One of these days, I’m going to get myself organized (again). Seems like lately, there’s not enough time to get everything done. And the funniest thing is that the more I think about that and try to work on it, the worse it gets. Even blogging — as a few people have noticed — is suffering.
It’s not from lack of trying, though! Last week, of course, there was the five hours I spent — and lost — trying to blog about my favorite topic: The true meaning and purpose of the Constitution of the United States. And this week a book I’ve been working through has mysteriously turned up missing. I can’t find the copy of The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution which I’d been slowly reading my way through. I may just have to go buy a new one.
It’s ironic, then, that today at 3 p.m., I’m supposed to be one of a few people sitting on a panel sponsored by the Fresno Bee to discuss blogging. Specifically, according to the blurb I was sent by Bill Haines from the Bee, we’ll be concerned with the social impact of blogging.
Fad? Long-term trend? What does it mean for us?
A panel discussion involving local bloggers and national experts about how the Internet is diversifying the way people are getting their information.
Heck, I’m even going to get my haircut today, just for this event! I haven’t figured out yet whether I’m in the local blogger group or if I get to play national expert today. I suspect it’s the former.
Seriously, though, I can’t really be blamed for not having enough time to blog as “religiously” as I did in the past.
After all, I am in my last year of law school. I have already opened my future criminal defense law office downtown — which I currently use only as a quiet place (with a great view!) to study and write appeals, motions and other “briefs” for local attorneys, particularly David Mugridge.
And as anyone who has been watching the news lately knows, Fresno is constantly beseiged by criminal activities, whether it’s from out of control rock throwers, out of control ethnic gangs — known to the police as “criminal street gangs” and apparently including all the non-white people in the greater Fresno metropolitan area — or whether it’s the criminal activities of the Boys in Blue themselves. (No, not the Crips; the PO-leece.)
In fact, it’s really the combination of these that keeps me busy. Between people who really do commit crimes and the police who fabricate cases against the others, I’m spending so much time researching and writing appeals there’s little time for anything else.
But all that’s gonna change soon!
Because I’m tellin’ ya. I’m going to get my life back under control even if it means cutting back on my four hours of sleep a night!
Stay tuned.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Gottlos // Aug 3, 2005 at 7:44 pm
This comment relates to your review of “Sarah’s Sister,” but has nothing to do with that story. You said Heinlein was one of your fave authors. He was an uber, uber fascist, who advocated (at least in his stories) that only citizens who served in the military and saw combat would be allowed to vote. And worse. He’d be perfect for 2005 in Amerika. He and Ayn Rand could have a threesome with Karl Rovenfuhrer.
I loved Starship Troopers when I was 12, but come on.
2 Rick Horowitz // Aug 4, 2005 at 4:20 am
That Heinlein’s politics may not have been what some of us — including me — would consider kosher, doesn’t affect the quality of his writing. He wrote engaging and interesting stories.
A full review of Heinlein, not limited to one or two of his novels, would have to take into account not only what you said about his fascistic leanings, but also the fact that not all his writings were of the same quality. I probably should say that I only really liked his earlier work; and the earlier works constitute some of my favorite stories. (Frankly, I never read Starship Troopers and the movie su— well, let’s just say it didn’t inspire me to want to run out and buy the book.
Going back to the issue of Heinlein’s themes, or philosophies, and the impact they have on whether or not I count him as one of my favorites, I’d have to add that even in what I consider to be his best work — Stranger in a Strange Land — I most definitely don’t like the idea of a transmogrified religion such as the one Michael Valentine effected. I’d rather see religion recognized for what it is: A warped superstition and mythology that is probably an evolutionary remnant — an accidental byproduct — of the brain’s development of consciousness. (There’s a post — no, a book or two — in that sentence, so I can’t easily explicate that.)
Nevertheless, I enjoy the stories and the writing.
Besides, in case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have an objection to requiring some justification for allowing someone the right to vote. I’ve advocated some kind of intelligence and/or “fund of knowledge” test. At a minimum, I’d require people to be able to give some explanation of the meaning and purpose of the Constitution before allowing them that right.
And, no, their ideas wouldn’t have to jive with mine. They’d just have to demonstrate some attempt to come to grips with the Constitution; they’d have to show they at least had some inkling of what it said, even if they differed from others in interpreting it.
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