AnalPhilosopher

This past Saturday, in Bonham, Texas, I did my 341st bike rally. Two days from now, in Waco, I do my 342d. I did my first bike rally 15 years ago today, in Seagoville. It seems like yesterday. Here is my journal entry for that auspicious day:

9-30-89 Saturday. My metroplex map must be wrong. Based on the scale of miles that appears on the map, Seagoville, a suburb to the southeast of Dallas, is sixty-one miles from my apartment. But my car's odometer indicates that it's only 39.3 miles away. Because of the error, I arrived early in Seagoville for the Farm-to-Market Tour. That gave me time to relax, register, and eat the cookies and banana that I brought. I even had the woman in the car next to mine take a picture of my bike and me. At one time I resented the idea of paying to ride, but after today's tour I understand and accept it. What fun! Not only that, but the tour organizers distributed tee shirts, water bottles, balloons, and assorted other souvenirs to the participants. During and after the ride, there were refreshment stands where riders could get Gatorade, water, bananas, and cookies. I rode the entire 70.98 miles without stopping, but I did accept a banana from one of the tour volunteers early on. Several people stood by the road as the bicyclists went by, handing them bananas and cups of liquid (Gatorade, I suspect). At one point in the ride, I saw a sign that said "Kaufman 6", which means I was within six miles of the town where Ed and Judy Rowbotham live. For all I know, I passed their house! But I couldn't and wouldn't have stopped even if I had seen their house, because I was gunning for a high average speed.

What an average speed I had! The tour began with a cannon shot. I was careful to avoid other riders during the first few yards, because I've heard horror stories about accidents and pileups during these moments. By the time I got free of the congestion I realized that a pack of bicyclists was way out in front. Determined to stay with them as long as I could, I pedaled furiously on rough roads to catch up. At about the six-mile mark I was swallowed up by a large chase group, and together we caught the lead pack. We must have been going twenty-five miles per hour as we approached the starting area. Knowing that I had a long way to go, and doubting that I could maintain such a high rate of speed for long, I decided to dart into the lead. I went ahead of the pack at the 8.66-mile mark and held it for nearly a mile. When we whizzed past the spectators and riders of shorter distances, I was several yards in front of the pack, which contained three to four hundred riders. Talk about adrenalin! I was as high as a kite. To the spectators, I must have appeared as a red blur. Not only is my bike a bright red, but so is my helmet. My black riding shorts have red patches on the sides. I noticed people taking pictures as we whizzed by.

Having had my moment in the sun, I settled back to conserve energy. After all, it wasn't a ten-mile race; it was a sixty-two-mile tour. The other riders gradually swallowed me up, and before I knew it they were flowing over the hills and valleys of the Seagoville countryside like a shadow. I couldn't keep up. I rode 20.87 miles during the first hour, which is nothing to sneeze at. From there I set my mind to staying on the bike for the entire tour and averaging over eighteen miles per hour. This is my first tour, I had to remember, and hence a learning experience. For the next two and a half hours I zipped through hill and dale, sometimes alone, sometimes in the company of other riders. I got valuable drafting experience and even found two UTA students among the crowd of riders. The three of us had been riding in a pace line for several miles when one of them asked me if I were a professor at UTA. "Yes!", I said; "How did you know?" He told me that he and his friend (both named Alan) attend UTA and had gone to an early bike club meeting. What a coincidence! We rode together for many more miles before one of them tired and the other slowed down. I went ahead. The final ten miles were uncomfortable, not only because I ran out of water but because the wind was in my face and my back hurt. I can see that I need a triathlete bar. Without it, I have only two riding positions. Also, I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere along the route, because I ended up with 70.98 miles rather than the expected 62.14 (it was a 100-kilometer course). I don't mind the extra miles; I just wish I knew about them so I could have planned for them.

My average speed for the day was a phenomenal (for me) 18.65 miles per hour. I have no idea how fast the lead pack went after they left my field of vision. But it's too early to compare myself to them; I'm just a beginner as far as racing is concerned. In retrospect, I didn't spend enough time drafting. When I did form part of a pace line, I noticed that the pedaling was much easier, especially going into the wind or uphill. Of course, I expect to carry my share of the load; I'm no parasite. But I found myself riding alone for too many miles, and that wore me out. Statistically, this was my best average speed for 70.98 miles or more. My previous best was 16.28 miles per hour for an eighty-mile ride on 3 April 1988. I rode 1404.6 miles in July, August, and September, a period of ninety-two days. That's an average of 15.26 miles per day and 106.8 per week. All in all, I had a fun, successful tour this morning. I enjoyed the ride home, thanked my lucky stars for good (albeit windy) weather (it was partly cloudy and eighty-four degrees), and spent the rest of the day enveloped by a glow of accomplishment. I can't wait until next Saturday, when I ride a hundred miles in Waco.

In baseball news, Toronto defeated Baltimore for the second straight day to clinch the American League Eastern Division title. I dislike the Blue Jays, but I rooted for them to defeat the upstart Orioles, whom I despise. Now I want Oakland to crush the arrogant Blue Jays. There was also an individual accomplishment this evening, the next-to-last day of the regular season. Texas Ranger pitcher Nolan Ryan, the ageless wonder, struck out thirteen batters to reach the 300 mark for the season, the sixth time in his career he's done it. What a feat! This was his last appearance of the season and he needed an even dozen to reach the coveted figure. He bore down and struck out thirteen.

It seems like yesterday.

I just watched the 90-minute debate between President Bush and John Kerry. I have watched none of the commentary—yet. Here, for what they're worth, are my reflections:

1. President Bush acquitted himself well. He was calm, cool, and collected. He was stern when he needed to be, but without coming across as mean or bitter. Nobody can have any doubt about where he stands on the war against radical Islam. This is a virtue—not, as liberals would have it, a vice.

2. I still don't understand John Kerry's position on the war in Iraq. I'm a philosopher, so I'm quite capable of grasping nuanced positions. Philosophy is nuance. For the life of me, I don't know what his principles are or how he would implement them. This is disturbing. Is it because he has principles but can't articulate them? Or does he lack principles? I suspect it's the latter.

3. Jim Lehrer was as unbiased as a human being could be. He did not interject himself into the debate or draw attention to himself. His questions were tough but fair. He was respectful, even gentle. I salute him. I wish there were more journalists like him. Remember Keith's Law: Authoritativeness is inversely proportional to partisanship. Jim Lehrer is authoritative and respected because he is nonpartisan. Dan Rather is nonauthoritative and disrespected because he is partisan.

4. The best line of the debate was by President Bush, when he said that the only thing John Kerry has been consistent about is being inconsistent (or something to that effect). There were no real zingers in this debate, as there have been in previous presidential debates.

5. I predicted that John Kerry would come across as a scold and a schoolmarm. I was right. He was also smug. This will endear him to the liberal elites, whose self-righteousness and dogmatism escape their notice, but alienate him from ordinary Americans. A Kerry administration would be painful on the ears. I find it hard to listen to him.

6. John Kerry appears to me to be morally damaged from his experiences during and after Vietnam. I didn't know him before Vietnam, obviously, but I suspect he had a moral center before the war. Most people do. Now, many years later, he's morally scattered. He's what postmodern theorists call a discursive person—a person without an essence, a person constituted by discourse. John Kerry would be our first postmodern president. Maybe that's why the French like him so much.

