Mr Krugman, I think you're looking at it wrong...

Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and NY Times Op-Ed writer, today argues... I'm not exactly sure what he's arguing. He's cackling about how right he and others were in predicting the failure of the Euro. But not quite. Confused? I was, too.

Greece is looking at a period of deflation; their rescue package is, likely as not, going to allow the government to lay off government workers. The end result is likely to be draconian in reach; allowing the Greek government to extend its debt payments just doesn't look possible. (For one thing, the market hates to lose money.) So the Greek economy will probably suffer a bit. There are some interesting suggestions happening: increasing competition is one of them. That would be good.

But I don't think the Euro is going to crack, for precisely the reason Mr Krugman suggests: any move away from the Euro will result in a run on a nation's banks. Its stocks would tank amid uncertainty, its debt would priced atmospherically and basically the nation would be bankrupt before the minister finished his or her speech detailing such a move. So that's not going to happen.

The basic problem with the Euro is not that it constrains national monetary policy. It's that it doesn't constrain national monetary policies enough. Imagine if Arizona could issue its own dollars... Let me try that again. Imagine if each Federal Reserve Bank could issue its own dollars; they were responsible for money supply in that region. But the New York Fed had an oversight over some aspects of those policies, but not all. So US monetary policy would be sort of coordinated, and sort of not. State Governors would, of course, have to have a say in those policies.

San Francisco would probably spend most of its life on the edge of bankruptcy. Funding entitlement obligations in Alaska, fulfilling California's often unfunded voter mandates and Hawaii's military bases would require more money than could be reasonably supplied. The states would look to San Francisco for bail out funds, San Francisco would look to the states to lend it money. (A vicious, oscillating, spiral, in other words.) Oregon and Utah could help, but how likely is that Salt Lake City voters will be eager to keep bailing California out? Dallas would be forever dealing with a foreign exchange problem; Philadelphia would be continually addressing trade imbalances, especially agricultural trade, with Kansas, St Louis and Chicago. And so on. (Even worse, states like California, would depend on the other states to bail it out when it spent too much, and didn't collect enough taxes. Ooh. That sounds awfully familiar...) There would be much clucking about how the single dollar system impedes national growth.

(An aside: That's one of the things Rep. Ron Paul would like to do; he wants each state to be responsible for its own dollars. He's notably a little vague on the monetary policy bits.)

That, roughly, is what is wrong with the Euro. Each nation controls its own fiscal policy, under an umbrella of a single currency. While each nation had its own currency, it flourished and failed according to the competence of its government. But (almost) everyone entered the EuroZone. Which resembles some sort of fiscal Twilight Zone. Now economies that were loosely linked are strangely linked. Greece has radically different social policies to Germany; Iceland's economy doesn't look like Ireland's, and so on.

Instead of thinking through the problems caused by having Alabama having the same nominal currency as Arizona, but a radically different fiscal policy (which would be required, simply because they have radically different economies), Mr Krugman concentrates on a single aspect: the fact that a single, poorly implemented, currency limits what governments can do when they get into trouble. It's not the limitations of action that are the problem in Europe: it's the shoddy implementation of the Euro!

When the Euro was introduced, I tried to figure out who was in charge of it. Turned out everyone. Which is the same as "no one". The central bank has nominal control, but it's nominal at best, and is more accurately described as "wistful". Germany can maintain its competitive edge with bond issuances. Greece can hide its books. Spain can maintain an employment system that baffles the mind. The end result is a series of national fiscal policies that, while supposedly all pointing the same direction, look more like a Jackson Pollock than anything coherent. (With apologies to Mr Pollock; has work has more coherence than European fiscal policies.)

Europe needs a single currency; Britain, arguably, doesn't, but it would help Europe if Britain did join the Euro. For one thing, Britain could bring some fiscal sense to the current nightmare. When the Europeans allowed sovereign governments so much control over their local Euro, they set the stage for something they hoped to avoid! It's in the Euro agreement that bailouts can't happen. A government spends too much, and goes bankrupt? So what? Well, it turns out to be a big deal. How astonishing.

Carolyn Ann

Mea Culpa. Or "Wow, I can be a real jerk at times."

Yup. I can be a real jerk at times.

Some might say I'm one all the time. I'd dispute that; I do have moments of not-jerkiness.

Oh, I could say that things are bit difficult, right now. I could say that, and I'd be lying. Things are impossible right now. Money is going out in quantities that are not replicated on the incoming side. I'm trying to get a business off the ground, and doing real well with that. I'm not sure it's a good business strategy to criticize, annoy and insult your potential customers. Actually, this business is proving to be a nightmare; unlike my woodworking business, this one has "difficulties". Everything ranging from an ex-business partner who managed, through sheer laziness and negligence, to leave twenty million in start-up funding on the table to a number of changes in strategy and even products that I should have either foreseen, or had the wit to avoid. A couple of weeks ago I finally decided to develop a business idea I've had for some time. I've also elected to do it alone; finding a partner was proving to be a non-starter. They all seem to want to see the funding, and I don't have any.

On top of all that I'm stuck in the house most of the time. It's a soul-destroying experience; not being able to go anywhere, not being able to afford to fix my bikes or my truck or my car, nothing around for 20 miles in any direction and so on. I could also offer that since I elected to not take any drugs whatsoever, my depression has an ugly habit of rearing its head. I try to keep it under control, but sometimes it's hard, and it just rears up and surprises me. I hate it when that happens; I feel ugly inside, it's as if a dark cloud sits right over my head, dampening everything, making the world a twisted and ugly place. Nitpicks that ordinarily wouldn't matter become huge earth-shaping moments; other people's silliness becomes an ogre that needs defeating.

I could go into all of that, but I won't. I could use them as reasons, but I won't. They're excuses. Meaningless excuses. Allegedly, I'm an adult. Who's been behaving like a recalcitrant petulant teenager.

I'm sorry. I will try to do better.

The only difficult day was yesterday.

Carolyn Ann

Gail Collins? I love you. :-)

There's a reason Gail Collins is the World's Greatest Columnist. :-)

Carolyn Ann

Them two lassies

There be a couple o' them photo-graphers I like, now. They be good at their trade, and capable of pretty pictures, too. Theyse be fine in their mastery of theirs craft, not likes me, poor in it, and lackadaisical to boot! These lasses, two lasses need I say? have mastered much o' what's needed. One produces pretty pictures, fine enough to hang on a wall. The other, pictures for one o' those museum things. I heard about them; fine pictures hung so all can see 'em. Not much temptation for the likes o' a lad like me, I'll wager.

I once 'eard of chap, Ansel, Ansel Adams I think 'e was called. I once heard o'im. Gorgeous pictures they say he made; saw some, once, in New York City. Seemed a bit surprising, seeing natural mountains on Sixth Avenue. Still, likes as like wants; I liked 'em well enough; I liked those pictures, sure enough. Suredly slept at where a few of them showed. Can't say I liked what the newspaper said about 'em, though. A fine photographer, that Mr Adams.

These two lasses, they tell of two societies. One spends a lot of time looking at herself; the other? She looks at what a person is. One don't care what others think, she's too busy thinking about 'erself. The other don't care because she, the photographer, don't care about picturing herself. She only cares about telling us what she thinks.

I like that one.

Tell you what: there's a difference between great photograph and good snapshot. When you got a winnder frame growing out your head, you got a snapshot. When you got a picture worthy o'a art gallery, you got the other one. I'll lets you figure out which is who.

Carolyn Ann

Penny Red

Not being on speaking, so to speak (?), terms with Ms Laurie Penny, I feel quite able to comment upon her writings.

What a gal! She'll probably hate the infusion of gender into a genderless debate (is it, really?), but I still think of Ms Laurie Penny as one of the most promising political writers of her generation.

If Ms Penny should ever revisit New York, she would find me (assuming I knew of such visit) offering her a place to stay. Albeit three hours from that Golden Pinnacle, I still think Ms Penny has much to offer the world, and I am glad, in my fiscally perilous state, to offer what I can.

Where Ms Penny goes wrong is in assuming that her election of perilous financial circumstances leads to genuine reporting of those same circumstances. She, by her own admission, could make one phone call - to her parents - and be in a nice flat by the end of the week.

Ms Penny is not likely to accept my unconditional largesse because she perceives her life to be conditional. She requires conditions, rules of engagement and the like. Her loss is not accepting that she has something to offer the world. Deception, and duplicity, especially the well-meaning kind, are not going to help her. They will come back. With fangs like no one has to see that no one should see.

Carolyn Ann

Losing battles, losing wars

And still fighting. :-)

I hate this denigration of the language we all share. I can't do anything meaningful to stop it, but I can hold onto my, outmoded, obsolete, futile, wasted, meaningless, and nonsensical desire for a language that respects meaning, adheres to such and obeys grammatical conventions and rules.

I can, and do.

Bloggers the world over might not think it important to read, in order to write. They're of the same ilk as the carpenter who believes it necessary to only know the names of the tools he (or, not to be sexist, she, or in modern parlance, demonstrate my cis-privilege by being gender-specific) will use in order to use them with ill-perceived competence. Ever seen a rank amateur wield a plane? I have. I taped myself using a plane; it was not pretty. (I improved my technique.)

Reality TV show alert: America/ Britain's Next Master Carpenter. Where we take an accountant, a fashion model and a heroin addict and demonstrate how we turn them into master carpenters/welders/plumbers/whatever trade is in vogue right now.

I can't help but think that a lack of interest in reading is the fundamental problem facing blogging, right now. Sure, it's credited with lots of world changing ideas... .... Erm, you know. It's not. Really. Really, really, really. Blogging did not get Barack Obama into the White House. It helped, but that's all. It helped. It's not even visible in the British elections. Penny Red? She's good, articulate and... Not really affecting much. (Pity, Ms Penny really is articulate.)

