Recent viewings
Rocky Jones, Space Ranger (1954-55). This one was a pleasant surprise. It's on the same disc as the rather silly Flash Gordon episodes that I viewed a few months back, but it's far superior to them in terms of plot, acting, and even special effects.
Jones and his compatriots, as representatives of the "United Worlds", try to keep order and enforce the law on a wide open frontier, somewhat like the legendary Texas Rangers of the 19th century. I'll grant that the characters are not much more than a collection of stereotypes. Rocky is stalwart, strong and incorruptible. Sidekick Winky is witty, sadeyed, and always without a date on Saturday night. The Secretary of the United Worlds, to whom everybody in the Space Rangers seems to report directly (no doubt due to a lack of budget for additional players), is wise and avuncular. Vena Ray spends most of her time being ornamental in a miniskirt and cape, although she's occasionally seen relaying orders to unseen landing crew and otherwise making herself useful. And there's a precocious little kid who, for some reason, hangs around the United World headquarters and occasionally rides along on hazardous missions.
Despite this, and despite the fact that the strategems used to defeat the bad guys are sometimes laughably juvenile, there are moments when it rises above itself. So help me, Jones and his sidekick actually act like responsible, professional law enforcement officers, rather than triggerhappy space cowboys. In the episode "Escape into Space", Rocky and Winky rescue a fugitive from his crippled spaceship, and have reason to suspect he may have murdered his co-conspirator. But they can't just slap him in irons or beat him up or shoot him with a Destructo-Ray because he's The Bad Guy. As Jones says, their mission is to enforce the law, and until they have proof that he's committed some crime within their jurisdiction, they don't have the authority to arrest him. In "Kip's Private War", we even get a somewhat sympathetic depiction of a kid from a bad background who may -- or may not -- still be salvagable, given a chance to prove himself and a good role model to observe.
The visual effects, although primitive by today's standards, are surprisingly good for their time. Jones' spaceship, the Orbit Jet, looks and behaves exactly like the sleek, needle-nosed, tailfinned rocketships of Ray Bradbury's Mars stories, and its drive flame actually looks like a rocket exhaust, instead of the fizzling sparklers and smokebombs that all too often "propelled" Flash Gordon's various craft. The launching and landing facilities at the United Worlds headquarters bear a plausible, if somewhat blurry, resemblance to the launch facilities constructed at Cape Canaveral in the early 1950s. The videophones depicted in at least one episode are believable, even if the "futuristic" furniture surrounding them looks like Woolworth's surplus. The spaceship interiors are sketchily portrayed, but someone had the sense to make the walls of the spaceship visibly curved and visibly reinforced with interior framing similar to that of a WWII bomber. When spaceships are damaged, they lose air pressure and the folks inside either don pressure suits or asphyxiate. The spaceships' maneuvers, when shown from the outside, are not exactly textbook models of vector mechanics, but then you can't have everything.
Even the fight scenes are mostly believable, partly because they don't try to get too fancy. Really, it's neat when Captain Kirk pulls a clever judo move and uses his ankles to throw someone across the room, or when the Doctor uses "Venusian Aikido" or whatever it's called. But it's not quite as viscerably credible as when Rocky Jones ducks a crook's wild haymaker, then closes in like a professional middleweight and slams two or three solid jabs to the guy's gut to take him down. It's enough to make me think that someone on the show may have had some actual boxing experience.
Part of Rocky Jones' appeal may be in its limitations. The show is deliberately vague about the various locales visited, but in these two episodes they're usually referred to as "moons", suggesting that the scope of the Space Rangers' patrols may very well be limited to the solar system. The missions that Jones et al embark upon are not grandiose missions to save the galaxy, but missions to pursue and bring back fugitive criminals, or to try to keep a politically hostile demagogue from seizing control of a colony. (Shades of 1950s US policy toward communist movements in the third world?) It's true that the visible inhabitants of these moons never seem to amount to more than a handful of actors, sometimes in wondrously tacky costumes, but I'm willing to cut the show some slack given its evidently nonexistent budget for extras. After all, colonies in space might very well have very small populations, most of whom would not be able or inclined to take a day off from their jobs and come hang around and gawk at some cops from the capital who have dropped in to consult with the local bigwig.
It's clearly intended for a juvenile audience, and clearly working with a budget which was wholly inadequate by later standards. But it has its redeeming qualities. Star Trek was famously conceived as "Wagon Train to the stars", but I suspect it may have owed another debt of inspiration to this "Marshals in Space" predecessor.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Global warming is a liberal plot
From the letters column of the Arkansas Democrat/Gazette, by way of "Ambitious Wench", Making Light, and Snopes. One must hope that the intent was satirical.
From the letters column of the Arkansas Democrat/Gazette, by way of "Ambitious Wench", Making Light, and Snopes. One must hope that the intent was satirical.
You may have noticed that March of this year was particularly hot. As a matter of fact, I understand that it was the hottest March since the beginning of the last century. All of the trees were fully leafed out and legions of bugs and snakes were crawling around during a time in Arkansas when, on a normal year, we might see a snowflake or two. This should come as no surprise to any reasonable person. As you know, Daylight Saving Time started almost a month early this year. You would think that members of Congress would have considered the warming effect that an extra hour of daylight would have on our climate. Or did they ?
Perhaps this is another plot by a liberal Congress to make us believe that global warming is a real threat. Perhaps next time there should be serious studies performed before Congress passes laws with such far-reaching effects.
CONNIE M. MESKIMEN
Hot Springs
Recent viewings:
This Film is Not Yet Rated (2006). Independent filmmaker Kirby Dick sets out to investigate, expose and criticize the secretive MPAA review board which assigns ratings to movies.
There's much hilarity and puzzlement at the discrepancies between the ratings given out to various movies. Dick particularly attacks the MPAA board for two perceived failings: considering sex more offensive than extreme violence, and judging homosexual content much more harshly than similarly-explicit heterosexual content. He also criticizes the vague rationales for the ratings given, and the way that the MPAA gives more useful feedback to major studios seeking ratings than to independent filmmakers.
Along the way, Dick hires a private investigator to track down the members of the secretive board. This does have the effect of demonstrating that most of the members are not parents of teenaged children, as various statements of the chairperson of the board is quoted as saying. But this, and the subsequent revelation that the appeals board is made up of head honchos from major studios and a couple of clergymen, seem less significant than the demonstrated inequities that he's already portrayed.
One of the reasons for all this furor is that the dreaded NC-17 rating is a significant barrier to wide distribution. As one filmmaker comments, if your film receives an NC-17, the studio may back out of distribution and promotion deals, many theater chains will categorically refuse to show the film, and rental chains like Blockbuster will resist carrying the film.
This Film is Not Yet Rated does not address the degree to which internet and mail-order distribution of movies has created an alternative channel to old-style movie theaters. Nor, aside from a brief early discussion of early censorship codes such as the Hays Code, does it discuss at any length the likelihood that, in the absence of something like the MPAA board, the government -- or worse yet, fifty state governments and thousands of busybody local governments -- would have taken it as an invitation to take up regulating film content themselves.
It's a very entertaining documentary, which effectively points out shortcomings and ironies about the existing movie-rating system, but did not convince me that it offered any viable alternative.
In what can only be described as a gesture of defiance, Dick documents how, after secretly identifying the members of the MPAA review board and criticizing them on film, he sent a copy of the film to that very same board for review and rating. Considering that the movie opens with a gleeful smorgasbord of sexually-oriented clips to which the Board had objected, and contains illustrative clips of other "objectionable" material throughout, as well as identifying, picturing, and in some cases criticizing the individual members of the board, the NC-17 rating that resulted was no surprise. But, as Dick describes in a Q&A session included with the DVD extra features, the Board rescinded that rating after he added more material, presumably the material discussing the board's rating and the discussions with the MPAA.
This Film is Not Yet Rated (2006). Independent filmmaker Kirby Dick sets out to investigate, expose and criticize the secretive MPAA review board which assigns ratings to movies.
There's much hilarity and puzzlement at the discrepancies between the ratings given out to various movies. Dick particularly attacks the MPAA board for two perceived failings: considering sex more offensive than extreme violence, and judging homosexual content much more harshly than similarly-explicit heterosexual content. He also criticizes the vague rationales for the ratings given, and the way that the MPAA gives more useful feedback to major studios seeking ratings than to independent filmmakers.
Along the way, Dick hires a private investigator to track down the members of the secretive board. This does have the effect of demonstrating that most of the members are not parents of teenaged children, as various statements of the chairperson of the board is quoted as saying. But this, and the subsequent revelation that the appeals board is made up of head honchos from major studios and a couple of clergymen, seem less significant than the demonstrated inequities that he's already portrayed.
