I have signed up for a graduate class. I took most of the prerequisites during the Bush presidency. The first Bush presidency. Bush, Sr.'s presidency. It took me hours to figure out and complete the first "brush up" assignment. I may be past my expiration date for mathematics. As I will probably be spending most of my free time sobbing in the corner, I will probably not be doing much writing for a few months.
My academic peak.
If you would like to aid me, please direct all prayers to Thor. I'm not really up my Norse theology, but I'm pretty sure Thor would be pro Math-smiting. That is to say that I imagine Thor hates math. He probably doesn't hate math to the extent of the main Christian god, but at least he looks cool. There's a reason that Thor made it as a comic book hero and YHWH (I will assume it is pronounced Yoohoo) didn't.
Not pictured: celestial peeping Tom.
Aside from Yoohoo's general douchiness, superheroes don't wear sandals or togas. And they don't look like Santa Claus's less corpulent sibling. Thor fought mighty battles against terrifying enemies. Yoohoo, on the other hand, spent all his free time micromanaging the affairs of a minor tribe of semi-literates in a worthless patch of dirt near the Jordan river.
Look! Malachi is touching himself again! Such a smiting he has earned...
More specifically, he had an inordinate interest in where they did and did not stick their naughty bits. Come to think of it, ALL the Christian gods suck. Even Satan, the supposed bad guy, his whole schtick was turning into a talking snake.
Shown: Satan's entire répertoire.
Batman had a bigger bag of tricks and he didn't even have any superpowers! And Jesus? He can heal minor injuries and bring back exactly one person from the dead? His lifetime record could get beat by a competent paramedic on a busy night! Oh, but Jesus has wrath, let's not forget that. For whom? Let me think ... Oh, right, moneychangers. And also a fig tree.
They had it coming.
When you're going to bring the fury, go all in. On moneychangers.
I ran into this picture today. It has Greek writing on it, so I have to assume it is from the bible. I consider myself an educator of sorts, and feel compelled to instruct the unlearned. But my scripture knowledge is pretty rusty, and I don’t recall this scene. In the pursuit of spreading the work, however, I’ll piece it together by mostly making it up. Like most Christians. Here goes:
Easter had come and gone. Jesus had already performed his yet-to-be-replicated dying-undying trick, as well and whatever unholy things he did to rabbits and chickens. It was Memorial Day weekend, and the Big Four (as the Apostles called them, because it is preferable to “The Four Donkeymen”) decided to head out to the Sea of Galilee for some fishing. They were just getting the whole Christianity thing going. This mostly involved drawing bad caricatures and working on their book called The Protocols of the Young Whippersnappers of Zion. This trip was to teach them much. They were just becoming wise to their incompetence as fishermen, absent divine help.
In this idyllic setting, they were to encounter an enemy even slightly eviler than the Jews: atheists. From the illustration, we see that the men in the boat on the left are clearly atheists. The baleful expression on the aftermost sailor bespeaks the blackened soul bereft of joy that we know all atheists possess. Next to him, sporting a shield with a flower on it (doesn’t even try to hide it, does he?) is, well, one of those people. The bearded individual in the forward section closest to the mast seems to have elbow-patches. The fact that he doesn’t seem to be doing anything useful confirms his identity as a Liberal Arts Professor. The two-headed Darwin-Poe beast watches cynically as the scientist (who seems to have become a part of the ship) , without any moral compass, proceeds to flambé the Big Four with Greek fire while apparently giving a talk.
Then the atheists left, possibly to drink the blood of newborn children.
Oh, and the Gospel Guys probably got resurrected or something.
The presence of John was really appreciated when Luke's IBS was acting up.
I was cleaning up my office on Friday, and discovered some interesting things. I often write on airplanes. I physically write with a pen on paper in neat cursive. I know it sounds quaint, but I am at a phase in my life where long flights are as close as I ever get to solitude. Anyway, I found this little piece on the reverse side of a document I was feeding into the shredder:
In as much as the United States of America is a Christian nation, etc. It shall be ordained that the First Amendment of the Constitution be amended as follows:
1. The Congress shall select one of the following as the official religion of the Nation:
a. Roman Catholicism - as the denomination with the most adherents, this is a reasonable candidate. Of course many might take exception to "foreign" intervention. Then, however, the case could be made that the Supreme Court is already controlled by the Catholic Church.
