Posts
A delusional person I know wanted to know if we ever "know" people. Here's the relevant portion of the Pompotous's response.
With consciousness as an emergent property there will always be levels of examination where we cannot "know" anyone because at those levels there are too many variables for prediction (and because the attribute of "person" has not yet emerged at those levels). Sufficiently extreme input can give atypical results.
On some level we can know people, though, and we can certainly make predictions based on patterns of behavior. We may not always understand why a person does what they do, but, at least with most people, there is a good chance of understanding what they are going to do. (Such prediction was my profession, in fact. As a hyper-competent genius there is no way that I'm going to understand what goes on in the head of an average office worker, but after years of experimentation I became quite good at predicting how an average office worker would interact with her environment in any given situation.)
So, yes, for certain values of "know" you can know people. For example: my wife was pleased just a couple of days ago because I knew what toppings to put on a kind of sub when she just told me the type she wanted (and she hadn't ordered that type before). That same day I knew what my little girl was going to say to me when she came into the kitchen and found me after finishing her afternoon treat.
On higher levels, I know that if my friends jumped off a bridge I probably would, too, because they'd have a damned good reason for doing so. I know that I'd almost certainly do anything my father-of-choice would ask me to do because he wouldn't ask me to do anything that would violate who I am as a person. I know, from decades of experience, how my friends will be there for me when I need them. I know that my wife can be trusted with my heart and happiness, I know that she won't ever be shuddering and gasping under another man whom she's told she loves with all her heart.
The first and last trick to knowing is to look at people's actions, not their words. A minority of people lie because that is their nature or they enjoy it. Many of them are good at deception, and it takes a while to see in their actions and in their effects on those around them what they are really like.
You also have to be able to look at reality. Far more numerous than the selfish and deliberate liars are the delusional liars, who lie to themselves as well as others. These are usually desperate people who convince themselves that their fantasy is reality. The religious are the most obvious of the delusional liars, but they don't have a monopoly on it. Many of them mean well, but they have an attenuated grasp of reality and, I'm afraid, not much of a basis for a moral code. Delusionals liars, since they buy into their own fantasies, are very sincere and often think that they mean well, even when the results of their actions clearly indicate selfishness.
A subset of delusional liars are the incompetent. Incompetent people are, by definition, unable to accurately gauge their own abilities. And the vast majority of people are incompetent. Marketing types like focus groups, but usability professionals realize that you cannot trust focus groups because what people SAY about themselves is, at least 90% of the time, wrong.
In all cases, longitudinal studies are required. Observe people over time in various situations. Do they not have close, long term friends of a diversity of "types"? If not, why not? Do people seem better for knowing them? If not, why not? Do people trust them? Why or why not? Are their assessments of reality accurate? Do they know themselves and their own strengths and weaknesses? Do they know the strengths and weaknesses of their loved ones, and move to nurture or protect as necessary?
And in all cases, look at what people do to know them, not what they say. The abusive boyfriend that hits "his" woman will protest his love while using his fists. The terrorist, of any stripe, political or personal, says, "Look what YOU made me do," while deciding to hurt the innocent. The "family values" nuts have the highest divorce rates and spew hatred and venom against people working on creating families, while some pro-life "people" say that all life is sacred while killing doctors and nurses.
Look at what people do, how they influence the world. You can know good people because they are, in general, in touch with reality and have, in general, a positive effect on those around them that continues over time.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Words versus violence
I've never been a violent man. As a little Pompotini there were a few acts of discreet violence, but always in defense of someone else. I never had to physically protect myself because I always found that threats and intimidation were sufficient to forestall actual violence. (Which causes me to question some of the extremes that school systems these days go to in order to stop threats of violence. But I digress.
After growing from a Pompotini into a Pompotous, I've engaged in violence twice: once in taking a knife away from a rather rude man trying to rob it by pointing at my throat, once in response to a muscle-bound teenager who thought to beat the crap out of me for working at a place he'd been fired from. In both cases my assailants fled the scene in distress, and I was not actually hurt, but the feelings engendered by the violence, the fear, the breakdown of coherent consciousness when staring at a butcher knife in the hands of someone screaming at me, those impressions remain with me.
