Ann Fisher-Worth’s poetry in Paradise is Jagged makes excellent reading in April, mixing memory and desire with personal reminiscence and careful observations.

I fell into the volume with a whole heart from the moment I read the first poem, “A Young Stag at Dusk,” and came upon these particular lines: “my Peace roses ride on arching stems/like moons in a lead-white sky./–My? All year, earth holds them.” It reminds me of what I so often think when I look out at the woods behind my house, at all those trees on land we say we “own,” when actually most of those trees were here before me and will remain after I’m under the earth.

The stag poem serves as a preface; there are five sections in this volume, roughly corresponding to stages of the speaker’s life. Although I like the way each poem presents particular details, the ones that reveal…

Citroen plant occupied by the workers, 1968

“A demystifying review essay and analysis summarizing the events of May-June 1968 in France with an almost exclusive focus on the strikes of the workers, based on reports and testimonies garnered from a voluminous bibliography, providing a sobering reassessment of the largest nationwide strike in French history, which the author defines as a ‘generalized non-insurrectional work stoppage’. Part 1. An account of the events. The pages that follow are not intended to be a history of the strikes of May ’68. In order for them to comprise such a history it would have been necessary to pursue my research much further than I was capable of in this instance. It is instead a sort of compilation of the information provided by the texts listed in the bibliography, which are easily accessible, concerning the question of the strike movement as seen from one…

David McGrogan, A Foucauldian Defense of Liberalism, Law & Liberty, March 27 2023

We should not settle for the nominal freedom of a relentlessly micromanaged society.

There is a strong case to be made that Michel Foucault was the most important and influential thinker of the second half of the twentieth century. He was not a nice man. And many of his conclusions were odious. But he discerned the path on which modernity was walking better than almost anybody else.

The most useful of Foucault’s contributions were not published in book form but were delivered as lectures, posthumously compiled and translated. Those gathered in the collection Security, Territory, Population are far and away the most significant. In them, Foucault provides a complete conceptualisation of the evolution of modern governance, showing how it is characterised, above all, by “governmentality” or what has elsewhere been called the “conducting of…

For the past dozen years, since the attack on public schools went into high gear, the same lie has been trotted out again and again to defame public schools. The slanderers say that 2/3 of American students are reading “below grade level.”

At Congressional hearings on the education budget on Tuesday April 18, the same ridiculous claim was made by U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. He said that only 33% are reading at proficiency. He said this is “appalling and not acceptable for the United States. 33% of our students are reading on Grade level.” (At about 45:00).

This is nonsense. Its’s frankly appalling to hear Secretary Cardona repeating the lie spread by rightwing public school haters. He really should be briefed by officials from the National Assessment Governing Board before he testifies again.

On the NAEP (National Assessment of Educationsl Progress) tests, “proficient” does not represent grade…

The Perils of Just Aimlessly Sitting “Although parts of this book were originally published in Kenward Elmslie’s ZZ Magazine and first published in book form by Black Sparrow Press, this reviewer was pleasantly surprised to find this collaboration waiting in the mailbox in a fine new volume published by Granary Books. Joe Brainard passed from this life May 25, 1994, but he will be remembered always for his writing and visual art, infused as it is with a refreshing almost naïve wisdom, which is a contradiction in terms made possible by Brainard’s deft touch. John Ashbery’s name is familiar to art aficionados as a poet, critic, essayist and wizard, having won too many literary awards to count. This mélange of Ashbery’s writing and Brainard’s drawings makes total sense, not simply because of their reputations as members of the first and second generation of New York School poets respectively, but because…

Rep. Tricia Cotham ran for office as a Democrat and was elected as a Democrat. She had previously been Teacher-of-the-Year and claimed to be a strong advocate for the state’s beleaguered public schools. She switched her party and joined the Republicans, giving them the one vote they needed to have a supermajority in both houses. Republicans can now override Democratic Governor Roy Cooper’s vetos.

The NC General Assembly has been consistently hostile to public schools and to teachers. They have authorized charter schools, including for-profit schools, and vouchers. Many financial scandals have marked the charter sector.

Yet Rep. Cotham just voted to give the Republican-dominated General Assembly contro of charters. No critics or skeptics allowed!

Former Democratic lawmaker Tricia Cotham sealed her move to the Republican Party this week by co-sponsoring a bill that would remove the State Board of Education from the charter school approval process.

Under House Bill…

It Happened in 1966: Andy Warhol’s Plastic Exploding Inevitable: “During 1965, Andy Warhol accelerated and amplified his scope to match the culture’s momentum. In October, he announced that he was leaving art and staged a happening: a 40-foot long silver balloon was launched into space from the Factory roof. Filled with helium, it was a forerunner of the Silver Clouds that remain a staple of every Warhol retrospective today. Four days after the helium happening, Warhol travelled to Philadelphia for a major retrospective at the Institute of Contemporary Art. This was planned as something different: Columbia Records executive Norman Dolph was hired as a DJ, while curator Sam Green removed the art from the walls to ensure its safety. The blank space was more like a discotheque than an art gallery. To the sounds of It’s All Over Now, Barefootin’ and Ian Whitcomb’s campy You Turn Me On, the crowd of…

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is going after Disney again, trying to prove he’s a tough guy. He is angry at Disney because the corporation—Florida’s largest employer—issued a statement opposing the Governor’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.

First, DeSantis retaliated by dissolving the Reedy Creek District, a special self-governing district controlled by Disney, which supplies all services to Disney’s theme park. DeSantis created a new board called the Central Florida Oversight District Board of Supervisors to oversee the district, packed with his cronies.

But before the legislation passed, Disney quietly held public meetings and granted its district decades of future control.

Outraged, DeSantis threatened to increase hotel taxes and put tolls on the roads to Disney. He also told the State Attorney General to investigate Disney. Not a nice way to treat the state’s biggest employer.

Now he is wreaking vengeance again:

The Disney versus DeSantis fight headed into round three on…

Explain why your research is worth doing … it might be obvious to you but it’s not necessarily clear to others. But it’s not just you who has to explain. All scholars have to justify why their research topic is important.

You have to create the warrant for your research when you write the proposal for entry to the PhD, when you apply for funding and when you write the thesis. You also have to explain the warrant for a book, a paper and a book chapter.

Now, your justification for doing a particular kind of research is often found in the wider social political cultural context. Or maybe in professional practice. There’s a problem that needs attending to urgently. And you’re just the person to do it.

However, all scholars also have to find where their research fits in, and fits with, existing scholarship. That means getting into the…