When China rules…

I’m reading this book now (When China Rules the World:The End of the Western World and the Birth of the New Global Order) ; this interview serves as a good introduction. As China’s economy is even now about to surpass ours, and will eventually, perhaps within a generation, be double that of the Grand Banana Republic, it’s cultural and political influence will also dominate (not only given impetus by China’s rolling financial resources but by our own decay through ideological multiculturalism and the kind of  capitalism that finances its own demise).

The Rulls

Oneth by land, twoeth by space…”The ability of the Rulls to control light with the cells of their bodies was not even suspected until one day a ‘man’ was blasted while attempting to escape after being caught rifling the secret files of the Research Council. As the human image dissolved into a wormlike shape with numerous reticulated legs and arms, human beings had their first inkling of the fantastic danger that threatened…”–War Against the Rull (A. E. Van Vogt).

Reading? Nothing beats Raymond Chandler

For Christmas I finally got the complete writings of Raymond Chandler. Usually right from the beginning sentence or paragraph Chandler announces he means business with your attention. Take the opening of Trouble Is My Business (one of four stories in the collection of the same name):

“Anna Halsey was about two hundred and forty pounds of middle-aged putty-faced woman in a black tailor-made suit. Her eyes were shiny black buttons, her cheeks were as soft as suet and about the same color. She was sitting behind a black glass desk that looked like Napoleon’s tomb and was smoking a cigarette in a black holder that was not quite as long as a rolled umbrella. She said: ‘I need a man.’ “

Notice how the slobbering sounding (unkempt, piggish, sloppy)  ’putty-faced ‘ is accentuated by its immediate nicely groomed implying contrast: ‘tailor made suit’.”  Though reversed in order he makes the same contrast with ‘cheeks were as soft’ as ‘suet’–in other words, as soft as the white fat on the kidneys and loins of sheep.

December 7th, 1941: Day of Deceit

Past post: Dec 7 1941:  Day of Deceit that will live in infamy

Too bad Wikileaks wasn’t around then; nevertheless, every year more and more material trickles out about FDR’s horrendous malfeasance.

Mark Twain unleashed

“…Whether anguishing over American military interventions abroad or delivering jabs at Wall Street tycoons, this Twain is strikingly contemporary. Though the autobiography also contains its share of homespun tales, some of its observations about American life are so acerbic — at one point Twain refers to American soldiers as “uniformed assassins” — that his heirs and editors, as well as the writer himself, feared they would damage his reputation if not withheld…” –From a review of the unexpurgated autobiography of Mark Twain. Here (NY Times).

Related: The unexpurgated new edition of the Autobiography selling very well indeed. In fact, to quote the article, it’s “flying off the shelves.” Here (NY Times)

Rednecks with meth (and other family values)

“Jessup “was electric on crank, thrilled to have been shot, and instead of driving to a doctor, he drove 30 miles to … the Tiny Spot Tavern to show his assembled buddies the glamorous bullet hole and the blood bubbling.’ ” And there’s also this quote: “She must trudge from house to cabin through the woods to ask some mighty scary meth cookin’ members of her own family if they know where her father can be found  — and they might kill her just for asking.”  Here. (Remember, this is not just a movie but a novel, and there are subtle differences.)

This woman should run for the senate

Ayaan Hirsi Ali–I’d vote for this woman for a Senate seat (or any other seat) in an instant. After escaping an arranged marriage in Somali or Kenya via Canada, she landed in the Netherlands as a refugee seeking political asylum. She eventually became an outspoken member of the Dutch Parliament (she is not a prisoner to political correctness parameters), but was forced to flee to the the Grand Banana Republic because of Islamic threats (yes, even the GBR offers more security). She has written two books, Infidel (I’ve read it twice) and Nomad (I’m reading it now). She speaks several languages, including masterful English, and has, along with people like Christopher Hitchens, for example,  elevated the religion/atheism debate onto a substantial intellectual plane, accessible even to many leftists. Wait a minute, I’ve had second thoughts about her being in the Senate. I mean she’s eloquent, soft-spoken, gorgeous, humorous, sexy, intellectual, multi-lingual, politically incorrect–she wouldn’t fit in. Nope, not in that clubhouse of buffoons. Here’s a recent article about her (The Guardian). Here she is on a very funny bantering segment of the Colbert Report.

Love the leather coat–and the typewriter (or is that a Somali laptop?).

