(via theeconomist)…
Daily Chart: War deaths in Iraq. Wikileaks data provides new statistics on the estimated death toll of the Iraq conflict, divided between soldiers, insurgents and civilians. It is likely that even this source underestimat… — (via theeconomist)…

Daily Chart: War deaths in Iraq. Wikileaks data provides new statistics on the estimated death toll of the Iraq conflict, divided between soldiers, insurgents and civilians. It is likely that even this source underestimates the true number of civilian casualties.

Civilian deaths: the consistent leader.

October 25, 2010

“
A plot, if there is to be one, must be a secret. A secret that, if only we knew it, would dispel our frustration, lead us to salvation; or else the knowing of it in itself would be salvation. Does such a luminous secret exist?

Yes, provided it is never known. Known, it will only disappoint us. Hadn’t Aglie spoken of the yearning of mystery that stirred the age of the Antonines? Yet someone had just arrived and declared himself the Son of God, the Son of God made flesh, to redeem the sins of the world. Was that a run-of-the-mill mystery? And he promised salvation to all: you only had to love your neighbor. Was that a trivial secret? And he bequeathed the idea that whoever uttered the right words at the right time could turn a chunk of bread and a half-glass of wine into the body and blood of the Son of God, and be nourished by it. Was that a paltry riddle? And then he led the Church fathers to ponder and proclaim that God was one and Triune and that the Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son, but that the Son did not proceed from the Father and the Spirit. Was that some easy formula for hylics? And yet they, who now had salvation within their grasp — do-it-yourself salvation — turned deaf ears. Is that all there is to it? How trite. And they kept scouring the Mediterranean in their boats, looking for a lost knowledge, of which those thirty-denarii dogmas were but the superficial veil, the parable for the poor in spirit, the allusive hieroglyph, the wink of the eye at the pneumatics. The mystery of the Trinity? Too simple: there had to be more to it.
”

— Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum (via ayjay, hot on the heels of my thing on Josquin and the Nicene Creed)

October 25, 2010

October 25, 2010

One of Josquin’s takes on the liturgical Nicene Creed, from his Misse Pange Lingua. What’s often missed when the creeds are spoken in church is that these are joyful words. This is evident in the setting of the Et resurrexit tertia die. At the very least, these words ought to be SHOUTED during worship! Given that this Credo takes some liturgical cues (the hushed homophony of the et incarnatus est… corresponds to when the higher liturgies kneel or bow the head), I do wonder if there are some liturgical traditions that are more sprightly in their recitation of the Creed. I hope that there are; and if not, that these words would get to us to the point that we would say/shout/sing this thing like we really meant it.

americandrink:

Prescription for Good Whiskey
“Sheriff Oswald, Leprington, This is to certify that Mr. Joe Hinnant is ill and needs some good whiskey. Please send him the best you have. Yours Truly, A.L. Ballenger M.D. 11/1/28”
Turns out prescripti… — americandrink:

Prescription for Good Whiskey

“Sheriff Oswald, Leprington,
This is to certify that Mr. Joe Hinnant is ill and needs some good whiskey. Please send him the best you have.
Yours Truly,
A.L. Ballenger M.D.
11/1/28”

Turns out prescriptions for whiskey were fairly common during Prohibition.

Via the incredible, interesting and booze-nerdy chanticleersociety.org

October 22, 2010

October 22, 2010

The biography I wrote for my boss, @isaacgrauke. http://bit.ly/9ftG5G

The New York City Subway system in dozens and dozens of photographs →

October 21, 2010

The graffiti and trash from the 1980’s are what I grew up with. The police presence of the 2000’s is something I’m happy to have missed.

Richard Steinheimer ascends the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho behind one of the Milwaukee Road’s Little Joe electrics. It’s 1973. Only bicycles roll here now.

October 20, 2010

Richard Steinheimer has taken many of my favorite photographs.

October 20, 2010

From a fellow named Dave and his exploring/photography website Desolate Metropolis. This is the Michigan Central Depot in Detroit, one of the most astounding abandoned ruins of the Rust Belt. In Dave’s words, what the Depot brought to mind:

T… — From a fellow named Dave and his exploring/photography website Desolate Metropolis. This is the Michigan Central Depot in Detroit, one of the most astounding abandoned ruins of the Rust Belt. In Dave’s words, what the Depot brought to mind:

The grandeur and even opulence which defines many of the structures built there stands in stark contrast to the current condition of the same structures and the city in general. The rise and fall of the American auto industry, which built and defined 20th Century America, is on display nowhere more prominently than in Detroit’s abandonments. This is representative of a larger shift in the American economy away from industry and towards the information age. While this shift has brought record profits to many places, it has also caused devastation on a level which is not widely realized outside of places like Detroit. It begs the question of what is next for those places reliant on the information economy, and what is in store if those jobs are also outsourced and sent overseas…

October 20, 2010

I work in a tech park. Dammit. But at least the tech park is in Idaho, where one may find on the sidewalk outside his office a falconer feeding the wing of a freshly-killed starling to his Cooper’s Hawk. Which hawk goes by the name, Huck.

October 19, 2010

“When you see a company that promises “Always low prices, always,” you can bet that they mean, “always externalized costs, always subsidized profits, always.” There is no other way to do it. It is not, as some imagine, a question of “economies of scale,” but of political economies; not efficiency in production, but efficiency in politics: efficiently escaping due costs and obtaining undue subsidies.”

— John Medaille, from his fairly-quotable article, “The Cost of Everything”, in Front Porch Republic.

October 18, 2010

October 18, 2010

Western Kansas, somewhere.

October 18, 2010

Ordered my copy this morning.

October 15, 2010

All of his records, save for Seven Swans, are streaming here.

David Plowden sees something.

October 14, 2010

Boxcars don’t have roofwalks anymore, and there’s a now pair of six-lane bridges on either side of this magnificent bridge over the Carquinez Straits.

October 14, 2010

October 13, 2010

My grandfather.

A Happy Meal that won't decompose →

October 12, 2010

A Flickr set from Sally Davies, whoever that is. Six months in and still alarmingly intact.

“This scheming at APS HQ is so bizarre that there cannot be a simple explanation for it. Some have held that the physicists of today are not as smart as they used to be, but I don’t think that is an issue. I think it is the money, exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago. There are indeed trillions of dollars involved, to say nothing of the fame and glory (and frequent trips to exotic islands) that go with being a member of the club.”

—

From Harold Lewis’ letter of resignation from the American Physical Society. Lewis is Emeritus Professor of Physics at UCSB.

“Exactly what Eisenhower warned about a half-century ago.”

That is, “the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex…”

I’ve heard many people connect the global-warming hoo-hah to the moneyed interests of our day, but I’ve never read anyone connect it to the influence of the military-industrial complex.

October 12, 2010

Patrick J. Deneen, "American Self-Loathing", on Front Porch Republic. →

October 12, 2010

Deneen really nails it.

Anti-Washington fever will rise to dizzying heights in coming days. The chattering classes will conclude that Americans have a firm idea of their destiny, choosing one party over another in coming days. Few will understand that the source of our loathing will be the division within ourselves. The divided government we will embrace is the division in our souls: two versions of democracy. In the one version, democracy is rugged individualism. In the other, democracy is a gentler concern that no one should be left behind. Both are fantasies born of bad modern anthropology. Our country oscillates between two fantasies of democracy – a downward spiral that is self-perpetuating and mutually reinforcing. The election is no more than a radar blip in the erosion of self-government. The more deeply we hate ourselves, the louder our denunciation of Washington will resound. The din of self-loathing will soon be deafening.

I would summarize thusly: idolatry produces confusion leading to self-destruction.