neverending jeremiad

make an effort

2008-08-30T11:01:00.003-05:00

Residents of St. Paul who happen to be queer: Don't make out in front of the Republicans attending the GOP Convention. You can identify delegates because they'll be wearing power ties.

On the one hand, the message of this ad seems to be that Republicans have horrible gaydar. On the other hand, it seems to be that Republicans are so intolerant that they won't even be able to handle the residents of a city they're visiting. I'm not going to make any argument about both or either of these being true, but I'm really intrigued by the ads. I can't imagine that they're doing much to discourage PDAs, especially among what's been a pretty politically active lgbtq community.

The organization responsible for the ads, the Unconvention, is a non-partisan group involved in participatory culture. The slogan is "unscripting the political process." To me, it seems like a kind of less interesting version of Otpor.

Landmark Achievement for Neverending Jeremiad

2008-07-01T20:00:00.001-05:00

If you google "jeremiad" and go to the 34th entry, guess what you find. Us! Just as a reference point, Bercovitch's e-book is the 31st. We're famous!

The Old Negro Space Program- Ken Burns Parody

2008-06-13T21:33:00.002-05:00

Japanese gadget to mask the sound of women pooping

2008-06-04T08:45:00.000-05:00

Adjunct Professor Fired for Not Signing Loyalty Oath

2008-05-11T02:56:00.000-05:00

Wendy Gonaver was hired by Cal-Sate Fullerton last fall to teach American Studies and Women’s Studies. As part of her American Studies course, she had planned to teach a section on McCarthyism. But she wasn’t allowed to teach at all because she refused to sign the loyalty oath that the state of California still insists that its employees sign...

http://www.progressive.org/?q=mag_mc050608

real man of genius

2008-05-07T10:18:00.004-05:00

An Illinois man has had a PBR-can coffin designed for his own use when he dies. Since he's got a few years left in him, he's currently using it as a cooler.

Texas Showdown to close in May

2008-04-18T12:20:00.003-05:00

See this in the Statesman.

What a bunch of codshit. Blah blah corporate real estate bastards blah gentrification blah development blah loss of character. What a shame.

Disney-produced propaganda piece used for foreigners waiting in line to be fingerprinted and retinascanned

2008-04-18T09:40:00.002-05:00

the war on fat children

2008-04-13T10:09:00.002-05:00

If you haven't come across it, I highly recommend Sandy Swarcz's smart as hell blog, Junkfood Science. She publishes assesssments of health science reporting, often exposing places where the reading public is being grossly misled. Particularly illuminating is a recent post showing some of the problems with reports on the healthy eating initiatives being deployed in public schools -- best she can tell, they're not lowering obesity (childhood obesity being a sort of troubling concept anyway, as children's weights fluctuate as they grow and the childhood obesity epidemic corresponding with the children who've had the best health and longest life expectancy of any children in history), and may actually be leading to some behaviors that are actually unhealthy (eating fewer fruits and vegetables in general, and undereating for girls).

Why don't we ever do this?

2008-04-11T17:30:00.001-05:00

Students from Randolph College's Program in American Culture visit a brothel:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8VVQARG0&show_article=1

Rick Perry and the Boy Scouts

2008-02-24T12:29:00.003-06:00

Here's one for you, Danny. Do you guys remember when Mark used to tell us stories about fighting with Rick Perry on sleepovers? Here is a funny interview with Deborah Solomon in which Rick defends his decision to write a book and give all the money to the Boy Scouts' legal defense fund (yeah, they're defending their right to keep the Scouts hypothetically "gay-free").

shit

2008-02-23T20:17:00.001-06:00

Let's not let this blog die!

loltheorists

2008-01-24T12:11:00.000-06:00

loltheorists -- It's like cat macros, though somehow, even nerdier. And, of course, Henry Jenkins has posted about having his image used on loltheorists. So meta.

Eames, all day all night

2008-01-12T08:41:00.000-06:00

Possibly only interesting to those in Jeff's class last year: the Eames are (or Charles Eames is?) getting a stamp, this summer.

Elspeth Rostow Passes

2007-12-09T21:07:00.000-06:00

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/12/10//1210rostow.html

On pornography and race

2007-12-03T17:18:00.000-06:00

Use Of 'N-Word' May End Porn Star's Career

I really think the above is pretty brilliant. The politics are at least as ambiguous as they are provocative. I think this clip might make it into the lecture if I ever teach Nguyen Tan Hoang's work.

