the Greater Nomadic Council

Australian Aborigines

Jonathan of The Head Heeb has penned an detailed look into the history and contemporary plight of Australian aborigines:

Aborigines are black. Their features aren't particularly African, but the first impulse of a visitor from the United States is to analogize them to African-Americans, with all the implicit assumptions about their history and social position. Those assumptions are entirely wrong.

As an indigenous people, the aborigines' history is closest to that of the native Americans, but not even that captures their experience. In some ways, settler-aboriginal relations in Australia unfolded more like Brazil or the Southern Cone than the other British settler colonies. In the United States, Canada and New Zealand, the settlers' first encounters were with farmers who had organized societies and, at least in some cases, significant military strength. In Australia, the first encounters were with small hunter-gatherer tribes. This set the tone for the following centuries.

The post has lots more fascinating facts about these groups of people and the challenges they face today.

Punctuated Exclamation

It would be nice if there were a punctuation mark to express a level of emphasis between the period and the exclamation point. That is all.

Living Without A Pulse

A new heart pump leaves patients without a pulse:

What makes the VentrAssist different is that it only has one moving part, a spinning impeller that drives a continuous stream of blood. That means the pulse is replaced by a gentle whirling noise that patients describe as similar to the sound of a washing machine.

Science: helping old folks sound like washing machines.

Kerry Speech Reactions

Daniel Drezner thought the foreign policy critiques were solid and sane, although, as a free-trader, he has some problems with Kerry's rhetoric on out-sourcing.

Pejman Yousefzadeh wrote a long, thoughtful analysis of the speech and why he didn't like it, though he focused a bit too much on the style and the command for balloons.

John Joyner and Matthew Yglesias both "thought it was crap." Joyner also has a collection of other reactions at the end of his post worth checking out. Yglesias points though that his opinion doesn't matter.

Andrew Sullivan wrote a few posts about it where he derides Kerry for his personality, decides that the speech was decidedly liberal, but pleasantly optimistic.

Atrios says Kerry was "energetic, optimistic and persuasive" and, later, provides some labor union reactions.

Fabrice Rousselot writes that "I must say I was very impressed by Kerry's speech... he made himself look like a candidate who is completely presidential." Another French blogger, Pascal Riche, thought the speech was "the best of [Kerry's] political life, without a doubt."

Fafblog liked Kerry's plan to "hold true to our ideals with a thousand mighty robots."

Juan Cole gives the specifics of how Kerry's Iraq plan would work.

Michael Totten writes "[t]here has got to be some buyer’s remorse in the Democratic Party right now" as he compares Edwards's speech with Kerry's, which he says he'd "give.. a 50-50 grade on the content of his speech."

Over at Oxblog, Patrick Bolton did some live blogging of the speech.

Ezra Klein thought it was "the perfect speech for John Kerry. It addresses every slander against him and absorbs the vulnerable edges into positive portions of a great man. This is phenomenal."

Finally, Kevin Drum thought it was "not bad, but not a slam dunk killer either."

Quite a mixed reaction, to be sure. Averaging them all out makes me even more confident of the B+ I gave him.

Appreciate Me

Today is System Administrator Appreciation Day. Bow and worship me, peons. As Cory Doctorow writes:

I'm here to tell you that sysadmins are the secret masters of the universe, underappreciated, all powerful, and indispensable. The world would crumble into dust but for the diligent work of our sysadmins.

Now shower me with praise, money, and drugs.

Convention Speech MP3s

Via Annatopia I discovered this site that has the convention speeches online in MP3 format, in case you missed any or want to listen again.

Initial Reactions to Kerry's Speech

I just finished watching Kerry's acceptance speech and have a few initial reactions. First off, the stylistic aspect. Kerry's not an excellent orator, so sometimes even great lines fall a little flat due to his delivery. Even so, it's really not worth discussing unless you're just looking for things to criticize, so I'll move on to the content. Overall, it was a good, solid speech. He covered all the big policy areas well and in enough detail to give a decent idea of where he stands. His discussion of foreign policy—increase troop size, double the Special Forces—seemed nearly perfect. Obviously he dealt with a number of other issues, but I don't really feel like discussing all of them in detail, just to give my general, overall impression in the hope that the rest of you will chime in as well. If I had to give the speech a grade, I'd say B+.

Early Visual Media

Check out this site that focuses "on Pre-Cinema, Precursors of Photography, Photography & Early Film and Conjuring Arts." Lots of images of death and ghosts.

(via Beyond the Beyond)

Email Phishing Scams Quiz

Can you tell which emails are phishing scams and which are legitimate? Take this quiz and find out.

Who Knew?

The good people of Oregon are trying to save lives every day. Let your office manager know you will not stand for this.

Seeing Better Through Music

I saw these glasses in the paper today, and wondered what some true Vinyl lovers would think. Personally I don't like them. Its the second article down, sorry it's the best pic I could find.

Miéville Creates World

Since one of our authors posted something about Miéville a month ago, I thought I'd be nice and point out this Crooked Timber post about a bad review he received, although that's more of a starting point for the real meat:

Maybe the reviewer is just expressing a profound but completely generalized distaste for the whole venture. What he really wants to say is that a book with such an atmosphere shouldn’t have been written. But if that’s how you feel, quibbling about little details is rather beside the point. Come to think of it, there should be a word for that critical sin. Reviewers called upon to consider a work they just don’t believe could possibly be good, because it’s somehow profoundly the wrong sort of thing, according to them. And then they sort of waste everyone’s time, scrutinizing and pretending it’s some detail that’s vexed them.

John Holbo then goes on to show how this is the typical reaction to authors and architects who create entirely new worlds and visions. Yet another example of good writing today. I think I was a bit hasty is claiming we see little of it on the web; just not enough. More, more, more!

A Plan to Reduce Homelessness

Over at Centerfield, Jon Kay wrote an excellent, detailed post about reforms the U.S. could make to significantly reduce homelessness. I don't know enough about social planning, insurance, or the other topics touched on to know how feasible his plan is, but it passes the common sense test easily. Not only does it seem reasonable, but it's also a great example of the potential of blogging. He's written a serious, thoughtful proposal for ameliorating a serious social ill and people will actually read it. His post is precisely the sort of writing we want, but see little of on the web.

Kerry Demands Devil's Advocate

Via Brad DeLong comes excerpts of a subscription-only Wall Street Journal article about Bush and Kerry's decision-making style. Here's the part that really stood out for me:

Mr. Kerry's advisers say he favors a "devil's advocate" or "Socratic method" approach, even on issues -- such as campaign-finance reform or blocking drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- for which he is widely known as a leading advocate. Aides compare the experience with returning to law school. "He threw question after question after question at me," says former aide Gregg Rothschild about a briefing on whether to back a Clinton-era free-trade initiative. "At one point I tried to catch my breath and sighed. He said, 'Gregg, don't give up, hang in there.'"

The best beliefs to question are your own if you're at all interested in discovering the truth. The fact that Kerry subjects his own views to rigorous analysis before making a final decision is incredibly encouraging. It signals that he's interested in more than mere confirmation of his preconceptions. This stands in stark contrast to everything we know about Bush's process. From the stove-piped WMD intelligence to global warming "science" to stem cell research to tax cuts, Bush has been more interested in having his opinions confirmed and reinforced than challenged. Kerry will still end up with the wrong answer on occasion—that's inevitable—but at least it won't be for lack of trying to get it right.

UPDATE: The Christian Science Monitor has an article detailing Kerry's style of leadership that states:

When it comes to leadership, Kerry has two impulses that sometimes conflict.

He can move fast when he has to.

Combat, after all, is no place for a waffler. But on many matters, particularly those that involve abstract thought, his decision-making process sometimes meanders. He may not make a final choice until he's picked an issue apart and examined its aspects in detail.

Although too much attention to detail can be a liability in some cases, it sounds like Kerry tends to strike a good balance most of the time.

The Silver Bullet for IE

Even though many of you have wisely switched away from IE to better browsers (46% of our hits come from Mozilla now, versus 44% on IE), it still lives on your system, tightly integrated into the OS, right?

Wrong. Microsoft just wants you to think it's integrated. You can actually remove it and reroute all the system calls to IE to your default browser. Glory, glory, hallelujah!

UPDATE: On second thought, I'm not sure it's a good idea to completely remove IE unless you're positive you'll never need it. Some pages are designed only to work with IE for some stupid reason, so if you need to use them, you have to have IE installed, particularly those pages that run ActiveX. Mozilla doesn't support it because it's a gaping security hole, but some developers insist on using it nevertheless.

(via BoingBoing)

Unanswerable Questions

While reading Hayden Carruth's essay, "The Meaning of Robert Lowell", I came across this passage:

In essence, what is my theme? In general, what is my defect?

One does not ask these questions once and then go on to something else; one asks them over and over, as one asks all unanswerable questions. A serious poet moves progressively toward his essential theme, though he can never reach it, by means of exclusions, peeling away, from poem to poem, the inessential, working down to bedrock; and he examines every word he writes for clues to his defect.

What Carruth describes here derives from the process of revision. Each poem is a challenge. The poet must discover the theme of it and remove everything extraneous. Maybe the poem has no discernible theme or maybe the superfluities are so entwined and essential to the poem they cannot be pared away without irrevocable damage; this is often the reason a poem fails. However, on those happy occasions where the theme—or themes in more complex works—holds, where it has an architectural strength, then it's possible to uncover a good poem. Much as Michelangelo saw the sculpture inherent in a piece of marble, the real work is to free it.

Of course, Carruth isn't limiting himself to the process of revision, but expands those concerns to encompass the whole of a poet's work, even the poet themselves. This is the level at which the questions become truly unanswerable. One can attempt to extrapolate a general flaw from the individual poems, but for the poet—particularly for the poet—it will largely stay hidden, just as one sees one's own personality flaws only with great difficulty. Even more elusive, though, is one's essential theme. Carruth suggests that to actually discover it is dangerous:

As I say, Lowell cannot discover the precise specifications of his theme, which is lucky for him. If he were to do so, he would be clapped into silence instantly.

This is a strange idea. One would think that knowing the "precise specifications" of one's theme would be freeing. However, I think what Carruth suggests here is that the struggle with one's own work, the process itself is what's important. To discover one's theme is to quit searching, to quit fighting to understand. As in life, the fight leads to excellence more than any achieved goal. In claiming that these questions are unanswerable, Carruth recognizes that, not only do the answers constantly change and slip away as one gets close, but that they don't matter that much anyway. The work alone matters.

Thoughts of a Fool

A few days ago, while riding my Kawasaki to work, I noticed I have developed some strange daily habits that have become as natural as breathing on my daily commute. Before reading my paper I religiously play a game of solitaire on my cell phone. Everything from the win/loss, difficulty of win, and position of the ace of spades goes into divining how my day will turn out. It's kind of like my daily random horoscope. Does anyone else in this little community have any weird little idiosyncrasies that they were once to ashamed to admit, but now would like to share with the group? BTW, I still won't step on cracks either.

Grade Inflation Deflates Our Souls

I know it's been discussed in the past on notable sites like the defunct Invisible Adjunct, but Phil at Umbrae Canarum has a detailed post up about the causes of grade inflation in the universities. Maybe we can get all the blogging academics to band together in support of grading objectively. You know, a fight for incremental change leading to all the adjuncts and TAs getting kicked out of the academy for daring to give someone a "C". Still, if and when I get tenure many years hence, I plan to grade mercilessly and fairly as my own small contribution to the battle. If the students don't like it, well, maybe they should have read the texts.

Snide remarks and sadistic fantasies aside, I have a suspicion that grade inflation is not an isolated problem. It seems to mirror the triviality of American culture too well to not be related in some way. Few value a liberal arts education anymore as a necessary component of becoming a well-rounded, literate individual, as an end valuable in itself. Instead, as many, many people have remarked, college has become more or less a trade school. You spend your four or five years studying the field you want to make your career. For those unfortunates who either cannot decide or are actually committed to studying the humanities, they find themselves lost upon graduation unless they've developed some marketable skills.

Unfortunately, this trivialization of the American mind, this undue focus on the mundane and shallow concerns of the every day cannot be easily fixed. It results from decades of poor education from childhood on, the obsession with scientific excellence during the Cold War, the self-marginalization of the humanities through too much post-modern, obscurant theorizing, and a multitude of other factors. In the meantime, people lead impoverished lives. I don't mean to come across as elitist or patronizing though. Every life has value and dignity, etc, but just as society looks after the physical health of individuals by trying to provide good medical care, safer cars, and better medicines, so should it look after the intellectual and emotional health of the population through the study of literature, philosophy, and art. A narrow education opens an equally narrow lens through which to view and understand one's own life.

The Melodrama of Writer's Block

Here's an article that blithely accepts the idea of writer's block as an unavoidable component of being a writer:

A friend of mine called me last week, sobbing. She's had writer's block for several weeks, and the more she worries about it, the more entrenched the block becomes. Now she's at the point where she feels as if she's underwater, without enough breath to reach the surface.

I can certainly understand that feeling. I've recently overcome a block of my own.

"Are you afraid you have nothing to say?" I asked. "Do you need to live a little? Maybe let things 'compost' a bit?"

This annoys me. As Yoda would say, write or don't write. If life is getting in the way, then don't worry about it. Who says you need to write every single day to continue calling yourself a writer? Although I don't understand how someone could have all these problems and not write about them—isn't the exploration of one's emotions and problems supposed to be one of the benefits of being a writer?—there are some things in life more important than regular literary output. Even worse, this person is worried about not having written in several weeks. How neurotic. Unless this is a professional writer dependent upon her output to live (which the article strongly implies is not the case) again I have to wonder what the problem is. Just because you're writing every day doesn't mean it's any good. The Romantic idea that the writer must wait passively for inspiration is a disease. Aren't writers supposed to be masters of the word? If you want to write, then write. Even if it turns out to be bad writing, at least you'll get some practice and perhaps some ideas about why that particular piece failed.

Newsflash: Waylon Smithers Gay

According to this article I found via Andrew Sullivan, "[o]ne of the veteran cartoon stars of 'The Simpsons' is coming out of the closet." Speculate wildly.

Ricky Williams Declared Not Dolphin Safe

Although I really don't care about the Dolphins, the recent flap over Ricky Williams leaving right before training camp has generated some interesting commentary. First off, FootballOutsiders predicted that Williams's performance would fall off even more this year due to the enormous number of carries he'd made in previous seasons. King Kaufman called Williams "a punk", then, the next day had some speculation about whether Williams is suffereing from a bipolar disorder. He writes:

Wednesday morning I got this note from a reader who is a pediatrician: "As a medical professional, I am worried about his mental health. We already know about his well-publicized battle with Social Anxiety Disorder. Some of his behavior this week may be giving hints of more sinister forces at play."

Referring to Williams' reported whirlwind travels to Japan, California and the East Coast over the last few days, the doctor continues, "This kind of compulsive and haphazard travel could be a sign of mania. Given his past behaviors and flirtations with depression, he may actually be in the throes of bipolar disorder.

But so far, the best comments I've seen are on Uncertain Principles:

If there were a buck to be made from it, the Dolphins would've cut Williams loose without a second's hesitation, and at the first sign of a slip in his abilities, the fans would've turned on him like rabid jackals. He owes these people nothing. The idea that athletic competition is some sort of sacred and inviolable trust has been moribund since about the time they started letting the participants wear clothing, and the modern media-driven sports business has driven a stake through its heart.

When I first heard the news of his retirement, I thought it was selfish. He's essentially left his teammates in the lurch for the entire season since the offense was built around him. However, I was thinking of his job as roughly analogous to any other job. You don't just quit unless something really goes wrong; you give notice, help train your replacement, etc. Professional football is nothing like my job though. It's brutal and demanding, particularly for running backs. I imagine Williams spent a good amount of time trying to make this decision and only came to it shortly before he announced his retirement. If that's the case, well, tough for the Dolphins, but oh well. The only way I'd criticize him at this point would be if he knew he was going to retire months ago and just now decided to say anything. Then he'd be a punk.

The Nigh Times

This is a few days old and by now most of you have already read it, but in case you missed it, the ombudsman of the New York Times wrote an article last weekend about his own paper's liberal bias. I know this isn't shocking news, but it is at the least an interesting read. This year I made the switch from my hometown Star-Telegram to a six-day delivery of the Times (a move I had avoided for some time, due in part to the Simpsons episode where Homer leaves Marge to live with two gay men and one morning exclaims "Why are you reading the New York Times? You don't live in New York!")

I'm all man in case you've heard otherwise.

A lot of what makes the Times so liberal is its treatment of social issues, as Okrent illustrates with his examination of the paper's gay marriage coverage. While I'm generally conservative, I'm rather progressive on many social issues, so I don't notice that sort of thing as often as, say, the frequent ridicule of our President.

