Saturday, July 17, 2010

Following a competence discussion at Volokh. I refer to this book on competency. It mentions the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool though generally I find just the perspective of the book necessary.
Ron Rosenbaum mentioned a while back about being in the hospital. I thought something had happened to him since his Pajamas Media link, see side bar which has linked to a Tea Party post, hadn't changed in months. I was happy to see him referred to and found him with an article on agnosticism on Slate. He can go so far as to sound like a crank, that last PJ media post, or carefully philosophical and nuanced, the Slate post. I guess it was also the former persona in the last PJ post that had me worried. Speaking of the Tea Party issue, that Mark Williams who counterpunched the NAACP was pretty good; see Ann Althouse and the Coates blog in the Atlantic. You really wonder if, in Ron's phrase, the NAACP has jumped the shark when Farrakhan follows them asking for reparations from the Jews.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Bagehot's blog on the Economist web site has a defense of the BBC which includes this observation:

Yes, it is a clique-ish institution, and snobbish towards outsiders. I have bumped into BBC teams on four continents, at airports or election rallies or hotel lobbies late at night after some long story, and have routinely marvelled at their incestuous, clannish manner. In terms of insiderishness, I think only a travelling hockey team from a very grand girls' boarding school comes close.

Thursday, July 01, 2010

From the Gospel, from Luke, for last Sunday.

When the days for Jesus’ being taken up were fulfilled,
he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem,...

Jesus answered...,
“Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests,
but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.”


There was a nice article in JAMA some years ago, 'On saying goodbye before death,' in which by literary and clinical examples the author suggested that people make relatively simple statements which seem to be directed to a present discussion but may actually later be seen as being a communication about their passing.

And to another he said, “Follow me.”
But he replied, “Lord, let me go first and bury my father.”
But he answered him, “Let the dead bury their dead...'


The last sentence, "Let the dead bury their dead," might be taken to mean, in the conflict between Jesus and the Sanhedrin that, if they kill him, then when they are 'the dead' then that will bury the guilt of having killed Jesus.