I’m reading a book that has been deemed important to the discipline of cartography, and I’m loathing it. The writing style is excessive and whimsical to the point where I forget the point somewhere mid-sentence. I read a few sentences to Michelle, who felt the author had never taken a legal writing course. I checked Amazon’s reviews of the volume, and found that others felt the same way about the long lists of examples ending in ellipses. But I imagine the author’s own children may also take issue with his writing style:
“For 17 years I have supported their growth and participated in their development, helping them turn from mewling, all-but-helpless infants incapable of controlling their sphincters into the assertive and all but autonomous hulks who last summer roamed on their own around Manhattan.”
How embarrassing to have your father refer to your sphincter. The scary part is, I can almost see myself writing this way. I’ll try not to.
http://www.sectionz.info/ISSUE_4/mapping.html
Really cool article (and maps) on mapping by region (instead of with geopolitics). Thought you might find it interesting…although there’s no talk of sphincters. Sorry.
You know, I’m starting to pick out a theme:
http://freed.dyndns.org/archive/000451.php
There’s been talk of management on watersheds or other natural systems for several years now. It makes sense for managing, say, watersheds. I’m curious to see what happens.
Our former Governor is even working along these lines at the Kitzhaber Center:
http://law.lclark.edu/org/kcenter/oregoniancomment.html
My adviser pointed out that the author was on This American Life a few years back. Oddly enough I actually heard this episode, and thought it was excellent.
http://207.70.82.73/pages/descriptions/98/110.html