Be Our Guest (Sunday Poetry): “Food & Drinks to Rats & Finks”

05/24/202005/22/2020 Brandon Christensen Culture, Current Events civil liberty, coronavirus, N.D.Y. Romanfort, poetry, surveillance state

Our latest Be Our Guest post comes from poet N.D.Y. Romanfort, and it’s another poem. Once again I’m taking liberties in regards to Alex’s “Sunday Poetry” series and sharing Romanfort’s poem today. An excerpt:

Two-legg’d rodents have seized
the cherished eateries.
For these rats of great size
Mere food scraps aren’t the prize.

Please, read the rest. Enjoy. And if you’ve got something to say and no place to say it, Be Our Guest.

Watson my mind … while I walk the streets of Moscow

01/29/202001/29/2020 Derrill Watson Culture Moscow, Russian culture, street art, surveillance state

I’m running a teacher training program this week in Moscow. While I will have wordier thoughts later, this piece of street art needs no commentary:

Nightcap

10/21/201910/21/2019 Brandon Christensen Links Christianity, exit, surveillance state, Yuan Shikai

The Great Firewall of China, as cyber-sovereignty John Lanchester, London Review of Books
The lost art of exiting a war Adam Wunische, War on the Rocks
The Eastern Jesus Ian Johnson, New York Review of Books
China’s first permanent president Johnathan Chatwin, Asian Review of Books

The Obama Presidency as the Pinnacle of Progressivism

08/14/201308/14/2013 Brandon Christensen Current Events, Politics Barack Obama, NSA, Obama scandals, Progressives, progressivism, surveillance state

Recently, I have been seeing a lot of libertarians tsk tsking progressives for pinning their hopes on somebody like President Obama. For example, in a thread initiated by this article by Conor Friedersdorf of the Atlantic, an anonymous libertarian stated that Obama was “no progressive at all.”

Yet this is untrue. If anything, the Obama administration represents the pinnacle of Progressivism: “big” government taking care of the forgotten man in all aspects of his life. Self-styled progressives feigning disgust in the current administration’s dirty laundry need not do so. Either they implicitly endorse the authoritarianism of the Obama administration and pretend not to in polite company, or they don’t fully understand the moral and intellectual foundations of the ideology they purport to adhere to.

Around the Web

10/04/201204/06/2015 Brandon Christensen Links Arnold Kling, Democracy In America, elections, Jadaliyya, Maya Mikdashi, Steve Fritzinger, surveillance state, technology, the Freeman, Tyler Cowen, Will Wilkinson

How Government Sort Of Created the Internet. Fascinating read from the Freeman.
What Happened? Will Wilkinson asks the tough question in the aftermath of a debate which I missed, but heard that Romney roundly is perceived to have won.
The Next Industrial Revolution (it’s going to be in goods and services). Arnold Kling has written about this before. (h/t Tyler Cowen)
Beirut: Security, Surveillance, and Navigation. As I’ve gotten deeper and deeper into anthropology, I’ve found that many anthropologists never get past the glorified journalism aspect of the discipline associated with introductory courses. This is a good example of that, but still worth a gander.