I'm a Maryland resident. A self-avowed WordPress Whisperer, I use it in all my projects. I take lovely photos, go to the gym a lot, and opine strongly over design, aesthetics, and politics. I'm a heavy Twitter user, a moderate Flickr participant and in my spare time I help people at the SemperFi WP Support forums. Read more about me.
For a few moments, appreciate the paintings below.
Composition and technique really aren’t all that exemplary, but they show practice. They capture what seems to be the intended qualities in each scene: the bustle of city life, the majesty of a palace, the tranquility of a lake. If one were to use the work alone as a means to look into the mind of this heretofore unidentified artist, what insights might we gain when studying this work? (Read more…)
It’s Christmas again, and year after year, atheists around the nation do nothing but sneer at all of us who so insensitively celebrate a religious holiday at the expense of every un- and non-believer out there. Why all the humbugging from these folks, anyway? I’ll be exploring Atheism as a belief system in the days to come, but for now, a few thoughts on Christmas. First, from David Harsyani:
If I were a believer, I would have commemorated the Jewish revolt against the Greek religious imperialism of the second century B.C. this month. Fun.
You, on the other hand, are far more likely preparing to celebrate the birthday of the one true messiah, the son of God, the King of Kings, he who died for all our sins and brings peace to all mankind.
I grew up Catholic and though my lifestyle doesn’t reflect my upbringing—to be caricatural, I do not fast, nor eat merely fish on Fridays—I still celebrate the holiest of days by dropping by for Mass. I also greet people “Merry Christmas,” even when I receive a “Happy Holidays.” I hate a lot of this political correctness crap. So, what does Christmas mean to a non-Christian in the United States?
It’s a day of rest, for one. Since the country is densely populated with people who actually celebrate Christmas, they have little incentive to work. Many places offer holiday pay, which means they don’t have to work for the day, too.
It’s a day to be with family. Since they know they’re getting paid, they get to hang out with family. Some people travel across the country to do this. If for any reason, people can’t be with their families, they reach out to their friends and spend the day together.
It’s a great time for business, and the better non-Christian businessmen don’t mind greeting people “Merry Christmas,” except the obviously non-Christian clientele, of course.
It’s a time for good will. I mean, ferChrissake, a large majority of the world is celebrating the birth of our Christ and Savior on this day that our Church agreed to do so. It’s a time for people to be nice to each other, or at least, nicer than they usually are.
If you’re Jewish, Muslim, or whatever non-Christian believer, the option is there on this day to do with it as you please. This invitation applies to atheists, too, but too many of them are in this terrible funk that just makes you want to punch them in the mouth.
I mean, what do militant atheists want? They want people to reject religion for reason. Sure. By logical extension, they want people to not celebrate Christmas, which removes the reason to take off work in droves on that date. They want people to work on December 25. They want people to not go meet their families on this day. They want people to stop being nice to each other on this day. They want people to reject this holiday because it offends their sensiblities and to them, the irrational behavior surrounding this day would be imprisoning. No wonder that (from same article, emphasis Harsanyi’s):
USA Today also relayed that a University of Minnesota study taken that year found that Americans rank atheists as the most disliked minority group in the entire country, topping other groups who richly deserve such honors, like journalists, for instance.
Any other day, I would tell the militant atheists to get the fuck out of our lives and pull that stick out of their asses. But today, well, at least tomorrow, it’d be great to rub salt in their woods and greet them a “Merry Christmas.”
Last night on Twitter, Justin Kownacki said: “God’s rightful role for families is a patriarchy in which women submit to men? Thank god; I’m a shitty listener.” Now, I follow a number of people with whom I disagree, and I have said things that I’m sure are grating to them, so I tend to let things slide unless I have something greater to say. It was a short discussion, as the medium tends to promote, so now I’m blogging about it. (Read more…)
This is the day in which we celebrate those who have served and live among us. All I can say is “thank you,” to everyone who has served in the military. I do not know of anyone who doesn’t know a serviceman, and I hope you have spent a few seconds to thank this person for their service. This collection of videos of soldiers coming home to their dogs made me cry. And while I’m sure our servicemen would rather we don’t thank them vocally every darn day we see them, @cshaero strikes a great note with this:
While @JonHenke takes a turn for the disappointing:
How dare he deign to ascribe one intention on all of us? There were kids like these in high school, who’d speak “on behalf of the room” after being reprimanded by their teacher. Jim Treacher (@JTlol) perhaps issued the best response:
This is one of those patriotic holidays where even Google makes a custom logo, despite their ignoring Memorial Day, of all days. It’s the kind of day that only the most hardened of anti-American Americans don’t honor. Sourpussery, while certainly within one’s right to exercise, is within my right to ridicule.
