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List-mus Test: How Well-Read are You?

February 27, 2009 | 5 comments

Here’s what happened: the seemingly endless succession of Facebook memes had produced one intended to measure how well-read you are in terms of a list of 100 classic works. It read:

The BBC believes most people will have read, on average, only 6 of the 100 books listed here. How do your reading habits stack up? Look at the list and put an ‘x’ or a ‘*’, or otherwise highlight the ones you have read. Tag some people.

Geek that I am, I dutifully went down the list and checked off the 25 of them that I had read, and posted it in a Facebook note with the added comment

This list is a bit Brit-centric. Not that it ignores American classics or anything, but I count no fewer than four Jane Austen books on here and six by Dickens, whereas I see but two Steinbecks, one Fitzgerald, and zero Hemingway. Plus, as Hemingway would point out, only chicks read Jane Austen. ;-) … On the one hand, I’ve read just 1/4 of these classics, which seems kind of pathetic for someone who claims to be educated. With that in mind, I’m still four times more well-read than the BBC gives me credit for being – so suck on that, crumpet monkeys!

That’s where the controversy began. And it didn’t even have to do with my comment about Jane Austen, nor my calling the major press outlet of the land of my forefathers “crumpet monkeys.” Read the rest of this entry »


Survivor: Controversy = $$$

August 25, 2006 | 3 comments

Maybe I’ve overlooked the full significance of the segregated Survivor season. Or, maybe people are giving it more credibility than it merits.
From BBC:

Officials in New York are campaigning to stop the broadcast of a new series of reality show Survivor which divides contestants into ethnic “tribes.”

City council officials are to stage a rally on Friday to urge New York-based CBS network to pull the 13th series of Survivor, due to air from 14 September… New York councillor John Liu told the Associated Press: “The idea of having a battle of the races is preposterous.

“How could anybody be so desperate for ratings?”

In a post- Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire world, I didn’t know people were still bothering to ask that question.

…Hispanics Across America founder Fernando Mateo called the move an “offensive and cheap trick” to boost ratings. “The participants will be held to the daunting and unfair challenge of representing an entire race of people,” he said.

I think this is where I’m missing the outrage bus. I can’t take seriously the notion that any four people represent all the qualities and capabilities of an entire ethnicity – much less any four people who would be selected to be on Survivor.

[Mateo continued,] “What will it mean for a team – a race – to fail in a battle of wits and strength against another race?”

It will mean that the team lost. For that team’s race, it doesn’t mean shit. Let us not forget that we’re talking about Survivor here, a game so capricious that its “All-Stars” season was won by a featherweight sorority girl using the ingenious tactic of riding her boyfriend’s coattails.

On the other hand, there is something to the argument that the show will promote racial divisiveness. The reliable pundidiot Rush Limbaugh has already jumped on the Survivor story to use it as a launching pad for some of his typical bigotry, followed by an indignant denial that anything of what he said was racist. I don’t care to reprint what he said on my blog, but those who’d like to can read about it here.

I’m still of the mind that CBS and Mark Burnett should be given the benefit of the doubt. Calling for them to pull the show, as the New York officials are doing, is only going to solidify their resolve to run it and may indeed boost their ratings. Ultimately, I continue thinking that it’s all a tempest in a teapot. After a few episodes, I don’t see where this season of Survivor is going to look different than any of the past seasons.