Open Thread: Something Shiny

I know that a lot of people won't agree with the ideas put forth in Carr's book/article, and I've read several of the articles refuting it; however, I think I see some truth in it from a personal perspective. Or maybe I'm just looking for an excuse? Let me explain.

If asked on a survey or something, I would still say that I love to read and describe myself as a voracious reader. The truth, however, is not so clear cut. While that absolutely used to be true and I used to read a LOT... I no longer do so. Almost everything I read nowadays is available online. In fact, the last "difficult" book I read was started and finished in early October of 2007. Since then, the most highbrow thing I've read is Harry Potter -- which is a pretty sad state of affairs for someone who used to read all the time.

Some of you might remember that I spent about a year caring for my paternal grandmother back in 2007/2008. That started in September of 2007, back when I still considered myself an avid reader. I had an intercom on my bedside night table which was connected to two intercoms on the other side of the house -- one in her bathroom and her day bedroom (which she preferred to the big bed in her bedroom) -- so that I could hear her at all times if I was in my room. Well, she had chronic renal failure, and a lot of fatigue comes along with that. So she was in bed near all the time -- slept as much as humanly possible -- but that meant that her schedule was all messed up. So when she was awake, it was as likely to be at night as during the day. When they put her on Lasix to drain the fluid off her heart and lungs, she started needing to go to the bathroom all the time. But it would take her awhile to muster up the willpower and strength to walk to the bathroom, so she would sit on the edge of the bed and holler for me. It always seemed that when I needed her to get up (to take meds or go to the doctors), she wouldn't budge -- but when I was just looking for a moment's peace, she would call out incessantly.

Well, it got to the point where reading was a pain in the ass. I am a very "intent" reader... I see and hear everything on the page and get very absorbed. That was a problem for a couple of reasons. For one thing, if I was reading intently, I found that I sometimes didn't hear her yelling for me until she'd been at it for a couple of minutes. For another, to reach that level of absorption, I need a relatively peaceful, interruption-free environment -- not something that was available to me at the time. So somewhere in October/November of 2007, I kind of gave up on reading. I started spending exorbitant amounts of time online, something I'd never really done before. It was just easier -- most articles online were short and could be finished quickly, and I didn't need to become "absorbed" in the news. I also started watching a lot of TV -- also something I had rarely done before. I started following the Democratic primaries more closely, and then I started hanging out on the blogs. Diaries were usually short, comments were short, and it was a much "easier" reading experience than a book.

My time with my grandmother came and passed -- as did she -- and my habits did not go back to "normal." I had grown accustomed to sitting in front of my computer, and even when I moved to another city, away from my family, I still found myself here -- in front of the screen -- rather than with a book in my hands. Repeatedly, over the last 2-3 years, I have started new books -- and even old ones that I have cherished for years -- and each attempt at reading anything "deeper" than Harry Potter has failed. In fact, I didn't even make it through the fourth one in that series the last time I tried. It just... seemed so long.

I have tried to figure out what was wrong with me. And I kept telling people, "My attention span just doesn't seem to be as good as it used to be." But for the life of me, I couldn't think of a reason.

In light of all that, Carr's argument makes a lot of sense. This is a long comment I've been writing. So far, in the time I've been typing it out, I have also checked several email accounts, done a couple of searches in Google, screwed around in iTunes, chatted to someone, called my mother, snuggled two cats, stared at my TV (which is on mute and stuck on a DVD screen), messed with the settings in a two new hosting accounts I have opened, and scrolled up and down this page to stare at the sparkly pictures. Now... maybe I am am just agreeing with this article because I want an excuse for the fact that I can no longer focus on anything. But I am still left wondering why -- because it was never like that before I started sitting online all the time.

So maybe Carr is right. Maybe he isn't. But just in case... I think I'll set a few minutes aside for book reading each day from now on -- we'll see how well that goes... if it goes at all.

"I now am bold to say to the swift changing hours,
Pass, pass upon your way, for I grow never old,
Fleet to the dark abysm with all your fading flowers,
One rose that none may pluck, within my heart I hold."

I think the potential of the Internets is limitless if one is careful in how it it is used.  It certainly can take awhile to understand that many websites have an agenda which may or may not be hidden.  One of the keys to good research is verifying facts before granting them absolute certainty.  Or, accepting that "facts" are based on someone's bias or POV and presenting them as such.

I don't twitter or tweet or whatever.  If I want someone to know what I'm doing I'll tell them.  I spend time surfing the 'net probably more than I should.  Usually it's because I'm bored at work (or, today, avoiding housework).

I do have a twitter account because I was trying to keep up with the crisis in Iran when it first broke last summer. Because of the way it was used in that instance, I will admit that it can be an important and useful service. But as a rule, it seems pretty useless. And twitter just sounds like a bad idea for anyone who's hot tempered. How many politicians and celebrities have embarrassed themselves over twitter with hastily tapped out messages that they were able to rapidly and easily send, before they had really had time to think through what they were doing, via twitter? Dangerous stuff there.

But as for me, I have never tweeted anything -- and yet, I have something like 4 followers. Wut? Who are these would-be virtual voyeurs and why are they anonymously interested in me?

"I now am bold to say to the swift changing hours,
Pass, pass upon your way, for I grow never old,
Fleet to the dark abysm with all your fading flowers,
One rose that none may pluck, within my heart I hold."

Not.

