* August 9th was the feast of St. Edith Stein; Ignatius Scoop has a post on her.
* Stephen Matheson discusses Behe.
* Jimmy Akin is beginning a series of reviews on Card's Ender series. First stop: Ender's Game.
* According to this interesting script, there is a 71% chance that I'm a woman, based on my browser history; which is why you shouldn't assume things based on browser history. What's interesting is that one of the sites that tips the balance is GoodSearch, which has a very low male-to-female ratio.
* The Uncultured Project: After hearing an inspiring lecture, a graduate student at Notre Dame puts his graduate studies on hold, flies to Bangladesh, and sets out to help those who need it; this is the website for it. (ht)
* Whoever Obama picks as a running mate, it won't be Edwards.
* Martha Nussbaum on Euripedes' Hecuba and the fragility of goodness:
In a sense, Hecuba is really about the fragility of humanity: no one is so strong as to be uncrushable, and, however great one's nobility, there are things that can strip away your very humanity. Human excellence is not invulnerable, human resilience is not infinite, and Hecuba's fall from wise and merciful queen to pitiless vigilante about to topple over into inhuman madness is a striking portrayal of this fragility.
* There's an interesting discussion on moral expertise going on at "Philosophy, et cetera."
* The Tenured Radical discusses academic job advertisements. She's primarily thinking of history, of course, but virtually all of what she says carries over to other fields, and thus this post should be required reading for anyone on a search committee. I've certainly seen some absurdly uninformative advertisements in philosophy. As usual, what really gets me about this is that if there's any field that should be actively subjecting its own practices to serious critical reflection and judgment, it should be philosophy; philosophy is a field in which there is even less excuse for the sort of failings Potter is criticizing; and yet you have only to open any JFP to see every single one of them in action.
* An interesting article on the Boff brothers from Chiesa. In general, people with an interest in liberation theology tend to split between Leonardo-types and Clodovis-types.
* YouTube finds: One of my favorite versions of one of my favorite songs, Ailein Duinn by Capercaillie. Karen Matheson is hard to beat, but Méav has a decent version, too, although her pronunciation occasionally makes Scottish Gaelic sound Irish. I've always loved the opening:
Gura mise tha fo éislean
Moch sa mhaduinn is mi g'éirigh.
And nothing says loss and sorrow like the chorus:
Ò hì shiùbhlainn leat
Hì ri bhò hò ru bhì
Hì ri bhò hò rinn o ho
Ailein Duinn, ò hì shiùbhlainn leat.
The sound fits the theme flawlessly (a woman weeping at the drowning of her fiancée at sea, crying out that she wants to go wherever he goes). Someday I will learn Scots Gaelic to a level a bit more advanced than tha ga math, tapadh leibh.
Although I don't really drink, I like drinking songs. Two of my favorites are The Carlton Weaver, better known as Nancy Whiskey, (this version, perhaps the best of the best, is by Luke Kelly and the Dubliners), and Lish Young Buy-a-Broom (this version by Clannad). The Parting Glass is classic, of course.
Levan Polka by Loituma (and here). And if you like hymns, you'll probably like the slow, somber stateliness of O Kriste Kunnian Kuningas. Finnish I will also have to learn someday.
