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Index for this page...(Be aware some links below may have expired.)
All The Following Items Were Posted On September 1, 2005 1. P.W. Bridgman (1882-1961) American philosopher of science
Read about P.W. Bridgman in The Radical Academy. 2. Zeno of Citium (336-264 B.C.) Ancient Greek philosopher, founder of Stoicism
Read about Zeno of Citium in The Radical Academy. 3. Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) German philosopher of Logical Positivism
Read about Ludwig Wittgenstein in The Radical Academy. 4. Plato (427-347 B.C.) Ancient Greek philosopher, teacher of Aristotle
Read about Plato in The Radical Academy. 5. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) French Illuminist philosopher
Read about Jean-Jacques Rousseau in The Radical Academy. 6. Max Planck (1858-1947) German physicist and philosopher of science
Read about Max Planck in The Radical Academy. 7. George Santayana (1863-1952) American philosopher
Read about George Santayana in The Radical Academy. 8. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) German Idealist philosopher
Read about Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in The Radical Academy. 9. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American writer, naturalist, and Transcendentalist philosopher
Read about Henry David Thoreau in The Radical Academy. 10. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German Idealist Philosopher
Read about Immanuel Kant in The Radical Academy.
FOR THE RECORD 1. Politics: Eminent Domain Abuses Mount -- But Supreme Court Won't Reconsider In August, the U.S. Supreme Court turned away the chance to rehear and reconsider one of its most-despised decisions in recent memory: its 5-4 ruling in Kelo v. City of New London, which allows the use of eminent domain -- a fancy term for "the government stealing your home and business" -- for private development. "The denial makes it crystal clear that since the Supreme Court will not protect home and small business owners, it is now up to state legislatures and state courts to protect people from eminent domain abuse," said Scott Bullock of the libertarian Institute for Justice civil rights group, which fought the eminent domain battle all the way to the nation's highest court. The Institute for Justice further notes that the Kelo decision has already opened up the floodgates to eminent domain abuse. Local officials in more than 30 cities have cited the Kelo ruling in moving ahead with condemnations for private development. Dozens more projects nationwide threaten thousands of home and small business owners. Among the many projects buoyed by the Kelo ruling:
But libertarians and other citizens are fighting back. The Institute for Justice and its "Castle Coalition" grassroots arm has launched a $3 million "Hands Off My Home" campaign. The campaign supports eminent domain reform at the state and local level and equips ordinary Americans with the means to protect their homes, small businesses and churches from eminent domain for private profit. Citizens can join the Castle Coalition and learn how to get involved in Hands Off My Home at: www.castlecoalition.org. Source: Institute for Justice at http://www.ij.org (Thanks to James W. Harris of the Advocates for Self-Government and The Liberator Online for bringing the above to our attention. If you would like a free subscription to the Liberator Online, visit: http://www.self-gov.org/liberator/maintain.html) 2. Media: Air America Deflates Despite the best efforts of Democratic financiers, sycophant supporters and the mainstream press, the Air America radio network is looking more and more like a big broadcast flop. Ratings have been dropping faster than Cindy Sheehan's credibility. Don't be surprised if you start hearing DNC talking points that suggest ratings aren't really all that important or that they're not a valid measure of success. The network is probably best known for providing a talk show mike to Al Franken and Jeanine Garofalo. Some respectable numbers have been seen in Denver, Seattle, San Diego and Miami. But Air America now occupies last place in radio rankings in Washington, D.C. and Boston. It's tied for last in Detroit. And it's moved up to second to last in the Second City, Chicago. How's it doing in the most liberal markets in the bluest of the blue states? Well, it's 24th in New York, 30th in L.A. and 23rd in San Francisco. More serious than its radio standing, though, is the scandal that currently surrounds it. The network's beleaguered spokespeople have been working overtime, trying to explain why nearly $900,000, which was intended to fund social service programs for disadvantaged kids and senior citizens, was allegedly transferred to Air America bank accounts. The Boys and Girls Clubs of America may even kick out its Bronx affiliate, the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club, for alleged involvement and/or cover-up of the scandal. The Left Coast Report hears that to give the ratings a boost Air America is thinking about adding two of the Left's most scintillating broadcast personalities: Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. (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) Men who have given up the habit of self-government...
And another observer had this to say:
A LITTLE PHILOSOPHICAL COUNSELING ON STRESS MANAGEMENT A lecturer, when explaining stress management to an audience, raised a glass of water and asked, "how heavy is this glass of water? " Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g. The lecturer replied,
Then he continued:
And then he shared some ways of dealing with the burdens of life:
So a little philosophical counseling reminds us: "Life is short. Enjoy it!"
