In 1997, as a graduate teaching fellow, I began teaching two introductory classes in philosophy at the City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Many of my students were training for careers in criminology and law enforcement. Some hoped to join the FBI, yet others, the New York City police force.Continue reading “The Deadly Self-Pity Of The Police”
Tag Archives: urban life
Darren Wilson’s Post-Police Career
Darren Wilson has resigned from the Ferguson, MO, police force. His stated intentions are honorable, possibly even noble: It was my hope to continue in police work, but the safety of other police officers and the community are of paramount importance to me. It is my hope that my resignation will allow the community toContinue reading “Darren Wilson’s Post-Police Career”
The Road And The Apocalyptic World of the Homeless
Last week, the students in my Philosophical Issues in Literature class and I, as part of our ongoing discussion about Cormac McCarthy‘s The Road, watched John Hillcoat‘s cinematic adaptation of it. On Monday, we watched roughly half the movie in class, and then on Wednesday, we concentrated on three scenes: the encounter with Ely theContinue reading “The Road And The Apocalyptic World of the Homeless”
Running On Dark Mornings: How Virtuous It Is
In his autobiography The Greatest: My Own Story, (which I read as a pre-teen), Muhammad Ali often described his training routines. Among their components was something called ‘roadwork.’ I knew it involved running, but didn’t fully understand the roles shadow boxing and jumping rope played in it. Roadwork was an early morning business; Ali would leave hisContinue reading “Running On Dark Mornings: How Virtuous It Is”
The World As Raw Material For Facebook Status And Tweet
Last morning, as I walked along a Brooklyn sidewalk to my gym, heading for my 10AM workout, I saw a young woman walking straight at me, her face turned away, attending to some other matter of interest (a smartphone, but it might have been kids or pets; the precise details of this encounter have slippedContinue reading “The World As Raw Material For Facebook Status And Tweet”
Twenty-One Car-Free Years
Over the weekend, thanks to traveling up to Albany to meet an old friend, I was unable to make note of an especially important anniversary: March 30th marked twenty-one years of blessed freedom from car ownership. On March 30th, 1993, I sold my Toyota pickup truck, purchased a mere eighteen months previously, at a drasticallyContinue reading “Twenty-One Car-Free Years”
Cigarettes and the Killing (of Time)
In Cigarettes are Sublime (Duke University Press, 1993) Richard Klein writes: The cigarette kills time, chronometric time, the stark mechanical measure of mortality….The series of moments the clock records is not only a succession of “nows” but a memento mori diminishing the number of seconds that remain before death. But the cigarette interrupts and reverses theContinue reading “Cigarettes and the Killing (of Time)”
A Professional Businessman, Not a Professional Pakistani
Hanif Kureishi and Stephen Frears‘ My Beautiful Laundrette makes most of its viewers laugh a lot. My personal favorite of its many rib-ticklingly subversive moments came–as it seemingly did for many others–when the gay street punk Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis) helps the Pakistani Nasser Ali (Saeed Jaffrey) evict black West Indian tenants from his slummish property,Continue reading “A Professional Businessman, Not a Professional Pakistani”
The Stygian Staircase
When I first encountered the word ‘pitch-black’, a long time ago, in a children’s adventure book, I was puzzled; I asked my mother what it meant and she said, (roughly), “That means it was really, really dark, so dark you couldn’t see anything, no matter how long you waited.” Even at that tender age, IContinue reading “The Stygian Staircase”
The Smells of the Homeless: Unpleasant Reminders of Our Good Fortune
I receive, on a daily basis, many reminders of my singular good fortune, of my having scored big in life’s sweepstakes: I have a good job–one that gives me a sabbatical every seven years, a lovely family, and good health. (Despite a sore shoulder thanks to a persistent case of supraspinatus tendinopathy, two busted discsContinue reading “The Smells of the Homeless: Unpleasant Reminders of Our Good Fortune”
Samir Chopra 