| Laziness Reigns |
[08 Mar 2004|04:07pm] |
It certainly does.
Normally, I'd rant about politics, or the state of the nation, or idiot drivers. However, my current pet peeve involves something nearer to my heart. Used book stores.
My favorite used book store closed years ago. The owner was a slightly crazy old guy with more hair than an 80s metal band who would chat about the state of the book selling industry, discuss the quirks of authors, and occasionally simply forget to charge sales tax. Actually, he reminds me of an older, hairier, male Rollick in a lot of ways.
So I've been making do with other places. John King Used and Rare Books (only about 20 miles away via the Lodge) is, as always, something of a bibliophile's Mecca, except that it's overpriced and a bit of a drive. Not to mention the parking lot's claustrophobic, and the fact that the fence is of necessity capped with barbed wire. Still, I try to stop by every couple of months and bury myself in books that are in some cases older than this country.
There's a batch of places on Woodward, between 9 Mile and 13 Mile. (I suppose I should add, for the benefit of the non-Detroiters out there, that the major east/west streets in the Detroit area occur every mile, and are numbered as such. Sometimes they have names, but the numbers are used as distance markers. Yeah, 8 Mile is an actual road, one mile south of 9 Mile. Convenient, eh?) Their selection isn't always great, but they usually have at least one or two interesting tomes kicking around. Still, it's a half-hour plus drive out there, so I only stop in every couple of months at the most.
That pretty much leaves me with the Books Connection. 7 Mile and Middlebelt, and right next to my local comic shop. It's only about 10 minutes away, too, which means I used to stop by pretty regularly. The real kick, though, was that they used to have a good selection of gaming books, and at 10% off, they were a great deal.
Sadly, Books Connection's selection of gaming material has basically fallen apart. They've failed to get anything new in the past six months, and despite my ordering books from the place months before the books hit the presses, they failed to carry the books for me. Okay, they're on the low end of the book store food chain. I can buy that.
The next nail in their coffin happened a couple of weeks ago. I walked up to the storefront about 3 minutes after closing time. There were still customers browsing the shelves, and the "open" sign was still up. As I reached my hand out to grab the handle, the shopkeeper locked the door in my face, and waved me off. Now I know that they have the right to close at closing time, but the fact that they locked the door in the face of a potentially paying customer pissed me off. Strike two.
The final nail was a pair of events, one this past summer, and one just yesterday. This past summer, I cleaned out my closet. Four shoeboxes full of novels I'd last read in the eighth grade went into my car, and down to the Books Connection. I traded them in for a pittance of store credit. When I questioned the tiny amount of credit, they informed my glibly that "our landlord doesn't take books". Which is true, but he does take the money you get for selling my books to other people, yes? Ah well, not such a big deal. So I have something like $30 of store credit.
Yesterday, I stop by the Books Connection, and decided to pick up a used paperback that they were selling for three dollars and fifty cents. $3.50. I walk up to the counter, give them my account, and expect to walk out with the book. What am I told? I owe $2.58 for the book. Excuse me, what? When I questioned this, they repeated the same tired bromide. "Our landlord doesn't take books."
I left (without buying the book, as it happens), mildly disappointed. Then it hit me. They used the same line when they didn't give me any credit in the first place. They gimped me twice on the deal, giving me something like 10% of the resale price of my books, and then not letting me use my credit to cover the full cost of a book I wanted. Strike three.
I figure the next time I stop by, I'll request my credit either in books or in cash (because unlike their landlord, I do take books) and wash my hands of the bastards. And through small increments (and the minuscule amount of shitty press I generate here) so dies another used bookstore. For screwing me.
End of rant.
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| Getting Kerry'd Away |
[14 Feb 2004|12:32pm] |
Okay, look. Everybody and their brother has heard about the John Kerry potential intern thing. I heard about it a couple of days ago.
As I understand it, a lot of this mess started when Wes Clark made an off the record crack about, "Kerry will implode over an intern issue." So already it's pretty suspect as a pure political attack. So far, I haven't heard anything more than free-floating scandal-mongering about it. Heck, the right wing news sources I check out are scrambling as hard as they can to be nowhere near the story, solemnly opining that they shouldn't touch this story with a ten-foot pole until it's more confirmed.
Okay, so looking at it, we have a tabloid-style smear. Oh look, a Democratic politician (who sorta suspiciously has married two rich heiresses) has self-control issues. At one level, after Big Bill, it's not that surprising. On the other hand, can we please, please not blow this out of proportion? So far as I can tell, there's nothing substantive there. Sounds like a great deal of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Give it a rest, folks. No sleazy scandal this time, I devoutly hope.
About the best I can say, at this point, is that it's pretty obviously not a partisan smear. I don't know where Wes got his little tidbit, and I really don't care. The Republican side of the aisle has (from what I've seen, and I'm going to admit I'm not glued to the news channels) basically said: "Hold on, this is a pretty tenuous allegation, let's not get bent out of shape about this just yet." So it looks from where I sit like an attempt to drum up a few more cover stories about the primary season after the competition is largely over.
Can we please wait for some proof, like maybe a statement from the woman in question, before we jump all over this? Please? End of rant.
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| The Female Breast, and other weighty topics |
[09 Feb 2004|05:50pm] |
So on the strength of a discussion this weekend about good words to describe breasts, I had a line of thought. I wish there was more censorship on TV.
Yeah, I know. It makes me either a leftwing looney out to eliminate all sensible political discourse or an evil jackbooted fascist thug out to repress the artistes in Hollywood.