b. Southern Baptist - the second largest denomination is the collected Baptists. Since the Southern Baptist Convention is almost uniquely organized and completely American, this would be a great choice.
c. The dark horse candidate would be the Mormon religion. Although it is much smaller than the other candidates, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints brings several strengths to the table: the LDS Church controls a fabulous amount of money as well as direct control of a number of powerful corporations and an entire state. The LDS Church has a long history of and a great deal of experience in theocracy. There is a reason that Mormons are greatly overrepresented in local, state, and national government. It is only fair to give some consideration to those who have put so much time and effort into preparations for exactly the sort of theocracy we need. It should be noted as well that the Mormon religion is the only powerful modern religion created in America.
2. Once the official state religion is chosen, all elected officials will be given the opportunity to meet Church-ordained requirements for holding public office.
3. For a period of not less than one year,
And that was the end of the page. It's entirely possible that the next page had already met its fate without me noticing. I wonder where I was going with the idea...
The overwhelming majority of Teabaggers would consider me something of an immigrant. I have been researching family records lately and can point to ancestors on both my maternal and paternal lines that were born in the U.S. prior to the Civil War. Family lore puts the first progenitor of my mother's maiden name in Florida, New Spain in the 1500s. The records of that line so far dried up about the same time as the others. The continuous line that I can trace back to the original Spaniards didn't first enter the U.S. until about 1908. Still, I have to wonder what fraction of Teabaggers with a shorter history in the country consider people like me foreigners.
Perhaps I should look to their view of African Americans. The kidnapping or purchase of people from Africa to be sold in the U.S. as slaves was outlawed as of 01 JAN 1808. So the majority of black Americans can claim American roots stretching back to Colonial times. Yet for some reason I see relatively few black people sporting tri-corner hats among the Teabaggers. I wonder why that is.
My wife's grandfather was born in the U.S. in 1899, but moved back to the old country. What does that mean with regard to wingnut wackiness threatening to disallow citizenship for people born in this country to non-whitenon-American parents?
It's true. About a decade and a half ago when I was in the Army, I worked out with a co-worker in the Air Force. The AF facilities were much nicer than the Army facilities (if you have ever been in the military, then you know this is the case approximately 100% of the time), so I would give him a ride home after our shift and we would go to the gym for a couple of hours. One day we were in the midst of a hardcore upper body workout. I had a 105 lb dumbbell in each hand, I was on the flat bench, and the gym sounds system was booming with this:
I was in the zone, and my partner was yelling and I could feel every muscle in my chest and arms straining. Every tendon was pulled taut and the sweat was burning my eyes as I pushed through another rep. Then mid sentence, the voice of LL Cool J was abruptly cut off and replaced with this:
Like probably everyone else in the gym, we simply stopped. After a second of near-perfect silence (excepting, of course, the voice of Minnie Riperton), my partner burst into uncontrolled laughter. Instead of spotting me, he was bent over convulsing. I quickly lost concentration, and couldn't maintain the two 105 lb weights in my extended arms. I suddenly lost all strength in my arms and the weights came crashing down. They bounced so hard off my chest that I lost my grip, sending them flying to the sides of my bench. I rolled off the bench, coughing and laughing, and struggling to breathe. I was incensed, but also overtaken with the hilarity of the music choice. I tried to yell at the young woman running the sound system, but it came out as garbled pained laughter and slight insanity. When my partner informed her that no person in the history of the human culture would consider "Loving You" appropriate background music for weight lifting, she replied "We have to cater to all of our patrons, so we play a variety of music." And that is how music almost killed me.
Most of what I say is the kind of stuff I (and probably few others) find amusing. Occasionally, I write something to which some people may take offense. I hate tiptoeing around topics out of the fear that someone might take offense with regard to a controversial (or just stupid) subject.
Some people ask non-believers why we would want to get together with others non-believers, since non-belief lacks most of the trappings of organized belief. Hurt feelings. I hate having to keep my mouth shut about the sorts of stupid bullshit that no sane person could believe. Like homeopathy. Or the Holocaust. OK. Not the Holocaust, but I brought that up because I was just thinking of it. I left a comment at My Old Kentucky Homesite referring to one of the architects of the Holocaust. It had popped into my head, but I hesitated out of habit.
