Brief Notes

The New York Times is reporting, January 30, that Barack Obama is reversing the previous president’s policies on labor, and he is supporting labor organizing and fair contracts; and, also, President Obama has signed an anti-discrimination employment bill into law (for fair pay despite gender and more opportunity to pursue legal means of handling being the victim of discrimination).

Arianna Huffington comments from Davos: “The widespread contrition permeating Davos is matched by an unnerving feeling of paralysis. The people here -- and we are talking about some of the most influential people on the planet -- seem confused, at a loss about how to attack the financial crisis.” (Huffington Post, January 29, 2009)

Greencine Daily (January 29) announces that a new film, Barry Jenkins’s Medicine for Melancholy, is opening in New York and soon elsewhere—(Detroit (Feb. 13), Seattle (Feb. 20), San Francisco (Feb. 27) and Los Angeles (Feb. 27)— and the film, a love story, is set in San Francisco and features African-Americans and cycling.

I have just received notice that “The Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Oxford will host the 2009 International Conference of the Friedrich Nietzsche Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 11-13 September 2009, at St. Peter’s College, Oxford.” The conference will discuss “Nietzsche philosophy of mind in relation to his philosophical naturalism”; and scheduled speakers include: Günter Abel, Brian Leiter, Graham Parkes, Peter Poellner, Bernard Reginster, John Richardson, Galen Strawson. The deadline is March 15, 2009 for those who want to submit (abstracts for) papers. Contact: Dr. Peter Kail & Dr. Manuel Dries, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford.