Mr. Monika's Schoolroom

The real free market

2012-01-21T19:16:00.000-08:00

About a week ago, I was listening to The Stephanie Miller show. A caller phoned in with the typical conservative talking point about how social-welfare programs enabled poverty and kept African-Americans and other minorities down. As I expected, the host and her mooks parroted the usual Democratic and ineffectual counter arguments but it occurred to me as I listened that a better response might have been along these lines:

"Dear caller, the reason we need anti-poverty programs is because of the economic system we've locked ourselves into. There is a 'free market.' It's called the 'labor market,' and it's where individual workers are pitted against each other in a ruthless race to the bottom of the wage scale. Meanwhile, oligopolistic corporations use their bought-and-paid-for politicians to rig the system so they can confiscate as much wealth as they can get away with, starving the commonwealth.

"If you want to reduce people's dependence on social welfare, at the very least you're going to have to radically redistribute wealth in a fairer way, and give workers the right to flex their muscle in the work place (i.e., "unions")."

Star Wars in 3D (sigh)

2012-01-21T19:04:00.000-08:00

There's a bill board opposite the building where I work that's advertising the upcoming release of The Phantom Menace in 3D:

Two things struck me as I walked toward the office the first day I saw it. One, reissuing it in 3D, 4D or in every hidden dimension string theory predicts will not make The Phantom Menace a good movie, or even an acceptably bad B-movie.

It's an atrocious movie (I'll direct you to this site for a devastating critique).

I taped it years ago when Fox ran it (and when I had a TV), and every so often I rewatch it to make sure I haven't made a mistake regarding its quality. I haven't.

It bears repeating: It's. An. Atrocious. Movie.

The second thing that struck me is the composition of the poster. Ostensibly, the prequels are about the fall of Anakin Skywalker from grace and his transformation into Darth Vader yet nowhere is there an image of either Anakin or Vader (I don't even think any of the pod-racers depicted are Anakin's).

Instead, the most prominent image is Darth Maul. Darth Maul? Really. One of the most insipid and unthreatening villains in SF villain history.* In the background are Obi-wan and Yoda, and backing them, the "phantom menace," Darth Sidious.

I think the advert points up the saddest legacy of the prequels - Lucas focused on all the wrong elements, wasting the talents of several good actors and spoiling the viewing pleasure of millions of people who fell in love with the idea of Star Wars and were hoping to see the creation of a 21st century myth.

* One of the reviewer's more salient points in the review I link to above is that the saber duels between Maul and Qui-gon/Obi-wan and (in Revenge of the Sith) between Obi-wan and Anakin are emotionally unsatisfying and can't compare in power to the awkwardly staged but incomparably better duel between Vader and Guinness' Obi-wan in the original movie.

Calvin - RIP

2012-01-15T10:21:00.000-08:00

Calvin, 1995-2012

The new year has not gotten off to the best start: My little buddy Calvin passed away last Monday morning (Jan. 9).

It was all very sudden. The week before Christmas I had taken Calvin to the vet's for his 3-month check up and everything looked pretty good for a 16-year-old cat with hyperthyroidism, a heart arrhythmia and early stage kidney disease. Right after New Year's, however, things went rapidly downhill. That Monday (Jan. 2), I discovered that he had had a messy bowel movement and had noticed that he wasn't eating so I made an appointment for the next day and took him in. Dr. Kelban (my #2 vet; #1 being Dr. Dais) ran the blood tests; the kidney and all his other organs looked good but his red-blood-cell count was deep in the basement, almost at the point where vets begin blood transfusions. She put him on an appetite booster and steroids (and off the thyroid meds for a few days), and I kept a close watch on him. The rest of the week I was on tenterhooks, watching him continue not eating and getting weaker and weaker. On Saturday, he began making what I call "distress meows" so I got him an appointment that day with Dr. Dais. She put him on IV fluids, and we were going to see if I couldn't get some food down him via syringe.

The latter worked fairly well but I wasn't able to get near enough food down him to make it worthwhile before he refused to open his mouth any longer. Through Saturday and into Sunday, he was getting visibly weaker but he was still occasionally mobile and - in all honesty - I was thinking that these would be the last days we would be together; there was no recovery on the other side of this crisis.

Beginning last month, I started working Sunday-Thursday; same shift but my weekends begin on Thursday nights nowadays. I was loathe to leave my little guy alone but that weekend was the Consumer Electronics Show and I knew my colleague would be swamped if I didn't come in. Fortunately, one of the Graveyard editors was coming in at 8 pm, so I planned and did come home early, anticipating the worst.

When I got home Sunday night, Calvin had moved from the spot I left him in to the closet in the bedroom. I took a look - he was resting quietly so I left him alone. Before we all went to bed, Calvin had moved from there to what had become one of his favored resting spots - the rug beneath the bathroom sink. Extraordinarily inconvenient if you wanted to use the bathroom but I wasn't about to move him elsewhere if that was a place he was comfortable in. We settled in for bed around 11 that evening but a couple of hours later I was awakened by Calvin's "distress meow" and I went in to the bathroom. For the last few days, whenever I settled down with him, he would usually quiet down and I would spend the time rubbing his back and belly. And so it went this time. I settled onto the bathroom floor with him, smoothed out his fur and spent the next hour or so being with him. After about an hour, he got up crawled over my legs and staggered out into the hallway, where he collapsed - too tired to go much further. I picked him up and we went into the living room where we settled down in front of the TV and watched videos for the rest of the night. Around 5:15 am Monday morning, Calvin began meowing, he staggered up from my side and collapsed over to his other side, breathing stertorously. He did that for a few minutes (no more than 1 or 2, I would think, though it seemed longer) and then he ... stopped.

Calvin was never a lap cat but he had one of the sweetest natures I've ever encountered - cat or human - and he was never adverse to accepting a back or belly rub, and he is missed.

In the aftermath, both of The Boys (Puck & Oberon) and Miss Grey are spending more time with me (a decidedly mixed blessing when I want to use the computer). And I don't know how Irene's taking things. Calvin was her "boyfriend," and some days the only time I would see her was when Calvin came around to hang out with me - she was forced to accompany him.

Shakespeare on the OWS movement

2011-12-28T09:33:00.000-08:00

Coriolanus, Act I, scene i:

Menenius: What work's, my countrymen, in hand? where you go
With bats and clubs? The matter? speak, I pray you.

First Citizen: Our business is not unknown to the senate; they have had inkling this fortnight what we intend to do, which now we'll show 'em in deeds. They say poor suitors have strong breaths: they shall know we have strong arms too.

Menenius: Why, masters, my good friends, mine honest neighbors,
Will you undo yourselves?

First Citizen: We cannot, sir, we are undone already.

Menenius: I tell you, friends, most charitable care
Have the patricians of you. For your wants,
Your suffering in this dearth, you may as well
Strike at the heaven with your staves as life them
Against the Roman state, whose course will on
The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs
Of more strong link asunder than can ever
Appear in your impediment. For the dearth,
The gods, not the patricians, make it, and
Your knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack,
You are transported by calamity
Thither where more attends you, and you slander
The helms o' the state, who care for you like fathers,
When you curse them as enemies.

First Citizen: Care for us! True, indeed! They ne'er cared for us yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act established against the rich, and provide more piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and there's all the love they bear us.

First tragedy; then farce

2011-12-20T11:18:00.000-08:00

In light of the recent death of Kim Jong-Il, I had this stray thought that Pyongyang's dynasty is showing a remarkable resemblance to the first three emperors of the Roman Empire.

Kim Il-Sung => Caesar Augustus: The deified founder of the dynasty who created the political framework upon which it works (more or less) and saved the nation.

Kim Jong-Il => Tiberius: The reasonably competent despot who commanded the loyalty of the ruling elite largely because of his father's charisma, and whose suppport was broad but shallow and not heart-felt.

Kim Jong-Un => Caligula: The dissolute, far-too-young-to-have-this-job grandson of the first emperor whose reign will be short and bloody.

Fortunately for the world at large, North Korea is not the hegemon that Rome was in its day, but the prospects for the peninsula, at least, don't look promising.

Malcolm - RIP

2011-12-04T12:40:00.001-08:00

Malcolm - c. 2000 - 22 November 2011

Soon after moving in to the apartment complex where I live, me and Malcolm met. I work a second shift and normally get home around 11:45 or so in the evening. One night, I was walking along the path from the carpark to the apartment when I saw two feline figures run across the path and into the bushes. As I came abreast of the bushes, I saw that one of the cats remained under the bush - a black-and-white kitten who was mewling piteously. Figuring that mom would come back as soon as my offensive presence was removed, I continued on.

However, I grew curious about the kitten's fate so - after about 45 minutes - I went back outside only to find the poor little guy still under the bush, still crying. So - against common sense, which is often wrong anyway - I picked him up and brought him inside.

Malcolm (aka, The Niblet, as he was known while still a kitten) smoothly fit in with my other at-the-time four cats - Emma, The Monkey, Calvin & Meggie - and he proved to be a good natured, friendly and very special little cat (even if he never saved me from a life-threatening situation or parlayed his good looks into a lucrative (for me) career hawking pet-related products).

For the last six months he'd been gamely battling severe kidney disease. Part of his medical problems included increasingly severe anemia and uremic ulcers developing in his mouth (which made it difficult for him to eat and made his saliva bloody). On the 22nd, his mouth began bleeding uncontrollably and I rushed him to the vet's. Dr. Dais, our "family" physician, wasn't there but my second favorite vet, Dr. Kelban, was. She took a look at Malcolm and recommended that it might be best to put him to sleep. I had always known that we would reach this point sooner or later - At what point did his quality of life become so bad that I should let him go.

I just didn't wake up Tuesday morning expecting that this would be the day that I would have to make the decision.

But he was losing weight, the numbers in his blood/urine analyses were getting worse and worse, he could hardly eat and he was spitting up blood. The vet wrapped Malcolm up in a warm blanket and let me have some time to say good-bye. Then we put him to sleep.

He will be missed.

Why Shakespeare really is Shakespeare...

2011-11-11T10:52:00.001-08:00

I haven't seen the new film Anonymous, which purports to explore the question of who "Shakespeare" was, but I am squarely in the camp that believes that the man known as William Shakespeare wrote the plays that are attributed to him.

I subscribe to The New York Review of Books, and in Nov. 24th's edition there's an essay by Garry Wills, "Shakespeare and Verdi in the Theater," where he touches upon the issue while discussing Verdi's three Shakespearean operas. I found his defense interesting since it comes from the POV of theatrical logistics rather than a historical or literary one:

"Thus, in the modern theater, performers are fitted to the play, but in Shakespeare's time, the play was fitted to the performers.... Nothing could be more absurd than the idea of the Earl of Oxford writing a long woman's part without knowing whether the troupe had a boy capable of performing it. Only Shakespeare, who knew and wrote for and acted with and coached John Rice, knew what he could do and how to pace him from play to play....

"Shakespeare was not a full-time writer without other responsibilities.... But what might look like a distraction for such authors...was a strength for Shakespeare, since it made him a day-by-day observer of what the troupe could accomplish, actor by actor. The company was, after all, mounting plays with bewildering rapidity, studying, memorizing, and rehearsing in the morning and evening while performing in the afternoon. Without that experience, Shakespeare could not have written as he did. Lord Bacon or the Earl of Oxford, writing in their homes, could not have known such things. As Ivor Brown says, 'Shakespeare was a smuch on and around a stage as in his study.'"

Why I Don't Blog As Often As I Might

2011-11-04T11:15:00.000-07:00

Book Reviews: What I read in the first half of 2011 (Part 2)

2011-07-24T11:25:00.000-07:00

I would have gotten this second part of my now traditional biannual book-review blog out of the way Friday but I had a what-turned-out-to-be-minor medical emergency: One of my older cats, Emma, who suffers from Irritable Bowel Disease, began spitting up blood so I rushed her to the vet. As she was otherwise fine, Dr. Dais thinks she may have ruptured a capillary in her gut when she threw up that day's breakfast (usually Emma can keep her food down but I have now decisively proven that "beef" should not be part of her diet).

But now back to my reading in 2011 (the nonfiction shelf):

The Rise of the Greeks, Michael Grant: This was the usual Grant - a well researched, readable synopsis. In this case, Greece prior to the Persian Wars and the dominance of Athens and Sparta, when the other city-states tended to fade into the background. I enjoyed the work as it filled in a gap in my understanding of ancient Greek history.

Truth and Fiction in the Da Vinci Code, Bart Ehrmann: I've been less and less satisfied with Ehrmann's recent books. They read like slightly altered versions of his earlier stuff, which is well written and interesting. Truth and Fiction's problem is that I've read this stuff before and better written in his earlier books like Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture & the Faiths We Never Knew or Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible & Why.

War Is Not Over When It's Over, Ann Jones: This book recounts stories of the effects of war and its aftermath on (primarily) women. It's very graphic and very depressing - human beings can be extraordinarily inhuman, and the situation grows worse as the only response we seem capable of giving to the myriad crises besetting us is violence.

The Atoms of Language, Mark Baker: Baker wants to begin looking at language in terms of the elements (atoms) that it's composed of rather than historically. To that end he proposes a Table of Language Elements, and makes some interesting points along the way.

The Poison King, Adrienne Mayor: This is a biography of Mithradates VI of Pontus, who was the last significant opponent to Roman expansion in the East. It's OK but Mayor has an annoying tendency (which is becoming too common in many biographies) of overspeculation, imagining the thoughts of her subject without any support. Which is a shame, because when she's capable of informed, reasonable and supportable speculation when she bothers.

I'd still recommend it for all its flaws because they are relatively minor and when Mayor sticks close to her sources, the book has valuable information.

The Languages of China, Robert Ramsey: Moderately dated (1987) but an interesting overview of (naturally) the languages of China.

Ill Fares the Land, Tony Judt: A collection of essays by the late Judt about the deterioration of the Left and the socialist and welfare-state policies of Europe and the US in the last 30 years. It's an indictment of the intellectual bankruptcy of the Left and a call to reorganzie and reaffirm the humanistic and Enlightenment theories that undergird socialism.

Endgame, vol. 1-2, Derrick Jensen: This book deserves a blog all its own (and it may get one eventually) but for now the interested can read my review on GoodReads. In a nutshell, Jensen argues that it was a major mistake for Paleolithic man to turn to agriculture. The only sustainable lifestyle is a hunting-gathering one, and the advent of civilization institutionalized and regularized exploitation and violence as the normal way of life; a way of life that is destroying life on this planet.

I followed this book up with Spencer Wells' Pandora's Seed, which essentially argues the same point, but from a decidedly more optimistic POV. It isn't on the "official list" only because I started it in July so I'll throw it up on the year-end book-review round up.

Book Reviews: What I read in the first half of 2011 (Part 1)

2011-07-20T11:32:00.000-07:00

Time management.

Competent time-management skills are something I have not cultivated to any great extent. If I had, if there had ever been some reason for me to do so, this post would be dated closer to July 1 than July 21.

But "better late than never," to use an over-ripe cliche:

The first six months of 2011 were, as one might expect, a mixture of really good reading, good but not memorable stuff, and prose that should never have escaped from the writer's word-processing program.

In fiction:

The Next Queen of Heaven, Gregory Maguire: The only other Maguire novel I've ever read is his debut, Wicked. In that book, I enjoyed the subversive take on the classic Wizard of Oz but wasn't blown away by the writing and haven't followed the subsequent book in the series. Queen was in impulse buy based on the book's blurb but what it promised wasn't delivered.

The Tablet of the Law, Thomas Mann: This was the first Mann work I've ever read and I was enthralled. It's a novella really - a very short read - but packed. It's Mann's retelling of the Exodus myth, and I highly recommend it.

The Duel (Pavear translation), Anton Chekhov: I picked up this English translation of the Chekhov novella at the same time I picked up Queen. I have been a Chekhov fan for years and I had read other translations but I've been hearing good things about the Pavear/Volokhonsky outpouring of translations for this author and others (I have to get my hands on their translation of Crime and Punishment) and the picture of the woman playing Nadya in the recent film version seduced me:

Beyond that, this story turns out to illustrate two of the things that I find most appealing about Chekhov. To quote from my GoodReads review: "Two of the several many reasons I read Chekhov are the realistic (if oft times depressing) depiction of human relationships - "the idea enters into no relationship with the ideas of others; each consciousness is isolated and impenetrable; there is a polyphony of voices, but no dialogue; there is compassion, but no communion" (p. xvi) - and Chekhov's "irrational intuition that there is meaning and beauty in the cosmos" (p. xiii).

The man was brilliant. It's a shame that I can't read Russian.

Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain: After years of loathing Twain based upon my experience with Tom Sawyer in high school English, I finally broke down and listened to this book on Audio CD. My resistance crumbled in the face of the controversy stirred up earlier this year by the publication of a bowdlerized version that replace "nigger" with "slave" in order to save the delicate sensibilities of the readers. And, after all, the words are practically interchangeable. Right?

Outside of that, I found the novel to be pretty good right up to the point when Tom Sawyer shows up, then it went downhill and any of its power was dissipated by the ending.

The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi: I'd heard a great deal about the "amazing" Bacigalupi and was interested enough to check out this book when it became available at the library. He's good but not great. I may be persuaded to read other stuff by this author but I'm not anticipating it.

The Inquestor Tetralogy, S.P. Somtow: This is a SF series comprising The Light on the Sound, The Throne of Madness, Utopia Hunters and The Darkling Wind. I had read at least the first two books when I was a teen-ager, and I was curious about how I would respond to them today. They were OK but not great. I had a "Somtow Phase" and read many of his novels when I was younger but I've found that he no longer appeals to me.

'Tis Pity She's a Whore, John Ford: Ford was a playwright of Tudor England. His were the plays you went to see when a Shakespeare or Marlow or Jonson production wasn't in town. Whore is an over-the-top story about incest and full of bloody violence and it probably thrilled the groundlings that came to see it.

Collected Poems, Sylvia Townsend Warner: This is a collection of Warner's poetry (duh). As a devoted Warner groupie I can't review this dispassionately. I loved it.

Against All Things Ending, Stephen Donaldson: This is the latest installment in the Final Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Admittedly, Donaldson is scraping the bottom of the soup bowl to find anything new to say about the Land but it's still a pretty decent story and I'll be finishing the series when the fourth book comes out.

Best Served Cold, Joe Abercrombie: This novel is set in the same world as Abercrombie's The First Law series but it's a standalone. Abercrombie's vision is so bleak, cynical and hopeless that I - myself usually quite pessimistic - find it difficult to read. There's nothing to redeem anyone in this book. I'm probably not going to be reading more of Abercrombie's stuff.

The Last Ringbearer, Kirill Eskov: This is a retelling of Tolkien's War of the Ring and its aftermath. Short version: It stinks. The longer and more thoughtful review can be found here on GoodReads. The man took on Tolkien and he lost.

The Crippled God, Steven Erikson: The final book in the Malazan Book of the Fallen. Anyone who follows these reviews will know that Erikson is one of my favorite SF authors and that I was looking forward to the conclusion of this 10-book epic. And I was not disappointed - much. I think the author chickened out at the end with the final fate of Tavore Paran and the Bonehunters but it was still a good ending and there were a lot of great episodes getting there.

The Last Page, Anthony Huso; The Lone Ranger & Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Sherman Alexie; The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter; The Lions of Al-Rassan, Guy Gavriel Kay: I lump these four together because they were "meh." Nothing much to recommend them, though only the last (Lions) felt like an utter waste of time.

The Dress Lodger, The Mammoth Cheese, Witches on the Road Tonight, and A Stolen Tongue, Sheri Holman: Holman joins my list of favorite authors. It's impossible to describe in this space the novels here since they take place in many diverse places (Lodger is set in 19th Century Britain while Tongue takes place in 15th Century Palestine, and the middle two take place in 20th Century America) but they're gripping stories that enthralled me. I eagerly look forward to Holman's next novel.

The White-Luck Warrior, R. Scott Bakker: Book #2 in Bakker's Aspect-Emperor series. I reread the first book, The Judging Eye, in anticipation of this one and found it to be better than I remembered. Like Erikson, Bakker has created a unique and original world, one where I don't know what's going to happen next. I look forward to the final volume, The Unholy Consult.

A is for Alien, Caitlin Kiernan: A collection of SF stories by one of my favorite authors.

Stonewielder, Ian Esslemont: Esslemont is Steven Erikson's collaborator on the Malazan books and has been carrying on the story thread of the Malazan Empire. He's just not Erikson's equal so his books are not as interesting. This is the weakest of the three so far but I'll continue to soldier on because he does show glimmers of talent and, being a Malazan groupie, I can't not read them!

Embassytown, China Mieville: This is Mieville's first foray into SF and it's one of his best novels in my opinion. READ IT. (Sorry for the shouting.)

I began Ruth Downie's mystery series about Gaius Petreius Ruso, a Roman doctor during Hadrian's reign (117-138), with Medicus, which I finished on June 30, so I'll lead off my year-end review with those books. And, yes, there will be "books." This is a sprightly written series much like Colin Cotterill's Siri Paiboun mysteries that is a delight to read and a good source of brain candy when the serious stuff becomes too much to endure.

As always, you can get more thorough reviews on my GoodReads page.

I'm going to have to come back in Part 2 to cover the nonfiction reading I managed through June, so stay tuned.

Osama bin Laden dead: A day to celebrate? Really?

2011-05-02T08:18:00.000-07:00

"Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends." (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring)

So Osama bin Laden is dead. After 10 years, we've finally tracked the bastard down and killed him (maybe: people have been claiming he's been "dead" since at least 2006).

And all it took was the destruction of two nations, hundreds of thousands of innocent lives lost, millions become refugees, turning the Middle East and neighboring regions into a free-fire zone, setting up a concentration camp in Cuba, giving Israel even greater opportunity to oppress the Palestinians (see the latest outrage here), and the continued erosion of our civil rights and the on-going militarization of our country.

And then there're the self-righteous congratulations that our state-sponsored terrorists and their political allies are spouting.

Are we getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan? How much deeper are we going to get in Libya? When's Guantanamo closing? When's habeas corpus going to be restored? When is the "defense" budget going to be reduced?

When any of these things happen, then I may consider celebrating.

Who's the "Devil" in "The Devil in the Dark"

2011-04-20T10:12:00.000-07:00

I was watching the classic Star Trek episode "The Devil in the Dark" the other night and, for the first time, it struck me how arrogant the story's underlying assumptions were. It occurred to me that the "devil" of the title might not be the creature that menaced Kirk and his crew. It saddened me because I will never be able to enjoy the story in quite the same way ever again.

The plot is straightforward: Enterprise is called to Janus VI, a long established mining colony that supplies critical minerals to nearby worlds. After 50 years of uneventful and profitable mining, something begins killing the colonists, dissolving them with a powerful, corrosive acid. The miners' weapons are ineffective, and vital shipments are not going out. Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam down to investigate. Spock quickly figures out that the most likely agent of the attacks is a silicon-based lifeform that moves through rock like humans (or Vulcans) move through air. The only puzzle piece missing is "why?" Why, after a half-century, has the creature begun to attack the miners? Before any progress can be made answering that question, the alien steals the coolant pump of Janus' antiquated fusion reactor, and Kirk faces the utter destruction of the colony if he can't get it back. So Enterprise's entire security detail, Kirk and Spock begin combing the shafts, hunting the creature. Naturally, it's Kirk who stumbles across it but oddly it doesn't immediately attack him. Instead it shows him a wound caused by an earlier phaser shot, and appears to want something. Spock joins Kirk and uses the Vulcan mind meld to communicate with the creature. In the meld, he learns that the alien is a "horta," the last survivor of the previous generation of horta and the guardian of the eggs of the next. It turns out that the miners had recently breached the incubation chambers and were killing thousands; the horta was only trying to protect her children. There's a minor contretemps when the colonists overwhelm the security men and try to kill the alien but when Kirk explains the situation both sides come to a modus vivendi where the horta would live as they had always done, the humans would follow and use the resulting tunnels to extract the ores, and both would share in the profits. All things end happily for all concerned.

Or - realistically - would they?

"The Devil in the Dark" is one of Star Trek's best episodes but it raises some disturbing questions if thought about too deeply.

The first is the question of how "friendly" the horta is. Her change of attitude and good will comes suspiciously fast. Perhaps, having shared minds with Spock, she realized how outclassed she was and how easily Starfleet could wipe out her entire species. She doesn't make nice with the colonists because she realizes what a swell bunch of guys they are but because she's terrified that they'll slaughter her and her children if she doesn't.

And what of the future? The horta are not a hive mind - one consciousness, many bodies. It's hard to imagine that every newborn will accept their mother's solution to the "human infestation." Is is not possible that an insurgency could spring up dedicated to finishing what mom had started? And how would the Federation respond? Or let's consider this: A nonviolent movement arises among the horta that wants the humans off world. It gains enough support so that the Federation is formally asked to leave. How would the UFP respond to that? If the Federation were to live up to its ideals of freedom and noninterference then the answer is obvious: They'd leave. But, as we know all too well in the US, a country's founding ideals often founder on the shores of so-called vital interests and national security. After 50+ years, the interests vested in keeping the Janus mines open would exert enormous pressure on Starfleet to keep them open no matter what. And there's the horta who are OK with humans on Janus. Would Starfleet provide them with aid to suppress the anti-human faction? I can easily see the mining lobby explaining to the Federation Council that the anti-human horta don't represent the species as a whole and have no legitimacy. That Starfleet needs to aid the pro-human side because they're being oppressed.

And let's not even begin to think about what kind of consciousness a silicon-based lifeform that looks like this:

would be like. On its face, to assume the horta perceive and think like humans and Vulcans is absurd.

And what are the effects of a human presence on a silicon-based ecology? Assuming the horta are the only lifeforms is another absurdity never addressed by the episode, there must be a host of other creatures moving through the rock.

The point - if I can dignify this posting with a purpose - is that I've been thinking lately about the survivability of civilization-as-we-know-it and coming to some pretty gloomy conclusions. "The Devil in the Dark" is an example of the exploitative, extractive, consuming-all attitude that characterizes our culture. There's no thought to the long-term consequences of our appetites in our zeal to satisfy our short-term needs, and now that we're running up against the limits of our planet, we're beginning to see the price we and our descendants are going to pay.

Alas, for the days of my youth when Star Trek was just plain old fun to watch.

REVIEW: The Crippled God, Steven Erikson

2011-04-01T11:46:00.000-07:00

Spoiler Alert – Unlike some others who’ve reviewed this book on their blogs, mine is chock full of spoilers and references to events and characters from the previous books. You have been warned if you’re still set on reading further:

To paraphrase “Jerry Maguire,” Steven Erikson had me at Gardens of the Moon, a cool drink of water in the midst of an SF drought. I didn’t mind being thrown into the deep end of the pool and expected to swim. In fact, it was a refreshing change – an author who expected his readers to walk with him into his world rather than be led by the hand. I was immediately reminded of Glen Cook, one of my favorite authors, and the Dread Empire and Black Company series. Cook was one of the earliest authors to inject an element of earthy realism and moral ambiguity into the SF genre with characters like Croaker and Lady, who were more “real” and their actions more relevant (and understandable) to modern audiences. I sensed too, in Erikson’s work, an underlying complexity that promised more than just a medieval setting with fantastic trappings. From page one, Gardens of the Moon hit all the right buttons.

That would not have been enough, however, to keep me reading the nine subsequent volumes. Robert Jordan’s and George Martin’s ubiquitous series have similar elements but I don’t care about anyone in their worlds. Erikson displayed a knack early on for creating characters I cared about.

Unfortunately, he kept killing off my favorites.

Perhaps it’s a rebellious streak in me but I’ve never bought into the Anomander Rake “love” nor have I been interested in Karsa Orlong’s story nor have I been interested in most of the Bridgeburners. No, my favorites are Tattersail; the Imperial historian Duiker; Fist Coltaine; and above all Trull Sengar, the Cassandra of the Tiste Edur who saw the disaster his people were headed for but never lost his hope, compassion or humor. (See below for the B-list of favorites.)

Trull’s senseless murder at the instigation of the Errant was awful but consistent with Erikson’s worldview and viscerally effective. I was angry and upset, and was happy to see Draconus cut the Elder God down in The Crippled God.

