I was watching an old episode of “What’s My Line?” and the sponsor was Kellogg’s. That got me thinking about this week’s question.

But first, Philip Howard, of “No Pun at All!,” was first to answer last week’s question about the most important technical innovations of the past 25 years. Congratulations, Philip, and welcome to the Sunday Seven!

On to the newest challenge!

THIS WEEK’S QUESTION:
Name up to seven breakfast cereals that you enjoy now or when you were little.

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. Raisin Bran
2. Grape Nuts
3. Life
4. Corn Flakes
5. Rice Crispies
6. Fruit Loops
7. Apple Jacks (I know I ate them when I was very young, but I don’t know why!)

I recently wrote a bit about treating others with respect, even if you disagree with opinions they have or positions they take.

When it comes to writing, treating others with respect strikes me more as not wanting to burn bridges. Why would a writer want to anger a potential reader, a potential agent, or a potential publisher? I don’t have an answer for that question, but I see some writers who get a rejection, one way or another, and seem to go ballistic about it. It seems the possibility that their writing might actually be the problem that caused the rejection doesn’t enter into their minds.

Sometimes, I wish I was confident enough in my own writing to be able to comfortably presume that anyone who doesn’t like a story I’ve finished must be out of their mind, because clearly anything I write must be the greatest thing ever committed to paper.

Then I smack myself and I quickly snap out of it.

During a recent blog-jog, I came across “How to Make Friends and Win Over People,” a post written by Jason Sizemore, the publisher and managing editor of Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest. Sizemore has suggestions for writers who are hoping to make a sale with editors, the main one being to behave like a professional.

Then, the responses begin. One writer, whose story was apparently rejected by Sizemore and who made reference to the quality of the magazine’s content following that rejection, weighs in. And the string of comments takes on that train wreck quality: it gets very, very bad, but no matter how hard you try, you just can’t make yourself turn away!

Eventually, one other commenter advises — no, she begs — the writer to stop.

I suspect that the writer — whoever he is — enjoyed dropping insults on everyone. But the way he seems to revel in his insults seems to suggest two things: first, he’s comfortable with the fact that Sizemore will never publish anything he submits again; and second, he must be convinced that editors never, ever talk to other editors so he’s safe in heaping insults on this one editor because no one else who might be in a position to buy from him will ever know.

And if he really is as good a writer as he seems to think he is, the readers have as much to lose as he does. Unfortunate on all sides.

In response to my last post, I received a few comments that I wanted to address here. The first comes from Dave:

Great post. But I think in the end I have to disagree with your main premise. Reacting violently to someone elses practice of free speech should never be tolerated. And I know you agree that any crime committed by those angered should be punished, but you also seem to imply that, for instance, the flag burners kinda knew they had it coming. It’s akin to the rape victim who is blamed for the crime committed against her.

Freedom of speech should be honored and respected.

Freedom of speech should, indeed, be honored and respected. I’ve never argued otherwise. I do agree, without any hesitation, that any crime committed by those angered by someone else’s right to express themselves should be punished. But if anyone read my post, somehow missed each of the times that I said that the targets of such crimes would not deserve to be targeted, and finished that post seriously believing that I was trying to say that those who make the initial action did deserve what they get, those folks would, in my opinion, belong to the group I mentioned who do not know me as well as they think they do.

Looking at the example Dave cited, I do not think that the flag burners would have deserved to have been attacked. (I think I said that.) I do not think that their attackers would have the right to attack them. (I know I said that.) I do not assume that the flag burners would know that they “had it coming.” My point was, simply, that while they had the right to express themselves the way they did, an alternate method that might not have created such deep reactions beyond whatever point they were trying to make might avoid the hypothetical attack I suggested.

Regardless of the fact that comparing an apparent reprisal for vitriolic posts to a woman getting raped is comparing apples to asparagus, I would like to take it for granted that Dave doesn’t really think that I’d suggest that a rape victim deserved to be raped. But just in case, let me put it this way: there is nothing a woman can do that would make her deserving of being raped. I’ll repeat: there is nothing a woman can do — nothing at all — that would justify someone raping her.

(If anyone needs me to repeat that a third time, perhaps in larger, red, bold type, just let me know.)

