ha!

Gravitas...

(UPDATE: Sorry - should have explained what exactly this is for readers lucky enough not to live with (rather slim) possibility that the likes of this guy will soon be your head of state... From NPR:

Republican presidential contender Sen. John McCain (AZ) joked about bombing Iran this week during a campaign appearance in Murrells Inlet, S.C.

McCain was asked by an audience member about possible U.S. military action in Iran.

"How many times do we have to prove that these people are blowing up people now, never mind if they get a nuclear weapon. When do we send them an airmail message to Tehran?" a man in the crowd asked.

In response, McCain said, "That old, eh, that old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran" — which elicited laughter from the crowd. McCain then chuckled before briefly singing — to the tune of the chorus of the Beach Boys' classic "Barbara Ann" — "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, anyway, ah ...."

The audience responded with more laughter.)

Regarding the Scull Controversy

Rather than going away as an issue, the Scull versus the Foucauldians debate seems to be spreading. It seems odd to me that people are willing to get worked up over this issue. Afterall, standard periodizations of Foucault's work place The History of Madness outside his developed periods; viz., the archaeological, the genealogical, and the problematization. That is, within the Foucauldian corpus itself, The History of Madness is an outlier (not unlike his commentary on Kant's anthropology, his book on Roussel, or the disavowed Maladie mentale et personnalité). The question, then, appears not to be about the place of The History of Madness in Foucault's own oeuvre - a concept that should no doubt be question by anyone who takes Foucault's work seriously - but, rather, about what "Foucault," that is to say "Theory," signifies in the context of (primarily) (North) American disciplinary politics. (Although, it is worth pointing out that comparing passages from the "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History" essay with The History of Madness is, at best, strange - it is wrong-headed to criticize a non-genealogical work for not being genealogical!) Scull is engaged in a territorial pissing match with rivals. His concern, it seems to me, is to reject the work of Foucauldians by nit-picking Foucault's major dissertation. (I guess it is easier to take on a dead guy's dissertation than it is to take on work published by Nik Rose twenty years ago.) Predictably, the "Theory" warriors - themselves derivative hacks of the worst sort - are all to happy to jump into Scull's boat in an effort to push their own agenda within the narrow perspective of American English departments.

(Cross-posted from theoria.)

Giuliani To Run For President Of 9/11

NEW YORK—At a well-attended rally in front of his new Ground Zero headquarters Monday, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani officially announced his plan to run for president of 9/11.

"My fellow citizens of 9/11, today I will make you a promise," said Giuliani during his 18-minute announcement speech in front of a charred and torn American flag. "As president of 9/11, I will usher in a bold new 9/11 for all."

If elected, Giuliani would inherit the duties of current 9/11 President George W. Bush, including making grim facial expressions, seeing the world's conflicts in terms of good and evil, and carrying a bullhorn at all state functions.

"Let us all remember how we felt on that day, with the world watching our every move, waiting on our every word," said Giuliani, flanked by several firefighters, ex-New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, and Judith Nathan, his third wife. "With a campaign built on traditional 9/11 values, and with the help of every citizen who believes in the 9/11 dream, I want to make 9/11 great again."

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Tragedy in the key of PPT

There is something unmistakably tragic about the case of Capt. Travis Patriquin, an American soldier serving in the rather violent Al Anbar province in Iraq.  Or rather, who served in Al Anbar; he was killed on the 13th by an improvised explosive device.  He was the author of a very simple Power Point presentation called "How to Win in Al Anbar," which has been making the rounds among troops (though apparently not the higher-ups) via email, and which was recently featured ABC's World News with Charles Gibson.

Part of the sense of tragedy, of pathos, comes from the reading of the Power Point document, with its simplicity and sincerity, but a big part comes from reading it while knowing that the possibility for a realistic solution to the Civil War in Iraq has come and gone, that the solution should have been a prevention, and that it should have been such three years ago.  A simple soldier knew it, and died for it.  And his death is just one among over a hundred thousand.

George Bush, with his spotty claim to military service and his inability to acknowledge the facts on the ground, by contrast, is pushing policy once more in adverse directions, preparing to increase the number of U.S. troops and hold multiparty talks that explicitly exclude Iran and Syria, despite the recommendations of the recent Iraq Study Group.

Long Sunday in The American Book Review

Taking advantage of a little Sunday shyness then, (and shivers on my part, having just hiked/dog-chased a few dark and slippery miles of the Appalachian Trail in sleeting snow along the Tennessee, North Carolina border), also in untimely spirit of a simple sort, here is a bit of a printworld article on LS that appeared back in the July-August issue (#27.5) of the American Book Review (humble cost:  $4 and sendable to American Book Review, Illinois State University, Campus Box 4241, Normal, IL 61790-4241 – the issue includes a very good article by Pierre Joris on Rasula/American poetry, and an interesting exchange between Joseph Tabbi and R M Berry on narrative transcendence, Lyotard and Wittgenstein).   

