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"I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum." -- "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (1954-2015), They Live
"For straight up monster-stomping goodness, nothing makes smoke shoot out my ears like Brilliant@Breakfast" -- Tata
"...the best bleacher bum since Pete Axthelm" -- Randy K.
"I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum." -- "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (1954-2015), They Live
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Saturday, January 02, 2016
Au revoir, y'all....
I see that my good friend jurassicpork has already spilled the beans, so what I'm about to write is not exactly news.
I've been toying with the idea of retiring B@B for over a year now, and now that I am starting to settle into my new life as a middle-aged widow in Durham, NC, it seems like a good time to pull the plug.
My life seems to be divided into neat and tidy thirds. The first third was getting through my childhood and young adulthood, coming to fruition the day that the Handsome Devil Later To Be Known as Mr. Brilliant came into my life and started thirty years of joint weirdness. The second third was our years together. And since I have ridiculously good genetics, this last third is going to be starting to live a more meaningful life at a slower pace here in North Carolina.
I remember when I realized that writing movie reviews was no longer satisfying. It was after I'd seen Jet Li's Fearless, and it was like pulling teeth to find something to say. It was hard to say goodbye to that, just as it's hard to say goodbye to B@B. But the truth is that I haven't written anything here in about a year, and what little ranting I have done has been on Facebook.
It was easy to rant during the Parade of Horrors that was the Bush Years. It was less easy to rant during the last eight years, partly because it was our own team selling us out. As we start 2016, the possibility of an even worse parade of horrors lies in front of us, and its magnitude defies the energy I have to devote to it.
The last three years have been all about loss. First there was my mother in December 2012. Then Mr. B's cancer diagnosis in March 2013. Then we had to let Miss Jenny go in July 2013 due to either a brain tumor or stroke -- an event that in utterly horrifying prescience, caused Mr. B. to say, "I wish someone could do for me what we were just able to do for Jenny."
Then on October 5, 2015, two weeks after Valley Hospital allowed Mr. B's brain to seize for thirty-six hours straight while they dickered with meds instead of sedating/intubating him (which is standard of care for status epilepticus), and a week and a half after we had him transferred out of there, I actually DID have to do for him what we did for Jenny, allowing withdrawal of the breathing tube and palliative sedation. He was gone 20 minutes later.
In December 2013, my beloved Maggie-cat took sick and I had to say goodbye to her on January 28, 2014.
Then in November this year, my father passed away from recurrent aggressive diffuse B-cell lymphoma at age 90 only 53 days after it came back for the third time. He'd beaten it back twice.
I had already closed on my new house, I was purging 19 yearsof stuff and packing to move, largely alone. And now dealing with yet another loss. I would call my sister and say, "Please tell me you're not sick."
Everyone tells me they don't know how I'm still standing. I'd love to believe that I'm stronger than most people, but the truth is that I'm no different from anyone else. When life keeps hitting you, you bounce back because you don't have a choice. If you don't think you could, it's because you haven't been hit hard enough yet.
I'm lucky. I've been able to keep my job and work remotely. A year ago I received a promotion and transfer to a new group where my manager is in Germany, where they don't believe in working 80 hour weeks. So my work/life balance has been somewhat better, and now will be even better because I won't be sitting in northern NJ traffic every day. My two little boy kitties, Eli and Sam, were great in the car and have adjusted beautifully to their new home. My sister has welcomed me into her circle and I am signing up for Meetup groups. It is the fresh start that just could not have happened in New Jersey, in a house too full of memories, too many of them about sadness and depression. Mr. B is now free of the emotional burdens that plagued him here and it is time for a young family to move into that house, now dressed up all pretty with a new kitchen, a nice deck, and a completely remodeled upstairs, and make better memories there.
My weekdays will be spent in my home office that gets the morning sun through the trees in my front yard. When the weather gets nice, I can sit and drink iced tea on my screened porch, or take my laptop outside onto the patio. I am about 20 minutes or less from anything I might want to do. My neighbors are friendly, and I have no doubts that I'll be happy here.
It's different here from New Jersey, in just the ways I wanted it to be. New Jersey has become the "You got a problem with that?" state. There seems to be a giant chip on everyone's shoulder there. There is a reason that state elected Chris Christie. Now I'm not under any illusions about what is going on in Raleigh. It's a product of Democrats deciding to stay home in 2010, and it now has one of the most retrograde statehouses in the country. Maybe I can help with efforts to change that.
I am 60 years old now, and while I'll still be fighting the good fight, I've become more contemplative. I'll be starting up a new blog soon -- a chronicle of this new life. Yes, there'll be politics. There will also be the occasional TV or movie review, recipe, anecdote, or anything else that inspires me. I hope you'll join me there and occasionally find something that moves you to participate. Watch this space for the link, it will be posted here.
Thanks to you all for your support during these last few years and indeed, for the last decade.
See y'all on the flip.
I've been toying with the idea of retiring B@B for over a year now, and now that I am starting to settle into my new life as a middle-aged widow in Durham, NC, it seems like a good time to pull the plug.
My life seems to be divided into neat and tidy thirds. The first third was getting through my childhood and young adulthood, coming to fruition the day that the Handsome Devil Later To Be Known as Mr. Brilliant came into my life and started thirty years of joint weirdness. The second third was our years together. And since I have ridiculously good genetics, this last third is going to be starting to live a more meaningful life at a slower pace here in North Carolina.
I remember when I realized that writing movie reviews was no longer satisfying. It was after I'd seen Jet Li's Fearless, and it was like pulling teeth to find something to say. It was hard to say goodbye to that, just as it's hard to say goodbye to B@B. But the truth is that I haven't written anything here in about a year, and what little ranting I have done has been on Facebook.
It was easy to rant during the Parade of Horrors that was the Bush Years. It was less easy to rant during the last eight years, partly because it was our own team selling us out. As we start 2016, the possibility of an even worse parade of horrors lies in front of us, and its magnitude defies the energy I have to devote to it.