I figure no one is really interested in what I had for lunch, or when I brush my teeth, or how many times I let the dogs out today. And Facebook? No thank you. I don't want people tracking me down from all across the country and all across my lifetime...I don't want some random chick I dated (that's putting it nicely) knowing who else is 'my friend'...and I am the owner of too highly refined a guilt conscience to say 'NO' to those who would ask to be 'my friend'. So, with Facebook...it is baby with the bathwater and I am TOTALLY comfortable with that.

My time on the internet waxes and wanes....mostly with the weather, actually. I really am one more inclined to be outdoors when able.


"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret;
it is only with the heart that one can see rightly,
what is essential is invisible to the eye."
~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

There is something lost in these transitions.

But I'm enough of a Darwinistic pragmatist to happily observe how the communal animal that is Species absorbs and integrates these changes.  Like the Facebook Privacy issue, these are not in themselves inherently new topics for my ponderance.  How does the inclusion of instant pervasive communication alter individual and aggregate behavior?  What are the impacts on individual and group behavior?  Most importantly: "What advantages will we be able to see clearly after we have integrated all of this and we can look back on it?"

As Socrates correctly pointed out, we have in fact lost the art of memory as his time knew it.  We have exchanged that for a relatively equally effective but much more available and durable means of recalling third-hand events.

Burton was correct, the proliferation of books did create the need for readers to self-select from a panoply of choices which they could no longer ever hope to fully consume.  However, that wrested the exchange of ideas from the control of the few and gave it to the many.  As a result, the engine of memetic evolution which has created our modern world accelerated (just in time, our world could not survive without it).

The parents of the Fifties and onward have been correct, too.  There is something that was lost when the elder amongst us gained a live window on the world our parents never had.  But we live in a society where we all know what a giraffe looks like and how the plains of the Serengeti look at dawn, how the Golden Gate looks in the sunrise and we see first-hand the effects of our lives and can be moved to rectify what we can see is not right.

What exactly will be the process we all go through to adapt to this Life Embedded?  I can comment on the first part, we have gone through many stages already.  All-in-all the best I can say is that I am constantly and pleasantly amazed at the ways this random cloud of individuals:

- discovers a means of communication (speech/writing/the web/email/IM/FB/...)
- adopts it or not in great enough numbers to make it viable
- quickly uses it enough to establish well-worn paths
- organizes teams to fill in potholes, pave bits, setup coffee shops...

Will we become a society of ADDs?  I don't think so.  More likely we will carve out parks along our paths which some of us will spend more time in than others.  Some of us will choose the quieter life of the countryside and wander more or less into town, and as always that will be a good life.  Most of us, however, will find ways to manage the input of city life and maintain bemused respect for our country-mouse relatives' agrarian throw-back lifestyle.

It doesn't seem that there is a great risk ahead of us that involves losing more than we gain, but we will pay a personal and social price.  Like the islanders whose children watched the wooden ships sail away, we are on the far side of a chasm that cannot be crossed.  Some of our children will never be satisfied again to peacefully play in their immediate world but will dream of and live in a world of shiny things and glittering cities far, far away.

"Conway, whom experience had taught that rudeness was by no means a guarantee of good faith, was even less inclined to regard a well-turned phrase as a proof of insincerity."  James Hilton, Lost Horizon

But... despite and in part due to its length (i.e., thoroughness), it is an exceptional expression of thoughts.

A few things of which I have been reminding myself -- to keep myself from becoming overly paranoid after reading that article: 1) It isn't as if before the rise of the Internet we were a society full of nerdy, obsessive brainiacs bucking to go on their lunch breaks so that they could squeeze in as many pages as possible of some intricate 1500 page treatise on the complexities of the universe; 2) Most people do not spend as much time online as I do, so if the Internet addles people's brains, most will not be affected as much as I fear I have been; and 3) I will not always spend as much time online as I currently do, so hopefully I will have a meaningful job and outgrow my need to check my email 19343434 times a day fairly soon.

And regardless of what the Intertubes may be doing to our brains... there are countless advantages to offset it.

So I'm not in full freak-out mode yet, or anything -- but... I will still be making a point to read a book for a while every day from now on. You know... just to be sure. ; )

"I now am bold to say to the swift changing hours,
Pass, pass upon your way, for I grow never old,
Fleet to the dark abysm with all your fading flowers,
One rose that none may pluck, within my heart I hold."

And they would probably make me feel better about my new found distractibility, were it not for the fact that when I initially saw your comment, I thought, "Oh, that's definitely too long to read in one go... I'll come back to it." ; )

I do the same thing all the time.  Since I've gotten real busy I haven't been able to process the longer chunks of text as completely, so I skim the Moose picking up the shape and tenor of the conversation if not the gestalt.

This made me think of New Yorkers.  New Yorkers are often seen as rude by outsiders, but really New Yorkers are just efficient.  Victorians would be shocked by any of our habits of introduction and conversational subtlety (or lack thereof) in the same way that the average American might be shocked by a New Yorker.  There is something lost in the staged and nuanced conversation of Victorian English, the lack of which in most places today strips the complexity from discussion.  I often think of the Moose as a pseudo-Victorian nook in a New York world.

But New Yorkers live good lives and get a lot of stuff done.  The nuanced conversations are still held there - among all different sorts of people - but they are selected and treasured with greater care.  New Yorkers generally don't waste a lot of time listening to a long argument that they early-on decide is pointless.  

Perhaps the greatest gain we get from the Crux of this historical Apostrophe is that we become much better at sorting information?  Of choosing when to spend processing cycles on a topic and when to set it aside?

