I was vexed by some aspects of the NEA's Big Read list so I thought I'd look at the Modern Library list instead. This list was also controversial when it came out, not least because the #1 book on the list is an impenetrable fog of absinthe-laced stream-of-consciousness that few people ever really enjoyed or understood. But what the hey, let's look at the list, shall we? After the jump?
1 Ulysses – James Joyce
2 The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
3 Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
4 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
5 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
6 The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
7 Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
8 Darkness at Noon – Arthur Koestler
9 Sons and Lovers – D.H. Lawrence
10 The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
11 Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry
12 The Way of All Flesh – Samuel Butler
13 1984 – George Orwell
14 I, Claudius – Robert Graves
15 To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
16 An American Tragedy – Theodore Dreiser
17 The Heart is a Lonely Hunter – Carson McCullers
18 Slaugterhouse-Five – Kurt Vonnegut
19 Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
20 Native Son – Richard Wright
21 Henderson the Rain King – Saul Bellow
22 Appointment in Samarra – John O'Hara
23 U.S.A. – John dos Passos
24 Winesburg, Ohio – Sherwood Anderson
25 A Passage to India – E.M. Forster
26 The Wings of the Dove – Henry James
27 The Ambassadors – Henry James
28 Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
29 The Studs Lonigan Trilogy – James T Farrell
30 The Good Soldier – Ford Madox Ford
31 Animal Farm – George Orwell
32 The Golden Bowl – Henry James
33 Sister Carrie – Theodore Dreiser
34 A Handful of Dust – Evelyn Waugh
35 As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner
36 All the King's Men – Robert Penn Warren
37 The Bridge of San Luis Rey – Thornton Wilder
38 Howard's End – E.M. Forster
39 Go Tell it on the Mountain – James Baldwin
40 The Heart of the Matter – Graham Greene
41 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
42 Deliverance – James Dickey
43 A Dance to the Music of Time – Anthony Powell
44 Point Counterpoint – Aldous Huxley
45 The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
46 The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad
47 Nostromo – Joseph Conrad
48 The Rainbow – D.H. Lawrence
49 Women in Love – D.H. Lawrence
50 Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller
51 The Naked and the Dead – Norman Mailer
52 Portnoy's Complaint – Philip Roth
53 Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
54 Light in August – William Faulkner
55 On the Road – Jack Kerouac
56 The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett
57 Parade's End – Ford Madox Ford
58 The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
59 Zuleika Dobson – Max Beerbohm
60 The Moviegoer – Walker Percy
61 Death Comes for the Archbishop – Willa Cather
62 From Here to Eternity – James Jones
63 The Wapshot Chronicles – John Cheever
64 The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
65 A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
66 Of Human Bondage – W. Somerset Maugham
67 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
68 Main Street – Sinclair Lewis
69 The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton
70 The Alexandria Quartet – Lawrence Durrell
71 A High Wind in Jamaica – Richard Hughes
72 A House for Mr. Biswas – V.S. Naipaul
73 The Day of the Locust – Nathanael West
74 A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
75 Scoop – Evelyn Waugh
76 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
77 Finnegans Wake – James Joyce
78 Kim – Rudyard Kipling
79 A Room With a View – E.M. Forster
80 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
81 The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
82 Angle of Repose – Wallace Stegner
83 A Bend in the River – V.S. Naipaul
84 The Death of the Heart – Elizabeth Bowen
85 Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad
86 Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow
87 The Old Wives' Tale – Arnold Bennett
88 The Call of the Wild – Jack London
89 Loving – Henry Green
90 Midnight's Children – Salman Rushdie
91 Tobacco Road – Erskine Caldwell
92 Ironweed – William Kennedy
93 The Magus – John Fowles
94 Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
95 Under the Net – Iris Murdoch
96 Sophie's Choice – William Styron
97 The Sheltering Sky – Paul Bowles
98 The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain
99 The Ginger Man – J.P. Donleavy
100 The Magnificent Ambersons – Booth Tarkington
So on this list I've only read 12. But many of them are things I've no intention of ever bothering with, starting with number one, Ulysses. I'm not going to put 18 months of my time into a book I won't really understand even after I finish it the third time. I might someday consider Finnegan's Wake, but as a rule I'm not impressed by books that only 1% of readers will ever actually understand, and I refuse to be one of those people who's read Ulysses, and didn't like or understand it, but claims it's this wonderful work of literature so that they'll sound smart.
30 June 2008
Modern Library's Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century
I was vexed by some aspects of the NEA's Big Read list so I thought I'd look at the Modern Library list instead. This list was also controversial when it came out, not least because the #1 book on the list is an impenetrable fog of absinthe-laced stream-of-consciousness that few people ever really enjoyed or understood. But what the hey, let's look at the list, shall we? After the jump?
1 Ulysses – James Joyce
2 The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
3 Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
4 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
5 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
6 The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
7 Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
8 Darkness at Noon – Arthur Koestler
9 Sons and Lovers – D.H. Lawrence
10 The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
11 Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry
12 The Way of All Flesh – Samuel Butler
13 1984 – George Orwell
14 I, Claudius – Robert Graves
15 To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
16 An American Tragedy – Theodore Dreiser
17 The Heart is a Lonely Hunter – Carson McCullers
18 Slaugterhouse-Five – Kurt Vonnegut
19 Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
20 Native Son – Richard Wright
21 Henderson the Rain King – Saul Bellow
22 Appointment in Samarra – John O'Hara
23 U.S.A. – John dos Passos
24 Winesburg, Ohio – Sherwood Anderson
25 A Passage to India – E.M. Forster
26 The Wings of the Dove – Henry James
27 The Ambassadors – Henry James
28 Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
29 The Studs Lonigan Trilogy – James T Farrell
30 The Good Soldier – Ford Madox Ford
31 Animal Farm – George Orwell
32 The Golden Bowl – Henry James
33 Sister Carrie – Theodore Dreiser
34 A Handful of Dust – Evelyn Waugh
35 As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner
36 All the King's Men – Robert Penn Warren
37 The Bridge of San Luis Rey – Thornton Wilder
38 Howard's End – E.M. Forster
39 Go Tell it on the Mountain – James Baldwin
40 The Heart of the Matter – Graham Greene
41 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
42 Deliverance – James Dickey
43 A Dance to the Music of Time – Anthony Powell
44 Point Counterpoint – Aldous Huxley
45 The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
46 The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad
47 Nostromo – Joseph Conrad
48 The Rainbow – D.H. Lawrence
49 Women in Love – D.H. Lawrence
50 Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller
51 The Naked and the Dead – Norman Mailer
52 Portnoy's Complaint – Philip Roth
53 Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
54 Light in August – William Faulkner
55 On the Road – Jack Kerouac
56 The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett
57 Parade's End – Ford Madox Ford
58 The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
59 Zuleika Dobson – Max Beerbohm
60 The Moviegoer – Walker Percy
61 Death Comes for the Archbishop – Willa Cather
62 From Here to Eternity – James Jones
63 The Wapshot Chronicles – John Cheever
64 The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
65 A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
66 Of Human Bondage – W. Somerset Maugham
67 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
68 Main Street – Sinclair Lewis
69 The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton
70 The Alexandria Quartet – Lawrence Durrell
71 A High Wind in Jamaica – Richard Hughes
72 A House for Mr. Biswas – V.S. Naipaul
73 The Day of the Locust – Nathanael West
74 A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
75 Scoop – Evelyn Waugh
76 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
77 Finnegans Wake – James Joyce
78 Kim – Rudyard Kipling
79 A Room With a View – E.M. Forster
80 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
81 The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
82 Angle of Repose – Wallace Stegner
83 A Bend in the River – V.S. Naipaul
84 The Death of the Heart – Elizabeth Bowen
85 Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad
86 Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow
87 The Old Wives' Tale – Arnold Bennett
88 The Call of the Wild – Jack London
89 Loving – Henry Green
90 Midnight's Children – Salman Rushdie
91 Tobacco Road – Erskine Caldwell
92 Ironweed – William Kennedy
93 The Magus – John Fowles
94 Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
95 Under the Net – Iris Murdoch
96 Sophie's Choice – William Styron
97 The Sheltering Sky – Paul Bowles
98 The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain
99 The Ginger Man – J.P. Donleavy
100 The Magnificent Ambersons – Booth Tarkington
So on this list I've only read 12. But many of them are things I've no intention of ever bothering with, starting with number one, Ulysses. I'm not going to put 18 months of my time into a book I won't really understand even after I finish it the third time. I might someday consider Finnegan's Wake, but as a rule I'm not impressed by books that only 1% of readers will ever actually understand, and I refuse to be one of those people who's read Ulysses, and didn't like or understand it, but claims it's this wonderful work of literature so that they'll sound smart.
1 Ulysses – James Joyce
2 The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
3 Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
4 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
5 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
6 The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
7 Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
8 Darkness at Noon – Arthur Koestler
9 Sons and Lovers – D.H. Lawrence
10 The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
11 Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry
12 The Way of All Flesh – Samuel Butler
13 1984 – George Orwell
14 I, Claudius – Robert Graves
15 To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
16 An American Tragedy – Theodore Dreiser
17 The Heart is a Lonely Hunter – Carson McCullers
18 Slaugterhouse-Five – Kurt Vonnegut
19 Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
20 Native Son – Richard Wright
21 Henderson the Rain King – Saul Bellow
22 Appointment in Samarra – John O'Hara
23 U.S.A. – John dos Passos
24 Winesburg, Ohio – Sherwood Anderson
25 A Passage to India – E.M. Forster
26 The Wings of the Dove – Henry James
27 The Ambassadors – Henry James
28 Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
29 The Studs Lonigan Trilogy – James T Farrell
30 The Good Soldier – Ford Madox Ford
31 Animal Farm – George Orwell
32 The Golden Bowl – Henry James
33 Sister Carrie – Theodore Dreiser
34 A Handful of Dust – Evelyn Waugh
35 As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner
36 All the King's Men – Robert Penn Warren
37 The Bridge of San Luis Rey – Thornton Wilder
38 Howard's End – E.M. Forster
39 Go Tell it on the Mountain – James Baldwin
40 The Heart of the Matter – Graham Greene
41 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
42 Deliverance – James Dickey
43 A Dance to the Music of Time – Anthony Powell
44 Point Counterpoint – Aldous Huxley
45 The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
46 The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad
47 Nostromo – Joseph Conrad
48 The Rainbow – D.H. Lawrence
49 Women in Love – D.H. Lawrence
50 Tropic of Cancer – Henry Miller
51 The Naked and the Dead – Norman Mailer
52 Portnoy's Complaint – Philip Roth
53 Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov
54 Light in August – William Faulkner
55 On the Road – Jack Kerouac
56 The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett
57 Parade's End – Ford Madox Ford
58 The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
59 Zuleika Dobson – Max Beerbohm
60 The Moviegoer – Walker Percy
61 Death Comes for the Archbishop – Willa Cather
62 From Here to Eternity – James Jones
63 The Wapshot Chronicles – John Cheever
64 The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
65 A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
66 Of Human Bondage – W. Somerset Maugham
67 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
68 Main Street – Sinclair Lewis
69 The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton
70 The Alexandria Quartet – Lawrence Durrell
71 A High Wind in Jamaica – Richard Hughes
72 A House for Mr. Biswas – V.S. Naipaul
73 The Day of the Locust – Nathanael West
74 A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
75 Scoop – Evelyn Waugh
76 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Muriel Spark
77 Finnegans Wake – James Joyce
78 Kim – Rudyard Kipling
79 A Room With a View – E.M. Forster
80 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
81 The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
82 Angle of Repose – Wallace Stegner
83 A Bend in the River – V.S. Naipaul
84 The Death of the Heart – Elizabeth Bowen
85 Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad
86 Ragtime – E.L. Doctorow
87 The Old Wives' Tale – Arnold Bennett
88 The Call of the Wild – Jack London
89 Loving – Henry Green
90 Midnight's Children – Salman Rushdie
91 Tobacco Road – Erskine Caldwell
92 Ironweed – William Kennedy
93 The Magus – John Fowles
94 Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
95 Under the Net – Iris Murdoch
96 Sophie's Choice – William Styron
97 The Sheltering Sky – Paul Bowles
98 The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain
99 The Ginger Man – J.P. Donleavy
100 The Magnificent Ambersons – Booth Tarkington
So on this list I've only read 12. But many of them are things I've no intention of ever bothering with, starting with number one, Ulysses. I'm not going to put 18 months of my time into a book I won't really understand even after I finish it the third time. I might someday consider Finnegan's Wake, but as a rule I'm not impressed by books that only 1% of readers will ever actually understand, and I refuse to be one of those people who's read Ulysses, and didn't like or understand it, but claims it's this wonderful work of literature so that they'll sound smart.
