The National Geographic-Marching To The Eco-Drumbeat

Have you read National Geographic lately?

If you’re like me, you’re finding the tone a little heavy-handed, and perhaps stifling of curiousity. Every article ends like the one I just read:

“As the Earth warms, its vast frozen lands are being transformed-and we are only starting to grasp the consequences.”   Coldscapes, Dec. 2007

Pretty soon they won’t have to go exploring anymore.

Here’s my theory: Instead of sticking more to the science and geography parts of its mission, the National Geographic is invested heavily in current intellectual trends (cultural relativity, the certainty of man-made global warming) and so is putting the cart before the horse: the conservation and educational parts of its mission are left to justify themselves…

So… why not just stick to where wonder, awe and mystery meet high standards and rigorous intellectual tradition…in science?

That may be the best way to promote the other goals of conservation and education.

by Daniel Y. Go

 

Sunday Poem: From the Oxford Book of 16th Century Verse

Western Wind, when wilt thou blow,
The small rain down can rain?
Christ, if my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again!

-Oxford Book Of 16th Century Verse

Riding In Style: The Popemobile!

by feminaerecta

What do you do if everyone wants to get a good look at you, and bask in the glow of your holiness?

Well, carriages are no longer on the cutting edge, and there are a lot of crazies out there (religious fervor can get dangerous too) so you put a bullet-proof viewing box on the back of any modified car.

Mercedes, Land Rover, GMC, Volkswagen, are just a few who’ve competed for the honor.  If he comes, you will build it.

See Also:  Wikipedia’s page and a rattier version.

Addition:  The Popemobile visits Yankee stadium.

Bill Cosby In The Atlantic Monthly Via 3 Quarks Daily: Black Conservative

Full article here. Recommended.

African-Americans like Bill Cosby who pursue a commitment to deeper goals (law, duty to state, American conservatism) can find themselves on a bitter, difficult road where self-reliance is an important intellectual light.  Often though, there comes a time when they re-engage with the black community and re-evaluate their own ideas (though they are free not to do either, a blessing of America).  

Perhaps it’s reasonable to wonder if Cosby isn’t plowing over legitimate hopes, doubts and dreams when he gives one of his speeches.

Though, as the article points out, perhaps he plows over them less than the extremes and dangers of the Nation of Islam and Black Panthers.

Where do his duties lie?

Addition:  Cosby is choosing to address black folks directly, as a group, and he’s choosing not to look away…but then again, this is not the only sacrifice one can make. 

The Atlantic has an interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates here.

Maybe Cosby is just mad that his vision of a black world (as seen on the Cosby show) hasn’t quite taken root.

by childrensdefensefund

Repost-A Canadian Libertarian Making Noise: Ezra Levant

Ezra Levant is still fighting what he sees as an infringement upon his freedom of speech by the Human Rights Commission of Alberta.  As editor of the Western Standard, Levant published those Danish cartoons of Mohammed, and currently finds himself investigated by, in his words, ”a kangaroo court.”

Originally, a letter was written by Syed Soharwardy, an imam living in Alberta, to the Alberta Human Rights Commission.  Soharwardy claimed that the cartoons were morally offensive to the religion of Islam.  Levant believes his decision to publish the cartoons is protected by Canadian law, and that Soharwardy found a path to legal action (at the expense of Canadian taxpayers) through the Human Rights Commission because no one else would take Soharwardy’s claims seriously.

During his defense, Levant has made as much noise as possible, grandstanded a bit, and also stood up to the Human Rights Commission, swaying public opinion along the way.  One of Levant’s main concerns seems to be the the way in which someone like Soharwardy, (with unchallenged religious beliefs, and illiberal ideas of social freedom), has taken advantage of Canadian law and perhaps even lack of intellectual rigor behind an institution like the Alberta Human Rights Commission.

An idealogue himself?  Genuinely aggrieved citizen performing a valuable service?

The Economist has more here about how Western democracies are handling the influx of immigration.

Here are Levant’s opening statements during his investigation:

Addition:  It’s not looking so good presently for one of the Danish cartoonists.

Another Addition:  Here’s more mention of that Danish cartoonist’s suggested fate (go to 5:40)

How To Study Literature: M.H. Abrams In The Chronicle Of Higher Ed

Full post here.

“…in the days when, to get a Ph.D., you had to study Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, Old French, and linguistics, on the notion that they served as a kind of hard-core scientific basis for literary study.”

and of the New Criticism he says:

“I’ve been skeptical from the beginning of attempts to show that for hundreds of years people have missed the real point,”

Ah, back when literature professors had something more substantive to teach…

In a broader context, hasn’t the Western mind has shifted to “science,” instead of God as a deepest idea, and so too isn’t literature a part of this shift?

As Richard Rorty sees it, no standard objective for truth exists but for the interpretation of a few philosophers interpreting whatever of philosophy they’ve read.  It’s all just an author’s “stuff.”  Here’s an excerpt discussing the debate between him and Hilary Putnam: 

What would be a good way to teach literature, anyways?

See Also: Should You Bother To Get A Liberal Arts Education?

Clintons At The Center Of Things? Al Gore, Dee Dee Myers and Madeleine Albright

by kansieo

Is it just the Clintons’ themselves, or is their something particular to their generation’s take on ideas that keeps them striving to be at the center of things?

1. Visit Al Gore at AlGore.com.

2. Madeline Albright has a new book. She’s very wise, but not always non-partisan.

3. Dee Dee Myers, former Clinton Press Secretary has written a new book too.

There’s not a problem with people standing up to make good arguments, the rightness (if reasonably argued) of their own ideas…but…I’m still holding onto my skepticism. 

Addition: An emailer suggests it’s just my own desire to have a certain moral criteria met in my own ideas about leadership which leads to these conclusions. It’s a form of idealism…

Well, yeah, it’s also pretty pragmatic too.

Saturday Poem: William Carlos Williams

Blizzard

Snow falls:
years of anger following
hours that float idly down –
the blizzard
drifts its weight
deeper and deeper for three days
or sixty years, eh? Then
the sun! a clutter of
yellow and blue flakes –
Hairy looking trees stand out
in long alleys
over a wild solitude.
The man turns and there –
his solitary track stretched out
upon the world.

-William Carlos Williams

The senses, past and present mix, into a profound attempt at rendering consciousness itself?

 

Too Much “Quality Control” In Universities?

Here’s a great rant.

“The galling part of this whole process is that it really has no impact on what we and our professors actually do in our classroom. Perhaps I should not say this publicly. The issue is not one of of being opposed to high standards. We already do have high standards. We believe strongly in pedagogy and teaching excellence. The issue is that the assumptions and thought process behind this sort of modeling is fundamentally wrong-headed, diminishing, rather than enhancing education.”

It can sure get in the way if you’re trying to teach or trying to learn.

uploaded by mattbucher

What the cartoon doesn’t touch on is how much “creative types” can get in the way too.

Addition:  I think it’s going too far, trying to apply libertarian economics onto education, but Milton Friedman on Education is thought-provoking.

Are You Right-Brained, Left-Brained, No-Brained?

Yes, it’s old news, but click here to watch the pretty dancer and be amazed…

Here’s a good theory at Urikalization about how it works:

“It is NOT about whether you are emotional or rational, but the exact split second your eyes first saw the image.”

See Also:  Are you a dog person or a cat person?  What is the foundation of typology thinking anyways?  Sure it’s useful, but can you ever really know?