Sounds possible.

"Conway, whom experience had taught that rudeness was by no means a guarantee of good faith, was even less inclined to regard a well-turned phrase as a proof of insincerity."  James Hilton, Lost Horizon

The parents of the Fifties and onward have been correct, too.  There is something that was lost when the elder amongst us gained a live window on the world our parents never had.  But we live in a society where we all know what a giraffe looks like and how the plains of the Serengeti look at dawn, how the Golden Gate looks in the sunrise and we see first-hand the effects of our lives and can be moved to rectify what we can see is not right.

This reminds me of my (now deceased) grandfather who grew up in a horse and buggy world...and lived to see Space travel. I think of how quickly technology exploded in the 20th century and how it continues to increase with mindnumbing speed into the 21st. I mean, look how long it took to get from 'The Wheel' to 'Car'....and how so very brief the time between 'Car' and 'Manned Spacecraft'. How long it took to get from 'Word of Mouth' to 'Written Language' to 'Gutenberg's Bible' to 'Computer'...and how brief a span of time it took for that Computer to be the size of a house to the IPad.

Kinda like how seismic measurements for Earthquakes are exponential...I think technology increases in shorter and shorter periods of time.

Dunno if that makes any sense...but, that is where my head is. heh

"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret;
it is only with the heart that one can see rightly,
what is essential is invisible to the eye."
~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Kysen's fun and informative piece must be a couple of thousand words minimum. Here's a guy who's complaining he's distractable, lazy, likes shiny things and rotating spanked women, and yet he's amassed many sources and visual illustrations to formulate a substantial essay on the neural effects of computer networking.

Do you see the same irony?

Twenty, thirty years ago the same issues were raised over the effects of multi channel television. We were the MTV generation, channel hopping and zeitgeist surfing, unable to settle down on one mode of operation or thought, watching an indiscriminate stream of information - from pop videos to HUD displays of targeted missiles in Iraq - where everything had become a simulacrum (see Baudrillard) and we had the moral responsibility of passive remote controllers.

The big difference about the Intertubes compared with the other great media scares of the past (yellow press, corrupting comics, rebellious radio, totalising tv) is that we are not passive consumers of meaning, but active and interactive producers of it.

You and Kysen don't just read and digest opinions and facts, you formulate and project your own.

So yes, we're probably less good at being passive consumers of information, because from Left Blogistan to Facebook and Twitter, we are expected to produce meanings and interpretations of our own.

We may read a little less. But we all write a lot more.

For me, as a professional writer, this bugs me big time. You're all treading on my territory. Writing, like typing, was supposed to be a specialised activity - but we're all writers now. But though it's bad for the mystery of my profession, I think it's healthy for the full use of our faculties, and to keep us critically engaged in democracy. The idea of the passive mass consumer - the coach potato plugged into some centrally controlled Matrix is dead. If we're all becoming idiots, it will be through dispersion rather than centralisation, and our own intense efforts to banalise ourselves.

Moose Juice; debate without hate

And I will grant that it was a long comment on my part -- much longer than most I leave these days, actually (if I leave any at all). And I won't say that I don't still fixate on things from time to time -- usually, for some reason, when I am teaching myself something and having trouble with it. I think pure stubbornness keeps me fixated on anything I don't understand until I figure it out. Afterward, I quickly lose interest. But maybe that's not the same as traditional attention span. ; )

I do think you're mostly right. And yes, we DO all write a lot more. But let's not forget that for most people, "writing more" means something akin to this:

Okay, maybe people aren't usually that bad...

YIKES! Or that bad, either! ; )

But needless to say, I'm not impressed that intellectually subnormal people now have the power to make their words seen/heard by half the planet if they so choose. Still... the 'Net gives a lot of unknown but exceptional people the same ability. And usually, those are the people who stand out. So all in all... a good thing for the most part.

But I still wish Yahoo! answers could be abolished, and nothing anyone says will change my opinion on that... ; )

"I now am bold to say to the swift changing hours,
Pass, pass upon your way, for I grow never old,
Fleet to the dark abysm with all your fading flowers,
One rose that none may pluck, within my heart I hold."

We may read a little less. But we all write a lot more.

Though I have not diaried often....I certainly comment...and in doing so, have 'written' more in the past 4-5 years than in the 15-20 prior. And, I'm sure, that that process...writing...has itself 'rewired' my grey matter (brainsssss!!). I don't think you have anything to worry about so far as us treading on your territory...there is writing...and there is Writing. You, my friend, are a Writer.

***BTW...I AM distractable (I don't however, think myself lazy), I DO like shiny things, I LOVE rotating spanked women...if not for sricki's help I'd STILL be staring at the optical illusion pics  ;)


"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret;
it is only with the heart that one can see rightly,
what is essential is invisible to the eye."
~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

After reading the material discussed in the diary I have decided to determine a set amount of time and/or pages for daily (nightly) reading...decided to see if I can rewire my brain.

Thank you, Ricki, for all your help with this diary...your advice/insight were invaluable and your formatting skillz saved my butt (again). You are, indeed, Madame Moose Editor Extraordinaire....and, while I had a blast putting this diary together, you have proven in spades your ability be patient and attentive---I think near anyone else would have put a hit out on me!!  ;)

Maybe we ought start a Moose book club diary series? Give all Moose reading goals.  ;)

"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret;
it is only with the heart that one can see rightly,
what is essential is invisible to the eye."
~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

As for my "patience"... uhhh, was it not obvious that I was highly sedated? I was droolin' on my keyboard by the end of it, and anything is easy to tolerate when you're that messed up! ; )

(Kidding... you are no trouble, Kysen.)

