Leigh M. Johnson

Are Terrorists “Stupid”?

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Politics Comments Off on Are Terrorists “Stupid”?

Over at Slate, Timothy Noah has begun an 8-part series called Why No More 9/11s?, in an attempt to answer the question that has probably stymied all of us at some point in the last eight years. Immediately following the September 11th attacks, most counterterrorism experts and others in the know predicted that it was…

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Mourning, Part III

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Politics 8 Comments

[If you’re wondering where the first two parts of the “mourning” series are, see The Work of Mourning (November ’06) and Mourning Again (November ’07)] As you may or may not remember, then-President George H.W. Bush banned images of American coffins (and dead) in 1991, against protests that the ban was an attempt to cover…

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Thank You, Mr. President

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Human Rights, Obama, Politics Comments Off on Thank You, Mr. President
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At Least You Did The Reading…

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Teaching 3 Comments

A friend of mine forwarded me the following video, which is apparently a part of some series sponsored by the website Rate My Professors in which professors are allowed to comment upon students’ remarks about them. The retorts are called “Professors Strike Back” and this is one from Peter Fettner, Professor of Intellectual Heritage at…

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Can You Hear Me Now?

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Obama, Philosophy, Politics 6 Comments

Over at anotherpanacea, there’s a really fascinating and mature consideration of what AnPan calls “Critique in the Age of Hope.” The basic concern underlying AnPan’s essay, as I read it, is that the general ethos of good-will and hope that has accompanied President Obama into the White House might find its expression in an unwitting…

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Leveraging Another Kind of Truth

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Human Rights, Philosophy, Politics 3 Comments

Those pensive-looking guys to the left are 20th C. philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Bertrand Russell. Although they come from different ends of the philosophical spectrum– existentialism and literature for Sartre, mathematical logic and analytic philosophy for Russell–they did share a passion for and commitment to the life of that long-lost animal, the engaged intellectual. It…

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Score One for the Big Guys

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Sports Comments Off on Score One for the Big Guys

For those of you who missed Super Bowl XLIII last night between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals, it was one for the books. Pittsburgh came out on top with an impressive last-2-minutes drive into the red zone, culminating in a double-take where wide receiver Santonio Holmes first missed–then caught– a touchdown pass from…

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Brother, Can You Spare a Pancreas?

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Politics 6 Comments

Despite the questionable and declining quality of my internal parts, I am registered as an organ donor. Every few years, when I go to renew my drivers license, this decision seems like a no-brainer. Now, I’ll admit that it may be the case that my organ-altruism is really motivated by self-interest, since I am a…

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If It Looks Like a Science, Walks Like a Science, and Quacks Like a Science…

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Politics, Teaching 2 Comments

… then it must be a duck. Beginning today, my Philosophy of Race class will be learning about the first theorists of eugenics, an early 20th C. pseudo-science that (in the words of one of its founders and leading proponents, Sir Francis Galton) studied “all agencies under human control which can improve or impair the…

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Nominations for Secretary of Culture?

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Dr. J's Lists, Politics, Pop Culture/Film, Pop Culture/Film/Literature 9 Comments

Last night at the 51st Grammy Awards, the Recording Academy President Neil Portnow extended a long-overdue appeal to President Obama when he said: “Our finest national treasure is our culture in the arts, so it’s time that we acknowledged that fact with the creation of the Cabinet position of Secretary of the Arts.” How right…

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