“I just think it’s rather odd that a nation that prides itself on its virility should feel compelled to strap on forty pounds of protective gear just in order to play rugby.” – Rupert Giles

1.
A world without culture shock. Or a world without culture? from @dbirdy

2.
An argument for a full-time Mayor? from @meckdeck

3.
Talk to yourself. from @crystaldempsey

4.
I am the Law. from @underoak

5.
Worry words. from @meckcharlotte

RELEVANT QUOTE:
“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.”
~ Ernest Hemingway

6.
Pay? For News? Nonsense. from @tommytomlinson

7.
Great new blog, Studio C. from @WFAE

8.
This one is a couple weeks old, but not getting stale. from @cheriwiles

9.
Attack of the Hiatus.  from @lisahoffmann

ASIDE: One thing everybody needs to know about blogs is that you can take sabbaticals.  You can let it sit there for months on end. And all it takes to get back into the game is one post. Just One Post and you’re swimming with the rest of us Real Time junkies like you never lost your Web legs.

10.
Direct action through blogging. from @marynewsom

So, the Obz hired a new business columnist. Weird, right? I’m guessing (ack! guessing?! only bloggers guess!) they hired a new scribe to analyze the business scene after BofA announced they wouldn’t build a new bigass skyscraper somewhere else. But even more ironic in this cost cutting frenzy of an age (in which “age” = 2 years) is what was said during a meet-n-greet online chat. I asked the new guy, Ron Stodghill is his name, if he planned to include new media tools such as blogging and tweeting in his reporter’s bag o’ tricks. I’m paraphrasing myself because I typed the question with my phone in between pouring draft beers at work.  But isn’t that amazing and futuristic that I was able to see this response appear on a device in the palm of my hand :

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Is the Web something we need to learn to tame? Is it in sore need of domestication? Is it uncivilized? Well, yes.  And hopefully it will always be this way: a heaping interwoven mess of primary source opinion, analysis and chronicling.

Stodghill, whose new business blog “The Bottom Line” drips with anticipation, is also a teacher at Queens University. By the way, Queens University is the same place the Obz is hosting a conference on Social Media. It’s sold out, so I plan on gate crashing.  Maybe I’ll get expelled.

We all want purpose. Not A Purpose, but purpose. You’re not born with it. It doesn’t find you. And you don’t find it. It’s history. It’s how you tell your story. It’s how you look at the glass. It’s how you reach out to others. It’s how you handle Opinion Feeders who don’t know how to cultivate multiple sources of input. (By the way, wouldn’t it be nice if those multiple sources genuinely communicated with one another? Maybe agreed on just a few facts? If you ask me, that would make this News thing easier.)

I don’t like writing posts (or speaking in ways) that generalize the great gadget-obsessed society that is America. But if I do generalize, I would rather generalize on the whole rather than dismantle This Land segment-by-segment-by-denomination-by-camp-by-party-by-school… My grade school teachers performed their basic job well. They inculcated me to the glorious notion of the harmonious republic, free from the tyranny of Kings and birthplace of unfettered communication. Part of my publicly educated brain will forever believe my blessed country is a melting pot where ideas flow as freely and rapidly from one human being to the next as the ever rising sun.

I attended a Liberal Arts school for a spell and got my fill of “Americans are so…” from a few people oblivious of their citizenship and the rights that citizenship encapsulated (of course, to be free of all citizenship would be a glorious liberation).  Rebellious disagreement, skeptical patriotism, institutional disillusionment, even for their own sake, are great fun, even necessary from time to time. But as I’ve been paying attention, really paying attention, to the political process for the first time in my life I’ve come to notice something.

We all listen closely for the muffled voice.  That is why many of us are more easily swayed with AGAINST arguments than FOR arguments. We like being on the side of the oppressed. Every time anyone fights for what is right and good and just, there have been those who wish to silence, sequester and slaughter them. It seems there is a narrative we cannot expunge from the historical record. There is a theme steeped within the national tapestry which we cannot wring out. Oppression breeds purpose. Struggle outlines freedom. In America we hate to feel even the slightest gravity of oppression. However, when we feel wronged, we feel right.

