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I decided to post this after reading this post by Barb Knowles.  Like her, I was disturbed to see that most of my favorites are white men. (And all but one of them is dead.) Also like her, I’d love to have suggestions on diverse authors. I plan to do a list of my favorite non-fiction authors–that should be a lot more diverse.

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W.S. Gilbert: As long-time readers will know, I’m a huge Gilbert and Sullivan fan. Sullivan was a fine composer, but in all honesty, it’s Gilbert’s words that I love.  Moreover, he has a huge number of other plays done by himself or with other composers.  So much wit and genius.  Truly, he “made his fellow creatures wise” by “gilding the philosophic pill”. He’s the reason I became a writer.

 

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George Orwell: Most people know him for 1984, and it’s a great book. But I think his best fictional work is Animal Farm. These books are more than just political satires on events of the time–they are timeless examinations of human nature.

 

 

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Charlotte Brontë: True, I’ve only read one book by her: Jane Eyre. And yes, it is in some ways dated with the trappings of Victorian melodrama. But it’s still a very good tale, filled with unexpectedly humorous moments.

 

 

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Robert W. Chambers: The King in Yellow, and more specifically, The Repairer of Reputations, is the greatest weird tale I’ve ever read. Not even Lovecraft or Poe ever managed to create such a bizarre atmosphere in so few words. I’ve read it countless times, and each time, I have more questions about it.

 

 

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Robert Bolt: He didn’t write books. He wrote films and plays–most notably Lawrence of Arabia and A Man For All Seasons. If you want to see historical fiction done right, look no further than these. Lawrence is one of my favorite films, partly for its beautifully spare script.  Man For All Seasons is a fascinating take on questions of morality and pragmatism vs. idealism.

 

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P.G. Wodehouse: As somebody once said: it is impossible to be unhappy while reading one of his books.

 

 

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Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most widely-read and beloved books in America. And yet I still think it’s underrated. Mostly, this is because so much of the talk about it focuses on Atticus Finch.  He’s a good character, but it means other characters like Heck Tate, Miss Maudie, Calpurnia, and even Boo Radley himself don’t get their due. Go Set a Watchman, meanwhile, is not bad once you understand it’s a draft–which many people don’t.

 

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Thomas Hardy: In some ways the anti-Wodehouse, as his stories are usually very grim. But he was a master at creating an atmosphere, and there are parts of Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure that are shocking even now–I can’t imagine how they would have struck Victorian audiences.

 

 

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John Kennedy Toole: I’ve only ever read one book by him.  (For a long time, it was thought to be the only one he wrote.) A Confederacy of Dunces is a strange, strange beast. If I tried to describe it, you probably would think it totally crazy.  And it is.  But it is also brilliant–I’ve never seen such an intricate plot that fit together so neatly.

 

 

1024px-chris_avelloneChris Avellone: I did it. I put a video game writer in the same company as Brontë, Orwell and Hardy. And it’s justified. The script for Knights of the Old Republic II is a meditation on the spiritual and psychological effects of war that ranks as great literature. And the iconic Kreia is one of the all-time great female characters. I rank KotOR II slightly ahead of Avellone’s legendary Planescape: Torment, which explores many of the same themes, but both are absolute masterpieces.

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These are two errors people make in all types of organizations.  They seem to be complete opposites, but in fact they stem from the same failure in logic.

“The Competition Is Doing It”: People in business, sports, politics etc. will often say this to justify doing something.  “We need to spend the big bucks on this.” “Why?” “Because the competitors spent big bucks on it–we don’t want to be left behind.”

The problem is, this makes you susceptible to fads and fashions.  If the other guys are doing it and it’s actually a bad idea, then you are copying their mistakes. It’s an advanced form of peer-pressure. People who don’t know what they are doing will just copy other people on the assumption they do.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t see what the competition is doing–of course you should–but rather that the fact that they are doing something is not in itself a reason to copy them.  Only if it’s working for them is it a reason to copy them.

Of course, people sometimes make the complete opposite mistake…

“Not Invented Here Syndrome“: This is where people are too concerned about keeping their own insular culture, and refuse to adopt new ideas. A variant is “we’ve always done it that way” as a justification for something.  People are too afraid to try something new and justify it by saying its not “who we are” or “how we do it”.

Now, on the surface, these errors are in complete opposite directions.  One is about taking ideas from the outside, the other is about refusing to do so.  But the common theme in both is that people are unwilling to do something no one else is doing. They are afraid of the risks involved with trying something no one else has tried.