7. President Bush won reelection tonight. Game over.

Defame, v.t. To lie about another. To tell the truth about another.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Donald Luskin of The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid quoted me in his column for National Review Online. See here. Don—bless his heart—calls me a "psychologist and philosopher." Actually, I'm a lawyer and philosopher. But hey, I do my share of armchair psychologizing. See here, for example. Thanks for the link, Don.

sublime, a. and n.

A. adj.

1. Set or raised aloft, high up. arch.

(a) in predicative use.

(b) In attrib. use; contextually = highest, top.

b. Of the arms: Uplifted, upraised.

c. Of flight; only in fig. context with implication of senses 4-7.

d. Anat. Of muscles: Lying near the surface, superficial. Also applied to the branch of anatomy treating of superficial muscles.

2. Of buildings, etc.: Rising to a great height, lofty, towering. arch.

3. Of lofty bearing or aspect; in a bad sense, haughty, proud. Chiefly poet.

b. Exalted in feeling, elated. Obs.

4. Of ideas, truths, subjects, etc.: Belonging to the highest regions of thought, reality, or human activity. Also occas. said of the thinker.

b. Of geometry: see quots. Obs.

5. Of persons, their attributes, feelings, actions: Standing high above others by reason of nobility or grandeur of nature or character; of high intellectual, moral, or spiritual level. Passing into a term of high commendation: Supreme, perfect.

b. colloq. with ironical force.

6. Of language, style, or a writer: Expressing lofty ideas in a grand and elevated manner.

7. Of things in nature and art: Affecting the mind with a sense of overwhelming grandeur or irresistible power; calculated to inspire awe, deep reverence, or lofty emotion, by reason of its beauty, vastness, or grandeur.

8. Of rank, status: Very high, exalted. arch.

b. As an honorific title of the Sultan of Turkey or other potentates; also transf. of their actions. Cf. Sublime Porte (see porte), and sublimity 2d.

c. Refined: more recently used in trade names to designate the finest quality.

9. Med. Of respiration: Of the highest degree.

B. n.

1. Now always with the: That which is sublime; the sublime part, character, property, or feature of. Formerly with a and pl. and occas. without article, chiefly in contexts where sublimity would now be used. a. in discourse or writing.

b. in nature and art.

c. in human conduct, life, feeling, etc.

2. With the: The highest degree or point, summit, or acme of. Now rare.

Democrats think they own the female and black votes. They're wrong about the female vote, as this author explains. (Thanks to Dan Gifford for the link.)

The article on which this chapter is based was published in the New Republic on the day when the confirmation hearing on Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court began, and was taken in some quarters as an oblique expression of opposition to the nomination. Nothing could have been more remote from my intentions. The article was written and mailed to the New Republic before Justice [Lewis] Powell announced his resignation, creating the vacancy that Bork was nominated to fill; it is sheer happenstance that the article was published when it was. Although I have my differences with Bork, I thought when he was nominated and I think today that he should have been confirmed and would have been an outstanding Justice.

(Richard A. Posner, Overcoming Law [Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1995], 230 n. 2)

Here's an expression that should be retired: "Did you and I hear the same speech?" Variations include "Did you and I attend the same concert?" and "Did you and I watch the same game?" Of course you did. You interpreted, experienced, or reacted to it differently. Why not just say that?

To the Editor:

I was dismayed to learn that the first (and probably the most widely watched) presidential debate will be televised by Fox News Channel, which will transmit its feed to the major news networks ("Panel Won't Sign Agreement but Will Enforce Some Terms," news article, Sept. 28).

With its decidedly Republican bias, Fox regularly broadcasts flattering footage of President Bush surrounded by large crowds, while John Kerry is shown wearing sunglasses and looking sinister, walking with a few aides.

Viewers will have no alternative but to have their impressions formed by unflattering shots of Mr. Kerry, while President Bush will be shown looking strong and compassionate.

Once again, it's style over substance.

Deborah Leavy
Haverford, Pa., Sept. 28, 2004

Some wags say that tonight's joint appearance in Miami by President Bush and John Kerry isn't a debate, but they must have a narrow conception of debate. My Oxford American Dictionary and Language Guide (1999) defines "debate," when used as a noun, as "a formal discussion on a particular matter, esp. in a legislative assembly, etc." This seems to apply to what the presidential candidates will be doing this evening. No, they won't be asking each other questions, and no, they won't be stating and refuting arguments, but they will be addressing each other (and the American people) on a particular matter, viz., the war on radical Islam.

What makes this a debate, in my view, is its formality. The interaction has a structure. For the first time, we'll be seeing the candidates together rather than separately at campaign stops or in advertisements. I'll be tuned in. I've been waiting all day with great anticipation. I expect President Bush to be calm, confident, and controlled. He will reassure Americans that he knows what he's doing and is determined to see it through. John Kerry must prove that he has the moral fiber necessary in a president. Americans don't want a vacillator in the Oval Office—not at this juncture in human history. Nuance may be tolerable, even desirable, at some times and places. This is not one of them.

If I had to make a prediction, it would be that John Kerry will come across as a scold and a schoolmarm. By contrast, President Bush will seem warm and fuzzy.

I've heard it said many times that there have been no terrorist attacks in the United States since the Department of Homeland Security was created. The clear implication is that the creation of this department prevented attacks. Other events have been cited as preventing attacks as well, such as our going to war in Iraq.

This line of reasoning is easily refuted by analogy. Suppose I paint a big "X" on my roof with the intention of warding off bombs. If, three years later, no bombs have fallen on my house, am I entitled to infer that the "X" prevented it? Of course not. There are other reasons besides my act of painting an "X" on my roof that bombs haven't fallen on my house. Bombs wouldn't have fallen on my house even if I hadn't painted a big "X" on my roof.

The mere fact that something didn't happen after an event occurred (or an action was taken) doesn't show that the event prevented it from happening. This is an instance of the post hoc ergo propter hoc ("after this, therefore because of this") fallacy. From the fact that event 2 occurred after event 1, it is inferred that event 2 occurred because of event 1. Temporal order may be a necessary condition of causation, but it is not sufficient.

A deductive argument can be refuted (i.e., shown to be invalid, and hence unsound) by stating a second argument that has all three of the following features: (1) the same form as the first; (2) true premises; and (3) a false conclusion. This is called "refutation by logical analogy" because the arguments have analogous (similar) forms.

What is the rationale for this procedure? First, understand that validity is a formal or structural property of arguments. To say that an argument is valid is to say nothing about whether its premises or conclusion are true. What it says is that if the premises are true, then the conclusion is true. A valid argument is such that it is logically impossible for its premise(s) to be true and its conclusion false. Validity is a relation between, not a property of, premise(s) and conclusion. A valid argument is one that preserves truth. We value validity because, and only because, we value truth.

Since validity concerns only the form of an argument, if two arguments have the same form and one of them is invalid, the other is invalid. (In other words, two arguments with the same form are either both valid or both invalid.) Suppose we are wondering whether a particular argument, X, is valid. One way to find out (and here I repeat what I said earlier) is to try to construct another argument of the same form as X that has obviously true premises and an obviously false conclusion. Suppose we can do this. Then, given the definition of "valid argument," the second (constructed) argument is invalid, for no valid argument (by definition) has true premises and a false conclusion. But if the second argument is invalid and has the same form as X, then X is invalid.

