Only 10 months ago, Mrs. Obama was described as an angry black woman by some conservatives and as a liability to her husband. Now, she is widely admired for her warmth, and her vibrant and accessible manner, and her race seems almost an afterthought to many Americans. She has the highest favorability ratings of any incoming first lady since 1980, and is even more popular than the president.

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Reads the NYTimes today. That is, when Mrs. Obama was being ‘strong’ she was seem as simply ‘bitchy’, and even worse, a bitchy ‘shorty’ yelling when she could simply talk with some hint of civilization. Now she gardens vegetables, and talks about taking care of the kids. Now America loves her.

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I was born when “old-fashion” feminism, i.e. the ‘angry’ type (should I say bitchy, or maybe dykish) was just dying out, giving way to yuppism and the celebration of masculinity in the form of money power. Flower power giving way to money power. Or perhaps coke powder.

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In any case, I feel attached to the ghost of ideals past. I have a Darwinian perspective to feminism: women and men are simply human beings with different bodies which grow to complement each other’s reproductive functions.  This is called sexual dimorphism, I just learnt. Female and male bodies have essentially the same matrix (think men’s nipples/resquicial breasts and women’s clitories/resquicial penises). The same way their differentiations help continue the species, the differences resultant from these differentiations should also help bring more completeness to another of human necessities and achievements: society.

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Voila. Simple as that.

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But Dr. Wrangham doesn’t circumscribe his evolutionary ideas to meat. In any case, I’m deeply fascinated by the idea of jumping out of a tree and all of a sudden (not so suddenly, but geologically, yes) becoming full-fledged us.

I am not foolish enough to think we are any sort of marvel of sophistication in ideal humanistic terms, but if you think purely in terms of evolution, it is ridiculously important that one species as wimpy as us became the quasi-masters of nature. Or the idiotic mass trying to do so.

Nice article as, again, food for thought.

Their ties to money make them the undead zombies in the slash-and-burn horror flick that is American politics: No matter how many times their discredited theologies are stabbed, torched and shot down by verifiable failure, their careers cannot be killed. Somehow, these political immortals are allowed to mindlessly lunge forward, never answering to rivals…

Remember, while Obama said he wants to slash “billions of dollars in wasteful spending” at the Pentagon, his national security team is demanding a $40 billion increase in defense spending (evidently, the “ludicrous” faction got its way). Obama also said he wants to crack down on the financial industry, strengthen laws encouraging the government to purchase American goods, and transform trade policy. Yet, his economic team is not just promising to support more bank bailouts, but also to weaken “Buy America” statutes and make sure new legislation “doesn’t signal a change in our overall stance on trade,” according to the president’s spokesman.

http://tinyurl.com/politicalscifi

The controversial Jesus Camp in the US has shut down after a documentary film which featured events of children praying in tongues and sobbing with repentance in the camp met with a negative response.

Camp director Becky Fischer commented to Christianity Today: “Christians go after me because of doctrinal issues, whereas the world is going after me because they think I’m another Adolf Hitler.”

She added: “They’re accusing me of raising a Christian jihad.”

The documentary “Jesus Camp” was launched last September, featuring kids worshipping at Bible camps and youth events in the US.

But the film has caused a scare to some audiences for its raw depiction of white evangelical children being ‘radically trained’ to lay down their lives for the gospel.

Many condemned Fischer, accusing her of ‘manipulating’ or ‘brainwashing’ children.

The film features kids shouting out for forgiveness and sobbing over social issues such as abortion and war. “Air America” radio host Mike Papantonio is among many who disagree with the tactics used at the camp.

“I think when you look at what occurs in the camp, there is a use of guilt. There is a use of shame,” Papantonio said. “That is not directed all at Becky. I mean, what is a 5-year-old capable in ways of sin? Maybe stealing an Oreo from a cookie jar.”

Papantonio asked Fischer why children needed to be so emotional at such a young age.

“One repetitive theme is a child crying, a child laying out on the ground and crying. Well, what are they crying about?” he asked. “Why does a 5-year-old feel like it is necessary to cry about their spirituality?”

“I do not use guilt. I do not use shame or manipulation in those ways,” Fischer said. “This is a very intense moment. These children are passionate about their faith in Jesus Christ. Most people don’t really have much emotion going on in their religion at all.”

Since the past decade and a half, enrolment at Christian colleges is up 70 per cent in the US. Sales of Christian music in the US are up 300 per cent. Tens of thousands of youth pastors have been trained.

Young people are the majority who are targeted through Christian music festivals, skateboard competitions and rodeos.

“I think there is a push right now in a lot of evangelical churches to definitely keep the teenagers and keep the children in the faith,” said Heidi Ewing, co-director of “Jesus Camp”. “And this is one version of that attempt.”

Freedom of will is the most basic requirement of dignity, proposes Todorov in his book about the moral life in the holocaust. He also suggests that the extreme of the lager bares the foundations of our more ordinary moral choices. Thus, ordinary moral actions, which pettiness would render invisible, become more visible when analyzed under the cold light of the concentration camps. By understanding them, we could also notice the woven texture of our everyday virtues and morality.

