Category Archives: personal

Guilty As Charged

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Genocide in Darfur sparks outrage, but little action

[T]he handwringing isn’t translating into action. In progress instead is a fresh mockery of that 1948 convention. A repeat of well-intentioned, feeble actions that failed to save 800,000 Rwandans a decade ago.

I’ve been all talk and no action, just as this op/ed piece says. Well, I want to start actually doing something to stop the horrors
in Sudan. I’ve sent letters through the ACLU, TrueMajority, and other groups, but
I suspect politicians largely ignore such campaigns.

I’m planning on writing a generic letter that can be sent to representatives, senators,
the president, and foreign leaders. My hope is that a real grassroots effort – that
isn’t lead by a major lobbying group – will get more positive attention. I have
no experience writing letters of petition, so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Update 11/06/06: I still haven’t done anything constructive. Then again, neither has the UN.

15 Minutes of Fame

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Friend and sometime co-blogger Jerry Nora was mentioned in the June/July issue of First Things. 🙂 (Thanks, Quenta Narwenion)

"It's been a while since I've had occasion to remark on Peter Singer of Princeton University, the ageing bad boy of moral philosophy. But now Gerald Nora, a second-year medical student, sends me the dust jacket of the 1996 edition of Singer's Rethinking Life and Death. Mr. Nora is right in suspecting that the blurbs 'praising' the book might have been chosen by Professor Singer's enemies. For instance, there is this from the Washington Post: 'Far from pointing a way out of today's moral dilemmas, Singer's book is a road map for driving down the darkest of moral blind alleys. . . . Read it to remind yourself of the enormities of which putatively civilized beings are capable.' Precisely. If you want a roadmap for driving down blind alleys, this is it. Then there is this from the publisher: 'A profound and provocative work in the tradition of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.' Precisely again. Even more precisely, it is in the tradition of thinking that Huxley so powerfully warned us against." – Richard John Neuhaus

So I’m a SECF

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This’ll be the last quiz for a while. I wouldn’t want my dear readers to get tired
of them. 😉 (Thanks to Bene
Diction Blogs On)

20
Questions to a Better Personality

This is the personality test that leaves the rest behind. It does make judgment
calls, and it does assess your role in society, so faint of heart beware.

My profile:

Wackiness: 32/100
Rationality: 34/100
Constructiveness: 60/100
Leadership: 46/100

You are an SECF–Sober Emotional Constructive Follower. This makes you a hippie.
You are passionate about your causes and steadfast in your commitments. Once you’ve
made up your mind, no one can convince you otherwise. Your politics are left-leaning,
and your lifestyle choices decidedly temperate and chaste.

You do tremendous work when focused, but usually you operate somewhat distracted.
You blow hot and cold, and while you normally endeavor on the side of goodness and
truth, you have a massive mean streak which is not to be taken lightly. You don’t
get mad, you get even.

Please don’t get even with this web site.