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Variations on William Carlos Williams’ This is Just to Say -- I like the point about the aggression and self-congratulation implicit in the original.
Confessions of a Playgirl editor: Discussion of how the magazine decided that women wouldn’t buy gay porn and how women can like visuals too (exhibit 2: Tumblr) but perhaps differently than most men.
Molly Templeton discusses AO3 on Salon by way of evaluating Game of Thrones fanfic: Even praises the search engine.
Eric Klinenberg, Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America's Media: From true stories of local radio stations that have been taken over by big companies and automated so that emergency messages can’t get out when they’re desperately needed to stories of politicians bought by big media companies (who also make sure that reporters don’t report about the consequences of media concentration for local news and diversity), this is a depressing book, especially since it’s been a few years and the hoped-for citizen mobilization doesn’t seem to have materialized. We can fight really bad stuff off once in a while—see SOPA/PIPA—but that’s about it. Klinenberg suffers a bit from “throw every accusation at big media companies” syndrome, for example accepting uncritically the NRA’s claim that major media are anti-gun, but the story he tells is part of the dismantling of democracy in America; he reminds readers again and again that small local media are important to finding out what’s going on in one’s own community, and independent media also break national stories that no one else would. Or they used to!
Gene Roberts & Hank Klibanoff, The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation: Also about the importance of a free press! The authors start with Myrdahl’s insight that the majority of white Americans, particularly northerners, wouldn’t care about racism unless they were forced to do so. It was the press—particularly photographers and the new technology of television—that made them ashamed enough to support the civil rights movement. This book tells the story of the civil rights movement as seen through its reporting, both in the black press (which ironically started to find itself having a harder time covering some of the stories as the national white press became interested) and in the “mainstream” media. It’s also a reminder of the power of law—expansive libel law kept the New York Times out of several key states for significant periods of time, and other newspapers didn’t even try. And, as both segregationists and civil rights leaders recognized, only publicity—often, only scenes of brutality—could move the fight against segregation forward. So the Supreme Court’s decision to cut back on the scope of libel law appears as a civil rights issue. It’s a gripping narrative, and an appalling reminder of how much racist horror went unpunished and unremarked, or even celebrated in the grossest terms by politicians and editors who were considered leaders of their communities, not very long ago.
George Packer, The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America: Through the last few decades, American institutions have fallen apart; jobs that were once secure have disappeared, and social ties have fragmented. Packer picks several people to follow through those decades, from Newt Gingrich to a community activist in Ohio, and tracks their fortunes. Packer doesn’t argue explicitly; he just juxtaposes significant events in America generally and in his subjects’ personal lives to make the case that in the new America, everyone is on their own (except for one person, a woman facing bankruptcy, who he explicitly labels as not like his other subjects, because as a first-generation immigrant she has a family that pitches in to help her out), and that this is not a good thing. It’s a disturbing read even with the moments of hope, which mainly come from the activist.
Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead: Sandberg’s high-profile TED talk on how women who are in a position to advance in their careers shouldn’t “leave before they leave,” declining opportunities because of foreseen but not yet materialized conflicts with family life, led to this book. Sandberg, a highly placed executive at Google and then Yahoo!, among other places, is well aware that she’s describing situations that only some women are in, though she tries to give some advice that is more generally applicable. She’s also well aware of the double bind: women who don’t negotiate don’t get the good results that men get because they negotiate; women who do negotiate take a hit in perceived collegiality. She only has mild suggestions to deal with that—talk about “we” instead of “I,” because women do better negotiating on behalf of others, so focusing on what rewarding you will do for the overall team leads to better results; Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever’s Ask for It has more specific strategies. “Don’t leave before you leave” is good advice, as is “step up and sit at the table, even if you don’t think you’re perfectly qualified yet”—among the stories she tells is how women already at Google, who’ve gone through a grueling hiring process and who you might think knew how to value themselves, didn’t apply for internal job openings unless they thought they had all the listed skills, whereas men would apply if they thought they had over half. The men assumed they could learn on the job. While that may be overconfidence, they were likely to get the chance to learn. I really wish men in positions of authority would read the book and see what they’re losing.
