The shred of truth in Kuhn's erroneous theory of scientific theories is identified.

This essay marks the centenary of 1922, annus mirabilis of modernism but also the year when my grandparents became child refugees in the Asia Minor Catastrophe. In Mrs. Dalloway and her Diary, Virg...

Inspired by Fragments of a Hologram Rose, a 1977 science fiction short story by William Gibson, this 3D narrative work explores the violent stories of standardisation embedded in 3D composite objects. The full story is accessible online at: https://beyondresolution.info/Shredded-Hologram-Rose.

i The 2005 decision by Judge John E. Jones in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District was celebrated by all red-blooded American liberals as a victory over the forces of darkness. The result was probably inevitable, in view of the reckless expression by some members of the Dover School Board of their desire to put religion into the classroom, and the clumsiness of their prescribed statement in trying to dissimulate that aim.1 But the conflicts aired in this trial—over the status (...) of evolutionary theory, the arguments for intelligent design, and the nature of science—reveal an intellectually unhealthy situation. The political urge to defend science education against the threats of religious orthodoxy, understandable though it is, has resulted in a counterorthodoxy, supported by bad arguments, and a tendency to overstate the legitimate scientific claims of evolutionary theory. Skeptics about the theory are seen as so dangerous, and so disreputably motivated, that they must be denied any shred of.. (shrink)

In his 1963 response to an open letter from eight white religious leaders chastising his involvement in Birmingham, Martin Luther King, Jr. explained that civil rights activists’ blatant breaking of some laws while obeying others was the result of two types of laws: just laws and unjust laws. Civil rights activists believed they had a legal responsibility to obey just laws and a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. Today, new civil rights struggles continue to challenge unjust laws that shred (...) the fabric of democracy that America espouses. Drawing upon both the Civil Rights Movement and the contemporary Movement for Black Lives, this article argues that unjust laws and practices must be broken and challenged before a just society is established. It identifies four ethical strategies for social activism: collective work and responsibility, strategic timing and economic disconnection, political mobilization, and faithful perseverance. (shrink)

This paper makes the assumption that organ transplantation is, under some conditions at least, a proper use of communal medical resources. Proceeding from this assumption, the author: (1) sketches the history of the problem; (2) briefly examines the prevalent models of communal structure and offers an alternate version; (3) discusses notions of justice and obligation derived from these different models; (4) applies these to the practice of harvesting organs for transplantation; and then (5) offers a different process for harvesting organs (...) from the newly dead.If community is viewed as united by a set of shred goals and common values among which the value of community itself is important, then certain reciprocal obligations among members obtain. I suggest that routine salvage of organs from the newly dead be instituted but that it be routine salvage with a twist: rather early in life all members of the community are given the opportunity to refuse but their refusal carries the reciprocal condition that they cannot later become the recipients of that which they refuse to others. (shrink)

Since they are modern characters, living in an age of transition more urgently hysterical at any rate than the age which preceded it, I have drawn my people as split and vacillating, a mixture of the old and the new. and I think it not improbable that modern ideas may, through the media of newspapers and conversation, have seeped down into the social stratum which exists below stairs. My souls are agglomerations of past and present cultures, scraps from books and (...) newspapers, fragments of humanity, torn shreds of once-fine clothing that has become rags, in just the way that a human soul is patched together. (shrink)

This paper examines the philosophical basis for the argument that there is a connection between ethical behavior and profitability. Both sides of this argument – that good ethics is good business and that bad ethics is bad business – are explored. The possibility of a moral floor above which ethical behavior is not rewarded is considered, and an economic experiment testing such a proposition is discussed. Johnson & Johnson suffers a potentially devastating blow when some cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules cause several (...) deaths. Johnson & Johnson voluntarily pulls Tylenol off the shelf, to universal acclaim. When Tylenol is returned to the marketplace, its share of the over-the-counter painkiller market becomes greater than it was before the tragedy. Arthur Andersen, the venerable accounting firm, is caught in the web surrounding the downfall of Enron, Inc. As Enron’s various sins are discovered, it is found that Arthur Andersen auditors had signed off on flawed audits and had shredded documents to cover themselves. Andersen is prosecuted for, and convicted of, obstructing justice (although the conviction is later overturned). Today the firm barely exists and has no resemblance to the Big Five accounting giant of 1999. These stories seem to indicate that ethical (or unethical) behavior leads to positive (or negative) financial results. But the philosophical arguments underpinning such statements are seldom subjected to proper analysis. They are perhaps wishful thinking, or perhaps based on examples such as the above without considering other examples that may reinforce a contrary position. This paper will explore the philosophical arguments and empirical evidence regarding these statements and state some research questions for exploration in this area. In particular we will propose the possibility that a moral floor exists above which firms that engage in ethical activities will not reap rewards, but below which firms that engage in unethical activities will be punished by actors in the economic marketplace. We will discuss an economic experiment to determine if such actors indeed form a moral floor. (shrink)

Sometimes I think: I'm flying. And why am I flying? Because of the dress. The flesh, I think, is multiplying itself. Here are the children, I think, going away from me and coming to me. If all is one, I think, why this split?My body of thought is likewise made of a womb of wombs. Whatever it begets begets its own body [in this sense I may be said to be multiparous].I am beautiful like a snip of ivory. My face (...) is like the negative of another woman's face. Whatever she does I do moving backward.I spread a hundred fingers up against the wind and the wind dries the lacquer. At these parties I have no given name. I may be called Flora and I may be called Rosamund. The images of color that I set up in space redeem me.In the morning. After the dreams. I see the white body stitched in bed. My corporal body. The veins that store the precious fluid. What I think have they hauled up there from the deep?I get up as in the miracle that Our Teacher Rabbi Loew worked upon a lump of clay and turn on the stove.Sometimes the light bounces off of forks and knives into the eyes. The light of the fork into the eye of the fork and the light of the knife into the eye of the knife.What am I what am I I am thinking flattening out knives and forks on those wooden headstones they call a table?The bread is the showbread and the butter is the clot of my blood. What are they looking for in these blue thighs?The kitchen windows [as in the ancient Icelandic language] are the wind's eye. This is the house and these are the children's table-napkins.... Now. When everything is in place. I am waterboiling. Water pours out of the mouth of the tap into the mouth of the kettle and I am thinking about these hairs that I have. About the hundreds of thousands of fine threads that rise at night in utter silence from the skin. The walls close in on me but my head. As in the Book of Creation. Extracts from nothingness black streams.Through the drinking glasses I see a great field of ice. A white antelope eating a fish.... What am I with a round shoulder and milk muttering prices of chemicals. The cash registers cut the boundaries of my skin.In supermarkets with thousands of tins of canned peas ought to ambulate people covered with hair. Let them block one another's cart like they once did in the hippodromes of Byzantium.Let them speak—with those colorful rags that they tie around their necks—into mouthpieces of telephones. Let their voices run crisscross like stifled crow calls between wires inside the earth. Why have they enclosed me—I, who can cover entire fields like Bermuda grass—within the confines of an electric bell?At 7:20. As if down the ladder of angels painted by Raphael. The child descends the wooden staircase. His toes are depressed precisely according to the divine image of grief. Each toe and its mirror reflection in the other foot.The forest creatures on the pajama fabric with their mouths gaping open as in the sudden vision seen by our primogenitor when they spread the coat of many colors before him and said: Surely he has been torn to pieces.... When the child turned inside me and stood in the placental fluid with his head to the ground, the two of us were the complete converse figure. One head toward the outer boundary, the other head toward the middle point.It was unnatural how the head emerged. Why did it pierce the membrane in which it was enfolded and discharge the water?Windows previously shut were torn apart. Lids of cookware dropped to the floor. This rupture [Michael. Michael.] gave birth to unreason.The child [in my imaginations he is chasing gadflies] is sitting at the table waiting for his cornflakes. He is eating them flake by flake and inside every flake are little crystals of sugar.This game [being able to hold shreds of sugar inside tiny dents] fills his heart.... The light that radiates in every thing is the light of late autumn. I play with it the age-old game. Ask for its name and it replies.The kitchenware too bear their names [just as they bear the form].... I can write an inner play about The Non-Intervention of Time in Kitchenware. Time will get the leading role.In Act One it will set out [like Ulysses] on a journey. The kitchenware will stay put, each ware in its respective place, within daily life.In Acts Two and Three time will travel so far that one or two wares should drop out of place.Act Four will be called Fatal Incidence and Act Five, The Return of Time.... I shout [an inner shout] Dolores Dolores as if I had a friend whose name were like that.How do you do Dolores [I say in my heart] and exchange recipes for dresses with her.Then Dolores sets out in both directions at once. The direction of the great bird in the sky and the direction of Nachlat Binyamin St.... I can see [by means of two mirrors] my silk dressing gown.The silk dressing gown enfolds me and prepares me for verbal exchange. It enables me to communicate information. If it slides down I kneel down until it slides up [and then I kneel down].... When I think of recollection I wonder how the image of myself gets duplicated.The bathtub gets duplicated and the light above the bathtub. Time sends a facsimile of itself.In the black margins outside the sheet of paper hides my mother. Come out come out she is calling to me like you would to a snail.At that time were created the archetypes of things.The complete washbasin. The complete mirror. Next to every sound was inscribed the right clef.Every movement was a perfectum mobile: I jump and by force of this jump I jump again.... Through the window I see the crow called Salpeter.Good morning Old Salpeter. Did you get your black robe back from the dry cleaner?Sometimes you see me obliquely from the right and sometimes obliquely from the left. What am I? A very strange female crow?I adore your rich language. This single word of yours that has in it all the verb stems.... What is so logical about the sky? The window frame.The window frame is like the twelve apostles. Three in each lintel and in their midst [behind the nebula] is sitting the child Michael.The motion of a doll turned over and the motion of the trains sent by him flying in the air are the divine edict. Get'p get'p he tells me all of you and go'ver there.... See Dolores how simple everything is: There is the kitchen. There is the child. There is the wooden staircase.Whom are we to thank for this grace. The colors are so right Dolores and the shapes precise. Every thing I spell out is cut with utmost perfection for the space allotted to it and for the sequence of time.... My biography may easily be canceled.First cancel the alienation. Then cancel the kneeling in the dark. The joy of the assigned date. The bridal veil and the porcelainware.If a medical ground is required I can say I have edema.... I like the words earth quake.Sometimes I think the earth is quaking and the words are not and sometimes the words are quaking and the earth is not.The great catfish know the earth is about to quake and the Chinese who paint the words with a fine paintbrush six lines for the earth and fifteen for this quake set guards to watch the great catfish who knows what is about to take place.... As if after a very severe accident I have to practice life anew.My physiotherapist tells me: Now a slight movement with the right hand. Now a shake of the head.I learn to press handles. To turn sharply in this or that direction.Lately when they ask me anything I pretend that the reply answers the question.Look Dolores how I refute the theory about the formation of species:I take a bubble of soap from the sink and elevate it to the sun.... There is a thing Dolores and it is infinitely good and I shall not tell you what it is.You can hear it in the first hours of the night when darkness is gaping. It has the property of withdrawing into a point tiny as a tittle.Or you can search for it in places where there appears to be something and there is not. (shrink)

