Una Noche Mas
Tyler Cowen links to an article about the theory that Roman gladiators did not fight to kill.#
Aaron Swartz: "I expected the newspaper writers to lean somewhat to the right. Surprisingly, however, it seems that the journalists themselves are rather decent and that most of the pressure comes from the editors."#
Michael Feldman on a bizarre story.#
Upon first seeing the play, we refused to believe anybody, even love-struck teenagers, could be as retarded as Romeo and Juliette. Guess it's a regional, Northern Italian kinda thing....
Reason interviews F. A. Hayek.#
Reason: Well, then, why isn't there any such thing as social justice?
Hayek: Because justice refers to rules of individual conduct. And no rules of the conduct of individuals can have the effect that the good things of life are distributed in a particular manner. No state of affairs as such is just or unjust: it is only when we assume that somebody is responsible for having brought it about.
Imagine a writer/playwright/intellectual whose most famous single remark was "the black race is the cancer of human history". Who said "The Pinochet revolution is astonishingly free of repression and bureaucratization." Who praised the attack on Pearl Harber as a brave deed. Do you suppose such a person would collect laudatory tributes and glowing obituaries on the occasion of her death?
Substitute "white" for ?Äúblack", ?ÄúCuban?Äù for ?ÄúPinochet", and ?Äú9/11?Ä? for ?ÄúPearl Harbor?Äù and you?Äôll have remarks Susan Sontag actually did make, and never retracted. (She later glossed her equation of white people with cancer as a slander on cancer patients). Her equally abominable expressions of racism, tyrannophilia, and anti-American hatred have either gone totally unmentioned in the New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and AP wire service stories, or else been surrounded by exculpatory verbiage about Sontag's alleged devotion to high ideals.
Cynthia Rockwell notes the fascist imagery in Polar Express.#
Philip Greenspun in praise of a totalitarian murderer.#
Russell Roberts on the concept of "fries with fries" with regards to Social Security.#
Why I love Dave Winer: "I've decided to stop referring to reporters by name until they stop generalizing about bloggers without saying who they're talking about."#
Aaron Swartz and I have a few things in common, which makes me feel a little bad about trashing on him all the time for the occasional stupid things he says:#
But I do have an unusual respect for objects. I get sick when people write in books or fold their pages. I don't like it when movies (even on DVD) are interrupted and always wait until the movie is completely over, including the credits, before leaving. Part of this is because I don't like losing things. I write things down because I fear I will forget them and I backup things because I can't bear to delete them. And scuffing up a book destroys the book irreversibly. But this theory doesn't explain everything because it also creates a new book and this doesn't explain the movie-watching thing at all. Or wait, I think I don't like interrupting movies because you can only watch a movie for the first time once and you don't want to mess up and lose that chance.