Doin' some readin'

I found this really cool site last night while looking up cyberpunk. It seems like there's just layers upon layers of goodness here. For instance, in the introduction to cyberpunk, there were links to explanations of postmodrenism, transhuminism, and nihlism, not to mention steampunk, cyberpunk fashion, and a college course on cyberpunk. Tres cool! In my recent reading about blogs, it seems to me that some people consider blogs more the province of experts on a particular topic rather than a soapbox for everyman. I find this disturbing since one of the emerging trends of our increasingly technological society is to try to put basic technology in the hands of as many people as possible. I'd imagine the people (really, corporations) with real money backing these sorts of efforts are generally in hot pursuit of the bottom line. Technology may equal effiency in their minds, though not necessarially in practice. Other groups are trying to get technology into the hands of the disenfranchised and the semienfranchised as a means for social reform. For example, in little Ashland, WI, there is a small group of people working to refurbish old computers, install Debian Linux on them, and sell them at very low cost or flat out give them to people who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford them.Read more about it here. I think this is mostly about giving children in poor familes more opportunity to access information as well as providing a source of inexpensive machines for microbusinesses. But it goes the other way, too. Once one of those poor kids (Or any of us, for that matter. I mean, really.) gets hooked up with a free e-mail account (Yahoo Hotmail) and a spot at one of the free blog resources (Blogger, of course, or check out this list of others), he or she can contribute his or her experience back into the flow. In fact, a blog could help them potentially become recognized experts on their situation.

The point:

You don't have to be an expert to have a blog. You have to write.

A new star in my constellation of blogs

I wonder if this was how the universe was a few million years after the big bang. A star forms, looks around, sees not much else but dark. Yells over to the spinning disk of gas to steller north. "Hey man, check it out! I glow!" Then the gas disk thinks, "Hmmm. I could glow, too." And then it compresses itself and lights up. And then both the new stars tell their other gas disk friends, and pretty soon, it's a cluster. Then a galaxy. Even if that's not what happened with the universe, it's what's totally going on in my corner of the blogosphere. A friend (not just an "acquaintance-becoming" saw my kid's blog, then decided to start her own. So check it out. Read about a secret sauce garden and the life of a semi-full-time musician.

Nine holes later

I went back to the ER. After I calmed down from my visit to psycho doctor, I decided that maybe a slow and unpleasant death outweighed my person comfort with any one person. So after dinner with plenty of garlic bread to prepare for my second visit to the ER, I went back. I didn't see the doctor, praise Allah. She was too busy working on a bunch of people with more serious ailments than being gummed by a brown bat. After waiting for a couple hours (and watching some kid from Texas hammer a grand slam in the little league world series), a nurse took me into an examining room. "I'm really a nice person... usually," she said with a grin, "but I have to level with you: this is gonna kind of suck. I have to give you six injections. I'll be right back." The nurse left, then came back a minute later with — I kid you not — an armful of needles, syringes, vials and sharps containers. "Where did the bat bite you?" she asked, getting the ball rolling. I silently held out my index finger. "I have to inject as much of this first one into the site of the bite as I can," she explained. "It's probably going to hurt worse than the bite," she continued, sliding the needle under my skin, then moving the tip of it around while injecting goo into me. "Ahhh.." I whimpered. "Just a little more here," she said, followed with a cheerful "Poke!" to let me know what she was doing. "Now I need to see your cheeks, so drop your pants, please." I complied, turned around, and help onto the examining table for dear life. "Poke!" she said. "Poke! Poke! OK, now your thighs." I turned over. "Poke!Poke!Poke!Poke!" the nurse chirped away like a pot full of popcorn. "Just one more in your shoulder, then you're ready to go. Poke!" I thanked her with a smile for saving my life via torture, then did an ungainly stiff-legged hobble to the cair, sat gingerly down, and drove my sorry Poke!ed self home.