Some people get really bent out of shape at what they see as trivializing the Holocaust, 9/11, the rape of Nanjing, Deep South lynchings, etc. Part of the reason I like to hang out with skeptics and atheists, both on the intertubes and in meatspace (Isn't that a great word? I learned it from some geeks I know) is that we aren't easily offended. Sure, we can listen to offensive crap like the wink-wink nudge-nudge racism seen at the Teabagger events. We can shake our heads as Christian Identity types espouse the "law and order" justification for the KKK that is as valid now as it was when Birth of a Nation was in theaters. I sit through all kinds of stupid Jesus crap because I have a high threshold for bullshit. That includes plenty of offensive religious bullshit. I'm sure there are exceptions, but the typical skeptic doesn't tend to storm out of a room in a huff. Not over hurt feelings, anyway. For me, if I leave anything, it is mostly that I feel I have nothing to gain from remaining. That is one reason I seek out others of "my kind."
I have been in the Shenandoah Valley, admiring the natural beauty of the state. More important than its natural beauty, though, this state is also the burial place of Saint Robert E. Lee and Saint Stonewall Jackson. I assume that is more important, as there are far more reminders in every gift shop and museum.
I wonder if the state's new tourism motto, "Virginia is for Lovers" has been tied to these long dead Confederate generals in any way. Creepy. Anyway, I have now seen the light. The years of not believing ridiculous recycled desert fairy tales has come to an abrupt end in God's country. The turning point?
The Natural Bridge.
But all that secular ordinariness must give way to the magic of Jesutude. In the evening, we are treated to a reading of the first Creation story from the Book of Genesis, King James Version, accompanied by lighting on the Natural Bridge:
1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
1:7 And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
1:9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
1:10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
1:12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
1:13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
1:15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
1:17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
1:18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
1:19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
And those in attendance were given a few minutes to walk over to the opposite side of the Natural Bridge prior to the continuation. I suppose this is when God went to the little deity's room. Unfortunately, the darkness overpowered my limited photography skills and I had no usable images of the far side. Anyway, back to Creatifying:
1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
1:21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
1:22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
1:23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
1:29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
1:30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
A fair explanation to be sure. Now imagine it told in voice of Hank Hill (see below):
A couple of days ago, I boarded a plane to the civilized parts of the country. Aboard the aircraft, I encountered two things that pissed me off.
First, a group of men were speaking Spanish (which I understand with difficulty) loudly enough and clearly enough for me to understand them. This may not sound like much, except that they were sitting on opposite sides of the aircraft and with three rows between them. I was sitting in one of those rows.
Second, competing with these men was a small child. I would admire both its endurance and its volume, but for my murderous rage. Actually, most of the flight didn't involve murderous rage. That came later. The miserable shrieking wretch was alternating, "Mommy ... Daddy ... " Approximately 5 minutes prior to landing, a woman holding the miserable spawn of whatever demonic entity curses air travel asked in a clam, sweet voice, "You want to go to Daddy?" and handed the child to the father. The child was immediately silenced. My murderous rage was not directed at the child.
I was awakened at approximately 5:04 in the morning by an earthquake. Strangely, I opened the bedroom door to see if anyone else had noticed. Nope. So I went back to sleep. It was on the news the next morning. I actually thought it was kind of cool. It was the first earthquake I ever noticed.
I thought the Gettysburg National Park was well done. We had recently seen the movie Gettysburg and I was surprised to find that my 8-year-old recalled several key figures of the battle. I think the fact that so many monuments had been erected by veterans and survivors of veterans within living memory of those battles showed the humanity and tragedy of this sort of warfare. I appreciated the professional historians knowledgeable about the people associated with the battle as well as the battle itself that eagerly answered all questions. The weather even cooperated, with the July heat reflecting the climate of those three days 147 years ago this month. If only I had been wearing a thick wool uniform...
Of note, the crowds around the various museums in D.C. were from points throughout the world. At Gettysburg, on the other hand, the only languages I heard were English, German, Spanish, and French (in that order). It seems this is a site of interest only to those raised in culture of the West.
Larry at My Old Kentucky Homesite had an article up today: This Will Not Be on the Test. It included this question:
Question 6.: According to the bible, Noah’s Ark was 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 45 cubits high. A biblical cubit = approximately 1.5 feet. If the ark was filled to capacity with animals on the morning of the first day, and it rained for 40 days, how many animals in total were eaten by each Tyrannosaurus Rex on board?
