this will be completely incomprehensible and improperly justified (if at all). you have been warned.

so i have an extreme--admittedly irrationally disproportionate--dislike for steven pinker. dr. pinker has an article in a semi-recent nytimes magazine--again ever-so-imaginatively titled "my genome, my self" (srsly, nyt editors, have you no shame ( Read more... )

not necessarily in that order ( Read more... )

i feel like i've done this one before, but i was just tagged by msgingerbread, so here i go!

A. List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
B. Tag seven people to do the same.
C. Do not tag the person that tagged you or say that you tag 'whoever wants to do it'.1. i have seen approximately 640 movies. i keep a record of them (or, at least, of those i ( Read more... )

working on my essays (before noon!). posting here because, well, it's my journal, isn't it?

essay three: describe an experience from which you have derived exceptional benefit and explain its importance to you.

my experience: the 2004 presidential election.

( so why was the election important to me? )

or, where my head is at the moment.

i think levinas has it right to make something like interiority (and the radical exteriority/alterity for which it opens the way) the primary ethical determinant--even, nay, especially if we throw out the bit about it being uniquely human. it seems to me that totality and infinity still works if we say what he ( Read more... )

it sometimes seems to me that most rock music critics fancy the "critic" part of that rather more than they do the "music" bit. (peter o'toole's "ratatouille" food critic comes to mind.) seriously, do they even listen to the albums they review? think about what they're hearing, for even half a minute? pop music, even relatively uninteresting pop ( Read more... )