NOTE: Due to my old blog going off-line, the Storyblogging Carnival archives were lost. I'm re-posting the old carnivals on this blog. Since these are very old posts, it's possible that some links will be broken.
Storyblogging Carnival I
Welcome to the first Storyblogging Carnival. Here we've collected links to eight stories for your reading pleasure.
If you're unfamiliar with the concept of storyblogging, it consists of storytelling in blog format. It may be as simple as posting short stories on your blog, or as intricate as blogging as a fictional persona. (I am excluding deliberate deception from this definition--you can argue that deception is a legitimate storytelling technique, but examples won't be included in this Carnival.) While storytelling is not necessarily fictional, the fiction/non-fiction divide makes a useful criteria to separate out the storyblogging from the usual blog commentary. However, as you'll see, I haven't kept strictly to this criteria.
When I first started to put this together, I had no idea how much work it would be to assemble a carnival from scratch. After several weeks of discussions with other bloggers, and a little bit of begging on my part, we've put together the first Carnival. I hope you enjoy it. If you're interested in participating in a future Carnival, check the details at the end. The stories are listed in order of length, from shortest to longest, with a word count included. They also include a rating for appropriateness, using the movie ratings as a baseline. Although I didn't ask for it, several authors self-rated their work (which I took as a suggestion rather than an absolute) and I've rated the remainder. For the most part, the descriptions were written by the authors themselves, with my comments indicated in italics. Without further ado, here are this Carnival's entries...
The Village Itself
by Queenie of Rolling My Eyes
A 784 word brief story rated PG.
The laconic observation of the search for an impossibly large cat named Tilly.
the adventures of Doc (Crocodile Hunter) Rampage
by Dave Gudeman of Doc Rampage
A 1,332 word brief story rated G.
What beasts lie in ambush among the linoleum? What horrors await the unwary trekker going to the fridge for a coke?Who will protect us from the ssssssserpent of eeeeeeevil?
These and other pertinent questions of the modern age are addressed in a delightful and thought-provoking manuscript by the famous civil explorer, Doc Rampage.
[While technically a true story, this fictionalized telling of it really is delightful. Doc Rampage, incidentally, is the first person to suggest a Carnival along these lines, although neither of us were using the term "storyblogging" yet. -DSC]
Chloe Tuttle of Bogwillow
by Yetzirah of Yetzirah
A 1,343 word brief story rated G.
Sometimes people pass up their opportunity for that 15 minutes of fame, and go quietly about their remarkable existence. Chloe Tuttle was just such a person.
Insomnia
by Jeremiah Lewis of Fringe
A 2,285 word short story rated R.
A writer who can't sleep wanders through dark cityscapes of mind and memory, and encounters a familiar stranger.
Colossus
by Curtis Schweitzer of a_sdf
A 2,497 word short story rated PG.
"Colossus" is my expression of the power of the true American ideals--freedom, democracy, and equality. It expresses both the danger that the American ideal poses to dictatorship, oppression, and collectivism, as well as its place as the guiding conscience of the American soul. The story's abstract, future setting poses a world that has been stripped of liberty and justice--a world where the government's only recourse against the human need for freedom is to deny its existence.
They are soon to find out, however, the impossibility of such a task.
[I really liked this story; somehow it manages to be both depressing and hopeful. In part, stumbling upon Curtis's story is what inspired me to start the Carnival, an idea which had already been percolating at the suggestion of Doc Rampage. I had never heard what I'd already been doing called "storyblogging" until I read this. -DSC]
Allergies
by Neil Uchitel of Digitus, Finger, & Co.
A 2802 word short story rated G.
I've never had allergies before this year. I grew up on a farm until I was 6 or 7, so I've never been allergic to horses, chickens, dogs, cats, whatever. I knew kids in school who had allergies, and I used to think to myself, man, it sucks to be you. Then, all of the sudden, this year I'm allergic to all kinds of stuff.
[This is another story that is technically non-fiction. That said, it's well-told and funny. Once again, it proves that storyblogging is more about how you tell the story than whether it's fiction or non-fiction. -DSC]
Poor White Boys
by Robin Jones of beyond salvage
A 5,756 word short story rated PG-13.
A down-on-his-luck drifter has a chance meeting with another social misfit. A friendship is forged and they try and make a life for themselves, and their make-shift family, in a world none of them fit into.
If you wish to join my mailing list for the Carnival, let me know through the webform, or e-mail me at dscrank-at-alum.mit.edu. Additionally, if you'd like to host a future carnival, please let me know.
Friday, January 01, 2010
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Hosting a storyblogging carnival
NOTE: This is a really old post, so some of the details have changed, but it does explain the general idea of hosting a Storyblogging Carnival.
Robin Jones is now soliciting entries for the next Storyblogging Carnival. I probably should have given him my advice on how to do this earlier, but I'll go ahead and do it now.
First off, I suggest posting the announcement with the complete rules about a week before the Carnival takes place, although Robin advertised a bit earlier. At the same time, you need to send out the announcement to the e-mail list. If I had the resources, I'd have a listserv list, but right now my list is just a bunch of e-mail addresses. That reminds me, I really need to send the list to Robin. I very much suggest that the host send out the e-mail, otherwise whoever sends it out will get a bunch of the entries.
