Kang’s big journey to Texas…

Posted by High Priestess Kang as Travel, Uncategorized

Some snaps, taken by the crappy iPhone camera, of the canal near KangEmployerHeadquarters:

Kucinich Kicks Ass!!!

Posted by High Priestess Kang as Politics, Uncategorized

Not that you would know by taking a glance at the latest article from the AP. However, during the AFL-CIO debate this evening, Dennis Kucinich kicked establishment ass.

So impressive, he was, Pat Buchanan lavished him with praise. Chris Matthews and the rest of the talking heads talked of Edwards’ push for being in the top two, only to be smeared by Kucinich.

ZOMG! Is mainstream media starting to see what we see in Dennis Kucinich? Let us hope so.

For your reading pleasure, I have snagged some of the Kucinich related comments listed on First Read (MSNBC’s politics blog).

Obama, Clinton, Edwards and — yes — Kucinich got the biggest applause lines from the crowd in Olbermann’s introduction, even though the crowd was instructed to hold off their applause until the end.

Kucinich said he would in his first week as president, tell Mexico and Canada that the US is withdrawing from NAFTA and the WTO. He whooped up the crowd. Yet another pander moment.

Clinton is calling for a “broad reform” of NAFTA and other trade agreements. She did not say scrap it. As for the rest of the field: Richardson appeared to duck saying whether he’d do anything to reform or scrap NAFTA; Obama called for amending NAFTA by noting, BTW, that he’d call a couple of world leaders; Biden seems to want to amend it; Dodd wants modify it; Edwards says “fix it,” minor surprise he didn’t say “scrap it”? Edwards took a DIRECT shot at Clinton with the “Fortune” magazine shot. Kucinich is the only one to say scrap NAFTA.

This the first debate where Kucinich seems to have impressed me; He actually seems comfortable and that line about digging a hole to China was hilarious. Maybe it’s due to the absence of his gadfly buddy, Mike Gravel. At any rate, give Kucinich his due.

Asked what Congress has accomplished so far this year, Kucinich only listed the legislation he is sponsoring (on health care, Iraq). He said the Democrats in November 2006 had a major responsibility to end the war in Iraq, and they haven’t fulfilled that promise. Wonder what Nancy thinks of that….?

Kucinich whipped out the funniest line of the night: “I’m the Sea Biscuit of this campaign” referring to the underdog champion horse. Was that rehearsed? Did he know this was his last question?

I must say, I haven’t felt this much optimism in ages. Finally the talking heads are giving a dark horse candidate his due. And this particular dark horse does not only deserve it; he earned it.

The Daily Douchebag

Posted by High Priestess Kang as Blogging, Uncategorized

I have introduced a new feature to KangWorld. It is called, “The Daily Douchebag.”

Basically, this feature is along the lines of, “Worst Person in the World” as featured on Countdown with Keith Olbermann. I am going to detail ass-banditry and douchebaggery that I witness on a daily basis.

My goal is to identify one douchebag a day. Given the vast talent pool that is politics, entertainment and the internets, I cannot imagine that I will ever be at a loss for qualified candidates. However, in the event that I overlook a day (or cannot be arsed with actually posting), the default daily douchebag will be the political experiment gone entirely wrong; The Bush Administration.

Sometimes, I will provide some detail. Other times, simply a name. Some things simply speak volumes for themselves. And…as always…feedback and suggestions are more than welcome.

I hope you find this a useful tool and resource. Failing that, I should hope that it is chuckle inducing.

Back in the saddle

Posted by High Priestess Kang as Personal, Uncategorized

Phew! 

Upon returning from Chicago, I have been inundated with job prospects.  After a considerable lull (partially on my part), the interviews are starting to pick up.

Yesterday, I had a fantastic interview with another division of the State.  The job sounds like it would be the perfect fit for me.  A lot of travelling, a lot of training folks and a lot of compliance auditing.  w00t!  No longer stuck behind a desk, cranking out order after order after order.  Of all the opportunities I have encountered as of late, this sounds like the most interesting for me.  Let’s hope the other candidates bristle when they discover how much travel is involved.

