"One Shed" Jacksoned

Let the truth be known I've been banned from Facebook for 24 hours for suggesting I should burn my own shed down rather than clean it.

When will Facebook's bots learn to read context? And when will Facebook ever say, "Oh, our bad," if in their "review" they find their bot was in error? This won't happen because no one is reviewing what the bots are doing. Not a single person. Never seen it before, so when they say my opinion on the matter will make a difference to their bots, I have to laugh and call them liars. Because that's what they are.

I'm so grateful Facebook is protecting the world from minor jokes as content inciting violence while at the same time they're being sued for not protecting actual people from actual violence that led to a lot of people being dead.

My shed, a plastic hovel filled mostly with bicycles no one is using, has more influence on Facebook than I do.

HIGH ANXIETY

Work anxiety tends to manifest in my dreams, which manifest in the same way: I'm back working at the newspaper, a sham of a worker, hiding in the bureaucracy yet still hoping to get paid.

Last night's dream was kind of a gut punch, though. I was at my desk, located in a spot about big enough for a filing cabinet next to the bathrooms that were seeing a lot of activity. A bevy of schoolchildren arrived as I was sneaking out of the door with blankets they had made, and wanted to be featured in the newspaper. I turned around to go back into the building to grab a camera and the building had disappeared. As the children milled excitedly on the sidewalk, using their blankets as capes and parachutes and such, I nervously scanned the buildings but could not find the newspaper.

End of dream.

It woke me up and I lay there in the dark, pondering the location of the building. Wasn't until a few hours later I realized I'd emerged on a different street, but I can't discount the building just up an disappearing on me once I found my way out.

I don't know what any of this means, but I'm glad to have a weekend coming up that might help me relax a bit.

. . . Hilda Rules the Waves . . .

Hilda: "Rumpole? Is it going too far?"

Rumpole: [In his mind] "Rule Britannia, Hilda rules the waves . . ."

I've loved Thames Television's "Rumpole of the Bailey" since I watched the show with my Dad many moons ago. The tales are an education of character-driven storytelling. Part of Rumpole's schtick is to refer to his wife as "She Who Must Be Obeyed," and in his head and occasionally in his action he treats her as a domineering battle-axe.

This little scene, however, paints their relationship in an entirely different light, perhaps bringing back the romance and twinkle he felt when they first met.

Anyway, it's the kind of stuff you notice when you are striving to develop better characters and are watching old shows for inspiration.

Here's the moment about 43:48 in.

Pity the Students of English. Especially if They Have Me as Their Instructor.

In English class, you should be learning proper usage and grammar.

I say *should* because, in the case of the Change Essay, we're kind of teaching you that run-on sentences are acceptable.

I mean, look at the template we offer you:

At first, ________________, but then after _________ I thought ______________ and now ____________.

I mean, that's *begging* for a long sentence that will in some cases cause you to pass out because you've run out of oxygen before you get to the end of it.

While this is a good way to help you see the structure of the essay, it's not necessarily the best way to write your thesis statement. So I'd suggest breaking it up into smaller, easier-to-say-in-one-breath sentences, kind of like this:

At first, I thought we were supposed to learn proper English in this class. But after I saw the Change Essay template, I wondered what kind of other terrible examples of English I might see in this class. But now, after reading Brother Davidson's "Doing You A Slight Disservice" announcement, I see the template is only an example, not the law.

If you end up with a really long run-on sentence in your essay, I may point it out, but I'm not going to penalize you for it. Yet.

One other thing to consider: You may have been taught that it's completely improper to use the word "I" in an essay. This is not that kind of essay. This is a personal essay, coming from your perspective, so it's perfectly fine to say things like "This is what I experienced," or "This is what I think." The only cardinal sin (and this will sound funny since I just used this phraseology) is overuse of the word "you." You're writing your experience, not mine, so be careful writing things like . . . and now I can't even think of an example. Just be wary. I mean, use it when it's right, but not when it's wrong.

The *proper* use of you:

Maybe I can use this cartoon to explain. In this case, the "yous" are justified because it is in fact the boss who needs to address his behavior here. But generally speaking if we read an essay that's full of "you need to do this" or "you need to do that" we get all tensed up and we stop listening. And this is still a really bad example because in Conference talks we hear a lot of such talk, and we generally agree, "Yup, I need to do better." So it's really confusing. Maybe I shouldn't even have brought it up.

What kind of advice is that, you may ask? (Hey! He's doing it again!) That's just . . . English. It's a weird language that is often more exception than rule. It's meant to be played with, and for the most part this class is a safe place for play. I'll try, if I see play going beyond bounds, to explain why, but if I struggle with an explanation, it's because English is just so English.

