Everyone's Wild About Harry

There is a lot of Harry Potter talk going round the Internet these days, thanks mostly to an interview that J.K. Rowling did on British Television recently. In the interview, Rowling says that she’s “well on the way” to finishing the seventh – and last – HP book and that the ending, which she first wrote back in 1990, has changed “very slightly”.

Apparently, one character that was slated to die has gotten a reprieve while two others have unexpectedly gotten the ax: “…two die that I didn’t intend to die,” she said, and added, “A price has to be paid. We are dealing with pure evil here. They don’t target extras, do they?” Clearly, this woman has never watched much Star Trek.

Of greater import, she dodged the question of whether one of the victims would be Harry himself. While admitting that she understood the mentality behind killing off the main character in a series, she refused to speculate, saying “I don’t want the hate mail, apart from everything else”.

Well, as Tom Maguire would say. And speaking of Tom, his opinions on the subject are here. I’m not sure that I agree with all of his predictions but I will lay money that he’s right about the release date of the seventh book, especially since the release date of the fifth movie is now scheduled six days later. Meanwhile, Dr. Sanity pleads for Harry’s survival while The Anchoress argues that surviving Voldemort might not be Harry’s biggest challenge:

“And Harry…I can see him surviving the series - everyone wants to see Harry, Hermione and Ron live happily ever after - but what would the rest of Harry’s life be like? Perhaps he’d teach Defense Against the Dark Arts…but Voldemort vanquished it would all seem pretty pedestrian to him wouldn’t it? And rather purposeless? His parents would still be dead. Dumbledore, dead. Possibly Hagrid, dead. One or several Weasleys dead. Ron and Hermione probably wed.”

She compares HP with Hamlet and continues:

“Here is the interesting question…when a life has been lived with a sense of deep mission - as in either Hamlet’s or Harry’s case - and that mission has been fulfilled, what is the purpose of the life, thereafter? If the 18 year old Harry (or a 20-something year old Hamlet) have accomplished their goal, the thing that has driven them and given their whole life meaning and purpose, are we supposed to believe they can ever rest easy in a sort of “busywork” retirement? Perhaps this is why monarchs, old generals, popes, entrepreneurs, mother-hung rock stars and CBS newsmen can never willingly retire and live out their days. Without their sense of mission, life has no thrust and parry, no vivacity, no purpose.”

I don’t think anyone would want to read about Harry in his declining years – just as I don’t think anyone other than perhaps George Lucas would really care to read about Harry’s early years with the Dursleys. Rowling, or whomever, would have to come up with a new mission for him, something equal to the vanquishing of pure evil, and The Revenge of the White Ferret just won’t do.

Still, it is fun to speculate. But perhaps, as the Anchoress suggests, the best thing is simply to go back and re-read books 1-6 or, if you prefer, watch movies 1-4. You can never have too much Harry and 7/7/07 is still a year away.

I Had No Idea

It seems you really can get anything at Costco.

Required Reading

I added a new blog to my blogroll this morning. It's called Creating Passionate Users and though it lists several people as contributors, it seems to be primarily the brainchild of Kathy Sierra. I discovered it initially by linking to this post, which encouraged me to poke around and check out some of her previous posts. Since then, I've been a regular visitor. If I hadn't been waylaid by the move from hell, I would have added it to my blogroll before now.

Her recent post about her near-death experience a year ago and her subsequent link to this post at another site made a huge impresion on me. I find the site consistently interesting and definitely worth my time and I hope you will, too.

On a related note, it must seem strange for a small blog like this one to be recommending people to a larger blog that has far more viewers than I do. Sort of like the tail wagging the dog, so to speak. Well, I look at it this way: the Internet - and the blogging portion of it - is huge; so huge that, no matter how much of it you see, there's always much more that you can't see. And if you should somehow stumble across my little portion of it, the least I can do - other than hopefully making your time here worthwhile - is direct you to other places you might find of interest.

Think of it as a karmic exercise.

Speaking of Perspective

This kind of takes the cake, doesn't it?

Meanwhile

Scott Adams definitely has the right idea for dealing with household ants. Our new place was infested with them and I've lost count of the number I've sent to ant heaven.

Although I do have to say I think he's going a bit too far when he compares cat poop to finding nuggets of gold.

While I Was Away

Okay, so I know a lot of interesting and potentially life-altering things happened while I was otherwise engaged but surely none of them were more important than this. Or this. Or maybe this. Or perhaps this.

I mean, there are so many things going on in the world these days, it helps to have a sense of perspective, right?

Right?

In Case You Were Wondering

No, I haven't disappeared. We've been moving the last few weeks - always a wonderful chore - Internet access has been spotty and the blogging inclination slight. This is our first move in ten years and it's been a monster.

Tomorrow, it's off to Virginia for a Father's Day Memorial Service for my dad, who passed away last October. I'll be back in about a week, hopefully, and later this month I expect blogging to resume.

Just in case anyone was wondering...

The "I" Word

I hope this story is true. Not because it appears that the search of Congressman William Jefferson’s office was conducted properly, and not because it appears that the howls of protest from Congress about the search have no basis in fact, and not because – as the Professor notes – this “vigorous” reaction from Congress may mean that there’s more going on here than meets the eye.

No, I hope the story is true because it will mean that these three men – the highest ranking law enforcement officials in the country – possess something that seems to have disappeared from political discourse these days. Unlike the Mary McCarthy’s of the CIA, who prefer to stay in the shadows and leak classified information, or the retired Military Generals, who criticize the current administration’s handling of the war effort from the safety of their armchairs, without fear of personal consequences, these three men are putting their jobs publicly on the line for something they believe in.

And that means they possess something the rest of the political world could use a massive dose of right now. Integrity.

That’s why I hope this story is true.

Doom and Gloom

Things have been gloomy here for the past week - clouds and showers almost every day - and there appears to be no relief in sight until the middle of next week. May is such a treacherous month. It opens like a flower, soft and beautiful, welcoming you into its bosom after a long, hard winter (yes, I know spring is supposed to start in March but up here you take spring when you can get it) and just when you begin to relax and enjoy the warmth and the extra hours of sun, it snaps to like a Marine D.I. and yells, "Drop and give me twenty, you maggots!"

Twenty days of rain, that is. Luckily, we haven't had any flooding in the area but I understand that in parts of New Hampshire and Mass, the Ark business is picking up. Yesterday, we were given a brief respite as the sun came out for several hours. Of course, after the sun went down the clouds rolled back in and we had our first boomer of the season, with thunder and lightning so close it seemed like a scene from War of the Worlds.

Maybe God is protesting the opening of The Da Vinci Code.

Anyway, I have been trudging through the sog this last week house hunting and all in all, it's been pretty discouraging. We're currently in a duplex and after ten years of sharing a wall and all that goes with it (including cigarette smoke - apparently our landlord rents to smokers but only if they agree to smoke outside. So when they go outside and light up - especially in the spring and summer when all the windows are open - all the smoke floats up and drifts into our half of the building and, well, let me just say that if I wanted to live with a smoker, I'd live with a smoker, you know what I mean?) we would really like to have a free-standing house. Of course, we're not in a position to buy one - not with me being out of work and all - so we're looking to rent (and even that becomes somewhat problematical when the prospective landlord asks what you do for a living).

First of all, let me just say that Vermont takes a back seat to no one when it comes to overpriced housing - both rental and purchasing. Granted, the prices drop a bit as you leave the Champlain Valley but then you are faced with higher transportation costs and fewer amenities. Now, there is a school of thought that says that you're not really living in Vermont if you're living in anything larger than a town - the idea being, I guess, that civilization and Vermont are mutually exclusive terms - but that's a discussion for another post, I think. Ideally, I would like to live outside of the city but close enough to commute to it without major issues, especially in winter. Consequently, our search has encompassed an area up to twenty or thirty miles outside of Burlington proper.

In spite of that, we have found relatively few places that we feel we can both live in and afford. The price range has been from $1000 to over $2500 a month and I've been left wondering just what kind of work a person can do in this area to be able to afford $2000 or more a month for a rental. I'm trying to keep it under $1500 (which represents a 50% increase over what we're currently paying) and it hasn't been easy.

The other problem is that the whole business of renting a place has become such a dog and pony show. In order to qualify for a roof and four walls, you have to run through a gamut of credit checks, references, paystubs and blood samples. Okay, I'm kidding about the last one. I think. Now I understand if a landlord is going to give me the opportunity to trash his place, he has the right to know a little bit about me first. Personally, I think it ought to cut both ways but I seem to be in the minority on that. And when I look at the neighbors I've had to put up with for the last five years - all of whom seem to have come straight from Assholes Anonymous - it seems more than a little petty for a landlord to refuse me because I don't happen to have a job at the moment or because I was thirty days late on my car payment two years ago.