Come book six – The Bonehunters – and I met the only character to rival Trull Sengar in my affections, Tavore Paran, Ganoes’ and Felisin’s older sister and Lorn’s replacement as the Empress’ Adjunct. The woman who took command of the 14th Army in the aftermath of the Chain of Dogs and ended the Whirlwind’s rebellion. Unlike the Bridgeburners, who were established and wiped out off-stage and in flashbacks, readers were with the Bonehunters from the beginning – from their forging in the literal fires of Y’Ghatan and their birth from the sewers of that holocaust to Laseen’s betrayal in Malaz City, where Tavore gave the following speech that set the tone for the army’s future:

“There have been armies. Burdened with names, the legacy of meetings, of battles, of betrayals. The history behind the name is each army’s secret language – one that no-one else can understand, much less share. The First Sword of Dassem Ultor – the Plains of Unta, the Grissian Hills, Li Heng, Y’Ghatan. The Bridgeburners – Raraku, Black Dog, Mott Wood, Pale, Black Coral. Coltaine’s Seventh – Gelor Ridge, Vathar Crossing and the Day of Pure Blood, Sanimon, and the Fall.

“Some of you share a few of those – with comrades now fallen, now dust. They are, for you, the cracked vessels of your grief and your pride. And you cannot stand in one place for long, lest the ground turn to depthless mud around your feet….

“Among us, among the Bonehunters, our secret language has begun. Cruel in its birth at Aren, sordid in a river of old blood. Coltaine’s blood. You know this. I need tell you none of this. We have our own Raraku. We have our own Y’Ghatan. We have Malaz City.

“In the civil war on Theft, a warlord who captured a rival’s army then destroyed them – not by slaughter; no, he simply gave the order that each soldier’s weapon hand lose its index finger. The maimed soldiers were then sent back to the warlord’s rival. Twelve thousand useless men and women. To feed, to send home, to swallow the bitter taste of defeat. I was…I was reminded of that story not long ago….

“We too are maimed. In our hearts. Each of you knows this.

“And so we carry, tied to our belts, a piece of bone. Legacy of a severed finger. And yes, we cannot help but know bitterness….

“The Bonehunters will speak in our secret language. We sail to add another name to our burden, and it may be it will prove our last. I do not believe so, but there are clouds before the face of the future – and we cannot see. We cannot know.

“The island of Sepik, a protectorate of the Malazan Empire, is now empty of human life. Sentenced to senseless slaughter, every man, child, and woman. We know the face of the slayer. We have seen the dark ships. We have seen the harsh magic unveiled.

“We are Malazan. We remain so, no matter the judgement of the Empress. Is this enough reason to give answer?

“No, it is not. Compassion is never enough. Nor is the hunger for vengeance. But, for now, for what awaits us, perhaps they will do. We are the Bonehunters, and sail to another name. Beyond Aren, beyond Raraku and beyond Y’Ghatan, we now cross the world to find the first name that will be truly our own. Shared by none other. We sail to give answer.

“There is more. But I will not speak of that beyond these words: ‘What awaits you in the dusk of the old world’s passing, shall go…unwitnessed.’ T’amber’s words….

“They are hard and well might they feed spite, if in weakness we permit such. But to those words, I say this, as your commander: We shall be our own witness, and that will be enough. It must be enough. It must ever be enough.” (Reaper’s Gale, pp. 381-82)

This is my kind of epic: Not only a near hopeless quest to save the world but a near hopeless quest to save that world that no one will ever know about, succeed or fail. And the point is driven home in Tavore’s speech to the Bonehunters before facing their final battle against the Forkrul Assail:

“Does anyone know you? You, who stood in the shadows of the heavies and the marines. Who are you? What is your tale? So many have seen you marching past. Seen you, standing silent and unknown. Even now, your faces are almost lost beneath the rims of your helms….

“Corporal Grid Ffan, Third Squad, Eleventh Company. Bonehunter. You carried Sample – the soldier on your left – on your back. The last day in the desert. And, before the Blood for Water, the only thing that kept you – and her – alive was your love for her….

“Where stands Wreck-Eye?...

“When Lostara Yil lost consciousness protecting my life on the day of the Nah’ruk, you led your squad to recover us. Myself. Henar Vygulf. Captain Yil. You lost a brother, and to this day you can find no tears for him. But be at ease. There are those in your squad who have wept in your stead. At night, when you sleep….

“Sergeant Ordinary Grey. When Sergeant Gaunt-Eye’s squad of marines broke and tried to murder him, you and Could Howl held them all off – you cut them down to save Gaunt-Eye. Because once, long ago on the Holy Desert of Raraku, he showed kindness to you….

“Who are you? I know who you are. What have you done? You have stayed with me since the very beginning. Soldiers, hear me! This day is already lost to history, and all that happens here shall remain forever unknown. On this day, you are unwitnessed.

“Except for the soldier to either side of you. They shall witness. And I tell you this, those soldiers to either side of you, they are all that matters. The historians’ scrolls have no time for soldiers like you – I know, for I have read hundreds of them. They yield a handful of words to speak of defeat or victory. Perhaps, if so warranted, they will make mention of great valour, extraordinary courage, but the weight of those words is no more and no less than those used to speak of slaughter and murder. Because, as we all know, one soldier can be hero and villain both.

“We have no place in their histories. So few do. They are not us – they were never us, and we shall never be them.

“You are the Unwitnessed, but I have seen what you see. I have felt what you feel. And I am as much a stranger to history as to any of you….

“On the day of the Nah’ruk, they stood for you. Today, here, you shall stand for them. And I shall stand with you, my beloved soldiers…. Say nothing. We are walls of silence, you and me. We are perfect reflections of the one we face, and we have faced each other for so long now.

“And the meaning of that silence is none of the enemy’s business….

“Bonehunters. Yield only in death on this day.” (pp. 846-47)

It reminds me of Henry V’s exhortation in Shakespeare: It stirs the same emotions and would have convinced me to follow this woman into a hopeless battle.

I have invested about six years in following The Malazan Book of the Fallen and the ending of their tale did not disappoint – much. Many of the threads that Erikson has woven together are finally and satisfactorily tied off: Onos Toolan and Hetan; the penultimate battle at the Spire, where Stormy’s and Gesler’s sacrifices free the Crippled God’s heart; Brys Beddict’s destruction of Diligence, the Forkrul Assail general; his rescue by Aranict, Faint, Precious Thimble and Amby Bole. Others – tangential to the Crippled God’s tale – still hang loose: What’s Grub’s future role? What is the fate of the Shake and the returning Tiste Andii? What are Shadowthrone and Cotillion’s motives for instigating this convergence? What of the reborn Imass? The Jaghut? The K’Chain Che’Malle? I could go on…

But, in the end, I think Erikson quailed before the demands of his story – the Bonehunters lived! For five books, for near 5,000 pages, Erikson built up the expectation that Tavore and her soldiers were doomed even if they succeeded but when the final battle played out…it’s a fairy-tale happy ending: Tavore lives and is reunited with her brother, Ganoes.

While a part of me is glad Tavore made it, another part (dominant at the moment) doesn’t think the story ended correctly – Tavore and the Bonehunters should have died unwitnessed! It’s as if Achilles survived the Trojan War or Lear regained his throne. Reading the final chapter, I felt similarly to watching “The Search for Spock.” It was nice to have Spock back among the living but it utterly undercut the visceral power of “The Wrath of Khan” – from a narrative point of view, Spock should have remained dead. From a narrative point of view, Tavore should be dead.

My disappointment is moderate, however – nowhere near that of watching the final episode of “Battlestar Galactica” – and I should mention some of the (many) positive things in the book: It is always better when an author and reader are more or less in tune philosophically, and I liked where Erikson went in his analysis of capitalism (Letheras) and environmentalism (the Imass, among others) and his take on the “meaning of life” (about which nearly everyone opined at some point) and his exploration of the paradox of civilization (which underlay the Forkrul Assail’s attempted genocide and leads to a moment of introspection on Karsa Orlong’s part (p. 750)). Another thing I found effective was Erikson’s hopping from squad to squad as the 14th marched across the Glass Desert, getting into their heads and building them up as distinct characters.

Skimming The Crippled God and contemplating the other nine volumes, I realize that I could talk about any number of things that make this series so good but my fingers grow cramped from typing and – let’s be honest – anyone who’s made it through the previous books is not going to be balked by anyone’s review, good or bad, from finishing. Suffice to say that The Crippled God brings The Malazan Book of the Fallen to a good enough conclusion. There are a few books I come back to again and again, so often that I know each scene by heart and every character is a comfortable companion, because I keep finding new things in them and I think that these books are going to join that company.

The B-list (by no means complete): Fiddler, Onrack, Masan Gilani, Sinter, Kruppe, Tehol, Bent and Roach, Apsalar (aka Sorry) and – of course – the elusive Nefarias Bredd.

Bonus thought – Most-unexpected-but-obvious-in-hindsight-reveal: Tavore (and probably T’amber as well) is a Talon:

“The lid creaked as Tavore opened it, startling Lostara.

Reaching inside, she drew out a necklace – a simple leather string and an eagle’s talon of brass or gold. Then she turned to the captain. ‘Would you tie this for me, please?’

But Lostara simply stared at the talon.

'Captain.’

She looked up, met Tavore’s eyes.

The Adjunct sighed. ‘I am a child of the Emperor – what more is there for you to understand, Lostara Yil?’” (p. 844)

The Clan = U.S. Healthcare in Microcosm?

2011-03-16T11:11:00.000-07:00

Malcolm

This is Malcolm. One of the nine cats I live with. He is also the latest victim in the ongoing medical saga of the Clan.

First there was Calvin, who was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism about this time last year, and now has to take meds for the rest of his life. Happily, after a rocky start, we've found the right dosage and he's doing fine. But, of course, he does have to take meds for the rest of his life.

Then there's Meggie. She came down with a bad case of constipation a few months ago. Apparently, when cats get constipation their colons never quite recover so she's taking laxatives. This isn't so bad, either. What it amounts to is that I put about a teaspoon of human laxative (Miralax) into a big spoonful of wet food and she eats it. I don't know what - if any - piquancy the Miralax gives to the food but Meggie likes it, and it's become the morning ritual that as soon as I put out the day's dry food for the other guys, she and I repair to the bathroom and she gets her bowl.

Emma was the next patient. She's been losing weight. If you know Emma, this is not a good thing because she's never been a very hefty cat. If cats were susceptible to anorexia or bulimia, she would be a good candidate to keep an eye on. As it turned out, her weight loss seems to be tied to very early stage II kidney disease. Because of her all the Clan is now on a kidney-friendly diet (supplied by the vet at twice the price of my old, pet-store-supplied food (sigh)).

And now there's Malcolm.

Last week I took him and Meggie in for their yearly physicals and rabies boosters. Meggie is doing very well but Malcolm had lost a lot of weight. Way too much for the vet's comfort zone. (He had been 15 lbs when I brought him in 2 months ago when I brought him in because he had a bad cold; when he was weighed this time he was down to 13 lbs. - too much loss too quickly.) The doctor did a complete blood/urine analysis, and it turns out that my little buddy has late stage II kidney disease. Unfortunately, that entails a bit more than just changing his diet; it means the vet put him on what's called "subcutaneous fluids." Twice a week, I need to put a saline IV into Malcolm. Shane, the vet tech, demonstrated last Saturday (March 12) when I was at the clinic. Yesterday (March 15 - "Beware the Ides of March" takes on a whole new meaning for Malcolm), I did it at home. It went very well. Malcolm was calm throughout and only got a bit fidgety at the end, squirming around and jumping away as soon as I pulled out the needle.

For those unfamiliar with the procedure: I take a bag of saline and hang it up from a high point. I take Malcolm and put him in the bottom of a cat carrier (it's close and makes it easier to control him). Then I pinch up a fold of skin, slide the IV needle in, open the drip and let c. 150ccs flow. It takes only a few minutes, and he develops this weird little camel-like hump of fluid. But - apparently - it helps the kidneys do their job, and if it makes him feel better then that's a plus as well.

This also is something that I'll have to do for the rest of his life (and more frequently as the disease progresses).

It struck me how much like the U.S. healthcare system my Clan is: An aging, largely uninsured or underinsured population (only 10% - i.e., me - has coverage) that's facing increasing medical costs.

It's probably not wise to push the analogy too far, though.

The Last Ringbearer more Smiley's People than Lord of the Rings

2011-03-06T13:30:00.000-08:00

My friend Doug forwarded the link to The Last Ringbearer, a retelling of The Lord of the Rings by a Russian scientist. I'm enough of a social-media Luddite that this was all news to me though Tolkien-related blogs and whatnot have been buzzing about it for months. What follows is my review after downloading the free English PDF and persevering through its 270 pages (you can also read it and many other brilliant (IMO) reviews on my GoodReads page):

Saying that The Last Ringbearer is The Lord of the Rings told from Mordor’s point of view is not entirely accurate. True, the principal characters are an army medic and scout of Mordor and an erstwhile Ranger of Ithilien but all the action takes place after the War of the Ring. Middle Earth is recast as Europe during the Cold War, with Gondor and Mordor assuming the roles of the superpowers. The “magic” of Tolkien’s vision becomes window dressing, and the novel reads more like John Le Carré fanfic than Tolkien.

Essential plot: The War of the Ring erupts between Mordor (ruled by Sauron VIII) and Gondor (ruled by Denethor of the Anarion Dynasty*) primarily because Gondor wants to choke off Mordor’s trade routes and reduce it to vassalage. More fundamentally, the Elves and the Wizards are using Gondor to destroy the growing power of technology, which threatens to destroy the traditional balance of Nature and power in the world.** Eskov’s background as a scientist and enthusiasm for technology comes through clearly in his description of Barad-Dur:

“…that amazing city of alchemists and poets, mechanics and astronomers, philosophers and physicians, the heart of the only civilization in Middle Earth to bet on rational knowledge and bravely pitch its barely adolescent technology against ancient magic.” (Chapter 2)

The last survivor of the Order of the Nazgul tasks Haladdin and Tzerlag with destroying the Mirror of Galadriel and the palantiri, which will close off the world of the Elves (the Far West) and prevent them from enslaving Man and condemning the world to an eternal Dark Age. In order to destroy the Mirror, Haladdin and Tzerlag must acquire two palantiri, bring one into the presence of the Mirror, simultaneously throwing the other into the fires of Orodruin (Mt. Doom). The remainder of the novel is a confusing account of their efforts to fulfill the mission divided into four parts that focus on various aspects of the quest. Part I sets up the quest. Part II recounts Haladdin’s and Tzerlag’s efforts to acquire some Seeing Stones and introduces us to the Machiavellian politics of Gondor: Aragorn has spared Faramir’s life but he and Eowyn live under house arrest in Ithilien; Aragorn is trying to get out from under the Elves’ thumb (represented by Arwen, who is his nominal “wife” but whose presence in Minas Tirith is to ensure that Men don’t get out of control). Part III is – as far as I can tell – a largely pointless diversion to Umbar, where Tangorn (the Ithilien Ranger mentioned above) has to do something to advance the cause. I’m not sure why Tangorn has to be in Umbar or what the consequences of his actions are but this is the most Le Carresque section of the novel and the hardest to get through. Part IV moves to Dol Guldur and Lothlorien, and Haladdin’s ultimate success in destroying the Mirror.

There’s an Epilogue written in light of the utterly mundane world that results and has some amusing asides, e.g., Eomer becomes a religious fanatic of a heretical Harad sect and dies fighting in the South.

As a piece of literature, The Last Ringbearer fails at nearly every level. Stylistically, it’s all over the map. In some places, Eskov attempts to write in a lyrical style – emulating Tolkien? – but the results are not good. I reproduce my favorite of the many overwrought and unintentionally comic stabs at description:

“The shrimp were excellent. They sat on the tin plate like battle-ready triremes on the dim morning surface of the Barangar Bay: spiky rostrums in the tangle of rigging (feelers) threatening the enemy, oars (feet) hugging the body, just like they should in preparation for boarding.” (Chapter 36)

Even worse than having the author point out what concrete objects the metaphor is referring to is that this aside serves no point in the narrative.

Other times, Eskov writes in a colloquial, 21st-century idiom that jarringly plops this reader back into his easy chair before jerking him once again into Middle Earth. I can open the book at random and find numerous examples:

As when Aragorn kills the Commander-South (aka the Witch King of Angmar):

“‘Of course they won’t,’ laughed the Dunadan, ‘since they will be kneeling before the new King of Gondor! I beat you in an honest fight, one on one – so it shall be written in all the history books. As for you, they won’t even remember your name. I’ll make sure of that. Actually,’ he stopped in midstride, hunting for the stirrup, ‘we can make it even more interesting: let you be killed by a midget, some tiny little dwarf with hairy paws. Or by a broad… yes, that’s how we’ll do it.’” (Chapter 7)

Or in Umbar:

“The fat man shook and sweated, but remained silent. Having no time to spare – at any moment someone might start breaking down the door – Jacuzzi (sic) made his proposition short and to the point: ‘Ten seconds to think about it. Then I’ll start counting to five, breaking a finger at each count. On the count of six I’ll cut your throat with this razor. Look in my eyes – do I look like I’m joking?’

‘You’re from the Secret Service, right?’ the Senior Inspector mumbled mournfully, gray with terror. It was clear as day that he had not earned his stripes capturing criminals in the Kharmian Village slums.” (Chapter 51)

Or this conversation between two Elves:

“‘Clofoel of the World! You’re under arrest for treason. Stand against the wall!’

They stood facing each other, the Mirror between them; the clofoel of Tranquility had his sword out – he was not about to give that snake any chances, she was mortally dangerous as it was.

‘Unclip the dagger from your belt…now the stiletto in your left sleeve…. Kick them away with your foot! Now, we’ll talk. The magic object that Star fool’s dancers can’t find is attached to the bottom of the “table,” right? One has to drop on all fours before the Mirror to see it – surely no one will think of that. It’s impossible to find it magically – the dancers are like a dog that has to find a perfumed handkerchief hidden in a sack of crushed pepper. An excellent idea, my compliments! By the way, what is it?’

‘A palantir.'

‘Whoa!’ He apparently never expected that. ‘Whose gift is it – the Enemy’s?’

‘No, Aragorn’s.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ (Chapter 66)

The attempt to create distinct and memorable characters also falls flat. The most successful effort (relatively) in that direction is Tangorn, who’s given some background and a love interest (a high-priced hetaira in Umbar). Haladdin, who you would expect to be the central character, practically disappears from the narrative after Part I, and only takes center stage again in Part IV when he orders a poor Troll off on a suicide mission and throws the palantir into Mt. Doom.

Eskov is equally ham handed at creating a sense of menace or moral evil in his bad guys. Case in point is an utterly gratuitous gang-rape and murder that establishes the villainous bona fides of Marandil, Gondor’s “chief of station” in Umbar. To Eskov’s credit, the whole vile episode happens off stage but it still reads … wrong!***

The biggest “sin” committed by Eskov, however, is that he misses the point of The Lord of the Rings and myth in general. I have read the translation of his blog post, where he laments at the “unreality” of Middle Earth’s geography and wanted to make it something that could have actually existed but that’s beside the point – and, in this case, reduces it to a novel of the Cold War. But that a limited view of what’s “real.” Myths don’t have to conform to the latest meteorological theories – if our Hero has to cross a blazing desert to find his Princess, then he rides from the Forest of Broceliande to the Sands of Araby in a couple of days. And myths aren’t meant to reflect the “real” world. As Ursula Le Guin writes in “From Elfland to Poughkeepsie”: “A fantasy is a journey. It is a journey into the subconscious mind, just as psychoanalysis is. Like psychoanalysis, it can be dangerous; and it will change you (emphasis in the original). The Lord of the Rings addresses so many issues – the struggle between doing what’s right and resisting what’s wrong when you don’t know the correct path, the responsibilities of friendship, the promise of redemption, etc. – that when it is reduced to a spy thriller, it leaves a sour taste in your mouth.

I have no problem with de-mythologizing LotR (though I’m not sure what the point would be****) but if you’re going to reject the fantasy you have to reject all the fantasy, which Eskov does not do. He removes the magic he doesn’t need and keeps only what’s necessary to justify his storyline.

A retelling of the War of the Ring retains the mythic/fantastic elements of Middle Earth but would look at it from another’s POV or recast the myth into a different tradition. For example, an author could keep the essentially Christian Good/Evil ethic but tell it from an Orc’s point of view, or Gollum’s, or a Haradrim’s (as Sam himself asks in The Two Towers on seeing a dead Haradrim, “He wondered what the man’s name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace...” (“Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit”). Tolkien toys with this in “Aldarion and Erendis” and in the fragment “Tal-Elmar.”

Another option would be to recast Middle Earth in terms of another tradition, e.g., Ancient Greece. The Greeks (pre-Socratic certainly) were largely uninterested in our conceptions of Good and Evil, theirs was a mythology of Heroes. The analogy can only be pushed so far but in this vision, Boromir would be an Achilles figure; Gandalf would be Odysseus, the trickster; and the Witch King would be Hector (?). Or, as in Antigone, we could represent the War as a conflict between two admirable but incompatible visions of the good life. Eskov fumbles with this in the theme of preserving a more natural, spiritual way of life vs. the science/modernism and rationalism of Mordor but his clear preference for the latter makes the former a caricature.

In the end, I can’t recommend The Last Ringbearer to anyone. It’s a failed experiment that misses Tolkien’s purpose in writing The Lord of the Rings, offering no deeper understanding of that purpose nor anything to replace it.

* This brings up a pedantic point but there are curious lapses in Eskov’s understanding of the original story. Anarion was the younger son of Elendil and his son was the first king of Gondor. The Stewards were descended from Húrin, the steward of Minardil, and thus of the House of Húrin.

Eskov also seems to believe that Middle Earth is an alternate Earth when it is, of course, our Earth. If our myths of Atlantis are a much distorted understanding of the Drowning of Numenor, then the First Age ended around 13,000 BC, Numenor fell around 10,000 BC and the War of the Ring was fought around 6,000 BC. And talk about realism – The drowning of Beleriand was obviously caused by rising sea levels when the last Ice Age ended.

** Cf., Ralph Bakshi’s “Wizards.”

*** Also to Eskov’s credit is that he does not make the mistake of writing sex scenes.

**** I’m reminded of a creative-writing class I took as an undergraduate. I wrote a couple of short stories as SF or Fantasy and the teacher (a grad student) asked the very appropriate question – Why? What is it about your story that requires a nonrealistic setting? (This was before I had done much reading in mythic/fantastic criticism, including Le Guin’s essay, so I didn’t have a good answer but I think now I would say that I wrote in a fantastic style because I liked the genre.) Le Guin makes a distinction in the “Elfland” essay between “daydreaming” (TLR) and “dreaming” (LotR); I was daydreaming not mythologizing.

This brings up yet another reason why I’m not taken with Joe Abercrombie’s work. There’re daydreams with mythical trappings that could just as easily take place in Renaissance Italy or a thoroughly modern 21st Century. In Steven Erikson’s work, by contrast (and to bring in an author whose style is very far from Tolkien’s), the myth is integral to the story. Many scenes in the Malazan Book of the Fallen could be characterized as “daydream” but he also steps between Mundania and Faerie when he passes from the gritty realism of assassins stalking the night or the comic banter of Tehol and Bugg to the Warrens or Kruppe’s dreams, where every word carries portentous weight. And if the journey of Tavore and the Bonehunters isn’t primal myth then I don’t know what is.

FINAL NOTE: I couldn’t figure out where to put this thought above but my GR Friend Tatiana in the comments on my GR page mentions that “Orc” is not so much a biological category as a category of behavior, which reminded me of one of the many scenes in Jackson’s film version that really bothered me: The scene where Aragorn cuts off the head of the Mouth of Sauron. My first reaction was exactly that – This is how an Orc would react, not a Man of the West, and certainly not the Heir of Isildur. In the book this scene is so much more subtle and brilliant and the Mouth is cowed without a single violent gesture.

Good English - It's not rocket science

2011-02-08T09:40:00.000-08:00

I've mentioned before that I work for a media relations firm who wishes to remain anonymous on its employees' blogs, and I'll respect its wishes for the moment. There's no point in potentially stoking its paranoid fantasies of worker sabotage or industrial spying - not yet (heh, heh, heh).

Sometimes, however, I must report on things that happen around the office that strike me. A case in point happened last week when I was prepping a press release and came across the following:

"The company is well funded, and confident to have the financial support needed to achieve the established goals to move forward in the execution of the company's business plan."

Technically it is a sentence but aesthetically it's a Frankenstein monster of enormous proportions and should never have been allowed to see the light of day (unfortunately, I'm a glorified proof-reader and couldn't make the changes I longed to effect so it was distributed as is).

If I were a "real" editor, this is how I would have fixed the poor thing:

"The company is well funded, and is confident that it has the financial support needed to execute its business plan."

Is is Shakespeare? Does it even reach the level of Stephen King on a good day? Well, no, but it's certainly more readable and (dare I say) more exciting than the original. For one thing, I've eliminated 4 of the 5 prepositions that slowed things down. And I've made the verbs as active as they could be (sadly most of them were forms of "to be").

At any rate, the point is that it took me less than a minute to dramatically improve the readability and impact of an otherwise unreadable sentence, and it's an example of the worst part of my job - reading crap like this day in and day out. There's not much about my job I would want to change but the writing competence of our clients is certainly up there.

REVIEW: War Is Not Over When It's Over: Women and the Consequences of Conflict

2011-02-08T09:21:00.000-08:00

I quote some graphic excerpts in the review below. If you have a low threshold for such, skip the italicized quotes. You’ve been warned.

It is impossible for me to objectively review this book for the reason that I do not think it’s possible for any sane human being to justify war, violence, or any culture or tradition that denies a voice to half of our species if they read this book. (Or similar ones: From my own bookshelf I can list The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East (Robert Fisk) and Vietnam at War (Mark Philip Bradley), and there are more.) When you read books like this, it’s also difficult to swallow what passes for reasoned discourse in our public sphere where you see the appalling arrogance, ruthlessness and ignorance of our governing classes (who are only too happy to keep the hoi polloi equally arrogant, ruthless and clueless).

In War Is Not Over When It’s Over, Ann Jones argues that war is only the most visible face of violence and that its consequences destroy lives well after any peace accords have been signed and all the politicians have gone home. Even when it’s over, war ingrains the habits of violence and dehumanization, which leak over into civil life. Jones doesn’t address the issue in relation to the U.S. but you can easily find stories about increasing domestic violence and rape perpetrated by returning veterans or by soldiers in the field.

The origins of this book come out of Jones’ work with the UN and the International Red Cross (IRC) in their efforts to aide and protect refugees and the victims of the myriad wars afflicting our planet. Jones visited several countries where she organized groups of women who would photographically document their lives. It wasn’t meant to be a witness to the atrocity of violence (though that was a part of the project) but the women were meant to document their communities’ needs and the positives in their lives. At the end of the projects, the women hosted an exhibition displaying their efforts. In every case, Jones found that the experience made its participants more confident. In some cases it helped bring about real change. For example, in one village in Côte d’Ivoire, its chief, Zatta, declared that the violence documented in the photos must end and began including women in his council (which he continued to do even after the UN mission left, according to Jones). Among the Burmese refugee camps along the Thai border, the women learned to document rape and abuse cases and have made some progress in having offenders prosecuted. Both examples point up to the forces of inertia and tradition women struggle against. Everywhere she went, Jones faced societies that relegated women to second-class status and blamed their oppression on them (an attitude the enlightened West still falls prey to all too often).