ADDENDUM: I'm eavesdropping on my wife, who teaches English at BYUI and the College of Eastern Idaho, and she has this to say about "you" at least in this particular essay (and I'm paraphrasing): This is your essay, it's personal. It's you telling the story. So I should not read "this is what you should feel," or "this is what you should think" and the like. This is you telling the story. Use I.

Clear, right?

It is Here

In relation to an earlier post, I offer the following:

[Hears distant knocking as the hysterics over Randy's eating like a piggy slowly subsides.]

[The Old Man ceremoniously folds his newspaper, places it as if tossing a gauntlet onto his place setting.]

It is here.

[No one races out to the car to help the Old Man unload his Major Award.]

I get the feeling, though, that the tile had been in the special order lot for a while. Though it was wrapped in plastic, the boxes were a bit wet from rain earlier in the week. I don't know if the store tried to contact us, as the primary phone number noted on the order is no longer one I have access to, and the store was unable to correct the number in their system.

Nevertheless, I'm happy the tile are here. Hope to get them put in this coming weekend. I'm ready for that bathroom to be back in action.

And Ye Will Not Have A Mind to Injure One Another . . .

"And ye will not have a mind to injure one another, but to live peaceably, and to render to every man according to that which is his due.

"And ye will not suffer your children that they go hungry, or naked; neither will ye suffer that they transgress the laws of God, and fight and quarrel one with another, and serve the devil, who is the master of sin, or who is the evil spirit which hath been spoken of by our fathers, he being an enemy to all righteousness.

"But ye will teach them to walk in the ways of truth and soberness; ye will teach them to love one another, and to serve one another.

"And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish."

Mosiah, Chapter Four.

Or, you know, ship them off with lies just so you can stick it to the Libs.

From the article:

"When we landed [in Martha's Vineyard] no one was waiting for us," he said. "No one knew we were coming. We realized they had lied to us. But, thankfully, we came upon kindhearted people who have supported us with everything we need."

(Son of an immigrant is posting this. I won't tolerate crap in the comments.)

Yes, immigration is broken in this country. What we need is bipartisan cooperation to make things better. This kind of thing is just a political stunt that does nothing to fix the problem. But we don't want to fix the problem anymore, we just want to own the X, whomever the X may be.

End the Middle Management Subsidy

 

This video, along with another I'll post from the same fellow, is an interesting mini-study on how boosting investment in high-speed internet could be key in solving a lot of the crises we're seeing today, from home affordability to the diminuition of small towns.

A bigger challenge might be changing the expectation that work has to take place at work, rather than in dispersed locations. And, as always, helping those who can't work from home see the benefits for them (and I think there are plenty).

In the second video he says something that made me chuckle: "I love transportation. I love seeing the state spend billions of dollars to build cool new roads and rail for me to ride on and drive. But as a taxpayer, one could ask the question: 'Is the state spending billions of dollars just to subsidize middle managers being able to physically supervise their employees, who could do their job anywhere?'"

And what might the benefits for "essential" workers be?

Many that overlap those who can work from home: Less-crowded roads. Lower house prices. High-speed internet penetration to more and more rural communities. I could go on.

"Nice Ta Meet Ya, Folks!"

Behold the power of pop culture, or something.

I needed to verify the spelling of the term "fire marshal," one L or two?

So I plug "fire marshal" into the ol' Google and come up with 487 million results. The first page is nothing but references to Jim Carrey's Fire Marshal Bill, alternatively introduced as "fire marshal" and "fire marshall." Not until Page 2 of the results do I get a non-"In Living Color" reference (in this case, from the Nevada State Fire Marshal Division) to verify the spelling.

Two things learned:

1. Fire Marshal Bill is a more popular character than I realized.

2. Whoever is doing search engine optimization at the Nevada State Fire Marshal Division is doing an excellent job.

BUT, there's more.

The above was on my work computer.

Turning to my home computer, I get something different. 53 million results, to begin with.

And the first one is a link to the City of Idaho Falls' Fire Marshal's contact page.

The first page is full of state and local fire marshal contacts and a link to the "fire marshal" entry at Wikipedia.

I went through the first fifteen pages of links. Not one mention of Fire Marshal Bill.

Bing.com is powering the search on my work computer.

Google.com is powering the search on my home computer.

Make of that what you will.

"Focus on Our Core Business"

If you've been following the saga of my bathroom remodel, you may notice a commonality in the photos I've posted: The walls in the shower, which were stripped of their crumbling tile months ago, are still without tile.

