Category Archives: Rationalism

At the time of writing, a rainbow flag hangs over Tate Britain. The gallerys current exhibition, Queer British Art, celebrates the creativity of the closet between 1861 (the year that execution was replaced by life imprisonment for a conviction of sodomy) and 1967, the year of the Sexual Offences Act, which partially decriminalised sex between consenting men. Have we come a long way in the past 50 years? A recent news report in The Guardian stated: A spokesman for [Ramzan] Kadyrov [Chechnyas leader] has previously denied their existence, saying if there were gay people in Chechnya, their families would have killed them. It seems not.

In Visions of Sodom, H. G. Cocks examines the relationship between homoerotic desire and the various anxieties about social, religious, cultural and even apocalyptic collapse. He demonstrates how the contemporary Christian Right (especially in America) has hijacked the discourse of Sodom for a homophobic cause. But this is a comparatively recent association. From the early modern period and through to the 19th century, Cocks shows, the homoerotic was understood in relation to broader categories of behavior such as fornication, uncleanness, or atheism.

Some of the most virulently anti-Sodomitical propaganda was, unsurprisingly, that of the early modern Protestants accusing the Papacy of religio-sexual turpitude. Chief here was John Bale, employed by Thomas Cromwell to denigrate the Roman Church from which Henry VIIIs new religious splinter group had departed so acrimoniously. William Tyndale as well as Bale insisted on the perversion of clerical celibacy that flew in the face of scriptural evidence as well as the practice of the early church. This could lead only to sodomy and whoredom as the Antichrist established increasing dominance over the institutions of Catholicism both in Rome and in the remnants of the Roman faith closer to home.

In a fascinating chapter, Cocks demonstrates how the discourses of lewdness and urban growth were entwined: the city made material the overlapping connection between apparent prosperity, economic iniquities, luxury and sexual excess. This led (from about the 1680s) to the emergence of the many societies for the reformation of manners of which by 1699 there were eight such societies in London, along with others in nineteen English towns. The apparent deathbed conversion of the periods libertine par excellence, the Earl of Rochester, was held to prove conclusively that sin was contrary to reason and nature.

This shift in emphasis was intensified by Louis-Flicien de Sauleys claim (in 1851) to have located the historical city of Sodom in the area of the Dead Sea. While Darwinism and geology had served to undermine scriptural literalism in an age of creeping religious rationalism and historicism, de Sauleys sensational discovery electrified evangelicals and anti-Catholic writers as well as appealing to political radicals such as the Chartists.

This is a powerful and important book. As St Paul insisted, sodomy was a crime not to be named and so homoerotic desire quickly became screened by hyperbolic accusations of all kinds of iniquity. In disentangling these complexities, Cocks demonstrates not only how the story of Sodoms destruction is central to the history of homoerotic desire, but how its various inflections have been shaped by religious, political and cultural contingencies.

Peter J. Smith is reader in Renaissance literature at Nottingham Trent University, and co-editor (with Deborah Cartmell) of Much Ado About Nothing: A Critical Reader in Ardens Early Modern Drama Guides (forthcoming).

Visions of Sodom: Religion, Homoerotic Desire, and the End of the World in England, c.1550-1850 By H. G. Cocks University of Chicago Press, 352pp, 41.50 ISBN 9780226438665 and 8832 (e-book) Published 24 April 2017

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Visions of Sodom: Religion, Homoerotic Desire, and the End of the World in England, c.1550-1850, by HG Cocks - Times Higher Education (THE)

So youve worked closely with Americas most famous atheist for two decades and decide to write a play. What would you choose to dramatize?

Well, how about imagining three other equally famous men a deist, a Christian anarchist and a skeptic who leaned strongly towards Unitarianism who are locked in a room thats not Hell but is definitely on the Other Side and have them try to figure out why theyre there? Oh, and make the title really long so people will remember it!

After a life-threatening illness, Scott Carter (longtime producer and writer for the acerbic Bill Maher) started working on a play about spirituality and chose these men: Declaration of Independence author and former President Thomas Jefferson, Victorian literary superstar Charles Dickens and the passionate, irascible author of War and Peace Leo Tolstoy. In The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord (hereafter referred to as The Gospel) we are treated to a delightful character study of three extraordinary men thinly disguised as a philosophical debate about faith.

The play begins as the three men are thrust into a white walled room with a door that locks behind them, a table, three chairs and a mirror (the audience) as the fourth wall, a room that could easily be in the same neighborhood as the purgatorial bus stop C.S. Lewis created in his novel The Great Divorce. In Lewis book the recently deceased jostle and snarl at each other waiting for a celestial bus to take them to Heaven.

But in this room, where Leo (Dont call me Count) Tolstoy says the free thinkers are trapped like three Jonahs in a whales belly the disputes are mostly intellectual. Naturally, they dont like being locked up and want to find a way out and on. As the three captives exchange their stories it becomes clear they all were drawn to the original teachings of Jesus, to the point where each man developed his own version of the Gospel.

In the table drawer they find blank journals and pens Someone obviously wants them to use. So they get to work creating a new Gospel and quickly discover that they cant agree on much of anything.

