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I've long been using 'Wrong 'em Boyo' by The Clash to demonstrate the conceptual influence on perception in linguistic audition. If you haven't seen the flash movie, which I've demonstrated pretty much everywhere, click here. Anyway, I've gotten a little sick of it, and have had a list of examples on my 'To-Do' list for some time. I've finally gotten around to one of the real gems:

Operation Ivy - Here we go again (Energy). Static Link

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If you haven't seen it already:
Support for the Iranian People 2009: Slavoj Zizek's new text on Iran

Another on the theme of Philosophers doing manual labor:  (see reviews of Rowlands, and Crawford)
Q & A With Mark Van Roojen, a Philosophy Professor and Cabin Builder - Times Topics Blog - NYTimes.com

Mark Van Roojen, a Philosophy Professor and Cabin Builder...

Gary Haven Smith, sculptor:
EncoreBuzz.com: Currier puts spotlight on New England

Smith's first college dalliance was in philosophy, with art remaining a constant pastime. But the rigidity and scrutiny of the smallest details of philosophy ultimately turned him off.

Mathias Victorien Ntep (Goethe-University of Frankfurt and Leiden University, Netherlands) has an article on Black Star News.com arguing that the Egyptian Ptah-Hotep, not Thales, should get credit as the world's first Philosopher. He also argues that ancient Egypt was primarily Black African, not like contemporary Egypt. The upshot of these two theses is that the world's first philosopher was black (or, more technically: was likely black):
Ptah-Hotep, The Original Philosopher

If you haven't seen the video of Neda dying in the streets of Tehran, look it up.  Like many people, I first heard about her death via twitter, watched the video, wept a bit, and retweeted it to others. My first thought was (as, indeed many of my colleagues may testify) 'My God, she could be one of my students.' Today, I heard reports from NPR and now the NY Daily news that Neda was a Philosophy Student at Tehran University.

Neda Agha-Soltan, Iranian woman killed in Tehran protests, told friend 'it's just one bullet'

Neda Agha-Soltan, a beautiful 26-year-old philosophy student whose murder has made her a martyr to the Iranian opposition, was determined to support the protesters, friend and music teacher Hamid Panahi said.

I don't think it should matter to me if she studied Philosophy or Engineering or Cosmetology - the fact is that she was gunned down in cold blood by a authoritarian regime simply for demonstrating for equality. But somehow, knowing that she was a student of philosophy makes her seem even more like my students.

We all have to do what we can to assist the protesters and keep the memory of Neda alive. It's a little thing, but I'm adding her to the list of distinguished philosophy majors. Is there anything more we, in the US, can do?

Donald Hodges, FSU professor emeritus, dies at 85 | tallahassee.com | Tallahassee Democrat

He was a professor emeritus of philosophy at Florida State University, where he taught for 39 years and bullied students to think more critically about capitalism, religion and every other topic.

“Everyone needs a Donald Hodges in their life; someone who’s different than everyone else and is bright enough to make you see something different,” said Tallahassee businessman Chuck Mitchell, a former student and longtime neighbor. “He was an irascible curmudgeon. But he made you think.”

Obituary for F. Sontag, professor of Philosophy at Pomona for 57 years!
Frederick E. Sontag dies at 84; Pomona College philosophy professor - Los Angeles Times

Here:
Steinmeier congratulates German philosopher Habermas on turning 80 : Europe World

Habermas, Germany's greatest living philosopher, turns 80

The Oregonian's 'Community Writers' site has a testimonial / reflection from John Bowman, 58 year old 1st year masters students in philosophy at OSU.  It's worth keeping around to show students who might doubt the value of the reflective life - or, more importantly, for their parents!

Happiness at Oregon State University - Community Writers

I am a 58 year old man who has spent most of my life working and supporting a family. I spent a good deal of that time yearning to study philosophy. When my last daughter graduated from high school last fall I applied and was accepted to a masters program in philosophy at Oregon State University. I have just completed my first year. I spent the last nine months studying philosophy, talking both philosophy and ancient history with professors, learning philosophy in class, discussing philosophy with students, and countless hours reading philosophy. It was a very happy time for me.

Gödel, Escher, Bach was a transformative book for me. I read it in the summer before my Sr. year in college, and it inspired my Sr. Thesis, which lead (ultimately) to my area of specialization in graduate school.  On top of that, when I was writing my Sr. Thesis back in '92, when the 'net was in its infancy, I emailed Hofsteader with a question - AND HE RESPONDED!  Man, those were the good old days before spam. Searle did to, but he was quite grumpy. Hofsteader was actually helpful and pleasant. 

Anyway, all of this is by way of saying that despite the implicit criticism he recieves from AI researchers and Logic professors, I've always respected his work.  Awards such as these:
idsnews.com | Indiana Daily Student |

Are well deserved.  Congratulations Dr. Hofsteader.

