I’m working against some fast-approaching deadlines– also working in the midst of some please-ice-me-down-or-shoot-me-now heat indices here in Memphis– so all I can rustle up are a few truncated reflections on things that have piqued my interest of late. For those of you playing along at home, I’ve provided helpful and handy-dandy guides for filing away these gems. You’re welcome.
1. From the “Thou Dost Protest Too Much” file:
The New York Times (ahem, excuse me, cough, and another ironic cough) is all aflutter about plagiarism again. The recent article by Trip Gabriel, “Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age,” rehearses that same old song about it being Just. So. Damn. Easy. for students to cut-and-paste. And it asks the same old tired questions about the aughts and the oughts. I wish someone would say something interesting about the alleged increase of cheating in higher education. Or, at the very least, I wish someone would forego the school-marmy indignation and at least try to present this as a complex issue. Oh wait, nevermind, I already did that.
2. From the “Get Offa My Lawn!” file:
Over at Slate, Mark Oppenheimer gives us the crotchety-cum-endearingly-nostalgic piece “Judging A Girl By Her Cover,” in which he pines for the halcyon (i.e., pre-Kindle) days. Remember when you could indulge in snap judgments about a stranger’s taste, character, history and possible romantic compatibility just by slyly checking out the book he or she was carrying? Yeah, well, blame Kindle for its disappearance. Kids today, they just don’t know how to share.
3. From the “That Depends on What The Meaning of ‘Is’ Is” file:
Also at Slate, William Saletan asks: can a black-white performance gap be hereditary but not racial? What prompted this question was a recent study (“The Evolution of Speed in Athletics: Why the Fastest Runners Are Black and Swimmers White”) that appears, on its face, to be yet another contribution to the various pseudo-sciences of racial essentialism. Only– hold on a sec!– the study’s authors refuse to employ “racial” categories to explain their observations about performance gaps in speed sports. They even concede, right there at the beginning of the study, that “race” is a social contruct— almost certainly guaranteeing their disinvitation to any future Scientist Cocktail Parties for the offensive use of such a grossly postmodern term– and they insist that their study tracks heritable phenotypic characteristics that obtain in populations with a common geographic root. And that “geographical population” is not equivalent to “racial population.” Because, scientifically speaking, there is no such thing as “race.” Whoa, dude.
4. From the “Eat the Rich” file:
In perhaps the best article title EVAH from The Economist, “The Rich Are Different From You and Me: They Are More Selfish,” we learn that a recent UC-Berkeley study shows that poor people are more inclined to charity than rich people. My prediction: soon-to-be-released (and generously funded) follow-up study shows that rich people don’t give a sh*t if you think they’re selfish.
5. From the “Reality: It’s What Happens On TV” file:
As an unrepentant and unashamed lover of television, especially “reality” television, I LOVED Troy Patterson’s explanation of The Hills and Jersey Shore as psycho-cultural emandations of the last decade’s economic boom and bust. We don’t care about the nauseatingly privileged, shallow but beautiful, and thoroughly self-absorbed characters of The Hills anymore because that love-bubble burst, leaving us with the same resentful distaste as befits a sub-prime mortgage holder. Now we love the tacky, brash, hedonistic, GTL (gym, tan, laundry) characters of the Jersey Shore, whose makeshift and scrappy– but, in the end, fundamentally humanist– communal bonds are as authentic and as open-hearted as one can find among the downtrodden. It’s a hard knock life, after all. Despite all of their creeping and cat-fighting, the Jersey Shore kids nevertheless stand as reminders of one of the basic tenets of friendship: He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.
6. From the “Nerdgasm” file:
Blogging philosohers are debating whether or not Kant’s moral psychology is implausible. You probably don’t care… but for some of us, it’s a little like Jersey Shore.
And, finally…
7. From the “When Red Bull and Vodka Just Ain’t Enough” file:
There’s always Perky Jerky.