Leigh M. Johnson

An(other) Omen Read Wrong

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson 5 Comments

Recently, I was reminded of a passage from Micheal Herr’s excellent 1977 memoir Dispatches. Herr was a war correspondent for Esquire magazine during the Vietnam War, he helped write the screenplays for Coppola’s Apocolypse Now and Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, and he (along with Truman Capote, Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe) pioneered the literary genre…

Say It Ain’t So, John

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson 5 Comments

Alas, the mighty have fallen. The news was released yesterday afternoon that John Edwards engaged in an extramarital affair in 2006 and that he lied about it during his campaign for President last year. Edwards’ paramour, Rielle Hunter (who, apparently, is also the inspiration for a Gen-X literary character), now claims that Edwards is the…

Politics in Gracelessland

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Comments Off

We Memphians just saw the conclusion of what has been a truly U-G-L-Y battle between the candidates for Tennessee’s 9th U.S. Congressional District, incumbent Steve Cohen and challenger Nikki Tinker. As you may already know, our district Representative before Cohen was the DNC wunderkind Harold Ford, Jr., who was famously done in by his Senate-race…

R.I.P. Isaac Hayes

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson 2 Comments

Memphian and funk-and-soul legend Isaac Hayes died early this morning here in town. Hayes was one of the driving forces behind Memphis’ own Stax Records and he remained a faithful and active citizen of our fair city for his entire life. Most people know Hayes as the voice behind South Park’s character of “Chef,” but…

Who’s Your Dandy?

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson 6 Comments

It all started back in April of this year, when an ill-worded comment by Obama suggesting that some white voters were a tad “bitter” prompted his then-opponent Hillary Clinton to accuse him of being “elitist.” Since the end of the primaries, McCain has jumped on that bandwagon as well, most famously running the television ad…

Classroom Governance

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson 7 Comments

I had a somewhat odd conversation with a friend and colleague of mine recently about the implications of being considered a “cool” professor by students. Neither one of us were really sure what our students think of us, but we both guessed that if there were a kind of Kinsey Scale for such a thing,…

Good Science Writing

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson 1 Comment

As I mentioned in a previous post, I find myself in the unprecendented situation these days of having several (very smart and relatively decent) “scientist” friends. Now, I’ll readily admit that I don’t know a lot about science (outside the grand philosophical tradition of scientia, that is), but I find some scientific questions eminently, sometimes…

Another Year Older…

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson 7 Comments

… and I still haven’t found a way to reproduce the monster style of my younger self. Check out those sleeves!

Sad Song Celebrity

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson 4 Comments

About a week ago, I noticed that the “hits” on my blog almost doubled overnight, and they have only continued to increase after that. Since I haven’t been speed-dating or indiscriminately publicizing my blog site, this really didn’t make any sense to me. So, after a little further investigation, I discovered that somehow, I really…

McCain’s Epic Fail

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson 7 Comments

John McCain announced his running-mate (in this case, his running-matron) yesterday, barely before the Democratic Convention euphoria could even begin to wane. When I first learned of his choice, Alaska Governor and former “Miss Alaska” Sarah Palin, I was a little embarrassed that I had no idea who she was. No worries, though. Apparently, neither…

An(other) Omen Read Wrong

Say It Ain’t So, John

Politics in Gracelessland

R.I.P. Isaac Hayes

Who’s Your Dandy?

Classroom Governance

Good Science Writing

Another Year Older…

Sad Song Celebrity

McCain’s Epic Fail

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