China has added a new, less subtle trick to the annals of anti-homeless architecture. Park benches in Yantai Park in Shangdong province now work according to coin operated timers. Stop feeding the meter, and little iron spikes pop out to prick the unwary sitter. According to the article: Park bosses got the idea from an art installation in Germany where sculptor Fabian Brunsing created a similar bench as a protest against the commercialisation of modern life."He thought he was exa … [Read more...]
Selling Beauty Short
June 24, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Nathan Biberdorf would like us all to stop affirming each other by asserting that everyone is beautiful. It's doing more harm than good. There are plenty of people that are not physically appealing to look at, the primary and most widely used meaning of the word “beautiful”. So why do we use the word as a catch-all for any sort of positive attribute?Nobody says, “Everybody is a good listener.” Nobody says, “Everyone is athletic to somebody.” Nobody says, “You are an amazing writer, whether … [Read more...]
Who Watches the Executioners?
June 17, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Yesterday, a federal judge rejected Marcus Wellons's plea for a stay of execution. If no other intervention is forthcoming, Wellons will be executed this evening. Wellons's argued that his death should be postponed until the state of Georgia was forced to disclose exactly which drugs they would be using to kill him.After the botched execution earlier this year in Ohio, courts have had to consider whether experimental executions constitute cruel and unusual punishment -- a sentence worse tha … [Read more...]
The Merry Merchant and the Sad Antonio
June 15, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Last night, I had the pleasure of seeing the closing night performance of The Merchant of Venice, staged by The Shakespeare Forum. It was a delightful production, and the cast did a great job making all the jokes (and there are many) land effectively, without undercutting the heartbreaking trial scene (I cried). The humor of the background characters set apart the two antagonists, Shylock and Antonio, who are some of the only characters who never laughed joyfully.What struck me most about t … [Read more...]
The School Where Bullies Ask for Help
June 12, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The American Prospect has a beautiful feature on a high school that started trying out restorative justice, instead of defaulting to suspensions. Here's the basic approach: The cornerstone of KCAPA’s program is the “restorative circle.” Drawing inspiration from the American Indian practice of the talking circle, in which a totem is passed around to signal the opportunity to speak, these meetings are convened for all kinds of reasons, from gauging students’ moods to addressing acts of serious mi … [Read more...]
The Loneliness of Lying
June 10, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The Toast is in the middle of an ongoing, very funny series of reimagining the Harry Potter books as written by Ayn Rand. I chortled my way through their take on Sorcerer's Stone (I think this was my favorite line): “Malfoy bought the whole team brand-new Nimbus Cleansweeps!” Ron said, like a poor person. “That’s not fair!”“Everything that is possible is fair,” Harry reminded him gently. “If he is able to purchase better equipment, that is his right as an individual. How is Draco’s superior … [Read more...]
In the Moral Landscape, There Still Be Dragons
June 4, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Sam Harris has announced the winning entry in his contest for critiques of The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values. The winner (from a philosophy M.A. and blogger at Point of Controversy) is the obvious complaint, which seems just. Here's an excerpt: First, your analogy between epistemic axioms and moral axioms fails. The former merely motivate scientific inquiry and frame its development, whereas the latter predetermine your science of morality’s most basic findings. Epis … [Read more...]
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