…but what the agency hasn’t accounted for is the looming presence of a possible Mitt Romney presidency. Because if ever there was a man singly prepared to beat back the excesses of bureaucratic overreach and correct the leftward listing of a moribund constitutional republic, it’s a severely conservative one-term former Massachusetts governor and Reagan denier like Mitt.
— His dalliance with cap-and-trade, his imposition of a top-down state-run health care system, his deference to administrative-state edicts over First Amendment protections for Catholics, and his favoring of federal minimum wage laws tied to inflation notwithstanding, of course.
Moreover, a Romney victory would almost certainly embolden John Boehner to double down on the Hobbity, anti-big government conservative rhetoric — before ultimately (and prudently; we have to pick our battles!) caving to the Democrat minority in a slushy muddle of orange-tinged tears.
So. Take that, EPA!
More pre-emptive surrender goodness:
“The Republican Case Against Scott Walker’s Re-election.”
http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/conscience-realist/2012/may/17/republican-case-against-scott-walkers-reelection/
It’s FOR THE MODERATION!
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu……..
And vice-versa.
Yay progressive economics! It’s almost like they believe in generating debt feedback…from thin air!
***
oh? salmon?
disgusting.
Alaska has already annexed its own pitiful self. With corrupt whores like Don Young and the Lisa Murkowski representing them this loser state never had much of a fucking prayer I don’t think, and America is much the worse for it.
Alaska being pushed around by theEPA?
Sounds like a job for SUPER SARAH !!!
That was one of the saddest columns I’ve ever read, Dale. It really really sickens me to my core.
Well, at least the comments section was mostly encouraging.
Mostly.
I liked the closing line:
Huh?
Jeff, I frankly couldn’t believe what I was reading. If Cotto’s Vichyite ramblings are representative of a significant swath of GOP “thought,” then we are screwed. Stabbing in the back the guys who make the hard decisions ensures that the fiscal nightmare spirals out of control. I especially enjoyed his efforts to turn the Tea Party into “Teh Theocracy!”
Do all these guys have treasured copies of “The Handmaid’s Tale” stashed somewhere?
But, hey, at least they’ll be the most civil members of their surviving enclave in the chaos which follows, so they have that going for them. If it’s a lefty enclave, they can be the prized exhibit in the diversity zoo. Until the lefties get tired of the charade and gulag them instead.
Surely, that Cotto piece isn’t meant to be taken seriously, is it? It has to be a joke. I don’t know what the joke is supposed to be, and I never heard of the guy before, so who knows. Walker is very likely GOING to win, and if anything it ought to demonstrate to any Republican with moderate leanings, that if you can do it in Wisconsin, you certainly have no reason to fear kicking out the moderates in places like, oh, Nebraska and Indiana, as just a couple examples.
he’s saying if Walker wins then conservatives will be able to tack Romney down to oodles of for reals conservative positions
I don’t believe that really
Cotto is one of those Taliban minded moderates who hates the godbotherers. Obsessively so, given his hallucinatory rewrite of the Walker battle into a social issues clash. He’s happy to have the clingers stuff envelopes and other grunt work he wouldn’t be caught dead doing. I think we ought to take him up on his offer, but quietly. Just sit on our hands for a couple of cycles. When the GOP starts looking like the Whigs, maybe Mullah Cotto and those him can find productive, penitential work. I’m thinking telemarketing for GBTV.
So this guy has a paper trail? He’s been on this kick before?
I find it hard to believe he has any “followers.” Seriously, if you divide the Rs into camps, you have the social cons/fiscal mods, the fiscal mods/social cons and the fiscal/social cons. Is there really anyone beside this guy in the fiscal/social lib camp?
What a revoltin’ development this is.
Frankly, I’d never heard of him before today. But I’ve been slapped in the face with the mindset before–Frumbag, anyone?
It’s safe to say he’s moved up to the MSNBC contributor shortlist. Not so by the way, he describes himself as a “fiscal conservative” and “social moderate.” Which translates into “Spend, baby, spend!”
http://contributor.yahoo.com/user/820218/joseph_cotto.html
I’d say there are *plenty* of people in the social-lib camp of the GOP. They just cloak it in smoother-sounding rhetoric, which chafes their chestnuts. And not a one of them is an honest fiscal conservative.
