Sci-fi and gaming: how far back do they go?
By Dave Gottlieb | July 2, 2009
Sci-fi and gaming are demographically and thematically linked activities today. Why is that so and how far back does it go? Well, check this out: early SF writer H.G. Wells also designed “the first modern table top war game,” called “Little Wars: a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys’ games and books.” Check out that quasi-egalitarian subtitle.
Topics: Books, Games | No Comments »
France’s McDonald’s backlash and Red Sex, Blue Sex
By Dave Gottlieb | June 27, 2009
Slate serves up a delicious nugget: France is the second-largest McDonald’s market in the world. This surprised me in itself. More important: remember France’s ludicrous anti-McD’s movement, when the farmer Jose Bove lit up French and international opinion by attacking a McDonald’s restaurant?
Being threatened by McDonald’s always seemed stupid to me. But it turns out France was or was becoming a culinary landscape defined by McDonald’s. Of course that was scary? I’m reminded of the Red-Sex-Blue-Sex argument that says that Middle America is so worried about threats to the American family exactly because the family is a declining institution in those communities.
Topics: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
NYT on the Japanese roots of the prep revival
By Dave Gottlieb | June 18, 2009
Link.
Topics: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Nuts: A Call to Arms
By Dave Gottlieb | June 18, 2009
Obviously Dr. Christakis does not have a child who is allergic to nuts.
Nut allergy is a new phenomenon, which both parents and medical personnel are still trying to figure out.
Even though for medical personnel it is a interesting subject of study, for parents sending their allergic kids to schools it is a very worrisome issue. Therefore any effort on the school’s part to alleviate this worry is most welcomed by parents.
If schools decide to follow Dr. Christakis’s advice parents like us will be forced to remove our kids from such schools and place them in schools more sensitive to our concerns.
Comment on this NYT piece that suggests (predictably!) that the nut allergy hysteria is hysteria. Quantitatively, the dangers associated with nut allergies are tiny, but crusading parents use them as a weapon to take control of schools and neighborhoods.
Topics: Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
New(?) Theory: “Decadent” societies seem bad primarily because their documentary records are more thorough and honest
By Dave Gottlieb | June 11, 2009
It’s a historical trope that societies that are “decadent” (in moral decline) are also in temporal decline. It’s a story that’s told of rich, liberal societies with indulgent mores. More austere (poorer, less liberal) societies are conversely honored for their purity; they are more likely to be romanticized as heroic ages.
BUT richer, more liberal societies are also more likely to be literate, to approve or allow the writings of a broader range of opinions, to support writers of satire and other kinds of internal criticism. So these societies will leave a profusion of critical writings, seemingly documenting their relative decadence. But less-lettered, more censorious societies may have all the same moral failings and simply fail to document them. To the extent that the seeming relative turpitude of rich, liberal societies is the product of the richness of the record they leave, the conventional wisdom about “decadent” societies is undermined.
Topics: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
New extreme eating technique: fasting on specific important nutrients so they taste better
By Dave Gottlieb | June 10, 2009
Sometimes salty things taste unusually great; one contributing factor seems to be whether you’ve had enough salt recently. So you could deprive yourself of salt for a little while to heighten the enjoyment of something salty! Exciting!
Topics: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Wars used to be fought over taxes all the time. What changed?
By Dave Gottlieb | June 8, 2009
Famously taxes were a factor in the American Revolution, and also in early rebellions against the new republic. Colonial revolts against imperial Rome? Anyway, I think this is the case. But I can’t think of one recently. What’s the deal? Are people too rich to die for a tax cut? Or are they too weak to put up a fight?
Topics: Uncategorized | 11 Comments »
Sarang on “Theory” in defense of religion
By Dave Gottlieb | May 19, 2009
SG’s got a great little essay up on Glass-Bottom Blog, a little intellectual history on moves like Stanley Fish’s odd defense of religion.
An effective way to discredit ideas in the humanities for being sensible is to associate them with the Enlightenment; there is always something bad — colonialism (hence exploitation, the overuse of colons and subordinate clauses, etc.), property rights (hence the notion of authorship*, the fencing-in of emotions and couplets, the decline of enjambment, the advent of preposterous corsets), both of the above (the Enclosures; the desire to colonize, fence in, and rearrange the known universe; the widespread interest in physics; the obsession with water-clocks and gardens; the Industrial Revolution) — about the Enlightenment that you can associate your target with.
PS You’re intellectual history, bub!
Topics: Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
Brief note on Valkyria Chronicles’ Music
By Dave Gottlieb | May 18, 2009
Wiki: “Sakimoto has stated that when composing Valkyria Chronicles, he aimed to give the soundtrack a greater Western appeal, influenced by Hans Zimmer’s action film scores.” That’s odd, because the most obvious influence on Sakimoto’s Valkyria soundtrack is the soundtrack to Final Fantasy Tactics, also by Sakimoto.
Topics: Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
Are we still in a “War on Terror”?
By Dave Gottlieb | May 18, 2009
I haven’t been clear where our new democratic overlords stand on that particular bit of rhetoric. But I did stumble across this, from SG Kagan’s confirmation hearing:
There was no daylight between Ms. Kagan, who was the dean of Harvard Law School, and Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, as he led her through a six-minute colloquy about the president’s broad authority to detain enemy combatants. “Do you believe we’re at war?” the senator asked. “I do, senator,” she answered crisply.
Topics: Law, Political | No Comments »