The problem with Fictional Novels

Fun with Amazon reviewers: (My comments are in italics).

2 out of 5 stars Tale Worth Being Burned,
How Bradbury-esque

Reviewer: "kokawaii"
While I was searching for a new book to read, I stumbled across Atwood's new novel, Oryx and Crate.The people at Barnes and Noble should really pick the books up out of the aisle. It's quite dangerous. I read the reviews and many people agreed that the Handmaiden's tale [sic] was much better. So I decided to buy it.You had me in suspense there for a while. Although Atwood writes very well (Is that like the old complement paid to humorist Tom Lehrer, 'plays the piano adequately'?), I found her story to be long and monotonous Not the gay romp about town you would expect from in a future gone horribly wrong, I might admit. I was appalled to see that this novel has been compared to the likes of Aldous Huxley's "A Brave New World", and "1984" . This book can only be seen on the same level as those books, if you are a hard core feminist Does this involve some kind of leather gear, or is Atwood asking women not be kept enslaved as baby makers against their will enough to qualify her as hard core?. As a female I figured there was a 50/50 chance of this, who enjoys a good story such as the cheery 1984, I was truly disappointed I'd hate to see you ire if you were falsely disappointed. I would recommend to anyone who is considering this novel to save their money, and read a true story on a women's plight in war, rather than waste time on this garbage. I enjoy fiction Well, that's nice , but Atwoods characters seemed empty and useless. A non-fiction novel A what? A NON fictional novel? You do know what Novels are right? I mean you keep tripping over them... on a similar topic would at least be educational and motivational Perhaps Atwood needs to be more like Tony Robbins?, citing true obstacles to overcome Not fake ones, like being a slave. That saucy handmaiden!. This novel is as interesting as a description of bed ridden patients day at a hospital Your review is equally interesting.

Stages of Denial

Iran, which murdered Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemim, is still continuing to deny she was murdered. Now they have yet another lame excuse for her murder, claiming she was on a hunger strike. So far Iran has murdered her, buried her body so we couldn't examine it, blamed it on a stroke, shifted blame amongst several functionaries, dismissed blame from said functionaries, and now on to the hunger strike defense. I look forward to the murderous regime's next stages, where they will surely blame their brutal killing of an unarmed innocent on Yankee Imperialist Dogs, Jews, and perhaps a mysterious Moose and Squirrel.

Lists

The scumbags journalists at the Cleveland PeeDee think it's a good idea to publish the name of everyone in the region who has gotten a concealed carry permit. Other than giving every criminal in the area a starting place as to who they can try and steal guns from, this serves no purpose at all. Oh wait, yes it does serve a purpose. It serves as a half-assed gun registry, which the PeeDee editorial board, in their patriarchal wisdom thinks we should have.

Open letter found somewhere

July 28, 2004
George W. Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Account Number : US090001
Balance Due: $420,000,000,000.00

Your Response is Required

Detach and Return with Your Payment

Dear George W. Bush:

Your Account is 90 Days Past Due and will be forwarded to our Collection Department on 8/15/04. This action is being considered due to the fact that as of today you have not paid this outstanding obligation.

Payment in Full is Due Now, unless you contact this office to make:

1. payment arrangements;
2. send in proof of payment
3. provide us a valid reason for a credit to be issued.

We urge you to act without delay so that we may assist you with straightening out this matter. Please supply us with accurate information or a full payment in the enclosed envelope to prevent your account from being classified as a Collection Account. Please note, payment in the form of Enron stock is not acceptable. Also please note that this debt is fully transferable to your heirs and their future descendants.

For your convenience you may pay with check or money order. Be sure to include the voucher portion at the top of this letter to ensure proper identification of your response. For more immediate action, you may pay with credit card by calling the number on the back of your card.

Thank you for taking prompt action.

Sincerely,

Shirley Jameson
Client Service Manager

Blog reading

King of Fools has the 56th Bonfire of the Vanities up. Love the theme...

What did they expect?

So USA Today hired Ann Coulter to write a column on the Dem convention, and were unhappy because she turned in...get ready...a column by Ann Coulter. Seriously, what did they think she was going to write? Have they never read her stuff? If they are not willing to have partisans write for them, well don't hire them. Pandagon says it best:

Townhall is right about one thing - USA Today really shouldn't be surprised at anything Ann Coulter writes. You hire John Grisham, you get a story about an intrepid male lawyer around Grisham's age who eventually does something that shows up people who either practice bad law or hate lawyers. You hire Carl Hiassen, you get something about Florida. You get Ann Coulter, you get something that's the written equivalent of a battery acid enema. It's the way these things work.

Next up they hiring Michael Moore to cover the Republicans. Maybe they think he will be just as non-partisan as Ann.

Guilty Pleasure

Dave is displeased that some people label enjoying some of the less weighty offerings of pop culture as being guilty pleasures. This is all part of a sliding scale of pop-culture contempt. You've all met those folks at parties who feel it's a admirable trait to have divested themselves of some aspect of our culture they deem beneath contempt. Alas that we cannot simply slay such annoying creatures at the first twiddling of their Ankh. However there are a few things you can respond, based on their level of contemporary cultural rejection: (CCR), to hopefully put them in their place.

Levels 1-3: "I only watch PBS"

Proper response: "To see animals f*** or Brits f***?"

Levels 4-6: "I own a TV but I've never turned it on"

Proper response: "To go with the books in your library you've never read?"

Levels 7-9: "I have never owned a television"

Proper response: "I'm sure the food co-op will give you a raise".

But aside from that, it makes me think Dave's outrage could be a Guilty Pleasure Meme - what are your guilty pleasures? Bold the ones you have partaken in in the dark, hoping no one would ever find out, and add more pleasures to the list as needed - but only if something you add is something you have indulged in!

1. Melrose Place

2. Who Wants to Marry my Dad?

3. The O.C.

4. Backstreet Boys

5. John Tesh

6. Joe Millionaire

7. Friends

Conventional Politics

Some bloggers covering the convention can be be found at conventionbloggers.com.

Kerry et al are evidently trying to have a more positive message for the Dems Convention this week, Primary season may be for firing up the base, but both parties seem to try to tone down partisanship for these gatherings, meant to appeal to the less-than-fanatical voters out there. Will the coverage be one of ideas, or do the conventions have only slogans? Will the news talking heads debate such important topics as is Kerry too ugly, is Cheney's underbite too creepy, and other issues that surely should be of prime concern in a time that nuts keep crashing planes into us, North Koreans with bad hair threaten to nuke us, and South Koreans crown themselves the Messiah.

The NY Times said In Boston, Democrats Are Seething but Also Celebratory. Reading the article indicates no direct reportage of "seething". I guess we can assume some may be seething, but I'm not exactly sure how this is news. When the Republicans have their convention, I'm curious how their emotional states will be conveyed.

There was already much media hand-wringing about how these conventions are not real "news" events, which I would assume is an excuse in advance for any lack of coverage in favour if important programming like the amazing life-like Julie Chen, an advanced cyborg hosting CBS's 'Big Brother'. On the other hand, The Amazing Race is just about the best damn thing on TV right now, if anyone will watch it...

Despite the recent demise of our household ReplayTV (it's like TiVO) I'll stay glued to the set for the conventions - though I harbour little hope that Pat Buchanan will call for "Culture Wars II" in one previous convention's few interesting moments - and try to see if there's naught but chaff in the sorting basket.

Foodgoat - 24 hour Blogathon

Rasisng money for Fair Trade, Foodgoat will be blogging for the next 24 hours. Already Ladygoat is showing where to buy Fair Trade Items. It should be quite a day of blogging.

Euclid Corridor

They're moving forward with the Euclid Corridor Project, in Cleveland Ohio. Euclid is one of the main drags, and if you drive down it now, are liable to see a fair number of abandoned buildings and to be blunt, some scary looking streets that leave you certain you would not want to exit your vehicle. The Project website says:

Imagine Euclid Avenue as a transit-friendly, tree-lined street, served by environmentally friendly vehicles. Euclid Avenue will have new sidewalks, a tree lined raised median, new bus stations, pedestrian lighting, and bike paths between Cleveland State University and Case Western Reserve University. These improvements will help to re-establish the attractiveness and importance of the many cultural and historical sites along Euclid Avenue.

I wonder though, if simply connecting these spots more closely will be effecient. They extended the Blue line from Downtown to the Waterfront in 1996, and it sounded like a good plan. Connect downtown to the Flats area, and the present location of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Browns stadium. But today, the light rail extension to the Waterfront looks to carry roughly four people a year, and three of them go on it simply because they fell asleep and forgot to get off at Tower City. Will the Euclid project increase ridership, just because it increases capacity?

