tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post7476090015132808542..comments2024-02-12T23:25:09.583-08:00Comments on Overweening Generalist: Missing Public Discussions: A "Reality" Problemmichaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-70581573029974249582019-12-07T10:31:23.494-08:002019-12-07T10:31:23.494-08:00I love San Bernardino. I love teaching at San Bern...I love San Bernardino. I love teaching at San Bernardino Valley College, perhaps my favorite gig.<br /><br />How do you think we can improve our schools?Eric Wagnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04312033917401203598noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-79998528205821763652013-10-20T03:00:10.634-07:002013-10-20T03:00:10.634-07:00Psuke- I've seen Proops (sp?) on TV but haven&...Psuke- I've seen Proops (sp?) on TV but haven't listened to his podcast. <br /><br />Maron wrote a book called, IIRC, The Jerusalem Experiment, mostly autobiographical if not solely...and he writes about being mindfucked by Illuminatus!<br /><br />I've never been to Kentucky. You're right about my "the South." I've spent time in San Bernardino ("San Berdoo! YEE-HAW!) enough to know there are pockets of...that...all over the US.<br /><br />Ever see a film called Gummo? I think it's set in So.Ohio, a probably faked historical backstory but plausible enough...O! The humanity!<br /><br />Your ideas about local-think and the effects of passive information-intake addresses a fascinating topic I wish you or others would write about: how do we accept the passivity of fellow humans, or if not accept: what sort of metaphysical project is it to get people to think about media in some mix of McLuhan/Rushkoff/Thomson...way? Or is this more easily addressed by a reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine? Or wot?<br /><br />One of the most solid ideas in all Urban Theory and writings on the sociology of The City in history: the concentration of minds and diverse viewpoints tends to foster a far more open-mindedness and as vortices for creativity. I think people interacting in meatspace does this; the claims for cyber seem at the moment oversold.<br /><br />You ARE weird. You're just the person to comment wittily at the OG. Thanks!<br /><br />I have not read "Mistakes Were Made But Not By Me" but you make it sound worthsomewhiles. I like cog.diss. under most conditions, if only because it jars me out of one "reality" into another. michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-25903429425391896902013-10-19T10:53:14.150-07:002013-10-19T10:53:14.150-07:00And to be fair to the "South", I think i...And to be fair to the "South", I think it percolates in small and out of the way towns all over Unistat. I lived in a small "community" in Northern California, and another just outside of Bakersfield, and in the Downriver Suburbs of Detroit, Michigan (which is so North it's next to Canada) and the same idiocy can be found there.<br /><br />I don't think it's stupidity as much as a lack of outside ideas "in the air" such as one gets in larger towns, or ones with more outside traffic. And the brain can be damned lazy.<br /><br />Have you read "Mistakes Were Made but not by Me?" it talks about cognitive dissonance and why it can be so hard to "live with", and thus it gets squashed by most.<br /><br />Personally, I love it. I love to "feel" my brain expand. But then I'm kinda weird.Psukehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01116423188181098527noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-78054345999822512502013-10-19T10:44:39.846-07:002013-10-19T10:44:39.846-07:00I can't remember if I actually listened to tha...I can't remember if I actually listened to that episode or not...about two years ago I followed his podcast regularly and I remember the episode, but not if listened all the way through.<br /><br />Have you listened to any of Greg Proops "Smartest Man in the World" podcasts? I think you'd enjoy them.<br /><br />The funniest thing I saw in Kentucky (aside from some Amish driving by in a buggy...don't see that in the Western Half so much) was the Golgotha Fun Park.<br /><br />No, I did not go in. We were on our way to the caves, and didn't stop, but I've often wondered (shuddered?) over what was in there.Psukehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01116423188181098527noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-83672360648543047952013-10-18T13:55:56.883-07:002013-10-18T13:55:56.883-07:00Oops! Sorry to tarnish Ohio: The Creationist's...Oops! Sorry to tarnish Ohio: The Creationist's Museum is apparently in Kentucky:<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EQHdu-rS6Emichaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-74164786510624363422013-10-18T13:50:13.986-07:002013-10-18T13:50:13.986-07:00If you take a cosmopolitan outlook, check out Boko...If you take a cosmopolitan outlook, check out Boko Haram in Northern Nigeria:<br /><br />http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2013/11/northern-nigeria/verini-text<br /><br />I wonder if the Tea Baggers had complete power, how far would they go toward this level of repressed, stupid lunacy? (They ELECT people like Louis Gohmert and Michelle Bachmann, so...my guess is this stuff percolates in the semantic unconscious throughout Texas and the Deep South...)<br /><br />Whenever I read about enforced stupidity I can't help but think of Wilhelm Reich's ideas.