January 13, 2008

• Internet Island Topic Post 31: New Year’s Potpourii

   I’m participating in the latest Internet Island Topic Post. Read More entries HERE on the Internet Island.

  31.1: A New Year, A New Page: What is different or similar about the “page” that is turning now, in Jan. 2008? Are you writing a “new book” or is this year just another chapter in a long, meandering novel?

  Sometimes I just want to shout “stop” out loud to the falling calendar pages of time. Othertimes (although I maintain I never anticipate anything) I can hardly wait for some date to arrive, usually because I’m paying off another of my myriad debts. In any case, as the “yearly page” is turned on my book of life, two things happen. I find it more difficult to single out the earlier chapters, to which are added more and more each year, and I find that the passing of the year is becoming as routine as the passing of the night. I’m forever writing the same line in my poetry. “Days become weeks. Weeks become months. Months become years.”

  So far, coming up in May on 55 of them, I haven’t changed the years to decades yet.

  But perhaps sooner than I think that will be happening.

  Each year I predict that the new page will be a fresh one, but will be filled with adventure and enlightenment come the turning of the next page next year. If there is a next year for me. After turning 50 pages a few years ago, I began to realize that I should never look too far into the future. When young, we don’t look into the future at all. We are still experiencing the present. With age comes not only the wisdom to be able to realize exactly what happens as we turn the pages of life, but to realize that we should be “experiencing” the present all the more so. Because the pages seem to turn faster, and we can’t bookmark them even for a moment, so we better enjoy what we can read into our lives while they are happening.

  The pages look the same after a while, and we begin to forget the paragraphs and the individual lines as the book gets longer. All the better to concentrate on the passages as we read them in our book of life. We know we can’t read the book again. So my chapters are all new books, but in the end, they’re just my chapters, and I enjoy their existence as much as I can.

  
  31.3: Pet Peeve:  “What is your pet peeve?” What really peeves you the most? (it can be about anything)

  I don’t have many peeves anymore. (Roommate’s lack of cleanliness is right up there. Stupid people are always a peeve of mine.) I can’t stand indecision and procrastination. I’m a “do it now: do it right” kind of guy. I’ll address my biggest pet peeve when it comes to Xanga. Anyone reading this who has been reading this blog already knows it. I abhor bloggers who will continue a conversation from a comment I left on their site (which commented on something they wrote or presented on their blog) without responding to the entry on which they are commenting.  Every time I read a comment which doesn’t relate at all to the article or entry at hand, I cringe. I’ll avow that I’ve probably broken my own rule more than once. I know I’ve gone back and left a second comment, if I rambled on about something and didn’t really address the entry. I also understand that some people don’t have time to even read the entry, and have so many commenters that they are merely responding to something in one of my long comments while it is fresh in memory, and they aren’t even thinking about how they respond. On a blog, that’s usually in a comment. I try to use the message feature as much as I can for a RYC only comment or response.

  
  31.6: Politics: If you were running your country, what would you do to insure that things get better instead of worse?

  If I were the king of the for-r-r-est….” Er, no, I mean. If I were running things in America there would be far more social programs than there are now. The government always seems to have a lot of nonexistant cash to throw around on wars, defense, and firepower, yet they never have enough for health care or housing. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. I possibly understand that there are lots of checks and balances in the country of America, which might not let me establish socialized systems in a democracy. Back in the 50s, if they had an internet, and read this paragraph, I’d probably be hearing a knock on the door from some commie witchhunters right now.

  I’m always writng about how communication should cure our ills, and it’s so true that the currrent administration is not communicating with the people. Well, they tell lies. I guess that’s a form of communication. I would open the lines of communication more readily to the people themselves. Perhaps “secret meetings” shouldn’t be secret. Perhaps more people should actually have a say in government. This is the “age of information” The people should be able to trust the information they receive from their government.

  I would certainly get the troops out of Iraq as soon as possible. I predicted that Iraq was another Vietnam even before the U.S. started sending in troops, and although the body count isn’t quite as high (yet) I see that the way the operation was performed, and elongated, seems to have gotten us into an almost inescapable quagmire. We have to reduce our involvement in any conflicts which pit religious ideologies against one another.

  
  31.8: Popular Xangans: Television stations, movie studios, stars, prominent writers all are establishing webpages on other services, and the established entertainment giants are getting lots of hits. I’ve even seen some “big stars” with blogs on  Xanga. I like the fact that “regular folks” can become extremely popular if they write or present something interesting and entertaining. Who are your “popular Xangans”. Whose blogs do you read because you want to read them, not just because you’re “exchanging comments?

  I will admit that I regularly do go to see what Dan (The Theologian’s Cafe) has up his sleeve from time to time. Mostly, because he has the “ear of Xanga” I am always looking for some consensus figures on what his readers think about some of the “questions” he raises, which have gotten more and more political over the past couple of years. To get a consensus, one needs to read the comments, and I’d like to see charts and graphs.

  I also read my own blogsite quite a lot. I think I put some of the best blog entries on the internet, not just on Xanga. (Nyuk Nyuk)  (And I’m a shameless self promoter, and offer everything I do for free!)

  • 9:55 am
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