There is a time of day immediately before dusk when the outline of every object becomes sharply delineated. It was just that moment. The lacerated edges of wooden beams in the wreckage, the freshness of the rents in the shredded trees, and the curled zinc sheets with their puddles of rain water - everything appeared almost unpleasantly vivid. In the extreme west only a horizontal line of scarlet was to be seen in the sky between two or three towering black (...) burned-out buildings. Flecks of scarlet were also visible through the windows of the ruined structures. It was as if someone had turned on a red light in a deserted and uninhabited house. (Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Tincture of the Doctor's TimeHolland KaplanI first thought of Mr. H as a "difficult patient" while reading the written hand-off I received on him as I was preparing to take over an inpatient general medicine service—"He leaves all the time to smoke." I don't think the statement was meant to imply anything about the patient; if anything, it may have been included for context to prepare me for (...) the patient's intermittent absence. But, reading this, I felt a familiar sense of annoyance rising in my chest. Every few months, I take care of a patient who seems to never be in his room. The patient is consistently out smoking, in the cafeteria, or in another unknown location, seemingly doing an undisclosed activity. This is frustrating because it means I have to work around the patient's schedule of smoke breaks and jaunts to the cafeteria to evaluate the patient on a daily basis. The thoughts inevitably cross my mind: Does this patient even want care in the hospital if he's never in his room? Is he actually sick enough to need to be in the hospital if he's able to spend so much time outside of the hospital? Why is he leaving so frequently—is he doing drugs?This particular patient had been in perfect health until two months before I met him when he was shot multiple times during an encounter at a gas station. One of the bullets had lodged in his back, shattering a vertebra. Another had decimated the bones in his right upper arm, which were now held in place by screws and plates. Several had landed in his abdomen, necessitating the removal of part of his bowel. Finally, a bullet had sliced through the lower part of his right kidney, shredding his ureter and mandating surgical reconstruction of his urinary system. After over a month in the intensive care unit with multiple reparative surgeries, he was discharged to a rehabilitation facility. But he started having fevers and fast heart rates; ultimately, he was admitted to the hospital again for multiple infected fluid collections that had formed at the sites of his surgeries. He left the hospital prior to getting treated for these infections, purportedly "against medical [End Page 12] advice." And now, several weeks later, he was here in the hospital for the same reason.The first time I went to see Mr. H, he was, of course, not in his room. I went to the nursing station to ask if the clerk knew where he was. She knowingly said, "Oh yeah, he goes out a lot. I can give him a call to let him know the doctor is here to see him if you'd like." I assented, thanked the clerk for calling him, and proceeded, annoyed, in seeing the rest of my patients. I considered how I would address Mr. H's behavior when I was finally able to talk to him. I had seen others take many different approaches—negotiation about the timing and frequency of these extramural expeditions, ultimatums about getting discharged, mandating urine drug screens upon return, and silent, frustrated tolerance. I resolved to wait to speak to him to determine which approach might be most suitable. An hour later, I received a call from the clerk that Mr. H had returned to his room to see me.The first time I met Mr. H, he informed me he had taken the bus to midtown to make a run to the grocery store. I was internally incredulous. He felt well enough to go to the grocery store? Why was he in the hospital then? At that moment, I opted not to discuss his frequent departures yet, as I was frustrated and realized I wouldn't be able to identify the best way to address them. I reviewed his medical issues with him, asked specific questions about how he was feeling, performed a physical exam, and reiterated his current plan of care. Mr. H made it very clear that he would like to get out of the hospital as soon as possible. I tried to set the expectation that he... (shrink)

Some Saturday Night Live (SNL) religion sketches are relatively harmless. Sears pulled their advertising from NBC's online posting of the sketch and Jim Baker argued that it was the “most blasphemous skit in SNL history.” Actor Pat Boone, who starred in the film, objected to the SNL parody, equating it to an attack on God and suggesting that the writers had earned themselves a place in hell. SNL was birthed into existence in conflict with religion. That conflict came to a (...) head on October 3, 1992 when Sinead O'Connor – after singing an acapella version of Bob Marley's “War” – held up a picture of Pope John Paul II, sang the word “evil,” tore the picture to shreds, and shouted “Fight the real enemy!”. The Republic is essentially one long argument that it's better to be like O'Connor because being virtuous comes with its own internal reward that far outweighs the reward of public recognition. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:When the Political Becomes Personal:Circumcision as a Cause and as a Parental DecisionJ. Steven SvobodaAs I prepared for the arrival of my first child, a son, a central activity that I previously saw as political suddenly also became very personal. I had founded a non-profit organization in 1997 devoted to educating the world that genital cutting of a child, regardless of a child's gender, is unnecessary and harmful. This (...) includes male circumcision. In 2001, as part of my non-profit work I led a team that went to the United Nations in Geneva and for the first time, put the issue of male circumcision as a human rights violation in the United Nations record. At the time, my then wife was pregnant with our first child, a son. (I had the ultrasound photo of my son-to-be on my nightstand while in Geneva.) Now the circumcision question would be posed to me!A few months after the Geneva trip, when it came time in early 2002 for my son's birth on the US territory of Guam, I naturally was never going to agree to the procedure. Nevertheless, I was trying not to inject my own beliefs into the arrival of my first child. My children's mother, while Jewish, is a pediatrician who always had some doubts about the wisdom of circumcision and easily agreed with my desire to keep our son intact. No one in either of our families had any serious problems with our decision.The nurse at the hospital in Guam where my wife worked and gave birth asked me a total of five separate times if I wanted my son to be circumcised. Each time, I answered, "No," without saying more, until the fifth time, when I politely added, "You do know that there is no medical reason for this to be done, right?" The nurse replied in a chirpy voice, "I know." I then asked, "Why do you ask parents about it then?" She replied, "Because they want it sometimes." Well, the odd thing about that is there is no other medically unnecessary procedure on their children for which parents are repeatedly solicited. And if I had agreed even one time, I am sure that my child would have been circumcised [End Page 73] without any follow-up questions to make sure I really wanted this done. Besides, at least in the absence of any medical condition making it necessary (which is essentially never the case), it should not be my decision to make, nor his mother's, but rather the child's whose body it is.The oddest aspect of this whole chain of events may be that I was not given a single shred of information explaining why I should support my son being cut. My son had zero issues after being left intact, and how could it be otherwise? My advice, naturally, to parents expecting boys (or girls, or intersex children, for that matter) is to educate yourself. You will learn, the more you look into these issues, that there are thousands of people around the world, including countless physicians and other experts, who believe childhood circumcision is as outmoded, useless, and as harmful a practice as footbinding. Why not leave the choice for the child to make about their own body? No asserted medical reason withstands the most minimal scrutiny. And religious claims must stop at the boundaries of another person's body, even if the person is your child. Parents: you have the right to teach your children your beliefs, but your children may not follow your beliefs, and they have the right to make their own decisions, so please consider refraining from marking their bodies with your religion. Two months to the day after his birth, I was holding my son in Washington, DC, having just traveled halfway around the world from Guam. (I was in DC to receive the National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Center's (NOCIRC) Human Rights Award, which I was presented with for my founding of the non-profit.)My own experience with circumcision strongly influenced my decision. For a decade, I felt that no other single... (shrink)

In this article I respond to the important questions raised by Roger Griffin and David D. Roberts by asserting the following points. First, that there is no justification to the position that the historical function of fascism was to establish the political hegemony of finance capital, as Marxist-Leninist scholars have maintained without providing a shred of evidence in support of their position. On the contrary, fascism was an epochal phenomenon which occured on several continents and had features which point to (...) a declaration of war against bourgeois society, its power structures, its values and its way of life. It was a revolt generated by disgust for a world dominated by those whom Hitler called ‘the worshippers of Mammon’. Second, that fascism was not at all an alternative modernity, but a violent and radical reaction which rejected all the values and institutions of the modern world, from individual freedom to the rights of man and citizen, from pluralist democracy to secularization. Third, that the history of fascism, like the history of communism, has shown that ideas are no mere fantasmagorical reflexes of the socioeconomic structure, as Marxist sociology claims. This was demonstrated by its political ideology, which was intent on revolutionizing the foundations of society and producing a new man, diametrically opposed to the ‘bourgeois’. (shrink)

Introduction -- "Mediating estrangement: a theory for diplomacy," review of International Studies (April, l987), 13, pp. 91-110 -- "Arms, hostages and the importance of shredding in earnest: reading the national security culture," Social Text (Spring, 1989), 22, pp. 79-91 -- "The (s)pace of international relations: simulation, surveillance and speed," International Studies Quarterly (September 1990), pp. 295-310 -- "Narco-terrorism at home and abroad," Radical America (December 1991), vol. 23, nos. 2-3, pp. 21-26 -- "The terrorist discourse: signs, states, and systems (...) of global political violence," World Security: Trends and Challenges at Century's End, ed. M. Klare and D. Thomas, St. Martin's Press (1991), pp. 237-265. -- "S/N: international theory, balkanisation, and the new world order," Millennium Journal for International Studies (Winter 1991), vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 485-506 -- "Cyberwar, videogames, and the Gulf War syndrome," Antidiplomacy: Spies, Terror, Speed and War (Cambridge, Ma and Oxford, UK, 1992), pp. 173-202 -- "Act IV: fathers (and sons), mother courage (and her children), and the dog, the cave, and the beef," in Global Voices: Dialogues in International Relations, ed. James N. Rosenau (Boulder, Co and Oxford, Uk: Westview Press, 1993), pp. 83-96 -- "The value of security: Hobbes, Marx, Nietzsche and Baudrillard," in the Political Subject of Violence, ed. G.M. Dillon and David Campbell, Manchester University Press (1993), pp. 94-113 -- "The C.I.A., Hollywood, and sovereign conspiracies," Queen's Quarterly (Summer 1993), vol. 100, no. 2, pp. 329-347 -- "Great men, monumental history, and not-so-grand theory: a meta-review of Henry Kissinger's diplomacy," Forum review article, Mershon International Studies Review (april 1995), vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 173-180 -- "Post-theory: the eternal return of ethics in international relations," New Thinking in International Relations Theory, eds. Michael Doyle and John Ikenberry (New York: Westview Press, 1997), pp. 55-75 -- "Cyber-deterrence," Wired (September 1994), 2.09., p. 116 (plus 7 pages) -- "Global swarming, virtual security, and Bosnia," the Washington Quarterly (Summer 1996), vol. 19, n0. 3., pp. 45- 56 -- "The simulation triangle," 21c (issue 24, 1997), pp. 19-25 -- "Virtuous war and hollywood," the Nation (3 april 2000), pp. 41-44 -- "Virtuous war/virtual theory," International Affairs (fall, 2000), pp. 771-788 -- "Hedley Bull and the case for a post-classical approach," International Relations at LSE: a History of 75 Years (London: Millennium Publishing Group, 2003), pp. 61-87. "the illusion of a grand strategy, op-ed," the New york Times, may 25, 2001 -- "In terrorem: before and after 9/11," Worlds in Collision, eds. Ken Booth and Tim Dunne (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), pp. 101-116 -- "The question of information technology in international relations," Millennium Journal of International Studies (vol. 32, no. 3, 2003), pp. 441-456 -- "The illusion of a grand strategy," op-ed, the New York Times, may 25, 2001. (shrink)

The volume deals with the normative challenges and the ethical questions imposed by, and through, the developments and changes in everyday life, culture and society in the context of media change. It is thus concerned with the questions of whether and how the central concept of ethics must evolve under these premises – or in other words: what form do ethics take in mediatized societies? In order to address this question and to stimulate and initiate a debate, the authors focus (...) on two concepts: responsibility and resistance. Their contributions try to shed light not only on the empirical shreds of evidence of change in mediatized societies, but also on the normative challenges and ethical possibilities of these developments. (shrink)

The psychotherapeutic nature of the relatedness of literature and religion is part and parcel of the story‐telling imperative that we have in mind. There is not a shred of evidence that a historical character Jesus lived, to give an example, and Christianity is based on narrative fiction of high literary and cathartic quality. On the other hand Christianity is concerned with the narration of things that actually take place in human life. The human animal is subject to biologically and socially (...) determined programs that collide head‐on with the morality of secular and religious traditions. Hence guilt of sin takes place in human life, and consciousness of sin is a real event and so are despair and salvation through faith. (shrink)