I could have killed them rather than driven them away with few hurts to anything other than their pride -- but I am not a violent man, although I capable of using it in its minimum forms when necessary. Had I not thought myself capable of inflicting harm under certain circumstances I would never have joined the armed forces of the US in my youth.
I have been the target of words and the target of blows and knife thrusts, and it still amazes me that there are people who equate words with violence. In graduate school I ran across a woman who, when I asked her if she would rather be called a "bitch" or shot in the face with a .45 caliber pistol, replied, "I don't know, words hurt for so long." This linking of words with violence has a following of sorts in the business world as well, particularly with sexual harassment consultants. In the latter case this is, perhaps, a case of frantically reaching for an argument that will be explain the seriousness of sexual harassment to the kind of microcephalic morons who might commit it, but I think not.
Take, for example, section 295A of the Indian Penal Code: Whoever, with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any class of citizens of India, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise, insults or attempts to insult the religion or the religious beliefs of that class, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.
Pardon me, but the politicians that passed this, and the theists who utilize it, are lame fuckwits. 295a IPC assumes that words are dangerous. There are very, very few cases where I'll agree that words are dangerous, and they all involve violence in some form or another. Saying that you are a fuckwit with a ridiculous imaginary friend -- does that break any of your bones? Ignite your possessions and turn them to ash? In any way resemble stereo wire connected to your alternated, twisted and run into your gas tank?
No. There is a qualitative difference between words and violence. Words directly leading to real harm -- such as Manson telling his followers to kill someone, or shouting "Fire" in a crowded theater, thereby being sure to cause a few injuries in the attempts to exit the building, are few and far between, and certainly don't include things like making fun of some made-up characters in a book.
It is not words that are dangerous, it is power: the power to get someone to murder for you, the power to manipulate people into acts of violence upon themselves, the power to terrify a subordinate into putting up with sexual advances. You have little choice in how your body will deal with a bullet to the head, your mind has much choice in how to deal with someone calling you a name. When power and circumstances take away your choice, that is when speech is dangerous and calls for censure.
So for all those religionists out there who cry out at the horrors of saying, "Hey, you're an irrational idiot about this whole religion thing, aren't you?" I say, "Shove it." If a Christian burns down your Christian church (which is almost certainly the most likely church burning in the US), then you are the victim of violence and should be entitled to justice. If a teenager in a car shouts, "There is no God, chill the fuck out!" as he drives past your church, you have no cause for complaint.
,
After growing from a Pompotini into a Pompotous, I've engaged in violence twice: once in taking a knife away from a rather rude man trying to rob it by pointing at my throat, once in response to a muscle-bound teenager who thought to beat the crap out of me for working at a place he'd been fired from. In both cases my assailants fled the scene in distress, and I was not actually hurt, but the feelings engendered by the violence, the fear, the breakdown of coherent consciousness when staring at a butcher knife in the hands of someone screaming at me, those impressions remain with me.
I could have killed them rather than driven them away with few hurts to anything other than their pride -- but I am not a violent man, although I capable of using it in its minimum forms when necessary. Had I not thought myself capable of inflicting harm under certain circumstances I would never have joined the armed forces of the US in my youth.
I have been the target of words and the target of blows and knife thrusts, and it still amazes me that there are people who equate words with violence. In graduate school I ran across a woman who, when I asked her if she would rather be called a "bitch" or shot in the face with a .45 caliber pistol, replied, "I don't know, words hurt for so long." This linking of words with violence has a following of sorts in the business world as well, particularly with sexual harassment consultants. In the latter case this is, perhaps, a case of frantically reaching for an argument that will be explain the seriousness of sexual harassment to the kind of microcephalic morons who might commit it, but I think not.
Take, for example, section 295A of the Indian Penal Code: Whoever, with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any class of citizens of India, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise, insults or attempts to insult the religion or the religious beliefs of that class, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.
