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Index for this page...(Be aware some links below may have expired.)
All The Following Items Were Posted On November 1, 2004 William James (1842-1910), American Pragmatist philosopher
From A Pluralistic Universe. More information about William James in the Academy. Josiah Royce (1855-1916), American Idealist philosopher
From Race Questions, Provincialism and Other American Problems. More information about Josiah Royce in the Academy. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935), American Legal philosopher and Supreme Court Justice
From Collected Legal Papers. More information about Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in the Academy. Deconstructionist Philosopher Jacques Derrida Dies Jacques Derrida, one of France's best-known philosophers and the founder of the deconstructionist school, has died of cancer at the age of 74. He had been diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas in 2003. Derrida's prolific writings, criticised by some as obscure and nihilist, argue that in literature - but also in fields such as art, music, architecture - there are multiple meanings not necessarily intended or even understood by the creator of the work. The Algeria-born philosopher is one of the most influential philosophers of the late 20th Century. He has taught at the Sorbonne and at several US universities. News Stories:
You might also be interested in reading The real meaning of deconstruction, by Mark C. Taylor: Along with Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, who died last week in Paris at the age of 74, will be remembered as one of the three most important philosophers of the 20th century. No thinker in the last 100 years had a greater impact than he did on people in more fields and different disciplines. And no thinker has been more deeply misunderstood.
-- A. Nonymous You Know What? (Just a little humor here) A woman's husband had been slipping in and out of a coma for several months, yet she had stayed by his bedside every single day. One day, when he came to, he motioned for her to come nearer. As she sat by him, he whispered, eyes full of tears, "You know what? You have been with me all through the bad times. When I got fired, you were there to support me. When my business failed, you were there. When I got shot, you were by my side. When we lost the house, you stayed right here. When my health started failing, you were still by my side... You know what?" "What dear?" she gently asked, smiling as her heart began to fill with warmth. "I think you're bad luck, get away from me." Source: An e-mail from one of our friends on the Internet. Public School Teachers Send Their Kids to Private Schools No one knows the conditions and quality of U.S. government schools better than those who teach in them. And public-school teachers are putting their kids in private schools at rates far higher than the general public, according to a new study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, based upon 2000 census data. 21.2 percent of urban public-school teachers send their children to non-government (private) schools. That's almost 75 percent higher than the national average of 12.2 percent of families. That's also much higher than the national urban family rate of 17.5 percent. But that's just the start. Where government schools are worst, far larger numbers of teachers send their kids to private schools. An incredible 44 percent of public-school teachers in Philadelphia sent their children to private schools. Other figures: Chicago, 39 percent; Baltimore, 35 percent; San Francisco/Oakland, 34 percent; New York/Northeastern New Jersey, 33 percent; Boston, 28 percent; and 27 percent in Washington, D.C. The study also found that "even when the financial sacrifice required for private education is greater, urban public-school teachers still choose private schools for their children at higher rates than urban families with similar incomes." Teachers and others may be able to afford alternatives to government schools, but those with lower incomes or less resources don't have that same freedom of choice. They're prisoners of failing government schools, thanks to anti-school-choice laws -- laws strongly pushed by the labor union a majority of teachers belong to. The 2.7 million-member National Education Association (NEA) -- the nation's largest labor union -- says it opposes "tuition tax credits for elementary and secondary schools; the use of vouchers or certificates in education; [and] federally mandated parental option or 'choice' in education programs." Whatever the NEA's intention, the result is that, while most NEA members can escape failing government schools, a large enough number of less fortunate children are kept as captives in those same schools to supply jobs for teachers who would never send their own children there. Source: Washington Times - http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20041002-102019-6379r.htm (Thanks to James W. Harris of the Advocates for Self-Government and The Liberator Online for the above information. If you would like a free subscription to the Liberator Online, visit: http://www.self-gov.org/liberator/maintain.html.) Marijuana Arrests Reach All-Time High Just days before millions of voters will consider state measures to reform marijuana laws, the FBI has reported that marijuana arrests last year reached an all-time record high. The FBI reported that there were 755,186 arrests for marijuana in 2003 -- far more than the 597,026 arrests that same year *for all violent crimes combined.