Category — General

the first issue of SLC is now online!
http://www.languageandcapitalism.info/

We’d like to thank the authors of the articles for submitting their work (and also for their patience), as well as others on the list who have supported the journal either through reviewing our submissions or assisting on the editorial board.
The contents of the first issue are:

Marnie Holborow Putting the social back into language : Marx, Volosinov and Vygotsky re-examined
Robert de Beaugrande Critical Discourse Analysis: History, Ideology, Methodology
Phil Graham ‘Capitalism’ as False Consciousness
Panayota Gounari Reclaiming the Language of Possibility: Beyond the Cynicism of Neoliberalism.
Carmen Luke Eduscapes: Knowledge Capital and Cultures
Peter Ives ‘Global English’: Linguistic Imperialism or Practical Lingua Franca?
Adrian Blackledge ‘The men say “They don’t need it”’. Gender and the extension of language testing for British citizenship.
Richard Jackson Genealogy, Ideology, and Counter-Terrorism: Writing Wars on Terrorism from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush Jr.

We are very happy with the quality and breadth of work in this first issue, and we hope you think the same. Each article can be downloaded separately, or you can also download the complete issue as a single pdf file.

SmartFlix:
SmartFlix will rent you nearly four thousand How-To DVDs in English. Subjects range from construction techniques (tile laying, cabinet making, timber framing), outdoor activities (kayaking, archery), and self-help, to such specialties as welding, lock-picking, and primitive fire-making.
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this might be better than netflx

Intellectual Property Watch » Inside Views: Indigenous Communal Moral Rights:
A more and more robust literature on traditional cultural expressions is being written, discussed and even filtered into legislation. Most academic thinking on the topic agrees that Western intellectual property (IP) laws do not offer adequate or appropriate protection for certain types of creations. One example is the poor fit Western copyright law provides for traditional cultural expressions.1 A traditional cultural expression (TCE) can be described as forming “part of cultural heritage and identity, and their protection and preservation are linked to the promotion of cultural diversity and human creativity.”2

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worth the read.

If no child gets ahead, then no child will be left behind:
Did you see NCLB–The Football Version?

Author Unknown

l. All teams must make the state playoffs, and all will win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable.

2. All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time and in the same conditions. No exceptions will be made for interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL

3. Talented players will be asked to work out on their own without instruction. This is because the coaches will be using all their instructional time with the athletes who aren’t interested in football, have limited athletic ability, or whose parents don’t like football.

4. Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th, and 11th games.

5. This will create a New Age of sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimal goals.

If no child gets ahead, then no child will be left behind.

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harrison begeron?

The Dream Palace of Educational Theorists – New English Review:
Professionals have their own credentialing systems: You may have graduated law school, but you’ll still have to pass the bar exam, and so on. Then why make aspiring lawyers go to law school? Presumably for the same reason we insist on cube jockeys having bachelor’s degrees from accredited four-year colleges. Why not let them study up at home from Teaching Company DVDs, then sit for a state-refereed common exam when they feel they’re ready? Why not let lawyers learn on the job from books and as articled clerks, the way they used to? I don’t know. College-going is just an irrational thing we do, the way upper-class German men used to acquire dueling scars, the way women in imperial China had their feet bound. Griggs vs. Duke Power probably has something to do with it. Since, following that decision, employers are not permitted to test job applicants to see how intelligent they are, the employers seek a college degree as a proxy for intelligence.

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ahhh, a nice critical piece to start the day. keep in mind that this ‘journal’ is a bit iffy in terms of who it affiliates with and i’m not really supporting this guys writing, just saying…. that there is something to be critical about in the critique of education, and well, the way education conceptualizes the person is one place for critique.

They Might Be Giants covers Phil Ochs:

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I dreamed i saw phil och’s last night as live as he could be.— billy bragg to the tune of Joe Hill.

10 signs to identify the hacking spirit in your son:
Who knew that youtube could be so darn educational!… that is, you can learn how to identify if your son is a computer hacker.

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Biella finds television to be useful….

Lost for words | Books | The Australian:
Pierce is concerned that academics who specialise in Oz lit are getting on or getting out. But what are universities to do if students won’t sign up for Australian literature courses?

Pierce says the claim that students are no longer interested is a “chicken and egg argument”. “Students and PhD candidates will hardly be encouraged if Australian literature is not an interest of any of the academics in their university,” he argues.

He is withering about the idea that cash-strapped universities should offer students only the courses they want: “This assumes that universities are not there to educate but simply to gratify the necessarily limited background interests of its students, no matter how bright those students are. It’s like saying, they won’t be interested in higher maths, so we won’t teach it.”

Referring to the cultural cringe she encountered as an honours student 40 years ago, Webby says “you’re still fighting some of those same battles”. “Hopefully,” says this woman whose life’s work has centred on her own country’s literature, “we will never go back to the situation of the ’50s.”
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australian literary studies… are dying in australia.

What caused Nietzsche’s insanity and death?:
A paper just published in Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica reconsiders the insanity and death of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who is commonly thought to have died of neurosyphilis.

In contrast, the authors of the new study suggest that Nietzsche died of frontotemporal dementia – a type of dementia that specifically affects the frontal and temporal lobes.

While many people have ‘diagnosed’ historical figures in retrospect, this study is different, in that the authors reviewed Nietzsche’s actual medical notes in light of what is known about the progression of syphilis and dementia today.
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i think it was the opera.

Is That a Razr in Your Pocket, or is the FBI Glad to See Me?:
Nextel and Samsung handsets and the Motorola Razr are especially vulnerable to software downloads that activate their microphones, said James Atkinson, a counter-surveillance consultant who has worked closely with government agencies. “They can be remotely accessed and made to transmit room audio all the time,” he said. “You can do that without having physical access to the phone.”

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i own a razr…. it’s a cool phone… but i don’t use it much.