not falling down

To snark is to be impressed with the opinion that you are writing; the more you consider your argument to be inviolable, and the weaker and more ad populum it is, the snarkier it is.

To snark is to fall victim to the fashion of the moment. Fashion does not matter. Hence, the snarkier you are, the less you matter.

I’ve found that this last sentence is rapidly becoming the foundation of my political philosophy. First, consider all sources of news and opinion on a matter; second, discount or discard these sources directly according to their snarkiness. Third, look carefully at the heaviest things you’ve got left.

This is why Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh don’t matter. This is why Molly Ivins and Tom Tomorrow don’t matter. This is why Aaron Swartz matters, but Aaron Sorkin doesn’t; why George Will mostly matters, but Mallard Fillmore doesn’t. This is why the Daily Show, bless it, doesn’t matter. This is why Seth Schoen matters. This is why Orson Scott Card used to matter, and doesn’t matter anymore.

It’s not just about how seriously you take your subject matter. It’s possible (if rare) to be light-hearted about something without being snarky, and even if you treat your flamewar with Gawker like it was your daughter’s life, that doesn’t make it worth anyone’s while. It’s about consideration and logical rigor, about resisting the cheap shots and the urge to smirk. It’s about speaking to principles and facts, not targets; it’s about not gloating. It’s about the setting aside of childish things.

I don’t matter, not yet, because I liked writing this too much. There’s a vicious glee in outright dismissing the people who pollute the bandwidth of political discourse, and Dave Eggers would call me out on doing it.

The weird thing about last night’s shootout is not that police killed a baby in crossfire. It’s that they were trying to abort a meme at the same time.

Maybe nobody will try to use a baby as a shield again, knowing that the police are willing to shoot through her. Or maybe somebody will. Knowing that death was inevitable didn’t stop Eric and Dylan.

Why hasn’t anyone started using the Griffin Roadtrip or similar devices as personal pirate radio transmitters? They’d be perfect for coffee shops, student unions, seating areas of city parks–especially places that don’t have free wi-fi yet. All you’d have to do is set out the big LCD screen so passersby can see it, turn on your mp3 player of choice and be the ultralocal DJ. I’m totally going to do this whenever I cave and buy an overpriced hard drive with a stereo jack on it.

It’d be better to increase the gain on your tiny transmitter, of course, maybe by adding bigger batteries or using a higher-watt AC adapter, but I’m not an electrical engineer and I don’t think I know any. Also, I think boosting an FM transmitter above a certain level is illegal, but then that’s half the reason to do it anyway. It’d also be pretty cool to trump the LCD screen by wearing a t-shirt with your band of choice real big on the front. 88.5: ME RADIO!

I wonder if printing up such t-shirts would qualify as willful inducement? I hope so.

Crystal’s Adventures is pretty amazing. She’s in Asia on a grant this summer (she’s in grad school at Tulane, although I don’t know her degree program); in May she wrote for an adolescent health website in Bangkok, after which she and two friends traveled overland through Laos to Hanoi, where she’s working on a sustainable community development grant proposal.

This sounded a little scary and exciting to me, as somebody whose only knowledge of Laos and Hanoi comes from old Doonesbury comics. Crystal’s account–which is well-written, clear and reasonable–makes it evident that this is a batshit loonball psycho death trip. Also that she is an action hero. Check out the part where she watches a cargo truck flip off a mountain, almost has her own bus do the same, stays in a house that uses old bombshells for dishes and scares a biker gang into carrying her down the mountain for three bucks. Man!

I found Crystal’s blog through her domain-co-resident and fiancee, Clinton Roosevelt Nixon, a name very familiar to indie RPG geeks who don’t read this. My Nobilis ballers may recognize him as the guy who wrote The Shadow of Yesterday (and, ergo, invented Keys).