Exiled Russian novelist, political activist and Nobel Prize for Literature winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn brought the horrors of the Soviet labor camps to the attention of the world in his 1973 The Gulag Archipelago. Solzhenitsyn’s criticism of the Soviet police state resulted in his exile for almost two decades, but he returned home to Russia in…
Read MoreI just dicovered the website Capitol Words, which provides an “at-a-glance view into the daily proceedings of the United States Congress through the simplest lens available.” What is the “simplest lens available” you may be asking yourself? Well, it’s really simple. Like, a single word. That’s right, for every day that Congress is in session,…
Read MoreFrom our alternative weekly, The Memphis Flyer:—————————- Bozo the clown, Jesse the racistLarry Harmon, the man who popularized the show business character Bozo the Clown, has died of congestive heart failure at the age of 83. Harmon did not create the flame-haired character, but played him in numerous appearances over the years. He purchased the…
Read MoreThere’s an interesting article in the New York Times today– “The 60’s Begin To Fade As Liberal Professors Retire”— that touches on a number of issues surrounding what appears to be an impending “generational shift” in the American professorate. According to the author, over 54% of full-time faculty in the United States were over the…
Read MoreI feel very fortunate to have been invited to serve as a respondent for an eSymposium on “The Meaning and Implications of the Obama Phenomenon” over at The Zeleza Post. The Zeleza Post is the web-home for “informed news and commentary on the Pan-African world,” and the regular contributors there are among some of the…
Read MoreI know embarrassingly little about banking, but even my ignorant ears perked up a bit yesterday afternoon during President Bush’s press conference when he said (in response to a question about whether or not he thought banks were in trouble) that “Americans should remember that up to $100,000 of their money in the bank is…
Read MoreMany years ago, when I was in the full throes of my pomo-lit phase, I read John Barth’s 1955 novel The Floating Opera, which was one of those books that serendipitously landed in my lap at just the right time. John Barth is a little bit of a Philip-Roth-Lite, I think. He’s funny and smart…
Read MoreRecently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the power, and lack thereof, of shame. As regular readers of this blog already know, I’m currently working on a manuscript in defense of human rights via a reconstituted humanism (what I’m calling a “weak humanism“). Yesterday, I was flipping through a book I read several years ago…
Read MoreLast Christmas, on this blog, I posted a list of books that one should NOT give as gifts because, I speculated, the recipient is likely to misinterpret the meaning behind the gift. You were all very helpful in filling out that list, providing your own examples of the oft-embarrassing dissonance between the intended meaning of…
Read MoreI’m going to say it: The Dark Knight did not impress. Yes, of course, I thought Heath Ledger’s turn as the fledgling Joker was an impressive performance. (And, yes, of course it’s a tragedy that Heath Ledger is no longer with us.) I know I’m going to sound a bit like a broken record here,…
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