In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some things that were wrong. We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. — President Barack Obama, Press Conference (Aug 1, 2014) “That is another of your odd notions,” said the Prefect, who had a fashion of calling everything “odd”…
Read MoreThere’s been a good bit conversation recently about the merits and demerits of “public philosophy” and, as someone who considers herself committed to public philosophy (whatever that is). I’m always happy to stumble across a piece of remarkably insightful philosophical work in the public realm. Case in point: Robin James (Philosophy, UNC-Charlotte) posted a really…
Read MoreIt is indeed difficult to imagine the world without America, which is what the one-sheet movie poster for Dinesh D’Souza’s America dares us to imagine. After all, America is every bit as much a symbol, an aspiration and an idea as it is a nation-state. However, it is not difficult to imagine the world without D’Souza’s “America” or…
Read MoreToday and tomorrow, student-workers are going on strike to protest unfair labor practices (ULPs) by the University of California after its administrators refused to meet their (very reasonable) bargaining demands and threatened union members who might participate in a strike. The UC Student-Workers Union, UAW Local 2865, represents over 12,000 graduate and undergraduate Academic Student Employees– all…
Read MoreI had the very good fortune to attend my first Spillit event last night in (local photographer/visual anthropologist, Jamie Harmon‘s) Amurica studio space. Spillit is one of the newer additions to what has become, over the last several years, an incredibly rich, astoundingly diverse, mostly DIY and impressively self-sustaining (for lack of a better descriptor)…
Read MoreThe news has just been released that Rev. Fred Phelps, founder and lifelong shepherd of the Westboro Baptist Church (in Topeka, Kansas) has died at the age of 84. I find it difficult, I confess, to summon the normal human compassion that usually accompanies news of another’s death in this case, largely because Phelps dedicated…
Read MoreLet’s face it: exercising solidarity is tricky business, not the least of which is because “solidarity” itself is a tricky concept, which requires the subordination of real differences (across a whole host of important categorical domains) for the sake of some particular common interest that might prioritize similitude– often for prudentially strategic reasons– over, across…
Read MoreAs some of you already know, I am also one of the bloggers at NewAPPS. I’m re-posting here a piece co-authored by Edward Kazaian and I that appeared this past Tuesday on NewAPPS. It’s generated a lot of conversation so far, and I’ll have a post forthcoming soon on my take on that conversation. What…
Read MoreToday, I begin my annual Year in Review lists for 2013. (If you’re feeling nostalgic, you can check out my past lists for the 2010 Year in Review, 2011 Year in Review and 2012 Year in Review.) I make several lists every December, but almost every year, the Music list is my favorite to compose. …
Read MoreIt’s time for the next installment of my 2013 Year in Review Lists: the 2013 Year in Politics. Each December that I do this, it gets increasingly difficult to distinguish between the stories that properly belong on this list and those that fit more comfortably on the Year in Pop Culture list, which says something…
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