People who can get to Canberra: this year’s Pamela Denoon lecture is the 25th Anniversary of the event. The speech will be given by Wendy McCarthy AO, and many previous speakers and committee members will be attending for this special occasion.
ethics & philosophy
ideals, breaches, disappointments and inspirations
Perhaps now the usual suspects will stop being undeservedly smug about the Sokal hoax
In 2005, a group of MIT graduate students decided to goof off in a very MIT graduate student way: They created a program called SCIgen that randomly generated fake scientific papers. Thanks to SCIgen, for the last several years, computer-written gobbledygook has been routinely published in scientific journals and conference proceedings.
Media Circus: sabre-rattling sparks Cold War nostalgia edition
Conflict in the Crimea, Arizona legislation, biblical amusement parks, celebrities “giving up” and our embarassment of an Immigration Minister.
What news story/commentary/analysis has grabbed your attention lately?
Kurt Vonnegut on The Money River, aka neo-liberalism
The Money River, where the wealth of the nation flows. We were born on the banks of it. We can slurp from that mighty river to our hearts’ content. And we even take slurping lessons, so we can slurp more efficiently.
The attempts to shut women down continue
Two women who have been the subject of floods of contemptuous and dismissive abuse as part of their public life write about their experiences and point out that their experience is the cultural norm, not any outlier experience.
Media Circus: Liars and TPP and Conflicts Of Interest, Oh My
At this rate every single Abbott government minister is going to get a lump of coal in their Santa stocking.
What news story/commentary/analysis has grabbed your attention lately?
A Guard’s Story
Via the Global Mail, this is a cartoon-illustrated account by an ex-guard of working in one of Australia’s migration detention centres. This is very tough to read, but worse not to know.
“Post-secular”?
Secular is one of those words that theocratic propagandists have shifted the Overton Window on, to make it seem like secular is the opposite of pluralist when in fact it is only a secular stance that makes pluralism possible. Post-secular? Hm.
Bertolt Brecht: Questions from A Worker Who Reads
Who built Thebes of the seven gates?
In the books you will find the name of kings.
Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?
The 85 Richest people own the same wealth as the 3.5 billion poorest people…
Are cultural politics worse than no politics at all?
This is truly enjoyable analysis. There’s a lot of Marxism in it, probably a bit too much for me. And in my opinion it is too blunt in its assessment of pop culture but that aside, this is a great… Read More ›
Hoyden About Town 