I was at a conference in Australia recently and had a chance to visit the Australian War Memorial in Canberra:
The War Memorial
Table of Contents
1. The Battle of Valcour Island 11 October 1776 by NHHC at Naval History Blog
2. Stoker: “the Grand Design: Strategy and the U.S. Civil War” by noreply@blogger.com (Drew@CWBA) at Civil War Books and Authors
3. Brian Gardner: Up the Line to Death by noreply@blogger.com (Tim Kendall) at War Poetry
4. Commitment and Perseverance: Float Plane Pilots Ens. Harvey P. Jolly and Lt (Jg) Robert L. Dana. by NHHC at Naval History Blog
More after the jump… Read the rest of this entry »
There’s been some debate over whether the term “illegal immigrant” should be retired. I think it should, largely because the bare “illegal” is used as a slur and the longer “illegal immigrant” doesn’t reliably pick out a specific class of people or what’s wrong with their legal status. The U.S. government treats people very differently depending on the specifics of how they got here.
This isn’t just fun with intensions and extensions; it’s significant to the debate. Around four million people who are here unlawfully entered legally; they’re people who could get visas and later violated the terms of them. They are people with slightly more options, because in some cases having overstayed a visa isn’t a bar to becoming a permanent resident from within the country. Some estimated number (anywhere from about two to about 30 million, depending on who you ask; having entered without inspection means no one counted you coming in) are people who came in by sneaking in. Every legal option for them that’s in place now requires them to leave the country first, and usually wait out a ban of ten years.
So, yeah, ditch “illegal” in favor of using words that actually have some meaning. And some cases are heartwarming (and, I’ll admit, odd, in that impersonating an American citizen is about the quickest way to get a lifetime, non-waiverable ban; but there’s about a zillion exceptions in immigration law and she may have very well fallen into one of them.)
Ten years? I don’t care how much traffic you throw my way now and then (nice of a vet to acknowledge a mere newb), o bearded* one, you need about six months off and a good stiff drink or twenty.
*Still laughing at the Bluto post. Dude, it is okay to be grizzled. That makes you a Bloggy Bear. *runs and hides*
Scott Lemieux says don’t pin the misogyny of The Social Network on Sorkin, because the film takes a critical stance towards Zuckerberg’s contempt for women. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but it strikes me as relevant that in real life, Zuckerberg had a long-term girlfriend,worked with women when he created Facebook, etc. I think even if we take it as given that Sorkin rewrites Zuckerberg to make him a misogynist and added all the details about Asian girls so mad for geeks they give blowjobs in bathroom stalls and Harvard parties where girls lose their tops all the time, and then critiqued it successfully, there’s something… off about erasing the creative role of women in the creation of Facebook completely in order to make that critique.
Whether that’s an aesthetic failure is a different question, and one that would have to wait until I get around to seeing the film (check back in 2011), but my initial impression from the reviews is that this is a middle-aged man’s idea of what it must have been like to create Facebook, and he finds it hard to believe both that a guy could be geeked out enough to invent Facebook and socially well-adjusted enough to have a girlfriend, and that a woman around a geek could be anything but inspiration.
