.....Dennis Overbye, a science reporter for the New York Times, has a great little article (in yesterday's Times) in which he answers readers’ science questions:
Dennis Overbye, Science Reporter......Overbye, prompted by readers, touches on randomness, dark energy, and God, among other things. He's good.
.....Great stuff, even if the fellow doesn’t know how to spell “Antarctica.”
* * * *
NOT ALL RAGHU MATHURs ARE BAD.....It isn't always easy maintaining rationality. I recall talking with a colleague once who admitted that he could no longer stand the thought of eating curried food, owing to associations with the unsavory Raghu Mathur (the latter fellow hails from India, land o' turmeric).
.....I've gotta say, that's pretty nutty. I just stared at 'im.
.....My grandfather, who died in his 90s maybe ten years ago, for a long time refused to eat Italian food owing to its association with, well, Italians. During the war, he fought alongside soldati (he was in the Wehrmacht, an infantryman, assigned to tanks). He claimed that, when faced with the enemy, the Italian soldiers would run away, leaving the German soldiers holding Der Bag.
.....There was no use arguing with him about Italians. There's no prejudice like Old World European prejudice, I find.
.....But I did defend pizza. "Look, Opa, this pizza right here wasn't made by any Italians. I made it. And it's good!" I held up a slice. I took a bite.
.....Eventually, he caved, but I think that was mostly because of the stroke.
.....Occasionally, I Google "Raghu Mathur," and the Facebook page of some kid—named "Raghu Mathur"—always comes up. He's a good-looking kid. For all I know, he's the nicest, most honest kid in the world—no duplicitous, narcissistic, avaricious, back-stabbing rat bastard from hell, like some Raghu Mathurs I've known.
12 comments:
I feel as though I should hand over my handle to Dennis Overbye - he is a far better Bohrstein than I. Plus, I think he would get the point behind such a name.
By the way - that book Einstein, by Isaacson is fannnnttastic. Been through it twice - great read.
Speaking of books published by Simon and Schuster - Anyone else ever read William Durant's "Story of Philosophy?" That's a fun book as well.
"Bohr" + "Einstein" = Bohrstein.
Somehow, that never occurred to me.
Hah! That's alright, I still can't figure out what a Chunk Wheeler is.
Though as I say it now I think I get a glimpse of understanding.... nope, it's gone.
It reminds me of Sisyphus though.
"Chunk Wheeler" has no meaning of the kind you are looking for. When I was growing up, we kids would play with language a lot. In Bauer World (a world half way in the German world, half way in the Canadian/American world, and half way--yes another half!--in the special Bauer family circus) names and words would be changed according to some definite but indefinable grammar.
Accordingly, "Walt Disney" became "Kurt Bosny."
None of that will help, I guess, but, when we needed a name for our little plays and such, we'd come up with names that just struck as as funny. "Chunk Wheeler" arose.
Let's try this. The words "gherkin," "spud," and "chunk" are just funny. There's no explaining it. So there you are.
A female friend insisted that I drop "Chunk" owing to its unattractive associations. But a writer friend insisted that it was perfect.
When in doubt, one does nothing, and conservatism wins out.
Where in the fuck did "Raghu" come from?
Well, Chunk, now that you mention "conservatism" in regard to yourself, albeit in a not-serious context, let me ask: didn't you used to be more "conservative?"
I am referring to a trend I have seen over the years, not the article for which this is a comment, or just any few recent articles.
I wonder what has caused this shift to the "left" in you, if you would agree that there is such a shift.
My suspicion--of course I cannot really know--is that, because the people who are causing problems for IVC and "The OC" present themselves as religious and conservative, you move to the political/cultural "left" as you react against them. They so thoroughly embody what is wrong with the "right," that it has become more difficult for you to represent in your writings whatever wisdom there is in "conservatism." (There are exceptions, of course. For example, you seemed to take a politically incorrect stand in favor of academic standards in the sympathetic article about that Bio prof who got fired. Knee-jerk leftists regard a figure like him as just an "oppressor.")
You may also be influenced by your fellow _Dissent_ editors, who, with all due respect to them, have always been pretty thorough and predictable in their "leftism." Not that I will argue here that there is anything wrong with that. In fact, I think that there is at least something right about that. The admirable concern for "illegal immigrants" and other vulnerable groups that consistently shows up on this blog is an aspect of the "left" that is really good. But there is intellectual and moral corruption on the "left," too, and you seem to be sinking into it.
Didn't you formerly show more respect and sympathy for such "conservative" values as social order, tradition, and even religion? Whatever happened to that Chunk?
I am admittedly providing few specific examples. I am questioning a general trend in your thinking and writing. Correct me if I am wrong.
I ask as a longtime reader of _Dissent_, and as someone who cares about certain values that cut across lines of "left" and "right."
This blog represents so much of what is good and true about America. It's a place where the sons and daughters of folks who were trying to kill each other 65 years ago hash out their differences without much of the cruel invectives exhibited on many right/left blogs.
I too have noticed a leftward drift in Chunk and worry that meanness may be trumping humor.
Please watch it with those DtB rules though Chunk. Does the Goo have a banned words list? I can't sense sarcasm in your tone.
6:22: --OK, since you asked:
Just where do you sense a drift leftward?