Celebrate June 30
On 30 June, 1864, President Lincoln granted the Yosemite Valley to the state of California for "public use, resort, and recreation," to be held for those purposes "for all time." I mean come on, did you see the pictures I posted from our honeymoon? This is totally cause for celebration; this would be a grimmer world indeed were the Yosemite Valley to be carved up into golf course subdivisions or buried under a reservoir. Plus it's an excuse for me to post this picture again!
Celebrate the 29th a day late!
I can't believe I actually missed the 29th! Here it is:
I was going to suggest celebrating the one-year birthday of the iPhone today, but since I don't own one, and the odds are that you don't own one (unless you're Officer Whetstone), I've got something way better. Five days ago (I write these in advance so sometimes I miss things like this) the state of Florida entered into an agreement to purchase 187,000 acres of land from the U.S. Sugar Corporation. Why does that matter to you? Well, these 187,000 acres (which will be leased back to U.S. Sugar for five years while they shut down their operation) happen to be among the most important acres for the future preservation of the Everglades. And it's the first step in what I believe will be the ultimate demise of the sugar industry in Florida. And what happens when the sugar industry in Florida goes away? Louisiana doesn't grow enough to supply the American market by itself, so once the Florida sugar industry dries up the government will be forced to allow imports of sugar from places where it's much much cheaper and less environmentally detrimental to grow it, and the price of sugar—and thus of most prepackaged foods—will fall. It may even fall enough to displace High Fructose Corn Syrup as the sweetener of choice for American food producers. Oh, you didn't know that the only reason HFCR is so popular is because sugar is too expensive in this country? Just wait; with the continuing increase in corn prices, if American sugar prices were permitted to reflect the market and not our idiotic protectionist agriculture policy, you'd see more sodas and other products sweetened with cane juice and sugar instead of HFCR. Sugar is no health food, but it's better than HFCR. I think ten years from now we'll recognize this event not just for its positive environmental impact, but also for it's positive dietary impact. Why not toast this wonderful development by reading my Everglades story while drinking your favorite sugar-sweetened beverage?
I was going to suggest celebrating the one-year birthday of the iPhone today, but since I don't own one, and the odds are that you don't own one (unless you're Officer Whetstone), I've got something way better. Five days ago (I write these in advance so sometimes I miss things like this) the state of Florida entered into an agreement to purchase 187,000 acres of land from the U.S. Sugar Corporation. Why does that matter to you? Well, these 187,000 acres (which will be leased back to U.S. Sugar for five years while they shut down their operation) happen to be among the most important acres for the future preservation of the Everglades. And it's the first step in what I believe will be the ultimate demise of the sugar industry in Florida. And what happens when the sugar industry in Florida goes away? Louisiana doesn't grow enough to supply the American market by itself, so once the Florida sugar industry dries up the government will be forced to allow imports of sugar from places where it's much much cheaper and less environmentally detrimental to grow it, and the price of sugar—and thus of most prepackaged foods—will fall. It may even fall enough to displace High Fructose Corn Syrup as the sweetener of choice for American food producers. Oh, you didn't know that the only reason HFCR is so popular is because sugar is too expensive in this country? Just wait; with the continuing increase in corn prices, if American sugar prices were permitted to reflect the market and not our idiotic protectionist agriculture policy, you'd see more sodas and other products sweetened with cane juice and sugar instead of HFCR. Sugar is no health food, but it's better than HFCR. I think ten years from now we'll recognize this event not just for its positive environmental impact, but also for it's positive dietary impact. Why not toast this wonderful development by reading my Everglades story while drinking your favorite sugar-sweetened beverage?
28 June 2008
The Big Read
I'm stealing this blog thingy from Smittywife's good friend Starskin.
I will preface this with the following three comments:
1) The list is highly suspect
2) I'm doing this instead of reviewing several books that aren't on this list.
3) Ayzair, you are so tagged for this! Everybody else who wants to is, too.
The Big Read is an NEA program designed to encourage community reading initiatives. They've come up with this list of the top 100 books, using criteria they don't explain and that are highly suspect (The DaVinci Code? AYFKM? His Dark Materials? Lots of questionable choices here, and why both Chronicles of Narnia and TLTWATW...), and they estimate that the average adult has only read 6 of these. So, we are encouraged to:
1) Look at the list and bold those we have read.
2) Italicize those we intend to read.
3) Underline the books we LOVE
4) Reprint this list in our own blogs
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of ShakespeareOkay, seriously, I've only read about... 30% of Shakespeare, but I'm bolding it anyway
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Okay, so that's 28. Not too shabby. As I said to Smittywife (who has the list on her blog, too) what's more of a concern to me is the number of great classics on this list that I have no intention to read, no desire at all. War and Peace. Anna Karenina. Wuthering Heights. Emma.
I think I'm going to go look at the Library Association's list of 100 Greatest Books and see how many of those I've read.
I will preface this with the following three comments:
1) The list is highly suspect
2) I'm doing this instead of reviewing several books that aren't on this list.
3) Ayzair, you are so tagged for this! Everybody else who wants to is, too.
The Big Read is an NEA program designed to encourage community reading initiatives. They've come up with this list of the top 100 books, using criteria they don't explain and that are highly suspect (The DaVinci Code? AYFKM? His Dark Materials? Lots of questionable choices here, and why both Chronicles of Narnia and TLTWATW...), and they estimate that the average adult has only read 6 of these. So, we are encouraged to:
1) Look at the list and bold those we have read.
2) Italicize those we intend to read.
3) Underline the books we LOVE
4) Reprint this list in our own blogs
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of ShakespeareOkay, seriously, I've only read about... 30% of Shakespeare, but I'm bolding it anyway
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Okay, so that's 28. Not too shabby. As I said to Smittywife (who has the list on her blog, too) what's more of a concern to me is the number of great classics on this list that I have no intention to read, no desire at all. War and Peace. Anna Karenina. Wuthering Heights. Emma.
I think I'm going to go look at the Library Association's list of 100 Greatest Books and see how many of those I've read.
The Big Read
I'm stealing this blog thingy from Smittywife's good friend Starskin.
I will preface this with the following three comments:
1) The list is highly suspect
2) I'm doing this instead of reviewing several books that aren't on this list.
3) Ayzair, you are so tagged for this! Everybody else who wants to is, too.
The Big Read is an NEA program designed to encourage community reading initiatives. They've come up with this list of the top 100 books, using criteria they don't explain and that are highly suspect (The DaVinci Code? AYFKM? His Dark Materials? Lots of questionable choices here, and why both Chronicles of Narnia and TLTWATW...), and they estimate that the average adult has only read 6 of these. So, we are encouraged to:
1) Look at the list and bold those we have read.
2) Italicize those we intend to read.
3) Underline the books we LOVE
4) Reprint this list in our own blogs
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of ShakespeareOkay, seriously, I've only read about... 30% of Shakespeare, but I'm bolding it anyway
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Okay, so that's 28. Not too shabby. As I said to Smittywife (who has the list on her blog, too) what's more of a concern to me is the number of great classics on this list that I have no intention to read, no desire at all. War and Peace. Anna Karenina. Wuthering Heights. Emma.
I think I'm going to go look at the Library Association's list of 100 Greatest Books and see how many of those I've read.
I will preface this with the following three comments:
1) The list is highly suspect
2) I'm doing this instead of reviewing several books that aren't on this list.
3) Ayzair, you are so tagged for this! Everybody else who wants to is, too.
The Big Read is an NEA program designed to encourage community reading initiatives. They've come up with this list of the top 100 books, using criteria they don't explain and that are highly suspect (The DaVinci Code? AYFKM? His Dark Materials? Lots of questionable choices here, and why both Chronicles of Narnia and TLTWATW...), and they estimate that the average adult has only read 6 of these. So, we are encouraged to:
1) Look at the list and bold those we have read.
2) Italicize those we intend to read.
3) Underline the books we LOVE
4) Reprint this list in our own blogs
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of ShakespeareOkay, seriously, I've only read about... 30% of Shakespeare, but I'm bolding it anyway
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Okay, so that's 28. Not too shabby. As I said to Smittywife (who has the list on her blog, too) what's more of a concern to me is the number of great classics on this list that I have no intention to read, no desire at all. War and Peace. Anna Karenina. Wuthering Heights. Emma.
I think I'm going to go look at the Library Association's list of 100 Greatest Books and see how many of those I've read.
June 28
28 June (that is, 6/28) is the only date on the calendar year where both the day and the month are perfect numbers. A perfect number is one that is the sum of its positive divisors, excluding itself. Both 6 and 28 are perfect numbers; the next one is 496. A number's divisors are those numbers which, when multiplied, equal the number: 1x6=6, and 2x3=6. So the positive divisors of 6 are 1, 2, and 3. Add those together and you get 6. For 28, it's 1, 2, 4, 7, and 14. What does all this mean? Absolutely nothing. And it probably won't impress your date tonight (unless she's into math nerds). But by God if you can't celebrate something pointless and absurd then how can you celebrate anything at all?