So, how to avoid making either of these errors?  It seems like a delicate balancing act, where if you try too hard to avoid one, you end up making the other one.

The answer is to focus on what actually works. That way, when someone says, “The competitors are doing it”, you can say, “And is it working for them?” And when someone says, “We’ve always done it that way”, you can say, “And has it worked for us?”

The truth is, many screw-ups occur because someone was afraid to do the thing that they knew would work, either because no one else was doing it, or because they themselves had never done it.

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For the second time in a week, I’m posting something I wrote years ago.  This one isn’t nearly as fun as “The King”, though. 

But first, some background: I got into a debate with someone the other day about the treatment of Germany after each of the world wars.  To summarize: her position was that Germany was treated harshly after World War I, leading to the rise of the revenge-based Nazi party, which in turn led to World War II. After that war, the Allies didn’t punish Germany as harshly, to avoid another Nazi-like revenge effort. The lesson, she argued, was that it was better to be charitable to defeated enemies, rather than being vengeful and vindictive.

My view is a little different.  And I know a bit more than most about this, because I had to write a term paper about it in college. I’m going to post a section of it here to give my thoughts on this topic. (Be warned, it’s full of irritating jargon as a 19-year-old undergrad tried to write like the professors he’d been reading.)

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There are several potential reasons for the differences in the treatment of Germany after World War II compared with World War I. The first and most obvious is that Germany suffered far more direct damage as a result of World War II. Many German cities were destroyed in addition to the number of lives lost. In addition, the destruction of the German government was more complete than after World War II; the elites could not be said to be left intact this time. These facts alone may explain in large part why the allies felt the need to aid the German recovery more than they did post-World War I. Also, it may have been thought that in the wake of this utter defeat, the German people had, in essence, learned their lesson. The allies may have felt they had “finished the job”, unlike after World War I.

Another reason is the dynamics of Europe after World War II. The Soviet Union and the United States, though allied in the war, immediately were at odds by the end of it. As the Soviet Union comprised Eastern European countries and even had control of East Germany, the U.S. felt that West Germany was an important strategic zone in the coming “Cold War”, and that Germany could not simply be abandoned but needed instead to be rebuilt in order that the West could have a presence in Europe to counteract the Soviet Union.

A third potential reason is the results of the treatment of Germany in the aftermath of World War I and the now apparent results. The harsh treatment of the German population after the first war had been a major factor that led to the second one, and the allies did not wish to repeat those mistakes by once again giving Germany a reason to want to acquire more territory. Of course, it is questionable, in my opinion, whether this would have been a realistic goal of Germany no matter how they were treated after the war. The devastation brought upon the infrastructure during the war was such that it would have suppressed German aggregate supply. This would mean that, far from wishing to acquire more resources, the Germans would have, without considerable help, been reduced to a poor, almost less-developed country that would be unable to rebuild for war. Furthermore, the demise of much of the population would have a decreasing effect on aggregate demand—the opposite of the scenario described above, in which a growing population increases aggregate demand, thus fueling the desire for “lebensraum”.

Because of the factors outlined above, it was imperative that the allies, led by the U.S., aid in the reconstruction of Germany. In the aftermath of World War II, the allies ordered many businesses in Germany to close. These only slowly, after a licensing process, were reopened. (Berge & Ritschl, 1995, p.9) Initially, a program of “de-Nazification” was implemented, though scholars have questioned both its effectiveness and the allies commitment to it in view of the Soviet threat. (Herz, p.1) The allies disbanded the German army in 1946. The Morgenthau plan was proposed, which essentially would have “returned Germany to a rural state”, in the words of Jeffry Diefendorf.  (Diefendorf, p. 244.)  The goal of this plan had been to make all industrial centers of Germany “international zones”, with all German territory becoming farmland. This plan was implemented to some extent initially, though later it was phased out, in favor of the Marshall plan. From 1948 to 1951, the U.S. contributed an estimated $1.4 billion to west-occupied parts of Germany under the Marshall plan. (Delong & Eichengreen, 1991, p.14)

[NOTE: I’ve cut out a lengthy section on the economic details of Germany both pre- and post-war. It uses a bunch of jargon and data unrelated to my present point. If you wonder why you see some stuff in the references that’s not cited in-text, that’s why.]