At the same time, anyone who thinks that I meant otherwise also objects when law enforcement officers warn women to watch their drinks in bars so that no one can introduce a chemical that might make her more easily victimized. Keeping an eye on your drink so that a predator cannot slip a date-rape drug into it while you’re not looking is similar to being respectful of others when you write online: it will not guarantee that you won’t become a victim of someone else’s felonious acts, but it also will not give someone who might commit the act anyway a more convenient reason to target you.

There are still people who go to bed and rest quite well while leaving their front doors unlocked. Some people leave their cars unlocked with the keys in the ignition. If someone walks into their home and robs them, or steals their car, it is unreasonable to suggest that the victim of the crime deserved it; it is not unreasonable to suggest, however, that they were the enabler for the criminal who committed the act to do so more easily. The criminal might still have broken into their home or stolen their car even if security alarms, motion-sensing light systems and armed guards were all present; but common sense dictates that we take some precautions to at least make it harder for criminals to have the advantage.

To that same degree, the effort to be respectful of others with whom you might disagree might help avoid angering a reader — or a friend of a reader, or a friend of a friend, etc. — to the point that they might go even farther off the deep end than you went to begin with. It won’t guarantee that outcome, but it might help prevent it.

To my remark that on the internet, the rule of physics dictating that every action produces an equal and opposite reaction does not always apply, Shelly said:

“Psychology should not be confused with physics. People don’t obey physical ‘laws.’ Human reactions come as much out of their perceptions as the stimulus itself.

“Of course, there is no one psychological theory, either, from behaviorists who look at the reaction and don’t consider the intent behind it to various other schools that try to probe deep into the psyche, such as Freudians.

“It’s the wide range of human behavior/reactions, that makes us so fascinating to study, because not everyone perceives or understands things the same way and likely never will.”

That Dave might suggest, even if he were joking, that what I was saying in that post was in any way akin to the ridiculous suggestion that a woman who is raped must deserve what happened to her serves as a quick proof to the validity of Shelly’s statement. If it was his perception that I intended to portray a rape victim as being “deserving” of what happened to her, then it is clear that what he read was far different from what I intended to convey. As he is the only person who has indicated that they think I meant to suggest such a thing, it’s possible that only he interpreted my post in this manner. Regardless, Shelly is quite right: Not everyone understands the same thing the same way.

You must decide for yourself whether speaking your mind in an intentionally-offensive way is worth the potential backlash that may arise. If you’re responsible, you make that determination before you say what you want to say, and if you decide that the potential price is too high, it might not be a bad idea to consider a different tack.

Karen, I think, summed up best my feelings on dealing with opposing views:

“What it comes down to for me is a very basic principle: people should treat each other with compassion and respoct. They may strongly disagree with each other’s politics, sexual orientation, religion, fashion sense, and or what-have-you, and protest, argue against or mock the other person’s position. But the PERSON should always be respected, even if the position is not.

“And once we get that far, we should probably also take the next step, and consider whether the other side of the issue has some validity after all. Maybe it doesn’t, and we don’t necessarily need to rehash the question every time. But we shouldn’t just assume the other guy is always wrong.”

It is my goal, when I bring up a topic here, to respect people, even if I attack their viewpoints or their arguments. An easy example that comes to mind is Cindy Sheehan. I have stated repeatedly that Sheehan has every right to speak out against the war. I do respect her for having the courage to make her feelings known. At the same time, I have attacked her argument that she wanted to meet with the president, a man who she considers to be a liar, to get the truth about why we’re in Iraq, because logically, that argument doesn’t hold water: if you don’t trust him, you don’t trust him, so why pretend that though you believe that he’s willing to lie to the world, he’d suddenly be honest with you on a one-on-one basis? But that’s just one quick example. I try my best to show respect to people, even if I question their motivation or the logic of the position they have taken.

We are a country divided. The most striking poll statistic released in the past week wasn’t that Bush’s approval rating has dropped again to 36%, but that Congress’s approval rating is down to 22%! The poll revealed that 44% of Americans say they’re sick of Republicans and Democrats arguing and 36% say that they feel that Congress never gets anything accomplished.

It’s not surprising statistic if you look at the political “debate” that occurs: we can’t discuss any topic without it becoming a personal attack. If you don’t believe that, visit any blog devoted to one side of the political spectrum or the other: both sides are equally guilty. We seem incapable of discussing an issue these days without filling our discussion with hate-speak or attacks on our opponents. And when we do that, the issue itself gets lost in the one-upping.

