LIKE YOU REALLY CARE

Like You Really Care 2002�2007

2007-09-20T11:27:00.000-05:00

Five years ago, I was still working hard for Defiant Theatre. Webmaster Arlo (that's me) had recently built a fourth iteration of www.defianttheatre.org. In an effort to take some of the strain of keeping the site updated off of my new-student shoulders, I set up a system – my first major venture into web scripting – to allow all the members of Defiant to keep their own profile page updated. It was a wee bit complicated, but it worked. In building that system, I in turn gave everyone in the company a whopping 4 MB of space in which to carve out their own little website. A handful did.

But what about me? I was the web guy; I really needed to show off what could be done with that little sliver of cyberspace. So silly me: I decided to start a blog. And why not? It was one year after 9/11 and I was furious about how our government was reacting to it. It was a transitional period of my life. The whirlwind of emotions in me needed documenting.

After a while, something strange happened. People started reading it. My stats were showing over 2,000 unique visitors a month. I figured I needed to provide more content, and the rigors of juggling a full-time job, a massive class schedule, and a difficult personal life were taking their toll on my writing output. So I brought Kelly on board to spew his unique flavor of bile onto the site. Ultimately, his voice became the blog's voice, and I was happy to follow when I could.

Soon, I graduated and got a great, albeit time-consuming, job. Interestingly, I found that having a job I liked made blogging much more infrequent. When I did feel compelled to write, I wanted to write personal articles about getting engaged or critical articles about design. I was less interested in regurgitating the political thought that I was reading. I was starting to not care about Like You Really Care. My last post was 10 days ago, it was 13 words long, and it was about a television program. What kind of a blogger am I?

Readership is way down, and so is posting. I can't be a professional blogger like Jason Kottke or Matthew Yglesias, and I really don't have any interest in becoming one. I lack the knowledge and wherewithal to keep up the sort of near-daily fresh content updates necessary to maintain reader interest. And my interests are elsewhere now (more on that in a bit).

It's clear that my heart is just not in the same place as it was five-years-ago today. Frankly, it's in a better place. LYRC has changed, and so have I.

So today -- on the fifth anniversary of that simple "Hello, world!" post, I'm pulling the plug.

I want to thank all the writers silly enough to contribute to this corner of the internet with me. Several have have come, and a few have gone, and I'm sorry that none of you who stuck around knew this was coming. I needed this to be a clean break. I'm proud to have shared this space with you.

I also have to thank you, the dozens of you who have still tuned in to chime in on the comments or to post on Open Thread Thursday. You're the reason this was a hard decision for me to make.

If you're still looking for stuff to read, Kelly's new blog is excellent. Christopher and Milroy also have great RSS feeds worthy of a subscription. I have my del.icio.us feed, which I will update more often now, and there is always the insipid drivel of my Twittering.

But this isn't the end:

I'm currently transforming ARLOdesign into a site that is more in line with my current needs for self expression.
While this is the end of LYRC 1.0, there will be an LYRC 2.0. It will be very different, and I'm not sure when it will launch, but it's a very important project to me. And all of you (not just the ones I spoke with last year during my failed attempt to make an LYRC 2.0) will have a place in it.

If you are interested in finding out when I launch these ventures, please enter your email address below. I promise that the email address you enter will only be used to announce the above two projects and will never be shared with anyone.

For me, this is bittersweet. It's sad to see LYRC go in it's current form, but it's simply not who I am anymore. Who I am now is much closer to what I want me to be than it ever has been. I'm ready for something new. I think you are, too.

The content of this site will always remain live as a chronicle of an extraordinary, pivotal period in my life. Thank you for sharing this ride with me. I hope you'll join me on my next adventure.

(Deep breath.)

Moment of silence for Like You Really Care.

(Comments will remain open until 9PM, Tuesday, September 25. Thanks to Grail Interactive with help on the AJAX-y email submission doohickey.)

OPEN THREAD THURSDAY

2007-09-20T08:30:00.001-05:00

Every Thursday, LYRC opens up to you. Tell us what's on your mind.
Enjoy. [THIS IS AN AUTOMATED POST.]

Robert Jordan 1948-2007

2007-09-17T06:26:00.000-05:00

This comes as a crushing blow to nerds everywhere, as his epic twelve-volume The Wheel of Time series will go unfinished with only one book left.

A moment of silence for James Oliver Rigney, Jr., better known as Robert Jordan.

