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7.29.05

Culturally Speaking #72

By Sarah Stodola

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The Joke That Is Our Government: It's sentences like this one, published in the New York Times article covering the vote in Congress that ultimately passed the Central America Free Trade Agreement, that give me so much faith in the political process:

For the next half-hour, Republicans, mostly from textile states, jockeyed over who would be allowed to vote against the bill and save face back home.

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Not All News Is Bad: This has to be one of the most gushingly positive reviews I've ever seen, in the New York Times or anywhere else.

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The Death of Tradition: Writer Lee Harris wonders if tradition has a future in the face of rational thinking that often reveals tradition's inherent silliness.  It's a good question.  The most obvious contemporary application is to the gay marriage debate, where those opposed to gay marriage invoke the preservation of the tradition of marriage as a good enough justification to ban gays from marrying.  Reason, on the other hand, tells us that no real harm can come from allowing gays to marry.  Harris envisions a future where tradition has been retired to the same realm as myth.  Because tradition, by its very definition, is devoid of reason: if some act is a tradition, we carry on with it because that is what has always been done, not because we can rationally justify it.  So if we ever get to the point of wanting the things we do to be reasonable, there will be no place for tradition.

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Like "Mind the Gap," But Weirder: This site collects "odd street signs" and posts them on the web...some of them are really quite funny. (Warning: the site is quite slow to load.)

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Not My Idea of English Weather: I don't know why, but I've never thought of England as a place that was ever threatened by tornados.

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London Calling (Personal Note): I have just become the newest person to bear the title of Writer for Londonist (attn New Yorkers: It's just like Gothamist, but in London).  So anyway who hears anything of interest about London, please send it my way in the form of a "tip" to sarahstodola @ yahoo dot com.

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Terrorists Come, Terrorists Go: The IRA has closed up shop.  Maybe once they saw someone else doing the terrorism, they saw that it wasn't such a good idea, after all.

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The Cool Kids: This book tries to figure out why the French always get to be the trendsetters...

 

Click here for the last Culturally Speaking.

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Sarah Stodola is the Executive Editor of Me Three.  She can be contacted here.

© 2005 Me Three