08w11:01 Dolphin to the Rescue Posted March 12th, 2008 by timothy. 0 Comments Goodreads | 2008 week 11 number 01 (Dolphin to the Rescue) NZ dolphin rescues beached whales | BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7291501.stm “‘I don’t speak whale and I don’t speak dolphin,’ Mr Smith told the BBC, ‘but there was obviously something that went on because the two whales changed their attitude from being quite distressed to following the dolphin quite willingly and directly along the beach and straight out to sea.’ He added: ‘The dolphin did what we had failed to do. It was all over in a matter of minutes.’
08w03:4 The Waterhen Posted January 15th, 2008 by timothy. 0 Comments Goodreads | 2008 week 03 number 4 (The Waterhen)
08w03:1 The Moral Instinct Posted January 13th, 2008 by timothy. 1 Comment Goodreads | 2008 week 03 number 1 (The Moral Instinct) The Moral Instinct | Steven Pinker Link (New York Times Magazine) “Which of the following people would you say is the most admirable: Mother Teresa, Bill Gates or Norman Borlaug? And which do you think is the least admirable? For most people, it’s an easy question. Mother Teresa, famous for ministering to the poor in Calcutta, has been beatified by the Vatican, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and ranked in an American poll as the most admired person of the 20th century. […] Borlaug, father of the “Green Revolution” that used agricultural science to reduce world hunger, has been credited with saving a billion lives, more than anyone else in history. Gates, in deciding what to do with his fortune, crunched the numbers and determined that he could alleviate the most misery by fighting everyday scourges in the developing world like malaria, diarrhea and parasites. Mother Teresa, for her part, extolled the virtue of suffering and ran her well-financed missions accordingly: their sick patrons were offered plenty of prayer but harsh conditions, few analgesics and dangerously primitive medical care. […] The starting point for appreciating that there is a distinctive part of our psychology for morality is seeing how moral judgments differ from other kinds of opinions we have on how people ought to behave. Moralization is a psychological state that can be turned on and off like a switch, and when it is on, a distinctive mind-set commandeers our thinking. This is the mind-set that makes us deem actions immoral (‘killing is wrong’), rather than merely disagreeable (‘I hate brussels sprouts’), unfashionable (‘bell-bottoms are out’) or imprudent (‘don’t scratch mosquito bites’). The first hallmark of moralization is that the rules it invokes are felt to be universal. Prohibitions of rape and murder, for example, are felt not to be matters of local custom but to be universally and objectively warranted.”
07w41:3 Which way is she spinning? Posted October 11th, 2007 by timothy. 0 Comments Goodreads | 2007 week 41 number 3 (Which way is she spinning?) via
07w40:4 The Creation of Life Posted October 6th, 2007 by timothy. 0 Comments Goodreads | 2007 week 40 number 4 (The Creation of Life) Drudgereport‘s Headline, 5 October 2007 I am creating artificial life, declares US gene pioneer | Ed Pilkington http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/shorty/co/venter/ “Craig Venter, the controversial DNA researcher involved in the race to decipher the human genetic code, has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals and is poised to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth”. The Procedure | Harry Mulisch http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/shorty/amazon/theprocedure/ “The central events in the life of Dutch microbiologist Viktor Werner are that he has created a life a living organism made from clay in the laboratory and experienced a death, with the loss of his unborn daughter. The genetic and scientific details of the creation are convincingly rendered, and Viktor’s attempts to come to grips with his lost daughter and to resurrect a relationship with her mother form the emotional core of the novel. Operating on many levels, the book also recounts the tale of a rabbi in 16th-century Prague who creates a golem, the legendary automaton of occult Judaism. Recurring motifs of occultism, parallels between sacred systems and scientific formulas, a woman’s fertilization cycle, and the DNA code all intertwine into a mystery with a surprise ending. Here, Dutch novelist Mulisch continues some of the scientific and philosophical themes of his previous novel, The Discovery of Heaven, with thought-provoking results. Recommended for academic and larger public”
07w37:5 Nature isn't always cruel Posted September 13th, 2007 by timothy. 0 Comments Goodreads | 2007 week 37 number5 (Nature isn’t always cruel)
07w17:1 Roundup Posted April 24th, 2007 by timothy. 1 Comment Good Reads Mailing List | 2007 week 17 number 1 (roundup) Hello. This is a roundup of some things I gathered in the weeks since I sent the last Goodreads. What else happened? I spoke at March’s Trampoline Hall on ‘Morality as a Form of Idealism’; I was a filler, since the first person scheduled got into an accident. This follows on me being on a panel discussion at the end of February when I was also made to feel like a filler, and so, it occurred to me last month that my career as a second-rate speaker appeared to be well under way. I hope to get up to first rate by the end of the year. If not, I’ll need to get a better agent. There was also a big ceremony marking the 90th anniversary of Vimy Ridge. They couldn’t wait another ten years for a ceremony apparently, but they will obviously be jumping through those hoops again in a decade’s time. Now, a century marker, I could understand, by the 90th was just more propaganda to remind me that the Canada I knew and loved is being lost to patriarchal militarism and unquestioned loyalty to George Bush’s incompetent, ignorant, and colonial vision of global affairs. There was also Easter and stuff … and well, I’m drawing blanks. This wasn’t meant to be too long. A bit of second-rate fill to the real text that belongs here which is: Breaking News The announcements of kryptonite, and the discovery of an Earth-like planet, both occurred today. Just in time for the Globe & Mail’s redesign to make it look as it would have looked in a 1980s science-fiction movie set in the 21st Century, featuring headlines ‘Earth Like Planet Found’ or ‘Kryponite Discovered’ or ‘Alberta building rocketship to rape new resource’ etc. – Timothy ———————————————- Goodreads YouTube / GoogleVideo Compilations: Why We Fight http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/whywefight/ Fredric Jameson lecture, speaking in 2002 http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/jameson/ Adam Curtis’ The Trap http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/adamcurtis/ // Adam Curtis’ latest documentary was broadcast on the BBC in March and has since been posted on Google Video. I added these to the Adam Curtis compilation page already present on Goodreads, with links back to the Google Video source, where they can be watched larger and downloaded. I loved this series – since 2001 I’ve thought the rise of a interest in religion had a lot more to do with American propaganda for a war against believers, non-believers and evildoers and all that, but this makes me think the real reason is a backlash toward the simple-minded view of human beings as self-interested economic agents, which is how we were supposed to think of ourselves throughout the 1980s and especially 1990s. People understand they are more complex than that, and so far, religion has provided a framework to encompass an idea of ‘humanity’ denied by trendy theories. I would also argue that art and literature also provides a complicated vision of human beings, but since the Humanities have been turned into a linguistic mush of critical discourse and over-heated arguments of resentment, people are defaulting to religion for their models and answers and attempts at understanding. But here, I don’t want to say one is better than the other. From my own experience, I feel the worst of religion is balanced by the best of Humanities, and the worst of the Humanities is balanced by the best of religion creating a complimentary relationship with one another, and any attempt at understanding the complexity of humanity should take into consideration what the best of both traditions of the imagination have to offer. —————————– Recommended by Darren O’Donnell A Grammar of the Multitude | Paul Virno http://www.generation-online.org/c/fcmultitude3.htm Manuel DeLanda on Deleuze | Manuel DeLanda http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/manueldelanda writes Darren: “here’s an interesting video of manuel delanda taking a trip through deleuze and it’s not all that confusing.” —————————– Slow News Cycle Obscure Story Recycling: Parasite ‘turns women into sex kittens’ | Jane Bunce http://goodreads.ca/shorty/com/sexkittens/ // article date: December 26, 2006 compare with this article, posted in Goodreads 04w06:2 Dangerrrr: cats could alter your personality | Jonathan Leake http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article1161725.ece “They may look like lovable pets but Britain’s estimated 9m domestic cats are being blamed by scientists for infecting up to half the population with a parasite that can alter people’s personalities […] Infected men, suggests one new study, tend to become more aggressive, scruffy, antisocial and are less attractive. Women, on the other hand, appear to exhibit the ‘sex kitten’ effect, becoming less trustworthy, more desirable, fun-loving and possibly more promiscuous.” A cosmic hall of mirrors http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/18/9/3 