* And it comes during a time when politicians bemoan the lack of law enforcement resources for fighting terrorism. Fully 88 percent of these marijuana arrests were for simple possession, not sale or manufacture. Robert Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C., notes that, while failing to curb marijuana use, prohibition continues to cause tragedies like the death of Jonathan Magbie, a quadriplegic medical marijuana patient who died last month in a Washington, D.C., jail while serving a 10-day sentence for marijuana possession. Kampia also noted that the vast majority of marijuana users are "responsible users" who harm no one by their marijuana use. Voters across the U.S. will consider a variety of marijuana policy reforms on November 2. A medical marijuana proposal is on the ballot in Montana. In Oregon, voters will decide whether to expand their existing medical marijuana law to allow patients to obtain their medicine from state-regulated dispensaries. As the Liberator Online reported earlier, Alaska's vote is particularly exciting: voters will consider replacing marijuana prohibition with a system that treats marijuana sales like alcohol. Oakland, California, voters will also decide whether to endorse taxation and regulation while making private, adult marijuana offenses the lowest priority for local law enforcement. Other reforms will be on some ballots in Michigan, Massachusetts, and Missouri. Source: Marijuana Policy Project - http://www.mpp.org. The Academy Awards are a few months away, but folks are already speculating about the nominations. Insiders claim that in the most coveted categories there are no front-runners. Whatever the case, movie studios are already placing ads to buy some consideration. For example, Warner Independent Pictures started advertising to bring Oscar attention to "The Very Long Engagement." Fox Searchlight Pictures has launched an ad campaign with accompanying screenings for "Sideways" and "Kinsey." Miramax is expected to publicize "Kill Bill: Vol. 2" and "Finding Neverland." And Lions Gate will hawk "Beyond the Sea" and, of course, "Fahrenheit 9/11." This year a film, unlike any ever before, beat the odds and enraptured moviegoers around the globe. Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" has the kind of cinematic qualities that would typically engender a host of Oscar nominations. Although the scuttlebutt in Hollywood is that "The Passion" is a probability for Best Picture, Newsweek is speculating that the film might be snubbed. (As a side note, the academy's entire membership chooses nominees for best picture, and in the other categories only the members of each discipline pick their own.) According to an anonymous Oscar-campaign veteran: "A lot of older Academy voters, who are largely Jewish, refuse to even see this movie. There's a level of animosity toward this film that is very real. When I talk to the members, I hear it over and over and over again." Another anonymous exec claims that, because Hollywood refused to finance and distribute the movie, the film will suffer. "It's a little weird to trash the establishment, and then to come knocking at the establishment's door during awards season." Personally, I believe if "The Passion" is nominated for best picture, it'll win. So I guess if a snub for best picture is in the offing, the academy will have to ignore Gibson's film at the nominating stage. Even Newsweek acknowledges, though, if the academy does snub "The Passion" it would be "a PR nightmare," citing insiders who harbor a fear of enraged Christians. "The born-agains will come out screaming that it's another case of censorship," says an anonymous source, adding that "the whole Sodom and Gomorrah thing about Hollywood will come up again." The Left Coast Report hears that academy members are concerned that if they vote the wrong way they might turn into a pillar of salt. (Thanks to The Left Coast Report by James L. Hirsen and the staff of NewsMax for the above information. If you would like a free subscription, please visit http://NewsMax.com/email.shtml) Bush Bad, Clinton Good - Go Figure The item below is a popular e-mail spreading like wildfire across the Internet, something for the undecided crowd to think about:
Ahh, it's so confusing! Source: Insider Report from NewsMax.com (If you are not an e-mail subscriber, get Insider Report and other breaking news alerts by Clicking Here.) "A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul." -- George Bernard Shaw, playwright (1856-1950). A Little of This and a Little of That A Little Wisdom: There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning. A Little Advice: Never tell the Platoon Sergeant you have nothing to do. A Little Question: Whose cruel idea was it for the word "lisp" to have an "s" in it? A Little Put-Down: Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool. A Little Proverb: The difference between a hypocrite and a wise man is that one states his beliefs while the other lives them. A Little Reflection: I recognize my limits but when I look around I realise I am not living exactly in a world of giants. - Giulio Andreotti. A Little Observation: To be loved is to be fortunate, but to be hated is to achieve distinction. A Little Humor: "I never married because there was no need. I have three pets at home who answer the same purpose as a husband. I have a dog that growls every morning, a parrot that swears all afternoon, and a cat that comes home late every night." -- Marie Corelli. A Little Quote: "Show me a friend in need and I'll show you a pest." - Joe E. Lewis. A Little Definition: Antonym - The opposite of the word you're trying to think of. A Little One-Liner: Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. Yes is the answer. A Little Quip: "Life is tough, it's tougher when you're stupid." - John Wayne. Some interesting & provocative articles on other