February 3, 2006
Shared culture
High on the list of things that I worry about regularly is that kids today, in the age of iPods and Tivo, are growing up without sharing cultural experiences with their peers. For me, the TV shows we all watched and the music we all listened to defines so much of what it was to grow up in northern New Jersey in the 1980's and 90's. (For whatever reason, two cultural touchstones pop into my head every time I worry about this: (1) the radio station Z100; and (2) a song they played over and over every December called "Dominic the Italian Christmas Donkey".)
The Christian Science Monitor is similarly worried, on a national scale, and has put together a list of ten still widely-shared cultural experiences. Some make a lot of sense, like the Super Bowl and Harry Potter. But number 10 suprised me -- U2. I have to wonder if they made it on just because of their music or because Bono seems to be here and there and everywhere these days. Still, they rock, so no harm in that. (via Jason Kottke)
, Culture
February 1, 2006
Making sense of the President
Via Kevin Drum, PZ Myers offers an explanation of the absolutely strangest moment of last night's speech, Bush's talk about "animal-human hybirds." Apparently, scientists really are injecting mice and such with people genes, creating "chimeras" that are used to research disorders like Down Syndrome. Myers writes:
Creating chimeras is legitimate and useful scientific research; it's really happening. Of course, it isn't with the intent of creating monstrous half-animal/half-human slaves or something evil like that, and scientists are well aware (or should be well aware) of the ethical concerns, and it's the topic of ongoing debate. If you guessed that this is an issue that religious conservatives have on their radar screen, bingo.
It's somewhat amazing to me that we live in a time when the President of the United States uses an incredibly loaded phrase during a State of the Union address only a small minority of the American population could reasonably be expected to understand. He really is quite the uniter, isn't he?
, Culture
January 28, 2006
The Color Purple
Saw it last night on Broadway. It's really quite a story and a fantastic production. I highly recommend it.
, Culture
January 25, 2006
The strange case of Starbucks
Yesterday, I reported on the strange phenomenon of the after-school Starbucks kids, who hang out in my neighborhood Starbucks all afternoon, never buying any coffee beverages. Today, further reporting: it's now lunch time in Park Slope, and fourteen young children have just infiltrated Starbucks and commandeered several tables to eat their school lunches upon. Fourteen, I counted! And not a latte purchased among them.
2, Culture
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