Comments for Jon Jost's Weblog

Comment on Samson and the Philistines by jonjost

jonjost — Sat, 11 May 2013 00:00:58 +0000

Hi
Sure, be my guest. best jon

Comment on Samson and the Philistines by Leonard Chiarelli

Leonard Chiarelli — Fri, 10 May 2013 18:19:15 +0000

May I use your photo of Calascibetta for a Sicilian history presentation?

Thank you

Comment on My Brilliant (Academic) Career (1) by Chained Relations (Redux): #9 | cinemaelectronica

Chained Relations (Redux): #9 | cinemaelectronica — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 14:59:01 +0000

[...] doubts about the official story of 9/11. Disingenuously, Mr. Carney, who used me to post his diatribe on BU, and in process wrote me admiring emails, citing my willingness to speak out in public as a virtue, [...]

Comment on Shock, Awe and Hubris (10 Years) by Daniel Levine

Daniel Levine — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 11:47:30 +0000

The appeal of religion for me has almost always been in the thought there’s a hell people like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, the mainstream media voices who supported this atrocity, be they right or “left” (looking at you NY Times), the congress, right and “left” who voted to go into this, the contractors who profited off it (some overlap there), the decision makers at any tech or industrial company who took on lucrative defense department contracts without any regard for what they were actually making, the hundreds (thousands?) of little Leni Riefenstahls in Hollywood who gladly glorified this in order to get defense department money and access, the “embedded” journalists after the fact who reported spoonfed falsehoods out a pure commitment to their own careerist opportunism, the journalists and politicians up to and including the current president who happily tossed aside habeas corpus in order to torture not only arbitrary victims overseas but domestically people who tried to tell the public the truth like Bradley Manning, the Democratic Party who saw the huge anti-war movement that popped up after this “war” was announced as a way to fund raise and strengthen their brand while never actually challenging the war itself or the fact the US has repeatedly killed hundreds of thousands of people overseas under the flimsiest of premises since the late 1950s, those in the military who, when they realized they might have broken international law, called a frozen zone to keep out the journalists and killed all the possible witnesses, thereby keeping the public from even getting a consistent ballpark estimate of how many Iraqis and others were killed (the number going around now is somewhere near 600,000), and finally the large portion of the US public who were gung ho to do this and are still entirely unmoved by the death of ~600,000 people because they were mostly brown and didn’t speak English, might go to.

I’d also like to point out, for all the good points and the power of Mr. Young’s letter, he still doesn’t mention the other side’s death toll, which unlike the US deaths who were almost all military with a scattering of journalists, were undoubtedly mostly civilians, despite whatever Orwellian doublespeak the US government and therefore the US mainstream media reported them as being.

If we’re posting works by Goya, I was going to suggest his famous painting of Saturn, but then I remembered, in Saturn’s defense, he only ate his own sons.

Whatever the Bloombergs and DHSs and NYPDs do to suppress it, the spirit of resistance and revolution must be maintained in the streets so that someday this all might stop. Occupy Wall Street, Occupy the Pentagon, speak truth to power and to each other until we can all rise up and reclaim the world from the murderers and opportunists who’ve taken it hostage.

Comment on My Brilliant (Academic) Career (1) by jonjost

jonjost — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 17:14:18 +0000

I don’t wish to silence Mr Carney; in fact I published a long piece of his, at his request, making it appear that it was not his intention to publish the piece, again at his request. Since the Mark Rappaport matter came up, I have attempted to contact him, and requested he respond; he never responded to an email or anything else; it is Mr Carney who silenced himself, until he printed his own blog (http://insidebostonuniversity.blogspot.com/2013/03/laffaire-rappaport-case-study-in.html?m=1). In this he makes, regarding me, a number of false statement which, at least for me, renders the balance of what he has to say suspect. He lies about things regarding me, why not in the rest.

