aj
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Posts posted by aj
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You're spot on, Des. The key to this whole discussion lies in human attitudes about what comprises a defect or disorder.
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aj
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Hmmm....who would I want on my team? A real powerhouse player, like TR? Maybe a multipurpose player like lugnutz (who could play on the team AND fix the bus should it break down while traveling to or from away games)? I'm going to have to think about this a bit...
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aj
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Great minds tend to roll in the same gutters, Cole. It's a burden we must resign ourselves to carrying.
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aj
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One day, a casual reader will find this forum archived in some obscure server and laugh at our attitudes. He/she will have been genetically manipulated in vitro, along with just about everyone else on the planet who has the money in their family to afford such work, and will think nothing of it. The randomness that is part of the 'natural way' will only exist among the underclasses. The disparity that will exist between a genetically manipulated upperclass and their more natural underclass counterparts will be marked - fitness for all the better jobs will, at least partially, be determined by what a 'genetic passport' says about the way that the job candidate's intelligence has been tweaked, the superiority of his/her senses and physical abilities as a result of changes made while the person was in the womb.
I suspect that the world will not be a better place as a result of these changes. If there is a way for any new technology to be made to benefit the few at the expense of the many, that way will be found and exploited. It's in our nature to operate this way. While I would argue against such tinkering with people's destinies while still unborn, I fully expect that when the choice needs to be made because the science is viable, the decision will be made to proceed. The sheer potential for profit and the chance of curing such ills as cancer and Alzheimers, MS and Lupus, Parkinsons and a host of other gene-based diseases will simply prove too tempting.
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aj
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Medicine has its own language. To the average layperson, its a foreign language, with very little in common with the english that the rest of us use. I think the same way that one would use french terms in an english language story would be appropriate for a lot of medical terminology: use the term, and then allow context and contextual explication to make the meaning clear.
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aj
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He SAYS he's reading the factbook, but I think he's really just trying to recover after doing a little self-testing around the issue of electrical resistance and the human body.
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aj
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Maybe I'm a bit of a bomb-thrower, but I'm not very comfortable with the word 'rules.' I think of such things as Vonnegut's 8 and S. King's statement about 'would, should and could are not your friends' as advise or guidelines. The only 'rule' that I accept as golden in storywriting is "Show, don't tell," which is actually where Trab's example got into trouble.
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aj
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*Ahem!* As the self-appointed site sex educator, I think it is within my perview to choose the venue for signups...*Points to his own chest and hands the first person in line a grease pen* As with any good sign up sheet, when the front is filled up, just flip me over and start on the back.
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aj
addendum: Yes Trab, there will be hands on workshops offered.
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"One of the issues that takes so much thought today, now that we are gaining medical capabilities we've never had before, is to decide how to use them. Like so many other issues today, there will be wide divergence on the answers. We're already seeing that with stem cell research."
And we're going to be seeing that issue raise its head again. Apparently, according to a recent report that I read, medical researchers have mastered the capability to regress a mature cell back to a stem cell-like state, with full capability to develope into any individual kind of cell it needs to be.
I agree that 'health and wellbeing' are very vague terms, probably needing much more specific definition in order to be useful. They are, however, useful in setting up a basic argument. If we can agree on those basic terms, then a more comprehensive definition can be worked out.
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aj
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This has been a fascinating discussion to me...particularly the part about the ethical/unethical nature of genetic manipulation of children in vitro. Here is my take:
Creating Mozarts or Einsteins would definitely benefit a great many people, if not society as a whole. I don't think that can be disputed. Less undisputable is the assertion that elminating a 'gay gene' would do the same, and the argument that removing a 'christian/nonrational thinking' gene would benefit society is about on a par with it. However, social utility is not something that a decision about ethics can be based on. The good of the many does not, in fact, outweigh the good of the few.
My thought is that genetic manipulation of children in the womb is a form of coercion, and that kind of coercive act is only justified if there is a clear and present danger to the health or wellbeing of the subject. I do not believe that being gay or religiously minded falls into this category, as evidenced by millions of both gay and religious people who manage nonetheless to live relatively happy and productive lives...and in fact, the same can be said of dwarves and of deaf people. If it were possible to genetically alter people after they were of age to make this sort of decision for themselves, and chose to participate in such a change, I would have no problem with it, but the choice must be presented to them and their wishes for themself followed.
