Twenty-seven philosophers offer their answers (oh, about thirty of them).
Tag: 04.09.12
Go In With Low Expectations, Emerge An Underground Cult School
“In five years [Bodyelectric] dance school has built an underground cult following in Melbourne, with waiting lists for classes and hype around the shows. And their audience continues to expand.” Why? Because architects have inner dancers – or so says the school’s founder.
Malaysia Bans (Sort Of) Gay Characters From TV, Radio
A directive issued Thursday via Facebook said, “Effective immediately, radio and
“Are they in or are they out? That’s the question many Malaysians are asking after the latest clarification by their government on an alleged ban on the portrayal of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) characters on state-owned television channels. In the fifth clarification on the matter since Thursday, Information, Communications and Culture Minister Rais Yatim said that no such ban exists” – though he “reserved the right to select content suitable for the general public.”
The Key Weakness Science Shares With Religion
Stanley Fish: “[With] respect to a single demand – the demand that the methodological procedures of an enterprise be tethered to the world of fact in a manner unmediated by assumptions – science and religion are in the same condition of not being able to meet it (as are history, anthropology, political science, sociology, psychology and all the rest).”
Buddhism And Existentialism, Twin Consolations In The Face Of Death
“For existentialists and Buddhists, though in different ways, the relationship between the self and death seems more like the Late Night relationship between David Letterman and Paul Shaffer. One will be present if the other is too. You can be a full-fledged self, existentialists say, only if your death is ever present in your life. If you can manage to make your self disappear, Buddhists say, then death will as well.”
Stalin Museum Decides To Acknowledge His Atrocities
“A museum that has honored Josef Stalin in Georgia since 1937 is being remodeled to exhibit the atrocities that were committed during the Soviet dictator’s rule. Georgian Culture Minister Nika Rurua said Monday that his nation, which became independent in 1991, can no longer host a museum ‘glorifying the Soviet dictator’.”
Mike Daisey, Career Apparently Salvaged, Prepares New Piece On Cape Cod
“Despite being found to have fabricated details in his one-man show The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, Mike Daisey will lead off the season at the Cape Cod Theater Project this summer. Working with the director Jean-Michele Gregory, Mr. Daisey will devise a new work at the theater, where he developed the Jobs project, among others.”
Italy Commits 105 Million Euros To Help Save Crumbling Pompeii
“There has been growing concern that the site, where volcanic ash smothered a Roman city in AD79, has been neglected. A number of structures have fully or partially collapsed, including the “House of Gladiators” which fell down 18 months ago.”
Audiobooks – As Good As Reading?
“Audiobooks are good. They’re enjoyable. They’re wonderfully efficient. But I wonder if the audiobook experience is quite as full and as nuanced as reading. Is the world I create as a listener as rich as the one I form as a reader?”
Gunter Grass Barred From Israel
Israeli interior minister Eli Yishai says Grass is not welcome because he has tried “to inflame hatred against the State and people of Israel.”