Month: June 2024

Groovy, Man

ReadMoreWriteMoreThinkMoreBeMore just passed 70,000 hits! Again, a big THANK YOU to all the readers who keep coming back. Especially those of you who have contributed to the recent Why I Chose Memphis series, which prompted an interview by the Memphis Flyer that I gave today and which will appear in print soon. (Keep those stories…

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Why I Chose Memphis: Anna Marie Hartman Birkedahl

Most Memphians will know our next contributor to the Why I Chose Memphis series as “Anna Marie Hartman,” the confident and beautiful anchorwoman for WMC Channel 5 News. What you may not know, however, is that when she’s not reporting on the best and worst of Memphis, she’s also a talented singer in The Burnin’…

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Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 7

You may not recognize the reference in the title to this post above . It’s a reference to the the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (a.k.a., “The Logical-Philosophical Treatise”), the only book ever written by eminently influential philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. The Tractatus consists of seven philosophical propositions, the seventh of which reads:Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must…

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2010 Year In Sports

There are still a few weeks left in 2010– and who knows what else may happen… or, ahem, be “leaked”?– so in advance of posting my comprehensive “Year In Review” list, I thought I’d do a few specialized lists. Since the last few weeks of the year are mostly holding-pattern time in sports, it’s the…

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2010 Year In Pop Culture

Right out of the gate, 2010 looked to be a very promising pop culture year. Back in January, at one of the early American Idol auditions, we were introduced to aspiring contestant General Larry Platt, who regaled the judges with his seemingly-improvised yet totally-infectious original composition “Pants on the Ground.” Before America’s favorite non-plussed judge…

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2010 Year In Music

Let me just be clear at the outset: the following list is not meant to represent the best of 2010’s music in any kind of remotely “objective” sense. This is my list. It represents my year in music. My musical tastes tend toward the rootsy, the groovy and the nostalgic. I prefer simple, but well-constructed,…

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Whatever Happened to the Fun (and Funny) Drunk?

Just recently, I re-watched the 1981 film Arthur (starring Dudley Moore, Liza Minnelli and John Gielgud), a film that I would probably place in my top-5 Funniest Films Ever. I was prompted to re-visit the film after hearing that a remake is in the works, starring Russell Brand and Helen Mirren. In the original, Dudley…

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Tortured Reasoning

I haven’t posted much on human rights recently, the primary focus of my research, though I continue to plug away at thinking and writing about it every day. One of the topics that I spend a lot of time with is torture, an issue that I intend to use as the go-to “case study” in…

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Why I Chose Memphis: Art Carden

Next up in our series is Dr. Art Carden, my colleague in the Economics and Business Department at Rhodes College. Art is a regular contributor to the econ-blogs Division of Labour and The Ludwig von Mises Institute as well as an essayist for the online version of Forbes Magazine. I think I can say with…

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Why I Chose Memphis: Paul Haught

Our next contributor in the Why I Chose Memphis series is Dr. Paul Haught, Associate Dean for the School of the Arts and Chair of the Religion and Philosophy Department at Christian Brothers University. I met Paul through mutual Midtowner friends, and for a short time was totally unaware that he was married to another…

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