Paradigms...where shift happens!

Impeachment? Maybe not so much...

Here's a question for those who are making the occasional comments urging impeachment of the President. Which of you is ready for an oval office occupied by President Cheney?

New Blogs in the Burg

Maybe it’s too soon to judge.  I should give them more time to “get it”…this blogging deal, I mean but the signs aren’t promising so far. Our local paper has finally started a blog section on their web site, launching 5 new blogs since December 8^th.

Recalling some e-mail exchanges I have had with one of their general assignment reporters about the role of blogs in journalism, the wailing and gnashing of teeth must be deafening down there on Amelia Street. As painful as it might be to admit I was wrong, the product I see is pretty disappointing so far. 

Of the five blogs they have so far, two show nano-promise. The other three are more like after-thoughts as in “Oops, forgot to throw something up on the blog today! I better pound out a few lines to post.”

They seem to be working on a way to subscribe to the blogs through RSS feeds but there are no feeds that Blog Lines seems to recognize. For me, that means I have to wade through multiple ad-bloated pages to get to the blogs.

Comments on the blog postings? Forget about them unless you want to register as a user. I'll give it up to the "register monster" for some content but not for this.

 

In defense of Christmas...

Well folks, tomorrow is the day, the day I wait for every year. It’s like Christmas morning only better. It’s the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. Yeah I know that the day is still 24 hours long but the meaning here is that the day of the winter solstice is the day when the time period between sunrise and sunset is the shortest.

Starting on the 23^rd the days actually begin to get longer. We get only about 1 more minute per day but that rate of increase means that by February 26^th 2006 we will have sunset at 6 PM instead of the 5 PM hour we are currently suffering with.

I really dislike the smaller amount of daylight. Getting home after dark makes me feel as if I have worked longer for some reason, even to the point of it feeling as if I have worked overtime.

That said, the winter solstice has added another little twist to our popular culture. It’s given us a societal cop out to avoid offending anyone by using the term Merry Christmas and calling our, you should pardon the expression ‘holiday happenings’ Christmas parties.

I just don’t get it! What has happened to tolerance? How is it that those of us who celebrate Christmas are the only ones from whom sensitivity to our multi-cultural society is required?

When I get home tonight (after dark ) I’m going to turn on my CHRISTMAS lights, light my CHRISTMAS candles, listen to a few CHRISTMAS carols and do as I bloody well please…even if it does put me in the same category as the Kool-Aid sucking ideologues at Fox News. 

Oh and as a footnote, I would be pleased, no, honored to respectfully attend any and all celebrations or observations of Ramadan, Kwanzaa, Chanukah or if the Druids do anything, their celebrations too.  That’s what makes America  the “melting pot” of the world, not the Zip Locked, Glad Bagged, Tupperwared, shrink wrapped society our paranoid PC-ness seems to demand.

That's my story and I am, by God, stickin' to it...

Wouldn't it be nice...

Wouldn’t it be nice if the folks who so vociferously defend the Constitutional right to “keep and bear arms” were as energetic in defense of the Constitutional freedoms compromised by the Patriot Act.

If a camel can put his nose in my tent, why can't he put his nose in the NRA's tent?

Alive & Thriving, Part Deux

Susan's comments on my post regarding blogs is very interesting to me although I'm not sure I agree. Susan is no newbie to blogging and is the author of the very fine blog  Illusive Life but I see a great deal of sense in Gary Goldhammer's  comments about the dynamic of blogs shifting from novelty to utility.

In fact the Technorati  numbers support the continued exponential growth of the blog world with 19.6 million blogs being curently registered and 70,000 new ones added each day which equates to 1 new blog per second. The growth rate has been such that the number of blogs is doubling every five months. Tim Porter has a really interesting Power Point presentation with these numbers on his blog First  Draft 

The interesting twist that may support Susan's comment and Gary's view in a way is that only a bit more than half of the new blogs are still active after 90 days. That seems like an awfully high drop out rate to me but perhaps the 45% that drop off the active list are reflective of Gary's thesis of the shift from novelty to utility.

Blogging is alive and thriving...

...at least that's the message I get from two posts that I have read in the last couple of days. In Below The Fold , Gary Goldhammer, talks about the first age of blogging, "the age of novelty" coming to an end and  points toward what is the next step, the utility phase. On her blog Mena Stott  of SixApart fame dealt with the need for more civility in blogging at a conference in Paris.

Individual perceptions of civility will certainly vary. That said, blogs won't fulfil their promise as a productive communication utility if they rely on deliberately inflammatory postings. Such an approach will generate comments to be sure but since this is a virtually unregulated medium, credibility will depend in part on self restraint in language and content. 

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.....

 

Grinchily speaking...

This time of year is always a bit difficult for me. I always seem to find that “spirit of the season a  to be bit elusive but thanks to a local radio station there is hope on my holiday horizon. They have assumed that repetition of a message will do the trick and consequently have been playing the same selection of Christmas songs as encouragement all day, every day since the Monday morning after Thanksgiving. It’s a reasonable assumption that this all began during the tryptophan induced vegetative state we all found ourselves in right after Thanksgiving dinner.

Their messages of holiday cheer go something like this: 
Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree – A true inspiration this year since so many of the trees are being hung upside down, thus leaving room for several more pole dancers at the “Christmas party hop”

Jingle Bells – Especially uplifting given that it suggests the ever nostalgic thought of riding on a sleigh (who sells sleighs today, anyway?) with a close up view of some bells tied to a horse’s butt while singing a sleighing song. Can you name one sleighing song? 

"Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” – Look at the grand total cost of your Christmas shopping list and tell me if anyone but a hermit or cloistered monk can have a “merry little Christmas”.

Most Wonderful Time of The Year- So it’s really not when the kids go back to school after all? Does that mean that Staples lied to us with their commercials?

The Christmas Song – “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire” Yeah, that does it for me for sure. A virtually extinct nut that doesn’t taste all that bloody good anyway and Jack Frost can go and nip someone else’s nose cause I’ll put his lights out if he gets up mine.

Hurry Down The Chimney- Some sultry voiced tramp trying to come on to an old guy…heck that’s the
California state song isn’t?

I’ll Be Home For Christmas – Probably not so much because gas is over $2.00 per gallon and after shopping, who has money left to travel?

A Chipmunk Christmas – Alvin, Theodore et al being cute with cheeks full of the seed you bought to feed the birds.

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town – Be good kids! If you’re bad, you’ll only be able to play with your friends’ toys because  you won’t get squat. They do actually have a list and it’s strictly adhered to under powers granted by The Patriot Act.

Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer – Super! Granny with Blitzen prints up her back…no cookies this year kids because Grandma’s in a full body cast and drinking her Ensure through a straw.

I’ll Have A Blue Christmas – Yessir, now that’s a cheery little holiday ditty.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that all those bloody dogs that barked out the song “Jingle Bells” last year have apparently been picked up by the Animal Control officer and we won’t have that one to suffer through this year.

Barumpabump-bum...just for fun.

Adeste fideles, y’all.