Except that I'm neither. What I do think, thought, is that censorship would make both groups (and the consumers in the middle) a little happier. Certainly, flatly forbidding, say, nudity and overtly sexual conversations, would make the Morality Police happy. The fun thought I had, though, was that it would also save us from cheap sensationalism, (Look at my breast! Aren't I naughty? Please, talk about me some more, it makes people want to buy my CDs.) and force artists to be, well, creative.
Artists have been subtly subversive for ages. The fresco behind the altar in the Sistine Chapel (by "I'm not a painter, I'm a sculptor" Michaelangelo) is a beautiful piece of work with a decidedly religious cast. On the other hand, it has a decidedly political bent. One of the guys depicted in Purgatory with asses' ears was in fact the papal accountant who tried to skip some payments to old Mikey. The vast majority of the world thinks it's a beautiful, uplifting artistic treasure. The people Michaelangelo was really talking to, however, get the joke.
That, I think, is really what bothers me about the cheap and bawdy crap on TV. You don't have to think to get it. Just quick, easy gratification. If that route was forbidden, the writers (who presumably would still be interested in selling sex) would have to be clever about it. Double entendre would come back in vogue. We would get vague allusions, cryptic puns. Writers would be forced to work at their craft. The people tuning in for the lowbrow stuff would learn to make do with less tawdry entertainments, and the more clever folk would get not only (putatively) better programming but access to the clever gags concealing the T&A.
I don't know if it would work, but it would sure be interesting. End of rant.
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| Alas, poor Joe |
[03 Feb 2004|11:38pm] |
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Sadly, my favorite Democratic candidate was unable to summon up the required "Joe-mentum" and has fallen from the ticket. And before I could vote on the matter, too. Humbug.
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| Wintertime Blues |
[23 Jan 2004|05:16pm] |
So, a certain friend of mine with a certain color of hair has shamed me into updating.
Anyway, I've been quiet because I've had a local panic about my master's thesis. It's under control now, and life proceeds. Hopefully, I'll get back into the swing of this.
At any rate, the Iowa caucuses have come and gone, and friend Howard has gone from serious (but angry) candidate to just plain loony (but still quite angry) candidate. Now, I'm not terribly down on the scream. It's a tradition where I went to college to have a big, campus-wide primal scream before finals week, so I'm kinda used to it. I will say, though, that it sounded a lot like a put-on voice, like Howie was channeling Mel Blanc or something.
So off we go to New Hampshire, and sadly, my Democrat of choice (which is to say, my least painful result of choice) looks like it's going to be his last stand. Ah, poor Joe Lieberman, we'll miss you. As much as the guy was a lousy public speaker, he was still the only one that didn't sound like a slightly less hacked-off Howard Dean. (Well, Sharpton and Gephardt didn't either, but Dick's gone, and Al is just doing this 'cause it's cool.) Anyway, I have no idea how anybody would pick a candidate from this field. Seriously. They don't seem all that different.
On the other hand, I suppose it's sort of a good thing. After all, if there's one thing Dean was, it was the anti-Bush. Now, I've not been a Bush fan for the past few weeks or so, starting with his damnfool medicare plan, and moving through his immigration policy. (Dude, you're a Republican. They're not supposed to spend that much money. That's the whole point, really.) Still, it's a refreshing change from the two parties splitting hairs between themselves. Maybe a real choice for once.
Let's see. . . The other thing I sorta want to talk about is the weather. Yeah, I know. The most boring topic on God's green earth. Still, it's been kinda dramatic this year, have you noticed?
I'm pretty well known as a guy who likes the cold. I don't wear anything but jeans and a t-shirt until I can see my breath, for example. I've been lamenting for the past couple of years that all we've had are wimpy, autumnal winters. Well, I finally got what I wanted. It's bitter flaming cold, and we're actually getting more than a couple inches of snow. Okay, so it's so crappy out that I have to miss a LARP that I try mightily to catch. Small price to pay to have my bleeding seasons back, dammit.
Anyway, I'm going to maybe go and take a nap or something. End of rant.
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| Television |
[07 Jan 2004|07:37pm] |
So over the course of the holidays, I watched a little TV. Real shocker, there, isn't it?
Anyway, after scrolling through "Spike TV: The Network for Men", "The Man Show", "Movies for Guys who Like Movies", and the like, I begin to wonder exactly what kind of man I am. Sure, I like a pretty girl as much as the next guy, and I do enjoy a good action movie now and again, but I wasn't really into a whole lot of their stuff, which seemed a little sophomoric at the time. All style and no substance, perhaps.
Anyway, having noticed this, I've also noticed a recent (to me) deluge of "women's TV". WE, Oxygen, Lifetime. . . All of these channels supposedly showing what women want to see on the idiot box. So I'm forced to ask the ladies out there(not that I think I'll get a broad response or anything) what they think of this. Are these channels, in fact, catering to a feminine television aesthetic? Or are they just trying to carve out a niche for "girly-girls" the same way Spike is marketed at "manly-men"?
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| Time and time again |
[17 Dec 2003|05:52pm] |
So it's been awhile since the last angry screed. Once again, bite me.
Anyway, the state of the world has changed pretty dramatically since last I vented my spleen here. Primarily, the Big, Bad, Saddam is now a resident of the American Military Penal System. So now that we've got him, what do we do with him?
First off, we interrogate the hell out of him. I've heard WMD (I hate that term. Biological weapons are deadly, but not destructive. Anthrax won't put so much as a dent in my fender.) rumors in all directions, including a particularly good one about Saddam buying nukes and getting junk, and then being too embarrassed to admit it, but it would be nice to hear what the man himself has to say about this. Plus, interrogation, even nice, gentle, American interrogation, is pretty harsh, and it'd be nice if we can dispel the rumors of "Saddam Hussein, Neo-Saladin" a little more with some TV photos of him in an 8x10 concrete hole.
