Most of my recent visitors are still people who've misspelled the name of The Teen Missing from The Island. My pride precludes me from mentioning it again simply to drive further traffic, but I suggest multiple manglings of popular subject names as a strategem for those seeking to increase blog hits, especially from abroad. Alas, I want readers, even an intermittent acquaintanceship with people enjoying these kind of somethings to capture or divert their attention. My last NH post still has a working link to the topical Yahoo News Feed for persistent seekers. But with all that's happened in the world since then, I don't know why the unflagging interest in the absence of dramatic new developments.
Speaking of drama, in my role as nibbler of the dry rind of culture after better writers and thinkers have cored out the good bits, I documented a show from TiVo to prove that not all British mysteries deserve automatic esteem. Can I say I live blogged it when it was only live as I watched it from TiVo and I'm posting it here a day later?
BBC America's rebroadcasting this series called Murder in Suburbia which involves a pair of detectives. The hook is they're both women, but of very different types and surnames, though I get who's Ash and Scribbs confused. The website says that "instinctive, chaotic and street-smart Emma teams up with meticulous and often stubborn Kate," but I never heard them called that. Anyway, one has blonde hair with hanks that fall around her face and the other has dark hair swept up into a tight, French twist. One's in jeans and tees, the other in suits, get it? And they're in Suburbia! The entry's already long, and I promise I've trimmed down to the silliest, most illogical aspects. You may assume the depth of characterization by my substitution of types for names.
:00) Pretty blonde teen being pursued, hides behind gravestone to chant something unEnglish right out loud so that her pursuer can easily sneak around and.. Spiky knife, she's a dead girl.
:01) Blonde detective accidentally bloodies her boyfriend's nose after he asks her to play-struggle before sex. Might be the performance, no hilarity ensued for this viewer.
:02) No one comments on pentagram necklace or the athame for stabbling which was conveniently left behind. In this scene and most to follow, acting consists of the two detectives looking at each other, wide eyes versus narrowed squint, after everything IMPORTANT.
:03) Odd girl who found the body is your standard-issue, unpopular high-schooler tormented by all. She's in a chimp suit which, again, reads better than it played. When will the fake costume party ruse stop working? Never on TV.
:04) Drunken, postcoital teen party where dead witch girl was earlier. Meet school's rich bitch, dead girl's best friend until becoming her rival for the wimpy naked boy tangled in the sheets.
:06) Strange choirmaster at school's impromptu floral shrine to the fallen student. Missed the bandages on his hand? They'll be highlighted every time we see him just in case.
:07) Steely headmistress at school day after daughter's murder. Dialogue more wooden than the Ark. Locker produces pentagram-decorated journal full of numbers and a twiny doll pierced with a pin. Why stashed in searchable locker? Not smart but Boo scary!
:011) No forensics or boring cop stuff. Detectives ferry evidence to local priest who knows about hex dolls. Gotta watch that competition! Map from dusty tome shows witches' presence for 500 years. Enlightenment drove them from cities, but they secretly flourish here. IN SUBURBIA! Seeing the journal, priest pulls numerology book from shelf. Unusual for Christian clerics to have comprehensive occult knowledge with accompanying library?
Spooky Minute :13) Black cat on church gravestone and Blonde feels watched.
:14) Overbearing police superior arrives. She's an older, hard-nosed, fuzzy-haired, smokin-drinker who barks how she thought they saved murder for weekends in suburbia. Also how city folk don't get their milk delivered daily, so they're more attached to facts. Huh? Blonde likes the Dragon Lady, Brunette doesn't. Because they're different, see?
:16) Might forget the setting until the high school choir sings a song with the unforgivably heavy-handed refrain ".... in suburbia." Wimp boy's an Olympic-caliber track star (of course) with undiagnosable knee ailment "the specialist" can't figure out. Seems plausible.
:18) Odd girl dreamily tells Brunette about killing witches on hallowed ground to send them to Limbo (why not Hell?) for eternity.
:19) Detectives approach the choirmaster as we hear him singing "....in suburbia" to himself. Detectives flash around evidence bag with hex doll to attract attention.
:23) Choirmaster makes lecherous intimations about rich bitch and dead girl, "one blonde, one brunette." GET IT? Detectives ask to see beneath bandage simultaneously disclosing more evidence. Dead girl had self-inflicted hand wound, perhaps part of a spiritual bonding ceremony. Wha? Remarkably, this causes the choirmaster to show them a jagged, unspiritual-looking cut.
:25) Blonde looks up to see faces including bitch and odd girl packed together, staring from the school's windows. Horrifying if you're frightened by lip gloss and uniforms. Ooops, Fire alarm.
:26) Accident with a tea towel in Food Tech, but during evacuation, detectives' car had window smashed and hex doll is gone! At HQ, Dragon Police Lady is mad. She's moving closer to take charge with her smelly cigarettes 24/7. Oho!
:29) After decoding the journal (snap, done-never explained), we learn dead girl's sluttishness included wimp AND choirmaster who's immediately interrogated and answers in annoying rock song snippets.
:30) Asking wimp about sex with dead girl the day she died, we learn nothing, but get to see his stoned/pouty-lipped portrayal of stripping to shower.
:35) At school shrine to dead girl, rich bitch stomps bouquet from wimp to pieces. Standing mere yards away in otherwise empty lot, detectives are quick to notice and stop her. Rich bitch asserts dead girl's hoodoo magic powers while Brunette mocks on.
:37) At her own door, Blonde gets being-watched feeling again. Candles line the hallway, she reaches for cricket bat. I swear I haven't watched, but I'll guess it's freaky boyfriend with romantic surprise to cause her to accidentally bash him again. Yup. Ambulance. Big ha.
:38) Dragon Lady's swilling Jack Daniels and demanding they crank the heat on choirmaster. Dead girl's phone rings inside evidence bag with text message to meet at school in an hour. But doesn't everyone who'd call her already know she's dead? Never mind. Blonde and Brunette go.
:40) Prowling the school separately, walkie-talkies go dead (never explained), lights go out. Using flashlights, they find each other in basement where red scrawling's on the wall in alien language. Pentagram's on floor with candles a-smoking. They rush through boiler room to find two dangling hex dolls representing them! Eek!
:44) Cue the priest. Purpose of dolls' pin placement was to "blind and deafen the investigation." Unecessary, I'd say. Priest reads graffiti as Romany- a linguist as well as occult historian- saying "the Dark Lord is with you." Our blasphemous man-o-the-cloth says boiler room provides light, heat, and moisture: the Occult Trinity. Spells cast here would be specially effective and detectives should "take care" (no elaboration) when they dispose of the hex dolls.
:45) Odd girl's missing. Dragon Lady talks about her reputation, blah, blah, chance of double homicide. Do as she says, blah, blah, focus on choirmaster.
:46) Choirmaster admits sex with dead girl by shrugging, admits he saw odd girl last night. Odd girl came onto him, garters and lingerie. When rejected (not his type of jail bait?) she blames dead girl for zero-affection curse, and admits she stole original doll from detectives.
:48) Realizing odd girl will need to "take care" destroying the doll in order to null the no-love curse, Blonde and Brunette run again to the priest who indexes exact instructions for effigy disposal at the"spot where the witch died." Why hasn't odd girl broken the spell yet? Because, priest says, "there's a time for everything. Dates are important..." Blonde refers to dead girl's journal she's still carting around for dates. Finds feast of Lupercalia which Father Pagan looks up in his Big Book of Not Christianity. It's TONIGHT!
:54) Sirens blaring, cops reach cemetery before midnight to find rich bitch and odd girl fighting for doll next to small fire. Brunette threatens not to let odd girl burn it, failing to break the spell, unless she confesses what happened to dead girl. Wimp appears, yelling at Brunette not to burn doll. It doesn't represent odd girl, he says, it's HIM! Dead girl convinced him his orthopedic problems were hex-related, told him to meet her. When he arrived, dead girl cut her palm in preparation for handfasting, handed him the knife, and he snapped.
:55) Favorite line: "She said she'd cure my knee so long as we became one person for the rest of eternity." Followed by: "She was evil. She had these powers....I just wanted to be free of her. Even then, my knee didn't get better..." Brunette lets the wimp (who easily squats down by the fire - I did laugh at that joke) say a little rhyme before casting the doll into flames.
:57) Dragon Lady says "Well done. Good instincts....Gimme serial killers and gangland slayings any day of the week." All female police smile at each other. Their dolls hit the fire.
:58) Blonde with battered boyfriend in cast. Starting over. She's made dinner. With mushrooms... She's forgotten he's allergic to mushrooms! Brunette shows up as ambulance leaves for zinger, "One more date and you'd have killed him."
Simply execrable. I'm Leonard Pinth Garnell.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Monday, July 11, 2005
L.A. Times obtuse, half-baked, thickheaded
The last few days, I've been particularly heavy on links and light on original thought, but I'd run dry on commentary until today. Read this L.A. Times op-ed by Joel Klein, titled eloquently Hogwarts fans, you're stupid, stupid, stupid.
As Stein does, let's tackle the obvious first, although, unlike his article, I will attempt to progress beyond it. He uses his finely-honed taste to judge the first 50 pages of the first Harry Potter book as witty, imaginative, and fast-paced. Many of us modern readers find that combination rarer than we'd like, but Stein implies you're a moron if you continue reading or detect more than the plot maneuverings of a kiddie story. Though fairies as such don't play a role in the Potter books (as yet), when Stein dismisses them as fairy tales, I think I know what silliness he's attempting in his fumbling way to communicate.
Of course, such a broad category of fairy tales would naturally include some of our earliest literature, stories rife with ethical dilemmas, with heroes and magic and monsters, stories like Beowulf and the Iliad. However, most thinking folk don't consider these merely ripping adventure yarns for antiquity's children. These tales, which might have survived due to their popularity in their own times, serve as anthropological documents. Just like modern fairy tales, they provide explanations of the living conditions, value systems, and culture of their eras, as well as being our best record of certain historical events. They examine themes of loyalty, love, sacrifice, the cruelties of politics and tragedies of the human condition. Children and adults would have heard the legendary stories of their civilizations repeated, teaching them their pasts, giving them a safe introduction to hard truths, and demonstrating their society's preferred qualities and response to adversity. In more contemporary analogs, the stories of the Brothers Grimm are quite dark. Acts of sadism and trickery are common, and though cleverness and bravery are celebrated, they don't always triumph. Grimm tales don't encourage children or anyone else to trust things at face value, and with their impoverished orphans and frail, crippled creatures, they provide the comfort of companionship to those suffering painful lives.
But fairy tales aren't worth reading, Stein says, because they "simplify the world down to good and evil." Has he read what he's condemning? To be accurate, he specifically condemns the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and E.B. White, other authors in which deluded readers and scholars detect thematic subtleties beyond the mere he-said-she-said of plot schema. With such incisiveness, Stein may yet believe Orwell's Animal Farm to be a happy-time tale about the countryside.
Ah well, if we must eliminate discussing layered content since Stein can't perceive it, could he have instead discussed the books' popularity itself in an interesting, coherent way? He might have examined J.K Rowling by examining the similar sensation of Hans Christian Andersen in his day. What about L. Frank Baum or J.M. Barrie? What were the respectable adults saying when those authors' works first crossed age barriers to find such huge and devoted audiences? Besides recent attention to Barrie vis-a-vis Neverland, there are new biographies of Andersen that could've provided historical viewpoints of what made his work, and by comparison Rowlings', so universally compelling. Though, to be fair, I can't suppose a man who solely uses his grandmothers for quotes would be expected to have background or facts at hand.
Stein does deprecate his vocabulary and his own negligible bibliophilia before berating the LAT's readers that they ought to choose to read things with more complexity, and henceforth, to omit reading his columns we must infer. But my strongest intent is not to defend the Potter series, which doesn't need it, or to defend the aesthetics of visual art in modern animation which are inarguably groundbreaking and breathtaking. Mostly, I want to point out how clearly this piece demonstrates the L.A. Times' descent into fishwrapping irrelevance.
Joel Stein's article is a lousy bit of writing and a worse piece of journalism. His goal may have been to goad the public to reaction by attacking its beloved, especially in the heart of entertainment land, where Harry Potter and friends have been a boon to parents and media companies alike. But I had assumed something more discerning than calling them stupid, stupid, stupid would've been required for publication. And while I am reading and focusing on Stein and his employers today, I probably won't again. And not because I disagree with what I can locate as a premise in this scattered, inarticulate op-ed. But because it's puerile, both badly written and worse conceived. I, like every other reader, deserve better.
When the L.A. Times experimented with Wiki-style contributions to their editorials, in two days they'd shut down the thing due to porno spam. Well, hell- anyone with an e-mail address could have seen that one coming. People actually expect more from a paper than a careless pass-through for morons, thus my objection to Stein. Would it have been so hard to set up a language filter for mass deletions and to station an editorial assistant, even an unpaid college intern, to screen the rest before accepting for post? Sure, you'd have to dedicate a whole person to your interaction with your reading public. Sure, you'd probably have to highlight some of the best and most representative posts to encourage lively contribution. Sure, you'd actually have to hold up your side of the conversation by investing in it with human capital not just opening a message board under your domain name. But why should you bother to listen besides telling, in a decreasingly cogent manner, might I add? Why should you bother to hire intellectually engaged journalists who write pieces substantive enough to deserve discussion and who are unafraid to respond to questions and critique? Why should you indeed? After all, people are always going to read the LAT anyway?...Right?
As Stein does, let's tackle the obvious first, although, unlike his article, I will attempt to progress beyond it. He uses his finely-honed taste to judge the first 50 pages of the first Harry Potter book as witty, imaginative, and fast-paced. Many of us modern readers find that combination rarer than we'd like, but Stein implies you're a moron if you continue reading or detect more than the plot maneuverings of a kiddie story. Though fairies as such don't play a role in the Potter books (as yet), when Stein dismisses them as fairy tales, I think I know what silliness he's attempting in his fumbling way to communicate.
