Jan 10, 2005
Scattershooting while wondering about the eternal sexiness of the Beard.
I’m not that fond of Samuel Huntington these days. His vision of the world strikes me as a touch too Manichean, and his definition of American culture too narrow and too static when compared with the stew that it has always been.
However, he is an intelligent man and at times a keen observer, as this short interview in Japan Today reminded me. This wasn’t precisely his point, but his comments caused me to see internationally oriented secularists not as a wave of the future, nor as an endangered species but as a sort of intellectual specialty to be used or ignored as needed by the politicians of a more religious majority.
William Saletan has started a Blog called Human Nature: Science, Culture, and Politics. It is posted as a permanent column at Slate. So far it looks pretty interesting, though his format may tempt him into glibness on occasion.
Also at Slate, the daily summary of the morning papers notes that most papers don’t give front page attention to the treaty that may end the war in the Sudan. I guess Tsunamis are a better fit to the Storm Stories mentality of Americans and the American media.
Perhaps the Bush Administration thinks the same. At the blog NathanNerman.org is the suggestion that the Administration is going to pay for the aid to Tsunami victims by reducing other humanitarian aid. This is not fully documented, and I hope it’s wrong. But would anyone who knows this administration be surprised?
However, he is an intelligent man and at times a keen observer, as this short interview in Japan Today reminded me. This wasn’t precisely his point, but his comments caused me to see internationally oriented secularists not as a wave of the future, nor as an endangered species but as a sort of intellectual specialty to be used or ignored as needed by the politicians of a more religious majority.
William Saletan has started a Blog called Human Nature: Science, Culture, and Politics. It is posted as a permanent column at Slate. So far it looks pretty interesting, though his format may tempt him into glibness on occasion.
Also at Slate, the daily summary of the morning papers notes that most papers don’t give front page attention to the treaty that may end the war in the Sudan. I guess Tsunamis are a better fit to the Storm Stories mentality of Americans and the American media.
Perhaps the Bush Administration thinks the same. At the blog NathanNerman.org is the suggestion that the Administration is going to pay for the aid to Tsunami victims by reducing other humanitarian aid. This is not fully documented, and I hope it’s wrong. But would anyone who knows this administration be surprised?