One of the reasons for all this furor is that the dreaded NC-17 rating is a significant barrier to wide distribution. As one filmmaker comments, if your film receives an NC-17, the studio may back out of distribution and promotion deals, many theater chains will categorically refuse to show the film, and rental chains like Blockbuster will resist carrying the film.
This Film is Not Yet Rated does not address the degree to which internet and mail-order distribution of movies has created an alternative channel to old-style movie theaters. Nor, aside from a brief early discussion of early censorship codes such as the Hays Code, does it discuss at any length the likelihood that, in the absence of something like the MPAA board, the government -- or worse yet, fifty state governments and thousands of busybody local governments -- would have taken it as an invitation to take up regulating film content themselves.
It's a very entertaining documentary, which effectively points out shortcomings and ironies about the existing movie-rating system, but did not convince me that it offered any viable alternative.
In what can only be described as a gesture of defiance, Dick documents how, after secretly identifying the members of the MPAA review board and criticizing them on film, he sent a copy of the film to that very same board for review and rating. Considering that the movie opens with a gleeful smorgasbord of sexually-oriented clips to which the Board had objected, and contains illustrative clips of other "objectionable" material throughout, as well as identifying, picturing, and in some cases criticizing the individual members of the board, the NC-17 rating that resulted was no surprise. But, as Dick describes in a Q&A session included with the DVD extra features, the Board rescinded that rating after he added more material, presumably the material discussing the board's rating and the discussions with the MPAA.
Recent viewings
The Eyes of Laura Mars (1978). Servicable 1970s thriller. A fashion photographer (Faye Dunaway) whose work capitalizes on sex, violence and shock value starts having inexplicable psychic visions of her friends and acquaintances being stabbed to death. The visions start coming true, and it looks like the killer is moving inexorably toward her.
Obviously the killer is someone close to her, but who? Her creepy ex-husband? Her shaggy, ex-convict chauffeur? Her smarmy, hard-driving agent (Rene Auberjonois, with gigantic poofy hair)? Does the handsome, ferociously intense police detective working the case (Tommy Lee Jones, also with hair) have something to hide?
There are a few telling depictions of the tawdriness of the late-70s art "scene". The scriptwriter effectively misleads the viewer for most of the movie and then ties everything up at the end only by breaking the cardinal rule of a good mystery story: basing the solution on a critical piece of information which is, so far as I could tell, completely unsignalled to the reader/viewer.
Not awful, but I feel no urge to watch it again to verify that last statement.
The Eyes of Laura Mars (1978). Servicable 1970s thriller. A fashion photographer (Faye Dunaway) whose work capitalizes on sex, violence and shock value starts having inexplicable psychic visions of her friends and acquaintances being stabbed to death. The visions start coming true, and it looks like the killer is moving inexorably toward her.
Obviously the killer is someone close to her, but who? Her creepy ex-husband? Her shaggy, ex-convict chauffeur? Her smarmy, hard-driving agent (Rene Auberjonois, with gigantic poofy hair)? Does the handsome, ferociously intense police detective working the case (Tommy Lee Jones, also with hair) have something to hide?
There are a few telling depictions of the tawdriness of the late-70s art "scene". The scriptwriter effectively misleads the viewer for most of the movie and then ties everything up at the end only by breaking the cardinal rule of a good mystery story: basing the solution on a critical piece of information which is, so far as I could tell, completely unsignalled to the reader/viewer.
Not awful, but I feel no urge to watch it again to verify that last statement.
Recent reads
Runaways, by Brian Vaughn, illustrated by divers hands. (Marvel site here, with spoilers. Wikipedia entry here, also with spoilers.)
The "Marvel Universe" of superheroes has been around long enough to have developed an extensive mythology and established dramatic conventions. Concepts like "origin story", "secret identity", "mutant powers", etc., are known far beyond the cognoscenti of dedicated fans.
However, with that set of established conventions has come a sense of sameness. "Good guys" like Spiderman and Captain America are always on the right side of morality (at least as long as they avoid donning mysterious black versions of their costumes). The story arc of the typical superhero has long since reached the point of cliche. Character (encounters radioactivity/finds alien artifact/is born on another planet/other McGuffin); character discovers new and mysterious abilities which puzzle him/her; character experiences traumatic personal event (optional); character dons costume and embarks upon career of battling supervillians. Character may or may not join up with ensemble team of superheroes. (X-men; Avengers; etc.)
Runaways tries to mix up the cliches by giving its characters a different kind of origin story. In the first few episodes, we meet a collection of bored and disaffected teenagers whose parents get together periodically for a "charity event". Some of the parents are harsh taskmasters; some are flakily boosterish; some are abusive. What the kids don't know is that their parents are actually a cadre of supervillains called The Pride. When the kids inadvertently witness a human sacrifice at their parents' "charity event", they're horrified and flee in a group, not only because they're shocked at the sacrifice, but becuase they feel (with some justification) that their parents may erase their memories or worse in order to keep them from exposing The Pride.
Now to tell the truth, this part of the story doesn't make much logical sense, especially since it's revealed that at least some of the parents have hopes that their offspring will follow in their footsteps. Wouldn't any sensible parent have laid at least some groundwork for these plans in the kids' upbringing?
But it works very well indeed as a plot device for placing a collection of attractive and angst-ridden teenagers into a dramatically tense situation in which they have to rely on each other while being radically alienated from their families and, by extension, from all the society around them. Since The Pride has operatives within police departments and most other government and business organizations, it's not long before the runaways are framed for a crime and targetted by a widespread dragnet, with not only police but various superheroes from as far away as New York being brought in to search for them.
Meanwhile, with the onset of puberty and as a result of their clashes with their parents, the kids have begun to display superpowers of their own, which they have no idea how to use effectively.
It's an interesting variation on the superhero story, with a more ambiguous feel than most superhero stories even in the current Age of Angst. Since the principals are on the run from both sides of the law, even familiar "good guys" such as Spiderman, Captain America, Wolverine, etc., take on a threatening cast as they seek the missing "runaways". I'm reminded of my favorite episode of ST:NG, in which longtime familiar characters become new again not because they actually change, but because they're seen from a different perspective from which they look mysterious and threatening.
There are a couple of annoying things about Runaways. The characters' appearances have a tendency to change significantly when a different illustrator takes the reins. And one major plot thread involving a key character ("Lucy") is resolved much too quickly and neatly to be credible. But it's more intriguing than the average comic or graphic novel.
Runaways, by Brian Vaughn, illustrated by divers hands. (Marvel site here, with spoilers. Wikipedia entry here, also with spoilers.)
The "Marvel Universe" of superheroes has been around long enough to have developed an extensive mythology and established dramatic conventions. Concepts like "origin story", "secret identity", "mutant powers", etc., are known far beyond the cognoscenti of dedicated fans.
However, with that set of established conventions has come a sense of sameness. "Good guys" like Spiderman and Captain America are always on the right side of morality (at least as long as they avoid donning mysterious black versions of their costumes). The story arc of the typical superhero has long since reached the point of cliche. Character (encounters radioactivity/finds alien artifact/is born on another planet/other McGuffin); character discovers new and mysterious abilities which puzzle him/her; character experiences traumatic personal event (optional); character dons costume and embarks upon career of battling supervillians. Character may or may not join up with ensemble team of superheroes. (X-men; Avengers; etc.)
Runaways tries to mix up the cliches by giving its characters a different kind of origin story. In the first few episodes, we meet a collection of bored and disaffected teenagers whose parents get together periodically for a "charity event". Some of the parents are harsh taskmasters; some are flakily boosterish; some are abusive. What the kids don't know is that their parents are actually a cadre of supervillains called The Pride. When the kids inadvertently witness a human sacrifice at their parents' "charity event", they're horrified and flee in a group, not only because they're shocked at the sacrifice, but becuase they feel (with some justification) that their parents may erase their memories or worse in order to keep them from exposing The Pride.
Now to tell the truth, this part of the story doesn't make much logical sense, especially since it's revealed that at least some of the parents have hopes that their offspring will follow in their footsteps. Wouldn't any sensible parent have laid at least some groundwork for these plans in the kids' upbringing?
But it works very well indeed as a plot device for placing a collection of attractive and angst-ridden teenagers into a dramatically tense situation in which they have to rely on each other while being radically alienated from their families and, by extension, from all the society around them. Since The Pride has operatives within police departments and most other government and business organizations, it's not long before the runaways are framed for a crime and targetted by a widespread dragnet, with not only police but various superheroes from as far away as New York being brought in to search for them.
Meanwhile, with the onset of puberty and as a result of their clashes with their parents, the kids have begun to display superpowers of their own, which they have no idea how to use effectively.
It's an interesting variation on the superhero story, with a more ambiguous feel than most superhero stories even in the current Age of Angst. Since the principals are on the run from both sides of the law, even familiar "good guys" such as Spiderman, Captain America, Wolverine, etc., take on a threatening cast as they seek the missing "runaways". I'm reminded of my favorite episode of ST:NG, in which longtime familiar characters become new again not because they actually change, but because they're seen from a different perspective from which they look mysterious and threatening.