Here's an example. Suppose I wish to refute the argument that since no conservatives are liberals and all religious people are conservatives, all religious people are liberals. This argument—call it "A1"—has the following form:

1. No C is L.
2. All R is C.
Therefore,
3. All R is L.

1a. No triangles are squares.
2a. All three-sided figures are triangles.
Therefore,
3a. All three-sided figures are squares.

I'm 47 years old. I was born and raised in rural Michigan. At the age of 26, I moved to Tucson, Arizona, to attend graduate school. Five years later, I moved to Texas to take my first professorial job, a one-year position at Texas A&M University in College Station. I finished my Ph.D. dissertation that year and took a tenure-track position at The University of Texas at Arlington, where I've been ever since. So I spent 26 years in Michigan, five in Arizona, and 16 (and counting) in Texas.

Until a few years ago, I hated Texas. I didn't want to come here. What I wanted—desperately—was to be a philosophy professor. It just so happened that my first two job offers were from Texas universities. I felt cursed. But a strange thing happened. I came to love this place. I love the people, the climate, the values, the athletic scene, the history, and the terrain. I love the idea of Texas.

A couple of years ago, a law-school buddy who practices in Atlanta told me that Texas is barren and ugly. I used to think so myself. But I've come to appreciate the beauty of this great state. Texas landscapes aren't sublime, but sublimity isn't synonymous with beauty. Beauty can be understated and subtle. There have been times when my jaw dropped as I drove to or from a bike rally early in the morning. For one thing, we have magnificent big skies. Montana has nothing on us. One can watch clouds form on a distant horizon, knowing that they will become towering thunderclouds in a few hours. Texas has gorgeous sunrises and sunsets. They may not be as spectacular as those in Tucson, but they're close.

We Americans are conditioned to seek out extraordinary things and experiences. There is nothing wrong with this unless it prevents us from noticing and enjoying the understated things. I believe that every landscape is beautiful in its own way. If a particular landscape seems not to be, then it's the fault of the viewer, not the landscape. The beauty is there, waiting to be extracted. To my friends who see barrenness in Texas prairies and canyons, I say, "Spend some time here; get to know the land." You wouldn't judge a person on sight or a book by its cover. You shouldn't judge a landscape on the basis of a drive-through or a flyover.

To the Editor:

I read your article about married women's preference for George W. Bush with amazement and fear ("Kerry in a Struggle for a Democratic Base: Women," front page, Sept. 22).

I am the mother of two sons, one a college senior who will graduate into an economy that does not promise him the employment he has worked so hard to prepare for; and the other, a high school junior who is applying to college at a time when state school tuition increases have made our college savings inadequate to cover his education.

I am also a mother whose heart breaks for the mothers who have lost their children to the pointless war in Iraq and who worries that with no end to it in sight, my two sons are prime prospects for a draft that could result in the same fate for them.

As soccer kids grow toward adulthood, a new definition of "security mom" emerges: a mother who genuinely fears for the security of her children's future. And no mother in her right mind would entrust that future to someone whose policies have already threatened to destroy it.

Pamela Berns
New York, Sept. 22, 2004

I just wanted to let you know that I came across your blog and am so fascinated by it. I am a 24-year-old girl who is just beginning to develop her own political opinions. I come from an EXTREMELY conservative family, and now live in NYC where I am surrounded by EXTREME liberals. It's a little hard to formulate my own opinions when all I have are such opposite ideas and thoughts coming at me all the time. Your blog really enlightened me. I understand what you are saying, am learning from it, and it's really helping me to express my own personal political feelings. You are helping me to justify the way I feel and think, and for that I just want to say thank you.

I will continue to read with enthusiasm!

Sincerely,
Marissa Kristal

You need to get this album. Turn it up real loud. Let the power chords and satanic lyrics wash over you and cleanse you.

Each year, when I see my allergist for a new batch of serum, I have my blood pressure taken. It's been high for the past three years. I think part of it is stress from driving, since the drive to the allergist's office is along a busy stretch of road (called, appropriately enough, Airport Freeway), but I've come to grips with the possibility that I have high blood pressure. It seems to run in my family.

Ironically, my pulse is low. Today, for instance, my resting pulse was 51 beats a minute. (The average adult's resting pulse is 72.) I've taken my resting pulse every other week for almost 20 years. The average is 52. During marathon training, it's in the mid- to upper 40s. The lowest I've ever recorded is 42. Yesterday, when the nurse took my pulse, she said she couldn't find it. This scared me. She quickly added that it might just be low. That was a relief. I explained that it is low—because I'm an athlete.

In researching high blood pressure on the Internet last night, I discovered that salt is a culprit. (The other culprits—smoking, drinking alcohol, eating meat, and being overweight or inactive—don't apply to me.) I did not know this. I eat a lot of salt. I make popcorn nearly every night, and I put a whole teaspoon of fine-grained salt in the pan. I pour salt and pepper over my fried rice, which would be tasteless without them. I eat lots of saltine crackers. In short, I'm a salt lover. Always have been.

But things must change. I've decided to buy salt-free crackers from now on. (I eat them with soups.) No more popcorn until I find a salt substitute that tastes tolerably good. Where possible, I'll buy sodium-free versions of soups, chips, and other foods that I eat on a regular basis. If anyone out there has tips about reducing salt intake—especially about non-sodium products that have a salty taste—please let me know. I'm excited about getting my blood pressure down, and I think reducing my sodium intake is the key. I'm too young (47) to die. I have blogging to do, stinkers to take care of, books to write, worlds to move!

Clarionet, n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments that are worse than a clarionet—two clarionets.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Having been a liberal for many years, I know the liberal mind. Liberals thought they won the 2000 presidential election, and when they didn't, they set their sights on 2004. They were going to take back the country from the Neanderthals. Unfortunately for them, something happened between 2000 and 2004, namely, 9-11. This changed everything. It made Americans look outward rather than inward. It made Americans realize that there are people out there who hate us—simply because we're Americans—and would happily torture and kill us if they could. It made Americans reorder their priorities.

Liberals don't like foreign policy. It's too big and too messy. Their concern is domestic policy, and their objective to provide cradle-to-grave insurance for every American against all of life's contingencies. They want to eliminate such concepts as personal responsibility and desert from our collective thinking (including our law). Why? Because, deep down, they don't think anybody is responsible for anything or deserves anything. Each of us is a product of our environment, in their view. Our talents, character, beliefs, values, attitudes, and behavior depend solely on how we were raised. We are what we come from. Against this background, holding people responsible for the choices they make is cruel, like holding people responsible for their height or eye color. Distributing benefits and burdens on the basis of desert is absurd, since nobody, strictly speaking, deserves anything.

It frustrates liberals to no end that they cannot pursue their egalitarian dreams. To do so, they need power. But how can they get power when there's a war underway? War takes precedence over domestic policy, as John Kerry finally learned. This year, it's not the economy, stupid. It's the war, stupid. And I'm not talking about Iraq. I'm talking about the war against radical Islam, of which the war in Iraq is a small part. (Conservatives understand this.) One reason liberals opposed President Bush's war in Iraq so vehemently is that they knew it would make the 2004 election about war and peace rather than about domestic issues. Some have even suggested that this—reelection—was President Bush's "real reason" in going to war.

The suggestion that President Bush waged war in Iraq to enhance his electoral prospects tells you everything you need to know about contemporary liberalism. On the most important issue of our lifetimes, the issue on which all else that we value depends, all liberals can think about is partisan advantage. The world has changed. Liberals are trying to wish it away.