This book answers three questions: (i) What is it for a statement to be analytically true? (ii) What is a priori knowledge? (How does it differ from inherited empirical knowledge? And how does it differ from acquired conceptual (non-empirical) knowledge, such as one's knowledge that not all continuous functions are differentiable?). (iii) Do we have a priori knowledge? It is shown that content-externalism is an 'epistemologicization' of the (logically, not psychologically) innocuous fact that, if a sentence S of natural language (...) expresses a multiply quantified generalization, S also expresses each quantified generalization obtained by permuting the quantifiers in it. It is also shown that, through judicious usage of Kaplan's dthat-operator, the shred of truth in content externalism can be reconciled with the datum that, in virtue of having a given representational content R, a mental state M has causal powers that it would not otherwise have. And it is thereby shown how to reconcile content-externalism, so far as the latter is true, with the legitimacy of individualist approaches to psychology. Finally, it is shown that content-externalism embodies a crude and false conception of the nature of the relationship between the literal meanings of linguistic expressions, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the contents of the thoughts underlying our usage of such expressions. More precisely, content-externalism presupposes that literal meaning and cognitive content are in lockstep with each other; which, it is shown, is not the case and---what is also shown---only appears to be the case because of a failure on the part of semanticists to know where to draw the line between semantics and pragmatics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:738 Feminist Studies 42, no. 3. © 2016 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Hannah Baker Saltmarsh Notice When I read people’s necks, waiting on the same wheels: make out the names, Rabbit, Omar, Tiny, Mark, Deedy, Soulja, like characters on a new Netflix series that uses people’s real names; or say, trace up to the teardrop on the cheek, either you murdered someone or was someone’s little b in prison (...) (the difference as slight as pushing on the door bell or tapping the door knocker); or stray to the stains on the forearm, hand, calf. Above his stab wounds in all caps: LAUGH NOW and SILENT; beneath the life-saving laser’s scar, FUCK THE WORLD. The skulls, keys, infringed-upon peacock, grim reaper, the crescent city, fire: am I really to identify the latest sex offender, crimes expired for a decade now like a plastic rack of eggs in the bachelor’s trash, by his tattoos listed on this postcard notice, mass-mailed to the surrounding neighborhoods, and angrily shredded by mothers who wouldn’t let near their child a grown man with a kite? The last time you saw a man at a bar with some woman’s name across his neck like an exaggerated noose a diamond can’t touch, you wondered how he hits on other women. If you Google your friend’s date, some pictures check out with his baseball stats. Or your other friend, Googling her landlord, sees he was arrested at a protest, the tousled, enlightened 36-hour criminal who ends up in a Michael Moore movie, and becomes her lover without end, buying her black Prada sheath dresses and a holster of antique cream Hannah Baker Saltmarsh 739 and vintage pink carnations. Every new man in anyone’s life you know makes you paranoid of dirt: even the pages not found become suspicious in your paranoia: Humvees shot to fossils by Sahara sands. What if the postcard notice had a face you knew, a man you actually knew before his mugshot.com photo op, before the teardrop tat? Him and his puppet-friend, purple, called Homer, who said Do good and share, but don’t share your underwear, showing up in the mail. Are the allegations true: the church retreat, the elementary-class sleepover, the partner in the frazzled chicken costume, the puppet as witness, gang-raping the girl with plastic teal jewelry who then peed herself? I weep, reading the file, thinking of the older girl being returned to her sleeping bag beside all of ours. We didn’t know she went anywhere but the bathroom. When the news breaks, my mother and I have the same nightmare about the underwear song. My parents remembered he liked plain M&M’s, not peanut. He told us after years of buying the wrong ones. And I felt so bad we got the wrong ones. How could we get it wrong? I can’t Google my way to knowing, or ask his wife at Starbucks, but every notice reminds me of the IZOD alligators he tickled on boys’ shirts. So ill now, and confused, what would he even say for himself, and who would care longer than the blurb’s echo? All you can do is wait for the late bus. Two hours late, the usual, and we’re still jammed into the covered bench. A goose, built like a hanger, born in the gated university’s pond, shot out so far as the university bus stop, body just out of the sheltered wait, as if anxious to start somewhere. 740 Hannah Baker Saltmarsh Index of Jobs for Women I would have been a confectioner, not Shakespeare’s sister, whirring a dozen egg whites into soft collapsible peaks for baked rice pudding with black-blue currants, stirring yeasty sourdough starter a few times a day until it ferments vigorously, quicker in summer: a week to evolve. I would have tried to find a way to the youngest Saltmarsh who lives by the brackish waters, tall sea grasses, canals by crocodiles, and sedges with their edges, whose heart is bigger than his head, whose narrow bikeway of a torso might have said, on the last... (shrink)

From the late 1950s through the early 1970s, Harry F. Harlow's primate laboratory at the University of Wisconsin–Madison undertook a series of studies on infant rhesus macaque monkeys that gained the attention of both animal welfare advocates and the scientific community.1 Establishing one of the first primate research laboratories in 1932, Harlow began his career as a primate researcher by studying primate learning capabilities and shredding previous assumptions within psychology that primates were restricted to the conditioned learning of a (...) rat. As his need for subjects in particular age ranges and easily susceptible to study grew in the 1950s, he again broke research ground by establishing a captive breeding... (shrink)

The election of Donald Trump has exposed American society’s profound crisis of hope. By 2016 a generation of shrinking employment, rising inequality, the attack on public education, and the shredding of the social safety net, had set the stage for stunning insurgencies at opposite ends of the political spectrum. Against this dire background, Ronald Aronson offers an answer. He argues for a unique conception of social hope, one with the power for understanding and acting upon the present situation. Hope, (...) he argues, is far more than a mood or feeling—it is the very basis of social will and political action. It is this kind of hope that Aronson sees brewing in the supporters of Bernie Sanders, who advocated the tough-minded and inspired disposition to act collectively to make the world more equal, more democratic, more peaceful, and more just. And it was directly contrasted by Trump’s supporters who showed a cynical and nostalgic faith in an authoritarian strongman replete with bigotry and misogyny. Beneath today’s crisis Aronson examines our heartbreaking story: a century of catastrophic violence and the bewildering ambiguity of progress—all of which have contributed to the evaporation of social hope. As he shows, we are now in a time when hope is increasingly privatized, when—despite all the ways we are connected to each other—we are desperately alone, struggling to weather the maelstrom around us, demoralized by the cynicism that permeates our culture and politics, and burdened with finding personal solutions to social problems. Yet, Aronson argues, even at a time when false hopes are rife, social hope still persists. Carefully exploring what we mean when we say we “hope” and teasing hope apart from its dangerously misconstrued sibling, “progress,” he locates seeds of real change. He argues that always underlying our experience—even if we completely ignore it—is the fact of our social belonging, and that this can be reactivated into a powerful collective force, an active we. He looks to various political movements, from the massive collective force of environmentalists to the movements around Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn, as powerful examples of socially energized, politically determined, and actionably engaged forms of hope. Even in this age of Donald Trump, the result is an illuminating and inspiring call that anyone can clearly hear: we can still create a better future for everyone, but only if we resist false hopes and act together. (shrink)

In this article, the authors introduce the concept of a “queer counter-mythology.” They do so by discussing a speculative song they wrote as an enactment of research-creation. Research-creation names an interdisciplinary scholarly praxis where artist-scholars create the artefacts they want to think-with, rather than analysing existing cultural productions. The song discussed in this article, “Cosmic Beavers,” proposes a queer counter-mythology that reimagines the historical, colonial archive by foregrounding the stories of giant, trans-dimensional beavers who shred Lewis and Clark and use (...) them to reinforce their Time-Dam. Drawing on this song, as well as queer theories of time and anti-colonial thinkers, the authors suggest that artistic interventions invoke speculative lures that, while not changing history, can complicate state-sanctioned archives and narratives of the past and future: they frame this intervention as a queer counter-mythology. (shrink)

Both Islamic and Jewish thought display a sensitivity to the treatment of texts, particularly sacred texts. This article investigates Muslim debates on how to dispose of worn-out sacred texts. It argues that these debates were rooted in the precedent formed by the reported destruction of noncanonical copies of the Qurʾān by the third caliph ʿUthmān, and they featured various preferred and rejected methods of text disposal, including burning, washing, shredding, and burying. By the thirteenth century CE, these debates had (...) yielded a robust theorization of worn-out texts as analogous to human corpses and thus deserving of respectful burial. (shrink)

Some contemporary theorists such as Mazzocchi, Theise and Kafatos are convinced that the reformed complementarity may redefine how we might exploit the complexity theory in 21st-century life sciences research. However, the motives behind the profound re-invention of “biological complementarity” need to be substantiated with concrete shreds of evidence about this principle’s applicability in real-life science experimentation, which we found missing in the literature. This paper discusses such pieces of evidence by confronting Bohr’s complementarity and ion channel modeling practice. We examine (...) whether and to what extent this principle might assist in developing ion channel models incorporating both deterministic and stochastic solutions. According to the “mutual exclusiveness of experimental setups” version of Bohr’s complementarity, this principle is needed when two mutually exclusive perspectives or approaches are right, necessary in a particular context, and are not contradictory as they arise in mutually exclusive conditions (mutually exclusive experimental or modeling setups). A detailed examination of the modeling practice reveals that both solutions are often used simultaneously in a single ion channel model, suggesting that the opposite conceptual frameworks can coexist in the same modeling setup. We concluded that Bohr’s complementarity might find applications in these complex modeling setups but only through its realistic phenomenological interpretation that allows applying different modes of description regardless of the nature of the underlying ion channel opening process. Also, we propose the combined use of complementarity and Complex thinking in building the multifaceted ion channel models. Overall, this paper’s results support the efforts to establish a more general form of complementarity to meet today’s complexity theory-inspired life sciences modeling demands. (shrink)

◆ Writing is per se already violence: the rupture there is in each fragment, the break, the splitting, the tearing of the shred—acute singularity, steely point. And yet this combat is, for patience, debate. The name wears away [s'use], the fragment fragments, erodes.There is much talk today but little speech, or rather, little speech that could be received and responded to absent the vows of the unavowable community of its speakers. There is combat but debate is foreclosed by the absence (...) of asignifying absence. To avow that a community is unavowable—when the name wears away—is not to say that it has been disavowed, subjected, though in many cases this is so, for often the name names sovereignly.... (shrink)

