perfidy

Ben and Jennifer have set a wedding date of September 14!

It's good that they're getting this out of the way, because their divorce has been scheduled for January 6, 2004 for a while now.

For your health, I recommend you go read somethingawful.com's ripping-off-Conan-O'Brien Photoshop Phriday, and especially enjoy the last image on the last page. I nearly died of amusement.

Also for your health, I do not recommend using img tags to link directly to images on SA's site. That is, unless you LIKE obese transvestite pornography. Consider yourself warned.

Via slashdot, I see that a coalition of 198 webcasters are suing the RIAA for monopolistic practices and restraint of trade. It's the latest chapter in a continuing saga of perfidy, plutocracy, and shitty, shitty business practices.

The complaint is here.

I hope they make it hurt.

By way of the The Spoons Experience, this enchanting fantasy story.

TROGDOR!

This is a hoot. The movie industry is bothered by the fact that advancing technology allows consumers to learn of the crappiness of movies before paying ten bucks to see them. Listen to this Miramax drone:

"In the old days, there used to be a term, 'buying your gross,' " Rick Sands, chief operating officer at Miramax, told the Los Angeles Times. "You could buy your gross for the weekend and overcome bad word of mouth, because it took time to filter out into the general audience."

I cannot express how much I feel their pain. Because I don't. Feel their pain that is. They are blaming texting for putting the word out on their movies. Well, that's kind of backwards, isn't it? If you made a decent product, the very same technology would work in your favor. This kind of contempt is as infuriating as it is commonplace.

Maybe it will finally sink in that an informed public is harder to dupe. And when we play 1000 Blank White Cards with the studios, they won't be able to play this card on us:

Dungbreros, all of them.

I just recently finished Tom Clancy's new book, Teeth of the Tiger. I was disappointed on many levels. Over most of the last two decades, I have eagerly awaited the next Clancy book. I got suckered on the Op-Center, thing, but once I ruled those out, it was largely a happy process of buy book, read book, happy thoughts. I have read all of his novels, and all of his non-fiction as well. (The non-fiction books are very well done, and remarkable compendiums of military information that you would otherwise have to glean from hundreds of sources.)

Bear and Dragon was the last Clacy novel that I liked unreservedly. Or nearly - the battle sequence was a little too one sided for dramatic purposes, though in all honesty that's probably how it work*. Red Rabbit was interesting, but almost sterile in its lack of action and intrigue. It read more like a report on a book than the book itself. Teeth plots another point on that downward trend.

Without getting into spoilers, the basic idea of the novel is that there is a completely secret, extra-governmental and extra legal covert operations agency that has the mission of killing those who would plan, fund or execute terrorist operations against Americans.

I have several key ojections to the book:

1) The main characters are Jack Ryan's son and twin nephews. Aside from these three, I was never able to distinguish any of the other characters on the "Good Guy" side. The bad guys were nearly as bland. I actually wrote my own dramatis personae just so I could keep track of these two dimensional characters.

2) There is almost no dramatic tension in this book. There are two story arcs that intersect only in perfect hits on terrorists. The terrorists never know what's happening. Through intelligence siphoned off the NSA and CIA, this agency flawlessly tracks, identifies, and kills terrorists. It's like reading about someone who has mastered a videogame describe how effectively he can clear the first level of the game.

3) There is very little real discussion about the morality of the mission they have undertaken. One of the nephews has doubts, but they are resolved in an improbable coincidence. The characters blithely go about killing whomever they are ordered to kill. Now, for all that I have liked Tom Clancy in the past, I know that moral philosophy is not exactly what you expect in a Clancy novel. Nevertheless, in prior novels good guys are clearly working for good - both ends and means, and have little need for moral justification. And more than many authors, Clancy is at pains to give his bad guys a convincing moral dimension. Your average Clancy villain either sees himself as a good guy (good psych, there) or has compelling history that motivates him to do what he otherwise would not. This book is lacking on both sides of the game.

4) And finally, the book ends about halfway through the story.

Wait for the omnibus paperback edition. I hope that Clany has not just gotten lazy, though this book has all the earmarks of just that.

