Call for Blogging Requests: Final List

~ Clarissa

Here is the list of topics people have asked me to blog about. I have crossed out the ones I already covered. Feel free to add anything else.

– American Senator review.

–  about Don Quixote by Cervantes (for Dummies version – can one without any knowledge about Spain & its’ history understand it, at least on some level?)

– How do *you* feel RE Obama’s kill list and steps against Iran he supposedly takes?

– anything about language learning;

– Where do you draw the line between “culture” and “trash?” What attributes does a movie or book have to have in order to fit your definition of culture?

– Is closure an American phenomenon? Do other cultures just say “piss off” and go on their merry ways?

– you list “voting is useless because all politicians lie anyway”. I’d be interested to see a post explaining why this is a misconception.

– book called Truth, Reality, and the Psychoanalyst: Latin American Contributions to Psychoanalysis;

– What to you think about 50 Shades of Grey. Doesn’t matter if you’ve read the book. What are your thoughts on all the fuss about it?

– thoughts on it and on the larger regulation/personal responsibility theme;

– thoughts on the privacy article;

– more about the Ukraine, especially regarding the current political situation, Timoschenko etc.;

– I’m curious as to how you learned about Asperger’s and how you learned you are autistic;

– In the archive, you have advice for parents of autistic children. What advice do you have for next-degree relatives (aunts and uncles, grandparents, cousins, etc.)? What would you advise these relatives if the parents are going bankrupt trying to cure the child’s autism?

– I’d like to know more about what made you want to study and teach Spanish.

– opinion on the “killing feminism” article.

–  I find some parts of US history fascinating, and wondered if you have any opinions about US history? Either the facts themselves or how you see us thinking about our own history.

– “PRINCETON, NJ — Forty-six percent of Americans believe in the creationist view that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years. ”
Is that a problem?

– What are you language personas? Of the languages you are fluent in, what are the beauties/limitations of each? I know people have asked you to blog about language/language acquisition. Maybe this can be the subject of a future post.

– What is the meaning of life?

These are great, people. Thank you, everybody, for contributing. I promise to cover all of them gradually.

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Published by Clarissa

32 thoughts on “Call for Blogging Requests: Final List”

  1. I am now in the middle of the privacy article and it’s wonderful. I’ve never thought about the issue thus deep and many things are a revealation. Would love to read more your posts RE such truly good articles and your take on them.

    Not sure how to word it, but personally, I read huge amount RE choice feminism & housewives on your blog, and would love to read your posts on other issues too since I am sure you have much to share. F.e. I know what you’ll write on choice feminism, but not on privacy or Iran. (Hope it sounded OK.)

    Find hard to care much about housewives, when f.e.
    “PRINCETON, NJ — Forty-six percent of Americans believe in the creationist view that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years. ”
    http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/Hold-Creationist-View-Human-Origins.aspx

    Amanda wrote a good post – “Creationism isn’t innocuous”:
    http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/creationism-isnt-innocuous

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    2. ” Would love to read more your posts RE such truly good articles and your take on them.”

      – Somebody needs to leave links to them, then. 🙂

      ” F.e. I know what you’ll write on choice feminism, but not on privacy or Iran. (Hope it sounded OK.)”

      – I’m working hard with my analyst 🙂 so I hope I will get less one-track soon. I do recognize that this is a fixation resulting from a personal trauma.

      “Find hard to care much about housewives, when f.e.
      “PRINCETON, NJ — Forty-six percent of Americans believe in the creationist view that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years. ””

      – The thing is that this is one of those beliefs that don’t really damage anybody. I believe that Eminem is a great artist. Somebody believes this. Where is the damage?

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      2. //The thing is that this is one of those beliefs that don’t really damage anybody

        Are you joking? Read Amanda’s article. I talk of real world, not whether in some pararrel universe it would matter or not.

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        1. You are gonna force me to read this saccharine creature, eh? 🙂 🙂

          OK, I glanced at it. The issue of what should be taught where is a completely different issue. One can hold a gazillion beliefs and not insist they be taught anywhere. (C.f. my belief about Eminem’s greatness.) The issue here is not the belief. It’s the fact that fundamentalists want to influence what is taught in schools.

          “On the contrary, conservatives understand something liberals don’t, which is that if you get people while they’re young, you usually have them for life. ”

          – Nothing anybody says about anything at school will be stronger than family conditioning.

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  2. Forgot to say: this week we’ll see the results of Egypt’s elections and after that, when situation develops somewhere, I would love to hear your take on it.

    Meanwhile, terrorists develop bases in Sinai and yesterday a worker building a wall between Israel and Sinai was killed.

    Jerusalem, June 18 – A terror cell entered Israel from Sinai early on Monday, killing an Israeli-Arab construction worker. The cell was repelled by the Israel Defense Forces but not before it detonated a roadside bomb, fired an RPG and opened fire with light weapons.

    Since the re-establishment of Israel in 1948, the Egyptian-Israeli border had always been open. For the most part the border runs through hilly barren desert with little or no vegetation and sparse population. Because of its remoteness, it has been a favorite area for terrorists, drug smugglers and human traffickers.

    Following increased terrorist attacks and to halt the infiltration by tens of thousands of migrants from Africa, Israel decided to build a security fence along the entire 266km border. The fence is expected to be completed later in 2012.

    Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the incident, along with the firing of two rockets on southern Israel over the weekend, indicates “a disturbing deterioration in Egyptian control of security in the Sinai.”

