Posts Tagged ‘story circle’
Wednesday Is Now Trumpnesday, All Hail Trump
* CFP: 42nd Meeting of the Society for Utopian Studies, Memphis, TN.
* Fascism happens fast: First look at Biff to the Future, the alt-history comic chronicling the BTTF universe.
Where are the time travelers?
Options:
1- Forbidden by physics
2- It all works out, no need to intervene today
3- There is no future— Starship Engineers (@StarshipBuilder) January 20, 2017
4- They did this to us https://t.co/s7kHjEVLuc
— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) January 24, 2017
* Trump and disaster capitalism.
* Dissenting from Within the Trump Administration.
* Delusional Democrats Yearning to Prove They Can Work With Trump. From Jonathan Chait, no less!
I keep coming back to this. I think it's the most important political commentary of our time. pic.twitter.com/IRvRNQ0TkI
— David Menschel (@davidminpdx) January 24, 2017
sean spicer looks like the guy in the group of survivors that hides the fact he was bitten by a zombie pic.twitter.com/NelW22afc8
— Eli Terry (@EliTerry) January 23, 2017
* “The White House is deploying a network of advisers to the top of federal agencies as a direct line to stay on top of Cabinet officials.” “U.S. Government Agencies Go Silent, May Have Been Swallowed By Black Hole.” “Trump Health Care Plan Would Take Medicaid Coverage Away from Up to 31 Million People.” “Trump Aides Can’t Stop Blabbing about How He’s a Madman.” “Donald Trump’s stock in oil pipeline company raises concern.” Oh, no, not concern! “American Carnage.” “The Resistance.” Nailing it.
Trump's victory makes it impossible to convince any political actor they should obey *any* norm. What's the upside?
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) January 24, 2017
How long is this really supposed to be sustainable, especially if the GOP continues to govern like this? https://t.co/cnvBkneD9e
— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) January 24, 2017
The bad press over the weekend has not allowed Trump to “enjoy” the White House as he feels he deserves, according to one person who has spoken with him.
* Almost certainly our next president, ladies and gentleman.
* Within minutes of each other: Trump Revives Keystone Pipeline. Canada oil pipeline spills 200,000 liters on aboriginal land.
* Bill would end Virginia’s ‘winner take all’ electoral vote system.
All you need to know about Trump is he's so delusional he believes, devoid of proof, he won the election despite millions of illegal votes.
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) January 24, 2017
* Some details on the shooting at the Milo Yiannopoulos talk at U Washington.
* Science corner! Badlands National Park Twitter account goes rogue, starts tweeting scientific facts. The Science of Sean Spicer’s Compulsive Gum Swallowing Habit. How long would a liberal have to cry to fill a coffee mug with tears? Flint water is fine again, also it was no one’s fault, trust us.
Not for nothing, but “it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive” has got to be one of the new ten commandments after the revolution.
— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) January 24, 2017
* Standpoint theory doesn’t say we can just make shit up; it says we need a clear-eyed understanding of power relations in order to understand and evaluate knowledge-claims. In other words, pomo feminists didn’t create “alt facts”; it’s pomo feminists who have given us the tools to oppose them.
* In Discarded Women’s March Signs, Professors Saw a Chance to Save History.
* Minnesota bill would make convicted protesters liable for policing costs. N.C. state lawmaker says shouting at current or former gov’t officials should be punishable by 5 years in prison.
* Interesting little story about Dan Harmon’s work on/against an early version of Dr. Strange.
* Like someone peeled open my skull and put my inner monologue on the Internet.
* The arc of history is long, but white women are going to prison at a higher rate than ever before.
* Wisconsin lawmaker wants Sheriff David Clarke booted from office, immediately.
* Further Thoughts on the Problem of Susan.
* Whitefish, Montana vs. the Nazis.
* This is how American health care kills people.
* Going back to the old days on health insurance, a first draft.
* Potential Trump Science Adviser Says 90 Percent of U.S. Colleges Will Disappear. I’m amazed they think a full tenth will escape the Sentinels.
* Arrested Development Season 5 rumors.
* Columbia University Releases Report on School’s Ties to Slavery.
* The Other Buffett Rule, or, why better billionaires will never save us.
* The Web Is a Customer Service Medium.
* And this truly is the darkest timeline.
If you think it's bad now: just wait for when there's a genuine crisis (which there will be, because there always is).
— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) January 25, 2017

Tom the Dancing Bug 1322 view from trump tower 2
Written by gerrycanavan
January 25, 2017 at 12:37 pm
Posted in Look at what I found on the Internet
Tagged with #NoDAPL, 25th Amendment, academia, America, anxiety, Arrested Development, Back to the Future, Badlands National Park, Biff Tannen, billionaires, Canada, carnage, censorship, CFP, Chuck Schumer, class struggle, college, Columbia, conferences, Connor, crisis, Dan Harmon, democracy, Democrats, disaster capitalism, dissent, Donald Trump, Dr. Strange, dystopia, Electoral College, endings, EPA, fascism, feminism, Flint, franchises, games, gum, guns, health care, health insurance, Hero's Journey, How the University Works, informants, ISIS, Keystone XL, kids, kids today, lead poisoning, Medicaid, Michigan, Mike Pence, Milo Yiannopoulous, Minnesota, Montana, Narnia, Nazis, norms, North Carolina, oil, oil spills, only the super-rich can save us now, parenting, plot, politics, postmodernism, prison, protest, representality, resistance, Rick and Morty, science fiction, Sean Spicer, Sheriff Clarke, slavery, social media, standpoint theory, story circle, the arc of history is long but it bends towards justice, the Constitution, the darkest timeline, the Internet, the Left, The Problem of Susan, time travel, Trump Tower, unit, Utopia, Utopian studies, Virginia, voter fraud, voting, Warren Buffet, water, white women, Whitefish, Women's March, Zoey, zombies
Monday Morning Links!
Gorblex-12’s log, day 5875. We have now replaced 95% of human society with cartoonish nonsense, and literally none of them have noticed.
— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) December 4, 2016
* A personal announcement: I’ll be the Vice President of the Science Fiction Research Association for the next three years. Thanks for the vote of confidence!
* CFP: “Purple Reign: An interdisciplinary conference on the life and legacy of Prince.”
* Huge, if true: Reading Literature Won’t Give You Superpowers. And meanwhile: What’s Wrong With Literary Studies? Some scholars think the field has become cynical and paranoid. Only some?
* Use Data to Make a Strong Case for the Humanities.
* They did it: Army Corps of Engineers Statement Regarding the Dakota Access Pipeline. More from Vox.
Entire #DAPL project has to be killed to avoid h2o contamination of Missouri and Mississippi rivers. pic.twitter.com/T3qo97ee6B
— Katherine Franke (@ProfKFranke) December 4, 2016
* Is there any branch of literature so insecure, so uncertain of its own status, as science fiction?
* Inside the world of Chinese science fiction, with “Three Body Problem” translator Ken Liu.
* Marquette in the ne– oh come on.
* Dan Harmon’s story circle at YouTube.
* Trouble in the Heartland: Listening to Springsteen in Wisconsin in 1979.
* Well, that seems fine: GOP rep: Trump has ‘extra-constitutional’ view of presidency. Donald Trump risks China rift with Taiwan call. BREAKING: US President-elect Trump told Rodrigo Duterte that Philippines was conducting its drug war “the right way.” That’s bad. Trump’s education pick says reform can ‘advance God’s Kingdom.’ What the Nazis were doing was not describing what was true, but what would have to be true to justify what they planned to do next. A People’s History of the Third Reich: How Great Man theory allows us to abdicate collective responsibility. Facts are stupid things: Here’s Where Donald Trump Gets His News. Trump and the coming failed state. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Now Is The Time To Talk About What We Are Actually Talking About. Another visit from the goon squad. Trump and the Bush Legacy.
TFW you're aboard a 747 and the pilot has never flown any kind of plane before and he feels *great* about this.
— Fritz Bogott (@fritzbogott) December 4, 2016
It’s hard to imagine a way that Trump could signal “I’m very dangerous, do not give me any power” more than he has. https://t.co/6LCL4uhGo3
— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) December 2, 2016
when your day's going ok for five minutes then you remember all over that trump's about to be president pic.twitter.com/fE6hcIq6Ed
— Saladin Ahmed (@saladinahmed) December 4, 2016
* New SPLC reports reveal alarming pattern of hate incidents and bullying across country since election. Note the category just labeled “Trump — general.”
* Identity politics and the alt-right.