I came across this one through Google - Nigel Westmass (Assistant prof of Africana Studies at Hamilton) discusses if there is a Guyanese philosophy, and what it might be like: Stabroek News - Recognizing and celebrating Guyanese philosophy

Eminent African Philosopher Kwame Gyekye was honored for 40 years of service to the University. The article discusses some of Gyekye's recommendations on the department at UGhana, and interviews the current Dean (who is a former student of Gyekye's Joseph Atsu Ayee. Prof Ayee suggests:

Ghana News :: Legon Philosophy Department honours Kwame Gyekye ::: Breaking News | News in Ghana | news

Prof Ayee suggested a training programme for politicians in Ghana to undergo some training in ethics, and said plans were underway to introduce the study of philosophy across all programmes at the University.

Is there any country with a better understanding of Philosophy and Politics than Ghana?

Robert Garmong has an interesting article in the Chronicle on teaching Philosophy in Prison through the Community College system. As you can imagine, he had to revise many of his stock ethical scenarios! Certainly worth a read: Teaching Philosophy 101 at the Lunenburg Correctional Center - Chronicle.com

98-year-old student to receive master's degree in philosophy - Taiwan News Online

Taiwan's oldest graduate student Chao Mu-he, 98, will be awarded a master's degree in philosophy Friday, in an embodiment of the adage "never too old to learn." Chao

I caught a story a few weeks ago about "Moon", a new SciFi movie coming out next week.  The director, Duncan Jones, is a former Philosophy graduate student.  The reviews are starting to come in - and it looks like it might be very, very useful in future classes:

'Moon' Brings Philosophical Questions To Movie-Watchers - Starpulse Entertainment News

BB&T, which has donated a significant amount of money to a number of different colleges in exchange for teaching Ayn Rand, just donated $500 million to Queens college for the same purpose:
BB&T donates $500K to Queens University - Charlotte Business Journal:

“However, capitalism is perceived to be either amoral or immoral. How can an immoral economic system produce a better outcome? We believe there needs to be a deeper understanding of the morality of capitalism.”

Allison said he believes the best moral defense of capitalism is presented in Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged, and he is interested in seeing Rand’s philosophy of objectivism become more widely discussed in academia.

You will no doubt remember back in Feb when Darryl Hale, professor at Western Carolina University, raised objections to BB&T's donation. Is there any ethical basis for the equivalence of product placement in the curriculum?  This practice, I fear, corrupts us all - for if we don't accept such money, we'll fall behind. Worse yet, everyone will assume that we have.  It's a bit like accusations of 'liberal bias'. We fear the accusations so much we tamper our critiques of conservative positions and allow bullshit into the classroom in the name of hearing both sides.

In the spring of '09, I was reading a Brian Leiter blog post about recent trends in Philosophy, and I became irritated at the complete and his total lack of data. Philosophers often behave that the discipline itself is knowable a priori, and can't be (or shouldn't be) studied using empirical methods.

I decided to do something about it. The page liked to below runs a simple word-count script that hauls in the RSS feeds from various Philosophical journals. Each of these contains abstracts from some set of recent papers (usually the past issue or so). The abstracts are broken up, common words ignored, and the results tallied. Click 'Details' to see the specifics of which articles are included, their abstracts and even excerpts of where the words occur in those abstracts. Click 'RSS' to subscribe to the feed (one item, updated nightly) of the top ten words for that journal.

Trends in philosophy by word count

Here's a sample: 

Synthese overall word count:
Details RSS  read more »

A few months ago, I caught a story on a threat of closure to the Phil department at Middle Tennessee. The tennessean just published an update. The part on the Phil department is on page 3, and excerpted here:

MTSU moves on mandated cuts | tennessean.com | The Tennessean

Meanwhile, the Department of Philosophy is being required to outline a plan to significantly increase its number of majors, or face elimination of the major over a three- or four-year period or merger with another department.

"The recommendation for the elimination of the Department of Philosophy will be supported if a viable plan for increasing the number of majors has not been approved by the interim provost and president by Sept. 30,...

...The plan submitted to increase the number of majors includes looking into instituting a combined five-year master of arts and three-year bachelor of arts degree. Another strategy is to increase community outreach to stimulate and moderate interfaith dialogue.

The third strategy involves a comprehensive set of recruiting and retention strategies, said McDaniel.

"Retention is not a big problem because our (philosophy) students have scored higher on exit exams than majors in other departments," he said.  read more »

I love this machine. It is, perhaps, the best example of a model I can find for my Phil Science courses.  It is visual, tactile, and bears a clear relationship to the target phenomenon - which all of our current students are very, very interested in.

I first discovered the Philips water-based economic model in the Science museum in London.  Here's my photo:

From AAPT-Shared

It recently was demonstrated at an alumni weekend at Cambridge:
Cambridge University - CamTV - Video and Audio - The Phillips Machine with Allan McRobie

And got a write up in the NY Times:

Guest Column: Like Water for Money - Olivia Judson Blog - NYTimes.com