the one above interviews one of the fellows who co-authored the below article, from the April 1999 Scientific American: Is Space Finite? | Luminet, Starkman, Weeks http://goodreads.ca/shorty/sciam/mirrorball/ and likely to show up again in the future: The universe is a string-net liquid | Zeeya Merali http://goodreads.ca/shorty/newscientist/net-string/ —————————– Week in Review April 16-22 2007 Nations’s Papers React to Getting Everything About … Backwards http://goodreads.ca/shorty/gawker/asshole/ Goodbye, Sanjaya, I Will Miss You! | Maureen52 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swCndDgiokE // One of the funniest things I’ve seen all week, and once again, a reminder of the obsolescence of video art and galleries in the age of iMovie and and YouTube. Sanjaya: Something To Talk About 4-17-07 Top 7 | American Idol http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swCndDgiokE McCain ‘sings bomb iran’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAzBxFaio1I // If this counts as singing…what did he say after the edit? It seemed to be a way of re-phrasing the question, ‘when do we send an airmail message to Tehran?’ asked by a hawk in the audience. This past week the lastest version of Ubuntu was released, a Linux operating system gaining popularity. It was named Ubuntu after the African philosophy: Ubuntu | Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_(ideology) —————————– If you can carry it to the counter, you don’t need a bag to take it from the store, unless it’s like raining and you don’t want it to get wet Drop that plastic bag – go natural | Zou Hanru http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2007-04/06/content_844737.htm San Francisco to ban plastic grocery bags | CNN http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/27/environment.baggs.reut/index.html —————————– Do we agree? Pirates versus Ninjas | Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_versus_Ninjas Convinceme.net http://www.convinceme.net/index.php —————————– Art-like stuff Andy’s Early Comics Archive – A History of Picture Stories | Andy Bleck http://andybleck.com/eca/earlycomics.html Restoring the home of Nicephore Niepce http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAcTHpuqQIs “It was in this house … that Niepce invented photography” // This ten minute documentary includes reattempts at the first photographs and I was fascinated to see the way archaeology was used to determine the exact position of the first camera to create the first images. How Art Can Be Good | Paul Graham http://paulgraham.com/goodart.html ‘They Don’t Know’ http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2210845148378198004&pr=goog-sl&hl=en // what have you done with your hands lately? Black Tambourine | Beck http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfUZCo-oLtM //Bad experiences with Beck fans has biased me against him for years, although I do have his first two albums. When I saw this video while channel surfing (which, is like, a miracle considering music-video stations never play music videos anymore) I thought maybe I was over my bias. Befriend an artist? Are you kidding? | Jonathan Jones http://arts.guardian.co.uk/critic/feature/0,,1991391,00.html Today’s critics have got too cosy with the artists they write about, says Jonathan Jones, kicking off a series of debates on the Guardian arts blog ‘My Generation’ | The Zimmers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqfFrCUrEbY China Provokes Debate in Africa | Walden Bello http://www.futurenet.org/article.asp?ID=1700 Ten Lashes Against Humanism | Jorge Majfud http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/5033/1/249/ “Not long ago, Doug Hagin, in the image of the famous television program Dave’s Top Ten, concocted his own list of The Top Ten List of Stupid Leftist Ideals. If we attempt to de-simplify the problem by removing the political label, we will see that each accusation against the so-called US leftists is, in reality, an assault on various humanist principles. ” Confucius topples Harry | Steven Ribet http://living.scotsman.com/books.cfm?id=455372007 “It took Yu Dan only six weeks to topple JK Rowling and become the most successful author in Chinese history.But it wasn’t tales of wizards and magic that sparked hysteria in the world’s most populous country. The Beijing academic has managed to make the 2500-year-old words of Confucius, China’s most famous thinker, relevant in the 21st century. ” Dead Plagiarists Society | Paul Collins http://www.slate.com/id/2153313/ Bad Lingo: Blog-Media Cliches http://www.gawker.com/news/blogs/bad-lingo-blogmedia-clichs-222162.php President or King? | Frederick A.O. Schwarz, Jr., and Aziz Huq http://goodreads.ca/shorty/law/kingpresident/ “Not even a seventeenth-century monarch was allowed to ignore checks on power the way President Bush has.” Plastic clogs