I argue in this paper that the theory of recognition cannot serve as a paradigm for a critical theory of society. I defend two theses. First, that it is unable to deal with the dynamics and effects of social power in any meaningful way. Specifically, it is unable to deal with what I see to be as the core of critical theory as a tradition of thought, what I call “constitutive power” or that kind of power that shapes and orients (...) the subjectivity of persons. Second, it rests on a flawed theory of the social as intersubjective practices and not as structural and normative-based systems of functional integration. This derives from its insistence on the pragmatist ideas that essentially shred society of its structural-functional features and reduce it to its intersubjective practices. The problem with the pragmatist thesis, however, is that it is both insensitive to issues of power and domination and also can inculcate conformity to the prevailing reality. By shutting Marx out of his revisionism of critical theory, Honneth therefore ends up defanging it as a system of ideas. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION BY NANCY FUMERO What is a translation that stalls comprehension? That, when read, parsed, obfuscates comprehension through any language – English, Portuguese. It is inevitable that readers expect fidelity from translations. That language mirror with a sort of precision that enables the reader to become of another location, condition, to grasp in English in a similar vein as readers of Portuguese might from João Guimarães Rosa’s GRANDE SERTÃO: VEREDAS. There is the expectation that translations enable mobility. That what was (...) written in one language be accessible in another. And that a translator is to serve as a mediator, acting ultimately in service to ideas within the source text. To disperse them. However, this notion of translation is partly antithetical to the ideas in Rosa’s work. Or, alternately, to convey the despair of terrain slipping beneath one’s feet, and to encounter the heightened suspense of magic, the translation, as part of its strategy, cannot devotedly rely on its original language, not as its source text. The work undertaken by Felipe W.Martinez is a new form of translation that risks everything in order to encounter the same treacherous knowing Rosa had traversed. And it takes its risks by not taking risks: by being, almost word for word, a literal translation. This is an approach that reductively converts, as opposed to translates. The idiomatic differences between English and Portuguese are not accented. The syntax is not finessed. Liberties are not assumed on account of improving readability. What stands, resoundingly amid such absences, is the awakened challenge of reading. The genuine peril of not knowing. That is, this translation, one that purports to know nothing, creates access into the guileful world Rosa had created in Portuguese. But not by translating. If anything, GRANDE SERTÃO: VEREDAS is speaking a cosmic language through a linguistic one. And W.Martinez does us the service of recognizing this, as what configures the shapes of words and sentences is not as simple as neologisms, portmanteaus, and digressions, but as terrifying as the path the fool traverses: all paths. As such, this translation doesn’t speak English, just as the original does not speak Portuguese. It is the assemblage of paradox as a new logic that can be navigated, if only one could suspend the comfort of readability, of expectation. If one could descend a mountain in the pitch dark of night, each step shocking the body, unable to acclimate to the unleveled heights. Without a doubt, the translation is incongruous to the Portuguese. Taking a small excerpt to compare: Eh, well, thereafter, the rest the Sir provide: comes the bread, comes the hand, comes the god, comes the dog. What is striking is the interplay between “god” and “dog”. To most English speakers, this anagram is a familiar one. But in Portuguese the words god (“deus”) and dog (“cão”) are not so closely linked. In fact, there is no direct mention of “deus” in Rosa’s text: Eh, pois, empós, o resto o senhor prove: vem o pão, vem a mão, vem o são, vem o cão. Both are fascinating. In Rosa’s excerpt, the rhythm is unmistakable and precise, despite, of course, the indices of hesitation: the commas, the Eh, the uncomfortable way of searching through prolongation and wait. This is the sort of paradox Rosa can engage within a sentence. W.Martinez’s does this as well, at a scale that reverberates beyond the sentence, and with one noticeable addition: deus. What may appear to be an overstep, to add such a weighted word that draws out wordplay but is, nevertheless, not in the source text, is exemplary of risk. The translation buzzes because of it. This is because throughout the text we encounter dogs frequently, as some primal beast on par with humans. The dog is one that masters and can be mastered. A creature that is at times its face, and at others a mask. It is a powerful presence. For the translator to be attuned to the reverent undercurrent attributed to this animal, and create within the translation such charged play in English from what was only an implication in Portuguese, is in tribute to the grand beauty within dissonance. What aberrant modes of writing and translation can teach us most assuredly, is that things, words, are not in states of rightness or wrongness, but of oscillation. This isn’t so different from what Rosa says himself: The Sir look…see: the most important and beautiful, of the world, is this: that the people are not always same, still were not completed — but that they go always shifting. They tune or detune. We find this so readily in W.Martinez’s translation, this tuning and detuning. Nancy Fumero Los Angeles GRAND SERTÃO: VEREDAS BY JOÃO GUIMARÃES ROSA TRANSLATED FROM THE PORTUGUESE BY FELIPE W.MARTINEZ Nonothing. Shots that the Sir heard were man brawling not, God be. Bleach white sights on the tree in the backyard, down in the river. By my right. I do this every day, I like; from the bad of boyhood. Thereof they came to call on me. Case of a calf: a white calf, errorful, eyes of to not be—saw selves—; and with a mask of a dog! They told me; I didn’t want to catch a sight. Same that, by the defects of birth, upturned lips, looked to be a laughing man. Folkface, dogface: they determined—it was the devil. Bananas. Killed it. Do not know who owned it. They came to borrow my guns. I caved. I’ve no power to impose. Oh, sir, you laugh certain laughs…Look: when it’s a true shot, first the dogs begin to bark, instantly—after, then, you see who’s handed death. Sir, endure, this is the Sertão. Some want that it is not: that situated Sertão is in and out of those general fields, they say, end of the road, highlands, the other Urucuia. Toleima. For those of Cortino and of Curvelo, then, isn’t here said Sertão? Ah! That there’s more! To place the Sertão it’s told: it’s where the pastures lack latches; where one can tear off ten, fifteen leagues without running into a houseinhabitant; where criminalousness lives out its christ jesus. Sifted out from the tightening grip of the law. The Urcuia comes from the western mountains. But today, its banks, give all—farmlands of farms, pastures of meadows of good yield, low tides, cultures that go kill for kill, until these virgins there are. The general fields run round. These general fields are without size. Ultimately, whichever one one approves, the Sir knows: bread or breads, it’s a question of heads…the Sertão is everywhere. Of the devi? No comment. Sir ask the dwellers. Falsely I fear they unspeak that name of his—only say: whatsitcalled. Volt! no… Whosoever over avoids it, lives with it. In the sentence of one Aristides—who exists in the first palm grove on the right hand side, called Vereda-of-Cow-Calm-of-Saint-Rita—everyone believes: he can't pass in three designated places: then can be heard the tiny cry, behind, a little voice warning:— "Here I come! Here I come!... "— that is the Capirote, the whatsitcalled... And one Jise Simplicio—who anyone from here will swear he keeps an imp in house, a little satanite, imprisoned and obliged to help in all greedful deeds; reason that Simplicio emprises en route to complete riches. As such, for this they say too that his beast bristles and refuses, denying his banner, unyielding, when he wishes to mount... Superstition. Jise Simplicio and Aristides, continue getting fatter, thence unheard or heard. Still the Sir study: right now, in these days of time, you have people purporting that the devil proper stopped, mid-passage, in Andrequice. A boy out of there, to whom'd appeared, and there lauded that, to get here—normally, by horse, a day-n-half—he was capable of such with only some twenty minutes enough... by coasting the River of Chico by the headwaters! Or, too, who knows—sans offense—will not have been, for example, even yourself the Sir who announced such, when you passed by there, for fun run funny? Thereof, not my given crime, I know that wasn't. And evil I wanted not. Only that one question, in hours, at times, brightens peaceful reason. But, the Sir understand: if such a boy, there was, he wanted to dupe. Because, hey, that, to cut the river off by the springs, would be the same thing as one redoubling in the internals of this our state of ours, costant of a journey of some three months... Then? Whatsitcalled? Dodo. The fantastication. And, the respect of giving him such these names of delicacy, is what it is for one to want to invoke that he form of form, with his presence! Not that is. I, personally, almost that have lost in him the creed, deserving to Deus; is the that to the Sir I say, to pure-secret. I know that it is well established, that it greases our Saintly-Gospels. On occasion, I conversed with a young seminarian, super suitable, conferring in the book of prayers and coated in vestments, with a stick of black-sage in hand—prosed that he went auxilitator to the father, to extract the Cujo, from the body living of an oldwoman, in Waterfalls-of-Bulls, he went with the vicar of Field-Round... I conceive. The Sir not is as I? I didn't believe a single thing. Compadre mine Quelemem describes that that which reveals effect are the low spirits meager, of third, adoing in the worst darkness and with anxieties of connecting selves with the livers—they give support. Compadre mine Quelemem is who much me consoles—Quelemem of Goias. But he has to live far from here, in Jijuja, Vereda of Buriti Dark... Ahrr, I leave myself there, that in enevildemonment or with support—the Sir too must have had known diverse, men, women. As not yes? For me, umpteen I've seen, that I've learned. Ma-Neigh, Blood-o'Other, or Legion-Lips, or Tear-em-Down, Cold-Cutter, or Sissy-Goat, one Treciziano, or Verdigris... or Hermogenes... o'them, pileload. If I could forget so many names... I'm not a man for calming horses! And, same, whom of yes of to be jagunço self enters, yea is for some competence entrant of demonion. Will it not? Will it? From first, I made and mixed, and to think not I thought. I didn't have the deadlines. I lived pulling difficult from difficult, fish alive on griddle: who lives asp'rously, no fantasies. But, now, fete of fate to me comes, and sans little disquietudes, I'm from creaky net. And myself invented in this like, of to speculate ideas. The devil exists and nonexists? I say the saying. Opennouncement. These melancholies. The Sir sees: exists waterfall; and since? But waterfall is gulch of ground, and water so pouring from it, retumbling; the Sir consume that water, or undo that bankment, remainder waterfall any? To live is negotiation much perilous. I explain to the Sir: the devil vigors inside of human, the wrinkles of human— or is the human ruin, or the human of adversess. I free, per se, citizen, is that not has devil notone. Notone!— is the that I say. The Sir approve? Me declares total, frank— is high merit that me make: and to beg might, increased. This case— by rashtravagance that me they see— is of mine certain importance. God grant not was... But, not say that the Sir, awised and instructed, that agrees in people of them?! Not? You I appreciate! Your high opinion composes my value. Yea I knew, waited for it— yea the field! Ah, a we, in oldness, we lack of to have plowing of rest. You I appreciate. Is devil notone. Nor esprit. Never I've seen. Someone ought to see, then was I myself, this your servant. Was I you to tell... Well, the devil regulate his state black, ins creatures, ins womens, ins humans. E'en: ins childrens— I declaim. Since not is said: "boy—trainee of the devil"? And ins thes uses, ins plants, ins waters, in terra, in wind... Manures. …The devil in the street, in the middle of the vortex... Hey? Hey? Ah. Figuration mine, of worse by back, the certain memories. Mal-make me! I suffer pain of to tell not…Meliorate, if chillingly: well, in a ground and with equal format of branches and leaves, not give to cassava-calm, that is eaten common, and the cassava-mad that kills? Now, the Sir yea saw a strangeness? A cassava-sweet can rapidly to turn agonizing— motives not I know, at times is said that is for replanted in the terrain always, with mutations then, of caules—go embittering, of s’much in s’much, of its self takes poisons. And, well look: the other, the cassava-mad, too is that at times can fix calm, the estimate, of is to eat sans notone mal. And what this is? Eh, the Sir yea saw, for to see, the ugliness of hate pleated, facetorqued, on the faces of one cobrarattlesnake? Observed the porker fat, capita day more felicity brute, capable of, could, snort and engulf for its own dirty coziness the world total? And sparrowhawk, blackbird, some, the features of they yea represent the need of cleave for before, rend and shred by beak, appears a knife much fine for ruin I desire. Total. Has even twisted races of stone, horrorous, venomous— that spoil mortal the aquas, if they are buried beneath of well; the devil inside of them sleeps: they are the devil. Is known? And the demon— that is only thus the significance of one mercury malign— have order of to follow the path of him, have license to brag?! Arr, he is variegated in all! What the what wastes, goes spending the devil of inside of the people, by itttybits, is the reasonable to suffer. And the delight of love—compadre mine Quelemem says. Family. Really? Is, and not is. The Sir think and not think. Total is and not is… Almost all more grave criminous ferocity, always is much good husband, good son, good father, and is good-friend-of-your-friends! I know of those. Solo that have the afters— and Deus, joined. I spy many nimbi. But, in veracity, son, too, softens. Look: one called Aleixo, resident a league from Step-of-Sour, in Of-Sand, was the man of major badness calm that yea you saw. Me agreed that near the house of his had a weir, amidst the palms, with traíras, for souls of enormous, desenormous, to the real, that received fame; the Aleixo gave of to eat to them, in hours just, they self accustomed to if assuch of lunacies, in order to gobble, seemed to be fishes instructed. One day, solo for grace rustic, he killed an oldman who by there passed, destitute begging alms. The Sir not doubt—have people, in this bored world, that kill solo in order to see someone make grimace… Eh, well, thereafter, the rest the Sir provide: comes the bread, comes the hand, comes the god, comes the dog. This Aleixo was man afamilied, had children small; they were the love of his, total, absurdity. Gave good, that not even a year there passed, of to killed the oldman poor, and the children of Aleixo there they asickened. Smallepidemic of measles, they said, but complex; they never heal. When, then, they healed. But the eyes of theirs vermillionized high in an inflame of spraining to rebellion; and nexthing— the that not I know is if they went of at once, or one later and later other and other— they remained blind. Blind, sans remission of one sweet of light of this Ours! The Sir imagine: stairset— three boys and one girl— all blind. Sans remediable. The Aleixo not lost the judgment, but he changed; ah, mutated complete— now lives of band of Deus, sweating to be good and charitous in all his hours of night and of day. Appears even that he fixed the felicity, that before not was. He himself says he was a man of luck, because Deus wanted to have pity of him, to transform for there the route of his soul. That I heard, and me it gave rage. Reason of the children. If being castigated, what culpa of the let-there-bes of Aleixo those little children had?! Compadre mine Quelemem reproved my uncertainties. That, for certain, inother life returnaound, the children too had been the most wicked, of the mass and part of the father, demons of the same kettle of place. Sir the what thinks? And the oldman, assassinated? — I know the Sir goes to discuss. Well, too. In order that he had a sin of crime, in the body, by to pay. If the people— conforming compadre mine Quelemem is who says— if the people turn to to incarnate renovated, I contemplate even that enemy of death can come as son of the enemy. Look see: if to myself I say, has a subject Pedro Pindo, neighbor of here more six leagues, man of good for all in all, he and the woman of his, always been good, of goodness. They have a son of some ten years called Valtei—name modern, is the that the population of here now appreciates, the Sir knows. Well this-little-thing, thislet, since that some understanding illuminated in him, deed demonstrated the that is: petition stepfather, acid burner, likeful of ruin of inside of the profundity of the species of its nature. In which that torments, to the slowly, of all beasts or raisinglings little that quarrel; one time he found a creole woman hooched foolish sleeping, he arranged a shard of bottle, lashed at three points on the stern of the legs of hers. The what this boy drooled seeing, is bleeding hen or to knife pig.— “I enjoy of to kill…”— one occasion he teeny me told. He opened in me a fright; because: birdy that self leans over— the flight yea is ready! Well the Sir oversee: the pa, Pedro Pindo, mode of to correct this, and the ma, they give in him, misery and mast—they cast the boy sans to eat, they tied to trees in the yard, he nude, unplumed, even in June cold, they tilled the bittybody of his with the trammel and with the goblet, after they cleansed the skin of the sanguine, with bottle gourd brine. The people know, spy, fix wasted. The boy yea relowered of thinness, the eyes entering, caress of bones, enskulled, and tuberculated, the time total hacking, coughness of the that draw parched pectorals. Arr, that now, visible, the Pindo and the woman self habituated of on him hit, of little bit in little they were creating in this a pleasure ugly of diversion— as they regulate the canings in hours certain comfortable, until they call people to see the example good. I think that boy not endure, yea there is in the ta-da, not arrive for the lent to come… Ooee-ooee, then?! Not being as compadre mine Quelemem to want, that explication is that the Sir bestowed? That boy had to be a man. He should, in swing, terrible perversities. Soul of his was in the pitch. Demonstrated. And, now, paid. Ah, but, happens, when he’s crying and paining, he suffers equal that as was as a boy good… Bird, I saw all, in this world! Yea I saw even horse with hiccups… —the that the thing most costous that is. Good, but the Sir may say, should of: and in the start— for offenses and arts, the people— as for that was that s’much amended was started? Ey, ey, ey all collided. Compadre mine Quelemem, too. Am solo a sertanite, in these high ideas I navigate mal. Am much poor poor-thing. Envy my pedigree and of ones conform the Sir, with total reading and doctoration. Not is that I be illiterate. I spelt, years and middle, midly speller, memory and palmer. I had master, Master Lucas, in the Curralinho, he memorized grammar, the operations, rule-of-three, even geography and study patria. On leaves great of paper, with caprice I traced handsome maps. Ah, not is for to speak: but, since of the start, me they thought sophisticated of side. And that I merited of to go to course latin, in Lesson Waterlily—that too they said. Time nostalgic! Going today, I appreciate a good book, despaced. On the farm The Lilittlelemon, of one mine friend Vito Soziano, so sign of this almanac thick, of logoglyphs and conundrums and other divided matters, all year come. In s’much, I place primacy is in the reading advantageous, life of saints, virtues and examples— missionary astute engambling the Indians, or Saint Francis of Assis, Saint Anthony, Saint Gerald… I like much of moral. To ratiocinate, exhort the others for the good way, to acounsel to just. Mine woman, that the Sir knows, vigils for me: much prayer. She is a blessable. Compadre mine Quelemem always says that I may to aquiet my fears on conscience, that being well-attended, terrible good-esprits me protect. Eep! With like… As is of saint effect, I help with mine to want to accredit. But not even always can I. The Sir knew: I total the mine life I thought for me, lining, I am born different. I am and I same. I divert of total the world… I almost that nothing not I know. But I disconfide of many things. The Sir, conceding, I say: in order to think long, I am dog master— the Sir loose in mine front an idea ease and I research that by profundity of total the backwoods, amen! Look: the should of to have, was of so reunited-selves the wise, politicos, constitutions graded, closed the definitive the notion— to proclaim for one time, art assemblies, that not have devil notone, not exists, not possible. Valor of law! Solo assuch, they gave tranquility good to the people. Because the government not cares?! Ah, I know that not is possible. Not me settled the Sir for philistine. One this is to place ideas arranged, other is to deal with country of people, of flesh and sanguine, of thousand-and-many miseries… S’many people—gives scare of to know—and notone so calms: All nascenting, crescendoing, so wedding, wanting collocation of employment, consumables, health, abundance, to be important, wanting rain and affairs good… Of luck that lacks of so to choose: or we t’weave of to live in the salacious common, or care solo of religion solo. I could to be: father clergyman, if not chief of jagunços; for other things not was I birthed. But mine oldness yea principaled I erred of total account. And the rheumatism… There as whom says: in the primers. Ahem. Hey? Hey? The that more I think, I testify and explain: all-the-world is mad. The Sir, I, we, the people all. For this is that so lacks principally of religion: in order to desendodorize, to disdodoate. Pray is that heals of lunacy. In the general. This is that is the salvation-of-the-soul…Much religion your servant! I here, not I lose occasion of religion. I profit of all. I drink water of all rivers… One solo, for me is little, maybe not me arrives. I pray christian, catholic, I burrow the certain; and I accept the prayers of compadre mine Quelemem, doctrine of he, of Kardec. But, when I can, I go in the Mindubim, where one Matias is believer, methodist: the people so accuse of sinner, reads high the bible, and why, singing hymns beautiful of his. Total me quiets, me suspends. Whatever small shade me refreshes. But is solo much provisory. I wanted to pray— the time total. Many people not me approve, they think that law of Deus is privileges, invariable. And I! Doof! I Detest! The what I am? — the what I do, that want, much curia. And in face of total I face, executed. I? —not I trammel. Look: I have a black girl, Maria Leoncia, long from here not she lives, the prayers of her afame much virtue of power. Well to her I pay, every month— ordering of to pray for me one third, every saint day, and, on the Sundays, a rosary. Value, so values. Mine woman not sees mal in this. And I am, yea mandated word for an other, of the voyage-voyage, a Izina Calanga, in order to come here, I heard of that prayer too with grand mermermerits, I go to effect with she treatment equal. I want handful of those, me defending in Deus, reunited of me in volta… Cuts of Christ! To live is much perilous… To want the good with too much force, of incertain way, can yea to be being so wanting the mal, per to initiate. These humans! All they pull the world for itself, for the to concert amended. But capita one solo sees and understands the things of one his world. Amountain, the most supro, most serious was Mediero Vaz. That one man ancient… his Joaozy Ben-Ben, the most brave of all, no-one never can decipher how he by inside consisted. Joca Ramiro— grand man prince!— was politico. Zé Bebelo wanted to be politico, but had and not had luck: fox that lingered. So Candelario so demonized, by to think that was with illness mal. Titao Passos was the by the appreciation of friends: solo per via of them, of his same amities, were that such high so ajagunçoed. Antonio Do— severe bandit. But by half, grand majority half that be. Andalecio, in the profound, a good man-of-good, being raving in his total justice. Ricardao, same, wanted was to be rich in peace: for this he warred. Solo the Hermogenes was that born formed tiger, and assassinite. And the “Ofidios White”? Ah, not me speak. Ah this… joyless mischeivious, that was— that was a poor boy of the destiny… So good, congruous. The Sir heard, I you told: the ruin with the ruin, they terminate by the spine-bushes so to crack— Deus awaits that spendance. Boy!: Deus is patience. The contrary, is the devil. So consumes. The Sir file knife on knife— and file— that so they scrape. Even the rocks of the profound, one of in the other, they go-so aroundabounding even, that the rivulet rolls. Per enquantity, that I think, total as hath, in this world, is because so merits and lacks. Afterly precise. Deus not so reports with rifle, not garrotes the regulation. For what? Quit: goof with goof—one day, some illumination and learn: smart. Solo that, at times, for most auxiliar, Deus begets, in the middle, a pinch of pepper… Therebe? Well, for example: some time, I went of train, there in Seven-Lagoons, for parts of to consult a medical, of name me indicated. He went vested well, and in car of first, by via of the doubts, not me they shadowed for jagunço ancient. It goes and happens, that, close same of me, enfront, he took aseat, returning from the wild North, a mac Jazevedao, delegate professionale. Came with a capanga of his, an undercover, and I well knew the two, of that s’much a was ruin, as the other ruin was. The veracity to say, first I had the strict of me to surpasss for one lonng, to mutate of my place. Judgement me told, meliorate stay. Well, looking, I looked. And— you I tell: never I saw face of man furnished of brutez or malady more, of the them in that. As that was ogre, trussed of thickset, relustered of crude in the eyes small, and armed a chin of stone, toweringbrow; not of mid nor forehead. Not laughed, not so laughed not even one time; but, speaking or silent, the people appeared always to him some teeth, prey pointed of canids. Arr, and blustered, an ittybit. Solo growled curt, low, the mid-words grizzled. He came relooking, historicizing the documents— one by one the leaves with portraits and with the blacks of the digits of jagunços, lifters of horses and criminouses of death. That application of work, in one thing of those, generated the ire in the people. The undercover, busybodyguard, total close, seated joined, attending, excelling of to be dog. Me made a dread, but solo in the goof of the corpus, not in the intern of the courages. One hour, one of those reports fell— and I bent quickly, I knew there precisely by why, not I wanted, not I thought— even today I raise shame of this— I picked the paper of the ground, and delivered to him. Thereof, I say: I had more rage, because I did that; but there yea it was done. The man not even me looked, not even said notone thankfulment. Event he soles of the shoes of his— solo looking— that soles rough thick, bent of enormous, appearing iron bronzed. Because I knew: This Jazevedao, when he apprehended someone, the primary quiet thing that proceeded was that he came entering, sans to have to to say, feigning some hurry, and go stepping on the top of the feet of the poorthings. And that on these occasions he gave laughters, gave… Well, geck! I delivered to him the leaf of paper, and went leaving of there, by to have hand on me of not to destroy by shots that subject. Meat that much they weigh… And umbilicated beginning of belly pot bellied, that me created will… With my lightness, joyful that I’d kill. But, the barbarities that this delegate made and happened, the Sir not even has callus in heart to be able me to hear. He achieved of many men and women to cry blood, for the simple universolo ours here. Sertão. The Sir knows: sertão is where mandates who is strong, with the guile. And bullet is a tidbit of metal… S’much, I say: Jazevedao— one assuch, should of to have, needed? Ah, need. Leather ruined is that calls goad of point. That there be that, after— business particular of he— in the life or in the other, each Jazevedao, accomplished the that he has, desclimbs in his time of pain, too, until to pay the that he gave— compadre mine Quelemem is there, in order to fiscalize. The Sir knows: the peril that is to live… But solo of the mode, of these, by ugly instrument, was that the jagunsaga so finished. Sir thinks that Antonio Do or Olivino Oliviano were going to fix goodies by pure spelling of itself, or by begging of the infelicitous, or by always to hear sermon of father? You I think! In the aims… Of jagunço comported active in order so to repent in the middle of his jagunsagas, solo I lay of one: called Joe Cazuzo— was in smashing of one shotshow, for on the summit of the place Sierra New, district of river rusted, on the stream Traçadal. We made mal minority small, and they closed in order summit of us the personnel of one Coronel Adalvino, forted politico, with many soldiers uniformed in the center, commanding of the Lieutenant Epiphany Helm, that after fixed captain. We lasted hour more hour, and yea gave almost of encircled. There, of misslip, that Joe Cazuzo— man much valiant— so kneeled turned on the ground of the thick, lifted the arms that not even shoots of Jatoba dry, and