Five Twitters
1. Niche blog of the month goes to: Brian Leiter's Nietzsche Blog. If you enjoy alliteration, you might call it a "Nietzsche niche for fans of the nephalistic nullifidian." Via.
My digital friend Nick Milne once juxtaposed Nietzsche's view of the Ten Commandments and Chesterton's. It's worth cut-and-pasting:
From The Wanderer and His Shadow (1880), one of Nietzsche's anthologies of aphorisms:
Moral prohibitions, like those of the Decalogue, are suitable only for an age of subjugated reason: now, such a prohibtion as "Thou shalt not kill" or "Thou shalt not commit adultery," presented without reasons, would have a harmful rather than a useful effect.
The Chestertonian response, from the Illustrated London News of Jan. 3, 1920:
The truth is, of course, that the curtness of the Ten Commandments is an evidence, not of the gloom and narrowness of a religion, but, on the contrary, of its liberality and humanity. It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted: precisely because most things are permitted, and only a few things are forbidden.
2. But we're recovering, yes? The number of job seekers competing for each opening has reached the highest point since the recession began, according to government data released Friday. The employment crisis is expected to worsen as companies stay reluctant to hire.
All ideological arguments aside, pray for those who want work but can't find it.
3. Unintended side effects that aren't discovered for many years? Can't be: Scientists say the hormones in the oral contraceptive suppress a woman's interest in masculine men and make boyish men more attractive. I wonder if this supposed tendency to create barracudas has contributed to the spate of female-teacher-on-high-school-boy affairs we've been seeing the past couple of years. Seems a bit far-fetched, but you never know.
4. The Obamas borrowed 45 pieces of art from federal collections to hang in the White House. Judge their taste for yourself. Next year, he'll win a Guggenheim art award. I also understand that he and Michelle really like movies. Can an Academy Award be far away? What about TV? Does he like TV? Give him an Emmy.
5. Anybody remember the recession of 1920? Of course not. The federal government just let it run its course and it was over quickly. Tom Woods tells the story. "Not surprisingly, many modern economists who have studied the depression of 1920”“21 have been unable to explain how the recovery could have been so swift and sweeping even though the federal government and the Federal Reserve refrained from employing any of the macroeconomic tools–public works spending, government deficits, inflationary monetary policy–that conventional wisdom now recommends as the solution to economic slowdowns."