Confessions of a Playgirl editor: Discussion of how the magazine decided that women wouldn’t buy gay porn and how women can like visuals too (exhibit 2: Tumblr) but perhaps differently than most men.
Molly Templeton discusses AO3 on Salon by way of evaluating Game of Thrones fanfic: Even praises the search engine.
Eric Klinenberg, Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America's Media: From true stories of local radio stations that have been taken over by big companies and automated so that emergency messages can’t get out when they’re desperately needed to stories of politicians bought by big media companies (who also make sure that reporters don’t report about the consequences of media concentration for local news and diversity), this is a depressing book, especially since it’s been a few years and the hoped-for citizen mobilization doesn’t seem to have materialized. We can fight really bad stuff off once in a while—see SOPA/PIPA—but that’s about it. Klinenberg suffers a bit from “throw every accusation at big media companies” syndrome, for example accepting uncritically the NRA’s claim that major media are anti-gun, but the story he tells is part of the dismantling of democracy in America; he reminds readers again and again that small local media are important to finding out what’s going on in one’s own community, and independent media also break national stories that no one else would. Or they used to!
Gene Roberts & Hank Klibanoff, The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation: Also about the importance of a free press! The authors start with Myrdahl’s insight that the majority of white Americans, particularly northerners, wouldn’t care about racism unless they were forced to do so. It was the press—particularly photographers and the new technology of television—that made them ashamed enough to support the civil rights movement. This book tells the story of the civil rights movement as seen through its reporting, both in the black press (which ironically started to find itself having a harder time covering some of the stories as the national white press became interested) and in the “mainstream” media. It’s also a reminder of the power of law—expansive libel law kept the New York Times out of several key states for significant periods of time, and other newspapers didn’t even try. And, as both segregationists and civil rights leaders recognized, only publicity—often, only scenes of brutality—could move the fight against segregation forward. So the Supreme Court’s decision to cut back on the scope of libel law appears as a civil rights issue. It’s a gripping narrative, and an appalling reminder of how much racist horror went unpunished and unremarked, or even celebrated in the grossest terms by politicians and editors who were considered leaders of their communities, not very long ago.
George Packer, The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America: Through the last few decades, American institutions have fallen apart; jobs that were once secure have disappeared, and social ties have fragmented. Packer picks several people to follow through those decades, from Newt Gingrich to a community activist in Ohio, and tracks their fortunes. Packer doesn’t argue explicitly; he just juxtaposes significant events in America generally and in his subjects’ personal lives to make the case that in the new America, everyone is on their own (except for one person, a woman facing bankruptcy, who he explicitly labels as not like his other subjects, because as a first-generation immigrant she has a family that pitches in to help her out), and that this is not a good thing. It’s a disturbing read even with the moments of hope, which mainly come from the activist.
Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead: Sandberg’s high-profile TED talk on how women who are in a position to advance in their careers shouldn’t “leave before they leave,” declining opportunities because of foreseen but not yet materialized conflicts with family life, led to this book. Sandberg, a highly placed executive at Google and then Yahoo!, among other places, is well aware that she’s describing situations that only some women are in, though she tries to give some advice that is more generally applicable. She’s also well aware of the double bind: women who don’t negotiate don’t get the good results that men get because they negotiate; women who do negotiate take a hit in perceived collegiality. She only has mild suggestions to deal with that—talk about “we” instead of “I,” because women do better negotiating on behalf of others, so focusing on what rewarding you will do for the overall team leads to better results; Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever’s Ask for It has more specific strategies. “Don’t leave before you leave” is good advice, as is “step up and sit at the table, even if you don’t think you’re perfectly qualified yet”—among the stories she tells is how women already at Google, who’ve gone through a grueling hiring process and who you might think knew how to value themselves, didn’t apply for internal job openings unless they thought they had all the listed skills, whereas men would apply if they thought they had over half. The men assumed they could learn on the job. While that may be overconfidence, they were likely to get the chance to learn. I really wish men in positions of authority would read the book and see what they’re losing.
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