Piano

In my idle days, I've been playing a lot of piano. I like to warm up with some easy but affective pieces, mostly Chopin Nocturnes or more recently Mazurkas. I'm not a Romanticist in literature, but I do love Romantic music. I'm starting to play a Brahms Intermezzo (A Major, Op. 118), but I have to be careful not to sight read the whole thing and then try to fine tune it. I'm impatient. I need to prevent myself from moving past the first section until it's solid, and start off hands separate. It's just so much more immediately satisfying to sight read through, but that's how one develops bad habits and awkward fingering. I have definitely done that with the Beethoven Pathetique Sonata--I started out just sight reading it because I love it, but I think it'll be hard to make it really good now because of that.

I love looking at sheet music. As the nerd that I am, I like listening to recorded music and following along with my score, making notes. I've been thinking a lot about structure and phrasing, and making sure that it's clear where phrases begin and end. Playing Chopin, I've been using a lot of rubato; I'm trying to resist messing about with time in Beethoven's slow movements. At least I have some liberty with all the ornaments.

What I love most about being able to play is that it's really a fundamental shift in my state of being: my normal everyday (prosaic) state and the instinctive conduit. It's not really an intellectual exercise, though I do have to make certain decisions before and re-evaluate after. My technique may not be perfect, but I am committed to respecting the spirit. It's important to have this sort of meditation, some arational experience--that's why many people pray. I suppose, then, that it's art that I worship. Too cheesy?

Election Post-Mortem

There's a video from The Onion that is funny but true: I feel like a huge part of my life is missing now that the election is over. Honestly, I feel fundamentally and essentially lonely, even though I have lots of friends, because I don't have the companionship of my research or work. I hope I start a job soon, because it's really driving me crazy to be so idle. I've been playing piano a lot and have started reading Ian McEwan's Saturday, but more on that in another entry.

I've always been interested in politics. In the Summer of 2007, I started noticing this Obama guy, the junior senator from Illinois, someone challenging Hillary's seemingly easy path to victory. By the time winter rolled around, I had already listened to the audiobooks of Dreams from my Father and The Audacity of Hope, which are really wonderful not just in their content but because Obama himself reads them (and won Grammys for his performance). I was especially moved by Dreams from my Father, because I felt a lot of personal connections with him. Our lives have been different in a lot of ways (I had two engaged parents, was relatively privileged), but we both lived in many places and often looked different than the people around us. I wish I had even a fraction of his discipline (and intelligence, but that may be too much to ask), but unfortunately I'm a hopeless dilettante.

Before the primaries started, it seemed clear that Obama was running in order to strengthen his national presence. However, once underway, Obama brought up all our hopes that he would win. Those early speeches are incredible, and not merely for their rhetorical prowess. Of course, Obama's race speech was the most significant--the first time a politician spoke to us as adults capable of processing nuance. When accused of being naive in wanting to talk to Iran and other hostile countries, Obama defended his position instead of backtracking; he used the same tactic with Reverend Wright. When I saw the complete videos of Wright, I really didn't think they were as controversial as anything people express on university campuses. It's true that it's not really what Wright said that is problematic, but his vision of America as static. Perhaps Obama is actually a Hegelian--the dialectic movement towards the more perfect union!

I don't dislike Hillary as many do, and she's been pretty good since her concession. It must have been hard for her, personally, to give up what once seemed to be a sure thing. Yet I do think all that shot drinking, gun talking, and of course limited knowledge of whether or not Obama is Muslim demonstrate how out-of-touch she was, and willing to compromise a coherent vision in order to win. This was much McCain's problem too: no central, focused message. And, of course, Sarah Palin...

Many "liberal intellectual elites" detest Sarah Palin, and it is easy to do so. What worries me is not so much her, but how she was allowed to grow into such a large role. I don't think intellectuals are necessarily better than others (though many are, see Obama), but active anti-intellectualism is frightening. Palin is also dangerously incurious. She seems like the anti-Obama: no nuance, inflexible, certain without reason, and mean! I think of her as Regina from Mean Girls, which is to say that of course she has a certain type of intelligence, but it's used primarily to manipulate, not to gain knowledge. At least Bush grew up with smart people around him...something must have gotten in there through osmosis.

