Doing vs. Watching

I have a special hate in my heart for the attitude that looks at someone doing something he or she enjoys, and says, "You've got too much time on your hands." First, because it's squarely judgmental and petty to say, but second, because of the blind hypocrisy of the statement.

Because the things YOU do for fun aren't wasted time, right?

Clay Shirky is shilling a book, but he's also got some excellent ideas about the Internet and people spending their time doing stuff on it. Please read his talk, Gin, Television, and Social Surplus, for non-boring ideas about how things are shaking out for us, society-wise, thanks to the Internet.

Keep Pressing F5

I have a pull to link to lengthy, thought-provoking articles about human behavior or science-oriented current events stories.

Fortunately, the Internet contains enough differentness to keep me out of a rut.

Om nom nom nom.

An Alphabetical List of Actions From Which Rick Astley Will Always Refrain:

• desert you
• give you up
• hurt you
• let you down
• make you cry
• run around
• say goodbye
• tell a lie

Max Americana?

Newsweek posts a contrarian article about how things are going in the world, The Rise of the Rest. Despite food riots and terrorism, things are going pretty well, according to Fareed Zakaria:

In 2006 and 2007, 124 countries grew their economies at over 4 percent a year. That includes more than 30 countries in Africa. Over the last two decades, lands outside the industrialized West have been growing at rates that were once unthinkable. While there have been booms and busts, the overall trend has been unambiguously upward.

See also:

The post-American world is naturally an unsettling prospect for Americans, but it should not be. This will not be a world defined by the decline of America but rather the rise of everyone else. It is the result of a series of positive trends that have been progressing over the last 20 years, trends that have created an international climate of unprecedented peace and prosperity.

Though part of me chafes at believing it to be a foregone conclusion, American dominance appears to be ending.

That doesn't mean American leadership has to end. That's a useful distinction.

BlogaDay: Repost Month

I forgot to mention, I'm doing BlogaDay again this month, trying to post at least once a day for all of May.

I'm changing the rules, because I'm not bothering with all-original content this month. Many Mayposts will be pointers to things I found other places, with little or no commentary.

Posting more, saying less. It's like conservation of energy, only with teleology.

Speaking of energy, here's today's link:

We might be able to get biofuels from a microbe that we don't have to kill in the process, and that can live in seawater.

Go microbes!

Name Dropping

Thanks to everyone who contributed potential dog names, or even expressed interest! The winner is: Merit.

I wanted to name her Ranger, because it sounds cool and adventurous, and we both like Lord of the Rings.

Meredith wanted to name her Coconut, because that's kind of her coloration, and it's funny, and we could call her "nut" for short.

Neither of us wanted to budge. Then my clever, lovely wife proposed that we go to our second choice, which we both agreed on, the quasi-aspirational Merit. Now if we can just get her to live up to that name.

Does That Mean I Won Something?

When I worked at the newspaper, I once tried to get an interview with Bill Cosby. Up front, I laid out my lack of objectivity, telling his people that our paper agreed with him, and wanted to learn more. His people said they'd call me back.

When they did, you might be surprised to learn that Mr. Cosby was "busy."

I knew I wasn't unique in failing to interview Cos. The writer of this Atlantic article mentions similar difficulties in reporting on The Former Mr. Huxtable, but he still does a good job.

This Is How We Lost to the White Man

I dislike black vs. white talk, but apparently it plays in some Peorias. And despite inflammatory rhetoric, Mr. Cosby makes shrewd observations. A powerful excerpt, about the response following Cosby's famous/infamous Pound Cake speech:

But Cosby’s rhetoric played well in black barbershops, churches, and backyard barbecues, where a unique brand of conservatism still runs strong. Outsiders may have heard haranguing in Cosby’s language and tone. But much of black America heard instead the possibility of changing their communities without having to wait on the consciences and attention spans of policy makers who might not have their interests at heart. Shortly after Cosby took his Pound Cake message on the road, I wrote an article denouncing him as an elitist. When my father, a former Black Panther, read it, he upbraided me for attacking what he saw as a message of black empowerment. Cosby’s argument has resonated with the black mainstream for just that reason.