Jefferson was the rational deist who famously wrote, it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error. He believed in a Supreme Being but not in the Trinity. Dickens was a publicly devout skeptic who often criticized what he saw as religious extremism in Britain. Tolstoy in his later years became an unorthodox Christian who based his beliefs in Christs message of nonviolence.

Can the three geniuses work together to get out of their impasse? Remember that they are all writers. Carter ensures its great fun to watch them try by having each man reveal contradictions in his spirituality. Jefferson was the defender of rationalism and moral sense who couldnt give up the six hundred slaves that ran his beloved home Monticello, even after death. Dickens and Tolstoys ambivalence about the class system in their countries was reflected in their own shaky marriages.

Gregory Isaacs cool veneer of self-confidence and unquestioned leadership as Jefferson keeps the more emotional outbursts of Dickens (Brian McCann) and Tolstoy (Andrew Criss) in check (at least for a while). McCann, who was the conniving Roman tribune Menenius in Lanterns splendid production of Coriolanus this season pushes hard on Carters view of Dickens as a clever, conceited self-promoter. Hes the spark of the production and fun to watch but Dickens was surely a more complex character than this preening egomaniac who spends much of his time trying to get a reaction from the tightly wound and self-righteous Tolstoy.

Director James Ljames, ubiquitous on the local theater scene as playwright, director and actor has the latters appreciation for giving each character a chance for big and small moments that resonate. Despite the seemingly cramped conditions of this small room packed with so much self-regard, Ljames has choreographed the actors well and they parade around and onto the table and chairs in a small but boisterous ballet of braggadocio and big ideas.

IF YOU GO

The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens & Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord runs through July 9 at Lantern Theater, 10th and Ludlow streets in Philadelphia. For tickets call 215-829-0395 or go to http://www.lanterntheater.org

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'The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and ... - Main Line

Iran says its Sundaymissile attack against Takfiri targets in Syria in retaliation for terror attacks against Tehran was just a small slap in the face of the terrorists and their patrons.

Bahram Qassemi, Foreign Ministrys spokesman, made the remarks on Monday following theIslamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC)'s launch ofsix medium-range ballistic missiles at Daesh bases inDayr al-Zawr.

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The retaliation was just a wake-up warning to those who still cannot or have not managed to decently comprehend the realities of the region and their own limits, he said.

The strike, which took place with Syrias consent, delivered fatal blows to terror outfits and their central command post in Dayr al-Zawr, he added.

Qassemi said the Islamic Republic believesterrorism is condemned in whatever form or place or under whatever pretext.

Iran does not take lightly the issue of defending its security and stability," the spokesman said, adding the Islamic Republic willexert utmost effort in fighting terrorism, insecurity, and instability.

He also advised regional supporters of Takfiri terror outfits to abandon their vendetta against the Muslims of the region and the Islamic Republic and return to the path of rationalism, fraternity, Islamic solidarity, and reinforcement of the unitedfront against Zionism.

Some powers, he said, use security and terrorism as ameans forbusiness, selling billions of dollars in arms to the main supporters of Takfiri terrorists while laying claim to an anti-terror fight at the same time.

The spokesman was apparently referring to US sales of $110 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia during President Donald Trump's visit to the kingdom last month.

The Islamic Republic, however, would keep up its real and consistent battle towards the eradication of terror groups, he asserted.

Also, Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior adviser to Leader of the Islamic Revolution, said, The worlds most independent country will authoritatively respond to the ill-wishers, terrorists, and theenemies wherever they might be.

He said the IRGC's missile strike on Sunday night just displayed a fraction of Iran'sdeterrence power.

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Iran: Missile strike in Syria 'just a small slap' - Press TV

People should put their time, energy into fixing America Victoria Advocate Humanism, as defined in Wikipedia, is a philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and generally prefers critical thinking and evidence (rationalism, empiricism) over acceptance ...

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People should put their time, energy into fixing America - Victoria Advocate

The hosts of Fox News Outnumbered today discussed whether on-camera White House press briefings are still necessary, and they even got in some shots at CNNs Jim Acosta for his complaints about yesterdays off-camera, no-audio gaggle.

Acosta yesterday appeared on CNN multiple times after the gaggle to tear into the White House for stonewalling questions and even going so far as to say that Sean Spicer is kind of useless now.

After showing video of Acosta going off yesterday, the Outnumbered hosts joked around a bit and one of them said that looked like a tantrum.

Kennedy weighed in by saying this:

Jim Acosta needs to eat a ham sandwich because it looks like his sugar was a little bit low. You know, people like that need to get a grip on themselves. And unfortunately, weve lost all sense of reality and rationalism. Yes, we do need to hold the White House accountable regardless of who the occupant is, but also, the press needs to be at least somewhat objective.

Melissa Francis said that the motivations of some in the press for wanting these briefings are less about getting answers for the American people and more about getting fodder and good content of them getting combative with Spicer.

Watch above, via Fox News.

[image via screengrab]

Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com

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'Get a Grip': Fox's Outnumbered Swipes at CNN's Acosta for Complaints About Off-Camera Gaggle - Mediaite

Lucy EJ Woods

20th June, 2017

Scientists finding a "joint language" they can use to communicate with environmentalists, would also aid climate science literacy

Science: the global endeavour of humans to understand the universe. People carrying out this endeavour - scientists - are defined by the UK Science Council as: "someone who systematically gathers and uses research and evidence, making a hypothesis and testing it, to gain and share understanding and knowledge."