The internet was the biggest factor in this election. John McCain doesn't know how to use a computer. While I watched MSNBC every night (Hardball, Countdown, and my favourite Rachel Maddow), I spent a lot of time on HuffPost, Slate, and many other websites. I really feel like the McCain campaign's lies would not have been so damaging to him if not for the internet. Much of what they said could be refuted with a simple google.

Election night I had some friends over and overdrank sparkling wine. It was a wonderful, historic night. My new favourite mascara, Chanel's Exceptionnel, had to be put aside in favour of some clumpy waterproof--better that than mascara down my face... It took me a few days to recover physically and clean the kitchen, but it was well worth it and I had a smile on my face the whole time. I am certain that Obama won't live up to the inflated expectations, but I think in his acceptance speech he tried to make them more realistic. Really, it's just wonderful that, besides having the first non-white president, America has a leader who is measured, nuanced, flexible, and wants to learn.

Love's Civil War: Elizabeth Bowen and Charles Ritchie, letters and diaries 1941-1973

My thesis on Elizabeth Bowen should have left me looking to read something unrelated, but _Love's Civil War_ was released the same day as I got my reader reports and I felt I had to start it right away. It did not disappoint. Ritchie describes Bowen in one of his first diaries entries about her:

"She is a witch, that's what it is. In the first place how can a woman of forty with gold bangles and the face of a woman of forty and the air of a don's wife, how can such a woman have such a body--like Donatello's David I told her when I first saw what it was like. Those small firm breasts, that modelled neck set with such beauty on her shoulders, that magnificent back [. . .]. Would I ever have fallen for her if it hadn't been for her books? I very much doubt it. But now I can't separate her from her literary self. It's as if the woman I 'love' were always accompanied by a companion spirit infinitely more exciting and more poetic and more profound than E herself."

It seems terribly intimate after a couple years of reading and researching a person to hear her lover's description of her. Her voice is so strong in her novels, literally authoritative, but many of her letters to Ritchie display an enormous vulnerability. I tend to stay away from biographical interpretations, but this really does give me greater insight. She writes that The House in Paris seems the most "screenworthy" of her novels: my chapter on that novel was called "Palimpsests and Portals: The Screen Aesthetic of The House in Paris." I felt vindicated. It was also illuminating to read about how she wrote, not only the process but also where and with what she surrounded herself. Much of her writing is about love and innocence; to see her in love, and hear her thoughts on her experiences, is a privilege. It's unearned but welcome.

I'm often quite cynical about love, but I want to believe in it. I feel like the kind of love between Bowen and Ritchie would perhaps not have survived marriage. In fact, it seems like the longest they were ever physically together was two weeks and as painful as those separations were they probably contributed to the longevity of the relationship. They are such strong personalities that it seems like clashes would have been inevitable. Charles had a good marriage with Sylvia because she accomodated him, and he could sleep with other women as he wished. Nevertheless, the fact that this love was sustained, that they had each other, that they were each the other's most important person, is a beautiful thing to try to know.

Election Countdown

I intend to write more regularly.

There's a lot to be worried about. A recent article in Time magazine outlines what could potentially go wrong on election day to prevent an Obama victory. Yet I'm trying to stay optimistic. He's up in all the polls with many paths to an electoral majority. McCain, on the other hand, doesn't really have a lot of probable permutations that amount to 270. I'm impressed with the Obama ground game too, since it seems like they're doing a good job getting people to vote early. And there's always Sarah Palin, who seems to have been chosen in order to sabotage the GOP. My mother told her friend who supports Palin that she thinks only stupid people like her. Then she apologized, but I'm sure it was clear that she actually did mean what she said. I think it's really great that she's standing up to her conservative friends :-)

I'm re-listening to the Audacity of Hope in anticipation of election day. Obama reads the audiobook, which makes it all the better. I'm also having an election party--yay!

