Philosophers talk a lot about reasons. Reasons for belief, reasons for action, etc.

Personally, my favorite reason is, "AWw, c'mon," as in:

"You know you want to see that movie."

"No, I don't"

"Aww, c'mon."

"Well, okay."

It's suprisingly versatile:

"Go ahead, shoot. It's just a cat. It'll be fun"

"I'm not sure it's right."

"Aww, c'mon."

[bang]  ¶ 7:31 PM 0 comments

  My proposition has morphed into a paper entitled, "Should we care to be love if love is a moral emotion?" It's ostensibly a critique of a moral account of love, but my hidden agenda is to promote that account. Some people think i am seriously underqualified to write about human emotions, but i think my outsider status is a plus. The American people want change, dammit.   ¶ 5:06 PM 0 comments

  I usually don't much care about my birthdays, but there is something about turning 25 that makes me feel oldish.   ¶ 10:26 PM 0 comments

  Perhaps more important than my pancake-eating, and an instance where philosophy is brought to bear on the issues of the day: a Kantian justification of *an* invasion of Iraq, which strikes me as roughly correct. I emphasize "an" because it is relatively clear that this was not the justification that our president had in mind, which (you may remember from introductory moral philosophy) means that according to Kant it is not available to him as a justification for his action. Thomas Friedman's war, on the other hand...   ¶ 11:23 PM 0 comments

  I had an itchin' for some pancakes tonight, so I went to IHOP. It happened to be the last day of their two-month "never-ending pancakes" promotion. You can guess where this is going.

I ordered the jumbo platter - eggs, bacon, sausage and pancakes. I was pretty hungry, but was ready to leave after eating six pancakes. I got the check, and out of curiosity asked the manager who'd eaten the most pancakes during the promotion. "Thirteen - a skinny guy from Taiwan," he said.

"Thirteen plates?"

"No, thirteen pancakes."

"I could do that right now."

"Cool. Let me get you eight more pancakes."

So I ordered eight more pancakes. And I ate them. It was difficult, but I had to do it. And it was worth it.

As Ben Keys might say: take that, skinny Taiwanese guy! And he didn't even know he was competing.   ¶ 10:02 PM 0 comments

  I mentioned to a friend that I am uncertain that I have ever missed anyone, which she thought unusual. I’ve certainly, upon recollecting times spent with old friends, thought that it’d be nice if some of them were living in LA. But I take it that missing them requires something more, like an awareness of their absence, which I do not have.

Perhaps the explanation is simple. 1. For something to be missed, it must be missing. 2. For it to be missing, it must be absent from a place where it should be. 3. There is no one who is absent from my life who ought (all things considered) to be in my life. 4. Therefore no one is missing from my life. 5. So I miss no one.

The above argument may be fallacious (key terms are ambiguous), and maybe does not demonstrate that what I suspect of myself – viz. that I am not capable of missing anyone – is explicable. But I tempted to think that there is a grain of truth in thinking that it is appropriate to miss someone if you ought (all things considered) to be with the person, but are not.

Note: this topic came up not because of Valentine’s Day, but because my friend mentioned that she missed her dog.
  ¶ 12:58 AM 0 comments

  Subway Train Kills Queens Woman Picking Up Cellphone -- I once jumped onto the subway tracks at Grand Central to retrieve my Walkman, back in the days when people still used cassette tapes.

From the end of the article:

"Yesterday's death came less than four months after service on Metro-North's Harlem Line out of Grand Central Terminal was severely disrupted because a Bronx man dropped his cellphone in the toilet of a moving train, then tried to retrieve it, getting his arm stuck from hand to elbow in the train's stainless steel commode.

Firefighters had to use the jaws of life to free the man's arm, and the resulting disruption caused lengthy delays on Metro-North as trains were rerouted."

  ¶ 1:41 PM 0 comments

  Grading papers reminds me that I experience mild dissapointments about ten times as often as pleasant surprises, which leads me to think either that despite my overcast disposition I am actually an optimist or that the universe is cruel.

On the other hand, the effects of eating undercooked beans - I got impatient while making chili last night - lead me to think Pythagoras was correct in forbidding his followers to eat them (though it's thought that his injunction "Abstain from beans" actually refers to abstaining from politics).  ¶ 4:15 PM 0 comments

  I was looking at this article on the Nepalese Maoists and came across the word "gestate" and had to look it up in the dictionary, because in my head I was pronouncing the word Guh-state (rather than jeh-state). I blame this on my taking Jerman this quarter.

Then last night, while we were setting up the board game "Puerto Rico" I came across a game piece that read "hospice", to which I asked "What is Ho Spice?" This I blame on being in a plantation state of mind.

  ¶ 8:35 PM 0 comments

  I think there are very few interests that would make it rational (even from a purely self-interested point of view) for one to vote to re-elect George Bush other than being a Bush relative or social conservative.

My buddy forwarded me this "resume" [excuse the lack of an accent mark] noting some of President Bush's more notable accomplishments:

RESUME
George W. Bush
The White House

I was arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine, in 1976 for driving
under the influence of alcohol. I pled guilty, paid a fine,
and had my driver's license suspended for 30 days. My Texas
driving record has been "lost" and is not available.

