As someone who watched the Original Who, growing up, in the 1970’s, I didn’t care very much for any of the reboots — they all have a somewhat jarring, frenetic, ADHD quality to them, and completely abandon the more patient, thoughtful, almost theater-like template on which the original Who was founded — but I found…

I trust Microsoft to respect my privacy just about as much as I trust “a prosecutor.”

Oh God...worst singing ever.

Somehow, I think if the album wasn’t so overwrought and earnest, no one would have jumped on her for misusing/abusing the word.

Essay on Jagged Little Pill:

I found this opener odd:

Er, *some* men don’t have to be good at it. Not every household has the same labor distribution as this doofus’s. In mine, dad was the better baby caregiver, whereas mom was better with the toddler years.

Yeah, I didn’t say it was great by any means. But the show is a ten times bigger snoozer, if you can imagine that.

I found the original film the only tolerable work in the entire franchise. The SG-1 TV show was like some cliche-ridden, woodenly-acted, absurd kid’s program.

Yes, for some people.

Fair enough on my initial salvo, which was obnoxious. I *do* find this sort of analysis of texts and more generally, the overbearing “social justice warrior” phenomena that is so hot right now, to be plain toxic, however.

(A) I am not dismissive of an entire discipline. I am dismissive of a particular approach. As any formalist critic, historicist critic, or any other orientation, other than the one you describe, would be.

I don’t know what to say to people who feel “stepped on” when reading a book about hobbits and orcs. It is interesting, however, that my parents — Holocaust survivors both — are able to read Grimm’s fairy tales and listen to Wagner operas without feeling “stepped on.”

I have taught philosophy at the university since 1993. One of my main areas of research is aesthetics. I am quite aware of “cultural studies.”

Ah well. You can’t please everyone.

Every work is to some degree propaganda.

Sure. But I don’t see the relevance of your analogy. How does reading a fictional story about non-existent creatures compare with having one’s feet stepped on?

Sometimes a cave troll is just a cave troll.

Stories about elves, dwarves, and other non-existent, fantasy beings are “racist and sexist.”

Okay. That’s a reason.