Crow's Eye: Maintaining a commitment to Pointless Acrimony™ and Hate Filled Invective™! Also available in corvid mischief and traditional sly dog's mistrust.
"...it's not the training to be mean but the training to be kind that is used to keep us leashed best." ~ Black Dog Red
"In case you haven't recognized the trend: it proceeds action, dissent, speech." ~ davidly, on how wars get done
"...What sort of meager, unerotic existence must a man live to find himself moved to such ecstatic heights by the mundane sniping of a congressional budget fight. The fate of human existence does not hang in the balance. The gods are not arrayed on either side. Poseiden, earth-shaker, has regrettably set his sights on the poor fishermen of northern Japan and not on Washington, D.C. where his ire might do some good--I can think of no better spot for a little wetland reclamation project, if you know what I mean. The fight is neither revolution nor apocalypse; it is hardly even a fight. A lot of apparatchiks are moving a lot of phony numbers with more zeros than a century of soccer scores around, weaving a brittle chrysalis around a gross worm that, some time hence, will emerge, untransformed, still a worm." ~ IOZ
Jan 3, 2012
Guffaw
"American women face a stark choice in the Iowa caucuses: re-elect feminist President Barack Obama who has advanced equality or caucus for a Republican who pledges to roll back generations of progress."
obama is a feminist??? lol, he sure had me fooled.
(unless, of course, the younger pelosi means obama, like bush, justifies wars of aggression by appealing to an imperial feminism -- like, we gotta liberate all those women who are forced to where veils and cant go to school etc etc.)
I'd say she does have something close to a point...while Obama is a pandering asshole who will likely muddle along with the status quo at best, the Republicans are actively trying to achieve a judicial majority that will overturn Roe v. Wade. ~
She means the kind of feminism that's determined by answering a set of questions in Cosmo that will tell you the type of person you are. "Do you tell your friends that you girls should like have the right the to choose?" Yes "Do you think girls are as smart as dudes?" Yes "Do you wear a bra?" No
Based on your answers: You are SO a Riot grrrrrrl!
Breaking the gears of American racism/sexism/classism/ imperialism/fascism means instituting percussive maintenance to the machine, not just changing engineers.
I've been thinking about your posts (not this one in particular, but your posts in general), and I've been wondering about the genre it falls into...
Is it not fair to say that your posts, and perhaps even so many blogs in general, fall into the genre of the "secular sermon"?
I mean, the fiery language, the exhortations, the thundering periods -- are these perhaps designed to fill a void left in secular America from the lack of a sermonizing tradition?
Anarchist firebrand, I think. It's not really a persona, because I'm rather shy and retiring in person. It just happens to be my political voice, as it were.
I spent several years as a lay preacher, though. Trained with a Baptist minister in Western Mass, doing street preaching. Had a "mission" in Maine, for a bit.
Learned cadence, the tap-tap-and-tap of the rhetorical list, and some traditional Biblical exhortation.
Only really comes out in my writing - or as my kids would gladly tell you - when I think I've got something important and parental to say to my children.
I've written a bit about "text-only personas," and take some exception to the characterization of yours as "not really a persona" simply because you don't literally speak in your writing voice.
Writing's still a spooky business, I think, for many of the same reasons I expect it was spooky 5,000 years ago when words were first disincarnated, freed from lips and throats, and shown able to maintain a disembodied existence. All these centuries later, every child is taught how to "see ghosts," how to conjure words without breath, words that are, so we _say_, mightier than the sword.
Wow, what interesting news! I didn't know that you had, in fact, had some experience as a lay preacher.
I agree that "anarchist firebrand" is the best description -- but I am, to some extent, a big fan of the sermonizing tradition! It's good some of those features make their way into your prose.
I finally had enough time to read the whole of your essay on text-only personae.
I don't know if we can agree entirely, but I think I understand the point you've made.
I think where we differ is perhaps in how we approach personality itself. I do not believe in it, in the end. I think our thoughts and self-impressions are epiphenomena.
12 comments:
obama is a feminist??? lol, he sure had me fooled.
(unless, of course, the younger pelosi means obama, like bush, justifies wars of aggression by appealing to an imperial feminism -- like, we gotta liberate all those women who are forced to where veils and cant go to school etc etc.)
That is some complex mental gymnastics right there.
I'd say she does have something close to a point...while Obama is a pandering asshole who will likely muddle along with the status quo at best, the Republicans are actively trying to achieve a judicial majority that will overturn Roe v. Wade.
~
She means the kind of feminism that's determined by answering a set of questions in Cosmo that will tell you the type of person you are.
"Do you tell your friends that you girls should like have the right the to choose?" Yes
"Do you think girls are as smart as dudes?" Yes
"Do you wear a bra?" No
Based on your answers: You are SO a Riot grrrrrrl!
Breaking the gears of American racism/sexism/classism/ imperialism/fascism means instituting percussive maintenance to the machine, not just changing engineers.
Percussive maintenance? Color me Jack's complete love of that phrase.
Jack,
I've been thinking about your posts (not this one in particular, but your posts in general), and I've been wondering about the genre it falls into...
Is it not fair to say that your posts, and perhaps even so many blogs in general, fall into the genre of the "secular sermon"?
I mean, the fiery language, the exhortations, the thundering periods -- are these perhaps designed to fill a void left in secular America from the lack of a sermonizing tradition?
Pharrell,
Anarchist firebrand, I think. It's not really a persona, because I'm rather shy and retiring in person. It just happens to be my political voice, as it were.
I spent several years as a lay preacher, though. Trained with a Baptist minister in Western Mass, doing street preaching. Had a "mission" in Maine, for a bit.
Learned cadence, the tap-tap-and-tap of the rhetorical list, and some traditional Biblical exhortation.
Only really comes out in my writing - or as my kids would gladly tell you - when I think I've got something important and parental to say to my children.
Jack --
I've written a bit about "text-only personas," and take some exception to the characterization of yours as "not really a persona" simply because you don't literally speak in your writing voice.
http://www.shiftjournal.com/2009/09/25/the-internet-and-the-iceberg-whole/
Writing's still a spooky business, I think, for many of the same reasons I expect it was spooky 5,000 years ago when words were first disincarnated, freed from lips and throats, and shown able to maintain a disembodied existence. All these centuries later, every child is taught how to "see ghosts," how to conjure words without breath, words that are, so we _say_, mightier than the sword.
:-D
Wow, what interesting news! I didn't know that you had, in fact, had some experience as a lay preacher.
I agree that "anarchist firebrand" is the best description -- but I am, to some extent, a big fan of the sermonizing tradition! It's good some of those features make their way into your prose.
Mark,
I haven't had the chance to read the link yet. More when I do.
Pharrell,
I enjoyed that time of my life. It was eventful. I don't believe the faith assertions anymore, but the camaraderie and "fellowship" where genuine.
Mark,
I finally had enough time to read the whole of your essay on text-only personae.
I don't know if we can agree entirely, but I think I understand the point you've made.
I think where we differ is perhaps in how we approach personality itself. I do not believe in it, in the end. I think our thoughts and self-impressions are epiphenomena.
But, maybe we don't really differ, too.
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