Of course, once we've milked him dry of every possible tidbit of information, and paraded him to the world as a broken man, what do we do with him? The obvious answer is to give him a trial. Still, we have to ask where.
Ideally, once his mystique is eroded away by 24-7 CNN coverage of him badly needing a shave and shower, we could try his ass in Iraq. After all, they've suffered under him, and thus have a right to kick his ass. I've heard speculation that he might be able to weasel out of a guilty verdict through intimidation or bribery, but I tend to suspect that with the world watching, it will be rather hard to pull off.
I don't think that the US military (or civilian courts, for that matter) have any right to try him, since he's an Iraqi concern. Especially since by letting the Iraqis have him we can make another dent in the rumor that were in Iraq to run the joint ourselves. Let the locals handle it as a gesture of goodwill.
Those that think the ICC should have him are dim, drunk, or delusional, take your pick. First, the ICC, by its own rules, doesn't have jurisdiction over most of the crimes he committed. The deal is that the ICC can't try crimes committed before it was founded, and since it's only a couple years old, we'd miss most of his evil.
Second, the US (for a number of very good reasons, elaborated better than I can do elsewhere, I'll provide the link when I dig it up again) isn't involved in the ICC, and thus has no say. You really want to give control of the trial over to people who had no involvement in the war, and in fact actively opposed removing him from power? Didn't think so.
The third reason is pretty closely related. The Iraqis bled to bring him to justice. The British bled to bring him to justice. The Poles bled. . . And we bled. Did the ICC? Did France, Russia, or Germany? Hell no. So why should we let them handle it? It's our business at this point, and if they don't like it, tough.
So now that we've interrogated, de-mythologized, and convicted the man, now what? Imprisoning him seems almost trivial compared to the magnitude of his crimes. Bloody hell, we tried to execute Goering, and if we could have caught them, we would have hung Hitler and Himmler. Saddam is only less guilty because he was less powerful. He, too, was a mass-murderer. Only unlike Hitler, Saddam had the stones to do some of his own torture, maiming, and killing.
On the other hand, by killing him, we risk martyring him. I think de-mythologizing him will help with that, as the Arab culture is largely a "face" culture. With the loss of face he took being captured without firing a shot, he's not looking terribly martyr-like. But even if he won't be a martyr, how do we go about killing him?
I think the best suggestion, by Kim DuToit (www.kimdutoit.com), was to release him into Kurdistan and let the Kurds have their way with him. Sadly, it's not terribly well controlled, and the last thing we want to do is have somebody or other pissed off because they didn't get a whack at him. So clearly there needs to be some sort of formal affair. Firing squad? No, that's a good, military death. I think hanging, though, is an old classic we could all get behind.
I guess a hanging is as good a place as any to stop, so we'll call this the End of rant.
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| Yeah, I've been slacking |
[04 Nov 2003|10:01pm] |
So I haven't updated in forever. Bite me.
Anyway, today was a day for local elections. Being the good citizen that I am, I read through the candidates' propaganda yesterday, and skimmed the local paper's article on the topic. Feeling duly informed, I went off to vote.
I went at about 10:45 in the morning, since I was done with my classes for the day. I was the 23rd person to vote, out of about 3,000 in the precinct. That's not so bad, I guess. The polls don't open until 8, and that might not be early enough for people to vote before work.
On the other hand, the poll workers freaked out when I showed up. They acted as if they'd never seen a twentysomething male before. I heard from a friend that I was the youngest person to vote there today. Apparently by a wide margin.
On the surface, it doesn't really bother me that young people don't vote. They usually don't bother to inform themselves about the election. Even when they do, a lot of it seems to be the biased drivel one hears in political ads, not exactly the basis for an informed decision. So the fact that they're not casting ignorant votes doesn't bother me a lick.
What does bother me, and deeply, is that people my age don't bother being well-informed. Partially it's because I think that eligible voters have an obligation to vote, and vote wisely at that. It's a civic duty. That alone is reason to be righteously pissed off about the situation.
The other problem is that since none of my demographic votes, politicians don't work for us. They push for benefits for senior citizens, since they all vote. They push for trendy interest groups (entrepreneurs, homosexuals, minorities, school teachers, union workers) since they have PACs. Nobody panders to the teenage vote. (Which, my bitching aside, is probably a good thing, when you get right down to it.)
So come on you bleeding slackers. It takes fifteen minutes to read the paper, and a half an hour to vote. It's really not that hard, and you feel good about yourself afterward. Easiest thing on earth. End of rant.
Edit: The local paper informs me that roughly 10,000 people voted. In a community of over 80,000 total people (including ineligible voters). Sad.
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| Democrats everywhere, and not a one to elect. |
[28 Oct 2003|06:52pm] |
Or something like that. Anyway, the last Democratic Debate was held in town on Sunday, and it got me to thinking about the nine little Indians we have left.
Personally, I think we have about 6 Indians too many, if only because at this rate they're debating with sound bites, and the one with the best one-liner wins. So who do I think should drop out? I'm so glad you asked.
Carol Moseley-Braun: I'm sorry, Senator, but you have no money, no coverage, and not much of an organization. This seems to be a big ego trip for you, and you don't seem to be adding anything to the mix. I don't really care that you're a woman, or that you're black, it doesn't add to the discussion if you sit there and spout the same as all the rest. Plus, you're barely registering in the polls. Bow out, and endorse somebody so your two or three supporters will have an impact.
