Offensive, Bigoted, etc.

This cartoon is one of the most reprehensible things I've seen in a long, long time.

Which party's the racist one again?

Belated Election Post &c

Wow. I can't believe I haven't posted anything to the Blog since before I left for Knoxville.

The Conference was great. All the papers were good, the food was good, the company pleasant, and the Webmaster's award ( a plaque and a signed Cormac McCarthy book) was a complete suprise.

The Marty Party went off well, too. Lots of folks, lots of food, lots of fun, and a late ending. It's always a good party when the last guests leave at 5 a.m.

I'm still not used to non-daylight savings time. It's gettin' dark way too early here.

I'm also happy that W. won the election. No surprise there, for anyone who's read more than a couple posts here.

I don't much like it that the "referendum on Iraq and the War," once W. won it, became "the moral values election."

And — as to the influence of the fundamentalist/evangelical vote — some of the people looking down their noses at the inbred evangelicals ought to occasionally attend churches; they're public places, after all. I suspect that most of the talking heads who are paid to have opinions haven't ever even been to church in a red state. Some evangelicals are nuts, but most that I've known aren't.

Off to Knoxville

Well, in the morning, I'm off to Knoxville, Tennessee, for the annual Cormac McCarthy Conference. I'll not be presenting a paper this time, but I will be documenting the affair with the new camera. As one of my bosses put it, some folks are curious about what kind of people would attend a Cormac McCarthy Conference.

Here's hoping that the weather will be good and that the fall foliage will be nice. Back on Sunday.

Meet Miss Quentin

This is the first picture I've taken with my digital camera. Well, the first one I'm willing to share, anyway. Say hello to Miss Quentin. 

Nineteen Hours.....

That's how long I was at work Thursday. From 9 a.m. to 3:45 in the morning on Friday.

And back again at 10 a.m. Friday. But I did leave at 2 -- nice short day for the M, who was delirious from lack of sleep. One of my bosses said, "the last time I pulled an all nighter, I was drunk."

Well, I wasn't, so I remember it all too well.

I'm still recovering.

The Mainstreaming of Porn

While I'm still working like crazy this week, this article is worth reading. It's old now, but I think it's probably more relevant now than it was when it was written since its notions, even just a few years out, seem almost quaint.

Not Dead Yet

For those of you who may be following this particular blog, I'm not dead yet. Lots of work at work, together with a month-long succession of parties, has contributed mightily to my not posting here more regularly.

In tech news, I did finally break down and order my first Mac.

In other news, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell continues to be a great book, though I've not had the time I'd like to devote to it.

And one of my very good friends has just up and moved to Nashville.

I finally saw the Robin WIlliams episode of Inside the Actors' Studio. That's made me reconsider going into acting as a profession. Though I believe myself to be a writer at heart.

Bush's lackluster performance in the debate the other night was a little depressing. He's still gonna win the election, though. About a year ago, maybe longer, I told a friend of mine that Bush would get 60% of the popular vote. I stand by that prediction; I just don't see any sort of real groundswell for Kerry between now and the election.

Wrapped in Plastic

After reading several reviews, I went to the local bookstore yesterday to buy a book. This particular book, which runs to about 800 pages, is by a first-time author named Susannah Clarke. It's called Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. I'm very early into the reading of this one, but it's clever, and I'm enjoying it a great deal so far.

It's no doubt going to be a publishing sensation, so remember that you heard it here first.

BUT...despite the apparent goodness of the book, I'm miffed about it. And I'm feeling sort of like I just sinned. Because the book was not browsable at the bookstore. It was sealed, tightly, in clear plastic shrink wrap. Perhaps this was done to protect the white dust jackets, but it's hard to say. I think this is one of those books that will come with either a white or black jacket, so protection from scuffing during shipping may very well be the issue.

In any case, going to a bookstore to buy a book, even one you know you're going to buy, is usually a very tactile experience. The pleasure of browsing through a book, reading its jacket copy, and sampling at random from the (in this case) novel shouldn't be difficult or impossible. You should be able to hold the book in your hands, to thumb through it, look at the copyright page (if you're a collecting sort and interested in editions and the like). You should be able to feel the type on the pages and smell that new-book smell wafting up at you when you leaf through the pages.

None of that was present in this case, because the book was wrapped in plastic, sealed up as if it contained vulgar or prurient material, as if the publishers didn't really want anyone to actually read the book.

I could have removed the plastic wrap, I'm sure. But part of me rebels at the notion of opening something I haven't yet purchased. Besides, what is one then to do with the small wad of thick crinkled plastic?

The book as commodity. What's the point of going to a bookstore if you can't look at a book before you buy it?

