tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post4113757242528377868..comments2024-03-29T03:19:09.227-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: A FEW WORDSRobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger49125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-6671322866415571012018-10-02T03:08:14.082-04:002018-10-02T03:08:14.082-04:00Nice Post!Keep Posting With Us
Dissertation HelpNice Post!Keep Posting With Us<br /><br /><a href="https://assignmenthelps.co.uk/dissertation-help.php" rel="nofollow">Dissertation Help</a>John Holmesahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15275936912680315921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-84482394530933560792018-09-04T02:38:26.913-04:002018-09-04T02:38:26.913-04:00It is very interesting post.It is very interesting post.Assignment Helphttps://assignmentfirm.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-47436101815639066502018-09-01T04:18:53.293-04:002018-09-01T04:18:53.293-04:00Knowledgeable Post. Keep Sharing On.
Assignment H...Knowledgeable Post. Keep Sharing On.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.excellentassignmenthelp.com.au/" rel="nofollow">Assignment Help</a><br /><a href="https://www.excellentassignmenthelp.com.au/" rel="nofollow">Online Assignment Help</a><br /><a href="https://www.excellentassignmenthelp.com.au/" rel="nofollow">Assignment Help Australia</a>Assignment Helphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14764667231488131911noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-3730873981299770142018-08-30T00:18:15.279-04:002018-08-30T00:18:15.279-04:00MS. (Corrected - I am such a rotten typist) There ...MS. (Corrected - I am such a rotten typist) There really is no evidence that Russell had sexual relations with his daughter-in-law, Susan, except her say-so (which may have been transmitted to her daughter) and Susan is not a reliable witness. Even Ray Monk, whose biography of Russell is marred by an increasing hostility to Russell, admits as much:. See The Ghost of Madness p. 336. 'In Russell's correspondence of the time, and in his surviving papers, there is no nothing to suggest he loved Susan or even that he liked her very much. In his letters to Edith (which grew increasingly affectionate during the year 1951 [a large part of the period during which Russell was sharing a house with his son's family] Russell often mentioned Susan , but almost invariably with disapproval, particularly of her reckless and indiscriminate promiscuity' [which he deplored mainly because it hurt his son.] <br /><br />Susan abandoned her children, leaving them Russell's care when he was 80. He had been paying for their upkeep already for several years, after Susan and his son John had squandered the Trust Fund the he had earned for John with years of laborious lecturing. Charles Pigdenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01131765562671298571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-10154207491144402152018-08-30T00:11:50.195-04:002018-08-30T00:11:50.195-04:00MS. There really is no evidence that Russell had s...MS. There really is no evidence that Russell had sexual relations with his daughter-in-law Susan except her say so (which may have been transmitted to her daughter) and Susan is not a reliable witness. Even Ray Monk, whose biography of Russell' is marred by and increasing hostility to Russell, admits as much:. See The Ghost of Madness p. 336 In Russell's correspondence o he time, and in his surviving papers, the is no nothing to suggest he loved Susan or even that he liked her very much. In his letters to Edith (which grew increasingly affectionate during the year 1951 [are large part of the time during which Russell was sharing a house with his son's family] Russell often mentioned Susan , but almost invariably wth disapproval, particularly of her reckless and indiscriminate promiscuity' [which he deplored mainly because it hurt his son.] <br /><br />Susan abandoned her children leaving them Russell's care when he was 80.Charles Pigdenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01131765562671298571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-69922521360410531212018-08-28T20:12:01.695-04:002018-08-28T20:12:01.695-04:00MS
Thanks for the kind words. On a phone so have t...MS<br />Thanks for the kind words. On a phone so have to leave it at that.LFChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-67687391265283818092018-08-28T19:35:33.613-04:002018-08-28T19:35:33.613-04:00For a humorous version of the refined Victorian ge...For a humorous version of the refined Victorian gentlemen's debate, watch this Monty Python skit, Four Yorkshire Men:<br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1by0-nkKOTs<br /><br />"A Few Words" is threatening to turn into the never-ending blog thread.MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-12531380314978983872018-08-28T19:29:21.341-04:002018-08-28T19:29:21.341-04:00MS,
No apology is called for.