Ann Althouse is a professor of law at The University of Wisconsin-Madison and, like me, a blogger. Here is her post about how John Kerry "lost" her.

Americans increasingly view the courts, and particularly the Supreme Court, as political rather than legal institutions. Perhaps a lesson may be learned from another great institution: the press. The political coloration of news reporting is easier for the public to see than is that of judicial decisionmaking, and, as the press has in fact become more political, it has lost legitimacy with large sections of that public. Something of the same thing may be happening to law, more slowly but perhaps as inexorably. Conservatives, who now, by and large, want neutral judges, may decide to join the game and seek activist judges with conservative views. Should that come to pass, those who have tempted the courts to political judging will have gained nothing for themselves but will have destroyed a great and essential institution.

(Robert H. Bork, The Tempting of America: The Political Seduction of the Law [New York: The Free Press, 1990], 2)

To the Editor:

Re "An Un-American Way to Campaign" (editorial, Sept. 25):

Yes, it is appalling that the Republican Party, including President Bush, thinks that the way to campaign is to suggest that a vote for the Democratic nominee is a vote for Al Qaeda and that the terrorists are trying to elect John Kerry.

Unfortunately, this kind of character assassination has become the way Republicans do business in recent years.

Like you, I am shocked. Unlike you, I am not surprised.

Robert A. Frugé
Cathedral City, Calif., Sept. 25, 2004

To the Editor:

You call statements by Vice President Dick Cheney and others that John Kerry's election would increase the probability of another terrorist attack "appalling" and "despicable."

A Democratic candidate campaigning on his opposition to privatizing Social Security would be well within his rights to claim that his opponent's policies would produce rampant poverty among the elderly.

Similarly, a Republican candidate campaigning on national security should not be reprimanded for pointing out the negative consequences he believes will attend his opponent's policies.

Paul Alessio Mezzina
Baldwin, N.Y., Sept. 25, 2004

For some time now, I have suspected that liberals hope things go poorly in Iraq, for that increases the likelihood that their candidate, John Kerry, will be elected president. This is of course contemptible. See here for Christopher Hitchens's column on the subject. I'm tempted to say that liberals should state publicly that they hope the war goes well, but that wouldn't show that they mean it. Anyone so contemptible as to hope that things go poorly in our war in Iraq would not hesitate to lie about his or her hopes or other mental states.

Paul Krugman takes journalists to task—prospectively—for emphasizing style rather than substance. See here. I agree with Krugman that substance counts, but disagree about what counts as substance. Krugman thinks substance means facts. He says journalists should correct President Bush's expected factual errors. No. Substance means character, vision, and values. These will be on display during Thursday night's debate. Those who tune in will see which candidate is brave, determined, strong, and capable, and which grasps the nature of the threat we face in this frightening new world. I predict that John Kerry, who lacks character and vision and has the wrong values for this time and place, will fare poorly in comparison to President Bush, who will rise in the polls. Mark my words.

This week's link is to The Pragmatism Cybrary.

Abasement, n. A decent and customary mental attitude in the presence of wealth or power. Peculiarly appropriate in an employee when addressing an employer.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Somebody needs to say it, so I will: Bill Maher is a moron.

A friend to whom I hadn't spoken in a couple of years recently wrote from California to ask about my blog. He said I didn't sound the same. Where did all the pro-Bush stuff come from? What's this about supporting the war in Iraq? He asked whether my blog is meant to be taken seriously. Am I pretending to be something I'm not? Is it a big joke on my readers?

I suspect many of my friends, family members, former colleagues, and acquaintances have this reaction. What happened to the liberal or radical Keith? Where did this conservative Keith come from? Has he undergone a religious conversion? How did he go from making fun of George W. Bush—which he did for many years—to defending him from critics? How and why did his mind close and his heart go bad?

I laugh when I hear talk like this. I've undergone no conversion, religious or otherwise. I don't even think that I became conservative. One day I just realized that I am conservative. But this is just one part of my life, the part that concerns political morality. I'm still an atheist (have been since the age of ten); I'm still devoted to the welfare of animals (as every conservative should be); and I'm still committed to science.

Richard Mohr says that people don't decide to be gay or lesbian. They discover that that's who they are. Some remain in the closet, while others come out. This is precisely what happened to me with respect to conservatism. I've always believed very strongly in personal responsibility. I've always believed that social benefits and burdens should be distributed on the basis of individual merit and demerit rather than on the basis of class membership. Yes, I flirted with, and even defended, affirmative-action programs, but always with a sense that something important was going by the board.

To me, a conservative was someone who is religious, suspicious of (or antagonistic to) science, rigid with regard to sex, indifferent to the welfare of nonhuman animals, and, most importantly, anti-intellectual. I was none of these things, so it was unthinkable that I was a conservative. It was only when I read Roger Scruton and John Kekes in the past few years that I was able to see conservatism for what it is: a coherent and intellectually respectable political morality. These thinkers, and not the likes of Tom DeLay and Pat Robertson, became my models of conservatives. These others were cartoons, standing to conservatism as Michael Moore and Ted Kennedy stand to liberalism.

Once I realized that I'm a conservative, the only question was whether to come out of the closet. This was difficult. I knew that it would puzzle people, at a minimum, and that it might destroy valuable relationships. I knew that it would affect my prospects in philosophy and alienate me from my colleagues in the university. Roger Scruton left academia because he felt unwelcome there. I feared the same might happen to me.

But I'm stubborn and principled. I could not live in the closet. I am who I am, and I'm proud of who I am. If I'm a conservative, you'll know about it, by god. I'll be the best damn conservative I can be, just as I was the best damn liberal and the best damn feminist I could be in an earlier life. If my friends can't handle this, then they weren't really my friends to begin with, were they?

Keith,

Here is a photo gallery of vegan cats and dogs. I was proud to add my Boxers, Louie and Savannah, earlier today.

Joanna Lucas

Jeff Thieret's comparison of George W. Bush with Winston Churchill [see here] is mind-boggling. "Strong, principled leadership" certainly applied to Churchill, who stood firm against someone who was busily helping himself to the rest of Europe. "Strong, principled leadership," based on a delusion, has led Bush, blinded by his obsession with one man, to initiate a bloodbath with no end in sight. Churchill was a brilliant strategist. Bush has no plan B whatsoever. Churchill was a magnificent orator. Bush can barely string two words together. Churchill was a wonderful thinker, writer, and historian. Bush seemingly has no intellectual gifts at all. Churchill united his country as never before. Bush has divided his as never before. Churchill is remembered for the Battle of Britain. Bush will be remembered for Abu Ghraib. Winston Spencer Churchill was a great man. George W. Bush is no Churchill.

Yours sincerely,

Margaret Kerr
Sydney, Australia

To the Editor:

Re "The Candidates, Seen From the Classroom," by Stanley Fish (Op-Ed, Sept. 24):

Mr. Fish says that words "are the operational vehicles" of a speaker's integrity, "the visible manifestation of the character to which others respond."

Mr. Fish and his writing students have rediscovered two classical axioms: "Language shows a man: speak, that I may see thee" (Ben Jonson) and "Style is the man himself" (Buffon).

When President Bush's Democratic critics carp at his lack of substance, they miss the substantial integrity that many voters find in the president's style.

