Terran Franklin

Well, it seems that I had Friday the 13th for a whole fricking week.  I knew that it was a matter of time before things get back on track, and thankfully it started today.

I finally got the replacement screen for my computer—had to send it back once because stupid me didn’t know that Lenovo 3000 N100s come in two sizes—and with some moderate surgery to put it in place, my laptop is now a laptop again!   And tomorrow, my parents are helping me get a new desktop to get fully back on track.  (Once I get all the software put into the desktop, it’ll be perfect for me.  That’ll take a couple months though.)

Hopefully my projects will speed up now that I got working tools to use.  And speaking of tools, Open Office has updated with a good one for proofreading:

Take a good look at the right side of this picture.  This is where the Notes and Comments going.  Usually they’re just little icons on the page that you have to hunt and and click.  But Microsoft Word 2010 had the interesting and very eye-appealing concept of presenting these notes on a strip outside of the page with a line leading to where you placed it.  Along with highlighting and color ink.  It was a perfect addition to your proofreading tools.

It was one of the bigger draws for Microsoft Office (the biggest one, of course, being One Note) but now Open Office 3.3 (the latest version) can do it to, which makes Open Office an excellent free alternative, and the perfect beta-reading tool.  You don’t need to buy anything or install any special programs.  I’m sure that everyone I know has some form of Open Office, and now is a perfect time to update that program for all you proofreaders out there.

And now for something completely different, a check list from:  http://fuzzyxpanda.deviantart.com/journal/34262826/

1. You’ve never met any celebrities.
2. Everyone you know has been on a "Float Trip,"
3. "Vacation" means driving to Silver Dollar City, Worlds of Fun or Six Flags.
4. You’ve seen all the biggest bands ten years AFTER they were popular..
5. You measure distance in minutes rather than miles. For example, "Well, Webb City’s only 20 minutes away."
6. Down south to you means Arkansas.
7. The phrase "I’m going to the Lake this weekend" only means one thing.
8. You know several people who have hit a deer.
9. You think Missouri is spelled with an "ah" at the end.
10. Your school classes were canceled because of cold.
11. You know what "Party Cove" is.
12. Your school classes were canceled because of heat.
13. You instinctively ask some one you’ve just met, "What High School did you go to?"
14. You’ve had to switch from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day.
15. You think ethanol makes your truck "run a lot better."
16. You know what’s knee-high by the Fourth of July.
17. You see people wear bib overalls at funerals.
18. You see a car running in the parking lot at the store with no one in it, no matter what time of day.
19. You know in your heart that Mizzou can beat Nebraska in football.
20. You end your sentences with an unnecessary preposition. Example: "Where’s my coat at?"
21. All the festivals across the state are named after a fruit, vegetable or grain.
22. You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked.
23. You think of the major four food groups as beef, pork, beer, and Jell-O salad with marshmallows.
24. You carry jumper cables in your car and know that everyone else should.
25. You went to skating parties as a kid.
26. You only own three spices: salt, pepper, and ketchup.
27. You design your kid’s Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.
28. You think sexy lingerie is tube socks and a flannel nightie.
29. The local paper covers national and international headlines on one page, but requires six pages for sports.
30. You think I-44 is spelled and pronounced "farty-far." (St. Louis only.)
    (Bonus Point:  You still know what “Highway 40” is, even though they call it I-64 now.)
31. You’ll pay for your kids to go to college unless they want to go to KU.
32. You think that "deer season" is a National Holiday.
33. You know that Concordia is halfway between Kansas City and Columbia, and Columbia is halfway between St. Louis and Kansas City, and the Warrenton Outlet Mall is halfway between Columbia and St. Louis.
34. You can’t think of anything better than sitting on the porch in the middle of the summer during a thunderstorm.
35. You know which leaves make good toilet paper.
36. You’ve said, "It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity."
37. You know all four seasons: Almost Summer, Summer, Still Summer and Football.
38. You know if another Missourian is from the Boot-heel, Ozarks, Eastern, Middle or Western Missouri soon as they open their mouth.
39. You know that Harry S Truman, Walt Disney and Mark Twain are all from Missouri.
40. You failed World Geography in school because you thought Cuba, Versailles, California, Nevada, Houston, Cabool, Louisiana, Springfield, and Mexico were cities in Missouri. (And they are!)
    (Honestly!  They are, go check the map.)
41. You think a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor.
42. You know what "HOME OF THE THROWED ROLL" means.

