A Dancing Rant for the Record Book

Just in case it matters, ranting here is just straight dope, not pointless blather. It's anti-blather.

Ranting has more meanings than blind polemics, which I find mostly useless, and usually off-point. The definition I like best is the Scottish derivation to frolic or make merry. That may seem a strange way to deal with facts and truth, but I tend toward depression over public affairs, the level of gridlock in politics, and the apparent willingness of persons in power or fame to trade truth for expediency. And by truth I mean to include the common good; and by expediency I mean to include special and selfish interests.

An obvious partial antidote for this is to speak truth to power, or at least to speak truth to oneself. But another aspect to the antidote is not to take every step with rancor, but instead to wrap in a few dances along with the stumbling. A few Zorba (the Greek) dance steps (syrtaki or συρτάκι) and a bit of ouzo (ούζο) will speak truth to power at least as well as most NY Times columns and a batch of Twitter feeds. And if that's not actually true, then the ouzo at least tastes better, especially with a little earthy bdrmm, bdrmm, bdddrmm to go along with it, and perhaps with the Aegean in the background.

We may not always be able to get the powerful to focus, even after a healthy dose of straight dope. But that doesn't mean we can't interlace our own arms with our neighbors' shoulders and remind ourselves, along with a little rant that we're all in this together.


* Ouzo Bottle, photo from Wikipedia by AlMare (2008), CC BY-SA 2.5

Get it right or go home

There's more than one way to look at almost anything: Science has all the answers. Religion has better answers. My political and economic views are more accurate than yours. Supply-side? No, Keynesian. I think social engineering is necessary. No, we should all be libertarians. Philosophy will guide us, provided it's the correct blend of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. No way. Materialism or some version of naturalism is the right ticket to the show. Regardless, it's logic or bust. No, we also need intuition, imagination and feelings.  Ranting and raving about all these things is fine if you have the right logic (and intuitions) behind you, and no hidden assumptions. The right logic and intuitions, not the right special interest. But remember, just because I said it, doesn't mean I meant it.  Well, there you go ... it is what it is.