Category: Random Thoughts & Idle Chatter
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My recent post on peace and happiness reminded me of one of my paintings whose title was Serenity. I have never put up my paintings for sale. But I did end up selling just one and it was Serenity. A good friend of mine really, really wished to have it. She is a psychologist / counselor and wanted the painting…
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"If you wish to win public support for your healthcare plan, please stop calling it Healthcare Reform and instead try selling it as Health Insurance Reform. Americans like the health care they are getting for the most part but are tired of being jerked around by insurance companies. Best of luck!"
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In a blog post in the NYT travel writer Pico Iyer describes life in a small apartment in Japan as his route to finding peace and happiness. Says Iyer: So — as post-1960s cliché decreed — I left my comfortable job and life to live for a year in a temple on the backstreets of Kyoto. My…
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The short version is, the bar exam is a stupid, pointless, useless, meaningless barrier to entry. Way back in the archives of 2005, Dan Solove made this argument in much more detail than I am willing to — suffice it to say, I agree. "Legalize pot." "Abolish the bar exam." "Stop incarcerating the black ghetto…
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The classic demonstrator of the conjunction fallacy is the following: 1. Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations. Which is more probable?1A. Linda is a bank teller.1B. Linda…
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1. I imagine the average music listener has as much trouble teasing apart the different musical lines, instruments and voices in a symphony (say) as I do. Why isn’t there a product category on the market where the different voices in a piece are all recorded individually? With a suitable software interface, you’d be able…
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A photo I took of some Uighur men, at their request, on the Southern Silk Road in Summer 2006. More photos here. Some ruminations after the break.
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It is a just and proper convention we use in naming authors and thinkers that the immortals have only last names. After all, to name an author is to enter into a game where we are to rank them in an implicit list by excellence, profundity and significance. Hence, to Gustave a Flaubert is to…
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Summer has arrived early in Houston this year. June, usually a much cooler month than July and August, is sizzling. Most years around this time, it feels more like late spring or early summer with temperatures in the mid to upper 80s. Instead, the thermometer has hovered around readings more reminiscent of broiling mid-summer for the past several weeks. After a long spell of near 100 degree temps, there…
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It seems Alvin Plantinga has written a popular account of his evolutionary argument against naturalism, viz. that evolution selects beliefs for survival value, not truth, so that while our beliefs may be useful we've no reason to think them true. I've nothing much to say about the argument itself…lots of people have written about it,…
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I want a to-do list on my Windows desktop. Creating a Word/Notepad/etc. document that I have to open is no good; for much the same reason, anything web-based (e.g. something like Google Calendar) won't really work. I really just want to be able to write, "Look for plane tickets," "Send thank-you card," "Buy groceries," "Find…
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So, you know, he was killed today by some anti-choice nut. (Sad, etc.) Actually, in this case, let's call the person who killed Tiller a "pro-life" nut — it's more ironic than usual. "Abortion doctor" — don't we have a better label than this? I've seen this term used in CNN and NYT headlines. It's…
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Dear readers, there is one more legal eagle on the A.B. roster. Our own Joe graduated from law school last weekend. Joe was one of the two earliest co-bloggers (the other being Anna) to join me on this blog. In late 2005 he was at home waiting to get into law school for the second time. He had…
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Knitting is among the few things that I do reasonably well. While I don't particularly enjoy stitching or embroidery, I have always been fond of knitting since my mother taught me the skill around the time I was five or six years old. I must have made close to a hundred garments and accessories during my life. I have knitted for myself, my family, my friends…
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