Picture of the day

I don't know who you are or why you come by here so I have no idea whether or not you are interested in the photography. I've always figured it would be in my best interest to expound on the photos. To explain my motivation for taking them. To explain what I see when I look at them. People enjoy that, I know. It makes you more likely to buy. Yet I find myself unable to do it. It's your business to interpret the photo yourself, or not. My advice is to click on it to enlarge, then spend a couple hours or more staring at it. Some kind of psychotropic substance and an appropriate soundtrack might be helpful in achieving the proper understanding. But that's your business. It's not my business what you think and I don't want it to be my business to tell you how to see.

But sometimes I wonder. What do you see when you look at this photo? I'm not going to explain it to you, but I'll tell you that getting it was not a trivial endeavor. Technically, it required an obscure combination of equipment and skill to achieve this look. Artistically, how many people are even trying to achieve it? Probably not many. I've spent many years figuring out how to take this particular photo. How to communicate this particular experience. But I can see how boring it might be at a glance. There could well be a reason why no one else is bothering to figure this out. Do people on the internets even give something like this a second look? I'm guessing no.

Deformative action pt. II

In comments below, ChrisV82 provides this chart which purportedly represents the admissions disadvantages and advantages for different groups in terms of SAT points. It's saying, for example, that being a recruited athlete adds 200 points to one's SAT score. Being an Asian lops off 50 points.



Jewish people are the group most conspicuously absent. Historically, Jews were pointedly excluded from elite universities. Today they make up a disproportionate percentage of the student body at elite schools, particularly in the northeast. I'd guess that if Jews were on the chart, they'd rate something like -150.

I do not know what the best system for college admissions would be. I guess in some ideal world (somewhere similar to France), all students would have the same curriculum in school, take the same tests based on that curriculum, then be admitted, or not, to universities based on the results. But we don't have anything close to an ideal system. We have thousands of schools teaching who knows how many different curricula and the test results track with parents income far more than anything else.

What is best for society? Should test taking ability be the most important criteria? If test taking doesn't produce diversity, should diversity trump test taking, at least for a small proportion of the student body?

Poor chuckling simply does not know. The obvious answer is to have enough good schools for everybody, but that particular solution doesn't appear to be on anybody's agenda.

So for now we'll have to leave it to the professionals. College admissions people feel that it's vitally important to have a diverse student body. Beyond easily identifiable ethnic groups, they also try for socio-economic diversity, for example giving advantage to children who are the first in their family to attend college, and international diversity. What are their reasons for this belief in diversity? Are there data that suggest that's the best way to go? Is it political? At this point, I just don't know, but now that I'm thinking about it will start asking the question.

But as long as the most privileged children in this country are getting a leg up, I don't see how anyone can seriously complain about historically disadvantaged groups, or poor kids, getting a leg up as well.

self portrait

Deformative action

The University of Illinois cops to what everyone knows. When it comes to college admissions, the wealthy and powerful benefit from a deformative action program that guarantees them spots in selective universities for which they would not qualify on merit.

This fact somehow gets lost in the debate about affirmative action. You know, the type of action in which people who merit an opportunity get an opportunity they otherwise would not due to their socioeconomic status.

Deformative bad. Affirmative good. Simple concept. Obvious truth. neh.

Today's top story

Brooklyn story

This is sad. Chanequa Campbell, a gifted African American student from a poor, violent neighborhood in Brooklyn was told she would not be allowed to graduate this spring from Harvard and was forced to move off campus.

She was raised by a single mother in a blue three-story house in Bedford-Stuyvesant, and was set on a path to Harvard in fifth grade, when she was nominated to participate in Prep for Prep, a program that prepares minority students for elite schools. In seventh grade, she was admitted to Packer Collegiate Institute, where she excelled and was a star athlete. She won a New York Times Scholarship in 2005, applied to 14 colleges and was accepted to all of them.

Three weeks before she was scheduled to graduate, prosecutors reportedly linked her to a murder at her dorm. One of her friend's boyfriends killed a pot dealer in a botched robbery.

“Conversations that occurred between at least those four people led Jordan Copney to believe he could rip off Justin Cosby,” said the Middlesex County district attorney, Gerard T. Leone Jr. He also said that the Harvard students had provided the three men access to the campus.

Ms. Campbell was not charged with a crime and denies she was involved in the planning of the robbery or the murder. In an article in the Boston Globe, she denied knowing the pot dealer and letting anyone use her dorm access card. Harvard is not providing any details as to why she will not be allowed to graduate.

As you can no doubt imagine, the comments on the Globe story are mostly sick. It's getting to the point where the words "conservative" or "Republican" are synonymous with "racist moron." Those commenters, aside from the openly racist shit, whine on and on about "the race card." Now that Obama is president, no one is allowed to complain about racism any more, dontcha know.

But the old-fashioned don't question authority kind of conservatism comes out strong in that thread as well. Many simply cannot believe that Harvard would not take that kind of drastic action if they didn't know something they weren't telling. I admit to being somewhat susceptible to that argument, but I know better. Shit, as they say, flows downhill.How many times does a powerful organization find itself in an embarrassing position, look around for someone to blame and pick on the most powerless person available. So who's that gonna be? Chanequa from the hood or Brittany?

Of course I don't know. There's not enough information available to come to any kind of responsible conclusion on the justness, or not, of Harvard's actions. But no matter the outcome, this is a sad story in all too many ways.

I am familiar with Ms. Campell's educational background. Prep for Prep is an organization that picks the brightest minority students out of NYC's public schools and guarantees them placement in an elite private school. The prep part is two summers and the year in between in which sixth graders complete a grueling curriculum to catch them up with the kids in the private schools they will be entering. It is affirmative action, but not the kind that advances kids that can't hack it intellectually. Prep kids do very well in the top schools and belong at whatever university they choose to attend. Colleges want the top Prep kids because they are sure bets to succeed. After Prep, she excelled at a very good Brooklyn school, became a national merit scholar, and got into Harvard. Her parents and twenty relatives were planning on attending her graduation. I have some sense of what that would have meant to them and, try as I might, cannot imagine the devastation they must feel over what has happened. When a kid comes out of Bed-Stuy and aces Harvard, it's a very special thing.

And even worse, some poor kid died in a marijuana-related crime. This is yet another example ways in which prohibition destroys so many lives. The kid who died, his family, and possibly a very gifted young woman as well.