Of course, such a broad category of fairy tales would naturally include some of our earliest literature, stories rife with ethical dilemmas, with heroes and magic and monsters, stories like Beowulf and the Iliad. However, most thinking folk don't consider these merely ripping adventure yarns for antiquity's children. These tales, which might have survived due to their popularity in their own times, serve as anthropological documents. Just like modern fairy tales, they provide explanations of the living conditions, value systems, and culture of their eras, as well as being our best record of certain historical events. They examine themes of loyalty, love, sacrifice, the cruelties of politics and tragedies of the human condition. Children and adults would have heard the legendary stories of their civilizations repeated, teaching them their pasts, giving them a safe introduction to hard truths, and demonstrating their society's preferred qualities and response to adversity. In more contemporary analogs, the stories of the Brothers Grimm are quite dark. Acts of sadism and trickery are common, and though cleverness and bravery are celebrated, they don't always triumph. Grimm tales don't encourage children or anyone else to trust things at face value, and with their impoverished orphans and frail, crippled creatures, they provide the comfort of companionship to those suffering painful lives.
But fairy tales aren't worth reading, Stein says, because they "simplify the world down to good and evil." Has he read what he's condemning? To be accurate, he specifically condemns the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and E.B. White, other authors in which deluded readers and scholars detect thematic subtleties beyond the mere he-said-she-said of plot schema. With such incisiveness, Stein may yet believe Orwell's Animal Farm to be a happy-time tale about the countryside.
Ah well, if we must eliminate discussing layered content since Stein can't perceive it, could he have instead discussed the books' popularity itself in an interesting, coherent way? He might have examined J.K Rowling by examining the similar sensation of Hans Christian Andersen in his day. What about L. Frank Baum or J.M. Barrie? What were the respectable adults saying when those authors' works first crossed age barriers to find such huge and devoted audiences? Besides recent attention to Barrie vis-a-vis Neverland, there are new biographies of Andersen that could've provided historical viewpoints of what made his work, and by comparison Rowlings', so universally compelling. Though, to be fair, I can't suppose a man who solely uses his grandmothers for quotes would be expected to have background or facts at hand.
Stein does deprecate his vocabulary and his own negligible bibliophilia before berating the LAT's readers that they ought to choose to read things with more complexity, and henceforth, to omit reading his columns we must infer. But my strongest intent is not to defend the Potter series, which doesn't need it, or to defend the aesthetics of visual art in modern animation which are inarguably groundbreaking and breathtaking. Mostly, I want to point out how clearly this piece demonstrates the L.A. Times' descent into fishwrapping irrelevance.
Joel Stein's article is a lousy bit of writing and a worse piece of journalism. His goal may have been to goad the public to reaction by attacking its beloved, especially in the heart of entertainment land, where Harry Potter and friends have been a boon to parents and media companies alike. But I had assumed something more discerning than calling them stupid, stupid, stupid would've been required for publication. And while I am reading and focusing on Stein and his employers today, I probably won't again. And not because I disagree with what I can locate as a premise in this scattered, inarticulate op-ed. But because it's puerile, both badly written and worse conceived. I, like every other reader, deserve better.
When the L.A. Times experimented with Wiki-style contributions to their editorials, in two days they'd shut down the thing due to porno spam. Well, hell- anyone with an e-mail address could have seen that one coming. People actually expect more from a paper than a careless pass-through for morons, thus my objection to Stein. Would it have been so hard to set up a language filter for mass deletions and to station an editorial assistant, even an unpaid college intern, to screen the rest before accepting for post? Sure, you'd have to dedicate a whole person to your interaction with your reading public. Sure, you'd probably have to highlight some of the best and most representative posts to encourage lively contribution. Sure, you'd actually have to hold up your side of the conversation by investing in it with human capital not just opening a message board under your domain name. But why should you bother to listen besides telling, in a decreasingly cogent manner, might I add? Why should you bother to hire intellectually engaged journalists who write pieces substantive enough to deserve discussion and who are unafraid to respond to questions and critique? Why should you indeed? After all, people are always going to read the LAT anyway?...Right?
Sunday, July 10, 2005
More Linkliciousness for Your Bad Selves
Again, I'm overflowing with content to share, but no commentary. It is the weekend, you know, and I'm taking it easy by just loading the buffet and leaving the rest to you.
1) Trouble Sleeping? Here's the lowdown on how your pillows affect the equation. I must fault the NYT for not including the sleep marvel we've been rocking at the homestead. It's weird to get used to, but good. The buckwheat-hulled support of Sobakawa Powa!
2) This article examines the still cash-friendly culture of NYC's Chinatown with its love of safety deposit boxes, especially those in fortunately designed spaces and with lucky numbers. Chinatown is a magnet for immigrants and a trusted place to do business, even if you have to commute to your bank from the outer boroughs.
3) What do you call an expert in the lore of creatures whose existence has not yet been substantiated, i.e. Sasquatch, Nessie, the Yeti? A cryptozoologist, of course.
4) Tom Rogers died at 87. And we care why? Because he invented Charlie the Tuna, and helped develop the Keebler Elves and Morris the Cat. This guy had a colorful life, delivering for bootleggers and writing pulp detective fiction, doctoring scripts and writing comedy. This is an example of a dyed-in-the-wool writer who contributed something of value, even if it wasn't profound or literary. I salute the pulp artists everywhere.
5) Does this common virus most of us are carrying have the potential to target and defeat cancer cells? It's being given serious scientific attention.
6) This woman scammed aspiring writers using two different identities and claiming, at different times, that both died in the September 11th attacks. Super bad karma. This vampire of hope's going to jail.
7) Turns out our early human ancestors were ecologically unfriendly, killing the megafauna for food and their own peace of mind. I told you no one wants that prehistorically giant stuff around.
8) Proving that most "talent" is idiotic, an R&B singer who was present but uninjured in the London bombings asks for prayers for his emotional distress.
9) A panda cub was just born at the National Zoo in Washington D.C., but did they have to say it was the size of a "stick of butter?" So... hungrry....
1) Trouble Sleeping? Here's the lowdown on how your pillows affect the equation. I must fault the NYT for not including the sleep marvel we've been rocking at the homestead. It's weird to get used to, but good. The buckwheat-hulled support of Sobakawa Powa!
2) This article examines the still cash-friendly culture of NYC's Chinatown with its love of safety deposit boxes, especially those in fortunately designed spaces and with lucky numbers. Chinatown is a magnet for immigrants and a trusted place to do business, even if you have to commute to your bank from the outer boroughs.
3) What do you call an expert in the lore of creatures whose existence has not yet been substantiated, i.e. Sasquatch, Nessie, the Yeti? A cryptozoologist, of course.
4) Tom Rogers died at 87. And we care why? Because he invented Charlie the Tuna, and helped develop the Keebler Elves and Morris the Cat. This guy had a colorful life, delivering for bootleggers and writing pulp detective fiction, doctoring scripts and writing comedy. This is an example of a dyed-in-the-wool writer who contributed something of value, even if it wasn't profound or literary. I salute the pulp artists everywhere.
5) Does this common virus most of us are carrying have the potential to target and defeat cancer cells? It's being given serious scientific attention.
6) This woman scammed aspiring writers using two different identities and claiming, at different times, that both died in the September 11th attacks. Super bad karma. This vampire of hope's going to jail.
7) Turns out our early human ancestors were ecologically unfriendly, killing the megafauna for food and their own peace of mind. I told you no one wants that prehistorically giant stuff around.
8) Proving that most "talent" is idiotic, an R&B singer who was present but uninjured in the London bombings asks for prayers for his emotional distress.
9) A panda cub was just born at the National Zoo in Washington D.C., but did they have to say it was the size of a "stick of butter?" So... hungrry....
Saturday, July 09, 2005
I Cannot Wait to Kick it Sev-Style. Gimme Gulps!
Another hodge podge with just incidental politics. Tim Worstall liked my Pratchetty tribute to Britannia enough to comment, which was a thrill, being so far under the radar that I'm floorboarding with the gum wads.
1) Well, I won't say all my doubts are allayed, and I know it's no one's duty to allay my precocious anxieties, but the following poll of Brits was edifying to see. (ht: Roger L. Simon)
Brits don't hate the Muslims in their country generally, they hate the terrorists specifically. They're rightly proud of themselves for their emergency response, and they're determined to see terrorists arrested. There's support for monitoring suspicious persons and factions before they strike, which is a sea change in the hands-off (and no extradition) policy toward internationally-sought criminals that have previously found safe harbor there. As a measure of their dedication to the goal of security, there's even rising support for national ID cards (which actually I don't believe are effective as well as disliking such loss of liberty anywhere), but they'll decide for themselves. We can truly say that about Britain: even under its monarchy, the place is set sp so that when the subjects are strident, their voices are the loudest and most important determinant of national policy. Whatever course they take, the Brits will decide for themselves. Wish I could say that about everywhere.
2) So many consumer items (like movies) fail, because they're so poorly adapted from a good idea that they squeeze all the fun and sense right out of them. This hilarious review of the pathetically awful Fantastic Four ATV toy (do I mean to imply the toy or the movie is pathetically awful?) from the Portland Mercury is foul in its language and inarguable in its conclusions.
3) Want to be healthier, more active, and happier with your body? STOP DIETING! Here's the research that says it's okay to stop freaking out and feel good.
4) It's about time this barren island got something good. 7-11 is returning to Manhattan! Hell, yeah! Is it too much to ask for the Upper East Side next? If you show up, I promise to get the bird women and sporties hooked on Gulps and Slim Jims pronto!
1) Well, I won't say all my doubts are allayed, and I know it's no one's duty to allay my precocious anxieties, but the following poll of Brits was edifying to see. (ht: Roger L. Simon)
Brits don't hate the Muslims in their country generally, they hate the terrorists specifically. They're rightly proud of themselves for their emergency response, and they're determined to see terrorists arrested. There's support for monitoring suspicious persons and factions before they strike, which is a sea change in the hands-off (and no extradition) policy toward internationally-sought criminals that have previously found safe harbor there. As a measure of their dedication to the goal of security, there's even rising support for national ID cards (which actually I don't believe are effective as well as disliking such loss of liberty anywhere), but they'll decide for themselves. We can truly say that about Britain: even under its monarchy, the place is set sp so that when the subjects are strident, their voices are the loudest and most important determinant of national policy. Whatever course they take, the Brits will decide for themselves. Wish I could say that about everywhere.
2) So many consumer items (like movies) fail, because they're so poorly adapted from a good idea that they squeeze all the fun and sense right out of them. This hilarious review of the pathetically awful Fantastic Four ATV toy (do I mean to imply the toy or the movie is pathetically awful?) from the Portland Mercury is foul in its language and inarguable in its conclusions.
3) Want to be healthier, more active, and happier with your body? STOP DIETING! Here's the research that says it's okay to stop freaking out and feel good.
4) It's about time this barren island got something good. 7-11 is returning to Manhattan! Hell, yeah! Is it too much to ask for the Upper East Side next? If you show up, I promise to get the bird women and sporties hooked on Gulps and Slim Jims pronto!
Friday, July 08, 2005
Battered Britannia, Blackjack, Books and Obits
If I feel powerless over what fellow Americans do and think, you can triple that for my influence on Brits, so the following musings are somewhat below pointless. Still...
7/7/2005 (2+5=7) gives the numerical symmetry that organized terrorists seem to prefer these days. And adding all three sevens we get 21, the day the House of the Union Jack gets beaten by Blackjack. Parallelism all round. How auspicious.
After yesterday's bombings, commentators and Londoners themselves reminded us of their courage during WWII's Blitz and more lately during the IRA's campaign of terror bombing from 1970 on, when people began rationalizing random violence as an appropriate expression of political dissent. One Brit I know sniped yesterday that it was Bush's and Blair's Iraq policy of the last 3 years that had made them unsafe, despite everyone proudly citing survival of 60+ years of continuing assaults on British civilization. And as I watched the calmness and efficiency with which they began sweeping up the pieces, and admired their scrap in heading to the pubs and out to shop, an ugly worm of a thought crept into my head and sat there for hours. Later, I saw a British journalist say outsiders shouldn't mistake the demeanor for complacence, so I'll give it a minute or two and see what happens. But the ugly image occupying my mind was of a battered woman clinging to her abuser, a person become so twisted in her expectations that she's prouder of her strong chin than infuriated she's become a punching bag. That's just what I imagined. I don't claim to know if it's real.
Mark Steyn has long tied the current radicalization of Muslim communities in Europe not to recent aggressive action against Islamofascists, but to the 1990's general inaction on the Bosnian genocide of Muslims. While worth noting that the U.S. eventually applied the leverage that stopped the killing, action was very slow in coming. It was our and the rest of the world's dithering ignorance while Bosnia bled for years, Steyn says, which reconnected previously estranged and disaffected Muslims with their religion in its most extreme form. He also cites P.C. cowardice in facing head-on the known problem areas of hostile, unassimilated Muslims aided financially and otherwise by Saudi Wahabbists. If it's true, all the more reason to work the levers hard on Sudan to stop the killing in Darfur and lock our eyes on the Saudi money trail. I'm afraid in such cases I would choose to be a bit of a meddler. Tell Stalin my idea of other nations' sovereignty stops at mass murder, Mao.
UPDATE: Maybe my perception of the British reponse isn't all my imagination. Some Brit journalists are saying it, too. Here are Melanie Phillips and John Derbyshire. Not to mention foreign policy analyst Victor Davis Hanson who says not much will change from these events.