The truth is, as long as you pay your rent on time, it doesn't matter how many times your neighbor has to call 911 in order to get some sleep. Unless, of course, your neighbor is your landlord.

For the moment, each day is the same: check out the listings in the paper and compare with the listings online, call people to make appointments to go see places that look interesting, talk to real estate agents to see if they know of places that aren't being listed, and wait to hear back from people you've already spoken to and filled out applications for. Oh yeah, and at the same time, find a job. It's fun. Really.

One other thing to add to the mix - and you might want to stop reading at this point if you're in the middle of eating - I am currently undergoing my first physical in several years and I can tell you with utmost certainty that there are two words no one ever wants to hear in a doctor's office (or anywhere else, for that matter). Those words are (don't say I didn't warn you!) "Juicy" and "Hemorrhoid". When you add the word "Internal" and make the aforementioned noun plural, you have what I call JIHs, which I have been dealing with the treatment of for the past week. I'll spare you the bloody details and sum it up this way:

Ouch. To the nth degree.

Data Mining

No, not the NSA program that's all over the news (and the blogosphere) today. This one is more personal and much more dangerous. (h/t The Bradlands and Rebecca Blood)

Creativity

I was reading a blurb on Paul Simon’s new album Surprise and was interested to learn that he does much of his songwriting in the car:

“…I like to drive, listen to music, and write. I like the nearness of the speakers and the solitude of the empty car. It's easier to improvise melody when the scenery is constantly changing and I'm not likely to drive anyone crazy playing the same song for an hour at a time.”

I can relate to this because I will often listen to the same CD (not the same song, thank God – that would probably drive even me crazy) over and over again, sometimes for weeks at a time and I think it does have something to do with the creative process. When I’m writing fiction, I prefer to have a completely benign environment, both internally and externally. If I’m going to be productive at all, I need to be able to put my mind in a place where I can concentrate on the task at hand, with no distractions or interruptions. This is often easier said than done.

Focusing on one, particular thing can be very difficult, especially when your mind has all the discipline of an ADD child off his meds. Let me insert here a quick confession of sorts: Writing, for me, is a lot like exercise. I always feel better for having done it, but I can’t say I always find the process itself enjoyable. Oh, it happens, of course. When I was writing my second novel, chunks of time just vanished while I was in the flow. Sadly, flow doesn’t show up as often as her cousin “ebb” and when ebb is at the wheel, writing is a painful and discouraging act.

So painful and discouraging, in fact, that it can be difficult to summon the energy to do it at all (hence my last post). Now, I’ve read enough books by and about writing to know that I’m not alone in this. If there’s one thing most writers seem to have in common it’s that we’re all first-class procrastinators. Like other writers, I’ve come up with myriad ways to get myself to write. One way that seems to work consistently is to offer myself a bribe of sorts.

I’ll tell myself that if I will only sit down in front of the computer – leaving email and the Internet alone, mind you – and leave just the faintest possibility open that I might actually, you know, write something (no pressure), then as a reward I can listen to the CD of my choice. The upshot of this, other than making me sound certifiably crazy, is that I will be sitting in front of the computer, listening to music. And at first, that’s all I’ll be doing. I may doodle a little, writing a few lines as things pop into my head. I may stare out the window while I listen. But always I keep coming back to the blank screen.

After it plays through once, I’ll turn it on again. If it’s morning, maybe I’ll grab another cup of coffee. Gradually, as time wears on, the music will switch from foreground to background and the words on the screen will start to take on the shape of whatever is percolating in my subconscious. It may take two or even three turns of the CD to do get me to this point and if this seems like a convoluted way to create the proper mood for me to write something, I won’t argue with you. I’m just telling you what works for me. If you’ve got a better method, then God bless.

The good news is that the next time I sit down to write – hopefully, the next day – the process doesn’t take as long to work. And pretty soon, if I continue to find the time to sit and write each day, the ritual becomes set and all I have to do is turn on the music and I’m gone. So when Paul Simon says that he likes to take a drive and create in the car while listening to the same song over and over, I’m right there, man. I can dig it.

Now if I can just figure out how he manages to drive the car and write at the same time.

Quote of the Week

“Never be frightened by those you assume have more talent than you do, because in the end energy will prevail. My formula is: energy plus talent and you are a king; energy and no talent and you are still a prince; talent and no energy and you are a pauper.” -- Jeffrey Archer

This makes me wonder what the no talent and no energy formula would qualify you for: I would so like to know what my category is.

Okay. The Pity-Party is over. Back to work.

Cultural Currency

Over at Roger Ebert's site, we find Cinepad's Jim Emerson and his list of the 102 movies you must see before you can be considered "movie-literate". I'm not sure I'd agree (where's LAGuy when you need him?) but since I've seen more than half the movies on his list, I guess you could consider me semi-literate. Here's the list. (h/t Rebecca Blood)

How many have you seen?

Yes, I know. I've been on a movie-posting kick. This will be the last one for awhile.

Endings

I watched this movie last night. It's the kind of movie I love, filled with twists and turns and noirish shades of good and evil. The reviews had been good, it had good people in it (having the next James Bond didn't hurt any) and I had been looking forward to seeing it.

And, all things considered, it lived up to my expectations. The story was great, filled with wonderful dialogue (although the English and the Irish sometimes tend to swallow their words so you have to listen closely or used subtitles, if you have them), lots of plot twists (some of them shocking and some a little confusing - you might have to watch it a couple of times to feel like you caught everything) and, as every noir film should have, a wonderfully dishy female.

All in all, the film was a wonderful ride and I enjoyed it immensely. Right up til the ending. Now, if you haven't seen the movie, I'm not going to give anything away (no spoilers!) but for me, the ending completely changed my feelings about it. Up til that point, this was a movie I wanted to own and watch again and again. And suddenly, it became one of those movies where you say "Okay, I've seen it and I liked it but I don't need to see it again".

Now, you want to hear something crazy? The ending is perfect. It's fully justified by the events of the story and it works beautifully; in a dark, convoluted movie like this one, it's a twist you should see coming but don't (or at least, I didn't). So why did it change everything for me?

Because it's not the ending I wanted.

In his wonderful book Adventures in the Screen Trade, William Goldman says rather succinctly, "Endings, frankly, are a bitch". In the same book, Paul Newman says that the last fifteen minutes are the most important in a movie, meaning, I think, that the ending ultimately determines whether you will or won't like a movie. Endings are what create good or bad word of mouth. In this case, my word of mouth would be to rent or watch it, if dark, noirish stuff is your kind of movie. And then I'd ask you to tell me what you thought. But you won't find it in my DVD case at home.

And maybe that says more about me than it does the movie.

Summer Flicks

Over at Pajama Guy, LAGuy is talking about movies (big surprise, right?) with, among other things, a look at the opening day's gross take for MI-III. With that in mind, let's look at some of the other big movies opening this summer and see what's expected of them. Both Premiere and EW have posted their prospective top ten's and they're both pretty interesting lists.

Premiere

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Superman Returns
Cars
X-Men: The Last Stand
MI-III
Over the Hedge
The DaVinci Code
Click
Miami Vice
You, Me and Dupree

EW

Superman Returns
MI-III
X-Men
Cars
The DaVinci Code
Pirates
Over the Hedge
Poseidon
The Break-Up
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

They also give projected grosses, which I know everyone in Hollywood cares about but I don't, so I'm not going to bother with those. Anyway, let's take a look at those lists for a moment. The first seven flicks are the same on both lists, although they're ranked differently. EW doesn't think Pirates is going to do as good as Premiere does and Premiere thinks that MI-III will do better than EW does and neither one of them are quite sure how well DaVinci will do but other than that, the first seven are pretty much locked in for both publications. After that is where it gets interesting.

Poseidon and Miami Vice are two well-known productions with huge budgets to recoup and big question marks attached. With Poseidon, the first question is “Why?” And well, okay, that’s also the second, third and fourth question, too. Unfortunately, I can’t think of a good answer. Maybe the producers are trying to recreate the perfect storm of the summer of ’72, when a war was raging and gas prices were soaring and people were into big disaster flicks but, personally, I wouldn’t bet on it.

As for Miami Vice, well, let’s hear what (creator) Michael Mann has to say about it: “The last thing I would have been interested in was just doing a remake,” he’s quoted as saying in EW. “We’re doing Miami Vice as if there never had been a television series, doing it real.” While I can understand why Mann would want to lose certain, um, aspects of the original series (there are a bunch of things about the ‘80’s I’d just as soon forget myself), is it possible to take a show that was so emblematic of its time and place and disregard much of what made it popular in the first place? Get ready for the Miami Vice you never knew and loved, sort of like an Oreo version of Bad Boys.

