ramble through the bronx

yes, this here is ramble through the bronx, the continuing musings of a graduate student* who should be writing her dissertation, but honestly, living in new york city there's really so much else to do...

* and her commenting friends. And guest blogger.
[welcome to ramble through the bronx | bloghome
[archive]
[I wish I was a mole in the ground]
FRIENDS
NYC
Meredith [>] (NYC/Toronto)
Emily [>] (Brooklyn)
Emily's music site[>]
Jeremy [>] (Bronx)
Ryan [>] (Bronx)
non-NYC people I miss
Jennifer [>] (Toronto)
Tokyo Tintin[>] (Tokyo/Toronto)
Dawn [>] (Ottawa)
Caitlyn [>] (Ottawa)
CBC [>] (my true love)
del.icio.us/janeyjane [>] (my social link collection, alas, not updated lately. I am apparently not delicious)
The Keeper [>] (try it, you'll love it)
comics sites that I check every day
Newsarama [>] (check out the 'blog' section especially)
When Fangirls Attack [>] (women in comics links)
politics, media, and gossip
AlterNet [>]
Wonkette[>]
Gawker[>]
'Fuddle duddle' incident [>]
The Nation [>]
Catholic stuff
America Magazine [>] magazine of US Jesuits
Commonweal Magazine [>] biweekly magazine of lay Catholics
Karl Rahner Society [>] site dedicated to awesome 20th c. theologian
Liberal Catholic News [>] blog for progressive catholics
Pacem in Terris [>] Pope John XXIII's 1963 encyclical
music - mostly folk music and banjo links
The How and Tao of Folk Music [>] Patrick Costello's podcasts & banjo & folk guitar instruction
Back Porch News [>]News, Commentary & Links for the folkie community
E-Z Folk [>]Folk music instruction and tabulature
amuse yourself
Piled Higher and Deeper [>] (comic about grad student life)
Cat and Girl [>] just what it sounds like
The Onion [>]
Sluggy Freelance [>]
The Boondocks [>]
Eric Conveys an Emotion [>]
philosophy
Society for Women in Philosophy [>]
the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy [>]
The Hegel Society of America[>]
North American Fichte Society[>]
Journal of Neoplatonic Studies [>]
Women Philosophers [>]
Brian Leiter's blog [>]
read/see/hear
Harper's [>]
Neil Gaiman [>]
Charles de Lint [>]
Making Light [>]
McSweeney's [>]
WFUV [>]
Anti-pedantry page: Singular 'their' in Jane Austen [>]
places I miss
Cafe Diplomatico [>] (Toronto)
The Red Room [>] (Toronto)
The Free Times Cafe [>] (Toronto)
Sneaky Dee's [>] (Toronto... aka Sneaky Disease, best nachos in town)
Kensington Market [>] (Toronto)
College Street [>] (Toronto)
Perfection Satisfaction Promise [>] (Ottawa - formerly the Painted Potato)
Piccolo Grande [>] (Ottawa)
The Market [>] (Ottawa)
Stray cats of Parliament Hill [>] (Ottawa)
other nonsense
Mozilla [>]
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Alibris [>]
Metafilter [>]
and thank you
Thanks to Haloscan for blog-comment-ability

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Happy National Meth Day!

Quick on the heels of "Crack Cocaine Day" and "Mary Jane Day" comes a new US national holiday.... Meth Day!

May you all go out and celebrate in paranoia.

meg 1:57 PM [+]

Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Somehow, I'm not surprised

A nifty questionnaire that plots your political leanings. What a surprise.... I'm a lefty libertarian. Like Ghandi and Nelson Mandela.
My results:
Economic Left/Right: -7.13
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.36

meg 7:49 PM [+]

Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Sure, outsiders mistake me for a Canadian...

What American accent do you have?
Your Result: North Central

"North Central" is what professional linguists call the Minnesota accent. If you saw "Fargo" you probably didn't think the characters sounded very out of the ordinary. Outsiders probably mistake you for a Canadian a lot.

The West
The Midland
Boston
The Inland North
The South
Philadelphia
The Northeast
What American accent do you have?
Take More Quizzes

jane 11:09 PM [+]

Map of you!

Just thought you'd like to see yourselves. Check it out!


jane 3:24 PM [+]

Monday, November 27, 2006
This whole professionalization thing is wacky

I've been getting some letters and emails lately, acknowledging receipt of my job applications.

One today, from a University That Will Remain Unnamed --
This is to acknowledge receipt of your application for the tenure-track position in Philosophy at Blahdiblah State University. Applications will be reviewed by the search committee during the next several weeks. We will be in touch with you as the selection proceeds.

In the meantime, in accordance with University policy, please complete and return the enclosed self-stamped and self-addressed affirmative action card to: Affirmative Action Office, 123 Superduper Building, Blahdiblah State, Random Town, US.

Thank you for your interest in the position.

Yours cordially,

Chair, Philosophy Search Committee
All very nice. Kind of weird to think that I'd be filling out an affirmative action card, since I think as a foreigner I don't get counted in the same categories. Oh well.

The silly thing is, they didn't actually enclose the card. Trust me. I triple-checked.

"Yikes!" I thought. "Now I have to email the search committee and tell them they screwed up. Yikes yikes yikes yikes." A (probably totally groundless and unreasonable) fear washed over me. I felt as though it was my fault the card wasn't there.

Is this nervousness and anxiety reason to think that I'm not ready for this application process? I wonder.

Anyway. I sent them a super-polite email ("Thank you for your letter acknowledging receipt of my application for the tenure-track philosophy position. I will be happy to complete and return the affirmative action card, but it was not enclosed in the envelope. Would you be so kind as to send me one?") and the chair just sent me one back, calling me by my first name and signing off with his first name, saying of course they apologize and will sent me one shortly. So it's all good.

