Oh, this made me laugh:
h/t Crooks and Liars
Reality t.v. at its finest
13 02 2013Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: Pope, reality t.v., Vatica
Categories : Blog theft
They was a rapping the flat scat
11 02 2013Since I only have small thoughts in my head right now, just a few quick hits:
On the pope’s smell-you-later:
Too bad he’s not stepping down as an atonement for the abuse scandals in the US. And Canada. And Mexico. And Ireland. And Australia. And Belgium. And. . . .
As for who comes next, pfft, more of the same.
On Chris Christie’s weight and Hillary Clinton’s age and (god help me), the 2016 race:
I won’t be voting for Christie for policy reasons, but, yeah, if he could be my candidate, I’d be concerned about his weight—just as I’ll be concerned about Clinton’s age if she decides to toss her bra into the ring.
While I think extra weight or extra years are not and should not be barriers to most jobs, the presidency is an impossible position, one which presses down on whoever holds it with tremendous force. All other things being equal, I think younger and fitter is better than older and unfitter.
Of course, all other things are rarely equal, and I’ll take a 69-year-old Hillary over a young ‘un like Marco Rubio—just as I’m sure Republicans would have voted for a fat Christie over a trim Obama.
Either way, I’ll have no influence on who the parties pick in 2016, so this is just so much spitballin’.
What the fuck is going on with Lindsay Graham and Benghazi?
Is it really all just about staving off a primary challenge from the right? Does he really think that THIS will protect him if some mouth-foamer decides to come after him?
Jeez. Get a better issue already.
Winter storms should not be named.
Call me a traditionalist.
Okay, back to weight:
I gained this fall and winter, and am now stepping up my workouts to try to wrestle myself back to trim.
The problem began when I hurt my back in October: While I was only out of the gym (biking, weights) for 3 weeks, I pretty much stopped my out-of-gym workouts. Yeah, I still managed to put in a few laps around Prospect Park on my bike, but I completely stopped running.
And then, y’know, holidays, and I was working at an office, and my mom sent me cookies and bars, and blorp: there it is.
So now I’ve added some at-home free-weight lifting, and I’ve started running again (which I prefer to biking), and I’m paying more attention to my diet—more veggies, fewer carbs—and not eating past full.
The problem, of course, is the usual one with any kind of change: I want to see results RIGHTNOW, and when I don’t, I haz a sad.
Yeah, yeah, suck it up.
On changing my default from “stay” to “go”:
This has been good, and I’d like to do more. I’ve seen three (cheap) Broadway shows with friends, and I’ve drunk a lot of Guinness—good for the soul!
The downside? I’ve drunk a lot of Guinness—not so good for the bod.
Yeah, whatever: no need to be a fanatic.
Comments : 6 Comments »
Tags: age, Chris Christie, default, fitness, Guinness, Hillary Clinton, Lindsay Graham, Politics, pop, presidency, weight
Categories : Musing, Stray bits
And I said “nothing”
7 02 2013Was I gaslighting myself?
I was sure I had seen this book review at one of the places I frequent online, and I didn’t write it down or bookmark it, so that meant I’d be able to find it easily when I decided to go back and use it as a springboard for a post.
Except I couldn’t find the damned thing.
Slate? Nope. HuffPo? Nope. I knew it wasn’t Sully (who’s being a real prick about the whole retail servitude thing, by the way), wasn’t TNC. Someplace on the Atlantic site? Books? Health & Medicine? Tech? Nope nope nope. Didn’t think it was ThinkProgess or CrookedTimber, but checked anyway—nada. Christianity Today? Fred Clark? Nuh-uh. Really hoped it wasn’t Brad DeLong or Marginal Revolution or Pharyngula because it would be a total pain in the ass to try to dig it out.
It didn’t help that I didn’t know the title and I didn’t know the authors—although I did know there were two authors.
