Yea, even as there are 12 signs of the zodiac in Astrology, there are 16 personality types in Myers-Briggs.
Academics would contend that... Myers-Briggs... [is] about belief much more than scientific evidence. And it’s administered by leadership coaches who, by and large, have no formal education in the science of psychology.
“People like it because it reveals something they didn’t know about themselves or others,” says [Adam Grant, a professor of industrial psychology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School]. “That could be true of a horoscope, too.”
Even Katharine Downing Myers concedes that “psychologists had no use for the indicator; they felt that Jung was a crazy mystic.”
And yet the psychological community has been reticent to speak up too vocally against it. The fact is, many psychology professors do lucrative side work as organizational consultants. And as taboo as it is to praise Myers-Briggs in U.S. academia, it’s equally taboo to disparage it in corporate America.
Maybe if it were understood to be more of a religion/religion substitute, corporate America could overcome its embarrassing dependency on this pseudoscience.
As for the books that would be off-putting in the other person's hands... there are so many things. The first thing that pops into my head is: astrology. But you don't need to go to a special library-sponsored book-in-hand dating event for would-be suitors to disqualify themselves with astrology.
Ha ha. It all depends on what the meaning of "influential" is.
This sends me not to GQ, but to the Online Etymology Dictionary:
influence (n.) late 14c., an astrological term, "streaming ethereal power from the stars acting upon character or destiny of men," from O.Fr. influence "emanation from the stars that acts upon one's character and destiny" (13c.), also "a flow of water," from M.L. influentia "a flowing in" (also used in the astrological sense), from L. influentem (nom. influens), prp. of influere "to flow into," from in- "into, in, on, upon" (see in- (2)) + fluere "to flow" (seefluent). Meaning "exercise of personal power by human beings" is from mid-15c.; meaning "exertion of unseen influence by persons" is from 1580s (a sense already in M.L., e.g. Aquinas). Under the influence "drunk" first attested 1866.
Streaming ethereal power, eh? That sounds like something he's tried to do, oh, maybe years ago. Thank God — thank the stars — he couldn't.
fluent 1580s, "flowing freely" (of water, also of speech), from L. fluentem (nom. fluens) "lax, relaxed," figuratively "flowing, fluent," prp. of fluere "to flow, stream, run, melt," from PIE *bhleugw-, extended form of *bhleu- "to swell, well up, overflow" (cf. L. flumen "river;" Gk. phluein "to boil over, bubble up," phlein "to abound"), an extension of base *bhel- (2); see bole. Used interchangeably withfluid in Elizabethan times. Related: Fluently.
Flowing, streaming, melting, welling up, swelling, boiling over, bubbling up... but when we say "fluent" these days, we're usually speaking about speaking: fluent speech. But this idea of fluency began with a word about bubbling up, not streaming down from the stars, and that ground-up flowing concept takes us to the fascinating word "bole":
bole early 14c., from O.N. bolr "tree trunk," from P.Gmc. *bulas (cf. M.Du. bolle "trunk of a tree"), from PIE *bhel- (2) "to blow, swell" (cf. Gk. phyllon "leaf," phallos "swollen penis;" L. flos "flower," florere "to blossom, flourish," folium "leaf;" O.Prus. balsinis "cushion;" O.N. belgr "bag, bellows;" O.E. bolla "pot, cup, bowl;" O.Ir. bolgaim "I swell," blath "blossom, flower," bolach "pimple," bolg "bag;" Bret. bolc'h "flax pod;" Serb. buljiti "to stare, be bug-eyed;" Serbo-Cr. blazina "pillow").
Swollen penis! Blossom! Pillow! Pimple! We've come to an odd spot on this etymological path. We begin with influence, which came from the stars, and we found our way to flowing water and then to a swelling tree trunk or phallus. Keep in mind that we are talking about politics.
But this is a blog post, so I've got to stop now. Your turn to speak. Flow on, burst forth, see if you can influence anybody.
In front is a statue of Philip Schuyler, a Revolutionary War general, born in Albany:
Also lovely is the building that houses the New York Court of Appeals (the highest court in the state of New York). The Court of Appeals Hall has a fabulous rotunda:
The mural inside the dome is called "Romance of the Skies." It was painted by Eugene F. Savage:
A very new age vibe. With painted sparkles that remind me of a 5-year-old girl's princess fantasy. Visionary, painted in 1959. What it has to do with law, I'm not too sure. Is law some sort of astrology? But what else to paint in a dome in a government building? You can't depict a God anyone believes in, so why not some Greek/Roman gods?
Nearby, is Academy Park, which has a cool sculpture of Lewis A. Swyer, who seems to want company:
In the background, you can see the New York State Capitol. All I want to say about that building in this post is that I love the magnificent equestrian statue of the Civil War general Philip Henry Sheridan that guards one side of the Capitol:
I won't go on to the New York State Capitol in this post. An overdone horror, it is only beautiful relative to the unbelievable atrocity that is the Empire State Plaza. It will take separate posts to attend to these complicated architectural matters. This post is called "Beautiful Albany," and I will end it here.