2) In news I find uplifting, here's the International Digital Children's Library, providing free online books with illustrations in 9 languages. Among the goals of this project, number one is "...to create a collection of more than 10,000 books in at least 100 languages that is freely available to children, teachers, librarians, parents, and scholars throughout the world via the Internet..." Despite the middle-class creds of many terrorists, I still believe that educated minds are less interested in busting heads. Education can create progress for both Africa and the Middle East, especially if we could get all the girls in school.
3) In a special obituary that I didn't want to overlook among the current fluxes, the prolific and gifted author born as Salvatore Lombino in 1926 has died. He became famous both as Evan Hunter and Ed McBain, writer of The Blackboard Jungle, screenwriter of Hitchcock's The Birds, and inventor of the police procedural. After 55 novels of the 87th Precinct alone (not to mention his other series, novels and screenplays), after 78 years and over 100 million copies, whatever your name is, may you Rock In Peace!
4) I was going to tell you to eat a sundae today, in honor and gratitude for the Blue Law workaround of druggist Edward Berner of Two Rivers, Wisconsin on this day in 1881. However, as I researched the details, I found sundae controversy. Did the real inventor work at Chester Platt's drugstore in Ithaca, New York? Or was it popularized in Evanston, Illinois? I ran out of steam to care. Just eat a sundae, darn it.
7/7/2005 (2+5=7) gives the numerical symmetry that organized terrorists seem to prefer these days. And adding all three sevens we get 21, the day the House of the Union Jack gets beaten by Blackjack. Parallelism all round. How auspicious.
After yesterday's bombings, commentators and Londoners themselves reminded us of their courage during WWII's Blitz and more lately during the IRA's campaign of terror bombing from 1970 on, when people began rationalizing random violence as an appropriate expression of political dissent. One Brit I know sniped yesterday that it was Bush's and Blair's Iraq policy of the last 3 years that had made them unsafe, despite everyone proudly citing survival of 60+ years of continuing assaults on British civilization. And as I watched the calmness and efficiency with which they began sweeping up the pieces, and admired their scrap in heading to the pubs and out to shop, an ugly worm of a thought crept into my head and sat there for hours. Later, I saw a British journalist say outsiders shouldn't mistake the demeanor for complacence, so I'll give it a minute or two and see what happens. But the ugly image occupying my mind was of a battered woman clinging to her abuser, a person become so twisted in her expectations that she's prouder of her strong chin than infuriated she's become a punching bag. That's just what I imagined. I don't claim to know if it's real.
Mark Steyn has long tied the current radicalization of Muslim communities in Europe not to recent aggressive action against Islamofascists, but to the 1990's general inaction on the Bosnian genocide of Muslims. While worth noting that the U.S. eventually applied the leverage that stopped the killing, action was very slow in coming. It was our and the rest of the world's dithering ignorance while Bosnia bled for years, Steyn says, which reconnected previously estranged and disaffected Muslims with their religion in its most extreme form. He also cites P.C. cowardice in facing head-on the known problem areas of hostile, unassimilated Muslims aided financially and otherwise by Saudi Wahabbists. If it's true, all the more reason to work the levers hard on Sudan to stop the killing in Darfur and lock our eyes on the Saudi money trail. I'm afraid in such cases I would choose to be a bit of a meddler. Tell Stalin my idea of other nations' sovereignty stops at mass murder, Mao.
UPDATE: Maybe my perception of the British reponse isn't all my imagination. Some Brit journalists are saying it, too. Here are Melanie Phillips and John Derbyshire. Not to mention foreign policy analyst Victor Davis Hanson who says not much will change from these events.
2) In news I find uplifting, here's the International Digital Children's Library, providing free online books with illustrations in 9 languages. Among the goals of this project, number one is "...to create a collection of more than 10,000 books in at least 100 languages that is freely available to children, teachers, librarians, parents, and scholars throughout the world via the Internet..." Despite the middle-class creds of many terrorists, I still believe that educated minds are less interested in busting heads. Education can create progress for both Africa and the Middle East, especially if we could get all the girls in school.
3) In a special obituary that I didn't want to overlook among the current fluxes, the prolific and gifted author born as Salvatore Lombino in 1926 has died. He became famous both as Evan Hunter and Ed McBain, writer of The Blackboard Jungle, screenwriter of Hitchcock's The Birds, and inventor of the police procedural. After 55 novels of the 87th Precinct alone (not to mention his other series, novels and screenplays), after 78 years and over 100 million copies, whatever your name is, may you Rock In Peace!
4) I was going to tell you to eat a sundae today, in honor and gratitude for the Blue Law workaround of druggist Edward Berner of Two Rivers, Wisconsin on this day in 1881. However, as I researched the details, I found sundae controversy. Did the real inventor work at Chester Platt's drugstore in Ithaca, New York? Or was it popularized in Evanston, Illinois? I ran out of steam to care. Just eat a sundae, darn it.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
London Blogging to the Faraway Towns...
In light of the coordinated bombings in London, I find myself unable to blog on the usual minutiae of my outrages. Even though some of those outrages are daily more deadly than this one, this one compels with its shocking calculation. As has been said, the revolution will be blogged. Here's where to get what's fresh, sometimes premature, but quickly corrected collections of real-time words and pictures as people experience this event. All of the following do the service of linking to other blogs as juicy posts emerge, so riding herd on a few, you'll stay atop the story.
Naturally Instapundit
UK Blogger Reaching For Lucidity
The genteel gents of PowerLine, who, in addition to updates, are flying a Union Jack with this quote Churchill's speech from October, 1938:
[D]o not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning.This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.
Aussie Journalist Tim Blair, who rounds up international news and quotes another Tim,
Tim Worstall , with reports and reactions, including my favorite so far:
Fuck you, sunshine. We'll not be having that.
UPDATE: Longer letter with refreshingly frank tone as above from London Daily News.
In my own, puny but well-intended homage, I will list a few quotes from the stylings of Brit Terry Pratchett. These are suited for any thinking man's gallows and provided, to me at least, a wry smile on a darkish day.
"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it."
"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
"It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It's called living."
"...what is there in this world that truly makes living worth while?" Death thought about it. "Cats," he said eventually. "Cats are nice." "
Naturally Instapundit
UK Blogger Reaching For Lucidity
The genteel gents of PowerLine, who, in addition to updates, are flying a Union Jack with this quote Churchill's speech from October, 1938:
[D]o not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning.This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.
Aussie Journalist Tim Blair, who rounds up international news and quotes another Tim,
Tim Worstall , with reports and reactions, including my favorite so far:
Fuck you, sunshine. We'll not be having that.
UPDATE: Longer letter with refreshingly frank tone as above from London Daily News.
In my own, puny but well-intended homage, I will list a few quotes from the stylings of Brit Terry Pratchett. These are suited for any thinking man's gallows and provided, to me at least, a wry smile on a darkish day.
"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it."
"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
"It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It's called living."
"...what is there in this world that truly makes living worth while?" Death thought about it. "Cats," he said eventually. "Cats are nice." "
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Manuscript Marathon, World's Ugliest Doggie
Is it merely coincidence that today in 1885, Louis Pasteur saved the life of nine year-old, dog-bitten Joseph Meister from rabies with an experimental vaccine? I think not.
I dare not write much. Every word steals from what I need elsewhere. An agent to whom I sent a sample and synopsis, based on her conversation with an author friend of mine, has asked to see the entire manuscript, and it ain't ready. For the next few weeks, I will have to produce like a mad thing, dare the carpal tunnel syndrome, and turn this mother out. I'm thrilled that after seeing my first couple chapters and knowing the entire plot, she still wants the rest. It's great news, even if by July's end, I'll feel like this...
Okay- I just tried to use the new Image function wthin Blogger to insert a photo and Nothing Happened. I filled in all the details and a blank window gaped at me. I tried it again- ditto. BLAST and DAMN!
Sam, judged the World's Ugliest Dog, is here and his story here (hat tip: April)
To continue in brevity:
Here's Mark Steyn's new slant on charity-goading celebrities. You know they don't operate their own finances the way they'd advocate for you.
Here's a 2002 interview with a defected Scientologist. While concete details are scant or mushy, all the wacked lingo's there which hints around the tenets, and the paranoia she still feels as well as her addled reasoning (which may predate her joining the cult of L. Ron) are quite evident.
Here's a Spiked article (ht: ALDaily) by a chansonnier, a singer especially of French songs (I had to look it up), about the sameness and sexlessness of modern pop voices. If I think Barb Jungr gets a little high-falutin' when connecting trance music's style with the rise of HIV awareness, she does give a great history of when and why culture used to prefer, as I still do, distinctive and rich adult voices.
NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), is a public and free event I joined last year where people attempt to write 50,000 words during the month of November. The next few weeks will be my private, scaled-down version. I'm starting a storm novena. And I'm off!
I dare not write much. Every word steals from what I need elsewhere. An agent to whom I sent a sample and synopsis, based on her conversation with an author friend of mine, has asked to see the entire manuscript, and it ain't ready. For the next few weeks, I will have to produce like a mad thing, dare the carpal tunnel syndrome, and turn this mother out. I'm thrilled that after seeing my first couple chapters and knowing the entire plot, she still wants the rest. It's great news, even if by July's end, I'll feel like this...
Okay- I just tried to use the new Image function wthin Blogger to insert a photo and Nothing Happened. I filled in all the details and a blank window gaped at me. I tried it again- ditto. BLAST and DAMN!
Sam, judged the World's Ugliest Dog, is here and his story here (hat tip: April)
To continue in brevity:
Here's Mark Steyn's new slant on charity-goading celebrities. You know they don't operate their own finances the way they'd advocate for you.
Here's a 2002 interview with a defected Scientologist. While concete details are scant or mushy, all the wacked lingo's there which hints around the tenets, and the paranoia she still feels as well as her addled reasoning (which may predate her joining the cult of L. Ron) are quite evident.
Here's a Spiked article (ht: ALDaily) by a chansonnier, a singer especially of French songs (I had to look it up), about the sameness and sexlessness of modern pop voices. If I think Barb Jungr gets a little high-falutin' when connecting trance music's style with the rise of HIV awareness, she does give a great history of when and why culture used to prefer, as I still do, distinctive and rich adult voices.
NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), is a public and free event I joined last year where people attempt to write 50,000 words during the month of November. The next few weeks will be my private, scaled-down version. I'm starting a storm novena. And I'm off!
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Hotel-Eating Vampire Writes China to Rain Pianos
I'm backed up on interesting stories. So, I offer a potpourri day where you may pick among them like wild posies in a meadow.
1) China gets stuck by the thorns of its own progress. Centrally designed, grand redirections of natural watercourses and selective areas of gigundous waste have resulted in rocketers sending payloads of silver iodide over the Fragrant Hills to seed the clouds for rain. Does it work? It's not clear, but China also has a growing contingent of internet addicts who abandon their real lives under central control for the escape virtuale. Comparing this story from other reports, what's the focus? Shock therapy of course.
2) An anonymous man who was found soaking wet near the English coast has been dubbed the Piano Man. He doesn't speak, and has only communicated with medical personnel by drawing a picture of a piano. After being supplied an instrument, he performed a four-hour classical concert. Is the lost virtuoso Norwegian?
3) Update on Competitive Eating, which I first covered here with links to Larry Getlen's article that introduces the major players. The amazing and diminutive Kobayashi won yesterdays' Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contest for the 5th straight year with 49 weiners in 12 minutes. But closest behind him with 37 was the even more petite Sonya Thomas, a 105-pound rising star in the sport. It could just be mustard, but methinks I smell a nemesis!
4) Are the preserved corpses found in German moors executed "criminals" feared to return as vampires? Commenters on the story from Witchvox perceive an anti-pagan slant to the coverage.
5) The National Commission on Writing will release its report today. AP says: States spend nearly a quarter of a billion dollars a year on remedial writing instruction for their employees, according to a new report that says the indirect costs of sloppy writing hurt taxpayers...He shudders to think how the Declaration of Independence, published 229 years ago today, would have read in government worker-speak. ''It would be 10 times as long, one-tenth as comprehensive, and would have lacked all inspiration," [former Senator Bob] Kerrey said.
6) On the heels of the Kelo eminent domain decision, which I despised here, a businessman is protesting by trying to get a small New Hampshire town to take Supreme Court Justice David Souter's home so he can build his Lost Liberty Hotel. I had to laugh.
Enough. I've sufficiently cleaned my backlog. Hope you enjoy one or all.
1) China gets stuck by the thorns of its own progress. Centrally designed, grand redirections of natural watercourses and selective areas of gigundous waste have resulted in rocketers sending payloads of silver iodide over the Fragrant Hills to seed the clouds for rain. Does it work? It's not clear, but China also has a growing contingent of internet addicts who abandon their real lives under central control for the escape virtuale. Comparing this story from other reports, what's the focus? Shock therapy of course.
2) An anonymous man who was found soaking wet near the English coast has been dubbed the Piano Man. He doesn't speak, and has only communicated with medical personnel by drawing a picture of a piano. After being supplied an instrument, he performed a four-hour classical concert. Is the lost virtuoso Norwegian?
3) Update on Competitive Eating, which I first covered here with links to Larry Getlen's article that introduces the major players. The amazing and diminutive Kobayashi won yesterdays' Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contest for the 5th straight year with 49 weiners in 12 minutes. But closest behind him with 37 was the even more petite Sonya Thomas, a 105-pound rising star in the sport. It could just be mustard, but methinks I smell a nemesis!
4) Are the preserved corpses found in German moors executed "criminals" feared to return as vampires? Commenters on the story from Witchvox perceive an anti-pagan slant to the coverage.
