posted
So, you go to the front page, you look at the little sidebar on the left, and what does it say? It says "Weekly columns by Orson Scott Card." Well, columns they may be, and by Orson Scott Card I suppose they are, but weekly they ain't. It's been a good three weeks now since the Freakonomics one was posted. How am I supposed to keep my heart in good shape if I don't get weekly doses of indignation? It's not like I get any actual exercise, what with my desk job; I need that extra heartrate that comes from reading opinions I totally disagree with! I demand weeklier columns!
(You should please note that this post is really only a desperate attempt to find something to get indignant about this week. Come on, I need my moral-high-ground fix!)
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
My wife laughs at me because I check the Hatrack site daily for new stuff. Of course by the time a column gets to the site I already saw it on the Rhinotimes.com site. Though for some strange reason you have to access their archive for the most current edition of their newspaper for several days after the Thursday release.
posted
I have written the "Uncle Orson Reviews Everything" column every week, without fail, since October of 2001.
I have written World Watch/International Update/Civilization Watch (the names vary) columns whenever I had something to say that I thought might (a) be worth the flack I'll take for having said it and (b) have a remote chance of making a difference in the public discussion. The ineffectiveness of these columns is discouraging, so when I only have time to write one, I write the easy one - "Orson Reviews" - and set World Watch aside for another week when I either feel more urgency or have more time.
I earn absolutely nothing (unless you count bile) for either column; but then, I don't earn anything for teaching at SVU, either. In fact, I do WAY too many things that don't contribute to the household coffers. So from time to time, noticing a correlation between my publishing fiction and Kristine being able to pay the bills, I have to set other things aside and write the fiction. I assume that this website, at least, is visited by a number of people who approve of that set of priorities; indeed, there may be some who think I spend way TOO much time on these columns.
But as long as Orson Reviews comes out every week, and we regard that and World Watch as "columns by Orson Scott Card," then it is a true statement to say that "columns by Orson Scott Card" do indeed appear on a weekly basis.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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Gryphonesse, I wouldn't worry about KoM. OSC made him look pretty stupid, though I doubt anything can make him feel that way, so I doubt he'll come back to visit this thread. Well, unless someone says something to purposely get him riled up. Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
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Made him look stupid? Seriously? It seemed like a somewhat lighter discussion than that, to me. KoM didn't seem terribly serious, and Card's response seemed to be fairly neutral. It just struck me as an exchange.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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On the subject of moral high ground, David Brin (who also gets flack on his website, by the way, I'm one of those who tries not to be a cheerleader there) points out, somewhere in his dense pile of material, that indignance stimulates the pleasure centers of the brain; it actually feels good to be angry while you're angry!
So when you say you're getting a moral-high-ground fix, there is, according at least to Brin and whichever source he used, a far more physical component to things than at least I had supposed.
The "Freakonomics" essay itself was fascinating. Here was OSC, whom I like quite genuinely from his words (I haven't met him, but family members have; An uncle of mine, says he was a mission companion of his in Brazil) anyway here he was saying things I just couldn't believe, connecting eugenics and abortion in that way...
My dander was up higher than I ever could have imagined, since the last time I bothered to check in with Maureen Dowd on any political subject.
A second reading of the essay didn't create the visceral response.
But it has been kind of entertaining to watch people deny the material in "Freakonomics" without actually supporting their refutations with anything at all.
Way to pick 'em, OSC!
Posts: 89 | Registered: May 2005
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Reviews don't count - I very rarely use the same products or watch the same movies, and when I do I most often agree with OSC, so there's none of that lovely visceral feeling of "well that just ain't so!"
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by El JT de Spang: KoM was tongue-in-cheek, and OSC's response was more a clarification of the "weekly columns" label than a reprimand.
I can't see what either would have to be mad about.
Agreed. Shoo vultures. Nobody died here.
Posts: 63 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:On the subject of moral high ground, David Brin (who also gets flack on his website, by the way, I'm one of those who tries not to be a cheerleader there) points out, somewhere in his dense pile of material, that indignance stimulates the pleasure centers of the brain; it actually feels good to be angry while you're angry
Hence the term "adrenalin addict".
Posts: 1167 | Registered: Oct 2005
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If reviews don't count, were you looking more for text that is arranged with vertical boundaries? Or for some kind of architectural item?
This morning for some reason I was thinking of changing my ID to Maggot. I guess deep down I still feel bad about that mistake I made at work. But I was thinking that if I were maggot, it would help people who disagree with me feel good about themselves.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Well, if reviews don't count, then you're right - but then, when we said "weekly," we WERE counting the reviews <grin>.
And nobody was mad. I assumed KoM was TiC (tongue-in-cheek) and I was answering in the same spirit. But then, having an obsessive need to include more detail than anybody wants, I went on too long. As I'm doing now. Somebody stop me.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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I love both the weekly reviews and the World Watch stuff. I'm no debater and way too timid to join into the customary fray about the latter here at Hatrack, but I usually learn something and generally do point my friends towards them when they are published. So even if you are not getting a lot of positive feedback here, I do believe the ideas are getting out there when you do publish, OSC. Although I wouldn't mind another WoG novel to read! ;-)
Posts: 3149 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:So from time to time, noticing a correlation between my publishing fiction and Kristine being able to pay the bills, I have to set other things aside and write the fiction.
*Pounces*
Ah! See? There you go again, just assuming that correlation equals causation. How do you know that it's not your wife being able to pay the bills that causes you to write? Huh? Huh? Or maybe both are caused by something else - maybe by the government's mind-control rays!
<-- Me donning a tinfoil hat
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
I'm going to tell Kristine that her causal analysis is faulty, and if she would just PAY the bills, I wouldn't have to write anymore.
Then again, we might have a spate of bounced checks - but that, too, would be merely random, not causally connected to the bill-paying-without-funds situation at all.
Posts: 2005 | Registered: Jul 1999
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