MILITARY:
I joined the Texas Air National Guard and went AWOL. I
refused to take a drug test or answer any questions about
my drug use. By joining the Texas Air National Guard, I was
able to avoid combat duty in Vietnam.

COLLEGE:
I graduated from Yale University with a low C average. I
was a cheerleader.

PAST WORK EXPERIENCE:
I ran for U.S. Congress and lost. I began my career in the
oil business in Midland, Texas, in 1975. I bought an oil
company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas. The company
went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock. I bought
the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that
took land using taxpayer money. With the help of my father
and our right-wing friends in the oil industry (including
Enron CEO Ken Lay), I was elected governor of Texas.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS GOVERNOR OF TEXAS:
-I changed Texas pollution laws to favor power and oil
companies, making Texas the most polluted state in the
Union. During my tenure, Houston replaced Los Angeles as
the most smog-ridden city in America.
-I cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas treasury to the tune
of billions in borrowed money.
-I set the record for the most executions by any governor
in American history.
-With the help of my brother, the governor of Florida, and
my father's appointments to the Supreme Court, I became
President after losing by over 500,000 votes.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT:
-I am the first President in U.S. history to enter office
with a criminal record.

-I invaded and occupied two countries at a continuing cost
of over one billion dollars per week.

-I spent the U.S. surplus and effectively bankrupted the
U.S. Treasury. I shattered the record for the largest
annual deficit in U.S. history.

-I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies
filed in any 12-month period. I set the all-time record for
most foreclosures in a 12-month period.

-I set the all-time record for the biggest drop in the
history of the U.S. stock market.

-In my first year in office, over 2 million Americans lost
their jobs.

-I'm proud that the members of my cabinet are the richest
of any administration in U.S. history. My "poorest
millionaire," Condoleeza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker
named after her.

-I set the record for most campaign fundraising trips by a
U.S. President I am the all-time U.S. and world
record-holder for receiving the most corporate campaign
donations. My largest lifetime campaign contributor, and
one of my best friends, Kenneth Lay, presided over the
largest corporate bankruptcy fraud in U.S. History, Enron.
My political party used Enron private jets and corporate
attorneys to assure my success with the U.S. Supreme Court
during my election decision. I've protected my friends at
Enron and Halliburton against investigation or prosecution.
More time and money was spent investigating the Monica
Lewinsky affair than has been spent investigating one of
the biggest corporate rip-offs in history.

-I presided over the biggest energy crisis in U.S. history
and refused to intervene when corruption involving the oil
industry was revealed. I presided over the highest gasoline
prices in U.S. history.

-I changed the U.S. policy to allow convicted criminals to
be awarded government contracts. I appointed more convicted
criminals to my administration than any President in U.S.
history.

-I created the Ministry of Homeland Security, the largest
bureaucracy in the history of the United States government.

-I've broken more international treaties than any President
in U.S. history.

-I am the first President in U.S. history to have the
United Nations remove the U.S. from the Human Rights
Commission.

-I withdrew the U.S. from the World Court of Law.

-I refused to allow inspectors access to U.S. "prisoners of
war" detainees and thereby have refused to abide by the
Geneva Convention.

-I am the first President in history to refuse United
Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 U.S.
election).

-I set the record for fewest number of press conferences of
any President since the advent of television.

-I set the all-time record for most days on vacation in any
one-year period.

-After taking off the entire month of August, I presided
over the worst security failure in U.S. history.

-I garnered the most sympathy for the U.S. after the World
Trade Center attacks and less than a year later made the
U.S. the most hated country in the world, the largest
failure of diplomacy in world history.

-I have set the all-time record for most people worldwide
to simultaneously protest me in public venues (15 million
people), shattering the record for protest against any
person in the history of mankind.

-I am the first President in US history to order an
unprovoked, preemptive attack and the military occupation
of a sovereign nation. I did so against the will of the
United Nations, the majority of U.S. citizens, and the
world community.

-I have cut health care benefits for war veterans and
support a cut in duty benefits for active duty troops and
their families-in war time.

-In my State of the Union Address, I lied about our reasons
for attacking Iraq, then blamed the lies on our British
friends.

-I am the first President in history to have a majority of
Europeans (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to
world peace and security.

-I am supporting development of a nuclear "Tactical Bunker
Buster," a WMD.

-I have so far failed to fulfill my pledge to bring Osama
Bin Laden to justice.

RECORDS AND REFERENCES:
-All records of my tenure as governor of Texas are now in
my father's library, sealed and unavailable for public
view.

-All records of SEC investigations into my insider trading
and my bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and
unavailable for public view.

-All records or minutes from meetings that I, or my
Vice-President, attended regarding public energy policy are
sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.

1/22/04
PLEASE CONSIDER MY EXPERIENCE WHEN VOTING IN 2004.
PLEASE SEND THIS TO EVERY VOTER YOU KNOW.

  ¶ 8:09 PM 0 comments