Category Archives: Update Announcement

Update Announcement

¡Articulo sobre socialismo en muchos publicaciones latinoamericanas!

El articulo a sido re-publiado en muchos otras publicaciones en los últimos días.

Rebelión:   Rebelión. El socialismo, ¿tiene futuro en EEUU?

América Latina en Movimiento:  http://alainet.org/active/60264&lang=es

En Bolivia:  www.bolpress.com

Internacional:  www.desdeabajo.info

Sociologo politica: pabloraulfernandez.blogspot.com

Otros:  cruzadasur.blogspot.com/2010/04/el-socialismo-del-siglo-xxi.html

www.apiavirtual.com/

 

¡Estoy muy agradecido del esfuerzo de Ernesto Carmona quien a tomado mi pobre traducción y lo hizo algo muy claro en castellano!

Update Announcement

Announcing Version 1.0

Rarely do you hear something proudly touted as “Version 1.0.”  I remember being told “never buy the first model of anything.”  I defied this dictum and bought a Dodge Omni in 1978.  (If you don’t know me, yes, I’m that old!)  A mechanic, who’d been able virtually to earn a living on the costs of repairing my car alone, said to me: “They call it an Omni because they got every part from a different country.”  He wasn’t kidding either, everything seemed like it came from somewhere different and had been put together by someone who didn’t know very much about cars.

So defying the dictum of never call anything 1.0, that’s what this is Version 1.0, the first incomplete, if also completely imperfect, version of my writings, Reflections in a Cracked Glass.

Oh, I’ll keep writing, but I feel a sense of completeness, of having touched the bases I wanted to, with the addition of the essays on socialism, and on the role of trajectory in artistic creativity.

If you’re new to this site, pick an essay and see where it takes you.

Gianni  Rutchik

 long time admirer of Kilgore Trout

 

Update Announcement

Adding essay: Why Socialism Matters

I’ve been  working on this essay for quite a while.  Here we are in the midst of electing a new president and it’s as though socialism only exists as what Obama doesn’t want to be accused of being.  Well, he isn’t.  But it still shocks me that our battle continues to be not to lose rights we thought we’d won long ago, rather than how we can move forward.  Capitalism, on a global scale, is falling apart, but is a socialist alternative seriously considered?  Rarely.

Check it out:  Why Socialism Matters

(A Spanish translation of this article will be available soon.)

Update Announcement

A marriage quote

I’m sure that I wasn’t the first to say it, but seeing divorced couples fighting  particularly over children, years later, evoked this from me:  “Marriage is temporary, but divorce is forever.”

Of course I know that some divorced couples get remarried.  That just proves the point.  A marriage may cease to be but the relationship remains.   ‘course one could argue that all of this just proves marriage, happy or not, together or not,  is forever.

Coming soon:  an article on socialism and an article the importance of trajectory in the teaching and learning of art.

 

Update Announcement

Adding some oddball stuff…

Seems time to add some new things:

I’ve decided to add a couple pieces of “writing” that differ from the rest of my blook in that they make no attempt whatsoever to unravel the mysteries and frustrations of the so-called “real” world.

First, “Imaginary-world Game Notes”: I’m a big fan of a kind of computer game that’s rarely played these days: Imaginary-world puzzle games. The starting point for all these games is Myst. Video games seem to be almost exclusively of the shoot-em-up and blow-em-up these days, not worlds one can wander through at one’s own pace, trying to solve a visual (and occasionally auditory) puzzle. When these games first came out, I’m sure lots of folks solved them as a sort of “community,” sharing what they found out. I’ve worked on them on my own, resorting to on-line hints only when desperate. Few people apparently play these games very much, though I think Myst was a decent “hit” on the iPhone a couple years back. That’s where I found it. I’ve looked for ways to play games like this on the Mac and found that Myst, Myst II (Riven), and Myst III (Exile) can be made to work relatively easily on a Mac. I also found a fascinating game called Alida.
These are games for a particular kind of person: one with a fair amount of time and not in any big hurry to “solve” something. They create visual worlds that I’ve found engaging. If you’re into this kind of game, you might find it interesting to follow my journey. The trick is to learn just enough to get oneself “unstuck” without learning so much that there’s nothing left to solve. I make no guarantees. One person’s hint is another’s spoiler.
If you like Myst, though, I strongly recommend these games. They provided my with hours of useless amusement.

And this venture into the world of the purely fantastical wouldn’t be complete without my adding a couple of my attempts at Sci-Fi stories. The sad part of writing Sci-Fi is that one quickly learns that there are a thousand-and-one stories that follow the exact same idea and do a better job of it. Oh, well, here are my attempts. Hopefully you may find them entertaining.

At the same time, I figured I might as well start blogging my own NYT (New York Times) Crossword experience. I’m well aware that Rex Parker pretty much has this market cornered, but I personally tire of the combination of his occasionally bragging about how good he is (He’ll throw in, just often enough to make sure you know, how it took him extra-long –  say, 5 whole minutes – to solve a puzzle most of us spend half a day on). Nor do I care much for his “critiques” of the puzzles. (Well, except when I found a puzzle particularly miserably hard and so did he!) But thought there might be some folks who’d like to hear some more or less random comments from a more down-to-earth solver like themselves. I’ll try to “cover” the Thursday through Saturday puzzles for a while and see what happens. This blog starts with this Saturday. Entries will generally be quick and dirty.

These categories, Sci-Fi, Imaginary-world Puzzle Game Notes, and NYT Xword notes make no pretense of being anything but what they are: diversions that amuse me.

Update Announcement

Added “Welcome to the Monolith!” & Really Horrible Bosses and another short item

This is a topic I’ve worked over several times in the past.  Most were long diatribes inspired by such notable miseries of being stuck in airport for hours on end because of inexplicable vagaries of flights and/or luggage, or spending 45 minutes trying (usually unsuccessfully) to resolve some customer service snafu.  I decided to drop my personal tales of woe since I’m sure everyone can provide their own.   Welcome to the Monolith!

And something I’ve been playing around with for a long time and thought it was time it saw the light of day.  My attempt at a typology of horrible bosses.

A little thought on struggling with our character flaws:  Imperfect, to say the least