June 23, 2004
stormy stelmo
driving back from downtown this morning lookout mountain was shrouded in a dense layer of fog and clouds (is there a difference?). it always looks very strange to me when this happens because you can't see how tall it is. without being able to see the top it feels as though it could be the base of an enormous mountain. this was basically shot from the hip while i was driving which is why its so crooked and looks to me like news footage from a coastal city during hurricane season.
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well, thanks to numerous complaints to the regal cinemas headquarters, it looks like we'll be getting Fahrenheit 9/11 here at the mall. this film is causing quite a stir in just about every media outlet i've come across. moore claims that this is his most factual film to date, seeing as he's taking on the president of the united states. i'm actually willing to believe that he's tried much harder this time around to cross his t's and dot his i's (as opposed to the sloppy scholarship of bowling for columbine), but i'm more worried about is his tone. its not that i agree or disagree with moore so much as i wish he'd attempt to present his arguments in a manner that might actually be compelling to someone who disagrees with him. as it is i feel that he spends most of his energy preaching to the choir - and the last thing we need is the extreme left and right becoming more entrenched in their own ideologies. not that the conservatives aren't doing the same thing though.
on a radically different note, this is an interesting article from joelonsoftware.com. those of you not in the IT industry may want to skip it, but i often find that joel does a pretty good job of connecting fundamental truths about coding to fundamental truths about life. an excerpt to hook you:
When I was an Israeli paratrooper a general stopped by to give us a little speech about strategy. In infantry battles, he told us, there is only one strategy: Fire and Motion. You move towards the enemy while firing your weapon. The firing forces him to keep his head down so he can't fire at you. The motion allows you to conquer territory and get closer to your enemy, where your shots are much more likely to hit their target. If you're not moving, the enemy gets to decide what happens, which is not a good thing. If you're not firing, the enemy will fire at you, pinning you down... I remembered this for a long time. I noticed how almost every kind of military strategy, from air force dogfights to large scale naval maneuvers, is based on the idea of Fire and Motion. It took me another fifteen years to realize that the principle of Fire and Motion is how you get things done in life. You have to move forward a little bit, every day...more
Posted by andy at June 23, 2004 10:55 AMp.j. o'rourke (as my bookcase will attest) is one of my favorite writers. thank you for the link. he's actually preaching to the choir (me) with the points raised in his article. annoying response-inducing blog question #456,765: aren't all articles by all writers "preaching to the choir" on some level?
anyway, i've had the same thoughts about talk radio. that's why i try to staff our paper with the biggest range of people i can find. and that's why i like them to argue amongst themselves. even if they don't know i want them to. moderation is the key to everything, including "truth"--whatever you may deem that to be.
Posted by: bcolrus at June 23, 2004 01:29 PMwell, bill, i'd actually disagree with you about your "preaching to the choir" statement ("aren't all articles by all writers "preaching to the choir" on some level?"). oh, and just to clarify, the link to the o'rourke article was because i liked what he said, not because i thought he was preaching to the choir too.
but what i mean about disagreeing with you is that no, not all writing is preaching to the choir - that is, making controversial statements to people they know already agree with them. as o'rourke says, "Arguing, in the sense of attempting to convince others, seems to have gone out of fashion with everyone." what i appreciate is when someone presents a winsome and persuasive argument for something he/she knows i disagree about but cares enough to want me to consider changing my views. unfortunately the only views that michael moore is going to change are those who are uninformed and unwilling to do any of the work on their own. (also unforutnately, i am often in that category myself.) but to me that seems more like trickery than persuasion and it seems kind of lazy on everyone's part. granted, the good thing that comes of all this is a lot of dialogue, which moore is very successful at achieving - example number 1, this blog - and perhaps, in the end, that's all he wants.
Posted by: andy at June 23, 2004 01:46 PM"preaching to the choir" re: O'Rourke's article...
P.j. is "preaching to the choir" to me, personally, because a) i simply liked the article and b) because i've had similar thoughts recently, which -- kinda like inspired religious preaching -- makes it seem as if he's speaking DIRECTLY to me.
i think most articles will have a very (even if small) percentage (an audience) of readers who agree greatly with the points raised, i.e. a "choir." Even writing that writes against "preaching to the choir" is actually "preaching to the choir" just the same...albeit a different one, one that is interested, perhaps, in debate/free dialogue/argument instead of simply "Left vs. Right" and being blindly correct about it.
IMO, there is no point in entering a debate unless you've done your homework, which in this day and age of vicious, partisan, deceitful "choirs" on all sides, is actually getting harder and harder to do. People's desires outweigh objectvity more often than not. It's a shame. And a shame I'm often guilty of.
As far as Moore is concerned, he's pretty clear. He wants Bush out. He doesn't want us debating things. If we did, less people would take him seriously.
What are we talking about again? Andy, you should make me take a drug test before I post on here again.
There is a simple point. If you are psuhing truth, you have a right to say something. If you are pushing something else, a lie, an agenda, a point of view, you should lose credibilty. Truth is the issue. Micheal Moore is not pushing truth but an agenda. Due to sin, man does not know truth without God. No God, no capacity to see truth so guys like Micheal Moore and the media define truth. Satan convinnces you not to pursue truth-GOd and therefore seeking the validity of what Moore says. Then you are left to the mercies of the world defining truth for you. O'Rourke's statement about our lives being too busy to investigate truth is telling. A reality we have been dealing with since the Fall. Without Sin, Adam and Eve could pursue truth and nothing else. After the Fall we gave up on God's provision and pursued our own ideas of provision leaving no time to pursue truth which is all we had to do in Eden. If you do not beleive me, answer me this question? If you are not doing deveotins on a daily basis what is the primary reason. Time, no time no truth and then you are bucket ready to be filled.
Pretty good for a UF grad. It's Pretty cool trying to hang with the thinkers.
Posted by: Dan at June 24, 2004 10:27 AMwhat?
if we traced every argument back to adam and eve, we'd never get anywhere.
also, michael moore is the definition of winsome.
lose some.
(i wince at my own bad pun.)
-j
I don't even know what winsome means
Posted by: Dan at June 24, 2004 12:47 PMOmg thats right! Please come see me and my friends! ;)
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