I’ve written enough – let a few representative excerpts speak for themselves now:

From Sierra Leone:
“Official reports document appalling crimes: fathers forced to rape their own daughters; brothers forced to rape their sisters; boy soldiers who gang-rape old women, then chop off their arms; pregnant women eviscerated alive and the fetus snatched from the womb to satisfy soldiers’ bet on its sex. A brother is hacked to death and eviscerated; his heart and liver are placed in the hands of his eighteen-year-old sister, who is commanded to eat them. She refuses. She is told that her two children and her sister have been abducted. She's taken to the place where her sister and two other women are held. She sees them murdered. Their heads are placed in her lap. Such crimes deliberately violate primal taboos; they aim to crush not only the individual victims but also those who physically survive the violence. They are meant to destroy a way of life and the values that inform it. Yet the individual victims are important in their own right, and in most cases they are women and children.” (pp. 96-7)

From Congo:
“Charlotte had become a leader in CFK, working on the cases of young girls who had recently been raped, not by militiamen but by civilians right there in Kamanyola. A twelve-year-old girl was raped by her teacher. A nine-year-old was raped by a young boy. A seven-year-old was raped by a middle-aged man. An eleven-year-old was raped by her father. A seven-year-old was raped by her pastor. Charlotte was one of the women who visited the parents, persuaded them not to compromise, and helped them take their child’s case to court. But the rape of these young girls by civilians – by teachers, pastors, fathers – this was something new in the community, since the war, and the women of CFK were struggling to understand it. Later I told Charlotte and others about the way the habits of war carry over into peacetime, the way the habits of soldiers are taken up by civilians. I told them about the civilian rapes of little girls in Liberia, snatched even from church, and in Sierra Leone. Unknown before the war, civilian rapists and child rape in Kamanyola – like gang rape – were becoming normal.” (pp. 146-7)

And two examples from our “glorious liberation” of Iraq:
“The violence done by ordinary men to other ordinary men like Othman and Sayed destroys the victims. Men told me of being kidnapped as teenagers, beaten, confined without food or water, and coerced to provide sexual gratification to their captors. They spoke without apparent feeling, having retreated behind some psychic barrier where safety lay. Although most men won’t tell - `A raped man is not a man,’ one said – UNHCR in Amman had recorded nearly three hundred cases of sexual violence against men. Captivity and torture of men in Iraq always seemed to have about it this peculiar quality of homoerotic sadism, the effluence of a culture that adores men far more than women yet sets them officially out of reach.” (p. 215)

“Mona was attacked in her Baghdad home by a gang of men in black who broke down the door at four o’clock in the morning. They dragged her about by her hair and slapped her around, demanding to know where her husband was. She told them the truth, that he had fled to Lebanon for fear of kidnapping. She said she had stayed behind so that her children could finish school…. They told her to write down the names of people in the neighborhood and whether they were Sunni or Shia…. She refused. They broke her arm, they ripped off her nightclothes, they twisted her broken arm behind her back, and they raped her. She begged for mercy, saying, `I am Muslim, like you.’ One of them said, `You are a Sunni infidel. If you were a Muslim you would not let your daughter do gymnastics.’… `They raped my sister, too,’ she said, gesturing toward the corner where a skeletal figure lay on the floor, staring at us with vacant eyes. `She was an invalid; she couldn’t use her legs. The rape finished her. All those men. Now she just lies on her mat and pisses herself.’ That night, Mona feared for her children, but after the men left the house, the two little boys crept out of the cupboards, and she found her daughter on the roof, hiding in the water tank. She phoned her husband, and he blamed her. A year later, long after her brother helped her move the family to Damascus, her husband came to join her. He raped her too, and she became pregnant, but before long he beat her so badly that she miscarried. He left again for Lebanon and sent notice of their divorce. Her daughter was not able to finish school.” (pp. 223-4)

Jones also points out the iniquities and hypocrisy of the U.S. government. In Iraq we’ve (the U.S.) managed to refuse a significant number of refugees by the simple expedient of accusing them of violating the PATRIOT Act: “Families that had redeemed relatives from kidnappers were excluded on the grounds that paying ransom amounted to providing `material support’ to terrorists…” (p. 232). Refugees in Jordan get more aid than those “fortunate” enough to reach the U.S., and many of those advise their relatives still in Iraq to reject the U.S. if they can.

When you’ve come to the end of a book like this, the inevitable question is, “What can I do?” It’s a depressing situation, and it seems intractable. On my part, inadequate as it may be, the IRC has joined the list of charities I support. It’s amazing what they manage to accomplish in the face of misogynistic tradition and political indifference. And I’m going to pester my representatives to stop frakking around with our obligations under the UN and international law, and to support family planning even if it does include (gasp!) abortion counseling. (I’m fortunate in that all my reps are Democratic women so I hold out the hope that they might listen – an admittedly faint one, I’ll grant you.)

There are a few flaws in the book that, I believe, weaken its impact:

There’s a certain lack of passion or connection in the first few chapters that only begins to lift when we reach Congo and makes the second half more intense and memorable. Perhaps Jones had a more personal interest invested in these later venues. Whatever the case, the greater passion she’s capable of while still maintaining the necessary distance makes me want to see what she’s written about her experience in Afghanistan – Kabul in Winter: Life Without Peace in Afghanistan.

Not enough photos. I don’t mean that I wanted to see photos of torture or rape victims but I did want to see more evidence of the conditions these people endure and of the good things they were able to find in their lives.

I wish there was a section dedicated to resources and sources. They are there but buried in the Notes section.

These are decidedly minor quibbles and certainly shouldn’t deter you from reading this important witness to the atrocity of violence.

Bowdlerizing Mark Twain

2011-01-11T10:45:00.000-08:00

Next month, Alan Gribben, a professor at Auburn University in Alabama, will publish a critical edition of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Normally this would not raise any eyebrows or hackles except for the fact that this time he has "improved" the text and made it more "accessible" by replacing all instances of nigger (hereinafter "the N-word") with slave (or runaway slave) and injun with Indian (this last emendation has passed without comment, as far as I know, all the attention is focused on the N-word).

I caught an interview with Gribben on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" last week where he justified his actions on two grounds:

Mark Twain was constantly returning to his work to edit it - his Autobiography is notorious for this. In fact, Twain said "[t]he difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug." So, according to Gribben, he is justified in determining the "right word" for modern audiences (perhaps channeling Twain's ghost?). If there were two or more readings of the text (as often happens with, e.g., Medieval manuscripts), an editor would be perfectly justified in choosing one interpretation over another (though they would be called upon to justify it). But here we have no disputed texts, no ambiguity about what word Twain thought appropriate (he uses it 219 times!), and Gribben is just plain, flat-out wrong, wrong, wrong to change it.

The second justification is that slave is a word with as many, and as powerfully negative connotations as the N-word. This last assertion is so wrong on so many levels it deserves no comment. While I don't believe anyone would enjoy being called a "slave," I think the reactions were you to go to an African-American community and call someone that would be bemusement and/or confusion rather than anger. On the other hand, were you to walk up to someone and say, "You lousy N-word!," the reactions would be quite different.

Marcia Alesan Dawkins wrote an essay at Truthdig, "10 Reasons Why the Slurs Should Stay in ‘Huck Finn’", which lays out the case quite eloquently. I reproduce here just the headings:

1. It’s Mark Twain.
2. Tampering with literatureis a censorship and it’s a bad idea.
3. Erasing racial epithets doesn’t erase race or racism.
4. It eliminates teachable moments.
5. Freedom of choice.
6. There were other options. Gribben could’ve rewritten the story from a different perspective.
7. You can’t fight censorship with censorship.
8. We’re not talking about the words that will replace nigger and Injun.
9. Offensive terms are being invented and popularized right now.
10. It’s coming from the “New South.”

We're back to the status quo antebellum

2011-01-11T10:17:00.000-08:00

The fifty years between the Second World War and the collapse of the Soviet Union were an unprecedented era of political comity in American politics. An epoch when the business class played "nice" with the working/middle classes in the face of the Communist "threat." When the threat became moot, the gloves came off again, and we can see the results in today's economic debacles, persistent economic malaise, and the unrelenting destruction of the middle class and a society based on the equitable distribution of wealth.

Anyone with a modicum of familiarity with American history knows that violent, over-the-top rhetoric was the norm from the beginning of the Republic. One of the most striking things brought out in Sean Wilentz's The Rise of American Democracy is the alienness of the notion that two (or more) opposing views can coexist in a functioning polity. The Founders envisioned a ruling elite that would dispute means but not ends; the quarrels would be gentlemanly disagreements, resolved amicably. And even the subsequent Democracy of the Jacksonian Era didn't envision permanent political parties representing the varied interests of the country. As a consequence, the politics of the time vilified the opposition as "traitors" and "enemies of the Republic," and it wasn't uncommon for political rallies to devolve into brawls.

I bring this up, of course, in reaction to what happened in Tucson on Saturday (Jan. 8), when a paranoid schizophrenic let loose on a political rally, killing at least five people (including a 9-year-old girl) and critically wounding the district's US Representative (Gabrielle Gifford took a bullet through the brain but appears to be doing remarkably well, all things considered).

The Left-leaning blogs and bloviators have been running with the idea that the admittedly poisonous Republican and Tea Party rhetoric of the last few years is to blame for Jared Loughner's actions; the Right wing is defensively (and at times hysterically) claiming that Loughner is a "lone gunman," a crazed individual who's actually a Leftie and drug addict.

Neither side is entirely right nor entirely wrong. To the Left's credit, they have a point that a political culture that tolerates candidates sponsoring a day where people can shoot M-16s at targets of his opponent encourages extreme, possible violent actions, and it might be time to tone the rhetoric down. To the Right's credit, Jared Loughner is not a Tea Party or Republican activist. Unlike al Qaida or the Red Brigades, there was no conspiracy to kill a government official. He really is a paranoic whose fantasies were readily fed by the crap spewing from Right wing outlets like Fox (e.g., Beck, Bachmann, Palin, etc.).

I think a sane and refreshingly cogent interpretation of what happened can be found in Harry Shearer's HuffPo post from Jan. 10. As he writes:

This country has had toxic political rhetoric since its birth pangs, and there has undeniably followed in the past two centuries an occasional outbreak of political violence. But now we're being told that toxic political rhetoric is dangerous, because of its possible effect on the less rational, more mentally unhinged folks among us. So, maybe it's time to ask this question: Why are they among us?

Loughner had been expelled from college and rejected by the military for mental instability, and yet he was able to buy 30-round ammo clips from the neighborhood Wal-Mart.

There's no simple explanation for what happened Saturday, nor is there a simple solution to the problems it pointed up but I think Shearer has hit upon an important factor that's being ignored.

2010 - Last Year's Best Reads (part 2)

2011-01-03T10:10:00.000-08:00

Bookwise, the second half of 2010 proved pretty good. My love affair with Sylvia Townsend Warner continued, I discovered an interesting new author, and boned up on my American history. As usual, most of these books have some sort of write up on my GoodReads site.

On the Fiction Shelf (in chronological order):

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson. Outside of “The Lottery,” I’d never read any Jackson but was intrigued by a review of this book in The New York Review of Books, and was very entertained by this quirky look at a decidedly odd pair of sisters. At the same time, I watched a film called “Spider Babies,” with Lon Chaney, that was similar and also (surprisingly) good. Both recommended.

Lorna Doone, R. Blackmore. I picked up a copy of this book at the library for 25 cents after watching an adaptation of it. This is a really good book, far better than I could have hoped.

Mock’s Curse, T.F. Powys, and Selected Stories, Sylvia Townsend Warner. Two short-story collections by two of my favorite authors.

Journey to Aprilioth, Songs from the Drowned Lands, The Sarsen Witch, Eileen Kernaghan. I first read Aprilioth when I was a teen-ager (early teens) and always remembered it as a really good book so, in one of my occasional fits of nostalgia, I scrounged around and got used copies of it and the subsequent sequels (which I hadn’t read). Aprilioth was about as good as I remembered it. I didn’t think the other two books were quite as successful but they were still good and I enjoyed reading them. The setting is early Bronze Age Europe: Aprilioth recounts the adventures of a young British Celt who sets out on a journey to the legendary city of Aprilioth (on the island of Thera in the Mediterranean), the last settlement of Atlantis; Songs is a series of linked stories about the drowning of Atlantis; and The Sarsen Witch is about a young woman in the generation after Aprilioth, when the Goddess-worshipping tribes of Britain were falling back against the onslaught of God-worshipping invaders.

I'd like to get Kernaghan's Winter on the Plain of Ghosts, which is set in Harappan India.

Gods of Night, Mere Mortals, Lost Souls, David Mack. David Mack is one of the best Star Trek novelists out there. This may sound light faint praise but it really isn’t. Mack has a knack for vivid description and writing a compelling story. Not great literature by any means but if you’re a Trekkie and/or looking for some brain candy to read, this is highly recommended.

And, speaking of Star Trek, another serendipitous find was Night of the Living Trekkies, Kevin Anderson and Sam Stall. I was apprised of this little gem from a GoodReads review. Normally, I wouldn’t bother with another entry in the latest vampire-zombie novel genre but it is Trek and it was recommended by a man whose opinion I trust. My Uncle Russ, who died a couple of years ago and was the family’s Uber-Trekkie (I’m just an apprentice), would have loved this.

Kraken, China Miéville. I liked this book more than Miéville’s The City and The City, which I also read during the latter half of the year. It’s fast paced, baroque and over the top.

The Marquise of O-, Heinrich von Kleist. Von Kleist is a little known (to English speakers) German author, which is unfortunate because he’s very, very good. As I noted in my GoodReads’ review, the translators managed to preserve the Teutonic flavor of the writing without sacrificing readability for Anglophones.

The Corner That Held Them and The Music at Long Verney, Sylvia Townsend Warner. Ooooh, I get goose bumps this woman is so good. Read her!

On the Nonfiction Shelf (also in chronological order):

Aurelian, Alaric Watson, and Diocletian, Stephen Williams. Routledge Press has a whole series on the Roman Emperors and in a perfect world, I’d have the resources to buy them all.

Empires and Barbarians, Peter Heather. A brilliant look at the Roman Empire and the barbarians along its borders. You may not agree entirely with his thesis but his description of society of both sides of the frontier is fascinating.

Dinosaur Odyssey, Scott Sampson. A fascinating look at dinosaurs and the worlds they lived in. It’s probably a bit advanced for very young people but I think it would be OK for the 13+ crowd.

God Is Not One, Stephen Prothero. This is an interesting discussion about the various traditions of the world’s religions and makes the case (a good one, I think) that our conceptions of “God” are not the same and that the drive to create an ecumenical faith is misguided, at best.

The Rise of American Democracy, Sean Wilentz, and Disunion!, Elizabeth Varon. These two volumes were the best of the American history books I read, particularly Wilentz’s look at the American polity up to the Civil War. Varon’s book was more focused on the anti-slavery campaigns but both are recommended to anyone who wants to understand how this country developed.

Shakespeare, Sex, and Love, Stanley Wells. This is a provocative look at sexuality in Shakespeare and is prompting a read (or reread) of several plays.

That’s it for last year.

The new year promises some equally good reads, including the concluding volume of the Malazan Book of the Fallen.

Inter armas silent leges

2010-11-11T11:38:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I finished China Mieville's The City & The City, which (briefly) is about two cities - Beszel and Ul Qoma - that occupy the same physical space but whose citizens occupy totally separate mental spaces. It's an extreme version of the reality people in the world deal with every day and I was reminded of it when reading this entry at the TomDispatch.com website.

In essence, the author (Chase Madar) argues that Guantanamo is not an aberration in the current American prison system:

"Prosecuting a 15-year-old for `murder' with the help of a little torture and some threats of rape may not be the kind of thing we want to show German journalists. They’ll just get upset. They lack the context. But we Americans really have no right to claim that we’re shocked, shocked. We got used to this kind of thing a long time ago. The prosecution of former child soldier Omar Khadr has been nothing, in other words, if not all-American."

It's a form of the same "unseeing" that Beszel's and Ul Qoma's citizens practice every day.

Happy Armistice Day 2010

2010-11-11T10:15:00.000-08:00

Happy Armistice Day!

I remain "old school" when it comes to remembering the past. Instead of celebrating state-sanctioned killers we should be celebrating the restoration of peace (a semblance at any rate - the years between 1918 and 1939 were far from peaceful for far too many people).

It's tragic but not unexpected that on this day we learn that the deadline for withdrawing US troops from Iraq has been extended to 2014.

Vae victis and sieg heil, comrades!

"It is right that the murder of many people
be mourned and lamented.
It is right that a victor in war
be received with funeral ceremonies." (Tao te ching, Ursula Le Guin, translator)

Sarah Palin 2012 - How Did The Mayans Know?

2010-11-03T08:10:00.000-07:00

I take today's post title from a sign reportedly seen at Jon Stewart's Restore Sanity rally.

Well, it's November 3 and as the dust from yesterday's elections settles it becomes apparent that the Republicans didn't enjoy the utter blowout one might gather they had from the more hysterical headlines but the Democrats were handed their asses in too many contests that should have been theirs.

But not in California, happily. We went Democratic in a big way; most of the returns I looked at were decided by margins of 10% or more. The propositions were more uneven - glimmers of electorate intelligence shone only to be extinguished on the next vote.

Governor - Jerry Brown - Could be worse; we could be saying "Gov. Whitman"
Lt. Governor - Gavin Newsom
Secretary of State - Debra Bowen
Controller - John Chiang
Treasurer - Bill Lockyer
Attorney General - Kamala Harris? - I checked on the state's website and this was the only race that was in any way close. Harris has approx. 46% to Cooley's 45%, with 96%+ of the counties in so it's conceivable that the percentages could flip.
Insurance Commissioner - Dave Jones
US Senator - Barbara Boxer
US Representative - Judy Chu
Superintendent of Public Instruction - Tom Torlakson

The Propositions:
19 - No: Well, maybe next time. It was close.
20 - Yes
21 - No
22- Yes
23 - No
24 - No
25 - Yes: I'm a bit surprised that this one was passed (it requires a simple majority to pass a budget) but happy it did. Of course, this glimmer of intelligence was quickly extinguished by the results of the next proposition, 26.
26 - No
27 - No

Nationwide, we appear to have avoided the worst of the Tea Parties' candidates - no O'Donnell, no Miller, no Paladino - but we have a House led by a man who promises to turn back the anemic healthcare and banking reforms that Obama and the Democrats managed to get through, and a leadership dedicated to "investigating" the administration's numerous "crimes and misdemeanors."

Its going to be a brutal two years.

Election 2010 Ballot Recommendations (Part 2)

2010-10-24T12:44:00.000-07:00

I'm back from the bike ride: Beautiful late Fall So Calif weather - not too hot, not too cold, moderate cloud cover. Now for the propositions:

19 - Legalizes marijuana under CA law. - Yes
20 - Redistricting of Congressional districts. - Yes (probably)

This initiative had me sitting on the fence for a while. I voted NO on the measure a few election cycles ago that created the commission to redraw the state districts not because I'm enamored of the current, legislation-dominated system but because I don't trust Schwarzenegger (who sponsored it). This prop expands that commission's duties to include federal districts. In for a penny, in for a pound, however. I could be pleasantly surprised by the commission's results and we might as well try to make all our legislative districts, state and national, more balanced and competitive.

I'm troubled, however, by a concurrent proposition passed last cycle that mandates open primaries where the top two vote getters will be the only candidates on future ballots. This is the kind of measure that gives ammo to the modern-day Burke who sees only gloom and doom in the extension of the franchise to the hoi polloi. What's the point of competitive districts if the primary campaign sticks two Republicans (or two Democrats or, one could hope, two Greens) in the top slots?

One can hope that a disastrous election cycle will prompt an initiative repealing it.

21 - $18 surcharge on vehicle licensing to fund state parks/wildlife programs - Yes
22 - Prohibits state from borrowing or taxing funds used for transportation projects, etc. - No

Yet another bar to any hope (however faint) of rationally allocating state/local funds.

23 - Suspends implementation of air pollution control law - No

I'll repeat myself - NO. This is a God-awful, short-sighted, oil-industry-sponsored menace not just to the California economy but to the entire frakking world.

24 - Repeals legislation allowing businesses to lower tax liabilities - Yes

We're $50 billion in debt, it's not like we need an incentive to dig the hole any deeper.

25 - Changes voting requirement to pass budget to a simple majority - Yes
26 - Requires certain state/local fees be approved by 2/3rd majority vote - No
27 - Eliminates state commission on redistricting - No

Election 2010 Ballot Recommendations

2010-10-24T10:38:00.000-07:00

This is, of course, exclusive to California, though if anyone outside of the Golden State is reading this, I'd say - in general - avoid the Tea Party candidate and anything supported by the Chamber of Commerce.

State Races:
Governor - Laura Wells (Green).

The mainstream options are between Meg Whitman (R), a millionaire whose prescription for California's woes is to turn it into a corporation-friendly, regulation-hostile free-for-all zone, and Jerry Brown (D), who was governor 30 years ago. Of the two, a second Brown administration would be better than a first Whitman but I think it's symptomatic of the state's sclerotic Democratic Party that the only viable candidate they can find is a pol from the '70s.

It's heartening that despite spending over $100 million (reportedly) of her own money on this campaign, Whitman still trails Brown, who's been outspent 86 to 1 (as of August, I doubt the ratio has changed all that much). There may be hope for the electorate after all.

Lieutenant Governor - Gavin Newsom (D).

I was sorely disappointed when Newsom withdrew from the gubernatorial race but the Lt. Gov is a fairly powerful position under CA's constitution so I'm happy there's a potential he can bring his populist, progressive agenda to a statewide venue.

Secretary of State - Debra Bowen (D).

I still think Bowen is doing a good job.

Controller - John Chiang (D).

The same goes for Chiang, if only because he's fighting Schwarzenegger and the Republicans at every turn.

Treasurer - Charles Crittenden (Green).

The odds of Mr. Crittenden becoming our Treasurer are...slim...to say the least but the Republican, Libertarian and American Independent candidates would be disasters and the Democratic nod, Bill Lockyer, is another long-time insider who is (in my mind) too tainted with corporate and development-industry ties.

Attorney General - Kamala Harris (D).

I've heard/read good things about Ms. Harris and if my vote can help keep Steve Cooley (R) out of the office, then she has it.

Insurance Commissioner - William Balderston (Green).

Not much to say about this position. I'm sure the Democratic candidate, Dave Jones, would do fine but I want to help keep a third-party option alive in the state so I'm going with the Green candidate. (Besides, he looks too much like the office manager of the company - which shall remain as nameless as Voldemort - that I work for.)

Senator (US) - Duane Roberts (Green).

Carly Fiorina (R) - the woman who ran HP into the ground and had to be bribed into leaving the company. Yes, this is just what California needs. Barbara Boxer (D) is a decent enough senator and I won't be disappointed if (when, finger's crossed) she wins but she's too tied up with corporate/business interests to be really effective at changing the way things are done. At most she's holding the line but won't fundamentally reorient the system.

Superintendent of Public Instruction - Tom Torlakson (nonpartisan).

I like the cut of his jib.

The other state offices are district specific and unless you live near me would be of even less interest. But here they are:

State Board of Equalization - Jerome Horton (D).
US Representative (32nd) - Judy Chu (D). (I'd go Green but they didn't put up a candidate.)
State Senator (24th) - Ed Hernandez (D). (I have no choice - unless I wanted to leave it blank - he's running unopposed.)
State Assembly (57th) - Roger Hernandez (D). (No relation to Ed, I think.) (Again, I'd go Green but his only opponent is a Republican.)
County Assessor (LA) - John Wong (nonpartisan). (His opponent still thinks 1978's Prop 13 was a good idea.)

Regarding the judicial elections (which are nonpartisan, yes-or-no votes for a name unfamiliar to anyone who hasn't been before their bench or are family members), I direct you to this website: Judge Voter Guide, which is put together by a conservative, Republican-leaning industrious blogger with a lot of time on his hands. NB - VOTE OPPOSITE TO WHAT HE RECOMMENDS. If he's against a judge, then I'm for them.

I'm going to save the ballot measures for a second post later today. Right now (Sunday, Oct 24, 10:32 am), I have to give my cat his thyroid medicine and get my daily bike ride in.

Best Friend & Offspring Win Wii Games

2010-09-07T08:09:00.000-07:00

Some good news - My best friend from childhood, Doug Hutchison (not the actor), and his son, Connor, have won the Adult-Child category at the Nintendo Wii Games held in Redondo Beach this weekend (Labor Day).

Haven't heard about it? Not surprising. Nintendo has kept it on the down low. My friend learned about the regional competitions from an e-mail sent to his son a few days before they were held. Despite the last minute nature of the whole affair, they entered, won the regional, and were hosted by Nintendo at the national competition held in Redondo.

I met them this Saturday when they won the first place slot in the semi-finals. If we had been more foresightful, I would have met them on Sunday - If they had lost Saturday, we could have bummed around LA; otherwise, I could have been there for the ultimate triumph. But ce la vie...

What really annoyed me, however, was that I forgot the camera.... I was hoping to take some pictures that didn't feature my cats :-)

At any rate, this is the link to the only news story I could find when googling the event.

"All I Need to Know About Islam..."

2010-09-07T07:57:00.000-07:00

I don't claim to know a great deal about Islam. I've taken courses in college, I've read books, and (though this sounds as patronizing as "some of my best friends are black") I know a few personally.

What I don't know would fill a library. But I know enough to grasp that the actions of a few are the fruits of the same poison tree that nourishes fanatics of all stripes - from atheistic Bolsheviks who could only see Kulaks as obstacles in the way of the proletarian revolution, to Christians who blow up federal buildings and murder doctors providing abortions, to Muslims who allow girls to die horribly in a fire because they didn't have time to put on their "sacred" burkas, and the list of atrocities could go on and on and encompass every identifiable group of humans since recorded history began.

I was motivated to pen this blog because of two things I saw in the media recently. The first is this blog from the Alternet.org site, "When Stupid People don’t Know that They are Stupid: Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor Rally and the Dunning-Kruger Effect", by Chauncey de Vega. What particularly caught my ear was the comment by one of the interviewed that supplied the title of this post - "All I need to know about Islam I learned on 9/11."

The second is this news article on the San Francisco Chronicle site, "For US Muslims, a 9/11 anniversary like no other", the gist of which is that Muslim communities feel so threatened by anti-Muslim hysteria that they are going to great lengths to advertise their peaceful and charitable activities.

The Alternate Alternate Star Trek Timeline

2010-08-08T13:55:00.000-07:00

Way back in 2008, I posted my version of Star Trek's future history. It was unsatisfying (to me, at any rate), and under the impulse of my recent reacquaintance with things Star Trek, I revisited and extensively revised my history.

As before, I make no apologies for stealing ideas that I liked from the canon and elsewhere to incorporate in my vision.

AN ALTERNATE STAR TREK TIMELINE (revised):
[All dates are based on the Common Era dating of Earth]

Some terms defined:
The Primary Volume: This is the name for the region of space centered around the Founding Worlds of the Federation. Vaguely defined, its primary characteristic is that most intelligent species within its ambit are descendants of the hominids seeded by the hani over a period of 2 million E-years.

Ascendant Races: The Ascendants are a group of races that have transcended a purely material existence and no longer have any or much interaction with less evolved races. The number and nature of most Ascendants is unknown but a few that continue to interact with the galaxy at large include:

• Organians: The Organians would like to have no interaction with the galaxy but the Federation and Klingon Empire made that impossible in AD 2205. However, since they stopped enforcing the Organian Treaty in 2230, they have remained aloof from others’ affairs.

• Metrons: Outside of their interference during the Federation’s first encounter with the Gorn, the Metrons have refrained from further contact.

• Thasians

• The Continuum: Most recently, the Continuum has made itself known in the entity Q but the creature Trelayne, encountered by Enterprise, may have been a member of this group.

• Bajoran Prophets

• Adonais’ race: Encountered by Enterprise under James Kirk, Apollo/Adonais was the last of his species to maintain a physical existence. Since his transcendance, no other contact has been recorded with any other member his race.

• hani: The species that seeded Earth hominids across the Primary Volume beginning c. 2mya. The Hainim maintain a tradition that the original motive was imperialistic – the hani desired to dominate the galaxy – and that eventually they were defeated by a coalition of other races in a war that nearly destroyed contemporary galactic culture.

Forerunner Races: The Forerunners are a group of mostly extinct races that never achieved Ascendance (at least as a species) but did achieve space-faring civilizations prior to the current civilizations.

• Krell: Capable of star travel, the Krell (apparently) were never colonizers, though they did explore nearby space. Their crowning achievement was the creation of a civilization without instrumentation. Unfortunately, their homeworld was destroyed by a runaway chain reaction of the planet’s energy-production systems in AD 2130.

• Tkonians: Masters of an extensive and militaristic empire (at least by tradition), the Tkonians may have been the leaders in the coalition that brought down the hani.

• Ikonians: The Ikonians (aka the qhalur) mastered an alternative method of space travel: Gates that crossed space-time. Gate-connected systems encompass an enormous volume that probably far exceeds the present boundaries of explored space. There is evidence that a future has sent a team into the Gates to shut them down as they represent a substantial danger to the fundamental space-time continuum: Three hundred thousand years ago, when someone went back in time and changed things, the resulting “timequake” devastated Ikonia and every other Gate-connected world.

• Preservers: The Preservers were an offshoot of the hani, and appear to have gone extinct relatively recently (within the last 1,000 years).

• Vegan Tyrants: The Tyrants may also have been a hani species but they may also be related to the Old Kings of Klingon history. Vanishingly little is known of them.

• Arretians: Another hani remnant species, they destroyed themselves approximately 500kya. A lost colony may have interbred with Vulcans 6,000 years ago to produce the current, metapsychic species.

• Time Planet’s race: The only working artifact to survive from this race is the Guardian of Forever.

• Slavers: The thrintun were one of the first sentient species in the Milky Way galaxy, flourishing more than a billion years ago. Knowledge of their existence derives almost exclusively from discoveries of their stasis boxes, which preserve a variety of artifacts in an atemporal field. The only other known species from this remote era is the tnuctipun, the slaves who destroyed the Slaver Empire.