Wesley Clark: Wes, buddy, you're done. You were a media flash in a crowded pan, and the media doesn't care anymore. You flipped and flopped more than the steak I had for dinner on the Iraq war, and since that's supposedly your strong point, I think you've about had it. By the by, Wes, wasn't the war you commanded waged without UN approval?
Dennis Kucinich: Denny, you're such an unknown I had to look up the spelling of your name (which is a pretty cool name, incidentally). Nobody cares anymore, Dennis. Go home.
Al Sharpton: Al, you've achieved the near-impossible so far. By keeping your mouth shut, I've almost forgotten that you're a demagogic, race-baiting anti-Semite that shouldn't be allowed within ICBM range of the Presidency. But you did make a point a few weeks back, saying that the Democratic Party treats the black vote like an ugly prom date. Do something radical, pull out, and throw your support to a third party candidate. Make the Democrats work for the near 80% of the black vote that they get for a change. Otherwise, this is just going to be a backrub for your ego. Sorry al.
Dick Gephardt: Dick, I think I feel more sorry for you than anybody else in the race. You've been a loyal Democrat for years, running the Senate, and generally being something of a go-to boy for the party. Sadly, you're just not sexy enough to get the nod. Really a shame, since in the Republican party you'd have paid enough dues to get at least a sacrificial run like old Bob Dole. Still, Dick,you're ash. Give it up.
John Edwards: Look Johnny, if Dick Gephardt can't get it, and Bob Graham was honest enough to admit he was done, you should too. Your "Bill Clinton II" routine might have worked if you were a governor, and if you weren't so forgettable. Sorry.
That leaves us with Dean, Kerry, and Lieberman. I'm keeping Kerry around just as a third guy, because he seems the least pathetic. Really, I think this is between Dean and Lieberman. Sadly, I haven't heard Dean say anything really interesting policy-wise other than "I will undo everything George Bush did", which isn't really a policy, and isn't going to happen and you know it. (Like anybody is going to win campaigning to raise taxes.) Lieberman, who is my personal pick of the field, looks a little sick next to old Dean, though, so we'll see if energizing the party fringe can beat appealing to the wide middle ground.
To be fair, next November I'll be voting for George, since as little as I like him, I like him better than any of these guys. Still, I'm thinking about voting for Joe in the open primary.
Ah well, it's still to early to call. End of rant.
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| The cinema |
[27 Oct 2003|08:02pm] |
Okay, that's a horrible, horrible misnomer. Still, I spent the weekend watching movies with my mom, since it was her birthday. We caught The Princess Bride, Young Frankenstein, and Animal House. All three are wonderful movies in their own right, but a little schizophrenic when put together.
Still, I finally noticed something in Animal House that I'd never noticed before, and suddenly a scene made a lot more sense. Y'see, at the beginning, Flounder and Pinto are touring the various fraternities. They head to Omega house, home of the upper-class preppies and pretty-boys. There, these two losers are quickly bounced to the reject couch. Care to guess who's on it? An East Indian, and Arab (I believe), a nerd, and a blind guy in a wheelchair.
Now, as a kid, I never got that scene. It finally struck me that the foreigners were on the reject couch because they weren't white. Mind you, there weren't any other non-whites in the movie. (Other than Otis Day and the Knights, which was another joke in and of itself.) When I was a small child, I saw the impressive multi-cultural couch, and wondered why the losers were shunted in with the sure-fire pledges.
Now, I'm not suggesting that we turn back the clock to the days when pretty white boys excluded "those brown people" on principle. That would be abhorrent. On the other hand, what kind of world is it where kids automatically assume that minorities are sure-fire winners? It's not like Hoover would have gotten into Omega house, and he was whiter than me. Why is it that as a small child I saw colored skin and automatically assumed winner? That's some pretty awful stereotyping, there.
I think that's part of the problem lately. Martin Luther King spoke of a world where his children would be judged "not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." I can get behind that. Heck, I'm a huge booster of meritocracy. So why are we granting special treatment to people based on the color of their skin?
Actually, that's probably not correct. People are getting special treatment based on who their parents were. And I think that's a far more horrible thing. One of the major principles this country was built around was that it didn't matter who your parents were; there would be no aristocracy in our new nation. Joshua Chamberlain, Union commander at Little Round Top at the Battle of Gettysburg put it this way: "This is free ground. All the way from here to the Pacific Ocean. No man has to bow. No man born to royalty. Here we judge you by what you do, not by what your father was."
I'm attached to that notion. I consider it pretty essential to the American system. So where do we get off giving rewards to people based on who their parents were? On what may have happened to them?
I'm sure somebody's going to bring up the three-fifths clause. "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons." (Article I, section 2)
This is famously interpreted to mean that the Founders considered a slave (and therefore a black person) only 3/5 of a person. This interpretation is wrong. Very wrong. Flat wrong, in fact. The clause was intended to minimize the political power of the slave states, preventing them from counting their slaves (who could not vote) for purposes of getting Representatives in Congress and electors in the Electoral College.
I've digressed from my original point, but I'll just sum up. Dammit, people are people. If you're not a felon and you're not a genius, you should have the same chances under law anybody gets. No special treatment, no free shots. End of rant.
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| Hmm. . . |
[24 Oct 2003|07:12pm] |
You know it's a rough day when you hope something pisses you off just so you have something to rant about. As it happens, I don't. Nothing really bothersome has happened to me personally lately, and I ranted about the only really pissant thing in the world the other night.
