Culture: February 2003 Archive Page

"Media mega-star Oprah Winfrey?s announcement that ?I'm back in the business of recommending books?but with a difference,? drew a standing ovation from an audience of America?s leading publishers... [T]he new book club will focus on literary classics because ?I cannot imagine a world where the great works of literature are not read.? Her hope, she said, is that ?The Oprah Winfrey Show? will ?make classic works of literature accessible to every woman and man who reads.?" --Oprah's Book Club: Back to the ClassicsPress Release)

"Margaret Bourke-White hung out of bombers to take pictures, climbed out on a gargoyle high atop the Chrysler Building to take pictures, was the first Western photographer to go to the Soviet Union, covered the dangerous days of India's partition....Margaret Bourke-White was in love with the shapes of industrial design -- the mechanical muscle and sheen of it." Susan Stamberg reports on an exhibit of Bourke-White's extraordinary photographs of the mechanisms and infrastructure that were revolutionizing American society in the Age of the Machine. --Bourke-White's 'Photography of Design': Early Work Found the Hidden Beauty in IndustryNPR)

"The arts and the sciences are again joining together as one culture, the third culture. Those involved in this effort?on either side of C.P. Snow's old divide?are at the center of today's intellectual action. They are the new humanists.....In too much of academia, intellectual debate tends to center on such matters as who was or was not a Stalinist in 1937, or what the sleeping arrangements were for guests at a Bloomsbury weekend in the early part of the twentieth century. This is not to suggest that studying history is a waste of time: History illuminates our origins and keeps us from reinventing the wheel. But the question arises: History of what? Do we want the center of culture to be based on a closed system, a process of text in/text out, and no empirical contact with the real world? One can only marvel at, for example, art critics who know nothing about visual perception; "social constructionist" literary critics uninterested in the human universals documented by anthropologists; opponents of genetically modified foods, additives, and pesticide residues who are ignorant of genetics and evolutionary biology." John Brockman --The New HumanistsEdge)

"Of course I wanted to be popular.|But in fact I didn't, not enough. There was something else I wanted more: to be smart. Not simply to do well in school, though that counted for something, but to design marvellous rockets, or to write well, or to understand how to program computers. In general, to make great things..." Paul Graham --Why Nerds are UnpopularPaulGraham.com)

A lot of bloggers must be nerds, because the above story is currently #2 on Blogdex.

"[A]cademics are throwing themselves into the study of emotion with the rapturous intensity of a love affair. In a sense, emotion has always been at the core of the humanities: Without the passions, there would not be much history, and even less literature. Indeed the very word 'philosophy' begins with philos (love)." Scott McLemee --Getting EmotionalChronicle)

"Vatsim allows virtual pilots (but real people) and virtual air traffic controllers (also real people) to see each other and communicate. The result is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game patterned after the government's dullest bureaucracy." --Always a Dull Moment: The hottest game in the sky is simulating a holding pattern. Fasten your seat belt.Wired)

"Once you've got her, the next step is keeping her. To do this, just remember that your geek girl has a few special things about her that distinguish her from other women. All women like gifts, but the geek girl's tastes are different. The average woman likes flowers, but the geek girl is not average, and would probably rather not be bothered with something so transient. A Star Trek mousepad would last much longer. Thinking of getting her a necklace? Why not a new sound card instead?" --Guy's Guide to Geek GirlsLisa Michaud)

Via Slashdot.

"All the scenester dudes are either dating a series of interchangeable high-school riot grrrls in baby doll dresses and an overdose of manic panic, or permanently shacked up with some bitter old lady who pays all the bills. Which will it be, a wifely prison or a humiliating one night stand? Into this void of potential mates comes a man you may not have considered before, a man of substance, quietude and stability, a cerebral creature with a culture all his own. In short, a geek." --Girl's Guide to Geek GuysMikki Halpin and Victoria Maat)

Via Slashdot.

