epiphanatic » 2006» June

Posted on 06.29.06 by jstoner @ 2:29 pm

Why is this a bad idea?

Here’s the thing: the flag stands for the country. The country stands for liberty. Which is more important, the symbol of the country, or the principle the country stands for? Is representing liberty more important than praciticing it?

It’s not such an important issue of itself. It’s important as a test of how people think. Do you care about symbols or principles, surfaces or depth?

This is why this news is upsetting. Not particularly surprising, but the rising vote count for this measure is a curious thing. I wonder why a senator would change their vote on this issue.

Filed under: politics--us
Comments: 2 Comments

all great B movie concepts begin with the name

Posted on 06.14.06 by jstoner @ 9:58 am

Maybe not all, but many…

You’ve heard of the Knights Templar? Medieval monastic warriors for the Pope? Forcibly disbanded by Pope Clement V in the early 1300s?

Well, as it turns out, there was also a contemporaneous secret order of nuns, known as the Sisters of Righteous Mercy, sworn to protect the weak and the poor. Tended to operate in elite units: assassinations, sabotage, moving strategically against high-level targets.

Flash forward to today. The Sisters still operate in the shadows, fighting for those who cannot fight for themselves. Their movie?

FORCE OF HABIT

Sister Prudence, serving in a poor neighborhood, finds fishy goings-on at a storefront church down the street from the church. Young, poor churchgoers are disappearing, and no one will do anything about it.

The culprit? An unaffiliated lunatic who calls himself Reverend Jim, and his chainsaw named Jesus. As he descends on his prey and revs his chainsaw, he squeals with murderous glee: “Come to Jesus!”

Can Sister Prudence and the Sisters of Righteous Mercy stop Reverend Jim’s killing spree? Find out in

FORCE OF HABIT

You can hide a lot under those things…

Filed under: ha
Comments: None

“Consciousness raising”

Posted on 06.11.06 by jstoner @ 4:37 pm

David Brooks had an interesting but flawed column today, about recent findings in neurological gender differences, and how they explain problems boys are having in school. (Sorry for the pay link–you can sign up for the two week freebie, but don’t forget to cancel if you don’t want to pay.) His bottom line was that literary lessons were designed to appeal to girls, and that boys need different kinds of assignments to learn to appreciate reading. Less Austen, more Hemingway.

It make sense to me: literary education at that age is more about seduction than stretching your palate. You have to have a palate to begin with. Work with what boys will like, get them hooked, then stretch their little minds.

I have mixed feelings about Brooksâ€“sometimes heâ€™s close, often he writes in cariacature without depth. I wrote a response to his column. The whole column was OKâ€“muddied a couple points, missed some interesting possibilities, but it was fine till the last line. Here was my critique:

“Consciousness-raising doesn’t turn boys into sensitively poetic pacifists. It just turns many of them into high school and college dropouts who hate reading.”

David, this is a deeply confused sentence. OK, I accept that boys and girls should be educated in different ways, based on recent findings.

But this sentence (if not necessarily the article) confuses “consciousness-raising” with literary education. One could teach boys to love literature with Twain and Vonnegut, and by other means teach them to appreciate the viewpoints of others, including women.

You could teach both sexes the very lessons you enumerate in your article–men and and women are different, and here’s how. These are your tendencies for strength and weakness.

“If your brain worked this way, here’s how you would see the world.” That sounds like some very interesting consciousness raising.

Filed under: politics--us and stoney language love
Comments: None