(Yeah, yeah. My personal animosity toward Ms Penny should affect my judgment of her work, her earnest blog postings and so on. It doesn't. The quality of Ms Penny's work has nothing to do with my opinion of her priceless pity. A good writer is a good writer. End of story. My antagonism toward her derives from the fact that she's not far off the age of my nieces and nephew, and they enjoy nothing of her education or her fiscal security. But I do look forward to reading Ms Penny's work. She isn't, yet, in the same league as Chris Buckley, but I fear those who go against her in a few years time will realize a penalty of her surfeit of comprehension, even empathy, of the language that they can't hope to compete against.)

I almost included "was that sufficient?" as a sort of explanation of why I can argue against someone, even be personally antipathetical to, but still respect that person's works, and thinking. Something that is in dramatically, and stupidly short, supply right about now. I don't like Ms Penny - I have no need of her "empathy", or her exploitation of destitution. But I can admire a thinker, and I can admire, even as I disagree with their basic premises. I can admire the person simply because they thought about their plight.

Ms Penny, unfortunately, does not consider what thoughts her writings might prompt.

A good writer does.

I am not a good writer.

Perhaps that thought is faulty? A good reporter thinks about his or her iteration of events. A really good reporter can skew that iteration to support their political ideology. A superb reporter, on the other hand, transcends such meaningless prohibitions. They report exactly what happened, and introduce us to the implications almost by osmosis. By such standards, Ms Penny is a superb reporter, hiding in the shoddiest garments on the rack.

I, ineptly, stand against such idiocies as "cis-whatever". I applaud Ms Penny's dissection of gender. I stand against her foolishness; not from a literary opine, but from a human one. Why deceive, when you have no need to do so?

I should have titled this post "An Ode to Penny Red".

It started as an explanation of why I defend the English language. Not because I'm a stick-in-the-mud, but because the sentiments many new words express are lazily defined; they are the result of equally lazy thinking. How do you define thinking that is predisposed to cast favorable judgment upon your, lazily created, attitudes? Thy that shall condemn the transgender shall be considered transphobic for it is a crime to cast aspersion upon ones fellow tranny" is not exactly a call to arms. (Ask Lisa Harney and Queen Emily; they hate criticism. They are perfect women, and are perfect in defining what womanhood means; and its definitions. As long as they can define what womanhood means. )

Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot. Ms Harney and Ms Emily never define what being a woman means. They only know what it doesn't imply. My mistake.

I will lose any battle I fight for the English language. I know that. I've known it since the mid 80's. Well before the bastardization of the language really got going. When posters said "drag yourself along" (a poster I saw in a tunnel in Sheffield, in about 1983), I knew language was doomed. Language has been doomed since Aristotle. Ol' Shakey helped us realize that we didn't need to be so coarse; Fox News and Sky News helped us realize that being so coarse was easy, simplistic and promotion-getting that we cant adhere to the idea of improving ourselves. It's easier to be cheap and (sound) ignorant.

We adhere to idea of denigrating ourselves.

How else would someone as intelligent as Ms Brain relish the word "embiggen"? It's not even German. I checked.

Carolyn Ann

What's with this "embiggen" nonsense?

Over the last two days I've read two blogs with "embiggen". It's used as an adjective: to make bigger. Zoe Brain uses it an amusing post about a South African airline; and now "Dr Morbius" uses it say "click on the cartoon to read the damn words". There's disagreement on capitalization: Ms Brain capitalizes, Dr Morbius doesn't.

What is it with the English language? Is it not good enough? Is it's bountiful expressions too difficult for the faint of heart? It's subtlety too complex to master? It's ability to convey the inconceivable inadequate?

Or is it that some its more contemporary assassins find it simply too difficult?

Perhaps it's a sign of the dynamism of the language? Or is it the inadequacy of its users?

Try this for an exercise: write about nothing. And see if you can make it interesting. I try. I've not succeeded yet. But one thing the lessons have taught me: don't rely upon the lackadaisical for your grammatical lessons. Philip Roth might be able to get away with poor grammar - Ms Brain does not have Mr Roth's command of the language. She also does not have Tom Wolfe's ability to excuse his own grammatical exercises, let alone William Buckley's.

Embiggen, indeed. Whatever next? They'll be calling people out for being "cissexual" before long. Mark my winked (for those who crave obviousness) words. They will.

Carolyn Ann

I love this...

From the Gearman website:

The name is an anagram for “Manager,” since it dispatches jobs to be done, but does not do anything useful itself.

Love it! :-)

Found via a link in the Tools section of Giuseppe's MySQL Sandbox website.

Carolyn Ann

Quicken Essentials for Mac

Lots of Mac users are complaining about Quicken Essentials for Mac. I'm not one of them. :-)

With the recent price reduction - if you ask Quicken nicely, you might be able to get it for $39.99 (I did) - it's acquired a value. At its original price of $69.99 it was a rip-off.

Sporting a Mac interface, it does pretty much everything we need. We don't need sophisticated market tracking. We used to need that, and we'll need it again in the future. But for now, it's not really needed. We also don't need check printing facilities; that's mostly because our bank doesn't charge us for checks, whereas Quicken would. No, what we need is a simple interface, a reasonable way of seeing how dire our financial situation is, and an easy way of importing data files from our financial service entities (the companies we owe money to...). QE/Mac has all of those features.

Things that could be better. I'd like an automated tagging system; for instance, like many people, we buy our groceries from a limited set of supermarkets. As a rule, I buy my beer from three liquor stores. We go to about 5 bookstores for coffee. And so on. So I'd like a "rules" facility similar to Apple Mail. I'd like to set up a rule that runs when QE/Mac sees some particular store. It would label the transaction "Groceries" or "Beer" or "Coffee", or what-have-you. It would save me the effort of doing it. A simple task, but why should I do it when the computer can? I'd also like to be able to color-code certain transactions. So I know where the pay checks are, for instance.

Considering that you can put the software on up to 3 computers, it seems strange that there's no synchronization system. We really do need a way of automatically synchronizing the data file between our Mac's. The way I've got it set up (a small Applescript that puts the file into the "Dropbox") is error prone, and not as reliable as it should be. Not because the script is lacking - it clearly is - but because when the computers go to sleep, nothing happens.

I'm looking forward to a Mac-specific Quicken Home & Business, but I'm not holding my breath. Intuit is not known for its attentiveness toward customers. Quite the contrary, actually. And so far, they've not been very forthcoming about the endless negative commentary they're getting about QE/Mac.

Still, the whole thing seems a lot easier than Quicken 2007 (which seems to be a poor translation of Quicken 98). What's really impressive is that my wife likes the software. She has a low tolerance for shoddy software; for her, a computer should help her, not hinder her. (You should hear her opine about some supposedly advanced Web 2.0 websites...) She took to Quicken Essentials immediately; she liked its interface, and she actually liked its lack of features. Her experience with MS Word informs her ideas of complex software. (Seriously. It does.) She liked the reports, even if she didn't like what they told her. She also liked the ease with which it imported our data. No twenty questions and "what color are your socks" stuff to deal with. Point, click and import.

Still, it could do with some of those advanced features. I don't expect to be out of the market forever, so tracking investments is important to me. I'd also like it to print checks, if for no other reason than to stop reading about how others need, absolutely need, that ability.

And it would be really helpful if it paid some of the bills, too. Unfortunately it doesn't print money, either. :-(

Carolyn Ann

Kick 'em while they're down...

Standard & Poor's is helpfully supplying the hob-nailed boots that investors need to kick Greece, Portugal and Spain.

Remember S&P, right? They were one of the two, ever-vigilant, ratings agencies that got the ratings on toxic mortgage-backed offerings, er, slightly wrong. They said they were AAA because house prices never go down. Now they're saying that needed austerity measures in Greece are dragging the economy down. And for some reason they have Spain at AA, with a negative outlook.

Talk about a turn-around. Spain should have its bonds rated as less than investment grade, and Greece should be given a break because they are trying. The market is merciless, however. It also has an odd similarity to a herd of sheep. When investors stopped buying NYC bonds in the 1970's, there was money to be made by buying those bonds. Bear Sterns, oddly enough, did that buying. Greece might have to spread the cost of its restructuring out (actually, I can't see any way that can be avoided; the amounts of money needed are simply too great); that cuts the value of current Greek bonds.

If you think you're getting a good deal with a 10% interest rate (coupon), and all of a sudden Greece announces that they're going to take a few more years to repay you, your effective interest rate just went down. And that lowers the value of your bonds right at that moment. You, effectively, just lost money.

No one is buying Greek debt. That increases the chances that the country will default; don't forget: with the Euro, they can't simply print more money. Besides being inflationary, riding on a precipice of strong deflation, Greece simply isn't at liberty to issue more currency. Going back to the drachma has been shut off; not that they could do that, either. It was wondered about, but this new development has closed that avenue off entirely. If it was ever really open.

The whole thing has become a sorry mess. Populist spending has led to large deficits; that has led to some book fiddling and some seriously excessive borrowing. Europe is not exactly rushing to cover Greek debt (they should), the unions are protesting the sudden stop of their boondoggles and (fairly) the uneven fiscal imposition. The austerity measures were never going to be popular; the German's knew that bailing Greece out wasn't going to be popular in Germany. (Social policies in Greece are much more generous than the German ones. And the Germans don't see why they should bail out a government that has continually cooked the books and allows its employees to retire so much earlier than German workers do. Basically.) And now S&P has helpfully removed one of the few things that allowed the Greek government to borrow at reasonable prices.

This leaves Greece with two options: spread the deficit reduction out over more years, or stagger under the weight of crushing interest rates. Europe could help; so could the IMF. Both together could help Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece all get their financial houses together. However, I don't think Europe will act quickly enough. And the IMF isn't exactly sprinting to help, either. Overall, Greece faces an impossible task: a few more years of austerity, along with ridiculous taxes and bond interest rates. A loss of many of the social benefits will, of course, be required. Bond holders hoping to profit from Greece's unfortunate situation won't be wiped out, but they will have to accept some losses. I don't see anything particularly unfair about that.