"I now am bold to say to the swift changing hours,
Pass, pass upon your way, for I grow never old,
Fleet to the dark abysm with all your fading flowers,
One rose that none may pluck, within my heart I hold."

How do we pay for it? They don't know.
They say it won't matter, let the deficit grow.
How do you pass it? They don't know.
Should be easy, Greenwald said it was so.

Look out! Random fucked up pic!

WHY??


"I now am bold to say to the swift changing hours,
Pass, pass upon your way, for I grow never old,
Fleet to the dark abysm with all your fading flowers,
One rose that none may pluck, within my heart I hold."

Sophie Horner
April 30th, 1885
San Francisco,
Cal.

On my fifteenth birthday,
from Aiden

How freakin' cool is that? I've thought of writing a story based on that inscription.  What was happening with Sophie and Aiden?  Another cool thing:  I'm slowly working on a bit by bit translation of cool leather-bound 1882 french-latin Missal, Missel des Fideles, that I found at a flea market some years ago. It's interesting, because papal condemnations of translations of Catholic Mass into the vernacular were strong at the time; prohibitions on non-latin Mass weren't quietly dropped until 1897. So this thing is a rebellious little limited run. Tucked within the pages I found a little pamphlet,

Souvenir
De La
Retraite

Prechee Aux Dames Du Calvaire
De Paris
Du 27 Fevrier Au 3 Mars 1934

Par Le

R.P. Boulay, O.P.

Les souffrances du Redemteur

Ne fallait-il pas que le Christ souffrit pour entrer dans sa gloire?  (Saint Luc XXIV - 26)

Another cool story there somewhere, eh?

I'll be back to read this diary of yours more carefully (I just skimmed really) when I've got a few accomplishments under my belt today.  If I don't get some stuff done pronto, my wonderful wife is gonna display my head on a pike in the center of our unmowed yard. So for now, I guess I'm just commenting on the comments, generally. Or just riffing 'cause Happy and sricki said 'books'.  Whatevah.  

It's a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead, and find no one there. -Franklin Roosevelt

As I type now, I have within reach on my desk a biography on Django Reinhardt, Nicholson's Baker's The Fermata, and an 1882 copy of The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

And yet you still have to mow the lawn.  :)

On a completely unrelated note: did you get an interview?

...and now the front and back lawns are mowed.  The car is washed and detailed.  I'm hoping to spend at least some portion of the remainder of the afternoon killing banditos with my Schofield .45 and collecting bounties in Old Meh-ee-co.  Wanted to do a bike ride, but that will have to wait until much later this evening.  It's Africa hot here today.

It's a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead, and find no one there. -Franklin Roosevelt

The game continues shortly after the events of Assassin's Creed, where, in 2012, Desmond Miles (Nolan North) is still a prisoner at Abstergo Industries after searching the memories of his ancestor the Assassin Altaïr, in the Animus. Abstergo, the modern-day Knights Templar, had been using Desmond to locate powerful out-of-place artifacts called "Pieces of Eden." Using the "Eagle Vision" ability he gained as a result of the "bleeding effect" (from overexposure to the Animus), Desmond is able to see messages and symbols written in blood on his bedroom wall, written by the former test subject, named "Subject 16 (Cam Clarke)". Lucy Stillman (Kristen Bell), a former researcher for Abstergo and an Assassin, frees Desmond and brings him to a secret hideout used by herself and two other Assassins, historian Shaun Hastings (Danny Wallace) and computer expert Rebecca Crane (Eliza Schneider). With their own version of the Animus, dubbed the 'Animus 2.0', they invite Desmond to help them discover the memories of his ancestor, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, for two reasons: to train Desmond in Assassin skills through the bleeding effect, and to find other Pieces of Eden.

Ezio, residing in Italy during the Renaissance in the late 15th century, finds his family in Florence the victims of a political plot, and is unable to prevent the hanging of his father and two brothers. His father's final instructions lead Ezio to a chest containing Assassin garments and tools. Ezio's uncle Mario allows Ezio and his mother and sister to shelter in his countryside villa, and trains Ezio in the art of combat. Mario further provides leads to those in on his family's betrayal, and Ezio follows the trail of clues, leading from Florence to San Gimignano, Forlì, Venice and eventually to Rome. Along the way, he encounters several allies that assist in his pursuit, including Leonardo da Vinci, who is able to help decode pages from Altaïr's Codex, creating new equipment. After assassinating many people involved in the plot, Ezio is able to identify Rodrigo Borgia as the leader of the conspiracy, aimed to bring down the Medici family in Florence with the help of the Pazzi family and the Doge of Venice. Borgia later arrives in Venice with the "Apple," the Piece of Eden that Altaïr originally had found. Borgia believes himself to be the "Prophet" that would lead to the discovery of "The Vault", supposedly containing more Pieces of Eden and other knowledge the Templars seek. Ezio, joined by his allies, stop Borgia, who flees without the Apple. His allies, including Niccolò Machiavelli, reveal they are all members of the Assassins, and bring Ezio into their ranks, telling him that they believe him to be the Prophet that will lead them to the Vault.

The dramatist in you would also love Heavy Rain.  Great story for a video game, and the experience is incredibly immersive.  Pretty awesome.