Pardon me, but the politicians that passed this, and the theists who utilize it, are lame fuckwits. 295a IPC assumes that words are dangerous. There are very, very few cases where I'll agree that words are dangerous, and they all involve violence in some form or another. Saying that you are a fuckwit with a ridiculous imaginary friend -- does that break any of your bones? Ignite your possessions and turn them to ash? In any way resemble stereo wire connected to your alternated, twisted and run into your gas tank?
No. There is a qualitative difference between words and violence. Words directly leading to real harm -- such as Manson telling his followers to kill someone, or shouting "Fire" in a crowded theater, thereby being sure to cause a few injuries in the attempts to exit the building, are few and far between, and certainly don't include things like making fun of some made-up characters in a book.
It is not words that are dangerous, it is power: the power to get someone to murder for you, the power to manipulate people into acts of violence upon themselves, the power to terrify a subordinate into putting up with sexual advances. You have little choice in how your body will deal with a bullet to the head, your mind has much choice in how to deal with someone calling you a name. When power and circumstances take away your choice, that is when speech is dangerous and calls for censure.
So for all those religionists out there who cry out at the horrors of saying, "Hey, you're an irrational idiot about this whole religion thing, aren't you?" I say, "Shove it." If a Christian burns down your Christian church (which is almost certainly the most likely church burning in the US), then you are the victim of violence and should be entitled to justice. If a teenager in a car shouts, "There is no God, chill the fuck out!" as he drives past your church, you have no cause for complaint.
,
Monday, March 2, 2009
Barbarians
My heart goes out to my Indian friends. Apparently it is a crime to tell the truth about religions in India. This article in the Independent gives sufficient explanation and information for further pursuit of the situation: http://tinyurl.com/bny9ma
Who knew that such a disgusting law existed in India? Not I. But the law isn't the extent of the shamefulness in this case, apparently some barbaric Muslims blocked roads and attacked policeman in response to the reprinting of the article by Johann Hari. And why did these ridiculous people turn to violence? Because someone wrote a few words about someone long dead? Allah, like all other god(s)ess(es) is, of course, completely fictional, but if he weren't, if he were real, wouldn't you think that his Prophet on Earth could stand up to a little name calling? Five year olds stand being called names on the playground every day, but this Prophet fellow gets his nose out of joint to the point of violence over nothing but words? And accurate words at that? My, my, what a baby. And what a stupid bunch of followers this baby must have if violence is their answer to speech.
We have our own barbarians here in America, primarily of the Christian stripe. For the most part our religious violence is sly, hidden and isolated, and our govenrment organs, particularly the police, are fiercely protective of their theoretical monopoly on large scale violence. So we export most of the violence. (Hi, Iraq! How ya' doin'?)
Barbarians. So many, many barbarians. To Johann Hari, and, more importantly, to Ravindra Kumar and Anand Sinha I send my respect and my sympathy and my admiration. Good luck, and thank you for your actions. The world needs more people like you.
Who knew that such a disgusting law existed in India? Not I. But the law isn't the extent of the shamefulness in this case, apparently some barbaric Muslims blocked roads and attacked policeman in response to the reprinting of the article by Johann Hari. And why did these ridiculous people turn to violence? Because someone wrote a few words about someone long dead? Allah, like all other god(s)ess(es) is, of course, completely fictional, but if he weren't, if he were real, wouldn't you think that his Prophet on Earth could stand up to a little name calling? Five year olds stand being called names on the playground every day, but this Prophet fellow gets his nose out of joint to the point of violence over nothing but words? And accurate words at that? My, my, what a baby. And what a stupid bunch of followers this baby must have if violence is their answer to speech.
We have our own barbarians here in America, primarily of the Christian stripe. For the most part our religious violence is sly, hidden and isolated, and our govenrment organs, particularly the police, are fiercely protective of their theoretical monopoly on large scale violence. So we export most of the violence. (Hi, Iraq! How ya' doin'?)
