The US Police and Justice System

Warning : violent video content.

The state of the police force in the United States of America :

Tamir Rice : Police arrives, and shoots a 12-year old boy seconds later.

Walter Scott : Scuffle followed by a man running, shot lethally in the back, multiple times.

Eric Garner : "I can't breath.", says the man under choke hold.


Mr. Horse Rider : A random example of police brutality that might not lead to a dead man.

The list is endless, and statistically significant. Indeed, any statistical analysis of the police and justice system in the US shows the dire state of the union.

Postponing judgement (2)

Coachella, or the Burning Man are good exercises in postponing judgement, as well as in civility, as are so many interesting alternative music gatherings. These festivals have been a hallmark of western youth throughout the sixties until now, and are a unique form of education that is too easily underestimated.

Academics in Fiction

The portrayal of academics in fiction is surprisingly rare. Recently, I've read two portraits. One is "Stoner" by John Williams. While the relationship of Stoner with his wife and daughter may be most central to the novel, his academic demise as a consequence of his objective evaluation of a mediocre student with exceptional linguistic bravoure is a hilarious illustration of the hypocrisy of academia. "Pnin" by Nabokov is equally funny in its depiction of a an alien academic, lost in the world, and even in the academic world that, not by any fault of its own, finishes off our hero without pity.

"But the required survey of English literature troubled and disquieted him in a way nothing had ever done before. "

John Williams, Stoner

“...If he failed the first time he took his driver's licence test, it was mainly because he started an argument with the examiner in an ill-timed effort to prove that nothing could be more humiliating to a rational creature than being required to encourage the development of a base conditional reflex by stopping at a red light when there was not an earthly soul around, heeled or wheeled. He was more circumspect the next time, and passed...”

Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin