif or the repeating/reciprocal nature of violence equating to justice found in Aeschylus' plays is seriously challenged, mostly by the main heorine of the play, of which it takes its name, Electra. Another significant difference in Electra is the noticeable lack of involvement of the gods and, to the extent that they are involved, there is a sense of poignant skepticism and questioning of the wisdom employed in their will.

In the passage above, spoken by the demigods Castor and Pollux, Electra and her brother Orestes have just been informed that their egregious deed, done in the name of divine justice and in obedience with Apollo's edict, now lacks its legitimacy in the eyes of the divine, because Apollo apparently forgot to put his wisdom cap on that day when he gave his matricidal command. Taking this into consideration, the prescribed punishments or sentences that Orestes and Electra receive from Castor are not capital punishment, but rather a charity service and probation type sentence, which is to say an odious, but more tolerable than death, sentence: Orestes is condemned to a life of exile and Electra is wedded to the taciturn Pylades. Before we delve into the implications of this passage, however, it is perhaps wise to back track a bit and provide some background context.

The seemingly shocking information that Castor pronounces in the aforementioned passage to Electra and Orestes had been pondered by the latter and thus subtly foreshadowed earlier on in the play. In lines 971-989, for instance, Orestes laments Apollo's command and questions his wisdom, but is eventually persuaded by his sister who initially tries to persuade him by reminding him that to disobey Apollo's command would be an act of impiety, and then, since Orestes reservations seem to persist, decides another, more effective tactic, and calls into question his very manhood(!) and Orestes, not fond of being called a Mr. sissy-pants, immediately concedes. Another example comes just after Orestes and Electra have committed the act of matricide, when they return to the chorus and Orestes, right after Electra makes her guilt-stricken remarks, avers “O Phoebus, what you proclaimed in song was justice veiled in darkness” (1190). From these passages alone it is obvious that conflict between a character's actions and his pious obligations to fulfill the will of the gods is much more prevalent and center stage in Euripides' play than it was in any of Aeschylus' plays. In Aeschylus' trilogy conflict did appear, for instance when Agamemnon had to sacrifice Iphiginea, but his decision was unquestionable and passed off as necessity, whereas in Euripides' play the conflict between actor and divinity is raised to the fore and challenged without propriety.

One of the major differences found in Euripides play, in contrast to Aeschylus, is a shift of an individuals responsibility for his/her actions from the heavens to the hands of the actor. Evidence of this shift can be extracted from the text itself. The two long chorus odes found in lines 434-484 and 700-744 recount past historical events of ancient Greek notoriety, but within these tales is a certain, my suggestion is intended, pattern: people suffering as a result of divine interference. This point becomes despairingly sharper at the end of the play when Castor suggests that all the suffering humans have endured has neither 'rhyme nor reason', since wisdom is not always present to advise a god when he gives his command. So, for example, the Trojan war which had been triggered by Helen, was really just a mistake by Zeus, who sent a phantom Helen (1280-84). Which means that the lives lost, the sacrifices made, everything up to the present matricide committed by Orestes and Electra, was all because of Zeus and not because of man. Thus, if what Castor says is true, then man is not following the wisdom of the gods, so much as their whims.

The message that comes out of the conclusion of the play, then, seems to be the following: divine interference is a deleterious nuisance to mankind that prolongs suffering. In Electra, Euripides does not portray the gods as providing order to the universe, but instead sees them as casting the seeds of disorder, anomie, and perpetual violence in the world of man. Perhaps one of the main themes of the play, that of individual responsibility and character, is what Euripides finds lacking most in the judgments of and commands made by the gods. There are numerous hints that this is the case, but none of them are very explicit. In line 1051, which comes right after Clytemnestra has just finished her lengthy disquisition on why she is innocent and was just in her murderous act, the Chorus leader says “There is justice in what you have said but it is a shameful justice.” It was shameful, according to the chorus leader, simply because she is a she, but one might propose that whereas Agamemnon's act of murder displayed piety by obeying the will of the gods, vindicating him from the sacrifice of his daughter, Clytemnestra's act of murder was a display of iniquitousness because she acquiesced to the nefarious whims of anger and malice, and that is perhaps why it is shameful. As she herself admits in lines 1035, “Oh, we women are too often ruled by our hearts, I don't deny it.” Euripides, after reading Aeschylus' trilogy may have sympathized with Clytemnestra and not seen her as the play's paragon villain. In Electra we see elements of ready forgiveness, because she is more perturbed about how her mother has treated her and her brother in the present, than she is over the crime her mother committed in the past, unlike Orestes, but Electra, in all her fickleness, still feels that justice must be done, “if bloodshed, sitting in judgment, requires bloodshed, then I and your son Orestes will kill you in vengeance for our father. If justice was in that deed, justice is also in this” (1093-4). Thus it seems that obligation of the individual to piously obey divine justice or in other words, the will of the gods, does not end violence, it perpetuates it.

Estimating Neandertal and modern human divergence

2008-03-25T22:32:00.005-04:00

Had to review and analyze a scientific article and also compare it to our text. Def. shoulda chosen an easier read...

