From John Scalzi over at “By the Way…:”

Weekend Assignment #105: Share a favorite poem.

My favorite poem is a long one. I had to memorize part of it for 6th grade English class and after I recited the required number of lines, I read on so that everyone could hear how it ended.

It was written by Robert Service and it has quite an unexpected ending. Here’s the opening:

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

I cremated Sam McGee.

I hope that grabs your interest enough that you’ll want to go read the rest. You can find the full text here.

A stranger cuts barbed wire to enter the water supply facility for a small American town. Once inside, he cuts the lines that would activate an alarm, damages an electrical panel and a vent at the top of a 1.3-million gallon water tank.

And apparently, he empties the contents of a 5-gallon container into the tank.

It sounds like the beginning of a movie about a terror attack, or perhaps the prologue to a novel about biological warfare.

But in Blackstone, Massachusetts, a town of about 9,000, someone did break into a water supply facility, and investigators did find a 5-gallon container, empty as if it had been dumped into the water supply tank. The container had a strange odor and was being tested.

Residents were alerted about possible contamination and ordered to not drink, bathe, or cook with the water until definitive tests could be completed. The results are due later today.

Authorities have ruled out terrorism, but that was little comfort to a town whose residents began buying up bottled water, and cancelled school classes over fears of what might be in the water.

MSNBC is now reporting that two teens have been arrested in connection with the incident. It sounds — at this point — like a simple prank, but it makes me want to go buy a few more gallons of bottled water to have on hand.

Just in case.

Our desire for convenience at every possible turn has prompted fast food restaurants to install computers that allow customers to pay by credit or debit card. That’s good for people like me, who take advantage of direct deposit and almost never have cash anymore.

But you have to check that receipt!

A typographical error at a California Burger King ended up costing one patron more than $4,000 for a meal. Two Whopper Juniors and two Rodeo burgers. The total should have been $4.33. But the cashier forgot that she’d already entered the amount and then re-entered it without erasing the original numbers, creating a bill of $4,334.33. The debit drained the man’s bank account and left him wondering how he’d pay his mortgage.

In the end, the couple got their money back, and Burger King didn’t charge them a cent for the meal because of the error. But it’s a good reminder to the rest of us: when the person at the window asks if you’d like a copy of the receipt, say yes and double-check the amount.

You might save yourself a lot of headaches by doing so.

A new piece of equipment at work has me thinking about the wonders of technology. That’s the topic of this week’s question.

For those who have never played, the rules are simple: I offer two different questions, both related to the same topic, but you only choose one of them to actually answer.

Carly of “Ellipsis…Suddenly Carly” was first to answer last week’s question for the second week in a row. Congratulations, Carly!

Now, onto this week’s choice of questions. And remember: don’t answer both questions!

THIS WEEK’S TOPIC: TECHNOLOGY

QUESTION A:
In general, do you think technology makes our lives easier or harder, and why?

or

QUESTION B:
What “modern marvel” could you most do without, and why?

Choose A or B, (indicate which question you’re answering!) then either answer the question in a comment or answer it in your journal and include the link in a comment. (To be considered “first to play,” a link must be to the specific entry in which you answered the question.)

Remember: choose one or the other…not both!

My Answer:
Question A: I think technology can definitely make lives easier, but in doing so, it only complicates things. Most technology, particularly the kind that’s supposed to make things easier, ends up making us have to do things a completely different way just to accomodate the technology itself: instead of making it easier to do what we do, we have to change what we do to make things easier for the technology, and that doesn’t strike me as being “user friendly.”

What does it mean to support the troops?

Yes, this topic again.

Does supporting the troops mean that you automatically support every mission they do, every act they take, 24 hours a day, seven days a week? Or does it mean something as simple as being grateful for the work they’ve done in the name of this country, or praying that not another single one of them dies in Iraq? Does one, to support the troops, have to start a drive in their neighborhood to send troops goods from home, or send letters to those soldiers who happen to want penpals to remind them that they’re being thought about?

The answer is simple: it depends on the person.

Does one have to be a Republican to care about the troops? Do Democrats hope our soldiers will be lost just to make their political points?

Say it with me, everyone: Of course not!

I was taking my morning blogjog and came upon this post from Neil over at the Blue Voice. The first line stopped me cold:

“The very people who sent Troops to Iraq for nothing — and in insufficient number and with inadequate equipment — these very same people slap a sticker on their bumper and claim to ’support the Troops.’”

