J.H. Hexter (paraphrase): "The middle class started rising in 1200 AD, rose steadily for five centuries, and ended up about where it had started. "

||

The dismissed Stevens' juror's father didn't die -- she went to the horse races. And she appears to be mentally ill.

This is exactly the kind of juror Stevens needed! The judge's dismissal of that juror shows bias. The conviction must be overturned.

Jon Stewart?

|>

5. There was a crisis of masculinity.

Sorry about this blatant bleg / threadjack, but a question is bugging me, and although it seems that there should be a fairly obvious answer, and I have some idea of what it might be, I'm not getting help from the proper places. So here goes. It's a question about Nozick's conditions for truth tracking. Nozick says that we know something when all of these conditions are satisfied:

Something is true;
We believe that thing;
If that thing weren't true, we wouldn't believe that thing;
If that thing were true, we would believe that thing.

These conditions don't describe a procedure or a set of tests to be used in the acquisition of knowledge. They express - or so Nozick argues - a relationship between a fact and our belief in it.

However, there are two common uses of the subjunctive.

The first usage goes like this: 'If a bus were coming, we would get run over'.

The second usage goes like this: 'If a bus were coming, we would get out of the way'.

The first usage has a passive sense: it happens that we get run over. The second usage has an active sense: we actively move out of the way of the bus.

So, the question is this: which sense does Nozick have in mind when he says that if something were true, we would believe it? Would we just happen to believe it? Or would we actively form a belief? Or does he intend to cover both?

People need to keep commenting.

This thread deserves more love.

So: anyone here have a connection with Winona Ryder or Natalie Portman?

I will only participate in this thread if we can discuss how to keep poor people from voting. I suggest limiting the franchise to Italian sports car owners.

Becks knows yggles who was a classmate of Portman's. Not that she made any videos for him or anything.

Hm, probably I should have trolled Yggles less harshly.

People need to keep commenting.

I am husbanding my energies for tomorrow night.

I know Mark Geragos, defender of starlets, high profile murderers and other types likely to land him on Entertainment Tonight. (More accurately, I know his wife. I have only met him at parties. I did ask for a Free Winona T shirt. He was not amused.)

So: anyone here have a connection with Winona Ryder or Natalie Portman?

I've met her dad (briefly, in his role as Timothy Leary's executor).

Ryder's, not Portman's.

What were you receiving from Leary's estate?

I am husbanding my energies for tomorrow night.

Can't wait for that. And to think I was going to go to bed early.

Nothing - my then-employer was, if I recall, handing over a royalty check.

Uma Thurman's dad is an important Buddhist scholar. You have ti ask whether he's dabbled in Chogyam Trungpa's beatnik tantrism. Google seems to say no. The Dalai Lama was the guy.

Becks knows yggles who was a classmate of Portman's

Do tell! I've never heard him talk about his college before!

I took a course with Uma Thurman's dad, Robert, on Mahayana Buddhism. It was co-taught with a lovely Tibetan gentleman whose accent I and many others had a great deal of trouble with, alas. Great reading list; I especially remember Tsong Khapa's Essence of True Eloquence, in part because the text was so damned expensive, but a beautiful edition.

(/non-sequitur)

Did he seem tantric?

Really good Buddhist analysis of Kill Bill that hypothesizes the influence of Thurman pere.

I used to date Natalie Portman back in high school.

Except, not really.

how to keep poor people from voting

All polling places at golf courses.

Fuck the webs. I can't believe there are only four volumes of the Michelet online, and they are in French.

My friend used to work with Uma Thurman's brother. Until they both got fired. (Just recently.)

Which Michelet?

26:Jules. The Histoire, especially the Volumes surrounding the Religious Wars of the late 16th. And I want a free English download, though I am thinking about picking up some French.

Gutenberg has the first two volumes and the last two of the 19. AFAIK, Gutenberg France now shares the database with G-America.

Amazon has a Kindle version of the complete Histoire in English. I think. The separate volumes run $30 plus used.

12: I've met her dad (briefly, in his role as Timothy Leary's executor).

Dude. Winona Ryder's dad is, like, a famous bookdealer. I entirely forget the details. It's why Johnny Depp became a semi-incognito sometime attendee at bookselling conventions, though. You know. Or maybe he decided to do that himself, of his own volition. Dunno.

28: I would have guessed it was research for The Ninth Gate.

Nah, man, Depp was into books early on just as Winona Ryder was, because of her dad. (I'm not going to bother to look this up, but that's the story.)

Secondhand booksellers all have a past.

In these days when liberals flagellate each other for outing McConnell and Obama finishes his campaign at Manassas as whatever sort of conciliatory gesture, I somehow find solace and comfort in the West European politics of 1550-1650. Even Bacon & Montaigne can't harsh my nostalgic mellow.

Robespierre & Saint-Just, Blanqui & LeMaistre just can't quite lift my spirits in the same way. So sadly futile & ineffective.

briefly, in his role as Timothy Leary's executor

I met Leary once, not long before he died. A very strange man who looked a lot like an eccentric high school teacher. I had no trouble believing that he'd done just as much acid as he claimed.

Depp was into books early on just as Winona Ryder was, because of her dad.

I remember reading a cool story about Ryder and her father hunting for books in an issue of Vogue last summer. Which makes me think to ask: is Michael related to Glenn?

Was #32 a sick joke?

Nietzsche said that we tend to admire the genius of eras like Athens & the Renaissance while despising the conditions that made the genius possible. I suspect that Nietzsche would recognize that Shakespeare & Rembrandt, Cervantes & Bach were not in opposition to their times, but the finest expression of that era.

The 1st quarter of the 20th was an age of genius.

Can one feel the Zeitgeist of an era that chooses to make excellence impossible? Fuck yes.

(I'll stay away tomorrow night. I don't cuddle well.)

I don't cuddle well.

Oh, you poor thing. I'll cuddle you, Bob.

Uh, I also cuddle poorly.

Populuxe?

33. My first wife met Timothy Leary back in, oh, '93-94? at some sort of hippie crystal expo. A few weeks later he called the house to speak to her while she was in the shower. "Hon? Timothy Leary on the phone. Want to call him back?" "No, I'll just be a minute." "She'll just be a minute. I liked that bit you did on the Revolting Cocks album." "Thieves and liars, man."

"I suggest limiting the franchise to Italian sports car owners."

I'd be against that; there's no evidence that Italians are any better at picking decent politicians than Americans are.

Obama is not finishing at Manassas -- PNH is drunk already. He's finishing at Prince William County fairgrounds, the largest venue in the largest swing county in Virginia.

Why do you link back to the same comment thread, HL? Are you trying to drive me mad?

re: 38

When I am king the franchise will be limited to Scottish guitar players between the age of 25 and 55.

Of course, if I am king, the electorate will just get to vote on how awesome I am ...

A FOAF went out with Sinead O'Connor while they were all still in school - i.e. Sinead, the erstwhile boyfriend, and his friend/my friend C. For years C. thought of her as "that crazy girl that ruined my Bob Dylan songbook by writing stuff all over it". The book would probably be worth good money now, or at least form the material for somebody's thesis.