OOO, Adorno, and Brandom

Levi ties the threads together A BIT MORE.

I largely share his lack of interest in Brandom, I’m afraid. Doesn’t seem to me like what interesting philosophy does.

new sport for Tamanya

One of Tamanya’s great features is her natural athleticism: she’s a fabulous jumper and climber, even by cat standards.

Today I invented a sport we can probably play a lot together, because it’s an interesting challenge for me as well as for her.

What I do is take the mug full of spare Egyptian coins from the desk and take them into the spare bedroom, where all the other cat playground objects are.

Then I roll the coins across the floor on their edge, one at a time. It’s a moderate challenge to do this in such a way that they roll at a uniform speed for a long distance, in not too straight a path but also not going in a circle.

Tamanya loves this. She pounces on the coins like a hockey goalie. Once in awhile she misses, but usually she knocks them down flat with a single stroke of a paw.

She gets really excited by this game. After about half an hour of it she was panting with fatigue, and I was going to stop, but you could tell from the serious look in her eyes that she wanted me to keep rolling more coins.

So I did, for another 10 minutes or so. Then I gave her a round of applause, which she seemed to enjoy. Then she went and drank a lot of water from the dish.

*already* a Republican debate tonight?

Wow. Every election cycle I forget just how unbearably long American election cycles are.

We’re in June 2011, and the Republicans are already hosting a candidate debate in New Hampshire? All right, technically the New Hampshire Primary is only 8 months away, and the Iowa caucuses only 7 months away. But still.

Anyway, I was struck by this NY Times headline: “Romney Is Likely Target for Rivals at G.O.P. Debate.”

Normally you’d just think: “Well, of course. Romney’s the frontrunner so obviously everyone else will be attacking him.”

Bu there’s a bit more to it than that. In 2008 they all ganged up on Romney too, and more than strategy, there seemed to be a dose of genuine hatred behind it.

There’s been talk about the Mormonism angle, but I think that’s off the mark when talking about the intra-candidate level. Yes, being a Mormon surely will damage Romney quite a bit with the evangelical portion of the Republican base, many of whom also have unpalatable views of Catholics and Jews, not to mention Muslims. No Mormon will pass through the Republican primaries electorally unscathed by these people, admittedly.

But in 2008, Romney was being attacked vehemently in the debates by people like McCain and Giuliani, who don’t exactly strike me as the prejudicial anti-Mormon type. No, the point is that they viscerally dislike Romney for the same reason that many of us do: he comes off as incredibly fake and robotic, like a computer-generated man. I’d heard of Romney for years, of course, but never saw him on camera until late 2007 in one of the last round of debates. My dislike for him was instant and lasting. Not hatred exactly, but a stomach-turning instinctive dislike.

I don’t think I could put up with 4 years of Mitt Romney in office, though frankly he’d be perhaps the least embarrassing candidate the Republicans have to offer in terms of sheer competence. And it would be a lot less scary to have him in the White House (however annoying and unbearable) than to have some Palin-type figure in there.

But again, I still think Obama is in for another term.

Horkheimer & Adorno’s possible relation to SR/OOO

Lukas Verburgt discusses the matter HERE.

Dallas wins

105-95 over Miami on Miami’s own floor. This NBA season is over. Nice work, Mavericks. You have your first NBA championship.

Jason Terry led the team with 27 points off the bench, but if I’m reading the news correctly through bleary morning eyes, Dirk Nowitzki did win Finals MVP.

The key moment of the Dallas season, obviously, was their stunning 4-0 sweep of the Lakers in the playoffs. It’s easy to forget now, but the Lakers were everyone’s favorite to win a third straight title in Phil Jackson’s final year. But Dallas wiped them out.

And don’t forget, Caron Butler’s season ended in early January with a knee injury, and he’s possibly the second best player on the Dallas roster.

Great achievement for the Mavs overall, and absolutely no one predicted it.