The intent to share scientific research is a crucial distinction; it defines science as a public good, as much about method as it is about values.

At a pro-science march in London, climate scientist Chris Rapley, say science is about valuing "investigation and internationalism."

Marching in Berlin, Jurgen Kurths, a physicist and mathematician at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research says "science is international...We collaborate with China and Russia and the UK. We are all international scientists; there is only one physics and one climatology, not, say, an English one and a German one."

Rapley and Kurths marched because they felt the values of investigation and international collaboration are under attack.

The US is eradicating environmental science, the UK is "sick of experts", and turning to climate change deniers for leadership. Be it pulling out of the Paris agreement, or renewable energy cuts, "there is a strong move in the English-speaking world against rationalism," says Rapley, "we must defend against it."

This need to defend rationalism has morphed into a global pro-science' movement. Dashing the introverted stereotype, the scientific community donned lab coats, painted placards and chanted in the streets. Marches took place in 600 cities across the world, from Manilla to Amsterdam. Kurths says he couldn't remember a time before the nuclear weapons demonstrations in the 1950s when scientists united to protest in such large numbers.

Taking place on 22 April, the marches deliberately coincided with Earth Day. Many placards and chants focused on climate change - with environmentalists marching alongside climate scientists.

The pro-science movement "speaks to the ethos" of environmental organisations like Greenpeace, says Paul Johnston, principal scientist at Greenpeace Research Laboratories.

Grassroots environmental group, Friends of the Earth (FoE) backs "the purpose" of the pro-science movement "100%" says Mike Childs, head of science, policy and research. This is because FoE frequently works alongside scientists, "on a case-by-case basis...to make sure we get our facts right," says Childs.

As well as working on projects together, there are shared values between environmentalists and scientists; FoE is "aligned with the value of international collaboration" and has "always been informed by scientific research, together with the values of social justice and intergenerational justice," says Childs. Greenpeace is also "committed as an organisation to working collaboratively with people across the world," says Johnston.

Seeing eye to eye

But while there are good relationships and shared values, "that doesn't mean we see eye to eye with all scientists," says Childs, "not all scientists consider the social and economic impact of their research."

There are disagreements on a multitude of issues between scientists and environmentalists, from fracking and pesticides, to nuclear power and GMOs.

Whether caused by hypes of world-saving' technology, corporate sponsored science or vested interests, scientific disputes should not be ignored, says Childs, "we mustn't pretend that science' has one clear view."

Using GMOs as an example, Childs says although GMOs are scientifically proven to be safe for human consumption, there are still important questions environmental groups ask, such as, "who has control of our food chain?"

These differences in approach seem to balloon into conflict most often when scientific work is translated into policy. Like when the UK government championed fracking on the basis of one scientific paper (which has since been discredited), or when US scientists caution themselves on researching geoengineering, in fear that their work is misused to justify delayed action on climate change. Scientists "need to inform policy, but they also need to stand up and say if a policy is not informed by the best science," says Johnston.

Scientists need to lose the "naive", "ivory tower" perception of not getting involved in politics, as "once you've informed policy, you are involved in the political process...[science] defacto becomes political, you can't get away from it...Value-free science doesn't exist," says Johnston.

Rapley puts much of the confusion between environmentalists and scientists - and politicians and the public - down to communication. "The classic way science delivers its message is doomed to fail," says Rapley.

"We need to engage people and engage emotions; generally, scientists strive to eliminate emotions, but the subject of climate change can be alarming and scary. The story of climate change has clearly raised anxiety and cognitive dissonance, which has then been [politically] exploited."

While there is "an obligation to speak up" about scientific findings such as polar ice melting, says Rapley, scientists should also offer their opinions publicly, as "an off-duty comment."

"The role of science in society is to offer positive answers to positive questions. Not to use scientific authority to muddle statements. If I'm asked what is dangerous climate change, for example, I can't answer as a scientist [as danger is subjective], but I can give my own opinion, as a human," says Rapley.

To continue raising the public's awareness and literacy of environmental issues, both movements have a role to make their work "accessible and truthful," says Johnston. "How does their work relate to the public? What captivates [the public]?" Environmentalists and scientists, Johnston says, should be repeatedly asking these questions to avoid some of the "nightmare" of explaining the nuances within climate science.

Scientists finding a "joint language" they can use to communicate with environmentalists would also aid climate science literacy, says Kurths.

One barrier Johnston identifies as halting this joint language is a reluctance from mainstream academics to be associated, or funded, by environmental groups such as Greenpeace. Scientists should reconsider, and "do more work" with environmentalists, says Kurths.

Both scientists and environmentalists need to "look more deeply at the interests related to environment and climate change," to identify overlapping values, says Johnston. Collaboration, on the basis of shared interests, could lead to more scientific solutions and greater political will in the fight against climate change.

If neither the environmentalist movement, nor the pro-science movement is working to identify and communicate based on shared values, says Johnston, "people don't realise this synergy exists, and then they don't exploit it."

