Then: “Play ‘Free Bird’!”
Now: “Play Angry Birds!”
Obligatory Post Where Author Juxtaposes Seemingly Similar Things From Different Eras And Tries To Create A Meaningful Connection As Lesson About Something Lost (Outline)
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Author: Brian J. Noggle
A Lesson Unlearned
The President spoke to calm the citizenry recently:
Sorry, did I say “calm the citizenry”? I meant to “rile those subjects receiving alms from his most beneficent largesse”.
It would be a good exercise in imagination for those who receive these giveaways to think about what they would do if those benefits actually stopped. And I don’t mean “stopped” in the sense of “went on furlough for a couple weeks or months, only to come back with additional sugar to make up the shortfall.” I mean, what if the Tea Party people are right and this rate of expenditure is unsustainable and eventually the huckster’s constant motion machine falls to a pile of gears and pistons. Then what will they do? Get some sort of job even with their chronic back pain? Perhaps pick up some craft they can barter? Attend a church that can help out? Maybe cultivate some family relationships and bear some children so they have someone to take care of them in their old age?
The rhetoricians–and I apologize to Cicero for calling them that–on one side of the debate seem to want to carve different channels for imaginations to run. Instead of self-reliance, some leaders preach that while some citizens don’t have it, someone (“the rich”) does have it, and someone must take it from the haves and give it to them. It’s a Mad Max mentality where the government is The Humungus, liberating gasoline for its followers. We don’t need deserts, leather, and collanders. We might already be there.
(Video conveniently seen on Real Debate Wisconsin as I was thinking about this post.)
UPDATE: Thanks for the link, Tam. Hey, VFTP readers, you can get the trade paperback version of my novel John Donnelly’s Gold, which Roberta X. mentions here, for 20% off today (Friday, July 15, 2011) by entering the secret code BIG305 at checkout.
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Building the Next Generation of Internet Crackpots
“Dad, there’s a bug in my room!” my five-year-old asked.
“Was it the Soviets?” I asked.
“A Soviet?” he asked.
“The Soviets put a lot of bugs in a lot of rooms,” I said.
So now the child is not only concerned about bugs in his room, but about Soviets putting bugs in his room.
You really have to start them early if you want quality paranoia to dominate in their later years.
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Building An Empire
Remember when we used to have a republic, where elected officials at the lowest level of government handled the immediate needs of citizens? I almost do, too.
Which is why I find this development deeply disturbing:
The Obama administration is launching a pilot program designed to spark economic growth in urban America by partnering federal officials with local decision-makers in six cities, the U.S Housing and Urban Development secretary announced Monday.
The idea, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said, is to create what he called Community Solutions Teams, which will include employees from several different federal agencies, and have them work directly with local officials in Detroit; Chester, Pa.; Fresno, Calif.; Memphis; Cleveland and New Orleans.
The federal staffers will in effect be embedded in the cities, working on issues the mayors have identified as important, such as developing transportation infrastructure, improving job-training programs and the like. In Detroit, Donovan said, up to a dozen “federal folks” will be in town for a year or two.
Sure, a year or two.
And suddenly, the elected officials in these cities will do what the federal staffers want if the local officials want the money. The old way of doing it, where the feds offered dollars with lots of strings, was bad enough. Now they will be directly directing things at the local level.
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Style Note
Henceforth, we at MfBJN will refrain from using the overwrought term “nanny state” regarding the government that tells its “citizens” that they need to eat their peas and “We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money.”
Many nannies provide excellent childcare for their charges and enjoy working with children. I do not think the current administration is very good at taking care of what it thinks are its children, and I don’t think they like citizens very much.
Henceforth, or at least until I forget this vow sometime tomorrow, MfBJN will use more appropriate epithets:
- Resentful stepmother government who wanted power, but not the responsibility, and who dictates rules and regulations for her convenience, not to protect and educate those whom she must serve, or
- Surly foreign au pair state, who wanted the benefits afforded her position but not the responsibility. Not only does her actual work interfere with the late-night parties she wants, but the damn brats are from an entirely different inferior culture anyway.
As a warning, you have a couple of hours to use them amongst yourselves before Disney applies to trademark them.
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I Am Only A Rat In A Maze, Like You, And Only The Dead Go Free
Speaking of John Sandford, within this Wall Street Journal article entitled The (Really) Long Goodbye (subhead: He’s got a gun, a badge—and rheumatoid arthritis. The iconic detectives of best-selling authors from Michael Connelly to Ruth Rendell are fighting a new foe: old age.), Mr. Sandford makes an appearance:
Best-selling crime writer John Sandford says he planned to end his popular “Prey” series, starring Minnesota investigator Lucas Davenport, by killing the protagonist. His editor, Neil Nyren, warned against it, arguing that Davenport’s death would destroy backlist sales of his earlier books. Mr. Sandford now feels trapped in the series, 21 books in. He’d like to write science fiction or nonfiction, but readers keep demanding more Davenport books.
