It’s been a tough week for America. A few days ago, the Boston Marathon was bombed. Then, yesterday, a Texas fertilizer plant blew up. At the time of writing, we know the Boston bombing was deliberate, but we do not know who did it. It killed 3 people. We do not know the cause of the fertilizer plant explosion. It may have been an accident or it may have been deliberate. We know it killed 14. In both cases, over 100 were injured. A lot of people said that the stories of heroism and compassion in response to the Boston bombing reinforced a positive view of humanity. I have come away with the opposite impression, and it’s not directly due to any element of the response to the Boston bombing–so far, that response has been, as far as I can tell, quite good. No, this reinforces a negative view of humanity for me not because of the reaction to the Boston bombing itself, but because of the comparative lack of reaction to the Texas explosion. Let me explain further. Continue reading “The Boston Bombing, Compassion, and Entertainment”
Blog News
Over the next month or so, the rate of blogging is going to be somewhat reduced. I will not quite be able to keep up my normal very-nearly-daily schedule. My regular readers deserve an explanation for this, and this is that explanation. Unfortunately, I have 5 3,000-word essays and what remains of a 10,000 word dissertation to complete by the first of May for the final year of my undergraduate degree at the University of Warwick in England. I am capable of writing these posts and doing those essays simultaneously, but not with the level of mental energy I would like to be able to devote to each. Rather than write bad blog posts or bad essays, I have decided to somewhat curtail blog output between now and May 1. I do not plan to stop blogging entirely, but I expect the posting schedule to be considerably more random during this time. I am not certain how big the reduction will be or if it will last all the way until May 1–this depends on how quickly and easily I move through these essays. When I have finished these essays, I expect to resume the standard very-nearly-daily schedule. I thank my readers both for their continued readership and for their patience during this time. I promise those of you that stick with me a strong summer of frequent blogging.
Update:
As of April 28, I have completed my essays for Warwick and will resume the usual very-nearly-daily blogging schedule. Thanks for staying with me.
Tomas Young’s Iraq War Letter
So today there’s an open letter going around the internet from a fellow by the name of Tomas Young directed toward George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Young is terminally ill and has chosen to parlay that into an opportunity to vent his anger at Bush and Cheney over the feckless war they waged in Iraq. Having myself been opposed to the Iraq War as early as 2002 (and yes, I was quite young to be in opposition), I agree with some of what Young has to say, but I think he makes a common mistake in conflating two contradictory responses to the war.
Scumbag Babies
A new study reveals that babies can be scumbags. This may seem like an interesting bit of popular psychology, but if the study’s results are true, it contributes to one of the central debates of political theory and philosophy, one which is too often considered in isolation–nature versus nurture, the question of the malleability of man’s nature, if he has a nature at all. This nature versus nurture question is as pivotal in our political discourse as liberal versus conservative, capitalist versus socialist, any of the various supposed dichotomies in our theory. But first, let me explain this study, because it’s really cool.
Fight Climate Change with Tax Cuts
A few days ago, I wrote a rather depressing post about climate change. There was, I concluded, very little that can be done to reduce emissions short of a comprehensive international treaty (which the signatories actually abide by) or the creation of a superstate to enforce strict emission regulations. Then yesterday, I had this idea. We can actually help business and fight climate change simultaneously. Here’s how.
Benjamin Studebaker 