Anyway, while most of the Times' political coverage is noticeably, sometimes laughably, liberal, I can get past that for the sake of the rest of the paper. The Times is the 800-pound gorilla of American print media, and its reporters enjoy unparalleled access because of that weight. The Arts section has no rival among newspapers, and maybe no rival among magazines either. The writing, in every section from Sports to World Business, is clever and disciplined and more engaging than any daily I have ever read. It even collapses into a small, pleasant trifold that I love to tuck through my briefcase handles in the morning. That doesn't make me a dandy, does it?

Obama Reactions

Apparently this Obama fellow gave a good speech last night at the convention. So good, in fact, that conservatives are trying to claim it as their own. However, as Jeanne writes at Body and Soul:

I love it. First you make up some nonsense about liberals being faithless, irresponsible and politically correct, and then when a liberal demonstrates that your stereotype is pure garbage, you don't question your stereotype, but instead try to create a world in which progressive values are really conservative ones.

Of course, if you're a conservative in the habit of demonizing your opponents, then it's only natural that a good speech from one of them—a speech so good you find yourself nodding your head—must be, in truth, a conservative speech. After all, we all know nothing right has ever come from the left.

Touch Your Neighbor

I'm throwing a party this Saturday night. I just decided, so I know this is kind of last minute for everyone, but I hope you will be able to make it. It will be a Cuddle party—everyone should show up in time for the Welcome Circle, with clean underarms, carrying a pillow and a stuffed animal, and wearing their flannel PJ's. After we welcome each other, we will dim the lights and arrange ourselves on the floor, sprawling or spooning as is one's inclination. There will be several hours of affectionate touching, napping, and rubbing. However, under no circumstances will there be any sexual gratification—this is a strictly innocent affair. All male invitees should chop their balls off and throw them in the dumpster before you come, because after this you really won't be needing them anymore.

Oh, and bring thirty dollars—the proceeds will be split among the Cuddle Lifeguards and the Cuddle Caddies. I swear to god I'm not making this up.

(Merci à Sale Bête)

The New Dukakis

These photos are being compared to the Dukakis in the tank photos. The Dems are claiming they were leaked to smear Kerry. I don't think they are so bad. He looks nice dressed as a blue noodle. From Drudge Update I found a better article here. Also while searching, I never realized that Kerry has been compared to Dukakis quite often. Almost every photo op with him not in a suit he was compared to Dukakis.

Tonight on Fox News

Check out the transcript of this confrontation between Bill O'Reilly and Michael Moore at the Democratic National Convention (via Drudge). Neither man scores a whole lot of points, but in my opinion, O'Reilly may have gotten the better of Moore by sticking to his point of "bad intelligence," and eventually getting Moore to advocate preemptive force (albeit in the context of Nazi Germany). The encounter crumbles to absurdity when the two begin arguing over who would sacrifice himself for what cause.

Searching for Martians

Here's an overview of what evidence scientists are examining to determine if life exists on Mars.

War of Ideas

The Armed Liberal writes about how to defeat terrorists:

We don't need to sacrifice our economic well-being at the levels we did in WW II in order to produce at the level required, and because the boundary between war and peace is fluid we can't treat everyone from, say, Saudi Arabia as an enemy combatant. In fact, a big part of this war will, like wars against street gangs, consist of trying to peel away the less-committed supporters from the core, and to do that will require some form of positive engagement, of 'selling'.

He goes on to discuss a recent NRO article that advocates a military victory first and foremost. I tend to agree with the Armed Liberal's approach of attacking terrorism's "root causes" and weakening those movements through "positive engagement" rather than the "kill 'em all" strategy Leeden advocates:

That's why the public figure who has best understood the nature of the war, and has best defined our enemy, is George W. Bush. Of all people! He had it right from the start: We have been attacked by many terrorist groups and many countries that support the terrorists. It makes no sense to distinguish between them, and so we will not. We're going after them all.

Yes, there are times when military action will be necessary and unavoidable, as in Afghanistan, but I think the majority of that has already passed. Does anyone honestly think invading Iran or North Korea would be wise right now? Perhaps much later, after sanctions, inspections, and containment have sufficiently weakened those nations and made such action feasible, but not now or anytime soon. Bush, however, seems incapable of engaging other nations in any way other than militarily. He's so blinded by his dual-toned worldview that he can't make the sort of realpolitik and diplomatic moves that wisdom and pragmatism require. This is the sort of work Kerry would excel at and would make the nation safer in the long run, yet another reason he's the better choice.

Yeah, But they Don't Have the Fab Five

Apparently Iraq is Americanizing quicker than we thought.

Scientific Caffeine Intake Method

Are you a coffee addict? Then check out CoffeeResearch.org:

The Coffeeresearch.org website is dedicated to advancing coffee quality through education and science. Embedded with over three hundred pages are tips and information on coffee brewing, espresso preparation, coffee roasting, coffee blending, and recipes. Advanced topics include information about the coffee market, consumption statistics, the coffee sciences, coffee agriculture, and the social issues related to coffee.

It's got just about everything you might want to know about the noble bean.

(via Gene Expression)

Smart Jacket

Ars Technica highlights a new smart jacket that contains a 128MB MP3 player and a Bluetooth phone. The jacket has a built-in keyboard on the left sleeve and headphones and a microphone in the collar. When you want to place a call, the "stereo system becomes a headset and the music is automatically interrupted when calls come in." Pretty cool stuff even if it doesn't hold that many songs.

In Case You Missed it

This has been a pretty popular short the past few weeks, but nobody here has mentioned it. It is a nice departure from the mean spirited political assaults going on right now.

Chinese Libertarians

Marginal Revolutions features a quote-heavy post that discusses the differences between Taoism and Confucianism in relating to the state. It reminded me of the odd anti-progress, anti-state themes that run through the Tao Te Ching, but that I had forgotten. Instead, the lasting impression I've taken from the few times I've read it were the more mystical concepts, the images of emptiness and abstract discussions of the formless Tao which, doubtless, says something about my own tastes. Although I'm interested in politics and consider it my duty as a citizen to stay informed, when I'm reading literature or philosophy (or however you want to classify the Tao Te Ching), the stray political comments are not what stick. The lens through which I read largely focuses on ambiguities, striking images, pleasing phrases, and intuitive insights. However, this inverts when I read something like Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals that attempts to lay out its case in an orderly, logical fashion. Then I remember the arguments and the logic rather than the style or images or other woolly-headed concerns. This makes me wonder to what extent I'm capable of controlling the way I read, the things I notice and to what extent I am controlled or directed by the text itself. How much depends upon the author's designs and how much upon my own interests? It seems the better an author, the more successful they'll be in leading the reader's state of mind into realms amenable to the meaning and concerns of the author. Literature as mind-altering substance—I like it. Lick a book today.

UPDATE: In case of blog synchronicity, Bemsha Swing has a similar post up today where he writes:

Since I share certain characteristics of this sort of consciousness myself, I "identify" with it and respond to it. It cannot be totally alien to me, or there would be no point of contact. It even trains my brain to think in those terms, to experience those states of consciousness, or to use a similar language to describe my own thoughts.

Maybe I'm just hallucinating, but he seems to be tangentially discussing the same thing.

Poetic Consistency

Ron Silliman makes a point that the "well-formed book of poems [displays a] self-similarity [in] its contents", I'm just not sure what that point is. The observation itself is fairly obvious once you think about it, so I doubt that's his entire point. He's setting up a rewiew of a Charles Bernstein's "The Sophist", so that's one reason for the post, but it seems that he's also criticizing this "self-similarity" as well. While I can understand attacking books that "appeared to have come all from the same cookie-cutter," stylistic and thematic consistency within a book also serves an important, if obvious, purpose. Take, for example, Louise Glück's Pulitzer Prize winning The Wild Iris, a book-length sequence of poems grounded in the metaphors of flowers. From what I remember, the book is laid out in a formal sequence that further ties all the poems together. However, rather than a cookie-cutter feel, the similarity of the poems combine with the book's structure to create a richer meditation and heavier symbols. It's as if she's created, instead of a book of related poems, a book-length poem broken into self-supporting sections. That is the real benefit of the consistency among poems; they strengthen and enhance one another. The challenge, then, is to create this positive feedback while varying the individual poems enough to prevent boredom due to too much similarity among the works or, even, across books. This seems to be the failure Silliman is actually criticizing and, again, is rather uncontroversial and mundane. Unfortunately, as I wrote earlier, we seem to be mired in a slow news cycle, so I thought I'd toss this off as part of my insidious attempt to morph this into a literary blog. As you can see, I'm really struggling today.

Beauty and the Blog

My beautiful and brainy girlfriend told me about an article in yesterday's Star-Telegram on the popularity of blogging in the Metroplex. It features Byron of the Burnt Orange Report (who lives in Austin, but is listed with us at DFWBlogs.com), the Zany Sports Lady, and a couple of other bloggers that I haven't read before. It doesn't really say anything new, but it is another tear in the veil of blogging anonymity. If a rag like the Startlegram has actually gotten on board, I wonder who's next? The Lubbock Avalance-Journal? The Alvord Sunset Gazette? The Stonewall County Courier?

USA Today Spiked the Punch

-Line. Sorry I couldn't think of anything wittier for a headline. If this is one of the biggest stories to drop during the DNC, it proves that it is, as Mallarme said, a snooze-fest. I dug up Coulter's spiked story, and I don't see it as anything different than she has written in the past. Who did they think they were hiring? I wonder if Michael Moore will suffer the same fate when he reports on the RNC. Ann Coulter is a nut IMO, but the commentary is entertaining.

Biding My Time

In the past, the parties' national conventions have passed with almost no notice from me. Now, since practically every political blogger is covering the Democratic National Convention, I can't get away from it. As far as political events go, this has to be one of the biggest wastes of time. If you enjoy reading or hearing lots of speeches, I guess it's mildly interesting, but there's no actual news being made. Even so, it's being covered so obsessively by so many bloggers, you'd think there was actually something noteworthy going on. Since I rely almost entirely on other blogs for my political news and for inspiration, don't expect to see much in the way of political commentary or links from me for the next few days. Maybe something newsworthy enough to break through all the convention blogging will happen, but I'm afraid it won't. Even worse, it's not like it's just the liberals that are blogging the convention. Most of the conservative sites are covering it pretty closely as well. At first, I thought bloggers going to the convention was a good idea; they could keep an eye on the "real" journalists and point out problems with their coverage, but so far that's not happening. It's just a bunch of posts about checking into hotel rooms, finding seats, listening to speeches, and cheering or jeering depending on the blogger's political temperament. I can't wait until the snooze-fest is over.

UPDATE: Tagorda wonders if blogs are filling any voids in the coverage of the convention. Maybe I am being premature in my judgment and the blogs will come through with something insightful and unique. It's still early, after all, but I already want to kill my newsreader.

UPDATE: The Campaign Desk complains about the convention as well, even though they're there, reduced to fighting to get into parties:

what before would have been a fairly unappealing night out -- fighting past old men in suits and self-important, preening politicos and pundits through an overcrowded bar -- feels essential in some vague way, despite all evidence to the contrary. Perhaps it's because we've convinced ourselves that there's a reason to be here, beyond the scripted live television show being held in the Fleet Center and the endless meta-stories that seem less clever when everyone else is writing them. Talking one's way past a velvet rope feels like an accomplishment, however dubious it may be.

Sounds like fun.

UPDATE: Steve Gilliard has some advice for convention bloggers.

Rate My

...kitten.

For the Ladies (or Men, I Guess)

Be proud with this 100% cotton tee. I'm personally waiting for the "I am an abortion" tee.

Bogart as Frodo

Watch Humphrey Bogart play a solitary Frodo in this Lord of the Rings mash-up. It takes quite a while to download, but is well worth it.

(via BoingBoing)

Convention Bloggers

As you've no doubt heard, bloggers are covering the Democratic National Convention. If you're interested in their coverage, check out this site that aggregates all those posts onto one page.

(via Neuroinflammation.net)

Game Theory and the Tour de France

This post suggests that Lance chasing down Simeoni when he tried to break away may have also had something to do with game theory. Although the vendetta may have been the stronger motivation, I can see Armstrong making a game theory consideration as well when he attacked.

Lost in Translation

If you're gonna move here, learn the language. Just another silly link, but it kept me laughing for a while. Not very PC.

Those crazy Star Wars

It has been announced. I think it's a good move.

Rethinking Kerry

Mark Schmitt thought he had a handle on Kerry, but due in part to Oliphant's article about him, Schmitt now sees the possibility for greatness in him. If Kerry wins, I hope he's right. It's long past time for our politicians to remember how to compromise. The harshly partisan tactics of the GOP under Bush have exacerbated the problem so much that it seems impossible.

Animal Sex

Is this how they do it on the Discovery Channel?

The Stench of Doping

I am a Lance Armstrong fan. I think Lance is the most inspiring and charismatic athlete of my lifetime. His 5th stage win in yesterday's time trial added yet another exclamation point to his incredible achievement. Today, he will win a record 6th Tour in a row in a more dominant fashion than anyone imagined, especially after his difficulties last year. No one doubts that Lance is one of the most professional, dedicated, and mentally tough riders in the peloton and this psychic superiority is essential to his success.

Yet I also believe Armstrong is a doper. As far as I'm concerned, the chances that Lance and his major rivals aren't doping are increasingly slim.

As a fan and someone who loves cycling, this contradiction isn't easy to live with.

There is of course no hard evidence that Lance is doping (yet). But if one pays enough attention to cycling, one notices that Lance doesn't act like a man who is trying to play fair in a sport full of cheaters. Every honest fan acknowledges that Raimondas Rumsas was doping on his way to 3rd place in the Tour in 2002. Did the threat of being upstaged by a drug-using fraud irritate Lance? Hardly. I haven’t heard any words of outrage from Lance on the fact that Rumsas never tested positive for anything, despite being tested 3 times. Zipped lips.

Or consider Lance's buddy David Millar, who was recently forced to admit he was using EPO when he won the final TT in last year's Tour. Has cycling's leading rider issued any words of regret that the peloton was duped by a shameless liar and cheater (who, also, never tested positive)? As far as I know, the silence is deafening.

No cyclist is interested in outing anyone else. Even the athletes that take an active and believable stance against doping consistently refuse to name names. Lance, it should be noted, isn't even one of these. Lance simply insists time and again that he has never tested positive, even after the Rumsas and Millar cases (not to mention countless others) have proven that this defense is completely unsatisfactory.

Defending Lance didn't become any easier after his ill-considered antics regarding his nemesis Filippo Simeoni in Stage 18. Lance was supposedly defending not only himself but also the honor of his friend and advisor Dr. Ferrari. Yet according to former champions Greg Lemond, Andy Hampsten as well as the conventional wisdom of the cycling world, Ferrari has been a major proponent of EPO. By associating himself with acknowledged cheater, Lance does himself and the sport of cycling no good at all. He only adds credibility to David Walsh's (and Lemond's) accusations that he almost certainly used EPO in the past and is probably using it now.

It may well be that Simeoni was lying about Ferrari and Ferrari has cleaned up his act. Lance claims there is a larger history of Simeoni lies, though he doesn't give details. He says he was "protecting the interests of the peloton" (whatever that means). If Lance wants my respect as a fan, he needs to come up with a better story than this. Because from where I'm sitting, by becoming a mafia-like enforcer against one of the only riders with the guts to testify in court against doping and dopers, Lance made a mockery of everything this sport and his own heroism is supposed to be about. By going out of his way to humiliate Simeoni, Lance put himself on the side of doping and dopers, along with their contemptible hypocrisy.

As UT's John Hoberman explains doping has been around a long time in cycling. It definitely didn't simply go away after the scandal of 1998 (which involved, btw, many of today's best riders, including Richard Virenque). As the recent Manzano affair illustrates, doping remains a potentially lethal danger. It may well be that certain banned substances are actually safe and should be allowed. Certainly the peloton itself seems to have made a collective decision to tolerate certain substances, meaning they themselves judge the danger to be relatively low.

Yet the hypocrisy and lying continue. Until the peloton ends its culture of mafia-esque conformity and zipped lips, every single one of them deserves to have their credibility as an athlete doubted.

It is hard to come up with more eloquent words on the destructive force of doping than David Millar’s own in an interview with L’Equipe.

I took EPO while I was in Manchester [prior to the Worlds]. The two syringes that were found at my home are those that I’d injected myself with in Manchester. I kept them at home to remind myself that I had become world champion by doping myself. I had dreamed of becoming world champion. I did it, but I cheated. You dope because you become a prisoner of yourself, of the glory and the money. I’m not proud that I doped myself. I wasn’t happy. I was a prisoner of the person I had become.

The sport of cycling is too noble and dignified to tolerate doping. If Lance is guilty, it will be sad to see his myth marred. But I would rather see Lance marred than for cycling to continue as a sham.