* America against any other armed force in the world presents major dramatic problems. It is manifest that we can kick anyone's ass. How do you give Superman a convincing opponent? The media suffers through this every time we go up against someone, though they are hard pressed to maintain the tension. There are only two ways to do it, though - one is to come up with a scenario that convincingly limits the amount of force that the Americans will bring to bear, and the other is to vastly inflate the competance of the opposing force.

I'm in the middle of reading Paul Johnson's "A History of the American People" and I feel compelled to share a few thoughts.

I'm very glad I chose to read the end of the book first. Since the book was published during the Clinton years, and covers all of American history to that point, the last few chapters are very helpful in pointing out Johnson's biases. In a nutshell, Nixon gets off incredibly easy, the press gets pilloried, and Clinton is depicted as a randy purple-assed baboon mistakenly elected thanks to Old Man Bush's inability to put a sentence together and let loose to run the corridors of power murdering aides and porking the secretaries. I mean, that's not exactly inaccurate, but Jesus!

That being said, it's refreshing to read a British account of American history.

[update Aug 18] Had to quit on page 300-something. As noted in my comment attached to this review, the questionable assertions piled up, matured into howlers, and finally burst into full adulthood as parallel-universe fantasy. Good writing, though. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming, with annotations.

The British have such a way with grand sweeping narrative! Johnson's writing is clear and intelligent, his insights are [often] pungent, and his sense of drama impeccable. Speaking as someone who has had to actually TEACH US history 1492-1872, it's a readable and accomplished account, [at least to the point when his Whiggish thesis overbears the material. What I mistook for narrative drive eventually proved to be historical determinism]. He does great things with the Puritans, clearly marks out the coming problems of slavery long before the nation is even founded, and deals adroitly with the revolving cast of characters. If John Adams is reduced to a bitter snarling dragon and Jefferson to an absentminded and contradictory polymath, John C. Calhoun's person is filled out far beyond the one dimensionally rabid states-righter that usually makes it into the history books, and Andrew Jackson is handled with flaws intact.

I do wish, however, that Jackson's removal of the Cherokee could have used the words "Trail of Tears" at least once, though. Johnson has a tendency to underplay the perfidy of individuals when it would undercut their heroic qualities. (Ditto with Washington's land speculation in the Ohio Valley, [the doublethink behind the various compromises engineered by Henry Clay]...).

Johnson also tends to minimize the spread of American industry in the antebellum era, and deals with the Second Great Awakening almost a hundred pages before dealing with industry. This is a very misleading mistake. The SGA was intimately tied to the Industrial Revolution and the geographic, social, and demographic changes it caused to the landscape. Not for nothing was Upper New York State was referred to as the "Burned Over District." This is even more puzzling because one of Johnson's major crusades is to illustrate the deep ties that bind the US and its government to Christian religion. He does this a few other places as well, for example by mentioning the "Era of Good Feelings" but not exploring the fact that it was manifestly NOT an era of good feelings at the state and local levels where all the important battles were being fought 1842-1860 [I do need to point out at this juncture that my counter-arguments are not particularly questionable history. Discussing the Second Great Awakening without dicussing the Erie Canal and industrialization would be like discussing World War II without a mention of the Treaty of Versailles or National Socialism. It was at this point in my reading that I began to notice the argument coming apart, which resulted in my putting the book down about a hundred pages later. I mean, look at a Map! Major cities along the Erie canal: Albany, Syracuse, Buffalo, Oswego, Oneonta. Major sites of religious ferment: Albany, Syracuse, Buffalo... you get the picture.]

But in general this is a very good book indeed [through about 1820]. My mind boggles that I managed to make it all the way through graduate school (in history!) without once being asked to read or construct a complete narrative account of US history itself. This is a shocking omission and one that is entirely my fault. Luckily, I'm older now and have time to correct such shortcomings. I feel a little better about things because before starting this book I have accrued a basic understanding of American history soup to nuts (though I prefer a fruit course with port to follow to close a meal, but I digress), and am therefore able to shrug off the most outrageous editorial volleys [and, better yet, know when to quit].

