I’ve got a schedule to keep–goals to hit for each day. Actually, I’m a full chapter behind (about 3 days), but I’ve only got three chapters left to rework/rewrite. Then it’s just two more rounds of edits so that I can send out the chapters to Jeff, another set after he sends them back… Okay, so there’s still some work to do, but my goal is to be done with this whole book by June. Thus, I hope you’ll forgive a few more tiny blog posts…like this one.
The Illusion of “Unbiased”
1st May 2012 | by Benjamin Herson
The idea of an unbiased media can be a trap. Fortunately, some in the journalism community (WaPo for one, Mann & Ornstein for another) have begun to figure that out, but they are few and far between. The media are supposed to act as referee, but part of that means throwing people in the penalty box for high-sticking, calling fouls, and sometimes ejecting players from the game. Being a ref means you try not to participate actively in the game–you’re not a player, but that doesn’t mean you’re just a spectator. More and more, journalists are sounding like spectators, in some cases they’re even the worst of the hecklers! More
The Talking Pineapple
23rd April 2012 | by Benjamin Herson
Recently, New York’s Daily News had what could only be called a nimrod flipout concerning a fable on the state exams and the reading comprehension questions that went along with them. Here is, as reported by them, the story in question (grammatical and punctuation mistakes included):
The Hare and the Pineapple
by Daniel Pinkwater
In olden times, the animals of the forest could speak English just like you and me. One day, a pineapple challenged a hare to a race.
(I forgot to mention, fruits and vegetables were able to speak too.) More
Gotta Keep Up
17th April 2012 | by Benjamin Herson
When we first moved to Portland, I searched the web for any details on the poetry scene here. We found an article about how Slam was just getting a reboot in the area. We live over in a suburb west of town. The venue that hosted the once-per-month slam was far over on the east side; we took a two-bus trip to get there and…were not impressed. The “poets” did mostly loud, ranting stuff that wasn’t all too poetic. It was a disappointing evening, and I meant to go back. But then I left the area to finish the book with Jeff in Massachusetts. Once we turned the manuscript in, we began focusing on marketing and the book tour. Jeff came over here as we created some promotional material. The book swallowed me up, and I don’t think I wrote any new poetry in 2010. Without a venue that excited me to pull me in, I let the poetry slam thing wane.
Little did I know that about the same time as we went on our book tour (possibly, this is just a guess on the timeline, as you’ll see below), I missed the whole show. A new venue (I think) sprang up, right in the middle of downtown, on my side of the river. More
Occupy The Watchtower
8th April 2012 | by Benjamin Herson
Occupy The Watchtower
“There must be some cops—move those kids out of there,” said the politician to the banker.
Because after they’ve crashed the world economy by a domino effect
That Communism could never have managed, I guess we’ll need clean parks more than ever before.
Oh, that’s perspective.
Hey man, take out look out the window— More
Lotto Fever
2nd April 2012 | by Benjamin Herson
4/2/12 Update: Perhaps the reason the video (mentioned below) had disappeared when I went looking for it so I could link to it has something to do with The Colbert Report from 3/29, which mocked the very same bad advice that I critique. Nice to know I’m on the same page as Stephen!
This seems like a perfect thing to talk about on April Fools’ Day. Ahh, the lottery. Yes, I spent a dollar for Friday’s drawing, and I’m going to tell you how I went about deciding that. What I really want to focus on, though, is innumeracy, which is means illiteracy, except for mathematics instead of reading. It’s a big problem in America. As the lotto jackpot got really huge, for Tuesday’s drawing it was up over $300 million, I came across a video on the ABC News website offering tips for how to win (I can no longer find the video, buried among the updates). Pretty much every bit of advice they gave was wrong. I mean irrational, illogical, and an absolute failure to understand basic concepts underlying the math. More
Stand Your Ground
25th March 2012 | by Benjamin Herson
Stand Your Ground.
No easier slogan. No simpler solution.
Baby food, digestible for those whose intellectual teeth haven’t come in yet.
What better metaphor than one that forgets to be metaphorical?
Simple times call for simpler people, and nothing could be closer to blowing out our brains
than a gun. More
Hard At Work
18th March 2012 | by Benjamin Herson
Two chapters a week is the rule. Currently, Jeff Deck and I have entered into an agreement. We both have full length books written that now need rewriting/editing, so over these next three months, we’re going to be flinging chapters back and forth at each other. If my blog entries get teeny-tiny for a little while…now you know why.
Avoid The Kindle
11th March 2012 | by Benjamin Herson
I’m not being a Luddite here. I may not like the disappearance of the physical book, but there’s nothing special about the printed word vs. the digital word. The important part is the data, and like music, that can be transmitted, kept, and carried along much more simply when stripped down to that essential. I’m a singularitarian at heart; I want my brain uploaded, so I’ve no essential problem with uploading books. There’s no reason the last invention of the Middle Ages (since the printing press pretty much kicked off the Renaissance) should be our preferred technology today. So this isn’t a screed against e-readers at all. All I’m saying is this: when you get one (and we all will, eventually, get some device upon which to read, even if it’s not designated for that task alone), don’t get the Kindle. More
OTC: A Libertarian Compromise to the Contraception Culture War
5th March 2012 | by Benjamin Herson
I’m not a libertarian, but every party has their own areas of pragmatism (yes, GOP included, even if it’s the right thing for the wrong reason–even a blind squirrel…), and pragmatism is my true political affiliation. So on the issue of contraception, I’ve got an extraordinarily simple solution to the current (stupid) argument over whether employers should be forced to cover contraception as part of their health plans. (Well, first I should mention that all Obama’s doing is saying that if an employer offers healthcare, they can’t remove the contraception element just because they don’t like it; from a business perspective, there’s nothing to argue about since the health providers accept the additional costs…but anyway…)
Birth control should be available over the counter. More
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