Author Archives: Timothy Burke

Who Cares About the Floppy Hat?

Listen to this segment of the NPR program “Here and Now” featuring two political reporters, Robert Draper and Peter Nicholas. Draper is fairly interesting, rather like his NY Times Magazine article on the McCain campaign. (I really wish NPR would … Continue reading

Posted in Information Technology and Information Literacy, Politics | 4 Comments

And I Want a Pony: Dissatisfied Academic Version

On to other matters. I meant to respond earlier to the pseudonymous essay of a tenured faculty member who plans to leave academia published recently at Inside Higher Education. My reaction largely echoes what was said about the piece at … Continue reading

Posted in Academia | 8 Comments

You’re All Clear, Kid

Stealing this theme from Rotwang at TPM Cafe, but this little bit of video captures my emotional reaction this morning pretty well.

Posted in Politics | 2 Comments

Dear President Santa

Here’s a Christmas wish list of stocking stuffers for the Obama transition team to consider. The big-ticket expenses, difficult decisions and intractable problems are one thing. Fixing the economic situation may be beyond anybody’s immediate reach. Undoing some of the … Continue reading

Posted in Politics | 16 Comments

Election Liveblogging

Ok, ok. I’m watching, might as well blog. Voting this morning was easy. We waited until about 10 a.m., no lines, but there had apparently been some earlier in the day and I gather there were some long lines late … Continue reading

Posted in Politics | 3 Comments

Cup Running Over

I’m trying really hard not to look at election-related news right now. I want to wait until it’s meaningful news rather than punditry, plus I’m feeling very burned out about national politics any way. So instead, a quick gaming round-up, … Continue reading

Posted in Games and Gaming | 2 Comments

The Problem With ‘Social Construction’

I’ve just been chatting in email with a friend who asked me to boil down my critique of the concept of social construction as it has appeared in history, cultural criticism, anthropology and so on over the last 25 years … Continue reading

Posted in Academia, Books, Production of History | 9 Comments

Another Way for Mr. Lincoln

The old mantra on the American right used to be that “conservatives have ideas”. I think even when that might have been said by conservatives with some degree of authentic confidence, it wasn’t always a statement about ideas, it was … Continue reading

Posted in Miscellany, Politics | 2 Comments

Nationalism, in Passing

Early in my career, I went to a presentation by a well-known anthropologist whose work I liked a lot. It was a good presentation, but the last quarter of it or so was devoted to a very loose, speculative argument … Continue reading

Posted in Politics | 8 Comments

Debate Notes

I’ll leave calling the horse race to other writers, but I had two small, specific reactions to the chunk of the debate that I watched. 1. When McCain brought up John Lewis’ remarks, here’s what I would have said back … Continue reading

Posted in Politics | 5 Comments