Author: stevekuusisto

"Last week, the Food and Drug Administration issued an announcement with a title only a federal bureaucrat could write: “FDA approves Kalydeco to treat rare form of cystic fibrosis.’’ In fact, it was a blockbuster development, the first drug that would treat the cause, rather than the symptoms, of cystic fibrosis, a medication that showed such breathtaking results in clinical trials that it was sanctioned by the FDA in about half the typical time.Behind that announcement sits a human narrative, a quarter century in the making, of loss, hope, and triumph."
Driven by loss, father inspires tireless pursuit of a cure

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2012/02/09/joeys_long_legacy/?s_campaign=MobAppShare_EM

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Timothy Noah over at The New Republic writes this morning:

 “The GOP’s desire to lose its House majority and re-elect President Obama is quite a thing to behold. After getting whupped in December over their reluctance to extend the payroll tax cut, Republican extremists in the House are once again holding it up with partisan demands (for instance, to cut unemployment insurance).”

Mr. Noah concludes that the Republicans have lost their political instincts, a fair point, but one that I think ducks the truth for the GOP is no longer about politics in the conventional sense. Ideology trumps politics just as paper wraps stone, and for much of the past decade the rightward tilt of the Republican party has been driven by what I like to call “the King Lear effect”–like the old king, the party divided its idea of posterity rather than thinking about the nation. The latter represents politics and the former is, well, not much more than opportunism. It took the Obama administration a long time to figure this out. No one wants to believe the old king is mad and his offspring are simply heartless, but that is the state of affairs.

Check out this article that I saw in USA TODAY’s iPhone application.

Surveys: Catholics want birth control coverage

http://usat.ly/yjQt9w

To view the story, click the link or paste it into your browser.

To learn more about USA TODAY for iPhone and download, visit: http://usatoday.com/iphone/

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 First let’s be clear that dogs can talk, though not all can equally manage diphthongs. (See Chihuahua: glottal anomalies, under “the canine pallet” and in particular the work of the great Wigglesworth).

That dogs may talk, but choose not to, is a matter of 20th century philosophy, for prior to the Edwardian era dogs were loquacious and some were known to recite whole books aloud (See “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”). While the exact moment dogs stopped speaking is hard to pin down, it’s clear that the movement to silence was started by Bertrand Russell’s dog. Despite Russell’s own attainments and subsequent reputation as an analytical philosopher, a vocation marked by exactness, his dog was given to vocal extravagances and sentimentality. The observation: No matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were poor but honest (which has long been attributed to Russell) was most likely uttered by his dog. (See “Irish wolf hounds of philosophers, drunkenness, ca, 1912). 

According to Dabney Sty, an amateur historian from East Anglia, Russell’s dog (See “Great dogs of conscience, anonymous”) was troubled by his master’s belief that Hegelian dialectical thinking had ceased to be relevant in the 20th century. Anticipating the “Renaissance” of Marxism, the great man’s dog saw that it was wholly advisable to keep your mouth shut. After the first world war, Carl Jung’s discovery of the “universal unconscious” allowed dogs worldwide to boycott human speech. 

Yes, Alan Bates was terrific as Burgess the spy, exiled and taking his comeuppance in the Soviet Union. But for me, the last minute of the film remains unparalleled. Dressed in his new, imported suit, a suit no Russian could ever own, a gift from home, Burgess/Bates takes a proud and unambifuously happy stroll. As my son Ross says, "it's the beauty of a high thread count!"

I made a mistake this morning and turned on the Joe Scarborough “Morning Joe” program. I was treated to Scarborough’s howling insistence that the rights of Catholics in America are being suborned by the vicious carrot and stick of Obama’s health care act. Scarborough sneered at the liberal blogs–his assertion, poorly framed, was that “liberals” are shoving their immoral agenda down the throats of sincere religious people who simply do not believe in abortion. A guest on the show tried to argue that the health care act doesn’t say you have to have an abortion, it just makes it available as an option. But Scarborough wasn’t having any of it. You see, Obama and his ilk are interfering with the moral consciences of Catholics who, presumably, like small children,  will get “cooties” if they receive health care under Obama’s initiative. One could call this argument the “pox Romana”–if a religious person stands next to a free thinker on the bus he will inevitably be morally infected. And in this way, Scarborough partook of the the very thing he accuses liberals of doing: not trusting the people. BTW, you can always tell when Scarborough is in over his head–he yells at Mika Brezinski who is the smartest person on the show. 

 Suppose you became a philosophical dog with a penchant for Spinoza. We will leave aside how you may have undergone your conversion for moral attainments seldom survive autobiographical scrutiny, though if any man could explain it, it would be Jeffrey Masson. All I can say with any certainty is that like all sharp dogs, you will like your freedom, though in a companionable way. I was put in mind of this by a chance encounter with a stranger who admired my guide dog and suggested (while scratching her ears) that the world would be a better place if it was run by dogs. 

Steven Nadler’s “Spinoza” piece in today’s NY Times (link above) speaks sweetly of the utilitarian benefits of freedom, a kind of “Spinoza meets Bentham” argument which Philosophy must invariably revisit every ten minutes, but leaving aside the freedom to invent or produce, Nadler is wonderful when summarizing the necessity for toleration as an a priori condition for freedom:

“Well before John Stuart Mill, Spinoza had the acuity to recognize that the unfettered freedom of expression is in the state’s own best interest. In this post-9/11 world, there is a temptation to believe that “homeland security” is better secured by the suppression of certain liberties than their free exercise. This includes a tendency by justices to interpret existing laws in restrictive ways and efforts by lawmakers to create new limitations, as well as a willingness among the populace, “for the sake of peace and security,” to acquiesce in this. We seem ready not only to engage in a higher degree of self-censorship, but also to accept a loosening of legal protections against prior restraint (whether in print publications or the dissemination of information via the Internet), unwarranted surveillance, unreasonable search and seizure, and other intrusive measures. [2]Spinoza, long ago, recognized the danger in such thinking, both for individuals and for the polity at large. He saw that there was no need to make a trade-off between political and social well-being and the freedom of expression; on the contrary, the former depends on the latter.”

That we’ve given away essential freedoms in the post 9-11 decade is obvious. Less obvious is the way in which these sacrifices of liberty will play out. A dog, of course, would give away nothing, for her affection is only pack-like to the extent the pack is worth a damn. As any philosopher dog can tell you. 

” With the closing of the Oak Room—a serenely elegant hostel for the American songbook in the one-time home of the Algonquin Roundtable—New York will have a great deal less of what the venue presented: that is, not just refined music, but symbolism of the durability of refinement.” 

 http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-famous-door/100336/oak-room-new-york-algonquin-cabaret-jazz

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/david-j-skorton/college-tuition_b_1256081.html

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Institutionalization of children…

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Institutionalization of Children

 

We need to let the world know that children are suffering needlessly in institutions. DRI has seen the faces of these children who are locked away in institutions and left to die.

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Worldwide Campaign to End the Institutionalization of Children is working to change the widely-held perception that institutions are safe places for children with disabilities. Children with disabilities, like all children, need the love and support of
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