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I want to reflect a little on the idea of class, and the difference between having any and being in one. The reflection, of course, is motivated by the explosion of really unclassy behavior that besmirched the comment threads following various posts here and elsewhere about who is really rich.
Archive for the ‘Popular Culture’ Category
September 17th, 2010
…replaying his dissolute youth and repentance in drag …or maybe it’s the Buddha? The only thing missing is the patron saint of nagging mothers, Santa Monica. However, this is not the first time this history has repeated itself as farce. Imogene Coca (and Coleman, Comden and Greene) wrapped it up and tied it with a [...]
September 12th, 2010
Intercollegiate athletics (IA) continues to be a sore spot at Berkeley and at other schools caught up in the positional arms race wherein school A spending on sports for a few scholarship athletes is determined by the willingness of other schools B,C,… in its conference to throw more educational resources on the pyre. For example, [...]
August 14th, 2010
If one shining example of everything going right can redeem an awful couple of weeks, this is it. You have to read the whole story and watch the video. Just go do it and come back here (or not; what I have to say about it will be at best a few flowers strewn before [...]
July 8th, 2010
Category: Popular Culture, Sports
For LeBron enthusiasists, some wise words from beyond the grave.
June 4th, 2010
Category: Climate change, Energy and Environment, Popular Culture, Technology and Society, Uncategorized, Woolgathering
Small boys and real men should like solar power towers.
April 22nd, 2010
The perpetrators of last fall’s faculty senate resolution, that intercollegiate athletics at Berkeley be funded according to the rules and according to their appropriate role in a university, have an op-ed in the S.F. Chronicle. The chancellor appears to have a concept of “shared governance” that differs from what many might think the phrase means. [...]
March 2nd, 2010
Last week I was in two hotels in Italy. Every morning, the lobby had the usual newspapers for guests. I don’t mean a stack of USA Today; I mean five newspapers, all with national circulation (and not even including the Corriere, darn it); maybe we can not count Berlusconi’s Il Giornale. I don’t mean five [...]
