Bits and Bobs

It occurred to me to write about a couple of different things today, and, as I am mostly just ranting anyway, I figured a short bit about each would do. To be fair, they're not really media critiques either.

Japan, Idiots and Facebook

This and this have come to my attention in the last few days. It hardly needs stating that the contents are disgusting, ignorant drivel, but that's not my primary concern. My main concern is that the people who posted those remarks actually believe them, and that they live in an environment/social circle where they felt comfortable posting those sort of thoughts knowing that people would agree with them. And the variety of people, by which I mean the ethnicities and age groups represented, is astounding (caveat: most if not all of them are Americans - I mean the variety of Americans represented). We're not talking about a small number of people in some small town here.

This is, to me, a stunning example of the failure of American education and culture to make its younger generations aware of what has happened in their recent and very recent past. That any American would say 'Remember Pearl Harbor?' and not immediately jump to 'Remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki?' is appalling. Part of me thinks that the majority of these people must have gotten their history lesson from the film, which conveniently leaves out the atomic bombs - somehow, if that were the case, you could excuse them for not knowing. But I'm sure this isn't true. I'm sure American children learn about WWII in school, and even a quick Google shows teaching resources available for American teachers on the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So are these people being purposely ignorant? And as for the 'Where was Japan during Katrina?' and 'Why does the US help everyone when no one would help us?' comments - the US government records millions of dollars in government, corporate and private donations from Japan for Katrina. I know I can't expect people to research their Facebook statuses, but come on. How well is international aid to America publicised during disasters?

Sexy Science

In an article in today's Times (which is behind a paywall, and, because I'm no longer at work to get behind said paywall, I won't be quoting directly), Sarah Vine criticises BBC's Wonders of the Universe because presenter Brian Cox is, essentially, too good looking to present a science programme. Vine says such programmes should be presented by old men who are too busy being scientists to remember to brush their hair or know what's in fashion. This stance might make a little bit of sense if Cox was just the good looking keyboard player in a 90s pop band that the BBC had recruited to front its programme and not, you know, also a doctor in particle physics who works on the hadron collider.

Cox took exception to Vine's article and suggested (via Twitter) that as wife of Education Secretary Michael Gove, she might consider the impact the programme (and similar ones) have on making science accessible to younger generations and encouraging it in schools. He also criticised her idea that only old men should talk about science, saying those kinds of attitudes are what keeps girls from pursuing careers in science. Vine's response? That if someone could find an ugly scientist who took exception as much as Cox did, she might take the argument seriously. Ridiculous.