How many people were infuriated when Bush made it clear that his philosophy was that you’re either with us or against us? And how many of them treat their opponents the same way when they’re arguing? That’s why so little is getting done these days: we focus so much attention on the way we attack each other that it doesn’t much matter what the argument is about, so long as we’re entertained by the barbs. And yet I think most of us would agree that when someone calls us some bad name because of some position we take, our natural response isn’t to suddenly be open-minded about that person’s argument.

So, no, I don’t mean to suggest that anyone who is a victim of crime deserves to have had a crime committed against them. I do suggest that sometimes, we make ourselves an unnecessarily obvious target for people who are willing to go to any length to have their way.

And still I wonder why we’d want to do that.

Here we go with another edition of six questions!

Last week, Carly of “Ellipsis…Suddenly Carly” was first to play last week for the third week in a row! Congratulations, Carly!

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. What new piece of technology have you resisted buying and what would it take for you to change your mind?

2. If someone was to go through a closet of your old clothes, what clothing style would you find most embarrassing?

3. The movie United 93 opened this week to controversies over whether or not it is too soon or not to deal with the events of September 11th. Do you have any desire to see this movie? Why or why not?

4. Take the quiz: How Class Works Without getting specific about any of the actual results, which category hurts you the most, and which helps you the most?

5. Of the results you got in the last question, which one was the biggest surprise and why?

6. READER’S CHOICE QUESTION #89 from Jamilynn: What is your favorite article of clothing? Is there a story behind it?

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

MY ANSWERS:

1. The most important technology I’ve resisted buying so far is a hybrid car. I do plan on buying a hybrid for my next vehicle, but so far, the costs have been too high to seriously consider one just now, even with the higher price of gas. Fortunately, I live less than two miles from work, so I don’t do a great deal of driving, anyway.

2. Probably the plaids. I remember a pair of blue and red plaid pants…yikes!

3. I don’t think it’s too soon, since we’re coming up on the fifth anniversary. I will probably see it by the time it comes out on DVD, but I doubt that I’d pay to see it in the theater.

4. “Wealth” hurts the most. (No surprise there.) “Education” helps the most.

5. The biggest surprise is the notion that having graduated from college places me at the 91st percentile, or within the top fifth. I guess I just expected that there were more college graduates than there actually are.

6. I really don’t have a favorite piece of clothing. The closest I could think of is the tie I was wearing when I had the chance to go behind the scenes at “The Price is Right” and tour Rodeo Drive and parts of Beverly Hills, although the tie itself had nothing to do with any of that…it just happened to be around my neck at the time.

I hate writing exercises.

No, you don’t understand. I genuinely hate being handed a writing assignment at a workshop and being asked to write something on the fly. I hate it more than getting up early, eating rutabegas, or going to the dentist.

Okay, so I don’t hate them more than going to the dentist, but they rank right up there.

The reason I hate them is simple: I want to write what I want to write, when I want to write it, in the specific way I want to write it. I don’t want someone else giving me an assignment, no matter how infinitely more-knowledgeable they happen to be about how to write. This is one of those areas that I know I need to work on, but also one of those areas in which my inner “control freak” likes to kick in.

One of the workshops I wanted to attend at Ravencon was called “Writing the Hook.” The description warned participants to bring their writing materials because they’d be expected to produce the all-important hook for a novel or short story.

So I promptly cheated. The night before, I re-wrote the prologue for my novel, making some adjustments — most of them minor — that I’d been contemplating for a couple of weeks. The next morning, I walked into the boardroom, where there was no sign of Donald Trump, with my pre-written assignment in tow. I was ready.

The workshop was led by novelist Allen Wold, an entertaining and engaging speaker, who remarked that the description of the workshop wasn’t entirely correct. In ten minutes, we were going to write the hook for a new short story. Within 100 words or fewer, we had to create a character, a setting, a situation and a compelling reason for the reader to want to continue.

Curses! Foiled again!

I could have just written down the first 100 words or so from the prologued I’d smuggled in, but since it’s the hook for a novel, it’s longer than 100 words. (Most novel hooks are closer to about three pages on average.)

So I was forced to come up with Plan B on the fly. Remember how much I said I hate writing exercises? Coming up with “Plan B on the fly” is only about two or three steps below writing exercises on my personal enjoyment scale.

