I thought this was an amusing item at Normblog yesterday. It’s an algorithm for generating correct political positions. I shouldn’t laugh – I’m sure I’ve been known to generate my share of correct political positions now and then. And what else was I supposed to do, after all [voice rising to a scream], generate incorrect ones?! But, but, but, alas, it’s true, some of those positions did start to sound amazingly point-missing or even downright black-is-white, a couple of years ago. Hence, no doubt, the need for algorithm. (Do I sound as if I know what an algorithm is? I don’t. Not a clue.)

Norm was mentioned in an article in the Jerusalem Post about the Jooglebomb a few days … Read the rest

There was a slightly bizarre article about ‘elitism’ and popular culture in the New York Times a couple of days ago. At least I thought it was bizarre, but I don’t know, maybe it’s not, maybe I’m the one who’s bizarre. Or elitist. Or both.

Elitist pop-culture critics must, in the end, be mindful of what large numbers of people actually see and read and listen to. Because the underlying mythology of pop culture is still the idea that the approval of large numbers of people validates that culture and the society that produces it. If something is truly loved by millions of people, it has touched those people, has tapped into some stream of universality that indicates a life

Time for another omnium gatherum, because I have a lot of little items, with not much to say about them, and no single larger item with a lot to say about. At least I think that’s what I have, though sometimes I discover when I start typing that I have more to say than I thought. Isn’t that always the way. Blather blather. Just ask my colleague, who tries his best to get a little work done in the intervals between my outbursts of talkativity, or whining, or both.

One item. I commented a few days ago on that April Fool’s comment in the Guardian, along with various comments on the comments. But I forgot to mention the one on … Read the rest