And I did know the topic: something about genetics and society. So, off to Amazon to try to track down the book. “Human genetics” didn’t get me there; neither did “genes” or “genetics” or these subjects coupled with “2013” (I knew the book was new). Nothin’. Same at Barnes & Noble.
What gives?! Did I NOT see a review of a recent book on genes and society? Was I imagining all of this? Jay-zeus Christie.
So: onward to the Giant Omnivorous Omniscient Grabbing of Life and Everything search, with different terms. At some point I plugged in “genetics ethics” and there on the top of the third page, a piece from the Guardian:
Genetics | Science | The Guardian
Video (5min 28sec), 30 Jan 2013: Hilary Rose, co-author of Genes, Cells and Brains, argues that we should treat the medical claims made for genetic research …
Bingo! Hilary Rose! So back to the aforementioned sites and plug in Hilary Rose and. . . NOTHING! DAMMIT.
And then I thought: What about The Daily Beast? They do books, don’t they? And lo! There it was:
The Selfish Gene: The Broken Promises of the Human Genome Project
Jan 29, 2013 2:39 PM EST
What did the Human Genome Project give us? Better shampoo and billions of dollars’ worth of economic projects, but what happened to improving our lives? By Michael Thomsen.
There is a point to all of this, I promise you, but since it’s really just another way for me to lash myself over the stupid, stupid decisions I’ve made regarding my dissertation and career, I think I’ll save that for another post.
For this one, let’s end on the happy thought that I am not, in fact, crazy. At least on this.
Comments : 5 Comments »
Tags: book review, Daily Beast, ethics, gaslighting, genetics, Hilary Rose, search
Categories : Musing
Brooklyn: Represent!
3 02 2013Brooklyn College, actually, but close enough.
The brief story (or not so brief) is that the Political Science Department at Brooklyn College is sponsoring an event put together by the Students for Justice in Palestine on the Boycott-Divest-Sanctions movement (directed against Israel). Torture apologist and local-boy-gone-bad Alan Dershowitz howled about the injustice of this event (then suggested all could be made better were only other voices—hm, I wonder whose?—were brought in for “balance”), then various local politicians entered the fray, including a number of City Council members who oh-so-helpfully reminded* Brooklyn College President Karen Gould that:
A significant portion of the funding for CUNY schools comes directly from the tax dollars of the people of the State and City of New York. Every year, we legislators are asked for additional funding to support programs and initiatives at these schools and we fight hard to secure those funds. Every one of those dollars given to CUNY, and to Brooklyn College, means one less dollar going to some other worthy purpose. We do not believe this program is what the taxpayers of our City—and many who would feel targeted and demonized by this program—want their tax money to be spent on.
To which one can only politely reply: Fuck you. Twice.
Happily, President Karen Gould has defended both the department and the principle of academic freedom—rather too rare, these days.
I admit that I am not particularly a supporter of the BDS movement, largely because I think those who act on behalf of human rights in Israel and Palestine should be supported, not abandoned. But, as I wrote to the various politicians who signed these terrible letters, I see less threat to academic freedom in the airing of opinions with which I disagree than in the pressure applied by public officials on institutions to distant themselves from even the consideration of those views.
Not as pithy as Fuck you, but, y’know. . . .
~~~
*You really need to click on this second link. The first letter, by Congressman Jerome Nadler, et al, is bad enough, but the second, by Lew Fidler and nine other City Council members, calls the event speakers Judith Butler and Omar Barghouti “either anti-semitic or simply ignorant” who promote “the worst kind of hate.”
Unsurprisingly, they end with the reverse-double-flipspeak: “We believe in the principle of academic freedom. However, we also believe in the principle of not supporting schools whose programs we, and our constituents, find to be odious and wrong.”
Yeah, no.
Comments : 5 Comments »
Tags: academic freedom, BDS movement, Brooklyn College, Israel, Karen Gould, Palestine, Political Science Department, politicians, pressure, threats
Categories : Politics, Rant
AbsurdBeats 