I cannot improve on Greenwald’s discussion of the way the death of Christopher Hitchens has exposed a cadre of influential writers who provided “material support” for the invasion, destruction and occupation of Iraq as not only a calculable good for humanity but also for US civic engagement. Apparently nationalism and patriotism are inherently good. I’m sure I don’t need to offer proof to the contrary…
Demetrio Perez Jr. Leading Miami-Dade School Board Race, Despite Not Running
“An educated people will always be strong and free. The alternative is ignorance. Ignorance will ultimately destroy us.” Jose Marti. The 2012 Miami-Dade School Board race promises to be a close one. Not for the board members, mind you, but for the for-profit charter schools competing to buy votes to open more of their schools. Although school board incumbents Renier Diaz de la Portilla, Martin…
Indubitably? The Philosophy of Inaction
First, let me confess to being at best an amateur as regards the study of philosophical texts and at times perhaps the worst sort of dilettante regarding that discipline. But, that said, I spend a fair amount of time exploring the history of ideas. One thing that has continually puzzled me in the history of philosophy concerns the “father of modern philosophy” Rene Descartes. Every…
Clinical Trials and the Cultural Mania for Torture
I am against clinical trials. Rather, I am against clinical trials as they are now conceived and implemented. I am against the mass “treatment” of the desperately ill via the marketing of hope (and often one of “only hope”). I have no stats and I’ll certainly update this next contention should someone share some valid and pertinent data with me: Surely most clinical trials offer…
Robot Ethics: Gesture Without Motion
Robot Ethics? No such thing of course. But, here’s the problem, there are robots, there are drones, there are killing machines and spying machines already in operation everywhere (yes, everywhere), some of which are in automated attack mode and make their own “strategic decisions.” So there is or must be an ethics applied to the use of robots. I’m going to go out on a…
News Flash: VP Biden’s Brother Frank Has an IRS Problem
photo by D’Arcy Norman (UPDATE: In an interview with Broward/Palm Beach New Times’ Lisa Rab, Frank Biden responded to the Doug Martin article below concerning Biden’s tax debts. Rab writes the following: Meanwhile, the vice president’s brother also cleared up a mystery about a federal tax lien filed against him in Kentucky. The $32,500 in unpaid income taxes are from 2003 to 2005, a time when Biden…
Trickery and Violence: That of which there is no end.
I’ll be honest, today has me flooded with indignation and it has become hard to think amidst the noise made by the onslaught of corporate legislation removing the education of children from the public charge and domain and placing it in the hands of the highest or most connected bidder. If you want to read this news head on to Doug Martin’s Indiana Government Exposed…
Remaking Public Schools Instead of Abandoning Them
For the most part, when our community online chat boards discuss “issues” regarding our local school system they begin with a specific issue, like increased security surveillance or lengthening the school day, but quickly become discussions about the process of how community decisions are not really communal. We abdicate the role of raising children to our schools. And we abdicate even the ability to influence…
Doug Martin’s Abecedary of Indiana’s Corporate Education Pirates
Below are the main groups involved in destroying Indiana public education. Many of these outfits have a national reach, as well, and their main goal is to hand our schools over to for-profit companies. Vouchers are used as a smokescreen by many of these groups, since vouchers drain the schools of money and set them up to fail. Below each group, you will find the…
Hazlitt on Coriolanus: Poetry of Power
As there is a movie staring Ralph Fiennes, or Voldemort to you youngsters, (who also directs) coming out based on Coriolanus I thought I’d share what is perhaps the greatest English essayist, William Hazlitt, on the Tragedy of Caius Martius. Here is how the essay opens: Shakespear [sic] has in this play shewn himself well versed in history and state-affairs. Coriolanus is a store-house of…