Blog: Ramblings and Rants

For the moment, I’m going to withhold comment on this editorial.

Is America heading toward fascism?

The hot-button word in this quote is “fascism,” a word guaranteed to evoke an emotional response. What is fascism, and is America headed toward fascism? It turns out that a lot of people are wondering the same thing. It’s hard to find a definition acceptable to both the right and the left. Fascism falls somewhere on the conservative side of the political continuum. It is reactive, nationalist, militaristic, unilateralist and often racist. It comes in many forms. Fascism is hawkish and tends to rely on a leader who projects a charismatic and authoritarian style. Fascism in a nation seeks to modify the basis of international relationships. The belief that the group has an historic destiny trumps thoughtful reason. It is pretty clear what a mature fascism looks like; it is not so clear what picture an emerging fascism would present.

I wanted you to know that one thing for which I will be thankful this Thanksgiving is you, the loyal readers of iamPariah.com, The Saturday Slant, The Memes List, and QuarkVSInDesign.com. Thank you for reading.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Today was my last day working in Colorado Springs. I fly out early tomorrow morning.

Because I am so passionate about InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc., about the graphics industry, and about sharing my enthusiasm for these things with others through teaching classes, I often bond with my students. On many occassions students treat me to lunch or go out to dinner with me after class. I’ve made quite a lot of friends from this work. Leaving, as I must inevitably do, is often somewhat saddening for me.

Still, never have I shed a tear for, much less during, a class. Today I couldn’t stop the tears.

This blog and the Saturday Slant will be down for a couple of weeks because Movable Type is falling apart.

The software on which blog runs, Movable Type running off a SQL database, is crumbling. It’s dying, a piece at a time. Comments died some weeks ago, preventing anyone—including me—from posting comments.

Now, it’s a struggle to even get a post to publish.

I have to fix the blog—read: replace the aging and crumbling MT—but I’m on the road through Thanksgiving. I can’t effect major changes to the site from here.

I’ve been working on a rebuild of the site, moving it from HTML to all xHTML/PHP and standards-compliant CSS. Now my timetable has to accelerate.

In the days following Thanksgiving replacing the blog software and finishing up the site rebuild will be at the top of my priority list. Until then, don’t expect much from this site, including Saturday Slants.

There should be a way to read old comics without having to hunt them down.

My nine year-old, Mojo (not her real name), really digs the animated series “The Teen Titans.” Whenever possible we watch it together. We watch “Justice League Unlimited” together as well. The former, though, is her favorite; the latter, mine.

“The Teen Titans” Japanese Anime style doesn’t do much for me, nor does the lack of realism—the adolescent super heroes don’t have real names, they never change clothes or go out in civilian garb, and they never associate with anyone outside the group. By contrast the more realistic “Justice League” drawing style—and especially the more mature plots and subplots—really enamor me to that show. Still, “Titans” is fun and something I enjoy watching with Mojo or, if nothing better presents itself, by myself on a Saturday morning such as this.

Watching it, though, makes me long for the “Teen Titans” comic book of my youth.

Lisa Scheller writes about Living fully in the age of computers, how to think like a computer, and, more importantly, how not to think like a computer.

Are there any other “Smallville” fans sick and tired of all the mind-control stories? How many times does Miles Millar expect us to sit through tales of Clark Kent not being himself, using his powers self-indulgingly, or Lana or Chloe being possessed by someone or something, throwing themselves at Clark while conspiring to nullify his powers through coercion, kryptonite, or magick? Clark running amok because he’s been turned into a bad boy by red kryptonite, Jor-El’s science/magick, some punk’s mind control, a mobster’s blackmail, a reporter’s blackmail, a super-powered teenager’s blackmail, or by body-swapping with Lional Luthor is getting pretty damned redundant. The same for his friends’ mood-altering adventures.

Grrr! Moveable Type, the blog software that drives this blog, is falling apart. Error after error, problem after problem. Auto-pinging has always been an issue. Posting and commenting out of memory errors happen sporadically every few months. Now no one can comment on my posts because MT is claiming MT-Blacklist is broken. Neither the MT nor MT-Blacklist installations have changed, but now all comments are greeted with accusations of spam.

I tried switching to WordPress a few weeks ago, but couldn’t get it installed. Granted, I didn’t have time to spend hours diagnosing it.

I’m at a loss. I don’t know what to do now. MT is crumbling, and WP won’t install.

From my sixth floor hotel room window I see the lights of rural Raleigh, North Carolina stretched out before me. It’s quite alluring, full of sights unbeheld, food untasted, and wonders undiscovered. Yet it is not the lights and sights that draw my eyes from my work. Instead it is the small windows of the Arthur Murray dance studio whose parking lot adjoins my hotel’s.

Instructors and students twirl across the frames of the windows like the frames in penny arcade’s movie machine. Jewel’s brilliant [album] thrums a soundtrack for yon dancers. In their movements, fluid, almost languid, is beauty; in the act of their dance is inherent joy.

Across the gallery of window-frame snapshots smiling, laughing men and women step and slide, shuffle and glide, tango and rumba. My feet long to trace their nimble steps; my fingers reach out reflexively for the hand of my lady, whom I might twirl in a flourishing tango.

Dance! I wish to dance! Give me wings upon my ankles and tails sprouting from my waste. Let me dance!

You should take a look at Saige Roberts’ One Purple Day…Fairies, Skyscapes, Art and Gifts.

In addition to a genuinely cool design and wonderful, original children’s fairy tale stories, is an interesting similarity to my own life. I am not the only one whom Fate has kicked in the head for his own good.

It’s funny how life has to hit you over the head a few times before you get the message to make a change. My message came by accident, three of them actually. I had three car wrecks in three weeks. They were minor accidents and no one was hurt but I knew someone was trying to tell me something. At the time I didn’t really understand what was happening but now I know that was when my entire life started moving in a completely different direction.

“After the accidents, I left school for a year. During that time I thought about what I really wanted out of life.

Saige’s experience is remarkably similar to my own. For me it wasn’t a string of car accidents, but instead an affliction that, by all medical and psychic accounts, should have been fatal.

This election wasn’t about a President; it was about loading the Supreme Court with hardline Right Wingers to advance the Christian agenda.

“America has spoken,” said re-elected President George W. Bush in his acceptance speech. “And I’m humbled by the trust and the confidence of my fellow citizens. With that trust comes a duty to serve all Americans, and I will do my best to fulfil that duty every day as your President.”

Bush doesn’t serve all Americans; he serves the powerful minority of hardline Christian Right Americans who scared and guilted and bullied a majority into voting the tyrant back into office. As he as proven numerous times over the last four years, the President’s duty is to them, not to the rest of America. He fulfills that duty every day as President.

NBC news said that Tuesday’s Bush voters was the greatest turn out of voters for a Republican in American history. The translation of this statistic is that the stealth campaign waged from pulpits and stages throughout the Right Wing paid off as planned.

This was not a Presidential election. That’s not what November 2nd was about. This election was about the agenda of the Christian Right. It was an election about the U.S Supreme Court.