07w43:3 The Cruelty of Kitakyushu's bureaucrats Posted October 24th, 2007 by timothy. 0 Comments Goodreads | 2007 week 42 number 3 (The Cruelty of Kitakyushu’s bureaucrats) Death Reveals Harsh Side of a ‘Model’ in Japan | Norimitsu Onishi http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/shorty/nytimes/welfarejapan/ “In a thin notebook discovered along with a man’s partly mummified corpse this summer was a detailed account of his last days, recording his hunger pangs, his drop in weight and, above all, his dream of eating a rice ball, a snack sold for about $1 in convenience stores across the country. ‘3 a.m. This human being hasn’t eaten in 10 days but is still alive,’ he wrote. ‘I want to eat rice. I want to eat a rice ball.’ These were not the last words of a hiker lost in the wilderness, but those of a 52-year-old urban welfare recipient whose benefits had been cut off. And his case was not the first here.”
07w43:1 Fuck the Young eh? Posted October 22nd, 2007 by timothy. 0 Comments Goodreads | 2007 week 43 number 1 (Fuck the Young eh?) Why is Vancouver eating its young? Nothing cool about that | David Beers http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/shorty/theglobeandmail/vancouver/ “Nowadays in Vancouver, if, like me, you are middle-aged and own your digs, it can seem cruel to invite younger adults over for dinner, a taunt to those whose incomes are relentlessly outstripped by real-estate inflation. Even worse, you begin to sense that you and your guests are on opposite sides of a political divide. You are, after all, a member of the generation that is asking the young to endure and solve global warming, but what have you done for them lately, besides pouring fine wines in a heritage home of the sort they can never aspire to have? Much as the real-estate windfall graced middle-aged Vancouverites like myself, rising resource commodities prices have helped B.C.’s Liberal government run surpluses in the billions of dollars for several years now. But, for the young, the same government has more than doubled university tuition fees since 2001. And it’s given its MLAs a fat raise while refusing to up the minimum wage to $10 from $8. To add insult, the Liberals let employers pay a ‘training wage’ of just $6 an hour to workers starting out, most of whom, of course, are young. Spiralling housing and education costs. Low entry wages, weak public transit, kids living on the street and greenhouse emissions spewing away. If these seem vexing “issues” to older people, the young tend to bundle them as “boomer legacies,” burdens unfairly shifted onto them, says opinion researcher Angus McAllister. Politicians ignore at their own peril this way that youth filter politics, he suggests.” [emp mine, obviously] Raging against the tyranny of CanLit | Stephen Marche http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/268644 “Now, in the middle of prize season and the authors’ festival, the differences between the two literary capitals couldn’t be starker to me. Brooklyn is so, so young and Toronto is so, so old: It felt like moving from a frenetic day care to an old folks’ home. […] Literature in Toronto is something your smartest aunt does once she’s cozied up in her favourite sweater. And the work therefore is less exciting. The popular novels here are generally ponderous, draped in sanctimony over suffering and history, melodramas in exotic settings. One thing you are not going to get out of a novel on the Giller list or indeed the best-seller list is a good laugh. […] Setting is everything in Canadian fiction. Plots don’t matter much. There are only a few plots anyway: recovering from historical or familial trauma through the healing power of whatever (most common); uncovering historical or family secrets and thereby achieving redemption (close second); coming of age (distant third place). The characters are mostly the same: The only thing that changes is the location of the massacred grandmother, what kind of booze the alcoholic father drinks himself into fits with, what particular creed is being revealed, in deft and daring ways, as both beautifully transcendent and oppressive. Innovation, whether in language or form, is a dirty word. […] If you think I’m being extreme, just look at recent comments by Ellen Seligman, the publisher of McClelland and Stewart, one of the most powerful people in Canadian publishing. Her response to the Giller list this year struck me as a devastating assessment of where we stand: “I don’t think prizes are necessarily for young writers,” she said in The Globe. It is a remarkable sentence. There are two ways to read it. 1) Young writers don’t write well enough to deserve prizes. 2) Even if they do write well enough, only old writers deserve attention. Because that is what the Giller is, a massive dollop of attention. Seligman says it openly: Only books written by old people are worth serious attention. The danger is that the Giller, like the CBC, will become just another institution for boomer self-congratulation.” [emp mine]
