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Currently at UW: 8.5. High today: 9.6. Low today: 6.8. The UW year-end weather summary reports that they never hit -20 in 2006, and no day failed to get above -10.
Finally back to the abandoned library today. Wanted to read the New Republic article about why Mitt Romney shouldn't be president because he's a Mormon, and found that that issue hadn't arrived yet, but that the second-most recent issue had an article about some guy's campaign to expose Mitt Romney to his Religious Right dupes as soft on abortion, gays, golden showers, and teaching fisting to children.
Maybe it's not just Rona Ambrose--the noon news today reported that the latest what-issue-is-most-important-to-you? poll has The Environment in first place, at 19%, six points ahead of Health Care. Having tracked the poll down to Decima, now, I see The Environment is up 13 points since their last such poll in September. The Environment is also the number one issue in every province except Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and the number one issue among people who voted for every one of the top five parties in the last election except the Conservatives, and it was only one percentage point behind Health Care among Conservative voters. I'm pretty sure this is the first time anything has knocked Health Care out of first place as long as I've been aware of these things. So, I dunno, maybe it's the Dion Effect more than the Ambrose Effect. Maybe it's both, and maybe it's something more deep-rooted besides.
Meanwhile, poking around the Angus Reid site, looking, unsuccessfully, for that poll, I came across this, which shows that Americans are dramatically more tolerant of "Islamic veils" than people in the UK, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany. (Funny thing: I saw a clip recently of that Little Mosque on the Prairie show which has a woman saying something to a man about how people have this idea that you can't be a feminist if you wear a "scarf"--coming where I come from, I expect women in "Muslim" dress to be feminists, and any other manner of leftish thing.)
But what I was mostly doing today was poking through Heideggeriana, including the translation of Besinnung (which, I guess, is what the anglophone Heidegger Scholars are going to be talking about for the next few years, until the next one comes out, but it sure doesn't look like it says anything much that the last one doesn't say), reading Julian Young's article on "The Fourfold" (of earth, heavens, mortals, and divinities) in the new edition of the Cambridge Companion to Heidegger. Young wrote one of the worst books I've ever read about Heidegger (called The Later Heidegger), and one of the most painful bits of that is the bit about "the fourfold", so, naturally, he has now, by default, achieved the designation of the anglophone world's leading authority on "the fourfold".
Possibly, I will write a paper on "Babette's Feast" and the fourfold sometime between now and the middle of Monday. Ho ho. After I wrote a paper on "Wilderness Gothic" (which I see is now only available on the net in google-cached form, which is a shame) and Heidegger a few years ago, I'd pretty much decided that was the sort of thing I shouldn't do anymore, but ... I think "Babette's Feast" might illuminate the concept, which desperately needs illumination. What most needs illumination is the "divinities" aspect--"the divinities are the beckoning messengers of the godhead"--which "Babette's Feast" illuminates so well, and which Young mangles so terribly by reading "divinities" in terms of Being and Time's "heroes", such that the divinity--actually, Young says "gods" instead of "divinities", which is already a good step in the wrong direction, even though he points out that the word is "gottlichen"--is the focal point of a cultural heritage. Some godhead. Yikes.
Finished "The Immortal Story" today, after having read "The Diver" and "The Ring" a few days ago. I'm disconcertingly disappointed in all of them--disconcertingly because I wonder if I'm only reacting the way I am to "Babette's Feast" because of the film. I don't think so, though. All three of these other stories strike me more or less as parables; they remind me of Kafka: everything is really about something else--whereas in "Babette's Feast", everything is so present in the story.
Finally back to the abandoned library today. Wanted to read the New Republic article about why Mitt Romney shouldn't be president because he's a Mormon, and found that that issue hadn't arrived yet, but that the second-most recent issue had an article about some guy's campaign to expose Mitt Romney to his Religious Right dupes as soft on abortion, gays, golden showers, and teaching fisting to children.
Maybe it's not just Rona Ambrose--the noon news today reported that the latest what-issue-is-most-important-to-you? poll has The Environment in first place, at 19%, six points ahead of Health Care. Having tracked the poll down to Decima, now, I see The Environment is up 13 points since their last such poll in September. The Environment is also the number one issue in every province except Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and the number one issue among people who voted for every one of the top five parties in the last election except the Conservatives, and it was only one percentage point behind Health Care among Conservative voters. I'm pretty sure this is the first time anything has knocked Health Care out of first place as long as I've been aware of these things. So, I dunno, maybe it's the Dion Effect more than the Ambrose Effect. Maybe it's both, and maybe it's something more deep-rooted besides.
Meanwhile, poking around the Angus Reid site, looking, unsuccessfully, for that poll, I came across this, which shows that Americans are dramatically more tolerant of "Islamic veils" than people in the UK, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany. (Funny thing: I saw a clip recently of that Little Mosque on the Prairie show which has a woman saying something to a man about how people have this idea that you can't be a feminist if you wear a "scarf"--coming where I come from, I expect women in "Muslim" dress to be feminists, and any other manner of leftish thing.)
But what I was mostly doing today was poking through Heideggeriana, including the translation of Besinnung (which, I guess, is what the anglophone Heidegger Scholars are going to be talking about for the next few years, until the next one comes out, but it sure doesn't look like it says anything much that the last one doesn't say), reading Julian Young's article on "The Fourfold" (of earth, heavens, mortals, and divinities) in the new edition of the Cambridge Companion to Heidegger. Young wrote one of the worst books I've ever read about Heidegger (called The Later Heidegger), and one of the most painful bits of that is the bit about "the fourfold", so, naturally, he has now, by default, achieved the designation of the anglophone world's leading authority on "the fourfold".
Possibly, I will write a paper on "Babette's Feast" and the fourfold sometime between now and the middle of Monday. Ho ho. After I wrote a paper on "Wilderness Gothic" (which I see is now only available on the net in google-cached form, which is a shame) and Heidegger a few years ago, I'd pretty much decided that was the sort of thing I shouldn't do anymore, but ... I think "Babette's Feast" might illuminate the concept, which desperately needs illumination. What most needs illumination is the "divinities" aspect--"the divinities are the beckoning messengers of the godhead"--which "Babette's Feast" illuminates so well, and which Young mangles so terribly by reading "divinities" in terms of Being and Time's "heroes", such that the divinity--actually, Young says "gods" instead of "divinities", which is already a good step in the wrong direction, even though he points out that the word is "gottlichen"--is the focal point of a cultural heritage. Some godhead. Yikes.
Finished "The Immortal Story" today, after having read "The Diver" and "The Ring" a few days ago. I'm disconcertingly disappointed in all of them--disconcertingly because I wonder if I'm only reacting the way I am to "Babette's Feast" because of the film. I don't think so, though. All three of these other stories strike me more or less as parables; they remind me of Kafka: everything is really about something else--whereas in "Babette's Feast", everything is so present in the story.
