January 2010
60 posts
“I myself have never been able to figure out precisely what feminism is; I only...”
– Rebecca West.
Review: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro | Books... →
…so what is Never Let Me Go really about? It’s about the steady erosion of hope. It’s about repressing what you know, which is that in this life people fail one another, grow old and fall to pieces. It’s about knowing that while you must keep calm, keeping calm won’t change a thing.
Never Let Me Go makes you want to have sex, take drugs, run a marathon, dance -...
pushuptheweb.com →
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“Why would you abandon your child? Religion? Ethics? Right thing to do? Spouse...”
– Lynne Breedlove, for Homofactus Press’s release of the homeless queer youth Anthology, Kicked Out.
Let the Bailout Games Begin | The Tyee →
When it published the $1.63 billion budget and business plan in May 2007, the word “recession” appeared once in the 196-page document. There it is on page 94, the first of five assumptions. “The Canadian economy will remain relatively strong, with no recession, through Games time.
Hey, times were still good and the party would last beyond 2010, right?
Youth in Revolt: Creative Class, Creative... →
The widespread faith in universal creativity is part of why Richard Florida’s idea of the “creative class” can seem so repellent. Everyone can relate to wanting to be creative, but who wants to be a member of the creative class? The so-called creatives are the ones who reify creativity, subordinate it to capital, discipline it so that it pays and helps in the reproduction of the power structure...
Guest Blog By Carey Mercer: How The Vancouver... →
This is a fantastic Op-Ed. You should read it but here are a few lines that were either clever or very funny:
But this is a music blog, right? So why am I blathering on about bob-sledding and homeless dudes, and not telling you about Vampire Weekend’s apartment?
And…
Also: I like Feist. Every time I go to Zellers I hear her song. It reminds me of going to the store to buy batteries, but...
Religion and Women | NYTimes Op-Ed →
Religions derive their power and popularity in part from the ethical compass they offer. So why do so many faiths help perpetuate something that most of us regard as profoundly unethical: the oppression of women?
It is not that warlords in Congo cite Scripture to justify their mass rapes (although the last warlord I met there called himself a pastor and wore a button reading “rebels for...
"At this point in my life, I'm ready to put our...
the grammarnazi
“[W]riting that is arcane to the point of incomprehensibility is very much part...”
– Post-Structuralism As Subculture, Barbara Epstein
“The great thing about Gaga is she always want to push for the most extreme option,” Card said. “She’s brave enough to let herself be a canvas for a designer to go and really express themselves. Nothing is off limits! With Rihanna and Beyoncé there is an end result of desirability and unattainable sexiness, whereas Gaga is a really interesting bridge between the desirable and the grotesque....
Multicultural Critical Theory. At Business School?... →
…that insight led Mr. Martin to begin advocating what was then a radical idea in business education: that students needed to learn how to think critically and creatively every bit as much as they needed to learn finance or accounting. More specifically, they needed to learn how to approach problems from many perspectives and to combine various approaches to find innovative solutions.
...
The Messiah Complex | NYTimes Op-Ed →
Every age produces its own sort of fables, and our age seems to have produced The White Messiah fable.
This is the oft-repeated story about a manly young adventurer who goes into the wilderness in search of thrills and profit. But, once there, he meets the native people and finds that they are noble and spiritual and pure. And so he emerges as their Messiah, leading them on a righteous crusade...
Reading in the Brain | NYTimes Book Review →
A French cognitive scientist explains the phenomenon of literacy and its effects on the mind.
What 2010 will be like: The Year of More of the...
2010: a prediction. We won’t cure cancer or AIDS or poverty. We won’t win the war on drugs. On terror. On adult illiteracy. On unemployment. We won’t win. But you know some of us, goddamnit, are going to try. We won’t stop drinking cheap beer or passing the buck. We won’t master the necessary powers of compassion. We won’t stop tweeting or reading our text messages when we should be listening...
Harper goes prorogue | Economist →
Parliamentary scrutiny may be tedious, but democracies cannot afford to dispense with it
Canadian ministers, it seems, are a bunch of Gerald Fords. Like the American president, who could not walk and chew gum at the same time, they cannot, apparently, cope with Parliament’s deliberations while dealing with the country’s economic troubles and the challenge of hosting the Winter Olympic games.
A...
The Best Fiction of the Millennium | the millions →
Grow-your-own to replace false teeth | the... →
The British institution of dentures sitting in a glass of water beside the bed could be rendered obsolete by scientists who are confident that people will soon be able to replace lost teeth by growing new ones.
Instead of false teeth, a small ball of cells capable of growing into a new tooth will be implanted where the missing one used to be.
The procedure needs only a local anaesthetic and...
Bipolar Ambigamy: On not admitting you’re sending... →
I’m an ambigamist not just about embracing a partner but every aspect of life. I watch myself and everyone I know wrestle with the tension between open and closed, romance and skepticism, faith and reason, confidence and doubt, tenderness and protectiveness, hope and fear, transcendence and realism, generosity and caution, friendship and business.
I’m ambigamous about most everything,...
