Pullman on free speech

The wonderful Phillip Pullman, confronted with an insufferably English question about the title of his new book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, fires off a pithy, powerful defense of free speech.



Phillip Pullman wrote the books that got me through middle school in one piece. His Dark Materials forms part of my personal scripture, along with Hitchhiker's Guide and a few other formative books and movies. I wanted to be Lyra and then, even more, I wanted to be Will. Maybe after reading them I am, a little bit. They're that good.

In addition to writing fiction, Pullman is one of those rare public intellectuals who actually has something useful to say. He has strong convictions about free speech, civil liberties, and religion, and isn't afraid to speak his mind. A final Pullman quote, from an article he wrote for Banned Books Week:

My basic objection to religion is not that it isn't true; I like plenty of things that aren't true. It's that religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations. Destroying intellectual freedom is always evil, but only religion makes doing evil feel quite so good.

Om lingalinga

This week's dispatch from the Department of Woo is old news, but just as funny as it was two years ago. Sanal Edamaruku, president of Rationalist International, challenges a guru who claims to be able to kill people with his mind magic to kill him on live TV.  The guru begins mumbling and gesticulating. Several hours later, Edamaruku still very much alive and laughing, the show goes to news.

Edamaruku speaks truth to hooey:

It was in March 2008. The tantra master and I were studio guests on a popular TV show to debate on the subject of "Tantric power vs science". He boasted that he was able to kill anyone by mantra and tantra within three minutes. I grabbed my chance to put him in check and offered myself for a test. Caught on air, he couldn't escape without losing face – and his high-profile clientele. So our unprecedented experiment began. The master started chanting his trade mark "killer" mantra that has become quite a hit on the internet since: "Om lingalingalingalinga, kilikilikili…"

After several rounds of chanting failed to knock me out, he tried the whole arsenal of his tantric gimmickry on me, obviously without any result either. I was just laughing. In his embarrassment, he proposed I was protected by a supreme god whom I served – never mind that I am an atheist! Finally, he resorted to foul play, pressing his thumbs against my temples, hard enough to kill me the conventional way, but was cautioned by the umpiring anchor. With no way to escape, he upped the stakes and agreed to perform the "ultimate destruction ceremony" that would kill me dead sure. With ratings soaring, the programme overran, rolling on and on in "breaking news" mode. The channel announced another round of our epic battle for the night show.

Same game, this time in proper style: open night sky, the auspicious hour before midnight, me sitting on the tantric altar, blazing flames, white smoke, voodoo doll, peacock feather, mustard seed and all that. The master, besmirched with ashes from the cemetery ground and after the prescribed ritual consumption of sex, meat and alcohol at his tantric best, was assisted by a chorus of vigorous mantra chanters: "Om lingalingalingalinga, kilikilikili…"


Well, the pig still didn't fly.

Sanity - 1
Magic - 0

That's how it's done. That's how you fight the forces of backwardness and the charlatans who prey on the gullible. Let them embarrass themselves in public by telling the world what they really think. You barely need to ridicule them - this guy did a beautiful job of ruining himself.

If only the Teabaggers were so easy. Luckily, though, they're getting more absurd by the day. It shouldn't be too long before more people are laughing at them. The name is perfect enough: now all they need is uniforms and a secret handshake. 

The moral: just keep on laughing. Even if it doesn't help, it might keep you from crying.

The Pope forgives

The Onion, America's Finest News Source, reports on some recent news out of the Vatican: the Pope has graciously absolved thousands of priest-molested children of their sins.

"Though grave and terrible sins have been committed, our Lord teaches us to turn the other cheek and forgive those who sin against us," said the pope, reading a prepared statement from a balcony overlooking St. Peter's Square. "That is why, despite the terrible wrongs they have committed, the church must move on and forgive these children for their misdeeds."

"As Jesus said, 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,'" the pope continued. "We must send a clear message to these hundreds—perhaps thousands—of children whose sinful ways have tempted so many of the church's servants into lustful violation of their holy vows of celibacy. The church forgives them for their transgressions and looks upon them not with intolerance, but compassion."

