Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Archive De-fragmentation

It's time to clean up the mess that is inside my post archive. Entirely too many posts started in recent weeks and not followed through to climax. So tonight, or will it be tomorrow morning, I will offer up a series of short views on topics that probably deserve more attention than I will be giving them here. Or they deserve to be dying the slow death of the unpublished draft and should never have been pulled out for even the short considerations that follow.

In no particular order:

~Corporal Punishment
-The Fusion 100 word post found me waxing nostalgic about my days at Charlotte Hall Military Academy. I mentioned having experienced the flat side of a very large wooden paddle as payment for escapades I was involved in. I grew up when smacking a kid was no big deal. Well not to those who were doing the smacking. I endured it in public and private schools. It was part of my life and I accepted it. Besides, it was easier to take than say marching around a track for hours on end with a 9.1 pound rifle on my shoulder. Easier to take than being restricted to quarters by parent or school officials. All in all, I am glad we don't embrace it anymore. It had little effect on me. I just can't see any positives outweighing all the negatives. Inflicting pain only has a slight chance of instilling obedience. More often than not it has the opposite effect.

~The Duties of Citizenship - A rant I began about how I was raised to believe the least I could do as a responsible citizen was to vote. To at least go through the motions. If nothing else, it allowed me to gripe and complain guilt free. I had paid the price of admission with my vote. Anyone who doesn't vote should not get their panties in a bunch when a righteously indignant bozo like me discounts their opinion to zero when I find out they are not even putting out this token effort to let someone know how they feel. Then I remembered I have said this so many times before, repeating it like I am now is worse than redundant. It is almost criminal. So you can skip this one.

~Bloggers are Oddballs - A forum friend from my past emailed me. They were concerned that I may have done the unspeakable and gone completely over to the odd world of blogs. He had not seen me at this one forum for several months and then he checked my blog. He was absolutely astounded I would be part of such a stupid use of the Internet. His email was actually an attempt to humor, but it made me think. Yeah bloggers may be oddballs, but bud, anyone who hangs out in a political forum arguing the inarguable with folks who will never change their minds needs to look in a mirror when he calls bloggers oddballs. At least I control my message and do not have to suffer fools if I do not want to. Yet I can continue to post my madness uninterrupted and un-moderated if I want to. Blogging feels more free than the forum format. You want to throw down with someone, there is always the comment section. Besides, there seems to be more civility and respect for someone when visiting their space. A forum is like a public arena, civility is quickly lost to whoever can shout the loudest.

~Comments - This deserves more than the token brush through I have shown the other dead weight in the archive. Maybe a real post later. Besides, I need some seed prompts saved somewhere. Can't shoot the whole wad at once.

~Another "I can't sleep" post - If I am getting tired of these posts, I am guessing they are not what I should be concentrating my efforts on. It's okay to write them. Just going through the motions of writing down my thoughts is practice in composition. But these need to be carefully considered and not just posted because I feel some kind of obligation to put something out there. I have trouble sleeping. Yeah, so what. So does a sizable chunk of the World. Do they really want or care to hear about some flounder in Maine who suffers as they do?

~Grammar - an attempt to get on my high horse about how others mangle the English language. After a few sentences, I realized that I was no one to preach and besides what you do on your blog is your business. But I will not read a blog that specializes in using Aolese or texting to communicate. Just too old a dog to even think of learning those mongrel versions of our language. Just like I am too crusty and rigid to consider 90% of hip hop as music. But if P-Diddy Snoopy Dog Effervescent G and their 200 gillion dollar empire are any indication, it must be music to at least their ears. See, once the post really went off subject, I bailed on it quick like.

Okay, there it is. A de-fragging post that will free up more bytes for me to waste in the future. Please note that in my effort to really make this attempt a "Green Friendly" effort, I have posted "Image Free". SAVE THE BANDWIDTH!

Keep it 'tween the ditches

5 comments:

Middle Ditch said...

I was never hit. We had no canes in the school. I guess Holland was ahead of the others.

Yep, I vote. Women fought hard to get it and I can't let them down.

Are they???? I quite like them. And anyway blogland allowed me to post MD. After years of rejections (I don't belong in that industry) I can finally listen how my words are performed. It's great.

I thrive on comments. It strokes my ego.

I sleep like a log. I drink my home made wine and I'm out like a light. Highly recommended for insomniacs.

Good spelling matters to me. I can't stand the text message idiom of today, but then again, I'm getting old and sound like my parents.

I am enjoying your comments. Thank you for listening. It matters a great deal to me. It makes the efforts of writing and performing worthwhile.

cheers .................

kenju said...

It's good to clean out our drafts file now and then.....and I like the eclectic posts.

Bloggers are a wonderful lot, in my experience. Tell your former forum friend he should dig around a bit; he might like what he sees.

Thanks for the visit.

Demeur said...

Hmm what to throw out, what to keep and what to give to the Goodwill...eh?

I think walking the beat was more of a deterent than a wack on the rear.

Never liked forums they turn into flaming matches.

Sleep? Let us know how you solve that one.

As the language continues to get fragmented and butchered problems will arise when there are no standards and miscomunication results in violence.

Only wish that this message would self destruct after being read.

Gary ("Old Dude") said...

oh my you actually plan in advance your posts, do multi-drafts and re-writes before publishing them----?? I am stunned, I thought all that excellent prose and word usage was spontaneoous off the top of your mind ------now I'm kinda depressed------(sigh)

1138 said...

Corporal Punishment, an ex-Marine Jr. High Math and Phys Ed. teacher decided to take his frustration out on me one day... wrongly.
He taught me the opposite lesson of what he purported, he created a permanent mistrust of authority and the motivations of those who carry the mantle of authority.
After the injury and humiliation to myself, after he was made aware and understood that he had been wrong, he refused apology because doing so would undermine his "authority" - he never understood that he did just the reverse by ignoring reality.

Vote don't vote.
I've been programmed to vote.
After seeing how poorly too many of us go at the responsibility of the chore, I'll never encourage the dumb and ill trained among us to do so again.

You were one of those forum screwballs?
Us USENET folks always wondered what that was all about.
At least, listserve but oh no not, "forums".

Grammar

You do realize it's "American" "English", meaning a bastardized version of a bastard language.
Grammar really gets kind of lost, even more so when you chase things down the conversational roads and meadows of our varied backgrounds.
I think of it as color. Imagine how flat Clemens would be with proper grammar.