Related: I know, I know, you’re thinking this is one beautiful girl, so you just can’t help thinking of her love life, or at least a reasonable facsimile, so this is just for you gushing Romantics out there in the hinterland:  History man and fatwa girl.

Past future shock and new future shock

The original Future Shock book by Alvin and Heidi Toffler is now 40 years old, but they’re not done yet: there’s more future shock and awe. Here (Fast Company). Just a note: right now we’re in Present Shock. Here’s another note: If you go back in time by reading unexpurgated human  history, whether it’s from just yesterday or back to the dawn of civilization, you’ll come across Past Shock.

“Prison Wars”

“…My name is Martin Sanger.  If you’re an American you’ve probably heard of me via my association with the manslaughter case involving Quentin Longus.  I am the guy that was up on manslaughter charges.  To the young I largely need no introduction. I worked for Quentin.  I was his personal publicist and friend.  My job was to keep his family sheltered from his coming professional turmoil.  Boy did I fail.  I blame myself for some of the splashes of intrigue and writing flare that fed his addictions. You may ask why I want to retell the story of the now infamous Quentin Longus.  Everybody knows more than they ever wanted to know about him.  I want to tell it because I knew him before his infamous press conference that planted the seed of our destruction…”  Here.

“Meany pantsers”

“OMG! All those meany pantser, objectifiers on twitter didn’t understand that picture was code and a public service! I’m a giver! I was trying to let them know balloon boy was safely hidden, tucked away in my cleavage. Hello? I was holding a book! Everyone knows reading is hard. The purty picture on the book was code, too, obvy. Andy Warhol – a sign that the balloon boy people were just trying to steal MY 15 minutes of fame thunder…”  Meghan McCain (author of
Dirty Sexy Politics –Kindle edition) on meany pantsers.

My pharmacist the witch doctor

Somebody showed me this in her new pharmacy textbook. It’s from the first main page of  Mosby’s Pharmacy Technician: Principles and Practice, in which a list of terms and definitions for the modern scientific pharmacist are given. Take special note of the last entry–shaman. Is that a term that should have a place  in a modern medical textbook?

Apothecary Latin term for pharmacist

Clinical pharmacist Pharmacis who monitors patient medications in inpatient and some retal settings

Dogma Code of beliefs based on tradition rather than fact

Inpatient pharmacy A pharmacy in a hospital or institutional setting

Outpatient pharmacy Community pharmacies or pharmacies in outpatient hospital settings

Pharmacist Person who dispenses drugs and counsels patients

Pharmacy clerk Person who assists the pharmacist at the front counter of the pharmacy; the person who accepts payment for medications

Pharmacy technician Person who assists pharmacist by filling prescriptions and performing other nondispensing tasks

Protocol Set of standards written by hospital or insurnace company for patient treatment

Shaman Medicine person who holds a high place of honor in a tribe

shaman /’amn/, /’em-/
noun (PL. shamans)
a person regarded as having access to, and influence in, the world of good and evil spirits, especially among some peoples of northern Asia and North America. Typically such people enter a trance state during a ritual, and practise divination and healing

Thesaurus: a medicine woman, healer; witch doctor…

____________________________________________________________________

BTW, here are some lyrics to sing while waiting for the shaman to fill your prescription:

I told the witch doctor
I was in love with you
I told the witch doctor
I was in love with you
And then the witch doctor
He told me what to do

He said that

Ooo eee,ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bing bang
Ooo eee ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla bing bang…
Ooo eee ,ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla ,bing bang
Ooo eee ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla bing bang

Today’s political correctness: we keep getting closer to 1984 (make that 2050)

I mean the reports keep coming in. Here’s a few more little pieces of the big picture. Extrapolate, people, extrapolate..:

Item: “Project Vigilant is clearly nothing less than a government controlled attack dog fulfilling its role to implement the cybersecurity agenda, which…has nothing to do with security and everything to do with political oppression, Chinese style Internet censorship, and the total evisceration of free speech on the world wide web…” Here and here.

Item: “Minority Report” billboards. Here.

Item: “…Those who understand the exploitative nature of big government suspected that the U.S. response to the 9/11 attacks had little to do with the security of the American people and much to do with power and money. Still, the magnitude of the scam, as revealed by the Washington Post last week, is astonishing…” Here.

