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Apr. 16th, 2012
Dick Cheney
Apr. 16th, 2012 08:00 amDick Cheney, just weeks after undergoing heart transplant surgery, plunged back into the political theater Saturday -- praising presumptive nominee Mitt Romney while slamming President Obama as an "unmitigated disaster."
-- Fox News
Cheney, remember, was the vice president under Dubya, so that you would think he should know a thing or two about unmitigated disasters.
When partaking of the spectacle of politics, it is better if you have a taste for the darkly comical.
.
-- Fox News
Cheney, remember, was the vice president under Dubya, so that you would think he should know a thing or two about unmitigated disasters.
When partaking of the spectacle of politics, it is better if you have a taste for the darkly comical.
.
Dick Cheney
Apr. 16th, 2012 08:00 amDick Cheney, just weeks after undergoing heart transplant surgery, plunged back into the political theater Saturday -- praising presumptive nominee Mitt Romney while slamming President Obama as an "unmitigated disaster."
-- Fox News
Cheney, remember, was the vice president under Dubya, so that you would think he should know a thing or two about unmitigated disasters.
When partaking of the spectacle of politics, it is better if you have a taste for the darkly comical.
.
-- Fox News
Cheney, remember, was the vice president under Dubya, so that you would think he should know a thing or two about unmitigated disasters.
When partaking of the spectacle of politics, it is better if you have a taste for the darkly comical.
.
Europe in Freefall
Apr. 16th, 2012 02:00 pmI didn't know Europe was still struggling this hard. It sounds like they are locked in their own version of America's Great Depression from early last century, and it is not clear that that the leaders really do not prefer it - a sort of peon-izing of the common population.
_ _ _
On Saturday The Times reported on an apparently growing phenomenon in Europe: “suicide by economic crisis,” people taking their own lives in despair over unemployment and business failure. It was a heartbreaking story. But I’m sure I wasn’t the only reader, especially among economists, wondering if the larger story isn’t so much about individuals as about the apparent determination of European leaders to commit economic suicide for the Continent as a whole.
-- Paul Krugman at The New York Times
_ _ _
On Saturday The Times reported on an apparently growing phenomenon in Europe: “suicide by economic crisis,” people taking their own lives in despair over unemployment and business failure. It was a heartbreaking story. But I’m sure I wasn’t the only reader, especially among economists, wondering if the larger story isn’t so much about individuals as about the apparent determination of European leaders to commit economic suicide for the Continent as a whole.
-- Paul Krugman at The New York Times
Europe in Freefall
Apr. 16th, 2012 02:00 pmI didn't know Europe was still struggling this hard. It sounds like they are locked in their own version of America's Great Depression from early last century, and it is not clear that that the leaders really do not prefer it - a sort of peon-izing of the common population.
_ _ _
On Saturday The Times reported on an apparently growing phenomenon in Europe: “suicide by economic crisis,” people taking their own lives in despair over unemployment and business failure. It was a heartbreaking story. But I’m sure I wasn’t the only reader, especially among economists, wondering if the larger story isn’t so much about individuals as about the apparent determination of European leaders to commit economic suicide for the Continent as a whole.
-- Paul Krugman at The New York Times
_ _ _
On Saturday The Times reported on an apparently growing phenomenon in Europe: “suicide by economic crisis,” people taking their own lives in despair over unemployment and business failure. It was a heartbreaking story. But I’m sure I wasn’t the only reader, especially among economists, wondering if the larger story isn’t so much about individuals as about the apparent determination of European leaders to commit economic suicide for the Continent as a whole.
-- Paul Krugman at The New York Times
Casanova (Preface) Born for the Fair Sex
Apr. 16th, 2012 04:00 pmThe chief business of my life has always been to indulge my senses; I never knew anything of greater importance. I felt myself born for the fair sex, I have ever loved it dearly, and I have been loved by it as often and as much as I could. I have likewise always had a great weakness for good living, and I ever felt passionately fond of every object which excited my curiosity.
[...]