Neil goes on to add:

“They have their own version of the big lie. They beat their chests and proclaim themselves to be good patriots because they support sending Troops to Iraq for Bush, whatever his real reasons might be for doing so. They claim to support the Troops — but — they really do not care.”

Whatever his real reasons might be for sending the troops into Iraq, the notion of supporting the troops doesn’t require the blind following of the president who sent them there. Ironically, Neil, in arguing that the real support of troops comes in the form of questioning the decisions that led to war — and thereby, criticism of the administration — proves this very point.

So if it is unfair to equate being critical of the administration with being unpatriotic, logically, it is just as unfair to make the claim that those who put those shiny bumper stickers on their car automatically has to be a “Bushie” or must be “unconcerned” about the dangers our soldiers face. If supporting the troops really means anything from charitable work on their behalf to questioning the leader that put them in their present situation, you can’t reasonably complain about being viewed unpatriotic if you do question the administration while at the same time you lump all “Support the Troops” advocates into either the Republican camp.

After all, if one is so wrong, the other must be, too, right?

There is one line I do agree with:

“They have no right to criticize us who have opposed this war from the beginning - to question our patriotism - to accuse us of not supporting our men and women in Iraq.”

We all have the right, and the responsibility to be critical when we don’t agree. Lives are at stake. It’s not unpatriotic to question the administration.

If anything is unpatriotic, it’s the pretense that we must only exist in a “we” versus “they” society, that it has to be one way or the other. Both parties reinforce it at every possible turn to keep another party from gaining any real momentum. We spend all our time refuting anything the other says, often without taking the time to even listen. We wouldn’t know the truth when the other party says it, because by the time half of the speech has been delivered, the response is already posted.

But when our servicemen step onto the battlefield — whether you believe the battle is warranted or not — the emblem they wear on their uniform isn’t of a giant elephant. It’s the American flag. Our servicemen do not represent the GOP: they represent us. All of us. Republicans, Democrats, and everyone in between.

Like it or not, the troops — who are either being forced to participate in a war based on lies, or who are protecting our safety by fighting the War on Terror — are doing that work for you, regardless of your party affiliation.

My comment included this:

Is it fair to question the circumstances by which they were deployed? Absolutely.

Is it right to ask why they don’t have more protection? Definitely.

Is it good form to question how few have been sent? Sure, though it might seem insincere if you also spend a lot of time complaining about the number and cost that have already been sent.

Is it accurate for an American citizen to say that the soldiers there are doing what OTHERS sent them to do? Unfortunately for political debaters, no.

They’re doing what WE ALL sent them there to do, and they’ll be doing it until WE ALL figure out a way to bring them back with as litle further cost as possible.

Generalizations and name calling, which long ago eclipsed baseball as the Great American Pastime, isn’t the way to bring both sides together. All it does is keep both sides from working together to dig through the rhetoric and look for the solutions to the problem: potentially the very solutions that will bring the troops home.

Sometimes, denouncing the other side becomes such a sport that exactly what’s being denounced doesn’t even matter. There’s no real discussion anymore. There’s only the choosing of sides based on who gets the best zingers in.

Both sides do it. Regularly.

And that what’s so unpatriotic in my book.

Over at his The Life of Writing, Mike has written a post entitled, “Persistence; How Much is Too Much?” He discusses those writers who have lost their families to their determination to the writing craft, and mentions the story of a writer who, three months into writing his first novel, decided to take the ultimate leap of faith and quit his job.

Mike points out that understanding spouses and friends are critical for writers. But he then adds that balance is at least as important, and I couldn’t agree more.

I think a healthy writer needs to think about setting their own limits and do an occasional reality check; the responsibility to save the relationships shouldn’t fall only on the shoulders of those around the writer: if the writer values his or her relationships, in whatever form they come, that writer needs to make sure sufficient time is spent in nurturing those relationships, even when the work-in-progress is calling.

Too much of a good thing, even writing, it seems to me, isn’t necessarily good.

I think any writer who really wants to base their writing life on answering the question of how much persistence is too much also needs to ask this: How much is really too little?

What they end up doing with their writing ideally should fall somewhere between those two points.

Once you know what the absolute minimum you can do to get published is, that’s the healthy place to begin. Work yourself up from there. Slowly.