I love math and bible crap. What a great combination. Pure logic and pure illogic. Lewis Carroll may be the master of mixing the logical and illogical, but he never tackled biblical bullshit (as far as I know, but I'm a dumb hick raised in various rural backwaters).
I thought about the "great flood." Mount Ararat has a height of 5,137 m above sea level. If we ignore the volume of the land, we can easily find the volume of water that the wicked god of the Abrahamic mythologies pissed down on the heads of "his children." What can we divine from this "knowledge?"
That is about as rigorous as a half hour on wikipedia allows.
Shelby Foote begins this second installment of this history with the leadup to the Union disaster at Fredericksburg. Rather than a simple description of what are generally considered the greatest tactical back-to-back Confederate triumphs at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, Foote gives a great deal of background that helps the reader to see how these came to pass. Giving the reader insights of the personalities of such generals as Burnside and Hooker, we can see how rapidly promoted men with a reputation for aggression can succumb to the caution that destroyed so many Union generals early in the war.
Foote seems to take pains to portray Nathan Bedford Forrest in a true genius. I find this fascination understandable, but I think his successes could be easily explained as a basic philosophy. First, he made a point of showing more physical courage than could be expected of any but the most fearless of men. Second, stack that on top of the strategy that had proven the most successful, attack and attack and allow no quarter. Third, we should note that the style of cavalry warfare employed by the South was much more easily supported when based out of friendly country. That was the sort of luxury the Federal forces could never expect. Thus would I posit that Forrest's success was due greatly to his circumstances mixed with the singular characteristic for which none can fault him: he followed through with his arrogant talk to an extent approached by no other general of either side.
The pace of the narrative is such that the reader will be pulled away from the idea that Gettysburg essentially ended the war, but for mopping up. Given where it occurred in this series, we can see that things are far from decided by that single battle. While it is true that, in many ways, it was the beginning of the end, it is historically more accurate to consider it the beginning of the long decline.
The author doesn't accentuate the characters beyond their actual contribution, which is important. To this point, we see that General Grant is only beginning to receive the accolades of the leadership, and then only with the crucial capture of Vicksburg. A great deal of naval activity has escaped the notice of most Americans, but Foote illuminates this portion of the story in great detail.
As this portion of the story ends, Foote foreshadows the destructiveness that the South will witness in the remaining years of the war.
I am currently reading five books, which is pretty typical for me. Others often ask why I do it, and I have a few answers. First, my mood changes such that I don't feel like reading a particular kind of book at the moment. Second, I have multiple media that are not always handy. On an airplane, I take both my Kindle and a dead tree book. At takeoff and landing, I can't read the Kindle during takeoff and landing (apparently, electronic devices cause the aircraft to burst into flames, resulting in massive loss of life). At home, I have so many dead tree books that I will probably not live long enough to finish them. I burn through from 20 to 50 books a year, but some of my books are enormous and dense.
Aside: do you remember this from the Washington Post back in 2008:
In his column, Rove says that Bush read 95 books in 2006 alone. In 2007, he read 51 books and as of last week, he had read 40 in 2008.
I find it somehow hard to believe. The most telling? During a debate, he was asked about the last book he read. He stumbled and vomited something about reading the bible. Wow. It had really been that long since he had read a book? Had I been asked that question, the only hesitation would be deciding which title the rubes in the audience would appreciate.
Anyway, I don't think that I lose anything by not finishing a book at a sitting. Thoughts?
Update: I just went over my reading as of this year, and I have only managed 17 books so far, putting me on a pace for less than 40. First, I blame the kindle, and the subscription to the New York Times I got with it. Reading the kindle news takes a bit longer than the dead tree version. Partly that is due to the ability to toss out entire sections of paper, where one has to actually step through the first page of each article or risk missing something interesting. Another part of this is that I feel compelled to read the paper every day, as I am paying for it. So I skip what could be quality book reading time in favor of bullshit about teabaggers giving each other handjobs. That sucks.
