"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Left Side, Right Side, Far Side

By way of explanation, aside from Blogger Beta snarls, I've been pretty busy with music reviews lately. One thing I've noticed, though, a product of my habit of emailing myself links from interesting news stories to blog about later: if you let a headline sit for a couple of days, it goes beyond old news. You begin to see how much of the stuff we're getting worked up over every day is pretty trivial.

Case in point: the deletion of evolutionary biology from the list of acceptable majors for low-income student grants, ascribed to a "clerical error" (I know -- sounds fake from the get-go, but. . . .). The left-wing blogosphere is all over this, conspiracy theories flying as they charge into battle. The damning evidence? Two days after the elision is discovered, it still hasn't been restored! Lord. Love. A. Duck. This is the government we're talking about -- these people can't do anything in less than six months. Give it a while. If it's not back on the list in a reasonable length of time, then we should be asking some hard questions. I'm starting to think rightwing paranoid conspiracy juju is taking over the entire country. (I have all sorts of links to the outrage/gnashing of teeth/wild-eyed hysteria somewhere. Not here. If I find them, I'll update.)

One tidbit I did want to share: It looks as though Gay Patriot has me blocked from commenting -- not that they can't deal with open and intelligent discussion, but my comment on this post on the Democrats' culture of corruption hit a "spam filter." The post itself strikes me as either an attempt at Rovian discourse or a complete departure from the real world (not that there's a lot of difference). The comment was (and this won't make any sense until you read the post):

Hmm, let's see. . . .

Jefferson under investigation, Democrats, at Pelosi's insistence, strip him of committee assignments.

DeLay indicted, Republicans try to change the ethics rules so he can remain Speaker.

Nice try.


We'll see if it gets posted at all.

That said, I was going to do a post about reading, but I don't feel like it. What I am going to do today is to focus a bit on my own fiction -- I have some stories that really do need to be worked on, and I have finally figured out where The Fantasy Novel From Hell needs to point itself at this stage.

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