It's Been A While

I haven't updated in a long time because I took a trip to Alberta at the end of July and then I was terribly busy the month of August finishing my thesis. I guess I got out of the habit of updating, but I'd like to get back into it. The last three weeks (since I submitted my thesis) have been kind of a blur; I've basically been alternating between sleeping, piano, and drinking. It's like being on vacation in my own home. I've been spending a lot of time following the election. It's like an addiction. I enthusiastically support Obama! We're having an election in Canada, and although it's also important, it's not as close and there isn't really the media circus of our American counterparts. I really don't want the Conservatives to get a majority; they're messing up the economy for one thing. My main issue is strengthening animal protection and appropriate consequences for abuse. I also care about the environment of course, and support a carbon tax. We'll see how it goes. I hope to update again soon and write more at length. Also, I bought a camera as my post-thesis present to myself so I'll try to post some pictures at some point.

Piano

Can you believe I wrote 7 pages today? Neither can I. But somehow I worked for 10 hours and wrote and wrote. I think this chapter will be the best one.

I have been playing piano a lot. I was thinking about how it's been a part of my life, and really my primary emotional outlet, but it's not like it naturally evolved somehow. It's not like a talent for singing or dance or writing, which require minimal training. With piano, I had to learn how to read music, and there's a lot of technique as well that you have to develop before you can use the instrument with enough proficiency that you're thinking about the music and not how to play the notes. So, I guess what I'm saying is that I'm really grateful to my parents for providing me with the opportunity to learn something that I'll use the rest of the my life. They're not musicians, no one in my family is, but they saw it as something from which I would benefit. I just wish I could have continued with lessons. Next goal: to recommence lessons and work towards getting my grade 10 and teaching certificate!

90's music (plus gross generalizations)

I am feeling nostalgic. I recently acquired a "Top 250" compilation of 90's pop songs, and, I must say, it's awesome. For a long time I've said that 1992-3 was the best time for music. I'm not sure if I believe that now, but it's true that you can't have the same sort of collective moments for good music now, because basically everything good's fragmented. The only stuff that everyone hears now is the shitty ultra-commercial stuff. But come on, didn't Nevermind pretty much blow everyone's minds? Siamese Dream? Gosh, it's too bad the Smashing Pumpkins never did anything as good as that album...

Though, the main thing is that there was this sort of absent referent to all this angst, which made it even more pathetic (in a kind of good way). I mean, no one could really feel bad about much except their own existential struggle. Post Cold-War, pre-9/11, the focus was inwards. I don't even really think about it in same terms as the interwar period I study academically, because there was really visible tension then. In the 90s, we were too busy with OJ and MJ and John Bobbitt to realize all the shit that was going down. But yeah, I do think that it made people focus on the absurdity of the banal since there wasn't anything exciting going on on a larger scale (that people noticed).

Sometimes when discussing popular culture with my students I would make distinctions between culture pre- and post-9/11, and it occured to me belatedly that they probably don't even really remember pre-9/11. I mean, they do, but it's not like they remember much of the 1990's. It would be like me remembering before the USSR became Russia-et-al.

Obama New Yorker cover

I love satire and I generally really like the New Yorker. When I saw this cover, I didn't know what to think at first but I've since been mulling it over. I'm all for freedom of the press with extremely limited restrictions (generally, hate speech), and was even for the reprinting of the Mohammed cartoons, but this cover bothered me (not rioting bothered me, mind you, just a fleeting sense of annoyance). I saw Hardball with Chris Matthews, and to paraphrase his point, caricature (the type of satire in this case) should be about taking something that exists and exaggerating it ad absurdum. My extrapolation: the cover caricatures the wrong thing. The object of satire--the idiots who actually believe what's depicted--make no appearance in the image. We see only what those people have falsely interpollated into the Obama narrative, with no relation to any known reality. I think that's why there's all this talk about whether or not people are "getting it." Well, yes, most people are, but it takes a cognitive leap (that only takes a few moments, one would hope) to identify what's missing ("the point"). Subsequently, the problem is that Obama himself is mistaken for the object of satire--this is why it's not only tasteless, but a poor example of the form. It's not that I think that liberal magazines have a responsibility to portray the liberal candidate in a good light, but I do think they need to understand the complexities of representation and reception (that is their business, after all)!

The other issue, of course, is that some of the generally neutral signifiers (dap, afro, Islam) are made negative by association (black militancy, terrorism). This whole "being a Muslim" as a negative thing is quite disturbing, as in and of itself Islam's not any worse than religion-in-general (but then again, how can we decontextualize it from its manifest fundamental interpretations? then "neutrality" as a concept is untenable--nothing is innocent, ha ha). In the US, I would say Christian fundamentalists are more scary, because they're more unified--the Muslims are too few and diverse to become a strong political force.

