I’ve always liked Rube Goldberg devices.
Because it’s Friday, here’s a machine to turn your newspaper pages for you.
At least once.
Speech Is a Uniquely Human Quality
Max Muller, a pioneering 19th-century linguist at Oxford, read Darwin’s work and declared that the use of language was the gift that definitively separated human beings from the animal kingdom. It was, Muller said, “our Rubicon, and no brute will dare to cross it.” Nowadays, neo-Darwinians would dismiss mulish Muller as a “speciesist.”
Andrew Ferguson summarizes and reviews Tom Wolfe’s The Kingdom of Speech for sympathetic readers. He condemns scientists who argue against non-scientists asking awkward questions they’d rather ignore and claim to deserve a respect they have yet to earn. “Evolutionary theory is no closer than it was in Darwin’s day to explaining in materialist terms how traits like self-consciousness and language came to be.” (via Prufrock News)
Friday Fight: Battle Axe
They no longer teach axe skills in high school, but thankfully the Internet has it covered. This is a longer video than we normally post for the Friday Fight, but it will give you an idea of how demonstrators need to practice in order to fight each other safely.
Compare this to the fighting we see in these videos:
‘Vikings’ unearthed
I think I’ve written about the old TV show, Tales of the Vikings, here before. It formed the spark that first roused my interest in the Vikings. Judging by the clip below, which recently appeared on YouTube, it was about as cheesy as I figured.
According to the link, there are six extant episodes available on CD now from this site. I had been given to understand that all episodes had been lost forever. So this is good news. Except that I’m reluctant to order from an unknown site.
I probably will, though.
How Media Bias Influences Americans
” A person’s PQ indicates the degree to which he is liberal,” Groseclose explains. “For instance, as I have calculated, the PQs of Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) are approximately 100. Meanwhile the PQs of noted conservatives Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) are approximately 0.”
The main point of his book is that most media outlets are liberal, far more liberal than their readers and viewers. Naturally, their PQ comes through in their reporting, and their perspective is moving Americans in a liberal direction. Get a rather detailed overview in this lecture to an audience at the Cato Institute.
Media bias, he says, is largely in what is not reported, “true statements they are leaving out, not false statements they report.” He illustrates this by recalling a report on voter limitations, saying nothing in the article was a lie, but there were several things that should have been stated to give proper context for the truth. Also what the press chooses to report on and what to ignore shows their biases (Van Jones being a communist, for example).
If it were possible to remove the influence of media bias on Americans, what would the result be? Continue reading How Media Bias Influences Americans
‘Poisonfeather,’ by Matthew FitzSimmons
Gibson stopped him. “What do you think will happen now?”
The fisherman considered the question for a moment. “In Mandarin, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.”
“Is that true?”
The fisherman shook his head. “No, not exactly. It is just something that John F. Kennedy repeated because it sounded inspiring.”
I had read Matthew FitzSimmons’ The Short Drop, and enjoyed it. So I bought the sequel, Poisonfeather. But I’d forgotten what a really fine writer FitzSimmons is. Poisonfeather was a pleasure to read from front to back.
The villain this time out is Charles Merrick, a fallen Wall Street wizard (think Bernie Madoff but even nastier) now residing in a fairly cushy federal prison. He’s been in for eight years, and is due to be released soon. Many people were shocked at his short sentence, but there’s a secret explanation. Merrick knew the identity of a CIA mole working in China, which gave him leverage to do a deal with the feds.
Many people, some greedy, some Merrick’s victims, suspect he still has a lot of money squirreled away somewhere (they are correct). A large number have gathered in the moribund town of Niobe, where the prison is located, to intercept him when he goes free. Continue reading ‘Poisonfeather,’ by Matthew FitzSimmons
How the Normans Ruined the British Isles for a Thousand Years
October 14 was the 950th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings. Peter Konieczy of the University of Toronto offers three reasons why this was not a typical medieval battle. One reason was that the Normans and the English were evenly matched.
We can read some of the battle’s details in this post on a French poetic account, Estoire des Engleis – History of the English, by Geoffrey Gaimar. It includes a part about a Norman juggler who demonstrated his spear skills before the English army.
Konieczy also touches on how the Normans meddled with the Irish several decades later, never fully conquering them, and by 1180, “would leave the island unstable and divided.”
Sacramone on the calendar.
Our friend Anthony Sacramone has mostly “gone dark” on the World Wide Woof these days, but occasionally he pops up to trouble our peace. I was directed to this article which appeared at The Federalist today. In it he describes the Gregorian calendar reforms, in terms sometimes reminiscent of his glory days at “Dr. Luther at the Movies”:
Many people thought their lives were being shortened by 10 days and started doubling up on their retirement contributions. The pious worried that saints might not listen to prayers that came 10 days “later” than the traditional saints’ days (saints being a petulant and petty bunch). Everyone’s birthday moved to a calendar date 10 days later, ruining party plans like nobody’s business. Rents, interest, and wages had to be recalculated for a month that had a mere 21 days. Boy, people were stupid back then.
The stalwart Prots in Britain and the Colonies held out for the old ways until 1752, at which point everyone woke up 10 days late for work. And those dentist appointments it took so long to book? Well, these are Brits. What dentist appointments?
Writers Out to Pastor
Forgive me, father, for I have punned.
Jared Wilson is a pastor-author who is focused on the gospel in ways the church may neglect. “You find a church’s idols by changing things,” he says in the interview below.
http://thomrainer.com/2016/10/pastors-writing-jared-c-wilson-rainer-leadership-269/
Edwardian Ghost Stories
Nicholas Lezard recommends the ghost stories of EF Benson (1867-1940).
When I reread “Caterpillars”, for the first time in four decades, I very quickly regretted that I had chosen to do so at night. Gatiss, in his introduction, says that it is “perhaps a ghost story like no other”, and he’s not wrong: it’s the kind of story that leaves one feeling almost unclean, checking clothes and body for vermin.
(via Prufrock News)