Critical Exponent

…right this minute. What a phenomenon this whole blogging business is! Everyone building their own little soapboxes from which to shout “I matter!”

We want to believe we are unique, and the blog-sphere is our forum to prove it. As this (2002!) article suggests, much of what motivates us may well be the drive to differentiate ourselves and assert that our thoughts are valuable pearls to heed.

This is true enough, I suppose, when reading what people I know are doing. They’re my friends, and I can put their writing in context. What wonderful lives they lead!

Play the blog game, though, and things are different. There is a voyeuristic thrill in reading the daily thoughts of complete strangers and seeing them mug for the camera, a thrill only heightened by the narrative one enters in medias res, piecing together the author’s life from earlier and earlier entries.

From time to time the picture that comes across speaks of a person who is engaged and interesting, a person who would make a lively conversation partner. These are usually the people whose writing is very purposeful, with each carefully-written entry focused on a particular idea that advances the theme of the blog or illuminates one aspect of their existence.

Most bloggers, though, just seem to run together after a while. The party pics, the whining about the co-workers, the extremely EXCITED!!! messages to the inner circle: to a reader half a globe away, these shadows all start to look like an undifferentiated crowd of petty people caught up in their own little worlds.

Maybe the hard truth is that what makes us interesting is borne of familiarity: to strangers we are much duller than it would be painless to admit, and crowds don’t wait with bated breath to read our latest thought.

This power to instantaneously share our stream of consciousness is blogging’s glitter as well as its weakness. Is my every thought clearly articulated and always insightful? The pressure to always write and update is there, though, and what few thoughts are running through my head need to be typed up, quickly, now, so that my blog will fresh. Lost is the time for deliberation, for outlines and revision, for the whole writing process taught in school. It’s my fifteen seconds of fame, even if I have nothing to say.

Next blog.

I agree that a ban on smoking in the workspace is a good idea because it prevents non-smokers from being exposed to the harmful effects of a habit in which they choose not to participate.

Michigan-based health care firm Weyco, however, was planning to dismiss four workers for refusing to take a test to confirm that they were non-smokers, even outside of work.

That crosses the line into senseless Puritanism. Self-sufficient adults should have sole and complete control over their own bodies and how to take care of them. Supporters of the firm claim that they’re acting in society’s best interest by keeping health care costs down, but that argument rings hollow in light of the many other individual behaviors that are not criminalized and also have a long-term social cost: unsafe sex, excessive drinking, unhealthy eating, lack of exercise.

More importantly, it is not for society to tell people how to live their lives, nor for firms to regulate their employees’ behavior outside of work. Incentives and suasion are one thing (some firms have stop-smoking incentives and exercise rewards, for instance); coercion is beyond the pale.

Salon.com reports that yet another columnist, Michael McManus, has been paid by the government to promote its marriage initiative.

The most precious lines in the article come from the background information on one of the previously-revealed government-paid columnists, Maggie Gallagher:

Gallagher later wrote in her column that she would have revealed the $21,000 payment to readers had she recalled receiving it.

My bf points out: “If she doesn’t recall receiving $21,000, does that mean she wasn’t planning to declare it on her tax form?”

Who would have thought? Yet Nicholas Thompson at Slate makes a reasonable argument:

If the religious right is salivating over the prospect of Scalia as chief when the seriously ill William Rehnquist retires, accede. Just demand that the president nominate a moderate associate justice in return and threaten filibuster and gumming up of the Senate in other ways if the deal falls through.

William Saletan talks about how Hillary Clinton is reframing the abortion discussion in a way that might convince conservative audiences.

Jan. 26, 2005 | WASHINGTON — The nation’s new education secretary denounced PBS on Tuesday for spending public money on a cartoon with lesbian characters, saying many parents would not want children exposed to such lifestyles.

As a commuter rail rider, I’ve been bothered by the noxious fumes by the train tracks at Back Bay station. Sometimes, the fumes are so bad as to be visible, and their acrid smell makes me want to hold my breath until the train comes.

Instead of grumbling, as I often do on such mornings, I took action and wrote a letter to the MBTA. Here’s their reply:

Dear Mr. Chudnovsky:

Thank you for your email of January 20 regarding Back Bay Station.

We are aware of ongoing issues at the station. We try to position locomotives to lessen the amount of fumes on the platform level.

Together with Amtrak and with the MBTA Orange Line, we are developing ways to address issues at Back Bay.

Thank you again for writing. We apologize for any discomfort.

Sincerely,

MBTA Feedback

>>> [...] 1/20/2005 9:37:52 PM >>>
Subject: Inquiry
Date: 1/20/2005
Time: 09:25 PM
Category 1: Other
Additional Comments:

I ride the commuter rail every morning from Back Bay station[...]. I am extremely concerned about the poor quality of the air while waiting for the train [...] at Back Bay. With the diesel locomotives one the one hand and with all the cars in the tunnel right beside the track on the other, the air isn’t healthy in the best of days. Some days (such as today), the exhaust fumes in the air are actually visible and extremely irritating.

Many of us try to stay inside the doors leading to the platform, but this does not shelter us completely from the noxious air. Sometimes waiting upstairs is an option, if one can tell from the people down below when the train is arriving. Nonetheless, even waiting upstairs isn’t always helpful, as there is often smoke on the street level of the station as well (this is particularly noticeable near the ticket booth some days).

I would appreciate it very much if you could look into this important public health issue and take steps to ameliorate the situation.

Sincerely,

Victor Chudnovsky

Their reply is very non-committal. I really do hope the air quality improves soon.

Is anyone else having similar issues? If so, please make sure the MBTA hears from you.

This article in slate.com reports on some neocons who are becoming concerned with increasing energy efficiency, both in their lives and in national policy. Apparently, the main driver for this is an attempt to stench the flow of dollars into “oil-rich Islamic theocracies”:

The fact that energy efficiency and conservation might help the environment is an unintended side benefit. They want to weaken the Saudis, the Iranians, and the Syrians while also strengthening the Israelis. Whether these ends are achieved with M-16s or hybrid automobiles doesn’t seem to matter to them.

As MoveOn.org says in an email I received from them,

No one in the country, except perhaps President Bush, is more responsible for pushing the pre-war lie that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction. At the same time CIA briefings told Dr. Rice that Iraq had no active nuclear program, she was appearing on TV talk shows raising that possibility. “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud,” after all, was Rice’s line. And when the war started, Rice was one of its central architects and continued the WMD deception asserting, “I believe that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” and telling us, “we’re finding interesting things.” Last month the U.S. military formally ended the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Call your senators and urge them to vote against the confirmation of Condolezza Rice as Secretary of State!