The Burning Bush
thoughts from a cunning linguist

May 20, 2004

Google Search for WMD

Probably everyone in the web-world has seen this except me. But in case you haven't, give this a try:

1) Go to www.Google.com
2) Type in: weapons of mass destruction (DON'T hit
return)
3) Hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button, NOT the
"Googlesearch"
4) Read the "error message" carefully.
5) Click on the red underlined active links for more
commentary
Someone at Google has a sense of humour. And will
probably be fired soon..

Posted by Bush Whacker at 11:01 AM | Comments (2)

September 23, 2003

Blogging for Chrissake

I know: it's been an unforgivably long time since I blogged. But it's not because I haven't thought about blogging or because I have nothing to blog about. In fact, I've sat down to my Movable Type page many times since I've been "Stateside." Sometimes I just don't know where to start. So here are some highlights, any one of which could easily have been developed into a full-fledged blog entry:

* In the last three weeks, I've managed to hit three major cities on the east coast. Weekend one, I went to Philadelphia, which I did not know is the 5th largest city in the U.S. Amazing architecture; humid weather: loved the buildings; hated the heat. Lucky for me, the friends I stayed with had both air conditioning and an intricate knowledge of all the nooks and crannies to see in Philly. I had a lovely time and want to go back soon.
     Weekend two, I headed into NYC, where I had not been since before 9/11. The city is now quite different, not least because of the pronounced police presence (in the form of a huge banner reading "POLICE" at a central kiosk greeting one at Penn Station). I'm not the first to observe that the city "feels" different, now too. What some people have described as a "nicer" NYC, though, felt a little to me like a muted NYC: I'm not sure people are nicer, but the city has lost some of its edge and energy. This, of course, is to be expected--it's still very much a city in mourning and a city not yet comfortable enough to be flamboyant again. Nonetheless, the place is dear to me. I spent my Saturday walking down Broadway among the illicit marketers, selling knock-offs; perusing the market at Union Square; sitting in Washington Square Park, reading the Village Voice; having a drink with my ex-from the crazy Calgary wedding at a bona fide lesbian bar; and finally eating dinner at a wonderful little Italian restaurant up near Columbia with two old friends. As I describe the day, it's funny, because I don't remember it being that busy...
     Finally, for weekend three (the weekend before last), I travelled to Boston. Several NYC bus companies offer this fabulous deal where you go from Chinatown in NYC to Chinatwon in Boston for $10 each way! And they have buses leaving every hour. So I took advantage of the opportunity to go see my sister in Boston (and my mother who was down visiting her). My sister has two babies (one is 2 1/2 and the other just turned 1 year old). Surprisingly, I was not driven crazy and seemed really to hit it off with the one-year-old. Who knew.

* Now I'm staying home for a little while until Oct. 2, when I travel to Toronto for the 40th birthday of the sexiest woman I know. Yes, Dr. Fem turns 40. And there will be a queer Toronto party to prove it. You can bet I'm counting sleeps until I see her again...

* In other news, my work here proceedes apace. There have been few slow moments. My two classes are keeping me quite busy and when I'm not teaching, I'm working on my own research (what a concept!). Meetings with faculty advisors have gone well so far. And my dissertation supervisor is spearheading a Sexuality Studies Working Group that is bringing in some big-name scholars from all over the U.S. This week, Thomas Laqueur hits town and I'm now in the middle of reading his cultural history of masturbation. Interesting stuff.

* In spite of all the above, though, I do long for Halifax--its greenery, its Film Festival, its smoked salmon, its well-stocked grocery stores. New Brunswick, NJ is the strangest college town one can imagine. I have to walk a solid half hour to get to a grocery store, which is not even in New Brunswick. Otherwise, I need a car to get there. (To be fair, there is a little market for produce and Mexican and Asian food, but one cannot get a complete supply of food there.) All of this, however, I treat as motivation to get work done and live elsewhere. I'm not sure how long one can go on the hope of "living life elsewhere," but for now, that is just fine. And besides, if I feel stir-crazy, there is always Philly, or NYC, or Boston to give me a temporary respite.

