I sure hope Gabriel likes my music, when the day is done.

Some friends of mine have posted links to this opinion piece on education and intelligence:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

I'll assume you've read the article, and I'd like to offer something of a response and a critique to part of the piece; I'm less interested in his assertions about college and the job market.

Note also that it was written by one of the authors of The Bell Curve.
___

First of all, I contend with Murray's basic assumption that intelligence can be measured accurately and indisputably by one variable: IQ. Most cognitive scientists rebuke the very concept of a single "intelligence", claiming that there are many aspects to human cognition which, while related, are nevertheless distinct.

The author has anticipated this argument by claiming that there is some sort of general capability which scientists define as g. Fair enough. But the author never establishes whether or not "g" can even be measured, and is happy to assume that we will accept IQ and g are interchangeable despite offering no evidence that they are correlated.

Secondly, as a researcher with a strong background in statistics, Murray cannot but be extremely cognizant of the fact that "average" can mean many things, and failing to state that whether you intend "average" to mean "mean", "median", or "mode" robs you of the context you need to interpret data -- and that, in addition, lack of clarity as to what kind of "average" is generally a hint of an intent to obfuscate, if not mislead.

Nowhere in the article does Murray closely define "average".

More later, maybe.

[ETA 1/23/2007]: Another problem I have with his later pieces on higher education is that all of his assertions are predicated on the belief that the only worthwhile purpose of education is to make you fit to work -- and the implicit assumptions that a person is defined only by the job they hold, and that the job they are trained for is the only one they should ever have.

One of the most widely cited features of postmodern theory is known as "The Death of the Author", that the creator of a text does not hold a privileged position in its interpretation. Which is to say that the person who writes a book has no more authority as regards what it means than a careful reader of that book.

I like to soften this a little with the claim that the author does offer a perspective others cannot: the author can indicate what h/h intended to mean.

So here's a proposal:

Your life is a text of which you are the author. As such, you and only you know what your actions and thoughts are intended to mean, but the opinions of the careful readers of your life -- perhaps friends, family, or maybe even workmates -- are as valid as yours in determining what your actions and thoughts actually mean.

There's a compelling trailer up for a film called Renaissance. Perhaps it will succeed where Sin City failed.

( Thoughts on Sin City )

Inside a casino, there's nowhere to sit that isn't in front of a slot machine, table game, or bar.

Oddly enough, The Bellagio featured an Ansel Adams Exhibition. However, admission was about $20 for a look at maybe 15 photographs. Ah.

At lunch at Noodles in The Bellagio, John Juanda was sitting a couple of tables over. That was kinda cool.

Random observations:

So here's the odd thing about Las Vegas. (Yes, the only odd thing.) It doesn't feel like a city. It just...doesn't. And after wandering around the Strip, wondering why there weren't "You Are Here" signs all over the damn place, I realized what it does feel like: a giant amusement park for adults. Everyone you see is there to entertain or be entertained. Like nobody comes here to live; just to consume. That's not necessarily bad; but it is, certainly, weird.

It also occurred to me that the ostentation and variety and spectacle of the big casinos: The Bellagio, Caesar's Palace, The Paris, etc., etc., is there to disguise their essential sameness. And once you get off Las Vegas Boulevard, this town is ugly: nothing but strip malls, cheap apartments, and Levittowns.

105+ degrees Fahrenheit is so hot that your skin hurts.

At some gas stations, as you fill up, you can pass the time by ducking inside for a round or two of video poker.

Speaking of which, I noted a sign that offered 100.8% VIDEO POKER! Huh?

Also, a sign exhorting us to remember 9/11...sponsored by local morticians. My brother's response: "Yeah, that's totally tasteless. It should have been sponsored by crematoriums."

I played in my first live tournament today, a $40 buy-in with about 40 players, but crapped out early when my queens were outdrawn by sixes. Gnurgh. I'll play in another couple of similar events tomorrow morning. The Paris has small no-limit tournaments every two hours. Word.."

There is a large Filipino population in Vegas, such that there are storefronts that don't bother translating the Tagalog they display into English. After tooling around in a Filipino grocery, I decided to bring home a particularly choice snack to brandish at Boston folks...but I decided to stick with something vaguely edible, and not pick up the "Headless Ching-Chang Anchovies with Sesame" -- imagine honey sticks coated with sesame, only with, well, headless anchovies instead of honey.

This doesn't really constitute any sort of considered position, but here are some thoughts about the Israel/Lebanon war.

I guess the first question I have is, why does the US have so much invested in Israel, financially? We soak tons of money into Israel's military (and general infrastructure), far more such aid than we give anybody else, I believe. Obviously, Israel can function as a surrogate for U.S. policy in the Middle East...but I imagine only to a limited extent, as Israel seems pretty assertive about supporting its own interests as well, regardless of what their biggest patron might prefer. Also, presumably, Israel would serve as a well-fortified forward military base should a really serious U.S. presence be deemed necessary. But, as the recipient of so much aid, Israel and the U.S. are probably more or less synonymous to the Middle East, and whatever they do is likely seen as directed -- or at least sanctioned -- by the U.S.

What's odd to me is how many Americans have so much invested in Israel personally. As for me, whenever I hear about shit that Israel's pulling, I basically think, "Goddamit, there those assholes go again." Maybe they've had little choice but to be the Middle East's own personal Harlan Ellison, given the circumstances of their inception, but I think they've pretty much established that they're not going away anytime soon. While their belligerence has certainly been instrumental to their survival, I think they've reached the point of diminishing returns; their stance is now galvanizing rather than intimidating their neighbors, and maybe it's time for an approach more nuanced than, "Fuck shit up wholesale."

