Links
Anna Tambour blogs, with no small sense of bitter irony on the Eureka prize for “ethics in science” (awarded by the Australian Catholic University) going to… “a book in which [Professor Garrett Cullity] argues that the altruistic model of restricting one's life to aid another is flawed and that it is not morally wrong to live a life of rich personal fulfillment.”
M. John Harrison on what should really constitute the fantasy canon: ”The car industry offers fantasies of success, escape &, especially, competence (ninety percent of drivers rate themselves in the top ten percent of driving ability). The cosmetic & fashion industries offer the fantasy of perfectibility. The sports industry sells a fantasy of activity to people who rarely leave their cars or their sofas unless it’s to go to bed. From the iconography of Nationalism to the publicly managed death of a Reality TV star, cultural psychodramas have always been fantasies–some orchestrated, some spontaneous, most a mixture of both. All these elements are interlocked. You don’t have to be a theorist to recognise that. You only have to have lived in the 20th & 21st Centuries.”
Nick Mamatas is not snarky-as-fuck about the new Star Trek movie.
And lastly, I got a spike in my hits recently from my BSG post being linked in this SciFi.com forum discussion on sf writers’ responses to the BSG finale. As forum discussions go, this one’s actually remained substantive enough and with enough recognition that other viewers’ perspectives are valid that it doesn’t at all make me want to slam my head against a wall while reading it. Hell, there’s only one Inarticulacy Argument (IIRC) (you know, where anyone who uses “big” words is clearly doing so “just to look clever”,) and as the thread moves on to the New Caprica arc, I find myself kinda wanting to weigh in. But thankfully maintaining my self-control.
M. John Harrison on what should really constitute the fantasy canon: ”The car industry offers fantasies of success, escape &, especially, competence (ninety percent of drivers rate themselves in the top ten percent of driving ability). The cosmetic & fashion industries offer the fantasy of perfectibility. The sports industry sells a fantasy of activity to people who rarely leave their cars or their sofas unless it’s to go to bed. From the iconography of Nationalism to the publicly managed death of a Reality TV star, cultural psychodramas have always been fantasies–some orchestrated, some spontaneous, most a mixture of both. All these elements are interlocked. You don’t have to be a theorist to recognise that. You only have to have lived in the 20th & 21st Centuries.”
Nick Mamatas is not snarky-as-fuck about the new Star Trek movie.
And lastly, I got a spike in my hits recently from my BSG post being linked in this SciFi.com forum discussion on sf writers’ responses to the BSG finale. As forum discussions go, this one’s actually remained substantive enough and with enough recognition that other viewers’ perspectives are valid that it doesn’t at all make me want to slam my head against a wall while reading it. Hell, there’s only one Inarticulacy Argument (IIRC) (you know, where anyone who uses “big” words is clearly doing so “just to look clever”,) and as the thread moves on to the New Caprica arc, I find myself kinda wanting to weigh in. But thankfully maintaining my self-control.
posted by Hal Duncan | 4:24 pm
2 Comments:
Thanks for the irony mention, Al. This post by Kate Orman and the comments relate pithily, referring to a Sydney Morning Herald story so slanted towards the Vatican, it's prostrate. It uses an "ethicist" to base its moral position on, and therein lies the rub.
It's a joke a minute, though. Here's yesterday's headline, not from The Onion, but from the NY Times: Pope Deplores 'Ideological Manipulation'.
I am having difficulty coming to terms with the fact that you clearly haven't seen "Dollhouse" yet... It's quite painful, coming to terms with such facts...
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