Posted by Bush Whacker at 11:27 AM | Comments (2)

August 08, 2003

Not Quite Stamped Out

I know, it's been a sad state of affairs here at The Burning Bush. No crispers, not even a spark. It's been almost a month now. But the flame has not died completely. It's time to get back at it and restore bush whacking to its rightful place in the blogosphere. But first a recap:

The last time you saw the Bush Whacker, I was about to receive a lovely visitor from Toronto. (This visitor shall hereafter be known as Dr. Fem. The handle is of her own choosing, but I can vouch for the fact that she "handles "well.) We had a fantabulous 10 days here in Halifax, which included the the Pride parade and all the Pride week festivities that I know Maurice has already told you about. (The one drawback about the Pride week stuff: it was one big celebration of marriage! But more on this later...)

I've also begun teaching again. It's a summer class on Children's Literature, which is going quite well, but lots of work.

And in the middle of long distance affairs of the heart (yes, the story of my life) and teaching, I'm organizing a move back to New Jersey. Can I say how much I hate, hate, hate moving? For the record. At least on my way back, I get to be on Toronto for a couple of days to see the lucious Dr. Fem. But between now and then, it's packing boxes, grading papers, writing proposals for my supervisor, and managing stress.

There will, of course, be some time for festivities, including a dinner party chez the Queen of Sheba and the Grand Poobah of Culinary Delights. And the Renaissance Eyeore is driving in from Fredericton this weekend to see me off. New Jersey definitely does not seem so appealing when it means bidding au revoir to such wonderful friends.

Why can't life just be about bush whacking?

Posted by Bush Whacker at 08:15 PM | Comments (0)

May 22, 2003

Blog-hopping and Lesbian Jokes

If you think my blog is rather sedate these days, it's because I'm too busy having fun in Maurice's blog. It's full of standard driving, elephant jokes, and lesbian commentary. And that's just one string. In that string, I've suggested that we have a contest for the best lesbian joke (the lesbian equivalent of an elephant joke). Feel free to post submissions here on the Burning Bush. Oh yeah, there's a prize--yet to be determined.

Posted by Bush Whacker at 01:50 PM | Comments (17)

May 20, 2003

The Web and the Antibody

For the last number of days, I've been working on this paper I mentioned earlier in my blog--the one about women, warblogging, and feminist strategy. Blogs have been on my mind, in other words, even though I've neglected my own. Scholars of digitial culture, like Katherine Hayles in _How We Became Posthuman_, have suggested that we tend to treat digital sources as "information," content that is detached (or can be detached) from the bodies that produce it. She cites compelling examples, like scientists who hypothesize about downloading the human brain into a computer (as if the brain were itself simply a system of downloadable information). The history that Hayles presents seems to bear out her assertions (though, why wouldn't it? She gets to choose her own examples, of course). Nonetheless, I'm not inclined to disagree with her. For many centuries, thinking itself has been a disembodied activity (that old philosophical mind/body split). Why would it not be the case with digitized technology? The liberal humanist subject that we have inherited from philosophy has typically been an abstract, and, many have argued, white, middle class male--the ideal citizen, the image of whom has undergone rampant and, in many cases, well-deserved deconstruction. This deconstruction has often been of the mind/body binary opposition.

Now, being a Bush Whacker and all, I'm all for bodies and I'm all for discussing the significance of bodies to minds. However, I'm also very wary of the argument that simply restoring bodies (or a discussion of bodies) to discussions of the mind (digital or not) is an inherently good solution. I think many theorists have come to believe that human beings can be more diversely accounted for if we only acknowledge their bodies as being male/female/white/black, etc. I think that strategy is, at worst, misguided and and, at best, is misfiring. And I think discussions of the war in blogs bear this out.

Warblogging, it seems to be acknowledged in the meta discourse of warblogs themselves (see peaceblogs.org), was initially more dominantly an activity of the right. And in blogs of all political stripe, one can see the way the bodies of "women and children" are deployed, rhetorically, as propaganda. In any event, those who base their rationales for or against the war in feminist principles find themselves arguing not about feminism itself or even, I would say, about women. In short, left-wing feminists, in my opinion need to be able to utilize the rhetoric of the typical, abstract liberal humanist in order to argue effectively against right-wing justificiations for political and especially military action. They need not buy into it, but they need to inhabit it. The master's tools may not dismantle the master's house, but we may need to know the architecture of that house so that it can be renovated. Deconstruction in this sense has its limitations. To say that the citizens and people who will be affected by, vicitimized by, or "freed" by war are abstractions is no argument agains the war. It is a rhetorical analysis, not a pursuasion against policy.

