Leigh M. Johnson

Dr. J’s Top Stories of 2009

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson 7 Comments

What a long, strange trip it’s been! It’s almost time to bid adieu to the last year of the first decade of the new millineum. In case you weren’t paying attention, here are a dozen of the highlights (and lowlights) of 2009: 12. Sarah Palin Goes “Rogue” The Grand Dame of the Illiterati wrote a…

“This Country Was Not Built By Men in Suits.” (So Say the Men in Suits)

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson 3 Comments

I’ve been fascinated recently by the obvious change in tone of many television commercials. We’re in an economic downturn, in case you hadn’t heard, and so many of the major ad-men seem to have been forced to acquiesce to the hard fact of hard times. There’s a lot more emphasis on product “affordability,” a lot…

Philosophy, Done Another Way

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson 0 Comments

As I mentioned a little while ago on this blog, I gave students in my Existentialism course this semester the option of making a short film for extra credit. The motivation for this was my frustration, in previous iterations of this course, with what I viewed as a deficiency on my part of adequately capturing…

Friendly Fire

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson 3 Comments

The disagreement between AnPan and I that has been taking place on our blogs (here and here) has reminded me of why I feel fortunate to have good friends like him. As it just so happens, this also is the time in the semester (at my instiution) when most of the first-years are deep into…

Right, Real, True… and Other Relative Terms

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson 2 Comments

Lest I get too comfortable with my tiny, marginally-significant place in the blogosphere, thinking that we’re all friends here and readers of this blog are basically in agreement on the stuff that really matters, all of us interacting virtually in a kind of harmonious echo-chamber of progressive philosophical wonderment… yeah, lest I get too comfortable…

Relative To What?

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson 1 Comment

This will be brief, as I am now in the midst of grading, but I wanted to address AnPan’s response to my response on the whole issue of (his) moral realism versus (my) moral relativism before too much time passed. I think we may have the beginning of a rapprochement after reading AnPan’s last rebuttal,…

A Parable for “Glorious” Essay-Writers Everywhere

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson 3 Comments

Whenever I’m grading papers at the end of the semester, there always comes a point when I am reminded of that peculiar conversation between Alice and Humpty Dumpty (from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass). After noting that there are 364 days of the year that one can receive un-birthday presents, Humpty Dumpty says to…

Best of Reality Television

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson 5 Comments

It’s no secret that one of my guilty pleasures is reality television. I was an early convert to this genre of entertainment, having come of age around the same time that MTV’s groundbreaking series The Real World was in its prime. (The first season of that show was broadcast in my freshman year of college.)…

Listening While Grading

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson 1 Comment

This following is the soundtrack of my life these days: Ennio Morricone’s The Mission: This is the soundtrack to the movie of the same name. Quite simply, some of the most breathtakingly beautiful music ever composed. This album made me love the oboe. The emotional rise and fall of the compositions carries its listener from…

Happy Holidays, Blogosphere!

Dr. J’s Top Stories of 2009

“This Country Was Not Built By Men in Suits.” (So Say the Men in Suits)

Philosophy, Done Another Way

Friendly Fire

Right, Real, True… and Other Relative Terms

Relative To What?

A Parable for “Glorious” Essay-Writers Everywhere

Best of Reality Television

Listening While Grading

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