Christmassy, me?

PETER CANISIUS [1521 -1597], teacher, doctor, catechist and spy, is the Saint of the day.

'CONTRARY to an oft repeated tale, however, the Summa Theologiae was not placed on the altar alongside the Bible during meetings of the Council' . [Haldane, J. Faithful Reason: Essays Catholic and Philosophical, p. 5]

BEST INTENTIONS - The story of Tanzania's people's national park... "One fisherman said in slow and emphatic tones: “The marine park is no good. It is going to kill us through hunger.”

THE BLUNKETT FILES - Prof. John Gardner's celebration of the wit and wisdom of our recently-departed Home Secretary. "It's only a shame (but not a surprise) that Blunkett was brought down by a trivial personal intervention in a visa application ('no favours but slightly quicker'), and not by his abhorrent policies on crime, immigration, and 'security'."
In this connection, here's the full text of the recent House of Lords ruling regarding the detention without trial of nine noncitizens.

Wangari Maathai

POSSIBLY the most important social security measure in all Kenya's history...

WANGARI Maathai's Nobel Prize lecture.

SO now you know:
"We can cease speculating about what Sherlock Holmes was up to between 1891 and 1894 ("A four-pipe poseur", December 4). In 1989 I was a guest of the Copenhagen Sherlockian Club. One of the members presented me with a pamphlet which incontrovertibly demonstrated that Holmes was, of course, working with Engels on Volume IV of Capital (Theories of Surplus Value). Unfortunately Engels died in 1894 and Holmes returned to Baker Street and his former occupation, leaving the work unfinished. Naturally, considering the class from which most of his clientele was drawn, Holmes himself kept quiet about this."

-Julian Rathbone,Thorney Hill, Dorset-

deep in essay-crisis land without a map

SIMON BLACKBURN on Heidegger.

SIMON BLACKBURN on Eco.

JERRY FODOR on Christopher Hughes on Kripke.

LEFT2RIGHT: Quite possibly the most impressive collection of (leftish) clever people on the web. [Appiah, Cohen, Velleman, Railton, MacMahan, Darwall, Lichtenberg]

STUART HAMPSHIRE on John Rawls.

NIMU's new website is here.

"Who you gonna' call?"

Oh you look so beautiful tonight/In the city of blinding lights
the new U2 album is here. And it's [heresy!] not quite as good as it should be. They just sound a little unfresh and a bit reaching for nostalgia, but hey, sub-tremendous U2 is others' brilliant. Reviews (and how) : Rolling Stone, Observer, Guardian (alexis petridis actually likes it), Christianity Today, the Onion, Metacritic, MTV and Atu2.

randomly, Bono's other job at DATA.

IRAQ,
or when philosophers strike back. Professor McMahan's lucid and convincing demolition of the moral case for the war in Iraq is here. [Via the Leiter report]. He also a much longer draft of a paper on Just War theory here.
Incidentally, John Haldane's new book, is out. It's a collection of essays, reviewed here and elsewhere. Should be well worth the effort.

PLAINTIFF,
to his horror, discovered that the house he had recently contracted to purchase was widely reputed to be possessed by poltergeists... [Via alexander]

Pretending

I seem to be one of very few people who think that pretending (in the imitative sense - to put it very loosely) poses a serious problem for the success of the private language argument. Cue much inexplicit argument with people who think I'm talking even more rubbish than usual. This one could run and run.

Here's a lucid piece by Paul Boghossian in the New Republic in 2001, on why pragmatism 'doesn't work in practice', to slightly misquote Sidney Morgenbesser.

UPDATE. a distressed liberal writes, Falluja pictures.

kilio cha haki

SAINT OF THE DAY is the Blessed John Duns Scotus [c.1265-1308], the 'subtle doctor' and the last of the three preeminent medieval philosopher/theologians.

TAX AMNESTY ends 31st December 2004. Calling all plutocrats, wannabe-plutocrats, Moi-era survivors, and all other holders of ill-gotten wealth, the Kenya Revenue Authority tax amnesty is still on.

KILIO CHA HAKI or, the Guardian discovers Kenyan hiphop:

.At night, when the rubbish is burnt, the smoke fills Dandora's streets like fog. "People in Dandora don't live," says rapper Githinji "G-Ronji" Gicharu. "They survive."