solo yell, howl clear and howl deaf:— “I saw the Virgin Ours, in the resplendor of the Heavens, with her children of angels!... ” He screamed not touched. — “I saw the Virgin!... ” He ensouled? We desequaled. Bolt for my horse—that I thought— I leaped in mal seat, noteven I knew in which rupture-time I unfastened the halter, of tied up it foot of timber. I flew, arrived. Bullet come. The pasture roared. In the brush, the fear of the people so goes to the whole, one fear intentional. I could to lash out, fated burro brute, giv-that, giv-that. Some two or three bullets so drovein the pad of the mine saddle, they perforated of to tear away almost much the kapok of the filling. Horse trembled in pro, in middle of gallop, I know: thinks in the owner. I not fit of to be more well shrunken. Bulleted came to the sack that I had on the back, with few mine things. And other, of fusil, in ricochet decreed, heated my thigh, sans me wound, the Sir see: bullet does the what to want—so pierced impressed, between in me and the harness! Times crazy… Burumbum!: the horse so kneeled in the fall, dead perhaps, and I yea falling for front, embraced in foliage full, branched and linias, that me swayed and skewered, done I was pendulating in web of spider… Whither? I traversed that life total… Of fear of anxiety, I ruptured to read with mine corpus that forest, I know there — and me fell world below, rolled for the hollow of a grotto closed of shrubs, always me grasped— rolled same assuch: after: after, when I saw mine hands, total on they that not was withdrawn sanguine, was smeared green, on the digits, of leaves living that I pulled and mashed… I landed on the sedge of the profound— and a beast dark gave a releap, with a sneeze, too mad of fright: that was a papa-mel, that I descried; in order to flee, this is solely. Bigger being I, me doused mine overcoat; I spigotted total. And of one bit of thought: if that beast irara lying there then there not had cobra. I took the place of his. Existed cobra notone. I could me to lose. I was solo spineless, softness, but that not deadened, inside, the collisions of the heart. I gasped. I conceived that they came, me kill. Not even did mal, me mattered not. Assuch, some moments, at least I guarded the license of term in order me to rest. Conforming I thought in Diadorim. Solo I thought was in he. One joão-congo sang. I wanted to die thinking in my friend Diadorim, hand-o-bro, who was on the Sierra of WoodO’Bow, almost on the border baiana, with our other half of the so-candelarios… With my friend Diadorim me embraced, sentiment my went-flew right for he… Ay, arr, but: that this mine mouth not has order notone. I am accounting outside, things divagated. In the Sir me confide? Til-that, til-that. Say the angel-of-the-guard… But, conforming I came: after so knew, that same the soldiers of the Lieutenant and the goats of Coronel Adalvino remitted of to respect the blast of that Joe Cazuzo. And that this ended being the man most pacificious of the world, fabricator of oil and sacristan, in the Saint Sundays White. Times! For total, cleaned revelation, I fix thinking. I like. Meliorate, for the idea if well to open, is travelling in train-of-iron. Could, lived to top and to bottom, inside of it. Information that I ask: same in the Heavens, end of end, how is that the soul wins so to forget s’much sufferments and maladies, in the received and in the given? The how? The Sir knows: are things of hideous ofmuch, have. Pain of corpus and pain of idea mark forted, that forted as the total love and rage of hate. Goes, sea… Of luck that, then, the Firmiano, by appellationed Louse-of-Snake, so leoprosized with the leg disconformed, thickening, of that disease that not so cures; and not discern almost more, constant the branchials in the eyes, of the cataracts. Of before, years, had to of so disarray of the jagunsaga. Well, one occasion, some was on the ranch of his, on the High Jeuitai, after accounted—that, turns time, comes subject, he would say: “Me give yearning is of to seize a soldier, and such, for one good flay, with knife blind… But, first, to castrate…” The Sir conceive? Who has more dose of demon in self is Indian, any race of brusque. Folk see nation ofthese, for there profound of the generals of Goias, theofwhere has vagarous grand rivers, of aquas always so clear pleasantly, running of down crystal rosed… Louse-of-Snake gave of sanguine of heathen. Sir me will say: but that he pronounced that out of mouth, manner of to represent that yet not was old decadent. Opus of to oppose, for fear of to be tame, and cause in order so to see respected. Total listened for such rule: palavered of ruins, for more so valued, because we to the environs is hard durability. The worst, but, is that they finish, through the same ford, given of one day to execute the declared, in the real. I saw s’much crudity! Pain not pays to account; if I go, I collide. And me dedrip, three that me sicken, this total. Me convokes that the personnel, today in day, is good of heart. This is, good in the trivial. Malices wildwants, and perversities, always have some, but scarcities. Generation mine, true, was not assuch. Ah, goes to turn a time, in which not is used more to kill people… I yea am old. Good, I was saying: question, this that me excavates… Ah, I formed that question, for compadre mine Quelemem. That me responded: that, for close to heaven, we so amplified so, that total the uglies past so exhaled of not to be—fated sans-modus from time of youngster, mal-arts. As we not lack of to have remorse of the which divulged in the pulsation of his nightmares of one night. Assuch that: fleeced-so, flourished-so! Ahem. For this said, is that the journey to the Heavens is delayed. I confide with compadre mine Quelemem, the Sir knows: reason of creed same that has—that, for total the mal, that so does, one day so repays, the exact. Subject assuch rises three times, in ante of to want to facilitate in any minutia reprehensible… Compadre mine Quelemem never speaks vacant, not subtreats. Solo that this to he not I go to expose. We never should have to declare that accept entire the alien—that is what is the rule of the king! The Sir look…see: the most important and beautiful, of the world, is this: that the people are not always same, still were not completed — but that they go always shifting. They tune or detune. Truth major. Is the that the life me taught. This that me animates, mound. And, other thing: the devil and the brutes; but Deus is treacherous! Ah, a beauty of treacherous— gives like! The force of his, when he wants— boy!— me gives the fear dread! Deus comes coming: no one not sees. He does in the law of gentle— assuch is the miracle. And Deus attacks beautiful, so amusing, so economizes. The well: one day in a tannery, the little knife mine I had dropped inside of a tank, solo soup of bark of tan, stryphnodendron adstringens, angico, there I know. —“Tomorrow I try…”— I said, withmyself. Because it was of night, light notone I not disputed. Ah, then, I found: on the other day, early, the knife, the iron of it, had been gnawed, almost by half, by that aqua dark, total quiet. I left, for more to see. Crack, fuse! Know the what was? Well, in that same of afternoon, there: of the little knife solo so found the handle… The handle, for not to be of cold metal, but of horn of deer. There is: Deus… Good, the Sir heard knows, the that knows me understands… We sum, not think that religion fractures. Sir think the contrary. Visible that, those other times, I painted—belief that the neoglaziovia variegata lifts the flower. Ah, good my joy… Boyhood. But boyhood is task for more later so to deny. Too, I of that of to think in vague in s’much, lost mine hand-of-man for the management hot, in the middle of all. But, today, that I ratiocinated, and think the endeavor, not nor for this not I give for low my competence, in a fire-and-iron. The to see. Would approach would come here with war on me, with bad parts, with other laws, or with excessive looks, and I even draw to ignite this zone, ay, if, if! Is in the mouth of the blunderbuss: is in the rete-te-tem… And lonelyonly not I am, there-of-the. For not this, I was I placed encircle my mine people. Look the Sir: here, close, vereda below, the Paspe — cropper my — is mine. More league, if that, have the Herpetotheres, and have the compadre Ciril, him and three children, I know that they serve. Band of that hand, the Alaripe: knew the Sir the that is that so boasts, in rifleation and by the knife, one cearense did this! After more: the João Innatal, the Quipes, Lophiosilurus-of-claws. And the Fafafa— this gave fights high, all side with me, in the combat old of the Anteater-such: we cleaned the wind of whom not had order of to respirate, and ante these we desencompassed… The Fafafa has a mass of mares. He raises horses good. Even a little more distant, on the ped-of-sierra, of band mine was the Sesfred, Jesualdo, the Nelson, and João Concliz. Some others. The Triol… And not I go valuing? I leave terra with them, of theirs the what is mine is, we close that we not even brothers. For what I want to gather richness? They are there, of arms aireated. Enemy to come, we cross called, gathering: is hour of one good shotshowerment in peace, they exp’riment to see. I say this to the Sir, of confidence. Too, not go to think in double. We want is to work, propose tranquility. Of me, person, I live for mine woman, that total mode-meliorate merits, and for the devotion. Well-to want of mine woman was that me assisted, prayers of hers, graces. Love comes of love. I say. In Diadorim, I think too— but Diadorim is the mine nebulina… Now, well: not I wanted to touch on this more— of the Tineaous; arrive. But has a nevertheless: I ask: the Sir believe, think trust of truth in that parlance, of with the demon so to able to deal with pact? No, no is no? I knew that not there. I spoke of favas. But I like of total good confirmation. To vend you proper soul… Inventionate false! And, soul, the what is? Soul of has to be thing internal supremed, much more of the of inside, and is solo, of the that one if thought: ah, soul sheer! Decision of to vend soul is fearless moll, fantasied of moment, has not the obedience legal. Can I to vend those good terras, thereof of between the Veredas-Four— that are of one Mr. Admiral, who resides in the capital federal? Can I some? Then, if one boy boy is, and for this not so authorizes of to negotiate… And we, this I know, at times is solo fated boy. Mal that in mine life I prepared, I was in a certain infancy in dreams — total runs and arrives so swift —; will be that if hath flame of responsibilities? If dream; yea so did… I gave rapadura to the chump! Ahem. Well. If his soul, and has, it is of Deus established, not even that the person want or not want. Not is vendible. The Sir not thinks? Me declare, frank, I beg. Ah, you I appreciate. You so see that the Sir knows much, in idea firm, beyond of to have letter of doctor. You I appreciate, for much. Your company me gives high pleasures. In terms, I liked that I would live here, or close, was a help. Here not so has conviviation that to instruct. Sertão. Knows the Sir: sertão is where the thought of the people so forms more forted of the than power of the place. To live is much perilous… Eh, that you so go? Yeayea? Is that not. Today, no. Tomorrow, no. Not I consense. The Sir me forgive, but in endeavor of mine friendship accept: the Sir stay. After fifth of-morning-early, the Sir wanting to go, then goes, same me leaves feeling your absence. But, today or tomorrow, no. Visit, here in house, with me, is for three days! But, the Sir really intends to trespass the field this sea of territotires, for sortment of to confer the what exists? You have your motives. Now— I say for me — the Sir comes, came late, Times were, the customs mutate. Almost that, of legitimate loyal, little surplus, not even no excess more nothing. The bands good of valientoughs they reparted their end; many who were jagunço, by ouch pain, beg alms. Same as the herdsmen they doubt of to come in the commerce vested of clothes entire of leather, they think that garb of jerkin is ugly and boor. And even the herd in the shrubbed pasture goes waning less mad, more educated: casted of zebu, dissee with the rest of corralers and captiveborns. Always, in the generals is to the poverty, to the sadness. A sadness that even gladdens. But, then, for a crop reasonable of bizzarancies, I recounsel of the Sir to entest journey more dilated. Not were my desmight, by acids and rheumatism, there I went. I guided the Sir till total. March 2013 San Diego, CA ORIGINAL TEXT NONADA. TIROS QUE O SENHOR ouviu foram de briga de homem não, Deus esteja. Alvejei mira em árvores no quintal, no baixo do córrego. Por meu acerto. Todo dia isso faço, gosto; desde mal em minha mocidade. Daí, vieram me chamar. Causa dumbezerro: um bezerro branco, erroso, os olhos de nem ser – se viu –; e com máscara de cachorro. Me disseram; eu não quis avistar. Mesmo que, por defeito como nasceu, arrebitado de beiços, esse figurava rindo feito pessoa. Cara de gente, cara de cão: determinaram – era o demo. Povo prascóvio. Mataram. Dono dele nem sei quem for. Vieram emprestar minhas armas, cedi. Não tenho abusões. O senhor ri certas risadas... Olhe: quando é tiro de verdade, primeiro a cachorrada pega a latir, instantaneamente – depois, então, se vai ver se deu mortos. O senhor tolere, isto é o sertão. Uns querem que não seja: que situado sertão é por os campos-gerais a fora a dentro, eles dizem, fim de rumo, terras altas, demais do Urucuia. Toleima. Para os de Corinto e do Curvelo, então, o aqui não é dito sertão? Ah, que tem maior! Lugar sertão se divulga: é onde os pastos carecem de fechos; onde um pode torar dez, quinze léguas, sem topar com casa de morador; e onde criminoso vive seu cristo-jesus, arredado do arrocho de autoridade. O Urucuia vem dos montões oestes. Mas, hoje, que na beira dele, tudo dá – fazendões de fazendas, almargem de vargens de bom render, as vazantes; culturas que vão de mata em mata, madeiras de grossura, até ainda virgens dessas lá há. O gerais corre em volta. Esses gerais são sem tamanho. Enfim, cada um o que quer aprova, o senhor sabe: pão ou pães, é questão de opiniães... O sertão está em toda a parte. Do demo? Não gloso. Senhor pergunte aos moradores. Em falso receio, desfalam no nome dele – dizem só: o Que-Diga. Vote! não... Quem muito se evita, se convive. Sentença num Aristides – o que existe no buritizal primeiro desta minha mão direita, chamado a Vereda-da-Vaca-Mansa-deSanta-Rita – todo o mundo crê: ele não pode passar em três lugares, designados: porque então a gente escuta um chorinho, atrás, e uma vozinha que avisando: – “Eu já vou! Eu já vou!...” – que é o capiroto, o que-diga... E um José Simpilício – quem qualquer daqui jura ele tem um capeta em casa, miúdo satanazim, preso obrigado a ajudar em toda ganância que executa; razão que o Simpilício se empresa em vias de completar de rico. Apre, por isso dizem também que a besta pra ele rupeia, nega de banda, não deixando, quando ele quer amontar... Superstição. José Simpilício e Aristides, mesmo estão se engordando, de assim nãoouvir ou ouvir. Ainda o senhor estude: agora mesmo, nestes dias de época, tem gente porfalando que o Diabo próprio parou, de passagem, no Andrequicé. Um Moço de fora, teria aparecido, e lá se louvou que, para aqui vir – normal, a cavalo, dum dia-e-meio – ele era capaz que só com uns vinte minutos bastava... porque costeava o Rio do Chico pelas cabeceiras! Ou, também, quem sabe – sem ofensas – não terá sido, por um exemplo, até mesmo o senhor quem se anunciou assim, quando passou por lá, por prazido divertimento engraçado? Há-de, não me dê crime, sei que não foi. E mal eu não quis. Só que uma pergunta, em hora, às vezes, clareia razão de paz. Mas, o senhor entenda: o tal moço, se há, quis mangar. Pois, hem, que, despontar o Rio pelas nascentes, será a mesma coisa que um se redobrar nos internos deste nosso Estado nosso, custante viagem de uns três meses... Então? Que-Diga? Doideira. A fantasiação. E, o respeito de dar a ele assim esses nomes de rebuço, é que é mesmo um querer invocar que ele forme forma, com as presenças! Não seja. Eu, pessoalmente, quase que já perdi nele a crença, mercês a Deus; é o que ao senhor lhe digo, à puridade. Sei que é bem estabelecido, que grassa nos Santos- Evangelhos. Em ocasião, conversei com um rapaz seminarista, muito condizente, conferindo no livro de rezas e revestido de paramenta, com uma vara de maria-preta na mão – proseou que ia adjutorar o padre, para extraírem o Cujo, do corpo vivo de uma velha, na Cachoeira-dos-Bois, ele ia com o vigário do Campo-Redondo... Me concebo. O senhor não é como eu? Não acreditei patavim. Compadre meu Quelemém descreve que o que revela efeito são os baixos espíritos descarnados, de terceira, fuzuando nas piores trevas e com ânsias de se travarem com os viventes – dão encosto. Compadre meu Quelemém é quem muito me consola – Quelemém de Góis. Mas ele tem de morar longe daqui, na Jijujã, Vereda do Buriti Pardo... Arres, me deixe lá, que – em endemoninhamento ou com encosto – o senhor mesmo deverá de ter conhecido diversos, homens, mulheres. Pois não sim? Por mim, tantos vi, que aprendi. Rincha- Mãe, Sangued’Outro, o Muitos-Beiços, o Rasgaem-Baixo, Faca-Fria, o Fancho-Bode, um Treciziano, o Azinhavre... o Hermógenes... Deles, punhadão. Se eu pudesse esquecer tantos nomes... Não sou amansador de cavalos! E, mesmo, quem de si de ser jagunço se entrete, já é por alguma competência entrante do demônio. Será não? Será? De primeiro, eu fazia e mexia, e pensar não pensava. Não possuía os prazos. Vivi puxando difícil de dificel, peixe vivo no moquém: quem mói no asp’ro, não fantaseia. Mas, agora, feita a folga que me vem, e sem pequenos dessossegos, estou de range rede. E me inventei neste gosto, de especular idéia. O diabo existe e não existe? Dou o dito. Abrenúncio. Essas melancolias. O senhor vê: existe cachoeira; e pois? Mas cachoeira é barranco de chão, e água se caindo por ele, retombando; o senhor consome essa água, ou desfaz o barranco, sobra cachoeira alguma? Viver é negócio muito perigoso... Explico ao senhor: o diabo vige dentro do homem, os crespos do homem – ou é o homem arruinado, ou o homem dos avessos. Solto, por si, cidadão, é que não tem diabo nenhum. Nenhum! – é o que digo. O senhor aprova? Me declare tudo, franco – é alta mercê que me faz: e pedir posso, encarecido. Este caso – por estúrdio que me vejam – é de minha certa importância. Tomara não fosse... Mas, não diga que o senhor, assisado e instruído, que acredita na pessoa dele?! Não? Lhe agradeço! Sua alta opinião compõe minha valia. Já sabia, esperava por ela-já o campo! Ah, a gente, na velhice, carece de ter sua aragem de descanso. Lhe agradeço. Tem diabo nenhum. Nem espírito. Nunca vi. Alguém devia de ver, então era eu mesmo, este vosso servidor. Fosse lhe contar... Bem, o diabo regula seu estado preto, nas criaturas, nas mulheres, nos homens. Até: nas crianças – eu digo. Pois não é ditado: “menino – trem do diabo”? E nos usos, nas plantas, nas águas, na terra, no vento... Estrumes. ... O diabo na rua, no meio do redemunho... Hem? Hem? Ah. Figuração minha, de pior pra trás, as certas lembranças. Mal hajame! Sofro pena de contar não... Melhor, se arrepare: pois, num chão, e com igual formato de ramos e folhas, não dá a mandioca mansa, que se come comum, e a mandioca-brava, que mata? Agora, o senhor já viu uma estranhez? A mandioca-doce pode de repente virar azangada – motivos não sei; às vezes se diz que é por replantada no terreno sempre, com mudas seguidas, de manaíbas – vai em amargando, de tanto em tanto, de si mesma toma peçonhas. E, ora veja: a outra, a mandiocabrava, também é que às vezes pode ficar mansa, a esmo, de se comer sem nenhum mal. E que isso é? Eh, o senhor já viu, por ver, a feiúra de ódio franzido, carantonho, nas faces duma cobra cascavel? Observou o porco gordo, cada dia mais feliz bruto, capaz de, pudesse, roncar e engolir por sua suja comodidade o mundo todo? E gavião, corvo, alguns, as feições deles já representam a precisão de talhar para adiante, rasgar e estraçalhar a bico, parece uma quicé muito afiada por ruim desejo. Tudo. Tem até tortas raças de pedras, horrorosas, venenosas – que estragam mortal a água, se estão jazendo em fundo de poço; o diabo dentro delas dorme: são o demo. Se sabe? E o demo – que é só assim o significado dum azougue maligno – tem ordem de seguir o caminho dele, tem licença para campear?! Arre, ele está misturado em tudo. Que o que gasta, vai gastando o diabo de dentro da gente, aos pouquinhos, é o razoável sofrer. E a alegria de amor – compadre meu Quelemém, diz. Família. Deveras? É, e não é. O senhor ache e não ache. Tudo é e não é... Quase todo mais grave criminoso feroz, sempre é muito bom marido, bom filho, bom pai, e é bom amigo-de-seus-amigos! Sei desses. Só que tem os depois – e Deus, junto. Vi muitas nuvens. Mas, em verdade, filho, também, abranda. Olhe: um chamado Aleixo, residente a légua do Passo do Pubo, no da-Areia, era o homem de maiores ruindades calmas que já se viu. Me agradou que perto da casa dele tinha um açudinho, entre as palmeiras, com traíras, pra-almas de enormes, desenormes, ao real, que receberam fama; o Aleixo dava de comer a elas, em horas justas, elas se acostumaram a se assim das locas, para papar, semelhavam ser peixes ensinados. Um dia, só por graça rústica, ele matou um velhinho que por lá passou, desvalido rogando esmola. O senhor não duvide – tem gente, neste aborrecido mundo, que matam só para ver alguém fazer careta... Eh, pois, empós, o resto o senhor prove: vem o pão, vem a mão, vem o são, vem o cão. Esse Aleixo era homem afamilhado, tinha filhos pequenos; aqueles eram o amor dele, todo, despropósito. Dê bem, que não nem um ano estava passado, de se matar o velhinho pobre, e os meninos do Aleixo aí adoeceram. Andaço de sarampão, se disse, mas complicado; eles nunca saravam. Quando, então, sararam. Mas os olhos deles vermelhavam altos, numa inflama de sapiranga à rebelde; e susseguinte – o que não sei é se foram todos duma vez, ou um logo e logo outro e outro – eles restaram cegos. Cegos, sem remissão dum favinho de luz dessa nossa! O senhor imagine: uma escadinha – três meninos e uma menina – todos cegados. Sem remediável. O Aleixo não perdeu o juizo; mas mudou: ah, demudou completo – agora vive da banda de Deus, suando para ser bom e caridoso em todas suas horas da noite e do dia. Parece até que ficou o feliz, que antes não era. Ele mesmo diz que foi um homem de sorte, porque Deus quis ter pena dele, transformar para lá o rumo de sua alma. Isso eu ouvi, e me deu raiva. Razão das crianças. Se sendo castigo, que culpa das hajas do Aleixo aqueles meninozinhos tinham?! Compadre meu Quelemém reprovou minhas incertezas. Que, por certo, noutra vida revirada, os meninos também tinham sido os mais malvados, da massa e peça do pai, demônios do mesmo caldeirão de lugar. Senhor o que acha? E o velhinho assassinado? – eu sei que o senhor vai discutir. Pois, também. Em ordem que ele tinha um pecado de crime, no corpo, por pagar. Se a gente – conforme compadre meu Quelemém é quem diz – se a gente torna a encarnar renovado, eu cismo até que inimigo de morte pode vir como filho do inimigo. Mire veja: se me digo, tem um sujeito Pedro Pindó, vizinho daqui mais seis léguas, homem de bem por tudo em tudo, ele e a mulher dele, sempre sidos bons, de bem. Eles têm um filho duns dez anos, chamado Valtei – nome moderno, é o que o povo daqui agora apreceia, o senhor sabe. Pois essezinho, essezim, desde que algum entendimento alumiou nele, feito mostrou o que é: pedido madrasto, azedo queimador, gostoso de ruim de dentro do fundo das espécies de sua natureza. Em qual que judia, ao devagar, de todo bicho ou criaçãozinha pequena que pega; uma vez, encontrou uma crioula bentabêbada dormindo, arranjou um caco de garrafa, lanhou em três pontos a popa da perna dela. O que esse menino babeja vendo, é sangrarem galinha ou esfaquear porco. – “Eu gosto de matar...” – uma ocasião ele pequenino me disse. Abriu em mim um susto; porque: passarinho que se debruça – o vôo já está pronto! Pois, o senhor vigie: o pai, Pedro Pindó, modo de corrigir isso, e a mãe, dão nele, de miséria e mastro – botam o menino sem comer, amarram em árvores no terreiro, ele nu nuelo, mesmo em junho frio, lavram o corpinho dele na peia e na taca, depois limpam a pele do sangue, com cuia de salmoura. A gente sabe, espia, fica gasturado. O menino já rebaixou de magreza, os olhos entrando, carinha de ossos, encaveirada, e entisicou, o tempo todo tosse, tossura da que puxa secos peitos. Arre, que agora, visível, o Pindó e a mulher se habituaram de nele bater, de pouquinho em pouquim foram criando nisso um prazer feio de diversão – como regulam as sovas em horas certas confortáveis, até chamam gente para ver o exemplo bom. Acho que esse menino não dura, já está no blimbilim, não chega para a quaresma que vem... Uê-uê, então?!Não sendo como compadre meu Quelemém quer, que explicação é que o senhor dava? Aquele menino tinha sido homem. Devia, em balanço, terríveis perversidades. Alma dele estava no breu. Mostrava. E, agora, pagava. Ah, mas, acontece, quando está chorando e penando, ele sofre igual que se fosse um menino bonzinho... Ave, vi de tudo, neste mundo! lá vi até cavalo com soluço... – o que é a coisa mais custosa que há. Bem, mas o senhor dirá, deve de: e no começo – para pecados e artes, as pessoas – como por que foi que tanto emendado se começou? Ei, ei, aí todos esbarram. Compadre meu Quelemém, também. Sou só um sertanejo, nessas altas idéias navego mal. Sou muito pobre coitado. Inveja minha pura é de uns conforme o senhor, com toda leitura e suma doutoração. Não é que eu esteja analfabeto. Soletrei, anos e meio, meante cartilha, memória e palmatória. Tive mestre, Mestre Lucas, no Curralinho, decorei gramática, as operações, regra-de-três, até geografia e estudo pátrio. Em folhas grandes de papel, com capricho tracei bonitos mapas. Ah, não é por falar: mas, desde o começo, me achavam sofismado de ladino. E que eu merecia de ir para cursar latim, em Aula Régia – que também diziam. Tempo saudoso! Inda hoje, apreceio um bom livro, despaçado. Na fazenda O Limãozinho, de um meu amigo Vito Soziano, se assina desse almanaque grosso, de logogrifos e charadas e outras divididas matérias, todo ano vem. Em tanto, ponho primazia é na leitura proveitosa, vida de santo, virtudes e exemplos – missionário esperto engambelando os índios, ou São Francisco de Assis, Santo Antônio, São Geraldo... Eu gosto muito de moral. Raciocinar, exortar os outros para o bom caminho, aconselhar a justo. Minha mulher, que o senhor sabe, zela por mim: muito reza. Ela é uma abençoável. Compadre meu Quelemém sempre diz que eu posso aquietar meu temer de consciência, que sendo bem-assistido, terríveis bons-espíritos me protegem. Ipe! Com gosto... Como é de são efeito, ajudo com meu querer acreditar. Mas nem sempre posso. O senhor saiba: eu toda a minha vida pensei por mim, forro, sou nascido diferente. Eu sou é eu mesmo. Diverjo de todo o mundo... Eu quase que nada não sei. Mas desconfio de muita coisa. O senhor concedendo, eu digo: para pensar longe, sou cão mestre – o senhor solte em minha frente uma idéia ligeira, e eu rastreio essa por fundo de todos os matos, amém! Olhe: o que devia de haver, era de se reunirem-se os sábios, políticos, constituições gradas, fecharem o definitivo a noção – proclamar por uma vez, artes assembléias, que não tem diabo nenhum, não existe, não pode. Valor de lei! Só assim, davam tranqüilidade boa à gente. Por que o Governo não cuida?! Ah, eu sei que não é possível. Não me assente o senhor por beócio. Uma coisa é pôr idéias arranjadas, outra é lidar com país de pessoas, de carne e sangue, de mil-e-tantas misérias... Tanta gente – dá susto de saber – e nenhum se sossega: todos nascendo, crescendo, se casando, querendo colocação de emprego, comida, saúde, riqueza, ser importante, querendo chuva e negócios bons... De sorte que carece de se escolher: ou a gente se tece de viver no safado comum, ou cuida só de religião só. Eu podia ser: padre sacerdote, se não chefe de jagunços; para outras coisas não fui parido. Mas minha velhice já principiou, errei de toda conta. E o reumatismo... Lá como quem diz: nas escorvas. Ahã. Hem? Hem? O que mais penso, testo e explico: todo-omundo é louco. O senhor, eu, nós, as pessoas todas. Por isso é que se carece principalmente de religião: para se desendoidecer, desdoidar. Reza é que sara da loucura. No geral. Isso é que é a salvaçãoda- alma... Muita religião, seu moço! Eu cá, não perco ocasião de religião. Aproveito de todas. Bebo água de todo rio... Uma só, para mim é pouca, talvez não me chegue. Rezo cristão, católico, embrenho a certo; e aceito as preces de compadre meu Quelemém, doutrina dele, de Cardéque. Mas, quando posso, vou no Mindubim, onde um Matias é crente, metodista: a gente se acusa de pecador, lê alto a Bíblia, e ora, cantando hinos belos deles. Tudo me quieta, me suspende. Qualquer sombrinha me refresca. Mas é só muito provisório. Eu queria rezar – o tempo todo. Muita gente não me aprova, acham que lei de Deus é privilégios, invariável. E eu! Bofe! Detesto! O que sou? – o que faço, que quero, muito curial. E em cara de todos faço, executado. Eu não tresmalho! Olhe: tem uma preta, Maria Leôncia, longe daqui não mora, as rezas dela afamam muita virtude de poder. Pois a ela pago, todo mês – encomenda de rezar por mim um terço, todo santo dia, e, nos domingos, um rosário. Vale, se vale. Minha mulher não vê mal nisso. E estou, já mandei recado para uma outra, do Vau-Vau, uma Izina Calanga, para vir aqui, ouvi de que reza também com grandes meremerências, vou efetuar com ela trato igual. Quero punhado dessas, me defendendo em Deus, reunidas de mim em volta... Chagas de Cristo! Viver é muito perigoso... Querer o bem com demais força, de incerto jeito, pode já estar sendo se querendo o mal, por principiar. Esses homens! Todos puxavam o mundo para si, para o concertar consertado. Mas cada um só vê e entende as coisas dum seu modo. Montante, o mais supro, mais sério – foi Medeiro Vaz. Que um homem antigo... Seu Joãozinho Bem-Bem, o mais bravo de todos, ninguém nunca pôde decifrar como ele por dentro consistia. Joca Ramiro – grande homem príncipe! – era político. Zé- Bebelo quis ser político. (shrink)

