Politics

Gates-gate

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

As you have probably heard by now, Harvard professor and academic superstar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arrested at his home in Cambridge today in a completely bizarre story. It’s still not clear what exactly transpired–though you can read the police report here— but Gates got cuffed-n-stuffed for “exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior” in the…

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You Are Not Going To Be Famous

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Open Source Pedagogy, Politics, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, Teaching 3 Comments

Take a look at this short lecture (only about 10 minutes) that Jim Hanas delivered as a part of the “useless lecture series” that he helps curate. According to Hanas, the point of his address was to debunk what he calls “America’s Big Lie,” the one perhaps best epitomized by Andy Warhol’s famous remark about…

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Anonymity

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Digital Humanities, Philosophy, Politics, Pop Culture/Film/Literature 4 Comments

Listening to the Digital Dialogue conversation about Identity the other day, coupled with reading way-too-many of the “comments” sections on the Skip Gates’ arrest story, has gotten me thinking a lot about the merits and demerits of online anonymity. Anyone who spends more than a second on the Internet surely knows the drawbacks– “flame” wars,…

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On Puppies, Trees and Fetuses… or, What I DON’T Mean By “Weak Humanism”

June 9, 2024 Dr. J Philosophy, Politics, Weak Humanism 10 Comments

I’ve gotten some interesting feedback from my “Digital Dialogues” interview with Chris Long on weak humanism, including several questions about my work (and its implications) that I had not anticipated. So, I thought I’d take an opportunity here to try and clear up some things. I may need to split my response to the concerns…

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District 9 and Science (Non)Fiction

June 9, 2024 Dr. J Film, Film Reviews, Politics, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, Weak Humanism 5 Comments

I went with a friend to see the new sci-fi film District 9 last night, despite the fact that, as a rule, I’m not a huge fan of science fiction. It was a great film. It was produced by Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings fame), and South African writer/director, Niell Blomkamp, makes his…

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De jure is de facto’s slave…

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

I was pleased to discover recently that Ethan Coen, of the famed Coen Brothers (screenwriters for some of the very best in contemporary film, like Fargo, O Brother! Where Art Thou?, No Country for Old Men, The Big Lebowski and Miller’s Crossing) has also published a book of poetry. One of the poems in that…

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Ahmadinejad and the U.N.

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Politics 1 Comment

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prompted a ruckus (and a mass walk-out) this week at the Durban II Conference, the followup to the U.N.’s first anti-racism conference, the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenohobia and Related Intolerance, which was held in South Africa in 2001. Most of the protestors left before Ahmadinejad got started on…

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Torture 101

June 9, 2024 Dr. J Dr. J's Lists, Human Rights, Philosophy, Politics, Teaching, Torture, Weak Humanism 2 Comments

A friend and colleague of mine invited me to come speak to his class about torture last week. The class was a writing seminar, organized around the theme of “citizenship,” and my colleague was feeling (understandably) frustrated because– in his words– he “just didn’t feel like [he] had the tools or the knowledge to counter…

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Redactional Fatigue

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Human Rights, Philosophy, Politics, Torture Comments Off on Redactional Fatigue

Lest you think that the “author” is really “dead,” here’s a term I stumbled across recently that you might find interesting: redactional fatigue. Our friends at Wikipedia define it thus: When making changes to a large text, a redactor may occasionally overlook a piece of text that conflicts with the redactional goals. Since many important…

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Cheating and Swine Flu

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Politics, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, Teaching Comments Off on Cheating and Swine Flu

Did I mention that I don’t care about cheating? Check. Did that already. Of course, if you read the earlier post, you know it’s not so much that I don’t care about cheating as it is that I don’t care about policing cheaters. (Read linked blog-post for my amazing argument in support of said apathy.)…

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