The rules are still under development at the moment. Hey, we've only done this twice so far. Right now we're asking for a lot of information. In addition to the usual for Carnivals: blog title, blog url, story title, story url, and description, we also want a word count, a suggested rating, and author name or pseudonym (this is a new one, since I was uncertain what name to use for some of the entries I got last time). We use all of this in the Carnival entries, so none of it's extraneous, but it is a lot.
Once all the entries are collected, the host has to read all the entries. Yes, all of them. This allows the host to adjust the ratings as needed. (I've decreased the rating for a couple of stories when I thought the author was too hard on the contents, and I may have increased it once or twice.) It also allows him to comment on the stories if he so desires. Because the host needs to read all the stories, and because there's no length limit, I suggest a cut-off early enough to give him time for it. I make it on Friday night so I have the whole weekend, but I'm pretty lenient if people get an entry in late. That's also the reason why I take a maximum of twenty entries on a first come, first serve basis. If I had to read fifty entries, I'd never be able to do it. So far, we haven't received even twenty entries, but we've just begun, and we're growing. If we start regularly exceeding twenty, we may have to come up with a different solution. This is, of course, up to the host, and if he thinks he can handle fifty entries, he should go for it, but my rule is twenty, first come, first serve.
Then on the scheduled Monday the host puts up the Carnival. I think the format of the previous storyblogging carnivals works well.
The description of the story--the blurb--comes straight from the author's mouth, in order to avoid editorializing and spoilers on the part of the host. (If the author has a spoiler in his blurb, that's foreshadowing.) Occasionally I want to use a different blurb from what the author proposed, if the author's is too long or too vague, and sometimes the author asks me for help, and in this case I try to discuss it with the author until we come to an agreement.
I don't double check the word count unless it seems off to me. Trust me, once you've read five or six stories of various length, you can usually tell where a story falls, and I don't think it's necessary to be exactly right on the word count... five words here and there won't make a huge difference, although it can place one story ahead of the other in the Carnival, as the entries are listed in order of length. It's not terribly important, but I also put stories in categories. Stories 999 words or less are brief stories, 1,000-24,999 words is a short story, 25,000-59,999 words is a novella (only one of these so far--mine), and 60,000 words or more is a novel. These are somewhat arbitrary, and in the first carnival I defined anything less than 2,000 words as a brief story. The basic definition of a brief story is that it is not much longer than a typical blog post (a non-Steven den Beste blog post, that is). This post, by the way, is 1,034 words long [before the update was added]. I list the stories in order of length. I do both of these because this is the Internet, and on the Internet, people have short attention spans, and I want them to know what they're getting into when they start to read a story.
Both excerpts and stories in progress are exceptions to the rules. In some ways they are similar--they are both incomplete stories. For excerpts, however, the complete story is available somewhere--preferably online, but not necessarily, while stories in progress are not yet finished. Their word count is whatever is available in the blog, although with an excerpt the full length is included (again, so the reader knows what he's getting into should he decide he wants to know how the story goes). Since a story in progress has an unknown length, and sometimes the author doesn't even know what category it will be in when finished, I don't even give an estimate of the final length.
Any comments the host gives on a story are his own. I wasn't particularly impressed by my own commentary in the previous Carnivals. I do not comment on every story, or even most of them, and you shouldn't take the lack of a comment positively or negatively. I never comment on my own stories, for example. I also do not pan stories in my comments, although I won't rule out additional warnings for mature content (beyond the rating system). Sometimes I don't comment simply because I'm worried doing so will give too much away. If I feel I can comment without spoiling, and something in the story particularly struck me, then I may say how it did. I don't know how other hosts will comment on the entries, but I look forward to seeing it, since it's one area where I could use improvement.
So that's all there is to it. Any questions?
Update: Since the carnival began, there have been a couple of changes, but not many. These days the deadline for accepting submissions is Saturday night, rather than Friday, but that's still up to the host. And in addition to the two e-mails mentioned above, the host sends out a reminder e-mail a day or two before the deadline just to make sure people don't forget. I also ask that the hosts link to my Carnival category, as that contains links to the last twenty carnivals. Finally, since we've gotten a listing on Conservative Cat's Carnival submission form, we get entries through that webform as well. Those entries go straight to me, and I forward them to the host. Typically these entries don't have the full information we usually ask for, but I usually let that slide, although I may ask the author if something important is missing, and I'll be less willing to overlook it if I've added them to the e-mail list, in which case they should be getting the e-mails telling them what information to send. Being part of Conservative Cat's Carnival submission form also means that we should ping the trackback to make sure the most recent entry's on the carnival link list. I send the necessary information to the host.
Robin Jones is now soliciting entries for the next Storyblogging Carnival. I probably should have given him my advice on how to do this earlier, but I'll go ahead and do it now.
First off, I suggest posting the announcement with the complete rules about a week before the Carnival takes place, although Robin advertised a bit earlier. At the same time, you need to send out the announcement to the e-mail list. If I had the resources, I'd have a listserv list, but right now my list is just a bunch of e-mail addresses. That reminds me, I really need to send the list to Robin. I very much suggest that the host send out the e-mail, otherwise whoever sends it out will get a bunch of the entries.