I thought about a short story that I had recently worked on, and specifically about the opening scene that I wasn’t thoroughly happy with. So, very aware of the ticking clock, I started writing. And I realized that what I was putting on the page didn’t seem so bad. Allen and the other moderators assured us all that they’d be merciful when it came time to give their comments about what we’d written: “It’s your first draft. It’s going to be very rough,” he said.

I was also very aware of that phenomenon many writers have to deal with: the idea that whatever they have written, no matter how bad it really is, is the greatest thing in the world because they’re so close to it. I don’t think that I’ve suffered from that phenomenon to a great degree because I think I’m more the opposite: I dread others reading what I’ve written out of the sheer fear that they’ll ball up the pages and throw them at me, laughing as they yell, “You want to be a novelist? Are you kidding??” I think I’ve had a couple of nightmares to that effect, in fact. I’m sure that other writers feel this way, but they don’t admit it nearly as often as I’d like.

On the other hand, if I was enveloped in such a rose-colored glasses perspective with regard to the 100 words I was writing, I would naturally be the last one to know. So I just tried to write what I’d want to read, a technique I try to keep in mind no matter what I happen to be writing.

At the end of the ten minutes, we were required to read what we’d come up with out loud, and the panelists would then offer critique, criticism, and suggestions for improvements. I was about the fifth or sixth person to read mine, and shortly before it was my turn, Terry Brooks entered the room and asked to sit in on the exercise.

So I read my short story hook, trying to pretend that there were no pro writers in the room. After the deed was done, I took a deep breath and waited for the laughing and finger pointing. Much to my surprise, the response was quite positive. The worst thing said about what I’d come up with cold was said by Wold himself: “You don’t quite have a hook, yet, but you have a strong barb and I’d definitely keep reading.”

Brooks suggested one minor change that might add to the tension. It’s a suggestion that I think would work very well with the scenario I’d created. (And after all, when a novelist of Brooks’s success makes a suggestion, you’re an idiot if you don’t at least give it serious consideration!)

Maybe these writing exercises aren’t so bad after all.

This is one of those posts that almost didn’t happen. I debated over and over again over what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it, why I wanted to say it and whether I should say anything. Ultimately, I decided there is an important point — a cautionary tale, actually — that I think bloggers and their readers can’t be reminded of enough.

A while back, I read a newspaper story about the funeral of an American soldier killed in Iraq which was interrupted by a group of ultra-conservative Christians who were protesting this country’s growing acceptance of homosexuals. Though they gave no indication that they thought the deceased soldier was a homosexual, they chose to protest at the funeral of this soldier, and many others, in order to send a message that because we are turning away from God’s supposed hatred of homosexuals by being more tolerant of them, God is, in turn, punishing us by allowing our soldiers to be killed in a war.

For the purposes of the point I want to make with this vignette, I will resist the temptation to shoot down the protestors’ rationale…and there are plenty of holes to be exposed.

No matter how you feel about the war, our soldiers, religion, tolerance or homosexuality, set all of that aside for a moment and consider this one concept: free speech.

The protesters had a right to protest and speak their minds. Though they could have, out of common decency, found a different way and a more appropriate place and time to make their voices heard, they still had a right to be there. The family members and friends of the decedent did not have the right — and I don’t recall reading that any even attempted — to go up to the protesters and punch their collective lights out.

But it wouldn’t take a visionary to imagine that as being a possible outcome of a protest about homosexuality taking place at the funeral of a soldier who was in no way connected to the practice thereof.

Here’s another example, this one completely fictional: a group of angry citizens who are fed up over taxes might decide to burn the American flag. Unfortunately, burning the flag is legal. If they were do so in proximity to veterans who possessed a strong sense of patriotism, the veterans might stage their own protest, or they might egg the cars of the flag burners. They would have the right to do the former, but not the latter.

Still, these are outcomes of the exercise of free speech that are easy to imagine.

But who do you blame in such scenarios? Well, the easy answer is that you blame the person who committed the illegal act. There’s no question about that.