Two of the other flicks on the list (Click and Talladega Nights) are the latest comedies from two stars (Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell) that on paper, at least, seem to play to their strengths; in Click, Sandler finds a remote that allows him to change reality and in Nights, Ferrell plays an ace NASCAR driver who has to contend with a foreign Formula 1 driver crowding his territory. No doubt untold wackiness will ensue. Now, I have to be honest and admit that I'm not a big fan of low-brow comedy. Well, okay, that's not completely true, either. I loved Airplane and the first Scary Movie so maybe I just have to be in the right mood. And, interestingly enough, whenever Sandler or Ferrell are on the screen, I'm not - in the right mood, that is. Anyway, based solely on the blurbs in each magazine, I'll give Click the nod here. The writers did pretty well with Bruce Almighty and besides, any movie with Christopher Walken is always worth a try.

The last two movies are clearly reaches, like tenth round picks in the NFL draft. If either one pulls through then great, if not, well, that’s what tenth round picks are for. Both choices are directly the result of last year’s summer surprise, The Wedding Crashers. Call it the Owen Vaughn connection. Vince Vaughn was one of the stars of the aforementioned Wedding Crashers and he’s also one of the stars of The Break-Up, opposite his current (possibly) amour, Jennifer Aniston. Owen Wilson, also one of the stars of The Wedding Crashers, is starring in You, Me and Dupree, which sounds suspiciously like a Steely Dan song. The problem here is that Wilson and Vaughn are not starring the same movie so the producers are hoping that the two of them can strike lightning again, only this time separately. Will it happen? Again, I wouldn’t bet on it. There will, no doubt, be a couple of surprises this summer, but chalk these two up to William Goldman’s famous “Non-Recurring Phenomenon”.

So, what would I pick? Glad you asked.

First of all, I’m going to stick with the top seven picks of both magazines. Granted, there’s always the possibility that a movie outside the top seven may over-perform (or one of the seven may under-perform, which is what MI-III appears to have done this weekend) but I would agree that those are the seven to beat. Also, I’m not going to predict box-office because, as I mentioned before, how much a movie makes doesn’t mean diddly to me. I do wonder just what they’ve been smoking at EW, though. They pick six of the movies to make $200 million or more. If they’re talking domestic gross, I don’t think that’s happened before. Anyway, for what it’s worth, here’s my list:

Superman Returns
The DaVinci Code
Cars
X-Men: The Last Stand
Over the Hedge
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
MI-III (this one’s a cheat, I know)
Snakes on a Plane
Lady in the Water
Little Miss Sunshine

So there you have it. If I’m right, well, you read it here first. If not, there’s always William Goldman’s other famous dictum: “Nobody Knows Anything”.

Just Try and Force Me

It seems that George Lucas has given in to fan demand or maybe he just wants to make a run at Bill Gates as the richest gazillionaire on the planet but he is finally releasing the original three Star Wars movies on DVD in their original form. Pardon me if this fails to generate a big whoop.

As it so happens, I have the original movies on VHS - unaltered - and frankly, had little or no desire to purchase the digitally tweaked versions when they came out in 2004. The new (old?) ones will be available individually in 2-disc sets that include a copy of the tweaked one with it (why? So some hopeless geeks can set up two TV's and watch them side-by-side?). Apparently, they will not be released as a box set and will only be available from Sept 12 - Dec 31.

Now, I wouldn't mind having the original movies on DVD and this will probably be my only chance to get them, but I have to say my enthusiasm is not what it was. For me, Lucas has used up a lot of capital with his technically stunning but emotionally stunted newer films (SW I-III) and I'm not sure if it's worth my time or money.

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

Hey, Big Spender!

Reading over my last post got me thinking - yes, I know, that's a dubious proposition - about the economy (in general, that is - my personal economy at the moment is something I'm in denial about) and why it is that, regardless of how the economy's actually doing, certain people are always able to come up with ways to tell you that it's worse than you think.

Right now, for example, if you attempt to have a conversation about the economy and you happen to bring up some of the good numbers from my previous post, it's an absolute certainty that someone within hearing range will say "Yes, but what about the deficit?" and everyone will nod their heads knowingly and then go back to discussing the fine art of popping wheelies on their new riding lawnmowers.

If the economy were a horror movie, the deficit would be the boogeyman. It's always lurking somewhere just out of sight, in a closet or a basement maybe, but it never quite gets to the point where it jumps out at you. And, as Stephen King will tell you, in any horror movie, sooner or later the big bad has to make an appearance. Otherwise, it's like "Pour me another Manhattan, Gladys, and tell the Deficit to keep it down in there, will you?"

The problem with government debt (i.e. deficit spending) is that it never seems to affect us on a personal level. All it is really is buying today and paying for what we bought next week, month, year, etc., which is something most of us are already very familiar with. Deficits can lead to higher interest rates and inflation but not always. They can also help to stimulate the economy and create jobs, especially when coming out of a recession. In fact, if President Hoover had left well enough alone after the Stock Market Crash - instead of raising taxes - the Great Depression might have been only good or so-so.

What's more, I can't imagine the deficit playing any part whatsoever in personal economic planning. If someone gets a raise at work, I can't see them saying "Gee, honey, we should really give this back to the government to help cut the deficit". Or what about when making a major purchase, like a home, does anyone go "Boy, I'd really love to buy that house but what about the deficit?"

For what it's worth, here's one economist's take on our current deficit:

I know, I know. What about the deficits? Can we afford these tax cuts? As our after-dinner speaker last night, Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher, pointed out: aren't deficits and the associated federal debt at staggering all time highs? Yes -- but as is often the way with after-dinner speakers, that wasn't the whole story. Our GDP is at all-time highs, too. As a fraction of GDP, our deficits and our debt are nothing special. They're about average for the last 30 years. We've seen higher in this country in the past, and in fact many nations today have far worse.

You see that? The deficit is "staggering". Isn't that something? And yet, at the same time, it's "nothing special". As to which one is correct, how should I know? I'm not an economist. But the next time you're having a conversation with your buddies about the economy and someone brings up the boogey-er, deficit, just smile and shake your head.

And pop another wheelie.

Bush Can't Swim

Donald Luskin looks at the unsung economic boom and wonders why it doesn't get more press:

In this kind of political environment, it seems that everyone is blind to the amazing success story that is our economy. According to the latest polls, 30% of Americans believe we are in an economic recession right now. And among my clients, I can tell you that there aren't any of them who think we're in a real bull market.

Yet over the last six months the S&P 500 has returned about 12%. That's just six months, and it's a bigger return than stocks have had historically in the average full year.

Since the official end of the last recession, in November 2001, the S&P 500 is up 24%. Why isn't that a bull market?

Over the same period, real GDP has grown 15%. At the rate of economic growth we logged in the first quarter of this year, our country grows the equivalent of an entire Australia every year. Worried about high oil prices? At this rate our GDP growth in a single year is three times the value of the entire economy of Iran, oil, nukes and all.

4 million payroll jobs have been created since the recession bottom. The unemployment rate has fallen from 5.5% to 4.7%. Federal income tax receipts are at an all time high. Home ownership is at an all time high. Household net worth is at an all time high. Per capita disposable income is at an all time high.

Meanwhile, over at The Corner, John Podhoretz is wondering just what the polls mean:

...it seems like everything is hurting Bush. The fact that he is deriving no benefit whatsoever from an economy growing at a 5 percent rate with declining unemployment is surely a landmark in the history of public-opinion research. The polling so clearly out of whack with the stats that one of two things must be true. 1) The economic data — including a jump in personal income — are only numbers on a page and aren't having any positive impact on people. Or 2) the degree of discontent being measured is actually far less severe than the polling numbers suggest. People say the country "is on the wrong track" but they don't actually believe it, or act in accordance with that sentiment. If #1 is right, then the GOP will indeed reap the whirlwind this year and in 2008. But if, as seems more likely to me, #2 is right, then we're going to learn something very telling about the nature of political polling in a non-presidential-election year.

There seems to be some confusion here. If the numbers that Luskin and Podhoretz cite are correct, why isn't the President getting some cred? Is it possible that an economic boom can happen in such a way that people consider it just "numbers on a page"? Or, as Podhoretz suggests, are the polls being manipulated (i.e. worded) in such a way as to make it seem people are a lot unhappier than they really are?

Perhaps it really does boil down to the fact that, for a certain segment of the population, the President just can't seem to do anything right. As Luskin notes:

There was a story in the New York Times last week that says it all. When Bush was hosting Chinese president Hu Jintao in Washington, he took him for a cruise on the Potomac on the presidential yacht. Hu's hat blew off into the river -- and before the Secret Service could do anything about it, Bush jumped overboard to get it. But he didn't get wet! He landed on the surface of the Potomac, and actually walked on the water to get President Hu's hat.

The headline in the New York Times was: President Bush Can't Swim.

Well, Duh!

I know this happened last week but I just can't resist. Noted thespian Pamela Anderson has an op/ed in the Wall Street Journal in which she says "Chimps shouldn't be forced to live like me".