I prefer to associate the name Cotto with salami. It has more socially redeeming value.
“FLORIDA, May 17, 2012 —
…certain factions of the Republican base — specifically elements of it which are so far right that they have come to despise the GOP’s traditional form…
…the distinct breed of right wing politics that has taken hold since the 2010 midterm elections. Despite being rooted in fiscal matters, like curtailing collective bargaining for labor unions, it has transcended them to include social policy as well; as the continuing siege on women’s reproductive rights is a shameful testament to.
…such radicalism must be addressed. In the event that Walker were to lose, the national party …would most certainly promote a more temperate dialogue.
…Throughout this year’s primaries, [Romney] was left with little choice other than to pose as a rock ribbed rightist; an cringeworthy feat that produced a plethora of unintentionally comedic moments.
Following a Walker loss, the far right would become almost completely devoid of political capital. Consequently, its ability to tack Romney down to a host of extremist positions should vanish. The Tea Party, which originally functioned as a positive influence of fiscal restraint during an era of runaway government spending, has morphed into a strange hybrid of the Religious Right and the John Birch Society. One of Walker’s most prominent supporters, its current incarnation might be decisively repudiated in the event that its star politico is sent packing.
As a Republican in the vein of Dwight Eisenhower and Nelson Rockefeller, I believe that this is the best case scenario. Of course, a great deal of those on the far right may threaten to leave the GOP and start their own party in the event of a centrist shift. If that is what they wish, then no one should try to stop them. After a few election cycles yielding returns no higher than five percent of the popular vote, they ought to get the message that extremism is anything but a virtue.
…the Party’s temper has reached the point of this becoming an absolute necessity. Hopefully, not too far down the line, said scenario will be rendered obsolete, as adequate room will have been made inside of the supposedly big tent for not only differing viewpoints, but that nagging inconvenience known as reality.
The sooner this can be accomplished, the brighter America’s horizon stands to shine.
wt:
“The Conscience of a Realist
From special elections to Hollywood trends to foreign trade policies, there is always something happening across the American landscape. Trying to find out about any of it, though, often results in hearing about more personal views than actual news. This is why it has become so necessary for a place where the hard facts can be identified and discussed, wether they tilt to the left, right, or stand tall in the center. Welcome to ‘The Conscience of a Realist’.
Author
Joseph F. Cotto is a scholar and columnist from central Florida. His views might be best summed up by the famous quote from former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Benjamin Disraeli; “Conservative to retain what is beneficial for society and progressive in terms of doing away with that which is simply not up to par.”
A former reporter and merchandiser, a combination so unique it could only be an American story, he is at work on a book about contemporary culture.”
yahoo:
Joseph Cotto
“Joseph Cotto is an entrepreneur and current events columnist from Central Florida. Most often writing about political affairs, he is a member of the all-but-extinct Rockefeller wing of the Republican Party, taking conservative stances on fiscal and national security issues while being a staunch centrist on social matters. For several years, he was an accredited reporter for Wikinews, Wikipedia’s news subsidiary. There, he covered major stories such as the 2008 presidential election and interviewed personalities ranging from former U.S. senators to filmmakers. He is currently working on a book about the state of American politics.”
In other news, FoxNews radio is saying that Obama and France’s new socialist president are on the same page, saying that now is not the time to stop spending.
Because of the growth and stimulation, of course, which of necessity follows producing wealth out of thin air.
QED
“Run out of other people’s money? Pish tosh! It isn’t other people’s money, and letting them think it is would be uncivilized!”
And then Steyn perfectly delineates the narcissistic imaginings of Elizabeth Warren and BAR-ack Obama, both of whom out-Gatsby Gatsby.
Leigh, you listening? You telling me that inventing one’s own identity (without possessing a real one at one’s core) isn’t consistent with clinical narcissism? Who else but a narcissist goes to such measures to be someone else for real (unlike actors, who don’t pretend that they’re not pretending).
Blast, format malfunction.
I did discover the whereabouts of Gandelman’s dummy, though.
Of course I’m listening, di. Yes, they are classical narcissists, both ’em. I was thinking about Buh-rock the other day (yeesh) and I think he is actually a psychopath or, at the very least (since I haven’t spoken to him personally), has psychopathic tendencies. He is pinging all the targets: narcissism, hedonism for two.
