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The fake
I’ve been thinking through fakes a lot over the past week as I watch media commentators and my social media friends respond to reports about an anti-Semitic letter being distributed in Donetsk....
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WWII and the power of stories
“Happy Victory Day!” Russia is running out of stories. On May 5, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law an addition to Russia’s criminal code that establishes severe penalties for...
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Unsettling truths
Read this report on the untruth of Russia-based news coverage claiming Odesa’s Jewish community is making plans for a mass evacuation. Then let us think about the rather postmodern unsettling of truth...
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Trigger warnings and being responsible for your students
There’s been a spate of articles this spring stoking a controversy about “trigger warnings” in college classes. I say stoking a controversy because I have yet to see much evidence that there is a real...
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Parmesan and the burning of the Russian border
Not long ago a friend emailed to ask what was even going on with Russia. “Why would they destroy food, of all things?” It’s a troubling sight, even at a transoceanic distance. Russia has a wealth of...
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Stuff happens: The gaffe as a problem of interpretive labor
“No, it wasn’t a mistake, I said exactly what I said, explain to me what I said wrong.” Yesterday I was struck by the uncanny familiarity of Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush’s comment, in...
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Now you see it, now you don’t
Did you know the Communists want to ban expressions of homosexuality? Oh, they’re not in power, and this isn’t a historical post—this was a law proposed by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation...
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Marco Rubio doesn’t talk like a robot. He talks like a Soviet newspaper.
Google image search for “Marco Rubio” overlaid with my own stump speech. I’m available for hire! One of the latest episodes in the absurd spectacle of the 2016 US Presidential race has been Marco...
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It doesn’t matter if Trump’s arguments don’t add up. That’s what makes them...
Donald Trump and his staff say a lot of things. Some of those things are lies. Some are perhaps better characterized as distortions. Some of them are simply blatant contradictions of things they have...
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Why antifa?
The surge of popular interest in the United States in antifa (antifacism) in the past year has been disconcerting to me. Perhaps other researchers who became familiar with antifa in European contexts...
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