…because I don’t discuss politics

It’s my one rule for this blog:  I’ll discuss absolutely anything except politics.  It’s not that I’m apolitical.  It’s just that if I started discussing politics, I’d never stop, and my blood pressure would go through the roof.  Thus, I try never to post anything overtly political, or even to let my political leanings creep into my posts.

However, I do permit myself approximately one face-to-face political discussion per month.  I enjoy them in small doses, and thanks to Lopressor my blood pressure can usually take that much.  At tonight’s Pittsburgh BlogFest I actually ended up in two.  I’m not going to actually talk about the topics of conversation, because I don’t discuss politics on this blog.  (See above.)  However, the way in which the conversations evolved was itself interesting.

Firstly, let me apologize to anyone at the BlogFest who was annoyed by the first (knock-down drag-out) discussion.  I freely admit that I got carried away.  Also to my esteemed opponent, if he is reading — I’m sorry I didn’t give you a better debate:  my skills are indeed rusty, and you deserved better.

The interesting thing here is that I encountered someone who’s ideas seemed to be diametrically opposed to my own, and fell into a style of interaction that quickly transformed the discussion into a debate.  Rather than gloss over our irreconcilable differences and discuss the common ground from which we might actually learn something, we instead fell into well-worn arguments and, I suspect, each came away with no new insights.  My esteemed opponent was a skilled debater, but I honestly don’t believe that he presented any arguments that I hadn’t encountered and considered before.  (He might, perhaps, claim that I am simply closed-minded, and I must simply hope that he is wrong.)  I, through lack of practice or skill, debated poorly, but believe that I presented a few verifiable facts that he was unaware of.  However, I suspect that I may have presented them so weakly that he will not bother to look them up and consider them.  (Again, perhaps I do not give him sufficient credit, and in this case I hope that I am wrong.)   In any case, my perception was that from the start of the debate we had hardened our positions so that we were setting out to win rather than to learn, to compromise, or even really to educate.  As a result, the whole debate could be construed as "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".  (No offense is intended to my worthy opponent.  I am willing to allow the title of "idiot" to rest solely upon my own head.)

The lesson here — you’re never going to convince the other guy to completely change his opinion 180 degrees.  If you can find some area where both parties have some thoughts, but neither is dogmatic, then that is where you’ll find a fruitful discussion (rather than a debate).  One of you might even change your opinion.  Best of all, it might be you (or me).  Wouldn’t that be nice?

PS:  I’ll likely talk about my second political discussion and why it was so much less contentious in a later post.  I’d talk about it here, but I’ve been told my posts are too long.

A fascinating post-Katrina observer

I just stumbled upon a very insightful post from a Mississippi clergywoman who has just returned to her home.  It begins:

After a damaging storm, I observe the following:

Survivors tell their stories even to strangers.

People try to make money from the misery.

and continues with a long list of very cogent insights taken from direct experience at ground zero.  St. Casserole seems like a very fascinating blogger in general, so I will be continuing to tune in to follow her stories, whether Katrina-related or otherwise.

Update: I had orignally mis-stated that St. Casserole was from Louisiana rather than Mississippi.  I should know better than to assume that everyone devastated by Katrina comes from Louisiana, but had not read thoroughly enough to determine her correct location.

I’ve been asked why I thought this particular post and blog were so noteworthy, and I had to stop and think about it.  Most of the coverage of Katrina that I have seen has involved "big picture" issues — dealing with thousands of people in the Superdome, or reconstruction of the city — or fairly superficial "man on the street" interviews.  I think I’ve had the sense that the recovery reporting is just filling time till the next big story comes along.  Here, however, I believe that I’m seeing through the eyes of a compassionate person who’s here for the duration and truly involved with the process.  It feels, in a way, like voyeurism — but it also means that I won’t forget that this is more than merely a long news cycle.  It’s real, and it’s not going away come Superbowl season.

Watch me soar!

