December 2005

(From Leah’s side of the family, December, 2004).

Paraphrased because I couldn’t keep up with the goodness and silliness.

• Always say your prayers
• Take moonlight strolls and talk about the innermost things.
• You’re so good to me.
• Read your scriptures.
• Let her put the toaster wherever she wants.
• Talk to each other like all the time.
• Buy low, sell high.
• He makes me laugh harder than anyone in my entire life.
• Give each other toys for Christmas if you like them.
• Do your checkbook together.
• Smile alot.
• Don’t let him do the music.
• Just remember, she’s always right.
• Be yourself.
• Have lots of play-doh and coloring books.
• Go places with each other.
• Consult your wife.
• Never smoke crackers in bed.
• No matter how thin you slice boloney, you can always smash a window with a brick.
• Just have fun with it.
• Give your kids whatever they want.
• Consult with each other before you do anything.
• Don’t tell each other exactly where you put everything so you get in a fight.
• Play with your friends.
• Make decisions together.
• Have you seen her smile? It encompasses her joy and her beauty.
• Do things each other love.
• Say your personal prayers.
• Have family traditions.
• Do as many things as you can with each other.
• Go on a weekly date.

Coming in January to a bar (more or less) near you. There’s more information at San Diego Blog: San Diego Blogger Party!

There’s not much on the internets about the marriage of my hero, Bruce Sterling, author, blogger, design instructor, and speaker to one Jasmina Tesanovic.

This is a peculiar bit of news I first heard word of on boingboing and confirmed the next day on his own blog.

I read his blog, and his Viridian list, bought his new book Shaping Things and had no idea such an event was forthcoming. I was not surprised that he would want privacy for such an event, I myself was quite private about my own wedding last year up until a month or so before.

I was surprised because my understanding was that Bruce was married with children, and there is google-able evidence that he was married to Nancy Sterling, the mother of his two children. I know he and she and their kids shared a big home in Austin at which they threw big parties.

It’s interesting to maybe the folks who follow these things.

Perhaps there needs to be a gossip column like Defamer or Gawker to cover science-fiction luminaries and their various personal intrigues.

Song Portraits by Stew are available, maybe even by the holidays. I love the idea of these things, though I don’t think they’re in the cards for those I love. Mayhaps next year.

I’ve actually wanted to add tagging to my posts here for a while. Here’s the first test to see if there’s any chance of this working.

Blog post of the day: Mother of All Trials…:

It wasn’t really like a trial. It reminded me of what we call a ‘fassil’ which is what tribal sheikhs arrange when two tribes are out of sorts with one another. The heads of the tribes are brought together along with the principal family members involved in the rift and after some yelling, accusations, and angry words they try to sort things out. That’s what it felt like today. They kept interrupting each other and there was even some spitting at one point… It was both frustrating and embarrassing- and very unprofessional.

One thing that struck me about what the witnesses were saying- after the assassination attempt in Dujail, so much of what later unfolded is exactly what is happening now in parts of Iraq. They talked about how a complete orchard was demolished because the Mukhabarat thought people were hiding there and because they thought someone had tried to shoot Saddam from that area. That was like last year when the Americans razed orchards in Diyala because they believed insurgents were hiding there. Then they talked about the mass detentions- men, women and children- and its almost as if they are describing present-day Ramadi or Falloojah. The descriptions of cramped detention spaces, and torture are almost exactly the testimonies of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, etc.

It makes one wonder when Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and the rest will have their day, as the accused, in court.

Ouch.

From Iraqi Blogger Riverbend, via robotwisdom

New item: Make a larger checkbox using CSS. Silly and small, but the Lab has undergone a new reorganization.

The thing missing right now is cross-references and a means to “see other CSS tips” or “see other validation tips.” It’s on my to-do list.

I just read ‘Narnia represents everything that is most hateful about religion’. That response to a work of fiction is no doubt an indicator that something interesting might be going on in there.

I never liked “Fantasy” as a kid. I had a very large imagination, but I was more interested in science fiction and comics than fantasy. Things with swords, or magic, or wizards did not speak to me. So try as I might, I never read Chronicles of Narnia or Lord of the Rings, well, I started, but I could not finish them. I suppose I could now. I’m thankful now that the movies of these works have come out and allowed me to enjoy them such as they are.

