Once, at a panel, one of the panelists said that there is no objective knowledge, only folk epistemologies owned by the separate identity groups. I raised my hand and said that in _my_ folk epistemology, there _is_ such a thing as objective knowledge, and it is the common property of all humankind. Everyone else in the room gasped in unison, like I was a wrestling heavy who had just body-slammed the hero. I shall treasure that moment forever.
Your epistemology depends on your sensory system. What you can know, is quite different if you also have access to an IR camera, or a long zoom lens, or radar or a microscope.
In general, your tools determine what you can do. If you’re looking for darkness, you’ll never find it by searching for it with a flashlight. (Torch for UK people.)
Biblical exegesis is a poor substitute for scientific method.
Laripu. We know what a flashlight is…we don’t live in mud huts snd have a hunter gatherer existance you know.. we just get confused when a fanny is a bottom…
I was trying to be polite by using the alternate phrase. If you think I was being snide or sarcastic, you’re mistaken.
Furthermore, while I’ve only been in the UK for one week, for work, I very much enjoyed it. I spent a week in Yeovil in Somerset, and one afternoon in London. People were friendly and helpful, even chatty. (That may be because I bring that out of people.)
I didn’t drive, took taxis and trains. The trains were well organized. The taxis scared the crap out of me. It always felt like they were on the wrong side, that a head on collision was imminent. Good thing I didn’t drive.
Food and drink: in the airport, coming off the plane, I was hungry, so I had a Cornish pasty – excellent. Local cider in Somerset is deservedly will known. In London, on Brick Lane, bagels (spelled beigel there) rival those of Montreal and New York City. All different, all good.
Laripu: Next time you visit UK, make it Scotland, Aberdeen in particular, rather than London*. We also drive on the “wrong side” (left, which is of course right) and have national and local food & drink specialities as well as international cuisine in larger towns and cities. Single malt Scotch whisky (please, not whiskey!) is famous worldwide. And the people are (mostly) friendly and helpful, especially in rural areas. You may well be slightly more welcomed as a Canadian than as a USA citizen – but either way, we welcome your foreign exchange!
Most Scots are familiar with transatlantic “English”, through films, TV and other media. (In some country areas, even other Scots have difficulty understanding the local speech, but the locals do understand “proper” English.)
BTW, in the last census, Aberdeen had the highest proportion of atheists in the entire UK.
*Absolutely no disrespect to the fine town of Yeovil!
S.O.G…Aberdeen? I’ve only been there for football and it was grim, cold and only good for kite enthusiasts…also isn’t it built on granite which releases radioactive gases that makes living there for a long time worse than working in a nuclear power plant? Fergie couldn’t wait to re-build the worlds finest football team and knock the feckin scousers off their perch… he still lives in south Manchester…
Son of Glenner, if I can ever travel again, Scotland (and Scotch) are on my list. I prefer blends: Dewar’s White for normal days, Johnny Walker Black when it’s something special. A bit of smoke, a hint. I’m not a huge fan of Islay single malts, because I don’t want to be drinking an ashtray. I used to like Aberlour 8yr in the nineties, but you can’t get that here anymore, and older expressions are too refined.
That said, I like Canadian whisky too, for the vanilla and caramel barrel flavors that certain ones have. One inexpensive Canadian whisky I like, that is only available in the US, is “Rich and Rare Reserve”. (The Reserve is important; without it, it’s a far lesser drink.) I’m having some now, awaiting the second debate between a normal intelligent human being and a 5-watt mendacious authoritarian kleptocrat.
I’m not a fan of Bourbon. I find the result of heavy char on new barrels off-putting, just like the extreme Islay smoke.
I can imagine enjoying a wee drappie o’t, at Balmoral, with my pals Phil Battenberg and Chuck Windsor, if Liz would only let ’em loose. 😉 (Just kidding, of course. I wouldn’t be seen with those hereditary lowlifes.)
