"The difference between making arguments and analyzing them is not always recognized, and ... readers get outraged about things I never said."

The Fish-eye view: Why Stanley Fish bothers to write columns for the New York Times.

For the most part, it is not my purpose in this space to urge positions, or come down on one side or the other of a controversial question. Of course, I do those things occasionally and sometimes inadvertently, but more often than not I am analyzing arguments rather than making them; or, to be more precise, I am making arguments about arguments, especially ones I find incoherent or insufficiently examined....

Given a choice between being trivial and being ethical in any direction whatsoever, I’ll take trivial (although I might want to debate the judgment), because ethics is not something I’m doing in these columns. This doesn’t mean that I think ethical questions are unimportant — although I do think there are fewer of them than is usually assumed; there are none, for example, in the current controversy about superdelegates; it is just that if you want those questions raised and examined, you’ll have to go elsewhere. This might seem to be an admission that my perspective is severely limited. Yes, it is, but it is my conviction is that its limitedness is its strength and that were it to be expanded the only gain would be the pious fuzziness you can get from a thousand other commentators.

Heh heh. Fish is eely. See how "inadvertently" he "urged" a "position" on the superdelegates question — the most pressing political issue of the day?

Contemplate — with a plate — the difference between a cockroach eye's view and a cockroach's eye view.

Commenter-blogger XWL tries to figure it all out.

And did you know we have a cockroach as one of our commenters here? Blogging Cockroach — right here — responds:

hi xwl

nice work
although the iphone field of view is too narrow
and it just doesnt have that fish- or bug-eye thing
that althouse paid a lot of money to do on her nikon slr
which would be closer to my way of seeing things

anyway its hard to test cockroach vision
i mean there arent too many cockroaches who are going to sit there
and tell the optometrist which way the letter e is pointing
and what they can read in 9 pt type in that little mirror

but us cockroaches do see in color
yes we do
just not the colors you see
our vision goes from what you call green
into the ultraviolet
so i can see at least three colors
of ultraviolet light
ha ha you cant see them
and what you call green looks pretty grey to me
thats your basic night vision perfect for kitchen floors at 2 in the morning
plus--and here is where it gets weird--
i can tell which way light is polarized too
thats so i can tell direct light from light reflected off water
extremely handy to keep from falling into a toilet bowl
or a sink full of water
when what im really looking for
are the crumbs on the cutting board
plus i would never be fooled by a mirage in the desert
i mean how many cockroaches in little foreign legion uniforms
have you seen in movies dragging themselves over the sand
going 'water water i see water...'
never has happened for good reason

anyway its all a matter of perspective
you think you see the world the way it is
let me tell you there are alternative views
but this comment is getting too long
and although i live near harvard u
im not getting paid to teach cockroach epistemology
not to mention metaphysics
which has been in a bad odor for a long time anyway
speaking of which
something tells me me
theres a piece of foil with camembert stuck to it
that slipped off the counter last night
which really deserves a little visit
adieu mes amis
je vais a la gloire

Insect philosophy! I've never thought about it. But I have thought about insect politics!

"Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I! Insects don't have politics.... they're very brutal. No compassion.... no compromise. We can't trust the insect. I'd like to become the first insect politician. I'd like to, but.... I'm an insect.... who dreamed he was a man, and loved it. But now the dream is over, and the insect is awake."

The drugs people take — antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers, sex hormones — are in your drinking water.

A new study shows. How did they get there, you ask?

People take pills. Their bodies absorb some of the medication, but the rest of it passes through and is flushed down the toilet. The wastewater is treated before it is discharged into reservoirs, rivers or lakes. Then, some of the water is cleansed again at drinking water treatment plants and piped to consumers. But most treatments do not remove all drug residue.

This is so upsetting. Not just the drugs, but facing up to the reality that the water we drink has been pissed before. I know when we breathe, we're always breathing molecules that everyone in the history of the world has exhaled from their wet, spongy lungs. But is it not also the case that every molecule of water we drink has been pissed before — many, many times?

