Dan and Nate assemble the IKEA cabinets.
Hanging the cabinets.
One of several applications of leveler followed by many hours of dry time. Thus begins Steve's chant, "Never again."
Floor and counters complete. This is the stove and pantry wall.
The fridge, dishwasher and sink wall.
All right, so the ceiling goes too.
We couldn't do it without Rosie and Ed
Mark, Ed and Steve cut holes, attach drywall and mud.
Mark is our texture master. Just a man and his brush.
And so the project begins. I found the best picture I had of the kitchen before any work was done. Just imagine the back wall having an elevated, knobless black oven and beside it a flat black cooktop in the counter. Then we have the blank slate after a half day of demo. Nice work, guys!
Comment 14 by Ralph
Now a bit of real intellectual reporting: The panel on new books on Strauss (panelists: the Zuckerts, T. Pangle, J. Yarbrough, D. Mahoney), was completely packed, and every Straussian or post-Straussian who is anyone was either in the room or in the overflow in the hallway. The Zuckerts gave a fair, appropriately undefensive account of how their book was intended more to address the public "noise" about Strauss and thus rhetorically different from Pangle's.
There was a very funny moment when, after Michael had spoken and exhibited his high regard for Locke, Catherine was sure to mention in passing that she "is not a Lockean." "Now you tell me!" was Michael's instantaneous reply.
Beyond that, both Daniel and Jean pointed up Pangle's tin ear re. a Christian understanding of transcendence. (Responding to Mahoney, he [Pangle?] accused him [Mahoney?] of being more scholastic than the scholastics -- blurring the line between revelation and reason more than they.) In the Q&A, C.[lifford] Orwin quite poignantly remarked that after 25 years he still had no idea of Pangle's position on the theological question. Pangle was, as usual, very articulate but not necessarily very helpful in responding.
Hadley Arkes and I (and others, no doubt), tried to press the question further from the peanut gallery. I remember best my approach (unsurprisingly): I asked Pangle directly: "Is philosophy noble?" He answered, disarmingly, with one word: "Yes." (OK, that was too easy. But if you look at my exegesis of Pangle in PSR you will see that I don't believe his answer here is candid.)
I gathered myself and pursued: can philosophy fully grasp and master it's own nobility? If it can't, I tried to explain, then the philosophic life's claims to self-sufficiency are not credible, and the openness of the revelation-reason question complicates, even undermines the claims of the philosophic life more than Pangle admits.
Or, addressing the Zuckerts: the philosopher's serene confidence in the goodness of his own activity is not really compatible, after the claims of biblical revelation, with the recognition of the irredeemably "zetetic" character of philosophy. I find in both books (Pangle's and Zuckerts') an attempt to combine a certain absolutism and a certain zetecism that strikes me as incoherent.
I think time elapsed at about this point, so at least I had had my say. The High-Straussian position may be most fruitfully questioned, I think, not by insisting on the reasonable content of revelation (as important as this is), but by pointing up the self-transcendence of philosophy, and therefore its insuperable dependence on moral and religious intimations it shares with non-philosophers.
Link to this Comment | 9/3/2007 3:45 PM
Comment 20 by Dan Mahoney
Ralph is undoubtedly right that it is best to point out the limitations of High Straussianism(i.e. the position that insists on the radical "autonomy" of philosophic reason) by highlighting the philosopher's "dependence on moral and religious intimations" that he "shares with non-philosophers." I tried to make that same point in my own way.
But I was struck by Pangle's inability and unwillingness to engage an "idiom" other than his own and by his hostility to any suggestion that those intimations might provide some evidence for the truth--or possible truth-- of "revelation." His instinct is to 'circle the wagons' even when faced by friendly criticism. This radical defensiness does not augur well for the future of the Straussian project.
In any case, I gave as well as I got and articulated the multiple grounds for thinking that "reason" and not just blind faith or decision is integral to religious faith. More fundamentally, the philosopher is never truly autonomous because he too must defer to what Aurel Kolnai suggestively called the "sovereignty of the object."
There is something higher than the human will and that fact is knowable in principle by both reason and revelation.
Link to this Comment | 9/3/2007 6:23 PM
Comment 30 by Ralph
Dan Mahoney is definitely right that Mr. Pangle is notably lacking in any ability or inclination to attend to idioms other than his familiar "classical rationalist" tongue.
