Tea Parties, Cont'd.

My buddy Hu had some comments re: my mild defense of the Tea Party movement. Essentially, he couldn't believe that I would say anything mildly positive about a movement pitching nothing more than a "hissy fit," and he felt that they lacked ideas. I responded as follows:

Here are some ideas:

--stop spending so much of my money
--stop raising taxes
--stop regulating, bailing out, or outright taking over businesses to the point where they won't hire anybody

Notice I said all of that without throwing a hissy fit or making personal insults. Those are the basics of the tea party. The fact that they are angry (many months of unemployment might do that to me, too, but still) is a big reason why I'm not joining any damned movement.

To which Hu responded:
 

Who could argue any of those points?

...but change just a few words and those concepts get incindiary, and elitist.

-- only spend money on what I want
-- make me lose weight, but not in a way that I can notice

Firing back...

Well, I'd rather they just spent less, period, but that's just me. Again, no hissy fitting required. And it's very difficult to act politely toward a president who displays ostentatious luxury in a time of high unemployment and speaks disdainfully of large numbers of his fellow citizens. As with the Tea Party, so too with the president: it's how they say it.

So there ya go: my little discussion on the Tea Party. I'm not that gung ho to convert anybody. I'm just trying to explain where I'm coming from in the current political mix. Does this mean I'll vote for a Tea Party nominee in my district? If they're the Republican option, yeah. If my local GOP candidate is an "establishment" type, I'll vote for them. As Haley Barbour puts it, "When the Republican voters of a state choose a party nominee in an open process like a primary, we Republican leaders must support the nominee."

We shall see what we shall see. The point is to stop the current government-centric, high-tax, increased-regulation policies currently enacted. I shall calmly and rationally exercise my voting franchise without throwing a hissy fit or wearing a tri-corner hat. Such things are still possible in America, despite what you might have heard.

Demonizing the Tea Party Movement

You know, rather than mocking, insulting, or making false accusations against the participants of the Tea Party movement, its opponents in the punditocracy might consider a couple of things, such as:

• Addressing the complaints these voters have about excessive government taxation, intrusion, and regulation of the economy.
• Thinking about how this movement manages to stay motivated and energized despite the lack of any single political figure in their camp...indeed, despite the fact that several political figures are trying (unsuccessfully) to co-opt the movement or sabotage it.

Just sayin'.

Various Links, News, and Outrages

A plain-language explanation of the value of social media.

Germany has something every guy can appreciate: man parks! An opportunity for grown men to play in the dirt with real construction equipment.

Care to know who else has taken bailout money? Here's the list of other companies Congress is likely to denounce for operating with no strings after first pledging money to bail them out with no strings attached: http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/tarp-chart.htm. Stand by for more outrage, show trials, forced confessions, blacklists, and disingenuous demonizing.

Nancy Pelosi believes that Immigration raids of worksites to look for illegal workers are un-American.

Science fairs in Alabama (just in case you're interested):

• http://www.uah.edu/sciolympiad/
• http://narsef.uah.edu/
• http://www.uah.edu/ASEF/

A friend of mine from Disney is doing some email marketing of his own comic book. I thought I'd pass it along in case you're interested: Deus ex Comica: The Rebirth of a Comic Book Fan

While America seems to be lurching along to the left, New Zealand has elected a center-right government, and has a pretty impressive list of accomplishments for their first "100 days."

"Tea Parties" are expanding nationwide. Because the protests are often anti-Obama, the mainstream media, of course, is ignoring them unless they're also denouncing businesses.

I am now officially famous. I've been interviewed by The Space Show as a space advocate and The Story Institute as a nonfiction writer.

*

Doc and I had a really good discussion today about the Internet business model and how newspapers could make the transition beyond the dead-tree model. I asked him directly how writers like Scalzi and Doctorow will manage to make a buck once the dead-tree route is no longer available. (Side editorial: I believe some bright soul in the Obama administration will attempt to force the demise of paper books in the name of protecting the environment. Sure, a bunch of people at Barnes & Noble and Borders will lose their jobs, but Amazon will make out just fine with its Kindle editions. Okay, done with that--we now return you to your previously scheduled foolishness.)

One example Doc offered was Salon.com, which manages to hire and get good (albeit liberal) investigative pieces, to pay its writers, and get people to pay for their content. They have advertisers, and manage to bring in the big bucks, etc. So couldn't the big-name newspapers follow that same model? Or couldn't the NY Times, etc., make Kindle and the internet their primary for-pay distribution channel? "Perhaps," sayeth The Doc.

My follow-up question was, "What about new writers?" Getting paid for writing is difficult enough in the dead-tree era. How do writers without publishers get paid? Well, "that'll probably involve a long time writing for free." Yep. That was my guess. Anyhow, Doc is right that "Content is King," and that if your content is good enough, you can give some of it away and still make money on it.