Anyway, for the record, hedonists are also great at creating alternates to their real selves. I do think that Buh-rock (Michelle pronunciation, there) is more of a narcissist, though. Michelle? Hedonist.
404 error on your link, di.
Steyn’s perfect delineation.
Who wants to bet somebody at the EPA was just lazily spending our dime Googling “Bristol Palin” before this particular preemptive regulation got slapped on part of Bristol Bay?
Here’s an update on my tree-clearing.
Here’s what it looked like just after clearing out the tree.
Here’s the after shot from one angle and then from another, and then closer in and the extreme close-up.
Some of the best money I ever spent, cutting down those trees. My flower guys are happier than clams at high tide. One guy spent two years languishing without enough sun and now look at him!
Oops! Sorry for the bad link.
Here’s the good one.
It also would have helped to notice that guinspen sussed it out.
OK, mes amis, is it going to be Bodemeister or I’ll Have Another?
di,
The CinC thinks he’s Adrian Veidt.
He’s got the narcissism down pat, but he lacks the genius part.
What’s worse is that he probably thinks that story had a happy ending.
Nice garden, btw.
LYBD: I had to look up Adrian Veidt. Looks like I’ll have to turn in what’s left of my geek card.
What’s worse is that he probably thinks that story had a happy ending.
He doesn’t have the ability to perceive it otherwise. If he’s defeated in the elections, it won’t be his fault, and he’ll recast it as being set free from a menial position to rise to a greater one, cf. Al Gore, Savior of the World.
psychopathic tendencies
I don’t know what those are, exactly, nor how to differentiate them from sociopathy. Do both pathologies lack a conscience? Which one doesn’t hesitate to destroy or even kill those who get in their way?
You’d think I’d know this after 7 seasons of Criminal Minds, but no.
HA!
If you saw the Kentucky Derby, you’ve also seen Preakness.
Bodemeister leads the pack until the last second, then I’ll Have Another gains on him and wins by a nose.
Re psychopath/sociopath: assuming (ASS U ME disclaimer implied) their meanings and etymologies are at all related, I’d expect sociopathy to be expressed in one’s ability to relate to others, while psychopathy could theoretically be entirely self-contained.
A sociopath alone on a deserted island would function just fine, but a psychopath’s trouble could be turned to self-destruction.
I am not a psychologist so I have no idea whether these notions are either accurate or useful.
OT, but directly dealing with government as too powerful.
At Washingtonpost.com, in the opinion section, check out George Will’s article “when government is the looter”.Scary stuff.
Sorry I’m unable to directly link, but it’s worth a look.
Pretty good, McGehee and all from your armchair. Well done!
Psychopaths differ in degree, as well. Obama is particularly dangerous as he is the POTUS and, as we have already seen, able to run rough-shod over our Constitution and wage war on countries who piss him off or are strategically valuable as “allies” in his grand scheme the aim of which perhaps even he doesn’t quite know yet.
He devalues his personal and professional relationships and sees other merely as a means to an end. When they are no longer useful to him, he discards them. He will have another target waiting in the wings before hand, though.
Both socio and psychopaths do not love or even think about anyone other than themselves.
Looks like I’ll have a reason to watch the Belmont this year.
I’d love to see a triple crown winner. It’s been a long time.
When the looter is the government
…he’ll recast it as being set free from a menial position to rise to a greater one, cf. Al Gore, Savior of the World.
Ha!
Like Bill Clinton would ever let that shit happen.
Somewhere in Dallas or Crawford a certain former President is laughing his ass off.
And Dick Cheney has a new heart which will let him live for another 100 years.
Also, he still thinks we’re all sheltered idiots.
A sociopath alone on a deserted island would function just fine, but a psychopath’s trouble could be turned to self-destruction.
Since we’re on a deserted island, I’m gonna wait and see what the two of ’em do to that coconut over there.
Then I’ll decide which one to kill and eat first.
I am not a psychologist…
No…you’re not.
But only because you have exceptional common sense and look really good in a straw hat.
Also, this happened.
Seems Chief High Cheeks wasn’t the only progressive to pad a resume when useful.
This particular resume is a bit more controversial though.
Dale: I can’t believe that article is real.
But sadly I know it is.
I hate promoting it, but it is simply that bad that I feel compelled to do so.
Looked to me like I’ll Have Another won by at least a head.
