(EE) Reading for Wednesday

Monday we continue with ecophenomenology. Wednesday's reading is an excerpt from Donald Griffin's book Animal Minds:

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/308650.html

This Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry is also helpful:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-animal/

(NHN) Trillions and Trillions

After correcting for inflation, the current "bailout" of financial institutions has already cost US taxpayers more than all of these combined:

• Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion

• Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion

• Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion

• S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion

• Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion

• The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)

• Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion

• Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion

• NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

Source: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/11/big-bailouts-bigger-bucks/

(NHN) Gregor Mendel and Evolutionary Biology

Here's a brief summary of Gregor Mendel's contribution to the foundations of modern genetics:

http://www.accessexcellence.org/RC/AB/BC/Gregor_Mendel.php

Re my example of the 'heritable' effects of smoking: Mitochondrial DNA, passed on from mothers to daughters only, seems to play a central role in recent epigenetics (non-Mendelian genetics):

https://notes.utk.edu/bio/greenberg.nsf/0/b360905554fdb7d985256ec5006a7755?OpenDocument

Obama and Grammatical Correctness

Just for fun:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-borowitz/obamas-use-of-complete-se_b_144642.html

Turkeys of the World Unite

On Turkey Day

One bird we honor on this day of thanks;
Alongside our symbol of freedom she ranks.
Regard for her grows as we near “Turkey Day.”
(I’ll parse her death as “regard,” if I may.)

Are turkeys the victims of vile human power?
A simpering few harbor thoughts fairly dour:
“These birds live their lives in a self-conscious way;
These birds aren't for stuffing, or eating,” they say.

Don't people agree that tradition's a right;
One sufficiently strong to eclipse the bird’s plight?
Perhaps they’re just bored, confused, or hate cooking;
It’s only a bird (and rather ill-looking).

Those in the know limit thought to our brains:
Alone we can suffer, feel pleasures and pains.
Just meeting our needs – a formidable feat;
How dreary the world, each entrée sans meat!

Life’s like a raft, with but room for one kind;
(And -- tofu be damned -- they're too simple to mind.)
The turkey we honor on this day of thanks;
Alongside our symbol of freedom she ranks.

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Update: A recent video of Sarah Palin oblivious to the slaughter of turkeys behind her:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/20/sarah-palin-holds-news-co_n_145375.html

(AP) Polluted Passivity

Here's a link to a helpful page on the passive voice, a problem for many young writers.

The following sentence contains a canonical, eventive (or dynamic) passive voice construction. Notice that, contrary to the more familiar and straightforward subject-acting-on-object structure, the object of the action (the river) is the subject of the sentence while the actor, the one performing the action, is the object:

The river was polluted by the factory farmers.

A simple inversion of the subject and object produces this better result in the active voice, where the actor is the subject of the sentence:

The factory farmers polluted the river.

(Don't confuse the passive voice with the past tense. The factory farmers polluted the river uses the active voice to describe a past action.)

A long-time hunter of passive voice constructions, I stumbled recently over a couple of troublesome look-alikes. Here’s my attempt to clarify the grammatical distinctions between the following passive-looking creatures (so that I might take better aim in the future). I'll place my current, no doubt incomplete, view in parentheses.

The river was polluted. (As above, an eventive (dynamic) passive or stative (static) passive, depending on the meaning; that is, either someone polluted the river or the river was in a polluted state as a consequence of someone or something acting on it.)

That is a polluted river. (A so-called “adjectival passive.” As I understand it, while adjectival passives are not true passives (because participial adjectives, not verbs), they can contribute to the overall passivity of a sentence. This sentence may be indistinguishable in this instance from the stative passive above, “That river is polluted.”)

Don't swim in a polluted river. (An imperative containing either an adjectival passive or stative passive.)

He is bearded. (A self-reflexive adjectival passive?)

(EE & NHN) Antitrust and Social Control

Dave Lindorff on the Wall Street Bailout (there really are alternatives, as every student of mainstream economic theory knows):

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/12-1

And from Naomi Klein (the bailout has no strings or accountability or likelihood of success):

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/14

(A&P) 3-D Street Art

Julian Beever's amazing "pavement painting":

http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/pave.htm

(EE & NHN) Heterodox Economics

Introduction to alternative economic theories:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterodox_economics

Style Checklist

For those writing essays, here's a link to the Philosophy Program's "Style Checklist":

http://www.mcla.edu/Academics/Majors__Departments/Philosophy/style.php