The rules are still under development at the moment. Hey, we've only done this twice so far. Right now we're asking for a lot of information. In addition to the usual for Carnivals: blog title, blog url, story title, story url, and description, we also want a word count, a suggested rating, and author name or pseudonym (this is a new one, since I was uncertain what name to use for some of the entries I got last time). We use all of this in the Carnival entries, so none of it's extraneous, but it is a lot.
Once all the entries are collected, the host has to read all the entries. Yes, all of them. This allows the host to adjust the ratings as needed. (I've decreased the rating for a couple of stories when I thought the author was too hard on the contents, and I may have increased it once or twice.) It also allows him to comment on the stories if he so desires. Because the host needs to read all the stories, and because there's no length limit, I suggest a cut-off early enough to give him time for it. I make it on Friday night so I have the whole weekend, but I'm pretty lenient if people get an entry in late. That's also the reason why I take a maximum of twenty entries on a first come, first serve basis. If I had to read fifty entries, I'd never be able to do it. So far, we haven't received even twenty entries, but we've just begun, and we're growing. If we start regularly exceeding twenty, we may have to come up with a different solution. This is, of course, up to the host, and if he thinks he can handle fifty entries, he should go for it, but my rule is twenty, first come, first serve.
Then on the scheduled Monday the host puts up the Carnival. I think the format of the previous storyblogging carnivals works well.
The description of the story--the blurb--comes straight from the author's mouth, in order to avoid editorializing and spoilers on the part of the host. (If the author has a spoiler in his blurb, that's foreshadowing.) Occasionally I want to use a different blurb from what the author proposed, if the author's is too long or too vague, and sometimes the author asks me for help, and in this case I try to discuss it with the author until we come to an agreement.
I don't double check the word count unless it seems off to me. Trust me, once you've read five or six stories of various length, you can usually tell where a story falls, and I don't think it's necessary to be exactly right on the word count... five words here and there won't make a huge difference, although it can place one story ahead of the other in the Carnival, as the entries are listed in order of length. It's not terribly important, but I also put stories in categories. Stories 999 words or less are brief stories, 1,000-24,999 words is a short story, 25,000-59,999 words is a novella (only one of these so far--mine), and 60,000 words or more is a novel. These are somewhat arbitrary, and in the first carnival I defined anything less than 2,000 words as a brief story. The basic definition of a brief story is that it is not much longer than a typical blog post (a non-Steven den Beste blog post, that is). This post, by the way, is 1,034 words long [before the update was added]. I list the stories in order of length. I do both of these because this is the Internet, and on the Internet, people have short attention spans, and I want them to know what they're getting into when they start to read a story.
Both excerpts and stories in progress are exceptions to the rules. In some ways they are similar--they are both incomplete stories. For excerpts, however, the complete story is available somewhere--preferably online, but not necessarily, while stories in progress are not yet finished. Their word count is whatever is available in the blog, although with an excerpt the full length is included (again, so the reader knows what he's getting into should he decide he wants to know how the story goes). Since a story in progress has an unknown length, and sometimes the author doesn't even know what category it will be in when finished, I don't even give an estimate of the final length.
Any comments the host gives on a story are his own. I wasn't particularly impressed by my own commentary in the previous Carnivals. I do not comment on every story, or even most of them, and you shouldn't take the lack of a comment positively or negatively. I never comment on my own stories, for example. I also do not pan stories in my comments, although I won't rule out additional warnings for mature content (beyond the rating system). Sometimes I don't comment simply because I'm worried doing so will give too much away. If I feel I can comment without spoiling, and something in the story particularly struck me, then I may say how it did. I don't know how other hosts will comment on the entries, but I look forward to seeing it, since it's one area where I could use improvement.
So that's all there is to it. Any questions?
Update: Since the carnival began, there have been a couple of changes, but not many. These days the deadline for accepting submissions is Saturday night, rather than Friday, but that's still up to the host. And in addition to the two e-mails mentioned above, the host sends out a reminder e-mail a day or two before the deadline just to make sure people don't forget. I also ask that the hosts link to my Carnival category, as that contains links to the last twenty carnivals. Finally, since we've gotten a listing on Conservative Cat's Carnival submission form, we get entries through that webform as well. Those entries go straight to me, and I forward them to the host. Typically these entries don't have the full information we usually ask for, but I usually let that slide, although I may ask the author if something important is missing, and I'll be less willing to overlook it if I've added them to the e-mail list, in which case they should be getting the e-mails telling them what information to send. Being part of Conservative Cat's Carnival submission form also means that we should ping the trackback to make sure the most recent entry's on the carnival link list. I send the necessary information to the host.
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
What's in a name?
I sold a story yesterday. It'll be a while before it goes into print, so I won't name the story or the magazine that bought it, but I will say that, according to the editor, this is the longest story he's ever bought. A dubious distinction, I know.