Apparently this French guy went through our Orals process

2007-11-13T08:35:00.000-06:00

A land in need of heros: Dissertation in the making

2007-11-12T21:23:00.000-06:00

Rocky in Serbia, Bruce Lee in Bosnia, Zappa in Prague...
I'm sure there's a small town in Kosovo that would love to have a Frederick Jackson Turner or Bernarr McFadden statue on behalf of our grad program. Shall we start a fund?

The end of some kind of an era

2007-11-10T11:11:00.000-06:00

Norman Mailer is dead.

Must everything be sinister?

2007-10-31T14:42:00.000-05:00

Apparently the candy lobbying groups are at the heart of the extra hour of daylight on Halloween this year...ain't nothin' sacred in this dirty world of ours.

Really?

2007-10-28T22:40:00.000-05:00

So Pete and I were driving out in Buda today to pick up the dogs and we saw a church sign that said:
Sacred cows make gourmet hamburgers.

All I could think was:
Oversized crucifixes make awesome dildos.

Edutainment

2007-10-26T09:27:00.000-05:00

So it seems like George Lucas has determined that the best way for students to learn about the early 20th century is to watch DVDs of "The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones." We've become obsolete....

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hEQGdpPRxzCC6KpBBqa_xt2GrPow

Preventing Knowledge?

2007-10-24T10:21:00.000-05:00

Here's a question, Bush is quoted as saying "if you're interested in World War III, then it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make nuclear weapon." So is he suggesting the U.S. kidnap the scientific intelligentsia of Iran? Or perhaps shutting down the publishing industry.

David Horowitz strikes again

2007-10-21T16:28:00.000-05:00

David Horowitz is putting together an IslamoFascism Awareness Week, to be held on college campuses starting tomorrow, because he thinks Americans are gravely under-informed about the dangers of said brand of "fascism". Wonder if anything will happen at UT...

American Studies in age of corporatization

2007-10-20T15:44:00.000-05:00

Writeup that ran on Inside Higher Ed about a panel Janet was on at ASA, re the place of AMS in a corporatizing university.

handy notes on abstract writing

2007-10-18T01:35:00.001-05:00

The Society for the History of Technology has a good primer on putting together gold star abstracts. Obviously, some of the information is specific to the SHOT conference, but most of it is pretty broadly applicable.

Another reason that Jimmy Carter is the greatest

2007-10-03T08:55:00.000-05:00

Check it:
Jimmy Carter proves once again that you don't screw with a peanut farmer/nuclear physicist/ex-president/author/habitat for humanity builder extraordinaire even if you're Sudanese security.

letter to the Texan

2007-10-02T09:21:00.001-05:00

I wound up writing a letter to the editor over the article covering the grad conference, which they actually ran.

Speaking of tests...

2007-09-28T18:55:00.001-05:00

Here's an NYT article on the new test given to immigrants seeking citizenship.

pop quiz

2007-08-30T07:39:00.000-05:00

Now, you can take a geography quiz with Miss Teen South Carolina, Lauren Caitlin Upton. Thanks, People!

Maps! Yeah!

2007-08-28T07:56:00.000-05:00

We just need more of them in order to help South Africa, like.

Update: Someone was courteous enough (or had the map resources I guess) to make a map of Miss SC's comments

Chinese environmental decay

2007-08-26T11:46:00.000-05:00

There's a big feature in the Times this morning on environmental damage in China. If I were President, it would be a requirement that these pictures appear on labels of manufactured goods which come from these factories. I'm not saying consumers shouldn't be allowed to buy stuff that comes at this kind of an environmental cost; just that people should *know* that low-priced toasters don't happen in a vacuum.

goth rock

2007-08-18T14:46:00.000-05:00

Note: Goth rock band named the Machine in the Garden.

Turdblossom's Texas triumphs

2007-08-14T21:51:00.000-05:00

Check out this excellent (though short) Lou Dubose article on how Rove got his start in Texas politics. If you've ever wondered how the hell W could've ousted Ann Richards or why there wasn't a formidable Republican party in Texas before 1994, this will have some answers.

What's the definition of irony?

2007-08-02T09:40:00.000-05:00

"Discrimination Complaint Argues That the U. of Texas at Austin Considers Race Unnecessarily"

2007-07-24T11:02:00.000-05:00

From the Chronicle today:

"A new civil-rights complaint filed with a federal agency alleges that the "Texas 10-percent plan" has been so effective in bringing about diversity at the University of Texas at Austin that the university does not have any legal justification for considering applicants' race or ethnicity."

My Rejected McSweeney's List

2007-07-20T11:02:00.000-05:00

This oh-so nearly got in... rats.

