- Some choice words for reality tv in this Neil Genzlinger piece about whether the medium will reach new lows: “There were shows and one-shot specials whose mere titles were jolting: “I Was Impaled,” on Discovery Fit & Health; “Wives With Knives,” on Investigation Discovery; “My Giant Face Tumor,” on TLC. There were series that insulted whole groups of people, like “American Gypsies,” on the National Geographic Channel, and “My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding,” on TLC; and “Breaking Amish,” on TLC, and “Amish Mafia,” on Discovery. There was — again on TLC, easily the leader in this type of sludge — “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.”
- Roy Sorensen interviewed by Richard Marshall @ 3 AM Magazine: his views on armchair philosophy and experimentation have my eyebrows raised. Color me skeptical, especially after a peculiar example or two of his. From the article: Suppose I cut the handle off your coffee mug leaving two holes. Would the coffee flow out of one hole faster than the other? If we tried to figure this out by experiment, we would need to carefully measure the flow – and we would ruin your mug. We should instead mentally replace the handle with a tube. If the flow of one hole exceeded the other, we would have a perpetual motion machine. Since that is absurd, we can deduce that the holes have the same rate of flow.
- Dave Weigel talks to three departing Congressmen – a very good read. No, I don’t agree with everything they say. But they do sound like people worth talking to, people who are aware of issues and problems and have something serious to say.
- “Epimetheus,” by Jonathan Caro – an original composition for strings. If you told me I’d stumble across original classical music while blogging, I’d have told you that you were crazy.
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About Ashok
I am a graduate student in political science at the University of Dallas who thinks the media is dumb for the most part, yet am immersed myself. I am looking to break my addiction, and this blog is part of the solution: Why not try to see what the past can tell us about the present, as opposed to seeing what the present has to say about the present only?
Currently residing in Cherry Hill, NJ. Facebook. Contact me.
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OK, I’m sold. What should I read here?
- Analysis of The Gettysburg Address: Is Democracy Feasible?
- Analysis of Lincoln's "Second Inaugural:" Where do American virtues lie?
- Commentary on the Book of Jonah
- On "Batman Begins"
- From Love to God: On Hopkins' "As Kingfishers Catch Fire"
- On Emily Dickinson's "These are the days when birds come back..."
- The Coming Age: Macbeth and the Birth of the Modern World
- On Polemarchus: Commentary on the Republic of Plato, 331d-336a
- A Reading of Plato's "Crito"
- Towards a Nietzschean Understanding of Politics: Notes on "The Case of Wagner"
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