Tuesday's Brain: "Send More Paramedics!"

[elfs]

Why Americans Hate the Media

This rather old article (1996!) from the Atlantic magazine addresses the media's obsession with interpersonal and interparty conflict, which goes so far as to deny that Congress's role is to, you know, actually legislate:

When Edward Kennedy began giving his views about the balanced-budget amendment, [Dan] Rather steered him back on course: "Senator, you know I'd talk about these things the rest of the afternoon, but let's move quickly to politics. Do you expect Bill Clinton to be the Democratic nominee for re-election in 1996?"

Conflict sells, and the narrow scope of politics can be depicted solely as conflict. Unfortuntately, this taints our impression of politics so badly we've come to loathe both the press and the people it covers. The odd thing is that the title of this article suggests that it's purpose is more conflict, not resolution, and such is the case. I just found it, and I think it's quite relevant to our election cycle. We're obsessed with how Obama does against Hilary, or how either will fare against McCain, not what each will accomplish. A sober analysis of what McCain would do shows that he is not fit to be President. But the press "likes" him, and has built this illusory maverick, and now they would have to admit they lied to us about his "maverick" status (siding with the President 91% of the time, 99.994% in matters of war).

"This Is How We Lost to the White Man"

I found the article above while reading this one. I don't think we give Bill Cosby enough credit. His "organic" conservative rhetoric about convincing the American black community to have better values, familial values, to be ashamed of out-of-wedlock births and to laugh at absurd Africa fetishization, is trying to save black America from itself. The only question for me is, would attention from outside help or hurt his cause? I can't address anymore of this without knowing the answer. A key point to take from the story is that Cosby's conservatism is not like Limbaugh's conservatism: it is earnest, for one thing, rather than hypocritical, and it will vote for conservative Dems because even conservative black America believes that the GOP still hates blacks.

Bill just can't let go of his penis

There's a theory that Bill Clinton wants to sabotage Hilary's chances because he can't stand the idea of being in the White House and not being top dog. Bill's recent reiteration of the discredited Bosnia story makes that certainly seem possible now. How else to explain his gaffe this weekend?

Gay Parents More Involved in Children's Education

The report also highlights the difficulties of being gay parents: more than half of gay families reported exclusion or shunning by school officials, a quarter reported mistreatment from other parents or even children.

A woman with two sets of genes.

This is so completely cool: this woman is the result of two fused fraternal eggs that, somehow, managed to get its evodevo signalling correct during fetal development. She has two different sets of genes, one regulating her body, the other regulating her reproductive system. A blood test shows her own kids aren't hers. From a pro-choice standpoint, I have to ask pro-lifers who believe that life began at conception: Since this woman is the result of two conceptions, does she have two souls? Is she a lesbian mother? Pandagon makes the same observations and adds: "Is it incestious polygamous lesbian motherhood? Does she get to use the HOV lane all by herself?" But as an SF writer, this is irresistable stuff.

Terry Paulson lies about biology

Just another silly article about Expelled, whining about how "science" has become "politically correct" and denies funding to people who want to investigate how God created the world in seven days. Paulson repeats the R. von Sternberg lies, and quotes Moonie John Wells, and so on. Just keepin' it real.

Comments

Sterlings

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Elf,

I just caught up on Sterlings (I missed an update some months back, and only got back to it now). I'm very much enjoying the story. However, (and I don't mean to offend here), don't you think the Dove storyline is a little too obviously derivative of Takemaru Sesshu's Take On Me? Given the clues in those stories, I can see the pretty obvious commonalities in character design across the whole Sterlings arc -- but with the other characters it's not quite as blatant.

Dove, Ash and Arwen are noticably different from the corresponding characters in Take On Me vol 2, but their interactions are virtually identical -- down to the sequence of sex scenes and the progression of their relationship.

-Malthus

Re: Sterlings

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Good catch. Yeah, I admitted a long time ago that I was riffing on it. I wanted more of that damn series and he hadn't finished it in, like, two years. (I hear he finally did, but I can't find it anywhere.)

Yeah, now that I've got them, though, I'm gonna do more or less the same thing I did originally with the whole of the Journal Entries... run away with it and make them mine. I like the Dove, Ash and Arwen I came up with, and plan on doing more.

[gromm.livejournal.com]

So many comments, so little time.

a quarter reported mistreatment from other parents or even children.

I would expect that it would come more from the children actually. But maybe that's just because I remember the rampant gay-bashing in school more than most.

A woman with two sets of genes.

They're called Chimeras (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_%28genetics%29). But they're also exceedingly rare, with only 40 humans ever found as such.

whining about how "science" has become "politically correct" and denies funding to people who want to investigate how God created the world in seven days

He should stop whining and instead do research into why God has such an extraordinarily poor grasp of time (maybe it's 'cause he's immortal and/or exists on a different plane of existance). Or maybe why the Egyptians didn't have a term for "billions". Or maybe why Moses' eyes glazed over when God told him the real story. Just a thought.