Table of Contents
1. Monday, 9 September 1940 by Brett Holman at Airminded
2. On Hospitals in Ships by thomaslsnyder at Of Ships & Surgeons
3. “You Can Get a Lot Out of Them” by NHHC at Naval History Blog
4. Sunday, 29 September 1940 by Brett Holman at Airminded
5. Persian Wars: Greeks Turn the Tide at Salamis by n/a at About.com Military History
6. Seaman Si – the Funniest ‘Gob’ in the Navy by DisneyDave at Disney – Toons At War
7. HMDB Civil War Updates – Week of September 27 by Craig Swain at To the Sound of the Guns
8. Why Didn’t We Listen to Their War Stories? by noreply@blogger.com (Jimmy Price) at Over There
9. Cdr Cassin Versus the Pirates 28 September 1822 by NHHC at Naval History Blog
10. Flogging Outlawed 160 Years Ago Today by NHHC at Naval History Blog
11. Friday, 27 September 1940 by Brett Holman at Airminded
12. 2010 Bonhomme Richard Survey Completed! by Underwater Archaeology at Naval History Blog
13. Ancient Egypt: Chariots Attack at Kadesh by n/a at About.com Military History
14. Lt.(j.g.) Kenneth M. Willett, D-v(G), Usnr: Extraordinary Heroism and Conspicuous Courage by Ships History at Naval History Blog
15. Pea Ridge: a Restored Battlefield by Craig Swain at To the Sound of the Guns
16. 92 Years Ago Today by noreply@blogger.com (Jimmy Price) at Over There
17. Thursday, 26 September 1940 by Brett Holman at Airminded
18. “The Glory and Triumph” of Kansas by noreply@blogger.com (Ron Coddington) at Faces of War
19. Massed Artillery in the West: Pea Ridge by Craig Swain at To the Sound of the Guns
20. Sidney Byron Smith by Steve Soper at Third Michigan Infantry Research Project
21. Wednesday, 25 September 1940 by Brett Holman at Airminded
22. Mexican-American War: Taylor Takes Monterrey by n/a at About.com Military History
23. USS Constellation Captures the Slave Ship Cora by NHHC at Naval History Blog
24. Druid’s ‘the Silver Tassie’ by George Simmers at Great War Fiction
25. Afternoon Remarks by Dr. Horton – the Unfinished Civil War by noreply@blogger.com (Jimmy Price) at The Sable Arm
26. Bruce Levine – the Myth of Black Confederates by noreply@blogger.com (Jimmy Price) at The Sable Arm
27. Tuesday, 24 September 1940 by Brett Holman at Airminded
28. Hewitt &Amp; Bergeron (Eds.): &Quot;Confederate Generals in the Western Theater, Vol. 2: Essays on America’s Civil War&Quot; by noreply@blogger.com (Drew@CWBA) at Civil War Books and Authors
29. Two American Sailors Come Home After 67 Years by UltimaRatioReg at Other Military History Stuff
30. 1997 Royal Navy Field Gun Competition by Jason Kottke at Other Military History Stuff
John Quiggin at Crooked Timber (among others) notes that Germany has finally acquitted its obligations under the Versailles treaty. Which makes one wonder, what was the greatest of the many errors at Versailles? I could write a post on this, as I have an opinion, but perhaps you would like to tell us, instead.
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David Bell well makes the point that for as long as the United States has been a superpower, people have been convinced that it is in decline, because of (choose as many as you like) laziness, moral turpitude, lack of discipline:
What the long history of American “declinism”—as opposed to America’s actual possible decline—suggests is that these anxieties have an existence of their own that is quite distinct from the actual geopolitical position of our country; that they arise as much from something deeply rooted in the collective psyche of our chattering classes as from sober political and economic analyses.
Bell goes back to the 1950s for his history of decline. I’d push it back further, into the 19th century at least.
UPDATE: It occurred to me later that such pronouncements of decline are a symptom of Very Serious People disease and are usually twinned with stern and moralistic remedies.
Hat tip, Ralph Luker
A neat project at the behest of the Women in Philosophy Task Force: stories of what it’s like to be a woman in philosophy. If you’re a woman and you have a story to share, you can submit it here.
What’s interesting is that while some of the stories are overtly horrid, some are cases where there are good intentions that don’t lead to good results. Maybe this should go under Neddy’s request for “facts about human nature that explain a lot”, but I think there’s a strong tendency for people to imagine discrimination as something that goes on not only overtly, but with lots of bells and whistles and an identifiable villain snarling on screen, so that if there is discrimination occurring, it will be obvious to the casual (male) observer. Thus, if he doesn’t see the problem, it must not exist.
On Facebook, you can hide friends so that their status updates won’t show in your feed. Rob Walker is worried: what kind of friend are you if you decide that your friend’s half of the conversation isn’t valuable? Wouldn’t it be better just not to friend them? I am less concerned, for two reasons, one serious, and one legendary:
- “Friending” someone on Facebook is acknowledging a weak tie. Yes, you sat behind me in concert band in high school. You emptied your spit valve. I therefore acknowledge you as an acquaintance and accept your request to be a friend. I will look at your pictures. I will look at the pictures of your child in a bumblebee costume. I will see that you finished college. I will see that you have a new car. I will see that you crashed your bicycle. I will see that you need a sheep, cow, and pig for your Farmville. I will see that you like your vampire teevee shows. (I will carry your lip balm.) Hiding someone’s status updates is less like refusing to listen to an ongoing conversation and more like failing to seek out a former acquaintance to chat even though one is genuinely if momentarily happy to hear through the grapevine that the person is doing well.