Political correctness, newspeak. Of course in the great handbook of 1984 we have the temporal perameters: “Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and had been devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism. In the year 1984 there was not as yet anyone who used Newspeak as his sole means of communication, either in speech or writing. The leading articles in the Times were written in it, but this was a tour de force which could only be carried out by a specialist. It was expected that Newspeak would have finally superseded Oldspeak (or Standard English, as we should call it) by about the year 2050. Meanwhile it gained ground steadily, all Party members tending to use Newspeak words and grammatical constructions more and more in their everyday speech. The version in use in 1984, and embodied in the Ninth and Tenth Editions of the Newspeak Dictionary, was a provisional one, and contained many superfluous words and archaic formations which were due to be suppressed later. It is with the final, perfected version, as embodied in the Eleventh Edition of the Dictionary, that we are concerned here…” –The Principles of Newspeak

Change of heart syndrome

The Maldives island republic in the Indian Ocean where it is illegal NOT to be Muslim…so when a Maldivian named Mohamed Nazim renounced Islam during a lecture, he “was attacked by members of the audience, then led off under arrest by police. A few days later it was reported that he’d had a change of heart while in police custody and publicly apologized for his atheistic apostasy…” Of course we can only guess why he had a change of heart (but I think we get the picture). Here.

Bush’s new book–Decision Points. You can probably get a limited autographed copy signed in crayon

Former president George W. Bush releasing new book: Decision Points. Can you believe it; a book from a guy who can’t  read, write, or finish a sentence (and sometimes can’t even start a sentence).  I wonder who gave him the crayons; or better yet, I wonder who actually wrote it? Hey, maybe it’s just a coloring book…

“…slowly and lithely…”

“She was twenty or so, small and delicately put together, but she looked durable….She walked as if she were floating…Her eyes were almost slate-grey, and had almost no expression…She came over near me and smiled with her mouth and she had little sharp predatory teeth, as white as fresh orange pith and as shiny as porcelain…She put a thumb up and bit it…She bit it and sucked it slowly, turning it around in her mouth like a baby with a comforter…Then she turned her body slowly and lithely, without lifting her feet…’You’re cute,’ she giggled. ‘I’m cute too…” The Big Sleep (Raymond Chandler).

Note: I have never read a novel I like more than Chandler’s masterpiece, and every once in awhile I like to quote from it (like some do the Bible).

Does not compute…

The equation:

Books keep kids’ grades up; the internet makes them slide.

_____________________________________________ =?

Can the internet save the book?

Overrated?

OK the video tease isn’t that great but the book (Overrated: The 50 Most Overhyped Things in History, by Mark Juddery) referenced here certainly looks pretty interesting.

The author’s blog on the subject.

Is baseball overrated? Now I love baseball but the author makes a case for its overratedness here.

The Constitution: now with warning label

I can think of a lot of things that perhaps need warning labels (medicine bottles, safety instructions in a jet cockpit, etc) , or even flashing lights (like at an airport runway or something), or even a very explicit book you want parents to know is not for kids (like the Old Testament or Koran or Rev. Jim  Jones’s Kool Aid directions),  but on the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence? Hey, I guess it was bound to happen though. Here.

Upending in Santa Monica (about time)

“…Well, she was black, so they could not dismiss her as a racist; she had lived in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, The Netherlands and the United States, so they could not call her an ignorant provincial hick; she was an avowed atheist, so they could not call her a Christian bigot on a crusade against peaceful Islam; and she was multi-lingual, articulate, and brilliant, so they couldn’t just call her stupid. All the pejoratives they usually apply to people who disagree with them wouldn’t work, and so they were left to confront her ideas, and those ideas stripped them naked, rent their garments of superiority and condescension into tatters at their feet, and left them angry and confused, whining to each other in the corners of the room, unable to say anything to her face. Their favorite weapons, ad hominem name-calling and sneering condescension, were disarmed.” From Ayaan Hirsi Ali Upends Leftist Stereotypes in Santa Monica.

Noirguage: hot (or is that cool) language of the thirties and forties

No. your average jasper in the street didn’t talk like this. This was the vigorous earthy language of the private detective novel and films of the times. My favorite? The big sleep, i.e., death (Chandler).

Alderman: A man’s pot belly.