Ahhh...whatever. It's Friday. I'm gonna drive out to the Berkshires and drink mint juleps with my German friend and his wife. Mmmmmm. [Beer did just as well. Mmmmm.... cask ales.....] 

4 fresh Mint sprigs
2 1/2 oz Bourbon
1 tsp Powdered sugar
2 tsp Water

I am now reading, for the first time, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? On page 20 of my edition, I read this:

Silence. It flashed from the woodwork and the walls; it smote him with an awful, total power, as if generated by a vast mill. It rose from the floor, up out of the tattered gray wall-to-wall carpeting. It unleashed itself from the broken and semi-broken appliances in the kitchen, and the dead machines which hadn't worked in all the time Isadore had lived there. From the useless pole lamp in the living room it oozed out, meshing with the empty and wordless descent of itself from the fly-specked ceiling. It managed in fact to emerge from every object within his range of vision, as if it - the silence - meant to supplant all things tangible. Hence it assailed not only his ears, but his eyes; as he stood by the inert TV set he experienced the silence as visible and, in its own way, alive. Alive! He had often felt its austere approach before; when it came, it burst in without subtlety, evidently unable to wait. The silence of the world could not reign back its greed. Not any longer. Not when it had virtually won.

Damn. 

[Update]: I originally posted this back in May. When the archives were being moved over, the date didn't get set right. But, it's still true today.

Dan Simmons, author of Hyperion, has a new book out. Ilium, which I just finished, is the first of a two part series that involves little green men, robots, Greek gods, Shalespeare and Proust, post human evolution, the wandering Jew and a middle aged classics professor from Indiana. Sweet.

Joe Bob says check it out!

Instapundit has a quite interesting post from InstaPundit's Afghanistan correspondent, Boston University Professor John Robert Kelly. It's a good read, but he had me at Beer and Loafing.

Steven den Beste has a long post on biological and cultural evolution today. Most of this I have no problem with, as it's a quite well written summary of the general state of the art. Toward the end though, he gets into talking about evangelistic and xenophilic cultures, and says that they are generally exclusive:

But in general, what you find is that some cultures tend to be dominated by evangelism and they don't tend to be as open to outside ideas. Others tend to be quite xenophilic and don't tend to be quite so evangelistic. You can also get some which don't tend to either, which are smug and self-absorbed and are so contemptuous of outsiders that they feel little need to spread their ideas to anyone else

I would argue that Western culture to a certain extent, and American culture to a much larger extent is both evangelistic and xenophilic. And the reason that we can be both is that we willing embrace new methods, techniques, knowledge (and people) from anywhere, and roll it into the constantly evolving culture that we then evangelize. It is a point of pride in American culture that we absorb any good thing without worrying where it came from - and the rest of the world certainly complains often enough that we are ramming the result down their throats.

[Update:] Got an email from Clueless, who said that the part two of the series already written, "went into exactly that."

I'm smart. (3300 words, and its only part one. Sheesh.) 

In the Pulpit, Cringely comes up with a new model for music sharing. But first, the money quote:

Technology has already changed the economics of music creation and distribution, but the record companies are resisting with every weapon they have. I would too if I was in their position, which is fat, rich, and having everything to lose.

His idea is insidious. Create a company which will buy many cds. Then, sell shares. Each shareholder is a co-owner of the large pool of cds. Under fair use laws, they may copy them. There is even a business model - each shareholder would pay a small fee to the company for each download.

Aside from the business benefits, what this would do to the mental equilibrium of the recording industry is just delicious.

In a move certain to generate sympathy for the embattled recording industry, the RIAA has decided to persecute not only those who download music, but their grandmothers, parents and roommates. As the AP reports:

The president of the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group for the largest music labels, said lawyers will pursue downloaders regardless of personal circumstances because it would deter other Internet users.

"The idea really is not to be selective, to let people know that if they're offering a substantial number of files for others to copy, they are at risk," Cary Sherman said. "It doesn't matter who they are."

This kind of judiciousness has always won the RIAA praise. "pour l'encouragement des autres." What a great idea.

Fox News* has a singularly moronic piece up about "Spike TV," the First! Network! For! Men! Beware my awesome fisking power!