07w42:5 Richard Rorty Selections Posted October 19th, 2007 by timothy. 0 Comments Goodreads | 2007 week 42 number 5 (Richard Rorty Selections) I found these initially in the compilation Philosophy and Social Hope (1999) and was very happy to find them both online in order to share. – Timothy The Humanistic Intellectual: Eleven Theses | Richard Rorty (1989) http://www.acls.org/op10rorty.htm “If one asks what good these people do, what social function they perform, neither ‘teaching’ nor ‘research’ is a very good answer. Their idea of teaching—or at least of the sort of teaching they hope to do—is not exactly the communication of knowledge, but more like stirring the kids up. When they apply for a leave or a grant, they may have to fill out forms about the aims and methods of their so-called research projects, but all they really want to do is read a lot more books in the hope of becoming a different sort of person. So the real social function of the humanistic intellectuals is to instill doubts in the students about the students’ own self-images, and about the society to which they belong. These people are the teachers who help insure that the moral consciousness of each new generation is slightly different from that of the previous generation. […] Philosophers of education, well-intended committees, and governmental agencies have attempted to understand, define, and manage the humanities. The point, however, is to keep the humanities changing fast enough so that they remain indefinable and unmanageable. All we need to keep them changing that fast is good old-fashioned academic freedom. Given freedom to shrug off the heresy-hunters and their cries of “politicization!,” as well as freedom for each new batch of assistant professors to despise and repudiate the departmental Old Guard to whom they owe their jobs, the humanities will continue to be in good shape. If you don’t like the ideological weather in the local English department these days, wait a generation. Watch what happens to the Nietzscheanized left when it tries to replace itself, along about the year 2010. I’m willing to bet that the brightest new Ph.D.’s in English that year will be people who never want to hear the terms ‘binary opposition’ or ‘hegemonic discourse’ again as long as they live.” [emp mine] Fraternity Reigns | Richard Rorty (1996) http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/shorty/nytimes/rorty2096/ “Our long, hesitant, painful recovery, over the last five decades, from the breakdown of democratic institutions during the Dark Years (2014-2044) has changed our political vocabulary, as well as our sense of the relation between the moral order and the economic order. Just as 20th-century Americans had trouble imagining how their pre-Civil War ancestors could have stomached slavery, so we at the end of the 21st century have trouble imagining how our great-grandparents could have legally permitted a C.E.O. to get 20 times more than her lowest-paid employees. We cannot understand how Americans a hundred years ago could have tolerated the horrific contrast between a childhood spent in the suburbs and one spent in the ghettos. Such inequalities seem to us evident moral abominations, but the vast majority of our ancestors took them to be regrettable necessities. […] H ere, in the late 21st century, as talk of fraternity and unselfishness has replaced talk of rights, American political discourse has come to be dominated by quotations from Scripture and literature, rather than from political theorists or social scientists. Fraternity, like friendship, was not a concept that either philosophers or lawyers knew how to handle.”[emp mine] // In the above named book, this was reprinted as ‘Looking Backwards from the Year 2096’.
07w42:3 Hollywood's Devices Posted October 16th, 2007 by timothy. 1 Comment Goodreads | 2007 week 42 number 3 (Hollywood’s Devices) Tools of the Trade | Nicole LaPorte Link “Because of the sprint to digitize—many agencies have gone ‘paperless,’ and BlackBerrys are upgraded as frequently as Lindsay Lohan’s sobriety status—Hollywood’s ferociously self-protected hierarchies are being upended. […] Meanwhile, gone are gracefully passive-aggressive tactics such as the old ‘canyon’ excuse: ‘What’s that? You’re breaking up . . .’ This was used when wireless service was sketchy and inconvenient (or unpleasant) cellphone calls needed to be cut off quickly. […] You are your phone. Prius, shmius—what’s in your pocket? If it’s a BlackBerry Curve, you’re someone who lives in the moment and “gets” it, as opposed to those still stuck with the BlackBerry 8700. Treo (any model)? You’re an amateur, I’m afraid, not to mention living in 2006. IPhone? An artiste with vision, as long as you weren’t suckered into buying it at $599. BlackBerry 8830 World carrier? See you in Cannes!”