Christian Lander already listed it as one of those things Stuff White People Like. Of course SWPL is a tongue-in-cheek critique not of white people but of a certain cultural aesthetic, and Lander does it well.
I may never understand why someone has to jump up and take offense at something being directly quoted. Too many people read into the idea of a retweet. Jake Tapper, journalist for ABC, had to clarify that before, too, when people would give him hell for retweeting something they disagree with. There’s a reflexive nature to the response in the screenshot, too. It’s psychologically intriguing to speculate about why this person would be so quick as to publish their “disgusted” feeling.
I write about this because I need to let everyone know: my silence on a matter is not endorsement. If I had to bloviate about everything that offended me, I’d never get anything done in my life. I don’t need to express offense in order to feel that I have not endorsed that which has offended me. I have my own ways of coping. One can only hope that the perpetually offended can do so, as well.
When I went to TEDx MidAtlantic last Thursday, I knew that I would have to keep an open mind to views that are different from my own. In the days that followed the conference, I have been vocal about my experience on Twitter as well as here. I have always said that I liked “almost all of them,” even the ones that I disagree with. Here and now, I share the speech that made me the most uncomfortable, and I set at alongside one of my favorites.
Naomi Natale was introduced as an installation artist and TED fellow. Since I tend to stick to the Classics, I have never heard of her before. As she walked unto the stage, without skipping a beat she started introduced her Cradle Project, which calls attention to the lost potential of millions of orphans in sub-Saharan Africa. It was at this point that I started rolling my eyes at the presentation. (Read more…)
Justin Kownacki has some choice commentary on a schoolyard fight between Robert Scoble and Chris Brogan over Twitter’s newest feature: Lists. In the few days since it’s been out, I’ve seen people use lists to bolster others’ egos. Others use them as weapons of mass agitation (@technosailor blocked someone who listed him under “Granny Bangers,” for example). Justin makes a great point in that these “thought leaders” miss the mark about social media itself.
I’ve been blogging since 2002, although my archives only stretch to 2003. In that time I have seen blogs rise and fall. I’ve seen companies spun out of cloth and burn in the light of the day. I am here because I choose it. I am in a unique situation in that I have nothing to gain nor lose from blogging per se. This has been my online identity, and I have built a reputation for web design work, Conservative opinion, and photography, but my professional and financial future do not hinge on this.
Looking from the perspective of a relative elder in a room full of kids, today’s thought leaders serve very, very little beyond platitudes and recycled sports metaphors. Chris Brogan’s rant against lists is nothing more than a dopey way of standing in front of his congregation and saying “you are all beloved. People who categorize others are nasty.” Scoble makes a great point in that people will need to classify information. In the world of Twitter, people are information.
It doesn’t matter what medium you’re writing about. In any one of them where participation is democratized, the distribution of power always follows a long-tail curve. A lot of people dislike the idea that power consolidates upon itself, but that’s what always happens. There is always a center. Justin concludes:
We may not all be equal, but we’re all individuals. And that realization will carry us much farther as a whole than any insistence that we all be invited to the same party.
There are leaders, and there are followers, but leaders do not make more of themselves. It’s when a person decides he won’t be lost in the crowd anymore, that he won’t wait to be recognized by the man in the center of an ever-expanding, increasingly crowded sphere, that he grows into a new leader, too. Fishbowls get crowded, but there’s not just one. The ones who can’t bear to be in one decide to make their own. It’s been the story of this medium, and will be so for a long, long time.
The Maryland Daily Record has a report on one Yvonne Boughter, widow and former mother of two (now one). She has moved on from having settled her lawsuit with the Days Inn Hotel in Ocean City to suing the city’s fire department, and by extension, the city itself, to the tune of twenty million dollars.
The facts I gather from the report are disturbing, not so much in what she alleged to be negligent behavior on the part of Days Inn or that of the agents of the city, but she seems to act like she has no responsibility in the incident whatsoever. After spending the night in the room where she and her family fell ill, experiencing respiratory illness, she called the department at 9:43AM. She then called at 2:00PM to follow up. What happened in those four hours? Why did she not move her family out of the room? Why did she not elicit the help of the hotel staff, or strangers? After her 2:00PM phone call, her suite alleges she “lapsed back into unconsciousness.”
