Thursday, April 9, 2015

Bullets

  • More on the fallout from Rolling Stone's erroneous "A Rape On Campus." The Daily Beast has written two good pieces, as well as Richard Bradley who originally questioned the story. And ludlow's comment on feminist explains further something I've written about here: the not-so thinly veiled classism in college rape memes. Unfortunately, many people are still clinging to the narrative that maybe something happened to "Jackie," even while accepting that nothing in her story can be verified. This does nothing for actual rape victims, and perpetuates the stereotype that critical thought is anathema to feminism. More feminists need to come out and condemn the story for the hoax that it is.
  • As expected, Wilco's Indiana show is back on. Sorry for the delayed correction. 
  • Philip Roth is dirtier than the dirtiest bits in 50 Shades of Grey. A moment of awkwardness: reading Sabbath's Theater while waiting for my dad at the VA. I'm sitting next to a Santa-faced man munching a packaged cupcake, and I'm at one of the raunchiest parts wondering if he can read over my shoulder.
  • I'm solidly on the side of showing too much reverence gives something like mental illness a lot of power, but I've kind of wondered about the lack of outrage too, given the climate. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to see the company fall victim to Twitter-Tumblr outrage (Full disclosure: I own several of the lip tars), but it's a little surprising, to say the least.