Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 720
January 20, 2010
What gives, ladies?
Nicholas Kristof recently wrote an Op-Ed in the NY Times about women and religion, illustrating the oppressive nature that religion continues to exert upon women, excluding them from hierarchies and rituals and failing to denounce blatantly sexist and oppressive practices and passages in their primary source documents.
In fact, one could effectively argue that religion has been more universally damaging to women's rights than any other institution.
Jimmy Carter, working with religious...
Why use Twitter?
In the future, when I am asked why I use Twitter, I will reference this article by Howard Rheingold.
I'll then add that I have made friends (some of whom I have subsequently met in real life), garnered readers, communicated with fans, established strong contacts in the bookselling and publishing industry, and received a good deal of my daily news through Twitter.
And I've laughed a lot. Sarah Silverman, Jordan Rueben, Neil Patrick Harris and Justin, the guy who posts the things his...
If more Republicans were like this Yikes.
On the day that the Democrats lost a Senate seat once held for forty years by Ted Kennedy, I thought it was worth mentioning that although I tend to lean left on most things, not all conservatives subscribe to the intolerance of the right wing of the Republican Party.
If conservatives like Theodore Olson, the Solicitor General under George Bush and frequently mentioned by Republicans and Democrats as a possible Supreme Court nominee were running the Republican Party, as opposed to the...
January 19, 2010
If I ruled the world
If I were ruler of the world, I would immediately enact the following laws in order to improve the quality of life for all of mankind:
1. Drivers who pull alongside one another on the road in order to chat without leaving their cars (thus blocking the road for sane people like me) shall have their licenses revoked for a period of no less than 5 years. Get out of the damn car if you wish to speak to someone.
2. If a public building has two or more exterior doors, all such doors shall be...
Thick skin
In the last month, the following has been said to me by some of my closest friends:
This would be much easier to solve if I didn't have to worry about you using your powers for evil and self interest.
You are potentially the most offensive person I know.
Your happiness is like balancing an equation. For each unit of happiness you achieve, someone else suffers.
Your protagonist isn't very likeable. Maybe he's too much like you.
I'm sorry, but you you usually make a terrible first...
January 18, 2010
Frightened
I'm currently proofreading UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO. This is my last chance to make changes, and they cannot be big ones. A word here or a word there at most. Everything else is pretty much set in stone.
It's an unnerving process for me. Walt Whitman once famously said that a poem isn't finished until the poet is dead, but once my book is proofread, it's done, whether I like it or not.
No going back.
On page two, I found the the following descriptor:
"…sweating uncontrollably"
Really...
Separate but equal still alive in Hollywood
My wife and I caught about ten minutes of the Golden Globe Awards last night, and I came away wondering:
Why are the best acting awards divided along gender lines?
While there are competitive endeavors in which the division of the sexes seems reasonable (basketball, soccer, and similar athletic events, at least for now), there is no discernable reason why actors and actresses cannot compete against one another, and I can't imagine why they would not want to vie for the same award.
...My previous life
A couple days ago I received a phone call from a friend, asking for advice related to her sick child. The boy had a lingering fever despite the fever-reducing medication that had been administered, and she was wondering if she should call the doctor or wait until morning in hopes that the fever break.
The strangest thing about the phone call was that I was the one receiving it. My friend's child is a toddler, and I am the parent of a daughter who is less than a year old. I can't remember...
January 17, 2010
Better ways of feeling good about yourself
Someone recently tried to tell me that watching television shows like The Jersey Shore and The Real Housewives of Wherever makes people "feel better about themselves."
I suggested the same argument could also be used to defend slavery, public executions and the mandatory defrocking of the obese.
More importantly, I added that reading a book, listening to a favorite song, or writing an old-fashioned letter to a loved one might also be an effective way of feeling good about oneself, and...
The right thing
I was recently planning on doing the wrong ting, but upon reflection, I decided to do the right thing.
And you know what?
I'm not happy.
That's the problem with doing the right thing. It's so often the right thing for everyone but yourself.
And didn't Thomas Jefferson promise me the right to the pursuit of happiness?
Liar.