What I do see as unfair is how populist politicians in countries like Argentina, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Japan and so many other nations, push populist measures designed solely to gain votes. They don't pay for their stupidity, the voters end up paying - big time. Stupid things like sponsoring the cost of energy (Argentina), encouraging and maintaining a two-tier, anti-competitive labor market (Spain), a lack of fiscal restraint and an eagerness to cook the books (Greece) and a spend-thrift government (Portugal), a fiscal myopia akin to willful blindness (Japan) all lead to the same result: high debt. And no way of paying it down.

Britain is just as bad. In this election season no one is paying serious attention to the deficit. I'd be surprised if the economic hit isn't as bad as 1978. I can see Britain turning to the IMF and asking for a wee loan. To help them through a bad spot, you know. Then we'll see the true cost of the rapid expansion of the NHS, the cost of promising endless entitlements (shades of Greece?) and the lack of any real political will to do much about it. If you remember the 1970's, you should be experiencing a moment of deja vu.

America, at least, has the option of raising taxes without hitting the economy too badly. Britain can't - it's taxes are way too high as they are. It won't be a popular move - look how it affected George Bush Snr - so America won't raise taxes until at least 2013. But the global economy can live with that; 5 year debt will retain its value. (If the Republicans get in, in 2012, I could see them inflating their way to solvency. I don't see the Democrats doing that, though.) Britain might try inflating its way to solvency; it's been done before. It sort of works, but it's hell on the average person. Greece doesn't really have that option, although it might happen, anyway.

I really don't see why S&P lowered Greece's rating; if it was to prompt a sense of urgency in Europe, it was a colossal insult. If it was because they're actually concerned about the Greek ability to repay their sovereign debt, it's a misguided first. I think it's because they're still smarting over the scolding they got for their past "mistakes". Which is a bit like saying "Oops" when you've accidentally set off a nuclear explosion. So S&P goes into knee-jerk mode, and the Greek citizen has a few more years of austerity to look forward to.

Markets get nervous all the time. That's no reason to downgrade Greek bonds. Heck, the cost of them was enough to make them an uncertain purchase. But downgrading them at a time like this is akin to pushing them over so you can aim your hob-nailed boot better. They were getting better! Fiscal responsibility was arriving; there wasn't anything to fear. Except perhaps that they might reduce the coupon payments for a short time. Europe was coming to rescue, albeit with an urgency that makes glaciers look flighty. But they were coming. The cavalry might need a fortnight to get to the front door, but once there, they wouldn't back out of what they needed to do. That wouldn't be based on altruism - it would be based on the idea that it would be too expensive for them to do anything but what was needed. And now S&P has helpfully made any rescue package just so much more expensive.

Whatever happens, we're all in for a bit of a rough time. I wonder how long the ratings agencies will stay in the hob-nailed boot business?

Carolyn Ann

Why is that?

You know when you look in the cutlery drawer, and there's no forks, or spoons - and so you go to the dishwasher to get one? And if you want a fork, you can only find spoons, but if you want a spoon you seem to have the world's supply of forks?

Why is that? :-)

Carolyn Ann

Against conservatism

There are times when I wish I'd acted sooner to become an American citizen. Right now my efforts are on hold due to the fact that I can't afford it. During the Bush years, for instance. And now, with Chris Christie as New Jersey's governor.

One thing I think we've all learned is that "compassionate conservatism" isn't. It's reactionary and compassion is something liberals do. Instead of trying to create Ronnie's "morning in America", they're looking back and saying "things were better then". Even when it can be demonstrated they weren't. Confederate Month? The Confederacy was wonderful if you were white, protestant and even slightly wealthy. It wasn't quite as wonderful if you were black, from Africa and had recently been sold to the white guy. (But let's not mention that slavery was a critical part of the southern economy.)

Despite the obvious flaws, and continual failure of, "supply side economics", not to mention the really obvious flaws in the "efficient market" theory, conservatives can usually be found clustering around those failed ideas. Reduce regulations and business will invest is a favored mantra; yeah, they'll invest in dividends and bonuses. I don't notice the coal industry investing in much safety equipment. I don't notice Goldman Sachs investing in the future of America. And I can't help but notice that entire mountain tops have gone because it's cheaper to extract the ore or coal with open mines. Wall St shouldn't be regulated they cry, desperate to preserve their goal of a financial sector that can change the rules on investors at whim, and with impunity.

These conservatives point out that Dale Carnegie funded libraries all over America. Yes he did. He had a lot of cash. Today's wealthy are more likely to be sitting on shares and T-bills than cash. Besides, it's really difficult to rely upon the largesse of some rich guy when your town needs a new school. I haven't noticed many rich people funding school construction, have you?

Another disturbing aspect is this rush to religion. Evangelical Americans and anyone who identifies themselves as a practicing, devout or pious, Christian is more than likely to be conservative. That's not conjecture, you can go look it up. The Evangelical community has several well-funded, and very vocal, efforts underway to remove scientific truths from schools. If they can help it, they'd remove them from public discourse.

Religious sentiment feeds the anti-abortion movement. Instead of thinking about the rights of the woman, they prefer the knee-jerk emotionalism of a dead baby. How the hell is a collection of cells, that may or may not make it to viability, a baby? What about miscarriages? God must be the worst abortionist in history, basically. The anti-abortionists simply want women back in the kitchen, being baby factories and shutting up about their lot in life. Seriously. That is what those pious twits want.

These religiously conservative voters seek to impose their interpretation of religion. They don't search for depth, allegory or even serious thought about their sacred texts and its history. They want superficiality and nonsense, cherry-picked quotations and Jesus as a cartoon superhero. They want to impose their piety on you, and they want you to embrace something that looks suspiciously like an addiction.

One thing I find really annoying is how the right is trying to control what a libertarian is. On the right, it's assumed that if you're libertarian, you're a right winger. I'm not. I'm a liberal, in Britain I'd be a socialist. I believe society has an obligation to help its members. I believe that society has an obligation to ensure equal treatment for all its members. I also think that what you do with your life is entirely your decision. If you want to smoke pot, as far as I'm concerned, go right ahead. Drink yourself silly every night? Sure. Walk around chanting the Bible? By my guest. (Just don't try to impose your interpretation of it on me, okay?) Want to engage in kinky sex with willing, consent providing, like minded adults? Who's to say you can't? As long as you do nothing to harm others, I don't particularly care what you do with your life. I have enough on my plate dealing with my own!

But no, this isn't good enough for the modern conservative. They need pledges of allegiance to a set of principles. Then they shout about freedom; the only freedom they're interested in is their freedom to impose their views. They demand allegiance to ideas and actions that you might not approve of; they don't care about the abuses contained within The Patriot Act - an egregious piece of legislation that is betrayed by its know-nothing title. They don't care preserving the rights of others to disagree; you're unAmerican, or anti-American, if you're a liberal, or want to live as you see fit.

As American conservatism lurches and morphs into a know-nothing populism, it becomes increasingly apparent that the strong anti-intellectualism is the biggest danger. This unwillingness, hostility, to thinking about issues, policies and philosophies is the ultimate ignorance. The practitioners of this new know-nothingism don't make themselves greater for their adherence to their ideas and ideals. They don't make America better as a result. They reduce themselves to the lowest common denominator they can find, and they reduce America to a police state. These people don't want freedom, they shrink from the messiness and uncertainty of democracy. They don't welcome debate; they'd prefer it that disagreeable bunch is jailed for being anti-American. They hate the idea that sometimes a community, a large and wealthy community, has to come together to help everyone. They don't want to help those they fear, or simply don't like. They seek to impose how they want to live on you. These people don't want freedom. They want the illusion of it. And they're working very hard to ensure that that is all that remains of American freedom.

Usually I'd say let them have what they wish for. But the stakes are too high.

I wish I had sought American citizenship earlier. Because then I could take direction action. I could vote, protest and denounce. All I can do at this point is condemn. And it's not enough.

Carolyn Ann

Civics lesson...

Michael Drewniak, spokesman for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, said that schoolchildren should be in school. Not on the steps of City Hall in Trenton, protesting Mr Christie's school budget reductions.

Let me see... Mr Drewniak doesn't think it's appropriate for kids to learn that peaceful protest is a really good way of getting your voice heard. He thinks they should be in school, learning to be quiet little children, and hopefully quiet, unchallenging little men and women.

The only problem is that his boss is working hard to ensure that these kids don't receive a good education. Some of their parents, and the state Republicans, want lower property taxes now, because they don't actually care about the future. Or how the kids will get jobs. Mind you, I don't know if "graduated High School" is a requirement for Walmart - which is about the only jobs these kids will have available if Mr Christie's sincere efforts to deprive these kids of a decent education come to pass.

I wouldn't mind if Mr Christie offered some solutions to the problems his woeful budget poses. But he doesn't. He simply says "tighten your belts and we government authority figures know what's good for you!" He'll probably launch into some boring tirade about how schools did more with less when he was a lad.

Between idiots like Mr Christie, the conservative Christian idiots on the Texas school board, and Evangelical idiots all over America who are trying really really hard to get challenging science wiped off the curricula, (not to mention re-introduce school prayer) we're going to end up with a nation of young adults who really don't want to be as idiotic and short-sighted as the people who seek to curtail their dreams and ambitions.

So, kids. Accept what Mr Drewniak says and go back to your overcrowded classrooms where you have to share books because there's no money for an adequate supply, with your underpaid teacher who is doing their best against an encroaching bureaucracy that cares more about meaningless measures than actual education, and quit protesting and complaining. You're not being punished because you failed to appreciate your circumstances: you're being punished because some alleged adults failed to consider that they live in the real world and not some Ayn Rand* fantasy. Mr Drewniak obviously knows what he's talking about when he says kids should be in school, and not protesting their elders, betters and leaders. He went to school, after all. It's a pity he missed the bit in Civics where protest was discussed.

Carolyn Ann

*If you don't know who Ayn Rand is, kids, you can look her up at your local library. But hurry, because those libraries are facing 70% budget cuts. Who needs libraries anyway? All they do is incite learnin'.

