today in Tahrir

Islamists seemed to dominate the protests today. My Egyptian friends are mostly very displeased right now.

debt hysteria?

I’m not an economist, but I remember one of the most interesting things I ever heard an economics professor say. This was in private conversation in Chicago, in 1993 I believe.

What he said was that the problem was not so much the national debt, as the tendency to moralize the debt: “Bad country, bad country, owing money and not paying it back yet.” I would describe this economist as roughly a Walter Mondale Democrat. If memory serves, what prompted his remarks was the recently ended Ross Perot phenomenon; Perot, of course, was the king of moralizing the debt and the deficit.

I just thought of that now because of THIS ARTICLE, which refers to the current mood towards the debt as “collective hysteria.”

The USA now paying around 1.6% of the GDP in interest on the national debt, whereas under Reagan, Bush Sr., and Clinton it was often over 3%. (True, the percentage will increase if interest rates go up, but maybe they won’t.)

From what I can tell, we ought to be spending a heck of a lot more, not less– primarily on upgrading our decaying urban infrastructure.

Klinsmann is the new U.S. coach

HERE.

Good. I liked Bradley well enough, but the team has inspired no confidence in 2011. After two straight native-born American coaches, I like the idea of going with a foreigner this time as well.

Stuart Elden post on writing

Stuart is quite prolific, and you may be interested in seeing his own thoughts on writing, HERE.

most expensive philosophy book I’ve ever seen?

Could be. At Schoenhof’s, a couple of blocks from Harvard, I saw the new Heidegger volume of seminars on Hegel and Schelling. The price: a mere $238.50. [ADDENDUM: Sorry, I just remembered it was $235.80. That’s even more annoying. The 80 cents at the end lays claim to some sort of precision in currency exchange, rhetorically hinting at a scrupulous equivalence that simply isn’t there. That part was so annoying, in fact, that I was amused by the thought of taking it to register and haggling a bit: saying I’d take the book for a round $235, but that Schoenhof’s would have to eat the 80 cents because that was going just a bit too far. Just to see what they’d say. It’s not really in my temperament to do such things, however.]

I’m not sure what to say, except that you shouldn’t buy it.

One thing I learned the hard way about Heidegger volumes is that the paperbacks are generally better than the hardcovers despite being a bit cheaper. The hardcover bindings crack easily and are slightly difficult to handle, whereas their paperback bindings are pretty nice.

Most (not all, but most) of the recent volumes are Grade B material. There are plenty of mediocre Picasso paintings, and there are plenty of mediocre pages of Heidegger.

Last year I decided I no longer felt obliged to keep up with all the new volumes. There’s just too much to read now. But now that the seminars are going to start to come out in large numbers, curiosity will get the better of me and I’ll get back with the program.

The book is HERE. Klostermann’s price is 89 Euros, and anyone who reads German even minimally can order successfully from Amazon.de or from the Vittorio Klostermann page, so I’m not sure how Schoenhof’s gets away with saying that 89 Euros equals $238.50. It’s a bit insulting, actually.

Bob Bradley fired as U.S. soccer coach

I was in favor of rehiring him, but also now in favor of firing him, so I won’t complain. They’ve looked pretty awful at times lately, and Jürgen Klinsmann (rumored to be taking over) will be an exciting replacement.

High points of Bradley’s time as coach:

*beating Spain in the 2009 Confederations Cup

*winning Group A (over England) in the 2010 World Cup

Those aren’t small things by the fairly unimpressive historical standards of the U.S. team, and they’re worth appreciating.

Royals 4 – Red Sox 3

Beckett took the loss for Boston. He had pretty good stuff, or so it seemed from my distant right-field seat, but that 4th inning was enough for Kansas City to get the win.

Fenway’s a charmer, all right. I’m so glad I went.

Below: the famous “Green Monster,” Fenway’s unusually high left-field wall.

terrible baseball story

I was going to report on my happy time at Fenway, but first saw THIS AWFUL STORY about the apparent suicide in Los Angeles of former Yankees pitcher Hideki Irabu.

Who knows what was going on his life? But his terrible flop in New York after great success in Japan, coupled with fairly vicious treatment of Irabu from many disappointed fans, as well as from late Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, are painfully in my mind now as I think of the poor guy taking his own life. Just breathtaking news.

the lure of Boston

Headed back right now, having noticed a rare weekday afternoon game for the Red Sox. Josh Beckett pitching for Boston, too, one of my favorite pitchers even though he was the Cub killer for Florida in 2003.

Never been inside Fenway Park, only outside. My non-American readers may not know that Fenway, along with Wrigley Field in Chicago, is one of the classic remaining baseball stadiums nearly a century old. Detroit unfortunately tore theirs down before I could visit.

my 2003 al-Ahram Weekly article on Latour

I’d more or less forgotten about this article until tonight, when someone mentioned it. Click HERE to read.

The reason I was asked to write this article is because Latour visited AUC in December 2003, and al-Ahram Weekly thought its readers should have a bit of background on the visit.

This was actually my second philosophy publication, with only Tool-Being coming earlier.