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Addendum: Here's a funny cartoon.

Thinking about this a bit more, it seems like perhaps simply including title of the article, "The Politics of Fear" would be sufficient (and would serve as the object). It would also put the image in quotation marks, so to speak.

Of course, in a perfect world, this wouldn't even be a big deal at all. To quote the Russian from America's Next Top Model, "some people have war in their country."

Print Media

Today I renewed my subscription to the Globe and Mail. I always feel some hesitation at this, but I do like getting a newspaper. I don't really like the Globe though, and I complain about it often. I don't think they have any really excellent columnists, and there are two writers that I think are consistently idiotic, illogical, vapid (Margaret Wente and Leah McLaren -- does anyone read these bozos seriously?). There's something I like about holding the paper, reading it while I have my breakfast and coffee. I think it's part of my addiction to information. I like that it's a national paper, which is why I don't subscribe to the Montreal Gazette. Perhaps if I move to Ottawa, I'll subscribe to the Ottawa Citizen, though I really don't know anything about it.

I love magazines. I also renewed my subscription to the Walrus, and I hope the magazine stays good under the new editor. I usually like Vogue, but sometimes it bothers me (the whole Sex and the City spread, recently). I got a copy of Vogue India recently, and it's pretty good, but I hope it will improve with time. For a more local take on fashion I subscribe to Fashion magazine, based in Toronto--I like their pages on different shops in Canadian cities. I've been trying to save money, so I've been reading Vanity Fair and the New Yorker online instead of buying them. When I feel like splurging I get the Sunday Times...so good but $10/issue! I have so many books to read and so much work, but I do love newspapers and magazines. It's too bad getting a job in journalism is so impossible...maybe more so than academe!

The obligatory comment: I don't think the internet will kill print media. Yes, it's suffering, but I'm online more than most people and I still enjoy holding what I'm reading, being able to take it around. And I always recycle!

P.S. I'm getting the hang of using the links feature, as you can tell.

The Incompetence and Casual Cruelty of Fritz LeChat

A very large moth that flew in a couple days ago re-emerged today. I held Fritz like a gun (like a laser cat, if you've seen the SNL digital shorts) and went hunting for the moth. Fritz, despite his heightened feline senses, could not see the moth when it wasn't moving. When it was flying, he went crazy leaping into the air and chirruping after it. When he couldn't see the moth anymore, he sniffed, looked around, and meowed after it--"where have you gone? can't you hear me meowing for you?" It was cute and funny to watch him being incompetent hunting the moth, but as Fritz started winning, it became kind of sad. The moth was a real survivor. He got it in his mouth maybe half a dozen times and it always managed to fly out, even the time when he carried it across the apartment in triumph (when he reached his arbitrary destination, he opened his mouth and of course it escaped). Eventually, Fritz wore it down and it couldn't fly anymore, but it took about 20 minutes for him to deliver the coup de grace. He simply could not manage to chew it enough to prevent it from creeping out. I felt so sorry for the moth. Can they feel pain? Fritz kept giving up, looking around, meowing at me, putting his fluffy head down, and then returning to the moth. I don't know where it is now or if he did eventually eat it, but I do regret that this fun activity turned sour; I thought he would give it a quick death. Maybe I'm trying to disavow agency for the moth's suffering...

I prefer winter to summer. It's tooooo hot. Even when it's cool outside, it's hot in my apartment. Rargh!

Wall-E (mild spoilers)

I adore Wall-E. It's always interesting to look at, but parts of it are actually breathtaking. It's simple, with minimal dialogue, but still detailed visually. 2001: A Space Odyssey is one of my favourite movies, and Wall-E is an explicit homage. More subtly, the ending is like City Lights (well, the emphasis on slapstick, chance, charm, etc. is all Chaplinesque), but of course since it's Disney the mere recognition isn't enough for narrative closure, there has to be the final union (coinciding with the commencement of a new civilization). So much of it is about how we are a product of our environment, but ultimately it's about how we can transcend that. We don't have any access to the interiority of the robots, really, since they don't talk much. We get a sense from their actions and genstures, of course, but what's really smart is that we learn about Wall-E through external stuff like Hello Dolly--he's a hopeless romantic. So, in the end, they manage to give the robots their own subjectivity and consciousness even though they're programmed (at one point the plot turns on a robot going against programming). Anyway, it's a great romp through film history and a well-constructed story. It almost makes up for me having to sit through Sex and the City, if anything can.

Also I'm finishing up DS9. Sooooo gooood! I wish I'd gone through Seasons 4-6 more slowly. I'm going to have DS9 withdrawal soon! Voyager isn't as good, neither is Battlestar Galactica. Alas, nothing can make up for the loss of DS9...

DS9 Season 7, Sex and the City, In Bruges

I've been watching Season 7 of DS9, and it's pretty good. Spoiler warning: I think it's a shame that Jadzia had to die, not because I care so much about her specifically (it's an ensemble cast, so the other characters can carry the show), but that it makes me sad that they put Worf through all of that. Also, it takes up valuable time in the first few episodes to transition from the old Dax to the new, and it could be better spent on (existing) character development or narrative, etc. Oh well. I still love DS9.

I saw Sex and the City today, and it was truly awful. There are movies that are bad, and then there are movies that make you wish that you could recover the precious time that you wasted watching it. This movie is not merely bad. The product placement would be bad enough, but the narrative isn't even well constructed. Gosh, there must be better actual commercials. There were lots of episodes of the show I liked (though I always thought it had a class and race problem). This movie flattens the characters and makes women seem whiny, materialistic, manipulative, stubborn, demanding... I don't hate NYC in general (and I like a lot about it), but this movie reminds me of the things I hate about NYC: the obsession with status, class and race segregation (there's a "black" New Years Party that the token black person attends). I really can't stand Carrie. Normally I don't mind Miranda but she's a real bitch in this. It's scary that Samantha's story ends with her realizing she loves herself more than anything/one else, and we're supposed to take that as some sort of feminist stand. Charlotte is, well, annoying. Anthony Lane's review of SATC actually made me laugh more than the film itself.

I also saw In Bruges, and it was OK. I know it's a cliche to see your work everywhere, but I really think a lot of what I've been talking about in my current chapter (the rough draft of which is pretty much done) applies to In Bruges. It's this palimpsest view of history, in this old medieval city. Everything converges on a film set; action is predicated on something false or absent or incomprehensible. Time and memory etc are rewritten blah blah... Hell has this particular sort of ontology: layers of inescapable history--that's why Bruges is hell, because you can't get away from the past. He needs a new start so in the last shot he's moved to this sterile environment, then it cuts to the credits. There's also a lot of relating the cinematic and dream experiences. Lots of inversions. Anyway, I'm not sure the film itself was entirely successful. I think it needed more story. It was kind of slow in parts and I found my attention wandering. Though after Sex and the City, it was a masterpiece.

Morgenthaler, Beethoven, Thesis

I don't know why I read Margaret Wente's columns in the Globe, but somehow I can't help it. Maybe there's something appealing about getting angry in the morning, but I can't imagine that's it, since I also believe that much of what she writes is actually dangerous. Today's column was about Dr. Henry Morgenthaler, who recently received the Order of Canada for his work on abortion rights. Her thesis is that it should be safe, accessible, and rare, but she does not outline how society is somehow supposed to make people have less abortions while also increasing accessibility. It seems to me that she needs more to back up what she's saying (which is always her problem)--what are the demographics that are getting abortions? Are there less abortions in school districts that have better sex-ed programs and easily accessible contraception? But what really made me upset was this line: "You can't put all the blame on lack of access to sex education or birth control, which are readily available almost everywhere. Instead, it seems plain that a lot of women are using abortion as a substitute for birth control." What?! How is that "plain"? And aren't there many places that don't have adequate sex-ed? Or condoms in the schools? Perhaps I am being naive, but I cannot imagine how anyone would use abortion as a birth control method. Though Wente claims to be pro-choice, this seems like what anti-abortion people say. More to the point, if you're someone crazy enough to use abortion as birth control, there's probably nothing "society" can do to change your habits, and making abortion less accessible is a health risk we should not tolerate. Wente is always full of contradictions and she really doesn't pursue her statements to their logical conclusions. Yes, I would write in the margins, "substantiate," "clarify logic," "develop consequences." Goodness!

