Dicey Riley

 
 It ain't all skittles and beer.

Peggy Lettermore

and I defy anyone to disagree.

A Darwinist Mob?

Hitting the Nagel on the head

The New Republic, a magazine evidently inspired by an H.G.Wells essay of the same name, has published an essay entitled "A Darwinist Mob Goes After a Serious Philosopher," by Leon Wieseltier.  Immediately (you guessed it) a Darwinist mob went after him in the comment section.    All the while blinking incredulously saying What Darwinist mob?  We don't see no Darwinist mob!  Nobody here but us chickens. 

What most of the commenklatura seemed to miss was that Wieseltier's essay did not concern itself with whether Darwinism per se is true or false - the answer is clearly 'yes' - but with the crypto-religious reaction of the Darwinistas to the whiff of heresy sniffed out from Thomas Nagel’s book Mind and Cosmos.  Now Nagel is one of the top philosophers of consciousness in the modern world and he is adamantly opposed to religion.  It is not that he thinks the existence of God is wrong, but that he hates and fears the whole idea that God exists.  This would seem to put him on the side of the angels (in a manner of speaking) insofar as readers of TNR are concerned.

6. The Faint Smile of Gustav Sorgensson

Jumping ahead of the Fierce Combat of Ogier the Dane, Schultzi the Beast and the odd bonding of Wilma and Carole, as well as sundry other bits and pieces adding foreboding for conditions in Milwaukee, we rejoin Frank as he visits Sorgensson in Aachen.  We have skipped over a precis of his journey down the Rhine, an encounter in Karlsruhe with an American student there, and his discovery of a letter by the Bardi factor he finds in the Landesarchiv which hints at what the Peruzzi Manuscript was all about.  He is now meeting Sorgensson.   

     Gustaf Sorgensson was a big man across the shoulders, who wore his hair clipped short in a manner fast passing out of style.  His hands were big and when he clenched them knuckles stood out like boulders from the earth.  A short, boxed beard covered, without quite concealing, an old scar.  His most marked feature, however, was his eye patch.  The scar ran up across his cheek and under the patch. 

Read more here

Be Right, Back

Never throw anything out that you may need later. 

This applies especially to your lower back. 

TOF is presently mobility-impaired, bed-ridden, hobbling, and the like.  In consequence and much to his dismay he is forced to be Lunacon 2013 GOH in abstentia this weekend.  Unless something miraculous happens, like a Jesuit is elected Pope or something. 

Nah.  Even that didn't help.  So the one and only time I've ever been GoH'ed has been blown  up. 

Standing hurts.  Sitting hurts.  Lying down hurts.  Changing positions hurts the most.  Was prescribed a muscle relaxer.  That made things hurt even more.  Getting much use from my shillelagh, though not the use I had hoped for; viz., bopping knuckleheads.
* * *

Speaking of Jesuits, the Spook has Spoke.

The Incomparable Marge is partial to the Jebbies, having attended Marquette and Regis; while I am partial to the Franciscans in whose third-order robes my brother was buried.  So now we have a Jesuit pope who picked the name Francis.  Go figure.  The Dominicans put out a press release: "Conclave discovers Jesuit still loyal to the Pope."  (Mwahaha.  Inside humor.)

Of course, he may have meant Francis Xavier rather than Francis of Assisi.  It took the MSM a while to realize that possibility.  My theory: both.

We also now have a chemist as Pope.  That should get a reaction.  Guess he never got the word that religion and science are incompatible. 

Of course, once again the Spook comes in from nowhere, confounding all the bookmakers and playahs.  They didn't expect Ratzinger, either, if you recall. 

Now begins the fun task of pushing a square Catholic pope into the round pigeon-holes of US politics. 

The Mean Streets of Old Alexandria - Redux

By sundry means was TOF made aware of this article on Hypatia of Alexandria posted on something called RationalWiki [sic]. As with all things internettingly wiki, the sourcing is rather scattergun with a marked preference for tertiary sources.  Back on The Auld Blogge there was a multi-part series on the life and context of Hypatia, beginning here.

[sic] rational ∩ wiki = Ø by the nature of wikish procedure.  The results of desultory serial committee overrulings is not prima facie "rational." At best, it may be group-think.  

But let us see what counts for reference among the rationals.

Shipwrecks of Time - Again

Next to last excerpt. 

     When the time came to leave for Europe, Professor Henkle drove Frank to Chicago, where he could catch Pan Am’s Flight 58 to Frankfurt.  Flying was expensive.  The leg from Chicago to New York alone had set the Institute back seventy-five dollars, a full day’s wages for most people, so there was no reason to add a puddle-jumper out of Billy Mitchell Field. 
     After getting through the construction mess in Milwaukee, the ride down the new “interstate” highway was smooth.  Dr. Henkle worried the whole way. 

Continued on the PREVIEW page.