The reason I bring this up is because one of the things I needed to do was decide how my name would appear on the story. When I first started publishing, I was using Donald S. Crankshaw. Recently, though, I've been using D. S. Crankshaw. More by coincidence than design the stories under D. S. Crankshaw all appeared in Christian markets. Since this new story will be appearing in a fantasy market, I decided to use Donald S. Crankshaw as my author name, since that's the author name in my other fantasy market story. It's not uncommon for authors to use different names in different markets, so I think I'll be keeping this distinction.
The reason I bring this up is because one of the things I needed to do was decide how my name would appear on the story. When I first started publishing, I was using Donald S. Crankshaw. Recently, though, I've been using D. S. Crankshaw. More by coincidence than design the stories under D. S. Crankshaw all appeared in Christian markets. Since this new story will be appearing in a fantasy market, I decided to use Donald S. Crankshaw as my author name, since that's the author name in my other fantasy market story. It's not uncommon for authors to use different names in different markets, so I think I'll be keeping this distinction.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Welcome to the new (old) Back of the Envelope
With the closure of Powerblogs, I've moved back to my blogger blog. It'll be a little while before I have everything properly set up here, but at least I'm here. I'll be re-posting some of the stuff that got lost in the move, the many missing Storyblogging Carnivals being at the top of the list.
Friday, July 16, 2004
Back of the Envelope has moved!
Last week, I said that I was considering moving off of Blogspot, and I've been hinting that there's a major change to the site in the works. Some of you may have already put 2 and 2 together and guessed what's happening. Yes, I am moving off of Blogspot, and onto a site hosted by Powerblogs. In the process, I've registered a domain name. Back of the Envelope can now be found at www.DonaldSCrankshaw.com. I've taken advantage of this change, and Powerblogs' 75 MB of storage space, to merge Back of the Envelope with my homepage, putting everything in one place. So come visit at the new site, and please remember to update your blogrolls.
Thursday, July 15, 2004
Federal Marriage Amendment fails
Old Post: My last post on the Federal Marriage Amendment is here.
As you probably already know, the Federal Marriage Amendment failed to pass yesterday. To be honest, I was never a big fan of this version of the FMA. I much preferred Hatch's version, which I think could have passed with the proper politicking. My guess is that the Republican leadership thought it was more important to force a vote on the issue than to actually pass an amendment. That was a mistake.
First, although a majority of Americans oppose gay marriage, most won't go as far as an amendment. Dean Esmay says it's because there's not enough hostility toward gays. I think he's being unfair, as he seems to assume that the only reason to oppose changing the earliest known social unit would be hostility towards homosexuals. I think it's more likely that an amendment is considered a very strong step, one that once made cannot be easily undone, and people are reluctant to go that far.
And they're becoming more reluctant. Opposition to gay marriage is decreasing as people become more used to the idea. Part of that is a natural reluctance in this country to deny people what they want. It's the same reluctance that gives us redistributionist policies. If it benefits one group a lot, but hurts everyone else only a little, then it's not worth opposing--not for the majority of the population, and certainly not in the Congress. Especially when the accusation of bigotry is all you get for your attempts. But even more important is that prior to the existence of gay marriage, you would be opposing giving people something that did not yet have. Now that it exists in Massachusetts, this federal marriage amendment would take something away from people. If the populace is reluctant to withhold from a special interest, they're even more reluctant to take away. Waiting longer, to bring it up for another vote, will only make it harder to pass the amendment.
The harm from allowing gay marriage is subtle and long-term, the benefit is clear and immediate. If in the end the harm is more than the gain, as it seems to have been in the Netherlands, by that point it will be too late.
So is there a solution? Gay marriage may be gaining acceptance, but not so much that it can be legislatively enacted into law in any state. In every instance, it's been enacted by activist judges. While I oppose gay marriage, I would not protest as loudly if an orderly decision were made by the general populace to accept it. In that case I could believe that, at the least, it had been debated, the advantages and disadvantages weighed, and the decision made with a willingness to accept the consequences. I cannot accept it being foisted on the nation by activist judges who make their decision in a matter of weeks without significant input from all sides of the debate.
I think that Senate should have gone with the Orrin Hatch amendment, which reads:
This has a much greater chance of passing, now, and as I said, the longer we wait, the harder it will be to pass any amendment. This would have forced the issue into the state legislatures, and presumably removed the courts, state and federal, from the equation. By doing so, it would have ensured that gay marriage would be debated and enacted or denied by the will of the people.
Right now, it would take a supermajority of the people to stop gay marriage, since it seems that nothing short of a constitutional amendment, on the state or federal levels, can stop the courts from enacting it. The amendment would change the equation, so that it would take a majority (but not a supermajority) of the people to enact gay marriage. I take it as obvious that this is the way it should be, and it saddens me that it will take a Constitutional Amendment to make it so.
As you probably already know, the Federal Marriage Amendment failed to pass yesterday. To be honest, I was never a big fan of this version of the FMA. I much preferred Hatch's version, which I think could have passed with the proper politicking. My guess is that the Republican leadership thought it was more important to force a vote on the issue than to actually pass an amendment. That was a mistake.
