Posts by B Jones
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Hard News: A Golden Age for the Arts?, in reply to BenWilson,
Dance marathons and the like were huge in the 20s and 30s, and they're not that different to modern game/talent shows. They could have seemed as big as jazz etc to contemporary eyes, yet their lasting legacy is questionable. There could well be some musical/artistic response to the current worldwide economic climate, but when we hear about it depends on how plugged in we are to what's new (I'm totally not) and it might be a while before it's obvious what happened, because it has to filter through the noise of One Direction and Justin Bieber and so forth. And chances are anyone over thirty will hate it.
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Notes & Queries: In The Face of Global…, in reply to Jolisa,
"O, the lack of humanity."
Which itself is a reference to a tragedy that's been used repeatedly to comic effect:
Oh the huge manatee -
Hard News: The Treasure at the End of…, in reply to Russell Brown,
especially the occasional woman changing her surname (ye gods!)
The numbers of women doing this has actually increased (can't be bothered finding the cite for that, but somewhere in the media in the last month or so). Boggles me every time I see it, but it seems to be the majority of my peers in their mid thirties and younger. Older ones, not so much.
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Hard News: The Treasure at the End of…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Craig, you totally made my day with that clip. My favourite waiata, my favourite trombonist, and a whole album of other cool stuff to discover. In amongst all the other things to be happy about.
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Up Front: Card on the Table, in reply to Paul Campbell,
Mieville lists a bunch of others here: 50 Sci-Fi & Fantasy Works Every Socialist Should Read.
I couldn't get past the "Peter and Valentine change the world by arguing on the internet" subplot in the Ender books.
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Hard News: The Wogistan form book, in reply to Islander,
but Islamic ones - because of their anti-female skew- are the worst
Along with all the others. There's plenty of anti-female skew in a wide variety of world religions, some of which we tune out because we're more familiar with it. I mean, there's a perfectly good reason Catholic women can't be priests, right? Or Mormon women aren't supposed to work outside the home?
Prosser didn't lose his knife, he just had to check it into his luggage. Another thing I've seen happen is that you can post knives home from the airport.
The theory behind disrespecting religion being ok is that while race etc isn't a choice, religion is, and is therefore up for free discussion. I'm not sure I buy that, but the alternative can be ugly - the Catholic church wants to arrest a guy in India called Sanal Edamaruku for pointing out that one of their miraculous bleeding statues was the result of a leaking pipe. He's facing blasphemy charges.
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Hard News: The mathematics of marriage, in reply to Keir Leslie,
Herceptin - maybe an attempt to stick a wedge between health conscious older women and the teenagers they're making decisions for? Or a sort of "some of my best friends are female body parts"?
I would have thought naked jogging is easier on your moral fabric as there's less chafing.
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Hard News: The mathematics of marriage, in reply to Keir Leslie,
it’s a lot harder to construct a safe and equitable framework.
Marriage doesn't have a lot of real world impact in terms of changing your legal rights in New Zealand, but one of the ways it does have an effect is in property division after divorce, which gets a bit fiddlier when you're talking about multiple relationship ties. If each party had an equal share in the relationship property, divorce could get a lot more costly for your average patriarch.
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Yeah, I'm enjoying it for the beautiful New Mexico skies, the clever editing, the nice cinematography, the unexpected twists here and there, and the OMG what an ARSE that Walt serves up just about every time you catch yourself sympathising with him.
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I've only gotten partway through, I'm not sure what the conclusions are yet :-)