I absolutely love it. It’s plain, simple, and perfect.

There were other things I was going to write, but I’m tired and having image uploading issues. Suffice it to say, if I’m not completely lazy, there will be changes around here (including, hopefully, an increase in the frequency of posts).

Keynote, to the unaware, is an excellent presentation program. It’s part of iWork, which is Apple’s answer to Microsoft Office. Keynote is the parallel to PowerPoint. In fact, it’s *better* than PowerPoint (though to be fair, I haven’t had a chance to experiment with PowerPoint 2008).

And yet: PowerPoint wins, I argue, because Microsoft makes Office for Macs.

Seriously. Keynote is great. Why can’t Apple make it for Windows machines? To force people to buy their computers? Wouldn’t their software stand a better chance of competing against Office if they were cross-platform?

I just wish the process of designing was as well.

The Fill the Bus project is being run by the Center for Service Learning and Civic Engagement. We needed a very fast turnaround for this. I think it took me about 20 minutes total to create this image in Illustrator.

Interestingly enough, the font (Ravie) was a random pick. I wanted a font that would be fun and bouncy and chose it because it sounded like it might fit. Normally I’m pretty obsessive about font selection, but this time the first try actually worked well. I love it when things work out in my favor.

I think it was when Elika, the princess of the city, described the population’s decline from several thousand a few hundred years previously to fewer than 200 that it struck me: Prince of Persia is really a rather apt metaphor for the urban decay of Detroit, Flint, and, well, the rest of Michigan. Detroit in particular fits this mold well. The population declines; the merchants stop coming. Corruption–physical, political, metaphorical–inescapably spreads. The way the auto industry is faltering–it’s like the final seal containing Ahriman is cracking.

What, then, can we do about it? If only the metaphor carried through to the healing of the city! In the game, the Prince and Elika, with the help of Elika’s magic provided by the creator god Ohrmazd, kill Ahriman’s lieutenants and heal the fertile grounds. I suppose there are urban renewal programs and churches to “meet” both counts. But is it enough? And how can more be done? What can be done to bring Detroit out of its ruin?

Usually, this strange nostalgia is centered around some sort of interesting research question. Tonight, it happens to be digital storytelling. One of my coworkers sent me a link to Bill Gates’ Facebook profile. Here’s the thing: this is getting to be a genre. There’s Austenbook, which retells Pride and Prejudice, or the Passion of the Christ, which came out right before Easter. And on Twitter, there’s the fictional adventures of Othar (a character from the ever-excellent Girl Genius), or @publicdomain, which just finished tweeting the entire text of Moby Dick, or @manyvoices, a collaborative storytelling effort from middle school students nationwide, started by Maryland teacher @mrmayo (his classes have since moved on to other digital writing and storytelling efforts).

At this point, of course, my inner lit major is bemoaning the sad state of literature in our day and age. The rhetor, however, is fascinated. What is the barest form a story can take? These forms, apparently. Plot, after all, is little more than a set of people and events. Austenbook may not be the most interesting read in the world, but it’s still the story.

Or is it? Does it stand alone without the reader already knowing the context? I mean, in reality, anyone’s facebook profile is functionally a story. Mine certainly tells a distilled version of my life over the last few weeks–a bridal shower for a friend, a baby shower for another, Star Trek, transitioning into roommatelessness. My twitter feed, interestingly, tells a slightly different story–a trip to the dentist, a phone interview (I really have no idea why they’re so different, which, of course, only adds to my personal fascination).

Then, of course, there’s the simple fact that nobody ever actually reads either a facebook profile or twitter feed as a story. Your status update is just one among many, and while one person’s may be more intriguing than another person’s updates, Facebook and Twitter are less like hearing the story of one’s life and more like reading a single sentence off each page in a book.

So: why do people force stories into tools that really can’t support them?

Perhaps more frightening: how much context do people create for the status updates they receive on their feeds?

“While politics is about power, an ethical framework can be seen as a ‘counterbalance’ to power, or at leat as a way to mitigate some of the potentially negative impacts of power.”

(Source: Cathy Gibson, 2009).

Mostly, I’m throwing this up here for the sake of storing it somewhere, but it really synthesizes some of the vaguely politicky thoughts that have been stewing in the back of my head. Namely, this is why the Right cares about issues like Gay marriage and abortion and the sexual exploits of politicians and whatnot–it represents a decay, perceived or real, in the mitigating force keeping those in power in check. And it’s why presidents like Bush, love him or hate him, could get re-elected: again, real or perceived, as a proclaimed Christian, many who voted for him perceived him as being guided by an internal counterbalance to the power–the human conscience.

It’s the entire purpose of the law: it’s not solely about keeping society in order, but it provides a structure by which leaders can help society maintain this order without losing control or, more frequently, gaining absolute control. Without moral absolutes, what is there to stop those in power from seizing it? Indeed, without moral absolutes, what does it even matter?