This is just a sample view of the weird self-doubts I've had lately.


jane 7:40 PM [+]

Friday, November 24, 2006
The purpose of human life is to be happy, to flourish.

Dear friends, bear with me as I work through some of this stuff. This is going to include some basic philosophy, which I know is boring to many of you, but will lead to some specific comments about Catholic teachings on gay marriage, which I know you enjoy picking on.

Natural law theory is the dominant philosophical position within Catholic social thought. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. presupposes it as the way to understand moral theory in general.

Basically, it works like this -- divine law (which is eternal) can either be natural or revealed. Revealed law is pretty much what you'd expect -- it's given to us by relevation, through the scriptures. The content and nature of revealed law are therefore open to scriptural interpretation, historical criticism, and other forms of careful reading -- there's a huge issue there of how this is to be done, of course, and Catholics and Protestants will have very different stances on this. Further, there's the issue of the Old Testament Law (mostly in the Ten Commandments) and the New Testament Law (the "New Covenant", the "new commandment" of Jesus, to love one another as God loves us). I am not trained in theology or scriptural studies and so won't begin to go into those issues. But basically, revealed law, by its nature, is speaking to those within a particular faith tradition. You have to already have faith in God before you can hear revealed law as speaking to you. You obviously can't cite Scripture as a normative moral authority to those who do not already accept it as such.

Natural law, on the other hand, is way trickier. Natural law theory states, basically that there is such a thing as the "natural law." The natural law is called the natural law because it presumes that there is such a thing as human nature, and that by virtue of being human, there is a certain way of proceeding that will be good for us.

The Catechism cites Aquinas: "The natural law is nothing other than the light of understanding placed in us by God; through it we know what we must do and what we must avoid. God has given this light or law at the creation." (Aquinas, Dec. praec. I; Cathechism #1955).

The Catechism goes on, at #1956: "The natural law, present in the heart of each man and established by reason, is universal in its precepts and its authority extends to all men. It expresses the dignity of the person and determines the basis for his fundamental rights and duties." (Interestingly, in support of this claim, the Catechism cites the non-Christian Cicero. The idea of the 'natural law' is thus not necessarily just part of Christian philosophy -- it just got picked up as A Good Idea by folks like Aquinas).

The idea of the natural law, therefore, is intended to account for why there seems to be so much commonality in certain moral practices. Whenever you are asked why you think something is "just plain wrong" or "clearly right," and you say "Because it just makes sense, that's what my heart tells me", natural law theorists would say that you're appealing to the light of understanding given to all human beings. That all human beings have access, sometimes dulled, sometimes clearer, to a basic sense of right & wrong.

This is because all human beings have essentially the same goal in life: to flourish in mind, body and spirit. Aristotle said that the purpose of human life was eudaimonia, which literally means something like 'good-spirited-ness', and is usually translated as "happiness"; my favourite translation in the literature (I forget for now who came up with it; maybe John Cooper?) is "human flourishing."

Picture a plant which is flourishing in the way appropriate to a plant. It is strong, its leaves are a vivid green, it reaches for the sun. Now picture a plant starved of nitrogen, or starved of water, or obliged to put up with my very-warm apartment. Note how it limps, flops around, fails to flourish.

Aristotle's idea is that humans are kinda similar. Obviously we're different from plants. We can move around, we can dance and sing, we're fundamentally social and political, we have culture, history, art, and we can reason. That said, the basic idea of flourishing is the same. Just as there's a way for a plant to flourish as a plant, there's a way for a human to flourish as a human -- for all of its potential abilities to be developed and actualized. Aristotle's idea of the goal of human life is for us to develop ourselves as much as possible.

Now, along the way, he notes that certain activities can be done well, or badly. For instance, we can let our anger run away with us, and that ultimately hurts us, if we become unable to hear the other side, or we become rash. Or, we might not have enough anger, and that hurts us too if we become cowards. There is a happy medium in between: rightful anger, which can still hear the other side, but not get pushed over. Aristotle proposes as a general rule that a virtuous form of activity is to be found in the middle of two extremes.

Aristotle's account of virtue and vice, therefore, is not intended to be an externally imposed account of moral good and evil, but intended to guide human beings toward the flourishing most appropriate to them. It's saying, "Look, human beings just are a certain way, and here's some advice to live life in a way that will help you flourish the most, and not get dragged down by stupid things."

Now, Aquinas picks up this account of human nature, human flourishing, and virtue & vice, but adds to it a specifically Christian understanding of the world & humans' place within it (well, he also adds a good dose of Platonism, but I won't get into that). So, humans are supposed to be happy -- but their happiness isn't just going to be the type of human flourishing that Aristotle describes. Because that is temporary, as even Aristotle recognizes -- the most well-adjusted & virtuous person can still come down with a horrible illness, or lose their family in an accident or a war, and it's really difficult to flourish in those circumstances. (Recall again that flourishing is for body AND soul -- neither Aristotle nor Aquinas see the soul as firmly separated from the body. We are ensouled bodies.)

Aquinas suggests that what Aristotle was describing was an imperfect happiness, because of its fragility & vulnerability to harm. It's the best happiness we can get when we're alive on earth, and we should still strive for it. However, ultimately, after death we can achieve perfect happiness in beholding God. Perfect, because no-one can take it away. Perfect, because (unlike the pleasures of earth, which the more we receive the more we want, and ultimately they never completely satisfy - we always want more) God totally satisfies -- God is infinite, after all! God gives us endless and unconditional love.