Understanding that many of the stories related by the first Europeans returning from the New World were grossly exaggerated or even completely fabricated, an item of interest struck many. Some of the more fantastic descriptions, such as the golden city of "El Dorado" quickly gained the status of legend. Attempts to find them invariably failed, with many (or even most) ending in tragedy. It would remain as such until Western man was ready to commit to months or even years in the most miserable conditions imaginable.
The first part of the last century was such a time. While no longer "discovering" continents, the rich nations of the West sought to break records and explore the vast uncharted territories of such diverse places as the bleak wasteland of Antarctica, the jungles of Africa and Oceania, and the seemingly impenetrable tropical rainforests of the Amazon basin. This book tells the story of the last expedition of one such man. Spanish writings from the time of the Conquistadors tells of a great city in the Amazon, wealthy and vast. One of the first modern explorers came to call this fabled city "Z." This would come to be the obsession of one of the greatest explorers of the age. In 1925, along with his 21-year-old son Jack, and Jack's friend Raleigh Rimell, Fawcett set out up the Xingu River to find it.
Until recently, I had never heard of Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett. This book became my first introduction to that person, even though I was quite familiar with him indirectly. The heroes of such stories as The Lost World, King Solomon's Mines, and numerous others depicted some fanciful iteration of the adventurer. The famed Royal Geographical Society was exactly the sort of organization that adventure movies strive to replicate.
Perhaps owing to his day job as a writer for The New Yorker, Grann is brief in his descriptions and does not dwell on details. He tries to put together a narrative interspersed with snippets of his own travails in making an attempt to follow in the footsteps of the hundreds of individuals aspiring to the rôle of Henry Morton Stanley to Fawcett's David Livingstone. One thing that struck me about this was that I inferred the search for Fawcett was a much larger sensation than the search for Livingstone. That may have been greatly influenced by the time. With the rapid increase in the range and speed of transportation and communication, people were able to maintain a "news feed" of a sort that had never existed in the past. As well, the world was seeking heroes in the aftermath of a terrible war and in the presence of fearful uncertainty.
I think Grann should have provided more information depicting others engaged in exploration of the same area, either as collaborators or competitors. Perhaps he didn't wish to bore the reader with a side topic. He does, however, describe the intimates of Fawcett (in particular his nuclear family) vividly enough for us to get a sense of their struggles with his lifestyle even before his disappearance.
Aside: I found it interesting that Fawcett (and, later, his wife) turned to charlatans seeking advice from the spirit world. This movement was popular in England and in the U.S. at the time. Perhaps, again driven by the zeitgeist, many who had suffered tragedy sought solace where they could find it. Such people famously included Fawcett's friend Conan Doyle, who had lost a son in World War I. I was a bit disturbed to see respected individuals falling so readily for such chicanery.
The author intersperses the narrative with the details of his own journey and does a competent job of keeping the story flowing. Ultimately, we find a rather concise conclusion to the author's journey and his investigation. This is an interesting book, and not written in such a stuffy style as is common among those writing of early 1900s explorations from a contemporary perspective.
My unfortunate fascination with the American Civil War brings me to another obvious point of history. In 1861, The Democratic Party was the party of inherited wealth and the Republican Party was the party of entrepreneurial wealth. As has been the case for wars going back a hundred generations, the Civil War was a rich man's war and a poor man's fight. But that is too cheap and easy. Let us take a closer look at the far-reaching implications. The political might of the North was concentrated in the hands of the magnates of industry. In the South, the aristocracy ruled as it had in old Europe. Where even such prominent Union figures such as Lincoln and Grant can be damned with their own words of overt racism, the men of the South were more insidious. Certainly the disparagement of "lesser races" was spread thickly throughout Confederate rhetoric, but only in the face of a more important extant point. So long as "the nigger" is "the nigger," those members of the class called "poor white trash" have someone upon whom to look down. Imagine yourself as a dirt farmer in South Carolina, with a situation not far removed from serfdom. "At least I ain't a nigger." seems a perfectly reasonable rationalization of your condition (at least in the first person).
During the reconstruction, it is doubtless that those holding the reins of power throughout the nation found that they shared more than had previously been imagined. Chief among these: concentration and perpetuation of wealth. The nouveau riche became accepted to the extent that their votes participated in the maintenance of monetary might. The blue bloods were willing to extend their hands in welcome to the upstarts, so long as there was some reciprocation. This came in the form of recognition of past prestige. We can look upon a number of old names who are not much more than upper middle class these days. But among the representatives of this class, we see many individuals who would be destitute but for their family names.