Pam is certainly taking her honorary chair position with PETA seriously. First, she campaigned against chicken sadism, and now she wants to make sure that our "closest living relatives, with at least 95% of the same DNA" are not subjected to cruel treatment in the entertainment industry. Well, she'll certainly have the support of the Spanish Socialist Party.

And since they share 99% of our DNA, can mice be next? I mean, it's not like they're being abused or mistreated or anything. (h/t Jeff Goldstein)

New York, New York

So, I'm just back from New York City and, as I mentioned in the previous post, a great time was had by all. We did all the usual things you should do when you go: see a Yankee game, visit the Empire State Building, go to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, see a Broadway Show (or two!) and try to sample as much of the local cuisine as possible. For the most part we traveled by subway - or walked, including a memorable stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge - and the people we encountered were friendly and helpful. The weather cooperated as well with gorgeous sunshine and light breezes to keep us from getting overheated. If you've never been or if, like me, it's been awhile, I highly recommend a visit.

Two things to remember: First, whatever amount you think it's going to cost, add at least 30%. And, make time in your wanderings for a visit here.

I'm going to attempt to post a few pics from the trip. I haven't done this before, so I hope it works.

This is from a terrific butterfly exhibit at the Museum of Natural History.

The original "torch" from the Statue of Liberty. There is a wonderful backstory to this: it turns out that the torch was never meant to be "lit" from within; instead, the design was for it to be reflective in nature, to "shine" by reflecting the natural light of the sun and the moon. However, when the statue was first erected, the U.S. Government gave stewardship of it to the Lighthouse Board, which tried to make use of the torch as, well, a lighthouse, forgetting what a light like this would attract - i.e. birds. Needless to say, it made for a messy situation. When the torch was replaced in the 1980's, gold leaf was applied to make it more reflective, with external lamps surrounding it to add illumination.

This is an inside view of the statue, taken from the highest point that you can now climb on the monument. In addition to the infrastructure, this shot reveals the circular staircase that people used to be able to take up to the statue's head. I have vivid - and scary - memories of climbing that staircase as a young boy.

"The Sphere" by Fritz Koenig. This sculpture once stood in the World Trade Center Plaza. It survived the destruction in this condition and was moved to Battery Park as a memorial.

A look inside the Trade Center site.

A remembrance. Let us never, ever forget.

Another Shoe Drops

Last week I took my first vacation in over a year and spent five days in New York City. It was my first visit to the Big Apple since 1990 and it was fun but exhausting. I'll have more details as I go on but suffice it to say that I had a great time and wouldn't change anything about it.

Except, that is, for the part about returning home and being told by my landlord that the place where I live (and have lived for the last ten years) has been sold and I have to vacate in sixty days. Sigh. So now I'm not just out of work I'm also about to become homeless.

For the moment, I'm trying to treat this out-of-the-blue announcement the same way I'm treating my loss of a job: as an opportunity, not an ordeal. My doctor (I'm in the process of getting a physical) says that my attitude is healthy. Of course, he also tells me my blood pressure is high, so what does he know? So, the opportunity mind-set is holding but I have to add that if too many more "opportunities" drop into my lap I may start to get a little cranky.

Carnival of the Insanities

A big thank you to Pat Santy (Dr. Sanity) for including this post in her weekly Carnival of the Insanities. Lots of good stuff over there so go check it out!

It's That Time of Year

Last week I retired my shovel and bag of De-Icer for another winter, thus risking the wrath of the weather gods. I've learned you have to be very careful when you pull your shovel in up here because in Vermont winter - or the threat of it - never really ends. And this was such a strange winter anyway - on average, March was colder than January - that no one knows what to expect. Snow in April is the norm, rather than the exception, and frosts occur with regularity through May.

However, I have my own method of determining the onset of Spring and in twelve years it's never failed me. Just before retiring my shovel I spied and killed my first wood spider. These buggers live in the nearby forest and never fail to show up in bunches once winter goes belly-up. Oh, and the one I killed? Yep, it was in the shower.

Yes, It's This Bad

About a year and a half ago at another website, I linked to this editorial in the London Telegraph. Now, as then, it makes sense to reprint a couple of paragraphs:

If someone breaks into your home in the middle of the night you can presume he is not there to read the gas meter. But current British law insists that he have the freedom of the premises. When, last Christmas, thousands of Radio 4's Today listeners called for legislation authorising them to protect their homes by any means necessary, the proposal was immediately denounced as a "ludicrous, brutal, unworkable, blood-stained piece of legislation". Until recently that "unworkable, blood-stained" legislation was the law of the land. There was no need to retreat from your home, or from any room within it. An Englishman's home was his refuge, and, indeed, his castle.

But no more. Rather than permitting people to protect themselves, the authorities' response to the recent series of brutal attacks on home-owners has been to advise people to get more locks and, in case of a break-in, retreat to a secure room - presumably the bathroom - to call the police. They are not to keep any weapon for protection or approach the intruder. Someone might get hurt. If that someone is the intruder the resident will be sued by the burglar and vigorously prosecuted by the state.

At the time, I added the following comments:

Now, again, I can’t speak for others, but if a person enters my home without my knowledge or consent, I reserve the right to remove said person by any and all means at my disposal and I couldn’t care less what the government has to say about it. If force is necessary – including deadly force – then so be it. And if the government wants to prosecute me for doing so, then bring it on, baby.

First and foremost, any law that allows an intruder the “freedom of the premises” should be a ringing endorsement for the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution, the right of the citizenry to bear arms. But, of course, Great Britain has no such amendment and, as the article points out, the English government has been systematically purging the citizenry of the ability to own any type of firearm since early in the 20th century, to disastrous results. Once one of the safest places in the world to live, a UN study in 2002 placed it “at the top of the Western world’s crime league.”

But in its zeal to assume “sole responsibility” to protect the populace, the government has gone to even more ludicrous lengths to define and outlaw ‘weapons’ of defense; items such as sandbags, pickaxe handles, stones and even a drum of pepper are considered actionable if used for protection. What’s more, the Brits have adopted a more lenient approach to the sentencing of criminals, with the likelihood that the person defending his person and/or property will be incarcerated longer than the person committing the crime.

Take a minute and read the whole article and then, if you’re a U.S. citizen, be thankful that you live in a country where English Common Law still exists.

The reason I bring up the subject is because of this essay by Theodore Dalrymple in the City Journal. (h/t James Lileks) In it, he looks at how the British police and justice system seem to have completely confused the terms "serious" and "trivial". His conclusion:

The government sees itself as an engineer of souls (to use the phrase so eloquently coined by Stalin with regard to writers who, of course, were expected to mold Homo Sovieticus by the power of their words). Government thus concerns itself with what people think, feel, and say—as well as with trying to change their freely chosen habits—rather than with performing its one inescapable duty: that of preserving the peace and ensuring that citizens may go about their lawful business in confidence and safety. It is more concerned that young men should not smoke cigarettes in prison or make silly jokes to policemen than that they should not attack and permanently maim their elders and betters.

As always, read the whole thing.

Country Boy, City Woman

Nina Burleigh does some soul-searching and comes away wishing she could believe in America’s “potential for good and brotherhood”. (Note: I'm excerpting large portions of this article because you may not be able to read it in its entirety without a subscription. h/t: Instapundit)

It’s difficult to know where to begin when I think about what she has to say. Having lived in upstate New York, I’m very familiar with the kind of town she’s describing, although, frankly, I believe you can find the same kind of town in many places throughout the heartland of America – just about anywhere, in fact, once you get away from the big city. However, as Ms. Burleigh makes clear, her intent in moving to Narrowsburg was never to really “live” there at all:

Our family first arrived in Narrowsburg in 2000, as city people hunting for a cheap house. For barely $50,000 we were able to buy the "weekend house" we thought would complete our metropolitan existence.

She goes on to add:

But soon after we closed on the home, we moved to Paris, spurred by the serendipitous arrival of a book contract. When our European idyll ended after two years, and with tenants still subletting our city apartment, we moved into the Narrowsburg house. After growing accustomed to the French social system -- with its cheap medicine, generous welfare, short workweek and plentiful child care -- life back in depressed upstate New York felt especially harsh. We'd never planned to get involved in the life of the town, nor had it ever occurred to us that we might send our son to the Narrowsburg School. But suddenly we were upstate locals, with a real stake in the community.

In essence then, a reasonably well-to-do family (let’s not call them rich, shall we?) buys a second home in a depressed, rustic, backwater part of the state not because they want to live there but in order to be able to complete their “metropolitan existence” (i.e. to be able to get out of the city and hobnob on the weekends with all their city friends) and, through an unforeseen – but mostly positive – set of circumstances, find themselves being forced to become a part of the community.

Sounds like a fate worse than death, doesn’t it?

