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What Are We Saying When We Say What We Say?

By Elusive Trope on Sat, 04/09/2011 - 2:59pm |

The current cover of Time magazine depicts a modified image of Abraham Lincoln shedding a tear with the headline “Why We’re Still Fighting the Civil War: The endless battle over the war’s true cause would make Lincoln Weep.”

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The Mortmain of the Patina

By Elusive Trope on Sat, 04/02/2011 - 4:08pm |

A conservator brush vacuums Konskie III, a Frank Stella
painting in the Glass House collection.

Credit: Courtesy Luca Bonetti

Epilogue

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When is War Not a War?

By Elusive Trope on Tue, 03/22/2011 - 8:54pm |

Libya has really brought a lot issues to the forefront lately.  One of those is what is the definition of war.  After skimming the blogosphere, one can from US point of view, say that war is anytime that tomahawk missles and some jets drop some bombs is an act of war. 

In other words, war is any act of overt act of a government's military against another country.

There is a certain logic to this.

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What can be, should be, said in the SOTU?

By Elusive Trope on Tue, 01/25/2011 - 8:22pm |

With the approaching SOTU speech by Obama I know some may wish to focus on specific policies said or not said.  But what I will find interesting to watch during this fundamentally pure political theater event is the theoritical framing which builds with his discourse.  

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The Howl of a Defeatist Liberal

By Elusive Trope on Sun, 01/16/2011 - 12:47am |

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starvry dynamo in the machinery of night,

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Life Out Of Balance

By Elusive Trope on Sun, 01/09/2011 - 12:31am |

The tragedy that unfolded today in Arizona is one of those events that both leaves one speechless and unleashes a torrent of words trying to make sense of it all.  That it appears to have political motivation only intensifies the reactions. 

At this point, I will say this: this tragedy is a reflection of us.  There are those who are more culpable than others, but we collectively own this.  This is us.  The blood is on our hands.  This is our society.

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Just Another Day

By Elusive Trope on Sun, 12/26/2010 - 2:34pm |

And so another Christmas has passed.  The twenty-sixth of December.  Just another day.  Yet the New Year approaches.  Time to look back on the year that was, make the lists and debate over the most memorable moments, the greatest achievements, the best movies, the worst commercials.  A seemingly collective effort not to forget, to ensure some shared memory of what has actually passed, and which is now fading like a dream, is somehow captured, made permanent and enduring.  A time, too, of looking forward, to ponder one’s resolution for the new year, the one thing not to drag along into the f

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My Christmas and Shabbat Offering

By Elusive Trope on Sat, 12/25/2010 - 2:39pm |

Christmas and the whole holiday season stretching back into my teens has not always been exactly my favorite time of the year.  This is neither the time nor the place to go into all the reasons for this.  I would say this has something to do with the fact that I am not religious, and spiritual only through a lifetime of struggle to rise above the militant atheism of my youth.   I can remember one particular moment when this affliction born of a teen’s anger toward God began to finally melt.

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