The interwebs are all a-buzz right now about women in philosophy. Wait, correction: they’re all a-buzz about the LACK OF women in philosophy. An article by Brooke Lewis in The Philosopher’s Magazine entitled “Where are all the women?” confirms what just about anybody could have guessed: Philosophy departments in the U.S. and U.K. trail FAR…
Read MoreAs they say in France: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. It turns out that this year marks the 30th aniversary of the invention of the Sony Walkman, what A. N. Wilson terms “the gadget that helped break Britain.” That’s right, 30 years ago we saw the forbear of the now-ubiquitous iPod, which…
Read MoreHere’s my contribution to the meme begun over at Smart City Memphis: 1. Wild Bill’s Juke Joint I’m sure that it doesn’t come as any surprise to readers of this blog that I’ve got Wild Bill’s first on the list. This is the single greatest place in Memphis… or in any city I’ve ever been…
Read MoreThere’s an interesting review of Brithish philosopher Roger Scruton’s new book, Beauty, that looks at the value (or, more accurately, lack thereof) of kitsch. In “Finding Kitsch’s Inner Beauty,” Robert Fulford praises Scruton’s text for holding the “now marginalized view” that philosophers should help the rest of us “think about issues that really matter.” (Marginalized?…
Read MoreThe image to the left is a postcard that someone sent to PostSecret, an online website that asks people to write their “secrets” on one side of a postcard and mail them in anonymously. (I’ve written about PostSecret before on this blog.) It is the brainchild of Frank Warren, who now travels all over the…
Read MoreLast night at the 51st Grammy Awards, the Recording Academy President Neil Portnow extended a long-overdue appeal to President Obama when he said: “Our finest national treasure is our culture in the arts, so it’s time that we acknowledged that fact with the creation of the Cabinet position of Secretary of the Arts.” How right…
Read MoreAbout a month ago, I started watching the television show “24” from its beginning. I was immediately hooked, as I wrote in my initial post on the subject (“24” Is Like Television Crack), and this week I just began Season 5. My general impression is that the quality of the show declined after the first…
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