I would like to congratulate Australia on finally ridding itself of John Howard. In 2002 I wrote about ““Howard’s openly racist policies” and more recently we’ve had some excellent discussion on Savage Minds about his use of the “Little Children are Sacred” report to undo decades of progress on Aborigine autonomy. I’d really begun to [...]
[Cross-posted at Savage Minds] In our discussions about anthropologists in the military the term “ivory tower” has come up again and again, as has its antipode, “the real world.” These terms work rhetorically to oppose academic elitism and detachment against the difficult moral choices one must make in everyday life. A couple of things really [...]
This NY Times story made me wonder: Do Indian-Americans really want to have a small vocal minority whose views diverge strongly from their own represent them? But then I realized, its the other way around – its this small vocal minority who want to speak for all Indians. Too bad the NY Times can’t tell [...]
If you don’t know Cursor or the Center for Media Transparency, you should. Cursor is the premier alternative news aggregation site. Since the start of the Iraq war they have been playing an important role aggregating the best of the blogsphere, making it easy for the rest of us to know what’s out there. Similarly, [...]
The text of John Edward’s Hanover speech reprinted in full (via Crooked Timber): Remarks as Prepared for Delivery: “To Build One America, End the Game” Hanover, New Hampshire August 23, 2007 This election is unlike any we have faced before. The stakes are higher. And the challenges we face as a nation are greater than [...]
Three interesting quotes about democracy in China. Each pointing in a different direction: The first from a Rick Perlstein review of Mann’s The China Fantasy in The Nation: Nicholas Kristof dishonored the fifteenth anniversary of the massacre in 2004, Mann points out, with a column titled “The Tiananmen Victory.” The democracy activists had won: “After [...]
I only recently learned that Ousmane Sembène, “the ‘father’ of African Cinema” died last month. Sembène was much more radical, much more of a brechtian filmmaker, and much more influential than Michael Moore could ever hope to be. Sembène was a writer who went into filmmaking because of the high rates of illiteracy in his [...]
Reading the reactions to Sicko in the press is an interesting exercise. Almost without exception, including papers from both the left and the right, reviewers feel compelled to adopt the tone of voice of a disapproving adult, condemning Moore for his excesses while reluctantly conceding that the film is important and that these issues need [...]
Here is a quote from FOX News: Filmmaker Michael Moore’s brilliant and uplifting new documentary, “Sicko,” deals with the failings of the U.S. healthcare system, both real and perceived. But this time around, the controversial documentarian seems to be letting the subject matter do the talking, and in the process shows a new maturity. And [...]