• Hainim: The direct descendants of hani who didn’t transcend (for whatever reason). In the modern era, they live a materially, technologically simple lifestyle on Hain.

• Talosians: The species continues to survive on Talos (at least as late as 2205) but both they and the Federation maintain a strict quarantine of the system.

Major Races: The major races are simply the current civilizations that play an important role in the present era and include:

• Humans
• Alphacenti (Angwusnasomtaqa)
• Vulcans (Kasî)
• Andorians (Andî or An’ndarân)
• Tellarites (Maushark)
• Klingons (tlhIngan)
• Romulans (Tsenuchaya)
• Orions (Ferengi)
• Gorn
• Tholians
• Kardassi
• Lyrans (Tzenkethi)
• Hydrans
• Eridani

c. 2mya – 50kya
An unknown species (or multiple species), commonly referred to as the hani, whose homeworld is Hain, seed a large number of starsystems with hominids from Earth, including Vulcan and Romulus. This fact explains the prevalence of humanoids in the region, and the relative ease of interspecies fertility.

The seed populations are not limited to Earth. There is cross seeding, illustrated in the cases of Romulus, whose population came initially from Vulcan 70,000 years ago, and the Kalar of the Rigel Star Group, who were also transplanted from Vulcan 200,000 years ago.

c. 100kya – 12kya
Approximately 100,000 years ago, the Old Kings conquers the primitive natives of Klinzhai (despite their humanoid appearance, the original Klingons were unmodified natives to their world) and begin a series of genetic modifications that make the base Klingon genome extraordinarily “plastic,” able to fuse with most other carbon-based genomes with relative ease. This results in a wide variety of castes that fulfill various functions for the Old Kings’ civilization.

c. 25kya
The majority of hani ascend, leaving a remnant physical population behind on Hain that continues to survive into the modern era.

c. 12kya
The Klingons rise up against their masters and overthrow the Old Kings in a holocaust that destroys many worlds and reduces Klinzhai to a Stone Age level.

A colony in the Fomalhaut A system evolves into the Orions (Ferengi) from a base population of pleasure- and labor-caste Klingons.

On Klinzhai, the so-called Imperial Race emerges from a mixture of labor and soldier castes with some admixture from smaller, more specialized populations.

c. 5000 BC - 4000 BC
Vulcan’s first advanced civilizations flourish. Though they never develop warp drive, they do create an interplanetary civilization of considerable accomplishment.

Vulcan nearly perishes in a nuclear and biological cataclysm that utterly wipes out these first civilizations and leaves few survivors. The extra-Vulcan colonies are unable to survive without support from the homeworld and perish.

The Vulcans of this era were far closer to humans physically and mentally. Though they had a greater capacity for metapsychic talent, it was not dominant. Post-Cataclysm, there is evidence that the Preservers intervened in Vulcan development, producing the modern Vulcan species. The discovery of Sargon’s World (Arret) in AD 2206 corroborated this theory.

c. 3000
Romulus develops its first urban civilizations and begins a historical and cultural development that closely mirrors Earth. Technical discovery largely parallels Earth’s so that when the two races meet in the 22nd century, they are on a par.

c. AD 1
Surak appears and sets Vulcan on its path of “logical” development. It’s not an easy road to follow and Surak is long dead when Vulcan is finally united under his philosophy’s aegis.

On Earth, the three Abrahamic religions of West Asia become the dominant creeds.

c. 700 – 1700
The Vegan Tyranny dominates the Primary Volume, conquering the nascent starfaring races of Tellar (61 Cygni), Andor (Epsilon Indi) and Orion (Ferenginar - Fomalhaut A).

c. 1400
On Romulus, the first space missions begin. By 1600, Remus hosts several large colonies of various hearthworld polities.

Also, a warrior-centered religion broadly similar to the militant Shintoism of early 20th Century Japan begins to flourish. Riding a wave of religious fervor, one nation conquers the planet by 1750.

c. 1600
Klinzhai is unified under the Klingon High Council, with the occasional Emperor or Empress ascending to the throne.

c. 1700
The Vegan Tyranny is overthrown. The Tellarites, Andorians and Orions all begin to develop independent, starfaring civilizations.

c. 1800
Vulcan discovers warp-drive.

Romulus conquers Remus.

Klingons first venture into interplanetary space.

c. 1900
Klingons develop warp-drive.

c. 1950 – 1970
The Emperor Kahless leads the first expansion of the Klingon Empire into interstellar space. After him, there would always be an Emperor or an Empress.

c. 1970 – 2020
Keth the Centenarian establishes the political foundations of the Klingon Empire and ensures that it will outlast its founder’s death.

c. 2000
Vulcan explorers reach Sol and begin observations. At the same time they prevent other civilizations (notably Andor and Tellar) from interfering in Earth development.

2012-2042
Second Great Depression (Earth): The economic meltdown of the world economy leads to small-scale wars, terrorism, and political and social instability (including “Colonel” Green’s dictatorship, which endured from 2033-2035 over a large portion of Southeast Asia and Australia). The estimated death toll is 600+ million.

By tradition, the Second Depression ends when an obscure physicist at the University of Montana, Zefrem Cochrane, publishes his unified field theory, published 2044 as On the Foundations of Reality. (at the age of 34).

2047
Cochrane publishes On the Foundations of Warp Dynamics, proving the theoretical possibility of FTL travel.

2052
Exhausted by 40 years of turmoil, the surviving nations of the world reconvene the United Nations in Toronto. (Toronto was chosen as a neutral meeting ground since there was still a great deal of mistrust among the major powers of the period such as Brazil, Singapore and Tehran.)

2053
The Toronto Conventions are adopted – the first step toward an effective world government. This document is heralded in subsequent decades as being on a par with the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the original UN Charter, the Fundamental Declaration of the Martian Colonies, etc.

Work begins on dismantling the world’s arsenals of conventional and nuclear weapons.

Taking advantage of disarmament, Cochrane convinces a consortium to back the building of a warp-drive prototype using a nuclear missile as a foundation.

c. 2055
The fundamental constitution of the current Romulan government takes shape around this time.

2065
Cochrane launches the first warp-drive ship, Phoenix. The ship is detected by a Vulcan surveyor in-system at the time, leading to First Contact.

Subsequently, Vulcan aids Earth with medical and other humanitarian technology that allows the planet to recover from the previous century.

2065-2075
Vulcan introduces Earth to the Andorian Star Empire, the Tellarite Territories, the Orions and the near-human inhabitants of Alphacent.

While the Andorians and Tellarites are clearly products of a nonhuman evolution, the Alphacenti turn out to be the modern descendants of the Neanderthal, presumably transported from Earth by unknown entities. (Archeological evidence proves that the entire ecosphere of Alphacent is only about 250,000 E-years old. Before then, the planet could only be classed as M by courtesy – it was far too cold, arid and oxygen poor to support life more complex than lichens.)

2065-2090
Earth’s space program concentrates on developing intra-Solar industries and colonies. Permanent bases are established on Luna (2068) and Mars (2080), and a flourishing space industry develops.

SS Lewis & Clark reaches Saturn (2071) and discovers evidence of alien artifacts on many of its moons (approximately 0.25 million years old).

Xenoarcheologists discover extensive ruins at the Martian poles (2077). Like the Saturnian relics, the oldest date to about a quarter of a million years ago and the youngest are about 100,000 years old.

c.2065-2070
In this period, certain member governments of the United Nations begin secret experiments in eugenics, ostensibly to eliminate genetic disorders in the human species but with the ultimate goal of creating a race of “supermen.”

2077
The United Nations Space Fleet (UNSF) is created. Though it is a military body, the focus of its training is on avoiding conflict.

2079
First Earth Trading Mission to the Orion Colonies.

2091
The United Nations Space Fleet Academy is opened in San Francisco.

2092
The Fundamental Declaration of the Martian Colonies establishes the right of any Earth colony to self-government.

2093-2096
The Eugenics Wars: The “supermen” rise up against the United Nations and their own creators, seizing power in a number of territories.

The last significant military conflict fought on Earth claims 60 million lives. The greater portion of these casualties was incurred in the campaign against Khan Noonian Singh, the most powerful and capable of the “supermen,” who ruled India and Southeast Asia.

Genetic experimentation is severely limited, though research in combating genetic disorders continues and results in some remarkable advances.

2094
Horrified that Earth may be plunging into a fourth World War, Zefrem Cochrane emigrates to Alphacent (at the age of 86). Still mentally and physically active, the esteemed Cochrane teaches at several Alphacenti research establishments for the next two years before disappearing into uncharted space aboard a prototype warp shuttle.

2096
Khan Singh escapes the storming of his capital (Karachi) with c. 100 fellow “supermen” aboard a sublight, DY-100 class ship (Botany Bay), which escapes the UNSF’s net to disappear into interstellar space (Singh used a sublight vessel so as to avoid a detectable warp signature).

Outside of Singh’s clique, 114 “supermen” survive the war and are interred in a penal colony in Antarctica.

c. 2100
By 2100, Anglic has become the de facto lingua franca of Earth. A mix of English (its foundation), Argentine Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Hindi, Mandarin and Cantonese (with other, lesser influences), it would be largely unintelligible to an English speaker of the early 21st Century.

Romulus develops warp-drive.

2104
Sarek of Vulcan is born.

2106
Loathe to execute the “supermen,” the UN finally decides to exile them to an extra-Solar colony – Sikudhani, a G5 sub-giant 78 light years from Earth which hosts a Class F, marginally habitable world. The voyage takes nearly 12 years (at warp 2), with the “supermen” in suspended animation aboard two automated ships.

2109
Earth establishes its first (officially recognized) extra-Solar colony in the τ Ceti system (τ Ceti II Newhope).

2110-2160
The first era of extra-Solar expansion. Since even the most advanced ships are limited by technology to speeds of warp 3 or less, only about 20 worlds in a 40-light-year radius are colonized.

2112
The Bellerophon expedition reaches Altair (a 200+ day voyage at Wf 3) and discovers the ruins of the Krell civilization (α Aquilae II).

2114
Amanda Grayson is born. Scion of an influential family of noted scientists, she moves to Vulcan in 2140 to join the Science Academy there and meets Sarek.

2118
The “supermen” reach Sikudhani and establish the colony of Prometheus (Sikudhani VI).

2123-2126
The Voyager A probe series is sent to map nearby space. Eight highly advanced vehicles are launched, of which all but one return within the alloted mission time. Voyager A-6 is caught in a black hole’s influence and disappears.

2142
Sarek and Amanda Grayson marry.

2150
Sarek and Amanda Grayson conceive the first (and as of 2300, the only) hybrid human-Vulcan, Spock.

2162
CSV Etruscan disappears while surveying the ρ Puppis system. It’s later confirmed that this is the first contact with the Romulans.

2164
CSV Vespa is lost in the same region as Etruscan.

2165
DSV Digenes Akritas survives an encounter with two Romulan warbirds in the τ Gladii system. The UNSF goes on Priority One Alert and plans are made to expand its military arm.

2166-2176
The Romulan War begins when New Novgorod is obliterated by orbital bombardment and the Romulans open an all-out offensive against Earth and its allies. Until 2174, neither side has any capital ships so the conflict develops between single ships and small task forces. Commanders on both sides are largely on their own.

The UNSF and Romulan forces struggle indecisively over the next decade without ever meeting face to face before a treaty is arranged by subspace radio. Andor and Alphacent participate in several campaigns but Vulcan and Tellar remain neutral.

In the wake of the war, a movement begins to create a federation of some sort among Earth, Vulcan, Andor, Tellar and Alphacent.

2171
James Kirk is born in Iowa (Earth) (an older brother, Samuel, is born in 2168).

Richard Daystrom develops the prototype duotronic computer.

2174
The first Achilles class cruiser comes out of the SanFran Orbital Yards. Andor, which enthusiastically participates in the war, focuses on support vessels like the enormously successful Huzrûn class missile cruiser and the Batarân class destroyer.

The Romulans don’t have the capacity to build such vessels and the tides of war rapidly turn against the empire, culminating in the Battle of Cheron in late 2175. It’s a clear victory for Earth and its allies but at a terrific price. Neither side can continue to prosecute the war.

2176
Faced with increased pirate activity (Orions primarily but some may have been the result of Klingon activity) and pressure from the Vulcans and a growing peace faction in the Assembly, the UN sues for peace with Romulus.

UN Secretary General Abram Danton and the Romulan sayagur (Praetor) Vritloki Sarrag hammer out the Treaty of Cheron. At no point in 10+ years of war did either side come face to face, nor did the Romulans ever accept any communication attempts until the treaty negotiations. Even then, no visual communications were ever established.

From fragmentary remains, Earth knew that the Romulans were one of the many humanoid races in the Volume; and DNA showed a close relationship with Vulcans. The Vulcans managed to keep this quiet but even they didn’t realize how close the relationship was.

2176-2206
The Romulans pursue an intensive course of weapons development and ship design that results in the plasma torpedo, a practical cloaking device and the Hnek (warbird) class cruiser. It does not result in dilithium or transporter technology, which proves decisive when the Empire tests the Federation’s defenses in 2205.

2180
Earth discovers the properties of dilithium, which make warp drives capable of Wf 5 (the so-called “time” barrier) and above possible. The Klingons had discovered dilithium c. 2175 but didn’t reveal ships equipped with them until after the UFP introduced the Constitution class cruisers.

2181
The DSV Sentry engages the IKV DevajSogh to rescue a Klingon family fleeing from that empire, inaugurating Earth’s first known contact with the Klingons (unexplained disappearances of ships in the preceding decade could have been due to Klingons, and Earth merchants may have unknowingly encountered Klingon traders in the bazaars of the Orion Colonies). (This is the so-called battle of Donatu V mentioned by Spock in The Trouble with Tribbles.)

The Klingon frontier with the Primary Volume was about 6 months travel time from Earth at Wf 4 but the Klingons had been sending scouts and recon expeditions deep into what would become Federation Treaty Space for decades.

2182-2184
The existence of two large, aggressive interstellar polities is the final piece of the puzzle – In the First Babel Conference, the Founding Worlds (Earth, Vulcan, Andor, Tellar, Alphacent) create the United Federation of Planets (2184).

One of its first tests as a government is the rescue and aid mission to the Tarsus Colony, where 4,000 colonists had been massacred by its governor (2185).

2183-2185
George and Winona Kirk and family move to the Tarsus Colony. George dies in Kodos’ pogrom but Winona and her sons survive, returning to Earth.

2183
“The Flying Fortress” Incident; Earth very nearly goes to war with Klinzhai.

2184
With the processing power of duotronic computers, the matter transporter is successfully tested.

2185-2195
Over this decade, the various space fleets of the Federation’s member worlds are integrated into Starfleet.

In addition to Starfleet, the UFP creates the Civil Space Service. Not as formal an organization as the Fleet, the CSS still regulates civil shipping throughout the Federation; for example, no crewer can serve aboard a vessel without certification from the CSS. Both organizations become the “glue” that unites the myriad cultures of the new alliance.

2186
The Axanar Peace Mission forestalls outright war between the new Federation and the Klingon Empire but incidents continue to occur between the two polities.

2187
The UFP evacuates 10 million from Bayard’s Planet, whose system would be rendered uninhabitable from the effects of the nearby φ Puma nova. It’s another major undertaking by the newborn alliance that proves its worth.

2188
The first Constitution class heavy cruiser, DSV Constellation, begins active duty. The Constitutions are more than simply battle cruisers, incorporating incorporate facilities for exploration and scientific research. The design turns out to be more successful than its creators could have hoped, as Constitution-based starships become the backbone of Starfleet for the next two centuries.

2189-2193
Kirk attends Starfleet Academy.

2190
Spock abandons his father’s teachings and leaves the Vulcan Science Academy to join Starfleet.

Creation of the UFP Law Enforcement Agency (as the alliance was already known as “the Federation,” the agency’s acronym quickly became FLEA and its agents “fleas”).

2192
Enterprise comes out of the L-5 shipyards of Sol; she is the first of the Constitutions whose components are built entirely from scratch and the first nonprototype to incorporate several major advances: dilithium crystals, making speeds of Wf 5+ possible; duotronic computers; phaser and photon weapons technology; and the transporter.

Starbase One – aka Fleet Headquarters – is built on Luna, Earth’s moon (by the time Kirk assumes command of Enterprise, it’s become known as Lunar Command, or less charitably, the Loonie Bin).

2192-2194
Robert April commands Enterprise. Spock joins the sciences department in 2193 as an ensign.

2193-2205
Kirk rapidly rises through the ranks to become the youngest Starship captain in history. He first serves aboard Republic but his longest service is aboard Farragut, where he becomes the protégé of its captain, Warren Garrovick.

2193-2209
Spock serves aboard Enterprise before resigning to pursue the kolinahr discipline on Vulcan.

2194-2205
Christopher Pike commands Enterprise.

2195
The Talos Star Group is declared “off limits.”

2196
The Back to Earth movement results in the Federation’s first existential crisis, nearly causing the break up of the newborn polity at the Second Babel Conference.

The Conference also results in the short-lived experiment of exchanging ambassadors between the Federation and Klinzhai. (The Federation’s ambassador was recalled after two years, and the Klingon’s ambassador never officially occupied the “Klingon Embassy” on Earth, he and his entourage were hosted on Deep Space Station J-7 for the embassy’s entire existence.)

2203
Matt Decker takes command of Constellation.

2205-2209
James Kirk commands Enterprise for the first time.

2205
A long-anticipated war with the Klingons ends abruptly when the Organians intervene and stop it. The Organian Treaty will govern Federation/Klingon relations for the next 25 years.

In this year too, the Federation comes into face-to-face contact with the Romulans, discovering them to be a Vulcan subspecies.

Enterprise encounters the so-called “energy barrier” near the galaxy’s rim. Initially this phenomenon is thought to be natural and extend around the galaxy but a subsequent joint UFP/First Federation scientific mission (2210-2219) discovers that it is the remnant of a vast alien construct that may have surrounded a volume of space 10,000 LYs across. Considering its properties, its purpose was most likely defensive. The mission “turned it off” in 2217 and xeno-archeological expeditions continue to study the ruins of the mechanisms to the modern day.

The Time Planet becomes the second “off limits” world, and a highly classified archeological expedition begins researching its artifacts.

2206
The Klingons and Romulans contact each other and agree to several technology-exchange treaties over the next century. The first treaties result in the sale of several hundred D-6 class cruisers to the Romulans, and the production of the Hnek-lla class warbird, capable of Wf 6/8 and equipped with disruptors in addition to a plasma torpedo. Like the Constitution heavy cruiser in Starfleet, the Hnek becomes the basis for most Romulan ship classes for many years to come.

Multitronic computer research suffers a catastrophic setback with the M-5 debacle. Despite this, several of Richard Daystrom’s colleagues persevere in making a workable multitronic circuit, succeeding in 2211. Because of their breakthroughs, both the Genesis project and transwarp drives are made possible.

2209-2211
Enterprise undergoes extensive refits, making it the class ship of a fourth generation of heavy cruisers.

2210-2250
The first great expansion of the Romulan Star Empire brings it into volumes opposite to the Federation. They encounter the Gorn sometime between 2215-2220 and engage in several short but intensive wars with them.

2211
The V’Ger probe (the reconstituted Voyager A-6) returns to Earth.

The M-6 multitronic computer is perfected, making possible the breaking of the “transwarp” barrier (speeds that approach the theoretical limit of Wf 10).

Starfleet commissions the building of the Excelsior class of transwarp heavy cruisers.

2211-2215
Spock commands Enterprise; though under him its duties are primarily confined to training and scientific research. Kirk becomes Chief of Training Operations. Uhura and Scott remain aboard as XO and Chief Engineer, respectively. Chekov transfers to Reliant as XO; and Sulu gets in line to command one of the Excelsior class ships coming on line.

2215
The Genesis Incident precipitates the second great crisis in the Federation’s existence and a precipitous deterioration in UFP/Klingon relations, though the Organian Treaty continues to preclude armed combat. (As Carol Marcus was the only surviving Genesis team-member to survive the debacle, the Federation Council has little difficulty suppressing the theory and technology to create the Genesis Effect, and it appears that no other polity has had the temerity to pursue it in the century since.)

The Incident also induces the Star Empire to open formal relations with the Federation. By 2216, there’s a Romulan ambassador on Earth and a Federation ambassador opens an embassy on Remus (the Romulans refuse to allow aliens on the hearthworld).

Despite technical difficulties, the fifth generation of heavy cruiser-class vessels incorporating transwarp technology enters regular service. (Transwarp drive is based on a better utilization of warp-field generation, making speeds closer to the theoretical maximum of Wf 10 possible.)

By 2215, all of the Constitutions had been refitted to Enterprise class standards. They would remain in production through 2218, the last being decommissioned in 2230.

2216
An extragalactic probe wreaks havoc on Earth’s ecosystem in an effort to re-establish contact with the extinct species of humpback whale. Representatives of the species rescued from the 20th century and brought forward in time satisfy the probe so that it ceases its assault on Earth. Naturally, research into utterly nonhuman intelligences receives a tremendous boost.

The probe refuses any contact with Federation representatives but its departure trajectory sends it toward the Magellanic Clouds.

2216-2220
Kirk commands Enterprise on its final five-year mission before he and the ship retire from active service. Kirk is promoted to Fleet Captain, Reserve, and Enterprise becomes a Museum Ship at the Memory Prime Complex at α Centauri.

2217
A catastrophic subspace implosion destroys a Klingon operations complex in their home system and threatens Klinzhai with destruction (its effects were felt clear to the Klingon/UFP frontier). A promising beginning of talks between the Federation and the Empire ultimately results in nothing. The Klingons balk at potentially becoming dependents of the “Earthers.” Even today the Klingons do not discuss the measures taken to save their homeworld but by 2250 Klinzhai had apparently fully recovered.

2218
DSV Excalibur (under Aunas Sirjari) reestablishes contact with the “supermen’s” colony on Prometheus. The Prometheans have managed to survive the overweening ambitions of its first generation of “supermen” by re-engineering the brains of second and subsequent generations to produce proteins that ameliorate aggressive expressions – the Prometheans retain the basic drives of unmodified humans. Since this expresses itself (partially) in pheromones, even first-generation “supermen” find themselves acting less aggressively. This effect is found to affect unmodified humans as well.

2223
Prometheus becomes the third world to be declared “off limits.”

Jean-Luc Picard is born in France (Earth).

2230
Apparently satisfied that the Federation and the Klingon Empire have advanced sufficiently to preclude another full-scale war, the Organians inform the respective capitals that they will no longer enforce the Treaty outside of the Organian system.

Tensions rapidly escalate between the UFP and the Klingon Empire but a “hot” war is avoided. The Federation, though it has a “war party,” cannot afford war with the Klingons as it is juggling a host of negotiations with other potentially hostile polities such as the Gorn and the Tholians. The Klingons, in turn, are attempting to deal with their own diplomatic problems, having encountered two highly advanced, highly aggressive polities on their borders opposite the Federation (codenamed “Lyra” and “Hydra” by the Federation).

2231
James Kirk dies alone saving Enterprise-B from destruction.

2234
At the Federation’s 50th year, the outlook of most member worlds is good. Despite an almost continual state of crisis with the Klingons, other diplomatic fronts look promising (or at least “not threatening”) – the Gorn, while not overly friendly, eagerly accept trade with the Federation and exhibit no great desire for conflict; the Tholians want nothing more than to be left alone, something the Federation is happy to oblige; relations with other star-faring races are good; and the Romulans demonstrate little interest in testing Starfleet’s defenses.

2235
The first Ambassador class heavy cruiser is commissioned. These vessels gradually supersede the Excelsior class as Starfleet’s flagships.

2240-2244
The Ersatz War: Matters come to a head between the Federation and the Klingons but neither can declare a real war because of economic and political factors. What results is a series of single-ship and small fleet “incidents” that cause tremendous loss of life but resolve nothing.

Starting in 2243, a remarkable conference of UFP and Empire diplomats hammers out the Khitomer Accords, which not only bring hostilities to an end but (to the surprise of everyone) actually calls for a limited alliance and the beginning of normal relations.

The Romulan Empire unilaterally pulls out of its treaties with the Klingons, and recall their ambassador to the Federation. They close off the Treaty Ports and seal their borders with the UFP and the Klingons for the next 40 years.

2245
From 2245 to the end of the century, the Romulans and Klingons carry on an enthusiastic “war” of privateers and raids. Most encounters involve fewer than 5 vessels on either side but there are several major engagements (including the infamous Khitomer Massacre and the Tomed Incident).

2250
The Khitomer Massacre: A Romulan task force destroys the colony via orbital bombardment.

2262
Romulans destroy Enterprise-C (an Ambassador class cruiser) when it responds to a distress call from the Klingon colony at Narendra III (narghrIn’a wej).

2284
The Federation’s centennial is inaugurated with the introduction of the first Galaxy class heavy cruiser – the latest generation of the heavy cruiser class, incorporating the advances of the previous century, and continuing the tradition of peaceful exploration and expansion. At this time, the Federation comprises nearly 500 full status member worlds (“world” here describing not only planets but also artificial habitats) in 320+ systems; it also maintains associate status with a further thousand.

The Klingon Empire at this time is thought to comprise 300+ worlds plus the same number of splinter states and client worlds. The alliance with the Federation still governs relations between Klinzhai and Earth. Economic interdependence has become so great that there is little sentiment for hostilities on either side, though uncontrolled contact between the two polities is still infrequent.

The Romulans are thought to control approximately 150 worlds (many artificial constructs, considering the paucity of Class M worlds in that region). The Federation is aware that the Romulans and Gorn have clashed repeatedly but the Gorn are reticent and the Romulans mute about the subject. The Federation is also aware that the Romulans have encountered a third polity, codenamed “Eridani,” which has dominated their attention since soon after the Treaty Ports were closed (this information is based on third-hand accounts gleaned from the Klingons and the Orions).

The Orions remain independent. Orion was formerly a slave world of a Vegan Tyrant. When those enigmatic beings were overthrown c. 1700, Orion exploited the advanced technology left behind and became a trading entrepot for the surviving races of the region; a position they continue to hold. Some Orion “families” also became notorious as pirates and smugglers, willing to carry any cargo to any destination for the right price. The Federation strictly regulates trade between member worlds and an Orion Colony (statistically, the plurality of military incidents with Starfleet vessels involves Orion privateers).

The Gorn and Federation have opened a handful of Treaty Ports but contact between the polities is strictly controlled and very limited. The Federation believes that the Gorn occupy 100-120 worlds.

The Tholians continue to refuse contact with any other race. Since its first encounter with the Federation, the Tholian Assembly has become less preemptive in protecting its space, usually warning ships that they have strayed before escalating the confrontation.

Direct contact with the “Lyrans” and “Hydrans” has still not been established. It is believed that the Lyrans are felinoid in appearance and are at least as technologically capable as the Federation and the Empire. The Hydrans are believed to be one of the few known methane-breathing species.

The newest star-faring polity in the region is the Kardassi Union, which first encountered the Klingons some time after the Ersatz War. The Kardassi are a relatively young species; they only acquired dilithium technology after meeting the Klingons. They are also a highly aggressive species, routinely attacking both Klingon and Federation colonies and ships they believe are trespassing in their space. As in the Ersatz War, tensions are high on both sides and “incidents” are frequent.

2284-2292
Jean-Luc Picard commands Enterprise-D.

2285
The Sovereign class heavy cruiser is commissioned.

Deneb (α Cygni) joins the Federation. At c. 1400 LYs from Earth, it is the most remote UFP member; even at Wf 10 it takes 10 months to reach it.

2292
Enterprise-D is destroyed preventing the use of a nova-inducing device by terrorists.

2293
The Sovereign class Enterprise-E is commissioned and given to Picard to command.

2294
Enterprise-E is instrumental in preventing another terrorist group from going back in time and preventing Zefrem Cochrane from making First Contact with the Vulcans.

2294-2296
The Dominion War: An alliance between the Kardassi, the Tzenkethi and the Hydrans launches a war against the Klingons. Initially, the Klingons do not invoke the treaty with the Federation and attempt to deal with the problem on their own. After several near-crippling defeats, however, they swallow their pride and ask for assistance. The Federation attempts to remain neutral but eventually lives up to its treaty obligations and supports Klinzhai in several crucial engagements that break the alliance’s back.

The war ends with 400 million Klingon deaths, 800 million Kardassi dead, and a near equal number of Tzenkethi (Hydran casualties are unknown but at least three gas giants were utterly sterilized with the loss of all life). No Federation world suffered a direct attack but Starfleet casualties numbered more than 60,000, making it the bloodiest single conflict in its history, and the bloodiest conflict involving humans since the Earth-Romulan War 120 years earlier.

