In which I try to go positive...

I've started writing today's blog post twice - well, this is the third time - today.

The first one was complaining about the proliferation of ads on television that try to convince people that no one is going to like them or love them if they aren't perfect, and then offering a variety of very expensive goods and services that we are to believe will make us thinner, better-looking, younger-looking, and just plain more desirable. I think I've probably complained about this sort of advertisement around here before, and so I abandoned that effort.

The second one consisted of me complaining about a meme that came across my Facebook feed a day or two ago, one that implied that anyone who is in favor of any kind of control on firearm or ammunition ownership is just as bad as Hitler. But, you know, complaining about ignorance on Facebook will do just about as much good as complaining that the Sun comes up in the morning. And so I abandoned that post as well.

I try, though, I really, really try to keep this blog from being a venue for my complaint of the day. Because it could be that. It is that, sometimes, despite my determination. God knows there is enough stupidity in the world to support a blog like that. But I'd like to be more positive than that.

Back in the sixties...yes, I remember the sixties...there was a saying, might be called a meme today, that went like this: "If you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem." While I'm not sure who said it (sources differ), I think there is some merit to that position. A part of that, of being part of the solution rather than part of the problem, is not just sitting around and complaining about things, but actually suggesting ways of solving the problem.

This is not to say that pointing out the problem is out of bounds. How will anyone know the problems exist outside of their own frustration if no one defines and outlines the problem? But you can't, either, just state the problem, announce that it bugs you, and leave it at that.

I'll be honest. I can't think of any solution to my first complaint. Well, I can, but Madison Avenue, as an cultural phenomenon, is not going to go away anytime soon, as much as I'd like it to. So, if any of you have any suggestions about how to get the diet industry and the cosmetic surgery industry to quit "going negative", I'd love to hear those ideas.

I'm not sure, either, how to get people to quit trying to argue their position on issues like, but not limited to, gun control, without resorting to insults and name-calling. They might try to make an actual argument rather than merely demonizing their opponents, but that could be too much to ask.

I have a much more difficult time staying positive in the second instance. How do you have a conversation with someone who takes the position that they are entitled to what they want and anyone who disagrees with them is either stupid or evil? And, when they can't accept that limitation doesn't necessarily equate to elimination? Believe me, I've had this argument enough times to know that there are those who take the position that there is no middle ground.

This is not a declaration that I'm never going to write a post complaining about something ever again. It is a statement of intent that I am going to try to go positive at least as often as I go negative. It's sort of the difference between how Keith Olbermann used to do a feature on his show, when he had it, called "The World Person In The World", and how Rachel Maddow does a feature on her show that she calls "The Best New Thing In The World".

There is a place for both, but balance is a good thing.

I answer some questions...

As I wrote yesterday, I was nominated for a Liebster Award.

One of the obligations attached to the award is to answer a list of questions posed by the person who nominated me (that would, of course, be Isobel DeBrujah, at Center Pull Photography)

1. What are you most passionate about?

Writing. But Anthropology (especially physical anthropology, and very especially fossils and human evolution) and Doctor Who probably come a close, mutual second.

2. Why do you blog?

Because I love to write, I have to write, I have opinions, and this is a good way to express those opinions without making my IRL friends want to strangle me.

3. What is your favorite meal?

Oooh. That's difficult. Lately, it's been chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes, corn, and country gravy. But again, there has to be a second place, and that would go to either prime rib and baked potato or lasagna. Now, if you're talking breakfast, that would have to be scrambled eggs and hashbrowns with bacon and toast.

4. What book or books do you think everyone should read?

I think everyone should read my favorite book in the world, The Longest Cave, by Roger Brucker and Richard Watson. It is about the efforts, which both men took part in, to find an underground connection between the Crystal Cave System in Kentucky with Mammoth Cave, which lie under karst ridges close by one another, efforts which were finally successful in the early 1970s, after at least a couple of decades of concentrated effort. It is a good book just as adventure reporting, but the reason I love it so much is that it shows how a group of people can have a good time, and an interesting time, working together to reach a goal, just for the satisfaction of having done the thing, and not because it's going to make them rich or famous. It's an important lesson for our times, I think.

I also think everyone should read Kage Baker's novels and short stories of The Company, starting with In The Garden of Iden, which somehow manages to successfully combine science fiction and romance in Mary Tudor's England. My favorite is Mendoza In Hollywood, which takes place before Hollywood was Hollywood, and in which there is a very large and vociferous pet California Condor, and in which they bring in movies from the future for a continuing film festival. Did I mention, there is time travel as well as immortality in these books? They are good science fiction and good fun, but with some wickedly on-point social commentary for our times.