"There wasn't that one place where [men] could go," explained Kevin Kay, TNN's vice president of programming and production. "I'm hopeful that TNN is the first place guys will check out, and they'll make it a favorite on their remote."

Right. Except for ESPN/ESPN2/FoxSports/FX/TBS, every network on weekend afternoons, and Shark Week.

Other men in the target audience haven't caught onto the new TNN yet, but are intrigued. Jim Smith, 41, of Indianapolis, said he'd check out the channel's car shows -- which will start airing in August -- and sports, like the full-contact basketball game, Slamball.

Slamball!! Alllll RIGHT!! Personally, I've been dying for a sport that combines the nonstop action of American Gladiators with the spectacle of the XFL, and is as compulsively watchable as BasEketball. Sometimes ferret-legging just isn't enough.

After "Lifetime: Television for Women" was introduced in 1984, other female-oriented channels like Oxygen and WE followed suit. But until TNN reinvented itself, there was no cable channel for guys.

Right. Except for HBO (pre Sex/City), Showtime, Spice!, the Playboy Channel, and the History Network. Dark days, yea verily.

Early Spike skeptics say some of its animated shows like Stripperella and Ren & Stimpy are clichés of what entertains men: sex and toilet jokes. But Lifetime, one of the most successful -- and criticized -- channels has weathered accusations that it stereotypes women.

"We listen to our viewers, not our critics," said Tim Brooks, Lifetime's executive vice president of research. "And what they're telling us loud and clear is that they find the kinds of programming we put on empowering."

<snark> Yeah, empowered to fix me a damn sandwich! </snark> Seriously... are we supposed to believe that women find Judith Light empowering?

"When we talked to guys in focus groups, one thing they said is, 'Don't stereotype us. We don't just want T & A. We're better than that,'" Kay said. "We have to be smarter, deeper and appeal to guys with interests across the board."

Which is why we get Stripperella, Ren & Stimpy, and Crazy Japanese People Hurting Themselves In Costume. Sounds about right. Except I don't see any show dedicated to the care and feeding of Apache servers, or anything about footwear. I love shoe shopping. There should be a show about shoes. I'm also really into the history of public transportation, and architecture. I'm a guy. Where's my show?

So far, Spike's lineup is all over the map, ranging from shows for frat-boy types to those for 30-something yuppies with families. In addition to programs like Stripperella (a cartoon about a stripper/crimefighter with Pamela Anderson's voice) and Slamball, the network airs a slew of James Bond and "guy" movies and male-oriented shows like Baywatch.

Translation: "We've got tits AND ass! Plus full-contact fake sports!"

Uhhhh... what happens if I fantasize about doing drivebys on frat houses, and loathe yuppies and children? Uh-oh... looks like the E! network for me.

If it goes the way of Lifetime, which despite its sometimes-schmaltzy reputation routinely scores top ratings, Spike TV will be a hit.

Wilson, for one, is already a convert.

"Women had like three different channels they could pick," he said. "Men had none. I got tired of watching Golden Girls reruns on Lifetime."

Dude, I didn't even know Golden Girls was still on! What the hell have you been watching? Take off the skirt, Sheila, and come watch the Brickyard 300 on my bigscreen. There's a whole world out there for you to discover, slugger.

* There was a "John Birch" reference here I have since removed. I put it in for fun, but upon reflection, decided it was too stupid to live. Nevertheless, I strongly believe that every well-written piece needs to be balanced by a jarringly incorrect statement. It's entertainment!!

In an interview in The Atlantic Unbound:

I left the English department twenty-six years ago. I just divorced them and became, as I like to put it, Professor of Absolutely Nothing. To a rather considerable extent, literary studies have been replaced by that incredible absurdity called cultural studies which, as far as I can tell, are neither cultural nor are they studies. But there has always been an arrogance, I think, of the semi-learned.

Ow!

Love him or hate him, Harold Bloom knows what he is talking about.