This is, to my mind, a classic case of the difference between knowlege and wisdom: just because a particular act is possible does not make it necessarily desirable.
cheers!
aj
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Hey James -
I noticed that you included WA on your list of states that have no protections around gay relationships. This is actually no longer the case. WA now recognizes Domestic Partnerships, and extends many - though not all - of the same rights and responsibilities to people in those relationships that people in heterosexual marriages enjoy. My housemates, Robert and Anthony, are preparing to register as domestic partners, and it's a very good thing.
I think Another has a good point: in the rush to assimilate into the mainstream culture, much of the qualities that make us unique as a subculture are being lost. Much of our history is undocumented, and therefore is also being lost as our elder brothers and sisters die in obscurity. I think one of the projects that needs to be undertaken is to create an archive of the personal histories of the gay elderly, so that those stories aren't lost, because that is where the history of our subculture lies.
My hackles rose when someone mentioned deforestization to build larger factories to manufacture more products, and building more nuclear power plants...apparently whoever that was doesn't live anywhere close to the Hanford Nuclear Reserve, where much of the waste product from the existing nuclear powerplants is/has been shipped for 'storage'...oddly enough, there is a very high concentration of cases of cancer among humans downwind of that area, and the wetlands near that area is home to a large population of three-eyed frogs...I kid you not. Let's figure out what to do with the waste from our existing plants before we start building more, shall we?
cheers!
aj
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I don't know much about this Olberman guy, but it's fairly clear from what he said in this editorial that he's that most common form of DC wildlife, the spin doctor. Yeah, some of what Bush said was kinda dumb, but we've come to expect that. But this guy took his comments out of context and created an entire diatribe out of that dishonest and distorted take on Bush's comments. The whole 'thundering from the pulpit' bit of 'righteous indignation' was about as convincing as Vin Diesel's acting (don't get me wrong - I'm a huge Vin Diesel fan, and I would never kick that boy outta bed, but he can't act his way out of a paper sack).
Those who create and perpetuate spin are the lowest form of life. I'm afraid Mr Olberman has placed himself just below pondscum on the evolutionary scale.
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aj
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I'm in awe at 'redemption.' This is as good as any writing i've seen on the net, bar none. Further, i'm very grateful to have found out what happened at the close of 'Farmhand.' This gives me a nice sense of closure with the tale.
Have to admit that I'm not as big a fan of 'outside the foul lines' as I have been with the rest of Rick's work, but I still read it every time there's a new chapter. When i'm not reading it, I think 'Well, he's just telling us the story, not showing us. There's no sense of immediacy that I associate with really good writing..." and then I read the next chapter and find myself getting pulled in anyway. I think it's the voice that he uses, that of Dooley, that does it for me. I don't know.
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aj
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Brightly woven, Camy. Very, very nice work!
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aj
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It's a very good chapter, too. It could even be the last chapter, but it (apparently) isn't.
Colin
I quite agree...but I think it would have been better with a car.
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aj
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Actually, I have found just about everyone I have met from the UK to be quite reasonable about the whole 'driving on the wrong side of the road' issue. Nearly every one that I have asked about it had very nearly the same response:
"When everyone else changes, so will we."
and that seems quite logical and reasonable to me.
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I'm well aware of it, Cole...after all, HnH started out to be a short story, but with the story line that I finally came to want to write, I realized that it was going to surpass short story criteria and end up a novelette. As someone who had never written anything of that length before, I was a little intimidated by the idea, but then I realized that if I thought of each chapter as a short story in an ongoing story arc, all of that fear went away and the writing went swimmingly.
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aj
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Hmm. I don't use all caps, because I view it as sort of a cop out, I guess. I think that the harder way - but ultimately more satisfying for both myself and I hope for my readers as well - is to create that sense of tension and power through word choice and imagery. I suppose it also has to do with the fact that I'm not the yelling kind, in general, and my characters tend to get cold rather than loud.