It’s the devastation in Haiti, or ‘Hell in Haiti’ as CNN reported, that’s grabbing our attention for the week. If you live on the web and talk serious about the Conan stuff or the Palin on Fox thing you’re gonna seem a little out of touch, or at least in need of some reprioritization. When something tragic like this happens, you help. And I’m thinking all the media attention isn’t over the top. The Attention is the least we can offer. Out of respect of a multitude of human beings’ tragedy, we must at least watch their suffering, we must acknowledge their pain, we must nod knowingly and in agreement that such a terrible thing is happening.

That said, here’s my personal reaction:

I see the rubble. I see the limp bodies covered in dust. I see the wailing, the blank staring and the blood. I see it as a package on repeat above me at work on a flat screen TV. And I think about how I’m supposed to feel. Well, that sucks for them. Glad it isn’t me. Wonder what it would be like to take a couple weeks off and clear debris. To find somebody’s relative, thought dead and lost, to be alive and well. Could always be worse. Right? It’s times like these that make me feel OK I have a job I sometimes cuss about. Right? No. Times like this define the pointlessness. It takes a clear shape. This quake, joyless and pointless. But people can be saved from such things. I wonder, what would it take for me to appreciate what I have right now. Anything short of a letter informing me this is the way it’s gonna be forever, or an earthquake, might not be enough.

I am not a morning person. The best part of waking up is nonexistent. Here is a happy picture to balance this cynical disclosure.

Forgive me. I needed a better mobile blogging tool. The iPhone offers the best tech for adding multimedia to my posts as well as the best touch screen keyboard. It’s like punching a brick that knows to morph into a pillow at the last nanosecond to minimize bone breakage. I’ve been working more than ever at the restaurant. I need the money, of course, but don’t have much time to make it to blogworthy events. As much as I am interested in tech toys, I rarely buy them. My first choice would have been an Android phone, but AT&T charged the least for a deposit. Student loans and a forgotten medical bill during my attempt at collecting a Bachelor’s degree have reduced greatly my credit score. That a human life can be so heavily affected by three digits is a tragedy.

And that’s about the much of it.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Happy New Decade, y’all.

I had an art professor once, and only once. The class was Drawing 101. Even though I had no desire to be a drawer of things, I took the class anyway because a friend of mine was taking the class.  Exam time arrived and the professor instructed us that it was OK if we didn’t finish our drawings in the allotted time, but that we must do well with and take pride in what we could finish.  He propped up the life-size wooden dowel dummy in a chair on a desk. I scored and cross-hatched, erased and shaded. Time expired. On my large piece of canvas paper I had sketched an approximate image resembling that of a leg. Just a leg. I thought it was a damn good leg. But it wasn’t enough. I failed the exam. And I failed the class. Never stepped foot in the art building again.

I’ve linked to the Obz a couple times today.  Forgive me.  They’ve downsized recently, but they’ve regained some focus because of it.  They are a synecdoche of what they once were, like the leg I drew for my art exam.  They remain an important, though far from the only, venue for the sharing of ideas and reporting of events. The more the merrier.

For every voice, a venue; every venue, a voice.

Anyway, onward with the blog views…

1.
Released from the clutches of big media, Jeff Elder is finally free to blog about what he wants to blog about: celebrity lookalikes.

2.
Panthers middle linebacker Jon Beason on shared opinions. ‘Tis the season for distractions.

3.
Nice review of “Up in the Air” from Obz movie critic Lawrence Toppman.

4.
Copenhagen skills.

5.
She’s a man, baby. And he’s a woman.

6.
As if we didn’t have enough transients in Charlotte.

7.
I was disappointed the first time I walked into the Mint Museum and didn’t find exhibits of the histories of York and Andes and Altoids and those red and white discs. BTW, did you know the Mint Museum is expanding Uptown? The building is on Tryon beside the Polka Chicken (yes, I renamed it) and the Bechtler Museum.

8.
mmmmmm… Clean house.

9.
It doesn’t take an Iranian Cyber Army to break Twitter, it breaks fine on its own.

10.
Though plentiful in population, the Red Herring is rarely seen.  If you’re quiet, you might spot one roosting in its natural habitat over in The Meck Deck.