Barbarians. So many, many barbarians. To Johann Hari, and, more importantly, to Ravindra Kumar and Anand Sinha I send my respect and my sympathy and my admiration. Good luck, and thank you for your actions. The world needs more people like you.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Smart doesn't matter much
I know someone intelligent but crazy as a bedbug. In a blog she nicely and correctly attacked the existence of "race" as a load of hooey. I still prefer Hitchens, but, hey, he's a professional. Then, however, like a Charles Manson speech at a parole hearing, the blog went from the reasonable to the absurd. Here are my comments.
Yes, of the multitude of ridiculous memes that have been made up out of thin air, race ranks right up there with religion as a force for holding humanity back from advancing in all sorts of different fields. Which is why Christopher Hitchens refuses to fill out questions about his "race." I myself mark "Other" and, when possible, enter "Human." Which, given the perspectives and level of reading comprehension in Mississippi, will probably get me classified as a Hmong tribesman one day.
On the race question I tend to agree with you, but I have to take exception with the hypothesis you present for your thought experiment.
"If we were all suddenly unable to distinguish color, what would happen? People would be judged on merit and ability. It wouldn't happen overnight, because the money is in the hands of those whom the current system has favored, but our country would change irrevocably. Power would go into the hands of the most talented, the most capable, the most intelligent."
"Talented" or "capable" are ambiguous terms. Talented at what? The most common sense definitions create a tautology: power goes into the hands of those most capable of attaining power. (Of course, we're begging the question of what "power" is.)
I don't particularly care about those issues because whatever definitions are used, "the most intelligent" is not going to be a significant determinant for power, nor should President Obama's election be taken to mean that the country is moving in that direction. Yes, he is indeed smart and articulate and, yes, those attributes probably played a role in his election by providing a sharp contrast with the snickering, fumble-tongued President Bush. Obama's erudition, however, was hyped and in many cases believed as a disadvantage within the Republican base, they marked Obama as "an elitist" because he could construct a reasoned and extended argument and could think on his feet and communicate his ideas.
For all of the politics present in academia and artistic organizations, they are oriented more towards individual effort (or small scale political effort), leading to more chance for intelligence to be properly utilized. Exposure to a large organization where each project requires work from dozens of departments and hundreds of people will soon disabuse you of the value of intelligence. As the sign says, "None of us are as dumb as all of us." It took several years working within the context of a Fortune 500 company before I finally accepted that, yes, indeed, I am a genius and that, yes, that creates problems for me.
Exceptionally or profoundly gifted people are not just intellectually gifted, they are emotionally different as well. (http://www.gt-cybersource.org has some brief yet interesting reports on this sort of thing.) As one of the authors pointed out, no one expects a 40 IQ child to be mainstreamed, yet this is often considered acceptable for a child of 160. There are emotional and social differences regardless of which side of the bell curve you are on.
I've experienced most of the above personally. Large scale organizations tend to give power to people that fit certain social and personality templates, whether consciously or unconsciously. The more profoundly gifted you are, the less likely that you will fit within such a template. (Unless fitting in or management is your template, I knew some managers that fit into that mold.)
Smart doesn't mean much in large scale organizations and, quite frankly, it never will.
Yes, of the multitude of ridiculous memes that have been made up out of thin air, race ranks right up there with religion as a force for holding humanity back from advancing in all sorts of different fields. Which is why Christopher Hitchens refuses to fill out questions about his "race." I myself mark "Other" and, when possible, enter "Human." Which, given the perspectives and level of reading comprehension in Mississippi, will probably get me classified as a Hmong tribesman one day.
On the race question I tend to agree with you, but I have to take exception with the hypothesis you present for your thought experiment.
"If we were all suddenly unable to distinguish color, what would happen? People would be judged on merit and ability. It wouldn't happen overnight, because the money is in the hands of those whom the current system has favored, but our country would change irrevocably. Power would go into the hands of the most talented, the most capable, the most intelligent."
"Talented" or "capable" are ambiguous terms. Talented at what? The most common sense definitions create a tautology: power goes into the hands of those most capable of attaining power. (Of course, we're begging the question of what "power" is.)