07w42:2 The Rage of the Creative Class Posted October 15th, 2007 by timothy. 0 Comments Goodreads | 2007 week42 number 2 (The Rage of the Creative Class) Everybody Sucks; Gawker and the rage of the creative underclass | Vanessa Grigoriadis http://nymag.com/news/features/39319/ “To be enticed, as these writers were, by the credentials extended by an old-media publication is a source of hilarity at the Gawker offices, where, beneath a veneer of self-deprecation, the core belief is that bloggers are cutting-edge journalists—the new ‘anti-media.’ No other form has lent itself so perfectly to capturing the current ethos of young New York, which is overwhelmingly tipped toward anger, envy, and resentment at those who control the culture and apartments. ‘New York is a city for the rich by the rich, and all of us work at the mercy of rich people and their projects,’ says Choire Sicha, Gawker’s top editor (he currently employs a staff of five full-time writers). ‘If you work at any publication in this town, you work for a millionaire or billionaire. In some ways, that’s functional, and it works as a feudal society. But what’s happened now, related to that, is that culture has dried up and blown away: The Weimar-resurgence baloney is hideous; the rock-band scene is completely unexciting; the young artists have a little more juice, but they’re just bleak intellectual kids; and I am really dissatisfied with young fiction writers.‘ Sicha, a handsome ex-gallerist who spends his downtime gardening on Fire Island, is generally warm and even-tempered, but on this last point, he looks truly disgusted. ‘Not a week goes by I don’t want to quit this job,” he says, “because staring at New York this way makes me sick.'” [emp mine]
07w42:1 Conceptual Terrorism Posted October 15th, 2007 by timothy. 0 Comments Goodreads | 2007 week 42 number 1 (Conceptual Terrorism) Conceptual Terrorists Encase Sears Tower In Jell-O | The Onion Link “Tentative speculation that the dessert enclosure was in fact an act of terrorism was quickly confirmed after a group known only as the Prophet’s Collective took credit for the attack in a three-hour-long video that surfaced on the Internet. ‘Your outdated ideas of what terrorism is have been challenged,’ an unidentified, disembodied voice announces following the video’s first 45 minutes of random imagery set to minimalist techno music. ‘It is not your simple bourgeois notion of destructive explosions and weaponized biochemical agents. True terror lies in the futility of human existence.’ According to a 2007 CIA executive summary, the terrorists responsible for masterminding the attack are likely hiding somewhere in Berlin’s vast labyrinth of cafés. […] ‘I’m no expert, but I know terrorism when I see it,’ said Kathy Atwood, a Hyde Park mother of four. ‘Where is the devastating loss of life and massive destruction of infrastructure? This doesn’t move me to run for my life at all.’ She added: ‘Real terrorism takes years of training and meticulous planning. My 6-year-old kid can make Jell-O.’