Now, to extend the reportage on the APSA just a bit (at the risk of interrupting the Giuliani/anti-Giuliani fesitivities): The Voegelinian sponsored panel on Voegelin-Strauss-Arendt was very good, and notably irenic between Straussians and Voegelinians (probably no Arendtians were there). Michael Zuckert's discussion of Plato and Aristotle in Strauss was very acute, venturesome -- this man has some range, for a Lockean! Tim Fuller offered a wide-ranging and seasoned meditation on the three authors. Jim Stoner presented a most judicious parcing of the disparities and convergences between Catholicism and Strauss, emphasizing, most prudently, the grounds of an ongoing alliance.
Thus an excellent panel - all three presentations full of insight and even some wisdom.
Link to this Comment | 9/4/2007 2:17 PM
Comment 32 by Ivan Kenneally
... I think Mahoney is right to point out that Pangle stubbornly refuses to abandon his peculiar idiom--that stubborness seems to be born out of a not entirely dogmatic commitment to the view that the rational alternative is superior to the revelatory one.
On some level it struck me as odd that Pangle ever wrote that book given that he famously argues elsewhere that the Jewish question for Strauss is not a special case of the tension between reason and revelation; in other words, he argues that the Hebrew Scriptures are just one instantiation of the central tension and one could understand the tension without particular reference to it.
While all of Pangle's book is impressive and much of it is very insightful, a lot of the interpretation suffers from his characteristic rationalism, meaning that he begins with a conclusion somewhat forgone given the overly rationalistic interpretation of the biblical experience of revelation.
Link to this Comment | 9/4/2007 5:48 PM
Mom just sent these pictures of Stump Ridge of the Big Horns. A good part burned off in '96 but it sounds like another lightning strike found more to burn.
Greatness of Soul
Here's a comment I got on the thread below:A quick and obvious point in light of the discussion on No Left Turns: Aristotle's treatment of the magnanimous man in the Ethics for the most part oscillates between a report of what he thinks of himself and what other non-magnanimous men say about him. Unlike the discussion of Socrates' magnanimity in the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle here largely treats magnanimity from the perspective of the city and hence political life.
I agree with you that as Aristotle tends to present him in the Ethics, the magnanimous man is the paradigmatic example of the overly stuffed shirt-he thinks (and others think he thinks) that nothing is greater than himself and that no one can perform the great deeds he can. For this reason, he is "slow to act and procrastinates, except when some great honor is at stake; his actions are few but they are great and distinguished"--interestingly in this last statement Aristotle speaks in his own name.
As you point out, the magnanimous man tends to think about himself in abstraction from everyone else; this explains his belief in his own self-sufficiency. And as you also note, this is most obviously the case in his indifference or unwillingness to wonder and our related need for love and friendship.
Yet, to me, Aristotle presents the magnanimous man as being aware of a chink in his armor; in particular he seems to have nagging doubts and perhaps a begrudging recognition of his greatness resting on others. To the extent that he thinks in terms of great political actions, the magnanimous man must on some level recognize that he is dependent on the city and its citizens-at least in terms of it providing opportunities-for his actions. His estimation of himself rests in part on his, to be sure, unstated recognition that he must live with other men in order to act magnanimously and in order to be honored as magnanimous.
One cannot really think of himself as a magnanimous man if he lives alone or among a small group of human beings. Rather, he needs the venue on which his "great and distinguished" actions can be performed and put on display.
This also raises the related problem of potential frustrations that would nag a man who thinks he may be magnanimous: what if one lives at a time when "great and distinguished" actions are not needed or called for--this obviously gets expressed in your criticism of the end of history thesis.
But apart from the fictive and undesirable nature of an end of history, it may well be the case that the greatest external impediment to magnanimity is the failure of a human being to live in truly interesting-hence humanly fertile-times.
American liberals need to face these truths: The demand for self-government was and remains strong in Iraq despite all our mistakes and the violent efforts of al Qaeda, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias to disrupt it. Al Qaeda in particular has targeted for abduction and murder those who are essential to a functioning democracy: school teachers, aid workers, private contractors working to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure, police officers and anyone who cooperates with the Iraqi government. Much of Iraq's middle class has fled the country in fear.Do read the rest.
With these facts on the scales, what does your conscience tell you to do? If the answer is nothing, that it is not our responsibility or that this is all about oil, then no wonder today we Democrats are not trusted with the reins of power. American lawmakers who are watching public opinion tell them to move away from Iraq as quickly as possible should remember this: Concessions will not work with either al Qaeda or other foreign fighters who will not rest until they have killed or driven into exile the last remaining Iraqi who favors democracy.
The key question for Congress is whether or not Iraq has become the primary battleground against the same radical Islamists who declared war on the U.S. in the 1990s and who have carried out a series of terrorist operations including 9/11. The answer is emphatically "yes."
