Pando is the largest living organism on the planet. It spans an area of over 100 acres in So. Utah, and is over 80,000 years old. It might not survive this century.

Pando is an Aspen (genera = “Populus”) forest. But Aspen’s are not individual trees; they share a common root system, and as such are a single living organism within that root system. Pando is the largest such known, and we are killing it. It has been chosen as the symbol of the encroaching ecological catastrophe, and the image of hope and imperative that is the driving force behind the 10th International Whitehead Conference. When the conference is finished, Pando Populus will be the ongoing site for linking activism, philosophical and scientific information, and community in a common root system of energy and life. Continue reading →

There was a long time before this evenings unofficial dinner, and this night’s big plenary. So I managed to catch up with some friends and spend the day strolling (and drinking) on Venice beach. We gave ourselves 2 hours to get back to Claremont, and L.A. traffic still managed to preclude reaching the 5:00 dinner on time. But we were only 10 minutes late, and I was able to call ahead to offer apologies.

The first plenary was rather different than what I had been expecting.

Bill McKibben did get up to talk — eventually. As expected, several other people got up to talk first, so that a string of folks could introduce another string of folks. The first surprise was that the strings were much longer than I had expected. Even more surprising was that many of them were downright charming. Continue reading →

Wisconsin and their Republican “governance” has declared total war on their public education system, from Kindergarten to their Universities: Bombs away.

For additional reading, see Marc Bousquet’s How the University Works

For a perspective from 100 years ago (that lends perspective to today’s situation), Thorstein Veblen’s classic The Higher Learning In America is hard to beat

A small measure of satisfaction always comes with seeing someone else mention my name:

I’ve been away so long, I scarcely know how to make a new entry.

My time away, if not well spent, has at least clawed its way to the surface of something like recognizable human existence.

I will soon (June 3) be leaving for the 2015 International Whitehead Conference. I will be delivering two invited papers, and acting as moderator for two other sessions. I hope to delay my projected nervous breakdown until I am back home and my cat can yell at me for being an inadequate human. In the intervening time, I will have the opportunity for numerous personal and professional contacts and interactions.

My cat will be singularly indifferent to these lame attempts at developing myself as a person and a scholar.

I plan on blogging (very short snippets) while I am at the conference. I will have more considered thoughts once I get home, and will also return to my not entirely regularly scheduled screeds on matters of science, metaphysics, and logic.

(And the Oxford comma, which I hope you all appreciated in the above.)

I’ve been away on vacation for the past 8 days, and have nothing substantive to say on my own account. (Don’t worry, that won’t last for long … )

But I thought this might be a good time to mention an upcoming event that is rather near and dear to my heart: the 2015 International Whitehead Conference.

Alfred North Whitehead is, hands down, one of the most important and original thinkers in the entire Western canon. My own not so modest — but, at least, peer-reviewed! — reasoned and researched evaluation of his contributions may be found HERE. (The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy is an excellent resource, specifically aimed at a non-academic, non-specialist audience. But they do seem to be down for maintenance a great deal of late, especially over the weekends. If you have trouble pulling up the article, I beg your patience and encourage you to come back sometime during the week.)

Continue reading →