Keith “Maggie” Brown

  • A step in the right direction

    A federal judge has rejected the mandatory drug testing of welfare recipients. U.S. District Judge Mary S. Scriven ruled against Florida’s drug testing program, writing, “[T]here is nothing inherent to the condition of being impoverished that supports the conclusion that… Continue reading

  • Laying claim

    “Only a thought that does not conceal its own unsaid–but consantly takes it up and elaborates it–may eventually lay claim to originality.” Giorgio Agamben, The Signature of All Things (2009, 8) Continue reading

    Laying claim
  • The Devouring Abyss

    George Monbiot at The Guardian examines the desperation to be found in the lives of those who have known nothing but or giving themselves over to the materialist worldview that drives the Society of Control. To think of the world… Continue reading

    The Devouring Abyss
  • Unearthing music

    We all knew that Stone Age humans were hunters and gatherers. But sculptors and flutists? Archeologists announced today that they had unearthed the oldest musical instruments ever found — flutes that inhabitants of southwestern Germany laboriously carved from bone and… Continue reading

    Unearthing music
  • Flowing Exploration

    Metaphysics as a way of thinking suffers from confusion with superstition. As I have noted before, superstition encompasses more than the narrow notion thrown around by the “educated” where a person has irrational beliefs about a relationship between an imagined… Continue reading

    Flowing Exploration
  • Upon the Depths of Uncertainty

    Consider metaphysical thinking as the building up of vessels allowing us to explore the oceans of reality. Their hulls carry the provisions of our accumulated knowledge. Their rudders direct course by the pole star of the “Why not?” Their sails… Continue reading

    Upon the Depths of Uncertainty
  • International: Ripe for rebellion? | The Economist

    The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a sister company of The Economist, measures the risk of social unrest in 150 countries around the world. It places a heavy emphasis on institutional and political weaknesses. And recent developments have indeed revealed a… Continue reading

    International: Ripe for rebellion? | The Economist
  • What You Believe About Homosexuality Doesn’t Matter | In The Parlor

    Very well said. Very well said… The debate over the “rightness or wrongness” of homosexuality has once again been fired up. The appeals to the Biblical passages have been made. The academic rebuttals to the interpretation of those passages has… Continue reading

    What You Believe About Homosexuality Doesn’t Matter | In The Parlor
  • Maybe Logic Academy

    Goes well with my own thinking about philosophizing and why we keep asking questions. Founded in 2004, Maybe Logic Academy is an innovative online learning institution and community. The Academy features online courses by some our most important and ground-breaking… Continue reading

    Maybe Logic Academy
  • Learning the Difference between Neo-Liberalism and Progressivism in the Poverty Nation

    There is a big difference to be made between the progressivism that once was the hall-mark of left-wing politics and the left-leaning wing of neo-liberalism. This article, focusing on how corporations–and I would add many colleges & universities–make use of… Continue reading

    Learning the Difference between Neo-Liberalism and Progressivism in the Poverty Nation
  • ArtiZen Threads

    My good friend Rodney has started a marvelous small business creating some great products using hand woven fabrics from artisanal weavers in Vietnam and Guatemala. [Such as this Meditation Cushion pictured here.[ Brothers and sisters of the Ether, you know… Continue reading

    ArtiZen Threads
  • ▶ How Does Night Vale Confront Us With the Unknown? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios – YouTube

    Night Vale\’s masterful balance of mystery, humor, and horror has made it the #1 podcast in America. Night Vale employs the techniques of H.P. Lovecraft, specifically his masterful manipulation of THE UNKNOWN, but the medium chosen makes it literally impossible… Continue reading

    ▶ How Does Night Vale Confront Us With the Unknown? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios – YouTube
  • ▶ Do “Digital Natives” Exist? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios – YouTube

    Good episode that touches upon a few things I have been thinking about since earlier in the year. Is there such a thing as a \”DIGITAL NATIVE\”? Some experts have suggested a clear divide between \”digital native\” (the Millennial tech experts)… Continue reading

    ▶ Do “Digital Natives” Exist? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios – YouTube
  • How to Piss Off Your Barista — I. M. H. O. — Medium

    I have been working in the coffee industry now for a decade. I am not a world champion barista, but I am capable. All 10 of the items in this list are spot on and great. But number 3 is… Continue reading

    How to Piss Off Your Barista — I. M. H. O. — Medium
  • How Wall Street Power Brokers Are Designing the Future of Public Education as a Money-Making Machine

    Financial Capitalism–subordinating all processes of production toward amassing the greatest amount of excess monetary value through constantly changing financial networks–has nowhere left to turn besides the local after absorbing all international, national, and regional systems of output. And we should… Continue reading

    How Wall Street Power Brokers Are Designing the Future of Public Education as a Money-Making Machine
  • Nancy Gibbs on Why Pope Francis Is TIME’s Person of the Year 2013 | TIME.com

    Picking Francis I, with Edward Snowden a close runner up, demonstrates how the  power-hungry Financial Capitalist networks of the Society of Control are being challenged by both the most traditional channels of discourse as well as the most anti-imperialist channels.… Continue reading

    Nancy Gibbs on Why Pope Francis Is TIME’s Person of the Year 2013 | TIME.com