As mentioned above, after World War I, the United States’ desire to get out of the war quickly had led to a Peace that left the German elites intact, with the burden of the punishment for the war falling mainly on the civilian population. In contrast, in the wake of World War II, the German leadership was forced to suffer much more, and the population was given aid to rebuild. This is another key shift in attitude that contributed to the difference in treatment.

It would be remiss to omit the Soviet policy towards East Germany form this paper altogether. The Soviet Union’s treatment of East Germany was fairly harsh, as dismantling programs—discontinued in the West after 1947—continued past that point in the East. From this alone it appears that the Soviet Union, whether due to the nature of economic limitations, or else an unwillingness to do so out of a desire to punish Germany—the Soviet Union approved of and benefited from the harsh Morgenthau plan (Dietrich, p.14)—it appears that the Soviet Union’s treatment of East Germany was unable produce them same results as those produced in the West.

My own analysis, very broadly speaking; is that there are two points of view with regard to the reasons for the difference in treatment—one is of a more optimistic tone, the other pessimistic, or at least cynical. The optimistic explanation is that the allied forces decided that it was necessary to help the Germans to avoid again fostering a sentiment that they had been unjustly punished in some way. In this view, the lesson is that simple defeat is not enough; it is necessary to build relations and help the defeated enemy.

The pessimistic view is that it was necessary that Germany first be indisputably defeated militarily. While it may have helped matters, in the wake of the first War, if, for example, France had not demanded such exorbitant reparations; it would nonetheless be true that Germany had not suffered direct, total defeat, and thus any armistice would have seemed like a surrender. In this view, it was necessary that Germany suffer firsthand the effects of a large war on its own soil, and be defeated completely. In economic terms, the costs of war needed to be extremely high before Germany would ever abandon it. Only after this had occurred could Germany be rebuilt.

References

Berger, Helge & Ritschl, Albrecht. Germany and the political economy of the Marshall plan. 1947-1952: a re-revisionist view. In Europe‘s Post-war Recovery by Barry J. Eichengreen 1995. Published by Cambridge University Press,

Bessel, Richard. Germany after the First World War 1993. Published by Oxford University Press. Page 96.

Burdekin, Richard C.K. & Burkett, Paul. Money, Credit, and Wages in Hyperinflation: Post-World War I Germany. 2007. Economic Inquiry. Volume 30 Issue 3, Pages 479 – 495

DeLong, J. Bradford & Eichengreen, Barry. The Marshall Plan: History’s Most Successful Structural Adjustment Program. In Postwar economic reconstruction and lessons for the East today by Rüdiger Dornbusch. Published by MIT Press

Diefendorf, Jeffry M. In the wake of war 1993. Published by Oxford University Press. Page 244.

Dietrich , John The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet influence on American postwar policy 2002. Algora Publishing.

The Economist. Loads of money December 23, 1999. http://www.economist.com.hk/diversions/millennium/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=347363 Accessed May 3 2009.

Statisitsche Reichsamt, Zahlen zur Geldentwertung in Deustchland 1914 bis 1923. Quoted in Bessel, Richard. Germany after the First World War 1993. Published by Oxford University Press. Page 95.

Fischer, Conan. The Ruhr Crisis, 1923-1924 Oxford University Press, 2003

Eichengreen, Barry. Institutions and economic growth: Europe after World War II. In Economic growth in Europe since 1945. Crafts N. F. R, Toniolo, Gianni. 1996 Cambridge University Press.

Heinz-Paque, Karl. Why the 1950s and not the 1920s? Olsonian and non-Olsonian interpretations of two decades of German economic history. In Economic growth in Europe since 1945 by Crafts, N. F. R, Toniolo , Gianni 1996.

Herz , John H. The Fiasco of Denazification in Germany. 1948 Political science Quarterly. Vol. 63. No. 4. pp. 569-594

Keynes, John Maynard. The Economic Consequences of the Peace 1920. Harcourt, Brace & Howe. Inc.

Klein, Fritz. Between Compiegne and Versailles: The Germans on the way from a Misunderstood Defeat to an Unwanted Peace. In The Treaty of Versailles: A reassessment after 75 years. By Manfred Franz Boemeke, Gerald D. Feldman, Elisabeth Gläser Pages 203-220.

Myerson, Roger, B. Political Economics and the Weimar Disaster Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 160 (2004), 187–209

Ritschl, Albrecht. An exercise in futility: East German economic growth and decline 1945-90. In Economic growth in Europe since 1945 by N. F. R, Toniolo , Gianni (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 1996.