The last three years have been all about loss. First there was my mother in December 2012. Then Mr. B's cancer diagnosis in March 2013. Then we had to let Miss Jenny go in July 2013 due to either a brain tumor or stroke -- an event that in utterly horrifying prescience, caused Mr. B. to say, "I wish someone could do for me what we were just able to do for Jenny."
Then on October 5, 2015, two weeks after Valley Hospital allowed Mr. B's brain to seize for thirty-six hours straight while they dickered with meds instead of sedating/intubating him (which is standard of care for status epilepticus), and a week and a half after we had him transferred out of there, I actually DID have to do for him what we did for Jenny, allowing withdrawal of the breathing tube and palliative sedation. He was gone 20 minutes later.
In December 2013, my beloved Maggie-cat took sick and I had to say goodbye to her on January 28, 2014.
Then in November this year, my father passed away from recurrent aggressive diffuse B-cell lymphoma at age 90 only 53 days after it came back for the third time. He'd beaten it back twice.
I had already closed on my new house, I was purging 19 yearsof stuff and packing to move, largely alone. And now dealing with yet another loss. I would call my sister and say, "Please tell me you're not sick."
Everyone tells me they don't know how I'm still standing. I'd love to believe that I'm stronger than most people, but the truth is that I'm no different from anyone else. When life keeps hitting you, you bounce back because you don't have a choice. If you don't think you could, it's because you haven't been hit hard enough yet.
I'm lucky. I've been able to keep my job and work remotely. A year ago I received a promotion and transfer to a new group where my manager is in Germany, where they don't believe in working 80 hour weeks. So my work/life balance has been somewhat better, and now will be even better because I won't be sitting in northern NJ traffic every day. My two little boy kitties, Eli and Sam, were great in the car and have adjusted beautifully to their new home. My sister has welcomed me into her circle and I am signing up for Meetup groups. It is the fresh start that just could not have happened in New Jersey, in a house too full of memories, too many of them about sadness and depression. Mr. B is now free of the emotional burdens that plagued him here and it is time for a young family to move into that house, now dressed up all pretty with a new kitchen, a nice deck, and a completely remodeled upstairs, and make better memories there.
My weekdays will be spent in my home office that gets the morning sun through the trees in my front yard. When the weather gets nice, I can sit and drink iced tea on my screened porch, or take my laptop outside onto the patio. I am about 20 minutes or less from anything I might want to do. My neighbors are friendly, and I have no doubts that I'll be happy here.
It's different here from New Jersey, in just the ways I wanted it to be. New Jersey has become the "You got a problem with that?" state. There seems to be a giant chip on everyone's shoulder there. There is a reason that state elected Chris Christie. Now I'm not under any illusions about what is going on in Raleigh. It's a product of Democrats deciding to stay home in 2010, and it now has one of the most retrograde statehouses in the country. Maybe I can help with efforts to change that.
I am 60 years old now, and while I'll still be fighting the good fight, I've become more contemplative. I'll be starting up a new blog soon -- a chronicle of this new life. Yes, there'll be politics. There will also be the occasional TV or movie review, recipe, anecdote, or anything else that inspires me. I hope you'll join me there and occasionally find something that moves you to participate. Watch this space for the link, it will be posted here.
Thanks to you all for your support during these last few years and indeed, for the last decade.
See y'all on the flip.
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Where I've been and where we're going
Kind readers,
No doubt you've noticed that I've been AWOL for the better part of the last six to eight months. And what a truly shitty time it's been. I suppose it all started late last September when my mother went through her near-death experience. That was followed by an inexorable decline during which my sister did most of the heavy lifting. Then Mom died in December and my vacation time from work was burnt starting the work of going through all the stuff in her house. My two weeks of this barely scratched the surface, and only in the last two weeks was my sister finally able to get now-remodeled house on the market. No sooner did I begin recovering from all this than we hit mid-March, when we found out that Mr. B. has bladder cancer. Since that time, it's been a nonstop whirlwind of procedures, doctor visits, consultations with specialists, CT scans, MRIs, blood tests and ECGs. It's one thing to become familiar with oncology through one's work, when you're building data collection forms and solving site data entry problems and patients are identified by nine-digit numbers. It's quite another when you find out what your own spouse's treatment is going to look like. It may be mildly amusing to tell your manager that "All the Visit folder stuff is being done on Monday", but when that which has been theoretical for five years becomes real in one's own life, one gets a somewhat different perspective on things.
Mr. B. has well-reputed doctors at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute handling his case, and so far at least, the information is mostly encouraging. There will be chemotherapy followed by surgery, and it all starts on Tuesday. I will be trying to juggle working full-time during all this, so I will probably have even less time to pay attention to the Doings of the World than I have for the last six months.
What this means for the future of B@B, I don't know. This blog has kept me sane for the better part of a decade, and I'd like to put out a "Best of..." compendium next year when we hit our decaversary. We're not going anywhere for the foreseeable future, and our good blogbuddy jurassicpork will no doubt continue his yeoman work of raging against the machine. I don't always agree with everything he writes, but he's done a great job of keeping the fires burning. Tata and Bob also have the keys to the kingdom, as does Melina. They will possibly pop in from time to time. As for me, I'll also pop in from time to time, but I'm also planning to do some journalling about what's going on, to keep family and friends informed. It won't be here, it will be in a private blog somewhere; I haven't decided where yet. If you are interested in following along, please drop me an e-mail. I can't say I'll give access to everyone, but even if you aren't given access, just know that I appreciate your readership more than you can ever know, and I hope that when we emerge from Cancer Alley, you'll still be with us.
No doubt you've noticed that I've been AWOL for the better part of the last six to eight months. And what a truly shitty time it's been. I suppose it all started late last September when my mother went through her near-death experience. That was followed by an inexorable decline during which my sister did most of the heavy lifting. Then Mom died in December and my vacation time from work was burnt starting the work of going through all the stuff in her house. My two weeks of this barely scratched the surface, and only in the last two weeks was my sister finally able to get now-remodeled house on the market. No sooner did I begin recovering from all this than we hit mid-March, when we found out that Mr. B. has bladder cancer. Since that time, it's been a nonstop whirlwind of procedures, doctor visits, consultations with specialists, CT scans, MRIs, blood tests and ECGs. It's one thing to become familiar with oncology through one's work, when you're building data collection forms and solving site data entry problems and patients are identified by nine-digit numbers. It's quite another when you find out what your own spouse's treatment is going to look like. It may be mildly amusing to tell your manager that "All the Visit folder stuff is being done on Monday", but when that which has been theoretical for five years becomes real in one's own life, one gets a somewhat different perspective on things.