I have a massive grievance with you guys. According to the Kuran and multiple Hadiths, Muhammed bin Abdullah sported a beard and NO MOUSTACHE. This ludicrous facial hairdo has been all he rage since and is one of the easiest ways of identifying a fundamentalist. Please draw your Mo without a stache henceforth. Otherwise it’s fatwa time.
Mo: [Reason and logic] are designed to maintain existing structures of power and oppression.
True enough, Mo … but they are ALSO used every time we make a rational decision. When you cross the street, do you look both ways to determine if it’s safe to cross? When your beer glass is empty and you desire another, is it logical to order another Guinness?
I have to wonder if you could so much as get out of bed without reason and logic, guys. I dare ya!
Laripu: Oddly enough, the blends you name are seldom seen in the UK; Bells is the most common in England, and The Famous Grouse is the most common in Scotland!
Nakul: As has been pointed out several times over the years in these comments, the Mo in this cartoon is a body double. That absolves our esteemed Author of blasphemy.
I hope the (lovely!) Barmaid is taking notes on everyone’s booze preferences for the next time they visit the old Cock & Bull pub.
BTW, re Josh’s T-shirt request, how about J & M at the bar with almost full pint glasses and a speech bubble from the off-screen Barmaid calling “Last Orders!”, or, even better, “Time, gentlemen, please!”?
Troubleshooter: When your beer glass is empty and you desire another, is it logical to order another Guinness?
Most certainly NOT!
It is of course a good reason to order (another) Weizenbier, or Tripel, or perhaps Lentebok;
but assuredly NOT The Black Insult that for the Irish has to do as a poor replacement for Bier.
Dr John, that won’t do. Irish Stout in all its forms is an excellent cultural expression. As are, of course, the Belgian offerings.
By insulting Guinness, you might be risking mort subite. 😉 I mean … it’s not as though it’s the bland Köstritzer Schwarzbier.
By the way, I’ve been a homebrewer for over 30 years, and when I make my 8% pseudo-kriek, I call it “Even More Subite”, with a little feminine skull on the label. No-one around here gets my jokes.
Gentlemen, thanks for the Scotch recommendations. I can get Bell’s, Grouse, and Money Shoulder here. I’ve never seen Compass Box Oak Cross. I’ve had Bell’s and Grouse, but probably over 30 years ago. I don’t really remember them. I might try Monkey Shoulder one day.
I have a favorite Scotch story. It was the early 80s, and I was studying math, first at Concordia University and later at University of Ottawa. To supplement my meagre teaching assistantship, I tutored math to the offspring of rich people. The university referred requests to me. (I was very good at one-on-one teaching, but also, I found that if you charged LOTS of money, rich people would think they were buying a luxury product. I never wanted for customers or beer money.)
In those days, I used to drink Teacher’s, and the joke didn’t escape me.
Anyway, one of the referrals was from the Mexican ambassador, whose daughter was having trouble with her high school math. I went to the embassy, sat with the girl for an hour to figure out how she thought. The stumbling block was that I preferred that she’d come to my university office, and she wanted me to come to the embassy. So we decided that we wouldn’t continue. She asked what she owed me, and I said nothing, because we hadn’t had a real session, we were just seeing whether or not it would work out.
The next day, at the university, there was a gift waiting for me: two bottles of Glenlivet. That night, two friends and I polished off one of them. (One was an American draft dodger who became a Canadian citizen, the other an ex-pat from Nottingham.)
And I must admit, I wasn’t aware that you could get bagels in Brick Lane. Curries, yes…”
When last I was over that way there were two Beigel houses left in brick lane, surrounded by curry houses; some of the last remnants in the area, along with the abandoned synagogue in Aldgate, of an older wave of migrants than the Bangladeshis who built the latter.
Laripu:
If the reward for insulting Guinness is a Mort Subite (for non-francophones: sudden death) I will do it again, repeatedly! One of the better Belgian beers.
On the whisky thing, I have had several chances of letting me be convinced to try someones’ favorite, but I stick to the cheapest offer of the moment; a double measure in a glass with a spoonful of brown sugar, hot black coffee, and a generous amount of whipped cream topping. (sunday morning bliss!)
