tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post8762884099926137402..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Identity Soup: Today's JuxtapositionCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-65095410239104752072007-07-16T04:32:00.000-04:002007-07-16T04:32:00.000-04:00Karl, I've nominated you for a thinking blogger aw...Karl, I've nominated you for a thinking blogger award. If this is not OK, please feel free to ignore the nomination.<BR/><BR/>Now, to the topic at hand. Once I get past the anger, digust, and dispair that these types of stories inevitably evoke, I'm always slightly amazed by the ways in which those of the rightwing who would use religion as an identifier misidentify themselves. <BR/><BR/>We are us (list of good adjectives), because we are not them (list of bad adjectives), followed by behavior that makes the us worse than any them imaginable. <BR/><BR/>On my bad days, I just think that humans really need to go on the trash heap of history as quickly as possible so a better species can have a crack at the planet.Heohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15790601758953554870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-80444884793117711222007-07-10T09:17:00.000-04:002007-07-10T09:17:00.000-04:00The Edith Piaf story demonstrates nicely how certa...The Edith Piaf story demonstrates nicely how certain "items" considered to be quintessentially "French" rarely are. A great text on this subject is Pierre Nora et alia's "Les lieux de memoire" project, especially, in the English, abbreviated version, "Realms of Memory," Volume III: Symbols.Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-51284767877492777852007-07-09T12:15:00.000-04:002007-07-09T12:15:00.000-04:00Karl, you know I love these moments of unexpected ...Karl, you know I love these moments of unexpected hybridity. This is a wonderful one.<BR/><BR/>I've been working a bit the Museum of London and having lunch looking at the Roman Wall, the very wall that William the Conqueror built the Tower upon. Architectural incorporations leave more lasting traces, at least, than these cultural/racial/what have you human ones, since the human category differentiations tend to be so flimsy to begin with. <BR/><BR/>One last thing: at night I've been working at a coffee shop at the intersection of New Oxford, Charing Cross, and Tottenham Court Roads -- the meeting of many rivers of humans walking the city. Young lovers come and go as I type away, and very few of them seem to be human categories in self-segregation -- meaning that, less awkwardly, it is amazing (and beautiful) to see race beside the point.Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.com