Mr. B. has well-reputed doctors at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute handling his case, and so far at least, the information is mostly encouraging. There will be chemotherapy followed by surgery, and it all starts on Tuesday. I will be trying to juggle working full-time during all this, so I will probably have even less time to pay attention to the Doings of the World than I have for the last six months.
What this means for the future of B@B, I don't know. This blog has kept me sane for the better part of a decade, and I'd like to put out a "Best of..." compendium next year when we hit our decaversary. We're not going anywhere for the foreseeable future, and our good blogbuddy jurassicpork will no doubt continue his yeoman work of raging against the machine. I don't always agree with everything he writes, but he's done a great job of keeping the fires burning. Tata and Bob also have the keys to the kingdom, as does Melina. They will possibly pop in from time to time. As for me, I'll also pop in from time to time, but I'm also planning to do some journalling about what's going on, to keep family and friends informed. It won't be here, it will be in a private blog somewhere; I haven't decided where yet. If you are interested in following along, please drop me an e-mail. I can't say I'll give access to everyone, but even if you aren't given access, just know that I appreciate your readership more than you can ever know, and I hope that when we emerge from Cancer Alley, you'll still be with us.
Labels: blogging, cancer, personal musings
Friday, September 28, 2012
Gone Fishin'
Sporadic blogging over the next week or so; I am leaving Mr. Brilliant at home to tend to Miss Maggie, who I'm starting to think has nothing wrong with her but lovesickness. I say this because Maggie loves, loves, loves Mike the Vet Tech at the Hillsdale Animal Hospital, and since she has perked up after all three vet visits she's had in the last two weeks and then feels poorly the next day, I can only conclude that she's missing her One True Love. Her thyroid is normal and nothing showed up on her X-rays, so we have no idea what's wrong with her. Lovesickness is the most likely explanation.
Anyway, I am off to the southland to play Samwise Gamgee to my sister's Frodo and my brother-in-law's Gandalf, and trying to juggle full-time work in the middle of all this. So I'll blog when I can and hope my trusty hobbit friends will step in.
Labels: blogging
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Swanped.
Light-to-no blogging this week, I'm afraid. On a deadline and not getting anywhere fast.
Labels: American workers, blogging
Thursday, July 21, 2011
By the time we hit two million I'll be old enough to collect by then nonexistent Social Security
Sometime between yesterday and today, we welcomed our millionth visit. Yay, us! (And thanks to Batocchio for directing to us our many visitors today from Crooks and Liars.)
Labels: blogging
Sunday, May 08, 2011
Comment rules
This morning I made a decision about which I was ambivalent about rejecting a comment, so I thought it might be a good time to talk briefly about my comment rules. I don't have a lot of them, but here are three off the top of my head:
1) If all you're going to do is spout Fox News talking points, peppered with foul epithets against all liberals, don't bother. This is a liberal blog, and you have plenty of other outlets to spout this kind of crap to people who will appreciate it. I can just go click-click-click to delete comments; I don't even have to read them.
2) If you're a conservative with a viewpoint to discuss under the "Intelligent people of good will can disagree" doctrine, you're welcome to come here for dialogue. We have a few who fall into this category, and you know who you are. Just don't expect us to agree with you. :-)
3) Comments containing eliminationist rhetoric will not be published. I don't care at whom it's targeted, I do not want "shoot 'em all" comments on this blog. It's dangerous when it's directed at our side, and we do ourselves no favors directing it the other way. If the day should come when there is armed revolution in the streets, then it will be different. But for now, talk of guns directed at people we don't like is off-limits.
Occasionally I may miss and accidentally delete a comment I wanted to publish. Please don't take it personally.
1) If all you're going to do is spout Fox News talking points, peppered with foul epithets against all liberals, don't bother. This is a liberal blog, and you have plenty of other outlets to spout this kind of crap to people who will appreciate it. I can just go click-click-click to delete comments; I don't even have to read them.
2) If you're a conservative with a viewpoint to discuss under the "Intelligent people of good will can disagree" doctrine, you're welcome to come here for dialogue. We have a few who fall into this category, and you know who you are. Just don't expect us to agree with you. :-)
3) Comments containing eliminationist rhetoric will not be published. I don't care at whom it's targeted, I do not want "shoot 'em all" comments on this blog. It's dangerous when it's directed at our side, and we do ourselves no favors directing it the other way. If the day should come when there is armed revolution in the streets, then it will be different. But for now, talk of guns directed at people we don't like is off-limits.
Occasionally I may miss and accidentally delete a comment I wanted to publish. Please don't take it personally.
Labels: blogging
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Why buy the cow when you're getting the milk for free?
Back in my movie review days, the goal of many of my peers was to get paid for what we do. Even many bloggers, at least earlier on, hoped that someday they'd be able to either monetize their own blogs (best scenario) or get paid to blog either at one of the Big Boyz, or at one of the blogs being started up by mainstream media outlets. In 2007, a group consisting of Melina (whom I hadn't met in meat world before), ModFab, Tata, DBK, MaryAnn, and me attended a New York Bloggers Summit at NBC headquarters, where we were told that the local affiliate really NEEDED us to help them out by providing content for them. And what do WE get in exchange for the shrimp, the glimpse of what was then Conan O'Brien's set, and being able to say "Oh, and I also blog for WNBC"? Well, they told us it was "increased traffic".