And so our intrepid couple is forced to enroll their child in the Narrowsburg kindergarten. Despite the school not being a “traditional first step on the path to Harvard” they were, initially at least, “pleasantly surprised”:

The school had just been renovated and was clean, airy, cheerful. The nurse and the principal knew every one of the 121 children by name. Our son would be one of just 12 little white children in a sunny kindergarten class taught by an enthusiastic woman with eighteen years' experience teaching five-year-olds.

Still, uneasiness remains. Fully ¼ of the adult residents are military veterans and at least 10 recent graduates are actively serving even as she writes. The school’s “defining philosophy” is “traditional and conservative” and each day starts with a “Morning Program” which consists of the Pledge of Allegiance, a patriotic song and a discussion of the “word” of the week, with some of the words being suspiciously political, like “military”, “tour”, “nation”, and “alliance”.

But the shit doesn’t hit the proverbial fan until her son comes home one day with an invitation to attend a “released time” Bible class. Now I can certainly understand her being surprised and/or upset by this. When you send your child to a public school, the last thing you expect to discover is a Bible class mixed in with the curriculum. But her response is telling. Does she contact the principal? No. Does she contact the teacher? No. Does she speak with anyone else at the school or perhaps with one of the other parents to find out what’s going on? No. So what does she do?

We called the ACLU and learned this was an entirely legal way for evangelicals to proselytize to children during school hours. What was against the law was sending the flier home in a kid's backpack, implying school support. After our inquiry, the ACLU formally called the principal to complain. She apologized and promised never to allow it again. While we were never identified as the people who dropped the dime to the ACLU, there was clearly no one else in the school community who would have done so -- and the principal never looked at us quite as warmly again.

Gee, I can’t imagine why. Is this what this woman considers having a “real stake in the community”? Without discussing the issue with anyone involved she freaks out and calls the ACLU? Boy, how to win friends and influence enemies, huh? When she later learns that the kindergarten teacher belongs to one of the “most conservative, evangelical churches in the community”, her reaction is even more telling:

…we were careful not to challenge anyone or to express any opinion about politics or religion, out of fear our son would be singled out. Instead, to counteract any God-and-country indoctrination he received in school, we began our own informal in-home instruction about Bush, Iraq and Washington over the evening news.

Does it ever occur to Ms. Burleigh to wonder if this is how conservative parents feel when they are surrounded by people who think like her? Somehow, I doubt it. She does, however, begin to feel some guilt at being what she calls a “non-believer”:

When I was 5 years old, in 1965, did I understand what my lefty parents were saying about the Kennedy assassination, Watts and dead-soldier counts? Who was I to deprive my son, or his eleven kindergarten chums, of their faith in a nation capable of combining "good with brotherhood?" In a 5-year-old's perfect world, perhaps such places should exist.

Yet, just a few months later, while driving into the City to deliver clothes for a Christmas clothing drive for Iraqi children, she decides it’s time he knew the truth:

As we crossed the George Washington Bridge and the Manhattan skyline spread out below us, I began to give him a variation on the "Africans don't have any food, finish your dinner" talk. I wanted him to understand how privileged he was to live in a place where bombs weren't raining from the sky. It was a talk I'd tried to have before, but not one he'd ever paid much attention to until that day, trapped in the back seat of our car.

In simple language, I told my son that our president had started a war with a country called Iraq. I said that we were bombing cities and destroying buildings. And I explained that families just like ours now had no money or food because their parents didn't have offices to go to anymore or bosses to pay them. "America did this?" my son asked, incredulous. "Yes, America," I answered. He paused, a long silent pause, then burst out: "But Mommy, I love America! I want to hug America!"

After reading her “simple” talk with her son about the war in Iraq, I couldn’t help but wonder what she said to him when he asked her about God, but sadly, Ms. Burleigh does not enlighten us.

Due to a number of factors that have nothing to do with her story, the Narrowsburg elementary school is forced to close its doors at the end of the year (June, 2005). To her surprise, Ms. Burleigh finds herself “deeply sorry about it”. As she writes the article, she and her family are now back in the City and her son is:

…enrolled in a well-rated K-5 public school on Manhattan's Upper West Side; not surprisingly, the Pledge of Allegiance is no longer part of his morning routine. Come to think of it, and I could be wrong, I've never seen a flag on the premises.

At the same time, she comes to the realization that the year spent in Narrowsburg had positive side effects:

My husband and I realized, though, that Narrowsburg did more than mold our boy into a patriot. He can, it turns out -- despite the warnings of other city parents -- read at a level twice that of his new peers. Since we returned to the city, he has learned how to ride a bike, long for an Xbox, practiced a few new swear words and, somehow, learned the meaning of "sexy." He has pretty much stopped favoring red, white and blue.

So what, if anything, is the point of this article? What has she discovered during her year in exile, er, Narrowsburg that she wishes to share with us?

How soon childish national pride is shed, I sometimes think now, and not a little wistfully. Only once it was gone did I realize that, after our initial discomfort, my husband and I had begun to see our son's patriotism as a badge of innocence. His faith was a reminder to us that the reason we are devastated by the war in Iraq and the Bush presidency is that we too love America. We too want to believe in its potential for good and brotherhood.

As I said in the beginning, it’s difficult to know where to begin when I think about this article and what Ms. Burleigh has to say. I would say that I’ve never found such a combination of insular, elitist and patronizing thought except for the fact that I read similar twaddle from other leftist intellectuals almost every day. As Jane Smiley so eloquently put it in her editorial just after the 2004 election:

The error that progressives have consistently committed over the years is to underestimate the vitality of ignorance in America. Listen to what the red state citizens say about themselves, the songs they write, and the sermons they flock to. They know who they are—they are full of original sin and they have a taste for violence. The blue state citizens make the Rousseauvian mistake of thinking humans are essentially good, and so they never realize when they are about to be slugged from behind.

This ignorance on the part of red-staters – an ignorance which extends to anyone who does not fall in line with progressive or liberal dogma – is a huge source of frustration and fear on the part of the intellectual left. Frustration because the ignorance just can’t be reasoned with (it’s unteachable!) and fear because it goes hand in hand with a “taste for violence”. And underlying the ignorance and the threat of violence is a Bible-based, simplistic good and bad view of the world that you might expect from, well, a child.

Now, is it fair to say that Ms. Burleigh shares that view of red state (or, as she puts it, red dot in a blue state) people? After reading her article, I think it is. She regards her son’s patriotism as a badge of innocence – one she can’t wait to disabuse him of – or naiveté, if you will. It is a childish idea and yet one that even she yearns for: that America could actually combine good with brotherhood. And of course it’s all George W. Bush’s fault that it can't.

It’s ironic that the town she’s chosen to complete her metropolitan existence in is called Narrowsburg. With her narrow frame of mind, she should feel right at home.

I'm Free

And freedom tastes of reality.

The Art of Muzak

Rebecca Blood steers us to this wonderful New Yorker article on the state of Muzak. Among other things, the article touches on two things that I've written about before here and here. First up, we have the omnipresent soundtrack, designed to, um, enhance your shopping experience:

"...Most people walk into a store and hear music, but they never think that somebody actually put thought into what they’re hearing. A song they like is playing, and they’re nodding along with it, or maybe they’re kind of dancing to it and maybe they don’t want anyone to see that they’re dancing. They don’t realize that the song was put there for a purpose, and that there’s a reason why they’re doing what they’re doing. But there is.”

Then, we have the whole retail theatre concept:

Several years later, Collis was doing an engineering job for Muzak. He told me, “I walked into a store and understood: this is just like a movie. The company has built a set, and they’ve hired actors and given them costumes and taught them their lines, and every day they open their doors and say, ‘Let’s put on a show.’ It was retail theatre. And I realized then that Muzak’s business wasn’t really about selling music. It was about selling emotion—about finding the soundtrack that would make this store or that restaurant feel like something, rather than being just an intellectual proposition.”

Read the whole article and the next time you're out shopping or at a restaurant, take a minute and think about what you're listening to and who might have programmed it.

Who Knew?

Jane Galt is talking about some of the things the Bush administration is doing (Gasp!) right.

It may not have suffered from the brutal Afghan winter, but the Bush administration certainly seems to be caught in a political quagmire these days. As pundits debate whether the Bush administration is evil or merely egregiously incompetent, it's easy to forget that the administration has done some big things right.

As always, read the whole thing.

Marking Time

Two more days and my current gig at Filacy's will be over. For the last two weeks, I've been on a farewell tour of the building, working first in one department and then another while the company honors its agreement to keep me employed through the 15th. As of Easter Sunday, I will be a free man.

Of course, the obvious question is: What next? Right now, I haven't a clue.

On Monday I will register for unemployment and there is a small severance package to help tide things over. To be on the safe side (the last time this happened it took me almost a year to find a new job) I will probably take the money in my 401K and put it in the savings as a buffer. I can always re-invest it later if I don't need it.

