Real Live Preacher is a brilliant new weblog from a Texas preacher. Oddly, it reminds me of True Porn Clerk Stories, in that it’s very honest writing about a profession that most of us know little about. At least, from the inside. Very much worth reading. (By way of Electrolite.)
Category: General
Notes from the Velvet Crypt is a cool little weblog about eroticism, science fiction, horror, and stuff like that. In other words, stuff I like when I’m not thinking about politics. If she ever says anything nice about Laurell Hamilton, though, I will be saddened.
When I mentioned imagination in skyscrapers earlier, I was thinking in particular of the skyscrapers of Dubai. Then I realized I’d never linked to those. So: here’s a page of drawings of Dubai skyscrapers, which will give you an idea of how inventively wacky and big they are. This page also has drawings. The drawings there aren’t as good, but they link to photos of the buildings, which are incredible.
The new World Trade Center designs are a vast improvement over the previous set of designs. I don’t like all of them, but I like that this set takes risks. I do like a few of them very much; in particular, the Peterson/Littenberg seems to me to be elegant without being boring, and the Studio Daniel Libeskind proposal would be my choice. It maintains certain features of the current site, so that we won’t forget, and the shattered crystal feel of the buildings seems really appropriate.
So, yeah. Communication. This arises from some comments Mike made on my previous entry, which I very much appreciated. Most relevant: “… it just seems sometimes that both sides are longer even speaking the same language anymore. And that’s not a good thing.”
I think that’s a really good summary of the problem. You can’t point fingers and say it’s the fault of any particular group of partisans. I can easily find left-wing blogs who are as shrill as anyone on the right. I can find blogs at any end of the political spectrum that are rational, calm, and very sensible even though I may disagree with some of the things they say. Wanted to get that out of the way first, although one suspects it’s no insulation against irate screeds.
But you know, it’s not really a blogger problem. (Whew! He avoided navel-gazing!) It’s a problem with politics. It is accepted practice in this country to take statements out of context in order to damage a political opponent. It is accepted practice in this country to lie about someone’s beliefs for the sake of electoral advantage. It’s a brutal, brutal world.
Why? Because politics is seen as a war, and all’s fair in that arena. Here’s the thing. It’s in the interest of both parties to convince their supporters that loss would be damaging to the country as a whole, and to them specifically. It’s not enough to simply say “We’d be better.” You get far better results if you say “They’d be a disaster.”
It’s the same portion of human nature that makes exclusive proselytizing religions generally more successful. You hold better things in one hand, and you ward off disaster in the other. You motivate with fear and greed (to put it admittedly in the worst of lights). It’s a win-win situation, and we humans love win-win situations.
This adversarial dynamic makes it really hard to talk to one another, when in theory the Democrats and the Republicans (or Tories and Labour, or…) ought to be cooperating to bring the best possible good to the country. However, very little visible time is spent on talking, and lots of time is spent on persuasion of the voters.
This is also, mind you, a result of the way our government works. Why persuade the guy who disagrees with you when you can just get someone more like you elected four years down the road? The only people you really have to work with are those who are very good at playing the election game. Hm, and what’s the message there?
How do you mend this? You refuse to accept the concept of politics as a competition. You remember that the insane words you’re reading are probably not written by someone who wants to destroy the American way of life. You give people the benefit of the doubt whenever you possibly can. Sometimes you can’t, but at least be aware of what you’re doing. If you think someone’s wrong, it might be worth trying to make sure you each understand why you disagree before teeing off on ‘em.
The thing is, in the long run, short of a dictatorship you’re always going to have to deal with dissent. Which is, of course, a good thing — progress comes from a free and open marketplace of ideas. I’m glad the Ninth Circuit made that decision regarding gun control, because I think the necessity to address it furthers the entire debate and provides Second Amendment defenders with a chance to refine their positions. It’s like a big fat messy peer-review journal.
On the other hand, if you dismiss something with a snide comment you haven’t really done anything except perhaps give people who already agree with you a chance to feel smug. (Yes, I’m guilty of this on occasion.) I have no objection to mutual backpatting societies, but don’t mistake them for anything other than that which they are.
I don’t know how to mend this on the societal level. I suspect it’s one of the flaws inherent in the system.
The Creative Commons licenses went public today. I’ve been looking forward to this. Essentially, they’ve created a boilerplate method of licensing your creative works into the commons. You retain copyright, and you choose from a menu of possible restrictions on the use of your work, and they provide you with an appropriate and reliable legal document. It makes giving away your creative efforts easy.
Not only does this tickle my interest in donating intellectual effort to the world, it satisfies one of my instincts. It minimizes the effort needed to take a particular action, which in my book is the best way to get people to take that action. You’ve got to cut down on friction if you want people to do things. Creative Commons makes the licensing process gut simple.
I expect to be licensing Population: One under one of their licenses soon, once I’ve mulled it over a little.
It is not entirely clear to me that this experiment had the desired effect.
“It felt weird,” said Nicole Squires, a student juror. “I felt like I had a life that I could totally ruin or just keep it the same. It was really odd, but it felt really nice to get that feeling and see how I could change a life.”
You know, once they’ve tasted human flesh they never go back to their former prey. She’s tasted the thrill of human game, and she won’t ever be able to forget it.
Why aren’t any US publishers publishing lines like this? Or this, from the fantasy perspective. Wow. (No insult meant to Tor, whose reprint line is delightful; mild snide perhaps for Baen, since I’m still mournful about the Telzey edits.)
Bartleby.com is the best Web resource I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a solid, fast, all-in-one-place site with quality reference books ranging from the Columbia Encyclopedia through Strunk and White’s Elements of Style past Bulfinch’s Age of Fable to Gray’s Anatomy. Sweet. If that’s not enough, there’s also an extensive collection of verse, an equally extensive collection of fiction, and a big fat bunch of essays. Yeah, it’s all free.
William Shatner. Not likely to rival Wil Wheaton in the epic contest for coolest post-Star Trek life. Still making a valiant showing on slashdot.
“It seems to me that you need to get a life.”
Shatner! Master of dry humor!