Barack Obama

Beginning of the Semester Links, Fall 2014

/ Bradley J. Fest / Leave a comment

Tomorrow I return to the classroom at the University of Pittsburgh for another semester. As I imagine that this will also mean I’m about to be considerably busier, and that this will mean a bit less posting on the ole blog (links or otherwise), some links to mark the occasion.

Disaster and Environmental 

Daniel Politi, “Napa Valley Earthquake Is the Strongest to Hit the Bay Area Since 1989.”

Ferguson

Douglas Williams, “Love Me, Ferguson, I’m a Liberal.”

Alexandra Schwartz, “On Being Seen: An Interview with Claudia Rankine from Ferguson.”

Matt Apuzo and Michael S. Schmidt, “In Washington, Second Thoughts on Arming the Police.” Continue reading →

Ferguson and Other Links

/ Bradley J. Fest / Leave a comment

Ferguson

The running blog from Ferguson‘s latest: Ben Mathis-Lilley and Elliot Hannon, “Officer Who Stopped Michael Brown Did Not Know He Was a Robbery Suspect.”

Photos from Ferguson.

Robert Stephens II, “In Defense of the Ferguson Riots.”

An open letter from David Simon.

Rembert Browne, “The Front Lines of Ferguson.”

“This Time, For Once, What It Is, It Is.”

Daniel Politti, “After a Day of Calm, Ferguson Reignites: Looting, Clashes with Police and Tear Gas.”

Jack Mirkinson, “Police Threaten to Shoot, Mace Reporters in Ferguson.”

Dylan Scott, “Mayor Defends Police: I Can’t Second-Guess These Officers.”

Jamelle Bouie, “The Militarization of the Police.”

The militarization of US Police.

Sahil Kapur, “House Democrat Unveils Bill to Demilitarize Local Police.”

Rand Paul, “We Must Demilitarize the Police.”

“There’s a Police Coup Going on Right Now in Ferguson, MO.”

Matthew Yglesias, “Enough is Enough in Ferguson.”

Mychal Denzel Smith, “The Death of Michael Brown and the Search for Justice in Black America.”

LaDoris Hazzard Cordell, “Policing the Police.”

Joe Coscorelli, “Obama Treads Lightly, Again, on Ferguson: ‘Listen and Heal,’ Don’t ‘Holler and Shout.'”

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, “The Coming Race War Won’t Be About Race.”

And a must see: John Oliver on Ferguson.

Continue reading →

I’m Finally on Twitter! (and Other Links)

/ Bradley J. Fest / Leave a comment

I’ve finally given in and created a Twitter account. You can follow me @BradleyFest.

 

In other news.

Nuclear

The diary of Mike Kirby, who worked with atomic weapons for years.

 

Iraq and International

“To the defense of Erbil: this was the main cause that drew President Obama back to combat in Iraq last week, two and a half years after he fulfilled a campaign pledge and pulled the last troops out” (Steve Coll, “Oil and Erbil”).

Rod Nordland and Helene Cooper, “Capitalizing on US Bombing, Kurds Retake Iraqi Towns.”

Conor Friedersdorf, “President Obama Risks Misleading Us Into War.”

Michael Tomasky, “Why Liberals Should Back Iraq Intervention.” Hmm.

On Putin’s current stance toward the US: David Remnick, “Watching the Eclipse.”

And boundary 2 has just made this fascinating article from their newest issue available: “Democracy: An Unfinished Project” by Susan Buck-Morss.

Continue reading →

The Salaita Affair and Other Links (and New Involvement in Iraq)

/ Bradley J. Fest / Leave a comment

There have been many responses by notable people to the Steven G. Salaita issue. Corey Robin has a ton of links on the issue, including a tweet by Glenn Greenwald, and a piece by Peter Schmidt in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Former president of the MLA, Michael Bérubé, has written an open letter to Chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Phyllis Wise. Cary Nelson, former president of the American Association of University Professors, has written a piece defending Wise’s decision. Some background on Nelson. John K. Wilson has criticized UIUC in “Fighting the Twitter Police.” Sarah T. Roberts, “Steven Salaita: The University of Illinois is not an Island.” And here’s a recent piece by Salaita himself on academic freedom, “The Definition of Academic Freedom, for Many, Does Not Accommodate Dissent.”

In other news:

Dwight Garner seems to think that David Shafer’s Whiskey Tango Foxtrot may be the book of the summer in “Maybe There’s a Whole Other Internet.”

In hyperarchival news, Monte Reel reports on “The Brazilian Bus Magnate Who’s Buying Up All the World’s Vinyl Records.”

And I’m starting to get the itch for the new semester:

Joshua Rothman, “What College Can’t Do.”

“Rogeting: Why ‘Sinister Buttocks’ Are Creeping into Students’ Essays.”

And, just breaking, President Obama has announced that he has authorized airstrikes and humanitarian aid in Iraq. The Washington Post has a transcript of the announcement.

August Links

/ Bradley J. Fest / 1 Comment

Its been a couple weeks since I’ve posted any links, so there’s a bunch of stuff here.

 

Disaster, Nuclear, Environment, and Deep Futures

John Oliver on America’s Insecure Nuclear Arsenal.

 

Willie Osterweil, “The End of the World as We Know It.” On the reactionary politics in ancient apocalypse films.

Josh Marshall, “Disaster Porn, For Once for Real.”

Ross Andersen, “When We Peer Into the Fog of the Deep Future What Do We See–Human Extinction or a Future Among the Stars?”