Titles of films that might be adapted to spice up a series of biopics of
one-term presidents

Coolidge Runnings
Die Harding
Bush Hour
Happy Fillmore
Hayes of Thunder
Van Buren: Party Liaison
Get Carter
Arthur!

fight terrorism on the back of your car

2007-07-07T14:24:00.001-05:00

CIA student records

2007-06-28T09:21:00.000-05:00

there is info in the CIA classified documents released in the past couple of days about radical student groups. one of the "security advisors" who requested that the CIA study student unrest was named walt rostow and later taught at UT. was he the husband of elspeth? here's the chronicle article.

mountaintop removal in appalachia

2007-06-26T01:08:00.000-05:00

this is an older article from grist/orion, but it does one of the best jobs i've seen of explaining the issue that has been pretty much consuming my thoughts for the past couple of days.

new library catalog

2007-06-24T15:20:00.000-05:00

What are other people's thoughts on the new UT library catalog online search format?

My initial reaction is that it has too many fancy features which make it unnecessarily clunky, and I don't really need to see pictures of book covers, as I don't need my library catalog to feel like Amazon.

Is it weird...

2007-06-21T18:37:00.001-05:00

that I'm so into this concept? It's a book about how long it would take the earth to undo humanity's work, if humanity suddenly disappeared...

About Time

2007-06-21T08:37:00.000-05:00

The NYTimes has a great piece of news about a number of small liberal arts colleges dropping out of the U.S. News World and Report ranking system. While I'm bummed my alma mater is not one of the colleges, I think it's about time these schools fought against the Reports quantitative rankings. I'll admit that I, as a middle class suburban high schooler, totally bought into this, but now as an adult I have to wonder why people would trust a subpar publication to guide this important and oftentimes very expensive decision.

Grrrrr

2007-06-07T10:33:00.000-05:00

So, just another reminder on top of Danny's reminder - save your work. Save it on webpages and save it frequently. My laptop just crashed for the second time in two months for no apparent reason. A pox on HP. I'm breaking down and getting an apple. Please tell me I'll have better luck.

Operation First Casualty

2007-06-06T15:17:00.000-05:00

My friend's doing a documentary on Iraq Veterans against the War. This is a short rough cut showing some street theatre they did in NYC.

Ransom's man

2007-06-05T12:34:00.000-05:00

Long-ass article in the NYer about the head of the Ransom Center.

ROWE

2007-06-02T10:46:00.000-05:00

I was perusing the NYTimes this morning and started reading an article about procrastination ( a meta-procrastination if you will). And the article mentioned Best Buy's new corporate philosophy Results Only Work Environment (ROWE), which you can more about here.
It got me thinking about this push in our department to get through our work faster. From reading the description academia is a natural ROWE model; work at your own pace,work when you feel like it, work where you're comfortable. However, our department is trying to put these seemingly artificial time frames on our work, without any additional support. Of course there are required deadlines at a corporation, but it seems to me that in a field where you can have almost total autonomous freedom (at least while you're a student) we should embrace that.
I don't know I just got up and I'm not even through my first cup of coffee, so this could be nonsense. I just think the process of higher education is totally fascinating.

10% here to stay

2007-05-29T16:28:00.000-05:00

This, from the Chronicle today, will affect us greatly in the future...

Back up your work

2007-05-22T09:08:00.000-05:00

This is a pathetic reminder to back up your hard drives. My hard drive just died on Friday for no good reason and I lost 6 months worth of orals notes and pictures.

Follow-up on Marvin's drug post

2007-05-18T10:16:00.001-05:00

Remember "Drug Makers Paying Doctors"? Here's an article by the mother of a man in Minnesota who was mis-prescribed an antipsychotic by one of these doctors on the take...

What wall is this?

2007-05-17T08:45:00.000-05:00

The Chronicle has an interesting article today about American high schoolers' knowledge of US history. They are supposedly testing better, but the article makes it clear that the level of testing is so low anyway that "testing better" means only that they have more facts, not that they are better able to display any independent thought, or ability to synthesize, or anything that we grade them for at the college level.

But even given these lower standards, their fact-level knowledge still isn't that great. Excerpt from the article:

In one of the most alarming examples, Ms. Kozbial-Hess said, the eighth- and 12th-grade tests showed students a photograph of a wall being torn down, labeled "Berlin 1989." The students were asked what event was depicted and what influence it had on U.S. foreign policy, she said.

"More than half of eighth graders and almost one-third of 12th graders did not even give a partially correct answer that this photo showed the fall of the Berlin Wall, despite the strong clue," Ms. Kozbial-Hess said.

"Only 1 percent of eighth graders and 12 percent of 12th graders gave an appropriate or complete response that identified the event and also mentioned the impact of the end of the Cold War," she said.

Given the name of this blog...

