| (no subject) |
[Sep. 19th, 2010|10:14 pm] |
I'm contemplating the idea of getting back into the habit of posting stuff here.
Who, if anybody, still follows this account and would be interested in reading? |
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| Where I am now |
[Feb. 15th, 2010|07:28 pm] |
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I am in New Jersey now. I'll be visiting the philosophy department at Rutgers for the next four weeks, before returning to St Andrews for the spring Arché session. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 1st, 2009|06:34 pm] |
My trip to Spain began inauspiciously. I left my flat in St Andrews at some ungodly hour Tuesday morning -- seven, maybe? I forget now -- to undertake the frustrating trek to the airport. There are two ways to do this; I walked to the bus station, and took a bus to Ferrytoll, outside Edinburgh, and then another bus to the airport. The other way is to take a bus to the train station in the next town over -- we haven't one of our own -- and take the train into Edinburgh, and then a bus back to the airport. Either way, from door to check-in, and allowing for time waiting for trains and busses, you're looking at a solid two hours. I wish St Andrews were more accessible.
Anyway, I began strong by putting my passport in my pocket before I left. I didn't, I think, write about it here, but the last time I travelled to Europe, to give a talk in Oslo, I made the arduous journey to the airport, then discovered I'd left my passport in my flat. Brilliant. Anyway, that's another story. This time, I had my passport. I flew to Amsterdam, where I had a long layover of about three hours, before moving on to Barcelona.
( Read more... )
Here are pictures I took of Zaragoza.
Saturday morning I returned to Barcelona. (I had no trouble getting a ticket this time, although I didn't manage to do it online in advance, as I'd resolved to. My weekend in Barcelona will take a post or two of its own. As I write now, it's Monday midday and I'm flying from Barcelona to Amsterdam, then on back to Edinburgh. I'll sleep well tonight. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 27th, 2009|07:55 pm] |
Written Tuesday midday.
As you may have noticed, I haven't been writing lately. I've been really bad about reading, too. Maybe I'll try to get in the habit of writing more again.
Life's been busy, if not terribly interesting. I've given a couple of presentations in the past two weeks at Arché, and this week I'm off to a conference in Spain where I'll give two more. (Indeed, I'm typing on the plane.) It's a conference based on the work of Ernest Sosa, who was my Ph.D. advisor; I'll be talking about his recent work on intuitions, and also about the problem of easy knowledge. I've sort of been giving myself a bit of a crash course in Spanish for the past couple of months, but I'm afraid I didn't devote myself to it sufficiently. It didn't help that I didn't really have anyone to practice with. So I'm pretty much going to be one of those Americans who goes abroad and only speaks English. At least I have the self-consciousness to be a bit embarrassed about it. Maybe I'll keep working on Spanish after my trip anyway; it'd be a useful life skill in general, especially if I go back to the States.
The Red Sox are in first place now. That's exciting. I traded Ervin Santana for David Ortiz in my fantasy league; it feels like I'm about the only person in the world who is optimistic about Papi right now, but I'm really hoping he'll come around. That, or Santana goes back on the DL! Brian and Ishani had me over to watch the game at their place last night; I do appreciate afternoon games. (Much more often than I should, I stay up until 2:30, listening to the WRKO feed in bed on my iPhone.)
We had a workshop on epistemology and contextualism last weekend at Arché. It was good, but I fell behind on sleep. Not a good thing, going into a conference. I don't know whether I'll get a chance to catch up on sleep until next week. If that's the case, I'll crash hard. Or maybe I'll find a way to sneak a few extra hours sometime in the next couple of days. My talks at the conference are both tomorrow. (I'm writing Tuesday mid-day on the plane; not sure when I'll get to post this. My guess is late Tuesday night.)
I have a strong instinct to apologize for a boring post. I won't; I think my life's better when I write about it, and that only happens when I'm in the habit of writing, whether it feels entry-worthy or not. |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 13th, 2009|03:28 pm] |
So you've heard, maybe, that President Obama has instituted a council on women and women's issues. Cool.
The Christian Right is complaining. What could one complain about? The usual things: sex and abortion. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council writes:
Yesterday ... President Obama launched the White House Council on Women and Girls in front of a roomful of abortion activists--not the least of which is the council's newly appointed executive director, Tina Tchen. As a former vice president of the National Organization of Women (NOW), Tchen leaves little doubt that the council's biggest pursuit for women and girls will be abortion and contraception. No surprises here. But here's the funny thing. What is Tony Perkin's support for the claim that the new council's primary support will be abortion and contraception (as opposed to the issues Obama actually mentioned in presenting the new council: "pay disparities, domestic violence, and the relatively few women in Congress and in the executive offices of major companies)? Here's the rest of Perkin's piece in its entirety, where he explains how he knows that abortion is the top agenda:The agenda was no secret when Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood, was first out of the starting gate to applaud the new office. "We look forward to working with the president and [the Council] on issues...including providing comprehensive health care information and services, reducing unintended pregnancies and decreasing... STDs," she said. As part of yesterday's signing ceremony, President Obama specifically named members of the Cabinet and other high-level advisors to the team--a move that leads many of us to believe he is aligning each Department to press for stronger pro-abortion policies. Bafflingly, the quotation -- which was cherry-picked by Perkins -- doesn't even mention abortion. We have a laundry list of objectives: health care information and services, reduced unintended pregnancies, and decreased STDs. (The ellipses stood for "the alarming number of".) Which of those goals does Perkins oppose?
This Christian fringe has lost its grip on the federal government, and it's quickly losing its hold on the GOP, too, but it isn't going quietly. It's remarkable now that, judging by statements like this one, it's barely paying lip service to the pretense that it isn't the anti-woman party. I mean, seriously: the White House institutes a new council on women -- not mentioning a word about focusing on abortion -- and your first instinct is to oppose it?
That's some crazy shit, man.
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 2nd, 2009|12:45 pm] |
I'm back in St. Andrews. It's weirdly empty of people I know. (Arché isn't in session yet.) But I have plenty to do. I'm preparing lecture notes for my course, which I'll start giving Wednesday. We're also deep into Mikado rehearsals; that goes up the week after next.
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 31st, 2009|12:33 am] |
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Tell me a secret! Anonymously or not. Comments are screened and won't show up. |
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| Cut Taxes, Not Children |
[Jan. 27th, 2009|04:37 pm] |
Today's headline from the Right-Wing Family Research Counsel is v. weird. The headline is Cut Taxes, Not Children. In it, Tony Perkins complains about stimulus funding supporting birth control. I guess teaching teenagers about condoms is kind of like 'cutting children'. Is the idea that if there's more birth control, there will be fewer (unwanted) pregnancies, so we've 'cut' the level of children in this country? Or is it that birth control cuts children, the same way that a knife does? It is a v. big mystery!
The best part, though, is this amazing graphic:
I'm thinking about making that an LJ icon, just for the sake of the wacky non sequitor. Seriously, this whole thing is kinda surreal. |
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