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Other languages #5
The public's attention is still focused on the fate of Princess Diana: if earlier people were worried about the carnal life of the beauty, now they are concerned about the ordeal of her soul. A theology teacher dares to understand the mystery of the princess's afterlife using the 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church. It looks like the poor soul should end up straight in hell, or, in extreme cases, in purgatory (the chances are slim). The article is devoid of protective Catholic pathos and is rather marked by the spirit of independent journalistic investigation. As a result, liberal doubts and arguments of reason begin to corrode the armor of church dogma.
Quote: "The Pope's position was unexpected, as he took a broader view of the obvious evidence of Diana's guilt and shame. He gave a positive sign, allowing hope for the atonement of her sin... Mohammed Al Fayed, Dodi's father, allowed himself to go even further: "God took their souls to heaven so that they could live there together,” the grief-stricken father, devoid of theological doubts, exclaims passionately .
Order a full translation of an article?Queen for a Day Niel Shister Boston Review
There is nothing worse than getting married in America. A good American wedding - so that everything is like people's - can cost you more than one hundred thousand in green money. You can, of course, save money, but a wedding, the author of the article claims, is not so much the conclusion of an alliance between a man and a woman, but the signing of a contract with society by the newlyweds, their symbolic entry into society. After all, it was said that the family is the unit of society. And since American society is, as we know, a society of abundance, it requires at least a formal demonstration of its wealth from its members. In other words, in the depths of exemplary democracy, ancient rituals are preserved, the meaning of which is the subordination of the personal to the public.
Quote: “My head is spinning at the sight of the endless stream of luxurious pictures (mostly openly advertising), which, for example, are stuffed to overflowing with, for example, the special June issue of Brides Magazine. On almost every page of this respectable publication, which is not inferior in thickness to the New York telephone directory, states an idealized image of this particular kind of social contract called a wedding: the right people should marry in an atmosphere of abundance and prosperity... The bride walks down the aisle in an ivory chiffon dress trimmed with exquisite lace ($7,500 without veil - see below). p. 790). The table should be set according to the "two plus one" principle (two particularly sophisticated porcelain cutlery plus one cutlery made of a simpler material - glass is acceptable, for example). Furniture should be "luxurious but elegant: we recommend bamboo or rattan" (price of one chair from the set is √ 1200 dollars)" .
Order a full translation of an article?Titanic problems in academic education Thomas Sowell Forbes
The American professoriate has completely lost its grip, the author of the article, an economist and senior researcher at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, is convinced. Occupying practically life-long positions, professors run universities as they please, looking first to their own interests and only lastly paying attention to the interests of students. In order to stop these outrages, the author believes, the university management system should be likened to the company management system. Then the president of the college or university will receive the powers of the general director with the ensuing right to fire employees (that is, these same professors) and independently resolve all financial issues.
Quote: “The actions of the university management can be likened to the behavior of the captain of a ship collided with an iceberg, who declares the first priority to be the rescue of the crew. The second most important goal, right up to the very moment the ship plunges into the abyss, is to avoid disruptions in work: to ensure that the night bar is functioning , accessories for playing lotto were available and the competition for the best card trick was held on time. The third priority task is to try to seal the hole. And finally, the fourth and last priority task, which can be paid attention only if you have free time, is it's about saving passengers... If you don't know that the most important thing on a university campus is its team, you don't understand the academic world at all. Student passengers come last . "
Order a full translation of an article?Misleading the Patient for Fun and Profit Lewis Vaghn Free Inquiry
Traditional medicine and scientific knowledge in general are in serious danger, says the editor of The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine , who, oddly enough, opposes the mass craze for alternative medicine. The author is concerned with the organic and moral consequences of flirting with homeopathy, acupuncture, magnetotherapy, etc. Fighting hordes of companies, advertising campaigns, television talk shows, prospectuses and booklets, Lewis Vaughn appeals to reason with the passion of a devout positivist. And it is precisely in this area that he has many colleagues - natural scientists who are ready to meticulously analyze objective facts for and against. But the article has another aspect - transferring the problem to a moral plane. The author asks a “politically incorrect” question: is it ethical to produce and promote products whose effects have not been sufficiently studied and which, possibly, may have an unknown side effect?
Quote: “Is it morally permissible to use or advertise this or that unconventional medicine? .. Its advertising will most likely bring people not net benefit, but net harm. The supposed benefit of a ten dollar “anti-cancer” stone may be and is great, but the possibility of obtaining such a benefit is so insignificant that it hardly makes sense to buy this product. Advertising it would be unethical . "
PS I wonder where the vaunted positivists have gone when all of America is gorging itself on monstrous-looking products that have been genetically modified beyond recognition? Why does everyone so blithely and unconditionally believe in their usefulness, without demanding the same objective analysis of this very controversial phenomenon? Is it because, unlike “alternative” acupuncture, these fruits of scientific progress are becoming increasingly non- alternative? By defending the rights of the patient-consumer, the author stands guard over the medicinal and food mainstream, which after some time may turn all consumers into patients.