For my stronger drinks I prefer French Cognacs (from my students days onward I have valued having the choice of 4 different Cognacs as a possession to continuously aspire) or Oude Genever.
I had drinking aquaintancies who were Belgian beer fans…unfortunately all three died in their forties (two from panceatic cancer, one through sclerosis) think that was rhe fact that belgian ales are ridiculously tasty at high ABVs….so yeah sudden death…
JtW…I know that correlation does not indicate causation…however, I have a lot of other peers who have not been such heavy consumers of belgian strong beer tbat are in their fifties like me…I intend to be able to shag my mrs when I am 100…a not unreasonable aim me thinks…
M27:
MY wish for 100 is to then be killed in the act by a jealous husband (although my wife promises me she hopes he will not succeed, so she can fulfill the verdict herself!)
Jesus & Mo (the characters) are absurd, blinkered, and oddly very sweet. J&M (the cartoon) is brilliant: sharp, delicious, irresistible. Salman Rushdie
Jesus and Mo cartoons are wonderfully funny and true. Richard Dawkins
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The brilliant, celebrated, freaking hilarious atheist comic strip ... Greta Christina
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J & Mo is the funniest and most consistently thought-provoking cartoon strip on the Net. In a saner world, it would run in a major newspaper. Nelson Jones, Heresy Corner
Consistently amusing, frequently thought-provoking and often heart-warming. New Humanist
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Wittily captures much of the absurdity of religious apologetics. Mano Singham
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Often hilarious, frequently wry, these cartoons do what all the best cartoons do: they tell the truth through humour. Terry Sanderson, NSS President
...a wonderfully acid British cartoonist... Nick Cohen
I love the scrappy mockery of Jesus and Mo. Freedom of speech
includes the freedom to mock any person, any thing, any activity, and
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...empowering, important and deeply progressive, not to mention hilarious... Council of Ex-Muslims
August 21, 2006
This is absolutely brilliant!
In other words, “When I believe it, I’ll See it.”
Very clever! And very funny!
I love the Barmaid.
I’d love it if the author could devise a clever way to portray the barmaid for a tshirt, without revealing what she actually looks like…
Why are J&M breaking the rules and sitting at the bar? Tut, tut!
Once, at a panel, one of the panelists said that there is no objective knowledge, only folk epistemologies owned by the separate identity groups. I raised my hand and said that in _my_ folk epistemology, there _is_ such a thing as objective knowledge, and it is the common property of all humankind. Everyone else in the room gasped in unison, like I was a wrestling heavy who had just body-slammed the hero. I shall treasure that moment forever.
Your epistemology depends on your sensory system. What you can know, is quite different if you also have access to an IR camera, or a long zoom lens, or radar or a microscope.
In general, your tools determine what you can do. If you’re looking for darkness, you’ll never find it by searching for it with a flashlight. (Torch for UK people.)
Biblical exegesis is a poor substitute for scientific method.
Laripu. We know what a flashlight is…we don’t live in mud huts snd have a hunter gatherer existance you know.. we just get confused when a fanny is a bottom…
Laripu….The flashlight was an English invention so we know what it is.
I was trying to be polite by using the alternate phrase. If you think I was being snide or sarcastic, you’re mistaken.
Furthermore, while I’ve only been in the UK for one week, for work, I very much enjoyed it. I spent a week in Yeovil in Somerset, and one afternoon in London. People were friendly and helpful, even chatty. (That may be because I bring that out of people.)
I didn’t drive, took taxis and trains. The trains were well organized. The taxis scared the crap out of me. It always felt like they were on the wrong side, that a head on collision was imminent. Good thing I didn’t drive.
Food and drink: in the airport, coming off the plane, I was hungry, so I had a Cornish pasty – excellent. Local cider in Somerset is deservedly will known. In London, on Brick Lane, bagels (spelled beigel there) rival those of Montreal and New York City. All different, all good.
The problem occurs when the USian reads something like “Check the level in your motorbike’s petrol tank, using a torch if necessary.”
