Month: June 2008

Sad Songs (Still) Say So Much

[If you got here through a Google search for “sad songs”, you should read this first.] A while back on this blog, there was a great discussion about sad songs in response to one of my posts entitled “Sad Songs Say So Much.” I’ve been thinking about that again recently for a couple of reasons….

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American Politics, in a word…

I just dicovered the website Capitol Words, which provides an “at-a-glance view into the daily proceedings of the United States Congress through the simplest lens available.” What is the “simplest lens available” you may be asking yourself? Well, it’s really simple. Like, a single word. That’s right, for every day that Congress is in session,…

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Damn Your Eyes!

Here’s a little tune from The Man in Black to make you smile on a Friday. Nevermind that it’s an execution song. (Details, details.) As I’ve said before, I think God speaks to humanity through Johnny Cash. Maybe not in this song in particular… but I don’t pretend to know the mind of God.

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The Coen Brothers’ Coin-Flip: amor fati or fait accompli ?

Last year’s Academy Award for Best Picture went to the Coen Brothers’ haunting film No Country for Old Men, based on the novel of the same name by (University of Tennessee alum) Cormac McCarthy. In one of the most important scenes– which actually occurs twice–the film’s murderous, mysterious, and thoroughly amoral antagonist, Anton Chigurh (Javier…

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In Memoriam: Michel Foucault

Twenty-four years ago today, on June 25, 1984, Michel Foucault died in Paris, France. In an interview with Lé Magazine Littéraire, barely a month before his passing, Foucault remarked: “The work of an intellectual is not to mould the political will of others; it is, through the analyses that he does in his own field,…

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A Genuinely Original Thought About Race

Pace the author of Ecclesiastes, every once in a while we find that there is, in fact, something new under the sun. As evindence, I refer you to the political philosophy blog Public Reason, where Simon Keller (Philosophy, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand) recently offered what I find to be a remarkably original “Thought…

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Battle Royale

For those of you following the battle between Chet and me over the merits (and demerits) of Paul Thomas Anderson’s film, There Will Be Blood, you mght be interested to learn that our argument has spilled over onto another blog. See Chet’s response, “Diegesis, etc.” for more of the not-yet-bloody action.

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30% ? Really?

The Washington Post reported this weekend that “3 in 10 Americans Admit to Race Bias.” It’s fairly amusing to watch this little piece cycle through the news channels today. Some of the reporters are saying “30% of Americans admit to race bias” like this: “Oh. My. God. There are RACISTS in this country! This is…

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Bandidos Yanquis

Since I’m spending most of my days writing about philosophy, I’ve decided to limit my writing on this blog to the topic of film for a little while. Today, the subject is another one of my favorites, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford (soundtrack, funny enough, by Burt Bacharach)….

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Goodfellas

In my last post, I praised the skill and acumen of director Martin Scorcese’s Taxi Driver, which I think is one of his best films. In a rather serendipitous turn of events, I also watched on television that same night the American Film Institute’s 10 Top 10, which listed the top ten films in ten…

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