The "problem with journalist 'shield' laws is that journalism isn't a profession; it's an activity, one now engaged in by many."

Glenn Reynolds writes (in his Glenn Harlan Reynolds persona):

Efforts to limit the privilege to "professional" journalists... quickly transform into a sort of guild or licensing system for the press — ironically, something that the First Amendment clearly prohibits.

Complying with subpoenas might make journalists' lives more difficult, but lots of industries are burdened by having to comply with the law.

Journalists usually aren't terribly sympathetic to those industries' complaints. We should be no more sympathetic to reporters' special pleading.

"Blogging While Female: 5 Conservative Women Bloggers Talk About Gender Issues And The Blogosphere."

I'm trying to absorb this Right Wing News post in preparation for an interview I'm going to do today. Give me some tips! This seems like a very 2005 topic, and it's not something I've been thinking about lately.

What exactly did the Democratic candidates pledge with respect to Michigan and Florida?

Jeralyn Merritt has the text of "4 State Pledge":

... I _______________, Democratic Candidate for President, pledge I shall not campaign or participate in any state which schedules a presidential election primary or caucus before Feb. 5, 2008, except for the states of Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina, as “campaigning” is defined by rules and regulations of the DNC.

Merritt thinks that the exclusion of the delegates is not commensurate with the scope of the pledge:

Now, can people stop saying that Hillary Clinton agreed the votes in Florida or Michigan wouldn't count or to the non-seating of the delegates? It prohibited only campaigning. Even fundraising was allowed.

The exclusion of Michigan and Florida was a penalty imposed by the DNC. In my view, it was an unfair one and should be lifted. The votes should count as is, the delegates should be awarded and seated.

Song heard late last night.

Last night I finally entered the code that got XM radio paying on line — I've had this feeling that I only want to listen to music in my car — and I got back to Bob Dylan's radio show — "Theme Time" — the theme was "birds," and he played the craziest song:



Captain Beefheart singing "Ice Cream for Crows."

ADDED: Ben Ratliff wrote this in 2002:

Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, with its clashing meters, crisscrossing melody lines vaulting over wide intervals, and precision timing, was always several steps closer to jazz. ... [T]he great intuitive artist of rock, Captain Beefheart (born Don Van Vliet) ... is said to be in poor health, at home in Northern California after 20 years of forswearing music for a successful second career in oil painting....

[MTV turned down the] video for the song ''Ice Cream for Crow''... Apparently, the video was too arty for the channel. But Mr. Van Vliet himself made great television. By the time of [his 1982] Letterman appearance he could no longer be understood as a hippie: he was unique, a wearily abstract, imperiously folksy 41-year-old. Mr. Van Vliet strolled on the set with a water bottle in a paper bag. Mr. Letterman: ''Do you need a glass?'' Mr. Van Vliet: ''No, but the war is a pimple on the pope's pet dragon.'' A pause. ''What did I mean?''

What do the paintings look like? This.

AND: Why am I always forgetting the possibilities of the internet? Here:



AND: At the end of that Letterman clip, Van Vliet talks about living in the Arizona desert and how hot it is — 114° — and he doesn't sound as though he likes it. Letterman asks him why he lives there. Answer: "I love the tension, the discipline."

"I dabbled in politics in the late 1960s and 1970s, more out of guilt than anything...."

"... Guilt for being rich and guilt thinking that perhaps love and peace isn't enough and you have to go and get shot or something, or get punched in the face to prove I'm one of the people. I was doing it against my instincts."

Something John Lennon said in 1980 (a year before he was shot to death).

I wonder how many of the artists who seem politically engaged feel something like this.

Last light. First lights.

Last light:



First lights:



Why is the blue in the first picture so much greener? I didn't do that. The sun did.

Close-to-home fisheye with sunburst.

Monsters and demons.