Katerskills falls

A few weeks ago I declared that I would go camping in the Catskills every weekend until October. You may think I'm crazy, but I have somewhat of a history with pronouncements like that. One summer I proclaimed that I would go camping on the beach in Mexico for the foreseeable future. Every weekend I got off work, picked up Jane Bob from the day care and hauled ass to the beach. 100 mph most of the way. We usually took a boat out to a sea lion rookery in the Sea of Cortez. If the sea was calm, I'd drink a lot of beer. If not, I'd lay on the deck and concentrate on not throwing up. Jane Bob spent most of the time hanging her head over the front of the boat and watching for dolphins. Once we got there we'd do some snorkeling and hang out with the sea lions. Yep. Those were pleasant days.

My soul-consuming hatred of New York City had abated significantly after visiting the midwest in the spring. I mean, sure, New York is a putrid hellhole, but it's a lot better than most the rest of the country. My all-too-understandable rabid hatred of the midwest trumps my sad-petty hatred of New York just about any day. My only real problem with New York is that I'm trapped in it. Who's fault is that. Not New York's. Obviously. But nevertheless, I hate it again.

What was I saying? Right. So every weekend I throw John Bob in the car and head up to the Catskills. But that's not gonna work. Not every weekend. I have photo commitments for a couple of Saturdays in June. Fourth of July I'm sure as hell not going anywhere. People and traffic are bad enough on a regular day. Holidays? No.

The Catskills are about 130 miles away. Two hours, right? But that's two hours plus whatever time it takes to get through New York City. Four hours is not unusual. Nightmare scenarios exist and regularly come to pass. In August, I've got to take Jane Bob on college visits. But I'm a gonna try. I'm a gonna try to get to the Catskills every weekend, to spend my days under cold waterfalls along Katerskills creek. I'm a gonna see some sunsets. Lot's of them. Follow the movements of the stars.

When's the last time I knew where Orion was going to be at any particular time. When's the last time I could predict where Venus would rise? Not since moving to New York. I can tell you that.

For a few d more

I saw "Up," you know, the new Pixar film, with John Bob today. It's a very well-made movie. Pretty much flawless. Except perhaps that it's too flawless. Maybe it could use a flaw or two. Regardless, those Pixar dudes sure know how to tell a story. Gotta love em for that. And enjoy it while it lasts. Cause you know that after the first flop Disney will be taking control and fucking everything up.

I also saw it in 3D. Not by choice. There was no choice at the local somewhat affordable theater. Pixar handled it well. The 3D was never annoying, at least not after the opening credits, and there were a few scenes where it worked very well. Those were subtle, not pointy things flying at the camera. The technology does give the director significantly more and better framing options.

The previews, however, featured upcoming 3D movies that were obviously horrible. Although Pixar did it well, my advice is to be very, very afraid for the future. Cause far and away the biggest thing that 3D enhanced was the price of the ticket. Added about $5, it did. Well, movies haven't been for the poor for awhile now. Pretty soon they won't even be for the middle class.

Education news

I hope you don't see me as one of those people who bore everyone with all the details of the lives of their kids. I only share Jane Bob's experience because it illustrates educational issues that are widely reported and discussed. And never fail to keep in mind that chuckling on-line magazine is a fictional publication. Any personal details may or may not be fanciful. Best to just assume they are.

Anyway, Jane Bob's SAT scores are in and she did okay. She took the PSAT before she started test prep. The PSAT predicts what a kid will get on the SAT. She scored 100 points higher than predicted. So in our case, the test prep was probably worth 100 points. That sounds about right. People who argue that test prep doesn't significantly favor those who take it claim it adds 10 to 30 points. Those who sell test prep claim it adds about 200.

In our case, that 100 points was the difference in being in the middle and being near the cut-off point for what it takes to get into the selective schools. That's a significant difference. A lot of people get left on the bottom side of that divide for lack of 100 points. If you care about getting your kid accepted into the selective schools, you really should consider some serious test prep. Not just a weekend. Several months, at least.

You probably aren't properly imagining how stupid I recognize this high stakes testing to be. Jane Bob spent five months going to a three hour class once a week and taking a practice test every weekend. If there were not big money involved, I wouldn't be able to think of a much worse way to spend that time. I really felt bad for her.

A lot of people don't realize this, I certainly had no idea as recently as a few years ago, but the most selective schools have far and away the best financial aid. Almost all of them are need blind. That means they accept kids based on their records with no consideration for ability to pay. If accepted, enough financial aid to get by is guaranteed. If you're not wealthy, Harvard is probably cheaper than Big State U. So for us, getting into one of those schools is not about prestige or ambition. I'm just hoping Jane Bob can come out of college without having sold her immediate future for student loans.

Memorial day

Room 208

A couple years ago my daughter Jane Bob was looking for something to read and asked me to recommend a book. This came as quite a shock because she'd always been hostile to any reading advice I might give. Now she was asking for it?

I looked across the book shelf and picked out "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" by Haruki Murakami. She looked at me with undisguised disgust. It's like a gazillion pages. Don't worry, I said. You'll like it. It's like totally inappropriate for a kid your age. Really? Yea, really. Only a totally irresponsible parent would recommend that book.

So she took it and I forgot about it. A couple weeks later she gave it back. Did you like it? Yea, it was good. Thanks.

I liked it when I first read it, and then I read "Kafka on the Beach" and liked that as well. But over the years I got to wondering if Wind-up Bird was really that good. It was a page turner, sure, but was it great literature?

As someone who probably took a few too many English classes in college, I tend to consider whether or not someone is a great writer and if his or her work is great literature. What is great literature? Impossible to say, precisely, but it usually involves some combination of great writing and great insight into the human condition. Is Murakami a great writer? Is Wind-up Bird a great novel? I finally got around to reading it again.

Several years had passed and I found I didn't remember many of the story details. That happens a lot, I think, with page turners. You get so engrossed in finding out what's going to happen that you kind of skim important parts leading up to the resolution. But this time I was more interested in what it was "about" than in what was going to happen.

So, you read Wind-up Bird, I said to Jane Bob. What was it about? It's about a guy whose wife leaves him and he spends the rest of the book trying to get her back.