From the looks of things, Cotto is hardly a Republican and certainly not a conservative, fiscal or otherwise.
Why don’t conservatives declare themselves liberal Democrats and write pieces excoriating Obama, etc.?
cotto rhymes with rino no?
Because there’s no market for that niche.
So we truly are doomed? I thought so….
bh,
No one told me about this in B school:
link
I hate promoting it, but it is simply that bad that I feel compelled to do so.
Jesus.
That picture of Cotto.
That picture belongs on a Greta Van Susteren/ Nancy Grace show detailing a person of interest in the case of “this month’s missing/ probably murdered blonde girl”.
He looks like my creepy high school English teacher.
That picture says a lot. It sort of explains that article.
While everything Jeff says is true, we are still better off than with Barack Obama in office.
And after that Cotto article, I am not buying any more flowers on any street corners. That is for damn sure!
cotto rhymes with the failed brand de soto and new coke
Throwing another log on the fire.
OT:
The publishing firm Barack Obama used required the authors to submit their own biographical information written in 3rd person to be used to promote their book.
Throwing another log on the fire.
if baracky loses i’m sure the destruction of fed gov’t property will be amazing
Sheesh! It’s like he has his own wall o’ celebrities at his deli or something.
Wotta putz.
“That picture of Cotto.
That picture belongs on a Greta Van Susteren/ Nancy Grace show detailing a person of interest in the case of “this month’s missing/ probably murdered blonde girl”.”
No most of the Great “killers” look more like this:
http://www.dailystab.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/great.jpg
And people talk about how NORMAL they seemed and marvel at how they could turn possibly turn out to be such a brutal killer. (As opposed to a polite, humane, thoughtful killer?)
Guys like Cotto write “articles” for those free local tabloids that tell you what bands are playing at what bars for the week and have two politics articles so the bead-hippies can feel smart while they check out the Hookah bar coupons and look for the Ted Rall cartoon. They are called drips and polit-weenies. They have long walked amongst us. They are like nerds but more “serious” and don’t have any Spider-man statues in the attic. But they do have a bolo tie for THOSE KINDS OF PARTIES after volunteering with a political campaign. They are the guys who order the five piece chicken nuggets because they need to lose weight but then ask if you are going to finish your fries in that “you’re a heartless bastard if you are” voice.
I posted a comment on the Cotto commentary…
All you need to know about Mr. Cotto:
The liberal Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel editorial board is officially against his recall.
http://m.jsonline.com/news/opinion/we-recommend-walker-his-removal-isnt-justified-l55ecb6-152111305.html
They point out some valuable arguments the so-con-phobic Joey didn’t. Like, we don’t want to have recall elections on policy differences.
I think jdw’s right: Cotto has to be a moby.
What I don’t get how come y’alls don’t get the contrapositive of Cotto’s righteous claim to his republican party faith, i.e. that it’s actually y’alls that aren’t republicans? Why rail at this twerp Cotto? He’s merely voicing what the republican party has become.
Better, look to yourselves and your own political beliefs, then look to find or make a representative party which will properly fulfill those beliefs in action. Such a party will never be this republican party. Why not face this fact and turn away toward a positive direction?
“No most of the Great “killers” look more like this:”
Great “killers” was supposed to read Greta “killers”. I don’t think murderers are great, with a capitol G, just because they got on TV. I was trying to imply that Greta’s ‘ongoing unsolved brutal murder and death investigation show’ format practically brands killers as Greta’s killers. I think Scott Peterson was the first one I really noticed her flogging even after the guy was executed. And she couldn’t let go of theories that Anna Nicole Smith was murdered either. Or Michael Jackson. or that woman who disappeared on a cruise.
She has thankfully gone in a more political interview direction lately. Now it’s more “Greta’s candidates and ex candidates”.
Surely it’s problematical about the politics though, seeing as Greta knows about as much about politics as any random gerbil?
Are you sure you aren’t thinking of Angry Nancy Grace flogging her Murderer of the Week™? Cripes, Casey Anthony was “Tot Mom” for damned near a year. I don’t watch her show, but read snippets of the transcripts now and again on HLN’s website.
If I hear Greta say “WhatI find curious…” one more time, you’ll hear me scream all the way to Texas.
Greta is a Scientologist, fwiw. I discount nearly everything she says since she is also a lawyer and talks like a dem.
