Today was a successful day. Aside from moving most of my stuff out of my apartment to the building I'll (hopefully) be living in next year, I also had my first academic panel. And it was great! Most shocking was the fact that people -- by which I mean, random people, people who had no connection to any of us or any reason to show up -- came to the talk. And they were attentive! And they asked great questions! And everybody was really positive towards all the papers! It was wonderful.
* * *
Sometime at Alas, a Blog (I forget if it was during my guest-blogging stint or in the comments), somebody responded to my critique that their position on Israel/Palestine was completely disengaged from mainstream Jewish experience by saying she could solve that simply by talking with and forming coalitions with leftist, anti-Zionist Jewish groups. I argued then, and still believe, that due respect for the Jewish community is not demonstrated when you only talk with those members who already agree with you -- particularly when that subset represents a tiny fringe of the whole. I thought of that event in reading this piece in the Forward, which makes it sound like the Presbyterian Church is going out of its way to avoid mainstream Jewish groups in formulating its Israel policy. And to the extent it does talk to them, it talks down to them. The bottomless pit that is Christian arrogance towards Jews never ceases to astound me.
Interesting post about an American Jew in Damascus.
Studies suggest that video gamers have better control over themselves in their dreams. I actually have had this experience, though I wouldn't have thought to associate it with gaming.
Twenty-somethings are not idiots about Elena Kagan. Yay my generation!
Leon Wieseltier correctly notes that the Sheikh Jarrah settlers are effectively claiming a right of return akin to that of the Palestinians. Having already established that reconciliation between Israel and Palestine means that not everybody gets to go home again, I can hardly making an exemption for a particular, formerly Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem.
I just can't get upset about the so-called Sestak-gate.
J Street disavows Marcy Winograd (see my prior post), but Democracy for America stands by her after she came out in favor of a single-state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and implied that Reps. Jane Harman (D-CA) and Henry Waxman (D-CA) were not loyal to America.
The Episcopalian Church slaps the wrist of its American branch for ordaining a lesbian bishop.
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Why are all Jews so fascinated with their own ethnicity? It's borderline unnatural if you ask me. I don't much about Jewish affairs, so most of the time, my eyes just glaze over your blog posts, as they have to deal with Jews.
Other than the extreme interest in Jews, your blog is very fun to read, especially when you make logical conclusions. Sometimes your emotion and Jewish ethnocentrism gets in the way of your brain, which is quite sad, because you a very smart human being (You are smart. Don't deny it. Only extremely smart people score 170+ on the LSAT).
You went to Carleton? Interesting.
Asian of Reason, is this post (and your blog) satire or what? I honestly can't tell.
(The problem with this kind of question is I'm not sure I'll be able to believe the answer. Oh well.)
"Only extremely smart people score 170+ on the LSAT"
Pretty sure this must be satire, even if the Asian of Reason doesn't realize that it is.
I have bad news, everyone -- Asian of Reason might skip out on Carleton.
I still am surprised when I encounter people who swallow "The Bell Curve" in its entirety. Even folks on the right have pointed out that the book's claim to have proven racial IQ difference is essentially crap. In particular, as Heckman notes, the book uses sections of the AFQT that test knowledge as a proxy for testing intelligence.
Yikes. All that junk science rumination from a high school senior?
But it's not that uncommon for people to change their crazier views in college, I guess. Here's hoping AoR makes a bunch of persuasive friends with relatively mainstream social views and finds the rigors of higher education leave him less time for the hella creepy online BDS community.
Are you making joke David Schraub? So bad, so bad. Seriously though, I'm very concerned about the obnoxious liberalism at Carleton. It's an awesome school though.
I'm not a high school senior. I was a liberal SWPL until I went to college for the first time. Then I took economics. Then I read Rand. Then I read "The Bell Curve". Then I read a lot more (including "refutations"). Then I used my brain to draw logical conclusions. Then I started blogging. The rest is history.
Why is "SWPL" really "stuff so-called 'limousine liberals' like"? Have the creators of that list never been to a damn Tea Party? Is there a We Like Obama Tea Party that Fox neglected to cover?
More to the point, what's the exact adapted internet lingo definition you're trying to get across with it?
Never mind. Google answered my non-rhetorical question with disappointing abundance.
This is why I'm inclined to make Rand mandatory reading in high school. I read it my sophomore year when it fit perfectly with my "boo hoo why am I not as popular as my obvious brilliance should make me?" Feeling this way in high school is socially acceptable and even cliched; feeling this way as an adult is pathetic. I'd mostly gotten over Rand by the time I majored in economics.
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