5) The National Commission on Writing will release its report today. AP says: States spend nearly a quarter of a billion dollars a year on remedial writing instruction for their employees, according to a new report that says the indirect costs of sloppy writing hurt taxpayers...He shudders to think how the Declaration of Independence, published 229 years ago today, would have read in government worker-speak. ''It would be 10 times as long, one-tenth as comprehensive, and would have lacked all inspiration," [former Senator Bob] Kerrey said.
6) On the heels of the Kelo eminent domain decision, which I despised here, a businessman is protesting by trying to get a small New Hampshire town to take Supreme Court Justice David Souter's home so he can build his Lost Liberty Hotel. I had to laugh.
Enough. I've sufficiently cleaned my backlog. Hope you enjoy one or all.
Monday, July 04, 2005
Independence Day is Halloween for Patriots
Happy 4th of July! Since, despite my original intentions, I've been posting this whole weekend, there seemed no reason not to post today.
In gratitude for my birth as an American, a happenstance I neither merited nor caused, I will focus on a strange fact which I learned only this morning, a strange circumstance of death.
Today we celebrate the adoption, in 1776, of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress. On its 50th anniversary, in 1826, two of the original signers who also served as President, died, aged but celebrated, succumbing at home to natural causes. Here are the final details of John Adams' life and a charmingly florid obituary of Thomas Jefferson. Later, in 1831, America's fifth president would also die on July 4th, again of old age in the house of his son-in-law, then the governor of New York. Here the link to James Monroe's obituary.
Excerpting from TJ's obit which noted the "coincidence marvellous and enviable" :
"...having seen fulfilled and surpassed all that in the most daring aspirations of youthful hope and ardor, they had ventured to anticipate for their country, and having attained to the highest honours which a grateful nation could pay, could no longer worthily linger upon earth."
Three of America's first five presidents all died on Independence Day. Boo!
In gratitude for my birth as an American, a happenstance I neither merited nor caused, I will focus on a strange fact which I learned only this morning, a strange circumstance of death.
Today we celebrate the adoption, in 1776, of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress. On its 50th anniversary, in 1826, two of the original signers who also served as President, died, aged but celebrated, succumbing at home to natural causes. Here are the final details of John Adams' life and a charmingly florid obituary of Thomas Jefferson. Later, in 1831, America's fifth president would also die on July 4th, again of old age in the house of his son-in-law, then the governor of New York. Here the link to James Monroe's obituary.
Excerpting from TJ's obit which noted the "coincidence marvellous and enviable" :
"...having seen fulfilled and surpassed all that in the most daring aspirations of youthful hope and ardor, they had ventured to anticipate for their country, and having attained to the highest honours which a grateful nation could pay, could no longer worthily linger upon earth."
Three of America's first five presidents all died on Independence Day. Boo!
Sunday, July 03, 2005
Running...Out of...Time to Disrespect Live 8
FRESH UPDATE: Today's Washington Post does a great article on the contrast between views from Live 8, the G-8, and what Africans themselves believe they need. (I've long favored ending American farm subisdies as well as supporting free and fair trade in coffee. When I slurp my Kenya AA, I want the local grower to get paid for its fabulousness.)
Regarding Live 8 itself and not just the object of its benevolence... oh, the muddle-headed ethics on display there. My previous disses here and here.
Power Line reports that, as an inducement for viewers to donate, Live 8 commentators are actually repeating the fact that poverty is worse in Africa than it was during Live Aid 20 years ago! Hmmm.... (tapping finger to chin) if we could only figure out why....
Thanks to the excellent Aussie blogger, Tim Blair, here's info on how local shelters, serving Canada's presumably also impoverished homeless community, weren't allowed to set up a food drive outside Toronto's Live 8 concert. The decision, to retard the dilution of charitable giving of course, was not communicated to those planning concurrent activities until this week, and reportedly comes from Sir Bob himself.
"I feel good about curing poverty today, but I totally love my new watch!"
Here's news about the $4,000 to $15,000 goody bags of luxury items arranged for the Live 8 musicians who are appearing for "free." You may argue that although thunder follows lightning, the artists might not have expected posh treatment at this particular event. Then notice that it was the concert's organizer itself who contracted a PR firm to solicit the swag. Do you imagine that PR firm volunteered its services? If they did, it wasn't in the quote, and seems the kind of thing a publicity firm would insist upon bragging about in print. So where did the fees come from to pay Nicole Cashman et al t0 troll for trinkets? Not out of the profits for the poor surely.
Could Live 8 not have given out goody bags of calligraphied IOUs, listing tony items as dollar amounts being donated to the cause? Well, no, because the manufacturer gets his own stuff at cost, and doesn't sacrifice the actual marked-up retail value. And such gifties for celebrity wearing are treated taxably as business promotional write-offs not charity. But it's not about the money and self-aggrandizment and Hugo Boss suits, okay, it's about the kids!
But soon it will be over (sigh), and criticizing the almost-guaranteed mismanagement and skimming to follow will be all I'll have left.
Regarding Live 8 itself and not just the object of its benevolence... oh, the muddle-headed ethics on display there. My previous disses here and here.
Power Line reports that, as an inducement for viewers to donate, Live 8 commentators are actually repeating the fact that poverty is worse in Africa than it was during Live Aid 20 years ago! Hmmm.... (tapping finger to chin) if we could only figure out why....
Thanks to the excellent Aussie blogger, Tim Blair, here's info on how local shelters, serving Canada's presumably also impoverished homeless community, weren't allowed to set up a food drive outside Toronto's Live 8 concert. The decision, to retard the dilution of charitable giving of course, was not communicated to those planning concurrent activities until this week, and reportedly comes from Sir Bob himself.
"I feel good about curing poverty today, but I totally love my new watch!"
Here's news about the $4,000 to $15,000 goody bags of luxury items arranged for the Live 8 musicians who are appearing for "free." You may argue that although thunder follows lightning, the artists might not have expected posh treatment at this particular event. Then notice that it was the concert's organizer itself who contracted a PR firm to solicit the swag. Do you imagine that PR firm volunteered its services? If they did, it wasn't in the quote, and seems the kind of thing a publicity firm would insist upon bragging about in print. So where did the fees come from to pay Nicole Cashman et al t0 troll for trinkets? Not out of the profits for the poor surely.
Could Live 8 not have given out goody bags of calligraphied IOUs, listing tony items as dollar amounts being donated to the cause? Well, no, because the manufacturer gets his own stuff at cost, and doesn't sacrifice the actual marked-up retail value. And such gifties for celebrity wearing are treated taxably as business promotional write-offs not charity. But it's not about the money and self-aggrandizment and Hugo Boss suits, okay, it's about the kids!
But soon it will be over (sigh), and criticizing the almost-guaranteed mismanagement and skimming to follow will be all I'll have left.
Saturday, July 02, 2005
Why You Need Bandwidth- Apache!
I thought I'd go all weekend, and perhaps through El Dia de Indy itself without posting, but thanks to Jonah Goldberg at NRO's Corner, I knew I had to tell at least two friends and so on about this amazing experience.
Here is a link to an MPEG download that will change your life if you let it. It's not a tiny file on a rocket-speed server, but it is worth the wait and then some.
A gift like this is why I thank America's founders for fostering entrepreneurship within a society that would one day produce such innovative deliveries of content to The People.
Enjoy with me, please, the ungorgettable majesty of Apache!
Here is a link to an MPEG download that will change your life if you let it. It's not a tiny file on a rocket-speed server, but it is worth the wait and then some.
A gift like this is why I thank America's founders for fostering entrepreneurship within a society that would one day produce such innovative deliveries of content to The People.
Enjoy with me, please, the ungorgettable majesty of Apache!
Friday, July 01, 2005
The Dilemma of Writers and Word Counts
Today, I am a writer who's writing about writing instead of writing, a pathetic creature indeed.
The topic of word counts gets a lot of attention among membership of the Great Unpublished. I freely declare myself of this group before sharing my reply to a friend's e-mail which included a link to this WritersNet message thread. I cannot match his brevity in inquiring "Any Thoughts?", but I have listed the bald points up front with screed to follow. Links to Amazon aren't endorsement, just laziness.
1) Writing toward counts is a lousy idea
2) When you get to the counting, actual tallies are easier and more accurate than guesstimates.
3) Padding numbers can't get you an agent or editor if the writing doesn't.
4) Counts are dynamic, and the process of getting published alters them.
4) The common word range of published books is not only huge but rife with disagreement over its sweet spot
5) Even outside this broad norm, the gargantuan and tiny defy word counts with tremendous success.
6) Don't think about word counts much.
I didn't know I had so much to say until I started writing this, which makes my first point for me: I don't think it's advisable to write toward word counts. I think writing to natural scene endings makes sense, but impostion of word counts doesn't aid fluid storytelling. As a reader, I never count words before deciding if the pace dragged or whether there was enough or too much backstory. And no matter how careful a word-counter is during composition, any effective revision must address whether chapters need pruning or plumping for overall dynamics and risks throwing off exactitude. Some experienced authors who have become machines of writing (often producing in their later careers- dare I suggest?- formulaic work) can fit lengths precisely and consistently. I wouldn't expect or encourage any other greenhorn writer like me to focus on that skill since it so favors form over content, and it's always content that gets a non-celebrity published the first time.
The proposed method of estimating 250 words/page would certainly change word counts dramatically as it's inaccurate by design and incorporates huge rounding errors to manufacture results. Imagine, just four hardly-typed pages, chapter ends for example, could add 1000 "words" to your manuscript count. If that sounds reasonable, ask youself whether you'd accept $10 as legit payment on a $250 debt. Writers used to try to estimate manuscripts in all sorts of inexact fashions, because there weren't tools beyond mind-numbing tedium to count every word. Maybe it's my former career in science, but I think regressing to lousy methodology to alter your numbers doesn't feel kosher, and might even beg notice in manuscripts containing unusual formatting or large amounts of terse back-and-forth dialog. Although similar computer applications may differ slightly in how they treat hypenated phrases, for example, Microsoft Word tallies the text on the page as accurately and instantly as anything else, and is accepted as the de facto standard at this point. I'd wonder why any author using it didn't do his word counts this way.
After consulting career authors on the matter, I decided when pitching in person or by query not to mention the word count until asked. So far, agents have ignored the omission, and inquired instead about characters and setting and style. I surely believe agents look at rough metrics and categories as a way to thin down their reading piles, but at best, they know the word count is only a ball park figure, mattering more at the extremes of the range than the huge 50,000 word span between 60-110k where most fiction falls.
Constantly shifting the number are the agents themselves, make their own revision suggestions to enhance the quality of the manuscripts they represent. Further, the copyediting from the acquiring publisher may create swings of thousands of words. But none of this matters to parties who've have already decided they're enthusiastic about the work. If- using a number from the thread- a given agent sees 58K of a book and says she just loved it but must dismiss it completely for not being 60 or 71 or whatever else. And if she says this without any hint of where to expand or how better to market it, the author should face the hard truth that the agent didn't really like it and wouldn't be a great advocate. People have tried padding their counts among other foolish ploys to get their books through the needle's eye, but externalities won't make an unknown the object of the publishing industry's desire. What I keep hearing is that a new author who understands and communicates powerfully what makes his manuscript worth reading, no matter what the length, is the rare prize.
I assume many of the thread's contributors are unpublished shmucks like me, but at the recent Mystery Writers of America mentoring forum, where established authors help the aspiring, the lowdown was that it's wonderful to debut in the 60-75k word range. They said that publishers currently prefer lower printing investments for untried authors. Make it longer, make it shorter. You'll hear it all. But I take the Goldilocks path which I've come to believe the best agents and editors do: all any book needs to be is the right length for itself.
And as for blather about consumers not spending on short books...Crafty publishers routinely bloat the font and the margins to make shorter books visually similar to longer ones, and they reverse the process to reduce enormous opuses to manageable size. Regarding high prices, the many new writers who appear first in mass market or trade paperback don't have to get people to fork over even the price of a movie ticket, just to be interested enough to pick their work over another option that day. The initial gift of a reader's time and his feeling afterwards that it was well-spent is much harder and more crucial to gain than whatever the dollar amount is on the spine.
Mitch Albom's Tuesdays With Morrie is short, Bill Clinton's My Life is long. In each case, the publishers obviously thought the length suited the material and both are bestsellers. Morrie is a puny hardcover at about 5 1/2" x 7 1/2" and not even an inch thick. Even with its roomy font and spacing, the thing doesn't make 200 pages. Yet, it wasn't ostracized in the bookstore, people found it intimate and approachable. Do you know how many of those tiny things, not even usable for doorstops, were sold at the list price of $21.00? I woudn't be surprised if millions had been sold by now, it's certainly hundreds of thousands. Albom's Five People you Meet in Heaven became another bestselling shrimp. Even if he writes 1500 pages next, they'll find some way to fit it into the less-common, friendly format his readers have learned to expect. Rules are made to be broken. As Victor Hugo wrote, "Everything bows to success, even grammar."
I'm currently reading Writing the Breakout Novel by Don Maass and find it quite good so far. Even though this agent showed the bad judgement to decline my latest submission, I'm finding the book stimulating my ideas for improving its chances next time. Representing many popular authors over his extensive career, Maass has also written something like 14 novels of his own, which I disclaim I haven't field-tested, as well as other craft instruction. What's great about this particular book is that the first pages put aside the issues of publisher and publicity and everything outside the writing itself as harbingers of success. Not only can authors not control those things, but Maass denies their predictive power and employs copious examples from published work to make his points. He asserts (as many other career authors I've asked) that the quality of a great story manifested through great writing is the writer's overriding concern and the widest path of the many narrow ones to success.
In that view, word count is merely an effect, not a cause, simply the byproduct of writing.
Done now.
If you indulge in illegal fireworks, just remember you've blown off your fingers in the cause of liberty. Enjoy the weekend and holiday!