- If someone posts LOLcats several times a day in 2010, it is morally obligatory to hide them. This is for their own good.
Two papers I love: “Morality as a system of hypothetical imperatives” and “Moral beliefs.”
In “Moral Beliefs” she argues, among other things, that there are conceptual limits on the use of moral vocabulary, that is, moral terms have some sort of fixed content, rather than being terms for the expression of noncognitive states akin to boo or hurray. In her famous example– forgive me, my memory of this is unclear and the book is packed away– she says that a man clasping his hands three times in an hour simply cannot be splendid or brave or whatever unless there’s some story tying those actions to some recognizable good (e.g. if he’s signaling in code or overcoming a stroke or something).
This paper is in opposition to views like RM Hare’s, which say that moral judgments are such because of their formal features, e.g. they endorse or command; they have no fixed content.
“Morality as a system of hypothetical imperatives” (a paper she later partly recanted) argued that there are two senses in which moral judgments might be said to be “categorical.” First, we apply them to people without regard for their motivations or desires. That is, we don’t take someone’s lack of desire to tell the truth to render “you ought not to lie” inapplicable or incorrect. Second, (true) moral claims guarantee reason for complying. That is, if it is true of you that you ought to F, then you have reason to F. Foot argues that moral claims are categorical in the first sense but not the second. That is, we apply them without regard for motivation or desire, but they are not thereby reason-giving independent of motivation or desire. Her famous example involves club rules or rules of etiquette: a failure to reply in the third person to an invitation addressed in the third person is rude whether or not you care about avoiding rudeness. But this by itself does not show that you have reason to avoid rudeness. So too with morality.
She wrote a lot of great stuff– these are just personal favorites. And she gave us the trolley problem!
Kevin Drum is looking for a “Human Nature Top Ten” — well-established but underappreciated aspects of human psychology that illuminate behavior. His opening gambits are loss aversion and regression to the mean. I’d add adaptation effects, e.g. the hedonic treadmill: people adapt to changes in levels of (many) goods so that over time the additional good adds nothing to their levels of satisfaction. However, people tend to underestimate the strength of these effects on themselves and others. (E.g. Midwestern college students think that West Coast college students are happier because the weather is nicer; people think they’d be miserable in prison or in a wheelchair.)
Other candidates?
Some musings on Tyler Clementi’s suicide.
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Table of Contents
1. WWII History for Sept 22 by Steven Terjeson at World War II History
2. “They Considered Our Squadrons as One.” by NHHC at Naval History Blog
3. Two Naval Hospitals in New York State (Closed) by thomaslsnyder at Of Ships & Surgeons
4. Nathan Jeduth Smith by Steve Soper at Third Michigan Infantry Research Project
5. Sunday, 22 September 1940 by Brett Holman at Airminded
6. The Forgotten Theaters? by Craig Swain at To the Sound of the Guns
7. The Bismarck and the Hood by Charles McCain at World War II History
8. Guest Post by Dr. Dave Winkler Entitled “William S. Sims and Training to Shoot” by NHHC at Naval History Blog
9. Saturday, 21 September 1940 by Brett Holman at Airminded
10. Hmdb Civil War Updates – Week of September 20 by Craig Swain at To the Sound of the Guns
11. Jonathan T. Smith by Steve Soper at Third Michigan Infantry Research Project
12. The Forty-Five: Jacobites Stun at Prestonpans by n/a at About.com Military History
13. U.S. Navy Seabee Museum Update by NHHC at Naval History Blog
14. 20-Pdr, or 3.67-Inch, Navy Parrott Rifle by Craig Swain at To the Sound of the Guns
15. Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, Usn by NHHC at Naval History Blog
16. “Roughshod Through Dixie: Grierson’s Raid 1863″ by noreply@blogger.com (Drew@CWBA) at Civil War Books and Authors
17. Thursday, 19 September 1940 by Brett Holman at Airminded
18. Wars of the French Revolution: the Guns of Valmy by n/a at About.com Military History
19. U S Naval Hospital Sampson Ny by thomaslsnyder at Of Ships & Surgeons
20. James v. Smith by Steve Soper at Third Michigan Infantry Research Project
21. Wednesday, 18 September 1940 by Brett Holman at Airminded
22. Tuesday, 17 September 1940 by Brett Holman at Airminded
23. 2010 West Coast Civil War Conference by noreply@blogger.com (dw) at of Battlefields and Bibliophiles
24. Thirty Years’ War: Gustavus Adolphus at Breitenfeld by n/a at About.com Military History
25. Raaf Biographical Files From the Second World War by Jessie Webb at Australian War Memorial
26. Commemorating the Battle of Marathon by noreply@blogger.com (Tim Kendall) at War Poetry
27. Wagner: “Patrick Connor’s War: the 1865 Powder River Indian Expedition” by noreply@blogger.com (Drew@CWBA) at Civil War Books and Authors
28. Monday, 16 September 1940 by Brett Holman at Airminded
29. Sunday, 15 September 1940 by Brett Holman at Airminded
30. Ball’s Bluff: a Little Battle With Lasting Consequences « Government Book Talk by n/a at Other Military History Stuff
Coalition fatalities continue to drop, month over month, in Afghanistan. In addition, September 2010 was the first month in which fewer coalition soldiers were killed than in the same month of 2009:
Assistant DA [oops] AG Andrew Shirvell takes to AC360 to defend his interest in UMichigan student government president Chris Armstrong. Shirvell’s not-at-all obsessive blog.