David Haley
Minneapolis, Sept. 24, 2004

[R]ock music has one appeal only, a barbaric appeal, to sexual desire—not love, not eros, but sexual desire undeveloped and untutored. It acknowledges the first emanations of children's emerging sensuality and addresses them seriously, eliciting them and legitimating them, not as little sprouts that must be carefully tended in order to grow into gorgeous flowers, but as the real thing. Rock gives children, on a silver platter, with all the public authority of the entertainment industry, everything their parents always used to tell them they had to wait for until they grew up and would understand later.

(Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind [New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987], 73)

9-27-84 Yesterday, just as I was about to broach the subject of human knowledge in my Introduction to Philosophy class, a student asked me to define the term "knowledge." Now, this is obviously a difficult task, one that philosophers are still wrangling over, but I felt obligated to give at least a rudimentary definition of the term so that the students would have something to work with as I lectured to them. I began the definition by suggesting that belief is a necessary condition of knowledge. Most of the students agreed with this. But as soon as I injected "truth" into the definition, I got a smattering of hand-raisings throughout the room. Oddly enough, they disagreed that truth is a necessary condition of knowledge! I asked them in mock disbelief if believing some proposition alone gave one knowledge of that proposition, and several of them—to my surprise—said that it did. Now, I had expected a bit of disagreement when I got to the question of justification for belief, but I never expected to have disagreement at the stage of truth! Almost all epistemologists, past and present, have accepted truth as a necessary condition of knowledge, and so do I. But these students were determined to resist, so I gave them the example of someone putting a stick into water. Does it follow from the fact that one believes that sticks, when placed in water, bend, that one knows that sticks, when placed in water, bend? I asked. Clearly, it does not, but a couple of students remained unpersuaded by the example. These students, it appeared, were hopeless relativists. They held firm to their view that individuals have different beliefs (a proposition with which I agree, obviously), but then went beyond this to insist that truth, as well as belief, is relative to the individual. Not wanting to press the issue in class, I agreed to disagree with them and moved on to a discussion of Rene Descartes's Meditations. I never cease to be amazed at the relativism of my students, whether it be in the field of ethics or in epistemology. I think that they view certainty and objectivity as intolerance, which they abhor. Clearly, however, certainty and objectivity are not synonymous with intolerance.

rant, v.

[a. obs. Du. randten, ranten (also randen: see rand v.) to talk foolishly, to rave; cf. G. ranzen to frolic, spring about, etc.]

1. intr. (or with it). To talk or declaim in an extravagant high-flown manner; to use bombastic language.

b. To storm or scold violently. Const. at, against. Obs.

2. intr. (or with it). To be jovial, boisterous, uproariously gay or merry; to lead a gay or dissolute life; also, to sing loudly.

3. trans. To utter in a declamatory and bombastic manner; to mouth. Also with out.

APPENDED FROM ADDITIONS 1993

rant, v. Add: [1.] c. To speak or discourse vehemently, intemperately, or wildly; freq. with on (implying duration) or const. at (a person), about (a subject), to 'go on' (at one about something). Also in phr. to rant and rave.

Australia, n. A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Every Monday morning, like clockwork, I record the number of visitors to my blog. I averaged 529.4 visitors a day for the past week, which is my second-best week. (The best was 532.7, in early August.) At that rate, I would have over 193,000 visits in a year. I realize that many readers visit daily (or even more often), but that's a lot of people! I never thought I would have such a large readership, although obviously I hoped I would.

Just so you know, I get nothing financially from this blog. Indeed, it costs me money. I pay five dollars a month for the site counter. The whole thing is done out of love: for writing, for doing philosophy, for talking politics, for ranting. Yes, I rant. There's nothing wrong with ranting. Of course, if one did nothing but rant, one would go crazy. I like to think I do a healthy amount of ranting. The unranted life is not worth living!

Thank you for visiting my blog. That so many people visit it every day makes me feel responsible, which disciplines me. But keep in mind that what you see posted is the equivalent of a first or second draft. My posts are not polished philosophical essays. In some cases, they amount to little more than brainstormed jottings. But if that inspires, edifies, or entertains you, I'm happy. Incidentally, I hope that you are writing as well as reading. They go together.

Some things are visible and some are not. Some things, such as a limp, can't but be visible. This is why it's nonsensical to describe someone as "visibly limping." I can be visibly upset, visibly worried, or visibly alarmed, since these are mental states that need not—and sometimes are not—manifested in behavior. You should use "visibly" only when what's being described might not be visible. If you come across other improper uses of "visibly," please bring them to my attention.

Happy birthday, Peg. How old are you? Really.

Norm Weatherby has posted several images from yesterday's bike rally in Bonham, Texas. See here. We had fun. The weather was gorgeous, despite a high pollen count that had me sneezing all evening. Norm and I love small towns. The best way to see them is abike. I've passed through hundreds of small Texas towns during my fifteen years of doing bike rallies. Texans are very friendly. Come to visit; you'll see.

I had the same reaction as Michelle Malkin to David Broder's column. See here.

Dr Bill Vallicella out in the desert has posted a reflection on the point of debate. See here. Keep up the good work, Dr Bill. You deserve a large audience.

The story of this election year is the demise of big journalism. See here for Hugh Hewitt's take.

     Oakland Athletics     88-67     --

     Anaheim Angels        87-68     01

     Texas Rangers         86-69     02

President Bush is closing in on John Kerry in California. See here. Things are not looking good for the haughty, French-looking, liberal senator from Massachusetts.

Art Green is a blogger from Mount Pleasant, Michigan, home of the Central Michigan University Chippewas. I grew up in Vassar, not far from Mount Pleasant.

Jeff continues his fine blogging. See here. His only defect, to my discerning eye, is his affection for the Oakland Athletics.

Here is an excellent column by Michael Coren about liberal media bias. (Thanks to Dan Gifford for the link.)

Where does the pope think wealth comes from? See here. Does he grasp the link between poverty and the Catholic church's position on contraception? How can anyone take this man seriously?

9-26-84 . . . We finally finished talking about religious belief in my Introduction to Philosophy class, and have now moved on to the subject of human knowledge. Before class started this morning, I passed around Bernard Williams's [1929-2003] biography of Rene Descartes [1596-1650] (which has a painting of Descartes on the cover), so that the students could see what he looked like. [Bernard Williams, Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1978).] We'll be discussing Descartes's Meditations [on First Philosophy (1641)] for the next few days. When I was a student, I always enjoyed seeing pictures of the people whose ideas we were discussing, so I suspect that the same is true of my students. They seemed to be entranced by this "character" Descartes, who resolved to doubt everything and replace in his mind only true beliefs. They especially enjoyed the brief discussions of "dream doubt" and "demon doubt." Afterward, a student who is not even in my class approached me and asked what course it was that I was teaching. He said that he had heard parts of several of my lectures while passing by and had found himself interested in what we were talking about. I told him that it was an Introduction to Philosophy course and that if he were interested, he should enroll in a future course. Having fallen in love with philosophy myself, I can easily understand how others might do the same. I may have "hooked" someone today, however inadvertently.