In their recent paper, Close correspondence between quantitative—and molecular—genetic divergence times for Neandertals and modern humans, Timothy Weaver, Charles Roseman, and Chris Stringer present a divergence time estimator to estimate when Neandertals and modern humans last shared a randomly mating common ancestor (split time) based upon the input of neutrally evolving morphological measurements. Recent research, including their own, has shown genetic drift (not natural selection) may have produced many of the cranial differences found between Neandertal and modern humans. If this research is correct, then they can accurately estimate population genetic parameters much in the same way as estimates are made from DNA sequences, the only difference is that they use modern human and Neandertal cranial measurements to make their estimates. Using advanced statistical formulas employed in evolutionary quantitative genetics and on microsatellites to develop their divergence time estimator, the researchers then apply this estimator to 37 cranial measurements collected on 2,524 modern humans from 30 globally distributed populations and 20 Neandertal specimens and calculate that Neandertals and modern humans split ≈311,000 (95% C.I.: 182,000 to 466,000) or 435,000 (95% C.I.: 308,000 to 592,000) years ago. The time-span of divergence that these researchers produce is relatively aligned with dates derived from ancient Neandertal and extant human DNA-sequence (see Noonan and colleagues 2006). This correspondence, according to the researchers, greatly strengthens the neutral divergence explanation for the cranial-facial differences found between Neandertals and modern humans and weakens the adaptionist explanations of diversifying natural selection. Lastly, they state that their work shows that there is no conflict between molecules and morphology.

The research methods employed in this paper are very complex and there are a number of variables and equations that I do not fully understand, so they are hard to critique. However, I would say that one of the difficulties of adapting DNA sequence statistics to morphological measurements, in order to determine the effects of genetic drift, is that there a lot more shifting variables to account for—namely population size and fluctuations. According to John Hawks, “a model of phenotypic evolution by genetic drift requires an assumption about the effective size of the population (Ne). Weaver et al. (2008) assume a model of "mutation-drift equilibrium." This is an assumption that the effective population size has not changed over time in the populations under consideration -- in this case, the Neandertal and human populations back at least as far as their common ancestor.” Weaver and colleagues set the effective population sizes of Neandertals and modern humans over the past thousand years at 2700 individuals. This number seems contradictory to and much smaller than existing evidence of actual population size and fluctuations. Such a small number would obviously emphasize the role that genetic drift played, but may be incorrect. Also, using recent phenotypic and genetic divergences of modern humans to 'calibrate their clock' of phenotypic evolution is questionable, since modern effective population sizes are much larger today, than they were during the Middle Pleistocene—which raises a serious question of comparability of phenotypic divergences between the two periods.

_________________________________________

The article summarized above encompasses and synthesizes a number of topics and approaches referenced in our text book and advances and discredits some of the proposed explanations for variation (specifically cranial differences) found between Neandertal and modern humans. The researchers suggest that genetic drift, not natural selection, is largely responsible for many of the cranial differences found between Neandertals and modern humans. In chapter 13, our text book begins by elaborating on the environmental background of the Pleistocene period before it goes on to describe the Neandertal cranium. This is to emphasize the environmental impacts on the anatomical structure of the cranium, an adaptionist explanation. Our text references one opinion that “both the facial anatomy and the robust postcranial structure of Neandertals” according to Erik Trinkaus, of Washington University in St. Louis, are “adaptations to rigorous living in a cold climate” (p. 335). In an earlier paper (Weaver et al. 2006), the same researchers of the paper I referenced deemphasize these adaptionist explanations of natural selection and advance their own explanation: “isolation between Neandertal and modern human populations would have lead to cranial diversification by genetic drift (chance changes in the frequencies of alleles at genetic loci contributing to variation in cranial morphology).” Our book defines genetic drift as being “the random factor in evolution, it's a direct function of population size” (p.82). Our book also states that “drift occurs because the population is small” (p.82). Thus, the smaller the population size the greater genetic drift's influence is. The researchers do not, however, dismiss altogether the role played by natural selection on Neandertal and moder human craniums. They admit that the similarity in cranium size between Neandertal and modern humans was most likely heavily influenced by natural selection, but the subtle differences in shape found between the two craniums, they argue, are a result of genetic drift, not natural selection. In the paper the researchers also bring up neutral evolution, which is basically the idea that variation is random and unselective (in a Darwinian sense) and strongly influenced by genetic drift.

This paper, as has already been mentioned, uses a number of methods employed by population geneticists. In chapter 15 our book devotes a couple pages to this field. One name that pops up in both our text book and this article is the Hardy-Weinberg theory of genetic equilibrium. According to our text, “the Hardy-Weinberg theory of genetic equilibrium establishes a set of conditions in a population where no evolution occurs” (p.391). In the paper the researchers reference it to explain why there is a difference of a factor of two between the quantitative genetic and microsatellite forumals—basically, according to Hardy-Weinberg theory a gametic variance should be twice a zygotic variance. The Hardy-Weinberg theory is very useful because “by explicitly defining the genetic distribution that would be expected if no evolutionary change were occurring (that is, in equilibrium), we can compare the observed genetic distribution obtained in real human populations” (p.391). Thus, “if the observed frequencies differ from those of the expected model, we can then say that evolution is taking place at the locus in question. The alternative, of course, is that the observed and expected frequencies don't differ enough that we can confidently say evolution is occurring at a locus in a population” (p.391). By using and slightly adapting this strategy Weaver et al (2007) are able to determine whether genetic drift or natural selection are contributing more to the cranial differences found between Neandertals and modern humans.