These, I’m certain, are questions that should be raised should this suit come to court. I still can’t get the idea that she, her husband, nor her two children had the conventional wisdom of leaving the hotel room and not coming back. I can’t imagine why she, in the absence of an EMS, did not try to hail a cab. I can’t imagine what kind of conversations went on in that hotel room. I hope for Ms. Boughter’s sake that it was not her words and deeds that kept her family away from a hospital that day.
911 calls, for all that they’re made out to be, should not be the only thing that a person in danger needs to be responsible for. If your house were on fire, after you call 911, do you just stand there and wait? Or do you crawl to the nearest exit? Miss Boughter’s story is a cautionary tale of over-reliance on public service.
I’ve been anticipating the release of Parcbench since it was a gathering buzz on Facebook, and today, they have launched the site. It’s basically a daily e-zine. From the email release announcement:
Parcbench will appeal to an upcoming generation of contributors and activists and will cover everything from movie reviews and celebrity gossip to the latest developments in the military and the most fashionable members of Congress. And we will cover every corner of culture without the Left-wing spin found in many other publications.
I’ll be an occasional contributor to the Health+Food section.
I consider myself a relatively laid-back, patient kind of guy, but, considering today’s state of transaction technologies, writing out a check at Costco, at the end of a workday when you have at least five other people waiting for you to get over and done with, is just a tad inconsiderate.
You know what they say about discussing politics and religion? Well, here’s a reason why I don’t discuss religion: 3 Ways Christianity Prolongs Immaturity. Found from a WordPress hot post as seen when I was checking my stats. A twisted person like myself would probably find the comments section full of funnies, on both sides of the “debate.”
I still don’t have a reason why I don’t discuss politics.
…Starbucks starts selling instant coffee (link found from the always awesome SondraK): Called Via, the water-soluble product sells in packets of three for $2.95 or 12 for $9.95 – $1 or less per cup. Just Columbia and Italian Roast varieties will be available at first, but the company will add others later.
I call it a sign of recession not for what seems to be the obvious, but because, as if in a panic, Starbucks has thrown its brains out the window and made a stupid decision. Instant coffee serves two purposes: to meet the caffeine needs of those who perceive ground coffee beans to be too expensive, and to have coffee where one can not logistically make coffee from grounds.
Starbucks’ retail operation may be built on the sale of hyper-expensive prepared coffee drinks, but the permeation of coffee culture into daily life had increased the market for home-based coffee makers, French presses, and manual and automatic espresso machines. Selling their beans has made Starbucks a visible participant in this market beyond their cafe operations. The gourmet coffee market had also birthed such luxurious monstrosities like Tassimo and other capsule coffee products: the hallmark of conspicuous consumption, environmental largesse, and just plain ol’ home-ec stupidity.
Fat years place a premium on time; lean years place a premium on cash. Unless we are plunged into such great depths of poverty that we have no power to run our coffee makers, we’re not throwing them away. Starbucks’ participation in this market, at “less than a $1 per cup,” sets unrealistic expectations. The most cruel symptom of CEO Schultz’ disconnect from reality? The dig at their instant coffee not being “our mother’s” instant coffee. Our mothers had drip coffee. Our grandmothers had drip coffee. Our great-grandmothers roasted their own coffee. Instant coffee was a luxury back in the day, and today, it just isn’t really that much of a choice.
Primarily because he never marketed himself as some kind of perfect person. He got drunk back in ‘04, and toked this year. Fine by me. The funny is his record of advocating against drug use. Opinion from Hillbuzz:
Phelps has made numerous appearances channeling Nancy Reagan at the behest of his corporate patrons, telling kids to just say no to drugs, all the while smoking marijuana from bongs like a pro. Phelps is a 14-time Olympic medalist, and a confirmed and proven hypocrite.
Hungry, hungry hypocrite, as some would call him. Isn’t that the trap that people we lionize fall into? Isn’t that the price of being admired by so many? More HillBuzz:
This is why human beings shouldn’t be installed on pedestals. We’re not a species of saints. Nobody’s perfect. And everyone eventually gets caught, especially when they tell other people not to do things they, themselves, do with great pleasure (like Phelps speaking out against drugs from a podium, then partaking in them anyway).
At one point in a famous person’s life, he is faced with a choice: will you bear the standard for a way of life that you seem to represent? This was the same crisis that Rush Limbaugh faced, with a few differences in minor details. What’s really awesome is that Phelps probably did it for the money! “Promote a clean lifestyle and we’ll give you corporate sponsorship.” Lovely choice he was faced, ya? All that money, or to walk away living an honest life. Too bad, these days transparency is usually foisted upon all of us and is no longer a matter of personal choice.