The one with 50 living authors

Kevin at Collected Miscellany, besides making me agree with that political Blogging is in some ways easier than Literary blogging, also posted another of those liste memes that you see around the web. This is a list of books by living authors, deemed neccesary reads by the Orange Prize for fiction folks. In bold are the one's I've read. I'm only scoring 12% on this, hrm. Not much on my wishlist either. Maybe I should go eat worms.

1. A Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez
2. A Prayer for Owen Meany John Irving
3. A Suitable Boy Vikram Seth
4. American Pastoral Philip Roth
5. Atonement Ian McEwan
6. Being Dead Jim Crace
7. Birdsong Sebastian Faulks
8. Captain Corelli's Mandolin Louis de Bernieres
9. Cloudstreet Tim Winton
10. Disgrace JM Coetzee
11. Enduring Love Ian McEwan
12. Faith Singer Rosie Scott
13. Fingersmith Sarah Waters
14. Fred and Edie Jill Dawson
15. Fugitive Pieces Anne Michaels
16. Girl with a Pearl Earring Tracy Chevalier
17. Grace Notes Bernard MacLaverty
18. High Fidelity Nick Hornby
19. His Dark Materials Trilogy Philip Pullman
20. Hotel World Ali Smith
21. Middlesex Jeffrey Eugenides
22. Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie
23. Misery Stephen King
24. Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow Peter Hoeg
25. Money Martin Amis
26. Music and Silence Rose Tremain
27. Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit Jeanette Winterson
28. Riders Jilly Cooper
29. Slaughterhouse-five Kurt Vonnegut
30. The Blind Assassin Margaret Atwood
31. The Corrections Jonathan Franzen
32. The Golden Notebook Doris Lessing
33. The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood
34. The House of Spirits Isabelle Allende
35. The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco
36. The Passion Jeanette Winterson
37. The Poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver
38. The Rabbit Books John Updike
39. The Regeneration Trilogy Pat Barker
40. The Secret History Donna Tartt
41. The Shipping News E Annie Proulx
42. The Tin Drum Gunter Grass
43. The Wind Up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami
44. The Women's Room Marilyn French
45. Tracey Beaker Jacqueline Wilson
46. Trainspotting Irvine Welsh
47. Unless Carol Shields
48. What a Carve-Up Jonathan Coe
49. What I Loved Siri Hustvedt
50. White Teeth Zadie Smith

Noonan Translation

Peggy Noonan Translator

Peggy	Translation
No one takes conventions seriously. They're not where democracy happens anymore. They're mere enactments of politics, not the real and gritty thing. And yet we have to have them because they serve a purpose: They provide the platform for the big speech.	Certainly not Democratic ones, anyway
The big speech--the acceptance speech of the presidential nominee--is always important. It can be revealing, it can be inspiring and it can give you insight. It can make you give a candidate a second look, or a first; it can make you turn away from him for good.	I know I just said no one takes them seriously. Except it can give you insight or turn away for good. I'm very confused lately
A week from tonight John Kerry gives his acceptance speech. If it is good or great it will be turned into a million commercials and will be cut up and quoted so often on TV that people who don't see it will think, a year from now, that they did. If it is good or great it will inspire a lot of memorable bad writing from the newspaper poets--The Knight of the Woeful Countenance who dazzled the crowd from the moment he rode forward and unfurled his banner. If it's a poor or merely average speech it will be a reason Mr. Kerry lost if he loses.	If it's a good speech, praising it = bad writing. If it's bad, it's the cause of a loss. Got that?
In Mr. Kerry's case, since the average American probably doesn't know what he stands for beyond the idea that he can't stand George Bush, the speech is an opportunity to paint himself anew. He is not "Not Bush," he is "Kerry Who Believes in . . ."	All appearances to the contrary I'm here to help Kerry. Plus I'm jacked in to what the Average American thinks. It's nice being me.
In what? Mr. Kerry is a "liberal," or a "progressive." What is that these days? He could tell us. He might take this opportunity to actually redefine what liberalism is, and rescue it from its dread L-word status as the thing Democrats are and can't admit.The Prez needs a TV spot with Kerry saying "I'm a Liberal" so he can remix it ot have him saying it over and over, Conservatives aren't afraid to call themselves conservative. They even do this when they're acting like liberals. Mr. Kerry should tell us what liberals intend with regard to domestic policy. Another way to say this is: The past half century liberals have won a great deal--Social Security, Medicare, civil rights, the megastate. What exactly do they want to win now?	I know Kerry has made speeches, has a website, and has said lots of stuff, but can he just sum it up? I wasn't paying attention.
Some say Mr. Kerry must use the speech to make his position on Iraq clearer. In purely political terms there's little benefit in this. When you're cloudy you're not a clear target. There's no difference between Bush and Kerry on the war except people know Mr. Bush means it and assume Mr. Kerry doesn't. This gives Mr. Kerry a certain flexibility. It is the one area where his lack of sincerity is a plus. To the extent he can, he should leave it alone, which is to say damn Mr. Bush in general terms and keep walking.	Everyone thinks Kerry is a liar. He pretends to agree with Bush on EVERYTHING on the Iraq War. No, really. I just said that. I know this even though I just said no one knows what his intentions are.
Mr. Kerry has a problem with rhetoric. He doesn't have his own sound.	Needs more trumpet on the refrains
You may hate Mr. Bush's sound but it's his, and a lot of people like it.	I assume only Bush haters read my column
He sounds normal...	Om my god, Kerry is such a fuh-reak! I can't believe I almost went to the dance with him!
... which for all its pluses and minuses as a style does tend to underscore the idea that he is normal.	Bush is normal. I think Kerry has a nipple piercing. Beware!
Mr. Kerry should give us something fresh and awake--true to him while being new from him. It should not be orotund. He might consider surprising everyone by approaching things in a low key, plain-speech way.	Maybe a Texas accent
In conversation he doesn't sound weird, but on the stump he often does.	KERRY IS A WEIRDO! Last week after Chem lab, I sweartogod he tried talk to me about Star Trek.
Will Mr. Kerry get real and be plain as a plank,	Kerry should convert to Amish. Maybe work in "Keepin' it raaahul" too. It's what all the kids are doing these days
A prediction: People do what they know how to do, and for decades Mr. Kerry and Mr. Shrum have been doing the JFK thing. And it will please many in the hall. But it won't play as well in America. Mr. Kerry is one of those rare public men who never get over self-consciousness in public. He's also that rare athlete who seems to lack physical grace. (In these things, oddly, he's like George Herbert Walker Bush.) He seems affected because he's self-conscious, and this is compounded by an air of premeditation. In all the pictures of him taking part in sports he always has the perfect right gear on, striking sort of the right pose. He seems to be enacting sports more than enjoying them. He always seems to be enacting rather than enjoying. This is why John Edwards in comparison seems normal.	Kerry isn't normal and he sucks at sports. I know he looked good in the pictures, but only 'cause the yearbook editor is his cousin, I hear. But maybe that cutie John Edwards...
Mr. Edwards has the sun on his face. He's a happy man, and happy candidates have unseen power.	He has Green Lantern ring?
He has successfully hidden his desire for personal power behind a "people vs. the powerful" populism, and he sees no reason to believe he's going to get busted now.	He's too good looking. I bet he's a meanie. Why does he want to be on the student council anyway? George's pal Dick is doing a good job. He shouldn't be allowed to run, he just wants to be elected!
The compelling personal story--he's a one-man John Grisham novel--the kids, the smile. His wife looks and acts like a normal American woman...	I hear Kerry's wife is not American, and plus my pundit insight tells me she is ugly.I think Laura Bush should definitely win the pageant this year.
Which gets us to Hillary. It's a great favor to her that she won't be giving one of the big rabble-rousing speeches. When she speaks to a sympathetic audience eager for red meat her voice becomes high, harsh, grating--the first wife that your nice husband fled. People think the evil woman Meryl Streep plays in "The Manchurian Candidate" is Hillary because, well, they've seen Hillary make a speech. She's better in interviews where her voice is conversational and her chuckle ever-ready. If Mr. Kerry wins, no one will remember she didn't speak. If he loses she doesn't want to be part of the retrospectives on How the Democrats Turned America Off.	I hate Hilary, her voice is too high. Democrats are a rabble. Besides, democrats aren't sexy as George and Dick, and sexy is the new Important.

More Electoral Problems. Which state? Guess.

