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William, you are a true inspiration, my friend! All the best of luck and may your mission be wildly successful! Cheers. (Readers, please feel free to
support William’s organization, Cultures in Harmony). http://www.juilliard.edu/journal/2010-2011/1009/articles/afghanistan.html
Bewildering account of a nuclear-tipped Muslim nation armed to the teeth and yet unable to help hundreds and hundreds of thousands of it’s people under water and in deep poverty. If you read nothing else, look at the last paragraph. Yes, all nations are inextricable knots of paradoxes, and Pakistan is no exception, but perhaps with an imagination colored by the work of Salman Rushdie, the reality in rural areas bordering Afghanistan is that much more stark.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/opinion/26sethi.html?_r=2
One of the most interesting articles I’ve ever read on NYT.
The extent to which our mother tongue(s) influence(s) our spatial orientation, appreciation of color, form and pitch, and other critical aspects of the human experience is truly profound . The field of cognitive linguistics is only beginning to unravel the myriad mysteries of the mind as revealed through our conception of the universe vis-a-vis language. Enjoy!!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html
Great collection of Kundera essays on art, music, history and the downfall of aesthetic importance in Europe. Promises to be a real treat.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/books/review/Simon-t.html?hp
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Yuri Kruman
> This line of research makes the same fundamentally false assumption > as do people who believe kosher food is inherently more healthy. > “Well, not mixing milk and meat is healthier.” “Well, not eating > bottom-dwelling seafood avoids infection risk.” “Pork breeds > trichinosis.” The moral code behind kashrut isn’t based on health > reasons divined by Rabbis millenia in advance of modern medicine. > The Torah is the moral code behind it – many parts of it in seeming > opposition to human pragmatism. To say disgust is a cause of, not a > companion to moral judgment is akin to make a saddle into the > jockey. It quite misses the point.
> > Other arguments against: within evolutionary biology, it would be > difficult to argue for genetic encoding of disgust as wildly > different from Western to Eastern societies, especially in places > like Turkey. Secondly, since disgust is so easily conditioned by > associative Pavlovian reflex, it’s a highly malleable and dynamic > experimental variable. While I think this line of research is myopic > and misdirected, it does ask some important questions about the > origins of morality in different societies and religions. > > http://mobile.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/08/15/ewwwwwwwww/?pa…
The best of times, and the worst of times for scientific research. A prodigious mass of data funded by burgeoning grant money is to a large degree failing to produce new blockbuster theories and disease cures/ treatments. More importantly for that “universal theory of everything,” the predominant lines of inquiry have tended to value the “bulldozer” approach (the tried-and-true above independent thought), overly standardizing and subverting basic research to an industrial production of pharma and clinical applications, instead of science just for the sake of expanding our knowledge of ourselves and the universe. The result is hardly surpising. I don’t see any quick solutions to improve this myopic approach to policy, unfortunately. The NIH establishment is far too conservative for science to progress toward solving the greatest questions of our 21st century – the functioning of the mind and the biomedical basis for our existence.
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/07/sciences-dead-end/
Odile Hellier is an inspiration. Her Parisian independent bookstore isn’t only a landmark and intellectual outpost, but also sadly increasingly obsolete. Next time in Paris, a must-visit destination. All the best of luck to her, a keeper of the flame (some would say, a dinosaur).
http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/014_05/2054
Not an easy genre in which to look at things with a fresh eye, but it seems director Yael Hersonski has done just that.
http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/08/18/movies/18unfinished.html
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Yuri Kruman
What makes our generation so growth-retarded, compared to baby boomers? Too many choices and nothing to choose from? Why the lack of a sense of urgency? What, we suddenly live forever? It’s really troubling, our exhibitionist voyeurism and self-centeredness, together with eternal optimism and lack of accountability. Sure, our brains may still be maturing and we may enjoy “looking for ourselves,” but isn’t this kind of decadence one step away from terminal decline? Hard to be bullish on such a phenomenon. That said, apparently we’re not so different from our parents, after all, certainly not for long.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine
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Yuri Kruman
(h/t: Mom) about Polansky’s uncanny participation in several pivotal events of the 20th century, and what makes his films so powerfully latent in the mind… [hope you can read Russian ;]
http://www.sem40.ru/culture/afisha/24166/
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Yuri Kruman
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