Katharine Nowakowski has a weblog up where she will examine Shakespeare and other literature round the clock.
Follow the link here or in the sidebar.
In addition, and present tensely, I’m watching a little television and see a fairly inane commercial for community service. The music is deep and aptly profound and the enjoining famous people appear sincere. Doesn’t work though.
The lastest on weblogging from Colin McEnro in the Hartford Courant makes this often made case
. . . the blogosphere does not merely resemble the American frontier. It is the frontier. The blogosphere is Deadwood, where you earn your rep by what you can do, not by your class and family connections that mattered so much back in Boston. In Deadwood, the language is vulgar and combatants are quick to go for their guns. The lowliest man can rise to be mayor.
I would suggest that it’s time to move on. I would argue that the tiered nature of the system proves its maturity. I’d like to hear a few new ideas.
On another note, I hadn’t realized the extent to which the 2008 elections had worked their way into a frenzy. I heard Wolf the other day explaining the Primary system, a system he will simply have to explain again and again and again, I would assume (this is why perpetual elections are good for business). I have absolutely no interest in the 2008 election, however, and have no wish to “learn” about the candidates. But for the national press, this is easy stuff. No need to put a lot of thought into filling that 24 hours. The script’s already written.
Why the Department of Homeland Security is a bad idea. Do we want reason or not?
Chats
Had a nice chat with Spazeboy about weblogging, the recent elections in CT, and new media and look forward to his participation in the Perspectives course in the spring. He’s a nice guy and will add interesting perspective to the business of things. Tonight we discussed the future of new media, which is a major issue in the course, and we had lots of uninhibited interaction and analysis about reading machines, music, information, and research groups.
Vs
V for Vendetta is proving to be an excellent springboard for character, choice, and context in Contemporary Fiction. Evey is proving a profound lesson in bargains, parallels, rabbit reading, choice, and boundary in story.
Soon I will be “in the market” for a car. This is what I want. Something small, light, and with excellent turning radius. I don’t want it to run on gas, but on solar power. The paint should be mixed with some sort of photovoltaic resin. Mucho sun power will be required for this so I’d like someone to do something about pollution and New England’s yellow sun. I want the thing to know when I’m in it, just as my computer knows when I walk into the room and thus reverts back to the desktop, and will start on it’s own. It will remember where I go, so that steering is easier or unnecessary. GPS will anticipate clogs. Controls should be on the steering wheel but no VW nuance please.
The words gas mileage will not be an issue, so this kind of language should be removed from stickers and marketing materials. I don’t care about color but would prefer dark green (for better light absorption.
In addition to this, I’d like not to drive on blacktop but “something else” that will absorb water, flow it to where it’s needed, and can change shape to accomodate traffic or yank at the tires of speeders, which, of course, would need to be made out of some other material that doesn’t require oil in its manufacture but could still be yanked at.
Now, I’d like all this done by January when I should be just about close to making a decision.
Is it morning yet?
I’m sure Ford saw the writing on the wall a few years ago. And I’m not just talking about hybrids. As the atavistic administration continues to come unhinged, the question has to come: What did they think was going to happen?
At the moment I’m watching a show on genius that’s not at all displaying any of the qualities of genius it hopes to learn me about. In fact, it’s has nothing but a “Gee wiz, I wish I was a genius” sort of delivery that’s typical of the network broadcast. It falls into what I would call the “hysteria of the now” that infects planning decisions. It has to come through dialogue:
“What am I supposed to be doing?”
“Turn on the TV and someone will give you a job.”
There are lots of things to do. Turn the schools into options. Turn the world back into a question. Lose the notion of grades, steps, and square rooms. Will the world fall apart?
Look around.
Anyway, an interview just happened with the folks who run this institute, whose approach I just outlined above. Not because “it takes a genius” but because of the way people generally learn to solve problems but have lost the connection between that and “education.”
School’s about learning to read.
Bullshit.
Until someone in charge figures out that it’s not the schools that are the problem, test scores and school-based solutions will be meaningless.
Rick Green is right to emphasize wasted time and human potential, especially in terms of our region, but the question or premise flooring No Child Left Behind types of policy misses the wider system in which people operate as thinkers. Until the city works, nothing else will. We need radical thinking about urban space.
What is it with psychology, especially as it relates to team sport. On Friday, Mexico goes 0/0 against Angola. In the first 15 second of the match Mexico nearly scores. From then on, for the next ninety minutes, the match is as flat as the bottom of a tire. My favorite match of the World Cup thus far was the 1/0 win by Germany over Poland. In this match, 90 minutes of round, intense play flash by and Germany scores a goal in the final minute or so.
So it calls for what ifs. What if Mexico had just slowly moved into play. And so forth.
I remember beginning a tennis match and heading toward the net. I prep. The ball’s perfect. A low, mistimed lob. I figure I’ll slam the ball so hard it’ll bound and go over the opposing fense. Instead, I cream it into the net tape with a big slap. From then on, I can only think how that net cheated me out of an easy point. I fret about such a stupid decision. Could have simply eased the ball over for a solid point, perhaps up 30-Love. Keep my mind on things. Problem is, one point like this can decide the match either way: it gives me momentum if won. Lost, it gives the opponent wiggle room.
It happens all the time. It’s like setting the tone early in a story. Such a thing can shape the players on a team, as it shapes character. The team itself takes on the tone, the theme, the oppressiveness of squint vision, a negative zone where everyone waits in hush. “My legs are a little tired,” says a player. “Mine too,” another answers. Neither say what really hurts, neither hints at what’s really going on.
I still kick myself for missing that overhead. I still blame the net.
Yi-Fu Tuan on loss
These incidents lead me to think how two human beings ought to treat each other. One way is the giving of self–giving another person something you possess. The other way is to welcome someone into your home, world, and self. Both can result in a feeling of loss. Obviously, if you give someone your lawnmower or book, you will sooner or later feel a lack of these things: a part of you is gone. To get around this feeling of loss and, indeed, acquire a feeling of gain and enrichment, you must truly give–give with the understanding that the lawnmower or book is put to better use in your neighbor’s hand. You won’t miss it then. You will feel pleased that a part of you has escaped the iron bars of selfhood to increase, however minutely, the well-being and happiness of another. In practice, what does true giving entail? It entails not lending. “Never lend!” is a Tuanian categorical imperative, one—needless to say—I do not always follow.
The second feeling of loss is paradoxical. How can receiving—taking someone into your life—be felt as a loss? Well, the obvious answer is that you lose your privacy. You get the feeling that cracks are developing in your carefully-constructed world of habits and routines. The cure is two-fold. One is to understand that your carefully-constructed world needs shattering. Being made aware of that need is one great service that the person who enters your life can perform. The other is to see all the riches the other brings in, riches that unfold slowly over time.
I am a great fan of William Sloan Coffin, whose death is written about here. As to the piece in the Hartford Courant itself, here are some interesting interpage connections.
“You know the axis of evil is not Iraq, Iran and North Korea,” he told an audience at Yale in 2002. “It is environmental degradation, pandemic poverty and a world awash in arms.”
He had an interesting perspective on causes. Then we have another front page article with this in its content
The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency already knew that Iran was capable of, and had done, some enrichment on a smaller scale than that announced Tuesday, said Anthony Cordesman, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
It’s the “world awash in arms” part from Coffin that touches a cord. It’s not just Iran.