27 June 2008
Celebrate June 27
On 27 June 1923, Capt Lowell H. Smith and Lt John P. Richter performed the first ever inflight refueling, in a DH4B biplane (an early DeHavilland); they received 75 gallons of fuel from a tanker (also a DH4B) flown by Lts Virgil Hine and Frank Seifert. Smith and Hine flew the aircraft while Richter and Seifert handled the refueling duties; essentially, Seifert dangled a 50-foot length of rubber house out of the back cockpit, while Smith flew the aircraft into position so that Richter could reach out and grab the hose. Richter then plugged it into an opening in the gas tank, and he and Seifert both opened manual quick-release valves at each end of the hose. The fuel was then gravity transferred; no pumps. We've come a long way since those days, but everything starts somewhere. Take a look at this picture; in the larger resolution you can actually see Lt Richter standing up in the back of receiver aircraft to grab the hose. In the early days of aviation most pilots were relatively crazy, as this demonstrates; you could argue that not much has changed.
In Praise of Lapsang Souchong
Smittywife hates it. But on a dreary, overcast morning like this, after a sleepless night, there is simply no more enjoyable way to clear the cobwebs than sitting on the porch with a nice cup of lapsang souchong tea, with a few grains of sugar and a splash of milk. Mmmmm. Satisfying.
26 June 2008
2nd Amendment Implies Right to Own A Gun
Although I am both a staunch advocate of gun control and an opponent generally of firearms, the thing that surprises me most about today's Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller is that four members of the court managed to find restrictions. Of course after the majority's bizarre logic in yesterday's decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana (and considering that most of the majority in that case make up the the dissenting minority in this case) I shouldn't be surprised. I look forward to reading both the majority opinion and the dissents.
Yesterday and today have put me in the unusual position of agreeing with the conservative wing of the court in two big decisions despite my usual political leanings. I used to write posts about big-name SCOTUS opinions, not because I have any expert analysis to bring to the table but because they interest me I enjoy writing such posts. I may have to do so again; at least three have come down in the last month that I've been interested in--especially so in Kennedy, a case I wouldn't normally have cared much about but for the devastating dissent by Justice Alito (the first decision/dissent of his I've read since he joined the Court that I thought was really brilliant). I think I'll work on posts about these three decisions, but right now I'm going to continue working on applications and cover letters.
Yesterday and today have put me in the unusual position of agreeing with the conservative wing of the court in two big decisions despite my usual political leanings. I used to write posts about big-name SCOTUS opinions, not because I have any expert analysis to bring to the table but because they interest me I enjoy writing such posts. I may have to do so again; at least three have come down in the last month that I've been interested in--especially so in Kennedy, a case I wouldn't normally have cared much about but for the devastating dissent by Justice Alito (the first decision/dissent of his I've read since he joined the Court that I thought was really brilliant). I think I'll work on posts about these three decisions, but right now I'm going to continue working on applications and cover letters.
Celebrate Christmas in June!
On 26 June 1870, the United States government officially declared Christmas a national holiday. I don't think you need a better reason to celebrate. Only 181 shopping days left!
25 June 2008
Vote For A Name!!!
Okay people. Even if you've never posted a comment here before... even if you've never even been here before and were looking for something else, please, we need your help:
Name Our Kitten!!!
You've seen the pictures (and if you haven't they are here). So here are the names we are considering. Please only vote for one of these names (only one day left!):
Artemis (Greek goddess of the hunt, of wild animals, and of the moon (cat's a lunatic))
Caffeine (She's a bundle of energy; and when she's old and sleeps all day it will amusing and ironic)
Fetish (She attacks our feet all the time)
Quark (Has both literary and physics references; sounds better for a girl than "Schrodinger")
Tribble (She's trouble, she purrs... I already went through this)
Tumbleweed (She tumbles around, she curls up into a little ball, she blew into our lives...)
Please vote!!!!
Name Our Kitten!!!
You've seen the pictures (and if you haven't they are here). So here are the names we are considering. Please only vote for one of these names (only one day left!):
Artemis (Greek goddess of the hunt, of wild animals, and of the moon (cat's a lunatic))
Caffeine (She's a bundle of energy; and when she's old and sleeps all day it will amusing and ironic)
Fetish (She attacks our feet all the time)
Quark (Has both literary and physics references; sounds better for a girl than "Schrodinger")
Tribble (She's trouble, she purrs... I already went through this)
Tumbleweed (She tumbles around, she curls up into a little ball, she blew into our lives...)
Please vote!!!!
Footprints Across the South
This morning I finished James Kautz' book Bartram's Trail Revisited. There has been a minor upsurge in interest in William Bartram in the last decade or so, and Kautz began working to retrace Bartram's trail in 2001, while living and teaching in the Atlanta area. My review is after the jump.Several works have been written about Bartram, about his travels (not least, of course, Bartrams Travels); about the flora and fauna he collected, identified, was the first European to see and name; and about the land over which he traveled. Kautz has taken a different view: this book is about what the land looks like now. He is not a fanatic follower of the exact path Bartram trod (indeed, the exact path is not known, what with GPS not being invented until 200 years later and all; very good estimations are made based on Bartram's accounts but in some places all we can do is get within 10 or 20 miles of the likely path), but instead visits the places Bartram wrote about, and looks to see what they are like today.
It's a very enjoyable read--though I'll admit if you aren't from the South or at least haven't lived here you probably won't be that interested--and spans all sorts of topics. Kautz gets into history and politics, he visits both natural places and developed ones, he discusses issues of race and class (which sadly still pervade the South at every level), he talks about fishing and canoeing, and about shopping and restaurants.
The book is not written chronologically; it is laid out in roughly the order in which Bartram traveled, but Kautz took his own trips where and when he could over the course of five years. Though certainly you'll learn some things about Bartram from this book, really, it's a look at the world Bartram visited, 230 years later. What would the man see if he took the trip today?
Kautz manages to avoid being too pro-environment here, and certainly he understands the need of people to have jobs and places to live and things to eat. He is no starry-eyed tree-hugger bemoaning the loss of the wilderness Bartram traversed. But neither is he blind to the devastation Americans have wrought on their landscape, both physically and culturally. Consequently the book is not depressing or sad, although it could be. Instead it's an enjoyable read, thought-provoking for any resident of the South, and a good introduction into the world of William Bartram. It's not the best book I've read this year (I think it will be tough to top Emergency Sex), but I can certainly recommend it.
Footprints Across the South
This morning I finished James Kautz' book Bartram's Trail Revisited. There has been a minor upsurge in interest in William Bartram in the last decade or so, and Kautz began working to retrace Bartram's trail in 2001, while living and teaching in the Atlanta area. My review is after the jump.Several works have been written about Bartram, about his travels (not least, of course, Bartrams Travels); about the flora and fauna he collected, identified, was the first European to see and name; and about the land over which he traveled. Kautz has taken a different view: this book is about what the land looks like now. He is not a fanatic follower of the exact path Bartram trod (indeed, the exact path is not known, what with GPS not being invented until 200 years later and all; very good estimations are made based on Bartram's accounts but in some places all we can do is get within 10 or 20 miles of the likely path), but instead visits the places Bartram wrote about, and looks to see what they are like today.
It's a very enjoyable read--though I'll admit if you aren't from the South or at least haven't lived here you probably won't be that interested--and spans all sorts of topics. Kautz gets into history and politics, he visits both natural places and developed ones, he discusses issues of race and class (which sadly still pervade the South at every level), he talks about fishing and canoeing, and about shopping and restaurants.
The book is not written chronologically; it is laid out in roughly the order in which Bartram traveled, but Kautz took his own trips where and when he could over the course of five years. Though certainly you'll learn some things about Bartram from this book, really, it's a look at the world Bartram visited, 230 years later. What would the man see if he took the trip today?
Kautz manages to avoid being too pro-environment here, and certainly he understands the need of people to have jobs and places to live and things to eat. He is no starry-eyed tree-hugger bemoaning the loss of the wilderness Bartram traversed. But neither is he blind to the devastation Americans have wrought on their landscape, both physically and culturally. Consequently the book is not depressing or sad, although it could be. Instead it's an enjoyable read, thought-provoking for any resident of the South, and a good introduction into the world of William Bartram. It's not the best book I've read this year (I think it will be tough to top Emergency Sex), but I can certainly recommend it.
Celebration for 25 June
Today is the birthday of Canadian writer Yann Martel (in 1963). His 2001 novel Life of Pi is one of my favorite books, a beautiful work of magical realism that deals with issues of spirituality and the nature of truth. I read it before I started reviewing books on this blog but I highly recommend it. You can drop by your local library today and check out a copy.
24 June 2008
Celebrate 24 June
It's summer! In Florida summer is actually the worst time of the year, but for most of the country summer is a special season, the season for grilling outdoors, staying out late, catching fireflies, camping, fishing… all sorts of wonderful things. Just think about the great produce that comes in season this time of year: big beefsteak tomatoes, corn-on-the-cob (I like it on the grill), eggplants and peppers, watermelon, cantaloupe, raspberries and blackberries… mmm. The list goes on. I've got a fresh local cantaloupe in the fridge right now. Summer is always an excuse to celebrate.
23 June 2008
Smitty's List of Books, Lists 3-6
This post is mainly for me, so that I can find this information later. There were probably other places to put it but this one is easy to find, especially insofar as I may be getting a new computer in the relatively near term, and having this info in "the cloud," (Google's term for the internet) is probably for the best. If we sell the house, of course. So this is two lists of books here at the house that I haven't read yet--not all of which I am yearning to read anytime soon--and two more lists of books I would like to read. Mainly the first two lists are to scare me away from doing anything about the second two lists for at least a couple of months. Theoretically this will help me give form to my book buying, and also get me to read more. If I read four books from list three and two books from list four, I can buy a book from each of lists five and six. (Lists 1 and 2 are books I've already read and still own, and I don't need to put that here.) So this should encourage me to read off lists 3 and 4 since there are actually two books on list 5 that are contemporaneous enough I want to read them very soon, before they are overtaken by events. I should spend more of my downtime reading.