5. If money were no object, how would you occupy the rest of your life?

Writing and traveling.

6. If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?

I'd like to hear God say, "Welcome, and don't worry. None of those people who thought they'd be here are here [as he glances meaningfully down toward the Other Place]. But all of your friends who came before you are here, and they're all waiting just inside to see you."

7. What is one thing you've never been able to/had time to/had funds to do that you still want to do?

Take a no-time-limit driving tour of the United States. I have been on one driving trip across country, that was confined mostly to the South, when I was still a teenager (in fact the trip ended on my last day as a teenager), but there was a time limit on that of just over three weeks. I could probably make the trip last close to a year.

8. What is your favorite television show and why?

Doctor Who (and the other shows set in the Whoniverse, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures). I love the Whoniverse because, as Craig Ferguson has said, it represents the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism. I'm kind of a cynic myself, but I wish I wasn't, or at least not as much of one as I am. Also, it is the only fictional world that I can imagine wanting to live in.

9. What is your least enjoyable chore?

Vacuuming. I'd rather clean the bathroom, and I hate cleaning the bathroom.

10. What one thing about you is cool?

That I'm known among my friends as "The Human Spell-Check". Which, of course, indicates how cool I'm really, really not.

11. Do you have pets?

Not currently, although my roommate is talking about getting a cat. As I told her, now that's something I'd be willing to vacuum every day for. That means I want a cat a lot.

Actually, I've only ever had two pets. There was Prince, the German Shepard my parents had before they had me, and then starting in about fourth grade I had an orange and white cat called Tiger.

As I also wrote yesterday, more nominations will be forthcoming as I can get the computer time to put the rest of the list together.

I do this for...reasons...

I made it through NaBloPoMo successfully last month, blogging on all 30 days in the month, in part due to a wonderful group of bloggers over on the LSG board on Ravelry. Their support and the accountability that came from belonging to the group, which was started by Isobel De Brujah, was a big help in keeping me on task at a time when I had just promised myself that I was going to start blogging daily rather than just on Sunday (for Music Sunday) and Monday (for Movie Monday) and whenever else the spirit hit me.

The group of us over there was given a challenge to post about why we do this...why we blog in the first place. I've been thinking about that for several days, since the challenge was issued, and these are the conclusions I've come up with.

First of all, I blog because I love to write.

No, really. I can hear some of you laughing nervously out there. Loving to write is not really a thing in US culture. In fact a lot of people go to great lengths to avoid writing, ever. But I really love the process. Yes, it can be difficult. Yes, it is something that is best done in solitude. And, yes, people look at me strangely sometimes when I say that I love to write. Still, I find the process, from thinking about what I might write about, to the actual writing, to the proofreading and editing process afterward, and sometimes even the process of going through two or three or more drafts before a piece of writing is ready to be seen by others, to be fulfilling and exhilarating and fun. I love the idea of making something brand new.

Also, I have to write.

Can't get around it. I've been writing down stuff I think about since I was, oh, I don't know, six or seven years old. It's something I need to do, I've found. If I don't write for awhile, I find myself getting twitchy. It's like some people have to paint, or have to make music, or have to go out and climb a mountain or play a sport. I don't know why writing is a part of my set of needs, but it is. The thing is, blogging is a way to use my need to write that seems more constructive than just scribbling things down somewhere and just forgetting about the fact that I've written them down.

I won't lie. One of the reasons I blog is to get my writing out in front of the public.

I am a writer. Not currently making any money at it, but I have in the past and I hope to do so again in the future. Blogging is a way for me to keep in touch with my potential audience, and to keep in touch with the things you all are interested in, or not interested in, as the case may be. This is why I like getting comments on my posts. It lets me know what you all are thinking about the things I'm thinking about.

Blogging also helps me practice my craft.

Just about every writer will tell you, you aren't really a writer unless you write every day. Every writer has to learn the discipline of applying their butt to their chair and their fingers to their keyboard (or to that pen and paper) every single day. You see, the thing is, the way to learn to write is to write. That's all. Just write. And that's what blogging is. Just sitting down and writing.

I've always wanted to be a columnist.

I started reading newspapers along about the same time I started writing things down. And, always, one of the best things about the newspapers, for me, has always been the daily or weekly columns. Seeing what one writer has to say about stuff, and seeing how his or her opinions stay the same or change over time, is interesting to me. So is the opportunity to see how a particular columnist views the world around him or her at any particular point in time. Blogging lets me do the same sort of thing that columnists do.

Writing my way through an issue often helps me figure out exactly how I feel about that issue.