I've been reading Carl Bernstein's book about Hillary Clinton, "A Woman In Charge," and I was struck by the way she talked to members of Congress about her health care plan:

Mrs. Clinton “tended to view anyone who criticized her plan, even constructively, as an enemy,” Mr. Bernstein writes, adding that much to the dismay of Senators Bill Bradley and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, she advised Congressional Democrats that “the time had come to ‘demonize’ those who would slow down the health care train for some important roadwork.”

These days, her campaign people acted scandalized when Obama advisor Samantha Power called her a monster. I wonder what is worse — expressing the opinion that someone is a monster or exercising power by threatening to cause the public to think that you are a demon. Demons are worse than monsters, it seems, but that's the least notable difference.

What the iPhone saw at a posh East Side restaurant...

I paid $40 for lunch at Payard, where iPhone took a cockroach's-eye view...



... and gazed at the ceiling...



(No, I'm not saying there were any cockroaches! It's just a description of the camera angle, like "bird's-eye view." Why do people get squeamish at mere idea of seeing the world from the perspective of an insect? Insects matter too.)

Democrat Bill Foster wins the House seat once held by Dennis Hastert.

Here's the report. But the really interesting question for anyone with a tie to the University of Wisconsin Law School is: Is he any relation to that great old professor Bill Foster? Answer: Yes! He's his son.

Bill Foster, senior — who died in 2002 at the age of 82 — played an important role in school desegregation (PDF):

Foster played a major role in the desegregation of public schools. The Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. However, laws do not enforce themselves, and there was great resistance in many places. As part of a research project, Foster traveled repeatedly to southern states, talking with federal judges, governors, school officials, white segregationists and black action groups. He brought many of these people to off-the-record meetings in Madison. He maintained contacts with all involved, and he recruited other law professors to do field research concerning school desegregation. Their work was published, but, more importantly, Foster continued as an informal consultant to black and white leaders. He also served as an informal channel of communication among federal judges who faced the problem of implementing the Brown decision. In 1965, Congress provided funds for local schools, if the local schools adopted acceptable desegregation plans. However, federal agencies provided no guidelines for what was an acceptable plan. There was no way the agencies could write such guidelines without high political cost. Professor Foster drafted a set of guidelines based on the experiences of those with whom he had been talking for almost a decade. Foster’s guidelines were published in The Saturday Review, and reprints were widely distributed to local school districts. Federal authorities then adopted the Foster guidelines. Within four months after this, more school desegregation was accomplished than the federal courts had been able to enforce over the course of nearly ten years.

Congratulations to young Bill, and thanks for giving us at Wisconsin another chance to remember our wonderful old colleague.

Are you taking drugs to enhance your intellectual performance?

If they work and if you know some of the people you're competing with are taking them, will it even make sense to say no?

“I think the analogy with sports doping is really misleading, because in sports it’s all about competition, only about who’s the best runner or home run hitter,” said Martha Farah, director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania. “In academics, whether you’re a student or a researcher, there is an element of competition, but it’s secondary. The main purpose is to try to learn things, to get experience, to write papers, to do experiments. So in that case if you can do it better because you’ve got some drug on board, that would on the face of things seem like a plus.”

But there are all those the standardized tests that have so much impact on what schools you attend. And in law school, students are competing for grades that will have a huge effect on their employment options. And how other students do affects how you do, because the teacher is required to meet a predetermined curve.

Jeffrey White, a graduate student in cell biology who has attended several institutions, said ... “You can usually tell who’s using them because they can be angry, testy, hyperfocused, they don’t want to be bothered”....

Oh, great, we're all going to have to take drugs and the drugs will make us all assholes.

Mr. White said he did not use the drugs himself, considering them an artificial shortcut that could set people up for problems later on. “What happens if you’re in a fast-paced surgical situation and they’re not available?” he asked. “Will you be able to function at the same level?”