Lost cosmonauts and shortwave-radio spies (04:01) Why do we believe conspiracy theories? (06:13) Debunking subliminal sexual imagery in ads (09:02) Quack remedies’ tenacious hold on the infirm (12:48) The real-world consequences of our irrational beliefs (10:10) What does “Free Tibet” really mean? (04:45)
ADDED: Here's the part where we talk about why people believe in conspiracies, miracles, and extra-terrestrial and supernatural beings:
(Hey, it looks like I'm wearing an earpiece!)
AND: Here's the context for my "smack in the face" line, in which I also talk about the irrational things educated, intelligent people think. (Remember my asking you for some input?)
The first time I laid eyes on , I could tell she was a story. She had frizzy blond hair with DARK roots, wore bright nail polish and moved like someone who knew how to work a room.
Huh? This made me a little suspicious of Darman. So what if her hair was frizzy and she wore bright nail polish? Lots of boring people do. And there's nothing amazing about dark roots. Why do you appear to be FREAKING OUT about it?
She was on a cramped commuter flight and she was flirting with a candidate for president of the United States. It was July 7, 2006.
I'm still not seeing it. Women flirt with the male candidates all the time.
Most of the other passengers seemed to have no idea who Edwards was. But this blond woman, putting away her bags, was visibly captivated by him.
One person recognizes a celebrity and others don't. The one that does is way more excited than the others. But in fact, Edwards and Hunter were already having an affair, and Darman is showing off — now — that he smelled something fishy back then. But give the man credit. He noticed, and he talked to her:
She told me her name and asked me what my astrological sign was, which I thought was a little unusual. I told her. She smiled, and began telling me her life story: how she was working as a documentary-film maker, living with a friend in South Orange, N.J., but how she'd previously had "many lives." She'd worked, she said, as an actress and as a spiritual adviser. She was fiercely devoted to astrology and New Age spirituality. She'd been a New York party girl, she'd been married and divorced, she'd been a seeker and a teacher and was a firm believer in the power of truth.
All right, then! We know a little more about John Edwards's judgment.
She told me that she had met Edwards at a bar, at the Regency Hotel in New York. She thought he was giving off a special "energy."
Blech. Energy. The buzzword of idiots.
Four months later, Rielle emailed Darman offering him a story. They meet for lunch at a restaurant in NYC and — shocking! — she's into drinking wine and is being smoochily friendly.
She told me that she'd felt a connection to me when we'd first met, that she could tell I was a very old soul. This meant a lot to Rielle.
Oh, did it? Sounds like one of her lines — along with what's your sign, sensing your energy, and feeling a connection.
At this point, I go looking for a picture of Darman. Well, damn! I feel a connection, sense his energy, and — sure — detect that he's an old soul. Let's meet for lunch and wine in SoHo, Jonathan.
Her speech was peppered with New Age jargon—human beings were dragged down by "blockages" to their actual potential; history was the story of souls entering and escaping our field of consciousness. A seminal book for her had been Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now." Her purpose on this Earth, she said, was to help raise awareness about all this, to help the unenlightened become better reflections of their true, repressed selves.
So I guess we know the seduction routine she aimed at Edwards — who perhaps got to thinking that Elizabeth was a blockage.
Her latest project was John Edwards. Edwards, she said, was an old soul who had barely tapped into any of his potential. The real John Edwards, she believed, was a brilliant, generous, giving man who was driven by competing impulses—to feed his ego and serve the world. If he could only tap into his heart more, and use his head less, he had the power to be a "transformational leader" on par with Gandhi and Martin Luther King. "He has the power to change the world," she said.
To feed his ego and serve the world. Ha. Note how that chimes with Edwards's self-analysis (in the "Nightline" interview):
Ego. Self-focus, self-importance... a self-focus, an egotism, a narcissism that leads you to believe that you can do whatever you want. You're invincible. And there will be no consequences. And nothing, nothing could be further from the truth.
But the frizzy-haired energy lady said I could remove blockages, release my old soul, and serve the world....
Back to Darman:
"Do you talk about this stuff with the candidate?" I asked. "All the time," Rielle replied. "I'll lecture him on it when he's getting too much up in here," she said, gesturing toward her head.
And not enough down here, she said, pointing to her crotch. (Kidding!)
"He'll see a look on my face and say, 'Yes, I know, Rielle, "Power of Now" says …' " Rielle wanted me to know all these things because she wanted me to write about them.
Oh, yeah, I forgot. There was no confessing to the sexual relationship here. She was trying to get the news out to the world that John Edwards would make a great President, with his old soulfulness and his ability — encouraged by Hunter — to get through the blockages and release his powers that are somewhere other than in his head.
Even if they didn't have an affair, we should question his judgment in wanting to put up with listening to this bullshit and, certainly, in wanting her to film a documentary about him.
