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

Friday, March 29, 2013

Linkee-poo, tell me, don't you get me wrong, I only want to know

Some tips for writing and working full time.

Amazon buys Goodreads. Insert ominous music here.

Ten tips for titling. Maybe an 11th for being alliterative. Although coming up with good titles is not one of my talents. (Grokked from Diana Peterfreund)

The new Library of Alexandria. Nice. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

Other writers give you a hand to keep writing. Or, at least they write their advice on their hands.

A $50,000 prize for authors who have published 3-5 books.

Vince reminds us of the Poetic Edda as source material for Tolkien.

Giant squid are all related to Cthulhu. Oh, wait, no, I guess they're just all related as one species. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

An interactive info graphic on the frequency of words in TMBG lyrics. 'Cause we can, and you know you wanna know. (Pointed to by Dan)

I've been churning this link over. That's Jay Lake sharing his experience of feeling his mortality while seeing other's vitality and having the cognitive dissonance and his feeling on being on the "Final Tour". Very insightful into the process of dying.

Jim Wright gets drawn into the conversation, again. Yea, I've had days like that. The major problem, though, is what I explained after Nov. 6th last year. See, the first time President Obama was elected, the conservatives of the permanent majority, the ones who say "everybody agrees with us", could (if they questioned themselves at all) chalk it up to optimism and an aberration of logic. Surely, soon, all would be right with the world. After all, in 2010 they retook the Congress. They were "RIGHT!" all along. This is why even when Fox News saw the numbers, when those numbers went south for the conservative cause it was because the pollsters were skewing the results. But after the election when not only did they not win the White House, but also lost ground in both the House and Senate (you might remember that even as late as July 2012 they were very confident they would increase their numbers in the House and take control of the Senate) they could no longer sustain the myth. Much of what has resulted from that point is what happens when people's world view is proved wrong and they can no longer lie to themselves that they were correct. There is no permanent majority. And for those in the real know understand just how bad the numbers were (the GOP lost in all national elections in the popular vote, by a large margin). So now everything is bad and wrong and oh we're just all going to hell in a handbasket.

Fred Clark talks about this a little more while discussing the White Evangelical persecution complex.

Congress is upset because they didn't understand just what sequestration really meant. Also notice that they claim that office supplies are "waste". Dear Congress, after "cutting" budgets and looking for waste for 30 years, you might be surprised to find that there is very little waste and fraud left that doesn't require more money to be spent to identify. You know, money spent on "consultants" and the like. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

Pope Francis is shaking it up. Not only does he not wash the feet of priests in what is a Holy Thursday event, he even washed girls' feet. ZOMG! Cats and dogs… you know the routine. Why am I reminded of the grand debate between the Franciscans and Benedictines in The Name of the Rose? Enter the revisitation of the concept of the Magdalene being one of the disciples.

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