A LITTLE OF THIS & A LITTLE OF THAT A Little Wisdom: When at the edge of the unknown, faith provides the wings to fly. A Little Advice: If you are willing to admit faults, you have one less fault to admit. A Little Question: Why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway? A Little Put-Down: Not all men are fools...some are bachelors. A Little Proverb: No one is rich enough to do without a neighbor. (Danish Proverb) A Little Reflection: The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from one who does. A Little Observation: Opportunity is missed by most people, because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. A Little Quote: "Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then." -- Katharine Hepburn, Award-winning American actress. A Little Bumper Sticker: Save the whales. Collect the whole set. A Little Learning: I am learning that criticism is not nearly as effective as sabotage. A Little Quip: Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together. A Little Confusion: A hungry baby in a topless bar. A Little Motto: Use friendliness but do not use your friends. A Little Serious Humor: An exasperated mother, whose son was always getting into mischief, finally asked him, "How do you expect to get into Heaven?" The boy thought it over and said, "Well, I'll run in and out and in and out and keep slamming the door until St. Peter says, 'For Heaven's sake, Dylan, come in or stay out!'"
Some interesting & provocative articles on other websites: Crying need for a synoptic philosophy, by V. Sundaram: The word philosophy comes from two Greek words: Philein (to love) and Sophia (wisdom), implying that the philosopher is (or should be) a 'lover of wisdom'. Among countless definitions of 'philosophy' this is still one of the simplest and best. And so, the would-be philosopher unabashedly admits that he wants to become wise. Intelligent Design - Aristotle With George W. Bush, by Richard Cummings: An interesting conversation, to say the least. Requiem for the Left: They're All Statlinists (and Hypocrites) Now. By Barry Loberfeld: Since it's almost become a cliché to observe that Marxism is dead in practice -- that is, if you overlook its authoritarian half-life in China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam -- but thriving in theory, we can at least ask exactly what that theory is, a question that returns three very different answers:... Who's the Huckster?, by Paul Hein: I seldom watch televangelists. It annoys me that they seem to be hawking religion like pitchmen selling some new kitchen gadget. ("But wait!! Order your Save-A-Soul kit today for only $19.95, and we'll double your order! That's right! We'll send you, at no additional charge, a second Save-A-Soul kit, so you needn't pass through those Pearly Gates alone!") So I was surprised to learn, from the weekend newspaper, that we have, right here in the St. Louis area, a TV evangelist of fame -- and fortune. Sympathy for the Devil - Everything you thought you knew about steroids is wrong, by STEVEN KOTLER: The road to the future is paved in blood -- my own. Not too long ago, a nurse went a little crazy with my hemoglobin. Somewhere in the middle of the second vial, I got too dizzy to pay attention, but it felt like she took pints, quarts, gallons, whatever comes after gallons, gleefully mining my veins for any secrets they might conceal. The blood was sent to a medical lab that ran a battery of tests and then shipped the results to a doctor named Ron Rothenberg, with whom I would meet to discuss what portents it held. We Need Thicker Skins, by Andrew S. Fischer: On the Today show this morning (8/24/05), a segment was aired on the plight of Dr. Terry Bennett, a folksy-looking, middle-aged physician practicing in Rochester, New Hampshire. Seems Dr. Bennett told an obese patient that she needed to lose weight, and as a result he has been under investigation for over a year by New Hampshire's attorney general and its state board of medicine. Reading between the lines, my impression is that the doctor said something like: "Look, you're five-feet-seven and 250 pounds. If you don't lose weight, you're going to find yourself in the same boat as all the other obese women out there, all alone and unwanted. Men your age don't like fat women. You need to start dieting." Vioxx - who's responsible? - Making pharmaceutical companies pay millions for the unpredicted consequences of their drugs could put a brake on innovation, by Dr Elizabeth Whelan: Last week's news that a jury found the pharmaceutical company Merck negligent in its marketing of the painkiller Vioxx, awarding $229million in punitive damages, is bad news for all consumers who hope that pharmaceutical companies will continue to develop new drugs - to address not only their aches and pains but life-threatening conditions like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. Specifically, the jury declared that Merck must pay more than $253million to the family of a Texas man who died after taking the company's Vioxx painkiller. This is the first personal-injury case over the drug to come to trial. There will be more such cases, including in Britain, where some families are considering taking legal action - and if similar verdicts are the result, we have a classic case of killing the goose that is laying the golden eggs. The devil made him say it, by Kathleen Parker: Televangelist Pat Robertson's flip-flop on his fantasy moment as an international assassin reminds me of a famous, if possibly apocryphal, story about David Niven as told by Christopher Buckley. Talkin' 'bout an evolution - Why the passionately contested scientific critique of Darwinian evolution called 'Intelligent Design' has not been addressed by Jewish theologians or scholars, by David Klinghoffer: The passionately contested scientific critique of Darwinian evolution called "Intelligent Design" is hotter than ever. Yet in this controversy, with its profound moral and spiritual implications, the Jewish community has remained curiously