The robber barons have intermarried with Mayflower society, resulting in the Republican Party of today.
I was on a South Pacific sojourn for the past week and a half or so. During that time, I spent the relatively little free time running, swimming, and visiting with colleagues. I managed to run a total of almost 78 miles, went to the beach 5 times, and had dinner with colleagues several times. A few interesting things popped up. Some of the people I work with are "James, "Jack," "Joe," and "Jeri."
James, Jack, and Joe have approximately the same job I have, but have all been doing it for twice as long. When viewing a live camera with poor refresh rate, James posited that the strange figures were ghosts. He then went on to start talking about a show he watches called "Ghost Hunters." Apparently, he is as interested in paranormal crap as I always was. During the ensuing discussions, James, Joe, and Jack all but stated that they did not believe in gods, ghosts, fairies, or other magical creatures. I wondered of the nature of our work. Our sort of work requires a vigilant skepticism of engineering data, a critical view of operations, and an active search for unanticipated possibilities.
I found this idea intriguing, but at a dinner (the food was excellent, but the service was rather slow), I found a certain amount of disappointment in another colleague. We were discussing the use each of us had made of one of the only free days during this activity. Jeri said she had gone to church. James said, "Well, if you were praying for the Dodgers, it didn't take." From the icy stare, we could all see that James had struck a nerve. Apparently, Jeri spends a great deal of time at church. I had no idea. First, I find myself among rational people. Then I find one that is so serious about her religion that she becomes downright offended at an offhand remark obviously in jest. What bothers me a great deal about being around religious people is that some of them (not most, at least among those I know) are so easily offended that one has difficulty holding a normal conversation around them.
It was the winter of 2007. Dr. Faustus, the famous left-wing philologist, was sitting in a coffee shop in despair over the Bush-Cheney regime and the future of his country.
You know that philology has nothing to do with oral sex, right?
Suddenly, Mephistopheles, who happened to be the provost at his college, appeared, sipping a double mocha frappuccino. He sat down next to Dr. Faustus and casually asked him if he would like to be granted any five wishes in exchange for his immortal soul.
I understand you attended the University of Chicago, but you should be aware that most other institutions frown upon high level administrators bartering in souls.
-Then as any good liberal would, the philatelist or philanderer or whatever wishes for disasters to be visited upon the country.-
Again, the kinds of people who wish disasters upon their countries pretty much only come from the University of Chicago. Those of us not drowned in the philosophy of Leo Strauss and the philanthropy of Milton Friedman are rather strongly opposed to the destruction of their nation.
-The strawman is savagely beaten, then lit afire, then doused only to be lit again!-
Surveys showed public opinion drifting rightward on issue after issue: gun control, abortion, global warming and the role of government. Far from leading Americans, Democrats were repelling them.
"public opinion drifting rightware on ... global warming?" You know that global warming is science, right? You know, like the germ theory of disease? Or have you "drifted rightward" on that?
On second thought, why don't you go home and rewrite it? And this time, please, drop the foray into fiction. You only do fantasy well when it is in the form of your writing on economics.
When Shelby Foote began this work, he was a novelist. He had been contracted to write a short history of the Civil War. He failed (at least in brevity). This is the sort of book that is not for those with a casual interest in the American Civil War. This enormous work, of which I have just finished the first, is as comprehensive as can possibly be sculpted into a readable narrative. Opening with the simple words of Jefferson Davis, the author begins by shaping the characters not with simple descriptions as a disinterested party. Rather, he describes individuals through the words and actions of their contemporaries. I cannot imagine how much time was spent gleaning details from vast troves of documents written or collected by both the famous and the obscure. As Foote states under "Biographical Note," the lion's share of this work was done in the name of official government records. I would love to get my hands on two works in particular, but as these histories are 127 and 30 volumes, it is not practical for someone with a day job.
The subtitle, "A Narrative," is quite appropriate in that this history reads like a novel. At first, I was not impressed, but I soon was dragged into the events. Foote's selections of private notes were very well chosen in that they appeared often enough and convey information enough for one to develop strong impressions of characters without ever finding this device superfluous or trivial.
