Bend party ends in suit for fraternity
WOW. Just wow.
Quote from article: Williams, the Sigma Alpha Epsilon adviser, said the fraternity doesn't deserve to be sued for the incident.
``It was a bunch of guys that went up with their dates in Bend to blow off steam after their midterms,'' he said.
witz.org has posted the Olsen twins' senior portraits. Geez, when I graduated way back in 1985, they made us girls don formal off-the-shoulder tops, and the guys had to wear tuxedo tops. Very 1950's. Things have changed!
My old post criticizing Noam Chomsky's dense writing style has been garnering more attention, currently from a person calling himself (herself? itself?) "Izzard."
Izzard goes to great lengths to slam me for taking an "us vs. them" position - not saying a word, of course, about the initial Chomskyite who lit into me calling me a "moron" an an "idiot" even though I did nothing more than to note (in a very cursory manner) that Chomsky's clumsy overuse of rehtoric makes a lot of his writing dense and manipulative, especially for someone so revered as a great thinker. Then Izzard furiously types out a huge screed furthering the same "us vs. them" position - making assertions so incredibly uninformed as to be something out of Monty Python in their sheer randomness. Even in his initial posting here, Izzard was mostly polite, but then managed to heave a couple of really nasty insults in amongst it all. Basically, Izzard is trying to bait me. It's all very interesting, and funny too.
Izzard's MO lies in trying to be like Chomsky himself (whether consciously or unconciously), but like most fans of Chomsky he fails because he lacks Chomsky's truly fanatical convictions. Chomsky handles himself as a messiah on a mission - I suspect, part of what makes him so attractive to angry young men, who are in awe of someone who can channel his arrogant self-absorbtion so skillfully.
I'll grant Izzard this - my initial post was lazy, and what he said earlier about "preaching to the choir" was somewhat true. I used to be much more thorough in my political postings, but life has caught up with me in the past eight months and now, when I do post something political, it's more of an afterthought.
But at the same time, I don't keep this blog as a way to enlighten anyone or to change anyone's mind. This is a project for pure personal enjoyment. I'm no Noam Chomsky, setting myself out there as an intellectual messiah who is going to edutain the ignorant masses with pearls of wisdom from on high. I'm just a person who is looking for creative outlets and who happens to like blogging as one of those outlets. I've got a small number of regular readers, many of whom are close friends or acquaintances, and I have no desire to become the most widely-read blogger in the world. This blog is for me, period.
But on to Izzard's main points - he does have a few, amongst the angry ranting ...
He takes great pains to go over and over a "rogue's gallery" of absolute thugs like Hussein, Suharto, Marcos, Duvalier, Ceaucescu, and on and on, and what villians they are/were, before then going on to point out that these very criminals probably wouldn't have enjoyed the nice long abusive run they each did had the US, at the very LEAST, just left well enough alone and not supported, in numerous shady ways, these very dictators ...
We see here Chomsky's main premise - one stated over and over and over again for the past 35+ years by the kindly Prof. I've had this explained to me a trillion times over the years by people defending Chomsky ("See, you just don't understand what he's saying. He's saying ...") and by people who have never heard of him but who have heard the premise, and because it offers a simple solution to a bewildering world ("You obviously don't understand what's going on in the world. What's really going on is ...") they latch onto it and don't let go.
Let's talk a little more about "the morality of intervention", OK? In my view, there is no overriding "morality of intervention." There are situations, and then there are any number of actions that can be taken in response to and because of those situations. The world is one big, interconnected chain of action-->reaction. Basically, everything you do is some kind of intervention into something.
Now, most events/actions can be grouped, such as "this is good" or "this is bad" (the most base, simplest form) and the criteria used to establish this can be as complicated - or more complicated - as the chain of events themselves.
So a person can react two basic ways to this problem. They can establish a set of principles by which to judge each situation individually, and then draw on those principles to guide them in their reaction. They can establish a set of principles by which to judge every situation, and then draw on those principles to guide them in their reaction. Chomsky, and his supporters, do the latter. For them, whatever the western democracies do is bad, period, and that what other nations may do in response can be excused or at least rationalized.
