1. Research a social issue. 2. Start a blog. 3. ??? 4. Become a public intellectual! Or not.
Four Easy Steps
“In The Shadows”
The Daily Bruin is a running a stunning multimedia series about “the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Malawi, a country that outlaws homosexuality and in which UCLA has a strong research presence.” Two recent UCLA graduates – Sonali Kohli and Blaine Ohigashi – spent 24 days interviewing LGBT Malawians, activists and researchers “about the healthcare and human rights challenges the community faces.” As with the 40 Towns project I’ve mentioned previously, the result of Kohli and Ohigashi’s reportage is a testament to the quality of student journalism.
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1Q84 Uncovered
The cover for Haruki Murakami's long-awaited 1Q84 has been unveiled. The book is due out in October.
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That’s a Mouthful
A Hawaiian woman named Janice Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele has won her battle against the state’s government computer systems and will now be able to fit her name – all 36 letters and 19 syllables of it – onto her driver’s license and ID card. Previously she’d been using a truncated version on her official documentation.
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The End of the Story
Recommended Reading: On how old age is represented in literature.
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Whitman on Poe
“Poe’s verses illustrate an intense faculty for technical and abstract beauty, with the rhyming art to excess, an incorrigible propensity toward nocturnal themes, a demoniac undertone behind every page—and, by final judgment, probably belong among the electric lights of imaginative literature, brilliant and dazzling, but with no heat.” - Walt Whitman on Edgar Allan Poe’s significance, circa 1880.
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The second paragraph made me check out. We’re less educated than we were forty or fifty years ago? There isn’t a single example of a public intellectual writing today who is as intelligent or well read or profound as those titans of yesteryear because…what, human beings now are just dumber? Please.