Here’s an interesting article on the Religious Gender Gap. Not sure what I think about the explanation given here, but it’s not so far-fetched to me that basic differences in cognition, and consideration of the effects of social pressure on men in traditional societies… none of that is so highly objectionable. Though the bit about women accepting religious ideas “because they sound nice” is unfortunately put.
Month: December 2006
Night Class Essays Down
One of the wonderful things about marking essays that I’m required NOT to return to students is that I don’t need to make extensive notes. I do tend to make a list of notes at the end — in almost unreadable hand, except that I can read it — about what’s good and bad in the essay, but I don’t have to be highly consistent in marking errors of those types throughout the essay. Mark a few, and then just note them. The class is on a ranked grading curve anyway, and participation in a writing class is mostly hard …
Santa and Pascal’s Wager
Melissa Lipscomb’s latest domestic disturbance is up. It’s about all the Christmas lies that parents tell, and an interesting one. The following passage made me laugh out loud: A few days ago Adam left the house and used his cell phone to call Alec in the guise of Santa with a timely reminder that calling people “idiot” was liable to provoke the direst consequences. It’s a bit soon to tell, but I can report that Alec hasn’t used the word again since then. I personally don’t remember ever believing in Santa, though I guess a forecast of my philosophical future …
Rejections #4&5
A couple of more rejections to note: #4. “Pahwakhe” from ChiZine, 2 December 2006 — they said it was “a fine story, it’s not quite weird enough” for their tastes. Some nice encouragement. This same story is still pending at HLQ. #5. “Soul Competency” from F&SF, today. Form letter, I think: “We’ll pass. There’s some fine writing here, but it didn’t grab my interest.” I’m trying to decide whether to submit it somewhere else as is, or maybe get it critiqued and rework it before sending it out again. But I think I might just send it out again, as …
Europa (1991)
Last night I tried to watch my DVD of Europa, which is a Korean-released DVD. Weirdly, it has no English subtitles, only Korean, and the “Languages” marking on the back cover lists it as an “English” movie. In fact, a lot of the dialogue is in German. I tried to watch it anyway, guessing at what was discussed in German, but finally, after about forty minutes, I gave up. What an annoyance!