THIS BLOG HAS MOVED

UPDATE: In case the below post is not clear, what this means is that there will be no new posts at this blog. Everything will be posted at rhetoricalwasteland.wordpress.com from now on.

Starting today, I will be blogging using Wordpress instead of Blogger. The new-ish Rhetorical Wasteland can be found here.

It's the same blog, and all the posts and comments appear to have imported successfully. (Images, not so much. If I have time, I'll transfer some of the more recent, but this might just be a consequence.)

Please update your RSS feeds accordingly; I think this will work:

http://rhetoricalwasteland.wordpress.com/feed/

Eric Stoller is ultimately responsible for this move, like it or not, and will therefore get all the blame if anything goes wrong.

Temporary change in the comment policy

Just about every single comment I've been receiving on the various Palin- and election-related posts recently has been terrible. I take a lot the responsibility for that - the posts I've been putting up aren't all that great either.

Even so, I'm temporarily changing the comment policy around here. Normally, I'll approve just about anything. However, when it comes to comments about politics, the standard for approval just changed.

Basically, if your comment contains something as silly as blaming the women's movement for Palin's difficulty in balancing her work and family (yes, that example is a real comment), then your comment will be rejected. I just don't have the time or energy to respond as necessary. My living room and all that.

Have a good evening.

Wordle

I've been wordled:



Click the picture to make it bigger.

(The code given to me by the world site did not work, so I had to do it this way.)

Update: As my intrepid commenter base notes, Wordle only uses the last several posts, or perhaps the main page, to generate the cloud, meaning this is a representation of what I've been blogging about recently. I wish it was comprehensive...

A short note on criticism (with apologies to faris for my sloppy use of language)

For me, criticism of something can be divided into two general camps:

1) Criticism regarding whether or not the process is working. For example, the utter failure of the U.S. government to maintain the physical infrastructure of the country, as noted by the bridge collapse in Minnesota, the Katrina levees, and what's starting to come out about the state of the infrastructure in Iowa. These are failures of following through on what is generally understood as the responsibility of the government. Most people agree on the goals and process; what the disagreement tends to be about is whether or not they are being properly carried out.

2) Criticism of the idea or principle behind something. Continuing on the same topic, an example of this would be a wingnut asking whether or not the government should even be in the business of maintaining public facilities like roads, schools, sewer systems, etc. In other words, it's questioning the usefulness of a practice in general.

I bring this up, yes, because of my recent posts regarding the GT and the OSU CoE rankings. In this case, I see the GT as having failed to do an understood part of their job: Sourcing a fact, and, where appropriate, providing context (like the fact that OSU is defining their own metric). I don't see myself as asking the GT to do something different in principle - I'm not criticizing journalism or reporting per se, but more how it was carried out (or not carried out) in this case.

What do all four of my readers think, either about the GT example specifically or the idea of viewing criticisms in this way in general?

Reader Stats

Number of unread posts in Google Reader that I intend to read right now: 726

Number of unread posts that I don't intend to read: It hits 1000 in a matter of a few days, and Google doesn't provide an accurate count above that. I bet it's over 10K now - I periodically mark everything as read just because it drives me crazy to have so many unread posts.

Number of feeds I am subscribed to (including the ~10 or so comment feeds I am subscribed to): 248

Number I actually read: Less than 100

Odds that this weekend I will choose to read the last few days' worth of posts and just mark the rest as read: High.

Note: I use Google Reader as my way of bookmarking blogs, which is why I have so many unread posts.

Minor Navel-Gazing

Blog traffic here the week of the LCSD board meeting (and yes, my traffic has dropped off considerably in the last few months since I've posted less and less frequently).

I'm definitely amused.

The requisite "I have no time for blogging" post

Though I do have lots of posts in draft or in the back of my mind.

And yes, many of them involve Hasso Hering.

I've had one real day off work since April 6th.

I am not, however, giving up on the blog.

I am le tired.

I should have known there was a test for this.

I have to say I'm a little disappointed. I had certainly been led to believe I have a much fouler mouth than that. Apparently some folks have literally no tolerance for foul language - I mean, shit, I am at less than three percent!

[Almost Blogtastic Navel-Gazing] The Perfect Summing-up

Atrios encapsulates the absurdity of the last eight years in perhaps the best way I've ever seen:

There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said -- no. But, somehow we missed it.

Well, we'll know better next time.

-Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

My god, he's good.

I kind of want to cry. Existentialism and all that.

[Meta] I Like The New Title Format

I'm discovering how useful the new title format can be.

I subconsciously stole it from somewhere else... Feministing or Feministe, though I can't remember which one (and can barely keep them straight).

Anyway, the point of the new title format - and let's hope I keep at it - is to provide a handy subject guide to each post.

Work

So..... I will no longer be substitute teaching when school resumes.

I got another job. (Email me if you want to know what it is.)

What does this mean?

Less posting about Lebanon, probably, because I won't be there all the time. In fact, given that the new job is full time, it might very well mean less posting, period.

That's all. I just thought you should know.

Notice

Posting will be light over the next several days.

Probably.

I suppose there's a chance I'll go blog wild, but I doubt it.

"Recent Comments" Section Added + RSS Reader Notes

At the request of a reader, I've copied LT and added a section that notes the most recent comments. It's on the top of the sidebar to the right.

Also, y'all should get an RSS reader like Bloglines or Google Reader (which requires a Gmail account), or for Mac users, Vienna - they will allow you to subscribe to comments as well as blog posts, thereby eliminating the need to constantly visit the blog's URL to check for new posts.

My Web Traffic

I am pretty fascinated by this week's web traffic stats.

As you can see, there was a huge spike in traffic for a few days starting the day after LCSD Board meeting; my usual daily tally for unique visitors is somewhere near 40.

The spike is not uncommon; the same thing happened after last month's meeting.

I'm taking this as evidence that people are very interested in what's going on.

Any thoughts?

Done

Dap has served his purpose.

Too many people know my identity anyway, and I'm tired of not being able to write about whole sections of my life.

So that's over.

My name is Dennis.

Most of you already knew that.

With any luck, not a whole lot will change about this blog.

Carry on.

The Blog Readability Test

Meta on Lebanon

I am tired of typing and tired of rehashing that disaster. More posts are forthcoming: One on the Sand Ridge Annual Report, one on the single piece of fantastic news, and maybe one with some overall observations about what's going on. Somewhere in there I'm going to include some random odds and ends.

For now, I'm going to sit outside in the cold sun and read a book.

Meta - Leaving Links in Comments

I have discovered that links left in comments as text (i.e. not embedded) don't work for some reason - Blogger cuts them off at the width of the comment section. So if you can, please leave them using HTML tags. Thanks.

Feminist Meta

I noticed that my shared items today are back in the realm of all-horror-stories-regarding-the-abuse-of-women-all-the-time.

I'm not picking these on purpose; there are just that many of them out there.

Just thought I'd point that out.

Words

I cannot tell you how many times over the summer - and now extending into the fall - that I have misspelled the word separate. It is not spelled seperate.

It's getting really annoying.