First Word

George Mitchell has finally issued his report on the use of “performance enhancing drugs” or PEDs in Major League Baseball (MLB). Predictably, this has set the nattering talking heads into a new buzz, some defending this or that of the accused, but most just tutt-tutting. It is hard to find anyone actually discussing the question, “what’s wrong with using PEDs?” So, like the Little Red Hen, but more importantly: in keeping with First Word’s mission, I will set out to do so. Continue reading…

There are a variety of topics in our current discourse, such as racial linguistic reference, and the question of the desirability of integration in church or state, to which our disputants often have a ready argument: “there will be no race in heaven; therefore we should operate as if that were the case now.” As will prove to be the case again and again, both the major and minor premises of modern truisms are generally dubious. Here I wish to analyze a premise that functions as the “minor” in that argument, and is taken as “obvious” even by intelligent people today. Namely, the idea that “there will be no race in heaven.” Continue reading…