The player interacts with the game by performing actions highlighted on screen related to motions on the controller, and in some cases, performing a series of quick time events during fast-paced action sequences. The player's decisions and actions during the game will affect the narrative; the main characters can be killed, and certain actions may lead to different scenes and endings.

{snip}

Heavy Rain uses a unique control scheme. A trigger button on the PlayStation 3 controller will move the character forward. It will take advantage of the button's analogue function, allowing the user to control the speed of the character's movement by pressing harder or softer on the button. The left analogue stick will control the movement of the character's head and the direction the character moves in relation to where the character is looking. David Cage explains that this frees the movement of the character from the perspective of the camera. The rest of the game is played using a series of context sensitive actions such as picking up a bottle in a grocery store and hitting a robber on the head with it or pressing the "X" button to call the player character's son, Jason, and quick time events, normally for chase and combat sequences. Players are able to bring up a selection of their character's current thoughts by holding the L2 button and pressing corresponding buttons to say or do what they're thinking. These thoughts will sometimes blur, and selecting them at the wrong time will affect the character's reaction, causing them to say or do something in the wrong way.

Thanks for the console game advice. I've got a PS3 which I mainly use as a bluerayer player, movie download system and media server. But the occasional game is fun. Modern Warfare was the one that got me going on this system.

However, none of it compares to the early days of the X-Box when me, Alexander and Katy, would go online with Halo and smash the yanks to bits. Halo 3 really ruined the series for us all: and of course, growing up - they're too wise and serious these days to waste time gaming online with their delinquent dad.  

Moose Juice; debate without hate

SRSLY, try Heavy Rain on your PS3.  You'll be sucked in.  You're in control of even the most mundane actions (washing hands, changing diapers, the speed with which you open a car door, what-have-you) and you just never know what effects your actions will have on the story.  One slight change and you go hurtling down a completely different path to a totally unique ending.  You face some absolute edge of your seat decisions, and it really makes you look at your own morality.  It's mad cool.  

It's a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead, and find no one there. -Franklin Roosevelt

For starters, it doesn't need electricity only light (and as I get older - spectacles). It is much less linear than an e-book: I can easily flick forward and back, hold pages open at the same time, turn over page corners, underline, highlight and make notes.

One of the main reasons for my new apartment was to have all my books finally in one room. I have collected about 4,000 books since I first started buying when I was 16 - a collection dominated by poetry, drama, philosophy and history (less fiction for some reason). Most of the books bought in the first ten years are inscribed with the time and place of purchase - or a note from a friend if they are a gift. I've loads of signed copies from authors I've met. And above all, I use them as notebooks. I scribble in margins and back covers and end pages, and thanks to the art of memory I have a sense where all these reactions and observations are.

My library is now the focus of my flat, and admired by everyone as they come in. The books provide decorous warmth as well as interest. I sometimes think that, just by being near them, some of their knowledge will rub off on me. And of course, merely ordering them on the bookcase or scanning their spines, makes one remember what you've read and yet to read. Their physicality makes their contents persist. Their frailty, yellowing pages and broken spines, reminds me that all knowledge is eventually useless, or in need of renewing, and that's the one think that the internet and digital works of art can never incorporate - the sense of mortality. One error, one scratch, and the whole thing stops functioning....

But a scratch on a record. A blot on a painting. A crack in a piece of pottery. A yellowing burnt page of a book. These do not destroy the meaning of an analogue object. In fact, they can enhance it.  

Moose Juice; debate without hate

At my parent's house, I've got Thoreau's 1849 A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, but it's in absolutely terrible condition.  Still, I love it.  He wrote it while he lived at Walden Pond, couldn't find a publisher, and had it printed at his own expense. It never sold well, leaving him with hundreds of extra copies.

It's a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead, and find no one there. -Franklin Roosevelt

more info on the group here:

It's a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead, and find no one there. -Franklin Roosevelt

A wonderful essay is circulating by Alain de Botton in City magazine (I came across it via Andrew Sullivan), titled, On Distraction. In just 333 words, de Botton captures one of the central problems of this present moment in history:

"One of the more embarrassing and self-indulgent challenges of our time is the task of relearning how to concentrate. The past decade has seen an unparalleled assault on our capacity to fix our minds steadily on anything. To sit still and think, without succumbing to an anxious reach for a machine, has become almost impossible.

"The obsession with current events is relentless. We are made to feel that at any point, somewhere on the globe, something may occur to sweep away old certainties-something that, if we failed to learn about it instantaneously, could leave us wholly unable to comprehend ourselves or our fellows."

Al's focus is on the media but I think it can be addressed to our use of the Internet as well.

Like domesticated oxen, the population is yanked from media stoked crisis to crisis, all of which carry a whiff of apocalypse: an oil gusher in the Gulf now comes with underwater 24-hour live stream cameras, all available online and to TV networks, as experts - real and invented - jump onto our screens to tell us their version of what is happening.

snip

The bigger crisis of our time is, thus, Power's need to create constant crises, generated first and foremost by the commercial media, all competing for our dwindling hours of free time and attention span, and exacerbated by every kind of interest group, advertiser, opportunist, politician, "activist," aspiring tyrant or con artist who know that a person who perceives himself or his community or his world in crisis can be sold all kinds of products and ideologies to serve the salesman. When we "lose our heads" we are easy prey for the predators.

We see this not only on the television but on various websites as well.  Anonymous bloggers, or folks with unknown/dubious credentials announce "breaking news" with inch-high headlines or flashing sirens.  To which someone will go, "OMG!" and link to such article with breathless hair-on-fire.  I went there myself on rumproast last week when someone posted a fake twitter feed for Alvin Greene and I got suckered.  But, hey, it's SC so who knows what's real in that state.

