Ginny

Age: 77 Place: Originally Nebraska, now Texas Family: Husband, 3 daughters, 3 sons-in-law, 3 grandchildren Occupation: Retired Education: BA, MA Nebraska; Ph.D. UT-Austin Work On hhe Double (1979-1992); taught: ta Austin, Blinn Jr. College (1993-20015), Kelly Girls intermittently.

The Old Culture Adapts, Seeking Survival Skills

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In terms of the blog-future, Sullivan links to a Murdoch speech on the role of the internet; he concludes with a challenge:

I do not underestimate the tests before us. We may never become true digital natives, but we can and must begin to assimilate to their culture and way of thinking. It is a monumental, once-in-a-generation opportunity, but it is also an exciting one, because if we’re successful, our industry has the potential to reshape itself, and to be healthier than ever before.

The fittest survive, as always, by adapting.

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Minor Irritation

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Trivia: While I have no problem with the sentiment – Berger’s “punishment” does appear disproportionate – the following sentence irritates.

It’s hard to underestimate the effect a case like this has on national-security professionals. For cynics, it shows that big players get off easy when they commit the crimes smaller fry lose their careers over.

Editorial (unsigned) in today’s Washington Times. Indeed, yesterday, I posed such a construction on a quiz to my jr coll freshmen to test their engagement as they read. (Not that all of us, certainly me included, don’t make such mistakes. Still and all, it is best to call us on them.)

Andrea & Addie

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Andrea Dworkin has died at 59. One of my male students in freshman comp loved to quote her – he hoped her violent, graphic, sexual remarks would shock me. (I was more irritated by his lack of annotations, which made it close to plagiarism.) I haven’t read her widely, so perhaps I unfairly associate her obituary with the papers I was grading tonight. But she did articulate one of the threads of the angry feminist vision. Those ideas have gained remarkable currency: by the time students are sophomores in college, despite the fact that the generalizations in no way explain reality or literature, they apply them with abandon.

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Walzer: Angry Left? Fearful Right?

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In the midst of our blog-talk about the left, A&L put up “All God’s Children Got Values” by Michael Walzer. He begins his argument:

The experts have apparently agreed that it wasn’t values that lost us the last election. It was passion, and above all, it was the passion of fear.

He discusses the state of the left and offers solutions, but hasn’t the feistiness of Peter Beinart. In a telling look for comparisons he is unwilling to go with the anti-communists (no Scoop Jackson liberal he) but rather farther back, to the “kitschy” forties of anti-fascism.

In the context of that thread, this essay from Dissent critiques the state of left thought; while Walzer is not angry, the issues are ones we discussed.

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