..Earlier this year, a 26-year-old Dutch woman called Nynke Nauta brought over some producers from Amsterdam and installed a makeshift studio in a two-bedroom apartment in the relatively salubrious slum of Umoja, using mattresses to sleep on at night and to soundproof the walls during the day. Thirty-eight rappers from across the Eastlands came by to record tracks, and the result is the album Kilio Cha Haki:
A Cry for Justice...

Fortitude

will be necessary to get through these next four years. All the same, this election has cured me of my pro-Americanism. How this nation that seemed to stand as a constant reminder of the power of hope has allowed itself to act in this fearful way is difficult to understand. Anyway, as churchill said, Americans always do the right thing in the end, so here's hoping.

ST MARTIN DE PORRES. Yesterday, but that hasn't stopped me from being thankful and remembering him today.

Continium42 and the experientialist are now on board with the whole blogging thing. Pay them a visit while you're here ...

Je pas ne parle pas français

ALL SAINT'S DAY, well not quite here in Montreal, but it certainly is over there.

MONTREAL is awesome - autumn, or fall as I'm learning to call it, is far more colourful here than in the grey(!) havens. Also, policemen speaking French is just disorienting - it sounds far too pleasant for them.

Necessary Existence for anything you like

TERESA of Avila is the saint of the day.

This Noreena Hertz article in the Observer a little while ago whose point [that there are some debts that are so clearly illegitimate or unpayable, that countries should never be asked to honour them.] is made pithily.

A new taxonomy of philosophical positions.

An argument for the necessary existence of absolutely anything at all that exists. [at Prof. Timothy Williamson's website.]

Wangari Maathai

is the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 2004. Richly deserved.

randoms

AGNES TAKEA is the saint of the day. One of many Japanese martyred at a time of great persecution [c. 1620]. A consequence of this maltreatment was the persistence of the faith in highly unusual forms, such as the Kakure Kirishtan.

THE LEITER REPORT is temporarily in the very capable hands of Bejamin Hellie and Jessica Wilson, whose other blog is always a pleasure to read, if only for its quite unblog-like meatiness. They've already put together three substantial posts, and more will follow. I'm especially pleased that they picked up on this [emphasis mine]:

In Africa, Bush did best in Nigeria where 33 percent of respondents said they preferred him versus 27 percent who opted for Kerry. But in five other African countries, Kerry emerged as the clear favourite, including Kenya (58-25 percent), Ghana (48-24 percent), Tanzania (44-30 percent), South Africa (43-29 percent), and Zimbabwe (28-6 percent)

QUASSIM CASSAM, newly hired Professor of Philosophy at University College London, author of Self and World, and Self-Knowledge [both OUP] is Kenyan!- well, OK, Kenyan-born, but who's counting?

NO WMD, none whatsoever, nyet, nada, nothing, zip, zilch. Just in case anyone still cares. The Iraq Survey Group which was authorised by both the American and British governments to assess the state of Saddam Hussein's weaponry is due to report next week, after an exhaustive scouring of various sites in Iraq. The Guardian claims that the report will conclude that Saddam Hussein did not have stockpiles of WMD. One can only hope that this is not being leaked now to deflate the shock of the Group's findings when finally published.

THE PHILOSOPHERS' CARNIVAL is not quite up-and-running yet [as far as I can tell, anyway], but promises to be awesome once it is. Have a look. More philosophical weblogs here [a whole bunch of them, in fact], courtesy of Prof. Chalmers.

UPDATE

COLIN POWELL finally uses the G-word of events in Sudan, in his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee following a report by investigators from the State Department . President Bush has also characterised the events as such in a statement issued yesterday.
The Independent gives over its entire front page to the story [though this is not evident from the online version], CBS News has a reasonable take, the NYT, the Times, the Guardian and even the Telegraph, all have reports.
The Sudanese government's response according to the Telegraph's report: "Sudan's foreign minister, Ahmed Hassan al-Zubeir, denounced the US move. He said the crisis was a "an internal tribal problem".

[Beer voucher to Passion of the Present, which continues to be the most useful source of news for this unfortunate business]

ARCHBISHOP OSCAR ROMERO's assassination was one of San Salvador's and the Latin American Church's direst moments in recent history. However, it seems a retired Salvadoran Air Force captain has been found liable as an "aider, abettor and co-conspirator" in the murder of the Archbishop by a Fresno [California] federal court Judge. As is customary, very large amounts of money have been awarded in damages.