In Professor [Alvin] Goldman's [Theory of Knowledge] class this afternoon, I raised my hand and expressed doubt about my continued ability to rely on intuitions. It seems that the more analyses of knowledge that I encounter, the less I am able to intuit whether or not there is knowledge in any particular case. Intuitions are a stock in trade of the epistemologist, as they are of the ethicist and the philosopher of science, but I find that my intuitions are easily "tainted" by analysis. Whenever I ask myself if a given person has knowledge, I find myself referring to one or more analyses of knowledge that I have encountered, and that is not good. I asked Alvin whether this was a common phenomenon and whether he had any advice for preventing "tainting." He said that it is a common problem and that one must consciously eliminate reference to any analysis. It is possible, he said, to retain one's intuitions after years of formal analysis, for he has. That was refreshing to hear, but I'm still not sure that I can accomplish it. Perhaps I had poor intuitions to begin with. One thing is clear: I have extremely poor intuitions when it comes to ethical theory.

To the Editor:

"Online Columnist Quits, Citing Excessive Editing" (news article, Sept. 20) said that I ended my column for the Poynter Institute because of excessive editing and that Poynter was following common journalistic practice in withholding the name of the woman who accuses Kobe Bryant of rape.

I disagree. I believe that it is common journalistic practice to name both plaintiff and defendant in a civil suit—which has now been filed—and I am surprised that The Times and other mainstream media are not doing so. It is because I sought to follow that practice, and was not allowed to, that I ended the column.

I believe that choosing to name only one party in this suit is a matter of ethics, not editing.

Geneva Overholser
Washington, Sept. 21, 2004
The writer is a professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

Restitution, n. The founding or endowing of universities and public libraries by gift or bequest.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

I should probably explain my occasional posts entitled "Twenty Years Ago." Someone wrote this morning to say that my incipient Marxism is "disquieting." Someone else wrote to criticize me. Yikes!

I began keeping a journal—a diary—on 21 November 1978, when I was twenty-one and a half years old. I was in my fourth year of college at The University of Michigan-Flint, but lived at home in rural Vassar with my parents. My friend Tom Riness had died in a car-train accident the previous January. This was the first real loss I had suffered and it devastated me. It made me realize that I'm mortal and that I could die at any time. The thought of leaving nothing behind troubled me, so I decided to start recording my thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

The journal continued until the early 1990s, at which time I shifted my writing to e-mail (which I of course save). I have a record of every day of law school and graduate school.

As the twentieth anniversary of my first journal entry approached in November 1998, I decided to transcribe my journal to the computer in real time. It would take more than a dozen years to complete the project, but I was up for it. I'm diligent and patient. For five years, I transcribed my handwritten journal entries. Then I switched to entries printed out on a dot-matrix printer, which I bought when I started graduate school in the fall of 1983. I've been transcribing for almost six years, which means I'm almost half done. It's been a blast. Every day, I go back in time twenty years. It's like living my life again. I laugh, cry, shake my head in wonder, and rue the passage of time.

Today—to show you how it works—I will transcribe my journal entry for 26 September 1984. I send the transcribed entries to my mother and my brother Glenn by e-mail. Whether they read them is another question. It takes about an hour a day to complete the task. Some entries are longer than others. If you were reading my blog this past July and August, you saw that I posted entries from my 1984 bike ride across Arizona. (See here for the prologue.) Those entries were very long and took a lot of time.

Some of what I wrote twenty years ago bears on my current political and moral views. If I think a particular paragraph might be of interest to my blog readers, I post it. The paragraph I posted yesterday (see here) shows that I was on the verge of becoming an egalitarian (I called it "Marxism"). Five years before, I had been a libertarian, which is as far from egalitarianism as one can get. I've been many things in my 47 years. I began as a liberal, became a card-carrying member of the Libertarian Party in law school, became a liberal (egalitarian) in graduate school, and eventually fancied myself a radical feminist. Only in the past two or three years did I realize that I'm a conservative. Some will say I've regressed. Obviously, I see it differently.

I hate to break it to you, but World War III is underway. The war is not between nation-states, as in World Wars I and II. It's between the West, with its democratic and secular values, and the Islamic world. Christianity may have been a totalizing religion at one point in its history, but it adapted to—made its peace with—the secular world. Islam has not. Whether it will remains to be seen.

Islam on its face refuses to acknowledge a realm that is outside the religious realm. Religion is pervasive. It governs every aspect of life, from relations between the sexes to education to commerce to science to politics. To a Muslim, nation-states have no intrinsic value or legitimacy. They are temporary artifacts, to be dispensed with as need be. Nonmuslims are infidels. If they will not convert, they must die.

I speak in this blog of "radical Muslims," but I think that obscures the fact that Islam itself is the problem. Nonradical Muslims may appear to be assimilated into Western culture, but they are loyal to their religion, not to their nation. They cannot, therefore, be relied upon to fight for the West. I'm not advocating that Muslims be oppressed, but Western nations should think seriously about limiting immigration. It is said that Europe is well on its way to being Islamicized. That would be a great loss for Western values of individual liberty, secularism, and science. Just ask yourself whether you'd like to live in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Afghanistan.

I'm only one person, but I intend to do what I can, within the bounds of the law, to preserve my Western cultural (Judeo-Christian) heritage. You ought to consider joining me. In the meantime, read Roger Scruton's illuminating book The West and the Rest: Globalization and the Terrorist Threat (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2002). It will frighten you, but in a good way, for fear is an excellent motivator.

What of non-human animals? Like people, other animals have an interest in avoiding suffering. The duty to relieve suffering must apply with the same vigor to animal suffering as it does to human suffering, unless it is the case that the interest of animals in avoiding suffering carries less moral weight than the similar interest of humans in avoiding suffering, even where the intensity and duration of suffering are equivalent. This is a much disputed issue, which I cannot properly examine here. As I said in chapter 1, my own view is that the suffering of non-human animals carries no less moral weight than the suffering of humans, and that consequently the duty to relieve suffering applies with equal force to both.

A strong duty to relieve suffering that does not discriminate between species would require radical changes in the ways that we relate to other animals. It would, for example, require an end to the practice of factory farming, in which billions of animals are annually subjected to extreme suffering in order to supply humans with meat and other products at the lowest possible cost. It would also raise difficult questions about the practice of experimenting on animals to obtain medical benefits for humans. These cases, much discussed in the literature on animal ethics, involve suffering that is inflicted by human beings. But a species-blind duty to relieve suffering would also make it a prima facie requirement to save animals from suffering brought upon them by natural conditions and other animals. That seems right to me. (That the idea is unfamiliar to many people does not make it absurd.) There are, however, limits to what we can do. Efforts to teach animals less aggressive behavior or to protect them from a harsh environment would frequently fail, and when successful, would often require heavy-handed forms of intervention that would do more harm than good. The difficulty and expense of these efforts might also raise concerns about the limits of obligatory sacrifice. And there are moral opportunity costs: an equivalent expenditure of resources, directed elsewhere, might do much more to reduce the cumulative badness of suffering in the world. If we are serious about reducing animal suffering, we should start with the suffering that is inflicted by human beings.

(Jamie Mayerfeld, Suffering and Moral Responsibility, Oxford Ethics Series, ed. Derek Parfit [New York: Oxford University Press, 1999], 116-7 [footnotes omitted])

9-25-84 I can't believe what I wrote five years ago. I criticized my "liberal" law-school classmates for siding with the "little guy" against the "ravages" of big business and big government. Didn't these students see, I queried, that capitalism was more harmonious with "human nature" and created a higher "standard of living" than any other system? Now, however, I am in complete agreement with the students. For one thing, it does not follow that because human beings are acquisitive (if indeed they are) that the economy should be tailored to fit that trait; in fact, it is arguable (and I would so argue) that the economy ought to be organized specifically to counteract acquisitiveness. But more importantly, I fundamentally disagree with my earlier implication that creating a higher standard of living is the supreme goal (or even an important goal) of a society. I am now prepared to argue that the standard of living is only one goal among many in our society, and that it must sometimes bow to other moral considerations, such as justice and fairness. And so, in just five short years, I have done a complete about-face in political philosophy. I wonder what the next five years will bring. Prediction: I'll be a die-hard Marxist. I'm already moving in that direction.

