That’s right, kids! It’s live blogging time again. I’ve got some Chinese food on order from my favorite local delivery place, and a four pack of lovely Cigar City Brewing Cubano-style Espresso Brown Ale.
If anyone out there can think of a better way to watch a Republican debate, they are a better person than I am.
And no, watching it while stabbing yourself in the face with a fork does not count.
Let’s do this!
[liveblog]
[sociable]
Photo by David M. Jenkins
I decided to peruse through my Drafts folder this morning and I stumbled across a post I began writing over a year ago and never finished. I don’t know if I’d say it was my best work, but I don’t think it sucks so I’ve cleaned it up a bit, tacked on an ending, and am setting it free to roam the wild internets as an independent post free from the safe confines of the Draft folder. I hope you enjoy.
One of my Uncles sent me an email with a link to this article (note – I’ve updated the link to point to a blog post that has the full text of the article. The original piece, along with the blog associated with it, appears to have been pulled down by the owner) earlier today. It was written by a sixty-three year old retired Marine and former state senator from Massachusetts.
When I get these kind of things I tend to ignore them. I know I’m not going to convince the more Conservative members of my family to see my point of view, so I generally don’t even bother trying. That said, it’s hard for me not to read something like this and not have the desire to respond, so I figured the best place for me to do so was here.
With all of that out of the way, this is likely to be a rather political post. If you’re not in the mood to read that kind of thing I suggest you ignore the cut tag below.
I decided to keep a running commentary on Twitter of the Republican presidential debate that was broadcast on CNN last week. I had an absolute blast doing so, but I am sure that the number of posts I made during that period annoyed some of my followers. At the very least the volume of tweets that cross posted to my Facebook page temporarily broke the link between the two.
There is another debate on Friday night and I have every intention of doing a running commentary again. My question, for those of you who would like to follow along, is how should I do so? Should I set up a live blogging plugin here and have the notices cross-posted to twitter and Facebook? Should I set up a special Twitter account specifically fir my live blogs? Should I do exactly what I did last tine and let anyone who doesn’t care to read my commentary ignore, filter, or drop me as they choose? Should I take sone other path I have not, as of yet, considered?
I’d really like some feedback on this because I loved doing it but I don’t want to do so if it’s going to annoy mire than entertain.
Thanks, all!
Edit – So this is how it would look if I did the live blog here.
[liveblog]
Image courtesy of mendhak via flickr
Back in the Summer of 1992 I was working my one, and only, renaissance festival. What is amusing about this is that the show was not, in fact, the one I had grown up around. Despite being closely tied to the Bay Area Renaissance Festival for many years, the only gig I’ve ever actually been an official cast member at was Scarborough Faire in Waxahachie, Texas.
Like many folks who traveled and worked with the renaissance festival circuit, I set up a tent in the woods back behind the festival grounds to live in during the time I was employed at the show. The small section I “lived” in during that time was populated by myself, my friends Holly and Donnie, and a Rainbow Hippie.
I was going to write this in a tweet but there’s a little bit more detail than I could fit into 140 characters.
As I’m sure most of you have heard by now there is a new version of the Mark Twain novel Huckleberry Finn that has removed all references to the word “nigger” and replaced it with the word “slave.” They have also removed the word “Injun,” but I am unsure as to what they have replaced it with (I’m guessing “Indian”).
There’s a lot of folks who are up in arms over this and who want to raise the specter of Political Correctness or blame this on the Obama Administration.
Here’s some fact juice for you, sparky –
Huckleberry Finn is in the public domain. What this means, if you aren’t familiar with the term, is that it was written so long ago that the copyright has expired. This is why you can download all of Mark Twain’s work for free if you have an e-Reader. This also means that, because of the lack of copyright, anyone can publish the book and edit it to their heart’s content.
Which is exactly what one publishing company has decided to do.
If you want to read Huckleberry Finn with all the original language intact you will still be able to find a copy. The firemen have not come to take away your precious words, and Big Brother isn’t stepping in here to protect you from reading something that might be offensive.
NewSouth books thinks that there is a market in this edition, and they are putting their money into that belief. It may very well pay off for them. So, if anything, this incident is an example of our free market in action and nothing more.
Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go back to collecting tin foil for my new hat.
One of my former High School classmates recently posted a note on her Facebook page that was titled “A Lot Of Truth Here.” The post was a laundry lists of “truths” about Liberals vs. Conservatives, and it was clearly written by someone who sympathized with the Right side of that particular battle.
I didn’t respond in depth to that particular post. For one it was pretty clear that she agreed with it and nothing I could say was going to convince her otherwise. Two, she very clearly didn’t write it herself. Lastly, however, was due to the fact that the post ended with a “Oh ha-ha, this is just a joke and if it offends you clearly that means you’re a liberal and everything that is written here is true” kind of statement.
As I said to her there, it didn’t offend me. It was just wrong.
At the time I pretty much tried to leave it at that, but it has stuck with me since reading it so I’ve gone back and grabbed the post so that I can respond on my turf. My thoughts are behind the cut.
Representative Young,
Unless I miss my guess, this email is likely to be screened through one of your aides and would not be likely to impact your decision to vote against the Health Care Reform bill that should be introduced in the House today. This makes me sad, but unlike Don Quixote I have no interest in tilting against windmills by trying to convince you to change your mind.
There’s a guy who hangs out in Ybor City on the weekends that stands in the middle of crowded night clubs preaching about Jesus. At least, there used to be. I really haven’t been clubbing in a long time so I couldn’t say whether or not he’s still doing it, but to be honest I kind of hope he is. You see, I kind of admire this guy. I think he’s a little crazy, of course, and I know he’s made some friends of mine uncomfortable on more than one occasion, but really…you have to kind of give it up for a man who willingly puts himself into what is almost certainly going to be an uncomfortable situation because he believes that doing so will help him save someone’s immortal soul.
There’s another reason why I like this guy, though.