I’m only published for my technical writing. I never tried to get any stories I’ve written published. Then again, I’ve read published stuff that’s crap, so I really don’t consider being published either a necessary or sufficient condition for being good. My writing has been praised by my peers when they didn’t have to praise it because they gained nothing from doing so.
Also, I’m my own harshest critic.
You know what, though? People can believe whatever the fuck they want to. I’m quite tired of assertions thrown around backed by nothing, but I think I’ll stop countering them. Have fun.
Wrong thread. Fuck it.
Cranky, I was just curious. I write all the time and am too timid to look for a publisher.
I didn’t pick this name by accident.
Boy howdy. You need a girlfriend, my friend.
Thanks for your input. I shall give it all the consideration it’s due.
Just trying to be helpful.
That article totally made me want to go fishing. I’m serious. I must get this out of my system. I want to kill a salmon so bad I can taste it already. Just one, then that’s it. I think the trick is to catch them before they go wiggling back to these places, though, well before that, before the transformation and flapping back to these shallow waters and their deterioration. It’s all over Animal Planet.
I kinda like topics being on other threads.
Not sure how to put this forcefully without going overboard but I do agree with cranky on this topic pretty strongly. Look, we’re a few thousand years past the division of labor so it’s not like we really have to figure out which thing is harder. People can gravitate towards what they’re good at and like.
We have an imbalance though. The America that staffed NASA and gave Boeing every engineer it needed no longer gives that respect for those folks. Granted, it doesn’t really matter on the personal level because making great money makes up the esteem to wages difference nicely. At the aggregate level though, we do find ourselves in a place where technical fields can’t get the people they need. This is a big deal.
Likewise, it’s a big deal that there are plenty of trades that need people and we’re doing nothing to direct people with those aptitudes into those jobs.
Is is a function of the war on men in education? Is it a product of their march through the institutions? Is it something else I’m not smart enough to figure out?
No idea.
I do know that people who would make more money learning a trade are going into debt to learn nothing of value now. I do know that we pretend the world needs an unlimited number of cultural critics and quite few structural engineers.
It’s a problem. Cranky isn’t talking noise.
I’m not clear that it was suggested that STEM degrees are less than. I certainly never said that and didn’t mean to imply it, if I did.
The first real dis I read about liberal studies/arts/sciences degrees came from an infrequent commentor the other day. If liberal arts equals basket-weaving and N studies to some, that’s unfortunate.
We all need to respect each others career choices and challenges. The world needs barbers and bakers, too. Having a business degree before or after you go to barber college or culinary school is terrific, but not always attainable for some people, nor do they desire it.
On the other hand there are people like me who are interested in just about everything and have spent many years and a lot of money learning for the sake of learning. In that learning process, I have learned a lot about myself and about the things I do and don’t enjoy and, yes, Cranky, hate.
I’ve done a lot of this studying for myself, but primarily for my children’s sakes. My family is not educated and is self-taught in the trades. We lived like nomads until I was in high school and I swore I would do my damnedest that my kids have a better life and more advantages. So far, so good.
Sorry for the long post.
I think that’s great, leigh, I really do.
What cranky is reacting to though is ‘feets saying something silly like it’s way harder to write a short story than doing something in a Poindexter field and then other people agreeing as a matter of course.
That’s an empty assertion and it’s the sort of assertion that people let slide all the time. If someone wanted to forcefully rebut that they have to sorta be a dick about it. As in, there’s a reason why people who pass calc much less often say, “Do you want fries with that?” People don’t to be dicks though. I don’t. Cranky doesn’t. No one does.
Does that matter to anyone here in any real sense? Of course not. It’s in the aggregate sense where it might matter and when we look at the current state of affairs we see that, yes, we really do have a problem here.
Sorry for two long posts.
Thanks, bh. You’ve bootstrapped yourself very well, too.
I know where cranky is coming from and ‘feets (bless his heart, God love it) says stupid shit like that all the time, so it’s really best not to take it to heart. That said, I totally get why it pissed cranky off. One of my friends earned her Ph.D. when she was only 27 and her mother told her “Well, you’re not a real doctor, you know.” At least my ma never said shit like that, although she does tell me all the time that anyone can be a psychologist because it’s “just common sense.”
So, group hug?
