Tuesday, June 14, 2005
(8:46 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Tuesday Hatred 5 (updated several times)
As I said yesterday, the "Monday Hatred" was a one-time deal to allow me some space for an emotional breakdown. I feel better now. I'm ready to hate normal things. For instance, I hate it when it's so hot that I become drenched in sweat within minutes after stepping out of the shower. That's actually all I have for now. But you guys seem pretty bitter and petty -- surely you can think of things that annoy you.UPDATE: Oh, I also hate living in a country where certain members of the Senate do not want their names associated with a measure apologizing for failing to outlaw lynching. I hate even more that something like that can go down in a very public way, and still, tomorrow morning, there will be people out there making their living by claiming that racism doesn't exist.
Last night while watching the news story about this, I asked Hayley, "Why do you have to specifically outlaw lynching? Isn't it just murder?" Does anyone have an answer for that?
UPDATE [2]: Adam Robinson posted over at
UPDATE [3]: The H was O has a funny post:
"If you can't sleep, blog."The discussion of circumcision is particularly illuminating, but I won't ruin it by quoting it. I don't run a TV network -- just a humble blog. That brings me to something else I hate: the teasers for TV shows always blow the best jokes. Have they ever not, though? I'm under the impression that at one time, they only used mediocre or pretty good jokes in the previews, with the tacit understanding that even better jokes were available to those who watched the actual show. That's probably wrong, though. Maybe they just run more teasers nowadays?
That is what my maternal grandmother used to tell me, whilst tucking me into bed, way back in the day, when my family would visit her and Gramps. I had no idea what she meant.
UPDATE [4]: Spurious does it again. In the midst of indulging his constant habit of criticizing and resenting his books -- and this is one of the better posts in that surprisingly extensive genre -- he has captured something imporant:
There's no shame, I said to H., but I least I feel shame. I write very bad books, I said to H., and no doubt I'll finish three books in five years. I have no trouble writing, I said, but who does? The young academics with their three books in five years hate the older academics, who publish little. They hate them, their savage little teeth gnashing. They tear about like piranhas, I said. I'm editing a collection, they say. I'm putting together a colloquim, they say. I'm running a book series. It's a sickness.Doesn't one turn to academia in part because one knows that one is smart enough to get ahead in business, but is nauseated by the whole process? Now, of course, every academic has to be his own little corporate whore, an industry unto herself. Just as in the business world, there are only so many positions offering security laced with glamour, but the difference is that in the business world, it's okay not to have one of those positions. It is okay that there are people who do actual work, who interact with the people who don't belong to the corporation or who don't own stock.
Did I tell you that I might co-edit a book sometime? Not like the blog book, where I'm trying to bring together a group of friends with whom I've had illuminating and challenging conversations, but like a real book, the kind where you put it down on your CV and it goes out of print in three months. I'm reading one of those essay collections right now, something on Jean-Luc Nancy, which I bought in the deluded hope that a collection of essays on Nancy would help me to get a feel for Nancy. Instead, it's a series of homages to Nancy -- how what he's doing is so important, how he has his finger on the pulse of our epoch -- or else withering criticism of Nancy for not quite being the thinker that the author favors ("I was comissioned to write on Nancy -- consequently, I shall write on Derrida!").
Part of the work of admirers of French philosophy in the English-speaking world is surely to translate them into English-speaking thoughts -- clear thoughts, non-"subtly allusive" thoughts. Otherwise, I wonder if the exercise ever gets beyond the level of imitating the beloved author's writing style. You sometimes want to grab the scholar and say: "You're not Jean-Luc Nancy! That's the whole reason I'm reading your book -- if I can't quite understand the original, reading some half-baked imitation isn't going to help, either!"
I like Jonathan Culler's book On Deconstruction and Bruce Fink's stuff on Lacan precisely because they write like Americans write. They understand that they are not French and can never quite become French.
UPDATE [5]: Bitch PhD finds time in her vacation schedule to link to this post by a Kos diarist, her first and last:
Many people make the mistake of thinking only very few (or perhaps very bad/stupid/fallen) women have abortions. That's where they'd be wrong. One of the little known realities is that abortion, in America, is all around you. The Kaiser Family Foundation came up with one approximation: "It is estimated that 43 percent of women in the U.S. will have an abortion by age 45 and that more than 30 million have had an abortion since the procedure was legalized in 1973 (based on 1992 rates.)" (Fact Sheet: Abortion in the U.S., October 2002)Other points addressed: birth control is not always effective; anti-abortion rhetoric tends to erase the woman (which links to my post on abortion); progressives who go soft on abortion are conceding the playing field to the right wing. I would add that this is yet another instance where the liberals are uselessly selling out their values in a misguided attempt to gain the votes of people who are not stupid and can see through such a cynical ploy. This strategy is especially useless given that the right will ruthlessly exploit the connection between, say, liberalism and abortion, no matter how many fancy "nuances" liberal politicians try to put between themselves and the position that they do in fact hold. If the Democrats are going to try the old Republican bait-and-switch of mouthing the words of "traditional values" while actually being ruthlessly pro-corporate, then there is no point in winning an election. The Republicans already offer that. They're pretty good at it. Adding a few nuances will not change the fundamental reality.
That's an estimate that 43% of American women will have an abortion by age 45.
Abortion, far from being rare or some isolated event, is a very real and NORMAL part of a large portion of American women's health care.
UPDATE [6]: Ogged links to a contemporary take on the Book of Job, centered around a faithful right-wing blogger.