This does not mean that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11; he was not. Nor does it mean that the war to overthrow him was justified--though I believe it was. It only means that a unilateral withdrawal from Iraq would hand Osama bin Laden a substantial psychological victory.
The lesson for Americans is clear. There may be today, just as George Kennan famously observed 60 years ago of the Cold War, a certain providential quality to the challenges that have been placed before us at this time. Certainly the challenges presented by Islamist terrorism are ones that confront us (and even more profoundly confront Europe) in the very places where we are confused and irresolute, and force us to see that we have fallen into ways of thinking and living that we cannot and should not sustain. They represent a mortal threat—but they are also an opportunity. By forcing us to defend ourselves, they force us to take to heart the question of what kind of civilization we are willing, and able, to defend. Not merely as an academic question, but a question of life and death.
Read the rest here. Do note that McClay's speech is one of several given at the Bradley Symposium dedicated to "Who Are We Today? American Character and Identity in the 21st Century." Be sure to check out them all.
“Bush is portrayed as a moron. I’ve only conversed with him a couple of times – not for very long – but I found he was more literate on literature than the editor of the New York Review of Books, Bob Silvers. I’ve talked to both of them, and he makes Bob Silvers look like a slug.”
Oil, father of us allIt is a solution that is kith and kin with Reagan's so-called "Star Wars Defense" which, if only in speaking about it, the West spent the gimping Soviet Union into oblivion.
In the end, all reasoning and calculation comes down to oil, not energy independence just a lessening of our need to import by about 5 million barrels or so on the world market. Let Brazil export duty-free ethanol; drill in Anwar and off our coasts; build 20 or so nuclear reactors to replace natural gas and power batteries at night of small commuter cars; up the fleet average gas mileage; develop oil tar and oil shale; use alternative energies—and do all that inclusively rather than in an either/or strategy, and we can collapse the world price, and with it the strategic importance of this dangerous, dysfunctional, and ultimately irrelevant part of the world.
Without oil and nukes, the Arab and Iranian Middle East has no hold on the world, no more than does Paraguay or the Ivory Coast or Bulgaria or Laos. We wish them well, but find Ahmadinejad, Nasrallah, the House of Saud, Hamas, Khadafy, and all the rest, well, all too retro-7th-century for our tastes.
Exactly [Rich Lowry]Read some more here.
Here's a key point about the debate over Iraq—it was always fundamentally about how much risk we were willing to tolerate in a post-9/11 environment (page 328):
The absence of evidence and linear thinking, and Iraq’s extensive efforts to conceal illicit procurement of proscribed components, told us that a deceptive regime could and would easily surprise us. It was never a question of a known, imminent threat; it was about an unwillingness to risk surprise.
04/30 12:11 PM
It's up to you The Iraq war is lost or won if the American people choose to lose or win it. With the way things are going at the moment, I perfectly understand why they might choose to give up on the war. But that is not because the war is inherently unwinnable by a country as great and rich and powerful as the United States.Washington Post
-- Kanan Makiya, Iraqi scholar who supported the U.S. invasion
Does this action weaken or strengthen our opponents' will to fight?And the corollary:
Does this action strengthen or weaken OUR will to fight?
The key, Hale points out, is that the point of war is not to kill people but to break his will to fight. It is for this reason that Lincoln sent Sherman to Atlanta, Truman dropped atomic bombs on Japan. As Victor Hanson says, it is the moral way to wage war. The quicker the opponent's will is broken, and the more resolutely it is broken, the sooner life can return to and remain in normalcy, or at least, the best it could be.
On November 6, 2003, President George W. Bush proclaimed, "Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe--because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty." This strategic shift, coupled with the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, put regional governments on notice. The following spring, Tunisia's president, Zine El Abidine Bin Ali, and Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak--stalwart allies in the U.S.-led war on terrorism and two of North Africa's most pro-American rulers--were among the first Arab leaders to visit Washington and discuss reform. But with this "Arab spring" has come the inadvertent rise of Islamist movements throughout the region. Now, as U.S. policymakers ratchet down pressure, Egypt and Tunisia see a green light to backtrack on reform.(ht: Michael Rubin on the Corner)
As any diplomat with knowledge of the region could have told Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Assad is a corrupt thug whose overriding priority at the moment is not peace with Israel but heading off U.N. charges that he orchestrated the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri. The really striking development here is the attempt by a Democratic congressional leader to substitute her own foreign policy for that of a sitting Republican president.
Remember, this is the woman who claimed that being a grandmother qualified her to be Speaker of the House. Well, this shows us that she is just a grandmother.