It is not official:  I’m now running on 0.8 computers.

The main reason why I wasn’t posting so much is because my laptop is on the fritz; it’s LCD screen went blank.  Not to worry for the moment, I can put a monitor on it and it still works fine.  It’s just the matter of getting the replacement part for it.

And now I found out what that loud pop was last night:  The EMachine that I had for 4 years and I’ve recently put in some new components in it finally died.  Not that I was using it for anything more than just torrents, but I really wanted another Windows 7 machine with Microsoft word so I can use it as a home base.  I thought I could get the software with my next paycheck.

But now…I’ll just be lucky if I have a computer to log on with by that time.

And the employment prospects in this town are nil.

Needless to say I’m really going to need your help on getting a new computer.  E-Mail me at davidgonterman@foxfirestudios.net and let me know if you can help me out.

Gloat and Lulz at your own site, please.  I don’t want to hear it.

Reference Link:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/education/02cheat.html

I remember very fondly my College years, and my love for writing stemmed from my finally getting a decent research paper for English 102.  It was on Video Game Violence and I wished I could dig it up somewhere and show it to you.  Not only was it humorous—the quality that got my instructor there to suggest me becoming a fiction writer—but it was well referenced.  I enjoyed taking the tidbits of information and referenced materials and weaving it on the computer screen into a masterpiece.  It was where I had my first taste of actually writing—the process itself—and it was like shooting up heroin or meth.  Even better, according to some.

Some people would never feel that, because most of their creative minds only consist of two things:  Control-C and Control-V.

Plagiarism in any area—especially academia—was always prevalent.  I remember copying entries in a Funk and Wilkins Encyclopedia for my health assignments in that hell hope they call Junior High.  But back in that day it required some sort of work, and there’s always a halfway decent excuse for doing it.  (For me, it was time-economics; too many teachers think that they should devote all of their homework time for them, and all the while looking over their shoulders for two parental figures in case they want to barge in and demand a pound of flesh from you.)

Internet Rule 22:  Copypasta is made to ruin every last bit of originality.
Internet Rule 23:  Copypasta is made to ruin every last bit of originality.

Reference:  http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/30662

But nowadays, with the advent of the Internet, it’s almost ridiculous.  Not just in the concept but also the reasons:  In 2010, plagiarism might as well be replaced with the internet meme, “Copypasta,” because that is all you need to do.  And the reason is a clavier laziness:  The idea is that, if it’s on the internet, it’s common knowledge and acceptable in any level of communication as Public Domain.  Some people just print out Wikipedia articles and put their names on it, and then be surprised that they actually need to write something about the article.  And state the sources behind the account.

"I myself don’t feel it is stealing, because I put all the material into a completely different and unique context and from the outset consistently promoted the fact that none of that is actually by me,"  — Helene Hegemann, on her non-defense of copypastaing in Axolotl Roadkill

This form of laziness is not just in college.  Ask any Deviant.  That referenced image ended up on a T-shirt in Korea.  The designer didn’t even bother to write to the creator even to jest.  Nowadays there is a rising trend to just be like Vanilla Ice and Milli Vanilli when it comes to creativity.  They join Hegemann in raising their noses and going “There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity.” as they copypasta everything they ever liked into their lives a la P2P and just declare it their creativity.  News flash, folks:  That isn’t creativity.  That is Scrapbooking.  And It’s a very sad artist who looks back at their lives and sees that all they’ve ever done is scrap book their way through life, without any original thought or idea in their constantly empty heads.

