Cross-posted from my less personal blog. If you want to link please use this one: http://mhuzzell.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/rape-culture-and-the-occupy-x-protests/ Like many feminists, I've been incredibly dismayed not only at the flood ( Read more... )

I finished watching Star Trek: Deep Space 9 recently, which means I finally get to talk about it. There may be some spoilers below, but I'll keep them out of the first part and put the rest under a cut.

Terry Eagleton's latest book, Reason, Faith and Revolution* argues that most atheists are missing the point when discussing a 'belief in God', ( Read more... )

Apologies if you've already read this rant/ramble. I put it up on my "real blog" ages ago, but apparently no one reads that one? Anyway, I've been pretty non-interactive on the internets recently. Wish I could say I've been doing stuff out in the Real World, but actually I've just been reading more physical books, as opposed to pixels. But I ( Read more... )

UK packaged food labelling has recently started to have these little "traffic light" guides on it, where foods will be categorized as 'green', 'amber', or 'red' based on healthiness. Sometimes these are subdivided into different categories -- as on my box of cereal, which says it is 'green' for fat content but 'red' for sugar content (heh ( Read more... )

I am female. This means that for as long as I can remember, people have inquired about my intention to procreate. I recall being asked at the age of about four how many children I intended to have, and being encouraged to seriously contemplate the question. And I did, too, as did my sister ( Read more... )

There's this old parable I heard once. I don't know how old, actually (and it might have come from one of those Chicken Soup for the Soul books my mother used to be so fond of), but it goes like this:

A storm out at sea has washed thousands of starfish onto a beach*, and a man is walking along the beach, picking them up one by one, and flinging ( Read more... )

A collection of St Andrews' richest, poshest students are organising an exclusive charity fashion show called 'Filthy Rich: Let Them Eat Cake!', for the benefit of the UN World Food Programme.

Let me repeat that.

A collection of St Andrews' richest, poshest students are organising an exclusive charity fashion show called 'Filthy Rich: Let Them ( Read more... )

In 'Perception and its Objects' (1979), P.F. Strawson is apparently replying to A.J. Ayer* but seems mostly to be working towards a reconciliation of 'Lockean' or 'scientific' realism in perception with what he calls 'common-sense' realism. That is, between the idea that things are really collections of atoms and whatnot, and therefore what we ( Read more... )

This year, all of H.P. Lovecraft's work came into the public domain, eliciting a flurry of geekery among, well, the geeks. Harry took the opportunity to stage the first-ever play of 'Call of Cthulhu', and filled the house with Lovecraft paraphernelia, including various radio plays which he aired for our general enjoyment. I hadn't read much ( Read more... )

I am taking a history class about the American folk music revival. It's theoretically pretty cool. It's actually pretty theoretically barren. Yesterday's seminar discussion topic was 'The Political Left, Folksong and Social Protest in the Inter-War Period'. My initial discussion partner blethered on about how she didn't think the Communist ( Read more... )