Clarissa's Blog

Who Can Help Aleppo?

It would be comical if it weren’t so tragic:

Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday called the situation in Aleppo “unacceptable.”
“It is beyond the pale,” Mr. Kerry said at Tufts University, before a meeting with European foreign ministers. “If people are serious about wanting a peaceful outcome to this war, then they should cease and desist bombing innocent women and children, cease cutting off water and laying siege to an entire community, and work with the international community in order to be able to bring peace to people who are starving.”

What is it that “people” need to do to make Kerry understand that they are “not serious about wanting a peaceful outcome”? That they don’t want to “bring peace”?

This game of fake ceasefires has been going on for a very long time. How many more Syrians need to die for Americans to take their heads out of their asses and acknowledge what’s happening?

There was an article in The NY TIMES this week where Jimmy Carter was saying the same crap that Kerry is. “If Russia really wants peace, it should this and that.” It’s like a boutique if collective insanity. 

Civilization and Barbarity 

I just read a story of a guerrilla fighter who lost both arms and his eyesight fighting against Russians in the same places in Ukraine where I spent much of my childhood. 

If somebody told me, even two weeks or two days before it happened, that Russia would invade Ukraine and there’d be guerrilla fighters getting killed or wounded, I would have never believed it. 

We keep thinking, ha ha, this will never happen, we are way too evolved, things like that don’t happen any more. And then they happen. 

Nobody has truly evolved past anything. Barbarity needs to be kept at bay constantly. Because the moment you snooze, it comes out and obliterates all gains of civilization. 

More on Homework 

And by the way, the reason why many professors are assigning less homework is not that they suddenly discovered that this strategy is pedagogically beneficial  (which it might or might not be depending on a wide variety of factors). It’s simply that enrollment caps have been raised and instructors or graduate students who used to teach different sections of the same course were fired. And now a professor simply doesn’t have time to grade homework in a class that went from 25 to 70 students. 

The Real Enemy

This is so ass-backwards. This stupid article- published in Illinois, of all places – blames professors for assigning too much homework and interfering with all the part-time jobs and internships that students need to juggle to make ends meet. 

The possibility that the shameful disinvestment of the state in higher education might have something to do with the issue is not even being discussed. It’s all the fault of evil professors who are trying to prevent students from working at McDonalds by trying to educate them. 

This is the perfect example of two groups that suffer at the hands of the same enemy turn against each other. 

Students! Professors are not to blame. 

Professors! Students are not to blame. 

Team Dispossessed 

Just saw another dispossessed with a “Team Trump” slogan on a shiny new Hummer.

Exceptionally Exceptional 

Many people exist in the mode of, “I’m tired of our (American, Spanish, Russian, etc) exceptionalism. It is exceptional how exceptionalist we are!”

Redeeming the French

I always avoided Ranciere even though I never read a word of his. But I don’t like French theorists. Lacan, Derrida, Bataille, Deleuze – yes, they are great but I never derived any use from them for my own work. Even Foucault is useless to me unless he’s being reworked by somebody Central European. 

And now I’m discovering that Ranciere is actually quite useful to me. It’s quite strange that a French philosopher would talk about things that I find relevant but here you have it. Hmm.

Lyin’

It doesn’t matter whom Lyin’ Ted says he does or doesn’t support. We all know he’s Lyin’, and that will never be washed off. 

Talking about limp-wristed and pitiful.

Podemos… what?

The leadership of Spain’s party called “Yes, We Can” is holding a retreat to figure out what it is that they can. In a rush to do well at the polls, they kind of forgot to finish the sentence. 

No Buying Experiment Continues

The really good sign is that I don’t even remember which day of the experiment we are on. Which means that I’m barely noticing any deprivation. 

I was hoping there’d be more to observe during the experiment but now is such a busy time in the semester that I barely manage to keep track of what my name is. 

Sorry, folks, I’m no fun right now. But hey, who’s up for live blogging the debate with me on Monday?