Being the overly pragmatic creature that I am, I have scheduled another interview for Monday with a company in the private sector.  The position also seems very interesting. 

What I find surprising is the amount of opportunities to transition from the day to day operations of Purchasing into more management (not necessarily of people) oriented positions.  I find the day to day ops very boring, very frustrating and offering little room for growth and creativity.  Hopefully, branching out will lead me to a more fulfilling chapter in my life.

If being sick has taught me anything it’s that you shouldn’t have a job that doesn’t appeal to you.  Life is too short to sit around an office, moldering, simply to make a dollar.  I’m hoping this positive attitude channels into extreme charisma and that special thing that will make the prospective employers interested in what I have to offer.  I am so entirely ready to shake things up.

Keep your fingers crossed that all goes well.  Kang is back to feeling somewhat frisky! 

Blogs as a Serious Literary Venue

Posted by Ming the Merciless as Blogging, Guest Author, Ming the Merciless, Uncategorized

I fired my old blog. Oh, I still have my Sweden blog, neglected despite my big plans. In large part it is neglected because my pimary reason for setting it up was for friends and family to keep up with the happenings in my life. The sad truth is, very few read it. Mostly people from Kangworld, and y’all can talk to me here. I’m thinking of dumping it, too, and putting the meager content somewhere else. I love Kang’s blog, but I don’t think that blogging is for me.

Enough of my personal experience with blogging, on to the topic…

I have participated in a discussion on a message board recently about the feasibility of a blog as a serious literary publication. I assume that, although the initial message was posed as a question, the author was actually looking for stroking and encouragement for a project he was going ahead with regardless, not actual opinions. It always hurts when we are told that we are a day late and a dollar short.

For your enjoyment, I am reposting here the thoughts I shared there in response to the question of whether a blog can be a publishing venue for serious writers.

I think you need to differentiate blog software from the concept of a blog. It is certainly possible to use the software as a publishing platform for an online literary magazine and your idea of publishing a yearly print copy is really good. (And thanks to Cafepress, Lulu, and any number of other sites, also free and easy for anyone who doesn’t care about making any money.)

The blog as a concept doesn’t work as a serious literary venue since it comes with an inherent lack of external editorial control. The whole point in a blog is that you can publish anything, good or bad. And the vast majority of blogs are, if not exactly bad, at least lacking in any literary merit. The truth is that very few writers (if any!) churn out literary gems every time that cannot be improved by an experienced editor.

The very thing you pointed out that makes blogs attractive- free and easy to maintain- is also what means that there is going to be a whole lot more chaff than wheat. It costs money up front to put out a print publication so those publishers have a vested interest in making sure that they have a quality product. A purely online publication with volunteer staff on a free host doesn’t have that pressure and can take risks. It also doesn’t face financial repercussions if it sets the bar lower.

I personally think there is room for both paradigms, traditional print publication (and it’s online counterpart) and self-published blogs. The role of traditional publishing is changing, but one thing it will continue to provide is a very valuable quality control. Blogs will provide limitless variety. It’s the difference between going to a five star restaurant and a $1.99 all-you-can-eat buffet.

The original author followed up with a response basically telling me that I have not yet seen the light and how in the world of what-if, my assumptions are flawed. (Note, no attempt to explain why they are incorrect was made.) To which I responded:

With all due respect, the terms are not synonymous. All blogs are online publications. Not all online publications are blogs.

The industry changes, trends happen. And eventually the blogosphere is going to be inundated by so much crap that it’s not going to be worth the time it takes to find something good to read (if it isn’t already). Even now, if I want to read something good online, I hit a print publication’s site like The New Yorker or The Atlantic online or else an online publication I trust not to waste my time like Mad Hatters Review. Not the blogosphere.