What I'm arguing here is that even feminists still have a need for that abstraction called the liberal humanist subject--a need to use that subject as a rhetorical device.

One might say, well why are blogs any different from any other genre of critique? Why use blogs to make this point? Well, I think blogs are different because, to be circular about it, people believe there is a difference between online culture and print culture. There is the sense that people don't just use technology; rather, they append it to their bodies, making themselves cyborgs. In effect, the technology often uses them, so the argument goes. Whether we belive this to be true, this conceptualization of digital culture suggests that, in our imaginations at least, the body seems to be isolated from the mind in an extreme way. Further, a blog is (usually, but not always) the work of an individual. The blog is the lyric voice online, the most clear representation of "the individual" (in some cases, the liberal humanist subject) on the web. An online identity may be no less detached from one's body than a print author's pseudonym, in fact. But in our imaginations, the split seems more radical.

The emergence of "warblogs" themselves as a phenomenon also suggests that there is something about this genre of writing that enables people to express an opinion or provide an analysis in a forum that is both semi-public and semi-private. The blog makes a particular form of individual expression possible: even if that form is not a new genre, it does borrow interestingly from many conventional genres (the diary, the editorial, the daily log, etc). The blog constitutes a peculiar kind of speech act. Blogs therefore seem to be the voice of the disembodied subject that people associate with the internet and they also make the disembodied the subject the figure in whose name they speak in advancing the war.

Okay, I'm going to stop there, even though there's not final summary point. The body writing these disembodied blog thoughts is tired and needs some sleep before it can think through its argument to its logical end.

Tomorrow that the mind associated with that body might also learn to stop speaking inthe third-person.

Good night.


Posted by Bush Whacker at 11:53 PM | Comments (4)

May 13, 2003

Handling Strangers

On Saturday night, Maurice and I dined with The Grand Poobah of Culinary Delights in honour of his birthday. The Queen of Sheba is currently away doing research and visiting family, so she, unfortunately, was unable to take her usual place at the head of the table. (Maurice did us the honour of temporarily taking over her seat, though it must be noted that the Queen remains unrivaled in her ability to command the court.) Also present were some others, who, to this point, have been absent from our sub-blogosphere: the Art Mistress, the Handyman, and the Sheltoid Feminist (all handles are subject to change, pending review). As you might imagine, the food was terrible and a bad time was had by all. No liquor was consumed and smoking on the premises was prohibited.

Posted by Bush Whacker at 10:41 PM | Comments (3)

March 25, 2003

I'm getting worse than Maurice!

And I have no good excuse like a business trip to explain myself. I look at my blog and on all the little numbers that have not been highlighted in the last little while. I also don't have anything nearly as interesting as a story about getting stuck in a snowstorm to amuse you with upon my return.

So what's a bush to do?

I haven't been blogging because I've been preoccupied. With what? Well, with trying to decide how much of an asshole I am. Remember that bush I was whacking and the whole story about my refusal to go out in straight drag, etc? Well, ever since then, I've been avoiding her. Haven't seen her. Don't call her. Don't talk much when she calls me. I guess I'm just putting her off.

I'm much happier as a result. There's just always that last, tedious conversation to be had. I'm not preoccupied because I feel guilty about not wanting a relationship with her or because I should have gone out in straight drag or anything like that.

I feel guilty for feeling happy about avoiding the situation. I'd like to think it's more cosmically significant than that. Guilty for being happy when there's a war on, guilty for feeling reponsible for someone else's emotions. But no. It's guilt for putting myself at the centre of things for a while by going to the gym, cooking good food, indulging in my on-line flirtation.

Now how screwed up is that?

Posted by Bush Whacker at 03:20 PM | Comments (0)

March 20, 2003

Blog Envy

I've just done the grand tour: clicking on all the sites of all the people who have added me as a link to their blogs. It makes a bush burn with envy to see how fabulous everyone else's sites look. I'm definitely a neophyte when it comes to webpage construction, though thanks to Maurice, I'm learning more and more all the time. (It only took me 6 tries to get that link to the Blarney Stone right the other day--and even then....sigh....it didn't quite work the way I wanted it to.) Blog aesthetics: a girl (am I a "girl"? not usually) can always dream about dressing herself up in a new blog.

