The terse writer aims at getting to the heart of the matter, to drive the point home. The verbose writer is just enamored with her own voice, each additional word a tribute to her own ego and not an aid to communication.
Fonts matter, too, of course, as do colors. Some writers ornament their words with orange, an obvious sign of intellectual stagnation. Cooler colors, such as baby blue, or powder blue, or even light blue, communicate the kind of seriousness that a serious writer needs to convey.
A writer at the peak of his powers will limit himself to 140 characters, with perhaps one associated link. Invective is important, as is frequent if calculated use of profanity. An occasional appearance of cats is the true signal of genius, as are pictures of grilled crustaceans.
The road traveled by the powder blue, cat-obsessed, crustacean crunching, one-liner generating author is the path that all others must follow. The ridiculousness of everyone else is apparent, their lack of humility on display.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Not Sure How Much It Really Matters
Or, even, if it's a new thing, but, yes, the elected Republicans are not servants of their base they are the base.
The Republican congressional delegation -- particularly the members of the House -- are completely creatures of the base. They are former state legislators and state senators who got elected to those offices espousing ideas that likely were further out there than the ones they're spouting now. In large part, they were raised within the base's political structures, both inside and outside of government. They are the product of a closed information society, with its own history and its own science and its own truth. To borrow a line from Jack Nicholson in The Last Detail, the Republican members of the House are the fking base, motherfker. They're not asking for permission to do the right thing, and they're certainly not waiting for this president to provide it. They're not posing. They are not doing what they're told. They're doing what they believe.
Gay People Are Everywhere!!!
Yes if you've ever been in a gym locker room where people change clothes, get naked, and shower in public or semi-public facilities you've already given a gay person an opportunity to check out your junk, whether they're interested in doing that or not.
The Otter Menace
Many people on the internets seem to think otters are cute and cuddly creatures.
My exposure to otters was to... giant otters. Those things are freaking scary.
My exposure to otters was to... giant otters. Those things are freaking scary.
Obedience and Control
Some people just do horrible things, but there's a strain of parental psychology such that (some) parents require extreme obedience from their children. It's weird.
Almost Verbatim Governor Corbett
Don't you understand that my state is filled with unemployed methheads?
Do Not Point And Laugh
People who express bigoted things must be respected!!!
Broussard didn't just say Jesus doesn't like gayness or that being gay was a sin, he said a gay person couldn't be a Christian. All kinds of sinners welcome, well almost all...
Broussard didn't just say Jesus doesn't like gayness or that being gay was a sin, he said a gay person couldn't be a Christian. All kinds of sinners welcome, well almost all...
Who Matters
Whom they care about:
The White House would not respond to a request for comment. Bill Burton, a former deputy White House press secretary for Obama, did not respond directly to Democrats’ concerns about the president’s move on entitlements.
”There is no doubt that Karl Rove and his allies will spend millions of dollars lying about what the President’s budget means in terms of the economic health of our country,” Burton, now a strategist for the Democratic public affairs firm Global Strategy Group, wrote in an email. “What we don’t know is just how much Democratic donors are going to stand up to those lies.”
Monday, April 29, 2013
Fancy Me
I actually went to El Celler de Can Roca, though years ago when it was a bit less well known and quite a bit less expensive.
Mussels, 5 different ways.
Mussels, 5 different ways.
Journamalism
I admit I find this to be deeply weird. Why the need for cut rate advertising to help them? You have the whole newspaper to do it for them.
Priorities
Our local weird curmudgeon has his annual diatribe against sidewalk seating out today.
He isn't totally wrong in that some restaurants do take more than they should away from pedestrians, but I'd prefer erring on the side of more outdoor seating rather than less. And it just isn't that important.
He isn't totally wrong in that some restaurants do take more than they should away from pedestrians, but I'd prefer erring on the side of more outdoor seating rather than less. And it just isn't that important.
I Have No Idea
Ed asks what can we do to improve Obamacare? I have no idea. Republicans aren't going to vote to improve it. HHS can do what it can to make the system as good as possible, especially for the states on the national exchange. Otherwise...?
It's another reason why a public option was key. Yes, of course, for liberals like me this was "stealth" single payer. Make a decent public option and eventually the rest of the system would whither away. But it was also important to make sure the administration had the power to make Obamacare good.
It's another reason why a public option was key. Yes, of course, for liberals like me this was "stealth" single payer. Make a decent public option and eventually the rest of the system would whither away. But it was also important to make sure the administration had the power to make Obamacare good.
Reporters Drive
And I get why they do, but it does mean that coverage of transportation issues is a wee bit skewed to the perspective of drivers, even in the ultimate urban hellhole, New York City.
It'll All Be Obamacare
The problem with the optimist's take on the implementation of Obamacare is that it leaves out the fact that our health insurance system sucks and at some point it will all be seen as Obamacare. Even if the legislation does genuinely improve the system overall, it'll still be a horrible system. A horrible system known as Obamacare.
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