The time span that the researcher's divergence time estimator produces is within the figures of recent research but slightly more recent than the dates suggested in our text from a 1997 report by Krings and colleagues who “hypothesized that the Neandertal lineage separated from our modern H. sapiens ancestors sometime between 690,000 and 550,000 ya” (p. 343). Before referencing this estimated divergence period our book explains the techniques used to produce these dates and determine the degree of genetic relatedness between species, which include: “extracting mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), amplifying it through polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, and sequencing nucleotides in parts of the molecule” (p. 343). These techniques allow for more accurate estimates of time divergence which Weaver et al. (2008) can use to compare the accuracy of their own results to. Lastly, there has been a long and lively debate regarding the replacement of ancient Homo species with modern Homo. One hypothesis, the complete replacement model, which was developed by Bristish paleoanthropologists Christopher Stringer (one of the researchers in the paper) and Peter Andrews, “proposes that anatomically modern populations arose in Africa within the last 200,000 years and then migrated from Africa, completely replacing populations in Europe and Asia” (p.354). Another model, partial replacement, proposes that “some interbreeding occurred between emigrating Africans and resident premodern populations elsewhere” (p.356). In other words, the partial replacement model assumes that “no speciation event occurred, and all these hominids should be considered members of H. sapiens (p.356). Then, lastly, there's the regional continuity model, associated with Milford Wolpoff, which suggests that “local populations—not all, of course—in Europe, Asia, and Africa continued their indigenous evolutionary development from premodern Middle Pleistocene forms to anatomically modern humans” (p.356). The last two models are questionable for a number of reasons and the findings in the Weaver et al. (2008) paper support Stringer and Andrew's replacement model, since they show that phenotypic differences in cranial measurements can be used to trace back to the time in which these two species diverged.

______________________________________

The article I reviewed at first seemed extremely esoteric and beyond comprehension, and so it often felt like I was reading something that was written in an entirely different language. It required me to learn quite a bit about quantitative genetics, microsatellites, neutral evolution, genetic drift, and mutation-drift equilibrium—terms which I had no knowledge of, at all, before. Once I familiarized myself with these terms and the methods employed in the paper I was able to get a pretty good grip on the substance of what they are saying.

The researchers are suggesting that natural selection is not the only or even strongest influence on diversity (or differences found between species) and argue that genetic drift, in the case of cranial differences found between Neandertal and modern humans, appears to have played a much stronger role. More importantly, by using morphological cranium measurements and plugging it into their formulas to produce similar or overlapping dates with the ones derived from DNA sequencing Weaver et al. (2008) build a potential bridge between the molecular and morphology camps. The only problem that I would raise with their paper is my concern that their formulas do not accurately address true population sizes and fluctuations. Based on the evidence we have it seems Neandertal and modern human population sizes waxed and waned at incongruent intervals. If the population sizes dwindled to small numbers diversity diminishes and deleterious traits begin to emerge. The researchers assume the population size to be 2700 individuals, which as John Hawks puts it “is an astounding assumption.” A small effective population size, such as the one the researchers select, means that rapid evolution will occur by genetic drift. This small size, however, is disputed by other evidence. As John Hawks again points out:

“most other sets of genetic data indicate a long-term effective size of at least 10,000 for human populations -- four times larger than assumed in this study. All things being equal, this means that the rate of phenotypic evolution by genetic drift should be four times slower than assumed by Weaver et al. (2008). Some of this difference between real and assumed effective sizes may be washed out by their process of calibration -- their equations involve several unknowns that must be simultaneously estimated, and give a lot of wiggle-room to the results.”

The problem with statistical formulas that include these unknown variables is that they can be adjusted such that the results can be fine-tuned and any phenotypic difference can thus look like genetic drift.

Lastly, in their formula they use 37 cranial measurements collected on 2,524 modern humans from 30 globally distributed populations. Modern human populations have dramatically increased in size, so whether one can use these measurements to accurately measure the differences between modern human craniums and Neandertal to track their divergence seems to me questionable. Overall I thought the article was very interesting and I think the researchers are usefully adopting and synthesizing numerous methods from various fields which bring molecular research and morphology closer together, producing a much clearer and accurate picture of our past.

_______________________________

Weaver, T.D., Roseman, C.C., Stringer, C.B. (2008). Close correspondence between quantitative- and molecular-genetic divergence times for Neandertals and modern humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0709079105

Porcupine Tree - Blackest Eyes

2008-03-25T13:56:00.001-04:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

Fbook

2008-03-25T13:54:00.001-04:00

Via MSNBC:

A security lapse made it possible for unwelcome strangers to peruse personal photos posted on Facebook Inc.'s popular online hangout, circumventing a recent upgrade to the Web site's privacy controls.
The Associated Press verified the loophole Monday after receiving a tip from a Byron Ng, a Vancouver, Canada, computer technician. Ng began looking for security weaknesses last week after Facebook unveiled more ways for 67 million members to restrict access to their personal profiles.

Moving forward

2008-03-23T15:30:00.000-04:00

as the rest of the world moves in reverse.

Broken Social Scene - 7/4 Shoreline

2008-03-23T15:24:00.001-04:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

Something isn't true...

2008-03-22T17:50:00.003-04:00

until science says so:

After years of argument over the roles of factors like genius, sex and dumb luck, a new study shows that something entirely unexpected and considerably sudsier may be at play in determining the success or failure of scientists -- beer.

According to the study, published in February in Oikos, a highly respected scientific journal, the more beer a scientist drinks, the less likely the scientist is to publish a paper or to have a paper cited by another researcher, a measure of a paper's quality and importance.

Via NyTimes

Beirut - Elephant Gun

2008-03-21T20:02:00.001-04:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

Zbigniew Brzezinski

2008-03-21T19:54:00.003-04:00

was on fire this morning on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program with Joe Scarborough, Tucker Carlosn, and daughter, Mika Brzezinski.

International Pillow Fight Day

2008-03-21T19:47:00.003-04:00

is tomorrow. Here's the list of locations. I was disappointed to see Montreal not included on the list, but considering the recent temperatures and weather we've been having, I'm certainly not surprised.

Nick Cave - Where the Wild Roses Grow

2008-03-20T14:31:00.003-04:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

Tim Minchin - You Grew on Me

2008-03-19T16:29:00.001-04:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

Art on Toast

2008-03-19T13:50:00.001-04:00

Link.

More Toast Art.

