Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

Vintage funeral

These are post-salad days for Band of Horses. Their brand of vintage Americana via Seattle and North Carolina has won them a worldwide fan base thanks to the "Everything All the Time" and "Cease to Begin" albums, and now with their move to a major label for their new album "Infinite Arms", the bar has been raised. The fact that they contributed a track, "Life on Earth" to the soundtrack album of the Twilight Saga film Eclipse, has not harmed them one bit.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 31 July 2010 at 7:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

That TIME cover

"What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan" asks TIME and it poses the question with a cover that's as controversial as it is disturbing. The image is of an 18-year-old Afghan woman whose nose has been cut off. According to TIME, the woman "was sentenced by a Taliban commander to have her nose and ears cut off for fleeing her abusive in-laws." Her story, says the newsweekly, represents what will happen in Afghanistan if the US military ends its mission, now in its eighth year.

Pro: Meenal Vamburkar at Mediaite: "This reasoning follows what many might agree is the definition and purpose of good journalism. The things that are hard to look at are often the things that are most necessary to look at. Whether readers think the cover is bold or too graphic, the shock value cannot be denied."

Contra: Choire Sicha at the Awl: "That sure sounds like an argument -- and, you know, a very moving and affecting one! -- for something like a permanent or at least extended occupation."

It is no accident that this particular TIME cover appears in the week when WikiLeaks led the news cycle with its publication of US military intelligence documents. The secretive website, which claims the right to publish secret information, may have put hundreds of Afghan informants in danger by its actions and it might be salutatory for its fans to study this graphic reminder of how truly barbaric the Taliban really is. This movement will stop at nothing to achieve its wicked aims and should these require the mutilation of defenceless women, then the Taliban will cut off their noses and ears.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 30 July 2010 at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Macaulay's heirs

Have contemporary historians lost the ability to inspire us with tales of the past in the way as their predecessors did? And if this is the case, why is it so? Maybe pessimism is to blame. All those theories about the decline of the West get repetitive. After all, people tire of being told about the grimness of their future and the crimes of their ancestors. Certainly, inspirational historians of the calibre of Edward Gibbon ("The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"), Thomas Babington Macaulay ("The History of England") and Thomas Carlyle ("The French Revolution") are thin on the ground these days.

Today's best British historians, Simon Schama, Niall Ferguson, Antony Beevor, David Starkey and Bettany Hughes, are masters of more media that the greats of the "Golden Age", but one longs for eloquence and a more comprehensive world view. Here's Macaulay writing about "progress":

"Time advances: facts accumulate; doubts arise. Faint glimpses of truth begin to appear, and shine more and more unto the perfect day. The highest intellects, like the tops of mountains, are the first to catch and reflect the dawn. They are bright, while the level below is still in darkness. But soon the light, which at first only illuminated only the loftiest eminences, descends on the plain, and penetrates the deepest valley. First come hints, then fragments of systems, then defective systems, then complete and harmonious systems. The sound opinion, held for a time by one bold speculator, becomes the opinion of a small minority, of a strong majority, of a majority of mankind. Thus, the great progress goes on."

Thomas Babington Macaulay, "History of the Revolution in England", in Edinburgh Review (July 1835; reprinted in Lord Macaulay's Essays, 1889).

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on at 12:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The mystical meaning of fish in Iceland

On Tuesday, Iceland opened membership talks with the European Union. It says it wants to sit "at the family table" of Europe but stressed its fishing sector — the lifeblood of the economy — must be off limits to the fishermen from other EU nations who have depleted fish stocks everywhere. Fish products account for half of the country's merchandise exports, and per capita income from fishing in Iceland is 100 times higher than the EU average. And then there's its ardent pro-whaling stance, which does not go down well in Brussels.

Meanwhile, it's Stjarnan vs. Fylkir in the Icelandic football league and Halldor Orri scores the winning goal in extra time. He expresses his joy by going fishing and catches his teammate Johann Laxdal (Johann Salmon). Can't see these people handing over their fish stocks to the EU's factory ships.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 29 July 2010 at 7:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Big Questions Online

The latest addition to the Rainy Day blogroll is Big Questions Online, a new journal of ideas and opinion from the John Templeton Foundation. The focus is science, religion, markets and morals. Regular contributors include scientists Paul Davies, David Sloan Wilson and David Gelernter, as well as the sceptics Michael Shermer and Susan Jacoby. They'll be assisted by thinkers like Roger Scruton, Christine Whelan, Phillip Longman, Walter Russell Mead, Christine Rosen and Josef Joffe. Then, there are the bloggers: David Dylan Thomas posting about media, technology and pop culture, Heather Wax keeping track of Science + Religion Today and Rod Dreher filling the gaps in Macroculture.

BQO is a welcome addition to the world of digital magazines. It's beautifully presented and the writing is superb.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 28 July 2010 at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

ellerdale has left the building

The image above is an example of semantic analysis of the real-time web. In other words, it's a visualization of the web by talked-about topic, be it people, sports, politics, games, music or film. But if you go to the project site, you'll be told that "ellerdale has left the building". What's up?

In a word: Flipboard. Take $10.5 million of venture capital, add the support of Twitter's Jack Dorsey and Facebook's Dustin Moskovitz, use the iPad as platform and you get what its makers call "your personalized social magazine". For some, the most exciting thing about Flipboard is its impending integration of ellerdale's semantic data-analysis technology. For the full story, go to ReadWriteWeb.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 27 July 2010 at 12:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Head and heart of cabbage

Sturdy, abundant and inexpensive, cabbage is a dietary staple throughout the world. It belongs to the Cruciferae family of vegetables along with kale, broccoli, collards and Brussels sprouts. Cabbage is an excellent source of vitamin C and a very good source of fibre, manganese, vitamin B6, potassium and omega-3 fatty acids. In those parts of Ireland where "dinner" is eaten in the middle of the day, cabbage is accompanied by bacon and the combination makes for a wonderful meal.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 26 July 2010 at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Mind fasting

"The need to diet, which we know so well in relation to food, and which runs so contrary to our natural impulses, should be brought to bear on what we now have to relearn in relation to knowledge, people, and ideas. Our minds, no less than our bodies, require periods of fasting."

— On Distraction by Alain de Botton.

Posted by Eamonn Fitzgerald on 25 July 2010 at 7:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

STUFF WE READ

Vintage funeral

That TIME cover

Macaulay's heirs

The mystical meaning of fish in Iceland

Big Questions Online

ellerdale has left the building

Head and heart of cabbage

Mind fasting

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