During the present holiday season I have been reading Daniel Dennett’s Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. And of my doing this, of my reading, Dennett has this to say (p.509): “Here you are, devoting several hours to reading my book. Shouldn’t we both be out raising money for Oxfam or picketing the Pentagon or writing lettters to [...]
Archive for December 2009
On Reading Daniel Dennett’s Darwin’s Dangerous Idea
December 30, 2009America is going the way of Europe, and that’s OK
December 18, 2009Why is it that the Right in America is so afraid of the Welfare State. Why is it that Europe, the favored travel destination of most every member of our elite some 100 years ago, is now held up as the place where we most of all don’t want to go, the kind of place [...]
The President: “For Make No Mistake…”
December 14, 2009In his Nobel speech President Obama says this: “For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world.” These words, of course, won him plaudits from the Right. And mostly silence from the Left, at least to the extent that I’m aware of the Left’s reactions to the President’s address. But doesn’t one have to [...]
Atul Gawande, Transforming Health Care
December 11, 2009Is Atul Gawande on to something in what he asks in a recent New Yorker article, “The health-care bill has no master plan for curbing costs. Is that a bad thing?” Can we, as he suggests, usefully and justifiably compare the place of health care, in particular the escalating cost of health care today, with [...]
At West Point the President allies himself with Karl Rove
December 3, 2009What has happened that President Obama finds himself allied with Karl Rove (and the Republican leaders in the U.S. Congress) on the hawkish side of the debate regarding the U.S. role in Afghanistan, while, for example, nearly the entire gamut of NYTimes op ed writers from left to right (not to mention myriad liberal voices [...]
The Minaret Ban, “disgraceful” or highly appropriate?
December 1, 2009“Uninformed,” that’s the only way to describe the NYTimes editorial opinion regarding the successful Swiss initiative to ban the construction of minarets. The Times editorial writer condemns the Swiss vote, calling it “bigoted and meanspirited.” In order to hold his opinion the Times writer has to be totally ignorant of the thinking of the Swiss [...]