This is a process that can take one paragraph, or can take pages and pages of writing over a period of time. Blogging is a very public way for me to do that, but I don't think that's a bad thing at all. In fact, blogging is a very good way to keep me honest about that process and about how I feel about issues of public import. There's no fudging about what one thinks and about what one previously thought when the evidence is right there, out in public for everyone to see.

Just a thought, but maybe we should require all political candidates and politicians to blog daily on their thoughts about the issues before them.

But, I digress. Although that could be a subject for another day, couldn't it?

I also blog because the world often horrifies me or amuses me.

By getting how I feel about those things out there and seeing comments about my take on them, I can get read on whether it's just me, or if other people feel the same way I do about them. If you, as readers, don't feel the same way I do about a subject or issue, your comments on what I have written let me know exactly why you feel the way you do about those things.

Anyway. I blog for a lot of reasons. These might not even be all the reasons I blog, since my reasons for doing anything can change from day to day. These are the constant reasons, though. And, the most important ones.

It's NaBloPoMo, and I'm playing...and today I'm playing with history

Today is the first day of NaBloPoMo, National Blog Posting Month. The idea is, to write a blog post a day every single day in November. I figure, I wrote over 50,000 words last year in November for NaNoWriMo; this should be easy.

Which is to say, I'm sure it will not be easy at all.

I've got a lot of willpower and determination. On the other hand, some days I just can't find anything to write about that isn't whiny or self-absorbed or just plain boring.

I'm going to give it my best shot, though. We'll see how it turns out.

Anyway, I was thinking that since it is the first day of the competition (even though I'm really only competing with myself), I'd go see if there were any really notable firsts on November 1. Because, if you've been reading this blog for long, you know that among my geekdoms is history.

So I went merrily off to Wikipedia (yeah, I know), to see what they have to say about the date. Because Wikipedia has something to say about almost everything, I found several interesting events that happened on the first of November.

On November 1, 1512, Michelangelo's paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel were first exhibited to the public. This is especially interesting since this is one of those notable anniversaries that end in a zero, the 500th anniversary of the unveiling. There have been rumors recently that at some point, the Vatican might limit the number of people allowed to see the ceiling each day because the crowds that show up to see it each day - sometimes as many as 20,000 per day during the peak summer tourist season, according to one article - are causing the painting to deteriorate.

In another artistic first, William Shakespeare's "Othello" was first known to have been presented on November 1, 1604, at Whitehall Palace in London. I have to confess that "Othello" is not one of my favorite of Shakespeare's plays. There is just too much meanness and nastiness in it for my taste. Iago is completely irredeemable, Othello is too gullible for words, and Desdemona is just too stupid for her own good. I'll admit that none of these opinions were popular in discussion when I had to read "Othello" for a literature class in college, but I can't think of any other way to describe those characters.

Moving on from the art world to the world of international conflict...The first bomb ever dropped from an airplane in combat was dropped on Turkish troops in Libya on November 1, 1911, during the Italo-Turkish War, with the two countries fighting over Italy's claim to Libya. It was the start of a long and nasty tradition, as our species once again furthered its quest to kill more people, more efficiently.

So, it is probably appropriate that November 1 is also the date when, in 1952, the first full-scale detonation of a thermonuclear device - a hydrogen bomb - took place at Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands, in 1952. A small, non-weaponized device nicknamed "George" was detonated the year before, but "Mike" was the first time a full-scale device that used fusion as part of its nuclear yield was exploded. The fireball from "Mike" was three and a quarter miles wide, and the mushroom cloud it created rose to 50,000 feet in a minute and a half and was 108,000 feet high a minute after that. At its greatest extent, according to Wikipedia (yes, I KNOW), the cloud was 100 miles in diameter and its stem was 20 miles wide. The device, which was housed in an aluminium building on one of the islands in the atoll, left a crater 6,240 feet in diameter and 164 feet deep, essentially obliterating the island. A seismometer in Berkeley, California, was able to detect the shock wave created by the detonation.

On a different sort of scientific note, Arecibo Observatory, Puerto Rico, the site of the largest radio telescope ever built, was officially opened on November 1, 1963.

And, on a completely different subject, the Motion Picture Association of America officially introduced its new film rating system, consisting of G, M, R, and X ratings, on November 1, 1968. It has been a point of contention ever since. If you haven't ever seen the documentary, "This Film Is Not Yet Rated," and if you like movies, you really should try to see it. It is a fascinating examination of how movies get their ratings and who actually rates them.

So, anyway, all this is a long way to say that I will be here every day in November - and hopefully I'll be able to keep up that pace of posting even after the month-long blogging event is over. But I'm sure that one thing will be proved: It is very difficult to find something to write about every day of the week.