Sympathy for the Devil

Mitch McConnell has a tough job in front of him: getting support for those poor souls on Wall St who don't deserve the draconian regulations that nasty President Obama, with his horrible Congressional Democrat cohorts, wants to foist on them.

The Republicans are offering an alternative bill. Not quite as stern as the Democrat's lustful vision, it offers the banks a decent alternative to consumer protection: no consumer protection. That's perfectly decent if you're a Republican or a Wall St banker. The Dem's are going for Mills & Boon, the Republicans are offering Reader's Digest.

In the meantime, it seems the Republicans are trying to blame the Democrats for the Republican efforts to prevent "debate". Or at least whatever passes, these days, for debate on the Senate floor. Perhaps the Ukrainian Congress can teach us all something about "vibrant democracy"? (Do the Senate Republicans really want to be perceived as supporting the bankers over the people?)

Notably lacking are the Tea Party conventions, the loud, foul-mouthed mobs chanting about how the President is leading us into communist pipe-dream that is also strongly reminiscent of Hitler's Germany. Even Michelle Bachman has refrained from her indignant, if (at best) ill-informed, squeaking. I don't think it's because the Tea Party bozos don't understand derivatives trading, bond markets and pricing or how T-bills are the equivalent of cash (with benefits), I think it's because they don't understand derivatives trading, bond markets and pricing and how T-bills are the same as cash with benefits. And they hate Wall St bankers more than they hate President Obama. But, somehow, "Derivatives trading = fascism!" doesn't quite have that je ne sais quoi.

Proving that regulation is needed, Goldman Sachs didn't even bother trying to explain why creating a product for the express purpose of making their customers lose money isn't illegal. They seem to think it's also ethical. The Mob must be furious. (Mob bosses are probably steering their kids from the family trade as we (metaphorically) speak.) How the hell is it even possible to sell a product that guaranteed, indeed it's entire purpose is, to ruin those who buy it? Toyota didn't intend to sell shoddy products, and they got fined $216M! These guys do far worse, and they get... Scolded by Congress? Accompanied by a tissue and a pat on the back from Senate Republicans.

I'd like to ask Mr Blankfein how he sleeps knowing that his bonus comes from selling products that his clients didn't, couldn't possibly, understand and were designed to lose them money. I'd like to ask him, because Bernie Madoff can't. He's in jail for something that looks suspiciously similar.

But where are the Tea Party hordes, descending upon Wall St with "Dr Doom" painted above pictures of Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon and the rest? Where, indeed, where are they are? Where are the nonsensical signs shouting about the end of the nation? Where are the Tea Party pundits, yelling incoherently about how these people are destroying the nation, not the mention the world, by their greed and avarice? Where are these people?

Nowhere. Because they don't actually care about this issue. Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell tries to sell sympathy for the devil. I'm just not sure which devil he selling sympathy for. Or which one he sold his soul to.

Carolyn Ann

You can't define me, but I sure hell can define you!

So I was thinking, today. (Everyone runs to the hills...)

I was thinking about "cis". If you're unaware of this prefix - it's often confused with being an adjective, and occasionally a noun - you're lucky. Just about anyone who reads some of the more casually phrased transgender blogs will be aware of it. They might even like it. Which merely proves their inattentiveness when they took remedial English.

It's more awful than that would-be surreality of "transgendered versus transgender". I've read a number of explanations on that one, and I still don't get it. What's wrong with "ed" as a postfix? More on that if I can gather the fortitude.

As a prefix, it leads to some strange definitions:

cisgendered
adj form of cisgender

The opposite of transgendered, someone who is cisgendered has a gender identity that agrees with their societally recognized sex.

Many transgender people prefer "cisgender" to "biological", "genetic", or "real" male or female because of the implications of those words. Using the term "biological female" or "genetic female" to describe cisgendered individuals excludes transgendered men, who also fit that description. To call a cisgendered woman a "real woman" is exclusive of transwomen, who are considered within their communities to be "real" women, also.

Some of my friends are trans, but I'm cisgendered.

If you think that's a good definition, you do not have my sympathy. The English language has my condolences; it surely died unpleasantly at your hands.

Indeed, most of the definitions seem to be of the same ilk, but somewhat tidier:

Cissexual is an adjective used in the context of gender issues to describe "people who are not transsexual and who have only ever experienced their mental and physical sexes as being aligned". Julia Serano uses the term in her book "Whipping Girl" but does not claim to have coined it. Helen Boyd, author of "My Husband Betty" and "She's Not the Man I Married", has argued on her blog that "cissexual" is a less loaded term than "cisgender" and make fewer assumptions about the persons relationship to gender roles and the transgender community.

I must admit, I wasn't aware that erudite authors such as Ms Boyd needed to give their supposed imprimatur before a word became acceptable. Especially such a blemished imprimatur. Well, now that Ms Serano and Ms Boyd have given their approval to such an awfulness, all is well with the world. One can suppose. If one failed that remedial English class.

I don't necessarily object to neologisms; some of them are useful. This one isn't. It's also unnecessary, and philosophically hypocritical. One of the mantras within the transgender community is that 'thou shalt not define my gender, nor my identity'. A fine mantra. I get to decide who I am, if I need to go through such decisions. There's no mandate saying I, or anyone, should. But even with the lackadaisical definitions offered for "cis-whatever", the sentiment expressed is: you cannot define me, but I sure as hell can - and will - define you!

I wonder is such hypocrisy is common? Oh, silly me: of course it is.

Carolyn Ann

MySQL Mutterings

I've been trying to get a handle on MySQL. The free database now owned by it's biggest competitor: Oracle. A couple or so years ago, Sun Microsystems bought MySQL for about a billion dollars (literally), and not that long ago Oracle bought Sun for about thru'pence ha'penny.

I've never being a fan of Oracle's attitude - the products are fine, but their attitude makes Dick Cheney look genial. One thing I've always liked about Oracle is the consistency of their installs: this is there, that is where it's supposed to be and so on. Except on Windows, but as no one in their right mind runs Oracle on Windows, I feel safe ignoring that particular offense against the natural order of things. Oracle on Windows. Yes, I know Microsoft Windows is an offense to all that is holy, but I didn't mean that.

This time. :-)

So, I've got the little task of figuring out what goes where in MySQL and the best thing I can say is... Where do you want put that? Reading the documentation, it seems that critical files in go in uncertain places, and where that place might be depends on the phase of the moon, which segment of Aquarius Venus is in, and whether Mars has conjunctivitis or not. ... Sorry, I meant "is conjunctive" or not. In other words, if I read the Horoscope I might be able to figure out where certain files are supposed to be.

But I have to write something about all of this. So I started building a spreadsheet. And quickly gave up. It's truly amazing where MySQL puts its database files - basically wherever they probably shouldn't go. On that platform. On some other platform, that location would be fine, but on this one? No, it shouldn't go there.

I actually had to go find some blog postings and the like on standard (yeah, right) Unix directory structures. It's bad enough dealing with the differences between Linux releases, but when you add in BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X - client and server - paper and ink, all of a sudden what seemed to be a simple task turns into an anthropological expedition you're sure the BBC should be filming. (Except the result, you know in your heart of hearts, would be tremendously boring.) Yes, I know I didn't mention MS Windows. I'm ignoring it. It's an an unnatural aberration and copies of it should be cast into the Fires of Hell at birth.

I was(n't) surprised to find out that Windows still has the "C:\" drive. Mind you, I was astonished to find that MySQL needs a different configuration depending on how much memory there is. Whatever happened to that strange concept: the computer is good at mundane stuff? Couldn't someone put an "if" statement in there? If there's a lot of memory, use it this way; if there isn't: panic. And crash.

Anyway, I didn't know that much about MySQL when I started this little project. I know a bit more about it, now. I'm not sure I'll be applying for any MySQL administrator jobs, though. I'll probably deny all knowledge of it, lest someone give me the task of managing their MySQL databases. "MySQL? No, can't say I've heard of that. Is it some sort of device so you can repeat bits of your life, like those endless Law & Order episodes?" That's what I'll say. :-)

I wonder if it'll work?

Carolyn Ann

Staying away from Arizona

I'll be staying away from Arizona for awhile. At least until that stupid, amazingly racist law is overturned.

Here's why: I'm not from around here. I am an immigrant, with a Green Card, that stays firmly and safely locked up except when I need it. Then I go get it, show it the person that needs to see it, and then it goes back into its locked quarters.

Years and years ago I used to keep it on me, all the time. Which was an amazingly stupid thing to do, but I thought I had to. And then I lost my wallet in a NYC pub. (I think it was CBGB's, but I might be mistaken.) Fortunately someone found it, and turned it over the barkeep; I was able to get it back. It took me a day to get it back; in the meantime, I'd gone to 26 Federal Plaza to report it missing. What a hassle! Ever since then, I've kept my Green Card under a very firm lock and key.

If something were to happen while I rode through Arizona, the police, through this draconian Stalin-esque law would be forced to hold me until the Mrs (assuming she was home, and not with me) could send them the original! As far as I can tell, sending them a fax or a copy is not an option.

I'm also leery about any requirement for internal passports. It's bad enough that you can't ever forget your wallet and driving license if you're out on the road (there's nothing like Britain's 'produce your documents in the next 5 days' thing over here). But if I need to carry proof that I'm in this country legally, and that proof is a little credit card thing that can be stolen along with my wallet: forget it. I've seen the Grand Canyon. I'd like to see it again. But it'll wait until Arizona rescinds that amazingly stupid law.

Carolyn Ann

Sorry, Jenny :-)

Originally uploaded by carolyn_ann_grant

Copper and Oscar snoozing in a box. :-)

Took this the other night.

Carolyn Ann

Ms Sandeen's awful treatment

I've not been following the Autumn Sandeen story much; she was locked up for protesting President Obama's torpid pace on repealing DADT. She, and some other folk chained themselves to the White House fence.

Excellent protest. It's what happened afterwards that's the problem. She was treated with a disrespect that's appalling. The cops basically treated her as a "thing". Standing up for your beliefs does not give the police an official license to denigrate you.

