I present you with something I discovered whilst working on my current project at work:

Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution barred from office anyone who had violated their oath to protect the Constitution by serving in the Confederacy. That prohibition included Davis. In 1978, pursuant to authority granted to Congress under the same section of the Amendment, Congress posthumously removed the ban on Davis with a two-thirds vote of each house and President Jimmy Carter signed it. These actions were spearheaded by Congressman Trent Lott of Mississippi. Congress had previously taken similar action on behalf of Robert E. Lee.

From the wikipedia article on Jefferson Davis.

This is absurd. As a gesture, it sends a totally of backward political message–but I think getting hung up the political significance of this specific act of congress in the 70s, there’s something larger at play that I think we need to spend a moment on:

In the 1970s, both houses of Congress and the President (of different parties) passed a law that allowed someone who had been dead for 89 years to run for office.

The conclusion?

Trent Lott knew about and was making legal preparations for zombies.

There is no other rational explanation.

Upon further reflection, as the resident of a state who has elected a dead person to federal office, I think I can safely grant my support to any dead candidate seeking office. As long as we can be assured that they stay dead.

Via: 43Folders and Mur

So this video popped up a couple of times in my news reader today, and I think it’s good enough to repost with some additional comments. It’s a video with Ira Glass talking about how creative people who are getting started doing something now need to give themselves permission to make crap and that the most important thing is to keep doing it, because the only way to learn is to make a lot of crap.

This has become a virtual mantra for me, and I think it’s good to have people remind us of this from time to time. This is why I’m starting a fiction blog. That’s why I write blog entries every day.

I think it’s true of knitting, as well. I have scores of horrible sweaters, and while most of my sweaters work now (and the ones that don’t are ill conceived from the beginning,) that’s a technical skill that I worked pretty hard for. So I’d say, not only does Ira Glass have it correct¹ for things like writing and audio/video production, but I think that he succeeded in expressing it in a way that’s applicable to everyone that makes something.

Today I edited the first sequence of the novella I wrote nearly a year ago. While I’ve been dreading this for a long time, I think it went off really well. I added a line that a test reader (whose unfamiliar with the work) really liked, I tweaked some things in a way that tie this scene (which I went back and added later) into the story more closely.

I made this one sequence better in fairly concrete ways, and I think every previous time that I’d tried to do this before I hadn’t been good enough to make it better. But a year later, I am enough better than I was that I was able to do this one thing better. I don’t think I’ve “made it” or anything, but it’s nice to have some sort of verification of improvement.

This scene that I talk about will be part of critical futures at some early point in that sites’ development. Maybe a week from today?

Stay tuned.

I only learned early this morning that Tom Disch had killed himself July 4 in his New York City apartment….

Suicide is always, I think, something of a mystery. Even when someone is in poor health, in bereavement, feeling isolated, we still say Why? How could he end his life, be so sure that nothing would improve? Things always change over time. Tom was only 68.

I don’t know the answers to those questions for Tom Disch. I only know that the SF field has lost a major talent, one of our own.

From: Nancy Kress’ Blog

I didn’t really know his work, but he’s been on my list of things to read for some time. My internal database on him pegs him as the sort of “less pornographic Delany, with a greater tendency toward ‘dark material.’” That’s woefully insufficient. I’ll get on remedying this file.

I do remember that I’ve been nagging H. to read his stuff because I think she’d like it. I’m oddly struck by this, because although I didn’t know him, and haven’t been as familiar with his work as I’d like to be, I completely concur with Nancy Kress’ final sentiment.

• @momtron Martha/jennifer is playing at the youth dance next time. it’s a bunch of (former) homeschoolers, I fear it’ll be strange #
• thinking about a new computer #
• "you know, if spammers didn’t insult people, maybe they’d sell more viagra" #

• can someone tell me why I still care about technorati #
• @momtron & @dadtron: I hate you alot. and often. #
• let’s see now …. nope, sill hate you @momtron #
• *wants hip/queer contra dance* #
• can we have a podcast that is just snarky comentary on youtube folkdance videos #
• remind me why I never think about how much I like Richard Thompson’s music #
• os x-ers’ mail.app replacements that do IMAP and don’t suck #
• time for a weekly mail.app crashathon #

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• I can has old scholarly database provider pls? #
• also why can’t database services export to bibtex in any real sort of way #