Day: November 25, 2005

A few pings from some interesting reads the last coupla days. Check out:

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Due to blogger error (mine, I think, not Blogger’s :-), somehow a trackpack ping to Committees of Correspondence was “etherized”. DO READ: it’s a big deal. In “When I was Ten Years Old” he links to a story you really ought to hear.

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Pajamas Media / Stuck On Stupid Blog The True Meaning Of Thanksgiving, “Christmas Season starts this week beginning with Thanksgiving. While I was looking for something to post this Thursday I ran across this article and decided now is a good time to share it. From The Branson Courier: Thanksgiving is all about to whom the thanks is given…”

[On target]

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T F Stern’s Rantings brings Having an Attitude of Gratitude to the Thanksgiving table. “I’ve heard some demean this truly American holiday by calling it ‘turkey day’, which may well be the reason I decided to write my thoughts about having an attitude of gratitude.”

[I’ll not refer to Thanksgiving Day as “turkey day” either, thanks. 🙂 ]

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Small Town Veteran’s collection of Holiday Quick Hits is a concise list of good reads, and I say that not just because he linked my “An ACLU Thanksgiving”— “Some things I’d excerpt and link to individually if not for the holiday: An ACLU Thanksgiving Wilsongate: Motive, Means, and Opportunity More Mistakes by the Washington Post on the Foreign Fighters Debate General calls Iraq pullout ‘destabilizing’ M.. ”.

[Some good reads. Not a turkey in the bunch]

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Another history lessn, this one from Peakah’s Provocations— Thanksgiving 2005 “Our Founding Father, George Washington, Proclaimed Thanksgiving Day an Official American Holiday… click on picture to read his words…”

[The text of Washington’s 1789 proclamation. Worth reading in its entirety. More than once a year. Out loud. With a bullhorn. In front of an ACLU office.]

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History lesson #3 from California Conservative: The History & Meaning of Thanksgiving “Why and to whom are we giving thanks? There’s more to Thanksgiving than family, feasting and football. All too often the significance of our cherished holidays is forgotten, and replaced by a rewriting of new intentions. As we celebrate this special American holiday, may we also remember the history and be reminded of the true meaning behind it.”

[Another perspective—with depth and a link to a History Channel video]

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Freedom Folks  could repost this for a guard the Borders blogburst: The Toll of Illegal Immigration  â€œMJ shares a horrifying account of the hidden costs and dangers of illegal immigration…”

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More as I see ‘em.

Nah, it’s not because the FEC or some other government weenie bureaucraps might dump on ya. It’s not even because NZ Bear might decide every link to Instapundit is worth 10 links to anyone else (heh–just kidding Bear). No, It’s because this guy is covering every single topic he touches better than anyone else.

Yep. Anyone.

In fact, linking to him in such a way as to open the link in a new window is probably an exercise in futility. You’ll click the link, read posts like this one and never come back.

Oh. Wah.

Not that I’d feel the pain, cos if you did click on over there and get lost in the wealth of good blog and never come back here for my mediocre stuff, I’d feel that I’d served you well and be pleased.

Seriously: that’s one fine blog. I’d love for you to come back, but if I lose your readership to someone like this, I’ll feel that the service I’ve done you was well worth it.

Just noticed. Concurrent with Blogwriter starting to delete portions of posts when uploading or saving locally, posts originally posted via Blogwriter (as of today’s latest bug session) apparetnly canNOT ne edited to apply to the variable-width center column any more…

So, Opera, naturally, sees things correctly, and no other browser I’ve tried does.

I’ll explore this carnage wrought by my used of a beta blogging product as I have time. Meanwhile, it looks like hash is all I have to offer nonOpera users. Either that, or go back to raw html editing in Editpad.

*sigh*

[UPDATE: See The Real Ugly American’s take on Open Trackbacks. Good post. Meat on those bones, bubba. AND due to blogger error (mine, I think, not Blogger’s :-), somehow a trackpack ping to Committees of Correspondence was “etherized”. DO READ: it’s a big deal. In “When I was Ten Years Old” he links to a story you really ought to hear.]

My Wonder Woman’s a children’s librarian, so for our anniversary, we caught “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.” I had to wait until the end of the flick for something besides the typical “Harry Heroics” and boffo special effects. That was when Dumbledore spoke to Harry of a time approaching when everyone they knew would be called upon to choose between doing what’s right… or what’s easy.

And then, following the tracks of one linkfest to another to another late last night,—just kinda casually cruisin’ n perusin’—until I lost track of the links in the chain, and I ended up at Alexandra von Maltzan’s All Things Beautiful. There, I found a post to end my evening with: “Loyalty To The Truth on Thanksgiving.” She refers to Hugh Hewitt’s article on how to have a political argument with family (just read it) and then builds a powerful “tribute” to genuine bloggers she knows. From her leadoff:

“The loyalty and integrity we should have as bloggers is to the Truth and liberation of that Truth, and not to the Truth we assign to the political denominations we belong to. And above all to the good old fashioned family values of integrity and loyalty to that Truth which we celebrate at Thanksgiving. Respect for each other as bloggers no matter what we believe in is paramount, and no amount of self gratifying echo chamber rhetoric should come in the way of a good upbringing, and manners, above all being grateful today that we have a voice.”

And you know, the truth she’s talking about applies whether it’s bloggers who are devoted to so-called “important” issues or to personal journaling—or even to food and recipes (“Do YOU credit the sources of your recipes every time, David? Well, do you?”) It’s a post I believe well worth reading in its entirety. In fact, I archived the text just in case her permalink should ever prove less than permanent, so I can return to that one statement from time to time.

The quote the other day from Jo’s Cafe? It’s worth repeating in this context:

“What is most important is who you are and does your blog reflect you… ”

There are the hard choices… and the easy ones. When we’re blogging, the hard choices sometimes demand introspection… just to know they really are there. “Where is my bias? What do I believe and why?” If we ever allow our biases or our egos to persuade us to shade the truth, to twist it or even to outright lie, then we become the little people who populate the boob tube opinion programs calling themselves “news”.

Just a thought. Read the two posts linked above for better presentations.

In a strangely related post dealing metaphorically with blog ethics, The Crazy Rants of Samatha Burns reports, Source Code Stolen From NZ Bear.

heh

Indeed.

Consider this my Friday “Open all weekend” Open Post with The Open Trackback Alliance

Link to this URL:

http://thirdworldcounty.blogspot.com/2005/11/riffing-off-dumbledore.html

Trackback to this URI:

http://www.haloscan.com/tb/mnmus/113293642547681487/

See Ferdy’s Open Trackbacks Pingposters List here.

I’ll try to do a frontpage post rounding up interesting pings posted here, later.

PingLinked at: NIF, Is It Just Me?, The Blue State Conservatives(apparently not: MT seems to be having trouble accepting trackback pings–but go to BSC and read up, anyway, ‘K?), Conservative Cat, Don Surber After Hours, Right Wing Nation, Stray Dog, Blogin Outloud, TMH’s Bacon Bits