This article turns one of most cited philosopher's John Dewey's title, How We Think (1933/1998) back upon itself to consider how ‘thought’ or ‘reason’ are cultural practices that historically order and generate principles for reflection and action. The discussion proceeds thusly: (1) Schooling is about changing people; (2) Changing people embodies cultural theses about modes of living, such as that of being a lifelong learner or a Learning Society. The modes of living in modern pedagogy embody changing cultural norms and (...) values about systems of reason that are to express universal cosmopolitan qualities; (3) Pedagogy fabricates the systems of reason to principles for reflection and participation that shreds provincial values in the name of greater universal cosmopolitan values; (4) This ‘making’ of cosmopolitan ‘reason’ forms through cultural practices that have overlapping sets of distinctions and differentiations about agency, the rational planning of one's biography in time, and science as a procedure for action in daily life. The educational sciences and philosophy of education are inscription devices or intellectual tools in the governing practices; (5) The inscriptions of reason, however, are more than mere qualities of thought or the mind. The narratives and images of cosmopolitan reason embody particular sublimes about collective hopes, desires and fears; (6) Further, the distinctions of cosmopolitan reason are comparative in that the very qualities of the ‘reasonable person’ create maps of its opposite: those who do not ‘fit’ the normalized qualities of the cosmopolitan thus stand outside that mode of living; The last section (7) provides three exemplars of the changing notions of the cosmopolitan and its ‘other’ in school subjects (literacy, mathematics, and music). School subjects are viewed as alchemies that transmogrify disciplinary thinking into normalizing pedagogies that fabricate who the child is and should be. The historical sketch has two layers in its educational study. One is to explore the politics of schooling with cosmopolitanism as a comparative method to consider the changing cultural practices that fabricate who child is and should be. The second raises questions about taken‐for‐granted categories and their systems of reason of education and reform. The very categories and distinctions of policy, educational research and philosophy are historicized as cultural practices to order, classify and divide what is ‘seen’ and felt as experience. (shrink)

