What are you reading?

[Judith]

I can't resist. How does "goddammed fool" sound? (Rand's pet name for Mises as given in her Marginalia.)

I like it. It has dignity, the "fool" part is reasonably precise, and the "goddamned" part is at least grammatically correct. One of my pet peeves is people who say "damn" when they should say "damned". Rand herself committed this grave sin several times in "Atlas".

But I'd separate it into "god damned" instead of "goddamned"; why make one word of it?

And the JudaeoChristian (or at least monotheistic) reference can be forgiven considering the context of our culture.

:devil:

Judith

[Robert Jones]

While I am on a David Mamet roll, I am now reading his excellent new book, "The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Self-Hatred, and the Jews."

Powerful stuff: He takes aim at the self-hating Jew, the Noam Chomsky types who claim they are anti-Israel, but magically not anti-Semitic. His message is that faithful or atheist, lapsed or orthodox, while one might not consider himself Jewish, his enemies certainly WILL, and do not make such trifling differentiations. He makes a great case both for filial loyalty and for the state of Israel's right to exist and defend herself as a nation.

Interesting! I wonder who is going to make one about the self-hating WASP or WHAM (White Able-bodied Heterosexual Male). You know the guy who thinks we should not say queer, bitch, nigger, A-rab, or Spic, like for example, Ernest Hemingway in Winner take Nothing (1934, page 200) wrote "I wish I could talk spik . . . I don't get any fun out of asking that spik questions."

I watched FoxNews, that bastion of conservative thought, the other day and they went on and on about Barak Hussein Osama I mean Obama. NOT once did they mention he is black. Finally some black fellow came on and said "He has brown skin". Yea, no shit Sherlock!

The silly thing is that if I were a pinko then I would like the guy. He kicked ass in his debate with Alan Keyes, who I like a lot. Poor Alan has not been seen since.

It is self-hating not to call Hispanics spicks or women bitches or blacks niggers? Huh? Did I miss something here?

[Kat]

It is hardly ever appropriate to use terms like queer, bitch, nigger, spic, etc. They are just plain old offensive. I'd like to see a little more sensitivity and a little less bigotry in the world. Some see it as political correctness, but I see it as the civilized way to interact among other people. Everyone is an individual despite their race, religion or orientation; those negative terms reek of collectivism, are just plain mean, and get in the way of intelligent conversation.

btw, Obama is mixed. his mother is white.

Kat

[Chris Grieb]

Kat; Thank you! Early in my Objectivist life I went to some NBI lectures in Dallas Texas. One of the people spent his time complaining about niggers, mackrel snappers(Roman Catholics). I remember being very disappointed. I recognize that George Carlin and Lenny Bruce make such references but let's try to do better. Comedy Central does a roast of a famous person every month but I found it so offensive in the William Shatner that I couldn't sit through it.

[jack9f]

Robert wrote:

“It is self-hating not to call Hispanics spicks or women bitches or blacks niggers? Huh? Did I miss something here?”

Your goddamn right it is, when the label applies. I don’t care much for people who use them to imply ALL those in a certain group deserve the label, just like I don’t like the F-word inserted between every other word. It implies ignorance and I’m very short with people like that. OK I think it’s time for some examples.

1. Mike Nifong’s so called victim of rape = Nigger Ho

2. Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas, Bill Cosby and such = Gentlemen

3. Al drove 80 RT miles to work for $7/hour on the night shift in an old Ford Probe. We became friends. I showed him what to do and he did the job well. He confided in me that he had 5 children by 3 different women, and had been convicted of a felony. One night he called me and said his car broke down on the way to work. I went and picked him up. A few days later he showed up in a new Chevy Impala. At lunch time he would sit in his car and have lunch. One time, I stopped by his car to say that it was time to go back in and I smelled marijuana. I never mentioned it to the boss. Was Al a Nigger? No, he was just a black guy, but I wondered why he acted like a Nigger sometimes.

4. Is Michael Stuart Kelly a spick? I don’t think so. I’ve met many people from Mexico and some from Brazil and I can’t remember any that I would use that word to describe them, but I reserve the right to the word if I find someone it applies to.

5. I’ve met some Germans that deserve the label of Kraut.

6. My ex is a bitch. I’m full of mixed feelings about her and it’s too bad she became a bitch, but the fact remains.

Chris Wrote:

I recognize that George Carlin and Lenny Bruce make such references but let's try to do better. Comedy Central does a roast of a famous person every month but I found it so offensive in the William Shatner that I couldn't sit through it.