I don't particularly care about those issues because whatever definitions are used, "the most intelligent" is not going to be a significant determinant for power, nor should President Obama's election be taken to mean that the country is moving in that direction. Yes, he is indeed smart and articulate and, yes, those attributes probably played a role in his election by providing a sharp contrast with the snickering, fumble-tongued President Bush. Obama's erudition, however, was hyped and in many cases believed as a disadvantage within the Republican base, they marked Obama as "an elitist" because he could construct a reasoned and extended argument and could think on his feet and communicate his ideas.
For all of the politics present in academia and artistic organizations, they are oriented more towards individual effort (or small scale political effort), leading to more chance for intelligence to be properly utilized. Exposure to a large organization where each project requires work from dozens of departments and hundreds of people will soon disabuse you of the value of intelligence. As the sign says, "None of us are as dumb as all of us." It took several years working within the context of a Fortune 500 company before I finally accepted that, yes, indeed, I am a genius and that, yes, that creates problems for me.
Exceptionally or profoundly gifted people are not just intellectually gifted, they are emotionally different as well. (http://www.gt-cybersource.org has some brief yet interesting reports on this sort of thing.) As one of the authors pointed out, no one expects a 40 IQ child to be mainstreamed, yet this is often considered acceptable for a child of 160. There are emotional and social differences regardless of which side of the bell curve you are on.
These differences do not go away simply because someone moves from childhood to adulthood. Extremely intelligent adults making reality-based decisions will, within large organizations, rarely advance quickly unless they are so profoundly gifted in their domain that they change the nature of the domain. Usually, either their expertise is needed in a particular position or their inevitable conflicts with the inevitable incompetents will impair their advancement opportunities. Intensity is difficult to mask, and being required to step outside of reality based thinking is incredibly difficult for myself and the other extremely gifted people with whom I've worked. http://www.sengifted.org/articles_adults/Nauta_GiftedAdultsInWork.shtml has an interesting take on gifted employees in working environments:
Table 1 Characteristic statements made by gifted employees and people in their working environment concerning adaptation problems | ||
| What the working environment notices | What the employee states | |
| 1 | Many conflicts with management and authorities | I have a great sense of justice |
| 2 | Cannot listen to what others say | My ideas are not understood, but I’m usually right |
| 3 | Difficult to place motives. What’s behind it all? | Apparently I’m a threat to my colleagues |
| 4 | Bad timekeeping, for example in meetings | I’m being held back all the time, it all goes so slowly |
| 5 | Strongly fluctuating performance, without any clear cause | I have no idea what I want, I find almost everything interesting |
| 6 | Not clear where the employee’s optimal work position is; concerns him/herself with all kinds of things | I get too little appreciation, people don’t see what I’m capable of |
| 7 | Lack of perseverance and discipline | I’m easily distracted |
| 8 | Is difficult to approach, not social | I dislike social talk |
| 9 | Makes all kinds of demands concerning work environment factors | I can’t understand how other people can work in that noise |
I've experienced most of the above personally. Large scale organizations tend to give power to people that fit certain social and personality templates, whether consciously or unconsciously. The more profoundly gifted you are, the less likely that you will fit within such a template. (Unless fitting in or management is your template, I knew some managers that fit into that mold.)
Smart doesn't mean much in large scale organizations and, quite frankly, it never will.
I don't get adultery
For those of you who know the Pompotous personally the title is a bit of a joke. Prior to meeting my lovely wife I spent most of my adult life, as someone once put it, "serially monogamous with the significant others of others." Let me be clear: I didn't go looking for affairs with married or engaged women, they came to the Pompotous, I wasn't the one breaking any marriage vows, and there were no children in any of the marriages. I was just instrumental in helping the women break vows they made to someone else. (In an amusing similarity, all 3 of the wives showed me pictures or videos of their wedding day right before moving to Stage 3 of the adulterous affair (the sexual intercourse bit)).