First, although a majority of Americans oppose gay marriage, most won't go as far as an amendment. Dean Esmay says it's because there's not enough hostility toward gays. I think he's being unfair, as he seems to assume that the only reason to oppose changing the earliest known social unit would be hostility towards homosexuals. I think it's more likely that an amendment is considered a very strong step, one that once made cannot be easily undone, and people are reluctant to go that far.
And they're becoming more reluctant. Opposition to gay marriage is decreasing as people become more used to the idea. Part of that is a natural reluctance in this country to deny people what they want. It's the same reluctance that gives us redistributionist policies. If it benefits one group a lot, but hurts everyone else only a little, then it's not worth opposing--not for the majority of the population, and certainly not in the Congress. Especially when the accusation of bigotry is all you get for your attempts. But even more important is that prior to the existence of gay marriage, you would be opposing giving people something that did not yet have. Now that it exists in Massachusetts, this federal marriage amendment would take something away from people. If the populace is reluctant to withhold from a special interest, they're even more reluctant to take away. Waiting longer, to bring it up for another vote, will only make it harder to pass the amendment.
The harm from allowing gay marriage is subtle and long-term, the benefit is clear and immediate. If in the end the harm is more than the gain, as it seems to have been in the Netherlands, by that point it will be too late.
So is there a solution? Gay marriage may be gaining acceptance, but not so much that it can be legislatively enacted into law in any state. In every instance, it's been enacted by activist judges. While I oppose gay marriage, I would not protest as loudly if an orderly decision were made by the general populace to accept it. In that case I could believe that, at the least, it had been debated, the advantages and disadvantages weighed, and the decision made with a willingness to accept the consequences. I cannot accept it being foisted on the nation by activist judges who make their decision in a matter of weeks without significant input from all sides of the debate.
I think that Senate should have gone with the Orrin Hatch amendment, which reads:
Civil marriage shall be defined in each state by the legislature or the citizens thereof. Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to require that marriage or its benefits be extended to any union other than that of a man and a woman.
This has a much greater chance of passing, now, and as I said, the longer we wait, the harder it will be to pass any amendment. This would have forced the issue into the state legislatures, and presumably removed the courts, state and federal, from the equation. By doing so, it would have ensured that gay marriage would be debated and enacted or denied by the will of the people.
Right now, it would take a supermajority of the people to stop gay marriage, since it seems that nothing short of a constitutional amendment, on the state or federal levels, can stop the courts from enacting it. The amendment would change the equation, so that it would take a majority (but not a supermajority) of the people to enact gay marriage. I take it as obvious that this is the way it should be, and it saddens me that it will take a Constitutional Amendment to make it so.
Sluggy and world politics
I don't know whether Pete Abrams, the artist behind Sluggy Freelance, is a hawk or a dove, a liberal or a conservative, a Republican or a Democrat, but I do like the way he thinks. You get the impression that his head's on straight when it comes to the War on Terror, at least.
Take for instance today's comic. For a bit of background, the Dimension of Pain (represented by the ugly guys in the first couple of panels) has invaded the Dimension of Lame (the happy, peaceful dimension that has no concept of violence or good food). Torg--the blond guy with the sword--is from our dimension, and finds the whole DoL annoying. He's also the guy the DoP invaders came to the DoL to find, mistaking it for his dimension. It's all very confusing, but you can get most of it by starting at the beginning of this storyline. Or you could just start reading the archives from the beginning.
What I find most telling, however, are the first few panels, where Psyk (the pinkish cyclops) says, "I observed over time that most of these mortals seek peace out of fear, not honor or hope." He then proceeds to tell Horribus, his boss, about his plan to take over the entire world.
Now maybe I'm just reading too much into a webcomic, but you can see that the attitude that Pete is slamming as both dishonorable and ineffective is alive and well in the world. For instance, read what La Shawn Barber has to say here about how the Philippines are giving in to terrorists.
Take for instance today's comic. For a bit of background, the Dimension of Pain (represented by the ugly guys in the first couple of panels) has invaded the Dimension of Lame (the happy, peaceful dimension that has no concept of violence or good food). Torg--the blond guy with the sword--is from our dimension, and finds the whole DoL annoying. He's also the guy the DoP invaders came to the DoL to find, mistaking it for his dimension. It's all very confusing, but you can get most of it by starting at the beginning of this storyline. Or you could just start reading the archives from the beginning.
What I find most telling, however, are the first few panels, where Psyk (the pinkish cyclops) says, "I observed over time that most of these mortals seek peace out of fear, not honor or hope." He then proceeds to tell Horribus, his boss, about his plan to take over the entire world.
Now maybe I'm just reading too much into a webcomic, but you can see that the attitude that Pete is slamming as both dishonorable and ineffective is alive and well in the world. For instance, read what La Shawn Barber has to say here about how the Philippines are giving in to terrorists.
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Third Revision of A Phoenix in Darkness: Part II done
If you're wondering why the blogging has been slow today, it's because I've been working on finishing the third revision of Part II of A Phoenix in Darkness. Well, it's done now, and after some significant work, I've got all the necessary web resources needed to make the story available up and running. In the meantime, Part I is available and free, so enjoy.
Christian Carnival XXVI
The twenty-sixth Christian Carnival is up at From the Anchor Hold. Check out what other Christian bloggers are saying.
