The great philosopher of mind Jerry Fodor has passed at the age of 82. A good overview of his physicalist, functionalist, ‘representational theory of mind’ can be found here.
“What you write in one decade you don’t necessarily write in the next,” says Gloria Stein, who still defends her her 1998 NYT op-ed “Feminists and the Clinton Question”.
But the Left will continue to excoriate the Founding Fathers by today’s moral standards.
Mr. Rojas has been sentenced to life in prison. The cop he shot gets in a nice dig:
A police officer taunted the Jacksonville man who shot him multiple times last year by taking out a tube of K-Y Jelly personal lubricant in court Wednesday and saying, “You are going to need a lot of this,” local reports said.
Kevin Rojas, then 19, shot the undercover police officer three times during a 2016 traffic stop, including once in the face, the Florida Times-Union reported.
The critically-wounded officer, who was taking his son to school during the incident, returned fire but did not hit Rojas. His son was not injured.
Local reports did not identify the undercover officer.
Rod Dreher rightly takes issue with the Texas State University student op-ed (that white DNA is an “Abomination”), but then concludes:
There is a sickness in this country. White supremacy is a sickness. The left-wing version of it — denouncing whites as a race, even calling for ethnic cleansing — is a sickness. Why won’t the left stand up to it? You folks on the left, including you in the mainstream media who ignore it or dismiss it, you are feeding the white nationalist/white supremacist right!
Why does Dreher keep lumping together white identitarianism, white nationalism, and the strawman of ‘white supremacy’? It is only whites (e.g., esp those of northern European ancestry) who have engaged in a post-1960s, unilateral disarmament of in-group preferences, the latter being something natural across the rest of humanity as well as the animal kingdom.
Dreher and his ilk have to get over their bogeyman approach to the ‘Alt Right’ phenom and see the much deeper issue. In the case of Dreher, he sometimes gets close to it, like a moth to a flame, but then instinctively retreats to a Civic Nationalist perspective that can only be described, charitably, as naive.
From A. Graham’s review of the new Churchill biopic Darkest Hour, which features Gary Oldman:
The film lapses into trite sentimentality with grating regularity. The most corny scene occurs toward the end when Churchill decides to ride the Tube instead of traveling by private car in a farcical display of faux populism. As his fellow passengers gaze at him in awe, Churchill humbly inquires of them what they think about the war and what they would think about making peace terms with Hitler. They collectively shout, “Fight!” and “Fight the fascists!” Churchill then begins quoting Thomas Babington Macaulay’s rousing Horatius from the Lays of Ancient Rome, and a black man beside him completes the stanza in his West Indian accent. Churchill is moved to tears and snivels into his handkerchief. Try not to vomit.
All part of the Great Experiment:
The Italian town of Vaccarozzi di Erbezzo officially has only seven residents, but that’s changing fast.
Already 26 African asylum seekers have arrived as part of a government resettlement programme. There are plans to resettle at least 80 migrants in the tiny town. Mayor Lucio Campedelli is worried about it:
“Sending 80 refugees here would turn this place upside down. They told us just before summer that they would arrive, but we can’t do anything about it. I don’t want to add fuel to the fire, but I hope they stop with these first 26 arrivals.”
Locals already call the Northern Italian mountain town “refugee land”. In early November the first 26 migrants arrived after setting foot on Italy’s Southern shores. All of them Africans: from Nigeria, Ghana and Ivory Coast for example.
Liana, the barista of a local coffee bar says:
“Sending 80 here is madness. It would completely change our land. Even sending two here would be too many if we didn’t ask for them.”
That barista is clearly a xenophobic racist, desperately in need of censure and re-education.
George Hutcheson, Director of Students for Western Civilization, discusses quite eloquently cultural genocide (aka ‘ethnocide’) against white civilization.
Production-wise, Faith Goldy demonstrates how good video production (e.g., multiple angled shots, quality audio) can, with a little effort, be accomplished quite easily, portably, and inexpensively these days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=N5MjlBkHOAg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKup3ecrgT8
In The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare presented the world with a profound contrast, between Shylock the Jewish moneylender and Antonio the gentile Christian. The technicality of Shylock’s legalism contrasts strikingly with Antonio’s altruism and generosity, a representation of the letter of the law vs. the spirit of the law, all of which serves as a contrast between Judaism (in-group particularism) and Christianity (universalism).
Well, I just lost a whole lot of respect for Donald Fagen today. I’m a huge Steely Dan fan, but this story is just… sad:
Donald Fagen of Steely Dan is suing the estate of his late band mate, Walter Becker, over ownership of the band’s name and music.
Fagen’s attorneys filed papers last week in Los Angeles claiming that when Becker died in September, his estate was obligated to honor an agreement between the men stipulating that if one should die or otherwise leave the band, the other would buy back his “shares” in the group.
Becker’s representatives are calling the suit “unwarranted and frivolous.” They said Monday that the 45-year-old agreement was not in effect when he died.
“In our view, Mr. Fagen is unfairly trying to deprive Walter’s family of the fruits of their joint labors,” the estate said in a statement, adding that it had been working toward a compromise with Fagen’s lawyers.
Fagen’s attorney Skip Miller said Monday that “the agreement at the heart of the suit is as valid as the day it was signed.”
“Mr. Fagen believes Mr. Becker’s estate is entitled to receive all normal royalties on the songs they wrote together,” he said. “But this case is about the future of the band, and we will vigorously defend the contract.”
Donald Fagen?
Is there more to this story? No matter which way you cut it, the optics look bad. Is there reason to believe the Becker estate would act irresponsibly with the Steely Dan catalog? The above-mentioned contract was drafted up 45 years ago (1972), when Fagen was 24 and Becker was 22. Was it a piece of paper they themselves wrote up and signed after smoking a bag of weed, with no witnesses and without legal counsel? Was it more than that? (A copyright expert weighs in here.) Or is this a case of Fagen acting more like Fagin? Is the Becker estate being extracted for its pound of flesh?
In the courtoom resolution of The Merchant of Venice, what we might call a Christian-majority jury sides with Antonio, shaming Shylock for his selfless disregard of the spirit of the law, the weight being on intentionality rather than the legalistic.
Time will tell how the Steely Dan saga unfolds.
Hurry up and watch JT’s video on dysgenics and eugenics, as YouTube has shut down another incarnation of it. (YouTube presents a deceptive “This video can’t be played here” message first, intended to dissuade people from watching, but simply then click the “Watch on YouTube” link after the message):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDLLgvWhiGs&bpctr=1511993244
Normism: The Philosophy of Norm Macdonald, a short book I wrote about the late great comedian, is available on Amazon.