I almost wrote this: "His scholarship is motivated by the purest thing of all: love of the material. " Yet that's not right. Harold Bloom does love what he does, and what he studies, but so do many rat bastid deconstructionists. Good intentions are no indicator of results, in academia or anywhere else. No, Harold Bloom is just a fiercely articulate, extremely intelligent, discerning and iconoclastic scholar who just happens to have a sense of perspective that ecofeminism tends to lack completely.

The key to why this is comes in what Blooms says next:

You know, the term "philology" originally meant indeed a love of learning—a love of the word, a love of literature. I think the more profoundly people love and understand literature, the less likely they are to be supercilious, to feel that somehow they know more than the poems, stories, novels, and epics actually know. And, of course, we have this nonsense called Theory with a capital T, mostly imported from the French and now having evilly taken root in the English-speaking world. And that, I suppose, also has encouraged absurd attitudes toward what we used to call imaginative literature.

Bloom here makes a point that I have made far less gracefully in the past: capital-T Theory is a crutch. It allows students (and professors!) to move forward arrogantly in a state of semi-comprehension, reading a work only deeply enough to discern how they may fit it into the framework of their choice. Of course, Theory only exists because some French smartasses hoped to find a way to observe the universe "objectively," that is, divorced from the innate prejudices of their own perceptions. Bloom, rather ingeniously (but, sadly, not obviously), cuts through the problem of objectivity by reveling in the experience of reading and understanding-- he places the self, the way that literature works on you the reader, front and center. Maybe this is as it should be, because if all interpretation is ultimately bullshit, why shouldn't you stick to your own rather than use someone else's?

Anyway, read the whole thing. It's great. I leave you with one last bit:

Throughout the English-speaking world, the wave of French theory was replaced by the terrible mélange that I increasingly have come to call the School of Resentment—the so-called multiculturalists and feminists who tell us we are to value a literary work because of the ethnic background or the gender of the author. 

Feminism as a stance calling for equal rights, equal education, equal pay—no rational, halfway decent human being could possibly disagree with this. But what is called feminism in the academies seems to be a very different phenomenon indeed. I have sometimes characterized these people as a Rabblement of Lemmings, dashing off the cliff and carrying their supposed subject down to destruction with them.

This isn't scholarship! This isn't learning! This is lazy!

And this is why I will not go back for my Doctorate.

if this limited study is correct. Results suggest that a vegetarian diet can cut cholesterol as much as perscription drugs can.

Also, if this study is correct, my wife will live to be 250.

This probably shouldn't surprise anyone. The one constant in the last twenty years of diet wisdom, right behind "eat less and exercise" has been "eat your vegetables and whole grains, and don't eat that steak every single day." I eat oatmeal and soy every day, and I bet that if eggplant cuts cholesterol, the other nightshades can too (tomatoes, all peppers...). I am so set!! Vegetarian, yeah!!
Not that I don't love meat, mind you. Pulled pork. The New England delicacy they call "steak tips." Pork of any kind. Steak of any kind. Buffalo. Buffalo wings. Rabbit. Smoked pork. Lobster. Mmmmmmmm.... I love these things, but I'm just to poor to afford them regularly, and years ago adjusted to eating a vegetarian diet at home. It has worked really well so far, and for a few years my total grocery expenditures per week were between $12-$15(!).

The following is a public service announcement:
Any meat eaters, who through guesting or accident, are faced with eating soy products, note the following.

Tofu is fine. Sometimes it's even delicious. Just like sweetmeats, brains, or insects, you need to develop a taste for it. Quit your whining and eat it! Tempeh, on the other hand, tastes like rat droppings pressed into a cake.

Fake meats are generally excellent and can be eaten without compunction. Boca-burgers taste just like the real thing, and Morningstar Farms Soy Breakfast Patties are very good, if a little dry. Avoid fake bacon (as if you had to be told!).

However, certain products suck mightily unless you already like the taste of soy extract. These include: soy margarine (as if you had to be told!), soy ice cream (ditto, and ugh!), and homemade soy milk. The cartoned stuff is actually pretty good, and is great in cereals.