I suppose I could write about Rush Limbaugh and his drug problem, but let's face it. When the fat man gets back, we'll hear all about it, ad nauseum, from him. Why should I pre-empt it? Besides, he's some rich talking head addicted to drugs. So what else is news? I suspect I could walk onto any movie set I chose, close my eyes, point, and hit a drug addict.
I could discuss the Rumsfeld memo, I guess. Mr. Gung-ho, all is well having private doubts about how well all is. Again, no real surprise. He's got to simultaneously orchestrate a war, and sell it to the populace. So on one end he's got to be an ad man, and on the other, he can't afford to miss a single trick. This whole deal is about what I'd expect.
I could talk about the Iraq situation in general too. Interesting to note that in WWII, we could lose more troops in a day than we've lost since 9/11. (Very particular days, but the fact is the same.) Apparently, most Iraqis have power again, at least those that had it before the war. Also apparently, other than the shooting of GIs by Saddam loyalists, Iraq is pretty peaceful. At least as peaceful as the rest of the region, which isn't really saying much.
I could talk about Israel. No really, I could. I feel the best solution is to make Muslims second-class citizens, to herd them out of Israel, and to randomly brutalize and attack them. Then, when Israel's Muslims were being treated as badly as the rest of the region treats their Jews and Christians, then maybe Yassir would have something to bitch about.
Failing that, since 74% of Palestinians don't think suicide bombings that kill Jews are acts of terrorism, let the Israelis show the Palestinians what terror is really all about. Let's drag them from their homes, pack them into rail cars, ship them for hundreds of miles, strip them, pack them so tightly into warehouses that there's no room to move, and gas them to death. All of them. That's terror.
What, don't like that? Then how 'bout for every Israeli killed by a suicide bomber, the Israelis flatten a Palestinian block. They don't even have to kill anybody. Pure property damage. So eventually the Palestinians will begin to starve. Sounds like a good incentive for them to move somewhere else. Maybe someplace where they can be on the Knesset. Oh wait, that's Israel. My bad. Then they should hie themselves off to Jordan. Or Saudi Arabia. Or Egypt. Or one of those other Arabic paradises. Hell, the Jews learned the trick of moving around, and if these people who "rule the world by proxy" can do it and make it work for them, why can't you? (Quote from Mahathir Mohamad, President of Malaysia)
You know, there's just no good way to defuse the situation. Personally, I think Israel should fight back. Hard. The only way this is going to stop is either when Israel completely surrenders (God forbid) or when they administer sufficient violence to the right people so that nobody particularly wants to fight with them anymore.
End of rant.
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| Back to School |
[22 Oct 2003|07:09pm] |
Normally, I treat the local news the way most people treat Jerry Springer. You watch and learn what idiots need to get the "point and laugh" treatment tonight. Local 7 (WXYZ, best call letters in the business) is usually one of the worst, with "consumer advocates" who hassle people who didn't perform services they weren't paid for, on behalf of semi-literate morons. Tonight was a whopper, though.
We got a look at the Detroit Public Schools headquarters. Apparently, Channel 7 had trouble getting in to film the place because it was "a security risk". Like people have nothing better to do than blow up school administrators. How 'bout the GM headquarters, directly across the river from Canada? No? How 'bout the Federal courthouse, only about a mile away?
Stonewalling and obfuscating aside, these guys are seriously fucked up. In a district that doesn't have enough books, the Board of Education spent over 3 million dollars refurnishing their office. What these people need with expensive (and I mean expensive, this was quality stuff) cubicle partitions, LCD computer monitors, and apparently top-of-the-line Macs (I didn't get a good look at them) I don't know. Come to think, why did they pay over $1.5 million on rent this past year? Surely one could get cheaper rent elsewhere in the city. Of course, then you wouldn't get all the window offices, but hey, you're civil servants.
I think this is more fuel for my contention that most government employees shouldn't get pensions, with the exceptions of fire, police, military, and possibly teachers/professors at public schools. But not pencil pushers and bureaucrats. If nothing else, we'd hopefully get enough turnover to keep the bureaucracy from ossifying behind make-work, cronyism, and nepotism.
Of course, in this town, that'd just mean everything would take twice as long while the new guy figured out what forms he needed to fill out to get the forms you need to fill out to get service. I've been there, and I'm not kidding.
Hell with it. Line 'em up and shoot 'em. Try to get more than one guy per bullet if you can. End of rant.
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| Winter Wonderland |
[21 Oct 2003|04:29pm] |
Ah, October. There was something coming from the sky this afternoon that was either nearly-freezing rain or snow. I couldn't tell which, and it certainly wasn't cold enough for any accumulation. At any rate, the winter weather has officially begun. And I look forward to it.
Oh sure, I have to drive in the snow, and I hate it. I have to shovel the snow, and don't care much for that either. But I don't feel like the air outside is a fat man, sitting on me, and I don't break out sweating doing nothing but sitting quietly in the shade.
Also, the cold really should cut down on the spiders around here. I mean, I like them and all, but when I pass through a spider web on my way to the toilet I think things have gone a little too far. I don't know where all the little buggers have come from lately.
I have to admit, though, that I really like the winter around here. I like being inside, bundled up, on a grey, rainy day. I like feeling the wind cut through me like a knife. I really enjoy making fun of the people bundled up on even the mildest days. There's nothing like a chill winter's day with the thin sunlight streaming down, even if I have to rinse my windshield off every couple miles because of all the road salt.
I think my only real problem with the winter is that all the local mammals try to sneak into the house. We had a mouse (or two, I don't really know) in the ceiling a week or so ago. We left some fun food for them, and they died. The trouble is, we tried to find them, and failed miserably. So up until last Friday or so, I could smell the little buggers decomposing somewhere nearby.
