Quick, nobody read this!!!

I don’t write so much anymore on the internet weblog. Answering those who would ask why I haven’t posted was difficult. It wasn’t until I went through Seth Godin’s blog last night that I found the words to describe what I’ve felt about the ole’ blog:

“Notice me”

If the new web has a mantra, that’s it.

So much time and effort is now put into finding followers, accumulating comments and generating controversy… all so that people will notice you. People say and do things that don’t benefit them, just because they’re hooked on attention.

Attention is fine, as long as you have a goal that is reached in exchange for all this effort.

Far better than being noticed:

• Trusted
• Engaged with
• Purchased from
• Discussed
• Echoed
• Teaching us
• Leading

Too many people are just about the attention, and I was too. Now it’s just easier for me to use a journal. Analog writing got us through quite a few years…

Well, obviously I’m still writing here. This is just no longer the forum for me to really think through issues. I’d rather connect in a real conversation when debating my liberal bias. I’d rather have a P2P discussion about public transportation and my experiences in larger cities. Health Care? Not here. Republicans and Democrats? Call me. Why did I watch The Grand Lebowski the night before my wedding? Well… there might be room for that discussion in this place.

GearBits: When Public Schools Play Politics, Everyone Suffers

GearBits: When Public Schools Play Politics, Everyone Suffers

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Sometimes I want to say, “Man, chill the eff down”

I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere. Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength. The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us! or, what if we had been taken sick? How vigilant we are! determined not to live by faith if we can avoid it; all the day long on the alert, at night we unwillingly say our prayers and commit ourselves to uncertainties. So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. Thoreau

I wish I could get an understanding of why people get so uptight about things which are so damned insignificant…

As American as apple pie and baseball?

Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another? Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each others eyes for an instant? We should live in all the ages of the world in an hour; ay, in all the worlds of the ages. History, Poetry, Mythology!—I know of no reading of another’s experience so startling and informing as this would be. Thoreau

What would happen if all the far right wing extremists could see the view of the far left wing extremists and vice versa? Would there be less hate rhetoric filling the airwaves, or would they use that experience to mock their rivals? Would it create empathy or fuel their hatred?

What happened to the days of having a common enemy, like communism or Mike Brown? Conservatives are afraid of destroying the moral fiber of society, but have they noticed that all parties involved are destroying society with the fighting, the negativity, and the lack of respect for their constituents?

I want health care reform because I’m tired of not being able to afford health care. This “death panel” crap that is being touted by some already exists in medicare, so why complain about it and blow it out of proportion now? Drop the personal, political agenda and fix a broken system so the 18% of Americans without health care can see a damned doctor!

Teaching the world to smile…again

If Intel is the sponsor of tomorrow, then who sponsors today? Is Post shredded wheat the sponsor of yesterday? How much lawyering is required to get a sponsorship on tomorrow? Can the day after tomorrow be sponsored? I believe someone would be upset if that happened, kind of like being on the Price is Right and the jerk at the end of contestants row bets one dollar more than you did. Who are we kidding, Steve Jobs is probably trying really hard to figure out how to get the day after tomorrow sponsored by apple. Maybe this guy could get a sponsorship on next Monday and from now on it would be known as Sean Michael Murphy’s Monday. One thing’s for sure, Mondays wouldn’t suck anymore.

Strange How This Sometimes Happens…

This morning I awoke to the sound of my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the Public Power Monopoly regulated by the US department of energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather would be like today using satellites designed, built and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I did this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking drugs determined safe by the Federal Drug Administration.

At a time that has been kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I got into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on roads built and maintained by local, state and federal departments of transportation. I checked my mail delivered by the US Postal Service and dropped the kids of at public school, then stopped for fuel of a quality regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency.

After work I drove my NHTSA car on DOT roads back home, which has not burned down because of state and local building codes and a fire marshal’s inspection. My house has not been plundered in my absence because of the local police department.

I then log onto the internet which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post here on AWE, in freerepublic.com and of course the Fox News forums about how socialized health care is bad because the government can’t do anything right.

matthewgood.org via JW

Face recognition

I’m not sure who the genius is who decided to risk taking the tag off the t-shirt, but that guy (or girl) needs to win a Nobel Prize for something.

I’m not sure who made the wide-mouth tab opening for soda cans, but that individual should also receive a Prize.

Nalgene should get an award for making bottles of indestructible quality and designed for everyday use.

The post office, for finally realizing the need to remove the value of the stamp from the face of the stamp gets special notice for making good sense.

What other everyday items are surrounding you that deserve more recognition for changing to the better, but is so easy to forget about? If this happens with everyday items, are there people surrounding you who deserve more notice for the little things they do to make things easier/better/more bearable/comfortable/etc.?

Will you do anything about it?

An august farewell…

This begins my farewell month at Riddle. I will miss this house. I will  miss this community. I will miss the friends I’ve made and I will miss the people who caused me to experience the conflict which has helped me to grow stronger in confronting my own issues. I will miss the randomness of barnyard fowl and Squeaky. I will miss the two boys laughter waking me up at 7am. I will miss the awkward moments of shared living.

I know I’m going to come visit again, but it won’t be quite the same. I will miss it.

revisiting

One of my favorite quotes from a book ever. I don’t have a notated page because I wrote it down and recently came across it again. Hemingway was a master of the timeless phrase, and this is no exception:

If people bring so much courage to this world, the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure that it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry. (A Farewell to Arms)

I’m taking some time to reflect on this today.

The President exposes himself… ew!

I’ve said it before, and I’m going to have to say it again; just because we have a first amendment right to say whatever we want to say, doesn’t always make it right to open our mouths and say it anyway.

So why then does Glen Beck still have a voice? Why does Fox News(?) have airwaves?

ThinkProgress has these articles:

1. Fox News legal analyst sides with Professor Gates
2. Limbaugh: I get high ratings from ‘being positive,’ ‘inspiring and motivational’
3. After saying Obama has ‘hatred for white people,’ Beck claims, ‘I’m not saying he that doesn’t like white people.’

David Letterman got into a lot of hot water because he told a joke, which may have been in poor taste, and felt the repercussions for weeks. Fox News(?) permits its ‘commentators’ to show up everyday, and yet no one questions the validity of their ‘reporting,’ their sources, or their ‘fairness and balance.’ Why aren’t picketters marching outside Rupert’s office on a daily basis? If Letterman is labeled an entertainer, then we must also include in that brush stroke the likes of Glen Beck, Sean Hannity, Greta Van Sustern, Bill O’Reilly, and the other ‘reporters’ in the channel’s lineup. If CBS, FOX Network, ABC, and NBC have FCC guidelines, why do they not apply to the 24 hour Cable News stations (all of them)?

CNN deserves some heat for the ‘Birthers’ crap. MSNBC deserves some for the flak for not being more objective on something, and I don’t really want to talk about Limbaugh’s program (I know he’s on radio, but the FCC still regulates that medium).

I wish to turn it all off, I really do. But unfortunately I’m forced to watch the shows and discern what is really happening in the world. I guess I see the draw to Fox’s ‘coverage’ because it validates my fears, and speaking to fear is the easiest thing in the world.

Well, the box was opened and it’s never closing. Sometimes the cacauphony of news becomes a low din that a breakout of extreme rhetoric is the only thing to charge ratings. How scary is it to think of what the next thing might be…

 

****UPDATE****

Kweisi Mfume, former NAACP President, stated on Hardball tonight that it’s time for moderate republicans to speak out against the hate being spoken by the far right. I couldn’t agree more with him.