Meanest doctor ever

So two calls to my doc, one call to the county nurse, and several hours of Internet research later, I wind up at the emergency room. I do my paper work and wait. A nurse checks my vital signs, then I wait some more. Then in comes this short, squat emergency room doctor with a chip on her shoulder the size of Texas. "Did you call the public health nurse like I told you to?" she asked in a rapid, clipped voice. "What'd they tell you?" "Well, they," I started. "That's right. They said if you're not bitten, there's no chance of infection." "But my finger was in the bat's mouth." "Doesn't matter. If it didn't break the skin, you weren't bitten." "Well, according to my research, even a bat gumming me is cause for worry since rabies is transmitted in slavia and brain matter." "Look, if we give you the PEP now, and you need it again later in your life, there's a very good chance of you having an anaphlacitc reaction."* "Well, if I don't get it now, but I was exposed, I'll die." "Fine. I'll call the CDC and see what they say." The doctor left in a huff, and the wife and I were sitting there, our mouths hanging open. She recovered first. "That's some bedside manner..." Fifteen minutes later, the doctor comes back in. "The CDC says that it wouldn't hurt to give you the series, so I guess it's up to you." It's up to me? Great. I have two doctors and a public health nurse telling me it's no big deal, and a whole stack of litterature on the Web saying it can be a *really* big deal. I don't want to die, but I really don't want to have to deal with this most obnoxious doctor anymore. That's right, Memorial Medical Center, I chose death through siezure and coma over you emergency room physician. "Well, since you and my real doctor seem to think this is no big deal, I guess I'll let my potential death rest on your conscious," I wish I had said. Three hours later, I checked voice mail and guess who left a message. "This is the doctor from the MMC emergency room. I got another call from the CDC, this time from a doctor who specializes in rabies. He said you should get the treatment, so if you want to come back in, I'll be here until tomorrow morning."

Getting stuck

After a morning of worrying and checking out rabies tranmission, I finally talked to my doc again and she told me to go get checked out by the ER if I'm still worried. Especially since her clinic doesn't have the supples for the shot, and the ER does. So, that's my plan. In an hour, I go to the ER, get examined, and probably ask them to give me the initial course of my treatment regardless of what they find. After all, it was 3:30 this morning when I got bitten, and even though the bat didn't break my skin, I could have easilly wiped my eyes or rubbed my nose with that finger. And besides, there are those odds again: Pain vs. death. So I'm going to go get poked. "OK, now you're going to feel a little prick." "But, doctor, I hardly even know you."

The doc says

I got a little more shut-eye, then got up, stumbled around taking care of animal chores and feeding myself as well. At eight, I called the doc's office, but she wasn't there, so I talked to a nurse who sounded like she was half-way between being really concerned and laughing her head off. "So... this was an accident, right?" she asked. No, I just like taking a really pissed off, potentially rabid, little flying mammal that lives in my chimney and daring it to bite me first. "Well, ma'am, I can't speak for the bat, but I wasn't planning on getting chewed." The doc called back after a while and told me that if the bat didn't break the skin, that I have nothing to worry about, and that I don't need to do anything about it. Of course, with odds like certain death versus certain pain, I think maybe this is one of those times I'm going to do a little more checking around before I make my final decision.

Bat in the belfry

so. It's like 3:30. And I just caught a bat. The cats were racing through the house in my sleep. Zoom into the bedroom. Zoom out of the bedroom. Wait, that wasn't just in my sleep. And what is that noise? The light goes on, and there's a little bitty brown bat getting pummeled by two of my biggest cats. Of course the wife says, "Don't let them eat the bat!" Come again? So I smack the cats outta the way — thereby ensuring good natured, affectionate responses &mdash and grab the bat, which also accepts the new situation with calm and equinamity. In an "I'm so going to kill you, your children and your grandchildren, all with the same dull, rusty spoon" sort of way. Fortunately, brown bats have very little teeth. I say fortunately, because at 3:30 in the morning, I'm a little rusty on my bat-to-English translation skills. I was pretty sure the horible grinding sound coming from the bat's mouth wasn't it saying, "Oh hello, old chap. Nice night for crumpets and tea." Well, what ever it was saying, it bit me square on the thumb.

*crank*

So I threw it. All the way down the stairs. But it never hit bottom. Though it was pitch black, I know this because physics tells me that when a bat hits the wall or the floor at high velocity, some of its kenetic energy is absorbed by the wall, some turns to heat energy, and some turns to sound energy, hence

*kersplat!*

Since there was no kersplat, the bat, being a card-carrying member of the amazing fly-blind-through-a-forest-of-gleaming-razors-at-night club, probly flipped itself around and at least glided, if not actually flew to a safe spot. I was in the bathroom washing my hands when the cats started checking out the shower stall.I figured the cats might be indulging in their well-known penchant for grooming themselves by preparing to run a nice hot bath, complete with bubbles at 3:30 in the morning. But just to be on the safe side, I decided to check it out. Sure enough, there was the bat. On the far edge of the tub. On the wife's shampoo bottle. This time, I got smart. I put on a glove *before* grabbing the bat. Then I took the little hell-raiser outside and let it go. Now the wife tells me that no matter what, I have to go get rabies shots. I have to ask her if she means tonight, right now, or maybe at a somewhat more civilized hour. Say, like 4 a.m. She said that if I get rabies, I die. Just like that. Since I like living, I figure I'll go talk to my doc, even though I have a feeling it's gonna hurt.

Knock, and the universe opens a door

Check it out: I wonder about and wander from my Great Idea of online citizen-based journalism, then nary an afternoon later, I see this. I guess that's an answer, huh? At least to part of my questions...