(The reading is a true pleasure: the reasoning sounds accurate and the insights, useful. I have always appreciated Todorov’s keen observation and was gladly surprised to have seen his face for the first time in the back cover portrait. That was actually strange. It was like putting a face to a strong intellectual power I had only known in the most abstract way. Looking into his eyes made me less dogmatic – he is human, after all. I can better understand now why Hashem has no name or face, and why mortals necessarily burned down to ashes over the vision of the Greco-Roman gods.)

Todorov’s epistemology of the moral life, divides it into 1) Dignity, 2) Caring, and 3) The life of the mind. This framework explains in detail the fresh breeze that involved my soul when I finally decided to abandon my PhD studies, amidst thesis writing. It was an act of dignity – in which I chose to let go of oppressive caring for my absent father (who needed me to be a PhD) and a mediocre life of the mind.

For Academia turned out to be a nest of political dissidence and psychological compensation of the worst kind. I remember when a former boyfriend, having gone to a conference, noticed “Everybody there has issues!”. And I said: “Sure, everyone always has issues.Even you!” And he replied: “But they were just legitimizing each other with no reflection”. True. In 1995, this intellectual environment welcomed the publication of Sokal’s sham article, in which he mockingly claims to have analyzed quantum mechanics in the light of post-structural theories, problematizing and relativizing “foundational conceptual categories of prior science — among them, existence itself”. How can such a network of individuals, eagerly praising each other for stating either truisms or self-serving ‘truths’ contribute to uplifting social or individual dignity through such a mediocre understanding of the life of the mind?

Well, it turns out it does. Every now and never, emerges a Todorov. But I am no Todorov. Neither my colleagues at that PhD program. Neither my dogmatic, prejudiced father.

I’m just a civilian of the mind now. Free to laugh and read whatever pleases me. Free from the ambiguous camaraderie of that mediocre intellectual environment, I feel I care more about others (which , while there, I dedicated to abash in order to get grades). Among random, delicious readings, I feel now that I have achieved more dignity for myself.

This may be written in History books as a hallmark as important as….?

The famous debate between William F. Buckley Jr., the alleged the father of the conservative renaissance in America, and Noam Chomsky, social scientist and democrat.

Buckley tries to substitute accurate historical knowledge with mockery. Chomsky knows what he is talking about, and his points are logical

It is difficult to decide who won the debate in the end. Although Buckley’s ignorance made him look like a fool in most of the debate, America ended up embracing his republican views in the decades to come.

Meanwhile, Chomsky became an increasingly famous activist and neglected academic.

That is, Buckley’s ignorance became mainstream and Chomsky’s pristine ethics and accuracy went underground.

Fast forward to the 2008 US Presidential Elections. Christopher Buckley (William F.’ son and speech writer for George Bush) announces he is voting for Obama and gets kicked out of the conservative journal founded by his father.

This story sounds like a paragraph by Kurt Vonnegut Jr, this great chronicler of the American saga.

“I have the simplest tastes.

“I am always satisfied with the best.”

Oscar Wilde.

The performance combined the appeal of ‘ temperature rising’ with the American dream of sweethearts getting married in the groove of Gospel music. Before nightclubbing and one-night stands entangled with mainstream fashion and music trends, Elvis brought sex fantasies to the life of Singer Sewing Machine customers… One can laugh to death of their blushed faces and restrained body language, their gaze glued onto his figure and swing.

By looking at the fate of his contemporary knockouts, I wonder if this mix was the reason he has been considered ‘The King’. The biggest marketing deal indeed: selling the fetish of life and chastity – preaching with fervor each single part of it, with the occasional mocking smile.

What did you do this week?

I recollect doing a couple of nice things.

Reading: Free gift with purchase – which resonated with my tendency to think that shallow pragmatism and deep wisdom do converge more often than most would like to admit

Cooking: Tonkinoise soup, and while I was (no kidding) picking leaves from my little sweet basil trees, there was this greatest insight – the cook picks leaves from the tallest tree while the mediocre ones are spared, so don’t be the tallest tree if you are not having a lot of fun being so, as the benefits of grandiose are basically serving others at your expense

Appreciating the arts: Sweeney Todd – I think Tim Burton is aware that his films end without clarifying their many unresolved plots; and this works

La fille du Pharao – classic ballet is about grace. There is never too much grace.

Energizing a career: Roger Harding is one of the best career coaches I have ever met. He doesn’t want to accommodate you to a grinding machine in name of a doubtful success. He was the first one to say, with all words: “Be who you are rather than who you are expected to be…Happily pay any price your integrity may demand!” If you are good enough, they will hire you. If they only need a follower, you will suffocate inside the closet in no time – which is no strategy to start with.

A week for me is measured in terms of insights. Find your own measurement and check if you grow accordingly.