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The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
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NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for "Robert Paul Wolff Kant." There they will be.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for Robert Paul Wolff Marx."





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Monday, June 2, 2014

THE ASTONISHING WORLD WIDE WEB

Like every other almost six year old girl in America, my granddaughter Athena is mesmerized by the movie Frozen.  Her birthday party on August first will be a totally Frozen-themed affair.  I had never so much as heard of Frozen until I e-mailed Athena's mother for guidance in the selection of birthday presents.  Once clued in, off I went to Amazon.com [via the Jefferson Elementary School, which gets a cut of everything I spend on Amazon], and there, sure enough, I found all manner of Frozen-related items, including a snowflake dress, in blue [which unfortunately has already been preempted by Athena's mother, so I must find some accessory.]

This morning I clicked on dailykos.com, as I do every morning, to read Markos Moulitsos' Abbreviated Pundit Roundup.  Amazon has an ad on the main page of The Daily Kos website.  What is Amazon featuring in its ad today, on my computer, but probably not on yours?  The snowflake dress.  This is way beyond creepy.

As I have remarked before, we really need to turn our secret world-wide surveillance system over to Jeff Bezos. 

5 comments:

James Camien McGuiggan said...

My favourite instance of this kind of thing was when, having received a lovely set of kitchen knives from my mother and having e-mailed her to thank her, I saw an advert on Gmail for 'bulky waste disposal'.

Robert Paul Wolff said...

Don't tell your mother you said that! :)

J.R. said...

I realize that this was somewhat joking, but this is in effect what the U.S. has done. One of the most interesting features of the Snowden documents was the degree of quite willing collaboration of Amazon, Facebook, Google and the like with the N.S.A..

Of course, now they all publicly claim that they are shocked that gambling was going on here, but. . .

Rev. Elizabeth said...

We share the same granddaughter, Athena, and I too will need to shop for some "Frozen" gift. For my own perspective on "Frozen and Maleficent, see my blog:
http://www.revlizwritings.blogspot.com/2014/06/pure-love-in-maleficent-and-frozen.html

Robert Paul Wolff said...

Welcome, Elizabeth. Athena is a delight, as is Samuel. How fortunate we are!!!