September 2010
47 posts
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California Execution on Hold
As a follow-up to my post from a few days ago about the legal craziness surrounding the execution of Albert Brown (scheduled for tonight), here’s an article confirming a stay of execution for Brown. This ruling — from the same judge who previously ruled that the execution could go forward despite Brown’s challenge of the method of execution — effectively puts capital...
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Anti-Intellectual "Conservatives"
I read the following post by fringeelements a few minutes ago and, despite pretty much never doing this, decided that I needed to write something by way of a response:
Anti-Intellectual “Conservatives”
Are usually poo-pooed. The universities in the US today function as a subsidized cartel, and the people who work in the universities understand this. Without state involvement, the...
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Watch“A Florida man picked the wrong day to tickle Elmo.”
The only way this story would have been better — and, truthfully, it would have made it a lot better — is if Elmo hadn’t taken off his head during the confrontation.
Full story here (HT: W. Thomas Webb).
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What's Wrong With Our Society, 2.9: It's Anarchy,...
In past episodes of MTV’s “Jersey Shore,” of course, we’ve seen J-WOWW and Sammi come to blows, Ronnie and Vinny get into a shoving match, Ronnie behave badly while away from Sammi, Pauly D’s hair defy logic, and — of course — Vinny share his bed with both Angelina and Snooki.
But, perhaps worst of all, this week we have a dust-up between Angelina and...
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Neb. Inmate: Attorneys Needed in Death Row Appeals →
I saw the above headline and didn’t understand it.
An inmate is saying that attorneys are needed for death row appeals? Here’s what I immediately thought:
Don’t we recognize that it’s difficult to draft and file an appeal if you’re a death row inmate, as you more than likely don’t the legal training?
Isn’t this obvious? Why do we need an inmate pointing...
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White House invokes state secrets privilege to... →
Yesterday, the White House quashed a lawsuit brought by the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights by invoking the state secrets privelege. The suit attempted to block the government’s program of targeted assassinations of terror suspects by challenging its constitutionality. In particular, the suit sought to remove an American citizen from the CIA’s targeted kill list and to...
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We're Going to Kill You; We Can Decide Whether...
Since we’re in the midst of a killing frenzy in the U.S. right now, I’m going to go ahead and continue to write about the death penalty (for the third straight blog post).
Here’s the latest from California:
A federal judge on Friday denied a stay of execution for a California man who raped and murdered a 15-year-old, but gave him a choice of whether to die by single injection...
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Monsters and Capital Punishment
Let me say, from the outset, that my position — which I take to be the human rights position — is that, irrespective of our personal opinions about what people deserve, no one should be put to death. The death penalty in the United States is bad public policy: it is fiscally irresponsible; it is rife with racism and classism; it fails as a deterrent; it is out of step with criminal...
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Drug Company: Stop Using Our Product For... →
Over at the Amnesty International USA blog, Brian Evans gives us yet another story about the bizarre things that happen as a result of our use of the death penalty.
Hospira, is the lone US company that manufactures sodium thiopental, the anesthetic used in all lethal injections (both the three drug and the new one drug methods). Today, the company sent a letter to all states urging them to...
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WatchSuper Grover comments on the potential impact of technological innovation on heroic action.
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WatchApparently, the duo of Elmo and Katy Perry proved too racy for a great many people.
CNN reports that “According to TMZ, Sesame Workshop received complaints like, ‘You can practically see her [expletive],’ and ‘they’re gonna have to rename it cleavage avenue.’”
Sadly, all of the complaints from parents seem to deal with Perry’s wardrobe and not with...
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Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity →
I’ve spent a few days thinking about this; in particular, I’ve wondered whether I can make the point that I want to make without offending people. My sense is that I almost certainly cannot.
That said, I feel that the point is important and that a discussion arising from possibly offending people would also be important.
Here is what I saw the other day, on both Tumblr and Twitter:
...
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WatchMore Super Grover.
This time, we learn the importance of altitude, attitude … and, importantly, aptitude! The former is a key when it comes to flying; the latter two, of course, apply to all sorts of heroes.
