Ashbrook Centre Podcasts

Finally, I highly recommend the series of podcasts on the Ashbrook Center website.

NPR Podcasts

While I’m on the subject of podcasts, Tom Ashbrook out of Boston NPR is an excellent interviewer who attracts top notch guests. Recent podcasts include interviews with Harvey Mansfield on manliness, Francis Fukuyama and his departure from the neocons, the Spinoza-Leibniz debate over God and nature, and NY Times Baghdad correspondent John Burns. There’s also a listing for podcasts of Michael Novak’s new book on religion and the US founding as well as one on a new book on Maimonides. But I can’t find them.

Princeton Podcasts

Princeton University’s University Channel carries a lot of extremely interesting podcasts that you can download through the usual channels. It carries podcasts from lectures from the Wilson School, the James Madison Program, and other Princeton venues. I’d especially recommend downloading talks by Robert Kaplan (author of Imperial Grunts), Jody Bottum’s talk on politics and death, and Walter Russel Mead’s talk on traditions in US foreign policy.

There are many more. Check them out.

Peter Berkowitz Blog

Peter Berkowitz teaches law and political theory at George Mason University and is also a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. He’s authored books on Nietzsche and on liberal virtues and writes interesting articles in newspapers and journals. Interesting stuff.

Reviews of Brokeback Mountain

Brokeback Mountain is coming out on DVD, and sales will likely be ramped up by glowing reviews of the movie from critics. Some modest excerpts:

“Revolutionary!” — Owen Leiberman

“Unmissable and unforgettable…a landmark” — Peter Travers

“Masterful” — Ray Bennett

“I wept with joy” — Bill Garrett

“Powerful” — Kevin Turan

“The ninth wonder of the world.” — Yo Yo Ma Ma

“The most important work of art since the Mona Lisa” — Ben Dover

“Revolutionizes the human experience.” — Paul Martin

“Sublime, worthy of its own religion.” — Cardinal Ratzinger

“Ang Lee’s accomplishment puts modern civilization to shame” — Ang Wang

“I was born in the year 42 BBM – Before Brokeback Mountain”– Professor Klump

“Its release marks a critical juncture in history…” — Santa Clause

“Caused me to spontaneously evolve” — formerly Jolly Joe the Monkey

“Cured my blindness – my homophobic blindess, that is.” — Foppish Phil the third

“Important to helping all those gay mans.” — Ang Lee

Predicting the Headlines

No need to read the newspapers. ThePolitic.com already has the important media stories summed up for you:

Stephen Harper’s belly was visible today while accompanying the traitor David Emerson, who is facing continued pressure to resign, to a secret cabinet meeting that wasn’t announced to the media beforehand. Lunch will also be served at the meeting, although we in the media were not told what is on the menu, which will be used to fill Harper’s big stomach and satisfice David Emerson’s appetite, which is apparently not as big as his insatiable appetite for a cabinet post. A high-calorie dessert, all the better to add lard to Harper’s ass, will be served after the lunch, in the same way that David Emerson switched to the Conservatives after being elected as a Liberal, a move he failed to alert the media about beforehand.

Please join us for a special media roundtable to discuss how Stephen Harper’s refusal to disclose the time of cabinet meetings is curtailing to ability of the media to fulfill the public’s right to know about Stephen Harper’s weight.

The Shameless Faces of Bernard Shapiro

Bernard Shapiro, the Ethics Commissioner, continues to be an embarrassment to his office and to himself.

Last year Shapiro refused to investigate Tim Murphy, Paul Martin’s Chief of Staff, after Murphy was caught on tape hinting at a job in the future for Gurmant Grewal, if Grewal and his wife crossed the floor before a crucial vote. Unclear on the notion of Ministerial Responsibility, Shapiro argued that his authority only extended to Members of Parliament. Previously, he had investigated members of the staff in Judi Sgro’s office. Later, he changed his mind, and started an investigation on Murphy, only to clear him in spite of robust evidence.

Now, after deciding that he needed to investigate Prime Minister Harper and David Emerson, Shapiro has refused to investigate Belinda Stronach for the exact same type of issue. The request comes again from the NDP, but Shapiro will not apply his atrophied judgement to Stronach in the same way that he applied it to the Emerson case.

The only decent thing left for this man to do would be to resign. But his lack of shame has placed self-respect as far away from him as incompetence has placed his judgement.

The BC Prosperity Cheque

I’m slowly coming around to this view:

[This] prompted me to ask Premier Gordon Campbell, when I saw him recently, when I’d be receiving my B.C. “prosperity cheque?”

He told me that I’d already received it: I get to live in B.C.

Device to Help the Annoying

Designed for autistic people to tell them when they’re annoying or boring others, but certainly useful for lots of other people.

Amartya Sen: Identity Not Fated

Nobel Prize economist Amartya Sen has the beginnings of a good critique of identity politics in general and Huntington’s clash of civilizations thesis in particular.

However, he only goes halfway on the 1st, which dilutes his criticism of the 2nd.

He repeats the common criticism of identity politics that none of us can be reduced to a single identity: ethnic, religious, etc. Ok, fine. But he fails to make the necessary next step in acknowledging that the concept of identity itself is weak, and overlooks the importance of action as a constituent element of humanity. We are not merely what we are, but also what we do, as Aristotle once observed. Sen begins to move in this direction in reference to ninth-century Muslim mathematician Al-Khwarizmi. However, he persists in moving only within the categories of identity by contrasting Al-Khwarizmi’s identity as a Muslim with that of a mathematician.

The other side of this weakness is that he overlooks what I think is what identity politics aspires to: a fundamental moment of judgment or expression of what an entire life stands for. Consider for example, Dante’s Divine Comedy, where the souls in hell, purgatory, and heaven are characterized by their particular virtue/sin in life. While it might be possible to discover some particular judgment of a life in the afterlife, this is not our act in this our mortal coil. Identity politics seems to want that judgment without either (1) the adhering to the limits our mortality places in discovering that judgment and (2) putting oneself under that judgment. That’s why identity politics is so utopian and self-righteous.

At least Huntington, by identifying civilizations with their founding religions, implicitly seems to understand that religions aspire to judgment. However, he’s hardly the thinker to derive any further insight from on the nature of judgment. In the meantime, we’re better off reading this and this.

Next Page »