I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
And so the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're goin' through

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Linkee-poo considers if eggnog is on his diet

One of the many reason I love Neil Gaiman. His poem, "Nicholas Was" made into a video. Guess you'll never look at a department store Santa the same way again. Happy Christmas. (Warning, not a happy fluffy video, no gore, work safe, but very dark in its implications)

This is a little old, but one of the reasons I love my genre. There's so much in this story about Katie who loves Star Wars. It's a story about the social pressures to be "normal," it's a story about how it gets better/bullying, and it's a story about a little girl who just had her world expanded beyond her grade school (which so many kids get locked into), and it's a story about being the person you want to be. It's practically a whole dissertation, which I won't bore you with. Again, I love my genre, you all rock.

Some more typographic humor. So, are you a comic sans criminal? Strangely enough, I had a conversation with my doctor about this. No, really, I did. Just on Monday during my physical. He brought it up when he learned I was a graphic designer.

It's the new game, Are You Smarter than a Fox or CNN Viewer? Actually, that's a Christian Science Monitor article on the recent poll that showed just how wrong people were by which outlet they got their news from. Fox, of course, polled the worse (including Democrats who watched Fox). NPR didn't fare all that well, but did better than most. The article includes an interactive section where you can answer the questions yourself (their interactive part is a little annoying, but okay, at the end you get a tally). Why, yes, I did get 11 out of 11. Thanks for asking. (Grokked from Teresa Nielsen Hayden)

So, you know how all those people who like to spout that "We're a Christian Nation: don't respond well to the argument about, well, just which flavor of Christianity should we be? After all, they're all the same, aren't they? Not really. But we'll all get a long. You know, the Freedom of Religion means the freedom to choose which way you'll worship Christ (as compared to also including the Freedom from Religion, but that's an existential argument that's also tripping people up with the Individual Mandate proposition, that is by refusing to buy insurance you're engaging in commerce). Well, consider this the first (public) salvo agains the whole, "as long as it's Christianity, you're good." So Methodists aren't good citizens, being followers of Karl Marx, at least according to Judson Phillips. Well, Mr. Phillips, since TP followers are lovers of history, it might behove you to know that the Methodists were instrumental in expanding this country into the new territories and settling the West. Right here in NE Ohio, the Western Reserve was mostly given over to Methodists to help settle (both to the Americans and to the Indians). Seems some people just want to get the hate on, no matter what reality is like. Again, tea partiers, this is your leadership (yeah, I know, wide spread grassroots, no real leaders, blah, blah, but these are the people who are speaking for you on the national stage).

4 comments:

vince said...

Tea party leaders - gotta be disgusted with them.

Sheesh.

And I'm not a fan of comic sans, but it does have a (very) narrow range of usefulness.

Steve Buchheit said...

Vince, if I felt the tea party was only adherent to their main premise (stopping government over reach, fiscal restraint, etc which some of the people really do believe in), I'd be more tolerant of them. However, I'm not sure they understand the full implications of their platform, and how others are using it to fulfill their real agenda (ie. the social conservatives and later-day Birchers).

Point in fact, how they are for balancing the budget, but supported the tax break extensions. While the one wouldn't completely solve the other, it would have gone a long way.

And they're all about the accountability. Which I hope they stick to. Not only are they watching, but the rest of us are too.

And comic sans does have it's usefulness. However it's becoming a general use font, and for memos and corporate communications which are completely at odds with the fonts emotional flavor.

vince said...

I'm all for stopping government overreach, but I suspect that we'll continue to see support for the Patriot Act and the TSA security crap, etc.

Why yes, I am a cynical person. :-)

Steve Buchheit said...

No doubt, Vince. No doubt. See, instead of legislation that actually weakens our civil liberties, instead their railing against giving the FCC regulatory power to enforce the (limited) Net Neutrality.

The Tea Party's silence on the Patriot Act and imposition of TSA (when it came into being) is one of the reasons I really don't accept the majority (of the Tea Party members) arguments of what they're about. It's also why I criticize them for being late to the party and then thinking because many people when home already that they were first there.