Secretly Ironic

Arrr, it’s the Worst Date Ever. My friends Nat and Taylor once tried to think up the Worst Date Ever– it involved planning ahead to get random people to attack or insult them and their date on the street (“Hey, Nat, you still owe me those fifty bucks!”), to have the waitstaff at the restaurant spill things on them and be mean, then of course to be rude during the date. I can’t remember all the details but the description of the hypothetical evening just kept getting worse.

USA Today has covered Linux, which I think is a good sign. Mel Gibson has gone all religious-nut on us, though, which I don’t think is such a good idea. On the other hand, the concern about whether it’s antisemitic still strikes me as a little alarmist and conspiracy-minded.

But then again, I’m the sort who plays Massively Multiplayer Roleplaying Games (MMRPGs), so what the hell do I know.

One more thing: I’m still trying to think about humanity’s place in the natural world. The “Do we need nature” question is obviously just a tease, and I don’t think addressing it directly is a winner. What the essay really needs is a nuanced, but firm, statement of the role of humanity in the larger world. Obviously we depend on nature and are part of nature: but what part is that? How should we behave? What principles should guide our environmental, economic, industrial policy?

OK, a real attempt to post something uplifting.
This is sort of nice: Instructions for management on how to defuse bad employee feelings. Hey, people are actually thinking about how they ought to treat other people!

The song New Partner by Palace, a.k.a. Will Oldham, which seems somehow uplifting to me. It makes me feel like I’m moving forward, like I’m able to live in the present and not still completely destroy my past. Those who know me know what I mean, I think, perhaps.

I dedicate so much time to stupidity and the negative here, I’d like to point out a few smart people. Of course they tend to say negative things too sometimes, but they point out hope as often as not.
Eric Hobsbawm, historian and thinker. Stan Goff, former military man, although he’s quite cynical and his authenticity has been questioned often enough. Lewis Lapham over at Harper’s. Heck, Harpers and its wonderful weekly update. A.S. Byatt defending adult literature against the popularity of fluff.

I guess most of that is still pretty negative there. Well, call me a nattering nabob. I’ll have to try again later.