The End

The staff at the LHG is made up of those society has rejected: the homeless, 40 year old virgins, single mothers on welfare, street corner prostitutes, retired superstar athletes, and assistant professors. In our offices, we spend a good chunk of time arguing over who has it worse. All sorts of positions have been taken. The most controversial (and perhaps bitter) argues that while the homeless have their freedom and virgins their chastity, while single mothers have their children, prostitutes their pretty woman, and retired superstar athletes their money, assistant professors have none of the above. And just when they think things might be okay, an arbitrary exercise of power reminds them that their fate is not in their hands.

Here at the LHG we rise and fall together. If some of us go, we all do. This gig is over - thanks for your time.

Celebrity Death Match

my money is on the brunette

Celebrity authors, we meant (not heavyweights like Stephen King or JK Rowling, celebrity authors in the nerd world, not the real world). One one side atheist crusador Sam Harris, on the other ex nun Karen Armstrong. Who's right about the future of Islam? Read them here and here, and then flip a coin to decide who's right.

Spank Me Please

whatever

At some point in the past decade, spanking and washing your kid's mouth with soap vanished from the annals of proper child rearing. What is a parent supposed to do? Fortunately for them, Jesus Camp picks up the slack. Don't despair: with or without a mouth full of Dove, your kid will praise the Lord.

On Muslims and Mayhem

i've come to suck your blood...

Unless you've got your head in the sand you by now know that the pope has pissed of the Muslim world by - perhaps - criticizing Islam and its prophet. More specifically, Benedict delivered a speech where he quoted a 14th Century Byzantine emperor as saying, “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

Doesn't sound good. But are Muslims and the press taking the statement out of context? After all, everyone agrees that Benedict's comments on Islam were but a small part of his address. Now you can see for yourself. At Informed Comment you can find the complete text of Benedict's address and the best commentary LHG has found thus far.

Better than Porn

not

A big chunk of our readership comes from academia. See above: University of Texas, Yale, University of Pennyslvania, University of Miami - who are these people? Students looking for paper ideas? Faculty looking for lecture tips? Administrators procrastinating? Whoever you are and whatever your intentions might be, the LHG thanks you for stopping by.

Still Waiting for Godot

face it: godot's not coming

Samuel Beckett is one of those writers that you're supposed to like if you fancy yourself at least a tiny bit intellectual. It is thus with some shame that the LHG confesses to having sat through Waiting for Godot on two ocassions (the first time on a high school literary magazine field trip, the second time on an attempt to offer an original date to a very unlucky girl) and both times having been bored senseless. In Paris, when the play was first performed spectators rioted - it's beyond us why they even bothered. But we do like how Beckett describes his take on language:

"More and more my own language appears to me like a veil that must be torn apart in order to get at the things (or the Nothingness) behind it. Grammar and Style. To me they seem to have become as irrelevant as a Victorian bathing suit or the impertubability of a true gentleman. A mask. Let us hope the time will come... when language is most efficiently used where it is being most efficiently misused. As we cannot eliminate language all at once, we should at least leave nothing undone that might contribute to its falling into disrepute. To bore one hole after another in it, until what lurks behind it - be it something or nothing - begins to seep through; I cannot imagine a higher goal for a writer today."

On Philosophers and Fashion

One of our staff members who dabbles in philosophy is often seen bicycling around the neighborhood on a pink bike and his hair tied back into puffy pig tails. Mind you, he's straight. So what gives? In a diary entry Susan Sontag describes the French philosopher Jean Wahl who wrote a book on existentialism that was required reading at a LHG retreat two months back:

"Yesterday I went to my first Paris cocktail party, at Jean Wahl's...Wahl very much lived up to my expectations - a tiny slim birdlike old man with lank white hair and a thin mouth, terribly distracted and unkempt. Baggy black suit with three large holes in the rear end through which you could see his (white) underwear, and he'd just come from a late afternoon lecture - on Claudel - at the Sorbonne."

Can it be that philosophers and philosopher wannabees, given over to thought as their highest pursuit, have no time to spend on common courtesy?

Underwear is now obligatory at the LHG.

Reza Strikes Again

We once posted a plee directed toward Reza Aslan's agent. Needless to say, he has yet to call. Meanwhile, Reza keeps playing the public intellectual game. Click here for his piece on "The War for Islam" published in yesterday's Boston Globe. It's worthwhile reading.

PS. If the Boston Globe forces you to register, fear not. Just typing lazurdadeldiego@gmail.com for username and password for password will do the trick.

The LHG, as always, at your service.