Micah Tillman

One of The Wife’s jobs has her working with babies. So every day she comes home from that job (it’s not a Mon-thru-Fri deal), I get to hear about all the cuteness.

We love babies. A lot. We go to church on Sundays so we can baby watch. They’re so cute!

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And one of these days I’m going to write a book on the phenomenology of babies, to figure out why its so much fun to be around them (when you’re not the one who has to take care of them, anyway). There’s something about the innocence and newness of their experience of the world that affects your experience of the world.

It’s like when you watch a movie you’ve seen a million times (and would never want to watch again) with a friend who’s never seen it, and get all excited about watching it again. Seeing something with someone changes your experience of it. And phenomenology is the philosophy that deals with these kinds of issues.

But I haven’t figured it all out yet, and thus will have to sit down and write a book about it someday.

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Despite all this, The Wife and I refuse to have children (at least for the foreseeable future) because by having a baby, you say two things which (at the moment) we cannot say :

(1) “I can take responsibility for the care and formation of another person for the next 18 years (i.e., I have the financial, spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and social resources/maturity to actually fulfill my responsibility to my child),” and

(2) “Given that I can take responsibility for another life, I actually want to (because life has been so awesome for me that I want to make more of it, give it to someone who hasn’t had the chance to live it yet).”

I find it surprising that anyone can make both those claims. In fact, I find it surprising that anyone can make either of those claims.

But I’m a cynic, and don’t trust myself to actually see issues like this very clearly.

So help me out. What do you think people are saying by deciding to create a new human?

Tags: Babies, Children, Cuteness, parents, phenomenology, Responsibility

My weekly article is up at The Free Liberal. You can read it here.

Tags: Classical Liberal, Government, Guns, Libertarian, Neo-Liberal, Plato, Power, Progressive

Hate

Phones

So much

Tags: There is something terribly wrong about phones

Another link added to that post.

Wehner:

With each passing day, it seems, the original conceit of the Obama candidacy–that he is an agent of “change” who will “turn the page” on the “old politics” and act as a uniquely unifying figure in American politics–looks more and more absurd. He turns out to be an exceptionally skilled and ambitious politician who uses the old playbook even as he pretends to have discarded it. It’s a neat trick if you can get away with it.

(h/t Ponnuru)

Tags: Peter Wehner, Ramesh Ponnuru

“Obama to expand Bush’s faith based programs” -AP

Wha?

Tags: Barack Obama, Faith Based Programs, George Bush, Third Term

Obama isn’t trying to imitate MLK’s accent.

He just really likes lolcats.

Tags: Accents, Barack Obama, lolcats, MLK

I started teaching a summer version of one of the two classes I teach here at CUA today. We begin with Plato’s Republic.

The goal which Socrates sets for himself (and his interlocutors) in the book is to discover what justice is, and whether it is more worthwhile to be just or unjust.

So here’s a question for you:

What would various famous people define as justice?

E.g., take George Bush, Martin Luther King, Jr., Al Gore, Superman, and Bono.

And with whose understanding of justice are you most comfortable?

Tags: Al Gore, Bono, George Bush, Justice, Martin Luther King, Plato, Republic, Socrates, Superman

So, The Wife had TMZ (the TV version) on for a few minutes. (Have I ever written here about why humans like celebrities? Ah, yes, I did. Here.)

They were making fun of Catherine Heigl for saying she was going to quit smoking for New Years, then not actually quitting, and then claiming it hadn’t been a New Years Resolution. (Is “Years” supposed to be possessive?).

(Here’s a Washington Post piece on her struggles.)

At least I think that was how it went down. Don’t sue me, Ms. Heigl or TMZ if I misremembered.

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Anyway, that reminded me of something Seb said — in the political context that is this blog — a little while back about celebrities being stupid.

And the whole thing reminded me of Obama.

Because everything does.

No. Actually, Obama also tried to stop smoking. And failed.

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I was first made aware of the issue by Shawn Macomber, and had some witty things to say about it in a comment over on his blog.

But the combination of TMZ and Heigl and Seb’s observations and Obama made this the right moment to have my little laugh at Obama and lump him in with stupid celebrities all at the same time. (Semantic leakiness anyone?)

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And now for the punchline:

Person A: “What do Barack Obama and Catherine Heigl have in common?”

Person B: “You mean, besides being actors?”

Tags: Barack Obama, Catherine Heigl, Seb, Shawn Macomber, Smoking, TMZ, Washington Post

Given that I’m obsessed with pronunciations and accents (e.g., here and here), I’ve been trying to figure out Obama’s accent.

I’ve noticed, you see, that Obama pronounces the long-E sounds (”-y”) at the end of words as short-E’s.

So “social security” becomes “social securiteh” (where “eh” rhymes with “Bleh!” not “Hey!”). “Nationality” becomes “nationaliteh.” “Policy” becomes “policeh.”

(It’s almost like when pop singers hold out “Baby.” They end up singing: “Beh-ee-behhhh-eeee.” But they do eventually end up saying the long-E sound.)

The only other person I’ve heard make this switch is Martin Luther King, Jr.

So is Obama trying to imitate MLK? Or is this a product of his having grown up in so many different places?

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UPDATE: I heard him doing it again today on the radio (a clip from some Democrat unity rally thing) except he slipped and pronounced “-y” as “ee” once.

Consistency is key!

Tags: Accents, Baby, Barack Obama, Martin Luther King, Martin Luther King Jr., MLK, Pop-Singers, Pronunciation

I was thinking, that while I’m paying reparations to myself as a Native American (since I’m a native American), I should probably also pay reparations to myself as a Scot, given the horrible way my people (the Anglo-Saxons) treated my people (the Scots).

Fair’s fair.

Tags: Idiocy