Hi, I'm david (b) hayes.

Today’s Other People Words, like much this week, reminded me of “Be Your Own Protagonist.” The poem’s “Riveted” by Robyn Sarah.

It is possible that things will not get better
than they are now, or have been known to be.
It is possible that we are past the middle now.
It is possible that we have crossed the great water
without knowing it, and stand now on the other side.
Yes: I think that we have crossed it. Now
we are being given tickets, and they are not
tickets to the show we had been thinking of,
but to a different show, clearly inferior.

Check again: it is our own name on the envelope.
The tickets are to that other show.

It is possible that we will walk out of the darkened hall
without waiting for the last act: people do.
Some people do. But it is probable
that we will stay seated in our narrow seats
all through the tedious dénouement
to the unsurprising end — riveted, as it were;
spellbound by our own imperfect lives
because they are lives,
and because they are ours.

This is one of those things I’ve thought I probably should write for a long time but never got to actually doing. Until now.

Dispatches, for those who don’t know, is a semi-regular feature on this site. It consists, essentially, of a few sentences that laments that our (fictional) reporter hasn’t been in touch in a while and then there’s the (fictional) report that he’s filed.

I’ve naively told myself for sometime that anyone who came across it would understand that this is what it was, but looking at it as an outsider I see how it’s not terribly obvious. If someone followed along from the beginning, they probably could have guessed because, well, the first two installments were about pretty blatantly fictional fare: unicorns and the lost city of Atlantis. They were also pretty bad, but that’s another matter entirely.

The reality is that in this medium people haven’t been, and can’t be expected to have been, following along from the beginning. The internet’s great for jumping in midstream, and that has created a far bit of confusion.

The height of that came in a letter I got recently, from a (real) lawyer regarding this story (which has been changed as a result of that letter). Confusing readers who stumble along is unfortunate but tolerable, the specter (even absent an explicit threat) of legal action is another thing entirely.

So, to explain Dispatches let’s start with Steve Finch, our reporter. Mr. Finch — who does not, to my knowledge, exist — is a 30-something newspaper hack or “beat reporter.” He’s an old hand who write clean straightforward stories that tend not to venture to far from the events and opinion relevant to the story. But he does have a passion for odd and unconventional stories that no one else is covering.

His existence is essentially to make it easier for me to write something about “wouldn’t it be cool if…” or “wouldn’t it be weird if…” for this site without having to present them as so many excessive hypothetical. The idea of animal racism, for example, was something that popped into my head one day. But I wanted to present the idea without taking explicit ownership of it; Dispatches allows me to do just that.

I hope that this will clear up any present or future confusion, and wasn’t too much of a bore to those who already understood. Thanks, as always, for reading.

Armed with a firm desire to create a WordPress theme different from the others that I’ve made and little plan as to what that should look like, I made new theme that was first called “Small Verdana,” then “Old School,” and now the compromise “Retro Verdana.” It is, I suspect, ugly. But it’s also loaded with novelties I once loved and relished.

From the first webpages I ever made — with FrontPage, I must confess — Verdana was one of those fonts that I knew to use and even liked. I’ve also admired the false depth which is easily created by changing border colors. And I’ve always had a undeservedly strong affinity for the color #336699. And “Retro Verdana” has all of those things. And ugly as it may be, I like the result of combining those things. A lot.

To see this little beast for yourself, click here for a demo. Or, since you may well be too lazy, look right below this line.

Essentially, the issue is this: I have strong suspicion that “Retro Verdana” is ugly. Really ugly. Especially to modern tastes, but also to the timeless ideals to which I’d rather aspire. But I also can’t seem to avoid smiling every single time I see it. I can’t help saying: maybe you’re not the prettiest gal, but I’d still love to dance with you.

I can’t avoid the desire to post this theme and share it publicly even though I could be forever condemned as a victim of hideously bad taste. And I can’t avoid relishing in both the unsightly and the nice and novel features which, to even my surprise, I think it has.

So I guess the whole point is that I have two words to say to those who think it’s ugly: I understand. And I have two words for those who admit fondness for it: I understand.

You can download Retro Verdana here, and find its page here.

Last week, I counted Kosovo’s declaration of independence as a good thing. I still think that, on balance, it was. But I’m increasingly interested and perhaps troubled by how much I didn’t and don’t know about the whole thing.

