“What now?”

That’s this weeks question. It was also the question John Brockman asked for the World Question Center immediately after the September 11th attacks.

Sadly, we already know the answer given that context. The attack was used as a pretext for a war we are still fighting. Now what? Now we bomb the shit out of people who had nothing to do with it! Now there have been over 4,000 dead U.S. soldiers and at least ten times that amount in Iraqi civilian deaths. Now we have spent…

…on the war.

Since the original question has already been answered in the context in which it was asked, we must put it into a new context - today’s context. Since no major world event has occurred recently, this question is wildly open-ended. Answer anyway you like! My answer appears in the permalink.

————–

This week’s “question mark” (and variants) search stats:
Year-to-date: over 950
Last week: 159 (it slowed down this week!)
Strangest in the last week: “burning question mark”

So when you have a burning question, it gets its own punctuation symbol?

Read the rest of this entry »

This weeks question, once again from the World Question Center, is subject to some interpretation. Interpret and answer as you will just be sure to have fun with this one. My answer appears in the permalink.

What Questions Have Disappeared?

————–

This week’s “question mark” (and variants) search stats:
Year-to-date: about 800
Last week: 187
Strangest in the last week: “christian question mark”

I didn’t know question marks had religions.
Read the rest of this entry »

No question of the week this week. I’m hoping for more responses to last week’s question first.

————–

This week’s “question mark” (and variants) search stats:
Year-to-date: over 800
Last week: 200
Strangest in the last week: “question mark who are you”

The news media is unbalanced.

“Of course it is,” some of you might say, “it has a liberal bias.” Or, more likely for my audience, “It’s only as liberal as the corporate giants who owns it.” But political bias is not what I’m referring to. There is a bias against smart. Science is under reported, celebrity is over reported. Progress is deemed ‘uninteresting’ while violence is sensationalized. Emotional impact, not intellectual stimulation, is the goal. Entertainment, not information, is the product. Even the way stories are reported cater to short attention spans and limited vocabularies.

This situation has caused many important stories to go unnoticed. Here’s your chance to give some of those stories a little light. This week’s question is, once again, from The World Question Center on Edge.org. This was the question for 2000 and your question this week:

“What is today’s most important unreported story?”

I’ll loosen up the reigns a bit and ask, “What is a recent under-reported story that you consider important?” You can give more than one story if you’d like as well. I’d also like to know why you consider the stories important. I’ll answer after my readers have a chance.

————–

This week’s “question mark” (and variants) search stats:
Year-to-date: over 600
Last week: 118
Strangest in the last week: “person behind a question mark”

This question comes a little late this week. Once again, I’m pulling from The World Question Center on Edge.org.

“What is the most important invention in the past two thousand years?”

I’d also like to know why you consider it the most important. I’ll answer after my readers have a chance.

————–

The “question mark” search barrage continues. I’m up to 290 searches for that term and about as many variants. The strangest search phrase in the past week was “question mark memory”.

Here’s this weeks question… but first, an item of interest.

Do you see that picture to the left of this, and almost every weekly question post? It’s a pretty neat question mark. I got it here from Wikimedia Commons (that site and Creative Commons search are what I use to find a majority of the images for my blog). But that little question mark has been the source of an a minor nuisance for my blog’s statistics. For the past month, someone or something has relentlessly searched using the phrase “question mark”. It has been by far the most searched term that ends up with a visit to my site over the past 30 days. In all, I’ve had 215 visits because of this, which is about 20% of my usual monthly traffic.

The funny part about this are the variations of the search phrase that were used. Many were pluralized, a couple were typos or misspellings, others added a exclamation point and/or a dashes, still others left out the space and just searched ‘questionmark’. The best, though, were the ones that use modifiers. These tended to be odd. Here’s a list:

• “picture of the week question mark”
• “free questionmark”
• “question mark moon”
• “where is the love question mark”
• “numbers and question mark”
• “a question mark above a kid”
• “nice qustion marks”
• “alien questionmark”

and my favorite…

• “sexy questionmark”

“Sexy” question mark? Talk about an odd fetish! I wonder if it’s the curvy top or the round bottom that does it for the searcher.

Read the rest of this entry »

I didn’t realize how much I was missing the weekly question we used to post until it was gone (Janet has taken a break from it to focus on other things). Anyway, with that in mind I thought I would take on the responsibility and send something out.

This week’s question is geared to all of those Internet junkies out there….

What are some of the websites you read the most and why?

I myself need to think about this one a bit so stay tuned for my answer

Bunnies4Buddha

In recent blog posting Janet has mention how busy she has been. With this in mind I have come up with my own question of the week. I am hesitant to title it a TTMT seeing as those originate from her site, but none the less enjoy the following:

If you had unlimited resources to run the successful business of your choice what would it be, why would you choose it and what would be the best part of the job?

Bunnies4Buddha

Janet has a question posted for this weeks TITMT. Allow me to quote her:

“What are some of your favorite quotes, who said them and why do you like them so much? Feel free to go ahead and quote yourself, too if you so desire. Don’t try to trick me though. I’m thinking next week my question my include a few quotes and you have to figure out where they came from. If I play my cards right, this can be interactive and productive. Imagine that!”

I have a lot of favorite quotes. Unfortunately, I often disremember the exact wording and who said it. Some of my answers this week will take a bit of research. Here’s one that won’t:

“Be a philosopher, but amid all your philosophy be still a man.”

I remember this one because I see it almost every day. It is, of course, the quote I choose to use in the header of my blog. One reason for this is purely practical; it’s short enough to fit in the header. It was also chosen because of my affinity for philosophy and because as it serves as a reminder to not let one’s philosophy consume one’s life. I’ve known a few people whose fervent pursuit of knowledge prevented them from living and enjoying a normal life. Even good things must be taken in moderation.

The only unfortunate part about this quote is it’s mild sexism in the language. I understand that such language was common in Hume’s day, but still, I’d prefer if the last phrase read “be still a human” or “be still a person”. Which do you think would be better?

Here’s another that requires no research:

Read the rest of this entry »

Janet has brought us another though-provoking question. She was inspired by a post by another blogger named Lorna. This week’s TITMT is both a question and a new vocabulary word.

disremember

\dis-rih-MEM-ber\
verb
Meaning
: forget

Example Sentence
“‘It was the British who did it,’ I said quickly. ‘I disremember the place and time….’” (E.L. Doctorow, Loon Lake)

What are a list of things you wish you could disremember?

I can think of a few things I’d like to dismember

The first answer that springs to my mind is all the embarrassing experiences that I’ve had. As a kid, I had social graces that could charitably be described as ’sub-par’. They really haven’t gotten much better since. Thus I have no shortage of such memories. But, in my ongoing effort to disremember those experiences, I’m not going to repeat them here. I’m sure my wife will be more than happy to relate some of those stories to anyone who asks, though.

Really, I have no trouble forgetting things. I could even be called a great disrememberer! Usually, the first thing I forget is when other people make mistakes. I usually forget well before I even have a chance to forgive. So much of the list of things I’d like to disremember are likely already forgotten.

There are a few songs I’d like to disremember. Thanks to Janet’s blog, top of that list is The Facts of Life mind worm theme song. Speaking of which, I’d like to disremember ever single damn sitcom I’ve ever had the misfortune of watching. I’d best stop here lest this post degenerates into a rant about bad music and bad TV.