Who Were the Sea Peoples?

I mentioned in an earlier post about gauging voter interest through political bumper stickers. Well, since Labor Day, Kerry has taken a slight edge over Dubya in the South Beach vinyl wars. Today, I observed a man in a tank top walking around with a circular Kerry sticker stuck to his bicep. I'm not sure what that portends.

Here is a very interesting chapter from an upcoming book by Steve Landsburg, in which he argues that sexual conservatives will actually reduce the spread of AIDS by having more one-night stands: http://www.landsburg.com/moresex.htm I don't think this blog is the ideal place to debate the matter, but my own feeling is that Landsburg is basically wrong. At least two major problems: (1) He assumes that everyone is purely selfish, e.g. Landsburg's model (it seems to me) would not include the possibility of someone discovering he is HIV+ and then refraining from future sex because he doesn't want to hurt other people. Once we realize that there are such people, then I don't see why Landsburg denies (at the end of his chapter) that his analysis might encourage more promiscuity. ("I'll be doing the world a favor by going out tonight! A Ph.D. at the U of R even says so!") (2) He assumes that the degree of promiscuity is a purely individual deci...

I'm about to head off to the London School of Economics to do a master's degree in their philosophy department. I just logged into my LSE e-mail account for the first time, and discovered I had one message, from LSE, saying, "This message was automatically generated, and you should ignore it." Now, if someone said, "Gene ignored the sign at the beach that forbid swimming," that would mean that I did go swimming. By analogy, in order to ignore a message that says it should be ignored, it seems I should not ignore it. But, if I do that, then I am ignoring it. You see my dilemma. I suspect this is some sort of test from the philosophy department to see if I am really up to the mark, and I'm very anxious about how to respond (or not).

Johnny Ramone--the man credited with revitalizing Rock by adding Punk to it--is no more after a long battle with cancer. It wasn't just that unique but much copied staccato guitar sound that Johnny introduced to the world but an attitude that encouraged people who might not have realized that despite having no training their creations and ideas were just as valid as the next person's, maybe even better. Spending his creative and business life doing things his own way made for lots of enemies. Even among self-described Ramones fans, there are people who opted to note his passing on Wednesday by complaining that they couldn't like Johnny because he was a right winger or astute businessman or some other nonsense reason that had nothing to do with the music. Nice to know that people who should be thanking the Ramones and specifically Johnny for cracking open an increasingly insulated industry are themselves guilty of pushing out the iconoclasts who taught them everyone is valua...

In the most recent issue of Reason Magazine that I received, I found an ad for American Spirit cigarettes. At the top of the ad was the text "November 2" -- election day -- followed by a listing of a number of political parties: Green, Republican, Constitution, Democratic, American, Socialist, and so on. Finally were the words, "It's all good." What typical nonsense. If voting Socialist is good, then voting for the Constitution Party is clearly bad. If voting Republican is good, then voting Green isn't. Even the people who promote this idea will reveal that they don't really believe it if they are asked to include the Nazi Party in such a list.

Near my apartment there is a live poultry vendor. A price board on the wall outside its door lists prices for chickens, roosters, rabbits, ducks, guinea hens, and "fowl." I've always been puzzled by what you get when you buy fowl. I mean, I thought chickens, roosters, ducks, and guinea hens were fowl. Are they offering some other sort of bird that they can't identify beyond the fact it seems to fall under that general category? Does anyone know what this means?

The Arts and Entertainment cable channel today was showing videos taken in lower Manhattan on the day of the attack on the World Trade Center. (I'm not sure how the program fell under either "art" or "entertainment.") It was really stunning to see how much damage those terrorists did. Their action was revolting brutal, violent beyond belief, and about as evil a deed as a handful of humans have ever pulled off. Of course, none of that justifies pulverizing a bunch of Iraqis who had no connection to 9/11. But, since some hawks equate all objections to the invasion of Iraq with support for terrorists, I thought the above might be worth saying.