Monthly Archives: August 2013

(The People Want Social Justice) Bill di Blasio for Mayor (NYC)

Posted on August 30, 2013 by zjb

If I voted in NYC and not in Syracuse, Bill de Blasio would be getting my vote for mayor. This article in the NYT explains why. It explains that the surge he’s now enjoying in the polls has to do … Continue reading →

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Brown Cows Brown Cows (New York State Fair 2013) (Solidarity and Sleepiness)

Posted on August 30, 2013 by zjb

There’s more than sound and fury at a State Fair. There’s also brute animal existence, solidarity and sleepiness. Cows are always together. I like these Brown Swiss late at night at the cowshed at the New York State Fair, and … Continue reading →

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Night in Which All Cows Are Brown (New York State Fair 2013) (Hegel)

Posted on August 30, 2013 by zjb

“To set  this one cognition, that in the Absolute everything is the same, over against the discerning and fulfilled or fulfilling of seeking and reaching knowledge, or to display its Absolute as the night in which, as one has the … Continue reading →

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Quiet Places (New York State Fair, 2013)

Posted on August 29, 2013 by zjb

A dear friend thinks that my attraction to the New York State Fair has everything to do with my constant need for too much stimulation. This is only half correct, about both me and the State Fair. There are also … Continue reading →

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Machine Human Velocities (New York State Fair, 2013)

Posted on August 29, 2013 by zjb

The Midway at the New York State Fair is an endlessly fascinating spectacle. Machine driven human brains and bodies ensconsed in steel hurtling in fast, noisy circles through a space of bright flashing color lights framed by the sky. Only … Continue reading →

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Syria Intervention? (Joshua Landis — Syria Comment)

Posted on August 28, 2013 by zjb

Regarding a very limited intervention in Syria, here’s the current thinking by Joshua Landis at Syria Comment. It’s the most sensible thing I’ve seen so far. The problem is that I don’t think the position stakes out alternative nightmare scenarios … Continue reading →

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David b. Joshua Maimonides’s use of Suhrawardi’s Sufi idea of attentive Illumination—-courtesy of Prof. Paul Fenton

Posted on August 28, 2013 by zjb

Originally posted on The Book of Doctrines and Opinions::
People seemed to like the Jewish- Derwish photo from 1922 but there is much more Jewish-Sufism out there, even beyond Bahye or Avraham b. Maimonides. The scholarship for the last half…

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The Star of Redemption (New York State Fair) (Ferris Wheel)

Posted on August 28, 2013 by zjb

Franz Rosenzweig thought that “the star of redemption” looks like a human face. But I think it looks like a ferris wheel: a pod for human habitation spinning in circles around in the dark, powered by the artificially constructed and … Continue reading →

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Elegant Campy Chicken (New York State Fair)

Posted on August 27, 2013 by zjb

I love animal life at the New York Sate Fair. Unnatural, this elegant, campy chicken with the mean skinny face and big white hair stands apart from the rest of the crowd as a case study in the philosophy of … Continue reading →

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Deep Fried Demos (New York State Fair)

Posted on August 27, 2013 by zjb

Bread and Circus or Deep Fried Demos? I tend not to be cynical about these kinds of things. Aspects of a state fair are radically democratic. The coming together of a disparate mass for the purpose of economics and entertainment. … Continue reading →

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