Gerry Canavan

the smartest kid on earth

Posts Tagged ‘supervillains

Weekend Links!

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* My upcoming Studies in Genre course has been cancelled because it has been rendered superfluous.

* I realized I’d never gotten around to adding Paradoxa 28 to the sidebar. Check it out, if you haven’t yet!

tumblr_olklhhyinn1romv9co1_540* Cuban highlighted English, philosophy, and foreign language majors as just some of the majors that will do well in the future job market. “The nature of jobs is changing,” Cuban said.

* Love as Political Resistance: Lessons of Audre Lorde and Octavia Butler. Parable Of The Sower – Not 1984 – Is The Dystopia For Our Age.

* Wikipedia vs. the deletionists.

* Style guide: the look of white supremacy.

* This was beautiful: Coed CYO hoops team defies archdiocese order to kick girls out, forfeits season.

“Is your decision to play the game without the two young ladies on the team, or do you want to stay as a team as you have all year?” asked parent Matthew Dohn. “Show of hands for play as a team?”

Eleven hands shot up in unison. No one raised a hand when asked the alternative.

Assistant coach Keisha Martel, who is also the mom of one of the girls, Kayla Martel, reminded the team of the consequences. They had been told that playing the girls would mean the rest of the season would be forfeited.

“But if the girls play, this will be the end of your season. You won’t play in the playoffs,” she warned.

“It doesn’t matter,” one boy replied and others echoed, before the team began to chant, “Unity!”

In the crowd, supporters cheered along. Several parents began to cry.

* Scenes from the Day without Latinos in Milwaukee.

* What It Feels Like When Your World Ends: Rebecca Evans on Black Wave.

* How many pounds do you need to be able to life to teach a literature class?

The Trump White House Is Screwed, Big League. Justice Department warned White House that Flynn could be vulnerable to Russian blackmail, officials say. Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence. Warren v. Flynn. Taking a Step Back. The Fog of Trump. What a Failed Trump Administration Looks Like. Republicans Won’t Stand Up and Stop President Trump. So you want to brief the president. That’s a hell of an act. Democrats Demand Mar-A-Lago Membership List. As Presidents Live Longer, Doctors Debate Whether To Test For Dementia. Authoritarian government watch: 6/10. The Great Government Breakdown Has Begun. A New Breakthrough in the History of the “S—gibbon.” Trump Official Obsessed Over Nuclear Apocalypse, Men’s Style, Fine Wines in 40,000 Posts on Fashion Style. The press conference from Hell. Is It Time to Call Trump Mentally Ill? Admit it: Trump is unfit to serve. ‘President Supervillain’ Puts Trump’s Quotes in Red Skull’s Mouth, and It’s Disturbingly Perfect.

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* Pitting class against race in the Age of Trump. Shadow of the Plantation.

Before the Flood: Karel Čapek and the Destructive Drift of History.

* Fantasies of the deep state.

* Rise and Fall of a K Street Renegade.

* Russia has secretly deployed a new cruise missile that American officials say violates a landmark arms control treaty, posing a major test for President Trump as his administration is facing a crisis over its ties to Moscow.

* ICE detains a woman at a courthouse receiving an order of protection, likely after receiving a tip from her alleged abuser. ICE shows up at a women’s shelter. ICE Agents Arrest Men Leaving Alexandria Church Shelter. Why Did ICE Arrest & Imprison a 23-Year-Old DREAMer and DACA Recipient Living Legally in the U.S.? Trump Considering Using National Guard for Immigration Raids. How new is this? Is ICE Out of Control?

* Well this all seems in order: EPA nominee Scott Pruitt won’t say if he would recuse himself from his own lawsuits against the agency. He’s since been confirmed, of course.

* Geoengineering LA.

* DIY to Mars.

Hillary Clinton should absolutely not run for president in 2020. And Democrats should stop her if she tries.

* Shocked, shocked to find gambling in the casino: Maybe College Isn’t the Great Equalizer. (More here.)

* Same joke but new study confirms that voter ID laws are very racist.

* Academics, your moment is here: Depression Is an Unlikely Advantage in the Fight Against Fascism.

The Campus Free Speech Battle You’re Not Seeing.

* Why American airports suck.

* I’ll allow it: There’s Going to Be a Mystery Science Theater 3000 Comic Book.

* So preoccupied with whether they could, etc: Woolly mammoth on the verge of resurrection, scientists say.

* Though this one is pretty good too.

* The LEGO commandments.

tumblr_olklhhyinn1romv9co2_1280What We Talk About When We Talk About a Women’s Strike.

* What if we pretended something that was obviously an effect of wealth were biological? I think it might look a little something like…

Obamacare Repeal Could Cripple Efforts To Combat The Opioid Epidemic. Paul Ryan wants to bring back lifetime limits. Millions now rely on these plans, and we should defend them until we can win something better. But we also shouldn’t entertain any illusions: the ACA marketplaces rest on a flawed health care ideology that tellingly attracts many adherents on the Right, including Ryan.

* News you can use: The 8 Most Inaccurate Depictions of Mars Ever Put on Film.

The surgeon who wants to perform a head transplant by 2017.