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aj
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I think that the long (oh god, when will this end?) stories that we see on the 'net and over at nifty are the result of writers who believe that expression and 'art' will conquer all, and forget that any artist worth his/her salt is also a master (or at least a dedicated student) of the craft used in whatever media he/she works. They're trying to hitch a thoroughbred to a cart with broken wheels and thinking that it's going to haul whatever plot line they've come up with across the finish line. Sadly, we get to read the results. Sometimes though, this is not the case at all: one of my favorite stories online is called "Spellsong," and the writer is a true craftsman, but the whole thing seems to have become an endless shaggy dog story in the last 10 chapters or so...though I have to admit that I'm ok with that, because I would read the author's grocery lists if he wrote them as beautifully as he writes this tale. The point is that this story seems to have escaped from the author's control and taken on a direction of its own, and that is seldom a good thing.
Like Cole, I don't edit for stories that are all essence and no substance. I've tried a time or two, and I find that the author is usually so enamored of his/her own work that any suggestions are shrugged off and discounted. Not only do they not understand the mechanics of writing, they also don't get the difference between an editor and a proofreader, and while I can proofread, it's not my primary interest.
There are exceptions to this rule, of course. I'm currently working on Mechanics 101, which is something I read when I first started reading online and enjoyed immensely, and despite the roughness of the early chapters, the storyline is so good that I don't mind doing a lot of clean up work. In addition, the author showed a great deal of improvement between his first and last chapters, and I find that evolution endlessly interesting. Most importantly though, he understood the stages of a plot line, and instinctively used them even if he wasn't sure why he was doing it.
Having worked on one of the larger serial novels on the site for quite a long time - TSOI for about two years before it went on hiatus - I found that the saving grace for me in that effort was many, many long and philosophical IM conversations with the author about the story, the characters, and the 'one liner' that was the basis of the whole story: in this case it was something like "How should we, as ethical beings, respond to attempts at coercion?"
I suspect that it is this kind of rapport that makes working on a serial novel possible, beyond merely proofreading it.
cheers!
aj
Oh yeah...I guess I should address Anthony's original question, huh? *grin* I think that it depends on the story, Anthony. Some stories need that kind of nuts-and-bolts correction for continuity and content. I often address those kinds of problems in end-notes that I write at the end of the file in a different color to distinguish them from everything else. Most of my notes to the author are short and rather direct, but I have seen a few instances where they rivaled the actual chapter in length. Sometimes I'll phrase suggestions and corrections as a series of questions intended to lead the author to think about a scenario in a different light, or as simple observations of fact within the story. It also depends on the author - some are open to this kind of conversation, and others are not. I don't find myself doing all of one or the other in two different editing steps, though.
aj
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I didn't realise matches were so expensive over there.
They're not...but dear gods, the gasoline for the molotov cocktails!
cheers!
aj
On another note - I would have to agree with an earlier assessment of the current age: though I like to play at cynicism, I remember well enough how it was in the last decades of the prior century to know that life is pretty good right now. Yeah, we live in a civilization in decline, and everything could go belly-up at any moment, but for the nonce it ain't bad.
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Am I the only one that thinks that if I were a parent and my child committed suicide, I would want to know why? I would be beating myself over the head trying to figure it out, and it would come as a great relief to me to know, even if I didn't like the reason.
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aj
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I still have very fond memories of watching Tom Sellek and Kevin Kline kiss in "In and Out." What a lovely little movie, and what a lovely pair of men.
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aj
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I read all of the shorts that Des had over on CW this morning before I went to work, and I'm sure all my colleagues and residents were wondering why I had a grin pasted on my face and was prone to spontaneous chortling. These stories totally made my day at work...nothing could get me down until my boss sprung a surprise admit on me, but not even a truly comical story can overcome that tragedy. Still, up until lunch I had a first rate day, thanks to Des, Jase, Aaron and Bryce.
cheers!
aj
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Since I can't seem to figure out how to post a #$*&^%@#$#% url anymore, look below for the URL of the one of Comicality's best ever.
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aj
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*Tugging with all his strength to get the thread back on target*
"There. I think that's just about where it was."
After reading Graeme's story, I'd have to say that there is very little ambiguity in it for me - it's clear that the kid was driven 'round the bend by the multiple rapes he suffered after the party. The use of an untrustworthy narrator is not easy to do, and Graeme pulls it off in his usual inimitable style. Well done!
cheers!
aj