Apart from those individuals most Americans would know, a few individuals stood out. My impressions of two Confederates in particular have been shaken somewhat. In Nathan Bedford Forrest, I have always only seen a murderous highwayman. In this narrative, I find evidence of admirable qualities. While a possibly insane murderous monster possessed of truly bizarre motivations (from readings elsewhere, not in this book), Forrest was not a mere berserker. He brought to bear not only the kind of single-minded fanatical delusion that allows men to fly airplanes into buildings, but also a real gift for tactics. Another religious fanatic, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, is portrayed as much less of a military genius than most Americans (particularly those of us who grew up in the South) have been led to believe. This brings me to another point. In this volume, I found a great deal of concurrence with what I found in McPherson's book: the Union suffered greatly at the hands of Lady Luck. Often, the deck was stacked against what appeared on paper to be the superior force. Some of the advantages of the South should have been obvious. Operating mostly in friendly territory, they were afforded the freedom of movement that was denied their adversaries. Similarly, the locals generally served as an intelligence-gathering service for the Confederates. Third, and perhaps most importantly, Confederate cavalry could travel light and with amazing speed, owing greatly to the first two points.
I have gained a little more respect for the abilities of George McClellan and Jefferson Davis, seeing more evidence of their talents in this ambitious work. It is a compelling read with dozens of maps to accompany the excellent descriptions of each action. I can't wait to see how it turns out.
I have always had a strange respect for Richard Nixon. I say strange in that he was a lying paranoiac with character flaws too numerous to count. But I understood (from childhood) what a grand coup it was for him to go to China.
Aside: I remember my paternal grandmother ruthlessly campaigning for the defeat of his successor and she always spoke of him with a bitter disdain. One of my earliest memories was of my always sweet grandmother sweeping us aside and getting angry (the only time we had ever seen her thus) when my siblings and I wanted to play. It was during the '76 election. She absolutely hated Nixon, and the feeling was surely passed on to his successor. She had lost a son and a son-in-law in the space of weeks to Vietnam and I think she blamed the Republicans for everything.
Domestically, Nixon presided over the creation of the EPA. I think we should always hold him accountable for the disgrace he brought on the office and the evil device that continues to this day (from Reagan in the late 70s down to Palin in the current day) of the "Southern Strategy." But regardless of his flaws, we should certainly not put him in the pot with such useless D.C. denizens as Franklin Pierce, Calvin Coolidge, and Pierce's second cousin's great great grandson George Bush Jr.
Someday we may be able to separate the wheat from the chaff as seen from outside the current or recent political situation. Until then, many will continue to mark such dismal failures as Bush Jr. as reasonable facsimiles of leaders.
What I wanted to address starts about 13 minutes in. Let us forget for a moment that Andrew Napolitano is a "pro-life libertarian" (how the hell is that even possible?) and that he counts conspiracy theorists as favorite guests. Aside: Napolitano's appearance is reminiscent of the television stereotype of a mid-level mafioso and his voice and manner sound like a strange mix of Lou Dobbs and Chris Matthews. How he manages to mix these overtly distasteful characteristics and maintain a reasonable facsimile of sanity is impressive, to say the least. From what I've seen of his show, he always appears the least reality-challenged person. Weird. Here is my transcript of the entire drug portion of the show with the words of Napolitano in green, Palin in red, and Paul in blue:
Governor Palin, switching gears, is it any business of the federal government if someone were to use a recreational drug in the privacy of their home in such a time and manner as not to harm another individual?
Well if we’re talking about pot, I’m not for the legalization of pot because I think that that would just, um, encourage - especially our young people - to think that it- it’s okay to go ahead and use it and I’m not an advocate for that, however I think that we need to prioritize our law enforcement efforts and if somebody’s gonna smoke a joint in their house and not do anybody else a-any harm then perhaps there are other things that our cops should be looking at to uh engage in and- and, uh try to clean up some of the other problems we have in society that are appropriate for law enforcement to do and not concentrate on um such a relatively speaking minimal problem that we have in the county.
Congressman Paul, should the police be breaking down doors with military equipment and- and shooting dogs and terrifying children in order to look for a miniscule remnant of marijuana in somebody’s pipe in their bedroom?