After Hunter is fired, she tells Darman she's working with novelist Jay McInerney "on a 'genius' idea for a television show about women who help men get out of failing marriages by having affairs with them." She also says she's in love but won't say with whom. When the National Enquirer starts writing about the affair, she calls Darman for advice and seems to be trying to pressure him to think that he can't use all the material she'd given him. He refuses — it was never off the record — and she stops talking to him. Darman opines that she must have been "saddened" to realize he'd always been a reporter when she thought he was her friend — I'm sure he's read "The Journalist and the Murderer" — but I would guess that she was using him as a media connection all along and that she was now, on stern advice from Edwards, doing what she could to keep him from writing anything that would corroborate The National Enquirer.
So now I have "a 'genius' idea for a television show about a woman" who has an affair with a presidential candidate and who befriends a reporter — leading to all sorts of complexities about whether the woman is falling for the reporter, looking to him as a friend, or — most likely — massaging him into writing stories promoting the interests of the candidate. The woman travels with the campaign in the guise of a film documentarian, so our show can use her badly done and embarrassingly revealing video clips as a narrative device — in the manner of "The Office" or "The Comeback." And maybe her real job — for which she deserves the money that seems thrown away on her as a filmmaker — is to hand-feed favorable stories to reporters. Our adorable reporter tries to do his job as he teeters between falling for her and figuring out what is going on.
As I was saying, I played the docent at the Fred B. Jones Gatehouse, which was part of a Frank Lloyd Wright tour in Delavan, Wisconsin yesterday. Here are some views of the exterior:
(That's the water tower on the left.)
But I was posted -- imagine me, a blogger, posted -- in the interior, so let's go in:
Yesterday's post has one picture of the interior, showing the fireplace, which has a space above it where the current owners have painted a line from that Robert Frost poem "The Road Not Taken." Here's a closeup of the inscription:
I showed many people through the room, and I always had to say that it was the original fireplace, but the line was not there originally, as, indeed, it could not have been -- unless, as I said once, "Frank Lloyd Wright was unusually prescient" -- because it had yet to be written in 1901 when the gatehouse was built. So I had some interesting conversations with visitors about the line. Would Frank Lloyd Wright have approved? He took the road less traveled, but the road that consists of loving that poem is very well traveled. All these people enamored of a line about nonconformity -- it's ironic. Most of the people I talked to wanted to take the road less traveled and reject the poem.
Let's hear it read by R. Frost:
One visitor said that Wright and Frost were contemporaries and that there's a good film clip out there of Wright interviewing Frost. "That should be on the internet," I said. I'm not finding it, but there sure are a lot of student films using "The Road Not Taken." Sample:
Now, when I see that line -- "I took the one less traveled by/And that has made all the difference" -- I think of the documentary "Grey Gardens." Little Edie, truly a nonconformist, treasures the old line. Part of what is so poignant about Little Edie is that she feels so deeply about some terribly shallow things, like astrology, scarves, and the VMI fight song. And so, that poem...
I'm frustrated that YouTube doesn't seem to have the clip of Little Edie reciting Frost, but I did find this video of Rufus Wainwright singing his song "Grey Gardens":
[Speaking of feeling deeply about terribly shallow things, I'm remembering the Rufus Wainwright line: "There's never been such grave a matter/As comparing our new brand name black sunglasses...."]
And then, if I may bring this meandering post in for a crash landing, I found this clip of Christine Ebersole -- who plays Little Edie (and the young Big Edie) in the Broadway musical made from the documentary. She's struggling to answer the question why gay men love "Grey Gardens." At one point, her answer seems promising, but then it devolves into typical showbiz political talk about Republicans:
No, let's not end there. Let's get back to the real feeling of Little Edie:
"I always took French, but nothing ever happened there."
Six people, including twin infants, were shot dead Saturday night inside an apartment house. The shooting also wounded a 2-year-old girl, who was still fighting for her life Sunday....
The wounded girl was flown to the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison.
The helicopters to the hospital fly over my house. I heard a helicopter in the middle of the night last night.
Stanley Fish takes on the Kevin Barrett controversy in an op-ed in the NYT today:
Mr. Barrett’s critics argue that academic freedom has limits and should not be invoked to justify the dissemination of lies and fantasies. Mr. Barrett’s supporters (most of whom are not partisans of his conspiracy theory) insist that it is the very point of an academic institution to entertain all points of view, however unpopular.....
Both sides get it wrong. The problem is that each assumes that academic freedom is about protecting the content of a professor’s speech; one side thinks that no content should be ruled out in advance; while the other would draw the line at propositions (like the denial of the Holocaust or the flatness of the world) considered by almost everyone to be crazy or dangerous.
But in fact, academic freedom has nothing to do with content. It is not a subset of the general freedom of Americans to say anything they like (so long as it is not an incitement to violence or is treasonous or libelous). Rather, academic freedom is the freedom of academics to study anything they like; the freedom, that is, to subject any body of material, however unpromising it might seem, to academic interrogation and analysis....