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
The Job Hunt
In case you're curious, I am still looking for a position once the funding runs out for my Postdoc, which will be happening in just a couple of months. While it's certainly frightening, it's also exciting to consider new job possibilities. I've been doing most of my searching online, using various internet job posting sites, such as Monster, Careerbuilder, and BostonWorks. I have each of them mailing me daily with job possibilities that meet my criteria. For the remainder of this month, I plan to complete one serious job application each day--a serious job application being one where I think I'm well qualified and that I would enjoy the work. That doesn't preclude additional applications to jobs that I think I would enjoy but where my qualifications are iffy, such as the Bioware job, but I want to make sure I have plenty of applications out for those jobs for which I think I have a good chance. As always, if you know of any leads, please let me know. And your prayers are always appreciated.
Carnival of the Bush Bloggers
The Carnival of the Bush Bloggers is up at Blogs for Bush. It's a day late, but check it out. You may notice my post on Kerry's inability to understand the separation of Church and State, along with other posts on politics.
You may notice that I'm only really good at linking to carnivals when I have a post in there. I'm just better at remembering when I'm in the carnival. Sorry about that.
You may notice that I'm only really good at linking to carnivals when I have a post in there. I'm just better at remembering when I'm in the carnival. Sorry about that.
In Vitro Fertilization
Serge at Imago Dei has some thoughts on in vitro fertilization in a series of posts: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 (Unfortunately, I can't get the link to Part 3 to work, so I just gave a link to his front page. I'll update it as soon as there is a valid link.). I first thought seriously about in vitro fertilization when I was leading the Responsible Technology discussion group at MIT. At the time, I thought that while there is nothing inherently wrong with in vitro fertilization, there is something truly abhorrent in its wastefulness. Many more embryos are produced than are ever used, and this practice should be an outrage to those who believe life begins at conception. The sad truth is that the pro-life movement, while opposing the deliberate destruction of the embryos, makes little effort to address the practices that lead to it. And I cannot say that I myself have done any better, since I saw the practice as terrible, but at the time it was easier just not to think about it too much: I had more than enough things to become outraged about already. I'm glad to see that Serge has put some serious thought into the matter, going so far as to offer practical advice to thoughtful Christian couples whose fertility problems lead them to consider in vitro fertilization:
In addition, you may have noticed that I've added Imago Dei to the blogroll. Serge's thoughtful essays on bioethics make him a must-read. Plus I noticed that I was on his blogroll. (While I do not have a reciprocity policy, I do tend to check out blogs that link to me, and I'll add them if I like what I see.)
My advice for those who are having fertility problems would be the following:
1. Talk about how far you are willing to go for infertility treatments PRIOR to attempting to conceive a child. Clear thinking and a plan is important.
2. Clearly indicate your beliefs to the IVF clinic and ensure that they understand that you do not wish to have embryos killed in this process. If they do not want to play ball, go somewhere else.
3. Prayerfully determine whether you want to go through all of this, or to adopt a child that needs a loving Christian home.
In addition, you may have noticed that I've added Imago Dei to the blogroll. Serge's thoughtful essays on bioethics make him a must-read. Plus I noticed that I was on his blogroll. (While I do not have a reciprocity policy, I do tend to check out blogs that link to me, and I'll add them if I like what I see.)
Monday, July 12, 2004
Galileo again
Joe Carter has a post up about Galileo, going over the history which I've covered before. The comments on his posts have degenerated into name-calling right now, but before they did, someone did bring up the question of what all this history proves. That the church wasn't quite so narrow-minded as they were thought to be? They still punished him for his heresy.
I think what it proves is that, as in any story, we have a tendency to find both heroes and villains, and we tend to simplify the story until the villains are truly villainous and the heroes are truly heroic, ignoring the inconvenient contradictions. Heh, I'm sounding like a post-modernist. The Church did not handle Galileo well, but they did not mishandle his case as badly as they are accused. By simplifying the story into a myth, we do a disservice both to the Church and to Galileo. The Galileo story is used to turn the religion into a villain and science into a hero, fueling contempt for religion by turning science into something it's not: a clear truth that is obvious to anyone with an open mind. Science is never obvious--it is difficult and murky and a lot of hard work separating the wheat from the chaff. We scientists are done a disservice by those who want to turn science into a quick and easy answer. Society as a whole is done a disservice when science is no longer considered debatable, where all ethical considerations are swept aside in the breakneck race for scientific progress. Laying the Galileo myth to rest would do a lot to curb this attitude.
I think what it proves is that, as in any story, we have a tendency to find both heroes and villains, and we tend to simplify the story until the villains are truly villainous and the heroes are truly heroic, ignoring the inconvenient contradictions. Heh, I'm sounding like a post-modernist. The Church did not handle Galileo well, but they did not mishandle his case as badly as they are accused. By simplifying the story into a myth, we do a disservice both to the Church and to Galileo. The Galileo story is used to turn the religion into a villain and science into a hero, fueling contempt for religion by turning science into something it's not: a clear truth that is obvious to anyone with an open mind. Science is never obvious--it is difficult and murky and a lot of hard work separating the wheat from the chaff. We scientists are done a disservice by those who want to turn science into a quick and easy answer. Society as a whole is done a disservice when science is no longer considered debatable, where all ethical considerations are swept aside in the breakneck race for scientific progress. Laying the Galileo myth to rest would do a lot to curb this attitude.
