Month: January 2012

Carlos Fraenkel analyzes the consequences of Brazil's decision to mandate that all high schools teach philosophy:

[C]an philosophy really become part of ordinary life? Wasn’t Socrates executed for trying? Athenians didn’t thank him for guiding them to the examined life, but instead accused him of spreading moral corruption and atheism. Plato concurs: Socrates failed because most citizens just aren’t philosophers in his view.

To make them question the beliefs and customs they were brought up in isn’t useful because they can’t replace them with examined ones. So Socrates ended up pushing them into nihilism. To build politics on a foundation of philosophy, Plato concludes, doesn’t mean turning all citizens into philosophers, but putting true philosophers in charge of the city—like parents in charge of children. I wonder, though, why Plato didn’t consider the alternative: If citizens had been trained in dialectic debate from early on—say, starting in high school—might they have reacted differently to Socrates? Perhaps the Brazilian experiment will tell.

Ari Kohen reflects on touring "the most terrible place I have ever been in my life:"

Having been to Buchenwald, it all seems so much harder to believe than it was when I was listening to survivors’ stories, learning about it in school, or going to a museum. But it becomes almost unthinkable to travel here, a few miles from the Goethe and Schiller houses, and to try to imagine how people could build a place like this one, let alone how they could live in its shadow. They went to the neighborhood bakeries, they read great literature, they played with their children, they walked in the local parks. It is unimaginable to me, especially when I think that these were regular people and not devils. We want them to be monsters because only monsters should be capable of this; but that is one of the principle lessons, I suppose: regular people perpetrated these monstrous crimes and so it is regular people — us, all of us — about whom we must think. 

(Photo by flickr user Vincent Desjardins.)

A bedtime story composed from the nonsense words used to register for websites. A little long but really clever:

Tracy Clark-Flory seeks out couples who have not only survived an affair but became stronger as a result:

Sarah, co-founder of the online support group Survive Infidelity, says that she rarely sees couples recover from an affair unless there’s "virtually full disclosure within two to three conversations" — no fibs to protect the other’s feelings, or one’s own image. But Perel emphasizes that "trust isn’t knowing all the details." Sometimes, in fact, it means "living with what you’ll never know." She says, "It’s the people who are able to switch from a detective mode to an investigative mode who are successful. It’s not, ‘What did you do, where did you go, what bed did you sleep in, how often did you fuck him and what position?’ but more, ‘What did it mean for you? What did you find there? Why did you think you were able to experience that there and not here?" …

[Psychologist and author Janis Spring] says that understanding why it happened is crucial. “It could be an underlying resentment that ‘you’ve never been gracious to my family’ or ‘you’ve always made me feel less than you,’” she says. “Maybe one person felt ignored and lonely in the marriage and never spoke up about that or maybe his wife has never really taken his grievances seriously.” By understanding the “why” of the affair they can learn where their vulnerabilities lie and help prevent it from happening again.

Photographer Hal made the above portrait of Sawaco & Ryo for the series “Flesh Love".  Couples were vacuum-packed together and then photographed:

One day I found the perfect place where love could reach its peak. In the vacuum sealed package.

It accidentally gave the Romans lead poisoning:

Roman winemakers found that boiling of unfermented grape juice created a sweeter liquid known as defrutum or sapa. Defrutum is created by boiling off half the volume of wine, while sapa is the result of a reduction to one-third the original volume of wine. … The boiling process involved long hours and high temperatures, causing lead to seep out of the container, inadvertently artificially sweetening the sapa. … A modern attempt to re-create the sapa using lead vessels resulted in a liquid with a lead content of 2,900 parts per billion — one thousand times the acceptable dose in most countries.

Somali Roy reports from the 20th World Orchid Conference:

Orchids are seducers. They trick animals into pollinating them and usually give nothing in exchange. Some orchid species mimic nectar-producing flowers to lure bees; others emit the fetid smell of rotting meat to attract carrion flies. In China, Dendrobium sinense orchids release a chemical normally broadcast by bees in distress; the scent attracts bee-eating hornets expecting an easy meal. The scent of Cymbidium serratum entices a wild mountain mouse, which spreads pollen from flower to flower with its snout. And around the world, orchid species have evolved to look or smell like female insects; males try to mate with the flowers but gather and deposit pollen, which they carry on their flight from deception to deception.

And other interesting info from inside your head:

Paul Hiebert grabs a great interview with Kerry Burke, a New York Daily News crime reporter featured in the short-lived reality show "Tabloid Wars":

Have you ever had to break the news of a crime to the victim's friends or family?

I have lost count of the times I've done that. I know a lot of reporters who won't do it, and I understand and respect that call. But one, someone's got to tell them, and two, I do it with as much grace and empathy as I can summon. Frankly, I need their story. I do my damnedest to do justice to the family and to their lost one.

Do you ever receive angry calls or emails after a story's been published?

Oh yeah. Death threats and all that.

But I respond to everyone who writes or calls me, because that's the test of legitimacy: facing your critics. Often people's qualms aren't about how accurate the piece is; the qualms are about how bad the situation is. They're like, "You fucked us. You fucked us." No. Tell me what's wrong with the story. Is Eddie a coke dealer with a prior murder conviction? Yeah, he is. Well, then what's wrong with the story? Nothing's wrong with the story except that it made Eddie look like the murdering drug dealer he is.

“The Blue Bird" by Charles Bukowski:

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see
you.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he’s
in there.

Continued here.

(Animation by Monika Umba)