LYRC Gives Birth

2007-09-14T01:40:00.000-05:00

I�ve opened up a new blog: Midnight on the Forecastle. LYRC called me �traitor� for doing so. That hurt my feelings. In any event, there it is.

OPEN THREAD THURSDAY

2007-09-13T08:30:00.001-05:00

Every Thursday, LYRC opens up to you. Tell us what's on your mind.
Enjoy. [THIS IS AN AUTOMATED POST.]

My Review of HBO's New Television Program "Tell Me You Love Me" Which Premiered Last Night

2007-09-10T10:36:00.001-05:00

A boring show about boring people having boring problems.

Oh, and there's porn.

Please Buy Our Crap

2007-09-09T15:04:00.000-05:00

Mrs. Guthrie and I are now the proud owners of a lovely duplex in Andersonville. Before we move, please do your part for the environment and buy our excess crap.

View the PDF.

UPDATE: Here's the obligatory Craigslist ad.

A Word about Net Neutrality

2007-09-07T11:04:00.000-05:00

What they said:

The Justice Department said imposing a Net neutrality regulation could hamper development of the Internet and prevent service providers from upgrading or expanding their networks. It could also shift the �entire burden of implementing costly network expansions and improvements onto consumers,� the agency said in its filing.

Actually, what the Justice Department said was, �Remember what a dipshit our old boss was and how he would rollover and spit out whatever BS his boss told him to say? The Justice Department does the same thing for big corporate donors who are willing to turn over personal data to us.�

The notion that the development or expansion of the Internet has been somehow impeded by its current neutrality or that the burden of network expansion or improvement currently is not on the shoulders of consumers is simply preposterous. Already I'm stuck with limited options for reliable Internet access. (Can anyone suggest a better DSL option than my current AT&T account? That's not a rhetorical question.) If there is better service, I'll move to it. That's the reality of the free market. To say that net neutrality impedes competition or development is simply obfuscation.

(Article from Fitz via Twitter.)

Luciano Pavarotti 1935�2007

2007-09-06T08:45:00.000-05:00

Moment of silence for Luciano Pavarotti.

OPEN THREAD THURSDAY

2007-09-06T08:30:00.001-05:00

Every Thursday, LYRC opens up to you. Tell us what's on your mind.
Enjoy. [THIS IS AN AUTOMATED POST.]

OPEN THREAD THURSDAY

2007-08-30T13:56:00.000-05:00

Every Thursday, LYRC opens up to you. Tell us what's on your mind.
Enjoy. [THIS IS NOT AN AUTOMATED POST.]

In Defense of Lizards

2007-08-29T14:54:00.000-05:00

I read this thing:

One rumored scenario has Bush elevating homeland security adviser Frances Townsend to become AG or take over the Homeland Security Department if Michael Chertoff is tapped instead.

Many don't trust Townsend, who boomeranged from being a top Clinton Justice Department aide who was demoted early in the Bush administration to landing at the President's side in 2003. "She's too much of a chameleon," said the Democratic aide.

I don't know anything about Townsend, but that doesn't make any sense to me. Okay, I guess it makes a certain amount of sense if you're trying to appear inhumanly apolitical and perhaps willfully ignorant of reality. Gonzales, and Ashcroft before him, have worked over the Justice Department. It's a hotbed of conservative ideology, teeming with executive branch sycophants. Like the 2006 election, the best-case scenario here involves applying the breaks; holding the line. No real transformation of government will occur until Democrats take the White House. And that's looking like a real possibility for 2008. It seems to me that it might very well behoove the Democrats to approve an Attorney General who aspires to a career beyond January 2009; i.e., someone who can tell which way the political winds are blowing and is inclined to help out the ascendant power structure while appearing to toady-up to the departing one. In other words, a chameleon. A strong and independent � and, yes, apolitical � Department of Justice is what we need. To get there, we need to use political fulcrums and political levers to move it away from the dark side.

Bathrooms and Blue Dresses

2007-08-29T14:08:00.000-05:00

The purpose of attaining power is to increase sexual opportunity for the purpose, thereafter, of exploiting such opportunity. The notion that people in positions of responsibility should be responsible enough to suppress their urge to exploit opportunities for sexual contact have a backward (and entirely erroneous) understanding of human behavior. Fucking isn't a mistake. Fucking is the fucking point. Getting caught is the mistake.

No Soul for You!

2007-08-24T13:16:00.000-05:00

This is hilarious.

I'm reminded of the end of Miracle on 34th Street, when workers at the post office send a bunch of kids' letters to the guy claiming to be Santa Claus, inadvertently taking a position on behalf of the US government stating that Santa Claus is in fact real and that the guy on trial is that person, making the judge rule in favor of Kris Kringle.

