Ambiguity of spelling

We’re all familiar with errors regarding “you’re/your,” “its/it’s,” and — most problematic of all, perhaps — “there/they’re/their.” An interesting question that occurred to me is whether it is possible to construct a sentence where there would be any ambiguity as to your meaning if you used the wrong spelling, i.e., a sentence where it could potentially work both (or all three) ways. The Girlfriend has come up with one possibility: “Anthony and Hayley are on vacation, there/they’re in Chicago.” Can we think of any others? I know people don’t like leaving comments except on Tuesday or Friday, and even then they’re hesitant, but I thought I’d give it a try.

Open thread

Which blog has more completely outlived its mandate: The Weblog or Unfogged?

A sincere question about fall entertainment

Exactly what is the point of a hay ride? As I recall, hay rides generally take place at night, in poorly-lit areas, so scenery can’t be the goal. Sometimes hay rides might take you to some desirable destination like a bonfire or cookout, yet the hay ride itself is portrayed as an independently fun thing even when it is a practical mode of transportation. And of course there are plenty of hay rides where you just drive around in a circle. Why is this such a widespread practice? What is so great about sitting in a trailer full of hay on a brisk fall night?

Greatest Trailer Ever!

I saw the non-’mature’ version of this trailer last night, in preparation for the craptastically awful movie Paranormal Activity, and knew it was something special.  But then … oh, but then, the ‘mature’ version.  I might have to go and live-blog this movie.

What is the worst thing in the world?

When the contemptible are not shown adequate contempt.

The blog as superego

To do by the end of the month, likely:

• Complete a full manuscript of the awkwardness book (one chapter left to draft)
• Finalize which texts I’m using for my fall courses to tell the bookstore
• Do a reader report for an article I’ve been asked to peer review (my first!)
• Perform the financial judo necessary to maintain my credit intact and avoid the fury of “universal default”

To do by end of the month, barring complications:

• Get my living situation in Kalamazoo settled

To do by end of the month, pushing it:

• Write an article I owe Anthony for an edited volume

The academic/writing things are no big problem, but the combination of the two practical matters has, to speak frankly, stressed me the fuck out — I’m used to threading financial needles (what else has grad school taught me besides how to abuse credit cards responsibly?), but adding the moving issue on top of that has been unhelpful. Getting all of that settled and out of the way will do wonders for my mental health.

Desert Island Blogs

They say that a major sign of a blog’s decline is a lot of open threads, and in that spirit, I’m going to follow up my “favorite movies” post with a “favorite blogs” post — if Google Reader only allowed you a handful of slots, which blogs would make the cut? Anyone who lists The Weblog will be banned for life. Here are mine, in no particular order:

• A Tiny Revolution: this is my one-stop blog for ironic historical parallels and little-noted connections.
• Rortybomb: I started subscribing to finance blogs for the sake of my financial writing job and obviously accelerated the process once the financial crisis began — but this is the only one that I consistently enjoy reading, as well as the only one that brings a “theory” perspective to financial markets in a genuinely relevant, non-heavy-handed way.
• Infinite Thought: This should be self-explanatory.
• Voyou Desoeuvré: The posts are few and far between, but always worth waiting for. I’m not as interested in the pop music posts, but even those can sometimes be gems. Incidentally, this blog was a big inspiration behind AUFS’s slower pace — in the age of RSS, updating every day is no longer required.

Looking at political blogs, I’m increasingly realizing that I use them to keep up with politics — in much greater detail than I actually need to. If all of them suddenly disappeared one day, I’m not sure I’d miss them at all. I’d probably just read the newspaper, maybe even the old-fashioned paper version. I still do that occasionally, and I find it to be a much more relaxing way to get my news, above all because it’s a defined amount of reading and isn’t going to keep sprouting new stories throughout the day. I know that newspapers have their faults and biases, but I think that my many years of reading media criticism have probably equipped me to deal with the challenges adequately on my own.

Long Sunday: Axel Honneth reading symposium

Long Sunday, a group blog initially announced here at the weblog in jest as portending our doom, is back up and running after a year or so hiatus.  Currently the first post is up for a reading symposium on Axel Honneth’s Pathologies of Reason: On the Legacy of Critical Theory.  Honneth is a third generation Frankfurt School philosopher.  The book is a 2009 English translation of a collection of disparate essays, united in arguing that what brings Frankfurt philosophers around the table together across generations is the conviction that capitalism produces societies that pathologically deform reason.

American Civil Religion

If patriotic holidays are part of what scholars call “American civil religion,” then Chicago, with its July 3rd fireworks extravaganza, is the equivalent of those Catholics who go to mass on Saturday night to get it out of the way.

Blog Anniversary

This post about how blogs suck now reminds me that yesterday was my sixth anniversary as a blogger. I agree with many of the points listed, particularly the decline of linking culture. In my early days, I had a few posts linked by bigger blogs — now such a thing is clearly impossible (except when I manage to cajole Bitch PhD into llinking something). That has made me very discouraged about blogging about much of anything and has turned The Weblog into little more than a series of open threads, that little more more being Erika’s food posts and my TV posts in their better moments. Why bother coming up with a compelling, well-documented argument when no one will ever see it? The possibility of wide exposure was what motivated bloggers to produce such good work for free — we shouldn’t be surprised to see a rapid decline in quality among non-career bloggers.

My experience with AUFS, however, makes me think that a lot of these problems are limited to political and other “general interest” blogs. In a more niche environment such as theology or continental philosophy blogging, linking culture is much better — though still not nearly as good as the “good old days” of mainline blogging, since conventions like crediting the person who alerted you to a link are widely ignored — and it’s still possible for quality to be rewarded with attention from an informed audience. Maybe not probable, but possible.