I was the cog psych minor so you should direct the clinical group hugs and I’ll sit on the other side of the glass and see if I notice any strange anomalies.
Heh. That’s me, too: cognitive/behavioral. I really dislike doing therapy. Too many whiny bitches of both sexes for my tastes. My deal is research. It keeps me from having to play nice with others.
What cranky is reacting to though is ‘feets saying something silly like it’s way harder to write a short story than doing something in a Poindexter field and then other people agreeing as a matter of course.
Happyfeet actually said that?
CBT in the house!
We had to put in clinic hours as observers for lab (not a lot) and it freaked me out. I couldn’t do it.
Yeah, Abe. Somewhere in that other thread about dudes who bang lots of chicks without a rubber.
Try working with juveniles in the locked ward at name your state’s detention center who are being held for murdering classmates or family and would just as soon cut you to bits as look at you.
I did an internship there, twenty-eight weeks of terror. It changed my tune about firearms.
Abe, it’s on the other thread about the priapic dad.
I suppose he reckons that not being good at anything gives him a good outsider’s perspective on what is and isn’t difficult.
People who work on the periphery of show business have a tendency to value the superficial.
yes I realize college kids frequently bang out awesome short stories like Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Hills Like White Elephants in the cafeteria betwixt engineering classes we just don’t hear about it cause of the biased lamestream media
What are you babbling about?
Writing a good short story is very difficult. But there’s also not much of a market for them nowadays. Which is why some of us stopped bothering.
If you think the Clintons trashed the WH on their way out, wait til you see these fuckers. They’ll strip the place of copper and take all the light fixtures.
stocks in short stories fell to day in tokyo
yes it is very hard I think I do not know why that sort of assertion is so controversial
if it makes people feel better I think doing the physics can be very hard too it’s just different is all and reading people’s sucky physics is painful I’m sure but I doubt it’s very often described as mortifying or cringe-inducing
You should bang out a series of PI novels, Jeff, with a lot of sex and shooting. That genre is due for a renaissance.
To hell with art, formulaic novels would go like hotcakes at the airport kiosks.
last airport book i got was about robots what up and kill everybody on a very flimsy pretext it was a decent read I never thought about robot apocalypse in that much detail before
I love crap books like that for reading on the beach or airplanes. If you forget them in your hotel room or drop them in the surf, you don’t really care.
Your assertion isn’t controversial so much as it is vapid.
right I left American Gods on a plane about 100 pages from the end and I was just fine with that … especially after I googled the ending
boy that went a whole lotta nowhere
It’s hard to write a good short story and it’s also hard to design a good bridge.
It’s claiming that somehow this one skill set is the chosen, difficult craft that rankles.
that is your opinion Mr. Froman and you can suck it
well it shouldn’t rankle Mr. bh it was never my intention to rankle, you see
I check out movies on imdb’s database a lot to see if they’re worth watching, the same way.
Cheesy horror flicks? Fuck yeah!
it was just my way of saying of a sunday hey writing a decent short story is harder than a lot of people maybe appreciate
The odds of my engineering friends being able to write a good story are much better than the odds of any English major I know being useful on Gilligan’s Island.
Writers (as a fill-in for this class) are mocked for being hopeless romantics, toiling away for nothing. Engineers (as the fill-in for this class) are mocked as dickless, gray machines.
Neither group is the problem here. It’s the people who put their fingers on the scale. Back in the ’50s it was one way. It’s the other now.
i rather toss a “well” written short story off a structurally sound bridge than visaversa
writing a decent short story is harder than a lot of people maybe appreciate
a gay robot helps
I saw Gene Cernan the other day on the teevee talking about how we’ve pissed away the space program and how it was shameful that we were relying on the Rooshins to fly our
cosmoastronauts to the space station.Times surely have changes.
It doesn’t rankle me personally, ‘feets. I appreciate fiction writers a good deal and I sometimes park my car to appreciate a beautiful bridge.
My concern is that the price of short stories is through the floor and the price of bridges is sky-rocketing.
That’s where my class comes in. We are not in a pleasant equilibrium here.
Writing is only hard if you don’t have a voice. None of my friends really bother writing long emails these days, but it was amusing for quite a while to notice how much natural talent for it some of my friends had, while others – who write for a living – couldn’t be so much as witty without my hearing the gears grinding behind them.