Arcade Fire - My Body is a Cage

2008-03-17T07:50:00.000-04:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy

The Iraqi Debacle: Finding A Way Forward and Out

2008-03-16T18:31:00.007-04:00

On March 20, 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush launched a ‘pre-emptive’ military invasion against the state of Iraq intended to transform the greater Middle East region, through Iraq’s own shining example of reformed success, neutralize a potentially significant threat and perceived puppet-master of terrorism, by conclusively ousting the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein through military means, and divert attention away from the U.S.’ inability to locate and capture Al Qaeda front man Osama Bin Laden and his fellow collaborators, such as Ayman al-Zawahiri—the two men most responsible for the nefarious terrorist attacks on 9/11. The invasion itself was a stunning success but that feeling of triumphant exuberance has since been mired by the post-invasion ‘perils of occupation’—as the persistence of sectarian violence, civil strife, lawlessness, and widespread crime, an insurgency, and innumerable political animosities, divisions, and seemingly irreconcilable differences that exist to this day all elicit. In this paper I wish to examine the nature, sources, and causes of the Iraq war and explore a few viable solutions which achieve, as a title in a recent Carnegie Endowment report suggests, ‘a way forward for Iraq and a way out for the United States’. I will start by discussing the relevant changes in US foreign policy post 9/11, then I will address the myriad actors involved in the Iraqi conflict, elaborating on both their goals and intentions, and finally, I will conclude with a proposed set of solutions, at which point I will share the particular one I favor most.

On September 11, 2001 the world, and with it, American foreign policy dramatically changed. The terrorist attacks on both the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., inspired the Bush administration to rapidly craft a new National Security Strategy (NSS) that dealt with the new security environment. The contents of Bush's NSS revolved around three main pledges: First, the US will “defend the peace by fighting terrorists and tyrants.” Second, it “will preserve the peace by building good relations among the super powers.” And third, it “will extend the peace by encouraging free and open societies on every continent.”[1]The most significant change in Bush's NSS, which would later prove to have profound effects on the course of history, was the “shift in strategic thinking from a reliance on the deterrent containment doctrine of the Cold War to a willingness to use preemptive policy-making when necessary to safeguard American national interests.” [2]In other words, the Bush administration's preemptive principle proposed an abandonment of the US' traditional foreign policy approach of managing and containing existing threats and crises' (aka realism) for a much more proactive policy prescription: spread democracy in order to thwart future threats before they arise. Evidence of this shift in foreign policy can clearly be seen on November 7, 2003, at the 20th Anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy, where President Bush expressed his deep conviction that U.S. security is threatened by the realist divorce of American values and American interests:

Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe -- because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export. And with the spread of weapons that can bring catastrophic harm to our country and to our friends, it would be reckless to accept the status quo[3].

The first victim that fell into the cross hairs of this new preemptive principle of American foreign policy was Iraq.

In the very same speech Bush made his intentions for invading Iraq perfectly clear: “the establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic transformation.”[4] By invading Iraq and replacing its despot with democracy you would, they thought, allow freedom to reign and the economy to flourish with investment and growth. Iraq would thus become a paragon of potential for other Middle Eastern states to model themselves after. Moreover, the White House and the neoconservatives envisioned the invasion of Iraq as being the solution to the majority of their Middle Eastern problems: terrorism’s source would be eradicated, other states in the Middle East, specifically Iran, would reform and become democratic and free, and Israel could “reenter the regional system, under conditions far more favorable to its economic interests and national security.”[5] The anticipated realities of this dream, however, were never, or at least, have yet to be, realized.

After five years of U.S. occupation, the expenditure of trillions of dollars, and despite the presence of 160,000 troops at the end of 2007, Iraq, today, is still an “unstable, violent, and deeply divided country, indeed a failed state.”[6] The cost and duration of the war in Iraq has far exceeded what the US administration had ever anticipated and the outcome was radically different from what had been expected. A mixture of mismanagement and poor decision making by the administration before and during the post-invasion reconstruction process certainly accounts for much of the mess that emerged over the course of the occupation, but today, the single greatest challenge preventing progress in Iraq is the refusal of Iraqi political factions to engage in serious political reconciliation.

The existence of myriad political factions and ethnic alliances within Iraq has only made the already difficult task of creating an integrated Iraq more challenging. The different Iraqi political figures and forces have conflicting and often changing views on what they envision to be the future of Iraq. Moreover, there is often inconsistency between their vision and their actions. Understanding the intentions and goals of these various and varying factions is a crucial part to understanding the overall Iraqi conflict puzzle.

There are three main ethnic groups who make up the constituency of Iraq: the Shi'a, who make up the majority with 60%, the Sunnis, and the Kurds. The Shi'a were severely oppressed under the Saddam regime, but since the U.S. invasion have gained a significant amount of power. In general the Shi'a support the strengthening of the Iraqi central government, which isn't surprising considering the fact that they are “the most numerous group, with the most members of parliament and control over the office of the prime minister.”[7] But there are still a number of different Shi'a factions who have conflicting goals. The Da’wa Party, represented by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, supports the enlargement of the central government’s authority and power. The Islamic Supreme Council (formerly known as the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq), led by Abdel al-Aziz al-Hakim, favors the concentration of power being placed at the regional level. It has strong Iranian ties and supports the unification of a Shi’i bloc, in which the nine predominantly Shi’ite provinces would be made into one single region. Then there’s Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical cleric who has certainly been a thorn in the US’ side, who “heads the largest but also least disciplined and cohesive Shi’i militia” and “talks of a unified Iraq but at the same time has been contesting the authority of the central government and imposing his own control wherever he can.”[8]

