08.29.11
New atheism site
http://www.weareatheism.com/
Neanderthals r us
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/neanderthals-are-us-more-evidence/
Beck and Irene
Mormon Glenn Beck: Hurricane Irene and East Coast earthquake a ‘blessing’ from God
By ELIZABETH TENETY – WASHINGTON POST – ON FAITH
Added: Sunday, 28 August 2011 at 12:10 PM
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/642835-mormon-glenn-beck-hurricane-irene-and-east-coast-earthquake-a-blessing-from-god
Not willing to be outdone by Pat Robertson, Glenn Beck recently weighed in on God’s communication by way of natural disasters, telling his listeners that this week’s East Coast earthquake and hurricane are a “blessing” and a message from God to “be prepared.”
Hardwired to Tune Into Animals
Humans Hardwired to Tune Into Animals
By JENNIFER VIEGAS – DISCOVERY NEWS
Added: Monday, 29 August 2011 at 10:08 AM
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/642855-humans-hardwired-to-tune-into-animals
Years of either running from or running after animals left its mark in the human brain — even just looking at a photo of an animal jolts our brains into action.
No matter how high tech and urban we may become, animals continue affect our brains like no other person, place or thing, shows new research in the latest issue of Nature Neuroscience.
Canine evolution
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/lifestyle/pets/evolution-man%E2%80%99s-best-friend-140
$110,000 to Settle Intelligent Design Discrimination Lawsuit
California Science Center Pays $110,000 to Settle Intelligent Design Discrimination Lawsuit
Free Radicals Crucial to Suppressing Appetite
Free Radicals Crucial to Suppressing AppetiteScienceDaily (Aug. 29, 2011) — Obesity is growing at alarming rates worldwide, and the biggest culprit is overeating. In a study of brain circuits that control hunger and satiety, Yale School of Medicine researchers have found that molecular mechanisms controlling free radicals — molecules tied to aging and tissue damage — are at the heart of increased appetite in diet-induced obesity.
Arabidopsis
Arabidopsis: Thanks to Its Flexible Genome, the Plant Can Adapt to Various Environmental Conditions
ScienceDaily (Aug. 28, 2011) — People can develop new technologies and animals may migrate to other regions. However, plants are tied to their location. Nevertheless, they have found ways to ensure their survival. This is the case for the plant Arabidopsis thaliana, which is found throughout the entire northern hemisphere. But how does this small, inconspicuous plant deal with all these different extremes?
C&C/aug29
CLIMATE AND CAPITALISM
An online journal focusing on capitalism, climate change, and the ecosocialist alternative.
http://climateandcapitalism.com
Follow C&C on Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/5teq6xm
++++++++++++++ Read the rest of this entry »
Give Karl Marx a Chance to Save the World Economy: George Magnus
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-29/give-marx-a-chance-to-save-the-world-economy-commentary-by-george-magnus.html
Global Warming Behind Somali Drought
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=104899
By Julio Godoy
PARIS, Aug 26, 2011 (IPS) – The severe drought in the Horn of Africa, which has caused the death of at least 30,000 children and is affecting some 12 million people, especially in Somalia, is a direct consequence of weather phenomena associated with climate change and global warming, environmental scientists say.
Read the rest of this entry »
Capitalism’s New Era
Sunday 28 August 2011
by: Shamus Cooke, Truthout | News Analysis
http://www.truth-out.org/capitalisms-new-era/1313769455
“Karl Marx got it right, at some point capitalism can destroy itself,” said Mr. Roubini, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “We thought markets worked. They’re not working.”
The world economy is in shambles and about to get worse, according to even mainstream economists. How bad is anybody’s guess. Some things, however, are certain: the recovery that politicians have been promising for years existed only in their heads. The reality of the situation is now apparent to millions of people across the globe, who, before, clung to the empty promises of economic recovery. This newfound consciousness will inevitably find expression in the political realm and, more importantly, the streets.
A key aspect of this sudden mass awareness is in response to high unemployment and the deeply unpopular measures that politicians are forcing upon working people, both byproducts of the Great Recession. Politicians are blaming “the markets” for demanding austerity measures, but “markets” are simply places where wealthy people invest their money. To guarantee a profitable return on their money these investors demand that labor laws be squashed and social programs be eliminated, all over the world.
