thinkness - January 2005 Archives

January 2005

A novel about oneself - So over the past 2 weeks, thinkness has seen three movies, all of which have been a bit emotionally overwhelming for me: The Anniversary Party, Before Sunset, and Sideways. It's strange, I don't necessarily usually seek out movies like that,... Posted in random bits of detritus | 0 Trackbacks | 43 Comments
Let's get together and feel alright - This very interesting account of the opening of the World Social Forum reminds thinkness of an old topic that I meant to post about. In constrasting the WSF with the World Economic forum, Samuel Loewenberg mentions that the WEF has... Posted in psychology & consciousness | 0 Trackbacks | 63 Comments

Understanding versus sanity - thinkness just had a weird thought while washing the dishes: one can easily analyze life a little too closely, and there's some arbitrary line -- different for different people at different times -- past which we don't want to go.... Posted in psychology & consciousness | 0 Trackbacks | 39 Comments
Party Pooper - One Fed chairman apparently said his job was to "take away the punch bowl just when the party gets going." Damn dismal science. Also, it seems that Paul Krugman is a card-carring Lakoffnik. [He says Alan Greenspan is a "stern... Posted in color , lakoff the genius , political currents | 0 Trackbacks | 66 Comments

Verbs that are anatomy - While thinkness is getting its language dork on, I'll add one more category of words: body parts that are verbs [and not just meaning "hit something with that part of the body," like "knee"]. Brain, foot, eye [sorta lame], nose,... Posted in language | 0 Trackbacks | 8 Comments
Verbs that are animals - One of the greatest lines ever to emerge from The Simpsons [not "the Simpsons," mind you -- check the masthead] was when Homer was dropping some sage fatherly science on Bart: "Son, weaselling out is what separates us from the... Posted in language | 0 Trackbacks | 23 Comments
Words that are bad - thinkness was just emailing with the official older brother of thinkness when thinkness mentioned that you could tell the exact name of a newspaper by its "masthead." [The context was a question about when newspapers are "The Stinkstown Post," or... Posted in language | 1 Trackbacks | 32 Comments

Eugenics! Nature versus nurture! [More] regression! - Interesting New Yorker review of a new book on Francis Galton, cousin of Charles Darwin and inventor of eugenics. Galton, who had a remarkably wide-ranging curiosity and intellect, did actually make significant scientific contributions, including discovering the idea that data... Posted in damn lies , evolution | 3 Trackbacks | 91 Comments
Sweden: still paradise - A great article in Dissent magazine checks in on Sweden as a reputed model of social democracy and finds that, basically, it is. Although its per capita GDP is below that of 48 American states [all but Mississippi and West... Posted in political currents | 0 Trackbacks | 112 Comments

Happy regression - thinkness was just looking over The Economist's history of itself and came across this bit:The monarch, [former editor Walter Bagehot] argued, was head of the "dignified" parts of the constitution, those that "excite and preserve the reverence of the population";... Posted in political currents | 1 Trackbacks | 41 Comments

Botch, bait, and switch - Jared Diamond may speak 11 languages [okay, I admit, it's impressive], but statistics doesn't seem to be one of them. In an annoying, overwrought section of his new book published in the Guardian, he argues that one American life, one... Posted in damn lies | 0 Trackbacks | 90 Comments
The word of the year - The professional language nerds just picked their word of the year at their annual meeting. They chose "red/blue/purple states," which isn't so great in and of itself, but how they arrived there is a funny story. I was also highly... Posted in language | 0 Trackbacks | 37 Comments