Books. Wrapped in plastic. Harumph.

President's Remarks to the Unity Journalists of Color Convention

President's Remarks to the Unity Journalists of Color Convention:

Now in terms of the balance between running down intelligence and bringing people to justice obviously is — we need to be very sensitive on that. Lackawanna, for example, was a — there was a cell there. And it created a lot of nervousness in the community, because the FBI skillfully ferreted out intelligence that indicated that these people were in communication with terrorist networks. And I thought they handled the case very well, but at the time there was a lot of nervousness. People said, well, I may be next — but they weren't next, because it was just a focused, targeted investigation. And, by the way, some were then incarcerated and told their stories, and it turned out the intelligence was accurate intelligence.

I post the above because SadPunk has re-opened the subject of "sensitive" war. I looked for the speech he mentioned, and I believe it's this one — and I believe it's this quote.

Funny, Funny, Funny

A friend of mine sent me the following.

The Washington Post's Style Invitational [also here — I could spend days reading this kind of stuff] once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are the 2003 winners:

1. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

2. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

3. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

4. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

5. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

6. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray painted very, very high.

7. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

8. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

9. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido: All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.

And the pick of the literature:

18. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

Between Books

Oh my. Finished Everything is Illuminated last evening. What a ride.

One of my favorite passages:

Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she slept a good night's sleep, and will be able to eat breakfast, and doesn't hear her husband's ghost all the time, but only some of the time. Her grief is replaced with a useful sadness. Every parent who has lost a child finds a way to laugh again. The timbre begins to fade. The edge dulls. The hurt lessens. Every love is carved from loss. Mine was. Yours is. Your grear-great-great-grandchildren's will be. But we learn to live in that love.

That's excerpted from a larger passage, which I won't quote here. That's not all — just a small sample.

So-Called "Baby" Carrots

VivaLaLesley disputes my information about baby carrots. The following is taken from Cooks Illustrated's E-Notes, April 2001.

"BABY" CARROTS

While researching our story on roasted carrots [. . .] we learned that the popular bagged "baby" carrots in the supermarket qualify as "babies" in terms of size only. The diminutive carrots are pared-down versions of a special variety bred for extra sweetness and color. The large carrots are forced through a machine that peels and trims them down to their perfect little size.

Books, Books, and More Books

Yes, Everything is Illuminated continues to be great — so great that I don't want to write here because I'd rather read.

However, I've been thinking about this particular subject for a while now and wanted to at least get started. I like lists, though they can be maddeningly frustrating sometimes. Here, then, are ten books I love — these books are on this list not only because I love them, but because they were world-changing as only a few books can be in any given lifetime. Order is not especially significant here; these are off the top of my head.

• Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis. It's a close race between several C.S. Lewis books, as I adored the Chronicles of Narnia when I was only a boy. Recently having reread them, I discovered that they're even better than I remembered they were. Also on the short-list from C.S. Lewis are The Abolition of Man and The Screwtape Letters. But Mere Christianity wins out because of the luminous quality of its prose and because of my peculiar reaction to reading it. I was raised Church of Christ and went to private Church of Christ school. So I took Bible classes nearly every day until I was 18 or so. They were quite in depth, and yet encountering Lewis in Mere Christianity when I was 18 was life-changing — "oh, now I see what all the fuss is about!"


• The Crossing, by Cormac McCarthy. Absolutely one of the finest novels I've ever read. Other contenders from McCarthy include Blood Meridian and All the Pretty Horses (my first McCarthy novel, and so in some ways always the best), but The Crossing wins because of its sheer power. Reading it was like being run over by a train. Repeatedly. In a good way. I've never ever been so wrung out by a book.


• Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard. Friends of mine mock me for loving such a hippie book as this one, and suggest that I ought to shut up and read Walden. But this book is practically unique in my experience; it's a book about nature and God and death and life and all the other big issues. Somehow it's also about little things, specific things, and the human quest for understanding, knowledge, enlightenment, and maybe even perfection. Its prose is marvelously light but multifaceted like a poem; you think you're done with an image and then it returns in a new light where it can be seen differently. I have encountered few books as perfect as this one in my reading life.


• The Years of Lyndon Johnson, by Robert A. Caro. I've never read a biography of anyone else that even comes close. Magesterial. LBJ rises up from the pages of these three volumes and breathes, shouts, berates, rejoices, struggles, steals, lies, cheats, and gets his way in his very own fashion. You may not like him, but he's never ever boring. Three volumes here, and Caro's not done yet. I for one can't wait for volume four.


• The Civil War: A Narrative, by Shelby Foote. Dated, maybe, but for flat-out great storytelling, it can't be beat. A beautiful, tragic, and epic book. One of the crowning literary achievements of the twentieth century in any form.