Now I've been blogging here for six and a half years, which makes me one of the longer-duration low-traffic blogs still in existence. Traffic has picked up in the last year for some reason, from the stubborn 350 page views a day that we had for a long time to around five or six hundred. It varies depending on what inbound links I have on any given day. I don't charge for subscriptions, and I'm fortunate not to have to ask for money because I've never regarded this blog as how I earn my living, and I've never been enough of a dreamer to think it ever will be. I value my readers, but mostly I blog because I have to write as much as I have to breathe. And as much fun as it might be to make my living blogging, the nice thing about NOT doing that is that if I don't feel like writing on a given day, or if I don't feel inspired, or if the state of the world is too depressing, I don't have to. I had a shot at an editor/blogger job when I was laid off from my last job, but there were reasons that site had to delay a decision, I got an offer I couldn't refuse from Giant Multinational Corporation, and here we are.
One of the problems with providing free content is that people get used to, well, getting free content. We all saw how Times Select worked out, and now the New York Times is trying a subscription model again. The other problem is that you have to have readers who would still read if you charged them to read. And in an age in which anyone who can type can set up a blog, it's not difficult for people to go elsewhere, no matter now smart, clever, funny, or knowledgeable you might be.
My old movie review friend Mary Ann has continued to do the movie review thing even as film criticism seems to be largely going the way of the dodo, Roger Ebert's new show notwithstanding -- and is still trying to earn a living doing it. She's obtained some pretty prestigious gigs in the quest to have online critics be regarded as just as good as print critics, but since shrinking print outlets are cutting such things, it probably says more about the state of print journalism than anything else. Online critics tend to be obsessives about particular genres and aspects of movies. Nathaniel is the go-to guy for awards handicapping. Michael Dequina knows more about Bollywood than anyone I've ever known. Mary Ann has always been good at what she does. She's an unabashed geek, and while you won't find her reviewing the latest art film auteur out of the Czech Republic, she knows her pop culture. Nick is your art flick guy. Then there's Vern, whose work I can't even describe because he's all over the lot. But aside from a few guest gigs on larger sites, not one of these great critics is making a living doing it. Mary Ann comes closest, but even she has decamped to London in search of greener pastures (and tall, gaunt, brooding men with cheekbones you could grate cheese on).
And it's via Mary Ann that I found out that NOT ONE of those people whose names appear in the left-hand column of Huffington Post gets paid. Think about it: Arianna Huffington is about to pocket around $40 million on the sweat of people who just want to see their names and photos in front of a lot of readers.
That's just wrong.
It's one thing for smaller bloggers to write because they want to, though every blogger worth his salt accepts donations, and for some who have lost jobs and are over 40 (and Goddess help me I know far too many of them), such donations are a lifeline. It's quite another for Arianna Huffington, who already had more money than she can spend in a thousand lifetimes, to run what is essentially a writing sweatshop, except that even sweatshop workers get paid a few pennies a day.
This is an issue that seems to have gone viral in the last few days, and it's striking a chord. Yes, there are writers and reporters like Ben Smith and Jason Linkins (who writes a vigorous defense here) who are actual paid staffers. And despite what Linkins seems to think, no one is out here enraged because John Kerry doesn't get paid for contributing an article. It's about people like Mayhill Fowler, who decided to stop giving the milk for free last year. And she's not the only HuffPo writer who has had enough. Just Google "Huffington Post write for free" and see what you get.
I've spent the last two and one half years working my ass off, learning a new job for which I had only a smattering of background. Some days it amazes me when I hear myself talk at work, just how much I've learned. Some days I sit at my laptop at ten o'clock at night after I've been working all day and cry, wondering how I'm ever going to do this. And some days I just pray that this job doesn't kill me before I'm able to leave it behind -- or until it spits me out for being too old, whichever comes first. But at least I'm working for a company that pays me well and provides health insurance and a pretty good 401(k) match. My employer doesn't expect me to come in and work eighty hours a week for free.
It's one thing for bloggers like me, or like Skippy, or like DCap, or any of hundreds of others, to give our work away; or even for writers like Amanda, who's managed to parlay Pandagon into book deals and speaking gigs, to write for free. I've never pretended to be a "citizen journalist." What I am is an op-ed writer. What I do is write about topics about which I need to vent, or things I want my mother to know about, or whatever moves me on any given morning. I'm grateful for the people who feel that what I have to say is worthwhile enough to visit here every day. But what I DON'T do is write so that an NBC affiliate, or Arianna Huffington, or anyone else can get rich. Where I do that, at least I get some remuneration for it.
Now I've been blogging here for six and a half years, which makes me one of the longer-duration low-traffic blogs still in existence. Traffic has picked up in the last year for some reason, from the stubborn 350 page views a day that we had for a long time to around five or six hundred. It varies depending on what inbound links I have on any given day. I don't charge for subscriptions, and I'm fortunate not to have to ask for money because I've never regarded this blog as how I earn my living, and I've never been enough of a dreamer to think it ever will be. I value my readers, but mostly I blog because I have to write as much as I have to breathe. And as much fun as it might be to make my living blogging, the nice thing about NOT doing that is that if I don't feel like writing on a given day, or if I don't feel inspired, or if the state of the world is too depressing, I don't have to. I had a shot at an editor/blogger job when I was laid off from my last job, but there were reasons that site had to delay a decision, I got an offer I couldn't refuse from Giant Multinational Corporation, and here we are.
One of the problems with providing free content is that people get used to, well, getting free content. We all saw how Times Select worked out, and now the New York Times is trying a subscription model again. The other problem is that you have to have readers who would still read if you charged them to read. And in an age in which anyone who can type can set up a blog, it's not difficult for people to go elsewhere, no matter now smart, clever, funny, or knowledgeable you might be.
My old movie review friend Mary Ann has continued to do the movie review thing even as film criticism seems to be largely going the way of the dodo, Roger Ebert's new show notwithstanding -- and is still trying to earn a living doing it. She's obtained some pretty prestigious gigs in the quest to have online critics be regarded as just as good as print critics, but since shrinking print outlets are cutting such things, it probably says more about the state of print journalism than anything else. Online critics tend to be obsessives about particular genres and aspects of movies. Nathaniel is the go-to guy for awards handicapping. Michael Dequina knows more about Bollywood than anyone I've ever known. Mary Ann has always been good at what she does. She's an unabashed geek, and while you won't find her reviewing the latest art film auteur out of the Czech Republic, she knows her pop culture. Nick is your art flick guy. Then there's Vern, whose work I can't even describe because he's all over the lot. But aside from a few guest gigs on larger sites, not one of these great critics is making a living doing it. Mary Ann comes closest, but even she has decamped to London in search of greener pastures (and tall, gaunt, brooding men with cheekbones you could grate cheese on).