There are a couple of annoying things about Runaways. The characters' appearances have a tendency to change significantly when a different illustrator takes the reins. And one major plot thread involving a key character ("Lucy") is resolved much too quickly and neatly to be credible. But it's more intriguing than the average comic or graphic novel.
Archaeologists have all the fun
From The Onion: Archaeologist Tired Of Unearthing Unspeakable Ancient Evils.
From The Onion: Archaeologist Tired Of Unearthing Unspeakable Ancient Evils.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Added to sidebar:
The Inferior 4, a group blog from fantasy/SF authors Paul Di Filippo, Elizabeth Hand, Lucius Shepard, and Paul Witcover.
The Inferior 4, a group blog from fantasy/SF authors Paul Di Filippo, Elizabeth Hand, Lucius Shepard, and Paul Witcover.
Recent viewings
Oh, Calcutta! (1972) This is one of those movies that I put in my Netflix queue because it's been so notorious, for so long, that I figured I needed to find out why. I watched it -- or as much of it as I could stand -- last night. Now that was a waste of six hours or so. By subjective standards, I mean.
Briefly: it's a stage show with naked people.
There's no plot, just a series of skits reminiscent of Benny Hill, or Laugh-In, or Hee Haw. Except that they have naked people.
The music is laughably bad, and most of the dance routines (with one exception) are uninspired and even campy. One skit features "Jack and Jill", dressed up in Little-Lord-Fauntleroy costumes, who cavort among giant building blocks and swings, engaging in witty sexual repartee until Jack rapes Jill and leaves her blankly staring into space as he casually breezes away. Another depicts a naive and dysfunctional young couple who get more than they bargain for when, at the husband's initiative, they answer a "swingers" personal ad. The funniest part of the latter skit is that the couple's living room, as well as most of the characters' polyester clothes, are that peculiar shade of avocado green that seems to have been popular only in the early 1970s.
As this reviewer points out, it's rather disturbing to notice how a show that purports to depict Sexual Freedom ends up showing one episode after another of a woman being coerced into sex against her better judgement.
An extended balletic pas-de-deux toward the end of the program displayed some actual artistic and athletic talent, and the only real sensual appeal of the entire show. Fortunately, the dance sequence, being entirely devoid of dialogue, avoided the corny one-liners and pointless scatology of the other skits. Unfortunately, it was saddled with ludicrously inappropriate music, a pseudo-Guthryesque talking-blues number about small town lotharios and part time prostitutes. It may be the only pas de deux ever performed that would be improved by deleting the music.
It's difficult to imagine how this corny botch managed to play for years on Broadway. I guess a lot of people, like me, figured that if it was notorious, it must be interesting.
Oh, Calcutta! (1972) This is one of those movies that I put in my Netflix queue because it's been so notorious, for so long, that I figured I needed to find out why. I watched it -- or as much of it as I could stand -- last night. Now that was a waste of six hours or so. By subjective standards, I mean.
Briefly: it's a stage show with naked people.
There's no plot, just a series of skits reminiscent of Benny Hill, or Laugh-In, or Hee Haw. Except that they have naked people.
The music is laughably bad, and most of the dance routines (with one exception) are uninspired and even campy. One skit features "Jack and Jill", dressed up in Little-Lord-Fauntleroy costumes, who cavort among giant building blocks and swings, engaging in witty sexual repartee until Jack rapes Jill and leaves her blankly staring into space as he casually breezes away. Another depicts a naive and dysfunctional young couple who get more than they bargain for when, at the husband's initiative, they answer a "swingers" personal ad. The funniest part of the latter skit is that the couple's living room, as well as most of the characters' polyester clothes, are that peculiar shade of avocado green that seems to have been popular only in the early 1970s.
As this reviewer points out, it's rather disturbing to notice how a show that purports to depict Sexual Freedom ends up showing one episode after another of a woman being coerced into sex against her better judgement.
An extended balletic pas-de-deux toward the end of the program displayed some actual artistic and athletic talent, and the only real sensual appeal of the entire show. Fortunately, the dance sequence, being entirely devoid of dialogue, avoided the corny one-liners and pointless scatology of the other skits. Unfortunately, it was saddled with ludicrously inappropriate music, a pseudo-Guthryesque talking-blues number about small town lotharios and part time prostitutes. It may be the only pas de deux ever performed that would be improved by deleting the music.
It's difficult to imagine how this corny botch managed to play for years on Broadway. I guess a lot of people, like me, figured that if it was notorious, it must be interesting.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Sleepless nights
A Bentonville, Arkansas, man is demanding that the local public library fire its director, censor a book, and pay him $20,000. (from The Morning News : Local News for Northwest Arkansas)
You see, his two teenage sons, while righteously looking for books on military academies (Dewey call # 355), accidentally stumbled across The Whole Lesbian Sex Book (Dewey call # 613.9) and, in all innocence, read it by accident, with terrible results.
I suppose it's one way to cash in. It could be rather profitable, this business of being professionally shocked by things that your teenage boys "accidentally" find in the society around them. Just wait 'til they discover the internet!
Amid all the hilarity at sites like Snopes, the truly disturbing fact that a well-reviewed, useful, and by all accounts non-prurient nonfiction reference book is being censored and will not be available to anyone who needs that information, either for personal reasons or for academic or medical reasons, seems to be escaping everybody's attention.
A Bentonville, Arkansas, man is demanding that the local public library fire its director, censor a book, and pay him $20,000. (from The Morning News : Local News for Northwest Arkansas)
You see, his two teenage sons, while righteously looking for books on military academies (Dewey call # 355), accidentally stumbled across The Whole Lesbian Sex Book (Dewey call # 613.9) and, in all innocence, read it by accident, with terrible results.
Adams said his 14- and 16-year-old sons, (names omitted by this blogger), looked at the book while the 14-year-old was browsing for material on military academies. He requested the city pay him $10,000 per child, the maximum allowed under the Arkansas obscenity law.Disturbed boys. Sleepless nights. Hm.
"My sons were greatly disturbed by viewing this material and this matter has caused many sleepless nights in our house," he said in another e-mail to McCaslin earlier in February.
I suppose it's one way to cash in. It could be rather profitable, this business of being professionally shocked by things that your teenage boys "accidentally" find in the society around them. Just wait 'til they discover the internet!
Amid all the hilarity at sites like Snopes, the truly disturbing fact that a well-reviewed, useful, and by all accounts non-prurient nonfiction reference book is being censored and will not be available to anyone who needs that information, either for personal reasons or for academic or medical reasons, seems to be escaping everybody's attention.
You have just entered... the NeoCon Zone.
The American Conservative reveals that the Bush administration has a wonderful secret that explains all their apparent untruths. They're from an alternate universe!
The American Conservative reveals that the Bush administration has a wonderful secret that explains all their apparent untruths. They're from an alternate universe!
We’re talking about the rulers of the most powerful nation on earth. It can’t be that they’re just pig-ignorant—of their own history, yet. There has to be a deeper, more subtle explanation....
What does a "guest worker program" look like?
From time to time various politicians and industry lobbyists in the U.S. suggest that what this country really needs is a guest worker program, like the ones in the United Arab Emirates or the Marianas Islands, to import boatloads of expendable foreign labor that has no legal rights and no legal option but indentured servitude to their master... er, I mean, employer... for the duration of their contract, after which they're shipped back to wherever they came from, no muss, no fuss, no legal recourse for any complaints they might have.
What would such a program look like, in practice?
From a diary at DailyKos:
From time to time various politicians and industry lobbyists in the U.S. suggest that what this country really needs is a guest worker program, like the ones in the United Arab Emirates or the Marianas Islands, to import boatloads of expendable foreign labor that has no legal rights and no legal option but indentured servitude to their master... er, I mean, employer... for the duration of their contract, after which they're shipped back to wherever they came from, no muss, no fuss, no legal recourse for any complaints they might have.
What would such a program look like, in practice?
From a diary at DailyKos:
Let’s translate this for a moment. Dhimal had been working for the Tan Family for ten years. His employment contract ran out and the Tan Family would not renew it. Nobody else would formally renew it within the 45 days that CNMI labor laws mandate. He was not granted an extension. He found a job as a security guard at a local high school. His new off-the-books employers ripped him off for over $2,000 in wages. He could apply for recovery of his lost wages but he also had to be deported. His former employer the Tan Family, would provide the one-way ticket back to Nepal.Remember that the next time some well-dressed, gym-toned management type complains about those bad ol' unions, or those bad ol' federal labor laws. Because left to their own devices with an inexhaustible supply of cheap and desperate labor, 'most every employer in the world would treat *all* its workers, not just the imported third-world "guest workers", exactly the same way the Tan family and CNMI treat theirs.