2007-05-16T20:30:00.000-05:00

I figure someone should say something about Jerry Falwell and how he managed to extend Sacvan Bercovitch's thesis into the 21st century. I can't think of anyone who mastered the jeremiad in my lifetime better than Falwell. Remember that hs said that 9/11 happened because the US is to secular with its gays and other sinners.

I also can't think of anyone else whose death I've been happy about. What a prick. Anyway, most of you will recognize this ad as the one Falwell took Larry Flynt to court for (it made it to the Supreme Court and Flynt won), claiming that Falwell lost his virginity to his mother in an outhouse.

Long live free speech!

How/why did our culture forget about St. Augustine?

2007-05-14T10:00:00.000-05:00

Anyone who half paid attention to the news last week and the week before would've gotten the distinct impression that Jamestown was the first permanent settlement in the US. Wtff? Was this another way of erasing the Spanish influence on our culture? Is it related to the way we are encouraged to mispronounce Spanish names around here (San Jacinto, Manchaca, Guadalupe, Pedernales)? Here's an article about St. Augustine's reaction. It makes the excellent point that Jamestown wasn't even permanent. It stopped being a town in the mid-18th century while St. Augustine has continued to survive since it was founded in 1565.

Worth Checking Out

2007-05-13T11:23:00.000-05:00

Friday night we went to see Buttercup, a band from San Antonio who come up to Austin pretty frequently to play free to cheap shows. They are really awesome and (I know Lisa's going to be pissed at me for saying this) Buttercup's free show blew Bright Eyes out of the water. I don't know if it was that the acoustics in Bass Hall weren't suited for a band who decided to turn all their levels up way too high or if it just wasn't my scene.

Anyways, go check out Buttercup if you have a chance this summer. Here's there website where you can check out there tunes: http://buttercult.com/

Totally entertaining fun band.

The future of American Studies

2007-05-12T10:32:00.000-05:00

I've never actualy heard anyone referring to pop as "coke". But interesting nonetheless. I think my dissertation will be on the great "bag" vs. "sack" controversy that so divided central Illinoisans from Chicagoans when I grew up.

Anyway, check it out.

Would you eat one? I sure would.

2007-05-10T11:54:00.000-05:00

Kool-aid pickles. F'in awesome.

Tidal waves and forks

2007-05-09T12:37:00.000-05:00

Interesting article on Salon by a business owner whose company was wrecked by outsourcing. He's not mad about it, just rueful. It's rare that you get this kind of honest fly-on-the-wall account of the inside of the end of a medium-size business...

UT Press Book Sale

2007-05-08T10:39:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to draw everyone's attention to the UT Press Book Sale. If you're like me, you just delete most of those official-looking event announcements from UT, but, the book sale is freaking awesome.

The film books are usually a pretty good assortment, and some of the cooking, birdwatching, art and photography things are good to have on hand for gifts. I'm sure the gardening and whatnot are fine, but that's not really something I'm hip to.

The University of Texas Press invites you to our 31st annual book sale! Come take advantage of terrific savings on new and classic books in many subject areas, including Texas history, gardening, cooking, birdwatching, children's books, art and photography, film, multicultural studies, and so much more. Purchases must be made in person during sale hours.

ALL NEW BOOKS 50% OFF!
MOST OTHER BOOKS DISCOUNTED 60-90%
HUGE SELECTION of "NEW" $3.00 and $5.00 BOOKS. No "hurt" or "used" books in this sale.
Sign up to win $500 worth of free books.
Free bonus book for each $50 of your purchase.
Free parking & wheelchair access.
Cash, Checks, Visa, MasterCard, and American Express accepted.

Friday, May 11--10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday, May 12--10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Rain or shine, under the tent at the Printing and Press Building located at the intersection of the northbound I-35 access road and Manor Road (north of Disch-Falk baseball field). For a map, visit our website at www.utexas.edu/utpress/about/booksale.html

Copyright your own number

2007-05-07T20:09:00.000-05:00

I encourage all of you, in the wake of the AACS encryption scandal, to try to protect your very own 128-bit number.

Here's the background in a nutshell according to boingboing:

"Last week, the AACS consortium made history by issuing legal threats against the 1.8 million web-pages (and counting) that mentioned its secret code for preventing HD-DVD discs from being copied.

In effect, AACS-LA (the AACS Licensing Authority) claimed that it owned a randomly chosen 128-bit number, and that anyone who possessed or transmitted that number was breaking the law. Moreover, it claimed to own millions more random numbers -- claimed that the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which criminalises telling people how to break anti-copying software, gave it exclusive dominion over its many keys"

The new labels

2007-05-05T18:11:00.000-05:00

I couldn't stop. I blame the polar bear paper directly, and Knut indirectly. Feel free not to use them if you hate them.