* Premised on the possibilities of political struggle, here was the Douglass Option: “a party in the Southern States among the poor.”
* Seems like this guy is Trump’s very worst pick, clearing a very tough field:
During a tense gathering of senior officials at an off-site retreat, he gave the assembled group a taste of his leadership philosophy, according to one person who attended the meeting and insisted on anonymity to discuss classified matters. Mr. Flynn said that the first thing everyone needed to know was that he was always right. His staff would know they were right, he said, when their views melded to his. The room fell silent, as employees processed the lecture from their new boss.
Flynn also helped promulgate the “Pizzagate” hoax that nearly led to a mass shooting today.
if you die in an Internet conspiracy theory, you die in real life
— Gerry Canavan (@gerrycanavan) December 5, 2016
* Google, democracy and the truth about internet search.
* Steve Bannon, on the other hand, is winning me over.
* It’s true that racism is a powerful and durable force in our politics. But it is also true that Donald Trump is an incompetent clown who ran an amateurish campaign rife with mistakes. The Democrats should have won this election in a landslide. They did not, and there is no nobility or reassurance for them in a narrow loss in the electoral college or a win in the popular vote. And continuing to insist that a Donald Trump win was either some kind of strange fluke or completely inevitable is a recipe for repeated defeat.
* When the Democrats didn’t like monopolies. On not going high when they go low.
* Can the good parts of Obamacare survive Trump?
* Friedman just got finished telling us that a black elephant is half black swan, and half elephant in the room that will inevitably become a black swan. But now that half-swan, half swan-within-an-elephant is being contrasted with a black swan: in the near future, things that are really black elephants will be misidentified as black swans.
* Understanding survivorship bias.
* Podcast idea of the week: Like Random Trek, but for Rod Serling.
* Which Famous Actor Hustled Chess Games in New York City?
* What does elephant taste like?
* Here’s Why You Should Be Watching Netflix’s Brazilian Sci-Fi Series 3%. And on the SF kick: Aaron Bady explains Westworld.
* …there is no reason to assume Uber’s obliteration of local competition across the planet will create a sustainable business in the long term. Costs are costs, even if you’re a monopoly. As long as people have cheaper alternatives (public transport, legs), they will defect if the break-even price is higher than their inconvenience tolerance threshold.
* Trump could face the ‘biggest trial of the century’ — over climate change. But really, show’s over, folks.
* The trans brain and gender dysphoria.
* This is brilliant and I’m shocked it took the good guys this long to figure it out.
* Kazuo Ishiguro on the coming race of super clones. Never Let Me Go 2: The Revenge.
* Every villain is the hero of their own story.
* And this is pretty much my actual teaching philosophy.
Written by gerrycanavan
December 5, 2016 at 9:00 am
Posted in Look at what I found on the Internet
Tagged with #NoDAPL, 3%, academia, actually existing media bias, America, America is already great, animals, astronauts, Barack Obama, Black Bolt, black elephants, black swans, Book of Genesis, Brazil, Bush, CFPs, chess, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, China, Chinese science fiction, Christmas, class struggle, climate change, clones, cloning, cognitive bias, conspiracy theories, cynicism, Dan Harmon, data, Democrats, Department of Education, Donald Trump, eating meat, ecology, Electoral College, elephants, empathy, Ernest P. Worrell, European Union, every villain is the hero of their own story, Fidel Castro, Frederick Douglass, general election 2016, George Lucas, Great Man Theory, guns, hate crimes, health care, How the University Works, Humphrey Bogart, identity politics, immigration, Italy, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ken Liu, literary studies, literature, Marquette, mass shootings, Michael Flynn, monopolies, music, my scholarly empire, my teaching philosophy, Nazis, Never Let Me Go, news, North Carolina, obituary, our brains work in interesting ways, over-educated literary theory PhDs, paranoia, pipelines, Pizzagate, podcasts, police, politics, Prince, protest, race, racism, Random Serling, Random Trek, religion, resistance, Rogue One, Saladin Ahmed, scams, science fiction, Seinfeld, SFRA, socialism, Southern Poverty Law Center, Springsteen, Star Wars, Steve Bannon, story circle, superpowers, Supreme Court, survivorship bias, Tawain, the alt-right, the humanities, the Internet, the Philippines, the presidency, The Three-Body Problem, Thomas Friedman, trans* issues, true crime, Uber, War on Christmas, war on drugs, Westward, when they go low we go high, Wisconsin
A Whole Lot of Sunday Night Links
* SNL wins a game: Djesus Uncrossed.
