January 2017
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“Malevolence tempered by incompetence”
This is one of the more incisive and damning analyses of Trump's executive order on refugrees and visas.
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Responses by higher education leaders to the Trump/Bannon immigration ban
IHE collects them here. Some are a bit tepid, others foreceful. Note the critical comments by the President of Purdue, Mitch Daniels, the former Republican Governor of Indiana. If President [sic] Bannon and his lapdog Trump can continue to alienate Republicans like Mitch Daniels, impeachment may come sooner rather than later.
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And now for a completely unoptimistic take on recent events in the Benighted States of America
I would not endorse all of this, but follow some of the links as well. The one thing which is plainly the case is that Trump and his "inner circle" call the real shots, and he wants to keep it that way: that's the Mafia way, after all. (Thanks to Michael Swanson for the…
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Great anti-Trump chants
From a protest in Philly: "Evil plans, tiny hands." "Hands too small, can't build a wall." Given Trump's personality disorder, one should not underestimate the value of throwing this stuff in his face: if it makes it to the national news, he'll go bananas, and undermine himself. (See again Prof. Wolff's post related to this.)
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Trump is infantile–literally, not figuratively
Robert Paul Wolff explains.
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A federal judge in Virginia and a U.S. Senator vs. the border police at Dulles Airport in Washington, DC
A striking account of the standoff at the airport. This may be defiance of a court order and it also may be brute incompetence. Either way, the federal judge will not be happy, so this will pay watching. And the fact that a U.S. Senator intervened is remarkable. Comments are open for more information and links…
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Sunday Classical: Chopin, “Funeral March”
In honor of these Benighted States of America under President [sic] Trump and Herr Bannon:
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University of Michigan will not share with feds any information about immigration status of students
I hope other universities will follow suit. The biggest obstacle to the fascist proclivities of Trump & Co. will be local and state refusals to comply; the country is too vast, with too many centers of political power, for the gangsters in Washington to succeed without voluntary cooperation from localities and states.
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Rule of law strikes back
On the day that court decisions are met with contrary force, we are truly doomed.
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Great moments in obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Josefus, “Crazy Man,” 1969
This hard rock band out of Houston, Texas never made it big, but had a local Texas following. This is probably their most notable number from their 1969 debut album (not from the 1970 album, Dead Man, that is pictured):
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Academics protesting the executive order on immigration
I would urge all U.S. faculty to sign this statement, which was drafted when President [sic] Trump was only proposing a 30-day suspension of visas from certain Muslim countries, as opposed to the actual 90-day suspension he enacted. Mousa Mohammadian, a PhD student in HPS at the University of Notre Dame, who called this to…
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Summer program in philosophy of science for North American undergraduates from underrepresented groups…
…offered by the distinguished HPS program at the University of Pittsburgh. Professor Machery tells me that applications will also be considered from students who are first-generation college students and from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, although those are not explicitly mentioned at the website.
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Today in incipient fascist tendencies of the psychologically unstable President [sic] Trump…
…pressuring the park service to come up with evidence supporting his fantasies about the size of the inauguration crowd. This led nowhere, happily, and I am hopeful that the size and complexity of the federal bureaucracy is going to make this kind of bullying to "fix the facts" regularly unsuccessful. Of course, it should not be…
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Regarding progress, or lack thereof, in philosophy…
…do recall the Bourget/Chalmers survey of philosophical opinions (alluded to by Mr. Horgan) (my own are here).
And the second paragraph?