Read the rest of this entry »
How ‘Top Gun’ Made America Love War
Published on Monday, August 29, 2011 by The Washington Post
25 Years Later, How ‘Top Gun’ Made America Love War
by David Sirota
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/29-5
Americans are souring on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military budget is under siege as Congress looks for spending to cut. And the Army is reporting record suicide rates among soldiers. So who does the Pentagon enlist for help in such painful circumstances?
Hollywood.
In June, the Army negotiated a first-of-its-kind sponsorship deal with the producers of “X-Men: First Class,” backing it up with ads telling potential recruits that they could live out superhero fantasies on real-life battlefields. Then, in recent days, word leaked that the White House has been working with Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow on an election-year film chronicling the operation that killed Osama bin Laden.
A country questioning its overall military posture, and a military establishment engaging in a counter-campaign for hearts and minds — if this feels like deja vu, that’s because it’s taking place on the 25th anniversary of the release of “Top Gun.”
That Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster, made in collaboration with the Pentagon, came out in the mid-1980s, when polls showed many Americans expressing doubts about the post-Vietnam military and about the constant saber rattling from the White House. But the movie’s celebration of sweat-shined martial machismo generated $344 million at the box office and proved to be a major force in resuscitating the military’s image.
Embracing the growing gulf between rich and poor Americans
Published on Monday, August 29, 2011 by OtherWords
Mass-Marketing Goes Platinum
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/29-4
Hawkers of consumer products are embracing the growing gulf between rich and poor Americans.
by Jim Hightower
In today’s fast-moving world of consumer styles, when you’re out, you’re out. Not just out-of-style, but so far out that you no longer interest the big marketers.
Thus it is that advertising authorities have deemed the middle class itself (roughly 60 percent of us, depending on where you draw the income line) to be unworthy consumers. We’re too poor to matter, they say.
The Chapter That Went Missing
Published on Monday, August 29, 2011 by The Nation
The Chapter That Went Missing From Dick Cheney’s Book
by John Nichols
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/29-1
Election March of the Trolls
Published on Monday, August 29, 2011 by TruthDig.com
The Election March of the Trolls
by Chris Hedges
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/29-0
A Tip for Joe the Machinist
Published on Monday, August 29, 2011 by OtherWords
A Tip for Joe the Machinist: Watch Your Back
A Labor Day reflection: Corporate America no longer even pays lip service to the importance of encouraging hard work and skill.
by Sam Pizzigati
Republicans Lock Down Town Halls
Published on Monday, August 29, 2011 by TalkingPointsMemo
Democracy On Their Terms: Republicans Lock Down Town Halls To Stifle Critics
by Evan McMorris-Santoro
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/08/29-2
08.28.11
Sitting out Irene
NASA Satellites Hurricane Irene Almost One-Third the Size of U.S. East Coast
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110825135148.htm
ScienceDaily (Aug. 25, 2011) — Hurricane Irene is a major hurricane, and NASA satellite data shows its diameter is now about one-third the length of the U.S. Atlantic coastline. Meanwhile, far in the eastern Atlantic Ocean a tenth tropical depression formed. One satellite image captured both storms and shows the tremendous difference in their size.
Modernity: the modern transition as an ‘axial age’
A New Age Begins
Discussions of secularism and religion tend to miss the point: the modern transition was as rich if not richer in cultural content as the Axial Age.
Axial Ages, the secular, and religion beyond religion
The term ‘secular’ has lost its original, better meaning. It is now considered that modern secularism is somehow against religion. But this can’t be correct: secularization began with the Protestant Reformation, whose effect was to create a post-theocracy. The actual content of religion, and its practice in institutions of civil society, remain thriving forms of the ‘secular’. The attempt by narrow groups, such as the new atheists, to coopt the entire meaning of secularism is destructive and will ironically reproduce the effects of theocratic domination. In any case, the diversity of secular culture is a healthy aspect of the post-theocracy we call modernity.
Unfortunately, we cannot control what the outcome will be here. Critics of religion have forgotten the context of the arising of Xtianity in the Roman Empire, where general populations went to the Roman games to see death spectacles. The rescue operation of Christianity was therefore something we should consider carefully in discussions of secularization. The decadence of human culture in an era so close to ours show be a warning to those who consider Christianity a total waste, or an evil. Even for a non-Christian, or atheist, that is a total misunderstanding. How did Xtianity manage to accomplish what it did?
