language (f)arts

I should make this a regular blog feature: Mangled expressions...quite possibly my favorite serendipitous experience. I posted this on the fb today:

Public service announcement:
You "flesh out" ideas. You "flush out" toxins.

Use it in a sentence? I'd love to!:

"Colonics or Juicing? I'm trying to flesh out a way to flush out my system"

Then, today I heard "Money was not an object."
I thought, well, actually money is an object.
Perhaps you meant to say, "Money was no object."?

Everyone has to figure out how not to go stark-raving mad in meetings, this is my way.

back door to sci-fi

I have never been much of a sci-fi fan. For whatever reason, my introduction to most sci-fi left me rather meh.

Over the past few months, I have had boingboing.net on my ever-evolving Google Reader. I love the gadgetry and weird found on the internet and I am not unique in that respect. BoingBoing has an amazing following.

One of the editors, Cory Doctorow, is a science fiction writer (among other categories for which he is well-known). Well, it's become a private game with me to find something fascinating on that site and see how often the person posting or writing the entry is Cory Doctorow. The answer is: a hell of a lot.

So, it doesn't surprise me that he brought this* to the collective attention of internet viewers:

Between this and too much else to list, I may become a fan of sci-fi yet. Or at least C.D.'s work. (Not to mention John Pilger's work.) This video is stunning. Wikileaks is critical.

Uncharacteristic as it feels, I am more aware of the danger of posting ideas than I've ever been before. Truth is not only some pure hue on spectrum of information, it is also murky and dangerous. I am struck by Pilger's comments about Pol Pot, Rwandan genocide numbers and the difference between the assumption of 100% media/journalistic propoganda by citizens of fascist dictatorships and U.S. viewers' more naive expectations.

* John Pilger's speech was filmed in Chicago at Socialism 2007: Socialism for the 21st Century by Paul Hubbard. June 16, 2007