My current research project revolves around the use of torture in the so-called "War on Terror"---and I'm uncovering a wealth of astonishing, depressing material, much of it compliments of the U.S. government. Here is a page from a top secret CIA manual on "Human Resource Exploitation," distributed by CIA trainers in Latin America in the… Continue reading The CIA on Effective Arrests
Tag: Literature
Falling Down in Mother Goose
After another week of reading Mother Goose to my son, it's become obvious that he has a clear preference for a certain kind of nursery rhyme. Namely, one in which people (or in one case, an egg) fall down. And there's a lot of falling down in Mother Goose. We all know about Jack and… Continue reading Falling Down in Mother Goose
Goodbye 2006, Goodbye US Airways
It's been one long fall. And it's finally come to a close. Late December is when everyone comes out with their "best of" or "worst of" lists, so I thought I'd throw together a few lists. There's no best and no worst, simply a snapshot of some of the things that made life as a… Continue reading Goodbye 2006, Goodbye US Airways
The Crowd
I discovered a gem tonight in Gustave Le Bon's classic 1895 study of crowds, La Psychologie des foules. "Civilisations as yet," Le Bon writes, "have only been created and directed by a small intellectual aristocracy, never by crowds. Crowds are only powerful for destruction." I like the tone of this. All fire and brimstone and… Continue reading The Crowd
The Last Jihad
Okay, so today I venture halfheartedly to Starbucks, because it's the only coffee shop within walking distance (though there must be 8 billion within driving distance in Northern Virginia), and at the table across from me, there is some guy going on and on about how there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and… Continue reading The Last Jihad
Fall 2006 Courses
For a lack of anything else intelligent to say at this hour, I'm posting descriptions for two of the undergrad courses that I'm teaching next fall: 21st Century American Fiction (ENGL 429:001) What innovative directions is American fiction taking in the new millennium? How have novelists and other writers reacted to the dominant events of… Continue reading Fall 2006 Courses
Don Quijote “Statue”
Or "Donkey-te" as my son says. This is another street performer on Calle Postas in Madrid. Drop a few coins in the chute and he bounces on "Rocinante" or jousts at imaginary windmills (i.e. pedestrians). My son goes crazy everytime he sees Donkey-te, and he woke up in the middle of the night last night… Continue reading Don Quijote “Statue”
Baby’s First ATM
So yesterday my wife, son, and I ventured for the first time into Kids-R-Us, home of the well-behaved toddler, destination of choice for the stark raving mad parent. Our visit deserves a separate post of its own (suffice it to say that it ended with the purchase of 100 plastic balls, each the size of… Continue reading Baby’s First ATM
A Fleeting Thought on Interdisciplinarity
Interdisciplinarity is one of the enduring keywords of academia in the past decade. I've been hearing it praised for so long now and seeing so little actual evidence of it, that I'm beginning to think all the praise is simply wish-fulfillment. And like most wishes, the wisher probably wouldn't know what to do with it… Continue reading A Fleeting Thought on Interdisciplinarity
Harry Potter, the first 100 pages
Okay, I admit it, I advance-ordered Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from Amazon, and, as promised, Amazon had UPS deliver my copy first thing Saturday morning, the day of the long-awaited novel's release. I have serious mixed feelings about the Potter series. I've read all the books--twice, even--so it's obvious that they bring me… Continue reading Harry Potter, the first 100 pages
Suburbia: The Unspeakable Peril in the Everyday
All this thinking about the dangers of suburbia reminds me of a passage from Joan Didion's great 1970 novel Play It As It Lays. Maria Wyeth, the washed-up, strung-out actress in the novel exists in a near catatonic state. For days during the rain she did not speak out loud or read a newspaper. She… Continue reading Suburbia: The Unspeakable Peril in the Everyday
Search Inside This Book
Like many avid readers and scholars I am thoroughly enamored of Amazon.com's Search Inside the Book feature. The feature debuted October 23, 2003 with the complete text of more than 120,000 books. I can't find any recent data on how large the digital archive has grown in the past several months, but the folks at… Continue reading Search Inside This Book