Godless Mom in the Bible Belt

Today I have a guest blogger! Don Swift agreed to play the 5 questions game and he has been kind enough to let me publish his answers here at GM in the BB. Mr. Swift has made some excellent observations on his blog regarding the crumpet vs. the bagel (May 24, 2005) for any of you who are a bit sketchy on the history of the American Revolution it is a must read!

My questions for Don are in bold.

There is a definite lack of international borders in the blogger world. Our communication is limited only by language and not geography. If you were to project the evolution of blogging fifty years into the future, what do you think you would find?

I think it's the evolution of computing in general that's going to evolve. Even now we use multimedia in our weblogs, but with progress in processing power, memory capacity, and connection bandwidths, I foresee audio and video coming to the fore. Perhaps we'll conduct guided tours around our homes, introducing the viewer to members of the family and showing off our prize geraniums. My fantasy though would be the introduction of virtually reality, in which we get the full sensurround, "feely effect" I don't need to tell you of its potential.

Here in the States you frequently hear people say they just don't "get" British humor (or humour, whichever spelling you prefer.) How would you define humor of the British sort and do you feel it differs from humor in the US?

My encounters with Americans bring me to believe there are no significant differences humour-wise. I think when people don't "get" comedy it's usually because they're not making the effort. They evaluate it on what they already know, so of course it disappoints. New and ground-breaking comedy usually requires a little effort. It reminds me of someone I used to know who dismissed foreign food on the grounds it didn't taste like the food he was used to - roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, now that's what proper food tastes like!! American comedy tends to have a higher tempo than ours, and there will always be references within it that we don't understand, but that cuts both ways. But it doesn't make it inaccessible (unless its all very obscure).

If you suddenly found that you had the ability to read minds, how would you put that talent to work?

I have a gut-feeling about how this kind of power would quickly become a nightmare. All knowledge would be accessible. All achievement would be effortless. It would be the royal road to power and riches. But would life be challenging (and therefore worthwhile) without obstacles? I don't think so. I think mind-reading would be a curse. I'd probably kill myself.

Do you hold out any hope for humanity?

I don't think there's ever been any evidence to show humanity is progressing. Okay, Science and technology have given us some brilliant party tricks, but they've done very little in the area where it counts - human behaviour. Okay, we have dubbed some esoteric practices the "behavioural sciences", but they only call themselves "science" to give it credibility. They're parasitic on the paradigm science, Physics. A lot of what they pass off as "knowledge" is pure speculation. Human beings are unpredictable. Why do you think Economics has been such a dismal failure over the past 50 years or so - "Rational economic man", anyone remember him? What a laugh. Anyway, I digress. As I don't consider us to be anything more than animals, albeit very complex, then I think we'll be around for as long as the environmental situation allows it. We have to take our chances just like any other species. So no, I don't hold out any hope, but I'm not unhappy with the situation. I would advise everyone to get on with it and not lose too much sleep over the future.

(GM note: It gets a little blue here for a moment. Definite PG-13)

What are your five favorite euphemisms for masturbation?

I don't suppose anyone would believe me if I tried to avoid this by claiming ignorance of the practice, so....

Favourites eh? Well, I don't consciously hierarchise words or phrases, especially of this nature, but I am fond of the phrase, "pulling one's pud (pudding)". "Pudding" is such a nice, inoffensive sort of word, making it almost impossible to believe blindness is an inevitable result of having a tug ("tug" is not one of the 5 by the way).

Okay, as I'm taking far too long over this so I'll speed up and bring it to a quick climax.

Next, we have, the "blue-veined solo". I used to attend a quiz night at a local pub and this is what some wag named his team. Moving more quickly now to "Throwing one off the wrist", which I think has a certain charm to it, as does "choking the chicken". The tempo quickens as I finish with the phrase I used all those years ago when I first realised you could do more than pee and stir the tea with it - "tossing off". Yes! Yes! Sigh.



Thanks Don! And on that When Harry Met Sally note I'll bid you all good weekend. I'll be back on Monday.