Mercenary fishing for academic vanity
Message to a friend on publishing ‘requests’/offers: Increasingly colleagues who publish an article in any good journal soon get an unsolicited email from some generic named (unhea…
Tag: gripes
Novel returns
The novel is a historical and autobiographically filtered indulgence, yet the making of worlds can sweep you away for a day or a week. Right to choose, needless…
Sloganize this…
Against descriptive abstracto-clerical abstentionism, Down with soft-time precariosectionallerationism, Forget hard core solidarnozaprojevognosticism, Exotico-vanguardianistas running remedi…
Black Swan
“Willem de Vlamingh was sent in 1696 to search for two VOC ships, Ridderschap van Holland (Knighthood of Holland), which had gone missing on its way to Batavia…
If we had time to study, we might study this…
I was asked yesterday how I might explain the attraction of current right wing ideas and autocracy…: >> How do you explain the attraction of current right wing…
NIAS gone!
This is not at all good. Announcement: NIAS is closing down! Courage, cleverness and tenacity have not been enough. After years of spirited resistance, it is now time…
Elephant in the room: Suzi Quatro’s Primitive Love is better than Fleetwood Mac’s rip-off Tusk.
Convince me otherwise. 1973 for Quatro, 1979 for F.Mac. 1973 1979
Goofy was a plant.
“one half of them who perish in London, dye of Phthisical and Pulmonic distempers; that the inhabitants are never free from Coughs” John Evelyn 1661 The biggest trick…
Pawn or War Crime? – you choose who gets voted off the island (two votes allowed per person)
Secret weapons sales (not so secret) and fancy dress panto season – really beyond the pale (white supremacy evil tricksters all). Justification here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/1…
Depression (not mine, ours)
Depression: I am no expert on depression, at all, but I also note that over the last two decades it has become a more visible topic of discussion…
Rejection journal.
Found in my notebooks from 2019: a proposal. Journal for Rejected Papers of Persistence and Perseverance Aims and scope. This journal, set up to the standards…
Assange and how truth does not set you free
******************** On thursday 9th Dec 2021 the first 15 minutes of my lecture on Media outlined the reasons why the extradition of Julian Assange should be opposed and…
Soapbox: on slips and trips.
In the business of selling cultures for quids, and other random translations Once upon a long ago, there was a time when I was more rebelliously young, and…
Class – and critique – in Bad Marxism, poking fun.
I was looking something up and stumbled upon a quote of me that I did not recognise – that class ‘does not make much sense’. I am pretty…
The Corporate Menagerie – Thesis Eleven
An article on the malaise that afflicts the UK university system, applicable to the US and Australia too possibly, not wholly tongue-in-cheek and riffing on true stories. Everyone…
Honky Tonk University
As I was chatting to Tony who wanted an update, here it for economies sake for the family and friends too: we are in week 12 of homeschooling.…
exoticism, revolutionary tourism, solidarity
What does solidarity look like? There have not been enough in the way of critiques of revolutionary tourism, of the exoticist trap of romanticising rebel movements abroad while…
Comedy
The times are those of distraction. Intensive scrutiny of slights and perceived hurts, while the libidinously ironic engage in rampant expressive display of mildly unacceptable comic-cum-outrageous tr…
Research on posters
Can someone in the UK souvenir one of these fab posters for me please (for ‘research’ purposes). I find them amazing. Yes, I know, it was the flip-floppery…
Care – a Christmas Carol
The inadequacy of charitable care as an international cure is evidenced despite the widespread propagation of philanthropic intervention. Bill Gates dedicates millions towards eradication of less glam…
The counter-revolution in Venezuela, by Saleh Mamon
https://salehmamon.com/2019/02/04/the-counter-revolution-in-venezuela/ The counter-revolution in Venezuela Hugo Chavez (1954-2013) The United States is putting in place its long planned intervention f…
Indexing
The requirement imposed upon untenured ‘early career’ scholars to target only alleged “quality” publications is academic narrowcasting. Zines fall between the cracks of experim…
An export industry in ‘defence’ is a croc of shit – Turnbull comes the raw prawn.
Just in, the BBC misses the opportunity to call bullshit on Australia, which they can’t do of course because they also export ‘defence’ weaponry. Both as daft as…
Turkey.
Gah. Still. No. Change. >Subject: Call for solidarity for the academics for peace on trial Dear colleagues, Our colleagues in Turkey are facing incredible repression under a populist…