Documents Found, Still Nothing

What do you know? The Bush National Guard records that were supposedly destroyed have shown up. However, since "the records do not give any new information about Bush's National Guard training during 1972" maybe the whole thing was a bureaucratic mix up after all.

Neverending Quest

This is the story of an experience on my quest for the perfect self inflicted orgasm. It is painful at times, fun at times, but I never found quite what I was looking for.

As I returned home from the local video store of ill-repute, I decided to try another prototype on my journey for the perfect male masturbatory tool. Women have all variety of tools at their disposal, but surprisingly men have few. The ones we do have tested woefully inadequate (for me at least). The most promising ones were way up on the monetary scale and had the added inconvenience of where to put them when you were done. Not to mention cleaning. I wanted a "device" that was easy to use, disposable, and felt good.

I decided to head up to the grocer to grab some cola and while walking past the produce section, it hit me. I began to eye the melons seductively, thinking about what was on the inside. Honeydew was of course the first choice. It had the smooth skin, pleasing color, and it's called a honeydew for Christsakes. Then I thought about the relatively firm interior and immediately ruled it out.

Next were the watermelons. They are reddish pink on the inside, one for the plus column. But size, weight and consistency ruled out that bulbous beauty.

In the corner, lying there unassumingly was the quarry of my hunt. It hit me then that the cantaloupe was the perfect date for my evening. Soft seeds and spongy flesh were the way to go.

It was at this time I stopped my lecherous melon coveting and thought about what I was actually doing. Some bizarre supermarket version of speed-dating, but with much more vulgar connotations. I paced the store for a few minutes deciding what I would think of myself if I tried this. "Couldn't hurt", I decided.

While waiting in line with a six pack of Mountain Dew in one hand and my new girl in the other, I started actually getting excited. I wondered how many other people in the world were planning on having sex with a fruit or vegetable that night. I then wondered how many were doing to further male science. I was a pioneer in my own mind.

All this came crashing down when the older gentleman in front of me said "that's a nice lookin' melon you picked out there, sure are pretty this season." Holy crap! Did he somehow know? Had I murmured my intentions out loud? Of course, old folks do sometimes comment on things like that with total innocence. I felt dirty and ashamed. I was going to take a lot to get me through this night.

I threw on the tape I bought at the store and that about did it. My how we underestimate the power of teenage male hormones to flush away shame in most cases. I carved the hole into the melon and carefully shaved the rind around the opening, exposing the soft melon-flesh. I put a finger in to test 'er out, and came upon the first revision needed for my prototype. It was cold.

I soaked it in hot water, all the while getting more and more excited about what this was going to feel like. It was going to be perfect! All of my other trials had failed, because they were man-made. This was natural; it had to be good. It was so simple, it just had to work! 20-30 minutes passed, I had found my favorite scenes on the film and I was ready to retrieve my date. I was disappointed to find that it was still cool. I needed results and I needed them quick.

This is where, I hope, most of the male readers will understand my situation. From inception to this point had been about 2 hours. I had been anticipating release for that long. When you are used to releasing just about 5 min or less from when the desire hits you, 2 hours is an excruciatingly long wait.

Now, I made a bad choice.

I threw the melon into the microwave for 2 minutes. 2 lousy minutes. I pulled it out and the rim of my created orifice was only lukewarm. 2 more minutes it was. I spread a towel on the floor in anticipation of the mess I was about to make and retrieved my melon. It was perfect. I hurriedly, almost greedily scurried to my position on the floor to experience the ecstasy I had weird-scienced for myself. Kelly LeBrock it wasn't, but then, I was in a hurry.

I think I shrieked louder than I ever have before as the MOLTEN insides of the melon surrounded my naughty parts. I immediately became dizzy and disoriented from the pain. It was all-encompassing. Not only the genitals were covered, and I mean ALL of the parts included in that term, but most of my inner thighs were covered as well in that fruity magma that I had made. I jumped across my room running as fast as I could to the sink so as to apply cooling water to my affected areas. I was defeated. I was almost in tears, maybe from pain, but I like to think of them as tears from the subconscious knowledge that I would not be able to achieve the release I had hoped for. It drove me to stupidity to wait for 2 hours, now I would have to wait at least a week.

Aftermath: No permanent damage, trouble walking correctly for about a week, and a newfound respect for pain, the power of the microwave, and taking a date for granted. Any date.

Apparently, seeds and the gooey stuff inside a cantaloupe being a different density than the actual fruit heat at different rates. Also, the middle of stuff from the microwave is usually hotter than the outside. These are things I learned that fateful summer night.

The melons sure were pretty that season.

Let It Be: Naked

When I was in Germany last, I was walking through urban Munich when I happened across a large park. It was something like a much-smaller Central Park: a centrally located partly wooded and partly open natural area right in the middle of downtown. There were nice sidewalks running through the park, with Ice Cream vendors along the paths that were becoming crowded with suits on their way to lunch. I was sort of wandering through one of the larger walkways when I looked to my left and saw a man sitting cross-legged on a blanket in a giant, completely empty field, about twenty feet from and facing the path, completely naked. I was so surprised and amused that I actually took a picture of it (I'm at work now, but when I get home, if I remember, I'll try to find the shot and scan it in). It wasn't his nudity that amused me as much as his nudity juxtaposed with all of the busy men and women that were on a break from work. I mean this guy didn't even walk off to find a more secluded area in which to tan his frankfurter.

(Please see the UPDATE below for some good links)

After a brief pause to snicker and take the photo (it's from far enough away that it really wouldn't be pornographic), I walked off to see the rest of the city. After spending time elsewhere, I was walking back to my hotel through the same park; this time, it was around 5pm and most places were shutting down before the evening business hours. When I walked past that same park, I was amazed to find that the entire field, perhaps 50 acres of open space, was filled with naked people of all ages. I mean just positively brimming with men, women, and families. Most people were reading, chatting, or just looking about. There was a small stream trickling through the field where the youngest children were playing. For some reason, this was less shocking than the solo exhibitionist from hours earlier. It was an unmarked, urban nudist park.

I'm no nudist advocate, and I could certainly go the rest of my life without seeing some of those naked bodies, but it certainly got me wondering about the nudist (or "naturist") scene in the United States. According to this article from NeoGeo, nudism as an activity is growing in parts of the United States. You Austinites will be happy to learn that the Naturist Action Committee is based in your city. (If you happen to be in Montana, though, I would advise you against going buff: skinny dippers get six months for their first offense, a year for their second, and one hundred freaking years for their third.)

Which leads me to my question: What's the attraction in this sort of thing? Why do people like to get naked around each other, and why would you encourage your underage son or daughter to take off their clothes and socialize with grown men and women?

Is there anyone here that has done it, or would do it? And if so, would you encourage your son or daughter to do it also?

UPDATE: I guess the park is more famous (and larger) than I thought--some of you may have heard of or visited it. It's the English Gardens, and has evidently been famous for nudism for some time. Read this for some more information (worksafe, but with some racy but nonpornographic banner ads), or this for some worksafe pictures.

Gagging on Donkey

As you may have noticed, I'm not feeling up to blogging anything that requires actual thought today. In that vein, here's a great quote from a recent Bush speech to the 2004 National Urban League Conference:

Do you remember a guy named Charlie Gaines? Somebody gave me a quote he said, which I think kind of describes the environment we're in today. I think he's a friend of Jesse's. He said, "Blacks are gagging on the donkey but not yet ready to swallow the elephant."

(shamelessly stolen from Wonkette)

Alien Contact in 20 Years

Largely unfounded speculation? Probably. Nevertheless, it's fun to think about. I would be ecstatic if we made contact in my lifetime—unless, of course, the aliens were brown-skinned, bearded Xenofascists bent on converting our planet once they discovered us. What if Earth turns out to be the Great Slatvarx?

Cowboys Sign Eddie George

For me, this is bigger news than the signing of Testaverde, which had been predicted for quite a while. They signed him to a one-year contract, much like with Vinny, so clearly realize he'll be nothing more than a temporary help to the team. Still, what a help. There's already been a fair amount of speculation that Parcells is planning a running back committee approach for the upcoming season while hoping Jones shows he can be a successful every down back. By adding George, that committee now has some real depth and experience that should help immediately while providing the team with someone who can mentor Jones in whatever areas he will need improvement. If whoever fills the right side corner position (likely Hunter) plays well, I predict the Cowboys will make it to at least the second round of the playoffs this year, quite possibly not as a wildcard.

Fleep

Check out this comic:

Fleep currently appears in the weekly newspaper, "Asian Week". It's about a boy who wakes up in a telephone booth which has been mysteriously sealed in an envelope of concrete. Using only the contents of his pockets (two pens, a paperback novel, three coins and 20 ft of unwaxed dental floss) our hero must fashion and execute an escape plan before he runs out of oxygen."

(via Metafilter)

An Alternate Take on Bush's Support

Redstate has an interesting post up about how approval rating has historically matched or even under-predicted support on election day. Following that logic would suggest that Bush could very well get over 50% of the vote since most polls show his approval rating to be around 48%. The one big caveat is that national polls mean little when trying to predict an election. If one could show that his approval in a good portion of the swing states is that high, then I think there would be a very strong case that he'll be reelected—and easily. However, both Election Projection and electoral-vote.com have Kerry ahead in electoral votes. Still, those are based on a different poll than Bush's approval. Does anyone know where there's a state-by-state breakdown of Bush's approval ratings?

Plungers Where They Shouldn't Be

This is one of the funniest and most excruciating stories I've read in quite a while. Why is it that another's suffering can be so hilarious?

9/11 Report

No, this isn't a discussion of the report. That's being done in many other places already, but I did come across this version of it that's been cleaned up, optimized for faster download, given bookmarks, and made searchable.

(via BoingBoing)

Cheney vs. Leahy

The New Yorker pokes fun at the Washington Times' description of the Cheney/Leahy incident on the Senate floor. Of course I've already given it away, but when I began to read it (via the Political Theory Daily Review), I wasn't aware that it was satire until the second paragraph.

I proclaim this to be the most whimsical jove of the season.

Why Whoopi Matters

Thane Peterson is trying to convince you that Hollywood's political opinion matters.

Why should anyone -- especially conservative Republicans -- care what these people have to say? Because their numbers include some of the absolute best and brightest of American culture, people whose novels and paintings your great-grandchildren may be studying decades from now. And because they're raising important issues that should be of concern to the right and left alike. My hope is that voters of all political stripes will start paying more attention to the broad civil-liberty issues the artists are raising.

Convinced? Me neither. Peterson is grasping at straws here, presenting two absurd arguments: First, that because people paint or write, we should care about their opinion. Strange that Peterson leads off the article with a sob-story about Whoopi Goldberg, but leaves "acting" out of the list of evidently respectable professions that make a person's opinion more weighty. I can imagine how the paragraph might have read:

Because their numbers include some of the absolute best and brightest of American culture, people whose novels and paintings and "Hollywood Squares" reruns your great-grandchildren may be studying decades from now.

Anyway, it's silly to conflate the importance of an artist with his or her personal politics. Picasso was a profligate womanizer, Bobby Fischer is a anti-semitic conspiracy theorist, and Bill Clinton...well...

Peterson's other argument is simply that the artists are making valid points. So what? Their opinion can be valid, but that doesn't mean I should pay attention to them. Intelligent people can agree with stupid people, but for different reasons. That their opinions intersect doesn't lend the latter any of the former's credibility. America pays too much attention to these detached, self-absorbed plastic faces already. Celebrity is out of hand in this country—let's not take it a step further by listening to Whoopi Goldberg's whining.

Democracy and Blogs

Doc Searls has a fascinating post about how individuals are using non-mainstream media like blogs and independent films to recall Bush due to the decidedly undemocratic way he became president. He goes so far as to call it a constitutional crisis:

Rationalize the election of George W. Bush any way you want, it was still a huge train wreck with a highly compromised outcome that carried no popular mandate and should have prompted a constitutional crisis. Now we're having that crisis, only it's not playing out in the papers or on television. It's happening in Do-It-Yourself-ville.

While I think that may be an exaggeration, this will still be the first election in a long time where ordinary individuals have a substantial hand in shaping stories and opinions, traditionally a monopoly of journalists and campaign operatives. All hail the mighty blog!

Praising Kerry

Two recent articles on Kerry praise his character and attempt to counteract the negative Bush ads. First, the Thomas Oliphant article which says, along with other good things, this:

[Kerry] is a contemplative, serious person -- well-grounded in progressive principles -- who has the good habit of getting interested in new ideas that survive scrutiny. His work habits reveal an iron butt for grunt work, as well as considerable experience in working across party lines.

Then there's Sidney Blumenthal's short piece on Salon that discusses his investigative record:

From his first appearance on the public stage, giving voice as a decorated officer to the antiwar disillusionment of Vietnam veterans, when President Nixon and his dirty-tricks crew targeted him, Kerry has uncovered cancers on the presidency, and this is especially why the Bush administration fears him. He has explored the dark recesses of contemporary history, often without political reward or even acknowledgment. Tarred as a "flip-flopper" by Bush's $85 million TV ad campaign, Kerry in fact is one of the most consistent political leaders of his generation. The truth is a vivid and unbroken line, but only sketchily known.

Both are worth reading, especially if you're looking for reasons to support Kerry.

Digital Literacy

Via Techdirt, here's an article on the growing digital literacy of average computer users:

If you'd asked a group of average consumers ten years ago whether they would like a telephone that had menus, a memory and a software system to organise their contacts, they would probably have laughed at you. Last week, I walked through a restaurant in the Midlands and saw, at the same time, six different groups of people at different tables doing something with a mobile phone - playing games, sharing content, laughing at a photo and so on. It all goes to show that the level of technical literacy required to be classified as a geek nowadays has increased dramatically. By the standards of ten years ago, we're all geeks.

Personally, it really bothers me to hear people in restaurants and other public places talking about RAM, hard drive size, viruses, and anything else related to computers, particularly those that do so in a less than fully informed fashion. That's just because I deal with the things all day though, so I don't want to hear about them outside of work, too. I'm slowly getting over it since I realize that it's only going to get worse. I might as well learn to tune them out. But, back to the article. It also mentions in passing what I think is the most important part of the whole phenomenon: digital illiteracy. Even though I think the decline in reading is a disturbing trend, it's equally important to be computer literate now. How many people are we leaving behind, condemned to a technological backwater? Does it even matter as much as we think?

Surface Poetry

Via Bemsha Swing I found this post by Josh Corey about a the style of a few women poets. He starts out with this question:

To elliptically insist on the topic of profiling: what are we to make of a middle-aged woman in a sunhat browsing the poetry section who looks only at books by Louise Gluck, Jorie Graham, and Mary Oliver?

And later writes:

Maybe what really bothers me about these poets is their language--it just doesn't carry the word-by-word charge that I demand. I like some of Gluck's work, particularly The Wild Iris, but her vocabulary and diction don't sizzle and pop enough for me. (One might say the same about George Oppen, but a) I think there actually is considerable verbal surprise in his terseness and b) his engagement with the larger political world compels me more than Gluck's sometimes melodramatic self-intimacies.) Mary Oliver is, in my opinion, a second-rate Wordsworth; I'd rather read the original. Graham is often intellectually exciting, but her long, discursive lines often fail to hold my attention as raptly as it wants to be held. I open up Never and I'm primarily struck by an impression of endlessness, an experience of sheer verbosity.

First off, read the post. He's actually scolding people who read certain poets for what they signify, not what they write, which is a valid criticism. He also points out the importance of style in sustaining a reader's attention when he writes "I can't get any purchase of pleasure on the surface of their language."

While I sympathize (I have yet to read any substantial amounts of Graham due to the pretentiousness and willful obscurity of her style), I think he's missing the pleasure of Glück's writing in particular. Read some of her poems and tell me that language doesn't "sizzle and pop". However, from reading some of the samples of his own poetry Corey provides on his site, it seems that he is more interested in unusual word choices and juxtapositions—the "word-by-word charge" he describes—than the broader excitement of lucid images, detailed examinations of emotions, and intellectual explorations that Glück's poetry provides. Even so, I would argue that her poems excite on the musical, word-by-word level as well. Yes, the diction is plain and unadorned, but the precise word choice leads to a tight rhythm and melody in her best work. Of course, I say this as someone uninterested in, even dismissive of poetry that relies mainly on surprising or exotic words for impact. One of the marks of excellent poetry is using plain language in fresh and precise ways. That is the true challenge.

I don't mean to belittle his taste or his poetry which, from the samples I read, is clearly written by someone with talent who is serious about the craft. Still, it leaves me cold, perhaps for the same reason he dislikes Glück and the others he mentions. It's the style. It seems to get in the way of the subject matter, the thoughts, and the emotions. It's as if the style is the subject. Once you get past the verbal pyrotechnics, it's unclear what he's actually trying to say in many of his poems. Perhaps I'm being overly critical due to my own failure to connect though. These reviews seem to suggest as much, although reviews, of course, are always a bit effusive.

