Letters to the Editor
healthyskeptic
Published Letters: 671 Editor's Choice: 14
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@ Chad Bagley
[Read the article: We are meant to be here]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have to side with Dracowrym and say that 'meant' is misleading. You are correct in saying something else would be here but 'meant' gives 'meaning' and therefore intent to what is a purely causal relationship.
Sure. I was playing around with the word "meant" and the notion of meaning, the meaning of meaning, for that matter.
What is "meaning" anyways? It implies consciousness and life.
Unless one believes in some sort of "magic" outside physics which gives rise to consciousness, then life and consciousness are the products of physics. One can say physics are themselves "alive" or at least have the potential to organize into what we call life. That "life" is not separate from physics, it's just a subset of physics, itself 100% coherent with the laws of physics.
Physics are deterministic. The observer's free will may change outcomes, but if free will is the product of life and consciousness, which are the product of physics, then all life is deterministic. Everything an elaborate deus ex machina. Not literally and certainly not anthropomorphically, of course.
But that is what Einstein meant when he spoke of the "mind of god."
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Cory Booker not black enough for Debra
[Read the article: Why Cory Booker is mad as hell]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Oh look, it's Debra taking another big shit on another black politician trying to make a difference, just like the angry, militant, screw-up she is. Surprise! It's almost like she has nothing else to say, a one track mind, and a deep inferiority complex or something.
Anyways, Booker is right: the war on drugs in incarcerating way too many poor blacks in a vicious cycle which ain't exactly breaking-news. Even not-black-enough-for-Debra types, whites, and those with grad school degrees hung on walls have been saying so for decades. Of course solving the problem is a lot harder than waving a magic wand, or perhaps magic fist pick, as Debra seems to imagine. Solutions require skill in navigating the hazards of politics and the law to actually accomplish something more than rhetoric.
Politics and law of course being two areas Debra has aspired to, but failed at. But she sure shoots her mouth off about them anyways.
According to Debra Dickerson's standards, Cory Booker, like Barack Obama, isn't a real black man anyways. To start with he's too educated and successful, and not angry or militant enough. I suppose Debra imagines her dropping out of Harvard law, her failure in politics, and overall mili'tude better qualify her for civil governance. That and her being a "real" black person and all. (Notice the power afro as evidence of blackness.)
A recent column in the Newark Star-Ledger lays out the stark reality that has turned this Zen-y, post-race, teetotaling philosopher, Rhodes scholar, Stanford football star and Yale Law grad into Martin Luther King Jr. If he doesn't see progress soon, we may be heading for Malcom X territory.
MLK to Malcolm X? Debra has black history rather backwards. Is she trying to say Booker is regressing and she finds it endearing?
Booker was talking about peaceful protest of the type MLK used. I don't hear him talking about carrying rifles in the street, or joining the Nation of Islam, or otherwise making more enemies than friends and helping perpetuate the problem for blacks. Though I'm sure he'd be more welcome in Debra's camp for doing so.
Booker's million and one grad school-infused plans... before he nailed his shiny diplomas to his office wall...
Project insecurity much? What does "Grad school infused plans" mean? Dickerson would presumably have "Harvard law dropout infused plans" and "hack writer infused plans" and no diploma worth nailing to any wall. Which would qualify her better, how exactly?
That Salon continues to pay (presumably) that clown Debra is a good example of why Salon is struggling.
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worth noting
[Read the article: Why Cory Booker is mad as hell]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Booker's "grad school" ideas are pretty good.
The problem isn't a lack of ideas or will from him. It's other politicians and part of the electorate that want the war on drugs and tough on crime policies on the right, and militants on the left who never accomplish anything but creating more reactionaries.
Booker needs bridge that divide and thread the needle somehow. NJ as a culture, from rich to poor, right to left, are certainly divided from each other, hostile, and stuck repating failed models. Basically he needs to save a lot of people from themselves.
But people like Dickerson, Al Sharpton, and other abrasive + militant types are absolutely the worst at finding solutions, and have no real accomplishments except creating more reactionaries. Dickerson is as much a part of the problem as anyone.