UPDATE: Here is Claudia Rossett on Pelosi's trip. It is called "Pelosi was Nuts to Visit with Assad". (ht: Michael Goldfarb at The Weekly Standard)
UPDATE 2: What's this? Pelosi's trip broke the law? So says Robert F. Turner, a former assistant of Secretary of State, in the Wall Street Journal editorial today. It's titled "Illegal Diplomacy". He says:
The Logan Act makes it a felony and provides for a prison sentence of up to three years for any American, "without authority of the United States," to communicate with a foreign government in an effort to influence that government's behavior on any "disputes or controversies with the United States." Some background on this statute helps to understand why Ms. Pelosi may be in serious trouble.(ht: Drudge)
Although no one doubts our forces will prevail over Saddam Hussein's, key regional leaders confirm what the Foreign Relations Committee emphasized in its Iraq hearings last summer: The most challenging phase will likely be the day after -- or, more accurately, the decade after -- Saddam Hussein.
Once he is gone, expectations are high that coalition forces will remain in large numbers to stabilize Iraq and support a civilian administration. That presence will be necessary for several years, given the vacuum there, which a divided Iraqi opposition will have trouble filling and which some new Iraqi military strongman must not fill.
Senators Joe Biden and Chuck Hagel.
The very ones who just voted to pull out our troops by next year. Taranto's only guess as to how their "decade" of overcoming the greatest challenge has come and gone so quickly is that the planet they live on has a 150-day long year.
In other words, it is all entirely new to them, so that the experience of teaching them has been energizing, and has caused me to see my own subject afresh. (Thank you, Senator Fulbright.) From the inside of American culture, one is at times impressed by nothing so much as the anarchy and inanity of American religion: its thinness, its institutional chaos, its individualism, its trendiness, its willingness to pander to the consumer and to the culture. These observations remain as valid as ever. And yet my experiences here, listening to students who have grown up in a largely monochromatic religious culture, in which the choices placed before them are far more stark, cast it all in a different light.
We Americans take our freedoms too lightly in other respects, and our highly voluntaristic religious culture—and the boisterous vitality and variety of religious expression that have resulted from it—is no exception. Not all of what it produces is to my taste. But the exercise of freedom is not the same thing as good taste. “It is the duty of every man,” Madison said, “to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to Him.” My Italian students help me to see anew the grandeur in those words.
And never mind that Iraq the Model isn't merely an "opinion" blog reacting to news, as the snobs at the AP would have you believe. They are reporting news from the ground--which is a serious threat to MSM outlets like the AP that continue to rely on anonymous stringers relying on anonymous sources feeding them unverified statements.She also posts Omar and Mohammed's response to the news.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Arguing for eliminating Iraq withdrawal language from the supplemental appropriations legislation, Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) stated on the Senate floor today,
“Indeed, it is an awful irony of this debate that many of the same people who consistently and correctly call on the United States to do more to stop the bloodshed in Darfur now demand we abandon the Iraqis.”
Senator Lieberman continued, “We hear that Sunnis and Shia have been fighting for centuries, and that no matter how tragic, we cannot possibly hope to resolve this conflict. We have heard these arguments before. We heard them in the 1990s about Yugoslavia. We heard them about Rwanda. Like the euphemism of “civil war,” it is another way for us to distance ourselves, emotionally and morally, from what is actually happening—and from the people it is happening to. It allows us to think of these places as a sort of abstract tragedy, in which there are no victims, just victimizers, whom we can walk away from with impunity… The wanton slaughter of innocent people that our soldiers are trying to stop in Baghdad is not the inevitable product of ancient hatreds, but the consequence of a deliberate, calculated strategy by an identifiable group of perpetrators—first and foremost, Al Qaeda.”
Concluding, Senator Lieberman outlined both the strategic and moral consequences of a premature withdrawal from Iraq, “I ask my colleagues: consider what it will mean if Congress orders our troops to pull back from this battle, just at the moment that they are taking the initiative. Consider the consequences if we knowingly and willingly withdraw our forces and abandon one of the few states in the Middle East to have held free, competitive elections to extremism and violence...”
“We cannot redeploy from our moral responsibility to the Iraqis. It is contrary to our traditions; it is contrary to our values; and it is contrary to our interests. And yet that is precisely what this Congress will be calling for, if we order our troops to withdraw.”
UPDATE: Republican attempts to remove the deadline failed, 48-50. Two Republicans (Gordon Smith of Oregan and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska) sided with Democrats and Lieberman and Mark Pryor of Arkansas sided with Republicans. (via NY Times' The Caucus)
UPDATE 2: Senator Lieberman's website has made the speech fully available here (scroll down).