abstracted and irrelevant. Parody deity flies in face of Intelligent Design - Dogmatic concerns lead Oregonian to seek equal time, by Carole Goldberg: Has the Flying Spaghetti Monster touched you with His Noodly Appendage? Bobby Henderson hopes so. Henderson was honked off, to put it mildly, by those urging the teaching of Intelligent Design in high-school science courses (as is being considered in Kansas), a position recently supported by President Bush. After a 4 a.m. stroke of inspiration, the 25-year-old, who has a degree in physics from Oregon State University, conceived the Flying Spaghetti Monster as the fount of a new religion. Now, his parody deity is gaining eager adherents through the Internet. What Do You Know? - The quarrel over intelligent design is about this: whether we should discount the scientific method on which modern society rests, by Bernard Wasow: The conflict over the role of divine creation (creationism, or, in its new clothes, intelligent design) in school curricula reveals a fundamental failure of American education. The issue is not simply one of science curriculum; it is about how we know anything. Evolutionists in a panic, by R. Albert Mohler Jr.: What's going on at The New Republic? The current issue of the magazine features two broadside attacks on the movement known as Intelligent Design [ID], and the magazine's online edition adds a third. The articles are filled with rhetoric, vitriol and urgency. Clearly, panic is setting in in some quarters -- and that panic is over evolution. Bad science, bad theology, by Michael McGough: Put aside the question of whether "intelligent design," the latest alternative to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, is good science. The more interesting question is whether it is good theology. ID argues, supposedly on purely scientific grounds, that the complexity of life, especially at the cellular level, points to an Intelligent Designer. It's adherents won't call that designer God, but the conventional wisdom is that Christians can only be pleased if ID gains traction. But that's not necessarily so, though ID certainly has its Christian cheerleaders, and they aren't all fundamentalists. Natural scientists are less likely to believe in God than are social scientists: Scientists in the social sciences are more likely to believe in God and attend religious services than are scientists in the natural sciences, according to a survey of 1,646 faculty members at elite research universities by a Rice University sociologist. Have Christian conservatives blinked?, by William H. Stokes: President Bush's recent remarks concerning "intelligent design" have given new impetus to Christian conservatives who wish to see "creationism" taught in public schools. In an interview with a group of Texas reporters, Mr. Bush said, "Both sides ought to be taught … so people can understand what the debate is about." There seems to be some confusion, however. Dawkins and Gilder square off on ID: Biologist Richard Dawkins and futurist George Gilder present opposing sides of the intelligence design debate during an hour-long radio program broadcast from Boston. Philosopher Michael Ruse also adds his comments during the broadcast. (WBUR) Belief adversely effecting U.S. stature in scientific world, by Peter Schrag: None of this would matter nearly as much if the United States were still leading the world in the training of scientists. But by almost any measure it's losing ground to China, India and its other competitors in the global high-tech world. Teachers around the country say the president's statement will only encourage creationists and other fundamentalist activists who already have them afraid to discuss evolution. Hitler Was A Socialist, by R J Rummel: What is socialism? It is a politico-economic philosophy that believes government must direct all major economic decisions by command, and thus all the means of production for the greater good, however defined. There are three major divisions of socialism, all antagonistic to each other. One is democratic socialism, that places the emphasis on democratic means, but then government is a tool for improving welfare and equality. A second division is Marxist-Leninism, which based on a "scientific theory" of dialectical materialism, sees the necessity of a dictatorship ("of the proletariat") to create a classless society and universal equality. Then, there is the third division, or state socialism. This is non or anti-Marxist dictatorship that aims at near absolute economic control for the purpose of economic development and national power, all construed to benefit the people. Why We Are Losing Hearts and Minds, by Keith Lockitch: Unable to defend America intellectually, our leaders are unable to defend her militarily. Our leaders have failed to answer the evil moral ideal of totalitarian Islam with a rational ideal of our own. What Do You Know? - The quarrel over intelligent design is about this: whether we should discount the scientific method on which modern society rests, by Bernard Wasow: The conflict over the role of divine creation (creationism, or, in its new clothes, intelligent design) in school curricula reveals a fundamental failure of American education. The issue is not simply one of science curriculum; it is about how we know anything. Bad science, bad theology, by Michael McGough: Put aside the question of whether "intelligent design," the latest alternative to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, is good science. The more interesting question is whether it is good theology. ID argues, supposedly on purely scientific grounds, that the complexity of life, especially at the cellular level, points to an Intelligent Designer. It's adherents won't call that designer God, but the conventional wisdom is that Christians can only be pleased if ID gains traction. But that's not necessarily so, though ID certainly has its Christian cheerleaders, and they aren't all fundamentalists.
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