That’s some pep talk

Today’s Doonesbury has a couple of characters reminiscing about being in the Iraq war in 2004…and they quote George W. Bush.

peptalk

Is that real? I’ve been working hard to erase the Bush years from my memory, but did we really have a president that simple-minded in office just 5 years ago?

Yes, we did.

“Kick ass!” he quotes the president as saying. “If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell! This Vietnam stuff, this is not even close. It is a mind-set. We can’t send that message. It’s an excuse to prepare us for withdrawal.”

“There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!”

‘We are better! Kill them! Demoooocraaaaacyyyyy!’

I am so disappointed in Obama. But it helps to remember the idiot in office before him.

I shall not even try to list all the things science has failed to anticipate

Help me wrap my brain around this tweet. I can’t grok it.



Philosophers’ historic failure to anticipate Darwin is a severe indictment of philosophy. Happy Darwin Day!

John Wilkins isn’t helping.


Likewise, scientists’ failure to anticipate The Beatles is a severe indictment on science.

Don’t you mean Pink Floyd, John?

Also, since Charles Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus was a philosopher and poet, and since his work did anticipate (incompletely) evolution, couldn’t we say that a philosopher actually did anticipate Darwin, and he was a Darwin too? We could also declare that the poets got there first.

And since Darwin considered himself a natural philosopher, couldn’t we also say that a philosopher did more than anticipate, but actually came up with Darwin’s theory of evolution?

Darwin appreciated philosophy, but also thought it essential to include experiment and observation. In his Autobiography he actually praised his education in philosophy.

Again in my last year I worked with some earnestness for my final degree of B.A., and brushed up my Classics together with a little Algebra and Euclid, which latter gave me much pleasure, as it did whilst at school. In order to pass the B.A. examination, it was, also, necessary to get up Paley’s Evidences of Christianity, and his Moral Philosophy. This was done in a thorough manner, and I am convinced that I could have written out the whole of the Evidences with perfect correctness, but not of course in the clear language of Paley. The logic of this book and as I may add of his Natural Theology gave me as much delight as did Euclid. The careful study of these works, without attempting to learn any part by rote, was the only part of the Academical Course which, as I then felt and as I still believe, was of the least use to me in the education of my mind.

He also respected William Whewell, a philosopher (and a theologian. Christ, we’re screwed here!).

Dr. Whewell was one of the older and distinguished men who sometimes visited Henslow, and on several occasions I walked home with him at night. Next to Sir J. Mackintosh he was the best converser on grave subjects to whom I ever listened.

Whewell is also the guy who invented the term “scientist” to describe practitioners of a specific branch of…philosophy. I guess it was a philosopher who anticipated scientists.

And, apparently, Darwin’s shipmates on the Beagle called him “philosopher”!

The first Lieutenant, however, said to me: “Confound you, philosopher, I wish you would not quarrel with the skipper; the day you left the ship I was dead-tired (the ship was refitting) and he kept me walking the deck till midnight abusing you all the time.

So I am confused. How can anyone use Darwin Day as an excuse to indict philosophy? It’s as if I used my birthday as an opportunity to cuss out my dad.

Happy Darwin Day!

Charles_and_Catherine_Darwin,_1816,_by_Sharples

I thought I’d include a picture of the young Charles Darwin, since we are celebrating his birthday today. That’s him in 1816, when he was 6 or 7 years old, with his younger sister, Emily Catherine Darwin. And then I started wondering about that other person in the picture. Darwin’s sisters were an extremely important influence on his life, and I don’t know a heck of a lot about her; Darwin had four sisters and one brother, Erasmus, and most of the biographies say quite a bit about the older brother who preceded him to university, but the sisters seem to be background noise. It seems Catherine’s life was mainly about caring for her father’s household, and she married late in life, at age 53, only to die a few years later. You can read some of Catherine’s correspondence, and she seems to have been a lively and intelligent person.

According to Darwin’s autobiography, she was also the smart one.

I have been told that I was much slower in learning than my younger sister Catherine, and I believe that I was in many ways a naughty boy. Caroline was extremely kind, clever and zealous; but she was too zealous in trying to improve me; for I clearly remember after this long interval of years, saying to myself when about to enter a room where she was-“What will she blame me for now?” and I made myself dogged so as not to care what she might say.

Roughly the same age, roughly the same intelligence, but Catherine Darwin didn’t have the opportunity to go to college or to sail on the Beagle. It makes the picture even more interesting: foreground and background, different fates, different choices, different chances. We know what will happen to those two children — Darwin will die in 1882, Catherine in 1866 — history does this odd thing of telescoping complex lives into just a few events, and I don’t know, but it makes me sad.

I am now resisting the temptation to pull out the old photos of my kids from that box in the closet.

I thought he’d live forever

Pete Seeger has died. No, I said that wrong — read that amazing obituary, and you realize that Pete Seeger has lived.

Just for the contrast, the NY Times also has an interview with the odious Tom Perkins, who is now equating the 1% with the people who are creative…while flaunting a $300,000+ watch.

I look at Seeger. I look at Perkins. I look at Seeger again.

And I wonder, who is going to kill fascism now?

Plumbing philosophy

A commenter left a link to this comic here; now we know what happens when you combine plumbing and philosophy.

Good timing, too. On my to-do list for today is to pop off the trap for the bathroom sink — we think the satanic cat who is lurking in our house knocked something into it, clogging it hopelessly. Now I’m going to have to tell my wife I can’t do it, and I’ve got a good reason: existential dread.

And what does a mere obstructed pipe have to do with the Grand Scheme of the Cosmos, anyway?

Brace yourself for August

I know most of my readers are Americans, and the United States media will not have much to say (other than to sound an occasional note of triumphalism), but if you’re at all informed about the world, you should be thinking about WWI this summer — it will be the centenary of the beginning of World War I on 3 August. That’s a really good long read, by the way, that summarizes the early events of the war and explains why Germany, France, Russia, and Great Britain still care about the bloody price they paid in that deadly wasteful war.

More than 60 million soldiers from five continents participated in that orgy of violence. Almost one in six men died, and millions returned home with injuries or missing body parts — noses, jaws, arms. Countries like France, Belgium and the United Kingdom are planning international memorial events, wreath-laying ceremonies, concerts and exhibits, as are faraway nations like New Zealand and Australia, which formed their identities during the war.

Sit down with your cup of tea or coffee and read the whole thing.