Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

The group hate on elite folk who have been cheating their kids' ways into college, and on two actresses in particular who have become the public face of this scandal. has begun to die down: there are other things to think about after all, and the new headlines cause some fading in the urgency of the old, even if 'old' isn't very old and even if one of those faces of the scandal was big on Full House. Heck, Bill Cosby is doing hard time.  R. Kelly seems headed that way. If you're gonna keep people wowed by a scandal you have to up your game from just busting "Aunt Becky." At any rate, here is a skeptical look at what is going on. Please skip or skim through the opening three paragraphs about Enron. Anderson is a guy with a bug up his butt about Enron.  He does eventually sort-of-admit that there was real financial harm caused by that company and its sudden demise, although he doesn't believe "real" crimes were involved. I don't thi...

A new movie has opened, about the life of Fred Rogers, the longtime beloved host of Mr Rogers' Neighborhood. I have no plans for seeing the movie, but I think there is something to be said about that fact that Tom Hanks, no less, is playing the title character. It says, I think, that Hanks has settled into what may be the final, and a very long, phase of his career. Bill Cosby used to be called "America's Dad," back in the old Cliff Huxtable  days. Hanks, for all his talent and fame, is settling into a recurring role as "America's Grandpa." I hope it doesn't end for Hanks as badly as it ended for Cosby!

Well, this happened more than a year ago, but I'm only now finding out about it. In case I'm not literally the last to know, I'll proceed. On August 2016, as the Rio games were about to start, and on the recommendation of its ethics committee, the International Olympic Committee suspended one member, Moon Dae-sung (of South Korea) after it emerged that his Ph.D. thesis was largely plagiarized. The thesis, submitted to Kookmin University, was on the physiology of taekwondo, specifically on "Effect of Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF) on Flexibility and Isokinetic Muscle Strength in Taekwondo Player." Somehow I am reminded of Bill Cosby, who became Dr. Cosby on the strength of a dissertation on the use of "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids" as a teaching tool. Moon won a gold medal as a taekwondo athlete at the Athens Olympics in 2004. I suppose it is good that people who are rich and famous for something non-cerebral want to be able ...