* Marquette in the news! Marquette Law alum chosen as the first black Bachelorette.

Lost Essay Reveals Winston Churchill Was Almost Certain Aliens Exist. He met the Daleks! It’s canon.

* On dogs and justice.

* Is it really time to teach 1984?

* “I understand that they feel like that is their body,” he said of women. “I feel like it is a separate — what I call them is, is you’re a ‘host.’ And you know when you enter into a relationship you’re going to be that host and so, you know, if you pre-know that then take all precautions and don’t get pregnant,” he explained. “So that’s where I’m at. I’m like, hey, your body is your body and be responsible with it. But after you’re irresponsible then don’t claim, well, I can just go and do this with another body, when you’re the host and you invited that in.”

* Another apocalypse: The oceans are losing oxygen.

The New Star Wars: Aftermath Novel Reveals the Pitiful Fate of Jar Jar Binks. This bummed me out a lot, actually.

* Incredible: Suspect in North Korea killing ‘thought she was taking part in TV prank.’

* Of course you had me at “Squid Communicate with a Secret, Skin-Powered Alphabet.”

* And the reviews are in.

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Written by gerrycanavan

February 18, 2017 at 9:00 am

Posted in Look at what I found on the Internet

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Tuesday Morning Links!

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The University of Wisconsin-Madison Mellon Postdoctoral Program invites recent PhDs to apply for its three two-year postdoctoral fellowships. The theme for 2017-2019 applicants is Translation, Adaptation, Transplantation. 

* A message from the Marquette administration: Milwaukee, our home. And a letter from MUPD. Decades of grievances come to a head in Milwaukee after police shooting. The “unrest” in this city began decades ago. The Racial Segregation And Economic Devastation That Made Milwaukee A ‘Powder Keg.’ Powder keg. Decades in the making. Decades in the making. Ongoing tensions. Not a surprise. No one can deny. Outsider agitators! The radicalism of Black Lives Matter. “What can I do to help Milwaukee?” What It’s Like To Experience Black Pain In Milwaukee. Half of Wisconsin’s Black Neighborhoods Are Jails.

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Scientists say the US is facing the strongest hurricane season since Sandy hit the East Coast. California is in flames right now, with fires fueled by historic drought. A first-strike against climate change is the only solution.

The 10 Most Overly-Specific Supervillains in Comics.

* The story no one asked for will finally become the series no one can watch. And when I made that joke on Facebook a friend reminded me of the goddamn forehead ridge thing that will be totally inescapable.

* I told you, Dad! New research from the Journal of Health Psychology seems to supports the theory that intelligent people spend more time being lazy than people who are more active.

* Racial Politics After Obama.

* Decolonizing sociology.

* Insurers say they’re losing money under the Affordable Care Act and are fighting for double-digit rate increases. This week Aetna announced it is pulling back from most exchanges.

* When the Hospital Is Covered but the Health Care Isn’t.

Why the Next President Should Forgive All Student Loans.

* Area Man’s Wife Achieves Lifelong Dream Through Dedicated, Drive, and Incredible Physical Prowess. It gets worse, my friends. (It gets better too.)

Juanita Broaddrick Wants To Be Believed. Right wing ratfucking though it may be, the cognitive dissonance required to simultaneously honor contemporary norms about sexual consent and the 90s-era “none of our business” defense of Bill Clinton’s predatory behavior seems increasingly difficult to sustain.

* The amount of effort this took was the most alarming thing given his history,” the guy told the Post. Anthony Weiner’s Back at It Again With the Saucy Twitter DMs. I’m still saying it:

* This Andrew Cuomo fan fiction is now totally my head canon.

Comedy Central Cancels Larry Wilmore’s Late-Night Show. Comedy Central’s decision this week to cancel “The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore” was a surprise. The reason it was a surprise is that Wilmore isn’t the real problem with the cable channel’s late-night offerings. Wilmore gone, but Comedy Central’s late-night problem is Noah.

The Life Aquatic’s Seu Jorge Announces David Bowie Covers Tour. Chicago on (the day after) my birthday!

NeverEnding Story Returns To Movie Theaters For Limited Run. I wish my kids were just a little bit older so we could do this.

The Election Won’t Be Rigged. But It Could Be Hacked.

How Cuba’s greatest cartoonist fled from Castro and created ‘Spy vs. Spy.’

Their goal: Meet the Beatles on tour in 1966. Their solution: Impersonate the opening act.

* Hidden Figures really does look good.

* Suicide Squad and the bitter future of the DC Cinematic Universe.

Why Colleges Still Scarcely Track Ph.D.s.

* How to make your office gun-free. Why, it couldn’t be simpler!

“People think a computer could run index funds­—and they’re so wrong,” says Brian Bruce, a former index fund manager who’s now chief executive officer of Hillcrest Asset Management in Plano, Texas, and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Index Investing. Five years, tops.

* The rise of neuroprosthetics.

* Augmented reality games and ethics. And just for instance: Mich. couple suing Pokémon Go for ruining their quality of life.

* It is easier to imagine the end of dads than the end of capitalism.

How legroom on major airlines compare to one another.

