Amitai Etzioni posts on the benefits and (mostly) the hazards of online anonymity. The point is, in one sense, well taken. Anyone who’s watched online fora degenerate knows that without some sort of accountability, online conversation follows a discursive variant of Gresham’s Law: bad posting drives out good. But Etzioni closes his plea for less […]

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Among the many things I’ve been meaning to post on over the past week but haven’t is Jacob Levy’s excellent post on the differences between political philosophers and political theorists. Since I found myself nodding my head along with most of it, I find that (alas) I have little to add here, except in confirmation. […]

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There’s a new issue out, and Will’s got a characteristically witty post on the difficulties of bringing “democracy” to a freshly [occupied / liberated] country.

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The New York Times just profiled a quirky little record store called Rockit Scientist over on Carmine St. that I used to pop in to occasionally—though I spent more time at Other Music, also mentioned in the piece… at least when I could tolerate the tone of disdain when I asked whether they had something […]

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So I’d thought that I had a problem this evening: did I want to catch Yo La Tengo at the 9:30 Club, which I’d been looking forward to, or go out with Radley’s posse to check out some jazz at Bohemian Caverns? Well, my problem has been “solved” insofar as I find myself sick as […]

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Y’know, I think I had the right idea before—I shouldn’t post about Iraq. I have no particular comparative advantage there, in that I’m not going to say anything others can’t say better, and it just puts me in a foul mood. Back to philosophy.

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It appears that the Betchel Group, recent recipient of a lucrative government contract to rebuild Iraq, has a history in the region. In the 50s, they built a pipeline from Kirkuk in Iraq to Syria, and in the ’80s they had plans to build a massive oil pipeline from iraq to Jordan. And who was […]

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One other thought on the Michigan affirmative action case… the university here is claiming that a diverse student body (viewpoint and experience diverse, with race used as a proxy—it’s settled law that mere racial diversity is invalid on face as a state purpose) constitutes a “compelling state interest.” There’s some dicta from Justice Powell in […]

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I just recently saw The Commanding Heights (which you can watch online in full if you follow the link), which is a nice sort of dramatized introduction to this century’s market revolution and the new global economy. They got some impressive folks to comment—Bill Clinton, Indonesia’s president, Robert Rubin, etc. Even my old prof. from […]

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Josh Chafetz is sporting a raging hard-on over all the macho good deeds American soldiers have been doing in his name. (Not in the name of all those limp wristed peaceniks, goddamit!) You’d think he’d marched into Baghdad himself, rather than firing off chest-thumping, cheerleading salvos from his keyboard. Oh, but he does remember to […]

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