That’s not to say that I think you should do as little as possible to get by. What I mean, though, is that it’s easier to back off of something when you start off slowly than it would be if you started off at full throttle. For me, if I were to find my relationships suffering because of my writing, it would be easier to back off on the writing if I’d slowly built up to the point of time that’s causing the problem. If I suddenly immersed myself completely in it, then encountered demands that I pull myself out, I might feel some resentment about that. And that’s not a likely beginning to a repaired relationship.

I suspect that any relationship that the writer expects only the other party to do all the work in sustaining isn’t nearly as strong as it should be, and will likely fall apart one way or another anyway.

Recently a network news producer sent an email to a colleage complaining about a speech President Bush was making. In doing so, he broke one of the basic rules in the communications business:

Never send an email that you wouldn’t mind seeing published on the front page of the New York Times.

In the email, published by the Drudge Report,” the producer says:

“…Bush makes me sick. If he uses the ‘mixed messages’ line one more time, I’m going to puke.”

It’s a sentiment no doubt shared by plenty of people, regardless of their political party these days. But the Drudge Report then makes this claim:

“The blunt comments by Green, along with other emails obtained by the DRUDGE REPORT, further reveal the inner workings of the nation’s news outlets.”

Come again?

The inner workings of the nation’s news outlets? From that email and the follow-up messages the producer sent to his staff apologizing for the attention the first email caused?

Wait a second. This is carrying things a bit far.

Just because the members of the media are payed to be objective, that doesn’t mean that they are not allowed to have their own opinion. We all enter into everything with our own prejudices. Journalists are trained to be objective, regardless of any preconceived notions. What’s more important than opinion, always, is fact. All of those who work in the media know that.

Far less than showing the “inner workings” of the national media, this email actually only shows that the journalist in question happens to be human.

Regardless of whether this producer is sick of hearing that one line, that doesn’t automatically make him a John Kerry Democrat. I suspect that there are plenty of Republicans who are sick of hearing what Bush has been saying lately, too; otherwise one might expect his approval rating to more closely resemble the percentage of votes he received in 2004.

No one ever says in journalism school that when you agree to enter the field, you are prohibited from voting, from being a private citizen or from having your own opinion. What we are told, on the contrary, is that you check that opinion at the door when you’re covering a story.

There seems to be neither direct proof offered that the producer’s opinion led him to stand at the helm of a slanted piece, nor any evidence that this producer has distinguished himself with a history of having reporters working under him skewer the president at every turn.

Surely those who like to take every opportunity to blame the media aren’t willing to make the same kind of “leap of faith” that they’d condemn the media for making, right?

Here’s another of those interesting little quizzes that seem too resistable:

You Are Bud Light

You’re not fussy when it comes to beer. If someone hands it to you, you’ll drink it. In fact, you don’t understand beer snobbery at all. It all tastes the same once you’re drunk! You’re an enthusiastic drinker, and you can often be found at your neighborhood bar. You’re pretty good at holding your liquor too - you’ve had lots of experience.

Actually, I am fussy when it comes to beer: I’m fussy when I have to actually drink it.

I don’t understand beer snobbery, but not because I think it all tastes the same when you’re drunk. Never having been drunk, I have no idea whether that’s true, nor do I care to find out. But I do know that while sober, most beers, no matter how “good” the beers supposedly are, do taste almost exactly the same to me…and I won’t try to describe what that taste reminds me of.

I’m an enthusiastic drinker when it comes to Diet Coke or coffee. When alcohol is what I want, I’ll have a nice Merlot or a rum and Coke. Or, on a rare occasion, I might have a little Bailey’s in my coffee. But that’s about as close as I ever get to being anything close to a “lush.”

I’ve not had experience at holding my liquor because I don’t wish to. Any social settings at which excessive drinking is held up as a legitimate way to have a good time is, to me, social settings at which I do not belong.

Over the years, the Crayola company has introduced a total of 120 colors to crayon boxes. A few names, like “Prussian Blue” and “Indian Red” have been changed at the request of educators to more politically-correct names like “Midnight Blue” and “Chestnut.” In 1962, “Flesh” became “Peach.” In 2000, “Torch Red” became “Scarlet.”

That should give you enough information to get you ready for this week’s colorful question.

But first, Carly, of “Ellipsis…Suddenly Carly,” who was first to answer last week’s question about dog breeds! Congratulations, Carly!!

On to the challenge!

THIS WEEK’S QUESTION:
Of the Crayola color names not mentioned above, pick up to seven names you think should be scrapped in favor of better, more descriptive, or more creative alternatives. (Feel free to suggest alternatives if you like, but it’s not necessary.)

