Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 2812
June 27, 2010
The Tree Of Knowledge, Not Understanding
Errol Morris finishes his series on anosognosia with a parable:
When God created man (and woman), he gave them the ability to perceivethe world, but withheld from them the ability to understand it. Wecould come up with one cockamamie theory after another, but realunderstanding would always elude us. It was mean-spirited on God'spart. And to make matters even worse, God gave us the desire but notthe wherewithal to make sense of experience. One might easily foreseethat this would lead...
The Out Of Touch MSM
A reader writes:
The appropriateness of the Weigel's comments about Drudge aside, I'm much more horrified by the suggestion, on Goldblog and elsewhere, that this is somehow the Washington Post's fault for hiring journalists who, you know, have opinions about stuff. When will news outlets give up on the charade of neutrality in reporting?
In an era of monopolistic news reporting, if you are the only newspaper in town, or one of three channels on the tube, you are you going to be a lot less...
The View From Your Window
Sea Ranch, California, 2 pm
California - Jay Rosen - United States - Economics - Southern California
Extending Our Brains
Scott Adams is enthralled by what he calls the "exobrain":
Everything we create becomes a de facto data storage device and
accessory. A wall can be a physical storage device for land
data, it can be a reminder of history, and it can be a trigger
personal memories.A business is also a way to store data. Asa restaurant owner, I was fascinated at how employees came and went,but their best ideas often stayed with the business, especially in thekitchen. The restaurant was like a...
Mental Health Break
You've Got to Love London from Alex Silver on Vimeo.
A time lapse video tribute to London, made during my final days studying abroad in that lovely city.
7,757 pictures.
Check out more of my stuff at asilverphoto.com.
Music: You've Got the Love by Florence and the Machine
Cheers
Vimeo - London - Time-lapse - England - Multimedia
Before Stonewall
The invisibility of the real history of the civil rights movement for gays and lesbians continues at the Smithsonian:
A dozen picket signs on old wooden sticks carry the DNA of the gay civil equality movement in America. Forty-five years ago, this month, in 1965, these pickets were held high by men and women considered among the first generation of LGBT activists in front of Lyndon Johnson's White House.
With the men wearing jackets and ties and tailored skirts for the ladies, all arrived...
Big Brother Is Watching: Yay?
Professor of Philosophy Emrys Westacott wrestles with surveillance:
Kantians should welcome surveillance, since ultimately it leads to the achievement of the very ideal they posit: the more complete the surveillance, the more duty and self-interest coincide. Surveillance technology replaces the idea of an all-seeing God who doles out just rewards and punishments, and it is more effective, since its presence, and the bad consequences of ignoring it, are much more tangibly evident...
How The Brain Argues With Itself
Errol Morris continues his mediation on anosognosia:
[V.S. Ramachandran:] has used the notion of layered belief — the idea thatsome part of the brain can believe something and some other part of thebrain can believe the opposite (or deny that belief) — to help explainanosognosia. In a 1996 paper...he speculated that the left and right hemispheres react differentlywhen they are confronted with unexpected information. The left brainseeks to maintain continuity of belief, using denial...
Live-Tweeting A Firing Squad, Ctd
A reader writes:
The first respondent you posted is a little confused about thedifferences between people now and people in history. Asrecently as a century ago, and certainlythroughout most of human history, death was a constantcompanion for people of all stripes. Infant mortality, maternal death in childbirth, horrific wasting diseases, hand-to-hand combat - all these and more combined to ensure thatmost people, if not everyone, was well acquainted with death by the time they reached...
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