Anyway, I thought Al's piece tied in rather nicely with this piece.

It's all part of hyperventilating conspiracy to make us stupid.

Reactive=reactionary

Abjure that devil. The libertarian right and left converge in a quasi Marxist theory of crisis and catastrophe.

Why?

Because in a catastrophe or rapture, Arianna and Sarah Palin will be the Cassandras of correctness.  

Moose Juice; debate without hate

Sure, you can show that this works.  You can scare enough young professional white women to be afraid of virile ("white", but we he's really...) men that they buy enough of your product to call the campaign a success.  But shock treatment stops working after a while, and you just get tired of being shocked.

This is, again, one of the first things that struck me about Obama.  One of the biggest criticisms you can throw at him is that not playing the fear card is a political tool, and yeah, it works.

Yeah.  It works.  

"Conway, whom experience had taught that rudeness was by no means a guarantee of good faith, was even less inclined to regard a well-turned phrase as a proof of insincerity."  James Hilton, Lost Horizon

http://www.dailykos.com/story/...

It's a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead, and find no one there. -Franklin Roosevelt

I saw his diary yesterday and noticed it wasn't on the rec list.  I hadn't clicked on it until your link.  Pretty much standard stuff.

so says GOS, channelled by Bill Maher

http://www.dailykos.com/story/...

Well, gee, I couldn't possibly understand why the good people of Applachia, Great Plains and the South vote against their own interests?  

While I don't understand the sentiment myself many miners have been miners for generations.  There is a pride in following family tradition.  Then some high-priced mouth comes along and says, "fuck your jobs!"  I'd have to say, "fuck you!" just to be perverse.  BTW, how much coal, or oil, or natural gas does Bill Maher use during his show?  During his day?  He's off until September 14th (although presumably he's got other gigs going on) but to tell someone who is significantly lower in the tax bracket to find another job, sorry, he's an ass.

If I wanted to cause a stir, I'd call Sarah Palin or David Vitter or Haley Barbour "Senator/Governor Slobodan" and say it's because they're forcing their constituents to rely on dangerous, life-threatening jobs with low pay and little regulation when they could be supporting clean energy options and give them the option of being trained in new, high-paying, cleaner, safer and sustainable work.

Some may still complain, because they like drilling for oil or mining coal (apparently the families of the dead oilmen from Deepwater Horizon urged the President to drill more, love to see the GOS reaction to THAT), but some would be happy to take those new jobs, but saying to them "fuck your jobs," is an insult. It's disrespective and counterproductive. We should be engaging them, not insulting them and making them feel like they're bad people.

Maher is 100% correct...people who do jobs that are destructive to life ( whether the lives of the species they make extinct, or the entire life of the planet ) are people who are ignorant of the consequences of their actions...the monmey they earn is blood money--tainted and it carries bad karma...

This also applies to those who chop down Redwoods, bulldoze the rainforests, pollute the air, burn coal, butcher animals for meat, build bombs and weapons, etc.

I mean do these people think coal miners and oil drillers get up in the morning and think "Awesome, I'm going to kill some trees and dolphins today. Fuck the earth!"

No, these people are just trying to make a living, anyway they can. I laugh because I've seen some of these people defend fucking drug dealers and prostitutions as "people just trying to make a living" (which I would agree with
) but miners and riggers are criminals.

I mean if I were advising a Republican, I'd have the campaign ads written already "X got $50,000 from internet liberals who love drug dealers, hate hard working miners"

I truly think these are delusional people.

I'm not thrilled that people do any of those things but give them reasonable alternatives, and no need to do them in the first placce without taking a crap on them, and you'll be much more successful.

How about:  I'm not thrilled that people cut down rainforests or redwoods, pollute the air, burn coal, etc. but you need to give them alternatives.  In addition, cut the demand for the goods and we can leave the trees and the oil alone.  (I'm not so against the animal thing as long as it's done humanely and the animals are free to roam during their lives.  I don't generally eat meat, though.)

The Democrats' mistake.... (2+ / 0-)
....was taking impeachment off the table. Essentially, this INVITED Republicans to endlessly put impeachment ON THE TABLE for ANY Democratic President, to be used at any time for any reason.

Huh?  

Although a valid point since I think if we pushed to impeach Bush, Obama wouldn't be President right now anyway.

Are we really getting to the point where every President is going to subject to impeachment now?  

Stop big ping pong NOW!  Bruh puts it best, I think when he says:

Your "truth" is water cooler talk (0+ / 0-)
because you feel you are "in the know."

That's what under girds your assertions.

My truth is that I understand empires. That whatever it takes they will do.

The rest is just window dressing around those two truths. Until you give me something more than "i am in the know" I am going to buy the greater truths of empires.

by bruh1 on Mon Jun 14, 2010 at 08:54:21 AM PDT

Which elicited this reply:

My mistake. (0+ / 0-)
I thought we were talking about mineral extraction. That is something I know great deal about, even around the water cooler.