Laptops in high school

2007-05-05T14:26:00.000-05:00

NYT writes today that a lot of high schools who started techoptimistically giving a laptop to each of their students have decided to take them back, because the one-to-one student-laptop ratio doesn't seem to be doing any good for education. The lede of the article:

"The students at Liverpool High have used their school-issued laptops to exchange answers on tests, download pornography and hack into local businesses. When the school tightened its network security, a 10th grader not only found a way around it but also posted step-by-step instructions on the Web for others to follow (which they did). Scores of the leased laptops break down each month, and every other morning, when the entire school has study hall, the network inevitably freezes because of the sheer number of students roaming the Internet instead of getting help from teachers."

Interesting, vis a vis all of the arguments for and against letting undergrads have laptops in lecture so that they can google "Duke Lacrosse T-shirts" instead of taking notes. I, for one, still think somebody should invent the lecture hall wireless-blocker device and make a mint.

Loyalty Day

2007-05-01T16:50:00.000-05:00

I can't take the credit for digging this up, but yes, May 1 is officially "Loyalty Day" in the United States. Have you taken your oath yet?

Update: Stupid Safari with no HTML link function! Click on the title of the post to see the link...

Tony Snow's job

2007-04-30T13:29:00.000-05:00

Lately Bill Moyers and every other decent fringe and sometimes non-fringe journalist is blaming the media in large part for not asking the necessary questions leading up to the Iraq war. And for the past year or so, I've found the mainstream press to be far more adequate at their jobs than they were 5 years ago. Even the Daily Texan is getting some good stories. Which is why it's hard for me to ignore the possibility that all of this scares the hell out of the administration, and in a last ditch effort to get the press corps to toss them softballs, Dick Cheney has given Tony Snow cancer so everyone feels bad for him. Come on, these are the people that got a guy with no more credentials than your average male escort (Jeff Gannon, who asked "how are you going to work with these people [dems] who are so divorced from reality?") to gently blow the president in front of everyone. And we all know how Bush warms up to the press corps with his nicknames ("slim," "stretch," "blind guy," etc.). They even made Helen Thomas sit in the back and refused to call on her for awhile. So is it so far out to suspect them of giving Tony Snow cancer?

save the patriarchy

2007-04-27T09:54:00.000-05:00

I don't even know what to do with this article, which argues that in order to reverse American demographic decline, we MUST reinstate patriarchy. Did I fall asleep and get time-traveled back to 1904, or something? Is the ghost of TR bending over me, tickling me with his bushy spectral moustache?

Excerpt: "Without implying any endorsement for the strategy, one must observe that a society that presents women with essentially three options -- be a nun, be a prostitute, or marry a man and bear children -- has stumbled upon a highly effective way to reduce the risk of demographic decline."

save the humans

2007-04-24T16:20:00.000-05:00

The Rapture of the Bees

2007-04-24T10:30:00.000-05:00

Check out this disturbing and fascinating article in the Times about disappearing bee colonies around the world.

Goodnight Mr. Halberstam

2007-04-23T22:04:00.000-05:00

David Halberstam, who became famous for his coverage of the Vietnam War and won the Pulitzer Prize, died in a car crash at the age of 73. Sad.

Apparently, my contributions to this blog are quickly becoming this week in death.

boil

2007-04-23T09:57:00.000-05:00

More photos coming...

Bill Goetzmann, Ismail Ax and Virginia Tech...

2007-04-18T13:47:00.000-05:00

"In one [theory], tied to James Fenimore Cooper's novel "The Prairie," Ishmael Bush is known as an outcast and outlawed warrior, according to an essay written in 1969 by William H. Goetzmann, a University of Texas History professor. In Cooper's book, "Bush carries the prime symbol of evil - the spoiler's axe," the professor wrote."

http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/ismail-ax-sparks-web-frenzy/2007/04/18/1176696889800.html?s_cid=rss_age

Ones to Watch

2007-04-16T00:11:00.000-05:00

The YCT released the new edition of the Professor Watch List. Fascinating document.

The Professor Watch List is designed to be a resource to the student body of the University of Texas. This report includes professors who push an ideological viewpoint on their students through oftentimes subtle but sometimes abrasive methods of indoctrination.
This List does not target professors for their opinions in or out of the classroom, and professors are not judged by their politics alone. What is considered is whether the professor respects and strives for intellectual honesty in his or her classroom through presenting a fair and balanced delivery of information that is not crafted to produce a certain mindset within the receiving student. Classroom presentation, instructor attitude and reading material are among applicable measurements of this standard.
Additionally, some professors will be listed on our Honor Roll. These professors embody an intellectually honest classroom or teach a subject we feel is important to higher education but is oftentimes downplayed, shunned or forgotten about by largely liberal campuses.
YCT does not advocate retaliation against listed professors, nor do we demand they change their teaching style. YCT members have made every effort to produce a non-partisan list.