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/gunmen-in-egypts-sinai-peninsula-fire-at-israel-border-killing-at-least-2/2012/06/18/gJQANbBkkV_story.html

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  3. // Nothing anybody says about anything at school will be stronger than family conditioning.

    1) But if you hear X at home and X (rather than true Y) at school, the chances are even smaller. Besides, you read now several blogs by women, who left the fundamentalist lifestyle.

    2) Home matters, but wide culture matters a lot too. May be we talk about different things – you about personality traits & I – about beliefs. F.e. the 60ies generation, which was more liberal than their parents, improvement in women’s position in society, gay marriage becoming more acceptable today, etc.

    3) Besides, Amanda’s point of school giving good knowledge being a must to let some students realize they want a career in biology is good.

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    1. If school is so important an influence, how come you and I are not passionate Communists? 🙂 🙂

      Of course, it’s great when schools offer good-quality education. Look at my posts about how poorly my students write. That’s a huge issue. Secondary education in this country sucks. It isn’t just biology, it’s all subjects. 😦 😦

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  4. //OK, I glanced at it. The issue of what should be taught where is a completely different issue. One can hold a gazillion beliefs and not insist they be taught anywhere. (C.f. my belief about Eminem’s greatness.)

    Depends on the belief’s nature (and it’s importance to people.) Pop culture is one thing, it isn’t given the same significance as religious beliefs. Do you really believe a state of creationists is going to happily say “Oh, teach our children about earth being millions of years old”? I mean in real world, not in theory. Those issues are related. Saying otherwise sounds like utopias of Communism or Libertinism, which are wonderful and logical as long as you forget human nature.

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    1. “Do you really believe a state of creationists is going to happily say “Oh, teach our children about earth being millions of years old”? I mean in real world, not in theory.”

      – My father always was deeply religious and he did. I’m religious and I totally would. Not every religious person is a fanatic. Religious fanatics are a horrible problem on this planet. They are the real issue, not creationism. What’s the point of addressing some very minor consequence when we can talk about the actual reason for this and many other problems. As if the creationism had never been invented, that would have solved the problem of religious fanaticism.

      Let’s agree that if a person sits there quietly, imposing their creationist beliefs on no one, that person should have the absolute right to uphold such beliefs. Right? The problem appears when such a person starts trying to impose his or her beliefs on others. Ergo, the beliefs are not the problem. The desire to force them on others are.

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      1. Do you and your father believe that “God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years” ? This belief (almost?) always goes with literal reading of Bible, while you said you read it as a literary text.

        Would you worry if 46% said earth was flat or is it a valid belief too? Electorate being ignorant and holding such beliefs influences politics, look at US (or many other countries).

        – el, not mine computer

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      2. //Once again, people can hold any religious beliefs. As long as they don’t impose them on others, I don’t see a problem.

        What prevents creationists from saying “teaching evolution is a religious belief, that you shouldn’t impose on our children”?

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  5. I’m an Aspie. Some Aspies have said that many of us are lonely. That’s been my experience as well. I wonder what you think about the connection between Asperger’s syndrome and loneliness? Emily White’s recent book “Lonely” provides a good survey of what little research has been done on loneliness. http://www.lonelythebook.com/

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  8. This is a belated request, but I have no idea about USA feminism. Could you comment on this guy’s comments?

    Marc de Jong: I was raised a feminist by my mom who came from a long tradition of strong feminist women. her aunts, her mother, her grand mother and even her great grand mother. I studied feminism at university with Betty Freidan and I read Simone de Bouvoir avidly in philosophy. There are several famous male feminists, Phil Donahue (who went to my University), Alan Alda, John Lennon and Barack Obama. Some weeks ago a friend shared a planned parenthood post on my wall. It was excellent and having held the hand of two young and terrified catholic girls during abortion who just made a mistake and fell pregnant and approached me because they sensed I could be trusted. They were right to be scared their families would have cut them off immediately and they would not finish school and have an unwanted baby and live in poverty and scorn for the rest of their lives (isn’t religion wonderful?) I joined the debate and proposed ” If 80% of women in the states homemakers and working just refused to do their jobs for just two days. They would crash the economy for six months and all their demands would be fastracked and approved.”

    The vitriol and foul language that followed was unbelievable. I was mocked ridiculed accused of trolling for pussy. told to fuck off assfuck over and over and much worse I said it is a proposal I welcome all criticism. I was accused of mansplaining a new word to me that I worked out to mean man knows best always so fuck off dickless prick we dont need men sistas can do it by themselves.

    Planned Parenthood is a misnomer being funded by the government. Its Manhaters Anonymous. The agenda runs deep the history of PP is rife with examples of women who argued among other things to kill newborn males and disguise them as abortions. they also argued the case for eugenics not racially like Hitler but by sex. The idea is to have a massive female majority in global society with just enough enslaved men as sperm donors. They are now even more emboldened by biotechnology and stem cells and cloning that that they sense that having fooled Obama they can commit global xy menocide and have a planet with half the population, fantastic resources and space beautiful space and me time. And create a feminine utopia.

    This is fact.

    Im kind and true and believe in unconditional love and forgiveness and the closest person you will ever meet to Jesus.

    But do not understimate my beautiful mind.

    And as the greatest natural fencer he had ever seen according to Russian Gennadi Tyschler coach of more Olympic gold medalists in history. Be warned.

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              1. Yeah, I think so. Nietzsche seems to have been bipolar, or at least celebrating a sense of bipolarity as a key to creativity. This guy is okay, though. Unfortunately, there is a lot of right-wing weirdness in Southern Africa. It’s actually the norm. He’s one of those trying to work from the other direction, trying to liberate.

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