Berries: Dollars

Caboose: Jail

Daylight, as in “let the daylight in” or “fill him with daylight”: Put a hole in, by shooting or stabbing

Eel juice: liquor

Flivver: A Ford automobile

Glad rags: Fancy clothes

Have the bees: To be rich

Hop-head: Drug addict, esp. heroin

Iron: A car

Jasper: A man (perhaps a hick)

Knockover: Heist, theft

Lunger: Someone with tuberculosis

Lead poisoning: To be shot

Mush: Face

Read hundreds more from a fantastic online book: Twists, Slug and Roscoes–A Glossary of Hard-Boiled Slang I came across this glossary several years ago and referenced it many times while reading Raymond Chandler’s books and other detective fiction of the time.

Oh, I almost forgot. I’ve been watching the new DVD editions of the Perry Mason series (I got hooked on these when they ran on TBS a few years ago). These shows have some great lines–to wit…”Faces? I don’t know faces. Faces are like cockroaches; they all look alike…”

“Hitch 22″

“…Hitchens recalls being approached by Amis who claimed that he needed to visit a brothel in order to write his now seminal novel Money. After taking a moment to compose himself, Amis starts again saying: “And you,” he pauses for a moment and continues “are fucking well coming with me.” As surprised as Hitchens was, it was only the tip of the iceberg. He later learned that Amis had “cleared” this most sordid affair with his then-wife Antonia telling her: “I’m going to a handjob parlor with Hitch.” After their visit to the brothel, the two partners in crime went to a Japanese restaurant to drink sake in an effort to cure their hangovers from the night before…” Read more of this and several other quotes here; they’re from Hitchens memoir, Hitch 22. Antoher new book of memoirs I can’t wait to read is Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Nomad.

The most recent book of Hitchens’ that I’ve read is God Is Not Great, probably one of the top three or four books on the absurdity of religion.

Life on the border…

No country for old men

In their brute simple deadpan cynical nature these are lines you can use over and over again.

–Sure is a mess, ain’t it, sheriff?

–If it ain’t it’ll do till a mess gets here.

_____________________________

Related:

And not far from the border…

War on the border

Question: did Henry Ford ever try passing the Koolaid?

Heny Ford’s failed human engineering project in the jungle. Now this book looks interesting. My wholly presumptive opinion is that this, at least in a very loose sense (grotesque idealism),  was Jonestown on the assembly line.

“…So he set off for the Amazon, armed with hubris, spite, madness, vision, utopianism and contempt for expertise. He resolved not merely to establish a rubber plantation in the heart of the jungle, but rather to establish a small, perfect midwestern town in the middle of the Amazon, a place where Fordism and its model villages, squeaky-clean abstinence, freedom from trade unionism, and emphasis of turning industrial workers into avid consumers of industrial goods would reign supreme….” Here.

“Nomad”

“…Where Hirsi Ali is exactly right, I think, is in her focus on education as a remedy. It’s the best way to open minds, promote economic development and suppress violence. In the long run education is a more effective weapon against terrorists than bombs are…” From NY Times’ book review of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s new memoir (her first of course was Infidel), Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations. Here.

Chapter 21: a look back at A Clockwork Orange

“The book (A Clockwork Orange) has three parts of seven chapters each. [Anthony] Burgess has stated that the total of 21 chapters was an intentional nod to the age of 21 being recognised as a milestone in human maturation. The 21st chapter was omitted from the editions published in the United States prior to 1986. In the introduction to the updated American text (these newer editions include the missing 21st chapter), Burgess explains that when he first brought the book to an American publisher, he was told that U.S. audiences would never go for the final chapter, in which Alex sees the error of his ways, decides he has lost all energy for and thrill from violence and resolves to turn his life around (a slow-ripening but classic moment of metanoia—the moment at which one’s protagonist realises that everything he thought he knew was wrong). At the American publisher’s insistence, Burgess allowed their editors to cut the redeeming final chapter from the U.S. version, so that the tale would end on a note of bleak despair, with young Alex succumbing to his darker nature—an ending which the publisher insisted would be ‘more realistic’ and appealing to a U.S. audience. The film adaptation, directed by Stanley Kubrick, is based on this “badly flawed” (Burgess’ words, ibid.) American edition of the book. Kubrick called Chapter 21′ an extra chapter’ and claimed that he had not read the original version until he had virtually finished the screenplay, and that he had never given serious consideration to using it.” The above synopsis is from here.

Soviet food memoir (from the seventies)

“…Ms. Gorokhova’s book is its own trembling mountain of crumbs. That is, it’s slight — not quite a whole meal — but endearing, a collection of well-sculptured memories about the deprivations and joys of her childhood in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). It’s a book about many things, notably class, politics, identity and sex, but one that circles around as often as not to the author’s rumbling stomach. It reminds you that the best food writing is frequently about scarcity, not abundance…” Here.

