Tom profile picture

Tom

Derrida and Baudrillard!

About Me

I love to read fiction and non-fiction alike, and I love to discuss politics and philosophy. I love to travel, but I don't often have the opportunity. I'm told I have a very dry, satirical wit. I also lean to the wild side. I'll leave it to you to figure out what I mean by that. Yahoo IM and AIM -- marxderrida

My Interests

Politics, philosophy, literature, movies, travel, hiking, pool, and the occasional "get-fucked-up night."

I'd like to meet:

I like meeting anyone who isn't completely bored by occasional lapses into deep philosophical conversation. However, I prefer people who aren't racist, sexist, ageist, or judgemental about sexual preferences.

Music:

Tegan and Sara, The Shins, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Stills, The Postal Service, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, The Black Keys, Autolux, Elliot Smith, Flaming Lips, Violent Femmes, Django Reinhardt, Stephane Grappelli, Billy Bragg, Jimmy Cliff, Patti Smith, Thelonious Monk, Elvis Costello, U2, Ben Harper, Radiohead, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Fiona Apple, Led Zepplin, The Clash

Movies:

Monster's Ball, Wonder Boys, JFK, Rushmore, Quills, Election, Naked Lunch, Fidel, The Trials of Henry Kissinger, Lost in Translation, Pieces of April, Kinsey....

Television:

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report

Books:

The Sot-Weed Factor, From the Land of Green Ghosts, Confederacy of Dunces, Factotum, You Can't Win, Auto-da-Fé, Hell's Angels, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Moby Dick, Secrets of the Temple

Heroes:

Nelson Mandela, Che Guevara, Martin Luther King, Jr...

My Blog

Open- and Closed-mindedness and Reason

The modern, popular, common-sense notion of open-mindedness is a willingness to give all things (including ideas and techniques, not merely, for example, foods and music) a try. "Western" reasoning ha...
Posted by Tom on Thu, 31 May 2007 06:25:00 PST

A Must-Watch from YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJRyRnj1TlQ
Posted by Tom on Sat, 12 Aug 2006 10:21:00 PST

Postmodernist

You scored as Postmodernist. Postmodernism is the belief in complete open interpretation. You see the universe as a collection of information with varying ways of putting it together. There is no abs...
Posted by Tom on Tue, 25 Apr 2006 08:10:00 PST

A Wonderful Article

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/cosmo.html
Posted by Tom on Thu, 29 Sep 2005 07:41:00 PST

Tradition

Tradition is not even a good explanation, let alone a reason or justification.
Posted by Tom on Thu, 15 Sep 2005 06:04:00 PST

Faith versus reason

Faith is the abrogation of reason. Faith is a belief held in spite of contrary evidence or reason. People who have faith generally have many faiths. For example, people who have faith that there is a ...
Posted by Tom on Mon, 01 Jan 1900 12:00:00 PST

Faith negates hope

The beauty of postmodern knowledge is that it can only rise to the level of what Kant called Instrumental knowledge, meaning that it works, but it's not absolute or true for all time -- no knowledge c...
Posted by Tom on Mon, 01 Jan 1900 12:00:00 PST

Why conservatives can't be funny

Conservatives can't really be funny. To be funny, is to be ironic -- understanding irony here to be a trope involving incongruity between what is expected and what occurs. A simple gag such as a perso...
Posted by Tom on Mon, 01 Jan 1900 12:00:00 PST

Philosophical question

So, tell me, do you believe that the universe is inherently chaotic and that what we see as shapes are simply the illusion of time slicing the world into pictures, such as gumballs forming patterns ag...
Posted by Tom on Mon, 01 Jan 1900 12:00:00 PST