In other news, I've been working on some Beethoven sonatas. For the past few weeks, I've been tackling the F minor, Op.2, No.1 --mostly the first and fourth movements. The third movement is nice, but short, and the second movement I'll look at later. I need more discipline for the second movements; when I start, I like the thrill of the faster first and last. The fourth movement is really fun to play. A couple days ago I started playing around with the G minor, Op.49, No.1, and it's easy enough to sight-read with satisfaction. I've been honing the C minor, Op.10, No.1 for a while now and it's improving with age, especially the slow second movement. Of course, I also like storming my way through the Pathetique and the gentle melancholy of the Moonlight. I've been listening to some recordings, and some people use more pedal than others. If any pianists are reading--what are your thoughts about this? I tend to use as little pedal as possible, but I often need it because my hands are so small. My old piano teacher used to hate using pedal with Beethoven. I'd been playing Chopin for so long, I got used to it, but Beethoven certainly does lend itself to a drier sound. Especially in the first movement of Op.10, No.1 I use very little pedal because I remember playing if the first time (with some pedal) for my piano teacher and she left my 16 year-old self in tears. In any case, these early sonatas are not nearly as interesting or complex, as, say, Pathetique, but still fun to play! I do wish my hands were bigger, as Beethoven likes those octaves! I feel handicapped! I should add some Bach and Mendelssohn to the mix, and perhaps ressurect my Mozart concerto in D minor (no.20). If I won the lottery, I really would just play piano all day.

My second chapter is progressing, nearing completion, perhaps even in the next 24 hours. I feel a sense of anxiety that I may not have enough time to revise, and believe me my drafts are rough. Yet when I read through passages, without the pressure of writing, I'm reminded of how beautiful and astute Bowen's writing is, and it feels like a privilege to be working with such wonderful material. If I had another month or two, I feel my thesis could be my best work thus far (which is as it should be, ideally). Oh well, we shall see!

Far Beyond the Stars, Thesis

I just saw the episode of DS9 "Far Beyond the Stars." It's really one of the best ones. Gosh, Avery Brooks is amazing, both as actor and director. There's a scene near the end that will have you in tears. It's really difficult to make an episode so "meta" but somehow they pull it off without being gimmicky. Watch it!

I've been thinking about why I'm having so many problems writing my thesis. It's hard to sit down and concentrate, but that's not the whole problem. I need more time to live with me ideas, and more time to develop them. What I have written down seems to me basically a list of interesting things loosely connected. If I were in grading mode, I would write "consequences? develop" in the margins. I am disappointed primarily because I think it could be quite good, but I probably don't have the time. If my fall job doesn't require me to have completely finished my degree, I think I may try to extend the thesis into the fall... Yes, it's time for me to leave school, but my thesis is really important to me, and I would hate to shortchange it.

DS9, Ideology, and Journalism

I was reminded last night of how complex DS9 really is. There are so many different parties with competing ideologies. We have the Federation (military arm = Starfleet), Cardassians (intelligence arm = Obsidian Order), Bajorans, Dominion (consisting of Founders, Vorta, Jem'Hadar), Ferengi, the Prophets, Klingons, Romulans (intelligence arm = Tal Shiare)... there are lots more but I suppose these are the main ones. Continuing from my last post, I've been thinking about dictators, and at one point Gul Dukat (one of the best villains ever, a Cardassian) is talking to the Vorta Weyoun about how they can secure a takeover of the Alpha Quadrant. Weyoun says that resistance will start at Earth, so the only solution is to eradicate its population. Dukat, on the other hand, says that Weyoun doesn't understand that what they have to do is get the Alpha Quadrant to love them, to welcome them as liberators, so-to-speak, because that's the only way to hold on to power. Before the series started, he was the head of the Cardassian occupation of Bajor, and all he wanted was to be loved, to have statues and monuments to his benevolence. Of course, he also ran labour camps that were little more than concentration camps. The Bajorans are like Palestinians, but, you know, not so "othered." Hmmm...all this is a gross simplification, but you get the idea.