In short, whether something is an appropriate object of academic study is a matter not of its content — a crackpot theory may have had a history of influence that well rewards scholarly scrutiny — but of its availability to serious analysis. This point was missed by the author of a comment posted to the blog of a University of Wisconsin law professor, Ann Althouse: “When is the University of Wisconsin hiring a professor of astrology?” The question is obviously sarcastic; its intention is to equate the 9/11-inside-job theory with believing in the predictive power of astrology, and to imply that since the university wouldn’t think of hiring someone to teach the one, it should have known better than to hire someone to teach the other.
Hey! Fact check, people! Can't you tell the difference between the blogger and the commenters? I've written a lot about the Barrett controversy, but I didn't write that. A commenter called "kpom" did. (Note to the NYT: I want a correction printed!) [CORRECTION! I misread that myself. Sorry! He does say a commenter.]
It's conceivable that [Barrett] could still, as a teacher, present [the 9/11 conspiracy theory] neutrally, just as a university teacher on religion could teach the religion he believes in. My problem is that the teacher believes a crackpot, ridiculous theory and he's using a class on Islam to teach his theory. It's like being hired to teach astronomy and covering astrology and actually being someone who believes in astrology. I feel sorry for the students who think it's worth their time to engage with this material and to subject themselves to the power of someone who would believe something so nutty.
So my problem is that belief in this conspiracy theory reveals such a defective mind that the teacher cannot be trusted, and that the factual truth of the conspiracy theory isn't properly taught in a course about Islam. That many Muslims believe the theory could be part of the course, but the inquiry should be into why they would be drawn into such beliefs, and a teacher who thinks the beliefs are true would not seem to have much grasp of the topic.
And I've said this, as a comment in the thread with the quote that isn't mine:
[A] test for the university will come when we see how it treats others in similar positions. What if we found someone hired to teach here was a white supremacist, planning to devote a week of his course to his theory? Would he be treated with as much respect as Barrett? What if we found someone hired to teach evolution was a young earth creationist planning to devote a week of his course to his theory? These people now must be treated the same. Pretty horrible. I hate to even type that out. But this underscores why the hiring phase matters so much.
Back to Fish:
[T]he truth is that it would not be at all outlandish for a university to hire someone to teach astrology — not to profess astrology and recommend it as the basis of decision-making (shades of Nancy Reagan), but to teach the history of its very long career. There is, after all, a good argument for saying that Shakespeare, Chaucer and Dante, among others, cannot be fully understood unless one understands astrology.
The distinction I am making — between studying astrology and proselytizing for it — is crucial and can be generalized; it shows us where the line between the responsible and irresponsible practice of academic freedom should always be drawn. Any idea can be brought into the classroom if the point is to inquire into its structure, history, influence and so forth. But no idea belongs in the classroom if the point of introducing it is to recruit your students for the political agenda it may be thought to imply.
And this is where we come back to Mr. Barrett, who, in addition to being a college lecturer, is a member of a group calling itself Scholars for 9/11 Truth, an organization with the decidedly political agenda of persuading Americans that the Bush administration “not only permitted 9/11 to happen but may even have orchestrated these events.”
Is the fact of this group’s growing presence on the Internet a reason for studying it in a course on 9/11? Sure. Is the instructor who discusses the group’s arguments thereby endorsing them? Not at all. It is perfectly possible to teach a viewpoint without embracing it and urging it. But the moment a professor does embrace and urge it, academic study has ceased and been replaced by partisan advocacy. And that is a moment no college administration should allow to occur.
I agree heartily right up to the last sentence. It is the responsibility of the teacher not to cross this line. But how is the administration to police it? Students may think a teacher is really pushing a viewpoint when he isn't, and a good teacher can sell his viewpoint without it showing. I could use the Socratic method in the law school classroom and only ask questions but have a position I'm hoping to ingrain. I could run a discussion in which I constantly take the opposite side from the one I want the students to adopt and do it in a way that I think will cause students to internalize the side I'm forcing them to defend. How could the administration find out? What would you want them to do about it? And what percentage of university professors do you think cross this line? You'd need a witch hunt if administrators got serious about Fish's line: "that is a moment no college administration should allow to occur."
More Fish:
Provost Farrell ... is too hung up on questions of content and balance. He thinks that the important thing is to assure a diversity of views in the classroom, and so he is reassured when Mr. Barrett promises to surround his “unconventional” ideas and “personal opinions” with readings “representing a variety of viewpoints."...
Rather, the question should be: “Do you separate yourself from your partisan identity when you are in the employ of the citizens of Wisconsin and teach subject matter — whatever it is — rather than urge political action?” If the answer is yes, allowing Mr. Barrett to remain in the classroom is warranted. If the answer is no, (or if a yes answer is followed by classroom behavior that contradicts it) he should be shown the door. Not because he would be teaching the “wrong” things, but because he would have abandoned teaching for indoctrination.