Wow, I said dumbfounded. I never thought about it that way. So what did you think it was about? she asked. You're supposed to be some kind of Mr. Literature aren't you? I don't know, I said. That's why I asked. I guess if it were a question on a test, I'd say something like it's an examination of Japan trying to move into the modern age while still mired in its supernatural heritage and lingering angst about the war.

What did she think about all the supernatural stuff? Really made it interesting. What did she think about all the WWII historical stuff? First she'd heard of it (her U.S. History class didn't even get to WWI), but it was interesting. Was it great literature? I don't know Dad, I'm leaving now.

After reading "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle" again, I don't think it will prove to be great literature. Cause when you cut through all the supernatural and historical elements, it's simply about a guy whose wife left him and he's trying to get her back. The idea that heaven and earth play super complicated games that involve the lives of millions over some guy's missing wife is a bit too much.

But as always, I may be wrong. Murakami could well be like Miyazaki. Perhaps his references to the supernatural aspects of Japanese culture go over the heads of ignorant westerners and there is much more depth to the story than we can comprehend.

The New York Times had this to say. I don't know about any of that, but Wind-up Bird an enjoyable read and a good page turner. I guess time and more intelligent readers than I will ultimately determine its literary merit. Jane Bob, btw, has never asked me for another reading recommendation. My advice on that score: If your teen-aged daughter asks for reading advice, recommend something with significantly fewer than a gazillion pages. Maybe "Even Cowgirls get the Blues?"

Science news

That pic's from the Creationism Museum in Kentucky. Note how both the girl and the dinosaur have shit eating grins. Lot's daughters got nothing on that girl.

Today's top story

Another study in contrasts

Back to our regular scheduled programming

I've mentioned that my daughter Jane Bob is preparing for college. She's currently mired in the insane test taking phase, but I'm trying to look ahead. We've been to a couple dog-and-pony shows. Representatives from five colleges give short speeches and then take questions. They are quite erudite, but you learn next to nothing about what it's like to attend any of those places.

Fortuitously, I found a very helpful book out on the sidewalk in front of a used bookstore on Court street. The author got to wondering how life at a residential college had changed since he went to school in the 60's. He spent time in residence halls at 12 colleges (including my alma mater) in (somewhat) diverse geographic regions. The book it titled “Binge.” It has two subtitles, or I guess one subtitle and one uber title. What do you call a blurb like a subtitle that actually goes over the title? Anyway, they add up to “Campus Life in an Age of Disconnection and Excess: What your College Student Won't Tell You.”

Sounds pretty scary, eh? Bingeing. Disconnection. Excess. Gotta sell books I guess. I'm surprised they didn't mention sex since sex is an important part of the book.
But although it's portrayed that way on the cover, the book is actually not alarmist at all, and only minimally judgmental. The author makes a good effort to accurately describe what it's really like to be in college these days, or at least what it was like in 2005, which is not so long ago.

The book is not, as the title suggests, primarily about excess drinking, but bingeing does get mentioned a lot and merits its own chapter. An interesting part explains how efforts to control alcohol consumption on campus have led to dramatically increased alcohol consumption. Since students can no longer be seen in public with alcohol, they now have to drink easily-concealable hard liquor rather than beer. And after they've smuggled the hooch into the dorm, they have to do their drinking before they go out. So they huddle quietly in little circles guzzling hard liquor as fast as they can. Plenty of stories detail the deaths of young people who had 20+ shots in a compressed time period. Prohibition always fails. Spectacularly.

And of course the book touches on the state of racial segregation, which is reportedly severe. I've read again and again, including in “Binge,” that every college has its “Black” table in the dining hall and that people of recent African ancestry are likely to catch some flack for not sitting at the black table. And not just a black table, but a variety of other separated tables. Apparently there is a good deal of segregation in roommate assignments as well.

I was talking about this with other parents and an African woman made some interesting observations. She had come to the United States and gotten an undergrad education at a rural college. She had dealt with the issue of dining hall segregation. She explained that she had lived in the foreign student dorm and sat at the foreign student table during meals. From that experience she understood the social forces resulting in the segregated table phenomenon. Every now and again, one of the foreign student regulars would try to assimilate with some white American table. The foreign student regulars would make “who does she think she is” type comments. There was a general feeling of condemnation. Not from the African woman, mind you, but she understood where they were coming from.

The African woman drew “why aren't you sitting with us” attention from the black table and felt like maybe she should sit there, at least on occasion. But it turned out she wasn't entirely welcome. She says there was an impossible-to-define tension she felt coming from the American blacks. She said that there was another level of segregation at the black table, based on the relative darkness of one's skin. She was pretty much always the blackest person in the room, so double cursed. She returned to her people at the foreign students table and soon moved off campus.

Dealing with that kind of shit is going to be challenging for Jane Bob. Here in Brooklyn, we live in a fantasy-like world of near color blindness. Jane Bob and her friends have a wide variety of skin tones, but they're all very similar socially. No one pays all that much attention to your skin tone round here. The African woman told a little story that brought that point home. She'd recently spent a few weeks out in the heartland. She said she was shopping in a mall and noticed someone looking at her, an African American woman about the same age. She realized that she and the other were the only black people in sight. The black woman smiled and nodded. The African woman returned the gesture. The African woman told us that she had lived in New York for so long that she had forgotten what it was like being a highly visible minority and she was surprised when she felt it again. Out in the sticks black people tended to acknowledge one another as kindred souls in a sea of other. Just like at the colleges. There was usually a black table at work. It wasn't the best way to organize a society, but it was apparently natural. At least in an otherwise unnatural environment.

As you can probably imagine, I'm starting to cop an attitude about all this college crap. Jane Bob's going to have to read the book and formulate a list of questions based on it. Then she can ask those questions at her college interviews and make her own decisions.

Today's top story

Picture of the day

I don't know if I've ever told you that I'm a big Star Trek fan, but it's true. I'm one of those people who go to conventions and then dress up and wait in line for days before the movie opens. I've seen every episode of the original series like a gazillion times. I have an outfit like the robot Porrofatto, an obscure character with a caustic wit from one of the earlier episodes. Not many R. Porro's out there, I tell you what. Anyway, I stood in line all weekend, but unfortunately I was in the wrong line and didn't get into the opening. So I didn't see the movie until today after work. I took John Bob along because he hates Star Trek and I am an evil parent.