The topic of word counts gets a lot of attention among membership of the Great Unpublished. I freely declare myself of this group before sharing my reply to a friend's e-mail which included a link to this WritersNet message thread. I cannot match his brevity in inquiring "Any Thoughts?", but I have listed the bald points up front with screed to follow. Links to Amazon aren't endorsement, just laziness.
1) Writing toward counts is a lousy idea
2) When you get to the counting, actual tallies are easier and more accurate than guesstimates.
3) Padding numbers can't get you an agent or editor if the writing doesn't.
4) Counts are dynamic, and the process of getting published alters them.
4) The common word range of published books is not only huge but rife with disagreement over its sweet spot
5) Even outside this broad norm, the gargantuan and tiny defy word counts with tremendous success.
6) Don't think about word counts much.
I didn't know I had so much to say until I started writing this, which makes my first point for me: I don't think it's advisable to write toward word counts. I think writing to natural scene endings makes sense, but impostion of word counts doesn't aid fluid storytelling. As a reader, I never count words before deciding if the pace dragged or whether there was enough or too much backstory. And no matter how careful a word-counter is during composition, any effective revision must address whether chapters need pruning or plumping for overall dynamics and risks throwing off exactitude. Some experienced authors who have become machines of writing (often producing in their later careers- dare I suggest?- formulaic work) can fit lengths precisely and consistently. I wouldn't expect or encourage any other greenhorn writer like me to focus on that skill since it so favors form over content, and it's always content that gets a non-celebrity published the first time.
The proposed method of estimating 250 words/page would certainly change word counts dramatically as it's inaccurate by design and incorporates huge rounding errors to manufacture results. Imagine, just four hardly-typed pages, chapter ends for example, could add 1000 "words" to your manuscript count. If that sounds reasonable, ask youself whether you'd accept $10 as legit payment on a $250 debt. Writers used to try to estimate manuscripts in all sorts of inexact fashions, because there weren't tools beyond mind-numbing tedium to count every word. Maybe it's my former career in science, but I think regressing to lousy methodology to alter your numbers doesn't feel kosher, and might even beg notice in manuscripts containing unusual formatting or large amounts of terse back-and-forth dialog. Although similar computer applications may differ slightly in how they treat hypenated phrases, for example, Microsoft Word tallies the text on the page as accurately and instantly as anything else, and is accepted as the de facto standard at this point. I'd wonder why any author using it didn't do his word counts this way.
After consulting career authors on the matter, I decided when pitching in person or by query not to mention the word count until asked. So far, agents have ignored the omission, and inquired instead about characters and setting and style. I surely believe agents look at rough metrics and categories as a way to thin down their reading piles, but at best, they know the word count is only a ball park figure, mattering more at the extremes of the range than the huge 50,000 word span between 60-110k where most fiction falls.
Constantly shifting the number are the agents themselves, make their own revision suggestions to enhance the quality of the manuscripts they represent. Further, the copyediting from the acquiring publisher may create swings of thousands of words. But none of this matters to parties who've have already decided they're enthusiastic about the work. If- using a number from the thread- a given agent sees 58K of a book and says she just loved it but must dismiss it completely for not being 60 or 71 or whatever else. And if she says this without any hint of where to expand or how better to market it, the author should face the hard truth that the agent didn't really like it and wouldn't be a great advocate. People have tried padding their counts among other foolish ploys to get their books through the needle's eye, but externalities won't make an unknown the object of the publishing industry's desire. What I keep hearing is that a new author who understands and communicates powerfully what makes his manuscript worth reading, no matter what the length, is the rare prize.
I assume many of the thread's contributors are unpublished shmucks like me, but at the recent Mystery Writers of America mentoring forum, where established authors help the aspiring, the lowdown was that it's wonderful to debut in the 60-75k word range. They said that publishers currently prefer lower printing investments for untried authors. Make it longer, make it shorter. You'll hear it all. But I take the Goldilocks path which I've come to believe the best agents and editors do: all any book needs to be is the right length for itself.
And as for blather about consumers not spending on short books...Crafty publishers routinely bloat the font and the margins to make shorter books visually similar to longer ones, and they reverse the process to reduce enormous opuses to manageable size. Regarding high prices, the many new writers who appear first in mass market or trade paperback don't have to get people to fork over even the price of a movie ticket, just to be interested enough to pick their work over another option that day. The initial gift of a reader's time and his feeling afterwards that it was well-spent is much harder and more crucial to gain than whatever the dollar amount is on the spine.
Mitch Albom's Tuesdays With Morrie is short, Bill Clinton's My Life is long. In each case, the publishers obviously thought the length suited the material and both are bestsellers. Morrie is a puny hardcover at about 5 1/2" x 7 1/2" and not even an inch thick. Even with its roomy font and spacing, the thing doesn't make 200 pages. Yet, it wasn't ostracized in the bookstore, people found it intimate and approachable. Do you know how many of those tiny things, not even usable for doorstops, were sold at the list price of $21.00? I woudn't be surprised if millions had been sold by now, it's certainly hundreds of thousands. Albom's Five People you Meet in Heaven became another bestselling shrimp. Even if he writes 1500 pages next, they'll find some way to fit it into the less-common, friendly format his readers have learned to expect. Rules are made to be broken. As Victor Hugo wrote, "Everything bows to success, even grammar."
I'm currently reading Writing the Breakout Novel by Don Maass and find it quite good so far. Even though this agent showed the bad judgement to decline my latest submission, I'm finding the book stimulating my ideas for improving its chances next time. Representing many popular authors over his extensive career, Maass has also written something like 14 novels of his own, which I disclaim I haven't field-tested, as well as other craft instruction. What's great about this particular book is that the first pages put aside the issues of publisher and publicity and everything outside the writing itself as harbingers of success. Not only can authors not control those things, but Maass denies their predictive power and employs copious examples from published work to make his points. He asserts (as many other career authors I've asked) that the quality of a great story manifested through great writing is the writer's overriding concern and the widest path of the many narrow ones to success.
In that view, word count is merely an effect, not a cause, simply the byproduct of writing.
Done now.
If you indulge in illegal fireworks, just remember you've blown off your fingers in the cause of liberty. Enjoy the weekend and holiday!
Thursday, June 30, 2005
Would Natalee Hollway Likey Giant Catfish?
Another busy day- must be brief.
If you've found me through the name above or by searching for Natalie Hoolloway, Natlee Hollaway, or Natalie Hallaway, where you can get the latest news feeds from Yahoo on the actual girl-in-question is HERE.
UPDATE: As of July 12th, the news link above is still good and full of fresh reports. Hope this helps the multitudes avidly following this story.
UPDATE2: As of July 25th, the HERE link above is still a go. You are most loyal to her cause. Wherever she may be, I think that's nice.
UPDATE 3: As of August 25th, the Yahoo link still holds the latest reports, but I wonder why the stalled story still holds your interest. Any dramatic new information on this case will find us all, searching won't be required.
Although her name was spelled correctly in the title, my recent rant on the media coverage (which has not improved, by the way) of the blonde teen missing from Aruba had her surname misspelled within the body of my post. As a result, I've been getting heavy search engine traffic from all sorts of people who aren't sure how to spell her name. If you're one of them, you must be quite disappointed to arrive here, where opinion trumps information and neither is fresh. However, being the charitable type, I'm wont to aid all serious seekers of truth.
Meanwhile, I like to think that Nataley Holliway, whoever or wherever that alternately-spelled entity might be, is herself the kind of gal who could enjoy getting down with some hushpuppies and a 646-pound catfish. Oooh, we're going to need a bigger Fry Daddy for that one, I think.
“I’m thrilled that we’ve set a new record, but we need to put this discovery in context: these giant fish are uniformly poorly studied and some are critically endangered," added [Zeb] Hogan, a fellow with the World Wildlife Fund, which is partnering with the National Geographic Society. "Some, like the Mekong giant catfish, face extinction.” ...The Mekong River Basin is home to more species of massive fish than any river on Earth, they added, and Mekong fish are the primary source of protein for the 73 million people that live along the river.
I'm not even going to try to tell 73 million Thais to stop eating in favor of an arguably prehistoric holdover. But caviar sturgeon, maybe. (I kid about the snobbery.) (Not really.) I will admit my absolute glee that species run smaller than they used to. Not only are the young and dainty more tender and sweet-meated, but who needs creatures like those enormous flying lizards screaming through the skies and plucking victims right off their Rockports? Unless we could employ them as low-emission air travel.... Must go. Grant proposals to craft.
If you've found me through the name above or by searching for Natalie Hoolloway, Natlee Hollaway, or Natalie Hallaway, where you can get the latest news feeds from Yahoo on the actual girl-in-question is HERE.
UPDATE: As of July 12th, the news link above is still good and full of fresh reports. Hope this helps the multitudes avidly following this story.
UPDATE2: As of July 25th, the HERE link above is still a go. You are most loyal to her cause. Wherever she may be, I think that's nice.
UPDATE 3: As of August 25th, the Yahoo link still holds the latest reports, but I wonder why the stalled story still holds your interest. Any dramatic new information on this case will find us all, searching won't be required.
Although her name was spelled correctly in the title, my recent rant on the media coverage (which has not improved, by the way) of the blonde teen missing from Aruba had her surname misspelled within the body of my post. As a result, I've been getting heavy search engine traffic from all sorts of people who aren't sure how to spell her name. If you're one of them, you must be quite disappointed to arrive here, where opinion trumps information and neither is fresh. However, being the charitable type, I'm wont to aid all serious seekers of truth.
Meanwhile, I like to think that Nataley Holliway, whoever or wherever that alternately-spelled entity might be, is herself the kind of gal who could enjoy getting down with some hushpuppies and a 646-pound catfish. Oooh, we're going to need a bigger Fry Daddy for that one, I think.
“I’m thrilled that we’ve set a new record, but we need to put this discovery in context: these giant fish are uniformly poorly studied and some are critically endangered," added [Zeb] Hogan, a fellow with the World Wildlife Fund, which is partnering with the National Geographic Society. "Some, like the Mekong giant catfish, face extinction.” ...The Mekong River Basin is home to more species of massive fish than any river on Earth, they added, and Mekong fish are the primary source of protein for the 73 million people that live along the river.
I'm not even going to try to tell 73 million Thais to stop eating in favor of an arguably prehistoric holdover. But caviar sturgeon, maybe. (I kid about the snobbery.) (Not really.) I will admit my absolute glee that species run smaller than they used to. Not only are the young and dainty more tender and sweet-meated, but who needs creatures like those enormous flying lizards screaming through the skies and plucking victims right off their Rockports? Unless we could employ them as low-emission air travel.... Must go. Grant proposals to craft.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Had to Laugh When Noonan Nailed the Putt
Caddyshack? No, though of work of untouchable cinematic brilliance, I say. If you haven't seen it in a year or two, it's time again. But this time I award today's gold-star to Peggy Noonan of the WSJ who charmingly fries the lardy bottoms of our pompous politicos using examples from their own speech. How underhanded. Read it here. As a friend pointed out, it's easy to ignore the cheap theatre of fighting partisanship, because the narcissists in D.C. are a lot more like each other than they're like us.
Here's an article in from the New Yorker (hat tip: Michelle Malkin, read the comments for more goodies) about Operation Respect: Don't Laugh at Me. The goal is reducing dangerous bullying. Okay- good goal, but does it seem a recent development that young'uns have gone hog-wild on murder sprees at school 'cause someone doesn't like their T-shirts? (Parenthetically, that's just one reason why I'm pro-school uniforms and pro-school discipline. Express youself when you're eighteen, miscreant.) But onto the heart of it, shall we?
Here's what happens when teachers use assertiveness training to teach "I feel X when you do Y" messages for conflict resolution to schoolkids. “Just make sure they’re sticking to the formula,” Hurdle-Price advised. “I often get students who say, ‘I feel that you are stupid.’ ”
I laughed out loud, even though there was no smiley face after the sentence to let me know it was a joke. Here's another platitude from the program: “A ridicule-free world,” a soothing voice intoned. “It’s possible, but only with everyone’s help.”
Can I tell you how little I want to live in a ridicule-free world? Noonan's op-ed piece wouldn't exist even though the grounds for her ridicule are factual. I am pro-satire and quite against the pervasive hypersensitivity that created this program as well as the recent foolishness of the flag burning amendment. Were the representatives never in fourth grade? This kind of jingoistic hand-wringing will only encourage lousy behavior for Al-Jazeera's cameras if they suspect it really bugs us.
I say let them burn any U.S. flag they can find and wipe their behinds with the shreds, because it won't change a molecule of the oppression and hopelessness they suffer due to factors that are strictly local and that ought to be their greater concerns. Let them burn 1000 a day for a year and see what's changed in the quality of their lives. And any American doing it is just pathetically boring. What about a new idea in protest since the last three or four decades? The flag's an object, the Koran's an object. The Bible or a crucifix or even a consecrated, transsubstantiatied communion wafer is a mere object when balanced against human lives. I don't applaud desecration or destruction, and it betrays a certain weakness and vanity, but a freaking sense of humor is an essential survival tool especially when it forces you to laugh at the stiffening of your own neck.
Back to humor, here's what I think we really need in the schools: a focus on better comedy. The problem I have is that so much childhood ridicule isn't actually funny and it's getting worse. Sure, fart jokes and belches will work perenially and have been the basis of many careers, but most in-school mocking is lousy quality, I'm sad to say. Instead of Operation Respect. let's send kids to Theory of Comedy class where they can learn what's funny and realize that jokes and their reactions to same are each weapons in a well-balanced psyche's arsenal. Let them deconstruct and improve upon the comments used to hurt them. Tell the bullies that the scriptwriters for According To Jim are funnier (ouch).