This morning he was suppose to visit the CNMI Department of labor, pick up his ticket and then be flown penniless back to Nepal while local Osman Gani pockets the value of Dhimal’s labor—labor that was already undervalued due to the artificially low CNMI minimum wage of $3.05—a wage that he might not have even been paid.
He was without rights. Any hopes he had that the 110th Congress would end the system of abuse and finally extend rights to long-term guest workers like himself were extinguished.
He had no power. He had no rights. He had no hope.
And he knew that he was only one of hundreds, if not thousands of other CNMI guest workers facing the same systematic removal from the territory just as help looked like it was finally on its way.
So he fought back. He fought back in the way that many without power have fought back to shame the powerful.
He went to the place of power and set himself on fire.
Monday, April 23, 2007
It was an exciting weekend for some....
While I slept like the proverbial log early Sunday morning, this happened a few buildings away.
The local fishwrapper reports no major injuries at the scene, but also points out that it's the second major apartment fire in the last few weeks.
This fellow, however, seems unfazed by all the excitement:
While I slept like the proverbial log early Sunday morning, this happened a few buildings away.
The local fishwrapper reports no major injuries at the scene, but also points out that it's the second major apartment fire in the last few weeks.
This fellow, however, seems unfazed by all the excitement:
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Recent viewings
Aria (1987). This is a very odd film. Ten directors were, apparently given carte blanche to produce short films to visually accompany music from various operas. In effect, it's like opera MTV.
The nature and quality of the results is all over the map.
Ken Russell's dreamlike "Nessun Dorma" is easily the most striking and memorable. In the film's most arresting visual image, a woman appears to float in midair among softly glowing clouds while mysterious barbaric figures adorn her body with gleaming rubies. There are subtle hints that all may not be quite as it seems, however. It's an effective surreal short film, and unlike some of the other ones, it has a story which arguably has something to do with the text of the song.
Franc Roddam's "Liebestod" is a dramatic, if depressing, tale of a pair of beautiful but troubled young lovers headed for Las Vegas.
Derek Jarman's "Depuis de jour" offers an affecting series of images as an aging woman fondly recalls a love affair of her youth.
Unfortunately, there are more misses than hits.
The opening segment, "Un ballo in maschera" by Nicholas Roeg, is a rather silly story of political intrigue about "King Zog" of Albania and an attempted assassination. For no apparent reason, King Zog is played by a woman in unconvincing male drag.
Jean-Luc Godard's segment "Armide" has a pair of young women acting distracted and fondling themselves while watching a bunch of musclebound bodybuilders work out. The bodybuilders ignore them. The women strip and start dancing around naked. The bodybuilders still ignore them. The women start threatening them with knives in between seduction attempts, and then start posing "artistically" and screaming in orchestrated rythym. Yes, it's as stupid and exploitative as it sounds, and even more pretentious.
Bruce Bereford's "Die Todt Stadt" offers more naked eye candy, but at least the lovers don't do anything weirder than strip each other out of their sumptuous Renaissance costumes and sing (or, rather lip-synch) to each other naked on a bed.
Julien Temple tries to follow the adulterous spirit of "Rigoletto" with a story of a kinky Hollywood husband and wife, each of whom is secretly cheating on the other. Unbeknownst to each other they simultaneously take their lovers to something that looks like a bordello with themed rooms. He takes a starlet to the "Neanderthal Room". She takes a gigolo to the German mountaineer room. He fondles stuffed animals and tries to get his "date" to take Ecstacy. She dresses up in a baa-lamb costume while her lover dresses up in a Alpine yodeler's outfit. Farce ensues as the cheating hubby and wife almost catch each other repeatedly while wandering around the bordello. Yes, it's as silly as it sounds. No, the comedy doesn't work. Neither is it particularly sexy, unless you happen to share the weird fetishes hinted at.
There's also some kind of story apparently being told through a series of interludes between the segments, in which an opera singer arrives at the opera house, walks through its various rooms, costumes himself, and finally performs the climactic song from "I Pagliacci" to an auditorium empty except for one woman. I suppose there must be a story there, although I couldn't tell what it was.
It's a mixed bag, sort of like sitting down and watching ten randomly-assorted MTV videos.
Aria (1987). This is a very odd film. Ten directors were, apparently given carte blanche to produce short films to visually accompany music from various operas. In effect, it's like opera MTV.
The nature and quality of the results is all over the map.
Ken Russell's dreamlike "Nessun Dorma" is easily the most striking and memorable. In the film's most arresting visual image, a woman appears to float in midair among softly glowing clouds while mysterious barbaric figures adorn her body with gleaming rubies. There are subtle hints that all may not be quite as it seems, however. It's an effective surreal short film, and unlike some of the other ones, it has a story which arguably has something to do with the text of the song.
Franc Roddam's "Liebestod" is a dramatic, if depressing, tale of a pair of beautiful but troubled young lovers headed for Las Vegas.
Derek Jarman's "Depuis de jour" offers an affecting series of images as an aging woman fondly recalls a love affair of her youth.
Unfortunately, there are more misses than hits.
The opening segment, "Un ballo in maschera" by Nicholas Roeg, is a rather silly story of political intrigue about "King Zog" of Albania and an attempted assassination. For no apparent reason, King Zog is played by a woman in unconvincing male drag.
Jean-Luc Godard's segment "Armide" has a pair of young women acting distracted and fondling themselves while watching a bunch of musclebound bodybuilders work out. The bodybuilders ignore them. The women strip and start dancing around naked. The bodybuilders still ignore them. The women start threatening them with knives in between seduction attempts, and then start posing "artistically" and screaming in orchestrated rythym. Yes, it's as stupid and exploitative as it sounds, and even more pretentious.
Bruce Bereford's "Die Todt Stadt" offers more naked eye candy, but at least the lovers don't do anything weirder than strip each other out of their sumptuous Renaissance costumes and sing (or, rather lip-synch) to each other naked on a bed.
Julien Temple tries to follow the adulterous spirit of "Rigoletto" with a story of a kinky Hollywood husband and wife, each of whom is secretly cheating on the other. Unbeknownst to each other they simultaneously take their lovers to something that looks like a bordello with themed rooms. He takes a starlet to the "Neanderthal Room". She takes a gigolo to the German mountaineer room. He fondles stuffed animals and tries to get his "date" to take Ecstacy. She dresses up in a baa-lamb costume while her lover dresses up in a Alpine yodeler's outfit. Farce ensues as the cheating hubby and wife almost catch each other repeatedly while wandering around the bordello. Yes, it's as silly as it sounds. No, the comedy doesn't work. Neither is it particularly sexy, unless you happen to share the weird fetishes hinted at.
There's also some kind of story apparently being told through a series of interludes between the segments, in which an opera singer arrives at the opera house, walks through its various rooms, costumes himself, and finally performs the climactic song from "I Pagliacci" to an auditorium empty except for one woman. I suppose there must be a story there, although I couldn't tell what it was.
It's a mixed bag, sort of like sitting down and watching ten randomly-assorted MTV videos.
The highly-selective War on Terror
The U.S. releases a suspected terrorist sought by the Venezuelan government on credible charges of planting a bomb on a Cuban airliner and thereby murdering 73 people.
From a New York Times editorial:
Well, isn't it nice that the Bush Administration is terribly concerned about people being tortured. The lesson here? Terrorism and mass murder are A-okay with the Bush Administration if you have the right connections.
The U.S. releases a suspected terrorist sought by the Venezuelan government on credible charges of planting a bomb on a Cuban airliner and thereby murdering 73 people.
From a New York Times editorial:
Upon Mr. Posada’s capture, the government of President Hugo Chávez demanded his extradition. But the Bush administration has refused to extradite Mr. Posada to Venezuela or Cuba, claiming that it fears he will be tortured in those countries. In fact, Washington’s reluctance is more likely linked to Mr. Posada’s history as a Central Intelligence Agency operative and a darling of extremist sectors of the powerful Cuban-American community in Florida (he tried to assassinate Fidel Castro with C-4 explosives placed in an auditorium packed with students in Panama in 2000). Twenty-two months have passed since Venezuela formally asked for his extradition, offering 2,000 pages of documentary evidence to substantiate its claim, yet the State Department has not even acknowledged receiving the request.(More news here in case you're one of those people who refuses to believe anything reported in the New York Times).
Well, isn't it nice that the Bush Administration is terribly concerned about people being tortured. The lesson here? Terrorism and mass murder are A-okay with the Bush Administration if you have the right connections.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Recent Reads
Zounds! A Browser's Dictionary of Interjections, by Mark Dunn. The author of Ella Minnow Pea helpfully defines and traces the origins of hundreds of exclamatory utterances. Some are well known: Bah! Gadzooks! Grr! Jeepers. Others, like "imbars bidbib", are uncommon enough that I wonder whether the savvy reader should apply its meaning to the tome in hand. If so, it's a clever joke embedded in an entertaining and otherwise useful little book.