Now, if you read through a traditional discussion of virtue & vice, it starts sounding pretty stodgy and random. Why should some things be virtues and other seemingly harmless things be vices? (Aquinas has a great bit about how women & young men shouldn't drink alcohol, because they don't have the developed intellect to tell them not to get carried away by it & led into licentiousness. What-ever.)

But if you remember that the point of discussing virtue & vice is not (at least originally, or in its best form) to beat people over the head, but to give them practical guidelines as how to best be happy, then they're less offensive.

(If anyone's interested in the question of, "But aren't the particular views of human nature that would spawn particular conceptions of what IS virtuous/vice-errific utterly relative to the culture and society in which they are formed?", I can get to that. Because it's an interesting problem that I'm still trying to figure out -- so far my answer is "yes and no." But that is for another blog entry, I think. And I'll talk about Martha Nussbaum. And Hegel. And it will be fun. Maybe even Freud? and Foucault?)

OK! So, back to natural law theory. Natural law theory suggests that moral theory be based on an understanding of human beings as creatures able to flourish & be happy in particular ways, with particular things that would be HELPFUL to them and particular things that would be HARMFUL to them -- thus we should put together a moral theory that rules those HELPFUL things as morally "good" and those things that are HARMFUL as morally "wrong".

The classic objection to natural law theory is that it loads the dice -- that it has a predetermined sense of what is going to be "good" or "wrong," and reaches around for excuses in human nature to justify its presuppositions. So, for instance, a natural law theorist who is homophobic will reach around in human nature to find an excuse to call homosexuality "disordered" and hence "wrong", but the view of human nature itself was already clouded by the theorist's own homophobia.

Now, that history & culture can condition us into seeing falsehood instead of truth is obvious; consider, for instance, this excerpt from Pope John Paul II's 1995 Letter to Women:
Unfortunately, we are heirs to a history which has conditioned us to a remarkable extent. In every time and place, this conditioning has been an obstacle to the progress of women. Women's dignity has often been unacknowledged and their prerogatives misrepresented; they have often been relegated to the margins of society and even reduced to servitude. This has prevented women from truly being themselves and it has resulted in a spiritual impoverishment of humanity.
But here's the question I want to consider: Is this a reason for discarding the idea of "the natural law" altogether, or a call for trying to do it better, in the light of the many discoveries and realizations we have made about human beings?

I'm not sure of the answer.

Folks are trying to work this out, of course. James Alison, in his book On Being Liked, addressees Catholic teachings against homosexuality and asks why, given that we are beginning to understand that homosexuality is quite simply a fact (like, say, left-handedness -- which itself used to be associated with a disordered nature!), shouldn't our understanding of what will contribute to the flourishing of human beings (which is, after all, what God wants from us -- our flourishing and happiness in Her!) similarly be updated? (This thread comes up again & again in the essays in the book, but especially in "Being Wrong and Telling the Truth," which was originally given as a lecture at St. Joseph's in the Village Parish in NYC in May 2002). (I just finished this book, and have another one of his books - Faith Beyond Resentment on the way from Amazon -- great stuff!)

Similarly, Jean Porter, a professor of theology at Notre Dame, gave a lecture at Fordham last year entitled "Human Nature and the Purposes of Marriage." Note the plural in "purposes"! The paper was an argument that gay marriage was not contrary to the natural law, and it was rooted in 12th and 13th century scholars' ideas of examining social institutions, such as marriage, in terms of what purposes they serve (again, purposes intended to promote human flourishing). The paper did not conclude with an "anything-goes" approach to marriage -- but suggested that there were good reasons not to emphasize the procreative aspect over the unitive aspect. (I have an unpublished copy of the paper, in case any of you would like to have a look at it).

Now why did I post this very long post? I was looking back through Tokyo Tintin's blog and reread his entry on Pope Benedict's recent statements about gay marriage. The pope's ideas on gay marriage -- and modernity in general!! -- are of course kinda frustrating for me. Anyway, TT links to a Star article which I shall briefly quote:
While he did not specifically mention gay marriage, thousands of listeners at the fairgrounds in Verona's outskirts strongly applauded the two parts of his speech about the family and "other forms of unions".

He urged them to fight "with determination ... the risk of political and legislative decisions that contradict fundamental values and anthropological and ethical principles rooted in human nature".

The Pope said they had to defend "the family based on matrimony, opposing the introduction of laws on other forms of unions which would only destabilise it and obscure its special character and its social role, which has no substitute".

In another section of his speech, the Pope made another apparent reference to homosexual marriage, stating that the Church had to say "'no' to weak and deviant forms of love".

He said the Church wanted instead to say "'yes' to authentic love, to the reality of man as he was created by God".
Note the reference to "anthropological and ethical principles rooted in human nature." That's the natural law theory at work (and the fact that it's natural law he's talking about, and not just revealed law, is why he feels justified in saying that Catholics should resist this politically, and not just, say, avoid it for themselves. Natural law is, after all, supposed to be universal.)

But if God wants us to flourish, and plants within us an understanding of the natural law intended to help us to do so, then why does the repression of homosexuality lead to lies, closeting, and anguish, a lack of emotional & spiritual flourishing, while the acknowledgement of it as simply normal for many men and women leads to honesty and emotional maturity?

OK, I realize that the way I've posed this question loads it, and wouldn't convince anyone who didn't already agree. But I simply don't understand why, if God wants us to be happy and loved and love each other, the Pope's position is any more obvious? In a way that I can actually understand? In a way that doesn't utterly conflict with all of my experience?

It seems to me that to deny the beauty & human flourishing in the same-sex relationships I have witnessed would simply be lying to myself. And "lying is the most direct offense against the truth." (Catechism #2483).

