Monthly Archives: July 2008

Venting.

What I have to vent about is my own fault. What is most precious is probably slipping away; what needs to be done is not being done well at all. I can conceive of things being a lot easier. But they are a lot harder for many more people. I wish I could take that …

July 30, 2008 – 4:14 am | By ashok | Posted in personal | Tagged | Comments (3)

Addendum to “Justice’s Required Redeemer: On The Dark Knight” (spoilers)

Elizabeth Wolcott has noted that if Joker’s knives are his use of words, then we can account for Joker’s scars. Presumably the scars came from a knife; given that he describes his father cutting him up and him cutting his wife or himself up (I’m not sure of the latter, I forget what happened), and …

July 27, 2008 – 2:42 pm | By ashok | Posted in movies | Comments (0)

Rant: How Do We Determine If Too Many People Are Going To College Or Not?

Note: I am aware of how hypocritical the end of this is, given that I’m working to be a professor. I’m convinced anyone who stands for anything is prone to hypocrisy – the only way to avoid the problem is to be shameless. 1. Anyone who walks onto a US college or university nowadays is …

July 24, 2008 – 10:46 am | By ashok | Posted in education, politics | Tagged | Comments (1)

Justice’s Required Redeemer: On "The Dark Knight"

Note: Spoilers galore ahead. The movie is well-paced, incredibly dense, and very tense. Please do not ruin it for yourself if you have not seen it – this movie probably cannot be hyped enough. However: if you can learn what justice is, why so serious about a mere plot? for Peter Lund 1. Does justice …

July 23, 2008 – 3:47 am | By ashok | Posted in batman, movies | Comments (7)

Quick Post, I Want to Get Back to Work: "Distracted from Distraction by Distraction"

This article is most certainly alarmist, but has a few points worth considering: To what degree are attentiveness and being distracted physiological conditions? The author claims that knowledge of the brain tells us that if you’re driving, and someone is describing something over the phone that requires you to visualize it, a “visual channel” will …

July 22, 2008 – 1:08 pm | By ashok | Posted in education, links | Tagged | Comments (2)

Philadelphia

1. When I emerge from the subway at 8th and Market, having crossed the river and seeing the city glow in the sunlight or illumine the night, the filth of the air currently strikes me in the face. There have been conversations great and small on those streets. Walking down Market in front of Independence …

July 21, 2008 – 12:37 pm | By ashok | Posted in personal, politics | Tagged | Comments (1)

Quizzes, 7/20/2008

1. Geek quiz (h/t Kristine Lowe) – I thought it was fun, quite a few things I didn’t know and looked up.2. Pew Research “Do you know anything about the news?” quiz (h/t David) – this is easy, but worth your while to see how everyone else answered. Yeah, it’s pretty disgusting.

July 20, 2008 – 11:26 am | By ashok | Posted in links | Comments (1)

Towards a Nietzschean Understanding of Politics: Notes on "The Case of Wagner" (Part 3)

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 II. Music, Art and Politics for Nancy Ruggeri 1. A fellow student in graduate school remarked that after reading Nietzsche, his love for the band Cursive fell away – the nihilism in their lyrics and their overly emotional tropes struck him as decadent and he couldn’t take …

July 19, 2008 – 2:59 am | By ashok | Posted in nietzsche, philosophy, politics | Tagged , , | Comments (1)

Towards a Nietzschean Understanding of Politics: Notes on "The Case of Wagner" (Part 2)

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 In the first part, we went through the Preface of this work very carefully in order to discuss how Nietzsche sets up possible personae for the sake of delivering both an effective teaching and a more difficult teaching. Now I want to achieve two things: outline the …

July 18, 2008 – 12:16 pm | By ashok | Posted in nietzsche, philosophy, politics | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Towards a Nietzschean Understanding of Politics: Notes on "The Case of Wagner" (Part 1)

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 All citations from the essay throughout the course of this series are from the Kaufmann translation in the “Basic Writings of Nietzsche” published by Modern Library, copyright 1992, p. 611-653. First part: “Preface,” p. 611-612, with commentary. Note: Words in italics those of Nietzsche’s. Each paragraph from …

July 18, 2008 – 7:48 am | By ashok | Posted in nietzsche, philosophy, politics | Tagged , , | Comments (0)