“I think if the human has conflict in his soul and with everything, then this system of 12-tone music is exactly good for this. But if you have no more conflict with people, with the world, with God, then it is not necessary. You have no need to have a Browning in your pocket, or a dagger.”
Tag: 10.17.10
How Should a New Jewish Museum Handle Opening on the Sabbath?
The National Museum of American Jewish History, opening next month in Philadelphia, faced a dilemma: “Should the museum be open Saturdays – even though Jewish law forbids work and commercial transactions? Or should the museum be closed Saturdays – missing out on up to a quarter of its anticipated admission revenue?” They found an innovative solution.
Homer Simpson is Catholic, Says Vatican Newspaper
In an article headlined “Homer and Bart are Catholics,” L’Osservatore Romano declared, “‘Few people know it, and he does everything to hide it. But it’s true: Homer J. Simpson is Catholic. … The Simpsons are among the few TV programmes for children [sic] in which Christian faith, religion, and questions about God are recurrent themes.”
When Is A Book A Book? (It’s A Problem)
The line between what we call a “book” and something that’s just a really long chunk of published text–what you might call the “not quite a book” category–continues to blur in the electronic publishing world.
Newspaper Websites Are Not Killing Newsprint
“A fascinating new piece of research this week looks in detail at the success of newspaper websites and attempts to find statistical correlations with sliding print copy sales. As one goes up, the other must go down, surely? These are the underpinnings of transition. But ‘in the UK at least, there is no such correlation’.”
What Qualifies a Film to Be Called a Documentary?
“Documentary seems, more than ever, like a catchall rubric, a label that can be affixed to heterogeneous, even contradictory products, ranging from the pranks of the elusive street artist Banksy … [to] Ken Burns’s meditation on the recent history of baseball” to Michael Moore’s polemics to – !?! – Jackass 3-D.
Do Colleges Today Need Things Like French Departments?
“The State University of New York at Albany … announced this month that it is getting rid of degree programs in French, Italian, classics, Russian and theater. … While many large universities are promoting majors like information technology as career preparation for jobs, French and classics do not seem to fit that bill.” Eight professionals debate the issue.
Can Humans Have Morality Without Religion? Our Primate Cousins Can.
Frans de Waal: “Perhaps it is just me, but I am wary of anyone whose belief system is the only thing standing between them and repulsive behavior. Why not assume that our humanity, including the self-control needed for livable societies, is built into us? Does anyone truly believe that our ancestors lacked social norms before they had religion?”
New York’s Balinese Gamelan Holds Its Own in Bali
“A group of American musicians who play gamelan, a traditional form [sic] of Balinese music, are so good that they were invited to appear at this year’s Bali Arts Festival. They were the only non-Indonesian group ever to participate in the festival’s music competition.”
Do Today’s Young Adults Have an Empathy Deficit?
“Young Americans today live in a world of endless connections and up-to-the-minute information on one another, constantly updating friends, loved ones, and total strangers.” But new research has “found that college students today are 40 percent less empathetic than they were in 1979, with the steepest decline coming in the last 10 years.”