Zounds! A Browser's Dictionary of Interjections, by Mark Dunn. The author of Ella Minnow Pea helpfully defines and traces the origins of hundreds of exclamatory utterances. Some are well known: Bah! Gadzooks! Grr! Jeepers. Others, like "imbars bidbib", are uncommon enough that I wonder whether the savvy reader should apply its meaning to the tome in hand. If so, it's a clever joke embedded in an entertaining and otherwise useful little book.
Recent reads
Darkly Dreaming Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay. A thriller with a protagonist as twisted as the enemies he pursues. Dexter, you see, is a psychopathic serial killer. But that's alright, sort of, because his stepfather, a retired cop, carefully trained him to submerge that side of his personality in everyday life and selectively direct it only at people who, in some way, deserve such treatment. Murderers, for example. Child rapists. And so forth. And since Dexter works in an urban police department, he has lots of targets to pick from, targets who would otherwise go unpunished for their wicked misdeeds.
Dexter also has difficulties with relationships, because as he constantly reminds the reader in first-person narration, he is totally incapable of feeling normal emotions like love or friendship. He's learned to fake it, and even has a girlfriend and a more-or-less normal-looking family relationship with his adoptive sister. But it's all based on observation and imitation of other people, not on actual feeling.
The plot thickens when a bevy of murder victims start showing up around the city, all killed in ways that seem oddly familiar to our twisted antihero. Is Dexter himself somehow involved without consciously knowing it? Or could there be someone else out there who shares his bizarre compulsions?
Dexter is a warped and disturbing character, but most readers will feel a degree of sympathy for him, not only because he narrates the book in a wryly self-deprecating fashion, fully aware of his own problems, but because most of us have had similar, if less extreme, feelings. Who has not, in the throes of some great upset, wished torment on another human being? The sane among us know to suppress those urges, but like Dexter, we feel them all the same. It's an exaggerated take on the old Freudian battle between the id and the superego.
Lindsay effectively develops his plot, with tension rising steadily as Dexter and his mysterious nemesis/alter ego inexorably converge upon each other. It's an effective one-shot thriller, but I question whether the scenario he's created can sustain a long series of books, let alone a TV show. One possible avenue for further development would be to explore the moral, emotional and psychological ramifications if the coldly-controlled Dexter were to accidentally choose an innocent person as victim. This could easily happen, even given his access to police files, given the number of convicted criminals who are eventually proven innocent. How could he, then, justify his own existence, if he no longer had the excuse that his victims "deserved it"?
Darkly Dreaming Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay. A thriller with a protagonist as twisted as the enemies he pursues. Dexter, you see, is a psychopathic serial killer. But that's alright, sort of, because his stepfather, a retired cop, carefully trained him to submerge that side of his personality in everyday life and selectively direct it only at people who, in some way, deserve such treatment. Murderers, for example. Child rapists. And so forth. And since Dexter works in an urban police department, he has lots of targets to pick from, targets who would otherwise go unpunished for their wicked misdeeds.
Dexter also has difficulties with relationships, because as he constantly reminds the reader in first-person narration, he is totally incapable of feeling normal emotions like love or friendship. He's learned to fake it, and even has a girlfriend and a more-or-less normal-looking family relationship with his adoptive sister. But it's all based on observation and imitation of other people, not on actual feeling.
The plot thickens when a bevy of murder victims start showing up around the city, all killed in ways that seem oddly familiar to our twisted antihero. Is Dexter himself somehow involved without consciously knowing it? Or could there be someone else out there who shares his bizarre compulsions?
Dexter is a warped and disturbing character, but most readers will feel a degree of sympathy for him, not only because he narrates the book in a wryly self-deprecating fashion, fully aware of his own problems, but because most of us have had similar, if less extreme, feelings. Who has not, in the throes of some great upset, wished torment on another human being? The sane among us know to suppress those urges, but like Dexter, we feel them all the same. It's an exaggerated take on the old Freudian battle between the id and the superego.
Lindsay effectively develops his plot, with tension rising steadily as Dexter and his mysterious nemesis/alter ego inexorably converge upon each other. It's an effective one-shot thriller, but I question whether the scenario he's created can sustain a long series of books, let alone a TV show. One possible avenue for further development would be to explore the moral, emotional and psychological ramifications if the coldly-controlled Dexter were to accidentally choose an innocent person as victim. This could easily happen, even given his access to police files, given the number of convicted criminals who are eventually proven innocent. How could he, then, justify his own existence, if he no longer had the excuse that his victims "deserved it"?
Recent reads
The marriage of Cupid and Psyche, as told by Walter Pater (excerpted from his novel Marius the Epicurean.) At one time I actually intended to read Marius the Epicurean. Pater's prose dissuaded me from this intention within a few pages.
However, his ornate, pseudo-archaic style is more palatable in small doses, and this adaptation of the well-known legend from Apuleius flows quickly by at a modest 64 pages. The first few pages are the toughest going, as two of Pater's rather stilted characters stumble across a copy of Apuleius's Transformations, or The Golden Ass, and being exploring its forbidden tales of magic and misadventure. Once the story of Psyche and her mysterious, supernatural lover begins, Pater's boys are as thoroughly forgotten as Lessingham in The Worm Ouroboros. The story is a classic fairy tale, perhaps even a direct ancestor of the kind of tales that the Grimm brothers collected centuries later. Edmund Dulac's stylized watercolor illustrations in this 1951 Heritage Press edition, both naughtily naked and oddly innocent, add an occasional splash of color to the handsome printing.
The marriage of Cupid and Psyche, as told by Walter Pater (excerpted from his novel Marius the Epicurean.) At one time I actually intended to read Marius the Epicurean. Pater's prose dissuaded me from this intention within a few pages.
However, his ornate, pseudo-archaic style is more palatable in small doses, and this adaptation of the well-known legend from Apuleius flows quickly by at a modest 64 pages. The first few pages are the toughest going, as two of Pater's rather stilted characters stumble across a copy of Apuleius's Transformations, or The Golden Ass, and being exploring its forbidden tales of magic and misadventure. Once the story of Psyche and her mysterious, supernatural lover begins, Pater's boys are as thoroughly forgotten as Lessingham in The Worm Ouroboros. The story is a classic fairy tale, perhaps even a direct ancestor of the kind of tales that the Grimm brothers collected centuries later. Edmund Dulac's stylized watercolor illustrations in this 1951 Heritage Press edition, both naughtily naked and oddly innocent, add an occasional splash of color to the handsome printing.
Academic career advice:
Ignore the students as much as you can. Or, as a pseudonymous writer in the Chronicle puts it, Don't Give It Your Best. Whether students learn anything doesn't matter to your career.
Ignore the students as much as you can. Or, as a pseudonymous writer in the Chronicle puts it, Don't Give It Your Best. Whether students learn anything doesn't matter to your career.
"He had congratulated me when I told him about my new teaching job and then had issued a warning: Don't give it your best," he said. "Don't do more than the bare minimum you can get away with. This system will chew you up and spit you out if you aren't careful. Take care of your own interests, your own work."...
...I can't help noticing a pattern when I look around at other recent Ph.D.'s on the job market with me. The ones who have had job interviews, and offers, aren't the ones who seem most dedicated to their teaching. They're the ones who have most aggressively pursued publication....
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Recent viewings
The New World (2005) . Pretty, pretty scenery. Pretty, pretty people. Pretty, pretty cinematography.
Deadly dull and deadly slow plot.
Q'Orianka Kilcher (cousin to singer Jewel Kilcher) is a lithe and attractive Pocahontas, with quick, graceful, leaping, dancing movements reminiscent of a wild doe. Colin Farrell, unfortunately, is comparatively lifeless as Captain John Smith. He seems to spend most of his time either silently moping or aimlessly wandering in slow motion through the wilderness, gazing about with a soulfully moronic look on his face.
Director Terence Malick is pretty clearly playing on the noble-savage motif here. Pocahontas's people all move like ballet dancers portraying idealized wild animals, while the English colonists other than the saintly naif John Smith alternate between brutal stupidity (grubbing for gold in muddy hillsides instead of building shelters or collecting food) and stupid brutality (killing and cannibalizing each other, attacking the Indians, etc.).
Realpolitik does turn out to play a role in the life of the Indians (or "naturals", as the colonists call them), as Powhatan and his advisors contemplate killing Smith and the rest of the colonists to keep them from seizing the land. As the famous legend relates, Pocahontas saves Smith's life and then, in the film, prompts her people to supply provisions to the stupidly starving English. Smith, after returning from his sojourn among the "naturals", unwittingly becomes part of a coup against the former leader of the colonists and must take on the role of a hard-counseling leader to chivvy the reluctant, lazy and badly organized English into surviving the winter. This is an improvement over wandering aimlessly through the woods, although there are intimations that it will lead to him treating Pocahontas badly.