Catholicism has, over the years, gone from promoting and endorsing the slave trade, to repudiating it. It has gone from openly stating that women are defective, to repudiating that. So I'm hopeful. And I'm hopeful that the development in Church teachings here could even be articulated according to the Church's own natural law way of doing things.

So, while I'm still not sure that I can fully endorse the idea of the natural law (I need to do more research; and I have a lot of concerns with its premises), I think that it need not be simply repressive. It can similarly be used as a tool for critique:

How best can the Church assure and promote the flourishing of all its members, gay and straight? What is the truth about human nature that we simply hadn't let ourselves discover until recently, that will permit us to tell the truth about how we love each other? Why can't our new understanding of human beings and their multifaceted love continue to contribute to our broader understanding of "authentic love"?

I'll close with some James Alison, from "Creation in Christ" (also in On Being Liked --
...one of the firmest consequences of the instistence on the natural law is the denial of the arbitrary or capricious nature of divine commandments. This is evident traditionally in the rejection of the voluntarist and nominalist positions with respect to morals. If God forbids us something it is because doing it does us no good. Which is to say, the holiness of the commandment is in the fact that it is for our good, and it is not the case that our good is to be found in following commandments independently of their consequences for us, just because they are commandments.

Well then, if this is valid, we can see that natural law is, in the first place, and before any of its possibly polemical use in the world of non-believers, a very powerful instrument of self-criticism with respect to our own moral teaching. If it is used correctly, the first consequence of the use of this instrument would be having confidence that we can change our own understanding of morality in the light of our growing appreciation of what is.



---

I also just want to add that not all Catholic teaching based on the natural law is as problematic -- it also leads to great stuff on the importance of a living wage and justice among nations.

I've gone on long enough though -- I had meant to clean my room today, and get some work done on my dissertation. Oh well. Time to make some more coffee.


jane 2:51 PM [+]

That's how he rolls

Oh my god... talk about giving a gender a bad name. Also, the coke bloat don't look too good on him. Just sayin'

Face recognition software

If this is what the FBI is using, I don't hold out much hope... But I do think it's cool to find out what celeb you look like. For once, I didn't get Caitlin from Degrassi.

meg 10:26 AM [+]

Thursday, November 23, 2006
She's always right

Miss Manners says:
A Ph.D. is like a nose - you don't make a fuss about having one because you
assume that everyone does; it's only when you don't have one that it's
conspicuous.

meg 9:11 AM [+]

Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Giving Thanks

OK, so for the Canadians this is coming too late, and for the Americans this is in the midst of a whole opening-to-the-holiday-season GLUT of sentimentality, but bear with me, my friends.

I'm grateful to each and every one of you. My friends are the best part of my life.*

I'm having difficulty finishing this blog post because I'm chatting with two of you on Gmail. Ah, love. Oh, wait, three. Thanks for keeping me entertained whilst working at the library, eh!

Anyway, thanks.

I invite you all to share your own thanks in the comments.

--
* Oh, and God.

jane 3:49 PM [+]

Fun new toy!

I've been playing with StatCounter.

FUN! Especially fun is the map of the world displaying where viewers are coming from. Which means that I can say, with a fair amount of reliability, "Hi Sarah!", since I doubt anyone else looks at my blog from Switzerland.

Fun-o! I feel like a super-spy.

Of course, now I also feel obligated to write smarter things. (Megan, someone came in just to look at your morbid little New Jersey post! Feel honoured!)

All right. I should go back to work, eh?


jane 2:12 PM [+]

Horrible. Yet Funny

From North Jersey Media group:

BRADLEY BEACH -- A man was struck and killed early Tuesday by a New Jersey commuter train sent to pick up passengers stranded after their first train hit and killed someone else, authorities said.

meg 10:50 AM [+]

Monday, November 20, 2006
Oh yes, and there's that other side of comics

Sigh... just as I'm excited for getting some more Justice League comments in the mail, some serious food for thought from a former DC staffer --

Go here for The Video Store Girl's memoir of her involvement with the comic book industry (I've linked to the "November archive," so that all the posts will be there -- start at the bottom, though, and work your way back up).

Joanna at Comics Worth Reading diagnoses the problem thus:
The length of the quote is because I want it on the record, and the source has already wiped her blog once. Not surprisingly, she’s leaving comics. After her story, no one should ever ask why, or wonder why corporate American comics are so unfriendly to women, both live and in print.

You put a bunch of immature men, many of whom were very sick as children or had absent fathers or both, and all of whom escaped into over-muscled power fantasies as a result, in charge of a publishing subgroup with no prestige and little money. Several of them have never worked anywhere else, or if they have, it was at one of the few similar companies in the same industry that behave the same way. They’re still geeks, mentally, with low self-esteem and no success with women, few of whom they actually know in person, but they’re power brokers within their little world, and there are thousands like them who desperately want to be them… and you wonder why it all ends up so twisted?
I don't really have anything to say yet about this yet... I am reminded of some of the stuff in Linda Alcoff's collection, Singing in the Fire, about women in philosophy, though certainly the misogyny in contemporary philosophy is nowhere near as bad as what TVSG describes at DC. (The reminding probably has a lot more to do with me being in the midst of my own stuff, rather than me having yet fully grasped the real nastiness of what TVSG describes.) Curious as to your reactions.


Edit - see also Torontonian Christopher Butcher (from the Beguiling, on Queen)'s blog entry about TVSG's posts., and Rich Johnston from Comic Book Resources.