[A]cademic freedom is just that: the freedom to do an academic job without external interference. It is not the freedom to do other jobs, jobs you are neither trained for nor paid to perform. While there should be no restrictions on what can be taught — no list of interdicted ideas or topics — there should be an absolute restriction on appropriating the scene of teaching for partisan political ideals. Teachers who use the classroom to indoctrinate make the enterprise of higher education vulnerable to its critics and shortchange students in the guise of showing them the true way.
What Farrell did was to rely on the fact that Barrett "assured me that students will be free -- and encouraged -- to challenge his viewpoint," that "Barrett appreciates his responsibility as an instructor," and that "he will attempt to provide students with a classroom experience that respects and welcomes open dialogue on all topics." That is, Farrell accepts Barrett as a strong advocate for one side as long as he maintains an open debate in which the students can speak and argue with him.
Both Fish and Farrell stress process over substance. It's not a question of what subjects come into the classroom. (They ignore the process point I've made, which is that I doubt that administrators could stick to substance neutrality. Again: picture a teacher of white supremacy.) Farrell emphasizes the process of multiple viewpoints and debate. Fish emphasizes the process of academic inquiry and avoiding proselytizing. He would ask the teacher whether he could set aside "your partisan identity" and not "urge political action."
I wonder how far Fish means to take that. I've heard many law professors over the years say that since everyone is really partisan in some way, it's more honest to come right out and say what your positions are. They would portray Fish's ideal professor as a big sneak, posturing as neutral, but really slipping opinion in everywhere. Is Fish saying that professors who take the open approach are wrongly allowing their "partisan identity" to appear in the classroom? It would be terribly repressive for administrators to forbid that. Maybe Fish only means for the professor to refrain from "urg[ing] political action." If so, he's not saying very much. But Fish thinks he's identified a clear line:
The distinction I am making — between studying astrology and proselytizing for it — is crucial and can be generalized; it shows us where the line between the responsible and irresponsible practice of academic freedom should always be drawn. Any idea can be brought into the classroom if the point is to inquire into its structure, history, influence and so forth. But no idea belongs in the classroom if the point of introducing it is to recruit your students for the political agenda it may be thought to imply.
Is that a clear line? The more I look at it, the less clear it seems. It's quite subjective. Each of the last two sentences of his essay contains the phrase if the pointis. How are we to tell what the teacher's point really is? A smart person with an agenda knows how to hide it.
The Times' publication of this piece, written by one of the great old lions of the academic culture wars (recall that Fish chaired the English department at Duke during the years when it was making a serious bid to become the most politically and theoretically avant-garde department in the country), is highly significant. Perhaps the time has finally come for a national discussion about what academic freedom is, why it matters, what it protects, and, crucially, where its privileges end.
[W]hat on earth is wrong with professors urging activism? Professors are the canaries in the coal mine; they're often the first ones to see what's gone wrong. If they don't urge activism, there's often no one who will.
Similarly, in the comments here, Ben Wallace writes (and I've added links):
Fish argues that advocacy of ideas is the dividing line between legitimate and illegitimate speech in a university. This is an acceptable normative position but the position is inconsistent with academic freedom as practiced at the UW since the 1890s. Under Fish's standard, Richard T. Ely would have been fired, not defended, for advocating socialism and encouraging activism. Fish's position, if implemented, would undermine a long-settled standard of academic freedom by attempting to eliminate partisan advocacy of ideas.
Is Fish's idea at odds with "The Wisconsin Idea"? If so and if Fish is right, we have a huge problem here.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Let me first say that by writing "If so and if Fish is right, we have a huge problem here," I mean to suggest the likelihood that Fish is wrong.
[T]his is a bit of a strange argument for Fish, who has made his name (outside literature circles) by pressing the view that we can’t separate ourselves from our basic beliefs and that there is no neutral ground....
[T]here’s something to Fish’s distinction between “teaching” and “indoctrination” and in the idea that the classroom isn’t supposed to be a recruiting session for one’s pet projects, however noble they might be. But that doesn’t mean, I think, that teachers need to separate themselves from their views. ...
[T]he detachment model is deficient [because] it subtly teaches students that what smart people do when faced with controversial subjects is to take an air of detached neutrality, cooly surveying the various options, and declining to embrace any of them. My experience as a teacher has been that students don’t really like to get engaged in arguments over controversial subjects -- the detachment model merely reinforces that tendency.
This goes along with something Ben Wallace and I have been writing in the comments here. Ben says:
Under Fish's rule, a faculty member in the South in the 1950s could not embrace and urge the idea that segregation is wrong and that students should act to remedy the situation. The only thing that would be available to a faculty member in that situation [w]ould be dispassionate analysis of the benefits and costs of segregation and a discussion of the different arguments behind segregation. Allowing advocacy and urging students to engage all ideas has demonstrated more effective than efforts to create speech codes, which is essentially what Fish has come up with.
I add:
[I]f the university required teachers to take this dispassionate, neutral stance, it would exclude a certain type of emotive, engaged person who actually is an excellent teacher. The drier, abstract folks would get more jobs in Fish's ideal university... and the students would get more... bored.
YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Jim Lindgren has a post titled "Astrology, Fish, Althouse, and 9/11 Conspiracy Theories." He's into the astrology subject:
I have actually been studying who believes in astrology. Some indices of conservatism use a belief in astrology as a measure of how conservative a respondent is. Yet Democrats are more likely to believe in astrology than Republicans, with the most conservative subgroup -- conservative Republicans -- being among the least likely to believe in astrology.
That makes me want to remind you of this old post of mine from back when were were all talking about Jerome Armstrong (which may well be what prompted Lindgren's study). I have no idea what the politics of believing in astrology are. I don't see it as having anything to do with politics, but it has something to do with being unscientific. I think there are lots of unscientific folks out there, and neither party is completely anti-science or bound to science.
Oh, yes. Audible Althouse is a podcast about the odd last few days on a blog called Althouse. And I do mean odd. Because it's a Friday podcast. A Friday, I tell you. Not a Sunday.
Why do we do the things we do? Astrology. Training a person like training an animal. Caring so much about whether people to listen to you 100% that you don't notice what an honor it is that they listen to you at all.
Here's the podcast page. Here's the place to live-stream. And you know damned well you should be subscribing:
So wrote Robert Heinlein. RedState mobilizes the quote in the context of excoriating beseiged blogger Jerome Armstrong. Commenters on my various "Kosola" posts keep pushing me to talk about the astrology angle, so I'll just say this. I don't think writing about astrology means you're nutty, though it's great material for people to use if they want to portray you as nutty. While I think it's perfectly idiotic to actually believe in astrology, I think many people are either playing with it -- using it to stimulate thinking about themselves and their relationships -- or trying to make money off of the people who enjoy fooling around with it. I'm assuming Jerome is the kind of guy who falls in the latter category.
But how big is the third category -- those people who actually believe? Once, quite a while back, I had a long conversation with a man whom I was considering going out with, when he brought up the topic of astrology, which caused me to instantly write him off as someone I couldn't take seriously. (I admit I was looking for an out, and that was convenient.) I told this little anecdote a friend, a law professor, who burst right out with the statement: "I believe in astrology." I then told the anecdote, with the new coda, to another friend, also a law professor, and I got the same response: "I believe in astrology." These people were not joking -- unless their humor was very, very dry, and they were both also sadistic enough to leave me wandering through the rest of my life with diminished faith in the strength of the human mind.
No, I didn't find some crazy new way to screw up the jump to Daylight Savings Time, I just wrote 10 a.m. down in my calendar long ago, for some unknown reason. I procure a paper copy of the bench memo and head across the street to Starbucks.
The barista is chatting to someone about Daylight Savings Time and the effect on the clientele: "These are the 8 o'clock people at 9 o'clock. Or maybe it's the pre-church crowd? But what do I know about church? I mean I've heard" -- sweeping gesture -- "of this deity" -- gesture -- but what do I know?"
There's an astrology column taped to that circular section of the counter where they present the coffee drinks. A man waiting for his latte scans the column and expresses pleasure that he's supposed to have a good day. He's a Virgo he tells us. The barista exclaims that, ooh, he's a Virgo, and an older woman, also waiting for a coffee, says that her son is a Virgo. I read the Virgo message and point out the introductory clause: "It says you're going to have a good day assuming you first complete your duties."
Over at the fixings stand, I see this:
"Restore yourself." Not -- as I think it would have read a few years back -- "Indulge yourself." "Restore yourself" is less hedonistic, a bit spiritual. He restoreth my soul. But what would you have to be if what restored you -- what brought you back to yourself -- was a vanilla sunshine cupcake and a macchiato crisscrossed with gooey chocolate? Macchiato means "stained," and this plays havoc with the religious imagery "restore" evokes for me. But then it's restore yourself. No deity -- you may have heard of one -- is going to restore you. It's up to you to restore yourself -- to your truly stained condition -- at Starbucks, where God seems rather alien -- something heard about one time -- but astrology belongs taped to the part of the place that is most like an altar, where the barista bestows the restorative liquid upon us.
The woman whose son is a Virgo comes over to sugar her coffee and asks me if I'm "with that gentleman," meaning the customer who liked his horoscope. She seems to have appreciated my humor, though in expressing her appreciation, she uses the word "assumptuous." I say no I'm not. "I don't know anything about what unperformed duties he might have." I imagine the alternate universe in which I am with that guy and I'm reading the introductory clause of his horoscope to needle him about his duties -- the undone things that stain his soul.
I find a seat. I read the bench memo and do the acrostic.
I scribble some notes on the blog post I plan to write. I make a note to connect the Starbucks material to a conversation I'd just had with a colleague of mine over in the Supreme Courtroom.
"Oh, yeah, I vaguely remember that. Well, you can't have that. This is a temple of justice. But then, we do worship the body in this culture of ours. So maybe..."
But the noon hour approaches. Time to get back to the Supreme Court.