Unfortunately, I can't report on the second half of the movie, because I fell asleep.
The New World (2005) . Pretty, pretty scenery. Pretty, pretty people. Pretty, pretty cinematography.
Deadly dull and deadly slow plot.
Q'Orianka Kilcher (cousin to singer Jewel Kilcher) is a lithe and attractive Pocahontas, with quick, graceful, leaping, dancing movements reminiscent of a wild doe. Colin Farrell, unfortunately, is comparatively lifeless as Captain John Smith. He seems to spend most of his time either silently moping or aimlessly wandering in slow motion through the wilderness, gazing about with a soulfully moronic look on his face.
Director Terence Malick is pretty clearly playing on the noble-savage motif here. Pocahontas's people all move like ballet dancers portraying idealized wild animals, while the English colonists other than the saintly naif John Smith alternate between brutal stupidity (grubbing for gold in muddy hillsides instead of building shelters or collecting food) and stupid brutality (killing and cannibalizing each other, attacking the Indians, etc.).
Realpolitik does turn out to play a role in the life of the Indians (or "naturals", as the colonists call them), as Powhatan and his advisors contemplate killing Smith and the rest of the colonists to keep them from seizing the land. As the famous legend relates, Pocahontas saves Smith's life and then, in the film, prompts her people to supply provisions to the stupidly starving English. Smith, after returning from his sojourn among the "naturals", unwittingly becomes part of a coup against the former leader of the colonists and must take on the role of a hard-counseling leader to chivvy the reluctant, lazy and badly organized English into surviving the winter. This is an improvement over wandering aimlessly through the woods, although there are intimations that it will lead to him treating Pocahontas badly.
Unfortunately, I can't report on the second half of the movie, because I fell asleep.
Recent viewings
Why should the Devil have all the good music? A low-key documentary about Christian rock music, focusing particularly on the Cornerstone music festival in Bushnell, Illinois. The movie consists almost entirely of interviews with members of Christian rock groups, interspersed with short live segments of their performances. The bands portrayed range from wretchedly untalented to moderately good. Unfortunately, the most musically appealing performer, Larry Norman, is not prominently featured, even though the title derives from a saying popularized by him.
The subjects of the film bring up plenty of interesting issues about the Christian rock genre. Is it just a pale, sanitized imitation of "mainstream" pop music? Should Christians separate themselves from that mainstream? Some of the subjects eagerly discuss throwing away their collections of secular music and carefully avoiding exposure to non-Christian radio. Others acknowledge playing in bars and similar venues, partly because they need the gigs, but also partly because they want to avoid being typecast or becoming trapped in an insular musical ghetto. Some of the musicians are interviewed amongst open beer bottles, with occasional vocabulary words that may surprise some of their fans.
A substantial part of the film is devoted to musicians and festivalgoers discussing homosexuality and how the church should relate to homosexual people. Perhaps not surprisingly, many of the musicians are more open and tolerant -- at least on camera -- than most official denominational spokesmen.
It's not the most exciting documentary ever made. Nor is it a definitive overview of Christian rock music. I strongly suspect it's not even particularly representative, since most of the bands featured are hard-rock or metal-influenced. But if one is interested in the subject, it provides food for thought and discussion.
Why should the Devil have all the good music? A low-key documentary about Christian rock music, focusing particularly on the Cornerstone music festival in Bushnell, Illinois. The movie consists almost entirely of interviews with members of Christian rock groups, interspersed with short live segments of their performances. The bands portrayed range from wretchedly untalented to moderately good. Unfortunately, the most musically appealing performer, Larry Norman, is not prominently featured, even though the title derives from a saying popularized by him.
The subjects of the film bring up plenty of interesting issues about the Christian rock genre. Is it just a pale, sanitized imitation of "mainstream" pop music? Should Christians separate themselves from that mainstream? Some of the subjects eagerly discuss throwing away their collections of secular music and carefully avoiding exposure to non-Christian radio. Others acknowledge playing in bars and similar venues, partly because they need the gigs, but also partly because they want to avoid being typecast or becoming trapped in an insular musical ghetto. Some of the musicians are interviewed amongst open beer bottles, with occasional vocabulary words that may surprise some of their fans.
A substantial part of the film is devoted to musicians and festivalgoers discussing homosexuality and how the church should relate to homosexual people. Perhaps not surprisingly, many of the musicians are more open and tolerant -- at least on camera -- than most official denominational spokesmen.
It's not the most exciting documentary ever made. Nor is it a definitive overview of Christian rock music. I strongly suspect it's not even particularly representative, since most of the bands featured are hard-rock or metal-influenced. But if one is interested in the subject, it provides food for thought and discussion.
On a future without cheap oil
The author of The Long Emergency opines here about the likely social and economic consequences of the depletion of the world's oil reserves. As do I, below:
Unfortunately for people in the US who would prefer to live without consuming huge quantities of oil and gasoline, it's practically impossible to do so, short of moving to a farming commune and reverting to a subsistence lifestyle. Outside of a very few urban core areas, there is practically no local public transportation, and workplaces, stores, and other vital points of contact between the individual and the society are spread so widely that for most people walking or even bicycling is not an option.
Driving to work is one of the key fuel-wasting American tendencies cited by folks like Kunstler, and the one that is least flexible in response to fuel prices. But there are at least three nearly insurmountable problems that prevent most people from living close to work as Kunstler and New Urban theorists suggest.
One, of course, is the "old-urbanist" insistence, echoed by many suburbanite NIMBYs, on segregating different property uses in widely-separated geographical areas. You can't walk to work if the zoning laws prohibit appropriate housing in the area near the workplace. Nor can you walk to the grocery store if the zoning laws prohibit retail establishments near the designated areas in which housing is permitted.
But even if zoning laws were instantaneously revoked, how is one supposed to live close to work when employers close, merge, layoff, and blithely relocate their physical locations at the drop of a CEO's country-club membership? The idea of renting corporate locations rather than owning them, so that the company can perpetually seek lower rents and hop-skip-and-jump around the country like a deadbeat debtor on the run from creditors, may look good to MBAs in the head office. But it makes it impossible for employees to make any long term plan to live close to where they work.
And what of those who are caught up in the US economy's continuing elimination of full time jobs, and must work two or three part time jobs to stay solvent? How likely is it that those multiple part-time jobs will be withing walking distance of each other, or within walking distance of an affordable place to live? And how likely is it that coordinating these multiple part time jobs will allow time for the leisurely and infrequent schedules of public transportation, if it even exists between the various locations involved?
The situation's much the same for intercity travel or travel to rural destinations. Air travel is wasteful of fuel as well as being unaffordably expensive, and Amtrak's lack of service is a perennial joke. To take one example, I couldn't travel between southeastern Michigan and Toronto by rail even if I were desperate to do so, because there is no such service.
I suppose these are just a few examples of the way in which our entire culture is fundamentally built on the concept of cheap and ubiquitous personal transportation.
The author of The Long Emergency opines here about the likely social and economic consequences of the depletion of the world's oil reserves. As do I, below:
Unfortunately for people in the US who would prefer to live without consuming huge quantities of oil and gasoline, it's practically impossible to do so, short of moving to a farming commune and reverting to a subsistence lifestyle. Outside of a very few urban core areas, there is practically no local public transportation, and workplaces, stores, and other vital points of contact between the individual and the society are spread so widely that for most people walking or even bicycling is not an option.
Driving to work is one of the key fuel-wasting American tendencies cited by folks like Kunstler, and the one that is least flexible in response to fuel prices. But there are at least three nearly insurmountable problems that prevent most people from living close to work as Kunstler and New Urban theorists suggest.
One, of course, is the "old-urbanist" insistence, echoed by many suburbanite NIMBYs, on segregating different property uses in widely-separated geographical areas. You can't walk to work if the zoning laws prohibit appropriate housing in the area near the workplace. Nor can you walk to the grocery store if the zoning laws prohibit retail establishments near the designated areas in which housing is permitted.
But even if zoning laws were instantaneously revoked, how is one supposed to live close to work when employers close, merge, layoff, and blithely relocate their physical locations at the drop of a CEO's country-club membership? The idea of renting corporate locations rather than owning them, so that the company can perpetually seek lower rents and hop-skip-and-jump around the country like a deadbeat debtor on the run from creditors, may look good to MBAs in the head office. But it makes it impossible for employees to make any long term plan to live close to where they work.
And what of those who are caught up in the US economy's continuing elimination of full time jobs, and must work two or three part time jobs to stay solvent? How likely is it that those multiple part-time jobs will be withing walking distance of each other, or within walking distance of an affordable place to live? And how likely is it that coordinating these multiple part time jobs will allow time for the leisurely and infrequent schedules of public transportation, if it even exists between the various locations involved?