Edit #2 - see Gail Simone's comment a little ways down the Comic Book Resources thread about the post. Gail Simone, who writes comics for DC, including one of my new favourites, Birds of Prey, also commented in a supportive way on TVSG's blog.


jane 3:58 PM [+]

Philosophy in-joke, with comics

First, for those who know nothing of Harry Frankfurt's work (or, all they know is his best-selling essay, On Bullshit, wander over to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on Compatibilism and skip to 5.3.1, "Higher-Order Desires and the Nature of Persons." You can pick up on the Ekstrom you'd need to know from the entry on incompatibilist theories, and meandering down to 2.1, a couple paragraphs down.

Or, failing that, you'll probably get the joke from context anyway.

I had seen a post on a comics blog about superheroes and the myth of redemptive violence, which along the way of making some nice points about superheroes in comics, vs. folks in movies, treat & respond to violence, included the following:
A more interesting and ambiguous case is presented by Wolverine. Wolverine's attitude to violence is not depicted consistently, which is, I think, telling in itself; the shifts in his portrayals seem
indicative of the differing beliefs and feelings of his writers. The classic early Claremont Wolverine is a man afflicted with a bloodlust that he can barely manage to control. He wants to control it -- most of the time -- or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he wants to want to control it, but he doesn't always want to control it. That is to say, he's a violence junkie, and while he knows his
habit is dangerous, though less for him than for the people around him, he still can't kick it. There are times when he wants to kick it -- to stop wanting to be violent -- but the underlying desire never disappears.
This description, of Wolverine wanting to want to control his violent desires, is a great example of having a second order desire. The first order desire would be to slash someone, & the second order desire would be to want not to want to slash someone.

I sent this to some friends, and the lovely Eleanor responded (and has given permission for me to post) with the following:
Does Harry Frankfurt ever make an appearance in the comic? I can
imagine the two of them having a good conversation:

Harry: You're having trouble forming an effective 2nd order desire not to slash people with the strips of metal attached to your hands.
Wolverine: It's true. But I've actually found Ekstrom and Velleman's
rationalist models to describe my behavior more precisely. I feel
what's most damaging about my impulse to violence is that it's
inconsistent with the self-image I'm trying to cultivate.
Harry: What self-image is that?
Wolverine: Thoughtful, sensitive, non-slashing type.
Harry: I see. With which image do you identify more?
Wolverine: I guess I wouldn't be "Wolverine" without the slashing.
Does that mean I should just choose to identify with my more violent
nature?
Harry: Um . . . I'll have to think about that. Why don't we finish
this conversation by email?

(Or something like that.) :)
E.
(That Eleanor wrote this without having seen all the panels of Wolverine meditating & angsting over his violent nature, is awesome.)


jane 12:15 PM [+]

Saturday, November 18, 2006
Incommensurability?

Edited 1.20pm Saturday Nov 18...

Apologies for any incoherence or bad grammar-- there has been much wine. Plus, it is 4.00 am.

I was blessed to be engaged in two separate amazing conversations today. Well, no, three. The first was a text message exchange with a new friend, who shares my love of comics -- his blog is now listed at left. (Hi Ryan!) That was fun, even if he was texting during class (bad, bad, bad. But forgivable, since it amused me.)

After "Theories of Autonomy class," I went out for coffee with two folks from my program, one of whom is a died-in-the-wool atheist & ardent feminist, and the other raised pretty strongly Protestant, who's a little more conservative. The latter is a good friend of mine, and the former someone I like very much, though we're not yet close. We ended up having a great conversation about religion, the way it works, and the way it plays out in the public sphere. I felt like I kind of played a bridging role between the two, having been agnostic for so many years, yet also seeing the way in which recognizing my relationship to God starts changing my way of perceiving the world.

The main thing that became apparent during this conversation was that, though we were all three of us operating on very different principles and understandings, we were able to discourse together and move forward. We talked about religion vs. secularism, and how that opposition was ridiculous, because really, insofar as we all had hope for a better future, we were all somehow united.

Somehow, we still believe in this crazy species. Bizarre, eh?

The second conversation was with a Jesuit scholastic whom I'm slowly growing to like, through I'm still hesitant to call him a friend. With friends, I want to be totally open about my hopes & fears, and while I can be friends with people who don't share my political, social & religious beliefs, there still needs to be a basic comfort level there. And trust. And love (in a broad sense). Whereas with this person, I worry about us not ever really being able to see eye to eye.

Fittingly, we had an entire conversation was about how he & I pretty much had opposite upbringings -- him American, me Canadian; him homeschooled, me public schooled; him one of 8 children, me an only child; him Catholic, me raised agnostic/atheist; him not ever really knowing non-Catholics, me having Muslim, Hindu & Jewish girls in my Brownie & Girl Guide groups (I have a vague memory from Girl Guides of having to make sure that there were pork hot dogs for the Hindu brownies and beef hot dogs for the Muslim and Jewish brownies... I guess at the time veggie dogs were less popular?); he and his whole family are pro-life, me & my family - not so much. I was definitely raised firmly pro-choice.

Now, I know my Canadian friends are probably rolling your eyes at this description of my Jesuit acquaintance. But I will mention that he was also raised regularly visiting prisons, working with the poor, and is concerned that Jesuit missions in Latin America not be colonialist, but rather encourage the people to fight off poverty and oppression (he had criticisms of Protestant missions for being too pro-America, giving out TV's in exchange for acquiescing to Jesus). So don't write off his politics prima facie. It doesn't work quite that simply.

More to the point, we were able to have this conversation in a friendly and jovial way, and we were able to move past it onto other things. We do have a lot in common. And while a t-shirt he once wore rubbed me the wrong way (it had a slogan that made me very uncomfortable), he's a good guy.

