amike | dagblog

The Parsing of the President IV: The Letter of the Law.

By amike on Thu, 06/18/2009 - 6:52pm |

For of all the questions on which our philosophers argue, there is none which it is more important thoroughly to understand than this, that man is born for justice, and that law and equity are not a mere establishment...

Parsing the President III: Connectivity, Place and Time

By amike on Tue, 06/16/2009 - 12:47pm |

More particularly, it came down to the men who landed here -- those who now rest in this place for eternity, and those who are with us here today. Perhaps more than any other reason, you, the veterans of...

Parsing the President II: Connectivity

By amike on Sat, 06/13/2009 - 9:38pm |

No man is an island, entire of itself; Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, As well as if promontory were,...

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We pause for a brief public service announcement.

By amike on Sat, 06/13/2009 - 12:59pm |

I'm on far too many e-mail lists, but I can't bring myself to take myself off of any. It's rather like being unable to put down a boring book because I'm afraid the next chapter will get interesting, or leaving ...

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The Parsing of the President I:

By amike on Fri, 06/12/2009 - 1:58pm |

Read And Listen.Parsing:To examine closely or subject to detailed analysis, especially by breaking up into components: To make sense of; comprehend: I simply couldn't parse what you just saidHopefully people will be able to parse what I say as I...

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Are We Losing the Ability to Understand Intelligence and Subtlety in Our Leaders?

By amike on Sat, 06/06/2009 - 7:38pm |

This human animal--prescient, sagacious, complex, acute, full of memory, reason and counsel, which we call man... *** In fact, reason, which alone gives us so many advantages over beasts, by means of which we conjecture, argue, refute, discourse, and...

At Least They Could have gotten the Weather Report Right

By amike on Thu, 06/04/2009 - 12:12pm |

I awaken to National Public Radio as the least possible evil. It beats buzz, buzz, buzz, and every other radio station I can get where I live would be pretty much intolerable. Caveat: I rant at public radio from time...

The New Math: So Simple, that Only a Child can Do it.

By amike on Mon, 06/01/2009 - 2:49pm |

Apologies to Tom Lehrer for the Header.I sent myself on a fool's errand this morning: to write down a mathematical formula which would encapsulate the degree of satisfaction I might reasonably feel with the Obama administration at any time during...

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Please Pass the Viscum Album, Dr. Härtling.

By amike on Thu, 05/28/2009 - 6:46pm |

Sometimes it strikes me that the human body is more a witness to sense-of-humor design than to intelligent design. Two beneficent nature cards I received on recent birthdays testified to that. In one case the sentiment pointed to the fact...

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I Went to a Wake Yesterday

By amike on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 5:35pm |

Yesterday afternoon I accompanied a couple of my colleagues to a depressed industrial town 2-3 hours north of where I live and teach. The occasion was a sad one-and the decision to go made on the spur of the moment....

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Hearing is believing: The torture memos.

By amike on Fri, 04/17/2009 - 3:53pm |

I'm not much more than a semi-fan of John Hockenberry's The Takeaway. It's a bit too rushed, a bit too sarcastic, and a bit too New York for my taste: but the theme music does serve to jar me awake...

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Temples of Mammon Redux

By amike on Tue, 04/14/2009 - 5:33pm |

About two weeks ago I presented a piece entitled Temples of Mammon, the thesis of which was that political battles over the banking and credit systems are as American as Apple Pie, and the sub-thesis of which was that more...

Kindness is such a wussy word.

By amike on Mon, 04/06/2009 - 11:26pm |

How to Perform Free Random Acts of KindnessLast fall, passing through South Station in Boston, I was approached by station staff and given a little business card. "Commit to Kindness," it read, and on the reverse was a picture of...

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Temples of Mammon

By amike on Fri, 04/03/2009 - 7:13pm |

Towards the beginning of the week I wrote a little number under the title The More Things Change the More They Remain the Same. In it, I promised something more extensive on the theme of the piece, which was that...

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

By amike on Tue, 03/31/2009 - 5:43pm |

The battle between citizens and banker/financiers is as American as Apple Pie. If I wasn't afraid of being accused of being a Francophile (and we know what that did to John Kerry) I'd have titled this wee post, "plus ça...

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Do You know Versus? You Should, Really You Should.

By amike on Thu, 03/26/2009 - 3:49pm |

I'm not sure what I might call Versus. It's rather like a blog of musical satire, with out a place to put comments (wish there were such a place). I love satire. I love music. Put them together and I...

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How Much Time and Attention does Democracy Take?

By amike on Tue, 03/24/2009 - 2:17pm |

I have to make this post a quickie, which in a way will prove its point. I'm in the middle of grading papers, and I need to avoid a riot by returning them to the kiddies in the next day...

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Read more about The Common Man: Where's his Fanfare? Musicals III.
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