In the 15 years that these relationships happened I was manipulated and lied to and used and, oddly enough, ultimately blamed for the affair by all of the women involved, who somehow seemed to forget the effort they put into seducing me. Particularly by the last one, the one who had to manipulate and work on me for months to seduce me, and only managed to get sexual intercourse out of me the first time by encouraging me to take a nap and then having at me so that I woke up with the process already begun. From a purely physical standpoint, not a bad way to wake up, but from a question of responsibility viewpoint I never did figure out how that one was initiated by me.
Anyway, in addition to having the "it's not my fault" trait in common, all of the women had been married for 4 years when the sexual aspects of our affairs began. Perhaps because the 4th anniversary gift is supposed to be a household appliance. Well, I've been married longer than that and I have to say: I don't understand adultery.
Which isn't to say that I can't predict it. I pegged that third wife as an adultery risk the first night I met her: she was having to commute a long way because of her husband, she described him as a saint to whom she was totally devoted, the nicest guy in the world, yet there were undertones of resentment and need. No, I know the behavior back and forth, I know the tells that give away intentions, but I still have no clue as to why these women would deliberately set out to screw over their husbands by screwing someone else.
I've now been married as long as they were back then. My wife is my partner, my helper, the one who can drive me crazy in ways both good and bad. She's certainly not perfect nor a saint, nor am I, but if she wasn't like that I wouldn't have married her, if for some reason that went away, well, why wouldn't I divorce her?
At this point, my understanding of adultery has changed, and joined together with my understanding of rape: I don't get it. Why would anyone want to stick their dick into someone who didn't want it? What's the point, what are they getting that they couldn't get with some vaseline, a hand of choice and a good fantasy? Why would anyone want to screw around behind their spouse's back? What are they getting that they couldn't get with either working on their marriage or abandoning it all together? I know what I got out of these affairs: I got the illusion that someone cared about me while at the same time indulging in my self destructiveness. But these women had people who already really cared about them. If I'd had that (and I do now), no way would I deliberately betray that.
I get that these married women were all looking for something. The first ended up with both a string of marriages and a string of affairs. The second eventually divorced and became an alcoholic. The third, after four years, revealed that she'd been "hiding" her intense Christianity so people wouldn't make fun of her, stayed with her husband, who sank into depression, and now home schools the kids she had with him after she ended our affair forever for the third time. I get that they were looking for something. Aren't we all? What I don't get is why any of them thought that lying -- and lies are at the base of all adulteries in my experience -- could possibly be a path to finding what they needed.
As Merlin said in _Excalibur_, "Truth! That's it, it must be truth! When a man lies he murders some part of the world."
In the 15 years that these relationships happened I was manipulated and lied to and used and, oddly enough, ultimately blamed for the affair by all of the women involved, who somehow seemed to forget the effort they put into seducing me. Particularly by the last one, the one who had to manipulate and work on me for months to seduce me, and only managed to get sexual intercourse out of me the first time by encouraging me to take a nap and then having at me so that I woke up with the process already begun. From a purely physical standpoint, not a bad way to wake up, but from a question of responsibility viewpoint I never did figure out how that one was initiated by me.
Anyway, in addition to having the "it's not my fault" trait in common, all of the women had been married for 4 years when the sexual aspects of our affairs began. Perhaps because the 4th anniversary gift is supposed to be a household appliance. Well, I've been married longer than that and I have to say: I don't understand adultery.
Which isn't to say that I can't predict it. I pegged that third wife as an adultery risk the first night I met her: she was having to commute a long way because of her husband, she described him as a saint to whom she was totally devoted, the nicest guy in the world, yet there were undertones of resentment and need. No, I know the behavior back and forth, I know the tells that give away intentions, but I still have no clue as to why these women would deliberately set out to screw over their husbands by screwing someone else.
I've now been married as long as they were back then. My wife is my partner, my helper, the one who can drive me crazy in ways both good and bad. She's certainly not perfect nor a saint, nor am I, but if she wasn't like that I wouldn't have married her, if for some reason that went away, well, why wouldn't I divorce her?