Some newly sworn in US Citizens were registered to vote in Florida, but the forms to do so already had the party choice checked - Republican. (link via Talkleft).

It was something his wife, Linda Cross, first noticed. She said she asked what was going on, and was told the woman registering voters said they were with a Republican organization.

"I am Republican," she told Channel 4's Jim Piggott. "I was very angry with that if they want to register whatever party, you shouldn't try to dictate to people what party they are going to register; who they are going to vote for, because then you don't have any freedom."

It's obvious whoever set this up was hoping that the immigrants would all be so dazzled by their new citizenship they wouldn't notice the pre-filled forms. They eveidently thought new immigrants ignorant enough not to notice, though it's hard to believe they thought this would win any votes. As the article notes, however, in most primaries in the hanging chad state you can only vote for candidates for the party you register with. For the record, when I finally get the chance to join this nation officially I will be registering Independent. That way I'm not inadvertently associated with cretins, a constant hazard with the other parties.

Channel 4 has tried contracting federal officials about this issue since last Friday and have not received a response, nor have local Republican leaders responded

I wouldn't hold my breath, kids.

Fairly Unbalanced

So they're petitioning the FTC about Fox New's "Fair and Balanced" slogan being an exercise in absurdity. I don;t think the FTP needs to get involved. Just have everyone who watches it read 1984, look up DoubleSpeak, and they'll understand the wise use of the slogan.

Community Chest

Men roll 11 Circuit, win Get out of Jail Free Card. Meanwhile,
some prisoners too dumb to use Get out of Jail Free Card

The breakout occurred Thursday night after cellblock doors at the Hawkins County Jail were left unlocked and a faulty control panel failed to alert jailers, Sheriff Warren Rimer said.

Two of the inmates walked out through a fire exit, leaving the door propped open with a Bible, and made a hole in the exercise- yard fence. They walked to a market, bought some beer and returned to the jail to share it with other prisoners. When the beer ran out, the other two inmates made another run to a different store.

I'm having trouble figuring whether getting the beer was dumb, returning to jail was dumber, or thinking they were reenacting the "Shawshank Redemption" scene with the prisoners getting beer from Tim Robbins.

Israel

This just in: the UN demands that Israel:

1. Tear down it's anti-terrorist wall that's actualy reduced suicide bombings
2. Walk to the edge of the Sea and face it
3. Put on blindfolds
4. Wait for peace

Apparently this is to stem Palestinian "humiliation".

The Plissken Option

... it gives YOU just about the most twisted, anti-social bunch of psychopathic deformities I have ever run into! And the worst, the most dangerous of the bunch, is Maggott. You've got one religious maniac, one malignant dwarf, two near-idiots... and the rest I don't even wanna think about!

That might be heard in the US armed forces, if Kevin's idea for putting people in prison into the military ever took off. I think we'd see less a heroic bunch of dirty-dozen style misfits, than a lot of serious problem offenders still being criminals, but with slightly more freedom and access to weapons. We don't have Lee Van Cleef or Lee Marvin to keep them in line, let alone explosive pellets to implant in their necks.

In other sci-fi and movie ideas to solves societal woes, I think we can tackle overpopulation by implanting these little gems in people's palms that change colour when your turn, say 70...

Fair Foodgoat

Ladygoat of the Foodgoat blog compels you to sponsor her upcoming 24 hour Blogathon for Fair Trade. The Fair Trade website notes:

Fair Trade helps family farmers in developing countries to gain direct access to international markets, as well as to develop the business capacity necessary to compete in the global marketplace. By learning how to market their own harvests, Fair Trade farmers are able to bootstrap their own businesses and receive a fair price for their products. This leads to higher family living standards, thriving communities and more sustainable farming practices. Fair Trade empowers farming families to take care of themselves - without developing dependency on foreign aid.

You can just go to the fair trade site, sign up, get your confimation email, and choose Sponsor a Blogger, and choose our favourite gourmand Foodgoat. Will Ladygoat and Foodgoat go mad whilst blogging? Sign up and find out!

Traditional Carbon Values

Ohio has some problems., like unemployment, fleeing and shrinking industry. But what's vital? Getting an Ohio constitutional Amendment (free reg. req) to prevent same-sex partners from ever getting any benefits like straight couples enjoy. This website details some of the effort against this foolish measure, although I must admit they have one of the more awkward domain names I have seen - "OhioansProtectingTheConstituion.com".

The pro-amendment folks have their own site, the banaly named Citizens for Community Values. They alone realize allowing old lesbian women to collect death benefits if their lifelong partner dies is the same as asking every person in Ohio to take it up the butt, or so I gather. I just said to my lovely, correctly-opposite-sexed wife M_ the other day that every time a gay man in Toledo brings flowers home to his "partner", our somehow marriage suffers. They have a shout-out for tradition

One of the primary tenets upon which this organization was established is the Judeo-Christian teaching that the family is the cornerstone of civilization. Inseparably linked to that tenet is the belief that marriage- i.e., one woman and one man living together in a lifelong, monogamous, covenantal relationship- is the foundational element of the family unit. Compromise the integrity of the marriage relationship, and you compromise the integrity of the family.

I think they don't go far enough. Why stop at the relatively new unit of father mother and kids? Why not go back a few years when multigenerational clans crowded into one hay-roofed shack? What's so mystical about one man and wife? In fact, we could go back farther - assuming that in the tradition game, older equals better - to primitive tribalism. We could recreate the time when extended familial groups loosely affiliated would live, eat, and travel together, but perhaps we could use remodeled caves. We could even let homosexuals do the remodeling, as I think the mantra is "hate the sin, love the window treatment" or something of that nature.

While we're reaching back for glory, we could attempt to somehow remove sexuality from the picture altogether, because tradition - real, real old tradition, dictates that we should try and move back to as close to single-cell lifestyles as possible. I feel we should draw the line at attempting to reform society back to the truly original tradition of preorganic matter, as I think this might impact authors of fiction, already disheartened by NEA studies saying reading is down. Inorganic, largely carbon masses of material would not be likely to increase readership of literature.

Closure

The perfect story of closure (free registration req. to read article) :

I know a woman who once raised a chimp alongside her own kids as part of a scientific study. After a couple of years, the study ended and the chimp was banished to a monkey sanctuary. Chimps are not so very different from us, and he was furious. Many years later, the woman finally went to visit him. As soon as he saw her, he jumped on her, twirled her around a few times by her ankles, and nearly bashed her head in.

That was his way of achieving closure.

I cannot help but wonder if the chimp's name was Cornelius...

How to guarantee more terrorism

The Philippines hasjoined the ranks of craven countries, following the release of it's citizen in Iraq. It has withdrawn it's small contingent of troops from there to meet the kidnappers demands. Needless to say, this will encourage these and other kidnappers in Iraq to strike again. But I guess the Philippines government is comfortable having the blood of people other than it's own citizens on it's hands. They can also look forward to their domestic terrorists taking heart at the government's gutless and short-sighted move. Aside from the inevitable disgust one must feel, is the thought that some of our "allies" in Iraq were probably not worth bringing - the value of them was to provide a fig-leaf for an invasion that did not have serious international support. Meanwhile, back in Iraq, ransoms are being demanded for other kidnappings to help fund Iraqi-based insurgent groups, who will continue to destabilize the area. The purpose, obviously is to make the current Iraq seem so bad that the general populace will wish for a group of strongmen to take over - and we all know how well that turned out for Iraq last time.

Studies that do not explain drummers

There's a new study claiming a link between IQ and studying music in children.

The IQ of children taking voice lessons rose 7.5 points, to an average of 111.4 from 103.8. Among children taking keyboard lessons, the rise was 6.1 points, and with those taking drama it was 5.1 points. The IQ of children who took no lessons rose 3.9 points.

There's one thing missing from the study though, What about kids who took part in an activity of similar size and time that did not involve music or drama? I'm less than convinced that there's "something" about music that inherently makes us smarter. I give you the legions of Britney Spears fans as example number 1. Perhaps there is something to be said for a child that spends an extra hours or more a week in an organized program of some kind that involves concentration, memorization, and detail that gives an extra boost when it comes time to take IQ tests. Every time I hear that music inherently does this or that I think this is probably not the best argument to it's funding. The best argument is that it is a key component of human culture and history, and ignoring it makes as much sense as a history course that skips war, or religion. And I'm not just annoyed by such causal connections being made after hearing a college classmate many years ago brag that her parents played Mozart to her in the womb. I'd like more music education in schools, but as an acknowledgement that it is something that we need to know.

Outfoxed

The new documentary Outfoxed, directed by Robert Greenwald was shown in many (perhaps 20-30,000 screening parties across the US today. It's probably a revelation to no one that Fox News is partisan. Thus I went in to view this movie thinking perhaps not much would be revealed. What was more disturbing was the way that the producers and higher ups at Fox decide in advance of any actual newsgathering both what the story will be and what to emphasize in the story. In fact, it's difficult to say anything displayed in the movie on Fox could be called journalism. Instead, it seems to be a kind of impersonation of journalism. The recitation of talking points is amusingly portrayed on the Murdoch-owned network, as the hosts of shows repeat the same phrases over and over as though they were facts. The seamless blend between what seems to be reportage and what is undeniably commentary certainly leaves an unpleasant taste, for those who would like something resembling journalistic integrity in the professional news.

Bill O'Reilly comes in for a brutal treatment, but he can find no one to blame. In fact the impression of him grows worse and worse each time he appears in the film. From browbeating a 9/11 son's survivor on his talk show, to peddling blatantly untrue stories about what that son said on his abbreviated appearance, the appeal of O'Reilly's show is lost on me, politics aside. To put it simply, he doesn't seem to be saying anything of interest, and the repeated recitation of talking points indicates either how little he thinks of the intellectual strengths of his viewers, or his own limited thought process. As a news-gathering organization, Fox generally comes across as foolish at best, and the doublethink behind their "Fair and Balanced" slogan is mind-numbingly insincere. However, the fact that other networks try to "outfox" Fox by overbooking Conservative guests versus liberal ones in pursuit of profit does not help their reputation much either. I guess I can understand someone wanting to watch Fox to have their own views confirmed repeatedly, though I have a difficult time imagining wanting to actually get news from it.

As a film, "Outfoxed" tends to drag in parts. It largely relies on talking heads, clips from Fox, and graphics. There are several laughs in the film, mostly at the expense of the hapless anchors who play off of a game plan we the viewer are aware they had little hand in forming themselves. Not as sweeping as Michael Moore's recent political documentary, it does achieve a certain strength from focusing on one subject. The consolidation of media in the hands of a few corporations, not to mention what can only be described as a loose handle on principles in the TV cable media should be worrisome even to those who subscribe to the same basic notions as Fox News. I have read some claiming other networks are "as biased" as Fox, but I'm not sure that addresses the central point in the film, that Fox seems to resemble what you and I might imagine a real news org to be in name only. Whether this awareness will trickle down to people who rely principally on cable news for their view on the world remains to be seen.

In viewing "house parties" across the US tonight, coordinating with MoveOn.org, the left-leaning political action group, many people mass-scheduled and followed up on with a webcast where viewers could ask question of the director and other appearing in the film. I noted several large enclaves of viewers in places other than the usual Democratic strongholds, such as Texas and Florida. Participants and viewers of the webcast were encouraged to sign petitions and volunteer time to organizations that support the message of the film. In some ways, the net lets a new kind of mass media exist, where the net is a nation-wide water-cooler. Al Franken also took part and filled in some more detail on the treatment of one 9/11 survivor’s son by Bill O’Reilly. So it's fair to say it is in many ways a partisan film, though it hardly seems to matter considering its point that a media organization that delivers news is doing a disservice to write the news before it occurs.

Schreckengost show

M_ visited the fair city of Minneapolis, Minnesota to take in the Viktor Schreckengost "Dinnerware Legacy" show and got these photos. Among the many design innovations of this Cleveland area designer and artist are patterns and designs in dinnerware. Show info is here, alas it ends today.

They finally got him

I hope all of you who thought his "gambits" were so clever, or that the Administration would wait for an October "surprise" will now hang your heads low. We have captured the biggest threat in the "big game".

The Terrible Skies

I have a slight confession to make. I read the subject of this hilarious post on World O'Crap on the Women's Wall Street 'Terror in the Skies' piece and had my memory jogged. In the WWS story, the author reports seeing a group of non-American, non-whites giving each other meaningful glances on a plane. What's more, they had the temerity to speak with each other and generally be a group of more than two. Turns out they were musicians, although for some reason this seems to make her more nervous rather than less, as who among us has not known an Oboe player who would just as soon kill us as look at us.

But back to my memory. In October of 2003, I traveled to the quaint province of Nova Scotia via the terrifying device known as a commercial jet. Directly in front of M_ and I, were a group of seven to ten Arabic looking men who were significantly - according to the WWS author - ages between 25-50. I am sad to report that had the WWS author been on our flight, she would have been terrified too, although perhaps mollified that she could have penned her dire-warning-article earlier, and kept us all on the lookup for swarthy groups that seem vaguely menacing. At any rate, on my flight, the men all seemed to know each other. They kept looking at each other, sometimes making small facial gestures. They laughed. Some of them spoke in Arabic. I'm sure they weren't bothered at all by all the Westerners surrounding them and giving them the stink-eye, crook-eye, and evil eye.

The younger ones in the group (and how dare they congregate in groups, it's nearly as scary as a group of 14 year old girls giggling at the mall) were, how shall I say this, young. They talked more, couldn't sit still, kept getting up to talk to their pals, seemed bored. M_ and I debated who exactly this group was, for they were of too wide an age range to be an team, we thought. Honestly, we wondered in our heads if groups of Arab men only got together to be all terroristic. Unlike the aforementioned article, we did not see anyone give cold glances, carry meaningful McDonald's bags, or go to the bathroom en masse (but maybe they didn't need to pray?). When we finally landed, we saw them again in the luggage area picking up musical instrument cases. Dun dun duuuuh! Just like in the WWS article! Unlike that author, this made M_ and I say "ahhhh" and relax a bit. Afterwards, I thought perhaps it's good to be vigilant, but perhaps us randomly staring down groups on foreigners on planes is not particularly useful, and is a "warning" of nothing.

A suspicious footnote: One of the men dropped a bottle of some horrible, cheesy cologne. They may have been on a conspiracy to spread unpleasant cologne throughout Canada. I'll let you know if there are further developments.

Love sinning, hate being a sinner

An earnest letter writer in the Cleveland PeeDee mourns our lack of innocence, or rather presumed innocence, or more specifically, presumed innocence of men beating their wives. In this case, the local county record is accused of a physical altercation by his ex-wife.

Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

That would be a fiction of the law, As I recall Vincent Bugliosi saying. Most of the time when someone is accused of a crime it is difficult to suspend disbelief of his or her innocence, assuming a lack of corruption of police and prosecutors, or overzealous-when-it-comes-to-Democratic-contributors prosecutors - poor Martha. But aside from maintaining that we need to all walk around tabula rasa in all our non-official thoughts and writings, the aforementioned Letter-to-the-editor writer pens

Whatever happened to "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone"?

I must admit, I have not fully covered all of American history yet, being a dang foreigner, but I must have missed the part where this made it into law (see Footnote 1.)

Pat O'Malley is not yet proven guilty of any wrongdoing. He has his side to the story, just like his accuser.

I have my side of the story too. The cat ate all the cookies. However, my mate M_ may not be willing to hold off from casting a stone, alas, at this news.

Can't we wait to hear it before we point the accusing finger? I am an original "woman's libber,"

This just in - Betty Kisel of Solon is the "original" woman's libber (I use somewhat different scare quotes than she for this phrase).

... but I have learned, to my sorrow, that not every woman is always right in her accusations, and that one had better wait until all the facts are in before jumping to conclusions.

Yes, and I'll wait until every living species is extinct, and all the dead creatures found, before deciding if evolution is a good theory, too? Betty goes on to point of the county recorders work record.

Footnote 1

Speaking of places you can be killed by stoning, (free registration required to read full story) and where sinning is more than just a moral crime, some Afghani's are not pleased at Westerners and others enjoying Bacchanalic repasts in Kabul. Hamida Ghafour reports

Westerners buy caviar and cigars from the supermarket while Afghans struggle to buy bread

Er, Hamida, your marxism is showing, like an unruly slip. It does make me think though. The other day I was enjoying a tasty hamburger, though doubtless there was someone starving somewhere, and it made me nearly weep. Luckily the burgers were so good my spirits were restored.

Western women suntan in Chanel swimsuits while their Afghan counterparts are too afraid to take off the burqa, the all-enveloping head-to-toe veil.

And the problem here is the Western women, not the fear or it's causes? Please.

Alcohol is banned under the country's new constitution, but parties where swimming pools overflow with beer cans and wine bottles are in full swing.

In the years before the Taliban, Kabul was known for its cosmopolitan nightlife. Now, a heady mix of too much money ..

Emphasis, mine. Mind that slip!