Should anyone bring against me an accusation of sensuality he would be wrong, for all the fierceness of my senses never caused me to neglect any of my duties.
-- Casanova, The Memoirs
I am suspicious about that last proposition. We know that he got into a lot of trouble, including the prison kind of trouble, but whether any of this had to do with his sensuality, I suppose, remains to be seen.
[...]
Should anyone bring against me an accusation of sensuality he would be wrong, for all the fierceness of my senses never caused me to neglect any of my duties.
-- Casanova, The Memoirs
I am suspicious about that last proposition. We know that he got into a lot of trouble, including the prison kind of trouble, but whether any of this had to do with his sensuality, I suppose, remains to be seen.
Casanova (Preface) Born for the Fair Sex
Apr. 16th, 2012 04:00 pmThe chief business of my life has always been to indulge my senses; I never knew anything of greater importance. I felt myself born for the fair sex, I have ever loved it dearly, and I have been loved by it as often and as much as I could. I have likewise always had a great weakness for good living, and I ever felt passionately fond of every object which excited my curiosity.
[...]
Should anyone bring against me an accusation of sensuality he would be wrong, for all the fierceness of my senses never caused me to neglect any of my duties.
-- Casanova, The Memoirs
I am suspicious about that last proposition. We know that he got into a lot of trouble, including the prison kind of trouble, but whether any of this had to do with his sensuality, I suppose, remains to be seen.
[...]
Should anyone bring against me an accusation of sensuality he would be wrong, for all the fierceness of my senses never caused me to neglect any of my duties.
-- Casanova, The Memoirs
I am suspicious about that last proposition. We know that he got into a lot of trouble, including the prison kind of trouble, but whether any of this had to do with his sensuality, I suppose, remains to be seen.
Charlie Brown
Apr. 16th, 2012 06:00 pm
Well, I cannot say that that is all I ever wanted to do, but I know the feeling. We should form a club: Charlie Brown and the Losers.
Charlie Brown
Apr. 16th, 2012 06:00 pmWell, I cannot say that that is all I ever wanted to do, but I know the feeling. We should form a club: Charlie Brown and the Losers.
Consciousness
Apr. 16th, 2012 08:53 pmAn interesting take on the consciousness question.
_ _ _
Manzotti is what they call a radical externalist: for him consciousness is not safely confined within a brain whose neurons select and store information received from a separate world, appropriating, segmenting, and manipulating various forms of input. Instead, he offers a model he calls Spread Mind: consciousness is a process shared between various otherwise distinct processes which, for convenience’s sake we have separated out and stabilized in the words subject and object. Language, or at least our modern language, thus encourages a false account of experience.
His favorite example is the rainbow. For the rainbow experience to happen we need sunshine, raindrops, and a spectator. It is not that the sun and the raindrops cease to exist if there is no one there to see them. Manzotti is not a Bishop Berkeley. But unless someone is present at a particular point no colored arch can appear. The rainbow is hence a process requiring various elements, one of which happens to be an instrument of sense perception. It doesn’t exist whole and separate in the world nor does it exist as an acquired image in the head separated from what is perceived (the view held by the “internalists” who account for the majority of neuroscientists); rather, consciousness is spread between sunlight, raindrops, and visual cortex, creating a unique, transitory new whole, the rainbow experience. Or again: the viewer doesn’t see the world; he is part of a world process.
-- Tim Parks at The New York Review of Books
_ _ _
I don't know if this is an original thought, or if it really touches on the mystery of consciousness, which question I imagine runs along the lines of how are we aware that we are aware, but I do not recall our touching on the charm of the rainbow in our perceptions before, and if we did, it's worth repeating every once in a while.
_ _ _
Manzotti is what they call a radical externalist: for him consciousness is not safely confined within a brain whose neurons select and store information received from a separate world, appropriating, segmenting, and manipulating various forms of input. Instead, he offers a model he calls Spread Mind: consciousness is a process shared between various otherwise distinct processes which, for convenience’s sake we have separated out and stabilized in the words subject and object. Language, or at least our modern language, thus encourages a false account of experience.