If you, too, are a serious trekkie and haven't seen it yet (hardly possible, I know)quit reading now. I'm about to give it all away. The new Star Trek movie tells the story of how the crew came together -- Jim, Bones, Spock, Scotty, Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura as very young people. Tears came to my eyes every time they hit a familiar note from the old show. I bawled on several occasions, like when Spock said "live long and prosper" or when Scotty said something along the lines of "She can't take it any more, she'll be breakin up." If Bones would have said "he's dead, Jim" I probably would have had to be institutionalized. It was bad enough as it was. My constant crying made others in the theatre uncomfortable.

But I did have several problems with the movie. For one, Kirk got beaten up constantly. He lost every fight he was in. It was like watching a twisted version of "The Passion of the Christ," only with a fictional character I cared about. William Shatner never would have lost all of those fights. And Uhuru chose Spock over Kirk. That would never happen. Not in 1968. Not ever. I tell you what. And the guy playing Spock from the future, Leonard Cohen I think, is way old. The plot? It turns out that all of the history of Star Trek as we know it was wiped out. A Romulan changed the timeline. Every episode we've ever seen never happened. Episodes? What episodes? It's all becoming cloudy. Star Trek Voyager? What the hell was that? William Shatner is a lawyer. Denny Crane, Denny Crane. It was all a bad dream. And now I'm awake. And in this timeline I am cool. Very cool. I don't dress up like anybody. Well, maybe like Joey Ramone, but not in a stupid green smock like before. Hallelujah. Great fucking movie. Changed my life.

And John Bob liked it. He wants to be Mr. Spock next Halloween. Not such a great idea. I tell you what.

Picture of the day

Wild Brooklyn.

Studies in contrast

Picture of the day

Picture of the day

I was flipping channels a few minutes ago and came across Chris Matthews arguing with Tom Tancredo, and losing badly, about creationism vs. science. Tancredo, an extreme right wing xenophobe, if not much worse, wiped the floor with Matthews. If I were more of an idiot, I might think that creationist argument makes a lot of sense.

I know, I know, Matthews is a clown but so are altogether too many other people on any particular issue, myself included. Still, a big time tv interviewer should be prepared to destroy a creationist. They're paid a lot of fucking money to prepare for these interviews. A high schooler should be able to tear the creationist a new asshole. Easily. Fuck man, in this day and age, the demonstrated ability to destroy creationist arguments should be a requirement for graduation. It's a low bar, granted, and I'm not saying it should be the only requirement for high school graduation, only one of many. But anyone who can't jump that minuscule hurdle should not be given a diploma. On a bad day I'd almost argue they shouldn't even have the right to vote. People who can't effectively argue with lame-ass creationist bullshit are too poorly educated to function responsibly in a democratic society. I know, I know, democracy is inherently non-exclusive. Wouldn't work any other way.

But what about the people who make those lame-ass bullshit arguments for creationism? Are they really that stupid? Or do they have other agendas? Are they just reeling in the rubes as a means to some other end? Or both?

Both, I'm sure, but I've noticed that the creationists talk about the horrors of the modern world almost as much, if not more than they talk about the inerrancy of the bible and their 6000-year-old earth theories. They really hate the modern world. Dinosaurs on Noah's ark get the kids through the doors, but the explicit message once they're in the door is that the modern world sucks. Wanna fix it? Visit the gift shop, you'll find all kinds of useful information. There are dinosaur toys for the kids. Dinosaur clothes for the little ones. Dinosaurs are so cute. Kids love them.

Creationists have clever-sounding arguments, exquisite logical fallacies, that appeal to the poorly educated. Simple answers to simple questions. They have training programs to help those so inclined make those simple argument. They go to training seminars. They buy training DVDs on-line. They learn how to make those simple arguments. Wanna fuck with them? They know what you're going to say and they have a well-practiced answer for that. And they count on you to publicly show respect for their religious beliefs. You have your opinion, they have theirs. If you are going to argue with them, you'd better be prepared with facts. Cause they are prepared for you.

You won't see them explain themselves so nakedly on national television, but in the deep recesses of their culture they phrase it this way: Beliefs are beliefs and we all have them. So when it comes down to it, who are you going to believe? The sad deluded souls rotting in this hell of a modern world or God? Who you gonna believe, huh? Lost souls? Evil people? Or God?

Picture of the day

We're living in a significant time. Great changes are possible and the consequences of missing these opportunities to change will most likely prove devastating. If history demonstrates anything it demonstrates that turning our fortunes over to greedy sociopaths is not a good move. Boom and bust cycles are predictable. Sustainable? No. My nephew works for an advanced business degree at Wharton. I know another guy who went to the same elite business-oriented school in Paris, also went to Wharton and became a successful derivatives trader. Both of them think highly of American freedom and capitalism, not that they make any differentiation between the two, and are happy to sing our praises to anyone who will listen. France? Nice place to grow up and get a fine education. The wine wine is fine fine and the dining as well. Socialist hellhole though. Can't make your billions there. Really sucks. Not like the U.S. where freedom is free and if you're smart they'll pay you for it. The graduates from Wharton and a few other top business schools dominate the financial markets. They've pocketed uncountable billions of dollars. Set for life, they are. Not just their own lives. Generations of their progeny. They'll fuck up anything, anything on earth or outer space, for that money. Those assets. The prestige. More than anything, the prestige. They need help.

Now is one of those rare moments of history when the sociopath greedheads have exposed themselves as the sociopath greeheads they are. They have demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that they care fuckall for anything not related to their net worth and that unconstrained, will destroy anything that crosses their paths. Unchecked, they'll destroy anything, even the world. An overwhelming majority of leading scientists are quite clear on this. Unchecked capitalism will destroy the world. For humans anyway. Never mind the billions of individuals that die from other species. The story ends the same way in too many fields of science.

Someone (responsible, you know, I don't mean me) needs to explain all this to humanity at large and the American people in particular so that we can enact checks and balances to stop these sociopaths from fucking everything up so badly. We need to use our tax and other financial laws to herd these types into less destructive avenues of attaining personal satisfaction. They could be carnies or something. Guess your weight. Three card monte. Not exactly respectable, but relatively harmless. Now is the time to make that argument. That greed is not good. Now, when just about everyone knows it's true.

Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen. We're going to give "greed is good" at least another chance or two to prove itself a utilitarian philosophy. To prove, against all evidence, that a rising tide lifts everything in the water.

Picture of the day

I'm starting to dread Fridays. Last Friday everyone in my company got a significant pay cut. This Friday the landlord raised the rent. Just a slice of life in the New Depression, eh? What will next Friday bring? I don't even want to know.

My daughter Jane Bob is finishing up her junior year in high school, which means tests and lots of them. I don't mean tests in whatever subjects she's studying at school, those are pretty low stress. No, I mean college related tests. She took the SAT with writing yesterday. By the end of the month she will also have taken three SAT II's, the ACT and three AP's. What a bunch of shite, eh?

We've pretty much done everything the right way, but a lot of parents out there are plumb crazy. Did you know that typical over achieveing parents arrange diagnoses of Attention Deficit Disorder for their kids so that they can do better on the SAT? I shit you not. The ADD diagnosis benefits the test taker two ways: he or she gets twice the time to finish the test and a dose of Adderall on top of that. Adderall is an amphetamine that helps a child focus and increases stamina. It's good for at least 50 points on the test. Reportedly.

Imagine that. Giving your kids amphetamines for 50 points on a test. What kind of monster would do something like that? But you gotta give them this. The test is important. Jane Bob went to an exhaustive test prep class for almost six months. She had taken at least 10 practice tests before taking the real one yesterday. The practice tests were composed of medium and difficult questions, no easy ones. But the practice paid off, as it always does. She felt she did very well on the real thing and given all her experience, I'd be surprised if she didn't get the score she needs. Hopefully, she'll only have to take the test once and can move on. Most of the really motivated parents make their kids take the test several times. The colleges only see the best scores on each section. Crazy stuff, huh?

So yea, I'll be glad to see the stupid tests over with. Then we can move on to college selection and applications. She'll also have to take challenging subjects and do well in class for the fall of her Senior year, which won't be a problem. Poor kid is taking Physics and Calculus. Nuts, innit? The payoff for the kids that do what it takes is that they don't have to do anything the second half of senior year. Europe on spring break. Turn eighteen. Party. Of course if she fucked up yesterday, we might have to look into the ADD thing after all. Maybe twice the dose would add 100 points?

Just kidding. Although we've gone through the motions of doing everything that has to be done to get in an elite school, we've never been obsessed with it or gotten stressed out. We were very fortunate to get Jane Bob into a high school that doesn't do grades, so we don't have to worry about GPA, which is a stress factor up there with the SAT for kids in a normal school. The other day we were at a large get-together for high achievers and the woman running the show asked how many of the kids were horribly miserable in school this year because all of the college related stress, especially the need to make good grades, a high GPA. All of the hands went up except those from our school. Jane Bob and most of her friends have no concept of what it's like to be miserable in school. That is something I could never have imagined back in my day. I couldn't imagine not being miserable in school. So I consider getting kids through high school without being miserable the greatest possible parental accomplishment. By far. We're almost there.

The disappearing middle

Senator Arlen Specter's celebrated switch to the Democratic party is a bad bad thing A bad bad thing and a harbinger of bad bad things to come. The immediate result is the loss of a senate seat. Had a real Democrat won two years from now in Pennsylvania, the Democrats would have another seat. But if Specter is permitted to keep the seat as a nominal Democrat, it effectively stays Republican. As he says, changing parties won't change the way he votes. He's just betting it will change the way people vote for him. He's betting Pennsylvania Democrats are a bunch of chumps.

And given the numbers in play and the sudden change from the Constitution's simple majority to the need to have sixty votes to pass any meaningful legislation, Specter's tactical move will make it significantly more difficult for Obama to get anything progressive done--even if he is so inclined--which is not altogether certain. Specter is still a right winger. He's on record as saying he's not going to vote differently. The only change is that now he will join right wing Democrats in obstructing progress within the party. He couldn't achieve that any longer as a nominal Republican. The right wing, or in official parlance "moderate", Democrats are actually right wing Republicans. The nominal Republicans have gone so far off the deep end to have rendered themselves meaningless with their hatred and hysteria. They are no longer Republicans in any historical sense of the term. They're just a flaming bunch fucking nutzis. The right wing of the Democratic party's where the money will be made.

Let's hope netroots or somebody kicks Specter's ass in the primary and then beats him again in the general election. The general election? You know he'll pull a Lieberman if it comes to that. And if it does come to that, he'll have the support of both the Democratic and Republican organizations -- and probably the White House as well. Progressive talk is all well and good for fund raising and winning elections, but you wouldn't want to actually have the votes to implement any of it.

Substitutes

Because God is perfectly holy, He must punish sin-- either the sinner himself, or a substitute to bear His wrath. 

-- From The Seven C's of History, a publication ofthe Creation Museum

Above all, God loves Himself and upholds His glory, and to uphold His glory as infinitely valuable requires that punishment be executed on those who profane, or disgrace, God's glory. 

-- Random wacko on the internets

Everybody writes about this, so I'll limit myself to just a few points that I don't see others making.

The primary function of torture is to punish dissent. Nazi's, Communists, Latin American strongmen, Bush's band of bad men (and Condi)... Doesn't matter. At heart, they cannot stand the idea that someone somewhere disagrees with them and when freed from all legal restraint they ache to make the dissenters pay in the worst possible ways.

It has been noted in the big media, albeit rarely, that torture is more about extracting confessions than gaining useful information. But again, those confessions, false or otherwise, are used to justify the state theology that dissent is wrong and dangerous. And I don't doubt that there is an element of sadism at the highest levels, butI think that kind of sick pathology is more abundant among those who actually carry out the torture. Still, it's not hard to imagine sick fucks like Bush and Cheney relishing in the pain of those weak, powerless peons who disagree with them. You can't deny the element of power.

The second point that is never made is that the U.S. has been a torturing nation for a long time. We have trained and otherwise enabled torturers throughout Latin America and the rest of the third world at least since the beginnings of the cold war. A lot of that is well-documented and supports my point above. There was never any ticking time bomb. 100's of thousands of people suffered horribly and many died to placate the sick egos and insecurities of the powerful. The only difference these days is that we have cut out the middle men.

