November 2009
8 posts
Andrew Sullivan needs time to think
Sullivan’s Daily Dish goes silent for a while: This is only the second time in its nearly ten-year history that the Dish has gone silent. The reason now is the same as the reason then. When dealing with a delusional fantasist like Sarah Palin, it takes time to absorb and make sense of the various competing narratives that she tells about her life. There are so many fabrications and delusions...
Typepad Micro evaluation, completely off the top...
The Typepad Micro design team should probably look up “minimalism” in the dictionary. via hellotxt
Posted via web from K.’s posterous | Comment »
Malcolm Gladwell's Igon Values
Steven PInker in the NYTBR
An eclectic essayist is necessarily a dilettante, which is not in itself a bad thing. But Gladwell frequently holds forth about statistics and psychology, and his lack of technical grounding in these subjects can be jarring. He provides misleading definitions of “homology,” “saggital plane” and “power law” and quotes an expert speaking about an “igon value” (that’s...
Lewis Lapham on the late Tim Russert
From New York Magazine:
Lewis Lapham isn’t happy with political journalism today. “There was a time in America when the press and the government were on opposite sides of the field,” he said at a premiere party for Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson on June 25. “The press was supposed to speak on behalf of the people. The new tradition is that the press speaks on behalf of the...
The contrarian position on commonplace books
Anthony Grafton on commonplacing
…like a good sausage machine, it rendered all texts, however dissimilar in origin or style, into a uniform body of spicy links that could add flavor to any meal—and whose origins did not always bear thinking about when one consumed them.
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Go get 'em
via The Notion:
In an unusually aggressive move, Organizing for America announced Wednesday that it is mobilizing its volunteer army to confront the 32 Republican legislators who voted against health care reform — despite representing districts that voted for Obama. The pressure campaign is designed “to remind these members that voters in their districts voted for change last...
Cutups, commonplacing, and mediated culture
Whitney Anne Trettien on a parallel between the 20th and 17th century:
Now these practices are seen as the precursor of generative computing and digital poetry — that is, as an early form of database-driven, user-generated work. But I love the thought of more deeply and meaningfully historicizing these practices, stretching back to the commonplace cut-ups of the early modern period. And...
Joe Connason on Lou Dobbs
Lou Dobbs is running for president already, and the Republican Party should be scared:
Having observed the former CNN anchor for many years, including a number of recent appearances on his nightly broadcast, I suspect that he may well nurture ambitions to run for president, as reported in the trade press — and could mount a formidable campaign drawing upon the same resentful remnant that...