These people are protesting government inaction. They get treated in as derogatory manner as the cops could manage. I'd say there's cause enough for an investigation, and some disciplinary action. Sure their protest was forceful and somewhat intrusive; there's nothing wrong with that. It was peaceful and legal. There was no call for the police to act as they did. There was definitely no call for the police to treat Ms Sandeen as they did.

I don't think it will do anyone any good to demand an apology, a much needed apology. The cops will, most likely, simply offer a (slightly) different version of events, and they'll be believed, and Ms Sandeen won't be.

It is about time Don't Ask, Don't Tell was repealed. It was an awful, and insulting, policy to begin with, and has proven to be derogatory to active duty service members and is predatory in implementation. If, as the right argues, American soldiers don't have the maturity to recognize what's important, and what isn't, then perhaps they think the American soldier is as immature, bigoted and stupid as they are? We should not be persecuting people because of whom they love. No civilized nation should ever do that. But here we are, with cops treating a transgendered retired service member with a lack of respect that is as appalling as it is ignorant.

President Obama should request an investigation of the police's actions; he should also be demanding to know why the cops thought they could get away with such insulting behavior. That people protest their government doesn't give the police the right to disdain them, their identity or their cause.

Carolyn Ann

She don't need no damned precision

In her latest blog post, Rebecca wonders about labels. The dictionary over at reference.com provides a definition for a label, but it's too restrictive for Rebecca. She needs something more pliable, more ... Vague. She needs a word that doesn't restrict how she thinks about labels as they apply to herself and others; especially regarding how others apply labels to her. She opted for keywords. Which is not just strange, but wrong.

A label is a descriptive phrase or name. It can be accurately applied, or inaccurately applied. A keyword is a word (sometimes it's a phrase) that acts as a key to something else, whether it's a cipher or a block of text. A keyword is not an indicator of some personal trait or quality. A keyword doesn't describe something; it merely points to a block of some text; it's metadata: data about data. Rebecca approaches the entire concept in an adversarial way: she asserts that various keywords provide access to who she is. In other words, her keywords become labels.

Here's the problem: let's say you're a New Yorker; you even use the label "New Yorker" to describe yourself. It's not a keyword. It's a label. If it were a keyword, it would be used to indicate the content of, perhaps within, yourself; but being a New Yorker is part of your content. It's merely how you describe yourself. A person is not a content management system that needs keywords to locate a particular aspect! That's the other problem: a keyword lets you (I'm using Rebecca's definition of keyword) find a particular item. I want to find all the times the New Yorker is mentioned on the web: my keyword is "New Yorker". I want to find all the bloggers who describe themselves as New Yorkers: one of my keywords is "New Yorker". But in the context of describing oneself, it's not a keyword, it's a label.

Rebecca has, I believe, conflated two issues, and two definitions. She confuses a label with a keyword; they're different, but in the process of expanding the definition of "keyword", she makes it mean the same as the word she's trying to get rid of. The issues she confuses are more interesting: based on her words, I think she's confusing labels with defining herself. She's trying to arrive at a point where labels say so much more than they do; redefining what a keyword is doesn't get around that problem. It exacerbates it.

Keywords point out elements of a document, or a piece of text. A label describes something. Labels don't have to be accurate; keywords, to be useful, have to be. It's here where Rebecca's adversarial relationship with the English language leads her more astray than usual. She wants to define herself (otherwise, why would this be an issue? Why would she write about it the way she does?). She doesn't like labels because she has no control over them. She thinks of her labels as keywords, providing access to certain elements, features if you will, of herself. As if she were a piece of software. Her efforts don't provide any path to further definition of herself, but they do constrain how she can think of herself.

And that's the crying pity of it all. She constrains herself. Lax thinking will always be a constraint, even as it's used as an instrument of alleged freedom. Particularly so. Rebecca reflects the thinking of more than herself. That's why such thinking, if it can be called that, has gained such currency: it requires little effort, generates a fair amount of plausibility and ultimately fails. Such thinking fails when it's most needed, if it hasn't done so beforehand.

So what if the definition of a word doesn't fit your idea of what it means? A word means what it means. Humpty Dumpty might have figured it out, but he didn't, really. The allegory of Humpty Dumpty has to be carefully considered: it's too alluring to read his little riposte verbatim. And not consider what is behind the ideas he expressed in his rejoinder.

Rebecca limits herself in her understanding of others, and in doing so she limits her ability to understand herself. Little wonder she has such an antagonistic relationship with the language. I don't know Rebecca - I've had one sharply insulting email from her (when I pointed this out, she ended the conversation), and she denied me the opportunity to respond to a direct personal insult on her blog (it might be me, but I'm definitely picking up a theme...) With her comment moderation she allowed the insult to stand. I don't think she lacks honor; a sense of decency, perhaps, but not honor.

What I do know is that lax thinking, a desperation for definition and an arbitrary approach to definitions is not going to help her make her case. She's more than a document, more than something that needs keywords to point into. She's a person. In her exploration of labels, she somehow reduces everyone to a series of keywords. And that's something I have to challenge. I am not a series of keywords. If a word doesn't work for what I want, I don't go about redefining another word to fit - I figure out a word, or a phrase, that might fit. Rebecca could start with that. After all: she doesn't need to define herself. Not really.

Carolyn Ann

Jeremy is annoyed

Much to Jeremy's annoyance, he has discovered that, as usual, it is raining at the front of the house, and at the back.

He wants to know how such an egregious thing can happen.

This is Jeremy:

(A small bowl of milk helped mitigate his distress.)

Carolyn Ann

Bitchy Fashion Moment

I couldn't help notice the number of fashion fails in Philadelphia! Girls wearing tight jeans and tight tops with spikey heels and big hair. Except they didn't quite have the figures to "do the look".

The other was the "I just got out of bed: whaddya want?" look. So fetching. For the guy or girl they (hopefully) shared their bed with. For everyone else it was more a moment of "I wonder if those pajamas come in a more flattering color?" And where did she get those slippers?

Remind me to not go there! :-)

The guys weren't much better, but not being interested in them, I didn't notice them.

I did walk past a diner/bar/hip place to hang out on Chestnut - and I thought I was looking at a military review of wannabe rebels. It was like Soho, but a nightmare. Or Twilight Zone for the seriously fashion impaired. Black t's, with a monochromatic logo, tats, black or (for the really rebellious) dark blue jeans; preferably really well worn and/or acid-washed. Hi-tops and funky hair cuts that were supposed to look bathroom-sink but obviously cost a pretty penny.

Interestingly, a lot of the ink on the guys ended short of where a half-rolled up shirt sleeve would reveal all. :-)

I did try to take a picture, but I couldn't quite get the crowd.

Whatever happened to rebellion? It seems to be almost an acceptable image, these days.

Carolyn Ann

Changing the closet

Never mind coming out of it! Finding that streak of fur as she dashes into the closet, making herself obscurely comfortable, is enough. :-) Maxine has learned that if she's fast enough, and she's pretty quick anyway, she can be in the closet, and comfortable, before anyone notices that she's not where she normally is.

I often wonder how a cat can, within a few moments of arriving at a spot, look like they've been there longer than the place has existed. Arrive, curl up, fast asleep. Instantly.

Anyway, the Mrs is thinking of changing the closet over this weekend. The weather is changing, and it's about time the spring and summer clothes were out. We're both wishing we had one more walk-in closet; two are in the plans, but I haven't built them, yet. What we would both like is a closet each, with no seasonal change-overs.

We used to have that, in an apartment in Brooklyn. It was a huge apartment, two bedrooms, but the rooms were large. The living room was 19' by 14. The breakfast room was something like 12 x 12. The kitchen was small, and the dining room/space wasn't as big as it could be, but the master bedroom was decently sized: 18 by 14. And it had four closets in it. Two big ones, not walk in, but they had sliding doors. The Mrs took them; one for her winter clothes, one for her summer wardrobe. I had two smaller ones, and a large armoire for my, at the time very small, collection of dresses, skirts and tops. I kept my business suits in one closet, and my casual gear in the other. It was really, really convenient. :-) We both liked that arrangement!

When we moved to the house, we didn't take into account the type of closets a 1908-built house would have. "Small". And the spare room's was "Even Smaller". I had the closet at the top of the stairs for my by-now burgeoning collection of feminine attire; my suits and casual clothes were kept in a closet in the den. So were my shoes - all of them! Some of my more glamorous gowns I kept in a closet on the 3rd floor, in my office. It had two closets; the other one was a mix of storage and out-of-season stuff that must be hung up. Eventually I built a large cedar-lined closet in the spare room for the Mrs. We didn't have the room for an all-year thing, so she still had to do the whole change over thing. (I did, too, but to a lesser extent.)

I still think about matching that room's cornice; it took me ages! And I did all by hand. :-)

Now we have one closet for the two of us, a lot of plastic bins, and a temporary plastic closet-thing that hasn't really been opened in, oh, 4 years. Well, I did open it the other day, when I wanted to wear something 80's; I knew there was a dress in there that might do the trick. It might have, but my tummy appears to be a lot larger than when I bought the dress. :-(

Anyway, I'm getting fed up on not being able to see all my clothes; it makes it very hard to coordinate an outfit. And the Mrs is fed up that she can't see all of her clothes and shoes, making her morning routine unnecessarily complicated.

The general plan is to turn the current bathroom into a walk-in closet, and then take one end of the wife's very oddly shaped office, and turn that into a sort of attic-closet. We have an attic, but the Mrs would prefer that not be cluttered with "stuff". To do all of that, I first need to build a powder room. That task was made easier with my recent work on the plumbing. We have the toilet and sink, and even the medicine cabinet. We just don't have a coherent idea where all of them are going to go! We know roughly, but this isn't the sort of project you can say "somewhere over there" and go do it. You have to actually know where things are going to go!

I really have to develop a construction plan.

Carolyn Ann

A little busy...