The situation's much the same for intercity travel or travel to rural destinations. Air travel is wasteful of fuel as well as being unaffordably expensive, and Amtrak's lack of service is a perennial joke. To take one example, I couldn't travel between southeastern Michigan and Toronto by rail even if I were desperate to do so, because there is no such service.
I suppose these are just a few examples of the way in which our entire culture is fundamentally built on the concept of cheap and ubiquitous personal transportation.
Freedom's just another word
Continuing the proud marketing tradition of calling things by their exact opposite, a commercial aircraft designer proposes a seating arrangement called "Freedom". Looks more like packaging materials for a shipment of deactivated androids to me.
Continuing the proud marketing tradition of calling things by their exact opposite, a commercial aircraft designer proposes a seating arrangement called "Freedom". Looks more like packaging materials for a shipment of deactivated androids to me.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Behind the Walter Reed scandal
Yup, it's the usual suspects again. From the Miami Sun-Sentinel:
Yup, it's the usual suspects again. From the Miami Sun-Sentinel:
For those too horrified to read the details, here's a snapshot of the administration's greatest domestic disaster since Katrina.But, hey, you happy Bush supporters out there, I guess you don't really need to worry about that. Just slap another "Support the Troops!" bumpersticker on your 12 mpg Hummer and keep careening down the highway, flipping your middle finger at everyone and braying that libruls don't "support the troops" because they "hate America." After all, it's not as if you'll ever end up in a veterans' hospital.
It starts with brutally substandard care and abandonment of tens of thousands of veterans, not just at Walter Reed, but at VA hospitals and clinics around the country, as The Washington Post has revealed in ghastly detail.
Second, starving veterans' care. Since 2001, federal allocations for veterans' medical care lag behind overall health care spending, rather stunning when you consider we have sent 1.5 million of our young men and women to Iraq and Afghanistan and over 184,000 have sought VA care after serving.
Due to funding cuts, some 263,257 veterans were denied enrollment for Veterans Administration health coverage in 2005. Enrollment has been suspended for those deemed not having service-related injuries or illnesses.
The final piece is privatization. As the Army Times notes, Walter Reed handed a five-year $120 million contract to a private company run by an ex-Halliburton executive. The contracting out of support services was followed by a mass exodus of support personnel, one reason for the shoddy care.
If you think this is an aberration, look at other ways our healthcare safety net is being dismantled.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Recent reads
Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis.
Two very different books based on the premise of an Oxford University scientific team discovering a means of time travel and using it for historical research.
Doomsday Book, published in 1992, relates the story of Kivrin (Engle?), a student of medieval history who travels back in time to further her studies. Unfortunately, things get complicated. She becomes deathly ill shortly after arriving. Worse yet, due to an error in the time-travel process, instead of arriving in a relatively safe time that she can observe without major hazard to herself, she's arrived immediately prior to the onset of one of Europe's worst outbreaks of the dreaded Black Plague.
Willis does a wrenchingly good job of portraying the less pleasant aspects of medieval life and the brutal impact of the Plague on the people and society of that time. This is juxtaposed with the modern-day impact of an influenza epidemic that strikes 21st-century Oxford while Kivrin is "away", and complicates the efforts of her friends and co-researchers to rescue her from the unexpected hazards of her assignment.
To Say Nothing of the Dog, published in 1997, takes the same basic premise and plays it for satirical effect instead. The Oxford time-travel program has been effectively hijacked by Lady Schrapnell (!), a wealthy donor obsessed with rebuilding the cathedral in Coventry which was destroyed by a German air raid in World War II. A stickler for perfection, she insists that every detail be exactly correct, every single piece of decor exactly reproduced, every possible surviving piece of ecclesiastical furniture found and retrieved. Unfortunately, a particularly ugly piece of Victorian frippery known as the "bishop's bird stump" has so far eluded her, and the deadline for the dedication of the rebuilt cathedral is rapidly approaching. It's a crisis!
Our intrepid protagonist, Ned Henry, is a researcher who's suffering from the effects of a few too many time-hops taken too close together. This tends to result in mental vagueness and eccentricity. But no matter! Lady Schrapnell insists! The Bishop's Bird Stump MUST BE FOUND!
Willis has great fun playing with the comical possibilities of time travel, the culture-shock of modern men and women attempting to explore the Victorian era without calling undue attention to themselves, and the impossibly convoluted complexities of just how a time-traveller's actions may or may not affect the course of history. In the process she delightfully weaves in bits of Wodehouse, Sayers, and of course Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, to which she alludes in the title. Victorian social classes, dogs, cats, scholars and icthyophiles all receive sharp and well-placed satirical jabs. Not to mention the status of women, the eccentricities of rich egomaniacs in all eras, and the omniscience and omnicompetence of The English Butler. It's great fun from beginning to end.
I must thank Fiend for provoking me to move these books to the top of the daunting and ever-growing pile of Books To Be Read. After reading To Say Nothing of the Dog, I can, perhaps, understand the trepidation she once expressed about the prospect of going boating. Also, her comments about the possible viciousness of swans.
Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis.
Two very different books based on the premise of an Oxford University scientific team discovering a means of time travel and using it for historical research.
Doomsday Book, published in 1992, relates the story of Kivrin (Engle?), a student of medieval history who travels back in time to further her studies. Unfortunately, things get complicated. She becomes deathly ill shortly after arriving. Worse yet, due to an error in the time-travel process, instead of arriving in a relatively safe time that she can observe without major hazard to herself, she's arrived immediately prior to the onset of one of Europe's worst outbreaks of the dreaded Black Plague.
Willis does a wrenchingly good job of portraying the less pleasant aspects of medieval life and the brutal impact of the Plague on the people and society of that time. This is juxtaposed with the modern-day impact of an influenza epidemic that strikes 21st-century Oxford while Kivrin is "away", and complicates the efforts of her friends and co-researchers to rescue her from the unexpected hazards of her assignment.
To Say Nothing of the Dog, published in 1997, takes the same basic premise and plays it for satirical effect instead. The Oxford time-travel program has been effectively hijacked by Lady Schrapnell (!), a wealthy donor obsessed with rebuilding the cathedral in Coventry which was destroyed by a German air raid in World War II. A stickler for perfection, she insists that every detail be exactly correct, every single piece of decor exactly reproduced, every possible surviving piece of ecclesiastical furniture found and retrieved. Unfortunately, a particularly ugly piece of Victorian frippery known as the "bishop's bird stump" has so far eluded her, and the deadline for the dedication of the rebuilt cathedral is rapidly approaching. It's a crisis!
Our intrepid protagonist, Ned Henry, is a researcher who's suffering from the effects of a few too many time-hops taken too close together. This tends to result in mental vagueness and eccentricity. But no matter! Lady Schrapnell insists! The Bishop's Bird Stump MUST BE FOUND!
Willis has great fun playing with the comical possibilities of time travel, the culture-shock of modern men and women attempting to explore the Victorian era without calling undue attention to themselves, and the impossibly convoluted complexities of just how a time-traveller's actions may or may not affect the course of history. In the process she delightfully weaves in bits of Wodehouse, Sayers, and of course Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, to which she alludes in the title. Victorian social classes, dogs, cats, scholars and icthyophiles all receive sharp and well-placed satirical jabs. Not to mention the status of women, the eccentricities of rich egomaniacs in all eras, and the omniscience and omnicompetence of The English Butler. It's great fun from beginning to end.
I must thank Fiend for provoking me to move these books to the top of the daunting and ever-growing pile of Books To Be Read. After reading To Say Nothing of the Dog, I can, perhaps, understand the trepidation she once expressed about the prospect of going boating. Also, her comments about the possible viciousness of swans.
Poetry Saturday
Sheepherder Coffee, by Sam Hamill.
From the anthology Poets Against War.
I used to like sheepherder coffee,
a cup of grounds in my old enameled pot,
then three cups of water and a fire,
and when it's hot, boiling into froth,
a half cup of cold water
to bring the grounds to the bottom.
It was strong and bitter and good
as I squatted on the riverbank,
under the great redwoods, all those years ago.
Some days, it was nearly all I got.
I was happy with my dog,
and cases of books in my funky truck.
But when I think of that posture now,
I can't help but think
of Palestinians huddled in their ruins,
the Afghan shepherd with his bleating goats,
the widow weeping, sending off her sons,
the Tibetan monk who can't go home.
There are fewer names for coffee
than for love. Squatting, they drink,
thinking, waiting for whatever comes.
Sheepherder Coffee, by Sam Hamill.
From the anthology Poets Against War.
I used to like sheepherder coffee,
a cup of grounds in my old enameled pot,
then three cups of water and a fire,
and when it's hot, boiling into froth,
a half cup of cold water
to bring the grounds to the bottom.
It was strong and bitter and good
as I squatted on the riverbank,
under the great redwoods, all those years ago.
Some days, it was nearly all I got.
I was happy with my dog,
and cases of books in my funky truck.