websites Experts - The face of guilt in murder cases does not always look the same: On this much, mental health and law enforcement experts who observe murder cases agree: Guilt wears many faces. There is no list of behaviors that murder suspects have in common, they say. There is no right or wrong way to act when a loved one is killed. But a particular emotional response in the context of crime scene evidence can be an important clue, they say. The Dog Didn't Bark, by H.A.L. von Luebbert: On television, there seem to be experts everywhere these days, and generally &endash; especially when the subject is some kind of abstraction from reality like cosmology, nuclear physics, law, and the like -- I keep my mouth shut and listen while the professors, the generals, admirals, and the rest hold forth. They're not usually talking about anything really important, anyway. Who -- other than family, friends, lawyers and others who stand to make a bundle off the matter -- really cares if Scott Peterson killed his wife, or whatever-his- name-is, the basketball player, raped the chambermaid -- or whatever she was. Why would we? Across U.S., non-custodial parents sue, by Wendy McElroy: At least 28 federal class action suits in 28 states have been filed in the last few weeks on behalf of non-custodial parents (NCPs). The defendants are the individual states. The plaintiffs claim to represent an estimated 25 million non-custodial parents -- primarily fathers -- whose right to equal custody of minor children in situations of dispute is allegedly being violated by family courts across the nation. Drug Connections - Dennis Hastert steals a move from John Kerry, by Jacob Sullum: When House Speaker Dennis Hastert insinuated that billionaire Bush basher George Soros is on the payroll of drug traffickers, Democrats cried foul. Yet their presidential candidate once perpetrated the same sort of smear against another prominent critic of the war on drugs. The ad hominem rhetorical strategy deployed by both Hastert and John Kerry illustrates the reluctance of drug prohibitionists to engage in reasoned debate with their opponents. Individual rights vs. identity politics, by Wendy McElroy: "Are there are any registered vaginas in the house? "Step into your vaginas and get the vagina vote out!" These were some of the comments shouted at the celebrity-packed "Vaginas Vote, Chicks Rock" night in New York City this September. Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem were among the laudables at the event that urged women to register to vote in order to promote "women's issues." The No-Fault No-Fly List - Washington's Most Irresponsible Agency Strikes Again,by James Bovard: The Transportation Security Administration got another black eye recently when Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) revealed that he had been blocked from flying five times because his name triggered an alarm on the feds' No-Fly list. Kennedy's staff had to make multiple calls to high-ranking federal officials before the attempted travel ban was lifted on the Senator-for-Life. One senior Bush administration official explained that the senator's name was on the list because a suspected terrorist had used "T. Kennedy" as an alias. Philosophy Professor's Lecture Draws Fire: A speaker at the University of Vermont drew crowds and protesters Thursday. Peter Singer, a professor at Princeton University, ranks among the world's most controversial philosophers. "I don't think it matters whether the life is ended three or four months before birth or a week or two after birth," Singer said. "Now, it's true, I hold views that are unusual in denying that birth is the cutoff line. But it's not about disabilities. That applies to any infant. A totally normal infant does not have the same right to life as you or I or someone older has. We gradually develop that fully-fledged right to life." The Deconstruction of Jacques Derrida, By Steven Plaut: Jacques Derrida, the father of the pseudo-philosophy of "Deconstructionism", has been deconstructed into the next world. He had been conducting a terminal "narrative" with cancer. Well, at least that is the subjective unproven conclusion we have, since, after all, how do we REALLY know that death and cancer exist? Well in fact we do, and the passing of an individual, even a philosopher who has contributed to human confusion rather than to enlightenment and clarification is regrettable. However, the tragedy of ordinary human mortality should not dissuade us from examining the legacy left behind. Philosophy's dilemma: the institutionalising of ethics, By Peter Bowden: Recent years have seen a surge in the rules and regulations that govern ethical behaviour. Although many will still claim that we have a long way to go, these regulations are, nevertheless, widespread, stretching across a multitude of different disciplines and institutional structures. Research in these disciplines is coming up with results that have a fundamental impact on the way we run our businesses, our government departments, even the country. The growth in rules governing ethical practices, and the strong need for further investigation and additional development, have created an ethics industry, opening up career possibilities to people wanting to work in strengthening ethical behaviour throughout the country. Praise for late philosopher, by Louise Perry: DETRACTORS of the late French philosopher Jacques Derrida did not understand his work, according to Australian academics who yesterday lauded his enormous contribution to philosophy. Derrida, widely regarded as one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century, died at the weekend from pancreatic cancer. His "deconstruction theory" revolutionised