...and a bit of boredom

Down with the bourgousie! Up with the proletariat! Er, sorry go too much into the spirit of the reportage.

...has created a sin city

Emphasis mine. There are those sins again! They seem almost unavoidable. Shame we can't find the key reason behind "sins". Was it the Devil? Religion? The soul-corrupting smarmy Smothers Brothers routines?

...where thousands of foreign aid workers, security contractors and consultants - and even a few liberal-minded Afghans - are willing to pay any price for champagne, gourmet foods and even ecstasy pills as a way to release the tensions of living in a conflict zone.

I was with you til the ecstasy pills. Do you suppose the Afghani's are offended that we in the west enjoy champagne and gourmet foods? It is their country, so I suppose we should "do as the Romans". Still, dear Hamid, I fear to tell you about where I am going tonight...to enjoy champagne chicken!

Zahra Kazemi murder "trial"

Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi is still dead, murdered by the Mullah-ocracy of Iran who are attempting to put a fig leaf on their brutal rule with a show trial of someone who was not likely one of the senior government people involved in the murder. Kazemi was in Iran photographing a prison when she was arrested and beaten to death in jail. At first, Iran tried to claim she died of a "stroke", but even they could not keep up that story for long. Now they are having a "trial" from which they have banned Canadian observers. Iranian Ambassador to Canada Mohammad Mousavi is mildly peeved that Canada is recalling it's ambassador to Iran as a response to the exclusion.

Mr. Mousavi said he regretted the decision to recall the Canadian ambassador was not a 'constructive approach.'

Like say, taking the ambassador in a jail and beating his head in. That's a solution that's crossed my mind.

Reasons why Buffy the Vampire Slayer is educational

When Reuters ran this piece which quotes this USA Today story:

Asked Wednesday whether the program could be considered dead, Ridge jokingly gestured as if he were driving a stake through its heart and said, "Yes."

If they were familiar with Buffy, then they wouldn't have misread it like this

Asked whether the program could be considered dead, Ridge jokingly gestured as if he were driving a stake through its head and said: "Yes," USA Today reported.

Have you ever tried to drive a stake through someone's head? It's downright tedious. Besides, we don't need to have a spreadsheet calculating the odds that non-Enlgish surnames mean you are terrorist or mild mannered writer. We can just take the next logical step from our friends in Japan and insert tracking chips in all our law-abiding, America-loving, freedom-contemplating skulls. It's certainly less painful than a stake.

Hunting the Documentary

Avedeon Carol reviews another documentary that will probably not be on the White House Xmas list for DVD's. I think they still get to live there even if they lose in November. She notes:

And there are other revelations you didn't see on the news, like the story of Jim MacDougal and his degeneration. He'd started off as someone with a reputation that was "beyond reproach" and then he'd taken on more than he could handle and started falling apart. When he was literally in fear for his life, Starr offered him a deal, but he was expected to deliver his ex-wife, Susan. And when Susan MacDougal refused to lie about the Clintons, Starr punished her as severely as he could get away with, not only having her locked in prison but making sure she was put on murderers' row where she had to wear the red dress that went with that honor - and since most of the women who were in prison for murder had killed their own children, prisoners who didn't know who she was treated her horribly.

It's not currently playing in my area, alas.

Either Yea or Nay

President Bush spoke in Michigan today, and is still attacking Kerry in the military realm

"Leaders need to stand up with our military," Bush told a cheering crowd, kicking off a two-day tour of three key states that he lost in 2000 to Democratic Vice President Al Gore.

Kerry said Monday that he and running mate John Edwards were proud of the fact that they opposed the $87 billion aid package for Afghanistan and Iraq "when we knew the policy had to be changed." Kerry said the Bush administration should have gotten other allies to help with the war in Iraq.

"He is entitled to his view," Bush said, adding that Kerry should not have gone on to "brag about it"

It's impossible for Bush not to attack Kerry on military matters, of course. A keynote of his campaign has been to cast him as a War President. Kerry, with his service awards from Vietnam is a tough comparison, when the campaign tries to paint the Democrats as softer on the war on terrorism. I always thought the moniker "war on terrorism" was a bit dubious, as it is doubtful humanity will ever be rid of terrorism. Like most elections, everything needs to be boiled down into digestible sound bites that support the talking points. But I wonder if in the above quotes Mr. Bush is saying that either:

a. You stand up with the military and vote for what I want you to

b. Vote against what I want you to, and thus stand against the military.

Of course it's an error of logic - bifurcation - to suggest there are only two possibilities. It is not to suggest is true ot not true, but rather that the argument cannot lead rationally to the truth, regardless of the truth of the premises. It is certainly a point Mr. Bush is aware of that Kerry and Edwards did not vote against bills solely because they oppose the military, mom, apple pie, or NASCAR, but because there were unresolved issues behind the bill. But in the context of the election, he has to pretend otherwise. Claiming they should not "brag about it" is a typical electoral gambit, insisting your opponent (because Democrats are as guilty of this as anyone else) needs to spend what media attention he can get apologizing for slights real and imagined. I know this is not really a new thought, but it passes through so much discourse in the public realm unremarked upon, a rotting carcass in the drinking water of public debate, that it never fails to irritate. If you are unhappy with the way elections now occur, with sloganeering and intellectual dishonesty found like acorns through the left and right wing forests, you need only wait a short while to see how bad it will get.

Sullivan's Irish Pub in Lakewood, OH

We dined at Sullivan's Irish Pub last night, yet found it oddly empty. Aside from the expected Guinness, they have a great selection of Irish food. The fish and chips are excellent, I say with my Nova Scotian expertise, and the cheddar dip appetizer is addictive and hearty. They have the usual burgers and a very fulfilling Guiness BBQ chicken sandwich. The fries are thick cut wedges cooked to perfection - being an Irish pub, they had better get the potato dishes right. There are several boxty dishes, and it's all fairly reasonably priced. The ambiance is neo-Irish, and the tables have a fair amount of space so you have room to tell tall tales, as is in keeping with the atmosphere. I can only hope it will pick up a bit, and that as our waitress said "people are afraid of heavy food in this heat". I can't recommend this place enough, it's a place you will not go just once. It's located at 13368 Madison Ave, Lakewood, OH, phone them at (216 529-8969). To get there just get off I90 at the West 117 exit, and head North. Turn left on Madison and it's a small blue-framed building on the right a few streets down. Plus, there's something neat about dining under the scythe they have hanging from the ceiling.

Self-promotion

Over at The Elegant Variation, there's interesting article about an author trying to get his book in actual bookstores by doing it himself. He started out dropping off copies with post-it notes attached! The article points to distribution being a bugbear for small independent presses, and how much responsibility the author has for getting his own pages slapped into eyeballs.

Best line of the day

On the irreplacable Happy Furry Puppy Story Time, sometimes giving more descriptive titles to people is very illuminating:

"Mr. President, I thank the chairman for yielding. I rise to discuss probably the most important issue this body or I have ever debated on the floor of the Senate since I have been a member, 6 years. Our Nation faces a potential disaster." -- Jim Bunning (I've Seen Terrorist Attacks, Genocide, and Famine, and I Can Say Without Fear of Hyperbole That Gays Marrying Is A Billion Times Worse Than All Of Those Things Put Together -- Kentucky).

Using your naked head

In other news, Bush wants kids to just say no to sex.

Proponents say there is no better way to prevent HIV - human immunodeficiency virus - than by using condoms and giving clean syringes to intravenous drug users.

Their philosophy is known as CNN, or Condoms, Needles, Negotiating Skills.

The Bush administration maintains that emphasizing condoms promotes promiscuity among youth.

During a debate entitled "CNN vs. ABC," Steven Sinding, director general of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, said "condoms will remain key preventive tools for many, many years to come."

He said condoms should be seen as the key element of a comprehensive strategy including abstinence. The U.S. policy of emphasizing abstinence is a "serious setback to the AIDS-control ef fort," he said.

But you know, I think our President is onto something. Having condoms does promote promiscuity. Retroactively, I think if it had not been for condoms I would have forgotten all about sex and instead concentrated on things like reading all of Proust, such would be the energy reserves I would have saved. But let us not stop in the realm below the belt. Is is not true that seat belts just encourage people to have car accidents? If we remove them, we'd see some careful driving out there, and since that's out goal, let's get out the knives and remove these bands promoting automotive irreverence. And helmets in general protect our heads sometimes - just like condoms are not 100% protection - and just encourage our head-smashing activities. Only by freeing us from protections like these can we truly be safe.

Reading comprehension

Maybe it's just me, but in this story on Bush rule changes to Clinton's logging road rules, are not the first and third sentences contradictory?