Keith asked [here]: "Does anybody remember the contest, sponsored by a newspaper, to invent a new word by changing one letter of an old word? My favorite was 'reintarnation': coming back to life as a hillbilly."

The Washington Post's Annual Style Invitational Championship once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here is a selection of this year's winners:

Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

Bozone: The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

Cashtration: The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

Decafalon: The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

Glibido: All talk and no action.

Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

Arachnoleptic fit: The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

Beelzebug: Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

Caterpallor: The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.

(Thanks to Bob Hessen.)

I had to stop for gasoline on the way home from today's bike rally in Bonham, Texas, which, by the way, went very well. (See here and here for images, one at the start and one at the finish. I'm in red. The other man is my friend Joe Culotta, with whom I rode.) As I pumped the gas, a man of about twenty-five walked up. He was wearing dirty shorts and carrying a knapsack. I knew from his body language that he was going to hit me up for money, and he did. It was clear as soon as he started talking that he was under the influence of alcohol or some other drug. His speech was rapid and garbled. He asked whether I had a lawn for him to mow or some other work for him to do. He said something about not having a place to stay and about his mother dying.

I pumped my gas, looking at him and listening to him but not otherwise responding. Finally, I told him that I didn't have any work for him to do. He hinted around for money. I didn't respond, so he asked, "Do you want me to go?" I nodded in the affirmative. By the time I was done pumping—for the record, I paid $1.859 per gallon for Shell Power Plus gasoline, the middle grade—he was sitting on the cement on the side of the service station. I had a few dollars in my wallet, so I drove around the station so I could talk to him out of my car's window.

"Are you on drugs?" I asked, as he sat up from his reclining position. He swore he wasn't. "Have you been drinking?" Again, no. He was lying. I handed him a five-dollar bill and said, "What's wrong with you? Get your life under control. A healthy young man like you shouldn't be wandering around begging for money." He thanked me as I drove off.

Some of you will curse me for preaching to (or badgering) this poor man. I don't care. Lots of people suffer misfortunes and don't disintegrate, as this man apparently has. The first step in getting a job and stability is clearing his head. As long as he ingests drugs (including alcohol), he'll go nowhere and be nothing. I was hoping that if another young(ish) man told him to get his shit together, it would register. I like to think that after I left, he reflected on what I said and vowed to change his life. More likely, he bought a bottle of wine in the store and laughed at my naiveté.

Any lawyer will tell you that the most important power a judge or advocate possesses is the ability to frame issues. The classic case of this was in the 1986 case of Bowers v. Hardwick, when Justice Byron White, writing for the United States Supreme Court, framed the issue as "whether the Federal Constitution confers a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy." This was the narrowest and least charitable framing of the issue. It was so narrow that the issue resolved itself—which may have been Justice White's intention. If he had framed the issue more broadly and charitably—as involving the application of the Court-created right to privacy—the outcome would not have seemed foreordained. Justice White didn't earn his conclusion; he stole it.

Big journalism, by which I mean The New York Times and other big-city newspapers, the wire services, and the television networks, have long had the ability to frame issues. They set the agenda and terms of public discourse. Politicians had to reach voters through them, for there was no way to go around them. All this changed with the advent of talk radio in the 1990s, which brought people together into a dissident community. Feminists should understand this concept. They say that early consciousness-raising sessions following the publication of Betty Friedan's 1963 book The Feminine Mystique made women realize that they were not alone, that women all over the nation were feeling what they felt, believing what they believed, and experiencing what they experienced. Talk radio was consciousness raising for conservatives.

The Internet has accelerated this process, and the acceleration has been geometric rather than arithmetic. People who, twenty years ago, had no source of information about public affairs other than via big journalism have built communities of their own—communities that don't require spatial proximity. From the comfort of my study, I can interact with like-minded people from all over the globe. Without the Internet, I would not have met Dr John J. Ray, for example. He is a one-man industry. Every day, from Brisbane, Australia, he disseminates information about Leftist bias in government, academia, journalism, the arts, and science. He has thousands of loyal readers. He and others like him are the Betty Friedans of cyberspace.

Big journalism is still in denial about the existence and power of this new information flow. Jonathan Klein, a former CBS executive, showed his ignorance the other day by dismissing bloggers as "guy[s] sitting in [their] living room[s] in [their] pajamas." Anyone who surfs the Internet knows that this is risible. Many bloggers are hyper-alert, hyper-intelligent, hyper-informed, and well-spoken. We've seen recently that they can do research in a day that takes traditional journalists weeks or months. At some point, big journalism is going to have to come to grips with this new reality. Until it does, it will look silly and irrelevant. Its power to frame issues, set the agenda, and dictate the terms and conditions of public discourse is long gone. A journalistic aristocracy has become a democracy. In economic terms, an oligopoly has become a competitive marketplace.

Koran, n. A book which the Mohammedans foolishly believe to have been written by divine inspiration, but which Christians know to be a wicked imposture, contradictory to the Holy Scriptures.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Marian Leif Palley, "Intergovernmentalization of Health Care Reform: The Limits of the Devolution Revolution," Journal of Politics 59 (August 1997): 657.

"The Jurisprudence of Yogi Berra," Emory Law Journal 46 (spring 1997): 697.

Monica J. Casper, "Feminist Politics and Fetal Surgery: Adventures of a Research Cowgirl on the Reproductive Frontier," Feminist Studies 23 (summer 1997): 233.

Cathy Charles, Jonathan Lomas, and Mita Giacomini, "Medical Necessity in Canadian Health Policy: Four Meanings and . . . a Funeral," Milbank Quarterly 75 (1997): 365.

Stephen Wolf, "Race Ipsa: Vote Dilution, Racial Gerrymandering, and the Presumption of Racial Discrimination," Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy 11 (1997): 225.

Does anybody remember the contest, sponsored by a newspaper, to invent a new word by changing one letter of an old word? My favorite was "reintarnation": coming back to life as a hillbilly.

Peg Kaplan has no patience for liberal dissimulation, duplicity, disingenuousness, dogmatism, defeatism, disputatiousness, disrespectfulness, or do-goodism.

Thanks, Rose, for posting this. It moved me.

The Texas Horned Lizard is indigenous to Texas and a few other states. It's a threatened species under federal law, so y'all leave 'em alone. By the way, Texas Christian University's athletic teams are nicknamed the Horned Frogs. I've also heard the expression "horned toad" or "horny toad." It's all very confusing!

Professional football put a damper on Ricky Williams's pot smoking, so he quit the sport. Today he got the bill for his stupidity. See here.

[T]here is no doubt in my mind that the Supreme Court will eventually regain whatever trust and confidence among the American public that it lost in Bush v. Gore. The Supreme Court has often misbehaved and squandered its political capital foolishly. It has done some very unjust and wicked things in the course of its history, and yet people still continue to respect and admire it. If the Court survived Dred Scott v. Sandford, it can certainly survive this.