That's due to a few factors:

1. A delay in deciding what tile to replace the old tile with.

2. "Supply chain issues."

We found tile we wanted early last month. They were not available in-store, but we were assured we could order them online. Went online and were told, in a manner befitting the current circumstances, that they were not available in-store or online in our location, but could be ordered in from another location.

So we ordered them, with the promise they would be delivered Sept. 1.

Sept. 1 came and went. No weenie whistle. Nor tiles, either. We visited the store Saturday, and were told they would arrive Sept. 11.

I called them today, and of course got the automated menu. Good thing I did, because the automated menu told me that on Sept. 2, the order was cancelled.

Odd. We hadn't cancelled it.

So I talked to a live body at the store who did indeed confirm the order had been cancelled due to a "purchase order error," but that the order had been placed again on Sept. 9, the day we visited the store to check on the status of the order.

As of right now, they can't tell us when the tile will arrive. But they have our money, which is the main thing.

Blaming the local store, of course, isn't the way to go. "Current circumstances" aren't their fault. They've been nothing but helpful. Corporate, however . . .

Don't Blame Me; I Didn't Write It

So I stumbled across this interesting little bit of editor/editorial gatekeeping this morning.

Basically, the argument is that if a reader has not seen the original manuscript or other obscure bits of manuscript-related matter that the editor saw before the work began, the reader does not have the right to criticize the editing.

As an editor friend put it on Facebook: "Hogswallop."

This editor writes:

I do understand the impulse. It’s a shorthand for saying the book is bloated or sloppy. In a famously conflict averse industry, it seems easier to blame a faceless editor than it is to pin it on the author. It’s a way of seeming savvy about the way the business works.

Here’s the thing: Unless you saw the raw original manuscript and the editors’ edits and editorial letter, you have absolutely no idea how well or poorly a book was edited.

Sometimes manuscripts arrive in total shambles and it takes a herculean effort to get them in even passable shape. You think the final book was rough? “Well,” the editor will likely say, “you should have seen it before I got to it.”

Here's the argument, summed up:

I will admit I'm reading a book right now that might fit that category: Terry Pratchett's last book, "The Shepherd's Crown." There's something missing from this novel. It feels empty and hollow. And while Pratchett's people have been open about the fact that the novel didn't quite get the polish Pratchett typically puts on his books because of his Parkinson's disease, the lesson to be learned here is that the exception doesn't make the rule.

But there's a real Hobson's choice here: Be responsible for putting out a mediocre last novel, or be the booger-brained editor who refused to publish the last novel of a granted literary titan because it wasn't up to snuff. Here, I might agree with Bransford in saying since the manuscript had trouble, it was not the fault of the editor or that the editor has little to no gatekeeping power once a manuscript is accepted.

But I have read plenty of books out there where the editing left in bloat, slop, and clutter that a braver editor would have cut out. And I can say this from the perspective of a writer who tends towards bloat, clutter, and slop -- a good editor can and should have more influence on the project's end result. And if the editor drops the ball on that, the reader has every right to say ew.

JK Rowling's writing, for example, became much more bloated as her popularity soared. The first books were tightly edited and I think were better for it. The latter books had a lot of fluff that no one dared cut about because Rowling.

Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series is an epic example of bloat and clutter left too alone by editors.

John Crowley's "Little, Big" . . . the less said about this the better. A good editor would have said, "John, you can cut at least the first 100 pages of the novel and nothing's really lost from your story, bub." But apparently it wasn't said loudly enough.

Then there's Gentry Lee taking on the Rama "series" from Arthur C. Clarke. A good editor would have said, "Nah, this is garbage. Rama's fans didn't necessarily expect there to be two more ships coming, though Clarke hinted at it. And yikes, does EVERYONE have to die in Rama II?" I guess editors are called on to make silk purses out of sow's ears on occasion, but again I don't think the exception makes the rule. Bransford doesn't really make this clear -- if publishers are pushing for a book, it's the silk purse/sow's ear on occasion. But I don't think you can hold editors blameless. Maybe pity them in their trade, but other than that . . . 

And while authors might have originally made the typos, if they get past the editor, well, I'm going to question the skills of more than just the author.

And while I can find exceptions and exemptions, the idea that a reader may not criticize a book's editing because they didn't see the manuscript's original state is off. Writing and editing, in my experience, work together. They may not always want to work together, but it's part of the deal. And readers can and ought to recognize when the deal is broken. Maybe the news ought to get to writers that their choices are making the editor's job difficult, and that they -- the readers, the ones paying for the books -- notice.