We live in the best of times in which we are able to learn about the world and its incredible diversity of cultures/beings/places/perspectives in a way never historically possible. We live in the worst of times when we are able to isolate ourselves completely from anything different from our own narrow view/conception of the world/reality. The choice is yours!
Friday, January 31, 2020
Dialogic Cinephilia - January 31, 2020
Berg, Kirsten and Moiz Syed. "Under Trump, LGBTQ Progress Is Being Reversed in Plain Sight." Pro Publica (November 22, 2019) ["Donald Trump promised he would fight for LGBTQ people. Instead, his administration has systematically undone recent gains in their rights and protections. Here are 31 examples."]
Do Not Resist (USA: Craig Atkinson, 2017: 71 mins) ["Do Not Resist documents, from the perspective of the police, their view of the social unrest following the shooting and killing of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, 2014, against a backdrop of the routine and escalating use of military tactics and high-powered weaponry by local police forces throughout the United States in the past two decades. Military equipment deployed throughout the Middle East returns home to be used against the citizenry. Local police recruitment and training is awash in military commandments backed by views of escalating ‘righteous’ violence and sadism. Meanwhile curfews are imposed, along with frivolous drug raids and incessant racial profiling. The voices of concerned citizens ignored. What is the cultural and technological trajectory here?"]
Moskowitz, P.E. and Carolyn Rouse. "The Mythical Bygone Glory Days of 'Free Speech.'" Citations Needed #88 (September 25, 2019) ["We are often warned by conservatives, liberals and even some on the Left that we live in a time where “free speech” is under threat from far-left forces. “Political correctness” and “snowflakes” have shut down free inquiry, specifically on college campuses, and led to a crisis threatening the very foundation of our democracy. But the origins of the label “free speech” — as it’s currently practiced — paint a much messier picture. Rather than appealing to the Vietnam-era Berkeley protest glory days, what one sees when examining the history of the concept is a temporary tactic used by the Left in the mid-to-late 1960s that has, since that late 1980s, become a far-right wedge designed to open up space for racism, eugenics, genocide denial, trans and homophobia and anti-feminist backlash. Defense of the right to keep open this space as an appeal to a universal value hides a well-funded, coordinated far-right attempt to maintain a conservative, largely male and cishet version of political correctness. On this episode, we discuss where the contemporary concept of “free speech” comes from, what its uses and misuses have been and how a rose-tinted time of pristine, perfectly free" speech never really existed. We are joined by journalist and author P.E. Moskowitz and Chair of Princeton University's Department of Anthropology Carolyn Rouse."]
Otto, Florian, et al. "The Cassandra Curse: Why We Heed Some Warnings, And Ignore Others." Hidden Brain (September 17, 2018) ["After a disaster happens, we want to know, could something have been done to avoid it? Did anyone see this coming? Many times, the answer is yes. There was a person — or many people — who spotted a looming crisis and tried to warn those in power. So why didn't the warnings lead to action? This week on Hidden Brain, we look into the psychology of warnings. We'll turn to an unusual source — an ancient myth about the cursed prophet Cassandra — to understand why some warnings fail. We'll travel 40 feet below the ground to talk to a modern-day Cassandra, and we'll speak with a government official who managed to get his warnings heard. There's also a gory (and fictional) murder plot, and even some ABBA."]
Weiwei, Ai. "Chinese Artist & Filmmaker Ai Weiwei on State Violence from Mexico to Hong Kong to Xinjiang." Democracy Now (January 28, 2020) ["In 2014, 43 students from Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College disappeared after they were abducted in Iguala, Mexico. More than five years after their disappearance, the families of the students are still fighting for justice. The story is the subject of a stunning new documentary by the world-renowned Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei. The film, “Vivos,” follows the families of the disappeared students in their daily lives as they grapple with the absence of their loved ones and attempt to hold the Mexican government accountable for their disappearance. We sat down with Ai Weiwei earlier this week at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, to speak with him about “Vivos,” why his next project will focus on Hong Kong, and more."]
Jonas Staal, ‘PROPAGANDA ART FROM THE 20TH TO THE 21ST CENTURY’, PhDArts 2018 from Lectorate KTP & PhDArts on Vimeo.
Arcade Fire - The Suburbs [Full Album] from ElEcosound on Vimeo.
