Which is in fact because I have just finished #AliSmith's 'Spring'. It is a beautiful novel. Part 1 is particularly brilliant. I'm not sure about its flirtation with magical realism in part 2. We need a writer who can find hope without recourse to magic.
On the other hand, it is more mythological realism than magical. We can believe in myth making and story telling. What is real is not the mundane, but the eternal or, better, the eternal in the mundane. Smith is on the side of the angels because she believes in art, in myth in story telling. Spring, with its promise of life, is contrasted with winter which is dark and unenchanted. It is also art and the mundane. Smith is with Chaucer not Elliott. So am I.
What I particularly like is the motif that none of this is about you. It serves to cut the privileged down to size, but the moral extends. The story isn't Florence's or the Machines. It is a shared world and 'world' here is truely all that is, was, will be or even could have been the case.
Dr. Sherita Goldon was forced from her position as chief diversity officer at #JohnsHopkins University for including the following (helpful, accurate, and necessary) definition of privilege in an email newsletter:
"a set of unearned benefits given to people who are in a specific social group. Privilege operates on personal, interpersonal, cultural and institutional levels, and it provides advantages and favors to members of dominant groups at the expense of members of other groups...“ 1/2
"Privilege is characteristically invisible to people who have it. People in dominant groups often believe they have earned the privileges they enjoy or that everyone could have access to these privileges if only they worked to earn them. In fact, privileges are unearned and granted to people in the dominant groups whether they want those privileges or not, and regardless of their stated intent.” 2/2
As an #autistic user of your website, I'm working hard enough just to cope with reading your text. Please don't also make me cope with stuff that moves or slides or fades too. Just present me with a static, stable thing to parse in my own time. And don't have things that move or slide (eg. fancy navbars) when I move my pointer (which I may be doing as a reading aid).
And here on Mastodon I've had to mute so many people because they use animated gifs in their user name.
Unfortunately, @trunksapp - which is the best Mastodon client I've found so far for my needs - doesn't stop these from moving, flashing, flickering or whatever the hell else the user thought would be amusing.
Do you sometimes struggle to hear what's said on TV? We're running an experiment to find out how wide-spread problems with TV audio are. If you have half an hour, click here to take part: https://tv-speech-rating.audio.labs.bbc
Follow up: One of the papers I resubmitted after an R&R where I had to write a 6,300 word memo was rejected. One of the reviewers decided that the language and paper structure that he (it is probably a he) suggested that we use last time wasn't good enough, and that we should rewrite the whole thing again.
In case you're wondering what my first experience at Sociological Perspectives was like:
All R&Rs, no matter how much work needs to be done, must be returned within 60 days. The editor is sometimes willing to give you a 3 or 4 day extension, and that's it.
The reviewers (I had) are micromanagers who want to rewrite the paper for you, and in at least one case, will forget what they told you to do the last time.
@academicchatter I'm thinking anti-ableist, anti-racist, anti-sexist, etc.
Actual inclusive as possible for us to achieve online conference-planning. Pushing the date far enough out that we can do this without stressing the hell out and with enough time to fundraise for ASL interpreters, captioning, etc.
The marketing fluff doesn’t, but they actually did increase upload speeds. Mine went from 10 to 20 up. And here is the DSL reports forum thread from when this round started.
Also, they are testing larger increases. I could get 100 up today, if I had a supported modem.
So, check your actual plan and modem to see what you have now.
@YLee Yes and yes - and that all sounds super noble and admirable. In reality, it becomes an expensive competitive fancy dress comp where staff and students dress as entirely non-book related characters (films/superheroes etc.) and it does nothing to encourage a genuine love of reading. You want your child to read? Buy them a book! #WBD#WorldBookDay#Books#Education#edutooters@bookstodon@edutooters
@hlseward@bookstodon@edutooters
I wasn't aware of the cosplay aspect to it. Reading is probably a little too quiet and internal for modern society. There has to be some lavish, external (read: Instagram-worthy) display to get people interested.
How capitalism violates the most boring and obvious principle of justice and treats people like things - "Inalienable Rights: Part I The Basic Argument"
Join us for the last #SpaceSyntax Lab seminar this term, hosted by the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL @ChrystalaPsathiti will present her work on secondary schools in Cyprus