2002-09-22T15:29:00.000-04:00

Much toil, of late. In late summer, I wrote an article on changes at university presses that appeared in Chronicle's big package of articles on the impact of the recession on "intellectual infrastructure" (a catchy expression for something that didn't really have a name before that). There was a moment while writing the piece when I could imagine the whole section being read carefully by people at different levels of academic life, and it playing some role in how they thought about their situation. Well, we'll see about that.

In the meantime, there was another article about a very engaging new book recounting the early days of the synthesizer. It's the one volume from an academic press I've read in a while that is certain to reach a wide audience. Incidentally, though the piece refers to Glenn Gould's enthusiasm for Wendy Carlos's recording of the fourth Brandenberg Concerto -- which is not found (pace the implication) on Switched-On Bach.

Tomorrow, yet another article goes up -- longer than either of the other Chronicle items, or this review-essay for Newsday. (We leave on vacation early next month; not a minute too soon.)

This afternoon I knocked off a short item on how Christian pacifist theologians and just-war ethicists have responded to the claim that a preemptive strike on Iraq is morally sound. It seems that Michael Walzer (whose just-war arguments would be strictly secular) also has a critique of that claim in the newest issue of The New Republic, but it's not online and the issue isn't on newstands yet.

Incidentally, why don't they just change the name? After all, we're The New Empire. I don't say that in the spirit of a certain bonehead anti-imperialism. (You know, the "Slobodan, the Castro of the Balkans" posse. Which must mean that Saddam is Che?) But damn, are the powers-that-be here in love with the sound of their own voice when reminding the world that they are now (after all) the powers-that-be.

Invisible, Inc.