{"id":2682,"date":"2011-02-25T12:05:28","date_gmt":"2011-02-25T17:05:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=2682"},"modified":"2011-05-27T08:53:08","modified_gmt":"2011-05-27T13:53:08","slug":"here-there-or-democracy-is-coming-sort-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/02\/25\/here-there-or-democracy-is-coming-sort-of\/","title":{"rendered":"Here &amp; there (or democracy is coming, sort of)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>To the USA, perhaps&#8230; But mostly neither here nor there&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There&#8217;s an interesting flare-up occurring over Moammar Gaddafi&#8217;s son Saif&#8217;s Ph.D. from the London School of Economics, involving respected political theorists David Held and Benjamin Barber, among others. (See <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newappsblog.com\/2011\/02\/degrees-for-sale.html\">Eric Schliesser<\/a> for more.) The issues it raises are as old as the oldest profession: universities&#8217; acceptance of money from dubious sources and whether it&#8217;s possible for that money not to have &#8220;strings attached,&#8221; the role of advisers and examiners in checking out every potential instance of plagiarism, the glamor of well-dressed and politically well-placed youth (why wouldn&#8217;t you want to teach Gaddafi&#8217;s son if he seems smart and interested in what you have to say?), etc. I once taught a niece of Robert Mugabe&#8217;s; nothing interesting to report about it, though &#8212; she didn&#8217;t talk much, and seemed to do her own work.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><!--more-->Plutocracy continues to grow in the USA, as <a href=\"http:\/\/jdeanicite.typepad.com\/i_cite\/2011\/02\/its-the-inequality-stupid-mother-jones.html\">Jodi Dean<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/rs.resalliance.org\/2011\/02\/23\/oligarchy-in-the-usa\/\">Resilience Science<\/a> relate. See <a href=\"http:\/\/motherjones.com\/politics\/2011\/02\/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph\">Mother Jones<\/a> for the rich details. Meanwhile, Leonard Cohen, who once got us excited about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=m5g8CA5ltR8\">democracy&#8217;s pending arrival in the USA<\/a>, astutely predicts that &#8220;Any system you contrive without us\/ will be brought down&#8221; (h\/t to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.archivefire.net\/2011\/02\/any-system.html\">Michael<\/a>). Let&#8217;s bring it down, and make way for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.leonardcohenfiles.com\/democracy.html\">new arrival<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>PJ Harvey has released the best album I&#8217;ve heard in a long time. Unlike the direct, blood-on-the-tracks, take-no-prisoners brand of edgy rock she&#8217;s best known for, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.emusic.com\/album\/P-J-Harvey-Let-England-Shake-MP3-Download\/12380121.html\">Let England Shake<\/a> comes swaddled in fur, silk, wool, war, sadness, and layers of English history. But the songwriting, if less direct, is as good as anything she&#8217;s done. It bears repeated listening. (I&#8217;ve linked to eMusic there because despite its selling out to corporate giants over the last two years, it still remains a good deal compared to iTunes and Amazon, and if you join it based on this recommendation, feel free to include me in the deal so I can get some freebies in the transaction.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Visual studies guru Nick Mirzoeff has started a wonderful blog called <a href=\"http:\/\/nicholasmirzoeff.com\/RTL\/\">For the Right to Look. <\/a>See his posts on visuality and the revolutions in Egypt and elsewhere <a href=\"http:\/\/nicholasmirzoeff.com\/RTL\/?p=70\">here <\/a>and <a href=\"http:\/\/nicholasmirzoeff.com\/RTL\/?p=113\">here.<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>And, finally, a hat tip to <a href=\"http:\/\/ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com\/2011\/02\/rutgers-eco-conference-rob-nixons-talk.html\">Tim Morton<\/a> for sharing (while blogging from an ecocriticism conference at Rutgers) the following <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=zpz3jjdVdnQ&amp;feature=player_embedded\">video<\/a> of an <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/8311838.stm\">underwater cabinet meeting<\/a> by the government of the Maldives. Amazing. Somehow I missed that when it happened in September. (Three &amp; fifty cheers to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.350.org\/en\/maldives\">350.org<\/a>.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zpz3jjdVdnQ?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To the USA, perhaps&#8230; But mostly neither here nor there&#8230; There&#8217;s an interesting flare-up occurring over Moammar Gaddafi&#8217;s son Saif&#8217;s Ph.D. from the London School of Economics, involving respected political theorists David Held and Benjamin Barber, among others. (See Eric Schliesser for more.) The issues it raises are as old as the oldest profession: universities&#8217; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[203,196,692399,691215,689354],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academe","category-ecoculture","category-music-soundscape","category-politics_postpolitics","category-image_nation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-Hg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1370,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/11\/15\/ecomedia-studies-blog\/","url_meta":{"origin":2682,"position":0},"title":"ecomedia