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What's So Great about French Laundry?
Someone at the San Francisco Chronicle had a great idea: send one of their staff writers — Sophie Brickman, a culinary school graduate — into a series of four-star kitchens and publish the results. The first, on Thomas Keller’s French Laundry, was published on September 12; the second, on Coi and La Folie, appeared on the 17th.
There are some really fascinating tidbits of...
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Please Stay Alive, We Are Supposed to Kill You →
My friend Laura Moye knocks this one out of the park:
Brandon Rhode was rushed to the hospital today to prevent him from dying following his attempt at suicide. This afternoon, the Georgia Department of Corrections announced a delay in his scheduled execution, vaguely referring to an “incident”. Rhodes did not get strapped to the gurney tonight, but the state may try to kill him Thursday...
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Toward v. Towards →
The debate, settled by David Foster Wallace:
1. The preposition towards is British usage; the US spelling is toward. Writing towards is like writing colour or judgement. (Factoid: Except for backwards and afterwards, no preposition ending in –ward takes a final s in US usage.)
Yes! A thousand times, yes!
If only my students were reading my blog! Or David Foster Wallace! Or — the mind...
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WatchSesame Street is just killin’ it on Tumblr, at least for me.
Super Grover’s discussion of heroism (for some more, see here) is right up there with the stuff I’m writing about Achilles and Odysseus right now.
(Source: sesamestreet)
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Sizing Up Consciousness by Its Bits →
The New York Times has a fascinating article on measuring consciousness, a topic I wrote a bit about in my book.
In particular, I developed a theory about human dignity based on personhood, which I rooted in consciousness — what I called the story we tell about ourselves. It was the disruption of this narrative, I argued, that was at the center of every abuse of human rights.
This theory,...
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Passing the International Violence Against Women...
Having published two blog posts today about MTV’s “Jersey Shore,” including a whole lot of thoughts on the treatment of women, it seems important to draw attention to Amnesty International’s campaign to urge passage of the International Violence Against Women Act (IVAWA).
From the Amnesty International USA blog:
Congress is now considering IVAWA (H.R. 4594/S.2982), which...
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evitravels asked: I'm loving your analysis of Jersey Shore. What really jumped out at me this episode, Machiavelli notwithstanding, was the misogyny. I'm not one to harp on this usually, believe me, but The Situation really got under my skin. If Pauly D or Vinny had been playing a girl like Angelina was with her not-boyfriend Jose, there would've been high-fives all around, not threats to disclose...
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What's Wrong With Our Society, 2.8: Machiavelli's...
In last week’s very special, pre-VMA episode of “Jersey Shore,” when one wasn’t wondering why MTV still gives out video music awards at a time when no one watches music videos, one was almost certainly looking for the philosophical angle to this week’s shenanigans.
Perhaps the best part about the most recent episode is the introduction of a new character,...
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In the midst of direct peace talks, Palestinians... →
If you’re interested in the Middle East and aren’t yet reading Foreign Policy’s Middle East Channel, this article is a good place to start.
In particular, Mark Perry — the article’s author — highlights the seeming weakness of Mahmoud Abbas’ grasp on power in the Palestinian Authority (as evidenced by a crackdown on free speech by those who oppose him). To...
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What's Wrong With Our Society, 2.7
In last week’s episode of MTV’s “Jersey Shore,” tensions boil over … in the most confusing manner possible. The careful viewer (who also reads this blog’s on-going academic analysis of “Jersey Shore”) ought to be reminded of the confusing arguments about justice in Book One of Plato’s Republic.
Here’s what happens:
Vinny calls out...
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How Piracy Demonstrates a Problem in International...
Piracy, I always tells my students, is one of those rare things that pretty much everyone in the world thinks is wrong. And it’s internationally outlawed. And it has been for a long time.
Unsurprisingly, it turns out that catching pirates is a really big part of the stopping the scourge of piracy.
But no one really wants to catch them … at least not the Somali pirates:
[O]n several...
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WatchFinally, my love of muppets and my book project on heroism collide!