I reckon writing is hard (as a thing you sell, to trade for food with and such) when it’s been the general policy of the country to flood your field with losers year after year who offer their occasionally adequate services for free. They do this in great numbers.
I reckon I didn’t reckon that. Just observed it.
After a quick google search, I’ve satisfied myself that this isn’t our current circumstance with engineers.
I have theories about this.
“happyfeet says May 20, 2012 at 6:50 pm
yes I realize college kids frequently bang out awesome short stories like Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Hills Like White Elephants in the cafeteria betwixt engineering classes we just don’t hear about it cause of the biased lamestream media”
On the one hand we have pithy short stories by Hawthorne and Hemingway. On the other hand, we have IC’s, fuel chemistry, fluid dynamics, and the 747.
Yeah but we know where all the REAL complexity is.
I never liked Hemingway. He was no Joseph Conrad, that’s for sure.
Not everyone is Michael Crittendon, pala. Or Carl Sagan.
I should point out that what makes a bad short story is more a matter of opinion, stylistic preference, fashion, and audience than many would care to admit. Stuff like Twilight still makes a boat load of money.
A bad structure fails.
There’s a whole lot of no math in most fiction writing. That’s what I was promised, and they kept their promise.
Again, we figured this out thousands of years ago with the division of labor. Do what you’re good at and enjoy and trade with others making different decisions.
We don’t have to put The Sun Also Rises on a scale against aluminum car frames. We can have both.
Putting things on scales and making choices in the aggregate like there is some sort of answer here is the problem. (Washington has been known to make such mistakes. It’s making one now in this regard.)
Carl Sagan was a pious anti-nuke bullshitter before he was writing fiction. That kind of really soured me on him. Of course he was mainly an astronomer. He did do some astrophysics though which can be pretty tough and interdisciplinary. I never read Contact though. I saw the movie. I’m told the movie changed a lot of stuff.
Michael Crichton wrote some interesting procedural “spec-fic” (fancier pointy headier version of sci-fi) stuff but he had this goofy teleporting T-rex that would beat the protagonists downstream after they escaped on the river somehow. Of course I only read two ‘Jurassic Park’ novels s from him and ‘The Andromeda Strain’. I always meant to read Congo and Sphere but never did.
Yeah, I really do like The Sun Also Rises.
More than a bridge?
Shut up.
I’m just saying there’s no mandated safety inspection certification procedure for short fiction. On the other hands there might not be as much cost overrun for short fiction either. I’d certainly like to think so anyway.
Dude # 1: It’s like, I wrote this story, and these two people are waiting for a train and one of them is trying to talk the other one into getting an abortion and it’s all deep n’ shit. And it like ruins the vacation and shows them how superficial their world traveling, fuck buddy, good times, rock and rol,l relationship is…
Dude #2 with tape on glasses: What? NO! I’ve been a fool! I’ve wasted my precious time trying to find a better way to feed copper wire into a MIG welder head. Anybody could do that. My cat could do it. I’ll never be a well respected renaissance man! I’m nothing but a child’s calculator! I have no soul! Solving problems requires no creativity or critical awareness! What was I thinking? Robots can do my job!
Settle down, big fella. Machinists often get no credit for inventing time-saving procedures, either.
Life’s a bowl a cherries if you throw away the pits.
And a bowl of duck soup is just two bits.
bh, if you can figure out a way to monetize being a whining hippie, we may have this whole thing solved.
Deepak Chopra figured out how to monetize being a whining hippie. I think maybe so did Oprah.
So did Andy Cohen, big cheese at Bravo.
short fiction:
“a kenyan walks into a coffee shop and orders an axelrod. hilarity ensues.”
You’re trying to see if I’m holding ganja, aren’t you? I’m on to you, narc.
You have to tell me you’re a cop if I ask. I saw that in a movie.
I don’t know, Abe. I think I’d rather have a pre-Lupus Flannery O’Connor with me on Gilligan’s Island than the Professor. So long as I had a book like this. And one of them pocket chainsaws.
President Ronald Reagan – Liberty State Park [Pt. 1]
The pocket chainsaw and the survival book are cheating, I think. People don’t take things like that on a three hour tour, they bring trunks of money and books about botany.
On some of your better islands it’s considered cheating for women to wear clothes.
I’m just throwing that out there.