[Beer voucher to ExLaodicea, always sharp, always fun.]

more darfur ...

in which I discover that there has been no official recognition in the Arab press that Darfur is a genocide.

undoing the sloth's grip.

the longish absence? sheer sloth - oh, and the Edinburgh Festival(s) ... Reginald D. Hunter played there and didn't win the Perrier. More soon.

our betrayal is complete II

MYRON is the saint of the day. c.250 He is called the 'Wonder Worker' in Crete if this is to be believed.


JUST A LITTLE POST to register my disgust at the recent holding by the Court of Appeal that information obtained by the torture of suspects in other jurisdictions is admissible as evidence in UK courts so long as HM's governement was not actively (“neither procured ... nor connived at ...” ) involved. Human rights - enforcement now dependent on arbitrary things like where you are.

RICH BLACK PEOPLE mistreat their help. Shock. Horror. Read all about it in the Guardian. Of all places.

our betrayal is complete

ST. LAWRENCE today. Roasted to death. Patron saint of cooks. Medieval humour.

"it was ... along the byways of philosophical investigation that grace awaited her": a day too late to remember Edith Stein properly, still, a saint I've got to know recently as I make a more-than-usually-desultory effort to get through her biography. Co-patroness of Europe and phenomenologist(!)

UN LAUNCHES FOOD AID APPEAL FOR KENYA: following His Slothfulness's recent declaration that the imminent food shortfall constituted a 'national disaster', the UN has begun collecting the $96.5 million required to enable collection and distribution of relief supplies. Not a moment too soon. The relationship between Kenyans and NARC is now positively abusive.

ANIMAL FARM REDUX: Or how the NP is so power-hungry it will do anything - even disslove itself into the ANC- to stay there or thereabouts. The most outrageous thing about this is how little outrage there is about it.

even more Sudan

SAINT of the day is Eusebius of Vercelli c. 283 - 371, bishop, anti-Arian, and the man who almost got away with slamming the Nicene Creed onto the table at a Council of the Church and demanding that all present assent to it as a condition of any further discussion.

SUDAN RESOURCES . Sudan: The Passion of The Present is a regularly updated blog with all sorts of useful links and Robert Corr at Kick and Scream has a decent amount of stuff online. [beer voucher to the mentalist]. This week's LRB has Alex de Waal's subtle and patient examination of the happenings. Just once, his underlying passion glints through:"This is the routine cruelty of a security cabal, its humanity withered by years in power: it is genocide by force of habit."
USAID has some statistics and satellite maps of the villages and refugee camps, Human Rights Watch has a comprehensive Darfur page here - you might remember they were the first to unearth decisive documentary proof of Sudanese government collusion with the Janjaweed.
The UN's Sudan Information Gateway is authoritative, up-to-date and probably has the best collection of statistics. Finally, Darfurinfo.org has lots of information and seems reasonably reliable.

KING ARTHUR is easily the worst movie I've seen all year, but it has its redeeming feature - I haven't seen a cavalry charge that exciting since the Return of the King. I remembered, watching it, that I'd always regretted being born too late to take part in one in earnest.

the wanderer

SAINT OF THE DAY is Peregrinus, a second century priest and hermit. In honour of Plato.

JURGEN KLINSMANN is Germany's new coach.  He is the youngest man ever to hold the position, is a former Football Writers' Footballer of the Year, was capped 108  times by Germany and, even more impressively, completely won over the British media in his first season in the Premier League. It's difficult though, to avoid the thought that the DFB have only given him the job to avoid having to employ a foreigner.
Lothar Matthaus is, naturally, very unhappy.


THE 'SELECTIVE REDUCTION' SAGA rumbles on. There's an excellent meta post at meta-filter, Noli Irritare has a slightly-less-meta meta-post here,  the comments at Unfogged are generally thoughtful, and Amy Welborn's blog entry - with lots of comment, blogcritics, Hugo Schwyzer's and Schwyzer II are all worth your time.
The Pro- Richards bloggers include Alas (owner of the most glaring petitio in the history of petitios - just read her comment about sed Contra's post), Trish Wilson, and this which is (unfortunately) beyond parody. 

JOHN SUTHERLAND's pre-retirement analysis of changes in British academia in the last 40 years. ·

"The long awaited breakthrough of women into higher echelons of the academic profession. My successor as Lord Northcliffe Professor at UCL will be the first woman to hold the post . Incredibly, no woman, in nearly 170 years, has been permanent head of my department. That should now change, as a reflection of profession-wide reform. But not, alas, fast enough."

