Females: how dangerous is the knowledge we give them?

From an opinion piece in the Denver Post:
Beauty meets brute force: Are tough screen heroines empowering, or do they send a dangerous message?



yuck. yuck. yuck yuck yuck.

Seven of One

At my last meeting with my advisor, I mentioned my obsession with Seven of Nine and the blog posts I made summarizing the episodes she appears in (obviously it's relevant), and she suggested that it might be relevant to contextualize the concept of cyborgs for our readings. She actually seemed surprised I hadn't made the connection already. So last night (why do it ahead of time if you can wait till the last minute?) while I was reading through my blogs and skimming through some Voyager episodes, I asked myself why I hadn't made the connection. Borgs are pretty much always on my mind, at least in the periphery, because Star Trek: Voyager is something I'm pretty passionate about. I think the reason is that I haven't been able to fully articulate why I find Seven of Nine and her struggle with her Borg and Human natures so compelling.

Program Evaluation

I am so frustrated with my program evaluation class right now. The element of competition is making people play dirty, which reminds me why people are horrible and selfish and capitalism is evil. I also feel like my group is not prepared to do much critical thinking, making it difficult for me to explore complexity and nuance with my peers.

The one group that really seems to have the eye of the teacher (so, he will probably give them all A's and the rest of us B's) is headed by a girl who appears to be willing to undermine her classmates in order to improve her own chances of winning. She spent the majority of our question time in class today asking a question that we didn't understand, then criticizing us for how "idealistic" our answer and model to her were. We spent the time defending a facet of our presentation we didn't choose to focus on. It was so frustrating.

Teens Rebel, Mosquito Repels

I recently read an article that made me think of my rhetoric studies. Apparently Howard Stapleton invented a device that emits a high frequency noise that is supposed to be inaudible to most people over 25. The purpose of this device is to repel teenagers and young people from being "unruly" in areas where they are not welcome. Many different outlets covered the story, but I liked the NPR story because it captured the reactions of the callers and had some intelligent comments in the comments sections. The main reason I share the NPR story, though, is that Stapleton mentioned that he has been attempting unsuccessfully to stop teens from using a Mosquito ringtone while they are in class so the teacher can't hear when they are texting their friends.*