This Author

Lucy EJ Woods is a freelance journalist specialising in energy and environment reporting. Currently based in London she has reported on environmental issues from Russia, Mongolia, Indonesia, Nepal and the Philippines and has been published in various titles, including The Guardian, Climate Home, Mongabay and many others. You can find more of her work at:lucyejwoods.com, or follow her on Twitter:@lucyejwoods

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Collaboration and communication: how science and environmentalists can fight climate change together - The Ecologist (blog)

The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens & Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord runs through July 9 at Lantern Theater, 10th and Ludlow streets in Philadelphia. For tickets call 215-829-0395 or go to http://www.lanterntheater.org

So youve worked closely with Americas most famous atheist for two decades and decide to write a play. What would you choose to dramatize?

Well, how about imagining three other equally famous men a deist, a Christian anarchist and a skeptic who leaned strongly towards Unitarianism who are locked in a room thats not Hell but is definitely on the Other Side and have them try to figure out why theyre there? Oh, and make the title really long so people will remember it!

After a life-threatening illness, Scott Carter (longtime producer and writer for the acerbic Bill Maher) started working on a play about spirituality and chose these men: Declaration of Independence author and former President Thomas Jefferson, Victorian literary superstar Charles Dickens and the passionate, irascible author of War and Peace Leo Tolstoy. In The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord (hereafter referred to as The Gospel) we are treated to a delightful character study of three extraordinary men thinly disguised as a philosophical debate about faith.

The play begins as the three men are thrust into a white walled room with a door that locks behind them, a table, three chairs and a mirror (the audience) as the fourth wall, a room that could easily be in the same neighborhood as the purgatorial bus stop C.S. Lewis created in his novel The Great Divorce. In Lewis book the recently deceased jostle and snarl at each other waiting for a celestial bus to take them to Heaven.

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But in this room, where Leo (Dont call me Count) Tolstoy says the free thinkers are trapped like three Jonahs in a whales belly the disputes are mostly intellectual. Naturally, they dont like being locked up and want to find a way out and on. As the three captives exchange their stories it becomes clear they all were drawn to the original teachings of Jesus, to the point where each man developed his own version of the Gospel.

In the table drawer they find blank journals and pens Someone obviously wants them to use. So they get to work creating a new Gospel and quickly discover that they cant agree on much of anything.

Jefferson was the rational deist who famously wrote, it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error. He believed in a Supreme Being but not in the Trinity. Dickens was a publicly devout skeptic who often criticized what he saw as religious extremism in Britain. Tolstoy in his later years became an unorthodox Christian who based his beliefs in Christs message of nonviolence.

Can the three geniuses work together to get out of their impasse? Remember that they are all writers. Carter ensures its great fun to watch them try by having each man reveal contradictions in his spirituality. Jefferson was the defender of rationalism and moral sense who couldnt give up the six hundred slaves that ran his beloved home Monticello, even after death. Dickens and Tolstoys ambivalence about the class system in their countries was reflected in their own shaky marriages.

Gregory Isaacs cool veneer of self-confidence and unquestioned leadership as Jefferson keeps the more emotional outbursts of Dickens (Brian McCann) and Tolstoy (Andrew Criss) in check (at least for a while). McCann, who was the conniving Roman tribune Menenius in Lanterns splendid production of Coriolanus this season pushes hard on Carters view of Dickens as a clever, conceited self-promoter. Hes the spark of the production and fun to watch but Dickens was surely a more complex character than this preening egomaniac who spends much of his time trying to get a reaction from the tightly wound and self-righteous Tolstoy.

Director James Ljames, ubiquitous on the local theater scene as playwright, director and actor has the latters appreciation for giving each character a chance for big and small moments that resonate. Despite the seemingly cramped conditions of this small room packed with so much self-regard, Ljames has choreographed the actors well and they parade around and onto the table and chairs in a small but boisterous ballet of braggadocio and big ideas.

See the original post here:

The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson ... - The Times Herald - The Times Herald

Improbability, like Rome, isn't built in a day. You don't suddenly up and arrive at a situation of no hope, thinking: "Well, no hope here." No, if an achievement that was once probable has now become improbable, then it stands to reason that there was a journey, and it must, by definition, have been a dispiriting one. To understand that something is now improbable is to acknowledge that each moment on that road would have sapped the soul a little. This could be done. Now, no way. With each step forward, eyes would have opened wider. The destination would have begun to take clearer shape. And anger would have grown as it approached.

Why are things so bad? Why are we coming here? Why is nobody stopping this? And then, when the destination is clear, the anger would have bubbled over, not burning like fire but flowing like lava. That point, at the end of the road, represents the final defeat of the spirit: from there, very little is probable. Almost everything is improbable and the only difference is in the degree.

The improbability of Pakistan's Champions Trophy triumph (I watched it, slept and woke up, and it still happened) began, in earnest, two years ago. Actually it began many years ago, but right after the 2015 World Cup was when it escalated. In that tournament, Pakistan were showing clear signs of lagging. After it, as the game went boldly forth, Pakistan meekly retreated. They made Azhar Ali the captain, and though it wasn't on him entirely, they looked like a side that didn't know the 1990s were over.

