What can science tell us about morality? Not much, it turns out.
Speaking of philosophy, Roger Scruton weighs in on the absence of belief: “What we might have taken to be open-mindedness turns out to be no-mindedness.”
Bookies have apparently slashed the odds on either “a UK prime minister or US president” revealing the presence of aliens before the end of the year.
So you want to make a Tibetan leg flute. Nothing complicated, just “a simple length of femoral bone, from the knee joint to about half way up the thigh.” But where do you start? Well…”the most perfect specimen would be from a Brahmin child, male or female, free from worldly stains or faults.” On the other hand, “it should not be from someone who died of tuberculosis, plague or other contagion, or some accident or misfortune.” Sound a little daunting? Not to worry—”REAL Buddhist bone…taken during properly conducted, Chod based sky burials, can currently be acquired for $550 to $750, depending on quality.”
Surprise! The Soviets were jerks.
Geoffrey Hill died last week at 84. His poems, says David Yezzi, are “moral without being religious in any conventional sense, skeptical of power and the duplicity of language, and tonally fluent in ways that recall both the Jeremiad and the Psalm.” David Yezzi has more.
Bob Gimlin on the film that launched the modern Bigfoot phenomenon: “It ruined me.”
