posted
I'm probably not a typical hatracker. I have not yet read any OSC fiction beyond the Magic Street sample (I think I'll start with EG, when I get the time). Nor am I Mormon. I came to the site a year or two back from a link to the columns and have been coming back for more ever since. I enjoy the reviews, but I really love reading the World Watch.
As to the brouhaha in the OSC/Cipher thread: I think those that are outraged by his views are a lot more likely to make themselves heard than those that agree with them, or at least give them consideration. I don't think his readership is divided into fawning admirers and vitriolic detractors. Those are just the ones most likely to make themselves heard.
His stuff on gay marriage is thought prevoking. Before reading it (and some similarly themed columns by George Will) my position had always been: they're grown people, why should anyone interfere with their happiness. I hadn't really thought about the role and function of marriage in society.
Honestly, the most outrageous thing I've read by Mr. Card was the glowing review of Uptown Girls. Still trying to get my mind around that one.
The tribalism/civilization stuff in the "cipher" thread was really interesting.
What I'd really like to hear more on is the sturdiness or fragility of modern civilization. If a US city were attacked with a nuclear bomb, just how much would our way of life change?
I'd love to hear other people's thoughts, and of course the big man's, in particular. It's not a pleasant idea to dwell on. But I've heard or read several people (including a former head of the CIA) claim the event is inevitable. I have not heard anyone discuss or precict its results. It is always thrown out there like a bogeyman, and that is understandable. But if it is inevetable, then the next logical step is: what happens after?
Just 1 to 10:
1 being something like the total collapse of economy and infrastructure, chaos in the streets.
10, a devastating loss from which we spring back, become united and have our finest hour.
I know it's a ridiculous and horrible question, but it's one I've wondered about in the wake of 9/11 and even Katrina, and one I'd like to pose to the editorialists I read and respect. Mr Card is unique among them in that through this forum, he is accessible.
Posts: 24 | Registered: Oct 2005
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I guess we'd all want to hear discussed those issues that are near and dear to our hearts, right? Or else things we haven't wrapped our minds around (other than reviews of the Uptown Girls?).
Topics that interest me: courage; what should be recovered from primitive civilizations; rationality; rhetoric; paradigm shift in science; how to be a Renaissance man; making church interesting; how to know if what you've written will please others; what "cool" means; how bias (regarding views, or people), or other things we find problematic, is good . . .
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Hmm, maybe an essay on the alienation of children from the rest of society? Those who aren't directly responsible for children (parents, teachers, relatives, etc) rarely come into contact with them, which I think leads to some idealistic and unrealistic ideas about "families" and "parents" and "children".
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When abortion should be legal. (I can't tell whether he wants all abortion banned or only some of it.)
Posts: 781 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Whether its proper for owners to dress their pets in ridiculous outfits or if that constitutes animal cruelty.
Posts: 375 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:But if it is inevetable, then the next logical step is: what happens after?
Darn, I hope just because a CIA agent and some people claim a nuclear attack on the US or any country in the future is inevitable means its inevitable.
I would be surprised by a large scale nuclear attack because people that are in control to do so proably worked hard throughout their lives to get to their positions and would basically be endangering themselves and their thrones of accomplishment and the good things that go along with it (choice mates, children, nice cars, sweet TV's, etc).
It always seems the suicidal are the lower members of society who are exploited by those in control to do their diry work. And hopefully, those on the edge won't ever get a hold of nukes or have the discipline to learn to make them just out of hate.
Anyway, that's James Bond's answer.
Posts: 27 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Well its called world watch. It would be cool to see him write about things that go overlooked in the news. Things that could be much bigger than they appear.
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Doesn't he spend a lot of time writing about U.S. social issues for something called 'World Watch'?
Maybe it would be good for the column if he wrote about something like the genocide happening in Sudan, a few million people have died and no one really cares... Couldn't that help the world out a tiny bit more than talking about how our country shouldn't pay attention to a particular ousted polititian. (Sowcroft)
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