...but not here. This blog is going kaput in due time, and I'll be posting at
Take a look over to the left ... you've got it.
What do we have there? 16 posts in July? 24 in June? 10 in May and April? That, friends, is around one every 1 - 3 days. Weak
Back in January, I posted a "New Years Resolution" not to blog as often as I did last year, when I had a lot more to say and took a lot more time to blog and for that matter, thought in blogging. In March of 2007 I blogged about 98 times. By September, I'd hit a low of 24 posts per month, but was still blogging about once per day.
Mathematically, I'm forecasting a complete shutdown in blogging by December. If I hadn't blogged so much in the past couple of days, there probably wouldn't have been a single post this month.
So I'm making the call to shut down the blog right now.
Some final thoughts:
If old blogs are like photos, is it not prudent to destroy any and all old blogs addressing ex-girlfriends of ex-boyfriends before revealing the existence of your blog to your new girlfriend or boyfriend?I submit that the answer is yes.
If one excises old entries, doesn't that compromise the point of the blog itself? That is, isn't a blog a "web log" - "log" being the key word?I certainly can't argue with that.
This report from The Times (UK) got my attention:
To millions of women it has been the great liberator over the past four decades, allowing them the freedom to control their fertility and their relationships. But the contraceptive Pill could also be responsible for skewing their hormones and attracting them to the “wrong” partner.Now there is a lot of conjecture here, and, as I've mentioned more than a few times on this blog, pop science stories are about as reliable as pop religion stories, as in not.
A study by British scientists suggests that taking the Pill can change a woman’s taste in men — to those who are genetically less compatible.
...
Couples with different genes are also less likely to experience fertility problems or miscarriages. Experts believe that women are naturally attracted to men with immune system genes different to their own because of their smell.
Commenting on the latest study, the researchers said that it could indicate that the Pill disrupts women’s ability to judge the genetic compatibility of men by means of their smell.
They said that this might not only impact on fertility and miscarriage risk, but could even contribute to the end of relationships as women who stop or start taking the Pill no longer find their boyfriend or husband so attractive.
When I was a kid, around, say, 13 or so, I saw a TV show called Robotech. It was a Japanese cartoon that really broke the mold - major characters died, people fell in love, and an unthinkable tragedy befell Earth - complete annihilation of its surface killing all living things. Such events were a far cry from cartoons such as G.I. Joe or Transformers, which were completely human-violence free*. Robotech was drama on a scale to which I hadn't really been exposed - in many respects, it was far more serious than Star Wars.
Years later I discovered that Robotech is really an agglomerate of three distinct TV shows: The Super Dimension Fortress Macross (or just "Macross", to fans), Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross (which nobody really liked), and Genesis Climber Mospeada (pronounced "Mo-Speed_uh"). A couple of years ago, I got the first and last of these on DVD, and they're far better as independent, unmolested series.
Macross is a very creative show. At first, it starts on a "War of the Worlds" note, with many other dramatic subplots of a more "human" quality (relationships, love triangles, etc.), and then it becomes dire. Short version: An alien spaceship (The Super Dimension Fortress Macross) crash lands here on Earth, and is rebuilt by humans. Years later, other aliens find Earth while searching for the Macross, which is almost completely repaired but still grounded. The alien technology in the Macross activates in response to detecting the aliens and defends itself, destroying the aliens. This sets up a conflict between the aliens and humanity, which results in the destruction of Earth.
As the series proceeds, we learn about the aliens. It turns out that they're genetically engineered for war. Zentrandi and Meltrandi - 50 ft tall alien men and women - are separated on different ships, forbidden from interacting, and know nothing about anything except warmaking. As a matter of fact, they are forbidden from interacting with "culture" in general, defined as anything other than making war. It turns out that they were designed by a "Protoculture" (a human culture) just to conduct war against the "Supervision Army" (never seen in the show) - those who built the Macross. In the course of the ancient war, the "Protoculture" was destroyed entirely, as was the Supervision Army. The "cultureless" Zentrandi and Meltrandi now cruise through space, searching for any fragments of the Supervision Army to destroy.
Eventually, some of the Zentradi recognize that the humans they mistakenly encountered possess a "fragment of culture". Realizing its intrinsic value, they turn against their vast military division, and assisted by the humans living in the Macross, are able to defeat it.
In most science fiction shows, that would be the end: the destruction of the big, bad aliens and the boy wins the girl. But Macross doesn't end there. Many of the Zentrandi can't handle living peacefully - they acquire culture but they are insecure in a new environment without war - an environment completely foreign to their previous lives. As a result, they reject culture - albeit partially - and pursue an agenda of war with humans. In many respects, the situation is eerily prescient of the Iraqi Shia and Sunni insurgencies. Interestingly, the alien insurgencies are put down in a way reminiscent of the Surge. Maybe George Bush should have watched more cartoons in the 1980s!