I love the fun you can have with American English vs English English. A rubber and a fag are two of my favourite ambiguities… 🙂
And I must admit, I wasn’t aware that you could get bagels in Brick Lane. Curries, yes…
Laripu: Next time you visit UK, make it Scotland, Aberdeen in particular, rather than London*. We also drive on the “wrong side” (left, which is of course right) and have national and local food & drink specialities as well as international cuisine in larger towns and cities. Single malt Scotch whisky (please, not whiskey!) is famous worldwide. And the people are (mostly) friendly and helpful, especially in rural areas. You may well be slightly more welcomed as a Canadian than as a USA citizen – but either way, we welcome your foreign exchange!
Most Scots are familiar with transatlantic “English”, through films, TV and other media. (In some country areas, even other Scots have difficulty understanding the local speech, but the locals do understand “proper” English.)
BTW, in the last census, Aberdeen had the highest proportion of atheists in the entire UK.
*Absolutely no disrespect to the fine town of Yeovil!
S.O.G…Aberdeen? I’ve only been there for football and it was grim, cold and only good for kite enthusiasts…also isn’t it built on granite which releases radioactive gases that makes living there for a long time worse than working in a nuclear power plant? Fergie couldn’t wait to re-build the worlds finest football team and knock the feckin scousers off their perch… he still lives in south Manchester…
Son of Glenner, if I can ever travel again, Scotland (and Scotch) are on my list. I prefer blends: Dewar’s White for normal days, Johnny Walker Black when it’s something special. A bit of smoke, a hint. I’m not a huge fan of Islay single malts, because I don’t want to be drinking an ashtray. I used to like Aberlour 8yr in the nineties, but you can’t get that here anymore, and older expressions are too refined.
That said, I like Canadian whisky too, for the vanilla and caramel barrel flavors that certain ones have. One inexpensive Canadian whisky I like, that is only available in the US, is “Rich and Rare Reserve”. (The Reserve is important; without it, it’s a far lesser drink.) I’m having some now, awaiting the second debate between a normal intelligent human being and a 5-watt mendacious authoritarian kleptocrat.
I’m not a fan of Bourbon. I find the result of heavy char on new barrels off-putting, just like the extreme Islay smoke.
I can imagine enjoying a wee drappie o’t, at Balmoral, with my pals Phil Battenberg and Chuck Windsor, if Liz would only let ’em loose. 😉 (Just kidding, of course. I wouldn’t be seen with those hereditary lowlifes.)
I have a massive grievance with you guys. According to the Kuran and multiple Hadiths, Muhammed bin Abdullah sported a beard and NO MOUSTACHE. This ludicrous facial hairdo has been all he rage since and is one of the easiest ways of identifying a fundamentalist. Please draw your Mo without a stache henceforth. Otherwise it’s fatwa time.
Mo: [Reason and logic] are designed to maintain existing structures of power and oppression.
True enough, Mo … but they are ALSO used every time we make a rational decision. When you cross the street, do you look both ways to determine if it’s safe to cross? When your beer glass is empty and you desire another, is it logical to order another Guinness?
I have to wonder if you could so much as get out of bed without reason and logic, guys. I dare ya!
Laripu: Oddly enough, the blends you name are seldom seen in the UK; Bells is the most common in England, and The Famous Grouse is the most common in Scotland!
Nakul: As has been pointed out several times over the years in these comments, the Mo in this cartoon is a body double. That absolves our esteemed Author of blasphemy.
Long as we’re talking about blended scotch, may I heartily suggest the following:
• Monkey Shoulder
• Compass Box Oak Cross
Both are excellent. The Oak Cross has some amazing complexity to it as well. Highly recommended.
In the whisky debate..I prefer Irish whiskey, jamesons being my usual tipple…much more smooth I think….but I’m more into triple hop IPA as a rule….
I hope the (lovely!) Barmaid is taking notes on everyone’s booze preferences for the next time they visit the old Cock & Bull pub.
BTW, re Josh’s T-shirt request, how about J & M at the bar with almost full pint glasses and a speech bubble from the off-screen Barmaid calling “Last Orders!”, or, even better, “Time, gentlemen, please!”?