A la Archduke Ferdinand, I get the impression that the kidnapped soldier was more a pretext than a cause. Israel's basically looking for any excuse to put the smack down on somebody out there, and Hezbollah gave Lebanon the shaft. It's like they're playing Civilization: war isn't a tragedy -- it's an opportunity for expansion!

By attacking civilian targets and Lebanon's infrastructure, I figure Israel has done exactly what Hezbollah wants. What with 1) Israel's willingness to kill the innocent along with the guilty pissing everybody off, 2) a young population that -- seeing as how Lebanon's infrastructure is being levelled -- will now grow up with no path to agency other than learning the tools of violence, and 3) Hezbollah having established itself as the Microsoft of Lebanese anti-Israel sentiment, H. will have recruits lining up around the block for generations.

The solution? I don't know. Israel already denied itself the best possible solution by responding with prejudice to Hezbollah's provocation, and it's now a lesser-evil situation. Israel's already lost face and ensured decades more of hatred and antagonism for decades; prolonging this action will just deepen the hole they dug with the shovel Hezbollah handed them.

EDIT: Well, maybe this is sort of a position. I see Israel as a country whose first solution to any problem is violence -- maybe even a country who sees any problem as an opportunity for violence. While that doesn't make them worse than any other sovereign nation in the Middle East, it certainly ensures that they're no better. Yes, Hezbollah's a bunch of bloodthirsty freaks without whom the world would be a better place. That doesn't mean that any and all means of getting rid of them are acceptable. If I had my way, Israel would be on their own on this.

I miss music videos.

Most were dull and uninspired -- glorified concert video, uninspired shots of the band from funky angles in some exotic location, banal love stories, or an excuse to show a lot of hot chicks (which is OK). But if you liked the song, you watched the video anyway. And then, on occasion, they served as great little backdrops for storytelling (Mike and the Mechanics -- "All I Need Is A Miracle", A-ha -- "Take On Me"), as strangely compelling experimental films (Peter Gabriel -- "Sledgehammer", New Order -- "True Faith"), or as a short four-minute oddity featuring Chevy Chase pretending to be Paul Simon. Despite all the dreck -- or maybe because of it -- it became a real pleasure to suddenly encounter something original and creative, or just plain weird.

I used to leave MTV on in the background while I did my homework. For I while, I went through a phase where I would pop a tape in the VCR and record my favorite videos. I taped Al-TV, and reveled when the man created and ate such concoctions as a hot dog and vanilla ice cream sandwich.

I miss VJs -- of whom I can only remember Martha Quinn (who I thought was cute) and "Downtown" Julie Brown (who I thought was unfortunate). I miss that MTV would start counting down the premiere of a big video days in advance. I miss Kurt Loder on MTV News, as serious -- though perhaps not as self-important -- as a 'real' anchorman. I remember, embarrasingly, Remote Control, hosted by Ken Ober and Colin Quinn, and which, sadly, gave Adam Sandler his start.

I have a few of these collections, and like them a lot. But somehow part of the enjoyment I got out of the videos that I loved was the fact that they were inflicted on me -- as if for one moment, someone knew exactly what it was that I wanted to experience, and sent it my way.

I was thinking about this post on my occasional predilection for viewing the world in survivalist terms, and I'm curious as to whether considering the possibility of, and half-seriously preparing for, a brutal dystopian post-apocalypse world is particular to the Atomic generation or if it's been around for longer. Put another way, for how long has the ability to conceive of living to see humanity's works destroyed -- and having to cope with its aftermath -- been relatively common? Is it as common as I seem to assume it is?

I'm not really talking about religious eschatonology*, the intervention of some supernatural force to effect some sort of ontological world-changing event, although modern-day expectations of such a disintegration might simply be a new way of expressing those impulses. I'm talking the collapse of the nation-state down to the city-state level, maybe even lower, as the result of human action.

Eh?
___

*which, as I understand, was fairly common in Western culture until the discovery of geological time around the 18th century rendered the long-standing belief that Second Coming was imminent markedly (thought not completely) less compelling.

My impression is that when most people hear ghost stories, most are told in the third person, making it easy to dismiss them. Luckily for them, they don't have relatives in the Philippines.

A few weeks ago, my brother sent me a cellphone photo of his wife's aunt, taken at a party. In the background is a figure who partygoers say wasn't there for the picture, and who folks claim is her husband, who had died a few weeks previously.

A cousin tells me she once looked up through the skylight of a bathroom and saw half of a woman staring back at her.

An aunt tells me that she (and others) have heard children talking and running about in the basement of a particular house when nobody was around. Unlike others, though, she hasn't turned to see these children watching her.

An uncle visiting from the States once woke up to find all of his clothes ordered neatly in the front yard.

In a pathology lab, people occasionally report seeing an old man wandering around the halls. Sometimes they realize that they've seen him in pictures around the building; he is, after all, a former director of said lab. I don't know how they react when they find out that my grandfather passed away eight years ago. (My mother and grandmother [both doctors] half-jokingly -- but only half -- chastise my grandfather for having fun at the expense of others.)

I've stayed in some of these homes. I'm none too pleased about that.

I'm curious -- what take do you folks have on ghosts, if any? Utter bullshit? Hallucinations? Complete and total belief? Measured skepticism?