I am not a historian or an emperor. For that, I defer to you.

bbb's twitter thingy

by brooklynbadboy on Mon Jun 14, 2010 at 08:59:51 AM PDT

We are having a summer bbq at the end of the month.  The flyers were put up yesterday and I got pissed off.  First, in big letters it says that the bbq starts at noon and in tiny letters in parentheses "6:00pm/second shift."  That's not what set me off initially ~ I got royally peeved at the fact that there is a drawing at 12:45 and you must be present to win.  So, if you work the second shift either you show up hours early to claim some prize or you are excluded altogether.  That pisses me off.  I'm coming in early that day anyway because I'm leaving early so I can be present to win but, seriously, how in the world is that fair?  Did no one on the party committee not think about how the second shift people would feel?

I sent an email last night to one of the committee members who works in my department who is, for now, also a close friend.  I was more polite (I didn't say it was insulting or offensive which is how I really feel) than I felt like being but I'm not sure how she'll take my position on this.  I'm not completely sure I care; I just hate any kind of confrontation.  She is also one of those "sucks to be you but I got mind" types so I'm sure she'll see that as some kind of "lefty welfare" on my part.

Like most places, events revolve around the day shift office workers.  It used to be the second shift got the leftovers, literally, and no one other than the second shift saw anything wrong with that.  That's a shame.  They already have the crappy job in a poorly ventilated, standing-on-their-feet all the time, noisy atmosphere.  They don't need to feel like after thoughts.  Some of them are on their second job when they get therre at 8, 9, 10 o'clock at night.  None of the pansies on day shift is in that position.

I'm ticking myself off all over again.  Anyway, I look forward to whatever conversation my email will elicit.  (I've been known to have potential conversations in my head only to be pissed off that the other person doesn't react the way I think they will.)

Anyway, that's my rant.

Sorry you are kinda gettin' shat upon at work. Nice rant, though. ; )

"I now am bold to say to the swift changing hours,
Pass, pass upon your way, for I grow never old,
Fleet to the dark abysm with all your fading flowers,
One rose that none may pluck, within my heart I hold."

This time.

One of my cats is farty, and I can't figure out which one.

Damn. If I'm just gonna type out everything that pops into my head, I guess I should start using twitter, huh?  

"I now am bold to say to the swift changing hours,
Pass, pass upon your way, for I grow never old,
Fleet to the dark abysm with all your fading flowers,
One rose that none may pluck, within my heart I hold."

Barney Frank tried to beat the shit out of Hank Paulson in the White House.  Literally almost a fist fight.  Obama calmed everyone down.  Awesome.

Barney Frank muscled his way past Harry Reid and started yelling. "Fuck you, Hank! Fuck you! Blow up this deal? We didn't blow up this deal! Your guys blew up the deal! You better tell [GOP Rep. Spencer] Bacchus and the rest of them to get their shit together!"

I've had to turn down some work that required long excursions in Alaska and North Dakota.  My wife was recetly rehired by the company that laid her off, and the house we rent just went on the market (meaning we'll have to move pretty soon).  She put the kibosh on Alaska (which was all backcountry, 12 hrs/day, 6 days/week, hardcore isolation from civilization to survey a potential natural gas pipeline route).  She doesn't wanna have to juggle the job, the kids, and a major move while I'm hiking around looking for Russians (or doing same in North Dakota, except for wind energy).

So for a pay cut, I'm thinking some local hydroelectric work might be something good to do while the economy continues to improve -- and it keeps the wolves from the door that much longer.  It's a guaranteed 1-2 years of work.

It's a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead, and find no one there. -Franklin Roosevelt

I wanted to quit for a little while yesterday, but I realized that would be futile. Better off sticking around and trying to become a publisher myself one day so I can tell said politician "Sorry bud, you did a bad thing. No hard feelings."  

Has anyone here ever had problems with houseguests who just wanna barrel through your door and then set up camp for days and days on end?

I have a classmate -- not a close friend at all -- who I carpooled with to a class out of town to save gas, and who I've worked with on several projects/tests/presentations at school. We've talked, but we've never done anything "social" or "friend-like" such as go out to dinner or coffee or a movie or anything like that. So, I get a call sometime last.... I think it was February... And he's like, "Can I please stay at your apartment for the night?" -- and feeds me some cockamamie story about his mentally ill brother. Okay. Fine. I'm sensitive to the whole mental health issue and have plenty of "mentally ill" family members. Sure, so I tell him "Of course" (so stupid).

Well one night turned into two nights turned into three turned into a week, with no sign of him leaving. And every day, I thought he would be gone -- but would spend the whole day fretting and worrying over whether he would show, and then he would. And I am a VERY private person. I live alone for a reason. And he often would not call before he came because he has no cell phone and works all day and then goes home to his brother (allegedly) to scope the situation out and see if it's okay to stay there... and then doesn't want to use the phone to call me at HIS house because he wants his brother to think he's sleeping in a parking lot in his car in the hopes that it will guilt his brother into getting his act together.

So he was just showing up and driving me crazy -- and at the time, he had a hacking cough, which kept me up all night (not that I sleep for much of it anyway, but that's not really the point, is it?). And I just didn't know what to say -- I had not given him a "time limit," and he seemed so pitiful. I felt bad for him. But finally after a week, I wrote him a long email late one night about ways he could cope with his brother (who lives with him) right down to having the guy arrested (he stole all their electronics and pawned them for crack money -- supposedly). Well after that email, my house guest disappeared.

I heard nothing from him for about... dunno, maybe 2 months, and was for the most part well glad to be rid of him. Then he randomly calls one afternoon, also while I was out of town, and we have a nice, long talk -- and it's very friendly and all that, and he doesn't ask for a place to stay, so I'm cool about it. Well the very next day, after having reestablished contact with me, he calls asking for a place to stay. I was floored -- and I was around other people, so I couldn't just explode at him. So I said, "Yeah sure," and rushed back home to get my apartment ready for a guest. He said it was just for one night... which again turned into two... into three... into....