The Bush administration Monday proposed lifting a national rule that closed remote areas of national forests to logging, instead saying states should decide whether to keep a ban on road-building in those areas.

Environmentalists immediately criticized the change as the biggest timber industry giveaway in history.

Under the proposal, governors would have to petition the federal government to block road- building in remote areas of national forests.

Emphasis mine. Or is it a case where the Administration likes to be heard trumpeting states rights but wants to keep the decision making ability in Washington?

Surfing

Margaret Wente has some sensible thoughts (free registration required) on the recent case of Ontario, Canada government employees fired for sex related materials on their computers. They have been vindicated, in a way, with orders that firing were too harsh. Wente notes:

If my boss ever cared to spy on my keystrokes, he'd discover that I sometimes use the company's computer (which I think of as my own, since I've got it set up just the way I like it) to pay my phone bills, check out the weather forecast, arrange dinner parties, order stuff from Toys "R" Us, and research the latest surgical techniques for painless chin tucks. Whether I do these things on the company's time or my own is hard to say, because it all blurs together, and whether the company ought to care what I do on its computer is one of the great conundrums of the modern workplace.

There's just one great taboo, and that is S-E-X. Waste all the time you want at work. But if they catch you surfing porn sites, you're toast. Lie and cheat and steal, and you may well get a promotion. But if you dare look at pictures of naked people, you will be frog-marched out the door without a reference.

That's what the poor clucks at Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources found out. Instead of drooling over Tuscan villas, they goofed off by drooling over porn sites. Instead of swapping dumb-Bush jokes, they swapped sophomoric smut jokes. Employers, especially government employers, are terrified of this sort of thing, because somebody might get offended and slap them with a sexual-harassment suit.

So far as I can tell, everyone involved was over 21 and nothing they downloaded or e-mailed to each other would have broken any law. The worst offenders had circulated animated cartoons showing Britney Spears involved in unnatural acts. (In my view, the real-life Britney is the most unnatural act of all, but I digress.) Government investigators soon uncovered an entire culture of debauchery up there in Northern Ontario, where, not surprisingly, there's not much else to do. Embarrassingly for the government, the debauchees included a number of people on the human resources staff, "a fairly significant number of managers," and the workplace harassment adviser.

Of course you can make the argument that the employer has the absolute right to decide what you can and cannot look at on your computer. But I think there are practical considerations. Workers that do not get paid by the hour, such as myself, often work more than 40 hours a week, and make up the time by doing errands - including internet email and research into non-work related matters - whilst at the office. But if they didn't, they time they would be able (and willing) to stay at the office would be reduced. When I worked as a system administrator I certainly could have examined every packet coming in and going out for explicit content, but I didn't have the time. I figured as long as worker's managers are satisfied they are productive, micromanaging what they look at on the PC was a waste of time. As long as they are wasting excessive bandwidth, I don't see the competitive advantage of such policies. Ensuring such net related materials are not exposed to the unwilling - say by printing them and displaying for other workers to see, it seems like a waste of energy to track this down.

Orange you glad we don't have parades like this

Lest you think religious mania and machine gun toting masked men are only in the Middle East, this story (free registration required) about parades and demonstrations in Northern Ireland will clear that up for you.

At two Belfast bonfires, masked gunmen from outlawed anti-Catholic paramilitary groups emptied clips from handguns and submachine guns into the air.

Representatives from two rival gangs, the Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force, read statements vowing to defend Protestant areas from any IRA attacks. The displays demonstrated that, although all three groups are supposed to be observing ceasefires, they remain armed and organized in defiance of the 1998 peace accord.

"We are better prepared now than at any time in the past," one masked UDA man declared to cheers. "It's still no surrender to the enemies of Ulster, no matter where they may be."

Not to worry though. They're celebrating a battle from 1690, so I'm sure any tension will dissolve with just a few more centuries.

Fun with comments taken out of context

Oops. I really am female. I guess I didn't look at it carefully enough.
Hanah Metchis

from Hit and Run.

Monkeys

If I had a million dollars, I'd get Allison a monkey. She's always wanted a monkey, evidently to help pick up photos of muscular black men.

What's missing from the story?

The World Court ruled that the Israel security fence is "illegal". Let's see if the news orgs mention one key fact:

MSNBC...No.
CBS...No.
ABC...No
BBC...no.
CNN...Yes.

What fact do they not bother to tell you? How much suicide bombings and other attacks have decreased where the fence has been built. Here's a useful graphic via An Israeli consulate.

Need I say more?

Think of the poor teenagers

Clinical psychologist Paul Schenck says that porn on the net can unduly influence society's most vulnerable, sweet, innocent, and uncynincal members - teenagers. It will scar them for life, apparently.

"So that then in their adult life, if they're wanting to get turned on, they know right where to go," said Schenck. "The brain know exactly what kind of images to pull up, and it can be very, very hard to change that, to alter that."

So true, so true. As a wide-eyed teenager myself, I was subjected to the horrors of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High". Now, whenever I want to get turned on, as the youngsters are wont to say these days, I must have Phoebe Cates come swim in my pool.

Progressive Existentialism

The Cleveland PeeDee editorial board does some whining-by-proxy for local company Progressive Insurance. Claiming that Cleveland does not have enough IT people, so it has to hire folks in Colorado for a call center there, Progressive says it just can't fill positions with local talent. To be diplomatic, what a load of horseshit. They are going to Colorado for lower taxes, and unless I miss my guess, lower average wages. Now they want the Cleveland Universities to start pumping out more IT folks. So that in 4 years, we may have more IT grads with jobs, or more latte servers, if the economy is down again by then. As for all the unemployed IT workers here in town, you can spend your days looking at the interesting Frank Gehry building paid for by Progressive owner Peter B. Lewis, and contemplate your own non-existence.

Lion

The Lion of Ohio has been spotted again, this time in a cornfield. Reports that it was travelling with a meerkat and a wild boar, eating only insects, have not been confirmed.

Don King

Don King - yes that Don King - is stumping for President Bush here in Cleveland. I thought the dems got some negative heat recently for having convicted felons go door to door for Kerry, but I guess it's ok now. I have this vision in my head, that if Kerry wins, King will show up on the inauguration platform, saying he has always been managing Kerry as well.

New Rules

There are some new rules in America, which I found out whilst perusing Moorish Girl.

1. Don't write anything strange in the margins of your newspaper
2. Don't take any photos
3. Don't mention the constitution
4. Don't be brown, quirky, or otherwise "not normal"
5. Don't ask questions

Books, books, books

Whilst perusing Bookslut, one of the most useful things I read, I found this neat blog, which was recently attacked for defending a poet....by the poet! Seriously dude, do you know how few people are reading poetry now? (see previous post).

Also Jessa found this article on how to pack books for vacations, warning women not to let men taken the giant book they've been "meaning to read" with them. M_ might be reminded of the time we went up to her mom's (for a grand total, I might add of about 24 hours) and I brought along eight lengthy books on chess.

Update: Tingle Alley has the last - and most spit-take inducing - word on the poet who bashed the blogger who defended him.

Fewer Books Cracked

Well, this can't be good news for aspiring writers out there. The NEA released a report that reading in the US is declining among both genders, all age groups, all races, all income levels, and all levels of education.

The general book-reading habits of literary readers vary widely. Readers of literary works can be divided into four categories: light readers (1-5 books during the year, both literary and non-literary), moderate readers (6-11 books per year, both literary and nonliterary), frequent readers (at least one book every month, i.e., 12-49 books per year, both literary and non-literary), and avid readers (about one book every week, i.e., 50 or more books per year, both literary and non-literary). The percentage of people in each category is as follows: light readers 21 percent, moderate readers 9 percent, frequent readers 12 percent, and avid readers 4 percent. In other words, about one in six people reads 12 or more books in a year (just fewer than 17 percent are in the frequent or avid reader categories).

The report goes on to look at other non-reading activities and finds some equally unhappy trends - readers tend to be more engaged in their communities, and year after year there are fewer readers.

Is that coyote wearing a rocket on his back?

Tom Ridge will be announcing a new terror threat today.

"Credible reporting now indicates al-Qaida is carrying out plans for a large-scale attack in the United States to affect the democratic process," Ridge said at a Thursday morning briefing.

"They also hold the mistaken belief that their attacks will have an impact on the American resolve," he said.

Ridge said the intelligence community is lacking knowledge as to a time, method or place for an attack.