O-obviously not, we should legalize freedom - freedom of choice. You- a government can’t protect individuals from themselves. We can ge-aim to protect against de-harm against each other but not ag-what we do for or against ourselves. Everything that people say about marijuana and other drugs could apply to alcohol. Alcohol is the deadly (addicting?) drug, cigarettes, it- it’s just a useless battle. I think the most magnificent thing was when they woke up one day and said prohibition of alcohol was an insane policy. And we’re waking up right now. Just think about all the nullification about marijuana now. And the left is with us on that. Just nullify all those laws.
I left in all the stutters as part of my main point, and I will explain that later. For now, I will begin with Napolitano. His questions are unreasonably leading. If an interviewer's question could be completely and satisfactorily answered with a "yes" or "no," then it was a poor question. It is a poor question, that is, unless the interviewer has a reasonable expectation that the interviewee can't answer the question in a coherent manner. Regardless, it is poor technique for an interviewer to use his question to state his opinion.
I really wanted to agree with Palin on this. She is so terribly wrong every single time she says anything of substance (which, to be fair, is a rather rare occurence) that I haven't been able to find even as much common cause as I had with Bush Jr. But she quickly torpedoed this. First, slang is not to be used during interviews. As a political commentator, one is expected to present at least a modicum of professionalism. Speaking on an important topic with words and clauses like "pot," "somebody's gonna smoke a joint," and "cops" does not bespeak intelligence, education, or professionalism. Unlike with the corn pone speech of some (usually Southern) politicians, Palin's usage does not appear to be an affectation. This is how she genuinely speaks. For the sake of clarification, here are some appropriate replacements that are no less formal:
pot, smoke a joint, cops
weed, toke a doobie, cops
coke, snort a line, narcs
smack, shoot up, pigs
The claim could be made that I am cherry-picking. Those were from one sentence. Watch the video. Her thought pattern is so disorganized that her entire response was one sentence. Now I left in the uhs and ums for a reason. Note that Palin, like Napolitano, made relatively few of these stutters, while Paul made many. What is the difference? Paul's answer was a series of short sentences, each of which was central to his point. He stammered and was not polished like Palin appeared to be, but what he said contained much more meaning in support of his answer. Palin's response, on the other hand, was a number of practiced phrases wrapped around what was essentially a non-answer. Attempting to parse her sentence for information, I get the following:
She thinks marijuana is essentially harmless.
Though harmless, marijuana should remain illegal to discourage young people from using it.
Though marijuana should remain illegal, police should not enforce those particular laws.
The theme? Fear. Fear of punishment is important in maintaining control over young people. Palin is naïve. I think Paul competently presented the obvious and simplest arguments in favor of legalization. Unfortunately, his stumbling presentation of substantive arguments will always fail in favor of a polished presentation of negligible quintessence. Caveats: Though I agree with many of his positions, I am not a supporter of Ron Paul. Though I advocate the legalization of marijuana, my reasons are strictly pragmatic, as I have never used marijuana.
Update: I have included the link to the original video which can be queued to any point in the video (where the embedded video cannot). Still, I think the transcript is flawless and inclusive of all pertinent parts of the exchange.
I have been delving into some fiction lately, and I've reviewed most of the novels. I wonder, however, what to do about collections of short stories. I have read a number of books and articles by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Both of these men highly recommended a P.G. Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh. Considering the high literary qualities of their own work, I got a couple of collections from Wodehouse.
As I always do, I tried to start from an early work, with A Man of Means, written with C. H. Bovill. I found it moderately amusing, but not particularly so. Perhaps I should try again. On the next venture, I decided to try to find the "Jeeves" character which seems to have been Wodehouse's most famous.
I got The Man with Two Left Feet, which was another collection of short stories. It turned out that Jeeves only had a bit part in a single story. As with the first collection, I found the stories amusing and competently written, but not noteworthy. The stories were all relatively simple and had interesting characters, but nearly always ending with an untalented person reaching beyond his faults mostly through blind luck.
I wonder if I am just too lowbrow for high British humor. So I find myself wondering if I even need attack the novels of Evelyn Waugh at all.
I have been fiddling with adding a COTS commenting doohickey, but I have hit a snag. My wife has apparently disabled my ability to add certain things. She's probably afraid I'd break something or hurt myself. Unfortunately, she just worked about a 70 hour week and is soundly asleep. I won't wake her. So I suppose I will be able to take the new comments for a test drive tomorrow.