But lest I forget, some nose and stomach punching will have to occur. I'm not completely sure when it descended, but there's a notion of childhood completely alien to both history and nature if the popular understanding is that civilized kids never get challenged to fight. When I was young and my attackers large, I ran. A fine skill to acquire, as well as learning to live through the attendant embarrassment. When I got older and bigger, I stood up and fought, and it was enough to keep the predators at bay. I didn't enjoy seeing especially vulnerable kids picked on near me, so I obstructed that, and I wasn't usually alone. That used to pass for normal.
Some agony of the schoolyard falls on everyone, because childhood is the training ground for adulthood, not some candy-colored utopia of unreality and soft landings. And what can come from confrontation is an understanding of force and appeasement, knowing how far is too far to go, respect from others, and even the decision not to let others be dominated. If a kid is absolutely meat, pull him or her out of the scrum and hie them away to independent study of karate or some other area that confers its own special importance. (Mere apple-polishing positions won't qualify. Who needs the Machivellian maneuverings of more Eddie Haskells?)
But this P.C. anti-bullying training would, no doubt, have made even bigger a-holes out of kids I already hated.
Here's an article in from the New Yorker (hat tip: Michelle Malkin, read the comments for more goodies) about Operation Respect: Don't Laugh at Me. The goal is reducing dangerous bullying. Okay- good goal, but does it seem a recent development that young'uns have gone hog-wild on murder sprees at school 'cause someone doesn't like their T-shirts? (Parenthetically, that's just one reason why I'm pro-school uniforms and pro-school discipline. Express youself when you're eighteen, miscreant.) But onto the heart of it, shall we?
Here's what happens when teachers use assertiveness training to teach "I feel X when you do Y" messages for conflict resolution to schoolkids. “Just make sure they’re sticking to the formula,” Hurdle-Price advised. “I often get students who say, ‘I feel that you are stupid.’ ”
I laughed out loud, even though there was no smiley face after the sentence to let me know it was a joke. Here's another platitude from the program: “A ridicule-free world,” a soothing voice intoned. “It’s possible, but only with everyone’s help.”
Can I tell you how little I want to live in a ridicule-free world? Noonan's op-ed piece wouldn't exist even though the grounds for her ridicule are factual. I am pro-satire and quite against the pervasive hypersensitivity that created this program as well as the recent foolishness of the flag burning amendment. Were the representatives never in fourth grade? This kind of jingoistic hand-wringing will only encourage lousy behavior for Al-Jazeera's cameras if they suspect it really bugs us.
I say let them burn any U.S. flag they can find and wipe their behinds with the shreds, because it won't change a molecule of the oppression and hopelessness they suffer due to factors that are strictly local and that ought to be their greater concerns. Let them burn 1000 a day for a year and see what's changed in the quality of their lives. And any American doing it is just pathetically boring. What about a new idea in protest since the last three or four decades? The flag's an object, the Koran's an object. The Bible or a crucifix or even a consecrated, transsubstantiatied communion wafer is a mere object when balanced against human lives. I don't applaud desecration or destruction, and it betrays a certain weakness and vanity, but a freaking sense of humor is an essential survival tool especially when it forces you to laugh at the stiffening of your own neck.
Back to humor, here's what I think we really need in the schools: a focus on better comedy. The problem I have is that so much childhood ridicule isn't actually funny and it's getting worse. Sure, fart jokes and belches will work perenially and have been the basis of many careers, but most in-school mocking is lousy quality, I'm sad to say. Instead of Operation Respect. let's send kids to Theory of Comedy class where they can learn what's funny and realize that jokes and their reactions to same are each weapons in a well-balanced psyche's arsenal. Let them deconstruct and improve upon the comments used to hurt them. Tell the bullies that the scriptwriters for According To Jim are funnier (ouch).
But lest I forget, some nose and stomach punching will have to occur. I'm not completely sure when it descended, but there's a notion of childhood completely alien to both history and nature if the popular understanding is that civilized kids never get challenged to fight. When I was young and my attackers large, I ran. A fine skill to acquire, as well as learning to live through the attendant embarrassment. When I got older and bigger, I stood up and fought, and it was enough to keep the predators at bay. I didn't enjoy seeing especially vulnerable kids picked on near me, so I obstructed that, and I wasn't usually alone. That used to pass for normal.
Some agony of the schoolyard falls on everyone, because childhood is the training ground for adulthood, not some candy-colored utopia of unreality and soft landings. And what can come from confrontation is an understanding of force and appeasement, knowing how far is too far to go, respect from others, and even the decision not to let others be dominated. If a kid is absolutely meat, pull him or her out of the scrum and hie them away to independent study of karate or some other area that confers its own special importance. (Mere apple-polishing positions won't qualify. Who needs the Machivellian maneuverings of more Eddie Haskells?)
But this P.C. anti-bullying training would, no doubt, have made even bigger a-holes out of kids I already hated.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Yay Gabriel and Parrots, Boo Lightning and Zombie Dogs
I'm a jerk while on deadline, and although this one is self-imposed and unpaid, it's still real enough to make me snippy. So briefly...
1) Lately, I've been Afrocentric which I promise to reduce for variety's sake-after this one last thing. I applaud Peter Gabriel's efforts to organize a concert of actual African musicians near the Eden greenhouses in southwest England. Both supportive of and endorsed by Live 8, Gabriel nonetheless jibes Geldof as "the pope" and "Chairman Bob" and calls for address of African corruption as well as poverty.
“What I would like to see is pressure on the ICC (International Criminal Court) to include corruption in its remit,” he said. He also called for a system of registering complaints of corruption made by African citizens against leaders and logging any investigations that are launched. “I would love to see more African-generated initiatives highlighted, because by putting us (in the West) once again in a position of power, there is a subtext which may castrate African initiatives,” he said.
As one starring musician, Ayub Ogada of Kenya, puts it: “With this Eden concert we have a chance to take part. A lot of the times we are left out. Throughout our life outsiders have told us what we need, and no one has ever asked us.”
2) This foul-mouthed parrot screamed her owner awake to escape his burning home. "Green-cheeked Amazon Sweetie Pie, who speaks with a strong Scottish accent, usually mutters a string of obscenities, including 'f *** off', 'get tae f *** ' and 'you're a b ***** d'."
3) Being struck by lightning is still rare and the consequences are still misunderstood, even by keraunopathologists, specialists in post-electrocution syndrome. Here are fascinating survivors and their stories. For example, we learn that "lightning can flash over the outside of a victim, sometimes blowing off clothes without leaving so much as a mark on the skin." Mark this, collegians, you don't have to admit to the X or tequila shooters. Tell everyone you were struck naked by an act of God.
4) I further learned today that in Anglo countries like England and Australia, research scientists are called boffins, which is a splendid title I will begin using immediately. But that's not nearly all. Some Steel Town boffins have found a way to reanimate a dog after hours of clinical death by replacing its blood with cold saline solution and restarting its vital engines with an electric shock. This is supposed to evetually save people with injuries causing tremendous blood loss, but the idea of the intentional zombie is still SUPER CREEPY! Non?
Thanks to McMudge of Huffington's Toast.
1) Lately, I've been Afrocentric which I promise to reduce for variety's sake-after this one last thing. I applaud Peter Gabriel's efforts to organize a concert of actual African musicians near the Eden greenhouses in southwest England. Both supportive of and endorsed by Live 8, Gabriel nonetheless jibes Geldof as "the pope" and "Chairman Bob" and calls for address of African corruption as well as poverty.
“What I would like to see is pressure on the ICC (International Criminal Court) to include corruption in its remit,” he said. He also called for a system of registering complaints of corruption made by African citizens against leaders and logging any investigations that are launched. “I would love to see more African-generated initiatives highlighted, because by putting us (in the West) once again in a position of power, there is a subtext which may castrate African initiatives,” he said.
As one starring musician, Ayub Ogada of Kenya, puts it: “With this Eden concert we have a chance to take part. A lot of the times we are left out. Throughout our life outsiders have told us what we need, and no one has ever asked us.”
2) This foul-mouthed parrot screamed her owner awake to escape his burning home. "Green-cheeked Amazon Sweetie Pie, who speaks with a strong Scottish accent, usually mutters a string of obscenities, including 'f *** off', 'get tae f *** ' and 'you're a b ***** d'."
3) Being struck by lightning is still rare and the consequences are still misunderstood, even by keraunopathologists, specialists in post-electrocution syndrome. Here are fascinating survivors and their stories. For example, we learn that "lightning can flash over the outside of a victim, sometimes blowing off clothes without leaving so much as a mark on the skin." Mark this, collegians, you don't have to admit to the X or tequila shooters. Tell everyone you were struck naked by an act of God.
4) I further learned today that in Anglo countries like England and Australia, research scientists are called boffins, which is a splendid title I will begin using immediately. But that's not nearly all. Some Steel Town boffins have found a way to reanimate a dog after hours of clinical death by replacing its blood with cold saline solution and restarting its vital engines with an electric shock. This is supposed to evetually save people with injuries causing tremendous blood loss, but the idea of the intentional zombie is still SUPER CREEPY! Non?
Thanks to McMudge of Huffington's Toast.
Monday, June 27, 2005
The Reality of TV, Goats, and Murder
I feel like I'm shooting blanks today, not that I'm sure you'll particularly notice in the quality. Once at basement level, how can we descend?
1) If you weren't aware, so-called reality TV is (gasp) scripted. Since the beginning of the Real World, writers have been guiding situations and crafting story arcs to add dramatic oomph to life, which- while rich and multi-textured- is often boring. The current issue is that to maintain the myth of "reality", as well as the puny production costs, writers have been credited as producers, consultants, and other sorts of catch-all meaninglessness to disguise their function on the shows. Not being billed as writers, they're not working under Writers' Guild provisions and don't get the benefits thereof. Now, in general I'm not a union fan, it's true. However, I think Hollywood may be so divorced from real reality (if that makes sense) that free market principles can't penetrate its silicone shell. Writers ought to be credited as such for their career development, and shouldn't be treated worse than camera operators and caterers just because their job is to make entertaining lies.
2) For fans of the indubitably authentic detritus of murder and tragedy, here's the auction for you. Now, I do love the macabre, which includes in its definition the suggestion or representation of death, a perfect example being Edward Gorey's Gashlycrumb Tinies, viewable here. I love the equal absurdity and dark humor of Mexico's Day of Dead and its kind of whistling in the graveyard, but I have no interest in actual Faces of Death or owning the sad remains of broken lives. Some might say that makes me unrealistic. I disagree.
I believe it's realistic and respectful to discern that one category is an intellectual and artistic tickle recognizing that life can be fragile and short and ridiculous, while the other dehumanizes true evil and loss. I don't generally believe in hauntings except for purposes of generating frissons of delight at Halloween, but beliefs from the karmic to feng shui hold that items can be infused with negativity through association. Having a Gorey on my wall celebrates a product of artistic creation; these others are emblematic of destruction. To me, it makes all difference in the world.
3) In our everything-old-is-new-again segment for today, please enjoy with me the eminent sensibility of employing herds of goats to thin fire-prone brush. I have family in California who live very near a grazing hill for cows which protected them when last summer's blazes got dangerously close to their house. Not only are grazing animals a historically smart way to control overgrowth, but I like goat cheese, too. Wouldn't it just be plain cool to hear the sound of bells, put down the Blackberry and look out the window of your San Fran wifi-espresso bar to witness herds of goats cutting the rug? TCB, my Capricorn brothers and sisters!
1) If you weren't aware, so-called reality TV is (gasp) scripted. Since the beginning of the Real World, writers have been guiding situations and crafting story arcs to add dramatic oomph to life, which- while rich and multi-textured- is often boring. The current issue is that to maintain the myth of "reality", as well as the puny production costs, writers have been credited as producers, consultants, and other sorts of catch-all meaninglessness to disguise their function on the shows. Not being billed as writers, they're not working under Writers' Guild provisions and don't get the benefits thereof. Now, in general I'm not a union fan, it's true. However, I think Hollywood may be so divorced from real reality (if that makes sense) that free market principles can't penetrate its silicone shell. Writers ought to be credited as such for their career development, and shouldn't be treated worse than camera operators and caterers just because their job is to make entertaining lies.
2) For fans of the indubitably authentic detritus of murder and tragedy, here's the auction for you. Now, I do love the macabre, which includes in its definition the suggestion or representation of death, a perfect example being Edward Gorey's Gashlycrumb Tinies, viewable here. I love the equal absurdity and dark humor of Mexico's Day of Dead and its kind of whistling in the graveyard, but I have no interest in actual Faces of Death or owning the sad remains of broken lives. Some might say that makes me unrealistic. I disagree.
I believe it's realistic and respectful to discern that one category is an intellectual and artistic tickle recognizing that life can be fragile and short and ridiculous, while the other dehumanizes true evil and loss. I don't generally believe in hauntings except for purposes of generating frissons of delight at Halloween, but beliefs from the karmic to feng shui hold that items can be infused with negativity through association. Having a Gorey on my wall celebrates a product of artistic creation; these others are emblematic of destruction. To me, it makes all difference in the world.
3) In our everything-old-is-new-again segment for today, please enjoy with me the eminent sensibility of employing herds of goats to thin fire-prone brush. I have family in California who live very near a grazing hill for cows which protected them when last summer's blazes got dangerously close to their house. Not only are grazing animals a historically smart way to control overgrowth, but I like goat cheese, too. Wouldn't it just be plain cool to hear the sound of bells, put down the Blackberry and look out the window of your San Fran wifi-espresso bar to witness herds of goats cutting the rug? TCB, my Capricorn brothers and sisters!
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Charity and Africa-Go-Go
UPDATE: My most recent Live 8 hypocrisy post here.
