mushin no shin

So last night I ratcheted up my culture quest another notch, going to see the Blakemore Trio performing at Vanderbilt/Blair’s Ingram Hall.
It was another fine performance, these are three obviously accomplished musicians, and their renditions of Beethoven and Brahms swept me up in in a melodious waterfall; I felt more than once like a [...]

… trailer park of the solar system

MENSA Intelligence Test
Fun stuff. I got 22. I guess I should apply … I hear MENSA’s a good place to meet women : )
Actually I don’t know if MENSA endorses or has anything to do with this test, seems like if they did, it would be up at mensa.org. Still a fun test though.

H. Monroe has responded to my previous notes on rights and the justifciation of law.
First he writes, regarding my dismissal of rights granted by god:

He finds this unconvincing because “if there is no god, all bets are off.” It is unfortunate that he sets this aside with a mere subjunctive statement, as opposed to an [...]

My inner composer has been in hybernation for a while but I’m sure will wake up eventually. The idea in my head is that I’ll dust off the gear & put together a basement studio as soon as I buy a house.
I think this time around though I want to run the beast all open [...]

H. Monroe writes on Legislating Morality, and states that “virtually all of law is based in morality”. This is incorrect.
Or to put it more finely, governments may have passed laws under the belief that they were rightfully “legislating morality”, but they, like Monroe, were mistaken.
Just law has only one foundation, that is in [...]

I heard a piece on NPR this morning about a rash of kidnappings that have taken place in Haiti — according to the correspondant, many of the kidnappers are former police officers.
I guess it’s true, old habits die hard.

[rather than spam anyone, I'll just post this ACLU suggested email here...]
Dear Friend,
I just urged my senators to oppose Alito’s nomination at:
http://action.aclu.org/alito
Judge Alito has repeatedly shown deference to authority, taking a hostile position towards women’s rights, the rights of minorities, and the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unwarranted searches and seizures.
Over the past 25 [...]

I spent last night again in the delightful company of the Nashville Symphony, in their performance of an evening of Asian themed pieces. It was a good performance and I returned home in a very pleasant dreamlike state.
The Asian theme aspect is perhaps a bit overstated: two of the works were by European white [...]

I’ve read several articles the past few days, this being just one, in which conservatives have moaned and groaned about environmentalists driving up the cost of housing through various land-use restrictions.
Well, OK, I understand the math, and I don’t believe them to be wrong in terms of cause and effect, but I find their choice [...]