And it's via Mary Ann that I found out that NOT ONE of those people whose names appear in the left-hand column of Huffington Post gets paid. Think about it: Arianna Huffington is about to pocket around $40 million on the sweat of people who just want to see their names and photos in front of a lot of readers.
That's just wrong.
It's one thing for smaller bloggers to write because they want to, though every blogger worth his salt accepts donations, and for some who have lost jobs and are over 40 (and Goddess help me I know far too many of them), such donations are a lifeline. It's quite another for Arianna Huffington, who already had more money than she can spend in a thousand lifetimes, to run what is essentially a writing sweatshop, except that even sweatshop workers get paid a few pennies a day.
This is an issue that seems to have gone viral in the last few days, and it's striking a chord. Yes, there are writers and reporters like Ben Smith and Jason Linkins (who writes a vigorous defense here) who are actual paid staffers. And despite what Linkins seems to think, no one is out here enraged because John Kerry doesn't get paid for contributing an article. It's about people like Mayhill Fowler, who decided to stop giving the milk for free last year. And she's not the only HuffPo writer who has had enough. Just Google "Huffington Post write for free" and see what you get.
I've spent the last two and one half years working my ass off, learning a new job for which I had only a smattering of background. Some days it amazes me when I hear myself talk at work, just how much I've learned. Some days I sit at my laptop at ten o'clock at night after I've been working all day and cry, wondering how I'm ever going to do this. And some days I just pray that this job doesn't kill me before I'm able to leave it behind -- or until it spits me out for being too old, whichever comes first. But at least I'm working for a company that pays me well and provides health insurance and a pretty good 401(k) match. My employer doesn't expect me to come in and work eighty hours a week for free.
It's one thing for bloggers like me, or like Skippy, or like DCap, or any of hundreds of others, to give our work away; or even for writers like Amanda, who's managed to parlay Pandagon into book deals and speaking gigs, to write for free. I've never pretended to be a "citizen journalist." What I am is an op-ed writer. What I do is write about topics about which I need to vent, or things I want my mother to know about, or whatever moves me on any given morning. I'm grateful for the people who feel that what I have to say is worthwhile enough to visit here every day. But what I DON'T do is write so that an NBC affiliate, or Arianna Huffington, or anyone else can get rich. Where I do that, at least I get some remuneration for it.
Labels: blogging, rant, WNBC. Blogger Summit
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
How this blog is found
I'm always thankful that this blog doesn't get Google-found based on the kind of sick searches that land people at other blogs, at least not as many. Here are some recent searches that landed people here:
IDIOT BART STUPAK
stupak is an idiot
economics 101 for dummies
When Captain America throws his mighty shield
south park rush limbaugh
Condolences to Kieth Olberman (sic)
oh yeah
john kiriakou book signing colorado
Jim kowats baby registry
I think maybe Google needs to tweak the search alborithm a bit.
IDIOT BART STUPAK
stupak is an idiot
economics 101 for dummies
When Captain America throws his mighty shield
south park rush limbaugh
Condolences to Kieth Olberman (sic)
oh yeah
john kiriakou book signing colorado
Jim kowats baby registry
I think maybe Google needs to tweak the search alborithm a bit.
Labels: blogging
Sunday, December 27, 2009
New Years Blogrolling
I know it's a bit early for Blogroll Amnesty Day, but I've noticed in recent weeks that my blogrolling has stagnated more than a bit. I'm missing a lot of worthy blogs, and giving primo real estate to blogs that haven't been updated in a long time.
I can't really blame people for giving up, or taking a break. It's a lot harder blogging after your team wins and still finds a way to blow it. It's kind of like this year's 2-27 New Jersey Nets, except that even the Nets have won two games and not just given them to the other team anyway just so they can stay completely unvictorious. So I understand just giving up in despair, as many bloggers, including our beloved Jon Swift, seem to have done. The problem is that it's hard to know who's given up, who's experiencing a real-life crisis, who just needs a break, and who just doesn't give a shit anymore.
So as we head into the new year, you'll see some changes in the blogroll. Anyone who hasn't posted in three months or more will be split off into a new archival blogroll. Because this blog uses a 3rd party template instead of one of Blogger's "plug and play" templates, I don't have access to Blogger's widgets, so I'll have to come up with another way to keep these blogs available but not taking up space that can be devoted to some of the other blogs I've missed. But stay tuned, changes are coming.
I can't really blame people for giving up, or taking a break. It's a lot harder blogging after your team wins and still finds a way to blow it. It's kind of like this year's 2-27 New Jersey Nets, except that even the Nets have won two games and not just given them to the other team anyway just so they can stay completely unvictorious. So I understand just giving up in despair, as many bloggers, including our beloved Jon Swift, seem to have done. The problem is that it's hard to know who's given up, who's experiencing a real-life crisis, who just needs a break, and who just doesn't give a shit anymore.
So as we head into the new year, you'll see some changes in the blogroll. Anyone who hasn't posted in three months or more will be split off into a new archival blogroll. Because this blog uses a 3rd party template instead of one of Blogger's "plug and play" templates, I don't have access to Blogger's widgets, so I'll have to come up with another way to keep these blogs available but not taking up space that can be devoted to some of the other blogs I've missed. But stay tuned, changes are coming.
Labels: blogging
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
I wish I had time to look into this more thoroughly
With three 7 AM teleconferences over the next three days, it's going to be kind of light blogging around here. Here's how it works most days: I get up at 5 AM, have coffee and check out what Buzzflash is aggregatiing. Then I take a quick gander at the New York Times and some other sites, then decide what to take on during the slightly-over-an-hour that I have before getting ready to go to work.