At this point, my understanding of adultery has changed, and joined together with my understanding of rape: I don't get it. Why would anyone want to stick their dick into someone who didn't want it? What's the point, what are they getting that they couldn't get with some vaseline, a hand of choice and a good fantasy? Why would anyone want to screw around behind their spouse's back? What are they getting that they couldn't get with either working on their marriage or abandoning it all together? I know what I got out of these affairs: I got the illusion that someone cared about me while at the same time indulging in my self destructiveness. But these women had people who already really cared about them. If I'd had that (and I do now), no way would I deliberately betray that.
I get that these married women were all looking for something. The first ended up with both a string of marriages and a string of affairs. The second eventually divorced and became an alcoholic. The third, after four years, revealed that she'd been "hiding" her intense Christianity so people wouldn't make fun of her, stayed with her husband, who sank into depression, and now home schools the kids she had with him after she ended our affair forever for the third time. I get that they were looking for something. Aren't we all? What I don't get is why any of them thought that lying -- and lies are at the base of all adulteries in my experience -- could possibly be a path to finding what they needed.
As Merlin said in _Excalibur_, "Truth! That's it, it must be truth! When a man lies he murders some part of the world."
Thursday, February 26, 2009
I've forgotten how to write
I can't find some important documents. (Once we get back to Lexington I'm never moving again. Which I guess means we'll have to stay in the Gondola house, too.) Anyway, as I was looking for them I can across a ream or so of writing from 10-15 years ago. Now I've never been any great shakes writing fiction, but portions of what I was doing back then had promise.
Then I started to look at my emails from that time period. Something has definitely slipped.
I blame Lexmark and the stupid people who use print and multifunction print devices. After a decade where the goal of all of my writing was to communicate as clearly as possible in as few simple words as possible, I find that I am out of practice with writing for people like myself. You know, smart people, the ones who don't necessarily move their lips when reading and can actually follow an argument for longer than a sound byte. And communicating via Twitter and, yes, blogs like this hasn't done my style any good, either.
Allowing my talent for elegant writing to so fall into disuse that it appears I no longer possess it is depressing. I should do something about that.
Then I started to look at my emails from that time period. Something has definitely slipped.
I blame Lexmark and the stupid people who use print and multifunction print devices. After a decade where the goal of all of my writing was to communicate as clearly as possible in as few simple words as possible, I find that I am out of practice with writing for people like myself. You know, smart people, the ones who don't necessarily move their lips when reading and can actually follow an argument for longer than a sound byte. And communicating via Twitter and, yes, blogs like this hasn't done my style any good, either.
Allowing my talent for elegant writing to so fall into disuse that it appears I no longer possess it is depressing. I should do something about that.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Joe the Plumber, Yahweh the Mechanic
In a recent radio ad for an oil change store in Jackson, Mississippi, all doubt about where to go for a lube job was wiped away by a bit of name dropping: this place uses "God" to check out your car when you come in.
Yes, that's right, G-d, the big Yahweh himself is making the switch from carpentry to auto mechanics. Now they didn't get into whether G-d was a salaried employee or whether he gets overtime as an hourly employee, but who needs a 27-point safety inspection when G-d is on the job to change your oil, lube your joints and ensure that your tires are inflated to the proper level for both safety and gas mileage? I mean, having a mechanic whose skill is divinely inspired, rather than the result of training and experience, just HAS to extend the life of your car.
Unless, of course, G-d has decided to take you into his bosom, in which case you're fucked, he'll probably cut your brake lines. And you'll have deserved it.
Yes, that's right, G-d, the big Yahweh himself is making the switch from carpentry to auto mechanics. Now they didn't get into whether G-d was a salaried employee or whether he gets overtime as an hourly employee, but who needs a 27-point safety inspection when G-d is on the job to change your oil, lube your joints and ensure that your tires are inflated to the proper level for both safety and gas mileage? I mean, having a mechanic whose skill is divinely inspired, rather than the result of training and experience, just HAS to extend the life of your car.
Unless, of course, G-d has decided to take you into his bosom, in which case you're fucked, he'll probably cut your brake lines. And you'll have deserved it.
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