I do the former - at least, I try to be consistent in doing the former; I try to be mindful that what might be beneficial in one situation may be catastrophic in another situation. I try to remember that what is "bad" for one person may be "good" for another; that the world is a complex place. That even though Mussolini made the trains run on time he also killed and tortured; that even though Bill Clinton is a sexual predator in his personal life, he actually was a decent President especially on the domestic side.
Now Izzard, you yourself stated that "you have to be on your toes historically" when dealing with Chomsky. To me, that's an admission that you understand that Chomsky lies. Not spins, not interprets, but lies. You may be fine with this. I am not. When I read an analysis of anything - not just world affairs - I like to feel that the commentator is being honest with me. Chomsky is manipulative, and transparently so. It distresses me that his manipulativeness isn't obvious to a lot of people - and that some people are aware of it but are fine with it.
As for the Monbiot article - the specific content is really irrelvent. It's the same old scenario re-enacted. Chomsky makes statements, waits for people to interpret them in the only possible way, then comes back and employes mindfucking doublespeak to try and discredit the person. It's an endless cycle of "Your interpretation is wrong. That's certainly not what I'm saying" leaving the impression that he is the misunderstood messiah. Yet, he never offers a real, solid, practical explanation of what he thinks the solution to all this is. This is the crucial reason for Chomsky's dishonesty and manipulation: what he's really getting at. He can't say it out loud, because he's trying to reach the mainstream, and he's shrewd enough to know that his ultimate message, if stated plainly, would immediately discredit him.
He's your basic utopianist of Marxist descent ("no he's not! he's an anarchist (or whatever)" who sees the world as a big class stuggle, unchanged since the 18th and 19th centuries ("no way! he's totally tuned in to the world as no one else is!"). The fact that technology and the rise of mass communications have broken down the age-old class system far more efficiently than anything Marx could have ever imagined is, in fact, an annoyance to Chomsky and those who think like him; because in their world, the "smart" folks, the ones who all agree with each other, need to be on top, with all the access to information and making the decisions for everyone else. A place for everyone and everyone in their places. All this silly stuff about republics and constitutions and freedom, it just can't work, these people believe; to them, their own superior intelligence puts them at the top of society's heap by default and they would like nothing more than to see a new class system established - one where the so-called "intellectuals" (their definition) places them as a new aristocracy.
The problem is, their worldview is a closed system, and if they state it out loud, people know it. So they work within this relatively open, scalable, controlled-capitalist constitutional republic to get their messages out using subterfuge and manipulation.
Now let's get to this part ...
This last bit always seems to stick in the craw of the aggressors, the flag-wavers, and the hawks. Sure, it's a slightly unsatisfying position to reiterate due to its lack of a "here's what we should do now..." bit at the end, as anyone watching the debacle in Iraq would now love to hear, but its a damn sight better than the jingoistic, intellectually vapid "dissent-is-treason" bullshit that Windschuttle is in grave danger of falling into by the end of the article.
Izzard admits that Chomsky and his followers won't openly outline a solution to the world's problems, and states that he finds it preferable to simply point out the problems rather than to actually do anything about them. To want to do something about the world's problems is "jingoistic" and makes you an "aggressor," a "flag-waver," and a "hawk." To disagree with Chomsky (and Izzard) is "intellectually vapid". There you have it in a nutshell, folks.
And what exactly is "treason"? It's a concept that is horribly offensive to one-world/one-people advocates - that is, utopianists. They're terribly sensitive about it, probably because the betrayal of honor and of one's neighbor that it represents causes cognitive dissonance when compared to starry-eyed dreams of a perfect society.
Reality is hard to face sometimes, isn't it, Izzard?