* Batman should never have revealed his secret identity.
* Dan Harmon explains his Joseph-Campbell-influenced theory of the “story circle,” in a few posts: 1 2 3 4 5 6
* The politics of the Papal Conclave are fascinating.
* Pope Benedict XVI’s leaked documents show fractured Vatican full of rivalries. Pope blesses thousands at Vatican as details of ailments emerge.
As early as this April, Yale plans to welcome a training center for interrogators to its campus.
The center’s primary goal would be to coach U.S. Special Forces on interviewing tactics designed to detect lies. Charles Morgan III, a professor of psychiatry who will head the project, calls these tactics “people skills.” These techniques would be honed using New Haven’s immigrant community as subjects.
* Cooper Union will probably not be free anymore.
* Roopika Risam on breaking the silence of the job search.
* Freddie deBoer: I’ve been making the case (again and again and again) that the constantly-expressed notion that we’ll have full employment if people are just smart and go into STEM fields is empirically indefensible. Adam Kotsko: What is education actually for?
* Margaret Atwood teases Maddaddam:
“Maddaddam begins where The Year of the Flood finishes and goes on from there,” she says. “It explores what happens when the conventional humans and the new creations find themselves in the same space. You can see that there might be some cultural misunderstandings.”
* Comics explained: the backstory of Rachel Summers. It couldn’t be simpler!
* Aaron Bady on Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s In the House of the Interpreter.
* The New York Times profiles flood management technology in the Netherlands.
* Could our universe be located within the interior of a wormhole which itself is part of a black hole that lies within a much larger universe? And that universe is on the back of an even larger turtle…
* Forest Whitaker Accused of Shoplifting, Frisked at Upper West Side Deli.
* Obama says kill the penny. He would say that. He hates capitalism.
* Equal Opportunity, Our National Myth.
* Kidding on the square: another National Review blogger calls for the repeal of the 19th Amendment.
* Gasp! Deregulation May Not Have Lowered Air Fares After All.
* The phenomenology of solitary confinement.
* Surveying self-confessed rapists.
* How to be a Person in the Age of Autoimmunity.
* Data-crunching the Internet Adult Film Database.
* Data-crunching the Lord of the Rings.
* The Internet has finally developed impermanence technology.
* And Iceland might ban Internet porn.
Halla Gunnarsdóttir, an adviser to the interior minister, explains the country’s anti-smut rationale to The Guardian:
“We are a progressive, liberal society when it comes to nudity, to sexual relations, so our approach is not anti-sex but anti-violence. This is about children and gender equality, not about limiting free speech…”
This is Iceland, after all. Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir is the first openly lesbian government head in the world. It’s already illegal to print and distribute porn within the country, and since 2010, strip clubs have been prohibited as well…
Written by gerrycanavan
February 17, 2013 at 8:47 pm
Posted in Look at what I found on the Internet
Tagged with academia, academic jobs, Alberta, apocalypse, autoimmune disorders, banking, Barack Obama, Batman, capitalism, Catholicism, civil disobedience, climate change, coastal flooding, College of Cardinals, comics, community, conservatives, Cooper Union, crime, Crohn's disease, dams, Dan Harmon, data, deregulation, Django Unchained, ecology, education, Elizabeth Warren, equality, forward to the nineteenth century, Great Recession, How the University Works, Iceland, immigration, impermanence, Inglourious Basterds, Joseph Campbell, Keystone XL, Kill Bill, lesbocracy, Lord of the Rings, Maddaddam, Margaret Atwood, myth, neoliberalism, Netherlands, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Nineteenth Amendment, Occupy Gotham, opportunity, Oryx and Crake, papal conclave, pedagogy, physics, pornography, prison-industrial complex, prisons, race, Rachel Summers, rape, rape culture, regulation, science, science fiction, Sierra Club, Snapchat, SNL, solitary confinement, story circle, superheroes, tar sands, Tarantino, the cosmos, the digital, the penny, the Pope, the Vatican, The Year of the Flood, Tolkien, torture, tuition, voting, woman's suffrage, worst financial crisis since the last one, writing, WTF University, X-Men, Yale, zunguzungu