At first, the batting appeared to be the issue. Good sides were making 350 for fun, and Pakistan were happy with 300. In England last year, they made 260, 251, 275, 247 and 304; in Australia this year they made 176, 221, 263, 267 and 312. Too many dot balls, 270-degree batting, and no power-hitters; in the time of Tinder, Pakistan were a bricks-and-mortar marriage bureau.

The real kicker was that their bowling became outdated. Once every four games, they were taken for over 300, and usually it wasn't just over but well past it: in the last two years Pakistan conceded 329, 334, 368, 355, 444, 353, 369 and 319. There was no diversity, no personality. The spinners were not Saeed Ajmal. The fast bowlers were not express. They did little with the new ball, less through the middle, and the less said about the death the better.

You don't need to be told about the fielding.

When they dumped Azhar as captain and put Sarfraz Ahmed in his place, it was two series too late and two years too late. They came into the Champions Trophy ranked eighth, thanks mostly to a bit of manipulative scheduling. And the ranking flattered them. It had taken two years - or 20 - but anything beyond a group-stage exit was highly improbable, if not out of the question.

****

Six years ago, jolted by an improbable Pakistan victory against Sri Lanka in Sharjah, I determined to write a bigger piece on the nature of the win. Sri Lanka were 155 for 3, coasting to a target of 201, until suddenly they weren't. Pakistan, I felt that night, had done this too many times for it not to mean something. Of course it meant something and, what's more, it warranted deeper study.

I went wide rather than deep, though, drawing on Sufism, pop culture, sports psychology, Qawwali, reverse swing, and politics to produce a kind of loose thesis: what happened in these moments in matches, on days and even over entire tournaments when Pakistan did the improbable, was the appearance of Haal - the ecstatic state of being in which, as Idries Shah explained in his book Oriental Magic, "Sufis are believed to be able to overcome all barriers of time, space and thought. They are able to cause apparently impossible things to happen merely because they are no longer confined by the barriers which exist for more ordinary people." This Haal - it created something special, a synchronicity between the team, the spectacle in that state, and the observer, also within the trance.

Truth be told, as the years have passed I have become a little embarrassed by the article. Partly it is because I can see holes in it I wish I had filled. But as Pakistan struggled to regularly produce such moments I have seen it, at best, a jinx, and at worst an absolute fantasy. One commenter on the piece said it was, "Orientalism at its best," and it still stings because, you know what, there is truth to it. I justified it by saying it was an exploration of a very personal sensation.

But I can't deny that the further I have got from it, the greater the sense of guilt that I overlooked a more rational, analytical way of understanding Pakistan. One of the ways of growing older is to cede to rationalism: resigning to the truth that there is, sadly, reason behind everything. It just needs to be found. This happens because that happened, and we can measure and explain - and not just feel - this as well as that. One of the best things to have happened to cricket in recent years is that it has been opened up to rigorous analytical and data-based scrutiny. That has peeled off a layer, allowing a changed understanding of each game, contest, even each ball.

I haven't fully embraced it, but I don't deny it. I understand it underpins everything and for explanations, it must be the first recourse. If it hasn't already, science, reason and data will one day render Haal redundant as theory.

****

Pakistan have deserved better than to be further enshrouded inside mysteries and riddles, bouncing between states of Haal and otherwise, to be the subject of lazy stereotyping. They are not magicians, or Sufis. They are professional athletes.

One of the truest joys of the Misbah-ul-Haq era was that on the occasions Pakistan did pull off the improbable, Misbah was there to tell you exactly why it happened. And he would tell you that some inexplicable, elemental force had not seized the day, but that his side had planned this, off and on the field.

So I'm here to tell you, and myself, that there is a reason for this Pakistan win, the mightiest of which is that they bowled their way to it. Break it down to how they have fought off a modern trend by attacking it and exposing it for what it is. The middle overs are no longer the stretch where batting takes stock and sets itself up for a final ten-over tilt. The middle is the tilt, especially between overs 30 and 40 when power-hitters have begun to take games away.

Pakistan called this bluff. What happens if we attack, with our lengths, fields and skills? If we get wickets, will you blink first? They have been happy to bowl softer overs up front, and then attack when batsmen are set to attack. This ten-over stretch is where Pakistan cut sides off: taking eight wickets while conceding just 3.53 per over. That rate is nearly a run better than all other sides. Other than a few overs from Imad Wasim and Mohammad Hafeez, Pakistan used their fast bowlers and legspinner: Mohammad Amir, Junaid Khan, Hasan Ali and Shadab Khan.

The return of Hafeez as bowler has been a safety net, but they've been smart about that. He bowled 18 overs against South Africa and England, but just six against India and Sri Lanka. And Shadab, with turn both ways, has been a game-changing find: the wicket-taking option that coach Mickey Arthur so dearly wanted in the middle overs.

Then in two matches, against Sri Lanka and England, Pakistan got used pitches, slower and lower, which they would have been familiar with. Still, familiarity doesn't mean adeptness - in the UAE, on similar tracks, they have lost six of their last eight bilateral series.