The question that does remain, however, is whether or not the blame might be shared in any degree at all by the person who chose the specific way to speak his or her mind that led others to the outrageous behavior. The Christians who wanted to protest the growing tolerance of homosexuals in this country could just have easily have chosen to do so on their church’s grounds, rather than at the funeral of a soldier who had nothing whatsoever to do with homosexuality but rather served as an unwitting pawn in their agenda. Had they been attacked, their attackers would have been guilty, regardless. But they might have avoided such a reaction, if one had occurred, by making an attempt to be sensitive to the feelings of those they would encounter at that specific venue and staging their protest elsewhere.

What they actually did encounter, according to the article, is an opposing group that sends their own message to counter them. While both groups have the right to be there, one might expect that a sense of decency would have them make their statements elsewhere for the sake of the deceased’s loved ones who have far more personal feelings to deal with than homosexuality at that moment.

In my other fictional example, the flag burning tax protestors might have avoided damage to their cars had their protest included placards denouncing taxes rather than the burning of the American flag. Those who damaged the cars of the protestors would be guilty of a crime; those whose protest enraged them to the point of breaking the law might also have had an indirect hand in bringing about this outcome not by their message but by the specific way in which it was delivered.

It’s important to note that in each case, the people who spoke their minds might still have been the target of those who would break the law to silence them. But some actions will rile this kind of person more effectively and more quickly than others.

It goes back to what I’ve said before about the consequences of speaking one’s mind. There’s that basic law of physics that tells us that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The internet, unfortunately, seems to be immune to this basic law of existence. Sometimes, the reactions are equal and opposite; other times, they are completely outrageous in comparison to the action that prompted them. The longer you have a presence on the web, the more clear this should become.

A blogger with whom I have disagreed on a variety of topics has recently taken down his blog. Elsewhere, it has been suggested that this decision came after some online stalkers sent harrassing emails to him and somehow threatened his family. Because he made a few vitriolic posts about me in the past, you might expect that I’m glad to find out that his journal has been taken down.

If you do have that expectation, you obviously do not know me as well as you think you do, because I’m not happy about it. Those who disagree with him are perfectly within their rights to debate him, on their respective blogs or on his. Anyone who crosses the line of harrassment or threatens his family’s security is committing an act that is as inexcusable as it is illegal.

I assume that the blogger in question no longer reads this blog, and I’m fine with that. After all, I was the one who suggested that if he found what I had to say as repugnant as his rants seemed to suggest, he was best served by no longer reading it; I wasn’t going to change my opinions just to make him happy, nor would he adjust his beliefs just to please me.

In any case, it would be an unnecessary gesture on my part to attempt to send him a message anyway, because though I feel bad for him and his family that he is dealing with people who have taken an apparent disagreement, real or invented, to an unreasonable extreme — and I do feel bad for them — he has made it more than clear in the past that he doesn’t give a damn what I think, even taking the step after our very first debate more than a year ago to block my ability to send him an email. So this isn’t for him.

The purpose of this post isn’t to gloat. Nor is it to imply for a moment that I think I’ve always managed to write something without offending anyone or being unfair. My point here is merely to remind my readers that sometimes, keeping your opinions to yourself isn’t a bad idea. A long time ago, I quoted the late John Charles Daly, news commentator and moderator of the original “What’s My Line?” who once said:

“The art of conversation lies not only in saying the right thing at the right time, but in leaving unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.”

Daly was absolutely right about that. But beyond saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, there’s a danger in saying something the wrong way at the tempting moment. You can debate all day with someone who is willing to discuss something. But when you have people who, for whatever reason, won’t debate and won’t consider other people’s feelings, perspectives or life experiences as anything other than wrong, they’re not out to discuss anything: they’re demagoguing. And sometimes, unfortunately, that behavior draws the crazies out of the woodwork.

My boss has a great saying that I have posted in my office:

“You can’t argue with crazy.”

And it’s true. You can’t. You only can do your best to defend against it. Does it mean that we should all shut down our blogs or stop talking about our own personal opinions? No, but it does mean that at least every once and a while, we should be willing to consider that we’re not automatically right, no matter how right we think we are, and that other people, even those who disagree with us the most, might still be decent people who just think differently, and are therefore deserving of respect and compassion, not just scorn and disdain.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that you would treat everyone with respect and still attract the unwelcome attention of a crazy person. But there are no guarantees in anything. If you’re careful with matches, there’s at least a lot less of a chance that you’ll get burned than if you constantly play with fire. And as others — including the person whose blog has gone missing — have pointed out in the past, being disrespectful to others hurts you as much as it hurts your target.