A third grader’s marriage and divorce

I am Nujood, aged 10 and divorced.

“Frau, komm”

Red Army in Berlin 1945 (May- June): “When the soldiers came to the building, asking for girls, the older women called out: ‘Where’s little Gabi?’ and pulled her out from underneath the table…” Here.

Also on this subject of the horrors of the Red Army there is of course the  diary A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in a Conquered City by Anonymous. There is also a movie version.

Excerpt from the book*: “No sooner was I back upstairs then the concierge’s girl…came running in for the second time. More men in the basement. Now they’re after the baker’s wife…”

“Woman in Berlin” trailer

____________________________

*This book was originally published in 1953 in Germany but the country was in no mood for war memoirs, especially of this kind so it fell into obscurity. It was over a half century later that it was republished, this time in its entirety), to international acclaim.

A very considerate girl

“…Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was labelled `ORANGE MARMALADE’, but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it…” Read more here. Yes, I’m looking forward to the new movie. How will it stack up? Only the shadow knows….

NY Times goes full color-coded

NY Times has a Christmas season article on gifts for People of Color (insidiously renamed On Color): “Somali fashion, do-it-yourself henna kits, children’s books that draw inspiration from the lives of Barack Obama and Sonia Sotomayor: it’s not hard to find gifts created for and by people of color this holiday season. Here are some possibilities…” It’s amazing how the Times plays into racial sterotypes:  Like Baby Jamz, containing a” Mix Master Music Chair that allows children to be their own D.J.’s, a Move ’n Groove dance mat, a Jammin’ Microphone and other items. There is also a singalong DVD series, featuring the voices of the Knowles sisters singing remixed versions of your favorite nursery rhymes…”; A gospel music cruise; books with titles like A Mocha Guide to the Military (yes, for those mocha colored individuals) and  The Conversation, about the “nuanced complexities of African-American relationships” (I guess this book excludes that really nuanced Tiger Woods marriage). Probably the weirdest gift idea they recommend is something called Ash Kumar’s Bollywood Henna Kit, which in essence is a “black face” product where “You can emulate your favorite Bollywood star or come up with your own ideas with this henna kit for body and hair. It’s a perfect do-it-yourself gift for those wanting to satisfy a creative itch and is certain to add a glam touch at holiday parties.”(Relax, of course there’s no mention of the hugely popular skin-whitening products that many African-Americans and Asian women use).

Nook turns out to be a rookie

David Pogue of the NY Times plays with Barnes&Noble’s Nook: Often, you tap some button on the color strip — and nothing happens. You wait for the Nook to respond, but there’s no progress bar, no hourglass, no indication that the Nook “heard” you. So you tap again — but now you’ve just triggered a second command that you didn’t want. It takes four seconds for the Settings panel to open, 18 seconds for the bookstore to appear (over Wi-Fi), and 8 to 15 seconds to open a book or newspaper for the first time, during which you stare at a message that says “Formatting.” “Over one million titles?” Yes, but well over half of those are junky Google scans of free, obscure, pre-1923 out-of-copyright books, filled with typos….

If your’re going with an e-reader the best bet is still the Kindle, followed by Sony’s.

Lone woman faces mid-East brigands (but that was in the 1840s)

From a rather erudite blog about books, though this entry is from 2004: “…On another occasion, Lady H was with some other members of a tribe and was told… that if she was found in their company, the whole group would be killed by a rival tribe. Lady H immediately broke apart from her companions, and set off across the desert alone. Sure enough, she was soon being chased by a large band of brigands. Recognising that she could not escape, Lady H turned to face them, and with a roar of defiance yelled out, ‘Avaunt!’ [meaning] ‘Go away!’ Or ‘To hell with the lot of you!’ Or perhaps something even ruder. The band of brigands was so impressed by this display of courage that they decided not to kill her after all, and roared their approval in reply, firing their weapons into the sky instead of at her…” Here (article refers to an early nineteenth century book–still in print in various editions (inc. the Kindle)– by Alexander Kinglake, Eothen, which happened to be a favorite of  Winston Churchill).