3. Nonfiction Books I Own And Haven't Read
On The Wealth of Nations, P.J. O'Rourke
General Washington's Christmas Farewell, Stanley Weintraub
The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell, John Crawford
Peace Kills, P.J. O'Rourke
When A Crocodile Eats The Sun, Peter Godwin
Notes From The Five States of Texas, A.C. Greene
Dark Star Safari, Paul Theroux
American Sphinx, Joseph J. Ellis
John Glenn, a Memoir, John Glenn
Flight: My Life in Mission Control, Chris Kraft
Failure is Not An Option, Gene Kranz
Lost Moon, Jim Lovell
Schirra's Space, Wally Schirra
The Victors, Stephen A. Ambrose
The Wilde Blue, Stephen A. Ambrose
Cradle Crew, Kenneth K. Blyth
Thud Ridge, Jack Broughton
The American Home Front, Alistair Cooke
Winged Victory, Geoffrey Perret
Passage to Union, Sarah H. Gordon
Consolidation: Jacksonville and Duval County, Richard Martin
Made in Detroit, Paul Clemens
The Intellectuals Speak Out About God, ed. Roy Varghese
United States: Essays, 1952-1992, Gore Vidal
4. Fiction Books I Own And Haven't Read
Primary Colors, Anonymous
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Peter and the Starcatchers, Dave Barry
The Hornet's Nest, Jimmy Carter
Don Quixote, Miguel Cervantes
The Entitled, Frank DeFord
Train Man, P.T. Deuterman
The Alexandria Quartet, Lawrence Durrell
Short Lines, ed. Rob Johnson
The Grand Conspiracy, William Penn
Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
5. Nonfiction Desiderata
River of Lakes, Bill Belleville
The Translator, Daoud Hari
A Long way Gone, Ishmael Beah
Nine Hills to Nambonkaha, Sarah Erdman
Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen
The Caliph's House, Tahir Shah
A Small Place, Jamaica Kincaid
River Town, Peter Hessler
Getting Stoned with Savages, J. Marten Troost
Honeymoon With My Brother, Franz Wisner
The Geography of Bliss, Eric Weiner
The Ends of the Earth, Robert D. Kaplan
Central Asia's Second Chance, Martha Brill Olcott
His Excellency, Joseph J. Ellis
1776, David McCullough
Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond
Life in the Valley of Death, Alan Rabinowitz
The Bottom Billion, Paul Collier
How to Play in Traffic, Penn & Teller
At the Edge of Space: The X-15 Program, Milton O. Thompson
A Man On The Moon, Expanded Edition, Andrew Chaikin
Moon Lander, Tom Kelly
Last Man on the Moon, Gene Cernan
The Wrong Stuff?, Phil Scott
American Modern, J. Stewart Johnson
Full Moon, Michael Light
6. Fiction Desiderata
What is the What, Dave Eggers
Anthills of the Savannah, Chinua Achebe
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
A Canticle For Liebowitz, Walter Miller Jr
Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson
Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
Hackers, ed. Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid
Run, Ann Patchett
Lamb, Christopher Moore
Windy City, Scott Simon
Bangkok 8, John Burdett
Nature Girl, Carl Hiaasen
The Laughing Sutra, Mark Salzman
The Inner Circle, T.C. Boyle
Thank You For Smoking, Christopher Buckley
Ninety-two In the Shade, Tom McGuane
The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren
The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow
Portnoy's Complaint, Philip Roth
Dog Soldiers, Robert Stone
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis
Henderson the Rain King, Saul Bellow
The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene
At Swim-Two-Birds, Flann O'Brien
A Bend in the River, V.S. Naipaul
Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis
3. Nonfiction Books I Own And Haven't Read
On The Wealth of Nations, P.J. O'Rourke
General Washington's Christmas Farewell, Stanley Weintraub
The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell, John Crawford
Peace Kills, P.J. O'Rourke
When A Crocodile Eats The Sun, Peter Godwin
Notes From The Five States of Texas, A.C. Greene
Dark Star Safari, Paul Theroux
American Sphinx, Joseph J. Ellis
John Glenn, a Memoir, John Glenn
Flight: My Life in Mission Control, Chris Kraft
Failure is Not An Option, Gene Kranz
Lost Moon, Jim Lovell
Schirra's Space, Wally Schirra
The Victors, Stephen A. Ambrose
The Wilde Blue, Stephen A. Ambrose
Cradle Crew, Kenneth K. Blyth
Thud Ridge, Jack Broughton
The American Home Front, Alistair Cooke
Winged Victory, Geoffrey Perret
Passage to Union, Sarah H. Gordon
Consolidation: Jacksonville and Duval County, Richard Martin
Made in Detroit, Paul Clemens
The Intellectuals Speak Out About God, ed. Roy Varghese
United States: Essays, 1952-1992, Gore Vidal
4. Fiction Books I Own And Haven't Read
Primary Colors, Anonymous
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Peter and the Starcatchers, Dave Barry
The Hornet's Nest, Jimmy Carter
Don Quixote, Miguel Cervantes
The Entitled, Frank DeFord
Train Man, P.T. Deuterman
The Alexandria Quartet, Lawrence Durrell
Short Lines, ed. Rob Johnson
The Grand Conspiracy, William Penn
Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
5. Nonfiction Desiderata
River of Lakes, Bill Belleville
The Translator, Daoud Hari
A Long way Gone, Ishmael Beah
Nine Hills to Nambonkaha, Sarah Erdman
Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen
The Caliph's House, Tahir Shah
A Small Place, Jamaica Kincaid
River Town, Peter Hessler
Getting Stoned with Savages, J. Marten Troost
Honeymoon With My Brother, Franz Wisner
The Geography of Bliss, Eric Weiner
The Ends of the Earth, Robert D. Kaplan
Central Asia's Second Chance, Martha Brill Olcott
His Excellency, Joseph J. Ellis
1776, David McCullough
Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond
Life in the Valley of Death, Alan Rabinowitz
The Bottom Billion, Paul Collier
How to Play in Traffic, Penn & Teller
At the Edge of Space: The X-15 Program, Milton O. Thompson
A Man On The Moon, Expanded Edition, Andrew Chaikin
Moon Lander, Tom Kelly
Last Man on the Moon, Gene Cernan
The Wrong Stuff?, Phil Scott
American Modern, J. Stewart Johnson
Full Moon, Michael Light
6. Fiction Desiderata
What is the What, Dave Eggers
Anthills of the Savannah, Chinua Achebe
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
A Canticle For Liebowitz, Walter Miller Jr
Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson
Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
Hackers, ed. Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid
Run, Ann Patchett
Lamb, Christopher Moore
Windy City, Scott Simon
Bangkok 8, John Burdett
Nature Girl, Carl Hiaasen
The Laughing Sutra, Mark Salzman
The Inner Circle, T.C. Boyle
Thank You For Smoking, Christopher Buckley
Ninety-two In the Shade, Tom McGuane
The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren
The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow
Portnoy's Complaint, Philip Roth
Dog Soldiers, Robert Stone
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis
Henderson the Rain King, Saul Bellow
The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene
At Swim-Two-Birds, Flann O'Brien
A Bend in the River, V.S. Naipaul
Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis
Smitty's List of Books, Lists 3-6
This post is mainly for me, so that I can find this information later. There were probably other places to put it but this one is easy to find, especially insofar as I may be getting a new computer in the relatively near term, and having this info in "the cloud," (Google's term for the internet) is probably for the best. If we sell the house, of course. So this is two lists of books here at the house that I haven't read yet--not all of which I am yearning to read anytime soon--and two more lists of books I would like to read. Mainly the first two lists are to scare me away from doing anything about the second two lists for at least a couple of months. Theoretically this will help me give form to my book buying, and also get me to read more. If I read four books from list three and two books from list four, I can buy a book from each of lists five and six. (Lists 1 and 2 are books I've already read and still own, and I don't need to put that here.) So this should encourage me to read off lists 3 and 4 since there are actually two books on list 5 that are contemporaneous enough I want to read them very soon, before they are overtaken by events. I should spend more of my downtime reading.
3. Nonfiction Books I Own And Haven't Read
On The Wealth of Nations, P.J. O'Rourke
General Washington's Christmas Farewell, Stanley Weintraub
The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell, John Crawford
Peace Kills, P.J. O'Rourke
When A Crocodile Eats The Sun, Peter Godwin
Notes From The Five States of Texas, A.C. Greene
Dark Star Safari, Paul Theroux
American Sphinx, Joseph J. Ellis
John Glenn, a Memoir, John Glenn
Flight: My Life in Mission Control, Chris Kraft
Failure is Not An Option, Gene Kranz
Lost Moon, Jim Lovell
Schirra's Space, Wally Schirra
The Victors, Stephen A. Ambrose
The Wilde Blue, Stephen A. Ambrose
Cradle Crew, Kenneth K. Blyth
Thud Ridge, Jack Broughton
The American Home Front, Alistair Cooke
Winged Victory, Geoffrey Perret
Passage to Union, Sarah H. Gordon
Consolidation: Jacksonville and Duval County, Richard Martin
Made in Detroit, Paul Clemens
The Intellectuals Speak Out About God, ed. Roy Varghese
United States: Essays, 1952-1992, Gore Vidal
4. Fiction Books I Own And Haven't Read
Primary Colors, Anonymous
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Peter and the Starcatchers, Dave Barry
The Hornet's Nest, Jimmy Carter
Don Quixote, Miguel Cervantes
The Entitled, Frank DeFord
Train Man, P.T. Deuterman
The Alexandria Quartet, Lawrence Durrell
Short Lines, ed. Rob Johnson
The Grand Conspiracy, William Penn
Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
5. Nonfiction Desiderata
River of Lakes, Bill Belleville
The Translator, Daoud Hari
A Long way Gone, Ishmael Beah
Nine Hills to Nambonkaha, Sarah Erdman
Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen
The Caliph's House, Tahir Shah
A Small Place, Jamaica Kincaid
River Town, Peter Hessler
Getting Stoned with Savages, J. Marten Troost
Honeymoon With My Brother, Franz Wisner
The Geography of Bliss, Eric Weiner
The Ends of the Earth, Robert D. Kaplan
Central Asia's Second Chance, Martha Brill Olcott
His Excellency, Joseph J. Ellis
1776, David McCullough
Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond
Life in the Valley of Death, Alan Rabinowitz
The Bottom Billion, Paul Collier
How to Play in Traffic, Penn & Teller
At the Edge of Space: The X-15 Program, Milton O. Thompson
A Man On The Moon, Expanded Edition, Andrew Chaikin
Moon Lander, Tom Kelly
Last Man on the Moon, Gene Cernan
The Wrong Stuff?, Phil Scott
American Modern, J. Stewart Johnson
Full Moon, Michael Light
6. Fiction Desiderata
What is the What, Dave Eggers
Anthills of the Savannah, Chinua Achebe
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
A Canticle For Liebowitz, Walter Miller Jr
Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson
Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
Hackers, ed. Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid
Run, Ann Patchett
Lamb, Christopher Moore
Windy City, Scott Simon
Bangkok 8, John Burdett
Nature Girl, Carl Hiaasen
The Laughing Sutra, Mark Salzman
The Inner Circle, T.C. Boyle
Thank You For Smoking, Christopher Buckley
Ninety-two In the Shade, Tom McGuane
The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren
The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow
Portnoy's Complaint, Philip Roth
Dog Soldiers, Robert Stone
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis
Henderson the Rain King, Saul Bellow
The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene
At Swim-Two-Birds, Flann O'Brien
A Bend in the River, V.S. Naipaul
Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis
3. Nonfiction Books I Own And Haven't Read
On The Wealth of Nations, P.J. O'Rourke
General Washington's Christmas Farewell, Stanley Weintraub
The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell, John Crawford
Peace Kills, P.J. O'Rourke
When A Crocodile Eats The Sun, Peter Godwin
Notes From The Five States of Texas, A.C. Greene
Dark Star Safari, Paul Theroux
American Sphinx, Joseph J. Ellis
John Glenn, a Memoir, John Glenn
Flight: My Life in Mission Control, Chris Kraft
Failure is Not An Option, Gene Kranz
Lost Moon, Jim Lovell
Schirra's Space, Wally Schirra
The Victors, Stephen A. Ambrose
The Wilde Blue, Stephen A. Ambrose
Cradle Crew, Kenneth K. Blyth
Thud Ridge, Jack Broughton
The American Home Front, Alistair Cooke
Winged Victory, Geoffrey Perret
Passage to Union, Sarah H. Gordon
Consolidation: Jacksonville and Duval County, Richard Martin
Made in Detroit, Paul Clemens
The Intellectuals Speak Out About God, ed. Roy Varghese
United States: Essays, 1952-1992, Gore Vidal
4. Fiction Books I Own And Haven't Read
Primary Colors, Anonymous