Even so, this leads me to what I think may be my actual point. Style can be an important indicator of one's attitudes towards poetry. T. S. Eliot, whom I seem incapable of not referencing, famously believed that good poetry should be obscure. It signals to the reader that the poem is dealing with difficult subjects and will reward a careful reading. Corey's style signals that he likely agrees with this sentiment. I disagree, but that's another, more involved, topic.

Eco Envisions the World War

What if our forays in the Middle East were to spark a new World War? Umberto Eco lays out the possibilities in a 2001 article. The translation was originally posted over a year ago, but this is the first time I've seen it, so there ya go.

Administrivia

In order to further combat comments spam, I have installed the MTCloseComments module. This works by closing old comments threads, since it's much more likely that comments on old posts are spam. If you honestly want to comment an older post, just send an email to mallarme at monkeymask dot net and I'll re-open the thread.

A Story With Pictures

My African parents were in the United States recently to see some family. While they were here, they spent a lot of time collecting things that they can't get at home for inclusion in their one-time freighter shipment that leaves next month. This is evidently a giant crate at a warehouse in Dallas that will leave at some unknown time, travel to some mysterious dock on the Gulf, be loaded onto some anonymous freighter no doubt to be piloted by a sea-hardened Senagalese captain named Babukar Barro-Diene, and eventually be unloaded on Bioko Island, subject to President Obiang's customs inspection. The enormity of the trip makes what follows even more absurd.

My parents called last week—it turns out that the crate is only half full, so now they have a long list of extra items that they would like to be included. Most of the items are sensible: an air compressor, some non-perishable bulk food, giant bags of coffee beans and the like. Other things, that were bulky expendables when they thought the crate would fill fast, are more indulgent. Which brings me to the liquor.

They are building a modest house on the island that will have a bar area. Being the entertainers that they are, they couldn't possibly do with the Glenfiddich that is available in country, so I was asked to posse-up an assortment of hooch. Because I had never spent so much at a liquor store in my life, I took some photos for your amusement. Sorry about the quality; my camera is prewar.

Just an overview of the selection. There are about 26 bottles of inexpensive wines and the rest is an assortment of liquors.

Yes, that’s moonshine in the middle and no, I didn’t get that at Majestic.

A fuzzy close-up of the Glengoyne 17-year and the Espolon Añejo.

That’s another tequila on the right. On the left is a really nice Venezuelan añejo rum. Behind those are a cognac and a couple of scotches.

And lastly, I thought this deserved it’s own picture even though I didn’t get it at Majestic. It’s a nice bottle of scotch that my mom got for my dad a while ago. If my parents happen across this pictorial spread of the booze that will soon be on its way across the Atlantic, they will notice that the level in this bottle hasn’t changed. That’s self-restraint.

The bill:

Math Nerdery

Largely for my own future reference, here's a highly detailed explanation of Bayes's Theorem.

Artistic Light

In reading Hayden Carruth's Selected Essays and Reviews I came across this striking passage:

In great works of art we recognize a great and splendid light; perhaps not in the works but behind them, a luminosity beyond the realm of art, which only artifacts of the first magnitude permit us, still darkly, to descry. It is a radiance we find in the ceiling frescos of the Sistine Chapel, in passages from Dante and Shakespeare, in some of the music of J. S. Bach; or occasionally stranger places, like the final part of Gulliver's Travels or certain episodes in Huckleberry Finn. Always we stumble when we try to define this light. Even the words we apply to our own state of consciousness when we are seeing it remain inexact: wonder, exaltation, the gentle shock of sublimity. Yet we know what it is...

The mechanism that allows us to recognize this light when we see it is, in part, informed by aesthetic taste, a thing that must be learned and trained through careful study of the great works of art. Part is also our natural sense of beauty, sufficient for appreciating trees, but insufficient for works of art. They are, as Carruth writes, artifacts—artifacts of humanity's attempts to understand itself and the world while creating new beauty to transcend the individual. Unlike in nature, there is an aesthetic history—a conversation among the generations—that must be understood to gain a more complete appreciation of these artifacts.

The Education of Taste

At Shades of Gray, Phil details the two necessary components of good taste in literature and art in general: education and leisure. He also links to a recent, brief discussion we had on the decline of reading, so is worth reading for that alone—not that the post isn't worth reading on its own merits.

Although I agree with everything he writes, I think one point is missing from his post and other discussions on the topic, that of why a well-developed aesthetic sense is necessary. For those of us who think it is, the reasons are likely self-evident, but is it possible that all these discussions about the decline in reading, the education of taste, and the importance of art and literature come off as nothing more than bloviating elitism to those for whom those reasons are not obvious? This applies not just to the blogosphere, where it seems more likely that people will be in agreement on this point if they're bothering to read such posts, but in more mainstream discussions as well. I'm not going to attempt a defense of aesthetics here, but it's something to consider when we bemoan the lack of a well-educated populace.

Risky Foreign Policy

First, look at this post comparing our strategy in the Middle East to a game of Risk. Next, read this post from Juan Cole that argues:

The same techniques used to get up the Iraq war are now being applied by the political Right in the United States, including President Bush, to Iran. These include innuendo, guilt by association, vague fears, and hyped capabilities. If Bush gets a second term, it seems very likely that his administration will make war on Iran.

Both are simply speculation—although Cole's is, as usual, very well informed—but if it's true that Bush has plans on Iran it's certainly worth discussing. First off, where are the troops going to come from? Is freeing up our forces another one of the reasons the administration was in such a rush to hand over power in Iraq? It seems unlikely that Iraq will be in a position to defend itself anytime soon, but, as has been publicly stated several times, if the Iraqi government asks our troops to leave, we'll withdraw. That would disentangle us from what should be a long, serious commitment to the security of Iraq under the cover of respecting their wishes, a double win. It certainly seems likely that, wisely or not, the Iraq government will, at some point in the not too distant future, request or demand that we withdraw our troops. If that's the case, then we suddenly have enough troops to commit to another war. They wouldn't be enough to tackle Iran, but that didn't stop Bush from going into Iraq, where things are limping along when they could have been, with proper planning and resources, unqualified successes. However, as Juan Cole writes:

Iran is 3 times more populous than Iraq, however, and its population is highly mobilized and nationalistic. A US invasion force there will be greeted in a way that will make Iraq seem tame. Moreover, the fallout from Shiites in Lebanon, Bahrain and Iraq itself (who will almost universally side with Iran against the US in any war) will put US troops and citizens in enormous danger.

Given that Iran has been actively cooperating in capturing al-Qaeda terrorists and has a history of fighting against the Taliban, we'd need some truly excellent evidence that there's a reason to attack them before it should even be considered. Unfortunately, reliable evidence is not the Bush administration's strong point. I hope this is all unfounded, but what does it say about his presidency to date that it's actually reasonable to discuss the possibility of another war in the Middle East? Is this just a result of paranoia driven by unfair characterizations of Bush or is it based on clear-eyed observations of his past behaviors and policies?

Reviewing 1984

John Bruce has several posts up reviewing 1984 and discussing how it relates to the bourgeoisie and misogyny. I haven't read the novel in a long time, so I don't really have any comments, but I know that at least one of our posters is a huge fan of the book, so maybe he'll have more to say. One note about the link above, since that site is on blogspot, the archives don't really work. Just scroll down until you reach the post titled "Misogyny and Bourgeois Discontents I". He doesn't start discussing 1984 until a couple of posts later, but that's where he begins the thread.

The Purpose of Religion

Over at Gene Expression, razib posits some of the possible functions of religion and is asking people to vote for which they think is correct. It's an interesting question—though probably offensive to believers—but the poll should be checkboxes instead of radio buttons. That would allow you to choose multiple options, which seems to best explain what purpose religion serves. Personally, I think it's a mix of emotional comfort, social glue, proto-science, and meme in roughly that order. On the emotional comfort aspect of religion, razib writes:

Intelligent non-religious people in my experience tend to emphasize functionalism, religion as proto-science and memes. Proto-science and memes are all about ideas and information, something that the hyper-intelligent can understand. More typical emotional needs might be more difficult for some individuals to grasp.

I think this must be a result of the fact that he likely socializes mainly with scientists and others whose fields are more about reason than emotion. It doesn't seem at all likely that intelligence is in any way correlated with an inability to understand the emotional needs that are satisfied by religion. Who hasn't experienced directionless longing, fear of death, and bewilderment? They seem like fundamental aspects of human life for most of us and are all assuaged by religion. However, if you're an overwhelmingly reason-drive person—almost to the point of being emotionally stunted—as we can presume many scientists and such are, it becomes understandable why they might not grasp that particular appeal of religion. Anyways, now that I've offended both the religious and the scientists, I'll stop.

Why Kerry is the Favorite

Although this is not news for us poll watchers, this post at Crooked Timber collects information from numerous sources to show why Kerry is the favorite right now. Of course, Bush still has a powerful campaign apparatus that could turn it around between now and November. Plus, there's always the possibility for a single unforeseen event to upend the race. Still, if things continue as they are and the Democrats don't become complacent, we'll see a President Kerry in 2005.

More on Bush's Strategy

Here's a Salon article breaking down the expected and observed support for Kerry and Bush among various demographics. It suggests that Bush has more or less maxed out his support among the base. The votes he must now reach for are largely moderates and liberals, not an easy group for him to persuade. Here's an excerpt:

Kerry nearly matches expectations among moderates and is running six points better than expected among liberals and five points worse among conservatives. By contrast, Bush reaches expectations among conservatives, with 76 percent of their votes. His shortcomings rest with moderates (six points below expectations) and liberals (11 points below expectations). A typical Republican should expect to do no better than Bush is doing among conservatives.

There's not much information about the methodology of the survey, so it's hard to tell how predictive these results might be, but it seems to fit fairly well with other observations and polls so far.

Jeopardrink!

For the Ken Jennings lovers and haters out there, there's now a drinking game to watch the show by. Of course, since it comes on fairly early in most places, it's probably best to make sure you have nothing else to do the rest of the night. Also, the season ends this Friday, so it's quite possible Ken hasn't lost yet even though he's home.

Questionable Strategy

Mark Schmitt writes about Bush's apparent campaign strategy and suggests they're making a pretty huge strategic mistake in "aggressively shoring up his base and quietly courting the swing voter" instead of the more traditional, opposite way. I'm not sure to what extent Bush's strategy so far hasn't been out of a measure of necessity rather than miscalculation. His fiscal profligacy and insufficient social conservatism has angered a significant number of true conservatives and libertarians. Maybe Rove feels the base's support has weakened. Although that wouldn't lead to more votes for Kerry, it could certainly lead to fewer for Bush—enough to lose the election. Without a solid turnout from the base, Bush would have to win the votes of almost every swing voter, an unlikely scenario. I imagine Rove had hoped to have sufficiently shored up the base vote by now to be able to turn to more swing-friendly talking points, but still feels they're too weak on that front to make such a move. Of course, there's always the possibility that this strategy is what Bush wants to do. He seems quite conservative when it comes to social issues—even if he hasn't been able to do enough legislatively for social conservatives' tastes—which is what the die-hard Republicans seem to care about most. Given his proven lack of reflection, he may simply feel that the current strategy is Right and will grant him the win due to his perceived moral superiority. Either way, I'm not losing any sleep over it. I'd be happy to see him run as far to the right as he can.

UPDATE: Noam Scheiber weighs in.

The NonSublime Repulsiveness of Tom Lykis

Last night I was surprised to flip on 104.3 here in Austin and hear that they’d switched formats from fun, creative idiocy (i.e. hip-hop) to boring, nauseatingly stupid idiocy (i.e. talk radio). That’s right, The Beat, once Austin’s crappiest hip hop station, home to a half-dozen fortysomething DJs who would consistently trail off uncomfortably after halting attempts to spit “the lingo,” has now become The Coyote (I’m not kidding), “Austin’s FM Talk Station.” It’s amazing how they do these format changes – there’s literally no warning to the listeners, at midnight they just flip a switch, and that’s it. There were ads starting a few days ago that Stern would be on in the morning, but he was saying “I’ll be on the Beat.” Very strange.

Anyway, this is not really the main point. The first thing that I heard when I switched to what I now know had become “The Coyote” was the grating, domineering voice of one Tom Lykis. If you haven’t heard this guy, you should tune in for at least a couple of minutes – actually, if you have any kind of conscience and/or a functioning brain, a couple of minutes is probably all you’ll be able to handle, as Lykis is probably the most hateful figure I’ve ever run across on talk radio.

His shtick is an absolutely relentless hatred of women, who he asserts must be “treated like crap” if men are to have any kind of leverage in a relationship. The segment I initially stumbled upon was called “Talking to the Haters,” in which Lykis took calls from those who had criticisms of his show and his philosophy – most of these callers were women, and pretty much every one of these he immediately mocked as fat and ugly (“I can tell by your voice”). He told one caller that the only reason a woman would take pride in being able to support herself was if she was too ugly to get a man to support her.

Lykis, unlike certain others with vaguely similar viewpoints, is not the least bit funny, and not the least bit complex. Stern, while often vocally misogynistic, is still at the core an insecure geek who is truly in awe of women. Don and Mike (all of these shows are like a package deal of “rock talk”) are mostly just silly, in a “Man Show” sort of way. Lykis is just a boor, an abrasive asshole with an anemic and mean-spirited sense of humor. The fact that he is actually fairly popular (and worse, that some of the positive calls he got were from women) is utterly terrifying. It’s sad that so many people are so dissatisfied with one another that they’ve reduced their conception of sex and relationships down to a question of who can avoid getting screwed over, while exercising maximum psychological control over their partner, and extracting sadistic pleasure out of that domination.

I was extremely proud that the only man I heard call in to critique Lykis, and the only one of all the callers to not be thoroughly browbeaten by him, was a man from Texas who calmly asserted, not some moral imperative to equality, but the greater effectiveness of Southern gentility in wooing women. I have to agree, on principle and in practice – I mean, do misogynists really get laid all that often, or do they just talk about sex while they sit around drinking beer and playing Playstation?

Ahead of the Curve

Untucked shirts are in. That means that I'm ahead of this particular sartorial* trend by oh, about 15 years.

*man I love that word

Explaining a Plaque

Everyone has seen the plaque that was attached to the Pioneer 10 probe. Ever wondered what all the symbols mean? Defective yeti explains.

Four Pong

Two balls, four paddles, insanely difficult.

(via Aeiou)

Tour Technology

Here's an interesting article on the technology used in the Tour de France (why don't we call it "Le Tour de France"?) to time the riders.

My Triumphant Return

...will be delayed until tomorrow. I'm too tired to do any substantial blogging today. Instead, I'll just post a few pictures from the trip in case anyone is interested. I have some better pictures with people in them, but I doubt any of them want them online, so here are the nice, impersonal ones.

Many small Texas towns have these sorts of murals. Usually they're somewhere along the main street, which is typically an antique downtown that looks like it should have cowboys getting drunk and shooting at each other.

Another such mural.

This is an old drive-in restaurant in Clovis, NM that's been around for many decades. A Sonic precursor, it's notable for serving vanilla cream Dr. Peppers.

A view from the car on the way home. Completely typical of west Texas.

The closest you'll get to seeing a picture of me on the blog.

Congratumalations

Big ups to our friend and sometime contributor Piraeus, who got married over the weekend. The ceremony was Saturday, and was unfortunately missed by the lot of us, but we are all very happy for him. The newly-minted Mrs. Piraeus is a wonderful girl and I know the couple will enjoy taking their place among DC's socialites. Congrats.

Mandela, Clinton, and AIDS

Nelson Mandela had less strong words than Kofi Annan, but still conveyed his displeasure with the West in particular on the issue of AIDS relief. It's a bit disturbing to see Clinton at this thing, as my understanding is that his administration pretty much dropped the ball on the whole issue, doing such a bad job that even G-Dubs has been able to improve on it. I guess he's getting a Liberal Pass.

Here's a question - it's been stated again and again in the last few days that, while the U.S. is the greatest contributor to global AIDS relief in absolute terms, we are not putting in our fair share per capita. Is this a legitimate way to measure whether or not we're meeting our commitments?

To what extent is African AIDS a security concern to us, and to what extent are we responsible for the problem? I think that any force as aggressively destabilizing as AIDS will have inevitable security implication, particularly in the case of North African (read: Muslim) countries. But we aren't really culpable for the situation in Africa - the colonial rule of the English, Belgians and French are direct causes for the general chaos in the region. As recently as May 2003, the French contribution to AIDS relief was described as paltry. Apparently Chirac made some noise (fourth paragraph) about increasing EU contributions in 2003, but ran into some trouble.