These are all minor quibbles, though. Suffice to say that after a good weekend, and a good fall/winter day, I'm in a good mood.
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| How old am I, really? |
[20 Oct 2003|09:01pm] |
I spent the past weekend in Chicago catching up with old friends, meeting new people, and engaging in conspiracy and merriment. Part of that merriment involved running through a friend's collection of old Nintendo games. As the list of games scrolled by, the people assembled in the room shouted out praise and damnation of the games that caught our eyes. Most of the games that caught our eye wound up getting played, at least until we got killed off.
Good games, like 1943, TMNT 2, Duck Tales, and Street Fighter, and bad games, like Punisher and Ikari Warriors. Hell, we even dug up a copy of Custer's Revenge. Something tells me about half of the people my age recognized at least one, and probably more than one. It was good reminiscing about the old days. We had stories about it, laughed at each other's choices, the whole deal.
I've seen behavior like that before. Of course, that behavior was my dad and his brother, at the Ford Centennial, or him and his brothers-in-law at the Detroit Auto Show. A bunch of guys looking at things that reminded them of their youth, remembering old times, soaking in the misty warmth of nostalgia.
So these guys are remembering "the good old days" when they were 16-20, cruising up and down Telegraph, getting burgers, and dating women, plural. My friends and I were remembering "the good old days" when we were 7-13, cruising up and down the block, getting Frosted Flakes, and fearing cooties. Why is it that the same golden aura surrounds such different periods in our lives? It's not like my dad couldn't relish neighborhood baseball, or causing trouble in high school. Why are my golden age memories of 8 bits and his of 8 cylinders?
I occasionally feel guilty about playing video games and watching cartoons (okay, mostly anime, but I don't think the Powerpuff Girls or Samurai Jack count) in my 20s. I've never felt quite this guilty about it before, though. I don't know why my generation clings to its youth with such vigor, but I'd sure like to find out.
On the other hand, I wonder if I'll still be remembering those games in 30 years, or if I'll be remembering road trips to Chicago and grad school instead. End of rant.
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| A day at the races |
[16 Oct 2003|01:23pm] |
Before I get into my topic of the day, I'll apologize for tomorrow. I'll be on the road most of the day, and thus won't be posting.
Anyway, I've been thinking about racism. It strikes me that it's a horribly misused word. For example, when was the last time you heard about an Asian being racist? Or a Hispanic? I've only heard white people called racists. That sounds pretty unusual, doesn't it?
Let's take a look at "racial profiling", everybody's hot-button issue. If one knows that the local criminals (or terrorists) overwhelmingly fit a given profile, why not give people who fit that profile the once-over? Sure it's hard on the innocent members of that group, but hey. I've been accused of being a racist on account of my skin before, welcome to the great mass of falsely accused. Decent cops, who are trying to catch criminals, will just let you go once they're satisfied. Remember, Rodney King wouldn't have gotten beaten if he hadn't tried to pick a fight with the cops.
As a white guy applying for graduate school, I encounter a brand of racism myself. Half of the schools I apply to want a 2x2 picture. Now, unless they're practitioners of the dartboard school of decision, they don't need to know what I look like to grant me an interview. Or unless they want to know about the color of my skin. As the University of Michigan proved, race matters in admission. If you're white or Asian, you become a low profile, and have to reach a higher standard than a black person.
(Incidentally, why can't we just stick with the term "black"? African-American bothers me, partially because it's so long-winded. Or can I call myself a German-Polish-American, and cry when people don't use the proper term to refer to me?)
Recently, the best idea I've heard on the topic died in California. Proposal 54 was supposed to eliminate the collection of racial data by the state government, with exceptions for health statistics. (I worked with a gentleman doing a survey of the causes of MS in blacks vs. the normal population. He only had 13 cases last I heard, but he was working on it.) That's probably the best way to get rid of racism, whether it's of the hood-and-cross variety or the checkbox variety. Simply don't care.
If, as everybody says, race doesn't matter, then why do we keep asking about it? I know that stereotypes have positive effects, (assuming that, for example, gentlemen in turbans don't drink, saves a hassle when you offer them wine.) but that's only on a personal, individual level. Further, the only time I want to hear "a black man" or "a white woman" or "Hispanics" is when somebody asks me: "Do you know the name of that woman over there? The Indian one?"
Let's just stop drawing attention to it. Once we do, people will stop assigning meaning to it, and we can get on with our lives.
End of rant.
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| Human connections |
[15 Oct 2003|07:19pm] |
As unlikely as it may seem, I do actually spend some time each day figuring out what I'm going to write about. Oddly enough, the first few things that inevitably come to mind are traffic-related. Since I already covered that topic awhile ago, I keep rejecting them as unsuitable, or at least redundant.
Eventually, enough other stuff got off my mind that I began to question why traffic keeps occurring to me. I've somehow acquired a rep among my friends as a car guy, for no apparent reason. Coming from Detroit does not burn automobiles into your brain. Then it hit me. Really, our only contact with "the populace" happens in cars.
Think about it. The stereotypical "normal Joe" wakes up, shaves, showers, and hits the road. He drives for some length of time (I would guess between 20 and 60 minutes offhand) and then gets to work. He works with pretty much the same 5-10 people all day, possibly getting some input from the radio, and then gets back in his car and drives home. Maybe he sees a movie or goes out to eat, but even then he's dealing with a fairly narrowly prescribed section of the general populace. (Check how many people actually saw that last flick, or ate at that joint down the street.) Then Joe eats something, watches possibly some TV, and goes to bed.