Andrew Sullivan, one of my heroes, has posted an excellent review of the new liberal talk-radio network, Talk America. It's most notable for its on-target analysis of left-right behavioral patterns. Bits from the article that I love:
Educated liberals, after all, decry populism. A large part of their self-esteem is bound up in believing themselves better educated and more enlightened than the average person, certainly smarter than, say, George W. Bush. So actually getting on the air and engaging in irresponsible, shameless spin and ideology goes against the grain. Conservatives, in general, are happy to confess their biases. Liberals like to think their biases are actually reality. That's why they are much happier on, say, the BBC or, in America, on National Public Radio, which bores and uplifts the average listener into eventual submission to centre-left orthodoxy. And they're objective, of course. There is no bias at the BBC or NPR. Just professionalism!
...
Alas, the other missing ingredient for liberal media is intellectual firepower. On this, the left has actually gone soft. In academia, left-liberalism is so entrenched its advocates' debating skills have gone rusty. When you've been talking to yourself for decades and imposing speech codes on everyone else, your ability to argue coherently - let alone entertainingly - inevitably wanes. And when you look at the political parties today, it's only the Republicans who are really still fighting over ideas. Only conservatives are battling each other over fiscal policy, or on abortion, or on gay marriage. The Democrats are only arguing over how to get back into power. Internal debates are almost non-existent.
Read the whole thing, as Dr. Reynolds is so fond of saying!
When I posted my little criticism of Noam Chomsky's writing a bit back, I wondered how long it would take for some child to stumble on it annd have a tantrum. It took a while, probably because my blog is nowadays kind of obscure. But here it is, along with my irritated response - I've been declared a moron for suggesting that Chomsky is a crap writer. Life's so amazing!
...wtf is this?
Georgia House Bans Genital Piercings
Now, I can understand banning involuntary mutilation (and in fact, I am glad they're even addressing that issue), but voluntary body modification? It's been going on forever and it's certainly one of those things that the government needs to keep its er, nose out of.
This quote kills me ...
Amendment sponsor Rep. Bill Heath, R-Bremen, was slack-jawed when told after the vote that some adults seek the piercings."What? I've never seen such a thing," Heath said. "I, uh, I wouldn't approve of anyone doing it. I don't think that's an appropriate thing to be doing."
Like anyone gives a damn whether Bill Heath approves or not!
I personally am squeamish of all piercings - I don't even have pierced ears - but one thing I do know, I don't want some redneck state congressman telling how and where I can wear jewelry! For all he knows, every woman he sees during the course of his day has a nice little piece of pretty jewelry "down there."
Solidarity with my MUCH more adventurous (and brave) sistuhs!
On Wednesday I was selected to serve on a jury. The case, nauseatingly enough, turned out to be an extremely frivolous (IMO!) personal-injury lawsuit brought about by a self-centered Buckhead bitch against a retired Army Colonel who had the misfortune of hitting her car four years ago. The woman had already gotten a sizeable settlement from the old guy's insurance which had enabled her to buy a brand-new BMW (which she proceeded to wreck two years later.) She wanted us to make the old guy responsible for ALL her medical bills from the time of the accident on and that includes the future. She also wanted big bucks (like $100,000s) for "pain and suffering." Her attorney and her witnesses made some really crazy claims including wildly exaggerating the circumstances of the accident (they claimed the old guy hit her at 50 MPH on Peachtree Road in rush hour traffic!) when photos of her old car clearly showed an impact just slightly worse than a fender-bender. They also kept saying the old man had "t-boned" her when the photos showed no side impact at all. On top of that, they were claiming that her life was severely disrupted and that she was unable to do "anything" for two whole years - then it came out that she was running a successful home business during that time, was acting as chairman of a couple of high-profile charity events, and playing sports such as tennis and going scuba diving. She blamed the old guy hitting her on everything that has gone wrong in her life for four years from breakups with boyfriends to her cellulite (it seems.)