“There’s enough money on the table that it’s difficult to quit, even though that would be the right thing to do,” Mr. Sandford says. “In a lot of ways, it’s just a successful product. If you’re making Band-Aids, you don’t want to stop making Band-Aids, because they’re selling well.”
Mr. Sandford slowed down time so that Davenport ages just two or three months a year. But after 22 years, Davenport is approaching 50. In his new best-selling novel, “Buried Prey,” Mr. Sanford flashes back to Davenport’s early years as a rookie cop. “It allowed me to put some sex back in the novels,” Mr. Sandford says.
On one hand, I can understand how, after 20 years, a popular series character might be a pair of golden handcuffs. However, I don’t think I can countenance complaining about not being able to write other things, especially given that “John Sandford” is a pseudonym and he could write and try to publish anything he wanted. He could even discontinue the (multiple) series for a while as he branched out.
But the Prey series are bankable for his publishing house and for his agent (if he has one). So the entirety of The System wants him to continue with the series he’s tired of. He doesn’t have a guaranteed publisher, perhaps, for his space operas or histories of the settlement of the northern plains (or whatever).
So if he were to write what he wanted, he might have to work to get it into print, and it might not sell to a level to keep John Sandford earning what he does for the Prey books and it might get him the acclaim that he gets for them. But there’s nothing stopping him from trying. Nothing but himself.
It’s unseemly to complain about one’s success.
And let’s be honest, there’s still sex in the novels. A bit much, really, for my evolving tastes. I’m almost afraid of how much there might be in a book where he’s not restricted to Lucas Davenport’s monogamy.
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Book Report: Storm Prey by John Sandford (2010)
This entry in the Lucas Davenport series details a robbery at the pharmacy of the hospital where Weather, Davenport’s wife, works. The first chapter describes the robbery, including the people within it and their relationships to the people within their criminal circle and to the inside man in the hospital who provides them with the pharmacy key. Weather sees him, of course, and sees one of the bad guys as she comes to the hospital for a rare spectacle of a surgery separating conjoined twins. So she becomes a target when the bad guys bring in a Psycho Killer, and they turn upon themselves in various ways.
I didn’t care for this book for many reasons. Here are some:
- It’s 400+ pages. I mean, really, it’s almost as long as Dune. Is that really necessary? Maybe, these days, to justify a $25 hardcover price.
- It spends a lot of those pages on Weather’s surgery. They go on and on about pediatric neurosurgery. That pads it and does not add to it.
- By introducing the bad guys early and spending a large portion of the story dealing with their dealings with each other, the book becomes something of a collection of intrigues. Who will double-cross whom? How will it end? I came to these things expecting to read about good guys against bad guys, but so much of this book (and the previous, Wicked Prey) deals with subplots among the bad guys. I think part of this might have started with the books where Clara Rinker was the bad guy. Maybe not. But as time goes on, the books have evolved in a direction I don’t like.
It’s not a bad book, especially after page 125 where Lucas Davenport and the cops begin actually investigating, but as this series progresses, note that I’m checking them out from the library. Nevertheless, I have a link where you can order it below. BECAUSE OF THE HYPOCRISY!
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What Was Wrong With Trial By Combat?
Bill could change how Supreme Court chooses chief justice:
Wisconsin’s Supreme Court would be given the power to elect its chief justice under a constitutional amendment that could be introduced to the state Legislature as early as next week.
The bill authored by Rep. Tyler August, R-Walworth, would end a longstanding rule that gives the court’s highest seat to the person with the most seniority. Instead, the seven justices would gather to choose their own chief following any Supreme Court election.
They go by seniority? I thought they selected the chief justice in a fight.
(Link seen on Boots and Sabers.)
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That’s A Damn Dirty Trick
Are your Google+ circle mates feeling a little out of place after escaping Facebook? You can help them feel at home like I did, by sharing an image like this:
Of course, if you do, you might wonder like I do why you’re not in that many circles.
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Book Report: Dune by Frank Herbert (1965, 1990)
As part of my ongoing project to up my geek cred, I went ahead and read Dune, too (in addition to Lord of the Rings) this year. I’ve been exposed to the mythology before. The 1984 David Lynch film starring that guy who looks like a grown-up Matthew Broderick was in heavy rotation on Showtime back in the days when I was trapped in a trailer in Murphy, Missouri, for days on end, so I saw it a couple of times back then, but not in the last 20 years. Then, there was the time I bought a first edition of the book (not a first printing, mind, but definitely a hardback published by Chilton) for a buck and sold it on Ebay for $150. Granted, I did not read the book, but I was somewhat steeped in its publication history if nothing else.