Comment on My Brilliant (Academic) Career (1) by Maserati

Maserati — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 07:13:49 +0000

Why do you wish to silence Carney? He says you are how do you respond? http://insidebostonuniversity.blogspot.de/2013/03/laffaire-rappaport-case-study-in.html?m=1

Comment on My Brilliant (Academic) Career (1) by jonjost

jonjost — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 05:59:44 +0000

I don’t recall lauding Carney’s tenure; I recall him doing so. I didn’t read all of Carney’s screed because it was obsessive, repetitive and all that. I agreed to print what he wished to print and I did it. As it turned out I think I was manipulated, and his behavior with Rappaport was in line with that same manipulation. His actions with regard to Mark are beyond the pale. None of that in any way mitigates BU’s corporate behavior, or their less than helpful response to Mark’s situation.
“…. that taints everything you have to say, and I withdraw from this conversation.” And your continuing anonymity taints what you have to say, and you are welcome to withdraw from the conversation.

Comment on My Brilliant (Academic) Career (1) by greendot

greendot — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 03:28:48 +0000

Wow. You really just want to use Carney to bash academia every way you can, don’t you? I chose to remain anonymous because – as I said – I do not represent the university and my comments could be used to damage a department I care very much about. All I’m trying to do is point out that there are complications that you do not understand, and that your past support for Carney – support that has helped him to stay relevant to some even as his reputation has declined in academia – makes your current behavior seem hypocritical. The very tenure that your post lauds for allowing Carney to ‘speak truth to power’ is what is allowing him to keep his place now. Tenure isn’t perfect. I have to say, what even drove me to engage in this in the first place was your attempt to paint yourself as a victim of Carney’s lies in your reply to the last comment. I was taken aback by your assertion that you did not actually read Carney’s comments before you posted them on your own website. For me, that taints everything you have to say, and I withdraw from this conversation.

Comment on My Brilliant (Academic) Career (1) by jonjost

jonjost — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 02:58:21 +0000

I’m just publishing the information I have (and in the post which you are responding to I was including my observations, noted since the early 70′s, of the corporatization of the American education system, which increasingly serves as a farm system for corporate needs, and not broader “education.”) I concur with much of Carney’s critique of that system; however his own behavior is hypocritical and morally amiss. The letters which he sent to me would seem to contain adequate grounds to dismiss him, and his actions in regard to Mark certainly violated the terms of the “ethics” requirements which the university claims to maintain. While many students have cited him as an important influence on them, a similar number seems to have shared the view that if you don’t agree with Carney you will suffer in one manner or another in his classes. This doesn’t sound like good teaching to me. Nor does his recurrent mention of “ethics” “honesty” “integrity” etc. when his own behavior, as with Rappaport, suggests that he’s not exactly ethical, honest or…. If he does not return Mark’s material, he deserves to be canned. I am certain the university can cope with the legal costs which Carney might more than he can.

Lastly, I find anonymity suspect. So your letter is a bit tainted in my mind until you reveal who you really are. Want to let us know.

Comment on My Brilliant (Academic) Career (1) by greendot

greendot — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 23:43:02 +0000

Given what has transpired, I think it might be worthwhile to re-evaluate your conclusions regarding BU. I don’t speak for the department, but as a former Film Studies MA student, I can attest that Carney is a volatile figure. Some of what he says is true: BU has a long corporate history that it is only slowly moving away from. The university is making progress, however, and now that I’ve moved on to a PhD program in a related field, I feel I was well served by my time there. The Film Studies program itself is a tiny part of a much larger college that encompasses everything from PR to film and TV production, to the studies program. Because it is a small program, Studies doesn’t have its pick of all the best students in the country. However, the professors in the program are dedicated to academic excellence and nurturing the students they admit. The education is expensive, but in my experience, the professors fight for their students and expect them to step up to the challenge.

I never took a class from Carney because my field is not Independent Cinema and he at one point explicitly told me we wouldn’t have much to talk about. I might have still tried his classes out, but I saw that other students who I knew to be very intelligent and able writers and thinkers were graded down for not agreeing with his views. How is that a commitment to academic excellence? As for the printer-monitoring, that’s part of BU’s effort to minimize its carbon footprint by reducing paper use. It may be ridiculous and inconvenient, but it’s not surveillance.

You fault BU for not firing Carney now that he’s proven himself to be unreliable, but, in all fairness, you have to consider the constraints the university is under. Carney is litigious. He has tenure, and I’m guessing he got it at a point before many common sense restrictions were written into such contracts. BU administrators do not have the privilege of airing their side of the story in the open, as that will only open them to more attacks. Trashing the program for sidelining Carney, then again for not making him behave is irresponsible and incredibly unfair to the people who already have to put up with him every day.