April 2007 Archives

David Halberstam, 73, Dies in Car Crash - New York Times

The Dean of Modern Journalism and one of the Vietnam War's most intrepid reporters is dead at 73 after being hit broadside in a car accident in Menlo Park, California. A reporter to the end, Mr. Halberstam was conducting research for a book when he died. We mourn for Mr. Halberstam and for the books he will never write and note the bitter irony of a death on America's streets of one who endured so many perils abroad.

As the facts unfold about the tragedy in Virginia, let us take a moment to remember the thousands of anonymous victims of gun violence across America every year. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Uniform Crime Reports, firearms are used in 72.6 percent of homicides in America. Of these, handguns comprised 87.3 percent, killing 7,543 people in America in 2005.

G.O.P. Candidates Lay Into Democrats, Not One Another - New York Times

The New York Times has a reminder of why it is so difficult to find common ground with the obscurantist Republican Party.

. . . this Pope has doubts about Galileo:

At the end of Retrying Galileo, Finocchiaro surmises that the history of the Galileo affair is not over. Interestingly, in a speech delivered at Parma, Italy, 15 March 1990, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) stated: "At the time of Galileo the Church remained much more faithful to reason than Galileo himself. The process against Galileo was reasonable and just" (3). Perhaps this portends the next story in the grand saga of the Galileo affair.

HISTORY OF SCIENCE: The Many Trials of Galileo Galilei -- Machamer 309 (5731): 58 -- Science

Vladimir Putin's Russia might seem like an unlikely soil for one the foremost modern voices of freedom to take root, but world chess champion Garry Kasparov has transformed himself from world renowned chess player to world renowned advocate for democracy. Today in Red Square, Kasparov and some 2,000 companions faced down, and were arrested by, some 9,000 heavily armed riot police, stifling the demonstration but illustrating Kasparov's point that Russia is once again a state run by gangsters. (One of the many troubling aspects of George W. Bush's foreign policy outlook is his admiration for Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, despite (or because of?) Putin's suppression of domestic dissent.)

Kasparov discusses his program at his Committee 2008 website and as a contributor to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required).

Pope Says Evolution Can't Be Proven - washingtonpost.com

BERLIN -- Benedict XVI, in his first extended reflections on evolution published as pope, says that Darwin's theory cannot be finally proven and that science has unnecessarily narrowed humanity's view of creation.

Just in case you were wondering whether the Papacy had gained in intellectual sophistication since the 17th century.

Kurt Vonnegut, Writer of Classics of the American Counterculture, Dies at 84 - New York Times

Kurt Vonnegut, one of the more decent literary and political figures of the last half century, died tonight. So it goes.

Lawyers (Scripting News)

Ur-blogger Dave Winer is critical of the civil justice system, and predicts that bloggers will make it more accountable:

Critics ask if blogging is a field of banality but arming citizens against big corporations is becoming an important part of our economy, and it's for the good. Today, when I tell a company that's taking unfair advantage that I have a blog, nothing happens. In a few years I don't think it'll be like that.

Mr. Winer notes that — at least today — nothing happens when he tells a company he has a blog. He might get farther by telling them he has a lawyer.

if you are accompanied by a company of infantry, snipers, and a helicopter escort.

McCain Wrong on Iraq Security, Merchants Say - New York Times