Sunday, August 16, 2015

Are Science Fiction and Fantasy Shockingly Offensive?



I actually agree with Lutgendorff that there's a lot of sexism in the science fiction and fantasy genres. But is not aesthetically sound to judge an entire genre using a single moral or political principle. I also agree with Lutgendorff's implicit assumption that morality is relevant to aesthetic evaluation, but her article seems to imply that it is the only or the most important principle of aesthetic evaluation, which is false. 

Perhaps Lutgendorff is not making an aesthetic argument at all, but rather a moral or political argument about the badness of the science fiction and fantasy genres. In that case, her argument still seems rather tone-deaf to the aesthetic merit of some of the works she discusses (Terry Brooks' Shannara novels excluded, inter alia). This seems to be an example of a larger social trend to reduce all of moral, aesthetic, and spiritual evaluation to gender politics or to some other narrow (if nonetheless important) political principle.

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

The Flip Side of Critical Thinking



Her article is a little wordy, and I'm not sure she sufficiently expounds and expands upon the promise of this notion, but it is indeed promising. I sense a new movement just around the corner for "Constructive Imagination" in liberal arts courses. Just please, could we avoid the frenzied use of buzzwords and self-congratulatory smarm, this one time? Morton's idea is too important to be gradually smothered through the usual academic mechanisms and machinations.

Friday, August 07, 2015

Bee-lieve It or Not



The blog post doesn't discuss the fact that the number of bee colonies is still way down from a 1989 high, nor the ecosystem effects (if any) of beekeepers' more rigorous application of the traditional methods for replacing lost colonies. It does discuss the increase in the price of honey which seems to have been caused by these efforts.

I still feel some more context is needed to understand the full story of what is happening with the honeybees and CCD. While I am a believer in the free market, WHICH IS MAGIC just as the blog post says, something is missing (or several somethings).

THEESatisfaction

This duo has single-handedly restored my faith in MODERN MUSIC and TODAY'S YOUTH.

Here's the official video for their song "QueenS," from their first album AwE NaturallE (2012, on the Sub Pop label):


And here they are channeling Sun Ra (and so much more!) from their second album, EarthEE (2015, also on Sub Pop):



Of Lions and Poachers


"Hunting can be a valuable component to conservation. If a property has a hunting quota and that money comes back from hunting into the management of the land, it's not going to be at risk," he said. 
"So we have to be careful. The world reaction might polarise things and hunting might be banned outright. 
"I think we have to be very cautious about how this momentum can be used."
Many people have claimed that sport hunting can actually help conservation efforts, in large part because it gives landowners an economic incentive to try to protect and preserve populations of game animals, but it's interesting to hear similar thoughts being expressed by a researcher on the ground who was actually working with Cecil.