These pieces were not written by the late British poet, Ken Smith (1938-2003), nor the other Ken Smiths who make bass guitars, study marine biology, sell cars, teach card counting, paint war scenes in oils, guide bear hunters in Idaho, teach forest management, study immunology, do war reporting, sell real estate, photograph nature, teach cryptology, provide legal counsel to the gay and lesbian community, realign the spines of athletes, listen for seismic faults in the Sierra Nevadas, operate a 4-axis milling machine, work for sustainable development in Alberta, play blackjack, or criticize Junk English. Nor were the pieces written by the Ken Smith who is “the Elvis Costello of Landscape Architecture” nor the one who serves in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives nor the one who hit a home run for the Atlanta Braves in 1983. I only wish.
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It’s a Tim Berners-Lee kind of space
Staying true to TB-L’s vision, extending and refining it, naming it precisely, and protecting it, is of immense importance in this perilous time.
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Samizdat, American style
In Eastern Europe under the thumb of the Soviet Union, people couldn't publish newspapers or magazines without government approval, which was not forthcoming for anything critical of the ruling regime. People interested in protesting against the regime faced prison time, loss of jobs, assignment to street sweeping and building cleaning crews, among other things. Their…
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Something quietly remarkable
E. B. White wrote a remarkable essay about visiting the winter rehearsal headquarters of a big circus. He sees something quietly remarkable there, and sets out to preserve the memory of it in his sentences, saying: “As a writing man, or secretary, I have always felt charged with the safekeeping of all unexpected items of…
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Political common sense
When certain politicians say something is common sense, they mean that it makes sense to them, and should to you, without being examined or discussed. Which means they don't intend to show why it might make sense. So in calling something common sense, what that sort of politician means is that people who agree with…
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The second kind of social media post
What does a social media post — in this case a brief YouTube talk — look like when it goes far beyond the "It's bad! They're so bad!" approach of many op-eds and social media postings? In an earlier posting, I suggested that they offer p_attern recognition, instructive historical cases, and techniques for action_. Beyond…
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Write and publish in web-savvy ways — it’s crazy not to
After a strong, detailed analysis of how "Trump's Big Bad Bill Will Kill Americans," authors Jeremy Barofsky and Pamela Herd offer this brief action paragraph: If the bill’s impact is clearly disseminated and its supporters pay a political price at each implementation step, there is real hope that the worst effects to the nation’s health may not come to…
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Only two kinds of social media post or op-ed
In this crisis, there are only two kinds of social media posts, two kinds of op-eds in the world. The first kind says that something is horrible. No shortage right now, for example, of op-eds and posts saying that it's horrible that top-down political pressure may have caused the cancellation of the late night political…
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This day in blogging history
An Italian this-date-in-history site gives the impression that a certain day in July of 1997 was a notable moment in the development of blogging. With software development, maybe it wasn't so much a certain day as a certain period of time, but what do I know?
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The nagging rasp of electric guitars
Living on borrowed time now in the United States puts writer Brett McNeil in the mood for listening to the Stooges. The nagging rasp of electric guitars suits my mood too, as I'm reading Black Earth, a Timothy Snyder book about the intentional experimental disassembling of nations and public order in eastern Europe, carried out…
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Getting specific about a dictator’s methods
Recommending a book to a friend? Send a link to an indie instead of an empire. For example, Prairie Lights Bookstore. Right now I'm reading Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, in which Timothy Snyder tracks Hitler's method: dismantling nation states as prelude to carrying out his deeper purposes: Prepare by filling the…