Maybe this year I'll ask the Dalai Lama for a pony.

OPEN THREAD THURSDAY

2007-08-23T08:30:00.001-05:00

Every Thursday, LYRC opens up to you. Tell us what's on your mind.
Enjoy. [THIS IS AN AUTOMATED POST.]

Blog Action Day

2007-08-16T11:50:00.000-05:00

A note to the writers and readers of this blog: I have committed LYRC to participate in Blog Action Day. On October 15, all posts to this blog will be committed to writing about the environment. Will it make a difference? Who knows, but it might get a little press. So get your wind-powered computer running and get to work. That is all.

OPEN THREAD THURSDAY

2007-08-16T08:30:00.001-05:00

Every Thursday, LYRC opens up to you. Tell us what's on your mind.
Enjoy. [THIS IS AN AUTOMATED POST.]

Honor

2007-08-15T16:21:00.000-05:00

From Roger V. Gould's book, Collison of Wills: How Ambiguity about Social Rank Breeds Conflict:

Much of the difference between honor societies, which value impulsive acts and vengeance, and urbanized modern societies, which putatively encourage prudence and forgiveness, amounts to a difference in models of how individuals are supposed to cohere over time. Revenge-seeking and impulsive, violent responses to insult require that individuals look backward, notably to past wrongs, and that they substantially disregard their personal well-being in the future; prudence and peacemaking demand, in contrast, that wronged persons abandon the past and embrace the future.

[�]

It is well known that both men and women in honor settings are highly sensitive to verbal insults. More important, they remember insults, and bear grudges about them, for a long time. In one of the more dramatic demonstrations of this aspect of personal honor, Richard Nisbet and Dov Cohen showed that college students from the southern United States were about twice as likely as northerners to say they would be angry for a month or more if a friend were to insult them. Strikingly, there was not much difference between northerners and southerners in their reports of how long they would remain angry about being punched. Honor requires in particular that people nurse memories of symbolic affronts, the effect of which is to prolong the period during which the affronted person continues to want redress � hence increasing the likelihood of some kind of retaliation.

Merv Griffin 1925�2007

2007-08-12T11:28:00.000-05:00

"This Like You Really Care post is for a classic entertainment mogul who, despite being a mouthpiece for Republicans in later years, is still fondly remembered for bringing entertainment to millions with Jeopardy! and a tramped-up version of Hangman."

"What is a moment of silence for Merv Griffin?"

OPEN THREAD THURSDAY

2007-08-09T08:30:00.001-05:00

Every Thursday, LYRC opens up to you. Tell us what's on your mind.
Enjoy. [THIS IS AN AUTOMATED POST.]

Reality Based Insignificance

2007-08-07T16:52:00.000-05:00

Here's another post by Matt:

...It's not that ideological blinders prevent people from seeing the facts, it's that the facts don't really determine anything. Signs of improving conditions can be a reason to stay or a reason to leave. Signs of deteriorating conditions can be a reason to leave or a reason to stay. Ultimately, the issue doesn't hinge on fine-grained appreciation of the facts, nearly so much as it hinges on broader questions of how you look at American interests in the region and whether or not the prospect of spending tens of billions of dollars a day for an indefinite period of time on maintaining a military presence in a foreign country against the will of the population is the kind of thing that makes you queasy.

Yeah. It does.

Christian Embassy

2007-08-07T09:49:00.000-05:00

Seven Army and Air Force officers, including four generals, face "corrective action" for participating in a fundraising video for an organization called Christian Embassy. I have never heard of this organization, but according to Air Force Major General John Catton it is in fact a "quasi-federal agency." Now, with the word "Christian" in the name, there's got to be some sort of rule against that. Yes, it seems I read it somewhere.

According to their website, Christian Embassy exists to "provide safe places and practical resources to help national and international leaders working in D.C., their spouses and staffs integrate their faith and their work." I was unaware that Christian proselytizing was a function of the US military, but according to Brigadier General Vincent Brooks Christian Embassy is "a sanctioned or endorsed activity," and the report filed by the Pentagon inspector general referred to a "long and deep collusion with a fundamentalist, religious missionary organization."

The problem here of course is not that these men support an organization like Christian Embassy — although such behavior is both creepy and sad — but that they did so in uniform, at the Pentagon itself. They used the dignity and responsibility of their positions to bolster the image of a cult. I am so curious to know how exactly these men in high places get their marching orders from Jesus, and if those orders are somehow stated more clearly than the First Amendment.