Google vs. China

Google just cold turkey stopped censoring in China. Who knows what happens next. I'm behind Google all the way, but sooner or later they're going to get kicked out. If the Party really decides to get its crackdown on, massive government cyberattacks are going to be the least of their problems.


From Wiki:

The apparatus of the PRC's Internet repression is considered more extensive and more advanced than in any other country in the world. The regime not only blocks website content but also monitors the internet access of individuals. Amnesty International notes that China “has the largest recorded number of imprisoned journalists and cyber-dissidents in the world.” The offences of which they are accused include communicating with groups abroad, opposing the persecution of the Falun Gong, signing online petitions, and calling for reform and an end to corruption.^[4]

Some pretty egregious offenses there. It certainly would be unacceptable to have anyone suggesting reform, pointing out corruption, communicating with "groups" (what groups?) abroad, or opposing persecution. That would be shameful. Or something.

I'm just waiting for the international fiasco when a Google employee gets thrown in jail on some similarly ridiculous charge.

From the article:

Thousands of police officers are employed to monitor web activity and many automated systems watch blogs, chat rooms and other sites to ensure that banned subjects, such as Tiananmen Square, are not discussed.

What must it be like to work as a censor? To possess illicit knowledge when your job is to obliterate it? Are there really thousands of people across China who know what their country's been up to and choose to smother the horror stories anyway? That's real patriotism. Or true denial.

Maybe they told them it was all a pack of Western lies, evidence be damned. Maybe it's a cultural thing and I'm being insensitive. Then again, maybe the toxic waste in the air and water has affected their heads.

China scares me on several levels. Intensely corrupt, wildly irresponsible, and childishly vindictive, it looms like an enormous dumptruck on the horizon. They'll be more powerful than the States one day. We're far from perfect, but at the very least, we've got a mostly democratic government and a fetishistic attachment to free speech. What does China have?

Self-portrait

Does what it says on the tin. It's not the greatest likeness, and I'm not even sure it's finished, but it captures something.

Back to it

I'm back from spring break, sunburned, certified for scuba adventures and thoroughly satisfied. I slept for about two days after I stumbled off the bus, and now I think I'm ready for the next few weeks. And it is only weeks now. One week until grad school apps are due, a few more weeks until the thesis (currently in embryonic form) is due, and only a few weeks after that until graduation.

My semester thus far has been an easy ride: work hard all day, then home for painting and beer all night. The next while is going to involve a lot less painting and a lot more typing. Thinking, even. And probably less beer. Alas.

On the bright side, it is currently 60 degrees and sunny out.

Spring break

A week's hiatus begins tomorrow! Down to Florida for sweet beach time and finally getting my scuba certification. Sixteen hours there - five people in a little sedan - then several days of sunny 75 degree weather, laying in the sun with frosty beverages, diving, and bumming around with good people. I have been looking forward to this for a long time.

Oh so sweet

Sweet vindication:

• The Cove won Best Documentary at the Oscars!
• Homophobic state senator comes out as gay, surprising only the very naive. 
  
  
  

  Last year, Mr Ashburn opposed a bill to establish a day of recognition to honour murdered gay rights activist Harvey Milk. He has also voted in the statehouse against efforts to expand anti-discrimination laws and recognise out-of-state gay marriages. Mr Ashburn, who represents California's 18th district, said he does not plan to run for any public office after his term ends later this year.

  No, I don't imagine he does. See also:

  
  
  
  • Ted Haggard 
  • This wonderful study from 1996 in Journal of Abnormal Psychology:

The authors investigated the role of homosexual arousal in exclusively heterosexual men who admitted negative affect toward homosexual individuals. Participants consisted of a group of homophobic men (n = 35) and a group of nonhomophobic men (n = 29); they were assigned to groups on the basis of their scores on the Index of Homophobia (W. W. Hudson & W. A. Ricketts, 1980). The men were exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual, and lesbian videotapes, and changes in penile circumference were monitored. They also completed an Aggression Questionnaire (A. H. Buss & M. Perry, 1992). Both groups exhibited increases in penile circumference to the heterosexual and female homosexual videos. Only the homophobic men showed an increase in penile erection to male homosexual stimuli. The groups did not differ in aggression. Homophobia is apparently associated with homosexual arousal that the homophobic individual is either unaware of or denies.

