After another two months of not posting, I am again looking for an outlet for procrastination and wrath, so I turn to a page which no one will ever read. As a rule, I am disdainful of post-modernism as the epitome of intellectual bankruptcy and laziness, and am positively nauseous when it is applied to any field outside of the arts (the thought of it made me throw up in my mouth a little just there.) I am especially perturbed when it is broadly applied to the ideal of a pleuralistic or multicultrual society, with the conclusion that not only are all cultures/cultural values equally legitimate, but that we must embrace and adopt all aspects of every culture in a pleuralistic society. Recent events throughout the world, specifically the protests in the middle east against the nordic nations, have thrown this into sharp relief. I was overjoyed when I saw this essay by Ibn Warraq (http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,398853,00.html) the traditional psuedonym of an Islamic dissident, and in this case the voice of a muslim immigrant to the US from Pakistan. He/she hits the nail on the head, as far as I'm concerned: cultural relativism is NOT the path of a pleuralistic society, tolerance is.

It is not often that a piece of literature so profound, so life-altering, crosses my path that I am forced to reflect on the ramifications of its unimaginable greatness. I made a pilgrimage from my cave in upstate Manhattan to the wilds of Fairmount Park to visit my brother, who is spending his life as an asectic monk, surviving off that which he begs of people. In his begging, he came across a zealot of the philosophic school of Chiropractic (which is apparently both the adjective and the noun, as they are loathe to call it chiropractic medicine, with good cause.) He gave to my brother a remarkable pamphlet which in turn was passed to me. I can only hope this is as enlightening to everyone who reads this as it was for me.
The astonishing Dr. You
I would like to highlight some of the more wonderful passages contained within:
"How you feel is a poor judge of your health!" I'll never make THAT mistake again.

"It is the purpose of your brain and nervous system to control the function of every cell, tissue, organ, and system of your body." I'm glad to know that every cell is under direct control of the nervous system, I'll have to remember that one.

"Many of us get our first subluxation at birth. Caesarean section, forcep delivery and suction extraction can place tremendous pressure on a baby's nervous system, too. Lacking language, babies often exhibit unexplained crying, colic, poor sleeping patterns, and other symptoms." Here I thought it was normal for babies to not sleep through the night and randomly. It was actually subluxations! How stupid I was!

Oh, and apparently vaccinations are all a hoax, the apparent vast improvement inchildhood morbidity and mortality is a ruse by the drug companies. Who knew? I think we should start infecting kids with smallpox just to toughen them up. The little wusses.

This amazing brochure has inspired me to seek out other philosophies as wonderfully inventive as chiropractic and share them with the world. I'll return in the near future to talk about "spiritual DNA" and "22 strand DNA activation."

I continue to post in the vain hope that someday I will have something worthwhile to say. Someday is not today.

Hermit's Cave, Upstate Manhattan -- The opening salvo has been fired in what the lords of hyperbole have dubbed "Scopes II," a ridiculous title that I will not repeat again. The case, brought by the ACLU and 11 families from the Dover area school district, is on the one hand a total embarrassment for the nation, and on the other a chance for legitimate scientific theory to wipe out the last vestiges of creationism in public school. We can only wait and hope.

Jesus, everytime I head over to Slate to check the the news or seethe with rage at Christophen Hitchen's mind-bogglingly tenuous gasp on reality, I see another one of the "kausfiles" warning of the evil afoot at the Times website. Though I agree with him that Times Select is a magnificently bone-headed move on the part of the paper, just let it play out. It's going to crash and burn, with the potential for new voices to come out of the ashes, but it's not the enormous phase-shift he's making it out to be. Nor do I agree with his assertion that should Times Select succeed, the nation's most influential commentators will shift to the right, as most people will no longer have access to the NYT's commentators. Influential commentators are a result of excellent writing, wit, and intelligence. While most right-leaning commentators have the advantage of copious amounts of hot air as well as controversial/confrontational stances/comments, there are only a few (see Hitchen, above) who are eloquent and intelligent enough to bother responding or engaging them. That fact, along with a predisposition among the online population toward higher levels of education, leaves me with little doubt that those individuals who take up the torch from the NYT's commentators probably won't have Rush Limbaugh as an idol or think that Roberts is a particularly swell guy.

Once again, I am proud to be out of Pennsylvania, where the Dover school board has succeeded in embarassing the entire state once more- Good job, guys! Let's just hope they get the smack-down they so richly deserve now that they have left Pennsyltuckey and entered onto the national stage.

Also, in a hat tip to my friend Mikey Utah, it's good to see that his State is still as fascist as he left it. Way to go, SLC and suburbs!

Why do I ignore reality? Because acknowledging it makes me cry.