our approach to the understanding of texts but philosophers agree that his work was widely misunderstood. The Objectivist Death Cult. by Justin Raimondo: In some ways, it really isn't fair to raise the most extreme example of the pro-war faction of the libertarian movement, the orthodox Objectivists centered around Dr. Leonard Peikoff and the Ayn Rand Institute, because &endash; judging from his pronouncements on the subject of the Iraq war &endash; the man is clearly crazed, as his Ford Hall Forum speech, "America Versus Americans," given last year, makes all too abundantly clear. But it is really such a clear distillation of pure evil that I can't resist citing it: it is far too inviting a target. Yankees are blind to blundering Bush. by Eric Margolis: Why do so many Americans still support George W. Bush after all those damning revelations about Iraq? That's the question I'm invariably asked when abroad. Former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, in his superb, must-read new book, Where the Right Went Wrong, provides some answers. Deadbeat dad contest bad for kids, by Wendy McElroy: On Oct. 1, Michigan launched a new crackdown on "deadbeats" -- noncustodial parents who are behind on paying child support. The overwhelmingly majority of "deadbeats" are dads. Custodial parents cheered; father's rights groups objected. Children were caught in between. But Attorney General Mike Cox doesn't seem concerned about keeping children as non-combatants in the war between their parents. The Vatican Response That Isn't, by Jimmy Akin: People may not like what I have to say in this post, but it's one of those obligation-to-tell-the-truth situations because there are things out there in the Catholic press right now that are (at best) misleading and as someone who is aware of this fact and who works in the setting-the-record-straight business I have something of an obligation to try to clarify matters. Two Very Fashionable Frauds, by Thomas J. DiLorenzo: Two years ago I was on a faculty committee to choose the one book that incoming freshman would be asked to read and discuss in discussion groups during freshman orientation. It was the school of business's turn to choose the book, so I thought it would be valuable, for once, for the freshman to read a book that was not the latest popular left-wing polemic, as seemed to be the practice. Deconstructing Derrida The Jew, by Liel Leibovitz: For Jacques Derrida, who died last weekend at 74, the text was ever-elusive. Jacques Derrida would have been suspicious of this obituary. For one, the eminent and elusive French philosopher, who died last weekend at 74 of pancreatic cancer, approached all texts suspiciously. He was the father of Deconstruction, an intellectual theory that called for the systematic disassembling of history, art, philosophy -- any and every text -- in order to expose the inherent contradictions and impossibilities of language itself. Thank You for Smoking, by Peter Brimelow (nonsmoker, but tolerant): The hangperson's noose is unmistakably around the tobacco industry's neck. In Florida and Mississippi, state governments are attempting to force tobacco companies to pay some smoking-related health care costs. In Washington, D.C., the Environmental Protection Agency has claimed that "secondhand smoke" is a significant risk for nonsmokers and the Food & Drug Administration is making noises about regulating nicotine as a drug. And recently the American Medical Association agreed, reasserting that nicotine is addictive. Smokers have already been driven away from many workplaces into the street for a furtive puff. But further legal harassment, to the point of what an industry spokesman calls "backdoor prohibition," seems unstoppable. Lost in this lynching frenzy: the fact that smoking might be, in some small ways, good for you. Media Disgrace - Missing Weapons of Almost Mass Destruction, by Thomas Sowell: As if to prove that the Dan Rather forged document scandal was not just an isolated incident, CBS News was ready to run another bogus story against President Bush on "60 Minutes" -- right before the election -- until an old NBC report surfaced, showing that the great amounts of high explosives supposedly "missing" from an ammunition dump in Iraq were not there when American troops arrived on the scene more than a year ago. Bush has lost, by Anthony Barnett: The most important campaign of all, for democratic legitimacy and moral respect, has found the United States president wanting. Bush's Global War on Christians, by Glen Chancy: As we approach the 2004 Presidential elections, many Christian conservatives are lamenting various aspects of the current president's policies. The list of gripes is long and familiar to anyone active in conservative politics: out of control spending, the PATRIOT Act, No Child Left Behind, lax border security, and on it goes. In fact, a meeting of die-hard Republicans, held behind closed doors, is likely to devolve into a Bush-basing session the like of which Democrats could only dream. The ethics of stem cell research, By PETER J. CATALDO: THERE ARE three myths in the politically charged controversy over stem cell research. One myth is that all stem cell research involves only embryonic stem cell research. A second is that embryonic stem cell research is the only stem cell research that can aid the treatment of certain types of diseases, and that opposing embryonic stem cell research will deny those in need of the unique benefits of this research. The third myth is that the Roman Catholic Church opposes all stem cell research. It is critically important for voters and policy makers to know and understand the facts in this issue.
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