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Jan 17, 2012
By David Brown | Posted at 10:11:49
'Mein Kampf' Extracts To Be Sold in Germany (Der Spiegel 1-17-12) LINK BROKEN
The Bavarian Finance Ministry takes a similarly strict view of the planned publication of “Mein Kampf.” It declared: “Permission to publish volumes isn't granted in Germany or abroad.” It added that Bavaria would use “all means at its disposal” to fight copyright infringements. Their aim was to prevent the spread of National Socialist propaganda and to send a “clear signal” of opposition to its content, it continued.
McGee regards that as nonsense. “Mein Kampf is an extremely bad book, it is badly written, has awkward language and no internal logic,” he says. “The thoughts are strewn across the whole book.” But he adds that one can only recognize its insanity if one confronts the text.
In McGee's edition, each page contains a column of original text alongside critical commentary. “We're aware of the dark power of this book but it stems from the fact that no one has read it. The aura of being forbidden accounts for its myth,” said the publisher.
By David Brown | Posted at 9:30:43
The Lure of the Peak—Philip Kitcher reviews Derek Parfit's On What Matters (New Republic 1-11-12)
One prediction is almost undeniable. On What Matters will be the subject of innumerable graduate seminars, a book to be pored over for weeks and months by apprentice philosophers and their mentors, a source for journal articles that will refine a principle here or challenge an argument there. It will be a paradigm in the original, uncorrupted sense of the word, one that will give rise to a professional practice of philosophizing. But will it-or should it-have an impact on broader cultural discussions, shaping future thoughts about what we ought to do or want or aspire to become?
By David Brown | Posted at 8:53:12
The cyborgs are coming! Living brains implanted with electronic chips to replace 'faulty' parts (UK Daily Mail 1-17-12)
Faulty parts of living brains have been replaced by electronic chips, in an astonishing and controversial scientific breakthrough.
It's a move that has been anticipated many times in science fiction, with creatures such as The Terminator, a 'cyborg' hybrid of flesh and machinery.
But now, researchers at Tel Aviv University have successfully created circuits that can replace motor functions - such as blinking - and implanted them into brains.
By David Brown | Posted at 8:45:14
“What if humans could be made twice as intelligent?”: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45998325/ns/technology_and_science-science/ (MSNBC 1-14-12)
According to Earl Hunt, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Washington and president of the International Society for Intelligence Research, approximately one person in 10 billion would have an IQ of 200. With a current world population of 7 billion, there may or may not be one such person alive today, and in any case, his or her identity is unknown. However, the 17th-century genius Isaac Newton, discoverer of gravity, calculus and more, is sometimes estimated to have had an IQ of 200 (though he never took an IQ test).
Using him as an archetype, what if we were all a bunch of Newtons? Would the world be much more advanced than it is today?
By David Brown | Posted at 8:35:16
Joe Paterno's first interview since the Penn State-Sandusky scandal (Wash Post 1-14-12)
How Sandusky, 67, allegedly evaded detection by state child services, university administrators, teachers, parents, donors and Paterno himself remains an open question. “I wish I knew,” Paterno said. “I don't know the answer to that. It's hard.” Almost as difficult for Paterno to answer is the question of why, after receiving a report in 2002 that Sandusky had abused a boy in the shower of Penn State's Lasch Football Building, and forwarding it to his superiors, he didn't follow up more aggressively.
“I didn't know exactly how to handle it and I was afraid to do something that might jeopardize what the university procedure was,” he said. “So I backed away and turned it over to some other people, people I thought would have a little more expertise than I did. It didn't work out that way.”
Jan 16, 2012
By David Brown | Posted at 16:6:52
Can Sex Ever Be Casual?
(Psychology Today)
By David Brown | Posted at 15:57:56
Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton - review by Terry Eagleton (UK Guardian 1-12-12)
God may be dead, but Alain de Botton's Religion for Atheists is a sign that the tradition from Voltaire to Arnold lives on. The book assumes that religious beliefs are a lot of nonsense, but that they remain indispensible to civilised existence. One wonders how this impeccably liberal author would react to being told that free speech and civil rights were all bunkum, but that they had their social uses and so shouldn't be knocked. Perhaps he might have the faintest sense of being patronised. De Botton claims that one can be an atheist while still finding religion “sporadically useful, interesting and consoling”, which makes it sound rather like knocking up a bookcase when you are feeling a bit low. Since Christianity requires one, if need be, to lay down one's life for a stranger, he must have a strange idea of consolation. Like many an atheist, his theology is rather conservative and old-fashioned.
By David Brown | Posted at 15:52:38
A former model delves into the industry (Boston Globe 1-15-12)
To write the book, Mears spent more than three years doing research and interviewing models, agents, and clients. Pricing Beauty describes the industry as glamorous, yes, though marked by a particular kind of struggle. The pay can be low, the working conditions harsh, and the workers' expectations often unrealistic. At the same time, it is sustained by a glut of laborers—many of them imported from abroad—who are willing, or resigned, to work for little more than the promise of glamour and fortune. It's a winner-take-all setup, with few participants reaping the rewards. For every Kate Moss, Mears writes, there are literally thousands of other girls and women who have sacrificed years of their youth and come away with very little. Many are in debt to their agencies for essentials like housing and visas before they even begin to work, and the physical requirements are intense. Mears describes models who, though not the norm, feel enough pressure to stay thin that they turn to extreme exercising, high-protein low-fat shakes, unhealthy diets, or pharmaceuticals such as Adderall, which suppresses appetite. And the older a model gets, writes Mears, the more she “exudes failure.” There's no shortage of models washed up by their mid-20s.
Jan 13, 2012
By David Brown | Posted at 17:31:26
India's UID scheme-
Opposition to the world's biggest biometric identity scheme is growing (The Economist 1-14-12)
FOR a country that fails to meet its most basic challenges-feeding the hungry, piping clean water, fixing roads-it seems incredible that India is rapidly building the world's biggest, most advanced, biometric database of personal identities. Launched in 2010, under a genial ex-tycoon, Nandan Nilekani, the “unique identity” (UID) scheme is supposed to roll out trustworthy, unduplicated identity numbers based on biometric and other data.
By David Brown | Posted at 10:39:27
Could You Be A Criminal? US Supports UN Anti-Free Speech Measure (Forbes 12-30-11)
While you were out scavenging the Wal-Mart super sales or trying on trinkets at Tiffany and Cartier, your government has been quietly wrapping up a Christmas gift of its own: adoption of UN resolution 16/18. An initiative of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (formerly Organization of Islamic Conferences), the confederacy of 56 Islamic states, Resolution 16/18 seeks to limit speech that is viewed as “discriminatory” or which involves the “defamation of religion”—specifically that which can be viewed as “incitement to imminent violence.”
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