A primer in how not to apologize (or how to not apologize), by Barack Obama

The New Neo Posted on by

Ever the eager teacher of Life Lessons for America, Obama obliges us by offering a classic example of the non-apology masquerading as an apology.

The rules:

(1) Start with a conditional. “If” is usually best. This reduces the “apology” to meaninglessness at the outset: perhaps an offense occurred, perhaps it did not. It’s all in the eye of the beholder—or the ear of the listener. If the speaker has an opinion on whether he/she erred, he/she is certainly keeping it to him/herself.

(2) Place the locus of the wrongdoing firmly in the perception of the offendee, not the act of the (possible) offender. Never say, “What I said was deeply offensive.” That’s too objective; remember there is no objective truth. The fact that someone took offense is not evidence that what was said was actually offensive.

(3) Reiterate, if necessary, and defend the content of the remarks while suggesting it was only semantics that caused any possible offense. When you do so, be careful to keep to the conditional so that you are actually saying nothing at all: “I may not have worded it properly…” (see Rule 1).

Class dismissed.

And speaking of “Apollonian”….

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve got that blogger tendency towards rampant free-association. So when I described Jefferson as “Apollonian” in an earlier post today, that started a little drumbeat in my brain which led me to the following—a photo of Balanchine’s ballet “Apollo,” a lovely physical manifestation of Apollonian characteristics:

apollo2.jpg

And here are some Apollonian circles. They’re called “Apollonian” after their mathematician founder, Apollonius of Perga. But don’t they show the same qualities?:

apollonian_circles.png

Obama the youth candidate: is he faking it, or is he really that naive?

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m beginning to see that one of the sources of Obama’s appeal, especially to the young, is that he speaks their language. Although the man is forty-six, he comes across as much younger, with a certain “like, you know” improvisational attitude towards the Presidency, especially when speaking off the cuff.

Some no doubt find it refreshing. I do not. Continue reading →

Jefferson’s library recreated: rare books offer a glimpse into a rarer mind

The New Neo Posted on by

Founding father and renaissance man Thomas Jefferson amassed a huge collection of books that became the basis for one of our early Libraries of Congress. Unfortunately, much of the collection was destroyed in a mid-nineteenth century fire, but intrepid librarians of the present Library of Congress have set about recreating his original 6000+ volume library.

It’s been a labor of love—and money, and sleuthing in the world of rare and antiquarian books—that has taken about ten years. Having visited Jefferson’s Monticello recently, and seen firsthand how his home and its furnishings reflect his unique and Apollonian mind as well as his remarkable esthetic sense, I’m not surprised that the new exhibit at the Library of Congress demonstrates the same. After all, look at any person’s bookshelves and you get more than a clue to his/her mind and interests.

With Jefferson, of course, the books themselves are just the starting point. Continue reading →

On patience: the West vs. Islamicist totalitarianism

The New Neo Posted on by

Our post-9/11 unity was fleeting, if not totally illusory. We are now bitterly divided on how to fight the war against Islamicist totalitarianism.

We are divided on whether there is such a war. We are divided on who our most important enemies in that war might be. We are even divided on whether we truly have what we might call enemies, or whether a nice friendly dialogue might not be enough to make us all get along better.

But on reading this article by Clfford D. May in National Review entitled “100 Years of War?”—a reference to Barack Obama’s distortion of John McCain’s remark that we might need to keep troops in Iraq for that long a time, similar to what we’re already doing in Germany and South Korea—it occurred to me that there is another division, and that this division might actually be the heart of the matter.

This split may have begun to occur as early as 9/11 itself, shortly after the towers fell. It has to do with the perception of how long we should expect this fight to take. The division is between those who always assumed it would be long and arduous, and those who did not. Continue reading →

Defending Ryan Seacrest—sorta

The New Neo Posted on by

For those of you who’ve been anxiously awaiting my “American Idol” updates this year (are you out there, anyone?), I actually have been watching the show (shh, don’t tell!) and plan to post something when the time feels right.

All those who have no interest are hereby allowed—nay, encouraged—to skip this post.

In the meantime, for the rest of you—all two of you—host Ryan Seacrest is accused of having been cruel last night to rocker hunk Michael Johns. He added insult—or rather, teasing—to injury by making it seem as though maybe no one would be eliminated, but then immediately saying “You’re out!”