I didn’t see that one and you have every right to change the channel, but I don’t think we ought be thinking of “Doing Better” than GC & LB. We should be thinking that the government overstepped it’s authority when they sent LB to jail.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Is Michael Stuart Kelly a spick? I don’t think so. I’ve met many people from Mexico and some from Brazil and I can’t remember any that I would use that word to describe them, but I reserve the right to the word if I find someone it applies to.

Ivan,

LOL...

It never occurred to me that I might come off as Hispanic. I am from hillbillies in coal mining country in the southern part of Virginia. I went to Brazil when I was 21.

About your use of the language, I can sympathize with the sentiment of "Nobody is going to tell me what I can say or not." I know I don't like censorship. It feels like someone is invading something that is mine and mine only when I am told that this or that word is "not used." This makes me belligerent inside.

Kat and I sometimes have discussions where she tries to explain to me how certain attitudes I find perplexing in modern America are why they are. I am especially perplexed by all the ceremony over sex. For example, I did not look on the Superbowl Nipplegate affair with contempt or humor. I simply didn't understand it at all. I have nothing inside me that puts any value on that one way or another. A nipple got exposed during a choreographed dance. Yawn. Yet people went nuts here over that as if some damage would be done to children. Heh. (If only the adults knew what children already know...)

But the reality is that our society has this kind of thing in the air. I would be a fool to ignore that reality. If I decided to put a lot of nudity on OL, I am going to encounter that. This is a site devoted to philosophy and ideas, so that would be an unnecessary distraction.

You are intelligent enough to be aware that your use of terms that have evolved over our history to mean racial slurs and bigotry against things like homosexuality are not hitting the proper mark. Instead of showing contempt for a bad person's character, you are insulting good people. Things have contexts and the use of language does too.

A good black person feels just as much contempt as you do for another black person who fits the stereotype, but the moment you characterize this with a racial slur, he feels contempt for you. In his life, he has had to put up with too much crap to sanction that. Is that really what you want? Conflict with good people because their context is ignored? There is no way to turn back the clock and make these terms mean something else more akin to what you want them to mean.

So I request politely that you refrain from using the language in this abrasive manner on OL. Like I said, this is a philosophy site and this kind of thing is a distraction. This thread is about books we are reading.

What are you reading right now? I just bought a book called God is a Bullet by Boston Teran. The title jumped out at me so I bought it (for a buck in a bargain book store).

Michael

[jack9f]

About your use of the language, I can sympathize with the sentiment of "Nobody is going to tell me what I can say or not." I know I don't like censorship. It feels like someone is invading something that is mine and mine only when I am told that this or that word is "not used." This makes me belligerent inside.

So I request politely that you refrain from using the language in this abrasive manner on OL. Like I said, this is a philosophy site and this kind of thing is a distraction.

Michael

I deleted your irrelevant words for clarity and found a contradiction. But since your request came last I'll take that as the your official stance which deserves and answer, which is "No Thanks and Good Bye!"

[Chris Grieb]

Somehow I can't get terribly upset with Ivan's latest post and the fact he is leaving. The door is open but I think you should obey the rules.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Chris,

This is a perfect example of the trader principle. When a trade is not good for both sides, it is not a good trade. Although posting on an Internet forum is free for the users in terms of money, a trade is still involved with effort and time for everybody.

Ivan has a personal need to use the kind of language and rhetoric he favors and he seeks places where he can. If he is not able to do that here, he is not receiving something of high value to him in exchange for his effort and time.

I have a forum to run, so I am in a position where I must be sensitive (up to a point) about keeping things running smoothly. I am in the position of a restaurant owner or storekeeper who cannot allow one loud customer to empty his establishment of other customers.

Our interests clashed. Either his values would have to be sacrificed or mine. Neither case was a good trade any longer. As I and Kat own the site, he did the correct thing and withdrew.

For the record, I wish Ivan well. He is welcome here within the rules.

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

Michael; This last post was very good. Someone being loud in a restaurant the vast majority of the customers would leave. Ivan's language would lead to people leaving Objectivist Living. Good point. I wish Ivan well too.

[John Dailey]

~ Strange and ironic how the very subject I started in the Ethics: 'X-word files...' thread got segued into, here, in this thread. I'd have a comment or two re what I've taught my stepson about these words, but, this thread has been hijacked enough already.