Troubleshooter:
When your beer glass is empty and you desire another, is it logical to order another Guinness?
Most certainly NOT!
It is of course a good reason to order (another) Weizenbier, or Tripel, or perhaps Lentebok;
but assuredly NOT The Black Insult that for the Irish has to do as a poor replacement for Bier.
Dr John, that won’t do. Irish Stout in all its forms is an excellent cultural expression. As are, of course, the Belgian offerings.
By insulting Guinness, you might be risking mort subite. 😉 I mean … it’s not as though it’s the bland Köstritzer Schwarzbier.
By the way, I’ve been a homebrewer for over 30 years, and when I make my 8% pseudo-kriek, I call it “Even More Subite”, with a little feminine skull on the label. No-one around here gets my jokes.
Gentlemen, thanks for the Scotch recommendations. I can get Bell’s, Grouse, and Money Shoulder here. I’ve never seen Compass Box Oak Cross. I’ve had Bell’s and Grouse, but probably over 30 years ago. I don’t really remember them. I might try Monkey Shoulder one day.
I have a favorite Scotch story. It was the early 80s, and I was studying math, first at Concordia University and later at University of Ottawa. To supplement my meagre teaching assistantship, I tutored math to the offspring of rich people. The university referred requests to me. (I was very good at one-on-one teaching, but also, I found that if you charged LOTS of money, rich people would think they were buying a luxury product. I never wanted for customers or beer money.)
In those days, I used to drink Teacher’s, and the joke didn’t escape me.
Anyway, one of the referrals was from the Mexican ambassador, whose daughter was having trouble with her high school math. I went to the embassy, sat with the girl for an hour to figure out how she thought. The stumbling block was that I preferred that she’d come to my university office, and she wanted me to come to the embassy. So we decided that we wouldn’t continue. She asked what she owed me, and I said nothing, because we hadn’t had a real session, we were just seeing whether or not it would work out.
The next day, at the university, there was a gift waiting for me: two bottles of Glenlivet. That night, two friends and I polished off one of them. (One was an American draft dodger who became a Canadian citizen, the other an ex-pat from Nottingham.)
That’s my whisky story, and I’m stickin’ to it.
“?
And I must admit, I wasn’t aware that you could get bagels in Brick Lane. Curries, yes…”
When last I was over that way there were two Beigel houses left in brick lane, surrounded by curry houses; some of the last remnants in the area, along with the abandoned synagogue in Aldgate, of an older wave of migrants than the Bangladeshis who built the latter.
Laripu:
If the reward for insulting Guinness is a Mort Subite (for non-francophones: sudden death) I will do it again, repeatedly! One of the better Belgian beers.
On the whisky thing, I have had several chances of letting me be convinced to try someones’ favorite, but I stick to the cheapest offer of the moment; a double measure in a glass with a spoonful of brown sugar, hot black coffee, and a generous amount of whipped cream topping. (sunday morning bliss!)
For my stronger drinks I prefer French Cognacs (from my students days onward I have valued having the choice of 4 different Cognacs as a possession to continuously aspire) or Oude Genever.
I had drinking aquaintancies who were Belgian beer fans…unfortunately all three died in their forties (two from panceatic cancer, one through sclerosis) think that was rhe fact that belgian ales are ridiculously tasty at high ABVs….so yeah sudden death…
M27:
The risk of me dying in my forties is not too high:
I am currently 69 and intend on continuing a while longer.
Dr John the Wipper: “… intend on continuing a while longer.”
It is said: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”
Dr John the Wipper: “… and intend on continuing a while longer.”
It is said: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”
See, Dr John: that’s what you get for deriding Guinness.
JtW…I know that correlation does not indicate causation…however, I have a lot of other peers who have not been such heavy consumers of belgian strong beer tbat are in their fifties like me…I intend to be able to shag my mrs when I am 100…a not unreasonable aim me thinks…
M27:
MY wish for 100 is to then be killed in the act by a jealous husband (although my wife promises me she hopes he will not succeed, so she can fulfill the verdict herself!)