I thank you all for your kind birthday greetings. Blogging about my birthday was a transparent request for congratulations, of course, but I am shameless in that regard. I was struck once again by how extraordinary the web is, for all that we take it for granted. Jerry Fresia, an old and valued commentator, lives, he says, in a small town in Northern Italy. S. Wallerstein, perhaps the most prolific commentator, lives in Chile. Other participants in our on-going conversation live in Australia, England, and all over the United States. It is impossible to imagine an event that would bring us all into the same room, and yet we quite easily and casually converse with one another daily.
Surviving another year has left me quite chipper. This morning, as I took my 6 a.m. walk in sub-freezing weather, I reflected on the electoral victories we have won this past year and the many, many more I believe we will win in 2018. I am old enough to recall the Sixties [which, strictly speaking, happened as much in the early Seventies], and the breadth and depth of progressive mobilization now far exceeds what I recall then. This is a deeply divided country, but we are the majority, damn it. If we come out and vote, we can once again transform America.
I have now watched 76 episodes of Resurrection: Ertugrul, which I thought was the end of the series. I was all set to blog about what I have learned from it about Islam, Turkey, and the like, but then I noticed that there are another 110 episodes in a Second Series! Even for someone as compulsive as I, there are limits. Perhaps I should read a book.
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7 comments:
Chipper? That's amazing.
I will turn 70 next month. And each morning as I awake, slide sideways on the mattress, and place my feet firmly on the floor, I wait a second or two before I commit to actually standing up. And as I do, not feeling entirely stable, I often think, what the hell must this feel like when you are in your 80s.
I know, I know. I'm just a kid.
There are many many aspects of America which I would be happy to avoid for the rest of my days ( and probably will avoid), but it's a pleasure and intellectually stimulating to be in contact with so many brilliant and insightful minds in the American radical tradition through your blog on a daily basis.
How much pot was required to believe the Sixties actually occurred in the early Seventies?
Just kidding, Happy Birthday Professor.
Keep up the good fight professor!
Belated congratulations on another trip around the Sun. May you (and the blog) prosper for decades to come!
And from me too. I was too preoccupied the other day with working out an honest but suitably patriotic rhetorical strategy for you to take that I forgot to wish you Happy Birthday.
First of all, above I mentioned the intellectual stimulation and pleasure of being in contact with so many brilliant and insightful minds in the American radical tradition, and I realize that I left out regular commentators from New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the U.K., who are certainly the intellectual peers of those from the United States.
However, what is interesting about the group of regular commentators in this blog is how a group, open to all commentators, self selects for (formal or informal) educational level, powers of political analysis, general breadth of reading and debating ability.
If Professor Wolff had asked to see our curriculum and had given us a short SAT-type test
before allowing us to comment, he couldn't have selected a better group, better for the
purpose of maintaining an enlightened, well-informed and leftwing discussion about current affairs.
Has anyone ever studied how phenomena like the above occur?
Why are there no or almost no women participating in this conversation?
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