The Sunnis, on the other hand, once the main party in power, have lost a significant degree of that power since the overthrow of Saddam. The reconstruction process--the disbanding of the military, the de-Baathification program, and the elections (which, only having a 20% share of the population, put them at a significant disadvantage)—left the Sunnis feeling indignant and marginalized. As a result, the Sunnis decided to boycott the elections, which only made matters worse, since it excluded them from having a role in the crafting of the constitution and from being represented in the parliament. Despite their lack of power and representation in the newly created Iraqi government, the Sunnis still initially advocated a strong, centralized Iraqi state. More recently, however, the Sunni vision has begun to change and has become much more complex. The new Sunni tribal leaders who, helped by the U.S., opposed al-Qaeda, also strongly oppose the Iraqi central government. As the recent 2007 US NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) states, the Sunnis “believe the central government is illegitimate and incompetent.”[9] Thus, it is difficult to determine whether or not the Sunnis would be willing to participate with the central government or if they perceive it to be a threat to their regional autonomy.

The Kurds occupy the northern region of Iraq and are the only group who have maintained a clear, consistent, and relatively unified vision. Since the end of the first Gulf War, the Kurds have continued to develop their own autonomous region. Their long term aspiration has been independence, but this vision is often ignored or flat out rejected because of its unfavorable implications amongst bordering states (such as Turkey and Iran) and amongst Iraqi political factions, since it threatens the unification of Iraq. Nevertheless, the Kurds have consistently pursued their autonomy. They supported the adoption of a constitution for Iraq that empowers the regional and provincial powers, instead of the Iraqi central government. They have their own militia; their own regional government and parliament to enact laws and govern their province; and they have signed a number of investment contracts with international businesses, including oil companies, without consulting or including the Iraqi central government.[10]

Reconciling these conflicting visions and constantly changing political agendas is the only way to transform Iraq from its current failed state status to a functioning state status. The task of stabilizing Iraq, as Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute Carlos Pascual points out, “has become an issue of massive global and regional consequence. At stake are the risks of a wider regional conflict between Sunni and Shi’a and perhaps between Arabs and Persians, humanitarian tragedy spreading over multiple states, a platform for international terrorism, and disruptions to oil production and transit from the single most critical region affecting global oil markets.”[11] There are three options available, or strategies that the U.S. can embrace, but, in my opinion, there is only one option that leads to a solution.

The first option is withdrawal. Reports indicate that, come this fall, the White House intends to start withdrawing a significant amount of American troops—on the order of 50%, though I have read in some places that it might be even larger. Withdrawing may seem like an immediate solution in the eyes of the U.S., but the likely long-term consequences of withdrawal will quickly teach the U.S. that it cannot wash its hands of the mess it has made that easily. According to Ivo Daalder, “after the withdrawal, the situation will get worse, probably much worse. Violence will increase, with deaths likely rising from tens to hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed a year. A million deaths is not inconceivable.”[12] Moreover, if Iraq becomes engulfed in violence and remains a failed state it will become a magnet and safe haven for terrorists, where they would be able to safely plan and orchestrate future attacks on the region and around the globe.

The second option is for the U.S. is to stay until Iraq is stabilized, but significantly change its strategy in order to achieve this end. Over the course of the occupation the U.S.’ main security approach has been very broad: “pacify the entire country more or less simultaneously, preventing the insurgents from securing safe havens and focusing on political and economic progress across the board to help the country “shed” the violence by undermining the key claim of the insurgents (and would-be warlords) that only they can provide security and basic services.”[13] The U.S., lacking the necessary resources to accomplish this broad endeavor, would need to adopt, as Kenneth Pollack proposes, a true counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy. This approach would focus on securing “enclaves or protected areas (Kurdistan, most of the predominantly Shi’ite southeast, Baghdad, and a number of other major urban centers, along with the oilfields and some other vital economic facilities) while, initially, leaving much of the rest of the country outside of Kurdistan and the Shi’ite southeast to the insurgents.”[14] This strategy emphasizes a smaller, ground-up approach to security in which local economic and political developments would be able to make “meaningful progress.”[15] The US would then be able to spread success outwards to encompass more territory (which is why this strategy is often referred to as a “spreading oil stain” or “spreading ink stain”). The U.S. has dabbled with this strategy in the most recent phases of the occupation, but it appears to be a strategy that does not make meaningfully significant progress quick enough, so it is hard to sustain and entails an indefinite amount of years of U.S. presence (something the US public does not seem to keen on supporting).

The third option and, to me, solution to this Iraqi quagmire, is the involvement of the International community through the U.N. in collaboration with the US military presence. Carlos Pascual usefully draws upon the learned lessons of history to emphasize how “decades of International experience underscore that, first and foremost, a political agreement among the warring Iraqi parties is needed for a sustainable peace, and that long-term multilateral engagement is necessary to create a chance for its successful implementation.”[16] Thomas Pickering puts this learned lesson of history even more pointedly when he says “all insurgencies, like most wars, end in political settlements. Indeed most insurgencies have been ended by political settlements, which is not the same thing.” [17]The experience in Iraq certainly supports this claim. The ‘go-at-it’ alone approach, coupled with the military-dominated strategy for achieving stability, has proven itself to be catastrophically fruitless.

More importantly, the US needs to recognize that it can no longer play the role of arbiter in the Iraqi political reconciliation process because it has both a political stake (its reputation) and national (economic and strategic) interests attached to the negotiations. This lack of legitimacy is one of the single greatest impediments to the achievement of successful reconciliation. In order to achieve sustained peace and stability in Iraq, political reconciliation must be brokered by a neutral entity that embraces all of the relevant state actors within its membership. The United Nations is the perfect candidate uniquely suited for this monumental role, because it offers not only an ability to mobilize a multilateral response, but also provides legitimacy through its neutrality.