Sunday, July 11, 2004
And now for today's comedy
If you've read Lileks's column that I mentioned below, you may remember this part:
Now Dean Esmay has a very funny post illustrating the Mooreish attitude:
Okay, it's funnier when you read the whole thing, with the pictures.
Meanwhile, Dave Barry's column (free registration required) covers dying pets. It's funny, mainly because it's about the sort of impersonal, short-lived pets no one gets too attached to:
I think even Dave Barry would have a hard time writing a funny column about dead cats or dogs.
[Moore:]For too long now we have abandoned our flag to those who see it as a symbol of war and dominance, as a way to crush dissent at home. Flags are flying from the back of SUVs, rising high above car dealerships, plastering the windows of businesses and adorning paper bags from fast-food restaurants. But these flags are intended to send a message: "You're either with us or you're against us," "Bring it on!" or "Watch what you say, watch what you do."
[Lileks:]I knew a paranoid schizophrenic once. He believed that the New York Times was sending him personal messages through its front-page headlines. He might also have believed that car-dealership flags were telling him to watch what he said.
If flying the flag is intended to crush dissent at home (as opposed to abroad) it’s not doing a very good job, is it? Personally, I fly my flag on holidays because I love this country. If you asked for secondary reasons, I’d say it’s to show support for the troops and their mission. I gave my daughter a flag to wave on the Fourth as part of a long careful education in what sets the American experiment apart from the general nature of human history. (Details to follow.)
Now Dean Esmay has a very funny post illustrating the Mooreish attitude:
Haha! I showed you an American flag! You know what that means! You cannot dissent anymore, that's what it means! See how the flag is stopping you frrrom dissentinnng?? You can no longer dissent! I have crrrushed your dissent with my fingers and with the flag!
Okay, it's funnier when you read the whole thing, with the pictures.
Meanwhile, Dave Barry's column (free registration required) covers dying pets. It's funny, mainly because it's about the sort of impersonal, short-lived pets no one gets too attached to:
I say all this to explain why I recently bought fish for my 4-year-old daughter, Sophie. My wife and I realized how badly she wanted an animal when she found a beetle on the patio and declared that it was a pet, named Marvin. She put Marvin into a Tupperware container, where, under Sophie's loving care and feeding, he thrived for maybe nine seconds before expiring like a little six-legged parking meter. Fortunately, we have a beetle-intensive patio, so, unbeknownst to Sophie, we were able to replace Marvin with a parade of stand-ins of various sizes (''Look! Marvin has grown bigger!'' ``Wow! Today Marvin has grown smaller!''). But it gets to be tedious, going out early every morning to wrangle patio beetles. So we decided to go with fish.
I think even Dave Barry would have a hard time writing a funny column about dead cats or dogs.
A Phoenix in Darkness Update
I've just been working on Part II of A Phoenix in Darkness. It should go up this Saturday as scheduled, despite complications in my life. Meanwhile, you can find Part I here.
Week in Review
It's been a fun week. Here's what I've been talking about:
How I almost became a computer game designer -- I recount a fun job interview, and the reasons why the job didn't work out.
Should I be moving? -- Dean Esmay is strongly encouraging people to move off of Blogspot, and the trouble it's been giving me has made the concept tempting. What will I be doing? Stay tuned.
John Kerry on Abortion -- Kerry still hasn't figured out what separation of Church and State is all about.
The Supreme Court and Saddam Hussein -- Will the Supreme Court move to free Saddam Hussein? Does it even have jurisdiction in this matter? Saddam's lawyer hopes so.
Farscape is back! -- Farscape is returning to the SciFi channel. I suppose caring about that makes me a geek, but if I were a true geek I would have found out about it back in April.
How I almost became a computer game designer -- I recount a fun job interview, and the reasons why the job didn't work out.
Should I be moving? -- Dean Esmay is strongly encouraging people to move off of Blogspot, and the trouble it's been giving me has made the concept tempting. What will I be doing? Stay tuned.
John Kerry on Abortion -- Kerry still hasn't figured out what separation of Church and State is all about.
The Supreme Court and Saddam Hussein -- Will the Supreme Court move to free Saddam Hussein? Does it even have jurisdiction in this matter? Saddam's lawyer hopes so.
Farscape is back! -- Farscape is returning to the SciFi channel. I suppose caring about that makes me a geek, but if I were a true geek I would have found out about it back in April.
Saturday, July 10, 2004
Weekly Webcomic Update
It was a pretty cool week, if a bit of a denouement after last week's excitement.
Sluggy Freelance -- Uh-oh, Horribus has finally learned that Torg's in the Dimension of Lame, and he's on the hunt. The gang goes into the sewers to escape. Curiously, it looks like the magic sword is in its gold rather than its silver state. I hope that means its partially charged. And a new filler pushes the full-color Sunday to Thursday.
