August 2020
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I talk with Orin Kerr (Berkeley) on “The Legal Academy”…
…about law school hiring trends, rankings, the effect of COVID on the teaching market, and other topics. (Link now added!)
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$250,000 grant from the McDonnell Foundation to philosopher Santiago Amaya (U of Los Andes, Colombia) to study moral problem-solving
Details of the grant and the interesting project here.
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Advertising update
September, October, and November are now fully booked, except for 4th from the top spots ($450), which I have started to sell again due to demand. There are still spots in December (including one top spot), as well as in subsequent months. E-mail me for details.
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New open-access journal: Philosophy of Medicine
Details here.
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American autocracy on display at the Repug convention
Apt comparison from a former Ambassador to Russia.
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COVID cases at Arizona State University
Many years ago, my father quipped that, "Farmers hope for rain, journalists hope for floods," because disaster is more newsworthy. So too with some of the COVID reporting, as in this piece from Phoenix. It's headline reports that cases have "tripled" in a matter of days ("flood"!), but if you read the article, you see…
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Bad news for Alan Dershowitz in his various legal disputes with Epstein accusers and their lawyers
Virginia Guiffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein's accusers who has implicated Dershowitz in misconduct, has sued Dershowitz for defamation–as has her former lawyer David Boies. This development is bad news for Dershowitz.
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Informative piece on the history of police unions in the U.S….
…in The New Yorker. I did not know that it was the victory of the teachers' union in the early 1960s in NYC that paved the way for the police to finally unionize effectively. But I was particularly struck by this observation (which brought to mind something written a few years ago): According to Paul…
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Northwestern University makes the wrong COVID choice
Colleges should certainly reduce the number of students in campus dorms, but they shouldn't exclude freshmen, who are new to the college experience: they should prioritize those new to college life, and those who have to be on campus for their work (e.g., labs).
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Great moments in obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Bang, “Questions,” 1971
Philadelphia-based hard rock/proto-metal band, this single actually cracked the Billboard top 100! It's a great number!
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In Memoriam: Nicholas L. Sturgeon (1942-2020)
MOVING TO FRONT FROM AUGUST 25–UPDATED Professor Sturgeon, who joined the Cornell faculty in 1967 and taught there until his retirement, was best-known for his naturalist moral realism and his contributions to the debate about "moral explanations" in the 1980s and 1990s. I will add links to memorial notices when they appear. ADDENDUM: Philosopher John…
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The actual platform of Trump’s Repugs
This seems about right.
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Parker from Durham to Virginia Tech
Wendy Parker (philosophy of science & climate science), previously at the University of Durham, is now Professor of Philosophy at Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, which continues to have a notable terminal MA program. (They've also made a good number of strong junior hires as well.)
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U of Arizona nips COVID outbreak in the bud by testing wastewater from dorms
Interesting, I hope other schools take note!
I don’t disagree with David Wallace, the things he says are to my mind obviously true. But I have a…