What I've Been Up To Lately

Bookwise:

Hardcore by Linda Williams – Originally published in the late ‘80s, this book has since become a classic in pornography studies. Rather than taking a side of anti-censorship or anti-porn, Williams takes a look at the history of the genre and analyzes the changes that have been occurring and their reflection on society. (The anti-pornography position tends to oversimplify things and they often portray women as victims without any agency of their own – also, I find it impossible to agree with the idea that any type of heterosexual intercourse is rape as at least one leading anti-porn feminist has stated in the past – basically she believes that due to the act of penetration, there’s always a certain type of violence attached to sex. Laura Kipnis raised the point of semantics in The Female Thing – why is it always the penis penetrates rather than the vagina engulfs?) Overall it was pretty interesting, but I don’t know how dated it is since I don’t exactly have personal experience with the genre, and this isn’t the place to start a study of it – kind of illegal and all.

I Am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert – It reads exactly like an episode of the show with comments in the margins reminiscent of The Word. It refers to episodes and jokes from the show as well (I probably missed a few because I haven’t been watching it very regularly since leaving the States). It was pretty entertaining, and even contained his speech from the White House Press Corps Dinner.

What else is new? The Dining Facility is finally serving jalapeno poppers again (they’d been out for at least a month), so that’s pretty exciting. I was in the food court a few days ago, but there wasn’t really much to eat so I ended up munching in my room – Taco Bell was out of quesadillas, sour cream and cheese sauce, and Burger King was out of everything but chicken tenders and breakfast foods. On the other hand, Cinnabon finally got in a shipment of straws and frosting.

I also had my first mission as mission commander recently. It went pretty smoothly with only a few minor hiccups here and there. I got pretty lucky because there are a lot of things that can complicate things / cause headaches.

I should be getting promoted at the end of the month. My name wasn’t on the list that battalion received but my commander checked somewhere else, and my name was on that site. I’m looking forward to the pay raise, and at least this way, I will no longer look like I’m brand new to the Army (although, that might have been a good thing; now I won’t have the excuse of inexperience as much as before).