Thanks, that's a lot of help. They are not raising the alert colour from Big Bird to Bert, though. Such a useful system, that colour bar. I am awaiting the inevitable announcement that sources indicate Wyle E. Coyote is planning a massive attack on the Roadrunner "somewhere in the desert" and that "Acme tools may be involved."

Underblogs

Celebrate the Underblog! What's that? Basically blogs that people like but do not have a vast reading audience as of yet. Thanks also to Anita Campbell for putting my little blog in there.

Anita runs Small Business Trends, one of those blogs that has focus. Definitely worth visiting if you have a small business or realize how vital they are to the economy.

Je ne parle pas canine

Immersion language schools are designed to allow students to master a language more quickly, being unable to use their native tongues for any communication. I knew a friend who mastered French by going to a French Immersion high school, and she still has it down. I myself, have forgotten most of my high school French.

But sometimes they can go to far, as in the case of a blind man who is is being told he cannot speak to his dog in his native French. The dog's name is Pavot.

The conflict stretches Canada's bilingualism conundrum to new lengths, since Pavot is unilingual. Trained to understand commands in French only, he responds to 'Pavot, reste' but not 'Pavot, stay'

The idea of the school is that by forcing someone to not use French, they are forced to use English in school, this be prepared for real life where they may have to use only English. But here the logic is that Mr. Tessier needs to learn to speak to his dog in English....because is the real world, most dogs speak English? I wish I had an Andrew Sullivan-esque "award" for the administrators of this school, so awe-inspiring is the depth of their utter idiocy. Then again, I think my cat has a slight Ohio accent.

Replace the VP?

Speaking of Veeps, Bruce Bartlett suggests that the current Vice Prez step aside for the upcoming election. He feels Mr. Cheney has become a "lightning rod". I think, maybe he should stop standing out in the thunder and rain on a hill waving a metal pole with a flag saying "Iraq and al Qaeda had a relationship" with a smug look on his face, but that may just be a gut reaction. He thinks the change of Veep might help Bush in the close election, despite the claim elsewhere in the Moonie Times the Washington Times that Veeps don't matter in terms of elections. He suggests perhaps Dr. Rice, but has reservations:

My main reservation against Miss Rice is that she is untested electorally, having spent most of her career as a Stanford political science professor. Also, we know nothing about her views on issues outside her area of expertise, foreign policy. What is her position on abortion, tax cuts or Medicare? Even she may not know since she may never have had any reason to think about these or the thousand other issues on which presidential candidates must have positions.

Let me repeat part of that - "even she may not know". Does anyone really believe that? Or does the press just have to pretend to believe it? Bartlett wraps up by wishing Bush would pick McCain as a Veep, which to me says McCain would be a better choice, in his mind as well as many others, to replace someone somewhat higher on the Presidential ticket.

Gravitas

Our Veep has been going around restating that there was a relationship between Osama's pals and Saddam's gang. The cynical amongst you may think he's trying to muddy the waters and leave an impression with voters that Saddam was somehow involved with the 9/11 attacks. After Richard Cheney suggested he had more information than the 9/11 panel on the relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq, the panel shot him down.

In a one-sentence statement, the panel's chairman and vice chairman said that "after examining available transcripts of the vice president's public remarks, the 9/11 commission believes it has access to the same information the vice president has seen regarding contacts between Al Qaeda and Iraq prior to the 9/11 attacks."

A report issued by the commission's staff last month found that there did not appear to have been a "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and the terrorist network, a finding that appeared to undermine a justification cited by President Bush and Mr. Cheney for invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein.

Cheney's staff responded by addressing a point that was not being made, that "As we have said all along, the administration provided the commission with unprecedented access to sensitive information so they could perform their mission. The vice president criticized some press coverage of the draft staff report. He did not criticize the commission's work". With all the critiques of Kerry being unable to make "simple, declarative statements" it's nice to hear something so clear.

Democracy and religious states

Excerpts from an article by Dr. Shaker Al-Nabulsi critiquing the idea that "democracy is the essense of Islam" can be found here at Memri.org.

Islam started out as a political religion, even before the completion of the Da'wa [religious Islamic propagation]. It established the State of Al-Medina in that city, and then extended [its reign] over vast political empires. But that was 1500 years ago, in historical circumstances that do not exist today because of the changes in the perception of what a state is, what a sovereign is, and what a nation is. During this period, the subjects became citizens. Islam could have ruled over peoples who lived 1500 or even 500 years ago. But neither Islam nor any other religion can do that today. The era of the religious states is over.

Worth a read in full.

Looking over your shoulder

No one expects their emails on company based email systems to be private - but we hoped ones sent from our home accounts would be harder for outsiders to legally read. Mark Rasch has a column about a recent court decision in Massachusetts that seems to make it legal for ISP to read their customers emails

According to the indictment, Councilman worked his spying by virtually tapping the very means by which e-mail is delivered on his company's system: he instructed his employees to modify the Procmail mail processing code to spin off a copy of any inbound mail originating from Amazon.com to a location where it would be accessible to Councilman and others in Interloc, who then read it. That means this diversion truly happened as the mails were in transit en route to the recipient. The "interception" was contemporaneous with the delivery of the e-mail-- in fact, it occurred moments before the e-mail was delivered to the proper recipient.

But that wasn't good enough to satisfy the wiretap statute, the judge found. Because the e-mail was in the mail server's memory and incoming mail queue at the time of the interception, it was no longer in transit.

That's not an unreasonable reading of the statute, but I am hard pressed to understand how e-mails could ever be truly "intercepted" in transmission under this law, as the packets that comprise them follow a "store and forward" model. I could program your ISP's router to send me a copy of every packet your computer transmits or receives, and it would be legal under the Boston court rationale. The FBI, NSA and CIA could have a field day, without the trouble of getting court orders.

The only way around this is to have a contractual agreement with your ISP that they will not read your emails, or set up your own email server. One seems like a flimsy defense and the other would be very cumbersome for the average user. I think in this case the government needs to update it's wiretapping laws.

Keep the trains running on time

How hard would it have been for the GCRTA (Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority) to put a revised holiday schedule so we know when the trains are going? Pretty hard, apparently, since their holiday schedule online here is for 2003 as of the time of this writing. One thing lacking from their website? The one thing the average person would probably want to know, namely, what routes and times are available from point A to point B. You can download the system map, then individual routes, and puzzle it out, but it's no better than grabbing all the paperwork and doing it. I wonder if a transit system out there has more automated online tools available?

Free Speech

Is it ironic that on July 4th, the day where a country known for it’s free speech, that I was found loathing certain speech? Specifically, as M_ and I enjoyed Lakewood’s fireworks, some dweeb and his wife and spawn stood behind us. I present to you now his running commentary (my inner monologue in italics):

"That was a big one"
"Woo. Another big one"
"That was a big one there"
"That is what they call the crowd-pleasers"
No, they don’t
"That’s a crowd pleaser"
"Woo. Another crowd pleaser"
"That one’s a crowd pleaser".
"[inaudible]...crowd pleaser"
"Crowd pleasers mean it’s almost over now"
"That was a crowd pleaser, it’s over soon"
No it isn’t
"That was a blue one"
I see no one in your clan is blind. Please shut up.
"Bang"
"Bang"
"Bang"
"Woo."
"That was loud"
Why did you have to procreate
"Purple one"
"That was a big one. A crowd pleaser"
"Bang"
"Woo"
"That was a big blue one"
"Crowd-pleaser. That’ll be the end soon"
I want to cut off you head with a whippersnapper
"Bang"
"Boom"
"Boom"
No jury in the world would convict me
"Boom"
"Boom"

You must hear this

In this quote from Lynn’s “Reflections in d Minor” the desecration of piped in music by PA interruptions is considered. I truly love music, but to me there is nothing worse than piped in music. There’s no choice but to listen to it. Aside from the fact it’s often bad, it doesn’t really matter if it’s good or bad. It’s unavoidable. It’s the aural equivalent of Soviet state art – that which someone has decided you are required to appreciate.

Our current friends like Saudi Arabia

Bill Sampson was a Canadian working in Saudi Arabia who was arrested by the government there for "terrorism", when it was perfectly obvious the terrorists were not Westerners. He was released after 31 months. Now it seems we have found their motives:

The Saudis were trying at that time to extract a promise from the British that they would expel Saudi political dissidents who had made London their base of operations, said Sampson.

Sampson said he has also seen Belgian government documents that indicate the Saudis changed their approach for the third and ultimately successful deal. They sought American agreement to release the five Saudi prisoners who had been held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"It's my information that the Saudis themselves broached the idea of an exchange," said Sampson.