Apparently, no one from AMS made the cut. Also, the population of the list makes me think that perhaps all members of YCT have chosen government, economics or similar for their course of study.

One of my favorite poems

2007-04-12T14:44:00.000-05:00

of which Carly's post reminded me...

JOE HELLER
True story, Word of Honor:
Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
now dead,
and I were at a party given by a billionaire
on Shelter Island.
I said, "Joe, how does it make you feel
to know that our host only yesterday
may have made more money
than your novel 'Catch-22'
has earned in its entire history?"
And Joe said, "I've got something he can never have."
And I said, "What on earth could that be, Joe?"
And Joe said, "The knowledge that I've got enough."
Not bad! Rest in peace!
- Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut dead at 84

2007-04-12T00:18:00.000-05:00

I read in an introduction he'd written to one of his novels about how once someone had asked him what he was doing while he was smoking in a bar. He'd said he was committing suicide by cigarette, and decided to quit smoking. For some reason, I keep thinking about that story, hearing about his death. I guess he decided he might as well live. 84 years is a long road to wander.

public transportation hip hop

2007-04-06T22:12:00.000-05:00

as if everyone needed another reason to love portland.... their public transit system (tri-met) now has its own (fairly long) hip hop song...

Invisi-bandages!

2007-04-05T00:00:00.000-05:00

Not only is the above video a relatively high-production-values commercial parody, it's a good companion to Peggy McIntosh's "Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack."

Uncle Ben's Return

2007-04-01T21:41:00.000-05:00

The ASFS listserv has been kicking around this "Uncle Ben" thread for a couple of days, and when I finally followed it to the bottom and read the Stuart Elliot NYT article about Uncle Ben's new marketing campaign, I was mindblown. I am fascinated by the thought processes behind decisions like these. My only explanation is that there must have been some very powerful person at the top of the food chain who had this idea, or liked it, and who (whom?) nobody else wanted to offend. Here, read.

Jerry Herron, American Studies Professor, on MySpace ban at Catholic school...

2007-03-24T17:45:00.000-05:00

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007703220463

Didactic Cartoon Animals

2007-03-24T13:00:00.000-05:00

A great article/slideshow from Slate about ways that cartoon animals have been used to teach children. It contains the original "Duck and Cover" video which gets better every viewing.

heavy metal mind

2007-03-23T19:34:00.000-05:00

The results of a study of more than 1,000 of the brightest five per cent of young people will come as relief to parents whose offspring, usually long-haired, are devotees of Iron Maiden, AC/DC and their musical descendants.

Researchers found that, far from being a sign of delinquency and poor academic ability, many adolescent "metalheads" are extremely bright and often use the music to help them deal with the stresses and strains of being gifted social outsiders.

Stuart Cadwallader, a psychologist at the University of Warwick, has found that socially awkward intelligent kids sometimes listen to heavy metal, which is "a comfort to the bright child." Read more about this breaking discovery here.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but why is it remotely surprising that teenaged geeks like heavy metal? Next, someone will demonstrate that sometimes intelligent, socially awkward kids enjoy playing video games on the internets, or prove a link between being teenaged and being angsty.

X-posted from Sparklebliss.

Drug Makers Paying Doctors...To Talk

2007-03-21T12:46:00.000-05:00

Just some highlights from a NYT article about new laws (in some states) requiring "drug makers to disclose payments to doctors." Enjoy (linked above).

"More than 250 Minnesota psychiatrists together earned $6.7 million in drug company money — more than any other specialty. Seven of the last eight presidents of the Minnesota Psychiatric Society have served as consultants to drug makers, according to the Times examination."

"Dr. George Realmuto, a psychiatrist from the University of Minnesota, said most of the marketing associated with his lectures was packaged around his talks.
“It’s at a wonderful restaurant, the atmosphere is very conducive to a positive attitude toward the drug, and everyone is having a good time,” said Dr. Realmuto, who compared the experience to that of buying a car in a glitzy showroom. He earned at least $20,000 between 2002 and 2004 from drug makers."

“The vast majority of the time that we did any sort of paid relationship with a physician, they increased the use of our drug,” said Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau, a former sales representative for Bristol-Myers Squibb and Johnson & Johnson who left the industry in 2002. “I hate to say it out loud, but it all comes down to ways to manipulate the doctors.”

