Tuesday, October 21, 2003

Journal.. announcement Posted here Tuesday, October 21, 2003 at 4:45:55 PM     HYLE's special issue on Aesthetics and Visualization in Chemistry, Part 2, is now available online, including our virtual art exhibition "Chemistry in Art" (see ToC below). http://www.hyle.org/journal/issues/9-2/index.html ********

New York Review Posted here Tuesday, October 21, 2003 at 4:15:39 PM     Take a look at the New York Review 40th annversarry isue http://www.nybooks.com/contents/20031106 Russell Baker on Paul Krugman John Updike on El Greco Elizabeth Hardwick on Nathanael West Andrew O'Hagan on Eminem Roger Shattuck on the Wright Brothers Luc Sante on New York City Ronald Dworkin on Terrorism and Civil Liberties Freeman Dyson on Einstein and Poincaré Garry Wills on Thomas Jefferson Rosemary Dinnage on Verdi Steven Weinberg on War Larry McMurtry on Garrison Keillor John Banville on George Orwell Joyce Carol Oates on American literary fiction Charles Rosen on classical music in the marketplace Tim Parks on Cesare Pavese Margaret Atwood on Studs Terkel Joan Didion on George W. Bush Robert Lowell on founding the New York Review ********

Costs of empire, washington dc meeting Posted here Tuesday, October 21, 2003 at 3:22:00 PM     Very interesting.. The Costs of Empire 10.23 A Conference organized and presented by The Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy Thursday, October 23, 2003, 3:00 pm Caucus Room, SR-325     Russell Senate Office Building Charles Peña, Director of Defense Policy Studies, Cato Institute, Conference Chair Panel 1: The Costs of Empire at Home Erin Solaro, Executive Director, Aretèa Doug Bandow, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute, and former Special Assistant to President Reagan E. Wayne Merry, Former State Department and Pentagon official James Bovard, Author of Terrorism and Tyranny Panel 2: The Costs of Empire Abroad Michael Desch, The University of Kentucky Steven Clemons, Executive Vice President, New America Foundation Anatol Lieven, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Michael Vlahos, Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Laboratory The conference is free of charge. RSVP to Jenny Buntman at buntman@newamerica.net or 202-986-4901  Contacts: Christopher Preble, 202/218-4630, cpreble@realisticforeignpolicy.org Charles Peña, 202/789-5292, cpena@cato.org   ********

On treatment of prisoners of war.. Posted here Tuesday, October 21, 2003 at 2:51:39 PM     I consider this extremeley important.. the current approach of the govenment to the issues is a stain on the american character.     Friends-Of-The Court Briefs Filed With The Supreme Court Overview               In a landmark event, a diverse group of prominent Americans and international law scholars has come together calling upon the United States Supreme Court to review Administration policy in detaining people at Guantanamo and elsewhere.  They have urged the Supreme Court to hear cases brought by Yaser Hamdi, a U.S. citizen, and by citizens of allied nations held at Guantanamo, all of whom have been detained indefinitely with little or no legal process.  Seven separate amici curiae or friends-of-the court briefs have been filed with the U.S. Supreme Court questioning the legality of U.S. treatment of those prisoners under the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, and international law.  Briefs have been filed by:  distinguished former U.S. diplomats; former U.S. federal judges and leading members of the private bar; former judge advocate generals of the Navy and Marine Corps; former American POWs; the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association; the Commonwealth Lawyers Association; and Fred Korematsu, the plaintiff who challenged the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.             According to Douglass Cassel, Professor of Law at Northwestern University, “The filing of this many amici briefs at this stage of the proceeding – in support of petitions for certiorari – is an extraordinary legal event and reflects the breadth of concern for upholding fundamental American principles and the rule of law.” Following are a few statements from those briefs: ·        Brief Filed by Former U.S. Diplomats “This is, from our foreign policy experience, a case of vast public import . . . . It has been the experience of each of us that our most important diplomatic asset has been this nation’s values . . . . The hint that America is not all that it claims, that it . . . can accept that the Executive Branch may imprison whom it will and do so beyond the reach of due process of law demeans and weakens this nation’s voice abroad.” ·        Brief Filed by Former Federal Judges, Government Officials and Prominent Lawyers “The decisions of the Circuit Courts below, effectively denying a meaningful review of the Executive Branch’s determinations regarding petitioners and essentially closing the courthouse door to them, disregard one of the most basic and fundamental foundations of our system of government:  the rule of law.” ·        Brief Filed by Former Judge Advocate Generals “To be sure, this is a perilous time, as the President has stated.  But that does not justify indefinite confinement without any type of hearing or judicial review.”  The United States played a major role in the development and adoption of the Geneva Conventions.  The requirements of those Conventions are incorporated directly into American Military Regulations.  “American failure to provide foreign prisoners with the protections of the Geneva Conventions may well provide foreign authorities, in current or future conflicts, with an excuse not to comply with the Geneva Conventions with respect to captured American military forces.” ·        Brief Filed by Former American POWs “As a result of [our] own experiences, [we] have an interest in fostering the development, acceptance and enforcement of international norms pursuant to which prisoners of war and others captured during armed conflicts will be treated humanely and in accordance with the rule of law.”  In particular, we “wish to ensure that the treatment by the United States of foreign detainees . . . is such that the United States and former American POWs retain the moral authority to demand fair and humane treatment for any future Americans detained by foreign governments.”  It is important for the Supreme Court to take these cases because they raise the “critical question of whether, in a world in which the United States seeks to persuade other nations to govern in accordance with the rule of law, the United States will honor its own commitment” to that principle.   (there is more, click on the title...) ********

doug mini essay of evolution Posted here Tuesday, October 21, 2003 at 11:50:33 AM     Just to get it on the record.. An important problem with "evolution" is the contradiction between preformism, which e-volution implies, and full adaptation to circumstances which do not unfold in a linear way. The earth is not necesarily evolving in a way that inelligence would be its co-evolutionary partner. The idea that evolution is going towards a fixed destiny is an import that has cultural roots, and anyone carrying that assumption should investigate their own influences. Preformism or directionalism miss the beauty and mystery. Another issue is that often there is an assumption that we know what is evolving, speech, intelligence, the color of the flower, the arch of the wing. But in fact we do not know, since often what is really happening is quite hidden. The story of salmon, the depositing of carbon on the river banks, the involvement of prey, the feeding of the trees that hide the banks that shadow the young salmon.. This is as far as we have got, but the real story may still be hidden, So when people pick something like "problem solving" as the "representative anecdote" about which an explanation is going to be an adequate theory of the whole, then we have to cringe who might think that "poetry" would be a better representative anecdote for which, if we had a good theory, we would know more about what being a human being is. I am not asserting that poetry is it, just suggesting that our basis for choice is based in presuppositions which are probably off the mark. Another problem is that space is not a void, but a field of potential which contains and limits and empowers "evolution", but we have no theory at the level of form or more profound about what that is, yet is must be part of a full theory of change. The idea of "representative anecdote" comes from Kenneth Burke, who used literature to understand society, and was concerned that we pick the wrong - and too superficial - things to try and understand. Comments very welcome, as always.   ********