Day: January 31, 2012

Short Random Musings About Christina Hoff Sommers

~ Clarissa ~ 19 Comments

Why would anybody want to talk to Christina Hoff Sommers about anything? Moreover, why would a feminist blogger want to do that? Even more than that, why would anybody refer to her as a “scholar”? I mean, I understand the value of a debate but you need at least a marginally rational opponent to engage in a dialogue. And rational Sommers is not.

I’ve read two books by this person (this one and this one), from start to finish, so I’m not judging her based on rumors. When I was reading the books, the question that was foremost on my mind was, “How come this person is not being taken care of in a mental institution and is allowed to roam free?” I’d be scared to be in one room with her because people who suffer from such intense delusions are unpredictable.

 

Assange Sells Himself to Russia

~ Clarissa ~ 17 Comments

Oh, I enjoy saying I told you so. Did I say that Assange was a money-hungry hacker and not a brave freedom fighter as everybody wanted to imagine him, or what?

So what does our James Bond of the New Millenium who, as we all recognize provided absolutely no new information to anybody and still got super famous for his fake rebelliousness, do now? Surprise, surprise! Our undefeated freedom lover has now sold himself to Russia, that paradise of freedom and free expression. Yippee. Now he will finally be able to tell the world whatever Putin wants the world to know:

It’s the television channel that has given voice to a thousand anti-western conspiracy theories, while avoiding criticism of the hand that feeds it. Now state-run Russia Today, the Kremlin’s English-language propaganda arm, has forged an unlikely partnership – with the self-proclaimed defender of truth and freedom Julian Assange.

One day after the WikiLeaks founder said he was launching a 10-part series of interviews with “key political players, thinkers and revolutionaries”, Russia Today announced it had won exclusive first broadcast rights for the show, titled The World Tomorrow, and was due to begin airing the show in March.

“Our viewers are open to the discussions that will be presented through Julian’s show on our channel,” the channel’s editor-in-chief, Kremlin loyalist Margarita Simonyan, said in a statement. That may well be true, unless the guest comes from Russia. The channel, launched in December 2005 as part of a government campaign to boost Russia’s lagging global influence, remains slavishly pro-Kremlin, revelling in the antics of Vladimir Putin and avoiding sensitive topics, such as the prime minister’s rumoured wealth and his growing authoritarianism.

Will people agree now that I was right when I said that this guy cares about nothing but making a quick buck while selling himself to the highest bidder? That’s what people who believe in the truth do nowadays. They sell themselves to Putin’s propaganda machine, right?

I told you so, I told you so, I told you so.

The Terror of Fantasy Fiction

~ Clarissa ~ 70 Comments

Readers say that they find my fear of fantasy genre to be curious, so I will dedicate a separate post to it with the hope of analyzing why I dread the genre so much.

There is a number of genres that I can’t stand. Harlequin romance, for example. Or sci-fi. Still, I can read them if I have to. As for the fantasy literature, however, I’d rather read a phone book than a fantasy novel.

One reason is that, in my opinion, the founder of the genre (Tolkien) already did all that could be done with it. The guy was an obvious genius, so everything coming after him is likely to be inferior.

I also don’t really see the point of fantasy. The entire genre is a huge cop-out, in my opinion. If you have no idea how to resolve a plot line or explain something that is happening, just stick some Little People (this is a reference to Murakami’s 1Q84), and there is no need to resolve and explain. It’s the Little People, you know. They are magical and can do whatever they please.

You know these mysteries by Agatha Christie where supernatural or magical things seem to be happening? The best moment in these novels is when you realize that there is a perfectly rational, real explanation to what took place. It’s one thing to figure out who the murderer is within a small group of people locked in a library. It would be a complete let-down, though, if Poirot announced at the end, “The murder was committed by magical creatures who came through the chimney!”

I understand that fantasy novels have some sort of an internal logic at least some of the time. What is the payout to figuring this logic out, though? Even if it exists, it will be completely different for other novels by other writers.

This, of course, is not meant as a criticism of people who read this kind of books and enjoy them. I’m just sharing my feelings about fantasy in hopes of starting a discussion.

As Borges said, though, nobody knows what God’s literary preferences are.

I’m Pleasant

~ Clarissa ~ 1 Comment

The barista who always serves me coffee at our campus coffee-shop says:

“I’ve been meaning to tell you: you are always SO pleasant. Thank you for being that way.”

You see, people? I’m only a scary ogre online. In RL I’m actually pleasant.

This, by the way, is part of Canadian identity. It’s considered a horrible faux pas to be rude to people in the service industry. In my own culture, the way to go is to be super rude to everybody. Which makes me that much eager to shed my identity in favor of the Canadian.

What’s Socialism?

~ Clarissa ~ 75 Comments

As a person who grew up in the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics, I am always puzzled by the way that the word “socialism” is used in North America. Time and again, I hear, for example, that Canada is “Socialist.” I thought that maybe there is a different meaning to this word but I just can’t find the definition of “socialism” that North Americans rely on when they say that Obama, for instance, is a Socialist.

Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Socialism:

Socialism  is an economic system characterized by social ownership or control of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy, and a political philosophy advocating such a system. “Social ownership” may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises, common ownership, direct public ownership or autonomous state enterprises.

This is precisely the definition that I am familiar with and use. Social control of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy. None of this even remotely exists in Canada and / or is advocated by President Obama. So I’m guessing that there must be some radically different definition that people use.

I’m genuinely confused, folks. Does socialism in North America stand for something like “advocating strong welfare programs and a strong social safety net”? If so, then what do you call actual socialism?