When I first picked it up, I wondered if I was still reading the Lord of the Rings. I mean, it’s chock full of intrigue and every once and again it breaks into a verse of poetry or song. Also, it’s broken into books within the book. More subtle similarities that I’d go into if I were really that into it or if I were seeking and advanced degree.
Except this book is American in nature. The language is more accessible, and the writing is not as, erm, textured. Additionally, the main character is less of a cipher and the intrigues play out in real time instead of having a wizard show up every decade or so to tell you that intrigues are going on, and the cipher must do something to play his unknown role in it.
The story, of course, tells of Paul Atreides, son of a Duke whose father is double-crossed and killed by the Emperor and another royal house on the dismal outpost of Dune, the only place in the universe where one gets melange, the spice that extends men’s lives. Paul joins the natives, becomes a native leader, and plots his revenge.
So the book flowed better than the trilogy, and I got through it quicker. My greatest disappointment is that the third book-within-the-book starts really jump cutting. Whereas the first two portions of the story take place in a pretty limited time frame, the last third of it starts skipping whole years and starts telling of battles that happened instead of, you know, having battles happen.
So I enjoyed it enough to get through it. I also bothered to read the appendixes (which did not number in the hundreds of pages), but I skipped the glossary, though, having muddled through the language in the text.
I’ve like to think I’ve upped my geek cred slightly with the read, but I’m not going to hunt out the sequels any time soon. Besides, I’ve spent a lot of time this summer on four paperbacks, and I need to start making some little ding in my several thousand books of backlog here.
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I Wish Paul Ryan Were In My Township
Rep. Paul Ryan is getting a lot of undeserved heat for his recent purchase of $350 bottle of wine in a hotel restaurant. Apparently, when leftwing blog Talking Points Memo asked him about it, he said:
Yeah, I was like this is ridiculous. Who buys wine that expensive? It surprised me, and I think it’s stupid under any circumstance to pay anything close to 100 dollars for a bottle of wine.
James Joyner quips on the “parallel” to John Edwards’ $400 haircut:
Second, Edwards’ $400 haircut story had so much traction because it reinforced the image that he was less than the manliest of men and spent far to much time caring for his pretty hair. What’s the parallel here? Republicans like wine?
It’s true. Republicans do like wine if my old township is any example.
My old Township Republican Club in the St. Louis area had a wine tasting after its monthly meetings. Whoever provided the wine certainly espoused the Paul Ryan Theory of Wine Purchasing: They served Foxhorn wines, which cost like $8 for the 1.5L bottles. I know very well, because that’s the kind of wine I buy for myself. One thing about Foxhorn: it certainly is a wine tasting because unlike, say, $10 bottles of (750mL) wine, you sure can taste Foxhorn. Sometimes for quite some time after you’re done with a glass.
It certainly played against the stereotype of Republicans that elements of the left are trying to perpetuate with this non-story.
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Why Can’t Modern Football Players Act?
So someone help me out here: why don’t modern football players transition to acting careers as successfully as old timey football players did?
In the Olden Days, we have:
In the modern era, we have, what? Brett Favre in There’s Something About Mary? Brian Bosworth in Stone Cold?
Take a look at this list: 50 Football Players Who Acted in Movies and note that the ones who could be said to have made a successful transition to films and television played prior to the 1980s, and that most of the roles from then on are as “Self”? Is it a transition in football culture? Is it that older players were better-rounded and most professionals these days are football robots, funnelling all their energy into it from an early age?
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I’ve Said It Before, I’ll Say It Again
Scipio Africatus is a bitchin’ name for a feline.
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Gun Control Advocates Were Right!
They said if Wisconsin got legal concealed carry, the blood would run in the streets. And they were right!
A 29-year-old social worker who has lived in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood for 10 years said he was punched in the face, a 28-year-old census worker said he suffered a black eye and a 28-year-old man who has also lived in the area for a decade saw a female friend thrown to the ground, beaten and her backpack stolen.
All three were among a group of friends at Kilbourn Reservoir Park Sunday night who say they saw a group of young people running in the park. They say the group threw bottles and beat several people.
Mark Peterson, 28, who owns a home in Riverwest, said he saw a female friend beaten.
“I saw her get thrown to the ground. There was blood all over her face. A guy swooped in and grabbed her bag she dropped when they threw her to the ground,” said Peterson, who said he was punched in the back of his head and his jaw.