<br /><br />Hey: for a hilarious take on the Creation Museum in Ohio, seek out Marc Maron's bit on it. I found it on his CD _This Has To Be Funny_.michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-58836695309440037352013-10-18T08:18:39.090-07:002013-10-18T08:18:39.090-07:00Yowza. I find it amazing how little some of these ...Yowza. I find it amazing how little some of these people understand of their own history. Or (and?) how much they *refuse* to understand.Psukehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01116423188181098527noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-63030261234463549032013-10-17T16:12:34.844-07:002013-10-17T16:12:34.844-07:00Another big front on the textbook wars has wingnut...Another big front on the textbook wars has wingnut revisionist David Barton at its center. Oy!<br /><br />http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-rodda/debunking-david-bartons-j_b_3936810.htmlmichaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-77189396883149149472013-10-17T16:05:31.980-07:002013-10-17T16:05:31.980-07:00LOL, I think I posted the wrong link...several pag...LOL, I think I posted the wrong link...several pages open at the time, and I also posted that to my G+ page, although I'm sure it's lost in the overwhelming noise that is mass sosh media. I had actually meant to link to an archived radio program, which is how I found out about it (the Textbook War).<br /><br />I've seen some fabulous TED talks (my favorite being Sir Ken Robinson's) and I've seen some where I thought...really? Someone thought that was worth sharing? Or had anything close to content? (Such as anything Bill Gates has said there.) And I have to say it's probably 20-80 pro to con.Psukehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01116423188181098527noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-27700451482556940262013-10-17T01:38:06.656-07:002013-10-17T01:38:06.656-07:00Psuke-
I welcome comments on olde blogspews; if I...Psuke-<br /><br />I welcome comments on olde blogspews; if I saw fit to write about it "back then" I'm almost certainly still very much interested in the topic/idea/issue, even if I may have altered my views a bit since then.<br /><br />I've read a bunch of maddening stuff on the textbook wars, a very open conspiracy to keep kids ignorant. It's the same old Authoritarian game from here to eternity.<br /><br />Lies My Teacher Told Me, by Lowen: good place for anyone to start on this.<br /><br />I read Th. Frank's article on TED the day it came out, and it harmonized with one of my main models of the status of intellectuals since the Cold War began: the scientists (geeks), who are personally more conservative or Libertarian, use math as their main rhetorical discourse. What they do to culture - via the technology that spins out of their basic research - is truly revolutionary, even if any one scientist feels like he's working on a small set of physical problems every day, and isn't concerned all that much about the big picture.<br /><br />The older intellectuals - the Humanists - have always used revolutionarily rhetorical language in order to bring about change in culture, but they've been losing out in funding, prestige, and status since 1945, and now many of them seem desperate. And I think Th. Frank is one of the most astute commentators on this scene. Although I have watched and enjoyed at least 100 TED talks, there does seem to be a Pretend World that animates a lot of it. There was a sort of libertarian entrepreneurial dude - whose name I forget at the moment - who gave a talk about "middle-out" economics that I thought was surprisingly "radical" or "real" at TED. And then TED pulled it. <br /><br />I started investigating TED after that. Protests about his talk were heard, and the TEDsters reinstated the talk, but I'm not sure if it's still up there. Graham Hancock had problems with them for different reasons. <br /><br />There are some TED talks that seem very much worth our 15 mins; I've seen a whole hell of a lot of others that seem like some very hi-tech culture's version of Cargo Cult.<br /><br />When the so-called Creative Class actively joins Graeber and Rushkoff, when the I Have A Degree administrative "knowledge workers" in universities and think tanks join Rebecca Solnit and Glenn Greenwald, when the opera lovers and other dogma-prone bildungphilisters actually get involved, instead of thinking It Can't Happen Here...then we have a chance at averting catastrophe and having some sort of sane, creative society. <br /><br />The "creative class" seems really lost to me, and I once again tip my hat to Th. Frank, a most astute cultural diagnostician.<br /><br />[Or so I see Things as of Oct '13]michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13526042582094867513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-40020938299708120962013-10-16T15:44:30.374-07:002013-10-16T15:44:30.374-07:00I know this is *years* after this post and you'...I know this is *years* after this post and you've probably moved on...but did you ever hear of the Textbook Wars? A fascinating, disturbing and unfairly obscure bit of Murrrkin history, given what it seems to have unleashed in it's wake.<br /><br />http://www.salon.com/2013/10/13/ted_talks_are_lying_to_you/<br /><br />Do you remember (and I wonder what became of it?) the controversy over Texas' rewriting the history books? This was like that, but more so - with bombs!Psukehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01116423188181098527noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1178284085080580526.post-55094463767022121332011-08-25T20:30:01.124-07:002011-08-25T20:30:01.124-07:00Bang on.Bang on.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com