Man Booker Dozen 2008
The list is in:
Aravind Adiga The White Tiger
Gaynor Arnold Girl in a Blue Dress
Sebastian Barry The Secret Scripture
John Berger From A to X
Michelle de Kretser The Lost Dog
Amitav Ghosh Sea of Poppies
Linda Grant The Clothes on Their Backs
Mohammed Hanif A Case of Exploding Mangoes
Philip Hensher The Northern Clemency
Joseph O’Neill Netherland
Salman Rushdie The Enchantress of Florence
Tom Rob Smith Child 44
Steve Toltz A Fraction of the Whole
How do diviners divine?
How do diviners achieve consistent results? Are there methods and patterns? SUNY Buffalo Anthropologist Barbara Tedlock probes into the chaos, building a theory of divination. Tedlock’s theory is all encompassing (as far as contact spirits is concerned).
Marc Abrahams, editor of Annals of Improbable Research writes in Guardian.
Technorati Tags: Divine, Anthropology
Recording industry conceding defeat to MP3?
International Herald Tribune reports that in the ongoing recording industry meet there is a hot talk about all the major labels ditching DRM in favour of MP3’s interoperability.
Hard to believe! Is the heat too much to bear?
Technorati Tags: RIAA, DRM, MP3
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Big Brother : MJ Akbar’s view from India
Guardian features this nice take of M J Akbar on the Big Brother scene. Well written.
…the Times. This august organ, unable to verify such a lofty incident for itself, reported that the Indian media had:
“also noticed an exchange between Jade Goody’s boyfriend Jack Tweedy and Shilpa. In the incident, featured in the Celebrity Big Brother highlights, Tweedy’s comment was bleeped out - although there were reports that he had called her a ‘…ing Paki’. A Channel 4 spokeswoman denied that he had used that phrase.”I wonder why British media had not noticed this. Maybe they were in the pub? In the following paragraph, a large number of big words were used to disguise one small word:
“A spokesman for the programme said that the social interactions and dynamics of the group were integral to the Big Brother story and viewers had a right to see them. However, there was a need for this to be balanced with the duty not to broadcast offensive material.”
Social. Interactions. Dynamics. Integral. Knock me down with a beanstalk celebrity: Is this television or a thesis on cultural dissonance among the remoter tribes of Samoa? That sounds suspiciously like a huge number of letters to screen four letters. Still, we do have an admission. Clearly there was “offensive material”.
Technorati Tags: Shilpa Shetty, Celebrity Big Brother
Time varying weightage of obscenity
Andrew Brown follows the change between society’s taboos being primarily sexual to primarily racial in the last half century.
Jade Goody’s boyfriend had not called the Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty a “paki”, but a “cunt”, the spokesman explained. The latter word - he felt - was clearly less obscene than the former. He’s probably right, in the sense that it shocks far fewer people in modern Britain. It is much less likely to get you into trouble at school, for example. But this is till an example of a remarkable social shift, which has not been much noticed simply because it is so profound.
The change between society’s taboos being primarily sexual to being primarily about race has taken about 50 years…
They reflect things that are understood by particular societies to be dangerous and disruptive. So they don’t have to be sexual: in most of Scandinavia, and in Quebec, if you want to swear, you blaspheme. There are, of course, vulgar terms for sexual things, but they are vulgar, not obscene: shaming rather than shocking.
Weinberg reviews God Delusion
Steven Weinberg reviews Richard Dawkins’ God Delusion in Times Literary Suppliment
The reviews of The God Delusion in the New York Times and the New Republic took Dawkins to task for his contemptuous rejection of the classic “proofs” of the existence of God. I agree with Dawkins in his rejection of these proofs, but I would have answered them a little differently. The “ontological proof” of St Anselm asks us first to agree that it is possible to conceive of something than which nothing greater can be conceived. Once that agreement is obtained, the sly philosopher points out that the thing conceived of must exist, since if it did not then something just like it that actually exists would thereby be greater. And what could this greatest actually existing thing be, but God? QED.
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Immigration and Integration
Globe and Mail had a cover story three days ago (How Canadian are you?) on the recent University of Toronto study that reveals that the second generation visible minorities are identifying themselves with Canada lesser than their white counterparts.
The sense of exclusion among visible-minority newcomers is not based on the fact that they earn less than their white counterparts. Instead, the researchers found integration is impeded by the perception of discrimination, and vulnerability — defined as feeling uncomfortable in social situations due to racial background and a fear of suffering a racial attack.
This was then followed by a personal account of Mr. Mohamed Dhanani, a second generation canadian son of Tanzanian refugees (Ismaili Muslims of Indian descent). Yale educated Dhanani, with successful business in British Columbia moved to Toronto to pursue his political ambitions. His aspiring political career has a theme to tackle this very issue of immigration and integration.
Today’s Globe follows the theme with a report on the efforts by a group to empower families of visible minorities.
Over the next month, the Toronto Community Housing Corp. plans to experiment with anti-racism circles that would allow tenants, the housing company and social agencies to sit together and talk openly about the barriers to integration.
“There is no textbook to help us out here,” said Keiko Nakamura, chief operating officer for the housing company, many of whose 164,000 tenants are immigrants and refugees. She said the pilot project could
lead to changes in how the TCHC and other agencies offer services to their immigrant clients.
Siliconeware in Kitchen
NYTimes has this useful assessment of Siliconware in Kitchen - where do they belong and where not.
“The universally appealing qualities of silicone are its heat resistance; its flexibility, which allows you to fold it, flatten it and squish it into a drawer; its ease of washing; and its ability to go from oven or microwave to refrigerator, freezer, dishwasher (in most cases) and sometimes even to the dinner table, cutting down on the number and kinds of containers you need.”
The economy of apple picking
You pick your own apples; you pay through your nose. This Slate story is true; but not complete. I am for one a sucker for the fall ritual and yes, my kids love them too. For us it is more of a healthy outing on a chilly fall day rather than bundling inside the house watching the TV or going to a (heated) mall, spending hundred plus dollars.
Waking up to a nano revolution : CNR Rao
Hindustan Times has this op-ed by C.N.R. Rao, Chairman of Scientific Advisory Board to PM of India. He opens with the statement;
We missed the semiconductor revolution in the early 1950s. We had just gained independence. But with nanoscience and technology, we can certainly be on an equal footing with the rest of the world.
There is a familiar sense of deja vu all over. Did we not hear it all (missed semicon revolution; will do great now). The last I heard ‘now’ was High Tc Superconductivity. CNRR and his clan garnered disproportionate amount of Indian R&D budget then. The only commercial applicaton of High Tc superconductors, as it turned out, was publishing journals.
Nanoscience is not in the same league of High Tc. But,… This man has a track record.