They also got to bowl first in four games out of five, and by getting sides out cheaply in three, their batting orders made sense. No Pakistan batsman has worked harder to expand and develop his game than Azhar Ali, in Tests but especially in ODIs. He may still not be the ODI opener for this age, but he was perfect for Pakistan's plans: if you bowl sides out cheaply, Azhar is exactly the kind of opener Pakistan - as nervy, awkward and neurotic at chases as Woody Allen, without any of the intelligence - need. An unlikely hero of this campaign sure, but not an inexplicable one.

So far, so reasonable, which is about as far as I can take it.

Here's a list, on the other hand, of things I'm having trouble explaining in full, or at all.

1. If it was the bowling that won it, then how? Because by no metric has it been good since the 2015 World Cup. In matches where they bowled first, Pakistan's average between overs 11-40 was the worst (53.68) of all teams including Zimbabwe, and their economy fourth worst. They took the fewest wickets per innings. Between overs 30 and 40, their average put them ahead of only Ireland, Scotland and Papua New Guinea, and economy ahead of Sri Lanka and Scotland. In two weeks, they have gone from being among the worst for two years, to being the best. Light switches take more time.

Wahab Riaz was their first-choice third seamer. Junaid Khan didn't start because in the six matches since he returned in January, he'd gone at 6.45 an over and averaged 42. Not even in the squad was Rumman Raees, palpably the kind of bowler Pakistan have needed in limited-overs cricket.

Wahab's injury, unforeseen, set into motion a chain of events that led to Junaid ending as the Champions Trophy's third highest wicket-taker, and Raees' ice-cool and incisive debut in the semi-final.

2. I can partially explain Fakhar Zaman, in that nobody in Pakistan said abracadabra and out he came (no one ever does, not even Waqar Younis or Wasim Akram). He has been prominent in domestic cricket for a couple of seasons as well as in the 2017 PSL.

But he was not their first-choice opener, because of Ahmed Shehzad. Pakistan went to Zaman only in desperation, having convinced themselves for the umpteenth - and probably not last - time that they were done with Shehzad. And he was debuting, so yeah, go figure 252 runs - sixth-highest in the tournament - and runs against three of the world's best sides.

While there, let me know how it is that a domestic limited-overs set-up as archaic as Pakistan's produced a batsman with the highest strike rate in this global tournament (of the top 20 run-scorers)? Higher than Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes, Eoin Morgan, Virat Kohli, David Warner, Aaron Finch, David Miller, Martin Guptill, Quinton de Kock: true LOLs for the irrationals.

3. Three players debuted for Pakistan in this tournament. No other side had even one debutant. Imagine thrusting one into the world's sharpest tournament? Three? And each of the three contributed a defining moment. I can stretch reason to its tether, and offer the PSL as some kind of explanation for the readiness of Raees and Zaman. Faheem Ashraf has never played the PSL. You may never hear of him again, yet try and erase his imprint - that Dinesh Chandimal wicket.

4. I find no rationale for the two chances in six Lasith Malinga balls granted to Sarfraz Ahmed. I can try - the dolly to Thisara Perera may have swerved a touch (I could be totally wrong, imagining a light breeze of destiny). And the Seekkuge Prasanna drop happens, especially to a side fielding as poorly as Sri Lanka. To be granted luck twice is no big deal. To be granted it twice in such quick succession is about credible too. For it to arrive when it mattered most, when this was literally the wicket that would have ended the game and Pakistan's tournament? I'll leave it there.

And then, in chronological order, events of the final, which means Jasprit Bumrah's no-ball first, off his ninth ball of the day. There is a reasonable explanation. Bumrah is not a surprising culprit. He has 11 no-balls in 16 ODIs, which in the age of free-hits is like pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement. It is a commitment to waste. In this tournament he had bowled just one until then. But it was Zaman, the one man more than any other Pakistan would have wanted to be the beneficiary of such fortune (just as later he was the more important partner who wasn't run out).

Then, 338. Casually they strolled to their highest 50-over total since the 2015 World Cup (excluding games against Zimbabwe). In the final of a global event, against India, who even if they did have a bad day, have only needed to be inked down by the ICC as an opponent for Pakistan to have already lost. I'll take no recourse to reason here, none whatsoever.

Especially because the innings formed in such a way it meant demoting Hafeez and delaying his entry until the 40th over. Neither Pakistan nor Hafeez like that. And yet, in a small sample since 2010 of 14 innings, his strike rate in the death overs (before the final) was 8.63 per over. Out he came in the 40th, and did exactly what those numbers suggest he could. It was exactly the right thing to do and there's no suggestion Pakistan had planned it. It was the first time since January 2013 that Hafeez had batted outside the top four.

And where to seek reason in the mini-opera of Amir-Kohli? Amir's little skip of anticipation at the edge, cut short by Azhar's slow tumble and spill; the look on Amir's face, of instant death upon Azhar; Azhar flinging his cap. Buried. Gone. And then again, and Shadab Khan, of such conviction, at point, a little skip to his right and in. Alive. No, not alive. Soaring.

Targeting Kohli's fourth stump is a tactic and the left-arm angle makes it more legit, but the world's best batsman, the most fearsome slayer of chases, twice in two balls, on this stage? Give me relief in numbers.

There is some. If the general feeling around Amir has been that he is somewhat dimmed from how we remember him, know that since his return, with a minimum cut-off of ten wickets, he has the joint-most wickets, the third-best average and best economy of bowlers in the first ten overs.