Another, unconnected thought. The one thing I miss most about not having meat in the home is being able to cook it. I'm a fairly admirable home cook, and sometimes I even aspire to greater things. But my skills are limited when it comes to meats. I can braise, I can grill like a beast, and I can roast, saute, and panfry. But it's all a little shaky. As a sad side effect, my saucing skills aren't so hot. By rights I should be able to whip up a hollandaise or bearnaise sauce without thinking, but I can't. I mean, give me a cookbook and I'm fine, but I'm a proud sort and like to work without a net. Not that this is such a big deal, but I'm a geek about every single thing I do in life and therefore this is an irritant.

Ah well. I still make a damn fabulous pork and beef chili.

From Nordlinger on NRO:

Three Americans and an Israeli soldier are caught by cannibals and are about to be cooked. The chief says, "I am familiar with your Western custom of granting a last wish. Before we kill and eat you, do you have any last requests?"

Dan Rather says, "Well, I'm a Texan, so I'd like one last bowlful of hot, spicy chili." The chief nods to an underling, who leaves and returns with the chili. Rather eats it all and says, "Now I can die content."

Al Sharpton says, "I'd like to have my picture taken, as nothing has given me greater joy in life." Done.

Judith Woodruff says, "I'm a journalist to the end. I want to take out my tape recorder and describe the scene here, and what's about to happen. Maybe someday someone will hear it and know that I was on the job to the last." The chief directs an aide to hand over the tape recorder, and Woodruff dictates some comments. "There," she says. "I can now die fulfilled."

The chief says, "And you, Mr. Israeli Soldier? What is your final wish?"

The solider says, "Kick me in the behind."

"What?" says the chief. "Will you mock us in your last hour?"

"No, I'm not kidding. I want you to kick me in the behind."

So the chief unties the soldier, shoves him into the open, and kicks him in the behind. The Israeli goes sprawling, but rolls to his knees, pulls a 9mm pistol from his waistband, and shoots the chief dead. In the resulting confusion, he leaps to his knapsack, pulls out his Uzi, and sprays the cannibals with gunfire. In a flash, the cannibals are all dead or fleeing for their lives.

As the Israeli unties the others, they ask him, "Why didn't you just shoot them? Why did you ask the chief to kick you in the behind?"

"What?" answers the soldier. "And have you SOBs call me the aggressor?"

Heh.

Drudge has posted the transcript of his appearance on Crossfire, and its some interesting stuff. Arianna Huffington possibly jumping in the California governor's race, politics and what not. But what was really interesting is the discussion of Mel Gibson's new movie. Drudge, and apparently most of those attending the small screening at Jack Valenti's place, were in tears at the end of it. Drudge said it was:

This is the ultimate film. It's magical. Best picture I have seen in quite some time, and even people like Jack Valenti were in the audience in tears at this screening. There was about 30 of us. It depicts a clash between Jesus and those who crucified him, and speaking as a Jew, I thought it was a magical film that showed the perils of life on earth.... those of us, every single person in there, and I'm not talking about tears, I'm talking total tears. It is something Mel Gibson stood back at the end and took questions for about an hour, and he is -- he told me he's tired of Hollywood. That this is it. He's going to do it. He's going to do it his way, and this film, I tell you, is magic. It's a miracle. It's a miracle...

Effusive praise. Drudge also didn't think it was anti semitic. But another interesting quote at the end was this, after the mention of Huffington in CA:

Well, it's going to be progressive with her and Schwarzenegger. I vote for Mel Gibson, however, to run for the governor of California, and he will correct that state in a heartbeat.

In support of Pythagosaurus' views on the RIAA. Well, some of them. Check it out. The King of Pop, el supremo freako, has something in common with our beloved Johno. Whooda thunkit?

My favorite drink that I never enjoyed is the Marion Berry - which I mentioned once in a previous blog life. The recipe:

1oz Bourbon
1oz Jaegermeister
1oz Kahlua
1oz Coke

This drink was invented by Jonah Goldberg and his friends, who wanted to create a drink, "So black, not even the man can keep it down."

Aside from that, I have always enjoyed this nasty concoction - the gin gimlet - which I picked up from Raymond Chandler:

3oz Devil Gin
1oz Rose's Lime
mix, shake with ice, strain, drink and grimace