I do not believe that my views have changed in recent years. I have always been an independent thinker and so I just can't be a good Democrat or Green or Communitarian or anything else--I'm never attracted to political programs or movements. (I've tried, but when I listen to my colleagues, I find that I must run for the exit immediately.) I hate BS (I seem to see it everywhere, so that's tough), and I was opposed to "PC" long before it got that name.
I have long viewed myself as a kind of conservative, but almost no one, including my best friends, tolerates my saying that. (My friends are mistaken, god bless 'em.)
OK. Take bleak Wittgensteinian non-foundationalism (there is no firmer foundation than "language games"), graft upon it a low regard of social engineering (i.e., I'm skeptical about designing and launching new orders), add a (pathological? anti-social?) intolerance of BS (PC, etc.), and voila: Chunk the conservative.
The first element is technically relativistic, but adherents are almost never relativistic in the sense that irks "conservative" critics (I'm not a postmodernist). The second element arises in part from an interest in human history and behavior. (Here, my thinking clearly overlaps with old-school conservatism--see Russell Kirk.) I don't know about the third. Was I dropped on the head as a child? Could be.
TB: No sarcasm, but my new "rules" were never intended seriously. They were intended as a kind of humor, albeit slightly at your expense. I'm surprised that you find them "mean."
There is nothing unfunnier than unfunny humor.
I am thinking of three people (who shall remain nameless) who have always been involved in the battle against Mr. Goo--real stalwarts.
One of them is a moderate Republican, I think. I think I saw her wear a stars 'n' stripes shirt once. She owns Tupperware.
Another is officially liberal, but who is in fact almost utterly apolitical. She never offers political opinions and seems to have no interest in politics, aside from district/college politics.
Another is an anarchist and a radical from way back.
Mr. Goo and his friends have brought each of us to the battle, though we do very different things, all important. I don't think politics has that much to do with it. We're all thinking: this guy (Goo) is a corrupt bastard who is hurting people and doing wrong. That's the core thing. It always has been.
Obviously, this kind of evil arises in Democratic and in Republican forms, though, these days, it seems generally to come in Republican forms.
Sometimes, the Reb's radicalism shows through in her rhetoric re Mathur and Co. Sometimes, my Communo-Liberal Conservatism shows through in my rhetoric. Sometimes, it's hard not to bring in our larger agendas and philosophies.
But mostly we're just fighting indecent people and trying to do it honestly.
Merci
I am compelled to add that Chunk is the most independent thinker I've known, and I've known him for -- good lord! -- 30 years. Influenced by fellow blogsters? Moving to a position in reaction to an opponent's surrounding views? Nothing could be more alien to the man. Chunk never ceases to surprise, and can frustrate (and enlighten) friends to left, right, center, and all other possible directions. He seems incapable of oversimplifying. I think of Chunk as the standard measure--like THE meter-measure sequestered away somewhere in London(?)--of reasoned, independent thinking. You guys should realize that simply from the multifarious posts on this blog.
To 7/9:
I agree that Chunk is a highly independent thinker, and quite beyond simple labeling, but I still think that fellow Dissenter Red Emma, e.g., has somehow managed to be a bad influence on him.
History of Chunk (in brief): Chunk took his degrees in Philosophy. Contemporary academic philosophers almost never employ polemic, nor tolerate it in the writing of others. It is considered bad form, and an embarrassment to the person who indulges in it. Analytic philosophers regularly disagree with each other, often quite strongly, but they have manners.
What do I mean by "polemic"? The assumption, made clear in a variety of ways, that anyone who disagrees cannot have any good reasons for disagreeing, and so is just ignorant, irrational, or dishonest. Polemic is rhetorical disrespect for the opponent.
Chunk first began using polemic when he started Dissent to combat Mathur, et al. His early opponents surely deserved it, and still deserve it, because they really are thoroughly corrupt.
Chunk has been broadening his use of polemic to other opponents over the years; he nowadays goes polemical when he discusses political and philosophical issues that have nothing to do with the corrupt administrators and board members of SOCCCD. He crossed a line somewhere. Nowadays, SOCCCD Board-majority members, "right-wingers," ID-ers, and every kind of religious believer are all lumped together and treated as so many obstacles to honesty and rationality.
All this sort of thing does not reflect the real Chunk, IMHO. The True Chunk, Chunk the Philosopher, respects everyone and answers arguments with rational critique and/or better arguments. That may be less entertaining, but it is intellectually more sound.
Of course, anarchists (or even faux anarchists, living comfortable middle-class lifestyles) have always had disrespect for their enemies, and have often been willing to murder them, and not just rich industrialists, but even many poor RC priests. Anarchists even "decorated" with murdered priests during the Spanish Civil War. The current Red Emma knows much more about this than I do, and openly identifies with it.
I figure that the current Red Emma--the local "anarchist"--communicated his contempt for others to Chunk during the heat of SOCCCD battle, sort of like some little devil whispering in the protagonist's ear in cartoons. That's my theory; maybe I'm wrong.
Red Emma may not really be such a bad guy. I don't know. He seems to like nature, islands and the sea and all. But if you care about Chunk, I just don't think he should be allowed to play with Red Emma anymore.
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