And it’s more prevalent than you think:  When was the last good new song you heard, or the latest most original story you’ve really read, or watched an innovative and original television show?  I see Mexican Wrestling and Chinese cartoons for a reason:  Almost everything in America is a copy of someone else:  Everything is generated by computer and is spat out for the masses to consume with compulsion.  It is an age of Boy Bands and of Girl Bands. Of Boy and Girl Bands. Of Girl Bands with a couple of boys in them that look like girls anyway.  Nothing is left to chance, hits are scheduled years in advance.  And Queen is nowhere to be seen.  (Hint:  There’s a clever way to state your references, something I always do.  Such is the charm of HTML.)

“You’re not coming up with new ideas if you’re grabbing and mixing and matching,” said Ms. Wilensky, who took aim at Ms. Hegemann in a column in her student newspaper headlined “Generation Plagiarism.”

“It may be increasingly accepted, but there are still plenty of creative people — authors and artists and scholars — who are doing original work,” Ms. Wilensky said in an interview. “It’s kind of an insult that that ideal is gone, and now we’re left only to make collages of the work of previous generations.”

From the referenced article at top.

It even became part of how we present ourselves on the internet, which is sad by the way.  I think that the Number 1 reason why I’m such flamed on the Internet, and a good chunk of the reason why I’m the Ed Wood of the Internet, is that I present myself as an individual here.  I have an individual and unique identity online.  Granted, that identity becomes skewed into some grotesque curvature at burn sites like ED, but that’s almost expected.  Google my legal name—David Gonterman—and compare it with my Internet-born pen-name—David Foxfire—and you’ll see which one is more realistic and positive.

It’s a lot harder to do than just hide behind your Gay Fawkes mask and Tuxedo all the time,  believe me.  Which is why most people don’t do it online.  It’s mentioned in the article as well:

She contends that undergraduates are less interested in cultivating a unique and authentic identity — as their 1960s counterparts were — than in trying on many different personas, which the Web enables with social networking.

“If you are not so worried about presenting yourself as absolutely unique, then it’s O.K. if you say other people’s words, it’s O.K. if you say things you don’t believe, it’s O.K. if you write papers you couldn’t care less about because they accomplish the task, which is turning something in and getting a grade,” Ms. Blum said, voicing student attitudes. “And it’s O.K. if you put words out there without getting any credit.”

And that comes to the core of who I am, where I’m coming from, and why I have the balls to show my true self here in a place that too many people would just put on brown paper bags and call everyone else gay.  I’m more of a Woodstock type of spirit.  Not only do I believe that everyone else around me is a human being, an American, and someone who is as worthy of life, liberty, and the pursuit as I am, but I believe in creating, not collaging,  myself.  Not just in my works and projects here, but also by my identity, both online and in real life. 

I am not Anonymous.

I am not a copypasta.

I never intended to be.

Expect Me.

Referenced Link:  http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/21/liberal-journalists-suggest-government-shut-down-fox-news/print

My political position isn’t set in a solid red/blue pigeon hole.  You’ve probably seen it further down in the blog.  Where I fall on a given subject will depend on the subject itself, and it doesn’t conform to any group, even Glenn Beck fans.  For example, I’d be all for strengthening the borders, but it should also come with a Migrant Pass for those looking for work, as well as not to mess with Birthright Citizenship, fearing that changing that would only result in tragedies that the wingnuts would just harp over.  It’ll be easier for you to understand once you get inside my Aspergers-ridden mind and find out what is my basic beliefs behind how and what I believe.

One of them is “Don’t fuck with the Constitution.”  It’s the supreme law of the land for a reason.

The other will have to be my ultimate rule, the only law I follow.  It only contains four words.  But I can summarize all of the Law that needs to be made in those four words.  These four words should be printed in the red ink before Genesis 1:1.  It should’ve been spoken by Charlton Heston in his God voice.  These four words are:

Don’t Be An Asshole.

Like the guy in Woodstock said when he announced the concert to be free, we might differ in political views, but the main thing that we have to keep in mind is this:  No matter what, We’re all Americans.  We are all in this country together.  We might differ, and at times we might argue and might need to compromise, but we need to keep in mind that we are all human beings, with lives and jobs and families and kids and all.  We all have the right to exist in a more or less cordial relationship with each other.  We all have the right to be treated with at least enough common decency so that we don’t have to worry about getting shot, mugged, arrested, or killed just by sticking out necks out of our apartments.