To be honest, I haven't really been thinking about a new job just yet. I mean, if someone came up to me and offered me something I thought I could do and paid reasonably well, I'd certainly look into it. But as for going out and actually searching for something new, I haven't done that.

In some respects I feel like an actor winding down from a long-running performance. I've played the same part now for almost five years and for the most part I've done it well. I've gotten good reviews and for a few years the play made money. Now, the backers have decided they want to go in a new direction and that means a new cast so I'm out. I understand, of course. It's nothing personal.

By the same token, I'm not sure I can just move to a different house and start putting on a new (or similar) performance every day. I think I need a break, to take some down time. How much down time depends on finances but as much as I can muster, I think.

So, onward into the undiscovered country.

The Theory of Economic Relativity

Over at Asymmetrical Information, Winterspeak looks at a New Yorker article that asks the question: How poor is poor? As he points out, the problem is "deeply political" with both the Left and the Right having their own definitions of what constitutes actual poverty. The New Yorker article introduces another method of defining levels of poverty, one that I might describe as "Economic Relativity Envy". Apparently, how much money we earn is less important than how it relates to how much our co-workers or neighbors earn.

More recently, three economists at the University of Warwick published the results of a survey of sixteen thousand workers in a range of industries, in which they found that the workers’ reported levels of job satisfaction had less to do with their salaries than with how their salaries compared with those of co-workers. Human beings are also competitive with their neighbors. Erzo Luttmer, an economist at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, recently found that people with rich neighbors tend to be less happy than people whose neighbors earn about as much money as they do. It appears that, while money matters to people, their relative ranking matters more.

Now, call me stupid but I've always defined wealth and poverty in fairly loose terms: wealth means having more money than you know how to spend and poverty means not having enough money to spend on things you need. The relative wealth (or poverty) of my neighbors and co-workers has never been a part of the equation. I can't imagine a sillier or more non-productive exercise than to become unhappy about your life because someone else - even someone you know - is better off than you are.

I don't care who you are, someone will always be better off than you are - at least financially. Even if your name is Bill Gates. And if your idea of happiness is tied to how other people in the world are doing, guess what? You're always going to be unhappy. To paraphrase Bill Goldman, life isn't fair - anyone who tells you differently is selling something.

Luckily, as Winterspeak points out, there are ways to make income disparity less of a problem, or at least less noticeable. These are my favorites:

Moreover, TV is a powerful channel of conveying the lives of the rich to the poor. The average TV character is much better looking, richer, and more educated than the average person, which creates horrible stress according to the New Yorker, so it would be better to restrict who folks can watch on TV based on their income.
Moreover, role models, many of whom are wealthier than the people who are supposed to emulate them, would have to end. Role models are harmful by throwing income disparity into sharper contrast than it would be otherwise.

Or perhaps kill two birds with one stone by letting people role model reality TV stars. Oh, wait...

The Howard Dean Legacy

So, what's left in your wallet? (h/t Donald Luskin)

Here and Now

Over at 43 Folders, Merlin is practicing "Mindfulness". This one sums me up pretty well:

There’s also mindfulness of mind. Until we deliberately listen for it, we usually pay little attention to the fact that there’s the constant chatter of a monologue — often idiotic — running in our minds. When we really lose ourselves, we can even work it up to a dialogue.
Our minds jabber to themselves much of the time…— Buddhism Plain and Simple by Steve Hagen. p.102 [ ISBN Amazon.com ]

Sigh

Everyone's a critic.

Gaucho at Teahouse on the Tracks presents On Second Thought. Sorry. I got distracted after about the third paragraph. zzzzzzzzzzz

Pleasuring Yourself

Scott Adams doesn't believe in free will.

Category Error

Dan Simmons is one of my favorite writers. He's prolific, writes in a number of genres and frankly, is about as good as it gets in the writing world today. If you've never read any of his books, your reading diet is missing some essential vitamins. Now, as it turns out, he also has a website and not just a vanity site but one he actually contributes to.

I've just finished reading his April message and I found it to be one of the most interesting and thought-provoking things I've read in quite a while. I highly recommend you check it out.

(h/t Dr. Sanity)

No Better Than Bacteria

Well. That's that, then. Actually, two things struck me about this article. First is the reaction of the people in attendance; not just the enthusiastic applause but this comment during the question and answer session:

After noting that the audience did not represent the general population, a questioner asked, "What kind of reception have you received as you have presented these ideas to other audiences that are not representative of us?"

Pianka replied, "I speak to the converted!"

I was also reminded of the scene in The Matrix, when Agent Smith tells Morpheus that humans are really not mammals at all, but rather a virus - a virus that Smith desperately wants to purge.

As for the good Doctor Pianka, the University of Texas evolutionary ecologist and lizard expert who the Academy named the 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist - who, it appears may have spent a little too much by himself - all I can say is, if you really feel that 90% of the people have to die so that the earth may survive, start with yourself and the "converted".

We'll take care of things from there. (h/t James Taranto)

On Second Thought

It’s interesting to read peoples opinions on the war in Iraq, especially those that start with “I supported the war”, always followed by a ‘but’ and then a criticism. The qualifier (I supported the war) implies a number of things: first, that we are all divided into camps (or teams) of supporters and um, non-supporters. Second, it implies – being in one camp or the other – your opinion will necessarily carry a certain amount of weight within each camp. Third, it suggests, by now switching camps, your opinion should somehow carry more weight than it originally did.

Let me try a sports analogy and see if it works: I supported the Yankees but now I’m a Red Sox fan. What’s missing here is the all-important set of ellipses (…) between but and now – the reason why I’ve switched my allegiance. All things considered, I believe the reason itself is immaterial. I could, for example, have changed my mind because I dislike George Steinbrenner or because I think Fenway is a nicer ballpark. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter.

What does matter is that I thought about it.

Instead of succumbing to blind emotion or outside manipulation, I actually sat down (well, the sitting down part is optional) and used my brain to decide how I felt about it. And, in doing so, I changed my mind! (Isn’t that a wonderful expression? I changed my mind. Kinda reminds me of some of the other things I should be changing about now, like my oil, winter tires, storm windows, etc., but I digress.)

Now, even though they may not agree with my thoughts, I think most people agree (in theory, at least) with the concept of my having some. Someone once said, “2% of the people think, 3% think they think, and 95% would rather die than think”. And the idea that I’ve actually thought about something first before opening my mouth about it does, in fact, deserve some props. It’s also the reason why so many people ask “Have you really thought about that?” whenever I say something. Bastards.

It’s nice to be thought of as a thinker. It tends to increase your stature in the community. However, vocalizing your thoughts – or writing them down for others to look at – is a good way to get yourself into trouble because it leads to criticism. This is one of the reasons why politicians rarely say what they’re actually thinking and also why so many Great Thinkers of the past waited until they were dead to have their Private Thoughts published. There’s something about having your innards gnawed on by worms that seems to take away the sting of being called a “Poopyhead”.

If you’re regarded as a thinker, one of the surest ways to court criticism is to change your mind about something. People want to know why and this is a trap to be avoided at all costs. Giving a reason for changing your mind means that you have to reveal the thinking process that went into making the decision. For some inexplicable reason, people expect this to be logical and easy to understand, as though you were solving the square root of a hypotenuse triangle. But that’s not how thinking works; when you think, you often travel from point A to the corner of Sunset and Vine with no real understanding of how you made the trip, all the while knowing that you’re absolutely correct to be there. This is why reasons are immaterial. The only thing people are going to do with a reason is try to shoot holes in it.

Luckily, there exists a plausible method whereby you can change your mind and not give a reason for it. The generic, non-judgmental (and wonderfully non-specific) way to change your mind without saying why is to say “on second thought”. To illustrate, let’s go back to my example: I supported the Yankees but on second thought now I’m a Red Sox fan. This implies that A) there was a first thought, B) I’ve now changed it, and C) the new thought is better than the first one. (It’s New and Improved!) Second thoughts are generally regarded as better than most first thoughts and this is why the use of the qualifier is so important. It suggests that I’ve grown, that I’ve matured; in essence it says that I’m now smarter than I used to be and that’s why what I say should be taken seriously.

Of course, we still have two camps and if you’re solidly in the Yankee fold, I’m sure your view of my newfound insight and maturity is that I’m now just another Poopyhead – and a traitorous one, at that. Which, now that I think about it, is just fine with me.

Because, on second thought, I’d really rather watch golf.

Up is Down

Yale has no problem admitting a former spokesman for the Taliban - a male, needless to say - but can't find any room for any of the women the Taliban persecuted? And not just Yale - only 10 colleges and universities - out of 2,000 - can find room for qualified female candidates who would not only expand the diversity of the campus but would also take their education back home and use it to help their country?

