Piecing Together Alzheimer’s: December 2000. “The stunningly complex biochemical puzzle that underlies

this crippling disease remains incomplete, but parts that

seemed unrelated just a decade ago are now fitting into

place.” Scientific American

Are we Dumbing Down? The Guardian‘s special supplements dedicated to the issue over the past

three Saturdays. “Commentators romped through several decades of intellectual

history, television, cinema, exams, the press and literature.” If the issue concerns you, the cornucopia here includes:

Is America bad for us? How is it possible to maintain cultural difference in a

world run by US corporations?

Why today’s protesters have to be smarter The wising-up of dissent. Making

yourself heard is harder than ever

The death of custom ‘The remnants of what was at least in part an urban culture

“of the people” are being destroyed.’ Richard Hoggart, 1957. That was then. How do things stand now, in the era of Kentucky Fried Chicken and

Rupert Murdoch?

Dubious divisions What does the dumb debate mean for groups that are often

excluded from ‘high art’ yet dominate the landscape of popular culture?

The whole whack: for better or worse, we have unzipped the

very idea of what culture actually is.

From sages to celebrities What does it mean when we stop listening to

intellectuals and pay heed to pop stars?

Sex: The decline of modesty.

Violence: Thug culture is becoming the norm for the mass of young British men, with its roots in films and classroom failure.

Pop: Being dumb may be the essence of pop music,but there are

many varieties of dumb. Still, things are pretty bad.

Books: Pulp fiction: commercial realities are reducing the

chances of truly innovative novels seeing the light of day.

The problem with poetry is that you have to read it.

Art or product? It may be pointless to say Hollywood is dumb, but vitality and variety are under threat.

Zones of pure play: Why video games are good for you.

The highs and lows of film: It’s too simple to argue that the movies dumb down

over time. High and low coexist in different periods, sometimes within

individual films – a cultural history of cinema

from Sunset Boulevard to The Phantom Menace.

Going, going . . . Moaning about cultural decline is as old as the hills;

the long history behind the current dumbing down crisis.

The Bluffer’s Guide to Culture Buffs Having problems getting to grips with all

this hi-lo stuff? We are. Here’s a handy guide to the experts

Classical music Can we only listen to music in bite-sized chunks these days?

Food How come we have wider food experience than our

parents but less food knowledge?

Sport From local hero to pay-per-view demi-god:the money

culture that has turned sportsmen into superstars.

An A-Z of cultural terms What is culture anyhow? A bunch of artworks? An

activity? A habit? A product? A battlefield? A corpse? This A-Z of cultural

terms might help you find out…

The invention of popular culture. We had to create high

culture before we could have low culture.

Architecture: We have squandered the legacy of modernism and destroyed the notion of public duty

Had enough already? Then all too likely you’re part of the attention-deficit

generation.

Review of Laughter: A Scientific Investigation by Robert Provine. ‘What a weird trick has been played

on our linguistic species to express itself with such stupid “ha ha ha” sounds. Why

don’t we leave it at a cool “that was funny”?

These questions are old, going back to philosophers who have puzzled over why one

of humanity’s finest achievements–its sense of humor–is expressed in such an

animal-like fashion. There can be no doubt that laughter is an inborn characteristic.’ We share laughter with the apes; it appears to be associated with a playful attitude, and is distinct from smiling, which encodes affection and appeasement instead. Laughter is not as much as we think a response to a joke; naturalistic studies show that people laugh more frequently in response to situations that are far from humorous. Laughter’s purpose seems to be to solidify social relations by signalling mutual liking and well-being. A group of people laughing together — more often men than women, BTW — broadcast solidarity and togetherness often at the expense of the outsider. “Provine expands on this theme with the observation

that women laugh more in response to men’s remarks than the reverse. The asymmetry between the sexes starts early in

life, between boys and girls, and seems to be cross-cultural. The man as laugh-getter also turned up in an analysis of

personal ads, in which Provine found that women generally sought partners with a sense of humor, which male

advertisers claimed to have in great measure.” Scientific American

The Wait for an E-book Format. Everyone admits that e-books are the wave of the future, but we’re not even close to establishing standards that’ll allow any e-book to be read on any device. Publishers Weekly

Emperor Without Clothes Dept.: Literary criticism in the Disneyland cloisters; a year at Yale for a British PhD student in literature:

“I write the sentence down in my notebook, like everyone else in the seminar. The ode must traverse

the problem of solipsism before it can approach

participating in the unity which is no longer

accessible. When I have pieced it together, I realise

he is talking nonsense. I am struck by the thought

that literary criticism – at least as it is practised here

– is a hoax. And the universities that offer it, and the

professors who in America earn large salaries

teaching it, are fraudulent, wittingly or not.”

Gang-Bangers: A Deadly U.S. Export. The gang members we deport back to their countries of origin have it all over the homeboys. Time

If you are happy and you know it clap your hands.

Bush Team Prepares ‘Scorched-Earth’ Plan. “The battle to win 270 votes in the electoral college has taken on a unique calculus. Florida remains crucial, but the close outcomes in New Mexico, Wisconsin, Iowa and Oregon are critical in what one Republican operative called a “scorched-earth strategy” GOP officials hope to avoid implementing.

The strategy is to challenge Gore’s close wins in Iowa, Wisconsin and, perhaps, Oregon. If successful in Wisconsin with 11 electoral votes and either Oregon or Iowa, with 7 each, Bush could then, under this scenario, still win in the electoral college without Florida’s 25 votes.

That depends on keeping New Mexico in the Bush column. If New Mexico flips back to Gore, Bush would have to overturn the outcome in all three other states–Wisconsin, Iowa and Oregon–to make up for the loss of Florida.” Washington Post

Forget Florida—Flip the Electors! by Matthew Miller, a senior fellow at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. He’s basically saying that tit-for-tat litigation airs dirty laundry about the U.S. electoral system that would be better off not known. He prefers Gore take the (constitutional) high ground for the country’s sake. “Would a handful of Republican electors switch and vote for

Gore? I don’t know, but as a Gore supporter I’d rather risk

his losing this way than see the nation implode on its current

path. Even 271 party hacks could not help but feel the weight

of history in ways that would lead most to go beyond partisan

interest to consult their consciences.” Of course, there isn’t a ghost of a chance of this happening (unless Gore promises a handful of these hacks ambassadorships or something); I’m answering my own question I asked on election night. And it’s not self-evident at all that this is a “crisis”, or that the nation will “implode” at all if it continues down its current path. Slate