2295-2300
Romulus enters into a disastrous war with the Eridani. In 2300, Suorun hai Vriyag, a Romulan fleet commander, seizes power in a bloody purge of the ke’eretl (Senate) and the varannu tsa (Fleet High Command).

Normal diplomatic relations are resumed between the Star Empire and the Federation.

Some Notes:
The leaders of the revolt against the Old Kings were a scientist caste whose brains were augmented similarly to the human “supermen” of the Eugenics Wars and a caste of metapsychics whose powers (according to legend) rivalled those of Vulcans. The far more numerous (and paranoid) Imperial Race exterminated both these castes within a millennium of the revolt and little of their genetic legacy remains.

The Preservers (or Arretians) were the penultimate of the Forerunner races (the Vegan Tyrants were the last). They flourished in regions that are now dominated by the Federation and the Klingons up to 5,000 years ago. Contact with Sargon, Thalassa and Henoch was too brief to establish the nature of Preserver civilization except that the primary culture destroyed itself in a war a half-million years ago. It’s theorized that a remnant population may have interbred with archaic Vulcans after the Cataclysm, though their origins remain a mystery.

“Logical” is put in quotes because it is an inadequate translation of what Surak’s philosophy attempts to describe, which is the wholly integrated reality of the universe as perceived by the conscious mind. Even most Vulcans have only a limited knowledge of or experience with Surak’s disciplines.

The last meeting of the UN had occurred in 2027, and ended when mobs stormed its New York headquarters and massacred the diplomats in attendance.

Vulcan (T’Kthušai – 40 Eridani, 16.5 LY), Alphacent (Polikaptiwa – α Centauri, 4.3 LY), Tellar (Mauhúl – 61 Cygni, 11 LY), Andor (Andar – Epsilon Indi, 11 LY), Orion (Ferenginar – Fomalhaut A, 22 LY).

τ Ceti IV n’Kafri is home to an insectoid races known as the Kafer.

An unexplained catastrophe destroyed the expedition a year into the survey of the planet. Its cause was only discovered 18 years later when the UNSF scout Denmark rescued the ship’s only survivor, a child of two of the expedition’s scientists. Subsequently, α Aquilae II was destroyed by a runaway chain reaction of the Krell’s energy-production systems.

Sarek and Amanda’s union remains unique in the history of humans and Vulcans. While intimate relationships between human and Vulcan have and continue to occur none have resulted in such a long-term union or the production of off-spring.

The Treaty of Cheron set up the infamous Romulan Neutral Zone. It’s not a border so much as a zone of space monitored by both sides. Centered on Cheron, it is 100 LYs across and 2 LYs wide. Any starsystem that falls within this zone is off limits to Earth vessels (and later Federation vessels) or the Star Empire’s. With the exception of Cheron, there are no Class M worlds charted in the RNZ and few systems contested in the war fell within the zone. Its primary purpose, once the monitoring stations were set up, was as a buffer between the UFP and the Empire, making it extraordinarily difficult for either side to interact (theoretically, Federation or Romulan ships could have spent six months going around the zone to infiltrate the other side).

The breaking of the “time” barrier in 2184 reduced the effectiveness of the zone but the Federation chose to honor the treaty, and the Romulans only gained dilithium technology when they made contact with the Klingons in 2206.

The “Lyrans” are ancient foes of the Klingons, possibly encountered as far back as their earliest forays into space. According to Orion sources, the Lyrans call themselves Tzenkethi. They are a felinoid race but beyond a reputation for extreme ferocity and violence, nothing else is known of them and no encounters have occurred between a Federation ship and a Tzenkethi.

The “Hydrans” were encountered sometime before 2230 in systems the Klingons were mining for He3. They are a methane-breathing species that lives in the atmospheres of gas giants. As with the Lyrans/Tzenkethi, the Federation’s knowledge of this race comes mainly from Orion sources; it’s sketchy and unreliable.

There are two Denebs in Federation parlance – Deneb Kaitos, which lies 96 LYs from Earth, is home to an elephantine species that joined the UFP in the early 2200s. Deneb Prime is home to the humanoid Bandi.

Hiroshima Day 2010

2010-08-06T10:42:00.000-07:00

For the interested my thoughts anent Hiroshima can be found on my post from August 2009. I think it's a good thing that, for the first time, we're sending a relatively high ranking representative - the U.S. ambassador to Japan - to the commemorative ceremony but I feel there's still a long way to go before we own up to the consequences of our choice to drop the A-bomb in the first place.

Actually, this year's anniversary brings to mind the recent revelations from WikiLeaks concerning the failing occupation in Afghanistan and the continued existence of the same moral blinkers that made Hiroshima possible. Tom Engelhardt's latest TomDispatch asks the question about just whose hands are bloody - hypothetically Mr. Assange's or the architects of the Afghan War's whose casualties are all too real. The following are all examples of the real blood on the real hands of the real war criminals in this affair:

July 2008 - An American plane or planes "take out" an Afghan bridal party -- 70 to 90 strong and made up mostly of women -- on a road near the Pakistani border.
August 2008 - A memorial service for a tribal leader in the village of Azizabad in Afghanistan’s Herat Province is hit by repeated U.S. air strikes that kill at least 90 civilians, including perhaps 15 women and up to 60 children.
April 2009 - Members of the family of Awal Khan, an Afghan army artillery commander on duty elsewhere, are killed in a U.S.-led raid in Khost province in eastern Afghanistan. Among them are his "schoolteacher wife, a 17-year-old daughter named Nadia, a 15-year-old son, Aimal, and his brother, employed by a government department.” Another daughter is wounded and the pregnant wife of Khan's cousin is shot five times in the abdomen.
November 2009 - Two relatives of Majidullah Qarar, the spokesman for the Minister of Agriculture, are shot down in cold blood in Ghazni City in a Special Operations night raid.
February 2010 - U.S. Special Forces troops in helicopters strike a convoy of mini-buses, killing up to 27 civilians, including women and children.
February 2010 - In a special operations night raid, two pregnant women and a teenage girl, as well as a police officer and his brother, are shot to death in their home.
July 2010 - Residents of a small town in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan claim that a NATO missile attack killed 52 civilians.

I am reminded of something I just read in Peter Heather's Empires and Barbarians: As a result of Roman diplomatic and military policy along its frontiers (which included, among other things, periodic incursions to install "good" leaders/depose "bad" and destroy the means of production), the empire sowed the seeds of its own destruction by fostering the growth of anti-Roman, organized polities.

Except for the actors, what's really changed in 2,000 years?

Semiannual Book Review (Jan-Jun 2010)

2010-08-01T07:40:00.000-07:00

It's a month late but here's my picks from the first six months of my 2010 readings:

On the fictional front, I made two spectacular discoveries this year: Sylvia Townsend Warner and T.F. Powys.

A couple of years ago, I read Warner's The Kingdoms of Elfin, a collection of short stories set in various fairy realms. I enjoyed the book but was unaware that she had written anything else. Come an issue of The Nation and there's a review of a reissue of her novel Summer Will Show that sounded so interesting, I had to follow up. As it turned out, the first book I read was Lolly Willowes: Or the Loving Huntsman. It was brilliant! Over the course of the next few months, I devoured Mr. Fortune's Maggot, The Salutation and the novel that started it all, Summer Will Show. On the to-read shelf remain The Corner That Held Them, The Music at Long Verney, T.H. White: A Biography, Warner: Selected Stories and The Barnards of Loseby (aka The Flint Anchor).

In the course of reading Warner, I came across the observation that she admired the author Theodore Powys so I decided to track down his stuff and was amply rewarded with The White Paternoster and Other Stories and Father Adam. Still to read is the short-story collection Mock's Curse. I'd like to get copies of Unclay and Mr. Weston's Good Wine. Unfortunately, Powys' work has long been out-of-print and it's difficult to find reasonably priced editions.

I can't explain better on why to read both these authors than to quote from John Gray's essay on Powys in The New Statesman:

"In their different ways, all three Powys brothers deserve retrieving for a
wider readership, but none more so than Theodore. He is by far the best writer
among them, and the most original. The greatest value of his work, though, is in
showing that it is still possible to write about the primordial human
experiences to which religion is a response. Secular writers tend to steer clear
of them, and end up stuck in the shallows of politics or fashion. On the other
hand, Christian writers are mostly precious and unpersuasive, like T.S. Eliot,
or else more or less openly fraudulent, like Graham Greene. Very few
20th-century authors have the knack of writing convincingly of first and last
things. A religious writer without any vestige of belief, Theodore Powys is one
of them."

Other fiction works of note this first half of the year include:

Anchorwick, Geoffrey Barlough
The Napoleon of Notting Hill, G.K. Chesterton
Blindsight, Peter Watts
The Red Tree, Caitlin Kiernan
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson
Run, Man, Run, Chester Himes
Lorna Doone, R. Blackmore

I've made comments on all of these at my GoodReads site.

Before moving on to the nonfiction side, I should mention that there were a few months when I went on a Star Trek novel reading jag, prompted by my purchase of a model of the rebooted Enterprise, chronicled in my April post. It turned out to have some profit: I discovered a very good author, David Mack (Sorrows of Empire, Vanguard: Harbinger, Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind and Vanguard: Precipice, again all of these have some commentary at my GR site).

In nonfiction, I found myself preoccupied with a loosely themed course of religion-based readings. I began last Christmas with an audio CD of Karen Armstrong's Buddha; in January, I moved on to Wendy Doniger's The Hindus. From there I moved on to:

Augustine, Gary Wills (audio CD)
Christianity and Chinese Religions, Hans Kung/Julia Ching
Lost in the Sacred, Dan Diner
God's Battalions, Rodney Stark
A People's History of Christianity, Diana Butler Bass
The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes
Becoming Enlightened, The Dalai Lama
Sarah the Priestess, Savina Teubal
The Woman Who Named God, Charlotte Gordon
Jesus, Interrupted, Bart Ehrmann
The Evolution of God, Robert Wright

Most have commentary at my GR site. The most "mind blowing" was Jaynes' The Origins of Consciousness, which argues that human beings didn't develop a modern consciousness until the 2nd millennium BC. Before then, we were essentially schizophrenics, listening to voices in our heads and interpreting them as gods (or God).

Another interesting and controversial book was Diner's Lost in the Sacred. The author argues that Islam suffers from a lack of secularization.

The Evolution of God was preaching to the choir when it covered the development of the notion of "divinity" over time but Wright lost me when he attempted to argue that our ideas have progressed toward an ever more benevolent and universal deity. He comes across as an agnostic desperately trying to find a reason to believe. That said, it's still a book worth reading.

My position on religion (atheism) didn't change - in fact, it was strengthened by my reading - but I did learn a great deal and enjoyed the experience.

Other nonfiction of note:

The Balkans, Mark Mazower (audio CD)
From Eternity to Here, Sean Carroll
The 10,000 Year Explosion, Gregory Cochran
The Humans Who Went Extinct, Clive Finlayson
Mind of the Raven, Bernd Heinrich
A Journey to the End of the Russian Empire, Anton Chekhov
Out of Our Heads, Alva Noe

One of the more interesting books was The 10,000 Year Explosion. The authors make the nonstartling (to me) assertions that evolution has continued to affect humans up to the modern day and raise all sorts of interesting examples to illustrate this but wind up relying too heavily on the biological basis for human cultures.

Well, it's the beginning of August and I've already got 9+ books under my belt for the second half of the year and many more interesting ones on the To-Read shelf so the year-end review should have some further interesting reading to talk about.

Rebooted Enterprise vs. TOS/Movie Enterprises

2010-04-11T14:45:00.000-07:00

JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot finally came onto my Netflix queue a few months ago and I finally got around to seeing it. I have mixed feelings about the movie, though one of the three things that worked for me was the rebooted Enterprise.

Up to this moment, the movie version of the original Enterprise had held pride of place in my heart, followed closely by the Enterprise-E, first seen in First Contact (without doubt, the only good TNG movie). The TOS Enterprise is a beautiful ship but it suffers from being so "1960s."

Now for grace and aesthetic appeal, I think the rebooted Enterprise has stolen my heart, pushing everyone else down a rung:

Rebooted Enterprise
Movie/First Contact Enterprise (tie)
Enterprise-C (from the TNG episode "Yesterday's Enterprise")
TOS Enterprise

The less said about the Enterprises -B and -D the better. The former was too "fat"; it looked like the pretty girl's ugly friend (in comparison - from some angles she could look decent). The latter was too wide and suffered from the same gracelessness as its second-generation cousin.

Of the Federation's neighbors', the Klingon D-7 is hands down the best ship in the quadrant, every angle radiating menace and aggressive intent. Back in the day, FASA, the RPG company, produced a series of Romulan ship miniatures that were pretty neat looking - especially their Winged Defender and Bright One classes. They couldn't quite capture the Federation's ship designs, though. And Task Force Games produced a similar series for Star Fleet Battles, which had some interesting designs. In their case, my favorites were the Romulans (esp. the Sparrowhawk), the Lyrans (though I wish they had had more detail) and the Interstellar Concordance.

But back to the Abrams' movie: I mentioned three things that worked for me. The first was the crew - I liked them. Without exception they worked for me. Unfortunately, they were trapped in a story that made no sense.

The second thing that I enjoyed was that Spock was unable to "fix" the timeline. The best he could do was salvage things so that they resembled his future (presumably, the Federation will alert the Romulans about the imminent destruction of their homeworld in the future).

Militarism = parasitism

2010-04-11T14:17:00.000-07:00

In a vein related to my WikiLeaks posting, I wanted to opine about a distressing trope I've noticed in the soi-disant liberal talk radio programs I listen to. Further evidence of how the corruption of militarization continues to progress.

It should not have escaped anyone's notice that Congress finally passed a healthcare insurance bill recently. (I deliberately do not use the word "reform" because the systemically disfunctional for-profit, private insurance industry remains firmly in control despite a few cosmetic - if welcome - tweakings along the margins.) It should also have not escaped anyone's notice that many right-wing pundits as well as their low-information audiences have been hysterically throwing around the words "socialist" and "socialism," as if America were only an executive order away from becoming the Soviet Union (or, worse, France).

Often the response of the left-leaning (but still quite moderate) hosts of my shows to callers who complain about Obama's socialist agenda is to mention the military as a prime example of successful socialism. I can only cringe in dismay and rail against the appalling of both caller and hosts. "Socialism" is an economic system where the means of production and the wealth therefrom is controlled by the producers. At a minimum, a socialist-leaning country ensures that its wealth is equitably distributed. A condition unknown in the U.S. since the Reagan administration. Eisenhower and Nixon were better "socialists" than Obama has shown himself to be.

By contrast, a standing army (which the Founders abhorred) is a parasite - it consumes the wealth and returns nothing (sort of like a tribble, and they at least emitted a soothing sound that had a strangely calming effect on...the...human...nervous...system....).

It could be argued that a standing army is necessary in the dangerous world of the 21st century. I would counter that standing armies are a significant factor in making this world so dangerous to begin with (Costa Rica manages to get by without one, why can't anyone else?). But for the moment, let's grant the argument a measure of validity and agree that we need a standing army. It still can't possibly justify a near-trillion-dollar war budget ($700B+, about $500B for the Pentagon plus some gravy for related ministries [Homeland Security, Energy, etc.]). And the means of production and wealth produced are most definitely not in the hands of the producers.

In a body, parasites can be tolerated as long as they don't threaten that body with death. Healthcare, economic stimulus, education, crumbling infrastructure, and all the other problems facing this nation are never going to be resolved without defunding the legions and reining in the military-industrial complex (if you want to see just how out of control things have become, read this TomDispatch).

Unfortunately, humans being humans and, as a group, a bit dull witted, it's unlikely anything short of utter economic collapse is going to stop our march to "victory" around the world.

Addendum: Speaking of the cost of the military parasite, check out the latest blog from TomDispatch.

America's Army - Now we know what those video games are for

2010-04-11T13:32:00.000-07:00

In case you've missed it, here's the link to WikiLeaks.org, where you can watch the U.S. Army's own footage of the murder of Iraqi civilians by "our boys." (Don't worry, the gunship's camera is too far away to detail anything graphic so it's a PG-13 on the rating scale.)

Anyone who has followed these infrequent posts knows my attitude toward the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations, and to the military in general, so I'm not going to belabor the point beyond observing, sadly, the utter disregard for the lives these "patriots" are stealing displayed on this tape. (Catch the crack about bringing kids into a war zone or the mirth when a tank driver runs over one of the Iraqis. Do we even need to mention the firing on the van that was picking up wounded?)

This joins the myriad examples of the bankruptcy of the "war on terror" and our campaign to bring "democracy" to the Middle East.

And, please, don't tell me these men were in immediate fear of their lives. There was no "fog of war," no justification for firing weapons on a group of men openly gathering in the middle of a public square. If that's the quality of the insurgents, then why haven't we quashed them?

If we're incapable of prosecuting our war criminals for the crimes they've committed (are committing), at the very least can't we prosecute the military leadership displayed here for gross incompetence?

Taxes - Why do I owe any?

2010-04-11T13:21:00.000-07:00

It took me close to two months to install it but I finally did - the 2009 TurboTax edition.

It confirmed what I suspected all along - According to the IRS, I owed taxes on my 2009 income. Not a huge amount. I'm not going to be sharing the food bowl with the cats, and I can still indulge in Trader Joe's chocolate peanut butter cups.

I can't help but wonder why, though?

Why is it that I, a single man with no outstanding debts nor dependents (beyond the cats), who made less than $50,000 last year, owed money to the feds while ExxonMobil, a company whose profits would make many developed nations envious to say nothing of third-world countries, paid zilch, zero, nil, nada, less than bupkiss?

I can't come up with anything moral or legal. (Well, maybe it was all licit but it certainly wasn't moral.)

Massey Coal and the need for a new Labor movement

2010-04-11T13:08:00.000-07:00

The saddest thing about the Massey Coal catastrophe last week (beyond the personal tragedies of the 29 families who lost husbands, sons, cousins, etc.) is the apathetic response I heard while listening today to an interview with one of the widows.

She was responding to the inevitable question about what she was going to do next and replied that she would pray to God that no more accidents happen and that others wouldn't be killed if they did.

Huh?

She's going to get down on her knees and pray that God doesn't allow any more accidents to happen?

She's not going to organize with her fellow workers and mine families to demand decent wages and safer working conditions from a company whose management has clearly made the calculation that it's cheaper to weather the occasional accident and fines?

I hope that some miner or a surviving relative is inspired to start an organizing campaign, and make it in Massey's interest to give a damn about its workers.

If nothing else, maybe we can look into charging Massey with manslaughter - after all the SCOTUS says corporations are people (and here we thought it was soylent green all these years).

Bwahahaha - I'll replace their "midnight movies" with 1/2-hour long commercials about hair tonic...d'oh!

2010-02-08T11:05:00.001-08:00

I loathe sports, at least watching them. I have a fondness for volleyball that may stem from the fact that it's the one sport I'm half-way decent at (or was - haven't played it in a long time) but even that doesn't extend to watching it. So, it will come as no surprise that this Sunday (Feb. 7) I was not glued to a TV screen watching the Super Bowl.

Instead I spent part of Super Bowl Sunday watching an episode of the Rocky & Bullwinkle Show - the one where Boris is trying to get the secret rocket-fuel formula out of Bullwinkle so he can conquer the Moon Men. There's one point in the show when our heroes are prisoners in Potsylvania, and Boris is explaining to Fearless Leader his plans for bringing America to its knees: He's going to use the rocket fuel to land on the Moon, conquer the Moon Men and then beam back to Earth 1/2-hour haircream commercials in place of America's late-night movie offerings.

Oh, how prescient he was...

Why we lost in Iraq and Afghanistan

2010-02-01T11:59:00.001-08:00

I quote from the Jan. 28 Tomgram from Anand Gopal:

An officer who has worked in the Field Detention Sites says that it takes dozens of raids to turn up a useful suspect. “Sometimes you’ve got to bust down doors. Sometimes you’ve got to twist arms. You have to cast a wide net, but when you get the right person it makes all the difference.”

For [Rodrigo] Arias, [a Marine based in the northeastern province of Kunar], it’s a matter of survival. “I want to go home in one piece. If that means rounding people up, then round them up.” To question this, he says, is to question whether the war itself is worth fighting. “That’s not my job. The people in Washington can figure that out.”

The first quote illustrates at the macro level why we lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. The second shows how we failed at the micro level. Not only has Arias been successfully conditioned to see everyone as the enemy but he's also a poster child for 30 years of Civics-less education.

"That's not my job"?! - As an American citizen that's exactly your job, Mr. Arias!

Movie Review: The Corpse Grinders

2010-01-18T09:13:00.000-08:00

I like the B-grade horror film genre and I love cats (see this post) so when I read the blurb on Netflix about The Corpse Grinders I knew I had to put it in my queue:

In an effort to cut costs, an unscrupulous cat food company buys a supply of
human corpses and grinds them into seemingly harmless chow for kitties. But they
didn't count on the felines suffering a serious side effect: A craving for human
flesh. When cats consume the food, they start attacking their owners in this
campy horror classic from noted "schlock" director Ted V. Mikels.

Going into an experience like this the viewer expects a piece of crap but he hopes for an entertainingly bad piece of crap. In this case, there was enough to make it "so bad it was OK" but not "good" - mainly because of the pacing. It was boring despite egregiously bad writing, acting and continuity. I swear that half of these schlock-fests would be twice as good if their producers had any notion of timing. There's also an almost complete lack of gore or cat presence at all; Mikels did nothing with the possibilities of cats turning on their owners.

The movie opens promisingly: It's a rainy night and a cat is meowing to get inside. Cut to the interior where a 20-something couple watches TV. It's obvious that they're waiting each other out until one breaks down and lets the cat in. Finally, the woman goes to the door, and the cat leaps on her throat. (You assume it leaps, actually; the editor cuts from woman looking out into dark to woman with cat on throat.) The husband rushes to her aid, pulls the cat off and then throws it into the house! Not outside (which he is facing) but inside - turning around and throwing it into the house.

Then we cut to the opening credits.

This is the first of only four cat attacks in the entire film. Of these four, only one is going to be fatal and that's the nearly homeless woman whose throat is torn out while she's sleeping.

After the credits we meet the ... gravedigger? It's hard to tell what this guy's job is but he is the source of our villains' corpses. He reminds me a bit of Torgo from Manos: The Hands of Fate - same hairstyle but he doesn't have the limp. He's married to a harridan who carries around a doll that she treats like a living person, talking to it and seating it at the dinner table to feed it soup. There's no explanation for this behavior and, more significantly, it plays utterly no role in the story. An attempt to establish character? Who knows but it's never mined for any meaning.

Not that the bit parts need much in the way of added quirkiness. The pet-food company goes out of its way to hire decidedly odd people. I suppose because they'll overlook a lot to keep their jobs. We now meet our villains - Landau, the "mastermind" behind this diabolical plot, and Mawpy (spelling?), his dull-witted, moderately necrophiliac partner. In another attempt to establish Landau's bona fides there's a running scene between him and Caleb (the gravedigger) where Caleb keeps asking Landau when he's going to get what's coming to him, and Landau keeps telling him to wait and he'll get exactly what's coming to him, in a snide, unctuous voice that telescopes exactly what you know is going to happen eventually. These would have been prime scenes for heckling on MST3 or Rifftraks.

Having met our villains, we now get to meet our (sigh) heroes, and we get cat-attack number two. Our heroes are a nurse and her doctor boyfriend (whose names I've already forgotten). There's a scene which establishes the nurse's love for her man and the doctor's compassion. She consoles him on the recent death of a patient and he utters, "Every time I lose one, I lose a part of myself." Two minutes later he's trying to get a quickie before she has to go back on duty.

Oh, yeah, the cat attack. For some reason, it's OK for this nurse to bring her cat to the hospital. The cat, whose name is Happy Sack or Hockey Socks, or something, attacks the doctor, scratching him on the chin (maybe, you never see any wound - ever - not even a bandage). And then he (the cat) disappears from the movie. Mind you, he's not killed, he just ... disappears.

The film moves on, albeit slowly. Cat attack number three and the only one that approaches the gore potential that any reasonable B-movie director would be exploiting happens. (And by "approach," I mean as a plane cruising at 35,000 feet over Kansas.) I've mentioned this scene - the poor, sleeping woman whose cat, after eating a can of food, bites her throat. Another near-homeless person hears the commotion, discovers the body and throws the cat against the wall. This scene is less traumatic for cat lovers than you might expect (or maybe you do, considering what I've said so far) - you don't see the cat, just the old man swinging around like he's throwing something, a yowl and a crashing sound. And that's the only cat who buys the farm in the entire film!!

Apparently this town is too small to have a real coroner (or vet) because the old guy brings both bodies to our heroes' clinic. After performing a necropsy, the doctor thinks there may be something wrong with what the cat ate. How he determines this is unclear as the most advanced piece of lab equipment visible is a slide microscope that would put even the most underfunded inner-city high school to shame. But the clinic is astonishingly well equipped in books about feline behavior - he pulls a one which explains exactly how felines behave when they've eaten human flesh from the shelf!

Our heroes decide to take their evidence (sic) to the Food Adulteration Agency (the FAA?), where we meet the 4th victim of these vicious feline maulings - the sexy secretary of the FAA agent. She goes home early: At home, she strips down to bra and panties, gets a beer out of the fridge and then seductively reclines on her couch to watch TV. Her cat, fresh from a corpse-tainted repast, leaps for her jugular (OK - you know the routine, due to editing, you assume he leaps for her throat because that's where he is in the next shot). We then cut to the next scene, though we do learn that she survives in a later bit of dialog.

Meanwhile, at the FAA office, our intrepid duo are getting the runaround from our government bureaucrat (who has no qualms about giving them presumably private information about applicants to open pet-food plants), and they go off to get to the bottom of things all on their own.

My virtual pen grows weary, and I can't justify giving this film more consideration so I'll only mention the scene where Landau has tied our nurse to the conveyor belt of the corpse grinder and laughs maniacally, saying that "No one can stop me now!" Or the scene where a detective, who has only been seen lurking in the background of some scenes taking notes, bursts in and shoots Landau dead. Or the final shot, where some cats who hang around the plant are seen crawling over Landau's body as it lays face down on the ground. Or one of the more glaring continuity problems I've ever seen in a film: Our nurse gets dressed (another opportunity for some gratuitous T&A) in a gold outfit; cut to next scene and she's in a red outfit; cut to the following scene and she's back in the gold; and in the final cut, she's wearing a blue blouse and black mini-skirt!

I followed this with a much better B-grade flick - Hide and Creep - a nice little indie zombie movie with a reasonably humorous script and decent acting. If you're in the mood to pretend you're Joel, Servo and Crow on the Satellite of Love, rent The Corpse Grinders; if you're looking to enjoy a little escapism with an otherwise forgettable film, go with Hide and Creep.

Book Reviews - End of the Year Roundup

2010-01-03T11:53:00.000-08:00

It's the end of a year, the end of a decade, that most of us would prefer to forget but there were bright moments here and there, and amid the world of reading these were some of them (IMO). (Most, if not all, of these books got some sort of review at my GoodReads blog, which can be referred to for more details.)

Actually, I'm going to start off with the pans, or pan in this case, as I only read one book that I would categorically not recommend to anyone:

The Outback Stars, Sandra MacDonald. A disappointing novel about a future interstellar civilization heavily influenced by Australian/Aborigine culture. Way too much exposition about the in-fighting among the ship's laundry.

Now to the raves. These are in chronological order of reading and their position in no way indicates the subtleties of preference.

Things I've Been Silent About, Azar Nafisi. This is the second memoir from this Iranian ex-pat professor. Here, she focuses on her childhood and her relationships with her parents and other family. It's an interesting window on a particular segment of Iranian society, and by no means a "complete" picture but that doesn't detract from its power.

Manservant and Maidservant, Pastors and Masters, A House and Its Head, Parents and Children, Ivy Compton-Burnett. The last three books I read later in the year but as they're all by the same author.... I can't sing the praises of Ms. Compton-Burnett enough. Her brand of acerbic, black humor appeals enormously to me.

Lincoln, David Donald. Very accessible and well written biography of our greatest president.

Flowers of Evil, Charles Baudelaire. One of the more serendipitous discoveries of the year. The translation I have is by James McGowan (w/ parallel French text). The only complaint I have is that it's missing a poem, "The Peace Pipe," even though there's a note that refers to it.

How Beautiful It Is and How Easily It Can Be Broken, Daniel Mendelsohn. Collection of the author's book, film & theater reviews. Simply brilliant, and I'm only sorry I delayed reading it for as long as I did.