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Peter and the Starcatchers, Dave Barry
The Hornet's Nest, Jimmy Carter
Don Quixote, Miguel Cervantes
The Entitled, Frank DeFord
Train Man, P.T. Deuterman
The Alexandria Quartet, Lawrence Durrell
Short Lines, ed. Rob Johnson
The Grand Conspiracy, William Penn
Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
5. Nonfiction Desiderata
River of Lakes, Bill Belleville
The Translator, Daoud Hari
A Long way Gone, Ishmael Beah
Nine Hills to Nambonkaha, Sarah Erdman
Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen
The Caliph's House, Tahir Shah
A Small Place, Jamaica Kincaid
River Town, Peter Hessler
Getting Stoned with Savages, J. Marten Troost
Honeymoon With My Brother, Franz Wisner
The Geography of Bliss, Eric Weiner
The Ends of the Earth, Robert D. Kaplan
Central Asia's Second Chance, Martha Brill Olcott
His Excellency, Joseph J. Ellis
1776, David McCullough
Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond
Life in the Valley of Death, Alan Rabinowitz
The Bottom Billion, Paul Collier
How to Play in Traffic, Penn & Teller
At the Edge of Space: The X-15 Program, Milton O. Thompson
A Man On The Moon, Expanded Edition, Andrew Chaikin
Moon Lander, Tom Kelly
Last Man on the Moon, Gene Cernan
The Wrong Stuff?, Phil Scott
American Modern, J. Stewart Johnson
Full Moon, Michael Light
6. Fiction Desiderata
What is the What, Dave Eggers
Anthills of the Savannah, Chinua Achebe
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
A Canticle For Liebowitz, Walter Miller Jr
Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson
Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
Hackers, ed. Jack Dann & Gardner Dozois
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid
Run, Ann Patchett
Lamb, Christopher Moore
Windy City, Scott Simon
Bangkok 8, John Burdett
Nature Girl, Carl Hiaasen
The Laughing Sutra, Mark Salzman
The Inner Circle, T.C. Boyle
Thank You For Smoking, Christopher Buckley
Ninety-two In the Shade, Tom McGuane
The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren
The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow
Portnoy's Complaint, Philip Roth
Dog Soldiers, Robert Stone
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis
Henderson the Rain King, Saul Bellow
The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene
At Swim-Two-Birds, Flann O'Brien
A Bend in the River, V.S. Naipaul
Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis
Celebrate 23 June
On 23 June 1894, the International Olympic Committee was formed, largely under the impetus of Baron Pierre de Coubertin; the first modern Olympics were held two years later in Athens. Over the years the Olympics have had their political troubles, and certainly the IOC has not been the model of a well-run non-profit organization (or a well-run anything) of late. But the Olympics themselves have proven to be a special and worthwhile event, one that is certainly worth celebrating, even in the midst of anti-Chinese torch demonstrations and questions about air pollution, we can look forward to this summer's games and all the excitement and pageantry therein. I'll drink to that.
22 June 2008
Today's Reason to Celebrate
I'm trying out a new feature. In order to get back towards regular posts, I'm going to try a daily post about a reason to celebrate. This may last for a while or not at all, we'll see.
Today's reason to celebrate:
June 22 is the anniversary of the day the Cuyahoga River caught fire, in 1969. It had actually burned on other occasions previously, but the 1969 fire got into Time magazine and galvanized support for clean water nationwide. The 1969 Cuyahoga River fire ultimately resulted in the Clean Water Act and a large number of state and federal clean water programs. Clean water is something we can all drink to.
But seriously... the river caught fire. It actually burned. Damn. Nowadays the upper reaches of the river are clean enough that the area surrounding it has become Cuyahoga Valley National Park, so that's a nice turnaround.
Incidentally, the above picture is of the 1952 river fire; there apparently aren't any pictures of the 1969 one.
Today's reason to celebrate:
June 22 is the anniversary of the day the Cuyahoga River caught fire, in 1969. It had actually burned on other occasions previously, but the 1969 fire got into Time magazine and galvanized support for clean water nationwide. The 1969 Cuyahoga River fire ultimately resulted in the Clean Water Act and a large number of state and federal clean water programs. Clean water is something we can all drink to.But seriously... the river caught fire. It actually burned. Damn. Nowadays the upper reaches of the river are clean enough that the area surrounding it has become Cuyahoga Valley National Park, so that's a nice turnaround.
Incidentally, the above picture is of the 1952 river fire; there apparently aren't any pictures of the 1969 one.
21 June 2008
The Jesus People
Every Saturday morning for some time now--at least a year I think--we've had the pleasure of having the local pentecostal evangelical church or some such conduct a Saturday morning feed-and-proselytize-to-the-homeless in an empty public parking lot a block away from our house.
They've been very annoying at times, I won't lie. When they first started, they clearly either A) didn't know there were people living in downtown who might like to sleep in on Saturdays, or B) they didn't care. I don't like to impute bad motives to people so I'll assume that they, not without reason, just didn't figure anybody actually lived downtown. I say even though the parking lot they use is right across the street from a building called "The Residences at Franklin," and around the corner from another building called "One Laurel Place Condominium." I mean, what did they think, that a building called "Residences" was just empty? Well, again, I can't blame them for thinking that since even now a year later the building is still maybe 50% occupied. But it's right across the freaking street. It casts a shadow over the parking lot they're using for goodness sake. Who in their right mind would think it was appropriate to come into a residential neighborhood at 7:30 on a Saturday morning and blast amplified bad religious music? I mean, really? Is that decent? Is that the Christian thing to do?
Anyway. Several calls to the police over a number of weeks later--and when I say several, I mean, several from this house, several from our neighbors on either side, several from our neighbors down the hall, on different floors, in other buildings... I mean we're talking hundreds of phone calls from dozens of people--they finally got the point and chose a later start time. So now we're already awake, more or less, by the time they crank up the speakers at 9:30.
Since they pushed the start time back I've been neutral about them. I still doubt they actually have a permit for amplified music, and for the most part the music they play is bad. I mean, really bad, almost comically bad, but the thing about comically bad singing is that, if it doesn't stop after that first laugh, it stops being comic and just becomes horrid. But they feed and amuse the homeless and pass out shoes and clothes and as far I'm concerned that is an excellent thing to do. I'm more than willing to put up with bad music on Saturday mornings if it means the homeless get a decent meal and an uplifting message.
But the message has been a problem sometimes. You know how some preachers are just angry? Like Jeremiah Wright? I mean, occasionally over the course of about two or three months recently, there was a woman out there preaching who was just a big angry women. She clearly was upset at... everything, apparently. She didn't talk or even preach to the homeless, she shouted at them. She yelled at them. Not for nothing have the crowds been a bit smaller recently. Even a free meal and a pair of shoes aren't always worth having a large angry woman yell at you for two hours.
But even with that, she's not a permanent presence there, and the last couple weeks I haven't heard her at all. No loss, certainly. So, like I said, I'm happy to have them there doing their good works and proselytizing and not waking me up at 7:30. That's fine.
Then this morning while walking Jackson I dug up a couple of little flowers of a sort that we used to have at Smittywife's old apartment. When wild, they have tiny little succulent leaves and little flowers about 3/4 the diameter of a dime. But if you dig them up and put them in a pot and water them consistently they grow much bigger and flowers will be a good inch and a half across. And there will be lots of flowers. They're really nice little plants, although I'm sure they're just a weed to most people. Anyway...
So I went out on the porch after I brought the dog back in and planted the little plants, and I happened to hear the preacher going on. And here is what he said: he said, you may have heard people tell you that if you can just let go of the bottle, or just get off the drugs, everything will turn around for, everything will get better. And that's just not true. If you don't have Jesus in your life, getting off the bottle won't help you; getting off drugs won't solve your problems. Only Jesus can do that for you.
What?
This is the problem I have with some of these preachers. Guess what, fella: Jesus or no Jesus, getting off the bottle and off drugs will definitely help you, a lot. Tons. More than the advertising suggests. It's not cool to tell people that they are powerless to help themselves. And what is the value of doing so? He basically just told those people not to bother getting clean and sober. He basically told them that all they really had to do was accept Jesus and... I don't know, some kind of mystical power would either make them quit drugs and drink without really working at it, or it wouldn't matter whether they'd quit because God would make everything hunky-dory for them.
I know many good and faithful Christians. I don't know many who would claim that there's not inherent value in getting sober. It's preachers like this who turn me off from organized religion. I don't mind you telling me that without Jesus I'll always have an empty space in my life I'll be trying to fill. I do mind you telling me that I am incapable of doing anything to help myself, that I have no power to improve my situation in life. That is not a positive message.
I'm calling the cops again next Saturday. I was fine with them when I thought they were being decent people. Now I'm not so sure.
They've been very annoying at times, I won't lie. When they first started, they clearly either A) didn't know there were people living in downtown who might like to sleep in on Saturdays, or B) they didn't care. I don't like to impute bad motives to people so I'll assume that they, not without reason, just didn't figure anybody actually lived downtown. I say even though the parking lot they use is right across the street from a building called "The Residences at Franklin," and around the corner from another building called "One Laurel Place Condominium." I mean, what did they think, that a building called "Residences" was just empty? Well, again, I can't blame them for thinking that since even now a year later the building is still maybe 50% occupied. But it's right across the freaking street. It casts a shadow over the parking lot they're using for goodness sake. Who in their right mind would think it was appropriate to come into a residential neighborhood at 7:30 on a Saturday morning and blast amplified bad religious music? I mean, really? Is that decent? Is that the Christian thing to do?
Anyway. Several calls to the police over a number of weeks later--and when I say several, I mean, several from this house, several from our neighbors on either side, several from our neighbors down the hall, on different floors, in other buildings... I mean we're talking hundreds of phone calls from dozens of people--they finally got the point and chose a later start time. So now we're already awake, more or less, by the time they crank up the speakers at 9:30.
Since they pushed the start time back I've been neutral about them. I still doubt they actually have a permit for amplified music, and for the most part the music they play is bad. I mean, really bad, almost comically bad, but the thing about comically bad singing is that, if it doesn't stop after that first laugh, it stops being comic and just becomes horrid. But they feed and amuse the homeless and pass out shoes and clothes and as far I'm concerned that is an excellent thing to do. I'm more than willing to put up with bad music on Saturday mornings if it means the homeless get a decent meal and an uplifting message.
