I've been pretty busy lately editing an old Greek textbook, plodding through some rather unrewarding research, and getting caught up on some reading I've put off too long. Of course, that's all meant that I've neglected Classical Values. I'd first like to apologize to Eric, but second and most importantly to those few rabid commenters whose days I sometimes invigorate with opportunities for dismissive displays of half-cocked wit and tilts at their own straw men.

I've missed you.

Moving on, I continually find Arts & Letters Daily a boon, chock full of good links and subtle yet insightful comments.

Today you can find links to reviews of two intriguing books:

1) Kevin Anderson and Janet Afary's "Foucault and the Iranian Revolution" (University of Chicago)

and

2) "Szasz Under Fire: The Psychiatric Abolitionist Faces His Critics," edited by Jeffrey A. Schaler (Open Court).

The first offers Michel Foucault's journalistic coverage of the the Iranian revolution in which he described the ayatollah Khomeini as 'the perfectly unified collective will' and praised this rise of radical Islam as 'the first great insurrection against global systems.'

The second concerns a collection of critiques of and responses by Thomas Szasz, a professor of psychiatry who argues for the abolition of the insanity defense and myth of mental illness ('typically ... identified by observing the patient’s verbal pronouncements') as opposed to actual diseases of the brain (for which there are 'objective, physical-chemical markers').

Interestingly, the review opens with a 1980 case in which a white woman murdered a black child claiming it to be the duty of every white woman; the defense argued against a motive of racism in favor of insanity.

A question for the lawyers: How would this have been handled in the era of hate crimes legislation?