Thursday, January 29, 2009

On Political Sex Scandals

We're in a time of transition.  Technology allows an immense amount of investigative access and media amplification of any person's sexual back history.  So every politician can expect this hyper scrutiny.  But people do not become politicians--born gamblers on the people's trust--by leading squeaky clean lives.  The risk itself spurs them on.  Perhaps Oedipus, ancient leaders of Thebes, actually knew he was sleeping with his mother--and hid it all along!....  But the truth will come out.  Of the closet or of the past. 
 
The cumulative disgust with politicians will in the future at last lead people to gladly cede the control of their lives and leadership of their communities  to machines, robots,  programs, asexual cyborgs, what have you.  And then we humans will be free to fornicate like canines, happy pets of the machines.  Riddle of the sphinx solved!
 

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Death of NYT?...

We've all heard of the frightened cries, but who could think it might be so soon?...

RIP Bush

The grand ambition of a fratboy succumbs.  Goodbye and good riddance. 

Screens and Pages

Another elegiac salvo from the high literary ramparts in the rhetorical war over the future of reading, and the screen vs. the page. 

Monday, January 12, 2009

300--Minority Report

On the self-imposed exceptionalism of the West (which has sired, as is rarely pointed out, the exceptionalism of America). 
 


Friday, January 09, 2009

On Beauty

Modern art-- another investment scam, a Ponzi scheme of critics and 'creators' in collusion--and really very little to do with beauty.  That's long been my opinion, but as 'art' is not technically my province, I've felt like an uninitiated ignoramus when I give voice to my suspicions.  But here it is confirmed. 

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Must We Go To College?

I've had these exact thoughts before about our nation's insane belief that everyone must go to college.
 
 

Gifts from the Heart

Mead, jam, and mix tapes-- what better gifts for the holidays.
 
 

Monday, January 05, 2009

On Moral Relativism

This spirited polemic degenerates into a thinly veiled attack on university humanities departments by the ever-aggrieved right-winger clinging to a ghostly absolute.  Nothing novel in that.