But the message has been a problem sometimes. You know how some preachers are just angry? Like Jeremiah Wright? I mean, occasionally over the course of about two or three months recently, there was a woman out there preaching who was just a big angry women. She clearly was upset at... everything, apparently. She didn't talk or even preach to the homeless, she shouted at them. She yelled at them. Not for nothing have the crowds been a bit smaller recently. Even a free meal and a pair of shoes aren't always worth having a large angry woman yell at you for two hours.
But even with that, she's not a permanent presence there, and the last couple weeks I haven't heard her at all. No loss, certainly. So, like I said, I'm happy to have them there doing their good works and proselytizing and not waking me up at 7:30. That's fine.
Then this morning while walking Jackson I dug up a couple of little flowers of a sort that we used to have at Smittywife's old apartment. When wild, they have tiny little succulent leaves and little flowers about 3/4 the diameter of a dime. But if you dig them up and put them in a pot and water them consistently they grow much bigger and flowers will be a good inch and a half across. And there will be lots of flowers. They're really nice little plants, although I'm sure they're just a weed to most people. Anyway...
So I went out on the porch after I brought the dog back in and planted the little plants, and I happened to hear the preacher going on. And here is what he said: he said, you may have heard people tell you that if you can just let go of the bottle, or just get off the drugs, everything will turn around for, everything will get better. And that's just not true. If you don't have Jesus in your life, getting off the bottle won't help you; getting off drugs won't solve your problems. Only Jesus can do that for you.
What?
This is the problem I have with some of these preachers. Guess what, fella: Jesus or no Jesus, getting off the bottle and off drugs will definitely help you, a lot. Tons. More than the advertising suggests. It's not cool to tell people that they are powerless to help themselves. And what is the value of doing so? He basically just told those people not to bother getting clean and sober. He basically told them that all they really had to do was accept Jesus and... I don't know, some kind of mystical power would either make them quit drugs and drink without really working at it, or it wouldn't matter whether they'd quit because God would make everything hunky-dory for them.
I know many good and faithful Christians. I don't know many who would claim that there's not inherent value in getting sober. It's preachers like this who turn me off from organized religion. I don't mind you telling me that without Jesus I'll always have an empty space in my life I'll be trying to fill. I do mind you telling me that I am incapable of doing anything to help myself, that I have no power to improve my situation in life. That is not a positive message.
I'm calling the cops again next Saturday. I was fine with them when I thought they were being decent people. Now I'm not so sure.
15 June 2008
On Time
You know, I just changed the books over there in the righthand gutter, replaced Don Quixote with Bartram's Trail Revisted, and I noticed that I've had Buddha is as Buddha does over there for nearly two months. Why is it taking me so long to read that book?
No really, I don't know. I'm asking. I enjoy the book. It's very thinky, by which I mean I can't sit and read 50 pages straight because I have to stop and think every few pages. Which is sort of the point anyway. It's a good book, too, well-written, and certainly something I'm keenly interested in. But I mean, I'm barely over half way through it. It's not terribly long, about the average length of most of the books I read actually.
I haven't been doing a whole lot of reading lately. Which is odd; my subscription to The Economist ran out two weeks ago and I'm not restarting it until we move, so I should have more time to read books. I've been reading the Bartram's Trail book more, actually; it's quite good as well (thanks Mom & Dad!), but I seem to spend too much time doing... um... ah, there's the problem. Wasting the time. Grr.
I can't wait to get out of here. I'm stuck in this awful rut and the sooner I leave Tampa and get started on something new (a job, you know, would be nice) the better. Here's hoping I get a job soon and we can move.
No really, I don't know. I'm asking. I enjoy the book. It's very thinky, by which I mean I can't sit and read 50 pages straight because I have to stop and think every few pages. Which is sort of the point anyway. It's a good book, too, well-written, and certainly something I'm keenly interested in. But I mean, I'm barely over half way through it. It's not terribly long, about the average length of most of the books I read actually.
I haven't been doing a whole lot of reading lately. Which is odd; my subscription to The Economist ran out two weeks ago and I'm not restarting it until we move, so I should have more time to read books. I've been reading the Bartram's Trail book more, actually; it's quite good as well (thanks Mom & Dad!), but I seem to spend too much time doing... um... ah, there's the problem. Wasting the time. Grr.
I can't wait to get out of here. I'm stuck in this awful rut and the sooner I leave Tampa and get started on something new (a job, you know, would be nice) the better. Here's hoping I get a job soon and we can move.
10 June 2008
Tribble?
So... this morning Smittywife suggested the name Tribble. Tribble works. She's small and furry. She makes little squeaks and purrs. She's full of love (although right now she mainly expresses her love by attacking our feet and ankles). She emits ear-piercing squeals when she's near a Klingon... or, well, when she's hungry. And she's hungry all the time--although, since she's a carnivore, our vast stores of quadrotriticale should be safe.
06 June 2008
Smittykitty!
Are you ready for more cuteness than you can handle? Then follow the jump to see pictures of the newest member of the Smitty family!
This is the first picture I ever saw of the new kitten. Smittywife sent it to me while I was in South Carolina to close on the new house. She was out walking the dog one morning and these two little kittens had been abandoned outside the condo complex. We're guessing their 3-4 weeks old at this point. She took them upstairs, and one of them went to our next door neighbors (who'd been thinking about getting a second cat).
Smittykitty is on the left in this photo.
Incidentally, Smittykitty is not her name. It's a placeholder name. We're not even sure she's a she; she might be a he, but we can't really tell. Don't laugh; you turn over a five-week-old kitten and tell me the sex why don't you? Because we aren't sure she's a she we haven't really settled on a name. I like Schroedinger. Smittywife had picked Tumbleweed a while back, but she hasn't continued using the name. I called her "Tumbleweed Schroedinger, the Quantum Kitten" for a while, but she's not nearly as small now as she was so Quantum isn't quite right. This picture was taken shortly after I got home, about two weeks ago.
At first all she did was cry and sleep. Then gradually she started to eat. She actually started to play with stuff last weekend, which was fun. She likes my sandals, I don't know why.
She's certainly grown a lot in the last couple weeks. We can pet her now, without it bothering her, and she doesn't fit in the palm of my hand. But she still fits in the pocket of my old BDUs.
I mean come on. How cute is this?
This is the first picture I ever saw of the new kitten. Smittywife sent it to me while I was in South Carolina to close on the new house. She was out walking the dog one morning and these two little kittens had been abandoned outside the condo complex. We're guessing their 3-4 weeks old at this point. She took them upstairs, and one of them went to our next door neighbors (who'd been thinking about getting a second cat).Smittykitty is on the left in this photo.
Incidentally, Smittykitty is not her name. It's a placeholder name. We're not even sure she's a she; she might be a he, but we can't really tell. Don't laugh; you turn over a five-week-old kitten and tell me the sex why don't you? Because we aren't sure she's a she we haven't really settled on a name. I like Schroedinger. Smittywife had picked Tumbleweed a while back, but she hasn't continued using the name. I called her "Tumbleweed Schroedinger, the Quantum Kitten" for a while, but she's not nearly as small now as she was so Quantum isn't quite right. This picture was taken shortly after I got home, about two weeks ago.
At first all she did was cry and sleep. Then gradually she started to eat. She actually started to play with stuff last weekend, which was fun. She likes my sandals, I don't know why.
She's certainly grown a lot in the last couple weeks. We can pet her now, without it bothering her, and she doesn't fit in the palm of my hand. But she still fits in the pocket of my old BDUs.
I mean come on. How cute is this?
04 June 2008
Den of Rebellion
Tampa is in the news again, not surprisingly for a rather disappointing reason. Seems the local Sons of Confederate Veterans has decided that the intersection of Interstate and 4 and Interstate 75, just east of Tampa, is a fine place to display the largest Confederate flag in the country. Bully for them. Enjoy the photo.Oh, where to begin. I'd like to get this written today. The rest is after the jump.
First off, the flag itself. This particular design was probably not much used in the actual Confederacy, if at all. It echos the Battle Flag, which was typically square. It may not always have been square (at least two contemporary illustrations, though no photographs, depict rectangular battle flags), but contemporary literature and events indicate that it was nearly always square. In fact, when the battle flag was incorporated into the Second National Flag in 1863, it was a square; clearly the square battle flag was the recognized symbol of troops on the battlefield throughout the CSA. Although it was pictured on the later national flags, this battle flag design was nonetheless never an officially recognized symbol of the CSA; it was the flag flown in battle so confederate troops could recognize each other. In fact, as union troops flew the union flag, the confederate battle flag came into being because the first flag adopted by the CSA, the ""Stars and Bars," was considered to similar to the U.S. flag. Thus the battle flag was developed, and used in battle rather than the Stars and Bars, and later was incorporated into the second and third National Flag designs. But again, it was square. It was probably square to help differentiate it from the U.S. flag. I have never understood--and probably never will understand--why the current Confederate Flag (hereinafter CF) is a design that was never actually used. It's the same shape and design as the second Navy Jack, but, instead of light blue it uses navy blue. I have seen so CFs with the lighter blue, and I wonder whether the people flying them know that they're flying the Second Navy Jack. Perhaps they had family in the CSA Navy. That would make sense; that would be heritage. But the CF as it stands isn't. It's rather absurd to me that people would make a big deal about a symbol standing for heritage and ancestors when the ancestors in question never actually saw that symbol. Why not use the Third National Flag, which incorporates the battle flag and was an official symbol of the Confederacy?
It's tough to say what flag the earliest incarnation of the KKK used. Probably the battle flag, as the founders of that organization would most likely have had such flags, and the organization was as much as anything a guerrilla outfit for people who didn't want to let the fight die. Public display of any of the official symbols of the CSA was outlawed for many years after the war (including public wear of a CSA uniform), though these laws were largely overturned after Reconstruction. What flag was flown during Confederate memorials and by both honest veterans proud of their heritage and loathsome racist bigots engaged in lynchings and other denials of human rights to blacks is a matter of pure speculation. But the fact remains that the CF in its current form was never an official symbol of the confederacy; in my view, therefore, claiming it is a symbol of "confederate" or "Southern" heritage is baloney. It's an afterthought.
There is no question but that in its current form, the CF resurfaced during World War I, when divisions with Southern-inspired nicknames or with primarily Southern personnel began using it in their regimental flags and other symbols and insignia. It has continued to be flown since that time. In fact, the flag was raised on Okinawa after the Battle of Okinawa in 1945 by a member of a Marine company with primarily Southern members. It was ordered taken down by General Simon Buckner, son of a prominent Confederate general, who said "Americans from all over are involved in this battle."
On this basis you could argue that, initially, the CF was raised as a symbol of Southern heritage, and nothing more. Okay. I'll buy that argument. That works for me. But at least as early as WWII, some black soldiers (and possibly others) had lodged complaints about the use of the flag, such that formal investigations had been undertaken regarding how the flag was being used. By the end of the war (Okinawa not withstanding) the flag's use was apparently comparatively rare. I would argue that, if the flag was removed on the basis of complaints by blacks, then right there you've got not only clear evidence that some people didn't see the flag as a symbol of heritage at all (or if they did that the heritage was not one worth celebrating), but also that the flag was being taken off display on the basis of complaints related to race.
