Politics – Page 43 – the coffee philosopher

Posted on December 25, 2011December 23, 2011 by the coffee philosopher

Old Voices On Contemporary Cities

I have picked out the older ones with contemporary relevance

The Roman poet Horace on always longing to be whereve you are not:

In Rome you long for the country; in the country – oh inconstant! – you praise the distant city to the stars. – Horace

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on the comfort that comes from proximity to one’s fellow man:

I have an affection for a great city. I feel safe in the neighborhood of man, and enjoy the sweet security of the streets.

Historian Arnold Toynbee on the virtues of walkability:

A city that outdistances man’s walking powers is a trap for man.

Plato on economic inequality:

Any city however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich. These are at war with one another. – Plato

Posted on December 25, 2011December 21, 2011 by the coffee philosopher

Marx The Poet?

I still think he’s a better philosopher…

Posted on December 24, 2011December 21, 2011 by the coffee philosopher

How Public Intellectuals Sold Out

Well, assuming you buy the premise, here’s a review of one view on the question.

Posted on December 23, 2011December 23, 2011 by the coffee philosopher

So Glad That Politics & Prose Is Getting Some Love

Salon put up a post about DC’s own Politics & Prose.

Among other things, the bookstore was asked to create a list of recommended books that fit the arbitrary theme of ‘American Spring.’

Well, at least their list looked pretty good.

Ill Fares the Land by Tony Judt

Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber

The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity by Jeffrey D. Sachs

Death of the Liberal Class by Chris Hedges

The Change I Believe In by Katrina Vanden Heuvel

Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer – And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class by Jacob S. Hacker & Paul Pierson

Were You Born on the Wrong Continent? How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life by Thomas Geoghegan

The Enigma of Capital And the Crises of Capitalism by David Harvey

I can definitely vouch for Ill Fares the Land as being an amazing, though heartbreaking book.

Posted on December 22, 2011December 14, 2011 by the coffee philosopher

I’m Not Sure I Agree With This Characterization…

Bill O’Reilly Is An Intellectual. So Is Rush Limbaugh.

Not that I don’t appreciate them having hypocrisy highlighted but, um, well… okay.

Posted on December 21, 2011December 21, 2011 by the coffee philosopher

Occupy & The Social Sciences

I’m came across this after doing some googling following attending a teach in at the tent city on the National Mall the other week.

An anthropology professor from Montgomery College spoke both about her own experiences as a someone self identifying as queer and as a former New York City punk and historical/anthropological perspectives on movements for social change. Cool stuff. You shoulda been there.

Posted on December 21, 2011December 21, 2011 by the coffee philosopher

On Occupy And Writers In The Depression

Someone using the occasion of the ‘people’s libraries’ in the occupy encampments to write about how writers in the thirties were helped by government programs.

Posted on December 21, 2011December 21, 2011 by the coffee philosopher

What A Truly God Awful Liberal Straw Man

I used to work across the street from the American Enterprise Institute. It made me unclean and I took two showers a day to try and wash the scent of war mongering and crony capitalism from my skin. But you never get truly clean after that. Not ever.

And Bill Kristol, who is not only a terribly columnist, but also a fellow at the Institute, used to get his coffee at the same place as me.

You probably remember Bill Kristol as being the son of respected thinker and essayist, Irving Kristol (Bill will never be remembered as either). You might also remember Bill Kristol for being a big ol’ sycophant and for generally being wrong about everything.

But all this is leading up to offering you a glimpse of this marvelously wrought bit of straw man ridiculousness.

Because you know who the real enemy of science is? California liberals.

They’re always in the street, demanding that evolution not be taught in schools and ignoring the overwhelming body of scientific evidence supporting both the existence of global climate change and humanity being a driving factor in its acceleration.

Or am I getting them confused with someone else?