~ Finally finished SYNC (see my prev post here). Well, *my* favorite 'F'-word definitely applies. 'Sympathetic' clock-pendulums, traffic 'waves', fireflies& crickets, heart-rythms, applause, particle-wave prob in physics, quantum concerns re Josephson junctions, lasers, network connections (including '6-degrees of Kevin Bacon'), Chaos/Fractal/Complexity theories being relevent...all connected to the idea of synchronicity as fundamental to understanding the relations 'twixt linear and non-linear occurrences.

~ Wow! For those interested in this territory, totally recommended.

LLAP

J:D

PS: Now for ENTANGLEMENT...

Edited March 28, 2007 by John Dailey

[Richard Uhler]

Rand stuff: I finally read Anthem yesterday (and about time); today I started The Art Of Non-Fiction. Next in the queue are Gates Of Fire (Steven Pressfield), then The Sea Wolf (Jack London).

[John Dailey]

~ Finished ENTANGLEMENT. If you're interested in the history-to-date re thoughts and experiments about the EPR situation and Bell's Theorem, this is what to read. However, expect no radically new insights on the subject. --- 'Entanglement' is the term for those photons emitted from a single source which are 'bound' together in such a way that, though they each travel in opposite directions away from their source at a speed of c, to affect one is to affect the other...instantaneously. There are many names re advanced and finessed experiments in the book (puts Asimov a bit to shame with all the refs), and more on Bell's involvement in the whole subject, as well as the latest expmts re 3 sets of simultaneous 'entanglements,' but, the upshot is that Einstein's view of 'reality' being only 'local' is...false. There is no way 'hidden variables' can anymore be supposed as potential explanations...within our accepted 4-dimensional continuum, that is.

~ In short, there's more to reality than Einstein thought...and still...than QT can 'explain.'

LLAP

J:D

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Currently sinking my teeth into Emergence and Mind Wide Open both by Steven Johnson.

Jim

[BAMF]

Right now, reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. I also started that book that Michael mentioned, State of Fear by Michael Crichton.

I also started Nietzche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, but had to put that one off until summer break. I guess it's time for me to pick it back up.

I recently went to a bookstore called Half Price Books...and it's amazing. The books are...you guessed it...half the retail price. Sometimes you can get stuff in pretty good condition for only $1. I finished the movie All the Pretty Horses in my english class, and now I'll have to journey back out to the store to pick that one up, too. I have a lot of reading to do.

[Chris Grieb]

I am currently reading Radicals for Capitalism. I am finally going through the Sparrowhawk books by Edward Cline. My next really big book is Vincent Bugliosi book on the John Kennedy's assassination. If this book becomes a best seller many forests are going to die.

Edited May 25, 2007 by Chris Grieb

[Matus1976]

~ Finished ENTANGLEMENT. If you're interested in the history-to-date re thoughts and experiments about the EPR situation and Bell's Theorem, this is what to read.

Sounds like an interesting book, is it the one by Amir Aczel? I think I own it, but havent got around to reading it yet, from your review I'll have to raise it on my priority list!

[John Dailey]

Matus:

~ Yes, that's the one: Amir Aczel. I think I ref'd it earlier in this thread. I didn't mention that there's quite a bit covering thermal-neutron expmts ('70's on) checking for existence of Einstein's 'Equivalence Principle' at the quantum level. Really interesting, but, I was looking for...well...'more' (of something, I don't know what.)

~ At the end he gets into quantum-cryptography, probabilities re 'macro'-particle (neutrons) entanglement, and speculations about teleportation-aka-'beaming' (ie: REQUIRING a dissolution of the 'original'!) I will say this though, re it's worth reading: he barely touches on it at the end, but makes clear that 'entanglement' of particles should properly see the particles NOT as separate entities, but as parts of one 'system.' I think of it as the heads/tails of a coin, and...we're observing these things from FLATLAND.

~ Happy reading!

LLAP

J:D

[BaalChatzaf]

~ Finished ENTANGLEMENT. If you're interested in the history-to-date re thoughts and experiments about the EPR situation and Bell's Theorem, this is what to read.

Sounds like an interesting book, is it the one by Amir Aczel? I think I own it, but havent got around to reading it yet, from your review I'll have to raise it on my priority list!

Amir Aczel has written several popular works on scientific matters. For those who are not heavy into math and physics they can be moderately informative. For the technically savvy they are lite-weight.

See

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-h...or=Amir%20Aczel

or better still

http://tinyurl.com/326xxn

Ba'al Chatzaf

[John Dailey]

Baal:

~ Of course it's 'lite-weight' for the technically savvy. Being primarily, as I pointed out, a HISTORY of the subject to date, it requires little college/logic math understanding (though some near the end for understanding final conclusions.)