I read the Globe and Mail every morning, but sometimes I wonder why. I do like the feel of a real newspaper. I like sitting at my kitchen table with my coffee (in the summer, iced coffee) and breakfast and taking some to turn pages physically...I spend so much time on the internet. My most hated columnist is Margaret Wente (more on that whenever her next column comes out), but today there was an editorial by Lorna Dueck that was, frankly, shocking. I've read her Christian essays before--they have her write something every once in a while--but this was the worst. Most of the time her articles are about how people need to bring a spiritual dimension into their lives, and how Christian ethics should inform policy, etc. This one was about parenting. Here are some choice quotes: "I could write a book about my childhood--a lot of us could--but here's the baffling truth: We're born with sin our genes and it takes a lifetime to evolve to good." She is talking about the need to discipline your sinful kids, and how parents are sinful as well: "Sin has no limit of age and if there is any reason to involve the state over family discipline issues, it happens because we are spiritually sick." She ends with, "It's not the state that's needed, it's not even religion, it's just me knowing what to do with the sin." I cannot believe that a publication that touts itself as Canada's national paper would print such garbage. I can imagine the letters to the editor will be flooding in--I'm interested to see which make it onto the editorial page. The Globe and Mail is really not a good newspaper...but I don't see how the Montreal Gazette or The National Post would be any better. One good thing about moving to the States (if I must, eventually) will be American media (seems like a funny thing to say!). Print media, more specifically, is infinitely better south of the border. The Globe Style section is pretty awful...I don't see how Leah McLaren is paid to write such drivel. This is not my "militant" atheism talking: I do think it's abusive to tell a child he or she is inherently sinful. And how is sin defined anyway? Is extra-/pre-marital sex, homosexuality, or masturbation sinful? What about abortion? What a great way to maintain a religion--tell everyone that they're sinful and that adhering to the religion is the only way to some sort of paradise (so don't be afraid of death as long as you're religious).

Inaugural Post!

I am starting this blog because I spend way too much time on the internet and my mind wanders, and I figured a blog would be a good way to get all my thoughts down and hopefully focus them in the process. I found myself posting things on Facebook, which would go into my friends' news feeds, and I would much rather not bother everyone with things I find interesting. This way, only people who are actually interested in what I think about things (which may be no one!) will be burdened. This will really be less of a "what's happening in my real life" blog than "what's happening in my dilettante life." For the most part, I imagine I'll talk about TV shows and movies, books and music, but also politics and perhaps even some more philosophical musings. Haha! Reader beware!

Right now I'm trying to write the second chapter of my thesis, and because I'm such a scatter-brain, it's taking quite a bit longer than I anticipated. I've been re-watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and it's still really good and relevant. I started again because I was thinking about how John McCain said that the US could be in Iraq for another hundred years, and on the surface that doesn't seem like such an unreasonable thing to say. There are still American troops in Korea, Japan, Germany, and other places, but not in combat roles. However, it does seem that the conflicts that led to those long-term deployments were quaititatively different than what's going on in the Middle East right now. What's good about DS9 (and other STs too, but this one does it best) is isolate certain elements of different cultures and then explore them in depth, over many episodes. Indeed, most of the series is the same war, and the bad guys aren't totally bad, the good guys often do unethical things.

The other thing I've been thinking about, not extensively though, is what's going on in Zimbabwe. I saw an episode of DS9 in which a former Federation officer turned terrorist/freedom fighter tells Captain Sisko that the Federation is worse than the Borg, because at least the Borg tell you up front that you're going to be assimilated and that resistance is futile. The Federation makes you think that you're advancing the cause of liberal democracy and egalitarianism, but they're really incorporating you into their ideology. Whatever you think of that (the Federation utopia seems pretty good), it's an interesting thing to consider. Isn't that what Zizek is always going on about? His new book (In Defense of Lost Causes) seems to be about that, at least in part, in terms of the perils of liberal democracies. Mugabe holding elections, and forcing people to vote, seems to be an extreme version of this: I'm not going to be your run-of-the-mill dictator, I'm going to make you endorse me. Of course, if you don't have a purple finger to show you've voted (really only one name is available), you'll be punished. Does it somehow make you nostalgic for the good old days when dictators didn't need such validation?

Why am I writing this blog instead of my thesis? Well, sometimes everyone needs a break. Though mine seems to have lasted 3 days. I ought to do some research tonight at least...anticipate the next chapter!