Michael Joyce is the author of Othermindedness:  The Emergence of Network Culture among other, better-known things (though I recommend that one).  It is a very kind article (and typically gracious– as those who know Michael will attest). 

Blogs seem the most Calvinist of networked pursuits, a constancy of good works measured out not in coffee spoons but in relentless soupçons of comments and track-backs, cross-postings and intertwinings (or what Ted Nelson, the erstwhile John the Baptist of Hypertext, called intertwinglings)...

Long Sunday, of course, summons (and its home page subheads) Kafka's...phrase only matched in its melancholy evocation by my ex-wife Martha's characterization of August (she also a prof) as "a month-long Sunday night"...

Although, of les nostalgies des jours I'm partial to T.Bone Walker's, "They Call It Stormy Monday, but Tuesday's Just the Same," closely followed by John Berryman's "Dream Song 134," which goes


Sick at 6 & sick again at 9
was Henry's gloomy Monday morning oh.
Still he had to lecture

Continue reading “Long Sunday in The American Book Review”

rev tim haggard: music saturday

A song I listened to recently put me in mind of Reverend Tim Haggard's situation.

The song is by the band 'Garbage.'

The title of the song is "Sex is not the enemy"

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This is what voting in America looks like

Allow me to echo some of the recent sentiments at Daily Kos:  that anyone should have to stand in  line for five to six hours in the dark to vote, after a full day of work and before dinner, is just a real pain in the ass of North American democracy.  Update:  apparently it was all part of the new war on immigrants that served the Republicans so well an ID verification bottleneck, and not a problem with the voting machines.  So Colorado, especially, has got some work to do.  Nevertheless, browsing the footage at Video the Vote this morning, what comes across most plainly to me, and despite all the lingering and shameful problems, is a sense of grassroots vigilance not about to go away.  (And then there are the adorable stories that just warm your heart, such as the man who expressed his general feelings about electronic voting machines with a cat paperweight's ears.) 

Anyway, I thought these two especially deserved a wider audience (as in:  kids, please don't peel away that plastic strip over the modem connection...please):   

How dryly amusing that in America on Veterans Day blue collars have to work, but cannot cash a paycheck as all the banks are closed.  On voting day, meanwhile, citizens of most states simply have to work, then go home for a late dinner and crash before another working day.

This really makes no sense.  Turnout is higher in every country where voting takes place over the weekend.  We should have a national holiday that respects this most basic right.  It could even fall on the Friday before voting weekend.  Polls could close late Sunday morning.  (If a few procrastinating vacationers had to skip church, it wouldn't be the end of the world.)

Americans are working more hours than ever before, for less; a trend for which we may safely thank Reagan, but one also exponentially heightened and solidified under Clinton.  In light of which, frankly, the minimum wage increase legislation is but a patronizing and cruel joke (who the hell can  ever live on $5.15 an hour, anyway? - it's less expensive not to work).  People need to know their worth.  Fortunately, the manufacture of wage slaves has the added benefit of barring them from ever traveling to Europe.  And if they decide it's more lucrative to sell drugs (or even in some cases if they don't), there's always a new prison or six waiting to be filled.  One wonders what Pelosi and Obama really think of this situation.

Continue reading “This is what voting in America looks like”

song for reverend tim's children

Remember when the days were long
And rolled beneath a deep blue sky
Didn't have a care in the world
With mommy and daddy standing by . . .

When happily ever after fails
And we've been poisoned by these fairy tales
The lawyers dwell on small details
Since daddy had to fly

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The Day After President's Day

Harvard University, in a post-President's Day gift to the world, announced today that the second most controversial President in the United States would resign from his position effective the end of the current the academic year.  While not quite as famous as the most controversial President in the United States, who has instituted a torture archipelago, a number of illegal wars, and even more illegal polices at home, Lawrence H. Summers is nonetheless widely -- and justifiably -- loathed for saying a number of really dumb things.  (More dumb things.) By resigning now, Summers dodges a second no-confidence vote by the members of the arts and sciences faculty, scheduled for February 28.

In his letter of resignation, Summers writes:

As fulfilling as they have been in many ways, these last years have not been without their strains and moments of rancor. After a period of sabbatical and reflection, I look forward to taking up the tasks of teaching and research at the University and to returning to my professional preoccupation with questions of national and international economic policy. In the meantime, I hope and trust that we will together move through the remainder of this academic year in a spirit of good will and constructive engagement with the work of the University.

I will treasure the continuing friendship and support of so many exceptional colleagues and students at Harvard. I will always be grateful for the opportunity to have served as Harvard's President.

More: Inside Higher Ed, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, New York Times, Chronicle of Higher Education.

A Specter Returns

Though without delusion, Long Sunday salutes Michelle Bachelet, new President of Chile.  The Narcosphere is strangely silent; The Nation and The BBC are positively gushing.  There's a profile at OpenDemocracy.  Could this be the beginning of a trend, of center-left female "socialists" being elected?  Just saying, we could certainly do worse.

Update:  Jon Posthegemony has researched far more thoroughly the matter (via Archive).  And Marc Cooper's take provides a bit more nuance.