****

You could analyse and reason each of the above. I try, but I'm not even including Pakistan dropping at least six catches in five games and Ahmed Shehzad actually running someone out. And for all of this to have come together over the course of five games, four knockouts, in 14 days, I can't.

This may not be Haal and there may not be any such thing on a cricket field. If at all there is something from that piece that remains striking, it is Waqar Younis talking about Pakistan locating a surge and then riding it for all its worth.

There is one other thing. I ended then by arguing that Pakistan make you - opponents and observers - submit to the world they create in these moments. I'm not saying this happened. But look around of what's left of this tournament. Look at how Pakistan took teams back to the 1990s and beat them. Look at the strength of feeling it has aroused around the world. Look at the incredulity that the improbability of it has borne. Listen over and over to Nasser Hussain's voice as he calls the Kohli dismissal.

I don't know what more to tell you.

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Pakistan, the Improbables - ESPN

The most devastating segment of Megyn Kellys interview with Alex Jones came at the end of Sunday nights episode of her new show. It involved neither the former Fox News host, nor the Infowars conspiracy theorist who was her guest, but rather the former newscaster Tom Brokaw.

Speaking with passion in a segment about hate on the internet, Brokaw savaged Jones (and others like him) as a singularly malicious presence on the Internet. He alluded to Joness longstanding claim that the 2012 murder of 20 children at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut was a hoax, one of several paranoid concoctions Jones has loudly hawked on his website, right alongside testosterone boosters and survival kits.

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Brokaw railed against the poisonous hate infecting the nation, an apparent reference to an alt-right ecosystem that has disseminated utterly unfounded rumors: that Hillary Clintons campaign was part of a pedophilic network (the loathsome Pizzagate ); that former President Barack Obama isnt a citizen of the United States. Trumpism, at its heart, may be no more than the mixture of revulsion and paranoia engendered by sites like Infowars.

Read more: InfoWars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones says Megyn Kelly is "obsessed with him"

It is time to step up, Brokaw urged Americans. The meaning of that injunction was left somewhat vague, though it seemed to involve more responsible consumption of media and greater civic engagement rooted in a topsoil of rationalism and respect.

Jones had other ideas about Sunday nights affair. He broadcast his own review of Kellys show on the Infowars YouTube channel, which made for an odd but enthralling meta-viewing experience: Jones commenting live on a taped interview with Jones. The broadcast lasted four hours. It started, and finished, in the same place as all of Joness reporting: incoherent rage.

Oh, they want the guns, Jones growled when Brokaw invoked Sandy Hook.

What a dork, said Mike Cernovich, an alt-right figure who watched the Kelly interview with Jones in the Infowars studio. Their anger-fueled viewing party involved, for the most part, the suggestion that Kelly had tricked Jones into giving her an interview. Jones had recorded a telephone conversation with Kelly, and she had told him that the interview was not going to be some gotcha hit piece. As far as Jones was concerned, that had turned out to be a lie.

How did he know? Kelly now worked for the MSMshorthand for the mainstream mediaand that was enough. Were she still toiling in anonymity for the obscure truth-telling outfit known as Fox News, maybe things would be different. Now she was the enemy, no better than liberal billionaire George Soros.

But other than the fact that their conversation was editedas any other interview would beJones could point to no concrete example of Kelly misleading her viewers. Somewhat less substantively, he also complained about a heat lamp trained on him (presumably, a klieg light), which he said made him look like a walrus.

Am I that ugly? Jones wondered.

To many Americans, yes, and in a way that had nothing to do with his looks. Fury had been building for days that Kelly was giving a national platform to a man who, in earlier days, would have been spouting his delusions under the overpass of the Port Authority Bus Terminal. For all that, Kelly showed herself to be a responsible and assiduous interrogator even ifas with her earlier interview with Russian leader Vladimir Putinshe had little to show for it in the end.

That wasnt for lack of trying. Using his own words against him, Kelly pressed Jones on his allegations about Sandy Hook, as well as his smear of yogurt company Chobani, which hired refugees and in so doing became the target of his ire. She began the show with a segment of Jones responding to the bombing of an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England. Hed labeled the victims, many of them young girls, liberal trendies.

Asked by a quietly indignant Kelly about that description of slain innocents, Jones retreated into defensive sarcasm: Im sorry I didnt blow em up, he said with distasteful self-righteousness. I did something bad, though? He had no conception of how heartless his response had been, or how deceptive. The hit was of his own making.

It was the same with Sandy Hook: Kelly calmly read Joness words back to him, while he responded with unconvincing bluster, as if being confronted with his own lies amounted to some shocking breach of journalistic ethics. On the school tragedy, he said he was merely playing devils advocate, a preposterous position for someone whod spent years promulgating stunningly ugly untruths.

I tend to believe that children probably did die there, Jones said, before alluding to all the other evidence on the other side. The very need to hedge that statementtend to believe, all the other evidenceon national television, no less, reveals the depths of Joness pathology.

Of course, there is no evidence on the other side, Kelly said.

She didnt need to.

And although he has had to retract his accusations about Chobani, that was only to end a lawsuit. His conspiratorial beliefs more or less remain intact, as Kelly noted in the midst of Joness ranting about how the media had represented what he said about the yogurt company.

