History | ZETEO

Politics, Death Threats, Decency: The Roosevelts

October 1, 2016 by Ed Mooney

Mr. Trump hangs scapegoats like piñatas and invites people to take a swing. — Arizona Republic, September 28, 2016, lead editorial A friend is watching the PBS series, The Roosevelts. She’s taken in by the first episodes. I find myself pushed back in time, reliving the powerful impact of the series when I first viewed it two years ago. Back then, I was a complete fan, a true believer. I was abroad, and no doubt nostalgic for a number […]

Categories: Ed Mooney, ZiLL • Tags: decency, Donald Trump, History, politics, Roosevelts

Technology in the Age of Inequality

March 13, 2016 by William Eaton

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

Sex and Death

January 18, 2016 by William Eaton

While reading Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, I came across a most thought-provoking passage on Bollywood, which applies to Hollywood as well. On pg. 348, Mehta writes (emphasis mine): Gangsters and whores all over the world have always been fascinated by the movies and vice versa; the movies are fundamentally transgressive. They are our eye into the forbidden. Most people will never see a human being murder another human being, except on screen. Most people will never see […]

Categories: Fritz Tucker, ZiR • Tags: art, books, crime, criminals, death, film, History, literature, love, sex, sexuality

Thucydides, Herbert, History, Kerry

January 5, 2016 by William Eaton

Here Is Why the Classics Zbigniew Herbert’s poem “Dlaczego klasycy” (Why the Classics) has called out to me for a long while, as did W.B. Yeats’s “Sailing to Byzantium” until I wrote about it. And so I am writing about Herbert’s poem. It gives its history lesson by pulling the reader into the here and now. Yeats instructs by displaying for the reader Yeats’s golden perch outside history. Herbert plants his and the reader’s feet in history, concluding (in […]

Categories: ZiR • Tags: Edward Snowden, History, humility, John Kerry, poetry, Thucydides, Zbigniew Herbert

Lynch Mobs

January 3, 2016 by William Eaton

Shortly after posting my previous week’s article about Donald Trump, fascism, and communal violence, the New York Times published footage of a woman being lynched in Kabul, Afghanistan. The preceding disclaimer did not prepare me for the video’s contents; though I can’t think of anything that would have. It was definitely the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I don’t necessarily recommend the reader watch it. I would recommend it, however, for those who genuinely think that Trump’s followers are in danger […]

Categories: Fritz Tucker, ZiLL • Tags: African-Americans, books, crime, death, History, literature, Marx, New York Times, politics, race, reading, writing

Donald Trump the Fascist?

December 14, 2015 by William Eaton

Seemingly every statement regarding Donald Trump in recent weeks either explicitly or implicitly compares him to Hitler. It’s almost as though both social and mainstream media are trying to pay homage to Godwin’s Law, which humorously and tautologically states that any online discussion will eventually compare the subject to Nazi Germany. These comparisons highlight both the capacity and limitation of the American imagination. For these comparisons to have any meaning, however, historical facts must be addressed. It is true that Hitler was a uniquely effective rhetorician. Perhaps Trump is too. […]

Categories: Fritz Tucker, ZiLL • Tags: capitalism, civil rights, crime, death, ethics, History, immigration, India, law, literature, Narendra Modi, politics, race

Who is Paris?

November 16, 2015 by William Eaton

As my colleagues at Zeteo, William and Steve, have already pointed out, the sorrow we feel for those who lost their lives or loved ones during the attacks in Paris and Beirut this week is unfortunately accompanied by fear that the violence will only escalate from here. That is, after all, the point of terrorism, to take the middle ground out from under people’s feet and make them choose sides. If we refuse to choose sides, however, we combat terrorism better than any aircraft […]

Categories: Fritz Tucker, Uncategorized, ZiLL • Tags: death, French, History, immigration, ISIS, Paris, politics, terrorism, travel

Halloween as Social Movement

November 2, 2015 by William Eaton

In Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (Holt Paperbacks, 2007), Barbara Ehrenreich writes about the evolution of carnivals; from tribal societies masking and dancing to manufacture group solidarity (Intro, Ch. 1); to feudal festivals that challenged oppressive gender and class relations (Ch. 4). Writes Ehrenreich: Whatever social category you had been boxed into–male or female, rich or poor–carnival was a chance to escape from it. No aspect of carnival has attracted more scholarly attention than the tradition of mocking the powerful, […]

Categories: Fritz Tucker, ZiR • Tags: art, books, capitalism, childhood, children, civil rights, gender, History, homosexuality, law, literature, love, politics, social justice, women

Eyes on the Street

October 5, 2015 by William Eaton

Perhaps Jane Jacobs’ most acclaimed contribution to urban studies in The Death and Life of Great American Cities is her “eyes on the street” theory. “[T]here must be eyes upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street . . . to insure the safety of both residents and strangers” (1992, p. 35). According to Jacobs, this high-density street life not only provides safety, but a shared sense of civic duty. People must take a modicum of […]

Categories: Fritz Tucker, ZiR • Tags: books, capitalism, civil rights, crime, History, law, literature, New York City, politics, race, reading, social justice