Right now, my other job involves rewriting all the pages of an old website that was rather tedious in its prime. A lot of the work I do does not involve tech, but most of it does. And I have found that one thing tech writers most lack is a sense of narrative — the idea that they are telling a story. Trying to create a narrative by rewriting the pages from scratch is rather easy to do; trying to do it through editing is difficult indeed. So I thought I would take a break and quickly write an Odds and Ends.

Ironic Political Ad

After last week’s Republican presidential debate, most of the sane viewers laughed when Jeb Bush said, “There’s one thing I’ll tell you about my brother: he kept us safe!” I just assumed this would be forgotten by the next day, or at least that Jeb would try to bury it. But no! He made a political ad out of it:

This is bizarre. Here is George W Bush, standing on the rubble of the worst foreign attack on American soil ever. It was an attack that happened while Bush was president. It was an attack that he did not keep us safe from. Is irony dead? Or are Republicans just that ignorant? Or are they just so convinced that they are “strong” that George Bush protecting us is axiomatic: George Bush protected us because he was a Republican and they protect us?

Chicken Hawk Dick Cheney

Speaking of Bush, I found this somewhere. It was probably over at Job’s Anger — but I’m not going to go over there and find the exact link — especially given I’m not sure. This does sum up Cheney. The thing is, Cheney and Trump are about the same in terms of doing whatever they want and feeling no culpability whatsoever. I do wonder if they aren’t both psychopaths — in the technical sense.

Hats for Sale

This is an image from Esphyr Slobodkina’s excellent children’s book, Caps for Sale. I find it so charming now. But when I was a kid, I thought this odd little peddler with all those hats on his head was evil. Slobodkina wrote a sequel to the book that is not quite as good, but still very charming, Circus Caps for Sale. My friend Andrea tells me this style of image is an example of foreshortening. What that means is that all the perspective is screwed up. That’s something I’ve come to greatly admire as I’ve gotten older. Regardless, you should really check these books out. I’m sure they are in your local library. My library has 20 copies of the first book, but only four of the second.

Real Life Facebook

I don’t know where this came from, but it is very amusing. It shows how bizarre Facebook behavior is. I was having lunch with a friend of mine last week. She told me she had been feeling great, but then she went on Facebook and saw all the great things her “friends” were doing and got really depressed about her life. I thought that was interesting because this is a known phenomenon. I tried to explain that people don’t post the bad things that happen in their lives. It’s all about mythologizing what your life is. None of this made her feel better.

That’s all for today kiddos. I’ve got to get back to the grind. Talk to you later!