Agreeing to Disagree

2007-08-06T11:58:00.000-05:00

This is Matt's take on the Michael Ignatieff's Getting Iraq Wrong (mentioned in my last post):

I found Michael Ignatieff's reflective essay on getting things wrong about Iraq to be somehow pleasantly soothing. But then someone pointed out to me that the whole thing is founded on the absurd premise that his errors in judgment have something to do with the mindset of academia versus the mindset of practical politics.

This is, when you think about it, totally wrong. Academics in the field of Middle East studies were overwhelmingly opposed to the war. Similarly, international relations scholars opposed the war by a very large margin. The war's foci of intellectual support were in the institutions of the conservative movement, and in the DC think tanks and the punditocracy where the war had a lot of non-conservative support. People with relevant academic expertise -- notably people who weren't really on the left politically -- were massively opposed to the war. To imply the reverse is to substantially obscure one of the main lessons of the war, namely that we should pay more attention to what regional experts think and give substantially less credence to the idea that think tankers are really "independent" of political machinations.

Oh dear. We should pay more attention to experts?! Sounds to me like Matt, a man jockeying to be a bona fide "very serious" member of the establishment "punditocracy", is chaffing at Ignatieff's anti-intellectualism. You may recall that Matt recently wrote this in the L.A. Times:

�the very elites we're supposed to trust can't seem to get their stories straight.

A less stuffy response to Ignatieff's piece would probably look something like this [via my Inbox]:

A casual reader of Ignatieff's piece may assume his heart is in the right place ... at least until this paragraph, lodged deep in the interventricular septum:
We might test judgment by asking, on the issue of Iraq, who best anticipated how events turned out. But many of those who correctly anticipated catastrophe did so not by exercising judgment but by indulging in ideology. They opposed the invasion because they believed the president was only after the oil or because they believed America is always and in every situation wrong.
As a Bush supporter who wanted an invasion, Ignatieff can be forgiven for being mystified as to why millions and millions and millions of people around the world thought it was nuts. These people that lacked judgment�from Spain to India to Hong Kong to Lincoln, Nebraska�no doubt were all well-meaning, ignorant, ideologically-driven people who hated America, and, out of their minds, opposed the six clowns in the Bush administration who had a hammerlock on America's foreign policy.
I wonder if the whole essay isn't a vehicle for the delivery of this paragraph, this load of shit: "Many of those who correctly anticipated catastrophe did so not by exercising judgment but by indulging in ideology" Like hell. We judiciously predicted catastrophe all along. The invasion was impractical, unworkable, doomed, immoral, insane, illegal, unjustified, disastrous and dishonest from the outset. That wasn't ideology, it was fucking physics. And let me tell you, people took to the streets, people protested, people spoke up. Around the world. And Ignatieff was a heroic enthusiast for six fucking clowns. Bravo, standing ovation, for changing his mind and still thinking that everybody on the streets was still wrong. Apology not accepted, Ignatieff, any more than your "wiser-for-the-struggle" poetics. Drop dead. That is, I mean, only if you currently agree that it's the right thing to do.

Oh snap.

Scat Diary

2007-08-05T20:14:00.000-05:00

So, there was this flap about an Army sergeant who appeared in uniform at the YearlyKos conference and spoke at a forum [video]. It seems pretty clear to me that the seargeant was breaking regulations � he even admitted it. So that�s that. What confused me is why they guy who shut him down and confronted him afterward (threatening punitive action) gave shit? If he thought it was his responsibility to report the guy to military authorities, fine� he should do so. But why not just get his personnel data and then address his points? The sergeant clearly knew that what he was doing was a violation of Army regulations. Wesley Clark even told him so beforehand. I consider it an act of civil disobedience and it clearly could have been treated as such. Certain left-of-center activists engage in acts of civil disobedience all the time (refusing to redeploy to Iraq comes to mind).

By the way, Michael Ignatieff�s Getting Iraq Wrong is an excellent little article.

UPDATE This post has been corrected.

The Pope Hedges His Bets

2007-08-03T12:11:00.000-05:00

Joseph Ratzinger, former member of the Hitler Youth and head of the Inquisition, admits that perhaps there's more to the current state of the biosphere than a naked dude in a garden pointing at shit and saying, "That's a horse. That's a dog. That's a wildebeest..."

You can read more on the Bishop of Rome's statements by clicking here, on this creepy-ass picture: