Fantastic funnies 

I'm about halfway finished with an Orson Scott Card fantasy, Magic Street, a standalone, not in a series. I like his fantasy as well as his sci-fi/future stuff, partly because it can be funny. That's the way he (and a lot of successful fantasy writers) get you to suspend disbelief; he has the characters question the wild things that are happening to them, and the cynical way it comes out can be pretty funny.

Maybe I'll try writing some fantasy. I haven't even tried since I was about 10, but I think the one time I did I won some kind of little grade school prize for it.

Cheap cross-examination 

I'm watching the MSNBC replay of Meet the Press. Listening to Tim Russert try to trip up John McCain with old quotes reminded me I meant to remark on the tactic in my commentary on Dave's podcast. Forgot. I agree with Dave about disliking that style of interviewing.

The one that bothered me most recently was Russert's cheap lawyer-style cross-examination of Barack Obama when he announced he was thinking of running for president. Russert hounded him with a clip of Obama saying in an old Meet the Press interview that he wouldn't run, and that just pissed me off. There's this cutsy coy dance that's become the norm: the politician hems and haws and aw-shucks, and the interviewer half-tries to get an "I'm going to run" announcement out of them.

It's all so fake, and here's Obama not ready to announce, but honestly saying he may be changing his mind -- and Russert's all over him about it, apparently wanting to preserve the coy dance routine. Shoot, if these interviewers want to be real journalists, they'll ask the really tough questions.

The internet helps citizens scratch below the surface of the 30-second sound bite. 

Audio comment on Dave's podcast from yesterday. Six minutes, 2.1 MB. Very unplanned and a little choppy -- but, it's short.

He appointed Chris Matthews as Secretary of Defense? 

All week I've been doing doubletakes.

Office ergonomics will get more attention  

Add this to the speculations about the impact a Democratic congress will have on the tech industry. It's been the pro-big-business stance to deny there is such a thing as carpal tunnel or repetitive stress injuries, in much the same way it was convenient to deny there's such a thing as global warming.

If Kennedy is named chair of the senate labor committee, you can bet things will change. Look for conservative arguments that the expense of protecting workers will hurt small business and read it as code for hurting big business.

It's not sexy Web 2.0, or net neutrality, but it's a pedestrian and important concern bound to play a role in IT budgets unless departments work out deals with their organizations' budget makers to separate out workstation improvements from computer equipment. Many expenses for items like chairs would never be charged to an IT budget, but things like keyboard platforms can be. If I was a CIO I'd start working right now to advocate shifting the expense for ergo-related purchases to an organization safety and health budget category. It would be a smart move for organization recordkeeping, too, since expenses for preventing injury and expenses for advancing technology need to be weighed on separate scales in evaluating the balance sheet.

I also wouldn't be surprised to see some new ergo products and books.

Note: not necessarily the opinion of my employer.