Is homophobia associated with homosexual arousal?

By Adams, Henry E.; Wright, Lester W.; Lohr, Bethany A.

Journal of Abnormal Psychology. Vol 105(3), Aug 1996, 440-445.

Drip and flow

More paintings!

I went to the Met the other day, saw a huge Jackson Pollock, and was inspired. Immediately went home and started pouring shiny enamel everywhere. Ecce:

 

Complex they're not, but they were fun to make.Washing my hands with turpentine afterwards was fun too.

Yet more whales

Slate has another thoughtful, well-written meditation today on whales, humans, and our conflicted relationship over the course of history. Whales have played many roles. First they were sea monsters: Leviathans, lurking in the places on the map you didn't go. Then to some they became sustenance. Then they became the illumination, the perfume, and the corsets of the 19th century. They have been myth, food, money and light, but we still know very little about them. As the piece notes, we knew what the Earth looked like from space before we knew what a sperm whale looked like underwater.

Whales are something different now. They've always been objects of curiosity, but now they are the subjects of intense research and the darlings of an adoring public (Save The Whales!). The piece ends:

The truth is now, as it's ever been: We need whales more than they need us. Once we hunted them for their industrial resources. Now we demand to be entertained by them. What they want, most probably, is to be left alone.

In other news, one dolphin and possibly two swam up Newtown Creek in Brooklyn today. The creek is one of the most polluted industrial dead zones you can imagine, swamped with factory waste and raw sewage. No word on what's going to happen, but it doesn't look good.

More on whales

Slate has an article today on whaling... did we save the whales or what?

It's a summary of current whaling policy, new developments on same, and what they've actually done since the Save the Whales movement got going. From the article:

"...the sperm whale is considered vulnerable (the level below endangered), while five others—including that 1970s singing sensation, the humpback whale—are of least concern, meaning they're not going extinct anytime soon, even though they might not have returned to their pre-whaling levels. Most hunters nowadays pursue the common minke whale, which is also doing pretty well, all things considered. For a few other large whale species, there aren't enough data to make calls in either direction.

Things get more complicated, though, when you drill down and look at subpopulations. For example, humpback whales may doing fine as a general rule, but the ones that live in the Arabian Sea are considered endangered, as are those around Australia and the South Pacific. And then there are the humpbacks around South Georgia, which were mostly wiped out between 1904 and 1915 and have yet to come back.

What if, somehow, we could return the world's whales to some kind of pristine, pre-human state? If it could be proven that the hunts wouldn't push any populations into the danger zone, would environmentalists in countries besides Japan, Norway, and Iceland ever support sustainable, commercial whaling? The Lantern has her doubts. In America, at least, our belief in the essential dignity of these big, beautiful mammals seems just too ingrained to allow for their use as a food source. In the end, that may be the greatest legacy of the "Save the whales" movement."

The Cove has an interesting segment on what has happened to whaling since the movement began. Needless (almost) to say, it draws a slightly more pessimistic conclusion. In the film, key figures of the movement lament the passing of the enthusiasm that fired the cause, and call for a revival of the activism that brought it into public view. Things have stalled. In the 80s, there used to be marchers on the Mall, singing and holding signs, demanding an end to the slaughter. In the cloudy early reaches of my memory, I remember Save the Whales! t-shirts, posters, and shopping bags being everywhere. They were nearly as ubiquitous as those D.A.R.E t-shirts were before they were retro and ironic.
 Sure, the situation has gotten better, but it's still not great. We've left the task unfinished. Given the current pace of things, it's going to remain unfinished for a long time.