From McSweeney's, because you can never make too much fun of Ayn Rand.

We are excited indeed to present the finalized program of the third RSA Biennial Summer Institute: mark your calendars, plan on attending, submit your application and call this program to the attention of others.

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A pretty darn persuasive case against Zizek.

One of our Master's students, Dan Richards, posted this to our TA blog recently...it's pretty cool.

(via Salon): another idea whose time has come. Rumor has it that it smells like rhosa's clove cigarettes. I can hardly wait for Eau de TAMU (which probably smells like Old Sarge or Reveille on a Texas July day).

An idea whose time has come. (Josh and Christopher, I think this is a worthy successor to the NCA "Repetition" panel. . . . Perhaps "Dance that Theorist"? I could do Adorno, wearing black, not moving, while playing something by Anton Webern in the background.

The deadline is fast approaching, but this looks like a good deal:

a special workshop opportunity at next summer's RSA Institute: a Career Retreat for Associate Professors. The Career Retreat for Associate Professors is an initiative of the Gender Task Force of the RSA to reach out to associate professors seeking to complete a scholarly project and achieve promotion to full professor.

At the Career Retreat, each participant will have the opportunity to work
with a senior member of the RSA who will has agreed to serve as a career
coach to:

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Kristol, like Elsa Murano, President of Texas A&M, "pals around with torturers": "One last thing: Bush should consider pardoning--and should at least be vociferously praising--everyone who served in good faith in the war on terror, but whose deeds may now be susceptible to demagogic or politically inspired prosecution by some seeking to score political points. The lawyers can work out if such general or specific preemptive pardons are possible; it may be that the best Bush can or should do is to warn publicly against any such harassment or prosecution.

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Josiah Ober, Democracy and Knowledge: Innovation and Learning in Classical Athens (Princeton UP 2008). Description: When does democracy work well, and why? Is democracy the best form of government? These questions are of supreme importance today as the United States seeks to promote its democratic values abroad. Democracy and Knowledge is the first book to look to ancient Athens to explain how and why directly democratic government by the people produces wealth, power, and security.

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I'm sure many Blogora readers are following the Mumbai situation closely and wondering how one might have hope for discussion, discourse, rhetoric...

I am distrubed by Marty Peretz's rant about "the reasonable Islam":

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Be sure to have your tissues nearby before watching this one.

In case you haven't been paying attention:

Total U.S. military fatalities in Iraq since March 2003: 4204

Total Coalition fatalities in Iraq since then: 4518

Iraqi civilian fatalities since the invasion: Exact count unknown, perhaps 1.4 million or more

Total U.S. military fatalities in Afghanistan since 2001: 629
Total NATO fatalities in Afghanistan since 2001: 1014

Afghanistan civilian fatalities since 2002: Exact count unknown, tens of thousands

From Intercollegiate Studies Institute, an online quiz to test your knowledge about American government (some of the economics questions are irritating, but overall it's a good test). See if you can beat the average (I only missed one).

Miriam laughing maniacally from the living room. I ask, "What are you laughing at?" She says, "Oprah just said, 'If you're not going to love your vulva, who will?'" --Seems there was a discussion of poor genital self-image. . . . Miriam: "Well, it's only women who have this problem. Every man thinks his dick is the center of the universe." And I respond: "This is a problem, why?"

1. "Exacting intellects traditionally mistrust colored paint. 'The most beautiful colors,' Aristotle observed in his Poetics,'laid on at random, give less pleasure than a black-and-white drawing.' Kant dismissed color outright as an element of a painting's 'charm,' recognizing drawing alone as 'the proper object of the pure judgment of taste.' Color is meretricious, narcotic, manipulative, deceitful. The thinking viewer--if we are to believe the philosophers--is secretly dreaming of a white canvas." --Christopher S.

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I'm sitting in the airport waiting for my flight from San Diego back to Austin. I have been anxious to post on the Blogora (hotel internet was pricey, but the airport here is free!!) to share my own impressions of our alternate nca conference, and find out what others thought.

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YIDDISH SUMMER!
The Steiner Yiddish Summer Program

INTERNSHIPS: June 14-July 24, 2009
at the National Yiddish Book Center
Amherst, MA

Live and learn Yiddish for six weeks in the lively Five College
area:Intensive beginning and intermediate Yiddish-language classes.
Studies in Yiddish Culture and Eastern European History.

Hands-on professional experience with the Book Center's staff.
Research opportunities.
Field trips, workshops, performances, and more.

Full-time undergraduate and graduate students are encouraged to

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More antics by the Hitler Youth at Texas A&M. Faculty advisor resigns. Bush enabler President Elsa Murano's office gives less than full support to the academic freedom of four professors who signed a petition for Bill Ayers. Murano's spokesman's email is: jason.cook@tamu.edu should anyone wish to point out to him that we don't need his warnings.

Big of them. (Is The Onion writing Osservatore Romano's copy these days?)

happy? not tv.

tv? unhappy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/health/research/20happy.html