Augustine: A New Biography, James O'Donnell. O'Donnell focuses on the man and his time rather than his actual writing so the book can't be characterized as "definitive" or "comprehensive" but it's a fascinating deconstruction of one of Christianity's most forceful intellects and his times.

Dust of Dreams, Steven Erikson. Book 9 in The Malazan Book of the Fallen series. I'm sure I've mentioned previous volumes in earlier posts but it bears repeating that this is one of the greatest epic fantasy series in the last 50 years. In my opinion, it leaves Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time or George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series far distant also-rans.

Whit, Iain Banks. Written in the mid-'90s, this is one of Banks' nongenre novels, and also fun to read.

Honorable mentions and books of note:

The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb, R. Crumb. I enjoyed the graphic-novel version of the first book of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles. Crumb brings the stories to life and even makes the notorious "begat" sections seem interesting with a variety of subtle touchs.

The Shape of Things to Come, H.G. Wells. I remember seeing the 1936 version with Raymond Massey as a child on PBS, and recently rewatched it via Netflix. The book is far different and doesn't succeed at all as a novel. As a rumination on what's wrong with modern, capitalist society and a possible solution, it offers a lot of food for thought (some of it disturbing - Wells could be quite fascistic in his proscriptions).

The Ultimate Reality Game

2009-11-24T10:47:00.000-08:00

As I believe I've mentioned before, I work for a media relations service that prefers to remain anonymous in employee blogs (lest we say something disrespectful, I suppose, or reveal the plot for the next Twilight absurdity*). I will say that we have many clients in both the health/pharma and entertainment industries. The other day, I realized what a synergistic combination these two could become.

Attend: Pharma companies spend millions going through elaborate clinical trials to prove that their drugs are effective against any number of diseases. Entertainment companies scramble to find the next big reality show. How about we combine their efforts?

Survivor: [Disease of the Season]!!!

Considering its topicality, we could start season one with Survivor: Flu. Two or more teams get drugs that may or may not cure a disease, and we get to watch. Imagine the potential drama - Team A puts a mole in Team B to sabotage the results; one half of a family gets Drug 1, the other half gets Drug 2; someone on Team A is a (secret) drug addict; etc.

It's a win-win situation for the drug companies and the viewing audience! (Though not, admittedly, for the poor schmucks who get ineffective drugs or the placebo.)

Potential future shows:
Survivor: Plague
Survivor: Ebola
Survivor: Leukemia
Survivor: Crohn's Disease

For comic relief, we could have a season of Survivor: Jittery Leg Syndrome or Survivor: Warts.**

* To be fair to my employers, I do understand their concern that truly sensitive info doesn't get out in a public forum before its owners wish.
** For the truly dense: This is not meant as a serious proposition. It's called satire, though I do not claim to reach the rarified heights of a Jonathan Swift.

Things to Be Thankful For? #3 - The Israeli Supreme Court

2009-11-24T10:41:00.001-08:00

I don't often have good things to say about the Israeli government but their Supreme Court often surprises one with their wisdom and insight.

Case in point is a recent ruling made concerning the legitimacy of private prisons. In an 8-1 decision, the Israeli court determined "that incarceration infringes on such fundamental liberties that only the state should carry out this function, not least since the alternative is to turn prisoners into a means of extracting profit. `Economic efficiency is not a supreme value, when we are dealing with basic and important rights for which the state has responsibility.'"

What heresy!

The care of prisoners should not be left in the hands of people whose sole motivation is to make money.

One might extend this to the prosecution of wars, as well.

Things to Be Thankful For? #2 - Indoor plumbing

2009-11-24T10:38:00.001-08:00

Do I really need to elaborate?

Of all the achievements of human civilization, "indoor plumbing" has to rank up there in the Top 5.

I trained to be a historian. I would love to travel back in time to see all sorts of things. But I wouldn't want to stay anywhere much before 1900 without a flush toilet (or, to accommodate water conservationists) any form of toilet.

Things to Be Thankful For? #1 - Healthcare "reform" debate?

2009-11-24T10:08:00.000-08:00

How mortally damaged is our democracy that the Democrats declare it a great victory when they win a procedural vote to allow debate on a healthcare reform bill? Not, mind you, an up-or-down vote on a bill. Not even a vote on a critical amendment. But a vote on whether or not to allow the Senate to simply talk about a bill. And the leadership had to kow tow to Lincoln, Landrieu, Nelson and Lieberman to get that!

The Senate has not been a great deliberative body for a long time (and even back in the day, their reputation was exaggerated) so maybe the Republicans were hoping to spare us a tedious round of endless speechifying? I doubt it. It seems to me that the Republicans (and their faux Dem allies) are afraid that some real information might leak out to the public if a debate were to take place - like that fact that no civilized country on the planet (including free-market bastion Switzerland) allows its citizens to suffer so at the hands of for-profit, private insurance companies.

But should the question of debate even be up for a vote? Why is the agenda of the Senate subject to a vote? It's the responsibility of the majority party to set the agenda and if they want to debate something, then the minority should just deal with it.

We've long lost sight in this nation that our society is made up of different interest groups. Some of those interests are complementary, some relationships are neutral, some are going to be actively antagonistic, and many overlap. At the moment, unfortunately, the only representation we have is that of the financial elites, who've managed to convince over the last 30 years that bloody, unregulated capitalism is a benison.

Armistice Day - 2009

2009-11-12T00:42:00.000-08:00

Another Armistice (aka Veterans) Day and another year where America and her legions appear to have gone out of their way to make the world a more violent place.

I tried to find something positive to mention here and this is the best that I could do:

MIA dog found in Afghanistan after 14 months

And as for the continued insanity of the Long War:

Britain's last WWI veteran shuns Remembrance Day (the UK's equivalent of Veterans)

And remember, Next Wednesday, Nov. 18, is the second anniversary of Collateral Damage Day!

The Most Powerful Senator of the 20th Century?

2009-08-31T10:58:00.000-07:00

I nearly lost it in the days after Ted Kennedy's death. It was all I could do not to throw the radio against the wall or swerve into a lamppost just to end the agony of Ted's canonization. He was a man after my own heart; many of the bills he sponsored or supported in his long career, I too supported or support. But as I look over all the verbiage and bandwidth devoted to his legacy, I am struck by his ineffectiveness.

Yes, there's some landmark legislation to his credit - Title IX and other civil rights law from 30 years ago - but much is like the little Dutch boy who tried to stop the flood. Where Kennedy could stick his liberal fingers the water was stopped, but the conservative flood overwhelmed the levee and the country is demonstrably worse off.

While this post is a response to the general tenor of the Kennedy hagiographies, it specifically plays off two blogs at the Rude Pundit, where the author (who I like and follow) lists some of Kennedy's achievements, many of which illustrate my point.

1. State control over school curricula. Nice concept but because of the way the school-book publishing industry is gamed, the nation's schools' curricula is largely determined by a few school districts in Texas, that bastion of enlightened, rational thinking.

2. Getting to vote at 18. Considering the usual turnout of the 18-21 crowd at election time, does this really signify? And considering the voting patterns of the 40- and 50-somethings who first benefited from this amendment, can we consider this the wisest piece of legislation anyway?

3. Cheap airfares (aka, deregulating the airline industry). Talk about mixed blessings. And, this was the opening salvo in the senseless and disastrous assault on any form of government regulation.

4. Mental institutions should treat people humanely. A no-brainer by any standard of morality but this was also the era of Reagan, when such institutions were defunded and their patients dumped on the streets.

5. Minimum wage. This is one fight I was personally involved in. In 1987/88, during my junior year at college, I interned with the Americans for Democratic Action in Washington. One of the big legislative pushes for that year was a Kennedy-sponsored increase in the ludicrously inadequate minimum wage to increase it to a slightly less inadequate wage. The legislation went nowhere (I don't think we got a federal increase until the Clinton era).

6. Health care. For this latest round, I have to give Kennedy a pass - he had his own crisis to deal with - but he was fully competent in 1993 when Clinton introduced his disastrous solution, and he was fully competent for most of the intervening 15 years. I guess we should be grateful he helped block "medical savings accounts" and privatizing Social Security and Medicare.

7. The war(s). Kudos to the man for voting against the original "war" resolution (in 2002 or 2003) but where was he for the next 6 years? Where was he at the anti-war rallies? Where was he on the PATRIOT Act, the Military Commissions Act, immunizing the telecoms from illegal wiretapping charges, the legality of rendition, and the other successful assaults on civil liberties and justice? Small comfort to imagine how much worse things might have been if Kennedy hadn't been in the Senate.

His heart was in the right place and he will be missed in the Senate but he never commanded the respect and support he needed to effect his policies, a political tragedy with more far reaching results than either of his brothers' legacies.

Hiroshima Musings

2009-08-06T11:20:00.000-07:00

I hope it doesn't need to be said that today and Sunday will mark the 64th anniversary of the days we instantly incinerated 100,000+ people and condemned even more to lives scarred by cancers and other fallout from dropping the "Bomb" on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

If not, you can refresh your memories here, here and here.

But it also terrified the Japanese into ending then and there a war that had lasted nearly five years and had claimed its own enormous share of casualties.

And that's the moral question: Considering the qualitatively different nature of atomic weaponry, were we justified in using the A-bomb? (Actually, it raises the broader question of bombing at all when we know full well the targets are primarily civilians but I confine myself today to the "atomic" aspect of the question.)

When my brother and I were kids, we collected quite a bit of WW2-related stuff - from Time-Life books to Avalon Hill's plethora of war-related games (remember "Axis & Allies"?). The question of the Bomb's morality and whether or not there had been alternatives hardly signified. (Let's be honest, at least in American literature, the Bomb was "good" and "justified.") As I've grown older, though, my feelings about war and the military have changed; I've read a wide range of views on the subject, and I've thought about it (particularly during those first weeks of August when it seems no one but the survivors and their kin remember Hiroshima). When it comes down to landing on one side of the issue or the other, I have to say that dropping the Bomb was both a moral and a (long-term) strategic mistake. Morally because waging war is an obscenity (a mortal sin, if you want to go Catholic about it). Even though we were forced into conflict, our moral imperative was to limit the damage inflicted on ourselves and our foes. Strategically because we set a precedent: If the putative "leader of the Free World" saw fit to use a device of such destructive power why can't a similarly righteously motivated nation use it? Or, far worse, why can't atomic weapons simply be counted as just another sword in the arsenal?

But...

There's a scene in Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns where the retiring Commissioner Gordon is explaining to his replacement why she shouldn't oppose the Batman. The context is the beginning of World War 2 and Pearl Harbor but I think the point is still valid:

GORDON: A few years back, I was reading a news magazine. A lot of people with a lot of evidence said that Roosevelt knew Pearl was going to be attacked and that he let it happen.

Wasn't proven. Things like that never are. I couldn't stop thinking how horrible that would be, and how Pearl was what got us off our duffs in time to stop the Axis.

But a lot of innocent men died.

But we won the war.

It bounced back and forth in my head until I realized I couldn't judge it. It was too big. (page 96 in my edition)

Without the benefit of hindsight, can we legitimately judge Truman and his advisors?

Perhaps not. Perhaps - no, definitely - where we've failed as a country and as moral agents is facing the consequences of the action, and deciding that it will never happen again, and taking the necessary steps to ensure that it doesn't.

Rethinking the Universe?

2009-08-06T10:56:00.000-07:00

There is an article in the July/August 2009 of Discover that has proven to be a frustrating disappointment to me. It's titled "The Return of the Invisible Man," and the abstract says, "Stephen Hawking, the master of time, space, and black holes, steps back into the spotlight to secure his scientific legacy - and to explain the greatest mystery in physics." On top of that, the cover's teaser: "Stephen Hawking Rethinks the Universe."

All this would lead the reader (at least this reader) to expect an essay about Hawking's latest efforts to explain how the universe works. Instead what we get is a little-over-six pages of Hawking biography, a peer review of his legacy and three measly paragraphs that suggest what Hawking is up to but leaves us hanging.

The chief offending paragraph:

"Hawking is now pushing a different strategy, which he calls top-down cosmology. It is not the case, he says, that the past uniquely determines the present. Because the Universe has many possible histories and just as many possible beginnings, the present state of the Universe selects the past. `This means that the histories of the Universe depend on what is being measured,' Hawking wrote in a recent paper, `contrary to the usual idea that the Universe has an objective, observer-independent history.'" (Discover, July/August 2009, p. 51)

The paragraph after intimates how this may save string theory (which has come under increasing attack in the last few years as it continues unable to experimentally prove any of its claims); and graf three suggests where scientists might look to confirm Hawking's predictions (the background cosmic radiation).

And that's it. There's no further exploration of the practical consequences for our understanding of the universe if Hawking is right or if he's even in the right neighborhood.

I hope that Hawking (who's not in the best of health) or one of his students can further explore the hypothesis and generate a book friendly to an amateur cosmologist like myself because I'm still trying to wrap my brain around that first paragraph.

The Gates/Crowley Affair, Part 2 (or, Another Reason to Hate Cops)

2009-08-06T10:50:00.000-07:00

"Lethal Sting," in the August 2009 issue of The Progressive, reveals the cops' use of civilians in sting operations. Author Vince Beiser focuses on a young woman facing jail time for possession (of marijuana) but was told she could avoid t if she participated in a sting to nab some dealers.

She died.

The cops "lost" her at a critical moment, and she was gunned down. Beiser discusses similar operations with similarly fatal results.

I'm simply stunned that this is permitted. That untrained civilians are sent into potentially lethal situations and (so far) no one has objected. Typically, though, the death of a white, middle class girl with outraged parents has galvanized some action to restrict if not outright ban this stupidity - at least in Florida. "Rachel's Law" now requires police departments to make an informant's safety "the highest priority" but I still shudder to believe that anyone considers this a rational policy.

The Gates/Crowley Affair

2009-07-31T11:09:00.000-07:00

Like many, I've been watching the latest example of our slide toward the "police state," and have been thinking about what to say about it. Well, I need agonize no more. Ted Rall has taken the words right out of my mouth at his latest blog - Everyone Hates the Cops. It captures almost exactly what I've been thinking.

I particularly liked "I admit it: I don't like cops. I like the idea of cops. The specific people who actually are cops are the problem" and "Nevertheless, the Gates incident has illuminated some basic, strange assumptions about our society. Cops think they have a constitutional right to be treated deferentially."

I don't think it's so much a matter of individual cops consciously wanting to further the agenda of the police state but rather a matter of terror. The cops are terrified of the citizenry (in some neighborhoods justifiably so) but they've been trained to respond like soldiers in a war - shoot first and hope you're right. But the rational response should not be to ratchet up the fear and violence. A rational response would include, among other things:

Civilian oversight of the police. (In my own city, it's pointless to complain to the LAPD because they investigate themselves and invariably find that their actions were justified.)

A more just economic system. (I know, it won't and can't solve all crime and violence but you can see the ameliorative effect it has in countries where the divide between rich and poor is not so wide.)

Better police training that emphasizes defusing situations and an emphasis on those quaint Constitutional guarantees of privacy and innocence until proven guilty.

And one final thought today...

2009-07-28T11:03:00.000-07:00

An even briefer note: Contact your senators and representative - e-mail, snail-mail, call & fax - overwhelm the bastards:

1. Single-payer healthcare - yes
2. Get out of Iraq and Afghanistan
3. "Yes" on the Employee Free Choice Act

3:10 to Yuma

2009-07-28T10:53:00.000-07:00

Just a brief note: If you're a Western movie fan, a fan of Russell Crowe, a fan of Christian Bale, a fan of Glenn Ford or any or all of the above, I would recommend watching both the 1957 and 2007 versions of "3:10 to Yuma."

Personally, I think the Crowe/Bale version superior to the Ford/Heflin version. But it's a close thing; neither lacks for good storytelling or wonderful acting.

And speaking of time, over the course of the last few weeks I've caught four very different examples of the time-travel genre. In order of increasing "artsiness": "Retroactive," "Timecrimes," "Primer" and "Le Jetee."

"Retroactive" is the most "Hollywoodish" of the four but is an entertaining diversion; and it's fun watching the body count continue to rise each time the hapless heroine goes back and tries to make things "right."

"Timecrimes" is a Spanish film that follows a middle-aged man who's accidentally caught up in a time-travel experiment. Probably the best of the lot. A friend of mine who's also seen the film has invested some serious mental effort in justifying some of the less believable aspects. One of the more interesting aspects of the film is the question of whether or not you should even try to change the past knowing the consequences.

"Primer" is the indie film that wowed audiences and critics on the film-festival circuit. It doesn't merit the hyperbolic praise of the critics but it is good, one of its strengths being that it's the story of a man's moral disintegration and the destruction of a friendship rather than just a time-travel story.

"Le Jetee" is a French film (1962) told in a series of still photos and voice over. There's probably no American director who could have pulled this off (except for a young Orson Welles) but Chris Marker succeeds brilliantly. (FYI, this film heavily influenced Terry Gilliam's "12 Monkeys, a good film in its own right.)

I Think I'm In Love

2009-07-28T10:28:00.000-07:00

I think I'm in love. No, not that way - the woman's been dead for 40 years. No, I have had the great good fortune to once again stumble across an author who has completely enamored me, and for whose works I would gladly pay so that I could set them up on their own book shelf.

Of that august body I would include the following:

Fyodor Dostoyevsky. D. was the first "literary" author who captured my imagination and altered the way I read and judged books. Crime and Punishment was on the list of selections my 11th grade English teacher, Mr. Hartmann, offered the class as a paper topic. My choice was almost at random; I think some of the factors was that D. wasn't an English-speaking author, I didn't want to read the "usual" classic and the subject sounded suitably lurid to my 17-year-old mind.

I'll admit that the full scope and genius of the novel escaped me at the time (and probably still does albeit to a lesser extent) but it was a wonderful experience reading it. The next year, in College Comp (with the same teacher), I moved on to The Brothers Karamazov and beyond.

More briefly, others:

Edgar Pangborn. An unjustly forgotten master of humane SF. Check out Davy and Still I Persist in Wondering, but even his "failures" are worth reading.

Ursula Le Guin. A writer who's grown in skill and power over the years. Fictionwise, I would especially recommend her last two Earthsea volumes - The Other Wind and Tales of Earthsea. Nonfictionally, pick up her several collections of essays and her idiosyncratic translation of the Tao Te Ching.

W. Somerset Maugham. I met Maugham through the chance remark of a friend who compared me to Larry in The Razor's Edge. I found myself closely identifying with author and many of his characters.

Around the same time I discovered Joseph Conrad; and just as serendipitously. I saw "Alien" when it first came out in 1979 and always wondered why the ship was named "Nostromo." Eventually, I bought a used copy of the novel, and it was another case of love. I devoured it while camping on Catalina Island, and went on to feast on all his other works.

Anton Chekhov. OMG! How could I have missed this author for so long? No matter, I did find him.

Iain Banks and Steven Erikson are two authors whose works (Consider Phlebas and The Malazan Book of the Fallen, respectively) galvanized a flagging interest in SF.

But none of these authors are the real subject of this blog. Our real subject is an English writer named Ivy Compton-Burnett. Born in the 19th century, her first successful novel was published in 1925, and she continued to publish right up to her death in 1969. All of her novels focus on families and their relationships, and all are composed nearly entirely in dialog (one commentator I've read compares her to reading a Mamet play). They require an attention span somewhat longer than that fostered in modern culture but they are so worth the effort. Compton-Burnett writes with a mordant, piquant wit but still creates real people whom the reader cares about.

You can open her novels to pretty much any page to get a sample of her wit and style but the opening to Manservant and Maidservant can give you a taste:

"Is that fire smoking?" said Horace Lamb.
"Yes, it appears to be, my dear boy."
"I am not asking what it appears to be doing. I asked if it was smoking."
"Appearances are not held to be a clue to the truth," said his cousin. "But we seem to have no other."
Horace advanced into the room as though his attention were withdrawn from his surroundings.
"Good morning," he said in a preoccupied tone, that changed as his eyes resumed their direction. "It does seem that the fire is smoking."
"It is in the stage when smoke is produced. So it is hard to see what it can do."
"Did you really not understand me?"
"Yes, yes, my dear boy. It is giving out some smoke. We must say it is."

If your interest is piqued, check out her website: http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/ivy/index.html

A New Revelation?

2009-07-13T10:34:00.000-07:00

For your hands are defiled with blood,
And your fingers with iniquity;
Your lips have spoken lies,
Your tongue has muttered perversity.

No one calls for justice,
Nor does any plead for truth.
They trust in empty words and speak lies;
They conceive evil and bring forth iniquity.
They hatch vipers' eggs and weave the spider's web;
He who eats of their eggs dies,
And from that which is crushed a viper breaks out.

Their webs will not become garments,
Nor will they cover themselves with their works;
Their works are works of iniquity,
And the act of violence is in their hands.
Their feet run to evil,
And they make haste to shed innocent blood;
Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity;
Wasting and destruction are in their paths.
The way of peace they have not known,
And there is no justice in their ways;
They have made themselves crooked paths;
Whoever takes that way shall not know peace. (Isaiah 59:3-8, RKJV)

I transcribed the above not just because it's a pretty good invocation of these times (sad, isn't it, that something written c. 3,000 years ago still applies) but also because it shows that there is a fair amount in the Bible that's actually quite good (there's also a lot that's quite bad: And you shall stone him with stones until he dies, because he sought to entice you away from the Lord your God [Deuteronomy 14:10] and just plain irrelevant: He shall put the holy linen tunic and the linen trousers on his body; he shall be girded with a linen sash, and with the linen turban he shall be attired [Leviticus 16:4]).

I also mention it because it has come into my mind that we are ripe for - in desperate need of - another "revelation" along the lines of the great ur-revelations of the Axial Age (Abraham, Buddha, Laozi) and their successors - Moses, Jesus, Mohammad, any number of bodhisattvas. Lately, I've been reading histories and commentaries on various scriptures and it seems to me that we need another prophet to sweep the detritus that's accumulated over the last 2,000 years on the essential messages of our greatest philosophers.

We're at a point now where we can't afford to be the errant little children of a Father God (or a Mother Goddess, for that matter). It's time to grow up and start taking responsibility. We know how to behave ourselves - we've known for 3,000 years - but we've always managed to justify murder, rape, lies, selfishness, etc. in the name of that God (or Gods).

The factor that prompted this entry comes from an essay I caught on Alternet.org by Robert Jensen, where he sort of articulates what's been bouncing around in my own head: "To imagine a just and sustainable world, we need not just a politics but a theology that can help us face the delusional arrogance and disastrous self-indulgence of humans." (I like it when I find validation in other's musings.)

I wish I had the charisma (and belief) to be that prophet but I don't. Human beings seem to be constituted in such a way that an a-theistic view of the universe is almost impossible to imagine or sustain, and ultimately unappealing, so we have to hope for a man or woman of faith to emerge. And a person of real faith. Not an L. Ron Hubbard who was cynical enough to exploit human gullibility but didn't have the moral sense my cats were born with.

Happy Fourth of July

2009-07-03T09:38:00.000-07:00

Oh, come on! You knew it was coming. July 4th? The most patriotic day on the U.S. calendar? It just cries out for one of my “anti-American” screeds, doesn’t it?

Well, not quite.

Make no mistake, I still loathe what our government descended to over the last eight years (and more) and that it appears to want to remain in the sewer under Obama but I don’t have any new targets. Sites like AlterNet.org or programs like Frontline or Bill Moyer’s Journal do far better and more credible jobs than I can aspire to in exposing how rotten and corrupt this country has (unfortunately) become.

No, I want to look back today at the founding of our Republic and ask “Was the Revolution really necessary?” or, at least, was a war necessary to wrest the colonies from Britain? I was reminded of the topic because this month’s issue of The Progressive carries an essay by the historian Howard Zinn, “A Just Cause ≠ A Just War.” In it he asks us to consider what alternatives there may have been not just to the Revolutionary War but to the other “good” wars in American history – the Civil War and World War II. I don’t think I can entirely agree with his contention that there were alternatives to war in the latter two cases. From my reading of Civil War history, Lincoln bent over backwards to placate Southern fears, and it was South Carolina’s precipitate action at Fort Sumter that forced the federal government to act. True, the president could have let the South go, and good riddance, but that would have left I-don’t-know-how-many African-Americans slaves. What, possibly bloodier, violence would have lain ahead if that cancer hadn’t been addressed? And, if the South had successfully seceded, what would have happened to the idea of the Union? More than any other president before him, Lincoln made “these United States” into “the United States,” a truly unified nation.

In the case of World War II, the fascist dictatorships forced war on us. Again, it’s true, preceding actions on all sides often didn’t help defuse tensions or actively abetted the fascists (the Versailles Treaty being just the poster boy of a long string of foolish mistakes) but fascist ideology needed war. No matter what the Allies did, even if they had made no mistakes, it was only a matter of time.

That doesn’t make these wars “just” or “good.” Violence is never so but I can’t make the case to myself (much less you) that it’s never necessary.

The Revolutionary War, on the other hand? Maybe not so necessary. After all, who were we revolting against? The British Empire? A nation on the cutting-edge of democratic reform at least from the Glorious Revolution in 1688? As oppressive dictators go, George III was pretty tame; and given the inevitable change in government, the colonists’ complaints (so eloquently set out in the Declaration of Independence) could have been addressed by a new Prime Minister. Zinn points out in his essay that a year before “the shot heard round the world,” “…farmers in Western Massachusetts had driven the British government out without firing a single shot. They had assembled by the thousands and thousands around courthouses and colonial offices and they had just taken over and they said goodbye to the British officials.” Zinn argues that it was the richer colonists’ desire for land that provoked their decisive break with London. After the French and Indian War, treaties with Native Americans blocked the Colonies’ expansion westward, and that, more even than stamp taxes or no representation in Parliament, incensed certain sectors to no end. Of course, it wasn’t as simple as all that but it does suggest that the motives behind the rebellion were not as pure as the common wisdom would pretend, and there were alternatives, if anyone had had the vision to pursue them.

Would the Colonies have eventually won their independence without war? Almost certainly. Look at Canada or Australia or any other province of the Empire. Even if they hadn’t, would things really be so bloody awful today? I can’t think so. Perhaps the abolition of slavery (which came about quite bloodlessly in the British case) wouldn’t have required 600,000+ dead and a further 150 years of segregation and Jim Crow. Perhaps a Great Britain that included the “kingdoms” of England, Scotland, Ireland and the Thirteen Colonies would have been too daunting for the fascists to challenge. Perhaps a happier relationship could have pertained between us and the Native nations. Perhaps.

Perhaps, too, the world would be in even worse shape politically, economically and environmentally today (though that’s hard to imagine).

The point is, however, not “might have beens” but that violence unleashes so much chaos, destruction and pointless death that its justification has to be nigh unassailable. It’s not a Manichaean choice between war and pacifism but one between war and how do we create a world where that option is not ever on the table.

Was the death and destruction of the Revolutionary War a necessary price to pay?

2009 Mid-Year Book Round-Up

2009-07-03T09:29:00.000-07:00

It’s mid-year 2009 and time for the now traditional overview of the more interesting books I’ve read so far this year. (All these have been reviewed on my GoodReads page.)

Top Five Fiction:

1. Modern Love (poems), George Meredith. I’m not one for poetry usually but I was intrigued by Michael Dirda’s write up of this 50-sonnet cycle of poems about the author’s disintegrating marriage in his Classics for Pleasure.

2. The Great Stink, Clare Clark. A marvelous novel about the building of London’s sewers and the love between a man and his dog.

3. Three Bags Full, Leonie Swann. From my review on GoodReads: “Three Bags Full is, without a doubt, the best sheep detective novel ever written.”

4. King Jesus, Robert Graves. Graves’ iconoclastic look at Christianity’s savior. It’s a brilliant book.

5. The Judging Eye, R. Scott Bakker. Bakker’s fourth book set in the world of the Three Seas. It’s not as strong a beginning of this new sequence as The Darkness That Comes Before but it’s quite good.

If I were listing the top seven, I’d have to include Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop (a bit of a surprise because I loathed My Antonia when I had to read it in high school) and James Cabell’s Figures of Earth.

Top Five Nonfiction:

1. An Army at Dawn, Rick Atkinson. Atkinson’s first book in his trilogy on the Allied invasions of Africa and Europe. I started in the middle with the author’s account of the Italian campaign; this is just as good, and I’m looking forward to his concluding volume about D-Day.

2. The Punic Wars, Adrian Goldsworthy. Very readable account of the wars that birthed the Roman empire.

3. Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, John McWhorter. A short, well written look at some of the quirkier aspects of English.

