On Geertz: http://newcriterion.com/archives/lead-article/10/geertz-windschuttle/

On Pinker: http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/

Now take this subject out of the academy and bring it to the people. Understanding relativism might help us sort through practical issues that confound us:

1. Taking of life: OK at war; not OK at home; OK for self defense; not OK for mercy, maybe or maybe not OK for prisoners…

2. Genital mutiliation of females vs. routine circumcision of males: How are these different?

3. If it’s OK to have single-sex schools, is it OK for private clubs to exclude entire classes of people (gender, race, religion)?

Why now? I sense that Open Source listners, readers and writers are seeking to make sense of the world. We want tools that can be applied in all cases. An understanding of cultural and moral perspectives is one such tool. This could be an installment in the “intellectual toolkit,” which might include future pieces on rationality and reason, language, emotion, persuasion, etc. Once a month or quarter, Open Source can familiarize its constituents with a new tool and help us grow.

“With shows such as The Wire, Deadwood, Battlestar Galactica, The Office, and Veronica Mars ……

I know (from doing a site search) that Chris doesn’t own a TV, but we may be living in a golden age of television. I’d love to see a show where the best of fiction on American TV gets the same respect and serious consideration as poetry. (Which certainly deserves the attention, as well.)”

I agree Mr. Scarequotes…something is happening.

I see writers fighting back against reality TV

with The Office, Extras, Reno 911,…

but these writers use reality TV (and would’nt work before or without it)

fiction is indeed stranger then truth

or what is truth

I love this blur

(this blur occurs in a different way in works such as Eggers’ Heartbreaking Work or Pamuk’s New Life)

Winston: I can’t find the show you pitched above! Where/what was it?

NHBoy: I think this will be a hard sell. I agree that NH is interesting right now — and could make an engaging story even for a national audience — but I get the sense, both anecdotally and from the number of comments to our last few election shows, that our listeners aren’t ready for more election horse-racing. ’06 is done. Let’s wait at least a months before ’08 starts…

But when it does, we’ll do our best not to ignore a fascinating story just north of us.

Vigneron: We’ve done a number of shows about executive power, torture, and detainee rights. Are you suggesting another angle?

Walkerhenry: I’ll check out that article.

Jon: We’re actually working on a show for Thanksgiving Day that might — I’m just guessing here — be more up your alley than “Momma’s Boy.” Chris interviewed Daniel Barenboim when the Maestro was giving his Norton Lectures at Harvard a month and a half ago. I’m still cutting it, but the plan is for the pre-recorded hour on Thanksgiving.

Noel Murray’s done three articles at the Onion’s AV Club about how their natures as serial media undermine some of the artistry of TV and comic books. (Part 1, TV. Parts 2A and 2B, comics.)

There are some things that television will always do better than movies, like building characters and plots over long stretches of time, and playing out premises in different permutations. But it’s still rare to find a TV series that works as a complete, seamless work of art, with no dead spots or false starts.

But at the same time, the persistent pacing problems of comics is in some ways inherent to the way the medium has arranged itself. The art of editing—so crucial to movies and novels—isn’t as easy in comics, where cutting something that’s not working might mean spending days or weeks rearranging and redrawing pages.

Adam Sternbergh in New York has his own analysis of why shows like Lost don’t work, long-term, and argues for the creation of the limited-run show.

More and more of the popular art forms these days — TV, comics, even movies — are episodic by nature. What are the challenges of episodic storytelling, and are there latter-day Dickenses able to produce great art by the episode? (Or was even Dickens himself sometimes stymied by serial publication?)

Susan Casey has an article in the current issue of Best Life magazine — which does not, unfortunately, make it available online — arguing that plastic is going to be a crisis on the scale of AIDS or global warming. Why? Because almost every piece of plastic ever created still exists.

Large pieces have created a miles-wide mass in the Pacific Ocean. Smaller particles are found throughout the sea and on beaches. Animals eat it. We eat it. And it may really wreak havoc on our systems.

Though Casey’s article isn’t online, another blog tracked some related online articles: Plastics, Plastics Everywhere and Drowning in an Ocean of Plastic, among others.

Should we be more concerned about plastic? If so, what do we do — or can we avoid being killed by one of our most convenient creations?

(http://video.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?ean=027616865700&crvAll=1&crvStart=1&displayonly=CRV&z=y&mode=A,%20A,%20A,%20A). And of course movies related to Thanksgiving just keep coming, perhaps the most recent being “Momma’s Boy” (2006), described at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0493024/ as “Plot Outline: Bad things happen when a young guy brings his fiancé home for Thanksgiving;

User Comments: Dysfunctional family fun (more).” Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

A Bill of Attainder is a law that specifically applies to a group of persons. I’m referring to detainees held by the military, charged with crimes under our domestic law for actions done in a foreign nation.

Ex post facto. Congress has given immunity for crimes committed by our agents against enemies in the field and detainees.

I want my Constitution back!