No contact with the unfiltered masses, except on those two automotive stretches. So the vast majority of strangers you meet are on the roads. Making it worse, we (or at least I) characterize the people I meet by the way they drive. Crazy old ladies, drunk guys, jerks on cell phones. . . So you get to meet an unfiltered cross section of society every day. That may be why my drivetime is so central to my thoughts.
Just my two cents. End of rant.
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| Essays |
[14 Oct 2003|05:02pm] |
As is probably well-known, I'm in the process of applying to medical school. This means that I have to write essays on essays. Essays for the initial general application, essays for the MCAT, and essays for the secondary applications unique to each school. All this is, hopefully, topped off by an interview with one or more members of each school's admissions committee.
This compels me to ask why. Clearly, from the AMCAS essay, they should be aware if the applicant has a reasonable grasp of the written english language. In fact, it should be pretty apparent from the multiple-choice Verbal section of the MCAT. I put the MCAT essay down to a desire to stress the applicants and check their performance, but that's just me. This final batch of essays, though, astounds me. Mainly, I suppose, because the secondary applications otherwise seem to be a recapitulation of the general application that they all received. My name, address, GPA, and the like. The only new things they seem to ask for are a check (well, that's a scam, but I expect it), my letters of recommendation (that's reasonable), any alumni or employees I'm related to (also reasonable), and the essays.
So they're actually going to read these things? U of Chicago requests four of them. That's a fair deal of reading by people who undoubtedly have other things to do. It seems an awful lot of work on their part, for not a lot of gain. The interview is, in theory, going to test my verbal fitness, as well an any intangible sense that I'm either the second coming of Dr. Schweitzer or a closet child-molester. So what's the deal with the essay?
It's not like the essays are any particularly interesting questions, either. "Discuss a crisis you have been a part of," "Why did you choose to go into medicine," "Discuss the foundation of your value system," These are all pretty bland questions, and they've got to get a lot of the same answers. Although I will admit to a tiny voice begging me to repeat Hugh Gallagher's joke and just mess with these people, I suspect it would be much harder on me than it was on Hugh (who got into NYU with his spectacular chutzpah).
Making it more acute, I actually got an application (from Drexel University) that didn't ask for any essays. Drexel's the only one, though. So clearly it's not mandatory. Maybe Drexel's just a little more honest, and doesn't feel the need to lie to me about these stupid essays.
It's not that these essays are going to keep me from applying, either. I just don't see why they go to all the trouble of asking for them (and either the bandwidth of transmitting them or the hassle of hauling in the envelopes). Ah well, that's why they're on an admission's committee and I'm not. End of rant.
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| These are a few of my least favorite things |
[13 Oct 2003|06:12pm] |
It probably doesn't surprise most of you, but I'm not a big fan of the French. Their language grates, their cooking is vastly overrated, their hygiene is appalling, and their manners are terrible. This is not, by the way, a stereotyped generalization. The Frenchmen I've met hold pretty closely to most, if not all, of the above categories.
So it was with some degree of pleasure that I read an article in the Guardian, here: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1061130,00.html
I would make that an active link, but my limited html knowledge doesn't allow me to. To summarize the article, a chunk of the French literary elite are beginning to think that France is in decline, not least of which because, in the words of Romain Gubert and Emmanuel Saint-Martin, "'With our sermons, our empty gestures and our poetic flights, we [the French] have pissed off the planet. Worse: we make them laugh. "
Okay, it's all well and good to pick on the French. But I think they're exaggerating just a little. Sure, their economy makes ours look Edenic. Sure they have labor unrest that just won't quit. Sure, the Froggies are protesting their imminent loss of a 35 hour work week. But they're not the only ones with troubles.
Anybody, anywhere, that I ask, will say his country's going down the tubes. They'll have a laundry list of dumb, immoral, possibly illegal things their government is doing, and they'll be right on about half of them. This is true whether I ask an Iraqi about the American occupation, or an Israeli about Sharon, a Russian about Putin, or even a Roman about Claudius. You'll note, here, that despite the universality of complaints, there isn't a sense of the imminent destruction of civilization and the nation-state.
I have limitless faith in the French ability to screw things up. They've been doing it for years. Even they, however, aren't going to go the way of Ur, Babylon, Rome, Carthage, or Timbuktu any time soon. Relax Froggies, the sky isn't falling.
As for the Quebecois. . . Ah, screw 'em. End of rant.
Edit: Well, I'll be damned. LiveJournal makes text links active for me. Two points.
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| Arnold and the circus |
[10 Oct 2003|04:06pm] |
So I read in the news today that the German populace is divided on the notion of Governor Arnold. Some of them seem to be saying that his plain style and forceful manner are just what Germany needs. The rest of them are reminding folks what happened the last time an Austrian mobilized popular support in Germany with plain talk. On the whole, I think it's overblown. See also my last commentary on comparing people to Hitler.
Now that the recall is over, there's really no single story captivating the country. Fox and CNN must be crying in their beer. The Drudge Report leads with Rush Limbaugh going into therapy for a painkiller addiction. Fair enough. Get thine ass to rehab, Mr. Limbaugh, and stop being an addict. I feel compelled to say something positive about Rush, but I really find it hard. I used to listen to him, until he became almost a parody of himself. Maybe this will be a wakeup call for the man, maybe not. Either way, not exactly a world-shaking story in my opinion.