It just burned my ass that this lady wanted us to in effect reach into the pockets of this old man and heap tons of cash on her just because she has an occasional back-ache and she can't keep a relationship going for more than a year. I wasn't the only one and it only took us, the jury, three hours total to render a verdict that gave her $14000 to cover her medical costs (which had already been paid by insurance, incidentally) plus $3,000 for "pain and suffering." A total of $17,000 when she had been looking for a verdict in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. After paying her attorney and her court costs, this case will wind up actually costing her and that's how we designed it. We all agreed that the suit was frivolous and that the old man wasn't responsible for her various mental and physical maladies now and forever.
She burst into tears upon hearing the verdict. The old guy and his wife were crying for joy in the lobby and he actually gave me a tight hug. I feel like I had the chance to do right by somebody and I have a much better opinion of how our justice system works.
Selected to serve on a jury, in fact.
We're in deliberation and will probably reach a verdict early tomorrow. Once we do, boy do I have a lot to write about the experience.
Stay tuned.
That's a stereotype that's been around forever. But now it's really coming into its own as something more than a stereotype. This Healthday article states, "By 2020, roughly one in five health-care dollars spent on people aged 50 to 69 years old could be for obesity-related medical problems." As someone who spent too many years obese, I know first-hand all the medical problems it will cause. I had everything from sleep apnea to edema to chest pains, at the tender age of 33. And not to mention the fact that the simple act of walking to my office from my car had me so winded and exhausted I could barely focus on work; forget starting a regular exercise regimen.
I really have compassion for obese and morbidly obese people because I was once one of them. I know that not all of them are the way they are because they are lazy, which is the obvious prejudice. I really do believe most of them could and should be able to maintain healthy weights on a reasonably balanced diet. The problem is, in America it's very, very difficult to follow a reasonably balanced diet and live the kind of busy working lifestyle most people have to live to get by. Restaurants mainly serve huge portions of fatty and sugary foods, and portion control in general is out the window. And the problem becomes insolvable in obese people who have been that way for many years, because the stomach tends to lose its elasticity as a person ages. Even if many obese people try as hard as they can to change their eating habits, it's impossible for many of them because of the size of their stomachs. A healthy life for these poor souls means being constantly hungry, and that's really not something many human beings can live with for long. Reader, if you've never been obese, next time you find yourself judging an obese person, try to ask yourself if you could live with being hungry 24/7.
I solved my problem by having gastric bypass surgery, which is of course not for everyone. It worked pretty spectacularly for me. Not only did it make my stomach smaller, it forced me to change my whole way of eating by making my body extremely sensitive to sugary, fatty, carby foods. Actually, I can eat carbs fine, but they fill me up so fast I find it preferable to eat my proteins first.
I don't want to go on about my eating habits. But I did want to comment on how I've changed and turned my life around since September 2001 (when I had the surgery, and hence is a landmark for me in more than the obvious way.) I worked my first training shift last night at my job. As I mentioned a few days ago, the restaurant where I'm working is famous for its decadent desserts - mainly torts, pies and cheesecakes - as well as their elaborate coffees. In order to learn the 60+ desserts this place carries on the menu, my first two training shifts involve standing in front of the pastry cases, explaining what the items are and what's in them to customers, and giving them tickets so that their servers will know what to bring them. It's a tribute to my success story that I was not tempted even in the slightest to sample any of the pastries. In fact, contemplating eating most of them made me slightly queasy. For the vast majority of my life before September 2001, I would have been carting off boxes of samples at the end of the night and scarfing them down at home. Now, not only do I know they will make me ill, my tastes have changed so that I don't even really like heavy, sugary stuff any more.
(Oh, and I'm so tickled to be working at this place, an Atlanta icon that has been around since the late 70's, and I want to say the name, but I know how utterly stupid it is to reveal where you work on the Inter-Web. If you know me reasonably well and you're familiar with Atlanta - and you care - feel free to write me privately and ask me.)
This is an interesting organization based in Bozeman, Montana (where, coincidentally, I just visited): the Property and Environment Research Center. It's great to see free marketers combating the tired old stereotype of capitalists as pillagers of the environment, and government the environment's only possible savior.
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