We both are well-r...MS,<br /><br />No apology is called for.<br /><br />We both are well-read and well-informed, but it seems that we've read different books and informed ourselves about different things from different sources over the years. <br /><br />That makes the discussion more interesting. <br />s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-57574135244056877262018-08-28T19:16:36.186-04:002018-08-28T19:16:36.186-04:00This may be idiosyncratic, but I picture the notio...This may be idiosyncratic, but I picture the notion of debate liberals entertain this way.<br /><br />Imagine a tea room in a Victorian manor or in a London club. (Think of the beginning of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days). <br /><br />A variety of scones and tarts, a jug of hot water, some China cups with tea, a little jug with milk and a little container with sugar cubes on a tea table. Around, seating on armchairs matching with the table, their backs straight, a group of visibly well-bred people exchange ideas in the most pleasant, witty, gentlemanly manner (I write gentlemanly for a reason: those gathered are mostly men, of the Oxbridge variety).<br /><br />The exchange may range from the latest Parisian fashion to the merits of the notion of white men's burden. It doesn't really matter. Whatever the topic, gentlemen are meant to discuss things at their most civilised earnest, disinterestedly, without ever raising their voices.<br /><br />It is taken for granted that disagreement, if disagreement were to arise, is due to honest mistake.<br /><br />Debate, after all, is for edification. That underlies the idea of free speech and democratic debate. Genuine gentlemen don't appeal to tricks just to win in a debate. Ideas, arguments prevail on their merits and on their merits alone. Whether they know it or not, they are re-enacting Plato's dialogues. <br /><br />In that environment the worst accusation to hurl against one's debating partner is not that he is dishonest -which is inconceivable, imagine- but that he is being rude, nasty: ungentlemanly, in one word.<br /><br />If that were to happen, either the accusing party retires in the most ostensibly dignified manner, or challenges the accused party to a duel (with a vintage and expensive flintlock pistol, to be sure, thirty steps and witnesses).<br /><br />-------<br /><br />I don't know whether Victorian Oxbridge gentlemen lived up to those ideals.<br /><br />I do know that's not how their great-grandsons (and they remain largely wealthy, white, educated and men) debate in our own times. They, however, like their forefathers, still proclaim their unwavering adhesion to civilised debate.<br /><br />This says a lot about liberal democracy.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-39573311626436179702018-08-28T19:16:14.035-04:002018-08-28T19:16:14.035-04:00Sorry. My error.Sorry. My error.MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-89714406218132997042018-08-28T18:28:07.831-04:002018-08-28T18:28:07.831-04:00MS,
For the record, the moderator isn't Chi...MS,<br /><br />For the record, the moderator isn't Chilean. He's Pakistani.<br /><br />Tariq Ali is the "street-fighting man" of the Rolling Stones song, they say. As a student at Oxford, he was one of the leaders of the movement against the War in Viet Nam in Great Britain. Since then, he's written many books and has been one of the directors of the New Left Review. He has a weekly program in English in Telesur, Venezuelan TV, and I'm subscribed to it and hence, I received the video which you watched in YouTube.<br /><br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariq_Ali<br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighting_Mans. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-73302874525617228762018-08-28T17:29:14.652-04:002018-08-28T17:29:14.652-04:00Thank you s. wallerstein and LFC for posting links...Thank you s. wallerstein and LFC for posting links to reviews of the Burns/Novick Viet Nam war documentary (especially LFC, since by doing so you have revealed your identity).<br /><br />I watched the first of the two videos from the Chilean review of the documentary. It was, I thought even-handed, not a scorching condemnation of the documentary. The moderator did make some criticisms – he thought the documentary would have been better if it had included some analysis by political pundits. But, as LFC points out, that was not the purpose of the documentary. Its main focus was to offer an historical overview, to offer the views of those who participated in the war, U.S., South and North, and allow the viewer to draw his/her own conclusions. The Chilean moderator also criticized the lack of footage showing the devastation of property and loss of life in the North caused by the bombing raids.<br /><br />LFC, I thought your analysis was excellent. You pointed out the difference in perspective between the U.S. vs. the North Vietnamese view of the conflict – from the U.S. perspective, we were assisting the South in resisting a war of aggression by the North to expand its territory – from this viewpoint, the U.S. government could convince Americans that our involvement was morally justified as a defensive war. From the North’s perspective, it was a civil war, waged to reunite a country that had been divided by virtue of the failure to hold fhe free elections that had been agreed upon in the Geneva accords after the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. Thank you again for the link. I’ll read the other two reviews later today.<br />MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-59423925360748193782018-08-28T15:53:06.146-04:002018-08-28T15:53:06.146-04:00LFC,
Thanks.