The question is this: why didn’t fantasy move me as a kid?

These days, as a thirtysomething adult American male, it’s easy to dismiss my predilictions as prejudice. I hate Jethro Tull, I can do without most horror movies, heavy metal is usually boring. These are all rather arbitrary tastes, built up over years. But how to explain the child-me and his … (what’s the opposite of “affinity”?) natural avoidance of fantasy?

Let’s take a shot at trying on this lovely Monday morning. First, what were my tastes in that crucial age 7 to 12 time period? The things that moved me were things like Batman, or Snoopy and Peanuts. I liked Legos. I liked Star Wars. Voltes V (a giant Japanese robot). I liked listening to music and the radio. I liked to draw. I was a pretty devout Catholic boy. Is there some common thread here? Well, actually, maybe not.

Star Wars actually disproves my point, as it’s definitely a tale of fantasy, and of hierarchies, and sacrifice, and “magical power” via the force. But it dresses it up in the “sciencey” part of science fiction. So maybe I’ve disproven my point right off the bat.

Batman and Voltes V, fit neatly in a whole other worldview, one which I still have a great affinity for. That point of view is that science and technology will provide power. Batman is just a traumatized kid, who, with money and discipline, manages to become the greatest detective of the world. Gadgets and smarts and physical intelligence rule the day. Likewise, Voltes V is a giant robot, but the underpinnings of the robot are that it’s the work of a scientist, and it’s driven by a group of kids not too unlike me. There’s a “reality” there that connects these works to the world where I live.

Meanwhile, in the realm of fantasy, the connecting reality is far more tenuous. A magic piece of furniture that’s a portal to a whole other world? Elfs? Dragons? Where are these things? What on earth do these things have to do with me?

Perhaps I was exercising all my suspension of disbelief in being a Catholic kid. Transubstantiation was literally true for me then, with a doubtlessness that I cannot muster now. My soul and the spiritual balance thereof was very real to me. But even then, I was always taught of the value of “works” in providing for spiritual reward. I digress, but it’s worth noting here that the notion that we are saved merely by faith still rings hollow to me. Actually, I believe quite strongly in redemption, even for the very wicked. Have I told the story of the conversation I had with a guy on a plane where we discuss whether or not Darth Vader could actually be redeemed, and wasn’t he really a Hitler figure, guilty of the worst kinds of genocide, and I, as a 20 year old, argued passionately that he could indeed be redeemed. I still believe that, as I search my heart.

Where the heck was I? Oh, yeah, saved by faith? Yeah, I don’t really buy it. If you have great faith, but have done harm to others, you have some hell to pay I think. And those who have not heard the Word, but have been good people in this world, are deserving of respect, and should it exist, salvation.

You know, for an agnostic, I sure do have a lot of opinions about salvation and redemption and faith. Well, I suppose I would.

Which reminds me… go see Walk The Line – it’s really good. But there’s one moment in the film where I was surprised at my own reaction. The moment is where Johnny Cash is saying that he will sing for prisoners, and the record company dude says (paraphrasing) “Your fans are good Christian folk and they don’t want you to go trying to make a bunch of murderers and rapists feel better.” Cash replies “Well they ain’t Christians then.” To which my reaction was a giant, angry AMEN.

This really strayed. Thanks for listening.

Have I mentioned that Leah and I have a new business? Crawberts.com: All Things Web.

We build websites.

We maintain websites.

We upgrade websites.

We can answer your questions.

Hire us.

Kanye West has a nice little sequence from Gold Digger, which was a hit for a few minutes. Lots of bleeping because it uses the “N” word. But this bit about the ambition has some teeth in it:

You go out to eat and he can’t pay
Y’all cant leave
There’s dishes in the back
Ya gotta roll up ya sleeves
But while y’all washin’ watch him!
He gon’ make it to a Benz out of that Datsun!
He got that ambition baby
Look at his eyes
This week he moppin’ floors
Next week it’s the fries