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* “People don’t realize there is effectively no regulation of cosmetics.” Their Hair Fell Out. Should the F.D.A. Have the Power to Act?

Don’t Bring Your Dog to Work.

Donald Once Turned Down a Million-Dollar Bet on “Trump: The Game.” Trump Could Sweep Toss Up States And Still Lose The Election. Right now polls show Donald Trump losing every single swing state. The kids are all right. Hell, even their parents are all right. The Great GOP Divide.

Technology and Liberty in French Utopian Fiction.

Taken in cumulative, these data suggest two unusual possibilities:

A. Karl Marx is the single most important, influential, and far-reaching thinker who ever lived, and his empirically attested syllabus presence accurately reflects this extreme degree of influence that he has over virtually all aspects of human knowledge.

-or-

B. Karl Marx enjoys a grossly outsized presence on college syllabi relative to his importance as a thinker, owing to a similarly disproportionate affinity for his thought among university faculty and particularly those faculty outside of the economics profession.

I really think you could make a halfway legitimate case for some version of (A) — bracketing religious figures like Christ or the Buddha, and limiting the scope of influence to the mid- and post-20C milieu — but the later observations about the Manifesto as a kindergarten lesson probably poison that possibility.

A genetic mutation that has been found to cause people to act outrageously when they’re drunk also appears to lower the risk of certain metabolic disorders such as diabetes and obesity. Peculiarly, the mutation has so far only been found in Finnish people, and is thought to affect around 100,000 people in the Nordic country.

* You’ll Get to See the Documentary About Roger Corman’s Fantastic Four This Fall. And keep your eye out for For the Love of Spock.

* Time travel and RPGs.

* Why I’m loving No Man’s Sky.

* Weird futurism watch: in the future, should everyone be a twin?

* Abridged classics.

* And this is basically just a panel from The Flash.

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Written by gerrycanavan

August 16, 2016 at 9:09 am

Posted in Look at what I found on the Internet

Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Weekend Links!

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Marquette University invites applications for the Arnold L. Mitchem Dissertation Fellowship Program. Mitchem Fellowships seek to help increase the presence of currently underrepresented racial and cultural groups in the U.S. professoriate by supporting advanced doctoral candidates during completion of the dissertation. The fellowships provide one year of support for doctoral candidates who are well into the writing stage of their dissertation work, are U.S. citizens, and are currently enrolled in U.S. universities. In addition to library, office and clerical support privileges, Mitchem Fellows receive a $35,000 stipend plus fringe benefits, research and travel monies for the 2015-16 academic year. The teaching load is 1-0.

* UC-Riverside Call for Postdoctoral Fellow: “Alternative Futurisms.”

* NEH watch: Save the Overseas Seminars.

* When Harvard is one of the worst colleges in America: colleges ranked by social mobility index. Marquette doesn’t come out looking all that great by this standard either, though it does beat both Duke and Case Western by a good bit. (Greensboro, oddly, seems not to have been ranked at all.)

* If I can’t dance: U.C. Berkeley set to pull plug on anarchist’s archive.

* Student loan borrowers are not getting enough help avoiding default, according to a report released Thursday by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Meanwhile, the Nation reports: Should You Go to College?

* Against Carceral Feminism. I agree with @DavidKaib that “carceral liberalism” is the more important frame here; there’s no reason to single out feminism when so much of liberalism across the board is carceral in its orientation.

* Then the drought ate all the sportsball.

* Youth Are on the Frontlines in Ferguson, and They Refuse to Back Down.

* The Adjunct Crisis Is Everyone’s Problem.

* A people’s history of Gamergate. The Routine Harassment of Women in Male Dominated Spaces. Brianna Wu: It Happened to Me. ‘We Have a Problem and We’re Going to Fix This.’

4 Reasons Why A Travel Ban Won’t Solve The Ebola Crisis. Why travel bans will only make the Ebola epidemic worse. Why An Ebola Flight Ban Wouldn’t Work. And yet I would guess one is only a few days off.

* Peak Meritocracy: Andrew Cuomo thinks being the son of a former governor has been a “net negative” for his political career. If only we could somehow harness the radical cluelessness of these people and use it for productive ends.

* Two reports on outcomes for humanities majors could serve to reinforce two disparate beliefs about the field: one where they are seen as a viable path to a successful career, and another where they are seen as a track to a low income and few job prospects. The gender gap is vitally important here.

* Italy Just Pulled Out of Recession Because It Began Counting Drug and Prostitution Revenue.

* John Grisham, completely full of shit.

* Report: Airbnb Is Illegal, Rapacious, & Swallowing Lower Manhattan.

* Rental America: Why the poor pay $4,150 for a $1,500 sofa.

* Podcast interview with out-of-character Stephen Colbert, as he transitions towards taking over The Late Show.

* Another great Superman deconstruction from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

* Paradise is always just five years off: 3D printed mud houses will soon be an option in impoverished countries.

* John Siracusa reviews OS Yosemite.

White House Seeks Advice On “Bootstrapping A Solar System Civilization.”

* And what has been seen cannot be unseen: Spider Burrows Into Dylan Thomas’s Appendix Scar & Up Into His Sternum.