But something else happens at the end of the show over several episodes: considering that the aforementioned military division of the Zentrandi was only one of thousands, and the fact that the surviving space force is very limited, the humans and "reformed" Zentrandi realize that another inadvertent discovery will certainly wipe out humanity and "culture". Thus, they have two choices: (1) extraordinary armament, and (2) procreation and propagation of culture. The first option would require that the surviving humans and Zentrandi rebuild their society into a super-militaristic entity along the lines of the Zentrandi culture. But this would eliminate the "culture" they wanted to save. The second option would require the spread of culture to other worlds so that a single-massive attack on any one planet wouldn't cause the complete destruction of culture in general. The humans and reformed Zentrandi choose the latter option.
I've been thinking about this quite a bit in the context of religion and culture in a more contemporary context. Many people are intent upon the continuance of our nation via military options. Indeed, I'd argue that this is the case for most people. Every nation has an army for good reason: Consider what's going on in Georgia!
But on that note, Georgia can't take on Russia militarily. The Georgians don't have the military strength and population to take on a nation with a much larger economy, population and size. The Georgians would have to focus their entire economy on warmaking to be able to take on the Russians at the expense of their culture and religion. Is such an endeavor worth it? On the other hand, the Georgians can ensure that their culture and religion will not be destroyed by the Russians as long as they (a) don't abandon their culture and (b) have lots of children. Eventually, the Georgians might even demographically overwhelm Russia, which has a rapidly declining birthrate! And if the Georgians can spread their culture to the far corners of the Earth, the Russians would never be able to mount a Holocaust or Holodomor that could destroy them completely.
It's not just Russia and Georgia. Similar arguments may be formulated for religion, race, and ethnicity. The religion or race or culture that values family the most will be the most popular and the fastest-growing. Lamenting the fact that your church is closing? Irritated by the fact that you're only one of a few people in your city who speaks English? Upset about the fact that your political party is losing elections over and over?
Ask yourself: Do you want to get married and have kids? Are you spreading your culture, language, and religion to those who don't share it?
If you don't, rest assured that you'll be overtaken by (a) those who do or (b) those with the bigger guns. It's simple mathematics. Science fact
* You'd think that the G.I. Joe soldiers would have killed someone with their zillions of bombs, guns, and war vehicles -- wrong
As I put my post together on the John Edwards train-wreck tonight, I looked online for information on the Catholic teaching on the obligations of fathers towards children born out of wedlock. I couldn't find anything on the subject - it appears that the Church has nothing to say about a father who abandons children born to a mistress. Am I wrong here? Please add a comment if you have any information on the subject.
Much has been said about the recent news stories about John Edwards - not the TV psychic from the 90s, but the former Democratic Vice Presidential candidate from 2004. If you haven't heard about it, let me explain...
No, not enough time. Let me sum up:
A week or so ago I paid a visit to my friend Pasquale in White Plains, NY. He's an English teacher and something of an intellectual. Over lunch, he and his wife and I were discussing rhetoric and logic and somehow got on the subject of citation. I showed him something I'm working on, contrasting BiBTeX (typically used with LaTeX or LyX) to Endnote (typically used with Microsoft Word).
Pasquale glanced at it
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You use maskless photosynthesis technology [sic]? ... fagThat's the funniest thing I'd heard in some time.
It's been a while since I posted anything new to the blog! Sorry, I've been busy
Busy. Isn't it the most abused, bullshit excuse?
Forget to do something? I've been busy
Haven't called in a long time? I've been busy
Wife hasn't seen you in a week? I've been busy
That isn't to say that many of us are overwhelmed by our professional or personal lives, but ultimately you attend to the things that you consider to be priorities.
Kathy* and I have been friends since we were more or less three years old (with a brief intermission in middle school). Back in 1995, by a fortuitous coincidence, I introduced her to John**, who she dated on and off until 2007. They're even more fun together! Last summer they got married, and I was honored to be in their wedding.
Generally, I'll either get a wedding gift from a couple's registry or bring the gift to them after the wedding, but I rarely bring gifts to weddings so that the couple doesn't have to tote a U-Haul of presents back home. Kathy and John got married in Cape Cod, which was a hefty trek for everyone: Kathy and John live in Manhattan, and I lived in Bethlehem, PA at the time. I did the same thing this year too when my brother got married in Mississippi. When I got home, I ordered a busload of stuff from his registry (online) and brought them all to his apt. when he and my sister-in-law returned from their Honeymoon.
I guess everyone has their own point of view about these things. Traditional "wedding etiquette" says you have a year to give a gift.