It is a common saying that God created the universe and our planet ‘Earth’ on which we live, along with the notion that God also created human beings. There are variouswritten accounts of the mythical creation of man by God within mythological explanation in the form of a cultural system, which has been narrated in the form of folk tales, sagas, legends stories, and different types of myths; however, there isa piece of scientific shreds of evidence which contradict the idea (...) that we came on this planet as human beings. According to genomic studies, human evolution went through various stages of development throughout the course of time and space, from single cells to the complex human body.The genesis of modern humans hasalways been a topic of debate and investigation.In the present paper, the researchers wanted to study the evolution of modern humans through two different perspectives i.e. genomic view and mythical creation of man and the world.The primary backdrop of the present paper was the dialogues surrounding the genomic and the Adivasi worldview of their evolution.This paper is primarily based on the comparative study of Adivasi people’s view and genetic perspective on human evolution. The authors of this paper have focused on theAdivasis’s deep connection to nature and their evolutionary history. (shrink)

Agent Relative Ethics asks what the world would look like if we adopted agent relativity wholeheartedly, clinging to no shred of absolute morality. Alastair MacIntyre's haunting image of a post-apocalyptic world, in which our knowledge of ethics has been fragmented, poses a contrast between modern morality and ancient ethics. The two stand divided along the fault line of the nature of the good. Modern ethics has placed its stake in the absolute good, while ancient ethics rests upon the foundation of (...) the relative good. Following the lead of Bernard Williams, Agent Relative Ethics identifies alienation as a disturbing symptom of the present focus upon absolute goods. It then completes the diagnosis of the malady afflicting modern moral theory by clarifying the difference between absolute and relative goods. The remainder of the book explores how agent relativity can overcome the modern fragmentation of our ethical knowledge. Not just any relative goods can rectify the modern disorder. Only shared goods, belonging to a union of individuals, are sufficiently robust to overthrow the contemporary despotism of neutral goods. These shared goods exhibit many parallels with common sense morality, including partiality, impartiality, punishment, and an antagonism toward harmfully using others together with a more lenient attitude toward foreseeing harm. The final chapters probe the conditions, often unpalatable to the modern mind, by which ethics might be restored. Agent Relative Ethics will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in ethics and moral theory, ancient ethics, and the history of philosophy. (shrink)