disrupt machinery in Swedish hospital | The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2061288,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1 10 Most Bizarre People on Earth http://www.oddweek.com/item_65612.aspx —————————– CBC Ideas Podcasts In Other Words | CBC Ideas Podcast Have you ever read Don Quixote? There are several English translations of it. Which Don Quixote was it? Or how about Anna Karenina? Unless you are fluent in the original languages in which these works were published, you’ve read them through the prism and sensibilities of that most underestimated of literary artists – the translator. Barbara Nichol discusses literary translation with some of its most gifted practitioners. Part 1 http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/ideas_20070402_1888.mp3 Part 2 http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/ideas_20070409_1889.mp3 Part 3 http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/ideas_20070416_1890.mp3 Flesh and Stone: The Sociology of Richard Sennett The American sociologist Richard Sennett has had two great themes: the history and design of cities, and the organization of work. As a lover of cities, he has celebrated the expanded sympathy that urban life makes possible; as a student of work, he has criticized the fragmentation of time in the new capitalism; and as a writer, he has elevated sociology to a literary art. He talks with IDEAS producer, David Cayley. Part 1 http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/ideas_20070219_1677.mp3 Part 2 http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/ideas_20070226_1686.mp3 The Ideas of Jerome Kagan Harvard’s Jerome Kagan is a pioneer in developmental psychology. His specialty is studying children. He’s also a philosopher of his science. In a conversation with Paul Kennedy, Jerome Kagan reflects on nature vs. nurture, emotion and the quest for meaning. http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/ideas_20070212_1652.mp3 // I especially liked Kagan’s breakdown of the rise of Freudianism in the first half of the 20th Century: Jerome Kagan: Freud made some very strong statements, for example: all children pass through three phases; an oral phase in infancy, an anal phase during the second year, a phallic phase, a genital phase … that all are neuroses, all are neurotic symptoms: insomnia, depression, fearfulness, they’re all a function of repression of our conflicted urges, primarily sexual. Now, none of that is true. So here’s the puzzle: why did so many (leave me out of it) why did so many brilliant, erudite, educated people not just in the sciences but in the humanities believe that? That’s the puzzle.And the only approach to an answer I can come to is that he spoke to the intuitions of Americans. I should point out that in the early part of the 20th Century, Europe was not very friendly to Freud, it was America and England. America and England were Protestant countries with a much more prudish attitude toward sexuality. And so here is my attempt at some sort of an explanation. The availability of cheap contraceptives toward the end of the 19th Century meant that young men and women could begin to think about sexual activity outside of marriage, otherwise you couldn’t, especially if you were middle class. So now you’re allowing these thoughts to bubble up, but there’s a lot of tension and shame and uncertainty about it. So it’s sitting right on the cusp of consciousness and creating a sort of tension and what I think happened was the tensions that are due to a sick child, losing your job, your parent having cancer, frustration with your boss … that all those tensions, which have nothing to do with sexuality were interpreted as due to the conflict over sexuality. That’s the only why I can understand why this idea – coincidentally, which I believed when I was 21 years old, I thought Freud was absolutely dead right …. dead right. Paul Kennedy: It would be hard to believe anything else because that was the orthodoxy as you say. Jerome Kagan: Yeah, but there was a minority of scholars who rejected it. I mean not everyone thought it was a good idea, but many people did. I’m sure the explanation I just gave can’t be all of it. There have to be other factors, but someone smarter than I will have to come up with it. But at least the explanation I just offered I think makes some small contribution. But it is amazing. —————————– Subsection on Cultural Memory Why do geeks have lust for ZFS? | Paulius http://tech.zamwi.com/2007/01/16/why-do-geeks-have-lust-for-zfs/ Scientists: Data-storing bacteria could last thousands of years http://goodreads.ca/shorty/computerworld/bacterialstorage/ Sparta? No. This is madness | Ephraim Lytle http://www.thestar.com/article/190493 ‘300’: Fact or fiction? | Victor Davis Hanson http://goodreads.ca/shorty/washingtontimes/300/ Das Google Problem: is the