Accessing the following articles requires registration (boo, hiss) but not subscription. I know for a fact that the Spectator's nosy form can be left incomplete and still goes through. However, I find the Telegraph and Spectator routinely have such interesting coverage, I think you'll find it worthwhile.
Do I ever tire of being so freaking on top of what's happening? Well, no, since I'm a pathetic fraud. But the inefficiencies and hypocrisies of international aid programs have been a concern of mine, since the inception of this blog- sans sexy links- last January to comment on the Indian Ocean tsunami. I do claim to be at least a persistent bore, banging my pot with a wooden spoon and yelling that more money and U.N. room service won't fix underdeveloped nations without systemic reform against corruption and empowering regular folks to benefit from their labors.
1) The authentically fabulous Mark Steyn describes the current fate of tsunami aid which is still held up awaiting bribes and infrastructure. He also details how the first responders and essential (non-bribe dependent) supply transport was provided by the same militaries that most of the world is too cheap or faux-civilized to maintain themselves. He cites a clueless Canuck who berated America for sending an aircraft carrier to the devastated region (how imperialist and warlike!) while ignoring that it replaced destroyed staging capacities on land and was additionally a high-tech, floating hospital. Like other countries, we sent tons of goods and funds. Unlike them, we also immedately provided a fully-staffed, billion-dollar asset to make sure the stuff got to where it was needed and that critically wounded people could be airlifted to top-quality medical care. This service is irreplaceable in the rest of the world. So why did our helping hand get accused of pinching pennies? Because greedy officials can't steal a whole carrier.
2) I've posted about the abuses of the ruling African strongmen and their love for Mercedes. Reading this Spectator article by Aidan Hartley, I learned the biggest tyrants are actually nicknamed WaBenzi in Swahili because of their trademark fleets of autos. You will discover their favorite models in color and number as well as how the money keeps finding its way past needy mouths and into rulers' garages. Hear the debauched argument that fat compensation makes a country's leaders less vulnerable to corruption. And BTW, grow up, Geldof.
3) Toward Robert Mugabe of decimated Zimbabwe, I've recently expressed a lack of confidence here and here. But now I must reconsider. He's got his thugs, correction, "building brigades", hastily reassembling some of the stores and shanties they just demolished after turning thousands from their homes and arresting thousands more for wondering whether things might be better under other leadership, I mean, for being menaces to society. Patrick Chinamasa, the justice minister, admitted that "harm" had been caused to legitimate housing in the clean-up to "flush out black marketeers and criminals". I don't know if I'm more nauseous from the transparent antics, or from the oxymoronic notion of a Mugabe justice minister.
Accessing the following articles requires registration (boo, hiss) but not subscription. I know for a fact that the Spectator's nosy form can be left incomplete and still goes through. However, I find the Telegraph and Spectator routinely have such interesting coverage, I think you'll find it worthwhile.
Do I ever tire of being so freaking on top of what's happening? Well, no, since I'm a pathetic fraud. But the inefficiencies and hypocrisies of international aid programs have been a concern of mine, since the inception of this blog- sans sexy links- last January to comment on the Indian Ocean tsunami. I do claim to be at least a persistent bore, banging my pot with a wooden spoon and yelling that more money and U.N. room service won't fix underdeveloped nations without systemic reform against corruption and empowering regular folks to benefit from their labors.
1) The authentically fabulous Mark Steyn describes the current fate of tsunami aid which is still held up awaiting bribes and infrastructure. He also details how the first responders and essential (non-bribe dependent) supply transport was provided by the same militaries that most of the world is too cheap or faux-civilized to maintain themselves. He cites a clueless Canuck who berated America for sending an aircraft carrier to the devastated region (how imperialist and warlike!) while ignoring that it replaced destroyed staging capacities on land and was additionally a high-tech, floating hospital. Like other countries, we sent tons of goods and funds. Unlike them, we also immedately provided a fully-staffed, billion-dollar asset to make sure the stuff got to where it was needed and that critically wounded people could be airlifted to top-quality medical care. This service is irreplaceable in the rest of the world. So why did our helping hand get accused of pinching pennies? Because greedy officials can't steal a whole carrier.
2) I've posted about the abuses of the ruling African strongmen and their love for Mercedes. Reading this Spectator article by Aidan Hartley, I learned the biggest tyrants are actually nicknamed WaBenzi in Swahili because of their trademark fleets of autos. You will discover their favorite models in color and number as well as how the money keeps finding its way past needy mouths and into rulers' garages. Hear the debauched argument that fat compensation makes a country's leaders less vulnerable to corruption. And BTW, grow up, Geldof.
3) Toward Robert Mugabe of decimated Zimbabwe, I've recently expressed a lack of confidence here and here. But now I must reconsider. He's got his thugs, correction, "building brigades", hastily reassembling some of the stores and shanties they just demolished after turning thousands from their homes and arresting thousands more for wondering whether things might be better under other leadership, I mean, for being menaces to society. Patrick Chinamasa, the justice minister, admitted that "harm" had been caused to legitimate housing in the clean-up to "flush out black marketeers and criminals". I don't know if I'm more nauseous from the transparent antics, or from the oxymoronic notion of a Mugabe justice minister.
Friday, June 24, 2005
Squittens, Cabbits, Sleep, and Slate
1) Thanks to April's comment yesterday, I can now direct you to this site where Sarah Hartwell discusses a variety of inadvertent and intentional (ack!) kitty distortions as well as persistent cross-breed myths like the squitten and the cabbit. People wonder why I'm so worried about cloning et al. It's because there's almost no horrific mutation someone won't try.
As Terry Pratchett wrote once, and I recall in mangled form:
If someone made a sign reading Don't Touch above the button that destroys the universe, we'd all be dead before the paint was dry.
2) Further prioritizing the Morphean bliss of slumber, Slate has this article about whether sleep or breakfast helps kids' cognition more. As a chronically under-rested teen, with circadian rhythms biased more toward the owl than the lark, I never awoke hungry and still don't. Here's another arrow in the quiver for those of us advocating the simple power of adequate sleep. Taken together, the scientific literature on breakfast and sleep suggests that making sure kids get enough shut-eye will probably do more for them than dragging them out of bed to eat their Wheaties.
3) In a Slate two-fer, this article talks about the prevalence of "problem" fiction in curricula for teens. Rather than reading classically worthy books, which don't have to be stuffy and naive, we're directing young readers toward blah-blah writing about the conflict-ridden.
I didn't watch many Afterschool Specials once I got the general idea. I only read so many Judy Blumes. I got bored with stupid characters inexorably stumbling into terrible situations that could and should have been avoided. I got tired of characters whose lives were so lousy that I couldn't relate. I felt alienated that there wasn't anyone portrayed who was vaguely familiar, and I drifted toward literature peopled by those I could admire. Is it best to push kids' faces into the muck of awful, if believable, lives told badly? Or could we assume that they'll inevitably discover permutations of sadness and depravity on their own, and instead give them literary-quality examples of people succeeding through hardship accompanied by strong character (and good vocabulary)?
As Terry Pratchett wrote once, and I recall in mangled form:
If someone made a sign reading Don't Touch above the button that destroys the universe, we'd all be dead before the paint was dry.
2) Further prioritizing the Morphean bliss of slumber, Slate has this article about whether sleep or breakfast helps kids' cognition more. As a chronically under-rested teen, with circadian rhythms biased more toward the owl than the lark, I never awoke hungry and still don't. Here's another arrow in the quiver for those of us advocating the simple power of adequate sleep. Taken together, the scientific literature on breakfast and sleep suggests that making sure kids get enough shut-eye will probably do more for them than dragging them out of bed to eat their Wheaties.
3) In a Slate two-fer, this article talks about the prevalence of "problem" fiction in curricula for teens. Rather than reading classically worthy books, which don't have to be stuffy and naive, we're directing young readers toward blah-blah writing about the conflict-ridden.
I didn't watch many Afterschool Specials once I got the general idea. I only read so many Judy Blumes. I got bored with stupid characters inexorably stumbling into terrible situations that could and should have been avoided. I got tired of characters whose lives were so lousy that I couldn't relate. I felt alienated that there wasn't anyone portrayed who was vaguely familiar, and I drifted toward literature peopled by those I could admire. Is it best to push kids' faces into the muck of awful, if believable, lives told badly? Or could we assume that they'll inevitably discover permutations of sadness and depravity on their own, and instead give them literary-quality examples of people succeeding through hardship accompanied by strong character (and good vocabulary)?
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Eminent Domination of the Noble Tribesman
The stories today are threaded with the theme of other people deciding what's best for you, especially if you don't happen to be as influential or educated or as collectively civic-minded as they.
1) In a truly HORRIBLE ruling, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that forced sale of people's property under eminent domain is even justified if the proposed development is primarily for private gain. I've posted before about my dread of environmentally-justified eminent domain hurting property owners. I rail and rant about other countries' hopeless backwardness in ignoring individual property rights. And then SCOTUS does this. The "conservative" justices dissented, augmented by O'Connor, whose childhood among the ranches of the West might have inculcated a deeper understanding of the essence of territory ownership for Americans.
For years, developers have been cherry-picking pretty parcels of land with ugly or impoverished dwellings upon them, romancing municipal councils with the promises of increased tax bases and property values, and helping people out of their homes with the flimisiest application of the "blight" and "public use" provisions. Now, holy Christmas in June, they don't even have to restrict themselves to targeting the poor and unrepresented.
Developer/Council Member: (Looks at your backyard swingset) That's where we're going to put the duck pond and the bike path. The smoothie franchise is going where your neighbor's garden shed is.
You: I like smoothies, but...
D/CM: Isn't it great? We've already got a chiropractor and a drycleaner signed up for the strip mall next to the office complex. But don't forget we'll have chamber music in the gazebo twice a year. For the children. (Begins blubbering and retrieves tissue from pocket of sharkskin suit) We all care about our community's children, don't we?
You: I was sort of thinking about my own kids. Having a home to grow up in. Using a second mortgage for their college. Leaving them an inheritance when I pass away...
D/CM: Well, it's just lucky for all of us that the judges aren't so small-minded and selfish.
2) Daniel Akaka, Democratic Senator from Hawaii continues his efforts to liberate native Hawaiians from the tyranny of the Constitution. Legislatively segregating 20% of Hawaii's population, he wants to reorganize a separate tribal government that the U.S. can deal with as a peer entity, and that will not be required, of course, to give its members the same protections under the law they already have as American citizens. (hat tip: Townhall) Oh sure, lots of existing tribes haven't loved their liasons with Indian Affairs. But maybe casinos among the macadamia trees will ease the pain. Reading the bill reveals what will be gained are fat government jobs to administrate this travesty.
It establishes the Office of Native Hawaiian Relations in the Department of the Interior to serve as a liaison between Native Hawaiians and the United States. It establishes the Native Hawaiian Interagency Coordinating Group to be composed of federal officials from agencies which administer Native Hawaiian programs. Both of these provisions are intended to increase coordination between the Native Hawaiians and the federal government. And third, the bill provides a process of reorganization of the Native Hawaiian governing entity.
To get the proposal even this far, the Hawaiians had to swear they weren't taking from the piggy banks that already serve (and I use the term loosely) the indigenous peoples of the mainland. No, our taxes will pay for brand new line items to segregate people. If I said that blacks or Buddhists or the colorblind had to form their own sub-government reporting to a single, unelected bureau within our government's bowels, wouldn't it be seen for an outrage?
3) Arts & Letters Daily put me onto this wonderful Commentary article about the willful misjudgement and condescending paternalism that intelligentsia impose on primitive cultures, in this case, South American tribes. Here's what an older, wiser Margaret Mead said, trying to dissuade one young, cultural savior from his romantic views.
The main point that annoyed [Mead] was the concept, unstated by me, that primitive peoples were any better off as they were. She said she was “maddened by antibiotic-ridden idealists who wouldn’t stand three weeks in the jungle” . . . and the whole “noble savage” concept almost made her foam at the mouth. “All primitive peoples,” she said, “lead miserable, unhappy, cruel lives, most of which are spent trying to kill each other.” The reason they lived in the unpleasant places they did, like the middle of the Brazilian jungle, was that nobody else would.
While Mead acknowledged that the dances and art and music should be preserved or at least recorded for their granchildren, she wanted to preserve the people themselves not because of some inherent cultural value or hope of capitalizing on rainforest cures, but on absolute moral grounds. "...it was bad for the world to let these people die, and the effort to prevent their extermination was good for mankind even if it failed.” ...She also claimed emphatically that they all wanted one thing only, and that was to have as many material possessions and comforts as possible...if they could possibly get hold of any aluminum pots they would use them.
I regurgitate my previous post from March about Africa where Kenya's Akinye Arunga puts it this way: "Cute indigenous lifestyles simply mean indigenous poverty, indigenous malnutrition, indigenous disease and childhood death. I don't wish this on my worst enemy, and I wish our so-called friends would stop imposing it on us."
I wish the self-professed enlightened of this world would stop assigning spiritual superiority everywhere material inferiority exists. Hoarding history's advancements while saying it's for primitive peoples' own good dooms the less-developed to cruel hardships. Stop confining people to living as exhibits, professional anachronisms to bulwark your feelings of superiority and bolster the assumption that the spirituality you've discarded is a necessary fatality of progress. Cultural preservation efforts should come from within the said culture. I find it massah-style repulsive to deny anyone the hopes of their own future potential, trapping them in time like insects in amber, clapping while you force them to grin and dance in their funny ancient outfits for your pleasure.
1) In a truly HORRIBLE ruling, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that forced sale of people's property under eminent domain is even justified if the proposed development is primarily for private gain. I've posted before about my dread of environmentally-justified eminent domain hurting property owners. I rail and rant about other countries' hopeless backwardness in ignoring individual property rights. And then SCOTUS does this. The "conservative" justices dissented, augmented by O'Connor, whose childhood among the ranches of the West might have inculcated a deeper understanding of the essence of territory ownership for Americans.
