Talking about talking

Every day at lunch, when I head off on my walk to Subway, I make a strangely deliberate choice about what topic my mind will gnaw on for the next 24 hours. At some times, my soundtrack is the latest downloaded album or some project I'm working on. Sometimes it's the Kojo Nnamdi show's Tech Tuesday. Or maybe it's the news of the day.

For the past week it's been the news of the day. And the news of the day, of course, has been Israel and Lebanon.

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You know, I see what Katherine means about writing style versus reading style. I write much more formally than I speak. And when I'm doing these dictated blogs I've been trying to dictate the sort of things that I would normally type. And man, that's a pain in the and. Almost as much of a pain in the half as having to program profanity into this software.

So. Where was I? Ah yes. Pain in the ass.

That's better.

I guess there's a lesson in all of this about how tools and technology help dictate the form of art (or communication or media... call it what you will). But that's not this blog.

I want to write something about Israel and Lebanon. I have the sense of what it will be, just like I had a sense of what the immigration blog would be. But in a way the immigration one would be easy because, though I'm not sure I can articulate it, and I'm not sure what decisions I would make if I were in position to do so, I do feel like I've got my facts straight and I see pretty clearly the tension between the competing goods that is almost always at the heart of really difficult issues. Like I said in one of the blogs from a couple weeks ago, the difficulties are technical ones not moral ones.

Israel-Lebanon is more cloudy to me. All the normal platitudes apply... there's plenty of blame to go around, we need a compromise, etc..

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Aside: another --- much less serious --- thing I've been thinking about is Tone. Specifically, I read two kinds of things every day: serious news and comparatively light hearted blog banter. Maybe it comes from years of writing at work, but when I write I usually write like I'm putting together a position paper for management. Or maybe a serious news analysis for an editorial page. The lighthearted blog banter doesn't flow from my fingers. But in some way, I'd like to have more of that here.

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What made me think about that is that while on one level my mind is doing this analysis of Israel foreign-policy, on another level I'm thinking "how in the hell do all these people have such strong conviction about what should be done in the Middle East? It reminds me of the mid-level managers in a Dilbert corporation to excommunicate all the devilish details from the slamdunk PowerPoint so that they can maintain a clarity of vision unencumbered by that inconvenient thing that the rest of us call 'reality'."

And hence the whole Tone thing... you talk about the problem, or do you talk about the way people talk about the problem?

I'm hoping that in some Jackson Pollock sort of way this gradually starts to make sense.

So the thing that is striking to me... (okay here's this writing versus speaking thing again: while I'm thinking about what is striking to me, I'm also examining why the oversimplification... wrong word but there isn't a word for the right word... of the Israeli-Lebanese situation is important enough to me to become the de facto subject of the blog... and realizing why, the speaking me considers that detour fair game... but for now will demur)... the thing that is striking me is how those with expertise in this subject portray a fiendishly complex game of Pick-Up Sticks where everyone acts rationally in the pursuit of their own interests, the politicians but even more so the talking heads (and here's a clue: the public) boil it down to a bumper sticker.

Full disclosure: I've said in the past that if you can't put it on a bumper sticker, you don't really understand the problem. And you know what, I don't really understand the problem. But for everyone who thinks they do, I'm at a total loss as to how they got there.

Anyone see the connection between the immigration comments above and this? I did give a clue...

Making public comments about something that you don't fully understand, where you don't feel knowledgeable enough to pass moral judgment on those involved, doing so in an environment where most people seem to have passed moral judgment within 24 hours... well, that makes me nervous.

So rather than talking about the problem, I talk about talking about the problem.

Barring any unexpected responsibilities from work this week, I think I'm headed to Alabama. Sounds like Katherine might be coming. I'm sure my parents will have opinion about this. Tyson too. And then there's the two 8-hour drives.

I hope everyone has their talking caps on. I'll bring the drinks.

I look forward, nervously, to moving towards clarity.