And your surgeon will be a druggie. That is, you'll have to hope he's on drugs, because when he can't get his drugs, he'll be terrible.

One person who posted anonymously on the Chronicle of Higher Education Web site said that a daily regimen of three 20-milligram doses of Adderall transformed his career: “I’m not talking about being able to work longer hours without sleep (although that helps),” the posting said. “I’m talking about being able to take on twice the responsibility, work twice as fast, write more effectively, manage better, be more attentive, devise better and more creative strategies.”

Or so he thinks. But he's an asshole, right? Or is he a stealth advertising agent for the company that makes Adderall? Because I feel like getting it now.

Imagine working extremely hard because of a drug. You had the will to achieve — that came naturally — and you chose to take the drug. But now the choices you make come from the drug, and you've lost the natural intuitions that would prevent you from descending into workaholism.

If that is the future, if you value your brain, your intellect, your soul, you must cede the intellectual fields to the drug-fueled superhumans who will dominate and domineer over you unless you take the pills too.

Timothy Leary said "Tune in, turn on, drop out." The slogan will need to be revived — but with a negative added to the middle clause.

"Wordplay."

I finally got around to watching the movie "Wordplay," the one about crossword puzzles, especially the New York Times crossword puzzle, especially the annual tournament where crossword puzzlers convene in a Marriott hotel in Connecticut so they can hug each other and compete to see who can do the puzzles the fastest. Almost all the big critics loved this movie, and it's okay, but as a documentary it's way low on my list of favorites. (My list has "Crumb," "Grey Gardens," "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control," and "Grizzly Man" at the top.)

My main problem is that I'm interested in crosswords — for many years, I had to do (and did) the NYT crossword every day — but I don't care about rushing through it trying to get it done as quickly as possible. To me, it ruins the pleasure to become so concerned about time rather than words and the structure of the grid. So I wasn't fascinated by the guys in the movie who were obsessing about their speed. I loved the scene where Merl Reagle constructs a crossword before our eyes. Constructing a puzzle — now there is a mystery to unfold! Solving puzzles — well, almost anyone can solve a NYT puzzle (especially if it's Monday).

But the tournament hands the filmmaker — Patrick Creadon — something to photograph, something with a built-in narrative arc. And so — in an open confession of lack of creativity and artistic vision — that's where Creadon went with this.

The movie is padded with sequences showing celebrities doing the NYT puzzle. It's fun enough to see Bill Clinton and — not in the same room — Jon Stewart doing crosswords on camera and talking as they go. But how much do you want to see of the crossword puzzlings of former NYT public editor David Okrent? Enough with the Indigo Girls! And who gives a rat's ass about Ken Burns? Oh, you love his documentaries? Then you shouldn't take my reviews of documentaries too seriously, but really, even if you love Ken Burns's documentaries, surely, you're not fascinated by Ken Burns, the man. Are you? Because that would be very sad. Not sad enough to be the subject of a film as profound as "Grey Gardens" or "Crumb." Just routine sad. Get-a-life sad.

What I think of the "SNL" spoof of Hillary's "3 a.m." ad.

Here's the video.

In typical "SNL" fashion, it goes on way too long — and that's especially glaring when you're spoofing an ad — because it's inherent in the nature of an ad to be short. You're not spoofing an infomercial. But it's mildly amusing if you think the topic is unfair commercials, and it's substantially intriguing if you think the issue is whether "SNL" is in the tank for Hillary.

Think about it. We're seeing her long, completely unfair ad — and, yes, they've told us to think about how unfair it is. But the ad really does push us to think that Hillary Clinton has a lot of experience and Barack Obama is a neophyte. The fact that we know it's an exaggeration doesn't prevent it from stimulating our anxieties about the underlying truths. And if we're disposed to look at a comedy sketch and find it funny, then our minds slip into the place where we perceive the thing that is being exaggerated. Our defenses are down. Don't you love Amy Poehler? In the tank!