I just wish I wasn’t so tired tonight because I’m inspired by what others have contributed recently.
For instance, Lynette finished her 26 Things Project, progress thereof giving me a great deal of enjoyment (look for the chameleon cat). qB also participated in the project – taking all the photos from a double-decker bus! I spent additional time tonight looking at other contributions and it was fascinating to see each individual’s interpretation of the topic words, such as ‘love’, ‘you’, ‘color’, and so on.
Maybe I can talk qB or Lynette into letting me put their efforts into a faux PhotoBlog.
Photos. Photography. And then there’s Jeff Ward’s self proclaimed theoretical wanking about photography, words, predicates, and propositions. Since this is a work in progress, I hope Jeff doesn’t mind me linking to him, but what he’s saying, the actual words, are reflective of some recent and quite intense discussions on the semantic web I’ve been reading, but from a completely different perspective.
Speaking of different perspective, earlier in the week, Maria quoted an article by Renana Brooks in The Nation, titled A Nation of Victims. According to Maria:
Brooks looks at the linguistic techniques Bush uses to achieve his political aims. As a rule, most people take issue with what they perceive to be his mangling of the language. But, as Brooks argues, there is a definite method to this madness, and that method is there to catch you inside a frame of helplessness.
She quotes the author:
Bush is a master at inducing learned helplessness in the electorate. He uses pessimistic language that creates fear and disables people from feeling they can solve their problems.
If you’ve read Burningbird for any length of time, you’ll remember that I’ve talked about learned helplessness before, but it wasn’t until I read this at Maria’s that I identified what I’ve been seeing among the people of this country. With learned helplessness, even if truth marches up and spits in your face, you’ve lost the ability to ’see’ it.
How do you fight learned helplessness? I’ve talked about this here also; you fight learned helplessness with anger. Not everyone will agree with me, but if you can anger the American voters enough, I have a feeling they’ll start seeing the reality, the truth behind today’s patriotism. I hope. I wish.
Speaking of wishing…I just wished I wasn’t so tired tonight so I could provide proper attribution and additonal commentary to all of these topics – but that will have to wait until tomorrow.
For now, ending with a photo of a tasty storm that rolled through earlier tonight.
Or is it? Or did it?
