Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Old Time Blogging

Hey, here are some links of things I have read lately and either enjoyed or didn't - which ones are which I leave as an exercise to the reader.

A fantastic piece on the NFL lockout (yes, I know, sports!) by Stephen Squibb at N+1. People balk at the idea of rich football players being unionized, but when you look at what they're up against, oh and the whole dying really young thing, I can tell you it's a lot easier to see their plight than that of a bunch of plutocrats.

Given I live in a city where our current mayor wants to "privatise" garbage collection, because a large number of my fellow Torontonians believe the people who pick up our garbage don't deserve a good wage and our thanks. Instead, they would prefer some guy make a lot more money so our garbage collectors don't, and on top of that, they can't bargain collectively. I'm sure people here in Toronto looked at what was going on in Wisconsin and thought how we are somehow better off, but privatizing everything is simply eliminating collective bargaining through the back door. Anyway...

And here's a piece from the Awl about someone who doesn't own a cell phone. I kind of admire her, but part of the fun in reading this one is actually also reading the comments. People sure do like their cell phones. Or not.

As someone who dropped Facebook six months ago, I have had a lot of similar conversations. At the end of the day, all the arguments about adopting or not adopting technology wind up having a lot to do with what kind of a distinction we want to make between our "public" and "private" lives. So if this is at all of any interest to you, I would urge you to read philosopher Thomas Nagel's Concealment and Exposure. He does a nice job of trying to point out some of the problems with letting it all hang out.

Now you might accuse me of "letting it all hang out" lately, but you need to ask yourself, do you really think I would get that personal on a blog no one reads? Or maybe you've just found me baffling lately.

If it's any consolation, I kind of feel the same way.

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