Although turning Milwaukee into the Wild West, where law abiding citizens can strap on big iron to defend themselves and their town from the thugs who prey upon them, might actually represent a step up.
Also, it provides an experiment group to the Illinois control group. If these sorts of incidents decline in Wisconsin when people start getting concealed carry licenses, but continue at the same level or increase in Peoria and Chicago, it might prove something.
Global Warming, no doubt.
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News Lance Can Use
Trog‘s been posting about the country’s problems a lot lately. You know what could be a good distraction for that serious lad?
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Children’s Shows Would Be Better with More Weapons and Tactics
MfBJN Studios is gearing up to produce these improved children’s shows:
- Dragoon Tales
- Veggie Flails
- Yo Glaive-Guisarme!
- Claymore the Biig Red Sword
- Dora the Exploder
Frankly, any one of them could teach children better life lessons than they’d get from a steady diet of PBS “Everyone Is The Same, Even When They’re Different” pap.
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Book Report: Dave Barry Does Japan by Dave Barry (1992)
This is my second Dave Barry tome this year (I read Dave Barry Turns 40 in March). Somehow, Dave Barry or someone convinced Random House to send Dave Barry and his family to Japan for three weeks to get a book about it. Really. It must have been something to be a humorist in that golden age. My employer here at the blog won’t even pay for my trips to the coffeepot.
The book comes at the height of Dave Barry’s popularity and the height of Japan’s economic power. A couple year later, Japan hits the economic skids and falls from the front rank of American citizens’ bugbears. To put it clearly: Instead of American sitcoms dealing with the zany antics of a fish-out-of-water American in a Japanese auto company (Gung Ho, and yes, I know it was a movie first, but it was later a sitcom), we get American sitcoms dealing with the zany antics of a fish-out-of-water American in an Indian call center (Outsourced, which was also based on a movie). No word on if someone is going to send Dave Barry to India for three weeks.
My point in the preceding, aside from having the sudden urge to compare Gung Ho to Outsourced, is that the book is a period artifact since it fits into the period genre of trying to understand the Japanese who were economic geniuses. It has Dave Barry’s amusing spin on it and has a travelogue thing going on, but it’s mostly Dave Barry being Dave Barry.
An amusing read.
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British Journalist Misses The Point
Ed Driscoll and Instapundit link to this Independence Day column in the British The Telegraph paper where the journalist describes the American Revolution but misses the point by a little, and a lot:
On this day in 1776 a group of 13 colonies broke away to found a new nation free to govern itself as it saw fit, pledging that each citizen would have the unalienable right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. A nation, as Americans are apt to declare without equivocation, which became the greatest on the face of the earth. [Emphasis added.]
Erm, no.
Let’s go to the text:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Understand these rights are inalienable and bestowed by the Creator. They are not proffered nor pledged by citizens, the founding fathers, or whatever government or governing documents they and we write or elect.
I don’t know if this is the Continental or the Transnational mindset or what, but certain people–not necessarily this journalist–would like you to believe that the government is the source of rights and can manufacture them or remove them at will. Strangely enough, a lot of those certain people are in or would like to be in the governmental Department of Rights Management.
We need to be sure that we educate people to the proper, and intended by the framers of our nation’s founding documents, defintion of right.
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Messing with Alex
As some of you know, I’m officially in the hopper as a potential Jeopardy! contestant for the next 17 months, 2 weeks. Someday, I might stand behind a podium with an illuminated negative score after the first commercial break, letting Alex Trebek and the audience get to know me a little better. Have you ever noticed that sometimes, the Jeopardy! contestants seem a little surprised at the thing Alex mentions? That’s because you write them down on a piece of paper before your audition. So by the time you’re on the show, a year and a half could have elapsed before Mr. Trebek brings it up. Bloody heck, I’m already forgetting what I wrote down, and it’s been three weeks since my audition.
But various alternatives are running through my head: responses I could make whatever Alex brings up. Responses like:
- Your intelligence service is very good, Mr. Trebek. I’ve never told that story before to any living person.
- Deny it. What? I don’t know what you’re talking about. That never happened.
- Burst out weeping.
Of course, that would really never happen. I would probably be vibrating like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and would have to focus too much on keeping myself together to be clever.
I’m much funnier on the Internet than in person.
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Ebooks Versus Paper Books, Read Ducks
Wired lists five reasons ebooks are not “there” yet, which is five reasons why the particular writer isn’t fully sold on ebooks as permanent replacements for printed books. Boiled down, they are thus:
1) An unfinished e-book isn’t a constant reminder to finish reading it.