Ritschl, Albrecht. The Pity of Peace. Germany’s economy at War 1914-1918 and Beyond. December 2003. In The Economics of World War I by Broadberry, S.N. and Harrison, Mark. 2005. Cambridge University Press.

Svenson, Jakob The institutional economics of foreign aid Swedish Economic Policy Review Vol.13 (2006) 115-137

Shuster, Richard J. German disarmament after World War I: the diplomacy of international arms inspection, 1920-1931 2006. Published by Routledge. Page 56.

Taylor, A. J. P. The origins of the Second World War 1996. Simon and Schuster

Footnotes

  1. MV = PY where M = Money in circulation, V = the Velocity of money, P = the Price level, and Y = index of goods. i.e. GDP.
  2. “Militaristic Keynesianism” is the concept of boosting aggregate demand through increasing military expenditures.

 

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Dramatis Personae

Donald Trump: President-Elect
Barack Obama: Outgoing President
John Roberts: Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (And a good judge too!)
Bill Clinton: A former President
Hillary Clinton: A former Secretary of State
Al Gore: A former Vice-President
Chorus of Senators, Representatives, and Townspeople.

Act I. Scene: Washington D.C. A frigid winter day. The familiar landmarks seen in the background. TRUMP discovered standing at podium.

TRUMP: Well, well, at long last the fruits of my eighteen months’ labor are to be crowned with inestimable glory. At noon today, I shall finally achieve the august rank of President, defying all the many baleful prophecies set forth by the ignorant laymen and avowed antagonists of my singular quest. The prospect is Elysian–big league!

(Enter BARACK OBAMA, BILL and HILLARY CLINTON, AL GORE and Chorus. Chorus seen begging OBAMA in a furious state of agitation.)

OBAMA: There’s no getting out of it. The law is the law. At 12 o’ clock today, I relinquish control of the office to my elected successor.

(Chorus much dejected)

OBAMA (aside): Never mind my misgivings about his personality, or his total contempt for my liberal policy agenda; not to mention his hiring investigators to find evidence that I am not a legitimate president. I’m a constitutional lawyer–it’s built into my, er, constitution– and respect for the law, unpleasant as it may be, is paramount! (aloud, to TRUMP) Well look, Donald, I certainly wish you the best with your efforts to undo everything I have done. I have heard it said that you wish to, er, how does it go? “Make America Great Again” by “draining the swamp” is that right?

TRUMP: Yes, that sounds like something I would say.

OBAMA: I know we have had our differences over the years, but I do hope we can put those behind us, and work together in a spirit of mutual bipartisan cooperation for the betterment of the country.

TRUMP (aside): This fellow still thinks I listen to people. Sad! (aloud) Beautiful, very very beautiful! I’ll have my people look into it.

(Enter CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS, looking harried and nervous)

TRUMP: What’s the matter with you?

OBAMA (checking his watch): The inauguration does not occur for another half-hour yet.

ROBERTS (frenzied): Stop–stop, both of you! There is a problem here.

TRUMP: Problem? What do you mean? Explain!

ROBERTS: Mr. Trump’s investigators have just completed their report on President Obama’s birth certificate and by extension, eligibility to hold office!

(OBAMA and TRUMP both much affected)

OBAMA: What!

TRUMP: I had forgotten all about that!

ROBERTS: Yes, well it seems that Mr. Obama’s birth certificate really was a forgery! They fabricated it using someone else’s birth certificate.

(OBAMA staggers in disbelief.)

TRUMP (Triumphantly): I knew it all along!

ROBERTS: But there’s more to it than that–it seems that the certificate they used was yours, Mr. Trump! They simply wrote “Hawaii” over “New York”.

TRUMP: So?

ROBERTS: So, technically you’ve already served two terms–

OBAMA (clapping TRUMP on the back) –and a fine two terms they were, if I may say so myself.

ROBERTS: –and you can’t serve a third.

TRUMP: This is ridiculous–then who is going to be President?

ROBERTS: I’ve checked into that–the results of the last three elections are all invalid, and so we can’t use those. And the winner of the two before that is obviously ineligible to serve as well. As such, I have taken the liberty of convening the court to overturn the results of Bush v. Gore.

(All gasp. ROBERTS motions GORE to step forward.)

ROBERTS: I give you: the Next President of the United States!

ALL except TRUMP: Hurrah!

GORE: Fallacy somewhere, I fancy.

All except TRUMP exeunt in jubilation. TRUMP lowers his head dejectedly.

CURTAIN

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Against my better judgment, I’ve posted an amusing (?) little trifle: it’s an attempted parody of High Fantasy that I wrote when I was 15 years old.  I found it the other day while looking through some of my old projects that I had set aside.

Nothing is stranger than revisiting something you did a long time ago.  People change over time, and so it can feel as if you are reading a brand-new author.  If I were a third-party, I would be quite baffled to find that the person who wrote this absurdity also wrote this. And now I am forced to confront the fact that not only did the same person write it, but in each case, I was the perpetrator.

Effectively, I might as well be a completely different person than the stuck-up teenager who first sat down to write thinking he’d be the new P.G. Wodehouse or W.S. Gilbert. And yet, presumably that teenager is still stored somewhere in my brain, although try as I might, I sometimes have difficulty summoning him to explain what he was thinking.

Anyway, that’s all a tangent.  Here is “The King”, or “What I Thought Was Funny At The Time”. Enjoy!

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I stole this idea from Barb Knowles who got it from Paul who got the idea from Aaron who stole it from Jess. (Whew! It all reminds me of the Tom Lehrer song “I got it from Agnes”–quite possibly the dirtiest song ever written without using a single off-color word. But I digress.)

  1. Blogging
  2. American football
  3. Pizza
  4. Economics
  5. The color red
  6. History
  7. Desert landscapes
  8. The movie Lawrence of Arabia (combines 6 and 7)
  9. Writing
  10. The book A Confederacy of Dunces
  11. A good scary story.
  12. Gilbert and Sullivan operettas
  13. Political theory
  14. Hazelnut coffee
  15. Conspiracy theories
  16. Well-written, metered, rhyming satirical poetry.
  17. The number 17
  18. Thunderstorms
  19. Friendly political debates
  20. The sound of howling wind.
  21. The unutterable melancholy of a winter sunset in a farm field.
  22. Pretentious sentences like the one above.
  23. Knights of the Old Republic II
  24. Halloween
  25. The book 1984
  26. Niagara Falls
  27. The song “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner”
  28. Pumpkin-flavored cookies. coffee, cake etc.
  29. The book The King in Yellow
  30. Hats
  31. Chess
  32. Trivia competitions
  33. Numbered lists
  34. Mowing lawns
  35. The smell of fresh-cut grass
  36. Black licorice
  37. Beethoven’s 3rd,5th and 9th symphonies
  38. The color light blue.
  39. Exercise machines
  40. My iPad
  41. Feta cheese
  42. The movie Jane Got a Gun
  43. Etymologies
  44. Gregorian chants
  45. December 23rd
  46. The story “The Masque of the Red Death”
  47. Mozzarella sticks
  48. Leaves in Autumn
  49. Long drives in the country
  50. Fireworks
  51. The song “You Got Me Singin'”
  52. The book To Kill a Mockingbird
  53. Constitutional republics that derive their powers from the consent of the governed.
  54. Strategy games
  55. Puns
  56. Ice skating
  57. My Xbox One
  58. The smell of old books
  59. Hiking
  60. Tall buildings
  61. Bookstores
  62. Gloves
  63. Rational-legal authority, as defined by Max Weber
  64. Bagels with cream cheese
  65. The Olentangy river
  66. The movie The Omen
  67. Far Side comics
  68. Planescape: Torment
  69. The song “Barrytown”
  70. Reasonable estimates of the Keynesian multiplier
  71. Stories that turn cliches on their heads.
  72. Editing movies
  73. Really clever epigraphs
  74. The movie “Chinatown”
  75. Ice water
  76. Deus Ex
  77. Silly putty
  78. Swiss Army Knives
  79. Anagrams
  80. Wikipedia
  81. Radical new models for explaining politics.
  82. Weightlifting
  83. Lego
  84. Madden 17
  85. The song “The Saga Begins”
  86. Trigonometry
  87. Writing “ye” for “the”
  88. Well-made suits
  89. Popcorn
  90. Pasta
  91. The word “sesquipedalian”
  92. The movie Thor
  93. Blackjack
  94. The movie The English Patient
  95. Pretzels
  96. Cello music
  97. Bonfires
  98. The story “The Hound of the Baskervilles”
  99. Soaring rhetoric
  100. Astronomy
  101. Getting comments on my blog posts.

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All. Well – what’s the news? How is the election going?

Ernest. Oh, it’s a certainty – a practical certainty! Two of the candidates have been arrested for debt, and the third is a baby in arms – so, if you keep your promises, and vote solid, I’m cocksure of election!