Those are the books I knew would be on the list when I started. Now, I'm going to have to do some thinking to flesh out the ten.

Everything is Illuminated

A good friend recommended that I read Jonathan Safran Foer's first novel, Everything is Illuminated. Having just started the book — I've read about five pages — I am already compelled to mention it here.

It's not thus far an easy book to explain, but it is hilarious; the first part of the book is narrated by a Ukranian translator writing in English, and the effect is riotous. A sample:

Many girls want to be carnal with me in many good arrangements, notwithstanding the Inebriated Kangaroo, the Gorky Tickle, and the Unyielding Zookeeper. If you want to know why so many girls want to be with me, it is because I am a very premium person to be with. I am homely, and also severely funny, and these are winning things. But nonetheless, I know many people who dig rapid cars and famous discotheques.

I'd like to quote more, but to do so would be to give away too much — I'll simply say that this book, so far, is inventive, original, and one of the funniest things I've read in years.

CNN.com - Cheney blasts Kerry over 'sensitive war' remark - Aug 12, 2004

CNN.com - Cheney blasts Kerry over 'sensitive war' remark - Aug 12, 2004:

The Kerry campaign Thursday said that the senator's comment was being 'taken out of context' and the 'meaning twisted' by the Bush/Cheney campaign.

Kerry spokesman Phil Singer told CNN the Democratic candidate was referring to cooperation with allies. President Bush himself, Singer said, used the word 'sensitive' in a similar context in March 2001, when he said the United States should be 'sensitive about expressing our power and influence.

Since nobody over at the Kerry campaign has posted this speech, it's difficult to say, based on the one sentence, whether Singer's correct or not. But, based on the one sentence, "fight" does not equal "cooperation with allies." Yeah, Kerry mentions allies in the same sentence, but that's about all.

CNN.com - Cheneys Go After Kerry - Aug 11, 2004

CNN.com - Cheneys Go After Kerry - Aug 11, 2004:

[Mrs. Cheney] was responding to an audience question about Kerry's remarks last week to the Unity 2004 conference in which he said, "I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side."

I have looked for the rest of that speech, the one Kerry gave to Unity 2004, but it's not posted online — at least, not at the John Kerry site. And not at the Unity 2004 site.

The reason I've gone to the trouble of posting that quote is that Kerry campaign staffers are now practically denying that he said it. Grammatically, there's no question that "more sensitive" there modifies "fight."

I'll post an example from Kerry's folks soon.

VP's Remarks in Dayton, Ohio

VP's Remarks in Dayton, Ohio:

But a good defense is not enough, and so we have also gone on the offense in the war on terror — but the President's opponent, Senator Kerry, sometimes seems to object. He has even said that by using our strength, we are creating terrorists and placing ourselves in greater danger. But that is a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the world we are living in works. Terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength; they are invited by the perception of weakness. (Applause.)

Senator Kerry has also said that if he were in charge he would fight a "more sensitive" war on terror. (Laughter.) America has been in too many wars for any of our wishes, but not a one of them was won by being sensitive. President Lincoln and General Grant did not wage sensitive warfare — nor did President Roosevelt, nor Generals Eisenhower and MacArthur. A "sensitive war" will not destroy the evil men who killed 3,000 Americans and who seek the chemical, nuclear and biological weapons to kill hundreds of thousands more. The men who beheaded Daniel Pearl and Paul Johnson will not be impressed by our sensitivity. As our opponents see it, the problem isn't the thugs and murderers that we face, but our attitude. Well, the American people know better. They know that we are in a fight to preserve our freedom and our way of life, and that we are on the side of rights and justice in this battle. Those who threaten us and kill innocents around the world do not need to be treated more sensitively. They need to be destroyed. (Applause.)

I listened to what Senator Kerry had to say in Boston, and, with all due respect to the Senator, he views the world as if we had never been attacked on September 11th. The job of the Commander-in-Chief, as he sees it, is to use America's military strength to respond to attacks. But September 11th showed us, as surely as anything can, that we must act against gathering dangers — not wait for to be attacked. That awful day left some 3,000 of our fellow citizens dead, and everything we have learned since tells us the terrorists would do worse if they could, and that they will even use chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons against us if they can. In the world we live in now, responding to attacks is not enough. We must do everything in our power to prevent attacks — and that includes using military force. (Applause.)

All Geeked Out

Today was my second sick day. Again, I slept a lot. But in between sleeping episodes, I've been contemplating what I'm going to do about my new home theater room. The plans have been drawn up, and construction should commence soon, so I'm becoming very concerned about what equipment is going into that room and how I'm going to get it there.

