Black Lives Matter and the politics of redemption

This article explores the role of practical political theory in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. I argue that BLM represents a multifaceted engagement with the complicated politics of redemption that lies at the heart of American democracy. In one sense, BLM stands for the integration of black life into the framework of political value, and thus for a redemption of the promise of ‘justice for all’. In another, it is a challenge to the principles themselves, viewing justice as a threat to be managed, rather than as a principle to be redeemed. Exploring the praxis of this movement, organized both against and within the possibility of redemption, will enable us to more effectively characterize the limitations of a politics grounded in the theorization of justice and generate a richer understanding of the possibility for practical political theory to simultaneously employ and critique the politics of redemption

Excitotoxicity Triggered by Neurobasal Culture Medium

Neurobasal defined culture medium has been optimized for survival of rat embryonic hippocampal neurons and is now widely used for many types of primary neuronal cell culture. Therefore, we were surprised that routine medium exchange with serum- and supplement-free Neurobasal killed as many as 50% of postnatal hippocampal neurons after a 4 h exposure at day in vitro 12–15. Minimal Essential Medium (MEM), in contrast, produced no significant toxicity. Detectable Neurobasal-induced neuronal death occurred with as little as 5 min exposure, measured 24 h later. D-2-Amino-5-phosphonovalerate (D-APV) completely prevented Neurobasal toxicity, implicating direct or indirect N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor-mediated neuronal excitotoxicity. Whole-cell recordings revealed that Neurobasal but not MEM directly activated D-APV-sensitive currents similar in amplitude to those gated by 1 µM glutamate. We hypothesized that L-cysteine likely mediates the excitotoxic effects of Neurobasal incubation. Although the original published formulation of Neurobasal contained only 10 µM L-cysteine, commercial recipes contain 260 µM, a concentration in the range reported to activate NMDA receptors. Consistent with our hypothesis, 260 µM L-cysteine in bicarbonate-buffered saline gated NMDA receptor currents and produced toxicity equivalent to Neurobasal. Although NMDA receptor-mediated depolarization and Ca2+ influx may support survival of young neurons, NMDA receptor agonist effects on development and survival should be considered when employing Neurobasal culture medium

The Life and Poetry of Wen I-To

Originally, the scope and aspirations for this paper were much broader. Under the tutelage and inspiration of Mrs. Lee Winters, I had envisioned a translation of the complete poetic works of Wen I-to, along with an annotation and commentary

Crypto-punditry and the media neutrality crisis

This article describes the corrosive practice of “crypto-punditry,” whereby subjective analysis is smuggled into media coverage under the guise of objective reporting. In search of a neutral basis for analyzing events, journalists latch onto public opinion. However, this opinion is rarely expressed directly. Instead, reporters engage in speculative assessment about what public opinion might be. Unfortunately, in an effort to shield themselves from charges of bias, journalists have triggered a counterproductive autoimmune practice which targets precisely those elements of descriptive reporting that give it strength: fairness, accountability, public interest. To make this argument, I first develop a theory of crypto-punditry and outline its effects. I then use content analysis to show that this practice has become far more common in political reporting over the past decade. I conclude by using the 2016 US presidential election as a case study to illustrate its effects

Justice and Legitimacy: Legal Faith in a Time of Political Exception

This dissertation seeks to develop a viable concept of justice--one limited enough to sustain the conditions of modern pluralism but strong enough to survive the encounter with political emergency. Such justice is necessarily mediated through law, which promises to reconcile the competing obligations of its subject while still producing authoritative decisions. This unifying task founders on political exceptions: expressions of difference that resist incorporation into the conceptual schema of rational order. My point of entry is John Rawls' theory of political liberalism, particularly his concept of `reasonableness.' This term in Rawls is primarily a device for depoliticizing exclusions; by demarcating reasonable and unreasonable doctrines, he permits the deployment of political violence in the name of neutrality. However, a radical possibility of recursive development is embedded in this idea, one unexplored by Rawls or any of his critics.To situate this argument I turn to the Hart/Dworkin debate in legal philosophy over the nature of law, informed by Carl Schmitt's treatment of exceptionality. My goal is to demonstrate the terminal limits of legal restraint on political order. Law in this sense is nothing but bare formalism, a servant of decisions made in the exceptional space where indeterminacy and emergency meet. But a different concept of law is possible, one that begins from the premise of exceptionality. The rule of law cannot resolve the inherently undecidable problems of justification. But this is unimportant if law is reconceptualized as a technique of legitimacy, a mechanism for binding difference on explicitly political terms. In this account, justice provides the terms through which a political community of reasonableness constitutes itself. In affirming the mutuality of justice and legitimacy, therefore, we affirm a political concept of law--one founded on exceptions rather than norms

The Validity of Validity in Debra P.: Judicial and Psychometric Perspectives on Test Consequences

We explore the uses and functions of ‘validity’ as a boundary marker between legal theory and psychometrics. Standardized testing regimes rely on experts to articulate the limits of validity. When challenged in courts, these limits become the subject of contestation, requiring practitioners to litigate the validity of validity. This process generates significant discontinuities, resulting from different conceptual relationships to the idea of validity. Through a qualitative textual analysis of specific case law and a quantitative examination of Lexis-Nexis database archives, we trace how legal reasoning elides new developments in psychometric research that would broaden and enrich judicial treatments while showing how current work in psychometrics can be translated into case law outcomes, to better expose bias and unfairness in testing

Enrichment of heavy metals and organic compounds in the surface microlayer of Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island

Concentrations of lead, iron, nickel, copper, fatty acids, hydrocarbons, and chlorinated hydrocarbons are enriched from 1.5 to 50 times in the top 100 to 150 micrometers of Narragansett Bay water relative to the bulk water 20 centimeters below the surface. Trace metal enrichment was observed in the particulate and organic fractions but not in the inorganic fraction. If these substances are concentrated in films only a few molecular layers thick on the water surface, the actual enrichment factor in the films may be well over 104, resulting in extremely high localized pollutant concentrations in the surface microlayer