ENG 281/282: 2020s
Ammonite (UK/Australia/USA: Francis Lee, 2020: 120 mins)
Hudson, David. "Francis Lee's Ammonite." The Current (September 15, 2020)
Heeney, Alex, et al. "Are Men Ok? Masculinity, Mental Health, & Addiction in Another Round and Oslo, August 31st." Seventh Row (December 15, 2020)
Antebellum (Delayed Release)Breznican, Anthony. "Black Storytellers Are Using Horror to Battle Hate." Vanity Fair (August 3, 2020) ["After Get Out, movies such as Antebellum, the upcoming Candyman retelling, and other tales of terror and the macabre are part of a cultural exorcism centuries in the making."]
Candyman (Canada/USA: Nia DaCosta, 2020: )
Breznican, Anthony. "Black Storytellers Are Using Horror to Battle Hate." Vanity Fair (August 3, 2020) ["After Get Out, movies such as Antebellum, the upcoming Candyman retelling, and other tales of terror and the macabre are part of a cultural exorcism centuries in the making."]
City Hall (USA: Frederick Wiseman, 2020: 292 mins)
Edwards, Lydia and Fred Wiseman. "Documenting Democracy: Fred Wiseman’s City Hall." Open Source (November 19, 2020) ["What Fred Wiseman found in Boston City Hall is not what he was looking for. The master of documentary film is famous for his almost innocent camera eye that unlocks visual drama in big institutions — the New York Public Library, the Paris Opera, or in his early days: Bridgewater State Mental Hospital in 1960s Massachusetts. So why not finally get inside the modern brick and concrete fortress of official life in his hometown, and see what’s going on in the faces, the meeting rooms, the tone of voice in local affairs. What he found was simpler than all that. It was the un-Trump in the un-Washington. An almost astonishing civility, good humor, what looks like good faith in the hundreds of negotiations every day that keep a community going, and growing."]
Coronation (Ai Weiwei, 2020: 113 mins)
Johnson, Ian. "From Ai Weiwei, a Portrait of Wuhan’s Draconian Covid Lockdown." The New York Times (August 21, 2020)
Crip Camp (USA: James LeBrecht and Nicole Newnham, 2020: 106 mins)
LeBrecht, Jim and Nicole Newnham. "Crip Camp Directors on the Overlooked Disability Rights Movement." At Liberty (July 30, 2020) ["July 26th marked the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, or the ADA. The ADA is a federal law that requires businesses, employers, public facilities, schools, and transportation agencies to make accommodations for disabled people, and helps weed out basic discrimination. When President George HW Bush signed the ADA into law in 1990, it was one of the most comprehensive pieces of civil rights legislation in American history. But the disability rights movement didn’t begin or end with the ADA. In spite of the law’s existence, Americans with disabilities still face discrimination and other barriers to equal rights and opportunities.
Today, even though nearly 50 percent of Americans live with at least one disability, few know the history of the fight for disability rights. With Crip Camp, a new documentary on Netflix, filmmakers Jim LeBrecht and Nicole Newnham fill in some of that history through the personal and political stories that started the rise of a movement."]
Holler (USA: Nicole Riegel, 2020: 90 mins)
Hunters (Amazon Prime: David Weil, 2020)
Jerri, Alexander. "Moment of Truth: Gently, Gently Hunters." This is Hell! (February 27, 2020) [On the Amazon TV show]
I Care a Lot (USA/UK: J. Blakeson, 2020: 118 mins)
Hudson, David. "Charlie Kaufman's Antkind." Current (July 13, 2020)
McMillan, Candice. "How Trump and #metoo Have Scared Us Into the New Decade." Chaz's Journal (March 10, 2020)
Kingdom of Silence (USA: Rick Rowley, 2020: 101 mins)
Rowley, Rick and Lawrence Wright. "Kingdom of Silence: 2 Years After Khashoggi Murder, New Film Explores Deadly U.S.-Saudi Alliance." Democracy Now (October 1, 2020) ["Two years ago, in a story that shocked the world, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul for marriage documents and was never seen again. It was later revealed that Khashoggi — a Saudi insider turned critic and Washington Post columnist — was murdered and dismembered by a team of Saudi agents at the direct order of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. We speak with a friend of Khashoggi and with the director of a new documentary, “Kingdom of Silence,” that tracks not only Khashoggi’s brutal murder and the rise of MBS, but also the decades-long alliance between the United States and Saudi Arabia. “What drew me into this story is Jamal was one of our own,” says director Rick Rowley. “When one of our colleagues is killed, it falls on all of us as journalists to try to do what we can to rescue their story from the forces that would impose silence on it.”"]
Hudson, David. "Borderline Week." The Current (September 17, 2020)
The Plot Against America (HBO: Ed Burns and David Simon, 2020: 360 mins)
Tallerico, Brian. "The Plot Against America." Roger Ebert (March 13, 2020)
Oladipo, Gloria. "The Missed 'Magical Negro' Trope in The Queen’s Gambit." Bitch Media (November 25, 2020)
Rebuilding Paradise (USA: Ron Howard, 2020: 90 mins)
Else, Lincoln and Ron Howard. "On the Documentary Rebuilding Paradise." The Cinematography Podcast (August 10, 2020) ["Oscar-winning director Ron Howard talks about directing his first documentary, Rebuilding Paradise, about the devastating Camp fire that completely wiped out the town of Paradise, California on November 8, 2018. The film follows the people in community over time as they deal with the tragedy and begin rebuilding. Directing a documentary was a new experience for Ron, and he felt a personal connection to the town- his mother-in-law had lived in Paradise. Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s production company, Imagine, had wanted to start producing documentaries and they sent out a crew to begin shooting just one week after the fire. Ron picked up some new skills while working on the unscripted project. He had to learn how to let the cameras follow the flow of the conversation, and to be minimalist in covering every possible angle. The experience has led him to make directorial choices in his scripted work that are more verité. Director of photography Lincoln Else worked closely with Ron and the Imagine production team, and developed a unified visual language for Rebuilding Paradise that he communicated with the other shooters. Lincoln learned documentary filmmaking at an early age, loading 16mm mags and assisting his father, documentarian and professor Jon Else. He likes a very simple hand-held style, opting to just put a camera on his shoulder in order to be as reactive as possible. Though footage from many different news sources and people’s personal videos was used, the bulk of the interview content in Rebuilding Paradise was “fly on the wall” style."]
Shirley (USA: Josephine Decker, 2020: 107 mins)
Brody, Richard. "Shirley: Josephine Decker’s Furious Melodrama of Shirley Jackson’s Life and Art." The New Yorker (June 4, 2020)
Hudson, David. "Josephine Decker's Shirley." Current (January 30, 2020)
Merin, Jennifer, et al. "Movie of the Week: Sugar Daddy." AWFJ (March 28, 2021)
Tesla (USA: Michael Almereyda, 2020: 102 mins)
Tafoya, Scout. "Limits Don't Exist: Michael Almereyda on Tesla." Roger Ebert (August 18, 2020)
Time (USA: Garrett Bradley, 2020: 81 mins)
Hudson, David. "Garrett Bradley's Time." The Current (October 8, 2020)
Tove (Finland/Sweden: Zaida Bergroth, 2020: 116 mins)
Bozdech, Betsy, et al. "Movie of the Week: Tove." Alliance of Women Journalists (June 4, 2021) ["It’s no surprise by now to discover that the private lives of the authors and artists behind some of the world’s most beloved children’s books were anything but calm (or G-rated). But it’s always fascinating to get a glimpse into the events, people, and places that shaped them and led to their iconic creations, and Zaida Bergroth’s Tove — which stars the excellent Alma Pöysti as Finnish Moomin mastermind Tove Jansson — is no exception."]
Tragic Jungle (Mexico/France/Colombia: Yulene Olaizola, 2020)
Hudson, David. "Yulene Olaizola’s Tragic Jungle." The Current (October 6, 2020)
Undine (Germany/France: Christian Petzold, 2020: 91 mins)
Cleaver, Sarah Kathryn. "Swept Away: A Thematic Dive Into the Depths of Undine." Curzon (April 1, 2021)
Uppercase Print (Romania: Radu Jude, 2020: 128 mins)
Emmerzael, Hugo. "Reaching Into History: Radu Jude on Uppercase Print and The Exit of the Trains." Senses of Cinema #94 (April 2020)
Vivos (Germany: Ai Weiwei, 2020: 112 mins)
Weiwei, Ai. "Chinese Artist & Filmmaker Ai Weiwei on State Violence from Mexico to Hong Kong to Xinjiang." Democracy Now (January 28, 2020) ["In 2014, 43 students from Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College disappeared after they were abducted in Iguala, Mexico. More than five years after their disappearance, the families of the students are still fighting for justice. The story is the subject of a stunning new documentary by the world-renowned Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei. The film, “Vivos,” follows the families of the disappeared students in their daily lives as they grapple with the absence of their loved ones and attempt to hold the Mexican government accountable for their disappearance. We sat down with Ai Weiwei earlier this week at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, to speak with him about “Vivos,” why his next project will focus on Hong Kong, and more."]
Who Killed Malcolm X? (USA: Netflix series, 2020: 6 episodes)
Harris, Shayla, Abdur-Rahman Muhammad and Ilyasah Shabazz. "Malcolm X’s Daughter Ilyasah Shabazz on Her Father’s Legacy & the New Series Who Killed Malcolm X?" Democracy Now (February 21, 2020) ["Fifty-five years ago today, Malcolm X was assassinated. The civil rights leader was shot to death on February 21, 1965, at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City. He was only 39 years old. Details of his assassination remain disputed to this day. Earlier this month, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said he was considering reopening the investigation, just days after a new documentary series about the assassination was released on Netflix called “Who Killed Malcolm X?” It makes the case that two of the three men who were convicted for Malcolm X’s murder are actually innocent and that his uncaught killers were four members of a Nation of Islam mosque in Newark, New Jersey. We are joined by Ilyasah Shabazz, one of six daughters of Malcolm X, who was just 2 years old when her father was assassinated in front of her, her siblings and her mother. We also speak with award-winning author Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, independent scholar, historian, journalist, writer and activist, who is widely regarded as one of the most respected authorities on the life and legacy of Malcolm X and is featured in the new documentary series, and Shayla Harris, a producer for the series and an award-winning filmmaker and journalist."]
Ehrlich, David. "Filmmaker Searches for Hope in the People of His Irredeemable Homeland." IndieWire (July 7, 2021)
Hudson, David. "Nadav Lapid's Ahed's Knee." Current (July 8, 2021)
Greenbaum, Josh and Guillermo Del Toro. "Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar." The Director's Cut #299 (2021) ["Director Josh Greenbaum discusses his new film, Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar, with fellow director Guillermo del Toro in a spoiler-filled virtual Q&A. The film tells the story of best friends Barb and Star, who leave their small Midwestern town for the first time to vacation in Vista Del Mar, Florida and soon find themselves tangled up in adventure, love, and a villain’s evil plot to murder the entire town."]
Jake. "C'mon C'mon." Letterboxd (December 6, 2021)
Hudson, David. "Hit the Road Tops the London Awards." The Daily (October 18, 2021)
Encinias, Joshua. "Ben Wheatley on Processing the Pandemic Through In the Earth and the Singular Cinema of John Carpenter." The Film Stage (April 22, 2021)
Hudson, David. "Memoria Goes on Tour." The Daily (October 8, 2021)
Merrin, Jennifer, et al. "Movie of the Week: Moxie." Alliance of Women Film Journalists (March 7, 2021)
Mobarak, Jared. "TIFF Review: Night Raiders Draws on Canadian History to Tell a Grounded Sci-Fi Tale." The Film Stage (September 12, 2021)
Knappenberger, Brian and Mohammed Ali Naqvi. "Turning Point: Legacy of the U.S. Response to 9/11 Is Terror, Domestic Surveillance & Drones." Democracy Now (September 9, 2021) ["As this week marks the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., we look at a new five-part documentary series on Netflix about the attacks and the response from the United States, both at home and abroad. “Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror” features a wide range of interviews with survivors of the attacks, U.S. officials, former CIA members and veterans, as well as soldiers in the Afghanistan National Army, Taliban commanders, and Afghan officials, warlords and civilians. “What we really wanted to do was tell the story not just of what happened that day, but how we got there and where our response to those attacks took us as a country,” says director Brian Knappenberger. We also speak with co-executive producer Mohammed Ali Naqvi, an award-winning Pakistani filmmaker, who says the film was an attempt to go “beyond the binary narrative of good versus evil.”"]
Ehrlich, David. "Flux Gourmet: Peter Strickland’s Latest Is a Flatulent Satire About the Limits of Good Taste." IndieWire (February 11, 2022)
Saturday, January 25, 2020
Dialogic Cinephilia - January 25, 2020
Bordwell, David. "When media become manageable: Streaming, film research, and the Celestial Multiplex." Observations on Film Art (January 22, 2020)
Honey, Michael, et al. "The Real Martin Luther King." The Back Story (January 17, 2020) ["Had he lived, Martin Luther King, Jr. would have celebrated his 91st birthday this week. King is celebrated as an American hero and championed in children’s books and inspirational posters, but have Americans lost sight of the real MLK?"]
