Ruminations

From Froborr on My Little Po-MO:

The other night, I was rereading Terry Pratchett's Night Watch, and I wondered: would Ferguson be as bad as it is if all cops were required to read the Watch books?

And the answer is, of course, yes, because the human ability to compartmentalize and justify via special pleading is infinite, but still, I can't help but think that things might be slightly better if the prevailing cultural image of cop-as-hero was more Vimes and less Dirty Harry.

In the process of looking for something completely unrelated, I happened upon woogledesigns' thoughts upon the nature (and, indeed existence [or rather non-]) of Doctor Who canon:

Here's what I think: The Doctor remembers every Doctor Who story ever told. Every episode, target book, comic strip and every game of companions and TARDISes you played as a kid. The universe he lives in has no record of it, because paradoxes and divergent dimensions and the time war have reset things. But the Doctor remembers and sometimes when he is sad it's because you've stopped being 8 years old and he can't run around the school playground with you anymore.

(And the comments proceed to kick around the Timey-Wimey Calvinball.)

An affirmation for kosaginolegion, dungeonwriter, dferguson, and anyone else out there who aspires to Make Stuff Up for fun and profit:

Maybe instead of saying, "you're not a fraud" to each other, we should say, "Yes you are! A con artist extraordinaire! In fact, you are pulling off the steal of the century by creating this completely made up THING and showing that it has value in an incredibly convincing way! You are making a Made Up Thing, Fantasy Whatever, In Your Head, Into Something That Will Look Like People Living Their Lives In A Room! or On Top of a Mountain! or in a desert or outer space or under the sea! If you keep at it, it will make people have weird dreams and maybe even make them choose specific real-life actions! They may even trade hard-earned dollars as a result of it, and as we all know, nothing makes anything more real than money! Go forth, young shyster, you liar, cheat and bullshit artist, and manufacture mass delusions!"

(Courtesy of ms_violet, by way of metaquotes.)

(My online time is frequently in short supply during the holiday season, so these acknowledgements are somewhat belated; however, January 6th seems an apropos day on which to honor both a scholar and an icon of Victorian genre fiction.)

ratmmjess  sets forth his lone New Year's resolution:

To always remember this:

It is not necessary to have been a tiger from the first and by nature in order to display tigerish qualities. Social conditions exist by which lambs may be converted into tigers. (1)

And Sherlock Holmes, courtesy of Tetradecimal on Journalfen, delivers an exquisite takedown of a particularly officious would-be Fandom Cop (2); a sample quote:

My dear Watson, there is no man so enamored of rules and regulations than he who has no authority to pronounce them.

(1)  http://ratmmjess.livejournal.com/221317.html

(2)  http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/1235661.html