So, here's the question. It's not just the US that's pretty divided by the so-called 'culture wars.' It's the whole world. The Anglican church might undergo schism over gay marriage, women bishops & gay bishops. Europe doesn't know how to integrate Muslim identities into its sense of itself beyond bare 'tolerance' -- it doesn't know if it can incorporate Muslim insights into a positively transformed Europe. No one knows how to integrate religion in general, whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, whatever, into the public sphere (I'm not up, at the moment, on the current status of the BJP in India, but last I checked, there were issues there too).

Without giving up on fundamental commitments that we hold dear, no matter who we are (progressives don't get a 'pass' just 'cause we're progressive... that just doesn't hold up to scrutiny) -- how can we negotiate all this? Because on one level we're talking across incommensurable differences -- utter abysses of fundamental grounding principles.

But on the other level, we're all human, and we are able to love each other.

It's 4.16 am, and I'm a little inebriated, and I don't have any great insight here. I'm just saying that I've often been in situations that I've been conscious of conversations happening across seemingly unbridgeable divides. So -- guess what -- they're obviously not unbridgeable.

There's still fucking hope for us all.

Love you all.


jane 4:06 AM [+]

Thursday, November 16, 2006
The world's literary bargain basement

Ahh, yes, the always amusing Get Fuzzy. (I identify with the cat)


meg 1:33 PM [+]

Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Fashion forward!

A brief history of a brilliant men's designer... You too can know the history of the Dorcus line!

meg 1:47 PM [+]

Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Super Weekend!

Jane was nice enough to let me come and visit this weekend. I had a superfun time. Thanks Jane!
Here's a cartoon to pay tribute to my flight.

meg 2:13 PM [+]

A brief emerald narrative, a.k.a., Dawn, you've created a monster




The fabled motto of the drug dealer is "first hit's free." Yes, that is how they suck you in to their vortex of doom.

I frequently visit the lovely Dawn in Ottawa, and while staying with her she gives me stacks of comics to read. Yay, comics. Thanks to her, I've read Chester Brown's I never liked you, Scott McLeod's Understanding Comics, and other classics -- but mostly, mostly, mostly I have read heaps of X-men.



It was so great to learn more about these characters, whom I had enjoyed in the movies, but who had so much more going on in the comics. Of course I loved Wolverine, but also Angel, Rogue (so much cooler in the comics than her shy movieverse self), Cannonball, Jamie Madrox (especially in Peter David's Madrox and X-Factor), etc., etc...

Thanks to Dawn, not only did I discover the soap-opera-fantasticosity of the Dark Phoenix saga, and the Morlock Massacre, and the Trial of Gambit, etc., but I also began to understand the difference between different writers and artists. I began to know my Chris Claremont from my Grant Morrison. Useful! Crucial!

Furthermore, Dawn pointed me toward the X-axis, a wonderfully snarky X-book review site. It was thoroughly entertaining and well-written, and I found myself diving into its archives to get a sense of the history of the X-books.



However, occasionally the reviewer would also review non-X-books. His review of All-star Superman 1 led me to figure that it would be worthwhile to check the series out. The series was already up to issue #5, but fortunately Midtown Comics had all five issues conveniently available in-store, so I just picked them all up.

I fell in love. The Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely team is the same as in the run of New X-men that I had read (again, thanks to Dawn), and really enjoyed, but the story was clean, economical, and Super-satisfying.

I wanted more. Who was this Superman, man of myth and legend, but whom I'd never really cared much about before? Furthermore, what was this DC, to be putting out such an excellent product?

Back in high school, thanks to another comic-book-pusher, Caitlyn, I had read a lot of DC's Vertigo line of comics. Everyone who knows me knows my love of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, but I'd also read some Hellblazer and other Vertigo stuff. Mostly good, but it hadn't led me to explore the DC universe as a whole.

My exploration of the X-men had, on the other hand, led into a wholesale exploration of the Marvel universe. Possibly because of all the tie-ins and cross-overs and Events (it doesn't hurt that Dawn lent me House of M and this summer the Civil War event started). But in going around the internet and looking at what was out there, I found myself drawn to the types of elements discussed in this blogger's post about why she loves Marvel. If what Marvel was about was flawed heroes who are hated but fight back anyway, and DC was about iconic heroes revered by their society, well, then, hey -- that's a pretty obvious choice. Marvel for me!

Anyway. During all this, I read Alan Moore's The Watchmen, and mostly dug it, but realized that I couldn't totally get into its cynicism about its heroes. They were a little too flawed. I want to be a little more hopeful about my heroes.



Now, I forget how this all happened, exactly, but basically this is the next step in the story. Obviously, in poking around the internet, looking for information on superhero comics, and being the type of person I am, it didn't take me long to find Karen Healey's blog, Girls Read Comics (and They're Pissed) or, more to the point, Ragnell and Kalinara's When Fangirls Attack!.

Fun! Hours of procrastination! Feminist insights into comics and superheroes! Smart women talking about comics! YAY! Fun fun fun. (This, of course, was right around the time I started getting excited about possibly teaching a "Philosophical Themes in Comics" course.)

Now, both Ragnell and Kalinara are fans of a comic book character that, as I had been immersed in Marvel and beginning to dip my toe into DC via Superman, I had not yet really encountered: Green Lantern. (Note - at this early stage I wasn't even really aware that there were MULTIPLE Green Lanterns. Oh, the fun!) I began poking through the website Zamaron: A Green Lantern Femme-site and saw the enthusiasm they had for the Green Lantern Corps.

Hmmmm...

Around this time, my roommate had a party and a (cute) boy was wearing a Green Lantern T-shirt. We had a fun chat about comics in general, and I felt bad that I had no real idea about Green Lantern.



