RMWMTMBM Archive

Not With A Bang, But A Whimper: RIP Wild Bill’s Memphis

Alas, it is with great sadness that I report that the long-anticipated but much-dreaded inevitability in my life finally came to pass. Wild Bill’s is officially closed. The doors closed without ceremony or fanfare early last month.  Like every other time before, there were a few weeks when I hoped that this was a false…

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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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President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address

Text of President Obama’s Inaugural Address: My fellow citizens: I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout…

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Obama’s 2009 Address to Joint Session of Congress

Madame Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, and the First Lady of the United States: I’ve come here tonight not only to address the distinguished men and women in this great chamber, but to speak frankly and directly to the men and women who sent us here. I know that for many Americans watching…

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2011 in Viral Videos

[Note: The following should have posted on Dec 30.] There’s nothing like a good viral video to add a chuckle to your day, and 2010 had a lot of chuckles to share. This was probably the first year that I noticed YouTube videos making it onto the “real” news fairly regularly. As we now live…

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Hotel Bar Sessions, Ep 31: Whose History?

  The HBS hosts sit down with Dr. Charles McKinney, Jr. to talk about whose history is (and isn’t) being taught. Following on the heels of a recent and very contentious political debate over the teaching of Critical Race Theory in schools, we invited Dr. Charles McKinney, Jr. (Neville Frierson Bryan Chair of Africana Studies and Associate Professor…

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Hotel Bar Sessions, Season 2 “Afterthoughts”

  My Hotel Bar Sessions podcast cohosts (Dr. Charles Peterson and Dr. Rick Lee) and I have just wrapped up the second season of the podcast. We’ll be taking a short (3-week) break to gather our thoughts before returning with a full slate of new episodes for Season 3 on November 8! Throughout Season 2,…

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Hotel Bar Sessions, Ep 30: Robots

The HBS hosts discuss how robots and intelligent machines are upending our social, moral, legal, and philosophical categories. For this last episode of Season 2, the HBS hosts interview Dr. David Gunkel (author of Robot Rights and How To Survive A Robot Invasion) about his work on emergent technologies, intelligent machines, and robots. Following the…

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Hotel Bar Sessions, Ep 29: Defending the Humanities

  The HBS hosts present their best defense of humanities-based education and, in doing so, try to justify their existences. As higher education has become more corporatized and STEM-focused, areas of study are often “pitched” to students on the basis of their future income-earning potential. However, college students now are entering a workforce where more…

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Hotel Bar Sessions podcast, Ep 28: Generations

  The HBS hosts discuss whether or not generational tags– “Boomer,” “GenX,” “Millennial,” and “Gen Z”– are useful descriptions or just gerrymandered groups. Are you Gen Z, a Boomer, Gen X? We don’t know either but in this episode Dr. Rick Lee leads a discussion to try to figure out whether these generational designations have…

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