Did that make the white soldiers who wanted to fly the flag upset? Who knows. Did those soldiers make a point of flying the flag once they got home? I'd bet they did. It's human nature that when something you care about, and which you take as a symbol of your identity, is criticized, you dig in and support it more. It's why people who fly the CF now get so persnickity when somebody complains. On a rational basis most people I've met who consider the CF a symbol of heritage in no way (at least on a conscious level) wish to defame or insult blacks, northerners, other minorities, Jews, or anyone else (including urban white liberals) by displaying the flag. Instead, they feel their heritage as a Southerner is worthy of celebrating, and the flag is to them a symbol of that heritage. Take the symbolism away and most of these people would probably be willing to find another way to celebrate their Southern heritage that would not offend people; but because of the symbol's potency for them, and also because of the quarter the first complaints usually come from (let's admit now that the first people who show up complaining about the flag are usually not very polite), these people are themselves offended and dig in and defend the flag and its display. And so we have trench warfare and nothing gets done; everybody feels like any attempt to change their mind is a personal attack not only on them but on everything they stand for, and so nothing can be done. It's a lot like most political debates in this country these days; we have a dysfunctional politics, and display of the CF is a part of that and no more.
Two questions present themselves here. One, is Southern heritage worth celebrating? Two, is the flag the right way to do it? If we could resolve these questions we might find a solution to display of the flag.
I don't have much Southern heritage. At least half of my family came to the U.S. after the war was over, although they did settle in the South once they arrived. At least one of my ancestors fought in the war (at least one fought in the Revolution, too, a war we really need to spend more time focusing on instead of the damned Civil War), though I don't know which side (the family was in Southernillinois at the time, and regiments from that area were in both armies). Hey, it's tough to do much serious digging genealogically when your surname is the most common one in the country and has been since at least 1840.
I've certainly spent most of my life in states of the old Confederacy, and I consider myself a Southerner, although not Southern (a distinction that admittedly most people would find too fine to be worth making). I also like the South, and I find that people who are Southern--who have been in the South for a few generations and would call themselves Southern--are really nice, decent people, frankly the nicest and most decent I meet. Southern manners are genuine, although the South has so many non-Southerners it's not that common to find them anymore. You have to be in a rural area, but not an area so rural as to be nativist. That's tough to find anywhere in this country these days.
Anyway. I think Southern heritage is worth preserving, and for several reasons. I think all of American history is worth preserving. And there are things about the South that can and should be celebrated as a vital part of our collective heritage as Americans. I'm not going to run through a laundry list but any Southerner who can define what it means to be Southern knows that the South gave more to the world than sweet tea and fried okra. One of the features of Southern culture that I think is still among the strongest is the willingness to fight for a cause. I refuse to be dragged into a debate about what the "average" confederate soldier was fighting for; fact is, at the most basic level, most of them were fighting to defend there land against invaders. Never mind that the invaders were the people they used to be; if folks from St. Paul invaded Minneapolis under force of arms, regardless of how much Minneapolis deserved it, people in Minneapolis would take up arms against them. Doesn't matter that they both root for Vikings.
Okay, I'm starting to stretch credibility with my analogies so we better move on. Let's assert that Southern heritage is worth saving and celebrating, at least some parts of it. We don't need to celebrate slavery or lynch mobs, which are part of Southern history--but both things were plenty evident in the rest of the country as well. Abolition as a movement developed in the north when it did because slavery as an institution had ceased to become profitable by that time, so society was not underpinned by slavery. Being an abolitionist in 1850s Georgia meant publicly working to undermine the entire local economy, including your own. Whether you owned slaves or not the wealth of the South to which you owed your livelihood was still at least in part due to slavery. Put another way, it's easy to tell other people to stop smoking when you neither smoke yourself nor farm tobacco.
Is the current incarnation of the confederate flag the right way to celebrate Southern heritage, though? Hmm.
The flag, like many symbols, means different things to different people. There is no question but that to the vast majority of African-Americans, it is a symbol of slavery, hatred, racism, lynching, and all manner of awful things. It is also a symbol of the KKK, and of the neo-Nazi movement in this country (and elsewhere). In this case it is a symbol that has been adopted by those movements to symbolize what they stand for--and what they stand for is rather a nasty business. Because of these groups' selection of the flag for themselves, people like me, who frankly could care less one way or the other, tend to associate the flag with racism, hatred, bigotry, and the like, sometimes violent forms of those things.
Where I grew up, there was a Klan march annually in a town down the road. They marched through town waving their Confederate flags and what-have-you. Now I certainly know what the Klan is about, silly little marches aside, and I find their beliefs disgusting and their actions despicable. Because the Klan celebrated their beliefs with displays of the Confederate flag, I associate that flag with the Klan. Can you blame me? Where I grew up, people didn't display that flag unless they sympathized with the Klan. They might couch it in terms of white heritage or "standing up for white people" when everybody was against us, and they probably wouldn't ever dream of actually participating in a lynching or burning a cross in someone's front yard. But they flew that flag (or had it on their truck bumper) because the sympathized with the softer edge of what the Klan claimed to stand for.
I'm not alone, folks. Lots of middle-class white people regardless of where they were raised look at the flag and think: Klan. And think: racism. Lynching. Hatred. When I somebody with the flag flying outside their house, I wonder: how deeply do they agree with the KKK? Would my wife be welcome in their household (not that she'd go in anyway)? We would be welcome in their neighborhood? I think the same things when I see the flag on a truck bumper or license plate. I can't help it. That's where I was raised, and that's what the flag means to me.
Now, supposing you were raised in an area where the flag didn't have those connotations, but was simply a way to say I'm a Southerner and I'm proud of it. For you it is genuinely a symbol of your heritage, your culture, who you are. So you want to fly it. Fine. When I see it, I assume you're a racist.
That's not fair on my part of course. It's never fair to pass judgment on somebody without first getting to know them well, and perhaps there's not a bigoted bone in your body. But because you're flying that flag, I assume there is. The question is, am I alone? What do most people think when they see the flag?
Believe it or not, no quality polls have been taken on this issue. If I had money I'd commission one. Lots of internet polls are out there and other polls with questionable methodology, and of course flag supporters have produced plenty of polls that wouldn't pass scientific muster supporting it as a heritage symbol only. A good scientific poll is desperately needed to see what the majority of Americans (and let's get it broken down by region and state, gender, race, education, income, age, etc) think when they see that flag.
I have a feeling--based on my own limited and flawed experience--that more people see the flag negatively than positively. I suspect it's by a fairly wide margin, too, probably about 3-1. I might be wrong, but what if I'm right?
Would you still want to fly the flag in that case? Would any decent, upstanding unbigoted person still want to display that "symbol of heritage" if three fourths of the rest of the country would see it and assume it implied hatred? I would hope not.
That's my problem with the confederate flag, anywhere it is displayed (except as part of battlefield memorials) but especially in the case of our new gigantic one. I believe, and have no reason not to believe, that most people, when they see that flag, view it as a symbol of hate. So unless you really mean it that way, you shouldn't display it. Leave the flag to the people who have appropriated it to their own nefarious ends, and find a better symbol to celebrate your heritage, one less likely to be taken the wrong way.
Okay, but the flag, you say, is not a symbol of hatred or oppression, that's just what some people have read into it, and that's their problem, not mine. Sure.
Let's say you're a Jew in Palestine. You've lived there for many years, generations even, you're a shopkeeper in a town that your family has lived in for centuries. There've been Jews in Palestine for thousands of years, after all. Your customers are Arab Palestinians, Muslims. You get along with them, they are you neighbors and customers. You feel no ill will toward them. Should they feel ill will toward you? Of course not. You are members of a community.
But you are proud of your religion and your heritage, and one day you decide it is entirely appropriate for you to be proud. So you purchase an Israeli flag, and fly it outside your shop. Do you suppose your customers might drift away? Your neighbors might stop visiting? Your shop might become the target of threats, vandalism, violence? Duh. Of course. That flag symbolizes something more to Arab Palestinians than it does to you, and no matter your reason for flying it, it isn't going to be taken well by them.
You wear a yarmulke when it's appropriate though, and have for years. It's not as if your customers and neighbors don't know you're Jewish. They just don't associate you with the state they view as an oppressor. When you suddenly associate yourself with it, it's not going to be seen as a matter of pride or a personal statement of heritage, it's going to be seen as you've decided to support what the flag stands for to those people.
The confederate flag suffers from the same thing. It's not that you have no right to be proud of the South or your heritage; it's not that other people conflate your heritage with hatred. It's that the symbol you've chosen to demonstrate your heritage is already associated with hatred and bigotry. When I say I think the confederate flag is a symbol of hatred (I don't; I think it's a sign that the displayer of the flag is probably a bigot. The flag itself I view as neutral because it's a pseudo-historical item with multiple meanings) that doesn't mean I think Southern heritage and culture are nothing but hatred and bigotry. It's just the way I view the symbol you've chose. I don't see why it isn't obvious to people to just choose another symbol not already loaded with negative connotations.
Unless, of course, the people fighting for the flag really are bigots.
A Brief Political Post
So Barack Obama secured the necessary number of delegates to claim the Democratic nomination last night. And Hillary Clinton gave a speech that sounded like she thinks she won the nomination herself. Some wags are saying she's refusing to concede because it gives her more power over Obama, and she wants something (presumably the VP slot).
Honey, Obama won. He has more power over you than you will ever have over him. He has the power to say, hey, I'm going name somebody else my VP--anybody else. Anybody but Hillary. He can say that. What is she going to do? If he were to give a press conference today and say, it was an honor to run against Sen. Clinton and she's been a terrific candidate and competitor, and I look forward to the day when I am president that I can begin working with her in the Senate to take America forward. And now I'd like to introduce the person who I've asked to stand with me as my Vice Presidential nominee..." What the hell would she do? What could she do?
Would she seriously then go on the attack and attempt to bring Obama down before the convention? Would she do that? What would her justification be? Would she actually expect that the delegates pledged to Obama would then decide to vote for her instead, and not for somebody else? Does she think she would make friends among the superdelegates by doing that?
Does she think she's strengthening Obama in any way by saying I'm not going to concede in case he stumbles before the convention? All she's doing is putting out there the expectation that he will stumble before the convention, that there is something about him so awful that he shouldn't be nominated regardless of how many delegates he's won. That damages him meaningfully should he be nominated; it has, in fact, already damaged him in a way that won't really be in evidence until after August.
And that's the rub. Clinton has by her words and actions the last few months and especially yesterday (and I expect it to continue) done nothing but damage Obama as a general election candidate. She has not helped him. She clearly does not intend to do so. It is clear that she believes that by doing so, she increases the chances that she may yet somehow manage to win the nomination. But if she should do so by hook or crook (I'm going with crook), she will alienate the people who've supported Obama, far more than Obama has ever alienated any of Clinton's supporters.
