Another instructive conversation — this time between Sam and Gad. Needless to say, the regressive mind will find the discussion too nuanced, civil and most importantly, too veritistic.
Herbert Simon: The Genius of Simplicity and Boundedness
Another reminder of the upcoming conference. Here is the full programme. See also this recent commemoration.
Walker Percy Wednesday 104
Long ago Hudeen gave up ordinary conversation. Her response to any greeting, question, or request is not the substance of language but its form. She utters sounds which have the cadence of agreement or exclamation or demurrer. Uhn-ohn-oh (I don’t know?); You say!, You say now!, Lawsymussyme (Lord have mercy on me?); Look out!—an all-purpose expression conveying both amazement and good will.
Hudeen is barely literate, but her daughter went to college and became a dental hygienist. She married a dentist. They are as industrious, conventional, honest, and unprofane as white people used to be. They have five children, three girls named Chandra, Sandra, and Lahandra, and twin boys named Sander and Sunder.
Chandra is smart, ill-mannered, discontent, but not malevolent. She graduated in media and newscasting at Loyola, interned at a local station, worked briefly as a street reporter. She wants to be an anchorperson. The trouble is, she hasn’t the looks for it; she doesn’t look like a tinted white person, what with her Swahili hair, nose, lips, and skin so black that local light seems to drain out into her. Said Hudeen once, talking back to the TV as usual when somebody mentions black—Hudeen, who still has not caught up with the current fashion in the proper race name: colored? Negro? black?—“Black?” she said to the TV. “What you talking about, black? That woman light. Sunder he light. Sandra bright; Chandra now—we talking black!”—hee hee hee, cackling at the TV.
*****
I buy Leroy Ledbetter a drink. He drinks like a bartender: as one item in the motion of tending bar, wiping, arranging glasses, pouring the drink from the measuring spout as if it were for a customer, the actual drinking occurring almost invisibly, as if he had rubbed his nose, a magician’s pass.
*****
All you need is a little red beans and rice.
*****
I try to place his speech. Despite its Southernness, the occasional drawled vowel, it is curiously unplaced. He sounds like Marlon Brando talking Southern.
Traveling Soul
I’ve just learnt that there is newly published biography of Curtis Mayfield, a long overdue project I’d been hoping for over the past few years.
Jefferson’s Bourbon
I chanced across this new item at my off-licence and gave it an enthusiastic go, given the limited selection of bourbons usually on offer there. It is a blend, typically not my usual preference especially for Scotches, not on the grounds of snobbery (blends have 90% of the market and there are superb blends), but because I appreciate the distinctiveness (terroir) of single malts. Anyway, Jefferson’s seems to fare pretty well according to several prominent online review sites. It is indeed pretty good but for the added price ($20) over the lower end stalwart bourbons (e.g. Bulleit, NOT Jack and Jim) I don’t really feel it’s worth it given the excellent non-blended bourbons available at this price.
How two incompatible sacred values are driving conflict and confusion in American universities
The ever insightful Jonathan Haidt at SUNY New Palz with the very excellent Eugene Health in the audience and who sits on convened the faculty task force on free speech. An aside: I was once told by an assistant professor climbing the greasy pole of tenure that she didn’t believe the PC-POMO tripe that is the prevailing culture but “played the game” in support of a tenuous career status, invoking any “identity” card that might have some currency and with the usual tick boxes to ingratiate themselves. After several years and eventual acceptance by the cabal who could make “things happen” (make or break), this prof came to become a believer with post-hoc reasoning to justify the cognitive dissonance. This is a sad blow to the teleology of veritism (or TRUTH) given the specific talents and interests of this person. Moreover, it’s sad how this person compromised their moral sensibility. At around 48 mins in JH talks about Taleb’s notion of anti-fragile and discussion of “free range” kids.
Disparate outcomes do not imply disparate treatments
Lately I’ve Let Things Slide
In Defense of Our National and Religious Traditions
Interesting piece by Yoram Hazony in Mosaic.
How to shore up this collapsing front? Given the history I have described, it seems likely that there is now only one way: an alliance of Old Testament-conscious Protestants and nationalist Catholics and Jews who will seek to update the biblical and Protestant heritage of the West and restore it as the basis for a new era. Right now, this seems a distant prospect. But, realistically, I do not see anything else that can stave off what appears to be the rapid disintegration of the Western nations, caught as they are between the hammer of an aggressive and increasingly intolerant liberalism and the anvil of what Reno calls “a colonizing Islam confident of its sacred mission.”
Heathenism is a state of mind. You can take it that I’m referring to one who does not see his world. He has no mental light. He destroys almost unwittingly. He cannot feel any God’s presence in his life. He is the 21st century man . . . It was an idea, a feeling, a sense of what 21st Century man might become if he’s not already: someone who’s lowered his standards spiritually, intellectually, morally whatever…someone who’s not even bothered searching for a spiritual life anymore but who’s completely existing on a materialistic plain — Pushing Ahead of the Dame
Happy Birthday to The Killer
Check out the very good Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story
Can we build AI without losing control over it?
Sam Harris’ TED talk
manwithoutqualities 