His favorite example is the rainbow. For the rainbow experience to happen we need sunshine, raindrops, and a spectator. It is not that the sun and the raindrops cease to exist if there is no one there to see them. Manzotti is not a Bishop Berkeley. But unless someone is present at a particular point no colored arch can appear. The rainbow is hence a process requiring various elements, one of which happens to be an instrument of sense perception. It doesn’t exist whole and separate in the world nor does it exist as an acquired image in the head separated from what is perceived (the view held by the “internalists” who account for the majority of neuroscientists); rather, consciousness is spread between sunlight, raindrops, and visual cortex, creating a unique, transitory new whole, the rainbow experience. Or again: the viewer doesn’t see the world; he is part of a world process.
-- Tim Parks at The New York Review of Books
_ _ _
I don't know if this is an original thought, or if it really touches on the mystery of consciousness, which question I imagine runs along the lines of how are we aware that we are aware, but I do not recall our touching on the charm of the rainbow in our perceptions before, and if we did, it's worth repeating every once in a while.
Consciousness
Apr. 16th, 2012 08:53 pmAn interesting take on the consciousness question.
_ _ _
Manzotti is what they call a radical externalist: for him consciousness is not safely confined within a brain whose neurons select and store information received from a separate world, appropriating, segmenting, and manipulating various forms of input. Instead, he offers a model he calls Spread Mind: consciousness is a process shared between various otherwise distinct processes which, for convenience’s sake we have separated out and stabilized in the words subject and object. Language, or at least our modern language, thus encourages a false account of experience.
His favorite example is the rainbow. For the rainbow experience to happen we need sunshine, raindrops, and a spectator. It is not that the sun and the raindrops cease to exist if there is no one there to see them. Manzotti is not a Bishop Berkeley. But unless someone is present at a particular point no colored arch can appear. The rainbow is hence a process requiring various elements, one of which happens to be an instrument of sense perception. It doesn’t exist whole and separate in the world nor does it exist as an acquired image in the head separated from what is perceived (the view held by the “internalists” who account for the majority of neuroscientists); rather, consciousness is spread between sunlight, raindrops, and visual cortex, creating a unique, transitory new whole, the rainbow experience. Or again: the viewer doesn’t see the world; he is part of a world process.
-- Tim Parks at The New York Review of Books
_ _ _
I don't know if this is an original thought, or if it really touches on the mystery of consciousness, which question I imagine runs along the lines of how are we aware that we are aware, but I do not recall our touching on the charm of the rainbow in our perceptions before, and if we did, it's worth repeating every once in a while.
_ _ _
Manzotti is what they call a radical externalist: for him consciousness is not safely confined within a brain whose neurons select and store information received from a separate world, appropriating, segmenting, and manipulating various forms of input. Instead, he offers a model he calls Spread Mind: consciousness is a process shared between various otherwise distinct processes which, for convenience’s sake we have separated out and stabilized in the words subject and object. Language, or at least our modern language, thus encourages a false account of experience.
His favorite example is the rainbow. For the rainbow experience to happen we need sunshine, raindrops, and a spectator. It is not that the sun and the raindrops cease to exist if there is no one there to see them. Manzotti is not a Bishop Berkeley. But unless someone is present at a particular point no colored arch can appear. The rainbow is hence a process requiring various elements, one of which happens to be an instrument of sense perception. It doesn’t exist whole and separate in the world nor does it exist as an acquired image in the head separated from what is perceived (the view held by the “internalists” who account for the majority of neuroscientists); rather, consciousness is spread between sunlight, raindrops, and visual cortex, creating a unique, transitory new whole, the rainbow experience. Or again: the viewer doesn’t see the world; he is part of a world process.
-- Tim Parks at The New York Review of Books
_ _ _
I don't know if this is an original thought, or if it really touches on the mystery of consciousness, which question I imagine runs along the lines of how are we aware that we are aware, but I do not recall our touching on the charm of the rainbow in our perceptions before, and if we did, it's worth repeating every once in a while.