On this date in 1999 I first added a date to the list of web links I had been curating. (The image has long since broken.)
On this date in 1999, I first dated an entry in the collection of web links I had been curating since at least that January.
Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani: My Great-Grandfather, the Nigerian Slave-Trader
This fascinating essay, by the grandchild of a Nigerian slave trader, explores a complex cultural legacy. At least as provocative as “Did Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson Love Each Other?” and the stunning, bitter “Molasses to Rum (to Slaves)” from the otherwise cheery musical 1776. African intellectuals tend to blame the West for the slave trade, but I knew that white traders couldn’t have loaded their ships without help from…
Trump, halting his own policy: “I didn’t like sight of families being separated.”
No fake news here. This is why journalism matters. It wasn’t the moral consequences of his own immigration crackdown that caused Trump to act — it was “the sight of” those consequences. What happens to those families after they have been detained for over 20 days remains to be seen. Very glad to hear that Microsoft employees objected to their company’s work with ICE. We should not forget how IBM…
How We Can Help Students Survive in an Age of Anxiety
Today’s students have also lived most of their lives in the shadow of a systemic financial collapse. Some of us can still remember the extent to which the worldview of our parents or grandparents was shaped by having grown up during the Great Depression. While the Great Recession was objectively not as severe, it has led to a level of economic anxiety among today’s college students that I did not…
To all these tools I’ve loved before…
While cleaning out my desk at home I added to the big box of “tools I used to use all the time and now hang onto them for sentimental reasons.” The brass lantern is a memento I keep in my office, not a tool I used to use all the time; nevertheless, I thought it added to the old-timey feel.
2001: Stanley Kubrick’s Exasperating Masterpiece
Posting this mostly to prove that I can remain rational even when I encounter criticism of classic Star Trek, which certainly had its silly moments, but which offered many, many serious adult treatments of social issues. If you like your science fiction overlong and overserious, may I recommend Star Trek: The Motion Picture? 2001 is a completely different genre of science fiction. The docking waltz sequence is still striking and…