The Sternberg Effect
Philosophy
There’s No Such Thing as A Free Lunch: Thoughts on Voluntary and Involuntary Minorities
Josh’s Note: Guest blogging today is my good friend, E. Anyanwu, who writes about differences in black culture using John Ogbu’s concepts of involuntary and voluntary minorities…
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Critical Analysis of “Page One: Inside the New York Times”
It’s been a very long time since I wrote a critical content analysis of a film, so I decided to write one about “Page One.” A note: This is unedited and very, very long, and is not meant to be a “like it or not” review, but instead, to use a theoretical lens to discuss this particular documentary. This critique looks at “Page One” through an expository mode of representation lens, which is meant to highlight a) how to read documentary film, b) how this film uses a the expository mode of representation to push its agenda and from that, c) can documentary film be objective? Continue reading
Exporting American culture
America’s imperialism – how we export our culture – tries to win the hearts and minds of others. Interesting how the Iranian regime responds (from the NYT):
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Nine Years
Nine years. 3,285 days. Man, time flies. One of the things that make us, well, us is our capacity to communicate complex ideas (another awesome human characteristic is our opposable thumb, but that’s for another day). We are story tellers and each generation has their story to tell, typically marked by an Earth-shattering experience.
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The WTC Mosque
So imagine this scenario:
You just finished reading your big book of answers when you hear a knock at the door. You think to yourself, well, it can’t be Trouble because there was a knock. Trouble enters without letting you know. You walk to the door where you find three close friends. You let them in, but they seem different. There’s a look of fear, and a look of sadness in their eyes. This is when you realized Trouble can come into your home, invited, masked as Friendship. Your friends see your big book of answers sitting on the table and they tell you, “We’re sorry, but you have to come with us.” You’ve heard stories, you know what happens next, so you say, “Let me tell my kids I love them.” Your friends, the ones who have aligned themselves with Trouble in order to protect their families, lead you out of your house, as they take your big book of answers with them to be tossed aside, burned and destroyed.
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What’s a Jew?
This week brought two interesting aspects of what it means to be a Jew to the world. The first, which actually started in January but didn’t get much notice until recently, has been seen as both a triumph of spirit and a desecration of memory. The second has the ability to eradicate what it means to be a Jew.
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C’est Magnifique
This past week, I made the trek from Brooklyn to Flushing to hear my 92 year-old grandfather sing. When he turned 75, he decided he wanted to participate in his senior center’s annual recital. Imagine a recital for your 7 year-old – with the off-key singing and do-overs due to forgotten lyrics – and you … Continue reading
The Sternberg Effect 