Ah, London

For everyone (like me) who truly, madly, deeply loves London...

Who and what are we?

So many fundamentalist Christians seem to model themselves on the God of the Old Testament, that vengeful, wrathful, judgmental Deity. But they (and we) are not vengeful, wrathful, judgmental deities; we are fallen, flawed creatures for whom humility is the correct response to the riddle of life and compassion the correct response to the suffering of our fellow humans.

On An Overgrown Path: Now we rise and are everywhere

"Evensong sung by the college choir in the 15th century chapel is one of the great free experiences of the Western world"

And one of these days...

On An Overgrown Path: Now we rise and are everywhere

On An Overgrown Path: WFMT Chicago shows the Brits a thing or two

Everyone should be reading "On An Overgrown Path."

On An Overgrown Path: WFMT Chicago shows the Brits a thing or two

More on torture

Torture is the act of inflicting pain and suffering on an individual over whom we have complete control. As such it is the exemplar of extreme human cruelty. I can accept that someone may be driven to torture because of circumstances that are overwhelming at the moment. That person I can forgive. I cannot accept torture as policy. Leave aside the illegality. Leave aside the sophistry that would have us believe that after centuries waterboarding is no longer to be considered torture. To torture is to darken one's soul. As an instrument of national policy, torture darkens the nation's soul.

On Torture

Anyone who chooses to support torture is on the horns of Plato's dilemma: to paraphrase,

Are we good people because we do good things? Or do we do good things because we are good people?

If we choose the latter, I'm afraid it's all too easy to justify actions because of our "goodness". When it's pointed out that waterboarding is a technique used by the Spanish Inquisition and the Khmer Rouge (and a technique used primarily to elicit false confessions) torture supporters, like Mark Thiessen, become enraged: when they did it it was bad; When we do it, it's good, or at least morally neutral, because our motives are pure, and our enemies are so evil. Or they try to point out trivial differences: we didn't tie our victims down with wire, but used less "painful" restraints. I find it difficult to conceive of a more morally incoherent position. Their arguments reduce to "We're Americans. We're special."

One could be tempted to use the principle of double effect to justify torture, as Aquinas did in justifying murder in self defense. Motives are important, and it's tempting to justify torture in terms of protecting us and our loved ones, our country. But the action of torture cannot be morally neutral. The intent of torture is to inflict pain and suffering on someone totally under out control. It cannot be merely a by-product or side effect of actions taken for honorable purposes; and the Catholic Church, I think, has it right: torture is morally abhorrent in all circumstances. One does wish, though, that the church was a bit more forthright about their actions in the past, some of which involved the torture and murder of some of my wife's ancestors in the Albigensian Crusades.

I think Thiessen is a tribalist; which is to say that he is a type of relativist who believes that moral law allows us to treat those not of our tribe differently. He is not alone. I have heard a particular priest creep very close to that position in a number of sermons not long after 9/11 (but not recently; I fancy he feels differently now...).

There's also the problem of the innocent. Torture supporters seem unable to admit that many of those we tortured were not terrorists at all, but people who ended up in our custody for any number of reasons, from tribal rivalries and treachery to the payment of bounties, always a source of corruption. How does one possibly justify the torture of innocents?

Nietsche was right: "Avoid people who have a strong impulse to punish."

Beamish & Crawford Brewery, Cork, Ireland, Private Treaty Sale, Brewery Equipment for Sale, Brewery Auctions | Moody Auctions

Boy, is this depressing.

I had a pint of Beamish at a pub within sight of this brewery a few years ago.

Beamish & Crawford Brewery, Cork, Ireland, Private Treaty Sale, Brewery Equipment for Sale, Brewery Auctions | Moody Auctions

Tilly and Max

Tilly and Max doing what they do best during the day.

The Ticking Time Bomb again...

We have in comments to this post,

In the case of Corporal Nachshon
Wachsman (not Waxman), there was in fact extreme time pressure,
although not a time bomb.  Hamas forced Wachsman to make tape in which
he said that if 200 Palestinian prisoners were not released by a
certain date and time (8 pm Friday Oct 14, 1994), he would be killed. 
Hamas released the tape on Tuesday, Oct 11, which was the first
indication that Wachsman had been kidnapped.  The Israeli security
forces located and captured an accomplice to the kidnap, who revealed
the location of the house in which Wachsman was being held.  They then
mounted a rescue efffort, which failed, and Wachsman was killed.  So,
whatever interrogation method they used on the accomplice, it did work
in that it quickly produced accurate information.
 
 
 
The Wachsman matter is the very unusual case in which:
(1) the information sought is discrete and particular; (2) the prisoner
does have the information, the interrogator knows it, and the prisoner
knows that the interrogator knows; (3) the accuracy of the information
can be confirmed very quickly, and the prisoner knows that the
consequence of lying is likely to be very severe.  It is very different
from the open-ended interrogation that was conducted at Guantanamo.
 