Global Holding

So say German scientists:

Global warming is taking a break that could last for another 10 years or so.

That's the latest word from a team of climate researchers in Germany. Global average temperatures should remain above normal, the team suggests. But additional warming – already on hold over the first seven years of this decade – is likely to remain that way for another decade. The reason? The team says it expects natural shifts in ocean circulation to affect temperatures in ways that temporarily out-wrestle the effects of rising greenhouse-gas emissions.

I'm beginning to question the global warming doomsters. Something's up, but nobody knows exactly what.

I want more of my scientists to just say that. "Here's our best guess, but hell if we know." Paradoxically, it would do wonders for their credibility.

College Life

M has a new job as financial honcho at a venerable nonprofit org in Philly. She makes a lot more money, and is happier in her new job. Yay new job!

Last night, they had a big to-do with cocktail attire and a celebrity appearance by C. Everett Koop who, before he was all Mr. Surgeon General, was saving children from death with his bare hands at CHOP and probably has awesome stories by the bushel. So that's very interesting.

I feared that we would stand in our fancy duds, surrounded by a mob with at least 40 years on us, engaging in drab, repetitive conversations which would be all the more excruciating for me, since my entire job was to smile and not say dumb things.

Instead, the evening was a sedate blast. The mob of septuagenarians -- spot on. But a room full of doctors is not dull. If I twittered, this is how I would have described the evening:

• Discussed 19th c. gothic literature with a medical ethicist. Heavy.
• Crazy stories from the frontiers of museum conservation.
• Pitched myself for a potential job!
• The CEO keeps manhandling Koop to get him to talk into the mic.
• Koop's friends call him "Chick." No, for real.
• Free Jack Daniels?! But I'm driving!
• My wife almost flashed the chairman of the board. Smoooth.

Furthermore, THIS JUST IN: Rich people eat pretty damn well. The food was "heavy hors d'oeuvres" which to middlebrow yokels like me means: "The kind of things you eat anyway, only out of a paper bag, while sitting in your car."

I wanted to bury my face in the cheese table. Attended by an enthusiastic cheese sommelier (or something), he pointed me to this awesome sheep cheese, and a five layer cheddar thing that was so good, I left the table so I wouldn't embarrass myself by scooping wheels of it into my mouth. Duck and turkey dim sum was my second favorite, but it's not like I failed to eat the steak and potatoes wedges. Only after the food was all gone did I discover there had been lamb in a room I never even got to.

Music came later, which we didn't get to hear because we were touring the museum and talking to the director. Then on our way out, we got free miniature trowels! Oh boy! They're probably meant to be letter openers, but we brainstormed other uses that I can't remember now.

Overall, a success. Next month, I am arm candy at some formal dinner, where I will need a tux. It will probably be a boringer event, but I'll find someone talkative and ask a bunch of pointed questions and see what I can open up. Everybody in that room has a lifetime of stories. Some of them have to be great.

Sprung*

I work pretty doggedly at restraint. Things seem to go badly for me when I'm not paying close attention to what leaves my head. But I guess I've had the filter on too tight lately.

Last week, I was told that my open-ended contract was closing at this job I like. Too bad, but that's contract work. Sometimes it ends before you're ready.

However, with 3 weeks to go, I cannot seem to muster the giveadamn to do the job anymore. Which is bad.

Except it's turning out to be kind of good. When I had to work on something boringly difficult this afternoon, I snapped and started writing goofy shit.

Which turned out to be not so terrible once I looked at it again. I realized I'd been clamped down, too closed, too careful. It was contributing to making the job boring and difficult, and getting in the way of being able to write better stuff.

My copywriting replacement and I kid about nobody ever saying anything negative at an ad agency -- firings are termed as a freedom to pursue other things. But, you know, it might be.



*"Lockdown" and "lockup" are sort of like flammable and inflammable -- they seem like they should be antonyms, but they ain't.