I've been reading a bit about this business with Rep. Jane Harman being wiretapped talking to some AIPAC guy who may or may not be an Israeli spy. This whole thing seems to have originated with this article at CQ Politics, and those who have the time in the morning to dig into such things because someone pays them to do so instead of braving New Jersey highways and spending the day as a cube rat have been on the case this week here, here, here, and here.
But what really got my paranoid little brain going was when Greg Sargent, who is well-known in SANE circles as a go-to guy for the straight poop, gave voice to one of the larger implications of this story, which is that Jane Harman may very well have successfully lobbied the New York Times to NOT publish a big expos&eeacute; they had ready about George W. Bush's illegal surveillance program right before the 2004 election -- a story that given how close that election was, may very well have tipped the scales away from Captain Codpiece had more voters known what their president was doing to them.
Sargent explains:
My impression is that there's another aspect to this story, having to do with some kind of deal that Harman may have cut with Bush Administration officials to reduce charges against these AIPAC guys in return for support for the Administration's wiretap program.
And did I mention that Jane Harman is a DEMOCRAT? With allies like this, who needs opposition?
Anyway, unfortunately I don't have time to keep up with this, so I'm going to have to kick you over to Greg Sargent for updates.
I've been reading a bit about this business with Rep. Jane Harman being wiretapped talking to some AIPAC guy who may or may not be an Israeli spy. This whole thing seems to have originated with this article at CQ Politics, and those who have the time in the morning to dig into such things because someone pays them to do so instead of braving New Jersey highways and spending the day as a cube rat have been on the case this week here, here, here, and here.
But what really got my paranoid little brain going was when Greg Sargent, who is well-known in SANE circles as a go-to guy for the straight poop, gave voice to one of the larger implications of this story, which is that Jane Harman may very well have successfully lobbied the New York Times to NOT publish a big expos&eeacute; they had ready about George W. Bush's illegal surveillance program right before the 2004 election -- a story that given how close that election was, may very well have tipped the scales away from Captain Codpiece had more voters known what their president was doing to them.
Sargent explains:
So Dem Rep Harman appears to have worked behind the scenes to dissuade publication of a blockbuster expose about Bush that could have put her own party’s nominee in the White House and changed the history of the last four years. And, according to Keller, she apparently did this at the request of Michael Hayden, Bush’s National Security Agency chief.
My impression is that there's another aspect to this story, having to do with some kind of deal that Harman may have cut with Bush Administration officials to reduce charges against these AIPAC guys in return for support for the Administration's wiretap program.
And did I mention that Jane Harman is a DEMOCRAT? With allies like this, who needs opposition?
Anyway, unfortunately I don't have time to keep up with this, so I'm going to have to kick you over to Greg Sargent for updates.
Labels: blogging, Bush Administration crimes, Democratic sellouts, sleaze
Monday, August 04, 2008
Forgetting one's blogiversary
This is what happens when you're preoccupied with trying to find a job. Last Thursday was our fourth blogiversary. Amazing that I've been slogging away at this for four years. Sometimes I wonder for what.
Labels: blogging
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Now all they need to do is learn to write a coherent English e-mail
I just received an e-mail about Js-Kit's acquisition of Haloscan, which is also covered here.
When I first set up this new template, I used the default Blogger commenting system in order to save time. Of course once I did that, I was kind of stuck, because changing commenting systems meant losing all the existing comments. But one of the new Haloscan features is apparently going to be the ability to import existing comments, which changes the equation significantly.
I'm going to give them a few months to hammer out any transition glitches, and then I'm going to do the switchover. I'll announce when that takes place.
When I first set up this new template, I used the default Blogger commenting system in order to save time. Of course once I did that, I was kind of stuck, because changing commenting systems meant losing all the existing comments. But one of the new Haloscan features is apparently going to be the ability to import existing comments, which changes the equation significantly.
I'm going to give them a few months to hammer out any transition glitches, and then I'm going to do the switchover. I'll announce when that takes place.
Labels: blogging
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
What to do about comments and other housekeeping stuff
Well, I found the template problem -- YouTube video encased in BLOCKQUOTE instead of DIV tags. Everyone should see things OK now.
I've taken out as much stuff that requires downloads from other sites as possible. Unfortunately, that means also widgets -- at least for now -- until we break in the new template and I see how those of you who have written me in the past about load times and browser crashes do with the new dress.
The last step in this process is to restore the Haloscan commenting, which I'd like to do. However, I don't want to lose the comments we already have, especially the generational warfare comments. I've snagged what we have as of this morning, and I can restore them manually by copying them into Haloscan once that's set up.
If you have any objection to this kind of cut-and-paste, please let me know via e-mail: brilliantatbreakfast-at-gmail-dot-com.
I've taken out as much stuff that requires downloads from other sites as possible. Unfortunately, that means also widgets -- at least for now -- until we break in the new template and I see how those of you who have written me in the past about load times and browser crashes do with the new dress.
The last step in this process is to restore the Haloscan commenting, which I'd like to do. However, I don't want to lose the comments we already have, especially the generational warfare comments. I've snagged what we have as of this morning, and I can restore them manually by copying them into Haloscan once that's set up.
If you have any objection to this kind of cut-and-paste, please let me know via e-mail: brilliantatbreakfast-at-gmail-dot-com.
Labels: blogging
Sunday, December 09, 2007
We're back!
Nothing like a new outfit to make a girl feel like a new person. But like most clothing I buy, it needs alterations. I'm having some problems getting Haloscan commenting, and in my IE6, the index page doesn't want to load the YouTube videos (though everything is fine in Firefox), the center column is wider than it should be, and that's pushing the right-hand sidebar down the page. And I have no idea why; it was fine earlier this evening.
If any of you lovely folks who have tweaked more templates than I have have any ideas, please e-mail me at brilliantatbreakfast-at-gmail-dot-com. I'd say post in the comments, but once I get Haloscan up the Blogger comments will go away. But I'd like to know what you're seeing, what browser you're using and version, Mac or PC, screen resolution, etc. Thanks.
