Loosely Speaking

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Sunday, March 1, 2009

Self-destructive or what?

Have you seen the hulu alien commercials? Alec Baldwin is a funny guy! Well-made commercial, it will win awards, probably... But the message? "We have found a new way to give you constant access to television, which will turn your brains to mush..." Which is the more important message here? That this wondrous new access is available? Or that we are already stupid with tv-watching? You want to buy into hulu, and be one of the brain-dead alien-fodder humans? Then you don't need hulu, your brain is... Sign in to see full entry.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Speaking of butt-dialing...

I used the term a few posts ago, over in the Ciel Show, I believe it was, and was basically making it up as I wrote--and a number of comments suggested that it was indeed a previously-unheard expression. But guess what! It has turned up in a commercial for a phone with a flip-case... "No more butt-dialing!" How about that? The wonder of spontaneous independent creation! Gad-- I am suddenly thinking that some joker got paid a bundle for coming up with that. I, on the other hand, got a few... Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

If you've missed this...

as it has made the rounds of the Internet, here it is for your amusement: Here’s a prime example of ‘Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus’ offered by an English professor from an american university. The professor told his class, ‘Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. As homework tonight, one of you will write the first paragraph of a short story. You will e-mail... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, February 6, 2009

If I could give an award for the Great American Family,

it would go to TAPS and her family, from her parents to her kids! Every time she tells us a story about her life, I am struck with the love and intelligence, the generosity that flowed from her parents, making the very best of lives, the most solid family with good and enduring values despite material challenge, even hardship. Those values and strengths she has passed along to her own kids, with love, joy and encouragement. She shares these same qualities in everything she writes here, even in... Sign in to see full entry.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

a response to Naut's response to mneme, part 2

While a lot of criticism of religion begins and ends with atrocity, it is the balanced view that the same thing that gave rise to Inquisitions and their ilk also gave us the things you name: Some people are inspired to light, some, to darkness. The matter of concern here, as I see it, is that the belief-systems that believe everyone should and must conform to a single Right Way, the ones most intolerant of the least individual thought or personal interpretation, and the most vehement about... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Choosing An Editor

We do, most of us, have friends and/or family who will read what we write, and tell us what they think of it. But the people who like you or compete with you or measure you against other mutual acquaintances--these are your audience, but not so much your best choice in editors. An editor, particularly a content editor, needs to not know you, needs to be disinterested in your motives and unaware of your own back-story. I don't mean to say that a useful editor should not have any regard for your... Sign in to see full entry.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Editorial Comments

I've been, among other things, a free-lance editor. So when TAPS writes of a friend who self-published, and had edit issues, it got me thinking. There are two levels of edit that need to be done. One, proofing, to catch spelling and grammatical errors, and the second, content-editing, to consider organization of information and more complex usages than basic grammar, like metaphor, and consistancy for instance. The question is: Does what you wrote mean what you meant it to say when you wrote it?... Sign in to see full entry.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Daily Rag or library? Amusement or resource?

Blogit gets treated like a magazine or newspaper: read once, and let it go. Many of us want short reads, like two inches of newspaper column, a bit of this, a bit of that. It's a quick-gratification thing. But we have writers here that offer more: thoughtful, well-informed commentary; brilliant, insightful philosophy; visions of other places and people that share experience in a life-enriching, inspiring way; humor that really does make you laugh out loud! This is a community of writers, and... Sign in to see full entry.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Banks schmanks...

Well, here's the new American Revolution... Not political, but financial. For generations it has been all about profits to the owners, the stock-holders. Everything in how we do commerce has long been arranged to the benefit of that dynamic. The credit give-away that has turned to debacle came out of the striving for ever more profit. Now that credit-giving is tightened up and running scared, the only people who can buy stuff are those who can buy it outright. Only those who already have money... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Walk this way...

http://producten.hema.nl/ This will give you a few magical moments in a Dutch department store catalog. It is not about buying anything... and you don't have to speak Dutch or wear wooden shoes. Just--enjoy! Sign in to see full entry.

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