A Website of the Radical Imagination
I’m all for enduring freedoms here and worldwide. I’m for finite human justice, “patient justice” (Bush) as a path toward peace, and Gaia’s Infinite Justice too. I want terrorists, war criminals, mass murderers of all sorts turned over to a world court for trials and punishment. Sometimes I can think I’m on the same page … Read more
On September 11, the question whether there would be war was, by 0900 hours, settled. But people didn’t know what was needed right away; and so they hurried to give blood, and all the city’s hospital beds were made ready for the wounded. Given the peculiarities of this first battle, however, the donors were turned … Read more
Questlove says it all well. American hip-hop is usually based on imitation, and it is meant to produce artists who are users of the existing tradition, not creators. And because of that, black culture in general—which has defaulted into hip-hop—is no longer perceived as an interesting vanguard, as a source of potential disruption or a … Read more
“Shake It Off,” director Mark Romanek’s recent clip for Taylor Swift, depicts bad new trends in beautiful old ways. It works the same way as the best ‘80s-‘90s music videos—using semiotics to express up-to-the-minute changes in pop culture, producing the sort of imagery commentators and marketers now glibly call “iconic.” The video shows Swift—a young … Read more
in 1856, Walt Whitman predicted the coming of a race of fierce and athletic girls …tann’d in the face by shining suns and blowing winds, Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength. They are ultimate in their own right–they are calm, clear …well possess’d of themselves. at the time pretty much everyone thought … Read more
For a guy who once conceded nothing to Holden Caulfield when it came to abhorring the “phoney,” it takes a well-seasoned blend of irony and humor to walk around sporting designer-distressed boots, jeans and safari jacket. But I am over-seventy, a serene sail toward a gradual retirement from the practice of law hastened by the … Read more
Up until 9th grade, math was one of my favorite subjects. Like most people, I loved the palpable rightness of its solutions. Then I went to a magnet science & tech high school, and suddenly I sucked at math because big brain robotoid kids with underdeveloped social skills were the majority of the student body. … Read more