Day by Day -- There's a plug for Eat what you want and die like a man, the usual mockery of Moore, Kerry, and the UN, and a correction on Thursday. A correction, of a comic strip. Yikes, it's a sad day when a comic strip has more integrity than the New York Times editorial page.
It's Walky! -- Danny meets a killer car. Wow, we don't see much of Danny these days, do we? And to think that he was the main character back when it was Roomies.
College Roomies from Hell!!! -- Hey, Marsha's wings are real! Now it looks like Dave just might make it out alive, and Roger and Mike are escaping as well. Now, is Mike permanently stuck in semi-nice mode?
General Protection Fault -- The GPFers throws Fooker a welcome back party, and they end up with Trish as a visitor. Only, is this the real Trish or the imposter Trish? It'd be helpful if they knew that there was an imposter.
Schlock Mercenary -- Well, now that they've taken care of the pet shop, it's time to track down the distributor. And Schlock needs some cold weather gear.
Sluggy Freelance -- Uh-oh, Horribus has finally learned that Torg's in the Dimension of Lame, and he's on the hunt. The gang goes into the sewers to escape. Curiously, it looks like the magic sword is in its gold rather than its silver state. I hope that means its partially charged. And a new filler pushes the full-color Sunday to Thursday.
Day by Day -- There's a plug for Eat what you want and die like a man, the usual mockery of Moore, Kerry, and the UN, and a correction on Thursday. A correction, of a comic strip. Yikes, it's a sad day when a comic strip has more integrity than the New York Times editorial page.
It's Walky! -- Danny meets a killer car. Wow, we don't see much of Danny these days, do we? And to think that he was the main character back when it was Roomies.
College Roomies from Hell!!! -- Hey, Marsha's wings are real! Now it looks like Dave just might make it out alive, and Roger and Mike are escaping as well. Now, is Mike permanently stuck in semi-nice mode?
General Protection Fault -- The GPFers throws Fooker a welcome back party, and they end up with Trish as a visitor. Only, is this the real Trish or the imposter Trish? It'd be helpful if they knew that there was an imposter.
Schlock Mercenary -- Well, now that they've taken care of the pet shop, it's time to track down the distributor. And Schlock needs some cold weather gear.
Wow, is it really that late?
It's past 3 am, and I'm feeling a bit worn out. I've been working on some rather major changes to my blog, to be revealed some time next week. I've also been working on my résumé and CV, getting them not only up-to-date, but into distributable formats. PDF is easy--HTML is another story. Oh, I can put them in HTML easily enough, but getting them into HTML and looking how I want them to--argh, it's not easy. In any case, drop by next week to see the fruits of my labor.
Friday, July 09, 2004
Farscape is back!
While watching Stargate SG-1's season premiere on the SciFi channel, I saw an advertisement for a new season of Farscape starting in October. It looks like we're going to get a resolution to that cliffhanger series finale.
I just hope I have a job in October so I can afford cable.
Update: The announcement is on the SciFi channel website. Apparently it's old news from April. Geez, I never hear these things right away.
I just hope I have a job in October so I can afford cable.
Update: The announcement is on the SciFi channel website. Apparently it's old news from April. Geez, I never hear these things right away.
The Supreme Court and Saddam Hussein
US lawyer Curtis Doebbler, the only American on Saddam's legal team, has filed a petition with the US Supreme Court to declare Saddam's detention unconstitutional. Does the Supreme Court have jurisdiction over Saddam Hussein? They might have, before he was turned over to the Iraqis, although since he was declared a POW it's not clear what the court would have to say. From the CNN article:
Let's be very clear about one thing: Saddam Hussein is not a US citizen. He does not have rights under the US Constitution. He may have rights under the Iraq Constitution, once it exists. As for international law--as Saddam was held as a prisoner of war, and treated as such, his detainment was fully in line with the Geneva convention.
The whole thing is silly, as is clear from the article:
You know, if I didn't know better, I'd think this was an article by a right-leaning news organization, as it seems to be saying that Scalia was right.
In paperwork at the high court, Doebbler said the detention of the 67-year-old violates multiple international laws and his constitutional Fifth Amendment right not to be deprived of "life, liberty or property without due process." He also said the war crimes tribunal planned in Iraq was neither independent nor impartial.
Let's be very clear about one thing: Saddam Hussein is not a US citizen. He does not have rights under the US Constitution. He may have rights under the Iraq Constitution, once it exists. As for international law--as Saddam was held as a prisoner of war, and treated as such, his detainment was fully in line with the Geneva convention.
The whole thing is silly, as is clear from the article:
The Supreme Court will review those arguments only if it grants permission for the filing.
"I doubt the Supreme Court will even get that far," said Fordham Law School professor Thomas Lee, a former clerk at the court.
Doebbler had filed a brief in the Supreme Court this year encouraging it to rule in favor of legal rights of foreign terror suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Last week, justices decided the nearly 600 men from 42 countries held at the U.S. prison in Cuba may use American courts to challenge their detentions.
In a dissent to that opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia warned that federal courts will now have to deal with lawsuits from "around the world, challenging actions and events far away."
You know, if I didn't know better, I'd think this was an article by a right-leaning news organization, as it seems to be saying that Scalia was right.
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