A recommendation


Try browsing Prides and Prejudices, the musings of a sardonic high school English teacher—that’s my favorite kind!—without getting sucked in. She writes everything from a paean to the woodlouse to
modern gift-giving etiquette. (I had no idea the iPod Shuffle was so déclassé, but then I’ve been away from the dating scene for a long time; the last gift I gave my wife when she was my girlfriend might have been a sweater.)

Comments

  1. j. crayon says

    PZ, you should read this article. It’s up on yahoo news right now:

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061005/ap_on_re_us/nobel_americans_3;_ylt=AspvQ_MEU2JFuM5VngjoJWDNwssA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

    So the article admits that our science education is fantastic at the college level, but that it is generally terrible from kindergarten to twelfth grade. It also mentions that many Americans don’t realize that an electron is smaller than an atom or that humans never walked the earth with dinosaurs.

    Does the article mention the source of this resistance to science? Absolutely not, although we all realize it’s religion that is the problem. Talk about beating around the bush – I wish someone could at least have the guts to admit that educators are scared of teaching basic science because they don’t want to lose their jobs over it. Fundamentalists are more vocal than science’s supporters and in some cases, they wield more power. If we want to better our kids’ science education, we need to stop caring about the protestations of faithful imbeciles.

  2. KeithB says

    Your link to the “paean to the woodlouse” comes back to pharyngula.

    Trying to up your traffic?

  3. says

    I was with the linked article right up until this:

    Fourth, country music. (Although I hardly need mention it, since I don’t think most people who listen to country music would be able to use an iPod. Mostly they listen to tapes.)

    The irony of a person writing off Rose Maddox, Kelly Willis, Tift Merritt, Patsy Cline, Iris Dement, and countless other such country artists in favor of Leonard Fucking Cohen as boyfriend-point-scoring material, and then casting that as superior cultural literacy, rather boggles.

    Here’s my policy: if you give your girlfriend a Shuffle, put some Leonard Cohen on it. If she later comes to you and says “Thanks and I loved the Leonard Cohen,” then run.

  4. says

    Well, they’re certainly not mutually exclusive–country music (the good old stuff, not the modern pop crapola) was one of Leonard Cohen’s early influences, and his first group was a country band called The Buckskin Boys. He moved to Nashville early in his career to try to work in the country scene, and he’s also got a tribute to Johnny Cash around somewhere as a seminal influence, though I’d have to look it up–I don’t have it here at work with me.

    So sounds like hers is a false dichotomy, anyway, if she’s trying to categorize Cohen as not at all country in derivation and influence.

  5. Rey Fox says

    I suppose there’s some good sense in there, but that out-of-nowhere slam on the Butthole Surfers will not be tolerated.

    The bit on Nick Cave was particularly good though, especially for someone like me who recently listened to the entire 836 minute “And No More Shall We Part” at work.

    BTW, Chris, I think that when someone like that blogger trashes country music, it should be taken as a given that they’re exempting the Good Stuff. Which I think would largely be classified as “alt-country” or “classic country” anyway.

  6. says

    BTW, Chris, I think that when someone like that blogger trashes country music, it should be taken as a given that they’re exempting the Good Stuff.

    You’d think that should be the case, Rey, but you might be surprised how many people think country music begins and ends with Toby Fucking Keith.

  7. says

    I think you have to read it as a statement of what you ought to put on your iPod if you want to woo that particular sardonic teacher of high school English.

  8. says

    Thank you for recommending my site, Professor Myers. I am quite honored.

    A number of people have emailed asking why I am so inept as to not have an RSS feed, to which I can only answer both, “It is coming,” and, “I do!” Sort of… http://pridesandprejudices.blogspot.com

    As far as country music, Nick Cave, or the Butthole Surfers go, the reader must imagine that my vast experience with these topics leads me to take the gentle liberties with them that I do.

    Love,
    Keira

  9. Rey Fox says

    I think you have to read it as a statement of what you ought to put on your iPod if you want to woo that particular sardonic teacher of high school English.

    Hmm. Sardonic, I like. English teacher…not so much. Too many adversarial relationships with English teachers and English class in my past. Guess the Butthole Surfers stay on my Dell iPod knock-off to wait for a sardonic biologist. With red hair. And glasses.

  10. gwangung says

    I would be in love except for the fact that I am indeed old enough and musically taste-challeneged enough not to pass the bar for this particular English teacher (English teacher? Fah! I deal with actors and directors all the time—an English teacher is blessedly quirk free in comparison).

  11. Kseniya says

    Kelly Willis. Kathleen Edwards. Uncle Tupe, Wilco, Sun Volt. Can we throw Brandi Carlisle, Maria McKee, and Mindy Smith on the good pile too? Yummy.

    Tim and Faith. Umm… Very Talented. *yawn*

    :-)

  12. reg says

    Never mind a biologist with red hair, this is a woman can make jokes about biology! And falafel, and Etruscans, and R. D. Laing!

    I wish I could feel more certain I wasn’t exactly what she was thinking of when she made her “contact” page, though.

  13. says

    As far as country music, Nick Cave, or the Butthole Surfers go, the reader must imagine that my vast experience with these topics leads me to take the gentle liberties with them that I do.

    Ah, yes, a very persuasive explanation for bigoted statements such as the one about country music fans not knowing how to operate an iPod. (While hewing closely to transitory standards of cool is apparently the height of free-thinking intelligence.)

  14. anon. says

    reg wrote:

    “I wish I could feel more certain I wasn’t exactly what she was thinking of when she made her “contact” page, though.”

    Yes, that’s kind of depressing, isn’t it? Here’s empirical proof that a nearly-perfect person exists, and yet she has no desire to hear from those of us who realize it.

  15. gwangung says

    Yes, that’s kind of depressing, isn’t it? Here’s empirical proof that a nearly-perfect person exists, and yet she has no desire to hear from those of us who realize it.

    I suspect the first has a mighty effect on the latter….

  16. SecondDan says

    Holy good call, Batman!

    Now there’s a new regular in my blog rotation, something will have to come out. What’s this one? Frank in Gula? Who the hell is that? Delete…

  17. bmurray says

    Leonard Cohen records are for display purposes only. Under no circumstances should you risk actually playing them.

  18. Rey Fox says

    “Never mind a biologist with red hair, this is a woman can make jokes about biology! And falafel, and Etruscans, and R. D. Laing!”

    Yeah, but she’d probably make me write essays on boring ol’ books.

  19. ferfuracious says

    “The octopus tongue is covered with teeth, which it uses to gouge holes in the shells of its prey. When that’s not enough, it secretes quantities of saliva, which helps destroy the shell, and also helps burn away the prey’s tissues which connect it to the shell. This isn’t the worst, either– The saliva contains venom, which paralyzes its prey, allowing the octopus time to gnaw through the shell of its still living prey at a leisurely pace. It also keeps clams and oysters from being able to close their shells together, as that disgusting tongue scrapes them clear of their home. This paralyzed–buried alive–being consumed scenario is what I refer to when I say: the worst.”

    She doesn’t seem to like squid.

  20. Graculus says

    While hewing closely to transitory standards of cool is apparently the height of free-thinking intelligence.

    In school it *is*.

    I say this as someone who survived the disco era without ever owning a piece of polyester clothing. It didn’t make me popular in school, but there is a remarkable dearth of embarassing photos.

    Leonard Cohen records are for display purposes only. Under no circumstances should you risk actually playing them.

    “He’s depressed. Isn’t that wonderful!” – (old Aislin cartoon)

  21. Rey Fox says

    Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, and Elvis Costello are “transitory standards of cool”? Now you’re just being spiteful.