“You’re making him money in several ways,” said Gene Carbona, who left Merck as a regional sales manager in 2001. “You’re paying him for the talk. You’re increasing his referral base so he’s getting more patients. And you’re helping to develop his name. The hope in all this is that a silent quid quo pro is created. I’ve done so much for you, the only thing I need from you is that you write more of my products.”

"A 2002 survey found that more than 80 percent of the doctors on panels that write clinical practice guidelines had financial ties to drug makers."

Hometown Baghdad

2007-03-20T18:13:00.000-05:00

This is a web video series, a kind of reality tv/documentary thing that follows three twentysomethings in Baghdad. They're relying on Web distribution to get the word out (they're on Salon, too), and want as many people to see/link to it as possible...The link is to their homepage, where you can see two more clips.

Anti-academic writers

2007-03-08T14:26:00.000-06:00

An interesting article in Salon about books by writers who hate academics (particularly, those in English departments). The author is an academic, and makes some good points. Here's one:

"But I still don't understand, frankly, why people hate literary scholars for having a professional vocabulary while remaining perfectly content with economists' using "devaluation" or philosophers' using "existentialist," or physicists' talking about a "projective Hilbert space endowed with the Fubini-Study metric." These days even Tucker Carlson uses "deconstruct" and George W. Bush has developed quite a fondness for "ideology," which half my dissertation committee rejected as jargon. So what's the big deal? Have there been excesses of obscurantism and pomposity? Yes, but as our literary writers have long known, from Laurence Sterne to Herman Melville to James Joyce to William Vollmann, sometimes nothing succeeds like excess."

Hal Rothman...

2007-02-26T23:13:00.000-06:00

died from complications due to ALS yesterday. Below is the notice from H-net and here is a nice article about him from the Las Vegas Sun.

Friends,

Below is a message sent out by the chair of the department of history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

I am sure many of you knew Hal Rothman, and many more knew his wonderful work. He was a smart guy, a shrewd historian, a fine citizen, a wonderful father and husband, and, as he showed us in the last year and a half, a very, very brave man.

Personally, I'll miss my good friend. Few have been more fun to argue with.

Elliott West

It is my sad duty to inform you that our colleague, Hal Rothman, passedaway last night from ALS. Our sympathies go out to Lauralee, Bret, Talia ,and the rest of his family. Hal's funeral service has been scheduled forWednesday, February 28 at 3:00 p.m. at Palm Mortuaries in the Main Chapelat 7600 S. Eastern. Donations in Hal's name may be made to the ALSFoundation (I don't immediately have that address) or to Midbar KodeshTemple.

Midd College history dept bans Wikipedia

2007-02-24T13:36:00.000-06:00

I kind of also find it fascinating that this article, which ran in the NYT, is the most-emailed article today.

four-legged duck

2007-02-19T00:13:00.000-06:00

the article discusses his running prowess and stamina in handling media attention, but does not predict how he'll fare in water.

Junior! The Wendy's Guy!

2007-02-13T20:30:00.000-06:00

For all those of us who have eaten at the Wendy's in the union, here's an intimate portrait of Junior. What a legend.

congratulations marvin!!

2007-02-11T01:54:00.000-06:00

No Undergrad Left Behind

2007-02-10T12:59:00.000-06:00

Anyone who's been frustrated by the cognitive results of TX's teach-to-the-test high school education, as embodied in UT students, will feel a shiver run down his or her spine at this news.

On a binary scale of 0 and offensive...

2007-02-05T10:57:00.000-06:00

Check this poster for a show at a local venue.

In the red

2007-02-05T01:13:00.000-06:00

A 4-disc collection of Soviet anti-capitalist propaganda films is out.

"Black and White," produced in 1933, depicted a highway with an endless row of blacks lynched on telephone poles. "The Millionaire," made in 1963, told the story of a rich American woman who leaves $1 million to her pet bulldog, who becomes so wealthy and powerful that he eventually is elected to Congress. And in the 1979 animated short "Shooting Range," a jobless American youth finds work in a carnival shooting gallery only to discover the evil, greedy owner is now charging double — for people to use the youth as target practice.

These films, rarely seen in the West, are among several dozen included in a four-disc DVD anthology titled "Animated Soviet Propaganda" that is being distributed by Kino International and Films by Jove. The collection retails for $89.

The anthology is divided into categories titled "American Imperialists," "Fascist Barbarians," "Capitalist Sharks" and "Onward to the Shining Future: Communism." The DVDs include interviews with Russian film school professors, directors and animators, including famed animator Boris Yefimov, who was 101 and died two years after being interviewed.

Sorry to be a one-note Nancy.

