Links for 2009-08-28

"In my case, I haven't taken a drink for 30 years, and this is God's truth: Since the first A.A. meeting I attended, I have never wanted to. Since surgery in July of 2006 I have literally not been able to drink at all. Unless I go insane and start pouring booze into my g-tube, I believe I'm reasonably safe. So consider this blog entry what A.A. calls a "12th step," which means sharing the program with others. There's a chance somebody will read this and take the steps toward sobriety."

"The truth is my generation, which is also the generation of Wallace and Eggers, has had irony imprinted on it. We grew up with Letterman and came of age with the Simpsons. In fact, with the 40th anniversary of Woodstock this month, it's been amusing for me and others my age to watch the seriousness with which the boomers take their nostalgia. The popular music of our own youth was terrible and we know it, but we have this arch fondness for Men at Work85 or whatever because it still triggers these sense memories of being young and worry-free and gloriously hormonal. What you have in Wallace and Eggers are writers who have instinctively appropriated this ironic reflex and put it in the service of sincerity-the techniques other writers have used to distance the author from the text they use instead to engage the reader with it."

"So now, for the humor part of the post, I have a few suggestions on how to sell this thing called science to the masses, so that they see us as a more friendly beast than a dragon. For today, I will just focus on what is scientific work like? People might not be interested in the details of the research, but they are definitely interested in some vague notion that is accessible of 'how we conduct our daily lives, in particular with regards to research'. These are some slogans that you might find useful, with an 'explanation' of the analogy in case you need to elaborate."

always good to be reminded that the US doesn't have a monopoly on tiresome lifestyle Puritans.

"The Order of the Phoenix shows at least three different examples of teachers and teachings in the movie. Here they are: [Dolores Umbridge, Harry Potter, and Severus Snape]"