Slash tournament, other links, nonfiction
Okay, guys, I love Community too, but having Clark/Lex out in the first round of AfterElton’s slash tournament seems to me to be letting our history down. Also, Damon/Alaric clearly ended up the sacrificial lamb there; I would rather they’d have put Damon/Alaric up against Damon/Stefan the way they did for SPN (Sam/Dean v. Dean/Cas), Avengers (Thor/Loki v. Cap/Tony), or even for Star Trek (TOS v. reboot), SG (SGA v. SG1), or House v. Sherlock.
Awesome older review of Steven Pinker's attempts to reduce art to evolution.
Nothing new under the sun: Evgeny Morozov on decrying new technology: Long before bossy GPS technology invaded our cars, chiding us for wrong turns with a patronizing "Recalculating . . . ," cultural critics were already complaining about the debilitating effect of navigation technologies-even the paper-based and analogue variety. Some, like the Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse, saw road maps as the embodiment of the anti-humane and unthinking rationality of the modern condition. "A man who travels by automobile to a distant place chooses his route from the highway maps. . . . Others have done the thinking for him," he complained in 1941. Others thought that maps, signs and highway codes impoverish our sense of space, with the French theorist Henri Lefebvre lamenting that the driver "perceives only his route, which has been materialized, mechanized and technicized, and he sees it from one angle only-that of its functionality."
Caitlin Moran, How to Be a Woman: I had the impression that this was the British cesperanza, and having read the book I don’t think I’m wrong. Profane and lushly detailed about bodily functions and the terrifying process of becoming a woman (in Thatcherite Britain specifically, but also more generally), the book is hilarious and gleefully over the top. "I have a rule of thumb that allows me to judge- when time is pressing and one needs to make a snap judgment- whether some sexist bullshit is afoot. Obviously it’s not 100 percent infallible but, by and large, it definitely points you in the right direction. And it’s asking this question: 'Are the men doing it? Are the men worrying about this as well? Is this taking up the men’s time? Are the men told not to do this, as it’s “letting our side down”? Are the men having to write bloody books about this exasperating, retarded, time-wasting bullshit? Is this making Jon Stewart feel insecure?'”
Joel Best, Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists (updated edition): Short and not very deep book about when to be skeptical of statistics. I think the message could have been given even more briefly: often, statistics are unreliable because of problems of data collection and definition of terms, whether in surveys or in other ways. Because of innumeracy and natural tendencies to accept claims that correspond to our own preexisting inclinations, we too rarely question statistics-even ones that are unbelievable if you think about them for a second, like “over a hundred thousand women die from anorexia in the US each year,” which conflates suffering and dying. Best advocates that we ask ourselves how a particular statistic was created and with what reasons when judging its reliability, because neither total cynicism nor total credulity is justified. Maybe a book I’d give a kid in high school.
Robert Caro, The Passage of Power: I’ve really enjoyed Caro’s epic biography of Lyndon Johnson, and this volume is no different. The first half was hard for me because I have a humiliation squick, and Johnson’s tenure as Kennedy’s Vice President was replete with exclusion and humiliation. But Caro makes the story of the short period before and after the assassination vivid and compelling, and argues that despite Johnson’s extreme flaws, he handled the transition to power with a heretofore unseen grace and an extension of his acknowledged mastery of the levers of power, enabling him to start putting together the Great Society for which he had a true passion.
comments on DW | reply there. I have invites or you can use OpenID.
Awesome older review of Steven Pinker's attempts to reduce art to evolution.
Nothing new under the sun: Evgeny Morozov on decrying new technology: Long before bossy GPS technology invaded our cars, chiding us for wrong turns with a patronizing "Recalculating . . . ," cultural critics were already complaining about the debilitating effect of navigation technologies-even the paper-based and analogue variety. Some, like the Marxist philosopher Herbert Marcuse, saw road maps as the embodiment of the anti-humane and unthinking rationality of the modern condition. "A man who travels by automobile to a distant place chooses his route from the highway maps. . . . Others have done the thinking for him," he complained in 1941. Others thought that maps, signs and highway codes impoverish our sense of space, with the French theorist Henri Lefebvre lamenting that the driver "perceives only his route, which has been materialized, mechanized and technicized, and he sees it from one angle only-that of its functionality."
Caitlin Moran, How to Be a Woman: I had the impression that this was the British cesperanza, and having read the book I don’t think I’m wrong. Profane and lushly detailed about bodily functions and the terrifying process of becoming a woman (in Thatcherite Britain specifically, but also more generally), the book is hilarious and gleefully over the top. "I have a rule of thumb that allows me to judge- when time is pressing and one needs to make a snap judgment- whether some sexist bullshit is afoot. Obviously it’s not 100 percent infallible but, by and large, it definitely points you in the right direction. And it’s asking this question: 'Are the men doing it? Are the men worrying about this as well? Is this taking up the men’s time? Are the men told not to do this, as it’s “letting our side down”? Are the men having to write bloody books about this exasperating, retarded, time-wasting bullshit? Is this making Jon Stewart feel insecure?'”
Joel Best, Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists (updated edition): Short and not very deep book about when to be skeptical of statistics. I think the message could have been given even more briefly: often, statistics are unreliable because of problems of data collection and definition of terms, whether in surveys or in other ways. Because of innumeracy and natural tendencies to accept claims that correspond to our own preexisting inclinations, we too rarely question statistics-even ones that are unbelievable if you think about them for a second, like “over a hundred thousand women die from anorexia in the US each year,” which conflates suffering and dying. Best advocates that we ask ourselves how a particular statistic was created and with what reasons when judging its reliability, because neither total cynicism nor total credulity is justified. Maybe a book I’d give a kid in high school.
Robert Caro, The Passage of Power: I’ve really enjoyed Caro’s epic biography of Lyndon Johnson, and this volume is no different. The first half was hard for me because I have a humiliation squick, and Johnson’s tenure as Kennedy’s Vice President was replete with exclusion and humiliation. But Caro makes the story of the short period before and after the assassination vivid and compelling, and argues that despite Johnson’s extreme flaws, he handled the transition to power with a heretofore unseen grace and an extension of his acknowledged mastery of the levers of power, enabling him to start putting together the Great Society for which he had a true passion.
comments on DW | reply there. I have invites or you can use OpenID.