As readers of blogs, we should also keep in mind when we read of someone we like having a disagreement with someone else, that both parties have their own side of the issue. If you side with a blogger because you admire or respect them, you’re also making a leap of faith that the blogger you’re supporting isn’t leaving out any important details that might sink their own case. Sometimes, when this happens, it’s very obvious. But not always.

In such cases, whether you suspect there’s some details missing, it’s not unreasonable to show your support or to disagree with your friend on the points that have been raised. But it’s always unreasonable to go after the other person without bothering to hear their side first. It’s also always unreasonable to threaten someone’s safety. Always.

Maybe some people take those reality shows in which the unpopular can be quickly “voted off” a little too seriously. But the truth is, there should be room for everybody in the blogosphere, whether you happen to agree with them or not.

I stepped out onto my patio a couple of days ago to water some plants and I noticed straw in the patio chair. The amount of it suggested that it couldn’t have been blown in by the wind. I looked up over the chair and found a bird’s nest over the light fixture.

I carefully stood on the chair and peered inside: no eggs.

This morning, I was going to walk out onto the patio and have a cup of coffee. As I opened the blinds, I glanced up at the nest and found that it no longer had a vacancy!

Over the span of a couple of minutes, I slowly slid the glass door and screen open…a little at a time…so as not to stress out the mother Robin who seemed to have no intention of abandoning her eggs. The picture isn’t great, but I’ll try to get more over the next couple of days.

This week’s Round Robin Photo Challenge is “Holy.” I took a trip a few months ago out to Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetary, a cemetary that dates back to the middle of the 19th century.

Many of the monuments feature elaborate designs, which suggest that many of those laid to rest there had lots of money. Indeed, the cemetary is the final resting place of U.S. presidents James Monroe and John Tyler, Civil War General J.E.B. Stuart, and former Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

There are many depictions of angels throughout the park. I think this one, which sits atop a family’s crypt, is one of my favorites.

It’s an incredible place to walk around and reflect on life, death and rebirth. If you’re ever in Virginia’s capital, and you’re interested in historic places, Hollywood cemetary is definitely a destination to consider.

Many people on both sides of the political spectrum cannot wait to hear of a reporter being interviewed on a talk show so that they can try to look for any indication of bias on the reporter’s part. If they get the prize they so desperately seek, they use this information as but their latest condemnation of the media.

Their presumption is, of course, that any reporter who is biased with his personal views cannot possibly deliver a fair and balanced report in his professional life.

Does that presumption hold water? Let’s take a closer look, shall we?

Not once in my fifteen years in television have I ever encountered any reporter who was made to take an oath not to have an opinion on anything. (And though I’m behind the camera now, my first full-time job in the media was as a reporter.) The very idea of such an oath of indifference is laughable. What human is incapable of forming (or having) an opinion?

One of the first things done by those who complain about reports they consider biased is to encourage their audience to seek more information on the subject of the questionable report. They warn their audience not to trust the word of the reporter they are villifying, because since the reporter is biased, nothing they say can be trusted as being the truth. The only certainty in the eyes of the critics seems to be that any reporter who reports a story that points to a truth other than the one they have embraced must be biased. That the reporter might be accurate seems never to be an option in their minds.

What the media’s critics don’t want you to remember is that regardless of a reporter’s personal views, it’s his job to keep them from interfering with his work. There are failures in this noble effort, to be sure. But I do not believe for a moment that the failures come anywhere near outnumbering the successes.

Here is where the Great Bias Paradox comes into play: if bias alone is a reason to discredit anything the person who is biased would say, even if that person is trained to be impartial, then how can a reader reasonably be expected to trust a critic who makes no bones about being biased himself and has no job requirement of presenting a fair view of their opposing side?

If, for example, you are a right-wing extremist who believes that the current administration can do no wrong, and you spend all of your time ridiculing the other side with great delight, and you write a scathing rant about a reporter you consider biased and therefore not worthy of your reader’s attention, you, because of your own bias, are simultaneously throwing away any possible credibility for your own views.

Again, I’m not trying to portray the media as being incapable of failure. But news consumers should not lose sight of the fact that those who scream the loudest about bias might just have their own axes to grind. If we’re going to watch for hidden agendas, it would do us no harm to keep in mind that the watchers have their agendas as well.