Those who regret Xtianity should ask themselves if they would be content to have had the Roman games continue into modern times. Or, if not, how they would consider possible the transformation of ancient populations without that religious rewiring. Civilization in the Occident almost had to shut down and go into mothballs for a millennium plus.
That should lead us to consider that a religious foundation, with or without a religious form, lies behind the rise of the modern. That is not an argument for or against secularization, and/or religion.
Another issue is the clear trend in world history for religions to recycle during the passage to ‘new epochs’, the Axial Age, and modernity being examples. This suggests that a new perspective on religion will emerge, with or without an explicit religion. The attempt to substitute scientism for that will backfire, and at the same time so will the attempts to hold fast to traditions. So we are left with the question, what is the essence of religion, and how can it exist, without religion, in secular culture?
The degeneration of Occidental populations in the Roman era should be a warning that the issue is larger than what the narrow fanatics of the Nietzschean new atheist think.
Here the legacy of buddhism can be of great help: it is as secular in essence, as you can get, and can assist secularists (taken as a representative of a long historical tradition going back many millennia) in maintaining a broad perspective.
Secularization
In his new book, Spiritual Bankruptcy (Abingdon Press), philosopher John Cobb Jr. maps out some of the pros and cons of secularism.
Cobb believes the religions and philosophies that took root in the socalled Axial Age, about 500 years before Jesus of Nazareth, began as “secularizing” movements.
Early Judaism, Buddhism and Greek philosophy challenged the religious authorities of their day, condemning hypocrisy and superstition.
The fiery Hebrew prophets, who denounced injustice and royal arrogance at every turn, were profound secularizers, according to the refreshing definition provided by Cobb, director of the Centre for Process Studies in Claremont, Calif.
This article deserves a lot of commentary, perhaps this week. I have often made a similar point about the Axial Age, that, e.g. Greece, shows the real birth of modern secularism, and with Old Testament monotheism, an attempt to ‘rationalize’ religion (with contradictory success).
Repost/update: Blogging early, as Irene approaches
Update and repost:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/28/storm-surge-hurricane-irene-east-coast_n_939345.html
We can blog early today, and briefly, as a hurricane approaches: may lose power at any moment.
Could lose power at any moment as the eye approaches North East. Could lose power for a few days (but I doubt it), so we will be back soon, in any case.
Needed: a wi-fi hotspot and/or smartphone hotspot device!
Bellah on religion
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/08/where-does-religion-come-from/243723/
I just got a copy of Bellah’s new book, but haven’t had a chance to read it: soon. The question of where religion comes from is directly visible from the Axial Age, but I suspect that Bellah has muddled the data on this, as with Karen Armstrong.
It is amazing that the scholarly community cannot handle the issue of the Axial Age.
Harris, 9/11, and setting the record straight
http://darwiniana.com/2011/08/28/911-gave-birth-to-aggressive-unapologetic-new-atheists/
Harris has protested some of these equations with 9/11 and Moslems, but it seems there is some connection. Harris has a responsibility to not blame Moslems for 9/11, do his home work, and place the blame where it belongs: covert agencies behind the American government.
9/11 gave birth to aggressive, unapologetic `New Atheists’
9/11 gave birth to aggressive, unapologetic `New Atheists’
Aug 27, 2011 by Kimberly Winston
(RNS) In September 2001, Sam Harris was an unknown doctoral student who didn’t believe in God.
But after the World Trade Center crumbled on 9/11, he put his studies aside to write a book that became an instant best-seller — and changed the way atheists, and perhaps Muslims, are perceived in this country.
Read the rest of this entry »
Broader Implications of ID???
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/broader-implications-of-id/
‘
The excessive focus on ID as a new generalization is going to fail, because it is based on a narrow hidden-theological set of assumptions. The irony is that ID is delaying paradigm change beyond Darwinism.
The conservative anti-modernism of the ID group makes its whole effort doomed to failure. The problem with Darwinism is not modern materialism, but reductionist scientism, and social darwinism, the latter being the obsession of conservative groups.
Note that ID-ists never discussed the issues of Darwinism and capitalist economic ideology.
« Previous Page — « Previous entries « Previous Page · Next Page » Next entries » — Next Page »