Leftist journalism reaches max state on Palin book; material creates brain drain on its staff

Seems a lot of Lib minds are at work on Palin’s book. The collective consensus? Well, for one, did she ever stay in a fat cat type hotel ( which would be elitist), the kind, say where Lib journalists stay? Could be; official Lib investigation coming in as we speak… However, there are certain questions not being develed into in this hot investigative journlism. A lot of us want to know if she was wearing, oh say expensive pantyhose while on the campaign and if so did the GOP have to foot the bill? OK. Latest  now from the Newsreal blog post: “No word on whether or not Palin ate the mint on her pillow [at the fat cat hotel]. Was it dark chocolate? Is that question “racist”? I await Media Matters’ verdict. Assuming they have enough staffers on hand to deliver it.”

Comparative lit…

Now be true to yourself,  you high and mighty literary person,  and make a decision: which of James Joyce’s writings would you wish to spend time with on a desert island (provided that was your only choice)?

“Finnegan’s Wake“?

“Sir Tristram, violer d’amores, fr’over the short sea, had passen- core rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: nor had topsawyer’s rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse to Laurens County’s gorgios while they went doublin their mumper all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to tauftauf thuartpeatrick: not yet, though venissoon after, had a kidscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all’s fair in vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. Rot a peck of pa’s malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface… “

OR, as I suspect (ah ha ha ha, your literary airs will do no good here), a volume of Joyce’s crude love letters?

“My love for you allows me to pray to the spirit of eternal beauty and tenderness mirrored in your eyes or to fling you down under me on that soft belly of yours and fuck you up behind, like a dog riding a sow, glorying in the very stink and sweat that rises from your arse, gloying in the open shame of your upturned dress and white girlish drawers and in the confusion of your flushed cheeks and tangled hair.”

Note: The excerpted letter above is from a book by R. Zacks, “An Underground Education.”  (The original volume of Joyce’s letters is out of print but is available in some libraries.)

Telling it like it is (no, not really)

Worst sentence of all time? Could be. It’s from Professor Butler’s “Further Reflections on the Conversations of Our Time,” from the journal Diacritics (1997):

“The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.”

Here’s some analysis.

An old quote even more relevant today

“Modern liberalism, for most liberals, is not a consciously understood set of rational beliefs but a bundle of unexamined prejudices and conjoined sentiments. The basic ideas and beliefs seem more satisfactory when they are not made fully explicit, when they merely lurk rather obscurely in the background, coloring the rhetoric and adding a certain emotive glow.” –James Burnham, Suicide of the West (1964)  [excerpt]. Though Burnham’s “Suicide of the West”, which I read about ten or more years ago,  ruminated against communism it is perhaps even more relevant today.

“Mister”

Move over Kafka (as in The Trial) …Quoting from Mister:

“Never would he have imaged that he would one day find himself in such a situation. There he was, a respectable businessman and law-abiding citizen, an intelligent person with a post-graduate education and the subject of articles in the most prestigious scientific and business journals, lying on the floor of a holding cell, in the dark, on remand, suspected of vile crimes and dubious associations, forming part of a sudorous human carpet alongside all manner of tattoed thugs, drug addicts, and common criminals. The overcrowding inside the cell made it impossible to see the floor: chests were pressed against backs, groins against glutei, and shoes against faces; detainees slept on their sides, using each other’s heads or feet as pillows. He had chosen the latter, the kinky hair of black men appearing at best too prickly for him. The temperature exceeded what old-fashioned thermometers were able to register; the walls and ceiling perspired with condensation; there was a constant murmur of breathing and snoring, sniped at every second by coughing, sneezing, and throat-clearing. The air was thicker than lentil soup, and pungent with the stench of perspiration, flatulence, and tooth decay. He was very concerned with keeping his Saville Row suit in good state of repair. Appearances mattered.

H. L. Mencken on idealism

It’s true: ideological idealism is the cause of all human misery (hey, if you don’be believe me read the Big Boys).

“An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.”

“Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood.”

“There is always a well-known solution to every human problem–neat, plausible, and wrong.”

“To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!”

There’s a great collection of Mencken quotes here (with citations). (BTW, this site, Read Print, has an enormous collection of full classic works.)