Radical eco-nihilism. Wen Stephenson, “‘I Withdraw’: A Talk with Climate Defeatist Paul Kingsnorth.”

Paul Kingsnorth, “Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist.”

Mark Strauss, “Space Junk Is Becoming a Serious Security Threat.”

Robert T. Gonzalez, “Bad News: Scientists Have Measured 16-Foot Waves in the Arctic Ocean.”

Nadia Prupis, “‘There Will Be No Water’ by 2040? Researchers Urge Global Energy Paradigm Shift.”

Continue reading →

Slow Learning and Other Links

/ Bradley J. Fest / Leave a comment

Environment and Disaster

George Dvorsky, “A Dramatic 260 Foot Crater Has Mysteriously Appeared in Siberia.”

giant siberian crater


National Security State

Sue Halpern, “NSA Surveillance: What the Government Can’t See.”

Tom Engelhardt, “The New American Exceptionalism: An Imperial State Unable to Impose Its Will.” (This only shares a title with Donald E. Pease‘s excellent book of the same name, The New American Exceptionalism.)

H. Bruce Franklin, “America’s Memory of the Vietnam War in the Epoch of the Forever War.”

Jeffrey Frank, “Obama’s Unwritten History.”

Xeni Jardin, “NSA Sees Your Nude Pix ‘as Fringe Benefits of Surveillance Positions,’ Says Snowden.”

Continue reading →

July Links

/ Bradley J. Fest / Leave a comment

(It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted links, so some of this is already pretty dated, but heck . . it’s also been a jam-packed couple of weeks in the news.)

 

Nuclear

Nina Strochlic, “Britain’s Nuke-Proof Underground City.”

Forthcoming book: Fabienne Colignon’s Rocket States: Atomic Weaponry and the Cultural Imagination.

 

Environment

Lindsay Abrams, “The Ocean Is Covered in a Lot Less Plastic Than We Thought–and That’s a Bad Thing.”

James West, “What You Need to Know About the Coming Jellyfish Apocalypse.”

Brad Plumer, “Oklahoma’s Earthquake Epidemic Linked to Wastewater Disposal.”

Continue reading →

Quantum Data Teleportation and Other Science Fictions (Links)

/ Bradley J. Fest / Leave a comment

Hyperarchival

Adrienne LaFrance, “The US Army Says It Can Teleport Quantum Data Now, Too.”

Joe Veix, “Top Tweets from the CIA.”

Adrienne LaFrance, “The Promise of a New Internet” and “Facebook is Expanding the Way It Tracks You and Your Data.”

Robinson Meyer, “Google Owns a Satellite Now.”

According to Tim Parks, in “Reading: The Struggle,” it is really hard to read today. I wish someone would talk to me before making such claims. . . .

Andrew Leonard, “Andrew Ross Sorkin’s Vision of the Future is Terrifying.”

And some good news in hyperarchivalism: the entire Jade Tree catalog just became available for streaming. Avail, Cap’n Jazz, Denali, Jets to Brazil, Lifetime, Milemarker, Pedro the Lion, The Promise Ring, These Arms Are Snakes, The Turing Machine, et cetera. My youth in miniature.

Continue reading →

The Dark Side of the Digital Humanities and Other Links

/ Bradley J. Fest / Leave a comment

This winter’s special issue of differences, “In the Shadows of the Digital Humanities,” is looking like a must read for anyone interested in the subject. A number of important essays appear in the journal by a group of notable scholars, including an introduction by Wendy Hui Kyong Chun and Lisa Marie Rhody, and articles by Matthew Kirschenbaum, Richard Grusin, Adeline Koh, Alexander R. Galloway, David Golumbia, Patrick Jagoda, and many others.

And more on “relatable”: a very interesting piece by Lucy Ferriss, “I’m Relatable, You’re Relatable,” and an older one by Kit Nicholls, “The ‘Relatable’ Fallacy.”

The 2014 Hugo Awards have been announced, and Robert Jordan’s (and Brandon Sanderson’s) Wheel of Time got the nod. (I have a few brief words on the end of the series.) Note the exception to the Hugo rules that allow The Wheel of Time‘s nomination. . . .

Chay Close on Jazzpunk (Necrophone Games, 2014), “All Videogames Are a Joke.” Looks like I have something else to add to my summer indie game program.

More from the DFW-industry: Thorin Klosowski, “David Foster Wallace’s Best Productivity Tips.” Really?

Paul Barnwell, “My Students Don’t Know How to Have a Conversation.”

Tim Wu, “Goodbye, Net Neutrality; Hello, Net Discrimination,” and Kevin Drum, “Net Neutrality Finally Dies at Ripe Old Age of 45.”

Rebecca Schuman on student evaluations.

End of the Semester Links Spring 2014

/ Bradley J. Fest / Leave a comment

It’s been a busy end of the semester and I haven’t been able to post anything for a bit. So, now that I have a bit of time before the semester wraps up, here’s a bunch of stuff that has been happening the last few weeks. My apologies if I’m a bit late on some of these things.

Nuclear and Disaster

Laura Miller reviews Craig Nelson’s The Age of Radiance: The Epic Rise and the Dramatic Fall of the Atomic Age.

John Metcalfe, “What Famous Old Paintings Can Tell Us About Climate Change.”

Only .02% of published research rejects global warming.

Adam Weinstein, “Arrest Climate Change Deniers.”

Continue reading →