Aesthetics/Ethics

When does bad taste rise to the level of immorality?

Steven Pinker, in Conversation with Bill Gates on Climate Change

"When people subscribe to an ideology, they suck up evidence that supports their preconceptions and filter out evidence that goes against them.  Contrary to the belief of most scientists that denial of climate change is an effect of scientific illiteracy, it is not at all correlated with scientific literacy.  People who believe in man-made climate change don't know any more about climate or science than those who deny it.  It's almost perfectly correlated with left-wing versus right-wing orientation.  And a move toward greater rationality would unbundle them and let evidence inform what the optimal policies ought to be."

You Left Me

Not drawn and quartered --
But splayed and dissected,
Dissected and splayed
In malevolent air.

The smell of your pillow,
The dots now connected,
The knot in your neck
When I tousled your hair.

Let me rock you in my arms.
I'll hold you safe and small --
A refugee from the Seraphim
With your rich girl rags and all ...

TFTD:

It's easy to describe the leaves in the autumn,
And it's oh so easy in the spring,
But down through January and February
It's a very different thing.

TFTD:

It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.