Order a full translation of an article?Andrew Weil, the boom in alternative medicine, and the retreat from science. A Trip to Stonesville: Andrew Weil, the Boom of Alternative Medicine, and the Departure from Science Arnold S. Relman The New Republic
Throw away your medications and take up meditation, holotropic breathing, esoteric mental and physical practices? Hmm, it's worth thinking about, says Arnold S. Relman (professor at Harvard Medical School and editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of Medicine ). It was this tolerance and leisurely, thoughtful and judicious intonation that seemed to arouse indignation in the previous speaker (see above). The subject of Relman’s research is the fascinating history of the “life and work” of one of the modern “alternative medicine gurus,” Andrew Weil, the creator of his own method (a mixture of homeopathic, Jungian, and, in his youth, countercultural practices, including the use of “consciousness-expanding” drugs). . A respectable positivist professor, not at all shocked by the nonconformity of the “guru,” tries to calmly separate the wheat from the chaff: ironically telling about his hero’s near-medical “trips,” Mr. Relman largely agrees with his position in essence and does not consider it shameful to learn something from the countercultural colleagues (for example, his view of what health and illness are in principle).
Quotes: “I agree with him that conventional doctors are often too interested in the disease and not enough interested in the patient... I also like his criticism of the general practice [of the medical mainstream] of mindlessly prescribing a bunch of powerful drugs at once, regardless of their toxicity or side effects... Not to mention medical errors, even the use of drugs as prescribed can have fatal consequences.The craze for antibiotics has provoked the emergence of drug-resistant bacteria... Apparently, he was thinking about this when he organized an “integrative medicine” clinic at the University of Arizona, in which conventional allopathic doctors prescribe both traditional and alternative treatments... Its goal is to change the paradigm of thinking of doctors. At the end of the day, the question is one: whether the treatment has been objectively tested or not, whether the method works or not. Could there be other reasonable reasons to call "alternative" anything?"
PS There is a feeling that the hysteria about the invasion of healers and distributors (see Lewis Vaughn’s accusatory monologue above) is simply explained by their lack of control in America, where the process is not regulated by the state (unlike, for example, Germany, where herbal treatment is just as professional, a legal and traditionally developed area of medicine, such as appendectomy). This is how it has always been with them: the reaction to the lynching of blacks was rabid political correctness; The reaction to the shameless selling of magic stones and herbs to people is the desire to ban homeopathy and herbal medicine as a class. The American soul is broad, just like the Russians: they will see how neglected everything is, wake up and let’s cut at the roots (thank God, so far they are struggling mainly not on the basis of politics, but the medicinal and food mainstream, which after a while may turn all consumers into patients).
Order a full translation of an article?Forget Footnotes. Hyperlink: Forget Footnotes Jenny Lyn Bader The New York Times
The good old page-by-page footnotes began to become a thing of the past ten years ago. They were replaced by endnotes, making the text easier to perceive as a whole. But very little time passed - and postmodern fragmentation again took over: on the Internet, dotted with various hyperlinks, the most innocent text involuntarily acquires the features of postmodern poetics. So if you decide to post your work online, forget not only about footnotes, but also about your copyright. It is almost impossible to prove their violation in the Internet space. Even in court.
Quote: “In 1996, Princeton graduate student Dan Wallech imported daily issues of the famous Dilbert comics onto his home page. United Media Syndicate (which owns the rights to the comic - I.K.) threatened Wallech with legal action, and he removed Dilbert from his site, stating, however, that his page is structured in such a way that company-owned content is not permanently hosted on his server, which means that finding him guilty of copyright infringement would be tantamount to recognizing a similar crime against any search engine . "
Order a full translation of an article?Can we ever get back to reality? (Will we ever get back to reality?) Sven Birkerts The Atlantic
Don't you feel like someone is watching you all the time? Don't you feel constantly zombied? Every day we are bombarded with a stream of information, the accuracy of which we are unable to verify. We stop blindly believing the TV - first its endless commercials, and then its political news. We are no longer able to understand where “ordinary” reality ends and virtual reality begins. This is how Sven Berkerts concludes, meaning, of course, not us, but America. To support his words, the author examines four films that demonstrate the growth of conspiracy sentiments in American society: “Cunning,” “The Game,” “Pleasantville” and “The Truman Show.” The trouble is, Berkerts believes, that unlike positive movie characters, we cannot expose the evil conspiracy at the end of the film. We'll never get to the cardboard set with the horizon drawn on it. Simply because there is no specific conspiracy. In reality, everything is more complicated.
Quote: “The further we go, the more reality reaches us not directly through our senses, but through a screen (work computer monitor or home TV) - to such an extent that interface elements themselves become significant segments of reality . ”
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