This is a followup for my previous postings about "Serenity".  It seems that there are a few loose ends that I neglected:

• I mentioned how much I like the original Firefly theme song.  Michelle Dockrey of "Escape Key" has expanded it into the chorus of a full-length song.  Check out the lyrics and the BitTorrent at the Escape Key song page.
• Somehow my review failed to mention that the movie introduced two new major characters who weren’t in Firefly.  David Krumholtz, who I’ve mentioned before for his role in "Numb3rs" plays another fascinatingly quirky character as "Mr. Universe"; while Chiwetel Ejiofor does a truly excellent job as the unnamed villain.  As Tom Smith has noted, most modern movies don’t know how to portray a proper villain, but this fellow was definitely worthy of the name.
• Stackable Bards has done a round-up of other reviews of Serenity from around the Blogosphere.  (Update: Blogcritics has done likewise, with an almost disjoint set of reviews.)  It looks like the initial buzz is pretty darned good.

Musings of a Web-essayist

Today Kevin Drum pointed out a post at the Eide Neurolearning Blog which I hadn’t previously encountered.  If I interpret it correctly, it tries to argue that the act of blogging increases your creative and analytical skills.  In some ways, I’d call this an unsurprising claim, since any activity which involves creating new material seems to have that effect, as does any activity which involves applying intellect to discover hidden solutions, rather than sitting back and taking in a pre-rendered or pre-determined information flow.  Thus, we would expect blogging to be beneficial, but so would composing music, working crossword puzzles, or actively engaging one’s self in a mystery novel.

However, the claims by the Drs. Eide make some assumptions about the nature of blogging.  The "nearly 10 million bloggers" that they cite post for many reasons, many of which may not fit their model.  The most trivial counter example, of the spam blog or "splog", clearly doesn’t benefit either the writer — which is typically a software script — or the reader.  Another example might be a diary blog in which the poster periodically dumps a stream-of-consciousness paragraph about his day at school or work.  While worthwhile and therapeutic, this sort of "web diary" doesn’t seem to have the characteristics that the Eides describe, and thus would not be expected to provide the benefits they describe.  Such a diary is just as true to the roots of the "web log" phenomenon as the "A List" blog that seems to be the real focus of the article, and is vastly more common but, aside from a brief comment that "First, there are blogs and there are…well, blogs.", the authors seem to ignore the mainstream and treat the extraordinary as the norm.  In some ways, I’d almost say that their conclusion reduces to "Writing a creative and analytical blog increases your creative and analytical skills", but I’d like to hope that I lost a great deal in the translation. 

All of this has, however, gotten me to thinking about what I am trying to do with my blog and the benefits that I derive from it.  I have always enjoyed playing with ideas, and have driven my lady and anyone else within earshot crazy by exploring all of the branching paths of the "thought of the moment" beyond the bounds of polite conversation.  (See my definition of "geek" in a previous post.)  The wonderful thing about the blogging format is that it not only allows me to expound at absurd length on my current obsession (without anyone being obliged to listen) but forces me, through my own sense of honor, to actually seek out and confirm my suppositions.  In the process I’ve had to completely scrap posts whose fundamental premises were flawed (but which will resurface in new forms); I’ve learned completely new things about old favorite subjects; I’ve discovered new resources and new blogs; and I’ve had a great time in the process.

The community aspect of the blog game also engages the mind interestingly.  Both my ideas and my expression of those ideas are being thrown out into the marketplace of ideas to sink or swim.  Not only does the quest for readership present an interesting challenge to sharpen the wits, but the blog marketplace provides instant feedback.  Whether I judge response via a hit counter or my BlogPulse profile or by simply begging for comments, I know within a very short time which ideas are catching people’s fancy and which ones are relative flops.

Finally, of course, I write in the hope that my words may inform, entertain or (best of all) provoke thought in my readers.  If you leave one of my posts with a smile and more questions than answers, I will feel myself well rewarded.