"We were used from the very, very outset as hostages, and this had been deliberate from the start, to use us as a means of leverage against western governments."

I'm wondering how long it will be before we have leaders who realize that dealing with these petty dictators is a losing proposition.

Two disturbing images.

Nothing says America this July 4th like two people dressing up like a suburban ninja and a character from Tron, respectively. Via a new addition to my blogroll, Botton Your Lip.

GI's to be charged

I first saw the story of US GI's drowning an Iraqi civilian via Healing Iraq, an Iraqi blog, where he had published a letter the victim's mother had sent to President Bush. I was a bit dubious of the story, thinking it sounded too wantonly cruel to be something the GI's would have done. However, six months later, it now appears 4 soldiers will be charged with the crime.

Meryl 'Mitchell'

I would have done a spit take if I had been drinking anything when I read Meryl's song parody. You really need to read the whole thing. "Ooooh, bomb bomb bomb", I can hear it in my head!

Jefferson

Saw a quote from your president Jefferson (soon to be my president, come 2006 when the BCIS let's me become a real 'Merican):

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty.
--Thomas Jefferson

(from the new-to-me blog Jabba's Hut). This is one of the things I worry about in Iraq, but only time will tell if things will hold together there, or we end up with another dictatorship or pseudoDemocracy. Tom, any chance you could come back from the dead to help us out here?

Unappealing repeal

Some greedy geezers concerned retirees want to repeal a school levy in Cleveland Heights. Now, there is a blog organized to stop them, apparently they have also read my rant on the subject. It's nice to know I am read by more than shut-in's and people under house arrest. Very cool to see direct political action via blog. Now the key will be getting potential voters in the Heights to look at the blog so they can make their argument.

What's Cooking?

Sondra complained that I don't print her recipe's for Spaghettios, which alas I did not find on her blog yet - but I did find her appetite for wieners and buns. Ahem. Bon appétit!

Apartment 11d

Adding some new blogs to the rolls, and found Apartment 11d. It had this graf about a survey they sent out and one pissy blogger who refused to answer it.

My husband, who lurks in corners of the blogosphere that I don’t tread, found a blogger who tore apart (for a second time) the survey we sent him. This blogger was insulted that we should ask him questions about his blog, when we could quite simply read through 3 years of his archives and the archives of the 70 other bloggers we surveyed. He said that we were lazy.

Aside from John Etorre, who seems to have read all the prattling fascinating writing on my blog, I can't imagine asking someone to ready everything I wrote. Plus, aren't blogs about the exchange of information? The non-survey-returning bloggers sounds like an arrogant newspaper columnist, and dammit, aren't those the guys we're trying to put OUT of work?

UPDATE: 7/2/ Lynn mentions:

Everyone is always trying to reduce blogs to something that will fit a nice neat little box and it's very frustrating trying to explain to someone what a blog is if they've read one of those silly media articles or surveys of blogs.

In other words, they are attempting a form of idealism in overly simplifying blogs in general. I hadn't considered that....you may be right.

Blogroll

I've reorganized my blogroll by category. Some people are hard to put into a category though. If you are in one you don't think you should be, let me know and I'll move you to a more suitable neighbourhood.

Yes she has some bananas

Over at the always delicious Foodgoat, Ladygoat is...dare I say it? Grilling bananas. Besides waffles, this is one thing I would have never thought to grill. Plus she finds some nice banana ice cream. It's a great blog for some truly original ideas in the realm of food. Of course, the explanation may be that she's from Orion.

Old posts

I was never quite sure when the first blog post was, but I was fairly certain it didn't go back to 1956. I was wrong.

Places I am glad where I toil not

Well, where are you going to go now, Gyrogroup.com? Not Disney Land, alas.

The trip to Disney Land has been cancelled. This is not to be mentioned again to anyone inside or outside the office. Not adhering to this will result in instant dismissal.
David

---
David Bruce
Account Manager GyroGroup

Simulated office conversations at Gyrogroup:
"Hi David, that was a goofy report eh?" "GOOFY!? You're fired"
"Hi David, the minutes seemed a bit dumbed-down." "DUMB!? As in Dumbo? You're fired"
"Hey David, want to join me and the lads out at..." "LADS?! As in Alladin? You're fired"
"Hey David what kinda Mickey Mouse operation..." "Do I even need to say it?"

Spidey?

Via Fark, this Spiderman movie review reveals some unusual twists, like Spiderman now uses a switchblade, and kills people using boat propellers. Plus the CGI is not quite what I thought it would be...

Saletanism

Another fun thing to do on the web is deconstruct William Saletan's Kerryisms column on Slate. It's a kind of response to the Bushisms they have run (and printed a couple books of) that mocked our President's verbal gaffes. Aside from the "shame on you" bit, many of these were rather lame or hardly worth reporting. They didn't really give insight into the thought process of the Prez, and some of them seemed like cheap shots. So two wrongs make a right, right? To see if this column makes sense, you need only answer the following questions.

In each case are the two statements logically and factually the same?

1.
A. The strong spending caps in my plan will ensure that spending doesn't grow.
B. The strong spending caps in my plan will ensure that spending doesn't grow faster than inflation.
Aren't these two different statements? *rubs eyes* Yep.

2
A....If Congress fails to keep spending in line, the budget caps will mean across-the-board cuts in every area.
B. And if Congress fails to keep spending in line, the budget caps will mean across-the-board cuts in every area except security and education and mandatory programs like health care, Social Security, and Medicare.

If he made the statement as noted in A, one could claim in a campaign add "Kerry has threatened to cut social security, health care, Medicare, and education?"

Saletan seems to want to edit Kerry's speeches because he gets bored listening to them. Removing the details that change the meaning of the statement is just ridiculous. Imagine if a newspaper ran the quote the way Saletan hacks it apart. They wouldn't, because they know they get called on the carpet for being what can only be described as dishonest. Hiding this kind of thing by claiming it's just for fun is disingenuous. Saletan would rather no caveats, I assume because he either wants politicians with extremely simple ideas that ignore reality in favour of short sentences, in other words, ideas that will not work, or he was assigned the job of taking things Kerry says and making them funny. It's so much easier to write a story when before having any information, you already know what the story will be, I suppose.

Audience review

Jen reviews the audience at a screening of Spider Man 2:

Behind us in the stadium seats are at least one dozen infants including one who's parents would NOT take it out of the theatre and they cried or whimpered all two hours!... but wait, I'm leaving out the best part - the white trash Bubba and his Budweiser induced spawn of Satan sitting in dead center of Aisle one of the stadium seat, right behind me.

Read the whole thing, it's a hoot. Also a good reason to take steps to insure as few kids as possible are in the theatre when you actually want to see a movie.

Nader

Back when I lived in Canada, each election held a special kind of problem. I didn't want to vote Liberal, because in many cases my views coincided more with the NDP. But it was unlikely the NDP would win, so a vote for the Liberals might be more "strategic" to offset the PC party, whom I usually disagreed with. But it was all irrelevant anyway, since my riding voted for the PC candidate every time - I think they would vote for him if they ran a lump of wood instead of a person - except for the great PC electoral disaster of 1993. But it leaves a bitter taste, this strategic voting. Which brings me to Ralph Nader. When he says things like this:

"What has been happening over the years is a predictable routine of foreign visitation from the head of the Israeli government," Nader said. "The Israeli puppeteer travels to Washington. The Israeli puppeteer meets with the puppet in the White House, and then moves down Pennsylvania Avenue, and meets with the puppets in Congress. And then takes back billions of taxpayer dollars. It is time for the Washington puppet show to be replaced by the Washington peace show."

He washes any bitter taste away for many voters. Ignoring the billions sent to our, um, pals in Egypt and elsewhere. Ignoring that it's the only democracy in the ME, save the new Iraq - I hope. Actually for me the argument ends there. If you can't see why we should support an island of democracy in a sea of hatred, lies and dictatorships, you probably shouldn't be running for President at all. Link via Meryl Yourish, who is such a good writer that if you are not reading her, you should be pelted with angry cats.

Happy Canada Day

Today is Canada day. Though I no longer live in my old homeland, I still have a lot of fondness for it. How can you not love hockey, beavers, Tim Horton's donuts, John Candy, Lorne Greene, and Margaret Atwood? Have you ever wondered how exactly we ended up with a leaf on our flag? The story is here.

You can also read some Canuck bloggers, such as Ghost of a Flea, Poison Kitchen, The Blog Québécois, Revolutionary Moderation, and the Super Nova Scotian. OK, I need to get some more "maple syrup" into my blogroll.

Now to try and find a Canadian flag here in Ohio...