Keith Burgess-Jackson

I leave you this fine evening with a column by Peter Berkowitz.

2-16-88 . . . George Bush and Michael Dukakis won the Republican and Democratic primaries (respectively) in New Hampshire. Bush and Robert Dole are the frontrunners on the Republican side, while Dukakis and Richard Gephardt are the leaders on the Democratic side. Next are the southern primaries.

The nomination
Was hers, until Messiah
Descended to Earth

The Tour of California begins tomorrow.

Here is a heartwarming story.

Here is your entertainment for this Saturday evening.

Addendum: You were good today, so you get one more.

The generall use of Speech, is to transferre our Mentall Discourse, into Verbal; or the Trayne of our Thoughts, into a Trayne of Words; and that for two commodities; whereof one is, the Registring of the Consequences of our Thoughts; which being apt to slip out of our memory, and put us to a new labour, may again be recalled, by such words as they were marked by. So that the first use of names, is to serve for Markes, or Notes of remembrance. Another is, when many use the same words, to signifie (by their connexion and order,) one to another, what they conceive, or think of each matter; and also what they desire, feare, or have any other passion for. And for this use they are called Signes. Speciall uses of Speech are these; First, to Register, what by cogitation, wee find to be the cause of any thing, present or past; and what we find things present or past may produce, or effect: which in summe, is acquiring of Arts. Secondly, to shew to others that knowledge which we have attained; which is, to Counsell, and Teach one another. Thirdly, to make known to others our wills, and purposes, that we may have the mutuall help of one another. Fourthly, to please and delight our selves, and others, by playing with our words, for pleasure or ornament, innocently.

To these Uses, there are also foure correspondent Abuses. First, when men register their thoughts wrong, by the inconstancy of the signification of their words; by which they register for their conceptions, that which they never conceived; and so deceive themselves. Secondly, when they use words metaphorically; that is, in other sense than that they are ordained for; and thereby deceive others. Thirdly, when by words they declare that to be their will, which is not. Fourthly, when they use them to grieve one another: for seeing nature hath armed living creatures, some with teeth, some with horns, and some with hands, to grieve an enemy, it is but an abuse of Speech, to grieve him with the tongue, unlesse it be one whom wee are obliged to govern; and then it is not to grieve, but to correct and amend.

(Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, rev. student ed., ed. Richard Tuck, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, ed. Raymond Geuss and Quentin Skinner [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996], chap. 4, pp. 25-6 [italics in original] [first published in 1651])

Dr John J. Ray has some reflections on Germany.

Here.

Here is Greg Boyd’s fifth reason for becoming a vegetarian.

To the Editor:

Re “Israel’s Secret Success,” by Daniel Gavron (Op-Ed Feb. 11):

While I admire Mr. Gavron’s optimistic outlook on the success of Israel’s statehood, I am sad to call him naïve in thinking that we Zionists have truly “won.”

We will win when no world leaders (not even those deemed evil and maniacal by most other world leaders) speak seriously of wiping us off the face of the earth. We will win when suicide bombings are no longer “something you just get used to” and when we no longer have to attend funerals of young Israelis who are murdered by terrorists while hiking.

We will win when we no longer have to fight wars on all of our borders, and when we do not have to think twice about riding public transportation or going out to eat.

It is true that on the eve of Israel’s 60th birthday, we have so much to celebrate. But we cannot forget that we still have a very long way to go.

Gabriele F. Schoenfeld
Jerusalem, Feb. 12, 2008

Here is how things will end up in the National League in 2008 (previous year’s finish in parentheses):

West: San Diego Padres (3); Arizona Diamondbacks (1); Colorado Rockies (2); Los Angeles Dodgers (4); San Francisco Giants (5).

Central: Chicago Cubs (1); Milwaukee Brewers (2); Pittsburgh Pirates (6); Houston Astros (4); St Louis Cardinals (3); Cincinnati Reds (5).

East: New York Mets (2); Atlanta Braves (3); Washington Nationals (4); Philadelphia Phillies (1); Florida Marlins (5).

Read it and weep, Yankee fans.