Blog etiquette

Granted, I'm new at this blogging thing. Maybe I'll find some thoughts about blog etiquette, but for now, I think I'll just e-mail people and organizations I link to saying, "Hey, I'm linking to you. Here's the address." That way, they'll at least know that someone is linking to them, and perhaps they'll even link back. That'd be cool, eh?

Nagging doubts

So I started in on making my little media outlet happen. I got a new e-mail address. I built a couple blog pages and linked them together. But now, I'm starting to have an attack of the dreaded Nagging Doubts. Here they are, in no particular order:

• Do I have the time for this?
• Will anyone care?
• Will anyone actually pay to advertise on the site?
• Do I have the technical skills to pull this off?
• Is this a big enough priority for me that I'll put in the time to really make it happen? Even bigger than, say
  • Jazz school
  • Bebe
  • The garden
  • Taijutsu
• In the big picture, why do I want to do this? Is it just a change, or really something I want to pursue?

I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 on Sunday, and I was outraged, pissed off, and ready to go do something. I didn't know what, but clearly, I had to do something. Then, yesterday evening, I heard Democracy Now's broadcast of Arundhati Roy's talk "Public Power in the Age of Empire," and, man, talk about really having to *do something*! I figured that a really good something to do is keep people aware and educated about what's going on in the world and how they, personally, can work to change things if they don't like them. This seems like a decent concept, but how to put it into practice? Of course! The rapidly growing blogosphere is the perfect place! Ah, but again, the Nagging Doubts.

• Will the people around here really go online for news?
• If they do read an article, will they contribute anything to the blog, even if it's just to tell me to feck off?
• Who am I to make this machine that'll potentially help steer entire communities?

OK, so maybe I'm getting a little grandiose. Maybe I'm a little too self-absorbed. Maybe I should do a little more planning before I launch. Or maybe I should just jump.

Hey, I've got an idea

I went to martial arts (bujinkan budo taijutsu, for those of you who are curious) practice tonight, got punched out and tossed around a little, dished out some of the same (My training buddy, Pete, is an incredibly forgiving and patient guy, seeing as how I always unintentionally whack him in the face at least once a class. Then there are the times I mean to hit him...), and later on, as I was stretching out, I had an idea. Now, those of you who know me will realize that's really just not that rare of an occurance. But I started to think about this one, and the more I think, the more it seems like something that could work. I was thinking about journalism, and specifically the news coverage of the area I live in. Now, granted, there's not a whole lot going on up here, but the immediate area around the Chequamegon Bay (a warmish extension of Lake Superior) has somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000 people. And there's always a little something interesting going on. Heck, just on the waterfront alone this summer, there's been a drowning, a couple of boat rescues, a visit from a three-masted schooner, another visit from laker bringing coal to the local power plant, a smallish regatta, and a really big walleye caught. And that's just in the past couple months, focused on one part of the community. I think maybe there's a niche for a local news source that's a little different than the mainstream stuff you find in any smallish town. For starters, let's put the thing online. Only. At least for now. After all, there are already two papers, The Daily Press and the Lake Superior Sounder that give people plenty of opportunity to get soy ink all over their fingers. Not having a print schedule means that I (the web site) can go to press any time I have something ready to roll. I don't have to wait for the printers to come in, and I sure as heck don't have to pay them. Next, maybe there ought to be a way for all sorts of people to weigh in on current issues and share their opinions with the rest of the community. Oh sure, the other papers already have letters to the editor, but isn't it way easier to get really pissed off about something, log in, and just let 'er rip? No hassel with e-mail, or, for heaven's sake, postage. Just rant and click. And for people who don't want to sign their names to their posts, we could even have a "Coward's Corner" where people can vent anonymously. Pansys. Finally, I could do this for not a whole lot of money. I'd need a digital camera, of course, but since I'd only be posting stuff to the Web, I could start with one of those fabulous two-megapixel specials for a hundred bucks. I'd need a cell phone. Another hundred bucks, give or take, plus service. I'd need e-mail, but that's free. I'd need a computer. Oh, wait... And I'd need a place to put all my content. Again, I say to you, "Oh, wait..." That's right. I'm thinking of using a bloggish sort of setup to do this. I'd need to check the rules and regs about commercial use, but I'm sure I could swing something. And then I can go to local merchants and sell them adds on the site. I could let people sponsor a day for $250. I could let them sponsor a story for $75 or so. And boom: I've got an income stream, and I'm helping local folk keep abreast of their community. Especially young people, and computer literate people. The great thing about this gig is that I could launch without too much financial stress or time committment. I could try writing one opinion pience and maybe one news thing a week to start with and see how it goes. See what traffic is like, that sort of thing. Hmmm... I've got another idea...