Now let me explain something about myself. You guys see a much fiercer version of me here than exists "in real life" -- I will admit that I'm not always the same person behind the screen as I am walking around in daylight in the real world. I am, if you can believe it... painfully nice to people. Now, if someone is a complete ass, I will use the same sharp tongue so many of you saw on MyDD with the trolls. But if someone is nice or pitiful, I have a HELL of a time being firm with them, even if it's needed. And another thing about this house guest -- he is a Mormon. And I hate to stereotype, but they are just as nice and wholesome and goody-two-shoes as people make them out to be. I mean, the kinda shit where when I first let him in my apartment and showed him to a bedroom, he was like, "Sricki, your home has such great spirit!"  **gag**  I have made a few cracks to my mom since all this started about how I should have known better than to ever let a Mormon cross my threshold -- because once you let them in, you can't get them out. Heh.

Well so a friend of mine, who is frustrated by my inability to put my foot down but still wanted to help... kinda schooled me on what to say. My friend told me, verbatim, what to say to get rid of my house guest. I had already told my guest that I was a very private person, which is why I don't have roommates, but that didn't sink in. So I was told to say, when he went to leave in the morning, "Now... if you need a place to stay for TONIGHT... please call and let me know... give me some warning. But ____, this just can't go on open-ended. You need to sort things out with your brother."

So I said that, and the guest came back one more night, and then disappeared again.

Well, he stopped by one afternoon just to visit a few weeks ago... just showed up at my door. Have I ever mentioned how much I FUCKING HATE pop-in company? A trait I got from my mother, who hates it SO bad that... in the early years of her marriage to my father, one time actually climbed out the bedroom window onto their apartment complex roof to escape my father's friends when they dropped in unexpectedly. (Yeah, my family is a little.... "off.") Well so, I hate pop-in company just as much -- I am a bad Southerner -- and I feared that he was looking for a place to stay. So I tried to ignore the knocking and doorbell ringing, but he stood out there hollering, "Sricki, it's ___, and I don't need a place to stay, sricki!!" And he yelled until one of my neighbors was outside complaining. So I let him in to talk, pretended I'd been asleep and undressed, and then sat here and chatted with him a couple of hours. He didn't ask for a place to stay then, but wimp that I am, it scared me so bad that I told him I was going out of town (so that he wouldn't call the next day to ask for a place to sleep) and then parked my car on the other side of my (rather large) apartment complex... and continued parking there for like 5 days. Then I got my nerve back up and started parking in front of my building again.

So last night, totally out of the blue -- no ingratiating courtesy call or anything -- he calls at 8:30 PM and asks for a place to stay for the night. And I'm just like... "_____, the place is a mess" (which it isn't) "and I just need a little more warning... let me clean up around here tomorrow, and we'll see." I was not overly "nice," but I certainly wasn't rude. But I DID flatly shoot him down. He said he understood, but I didn't know what that meant. So all day, I have been kinda expecting him to just show up. It's 9:50 as I type this, and my assumption is that if he isn't here by 10, he's not coming. But seriously, all day I have been paranoid and dreading it.

I don't have the money for the kind of therapy it would require to find out what's wrong with me -- what kind of deep-seated emotional problem do I have which prevents me from straight up saying, "Dude, I hate having you here... you make me miserable... don't ever ask to crash at my place again because this is not a flophouse... in fact... fuck off." I guess I'd need some serious psychoanalysis to figure it out. I have always been this way. If someone is nice, I have a lot of trouble being mean or strict -- it's why I know I could never be a parent (or one of the reasons). But the fucked up thing here is -- I absolutely know I am being used. But because he is so nicey-nice and pitiful, I don't know how to tell him off. And I don't really believe the full of his excuses and stories anymore about why he can't stay in his own house, but I can't call him out because I have no proof.

So tell me moose -- what the fuck is wrong with me, and what the fuck should I do? One of my friends has suggested that since I can't seem to get my nerve up to talk to him to his FACE... I should write a polite but clear email telling him that he can't stay here anymore because it gives me anxiety attacks or something. I really dunno what's best. Anyone got any thoughts?

"I now am bold to say to the swift changing hours,
Pass, pass upon your way, for I grow never old,
Fleet to the dark abysm with all your fading flowers,
One rose that none may pluck, within my heart I hold."

If you're at all like me, you have a hard time defining and defending you're boundaries because you have so much empathy.  That's not at all a bad thing, and you shouldn't beat yourself up over it.  Empathy isn't a flaw, it's a gift.  That said, everything in moderation.

Establish your boundaries with this fella.  Then defend them.  It will be hard to do the first few times, but will become easier with practice.

It's a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead, and find no one there. -Franklin Roosevelt

And yeah, people who use you aren't really nice, no matter how "nice" they may come across. The next time he pulls this, I may let him stay one night. And then send him an email explaining that I can't have him here anymore. Dunno. But yeah, I suck at establishing and defending boundaries.

**smiles** But your comment was rather inspiring actually -- made me feel better. Thank you.

Sricki hearts fog. ; )

"I now am bold to say to the swift changing hours,
Pass, pass upon your way, for I grow never old,
Fleet to the dark abysm with all your fading flowers,
One rose that none may pluck, within my heart I hold."

You could always anonymously :) call the police the next time the guy's disturbing the peace.