A Dumb Smart Picture
This picture comes from a Birmingham News report on an Alabama-Florida game. Notice the face of the kid in the stands (click the image for a larger version if you can’t see it here). He’s making the same face as the larger version of his head he’s holding.
There’s something to be said here about the reproducibility of our personalities and images, about how the digital age abstracts and commodifies our bodies in the service of late capitalism. These dehumanizing processes become all the more insidious when internalized and re-presented in the performance of the athletic spectacle. We must “make faces” thrice over (when taking the picture, when holding the head, when performing the face live) to have our “selves” seen. Maintaining the self, then, is an increasingly labor-intensive practice.
But seriously, just look at this doofus. He’s awesome.
The Dumbest Sentence Published Today
The half-century between 1912 and 1962 was a period of great wars and economic tumult but also of impressive social cohesion.
–from today’s column by David Brooks.
To be charitable to Brooks, the first half of the sentence is not entirely incorrect. Between 1912 and 1962, there were many great wars and much economic tumult. That much is pretty indisputable and not at all stupid. “But also of impressive social cohesion” — woo, boy, is that a howler. I thought of making a list of all the things you’d have to ignore to think that claim is true. Then I remembered I have other things to do today. So I’ll stick to two:
- I might be whiter than David Brooks, but even I know that Jim Crow was a pretty freaking huge impediment to social cohesion in the early decades of the 20th century. Kinda hard to ignore that one.
- Religious discrimination that saw Catholics (and immigrants from Catholic countries) legally prohibited from equal protection resulted in the Catholic ghettos of urban centers and the popular suspicions of Catholic politicians (Al Smith, JFK, anybody opposing Prohibition). There was social cohesion as long as you went to the right church.
The periodization is, of course, also very interesting. Why Brooks chooses to date the end of social cohesion at the beginning of various important social movements would be curious if his motivations weren’t so transparent. Why does this matter, anyway?
» Read the rest of this entry «
LOTR Fridays
What Gandalf should have said at Helm’s Deep.
Daily Wisdom
1. It’s always better to be a little bit overdressed than a little bit underdressed.
2. There’s nothing wrong with caring about aesthetics.
3. Remember that your dress isn’t just about yourself, it’s about your respect for the others around you.
– Jesse Thorn’s three essential style tips for young men
Ice Cube Wasn’t Always Like this
Proof that some of the best humanities research is taking place outside the cushy confines of academe: this simple tumblr post.
Poster Donovan Strain set out to figure out when, precisely, was the nominal good day in Ice Cube’s 1993 hit “It Was a Good Day.” He uses specific references in the song’s lyrics (e.g. “the Lakers beat the SuperSonics”) to work out that the song must be referencing January 20, 1992.
Now that’s how you do research.
“At best moronic, at worst an epic swindle”
That’s how this article from The Dallas Observer describes college football’s bowl system. The point of the article, believe it or not, is not that the BCS is a terrible way to decide a champion or that the bowl system is a diluted shell of what it traditionally has been. Instead, it makes a very cogent argument that the entire bowl system constitutes a giant transfer of funds from university budgets to marginally non-profit entities paying exorbitant salaries to a handful of executives.
As an academic and a college football fan, I’m obviously conflicted. This is one more arrow in the quiver of those who despise the emphasis on athletics in higher education, particularly at large state-funded institutions. Now, I’ve always found those arguments to be premised on ludicrous assumptions about the role of the academy. However, a situation like this one shows certain institutions actually losing money on the pursuit of nominal athletic glory, inevitably (although no one will admit it) at the expense of more worthy pursuits. I think college athletics – even big time, big money college athletics – have a place in the life of the university. I am finding it harder and harder to justify the financial sinkhole that constitutes the traditions of my favorite sport at the same time tenure-lines are being cut and tuitions are skyrocketing. Eventually, something’s going to have to give.
Also, Nebraska has lost its last two bowl games. That makes me dislike the system, too.
Against Utility
There is something of a cottage industry in publishing tracts on the “crisis in the humanities,” usually as a smaller but more fervent sub-crisis of the “decline of higher education.” Often in apocalyptic tones and always accompanied by disturbing charts – oh, those charts! – these essays and books point to the ascendance of corporate values in the governance and teaching of institutions of higher learning, ideals that devalue and ultimately displace traditional teaching in the humanities. Enrollments of English and history majors decline as students look to paths that lead more directly to post-graduate employment. This becomes especially true, as David Brooks points out, during periods of economic turmoil (like, you know, now). Lower demand for humanistic education leads to budget stresses in humanities departments, stresses inevitably rectified by swelling the numbers of contingent faculty and the cheap labor of graduate students. As any newly-minted humanities PhD can tell you, the greatest casualty of this crisis is career opportunity for young humanists.
Stepping into the debate about proper responses to the crisis in the humanities are Paul Jay and Gerald Graff, with a new essay on Inside Higher Ed entitled “The Fear of Being Useful.” » Read the rest of this entry «
The Ballinest-Outta-Control Picture Ever
Warren Buffett at the re-launch of the 40/40 Club.
TV of the Future
One of my favorite podcasts, Stop Podcasting Yourself, joined with old friend Ben Mills to develop a list of possible reality TV shows. Many of these will be coming soon to a flat screen near you.
Personal favorite: “Are You Smarter Than a Holocaust-Denier?”