(Jack M. Balkin, "Bush v. Gore and the Boundary Between Law and Politics," The Yale Law Journal 110 [June 2001]: 1407-58, at 1453)

See here for Jeff's word of the day.

Smear, v.t. Say something true but unflattering about my candidate.

To the Editor:

Nicholas D. Kristof paints a moral equivalency between the controversies arising from John Kerry's Vietnam record and smears against Republican candidates past and present. But what is a smear and what is legitimate debate?

Mr. Kerry willingly chose to make his war service a focal point of his campaign. He chose to wrap himself in Vietnam at the convention. While it seems a tad silly to suggest that four months of combat, however noble, is a basis to elect one president, Mr. Kerry made that choice.

To deconstruct an image chosen by a candidate is fair game, and it is for the electorate to decide whether one side or the other has the correct interpretation of Mr. Kerry's persona.

Leonard N. Budow
New York, Sept. 22, 2004

Liberals love to make fun of President Bush's garbled syntax. If he were running against the mellifluous Bill Clinton, he'd be in trouble. But he's not; he's running against the muddle-headed John Kerry. See here.

Liberals think that if they express a proposition often (and vehemently) enough, it becomes true. How many times have you heard it said that President Bush had only one reason to wage war in Iraq, namely, to prevent an attack on the United States? This wasn't the only reason for war, objectively speaking. It wasn't even President Bush's only reason. See here for the bill of particulars against Saddam Hussein. If liberals had been paying attention and were less eager to misrepresent President Bush's position for partisan gain, they would know that the case for war was multifaceted and multilayered. (Thanks to one of my readers, Bill, for the link.)

Female, n. One of the opposing, or unfair, sex.

The Maker, at Creation's birth,
With living things had stocked the earth.
From elephants to bats and snails,
They all were good, for all were males.
But when the Devil came and saw
He said: "By Thine eternal law
Of growth, maturity, decay,
These all must quickly pass away
And leave untenanted the earth
Unless Thou dost establish birth"—
Then tucked his head beneath his wing
To laugh—he had no sleeve—the thing
With deviltry did so accord,
That he'd suggested to the Lord.
The Master pondered this advice,
Then shook and threw the fateful dice
Wherewith all matters here below
Are ordered and observed the throw;
Then bent His head in awful state,
Confirming the decree of Fate.
From every part of earth anew
The conscious dust consenting flew,
While rivers from their courses rolled
To make it plastic for the mould.
Enough collected (but no more,
For niggard Nature hoards her store)
He kneaded it to flexile clay,
While Nick unseen threw some away.
And then the various forms He cast,
Gross organs first and finer last;
No one at once evolved, but all
By even touches grew and small
Degrees advanced, till, shade by shade,
To match all living things He'd made
Females, complete in all their parts
Except (His clay gave out) the hearts.
"No matter," Satan cried; "with speed
I'll fetch the very hearts they need"—
So flew away and soon brought back
The number needed, in a sack.
That night earth rang with sounds of strife—
Ten million males had each a wife
That night sweet Peace her pinions spread
O'er Hell—ten million devils dead!
G.J.

(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Keith,

I haven't seen the replies you have received to your "Confusions and Fallacies About Animals, Part 19" blog entry [see here], but I'm not sure whether your respondents intend to be arguing as follows:

1. Keith feeds his dogs meat.
Therefore,
2. It is o.k. for me to eat meat.

1. Keith admits (or should admit) that Shelbie and Sophie don't need to eat meat to survive or be healthy. [Dogs easily thrive on vegetarian diets.]

2. Why does Keith feed his dogs meat and animal products, if they don't need them to be healthy?

3. Because their lives would be impoverished if they didn't consume meat and animal products (impoverished in the sense that they wouldn't have the pleasurable experiences, satisfactions, and enjoyments that they currently get from eating meat and animal products).

4. So, Keith must think that it is o.k. to eat meat and animal products whenever refraining from doing so would result in an impoverished life (impoverished in the sense of lacking those pleasurable experiences, satisfactions, and enjoyments that would be gotten from eating meat).

5. If I were to refrain from eating meat, my life would be impoverished in just this sense, i.e. I would no longer get the pleasurable experiences, satisfactions, and enjoyments that I currently get from eating meat.

6. Given the principle identified in 4 above, which Keith apparently endorses in 3, it must be o.k. for ME to eat meat (since my refraining from doing so would result in my living an impoverished life), at least according to Keith's principles.

The world is a complex place. It could be better, but it could be worse. Some things are good, some bad. The liberal strategy this election year seems to be to emphasize the bad, both economically and in terms of foreign policy. President Bush, meanwhile, emphasizes the good. He is an indefatigable optimist. This optimism—which Ronald Reagan shared—infuriates liberals, who measure the world against utopia rather than against any reasonable standard that factors in human ignorance and malice.

Americans won't elect a pessimist, and Jimmy Carter's ignominious defeat in 1980 shows that they will cast out presidents who turn pessimistic. So if John Kerry and his supporters, such as the ever-scowling Paul Krugman, harp on the bad without acknowledging the good, they will come across as killjoys and defeatists and President Bush will be reelected. See here for Paul Krugman's latest dose of pessimism. Keep it up, Paul. You're playing into Republican hands.

9-23-84 . . . While taking a five-mile walk this evening, I saw several species of animal. Behind the apartment complex, near the wash, I saw a roadrunner, a lizard, and several small squirrels. While walking along Tanque Verde Road, I saw a Richardson's ground squirrel, which looks for all the world like a miniature prairie dog. It was great to see these animals as I walked along. The roadrunner, which was about ten to twelve inches high, stood perfectly still while I examined it (from a distance of about ten feet). It had a small red mark on its head (for what purpose, I don't know), and a long, thin tail. As soon as I moved, it ran quickly into the bushes. (For the longest time, I had thought that another bird species, which resides near my apartment, was a roadrunner, but now I'm convinced that I was wrong. The other species is much smaller and runs in groups.) As I walked along the bank of the wash, I saw several small squirrels rummaging in the debris. They stopped what they were doing when they saw me, but I sat quietly down and watched them. Not wanting to give themselves away to this intruder, they remained perfectly still, keeping their little eyes fixed on me. I would say that they were four inches long (excluding the tail) and grayish-brown in color. When two other squirrels joined the one that I was watching, I realized that they could probably hear the music that was emanating from my earphones. If it soothed me, it probably also soothed them. In fact, I wonder if they liked hearing the strains of Supertramp. I sure did. I'm glad that they got the chance to be entertained, if only briefly.

For any given action, even one as mundane as buying a new vehicle or deciding where, when, and whether to vacation, there are reasons both for performing it and against performing it. Take the war in Iraq. There were many reasons for waging it and many against waging it. I hope that those who supported the war are willing to acknowledge that there was a case against it, just as I hope that those who opposed the war are willing to acknowledge that there was a case for it.

There's also such a thing as a given person's reasons for or against performing an action. Suppose there were five reasons to go to war in Iraq, objectively speaking. President Bush may have had some of these reasons but not all of them. For example, he may not have cared about liberating the Iraqi people, even though that was a reason—objectively speaking—in favor of going to war. (You do believe it is, don't you?) Liberating the Iraqi people would then be a reason for waging war but not one of President Bush's reasons.

Finally, there is a difference between having a reason and articulating it. I may have three reasons to perform a particular action but articulate only one of them. As for why I would articulate only some of my reasons, there are many reasons. Perhaps my audience can't follow complex reaso