"Truth" in editorials?

I really hate when a source takes a quote from the philosophical opposition out of context to strengthen its own argument. Even when I largely agree with the source.

This seems to have happened in our class reading assignment. We were told to read http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org//speech/libraries/topic.aspx?topic=patriot_act&SearchString=internet. Specifically, this part got to me:

Others contend the ACLU’s attack against Section 215 is overblown. Heather Mac Donald, a fellow with the Manhattan Institute, argues in an August 2003 column in The Washington Post that “Section 215 merely gives anti-terror investigators the same access to such records as criminal grand juries, with the added protection of judicial oversight.” She rejects the staunch opposition to the provision by many in the library community, writing: “By publicly borrowing library books, patrons forfeit any constitutional protections they may have had in their reading habits.”

This makes me angry. I believe that the books you read, the TV you watch, the Internet sites you frequent are your business, not that of law enforcement. Only in this way can open information be exchanged.

Well, it turns out that the quote at the end of my italics was taken out of context. The original article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A34482-2003Aug22&notFound=true

The relevant paragraph:

The ACLU also argues that Section 215 violates the Fourth Amendment right to privacy. But like it or not, once you've disclosed information to someone else, the Constitution no longer protects it. This diffuse-it-and-lose-it rule applies to library borrowing and Web surfing as well, however much librarians may claim otherwise. By publicly borrowing library books, patrons forfeit any constitutional protections they may have had in their reading habits.

I really disagree with the author's point here. But the first time I italicized this, the author looked ill-informed and dumb. In context, she makes a nuanced argument after establishing a "fact". So although I believe she's wrong, she is not likely ill-informed or dumb.

The author of the first article listed here should be ashamed. He deliberately (my guess; I can't prove that) obfuscated a quote from his opposition in an attempt to prove his point. If he thinks that his audience can be persuaded to the other side of this argument by a disclosure of what's really going on, perhaps his argument is flawed from the start.

Interactive Fiction

I'll start with a link:

In my last entry I talked about the Choose Your Own Adventure series of books. The next generation of this form was in early computer gaming. At least, this is the next generation that I remember using.

The Zork games were probably the best-known and most popular versions of these entirely text-based adventures. That's right - no graphics whatsoever. As a child, I whined at my parents to buy me a computer just so I could play these games.

The link I started with has definitions for all of these, so if I confuse you, click there.

Zork was essentially a single-player MUD (or Multi-User Dungeon). This phenomenon is even more interesting. These were the first networked games - one could play with people in other countries or people sitting across the computer lab. My experiences with these started when I began college in 1993. I understand that they had been around since the mid-Eighties.

I witnessed some people who became too immersed in this culture - beginning real-life relationships with online buddies and ignoring studies or even personal hygene in an all-consuming drive to spend more time on the computer.

There were several competing MUDs back then. All were available via Telnet; you had to know the IP address of the hosting computer, but that's all. They were loosely based on Dungeons and Dragons-ish adventures with swords and sorcery and all, but many evolved into not much more than a chatroom. Relationships, alliances, and conflicts were all formed on these boards.

Again, you can read more about these things by following the Wikipedia links that I've provided. They're interesting stuff.

But this was my first exposure to the time-draining abilities of networked computers, and I learned my lesson. As soon as that became a priority in your life, you were lost to the real world. College is a time in which weak or addictive personalities often became marginalized, and no one was talking about Internet Addiction. It's not drugs or alcohol - there's an extensive warning and helping system for those types of addictions. This is something which blindsided my generation, and several people were lost to it.

Interactive media of the Eighties

I'm 30 years old, and grew up in the Reagan years. Professor Jordeno has instructed us to read and watch a lot of original material from before my lifetime, much of which has reminded me of pop culture references with which I'm more familiar.

So I've decided to dedicate the blog to discussing these points.

We've been required to read Borges' short story "The Garden of Forking Paths". Besides sounding like a swear word, this work is useful to our purposes in that it raises the spectre of a hypertext interactive novel.

This made me think of the types of interactive story-based media that I've encountered and (in some cases) really liked.

The first of these is the Choose Your Own Adenture series of books, summarized here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure

You can read all about this if you like. My personal experience is that I was addicted to these from a very young age, and took them all out of the library when I could. By the time I had blown through all of them, I had forgotten the first one and read it again. I spent years happily going through these - I often put upwards of fifteen bookmarks in the book because sometimes you start down a road that you don't want to be on.

Tomorrow, I'll post and discuss about Interactive Fiction.