Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

I tweeted my reactions throughout the recent Rio Olympics. Today, in stead of getting at all creative in making a new blog post, I'll simply compile those tweets. What fun! We'll go from last to first, again because that's the lazy thing to do in compiling. (Sorry, there will be nothing here about the infamous 4 AM gas-station trashing. Well ... one brief mention.) I'm not going to provide the links that originally went with the tweets, so in a couple of cases I've added a sentence of explanation. Also, I've left typos in place. Let's pretend that's authenticity, not indolence. Chris Faille ‏ @ ccfaille   (Aug. 21)                                  # Rio2016 , this is my last # olympics related tweet for two years. Next time I have anything to say on the subj, it'll involve # snow and # ice .   Chris Faille ...

RIP, Muhammad Ali. Ali died, as you probably know, after a long struggle with Parkinson's. I for one have generally assumed, when seeing stories about Ali's worsening condition over the years, that there was a direct cause-effect condition  between his fights and that disorder. After all, Parkinson's is a dysfunction of the nervous systems. both of Ali's best-remembered foes in the ring, Foreman and Frazier, were very good at delivering punishment, and the fists of both of those gentlemen had lots of chances to make contact with Ali's skull. How could that not be the prime suspect for subsequent neurological symptoms? But science conflicts with uninstructed common sense here. To scientists in the pertinent fields, it seems, it is not at all obvious that there was a connection. Here is Al-Jazeera's take. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/06/head-trauma-muhammad-ali-parkinson-disease-160605063724682.html BTW, I have just noticed that I have been ...

I find this odd. Rosario Dawson has been taking heat for even mentioning the name "Monica Lewinsky" in the course of making a case for voting for Bernie Sanders. Jeez, do these Clintonistas have a thin skin, or what? On Saturday, April 23, Rosario said, "We are literally under attack for not just supporting the other candidate. Now I'm with Monica Lewinsky with this: bullying is bad. She's actually dedicated her life now to talking about that." She said that bullying is still bullying when it is a "campaign strategy." First, obvious, point. One doesn't need to invoke Monica Lewinsky's name to make the point that bullying (however actually defined) is bad. In American politics, in a campaign with someone named Clinton  in it, there is a natural suspicion that the name has been introduced for other purposes -- to remind us of a once-juicy sex scandal. Second point: so what? One's impression is that politicians used to be made of...