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Because she totally rocks, penelope_z sent me a gorgeous, gorgeous cover for The Wasteland. Pardon me while I squee hysterically.


From penelope_z



I'm really spoiled. *hugs Penelope*


Recs:

The Giving Tree by zahra. The odd thing is, until last night while chatting with someone, I hadn't even, I think, HEARD of the story, then voila, this appears in my inbox. Very lovely, pure zahra. And it looks like I need to get to reading.

Capillary by Julian Lee. It's the little things, not the big ones, that'll catch Clark out in the end. It's deceptively simple, heartbreaking, and strangely inevitable. I like how Clark and Martha are drawn here. It aches, all of it. With a killer last line.

Disconnect by Julian Lee. Oh. Wow. Now THAT is a new way of looking at Jonathan and his relationship with his son! I'm not sure I entirely agree, but I'm not sure I disagree either. In any case, a fascinating take on the entire idea, both of how Clark views his father and Lex's, and how Lex views his father, Clark's family, and Clark.

Let's Talk About Sex by zahra. *snickers* THAT is funny. I love how she writes Lex in the throes of passion. Just--so. Very. Funny.

Places to Visit:

denialcorp - Home away from home. Happy place. I'm entranced. Oh yes.

thamiris comments here about Clark and the episode Suspect.

latxcvi comments here and here as well with some interesting insights.

eat_crow has some good analyses of the episode as well by taraljc and rosenho

And my entire friends list is alive with musings of one kind or another. These people think a LOT.

Other Things:

Got my remix assignment. Okay, I'm going to seriously need to think about this for a bit. Or you know, until the day the challenge is due, so as to keep up with my flawless procrastination record.

Well, I had two things to ramble on. One, and really, talk about BACKTRACKING, defending Clark, but luckily, thamiris did it and very lovely she did, too. Clark's such a guy. Why discuss when you can pretend nothing happened? Boy has his head SO far in the sand it's adorable. Two, writing process, but my nose is runny and therefore, I shall use that as an excuse to be boring.

Actually, I'm contemplating a story idea. Like so many others, it's percolating, because while it's INTERESTING, I don't have my hook for it yet. After devinmoonshine was oh so kind as to agree to think about a VERY pretty idea (nudge her every so often, please?) and hwmitzy showed me something--highly, highly mindbending, I'm all in the mood to do something--bizarre.

I have the COOLEST friends ever. *g*

In more jenn-centric news, I'm full of envy for everyone who gets to go to conventions. You know, I never used to want to go. Now I do. Dammit. That's really random, I know. But there it is. Envy.

Okay, everyone asks this eventually, so I will too, because I keep catching people friending me and I have no idea why exactly or who they are, though I try to check at least once a week or so and see the journals in question, I'm sort of behind on doing that. I mean, granted, if you dropped by when I was writing Somewhere, it was definitely more convenient to friend so as to keep up with updates than to hit refresh on my main page so many times a day. Got that one. But otherwise? Just feel oh so free to comment.

Um. So. Feel free to drop in, say hi, I'm so and so, and it's your icons that just dragged me in. Just so you know? I have made exactly ONE of them. Maybe three the entire time I've had an LJ. Chances are, if it's the icons? Someone else made it. *g* I suck with the icon thing. No visual imagination whatsoever.

And...HOW would a corporation rule the world? You know, if such a thing were to happen. What kind of model are we talking about? I'm torn between a really bizarre communism, except that feels weird for the idea of capitalism, or a really really bizarre fascism, but that one seems a little too--wrong. Or I'm not thinking about it in the right way.

Um. Just asking. For absolutely no story-related reason whatsoever.

Comments

[j-bluestocking.livejournal.com]

There are corporations that are well-run, and corporations that are badly run, and everything in between on the ethical and efficiency scales -- thus the term "corporate culture." I like to think that a "good" (but scary) corporation would run the world... well, rather the way Singapore is run. Personal freedoms -- like the kind in the American Bill of Rights -- aren't big there, I gather, and the government has an amazing amount of power over you. But most people lead fairly happy, decent lives. (All this with the caveat that I'm not exactly a political expert, I just watch a lot of documentaries. *g*)

An interesting take on giving up personal freedoms and privacy to a "good" corporation is Niven and Pournelle's *Oath of Fealty.* The people who signed onto living under the corporate banner willingly agreed to give up all privacy in return for security -- and they were pretty happy about it.

And here's an example of what might be corporate big-brotherism: I don't have the sharpest memory of this, but there's some place in the world (might've been Singapore, might not) where the taxpaying citizens were complaining that young vandals thought it was amusing to pee in the elevators. So the government handled it by putting cameras in elevators, and then airing the "pee-ers" on the nightly news, humiliating them. It's not something the US would do, but there was a certain elegance to the solution -- no court hassles, no time expended by juries, judges, lawyers; just the disapproval of your peers.

What intrigues me about the idea of a corporation running the world (assuming this isn't just a Big, Bad Corporation Run By Tyrants) is that it offers an opportunity to approach problems creatively. I don't mean "unhampered by the Bill of Rights," because I happen to like individual freedom -- but it's an interesting thing to think about. What if the people running the world had enormous power, but weren't out to use it to crush the populace and build prettier palaces? What if they just wanted to improve the corporation (which would include everyone in the world)?

One thing, though -- if you mean, in real life, rather than dramatically -- I've spent some time in corporate America, and came away with this bit of truth: Large companies go through stages. First, they notice that things are run inefficiently, with different departments doing different things, and they decide there's too much chaos and not enough control. So they centralize power and combine departments. This goes on for a while, new people come into the company, old people leave. Then people notice that the company's become too hidebound; it can't respond quickly enough when it has to. So, brilliant idea, they start de-centralizing it. This goes on for a while. A few more years go by, and they start to notice that things aren't being run as efficiently as they could be...

Forever. Really, I think it's like breathing in and out, and if one company lasted for a thousand years, you'd find the same thing happening.

In the US, we have the tug of war between federal and states' rights, but it all has to go through the legislature and judiciary. A corporation could just hold a few meetings and then start changing things.