Shortly thereafter, I visited a friend in DC (the city, not the company) and stopped into Big Monkey Comics in Georgetown. The staff was really friendly, and I asked where a good place to begin reading Green Lantern would be. I had heard of the various Hal-vs-Kyle debates and didn't know where to wander in. They recommended Rebirth as a good new-reader-friendly start, and so I bought it, and read it on the train ride home.

LOVE! LOVE! LOVE!

Heroes that weren't perfect, but still trying! Heroes with decades of mythology behind them that I could get wrapped up in! Heroes with really adorable asses! (Which get a fair amount of attention, and deservedly so. Of course, also note Ragnell's warning post about crushes on Green Lanterns. This might be a problem, given that I've decided that Kyle Rayner is my new boyfriend. That said, since I'm not a comic book character, I doubt I'll end up dead because of it. See, by the way, Kalinara's blog post describing Kyle as "fangirl bait". Yup, sigh, yup. Oh well. Hey Dawn, she lists Gambit as also being "fangirl bait.")



I don't know. Something about the idealism of the Green Lantern Corps just sucked me in (and sucked in my wallet... I now own a pile of Green Lantern trade paperbacks and individual issues... and this all since October!).

I'm in love. Not just with Kyle Rayner. With the whole concept. And I can't stop wanting to share that love, much to the sadness of some of my friends around the office (fortunately, through careful Lending O' Comics, I am beginning to recruit my friend Rosa into Green Lantern Love. Excellent!)

Anyway, I just needed to share. Thanks for indulging me.


jane 1:23 PM [+]

Thursday, November 09, 2006
And what I was waiting for all day just popped up on the NY Times site

Yes.
Breaking News 3:15 PM ET:
Allen Concedes in Virginia Senate Race; Democrats Win Full Control of Congress

No details yet on the site, but I don't need any. The headline is good enough for me. (the article below is still that he's expected to concede.)


jane 3:24 PM [+]

At last!!

To go with all the break-up news, at last there's hope for me and my true love. Hottie McHotsalot finally left Rosario Dawson.

On a more tragic note, my Mats is hurt! Perhaps he wants me to kiss it better?

Cartoon - very true.

meg 9:13 AM [+]

Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Modern marriage

Man, it seems like everyone's breaking up these days... Rummy and Dubya, and, more importantly, Britney and FedEx (love that name!!) MuchMusic broke the news in it's typically underwhelming fashion.

meg 4:24 PM [+]

Happy days are here again!

Thank you, Montana, and good bye, Mr. Rumsfeld, and we'll have to hold off on congratulating Virginia.

In any case, very good news all around.

I'll try to post something more profound later -- I have to prep for class -- but it is a VERY good day.

(plus, I received in the mail Green Lantern & Superman: Legend of the Green Flame, written by Neil Gaiman & illustrated by a bunch o' folks. very pleased. I should also post sometime soon about how I've fallen in love with Green Lantern, eh? And how Kyle Rayner, one of the Green Lanterns, is my new boyfriend? just 'cause he doesn't exist doesn't stop him from being dreamy)


jane 3:25 PM [+]

Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Not the most important thing happening today

Well, with the midterms, this sure ain't the most important thing happening (Jane, I fully expect a less frivolous post than this today), but in my unending devotion to YouTube, here's a funny ad.

Also, to ease your commuting...

meg 10:03 AM [+]

Monday, November 06, 2006
Side effects

Man, if the side effects are anything like these, I can't wait to use anti-aging cream.

meg 4:25 PM [+]

Sunday, November 05, 2006
Friends with music

Right now, I'm listening to my friend David's CD. He's a singer-songwriter I met while stage managing a show he lit, and then we became friends. He also has a lovely wife, Irene, also a friend of mine. While listening to Another time of year (one of my favorites) it occurred to me that since he's on tour right now, and y'all are out there waiting for stuff to do, I should link to his site so that you can listen a bit, and maybe even check out his shows:

Nov. 25, 8pm Kenny's Castaways 157 Bleecker St NYC 10012
Dec. 2, 8pm Avant Garde Bar 135 1/2 Besserer St.Ottawa, ON CAN

Go see him!

meg 3:29 PM [+]

Saturday, November 04, 2006
Two cute movies

Just watched two good movies tonight instead of working (isn't that the way it always is?)
For those who think Judi Dench is just the cutest thing that ever was, there's Mrs. Henderson Presents.
And for those, like me, who like ballet there was the documentary Ballets Russes.
Also, I went to see Apple last night. Recommended.

meg 11:53 PM [+]

Friday, November 03, 2006
Smut central

I'm sure all the true smut-rakers (not muck, this is much more salacious) know this woman already, but oh my god, Lainey knows all. ALL. And weeks before any of the tabloids do. But my deep burning question: how does she find out all this from Vancouver?? VANCOUVER!!!
a. it's 2053 km from Hollywood.
b. What is a nice Canadian girl doing spreading all this gossip?

meg 9:53 AM [+]

Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Why I am not going to go see Borat

I hate to be a killjoy, but....

I'm sure, as per the conclusion of the New York Times article, that Borat will be very funny, and very successful. All criticisms of it as being anti-Semitic can be pushed aside by saying, look, this is satire, or black comedy, and further, Sacha Baron Cohen is Jewish and we have a long and noble tradition of allowing people to poke fun at their own racial/ethnic/religious/national backgrounds. Sure.

My question is, why doesn't anyone take the Kazakhstani's complaints seriously?

From the afore-linked NY Times article:
Still, “I can almost guarantee you that not everyone will get the joke,” said Richard B. Jewell, a professor of film history at the University of Southern California. But he added: “In my opinion it’s a very healthy thing. Some of best films that have been made in the last 50 years have been black comedies.” He cited “Dr. Strangelove,” which poked fun at nuclear holocaust.