Via CrookedTimber and the Leiter report. 

BARACK OBAMA: it's unanimous, a star is born. A transcript of the speech, the Honolulu Advertiser (!), USA Today, the New York Times, and various others are all admiring. Even National Review manages to harrumph only mildly. The New Yorker profile is still the most informative one available online.

mary magdalene.

MARY OF MAGDALA, Our Lord's companion, and the first to see Him Risen is  the - belated - Saint of the day.

YOUR PRAYERS please, for the hostages - amongst whom are several Kenyans - now being held in Iraq by insurgent forces who call themselves 'The Holders of the Black Banners'. Interviews with the Kenyan families here, some background here. It's a promising sign that the last few sets of hostages taken have been released unharmed. The administration finally got something right when they had a spokeman ask all Kenyans to leave Iraq yesterday.

THE 9/11 REPORT is out. I haven't read it but there are several piecesin today's papers. Guardian here, Times there.

THIS NEW epistemology blog is outstanding. They seem to have signed up every top-flight epistemologist, the depth of talent gathered here is just awesome. Required reading for for anyone even vaguely interested in philosophy. 

EVERYTHING you ever wanted to know about Hannibal Barca and the Punic Wars in one easily -digestible capsule. Hannibal ad Portas!

I would like one. (Did anyone but Njoroge and I watch Italian football on KTN in the early 90's?)  

even more Sudan.

These  guys have set up DarfurGenocide.org, which has a wealth of information on the crisis and what can be done to help. In the UK, the Disasters Emergency Committee, an umbrella body whose members are some of the most trusted charity organisations in the country, is putting together a relief effort.

Sudan.

Saint of the day is Aurelius, bishop and companion of St. Augustine, d. 429.
 
Amnesty International have a comprehensive overview of the Sudan crisis. They have detail about the widespread collusion between government forces and Janjaweed militia, the violence against women and ethnic cleansing.   
Human Rights Watch have compiled a thorough report, what's more, they claim to have decisive evidence that the government has been involved in the recruitment, training and support of the Janjaweed militias:

“It’s absurd to distinguish between the Sudanese government forces and the militias—they are one,” said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Africa Division. “These documents show that militia activity has not just been condoned, it’s been specifically supported by Sudan government officials.”  

The Sudanese governement has denied these reports. Their Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail, who seems not to be as well-advised in PR matters as he should be, has said that the documents are "90 % false".  
The Guardian has a useful archive of articles which includes, in ascending order of odiousness, this, an interview with one of the baddies, and finally this.
  
 
An African in Greenland. He left Togo and spent ten years travelling North, eventually got to Greenland, and returned to tell the story. Tete-Michel Kpomassie is an astonishingly intrepid guy. John Derbyshire has written a review, well worth reading if you can tolerate some of his wilder ramblings, and Al Alvarez's introduction to the book is online here.

Didier Drogba, a certainty for African footballer of the year if ever there was one, has signed for Chelsea from Marseille. There are various reports about the size of the fee, but the figure most often quoted in reports is £26 million, or about €40 million. It seems excessive for a player who has only had two decent goalscoring seasons in his career. On the other hand, he looked outstandingly good in the UEFA Cup, and especially at Newcastle where he destroyed them despite playing alone up front. 

Recommended

a profile of Bryan Magee, from the Guardian from ages ago when he had a new book out:

".religion as a way of avoiding fundamental problems that have arisen because we don't know certain very basic things about our own lives which I think are unknowable. I'm against that kind of false self-consolation. It prevents people really confronting the harsh reality of our situation." He says that as a child an early appreciation of this harsh reality would upset him. "I sometimes used to feel it was threatening my mental health. But I feel we ought to grapple with things and not evade and I certainly feel that about philosophers. I feel there is a professional obligation not to seek consolation. This is certainly part of what philosophy is for."

Simon Blackburn on Heidegger, originally at TNR, but now at Prof. Pole's site here.

Johann Hari meets Peter Singer and can't quite shake the feeling that something is wrong:

Singer is pure, disembodied rationality - the Enlightenment made flesh. He measures pain and capacity to suffer in neat units and disregards old-fangled notions such as species or emotion. He discusses killing babies or his mother with the passion of the speaking-clock. Give me Singer over the Vatican-style superstitions he is trying to dispel any day; and yet, as I leave the interview, I can't shake off a strange - Singer would say sentimental - anxiety.