debitage

10.1.08

Botanical Trivia

Apparently kale, collard greens, cabbage, broccoli, Chinese broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, and kohlrabi are all (different cultivars of) the same species. Similarly, most of our squashes (from acorn to zucchini) are one species. I feel kind of like Homer Simpson when he was told bacon, ham, and pork all come from the same animal.

Stentor Danielson, 12:28, |

A Quick Link

The New Times has a great article making the specific point that Sherrif Joe and Andrew Thomas ("Attorney Andy"?) are loathsome people, and the general point that having local law enforcement get involved with immigration enforcement is a disaster.

Stentor Danielson, 11:56, |

8.1.08

[UPDATED] An Inspiring Speech, As Speeches Operating Within Conventional Assumptions Go

[UPDATE: I finally had time to find a transcript of the speech. I turned my paraphrases into real quotes, and struck out my parenthetical comment about not mentioning feminism since I somehow missed his reference to the suffragettes.]

Dear Barack Obama,

There are lots of good examples of Americans struggling successfully for justice and happiness that you could use to illustrate your point of "yes we can"* in your concession speech. You hit a bunch of the good ones -- abolition of slavery, the labor movement, the civil rights movement, and immigrants** (~~though I notice feminism didn't make the cut -- have your staffers filled you in on how you lost among women by a sizeable margin? --~~ nor did environmentalism, much less the LGBT rights movement or the disability movement). But why did you have to try to inspire us with the image of "pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness"?

That "wilderness" had a lot of people living there, most of whom your pioneers killed either directly or indirectly (not to mention the fact that westward expansion of European settlement was as much a government-managed enterprise as a grassroots movement). And the idea of people struggling against the wilderness perpetuates the idea of a fundamental opposition between humans and nature, which is something you shouldn't be reinforcing if you're serious about your earlier line about eliminating oil dependence.

* I was hoping that, while he was chanting "yes we can," he'd drop in a "sí se puede."
** Immigrants from "distant shores," hence implicitly the good European or possibly Asian ones, not the Mexicans.

Stentor Danielson, 21:03, |

6.1.08

Open Letter

Dear Hugo,

I'm a pretty ignorant white guy. I don't know a quarter of what you know about feminism -- and next to nothing about women of color. (I'm inside the house with the shutters closed, as it were.) I haven't followed the controversies over Full Frontal Feminism or the Yes Means Yes proposal in any detail at all. But even I could tell that the arguments you claim to be responding to aren't the arguments that your critics are actually making. I read your posts and immediately thought "that can't possibly be what they're criticizing FFF and YMY for." Is it too much to ask you to hold off on the overwrought mea-culpa-cum-apologia until you can accurately diagnose the culpa?

Stentor Danielson, 22:19, |