invisible mouse benevolent? | Tony Curzon Price http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-vision_reflections/google_problem_4546.jsp We’re all ’80s kids now | Raju Mudhar http://www.thestar.com/artsentertainment/article/198191 —————————– The Disappearing Bees Why are Niagara’s bees dying? | Dana Flavelle http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/203818 Cellular phone uses linked to bee deaths | Dana Flavelle http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/204247 Are mobile phones wiping out our bees? | Geoffrey Lean http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2449968.ece —————————– Paleo-Futurism Paleo-Futurism: A Look into the Future that Never Was | Matt http://paleo-future.blogspot.com ‘You Will’ Ads | AT&T (1993) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb0avfQme8 // concept videos for the present life which wasn’t brought to us by AT&T Knowledge Navigator | Apple Inc (1987) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WdS4TscWH8 // a concept video produced by Apple in 1987 for an interface. —————————– France vote! France: The Precarious Generation: Au revoir job security | Charlotte Buchen and Singeli Agnew http://goodreads.ca/shorty/pbs/precarite/ France’s intellectual election | Patrice de Beer http://goodreads.ca/shorty/opendemocracy/france2007/ France’s Female Presidential Candidate Is Building a Political Machine I Stefan Simons http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,451566,00.html France, Land of Inequality | Der Speigel http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,456999,00.html —————————– WTF? Swiss man jailed for Thai insult http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6505237.stm Follow up: Man Pardoned for Insulting Thai King | Sutin Wannabovorn http://goodreads.ca/shorty/washingtonpost/forgiven/ also in the wtf? department: Complaints filed against Richard Gere http://goodreads.ca/shorty/com/gerekissykissy/ —————————————- Long links made short by using Shorty (http://get-shorty.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, go here http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com
06w15:1 The Extended Phenotype Posted April 9th, 2006 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2006 week 15 number 1 (The extended phenotype) There’s this line in the Ghost in The Shell sequel, Innocence. As they fly over a city, one character says to the other, “Reminds me of the line ‘what the body creates, is as much an expression of DNA as the body itself.’ … If the essence of life is information carried in DNA, then society and civilization are just colossal memory systems… And a metropolis like this one, simply a sprawling external memory.” This idea is that of Richard Dawkin’s Extended Phenotype. Basically, if a beaver is a beaver because of it’s DNA, a beaver’s dam is also an expression of that DNA. Therefore, the CN Tower is also an expression of human DNA, as is every other aspect of our material culture. ——————————————————————— The Extended Phenotype | Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_phenotype —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Sunday 09 April 2006 @ 1:26 AM
06w01:1 The Human Machine Posted January 2nd, 2006 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2006 week 01 number 1 (the human machine) Happy New Year. – Timothy ——————————————————————— DNA seen through the eyes of a coder | Bert Hubert http://ds9a.nl/amazing-dna/ “This is just some rambling by a computer programmer about DNA. I’m not a molecular geneticist. […] I’m not trying to force my view unto the DNA – each observation here is quite ‘uncramped’. To see where I got all this from, head to the bibliography. […]DNA is not like C source but more like byte-compiled code for a virtual machine called ‘the nucleus’. It is very doubtful that there is a source to this byte compilation – what you see is all you get. The language of DNA is digital, but not binary. Where binary encoding has 0 and 1 to work with (2 – hence the ‘bi’nary), DNA has 4 positions, T, C, G and A. Whereas a digital byte is mostly 8 binary digits, a DNA ‘byte’ (called a ‘codon’) has three digits. Because each digit can have 4 values instead of 2, an DNA codon has 64 possible values, compared to a binary byte which has 256.” Personal Identity, Neuroethics and the Human Brain | Michael S. Gazzaniga http://realserver.princeton.edu:8080/ramgen/lectures/20050414gazzanigaVN350K.rm Note: links to RAM file. Source page. A great and very illuminating presentation. —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Monday 02 January 2006 @ 3:10 PM
