Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

The well-known journalist, true-crime author, and provocateur Joe McGinniss died Monday, March 9th at the age of 71. Here's an obit with the basics, from the grey lady. McGinniss first found a spot in the public spotlight with The Selling of the President , his account of Richard Nixon's 1968 campaign. As the title suggested, the book played against the series of Theodore White campaign chronicles. As my contribution to the marking of McGinniss' death I'll share one detail from the book that I personally find amusing. McGinniss is telling the story of Nixon's men trying to round up a six-person panel of 'ordinary people' to ask Nixon questions on a television show, a political infomercial if you will. McGinniss himself made a suggestion, "I suggested a psychiatrist I knew: the head of a group that brought Vietnamese children wounded in the war to the United States for treatment and artificial limbs." Roger Ailes (the executive producer o...

I find that I have never yet discussed on this blog the issue of Islamic finance -- that is, the financial institutions and theories that have arisen out of the Koran's prohibition of riba ( roughly: usury). This comes as something of a surprise, because this blog has been around for almost a year now, I have opined and observed here on a wide range of subjects from the relationship between Murdoch and Ailes at News Corp. to the foundations of epistemology. yet during all this time Islamic finance has been a great curiosity of mine. I've never mentioned that here?  Really? Even at the precursor to this blog, Pragmatism refreshed, which I kept for more than five years before starting this one, I don't seem to have written anything squarely on point. I came close, noting certain relevant statements I had encountered in a listserv for example, here. And I have written of it more squarely elsewhere, for example in AOL's DAILY FINANCE. I wrote a piece on how "Du...

A week ago I quoted for you from a biography of Rupert Murdoch, written by Michael Wolff, the well known Vanity Fair columnist. I there cited in particular Wolff's discussion of the succession issue, and of the rather odd way in which Murdoch announced his resolution thereof. But never mind that. Here's a better quote, from much later in the book (which is not at all chronological). "In steady, constantly discomfiting ways, Murdoch shares the feelings about Fox News regularly reflected in the general liberal apoplexy. Everybody outside Fox News and inside News Corp. suffers Fox News. Everybody outside Fox News and inside News Corp is afraid of Roger Ailes,. Further, everybody outside Fox News and inside News Corp. thinks that there's a bit of insanity at Fox News."