The problem -- here's the PDF of the record on appeal -- is about a student group, a conservative religious group, that loses its state university funding because it excludes a gay student from membership. The university had conditioned the funding on the group's acceptance of a nondiscrimination policy. We judges try to ask a lot of hard questions to give the students the opportunity to show what they can do. Both teams do a fine job. The two young men who win -- they're from Washburn University School of Law -- can be seen, unblurred, in this picture I took when I first arrived at 10.
Rushing about so much she's a complete blur is Julia Ledbetter, the Moot Court boardmember in charge of the competition. Somewhat less blurred is my aforementioned colleague, the wonderful Stewart Macaulay.
Last night, I watched another episode of "The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons" (a new DVD set). Jefferson Airplane, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Joni Mitchell were there in Cavett's garish studio. Hippie "supergraphics" were painted all over the floor swirling up to little hassocks for the rock stars to perch on or lean against. Woodstock had just ended that morning. We're told Joni skipped Woodstock just to be on the show. Stills proudly points out the "Woodstock mud" on his jeans.
Jefferson Airplane were doing tunes from "Volunteers," including "We Can Be Together." You know:
We are forces of chaos and anarchy Everything they say we are we are And we are very proud of ourselves
The song ends with the prescient, Reaganesque repeated line "Tear down the wall." It was fun to see the Airplane in their prime again. I saw them myself a few times around that year, 1969. Maybe you younger readers don't realize how much we adored Grace Slick back in those days. And, I'll tell you, "Surrealistic Pillow" is one of the six album covers I have framed on my living room wall. On the show, Cavett asks Slick about her parents, and she says her mother is a housewife and her father is an investment banker. "All your private property is target for your enemy," indeed.
The other members of the Airplane are nearly catatonic, though Paul Kantner rouses himself at one point and says something either unmemorable or incoherent — I forget. David Crosby is the liveliest person in the group (for whatever reason), and while I'm working on the the theory that he's the smartest rock star in the room — and thinking that's good for Bailey and Beckett — he announces that he has an idea and, beaming with pride, lists the names of six large corporations and advises them to go out of business — as if that would save the world. There's some tedious patter about astrology, including the fact that Crosby is a Leo and looks like a lion.
The best person on the show is Joni Mitchell, who's wearing a bulky green velvet floor-length dress. She sings at least four songs, playing guitar, then piano, and finally going a cappella — for "Fiddle and the Drum":
And so once again Oh, America my friend And so once again You are fighting us all And when we ask you why You raise your sticks and cry and we fall
Earlier in the show, she'd talked about how she writes about love and that she's a Canadian and Canadians are just not political at all. But she does say she would support Pierre Trudeau, after Cavett asks the assembled icons if any of them would support any political candidate and all the others say no — no one deserves it.
IN THE COMMENTS: Among other things, I'm asked what the other five album covers are. Instead of answering, I give hints. See if you can guess.
Intellectuals and writers seem particularly disoriented in the new Iraq. Many were alive in the decades before 1968, when the Baath Party took control, which was a time of cultural renaissance in Iraq. But in 1979, when Mr. Hussein became president, he began banning books, singling out writers and intellectuals, jailing them and blocking publication of their work.
The employees of the Dar al-Bayan bookstore used a small crawl space in an attic area to hide favorite books that were banned. Some writers left the country, but many stayed, surviving by meeting secretly and circulating photocopies of banned books....
As far as reading about the ousted government itself, the period is still too raw for most. However, Mr. Khakhani said a book by Mr. Hussein's former doctor, Ala Bashir, called "In the Name of Terror," had been selling well.
Some abandon modern history and escape to ancient times. Suha Turaihi, an intellectual in Baghdad, said she was reading a book about Sabians, an ancient religion of Mesopotamia that dates to hundreds of years before Christ and still exists....
Young Iraqis are making different choices. At a bookstore in Mustansiriyah University, a large public university here, students flipped through romance novels and books on astrology.
Religious books, mostly on Shiite themes, which were banned under Mr. Hussein but have streamed into Iraq since his fall, were also in abundant supply.
Though college students remain relatively secular, said Zaid Hadithy, the shop owner, young people in the broader population "are going in a religious direction" as they search for a structure for their lives in an environment where the rules have fallen away....
[Mufeed] Jazaery [who was culture minister in the recent interim government] said he worried about the power of religion among young Iraqis. Anyone who was born after 1980 grew up during Iraq's decline into war and economic sanctions. Corruption and poverty have eroded the once-strong educational system, leaving young people vulnerable to populist leaders like Mr. Sadr.
"They can read, they can write, but they can't understand," Mr. Jazaery said. "That's good for dictatorship and dangerous for democracy. It's a spare army for all hard-line elements."
Tonya's exchange sounded like something out of a Seinfeld episode. Man hands, low talkers, one-at-a-time pea eaters...those are all dealbreakers for Jerry!