She has weakened him. In doing so she has proven that she is interested more in her own needs than the party's needs, that she is driven more by self-interest than by the public interest. She has proven that she does not deserve the presidency, and that she does not deserve her party's nomination for the presidency.
But she still won't go away. That is why it would be a colossal mistake on Sen. Obama's part to name her to the Vice Presidency. She won't go away. She thinks she should be president, not vice president. Her husband is an even bigger problem. Both of them will work every day to undermine Obama's presidency, publicly and privately, to boost themselves. Obama cannot share the executive office with the Clintons; indeed, no one can. They wouldn't allow it.
There was a time when this wouldn't have concerned me as much as it does today. I still have mainly positive feelings toward John McCain. He supports a carbon-trading system and other moderately green initiatives. In the past he supported raising taxes to fund a war--and while I don't support the war, at least he recognized that all Americans, not just those in uniform, should be sacrificing in time of war. But of late he's backed off that stance, and now he supports extending Bush's tax cuts; flights of rhetoric aside, John McCain no longer seems to believe in giving Americans something bigger than their own self-interest to believe in. That was what I liked about him; he's always been more conservative than I am, but he used to be the only person on the national stage who talked about America needing more than the collected material self-interest of its people to reclaim its greatness. He still talks about that, but he no longer demonstrates any serious belief in it.
Perhaps that's just for crass political purposes, but what does that prove? Even after he had the nomination sewn up, McCain went on preaching his support of further tax cuts, and talking about having a military mission in Iraq for 100 years if necessary (look up the context, the man never said we'd be there for 100 years, only that if it was necessary, we should commit to that, rather than leaving a worse mess than we entered) without suggesting that anyone but the grunts in uniform would have to pay for it. That disturbs me. That has made me lose faith in the man.
And then he went and talked about the Supreme Court. And that sealed it for me; at one time I would have been relieved that he was the nominee, because I could have lived with him as president, because he was a reasonable man. But then, after he had the nomination, he went out and said that he would only nominate far-right anti-choice pro-executive Bushite wingnuts for the Supreme Court. And that I cannot support.
If he'd said he would prefer judges in the mold of a Kennedy or an O'Connor, that would have been terrific--and it would have supported the notion that McCain was a thoughtful and moderate Republican. Instead he said he'd appoint a bunch of Roberts/Alito wingnuts. Granted, he was talking to a bunch of wingnuts at the time, but he already had the nomination in hand. Why does he feel the need to comfort extremists? The right-wingers aren't going to defect from McCain to Obama (or Clinton). They aren't going to join up with Bob Barr and the Libertarians. And they're not going to jump ship to support some wingnut on a fourth-party ticket, no matter how much they threaten to, because A) they know they wouldn't win, and B) it would demonstrate incontrovertibly the impotence of their once mighty political movement (which they fear more than anything else). They may threaten to, sure. But in the end most of them are going to come home and support a Republican because they believe he's better than Obama (and they think Clinton is evil) and because it will give them leverage over McCain.
And what if they did jump ship? So what. Those people haven't given the Republican Party anything worth having, and if McCain owed his presidency to them, then it wouldn't be worth having. I used to think McCain actually believed that, too, and actually believed that the presidency wasn't worth having if to get it he had to prostrate himself before people whose beliefs he didn't support. But like most other politicians, he seems to have concluded that the presidency is a prize so valuable, so important to his sense of self-worth, that it's worth having no matter who you have to whore yourself out to to get it.
The question now is, is Obama of the same sort? Will he whore himself out to the Clintons, accept Hillary as VP and ensure four years of constant attempts to undermine his position and plan for America? Does he want the presidency so bad he'd take their bitter pill just to get it? Time will tell.
Senator Obama, please, I beg of you: don't take her. You don't need her. You don't want her. You will never be president in your own right if you have her (and Bill) in the office down the hall, and you will never be able to raise this country up with two crass, political leeches bent on sucking you down.
Honey, Obama won. He has more power over you than you will ever have over him. He has the power to say, hey, I'm going name somebody else my VP--anybody else. Anybody but Hillary. He can say that. What is she going to do? If he were to give a press conference today and say, it was an honor to run against Sen. Clinton and she's been a terrific candidate and competitor, and I look forward to the day when I am president that I can begin working with her in the Senate to take America forward. And now I'd like to introduce the person who I've asked to stand with me as my Vice Presidential nominee..." What the hell would she do? What could she do?
Would she seriously then go on the attack and attempt to bring Obama down before the convention? Would she do that? What would her justification be? Would she actually expect that the delegates pledged to Obama would then decide to vote for her instead, and not for somebody else? Does she think she would make friends among the superdelegates by doing that?
Does she think she's strengthening Obama in any way by saying I'm not going to concede in case he stumbles before the convention? All she's doing is putting out there the expectation that he will stumble before the convention, that there is something about him so awful that he shouldn't be nominated regardless of how many delegates he's won. That damages him meaningfully should he be nominated; it has, in fact, already damaged him in a way that won't really be in evidence until after August.
And that's the rub. Clinton has by her words and actions the last few months and especially yesterday (and I expect it to continue) done nothing but damage Obama as a general election candidate. She has not helped him. She clearly does not intend to do so. It is clear that she believes that by doing so, she increases the chances that she may yet somehow manage to win the nomination. But if she should do so by hook or crook (I'm going with crook), she will alienate the people who've supported Obama, far more than Obama has ever alienated any of Clinton's supporters.
She has weakened him. In doing so she has proven that she is interested more in her own needs than the party's needs, that she is driven more by self-interest than by the public interest. She has proven that she does not deserve the presidency, and that she does not deserve her party's nomination for the presidency.
But she still won't go away. That is why it would be a colossal mistake on Sen. Obama's part to name her to the Vice Presidency. She won't go away. She thinks she should be president, not vice president. Her husband is an even bigger problem. Both of them will work every day to undermine Obama's presidency, publicly and privately, to boost themselves. Obama cannot share the executive office with the Clintons; indeed, no one can. They wouldn't allow it.
There was a time when this wouldn't have concerned me as much as it does today. I still have mainly positive feelings toward John McCain. He supports a carbon-trading system and other moderately green initiatives. In the past he supported raising taxes to fund a war--and while I don't support the war, at least he recognized that all Americans, not just those in uniform, should be sacrificing in time of war. But of late he's backed off that stance, and now he supports extending Bush's tax cuts; flights of rhetoric aside, John McCain no longer seems to believe in giving Americans something bigger than their own self-interest to believe in. That was what I liked about him; he's always been more conservative than I am, but he used to be the only person on the national stage who talked about America needing more than the collected material self-interest of its people to reclaim its greatness. He still talks about that, but he no longer demonstrates any serious belief in it.
Perhaps that's just for crass political purposes, but what does that prove? Even after he had the nomination sewn up, McCain went on preaching his support of further tax cuts, and talking about having a military mission in Iraq for 100 years if necessary (look up the context, the man never said we'd be there for 100 years, only that if it was necessary, we should commit to that, rather than leaving a worse mess than we entered) without suggesting that anyone but the grunts in uniform would have to pay for it. That disturbs me. That has made me lose faith in the man.
And then he went and talked about the Supreme Court. And that sealed it for me; at one time I would have been relieved that he was the nominee, because I could have lived with him as president, because he was a reasonable man. But then, after he had the nomination, he went out and said that he would only nominate far-right anti-choice pro-executive Bushite wingnuts for the Supreme Court. And that I cannot support.
If he'd said he would prefer judges in the mold of a Kennedy or an O'Connor, that would have been terrific--and it would have supported the notion that McCain was a thoughtful and moderate Republican. Instead he said he'd appoint a bunch of Roberts/Alito wingnuts. Granted, he was talking to a bunch of wingnuts at the time, but he already had the nomination in hand. Why does he feel the need to comfort extremists? The right-wingers aren't going to defect from McCain to Obama (or Clinton). They aren't going to join up with Bob Barr and the Libertarians. And they're not going to jump ship to support some wingnut on a fourth-party ticket, no matter how much they threaten to, because A) they know they wouldn't win, and B) it would demonstrate incontrovertibly the impotence of their once mighty political movement (which they fear more than anything else). They may threaten to, sure. But in the end most of them are going to come home and support a Republican because they believe he's better than Obama (and they think Clinton is evil) and because it will give them leverage over McCain.
And what if they did jump ship? So what. Those people haven't given the Republican Party anything worth having, and if McCain owed his presidency to them, then it wouldn't be worth having. I used to think McCain actually believed that, too, and actually believed that the presidency wasn't worth having if to get it he had to prostrate himself before people whose beliefs he didn't support. But like most other politicians, he seems to have concluded that the presidency is a prize so valuable, so important to his sense of self-worth, that it's worth having no matter who you have to whore yourself out to to get it.
The question now is, is Obama of the same sort? Will he whore himself out to the Clintons, accept Hillary as VP and ensure four years of constant attempts to undermine his position and plan for America? Does he want the presidency so bad he'd take their bitter pill just to get it? Time will tell.
Senator Obama, please, I beg of you: don't take her. You don't need her. You don't want her. You will never be president in your own right if you have her (and Bill) in the office down the hall, and you will never be able to raise this country up with two crass, political leeches bent on sucking you down.
02 June 2008
Unemployment is bad for your health
You may remember back in March I was sick. When I wrote a post about it we thought it was a head cold, but later we decided it had been a sinus infection. Penicillin took care of it but it was unpleasant and annoying.
Well evidently it's back. Same symptoms, same feeling, same unpleasant annoyingness. And here it is Smittywife's birthday and I don't have the energy to do anything special... plus I'm all stuffed up and sound like I've been swallowing charcoal. It isn't pretty, and it isn't nice. And it's not even three months since I got over the last one.
I never used to get sick often. Certainly not this often anyway; for a long time I could count on getting the flu every November, but even that has faded the last decade or so. I occasionally come down with acute gastroenteritis, usually from not smelling the milk before drinking it when I come back after a vacation or TDY. But this sort of thing, I mean, shoot, I'd never had a sinus problem of any sort before the one this spring, and here it is again. This is ridiculous. The only thing that's changed, really, is that I'm not gainfully employed. So that must be it; unemployment is bad for your health. Need to do something about that...
Well evidently it's back. Same symptoms, same feeling, same unpleasant annoyingness. And here it is Smittywife's birthday and I don't have the energy to do anything special... plus I'm all stuffed up and sound like I've been swallowing charcoal. It isn't pretty, and it isn't nice. And it's not even three months since I got over the last one.
I never used to get sick often. Certainly not this often anyway; for a long time I could count on getting the flu every November, but even that has faded the last decade or so. I occasionally come down with acute gastroenteritis, usually from not smelling the milk before drinking it when I come back after a vacation or TDY. But this sort of thing, I mean, shoot, I'd never had a sinus problem of any sort before the one this spring, and here it is again. This is ridiculous. The only thing that's changed, really, is that I'm not gainfully employed. So that must be it; unemployment is bad for your health. Need to do something about that...
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