And sadly, what commentary I’ve seen about it hasn’t really clarified the issue for me. Most visible opponents of Kosovo’s independence seem vaguely allied with Serbia or to have some related ax to grind. It’s often cited that those countries that have most prominently failed to recognize Kosovo’s independence have separatist movements of their own — Spain, Greece, Romania, Slovakia. I’m not swayed by this argument, because none of those have provoked — whether merited or not — outside intervention on behalf of one of the parties.

The basic argument here is made by Serbia’s foreign minister, Vuk Jeremic, in a New York Times Op-Ed, in which he says:

Recognizing the unilateral declaration of Kosovo’s independence from Serbia legitimizes the doctrine of imposing solutions to ethnic conflicts. It legitimizes the act of unilateral secession by a provincial or other non-state actor. It transforms the right to self-determination into an avowed right to independence. It legitimizes the forced partition of internationally recognized, sovereign states.

Now aside from the need to discredit any commenter who has a horse in the race he’s covering, there is a legitimate point to be heard here. After all, Serbia had been willing to offer Kosovo nearly complete autonomy if it had remained a province of Belgrade. This, to one not schooled in Kosovo’s grievances, seems like an admirable solution.

And if you believe, as many seem to, that NATO intervention in the Kosovo issue was illegal and illegitimate, it stands to reason that this is indeed a great historical injustice. I have to plead ignorant on the question of whether or not the intervention was legitimate, my interest at the time that it occurred was minimal and my learning since — even after reading the Wikipedia article on the topic — has been limited. And, it seems, no news source I can get my hands on wants to tackle this difficult issue fraught with pitfalls.

The more interesting point, to me, is the question of Slobodan Milosevic. Even Mr. Jeremic admits that what he did was bad, but he makes the interesting claim that punishing the state for it is illegitimate.

A historical injustice is being imposed on a European country that has overcome more obstacles since we democratically overthrew Slobodan Milosevic in October 2000 than most other nations have in a much longer time. Recognizing Kosovo means saying, in effect, that Serbian democracy must be punished because a tyrant — one who committed heinous deeds against the Kosovo Albanians in the 1990s — was left unpunished. Such misplaced revenge may make some feel better, but it will make the international system feel much worse.

Again, limited by own ignorance, I can’t really accede to or deny this version of history. And so here I am, unsure. I’m tempted to reach out and blame the news media — or the weak narratives of Wikipedia articles — for my inability to come to meaningful conclusion on the question of Kosovo and separatism. I’m sure that’s unfair.

But I do wish I had some answers instead of all these questions. Maybe the best non-resolution to the issue I’ve seen is offered by Al Eislele, who said, “The tortured history and complex nature of the Serb-Kosovo conflict leaves non-expert observers like me open to criticism.” Perhaps that, then, is the nature of foreign policy.

As I suggested earlier, I’ve been casting around for a plan that would assure that I didn’t again neglect Ikiru Design in the way I recently have been. This is both an issue for my free themes — which I first planned to have at 1.0 on January 1, then January 15, then ???, now ????? — and for general read-worthy content on this site.

On the first problem, I don’t yet have a good solution.

On the second, I have this: one post a week. This is meagre compared to the five a week I average at Frozen Toothpaste, and the five a day I average at Link Banana, but those are different sites with different topics and objectives. Once a week is a realistic goal which I feel confident I can achieve. This is roughly what I was doing before I took an almost accidental hiatus, and if I really commit to it I’m sure it’s something I can expect to manage.

This could also work to force me to do more work on my free themes, as in an inspiration-less week I could still have some easy-to-accomplish CSSing to fill the gap. That’s the new plan, and now that it’s public I hope I’m more likely to stick to it. And that’s not a lot, but it’s something.

I just changed the theme here back to the first theme I ever made: BWO. This is for a couple reasons, probably the most important is that I’ve been using Carter’s Line (which I was using here) at my link blog, Link Banana. It’s also because I’ve been negligent regarding this site and its themes. And I really would like to work on it more regularly.

As the title of these few paragraphs suggests, I’m not ready to say that I’m back to doing this regularly. But I’m thinking about how best to make sure I don’t neglect this so seriously in the future, while assuring that it doesn’t monopolize more time than I can give it.

I’ll be sure to let you know when I figure out a plan.