Oh, we're not Argentina, they say. We're not torturing out own citizens because of their political views. Well, not yet, but now that it's all out in public and nothing will be done to the perpetrators, it's clear we're sliding down that slope. And you must know know it will be worse the next time violent Republican know-nothings come to power. If not next time, the time after. They always believe that anyone who opposes them is unpatriotic. It's a small step from unpatriotic "threat to national security." And they'll get the confessions to prove it. By torture? What of it? These are traitors we're talking about. They deserve whatever they get. You're not one of them, are you? No? That's what they all say, eh? What about your neighbor?

But what I really don't get, and maybe you can explain this to me? is why no one brings up the question of whether it's okay for foreign governments to torture Americans. Would the Republican asshats sing the same tune if Iran wore torturing confessions out of Americans. Probably not. Someone has done some good reporting to let us know that the U.S. has a history of prosecuting foreigners, even executing them, who have tortured American prisoners. Why can't Chris Matthews or any of the other prominent asshats ask that fucking question? How hard can it be?

Springtime is here!

You know I spend a good deal of time reading the lefty blogs and I don't think I've read a word about the arrival of spring. I suspect that illustrates a good part of the problem with political people, all too many seem to be entirely disconnected from the natural world. Not just political people. Just about everybody. The problems that logically ensue. the damage that is done... incalculable.

Nevertheless, it's here. Spring is here and the earth is singing. Get out there and listen. That's my humble advice. Soon it will be oppressive summer with its mosquitoes, spiderwebs, humidity and such. Get out now while you can.

You see? I'm enthused. So fucking enthused I'll leave you with a poem, a Rimbaud poem no less. Can't have springtime without a sappy poem, no? I think this one is an apt metaphor for springtime in NYC:

As from a green zinc coffin, a woman’s
Head with brown hair heavily pomaded
Emerges slowly and stupidly from an old bathtub,
With bald patches rather badly hidden;

Then the fat gray neck, broad shoulder-blades
Sticking out; a short back which curves in and bulges;
Then the roundness of the buttocks seems to take off;
The fat under the skin appears in slabs:

The spine is a bit red; and the whole thing has a smell
Strangely horrible; you notice especially
Odd details you’d have to see with a magnifying glass…

The buttocks bear two engraved words: CLARA VENUS;
—And that whole body moves and extends its broad rump
Hideously beautiful with an ulcer on the anus.

You'll thank me for that. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday and for at least a few minutes. Happy spring!

Time travels, pt. 1

Editors note: Since I'm not going to finish the entire essay about our visit to the Creationism Museum, and other parts west, anytime soon and I don't want to leave chuckling on-line magazine with no new content, we've decided to publish it as a serial. Below is part 1, which most likely will be some other part in the final essay.
___________________________________________________

For a while, things were perfect in the Garden of Eden. As Adam and Eve lived in a beautiful garden (planted especially for them by God). They could eat of any tree in Eden, except one. This first couple had a perfect relationship with their Creator, a perfect marriage and a perfect place to live. The animals, which Adam ruled over, got along perfectly. But something obviously corrupted this “very good” world, turning it int the world we see today, which is full of sickness and death.

Because of Adam's disobedience (sin), all of his descendants (you and I) are born with sin in our nature. Because of Adam;s sin, our bodies will die. Because of Adam's sin, God cursed His precious creation. The world we see today, while reflecting God's original creation, has been corrupted by sin.

My good friend K. died a couple weeks ago. Or was it a month? Either way, I was unable to attend the funeral and it was too late to send flowers by the time I learned about her death. I knew I'd be visiting the old home town in a few weeks anyway, so I put off making a condolence call to her husband until I could do it in person.

So the first thing on my agenda was to see F. and tell him how sorry I was. Everyone told me he was devastated. I brought a joint along, as is the local custom. F. always liked to get high and that hasn't changed. He had his own dope and wouldn't think of smoking the crap I had managed to bum. I knew it would play like that going in, but I like to follow social conventions and he appreciated my efforts. It's pretty much all we've got. K was 51 when she died. Looked like 85.

K's death was horrible. She. suffered mightily for many years. Oh, I know, the end was sudden. She keeled over from a sudden heart attack and was gone before her head hit the steering wheel. That's what the paramedics said and it made everyone feel a little better. No suffering. Here one minute, gone the next. Poof.

But in reality she had been dying for a long time. Her son was killed a few years ago when the road curved and his car went straight into a ditch and flipped end over end across a wheat field. N was thrown through through the window. He broke his spine and cracked his head, killed when he hit the ground. N hadn't been drinking and only pussies wore seat belts back then, so it wasn't his fault. He had a little weed in his system but that wasn't the cause of the accident. People blamed it on lack of sleep from the messy divorce he was going through. That and working two jobs to support the baby. Sounds bad, I know, but that's pretty much everybody's story back there. K suffered every moment from when she got the call that he was dead to when her heart gave out for real in the plastic factory parking lot.

K had been a beautiful woman, but when I saw her a year after N's death she looked like a meth addict. She was beautiful one year. A craggy faced hag the next. I'm glad I didn't see her at the end, when she had actually been smoking meth for awhile. Must have been the ugliest woman alive.

According to F, she had complained of chest pains and numbness for several days before she died. He told me that during that time she had also drank a big box of wine, took over a hundred Xanax, smoked a little meth and smoked weed and cigarettes pretty much constantly. I was very surprised to hear that. The drug use was nothing new of course, but it was the first I'd ever heard of her drinking. That struck me as odd. Very odd.

But it got odder fast. F told me she had been hanging out at the bar, giving blow jobs in the parking lot and fucking old bikers in their oil stained garages. Said he caught her with some guy, told him, that's my wife, buddy. Here's five dollars, go buy her a beer. Don't ask me what the fuck that meant. I didn't ask him.

As an aside, those guys she was reportedly fooling around with must have been some serious losers. A normal man wouldn't let an old meth hag like that get anywhere near his dick. F didn't see it that way though. He was still in love. She was still beautiful. It wasn't her doing those things. It was the alcohol. As soon as she quit drinking, he would forgive her and they could go back to the way they were.

