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for tomorrow, here are a few to get you started:

Good idea? Ads on your car?

Global warming computer error?

Space gas may have us redefining "life."

"When people gazed at an illusory image of themselves through the goggles and were prodded in just the right way with the stick, they felt as if they had left their bodies" (NYTimes).

Oh, this is good. "How Ads Affect Our Memory," from TechnologyReview.com via NYTimes
If you want, we can talk about this tomorrow. Chan Yun Yoo calls the two types of memory implemented in passing visual recall "implicit" and "explicit," but Eco has discussed a similar theory before.

From the same NYTimes article as above, American Environics has completed a demographically relevant survey of Americans and their stance on the environment. This pdf shows the results. Environmental issues are huge recently; do you think this is a fad, or has America found a lasting concern for Earth?

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Responses to ... If You're Puzzling Over Articles...
Anonymous said... August 27, 2007 at 9:11 PM

I'm so sad, Stallings. So, so sad after reading these articles.

None of them benefit life. We're destroying ourselves.

Yet again, I'm freaking out man. I don't want to live in this.

-Karen "holy crap" vonMoses

JStallings said... August 27, 2007 at 9:32 PM

That, I think, is what is so amazing. We have the power to create and the power to destroy, whether it is literally—with science—or figuratively—with art; one creation may produce another. With art, we may be inspired to action; with science, we may be inspired to write. That is what I am looking for in this course: the passion that moves us in one direction or another, the rhetoric that inspires change.

Unknown said... August 27, 2007 at 10:13 PM

Can we actually use these articles?

Anonymous said... August 27, 2007 at 10:53 PM

Dude, that was deep.

We all love you Karen VonMoses.

MemorableName said... August 28, 2007 at 12:15 AM

Y'see, Ms. Holy Crap, this is what gets me down, too. I was helping my sister out with an essay about her experiences with literature the other day, and my fears of literature's pointlessness were revived.

Even the most influential of religious texts have been spread very largely by "non-literary" means (stained glass, spoken word, etc.). Sure, they're ideas all the same, but... bleh (the rest of that can be for another day). Ironically, with Christianity most who accepted it and began the tradition in the western world couldn't even understand Latin mass or read the Bible in any language (which isn't to mention how unlikely it would've been for most early Christians to come by books).

Essentially, I'm losing faith in "the word(s)". It's depressing as hell to think that even if you're at Orwell's level, the most you'll be doing is a wee bit. It seems Orwell's most lasting effect was his being quoted by petty revolutionaries and silly dissidents convinced that their allowance withholding parents are "BiG bBRoTHeR!!1!"

In short, when a document so well composed as Politics and the English Language has little to no effect, there is very little hope. If it were more frequently required in schools, it'd be disregarded with the rest of the pointless schlock kids are unjustly forced to read and if it were read less in schools, people still wouldn't give a damn. Welcome to the apathetic, unenlightened democracy.

Also, if all goes well, that'll be my longest soapbox rant on this blog... ever.

JStallings said... September 1, 2007 at 11:49 AM

Actually, it seems to be that nearly every article we read inspires tizzy-ness. Anyone care to share an article that has you especially riled up?

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