Today's Best: The Philosopher's edition (11-15-12)

1. Today's best way to celebrate World Philosophy Day: As reported by Inside Higher Ed: "I've gotten word from a philosophy major at Howard University that he and other students will be occupying Alain Locke Hall on Thursday, November 15, to protest tuition rates, administrative mistreatment of janitorial staff, and program cuts."
2. Today's best diss from a philosopher : The mighty Jurgen Habermas writes that the German Constitutional Court is 'solipsistic and normatively depleted.' Wish I'd had that line handy in some arguments with former friends. ("You're not just inconsiderate. You're solipsistic and normatively depleted.")
3. Today's best beneficiary of the view from nowhere (journalistic version): popular-musician-turned-politician Michel Martelly, known during his performing days as 'Sweet Micky,' has taken to the Haitian presidency with enthusiasm. Since 'winning' an undemocratic 2011 election that the country's largest and most popular - by far - political party had been prevented from contesting (which suppressed turnout to something like 25% of eligible voters), he has a) welcomed Baby Doc Duvalier back to the country, b) announced his determination to reestablish the hated Haitian military, c) overseen brutal repression of critics and political opponents, and d) made remarkable advancements in the science of systematic corruption. Critics claim that he bills the Haitian government as much as $20,000 a day when he travels - and tacks on more, thousands more, for his family's expenses. (That's per diem, people, not the total bill including security and jet fuel and such.) This figure may be exaggerated (even for Haitian elites, this seems like a lot), but exaggerated or not, it is a fitting emblem for a regime that has been widely regarded as corrupt, indifferent to the poor, and authoritarian. What does this have to do with the view from nowhere? Mainstream media outlets have no interest in any of these aspects of the Martelly regime. The coverage it gets in places like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and even The Guardian tends to treat Martelly as a history-less cipher. A BBC profile - 'profile' - says that he "came out of nowhere" to win the presidency - and, amazingly, essentially leaves it at that. But no one comes out of nowhere, no one is an unencumbered political self; and Martelly comes from some very particular places, both in terms of his background (in the world of Duvalierists) and his current support (in North American and Haitian elites that fear popular democracy and want to open the island for business, on Wal-Martian terms). Exploring where Martelly came from the way various left and social justice media and advocacy outlets have would make it harder to ignore the obvious Duvalierist drift of his policies, to put a positive spin on them. (He's 'business-friendly,' we're told, presumably unlike the people who want the workers in the new textile plants to get more than $5 a day.)