I guess the broader conclusion that the situation brings to mind to me is that the U.S. has had much better results in taking care of its backyard and imperialist legacy than Europe has had with its own, and even the countries where U.S. businesses outsource cheap labor (read: run sweatshops) are in better shape than places like, say, the CAR. Certainly we have an overwhelming moral imperative to intervene in Africa, and the continuing obstinate refusal of the States to approve generic AIDS drugs under pressure from pharmaceutical corporations is a crime bordering on mass murder. But is it our responsibility to fund the programs themselves? Europe, I'm looking in your direction.

In related news, all proceeds from my garage sale this week will be going to the Global Fund. We'll be at 2318 LaFayette in Austin, and I will be drinking.

She's So Heavy

Mallarme, Mrs. Mallarme, and I went to dinner last night and saw number three's family at the other table. Revolting.

Outrageous

If Bol can tolerate another post about sports, he may find this interesting. Le Monde, which has been the most aggressive daily in launching doping accusations against Lance Armstrong, ran an article today with portions of an interview from Greg LeMond, the last American Tour champion. The article is titled "Lance Armstrong is Ready To Do Anything to Keep His Secret." Of the seven interview questions, all of them discuss doping, and four discuss Armstrong in particular. Some of the more interesting questions (and excerpted responses):

1) Your wife, Kathy, says in L.A. Confidential that in July 2001 Lance Armstrong called you to accuse you of having taken EPO during the course of your career. (LeMond: EPO didn't exist back then.)
5) You don't believe in the miracle of Lance Armstrong's victorious comeback from cancer? (LeMond's answer: "There are no miracles in cycling. There is always an explanation.")
6) And if Lance Armstrong becomes the first cyclist to win six Tours? (Here, LeMond says that he is not jealous of Armstrong and that he used to support him, but with "all these stories," it is tough to stay a supporter.)
7) Lance Armstrong responds to those who doubt his integrity that he has never tested positive. (LeMond: "Everyone says that" -- other dopers have never tested positive either. The interview ends with "I don't know how he will be able to continue to convince the world of his innocence."

Jealousy, party of one?

In other Armstrong news, Lance accused a reporter today of breaking into his hotel room to look for dope, and says that he is worried that someone might plant something on him.

Owner's Manual

If the Greater Nomadic Council exists for any purpose, it is to instruct and edify. With that purpose in mind, we present the full owner's manual for the most important device you will ever own or rent: the penis. Learn about specifications, operating instructions, service requirements, and upgrades. (Work Safe.)

Framing Device

Sorry for the poem explosion after saying I wasn't going to post today. I just thought I'd try to contribute something before I went incommunicado for so long. I know several of these are not my best work, but that's largely why I posted them. I want honest, good criticism please. Thanks.

Thoughts Before Bed

This glass of whiskey
To help me sleep,
Then I'll lie down and
Toss until dawn—all night
I read about despair and wild love,
Grateful for my quiet life
But also an envious fool.

Life too calm stagnates, creates nothing.
The dark wind outside smells like metal.

A car speeds by brakes screech tires grab desperately at the road
Tearing the skin from fingertips—

Some fool hit a tree,
But backs onto the street and drives off.

I turn back to this book and
Aching body and
Weak eyes and
Find the chapter's end.
Now to drink to make
A decaying pact with the quiet.

December 24th, 4AM

The gravel crunched gladly under our
Weight. It was good to see you again and
Continue our ancient conversation despite
The year-long lacuna.

Driving home on lonely peaceful roads
I never saw another car—a first,
No matter how late—everyone asleep
Just like the carols lull.

You confessed to our host how much
I taught you. What did you mean?
As we split into our cars, the frozen sky
Struggled against my hot chest.
Fog slipped from our wine-stained lips.

I remember (again and again) that night,
But what happened? What was it?
A friendship recovered?
A covert farewell?
Since then has been so long.

Bird

sunset flash
in the corner of an eye

look up from
sand-shift words

beak opens
on delicate hinges

silent eyes
black ball bearings

investigate
on a jerky head

yellow sun
on brown feathers

toothpick feet
clasp the window screen

suspicion
cupped in clumsy hands

let go, drop
fall until wings catch

Attempt at Meter Number One (The Ghosts)

Shoes scuff across the carpet, voices stain
The room with blue smoke. Ghosts inhabit flesh,
Remain translucent colored glass. A slight
Breeze threatens their existence. Nobody
Can withstand the neglect all strangers face.
The only hint they live: the noise we can't
Avoid. How often I have fantasized
Of moving to some mountain-hidden hut,
Escape the crowding corpses murmuring
About their lives. Of course, a simple blank
Unrecognizing stare from watery
Eyes slaps my arrogance: we all are ghosts.

A Few Poems

Before I leave for fabulous Clovis, NM, I thought I'd post a couple of recent poems I've written for you to dissect, criticize, or silently ignore as you feel they deserve. Since I don't like to post any commentary with them, this post will serve as introduction. I'm not sure any of them are completely done yet, so if you have any suggestions, please comment. One is my first attempt at writing in meter. As such, I think it fails pretty badly, but I'm going to post it anyways. The others are more typical (for me) free verse.

Famous Last Words

Go on, get out - last words are for fools who haven't said enough.
To his housekeeper, who urged him to tell her his last words so she could write them down for posterity.
~~ Karl Marx, revolutionary, d. 1883

Read more here.

The Cat is Away

The Nomad that does the most posting on this site, Mallarme, is away for the weekend and has asked the rest of us to pick up the slack a bit. These days, only sleepnotwork and I are putting much up (the rest are lazy, lazy people), and of the two of us, only sleepy is writing anything of substance. I have two excuses: 1) work; 2) when an original thought pops into my pretty little head, it often dies of loneliness. Anyway, to try to keep this Nomadic ball rolling, I thought I could post on our cool banner picture. We picked it out because, being an ostensible group blog, we wanted a painting with a lot of people in it, by a recognizable but not hackneyed artist, and because (being bookish types) Brueghel is the subject of a collection of poems by William Carlos Williams. This particular piece, "The Wedding Banquet," is the subject of a short, wonderful Williams poem entitled "Peasant Wedding."

Pour the wine bridegroom
where before you the
bride is enthroned her hair

loose at her temples a head
of ripe wheat is on
the wall beside her the

guests seated at long tables
the bagpipers are ready
there is a hound under

the table the bearded Mayor
is present women in their
starched headgear are

gabbing all but the bride
hands folded in her
lap is awkwardly silent simple

dishes are being served
clabber and what not
from a trestle made of an

unhinged barn door by two
helpers one in a red
coat a spoon in his hatband

The Mystery of Chess Boxing - Solved!

Leave it to the Dutch. The first Chess Boxing World Championship recently wrapped up. Now this motivates me to finally learn to play, because I'd love to beat the shit out of most of you motherfuckers, and if I have to use chess to get you in the ring, I will.

This page contains an overview and a link to the rules document.

Here are some more pictures.

Also don't forget the inspiration - Joseph Kuo's classic film.

Via Pop Life.

Austin Chronicle Poll

If you're in Austin (or even if you're not), take a moment to fill out this year's Chronicle Poll. Hopefully it'll be a fun exercise for you - debating, Googling some place you barely remember, etc. For me, it was yet another painful reminder of just how deep the roots I'm about to rip up are. My votes:

New Building (Past Five Years): Frost Bank
Part of Town: East 7th
Museum: AMODA (not technically a museum, but still . . .)
Art Gallery:Camp Fig
Author/Poet: James Hynes
Stand-Up Comic: Michelle Balloon
Live Theatre: Rude Mechanicals
Theatre Director: Joanna Garfinkel
Karaoke . . .

. . . Beerland
Live (Club/Party) DJ: DJ Mel
Music Venue: Church of the Friendly Ghost
Movie Theatre: Alamo
Video/DVDs: I Luv Video
Locally Produced Food Product: Elgin Sausage
Catering: Mi Madre's
Outdoor Seating: Moonshine
Gourmet/Specialty Grocery: The Asian market next to Target on 183?
Place to Dine Alone: Kerby Lane Café
Evening Radio Host: Angela Miller
Morning Radio Host: Jay Robelard
Radio Station Programming: KOOP
Locally Produced TV Show: The Show With No Name
Local Comic Book: Snake Pit
Pool Tables: Poodle Dog
Swimming Hole: Campbell's Hole
Place to People-Watch: Spiderhouse
Local Blogger: SleepNotWork (sleepnotwork.blogspot.com) (Of Course!)

National Holiday

Just a note for non-sports fans who feel like they can never escape the games that consume their friends and family:

The NFL plays early September to early February, and only on Sundays (with a couple of exceptions). The NBA plays late October to mid-June, and each of the 29 (30 next season) teams plays 82 games in the regular season, so there is a game almost every day in that period. The NHL also plays an 82-game season with 30 teams that extends from mid-October to mid- or sometimes late-June. Sports fans get complete coverage for almost eight months. The overlap of these three schedules through the winter and early summer months leaves baseball to carry the weight for the duration of the summer. Right now, Major League Baseball is the only show in town. Happily for the addict, MLB plays a 162-game season from early March to late October (and at least once, early November).

What's my point? Today, July 14, and Monday, July 12 are the only two days in the entire year that do not have a professional American sporting contest. The only two days in the year that don't have an MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL game are the days before and after the Major League Baseball All-Star game, which was played last night. So wives and husbands of sports addicts, today is your last day to celebrate for an entire year. Take your foam-fingered couch jockey out tonight and show her or him that there are bars without TVs, restaurants without hotdogs, and life without sport.

Of course I didn't mention Golf, NASCAR, pre- and off-season deals, training camps, college sports, jai-alai, rugby, Aussie-rules, MLS, etc...

The Decline in Reading

Kevin at Collected Miscellany says what so many others have about the value of reading, but does so very well. One part that struck me was this:

I know in my own life that I must consciously guard against letting TV, the web, video games, and other electronic media sucking up all of my leisure time. I have books that I want to read but it takes discipline to commit to doing so. It also takes concentration and time for this reading to pay off.

I find myself faced with the same problem. It's far easier to spend my time reading blogs and political news than to engage a long novel or poetry. Since there is some value in staying informed and debating the various current issues, that temptation is even greater. I've had to refuse to turn on the computer at home in order to force myself to read. Once I start, I enjoy it and do so happily for hours, but there's a noticeable amount of inertia that must be overcome to get started, unlike browsing the web or worse, watching reruns of sitcoms I've seen a hundred times already. It all comes down to one thing—our lives are short; we should spend time wisely and profitably as often as possible. Although it's practically impossible to be constantly engaged in worthwhile pursuits, it's a good goal. I certainly won't care if I saw every episode of MASH or Seinfeld when I'm 80, but I may regret not reading enough.

Vacuum Cleaners to Take Over World

Check out this account of hacking a Roomba, the robotic vacuum cleaner. As described on Engadget:

It’s got beefed up monitors on its bump switches, cliff sensors, motors, and encoders; it’s got a Virgin Webplayer with a 200MHz Geode CPU, 64MB RAM, and 802.11b attached to it; it’s pulling from a lead-acid battery strapped on the back. It’s the Mad Max of Roomba RoboVacs — it’s got an IP address, and it’s coming to clean your floor.

Very cool.

Africa Briefing

Get the latest news on what's happening in that most neglected of continents, Africa, here in Winds of Changes's latest briefing. There's a heavy dose of information about the situation in Darfur, as well as some news about other nations. One thing I'm curious about though—we've already sent Powell to Sudan for a fairly high profile visit, but where's Bush's outraged rhetoric on the matter? It seems like it'd be a good political win for him to really pound this issue for a while. It would also be the Right Thing to do. His relative silence on the matter makes me think he's rather uninterested in helping. We have donated a large amount of aid and given it the publicity to make the UN finally notice what's going on, but it wouldn't be that hard for Bush to start giving some regular speeches on the matter to hold the world community's feet to the fire. So far it seems like there's just a lot of chattering about whether they want to call it genocide or not.

Delicious Antifreeze

Why does it taste so good? I don't think I'll be testing its flavor, but I'd always wondered why cats and other animals will lap it up.

Ten Reasons to Fire Bush

Yes, these sorts of lists can be endlessly debated, but this one, via Samizadata.net, is pretty good. A key quote:

He's making me root for John Kerry. I haven't voted for a major party's presidential candidate since 1988, and I have no plans to revert to the habit this year. The Democrats have nominated a senator who—just sticking to the points listed above—voted for the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, McCain-Feingold, and the TSA; who endorses the assault on "indecency"; who thinks the government should be spending even more than it is now. I didn't have room in my top ten for the terrible No Child Left Behind Act, which further centralized control of the country's public schools—but for the record, Kerry voted for that one too. It's far from clear that he'd be any less protectionist than Bush is, and he's also got problems that Bush doesn't have, like his support for stricter gun controls. True, Kerry doesn't owe anything to the religious right, and you can't blame him for the torture at Abu Ghraib. Other than that, he's not much of an improvement.

Yet I find myself hoping the guy wins. Not because I'm sure he'll be better than the current executive, but because the incumbent so richly deserves to be punished at the polls. Making me root for a sanctimonious statist blowhard like Kerry isn't the worst thing Bush has done to the country. But it's the offense that I take most personally.

Ouch.

UPDATE: Billmon writes a long post discussing this list and an analysis of how the GOP has changed.

Bethesda Picks Up Fallout 3 License

No Mutants Allowed has a comprehensive rundown of perspectives on this gaming bombshell. Fallout 3 was in development at Black Isle Studios before the company was shut down by Interplay less than a year ago. Now Bethesda Softworks, the company behind the Elder Scrolls series of RPGs, has picked it up. Fallout remains perhaps the most beloved computer game ever made, and the fanboys are in an uproar over the news, as past work done by Bethesda seems so completely incompatible with the Fallout franchise. I'm currently playing the latest of Bethesda's games, Morrowind, as well as tramping back through Fallout a bit, and I'm inclined to agree. Fallout is one of the deepest, funniest, most stylistically rich RPGs ever made, packed full of memorable characters, witty dialogue, and gratuitous violence. Morrowind, while certainly engrossing, massive, and atmospheric, is formulaic and essentially personality-free experience, replete with elves and magical swords, in which interaction with other characters involves selecting from a drop-down menu of topics, then reading the canned, poorly-written responses.

This is essentially like finding out that Tom Clancy will be writing the next Smiley novel, or that Stephen King will be writing a sequel to "At the Mountains of Madness" - fans of the worlds and ideas in question will be glad to hear they're being revived, but nonplused at the mixed records of those who will be doing the work. On the whole, not good news, and likely to end bitterly for all involved.

The only thing he has in common with Jesse Jackson is a good tan..

Here's a quick link post that should make everyone smile... or grimace. This is really funny stuff, I was turned on to it by Air America Radio. He claims to be the black Jesse Helms... HILARIOUS!!!

Bunny Exorcist

The Exorcist in 30 seconds as re-enacted by bunnies.

The Evans Archive?

Fraser Claughton, a British tourist, says he bought a $50 suitcase at an Australian flea market, and when he opened it up he discovered the musical Atlantis: Mal Evans' collection of Beatles tapes and documents. Evans was a roadie, soundman, sometime backup musician, and general wingman for the Beatles. When he died, he was said to have collected a fortune in memorabilia, including never-before-heard tapes, for a memoir that was never written. So far, not much is known about the collection, but according to The Telegraph, the genuineness of the items are already being questioned. The story does sound a little fishy (who sells a suitcase without checking the contents first?) but if it's true, get ready to shell out another $20 when the recordings hit the market. Personally, I bet it's the real deal. Evans was killed by the LA Police in 1976 when he pulled out a fake gun and a great amount of personal items have been missing since then.

The Statesman reports that unheard recordings of "Cry, Baby Cry" and "We Can Work It Out" are on the tapes, along with some "new" material, recorded chatter, 400 photographs (big suitcase!), concert programs, and sealed reels of tape marked "Abbey Road ...not for release" in handwritten script.

If your appetite is whetted, you can go here to hear "I'm In Love," a recently discovered Lennon-McCartney recording that the Beatles never released (but which was released by The Fourmost, another Liverpool band). I just found this while I've been at work, so I haven't been able to listen to the recording, but there is evidently some question as to whether it's really John on the tape. Judge for yourself.

The Souls of White Folk

O-Dub and the Quarterwit have come together like flint and steel to spark a discussion regarding the role of white fans in hip hop. It’s a recurring discussion, of course, but I think this instance of it happens to be particularly informed and subtle. In case you haven’t picked up on it, I am a white man, and have certainly spent plenty of time turning this question – the question of whether I am, by listening to “Freek-a-Leek,” perpetuating a history of exploitation by members of my race, the question of whether laughing at Ol’ Dirty makes me a racist – over and over, trying to figure out just what the reality is. Hell, I wrote my damned undergrad thesis on the issue (a gesture which was itself emblematic of the deep, deep divide between the sources and consumers of hip hop). Given that, I couldn't help but make an over-long, somewhat digressive and indirect response to their discussion.

