NY Times providing child porn

Ex-Lemmingworks. ##.

Alex Halavais has taught some courses at SUNY Buffalo on pornography, and provided a small article to the ACM Siggroup bulletin I co-edited a couple of years back. His recent blog post is interesting: NY Times providing child porn

A lot of newspapers have been shy to link outside of their own news organization: so much so that it is almost a truism. They followed the corporate credo of keeping users on the site. That has changed over the last few years, with more and more traditional news sites willing to include hyperlinks.

He goes on to talk about how NYT, while talking about issues around child pornography actually provides links to sites that while not illegal, are on the boundary. The legality of even linking to these sites, let alone viewing them is open to debate now that it is possible that virtual child pornography, where someone claims to be or acts as if or appears to be under the age of 18, even if a counter claim is presented, is a possible crime. This is tied to the fact that an image of a child nursing or bathing can be cause for charges, though I assume not conviction.

I decided to not even link to the NYT article, let alone read it, but rather fall back to linking to Alex’s post. It is interesting to note that even looking for research material about issues surrounding child pornography could be a problem, as you might run into the material. When looking for material to teach with I made sure that I restricted my google search with “site:gov.ca” to only search canadian government sites. Perhaps site:edu might be ok as well.

What Your Freshmen Don’t Know

Ex-Lemmingworks. ##.

Two things funny about this article. The first is that I don’t get half of it because it is so completely ‘mercian. Oh, and I just don’t care about half of them. Here are the interesting ones, as far as I’m concerned. Remember I have 120 frost I’m meeting next week. Inside Higher Ed :: What Your Freshmen Don’t Know

1. The Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union.

2. They have known only two presidents.

3. For most of their lives, major U.S. airlines have been bankrupt.

6. There has always been only one Germany.

9. A stained blue dress is as famous to their generation as a third-rate burglary was to their parents’.

11. A coffee has always taken longer to make than a milkshake.

12. Smoking has never been permitted on U.S. airlines.

16. DNA fingerprinting has always been admissible evidence in court.

19. “Google” has always been a verb.

22. Mr. Rogers, not Walter Cronkite, has always been the most trusted man in America.

25. Phantom of the Opera has always been on Broadway.

30. Non-denominational mega-churches have always been the fastest growing. religious organizations in the U.S.

36. They have rarely mailed anything using a stamp.

39. “So” as in “Sooooo New York,” has always been a drawn-out adjective modifying a proper noun, which in turn modifies something else.

41. They have always been able to watch wars and revolutions live on television.

46. Public school officials have always had the right to censor school newspapers.

49. They have always been searching for “Waldo”.

51. Michael Moore has always been showing up uninvited.

54. There have always been live organ donors.

58. Bad behavior has always been getting captured on amateur videos.

67. Disposable contact lenses have always been available.

68. “Outing” has always been a threat.

70. They have always “dissed” what they don’t like.

71. The U.S. has always been studying global warming to confirm its existence.

74. Ringo Starr has always been clean and sober.

75. Professional athletes have always competed in the Olympics.

A Pre-reading of “Snakes on a Plane”

Ex-Lemmingworks. ##.

[No comment. Read the quote, then read the article. It will be on the exam.]
The Valve - A Literary Organ | A Pre-reading of “Snakes on a Plane”:

Though I myself haven’t seen the film, it is almost impossible not to think that Lacan had watched Snakes on a Plane, because his conception of alterity is so closely aligned with the film’s revolutionary mise en scene. Indeed, my reading below is deeply invested in resisting the tired old “grand narrative” of “actually watching the film,” which essentializes “experience,” and delegitimates the kinds of liberatory theoretical praxis I have memorably justified elsewhere. 

The eponymous “snakes” here are clearly the wild slithering irruption of the Real, while the “plane” is the Phallus that operates in the angular, metallic register of the Symbolic. The film thematizes the rebellion of the Real (the resisting third world subaltern, who also represents the death-drive) over the tyrannical, inscribed authority of the Industrial-Aviational Master.