April 17, 2002
I feel very lucky to know some extremely talented young writers. Remember these names: Andy Dehnart, Andrew Luckham, and Alex Ortolani. I just came across a great piece written by Andrew entitled "Introduction to American Prose Style".
posted at 5:08 PM
People should greet each other more often. This morning when I walked out my door, the sun was shining and the temperature was perfect at 73 degrees. A guy walking his dog past my front steps smiles and says, "good morning!" It was nice. I'm going to make an effort to say "hello" to people in my neighborhood more often. The sad thing is, we're kind of trained to think that greeting random strangers is a little odd. People will probably think I'm overly medicated, or something.
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posted at 9:36 AM
April 16, 2002
Today, the Supreme Court ruled on the virtual child pornography case that has been pending for months:
"In a case that addresses some of the most fundamental issues of technology and morality, the United States Supreme Court ruled today that Congress went too far in 1996, when it passed a law that treats 'virtual' or computer-generated child pornography as the real thing."
The argument for the ban was that virtual child pornography may encourage pedophiles to act on their impulses. But the Court refuted this argument, saying, "The mere tendency of speech [or photos, in this case] to encourage unlawful acts is not a sufficient reason for banning it." I completely agree. However, I do worry about the line being blurred between the virtual and the actual to the point where the two types of images are indistinguishable from each other. The Justices who wrote the dissenting opinion also listed this as one of their major concerns. I'm sure this is an issue we'll be hearing much more about as technology allows us to simulate reality with greater and greater accuracy.
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posted at 5:24 PM
April 15, 2002
I've been starting and stopping writing about my weekend for the past couple hours now. I can't seem to fully capture how great everything was, so I'll just leave it at that. It's really not laziness, the words to describe the events and feelings just weren't quite there. Maybe I'll try again later today.
So instead, I'll just throw out a couple links. First, one of my standard cynical comment and links to a NY Times article. This one is about a guy and a bunch of Republicans in Congress who are trying to block a ban of personal watercrafts in some Texas national parks. What is their argument here? Arguments against motorboats and Jet Skis in parks: they are noisy, they pollute, they make it harder to preserve the park, etc. Arguments for: By blocking access to these nature preserves, we are taking away some personal liberties. But these "liberties," to me, are incredibly selfish and short-sighted. The more we decide as a nation that certain parts of nature aren't sacred, the more we risk doing irreversible damage to the environment. I know I sound like a total tree-hugger here, but what concerns me more is not this one incident, it is the precedent that it will set.
Andy posted this link on Friday, and I though it was just too good not to put up here as well: 4 Tips On How To Keep Your Dream Alive Well Past Graduation.
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posted at 11:57 AM
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