Levin, Yuval. "The Conservative Mind of Yuval Levin." The Ezra Klein Show (January 9, 2020) ["Something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently is the way we often conflate two very distinct things when we assign political labels. The first is ideology, which describes our vision of a just society. The second is something less discussed but equally important: temperament. It describes how we approach social problems, how fast we think society can change, and how we understand the constraints upon us. Yuval Levin is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, the editor-in-chief of the public policy journal National Affairs, and the author of the upcoming book A Time to Build. Levin is one of the most thoughtful articulators of both conservative temperament and ideology. And, perhaps for that reason, his is one of the most important criticisms of what the conservative movement has become today.There’s a lot in this conversation, in part because Levin’s book speaks to mine in interesting ways, but among the topics we discuss are: The conservative view of human nature Why the conservative temperament is increasingly diverging from the conservative movement What theories of American politics get wrong about the reality of American life The case Levin makes to socialists How economic debates are often moral debates in disguise Levin’s rebuttal to my book The crucial difference between “formative” and “performative” social institutions Why the most fundamental problems in American life are cultural, not economic Why Levin thinks the New York Times should not allow its journalists to be on Twitter Whether we can restore trust in our institutions without changing the incentives and systems that surround them There’s a lot Levin and I disagree on, but there are few people I learn as much from in disagreement as I learn from him."]
RIP Terry Jones
Tuesday, January 21, 2020
Monsoon Wedding (India/USA/Italy/Germany/France: Mira Nair, 2001)
Monsoon Wedding (India/USA/Italy/Germany/France: Mira Nair, 2001: 114 mins)
Batra, Kanika and Rich Rice. "Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding and the Transcoded Audiologic of Postcolonial Convergence." Postcolonial Cinema Studies. ed. Sandra Ponzanesi & Marguerite Waller. NY: Routledge, 2012: 205-217. [Available in BCTC Library PN1995.9 P6 P68 2012]
Coles-Riley, Georgia. Monsoon Wedding." Far Flung Families in Film (October 2, 2012)
Ebert, Roger. "Monsoon Wedding." Chicago Sun-Times (Chicago 8, 2002)
Edwards, Judson Michael. "Wedding Customs in Monsoon Wedding." The Pick #30 (2004)
Eggert, Brian. "Monsoon Wedding (2001)." Deep Focus Review (114 mins)
Iyer, Pico. "Monsoon Wedding: A Marigold Tapestry." Current (October 19, 2009)
Lanouette, Janine. "The Story Women Have Been Trying to Tell For Years Now." Filmmaker (November 15, 2017)
Nair, Mira. "Her Search for a Cinema of Truth." The Current (July 19, 2018)
Sharpe, Jenny. "Gender, Nation, and Globalization in Monsoon Wedding and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge." Meridians 6.1 (2005): 58-81.
Some Kind of Arrangement (Canada: Ali Kazimi, 1998: 45 mins)
Swafford, Andrew. "Monsoon Wedding (2001)." Cinematary (July 7, 2016)
Dialogic Cinephilia - January 21, 2020
Later when he becomes an important player, he will learn that people are not bribed to shut up about what they know. They are bribed not to find it out. And if you are as intelligent as Kim,it is hard not to find things out. Now, American boys are told they should think. But just wait until your thinking is basically different from the thinking of a boss or a teacher ... You will find out that you aren't supposed to think. -- William S. Burroughs, The Place of the Dead Roads (Picador, 1983: 16)
Benton, Michael. Horror (Genre) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
Chenoweth, Erica. "How to Topple Dictators and Transform Society." The Ezra Klein Show (January 2, 2020) ["The 2010s witnessed a sharp uptick in nonviolent resistance movements all across the globe. Over the course of the last decade we’ve seen record numbers of popular protests, grassroots campaigns, and civic demonstrations advancing causes that range from toppling dictatorial regimes to ending factory farming to advancing a Green New Deal. So, I thought it would be fitting to kick off 2020 by bringing on Erica Chenoweth, a political scientist at Harvard specializing in nonviolent resistance. At the beginning of this decade Chenoweth co-authored Why Civil Resistance Works, a landmark study showing that nonviolent movements are twice as effective as violent ones. Since then, she has written dozens of papers on what factors make successful movements successful, why global protests are becoming more and more common, how social media has affected resistance movements and much more. But Chenoweth doesn’t only study nonviolent movements from an academic perspective; she also advises nonviolent movement leaders around the world (including former EK Show guests Varshini Prakash of the Sunrise Movement and Wayne Hsiung of Direct Action Everywhere) to help them be as effective and strategic as possible in carrying out their goals. This on-the-ground experience combined with a big-picture, academic view of nonviolent resistance makes her perspective essential for understanding one of the most important phenomena of the last decade -- and, in all likelihood, the next one."]
