So, with Christmas coming up I have begun to collect for myself a whole series of exciting books to tide me over the festive period. My current non-holiday reading is a set of Epistemology primers, which, whilst most educational (ask me about the difference between de re and de dicto beliefs; I can explain it with a joke about your Mother!), isn’t exactly the most thrilling material. (more…)
Category: General
From US: the conspiracy that wasn’t
There are plenty of real conspiracies in the US. Why make up fake ones? Every few years, property tsars and the city government in New York conspire to withhold fire company responses so that enough of a neighbourhood burns down for the poor to quit and profitable gentrification to ensue. That is a conspiracy to commit ethnic cleansing, and also murder. It is happening today in Brooklyn, even as similar ethnic cleansing and gentrification is scheduled in San Francisco, where Bayview Hunters Point is the last large black community in the Bay Area, sitting on beautiful waterfront property: so now is the time to move the black folks out.
Obligatory Nietzsche Reference
Every philosopher must, eventually, read something about Nietzsche. It’s hard to avoid the man, really; he is astoundingly popular (although I have never really worked out why). Still, he do go mad and begin to think he was the second coming of the Messiah, so I suppose he gets a few points in my book for being interesting. No matter; my fascination is, as always, in Conspiracy Theories and when it comes to Nietzsche then the Conspiracy Theory is entirely Jewish. (more…)
The Abstract
Once a PhD proposal has been accepted by a Department it then will need to go through the administrative processes of the University to be confirmed. Essentially, the proposal goes to Senate and is voted on. By and large the Senate will accept the proposal because it has Departmental approval; in theory the members of the Graduate Committee in any given Department are the real experts on what is worthy and what is not and thus the Senate’s approval is just a rubber stamp. Still, there is one thing the Senate looks for, and that’s a good abstract. (more…)
Hollowness
Has anyone read Nicky Hagar’s ‘The Hollow Men?’ Is it worth my time and possible vexations? An enquiring mind wants to know.
Every piece on Conspiracy Theories I read is an opportunity cost lost on some other text on Conspiracy Theories, so my question really is ‘Will reading ‘The Hollow Men’ give me any additional information about the poisted National Party conspiracy from that which I have gained from the media reports on the book? Or is the media coverage so adequate that I can say my $34 and use it to buy Thomas Kida’s book?’
Also, what of Hagar’s style? I’ve read Ian Wishart’s ‘The Paradise Conspiracy’ books and they weren’t exactly easy-going, fun romps (tax law is not, I suspect, ever going to be the subject of a best seller (and I suspect that now I’ve said that someone will find a John Grisham book to refute me with))? Is ‘The Hollow Men’ a good read, irregardless of its accuracy?
Answers on a postcard (or via comments), please.
The Hollow Man
John Dickson Carr’s `The Hollow Man’ is a locked-room murder mystery with a difference (cue the music from track 3 of ‘The Soundtrack of the Trailer of the Film of Monty Python and the Holy Grail’). The book, aside from being a good example of the form, has the protagonists knowingly discuss locked-room murder mysteries; they either know that they are in a piece of fiction or that the case they are investigating is fiction-al (either interpretation works) and so Dr. Fell et al go out of their way to fill the reader in on what exactly is going on, whose testimony we can trust and, possible most importantly, just how many variations of the locked-room murder mystery there are. (more…)
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01/03/2007