My husband and I both were raised in regions where surviving the brutal heat of summer was something to be proud of and, apparently, nostalgic for. We also feel compelled to inflict three-digit heat on our grossly unprepared, rainy weather children.

Seattleites only ever burn themselves on highly caffeinated hot beverages laced with precisely foamed milk; they’ve never run barefoot across their dry lawn and into the heat-shimmered street, waved their swimming-pool soaked dollar at the ice cream truck and then hopped from burning foot to burning foot, waiting for their Sno Cone. Fireplaces and lattes are as hot as Seattle gets. It’s sad, really, and so my spouse and I feel that our Vitamin D deficient offspring need some sweltering sunshine to be soaked into their bones on an annual basis so they won’t grow up to be pale heat weenies.

Which means that I’m on vacation and have re-posted enough previously posted bits to keep everyone occupied. Have a lovely two weeks.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

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The news item in question occurred this past weekend, but I’m going to bring it up anyway just so I can write the words Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the topic of an academic conference. Aaah, now I can die fulfilled.

I used to be a closet Buffy-watcher, and then I realized that every Buffy fan I came across tended to be considered the smartest person in any given room (I don’t necessarily include myself in that). I figured it was a good sign that I was in intelligent and pretty normal-seeming company. I had been under the assumption that being a fan of a vampire slayer named Buffy would make me a damned freak.

I had extremely limited television time when I was a kid; only Saturday morning cartoons every other week at my Dad’s house. The resultant effect of this was an enormous amount of reading on my part. Now that I’m all grown-up and mature and stuff, I still prefer books to t.v.

Most television shows are asinine, make me embarrassed for the human race, and cause me to call into question the progress of human evolution. Except for Buffy, a show that raises more questions in the viewer’s mind than it answers. I think the show’s creator, Joss Whedon, wants us to understand that there’s more grey area in life than there is black and white. Life is complicated and it’s best to stand up and deal with it.

Academics seem agree with the smartness of Buffy, and because the show is layered and complex and intelligent, its themes and subject matter have been the focus of a surprising number of academic papers and at least four academic conferences. Here’s the program for the 2008 conference; it’s impressive.

Further Reading:

‘Buffy’ Attracts Own Academic Following
PA Professor leads ‘Buffy the Vampire’ study
Buffy Studies

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Trying to come up with something professional and politically correct to say about this has proved fruitless. There are too many sweet spots to hit and if I start I won’t be able to stop. Inside Higher Ed had this up today:

A new Web site has been created to serve as a clearinghouse for the presidential candidates’ positions on science and technology issues. The site — created by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Association of American Universities — features the candidates’ positions on topics such as competitiveness, science education, health care, and energy research. The information is largely a listing of candidates’ stated positions and does not focus on stances taken by some candidates that run counter to scientific thinking — Mike Huckabee’s opposition to evolution isn’t mentioned.

Related post: Hope For College Science Majors

Posted by Alexa Harrington