Shirvell has published blog posts that accuse Armstrong of…sexually seducing and influencing “a previously conservative [male] student” so much so that the student, according to Shirvell, “morphed into a proponent of the radical homosexual agenda;”
Is anyone else reminded of that scene in Rocky Horror where Frank shows up in Brad’s room?
So you’ve seen the Pew survey, that shows that, among other things, atheists and agnostics tend to know a lot about religious doctrines and practices. Of particular interest to me in the ensuing discussions was Larison’s distinction between academic religious knowledge and lived religious experience. It’s simply not all that surprising that a religious believer who grew up with her faith culturally would not have high-level academic knowledge of the particulars of it. High-level academic knowledge is for Jesuits and converts. (Mutatis mutandis, natch.)
But it also speaks to a broader puzzle, especially regarding the recent games in the press and in blogs concerning Islam. Any fool can Google up a copy of a religious text and pull out verses to prove almost anything; the connection between disinterested academic discourse about the interpretation of a passage, breezy bloggy interpretations, and the experiences and beliefs of the average believer will wildly diverge (and may be indistinguishable from other cultural practices.)
In any case, it’s unfair to talk about the Pew results without offering an explanation of why atheists and agnostics tend to be well-informed about religion. My ex recto position: atheists tend to be highly educated; highly educated people tend to run into courses on world religions; and, it is also, in my experience, a common trait among the highly educated to have extraordinarily good memories for trivia. My knowledge of the Noble Eightfold Path is tucked somewhere between the book of Daniel and the Star Trek episode where Picard has to communicate in literary metaphors. And indeed, the results mention educational attainment as one thing that correlates with better academic religious knowledge; but apparently with that held constant, atheists still retain more religious knowledge.
Revised theory: the trivia gene eats God.
From Der Spiegel:
Germany will make its last reparations payment for World War I on Oct. 3, settling its outstanding debt from the 1919 Versailles Treaty and quietly closing the final chapter of the conflict that shaped the 20th century. Oct. 3, the 20th anniversary of German unification, will also mark the completion of the final chapter of World War I with the end of reparations payments 92 years after the country’s defeat.
I wonder if they’ll have a mortgage-burning party?
P.S. The original reparations, according to the article, were the equivalent of 96,000 tons of gold, which works out at today’s price (math NOT guaranteed) to be about $4 trillion. Ouch.
The National Research Council’s 2010 rankings of research-doctorate programs arrived today. (There is, or was, a webcast.) It is the first version of the rankings compiled since 1995 and relies on data collected in 2005-2006.
PhDs.org already has the new data on their site, so you can punch up rankings—or rather, ranges of rankings; they won’t, or can’t, provide a singular rank—based on your own criteria. Here, for the sake of fun and games, is the ranking of history departments based on an overall quality measure.
I half-remember an anecdote about an English MP a philosopher (graciously identified by ben below) who, when asked if he read novels, replied, “Oh yes. All six of them, every year.” For me, in recent years, the equivalent has become the annual re-reading of Peter Novick’s That Noble Dream.
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