Antisocial Media

You, as a right-thinking, good-hearted person, must watch this short film by the Cuarons about Naomi Klein's latest book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism . My beloved and brilliant father long maintained that, basically, it was all Reagan's fault. Pretty good general rule. In every father-child relationship, however, the child must define per/him/her-self against that dominating parental energy. This is my moment, late in my twenty-eighth year, the time when I step over the line from dutiful child to rebellious, self-defining adult. I'm my own man now, Father! It wasn't all Reagan's fault--Milton Friedman did it, too! Wow, that felt good. Love you, Dad!

ESPN, bless them, is showing the UW Badgers football game today! Right now it's about two minutes from the end of the third quarter, and UW is up 34-24 over Michigan State. Not too shabby! Wisconsin's defense has stiffened a little in the second half, and PJ Hill is running like he has an extra leg. In other news, the Brewers are losing to the Padres in the eighth inning. Kind of hard to invest emotionally since the Cubs have clinched the division, but sheesh, you would hope they'd at least finish over .500. One game left after this one, one chance to finish with a winning record for the first time since 1992, one chance for the team that started the season 24-10 to grasp one tiny piece of redemption and not finish the season on a five game losing streak. What a disappointment. One of the all-time great choke jobs. On the plus side, who's looking forward to tomorrow's Packers-Vikings game? This guy!!! I'm heading over to Alameda to catch the game and ...

Ooog. I caught Sarah's cold during our getaway this weekend, and all my running around yesterday just brought it down on my head like a sack of doorknobs. I feel like crap, and I've got a ton of homework dangling over my noodle. And yet, I just spent the last hour reading and commenting on an AV Club blogpost about fantasy and sci-fi novels. I'm a firm believer in double-dipping, and here's what I wrote: Wow! This thread's got legs! I feel like I'm reading a forum on my non-school reading from the past few years. Stephenson, Donaldson, Jordan, Gaiman, Mieville, Pratchett, Adams... An embarrassment of riches! Before I get into my own nerdy list of loves and hates (and indifferences), I want to direct the attention of the assemblage to this article about the curse of World-Building, courtesy of boingboing.net: boingboing.net/2007/04/14/whats-wrong-with-wor.html This, in my opinion, explains a lot of what frustrated me no end with Jordan, especially, but al...