I even have a global version of this belief that’s the basis of any international beliefs.  We might come from different countries, but we’re still humans.  Governments might argue and fight, but we as a species need not.

And that comes to the point where I picked up in the above link.  It wasn’t the desire for Liberals to get the government to shut down Fox News.  (Which in some parties is the living implementation of the Fairness Doctrine.  Such is the charm of cable:  The libs get MSNBC, the Cons get Fox News, I get YouTube.)  It was the belief that those who are on Fox News aren’t even human beings.

If you’d see someone on the street, even if it’s someone you’d don’t like (>cough<Phelps>hack<) you’d at least have the urge—and in some cases the duty—to call 911.  Even if it’s just the need to tell the EMTs to get the piece of human shit off your lawn.  It takes a certain form of coldness to just pass along the side without even noticing them and letting the cops find them on accident.  (Glares at Connecticut.)

It’s a completely different form of Asshole when you get your personal lulz out of it.  As if the proverbial Hate Machine has been removed from the Internet and installed into Real Life.

Cue Sarah Spitz, who may have done just that:

If you were in the presence of a man having a heart attack, how would you respond? As he clutched his chest in desperation and pain, would you call 911? Would you try to save him from dying? Of course you would.

But if that man was Rush Limbaugh, and you were Sarah Spitz, a producer for National Public Radio (update: Spitz was a producer for NPR affiliate KCRW for the show Left, Right & Center), that isn’t what you’d do at all.

In a post to the list-serv Journolist, an online meeting place for liberal journalists, Spitz wrote that she would “Laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out” as Limbaugh writhed in torment.

In boasting that she would gleefully watch a man die in front of her eyes, Spitz seemed to shock even herself. “I never knew I had this much hate in me,” she wrote. “But he deserves it.”

Spitz’s hatred for Limbaugh seems intemperate, even imbalanced. On Journolist, where conservatives are regarded not as opponents but as enemies, it barely raised an eyebrow.

I’ve been guilty of–in spite of me being a 9-12er–tuning myself out of the political debate. It tends to be that way whenever discussions that denigrate any president, be it Bush, Clinton, Ba Rock, or anything else.

I can’t ignore the tendency to turn parts of the Main Street Media into something I’d expect to see in the Encyclopedia Dramatica or 4chan’s Random (/b/) board. I’d hate to see what Sarah Spitz would do to a redhead.

At least in the places I’ve listed above, I _expect_ people to laugh and have their lulz over Rush Limbaugh dying of a coronary in front of their eyes. And they’ve done it before.

This is a scary thought which I have been following a lot along this past decade. It started with all this Bush bashing, which trickled down Regan-style to how people relate to one another. Sometimes it’s with very irritating results such as trolling that gets more and more virulent as times goes on–at times even going into Real Live areas–but in recent years it goes to the level of driving someone to suicide, boasting about it on Facebook, and then denigrating the victim as some emo BEEP who likes to cut herself. (I’m referring to Phoebe Prince, but she’s hardly the first to suffer this.)

Now the tendency to do onto others like the Mean Girls did to poor Phoebe is now becoming commonplace in political discourse. This is far from being in Goodwin’s Law territory; this might end up in a travesty far worse than anything in history, not just on display but in people’s hearts.

I quote a hippie of all people who gets what I believe in life: The one major thing you have to remember…is that the man next to you is your brother, and you’d damn well better treat each other that way because if you don’t, then we blow the whole thing, but we’ve got it right there. We might have different views, but we have to agree that, even though we differ, we are still Americans. Or rather, we are still humans.

It’s apparent that a good number of people in journalism–or bloggers for that matter–didn’t get that memo, and I fear for the world–not just America–if that’s the norm.

It seems that I’ve been neglecting this little blog have I?

It’s been that busy of a month or two, both online as well as in real life, not only did I have a series of appointments to stress over, there was also a semi secret project that I can’t really announce here right now, but I will later on as developments come.

In the meantime, there was a couple news articles that piqued my interest, and I want to finally get them off my chest before I move on.  Especially now that I have an evening free.

They’ll be in separate entries.