Closer to home, the Detroit News leads with a story saying the economy is getting better. I'd be far more encouraged by this news if the paper hadn't spent the last week or so waffling on whether the UAW was doing well, or doing poorly. My cousin, who's been in the UAW for years and whose parents are devoted and committed union supporters, has been sending my father (and by the miracle of forwarding, me) screeds on how the union keeps trying to take a bigger and bigger bite from the workers, while not delivering the goods to the workers. Of course, my cousin may be a bit biased since Daimler Chrysler is on the skids. I could go on a rant here about what Mercedes has done to Chrysler, but I'll let it rest for now.
All this brings to mind, however, the basic flaw of modern telejournalism. Accusations fly back and forth about liberal bias (of which there is plenty) and conservative bias (of which there is a small but growing amount). Personally, I take everything I see on the TV news with more salt than I take on my french fries, but then I'm a nasty, mistrustful cynic.
The problem is that there's so much time devoted to news, and so little real news involved. This leaves CNN and Fox like the bored college student, anxiously checking his e-mail every third minute, and reading the profiles on his Buddy List in the meanwhile. Sure, there's a lot happening in the world, but it all happens at its own pace. The events of the day don't time themselves around commercial breaks and commentary segments. So somebody's got to fill the time.
What winds up happening, is the talking heads on TV let fly with whatever's on their minds. I suppose that's not so bad, but this is supposed to be news, not "whatever my blow-dried brain can spit out." Even so, it wouldn't be so bad if they could draw a clear line between their opinions and their facts. Trouble is, they can't seem to do that.
I suspect part of it is habit. They're so used to spouting off to fill time, that when they have actually have something to say, they've forgotten how to say it objectively, without adding their own commentary to it. The classic example, of course, is how often republicans or conservatives are labeled as such, and how rarely democrats and liberals get the same treatment. As if conservatism was a wholly aberrant behavior, and liberalism is the way of all thinking people.
(As a side note, the inability of much of the modern politico-media class to see tolerate dissent and discussion without seeing it as an attack, a symptom of eeeeevil, or some kind of neanderthalic imbecility is disturbing, whether it comes from Jerry Falwell or Tom Brokaw.)
There is, of course, a reason for the abundance of news programs. They're cheap, and they attract advertisers. A good example is Detroit Channel 2 (WJBK). In my youth, channel 2 was CBS, and got all kinds of network programming, from game shows to sitcoms to soap operas. The station didn't have to provide a whole lot of stuff, and there was only five, maybe six hours of news a day. Then they switched to Fox, which didn't have any daytime programs. Sure WJBK picked up some syndicated stuff, but they suddenly began to run a whole lot of news. Likewise, Channel 62 (WWJ-TV) switched to CBS at the same time, and as a small channel elevated to greatness filled the gap with news.
Local news shows are really cheap. A couple pretty people behind the desk, some equipment, a few reporters, and a design guy (for all the pretty graphics) are it. Contrast that with a sitcom, where you need writers, actors (who can get some serious bucks if the show does well), costumers, more sets. . . So it's easy to see why channels do news.
I don't really know what to do about it, of course, which is why this is a semi-regular rant and not a syndicated column. Still, the rise of opinion masked as journalism needs to stop. Maybe if we cut down on blow-driers?
End of rant.
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| Thursday Doldrums |
[09 Oct 2003|02:33pm] |
Yet another Thursday, and nothing at hand to scream about. While it makes for a boring commentary, I suppose I'll go along with the ancient Chinese.
Actually, I suppose there is something to talk about today. The Israeli cabinet, as well as at least one Jerusalem newspaper, has pushed to have Yassir Arafat either expelled or exterminated. That touched off a long debate about what to do with the man.
If you exile him, you remove him from your watchful eye and let him gain shelter with whoever would have him. Not exactly a good option to take with a guy who reputedly has somewhere upwards of 6 million dollars in various Swiss accounts. Plus, he gets to be a traveling celebrity. Generally, then, you'd want to at least keep him where you have a modicum of control of his media access, as well as his comings and goings.
So we could kill him. Well, no. Martyrs are in vogue in that part of the world. Should Uncle Yassir get his from a Mossad Uzi, the resulting wave of violence might well make the intifada look like a squabble in a pre-school sandbox.
So we can't kill him, and we can't kick him out. We could try living with him. Except that the man does, at least tacitly, encourage terrorism and attacks on the Israeli populace. Were he an American citizen, his ass would have been in an execution chamber long ago. Heck, Israel can't even seem to get a decent replacement for the guy when most of the world leans on Arafat.
Thankfully, the guy is doing us all a favor. According to some reports (hotly disputed), Arafat had a heart attack recently, and he may or may not be suffering from stomach cancer. Good. Nice, internal causes of death. Hell, if he hadn't come down with this stuff, somebody would have had to make him come down with it. Hook him on Camels or something.
Of course, this probably isn't the end of the man, not by a long shot. Castro's been around forever, and he's not going anywhere. Pope John Paul II has been putting up with rumors of his imminent demise for years. (Not that I'm comparing the Pope to Arafat, other than as a fellow sick old man.)
However, be that as it may, we can finally start to contemplate a world without Yassir. What are we going to do when the old guy kicks. As much as it will be nice not having that particular viper spewing venom in the region, somebody's going to have to replace him. While I have to believe that there's a moderate element out there, one doesn't have to look much further than American politics to know that this isn't a good time to walk the center line. Making it potentially worse, the likely candidates to replace him are the people he's gathered around himself; meaning people who largely think the same way he does.
Now it's true that these guys (and I would bet money that they're all men) won't be as entrenched and won't have the past record of Arafat to keep the people in line. Heck, this next guy might even be willing to actually compromise, instead of treating negotiations as a way to buy time between rounds of bloody, bloody murder.
Sadly, I kinda doubt it. End of rant.
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