Kudos to the 10 colleges and universities that currently participate in the program. To the other 1,990, I have one question: Can you give me one good reason why I should even consider sending my daughter to you for her higher education?

Truth in Advertising

Well, sorta. More like, "Man, I need to actually read my email before I hit send!"

(h/t Instapundit)

Salesmanship

One of my favorite quotes in all of filmdom comes from The Princess Bride. When Buttercup wails, “You mock my pain!” Westley answers succinctly:

“Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”

As someone who has spent almost half his life in sales, that quote resonates with me more ways than I can begin to tell you. And, by way of illustration, let me draw your attention to a recent post by Rebecca Blood. Responding to a blog entry from Salon’s Scott Rosenberg about his experience at a recent panel talk on elitism in media and blogging, she says that he came away with the wrong impression:

The dichotomy in the argument he describes isn't "blogs vs journalism". The unspoken premise underlying this argument is that books and articles are published commercially because they represent the best writing that is available. But that's not the way the publishing business works.
Publishers are interested in printing books and articles they can sell, nothing more, nothing less. When publishers evaluate a book proposal, they don't ask if the work is true or original or insightful or well-written. First and foremost, they ask themselves if they can sell it. If they don't think they can, they pass. If they believe there is a market and that they can effectively market the work, they buy it.

If you haven’t noticed that mediocrity rules the entertainment world then you haven’t been paying attention. And here’s the reason. Good or bad, who cares? All that matters is; can it be sold? Is there a market? We are running a business here, after all. And this, in turn, led me to wonder about the business that Rebecca leaves out of her analysis: the business of reporting the news.

How much of what we see and hear in the news is the product of honest and unbiased reporting and how much is the product of can I sell it? There’s an old axiom in the news business that says “If it bleeds, it leads” which means simply that bad news sells. Another way of saying it is “The dog that doesn’t bite never gets covered”. Now, if news reporting is biased in favor of the negative – if that is what the news industry feels the market is looking for – is it unrealistic to surmise that other biases exist, as well? At what point does “All the News That’s Fit to Print” become “All the News That Fits Our Demographic”?

Let’s say that you are an editor of a major metropolitan newspaper – or a producer in the news division at a TV station. You are choosing which stories you are going to headline for the next edition or broadcast. Today, your choices are two, both of which concern the current conflict in Iraq. One is about a car-bomb that killed ten people near Baghdad; the other has to do with Kurdish families rebuilding their lives and sending their children – including their daughters – to school. Which story do you lead with? Okay, it’s fair enough to say that the car-bomb story is an (all too familiar) attention-grabber, so you go with it. What about the other story? Do you run it, perhaps a few pages deeper in the paper or a few minutes later in the broadcast?

Or do you decide that it’s not newsworthy, that you can’t sell it, or that it’s not what your demographic wants to see?

And, if so, what happens to that story? Especially when another editor/producer in another city looks at the choices and makes the same decision you do? And when, day after day, the positive is discarded in favor of the negative because the prevailing wisdom is that’s what sells – disregarding for the moment that there may be other, more personal reasons why good news about the Middle East is suppressed – how does that affect public opinion? If all that people see or hear about a subject – any subject – is negative, why would anyone ever think that their collective opinion about it would be positive?

I would argue that blogs are threatening to journalism (and journalists) but that the threat has nothing at all to do with the quality of the end product. Instead, it has everything to do with the quantity of information available and the news industry’s control over how it gets published – or if it gets published at all. The MSM considers itself to be the gateway for news to reach the public. For something to be considered actual ‘news’ and not just hearsay, rumor or innuendo, it has to be authenticated and come from a reputable source. Meaning, of course, one of them. Blogs are changing all that and, in doing so, they’re committing the worst sin of all: they’re giving away what journalists don’t want to sell.

And that’s terrible salesmanship.

Update: Scott Rosenberg responds to Rebecca's post on his site. My favorite bit:

Well, you know, mediocrity flourishes everywhere! So sayeth Sturgeon's Law: 90 percent of everything is crud. Further complicating matters, your view of which 10 percent isn't crud is likely to be different from mine, or Keen's, or Blood's. All "bests," in the end, are subjective. Outside of sports and other scored pursuits, "best" is just another word for "my favorite."

So the real challenge is to find ways of helping each of us find our way to a higher percentage of the stuff each of us thinks isn't cruddy. And that's where I side with Blood and the blogosphere: any new media structure that enables more voices to be heard and found deserves our embrace, because it increases the size of the pool in which we fish for our personal supply of non-crud.

You Can't Fight With the Fella in the Brite Nitegown

Instapunk looks at death:

...achieving acceptance of death is one of the primary purposes of all major religions. Why is it that Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and all the other great faiths work so hard to eliminate the fear of death, to describe it as a rite of passage rather than an end? Because like all unconquered fears, the fear of death distorts our values and creates a self-defined prison. Lives that should be lived become instead a kind of bunker in which we hide and peek out at the world through ragged slits in our fortifications against death...

...Here are the facts we don't want to hear about in the media. We are all going to die, and the overwhelming majority of us are going to die from heart disease (28.5%), cancer (22.8%), stroke (6.7%), emphysema (5.1%), and accidents (4.4%), to the tune of more than 1.5 million a year. Another 70,000 of us will die from diabetes every year, 62,000 from flu or pneumonia, 55,000 from Alzheimer's, and about 115,000 from various other diseases. That's more than 5,000 a day, 80 percent of the total. The wild hope of curing any or all of these diseases is merely rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. If we eliminate these ills, we'll just die from something else.

The point, of course, is that it's how we live our lives that matter. As always, read the whole thing.

File it Under "Who Cares?"

Why is this news?

The 15-Foot Rut

Thanks to Merlin at 43 Folders, I heard this NPR commentary from David Weinberger and I would agree that this is the money quote:

A salad bar that’s 5 miles long is as useless to me as one that’s 3000 miles long because I’m getting all the salad I can eat in the first 15 feet

It sounds somewhat like the 20-minute rule for eating and the point that you can only read so much is well taken. However, I think blog-reading is more like a smorgasbord than a salad bar and part of the joy of reading them is that you may find some new delicacy just on the other side of the 15-foot mark. Anyone reading this can take a look at my sidebar and see the links that I use regularly. Those, you might say, are my staples, and I would argue that we not only go back to those places that entertain us but also to those that reinforce our point of view. And because there's only so much time in a day and so many different ways in which to spend it, we tend to lean towards the familiar and our internet reading - like our regular reading - gets into a rut.

Part of the fun of reading blogs is the joy of discovery. For example, I found 43 Folders by reading Rebecca Blood. I found Rebecca Blood from Time magazine, of all places. Now ask yourself when the last time was you found something new or interesting watching TV or listening to the radio? If you're willing to take the time, it happens in the blogosphere every day.

So, just for today, vary the menu a bit. And here's a good place to start.

Erin Go Bragh!

It's my day off and St. Patty's Day, which means the Irish whiskey (the only whiskey with an "e") is out early and often. Don't worry. I have no plans to go out and join the throngs would-be Irish at the local pub. These days - when I drink - I prefer to drink at home, where I can be as maudlin as I wish without fear of being seen as a sentimental old fool.

On a day such as this, it is only fitting to offer a toast:

To all the friends I've known and lost
And all my family here and there
Each day exacts a hidden cost
Which all of us must bear

But inasmuch as Jesus wept
And tears do cleanse the soul
The dues in life we must accept
Our right and proper toll

So life would seem a bitter brew
A tale of doubt and woe
Except but for the likes of you
The blessings you bestow

And so for you this day I cry
For you I raise my glass
I'll love you till the day I die
The rest can kiss my ass

The Job Search, Part I

"Hello, Universal Press Syndicate. How may I help you?"

"Yes, Hi. I'd like to talk with someone about producing a comic strip, please."

"Certainly. I can help you with that. Are you an artist?"

"Actually, no. I can't draw worth a lick."

"But didn't you say you are producing a comic strip?"

"Well, actually, it's more an idea of a comic strip."

"I see. And how are you going to produce this comic strip if you can't draw?"

"Why not? It works for Doonesbury and Boondocks."

"Are you a writer, then?"

"Hmm, no, not really."

"Look, sir, if you're not an artist or a writer, how can you hope to produce a comic strip?"

"Well, here's my idea: you sign me to a big, fat contract and then I'll announce that I'm taking a long sabbatical to recharge my batteries. While I'm gone, you guys can publish all my other funny stuff."

"Your other 'funny' stuff? Sir, how can we do that when you haven't given us anything funny to publish in the first place?"

"I don't know. Ask Aaron McGruder. Hello? Hello?"

Damn. He hung up.

Dilbert's Horror Story

If you ever thought that being rich and famous would solve all your problems, check out what Scott Adams has been going through and think again.