The UN will be able to deal with the two most pressing concerns facing Iraq: it can manage the refuge crisis and broker peace. The latter will of course be the most difficult task, as most of the relevant parties involved in the Iraqi conflict are armed and obviously not very prudent when it comes to violence, but through the international support of its member states and its legitimacy, the UN is clearly the most able body to broker a political settlement between the Iraqis. The UN, however, cannot replace the US’ military role in Iraq. Providing security on the ground is a crucial element in the political reconciliation process. Without the continued presence of U.S. military forces the U.N. would be quickly doomed to failure.

The challenges of stabilizing Iraq are enormous and reason for optimism in achieving or brokering a political settlement is certainly fleeting, but this approach of including the UN and enlarging its role, is clearly the one that offers the best chance for success. The only question left is whether or not the Iraqis are prepared, capable, and willing to achieve this end. But judging from their past history I would certainly wager that they are more than ready to move forward. It is our job to give them that opportunity, and then get the hell out.

_______________________________________

[1] Pauly, Robert J. Strategic Preemption: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Second Iraq War. Burlington, VT : Ashgate Pub., 2005

[2] Pauly, Robert J. Strategic Preemption: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Second Iraq War. Burlington, VT : Ashgate Pub., 2005
[3] White House.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Kepel, Gilles. The War for Muslim Minds. Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004.
[6] Ottaway, Brown, Hamzaqy, Sadjadpour, and Salem. The New Middle East. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Retrieved March 10, 2008.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ottaway, Brown, Hamzaqy, Sadjadpour, and Salem. The New Middle East. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Retrieved March 10, 2008.
[9] National Intelligence Estimate, Prospects for Iraq’s Stability: A Challenging Road Ahead, January 2007. Available: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/20070203_intel_text.pdf; accessed: 4 February 2007.

[10] Ottaway, Brown, Hamzaqy, Sadjadpour, and Salem. The New Middle East. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Retrieved March 10, 2008.
[11] Pascual, Carlos. “The United Nations in Iraq.” The Brookings Institute. September 2007. Accessed 10 March 2008. < http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2007/09iraq_pascual.aspx >
[12] Daalder, Ivo. Coping with Failure in Iraq. Brookings Institute. Retrieved: 16 March, 2008. <http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2007/0616iraq_daalder.aspx>

[13] Pollack, Kenneth. Cited in The Road Ahead: Middle East Policy in the Bush Administration’s Second Term. Washington, DC : Brookings Institution, 2005.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Pascual, Carlos. “The United Nations in Iraq.” The Brookings Institute. September 2007. Accessed 10 March 2008. < http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2007/09iraq_pascual.aspx >
[17] Pickering, Thomas. Does the UN have a Role in Iraq? Routledge: Taylor and Francis Group. Retrieved: 15 March 2008. http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a790435544~db=all~jumptype=rss

Rolling Stones - Waiting On A Friend

2008-03-13T17:22:00.000-04:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

Revisiting the Possibility of War with Iran

2008-03-13T16:43:00.005-04:00

Remember that mysterious bombing by Israeli jets on the box on the Euphrates in Syria?

Well I just recently came across this incredibly scary speculation...

Via US News:

Israel's airstrike deep in Syria last October was reported to have targeted a nuclear-related facility, but details have remained sketchy and some experts have been skeptical that Syria had a covert nuclear program. An alternative scenario floating in Israel and Lebanon is that the real purpose of the strike was to force Syria to switch on the targeting electronics for newly received Russian anti-aircraft defenses. The location of the strike is seen as on a likely flight path to Iran (also crossing the friendly Kurdish-controlled Northern Iraq), and knowing the electronic signatures of the defensive systems is necessary to reduce the risks for warplanes heading to targets in Iran.

I am pretty confident that the US has been denuded of its ability to invade or, more likely, strike Iran by the NIE (although the recent dismissal of Adm. Fallon gives reason for pessimism), but an Israeli strike does not seem at all implausible. Though whether or not Israel has the capabilities to fly from the promised land to Iran and successfully destroy their designated targets is certainly questionable.

Then again, perhaps the plan in the works is for Israel to initiate a conflict with Iran by striking them first, provoking Iran to retaliate, at which point the US will gladly step in and do what it has been wanting to do for ages: overthrow the regime.

If this is indeed a plan in the works I can only hope that it doesn't get played, cause I think the results will be catastrophic.

Jason Mraz - 1000 Things

2008-03-11T06:59:00.000-04:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

Liberation

2008-03-10T14:41:00.004-04:00

So today I made significant progress in my revanchist quest to achieve absolute freedom.

I spontaneously decided to permanently deactivate myself from the world of knaves and narcissists, aka facebook, because I realized that I had been duped by its alluring appeal of convenient usefulness.

At first I thought I would feel childishly dramatic and immediately regret deactivating my account, but, instead, I felt that a great weight had been lifted.

I had finally, and without hesitation, foundered my time-cosumingly fruitless distraction and now I, like Shakleton's crew after he purposefully sank their ship so that there would be nothing to return to, feel ready to move on and start focusing on more important things in life.

What's even more exciting to think about is that if I were to cut myself off from email, this blog, and attending school I would be a completely free man with absolutely no obligations, no constraints, and no troublesome burdens.

Then again maybe this yearning for freedom is a self-destructive pursuit, since, after all, a marionette stripped of his strings, while indeed free, is ultimately rendered lifeless and uselessly defunct to his puppet master (whoever or whatever one decides that to be)...

David Oistrakh - Sibelius Violin Concerto (3rd Mvt.)