I've been quite busy, of late. The wonderful sunshine and almost perfect temperatures have been enjoyed... By others. :-( My Vespa has a few problems, not least being a slow leak on the back tire (makes for an interesting cornering experience...) and it's developed a balky attitude to actually running. I think it's time for an overhaul.

What makes the back tire of the Vespa so much more interesting than that of a motorcycle is the amount of control you have over it, versus a motorcycle's rear tire. Basically: "not much". The way you sit on a scooter, any scooter, provides absolutely no control over that tire. If it starts to go, you're reliant on your steering and braking skills. Sure, you can use your body to a small extent, but not much. On a motorcycle, especially a sports bike, you can use your body quite extensively. Go around a corner a little too fast, and, if you're awake - and have practiced the maneuver!!! - you can move your tush from the seat and get your knee closer to the ground. If you're going that fast, you tush probably shouldn't be on the seat as you corner, anyway. This has the affect of pushing the bike back up, but your position alters the bike's pivot point*, and you can go around the corner faster. (* It's called something else, but I can't remember what. Sorry.)

Go find a book on cornering ("Sports Riding Techniques" is a good one), study it, find somewhere to practice and learn. It might save your bacon. :-) I attended a lecture at a motorcycle show where this cornering technique was demonstrated. It took me about a dozen turns to figure it out; now, it's my favorite technique, especially in the wet!

Anyway, the Vespa is poorly, and it needs some TLC. But I've got just a little too much on my plate right now. I'm trying to start a business, and that takes priority.

The Royal Enfield's starter has become stubborn. It's permanently "on", which is "not good". I had to disconnect the battery; the ignition switch made no difference whatsoever. So I've got to dismantle the thing. Again. Which means moving that oil line. Again. I might have to buy a new one, it's getting bent so often. Or a new starter motor. Knowing bikes as I do - probably both.

The Duc, of course, is sitting forlornly unused. It refuses to keep running, and it needs a lot of work, anyway. Individual estimates put it all at about $2,500. Talk about expensive! The bike was $12,000 and so far I've spent nigh on $10,000 keeping it running. Mind you, a small tipping over that destroyed the computer (it's in the dashboard) didn't help; that cost me over $1,200 to get fixed. The bike cost more to fix than I did! (Some band aids and an invaluable lesson in road rash.) And then there was the time the oil sensor failed. And the rear brake is a well known problem; it got to the point where I simply learned to live, unhappily, without it. That proved to be an expensive fix. That was awhile ago, now. My dealer/service station went out of business, so the nearest place is on Mars, or Northern Jersey. I'm not sure which is the better to get to.

Ducati's just are expensive to maintain. And buy. But the riding experience? I could be crude and use a sexual reference, but I'll refrain. :-)

Overall, I need some time on a bike. I've still got my pedal bike, so while it's not as fast as a Vespa, it's still two wheels, and it's still a lot of fun! I might even get fit! Which would have the nice side-benefit letting me wear all those pretty summer skirts and tops I've currently got stashed away. The Mrs is thinking of doing the closet change-over this weekend, so I'll have a motivation to slim down a bit. :-)

Carolyn Ann

Don't let that boss anywhere near the computer...

Bill re-iterates a funny story on his blog. It made me think of an incident, or two, from years ago.

A Very Important Project Manager called me one day; as he was a manager, and I was a manager, he didn't think he needed to bother the Help Desk - who were there to help with such issues as "the Internet is down!" He wanted me to come and fix it. I wandered down there, took one look at this computer and said "you have to login to the network, first."

Another time, I had a banker screaming at me! It was 7:30AM, I'd just got in and hadn't even had my coffee. I didn't quite need his angst right then. He couldn't login, and he needed to get to his email right now! There was nothing on his screen, and he needed his email right now! I, being the on-call tech, went to see him. He was not in a good mood. I noticed one small detail; a lesser tech would have pointed it out. But not me. I decided that it might be best if I fiddled around with the connections on the back of the computer. So I did. Just for a moment, though; I didn't actually do anything. I told him a plug was slightly loose, and then I did what he had failed to do: I pushed the screen's on/off button - and lo and behold, there was his login screen...

He was very, very happy. If memory serves, he even called my boss to thank him for the service!

Plenty more where those came from. :-)

Carolyn Ann

Stop Precisism!

Today is "Stop Precisism Day". It's when the Casualists fight back!

In the entire history of the English language, the precisists have exercised their privilege over the casualists. They try to suppress our precise points by saying they're "whimsical", "unfortunate" and even "not consistent"! Our ideas are consistent! They have to acknowledge our right to be as precise as we can be. So what if we can't define our own ideas? We're casualists, we don't have to - we're capable of demonstrating the direction an oppressor is going with the general wave of an arm!

One horrible privilege the Precisists have is to point out that our casually thought through ideas don't even support themselves! The precisists are exercising their pernicious privilege when they fully think through our arguments.

Another way they oppress us is by pointing out the size of the holes in our argument! We know there are holes, we just haven't found an obtuse and long-winded way of papering over them! So we ignore them. The Precisists exercise their privilege over us, and discriminate against us, by measuring and counting the holes instead! It's discriminatory.

Stand up demands that your arguments and points be precise! Get mad at when the Precisist examines your blog posts and find them "wanting"! (Pff! As if!) Insult the Precisist when they try to dig into your argument - you have a right to say you're being precise, even when you're nothing of the sort!

Don't be a Casualist Casualty! Meaninglessly insult a Precisist today!

Carolyn Ann

Rejoining the real (?) world

I've got to stop reading Questioning Transphobia. Their brand of victimhood just gets to me. It's a red rag to a bull. Like Fox News, they're not happy unless they're a victim of some grand plot. They have no grace, no real sense of tragedy; but they're as substantive as they want to be. And their readers seem to like that lack of real substance, that playing the victim. It's probably just as well that they don't try to be precise in their words; their fundamental ideas would implode, burying them.

And I really wish Zoe would check her numbers before publishing them. That's twice I've pointed out substantive errors. It's the sniff-test: if the numbers don't pass that, there's probably something wrong.

C'est la vie.

Carolyn Ann

Tragedy in a nutshell?

One of the most heinous accusations I can make of others is it that they have a superficial appreciation of tragedy. I threw it at Lisa Harney (and her co-bloggers), this evening.

When your reader develops the idea that your sense of tragedy can be encompassed by one sentence in Macbeth, you're in trouble. Not because your reader has a preconceived idea - I'll swear on a stack of Mojoey posts, Christopher Hitchen's books and Pharyngula diatribes that I read each Questioning Transphobia post with an open mind. I go in hoping for the best, and realizing I'm the fool, yet again. When I walk away from each and every post with the notion of preconceived ideas and prejudices, it gets to the point where it's not me, it's you.

I have often wondered about my animosity toward to QT; while it has a rational basis (Queen Emily's absolute disdain for my questioning of her political attitude, and her freedom to insult me on QT, but her denial of same privilege to me), it seems to supersede that. And, tonight, I was thinking about Macbeth. And it struck me: QT has all the sense of tragedy of a single sentence within Duncan's death.

It's superficial. It's meaningless. Except ol' Shakey's every sentence has meaning. To be colloquial for a moment: that's tragic.

Take, for example, the recent post about some poor transsexual who was beheaded: the title of the post is "Woman Beheaded". So while gender is unimportant, it's actually really important: a "cis" man is arrested in the murder of Amanda Gonzalez Andujar. This is the same blog that was disgusted that Ms Gonzalez-Andujar's gender history was up for discussion. (Not the same writer; Lisa Harney wrote the original story, Helen G wrote the follow up.) Ms Harney failed, utterly failed, to consider the beheadings of so many others. She didn't do her research; I'm not even sure she was aware of the Mexican drug violence until a transsexual was murdered. She never wrote about it. (Not to crow: I did.)

Ms Harney doesn't seem too concerned about the violence, about 15 (or was it 19?) kids murdered at a party. She's concerned about the beheading of one individual. It's a declaration of war against an unarmed group! No it's not. It's the routine, diabolically routine, murder of someone who somehow got the attention of the Los Zetas. (There's something desperately sad about the fact that it took one Google search to confirm the name of the gang.) Ms Harney, Queen Emily, Helen G, don't write about drug abuse within the transgender community. Not a word. I checked. No - they write about a new war, when it's not even a notable murder. Tregedy in a nutshell? Try that for tragedy in a nutshell.

Regarding Ms Gonzalez-Andujar I don't see any apology for thinking the worst of the detectives, or the reporters. Those people treated the murder as it should be treated: a murder. When it was discovered the victim was transgendered, the gender labels within the story changed. But a "cis" man was arrested in Las Vegas for the crime.

I wonder if Ms Harney can spell "hypocrisy"?

The basic problem with Questioning Transphobia is that they don't. They presume it.

I'm struggling with words and concepts, here.

I understand where Ms Harney, et alia, are coming from: the world's out to get you, and the evidence stacks up that it is. Except it isn't. QT doesn't question transphobia; the owners of QT try to highlight it. But their personal prejudices get in the way. They end up not so much questioning transphobia as promoting it!

They don't question transphobia: they need it.

Feminists didn't achieve what they did by playing the victim. They did it by proving that women had something to offer. That is the standard to live up to. Playing the victim is easy.

QT is, by many measures, the #1 TG blog. It's about time the writers of it started living up to their own humanity, their own intelligence, and their own manifesto. I, for one, am tired of being told that I'm victim. Because I am not. It's about time that QT's writers started treating others with the respect they demand for the transgendered. It's about time Lisa Harney recognized that we're not all her victims: we're individuals, with goals, ambitions and faults. I refuse to be Lisa's victim. I am more than that - I am me. And I am not a victim.

Carolyn Ann

Added: This post changed over a few hours as I added things I thought of, or investigated. Now you know. I defy you to find the same explanation in Questioning Transphobia.

It's not even midnight, and I'm muttering

Cue odd sounding mutterings from under the stairs. Camera pans to top of aforementioned stairs... It's a cat, wanting out of the basement; the door to which was inadvertently closed while the aforementioned cat was exploring and creating a new definition of "litter box".