The case for a “too much stuff” overseer

Now this article hits home (it’s from “The Guardian”): “I’m fairly certain I recently passed a rather pathetic tipping point, and now own more unread books and unwatched DVDs than my remaining lifespan will be able to sustain. I can’t possibly read all these pages, watch all these movies, before the grim reaper comes knocking. The bastard things are going to outlive me. It’s not fair…”

Carter speaks (unfortunately)…

Thus spake Zarathustra Jimmy Carter: “I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he’s African-American…” yada yada yada…the drone of the Liberal elite. It seems anyone who disagrees with Obama is a racist. Evidently just looking at the president the “wrong way” can produce accusations of racist thought. Liberals will point out the deeper meaning behind an otherwise innocent turn of phrase. Thus when Senator Wilson shouted out that Obama was a liar he is now being locked in with the racist label. What Wilson did was ill-mannered at worst.  Was there racism behind his outburst? Who knows. I do know this though– these Libs cannot read minds; they do not know what someone is thinking when it comes to race. But I think we know what’s really behind such accusations. Self-righteous Liberals, especially the kind represented by the finger-pointing former President,  are merely trying to cover up their own racist views (now I’m going to read minds). By flinging out the racist epitaph at every turn, at every phrase and word,  they ease their own racist conscience. And where does that racist conscience reside? Deep…deep down there in the R-complex. Maybe even a couple of levels above that. They have to struggle everyday to keep it in its hidden place. Every time a racist thought bubbles up like yellow pus in their grey matter they must accuse someone else of racism. Not only are race-bating Libs keeping society from looking beyond race, they are defiling language. See War of Words

Related: “…Angry. Bitter. Desperately trying to avoid irrelevance. Clinging to past glories.  The average American, the beleaguered taxpayer in the age of Obama? No, welcome to the world of Maureen Dowd. Dowd is the signature columnist for The New York Times and Cardinal Richelieu to the King Moe (a dynastic line that includes Larry and Curly) of its publisher, Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger Jr. Dowd faces a new information age in which readers continue to turn their backs on her and her employer of 26 years, leaving a shrinking readership of aging elites from academia, politics and media. Her readers are disappearin…”

___________________________

By the way: An excellent book on this subject is–Liberal Racism: How Fixating on Race Subverts the American Dream (by Jim Sleeper). Oh, and don’t forget to read this one: The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness (by Lyle Rossiter)

“The Greatest Show on Earth”

Proof positive: ebooks are not really, er, actual books

Yeah, actual books do not disappear into the digital night: “This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for—thought they owned…” Here.

Think about this: I understand the Amazon digital retraction was a matter of the original seller not having legal authority to have the book digitized. OK, but what if for example, in the future  a downloaded book to the Kindle was considered not sufficiently PC enough, say it had some passages that Muslims or Christians objected to or passages that were considered racial or too conspiracy oriented, would Amazon then be able to take out the offending words? As much as I love electronic gadgets like the Kindle for now I’ll stick with paper.

Note: Here’s a good article on the subject of digital deletion:Why 2024 will be like 1984 (“…The worst thing about this story isn’t Amazon’s conduct; it’s the company’s technical capabilities. Now we know that Amazon can delete anything it wants from your electronic reader. That’s an awesome power, and Amazon’s justification in this instance is beside the point. As our media libraries get converted to 1′s and 0′s, we are at risk of losing what we take for granted today: full ownership of our book and music and movie collections…”)

No wonder the Bible’s been a bestseller

Looking for a good sado-mas sexy murderous hot read? Try one of these Bible themes…

• A woman nails a man’s head to the ground with a tent peg while he sleeps
• A father turns his virgin daughter over to a mob who rapes her to death
• The body of a woman is cut up by her family and pieces are sent to her relatives.
• Numerous scenes of mass murder and rape
• Infanticide on God’s orders
• Sex slaves
• Mass murder of members of other religions
• Murder of nonbelievers
• Judicial killing of people who work on the Sabbath
• Wholesale destruction of cities
• Slavery
• Human sacrifice

–Hey personally I’m waiting for the movie.

Twitter VS Islamofascism

Twittering the Iranian “elections.” Article here.

________________________________________

Related: Bruce Bawer, author of the recent “Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom,” responds to a fact-ignoring (call it mindless) Washinton Post review of his book. Here.