If any of you lovely folks who have tweaked more templates than I have have any ideas, please e-mail me at brilliantatbreakfast-at-gmail-dot-com. I'd say post in the comments, but once I get Haloscan up the Blogger comments will go away. But I'd like to know what you're seeing, what browser you're using and version, Mac or PC, screen resolution, etc. Thanks.
Labels: blogging
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Fixing a hole where nothing gets in
Light blogging this morning, folks...I am setting up a temporary template to use until I get the new, improved, gorgeous, template up and running and not as slow as molasses like this one. So if you're having trouble loading this blog, please try again later or tomorrow morning. I suspect that this template has problems with multiple YouTube videos, but I'm tired of trying to figure out the problem with this template. So just bear with me and stay tuned. Thanks.
(UPDATE: Have I mentioned today how much I hate blog templates? After spending hours and hours that I don't have to spare and that should have been spent writing about the parade of horrors that today in the Bush years represented, or doing yoga or other more productive projects, trying to customize templates that just didn't want to behave, I found this fantabulous tool for generating templates. You can see what I was able to generate just using this tool here. With any luck at all, I'll be able to put in all my gewgaws and gadgets and widgets and other nonsense, as well as Haloscan commenting. And with any luck at all, those of you who have had load problems may see an improvement. Bear with me folks, relief is coming.)
(12/7 UPDATE: Well, the new template looks great in Firefox, not so great in IE. We should be up no later than Monday and hopefully sooner. If this doesn't solve the load problems, I'm sticking my head in the oven.)
(UPDATE: Have I mentioned today how much I hate blog templates? After spending hours and hours that I don't have to spare and that should have been spent writing about the parade of horrors that today in the Bush years represented, or doing yoga or other more productive projects, trying to customize templates that just didn't want to behave, I found this fantabulous tool for generating templates. You can see what I was able to generate just using this tool here. With any luck at all, I'll be able to put in all my gewgaws and gadgets and widgets and other nonsense, as well as Haloscan commenting. And with any luck at all, those of you who have had load problems may see an improvement. Bear with me folks, relief is coming.)
(12/7 UPDATE: Well, the new template looks great in Firefox, not so great in IE. We should be up no later than Monday and hopefully sooner. If this doesn't solve the load problems, I'm sticking my head in the oven.)
Labels: blogging
Monday, October 01, 2007
Blogger Guilt Trips
At some point in every blogger's life, someone is going to ask you why you do it. For some bloggers, particularly the proprietors of the larger blogs, it's a career. They make a living (such as it is) from advertising, or donations, or other revenue streams. Those are the lucky ones who, because they aren't sitting at a desk in an office building someplace, can cover all the important stories. For the rest of us, we have to pick and choose. And what we pick and choose depends on why we blog.
Like most political bloggers, I also dream of blogging being a second career (especially since my first career is so dependent on grant funding and my skill set tends to be ignored in anyone over the age of 40). But since at this point, that's a dream, I can't aspire to the kind of comprehensive coverage of every story that some other bloggers do. And because B@B is primarily a political blog, but also has elements of "Whatever The Hell I Feel Like Writing", sometimes there are Big Stories that I don't cover.
Another aspect of Big Stories is that they require a fair amount of analysis and understanding -- and sometimes we just don't have enough time during the hour in the morning we have free to read the news, look at other blogs, and try to write something coherent, to get every important story.
For a "serious" blogger, there are two big stories which warrant more coverage and which I admit to having neglected, and those are the Jena 6 case and the demonstrations in Burma/Myanmar. Pam has castigated the white blogger community for being missing in action on the Jena 6 story, and Jon Swift smacks down the progressive blogger community for falling down on the Myanmar story.
On these I plead guilty on both counts. It's logical that these stories would have warranted some attention here, certainly as much as the Mets' collapse, or musings on whether New Jersey's dependence on the pharmaceutical industry makes it the Michigan of tomorrow, or a cute ad from Honda. But one of the problems my co-bloggers have had is in determining what fits and what doesn't, because my tendency is to Potter Stewart the question: I can't define it, but I know it when I see it. Certainly an uprising involving Buddhist monks and one of the ugliest racial cases in this country in recent years should have warranted some attention here. But I'll be honest about why I haven't covered these: because I came into the story right in the middle.
When I sit down to write in the morning, I'm not a newspaper editor considering what the most newsworthy stories of the day might be. When I started this blog three years ago, it was for two reasons: one was because if I didn't find another outlet for my ranting, I was going to drive Mr. Brilliant out of his mind; and the other was to call the attention of family and friends to stories that I thought they might miss elsewhere, stories I thought were important.
I have a friend who doesn't follow politics. She is aware that things are very wrong in this country and she worries about her children's and grandchild's future, but doesn't get involved in politics. Last week she forwarded me a variation on the "Don't buy Petro Express gasoline because they're selling Citgo products and Citgo is owned by Hugo Chavez who hates our military, hates our president, and hates America. e-mail. I'm not sure why she does this; she knows I don't go for this kind of jingoistic crap. I'm not convinced she reads them before she sends them. She's one of the reasons I write.
There is certainly an argument to be made that both the Jena 6 case and the Burmese conflict warrant more attention than they've been given in the blogosphere. But I'm not sure that laying guilt trips on bloggers who haven't given them the attention they deserve is going to accomplish anything. None of us can cover everything. If there's a story you think I should cover, e-mail me -- especially if it's a story you've been covering in-depth. I'd be happy to link to your coverage. It makes a lot more sense to do that than do a half-assed job that re-invents the wheel and doesn't inform as well as someone who's put the time and effort into covering a story in depth. The notion of "blogwhoring" is viewed with much disfavor in Blogtopia (™ Skippy), but doesn't it make sense to not only promote your work, but ensure that the news you feel is important gets seen by more people?
Like most political bloggers, I also dream of blogging being a second career (especially since my first career is so dependent on grant funding and my skill set tends to be ignored in anyone over the age of 40). But since at this point, that's a dream, I can't aspire to the kind of comprehensive coverage of every story that some other bloggers do. And because B@B is primarily a political blog, but also has elements of "Whatever The Hell I Feel Like Writing", sometimes there are Big Stories that I don't cover.
