“What Questions Have Disappeared?” John Brockman, a New York literary agent and writer who runs The Edge, the stimulating online intellectual salon (“To arrive at the edge of the world’s knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves”) poses his annual question to a wide group of distinguished respondents.

Thank you to R Mark Woods (of the excellent weblog Wood’s Lot) who let me know that the Galbraith article is from The American Prospect and can be found here. Too new to have been indexed by the search engines, I suppose, although I don’t really understand all the arcana of what they do and don’t discern.

As it turns out, the article is not by John Kenneth Galbraith but by James K. Galbraith. Information about the author is here; he’s a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin. I recall somewhere in the dim recesses of my memory that this may be John Kenneth’s son “Jamie”; does anyone know? In any case, nice to have someone so feisty on Dubya’s home turf.

I’m going back and editing the original blink to correct the misattribution and also to remove the full text of the article from my weblog in favor of the link, as the usual (“This article may not be resold,
reprinted, or redistributed for compensation of any kind
without prior written permission from the author.”) copyright notice appears at the bottom.

The Kumbh Mela starts today in Allahabad. This confluence of religious pilgrims, which occurs in each of four places in India (Allahabad, Haridwar, Ujjain and Nasik) every 12 years or so (on a schedule determined by the position of the planet Jupiter in the sky), is expected to draw more than 30 million souls, the largest gathering of humanity ever seen on the planet. As one weblogger put it, “Eat your heart out, Burning Man.” Heck, eat your heart out, Woodstock! I was at the last-but-one Kumbh Mela in Haridwar, at the headwaters of the Ganges River, in 1975. That had a mere 10 million attendees, I’d venture to say 99.99% of them from the Indian subcontinent (back before the days of “ecotravel”) and most of those renunciant sadhus. However, material souls plan to seek salvation as well at the upcoming gathering. A British tour agency confirms that it is bringing in <a href=”http://www.timesofindia.com/today/09home3.htm
“>some of the biggest showbiz stars [Times of India, via Robot Wisdom]
for the experience, including the ubiquitous Madonna. Indian tour operators are making the most of the festival, selling it to international travellers as the quintessence of the mystical East. Plan now for 2013.

NSA abandons wondrous stuff. This is being widely blogged, because it’s fascinating. What a group of astronomers found after they took occupancy of an abandoned National Security Agency listening post in backcountry North Carolina.

I’m too proud and aloof to suggest that you nominate me for the 2001 Bloggies, but consider nominating some of the nice folks in the black box over in the lefthand column…

The Decline and Fall (cont’d.): Eminem’s latest outrage: ‘Eminem’s “Marshall Mathers LP” was
“probably the most repugnant record of the year.” So says
Michael Greene, president of the National Academy of
Recording Arts and Sciences, home of the Grammy.

Yet Greene can hardly contain his glee over the fact that the
gay-bashing, misogynist rapper was nominated last week for
four Grammys, including the prestigious album of the year
award…. Now, with the hand-picked selection of
Eminem’s hate-filled record as album of
the year, …the
once-respectable albeit feckless Grammy has transformed
itself into just another trend-chasing music awards show.

The predictable outcry accompanying Eminem’s
nominations virtually guarantees the Grammy telecast —
undoubtedly featuring a performance by the rapper — will be
another ratings hit.’ Salon

The crime of my life: Salon contributor Charles Taylor dissects the modern mystery scene and tells us which books got him through a particularly tough year (and not just because of election and recessionary fears). His tastes run to both the genteel British genre and the hard-boiled American writers.

Corporate Democracy; Civic Disrespect: More incisive thinking on the meaning of the theft of the election, the peculiar perils of American “forgetting,” why Dubya is not the “President-elect”, the tribalism of American politics, and a potential viable agenda for the Democratic Party in the new, post-2000 Americn political landscape from James K. Galbraith, professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin. He lays out important priorities progressive-thinking people should have, to prevent Dubya’s co-optation of the political process from having an enduring impact. This was originally sent to me by email and misattributed to John Kenneth Galbraith, now 92, who I seem to recall may be James K.’s father (anybody know?). The American Prospect