“What can be more serious?” he asked. “It makes people think about these things in ways they don’t when there are more straightforward, serious, sober films.”

Sure, let's do good black comedy and satire. YES. I wholeheartedly agree. But who's really being mocked in this movie? Jewish folk? Well, maybe, but see above re. mocking one's own. Who is being mocked here, and yet doesn't have a voice?



Kazakhstan. It's one of those random former Soviet republics that's still pretty vague to most of us in the West. It's a miscellanous country, one that you might name off the top of your head while making a joke about random countries (sort of like Albania was for Wag the Dog, before the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo became famous). To our Western pop culture ears, the place sounds a little silly. It's definitely Other to us.

Therefore, we can use it as the brunt of jokes.

Therefore, we can make random statements about Kazakhstani women, or Kazakhstani liquor, or what have you, and know that no one will correct us, or call us out, or anything, because really, doesn't Kazakhstan exist for us as some sort of mythical, joke-fodder place?

According to the CIA World Factbook, Kazakhstan is 47% Muslim and 44% Orthodox Christian. I'm sure these two groups love being the on-going butt of Sasha Baron Cohen's joke... and the ongoing butt of our jokes, as we repeat the funny Borat lines. Their resentment isn't anti-Semitic, or anti-West, it's simply them being quite simply sick of being made fun of, just for existing.

(Recall Triumph the Insult Dog and his visit to Quebec? It wasn't so much that it was wrong of him to poke fun at French Canadians, it's just that the way he was poking fun of them showed that he didn't actually know anything about them. Haha. So funny. That's why the in-joke is funny -- because it relies on being in the know. Just to say "hey, that thing that's strange to me... it's funny... just 'cause... and I'll just repeat it over and over again until YOU think it's funny too!" -- that's not black comedy, or satire. It's just lame.)



Again, from the CIA world factbook:
Native Kazakhs, a mix of Turkic and Mongol nomadic tribes who migrated into the region in the 13th century, were rarely united as a single nation. The area was conquered by Russia in the 18th century, and Kazakhstan became a Soviet Republic in 1936. During the 1950s and 1960s agricultural "Virgin Lands" program, Soviet citizens were encouraged to help cultivate Kazakhstan's northern pastures. This influx of immigrants (mostly Russians, but also some other deported nationalities) skewed the ethnic mixture and enabled non-Kazakhs to outnumber natives. Independence in 1991 caused many of these newcomers to emigrate. Current issues include: developing a cohesive national identity; expanding the development of the country's vast energy resources and exporting them to world markets; achieving a sustainable economic growth outside the oil, gas, and mining sectors; and strengthening relations with neighboring states and other foreign powers.


I just want to pull out a couple things -- First, this is a country for whom (sort of like Canada) developing a strong national identity (because of immigration of non-Kazakhs, because Kazakhs were never really united) is a key issue. I'm sure they love it that the first thing most young Westerners will think of when they think of Kazakhstan is Borat. Fantastic-o. (I mean, at least Canada had Dudley Do-Right back in the day. And at least Bob & Doug McKenzie knew something about Canada. Sasha Baron Cohen just seems to make shit up. See my bracket above, re. Triumph the Insult Dog). Secondly, this is a country trying to strengthen relations with neighboring states. In other words, a country trying to emerge on the world stage as something more than a Random Former Soviet Republic. Even though I'm sure diplomats can tell fact from fiction (well... reasonably sure...), Borat is basically an extended attack ad, undermining Kazakhstan's developing world brand identity. (how's that for a mixed metaphor?)

I just want to conclude by saying that I'm not the world's biggest fan of Kazakhstan. Here's the Amnesty International index for Kazakhstan. Freedom of expression seems to be a problem in Kazakhstan. So, obviously it would be lame for me, in this light, to say that Borat should be banned in the West, just 'cause those freedom-of-expression-hating-Kazakhs dislike it. Freedom of expression is great. And important. Yes. I just think there's better ways to convince Kazakhstan of the importance of freedom of expression than making a movie that mocks it as a bunch of anti-Semites, and better ways of convincing the world that we need to have a serious public conversation about our attitudes toward religion, ethnicity, and political correctness, than by making a movie that makes everyone just a little bit stupider.

PS - translation: I think the movie's racist. (Ethnicist?) no matter how funny it might be.

Thanks to the online Lonely Planet guide to Kazakhstan for the images.


jane 7:52 PM [+]

Month o' crazy almost done

Hey y'all... sorry not to have posted much lately. (Thanks, Megan, for holding the fort!) Three conferences down, and just one to go -- this Saturday's one-day conference in New Jersey. In addition to conferencing, I've been assembling my application for the Newcombe fellowship (about which I posted earlier) and assembling my dossier for a few academic jobs. No, not the Concordia one, but a few others that explicitly say things like "PhD near completion". I can do "near" completion. It's been pretty hectic, all in all. (that, plus a whole bunch of Graduate Student Association stuff, but I won't get into that) oh yeah, and teaching. Got midterm grades in and so forth, but already I have a new stack of journal entries on Descartes to read and grade.

I am not going to tell you where I'm appyling to jobs, since I doubt I'll even hear back from any of them. If I get any interviews, I'll let you know. The academic hiring process is pretty lengthy -- initial deadlines in November, hearing back from places in time for interviews at the Eastern APA meeting Dec 29-30, possibly campus interviews in March or April. whew!

ok, must go teach.

jane 5:56 PM [+]

Bond, James Bond

He's no Sean Connery, but how are we feeling about the new Bond?

meg 1:47 PM [+]

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