“Surrealistic western”

Damn it, I’m halfway through John Hawkes’s 1951 “surrealistic Western,” The Beelte Leg,” and I’m wondering if instead I should put it down and start reading something easier , like oh say “The Wasteland” backwards (in the dark of course, under the covers with a flashlight illuminated on every other word). At first the novel reads like “No Country for Old Men” (you know, a Western, sparse, a sheriff)–but then promptly digresses (that must be the surralism kicking in). Right now I’m taking heart from an Amazon commenter: “This is a surrealistic western, basically, with language so odd, crisp, and surprising that every page has to be savored. Hawkes is a tremendously perceptive writer, whether he’s dealing with the violent or the mundane. Readers should give this and THE BLOOD ORANGES a chance. His voice is strange, and takes time to grow on you; but once it does, his books begin to seem like a mixture of poetry and noir…”

(Note: Hawkes’s “Travesty” is a much more accesible novel if you don’t feel up to “The Beetle Leg” or “Blood Oranges.”)

Update: Hey I think I have this thing in perspective now: I’m using Mindjet’s Mind Manager, mapping the thing, lassoing the intricacies, ballooning them, tagging the parts, dividing the past and present (or the present and the ghostly)…wish me luck.

Out Celining Celine

A few days ago I finished Celine’s “Journey to the End of the Night,” my second reading of this French novel (translated). Only this edition has a new afterward by novelist William Vollmann. He outdoes Celine. I thought Celine was a pretty pessimistic cynical hemorrhoided writer but Vollmann outdoes him right out of the gate:  “Reader, fuck you!…You think I give a shit whether or not you’ve read this book…”

Good god man, you’re my new Afterward idol. Lt me try a couple of openers like that:

Reader! You little pigshit scum… [wow, I love saying that].

Reader!…You sleazy MFer…

Reader! You dirty slimeball….

I’m sorry, Reader, I gotta stop; I’m getting carried away with invective…

Hands on

From an article in the “NY Times” (adapted from “Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work” by Matthew B. Crawford: The television show “Deadliest Catch” depicts commercial crab fishermen in the Bering Sea. Another, “Dirty Jobs,” shows all kinds of grueling work; one episode featured a guy who inseminates turkeys for a living. The weird fascination of these shows must lie partly in the fact that such confrontations with material reality have become exotically unfamiliar. Many of us do work that feels more surreal than real. Working in an office, you often find it difficult to see any tangible result from your efforts. What exactly have you accomplished at the end of any given day? Where the chain of cause and effect is opaque and responsibility diffuse, the experience of individual agency can be elusive. “Dilbert,” “The Office” and similar portrayals of cubicle life attest to the dark absurdism with which many Americans have come to view their white-collar jobs.

“The Road”

I read Cormac McCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men” a couple of years ago, then saw the movie when it came out. Most movies do a lousy job of putting a first rate novel on screen (witness Wolfe’s “The Bonfire of the Vanities” fiasco), but I was pleasantly surprised by it, finding the movie version actually better than the book, yet keeping probably ninety-five percent of visual contexts and stark dialog. The movie was  a tighter version of the novel, free of some of the extraneous scenes that didn’t work well to begin with.  A few months ago I read McCarthy’s “The Road” and was held in suspense throughout. Excellent novel about the mother of all survival tales. Judging by the movie trailer it too could be better than the book. And yesserie Bob, I do believe this is the way civilization will end, in a big heap from an asteroid hit, with survivors living on fast food cannibalism, brandishing Anglo Saxon weapons of the 1000AD kind, and quickly forgetting what the internet age was all about. (Personally I can’t wait; I’m going to turn my Toyota pick-up into a Somali warlord wagon.)

“The book with no name”

The terrible and fatal consequences of masturbation described in the 1844 Paris edition of The Book With No Name.

“Elements of Style” out of style?

Strunk and White’s's “Elements of Style” takes a beating lately, to wit… “Rereading Strunk and White on its 50th birthday is like meeting an old lover and realizing how much you’ve outgrown him. Things have changed, little book, and you have not, or not enough.” And “The simplistic don’t-do-this, don’t-write-that instructions offered in the book would not guarantee good writing if they were obeyed. Indeed, they are often violated in the very paragraphs that Strunk and White use to present them. The section warning against the passive, for example, is replete with passives. (And anyway, the passive is a perfectly useful and respectable type of clause; there is no merit in blanket warnings against it.)” And “I have been attacking Strunk and White for many years. On my blog, I have called it “that mangiest of stuffed owls,” “the bible of those who want to sneer at other people’s use of language without bothering to actually learn something about it themselves” and a ‘malign little compendium of bad advice.’ ” Read more of the assault at the “NY Times.”  I agree with the critics in the article above. It’s nice to have a starting point of style I suppose but I’ve reread the Elements recently and found it akin to petting a long dead wooly mammouth.