{"id":458,"date":"2009-08-16T21:25:23","date_gmt":"2009-08-17T05:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mary\/?p=458"},"modified":"2009-08-16T21:33:16","modified_gmt":"2009-08-17T05:33:16","slug":"063-an-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mary\/2009\/08\/16\/063-an-update\/","title":{"rendered":"#063: An update! Really!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Currently listening to: “Dance Anthem of the 80s” – Regina Spektor<\/em><\/p>\n

I emerge from my self-imposed hermitude (?! is that a word? I don’t really care, because it looks rather wicked) to dash off a brief – and haphazardly thrown-together – blog post. Self-imposed hermitude is not due to the usual anti-social tendencies. Instead, it’s due to the French Club website that I’m trying to throw together, to no real avail. *insert string of Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois words inappropriate for this medium* But on to other cheerier topics, and the apparent schizophrenic nature of this update! Wheeheee. <\/p>\n

Welcome, new additions to the Blog Squad! Welcome to the wordsmithing and general madness! Feel free to talk to any of us – we don’t bite, I promise. Unless we are in starving university mode. Speaking of biting…<\/p>\n

The Vancouver Zombie Walk yesterday was craaazzzaaaaay. Watch for my Ubyssey article on it…yes, the one that I have yet to start writing. I’ve been playing back the interviews, trying to do transcripts and such, and I officially hate my recorded voice, which is vapid and annoyingly high-pitched. Please slap me if I sound like that in real life. <\/p>\n

Lest this entry be all pointless prattle…
\nI’ve just finished Empire of Illusion<\/b><\/a> by Chris Hedges, a splendid treatise on our modern-day addiction to one-minute soundbites, mistaking sensationalism for news, scripted wrestling for sport, Twitter for literature. He rants about the downfall of literacy and the death of critical thinking, amongst other things. I won’t spoil it for you, but it’s really a fantastic book, and I’m definitely going to check out his other books (When Atheism Becomes Religion: America’s New Fundamentalists, and American Fascists). Suffice to say, if you’ve ever wanted to know why those who hold power in society do, well, there is an excellent chapter on the Ivy League, and our modern plutocracy. <\/p>\n

That being said, I chanced upon a book at work today, Idiot America<\/a><\/b>, which seemed like an excellent complement to Empire of Illusion. I have yet to begin it, but it looks like a biting criticism of ignorance, and people’s pride in remaining ignorant…a fact I can’t quite argue with, given the emergence of fake town hall protests and the like in the States…but that is a whole different story entirely, which I shall not proceed into, lest it turn into another massive rant! <\/p>\n

I shall elaborate on Idiot America<\/b> after I am done with the book; perhaps you all have some views on the abovementioned you’d like to share? I would love to hear what you’ve got to think on the subject! And keep the book recommendations coming, guys. I really appreciate them! :D<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Currently listening to: “Dance Anthem of the 80s” – Regina Spektor I emerge from my self-imposed hermitude (?! is that a word? I don’t really care, because it looks rather wicked) to dash off a brief – and haphazardly thrown-together – blog post. Self-imposed hermitude is not due to the usual anti-social tendencies. Instead, it’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[224,223,390],"tags":[474,1847,609],"class_list":["post-458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-careers-work","category-involvement-leadership","category-miscellaneous","tag-books","tag-indigo","tag-ubyssey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":463,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458\/revisions\/463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}