I’m not particularly insecure about my place in hip hop - I’ve done my bit for king and country. I held down a moderately significant radio slot for a year or so, was one of the first guys in Austin really representing the Company Flow, indie-wierdo wing of the underground, and I did some really good work in exposing that music when I was at Audiogalaxy, particularly giving early wide exposure to the Rhymesayers and Def Jux, and, um, anticon crews. I also, obviously, write about hip hop quite a lot, but I don’t know if I’m comfortable classifying that as a contribution to the culture.

Regardless of my contributions, the strange part is that I’m still a perpetrator when it comes to the kind of fantasy wish-fulfillment that Mos characterizes as the defining feature of the white suburbanite fair-weather fan. I went through a not-brief-enough phase of having dreadlocks and wearing baggie “hip-hop” style clothes, a phase memorialized on a driver’s license photo, which I still have and in which I look much more like John Walker Lindh than KRS-One. But even having outgrown that unfortunate indulgence, now that I’m back to dressing like the standard-issue white hipster that I was through high school, I hold back a sequestered corner of my soul in which to store “Rap Dave.” I let him out every once in a while when I need to have some voice in my head telling some asshole to go fuck himself, or whispering sweet nothings to some fine girl passing me in the street. Of course Rap Dave rarely makes it out of the confines of my head intact, but I know for a fact that his presence influences my behavior in other, more subtle ways – having the template of hip hop masculinity to draw from has changed my personality, allowing me to open up and let loose in ways I never could in my younger days.

I think it’s safe to say that every hip hop fan is, to a greater or lesser degree, engaged in emulation of their idols’ behavior. It’s just the way things work, and there’s nothing wrong with it as outlined above. The problem comes when we acknowledge that the dynamic between lil’ white me and (to take the obvious example) Ghostface is different than the dynamic between me and, say, Lemmy (another idol of mine), because I know people like Lemmy (or at least, Lemmy minus the musical genius), and so have an automatic reference point for the humanity that lies behind his persona. On the other hand, I quite frankly don’t know anyone like Ghostface. I’m not even going to get my feet tangled up by talking about all the black people I know, but suffice that none of them are risen-from-the-ghetto hardmen. So even when Ghostface is working harder than anyone out there to make it easy for outsiders to understand what it means to be like him, I don’t think I really can. I’ll always mainly see the flash and the grit and the smooth bedroom talk – I’ll only rarely, if ever, see the man underneath. This is why, to me and many others, guys who make less or no effort to be understood by non-blacks – guys like Cam’Ron or Juvenile – seem like one-dimensional cutouts. They operate on an assumed common understanding that we’ll never be a part of, and in which their seemingly empty boasts and posturing are transformed into . . . what?

One thing that happened recently that made me realize that I’d crossed some kind of line was when I found myself genuinely moved by Z-Ro’s “I Hate U.” Of course I’ve grooved to my share of ghettolicious R&B schmaltz over the years (mostly courtesy of Robert K.), but always with a very white sort of detached irony, recognizing the cheesiness of the sentiment while singing along in an absurd falsetto. But the Z-Ro song, it’s different. I can’t entirely tell whether a) the song transcends the cheesiness of the genre and reaches a level of true emotional depth, or b) I’ve listened to nothing but cheesy pop hip hop and soul for long enough that my emotional palette is starting to shrink, to a point where I find the following lyrics moving: “I was daddy for a while, though I’ve got no seed/ But the kids are my H-E-A-R-T.” I think if I was listening to more Neutral Milk Hotel, there wouldn’t be even the slightest chance of me getting taken in by this sort of one-dimensional higglety-pigglety, but then again it isn’t a black/white thing particularly – the same could be said with, I’m guessing, Angie Stone or Cody Chestnutt in place of NMH above.

The problem, though, is that I sub/consciously tend to interpret this acceptance of Z-Ro as some sort of proof that I’m no longer separate from hip hop culture, that it has in fact become a part of me from such long exposure and dedication. But of course, while hip hop music may very well have become my own personal lingua franca, it’s not my native language. It’s as if I had moved to Japan at 18 and was now fluent – I may understand the meaning of everything going on around me, even the ever-shifting slang and colloquialisms involving vegetables and figures of speech based on Buddhist legend, but I wasn’t born in Japan, or and so there are levels that I will never have access to. I was not born speaking hip hop, I was not born to the people whose language it is, so I’ll never truly understand it. This doesn’t mean I can’t have a real relationship to the music or the culture, it just means that, regardless of how much knowledge I cram into my head, there will always be parts that I won’t understand on a gut level. It’s as simple as that.

Edwards's Foreign Policy Experience

The Campaign Desk reports that the Washington Post has done some actual reporting and looked up Edwards's experience in response to the Dem/GOP fight over his perceived lack thereof. The Campaign Desk concludes:

[I]t's safe to say that Edwards has been far more engaged in foreign policy than one would expect from a freshman senator. And that he has some redoubtable old hands at foreign policy (most notably Richard C. Holbrooke, former ambassador to the United Nations and peace broker in Bosnia and Kosovo) in his camp. And that some of his foreign policy proposals (see above) are, as the Post notes, bolder than either Bush's or Kerry's.

Now if only a newspaper actually researching and reporting the facts instead of claims and counterclaims were not noteworthy. I can dream, can't I?

Football Defense Explained

Ever wondered what the difference between a 4-3 defense and a 3-4 is? What about the difference between a 4-3 Over and a 4-3 Under or the many other permutations? Well, here are the answers.

(via Football Outsiders)

A Victory

One of bin Laden's close associates, Khaled al-Harbi, has surrendered. Even though this is a relatively small victory, it still counts. Maybe it'll demoralize some of the other al-Qaeda terrorists; maybe it will just enflame them more (although I'm not sure how that would be possible). Either way, it's heartening to see a relatively senior figure surrender, even if, as reported, he wasn't a key operational figure. I wonder why he surrendered though. Maybe he got tired of hiding or something. We'll just have to wait and see.

Redefining Poetry

Based on some comments I read a month ago, I've revised my view of prose poems and, as a result, my definition of poetry in general. In an earlier post, I twisted myself into some uncomfortable positions in order to determine some of the defining characteristics of poetry while accounting for prose poems. After reading Jim Henley's thoughts on the matter (scroll down), plus some other writings about the form, I think I'm better able to attempt a working definition that might be both more exact and more useful in determining the quality of any given work. First though, part of Jim Henley's comments:

Finally, it occurs to me that many of the problems of defining poetry go right away if you simply declare that the "prose poem" is a delusion. It's not that short prose effusions don't exist. They can even be a legitimate art form. (I am partial to "The Solution" by Sharon Olds.) But we don't have to agree that they are "poetry." Here's a limit case. We know that booklength narrative poems can exist and have been written (or composed, pre-writing) for thousands of years. Could there be a booklength narrative prose poem? How would you tell it from a novel? Most likely by waving hands at it and saying it took the top of your head off or something.

So let's posit from the start that prose poems are not poetry, but another genre altogether. "Poetic prose" is probably a more exact term for it, since it weights the form of the writing more heavily than the content. This sort of writing is, after all, in prose form, however many poetic techniques it employs. This also has the benefit of allowing a more workable, less confusing definition of poetry. It is, simply, writing in verse form.

Another point I made in my earlier post that I would now like to retract is the distinction between verse and poetry. Or, more accurately, I would like to change the terms. "Verse" is now "bad poetry" and, as a result, "poetry" becomes "good poetry." This seems to be a far more useful distinction as it encompasses everything written in verse form while allowing for an easier discussion of the quality of any given work. After all, by defining all writing in verse form as poetry, even commercial jingles are included. However, they are certainly not good poetry.

Unfortunately, all this redefining is rather obvious to many people; it just wasn't to me at first. Still, this whole reevaluation would be rather pointless without a new attempt at determining what sets good poetry apart from the bad. In this case, I think that there are some bits worth salvaging from my previous post on the topic as they deal directly with what sets apart the good and great poems from the bad and mediocre.

First off, allow me to requote Borges as I feel he eloquently expresses one of the fundamental qualities of good poetry:

Truly fine poetry must be read aloud. A good poem does not allow itself to be read in a low voice or silently. If we can read it silently, it is not a valid poem: a poem demands pronunciation. Poetry always remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. It remembers that it was first song.

In other words, the musical nature of language is amplified in good poetry. This is useful because it is a quality that can, to a certain extent, be measured. Plus, it arises mainly from the form of a work rather than its content. It is independent of subject matter, emotional depth, profundity of thought, or any other areas often considered when assessing a poem. However, a distinction must be made between the cloying musicality of commercial jingles, sing-song rhymes, and the more subtle and supple melody of fine works. This is what I think Aaron Haspel gets at when he declares that poetry scans, though he uses that formulation to exclude some prosaic verse writing from the realm of poetry. In his scansion of a William Carlos Williams poem, he comments:

Free verse consists, essentially, in avoiding any metrical norm by varying the movement continuously. This is much harder than it sounds.

This constant variation is the suppleness of the poem. Although it is possible to examine and measure the different stresses and accents in a line, it is insufficient to determine the quality of that music. That is a judgment based on the individual taste of the reader, one that will evolve and mature the more experience with poetry the reader gains.

Here we run into the central problem of discerning what is excellent in a poem: subjectivity. Even though it is possible to lay out certain necessary aspects common among all great poems, the degree to which each is fulfilled in any given poem is largely a matter of taste. Even though, as T. S. Eliot wrote, criticism and reading can help “the elucidation of works of art and the correction of taste,” there is rarely a consensus in the judgment of a work. However, a shared knowledge of the underlying properties necessary for good poetry at least makes a reasonable debate possible. So, even though it may be impossible to unanimously determine whether a poem “demands pronunciation,” it is possible for one to judge for oneself and argue that point for any poem.

Note, I have avoided a discussion of metered poetry. It is, in some senses, more difficult to judge the musical quality of a metered work than that of free verse, but the same general principles apply. Although the rhythm will be far steadier than in free verse, the accents will still vary to prevent the poem from sounding like a nursery rhyme. However, it requires a more sensitive reader to discern the musical variations and tensions in a metered poem than in free verse, particularly now that meter has fallen so out of favor. An insensitive reader focuses too much on the rhythm and perceived stresses required by that rhythm, making even Shakespeare sound like Shel Silverstein. The same suppleness found in Williams's free verse is found in Robert Frost or John Keats; it is simply more constrained and harder to tease out.

The next fundamental aspect of good poetry reinforces the melody: concision. Nothing in the poem should be superfluous. Every word must be necessary and well chosen to precisely express the poet's meaning—even if that meaning is purposefully ambiguous or vague—and should also strengthen the musical nature of the poem. Furthermore, this applies at higher levels of abstraction as well. Ideas, images, or emotions that do not enhance the work only dilute it. Here, the obligatory Atoine de St. Exupéry quote properly states this principle:

La perfection est atteinte non quand il ne reste rien à ajouter, mais quand il ne reste rien à enlever.

Along with melody and concision, there is the originality of the language itself. A poem comprised of a string of clichés is unlikely to be any good. An excellent poem manipulates the language in a way that makes all the words seem fresh and laden with meaning. Unfortunately, judging the freshness of a work is even more subjective than the previous criteria and relies solely upon the knowledge and taste of the reader. An inexperienced reader may find the most unoriginal image startling for lack of reference, whereas one who has read much excellent poetry would see it as mediocre at best. Although I'm hesitant to imply that the latter's judgment is more correct—enjoyment and instruction can come from even bad poetry, after all—if we seek a somewhat objective measure of a poem's worth, it is necessary that we give at least some added weight to more experienced and knowledgeable critics. Obviously their judgments are often wrong and almost never unanimous, but as a guide to formulating one's own opinions sensitive criticism can be invaluable.

Naturally, I have covered only a fraction of the qualities possessed by all excellent poetry, but I think the three that I have examined are fundamental and largely independent of content. The more elements related primarily to form we can identify and at least partially quantify, the easier it becomes to judge a poem's merits. Furthermore, the deeper an understanding we have of what makes a poem work, the deeper our appreciation and enjoyment can be. Largely this post has been to work out these ideas for myself, so if you have any critiques, please let me know. I am only beginning to consciously understand the workings of poetry, so any clarifications or suggestions you can make would be greatly appreciated.

Wisdom of the Framers

An excellent quote now making the rounds:

The reason that the American Revolution created a republic that has done so well for so long, while the French and Russian revolutions degenerated so quickly into tyranny, was that the American Framers didn't try to create a government capable of doing great good in the hands of brilliant and well-intentioned people. Instead, they tried to create a government that couldn't do too much to ruin the country in the hands of a bunch of corrupt morons. And they did a pretty good job of it.

Indeed and heh.

Belaboring the Point

Sorry for yet another post that points out that the latest media bias study making the rounds is fundamentally flawed, but I found some more good criticism. Leiter also points out the study's flawed definition of the center, then provides further debunking and some methodological criticisms from a colleague of his. I'll try to make this my last post on this particular study, but I felt the criticism covered some important points we hadn't discussed yet.

Hipster Bingo

Probably not funny to anyone outside of Austin/NY/San Fran/Chi-town, but at least you can be ready to play the next time you hop on the tractor and roll into town. I personally would give you reason to check off (though not all at the same time):

-Too-small sweater (too small for my beefy frame, anyway)
-Chunky plastic-frame glasses (Hugo Boss, beeyatch)
-Ironic mustache (in my case, an ironic trucker handlebar)
-Pabst Blue Ribbon (read: excessive drinking of cheap beer taken up as 'statement' becomes excessive drinking of cheap beer, period)

(And yes, I know that's a Kicking and Screaming rip.)

Bonus Guide to Indie Hair.

Fair and Balanced

There's yet another Important Documentary coming out. This one's titled Outfoxed and "examines how media empires, led by Rupert Murdoch's Fox News have been running a 'race to the bottom' in television news." A description from the movie's website says this:

This documentary also reveals the secrets of Former Fox news producers, reporters, bookers and writers who expose what it's like to work for Fox News. These former Fox employees talk about how they were forced to push a "right-wing" point of view or risk their jobs. Some have even chosen to remain anonymous in order to protect their current livelihoods. As one employee said "There's no sense of integrity as far as having a line that can't be crossed."

Of course, the film is already being criticized for being too slanted. However, as Salon's War Room points out:

Does Greenwald have an agenda? Almost certainly. But that doesn't make the first-person accounts, leaked memos, documented research and TV clips that Greenwald employs in the film any less compelling.

As for this particular movie, I haven't seen it or examined its evidence, so I can't speak for its veracity, but it's still important to remember that neither side has a monopoly on the truth; just because the person presenting it may have an agenda doesn't mean their claims are nothing more than partisan rhetoric.

UPDATE: CableNewser is all over this story.

Belated Tour Comments

I meant to write something on the Tour earlier on, but I got caught up traveling and have had no time. Here are some of my belated comments, though perhaps not terribly original...

The Tour should be extremely exciting this year, as three candidates appear to be extremely close--Armstrong, Hamilton, and Ullrich. Armstrong has been going well so far and is clearly in good shape, but pre-Tour tests showed less than spectacular form. Does the post Sheryl Crow Lance still have the same intensity as in prior years? Is he just too old now? We'll see.

On paper, Tyler Hamilton looks stronger. His team is extremely strong and motivated to get the overall win. In Oscar Sevilla, Phonak has a second rider who could contend for the podium in his own right. Tyler has been dominant this year in all the races he has contested and put some real time into Lance on the Mont Ventoux stage in the recent Dauphine race. Unlike Iban Mayo, the eventual winner of the Dauphine, Tyler will contend for the win in the final individual time trial and he only lost minimal time to Lance in the team time trial. Tyler's Achilles Heel is his bike handling skills. Already he has gone down 3 times in the first seven stages. But if he can stay upright, he'll be hard to beat. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed.

Jan Ullrich has participated in the Tour 6 times and never finished worse than 2nd. He is surely an equal favorite to win. Despite a mysterious lack of form at the beginning of the season, he seemed to be going better than last year prior to the Tour (as evidenced by his victory in the Tour of Switzerland--a difficult race to win in itself), while Lance isn't looking as strong. However, since there is only one flat ITT, Ullrich will have to ride extremely consistently in the mountains. And since he's already "55 down on Armstrong, he will have to attack at some point. Does he have the hunger to win? We'll have to see. It's disappointing that his team seems to be weak--Telekom should have left sprinters like Eric Zabel at home and brought some more firepower for the Team Time Trial and to help Ullrich in the mountains. If Ullrich loses by less than a minute, he has only himself to blame for not forcing Telekom to build a team exclusively oriented towards winning the overall, just as US Postal does year after year.

