First Word

While only a few people will be interested in our philosophical podcasts, I hope many will give the operatic ones a try. Here, we discuss (more…)

In the documentary called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, the droll Ben (more…)

At its national convention Saturday April 26 in Kansas City, the (more…)

There are basically two different models of conservatism (more…)

Every dictionary I have consulted offers an unsatisfactory (more…)

Yiddish, according to some, was a language designed so that jews (more…)

Today, April 5 at 1:30 on your affiliated NPR station; or (more…)

The plot and message of this movie can be summarized (more…)

Start boning up for next Saturday’s Met broadcast of Tristan (more…)

The Unanswered Question - Six Talks at Harvard by Leonard Bernstein (1976) is a series on music appreciation that Leonard Bernstein delivered (more…)

William F. Buckley has a place in the intellectual history of right- (more…)

The best argument for a liturgical calendar is that having a ceremonial calendar seems to be an inescapable concept. I am not there yet, but I have to admit that our secular civic-religious state, built on the ruins of a calendarless Protestantism, proffers a calendar that veritably bristles with memorials. February, for example, is designated Black History Month. So, to honor it in my own way, I propose to quote Hegel on Black History. After listening to his discussion, it will be possible to state rather unhesitatingly what Hegel’s view of Black History Month would be. (more…)

This video documents some of the lies of Bush and his cronies.

If you don’t need convincing that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld are all liars, send the link to the many Christians you know who think that they are all men of integrity.

Watch up to 4 minutes 15 seconds.  The last part is not very good.  Also a few Bush/Cheney-type vulgarities can be heard.

Guess which of the following are honored at Westminster Theological Seminary with a day off. You may select more than one of course. (Note: you may regard one of the selections as a joke.) (more…)

And now comes Rev Michael Eric Dyson to defend Martin Luther King’s plagiarism.

The facts can be summarized rather succinctly. (more…)

The greatest opera ever! (more…)

In a discussion with a co-worker last week, I discovered with shock that some people are still not aware of M. L. King’s chronic cheating: plagiarism in his literary production, and serial adultery and worse in his personal life. The burden of this post will be to examine the discussion of this facet of King’s life given by Rev. Michael Eric Dyson in a book summarized elsewhere. Page numbers in parentheses refer to that work. (more…)

In his book, I May Not Get There With You (full bibliog. info at bottom), Rev. Michael Dyson discussed a variety of contemporary topics in racial politics using the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. (hereafter: MLK) as springboard. He is clearly upset that conservatives of many stripes and variations have appropriated the MLK mythos, and wants to set MLK’s iconic status back in service to radical politics. Actually, blacks, whites, liberals, and conservatives have all wandered from the right track due to having come under one or another forms of “amnesia” (290-4) which Dyson details. (more…)

Tune in to your NPR station at 1:30 today (Saturday 1/19/08).

Earlier, when discussing the (lack of) inherent advantage of the metric system, I promised a discussion of the alleged advantage of using a system built around multiples-of-10. (more…)

George Mitchell has finally issued his report on the use of “performance enhancing drugs” or PEDs in Major League Baseball (MLB). Predictably, this has set the nattering talking heads into a new buzz, some defending this or that of the accused, but most just tutt-tutting. It is hard to find anyone actually discussing the question, “what’s wrong with using PEDs?” So, like the Little Red Hen, but more importantly: in keeping with First Word’s mission, I will set out to do so. (more…)

There are a variety of topics in our current discourse, such as racial linguistic reference, and the question of the desirability of integration in church or state, to which our disputants often have a ready argument: “there will be no race in heaven; therefore we should operate as if that were the case now.” As will prove to be the case again and again, both the major and minor premises of modern truisms are generally dubious. Here I wish to analyze a premise that functions as the “minor” in that argument, and is taken as “obvious” even by intelligent people today. Namely, the idea that “there will be no race in heaven.” (more…)

Eliza asked for a practical discussion of agrarianism in connection with modern times and I would like to respond in a series of short very focussed posts rather than trying to cover everything at once. For starters, then, the question is: does Agrarianism mean we should cease and desist from shopping for the best buy? Should we necessarily pay more for hand-made items made locally? (more…)

Last January I wrote piece called Target Iran in which I argued that the US or Israel (or both) would soon attack Iran. Though I still believe this is likely, there seems be resistance to this plan from the Pentagon. Below is my take on what may be going on. (more…)

Click over to this web site which is titled, Jews in Government, and note as you read that the list does not include state, county or municipal offices; neither does it count federal departments, high-level staffers and advisers, or judges on lower courts. (more…)

Edgar J. Steele is a recent discovery of mine. He is a lawyer that started sharing his wisdom on investments with a small group of friends. The circle grew, and grew, and today is huge.

The topics expanded from purely investment, to broader issues of concern to our national crisis.

Now in semi-retirement, he takes up pro bono cases that no one else wants to touch. As he says, he has become “Attorney for the Damned.” In this, he has shown great courage, and is something of a modern hero. (more…)

Berlin was the city that anchored the start and end of my trip.

Now before getting to the question that is at the forefront of everyone’s thinking, namely: what were the women like? (and rightly so: (more…)

First, let’s lay out the landscape of the phenomenology of Halloween as it is experienced in America. Then, let’s analyze its propriety. There are two axes of analysis that I will highlight. (more…)

This may be the first east-west German reconciliation movie ever, having been begun on the east side before the wall fell, and completed after. (more…)

The Pennant has been decided by a best-of-seven series since 1985, before which it was best-of-five. Last week, the Red Sox won the ALCS, but would have lost it if the series were still decided by best-of-five – that is, assuming the psychology would not have been different in a determinative way. This leads us to reflect on how much more accurate a best-of-seven criterion is, compared to best-of-5. (more…)