2) You can’t keep your books all in one place. [That is, in one file format/application.]
3) Notes in the margins help you think.
4) E-books are positioned as disposable, but aren’t priced that way.
5) E-books can’t be used for interior design.
Here are some reasons why nutbar Brian J. Noggle does not own a portable ebook reader and is not going to replace his extensive library with one:
- Theft.
An electronic gizmo is the target of theft; should this occur, you lose your investment in your device and your investment in purchases for it. No one is going to steal my library without a dump truck and frontloader. - Damage.
Again, by centralizing a large investment in a single place, if you drop it or leave it on the roof of your car, you’re in danger of losing the library instead of a $1 book you bought at a book fair. - The rapid expansion of technology.
You’ve bought the gee-whiz Kindle now, and it can hold thousands or billions and billions of Carl Sagan books. But in a year, publishers are going to embed videos in the books to justify the price of the books. In a couple years, they’ll embed three-d videos and memory-intensive applications so you can create a community with other readers. Suddenly, your device can’t hold the robust complete edition of The Chronicles of Narnia. - The rapid obsolescence of technology.
Your device can hold today’s ebooks. Will they hold ebooks developed in 2017? You are new here, aren’t you? Device creators will need reasons to get you to buy new ebook devices, so they’ll make new bells and whistles (hey! Customizable skins!) And suddenly, six months after you buy your reader and load it with books, you could find that the device maker is ending support for it. There will be no more ebooks for you until you spend money to upgrade your device and maybe even your entire library. - You don’t own ebooks.
Ask any purchaser of this Kindle edition of 1984. They own the content and they let you borrow it. Read your license agreements and, if you understand them, weep. - If the lights go out, you have nothing to read.
I’m not just talking about TEOTWAWKI. In very recent memory, parts of Missouri have lost power for weeks. If that happens, will your electronic device have enough battery to keep you in books and to help you with that reference material you need? You’d like to think so, but you won’t know so. Also, in the actual event of TEOTWAWKI, your device will only briefly heat your hovel and will release toxic chemicals to do so. Meanwhile, I can burn old Dungeons and Dragons novels for hours.
I don’t think any developments in ebook readers will ever dispel my reservations about them. I’m not enough of a luddite to proclaim that I’ll never own something like it–probably eventually some smartphone with text holding capabilities–but it won’t replace real books.
Andrea explains why the list items do not apply to the Spleenville book lifestyle. I’d like to dialog with her text a bit.
“E-books (sic) can’t be used for interior design.” Well, duh. I can’t scatter the internet about my apartment either — not unless I waste ink printing out a bunch of websites. That’s not the point. Some people don’t want books “cluttering up” their domiciles. Yeah, don’t ask me, I don’t get it either, but as meaningful as the idea of needing physical paper books everywhere to make me feel like my house is a home, I accept that some people aren’t like me and don’t think of books as augmenting their “interior design.” Unless they’re like those sad, sad people who buy random books in bulk with jackets all of the same color merely for the purposes of making their living room or stairwell look like that one they saw on HGTV.
Strangely enough, the wife of a former office co-habitant did just this. We went to some garage sales one weekend, and she bought books based on their cover/jacket colors and whether they would go in her living room. The content of the books didn’t matter.
Real bibliophiles go right to the bookshelves when they visit a place for the first time to see what the host reads. Or, in her case, that the host does not. You can’t do that with an ebook device, can you?
“3) Notes in the margins help you think.” This comes straight out of academic thought patterns, and is irrelevant to readers of novels and other “light” fare. Unless you really think that readers of things like the Twilight books carefully write their thoughts (“I heart Edward! I wish he were my BF!”) in the margins. Anyway, if you really can’t “think” without scribbling all over your books, maybe e_books are not for you. Or maybe you should carry a little note pad, or maybe you should learn to think without having to depend on notes.
Yeah, I remember being encouraged to “dialogue with the text.” That came along with the wide-margined notebooks so you could comment on your own journal entries about what you were thinking or feeling about things you were covering in the class. I haven’t written in the margins in decades. The only dialoging I do with text these days is when I throw the paperback copy of a book by a liberal author to the floor and stomp on it.
Frankly, because I’m not an academic, going over and over the same narrow niche for years of full-time work, I’ve gone back to something I’ve read for something I wrote in its margins. I have, on the other hand, gone into this blog’s archives for something I wrote about something I read.
At any rate, as I said, I’m not rushing out to buy an ebook device. I am, however, rushing headlong to profit from ebooks. See also John Donnelly’s Gold.
BECAUSE I’M A HYPOCRITE!
UPDATE: Thanks for the link, again, Ms. K.
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