There are a few more riders who could perhaps challenge for the win. Foremost among these is Roberto Heras. Heras isn't very strong in flat time trials, but he is one of the best climbers in the world and this year he is bent on winning the Tour. This is probably his last best chance, since there is only 1 flat ITT in this year's Tour. To win he will have to attack aggressively in the mountains and put about 3 minutes into the other major contenders before the final ITT. I don't believe he'll be able to do it, especially since his team has already lost key time in the team time trial. Nevertheless, Heras is a man that rides like a champion and it will be thrilling to see him go all out in the Tour. Undoubtedly he will go all out and more than likely his attacks will spell doom for one of the above 3 favorites.

Vaginatin, Fucitol, and Other Oddities

This is a rendering of two layers of Dickite. Learn more about this mineral (named after the Scottish geologist, Dr. W. Thomas Dick) and other unusually named minerals and molecules here.

Postponed Postponement

One of the benefits of being late to blog a story is that you get to read a ridiculous number of opinions first. In case you haven't heard, the DHS is working on a contingency plan to postpone the presidential elections in case of a terrorist attack. This has caused even some on the right to start thinking in ways that would make Orwell proud. Personally, I think barring attacks that would prevent significant (and I mean Significant) numbers of people from voting, postponing the elections is a Bad Idea.

Unless there's a risk of serious disenfranchisement, we need to have our elections when we decide, not terrorists. But even ignoring the whole bedrock-of-our-government bit when it comes to holding regular, on time elections, it would probably throw the election to Kerry. That may sound counter-intuitive because of the typical rally-around-the-president effect major attacks and such tend to have, but if the current trends continue up towards election day and the nation stays as close to deadlocked as it is, then any delay in the elections is going to set off a lot of people's conspiracy bells. Just look what the mere mention of a contingency plan has done. Imagine if is were actually put into a effect. True or not, a significant number of people would to think Bush was trying to monkey with the election and would vote for Kerry for that reason alone. If the vote is as close as expected, that group of nuts could easily throw the election to Kerry.

Of course, such a scenario would be so unprecedented, it's practically impossible to predict what would actually happen, but it would certainly leave serious questions in its wake about the legitimacy of our next president. Imagine if Bush were to win in such a scenario. Many reasonable people already think he stole the election in 2000. If he were reelected under such crazy circumstances, I think we'd see some of the hard-core left turn into survivalists in preparation for the coming End of Democracy.

Anyways, all this speculation is certainly fun, but I'd be quite surprised if anything comes of it. Still, one thing that seems to be getting lost in all the theorizing is that the Department of Homeland Security is right to make such plans. If, say, major cities in several swing states were attacked on election day, preventing the votes that will actually decide who wins from being cast, what confidence will we have in the outcome? Of course, as others have pointed out, there are probably more difficulties in delaying the election than going through with it, so the DHS might be better off preparing for ways to get everyone they possibly can to the polls in the event of an attack. That means setting up emergency polling locations and providing transportation to it. It'd be better to make a good faith effort to carry through with the elections and count all the votes we can than to deal with the fallout and uncertainty sure to be caused by a delay. So, the DHS is right to be planning for attacks, but their proposal so far is almost definitely wrong.

Walden

The latest addition to the blogosphere is Henry David Thoreau.

History of the Vice Presidency

NRO has an interesting article detailing the history and justification of the vice presidency. And yes, it's late Friday night and I have nothing to do.

Enviromental Ignorance

I've run across a couple of bloggers blithely discounting the importance of things like trees and other species (although the first post might be seen simply as a criticism of a particular policy). Both posts run along essentially the same lines and assume that whatever happens to the other parts of the ecosystem, it won't really affect humans. Thankfully, there are bloggers willing to correct or mock them. Of course, in this case, Yglesias's high profile gets him a lot of responses—which some people think is why he wrote that post in the first place—whereas Alice's is unlikely to generate such a storm (I say this with no knowledge of her traffic). Hers, however, is the more odious post. In it, she conflates the simplified arguments from a children's cartoon with all environmental defenses:

Environmentalist arguments generally follow the pattern:
1. "self-evident" (ie unsubstantiated) argument: (trees take a long time to grow! the ozone layer is disappearing! there won't be any more dolphins!)
2. Scare-story extrapolated from 1. (no trees- no oxygen! no ozone layer- everyone toasted to death! no dolphins- world deprived of superintelligent species that would have taken over and saved us all!) etc

Arguments with environmentalists therefore usually follow the pattern:
1. Where is your evidence that this is true? (there never is any)
2. Why does it matter anyway? (often no reason)
3. How do you prove that A will lead to B and thence to Z, other than through wild speculation? (they don't)

Maybe she's just calling for better evidence from the extreme eco-doomsday types. There's certainly a lot of chicken littles in that debate, but discounting the entire argument because there's some overly vocal idiots making a weak version of it isn't the way to go. There's plenty of scientific evidence for climate change. Just because some people can't provide it on demand doesn't mean it isn't there. Deforestation is a serious and real problem, despite the market demand for paper. It's simply irresponsible to ignorantly assume everything will work out.

Now I think I'll go hug a tree.

Politics as Entertainment

We all know that presidential campaigns are highly scripted and tightly staged, but why don't journalists cover this aspect? Surely they understand how each scene is set up to manipulate public opinion; almost everyone does. Still, they cover these events in their typical straight-forward and shallow way. Is it because journalists lack the training necessary to examine the "complex rhetorical construction" of a campaign? Or are they simply uninterested in piercing this or any other veil? Maybe they just enjoy a good story too much.

How Convenient

Bush's military records were accidentally destroyed. Or should that be "accidentally"? It's an amazing coincidence that:

The destroyed records cover three months of a period in 1972 and 1973 when Mr. Bush's claims of service in Alabama are in question.

I'm willing to accept the fact that such things happen, but I'm going to need much more proof that it was an accident than this administration's word. Again and again they've proven they're absolutely brazen enough to do something like purposefully destroy records and then claim it was an accident. Maybe it was, but I'm going to assume it wasn't until there's solid evidence to the contrary.

Big Surprise

The number of people reading, particularly literature, is declining across the board. Even though this is completely unsurprising to anyone who knows how important literature is, it's still sad to see it so definitely proven. Every time something like this comes out, I have this knee-jerk reaction to pull out the Williams and marvel at his wisdom. In fact, wisdom is one of the main reasons reading is so important. Our judgment can be formed in two ways: through experience and through reading. Given that most people take a lifetime to become wise, literature—the observation and reflection upon human life—is an indispensable source of received experience and understanding. This is not the only benefit of reading literature, but it's an important one that cannot be gained from reality television, sitcoms, or the newspaper.

Body and Soul

Having (relatively) recently obtained over 100 versions of "Body and Soul", I've decided to share the wealth. Herein you'll find the first volume of what is planned to be a 5 volume set of my picks of the litter. This can also serve as a beginner's guide to jazz

Enjoy.

Quest for the Rest

A quick little Flash game.

(via die puny humans)

Mozilla Bug

After all my Mozilla/Firefox proselytizing, I would be remiss if I failed to point out that there's a recently discovered and rapidly fixed bug. You can get the fix here.

Voting Against Your Interest

Why do many poor people vote Republican and against their own economic interest? I've seen this topic pondered in our comments and posts a few times already. It's quite a feat:

Frank's book is brilliant, one of the most incisive analyses of American politics in years. His central argument is that Republicans have, through the creation of what he calls The Backlash, convinced working class voters to subvert their own interests. The Backlash is an endless and futile cycle of outrage at shadowy "elites" controlling everything from what you eat to what you're allowed to think. The trick, though, is that the "elite" spoken of can never be the economic one. No, it's those snobby liberals, sipping their lattes as they drive their Volvos, who are causing all your problems.

Is it possible that the working class simply thinks cultural issues are more important than their own economic well-being? It's condescending to automatically assume that this class of voters is so ignorant and easily manipulated—maybe another reason they overwhelmingly vote Republican. If Democrats want to win back this demographic they need to first reassure them that they're not the wild-eyed radicals Limbaugh and his friends make them out to be, but in a way that they can identify with. This is probably a large part of Edwards's appeal. He makes the economic case while projecting a safe and moderate Everyman image, not by implying that they've all been duped.

An Example of the Flawed System

Texas leads the nation in executions for a reason—the system is even more flawed than most.

Among the 38 states that have capital punishment, Texas is far and away the modern-day leader in implementing it. Although it has 7.6 percent of the nation's total population, Texas carried out 35 percent of the nation's executions between 1976 and last month -- putting to death 321 of 909 condemned prisoners, according to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington. Virginia was a distant second with 91 executions. And since 2002, the record is still more lopsided, with Texas responsible for 42 percent of the nation's total.

Even worse:

As an executioner of juvenile offenders, Texas also stands out not just in this country but around the globe. Since 1998, the state has put to death eight offenders who were under 18 at the time of their crime -- nearly half the worldwide total of 17, according to Amnesty International.

Read the article to find out why.

Death Penalty Apologists

As a followup to my previous post, I just found this Slate article that characterizes many laws meant to improve the process for sentencing someone to death as a "complicated dance of apologies."

Acting under severe constraints imposed by our own constitutional system, we execute some people here and there, episodically confessing worry and even shame that we're not quite sure about what we're doing. Then we nervously try it all again. Politically, we can't live without capital punishment. Morally, we have some trouble living with it. So we impose just enough of it to keep the art form alive.

What this article mentions briefly, but largely ignores, is the moral ambivalence most people feel towards capital punishment. They recognize the flawed nature of our justice system is exacerbated when making such irreversible decisions, but think it's just a matter of a few more tweaks before we can get it right. This is delusion and folly. So long as humans remain imperfect the institutions we create will be so as well. There can never be a guarantee that every person sentenced to death is guilty. Our need for vengeance will continue to war with the misgivings of our better nature so long as the death penalty is in place.

Customizing Mozilla and Firefox

For any recent converts to Mozilla or Firefox, you may want to read this article highlighting some of the more popular extensions for those browsers. I discovered a couple of new ones myself that I'm going to install, but they still didn't mention the best of all: mouse gestures.

Pot Helps Night Vision

It doesn't look like this is more than preliminary given the incredibly small sample size, but further studies may verify their findings that pot improves night vision. Next they'll be telling us it relaxes people, makes it easier to follow complicated music, and gives us the ability to leap tall buildings.

(via Boing Boing)

It's a Start

Finally:

France called on Sudan to forcibly disarm pro-government militias in the troubled western Darfur region if they refused to lay down their weapons, while expressing concern that tens of thousands of displaced people there were facing a humanitarian crisis.

Now if they, along with the other E.U. members, would just give more than the paltry 10 million Euros they've donated to the cause so far.

Down with Edwards

Why Edwards is a bad choice for Vice President. An excerpt:

He is too inexperienced! With only six years of experience in politics John Edwards is not qualified for the vice presidency. Now, if those six years were as Texas governor and if he were running for president, things would be totally different. But as it stands, he is too inexperienced!

Note: these are all real Republican criticisms of Edwards being parodied.

Lego Spiderman

Watch Lego Spiderman battle Lego Doc Ock. Truly stunning stop-motion animation.

(via Boing Boing)

Junk Mail Rhymes

Inspired by Jay Smooth's infamous Ghostface or Spam? quiz, I have culled the best couplets from my overflowing Hotmail inbox to bring you the best of Found Hip-Hop. They have been edited for flow. Maybe I'll record a song here in a couple of days. But for now, imagine Ghostface spitting these:

Arrive at a state of full dissident living,
Sanitize philosopher’s monotonous warranty
Buy low, sell high, defined by the scythe swing
Where we can completely figure out our mortality . . .

Biaxial starlet cold bowl of sophism
Dilettante defined by pork chop self-flagellates
Pit viper inside peeks at the dolphin
Impresario? Yeah, you know just where the ball went.

But do you remember how ostensibly prayer saves?
Fetishist beyond seduction, oil up at ski lodge
Mating ritual related to crank case
Stinking drunk fundraiser make America great.

Death row starlet near short order cook reads a magazine,
Wedding dress catalog, fascinate
Living in a truce with bride
and sobbing at the banquet

Deficit bubble baths near forty-two, forty-nine,
Hydrogen atom defined by meditation,
Becomes icing beyond cough syrups reach an understanding
with cleavage near.

When stalactite falls it feels nagging remorse,
Skyscraper toward grand piano takes a step
On coffee break caught the senator trembling,
Sucking scooby snacks like dead endings.

Grilled filbert dip degenerate cream
hydrodynamic amicable wet dream
Graduated from the dark side
He called her Savannah (or was it Savannah?)

Going Postal

Lance Armstrong, seeking a record sixth title, took the Tour de France lead after his U.S. Postal Service team won today's time trial between Cambrai and Arras. In heavy rain, U.S. Postal covered the 64.5-kilometer (40- mile) fourth stage in one hour, 12 minutes and 3 seconds, more than a minute ahead of Tyler Hamilton's Phonak team in second place.

(Via Bloomberg)

Scansion

Mystified by meter? Scared to scan? Language Log provides An Internet Pilgrim's Guide to Accentual-Syllabic Verse that should answer most of your questions, but just in case it doesn't, there's also this introduction to meter and rhyme.

Civility

A complaint I've seen recently from a number of big-time bloggers is that as traffic goes up, the quality of comments goes down. Daniel Drezner rounds up the complaints and provides a few thoughts of his own. I suppose one of the benefits of having such a small readership as we do is that the civility and quality of our comments is, on average, extremely high compared to those on the high-traffic blogs. For now, a gentle admonishment is all that's needed to keep things that way, but if we ever start experiencing the diminishing returns in comment quality that higher traffic seems to invariably bring, I'm going to turn into a complete fascist. No, I kid. I've thought about this for a while and I think what I would do is simply hack the comments code to require registration. However, not just anyone would be allowed to register either. You would have to get either an invitation from someone already registered or direct permission from one of our authors. Then, if someone who registers turns into a complete troll, both they and their sponsor would be banned. Anyways, I don't predict we'll need to do this any time soon, if ever, but I thought I'd share my thoughts on the matter.

Shooting PR

Noam Scheiber suggests a potential PR win for Kerry—challenge Bush to a shooting match:

Why not challenge Bush to a target-shooting competition? We know Kerry's generally a pretty good athlete, and it sounds like he's a pretty good shot in particular. Bush, from what I know about his Yale days, isn't the most gifted athlete on the planet. It seems pretty likely that Kerry would win. And, even if he didn't, just holding his own with Bush on the same shooting range (or whatever the hell it's called) would be a political victory in itself.

This is a stupid idea. What does shooting ability have to do with one's ability as president? Nothing—and that's the point. Scheiber is promoting the further trivialization of political discourse in our nation in service of what he deems a noble aim. Even though I want Kerry to win too, this sort of cynical, content-free ploy is not the way; it's part of the problem. Perhaps if the media were pressured to cover actual issues in an honest, substantial way, we would have a President Gore right now. The knife cuts both ways and the wound may eventually be fatal. Thankfully, this suggestion will be ignored by Kerry, but it's indicative of a distasteful mindset that plagues many of our politicians, pundits, and journalists. It's a mindset those of us interested in honest political debate and an educated populace should abhor and combat.

More on Media Citation Bias

Language Log has an excellent critique of the study Piraeus blogged earlier. Here are some of the highlights:

For Groseclose and Milyo, Dodd's citation of the study counts as one piece of evidence that the Rand Corporation is a liberal think tank. In fact, their method assumes that there can be no such thing as objective or disinterested scholarship -- every study or piece of research, even if published in so august a scientific authority as the New England Journal, can be assumed to have a hidden agenda, depending on which side finds its results congenial to its political purposes.

And:

There are ideological implications, too, in Groseclose and Milyo's decision to split the think tanks into two groups, liberal and conservative. One effect of this was to polarize the data. No group -- and hence, no study -- could be counted as centrist or apolitical. In the event, this entailed a media citation of the Rand Corporation or the AARP would count as evidence for a liberal bias in the same way that a citation of the Heritage Foundation or the American Enterprise Institute would count as evidence for a conservative bias.

Also:

Even if the Groseclose and Milyo study had been implemented carefully, then, it wouldn't justify the claims that its authors make on its behalf. As it happens, though, the execution of the study was flawed in important respects, which made its conclusions even less useful.

Start with the list of groups from which G & M drew their initial sample. They describe this simply as a list of "the most prominent think tanks," but that isn't quite accurate. In fact their list was drawn from the 200 links included on the site wheretodoresearch.com (which actually describes it merely as a list of "major think tanks and policy groups"). The list was compiled by one Saguee Saraf, a free-lance researcher with a masters degree in history who lists among his achievements that he was named Man of the Year by the Cheshire (Connecticut) Republican Town Committee.

