| untitled |
[06 Jul 2009|03:26am] |
It's not your fault
that you were late today.
The grass was so cool,
and the shade so inviting,
and the little gate practically begged you
to take a nap against it.
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[07 Jun 2009|12:58am] |
finished The Yiddish Policemen's Union. good book, and not nearly as much of a downer as Feed was. (well, oddly, I find the overall theme and "meaning" of the book to be much darker than that of Feed, which still managed to retain a glimmer of hope at its end. The Yiddish Policeman's Union ends with a bit of dry wit and a sense of the antagonists "getting theirs," in a way, but it does little to blunt the prevailing theme of the unredeemability of people. the narrator keeps harping on the idea that according to Jewish scholars, Messiah is born into every generation, but he never "arrives" because people are not prepared to accept him. ultimately, the book never really finds a way to "fix" that doubt.)
also, the book makes me want to pick up chess again. anyone willing to start a correspondence game?
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| lost our way |
[28 May 2009|11:19pm] |
when I think "conservative,"
first, I think of my grandfather —
mowing the hay fields,
digging in the garden,
birthing calves —
a man who was not afraid
to get his hands dirty.
then, I think of rush limbaugh —
a man who yells for a living
instead of making music,
a man who takes comfort
in food and in pills,
a man who does not smile,
or wink,
or laugh.
how did we get here?
what would our children say?
P.S: I think those last two lines should go. Anyone concur?
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| Brian Clevinger frightens me |
[21 May 2009|02:08am] |
actually, there's a number of reasons the author of 8-bit worries me, but chief among these reasons is that Tuesday he posted a comic which referred to a foreshadowing he made almost five years ago. I'm sure he's made small tweaks and changes to the story of the comic in those five years, but the fact that he's just now getting around to closing up a loose end he's had in the planning for almost as long as I've been out of high school is just plain disturbing.
in related news, 8-bit is going to end soon. Definitely by the end of the year. Possibly by the end of the summer. Next to sinfest, it is the webcomic I have been reading the longest. I will be sad when it ends. (It will be awesome, and Brian also has other projects which are equally as awesome as 8-bit has been, but it will still be sad.) But just to talk about how 8-bit is going to end, for a moment... I don't really care what happens — whether or not Black Mage actually ends up burning the world like he's always wanted to — so long as Sarda dies. Black Mage is evil, but at least he makes no bones about that. Sarda is just an omnipotent asshole, and he does make pretenses of being benevolent.
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| story-time |
[18 May 2009|01:12am] |
Jeff G. graduated today. He's now a doctor.
I'm not gonna lie. It scares me that people my age are becoming doctors and lawyers now.
But that's not what this entry is about. This entry is about a cat I saw while at Jeff's apartment. I was walking to the car to get my change of clothes, when I caught a glimpse of a white-and-orange splotchy-colored cat dashing from one set of trees to the shrubberies nearby. I thought, "hey, it's a kitty-puss!" But no, this was no kitty-puss. As I passed nearer-by the cat, I got a good look at its face, and it was not a happy kitty. Here, clearly, was a cat that knew how to kick a raccoon's ass. Its fur seemed clean enough, not like the matted, often partially missing hair of truly feral cats, but there was no collar and I could see on its face the kitty equivalent of scars — parts of its face which were obscured by fur, but still clearly damaged. It didn't hiss or growl at me, and it didn't even seem to have an angry or frightened look on its face, even though it had to know I had seen it. It just sat there in a half-crouch beneath the bush, ready to leap deeper into the brush, or (more likely, I figured) to leap at my face and try to take my eyeballs with it. I've never been afraid of animals which I outweigh 10-to-1, but still, I'm rather glad I didn't try to walk up behind and pet it.
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| yep |
[15 May 2009|12:46pm] |
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Happy Friday, everybody.
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| vacation! |
[12 May 2009|05:46pm] |
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I have May 25-30 off. If any of you would like me to come and visit, this would be my best opportunity until, like, Christmas.
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| a lizard lives with me |
[03 May 2009|12:20pm] |
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there's a lizard that's been running around my apartment for the better part of a week, now. I don't mind her (I don't know if it's a him or a her, but its coloring just strikes me as female) running around the apartment, I mean I only see her maybe once a day and she doesn't make a mess or anything. but I do worry that she doesn't have easy access to a steady supply of food here. I'm sure she can find a few bugs here and there, but I don't really think my apartment is a self-contained eco-system capable of supporting a lizard. also, the only real place she could get water would be my toilet, and that's a little weird. (or do lizards have to drink water? obviously they need water, but do they have to drink it, or are they like newts in that they can absorb what they need through their skin? 'cause the air is never too dry in Alabama.)
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| I need pants |
[27 Apr 2009|02:42pm] |
I just ripped a hole in my favorite pair of pants along the seam of one of the back pockets.
This brings me to a grand total of 6 pairs of pants I can wear in public without people throwing things at me. (7 if you include my sweats, 8 if you include my last pair of jeans that hasn't completely disintegrated, even if the legs are almost nonexistent.)