05w51:1 Everything, or Throwing the Backlog on the Winter's Fire, or Xmastravaganza Posted December 24th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 51 number 1 (everything, or throwing the backlog on the winter’s fire, or the xmastravaganza) ——————————————————————— But first the news…. “Welcome to Ohio! Ihre Papiere, bitte!” | Metafilter http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/47812 “Governor Taft of Ohio is about to sign Senate Bill 9, the Ohio Patriot Act. Among its provisions: * Police can deny entry to “transportation infrastructure” to anyone not showing an ID; * Police can demand the name, address, and date of birth of anyone suspected of having committed a crime or being about to commit a crime, or having witnessed a crime or a plan to commit a crime. Failure to provide this information is an arrestable offense — so basically all demonstrators could be required to give their names, addresses and dates of birth or face arrest; * Reminiscent of Joe McCarthy’s famous question, many state licenses will begin with the question “Are you a member of an organization on the U.S. Department of State Terrorist Exclusion List?”. Failure to answer means no license; answering affirmatively is self-incrimination. * Perhaps worst of all, the original version of the bill simply prohibited state or local governemnts or government employees from objecting to the USA PATRIOT act. The current version allows criticism, but threatens local government with the loss of funds if they in any way “materially hinder” Federal anti-terrorism efforts. “Welcome to Ohio! Ihre Papiere, bitte!” is from Metafilter, and included this comment: “The men who founded this nation were brave and forward thinking, the United States formed as the most modern and enlightened government in history. And now, through the spoiled tricksters in power, it is being dismantled while the citizens are at home watching another sitcom, laughing, laughing, laughing. […] Oh, and f*ck Jesus and every moron who voted for Republicans because they promised to stop homosexuals from getting married.” Yeah, f*ck ’em. But it is Jesus’ birthday and all, supposedly. But maybe Jesus was a bastard. Maybe he was born in the summer. Ah well, at least it’s time off work, and we get to eat well. Where is Santa Claus? | Timothy Comeau http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/commentary/2005/12/where-is-santa-claus.html from 1990 when I was in Grade 10 Sata Claus | Timothy Comeau http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/commentary/2004/12/sata-claus.html Santa loves logs Santa is Satan right? http://www.blowthetrumpet.org/TheGreatDeceptionVideo.htm at first I thought this was satire than checked out the rest of the site and saw that it’s a looney Christian one and so the video I guess is supposed to be serious.Thanks to Rany (whoever you are) for the link. Merry Religious Assimiliation Day | OmniNerd http://www.omninerd.com/2005/12/22/news/455 “The first recorded Christmas on December 25th took place in the 4th century, a date coinciding with the birthdate of Mithras, the Persian sun god. Pope Julius I is rumored to have adjusted Jesus’ birthday to match Mithras’ because the church was unable to stop the pagan celebrations and thereby could associate their festivities in Jesus’ name. Other traditions owe their roots to non-Christian origin. Evergreen trees were revered by Druids for good luck and fertility because they withstood the hardships of winter. The tree became a religious symbol of everlasting life and was decorated to symbolize the sun’s power.” The Earthly Father: What if Mary wasn’t a virgin? | Chloe Breyer http://www.slate.com/id/2132639/nav/tap1/ “Should Schaberg and other scholars who question the virgin birth be hurled into the outer darkness? The problem with dismissing them, as the fourth-century church authorities dismissed their forerunners, begins with Scripture. The biblical sources for the virgin conception are a few short passages in two of the four Gospels. In Matthew, an angel appears to Joseph, who is perplexed about his fiancee’s pregnancy. Should he divorce Mary or have her stoned her to death, as the law of Deuteronomy requires? “Joseph, Son of David,” says the angel, “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus.” The angel then goes on to quote the Hebrew prophet Isaiah. “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel.” (In fact, “virgin” comes from Matthew’s use of a Greek mistranslation; the Hebrew in Isaiah reads “young girl.”) The version in Luke is similar.” Mary’s Not a Virgin | The Current speaks to Jane Schaberg http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/media/200512/20051222thecurrent_sec1.ram Mary’s wasn’t a virgin, she was just unfaithful I guess Eluding Happiness: A Buddhist problem with Christmas. | Jess Row http://www.slate.com/id/2132724/?nav=tap3 Oh, but now Buddhism’s in the picture. Which is interesting because…. Scientists to check Nepal Buddha boy | Navin Singh Khadka http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4479240.stm Introduction to Meditation | Gil Fronsdal http://www.audiodharma.org/talks-intromed.html …which reminds me of the Buddhist joke I once heard which I never really understood. I guess that means I’m stupid. But whatever. It went: ‘what did the Buddhist say to the hot-dog vendor? — I’ll have one with everything.’ so, on to everything…. Blink and The Wisdom of Crowds | James Surowiecki & Malcolm Gladwell http://www.slate.com/id/2111894/entry/2112064/ Preacher of the profane | Daniel Binswanger http://www.signandsight.com/features/399.html Ad glut turns off viewers | Gary Levin http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2005-10-11-ad-glut_x.htm Are you there God? It’s me Margaret | Mathew Fox interviews Margaret Atwood http://maisonneuve.org/index.php?page_id=12&article_id=415 Move Toward Plain Language in Canadian Court Decisions | Michel-Adrien Sheppard http://micheladrien.blogspot.com/2005/11/move-toward-plain-language-in-canadian.html The Plain Language Association INternational http://www.plainlanguagenetwork.org/ Artblog.net: Vincent Van Gogh, the drawings | Franklin Einspruch http://artblog.net/publications/2005/12/van_gogh/ Art in Newfoundland | Craig Francis Power http://artinnl.blogspot.com/ nobody writes me letters anymore. boohoohoo this was awesome: Optics in Renaissance Art | Charles M. Falco http://realserver.princeton.edu:8080/ramgen/lectures/20020507falcoTV7300K.rm (link to realmedia presentation, or go here: Lectures at Princeton page) and this was really good…: Urban Planning | The Current speaks to Fred Kent http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/media/200510/20051024thecurrent_sec3.ram Fred Kent complained about Frank Gehry’s work and that of similar architects, which in Toronto, means he’s talking about our reno-projects…. he refered to it as ‘starkichecture’ and spoke of design being a disease. Monuments to ego (*cough* Liebskind) maybe, but as public spaces, they leave much to be desired. Personally I can see an historical connection to architecture and fascism, but who cares what I think. Some pigs are more equal than others | Timothy Comeau http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/commentary/2005/10/some-pigs-are-more-equal-than-others.html Not Special | Timothy Comeau http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/commentary/2005/12/not-special.html Let’s have a culture of six pack minds baby. Because then the world might be a better place. In the meantime there’s Muhammad Yunus. Muhammad Yunus is one of the most inspiring individuals I’ve ever come across in the media-scape. A highly recommended video presentation…. Ending Global Poverty | Muhammad Yunus http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/289/ “ABOUT THE LECTURE: Imagine a bank that loans money based on a borrower’s desperate circumstances — where, as Muhammad Yunus says, ‘the less you have, the higher priority you have.’ Turning banking convention on its head has accomplished a world of good for millions of impoverished Bangladeshis, as the pioneering economist Yunus has demonstrated in the last three decades. What began as a modest academic experiment has become a personal crusade to end poverty. Yunus reminds us that for two-thirds of the world’s population, ‘financial institutions do not exist.’ Yet, ‘we’ve created a world which goes around with money. If you don’t have the first dollar, you can’t catch the next dollar.’ It was Yunus’ notion, in the face of harsh skepticism, to give the poorest of the poor their first dollar so they could become self-supporting. ‘We’re not talking about people who don’t know what to do with their lives….They’re as good, enterprising, as smart as anybody else.’ His Grameen Bank spread from village to village as a lender of tiny amounts of money (microcredit), primarily to women. Yunus heard that “all women can do is raise chickens, or cows or make baskets. I said, ‘Don’t underestimate the talent of human beings.'” No collateral is required, nor paperwork—just an effort to make good and pay back the loan. Now the bank boasts 5 million borrowers, receiving half a billion dollars a year. It has branched out into student loans, health care coverage, and into other countries. Grameen has even created a mobile phone company to bring cell phones to Bangladeshi villages. Yunus envisions microcredit building a society where even poor people can open ‘the gift they have inside of them.'” I’ve linked to things relating to Bonnie Basseler’s work before. Here is a video presentation from Printceton. I’ve linked to the real audio version, but there are others available from the source website here: Lectures at Princeton page How Bacteria Talk to One Another | Bonnie Basseler speaking at Princeton (video) http://realserver.princeton.edu:8080/ramgen/lectures/20051017basslerTAPE56K.rm Merry Christmas everybody. -Mr. Timothy —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Saturday 24 December 2005 @ 5:24 PM
