Public Service & Tech writers

[Mark Dempsey <mxd2 -at- OSI -dot- COM>]

Recent posts to this list decry the social context in which tech writers
write.  Politics and education are not really the subject matter for
tech writing listservs, but do tech writers reading this feel some
obligation to explain complex public policy to the electorate?
Personally, I've found some satisfaction (and resume fodder) writing
editorial pieces.  But I wonder whether we can legitimately ask, e.g.,
the STC to publish our writings about public policy, or Eric Ray to sit
still for educational policy discussions on TECHWR-L. My local STC
editor said no, politics was none of the STC's business.  We must write
about writing (the most boring possible navel-gazing, IMHO).  What do
you say?

Here's a relevant quote:

"...the swindles, like the industry itself, were a backwater, and,
worse, the subject was inherently technical. As the Bush bailout bill
moved through congress in the summer of 1989 P.J.O'Rourke wrote...that
the story was 'an awful example of what's replaced democracy in modern
America--
dictatorship by tedium....This allows the boring government officials to
do anything they want, because any time regular people try to figure out
what gives, the regular people get hopelessly bored and confused, as
though they'd fallen a month behind in their high-school algebra class."

<plug> Incidentally, if you'd like to read my editorials, they're at
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/1059/ </plug>

--
--mailto:mxd2 -at- osi -dot- com
--
--Mark Dempsey
--Technical Publications
--Objective Systems Integrators
--100 Blue Ravine Rd. Folsom, CA 95630
--916.353.2400 extension 4777

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