Hey, everyone! My site was down for a couple of days because of an issue with the server, but is back for good now. :-) Not being able to blog was a little frustrating for me; I didn't realize how much I rely on blogging as an outlet. At any rate, I'm back, and now must finish preparing for class!

I got the heads-up for this new blog from the AARST listserv. It's maintained by McClain Watson, a Ph.D. candidate in Communication Studies at the University of Iowa. He also has a site about his dissertation called Dis My Diss, heehee. Worth a look!

Edited to correct the name of McClain's university! :-o

In case you wanted to see. I'm finally finished tweaking it...for now, heh.

Erica Gilbert-Levin critiques the tendency of a contingent of Third Wave feminists to advocate reclaiming such "girlie" things as the color pink, lipstick, lingerie, and Barbie as feminist. In other words, liking these things doesn't compromise one's feminism in any way. Girlie culture is called "feminism lite" by some. Gilbert-Levin's critique is full of profound statements, such as this:

By suggesting to young women that it is a feminist act simply to don a "Girls Rule!" baby T or to wear high heels and thereby to "own" one's sexuality (as if wearing high heels or lipstick allows one to own one's sexuality!), Girlies encourage women to substitute commercial "fun" for serious, political feminist engagement.

Indeed, Gilbert-Levin is right to point out that girlie culture is consumerist to a large extent. And she ends with this rockin' clincher:

With so much at stake -- with an antichoice, antifeminist Republican in the White House, with a political establishment that moves to the right at every sneeze, with the gap between the rich and poor growing daily, with a war against women all around the world -- from gender apartheid in Afghanistan to daily honor killings in Muslim countries to genital mutilation in Africa to a sky-high rate of rape and domestic violence in the United States -- Third Wave feminism cannot afford to be defined by the Girlie movement. We have too much to do.

Oh, I should add that I hung out with Erica in Chicago one night in March 2002. She is awesome.

Ha ha ha! Actually, I don't like what they say about Lessig because those are issues I care about, but other than that it's funny.

1. What's one thing you've always wanted to do, but never have?

I have always wanted to travel in outer space--go to other planets. I dream about it at night sometimes. The planets in my dream are never like they are on Star Trek, just cheesy overcommercialized vacation spots where it's always twilight and a 7up costs $5.00.

2. When someone asks your opinion about a new haircut/outfit/etc, are you always honest?

No way! I'm from the south, remember? If I offer an opinion without being asked for it, though, that's going to be honest, because it's usually a compliment.

3. Have you ever found out something about a friend and then wished you hadn't? What happened?

Sorry, I'm drawing a total blank on this one. It's hard for any of my friends to disturb me that much.

4. If you could live in any fictional world (from a book/movie/game/etc.) which would it be and why?

Star Trek: The Next Generation, for so many reasons. I'd get to pal around with Deanna Troi, you know, have some kind of chocolate concoction with her, I would never have to cook because there would be a replicator, and then there's the gorgeous Jean-Luc Picard.

5. What's one talent/skill you don't have but always wanted?

I'd love to be a great singer. That can come in handy in all kinds of ways. I could use it for teaching writing...make up a song about ethos, pathos, and logos, for example.

Do your own Friday Five.

bIPlog's Mary Hodder has some good observations of the potential uses of P2P networks. She says that

[b]ecause most P2P apps are for piracy purposes, companies and others have not explored and used P2P for more legitimate purposes, but increasingly sophisticated P2P apps are being developed that in future might relieve the burden on file caching companies so that individuals will spread freeware, collaborative work projects and other legitimately shared files. This kind of distributed sharing and collaboration is likely the future of Internet based work for knowledge sharing and development. So the success of certain kinds of P2P may hold back or delay the development of technologies, due to DMCA related fears of prosecution, as well as the development and adoption of information technology based work practices that rely on P2P applications.

This quotation is from Hodder's summary of the article, and it made me want to read the piece in its entirety, but I wonder why Hodder doesn't mention that the article is, in large part, an promotion of BitTorrent, a new software tool for P2P networks. BitTorrent sounds like an improved tool for P2P; a couple of things I like about it are that it finds out how much of a file you already have and arranges it so that you only download the chunks you need, and also it makes sure that users aren't leeching off the network, that they are uploading as well as downloading. ComputerWorld offers this sidebar story of BitTorrent's pros and cons. In a sidebar story of my own, when I was going through my newsfeeds and found this story, I immediately thought of Laurie, since this is her area of interest. Laurie, how's it going? No one has heard from you in a while. Are you on vacation or something?

Edited version cross-posted to Kairosnews.

What a doubleplusungood night. I moved all day today to my new apartment...all alone. I do feel kind of proud of the fact that I did it all myself, but it was lonely and depressing, quite a "nobody likes me, everybody hates me, think I'll go eat worms" experience. My feet would wail if they could. Tomorrow I'll give them plenty of time in their foot spa.

I'm stressing out about teaching this summer (it starts next week!). I'll post a link to my syllabus on Sunday evening; it would be great if anyone who's reading would give me feedback on it.

In my last apartment, I had my desk on the wall opposite my window. I read somewhere that that is bad feng shui, so this time it's different. I can avert my eyes to the left and see out the window. Hopefully this is the start of a better year.