My big dilemma is display technology. I used to sell high-end A/V, but DLP and LCoS and LCD displays are all technologies that simply weren't available a few years ago.

With the advent of DLP, especially, the cost of actually installing a projector has become -- dare I say it -- almost reasonable. It's still going to cost a fortune, of course, compared to what normal people would consider sane. The point is that high-end TVs cost nearly the same as high-end projectors, and you avoid the problem of the enormous box. Of course, with LCD and Mitsubishi's new DLP displays, the problem of the big box is all but gone anyway.

Too many choices to make, really. But I'll muddle through.

Two Weekends and a Sick Day, Part Two

Last weekend, a good friend of mine got married. After his first date with her, he called me up in the middle of the night to let me know that he was going to marry her. That was about two years ago. Lo and behold, he did just that on Sunday.

I was at the bachelor party on Friday night, where the groom was injured by a fairly nasty fall and the best man got a black eye. I merely got tackled by the groom, but otherwise made it through unscathed. This particular bachelor party ended about 1 a.m., but I would have gotten worried had it gone on much longer.

The oddity of the evening was capped by the groom's asking me to be a groomsman. I had previous plans that I couldn't break, so I missed the rehearsal dinner. Now, I've never been a groomsman before, but this was an especially casual wedding, so there was no tuxedo rental involved or anything like that. The bride and groom decided to have the wedding in their back yard, which turned into something like the mosquito coast during the ceremony; there were so many mosquitoes buzzing around that I kept seeing groups of them flying around my eyes. As a groomsman, I couldn't exactly swat them, though there were a few occasions where brushing them away from my face was, though uncouth, the only thing to do. They'd sprayed the yard before the ceremony, but I think the spray just made the mosquitoes angry.

After the ceremony the groomsmen escorted the bridesmaids out of the improvised chapel, and — wouldn't you know it — my escort took a dive, stepping into a small hole in the yard that was covered by the white fru-fru runner. She didn't fall, prompting a friend to say, "Not only are you a competent groomsman, you're a damned hero."

Indeed.

I was also unaware that the groom has a younger sister who ought to be a supermodel. Another friend said she was "twice my height," and that's true. The sister, however, informed me that she "played me" at the rehearsal dinner I missed. I asked her if she'd done a competent job. She assured me that she had.

In between all the wedding events, my parents and I cooked dinner for some family friends. That occupied most of the day and night on Saturday. Wound up being a relaxing and pleasant evening.

And that pretty much catches you all up to date.

Now, if I can only get rid of this stupid cold.

Two Weekends and a Sick Day, Part One

It's been busy lately, and the level of busy-ness has apparently caught up with me. I took a sick day from work today due to a cough and sore throat incident, and so now I'm on some pretty powerful antibiotics and a narcotic cough syrup.

Whether I'll be back at work tomorrow is an open question; all I wanted to do today was sleep.

But that's following two eventful weekends. Weekend-before-last I saw, and was terribly disappointed in and offended by, The Village. It's quite simply one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Its dialogue was pretentious, its acting workmanlike and uninspired, its script and story so dull and predictable that reading the side of a cereal box holds more shock and surprise. I say the movie offended me because its secret surprise ending was as silly and trite a thing as could be imagined. Someone said about something, there's no there there. That's how I feel about The Village.

Seeing that movie made it incumbent on me to see another, to cleanse the movie palate. I saw Before Sunset that same weekend, on Sunday night. The difference between a good movie and a bad one has never been so apparent to me as when seeing those two movies back-to-back. In Before Sunset, you see good acting combined with intelligent writing and un-showy directing, and the cumulative effect is one of making you forget that you're watching a movie. Which, of course, the best movies always do. Before Sunset is small and confined, but that allows it to probe and prod in a way few movies do anymore.

In between the two movies, I went to the Botanical Gardens for another concert — this time, Lyle Lovett. Worth every penny. Lyle is not only a great performer, he's a great songwriter, and some of the songs he performed I'd not heard before. I was struck by the quality of the Large Band as musicians, and equally struck by the economy of word and phrase in many of those songs. It was a good show on a beautiful night — worth the trip.

I can't say the same for Antiques Roadshow, which was also on that Saturday. That was hours of standing in line as part of a huge crowd, all of us carrying heavy boxes of stuff, not enough of it on wheels. The two-and-a-half hour wait in line was capped by about ten minutes of what seemed like perfunctory and dismissive appraising. It wasn't an experience that I'd want to miss, but I'm not sure I'd do it again.

So that was weekend-before-last. Next up, a week of work, followed by last weekend's events.