Wednesday, September 3, 2008

A sense of perspective (you're welcome!)

Um. Oh. Crap. Well, I suppose it does put tonight's GOP speeches into perspective; the tone may be petty, fearful and bigoted (Jews for Jesus, lady? reals?), but those people won't be around forever. (Yes, we must take our solace where we might, or at least where we find ourselves 'til the debates start and Smilin' Joe rips the ass outta Clairol's Caribou Cupcake.)


5 comments:

mfheadcase said...

The crap that spews out of those people... radical violent Islam is evil?

Well Duh, so is radical violent Christianity, radical violent Judaism, radical violent geekdom (Ok, maybe this doesn't exist, but only because i haven't been pushed far enough yet)... Radical violent ANYTHING is evil... but folks only seem to want to slap that label on the nice convenient scapegoats.

Palin complaining that al Quaeda is still out to get us, and Obama want to make sure they get read their rights...

Well, yeah... if their is any class of criminal who is refused their civil rights on a regular and legally allowed basis... next thing is for all accused criminals to be recategorized as that class.

MC said...

MFH: We are so close to radical violent geekdom... so close... there are evangelicals all over the internet(fanboys).

"Sarah Palin" and "sense of perspective" can't really exist in the same sentence unless it is a sentence stating that they cannot coexist.

AG said...

MFH, could you give me a Google Map view of what "far enough" looks like? Because I'm looking out my window and I think I see it from here.

And radical violent Christianity is indeed evil; it's also mainstream here now, seeing as it's running as VP on the McCain ticket. Bush at his born-again worst wasn't that sort of crazy, because eight years ago that sort of fundie ranting was batshit fringe behavior. These days?

These days. These days it may be down to the techies to save us. We're brighter than them; we have no patience for logical inconsistency (and without a high tolerance for logical inconsistency, their nonsense falls apart); we understand how to seize the means of production 21st-century style.

I'm not getting all wild-eyed here and attempting to resurrect Declan McCullagh's old argument that code = law (yeah, Lessig sort of owned that debate in the end), and FSM knows that far too many geeks have critically underdeveloped capacities for understanding anything beyond their own experience. (One thing I Do Not Miss about CW? The reader mail. Amazing how many of those correspondents were *thrilled* at the idea of more government control, more surveillance, fewer rights. I digress, a little.) But I am saying that compared to the general Buy'n'Large-dwelling public, we have... advantages.

MC said...

I jokingly wondered aloud to a blogging colleague how long one could read a copy of The Dead Zone at a Republican campaign stop without getting accosted by the police.

mfheadcase said...

AG:

if the tag works, that is how close i came to radical violent geekdom... I used to work hell desk there. the link: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=3400+broadway+46408&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=34.999041,57.744141&ie=UTF8&ll=41.556252,-87.33839&spn=0.002019,0.003524&t=h&z=18

MC: I consider fanboys an overlapping but not synonymous with geekdom... fanboys also overlap with sports fans, including the neds who riot after footie matches in the UK.

A copy of the Dead Zone may be too subtle to trigger security.. "A Catcher in the Rye" and a copy of Taxi Driver on dvd however is less subtle... And the way cops have been acting liable to end up with the smart ass killed while resisting, with no civilian witnesses, on the way to the station.