(Although, I've got a rag that's almost exactly the same color and texture as this latest pair of pants to die on me. It would be simple enough to just sew a patch on it. But that still requires the purchase of a needle and thread, so I'm off to the store either way.)
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| the "now" |
[22 Apr 2009|04:04pm] |
Southern Baptists need to learn from Buddhists.
The greatest faith is not one
which needs to worship three times a week,
or even one that needs to pray at all.
It is not a faith
that searches for God in tragedies.
The truest faith
is a faith that finds God
in streetlights,
in the Rolling Stones,
in the slow rumbling
of a Greyhound bus.
A faith that finds God
walking home from work,
not because it is a beautiful day,
but simply to find joy
in the blessings of feet.
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| People are stupid |
[21 Apr 2009|02:28am] |
This is why we can't have nice things.
(The bizarre and, frankly, embarrassing behavior of the major news networks, not Jon Stewart. Although, I do find it incredibly ironic that Jon Stewart decides to leave the conclusion at the end of the clip unsaid.)
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[13 Apr 2009|11:16pm] |
I have lived a meaningless life.
I just... I do this to myself.
Which is why it really hurts.
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| On the changes in media |
[06 Apr 2009|10:57pm] |
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I read a blog post by the author of Least I Could Do (link is occasionally mildly NSFW) today discussing the fact that newspapers seem to be suffering from what we in the biz like to call "epic fail." Now, given that this guy makes a living off his webcomic, you can imagine that he's not very sympathetic to the fact that newspapers are losing the overwhelming majority of their business to internet news sources.
And it's easy to take that stance. It's easy to say, "look, things change. America used to be all about radio, then it was all about TV, now it's becoming all about the internet." And there is something to that — this is something of a natural progression, and to a certain extent we shouldn't be fighting it. But there's a problem with just letting it happen: quality control.
Sure, there are newspapers that one should never take seriously, but even the National Enquirer occasionally breaks a big story. (Much to the chagrin of John Edwards.) It's hard to imagine a website that a person can trust as well as they can trust the New York Times, even if the Times is going bankrupt. There are just so many avenues to publication on the internet that it's hard to sift through the garbage and find the sources that have done their fact-checking and presented a solid piece of journalism. This is part of the problem that Cable News has presented us with in the past, oh, twenty years. I mean, it's bad enough that the most recognizable image of journalistic integrity for my generation is a man named Jon Stewart who runs a half-hour comedy show. Do we really want to diffuse that even more?
"Ah, but Alan," you say, "you're not looking at what's already going on in the world. These newspapers are failing because we already have websites which provide us with accurate, reliable information."
And this is true. But almost all of those websites we go to right now are powered by a machine which relies on journalists who work, primarily, for newspapers. When these newspapers all go under, who will pay their salaries? Sure, there's CNN.com and MSNBC.com and the like, but those only account for so much. (I'd also argue they have agendas which aren't really in the best interests of the people, but that's really a separate issue altogether.) The major strength of the internet (that everyone's voice is equally powerful) is actually the problem here: what's the sound of one journalist blogging? There isn't an easy business model, here.
Furthermore, there's something to be said for brand recognition. It's hard for me to imagine a website becoming a "trusted name" in news the way the New York Times is. I mean, slashdot and digg and places like that are fine, and googlenews is a wonderful tool, but there doesn't really seem to be a big "We have the highest standards" news website. There's no flagship of journalistic integrity out here; we just browse the various RSS feeds we have and basically cross-reference everything we read. (And brush off anything we can't find on multiple sites.)
And don't even get me started on the legal problems here. I mean, do we really want to say that every Joe Schmoe who has a blog should be protected by "Freedom of the Press?" Freedom of Speech, yes, but Freedom of the Press is different and carries different rights and responsibilities that I don't really think should be extended to anyone who just decides that they're an "internet reporter" now.
And while all of these are, I think, legitimate concerns, I don't feel as if this addresses the immediate concern of newspapers failing — not everyone has internet access. A newspaper is less than a dollar, and you can read the headlines for freakin' free. The internet costs a certain minimum monthly fee, and has a large price of entry (i.e: the cost of buying a computer, which is lower than it's ever been in comparison to the earning power of the average American, but it's still non-trivial.) Sure, maybe in ten years when we have free wifi nationwide and e-books run about $200 this won't be an issue, but at least right now there's a sizable portion of America that would be without reliable news if every newspaper went under tomorrow. Oh, they'd have their local FOX-affiliate, and they might even watch cable news, but they'd still just be getting sound-bites and whatever sensational headline hit the airwaves that day. They wouldn't hear about the state of our nation's military operations within the borders of allied nations. They wouldn't read about the latest breakthroughs in renewable energy. And they probably wouldn't have a fucking clue that today is the 15th anniversary of the beginning of the Rwandan Genocide.
I guess my point is that newspapers as actual pieces of paper may not be strictly necessary to our society, but I think it is still in our interests to make sure that the institutions behind them actually stay with the times and find viable business models for the 21st century instead of just fading away. (Rupert Murdoch notwithstanding.)
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