Of course Radley Balko has the fictitious letter that we would all want to see, but what are the chances of that, ya?
The truth is, Michael Phelps is now my hero because he has become the kind of celebrity that Americans just love tearing down. I think it’s a large cultural problem that we have. The schadenfreude at seeing someone fall is so tempting that we have created an industry that revolves around building someone up enough to see them get torn down.
I think this mini-scandal would end with Phelps getting a slap on the wrist. This could then at least help us re-examine current attitudes towards marijuana and maybe relax the rules for everyone.
Without it, no narrative in any medium of any will carry color. Every viewer or reader determines the limits of that suspension, but it’s always there. Even when reading historical accounts or watching documentaries, I see the need for it.
I tend to be a generally skeptical guy, but I’m not the type to deconstruct what I know to be fiction. This is why I enjoy watching well-written procedural dramas on TV like House, The Closer and Criminal Minds. I also enjoy watching SciFi shows, not because I take in each and every unbelievable circumstance, but because they are, ultimately, plot points.
There is a subset of viewers and readers who actually find pleasure in breaking down a narrative into its most unbelievable elements. I am not one of them.
Take any dynamic—or relationship—between two people, or two groups of people. Now, give this dynamic enough time for both parties to discover a fair and relatively full disclosure of each other. I have come to the conclusion that whatever the consquences of that dynamic—good or bad, triumphant or tragic, whatever they may be—after a certain point in time, both parties are responsible for those consequences.
Take note, I did not say “deserve;” at worst, “beget” would be my harshest assessment.
It may seem cruel or unfair for me to say that the battered wife of so many years is responsible for the bruises on her body or the insanity that she may descend into, but at one point in her life this person has come to the realization that nothing will change in her partner and that the choice—the opportunity to choose—has come and will be made. Even if that choice was to stay in that relationship. What happens to her next is a result of her choice to stay. The animal with whom she has chosen to stay also has had the opportunity to make the choice.
It is a cold, hard calculus that applies to almost any situation in life and taking the initiative to make a change in any relationship is a responsibility of either person.
I followed a link from Radley Balko to a WaPo article about DADT that featured the ravings of one Elaine Donnelly. (Her written testimony to the House is available on the website, in PDF, along with others.) Quite frankly Elaine Donnelly is batshit crazy by today’s standards and Republicans and Democrats seemed glad to give her a big enough shovel to dig a hole for herself.
Well, and good. Radley has raised the issue of the need for linguists. Alva’s testimony is one anecdote on the cultural shifts that many of our soldiers are fine with. Elaine Donnelly and her ilk aren’t just the type of bigots who just hate gays. They’re the kind who think that our armed services personel aren’t mature enough to accept that gays serve alongside them. Elaine Donnelly and her ilk are well-rounded bigots in more ways than one, and quite honestly, the best way to deal with them is to let give them audience. The more noise they make, the more foolish they make themselves.
I haven’t been up at 3AM since the last time I decided to get drunk, which was around May of this year. I know I wouldn’t stay up for Greg Gutfield’s Red Eye on Fox News, but I’ve read through his archives often. His piece on running stood out to me tonight. He hates runners “because they talk about running. Incessantly. It’s like they falsely believe their obsession is also ours, so immersed in their own compulsion that they have no idea what they have become: bloated vehicles for nonsensical ravings spewing poop in every direction. (Running is Bad For Your Health, 2008-06-24)”
Why, the same thing can be said about: political junkies, gym nuts, hypermilers, salespersons, WOW players, sports fans, foodies, liberals, conservatives, conspiracy theorists, greenies, hippies, vegans, meat-eaters, photographers, models, writers… You know, I could go on. But the point here is the Gutfield touches on a typical aspect of human interaction: people who are passionate about something will talk about it. Perhaps the unintended consequence of this is that sometimes, we fail to ask the listening party (who at a certain point has become the party that is feigning interest) what they are interested in. In an effort to seek out validation, or conversation, the passionate tend to alienate. Then they gravitate towards each other, which makes them prime pickings for hobbyists on “the outside.”
I’ve been guilty of railing on and on about something that I know might not interest the person I’m talking to. People I’ve listened to have done the same. But when a true conversation actually happens, it’s one of those moments that leave us feeling like a part of the greater portion of humanity outside of what we are passionate about.
