The Conspiracy for Freedom
Archive for August 2008
Much has been made, as has been noted below, of Barack Obama’s oratory skills. Umm…. yeah I ummm… I don’t know about that after hearing his response to the Russian/Georgian conflict. The lack of substance and the poor delivery was especially obvious since I heard it first in a radio news report, directly after McCain’s forthright and competent (and articulate! No Umms!) remarks.
It’s been a few days, but this is still worth remarking.
Random House has pulled a debut novel authored by an American about the Prophet Mohammed’s child bride. It’sa work of fiction. A romance that the author says is not a bodice-ripper, but instead a bridge-builder. Okay. So why pull it? The publisher fears violence (remember the cartoons?) from, err, devout Muslims. A ” small, radical segment” according to Random House deputy publisher Thomas Perry.
Random House told Bookseller.com they had “no second thoughts”. Sure, author Sherry Jones can find another publisher. It’s still a free country, after all. Right?
RIGHT?
From Cicero’s Brutus:
“(He) too won a more favorable reputation for eloquence by his delivery than his actual ability warranted. He was no in fact a man of much acuteness, though the expression of his countenance gave him that appearance, nor was he resourceful in language, though in that too he gave and impression of being so; for by the effective use of pauses, ejaculations, a voice sonorous and agreeable, he won such favor by the warmth of his delivery that the qualities which he lacked were scarcely missed… so (he) by the excellence of his delivery cloaked the mediocrity of his other gifts. In a manner not very different (he) covered up his slowness of thought and speech by dignity of bearing; his action was full of art and grace, and he possessed a strong and pleasing voice; he had in short nothing but delivery; all his other qualities were inferior…”
Who is he? No, not Obama, silly, how could you think that? Cicero was talking about Publius Lentulus. But it does seem appropriate somehow. Obama sounds great in soundbites, in controlled situations. But if you actually listen to what he says, it’s nothing but empty platitudes, meticulously crafted for the audience he is currently addressing, and an incredible amount of unintended egotism.
He’s only considered “good” because he’s competing with an empty stage…
Rumors are swirling in some circles that Obama will soon announce he has chosen Evan Bayh, the junior senator from Indiana, as his running mate. Allegedly, team Obama has announced that the Senator will make a major announcement this week, and he will be in Indiana on Wednesday. And it’s true that he may make an announcement before the Olympics start (even if no one should be watching them).
Sure, Evan Bayh is young. Wait, so is Obama.
Anyway, I somehow just don’t think Bayh is the pick. Would this really put Indiana in play? I don’t think so. I think the much more likely possible pick is Tim Kaine.
Ptolemy was a Greek in Roman Egypt in the 1st Century AD. He was one of the pre-eminent natural philosophers of the ancient world and he is a wonderful example of what science isn’t.
Ptolemy attempted to address one of the major scientific problems of the ancient world (and the pre-modern world as well), the retrograde motion of the planets. Simply put, although the stars move in a great circle in the sky and the sun and moon move in a steady circle through this stellar background, the planets, those great wanderers, would occasionally move backwards against the stars. This was very difficult to explain in an earth-centered universe and even more difficult to predict. Along with predicting solar eclipses, this was one of the main problems of pre-modern astronomy.
Ptolemy created a model of perfectly nested spheres with the earth at the center and all the bodies of astronomy radiating outward. You can see a simplified version of it here. He solved the problem of retrograde motion with “epicycles” smaller spheres within spheres which would sometimes make the always perfect circular motion appear to run backwards. But the perfect, spherical motion was always in the same diirection, always at the same speed and always and ever circular.
Why circular and uniform? Because Ptolemy knew that the universe was perfect and circular. In modern parlance, that was the paradigm within which he operated, one greatly developed by Aristotle centuries before.
The problem was that his predictions were often wrong. He would be a little early or a little late with a predicted eclipse or the start of Mars’ retrograde motion. Every time he made a mistake, he would tweak the model a bit and add another “epicycle” to his model, one more circle within a circle to make up for the last mistake, anticipating the still additional adjustments to be made again and again down through the centuries until someone finally realized we weren’t the center of the universe, and though it might be perfect, the universe or at least the planets, moved in ellipses, not circles.
The observations did not match the models, the predictions never accorded with the results. But he knew the answer and so his model just needed a bit more tweaking to finally approach the perfection of the universe. Ptolemy and his followers knew the answers because their entire philosophical system was tied up in them. Their “theory of everything” was Aristotelean in nature, but had been adopted by the Catholic Church and all of Europe by the time the Renaissance was kicking off. The assumptions of Aristotelean physics were tied into the Christian world view; the perfect circle, the finite universe, the geo-centric universe, the four plus one elements. All of these things were tied together with logic and theology so that by the time Copernicus and Galileo showed up, to challenge the music of the spheres was to challenge the truth of scripture.
Yeah, sure, but what has this got to do with Global Warming? Just Read On McDuff…
Alexander Solzhenitsyn (2007 photo)
Sad news tonight. Alexander Solzhenitsyn has died of heart failure (Russian authorities say it was a stroke).
HIs books, particularly The Gulag Archipelago, revealed what many in the West wanted to ignore — the atrocities of the brutal slave labor camps the USSR used to squash dissent and prop up its economy.
The impact of that book and others he wrote about the Soviet system can’t be overstated. Perhaps for the first time, previously skeptical historians and journalists began to doubt their own assumptions about Lenin and communism. Although many still doubted until the Cold War ended.
But the truth will out. And the truth will set you free. RIP.
Republicans in Congress showed some spunk — gumption — one might even call it passion last week, and promise to show more of the same this week (or maybe one or two younger ones will. Oh well.)
What happened? Well, full story here, but in short: skeerdy-cat Democrats who just wanted to go on vacation and didn’t want to vote on the off-shore oil drilling bill before they left, shut down Congress early to disallow further speeches from Republican lawmakers on the subject . They even shut down the C-SPAN cameras (which are, apparently, not controlled by C-SPAN but by the Speaker of the House and her party. Interesting.) For a while the lights were off too (no doubt to save on energy costs. Always thinking of the taxpayer, that Ms. Pelosi).
Nevertheless, GOP lawmakers stayed and orated for several hours to a growing number of tourists (i.e., citizens), and a few of the reps pledged to keep it up this week. Well done!
If only they had shown this much passion for an issue that matters to the average American — and been this unconcerned with public attention — two years ago. But better late than never!
The Crypt: House Republicans go back on the floor Monday to talk gas prices - Politico.com
This is pretty darn good. Good to see the McCain campaign unafraid to go after Obama. Let’s keep it coming.