LFC,<br /><br />Thanks.<br />s. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-1588137936238043762018-08-28T15:22:31.391-04:002018-08-28T15:22:31.391-04:00MS,
Here are three links.
The first is my piece o...MS,<br />Here are three links.<br /><br />The first is my piece on Burns/Novick. The second is a fairly short critique of the film. The third is a slightly longer critique (which I haven't really read) that was published in an academic journal called <i>The Sixties</i>. (Maurice Isserman also had a critique of the film in <i>Dissent</i>, which will probably not be hard to find on your own if you want.)<br /><br />My piece below was published under my full name. Although I don't particularly care whether people here know my full name -- obviously I wouldn't link to the piece if I wanted to keep my name a complete secret -- I do prefer commenting here, as well as certain other places, under my initials. I am sufficiently unimportant, and my online presence is sufficiently below the radar of most people, that I don't think I need fear that someone will start trumpeting my full name through various and sundry precincts of the internet. I think basically no one in the blogosphere gives a s*** what my name is -- no one in the blogosphere should. (That's my hope, at any rate.) <br /><br /><br /><br />https://s-usih.org/2017/12/when-narratives-clash-the-vietnam-war-as-history/<br /><br />http://www.publicbooks.org/burns-and-novick-masters-of-false-balancing/<br /><br />https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17541328.2018.1464105LFCnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-32920585746324334512018-08-28T14:32:32.244-04:002018-08-28T14:32:32.244-04:00Here's a critique from the left of the film. ...Here's a critique from the left of the film. Since I haven't seen the movie, I didn't watch the critique. There are two parts, as you can see. Here is the first:<br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=tnmicUkdX2Es. wallersteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17448905469871566228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-65650570373692576922018-08-28T14:30:57.996-04:002018-08-28T14:30:57.996-04:00Aside from that, I noticed that the talking heads ...<i>Aside from that, I noticed that the talking heads on MSNBC seem to be using their celebrations of McCain to strategically cudgel the current occupant of the White House, who looks all the more small and weasely in comparison to the Dearly Departed Great Man. They’re making sure this news cycle is as bad as it can be for T***p (who, by the way, is doing everything to aid them in that task, with all this petty nonsense about lowering the flag, etc.).<br /><br />To which I say: Works for me. We can be sure that if the shoe were somehow on the other foot, the Republicans would be doing the exact same thing, only tenfold — and it would work in firing up their base!<br /><br />As usual, the question for leftists is: Do you want the satification of righteous preening, or would you rather win elections and gain power? </i><br /><br />So, in reality, the question is not really of morality at all. It's a question of political expediency. It's how to use a name, any name, as electoral cudgel.<br /><br />Barreras is probably right that the Republicans would be doing the exact same thing if "the shoe were on the other foot".<br /><br />What I wonder is what makes "morality leftists" different from Republicans? Oh, I get it now, because they are (self-proclaimend) good. The others are bad.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-58701184652901034472018-08-28T14:13:48.994-04:002018-08-28T14:13:48.994-04:00LFC,
Please publish the link to your review of th...LFC,<br /><br />Please publish the link to your review of the Burns/Novick Viet Nam documentary. I tried to find it by Googling your initials and Burns/Novick and was unable to locate it.<br /><br />I am curious to learn what the criticisms of the documentary from the left were. I watched all 6 (I think 6) segments and thought the documentary was excellent. They made an earnest effort to include the viewpoints of people from the full range of the political landscape, including interviews of North Vietnamese participants in, and survivors of, the war. They also included interviews with American soldiers who, after their service, protested the war. I noted at the time that they did not include interviews with John McCain or John Kerry, so I checked on the internet as to why. Burns explained that while they included footage of McCain's captivity, they told McCain and Kerry that they were not going to interview them for the documentary because they did not want them putting their "spin" on the war. Instead, they opted for interviewing less well known individuals who served.MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-66422883419344218812018-08-28T14:01:49.416-04:002018-08-28T14:01:49.416-04:00To Howard Berman:
I imagine were Robert E. Lee al...To Howard Berman:<br /><br />I imagine were Robert E. Lee alive today, he’d be a Union man, were the south to rise again, regardless of where Lee was born sixty or so years go. It would be treasonous to rebel against the country now, and only a kook would maintain otherwise. But that’s arguably not how the collective mind in the south worked 150+ years ago. And the point that you and I were talking about in the earlier comments was the hypothetical Civil War McCain. I’d say that the side he’d be on (then) would have depended on where he had been born. One never really knows, of course: there were famous southerners who fought for the north—for example, the Union Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs was a Georgian, and his son was killed fighting for the Union. Both he and his son are buried in Arlington National Cemetery. But the historical examples one could cite were probably exceptions, which is why we have the expectations that we do about who would likely have done what way back when. One of McCain’s confederate ancestors was actually associated with the legendary confederate guerilla, Nathan Bedford Forrest, so if family loyalties are anything to go by, McCain would have been a reb—fighting to defend his family’s (actual) slave-holding interests. I don’t know. But it seems to me that history goes through us as much as it goes around us. Etc. Etc. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-63975750635916697502018-08-28T13:22:26.832-04:002018-08-28T13:22:26.832-04:00LFC,
So then Sen. Taft had even less justificatio...LFC,<br /><br />So then Sen. Taft had even less justification for his criticism of the Nuremburg trials, correct? How could William Douglas get it wrong - he was a very knowledgeable person and a liberal.<br /><br />Thank you for the reference to The Internationalists.MSnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-52903437972667777602018-08-28T13:14:57.507-04:002018-08-28T13:14:57.507-04:00@ anonymous 9:54
If the confederacy were to rise ...@ anonymous 9:54<br /><br />If the confederacy were to rise again, he'd be on our side- he did give the finger to Trump and his bed stuffed with fascists, didn't he?Howiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12474061778220524205noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-42360896438403909232018-08-28T11:59:04.438-04:002018-08-28T11:59:04.438-04:00@ Daniel Langlois,
I wrote an online review a whi...@ Daniel Langlois,<br /><br />I wrote an online review a while back of the Burns/Novick PBS Vietnam documentary. I thought it was far from perfect but not completely terrible, unlike most other reviewers on the left side of center, who criticized it heavily in various print and online venues. (I may give the link later -- don't have time to do it right now.)<br />LFCnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-73060113142221271902018-08-28T11:53:17.175-04:002018-08-28T11:53:17.175-04:00Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro, The International...Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro, <i>The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World</i> LFCnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-15442854850153173922018-08-28T11:47:21.795-04:002018-08-28T11:47:21.795-04:00MS,
It's not quite true that there were no leg...MS,<br />It's not quite true that there were no legal precedents of any applicability before the Nuremburg trials. The 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawed (or purported to outlaw) war, and the so-called Stimson Doctrine, promulgated after Japan's 1931 seizure of Manchuria, put the U.S. (however hypocritically, as some might suggest) on record as refusing to recognize the results of obvious aggression.<br /><br />A fairly recent book by two Yale law profs, called <i>The Internationalists</i> I believe, rehearses some of this (among other things) in detail. I haven't properly read it, but based on a glance some months ago, I think they substantially exaggerate the importance of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. Still, they know a lot and they write well, and given your evident interest in these issues, you might find it interesting. LFCnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-64687893596375396252018-08-28T11:23:27.694-04:002018-08-28T11:23:27.694-04:00MS:
Reagan made movies during the war, too. I reme...MS:<br />Reagan made movies during the war, too. I remember when he so boldly visited Normandy on maybe the 40th anniversary of the Allies landing there. One of the veterans who had actually been there on D-Day said something to the effect that he thought Reagan was 40 years too late. Etc. Sic transit histrionicus. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-27497979262507405512018-08-28T11:14:08.798-04:002018-08-28T11:14:08.798-04:00I am not writing this in order to ensure that I ge...I am not writing this in order to ensure that I get the last word. It just so happens that it appears that way because of the nature of a blog – if we were sitting together in a room (assuming we were not beating each other up) we would be talking over one another.<br /><br />Neither I nor Prof. Wolff was arguing that John McCain should be regarded as a hero, we were not deifying him. We were simply saying that he had engaged in an heroic act (again, the predicate for the discussion), which should be taken into account when evaluating the whole of his character. And while Hitler, Stalin and Pinochet may have performed some acts in their lives that demonstrated a certain degree of humanity, but I sincerely doubt that they did anything that was comparable to the degree of heroism that the heroic act – again, assumed as true for the sake of the discussion - that McCain is credited with.<br /><br />Whom we regard as heroes is indeed a complicated business. Lew Ayres, who was a very successful actor and portrayed Dr. Kildare in the 1930s movies, was a conscientious objector during WWII. He was opposed to the U.S. involvement in the conflict, and would only agree to serve if he was trained as a medic. He was publicly denounced as a traitor. And, although he eventually was allowed to serve as a medic, after the war his career never flourished again. By contrast, another conscientious objector, who also served as a medic during WWII, Desmond Doss, was recently honored in the movie “Hacksaw Ridge.” John Wayne, who made numerous movies during WWII portraying combat heroes, never served in WWII, whereas other matinee idols – James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Clark Gable, did serve. (John Wayne’s explanation was that powers in Washington instructed the draft board in California not to induct him because he could be of greater service for war morale by making his war movies, of which he made 13 during the war.)<br /><br />One of the chapters in John Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage” (allegedly ghost-written by Ted Sorensen) always puzzled me. It is the chapter devoted to paying tribute to Sen. Robert Taft, the Republican senator from Ohio. (He was the co-author of the Taft-Hartley Act, legislation that I am not fond of, since it restricts the power of unions.) The tribute was in recognition of a speech that Taft gave at Kenyon College in October, 1948, in which he expressed disapproval of the Nuremburg Trials. He argued that prosecution of Nazis for war crimes was unconstitutional because it constituted implementation of an ex post facto law – making something illegal after the fact, since there was no international law at the time of WWII defining what war crimes were. Taft was pilloried in the press for his position, and some believe it cost him the 1948 Republican nomination for President. Kennedy/Sorenson regarded Taft’s political stance as courageous. I don’t see what the U.S. Constitution had to do with the issue, since the Nuremburg trials were not conducted under the aegis of the Constitution. And it seems to me you should not need a written law to be told that incarcerating people based on their religion, ethnicity or sexual persuasion, gassing them and then incinerating them is violative of an unwritten law of humanity. I would therefore not regard Taft’s political position as courageous. (Curiously, Justice William Douglas, for whom I have high regard, agreed with Taft.)<br /><br />Anyway, as Vonnegut would say, so it goes.MSnoreply@blogger.com