Impolite Company

When Did I Become Weird?

This isn't going to be one of those posts where I delve deeply into my psyche and amaze you readers with the way I Understand My Self (or, quite possibly, the way that I can Prattle on ad Nauseum About Myself); any self-referential comments are really just included as a set-up for the main course, a column by someone. else.  But think about it--we've all made little choices along the way that have defined who we are, embraced values that inform how we're going to react to certain circumstances, decided that maybe wearing cologne and necklaces just aren't quite our thing. 

For me, I think one of the cascade of decisions that started some of the weirdness was when I decided to quit soccer my junior year of college.  I had a chance to make the varsity squad but I realized that I didn't have the fire in my belly to play, the competitive spark to go full out after the 50/50 balls--I might have made the squad but I knew that I just wasn't college soccer material.  And I knew I had about fifteen years of sub-par education to try to make up for if I wanted to have a better idea of how things fit together in the world.  So I quit.  I think I told people I wanted to concentrate on my studies, which was mostly true, and after that point it just became a whole lot easier to make decisions that led me further outside of the mainstream.  Which has led me to the current pinnacle of my adult life, an unemployed lawyer who posts to a blog obsessively and tries to figure out how to teach squirrelly little kids how to do a front kick. 

Okay, so maybe this has turned into one of those posts.  The article that started all of this is My Kind of Normal, from Judith Warner's Blog at the New York Times.  I liked it touched off the above thoughts and I think because I find her brand of normal kind of cool:

Around the time that I hit seventh grade (which could have been sixth or eighth or ninth), I decided to change my handwriting. I made up a persona and gave her a name and a signature that I liked and styled an alphabet to go with it. I practiced her handwriting until it replaced mine. I saw a man in a restaurant holding his knife and fork the European way, and I changed the way that I ate. A friend slouched, not-caringly, and I did, too. Soon, via books and magazines and (to a lesser extent) other people, I became a sewn-together person inside a skin that was not really my own. And that was comfortable.

Does Ann Coulter Have Opposable Thumbs?

Oh boy.  I just read this scathing, absolutely scathing review of Ann Coulter's Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America (yes, this is one of the few books I talk about around here I won't provide a hyperlink for) that I ran across via La Figa at Firedoglake.  It's actually more of a rantlet, which is what Ms. Coulter's work deserves, posted on a blog that a couple of women who have been friends for over 60-years post on together called Margaret and Helen (K and her friend R may be destined for this if they continue to blog together).  Helen absolutely rips into Coulter, Does Ann Coulter Have Opposable Thumbs:

Margaret, you are the only person for whom I would do this.   Reading Ann Coulter’s book is like chewing aspirin without water.   I just finished another chapter and I am sitting here wondering if anyone has actually seen Ann using complex tools like a ball point pen or say… I don’t know… a toaster?  After reading the 4th chapter of her book I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that she actually doesn’t even have opposable thumbs. I could be wrong, but it is hard to believe that the person who wrote this book is also capable of fine motor skills...

...According to Coulter, some Republicans are idiots because they write books calling other Republicans idiots.  Now Margaret, help me out here. Ann is calling some Republicans idiots for writing books where they say nasty things about other Republicans, but in this chapter alone Ann trashes about a dozen Republicans for doing this.  So doesn’t that make Ann an idiot a dozen times over?  I hope you can follow that because I read the whole chapter and I am still confused.

Ah, good stuff.  Why is it so much better that this lovely-sounding 82 year old woman wrote it?

The Gray Lady and Other Dinosaurs

Things are changing in the news business and have been for some time now.  Some of the change comes from the tension between shareholders and news departments as shareholders want big profits and editors want to get the news out.  Some is caused by the influence of new media competition and news folks not having an easy time figuring out where they fit.  And some of the problems have been exacerbated by the financial crisis that's hitting everyone these days.  Two examples of the shifting are the Christian Science Monitor's decision to switch from it's print model to a more web-based model and The Old Gray Lady's apparent flirtation with a Mexican billionaire investor to shore up their operation.

Neuron Culture has a good post today, exploring the tension between new and old media, some symbiotic tendencies between the two and raises the question of whether it would really be to our benefit to do away with the old ways.  Check it out here, Zyprexa, Infinite Mind, and Mainstream v. Pajama Press:

I too have been disappointed in the MSM's failings the last few years. Yet there are times when the papers' sources and clout combine with the energy, quickness, and independence of BlogoMedia in a mutual amplification that serves the public well. Such was the case with a couple recent pharma and psychology scandals.

The Buffalo Press Goes Online

This is a personal shout-out to my friend, Mac Shadix, the owner and operator of The Buffalo Press in Buffalo, Texas and Leon County.  See that hyperlink up there?  He's gone online with his paper at Leon County Today.  I got to meet most of the people he works with in putting the paper out back in November when he had his party celebrating his first year of ownership and they're good people and I enjoyed spending the evening with them.  If you ever want a big ol' slice of small town Texas Americana, check it out at Leon County Today.

InterNet Weirdness

A few minutes ago I looked at my blog stats for the day.  It's been a busy one because I linked to the Carlin stuff on a forum and got a lot of traffic from there and so most of everything was from over in that direction.  And then, there was this anomalous little visit from CNN.com/something/2008/blah.  Or something like that.  Curious, I clicked on it.  It took me to a Big Lou "The Fence" Dobbs screed about the government stimulus checks that had just been approved by Congress.  That's right, CNN linked to a blog posting about wind power from a five month old "essay" that had nothing to do with wind power and said that, "This is what's going on in the blogosphere related to this topic."  What the fuck? 

I guess I should be delighted that everyone (read "no one") who goes to read that Jan. 23rd article has the possibility of seeing a link to my blog, but only if they click on the magic text that magically reveals their featured blogs.  And I'll bet if Big Lou knew that defeating the evilness that is Big Lou has become my raison d'etre he would be none-to-pleased to know of this link. 

Weird, weird, weird.  I did save a screen shot for kicks!