CALL ME MAGGIE

politics

  • How to Spot Propaganda

    propaganda (n.) 1718, “committee of cardinals in charge of Catholic missionary work,” short for Congregatio de Propaganda Fide “congregation for propagating the faith,” a committee of cardinals established 1622 by Gregory XV to supervise foreign missions. The word is properly… Continue reading

    How to Spot Propaganda

  • Daodejing 2

    #2* Under-heaven all know the reason why the beautiful is beautiful: the existence of the ugly; All know the reason why the good is the good: the existence of the bad. Therefore, to-be and To-not-be beget One another, Difficulty and… Continue reading

    Daodejing 2

  • How to Spot a Sociopath | The Daily Beast

    Yesterday, while I was watching George Zimmerman’s interview from last year with Sean Hannity, I began asking myself, “How do you spot a sociopath?” M. E. Thomas describes herself as a cutthroat attorney who sailed through law school without much… Continue reading

  • Techno-Conspiracy and Control

    A link here to a Big Think blog where Teddy Goff considers the power of technology in the Society of Control. Okay… you caught me! He does not call it the Society of Control. I mean, maybe he knows the… Continue reading

    Techno-Conspiracy and Control

  • Hunger Games, U.S.A. | Paul Krugman

    …So House Republicans voted to maintain farm subsidies — at a higher level than either the Senate or the White House proposed — while completely eliminating food stamps from the bill. To fully appreciate what just went down, listen to… Continue reading

    Hunger Games, U.S.A. | Paul Krugman

  • Debt – a global scam | New Internationalist

    Large outstanding personal debts – say a mortgage taken out during a housing bubble – can turn even the stoutest of us into ‘quivering insomniac jellies of hopeless indebtedness’ (as Margaret Atwood so accurately puts it). Debt is, we feel,… Continue reading

    Debt – a global scam | New Internationalist

  • THE NEW SODOM

    I am utterly disgusted by this. Last year, at the Colorado state high-school wrestling tournament, three upperclassmen from Norwood cornered a 13-year-old boy on an empty school bus, bound him with duct tape and sodomized him with a pencil. Two… Continue reading

    THE NEW SODOM

  • Daodejing 42

    #42* Dao begets one. One begets two. Two begets three. Three begets 10,000 things. The 10,000 things carry YIN on their backs and embrace YANG. Yin and Yang contest Then blend each with the Other in harmony. People detest most… Continue reading

    Daodejing 42

  • Any excuse to use excessive force

    Because any infraction of the law deserves complete, over the top violent response from a paramilitary police force. Ladies and gentleman, the panopticon and your tax dollars at work in the Society of Control… Police have justified this sort of… Continue reading

    Any excuse to use excessive force

  • [Harper’s Index] | July 2013

    This months grab bag of statistics from the always wonderful Harpers Magazine:   …Portion of university teaching positions that are filled by graduate students or adjunct faculty : 3/4   Percentage of college professors teaching online courses who do not believe students… Continue reading

    [Harper’s Index] | July 2013

  • Malcolm Gladwell: Albert O. Hirschman and the Power of Failure : The New Yorker

    We may be dealing here with a general principle of action… Creativity always comes as a surprise to us; therefore we can never count on it and we dare not believe in it until it has happened. In other words, we would… Continue reading

  • American Freedom

    I recently reposted this picture to my Facebook which had been making the rounds. It drew a lot of comments and got rereposted. In his response, my good friend and fellow pedagog John F. recommended me one of his favorite… Continue reading

  • Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

    To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so.… Continue reading

  • Twilighting Idolatries

    Genius is always sufficiently the enemy of genius by over influence. The book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with some past utterance of genius. This is good, say they, — let us hold… Continue reading

    Twilighting Idolatries

  • Controlling for Cosmopolis

    Jose Ortega y Gasset points out that the term “emperor’ means “the one who goes to where the border begins”. The Latin word is related to the Spanish verb empezar (to begin). An Imperator was a general who kept whole the… Continue reading

    Controlling for Cosmopolis

  • Withdrawing

    Engagement with the world happens on many levels. One of the most difficult actions is keeping faith in the good of humankind even as you see folks  overladen with distractions. I read Star Wars novels, like to go to blockbuster… Continue reading

    Withdrawing

  • Saturday not Studying

    Last assignment due in a class that I have enjoyed. Yet I am that bad student who does not want to put much work in the assignment. I would prefer talking with the teacher one on one about things rather… Continue reading

    Saturday not Studying

  • Rolling Stone on how the Illuminati is maybe not so impossible

    Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is… Continue reading

    Rolling Stone on how the Illuminati is maybe not so impossible