Sequels

Over at Pajama Guy, LAGuy weighs in on Entertainment Weekly’s look at the 25 Worst Sequels of all time and also what they consider to be the 10 Best. For the most part, I agree with his take on sequels. It’s easy to beat up on them, since most of them are done strictly for money – that’s why William Goldman calls them “Whore’s Movies”. I notice that EW stayed away from most of the “franchises” (no Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Harry Potter, etc), picking only on Batman and Robin (what, no Superman III or IV?). And why anyone would bother to rate any of the Friday the 13th or Leprechaun movies is beyond me. Maybe they had trouble filling out the list.

The rest of the movies – as LAGuy points out – are movies that were either good enough to stand by themselves or bad enough to not justify the effort of a sequel. But in Hollywood, if it makes money, think sequel! I would also agree that the most troubling part of the article is the sidebar rating the “best” sequels, where it does seem to imply that sometimes the sequel is actually better than the original. Where I would disagree is his statement that “when sequels are superior, it’s usually because the original stinks”.

Most sequels are simply different movies using the same characters. Exceptions to this would be the Star Wars movies, the Matrix trilogy and the Godfather I&II. Those were attempts to tell one large story over the course of more than one movie. Star Trek II is a sequel to Star Trek I only because of the order in which they were filmed. The same is true with Toy Story 2. While there may be references to the earlier film, the sequel is really a stand-alone movie and as such, it is almost impossible to objectively compare the two.

The best example of this – for me – would be the Alien series. LAGuy dismisses the first Alien as a “…cheap slasher film in outer space…” and categorizes the sequel Aliens as a "...superior action film." What he’s really saying here is that these are two completely different genres. Alien, despite its Sci-Fi trappings, is, at its heart, a horror film. Aliens is Sci-Fi Action all the way. It builds ingeniously on the remnants of the original film and then veers totally into a world of its own. To say that the second film is a superior action film is to forget that the first film wasn’t an action film at all. It’s easy enough to say that you liked Aliens better than Alien but to say that it is a better film is like saying you like apples more than oranges. I mean, they are both fruits, aren’t they?

Having said all this, I should admit that I claim no expertise whatsoever when it comes to rating movies. And I’m happy to admit that I liked the Matrix Reloaded, so you may take that for what it’s worth. And my favorite story about sequels concerns Star Trek V. A friend of mine saw it and came up to me afterwards and said “Now I can’t wait for Star Trek VI: The Apology!”

Town Meeting Day

It is the first Tuesday in March and if you're in Vermont, that means that it's Town Meeting Day. This is the day that (almost) all the cities and towns in Vermont hold their local elections, approve budgets and basically deal with any other stuff that needs to be voted on. It's an old, quaint-sounding tradition that conjures up images of people crowding into town halls - or, in towns too small for town halls, the local saloon - and generally arguing up a storm until someone finally says, "Look, the bar won't open until we finish voting, so let's get it over with!". Someone answers "Ayup" and that settles it.

Here in the big city (aka Burlington), things are a bit different. We actually have polling places, usually a school, and since the day is a state holiday, there's no school going on to interfere with the state business. In addition to the usual stuff (voting for mayor, council, clerk, school budget, etc) there are some additional "articles" to ponder. One has to do with whether the city should enact a special 1% sales tax to help with local revenue. Another wants to remove a residency requirement for people appointed by the mayor to head local departments within the city.

And then there are some "Advisory Referendums". I won't bore you with the whole list but there are two worth mentioning. One concerns Vermont and the National Guard. The referendum would require the city to "use all lawful means" to remove any aircraft that are "equipped as bombers", to "reassign" the Guard to its "traditional and only proper mission", which is the defense of the state and the nation and to prevent the guard from ever being sent overseas again to "take part in a war of aggression against another nation". Is it possible, I wonder, that in defending the state and the nation, it might just be necessary for the Guard to, I don't know, drop a bomb or two on something? And does this mean that if we're involved in a war overseas that's not a "war of aggression against another nation" - say that another nation got aggressive with us and oh, I don't know, flew some airplanes into the two largest buildings in our largest city and killed some 3,ooo people - does this mean it would be okay to send the Guard?

Oh, wait. Al Quaeda isn't a nation, is it? Tricky. Very Tricky.

The second advisory referendum has to do with whether there should be fluoride in the water. Yes, you read that correctly. In 2006, we're actually discussing - and some lunatics are trying to remove - fluoride from our drinking water. Wasn't this question answered years ago? But wait. The New York Times says that young people are leaving Vermont in droves. You don't suppose there's a connection, do you?

For a related look at what's happening politically in Vermont, read this National Review article by Jonah Goldberg. Yes, it's three years old but it's just as timely today. (h/t Ed Driscoll)

Update: Five Vermont Towns Endorse Move to Impeach the President. And the vote on the Vermont National Guard was defeated by a 58-42% margin. Which means that 42% of Vermonters would like the Guard to disappear. This is sheer lunacy. Personally, I blame Ben & Jerry.

Sunday Night Musings

I don't know why, but I just have a good feeling about this month. It could be because this is being released Tuesday. Or it could be because this is back one week from tonight. Or it might be because this comes out on the 14th.

Still, I don't know. After all, there's also St. Patrick's Day. But I feel like I'm forgetting something.

Oh, I know. This. Of course, here in Vermont, it won't show up until May and even then if you blink, you might miss it.

Still, it's a nice thought.

It is not wrong to root for your country's defeat if your country is evil

Via the Wayback Machine, the Professor revisits some posts about how the press has been covering the war in Iraq.

Jeff Goldstein adds:

In a free society, when the press comes to be perceived as simply another organ of an identifiable political point of view, the first casualty is trust. And with no anchor to hold the public’s trust, competing and increasingly bitter partisan narratives begin to battle for the right to claim the mantle of “truth.”

Is it possible for reporters not to let their personal and political views inhabit their reporting? And if a reporter believes that our presence in Iraq is inherently wrong - if not outright "evil" - is it at all possible for that reporter to write about the events there in an open, objective manner?

For my part, the idea that the United States is "evil" is laughable. I won't argue the point that the government has done - and continues to do - things I don't agree with or approve of, but that's a far cry from saying that the country is "evil". If you truly believe the US is evil, then your concept of evil is totally alien to me and your concept of good would probably scare me to death.

More Truisms

James Lileks on the difficulties of writing a novel:

I have a large project that needs to be done. It’s the novel. The not-Joe-Ohio novel. Part of me wants to give in to the Elves of Self-Doubt, who show up by the score and bang me over the head with small hammers until I realize there’s no point to writing the damn thing, but I really like the idea. It’s a matter of finding the time. This is where “not winning the lottery” is a major impediment, because I cannot stroll back to the Writing Hut at the edge of the Manor and type uninterrupted. Everything else I can do with constant interruption, both external and internal – but it’s hard to get into the groove when something else is always nipping at my heels. No matter how good the idea is, enthusiasm is evanescent, and I worry that this one will just evaporate with time.

One thing I've learned about writing: Every project - large, small or indifferent - has a start time. You get an idea. You think about it, hash it out, make notes, do some research, think about it some more, maybe even do an outline and sooner or later the pressure builds to a point where it becomes either go or no/go. If the "Elves of Self-Doubt" get their way - as they so often do - then the project will slip away into the ether and you will move on to other things.

And one day you will rescue a slip of paper from the scrap-heap of your desk and you will say, "Damn! I remember this!", and you will look at it with a bit of interest, a smattering of nostalgia, and a lot of wondering. Some of the wondering will take the form of "why did I ever think this was worth writing about?" and some of it will be "you know, this would have made a great story" but it will all be in the past tense. All of the emotion - all the passion - that you felt for it will be gone.

Enthusiam is evanescent.

Take it at its crest and ride it for all it's worth.

Dealing

Okay, so it's happened. The bean-counters have spoken and the conclusion is that we are not cost-effective. We're too small, too remote and the revenue does not justify the expense. And so I will never fulfill my dream of being a part of "America's Department Store". Well, not my dream, actually. In fact, I don't remember ever entertaining any desire to even visit said department store, much less be a part of it. Still, rejection is never easy - even when it's by someone you were never really attracted to in the first place.

The good news is that this is what I'd call a "phased" termination. I'm guaranteed employment until at least April 15 and, if I keep my nose clean and play by the rules, there will be a small severance package to help ease my entry into the ranks of the unemployed. And this isn't the first time. I was similarly downsized six years ago in a dot.com meltdown and close on twenty years ago I was let go from a job I'd held for ten years in a moment of what might best be termed "irreconcilable differences". In both those cases it was a "here's your hat, what's your hurry" sort of firing so in some respects I guess I should count my blessings.

So, I have some time. More to come, obviously.

Answers to Life's Most Vexing Questions: An Ongoing Series

Is it possible to burn your finger on a pop tart?

That would be a big Yes.