A long time ago, President Nixon, descending into paranoia, maintained an “enemies list” that was leaked to the press. But Nixon had by then become so unpopular that being on Nixon’s enemies list was actually seen as a badge of honor. Humorist Art Buchwald expressed his outrage at not making the list, despite all the …
Monthly Archive: December 2005
Dec 29 2005
The Danger of Apathy
In a series of recent posts (most recently The Loyal Citizen’s Contract with the American Government, I have been sounding the alarm about the dangerous encroachment on civil liberties and traditional concepts of the rule of law by the current administration. Many people do not seem to be alarmed so why am I? Once again, …
Dec 27 2005
The Loyal Citizen’s Contract with the American Government
It seems like not a day passes without a new allegation of the Bush administration trampling on civil liberties, violating the law, and disregarding the constitution. I had been collecting links to write about my concerns about all this but the list kept expanding too rapidly for me to keep up, with fresh allegations appearing …
Dec 22 2005
Miscellany
Due to the holiday season and to the fact that I need to write some articles for publication, this blog will be updated only sporadically over the next two weeks. The regular schedule of weekday postings will resume after the New Year, on Tuesday, January 3rd. Today, here are some short items. New member of …
Dec 21 2005
End of the Road for Intelligent Design?
As readers are probably aware, the federal judge in the Dover, PA case ruled yesterday (Monday, December 19, 2005) that the school board’s action in trying to introduce intelligent design creationism (IDC) ideas into its science curriculum violates the Establishment Clause and is thus unconstitutional. In a previous posting where I discussed the constitutional issues, …
Dec 20 2005
Wikipedia as good as the Encyclopedia Brittanica?
In my seminar courses, students are expected to research and write papers on topics related to science. Invariably, many of them will submit papers that cite Wikipedia as a source for some assertion. I tell them that Wikipedia is not a credible source for authoritative information and should never be used when submitting any paper. …
Dec 19 2005
Biblical inerrancy
Last week there was an interesting program on NPR’s Fresh Air. Host Terry Gross interviewed Bart Ehrman, chair of the department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, on his book Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why in which he describes how the text of …
Dec 16 2005
Harold Pinter Analyzes US Foreign Policy
In his Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech to the Swedish Academy on December 7, 2005 playwright Harold Pinter spoke of Art, Truth, and Politics. (You can read the text of his speech or watch it here. I strongly recommend watching it. My previous comments on the speech can be found here and here.) In …
Dec 15 2005
Truth in Art and Science
In his Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech to the Swedish Academy on December 7, 2005 playwright Harold Pinter spoke of Art, Truth, and Politics. (You can read the text of his speech or watch it here. I strongly recommend watching it.) He says: In 1958 I wrote the following: ‘There are no hard distinctions …
Dec 14 2005
Harold Pinter’s speech and the creative arts
Playwright Harold Pinter gave his Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech to the Swedish Academy on December 7, 2005. Because he has been operated for throat cancer and is not well, he delivered the televised speech from England. His voice was hoarse and he was in a wheelchair but the speech was riveting. It was …
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