Monday, January 22, 2007

"To Sincerity"

Life may be sad past saying,
Its greens forever graying,
Its faiths to dust decaying;

And youth may have foreknown it,
And riper seasons shown it,
But custom cries: "Disown it:

Say ye rejoice, though grieving,
Believe, while unbelieving,
Behold, without perceiving!"

--Thomas Hardy

A new essay is out on Ideas Are Bulletproof. It's entitled "ur dum".

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice picture. Intriguing essay.

Anonymous said...

is that your kitty?

for that matter do you even have a cat?

Anonymous said...

awwwww it's a kitty cat!!!!!!
cool essay, but i like the kitty cat better.

Anonymous said...

here's the thing i think is important to remember about your point which, although i disagree with it, is certainly well argued.

i think we need to stop thinking about VOA as a mysterious, magical person. he does not have the story that you wrote (although it is a pretty good story, however violent it is). VOA is just another person who reads the blog, and who happens to have a pretty good idea of your audience. as the blog writer, you also have a good idea of your audience, and could probably not only correctly identify almost all anonymous posters (or at least those worth identifying) but could probably identify the VOA himself.

in other words, VOA does not violate the rights of anonymous posters. if you have left enough evidence of yourself if the anonymous post, then you deserve to be identified. if not, then VOA is probably wrong.

the problem lies in the mistakes VOA makes-- unintentionally and falsely attributing a negative or incendiary comment to the wrong person.

i agree that anonymous commenters have the right to try to remain anonymous, and that the people they are insulting have the right to let those comments remain anonymous.

but you cannot blame VOA for the uncovering of any anonymous posts. he (or she) just does what we all do in our heads-- he (or she) just does it a little better.

what we really have to be careful about is the mistakes VOA makes, and the repercussions of a false accusation.

Anonymous said...

haha someone actually said that? i wanna see it. (the ur dum thing)

that seriously reminds me of when my sister was like 10, she got a talking pen and i "fixed" it so that every time she pressed it on the paper it said "crap" (because i was 12 and it seemed very funny). So she changed it back and then tried to write "Ali's an idiot." She spelled idiot wrong (i kid you not) 8 times.

Anonymous said...

also: KITTY!!!

Anonymous said...

"My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
$10,000.

"Here's looking to you, kid."
$50,000.

"Don't you remember, Paul? All those years ago..."
"WHAT?"
"We've never met! I was just GUESSING!"
Priceless.

Sam Austin said...

it's actually "Here's looking AT you, kid", but i appreciate the sentiment.

Anonymous said...

What's sad is I've seen that movie 1000000000000000000000 times.

And I knew it when I was typing it.

I blame the fact that it was 7:03, and everyone knows that no one can think when they post at 7:03.

Anonymous said...

Okay, how about we just stop thinking about VOA period? And, by thinking, I mean contemplating. VOA was a clever idea (as was Sam's biography of him... did we ever find out VOA's actual gender, by the way?) and it was fun while it lasted. But it's just that: fun. Let's not blow things out of preportion.

Anonymous said...

Purim? Sounds like fun! What's the game plan?

Anonymous said...

GO PRINCESS BRIDE!

Becky said...

Samm!!
I totally saw you today.
Even if it was only for like, 10 minutes that we actually got to talk.
but whatever. (:

Purim Carnival = Sunday March 4th from 10 am to 12:30 noon at Or Shalom

Hope you can come

Becky said...

By the way - I love your photos. (:

They're amazing.

Anonymous said...

"For everything else, there's Mastercard."