This reminds me to link to a post Jeremy wrote last week about a friend culling through some on-line dating prospects. One listed "Conan the Barbarian" as his favorite movie. Another has this possibly fatal flaw:
While he is a liberal who greatly dislikes George W. Bush, he would not, himself, name a fondness for George W. Bush as being something that would be a dealbreaker for him in a prospective partner."
I wrote something in the comments over there, and my reference is to Seinfeld and peas-one-at-a-time.
AFTERTHOUGHT: Have you ever had a big affair with someone for a long time only to discover late in the game that one of those dealbreaker facts was true of him (or her)? A dealbreaker for me is believing in astrology, which is handy since so many numbskulls blurt out references to astrology very soon after you meet them. Once I told a former lover that I had met someone I really liked but when he brought up astrology I experienced a sudden, crushingly fatal loss of respect for the man, at which point the former lover said, "I believe in astrology." Now you tell me! How much time and anguish I might have been spared. I told this story to a colleague, a professor at one of the very best law schools, and she said "I believe in astrology." Does everyone secretly believe in astrology? What's wrong with people?
All right. Let's slog through the "girls'" performances, starting with the worst one:
Amanda Avila. She sings "River Deep, Mountain High" with cheesy wailing, but no genuine feeling. Oh, my ears hurt! But she's pretty, and she'll get credit for that. As Randy and Simon say: don't do Tina unless you can come close. You'll just look inadequate. And you did!
Janay Castine. I refuse to talk about her thoughts on the fact that she's a Libra. She's all off key. She looks great. Great image improvement -- maybe the best I've ever seen on the show. But she's singing just terribly! And she's got that look of terror on her face, which is to her credit: she knows she doesn't have it.
Carrie Underwood. She's way too into talking about her astrological sign. She's doing that hold-my-appendix Kelly Clarkson gesture. But she's abysmal. I can't recognize the song: "because you love me." Could a lyric be duller? Simon worries that she's "looking a bit old fashioned." They love her and expect her to make the final, but at the same time, they tell her she's a bore. Ryan's nice to her, and she acts natural for a second, and we kind of like her again.
Vonzell Solomon. Oh, how the women buy into the astrological crap! Why would you be all into the idea of being a fish? She sings "Respect," and she's dressed in cowboy clothes. She does one of the big "OH!"s really off. How sick I am of this song! She smiles sweetly at the compliments and that makes me like her and then hate myself. You've got to sing!
Nadia Turner. Should I care that she's my sign? Do I feel some affinity? Not based on astrology, but, yeah, I love her. She looks fabulous. She is the coolest looking person ever on the show, beginning with giant hair. They always straighten the curly hair on "American Idol," but I will rail and rail if they ever uncurl her hair. Nadia is the ultimate demonstration of the grandeur of curly hair. Oh! She's singing "Try a Little Tenderness"! She changes the words to "that same old funky dress." And she's herself wearing a funky dress, a short black thing with a pink tutu underskirt. Wow! She did Otis! She even has a distinctive way of smiling, biting into her lower lip. Nadia shines! So much more real than all the other "girls."
Lindsey Cardinale. "I could stay awake..." she begins -- as I feel like nodding off. No, no, no! She's wearing gaucho pants! This is just putrid! An outrage!! She does that knees apart, bobbing non-dance that is so common ... and ugly. Randy thinks it's "all right" -- but it's not! Paula bullshits. Simon insults her by simultaneously insulting Ryan. Stupid! She in no way got the trashing she deserved. Clearly, the worst of the night.
Mikalah Gordon. Dressed all in black, she eases into "Somewhere." It's weirdly nasal and off. Really off. She seems to be out of her mind, butchering this beautiful song. Possibly the worst performance ever on the show. They need to tell her! Randy: "You're a risk taker." Paula: "You like Barbra Streisand, don't you?" Simon (please, Simon, tell the truth): "The first part of the song was hideous... it's like you've gone into an aging machine ... you're losing what we like ... she's seventeen years old!"
Jessica Sierra. She sings some bluesy, rocky song I don't recognize. Randy thinks it's "hot." Paula: "Awesome." Simon makes some connection between her outfit (denim and velvet) and the song title, but I have no idea what song she sang, so his witticism flies over my head.
Clearly, Nadia was the best. But we've got to kick out two. Janay was awful and deserves to go, but the one I most want to eliminate is Lindsey. That was unforgivable. Mikalah was awful, but still, she is something, and I could see keeping her around. And I've been up for squelching Amanda for ever so long. Just keep Jessica and, of course, Nadia, and it will be just fine.
UPDATE: A reader writes:
Simon's comment about Jessica Sierra's song choice -- "The Boys Are Back In Town" -- was a crude reference to her low-cut top. I think he was implying her, uh, chest was about to pop out.
One more thing: I liked Nadia too but she reminded me of Tim Curry performing the last musical number in "Rocky Horror Picture Show." This is neither a criticism nor a compliment.
"Boys" for "breasts"? I'll have to check out the old "Rocky Horror" DVD to see if I agree about Nadia. That's quite an association!
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