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The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
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Friday, September 7, 2012

SIXTY DAYS

The conventions are over.  The Republican convention was bizarre, the Democratic convention pretty much the sort of successful event one would expect from a collection of grown-up professionals.  Now the campaign begins [I feel like the psychiatrist at the end of Portnoy's Complaint.  -- By the way, does everyone understand the witty pun on the word "complaint?"]  I have donated the maximum allowed by law first to the Obama primary campaign and then to the Obama election campaign, so there is nothing for it but to just check Nate Silver's 538.com every day for reassurance.  Several comentators to my earlier blog about probabilities have cleared up my confusion about what Silver's statistical estimates actually are.  If I understand all of this even marginally, each day that passes with no essential change will result in a slight uptick in his estimate of Obama's re-election chances.  Sixty days.  Sixty nights a bit more sleepless that usual.  Romney will not crush Obama in the debates, nor, I imagine, will Obama destroy Romney, but from Obama's perspective, a draw is a win, since he is leading.  My mean-spirited fantasies have turned to speculation about the self-immolating anguish that the Republicans will suffer when they awake on November 7th to discover that their worst nightmare [to quote Sylvester Stallone] has possession of the White House for four more years.

I will now turn my restless energies to Bennett College.

3 comments:

Jerome Doolittle said...

I'm ashamed to say I hadn't noticed the "complaint" pun. But did you notice Cole Porter's "finnan haddie" one?

When I invite
A boy some night
To dine on my fine finnan haddie,
I just adore his asking for more
But my heart belongs to Daddy.

(Now that I think of it, though, that's not strictly a pun.
What, then? A leer? A snigger?

Robert Paul Wolff said...

Pretty much everything in Cole Porter is a leer or a snigger! but the pun on "complaint" is really rather elegant.

Robert Paul Wolff said...

Somebody noted in a comment that I should have said fivethirtyeight.com, not 538.com, which is quite correct, and when I clicked on it, the comment went away. My apologies, and thank you for the correction.