Saraf gives no indication of how his list was compiled, or what criteria were used -- nor, what's more to the point, do Groseclose and Milyo say why they consider the list authoritative. In fact its contents are a jumble of think tanks, lobbying groups, trade associations, and advocacy groups, assembled in a catch-as-can manner.

In one of the comments to the previous post we had on this study, sleepnotwork suggested that I was just splitting hairs in pointing out some apparent problems in the study. Although my assertions turned out to be largely a result of mathematical ignorance according to a reply from the study's author, these sorts of critiques are not simply hair-splitting. Any study that purports to be objective and scientific must be held to that standard. Methodological and implementation flaws can seriously skew the conclusions for any study and must be assiduously avoided. Even apparently minor problems can fatally ruin a report's validity. If what we're interested in is the truth and not partisan delusions—which I assume is true of all our nomads—then we should only use thoroughly vetted and accurate studies.

SpiderBlog

Unqualified Offerings will be spider-blogging all day long. I haven't seen the movie yet, so I'm avoiding the many, many posts on the topic all around the blogosphere, but in case you're interested, there it is.

Edwards Pick Roundup

Rather than do any substantial thinking or typing myself, I'm just going to provide the various responses to Kerry's pick. Hooray laziness!

Buffalo Wings & Vodka wrote that "[i]f Kerry chooses anyone other than John Edwards, I will change the name of my blog to JohnKerryisEffingRetarded&Vodka" so it's safe to assume he's happy now.

Centerfield agrees that Edwards is the best choice, but doesn't think we'll see any transformational policies from the Democrats anytime soon. To be honest, I'll be happy just to see some basic competence in the White House again.

The folks over at DailyKos are likewise pleased with Kerry's decision.

Discourse.net thinks Edwards would make a good president, too, if needed.

Instapundit also provides a roundup. So does Pejman, although his is, as usual, a bit more substantial.

Marginal Revolutions also has a few links about Edwards's positions on trade, tort reform, and other things.

Michael Bérubé thinks the idea that VP's can carry any states is out-dated, but Edwards is a good choice because he's "an astonishing campaigner who will kick butt everywhere else from sea to shining sea."

Outside the Beltway passes on the Drudge photo and gives us a lot more blogosphere reaction. He's also got a post showing the NY Post's scoop on this story: Gephardt as Kerry's choice.

Josh Marshall also likes Kerry's choice and promises to have more analysis later.

And, I think that's enough. Especially since several of those links are roundups, too. If you're interested in reading everyone's reactions, this should keep you busy most of the day.

Kerry Picks Edwards

I'm sure someone is hacking out a more substantive post as I type, but John Kerry has picked Edwards for veep. I think this is a good thing, though I'm not as up on the subtleties of the horserace as others here. At the very least, he didn't pick Gephardt, and that's worth crowing about.

A Potential Progression in the War on Drugs

Some disturbing news:

The Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics has released a new 50-page policy report, "Pharmacotherapy and the Future of the Drug War" that warns that the war on drugs may be about to enter a new era “that expands the drug war battlefield from the Colombian coca farms and the Middle Eastern poppy fields, to a new terrain directly inside the bodies and brains of drug users."

Would fervent drug warriors view drugs that "block the effects of illegal drugs" as a good and useful tool in combating the use of other, less approved ones? Surely such a suggestion is just paranoia.

I got your bias right here

Proving media bias, as has been mentioned here before, is a difficult task. Finding an objective method of measurement is the largest challenge. Two social scientist (one from UCLA, the other from University of Chicago) think they have come up with one. First, determine how liberal or conservative 20 leading think tanks are by finding out how often they are cited by liberal or conservative members of congress (which is determined by the rankings of the Americans for Democratic Action). Then count the citations of these think tanks by major media outlets. Their study examined the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the three network news shows, Fox News' "Special Report" and The Drudge Report. Using the data you can then give each outlet a ranking equivalent to the ADA ranking. This story explains it better or you can view the report itself. What were the basic findings? Not pretty.

Although we expected to find that most media lean left, we were astounded by the degree. A norm among journalists is to present “both sides of the issue.” Consequently, while we expected members of Congress to cite primarily think tanks that are on the same side of the ideological spectrum as they are, we expected journalists to practice a much more balanced citation practice, even if the journalist’s own ideology opposed the think tanks that he or she is sometimes citing. This was not always the case. Most of the mainstream media outlets that we examined (ie all those besides Drudge Report and Fox News’ Special Report) were closer to the average Democrat in Congress than they were to the median member of the House.

Tour de France Blog

In case you haven't seen it yet, there's a Tour de France blog.

X-Statix to End

This probably means nothing to nobody, but one of my favorite current comic books - in fact, the book that got me back to reading comics - is apparently drawing to a close. Drawn in a '50s pulp-influenced style by Mike Allred, who created Madman back in the day, and written by Peter Milligan, X-Statix explored decadent celebrity, politics, and abnormal psychology far more than traditional superheroics. Though technically in the mainstream Marvel Comics universe, and a mutant book to boot, X-Statix was really an independent comic in sheep's clothing. The book's central theme was superheroes-as-celebrities, all of their battles carefully chosen by a handler based on how the public would perceive them (in one case, a group of African tribal rebels was digitally altered to appear white, and explained as a 'renegade Mormon sect'). The book's satirical tone can perhaps be best encapsulated by the quite silly and vaguely disgusting (though realistic) powers of the principals, including "Phat," a white guy, obsessed with hip hop, who - you guessed it - had superior control over his body's fat cells.

You can get a good sense of what the book was all about from this satirical final minibook by one of the series' inkers.

Administrivia

I predict blogging will be light-to-non-existent this weekend due to all the blowing up pieces of America to celebrate America we'll be doing. That, and getting slightly drunk while tubing.

Of course, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe some of our nomads that will be unable to join in the festivities due to the ridiculously large diameter of this planet will take up the slack.

I'm not gonna hold my breath though. Happy 4th everyone.

Phoblog

Here are some pictures I took this week. Let me know if they're too big so I can scale them down in the future:

Urinals Galore

Via Random Pensées, I give you Urinal Dot Net, "the best place to piss away your time on the Internet."

Into the Blogosphere

This looks interesting:

This online, edited collection explores discursive, visual, social, and other communicative features of weblogs. Essays analyze and critique situated cases and examples drawn from weblogs and weblog communities.

(via Language Log)

Underempolyment

It looks like underemployment hasn't improved yet, a key factor to consider when discussing the economy. A key excerpt:

[U]nderemployment in the form of involuntary part-time work, discouraged workers, and other marginally attached workers (i.e., those who have looked for work in the last year but are not counted as unemployed) has increased. Specifically, the total underemployment rate was 9.6% in June 2004, up from 9.4% in November 2001 when the recovery began, and far higher than the 7.3% in March 2001 when the recession began.

There's also this nifty graph. Anyways, just some numbers to keep in mind next time you hear Bush and his supporters trumpet the job growth numbers.

UPDATE: Brad DeLong gives us his economic talking points, dealing primarily with the job situation.

UPDATE: Pejman Yousefzadeh provides a link that might be cause for some minor optimism.

Human Evolution

The recent discovery of small hominid fossils prompted an article about human evolution that discusses the competing theories of how we evolved. One, which the author terms "March-of-Progress", fits nicely with the much parodied picture by the same name. However, a more modern theory suggests that "a number of different species seemed to have lived side by side" which seems to fit the given evidence better.

UPDATE: PZ Myers has lots of pictures of the fossils in question, as well as other Homo erectus specimens.

Tips for Photographing Fireworks

If you want to take a bunch of pictures of explosions this weekend, read this.

Cosby gets busy

Bill Cosby made a pretty controversial speech at the ceremony for the 50th anniversary of Brown V Board of Education. Some excerpts are here. I thought a lot of the points hit the mark, but I guess I am not really in a position to judge such things. I just have to give him credit for stepping up and saying what he felt. His story is one of great success at a time when it was much harder for African-Americans to get ahead. Man I loved "Himself."

Behold, My Super-Insight Ray!

If you've missed my contributions today, I apologize. I've been obsessively reading Quarter Bin, which contains perhaps the best writing on comic books that I've ever encountered. The author deftly weaves together some truly important history (both of the books and the industry), humorous light analysis, and some deeply savvy explications of the cultural and artistic influences that have shaped comics in certain eras, as well as over time. Sadly, it looks like the site is not regularly updated, but you can still enjoy the astonishingly prolific Ouzomandias's musing on, say, the temporal boundaries of the Silver Age of comics, overviews of non-superhero comics genres, the worst superhero costumes of the 1980's, or why (the generally inconsequential) Cable is the most representative superhero of the 1990s. This index page is fun - click on any random one of fifty articles, and I guarantee you'll come up with something good.

Why I Hate America

Lyrics like this:

To each his own it's plain to see
To walk alone you have to be
It's all for you and all for me, you'll see

I’m gonna miss you, yes, I will
No matter who you are, I’ll love you still
For my life is my conscience, the seeds I sow
I just wanted to let you know

Familiar faces that I’ve seen
Turnin’ red and turnin’ green
They just got caught with writing on their sleeve, I guess I’ll leave

That's crap. It doesn't even make any sense—that's why I hate America. But if you disagree, you can book them for your next backyard barbecue.

Ken Jennings, Jeopardy Player Extraordinaire

I blogged a little about this about a couple of weeks ago and guess what? Ken Jennings is still winning. He's now won 22 days straight and should break $700,000 today.

UPDATE: For those of you discovering our site via Yahoo and other search engines, I will be posting a tribute article to Ken once he's finally done winning. Make sure to come back then and check it out. Also, please spend some time browsing some of our other posts to see if you find anything that interests you. We'd love to have you as regular readers. Thanks.

History of the Universe

Not quite Stephen Hawking, but I found a pretty coherent and interesting history of how the universe was created. It's also capped with some fascinatingly plausible speculations as to what forms intelligent life may have taken on other planets. This one is my favorite:

On some planets, there are underwater civilizations built by aquatic primates who returned to the sea as the ancestors of elephants and whales did on our planet. Aquatic primates with hands with opposable thumbs created tools then technologies, and finally civilizations.

It's pretty long, but well worth reading the whole thing.

Death to the Death Penalty

Prompted by comments in a previous thread, I've decided to write about why I'm opposed to the death penalty in order to, hopefully, prompt a debate on the matter.

One of the best and most eloquent defenses of capital punishment in murder cases is John Stuart Mill's "Speech In Favor of Capital Punishment".

Mill begins his defense with an appeal to compassion, arguing that the death penalty is actually less cruel than any other reasonable punishment for aggravated murder:

I defend this penalty, when confined to atrocious cases, on the very ground on which it is commonly attacked--on that of humanity to the criminal; as beyond comparison the least cruel mode in which it is possible adequately to deter from the crime. If, in our horror of inflicting death, we endeavour to devise some punishment for the living criminal which shall act on the human mind with a deterrent force at all comparable to that of death, we are driven to inflictions less severe indeed in appearance, and therefore less efficacious, but far more cruel in reality.

However, this passage subtly contradicts itself. Since we consider murder the "most heinous of crimes" and wish to do everything in our legal power to deter it, then surely a less cruel punishment would induce less fear in those who might face it, not more. If there is a correlation between the fear any given punishment induces in a potential murderer and whether or not he murders, why not opt for the crueler, yet still humane, punishment? We already imprison for life those convicted of lesser crimes which is fairly convincing evidence that we do not, in fact, consider capital punishment the less cruel crime. Of course, Mill here is talking about "imprisonment with hard labor for life," which, as a sentence we no longer impose on civilians, is not germane to the discussion. However, Mill is not actually concerned with the objective harshness of the death penalty, but with the fear it imposes:

For it is characteristic of all punishments which depend on duration for their efficacy--all, therefore, which are not corporal or pecuniary--that they are more rigorous than they seem; while it is, on the contrary, one of the strongest recommendations a punishment can have, that it should seem more rigorous than it is; for its practical power depends far less on what it is than on what it seems. There is not, I should think, any human infliction which makes an impression on the imagination so entirely out of proportion to its real severity as the punishment of death.

I must agree with this as most rational people fear death more than imprisonment. That, however, is the flaw. The vast majority of murders are not pre-meditated; they are, instead, "crimes of passion." In these cases, there was, by definition, no time for the murderer to consider the consequences and, hence, no possible deterrent effect for any punishment, be it death or a lesser one. Of course, this leaves the problem of pre-meditated murder, a crime for which capital punishment might be considered more justifiable. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to impossible to discover motives. A clever murderer could arrange the crime to appear as one committed in a rage, whereas a truly unpremeditated one could easily appear to a jury as just the opposite. Naturally, there are cases where there can be little to no doubt about the nature of the murder, but there are also many hazy cases. The injunction to find in favor of "reasonable doubt" has proven itself insufficient in determining the guilt or innocence of many defendants; there is no reason to assume it can do better when dealing with a more subtle and difficult distinction.

All this is moot, though, if it can be shown that the death penalty deters more murders than other punishments. After all, better that a few more murderers die, whether their crimes were premeditated or not, than innocents. Mills writes:

As for what is called the failure of death punishment, who is able to judge of that? We partly know who those are whom it has not deterred; but who is there who knows whom it has deterred, or how many human beings it has saved who would have lived to be murderers if that awful association had not been thrown round the idea of murder from their earliest infancy?

Unfortunately, there is no evidence that the death penalty deters murders. Of the states without a death penalty, ten of the twelve have the fewest per capita murders. Of those that do, over half have the highest. This, alone, is not enough to prove there is no deterrent effect though. Each state, though still having much in common with the others, has its own culture and its own history that could affect such statistics. Far better then to compare neighboring states or the same state with and without capital punishment. In the former case:

When comparisons are made between states with the death penalty and states without, the majority of death penalty states show murder rates higher than non-death penalty states. The average of murder rates per 100,000 population in 1999 among death penalty states was 5.5, whereas the average of murder rates among non-death penalty states was only 3.6.

A look at neighboring death penalty and non-death penalty states show similar trends. Death penalty states usually have a higher murder rate than their neighboring non-death penalty states.

In the second case, the history of a state that has both had and not had the death penalty, there is actually evidence that the death penalty increases the murder rate.

So, given that the data suggests capital punishment does not deter murders, there is no case left except that of the morality of the punishment itself. If it is morally right for the state to kill murderers, then deterrence is only a secondary concern. However, this morality would be negated if, as Mills writes:

by an error of justice an innocent person is put to death, the mistake can never be corrected; all compensation, all reparation for the wrong is impossible. This would be indeed a serious objection if these miserable mistakes--among the most tragical occurrences in the whole round of human affairs--could not be made extremely rare. The argument is invincible where the mode of criminal procedure is dangerous to the innocent, or where the Courts of Justice are not trusted.

Of course, Mills underestimated the danger of innocent people being convicted. Since 1973, 114 people have been exonerated; this is unlikely to be all the innocent people on death row. Many of them were found not guilty due to the work of volunteers and students, not the courts. In fact, the system is so flawed that Illinois's pro-death penalty former governor, George Ryan, declared a moratorium on the punishment and appointed a special commission to look into the problem of innocent victims of the punishment. The commission found:

After two years of concentrated study and discussion, all Commission members were left with the firm belief that the death penalty process itself is incredibly complex, and that there are few easy answers. The Commission was unanimous in the belief that no system, given human nature and frailties, could ever be devised or constructed that would work perfectly and guarantee absolutely that no innocent person is ever again sentenced to death.

Mills also deals with this, but draws the wrong conclusion:

Even that which is the greatest objection to capital punishment, the impossibility of correcting an error once committed, must make, and does make, juries and Judges more careful in forming their opinion, and more jealous in their scrutiny of the evidence. If the substitution of penal servitude for death in cases of murder should cause any declaration in this conscientious scrupulosity, there would be a great evil to set against the real, but I hope rare, advantage of being able to make reparation to a condemned person who was afterwards discovered to be innocent. In order that the possibility of correction may be kept open wherever the chance of this sad contingency is more than infinitesimal, it is quite right that the Judge should recommend to the Crown a commutation of the sentence, not solely when the proof of guilt is open to the smallest suspicion, but whenever there remains anything unexplained and mysterious in the case, raising a desire for more light, or making it likely that further information may at some future time be obtained.

Sadly, as has been shown, this ideal has not and will never be realized in our justice system. Innocent people will continue to be put to death so long as we have a death penalty. Is it therefore right that we keep it in place so that we may punish, but not deter the obviously guilty? Even if it were morally proper to execute the true murderers—an assertion I would likewise debate—the sure knowledge that the death penalty will also and always ensnare innocents destroys that justification. The death penalty is a barbaric, immoral practice and should be permanently abolished.