John Presnall

Much venom has been spent against the recently departed Lou Reed. He apparently was emblematic of all that was wrong in America. He was the poster boy of popular musical artists in terms of drug addiction and sexual deviance. And apparently it feels good to point out and condemn his deviance. I for . . . . Continue Reading »

Whenever someone you don’t really know tells you that you must not do such and such, it often provokes a desire to do that very same such and such. It’s like an itch on a random body-spot that must needs scratching. You try to overcome such a base urge, but scratching it is only solution . . . . Continue Reading »

In education today there is an ever-increasing anxiety—an anxiety which emphasizes student success as the end all and be all of education. The idea of student success is so nerve wracking that it permeates the most detailed of instructional activities. Lives and livelihoods are at stake. . . . . Continue Reading »

So I have no answers about the current stupid shutdown, but these are my thoughts on Obamacare. The bill that the Congress didn’t know the details of what was in it was signed and made law by the President whose Health and Human Services and Internal Revenue Service as a consequence of such . . . . Continue Reading »

This is an inappropriate way to begin a post, but as soon as I began writing what I had to say, the SOFTWARE COMPANY made me update and restart, which in the time it took to maintain a means of communication, I forgot whatever it was I thought I had important to say. Luckily my natural memory . . . . Continue Reading »

Video On Demand is not something that needs words to be spoken in its favor. It has plenty of advertising, and it is something good for a few bucks on a boring night. That said, in one day I was able to watch two movies on VOD directed by two highly regarded directors from the past days when movie . . . . Continue Reading »

While drinking my third cup of coffee, and reading all this talk of heroin and Charlie Parker, I got to thinking of James Baldwin’s beautiful short story “Sonny’s Blues” (1958). Around the same time that certain Beats were extolling the subconscious primitive impulses of . . . . Continue Reading »

If you care for this kind of warning, then let me say that there are probably SPOILERS throughout the following: 1. The Great Gatsby (Dir. Baz Luhrmann, 2013). Nietzsche (there I said it!) says, “What is most difficult to render from one language to another is the tempo of its style.” . . . . Continue Reading »

As the hugely successful CBS sitcom Big Bang Theory moves toward the conclusion of its sixth season, I thought I’d link to Ken Masugi’s recent blog post on the show. In it he relates this intelligent and funny show to some of the philosophic concerns of modernity as discussed in James V. . . . . Continue Reading »

This week had some big news in the world of movies. Unfortunately it didn’t include any new movies worth watching at the local multiplex. First, Roger Ebert sadly passed away. In certain circles, his style of movie criticism—thumbs and all—was criticized as simplistic, bordering on . . . . Continue Reading »