Either answer the question in a comment or answer it in your journal and include the link in a comment. (To be considered “first to play,” a link must be to the specific entry in which you answered the question.)

My answers:
1. Inchworm (Inchworms come in many colors.)
2. Manatee
3. Beaver
4. Cerise (Why not just “Cherry?” If “Indian Red” and “Prussian Blue” is too confusing, why go with French?)
5. Razzmatazz
6. Timber Wolf (Does this mean brown, gray, silver, white?)
7. Mango Tango

Found this out and about on the blogosphere:

You hate smug people! Smugness is your biggest pet peeve. What with all their thinking they’re so good. They are so self-absorbed, they won’t acknowledge anyone but themselves. Arg. Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Actually, I don’t hate anyone. There are people I like, and people I could do without, but hate is something I don’t believe in because I think it does more damage to the hater than the hated.

Ah, the joys of live television.

You may have heard that a strange thing happened on Headline News earlier this week: an electrical fire broke out while anchors were on the air.

You can see the video of the confusion (though nobody bothered to tilt a camera up at the ceiling to actually show the fire that brought their coverage to a standstill) here.

When watching the video, you can begin to tell during the second voiceover, a story about protests in France, that something is obviously wrong and is distracting the anchors from their scripts.

When a studio light burns out, it is often not the simple flicker that you’re used to from lamps in your house. Sometimes, there is a loud pop. Sometimes, the bulb actually bursts from the heat. That’s something that you just get used to in a television studio. An actual fire isn’t, fortunately, the norm.

What’s your what??

I found this over at Charley’s Courage.

Apparently, one’s philosophies on love can be closely linked with earth elements. Mine turns out to be Water:

Your Love Element Is Water

In love, you connect deeply and commit totally. For you, love is all about taking risks and moving into unknown territory. You attract others with courage and confidence. Your flirting style is defined by your flexibility and ability to adapt. Nurturing and shared learning are the cornerstones of your love life. And while you may jump in to love too quickly, you always come out the wiser for it. You connect best with: Metal Avoid: Earth You And another Water element: will pull each other down into a dark place

So this means that I need to look for happy, shiny, metallic people but at the same time avoid earthlings.

Hmm. Pretty much what I always figured.

Oddly enough, I found a description of someone whose test results indicated that they are a “Metal” person. The description reads:

In love, you inspire and respect your partner. For you, love is all about fusing together for one incredible life experience. You attract others with wit and a bit of flash. Your flirting style is defined by making others want and value you. Greatness and optimism are the cornerstones of your love life. You may let go too easily, but you never get weighed down by your past.

All in all, not a bad-sounding description of someone.

Then I noticed the next line:

You connect best with: Earth

So this quiz wants me to connect with someone who connects best with the very type of person I should avoid??

It may be possible…just slightly possible…that these quizzes designed to help you find the right significant other might not be all they’re cracked up to be.

But I could be wrong…

Three years ago this month, the Dixie Chicks were apologizing for remarks made at a London concert.

Lead singer Natalie Maines previously said she was ashamed that President Bush was from her home state of Texas. The remark led to a firestorm of controversy among country music fans, many of whom are Republican southerners, and many of whom demanded of local radio stations that the Dixie Chicks’ music be pulled off the airwaves.

And now, just when some radio stations are slowly setting aside the “grudge” against the group and are beginning to air their newest single, “Not Ready to Make Nice,” it appears that the apology might not have been so heartfelt.

With lyrics like, “I’m not ready to make nice. I’m not ready to back down. I’m still mad as hell and I don’t have time to go round and round and round,” “How in the world can the words that I said send somebody so over the edge,” and “I made my bed and I sleep like a baby,” it sounds as if the group doesn’t really care what their fans think.

They are perfectly within their right to say (and sing) what they like.

And if fans find the song a difficult pill to swallow, they’re well within their right to demand that the boycott start up all over again.

It’s fine for celebrities to let it all hang out when it comes to their personal beliefs. But when celebrities cross that line, they’re taking a risk. Not everyone who goes to a country music concert wants to participate in an anti-war rally. Some people — this may be hard for you to believe — go to a concert to hear music!

If an outspoken celebrity’s comments put off a large portion of the audience to the point that the celebrity feels compelled to issue anything in the way of an apology to maintain good PR with their fans, it seems a little “flip-floppy” to then produce a song that makes it clear that they don’t care what anyone thinks about their position.