I watched it. Yes, it was mean. Poor Johns was barely holding it together as it was, anyway, although he managed (as they almost always do) to belt his swan song with more vigor, and more real emotion, than he’d managed to muster during the competition itself.

But in defense of the cruel cruel Ryan: wasn’t he just following the script?

Of course, “I was just following orders,” although a time-honored defense, is not a good one.

Swimsuit wars

The New Neo Posted on by

Science and sport—and Speedo—(how’s that for alliteration?) march on. In the drive for human progress, the competitive swimsuit has undergone a remarkable transformation.

Some of us, of course, merely hope that our swimsuits will manage to hide rather than reveal our body’s cosmetic flaws. The price of swimsuits has been creeping up along with the proliferation of their magic underpinnings. Names like “miracle suit” let us know what sort of transformation is in store for us if only—if only—we would buy this product (those models don’t look as though they’re in need of any miracles, IMHO, but then again we haven’t seen their “before” photos).

Competitive swimming is another thing entirely. Long lean bodies on men and women, muscles built for speed rather than bulk, only a bit of fat in the right places, and every hair shaved in order to reduce drag. No need to hide anything.

But fashion is hardly the issue for serious swimmers, it’s winning. And in the race for the gold there’s a new weapon in the arsenal, the Speedo Fastskin LZR racer swimsuit. Continue reading →

Foreign policy hypocrisy

The New Neo Posted on by

Read this article in the Weekly Standard by Frederick Kagan. He counters the facile “experts” (who know a “bunch of stuff,” no doubt) on foreign policy, those who keep telling Petraeus the real battle should be in Afghanistan, not Iraq.

Then read this post of mine describing Obama’s revolutionary new foreign policy of “dignity promotion.”

Then try to put the two together. Continue reading →

The importance of training the Iraqi army

The New Neo Posted on by

I thought this comment by Tarnsman, at Belmont Club, worth pondering:

….both the Syrians and Iranians must be watching the emergence of an American-trained, American-equipped and American-supported Arab army [in Iraq] with great trepidation. Iraq could end up with an army that would have been Saddam’s dream and given its new found ally, it would become the regional powerhouse. Their only hope is to kill the “infant” in its crib, and thus they back the Sunni and Shia ”˜rebels’ in Iraq. The problem is the more they foment unrest in Iraq the larger the Iraqi Army will grow to meet the threat, the more they risk sparking the desire for payback from the Iraqis and the more they risk war with the United States. I have long wondered if the real reason for the liberation of Iraq was to pre-position the United States Army on Iran’s doorstep.

There have been huge difficulties in getting the Iraqi fighting forces up to speed. It’s no cakewalk, to be sure. But, if one is to believe General Petaeus, the trend is most definitely in the right direction.

Oh, but let’s just withdraw.

As news reporting quickly segues into opinion journalism…

The New Neo Posted on by

…it’s the public—and the facts—that are the great losers.

Tony Blankley has it right. The reporting on Basra was an excellent example of the decline of news coverage: practically no correspondents and no expertise, but no dearth of firm opinions and prognostications.

Blankley connects this problem to another story, concerning talks between CBS and CNN involving the former’s plan to cut back on news gathering sources, relying instead on the CNN feed.

It reminds me a bit of what Barnes and Noble has done in the bookselling world. News sources are collapsing in on themselves, and pretty soon we may be left with just the AP and CNN, and Al Jazeera. And then don’t be surprised if those three merge some day. Continue reading →

Human plasticity: left/right front/back brain

The New Neo Posted on by

Dichotomies such as left brain vs. right brain are understood to be interesting concepts, but too simplistic in describing what is an unbelievably complicated and still very mysterious organ: the brain. Of course, it’s the brain itself doing the studying, in an ongoing “know thyself” effort that is profoundly human.

The left/right brain dichotomy is fun for games and parlor tricks, such as this test of the turning dancer. Do you see the silhouette revolving clockwise or counterclockwise? I always see it clockwise and cannot ever reverse it, no matter how hard I try.

Supposedly, this makes me strongly right-brained, intuitive and feeling and artistic rather than logical and and mathematical and linear. But most of the other facile internet tests I’ve taken—and I’ve taken quite a few—tend to put me squarely in the “in-between” category, evenly balanced between left and right brain, which feels just about right to me.

Oops, I said “feel.” Too right-brained. Continue reading →