(Yuk. I had to clean up.)

Some random thoughts I've been having, lately.

I spent some time thinking about Laurie Penny. She's a nice lass, a bit misguided and I was especially harsh to her. But I still get that feeling that, as someone who grew up in a working class family, with parents who endured as much as she does, voluntarily, involuntarily - and worse - that none of us want her precious pity. It's insulting beyond measure. She has the ability to get out of her self-appointed misery; my parents had to achieve it, themselves. Not that my parents aren't intellectual slouches. I often wonder if Christopher Hitchens would leave pleased that he held his own, or merely whimpering, in any encounter with my Mom. Believe me, I've seen her leave powerful intellects whimpering.

I used to argue morality, religion and philosophy with my Mom. As well as all the other stuff we never bother to remember as teenage sons. I remember my one really serious row with my Dad; no one has ever called him weak for a reason. He doesn't get as pointed as Mom, but oh, man, he can take on a group of youths (I've seen him do it) with the same aplomb he has for critical discussions of advanced theoretical mathematics. It was his defense of me, many years ago, that led me to a life that didn't have "academia" written all over it.

Do I judge him by what he gave me, or by his reluctance, even now, to acknowledge that one of his children has (euphemistically) "gender issues"? I fancy it's by what he gave me.

Other stuff.

Zoe Brain published a post that references a Fox News calculator. Considering that Zoe proclaims to be politically to the right, I'm still not sure why she would advertise a calculator that is so obviously biased? Zoe once told her audience that she was British born; we know she lives in Australia - I'm not sure she understands what the "political right" is, in the US. Oh, she might have a vague idea, but I don't think she really understands the turmoil and knee-jerk reactionary responses the American political right has embraced. Let me put it this way: David Cameron would be regarded as a raging communist. That he isn't is a testament more to American ignorance of British politics than any appreciation for his constant power-seeking platitudes.

I'm busy getting slightly sloshed here. I've got some beers, and a bottle of The Macallan (12 year, the best) and this post might take a long time. :-) Did I mention the wife has gone out for the evening? Oh does she need a break! It's been nothing but hell or high water for so long, now. It's not ending anytime soon, either. One of her checks didn't arrive in time; we think the manager responsible hates paperwork, and didn't process the invoice. Literally. Let me put it this way: until this manager turned up, she was paid on time, and this particular manager, while a corporate visionary, has said she hates doing paperwork and other "management stuff".

Sounds like me - except I processed every invoice promptly. I didn't send out emails saying as much, which I should have done (and would have if I'd had the sense to ask the Mrs about such matters), but only once was there a problem. He was a friend, and an ongoing problem. Don't hire friends. You lose both a valued person, and a friend.

I was thinking about my favorites, the other day. Yup, I was thinking about "Questioning Transphobia". I see Lisa Harney is capable of ironic comment. That's a first. The thing that strike me about the owners of that blog is that they lack any profound sense of tragedy. They have a superficial notion of it, but not a profound sense of the injustice. In many other bloggers, I'd argue they lacked any real compassion, or any sense of what they were writing about. With Ms Harney, in particular, I have to argue that she lacks any real, profound sense of tragedy.

Really.

The thing I get from their victimization, and especially that of their commenters, is akin to what I can get from Macbeth's complaints about his Dad. But with less eloquence. Or relevance. Tis the pity but for the truth be dispelled in tranches. Etc.

This is the moment where I get to "I probably shouldn't write this". I've been thinking long and hard about what I said about Helen, the other night. I will defend her; I will be her attorney (she'd be wiser not to hire me); if she or Rachel asked, I would do my level best to provide the assistance requested. I have done so in the past, and friendship to me is that no matter what, if I am to be honest, I will do so again. We don't have the best friendship on the planet; it's not even a friendship, to be honest. We know each other. I don't always measure friendship; Bob and Steve have been there when no-one else was.

Someone I knew, long ago, once contracted me to do some woodwork for her. We didn't sign a contract; I was introduced to her previous carpenter. He gave me a look that, frankly, should have had me running for the hills. Not from him - he was warning me. I learned what his warning was about. The client once called me, via her personal assistant no less, and said "Drive my car home, I left it in the parking lot!" I said "No, I've had 5 pints of beer." We were friends. We no longer are. I resent her, and she wonders why I won't return her calls. Don't hire friends unless you agree to a price beforehand, and then agree to a stipend for each challenge you put in front of them. Demanding I move a mirror one quarter of an inch when you're asking me to put up shelving you've dumpster dived, and then you quibble over a few hundred dollars.

I almost quit, and probably should have, when we're walking through the 23rd St Home Depot (a Home Depot in Manhattan? It's a glorified, industrialized home goods/hardware store), and she said "you're going to prorate the screws, aren't you?" I looked at her and didn't bother to mention that you don't prorate (charge individually) for the screws. My prices assumed such things.

To be fair, she had just been served notice of divorce by a very cheerful fellow. I sat with her in that room while she got herself together. I'm trained in suicide prevention. I've had a lot of experience talking to people about sudden, severe, emotional experiences; all of it on a volunteer basis. So I'm not an expert.

I remember one lass, in particular. There's enough time and space, I think I can write about this. Her boyfriend was abusive; her father was abusive. Everyone in her life was abusive, except the woman she'd been forced, by her boyfriend, to have sex with. She fell in love with the lass. It was not reciprocated. Talking to her was long experience. I couldn't comment; unlike the friend who offers a running commentary, you don't offer anything in such a crisis. You provide an ear for as long as she wants to talk. I was in that room for a long, long time. A very long time.

One of the principles of personal crisis management, or whatever it's called now, is that you need to talk to someone about those conversations. I never could. Not because the opportunity wasn't there - it was. The people I volunteered with were amazing. It was a simple matter of timing, I was in a career that had demands, and that precluded me being able to offload what some had told me.

It's funny. I feel like I'm betraying a confidence, and I am. I was told, and I accepted, that I could never discuss what I heard. I can't discuss how my personal experience as a closeted crossdresser was of no use to a Midlands miner, who tried talking to me while he wore his wife's undergarments. It was my failure, no one else's.

...

I'll finish now, because I have something else to say.

Carolyn Ann

A Shanghai Waltz

One of my more regular complaints is that the thriller/spy novel has declined to a point of unreadability. There's an incomprehensible reliance on super-human heroes, who are typically paper-thin in both character development and apparent thought, a moralistic black and white where the hero can, with impunity, do exactly what they see as a problem in everyone else and a stupid condescension of the reader. Complex plots are not to be seen, never mind heard from; it all has to have the rigid morality of a Sunday school sermon.

So it's refreshing to read a spy novel that's not like that. Typhoon, by Charles Cumming, is such a novel. Based in Hong Kong and Shangai, we are taken on an adventure that examines how the world around us is changing, and yet we're reminded that people don't. The hero, Joe Lennox, is very much a man in love; he reminds me of John le Carré's George Smiley in so many ways. Unfortunately his job as a British spy in Hong Kong, before the handover, gets in the way, and the love of his life is denied to him. A series of events leads Joe to Shanghai, and back to the proximity of the woman he loves. She's now married to his nemesis, Miles Coolidge, the brash American CIA agent, who's agitating and funding fundamentalist Islamic terror operations in Xin Jiang. I feel safe giving so much away because the writing is so unexpected, you think you know where Mr Cumming is taking you, and you're startled to find it's somewhere else entirely.

As you enter Joe Lennox's life, you won't recognize that you're in a whirlwind, such is the measured pace of Mr Cumming's prose. But while the guns, bullets and bombs are few and far between, the tension is palpable, and all the more convincing.

I know I've said this before, only to be disappointed, but this is a writer who stands a chance at assuming Mr le Carré's crown. Mr Cumming paints sparse scenes, but you don't feel they're any less real; indeed, they seem to be more real than many of the pretentiously comprehensive descriptions lesser writers have to provide. Even the supporting cast is more than paper thin; you get a sense of the person. Mile Coolidge is a paradox, but Mr Cumming doesn't tell you this: you just know it; Joe is a complex chap, not prone to easy characterization. Again, Mr Cumming shies away from the simplistic character "development" of some writers: Shanghai becomes a central character, in a way that astonishes me when I think about it. Metaphors and allegories abound in this tale; each having its own references, and each telling us something, or raising an interesting question. Mr Cumming doesn't deign to provide all the answers to the questions he raises; instead, he transports you to Mr Lennox's world, and you recognize that sometimes there just isn't an answer, right or wrong. A bit like the real world.

(As an aside, I picked the title of my review because I felt that Mr Cumming had taken me on a superbly executed waltz. :-) Notwithstanding some of the connotations of that statement.)

A superb thriller, and a writer coming into his own. Well worth reading.

Carolyn Ann

Starting up is hard to do

Start-Up Nation, by Dan Senor & Saul Singer, describes how Israel has become such an economic powerhouse, and a source of so much real innovation. (As opposed to the "innovation" touted by those, like the Republicans or Microsoft, who don't want, or are averse, to change.)

It turns out that there are five factors: the conscription, and the way the Israeli armed forces work; the concentration of people, along with their welcoming of immigrants and the high number of advanced degrees within the population; a robust democracy that has, at its core, the rule of law and a lack of hierarchy; an antagonist neighborhood and, finally, a government that acknowledges and welcomes its role in economy. Part of the success is also the idea that failure is cheap - people are respected for trying, and aren't punished for failing. (That's an idea that I love! And, indeed, live by.)

There are some interesting contrasts with the Arab world, with Ireland, with India, Singapore and South Korea. With the exception of Ireland, and possibly some South Koreans, all of these areas have one significant, cultural, problem: hierarchy. In India and throughout the Arab world, a patriarchy and the idea that a societal structure exists stymie those economies and peoples. Within the Arab world, women are at the bottom of the heap, and the King is at the top. Oil revenues help: when you don't have to work too hard to be comfortable, why bother?