 
 
The Wachsman case is the sort of situation that,
according to the Israeli Supreme Court's very interesting opinion on
the use of torture, could potentially be justified by the defense of
necessity.  In the Court's analysis, torture is a crime.  Like other
crimes involving intentional infliction of injury (e.g., assault), a
person charged the crime can defend himself on the grounds of necessity
(e.g., yes I hit that man in the bank but only to prevent him from
shooting the teller).  The Supreme Court concluded that in any given
case, if the police or army chose to commit torture they would be
permitted to defend on the narrow ground of necessity - but that there
could be no blanket a priori permission to torture and that the defense
of necessity was one for the courts to evaluate, case by case, and
could never by a grant of permission to torture at the discretion of
the security services. 

Exactly. One should also note that if this is the perfect example of justification for torture, the ultimate end, the successful rescue of an individual, was a failure.

Say what?

This I find impossible to believe, even after being conditioned over the last eight years into accepting the unbelievable and the impossible.

Cheney: That man again

Indict him. Put him on trial. Put him on trial now.

Patrick Stewart's Macbeth

Now this is an interesting take...

"Macbush Comes to Brooklyn" by Scott Horton (Harper's Magazine)

Running for their lives

Terrifying and poignant

Kenya, runners, ethnic violence | Salon News

The Tripoli 6

The story of the Tripoli 6 is profoundly depressing, yet another extreme case of the seemingly infinite capacity of human beings to rationalize cruelty. Stirling Newberry has an important post at TPM Cafe.

This is a story?

Don't they have, like, you know, editors at the Associated Press to keep things like this from happening?

Viren/Prefontaine 1972 Olympics 5k

Start

Conclusion

I can watch this over and over and over and never get tired of it. Brilliant courageous running from Prefontaine, and otherworldly and tactically superb racing by Viren. But why did Pre let Viren out of the box he set on the backstraight of the last lap? (Not that it would have made any difference.)

A Masterpiece

Without question one of the finest new compositons of the year.

YouTube - Kitten Composer

Kayhan Kalhor

On Friday, October 13, I'll be going to a performance of "Persian and Turkish Improvisations" by the extraordinary Iranian musician Kayhan Kalhor and the Turkish baglama player Erdal Erzincan. Kalhor is one of the supreme virtuosos on the ancient Persian instrument the kamancheh, which is an ancestor to the western violin. His flights of improvisational fantasy with the sitarist Shujaat Khan in the fusion group Ghazal is some of the most astonishing music I've heard in the last 10 years. The new CD by Kalhor and Erzincan on ECM, The Wind , is just out, and I highly recommend it.

Sibelius and Guerrero

Well, what should be waiting for me at my friendly local CD shop this morning but two fine new releases, Sibelius's vast Symphony/Cantata hybrid Kullervo on LSOLive, conducted by Sir Colin Davis, and the new Tallis Scholars recording of Guerrero's Missa Surge Propera. Davis's Kullervo is such an improvement over his previous recording on RCA from the mid 90s that it's hard to believe the readings are by the same conductors, and not only because the new one is over 10 minutes shorter than the old one. The general flabbiness of the first recording has been replaced by tautness, focus, and a real sense of inevitability. The recording quality is problematical in the usual Barbican way—a bit stiff and unresonant, but with lots of detail. This wonderful piece, which for some reason Sibelius disowned, withdrawing it after its first performance, demands to be heard. There is no lack of good performances around, but Davis's new one goes to the top of the stack along with Berglund's first recording.

The new Tallis Scholars CD is likewise a triumph. Guerrero was the major figure in Spanish music between Morales and Victoria, and if, as some argue, that Palestrina developed his style from Morales, then Guerrero was a very powerful proponent of that Italian master's polyphony. Add to that the peculiar passionate characteristic of Iberian music of this time, and you get riveting art, and of course powerful advocacy from Peter Phillips and his singers. This now makes two fine Guerrero recordings I've acquired recently. A nice trend.

The NSA and the rule of law

Jack Balkin has a wonderful entry on Posner and his New Republic piece on how he would approach the legality of the NSA surveillance program. Read it all.

This concluding paragraph is worth memorizing and shouting from the rooftops:


Balkinization

The rule of law, as I have said before, is a political value as well as a legal value. It is a political value of restraint that we take upon ourselves so that we can demand the same restraint from others when the power of the state rests in their hands. The rule of law can be, and has been, used to perpetrate or apologize for many injustices in human history. But it has one saving grace-- that it offers us a place to stand when we object to the aggrandizement of power by those who are utterly convinced that they come to us as saviors. For many years conservatives warned us about would-be saviors of the left, who would sweep away legal restraints to pursue their vision of a just society. It is time to stand up to the would-be saviors of the right, who seek to concentrate unaccountable power in order to pursue their vision of national security.