Cee Lo Green - No One's Gonna Love You More Than I Do

Washed Out - New Theory, Washed Out - Hold On

Washed Out - New Theory from quatuorlindsay on Vimeo.

Washed Out - "Hold Out" from John Lipari on Vimeo.

It's Summer!

Phoenix - Lisztomania

(the Brat Pack video is fun, too)

Compulsory Organ Donation

It’s interesting to consider the difference between actively harming someone, and passively allowing harm to befall them. In some cases, the difference is negligible. If someone is drowning, and all you have to do is toss them a rope, your obligation to do so is pretty obvious. But, as Peter Singer and others have noted, we face a very similar kind of choice daily as small charitable donations hold the promise of saving lives.

That said, I believe that each of us are faced with an even more dramatic choice. We all have the option to save roughly eight lives and improve another fifty, at absolutely zero cost to ourselves. And yet most of us fail to do so.

People fail to offer their organs for donation for many reasons: some are afraid to face their mortality, some never get around to it, some have religious hesitations. I submit that there is no excuse. Failing in this regard, and opting instead to have your life-saving tissue rot underground, is more than grotesque selfishness. It is an immoral harm, and it should not be legally possible.

We should not have the right to ensure that our precious organs decompose. When we are brain dead, and beyond any hope of recovery, our organs are no longer our own. They should be harvested so as to drastically extend and improve the lives of many others.

Why the mystery of creation doesn't count as proof of God's existence

To the previous post, Anonymous commented:

There are many reasons to believe in God. Ever notice how the world is full of stuff that had to be made by something and/or someone. And I don't think atheists can account for the creation of the world, though Christians and Muslims and Jews can.

The Intelligent Design debate is a bit too exhausting to attempt right now. I hope it suffices to say that the evolution camp has the full force of empiricism and reason squarely behind it. The opposing side has some clever logic, established dogma, and comfortable simplicity.

To the second point, it is true that we lack a complete understanding of how the universe came to be. However, that humanity has yet to attain a complete understanding of creation really isn't a reason to subscribe to one explanation of creation, particularly an explanation that runs counter to much of what we do know. Perhaps, in the absence of complete knowledge, one could reasonably subscribe to a meager form of agnosticism. In the same way that I cannot know with certainty whether Obama is animated my Martian lasers-beams, I cannot know whether an anthropomorphic Being created me in His image. And so, I must reserve meager agnosticism on both counts. But surely these grounds are far too narrow to build any faith upon.

Reasons for belief versus reasons to believe

People often confuse reasons for belief with reasons to believe in God. Reasons for belief are typically considerations about whether religious faith is a good thing. Reasons to believe are proofs of God's existence.

Reasons for believing in God (or, for heightened intellects, reasons for wanting to believe in God) can include anything that motivates people to believe. These often include psychological, social/cultural and moral considerations. People may believe in God because it helps them to endure misfortunes, or because it fosters a community of belonging, or because they fear moral chaos in God's absence. Conservatives are fond of grounding their belief in posterity, as most people have always subscribed to some form of spirituality. Some seek to emulate admirable religious figures. Others want to steer clear of deplorable atheists like Stalin and Hitler.

Now, the cogency of these considerations is debatable, but that does not presently concern me. I happen not to be convinced that religion improves society and I reject that a deity is necessary to administer morality, but that's not my point. My point is that even if these considerations were cogent, they would not count as reasons to believe in God. That belief in God is a good thing in no way advances the claim that God exists.

Religious leaders invoke reasons for belief as reasons to believe. This is irrational.

Rationality involves appropriate beliefs arising from appropriate reasons. Irrationality permits any belief to arise from any reason. For instance, that people outside my office are wet is a reason to believe that it's raining outside. That people outside my office are wet is assuredly not a reason to believe that my cat is hungry. Do you see the disconnect? Likewise, that belief is a good thing may count as a reason for believing in God, or at least for wanting to. However, that belief is a good thing does not count as a reason to believe in God.

If you are of the mind that rationality  is important, that you should have reasons for the things you believe, then you might suddenly find yourself with far slimmer grounds for your faith. In fact, I defy you to find any.

Handsome Furs - Dead + Rural

Just woke up to a sunny long weekend. Hope everyone enjoys it.

futuremilk.com

Go to futuremilk.com.

ROA in Belgium

See more here and here.

Le Smoking

Look at this blog.

The Land Between Here and Mountains

It's late March. The prospect of summer adventure is growing more real, now imaginable, palpable, even probable. Every 5pm feels like a small feat, one more step toward the promise of northern Spain -- enlarging, charging my spirit now ready to go. Already, I can feel the Mediterranean waters, I can smell Kefalonian olive trees, as if I have passed through before. As if I am built to. As if moving is where I belong -- happy, running up the foothills of Belluno.

In the mean time, I'll be pouring over a wonderful blog called The Land Between Here and Mountains.

Paris, 1962

Images from Paris cafés and nightlife in 1962. See the whole set.

Russian Lovers

According to Reuters, earlier this week, a couple in Russia died of carbon monoxide poisoning while sharing a moment of tenderness. Their car was in a small garage, and had been turned on for warmth. Snarky bloggers are running with this and, I'm sure, a Darwin Award is forthcoming. But I can't help romanticizing their blinding and, ultimately, lethal preoccupation with one another. It strikes me as a scene from an assuredly Russian novel.

Evelyn McHale

This morning greeted me with news of Thai protesters spilling vats of their own blood on the streets outside their prime minister's house. Morbid subject matter for the first glow of spring. And then I stumbled across the tragedy of Evelyn McHale.

On 1 May 1947, she stood on the Observation Deck of the Empire State Building. On the street, 86 floors below, Patrolman John Morrissey saw a white scarf floating down from the upper floors. He then heard an explosive crash, and saw a crowd beginning to congregate on 33rd Street. Photography student, Robert Wiles, happened to be walking past. He captured several images of Evelyn McHale, who had landed upon a limousine, face-up, with a startling expression of graceful anguish.

Andy Worhol eventually serigraphed the original images into what you see below. He called it Suicide (fallen body). I suppose art is lifeless if it does not contain death. This image is certainly haunting, and, in its way, beautiful. But trotting McHale's tragedy before the gawking public, garnering praise for reworking her image, hanging her on museum walls and, certainly, posting her on blogs -- it all seems like grave-robbery, selfish and grotesque.

On 12 May 1947, Life Magazine published the original images with the following caption:

At the bottom of the Empire State Building the body of Evelyn McHale reposes calmly in grotesque bier, her falling body punched into the top of a car.

To this day, art critics wax lyric about these photos. It is difficult not to respond to images so striking, and of such pain.

Earlier in the week, Evelyn had visited her fiancé who had recently returned from the war. As she prepared to jump, she removed her gray cloth coat, her pocketbook, a make-up kit filled with family pictures and a suicide note. Detective Frank Murray later collected her possessions. The note first discussed amending the date of her June wedding. Below, it read, "He is much better off without me...I wouldn't make a good wife for anybody." She had crossed out those final phrases.