July 2010
“Bottom line: Higher corporate profits no longer lead to higher employment. We’re...”
– Robert Reich (via azspot)
WatchJulian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks | Video on TED.com
“Unless we teach children to value tradition for its own sake and protect our...”
– 3quarksdaily
“There is great variety in human sexual practices. We tend to think that we all...”
– 3quarksdaily
“The argument against gay marriage is thus similar to the argument against...”
– 3quarksdaily
“If there is any doubt about the appropriateness or morality of same-sex...”
– 3quarksdaily
U.S. military can't account for $8.7 billion (96%)... →
This is amazing. There’s just no end to this shit.
(via ryking)
“The traditional media are so petrified of being called “liberal”...”
– The End Of The Fox News Era | The New Republic
“Obama complained on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that...”
– The End Of The Fox News Era | The New Republic
6 tags
My initial thoughts upon reading Reality Hunger by...
Really intellectually stimulating. Perhaps in part because I was trying to guess where he got his material from. (He actually requests that you don’t look at the endnotes in the back of the book - that you cut them out with scissors on the dotted line and throw them away).
He writes about how straightforward fiction - narrative, story - just doesn’t do it for him, how memoir is part...
1 tag
“But is there anything more uncertain than the Histories we read, wherein if two...”
– Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before
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“If jealousy is born from intense love, he who does not feel jealousy of the...”
– Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before
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“He knew that jealousy is generated outside of any reference to what is, is not,...”
– Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before
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“In short, the reader may think that the dove has all too many meanings. But if a...”
– Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before
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“We would be lacking in Christian charity if we absolutely denied the possibility...”
– Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before
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“Love becomes a matter for the mind only when the body desires and that desire is...”
– Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before
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“To live in the Antipodes, then, means reconstructing instinct, knowing how to...”
– Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before
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“The philosopher is like the poet. The latter composes ideal letters for an ideal...”
– Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before
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“What we honor as prudence in our elders is simply panic in action.”
– Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before
“…and now there is all this criticism of Obama for being silent on race, as...”
– The Tea Party is Perverted and Irrelevant — RollingStone.com
“At every Tea Party event I’ve gone to, the scene always devolves in one of two...”
– The Tea Party is Perverted and Irrelevant — RollingStone.com
“Which brings me to the Shirley Sherrod business. Following this surreal episode...”
– The Tea Party is Perverted and Irrelevant — RollingStone.com
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“But do not look at me as if I lacked sound principles and were not a faithful...”
– Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before
“One reason people are so wildly overconfident in the accuracy of their beliefs...”
– Book Review - Being Wrong - Adventures in the Margin of Error - By Kathryn Schulz - NYTimes.com
“The American political system is nothing if not complicated and so too are the...”
– Kabuki Democracy: Why a Progressive Presidency Is Impossible, for Now | The Nation
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“You think it makes you a fraud, the tiny fraction anyone else ever sees? Of...”
– David Foster Wallace (via maxistentialist)
“Yet I still saw a report the other day about a fan site where the members were...”
– Mel Gibson’s tirades are the distilled violence, cruelty, and bigotry of right-wing Catholic ideology. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine
“Every time Mel Gibson unburdens himself of a tirade against Jews or...”
– Mel Gibson’s tirades are the distilled violence, cruelty, and bigotry of right-wing Catholic ideology. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine
Free money - Here’s an idea for foreign aid: Just... →
There are all sorts of things very poor people living in poor countries don’t have. They lack secondary-school educations, usually, and good medical care. They lack steady work and life insurance, bank accounts and competent legal representation, adequate fertilizer for their crops, adequate protein in their diets, reliable electricity, clean water, indoor plumbing, low-interest loans, incubators...
WatchElif Shafak: The politics of fiction | Video on TED.com
This is an amazing video. Here’s just a sample of one of my many favorite parts.
“Identity politics divides us, fiction connects. One is interested in sweeping generalizations, the other in nuance. The one draws boundaries, the other recognizes no frontiers. Identity politics is made of solid bricks, fiction of flowing water....
“But if politicians who insist that the way to reduce deficits is to cut taxes,...”
– Op-Ed Columnist - Redo That Voodoo - NYTimes.com
3 tags
“… and staring back from the mirror is not so much a face as the expression...”
– Colin Firth’s character in the movie A Single Man.
(This movie was brilliant, check it out.)
“Ronald Reagan said that his tax cuts would reduce deficits, then presided over a...”
– Paul Krugman (via azspot) (via katharticrantings)
re-DubYa-can zombie doctrine
(via joligreenredqueen)
(via merrifulrhino)
(via shorterexcerpts)
Financial Reform Vote-Buying, Chapter 1 --... →
An analysis by a group called Maplight.org uncovered an interesting fact about the vote. The 38 Senators who opposed the bill in the cloture vote this afternoon received an average of $103,266 in campaign contributions from commercial banks. The 60 Senators who were yea votes took an average of $76,759.
Obviously this is just part of the puzzle, but it’s worth noting. The pull Wall Street...
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“The mania for elegiac slobbering is one of the most disgusting things about this...”
– The Steinbrenner Slobituary — RollingStone.com
“Yesterday, when I first heard that Steinbrenner died, I figured his Slobituary...”
– The Steinbrenner Slobituary — RollingStone.com
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Free Will
Student: Does man have free will?
Alan Watts: Man has free will to the extent that he knows who he is.
Veiled Threats? by Martha Nussbaum- Opinionator... →
This opinion piece on the question of legally banning the veil, being debated in Europe, is well worth reading. Regardless of where you think you will stand on this issue, you have to notice that an actual philosopher has more to add to the debate than a pundit or a politician.
“For years, pundits and politicians on the left have been calling themselves...”
– Poll: Majority Of Americans Not Quite Sure What ‘Progressive’ Means (via ryking)
3 tags
United Farm Workers invite Americans to 'Take Our... →
sexartandpolitics:
jasencomstock:
azspot:
At least half a million applicants are needed to replace the immigrant workforce, so the union has posted an online application for Americans who want to work on a farm.
Through its Web site, at www.takeourjobs.org, the union promises to connect applicants with farm jobs in their area.
Since June 24, at least 4,000 people have responded to the...