The Political DJ
Doctoral student Alex Whalen (GRS'10) keeps one foot in politics and the other in music.
Alex Whalen (GRS’10), a doctoral student in political science, doesn’t point to 9/11 as the day that changed his life. Instead, he points to the day after.
“On September 12, 2001, for the first time in human history, the world seemed united,” he says, “and for a brief moment, it looked as if something truly positive might come from that horrible day. Watching this administration squander that goodwill was more than I could bear. Eventually I felt I had no choice but to get directly involved.”
So Whalen decided to return to school for a Ph.D. in political science and to begin blogging on politics, something he’s been doing since 2004. Now he spends more than 20 hours a week updating his site, sometimes several times daily, and he says that his blog receives 1,000 visitors every day.
“We should always remember,” he says, “everything done by our government is done in our names. When an innocent man is jailed and tortured in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, it is being done for us. When a war is started without a plan for peace, the lives that are ended on both sides are ended because of us. When our government sits on the sidelines for days and watches as a major city drowns, it does so only because we have allowed it. We are the people; it is our government. We need to remember that.”
But Whalen isn’t interested only in politics; he’s also entrenched in the electronic music scene — thus he describes his blog as “politics, culture, news, and reviews from the only DJ you know getting his Ph.D. in political science.” Alongside his political commentary, Whalen posts updates from his music studio, clips from mixes he’s created, and for those who like what they hear, information on upcoming appearances.
To read more about Whalen’s political viewpoints or the electronic music scene, visit http://blog.alexwhalen.com/.
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