07w40:5 Stupid to the last drop Posted October 6th, 2007 by timothy. 0 Comments Goodreads | 2007 week 40 number 5 (Stupid to the last drop) Stupid to the last drop by William Marsden; Reviewed by Andrew Nikiforuk http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/shorty/theglobeandmail/stupidalberta/ “Marsden really finds his mark while recording the tales of ordinary Davids facing powerful yet stupid Goliaths. Francis Gardner, one fine rancher, gets the better of Shell Oil in a brazen, Russian-like encounter on New Year’s Eve. Jessica Ernst, a courageous oil-patch consultant, tells how EnCana carelessly drilled into a local aquifer and gave her groundwater a shocking advantage: She can light it on fire. Dr. John O’Connor, a physician with a moral heart, explains how both federal and provincial bureaucrats tried to silence his disturbing documentation of cancer deaths downstream from the tar sands. In these inspiring tales, at least, Marsden proves that moral intelligence has not disappeared from Alberta; it just doesn’t appear to exist in government circles any more. The biggest stupidities that Marsden discovers could and probably should shock any Canadian. A government that gives away its oil for a 1-per-cent royalty is not only stupid but politically bankrupt. A regulator (“eight mulish, white male suits”) that rubber-stamps projects and then spies on citizens who question their rubber-stamping is a Soviet-style disgrace. A former environment minister who rants not about the destruction of rivers and forests, but about his Harvard education, is pure Mark Twain territory. Welcome to Saudi Alberta.” [emp mine] ——————————— Update 19 Oct 2007: Paved with dubious intentions (review by Peter Gorrie) | The Toronto Star http://www.thestar.com/sciencetech/article/264334
07w40:4 The Creation of Life Posted October 6th, 2007 by timothy. 0 Comments Goodreads | 2007 week 40 number 4 (The Creation of Life) Drudgereport‘s Headline, 5 October 2007 I am creating artificial life, declares US gene pioneer | Ed Pilkington http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/shorty/co/venter/ “Craig Venter, the controversial DNA researcher involved in the race to decipher the human genetic code, has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals and is poised to announce the creation of the first new artificial life form on Earth”. The Procedure | Harry Mulisch http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/shorty/amazon/theprocedure/ “The central events in the life of Dutch microbiologist Viktor Werner are that he has created a life a living organism made from clay in the laboratory and experienced a death, with the loss of his unborn daughter. The genetic and scientific details of the creation are convincingly rendered, and Viktor’s attempts to come to grips with his lost daughter and to resurrect a relationship with her mother form the emotional core of the novel. Operating on many levels, the book also recounts the tale of a rabbi in 16th-century Prague who creates a golem, the legendary automaton of occult Judaism. Recurring motifs of occultism, parallels between sacred systems and scientific formulas, a woman’s fertilization cycle, and the DNA code all intertwine into a mystery with a surprise ending. Here, Dutch novelist Mulisch continues some of the scientific and philosophical themes of his previous novel, The Discovery of Heaven, with thought-provoking results. Recommended for academic and larger public”
07w40:2 One Laptop Per Child Posted October 3rd, 2007 by timothy. 0 Comments Goodreads | 2007 week 40 number 2 (One Laptop Per Child) Laptop With a Mission Widens Its Audience | David Pogue http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/shorty/nytimes/olpc/ “There are also three programming environments of different degrees of sophistication. Incredibly, one keystroke reveals the underlying code of almost any XO program or any Web page. Students can not only study how their favorite programs have been written, but even experiment by making changes. (If they make a mess of things, they can restore the original.) There’s real brilliance in this emphasis on understanding the computer itself.”
07w40:1 No Shit Sherlock Posted October 3rd, 2007 by timothy. 0 Comments Goodreads | 2007 week 40 number 1 (No Shit Sherlock) Leaks, woes a smudge on Crystal’s sparkle | Val Ross http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/shorty/theglobeandmail/ROM/ As winter approaches, fingers are crossed that there will be no more puddles, and that the Crystal’s cladding, designed to prevent it from turning into an avalanche-maker, will function as well in cold reality as it does in theory. But it’s clear, four months into the Crystal’s life, the new spaces pose huge challenges, and leaks are the least of them. An unveiling concert in June shows the Crystal in Toronto. Its new spaces pose huge challenges, and leaks are the least of them. Far more daunting are the problems of mounting exhibits in the strange new spaces, ensuring public safety and budgeting for the new reality. There are rumours that the Crystal’s oddly shaped, difficult-to-access windows have increased window-cleaning costs by $200,000, a figure ROM’s executive director of capital development and facilities, Al Shaikoli, disputes. “But it is considerable,” he admitted. “In the old days, our window-cleaning budget was next to nothing.”