2007-02-02T13:04:00.001-06:00

But.

Dear Undergrads: No, Racism Is Not Dead, It's Just You Now

2007-01-25T12:52:00.000-06:00

Via Austinist, conclusive proof that the sixties really did not "fix everything."

New Jersey rules on net anonymity

2007-01-24T17:30:00.000-06:00

New Jersey ruled that the anonymity you create in creating web aliases/screennames/handles/usernames is protected by law.

Computer users in New Jersey can expect that personal information they give their Internet service providers will be treated as private, a state appellate court decided yesterday in the first such case considered in the state.
As a result, New Jersey and several other states will give greater privacy rights to computer users than do most federal courts, and law-enforcement officers in New Jersey will need to obtain valid subpoenas or search warrants to obtain the information.

The court ruled that a computer user whose screen name hid her identity had a "legitimate and substantial" interest in anonymity.

Of course, the Electronic Frontiers Foundation is deeply pleased. Defining these types of rights is important -- and to me seems at least somewhat intuitive, given the (relatively) protected nature of things like phone records.

The Low-Down on Jeremiah

2007-01-24T12:37:00.000-06:00

Want to know all about the original Jeremiads? Slate's "Blogging the Bible" has reached Jeremiah. It's all fire and Brimstone at the halfway stage.

One more thing...

2007-01-22T16:48:00.000-06:00

There's now a mathematical formula to describe/predict procrastination.

Cash rules everything around me

2007-01-22T15:53:00.000-06:00

FYI re: the filthy-lucre goals of the undergrads. I thought they were all about sex, but boy, was I wrong!

My "nostalgic alarmist" bells and tin cans started clanging as soon as this article tripped my mental perimeter. This article makes explicit ref to the idea that today's kids are more materialistic than in previous years. But I wonder whether people aren't just more comfortable with defining themselves as materialistic. Or whether these pollsters were asking different people. Or different questions. Or whatever. I think those gold-rushers were as materialistic as any ipodder of today.

Roe V. Wade Anniversary

2007-01-22T12:40:00.000-06:00

It's the 30th anniversary of Roe V. Wade.

I'm anticipating a lot of unpleasantness for the employees of Planned Parenthood and other organizations today. NPR has a series of stories related to abortion and reproductive rights, all available here.

List of demands

2007-01-15T19:10:00.000-06:00

This is X-posted from my blog, but I thought some of y'all interested in race/class identity might be interested:

This is Saul Williams's video for "List of Demands (Reparations)," the single off his last album, which was produced by Trent Reznor. I think the song is pretty genius. What I don't think is genius is the video below, which is a flaccid, cutesy cover of the song as done by Jenny Wilson and Robyn.

The cover completely deflates the aggression of the original. And, while I'm normally all for covers, this one treads on some dangerous political territory. I'm sure Jenny Wilson and Robyn are genuinely in awe of the original piece -- imitation remaining the highest form of flattery. However, style in sometimes does dictate substance, and I think this is one such instance. Breathy indie pop in its current incarnations really can't say anything that significant about U.S. race relations.

Boo google

2007-01-15T15:48:00.000-06:00

So while I appreciate the handiness of Google for searching the web, I do NOT appreciate being strongarmed into using gmail in order to use blogger.

Blue. Different.

2006-12-27T20:35:00.000-06:00

So there's this new Blogger version I just signed up for that lets me move page elements around without having to go into HTML.

The upside is that I can now easily put a picture, text, a feed from another site, or other things on the righthand side of the blog (more webliterate people might find this basic, but I'm happy). So if you have a pic you think deserves right-hand-column status, send it to me - otherwise we're stuck with Sacvan Bercovitch, so act quickly. We can also start using labels for each post, like tags on flickr, which would be really fun to do. I also like the collapsible archive listings.

The downside is I can't figure out how to make the thing list our aggregate names as it did before - instead it wanted to list only my name, which I didn't like, so I just took it off and now we're authorless. The other downside is I hope you guys can all sign in without needing gmail accounts. I'm not sure how that's going to work. Keep me apprised as to possible problems.

Guess what? Polar bears are in trouble...

2006-12-27T20:12:00.000-06:00

and they are SO CUTE! And the White House knows it! They're finally being considered for threatened status, and the admin. admits that they're threatened because of thinning sea ice caused by climate change. It's all very well and good (and quite Christmasy! is this one's name Tiny Tim?) but they still won't officially say that *humans* cause this thinning ice, because then we'd be responsible for changing our daily actions and not having SUVs...which not even a polar bear with its paws tucked under its chest can make us give up. Idea: let's just name an SUV after it, and then we'll be squaresies.