This space has been quasi-dormant for a bit, but for anyone checking in, I have a new post up at The Smoke-Filled Room about the recent rally in Barcelona and what it means for Europe’s crises of wealth and identity. … Continue reading
Category Archives: Uncategorized
And As Their Desperation Grows . . .
I recently co-published an article in The Huffington Post about the views of Syrian revolutionaries on the issue of international intervention. Drawing our data primarily from Arabic social media sources, we make the following argument: As the regime has continued its … Continue reading
Looking Forward, Not Backward in Ancient Rome
Glenn Greenwald has a great post over at Salon about the modern lessons of the Cataline Conspiracy and Julius Caesar’s unsuccessful attempt to prevent the conspirators’ extrajudicial execution. Greenwald draws smart parallels between Caesar’s defense of Roman legal precedent and the … Continue reading
Brief Thought on Television Debates
Posting has been basically non-existent as the semester has piled project upon project in a compressed period of time. Quasi-regular blogging should return soon. There was a brief televised “debate” the other day between Paul Krugman and Ron Paul, in … Continue reading
Ethnic Hierarchies: Differences in Degree vs. Kind
I’m annoyed with Benjamin Netanyahu. He’s taken an irritating and inexplicably-popular American phrase about ducks and moved it into meme territory. It’s only a matter of time before some nostalgic guy with time on his hands spins up an “all … Continue reading
Egyptian Democracy Sacrificed On Altar of Obama Re-Election
From The New York Times, March 23d. An intense debate within the Obama administration over resuming military assistance to Egypt, which in the end was approved Friday by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, turned in part on a question … Continue reading
The Internal Contradictions of E.U. Identity Construction
There’s been a flap this week about an ad produced by the European Commission touting the benefits of E.U. enlargement. Watch: The video draws on the martial arts film genre, and shows a woman wearing a Beatrix Kiddo-esque yellow jumpsuit … Continue reading
Thoughts on Obama’s Iran Interview
For those who haven’t already, I’d encourage readers to check out Jeffrey Goldberg’s interview with President Obama published this morning over at the Atlantic. Whatever one thinks of Goldberg, he gets at some very important questions on the eve of … Continue reading
Note: AIDS is not Karma
Yesterday, perusing the Washington Post, I ran across this fascinating article/excerpt from Craig Timberg and Daniel Halperin on the origins of the HIV epidemic. Read the piece; it’s genuinely interesting. The argument in brief is that the particular confluence of … Continue reading
Disillusionment and Elite Discourse
Twice in my life I have been genuinely disillusioned by politics. I’ve been disappointed by politics more times than I care to count. For a progressive in a reactionary age, political disappointment becomes so omnipresent as to lose most of … Continue reading