Tonight the polls closed on the first round of the sexennial elections for the 22 regional councils in France.1 In comparison to the US, the regional councils are sort of like state governments, and their primary dossiers involve education, transportation, and land use. Rue89 has conveniently put together a “Regional Elections for Dummies” page, but, [...]
Continue reading about Quick thoughts about the French regional elections
Since 1998, part of my excitement over the World Cup has been stoked by ads leading up to it. Usually, Nike makes charming and witty ads, like this one, in which the Brazilian national team messes around at the airport, having just been told that their flight to Paris is delayed: What Eric Cantona is [...]
Continue reading about The cringe-inducing South African World Cup ads have begun
I have been posting of late, just not here. I’ve put up three posts over at Lithchat discussing the Eurovision Song Contest, in particular the song chosen by the Lithuanian people to represent them at the contest, the subversive “Eastern European Funk.” The first post merely introduces the song with a few video clips thrown [...]
Continue reading about Eurovision and neoliberalism: the case of InCulto
There’s a frustrating article by Tim Parks up on the NYRBlog now about the the dull new global novel. I’ll save the breezy history of the novel Parks provides (making an economic and democratic case for moving to the vernacular from Latin) and furnish his closing two paragraphs, which turn the whine into vermouth: If [...]
Continue reading about Should one mourn national literature(s)?
While the big discussion in Washington (other than the snow) lately seems to have been the atavistic Tea Party Convention and the various fantasies of the American that were put on display within (I won’t link to anything since, remember, I’m no longer reading about US politics), the debate about national identity in France, an [...]
Continue reading about The pleasant death of the national identity debate
Language Log has been getting me excited about the documentary The Linguists for quite some time now, but the DVD costs $300, and it didn’t seem to air on any local PBS stations. Luckily, the movie is finally available (for a short time) online at babelgum.com. I strongly encourage people to watch this movie, as [...]
Continue reading about Disappearing languages and documentaries
I learned last night how stupidly easy it is to make ringtones for the iPhone. That, coupled with how stupidly easy it is to strip audio from videos on YouTube makes this little project possible: 3 ringtones for the iPhone built from the Obama campaign video “Signs of Hope and Change.” The video is great [...]
We just finished the baseball unit in the course I’m teaching, “Male Fantasy Sports.” The course is a crosslisted English and Gender Studies with 14 students (syllabus | departmental description | photo of books at the bookstore). Most students major in the social sciences, but there are a pair of English majors, and three or [...]
Continue reading about Conclusions so far in “Male Fantasy Sports”