Covering Climate Now (Covering Climate Now is a global journalism initiative committed to bringing more and better coverage to the defining story of our time.")
"Goodfellas: Martin Scorsese’s Anthropological Goodlife Through a Lens." Cinephilia and Beyond (ND)
Martin Luther King, Jr. (Preacher/Activist/Philosopher) Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)
Monday, January 20, 2020
Goodfellas (USA: Martin Scorsese, 1990)

Goodfellas (USA: Martin Scorsese, 1990: 146 mins)
Carvajal, Nelson and Max Winter. "Video Essay: Women in the Works of Martin Scorsese." Vimeo (2013)
Freedman, Carl. "Hobbes After Marx, Scorsese After Coppola: On GoodFellas." Film International (2011)
---. "The Supplement of Coppola: Primitive Accumulation and the Godfather Trilogy." Film International 9.1 (2011): 8-41
Gamman, Lorraine. "If Looks Could Kill: On Gangster Suits and Silhouettes." Moving Image Source (May 8, 2012)
"Goodfellas: Martin Scorsese’s Anthropological Goodlife Through a Lens." Cinephilia and Beyond (ND)
Hudson, David. "Crime Bosses and Made Men." The Current September 16, 2020)
Koresky, Michael and Jeff Reichert. "Martin Scorsese: He Is Cinema." Reverse Shot (September 17, 2014)
"A Life in Pictures: Martin Scorsese." BAFTA (April 6, 2011)
Morton, Drew. "'Look. I Know You're Not Following What I'm Saying Anyway.': The Problem of the 'Video Essay' and Scorsese as Cinematic Essayist." [in]Transition (December 12, 2014)
Newland, Christina Marie. "Satirical Excess and Empty Vessels: Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy." Bright Lights Film Journal #80 (May 2013)
Sims, David. "Was Goodfellas the Last Truly Great Mobster Film?" The Atlantic (September 19, 2015)
Williams, Johnny. "Goodfellas." I Was There Too #8 (February 4, 2015)
Martin Scorsese - The Art of Silence from Tony Zhou on Vimeo.
Saturday, January 18, 2020
Dialogic Cinephilia - January 19, 2020
In arguing against a position you should not rely on attacking the integrity, competence, personal morality or sanity of the holders of that position; nor should you argue against the weakest, most flawed version of the position that you can find. You should argue against the strongest version you can find. You should even try to help your opponents to formulate an even better version of their argument and then argue against it. This way, if you win the argument anyway, your victory will be all the more glorious. And if you end up being convinced by the argument that you were opposing; well that is good too. -- Rick Lewis "Into the Cauldron!" Philosophy Now #135 (January 2020)
Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. Those truths are well established. They are read in every page which records the progression from a less arbitrary to a more arbitrary government, or the transition from a popular government to an aristocracy or a monarchy. — James Madison, Political Observations, 1795
We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.
-- Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin, Volume 4 (1971)
Amer, Karim, Emma Briant and Brittany Kaiser. "The Weaponization of Data: Cambridge Analytica, Information Warfare & the 2016 Election of Trump." Democracy Now (January 10, 2020) ["We continue our conversation with the directors of “The Great Hack,” Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer, as well as former Cambridge Analytica employee Brittany Kaiser and propaganda researcher Emma Briant, about Cambridge Analytica’s parent company SCL Group’s history as a defense contractor. “We’re in a state of global information warfare now,” Briant says. “How do we know if our militaries develop technologies and the data that it has gathered on people, for instance, across the Middle East … how do we know when that is turning up in Yemen or when that is being utilized by an authoritarian regime against the human rights of its people or against us? How do we know that it’s not being manipulated by Russia, by Iran, by anybody who’s an enemy, by Saudi Arabia, for example, who SCL were also working with? We have no way of knowing, unless we open up this industry and hold these people properly accountable for what they’re doing.”"]
Benton, Michael. "The Work of Propaganda." North of Center (January 15, 2020)
Schönecker, Dieter. "Protecting Academic Freedom: Five Arguments for Freedom of Expression." Philosophy Now #135 (January 2020)
Excerpt from Tim Maugham's novel Infinite Detail (one of the best of the 21st Century)
If I tell you my dream, you might forget it; If I act on my dream, perhaps you will remember it; But if I involve you, it becomes your dream too." -- Tibetan Proverb
JINPA - TRAILER - TIFF 2019 from Tromsø Int. Film Festival on Vimeo.