If they were “sleeping like a baby” in the bed they made, they needn’t have apologized to begin with, right? If they didn’t care how people interpreted the comment, there would have been no reason to do anything other than allow the original comment to stand as delivered.

It’s one thing to stick to your guns about something you consider vitally important. But if you express regret for your method, then later take an action that knocks the apology right off the table, what message are you really sending?

In two more weeks, we will have completed the second full year of the “Saturday Six.” Time does fly when you’re having fun.

Last week, the first one to have fun with this weekly feature was Cat of “Sweet Memes,” who was first to play last week. Congratulations, Cat!

Here are this week’s “Saturday Six” questions. Either answer the questions in a comment here, or put the answers in an entry on your journal…but either way, leave a link to your journal so that everyone else can visit! To be counted as “first to play,” you must be the first player to either answer the questions in a comment or to provide a complete link to the specific entry in your journal in which you answer the questions. A link to your journal in general cannot count. Enjoy!

1. How confrontational are you in real life, and how does your real-life persona compare with your blogging persona?

2. Other than the food itself, what makes your favorite restaurant your favorite?

3. You buy an iPod: what’s the first tune you’re likely to put on it?

4. Take this quiz (if you haven’t already!): What’s the most important quality of your (ideal) significant other?

5. If you had to choose one or the other, which would you rather do: hear gossip or be the first to reveal some juicy piece of gossip?

6. READER’S CHOICE QUESTION #85 from Barb: If you had a magic feather (my Daddy Do carries several in his pocket) and this magic feather could make you unbelievably attractive OR unbelievably intelligent, which would you choose, and why?

If you have a Reader’s Choice question you’d like to see asked (and answered), click the e-mail link in my profile and send it to me.

MY ANSWERS:
1. I’m basically not confrontational at all, unless someone confronts me. I generally don’t “call people out” unless they start with me first. When blogging, I’d much rather agree to disagree and get on with things, but if someone has something malicious or dishonest to say about me, I’ll always reserve the right to respond. Generally, when I go into “attack” mode, it’s to attack ideas, not people. But if I’ve been singled out by someone, particularly someone who distorts what I’ve said to a ridiculous point just to ridicule, you can bet I’ll have something to say about that.

2. The people who own it. I know them personally, and they’re great people who believe in being honest, working hard, and treating everyone with respect. Those sentiments permeate every part of the dining experience.

3. “Someone Else for One Day” by Gabriel Mann

4.Kindness

Kindness is most important in a boyfriend/girlfriend. You want someone who will go through everything with you - the best moments and the worst, and all of those other moments in between. You love to be able to say anything to your partner, and have them say anything to you. You are able to be extremely close with your partner for that reason.

5. I’d rather hear it than repeat it. Being a southerner, I do like to know the “dirt” on people, not because I can then have “ammunition,” but because it interests me to know the things that make those around me tick. Knowing a piece of gossip doesn’t automatically mean that you must spread it.

6. I’d choose unbelievably intelligent. In my mind, intelligence is one way in which a person is attractive.

Despite the belief that newspapers will soon be obsolete thanks to cable news and the internet, I can now report that newspapers will never die, and that you can thank television for it.

So says legendary newspaper man Ben Bradlee, vice president of the Washington Post.

In an interview with Editor and Publisher, Bradlee, 84, who still comes to the office every day because, he jokes, his wife wouldn’t tolerate him hanging around the house all day, says that the newspaper “has been and will continue to be the main source of news for television, if you really study it. They process newspapers until they get their own reporters into the story.”

There shouldn’t be any surprise that television newsrooms subscribe to the newspaper. But I doubt that it would be reasonable to suggest that newspaper reporters never watch news on television or online. Different news media rely on each other to continue the story and drum up additional details that weren’t available at the individual medium’s deadline.

Some television news departments work out relationships, formal or not, with local newspapers. It’s not about trying to control what is reported; it’s a matter of working together to get the facts out sooner. And even without such collaboration, I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve seen local newspapers add a line in a news story that “local television station WXXX-TV is reporting that….”

There’s give and take. But there’s give and take in both directions.

And though in some ways print and broadcast journalism compete with each other, they’re not each other’s enemy: rarely does a news consumer only use one or the other without sampling some of both.

If newspapers are to continue long into the future, and I think they will, it will be because of the content they publish and how well they serve their subscribers, no matter what field in which those readers happen to work.