For years, developers have been cherry-picking pretty parcels of land with ugly or impoverished dwellings upon them, romancing municipal councils with the promises of increased tax bases and property values, and helping people out of their homes with the flimisiest application of the "blight" and "public use" provisions. Now, holy Christmas in June, they don't even have to restrict themselves to targeting the poor and unrepresented.
Developer/Council Member: (Looks at your backyard swingset) That's where we're going to put the duck pond and the bike path. The smoothie franchise is going where your neighbor's garden shed is.
You: I like smoothies, but...
D/CM: Isn't it great? We've already got a chiropractor and a drycleaner signed up for the strip mall next to the office complex. But don't forget we'll have chamber music in the gazebo twice a year. For the children. (Begins blubbering and retrieves tissue from pocket of sharkskin suit) We all care about our community's children, don't we?
You: I was sort of thinking about my own kids. Having a home to grow up in. Using a second mortgage for their college. Leaving them an inheritance when I pass away...
D/CM: Well, it's just lucky for all of us that the judges aren't so small-minded and selfish.
2) Daniel Akaka, Democratic Senator from Hawaii continues his efforts to liberate native Hawaiians from the tyranny of the Constitution. Legislatively segregating 20% of Hawaii's population, he wants to reorganize a separate tribal government that the U.S. can deal with as a peer entity, and that will not be required, of course, to give its members the same protections under the law they already have as American citizens. (hat tip: Townhall) Oh sure, lots of existing tribes haven't loved their liasons with Indian Affairs. But maybe casinos among the macadamia trees will ease the pain. Reading the bill reveals what will be gained are fat government jobs to administrate this travesty.
It establishes the Office of Native Hawaiian Relations in the Department of the Interior to serve as a liaison between Native Hawaiians and the United States. It establishes the Native Hawaiian Interagency Coordinating Group to be composed of federal officials from agencies which administer Native Hawaiian programs. Both of these provisions are intended to increase coordination between the Native Hawaiians and the federal government. And third, the bill provides a process of reorganization of the Native Hawaiian governing entity.
To get the proposal even this far, the Hawaiians had to swear they weren't taking from the piggy banks that already serve (and I use the term loosely) the indigenous peoples of the mainland. No, our taxes will pay for brand new line items to segregate people. If I said that blacks or Buddhists or the colorblind had to form their own sub-government reporting to a single, unelected bureau within our government's bowels, wouldn't it be seen for an outrage?
3) Arts & Letters Daily put me onto this wonderful Commentary article about the willful misjudgement and condescending paternalism that intelligentsia impose on primitive cultures, in this case, South American tribes. Here's what an older, wiser Margaret Mead said, trying to dissuade one young, cultural savior from his romantic views.
The main point that annoyed [Mead] was the concept, unstated by me, that primitive peoples were any better off as they were. She said she was “maddened by antibiotic-ridden idealists who wouldn’t stand three weeks in the jungle” . . . and the whole “noble savage” concept almost made her foam at the mouth. “All primitive peoples,” she said, “lead miserable, unhappy, cruel lives, most of which are spent trying to kill each other.” The reason they lived in the unpleasant places they did, like the middle of the Brazilian jungle, was that nobody else would.
While Mead acknowledged that the dances and art and music should be preserved or at least recorded for their granchildren, she wanted to preserve the people themselves not because of some inherent cultural value or hope of capitalizing on rainforest cures, but on absolute moral grounds. "...it was bad for the world to let these people die, and the effort to prevent their extermination was good for mankind even if it failed.” ...She also claimed emphatically that they all wanted one thing only, and that was to have as many material possessions and comforts as possible...if they could possibly get hold of any aluminum pots they would use them.
I regurgitate my previous post from March about Africa where Kenya's Akinye Arunga puts it this way: "Cute indigenous lifestyles simply mean indigenous poverty, indigenous malnutrition, indigenous disease and childhood death. I don't wish this on my worst enemy, and I wish our so-called friends would stop imposing it on us."
I wish the self-professed enlightened of this world would stop assigning spiritual superiority everywhere material inferiority exists. Hoarding history's advancements while saying it's for primitive peoples' own good dooms the less-developed to cruel hardships. Stop confining people to living as exhibits, professional anachronisms to bulwark your feelings of superiority and bolster the assumption that the spirituality you've discarded is a necessary fatality of progress. Cultural preservation efforts should come from within the said culture. I find it massah-style repulsive to deny anyone the hopes of their own future potential, trapping them in time like insects in amber, clapping while you force them to grin and dance in their funny ancient outfits for your pleasure.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Two-Faced Wonders, Can Courtesy Cure All?
First, many thanks to Jenny D. for the listing and kind words in week 20's Carnival of Education. This week, she hosts education-related reportage and commentage in the oodles. Whatever your hot button, someone's pressing it. Chewy, interesting stuff.
1) The strange weather of the blogosphere means I'll pick a topic and, within the next day or two, I'll see new information that makes me want to update. Ad infinitem. I usually let it drop. But not this time.
In my post yesterday about how Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe must love Live 8 and hate DDT, I didn't mention his recent project. Operation Murambatsvina, translated as Drive out the Rubbish, which bulldozes the homes and kiosks of impoverished urbanites. We are not talking about a razing a cardboard enclave in a city with the property rights, zoning, and aid infrastructure of Cleveland. We are talking about displacing over a million people, families who live in established, though poor, neighborhoods The displaced are not even allowed to cart their debris away to rebuild homes elsewhere. They're instead relocated to anchovy-snug tent camps with little food and less hygiene. The neighborhoods slated for beautification are those most politically resistant to Mugabe's blandishments. Coincidence? The latest wrinkle is Mugabe disallowing these bullied citizens their subsistence gardens, because... wait for it... Their growing food hurts the environment.
Unlike the newly aethetically and environmentally attuned Mugabe, this straightforward kitty shows her two faces. She's bucked the odds so far. Good luck, Gemini.
2) Another aspect of the blogiverse is that seemingly unrelated stories swirl around, accumulating until they smack you in the face with a new idea. My notion isn't fully thunk, but it's rattling my synapses so I've got to let the bats out of the belfry.
BACKGROUND: I read this Townhall article about the firebrand Thomas Szasz, calling mental illness the new normal, and a meaty book review in Reason. While the expansion of what constitutes dysfunction astounds me, I can't decide yet that everything we don't have a physical diagnosis for isn't a real problem. Thomas Dalrymple had already caused me to consider what I called the death of eccentricity here. I read Kristof's NYT op-ed about the plight of women in Pakistan, about the breathtaking rudeness of a German diplomat towards American guests in his home, and about H.G. Wells' elitist utopianism.
In my fevered brain, it all connected with something by George Orwell, an essay fronting a collection of E.W. Hornung's stories, from 1899, about A.J. Raffles, the public-school boy and West End clubman whose amazing cricket skills and infallible taste allow him to mingle among the upper crust whom he burgles for a living. Writing in 1944, Orwell compares Raffles' exploits to a contemporary American gangster story by James Hadley Chase. 1939's No Orchids for Miss Blandish includes multiple varieties of torture, rapes, Stockholm sydrome, murders and police abuses. Citing the increase in Might Makes Right as entertainment, Orwell writes:
People worship power in the form in which they are able to understand it. A twelve year old boy worships Jack Dempsey. An adolescent in a Glasgow slum worships Al Capone... A New Statesman reader worships Stalin. There is a difference in intellectual maturity, but none in moral outlook. Thirty years ago the heroes of popular fiction had nothing in common with Chase's gansters and detectives...Between [Sherlock] Holmes and Fenner [Chase's protagonist] on the one hand, and between Abraham Lincoln and Stalin on the other, there is a similar gulf.
One ought not to infer too much from the success of Mr. Chase's books. It is possible that it is an isolated phenomenon, brought about by the mingled boredom and brutality of war [sound prescient?]...Raffles, as I have pointed out, has no real moral code, no religion, certainly no social consciousness. All he has is a set of reflexes- the nervous system, as it were, of a gentleman...In Mr Chase's books there are no gentlemen, and no taboos. Emancipation is complete. Freud and Machiavelli have reached the outer suburbs. Comparing the schoolboy atmosphere of the one book with the cruelty and corruption of the other, one is driven to feel that snobbishness, like hypocrisy, is a check upon human behavior whose value from a social point of view has been underrated.
JIST: When I talk about politeness or being courteous, I'm not referring the etiquette of table utensils for prawn cheeks or the correct address for the wife of Burundi's ambassador. Should the need arise, do look up such miscellania online. What I refer to is an old-fashioned ideal that many feel slipping from evidence in the public square. Courtesy predjudices one toward and habituates behavior characterised by tolerance, patience, consideration for others, generosity, dignity, self-control, and deference of the strong to needs of the weaker.
Within courtesy, I perceive practical training against narcissism and impatience among the young. I perceive habits that encourage respect for individual differences while lubricating smooth function of the whole. I see facilitation of effective debate across classes and democracy's defense against accusations of popular unfitness by dictator-loving elitists. I see a standard of civil conduct which need not rely upon or preclude religious observance. I see elevation of women's social status and of those that protect the weak from violence and coercion.
Is it possible that this cheaply held, neglected minor virtue is the pillar of all decent civilization?
1) The strange weather of the blogosphere means I'll pick a topic and, within the next day or two, I'll see new information that makes me want to update. Ad infinitem. I usually let it drop. But not this time.
In my post yesterday about how Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe must love Live 8 and hate DDT, I didn't mention his recent project. Operation Murambatsvina, translated as Drive out the Rubbish, which bulldozes the homes and kiosks of impoverished urbanites. We are not talking about a razing a cardboard enclave in a city with the property rights, zoning, and aid infrastructure of Cleveland. We are talking about displacing over a million people, families who live in established, though poor, neighborhoods The displaced are not even allowed to cart their debris away to rebuild homes elsewhere. They're instead relocated to anchovy-snug tent camps with little food and less hygiene. The neighborhoods slated for beautification are those most politically resistant to Mugabe's blandishments. Coincidence? The latest wrinkle is Mugabe disallowing these bullied citizens their subsistence gardens, because... wait for it... Their growing food hurts the environment.
Unlike the newly aethetically and environmentally attuned Mugabe, this straightforward kitty shows her two faces. She's bucked the odds so far. Good luck, Gemini.
2) Another aspect of the blogiverse is that seemingly unrelated stories swirl around, accumulating until they smack you in the face with a new idea. My notion isn't fully thunk, but it's rattling my synapses so I've got to let the bats out of the belfry.
BACKGROUND: I read this Townhall article about the firebrand Thomas Szasz, calling mental illness the new normal, and a meaty book review in Reason. While the expansion of what constitutes dysfunction astounds me, I can't decide yet that everything we don't have a physical diagnosis for isn't a real problem. Thomas Dalrymple had already caused me to consider what I called the death of eccentricity here. I read Kristof's NYT op-ed about the plight of women in Pakistan, about the breathtaking rudeness of a German diplomat towards American guests in his home, and about H.G. Wells' elitist utopianism.
In my fevered brain, it all connected with something by George Orwell, an essay fronting a collection of E.W. Hornung's stories, from 1899, about A.J. Raffles, the public-school boy and West End clubman whose amazing cricket skills and infallible taste allow him to mingle among the upper crust whom he burgles for a living. Writing in 1944, Orwell compares Raffles' exploits to a contemporary American gangster story by James Hadley Chase. 1939's No Orchids for Miss Blandish includes multiple varieties of torture, rapes, Stockholm sydrome, murders and police abuses. Citing the increase in Might Makes Right as entertainment, Orwell writes:
People worship power in the form in which they are able to understand it. A twelve year old boy worships Jack Dempsey. An adolescent in a Glasgow slum worships Al Capone... A New Statesman reader worships Stalin. There is a difference in intellectual maturity, but none in moral outlook. Thirty years ago the heroes of popular fiction had nothing in common with Chase's gansters and detectives...Between [Sherlock] Holmes and Fenner [Chase's protagonist] on the one hand, and between Abraham Lincoln and Stalin on the other, there is a similar gulf.
One ought not to infer too much from the success of Mr. Chase's books. It is possible that it is an isolated phenomenon, brought about by the mingled boredom and brutality of war [sound prescient?]...Raffles, as I have pointed out, has no real moral code, no religion, certainly no social consciousness. All he has is a set of reflexes- the nervous system, as it were, of a gentleman...In Mr Chase's books there are no gentlemen, and no taboos. Emancipation is complete. Freud and Machiavelli have reached the outer suburbs. Comparing the schoolboy atmosphere of the one book with the cruelty and corruption of the other, one is driven to feel that snobbishness, like hypocrisy, is a check upon human behavior whose value from a social point of view has been underrated.
JIST: When I talk about politeness or being courteous, I'm not referring the etiquette of table utensils for prawn cheeks or the correct address for the wife of Burundi's ambassador. Should the need arise, do look up such miscellania online. What I refer to is an old-fashioned ideal that many feel slipping from evidence in the public square. Courtesy predjudices one toward and habituates behavior characterised by tolerance, patience, consideration for others, generosity, dignity, self-control, and deference of the strong to needs of the weaker.
Within courtesy, I perceive practical training against narcissism and impatience among the young. I perceive habits that encourage respect for individual differences while lubricating smooth function of the whole. I see facilitation of effective debate across classes and democracy's defense against accusations of popular unfitness by dictator-loving elitists. I see a standard of civil conduct which need not rely upon or preclude religious observance. I see elevation of women's social status and of those that protect the weak from violence and coercion.
Is it possible that this cheaply held, neglected minor virtue is the pillar of all decent civilization?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