Olga. Trust to us. But you remember the conditions?

Ernest. Yes – all of you shall be provided for, for life. Every man shall be ennobled – every lady shall have un­limited credit at the Court Milliner’s, and all salaries shall be paid weekly in advance!

Gretchen. Oh, it’s quite clear he knows how to rule a Grand Duchy!

Ernest. Rule a Grand Duchy? Why, my good girl, for ten years past I’ve ruled a theatrical company! A man who can do that can rule anything!

–W.S. Gilbert The Grand Duke. Act I. 1896

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220px-loving_282016_film29Historical dramas are tricky.  The director has to balance telling a story with a satisfying dramatic arc with staying at least reasonably faithful to the facts of what happened.  Since life rarely conforms to neat three-act structures, this is always a difficult feat to achieve.

Loving tells the true story of Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple in 1960s Virginia.  Interracial marriage was banned in the state, and so, after several encounters with law enforcement, Richard and Mildred are forced to leave their home state and live in Washington D.C., which recognised their marriage.

Mildred wrote a letter to Attorney General Robert Kennedy,who referred their case to the ACLU.  Ultimately, it resulted in the Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia, which the Lovings won, legalising interracial marriage throughout the United States.

This is a summary of the events depicted in the movie, and if it sounds rather dry, let me make it clear that this is merely the framework of the film.  The real meat of the story is in the interactions between Mildred, Richard, and their families and friends–as well as the occasional lawyer, police officer, or journalist.

Much of the film depicts everyday events in their lives.  Richard and Mildred went to work, shopped, cooked, cleaned house and raised their children like any other couple.  It is that basic normality which underscores the injustice driving the film’s narrative: that such a healthy family should be forbidden brings home the sheer immorality of the law.

Because the film is almost completely focused on Richard and Mildred, rather than the court battle surrounding them, it is critical that the actors portraying them be able to carry the film.  They are more than up to the challenge.  Ruth Negga portrays Mildred as a kind, sensitive woman who ultimately realizes that she is fighting for more than just herself, but also for many other couples.  She is intelligent and strong, often without ever saying a word. Joel Edgerton, meanwhile, portrays Richard as a man who may lack education or sophistication, but who is driven by a profound decency and love for his family.

Both Negga and Edgerton do terrific work.  I worry that their roles may not be flashy enough to earn them the credit they deserve, but both are absolutely marvelous at conveying so much emotion in such subtle ways.

Despite the brilliance of its stars, Loving doesn’t completely succeed at balancing historical realism vs. the necessities of drama.  Sometimes scenes go on a bit too long, or don’t resolve themselves in anything dramatically significant. It’s no coincidence that the poorest scenes in the film are the ones in the latter half which involve the Lovings’ lawyers, and from which the Lovings themselves are absent.

There are nit-picks I could make here and there about the historical accuracy of certain lines of dialogue, and a few of the reporters didn’t look authentically 1960s to me.  But these are minor gripes, and it seems a disservice to a wonderful film to dwell on such things.

Loving is a quiet film about decent, moral people who love one another, and therefore it won’t get much love from the folks who go to movies to see glitzy CGI special effects and anti-heroes betraying each other.  In the present political climate, however, I think we could do with a few more Lovings, and a lot less of the other sort.

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There’s a lot to hate about social media.  From idiot trolls to widespread fake news stories, there’s some reason to believe social media is responsible for many of the problems in the world today. In fact, I’d say social media is a net negative for humanity.

(This is pretty ironic, because I used to be in charge of social media for my employer.  And also I’m writing this blog, and I’m going to tweet the link after I’m done.)

But social media does sometimes have benefits.  The other day I was doing what most millennials do with Twitter: using it to look for some good Gilbert and Sullivan information.  Quite by chance, I came across Dr. Alison Vincent’s Twitter account.

Dr. Vincent is the CTO for Cisco UK and Ireland, and an all-around cool person. Her C.V. is very impressive, but the reason I recognized her was from some very enjoyable performances of Gilbert and Sullivan by the Southampton Operatic Society that I had seen many years ago.

I tweeted my thanks to her for the performances, and she very kindly replied.  Then, the Southampton Operatic Society replied as well, with the above clip of one of their performances. Then another one of the performers, Mr. Mike Pavitt, also kindly responded. It was a thoroughly nice exchange all around.

I’d seen those performances about eight years ago on Youtube, but it had never occurred to me in all that time to thank the people involved.  Without social media, I never would have been able to do so.