Anyhow, when Kathy and John got back from their honeymoon, I called them to see if they wanted to get together in NY (doubling as an opportunity to allow me to bring them a wedding gift) but didn't get a call back. A couple of weeks later, I tried again, and was told that they couldn't get together then. That was possibly the last time I talked to them. I kept calling every other week (when I was regularly going into the city), and then less frequently, and didn't get any response until perhaps December, when I got a text-message back from Kathy saying she was out of town at her sister's or some such thing. That was the last time I communicated with Kathy and John at all. My subsequent calls - perhaps only two this year, the most recent in May, went unanswered.
Now I was really conflicted about the situation, between frustration and heartbreak. I missed them, but I was pissed that they wouldn't call me back. I had any number of theories of why they hadn't returned my calls: Had I insulted them via some innocuous comment at the wedding? Had my ex done so?
Furthermore, I had this wedding-gift monkey on my back (no, I didn't buy them a monkey - ha ha). I know where they live in NY, but I don't know their mailing address, and I hadn't been able to get it from them all year!
By mid-July, I wanted to call them to wish them a happy anniversary, but I didn't even bother to try.
Then I get a call from John yesterday, out of the blue. I was stunned to hear his voice, quite frankly. I told him that I'd missed him and Kathy and before he had a chance to say anything beyond "hi, how have you been", I asked him for their address. Got it! Then we chatted for a bit: Small talk, how I've been, He's been busy, they've been busy, sorry we [they] haven't been in touch.
Busy
I then wished him a happy anniversary, and that's how it all opened up. John thanked me for being part of their wedding, and then stumbled into a very awkward discussion of the wedding gift issue. Short version: Kathy was profoundly irked that I hadn't given them a gift at the wedding. To add fuel to the fire, her mom had been the "curator" of the wedding gifts the day following the wedding (Kathy and John left directly for their honeymoon) and had been badmouthing me ever since. I explained everything to John and we were both very apologetic - it was profoundly awkward and unsettling. I got the sense that John felt as bad as I did about the whole thing, and he seemed even more so after I explained everything to him.
It's a perfect mixed-metaphor: The white elephant in the room meets an elephant that never forgets. Kathy's indignance about the wedding gift precluded her from communicating with me, which in turn precluded me from sending (or bringing) her and John a wedding gift. Talk about communication problems!
John and I got off the phone and I just sat there in my office for a while, letting the information fit together in my mind like a bunch of Tetris blocks. I'd never considered the possibility that the wedding gift was the reason they'd cut me out of their life. I'd driven myself crazy wondering what I could have done to offend them, what I could have done to upset them. And the decision to cut me out must have been made within a week of their return from their honeymoon.
I went online, bought a gift, and had it shipped to their newly acquired address. I have no idea how Kathy is going to respond. The monkey is off my back, and the elephant no longer in the middle of the room, but I don't feel any better.
In any case, standard wedding etiquette is shit. Bring a gift to a wedding or get their mailing address (if you don't have it) have it shipped beforehand - there's no accounting for expectations. You're not too busy to do it, and neither am I.
And if a friend of yours pisses you off about something, give him or her a call. You're not too busy to do it, and you just might save a friendship. Like customers, friends are easier to keep than to get...
* Not her real name
** Not his real name
You may have heard about the pitiful trend known as cloning. In short, lots of 12 year olds make fake profiles on Myspace, Facebook, and other sites claiming to be someone else, but the profiles are typically nasty in one or more ways. Here's a story from Fox News via the Daily Mail
A British woman who was listed as a prostitute on a fake Facebook profile that stole her identity says her life has been ruined, The Daily Mail reported.Now Facebook is reputedly pretty good about this, even featuring a "Report Abuse" button on profiles. They responded pretty quickly to a recent complaint from my girlfriend, whose alumni e-mail account was stolen by her ex. Short version: Facebook took action within a few days of the incident, and that's how we know who has been hacking her e-mail accounts, Myspace, and Facebook periodically since she dumped this clown in November.
Kerry Harvey, 23, told The Mail that she received obscene pictures on her cell phone and prank calls from hackers who forged a profile on the social networking site Facebook featuring Harvey’s correct date of birth, middle name and cell phone number. Her occupation, however, listed on the fake profile as “prostitute,” was not correct.
Harvey is actually an advertising sales executive from Abbeydale, and says she is fighting for tougher rules to stop cyber bullies from anonymously cloning Web users’ identities, The Daily Mail reported.
“It was really distressing and I found it so offensive it really upset me,” Harvey told The Mail. “These sites are too open to abuse and should be closed down or made safer. Since it happened I've become really self conscious. I can't just go up to people and talk to them because my confidence has gone.”
The Facebook page was up for a week before it was deleted by the person who created it.