4. The Limits of Power, Andrew Bacevich. A follow-up to Bacevich’s extraordinary The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War. This one’s just as good.

5. Comanche Empire, Pekka Hamalainen. The academic jargon can be a bit of a slog, especially in the first few chapters, but well worth the effort as this author reveals a fascinating chapter of Southwest American history.

Best Reread of the Year to Date: A tie: The Worm Ouroboros, E.R. Eddison and Still I Persist in Wondering, Edgar Pangborn

Worst Reread of the Year to Date: The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis

Best Reading of New Material from a Favorite Author: Kull: Exile of Atlantis, Robert E. Howard

Most Disappointing Reading of New Material from a Favorite Author: Regenesis, C.J. Cherryh

Memorial Day Rant

2009-05-25T10:54:00.000-07:00

As I sit here typing this "rant" I'm listening to an excerpt from another demonstration by the Winter Soldier project. The soldier testifying is explaining how he and his fellows were issued "drop weapons" - guns that would be dropped by the bodies of murdered civilians to "prove" that they were insurgents.

Though this particular story has not prompted this blog entry directly, it is an example of just why I say on this Memorial Day: "Fuck the military."

Now, as individuals, most people in the military are decent enough (I believe I've mentioned previously that my brother's a Marine vet, and I'd trust him to babysit the cats) but as an institution the armed forces have brutalized this country's soul. Certainly they haven't defended "freedom" (whatever that may signify) since the Second World War (and some would argue that). Unless, of course, they've been defending the ability of our ruling elites to do anything they damn well please anywhere they want. Consider: The chief function of the U.S. Army from c. 1800 to c. 1861 was slaughtering or transporting Native Americans (known today as "ethnic cleansing" or "genocide"). From 1861-1865, a case could be argued that the army was actually performing its function to defend the Union (unless you're a complete pacifist) but post-1865, it was back to the status quo ante. Fortunately for the Republic, the Indians and our Latin American neighbors were military midgets. The pre-WW2 military-industrial complex never attained a size where it exercised an overwhelming influence over our government. That balance changed after the Allies defeated Hitler and Tojo. The U.S. found itself the only industrial power of any size, and segments of our society with sympathetic aims coalesced around a permanent war economy that bribed millions of Americans with good jobs and secure lifestyles.

I challenge anyone to show me where American military intervention has benefited a country. Haiti? Nicaragua? Iraq? Iran? Viet Nam? Afghanistan? Pakistan? The list of the unfortunate who have endured (or are enduring) our baleful presence goes on and on.

Sigh...I know that painting with such a broad brush invites defeat in detail but the point is that violence always leaves and generates more problems than it solves. And in America's case, it's become the only solution we seem capable of (witness the hysterical reactions of many to even the suggestion that Obama was open to negotiating with the enemies we've made).

I can respect a person's decision to join the military for pretty much any reason, no matter how deluded I think they may be, but I cannot respect the institution they serve, and I'm not going to celebrate that service.

Shakespeare Recommendations

2009-02-18T10:23:00.003-08:00

I've been doing a lot of reading, listening to and watching Shakespeare the last few months. I've finished the so-called Henriad (Richard II, Henry IV (pts. 1, 2), Henry V), King John and Richard III, and I'm preparing to tackle Henry VI (pts. 1, 2, 3). I've also caught (or recaught) Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Othello and As You Like It.

In terms of listening to the Bard, I can't recommend enough the Arkangel series of audio CDs which have been uniformly excellent so far. I'm in the midst of Henry IV right now and the actor reading Falstaff is brilliant.

In terms of visual delight, I'd recommend without reservation the Ambrose Video series of adaptations. David Gwillim and Jon Finch are marvelous as Henry V and Henry IV, respectively, and Anthony Quayle is wonderful as Falstaff. I also particularly enjoyed the actor who portrayed Richard III. The casts are always good, regardless.

The only drawback to all this good literature is that it's ruined me for my job as a copy editor - I just can't take a press release about Carls Jr's new crispy burrito or the Santa Monica Pier's centennial seriously or I'll rail about the utter lack of writing ability :-)

Book Review: Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue

2009-02-18T10:12:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to strongly recommend John McWhorter's latest book, a slim volume for the general reader interested in language called Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue.

In five chapters, McWhorter looks at some of the more interesting aspects of English -

Chapter 1 - Explains why English has the "meaningless do" and uses the present participle (-ing) as a marker for the present tense (it's the Celts' fault).

Chapter 2 - Looks at the arbitrariness of grammar and how English's evolved.

Chapter 3 - Explains the reason why English is astonishingly lacking in case endings (compared to its Indo-European cousins) (blame the Vikings for this one).

Chapter 4 - Demolishes the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that grammar significantly shapes a speaker's view of reality.

Chapter 5 - Discusses the exciting hypothesis that proto-German's sound shift from "p", "t" and "k" to "f", "th" and "h" is the result of Semitic influence from the mid-first millennium BC (the Phoenicians can claim this one).

Overall, a very satisfying and quick (c. 200 pages) read.

Evolution: 1, Intelligent Design: 0

2009-02-18T09:54:00.000-08:00

Having taken last week off from work, I was lounging around the apartment Tuesday night providing a comfortable cushion for the cats when I stumbled across a Nova episode recounting the Dover, PA, case where a school district tried to get Intelligent Design taught as a scientific theory. Based solely on the trial's transcripts, the episode utterly demolished ID's claim to scientific validity. The case was so obvious, even the conservative, Bush-era-appointee judge recognized ID's worthlessness as an explanatory theory.

The most telling comment came when one of the scientists interviewed said that, ultimately, Intelligent Design is a science killer. It stops inquiry dead in its tracks since it says that if you find an "irreducibly complex" organ the only possible explanation is a "designer." (And, as IDers can't claim it's God, they're willing to contemplate aliens from Xenu or annunaki from Nabiru, which makes the theory's explanatory power even weaker.)

But, of course, you can trace the elements that go to make up so-called irreducibly complex organs: Vision has independently evolved several times, for example, and even the bacterium's flagellum (one of ID's prime examples of irreducible complexity) has been parsed into its constituent elements. (Richard Dawkins in The Ancestor's Tale points out that if the flagellum is such a wonder of motive power and efficiency, why is it only present in bacteria. You would think an intelligent designer would want to put such a marvelous engine in all its creations.)

At any rate, if you can find it on the Internet, see it on a Nova rerun, or purchase it from PBS, I recommend it highly.

Book Review: The 2008 Year-End Roundup

2009-01-31T13:17:00.000-08:00

All of the books below have received some sort of review on my GoodReads site so I'll confine myself to a few brief notes. Note, too, that this certainly doesn't exhaust the list of stuff I read between June and December 2008, this is the cream of the crop:

The Fiction Roll -
The January Dancer, Michael Flynn. Probably the best new SF I've read all year.
The Nature of Monsters and The Great Stink, Clare Clark.
Toll the Hounds, Steven Erikson. Book 8 in The Malazan Book of the Fallen.
Dark Sleeper and The House in the High Wood, Jeffrey Barlough. A mixture of Dickens and Lovecraft; the former predominates in Sleeper, the latter in House (whose ending is one of the most profoundly creepy I've ever read).
The Coroner's Lunch, Colin Cotterill. A mystery series that follows the adventures of a Laotian coroner under the Communist regime. I can also recommend the second in the series, 33 Teeth.
Un Lun Dun, China Mieville's stab at young-adult fiction. Very good.

The Nonfiction Roll -
The Horse, the Wheel & Language, David Anthony
Who's Been Sleeping in Your Head?, Brett Kahr. A look at "normal" people's sexual fantasies.
The Geese of Beaver Bog, Bernd Henrich. One of the best nature books I've ever read.
The Singing Neanderthals (Steve Mithen) and Inside the Neolithic Mind (David Lewis-Williams). I put these two together because they're complementary texts in my mind: The first looks at the origins of music and language; the second looks at the origins of spirituality and religion in modern homo sapiens.
The Ruin of the Roman Empire, James O'Donnell
How Fiction Works, James Wood
Barbarian Tides, Walter Goffart. A dense book, not for the faint hearted but well worth the effort.
The Suspicions of Mister Whicher, Kate Summerscale
Young Stalin, Simon Montefiore. Stalin's life before he became Stalin.

Happy Holidays

2008-12-24T15:23:00.000-08:00

From top to bottom:
Meggie, Irene, Puck, Oberon (top) and Malcolm (bottom), Calvin (top) and Miss Grey (bottom), the Monkey (left) and Emma (right), and Terence

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Sharing the wealth

2008-12-09T10:26:00.000-08:00

Considering the latest hysteria from the Right about Obama's diabolic plot to "share the wealth" and steal hard-earned dollars from hard-working Americans and give it to lazy, shiftless, no-good welfare queens, I thought it'd be an appropriate time to remind them what Jesus had to say about the matter (especially as so many Rightists claim to be "Christians"):

"If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." Matthew 19:21 (NKJV)

"Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common.... Nor was there anyone among them who lacked; for all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold and laid them at the apostles' feet; and they distributed to each as anyone had need." Acts 4:32, 34-35 (NKJV)

And you remember what happened to Ananias and Sapphira - they held back and God struck them dead (Acts 5:1-11 [NKJV]).

Just sayin'

Risking the wrath of God

2008-11-19T10:36:00.000-08:00

I can't discuss the company I work for because they're quite the fascists when it comes to the First Amendment, and in this economic climate I'd prefer not to risk my job. But I will say that we process and distribute press releases, and it is in that context that I wanted to share the following:

Last night, a release came in for a game called Blasphemy. Two to four players play wannabe Messiahs in the Holy Land. The first one to convince enough people that he or she is the Chosen One gets crucified.

Check it out here.

Collateral Damage Day - November 18

2008-11-18T09:28:00.000-08:00

COLLATERAL
DAMAGE
DAY

Unfortunately it is all too easy to find images of the people who are paying the price to keep us "free." "Free" being a relative term as Congress and the judiciary has acquiesced over the last 60 years (but particularly in the last 8) in eviscerating the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th Amendments.

Isn't it great to live in the land of the free, home of the brave?

The image above was lifted from the blogsite Nixon Is In Hell, and the boy's name (at least from what I can tell from the file name) is Ali.

I know that the overwhelming majority of our soldiers are "good" people (heck, my brother was a Marine and he's not so bad) but they're also individuals with a moral conscience. When they surrender that conscience to collaborate in the murderous policies of the Bush (or any other) Administration, then they become culpable in those crimes.

I'll quote again from Ursula Le Guin's translation of Chapter 31 of Tao Te Ching:

"It is right that the murder of many people

be mourned and lamented.

It is right that a victor in war

be received with funeral ceremonies."

A few books to recommend

2008-11-16T09:29:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading two marvelous books and thought I would share:

The first is James O'Donnell's The Ruin of the Roman Empire, which I mentioned in a previous post. The review is still on my GoodReads site here. What I like about it is O'Donnell's attempt to strip away the detritus of historiography and his incorporation of the latest archaeological and prosopographic evidence to create a "truer" picture of the period than any I've read before. It's not perfect and suffers from the author's own prejudices but it shakes up a reader's perceptions of a period that many would think has been mined out.

The second book to recommend this Sunday a.m. is James Wood's How Fiction Works. It's a very readable and interesting look at a noted critic's opinion about what makes good writing, and its review is here.

I've also been directed to a potentially hugely interesting site known as the Internet Archive, and I owe it all to my presence on GoodReads. It came about because someone read my review of J.B. Post's The Atlas of Fantasy, where I mentioned an interest in Thomas Malkin. Thomas was a young prodigy who unfortunately died at the age of six. Before he died, however, he created a fantasy world called Allestone - a history and culture, a calendar and maps, as well as a number of stories. His father wrote a biography, A Father's Memoirs of His Child, in 1806 appending all of the Allestone stories and maps. I despaired of finding a copy of this 200-year-old book but the wonders of modern technology and the Internet came to my rescue. The Internet Archive scans well known and obscure texts, videos, audio, etc. to a common database anyone can access. And there, in a variety of formats, lay A Father's Memoirs. I haven't had the opportunity to read the entire tome; I've only skimmed it since printing it out. From what little I have read, though, I think Post's opinion is sound - we lost a remarkable mind when we lost Thomas Malkin.

On that same site, I've found many of James Branch Cabell's work as well. I've already downloaded Domnei: A Comedy of Woman-Worship. The formatting is straight text, nothing fancy but I'm not interested in Cabell for the packaging so that's not a great impediment.

Finally, I'm taking this opportunity to declare (strictly on my own authority) November 18 Collateral Damage Day (see previous post). I'm working on a suitable memorial for this Tuesday.

In a related vein and before I go entirely today - I was reading a reader's review of Peter Mansoor's Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander's War in Iraq (on GoodReads, where else?) where he (the reviewer) made the comment that Mansoor opposed going to war but believed that, now that we were there, we couldn't leave without victory. This opinion (if it accurately reflects Mansoor's) struck me as another example of the insanity of war. It's as if the Germans overthrew Hitler in 1942 but continued to prosecute the war because they hadn't "won."

Hail, Caesar!

2008-11-11T10:22:00.001-08:00

This post is for all those Roman history geeks like me.

While reading James O'Donnell's marvellous book, The Ruin of the Roman Empire (my review of which can be read here), I came across reference to a web site called De Imperatoribus Romanis, where the interested can read various imperial biographies, view genealogies and maps, and read up on the major battles of the Roman era.

Very cool.

In praise of Armistice Day

2008-11-11T10:01:00.000-08:00

Yes, Armistice Day.

I prefer the older name because I think the power of what we're supposedly remembering and honoring is diluted (and, in this culture, commodified) by making it a general one for every veteran from every war. November 11 is meant to honor the veterans of World War I (aka, The Great War) and that's what it should remain.

If we want to honor the vets from WW2, let's have a day for them. (V-J Day works for me. If I remember correctly, it happened in May, a nice month to have a holiday.) Korea? The day the cease fire was signed (technically, we and South Korea and North Korea are still at war with each other). Vietnam? Well, we lost that one so we probably don't want to remember it. Grenada? Panama? The two Gulf Wars? Afghanistan? Hmm, the first two were so picayune, I doubt many people even remember them anymore. The latter? Sadly, like 'Nam, we're losing in both so it's not something people will want to be reminded about.

Truly, Veterans Day, Armistice Day, whatever you want to call it should be marked by mourning for all the wasted lives ended by war, and a protest against a world where the use of force is still considered a viable option in international diplomacy.

And while we're at it, I'm calling for a Collateral Damage Day to honor and mourn all of the innocent men, women and children slaughtered by the indiscriminate bombing and the callous disregard for life of our armed forces and others.

We should apply the same standard to Presidents Day. Do we really want to honor all of our presidents? Buchanan? Polk? Fillmore? Harding? Reagan? Both Bushes?

Give Washington and Lincoln back their own days, and we should probably give FDR one while we're at it. Then we could have a Pretty Good Presidents Day, which would honor the "good" but "not great" presidents of the country: Adams, Madison, JFK (for the Cuban Missile Crisis), LBJ (for his domestic policies), Carter (for intentions; the execution sucked), maybe a few others.

Finally, it wouldn't surprise me if a few years down the road MLK Day becomes Civil Rights Day, honoring all of the people who fought in the Civil Rights movement, in the process drowning their individuality in a sea of names.

Read the Nov/Dec 2008 issue of Archaeology

2008-10-26T19:21:00.000-07:00

On a slightly less partisan note than my two other blogs today, I invite my readers to take a look at the Nov/Dec 2008 issue of Archaeology magazine (their website is here).

Now, any issue of Archaeology is interesting (almost by definition, in my opinion) but I particularly liked one in this month's issue about a 12,000-year-old complex of stone circles in Turkey that shows evidence of extensive and coordinated activity from hunter-gatherer societies 6 thousand years before the city of Ur arose on the plains of Sumer. It's tantalizing and frustrating evidence for a complex spiritual side to pre-urban civilization that we'll probably never understand. That and it also is evidence of just how much we'll never really know about our history, and why the people who think visitors from Zeta Reticuli or Atlanteans gave the Ancient World all of its technology will never go away.

There's another article in this issue about gladiators and their diet based on remains found in a cemetary at Ephesus (also in Turkey). Turns out, gladiators did not follow the Atkins diet plan - they ate lots of carbs and were definitely on the "beefy" side. On the plus side, however, they appear to have received the best in medical care: Bone fractures show very clean healing (unlike similar fractures found in the bones of the general population).

While I'm recommending stuff: If you're a fan of the B-movie horror genre, I recommend Dagon. Ostensibly it's based on H.P. Lovecraft's eponymous short story but it's more a retelling of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" by the same author (the Spanish village where it takes place is called "Imboca" > "Innsmouth"). It's well plotted, has a reasonably intelligent script, and isn't too gory.

And, of course, you should read the originals as Lovecraft wrote them.

Mr. Monika's 2008 Voter Guide (w/ especial emphasis on California)

2008-10-26T18:04:00.000-07:00

The week after next, the country goes to the polls once again. More than ever, we really might be determining the fate of the world for a generation to come

Considering our batting record the last four election cycles (2000, 2002, 2004, 2006), I recommend prayer...lots of it...to any benevolent deity you can think of. (Forgive me, I'm feeling particularly snarky at the moment. I'm actually quite optimistic about the long-term survival of the species, I just think the next few decades are going to be brutal. More brutal for us, anyway, it's always been brutal for far too many people in this world.)

But on to my recommendations for the interested. Except for the presidential vote, I'm afraid they're quite California-centric for the simple reason that I happen to live in the Golden State but as my "follower" is also a Californian, I don't feel too bad about that.

President/Vice President: Barack Obama/Joe Biden

All right, if I thought there was any chance for their victory, I'd be voting Green, McKinney/Clemente, but there isn't, and we need to so overwhelm the Republicans with numbers that there's no way they can steal the election again in any state. California is fortunate to have a decent secretary of state in Debra Bowen, who's done what she can to make sure the voting machines are on the up and up.
While I like Nader's positions on many of the issues, he would go down in history as one of our worst, least effective presidents solely based on his personality. The man is not a politician. And then there's the fact that he has even less chance of winning the White House than McKinney.
So I'm "stuck" with Obama, who (I think) would much rather rule as a second Clinton than a second Roosevelt. He's about as much a socialist as he is an Arab or a Muslim - i.e., he isn't! He's a centrist Democrat. I'm worried about his votes on the telecom immunity and bailout bills, and his eagerness to escalate the occupation of Afghanistan. I'm worried that he's so much a product of the last 30 years of neoliberal economics in this country that he'll be unable to experiment like FDR. But he's our best hope, so he's got my vote.

United States Representative: Hilda Solis

This district is so safe, the Republicans didn't even field a candidate. Solis is a mixed bag: Sometimes she votes with the angels; other times, with Satan. But the only way I can get somebody in the office with whom I'm in total agreement is to run myself, so I'll vote for her without serious problem.

Member of the State Assembly: Ed Hernandez

Judicial (for the Superior Courts):

Steven A. Simons (72nd)
Cynthia Loo (82nd)
Lori-Ann Jones (84th)
C. Edward Mack (94th)
Rocky L. Crabb (154th)

It's difficult to get information on these offices, though the Internet has made it far easier, assuming they have a website. My guiding philosophy is to read their blurbs if available and vote for anyone who isn't a prosecutor. Thus, Simons is a consumer-rights attorney, Loo is a court referee, Mack is a trial attorney, etc.

State Measures (propositions) (In California, it's far too easy to get a proposition on the ballot and, thus, we tend to legislate through them, taking Sacramento off the hook. And it doesn't help that these propositions are written by special interests and often in nearly opaque legalese or so poorly that they'll be litigated to death in the courts and never even have a chance to prove worthy or unworthy.)

1A - NO: This is a $9.95 billion bond measure that will (supposedly) fund high-speed rail lines. Now, I find the idea of high-speed rail very attractive but my problem is with the method of financing. If we want something or feel it's necessary to continued well-being, then we should be willing to pay for it up front. Despite the lessons of the Asian meltdown in 1987, the Mexican meltdown in 1995 and our meltdown in 2008, we are still operating under the insane assumption that we can simply continue to borrow money and pass off the costs to our descendants, and that we don't have to raise taxes (and make them more progressive, to boot). California is already under such a debt burden that we're constantly threatened with a lowering of our bond status, and the interest payments are becoming oppressive.

If we want high-speed rail, let's raise a tax somehow. Perhaps via gas sales, perhaps a sales tax, perhaps we'll have more funds if we simply close loopholes and spread the burden more fairly. And it doesn't have to be permanent - we tax for 5 years, and all the proceeds go to the rail fund. If we need more money, the legislature can revisit the issue at the end of 5 years. It's why I'm voting "yes" for Measure R below because it's funded via a 30-year, 1/2-cent sales tax.

2 - YES: This measure requires the animal-husbandry industry to humanely treat their animals. No brainer.

3 - NO: Another worthy cause (renovating children's hospitals). Another bond measure, though (only $980 million).

4- NO: Waiting period and parental notification of teen-age abortions.

5 - YES: I'm a bleeding-heart liberal who thinks our penal system would benefit from a concentration on redemption rather than retribution. Most assuredly isolate violent offenders and even nonviolent ones may deserve some prison time but when we strip a felon of every chance to redeem himself, why are we surprised that things don't get better?

I was pretty definite about my "yes" vote for this one but when I saw the "No on 5" commercial where Diane Feinstein endorsed their position then I knew I would be voting well. Another one of my voting tenets is that anything Feinstein is for, I'm against, and vice versa.

6 - NO: A bond measure ($965 million) to pay for more police. If we need more police, then we need to pay for them up front (see above).

7 - NO: This measure is supposed to force government and private utilities to be 50% renewable energy by 2025. Good "ends" but the "means" are suspect. I've read both sides' arguments and still don't know if this measure would do any good, so I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt to the environmental groups, most of whom don't support the proposition.

8 - NO: This vile measure would strike down the recent CA Supreme Court ruling making same-sex marriage possible (and possibly invalidating the marriage of a friend of mine) and enshrine it in our state constitution. Like 2, it's a no brainer.

9 - NO: For all their bleating about "the rule of law," I sometimes wonder if Republicans and your rank-and-file conservatives know what it means. This gem would allow victims' input during the entire criminal justice process - from bail to parole. Part of the appeal of the rule of law is that it's an impartial system - at least as impartial as anything can be - and I cannot countenance allowing the least impartial element of a crime to have any say over how the system treats the suspect (and felon, if convicted).

10 - NO: This is T. Boone Pickens attempt to get the state to subsidize his move into renewable energy (to the tune of $5 billion in bonds).

11 - NO: Here's another good end arrived at via suspect means. We desperately need to reform the way districts are apportioned but I don't trust Schwarzenegger.

12 - NO: A $900 million bond to subsidize homes and farms for veterans. Why can't we subsidize the homes and farms of nonvets? Don't they work just as hard? Don't they deserve the chance to make a decent living and dwell in a decent home?

It's nice that there are people willing to defend me if America suffers an invasion and that there are people willing to assist the National Guard and the fire department in case natural disasters get seriously out of hand but America hasn't needed defending since at least 1941, and the subsequent career of our military has been an unending march of imperial domination since then. Why should my hard-earned cash and that of my descendants go to support the legions of Caesar?

And while we're on the subject, why aren't firefighters included here? Doctors? Teachers? The latter three groups do far more to make this country a decent place to live than the military.

County Measures

R - YES: As I mentioned in my diatribe under Measure 1A, this measure to reduce traffic congestion and fund rail extensions is going to be paid for by a 30-year, 1/2-cent sales tax, and will be subject to public review and audits.

Community College Measures

RR - NO: A $353 million bond measure.

Municipal Water District: Andrew M. McIntyre

Well, that's it. If you're a Republican, stay home Nov. 4, it'll be for the best.

He's baaack!

2008-10-26T17:49:00.000-07:00

After an extended absence, I have returned (hopefully my "follower" will be well pleased; I have a "follower" - I have to be careful I don't develop a messiah complex).

For my loyal fan, my absence was not the result of illness, vacation or any other cause than that I am fundamentally lazy. There's certainly enough "crap" going on right now to raise my ire.

For example, this so-called bailout of Wall Street. I was excited when the House quite properly voted the first incarnation down; but realized it was business as usual when they approved the Senate's version, which added $150 billion in pork and ill-considered incentives.

Had the loyal opposition any backbone or guiding philosophy other than getting re-elected, Congress would have shelved any comprehensive scheme to aid the economy until we knew who would be in the White House come January and what kind of majorities the Dems would enjoy in the House and Senate. In the interim, they could have put a moratorium on foreclosures and, perhaps, granted a small measure of funds to shore up the worst-off investment banks. The latter was floated by Schumer (I believe) but disappeared in the panicky frenzy to be seen as doing "something."

Instead, Congress handed the most incompetent, most corrupt, most power-hungry administration since the Reagans were reading their Tarot cards $700 billion and carte blanche to do anything it wanted with it.

Words continue to fail me.

Speaking of incompetence and corruption, I direct my reader to October 23's Tom Dispatch by Michael Schwartz, Iraq in Hell.

Book Review: "Who's Been Sleeping in Your Head: The Secret World of Sexual Fantasy"

2008-08-26T10:28:00.001-07:00

Who's Been Sleeping in Your Head is a bit of a departure for me. Most of my nonfiction reading tends toward the historical or the "hard" sciences (astronomy, evolutionary biology, etc.) but one of my GoodReads friends marked this as a "to-read," I read the publisher's blurb and a few of the reviews, and it looked intriguing. Fortunately, one of my libraries possessed a copy and the inevitable ensued: I obtained and read it.

Brett Kahr is a Freudian psychoanalyst who's realized that there is a dearth of studies of what constitutes sexual fantasies - what's "normal" (if that can be measured) and what's "perverse" (also a slippery concept) - and how those fantasies might affect people in their lives.

Being a Freudian, Kahr believes that most, if not all, of our fantasies arise from childhood traumas. "Trauma" here does not necessarily mean something horrible like being raped by your father when you're 10 years old or having a group of boys sodomize you in the public restroom when you're 13. It can mean relatively unfortunate events or circumstances in an otherwise good childhood. Circumstances like an emotionally distant father or an overbearing mother or (as in the case of one woman) the loss of an older brother in a car accident. Kahr argues that "trauma functions as a key ingredient in the genesis of adult sexual fantasies" (p. 393) and that these fantasies help master "trauma through eroticization, rendering the terrifying and unprocessable into something sexy and manageable." (p. 383)

A "perverse" fantasy is one that eroticizes hatred (p. 418) and that "requires sustained perpetration of sadism toward oneself or one's 'love object'" and "becomes so all engrossing it prevents one from forging intimate relationships." (p. 420)

There are a number of conclusions he arrives at (if some are only tentative):

1. What is a sexual fantasy? An image, thought, drama, usually thought about during sex (coital or masturbatory) and that results in orgasm. (This makes it a different phenomenon than the sexual dream.)

2. What is a "normal" fantasy? There is no normative fantasy. People who appear quite "normal" might have some of the most sadistic, misogynistic, bestial fantasies but as long as they avoid the two criteria for "perversion" I mention above, they're no more abnormal than fantasizing about making love to one's partner that never departs from the missionary position.

3. Why fantasize? Kahr doesn't really know. From an evolutionary point of view it may help arousal and, hence, propagation. In terms of human psychology, it eroticizes and makes harmless traumas in our lives.

4. Does everyone have fantasies? Despite some negative responses in Kahr's survey, he feels that everyone has a fantasy of some sort even if they don't recognize it as such.

5. Should we share fantasies/act them out with our partners? Maybe. He recounts cases where exposing and/or acting out a fantasy did wonders for a relationship; alas, sometimes they torpedoed a relationship.

6. Are fantasies dangerous? Sometimes. See above about what a "perverse" fantasy is. Actually, in relation to this subject, Kahr gets into some potentially scary "Big Brother" stuff where he envisions mental-health experts "tagging" potential rapists, pedophiles, etc. based on their sexual fantasies - sort of a "Minority Report" world without the ESP.

7. If we don't fantasize about our partner is that a "bad sign"? Maybe; maybe not. Since a fantasy is a defense mechanism from past trauma, the absence of one's current partner is not unusual.

8. If we fantasize about something illegal (i.e., rape, pedophilia, incest, murder, etc.) will we eventually act it out? Probably not. Most - the overwhelming majority - even if their fantasies involve raping the cheerleading squad or murdering their partner don't go through with it. As Kahr wants to emphasize, even the most vile fantasy is a defense mechanism against some childhood trauma. Now, fantasizing about gang rapes or murder probably indicates a fairly serious trauma and the person should seek some form of therapy and it may make a person's intimate relationships ultimately unsatisfying but it doesn't mean we have a future "Ted Bundy" on our hands.