~ I see little point in stressing/'recommending' any books in this forum which require that post-readers be technically savvy in whatever one's favored specialty is. I mean, a professional logician would be nonsensical in recommending Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica in a non-specialist forum, even as mere history of the development of contempory logic. I see 'recommendations' (re non-fiction) in this forum as pertaining to Introductions-To-A-Subject which few seem familiar with; 'popular' lay-oriented ones seem best here rather than Rocket-Science 503, don't you think? --- Besides: I did say "For those interested..."

~ Glad you found it worth reading (er, 'moderately informative'), though.

LLAP

J:D

[John Dailey]

~ Not that I'm reading it now, but it's on order; definitely my next book.

~ Check out this review by the book's author of the consequences from 'critical' reviews on her book.

The REAL 'Final Frontier' !

~ I really love fact-based science books; little 'theory' here. Not even math (well, basic counting maybe) necessary.

LLAP

J:D

Edited May 31, 2007 by John Dailey

[BaalChatzaf]

Baal:

~ Of course it's 'lite-weight' for the technically savvy. Being primarily, as I pointed out, a HISTORY of the subject to date, it requires little college/logic math understanding (though some near the end for understanding final conclusions.)

~ I see little point in stressing/'recommending' any books in this forum which require that post-readers be technically savvy in whatever one's favored specialty is. I mean, a professional logician would be nonsensical in recommending Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica in a non-specialist forum, even as mere history of the development of contempory logic. I see 'recommendations' (re non-fiction) in this forum as pertaining to Introductions-To-A-Subject which few seem familiar with; 'popular' lay-oriented ones seem best here rather than Rocket-Science 503, don't you think? --- Besides: I did say "For those interested..."

~ Glad you found it worth reading (er, 'moderately informative'), though.

LLAP

J:D

Recommending R and W -Principia Mathematica- would be nearly nonsensical even in a specialist forum. There are many more technical works that are more informative. R and W -Principia- was a very early version of an attempt to reduce mathematics to logic. It failed to do so. -Principia- is mostly of historical interest to those who are interested in the history of mathematical/formal logic.

It turns out that there are some books which are not math heavy and very informative. I would recommend -The Age of Science- by Gerald Piel who founded the modern era of -Scientific American-. Geral Piel is not a scientist, but he formed many associations of trust with real scientists because he showed some talent and wisdom in reporting scientific matters in the old -Life Magazine-. As a result he was able to get foirst reate material layed out by the scientists in his writing of -The Age of Science-. It is a first rate popular work which is readily understandable by the intelligent non-scientist reader.

During Piel's oversight (from 1948 to 1980) -Scientific American- was a *first rate* non-technical magazine. Most of the articles during that era were written by the scientists themselves so you were getting the Real Thing. After Piel sold -Scientific American- it went into the crapper and became little more than a slick version of -Discover- with a higher price. Which is where it is today.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[John Dailey]

Baal:

~ Thanx for the suggest on Piel's book. Sounds quite worthwhile. On my list.

~ Re what you say about SciAm, totally agreed. Elsewhere I neglected to mention that aside from Asimov,

most of my real learning about science WAS from the pages of SciAm in its worthwhile heyday before its suits started competing with the glitzy style of newer popular-science mags starting up. I still remember trying to follow Robert Gallo's and Murray Gell-Mann's original articles. You really had to re-read this stuff. And, Martin Gardner's columns. Sigh...

LLAP

J:D

[BaalChatzaf]

Baal:

~ Thanx for the suggest on Piel's book. Sounds quite worthwhile. On my list.

~ Re what you say about SciAm, totally agreed. Elsewhere I neglected to mention that aside from Asimov,

most of my real learning about science WAS from the pages of SciAm in its worthwhile heyday before its suits started competing with the glitzy style of newer popular-science mags starting up. I still remember trying to follow Robert Gallo's and Murray Gell-Mann's original articles. You really had to re-read this stuff. And, Martin Gardner's columns. Sigh...

LLAP

J:D

Damn! They really ruined the SciAm we knew and loved!

Ba'al Chatzaf

[John Dailey]

~ That they did, that they did.

~ What surprised me on hindsight was that this was one very unique mag 'on the stands' which actually lasted there as long as it did!

~ It was the 2nd longest mag-subscription I had for years.

~ Know whatever happened to their 'illustrator' who worked on all those lead articles? He was GOOD too. I wouldn't know to this day what 'bifurcation' meant in Complexity Theory were it not for him.

LLAP

J:D