Accidental Blogger
A general interest blog
Category: Educational, Cultural & Social Matters
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“[C]lass has re-emerged” as a measure of inequality in a post-racist, post-sexist, post-homophobic world. So notes Walter Benn Michaels in a review of a new Runnymede Trust collection, Who Cares about the White Working Class? I hope he’s correct on this point, and it seems to me I’ve seen more about class lately in scattered…
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From the New York Times a few weeks ago: "Spending an idle morning watching people look at art is hardly a scientific experiment, but it rekindles a perennial question: What exactly are we looking for when we roam as tourists around museums? As with so many things right in front of us, the answer may…
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Once again an e-mail exchange with my co-bloggers has resulted in a post. I sent the link to this article in the UK Telegraph to all the A.B. authors (link via 3QD). The question was whether we should care about the less than exemplary private lives of public figures, in this particular case, famous authors. Should the knowledge…
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Two items in the news regarding web based networks – the social dynamics of Facebook and the limits of free speech on blogs. ALBANY, N.Y. – Alice Connors-Kellgren was surprised by her boyfriend's new Facebook profile picture a few weeks ago: He was kissing another girl on the cheek. The picture was up only briefly. And she figures it…
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A public defender quits his practice and starts a consulting business for applicants to creative writing programs. A massively accomplished poet and blogger about all things literary and bibliographic picks up on this new direction and sees “a larger vision of poetry in American life.” He’s at once critical, skeptical, and admiring of the project…
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Malcolm Gladwell, the tireless social commentator and examiner of sacred cows and conventional wisdoms has another provocative piece out. This time he analyzes the cultural and moral disposition of Atticus Finch, a leading character in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, the celebrated American novel set in the deep south of the 1930s Depression era. In the New Yorker article Gladwell takes a look not…
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We've commented on steroids and PEDs in sports before. In the wake of the latest "scandal," this time on my Red Sox, a Globe column got it exactly right: Roger Clemens has never failed a drug test. But fans hate the guy. So he’s a cheater. Barry Bonds is a pariah. So we don’t buy…
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Quite coincidentally, right on the heels of our recent discussion on language and thought, Sukrita Paul Kumar sent me the following essay in which she muses over the issue of color. Color also came up tangentially in the comments section of the language post. Sukrita's is a literary approach – no Sapir-Whorf there. Her thoughts also touch upon this discussion here. (Sukrita has used Indian /…
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The NYT Economix blog has a write-up on PayScale, a college ranking company that measures how much college graduates make by institution, both at mid-career and at initial entry into the market. It is limited to bachelor's degrees, i.e., it specifically excludes those who go on to earn graduate degrees. This seems to me obviously…
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On the eve of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, Houston remembers how it was transformed from a regional oil town to the international space center – home of NASA. The fast developing space race of the 1960s quickly began to leave its mark on the city's broader culture. From Tranquility Park in downtown Houston to professional sports teams known…
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Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) is a long time champion of "sanctity of human life." He is a staunch opponent of abortion and since his conversion to Catholicism, also of the death penalty, except in rare cases. It is not surprising therefore that Brownback does not support embryonic stem cell research or cloning. All this while I had assumed that his opposition to both stemmed…
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Having failed in their attempt to inject religion into science education, Texas conservatives have shifted their attention to the state's elementary school social studies curriculum. According to some, school children need no longer learn about national figures such as George Washington and Abraham Licoln or Texas leaders like Stephen F. Austin. Other public figures, Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall for example, too could be excluded from the study material. …
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In a recent landmark ruling Delhi's highest court has decriminalized homosexual sex among consenting adults in India's capital. NEW DELHI —In a landmark ruling Thursday that could usher in an era of greater freedom for gay men and lesbians in India, New Delhi’s highest court decriminalized homosexuality. “The inclusiveness that Indian society traditionally displayed, literally in every aspect of…
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President Obama on fatherhood. Happy Father's Day to the dads among our readers.
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Judge Sonia Sotomayor, Barack Obama's pick for the Supreme Court has been characterized by right wing rabblerousers as a racist and a militant femme. She has caught a lot of flak, particularly for one statement she made in a 2001 speech at the University of Berkeley entitled, ‘A Latina Judge’s Voice,’ during which she elaborated upon her experience on the bench…
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