But when I think of that posture now,
I can't help but think
of Palestinians huddled in their ruins,
the Afghan shepherd with his bleating goats,
the widow weeping, sending off her sons,
the Tibetan monk who can't go home.
There are fewer names for coffee
than for love. Squatting, they drink,
thinking, waiting for whatever comes.
Thank you Stanford!
Stanford University unveils an online copyright renewal database. For reasons which are explained in their page about the collection, this makes it much easier for anyone who wishes to reprint books published between 1923 and 1963 to determine whether the book is still under U.S. copyright.
Props also to Project Gutenberg and others who are involved in this and similar projects.
(Found via Paul di Filippo's listserv comment pointing to BoingBoing.)
Stanford University unveils an online copyright renewal database. For reasons which are explained in their page about the collection, this makes it much easier for anyone who wishes to reprint books published between 1923 and 1963 to determine whether the book is still under U.S. copyright.
Props also to Project Gutenberg and others who are involved in this and similar projects.
(Found via Paul di Filippo's listserv comment pointing to BoingBoing.)
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Forbidden knowledge
Monsanto petitions the US government to ban milk producers from stating whether or not their cattle are drugged with artificial bovine growth hormones.
Because then customers might, um, make choices. And we can't have that.
Monsanto petitions the US government to ban milk producers from stating whether or not their cattle are drugged with artificial bovine growth hormones.
Because then customers might, um, make choices. And we can't have that.
WHOOSH!
French set new rail speed record.
Meanwhile, the speed of Amtrak trains is reported to be asymptotically approaching zero, as dawdling empty freight trains take precedence over passenger trains in defiance of the railroad's contractual obligations.
Gee. I wonder why so few people take Amtrak!
Perhaps the US is no longer a technology leader after all.
French set new rail speed record.
Meanwhile, the speed of Amtrak trains is reported to be asymptotically approaching zero, as dawdling empty freight trains take precedence over passenger trains in defiance of the railroad's contractual obligations.
Gee. I wonder why so few people take Amtrak!
Perhaps the US is no longer a technology leader after all.
Spring in the U.P.!
Southeastern Michigan received only a light dusting of the stuff. Only a few inches.
Southeastern Michigan received only a light dusting of the stuff. Only a few inches.
Just what are those benchmarks, anyway?
George Bush’s Land Mine, from Common Dreams.
George Bush’s Land Mine, from Common Dreams.
The supplemental appropriation package requires the Iraqi government to meet a series of “benchmarks” President Bush established in his speech to the nation on January 10 (in which he made his case for the “surge”). Most of Mr. Bush’s benchmarks are designed to blame the victim, forcing the Iraqis to solve the problems George Bush himself created.
One of the President’s benchmarks, however, stands apart. This is how the President described it: “To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country’s economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis.” A seemingly decent, even noble concession. That’s all Mr. Bush said about that benchmark, but his brevity was gravely misleading, and it had to be intentional.
The Iraqi Parliament has before it today, in fact, a bill called the hydrocarbon law, and it does call for revenue sharing among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. For President Bush, this is a must-have law, and it is the only “benchmark” that truly matters to his Administration.
Yes, revenue sharing is there-essentially in fine print, essentially trivial. The bill is long and complex, it has been years in the making, and its primary purpose is transformational in scope: a radical and wholesale reconstruction-virtual privatization-of the currently nationalized Iraqi oil industry.
If passed, the law will make available to Exxon/Mobil, Chevron/Texaco, BP/Amoco, and Royal Dutch/Shell about 4/5’s of the stupendous petroleum reserves in Iraq. That is the wretched goal of the Bush Administration, and in his speech setting the revenue-sharing “benchmark” Mr. Bush consciously avoided any hint of it.
The legislation pending now in Washington requires the President to certify to Congress by next October that the benchmarks have been met-specifically that the Iraqi hydrocarbon law has been passed. That’s the land mine: he will certify the American and British oil companies have access to Iraqi oil. This is not likely what Congress intended, but it is precisely what Mr. Bush has sought for the better part of six years.
It is why we went to war....
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Watch what you eat
I'm guessing that most of the people who frequent this quiet little corner of the blogosphere are already aware of the recall of dozens of different brands of pet food which have been contaminated with either rat poison or a chemical used in manufacturing plastics and resins, depending on whose lab analysis you believe. If you haven't, check it out, especially if you have a pet that might be affected.
But the story gets more disturbing. Now the Boston Globe is reporting that one of the substances blamed for the contamination may have also been shipped to plants that manufacture processed food for human consumption. Oh joy! (See this diary from DailyKos, and the comments following, for further discussion.)
This blog seems to be following the story closely, and links to an AP story that identifies the US importer of the tainted wheat gluten as ChemNutra. (They also suggest that it may have come through other sources as well.)
Maybe it's time to start eating nothing but whole fruits and veggies, buying meat directly from rural relatives, and baking my own bread using that much-neglected bread machine that's been sitting around since a long-ago Christmas.
Personally, I find it disturbing that a company named "ChemNutra" even exists. It summarizes, in an economical nine letters, much of what's wrong with our food sources.
I'm guessing that most of the people who frequent this quiet little corner of the blogosphere are already aware of the recall of dozens of different brands of pet food which have been contaminated with either rat poison or a chemical used in manufacturing plastics and resins, depending on whose lab analysis you believe. If you haven't, check it out, especially if you have a pet that might be affected.
But the story gets more disturbing. Now the Boston Globe is reporting that one of the substances blamed for the contamination may have also been shipped to plants that manufacture processed food for human consumption. Oh joy! (See this diary from DailyKos, and the comments following, for further discussion.)
This blog seems to be following the story closely, and links to an AP story that identifies the US importer of the tainted wheat gluten as ChemNutra. (They also suggest that it may have come through other sources as well.)
Maybe it's time to start eating nothing but whole fruits and veggies, buying meat directly from rural relatives, and baking my own bread using that much-neglected bread machine that's been sitting around since a long-ago Christmas.
Personally, I find it disturbing that a company named "ChemNutra" even exists. It summarizes, in an economical nine letters, much of what's wrong with our food sources.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Recent listens
Charlotte Greenwood, episode 440808, "Train Ride to New York", via OTRCat's compilation of railroad-themed radio programs.
Charlotte Greenwood is a suburban housewife who is tall and thin. That's the central joke in this 1940s radio sitcom. In this episode, Mrs. Greenwood attempts to go to New York by train. The wartime train is overcrowded. Other people jostle her and insult each other. A golf bag falls off an overhead rack, imprisoning her. (Because she's so skinny. Get it?) The conductor is clueless. She gets off the train and tries to make her way to a different train. A helpful railroad employee gives her a ride on a maintenance car. She bumps her head on an overpass. And so on and so on. The best part of the show is the Pepsodent advertisement, which has a catchy jingle.
The most interesting thing about the episode, from a historical perspective, is the depiction of wartime passenger trains as crowded and unpleasant. This sounds plausible given the existence of gasoline and rubber rations for the civilian population and the fact that the railroads, after struggling through the depression of the 1930s, were stretched to capacity to handle the surge of wartime traffic during 1941-1945. There's even a public service announcement at the end urging listeners to avoid all unnecessary train trips, which suggests that the entire program may have been intended as a piece of wartime psychological conditioning to help reduce civilian use of railroad service.
Unfortunately, a good many people who experienced such overcrowded and slow service during the war learned the lesson too well. They permanently associated all rail travel with such conditions, and stayed away for good after the war.
Charlotte Greenwood, episode 440808, "Train Ride to New York", via OTRCat's compilation of railroad-themed radio programs.
Charlotte Greenwood is a suburban housewife who is tall and thin. That's the central joke in this 1940s radio sitcom. In this episode, Mrs. Greenwood attempts to go to New York by train. The wartime train is overcrowded. Other people jostle her and insult each other. A golf bag falls off an overhead rack, imprisoning her. (Because she's so skinny. Get it?) The conductor is clueless. She gets off the train and tries to make her way to a different train. A helpful railroad employee gives her a ride on a maintenance car. She bumps her head on an overpass. And so on and so on. The best part of the show is the Pepsodent advertisement, which has a catchy jingle.
The most interesting thing about the episode, from a historical perspective, is the depiction of wartime passenger trains as crowded and unpleasant. This sounds plausible given the existence of gasoline and rubber rations for the civilian population and the fact that the railroads, after struggling through the depression of the 1930s, were stretched to capacity to handle the surge of wartime traffic during 1941-1945. There's even a public service announcement at the end urging listeners to avoid all unnecessary train trips, which suggests that the entire program may have been intended as a piece of wartime psychological conditioning to help reduce civilian use of railroad service.
Unfortunately, a good many people who experienced such overcrowded and slow service during the war learned the lesson too well. They permanently associated all rail travel with such conditions, and stayed away for good after the war.
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