To be fair, there are some signs that innovation is becoming more common in places like Indonesia, India and a few other nations. Interestingly, there isn't much sign of innovation in Brazil or Russia; of the BRIC nations, India and China are fast becoming innovation powerhouses.

Almost as a side note, the writers tell us that Israel and Canada are the two nations that didn't have any bank collapses in the Great Recession. Both regulate their banks quite heavily; in Israel, there's also no secondary mortgage market. Canada does have one, so I think we can take that as an example of where the Israeli economic engine has to catch up. Indeed, it's acknowledged that Israel is too dependent upon its high-tech industry. The other parts need to be nurtured, as well. (Well, perhaps not house building...)

Other problems are Israeli Arabs and the Haredim. Excused from military service, if they can prove they're studying at a yeshiva, they are excluded from some of the intrinsic benefits others enjoy. It's the intangible things: developing a network of friends and acquaintances, something most Israeli's do while in the military, not being exposed to a dynamic personal environment, where an individual officer is thrown into a situation with some men (and women) some equipment and a vague directive to get the job done. There are plenty of other examples, but the general result is that the Haredim are more dependent upon government assistance than their peers. The excusal was a political compromise around the time of Israel's founding; that it stands to derail Israel's economic growth is both telling, and a fairly urgent call for a review of the policy.

Israel's Arabs also pose another problem. Not generally allowed to serve, they don't get the same chances to build networks or develop the same skills as their Jewish peers. Successive Israeli governments also seem to have a penchant for ghettoizing and alienating the Arab population; recently about 4,000 Israeli Arabs were stripped of their citizenship. Of course, building Jewish settlements on Arab land doesn't exactly help relations between the two groups. With unemployment for Arab men around the low 70%, and for Arab women around 80%, this is not just an economic drag, it's a diabolical failure of civil rights.

All that notwithstanding, Israel's economic growth has some interesting lessons for America. The emphasis is science and technology education; although there are some signs that the arts are becoming more important (a couple of years ago, the Philadelphia Crafts Show, for instance, had some Israeli artists). When I think about Texas, Kentucky, Kansas and a few other states that want to emphasize, greatly amplify and exaggerate, religious aspects and subtly impose the idea of a social hierarchy, I do wonder if they recall what led to America's current economic boom: Sputnik. That little Soviet ball spurred a massive investment in science and technology education, an investment in the same and an economic boom that echoes those investments. Silicon Valley, for instance, is not known for its adherence to accepted wisdom. There's also the idea that if you don't like your boss, you can quit and go start your own company. These days all you need is an idea and an Internet connection!

The world is changing; Israel, currently about the 50th largest economy in the world (on a per capita basis), wants to get into the top 10 within a few decades. Considering that innovation drives economies, Israel is poised to achieve their goal. That such a goal exists is more than interesting: I defy anyone to identify a goal for Britain, America or any of the G8. China has a similar goal; it wants to be the economic peer of America within a decade or so. It might get there, but it will have to fundamentally change. That's not guaranteed; old, powerful, men tend to want to stay old, powerful, men. Young powerful men tend to want to be old, powerful, men. (The Arab world is full of such examples, too.)

Overall, this is a book anyone who's concerned about, or even just interested in, the global economy should read. It's a fast read, well written and the writers' don't shirk from pointing out Israel's problems. But the more interesting lesson is how Israel has become the economic miracle it really is. It deserves a place on any economic bookshelf.

Carolyn Ann

Job opening at Apple

I'm not sure, but there's probably a job opening in Apple's iPhone division.

On the other hand, that vacant spot in Steve Jobs' dungeon has probably been filled.

Carolyn Ann

Return to the 80's?

I don't know why, but for some reason I really fancy wearing some cute (?) mid-80's outfit. I don't have anything like that, so I guess I'll settle for a jeans and a cute top. :-|

Carolyn Ann

Think Girl!

The Mrs just called, and asked if I was girly. :-) I told her I had been, but when I looked in the mirror, I really didn't like what I saw, so I got changed. She said "Just Think Girl!"

I'm not quite sure what I did to deserve her, but I'm rather glad I did it! :-)

Carolyn Ann

Social networking in a (long and vague) nutshell

I have to admit that I got a little off track with this post, "Touting for Readers".

I didn't intend to it turn into "I wouldn't join any club that would(n't) have me as a member" thing. It was supposed to be a brief discussion about the all-too-common phenomena of touting for readers, as in "I'm in a popularity contest". But I got sidetracked and my intentions don't matter - my words do.

There's a certain "I want readers" thing to blogging. We're told, in the books and blogs about blogging, that gaining readers is about the only thing to aim for. In fact, it seems that this is the only goal of many bloggers. I was thinking, in particular, about transgender bloggers. There is astonishing accord on transgender issues, and very limited, if any, discussion of other issues. I rarely read, in a transgender blog, any dissection of an opposing view, for instance. I'm trying to think of when I read such a thing, last. I think it was on Antonia D'Orsay's blog, Dyssonance. My "favorite", Questioning Transphobia, frequently tries to dissect opposing ideas, but as they are blinkered their refutations are often strange and convoluted.

It's not as if everyone's thinking all leads to the same place - that would be too much to ask when people are involved - it seems that there is a template for thinking about transgender issues, and if you adhere to it, you're popular. And if you don't, you're not. This, of course, leads to a similarity of thinking that seems to imply that a fundamental truth is known only to the transgendered. I'm not sure there is a fundamental truth in play; it seems to me that simpler ideas lose out, and the framework used almost demands victimization of the transgendered.

I see the same points being raised time and again; whether it's on the efficacy of 'transgendered', or the treatment of transgendered prisoners or the claims of identity that are made: the same ideas are replayed. It's like listening (reading?) to a gender-based neocon script! There's so little variation you wonder where the playbook is, and how come you missed it. I promise to aim better, next time...

Leslie Ann took her blog private for whatever reason; she hasn't publicly explained such reasons, and I'm not convinced they're anyone's business, anyway. What I found interesting is that she now demands an email address, and an email requesting permission, before she allows you access to her blog. Considering that it's so easy to get an email address, I'm not sure what the purpose is. I don't necessarily care, but I found it intriguing that such a gaping hole was left for exploitation. Some person in England did the same thing, a little over a year ago; I suspect she took her blog private for business as well as personal reasons. I don't know - I didn't bother applying for permission to read her blog. Considering that we'd had a little disagreement - there's a surprise! - I didn't think she would grant me permission, anyway. But that's not why I didn't bother asking for permission to read her work. I didn't ask because I didn't think her work was original enough, informative or even entertaining enough, to make joining her club worth my while. If Chris Buckley took his blog private, I'd briefly entertain the idea of asking permission to read his work. I would end up simply missing his erudition and wit, though.

The idea that I need to ask permission before reading something is repellent, to me. I can't help but think it stifles debate, too. There's a subtle implication that if you disagree with the writer vehemently enough, they have the option of "punishing" you by retracting your permission. That's an active step; the reader to express their displeasure by simply not reading, isn't in the same league. On the other hand, if someone starts a blog that they intend to limit in readership - a family blog, for instance - then I have no issue joining in the fun. Such a setting has clearly defined expectations: if you wouldn't say it their parlor, you don't say it in the blog.

Let's take QT for a moment. If the owners of that decided they needed to take the blog private, and you had to apply for permission to read it, they would undoubtedly have quite the membership list. They could preach to their choir, and also avoid the unpleasantness of having someone poke holes in their arguments. They could create quite the walled garden! As it is, their rules are akin to demanding that you don't notice the weeds or uncut grass. I sometimes wonder why they don't simply wall off their garden so the weeds simply can't be seen. Mind you, if the owners of QT took the blog private, I don't think it would be detrimental to the Internet or any efforts to gain equality for the transgendered. Quite the opposite, in fact.

A private person, on the other hand, is not doing themselves any favors by limiting access to their blog, while simultaneously advertising that their private blog exists and all you need is to drop her an email to gain access. There seems to be a dichotomy between the two ideas! The biggest problem is that I not only don't know if the blog is worth reading, but what are the implications of disagreement? If she has an original way of looking at transgender issues, her work might be worth reading. (As long as I could disagree.)

The NY Times, awhile back, tried to put their columnists behind a pay-wall. It cost about $20 a year to gain access, and while I missed reading Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich, Gail Collins, et al, I couldn't see what I gained by paying for access to their columns. If Flickr charged to look at the pictures others put up, I doubt they'd be as popular as they are. (There's an interesting question: would Facebook be the world's leading photo sharing site if it wasn't a walled garden?) Flickr has a number of groups that require membership; some even require an application to join. I've joined one or two, which undermines my whole argument quite neatly! :-) And I am on that most famous walled garden, Facebook.

Some walled gardens are worth joining, most aren't. What seemed to be an interesting thought, when coupled with my recent reading of some transgender activist blogs, has turned out to be somewhat less interesting.

I'm beginning to think that my objection is not so much about some difficult to describe principal, but is more about my convenience. Blogging is not about the convenience of self-publishing, but about the lack barriers in making your opinions and words available to others. (Although the barriers are actually quite significant. You need electricity, some communication system, whether it's broadband or modems on a phone line, and you need a fairly complicated and expensive bit appliance to read the blog! And that's to ignore the other side, server/vendor of it. By automatic implication, you also need to resources, as a society and as an individual, to pay for all of it. The firm that hosts your blog needs the resources to host your blog, and so on and so forth.)

All of this is probably arriving at the conclusion that if I have to apply for permission to read your work, whether that permission is via subscription or simple request, you're not going to get my application. If the application doesn't require much effort, then I might join. If it requires giving up some information I'd rather not, then there's no way you're ever getting my application. There has to be something to entice me, basically. If I don't perceive that my membership of some group will return something to me, I'm not likely to join. If I perceive that joining your gated community is a device for your convenience (and I define your protection as your convenience), then I will not join because I will never know where I stand. If I don't know, or don't like, what you offer in return - why should I join?

I could probably edit all of this post down to a simple: if you're demanding something from me, I need to know what I will gain in return. Social networking in a nutshell, basically.