You dont sound very sorry, she said.

Lets just say Chobani was real happy to get out of that lawsuit, Jones said, widening his eyes like a comic-book villain. The insinuation was supposed to be an apparent dig at Hamdi Ulukaya, the Chobani founder. Butit only made Jones look more deranged.

Like the president he is said to have helped elect, Jones showed himself to be petty, vindictive, unpleasant, chauvinistic, transparently insecure and hopelessly vain.

On his InfoWars viewing party that ran concurrently with Kellys show, he ranted as he usually does, sounding like an addled tent-revival preacher who sees demons in every shadow and stops every so often to remind you to put a little something into the collection jar.

He mocked Kelly, including in ways that seemed related to her gender; he called the media a pack of bloodthirsty liars.

They want race wars, they want riots, added Cernovich, whose contribution included a tirade tying mass shootings to the use of anti-depressants.

The two men, and another guest (Andrew Torba of Gab, a social media network beloved by the alt-right), had spent much of their live show mocking Brokaw, whose appearance they awaited almost with glee. Broke spoke as if he knew they were watching, spewing hate at him like rabies-laced spittle.

We cannot allow the agents of hate to go unchallenged and become the imprint of our time, Brokaw said, offering a powerful coda to this third episode of Megyn Kellys show.

Kelly may not yet be the first-class interviewer she is plainly striving to become. But those who charged that she was giving Alex Jones too large a stage need not worry, either. She gave his deceptions no quarter.

He came off like a sweaty paranoiac. Nothing condemned him as thoroughly as his own words.

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Megyn Kelly's Interview with Infowars Conspiracy Theorist Alex Jones Shows Her Attempting a Near-Impossible Task - Newsweek

The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens & Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord runs through July 9 at Lantern Theater, 10th and Ludlow streets in Philadelphia. For tickets call 215-829-0395 or go to http://www.lanterntheater.org

So youve worked closely with Americas most famous atheist for two decades and decide to write a play. What would you choose to dramatize?

Well, how about imagining three other equally famous men a deist, a Christian anarchist and a skeptic who leaned strongly towards Unitarianism who are locked in a room thats not Hell but is definitely on the Other Side and have them try to figure out why theyre there? Oh, and make the title really long so people will remember it!

After a life-threatening illness, Scott Carter (longtime producer and writer for the acerbic Bill Maher) started working on a play about spirituality and chose these men: Declaration of Independence author and former President Thomas Jefferson, Victorian literary superstar Charles Dickens and the passionate, irascible author of War and Peace Leo Tolstoy. In The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord (hereafter referred to as The Gospel) we are treated to a delightful character study of three extraordinary men thinly disguised as a philosophical debate about faith.

The play begins as the three men are thrust into a white walled room with a door that locks behind them, a table, three chairs and a mirror (the audience) as the fourth wall, a room that could easily be in the same neighborhood as the purgatorial bus stop C.S. Lewis created in his novel The Great Divorce. In Lewis book the recently deceased jostle and snarl at each other waiting for a celestial bus to take them to Heaven.

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But in this room, where Leo (Dont call me Count) Tolstoy says the free thinkers are trapped like three Jonahs in a whales belly the disputes are mostly intellectual. Naturally, they dont like being locked up and want to find a way out and on. As the three captives exchange their stories it becomes clear they all were drawn to the original teachings of Jesus, to the point where each man developed his own version of the Gospel.

In the table drawer they find blank journals and pens Someone obviously wants them to use. So they get to work creating a new Gospel and quickly discover that they cant agree on much of anything.

Jefferson was the rational deist who famously wrote, it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error. He believed in a Supreme Being but not in the Trinity. Dickens was a publicly devout skeptic who often criticized what he saw as religious extremism in Britain. Tolstoy in his later years became an unorthodox Christian who based his beliefs in Christs message of nonviolence.

Can the three geniuses work together to get out of their impasse? Remember that they are all writers. Carter ensures its great fun to watch them try by having each man reveal contradictions in his spirituality. Jefferson was the defender of rationalism and moral sense who couldnt give up the six hundred slaves that ran his beloved home Monticello, even after death. Dickens and Tolstoys ambivalence about the class system in their countries was reflected in their own shaky marriages.

Gregory Isaacs cool veneer of self-confidence and unquestioned leadership as Jefferson keeps the more emotional outbursts of Dickens (Brian McCann) and Tolstoy (Andrew Criss) in check (at least for a while). McCann, who was the conniving Roman tribune Menenius in Lanterns splendid production of Coriolanus this season pushes hard on Carters view of Dickens as a clever, conceited self-promoter. Hes the spark of the production and fun to watch but Dickens was surely a more complex character than this preening egomaniac who spends much of his time trying to get a reaction from the tightly wound and self-righteous Tolstoy.

Director James Ljames, ubiquitous on the local theater scene as playwright, director and actor has the latters appreciation for giving each character a chance for big and small moments that resonate. Despite the seemingly cramped conditions of this small room packed with so much self-regard, Ljames has choreographed the actors well and they parade around and onto the table and chairs in a small but boisterous ballet of braggadocio and big ideas.

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'The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord' now at Lantern Theater - Daily Local News