Bbenzon
Description
Humankind got its start on the African savannas some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years ago. At various times in our cultural history we’ve moved to distinctly new cultural ground, as it were. And so we are moving now, and have been for the past half century. This blog is how I see that move. Intellectually, I'm broadly interested in culture and the brain. Within that compass, anything could show up here. Literature and films (including animation), certainly, music as well, and graffiti. But, other things may show up as well. It's a blog, don't you know, it moves.
MY BLOGS
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New Savanna
http://new-savanna.blogspot.com/
Humankind got its start on the African savannas some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years ago. At various times in our cultural history we’ve moved to distinctly new cultural ground, as it were. And so we are moving now, and have been for the past half century. This blog is how I see that move. I'm broadly interested in culture and the brain. Within that compass, anything could show up here. Literature and films (including animation), certainly, music as well, and graffiti. But, other things may show up as well. It's a blog, don't you know, it moves.
LATEST ARTICLES ( 7356 )
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Zero
The invention of zero – how ancient Mesopotamia invented the mathematical concept of nought and ancient India gave it symbolic form https://t.co/tSNrG22yHM... Read more
Posted on 16 March 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Born to Groove
Music belongs to everybody, not just celebrities on stage (from https://t.co/WeGlGbnFbf). pic.twitter.com/MnAn9WbFqx — Ted Gioia (@tedgioia) March 15, Read more
Posted on 16 March 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Is Commerce Corrupting Graffiti and Street Art?
Christine MacDonald, Street Art Used To Be the Voice of the People. Now It’s the Voice of Advertisers. In These Times. March 11, 2019. Read more
Posted on 15 March 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Theory and Plato’s Mistake
This is an old post, from December 2012, but the subject's been on my mind recently, so I'm boosting it to the top of the queue. (3.11. Read more
Posted on 11 March 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
A Biography of Osamu Tezuka
Brad Hawley, The Osamu Tezuka Story: A Must-Read for Manga Fans, Fantasy Literature, March 9, 2019. A review of: The Osamu Tezuka Story: A Life in Manga and... Read more
Posted on 10 March 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Turn-taking in Mouse Vocalization
Carl Zimmer, These Mice sing to One Another – Politely, NYTimes, Feb 28, 2019. It was once believed that monkeys and apes were not able to exert voluntary... Read more
Posted on 06 March 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Onna-Bugeisha: Japanese Women Warriors
Christobel Hastings, How Onna-Bugeisha, Feudal Japan's Women Samurai, Were Erased From History, Broadly, Sept. 24, 2018. Throughout history, most Japanese... Read more
Posted on 06 March 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
What Happens with the Cloud Cover Burns Off? [Temperature Goes WAY Up?]
Natalie Wolchover, A World Without Clouds, Quanta Magazine, February 25, 2019. Until quite recently the weather models used to predict the climate evolution wer... Read more
Posted on 02 March 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Cultural Forms Don't Die So Much as They Dimish and Decay
Oleg Sobchuk, The (slow) dying of cultural forms, Medium, Feb 26, 2019.The set-up:Several years ago, sipping coffee at the sunny campus of Stanford, J.D. Read more
Posted on 02 March 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Goodwill Runs the World's 2nd Largest MOOC
Brandon Busteed, Why Goodwill (Not Udacity, EdX Or Coursera) May Be The World's Biggest MOOC, Forbes, 26 Feb, 2019:In 2018, more than 31 million people took... Read more
Posted on 28 February 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Moby Dick, the Oil Industry, and America
That’s right, Moby Dick, the 19th century novel by Herman Melville, one of the great novels. Of course we’re beyond it, it was published in 1851. Read more
Posted on 24 February 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Structural Inequality in the Wikimedia Universe
Jinhyuk Yun, Sang Hoon Lee Hawoong Jeong, Early onset of structural inequality in the formation of collaborative knowledge in all Wikimedia projects, Nature... Read more
Posted on 22 February 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
First Man, a Remark Or Two on How It Achieves Its Effects
I saw First Man last fall when it came out. Last night I saw it again, on a large TV. I find it impressive, still. As I argued last year, the film reaches for... Read more
Posted on 21 February 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Oral Transmission of Folksongs
Daniel Shanahan, Joshua Albrecht, Examining the Effect of Oral Transmission on Folksongs, Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 36 No. 3, Februar... Read more
Posted on 19 February 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Chinese and U.S. Economies, Brexit
Yngve Slyngstad is CEO of Norway's sovereign wealth fund, the worlds largest at $1 trillion. Jonas O Bergman and Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam of Bloomberg Markets... Read more
Posted on 18 February 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Is Lke Erie a Juridical Person? The Voters Will Decide.
Timothy Williams, Should a Lake Get Legal Rights Like a Person? Toledo Voters Will Decide. NYTimes, February 17, 2019. The failing health of Lake Erie, the... Read more
Posted on 17 February 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Red White and Green
Posted on 17 February 2019
CULTURE,
PHILOSOPHY,
SOCIETY
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Climate Change, from Panic to Politics
David Wallace-Wells, Time to Panic, NYTimes, 16 Feb 2019. The number of “good news” scientific papers that I’ve encountered in that time I could probably count... Read more
Posted on 17 February 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
Gay Priests in America
Elizabeth Dias, ‘It Is Not a Closet. It Is a Cage.’ Gay Catholic Priests Speak Out, NYTimes, February 17, 2019: Fewer than about 10 priests in the United... Read more
Posted on 17 February 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY -
The Rise of the Black Market in North Korea
Travis Jeppesen, Shopping in Pyongyang, and Other Adventures in North Korean Capitalism, NYTimes Magazine, 14 Feb 2019. “Jangmadang! Jangmadang!” I echoed... Read more
Posted on 16 February 2019 CULTURE, PHILOSOPHY, SOCIETY
