current-events
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How Capitalism Creates The Welfare State « The Dish
The two concepts are usually seen in complete opposition in our political discourse. The more capitalism and wealth, the familiar argument goes, the better able we are to do without a safety net for the poor, elderly, sick and young.… Continue reading
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Yes, the Chicken is organic… but are the workers paid a living wage?
. ..Next month will see the release of Saru Jayaraman’s first book, Behind the Kitchen Door, which challenges foodies who demand organic, fair-trade and free-range ingredients in their food to pay just as much attention to the people who do the… Continue reading
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Reading Plato on Death Row – New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science
A really powerful & timely philosophical practice. Every Wednesday, I go to Riverbend Maximum Security Prison in Nashville to facilitate a discussion group with prisoners on death row and philosophy graduate students. It’s a nice prison, as far as prisons… Continue reading
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The NRA & the Black Panthers “in dialog”: The Secret History of Guns
Whether we are Christians or Muslims or nationalists or agnostics or atheists, we must first learn to forget our differences. If we have differences, let us differ in the closet; when we come out in front, let us not have… Continue reading
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Mindfulness or Fearfulness
“Extreme fear can neither fight nor fly.” -William Shakespeare There is a great deal of viciousness & dis-ease in the United States of America: poverty; mental disorders; drug addiction; bigotry; compulsive obsessive consumption of sex, violence, food, celebrity, television, etc… Continue reading
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Social Class & Dividends for the Educational Industrial Complex
Thanks to my ever vigilant colleague Carl Beck Sachs for pointing the article below out to me. I had seen it in my “topic alert:pedagogy” from the NYTimes, but did not know if I wanted to read it. I’m glad that… Continue reading
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There is no fiscal crisis. And macroeconomics is not a morality play.
Nice overview of how things stand vis. the “fiscal cliff.” The Puritanism that surrounds how most people talk about debt–esp. government debt–really irritates and shows the lasting influence of Christian dogmatism on our sociocultural situation. Sometimes I cannot tell if… Continue reading
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So You Think You Know the Second Amendment? : The New Yorker
…Conservatives often embrace “originalism,” the idea that the meaning of the Constitution was fixed when it was ratified, in 1787. They mock the so-called liberal idea of a “living” constitution, whose meaning changes with the values of the country at… Continue reading
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DOJ & HSBC Settle It: The War on Drugs is a War on Poor People
Thanks to my good colleague & brother Carl Sachs for pointing out this story. More to think about in the war on drugs as a war against the average citizen when banking institutions are allowed to do business with the… Continue reading
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The New Jim Crow: Enslaving our Future
In case you don’t have it in you to read the book–which I highly recommend as something you SHOULD read–here is a very nice overview. Do not let yourself believe that incarceration in the United States of America is doing… Continue reading
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Robots, Robber Barons, & the Situation for Existential Innovation
A more full account from Paul Krugman on some of the topics I originally brought up yesterday. Still, can innovation and progress really hurt large numbers of workers, maybe even workers in general? I often encounter assertions that this can’t… Continue reading
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Innovating Existence: Human Capital in the Global Market
In the Society of Control, we have given up a few things that marked the closing decades of the Society of Discipline. Among these is the dominance of disciplinary enclosures. That dominance led to the University as we know it… Continue reading
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Conservative Progress & Same-Sex Marriage
I suppose in the circles that Matalin travels in, this would be considered uber-progressive. It def is a kind of progress. Republican political strategist Mary Matalin must have finally gotten the message that a growing number of Americans support marriage… Continue reading
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R&Ex’s 500th Post: The Student Debt Crisis
Thanks to all of those who have been reading this blog and spurring me on to keep posting. The other day I passed 10,000 views. And today is another milestone: the 500th post. I wanted to be sure and pick… Continue reading
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Letters From Millennial Voters – The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan – The Daily Beast
These letters that Sullivan has collected are an education for older Americans. Folks should give a look & think about what Millenials are saying. Letters From Millennial Voters – The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan – The Daily Beast. Continue reading
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