The Voice Of The Turtle Is Heard In Our Land

Terry Teachout writes about the arts. He is an exceptionally good writer with a compelling, conversational style that puts readers at ease and looking forward to the next page. His many books include biographies of H.L. Mencken, America's foremost debunker, and the jazz legend, Louis Armstrong. Teachout writes from the heart almost daily at his blog, About Last Night. With winter behind us and spring coming on strong, his post about a walk in New York's Fort Tryon Park struck OTR as revealing much about places and how we learn of and react to them. Readers should prepare themselves for personal moments lost in memory and geography.

Nathan Bedford Forrest Loved Waffle Cones So Much

Any psychiatrist worth his or her sheepskin will tell you that political correctness carried to its logical conclusion leads to insanity. OTR would have said "nuts" instead of insanity, but even a bad pun can't make up for the absurdity of this story coming out of Ocala. This is nothing short of mind rot at its best. God help us!

H/T The Drudge Report

Gandhi: The Mortal Side Of A Demi-God

As readers know, OTR enjoys exploring perceptions and realities of the world around us. He realizes more often than not, that Lewis Carroll was on to something when he wrote about life on the other side of the looking glass. In the words of Alice speaking from Wonderland:

If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary-wise; what it is wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?

"If I had a world of my own. . . ." OTR thinks most of us do have worlds of our own. And most of those worlds are small, manageable for the most part, likely quite satisfactory, and just what their owners want. But some seek much larger worlds. Others have larger worlds thrust upon them. Some worlds grow so large and universal that they approach the divine. There is even a term, hagiography, for the study of the "saints" among us. In time the term, as defined by Wikipedia, has come to "refer to the works of contemporary biographers and historians whom critics perceive to be uncritical and even 'reverential'".

For early Baby Boomers, there is probably no better person elevated to "sainthood" by the hagiographers than Mohandas Gandhi. The man had his critics, but OTR cannot recall them or what they said. Today, there is a new Gandhi biography (Great Soul) by Joseph Lelyveld, and it has been reviewed in The Wall Street Journal by the British historian and biographer Andrew Roberts. Roberts writes that Lelyveld has promoted a generally positive view of Gandhi, but neither has he shied away from the remarkable dark side of the Great Soul. Roberts's assault on the hagiographic image of Gandhi elaborates on many of the mortal realities most of us know little or nothing about. It will leave some readers astounded in addition to selling Lelyveld's books.

OTR , news junkie that he is, thinks the world would be such a bore if the personal worlds of our saints really matched those of their hagiographers. Thankfully, there are those who explore the mortal sides of our demi-gods. After all, it is the flaws and foibles we recognize. That divine status is a bit more difficult for us mortals to discern.

Hidden Dimensions And The Muslim Brotherhood

What would one think of an organization with the following credo:

Allah is our objective; the Quran is our constitution;, the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations.

Two remarkably contrasting assessments of threats posed by the Muslim Brotherhood are in today's news. On the domestic front, Power Line's Scott Johnson explores the Capital Hill testimony of James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, and Leon Panetta, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. And William Katz, blogging at Urgent Agenda, reports on an investigation of Youssef al-Qaradawi from the well-respected German newspaper, Der Spiegel. Though not an official, Al-Qaradawi is a long-standing and respected intellectual presence in the MB.

After reading both posts and their associated links, OTR has only one word to describe the Muslim Brotherhood: interesting. Any organization perceived this broadly bears additional study and careful watching, especially in light of "the Islamic principle of Taqiyya, or misrepresentation to achieve a goal," mentioned in the Katz post. Whatever its intention, OTR expects we'll be hearing more about the MB for a long time.

Photo: Muslim Brotherhood founder, Hassan al-Banna

The Rosenbergs Never Spied, Alger Hiss Was A Martyr, And Mao Killed Only A Few Who Needed Killing

My favorite analyst, Dr. Sanity, has some wisdom for us wrapped around the equally wise observations about academia by the Selma Oracle, Victor Davis Hanson. What a refreshing reality check! Thanks to Instapundit, OTR also found this Atlantic article on mass confirmation bias, a subject that ties directly into the therapy administered by Drs. Sanity and Hanson.

OTR finds it useless to attempt an improvement or elaboration on the message these posts bring to the reader, but he highly recommends the interesting message thread following the Atlantic post.

Never Underestimate The Power Of Suggestion

How many times have we heard the phrase, "mind over matter?" Here's more evidence how perception can perform magic within the mind. When I studied perception forty years ago, we had little more to go on than faith in that phrase. Our studies have come a long way.

Pay Raises Count As "Saved" Jobs

Never in my lifetime have words coming out of my country's government lost so much meaning. If you have a working brain cell, you can see straight through this deception. It leads me to believe this administration holds its citizens in complete contempt. Here are the details as reported by Hot Air. Note that Chicago officials are reporting that stimulus money saved more jobs than exist. Madness.

Paradigm Shifts In Education Coming Fast

The psychiatrist blogging as Shrinkwrapped has some thoughts on the coming paradigm shifts in education that may lead to individualized teaching. Once more, neuroscience plays a prominent role in this exciting transformation.

TED.com: An Amazing Resource

In the past few days, I've had two reminders from friends and family about TED.com, a site dedicated to "Ideas worth spreading." If you're unfamiliar with TED, the video below gives you a sample of what you're missing. This video shows how linking design to data can reshape our perceptions of the world around us. Don't you wish every 20 minutes of your life in the classroom had been or could be as fascinating?

Brain Building

When I was a grad student, an outstanding research class in perception very nearly wrecked my intentions for a career in the softer sciences. About the same time I had that class, advances in computer science began to contribute to the explosion of neuroscience into the multi-faceted field it is today. My fascination with neuroscience has never waned even after forty years. Shrinkwrapped helped feed that interest today with a post on the development of a parallel processing computer that will function like a brain. Testable hypotheses may be only a decade away. Several links accompany the post. Plug it all into your brain here.

Cloaking Devices and Dirty White Suits

In his speech before Congress yesterday, President Obama proved again that he is a masterful speaker. No matter that some of the statements of fact were wrong - those Germans invented the automobile - and the style - the Biden shout out - could use a bit of buffing. No question that the man knows how to move an audience. As several pundits have noted, he is extending his campaign style into his presidency. That style surely got him into the White House and has the power to whip his supporters into the higher realms of expectation. And with such lofty oratory comes the possibility that some of those expectations may be unrealized.

One absolutely unrealized expectation yesterday was the Republican response delivered by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. Frankly, I've never thought much of opposition responses. They remind me of the white-suited man, shovel in hand, following the elephant in the circus parade. The guy may have an important job, but everybody remembers the elephant. If Jindal wants to stay clean and build his resume, he simply must improve that shoveling technique or find another job in the circus. Republicans should take all of this as a serious warning that their message for 2010 must be selected carefully, wrapped beautifully, and delivered appropriately. If not, they will be following an ass - the donkey variety - for a very long time.

[Apologies to my Democrat friends - just couldn't help myself.]

Gift Wrapping for Success

Mona Charen has a valuable history lesson on political perception and reality in her post at National Review Online.

















Toto figured it out.