Magical Marxism & Other Alternative Visions

I noticed the book Magical Marxism by Andy Merrifield (links at the end to give some understanding about the book and author). I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this post. I simply was interested in the basic idea as presented in the title. I was thinking about how this could be [...]

Stephen Bloom & Iowa: 2 Anecdotes

The other night I was talking with someone about Stephen Bloom’s article about Iowa. This person graduated from UI for journalism. She didn’t take any classes from Professor Bloom and she hadn’t read the recent article by him, but she did work in the same building as him. She interacted with him enough to have formed an opinion of him [...]

Democracy & Protests, Movements & Tipping Points

This is something that concerns me because it cuts to the heart of democracy. http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/09/welcome-to-the-police-state-nyc-cops-mace-peaceful-protestors-against-wall-street.html I’m beginning to wonder whether the right to assemble is effectively dead in the US. No one who is a wage slave (which is the overwhelming majority of the population) can afford to have an arrest record, even a misdemeanor, [...]

Innovation, Social Liberalism, Cultural Diversity, etc

Here is Steven Johnson speaking about his book Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation. I was watching the full version of this discussion at FORA.tv. I could go into detailed analysis about these ideas, but I just wanted to point out some related ideas. Johnson’s idea that cities have been the [...]

Fox News Unbiased? In What Alternative Reality?

I’ve written posts about various aspects of US media including claims of media bias and the facts or lack of facts supporting such claims. http://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/fox-news-evil-empire/ http://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2010/04/04/black-and-white-and-read-all-over/ http://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/this-far-left-and-no-further/ http://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2010/01/23/air-america-challenges-of-liberal-media/ http://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2010/04/07/controlling-the-narrative-part-1/ http://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/news-sources-viewer-knowledge/ The reason I’m making this post is because I just came across yet another person claiming Fox News isn’t biased. RichieEastside wrote: “Well if you [...]

Reagan: From Liberal to Neocon

Here is an early speech given when Ronald Reagan was still a liberal Democrat. What he says in this speech still applies today. The odd part is that the gist of his criticisms apply equally to the results of his own trickle-down economics and union-busting. How did Reagan go from being a union leader who [...]

Libertarians: Rich White Males of the Republican Party

“You have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: you are inferior and all the improvements in your conditions which you simply take for granted you owe to the effort of men who are better than you.” ~ Ludwig von Mises writing to Ayn Rand In the above videos (I think [...]

Why does WordPress hire Retards?

I’m officially convinced the people working for WordPress are retards. It’s a relatively nice service, but there are some glitches that are so basic that I don’t understand why they refuse to fix them. This particular post is in response to two glitches. First, I had logged into my account and had intentionally checked that [...]

Joseph Tuman on Terrorism

This video is long, but very much worth watching. The guy speaking offers the best analysis of terrorism that I’ve ever heard. He doesn’t say anything that I haven’t thought myself, but it’s the first time I’ve heard this view voiced in such depth & detail in a mainstream public forum.

Death Sucks!

Here is one of the saddest things I’ve seen recently.