Blog drag? I'll have to think about that one.

I have to admit, I'm also curious to know what all the people I'm six degrees of separation from in the blogosphere are saying (if anything) about this war. But, I digress: that's the politics of the blog..... More on that later.

For now, sleeeeeeeeep..........zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

(and dreams about what it would be like to have a really cool-looking blog......)

Posted by Bush Whacker at 11:35 PM | Comments (4)

March 10, 2003

In Love With Technology

This one is dedicated to all of us who have ever fallen in love over the internet.

My story begins, though, not online, but in an office at a university. It begins with a mistake inspired by a website. A textbook representative researches the professors she will target. She approaches the office of one who does queer work. She comes to his office, but finds me, not him. The connection is electric. But she is on a flight back to New York that very evening. We exchange e-mail; we plan to have coffee the next time she's in town peddling her wares. I expect to see her in months.

A couple of weeks later, I receive a sample textbook. I e-mail to thank her. It's all business--for the first few messages. Then it turns. The e-mails are coy, provocative, sexy. Soon we are e-mailing incessantly. And then comes IM (Instant Messenger, the MSN kind, in this case). Then sleep disappears. Over a four-day period, I have about 5 hours of sleep. We both work in the day and talk non-stop at night. When an internet connection is severed at 5 a.m., she calls all the people with my name in Halifax, even though those sleepy heads are not on our time.

She has a girlfriend, she says. But she can't stop thinking about me. I don't seem to care that there's a girlfriend. I want her. She wants me. Does the girlfriend matter? I'm in love. So is she.

But what makes that possible? She is wonderful, yes. When we see each other in person, it is sublime--in both the blissful and awe-inspiring ways. In other words, it is tantalizing and terrying all at once. At times she cannot deal with the intensity. As exhilirating as the connection is in the space of the present, though, she runs scared. She must go back to the hotel, get behind her computer, where can eliminate her inhibitions. She needs the mediating space of technology.

I still love her. But she's still afraid. She loves the girlfriend and is afraid to leave the security of the relationship. I don't know if their connection is as electric as ours, though I do know it can't be any more intense. But is it our personalities that make the intensity possible or is that intensity facilitated by the structural realities of being online, living in virtual time and space?

I'm never surprised to hear that people fall in love online. It's based in a paradox that enables people to open up in ways they might never have imagined. Connections can be instant in a way that is possible only in person or on the telephone (or perhaps by satellite connection). You can be engaged with another person and get her response almost instantly. There is a particular form of internet time. Emotional barriers can be eliminated because there is always the mediating factor of keyboards and computer screens (webcams if you're lucky--though I've never tried one myself). The text, the web, and the technology makes it possible for two people to have the illusion of total intimacy and immediacy in the sense of time, but not of space. The psychological barriers can come down only because the physical ones are held in abeyance.

It's no wonder people fall in love with the help of the internet. The damned thing is, it's a hell of a lot harder to fall out of love this way, too.

Posted by Bush Whacker at 10:25 PM | Comments (3)

February 22, 2003

On being a blogging bush whacker

Well, here goes. And it's all Maurice's fault (so you can blame the naughty bits on him). The vital stats:

Q. Why "bush whacker"?
A. Because being a "lesbian" requires a U-Haul, 2.5 dogs, and more flannel than I care to think about. Moreover, to quote one bush I've whacked, "lesbian is such a 'silly word.'"

Q. Why write about bush whacking?
A. There are just not enough public, intelligent bush whackings for my taste. If this isn't your taste, try some other site on Burning Bushes. Moses awaits.

Q. Why "The Burning Bush"?
Short answer: This is Maurice's fault, too. He laughed too much when I suggested the name. I couldn't resist.
Long answer (in multiple sentence fragments): (1) Because it's self-consciously sexual and I'm not Puritan enough to be modest. (2) Because it might burn the asses of a few Puritans. (3) Because we live in a secular world, so why not take advantage of it? (4) Because burning can be the result of being either pleased or pissed off. (5) Fill in your own reason.

Welcome. Stay tuned.

Posted by Bush Whacker at 06:42 PM | Comments (3)