And now for some gratuitous linkage

Ah the joys of hypocrisy:

Dumbledore touching children: An English school had students use Potteresque spells in the classroom, resulting in vast improvements in students' understanding of the material. Man heard to react with the word “Wanderful”, raped and beaten behind nearby 7-11.

Ron Paul raises $4.2 million in one day, buys monocle and top-hat to prove it. Bewildered media forced to cover independent campaign favorably, compensates by asking to see Mrs. Kucinich's pierced nipples.

Monkeysex and satan worship.

The number of World of Warcraft players has surpassed the number of farmers in the world. Thank mario and pacman for planting the necessary seeds of bloodlust.

Electronic Glory

I worry about how the internet changes the way we tell stories. We're surrounded with the exotic, stories of monkeysex and satan worship, moments of reality which go beyond our standard experience and which seem to expand our perspective. But these stories also allow us to identify with an impersonal niche which will scare off anyone seeking to slowly connect through old-fashioned conversation.

When we exchange stories about the exotic, the impersonal, our relationships are mediated by something outside ourselves. The internet becomes a new God called upon to protect us from one another. Ideally, stories should be comically alleviate irrational fright, open us up to experiences which our ancestors would have shunned, and connect us with people our ancestors would have burned...but that's only possible if there's a foundation for mutual understanding behind the stories, a foundation which cannot be created so long as there's such a large incentive to close the doors against a confusing world and worship an electronic glow that does not threaten us with anything but silence.