Castro Answers Questions

The great comandante shows his respect for human rights and free speech, after a journalist asks him about a Cuban dissident who has dared to express openly her wish to visit relatives outside of Cuba:

Video

It’s in Spanish but the relevant parts are pretty much self-explanatory.

(Via TheRealCuba.com, via 26th Parallel.)

Double, Double Toil and Trouble

“Such indeed is the respect paid to science, that the most absurd opinions may become current, provided they are expressed in language, the sound of which recalls some well-known scientific phrase. If society is thus prepared to receive all kinds of scientific doctrines, it is our part to provide for the diffusion and cultivation, not only of true scientific principles, but of a spirit of sound criticism, founded on an examination of the evidences on which statements apparently scientific depend.”

James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)

Emphasis mine. Living the life scientific means applying that philosophy to all areas of your life, and admitting when you do not have enough information to make a judgment, something a lot of scientists have a problem with. But this is not a rant about the failings of scientists, this is a rant mostly about this part of the quote:

the most absurd opinions may become current, provided they are expressed in language, the sound of which recalls some well-known scientific phrase.

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Proportional Art

Captain Ed observes, about the proportionality canard:

To use a crude analogy, if someone is stupid enought to bring a knife to a gunfight, it doesn’t mean that those holding the guns have a moral obligation to fight with knives instead. Proportionality demands exactly that, and it leads to nothing but longer and more destructive wars.

As I argued before, those who argue for a “proportional” response argue for an ineffective and essentially symbolic response that changes nothing. I find such arguments morally suspect. Given that any military operation will result in some civilian deaths, we should only launch such an operation when we honestly think that doing so will result in a significant positive change.

I can think of few things more vile than advocating for the deaths of innocents for what amounts to a very large and expensive piece of performance art.

[Note: The Captain’s Quarters blog suddenly became unreachable while I was writing this post. The above links may not work.]

The Ronettes

I had a Japanese import of the Ronettes Greatest Hits on vinyl. I got it on one of my record-and-book shopping forays into Boston, perhaps the happiest moments of my teen years. The record was a beautiful thing. The sleeve was made out of that flimsy Japanese cardboard some of you will remember, and it had this cover art, but with different lettering. I suppose I still have it in the basement. I got it during the apex of my punk rock phase, circa 1980 (senior year in high school), but I loved 60s pop and garage rock just as much. The Ronettes were about the only challengers to Rocket to Russia and the Ramones Leave Home as go-to records — not the ones you think you should like, but the ones you actually play for yourself because you want to. Of course, this was back when punk was really pop, anyway, before it turned horrible, i.e. hardcore. And the Ronettes were of course among the all-time queens of girl-pop — OK, the greatest, so sayeth Lex — so it is not so much of a stretch.

I used to listen to that Ronettes album with earphones on at blaring volume when I was supposed to be sleeping, and be half-asleep, hallucinatorily half-dreaming, in the dark, engulfed by the “wall of sound”, floating in an auditory ocean of Spectorian grandeur and romanticism.

I suppose it was a drug-equivalent for a teenager who did not use drugs.

Here are the girls back in the day.

The kids in the crowd do not yet know they can stand up and get groovy, since it is only 1964 and it is still the last trailing end of the Beaver Cleaver era. So they just remain seated and head-jam and clap. After them, the deluge.

Ronnie looks like she is having such a blast just being on stage. In 2006, I smile just seeing her smile, even though this show happened 42 years ago.

I can understand perfectly well why Brian Wilson fell in love with Ronnie Spector, wrote “Don’t Worry Baby” (his greatest song) for her, worshipped her from afar, then had a nervous breakdown.