The Memes of Production: A cultural studies weblog

I was having a debate about Sarah Palin with a self-described conservative friend recently, and he remarked how “the left” (leave that indifferentiation aside for the moment) had gone ballistic in its hatred for her. Not more than the vitriol “the right” reserves for Hillary Clinton I suspect, but I feel he has a point.

Much of the criticism is focussed on her inexperience (a question that must be asked of the Obama camp as well, to be sure), but a certain amount has caricatured her as a red-neck, gun totin’, caribou killing hillbilly. Now the red-neck, gun totin’ brigade has not done a lot for US credibility in last eight years, and I reserve my deepest levels of contempt for people who find it necessary to demonstrate their superiority over animals by killing them with high-power, precision targeted weapons, but I wonder whether the same level of condemnation would be aroused if Palin was male? Larvatus Prodeo canvasses a similar question here, and some of the comments are revealing. “Gun totin’ hick” isn’t a good look in relation to US foreign policy, so why weren’t these accusations levelled at George W Bush, or at John McCain?

Predicably, Republicans are squealing “sexism.” Well at least they’ve learned the word: eventually they’ll realise that a woman doesn’t have to be “one of the boys” to be considered for high office. I don’t think all this criticism is sexist, but there is certainly an imbalance in the progressive commentary, and it wouldn’t hurt their credibility if they examined that. I believe there are more than enough reasons to argue against Palin as VP without descending to class-based stereotypes.

It seems that most commentators have respected Palin’s call to leave her daughter alone. For my part, I’d prefer it if they skipped the hick-baiting, and asked questions about how Palin’s policy of abstinence and narrow definitions of sexual morality will address the problems of unwanted pregnancy, when they don’t even work in her own family.

Yesterday Senator Kim Carr, Minister for Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, presented at the National Press Club on the topic of innovation and the humanities. You can read the full speech here, and while I am not of the habit of putting too much trust in the words of politicians, this seems refreshingly honest, and I am told by someone who has had close dealings with this minister that the expressed views are firmly and personally held. The speech concludes:

As I said at the beginning, the humanities, arts and social sciences are critical to solving our most pressing real-world problems. These are problems so complex that our only hope of sorting them out is through a multidisciplinary effort… [more]

When I was 10 or 11, and a bookish youth fascinated by anything science fiction or science fact, I found an article in the Reader’s Digest about the soon-to-be-launched NASA probe, Pioneer 10. I read and re-read the article over and over, fascinated by the scale of the endeavour—Pioneer 10 will enter the constellation Taurus in about 2 million years, if the Klingons don’t blast it out of the sky first—and by the prospect of learning new things about the solar system. I even cut out the article and pasted it into a scrapbook, which I think I still own, if only I could find it.

But mainly I think I was taken by the style of the article, because Pioneer 10 was literally personified as a plucky little adventurer exploring the depths of space, and beaming home treasures of knowledge until it was too far away to communicate. Portrayed as an obedient and dutiful pupil, Pioneer 10 obeyed its masters’ commands, and sent home the most beautiful and extraordinary photos.

And then, the article continued, after all the adventures of the asteroid belt and the close encounter with Jupiter and its moons, the little spaceship would start to die… [more]

Calpundit moves from Washington Monthly to Mother Jones, and keeps the cat-blogging intact [more]

I’ve been thinking a lot about blogging recently, especially after reading Catriona’s posting about personal blogging and taking a look at the 2amSomewhere site that she mentioned. Most of the blogs that I read are at least partly academic or political . . .

Much has been said about how text messaging will spell the end of civilisation, turning young people (why only young people, I wonder) into illiterate zombies, unable to communic8 without resorting to bizarre and unreadable abrevi8ns.

An article in The Guardian by linguistics professor and all round legend, David Crystal, puts paid to that one. Crystal points to recent research that suggests that rather than harming children’s writing skills, texting improves them:

The most important finding is that texting does not erode children’s ability to read and write. On the contrary, literacy improves. The latest studies (from a team at Coventry University) have found strong positive links between the use of text language and the skills underlying success in standard English in pre-teenage children. The more abbreviations in their messages, the higher they scored on tests of reading and vocabulary. The children who were better at spelling and writing used the most textisms. And the younger they received their first phone, the higher their scores.

Crystal goes on to talk about a number of literary endeavours aimed specifically at the text message, likening the constraints imposed by the technology to similar constraints in forms such as haiku. A competition run by a UK phone company to mark the 2007 World Poetry Day produced 200 entries (check out the article for the winner and runner up).

And it was this that reminded me of one of my favourite online things: 140 Characters by Twitterfiction (A.E. Baxter). For those of you on Twitter, check it out (and maybe contribute something—it’s been a while since the last post). Microfiction in 140 characters: some are clever; some are poignant; all demonstrate the miracle of language.

A language that surely can survive a few clunky abbreviations and neologisms.

Much has been written about, and continues to be written about, Dexter, and it’s not my intention here to comment on the show’s premise or visual style: although I can’t resist pointing out that the former is as shockingly original as the latter is dull and clichéd. I should also admit that this opinion is based on my watching a total of two episodes. (Episode two, which screened in Australia last night progressed the narrative arc, and the character development, but in all other respects seemed pretty much a filler episode.)

Rather, I want to comment on a small, almost unnoticed, aspect of the show. As is familiar to us who live in TV land, if not the real world, Miami is as close to a multicultural city as the US can produce, with its significant Latino population and culture. As in other programmes such as CSI Miami (and possibly Miami Vice, although my memory doesn’t stretch back that far in any detail), the use of Spanish dialogue helps to convey this sense of difference. I recognise…

I’m putting the site on comments moderation for the time being as we’re experiencing a sustained spam attack on an older post. I’ve deleted the existing spam comments and banned the IP addresses associated with those comments. It looks like the scum-sucking spam merchants have learned too much about Textpattern. I’ll be investigating our options for spam-blocking plugins over the next couple of days. I like the idea of an unencumbered public forum, which is why this site hasn’t defaulted to moderation until now. But spam is why we can’t have nice things.

I’ve just discovered a thread over at Sarsparilla on one of my favourite television shows: The Cook and the Chef. I came to the discussion a bit late, unfortunately, but I found it interesting because I’ve just finished writing an article that explores many of the problematics that the blog posting raises. The post focuses on the relationship between Simon and Maggie in terms of the amateur/professional dichotomy set up by the show itself…

Brisbane-based, News Ltd daily, The Courier-Mail, has an expose on the flagrant misuse of taxpayer’s money by an arrogant, elitist, money-grubbing academic at UQ. His crime? He went to a conference! Shock! Horror!

Link here

In this case, Assoc. Prof. Jacobs was an invited speaker at an international conference…