It’s become conventional wisdom that the power of words lay in the parties that define them: some words have become taboo; some have lost meaning and others have gained new definitions. It’s a curious thing, this aspect of linguistics. If words are the symbols for concepts, and language is the gestalt of the concepts a population holds in its mind, then I have to say that sometimes I mourn for a the mind of the group that cannot learn to call a spade a spade.
I’ve always found it a curiosity when words fall out of convention in exchange of phrases. The concept of “political correctness” is a tad broad for me to discuss now—although Bill Whittle’s Responsibility would be a nice essay that tackles it. Gone are the days when the words “janitor,” “secretary,” or “stewardess,” (or “steward”) were treated as clear words that symbolized the concepts behind those occupations. But knocking on terms like “sanitation engineer,” “office manager,” and “flight attendant” is not truly my aim. It is merely to demonstrate a point in time and culture when people decide to redefine words and how certain concepts are, conversely, redefined by the words that symbolize them.
Today what I mourn for the most is the word “elite.” Yes, I know its etymology is French. But that word used to stand for excellence. It used to be a symbol of prestige, an adjective that described great achievers.
In today’s landscape of political discourse “elite” has become a symbol of derogation. It has become a boogeyman to use in populist pandering. Senator Obama’s horrible remarks have been labeled as “elitist” by Senators McCain and Clinton. I pity the word, though, yes, it’s been used to describe the snooty snobs who loom above us long before this election cycle.
“Elite” as a word has lost its beauty, and this is the moment where I mourn its passing.
Reference added at 4:16 EDT: (Rand Simberg: In Defense Of Elitism.)
One of the things that I find disadvantageous to doing my morning cardio at the gym is that I am faced with at least three big-screen TVs blaring out the goddamned news. Sure they have FM transmitters, so I at least don’t have to listen to them, but they have closed captioning and I can’t exactly run on a treadmill for twenty minutes with my eyes closed.
A few articles stood out to me today. First is the story of Colt Haugen: a waiter at Ruby Tuesday in Colorado who prevented a woman from having a drink spiked by her blind date. Second is the feature on Utah students taking advantage of their state’s concealed carry laws. And third, is the short feature on CNN of the youngest superdelegate, Jason Rae of Wisconsin.
I’m not sure of myself on this one—whether it’s apples and oranges—but WHY exactly is this 21-year old even in the news? Seriously? Other than being the youngest member of a subgroup of the Democrats that can either enforce or subvert everything they stand for in the election process? I suppose this crazy primary process in which Hillary and Obama have placed themselves will beget its own share of column-inch fillers and non-celebrities.
I’m also pretty glad for Haugen’s press time and the amount of attention this has gotten, but I’ve also realized something in my late twenties: real heroes shirk from celebrity status. In fact, few even care about the massive media attention that something like this would bring. I lament, however, over why this is even a case of heroism these days. Haugen himself has told the news that he is no hero, and while I admire his actions, I also agree with him. He’s not so much a hero but a human being, one with enough compassion and sense of humanity that he has the good sense of preventing someone from taking a drug that they didn’t consent to.
I also have a problem with anyone who thinks that the only source of protection in a criminal situation is the arrival of the police. I have a friend who wants to be a police officer. I, too, have some plans in the back burner that lean towards criminal justice (as to whether I want to be a police officer or a prosecutor is more a matter of logistics and practicality more than anything else). But one thing he, I, and a few other friends agree on is that the police aren’t superheroes that can swoop in at the moment of a crime. I have always maintained that people need to be responsible for their self-defense; what bothers me is that so many people don’t even think that they are.
I suppose the editors at the Colorado Springs Gazette say it best about self-defense, and Haugen’s case:
Incredible. Save yourself and let the crime proceed. When you can, notify police. They will arrive within eight minutes on average, if traffic is good. Forget the fact that Colorado Springs hero Jeanne Assam saved a crowd at New Life Church from a rampage shooter, by getting involved as a selfless hero.
During saner times, Assam’s picture would have graced the covers of Time and Newsweek, under the banner headline: “Hero.†Instead, her story was initially downplayed. When she started talking about God, it became a footnote. When it was learned that the killer turned a gun on himself — after Assam stopped him with multiple hits — it was mostly reported that the shooter took his own life. Period. Assam’s heroism was brushed aside. The suicidal maniac, not Assam, became the front-page news.
Likewise, most press accounts of the poisoned drink didn’t mention hero Haugen. We read about Psaty — in all his past political and criminal glory — and an unnamed waiter, who, oh by the way, foiled the crime.
The mass media is a business, and yes, profits will be on their minds when they select stories and what to focus on. But sometimes one would just wish for just a little bit of humanity out of these writers. Y’know?
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