"There are two types of people -- those who prefer to communicate via e-mail, and those who prefer the phone. What the phone people don't realize is that their need for information means that they're going to interrupt someone else's day to get that information. E-mail, on the other hand, is just as quick and non-intrusive. Whenever possible, I try to send an e-mail before picking up the phone. I love e-mail, it's the way people were meant to communicate -- I'm sure of it." Joezilla

--I Hate PhonesDissociated Presszilla)

While I sometimes complain about all the e-mails I get, I do like the fact that I can deal with them on my own time -- at 2am, if I feel like it. Unreturned phone calls don't pile up like unanswered e-mails, so the psychological pressure of that long list of messages in my in box mounts up; but that's nothing compared to the frustration I feel when a telephone call catches me at a bad time. I know, I know... I could just pay extra money for caller ID.

"Cool-2B-Real is about real girls like you! Whether you're in school, playing sports or just having fun, strive to be the best you can be! Real girls are 'keepin' it real' by building strong bodies and strong minds... and they're feeling great about themselves!"

Brought to real girls everywhere by the award-winning experts in girl culture, the Cattlemen's Beef Board and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. (I am not making this up.)

P.S. Eat beef, little girls... eat beef!

--Cool 2B Real Home PageAmerica's Beef Producers)

Concerned parents of beef-swilling girls everywhere will be happy to hear that the site is brought to us by kidscom.com. But if you go to kidscom.com, all you will get is the following message, with no links: "Come on kids, join the fun! KidsCom has plenty of games, message boards, kids chat, video game cheats, contests and prizes. This is a site for kids! KidsCom is a safe kid site, focusing on fun and Internet safety. Check back for new games, kids chat, prizes and tons of fun!"

"Over the next two and a half years, Güntürkün recorded 124 scientifically valid kisses in public places across the United States, Germany and Turkey." --Most People Kiss the Right WayNature)

The story cited above is a puffy little version of an academic article called "Adult persistence of head-turning asymmetry"

"The BWCA is a pristine wilderness and a canoeist's paradise in north-eastern Minnesota. It has over 1,500 miles of canoe routes and more than 1,000 lakes and streams. It has been largely unaltered by human hands since the 1930's, and is today an official wilderness. You can plan a canoe route to "get away from it all" and never see another group for most of your trip, or you can take an easier trip and simply enjoy being away from civilization. Maybe even go fishing. Whatever you do, you will see beautiful wilderness, breathe in clean fresh air, and enjoy some of the cleanest water in the world." Will Gayther --Boundary Waters Canoe Area (Minnesota, USA) (BWCA info)

"There are dozens of well-designed studies that show that TV, movies and other media affect what viewers believe and how they behave. This is true of many different kinds of attitudes and behaviors -- positive and negative -- but many studies conclusively show a statistical link between watching violent programs and behaving aggressively. And, of course, billions of dollars have been spent on media advertising because it is well established that even brief messages can be powerful in shaping behavior. However, there are very few studies of whether exposure to media violence causes criminal behavior." Diana Zuckerman --What is to Blame for Youth Violence?: The Media, Guns, Parenting, Poverty, Bad Programs, Or? Nat'l Center for Policy)

I found this link on Donna Hibbs's Media Issues Weblog," which looks like it will be worth watching.

"The genetic code is truly digital, in exactly the same sense as computer codes. This is not some vague analogy, it is the literal truth. Moreover, unlike computer codes, the genetic code is universal. Modern computers are built around a number of mutually incompatible machine languages, determined by their processor chips. The genetic code, on the other hand, with a few very minor exceptions, is identical in every living creature on this planet, from sulphur bacteria to giant redwood trees, from mushrooms to men." Richard Dawkins --Genetics: Why Prince Charles is So WrongCheckbiotech)

Note: The title of this piece most likely refers to a 2000 lecture series in which Britain's Prince Charles spoke against genetic engineering.

"But however it may be in the art gallery, in moral issues we often cannot agree to differ. Agreeing to differ with Genghis is in effect agreeing to tolerate fox-hunting, and my whole stance was against that. Moral issues are frequently ones where we want to coordinate, and where we are finding what to forbid and what to allow. Naturally, the burden falls on those who want to forbid: in liberal societies, freedom is the default. But this cannot be a carte blanche for any kind of behaviour, however sickening or distressful or damaging. It is just not true that anything goes. So conversation has to go on about what to allow and what to forbid." Simon Blackburn --Relatively SpeakingButterflies and Wheels)