Sunday, October 03, 2004
(10:52 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Humanity in Decline: A Survey of the Blogosphere
Daniel Green deplores the continuing fall-out of the NEA's report "Reading at Risk":The long-term influence of the NEA report is likely to be, despite the intentions of its creators and promoters (some of them, anyway), as an all-purpose explanation for any and all perceived problems with writing and reading in the United States. Never mind that the NEA report itself reveals that about half of Americans do still read books. That's around 150 million people, which ought to be a big enough audience that books can still be published and appreciated by people who care about them. (Why would anybody want the attention of people who don't care about them?) Nevertheless, we're in for years of handwringing on the part of cultural nannies who want to deplore the state of society for their own particular purposes.Meanwhile, Political Theory points us to the revelation that our most recent common ancestor lived less than 3000 years ago. It's hard to believe, but it's based on actual math. From now on, we all have de facto permission to refer to anyone named "Larry" as "Cousin Larry."
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"Reading at Risk" will probably prove to be a self-fulfilling propehcy, but it's the sort of thing you might expect when the government (the NEA is the government, you know) and all of its political hacks, functionaries, and tiresome scolds get involved in cultural matters.... if serious reading is on the decline in America, the cultural bureaucrats and political spinmasters bear much of the blame.
Josh Marshall presents two recent cases of Fox News simply making shit up. Atrios addresses one of the cases with his usual eloquence and tact. Matt Yglesias says we shouldn't be surprised.
Chris Brooke tackles the question of the connection between country music and suicide, prompted by one of the winners of this year's Ig Nobel prize.
Fafblog, like The Weblog, is still discussing the presidential debate. Adam Robinson addresses Christianity, common sense, and gay marriage in his radically orthodox way. Cap'n Pete weighs in on one of the most commonly misheard song lyrics in history. Amy Sullivan asks, Is Bush a backslider?
You ask me how I know the University Without Condition lives -- it lives in Geoff Holsclaw's heart.
F. Winston Codpiece III continues his sex advice series with a guide to masturbation. There exists kind of new Get Your War On.
And before I post this and push it off the bottom of the list: Slavoj Zizek is officially within six degrees of Kevin Bacon.
UPDATE: All the IgNobel Prizes are pretty funny. I'm laughing out loud as I read.
UPDATE: I think that I would probably win an IgNobel prize if I produced a study entitled "'Bang for the Buck': A Comparative Analysis of Marriage and Frequent Hiring of Prostitutes in Terms of Sexual Satisfaction and Financial Expenditure." Maybe we could all try our hand at fictitious study titles.