Sorry for the lateness of the hour. I was detained at work getting ready for May Sweeps which, regrettably, begin this Thursday. I do take comfort in knowing that as I post this, it is still Tuesday in Hawaii.

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.

Last week, Wil of “The Daily Snooze” made sure he wasn’t napping when the Tuesday Two first appeared, because he was first to answer last week’s question about mind reading. Congratulations, Wil!

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

THIS WEEK’S TOPIC: DISEASE

QUESTION A:
What disease or illness are you most afraid of and what made you become afraid of it?

or

QUESTION B:
You are given the power to eliminate one specific disease. (For example, you can’t say simply “Cancer;” you’d have to narrow it to a specific type of cancer.) Which disease would you eliminate 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 B: I’d eliminate ALS, a debilitating disease for which there is currently no cure at all.

Have you ever looked at a piece of technology and kicked yourself for not coming up with the idea yourself? Techies will enjoy this week’s question.

But first, Cat, of “Sweet Memes,” was first to answer last week’s question about languages you’d like to be able to speak fluently. Congratulations, Cat.

On to the newest challenge!

THIS WEEK’S QUESTION:
CNN recently ranked the top 25 innovations of the past quarter century. Their list can be found by scrolling down in the article on their webpage. What would your top seven innovations be? Do you agree with their top seven, or would you have a different take? Remember, we’re talking about innovations of the past twenty-five years ago.

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. Personal Computers
2. Internet
3. Fiber Optics
4. Cell phones
5. Doppler Radar
6. DNA Fingerprinting
7. Hybrid Cars

I just spent the weekend at Ravencon 2006, a convention for writers and fans of science fiction, fantasy and horror held here in Richmond.

For a first-time convention, I thought that things went remarkably well. I remarked to Michael Pederson, the convention chair and publisher of Nth Degree, that it certainly didn’t feel like it was the first one.

One of the highlights for me was receiving some feedback on the hook of a short story from novelist Terry Brooks. (The feedback was positive, which was a bonus!)

The nice thing I enjoy about writing conventions like this is the opportunity to interact with people who have fought the good fight and have ended up with their name in print the right way. One can read over and over again what you should or shouldn’t do, which varies greatly depending on who you ask. But I like to be able to sit down with writers who’ve been published and find out what they did, and to hear the stories of things that went wrong, which often get left out of “success stories.”

I’ll have some posts in the coming weeks about some of the topics discussed. I hope you’ll find them as interesting as I did.

Sorry for the late posting on this week’s set. I’ve been at a weekend writing conference, which I’ll blog about later.

Last week, Carly of “Ellipsis…Suddenly Carly” was again first to play last week. Carly also became the “first to play on the second time around” for the sixth edition of the Saturday Six, which can be found here. Congratulations, Carly!

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. What food do you most enjoy cooking? How many people have you cooked this dish for?

2. If you could go behind the scenes at any television show to get a look at how things worked, which show would you choose and why?

3. Besides your bed, what’s the easiest place in your home for you to take a nap? When was the last time you fell asleep there?

4. Take the quiz: What time of day are you? (Found at Shelly’s Cyber Chocolate.)

5. What time of year do you usually read the most books?

6. READER’S CHOICE QUESTION #89 from Jamilynn: What is your favorite article of clothing? Is there a story behind it?

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

From John Scalzi’s “By The Way…:”

Weekend Assignment #107: Which recent piece of technology would you miss the most if it suddenly disappeared tomorrow? By “recent,” I mean in the last two decades or so.

What I think I’d miss the most is the internet. For most of the popular gadgets like digital cameras, iPods, or cell phones, there are less “high-tech” alternatives. But the internet gives complete strangers the chance to get to know each other and form something in the way of friendships in ways that might otherwise not exist. And, as much of a distraction as it can be, there are interesting people and places to visit online that you’d probably never see in person.

Extra Credit: If you were cut off from the Internet (like, say, me), how long would it take for you to go completely insane?

It would take me all of about a single afternoon to begin some sort of withdrawl, although it would be mild at first. But in my case, since my telephone service, internet and cable television come through the same line, the loss of one would probably mean the simultaneous interruption of all three.

I would not be a happy camper.

The Carillon was erected in 1931 in memory of those who died in World War I.

At the time, perhaps people thought that WWI would be the worst war they would ever see. If only that could have been true.