While COVID-19 has taken a toll on many professions and livelihood of all walks of lives, technology has amplified its intrusion to ease the necessities. Innovative technology, therefore, has improved the glitches and provided the software to adhere to these new normal. However, individuals' awareness and attitude toward the advancements of these technological trends need to be addressed. Although the government has taken measures to prevent and curb the growing cases for COVID-19 with the help of technology, the support from (...) the individuals would depend mostly on their level of awareness and the attitude toward those measures. The present qualitative study explored the techno trend awareness, perception and attitudes of techno experts and technical professionals toward social connectedness and mitigating factors of COVID-19. Besides, it also explained individuals' shift toward virtual interaction to maintain social connections during the pandemic. The thematic analysis generated four prominent themes. Social Connectedness, emphasized on the emotional connections that created a positive feeling of belongingness. Technological Advancement provided three sub-themes highlighting perception, techno trend awareness and desirable attitudes toward the mitigation of COVID-19. The categories under Treatment and Preventive Measures indicated the enhanced self-care of individuals and also the tendencies to minimize the spread of diseases. The emergence of the theme Inclination toward Indigenous Knowledge, which is an important finding, indicated the techno-experts inclination toward the indigenous knowledge amid vague scientific shreds of evidence. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Two Poems MICHAEL TROCCHIA SEE FOR YOURSELF The gods, in effect, have given Euenius the gift of inner vision…because he has lost his outer vision. —Michael Attyah Flower, The Seer in Ancient Greece Come to a field of stones baking in the late sun. Drop your knee to the groundup earth and feel the warmth climb your thigh. Run your finger across a palm-sized stone, as if inspecting the (...) liver of the shegoat, the white one who follows you everywhere, always. Follow that old vision of yourself, its light dying in your eye as you look and look for one last rock one last time, its edge weathered into a fine and deadly thing. Hold the stone high—a red sun sinking behind you— and count down to the day’s complete darkness and in that completion between you and what will be arion 28.1 spring/summer 2020 64 two poems a darker endlessness, carve out the gift of sight, hearing only shivers of your own body, hooves running off. YOUNG CALCHAS SLEEPS And down he sat again as Calchas rose among them, Thestor’s son, the clearest by far of all the seers. —Homer, The Iliad Calchas, you dream of children dreaming of the sparrow’s head, of the bird’s eye deadened into view, of flutter and firelight, of the nest shredded at your feet and then spring again, berry, and leaf-meal and petalwind and whole glossaries of bone and egg bloodied in the hollow of your hand. But never a sure sign, no second sight clear and bright within the first order of things. No opening widening out of wing or song. Just the nearness of living, a feather suspended by a string, the halfmeaning of seeing the whole world suffer and sway— youth divined and past and forecast into the fray and saying this ruin and sacrifice again, this blueness sailing back in with the breeze. The world circles outside our window and light gives way to more light and you sleep soundly in a bed of down. Rise, Calchas, rise and walk out of the god’s mouth and see image after image fall away. See this life lifting out of one dream and into no other. Michael Trocchia 65... (shrink)

The author informs us that he would have preferred to title his book Time, the Forgotten Dimension. It is not, he cautions, that scientists fail to consider time or forget to include the term "t" in their equations. But, he insists, from Thales to Einstein and even to Planck and Schroedinger, Western thought has been dominated by the tendency to treat time as a kind of illusion or appearance cloaking a timeless reality. This tendency, taken at the extreme, would treat (...) past, present, and future as if they coexisted and deny to irreversibility, indeterminacy, and creativity the slightest shred of reality. The author, an important contributor to recent "nonequilibrium" thermodynamics, believes that this age-old tendency has finally run its course and needs to be supplemented by a newer and potentially more fruitful tendency to "take time seriously": that is, to study irreversibility and indeterminacy on their own terms, as fundamental features of the real world. The result, he argues, may be the resolution of many heretofore unresolvable problems. (shrink)

John Palmer begins his academic writing career with a text concerning the at times fragmentary and widely scattered influence of Parmenides upon the Platonic corpus. A glimpse and reglimpse at the nuances that Palmer brings to light is worthwhile. The text makes use of footnotes, which, opposed to endnotes, facilitate a more rapid assimilation. A lengthy reference list guides the reader to paths of specific interest—this being important in the determination of the difference between Palmer’s reading of Plato and Plato’s (...) employment of Parmenides. The text is systematic in approach and at times employs formal, logical equations in order to make its points clearer. Palmer explores Plato’s epistemology, metaphysics, and pursuit of specific problems. He demonstrates no intention to discover an “accurate” Platonic interpretation of Parmenides. Instead he endeavors to determine the amount and extent of influence on the mind of Plato by snatching up segments and sometimes shreds of Parmenidian influence, a dialectical hermeneutic of Platonic art form. Plato interprets Parmenides; Palmer interprets Plato’s Parmenides. Thus with a metaphysic of interpretation and potential misinterpretation Palmer secondarily attempts an implied reconstruction of the creative process of Plato’s poetic prose genius. Still, this method of interpreting the interpretation is an apparent strength of the work, since the approach is not so simple as to ensure the boredom of the reader and the reader is obliged to scrutinize his or her own interpretation of Plato and Plato’s dialogue with Parmenides in order to determine his or her level of agreement with Palmer. Thus, Palmer certainly propels the reader toward a sort of speculation and philosophical inspiration in general, no doubt one of Plato’s intentions. Still one cannot escape the speculative aspect of the text. There is, after all because of the problematic manner in which ancient works come to us, little conclusive proof of the truth of Palmer’s assertions besides his own, admittedly thorough, scholarship. Additionally, Plato himself may not have held the answers to the implicit questions that motivated Palmer since creative thinkers take inspiration from other thinkers without explicit acknowledgment. Palmer is thus out on a limb, yet he seems to have made ample preparations by thorough scholarship and he provides useful conjecture. He cites interpretive examples of Parmenidian influence in works of Plato and indeed there is need and room for speculation. (shrink)

This well chosen collection of essays written by recognized scholars addresses many of the intriguing aspects concerning the controversy over meat consumption. These aspects include not only eating meat, but also hunting animals, breeding, feeding, killing, and shredding them for our use, buying meat, the economics of the meat industry, the understanding of predation and food webs in ecology, and the significance of animals for issues about nutrition, gender, wealth, and cultural autonomy. Dombrowski rightly notes that the contemporary debate (...) regarding philosophical vegetarianism has been profoundly shaped by the historical figures who have rejected or embraced the anthropocentrism entrenched in Western thought. Three anthropological-medical essays compare meat with vegetarian diets. Eight essays treat the recent philosophical debate over the moral status of animals and whether vegetarianism is obligatory. Several essays discuss religious views on meat-eating and vegetarianism. Three essays explore meat, patriarchy, and the exploitation of nature and animals with respect to race, gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic class. The last four essays debate how to understand predation, environmental ethics, and animal protection. This collection is a fine entrée for all readers of this journal, since the debate over meat must by now figure into every thinking person’s diet. (shrink)