two Levi Bryant interviews just posted

At New APPS, the interview by John Protevi can be found by clicking HERE.

At Figure/Ground Communication, the interview by Laureano Ralon is HERE.

Edinburgh flyer for my book on Meillassoux

Download it, print it, distribute it, order from it. Whatever you want to do with it. This was just sent to me today.

15 Pounds Sterling here as opposed to 19.99.

Meillassoux Email Flyer-1

Day Three is complete

It was a charming day between the (outdoor) botanical garden and a relaxing afternoon session with some artists who did some interesting exercises to have us grasp some objects from the past.

In between, I went over to give my 3 P.M. talk at Oxford’s Said Business School, at Steve Woolgar’s STS group. I basically summarized The Quadruple Object, which will be out in July, and linked it to Latour in various ways since the STS people are more familiar with Latour than with most of the other authors discussed in that book.

Another group dinner coming up in about 20 minutes, not too far from this hotel.

Tomorrow, very long group discussions. Friday is a short day to mark the end of a rather remarkable weeklong event.

will it rain?

I’m not even sure whether the botanical garden in Oxford is indoors or outdoors, so I’m not sure whether the rain is relevant. But it’s threatening again. In Oxford it has only threatened so far, never rained.

neither fish nor fowl

A point I disliked about the bin Laden situation is the have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too flavor of the rationale behind the disposal of the body.

They both dropped the body into the depths of the sea and claimed that the body was treated with all due respect demanded by Islam.

It seems to me that when you make these sorts of big decisions, trying to have it both ways often gives the worst of both worlds rather than the best of both.

Namely, they could have really treated the body with all due religious respect, having made very sure to have consulted the appropriate scholars in advance. They could still have used an unmarked grave and not told anyone where it was (but true enough, the secret could have leaked and a “shrine” could have been created; this is why the Nuremberg guys were cremated at Dachau [!!!] and their ashes dumped in a river, to avoid creating a Nazi pilgrimage site).

Or, they could simply have dumped bin Laden’s body unapologetically in the ocean and not made any claims to due religious respect at all. This would have been a “we’re really angry, so in your face!” sort of approach (a decaffeinated version of what the Russians have been said to do with bodies in analogous cases). They could then simply have ignored the scholars and put the burden on them to speak out in favor of the dignity of bin Laden, which is not the easiest thing to do for anyone who wants to retain any sort of remotely moderate image at all.

Instead, it seems to me that they tried to combine a bit of insult with claims to religious dignity. The effect of this is somewhat annoying, and to some people it is worse than annoying.

today’s activity

They’re taking us through the botanical garden this morning. Not yet sure what we’ll do there, but it should be a nice change of pace.

Bulls up 3-2

I’m relieved that they lead the series, but not reassured by the fact that they barely led Atlanta so late in the crucial Game 5 last night.

I hope I’m wrong, but I’m guessing they’re still too young to go as deep into the playoffs as their NBA-best record would suggest. I’d say a 60% chance that they lose in the East Finals against, presumably, Miami.

Obama’s likely opponent

He has nothing whatsoever to fear from the current list. Maybe they’ll come up with someone better than this to run against him, but I can’t think of who. There’s baggage with each and every name listed below, and a couple of them are laugh-out-loud material:

Mike Huckabee 19%
Mitt Romney 18%
Newt Gingrich 13%
Sarah Palin 12%
Ron Paul 8%
Donald Trump 8%
Tim Pawlenty 5%

(Someone else/Undecided 11%)

the puppet

Reportedly, at the University of Illinois a philosophy grad student once asked a visiting speaker a question with a hand-puppet.