9. Can we control our fantasies? Always a good Freudian, Kahr doesn't believe so. At least not to any great extent.

One of the best aspects of this work is that Kahr doesn't try to create an all-encompassing theory of sexual fantasy. He tries to identify some broad generalizations but doesn't apply them to explain fantasy.

Though I don't have the background to assess just how valid psychoanalysis is or what competing theories may be out there, I found this book fascinating and interesting.

The Limits of Power

2008-08-16T16:22:00.000-07:00

Just a short post to publish links to two essays on TomDispatch taken from Andrew Bacevich's latest book, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism:

The American Military Crisis
The Lessons of Endless War

He's also appearing on the Aug 15 episode of Bill Moyer's Journal so you should look him up there as well.

I'm probably (no, definitely) more radical in my solutions to our imperial overreach but even his reasonable, even-handed voice is inaudible in the current discussion about foreign policy and America's future role in the world (from both parties and candidates).

Remaking Some Classics

2008-08-16T16:12:00.000-07:00

One should learn not to procrastinate. Case in point: I've been meaning to suggest here that two classic SF films deserve to be remade only to discover that "they" have already done it for one -- The Day the Earth Stood Still. Klaatu (Michael Rennie) comes to Earth to warn us that if we take our aggressive tendencies off planet will spell our doom, and the first thing we do to him when he lands is shoot him. It's a great film -- both thematically (dissecting the Cold War paranoia of the time and the futility of violence) and in terms of writing and acting (though "Billy," the kid, is truly annoying). But it is getting a bit long in the tooth, and would have benefited from a producer/writer/director team that cared about the material.

Alas, this new version (due out in December from what I've read) stars Keanu Reeves (not as Gort, the blank-faced robot and a natural choice, but as Klaatu) so I'm not sure whoever conceived this project really knows what they're doing. On the upside, they have cast Jennifer Connelly as the mother (originally Patricia Neal's role) so it'll be nice to look at for those moments she's on screen.

I will wait, with low expectations, and hope for the best.

The second film that I think deserves a remake is the equally classic Forbidden Planet. The SF genre's retelling of Shakespeare's The Tempest, with Leslie Nielsen, Ann Francis and Walter Pidgeon. Again, in the hands of someone who cared about the material, a really fine, quality film could be produced.

Of course, it should go without saying, that if you haven't seen either original yet, you should.

Film Reviews

2008-08-05T10:16:00.000-07:00

I was browsing in the library's video shelves the other day and was seized by an impulse to check out a few horror-movie classics. To whit (to wit? -- I can never remember): Tod Browning's Dracula and Hammer Film's version of The Mummy.

Dracula: The last time I saw Dracula must have been nearly 30 years ago so I figured it was time I reviewed the classic. Overall, I must say I didn't like it much, and it's not because I'm jaded by the over-the-top gore of modern horror. It's more because the movie just doesn't create an atmosphere of suspense or terror. Outside of Renfield and his maniacal laugh, it's just not that interesting. And Dracula's destruction is almost laughably easy -- This man terrorized his countrymen for 400 years? What a bunch of wusses!

It's always been a pet peeve of mine that vampires are always so easy to kill in these movies. Supposedly at the top of the undead food chain, it's still possible for a bunch of teen-agers to slaughter the vampires by smashing a few windows and letting the sun shine in.

The Mummy: Hammer Film's version of The Mummy wasn't too bad. It wasn't terribly suspenseful or frightening but it told the story in a straightforward and competent manner, and Cushing and Lee were good.

I also checked out another in the BBC & Time-Life Films' series of Shakespeare adaptations; in this case: Julius Caesar. These adaptations are usually pretty good and this version of Julius Caesar was no disappointment. I'd also recommend their versions of Henry V and Richard III. I don't remember their names, but the actors in the leading roles were both excellent.

I can't say I liked Olivier's version of Henry V. I was turned off by what I might call the "prissy arrogance" of his Henry, and, in my opinion, he compares unfavorably with Branagh's king. On the other hand, I think Olivier was brilliant in his version of Richard III. I thoroughly enjoyed watching that video.

One final note: I highly recommend the PBS Mystery series Foyle's War. I stumbled upon these gems while channel surfing one weekend. I had known of their existence but had never been particularly interested in watching them. Oh, what a fool I was. In terms of stories, the series is not so different from other police procedurals like Prime Suspect (also highly recommended), Inspector Morse or The Inspector Lindley Mysteries, except that it's set in southern England during WW2. What makes it a marvelous series is solely Michael Kitchen's portrayal of Christopher Foyle: A man of high principle, incisive intelligence and compassion who doesn't let the war compromise those qualities. It's impossible to verbally describe how he carries off the role since it's invoked by his manner and tone of voice but you'll enjoy watching this series.

'Possums on the Patio

2008-08-05T10:03:00.000-07:00

I feel like a jerk but what else could I do?

There's been a particularly ripe smell about my patio for the last few weeks, and this last weekend I finally got around to investigating its source: A family of opossums had been using the patio as a place to sleep away the day.

Let me backtrack a bit here: Up until Sunday, I had been keeping the wooden frame from an old futon out on the patio, using it as an impromptu shelf for my book boxes. It was covered by a tarp and, thus, provided a dark, enclosed space, which was attractive real estate for an opossum.

Pulling away the tarp Sunday afternoon, I disturbed three opossums who had been sleeping there. Now, I have no problem sharing the patio with these guys. There cute and they're quiet. Unfortunately, unlike the ferals, they're not very clean -- to be indelicate: They sh*t where they sleep (and eat). The futon was hopelessly fouled with feces and I had to throw it away (along with the tarp, which had been providing teething relief), and I washed down the patio and wall.

The smell's mostly gone but so are the opossums, unfortunately.

On the up side, I've got a lot more room on the patio now.

A Call to Revise the Constitution (amended 8/5)

2008-07-29T09:40:00.000-07:00

When I was an undergraduate, I had the opportunity to take a class that was rewriting the Constitution for the late 20th century. I didn’t take that opportunity; and I’ve regretted it ever since but I’ve always had a hankering to tinker with it. The danger in calling a second Constitutional Convention is that it might do what the first one did: Toss out the baby with the bathwater (the Articles of Confederation) and adopt a completely different child. But absent a comprehensive 27th Amendment, I’m not sure there’s a lesser remedy.

That said, I like the Constitution. It is one of the most remarkable political documents in human history but it is 220+ years old; the world is a far different place than it was in the late 18th century; and the current, sad state of our politics suggests that it needs a “tune up.” As someone I read pointed out recently, our Constitution was the first of its kind – ever. And while it has stood up very well over the course of time (better than many of its imitators), we’ve learned a great deal in the interim and we’ve progressed in our understanding of democracy. So much so, that the document is beginning to show its grey hairs and is looking positively arthritic in many respects.

The following is by no means a comprehensive attempt to rewrite the Constitution but I have gone through the document section by section and have tried to address at least some of the more egregious problems that have arisen over the last two centuries.

The Preamble: There’s no way I’m going to touch this. It’s one of the few pieces of literature I can cite from memory, and I still can’t do it without singing it to the tune from the Schoolhouse Rock series. And, to be honest, it lays out why we have a government: Establish justice, insure domestic tranquility (the “rule of law”), provide for common defense, promote the commonweal, and secure our inherent rights.

I would incorporate here a new Article I, pushing the currents articles down one rung (i.e., the current Article I becomes Article II, etc.). The new Article I would concern “the people” and incorporate the Bill of Rights and other relevant amendments.

(new) Article I.

Section 1 et al.: From the get go, we need to incorporate the Thirteenth – Fifteenth Amendments, particularly the 15th, which ensures that these rights are recognized by the states.

Section 2: First Amendment

Section 3: revised Second Amendment: The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed, except to secure the domestic tranquility and commonweal as determined by the individual states and Congress.

I’m not persuaded that having the right to own a 45 magnum is going to prevent the government from becoming despotic (look at our current situation) but I also don’t think it’s unreasonable that people would want weapons to feel secure. I think this is a reasonable compromise between the NRA nuts and their opposite number – those who would take away all guns. It’s up to the states and Congress to set reasonable gun-control laws and it leaves the debate open to discussion.

Sections 4-11: The remaining amendments in the original Bill of Rights.

Section 12: Congress and the states shall not infringe a citizen’s right to vote except insofar as to reasonably safeguard against electoral fraud. Congress shall also legislate a uniform voting system that ensures maximum opportunity for participation and the ability to audit said elections in the case of dispute.

I think this is necessary because, at the moment, we really don’t have a “right to vote.” This also would need a little tweaking to make sure voters weren’t disenfranchised because of sexual orientation, gender, religion, race, etc.

Section 13: The right of every person to be secure in their privacy shall not be abridged, and all branches of government are enjoined to ensure this.

This would need a bit of tweaking since there may be legitimate reasons for people to give up some of their privacy rights in certain situations but the principle we need to make explicit is that the government has to present a compelling reason to invade a person’s privacy.

[Addendum: Section 14: A "citizen" shall be defined as an individual born in the United States, who has at least one parent who is a citizen, or who is naturalized according to procedures prescribed by Congress. It shall not include corporate bodies that may be treated as people under certain laws.

I feel this is necessary to preclude the ludicrous situation we're in now where corporations are accorded all the rights of real people. I understand that, for legal reasons, it may be advantageous to treat corporations as persons in some respects but they are not humans, they have no inherent rights, and they do not deserve the protection of the Constitution.

Section 15: Congress and the states shall establish procedures for the public financing of elections.

This provision would be a step in severely restricting the influence of money on our political process.]

Article II.

Section 1: I considered a unicameral legislature (like, I believe, Nebraska’s) but I’m not sure that would be workable so for the nonce, we’ll stick with a House and Senate.

Section 2: There are two changes I would like to see in the House: One, moving to a parliamentary system so that we aren’t stuck in the duopoly that has developed over the last half century and which relegates third parties to being spoilers (vid., Nader in 2000, Teddy Roosevelt in 1912).

I’m going to avoid mechanics for the moment but would suggest that any party that could muster 10-20% of the vote in a general election deserves a spot at the table. This would make it possible to accommodate more representative viewpoints of concerned citizens without making politics so fractious that we’re stuck with the situations in Italy or Israel, where parties polling the ridiculously low 1-2% can become major players in forming governments.

The second change I would like to see is an expansion of the number of representatives. Around 600 would help bring reps closer to their constituencies and still be a workable number (I believe the Brits have around 600, so it’s doable).

Section 3: The only change I would immediately consider here is eliminating the requirement of a supermajority to impeach. I don’t like supermajorities.

Section 7: Though I just said I don’t like supermajorities, I’d keep that requirement in this section regarding presidential vetoes.

(added): No amendments shall be offered to a bill that does not have a direct relationship to that bill.

I offer this caveat in an effort to discourage “poison pills” and earmarks. An amendment should amend the basic thrust of the law in question; if some legislator’s proposal is worthy of consideration, they can offer it as a separate bill or append it to a related measure.

Another addition I would like to see here (though I’m not sure how to word it) is a stipulation that bills cannot be passed that affect an individual or particular entity. Thus congress wouldn’t be able to propose bills or offer amendments that favored a single company; they could still legislate to subsidize an industry (say, solar power) or affect a class of citizens.

Article III. [This is actually the most important part of the new Constitution in my opinion since the need to revise the document comes primarily from the President’s creeping increase in power and influence.]

Section 1: Eliminate the Electoral College entirely. Presidents should be elected by direct vote just like their legislative counterparts.

And though this runs the risk of letting Arnold Schwarzenegger become president, I’d remove the requirement that they be natural-born citizens.

Section 2: Again, I’d remove the supermajority requirement to ratify treaties. I’d also remove the power to make recess appointments. There’s no situation so desperate that the president can’t wait until Congress is back in session to name a permanent head to any position.

(added): The president shall have the power to grant pardons subject to the consideration and approval of both Houses of Congress. No more midnight pardons of any future Richard Nixons or George Bushes.

(added): The president may not commit US forces or authorize covert operations without the advice and consent of both Houses of Congress absent a declared state of war. This provision would save us (I hope) from the last 50 years of “foreign misadventures” that have given us the glorious successes of Iran, Guatemala, Viet Nam, Iraq, etc., etc., ad nauseum.

(added): The president may not declare martial law without the advice and consent of two-thirds of the Supreme Court and/or both Houses of Congress. Nor shall the president be authorized to use US military forces as domestic law enforcement absent rebellion, invasion or a state of martial law (incorporating Posse Comitatus).

(added): Presidential signing statements shall be limited to addressing how the executive will implement the will of Congress. In the case of disputes between the Legislative and Executive branches regarding that implementation, the Congress shall pass a resolution instructing the president how to do so. This measure is an attempt to restrain the abuse of the signing statement that we’ve seen George Bush use in the last seven years.

Article IV.

The only change here would be to explicitly incorporate Marbury v. Madison (the Court’s power of judicial review).

Except for changing the numeration, the remaining articles appear to be functioning quite well.

Article VIII.

Except in time of declared war or as needed to defend embassies and consulates, no US military personnel shall be stationed overseas.

This removes the impetus to empire that is destroying this nation yet still leaves us room in case of a real war situation to send troops where they’re needed.

Desiderata:
Eliminate the District of Columbia and reincorporate the land into Maryland and Virginia (it’s not that much territory and Maryland is so small anyway, so maybe we can give it all to them – sorry, I was born in Annapolis and have a soft spot for the state). We can retain a Federal District (the Mall and other government property) but people living in the former district should have representation. At the very least, those living in formerly Virginian territory could be counted as Virginians; those in Maryland, Marylanders.

I’m not a fan of term limits so I’d be loath to include the 22nd Amendment.

Don’t know where I’d put it but I’d also include a provision that the federal government cannot use private contractors (mercenaries) to fulfill its duties under the Constitution. This provision would need work since the government couldn’t do everything on its own. But perhaps we could work out a system where government had to exercise control and oversight over private contractors. I would forbid any use of military contractors entirely.

Let's bury the word "warfighter"

2008-07-26T16:35:00.000-07:00

Readers (few though you may be) know by now that one of my bete noires is the militarization of this country. Today, I read Lt. Col. William Astore's essay at TomDispatch.com, and urge you to follow the link and read it yourself.

I quote here the colonel's most cogent point since he makes it far more eloquently than I could paraphrase it:

"Being 'the best soldiers' meant that senior German leaders...always expected them to prevail. The mentality was: 'We're number one. How can we possibly lose unless we quit -- or those [fill in your civilian quislings of choice] stab us in the back?'

"If this mentality sounds increasingly familiar, it's because it's the one we ourselves have internalized in these last years [Note: I would argue we've been internalizing it for the last 50 years]. German warfighters and their leaders knew no limitations until it was too late for them to recover from ceaseless combat, imperial overstretch, and economic collapse.

"Today, the U.S. military, and by extension American culture, is caught in a similar bind. After all, if we truly believe our to be 'the world's best military'...how can we possibly be losing in Iraq or Afghanistan? And, if the 'impossible' somehow happens, how can our military be to blame? If our 'warfighters' are indeed 'the best,' someone else must have betrayed them -- appeasing politicians, lily-livered liberals, duplicitous and weak-willed allies like the increasingly recalcitrant Iraqis, you name it.

"Today, our military is arguably the world's best. Certainly, it's the world's most powerful.... But what does it say about our leaders [Note: and our citizenry] that they are so taken with this form of power? And why exactly is it so good to be the 'best' at this? Just ask a German military veteran...in a warrior-state that went berserk in a febrile quest for 'full spectrum dominance.'"

The "best military in the world"? We can't even defeat two third-rate countries who had no significant armies to begin with.

And do we really want to be known for our outstanding ability to bomb civilians back to the Stone Age?

"Celebrating" the Fourth of July

2008-07-12T15:19:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday (July 10), I was listening to Randi Rhodes' show on my local radio station. The topic was the abominable FISA Amendment bill that our hopelessly spineless Congress passed the day before. In all seriousness, a caller asked, "Except that it's unconstitutional, what's the big deal about warrantless wiretapping?" (I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist.)

It's times like this that I want to get that lobotomy and just join brain-dead fools like this guy in their ignorant bliss.

That or move to Canada.

Honestly, there was nothing in the original FISA law as it stood before 2001 to stop Bush from wiretapping pretty much anyone he damn well pleased. Out of nearly 20,000 requested FISA warrants, literally a handful were refused -- five! Of course, to this administration even the possibility of someone checking its authority is anathema, and, hence, the need to eviscerate an already suspect law.

David Bromwich's post on HuffPo eloquently presents the case for why July 9's vote is a disaster for this country. Why should we trust any president to voluntarily relinquish any powers he's able to squeeze out of supine Congresses and Supreme Courts? Why should we depend upon Obama's promise to "fix" the legislation when he becomes president?

Joseph Galloway, of McClatchey, poses two pertinent questions in his excellent column here:

How can even one senator on either side of the aisle in good conscience vote in favor of this law that does nothing to enhance our security and everything to diminish our rights as a free people?

How can both men who seek to become our next president cast such a vote when both should be standing shoulder-to-shoulder declaring that they would govern by our consent and with our approval, not by wielding the coercive and corrosive and corrupt powers that King George III and his latter-day namesake from Texas thought are theirs by divine right?

George Bush broke the supreme law of the land (and there's evidence he was doing it before 9/11, the ostensible reason for amending the law in the first place). That we haven't stripped him of his office, not to mention his freedom, shows just how far we've fallen from the ideals of the Founders.

[Addendum: I just came across this op-ed from Chris Hedges that ran in the LA Times on Friday. Just another reason to oppose everything this administration does.]

Some words of wisdom from Abraham Lincoln

2008-06-28T16:08:00.000-07:00

I was updating my GoodReads site when I happened to come across this quote from our greatest president that seemed apropos considering the parlous times we're living in:

"These [the armed forces] are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, every where.... Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage, and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises." (Speech at Edwardsville, Illinois, September 11, 1858)

It's only after I noted the citation that I realized the date: How doubly apropos!

And now for something completely different...

2008-06-25T10:21:00.001-07:00

Three websites that I highly recommend visiting (and/or subscribing to) often:

The first is TomDispatch.com: http://www.tomdispatch.com/. This is a current events/politically oriented website that publishes articles and blogs from a variety of writers on a variety of subjects (loosely bound together by the objective of exposing the perfidies of the fascist-wannabes in the White House). The latest post by Nick Turse describes 5 beneficiaries of Pentagon largesse who you've never heard of but who are racking in billions of your dollars.

The second site is Mark Morford's column at SFGate.com. He's a funny and talented writer who tackles not just politics but culture.

The third site is my favorite. It's Mark Rosenfelder's Zompist page. I first came across this site several years ago when I was investigating "conlang" sites. For the ignorant, a "conlang" is a constructed language, like Tolkien's Elvish or the Klingon of Star Trek or Esperanto, for that matter. I have my own conlang (which may get public exposure whenever I get around to making a webpage of my own) but Mark has created at least 7 or 8 (if not more) for a world that he has created. He's Tolkien on steroids because, unlike Tolkien, he's written complete grammars for most of them.

Beyond that he's also an accomplished essayist with a variety of interests and worth reading even if you're not interested in conlangs.

The Death of a Thousand Cuts

2008-06-25T10:01:00.000-07:00

Apologists for the latest example of Congress' craven spinelessness say that the FISA "compromise" protects fundamental civil rights but it's like "the death of a thousand cuts": If someone suffers one papercut, no major harm done; but if they suffer a thousand, they bleed to death. Just so with the latest capitulation to the Bush Administration's terrorism.

They've launched assaults against the First Amendment, they've launched assaults against habeas corpus, and now it's the Fourth Amendment's turn.

I'm happy to say that my representative voted with the "angels," opposing the FISA bill, which (if the Senate passes it) will "legalize" warrantless wiretapping and immunize the telcoms that allowed the government to do it. Unfortunately, she was in the minority.

I took down my copy of the Constitution and reread the Fourth Amendment:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

By my reading, there's no ambiguity here, no provisional language for wars or "public emergency" -- the government cannot wiretap without a warrant. Everyone is secure. Everyone. Everywhere. Everytime. And under the current FISA law, the government has 72 hours to get a retroactive warrant, anyway!

Furthermore, there's no provision for immunity. The "just obeying orders" defense didn't work at Nuremberg and it shouldn't work here. The telcoms that allowed the administration to tap communications without warrants are guilty of aiding and abetting a criminal conspiracy and should be held responsible. (Not to mention the thugs in the administration.)

I've read that, in a rare display of spine, Senator Majority Leader Reid has vowed to fight the bill, and may actually split it in 2: one addressing the FISA warrants and the other addressing immunity. With luck, it could delay a final vote until after November. Also encouraging is Senator Feingold's and Dodd's intentions to filibuster this atrocious measure.

Less encouraging, is Obama's support of the "compromise," which casts doubt on his qualifications as a teacher of constitutional law (unless he were John Yoo's TA!). We need to put pressure on him to join Messers. Reid, Feingold and Dodd in opposing the law. Maybe we could say to him, "We're not going to contribute to your campaign for the next 2 weeks until you change your tune, Senator `Change.'"

More Moyer's Mania

2008-06-15T14:16:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to recommend another episode of Bill Moyer's Journal. Specifically, June 13's show, which featured Steve Fraser and Holly Sklar discussing the second Gilded Age and the continuing degeneration of the American middle class.

Bittersweet Triumphs

2008-06-15T13:27:00.000-07:00

Two victories in the last few days for civil rights:

1. The California Supreme Court has decided that gay couples are no different from hetero couples who want to get married. So, beginning at 5:01 pm PT on Monday, June 16, the state joins Massachusetts in recognizing a basic right.

2. The US Supreme Court decided that people held in Guantanamo do have the right of habeas corpus.

These victories for civil rights and basic common sense are "bittersweet," however, since why are we even adjudicating them?

In an ideal world it would be self-evident that two people who want to legitimate their association should be able to, regardless of their gender. There are noises about putting a constitutional amendment on California's November ballot to outlaw same-sex marriages, and there are enough cavemen and -women in the state so that it will probably make it. Fortunately, it will also lose but that it even gets to a ballot is distressing.

I hesitate to put my two cents in regarding homo- and heterosexuality but I'll do it anyway: In brief, I think it's a mistake to look at people as homosexual or heterosexual beings, we're sexual beings. For sound biological reasons, species tend to favor heterosexuality (after all, a primarily homosexual species wouldn't last more than a few generations) but absent the preferred choice, it's hard to deny one's sexual drives; consider sailors on long sea voyages, prisoners, the Theban Sacred Band, experiments with same-sex rat colonies, etc. I've also read that otherwise heterosexual males will engage in gay sex so long as they're the dominant partner -- i.e., the penetrator not the penetrated.

But all that's beside the point, since even if sexual orientation were entirely voluntary, no one but you and your partner have any business poking their noses into the affair.

As to our right to habeas corpus: Understand this concept - the government does not grant us rights, it recognizes them. Habeas corpus is a person's fundamental right not to be arbitrarily seized and confined without the opportunity to know why they've been seized and to have the chance to answer the evidence against them. It's not something only American citizens get, it's a right that every human being has. And it certainly trumps the specious "national security" argument. In fact, it can only be limited in the event of "Rebellion or Invasion"; neither condition pertaining the last time I checked Yahoo! News.

A more bittersweet part of the court's ruling is that it's possible some Republican hack in Congress will try to get a bill passed circumventing the ruling. Considering Pelosi's and Reid's lack of courage in the past, it's even possible they'd allow it to come to the floor for a vote.

The most bittersweet part of the court's ruling is that it came in a 5-4 decision: Reason #6204 to vote for Obama: The next president will have at least 2, maybe 3, opportunities to fill court vacancies. If you want to continue the slide into the corporatist security state, vote for McCain.

The Obscenity of War

2008-06-07T08:39:00.000-07:00

The vitriol is already beginning to accumulate this month. Oh, well, perhaps it's because of what I'm reading. Case in point is this link to an essay by Chris Hedges at TomDispatch.com: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174939/chris_hedges_war_and_occupation_american_style

I've been a fan of Hedge's since reading War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, and I'm putting his newest tome, Collateral Damage, on my to-read list.

D-Day: Dispatches from the Eastern Front

2008-06-06T09:19:00.000-07:00

On this, the 64th anniversary of the D-Day Invasions, I think we should take a few moments out of the time we spend memorializing the event to remember the sacrifices of the Soviet armies who tied up the bulk of the German army (and its best units) and sacrificed millions to destroy the Nazi's ability to wage war.

It's a shame that the subsequent Cold War poisoned our perceptions of the Soviet people (as opposed to their governors) and minimized (nay, obliterated) the fact that they paid the greater price.

Which is not to detract from the death and sacrifices performed by our Western soldiers, I just think that, with the Cold War over, it's time to acknowledge that we weren't alone in defeating the Nazis.

It's Over. Right? (Clinton vs. Obama)

2008-06-06T09:08:00.000-07:00

Whew...

It's over. Finally. Right?

The rumor is that Clinton will finally concede that Obama has won this Saturday (the 7th). She's still going to technically keep the campaign active (she's just suspending it) because she needs to continue fundraising to help retire her debts.

Going forward the best thing that could come out of this mess is for Clinton to become Senate majority leader. She is not a vice president. I can't see her playing second fiddle to anyone, and I wouldn't want her to. Her strengths would be best used in the Senate, where she could twist arms, be in people's faces and play the bad cop to get the Dem agenda passed. (I think she has the potential to be as effective a majority leader as Lyndon Johnson. The worst decision LBJ ever made was shooting for the presidency: His particular brand of leadership [and Clinton's] was [is] better suited to the Senate.)

And just think of the juggernaut that could be created if the White House, the Senate and the House could all coordinate on trying to reverse the catastrophic course this country is on.

In the interests of "healing" the rift in the party, Obama's vice presidential choice probably should be a Clinton partisan, though I have no opinion on who that might be.

Book Reviews: The Mid-year Round-up

2008-05-31T17:50:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted much this month because the vitriol that prompted me to begin this blog site has been largely expelled (for now, the upcoming general campaign and the Shrub's guaranteed incompetence is sure to stir something up between now and the new year).

In the interim, I will grace you with some of the better books I've read these past 6 months. They're in no particular order other than "when read":

Takeover, Charlie Savage. The first book of the new year, it's a distressing look at the return of the imperial presidency and the subsequent damage to our democracy.
See No Evil, Robert Baer. The inspiration for George Clooney's Syriana. Baer is a former CIA operative and I think he's still too enamored with the "adventure" of covert ops but it is an interesting glimpse at the inept workings of our "intelligence" services.
Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi. You'd wish someone in the Bush administration would read this in the hopes that they might reconsider attacking the country.
Gentlemen of the Road, Michael Chabon. Reminiscent of Fritz Leiber's Fahfrd/Grey Mouser and it involves the Khazars. Hard to go wrong, and Chabon doesn't.
The Basic 8, Daniel Handler. I knew I liked Handler after reading Adverbs but this is his best novel so far.
The Age of Lincoln, Orville Burton, and 1858, Bruce Chadwick. I found both books very interesting because they illuminated a period of American history with which I was not very familiar.
Discovering God, Rodney Stark. Read the first 2/3s of the book for his insights on religious belief but you can skip that last 1/3, which is a screed about the supposed superiority of Christianity over all other religions. (If interested, you can read my Amazon review here.)
Seeing Red, Frank Beddor. The second book in Beddor's reinterpretation of Lewis Carroll is as good as the first; I look forward to the final book.
The Day of Battle, Rick Atkinson. Having read this as well as Ronald Spector's In the Ruins of Empire and Mosier's reinterpretations of World Wars 1 and 2, I'm amazed we won either war. Fortunately, neither Germany nor Japan commanded the sheer resources the U.S. did.
Weight, Jeannette Winterson. A reinterpretation of the Atlas myth that suggests that many of the "weights" we labor under are created by ourselves.
Worshipping the Myths of World War II, Edward Wood, Jr. A cri de coeur from a man who's been through the hell of war, and wants us to understand the dangers of glamourizing such insanity.
Night of Knives, Ian Esslemont. Steven Erikson's partner in the world of the Malazan Empire. He's not as compelling or assured an author as Erikson but he shows promise.
Matter, Iain Banks. Bank's latest Culture novel. Up there in the top five, though Consider Phlebas and Player of Games remain my favorites.
The Blade Itself, Joe Abercrombie. A disturbing fantasy novel. Brutal and realistic, I'm not sure what to think of it yet.

That's it for now.

I'm still contemplating the Lord of the Rings v. LotR (the movie) review; perhaps for June.