Monday, March 14, 2005

Virtual Insanity: Why the Culture Wars Slaughter American Survival

Practically every night, after some pixelated polygonal pretend pugilism via Steve Fox in Tekken 5 or some good-natured reality-tv debauchery with my partner-in-crime Angel, I read political blogs. (Mental Note: Just because you are on the Amazing Race does not give you a license to a) hit your spouse/ girlfriend or b) reference your sexual orientation as you climb a mountain or haul donkeys through an Andean backwater. No one cares. It's a race, not MTV's Newlyweds.) I have an entire section of my Favorites menu devoted to people's online ramblings on American politics, from the famous Daily Kos to the infamous Michelle Malkin. (Love the new picture, btw! Very Area 51.) Margaret Cho's blog is good for liberal laughs, while I can't help but laugh along with Ambra Nykol. Sure, she's a tad too conservative for me, but the lady can turn a phrase, and keeps her independence. I'm chill.

Essentially, as you know, I like political discussion. If you want to read some amazing commentary, check out Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post. It's like reading everything you should be saying, with higher eloquence and better candor than you can develop on your own. (I'll comment more on my newfound hero later.) From the poli-style arenas, Frank Rich of the New York Times never disappoints. Seriously, this is the alpha male of postmodern political commentary; want a sensible linkage between Jeff Gannon and the demise of investigative analysis reporting? Rich is your guy. Recently, Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo has me more interested in the Social Security debate than ever before. But this post must thank Marshall for linking the most interesting political magazine I've kept up with in years, the Washington Monthly. Man, what writing. From dissecting Barack Obama's "great Black hope" hype to assaulting a million fractures in female boxing, the Washington Monthly - specifically Benjamin Wallace-Wells - asks the right questions and seeks the literal truth. But enough praise. It's too late and I'm too annoyed.

(To continue reading this post, click here. Your comments are appreciated, as always.)

19 Comments:

At 3/15/2005 09:25:00 AM, Jenn said:;

First things first. This blog entry took me 45 minutes to read. 45 minutes, and now I have a migraine. :p

It was a great essay, baby. Phenomenal, it really dissects the problem with the Christian conservative moral jihad -- or at least I think that's what the essay was about. I have to admit that somewhere around Jada and her men, I was a little lost as to what the overall essay was about.

However, I'm going to comment about the critical mass irritability that it took to read this post. I *couldn't* and the vast majority of the blame falls on me. Whether you like it or not, we're redesigning this blog, for the sake of readership ease. We're spreading out the text, giving greater contrast to the colours, there'll be a whole new design for your blog alone... when you click the link with robocop, you'll load a new page in a new window with a spread out blog.

Let's face it babe, you're too damn wordy for this format. If it makes you feel better, I'm gonna do it too.

Secondly, it's a question of scope. I've figured out your problem. You're an egotist. There's no 'little' question you can dissect on your blog. You can't find an observation or rant, tease out the specific topic you want to talk about, and keep it isolated. Everything's *big* with you (... and I do mean everything... *grin*). This essay started out about refuting the focus on morality in the Christian Right... then it went to homosexuality, some stuff about the Invisible Hand, Jada and her mens, and *somehow* found its way back. It's like a kid doing a doctoral thesis for his fourth grade science fair.

It's not really a problem, if your format were articles and essays, this post would've been phenomenal. But a good writer must learn to be economical, and focused. You must learn your audience, and definitely learn to establish your scope and stick with it. While all your points are great, they are weakened by the fact that I simply COULDN'T wade through the whole post without losing what you were talking about several times over.

Those are just my two cents. Don't kill me... I know you know where I live. *whimper*
At 3/15/2005 10:11:00 PM, Karlos said:;

I'm not going try to lecture the master about writing style, but I will say this:
Man, I ain't readin' all this shiyat! I'm jus' keepin' it REAL!

Seriously, though, you need more space and more legibility here. I'll read your post (you know I'm the one who's actually read the college essays you put up) when I get a chance, but to keep my eyesight (and my sanity) intact, I'll copy-paste it into a text editor first.

Of course, instead of giving the blog text more space, you could read your essays into a microphone, save them as mp3's (like blog-on-tape), and when a person clicked on one, the mp3 would play, and Robocop's mouth would move along with your words...
At 3/15/2005 10:40:00 PM, Jenn said:;

Your comments are obsolete, Karl. The layout has been changed. This should be much easier on the eyes ... :)

it better... i spent ... five hours on this sucka.
At 3/16/2005 01:33:00 PM, Karlos said:;

Well put, J. Just a couple of comments:

1) Good God, man, don't encourage Ben Shapiro to wear pink pleather pants - the rest of us need to sleep at night.

2) C'mon, you know you love fried chicken ;-)

P.S. Jenn: again, good job on the new layout!
At 3/16/2005 02:32:00 PM, James said:;

heh heh. K, I think pink pleather would go a long way towards removing the stick from Shapiro's ass. I'm sure he's a really nice guy, but his comments on this recent Jada flaptrap really burned me. So he needs some pink in his life.

Angel, Nate, Karlos, my heartfelt thanks to you for reviewing this piece. I really didn't notice the length until it was done. Any disagreements with my conclusions?
At 3/16/2005 07:39:00 PM, phillyjay said:;

The post, or article or essay was an interesting read.But it felt kind of scatterd, like there was too much to take at one time.And maaaaan was it a long read.....
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