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The Republican Threat to Shut Down the Federal... →
I like reading what Robert Reich has to say and I tend to agree with him more often than I disagree. Today, it’s a little bit of both. First there’s this:
Newt Gingrich is saying if Republicans win back control of Congress and reach a budget impasse with the President, they should shut down the government again. GOP pollster Dick Morris is echoing those sentiments, as is Rep. Lynn...
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Mixed Reactions to Duch Sentence →
I’ve been working with two students on a paper that examines hybrid transitional justice mechanisms and, using Sierra Leone and Cambodia as examples, argues that a good deal more work needs to be done to consider local needs rather than simply the desires of the international community (which can be difficult, since the international community holds the purse strings).
I hadn’t seen...
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What's Wrong With Our Society, 2.6: Snooki and...
It’s taken more than a week to figure out how to deal with the sixth episode of the second season of MTV’s “Jersey Shore.”
But here it is:
When drama about the anonymous note really begins to heat up, Snooki demonstrates her understanding of Aristotle, while J-WOWW fails miserably.
Yes, that’s right. Aristotle.
As the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy rightly...
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Watch“I received a sign from God.”
OR
“How to get a ton of free publicity for your tiny church that previously no one knew anything about … without actually doing anything.”
Also, does he keep saying “Iman” — like the model who married David Bowie — rather than “Imam”?
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WatchIn my life, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as crazy as this.
It’s Phil Davison of Minerva, Ohio, attempting to explain why he should be the nominee for Stark County treasurer.
I particularly enjoyed this line: “Now is the time to snap the Democratic stranglehold on the treasurer’s office in two.” Taking one’s prospective job seriously is...
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Disgust and Morality →
As a political theorist, I talk quite a lot about why human beings think some things are Right and some things are Wrong. And so I read a recent article about the possible evolutionary origin of morality with great interest. In it, the author highlights the fact that “Some argue that morality is simply how human beings and societies explain the peculiar tendencies and biases that evolved to...
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“Philosophy Is Dead” →
The title of the blog post over at Burke’s Corner (from whence the following quote is drawn) — “Science, philosophy and humility - Hawking rejects all three” — is really pretty terrific, as is the blog post itself.
For example:
In his failure to exercise modesty in his pursuit of scientific knowledge, Hawking makes a particularly startling claim - that...
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George Soros to Donate $100 Million to Human... →
This is a serious, serious donation to a serious organization. Congratulations to Human Rights Watch and kudos to George Soros.
To put this into some perspective, “It is the largest gift he has made, the largest gift by far that Human Rights Watch has ever received, and only the second gift of $100 million or more made by an individual this year.”
For anyone interested in luring...
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Multiculturalism and Its Discontents →
I find myself in a lonely place in relation to many liberals, political and religious, because I cannot accept a multiculturalism that tends to excuse, under the rubric of “tolerance,” religious and cultural practices that violate universal human rights.
The above is from an excellent piece by Susan Jacoby on the tension that arises when political liberals assign more weight to...
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“When we humans create new ideas, paintings, poems, stories, or technical...”
– Susan Blackmore has written a couple of posts for “The Stone” recently that are interesting philosophical riffs on evolutionary biology. The latest is a response to the harsh criticism she received after the first.
While I find the discussion of genes, memes, and — Blackmore’s addition — temes...
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Big Ten Divisions
The Big Ten will announce its brand-new football divisions this evening.
ESPN is reporting that it’s going to look like this:
Michigan, Nebraska, Iowa, Michigan State, Northwestern, and Minnesota.
Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin, Purdue, Indiana, and Illinois.
I think this is a mistake, for a variety of reasons (with the most obvious being the splitting up of Ohio State and...
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Plato and Pop Culture →
Alexander Nehamas’ recent post about Plato and popular culture highlights — at some level — what I’ve been attempting to do here, here, and here.
In short, I want to argue that taking seriously the Platonic critique of the dominant poets of his day can lead us to consider the virtues and vices celebrated by our books, television shows, movies, music, and even video games.
...