Another aspect of Big Stories is that they require a fair amount of analysis and understanding -- and sometimes we just don't have enough time during the hour in the morning we have free to read the news, look at other blogs, and try to write something coherent, to get every important story.
For a "serious" blogger, there are two big stories which warrant more coverage and which I admit to having neglected, and those are the Jena 6 case and the demonstrations in Burma/Myanmar. Pam has castigated the white blogger community for being missing in action on the Jena 6 story, and Jon Swift smacks down the progressive blogger community for falling down on the Myanmar story.
On these I plead guilty on both counts. It's logical that these stories would have warranted some attention here, certainly as much as the Mets' collapse, or musings on whether New Jersey's dependence on the pharmaceutical industry makes it the Michigan of tomorrow, or a cute ad from Honda. But one of the problems my co-bloggers have had is in determining what fits and what doesn't, because my tendency is to Potter Stewart the question: I can't define it, but I know it when I see it. Certainly an uprising involving Buddhist monks and one of the ugliest racial cases in this country in recent years should have warranted some attention here. But I'll be honest about why I haven't covered these: because I came into the story right in the middle.
When I sit down to write in the morning, I'm not a newspaper editor considering what the most newsworthy stories of the day might be. When I started this blog three years ago, it was for two reasons: one was because if I didn't find another outlet for my ranting, I was going to drive Mr. Brilliant out of his mind; and the other was to call the attention of family and friends to stories that I thought they might miss elsewhere, stories I thought were important.
I have a friend who doesn't follow politics. She is aware that things are very wrong in this country and she worries about her children's and grandchild's future, but doesn't get involved in politics. Last week she forwarded me a variation on the "Don't buy Petro Express gasoline because they're selling Citgo products and Citgo is owned by Hugo Chavez who hates our military, hates our president, and hates America. e-mail. I'm not sure why she does this; she knows I don't go for this kind of jingoistic crap. I'm not convinced she reads them before she sends them. She's one of the reasons I write.
There is certainly an argument to be made that both the Jena 6 case and the Burmese conflict warrant more attention than they've been given in the blogosphere. But I'm not sure that laying guilt trips on bloggers who haven't given them the attention they deserve is going to accomplish anything. None of us can cover everything. If there's a story you think I should cover, e-mail me -- especially if it's a story you've been covering in-depth. I'd be happy to link to your coverage. It makes a lot more sense to do that than do a half-assed job that re-invents the wheel and doesn't inform as well as someone who's put the time and effort into covering a story in depth. The notion of "blogwhoring" is viewed with much disfavor in Blogtopia (™ Skippy), but doesn't it make sense to not only promote your work, but ensure that the news you feel is important gets seen by more people?
Labels: blogging
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Come follow the remodeling effort
Thursday night I put up the last set of cabinet doors that have to match. When I started this whole kitchen cabinet refacing thing a year ago (as you can see, it's not as if I've devoted every spare minute to it), I never dreamt that putting the new doors on would be the toughest part. Now I have three more doors -- one single door and a pair for a cabinet that has a center stile, so there's none of this trying to get the cabinet brackets screwed in just a smidge tighter so there's no overlap between the doors. I'll put up photos when it's done, as well as the before photos (because I opened a Photobucket account today and already have a Flickr account).
Now I'm just in the paralysis mode of trying to figure out how I'm going to manage the tasks of having the wall oven cabinet and the cooktop cabinet taken out, having a new circuit run for a range, terminating the wall oven circuit, getting a new floor installed, buying a range and having IT installed, and then getting a new countertop. Because the top cabinets look so awesome, I'm starting to think about the "g" word (granite) instead of laminate. For 28 square feet of counter space (less without the cooktop), it might be worth the additional money. As I see it, this probably involves an electrician to do the electrical work, a handyman to take out the cabinets, my fabulous flooring guy who saved our bacon when the basement got flooded last spring, whoever we buy the range from, and the countertops.
But the kitchen isn't the only thing I'm working on, I'm actively working on the new template. Sue me; I'm an Arts and Crafts movement junkie, so it's going to have that kind of William Morris/Greene & Greene/Stickley thing going. I just can't help myself. Right now I'm playing with a three-column layout with both columns to the right. Not sure if it's what we'll stick with, but you can follow the fun and games as I tweak a template to look like B@B here.
Now I'm just in the paralysis mode of trying to figure out how I'm going to manage the tasks of having the wall oven cabinet and the cooktop cabinet taken out, having a new circuit run for a range, terminating the wall oven circuit, getting a new floor installed, buying a range and having IT installed, and then getting a new countertop. Because the top cabinets look so awesome, I'm starting to think about the "g" word (granite) instead of laminate. For 28 square feet of counter space (less without the cooktop), it might be worth the additional money. As I see it, this probably involves an electrician to do the electrical work, a handyman to take out the cabinets, my fabulous flooring guy who saved our bacon when the basement got flooded last spring, whoever we buy the range from, and the countertops.
But the kitchen isn't the only thing I'm working on, I'm actively working on the new template. Sue me; I'm an Arts and Crafts movement junkie, so it's going to have that kind of William Morris/Greene & Greene/Stickley thing going. I just can't help myself. Right now I'm playing with a three-column layout with both columns to the right. Not sure if it's what we'll stick with, but you can follow the fun and games as I tweak a template to look like B@B here.
Labels: blogging, homeownership
A change is a-comin'
I'm sick of waiting for this page to load too. I'm working on a new template, so stay tuned!
Those of you experiencing load-time problems: I believe this problem is a combination of the general hiccuping of this template and also cross-linked images. We're trying to address the cross-link problem and the new template should take care of the rest.
Those of you experiencing load-time problems: I believe this problem is a combination of the general hiccuping of this template and also cross-linked images. We're trying to address the cross-link problem and the new template should take care of the rest.
Labels: blogging
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Slacking
Not really. But blogging is going to be light until Thursday, due to something Very Exciting I'm involved with this week.
Labels: blogging
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Cynical Nation
Pam's House Blend
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