I visited the St. Louis Zoo today with a camera. Upon arrival, I headed to the exhibits of the great apes. After watching the gorillas for awhile, three of these magnificent animals assumed this configuration:
As you can see, A was checking out B, who was checkout out C, who was checking out A. It seemed to be the gorilla version of Sartre's No Exit for about 20 seconds. And then it was back to romping across the grounds or sitting in a shady spot.
At the recent St. Louis Earth Day festival at Forest Park, I noticed a woman walking by, who was wearing a t-shirt bearing the phrase "Free Will." Probably because I'm in the process of reading two books on the topic (one by Dan Dennett and the other a brand new book by Sam Harris), I stopped her to ask about her shirt.
"Excuse me. I couldn't help but notice your t-shirt. Are you in interested in philosophical questions?"
She looked down at her shirt, smiled, then said: "No, I'm with Shakespeare in the Park."
It took me a few seconds, but I finally got it.
The woman's name is Laura Copppinger, and she is the Marketing Assistant for the St. Louis version of Shakespeare in the Park. She was quite happy that I stopped her to ask about the shirt, because it bore the brand new marketing slogan to promote this year's production: Othello, which will run from May 25 - June 17.
The mission of Shakespeare in the park:
The Festival annually attracts an audience of over 60,000 in the park and reaches over 25,000 in the schools. We have been awarded numerous Kevin Kline Awards, and in 2012 we received the Exemplary Community Achievement Award from Missouri Humanities Council. The Festival is nearly entirely supported by contributions. We believe theatre is a powerful force for social change and should be accessible to all.
It's bad enough that the federal government can convince itself that it has the right to listen in on all of our telephone calls, emails, Tweets, and posts without probable cause. Now the federal government is twisting the arms of the internet providers to make it technologically easy for them to spy on us. Glenn Greenwald reports on this travesty.
Wow. Arizona opens the floodgates to private prisons that are LESS cost efficient than state run prisons. Sounds like not-democracy in action.
John Yoo, the Bush attorney who authored memos authorizing torture is immune from civil lawsuit invited by his memos, based on a recent ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. This ruling is unsurprising, in that it comports with a disturbing trend. Glenn Greenwald explains: [C]onsider these two facts:
(1) not a single War on Terror victim — not one — has been permitted to sue for damages in an American court over what was done to them, even when everyone admits they were completely innocent, even when they were subjected to the most brutal torture, and even when the judiciary of other countries permitted their lawsuits to proceed; and, (2) not a single government official — not one — has been held legally accountable, either criminally or even civilly, for any War on Terror crimes or abuses; perversely, the only government officials to pay any price were the ones who blew the whistle on those crimes. That is how history will record the behavior of American federal judges in the face of the post-9/11 onslaught of anti-Muslim persecution and relentless erosions of core rights.The trend is further supported by a recent report that out of almost 1800 FISA requests (most for eavesdropping) filed by the federal government in 2011, none of them were denied. This statistic begs for the following commentary by Greenwald:
This is a perfect expression of how the federal judiciary, in general, behaves in the face of claims of National Security from the Executive Branch: as an impotent, eager rubber-stamping servant.