ZETEO

Quixote, Carnival, Brussels, Easter

March 27, 2016 by Ed Mooney

Bakhtin coined the term “carnivalesque’ to mark literary works with multiple, contrasting, and forever-competing centers of gravity. These paintings above have multiple, contrasting, and forever-competing centers of gravity. They’re done by someone new in my world, Octavio Ocampo. These images help with Dostoevsky, Bakhtin, and Cervantes — with Paris, 9/11, Easter, and Brussels And they just won’t hold still! One is called “Kiss […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: art, death, literature, philosophy, writing

Starry Nights, Science, Atheists

March 20, 2016 by Ed Mooney

Richard Dawkins’ head is fizzing with mad thoughts.. . . Outside a shimmering band of turquoise near the horizon brings a soft sparkle to the beads of dew hanging from trees in early bud; the heavy clouds in the distance look peach-pink and insubstantial; so do the old pale brick houses that line his street. The birds are singing in riotous chorus. “Accept my genetic information, females of my species!” they sing. “Observe my superior fitness for survival, as […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: art, philosophy, poetry, politics, science

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Whig primary, 1848 - An Available Candidate, The One Qualification for a Whig President

Trump, de Tocqueville, Democracy, Materialism

March 14, 2016 by William Eaton

Many people in Europe believe without saying, or say without believing, that one of the great advantages of universal suffrage is that it calls men worthy of the people’s confidence to take charge of public affairs. The people do not know how to govern themselves, but, it is said, they always want the State to thrive, and they but rarely fail to choose for leaders people who both share this desire and are the most fit to wield political power. […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: capitalism, corruption, de Tocqueville, democracy, Donald Trump, New York Times, Presidential campaigns, Socrates, United States of America, Yeats

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Technology in the Age of Inequality

March 13, 2016 by fritztucker

Last week, I attended the Technology, Privacy, and the Future of Education symposium at NYU’s Media, Culture, and Communication department. One panelist, NYU Sociology’s Richard Arum, addressed the impact of technology on education-as-vocation—a subject on which I recommend Sugata Mitra’s self-organized, child-driven pedagogy. The other panelists focused primarily on digital technology’s impact on educational administration. Debates arose around the development of online-only curricula, apps that send parents reports on how late their children arrive to class, and the ethical implications […]

Categories: Fritz Tucker, ZiLL • Tags: capitalism, civil rights, crime, death, education, ethics, History, New York City, politics, science, social justice, technology

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Alienation, The Academy, Public Philosophy

March 13, 2016 by Ed Mooney

Once upon a time, there was a wildly popular “school” of thought called “existentialism.” Ordinary educated persons read works of existential writing and attended plays by existentialist dramatists; existential themes were bandied about in pubs and cafes; even the mass media took note of the way in which existentialist philosophy had broken the boundaries of the academy and been taken up in the streets. Eventually, of course, the badge “existentialist” became exhausted and dismissed, parodied, travestied, and ignored until […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: alienation, education, literature, philosophy, universities, writing

Does Feminism Need Beyoncé?

March 8, 2016 by William Eaton

By Emily Tobey Ever since the word feminism first appeared in public discourse in the late 1800’s, it has stimulated debate and disagreement about its meaning and purpose. The basic definition of feminism is the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality with men. The fundamental tenor of this definition frequently gets lost, however, amidst conflicting views, myths and misconceptions. Nonetheless, from the suffrage movement through the fight for equal pay and reproductive […]

Categories: Article • Tags: African-Americans, Beyonce, celebrity, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, feminism, gender, Jay-Z, Ms. Magazine, music, popular music, women

Drink's, sign in Troncones, Mexico; photo credit: Jonah Warner, February 2016

O que é felicidade (Corcovado, Kalamazoo)

March 7, 2016 by William Eaton

Backfiring, shall we call this? First bursts. Sue Ellen Christian, one of Zeteo’s long-time contributors, e-mailed us a draft response to one of the random, crazed shootings with which the United States is now plagued. As has been reported, several residents of her town, Kalamazoo, Michigan, were allegedly gunned down by an Uber driver. Random victims, and thus also reminders of how we are all random victims or the random fortunate (and some combination of the two). For example, thanks […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: airships, bossa nova, Dada, First World War, happiness, labor unions, language, poverty, random shooting, Stuart Hall, translation, Uber, work, Zen koan

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Holocaust, Son of Saul, Kierkegaard

March 6, 2016 by Ed Mooney

Kierkegaard appears unexpectedly on the “Opinionator” page of last week’s New York Times. He’s discussed in “The Stone” by a canny and sensitive philosopher, Katalin Balog. She finds the Danish thinker just under the surface of the Hungarian movie about the Holocaust, “Son of Saul,” which was recently awarded “Best Foreign Language Film” at the Oscars. The movie’s central theme is Saul’s inner world, the loss and recovery of his soul. In scene after scene we see his face unmoved, […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiR • Tags: death, ethics, film, love, philosophy, technology

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Lawrence Goldhuber in straitjacket, photo by Josh Gosfield

Bad Marriage; Spanish Dancer

March 1, 2016 by William Eaton

A touching story, and likely more common, in one variation or another, than it may at first seem. Among other things, I have in mind lives that come to be defined by one event which casts its spell, be it evil, enlightening, forgiving—over all the other years. The story I am going to tell, or retell, comes from Windmills in Brooklyn, a novel-memoir by a now forgotten Spanish-American writer, Prudencio de Pereda (b. 1912). Before getting to all this, […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: Brooklyn, Cuban cigars, dancing, life, memoir, New York, novels, Spanish

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