Turning academia into a cafeteria - Los Angeles Times

Turning academia into a cafeteria - Los Angeles Times: "The official blue examination booklet at UCLA, where I teach, requires students to affix their signatures to a clause swearing that they have not committed 'academic dishonesty.' The penalty for transgression, it warns, is suspension or dismissal. Yet instead of dropping it there, the credo continues and the tone shifts. 'There are alternatives to academic dishonesty,' it suggests, and counsels that the student see a professor or dean 'to discuss other choices.'"

The New Yorker: Shouts and Murmurs

The New Yorker: Shouts and Murmurs: "I am not one to say, %u201COmigod, like poor me,%u201D despite the fact that my dad would on numerable occasions drink an entire bottle of raspberry cordial and try to run Mamma over with the combine harvester. That is %u201CStinkin%u2019 Thinkin%u2019.%u201D As the Danish composer Frederick Nietzche declared, %u201CThat which does not kill me makes me longer.%u201D This was certainly true of Mamma, especially after being run over.
Finally, what do I bring to the college experience? As President Kennedy observed in his second inaugural, %u201CAsk not what your country can do to you. Ask, what can you do to your country.%u201D"

The New Yorker: Shouts and Murmurs

The New Yorker: Shouts and Murmurs: "I am not one to say, %u201COmigod, like poor me,%u201D despite the fact that my dad would on numerable occasions drink an entire bottle of raspberry cordial and try to run Mamma over with the combine harvester. That is %u201CStinkin%u2019 Thinkin%u2019.%u201D As the Danish composer Frederick Nietzche declared, %u201CThat which does not kill me makes me longer.%u201D This was certainly true of Mamma, especially after being run over.
Finally, what do I bring to the college experience? As President Kennedy observed in his second inaugural, %u201CAsk not what your country can do to you. Ask, what can you do to your country.%u201D"

Is the truth too hot to handle?

Is the truth too hot to handle? - Sunday Times - Times Online:
"Liar, liar, pants on fire... We tell one lie for every three minutes our mouths are open. Men and women tell different kinds of lie, and attractive people are the biggest fibbers of all. So why do we do it? The latest evidence shows that lying might be essential for our survival"

Socratic Solopsism Recension

The Sloppy Mermaid: Socratic Solopsism Recension : "I have a very dear friend that refuses to write scholarly articles in the normal way. He prefers to write in the form of an essay %u2013 more like thinking out loud than like pretending to think through a thesis. This mode of writing is very confusing because it requires a great deal of patience if it is to be understood. My friend is of the opinion that books are the most complicated things to talk about because it really is like trying to understand another human being. What does this mean?"

Rosenzweig and Heidegger

Azure: "In 1913, convinced by his friend Eugen Rosenstock that only belief in Christianity could rescue modern man from the impasse of historicism and provide true orientation in life, he prepared himself for conversion."

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Nietzsche: A Misreading

Azure: "In modern Europe, Jews excelled at being the purveyors, explicators, and popularizers of the intellectual products of the countries in which they lived. This was especially true of Germany, so that Arnaldo Momigliano could joke that the Jews invented Goethe."

David's Palace?

Azure: "But now comes word of a most unusual find: The remains of a massive structure, in the heart of biblical Jerusalem, dating to the time of King David. Eilat Mazar, the archaeologist leading the expedition, suggests that it may be none other than the palace built by David and used by the Judaean kings for over four centuries. If she is right, this would mean a reconsideration of the archaeological record with regard to the early First-Temple period. It would also deal a death-blow to the revisionist camp, whose entire theory is predicated on the absence of evidence in Jerusalem from this period. But is she right?"

Orwin on Rieff

Azure: "Now comes At the Point of a Gun, a collection of essays published between 1996 and 2004. Rieff has divided it into two parts: %u201CThe UN and International Relations Leading Up to Iraq,%u201D and %u201CThe Iraq War and Its Aftermath.%u201D There are some unifying elements: An introduction, an afterword, and prefaces and postscripts to some of the chapters. Still, like many books of this sort, the whole makes less of an impression than its parts."