2008-03-10T11:02:00.001-04:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

The Other Side

2008-03-10T08:44:00.013-04:00

Journalist Ali Abunimah has a good article on the apparent disparity between international reaction of sympathy and condolences to deaths suffered by Israeli citizens at the hands of Islamic radicals who are driven by political/ideological motives as opposed to indifference and apathy towards Palestinian civilians who are killed by Israeli forces, driven, paradoxically, by the same motives, though theirs are somehow deemed more legitimate. Thus, when an Israeli civilian is killed its considered tragic and an act of terrorism, but when a Palestinian civilian is killed by Israeli forces its considered to be merely collateral damage, an unfortunate result, which would preferably be avoided, but is decidedly not significant enough, no matter how big in number, to call into question the ongoing fight against terrorism (a fight which is to me so obviously unwinable through military means that I would go so far as to compare it to trying to fight dandruff with a comb).

Link.

Compared with the international silence that surrounded Israel's recent massacres of Palestinian civilians in the Occupied Gaza Strip, condemnation and condolences for the victims of the shooting attack that killed eight students at the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva in Jerusalem have been swift.

"I have just spoken with [Israeli] Prime Minister [Ehud] Olmert to extend my deepest condolences to the victims, their families, and to the people of Israel," US President George W. Bush said. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon added his "condemnation" and "condolences," as did EU High Representative Javier Solana.

The day before the Jerusalem attack, Amira Abu 'Aser was buried in Gaza. She had lived just 20 days on this earth before being shot in the head by Israeli occupation forces who attacked the house of friends she and her family were visiting. Needless to say, she had not been firing rockets at Sderot when she was killed. One of the house's inhabitants was found the next day, shot dead and his head crushed by an army jeep, an apparent victim of an extrajudicial murder by Israeli forces.

But confirming their status in the eyes of the "international community" as less than complete human beings, neither Amira's killing, nor any of the dozens of Palestinian civilian victims of Israel's onslaught in Gaza have merited condemnation or condolences.

The fallacy that lies behind the differential concern for the lives of innocent Israelis and Palestinians is that the massacre in Jerusalem and the massacres in Gaza can be separated. Israeli deaths are "terrorism," while Palestinian deaths are merely an unfortunate consequence of the fight against "terrorism." But the two are intricately linked, and what happened in Jerusalem is a direct consequence of what Israel has been doing to the Palestinians for decades.

Jackie Greene - Mexican Girl

2008-03-03T22:20:00.000-05:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

The Shins - Sleeping Lessons

2008-02-29T12:59:00.000-05:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

Photos

2008-02-27T16:52:00.006-05:00

I just noticed that Yahoo has a cool collection of their most emailed photos--the fashion design ones in particular grabbed my attention, since they support my conviction that modern art and fashion is simply becoming redicadonkulous.

Link.

Photos 3 and 7:

The Myriad Ways of Counting Money

2008-02-27T16:47:00.002-05:00

I didn't realize there were so many:

How People Count Cash? - Free videos are just a click away

Link.

Ween - Mutilated Lips

2008-02-26T23:20:00.001-05:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

Clocky

2008-02-25T21:36:00.004-05:00

The alarm clock with wheels, allowing it to hide randomly after you hit snooze...I just the love the image of someone having to wake up, still in a daze, and chasing their alarm clock around their apt. in order to get it to shut-up.

Link.

Stoned Ape Theory

2008-02-25T21:28:00.004-05:00

So it turns out the long search for the answer as to how, exactly, human consciousness emerged was right under our noses all along...

Link.

To summarize: McKenna theorizes that as the North African jungles receded toward the end of the most recent ice age, giving way to grasslands, a branch of our tree-dwelling primate ancestors left the branches and took up a life out in the open -- following around herds of ungulates, nibbling what they could along the way.

Among the new items in their diet were psilocybin-containing mushrooms growing in the dung of these ungulate herds. The changes caused by the introduction of this drug to the primate diet were many -- McKenna theorizes, for instance, that synesthesia (the blurring of boundaries between the senses) caused by psilocybin led to the development of spoken language: the ability to form pictures in another person's mind through the use of vocal sounds.

About 12,000 years ago, further climate changes removed the mushroom from the human diet, resulting in a new set of profound changes in our species as we reverted to pre-mushroomed and frankly brutal primate social structures that had been modified and/or repressed by frequent consumption of psilocybin.

The Books - Classy Penguin

2008-02-25T20:44:00.001-05:00

Today's song of the day. Enjoy!

Science Tattoos

2008-02-25T20:33:00.003-05:00

Carl Zimmer started a Flikr album a few months ago dedicated to science tattoos, and it turned out to be a huge success, so now he has a web page fully devoted to them. Check it out:

Link.

Hillary loses to Obama's Asymmetric Political Campaign Strategy

2008-02-25T01:37:00.006-05:00

Frank Rich has a good piece in the NyTimes which assesses the outcome of the Democratic horse race between Obama and Clinton and offers a number of explanations for why the latter appears to have lost.

Link.

I found the allegory between the democratic race and the Iraq war to be pretty witty (tho perhaps a little snobbishly so):

The Clinton camp was certain that its moneyed arsenal of political shock-and-awe would take out Barack Hussein Obama in a flash. The race would “be over by Feb. 5,” Mrs. Clinton assured George Stephanopoulos just before New Year’s. But once the Obama forces outwitted her, leaving her mission unaccomplished on Super Tuesday, there was no contingency plan. She had neither the boots on the ground nor the money to recoup.

That’s why she has been losing battle after battle by double digits in every corner of the country ever since. And no matter how much bad stuff happened, she kept to the Bush playbook, stubbornly clinging to her own Rumsfeld, her chief strategist, Mark Penn.

