Outside our diseased political realm...

Good morning! I'm going to be on vacation for a week-plus, and probably not blogging healthcare. In the interlude, I thought I'd re-post a few non-political entries. The first, below, is from January 2010. I also have a couple of healthcare articles placed elsewhere (one a co-byline) that should drop during my time away. I'll post links when that happens.

A Cliff note for deconstruction

(1/8/10) -- Deconstruction, the literary theory that "attempts to demonstrate that any text is not a discrete whole but contains several irreconcilable and contradictory meanings" (Wikipedia - a definition as good as any) has been popularly regarded as an arcane, perverse bit of wizardry on the border between fraud and rocket science. I always felt that it demonstrated itself pretty well empirically (though logically, it should also unravel its own propositions...).

One Shakespeare sonnet, No. 24, always seemed to me to capture the idea in a line - the one bolded below.

Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled
Thy beauty's form in table of my heart.
My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,
and perspective it is best painter's art.
For through the painter must you see his skill
To find where your true image pictured lies,
Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,
That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.

Scalia researched torture's efficacy by watching "24"

Antonin Scalia reacted* to the Senate torture report with a defense of torture, as reported by the AP*:

"Listen, I think it's very facile for people to say, 'Oh, torture is terrible.' You posit the situation where a person that you know for sure knows the location of a nuclear bomb that has been planted in Los Angeles and will kill millions of people. You think it's an easy question? You think it's clear that you cannot use extreme measures to get that information out of that person?" Scalia said.

That jogged a memory. What planted this scenario in Scalia's mind? Hark back to June 2007, via the Wall Street Journal Law Blog:

The Globe and Mail reported that Scalia came to the defense of Jack Bauer and his torture tactics during an Ottawa conference of international jurists and national security officials last week. During a panel discussion about terrorism, torture and the law, a Canadian judge remarked, “Thankfully, security agencies in all our countries do not subscribe to the mantra ‘What would Jack Bauer do?’ ”

Justice Scalia responded with a defense of Agent Bauer, arguing that law enforcement officials deserve latitude in times of great crisis. “Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles . . . . He saved hundreds of thousands of lives,” Judge Scalia reportedly said. “Are you going to convict Jack Bauer?” He then posed a series of questions to his fellow judges: “Say that criminal law is against him? ‘You have the right to a jury trial?’ Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer?”

Obama to his young supporters: Haply I think on thee...

Thanking his young supporters after his reelection victory, Obama reproduced the spirit of a Shakespeare sonnet. Those sonnets are mainly an arduous outpouring of love to a young man spoken by an "old" poet of 40-plus years -- an almost maternal love, as the great Shakespearean C.L. Barber characterized it.

After suggesting to his assembled staff that they all had far more direction and focus and skills than he did as a twenty-something community organizer, Obama, with more than enough pauses and "uhs" to sink him in a debate, came to this peroration:

A cliff note for deconstruction

Deconstruction, the literary theory that "attempts to demonstrate that any text is not a discrete whole but contains several irreconcilable and contradictory meanings" (Wikipedia - a definition as good as any) has been popularly regarded as an arcane, perverse bit of wizardry on the border between fraud and rocket science. I always felt that it demonstrated itself pretty well empirically (though logically, it should also unravel its own propositions...).

One Shakespeare sonnet, No. 24, always seemed to me to capture the idea in a line - the one bolded below.

Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled
Thy beauty's form in table of my heart.
My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,
and perspective it is best painter's art.
For through the painter must you see his skill
To find where your true image pictured lies,
Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,
That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.