Ministry & Poetry

"Teaching children..., when it's done right, is more than craft; it's also partly ministry and partly poetry."

- Jonathan Kozol, as quoted in Kyo Maclear's article "Degrading our Children"

Trey's Theme Song

Trey loves to jump. Given any provocation, he'll start bouncing up and down. He bounces when you give him milk. When it's dessert time. When it's time to go outside. At times, it doesn't seem like the reason really matters: he just wants to jump around! Which is why his theme song is Phish's infectious "Bouncing 'Round the Room." It's filled with joy and innocence - just like my little guy!

Technology and "The Hunger Games"

Discovery News takes a look at technology in The Hunger Games movie, and ponders the implications of the technologies that were chosen to be part of the story's environment:

Some question why a post-apocalyptic North America filled with futuristic technologies would still rely upon coal for its electricity needs; others wonder about the story's complete absence of the Internet. One character in "The Hunger Games" books complains about "forgotten" military technologies such as high-flying planes, military satellites and robotic drones, even as he rides inside a hovercraft.
Such "gaps" in technology don't necessarily represent plot holes, according to historians of science and technology. Real societies have adopted or rejected technologies based on whether they suited their particular economic, political or cultural circumstances.

More SciFi in SyFy, Please

I haven't watched anything by SyFy in a while, and Alyssa points to what might be the reason why: they're showing a lot of fantasy to the exclusion of SciFi. She makes a compelling argument that there's a lot of interesting science fiction to be presented:

There’s nothing wrong with fantasy, and fantasy can set up moral dilemmas as well as science fiction: power is power, and decisions about how to use it can be fascinating whether it’s a new scientific discovery or a newly discovered supernatural ability. But, ... There are so many pressing questions that would also make for fabulous entertainment. What will it mean for space travel, something we once thought of as a scientific frontier and an escape hatch for humanity, to become a luxury tourism industry? What will it mean to be human as we’re increasingly integrated with our technology, perhaps to the point of having smart implants, like Ender Wiggin in Speaker for the Dead, or a bunch of the characters in Kim Stanley Robinson’s forthcoming 2312? How will technology, medical advances, and the ability to augment ourselves exacerbate our class divides?

These questions are imminent, not theoretical. And they all lend themselves beautifully to television devices. You could do an office comedy about running a space tourism company, or a drama about corruption in the industry and an interstellar land grab. You can have chatty, snarky AIs as characters, or show humans growing overly invested in their technology—Apple clearly means for us to attach to Siri, and as she works better, I can see that happening. When there’s this much potential available, there’s something kind of unfortunate about turning away from the possible and the probable to the purely fantastical. Fiction doesn’t have an absolute responsibility to help us work out our problems, but it’s an incredible tool for helping us think through them. For a network with the motto “Imagine Greater,” that ought to be an exciting prospect.

I love it. If they follow up, I might actually end up watching non-sports TV again on a regular basis. Until then, i'll stick to my books and Dexter. Unless anyone out there has any good recommendations?

Unwrapped Like Pink Cakes

"The nicest girls at school were the misfits, the ones who wore black and seemed at least to have been bruised by life, instead of being unwrapped like pink cakes every morning before school, fresh and stupid and untouched by human hand."
- Hari Kunzru, Gods Without Men, page 298

This book is absolutely fantastic. I'll have some more thoughts about it later, but for now i'm enjoying the ride.

$4.00 Gas!?!!

I love this Ed Stein comic. Feels representative of the mindset of today's typical commuter. 

A Former Self is a Fool

"Those must have all been important to me once. What I am now grew from that. A former self is a fool, an insufferable ass, but he's still human, you'd no more turn him out than you'd turn out any kind of cripple, would you?"

- Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow, page 660