Streaker + Horse Race =

2008-02-24T18:22:00.004-05:00

Reason number 6,789,874 why I am proud to be a member of the male sex:

Link (be sure to watch the vid):

A man celebrating his buck's day with 26 of his mates thought it would be funny to strip off and be first past the post at the Moruya racetrack.
Problem was a race involving real horses was tearing down the home straight when the streaker made his mad dash.

IAEA Report on Iran

2008-02-24T17:58:00.010-05:00

Andy Grotto has an informative post over at Arms Control Wonk on the recently released IAEA report on Iran. Although the report itself is mildly comforting, the peculiar timing of the documents produced by Iran and, moreover, the past trend of Iranian behavior is still rather puzzling and therefore somewhat unsettling. There's a good discussion in the comments section and I think commenter Hass makes a very keen observation, which I largely agree with:

This isn't about nukes or nuclear power — if it was then the US would have accepted Iran's various proposals including the Iranian offer to suspend enrichment and the 2003 peace feeler. This is about regime change, and the nuclear issue presents a good pretext. The Iranians have come to believe that no matter what they do, even if they accept the UNSC suspension and even if the IAEA gives Iran a clean bill of health, something else will be ginned up. That's not an irrational conclusion.

Andrew Bird - Dark Matter

2008-02-24T12:17:00.000-05:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

Ode to the LHC

2008-02-24T12:00:00.003-05:00

Joel Achenbach has a great write-up in National Geographic on the Large Hadron Collider, the particle accelerator which scientists hope will uncover the Higgs Boson, the so called "God particle". The photos taken by Peter Ginter, which accompany the article, are truly stunning.

Link:

If you were to dig a hole 300 feet straight down from the center of the charming French village of Crozet, you'd pop into a setting that calls to mind the subterranean lair of one of those James Bond villains. A garishly lit tunnel ten feet in diameter curves away into the distance, interrupted every few miles by lofty chambers crammed with heavy steel structures, cables, pipes, wires, magnets, tubes, shafts, catwalks, and enigmatic gizmos.
This technological netherworld is one very big scientific instrument, specifically, a particle accelerator-an atomic peashooter more powerful than any ever built. It's called the Large Hadron Collider, and its purpose is simple but ambitious: to crack the code of the physical world; to figure out what the universe is made of; in other words, to get to the very bottom of things.

The Militarization of Space: aka El Farce Supreme

2008-02-23T19:19:00.010-05:00

Ashley Tellis is one of those people who has an inimitable knack for making informatively clarifying points which often illuminate particular aspects of issues that are vital to the United States' interests. That said, his recent article in the WSJ on the potentiality of a space arms race, can only be described as a penumbra on rational foreign policy making and diplomacy.

The introduction of weapons in space would be deleterious to global security. But the treaty unfurled by Messrs. Lavrov and Li would neither effectively prohibit their deployment, nor conclusively annul the threat of force against space objects. It would only produce the illusion of security, while doing nothing to eliminate the counterspace capabilities currently present in many countries, especially China.

So in the first sentence we have a suspicious admonition that weapons in space would be detrimental to global security (which certainly warrants a 'no shit sherlock'). Then Tellis explains why the US found the recently proposed treaty unappealing: the US is more concerned about the counterspace capabilities that states such as China and Russia wields, than it is with these two states' fears of the US expanding its military dominance--which the US undisputedly has in the realms of land, air, and sea--to the final dimension: space.

The biggest deficiency in the Russian-Chinese draft treaty is that it focuses on the wrong threat: weapons in space. There aren't any today, nor are there likely to be any in the immediate future. The threat to space assets is rather from weapons on earth -- the land- and sea-based kinetic, directed-energy and electromagnetic attack systems. The treaty entirely ignores these.

Now we have two conclusions--the deleterious nature of weaponizing space with regards to the global security environment and the lack thereof of weapons in space today and, logic permitting, ever--which seems to warrant my proposal: sign the damn treaty if it makes the Chinese and Russians happy (since based on our conclusions we have nothing to lose, besides ink) and by doing so, unless I am too young and naive to understand international dealings, effectively decrease their need for and development of counterspace capabilities by giving them their desired 'illusion of security'.

Not signing the treaty simply sends the message that the United States intends to keep the option of weaponizing space open. If that, indeed, is not our intent, than I see no need to send false signals. What can we hope to achieve with this stick, which pokes not only dangerously, but provocatively at the sleeping monster of potential disaster?

Kaki King - Gay Sons of Lesbian Daughters

2008-02-22T21:00:00.002-05:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

Ah, The Cool Rebellousness of Youth

2008-02-22T20:54:00.000-05:00

How I miss it:

Contrast Asynchrony Illusion

2008-02-20T11:58:00.001-05:00

Blogger over at Cognitive Daily has a cool post up on his blog, that I highly recommend checking out. Link.

Billy Joel - Only the Good Die Young

2008-02-19T17:02:00.000-05:00

Todays song of the day. Enjoy!

Banana Architecture

2008-02-19T16:58:00.003-05:00

This looks cool:

Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far, an interactive exhibition by Stefan Sagmeister, opens at Deitch Projects on January 31, 2008. The exhibition will include works that have a life of their own, transforming throughout the exhibition as viewers engage with them. Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far is timed to coincide with the release of a new book of the same title, which surveys Sagmeister's illustrious career.
Stefan Sagmeister is one of today's most innovative and influential graphic designers. His conception and application of graphic design goes above and beyond traditional notions of the practice, taking it to the realm of performative and conceptual art, painting and sculpture. Sagmeister is most widely known for his album cover artwork for bands like The Rolling Stones, Talking Heads and Lou Reed, and for books, like Mariko Mori's Wave UFO for the Kunsthaus Bregenz, which function as sculptural objects.