studies blog","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"November 15, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I somehow missed that the Ecomedia Studies group (which I was a co-founder of) has launched an eponymous blog. (It used to be a group wiki page, but now has morphed into a public blog.) It looks very good, and features some of the more prolific young scholars in ecomedia\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Eco-culture&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Eco-culture","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecoculture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7269,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2014\/02\/03\/climate-denials-dark-money-smoke-machine\/","url_meta":{"origin":2682,"position":1},"title":"Climate denial&#8217;s &#8220;dark money&#8221; smoke machine","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"February 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Since I was traveling at the time, I failed to note an interesting story that got covered in the science press about the organizational support and funding behind the climate denial movement. As reported in articles in Scientific American, The Guardian, and elsewhere, a recent peer-reviewed study published in Climatic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Climate change&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/climate-politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"SloMoSmokeScreen07-5930","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2014\/02\/SloMoSmokeScreen07-5930-275x139.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5114,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/07\/25\/munich-surf\/","url_meta":{"origin":2682,"position":2},"title":"Munich surf","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"July 25, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Things to do on a Sunday in Munich... 1. Find where nature and culture (river and engineering) slam into each other in a passionate wave. Ride it. http:\/\/youtu.be\/LTTct6xBIc8 Observations: To enjoy it at all, you have to be good. Some of these guys (and women) are really good. If you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Cinema&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Cinema","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/cinema_zone\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/LTTct6xBIc8\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1060,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/04\/16\/lessig-on-the-ecology-of-culture\/","url_meta":{"origin":2682,"position":3},"title":"Lessig on the ecology of culture","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"April 16, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Thanks to Mediacology for sharing this presentation on \"Green Culture\" by Lawrence Lessig from the recent Green Festival in Seattle. Lessig is the guru of the creative commons movement, and his talk, on what he calls \"cultural environmentalism,\" is really on media ecology, i.e. the \"ecology\" of cultural production and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Academe&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Academe","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/academe\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2892,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/03\/07\/open-movie-culture\/","url_meta":{"origin":2682,"position":4},"title":"Open movie culture","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"March 7, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Among the freely watchable films Open Culture includes in their 340 Free Movies Online list are films by Tarkovsky (all of them!), Godard (Breathless, King Lear), Kubrick (Dr. Strangelove), Jarman (Caravaggio), Hawks (His Girl Friday), Bunuel (L'Age d'Or), Resnais (Hiroshima mon amour, Nuit et brouillard\/Night and Fog), Kurosawa (Rashomon, Throne\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Media ecology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Media ecology","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/media_ecology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7806,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2014\/09\/30\/upcoming-ecomusics-climate-change-culture-etc\/","url_meta":{"origin":2682,"position":5},"title":"Upcoming: ecomusics, climate change culture, etc.","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"September 30, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I am about to travel to Asheville, North Carolina, for\u00a0the\u00a0Ecomusics and Ecomusicologies\u00a0conference, to be held from Thursday through Monday at the University of North Carolina Asheville.\u00a0The international conference, which has become an annual event (it met previously in Brisbane, Australia, and in New Orleans), brings together\u00a0theorists and researchers with performers\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Music &amp; soundscape&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Music &amp; soundscape","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/music-soundscape\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2682"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4277,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2682\/revisions\/4277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}