Edited by Pat Kane (email)

Hi everyone, many apologies for long silence. Engaged fully these days - and my software doesn't allow for easy, intuitive, and truly mobile blogging. (That's getting fixed). In any case, here's a very eclectic list from November, all of which radiates out from the Play Ethic, one way or another. (I'll decorate with pics soon).

best, PK



:: Pop'n'Politics ::

• Moby, Soros launch contests for anti-Bush commercial
A holy alliance...

• Howard Zinn and Radiohead's Thom Yorke in conversation
...and another one

• Of grunge and government
Kris Novoselic of Nirvana wants to be a pol

• Rocking the Hip-Hop Vote
The playas become players in time for the next round of US elections


:: Signs of Islam and Araby ::

• Agonistic Islam
Play's ancient rhetoric (contestation and the agon) as a way of understanding Islamic politics. The beginning of a long conversation...

• Baghdad, city of grafitti
The politics of satire - an inescapable human form of play

• Umberto Eco on the future of books
His speech at the opening of the new library of Alexandria


:: A Message for you, Doctor Strangelove ::

• Play Go, not Chess to understand the world
John Arquilla, Rand specialist, on the new gamimg metaphor for geopolitics

• Gen. Franks Doubts Constitution Will Survive WMD Attack
Even to make this thinkable is deeply worrying


:: Ludicism and Literacy ::

• Swaraj: Play in Education
Fascinating Indian think-tank - based on the Ghandian notion of Swaraj, or self-determination - looking at the power of play in education. (Thanks to Zaid Hassan).

• Harvard Gazette: Kurt Cobain vs. Master P: Multiple approaches to education
Pop as a route to pedagogy

• Are we over-programming our children?
Challenging piece on the opposition between free play and digital play

• George Lakoff: Simple Framing
Becoming aware of the metaphors we're ruled by

• Lawrence Lessig on Free Culture
The Paul Revere of the Information Age makes his usual painstaking case for the commons


:: Business Competitions ::

• Beyond Globophobia
Defending globalisation from the left...

• In defense of globalization: why cultural exchange is still an overwhelming force for good
...and from the libertarian right

• The 'Thing' Economy and the 'Care' Economy
Fascinating paper which confirms the pertinence of the Play Ethic's new social continuum - between play and care.

• What Strategists Can Learn from Sartre
GBN's James Ogilvy (who wrote a player's catechism once called Living without a Goal) brings existentialism to business

• Unreason in Economics
It takes a Nobel Prize winner to tell us


:: The Generation Fractal (Not Gap) ::

• Misreading Millennials
What does Generation Z want?

• Luxury Fever and Affluenza
Desire and materialism in fond embrace

• 35 Heroes of Freedom
Who has made the world groovier


The Soulitariat Stirs

• Does Digital Politics Still Matter
When - pace Howard Dean - did it ever stop?

• Playground evolution
Someone's written the Cahiers Du Cinema for computer games

• Rodney King stole my picture phone
We like to watch... especially when counter-surveillance comes in such an easy form

• Transhumanism and Democracy
Is that a big enough idea? No?

• Minimum Utopia: Ten Theses
Well try this one for size


:: Toying with the Heart ::

• Can girls really play with boys?
Good question

• The Man about the house
More signs that the 'PlayMan' (rather than PlayBoy) is coming to light

• Love in the Time of No Time
Is internet dating about flexibility and individuality, or is it the desperate response to the oppressions of an overwork culture? Discuss/disgust

• We need to pull ourselves together
Anti-play psychology

• How to be happy
Pro-play psychology



:: Europe in Play ::

• Habermas and Derrida on the fate of Europe
Philosophy's greatest systematiser, and greatest player, come together in a new geopolitical vision for the continent, post-Iraq and 9/11

• Richard Rorty comments on H&D

• As does Paul Kennedy

• ...And the Habermasian Spy
Jurgen's acolyte as a South Korean subversive


:: Play Times ::

• Mandela's favourite African folk tales
Beautiful reference in this article to the spider's web of Anansie - "its stories may yet ensnare the world". It'd have to negotiate with Indra's Postmodern Net first...

• Interesting optical illusion
You always gotta have one


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