There can be exceptions, of course. As it says on Technorati’s main page: “71 million blogs… some of them have to be good.” The same things that make the blogosphere attractive to you make it attractive to millions of other people. You may care about the literary quality of what you post/publish but most of them don’t. It’s already like looking for a needle in a haystack to find something worth reading.

If you are going to go ahead with your blog idea, what you really need to consider is how, with all those other blogs out there, you are going to get your good one on the top of the heap, not buried on page 265 of someone’s Google search results.

In response to a follow up that pointed out possibilities for reaching niche markets, assuming that technologically the filtering is sufficient to weed out the crap:

Your point about micro-markets is dead on. It also creates immediate conversation with readers in a way that traditional print publications cannot make possible. (Though now that they have very nice, expensive web sites, it becomes much more possible.)

There has been a lot of hype about blogging, culminating with Time’s 2006 person of the year article. Eventually it is going to fall more in line with reality- especially when Erik Schmidt of Google (which owns Blogger) comes out and says that the average blog has one reader. In 2005, Dave Pollard (a Salon blogger) calculated that average readers hang around for only 40 seconds per page view. That means a lot of those people clicking through skim quickly and then leave. (That one has the best graph, but some quick Google research actually seems to show a declining trend…)

Blogging is hip, fun, and we all get an equal chance to be internet rock stars. But still, the attitude toward blogging (vlogging, podcasting, etc.) is not that it’s a destination in it’s own right. People believe it can be their springboard to something else. Usually that something is traditional print (or film or music). That’s like an aspiring actress dreaming she’ll be discovered when Steven Spielberg unexpectedly drops by a Des Moines Denny’s for dinner one night. Could it happen? Sure. Likely?

I’m actually not down on blogging, it can be a really enjoyable activity. Ultimately it’s exhibitionist verbal masturbation, though. You have to do it for your own enjoyment regardless of whether anyone else shows up.

Traditional publishing, with submissions, editors, and rejection isn’t going away. The principles behind how they do things are still valid. As you pointed out, it has evolved away from vanity presses. Blogs are basically just another version of that. The quality has not necessarily improved with the maturation of the system but I don’t think that blogs will do anything to improve the quality either.

That was as far as I got before I said “fuck it” and decided to share the conversation with Kangworld rather than continuing it on the message board. I never bothered to post the last segment.

As a footnote, the person who originally posed the question went on to implement the idea and, in the first post, made the their/there mistake.

Q.E.D

An Ode to Cutty Sark, a fine sail, a fine cask

Posted by Shark as Uncategorized

I must admit that I’m rather tendentious in what I drink. Though I enjoy a good whiskey, my heart has always laid with whisky. You see, whisky can only come from Scotland, which is why it is commonly referred to as “Scotch,” while the Canadians, Irish, and Americans have whiskey. But for those timorous of you, I shall not bore you with the titular trivialities of the fine spirit, as I do not wish to seem truculent. I am a tony of a fellow so if you do take umbrage at my remarks I pray that they will subside in a trice.

I shall now undulate to the matter at heart, which is the glass of whisky placed before me of which I am currently imbibing: an unpretentious vintage of Cutty Sark. Being somewhat of a dilettante when it comes to naval affairs, a pedantic sailor with a penchant for the open ocean, I can share with you my good friends that Cutty Sark is not only a saporous liquid but the name of a famous seafaring vessel. No doubt Dock Ellis will be simpering at my prosaic attempt at honoring this fine ship.

Oh Cutty Sark, you magnificent royal triumphant, the last of the tea clippers, the lone survivor. To what lonely berth have you been tied? Relegated to the back pages of history and the last example of a fine sailing ship, your rigging yearns for the ocean, your boards shiver in darkness. How the Suez Canal and the steamships destined you to second. Wool did you carry from Australia to the Downs, Captain Richard Woodgett at the helm, a finer commander of a square-rigged ship hard found. May you slumber in Greenwich, safe from the clutches of young witch Nannie…To thee I raise my glass, to fairer seas and empty casks.