Although K deteriorated rapidly after N's untimely death, she had been unhappy for the fifteen years she had been married to F. Previously, she had been married to a friend of mine, which is how I had gotten to know her so well. Back then M was a crazy adventurous guy. They were always doing exiting things, having a good time. They seemed like such an ideal family, especially after N was born. But as is only natural, M got caught fucking the babysitter and a divorce quickly ensued. F was right there to catch her on the rebound. I think she complained bitterly about her quick remarriage to F every time I saw her after that. She would have been better off staying with M. So what if he couldn't keep his dick in his pants. At least he was alive. It was better than being with boring old F. Or she could have married me and gone off traveling to interesting places (and it's true, she could have). But no. She was stuck and she hated it.

Everyone that knew them sided with F. He was nothing but a nice guy who took good care of her and gave her with everything she asked for except excitement. She should be happy, or if that wasn't possible, get a divorce and move on. But soon he got her pregnant and she stuck it out. She regularly attended a right wing evangelical church and had strong feelings about raising children in a two parent family. She also believed in the inerrancy of the Bible and would have enjoyed the Creation Museum. As the years went by she came to believe the most outrageous right wing conspiracies and regularly expressed her hatred of all "niggers" (except those who were her friends). It was due to that kind of degeneration, especially the racist jeremiads,that I hadn't seen her for for about five years before she died. She managed to cope with her marital unhappiness until her son died by going to church on Sunday, smoking prodigious amounts of weed and taking a lots of pills. There was the occasional sniff or two of crank as well. Then later, when crank became meth, she started smoking it.

I wonder now if there wasn't something more wrong with F than anyone believed. All K ever said against him was that he was boring, but who knows what else might have been going on. I know realize that his was probably a “nice guy” in the Pandagonian sense of the term. He was the friend who was always there, then he swooped in when she was depressed about the breakup of her marriage. He was the anti-M. Now I wonder about the deeper details. Sex must have been horrible for her. That's a given.

I don't know of course but he's sure a mess now. That condolences visit was one of the most uncomfortable situations I've ever been in. It was bad enough listening to him go into way too much detail about her fucking and sucking, then alternately going on about how he loved her so much, how it wasn't her doing those things, and that he would have forgiven her if she quit drinking, but I hadn't smoked any dope for a long time and his was pretty good. I wanted to back off and analyze it all intellectually, but with the dope and all I was just horrified and uncomfortable and all I could think about was getting out of there as fast as possible. I know what you're thinking and it's true. I'm not the good friend you want around in your time of need.

Anyway, as I said above, I wasn't surprised that K deteriorated and died young. That has happened, and is happening, to a lot, if not most of my friends and acquaintances from the old home town. Any sane person either gets out or gets fucked up.

Time travels

Sorry for the light posting. I'm working on some stuff related to my recent trip to the real America. I did make it to the Creation Museum and plan to tell you all about it, just not now. And I have some interesting photos, many of which I will show you, but again, not now. Soon though. Soon. For now, this picture, which I'd say is worth about 2000 words (conservative estimate), sums up a large chunk of it.

No left turn on red

I noticed a headline at the New York Times saying that more Americans view "socialism" favorably. The subhed questions if they even know what it means. Two observations: 1. Of course they don't know what it means. I'm sure it's just a reaction to the Republican idiots repeatedly calling Obama a socialist. Even ordinary people who don't closely follow politics realize that conservative retards have been wrong about everything. If they don't like socialism, then hey, must be a good thing. 2. Notice how the media question whether regular people know what socialism means but they never question the meaning of the word when Obama is accused of being a socialist.

More news from nowhere

As you probably know, I'm on a trip that's taking me through large swathes of bumfuck. It's refreshing to be away from the big city media, to see what the small town papers have to say. Things are pretty bad out here, folks, and getting badder every day.

Each morning's news brings stories of child abusers, child molesters and meth labs. The big state news revolves around a serious budget shortfall due to significantly decreased tax revenue. The state's plan is to spend the stimulus money almost entirely on funding the state budget. There will be a little spending for new projects, but the Republican governor and the Republican congresspeople are still hashing out the details. They all agree on building more prisons. They differ in that the governor wants to slash education spending a whole helluva lot and the legislature wants to increase it just a little. Hmmmmm, slash education, build prisons. They've been doing that for years. How's that working out? See multiple stories about meth labs on pages A-3 through A-6. Meanwhile, they're sitting on a giant pile of cash they saved from when times were good. Yep, if this is any indication, not a lot is gonna get built with all that stimulus money.

Back to national news, I inadvertantly read a Mallard Fillmore editorial cartoon. Apparently, conservatives are attacking Obama as a gaffe-prone, lousy communicator. Yea, as Obama moves effortlessly on from one incredible communication triumph after another and people see him speaking well on tv every day, that hardly seems like a smart strategy. But what really strikes normal people as funny is the apparent fact that these idiots appear to have no memory whatsoever. Normal people easily recall a certain gaffe-prone president that couldn't communicate for shucks. What was that guy's name? Wait, it'll come to me. I know, I know. George W. Bush. Ha ha. Obama doesn't really need him to look good, but sheee-it, Bush ain't totally forgotten. Not yet.

Speaking of saps

I was in a liquor store in the midwest today. Beer distributor is talking to the cashier, they're bitching about the economy, complaining about their sales. Beer guy asks the cashier if there's a lot Mexicans in the area. Yea, she says in a nasty tone of voice, they're fucking everywhere. You can always tell, says the beer guy as he sadly shakes his head. God damn Corona's flying off the shelves. Motherfuckers are like cockroaches, or some similar sentiment, hangs in the air, unsaid.

There are important lessons in that exchange, somewhere.

Same old story (to be)

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Pittsburgh police say a man wearing a bulletproof vest opened fire on officers during a domestic disturbance call, killing three of them.

Police chief Nate Harper says the motive for Saturday's shooting isn't clear. Friends say the gunman recently had been upset about losing his job and that he feared the Obama administration was poised to ban guns.

So where did the gunman get the idea that Obama was going to take his guns and why isn't anyone organizing protests and boycotts against those who spread or sponsor that kind of hateful nonsense? Cause all indications are that it's gonna get a lot worse. How many more massacres by heavily armed, recently laid-off Republicans who have been propagandized into insanity by the Limbaughs, Palins, Becks, and assorted other hucksters making their millions off the poor saps before someone calls them on their crap?

Out of office

I'll be away for the next 10 days or so. My goal is to not use the internet, so I probably won't be posting anything, although it's always possible in this horrible age of mobile computing and wireless networking. I'll be working on a major photo project and also going to the Creationism Museum in Kentucky. Just about everyone I know has asked me to get them a post card from the gift shop. I'm really looking forward to it.

Social democracy rules, oligarchy drools

Robert Kagan, one of the most egregious intellectual failures of the 21st centuries, explains why the European social democracies are so superior to the United States oligarchy:

The Germans and French prefer welfare payments to government stimulus spending, for they are part of the passive system of social safety nets on which their citizens have grown so comfortably dependent. The creative destruction of the business-oriented political economies of the Anglo-Americans is too violent and unstable, too brutal and unpredictable. Better to regulate more tightly the international capitalists who can cause havoc through their inventiveness. Better to be less rich than less secure.

Of course he sees comfort and security as bad things. Better to have a large pool of poor uneducated suckers on the edge of economic disaster to manipulate into wars of conquest and global domination. Duh.

But the glaringly obvious problem with Kagan's analysis is the last sentence in the quoted graph. Better to be less rich than less secure? Thing is, the great majority of people in European social democracies are more rich, not less rich, than average Americans and being a whole helluva lot more secure is largely responsible for that fact. In European social democracies, it's only the super rich that are less rich than their American counterparts. That's a good thing.

Picture of the day

Another from the East New York project.

Dem leader to moderates: piss off you commie wackos

According to Politico, "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Friday that liberal groups targeting moderate Democrats with ads should back off..."

Two things wrong with that.

The big honking one, obviously, is the Senate Grand Poobah telling the little people to keep their opinions to themselves, to not worry their little heads about government business and just leave it all to the strong, wise men who will handle the situation and do what's best. Yea, well, fuck him and then slash the tires on the limo he road in on. Goddammed plutocrats and oligarchs. More people need to stand up to them, not fewer.

The second, less obvious, problem with Politico's lede is referring to the anti-Obama Democrats as "moderate." They are not moderate. They are right wing. If they were moderate, their number would be more like 30. The word "moderate" comes from the mathematical concept of mode. The mode in a list of numbers refers to the list of numbers that occur most frequently. Since the majority of people support Obama, and the great majority of Democrats, then Obama supporters are by definition "moderate." The Democrats who oppose him, from right or left, are by that same definition "not moderate."

Of course I'm aware that in our right wing propaganda culture the term "moderate" is defined as "Republican." Time to push back on that crap as well.

Picture of the day

Pass it on

I got a wingnut email today. You might enjoy:

THE JOB - URINE TEST (Whoever wrote this one deserves a HUGE pat on the back!)

Like a lot of folks in this state, I have a job. I work, they pay me. I pay my taxes and the government distributes my taxes as it sees fit. In order to get that paycheck, I am required to pass a random urine test with which I have no problem. What I do have a problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people who don't have to pass a urine test.

So here is my Question. Shouldn't one have to pass a urine test to get a welfare check because I have to pass one to earn it for them? Please understand, I have no problem with helping people get back on their feet. I do, on the other hand, have a problem with helping someone sitting on their rump--doing drugs, while I work.

Can you imagine how much money the state would save if people had to pass a urine test to get a public assistance check? I guess we could title that program, 'Urine or You're Out'.

Pass this along if you agree or simply delete if you don't. Hope you all will pass it along, though. Something has to change in this country --and soon!!!!!!!

Interesting propaganda. Nicely aimed at people who take piss tests, blue collar folk, cops, firemen, the less educated among us, though I don't believe it was written by anyone who actually takes a piss test. The politics of resentment. To work, it's necessary that the suckers have no idea what welfare is these days. If lazy guys could get paid to sit around and do drugs, I'd be there. But the reality is that welfare, such as it is, tends to go to women with kids. Reality, of course, never got in the way of a wingnut mailing.

Still, I can relate to the basic message. It's difficult not to resent having your work support a bunch of worthless freeloaders. Add sociopathic scam artists to the resented and I can feel the pain of the piss tested. The difference between better educated workers like myself and those who take piss tests is that I realize that my work supports a class of wealthy leeches. When it comes to the worthless fucks we should resent, the odd crack whore on food stamps accounts for pennies on the dollar, if that. No, it's the executive that does half of his "work" on the golf course, can barely recognize the difference between his ass and a hole in the ground, and makes more than 200 times my salary for that kind of "work" that our piss test folk should be more worried about. Those people and the trust fund rejects. Talk about worthless shits who sit on their asses and live off our labor. If the piss testers only knew.

It's past time for some lefty organization with gumption to glom onto these email lists and redirect the resentment into more realistic directions.

chuckling on geithner

I've noticed that Timothy Geithner, the United States Secretary of the Treasury, has suffered a lot of attacks from across the political spectrum. He is possibly the only man in the history of the internet age about whom lefty bloggers, wingnuts, Fox News, CNBC, hate radio and the mainstream media have ever been so unanimously in agreement. Dude sucks, they say. Dude sucks big time. Timmeh!

Unlike normal people, poor chuckling does not thoroughly understand the current economic situation, particularly the gritty details of the financial industry meltdown. It's embarrassing to admit that such easily understandable financial instruments such as derivatives or bundles of toxic debt are outside my area of expertise. How to re-ignite the credit markets? Beats me. I have to lean on the analysis of experts on these kinds of complex issues.

Who are the experts in this case? Conservatives? Puh-leeeze. Get back to your golf courses and find the goddammed WMD's losers. And no offense friends, but in this case I'm not going to look to the mainstream media or lefty bloggers to help me form an opinion. Nope. Looks to me like it's Obama vs. Krugman.

I consider past performance. Krugman is recognized by his peers as one of the top economists, he has a history of being right about most everything and he is one of the true heroes of the Bush years. Obama is an awesome strategist and has made an incredible series of bold, innovative decisions that proved to be the right ones. He doesn't have Krugman's expertise in economics, but he is not without high level advice. The lefty blogs seem to think that Geithner is somehow tricking Obama, taking advantage of his naivete. I'm skeptical of that theory. Again and again Obama has proven to be the least naive person in the room.

So Krugman or Obama? Well, since I don't have to choose, and frankly don't know squat about the financial industry, I guess I won't. But I'll tell you this. Although I don't think we should be brain dead Obama cheerleaders, pathetic lefty versions of wingnuts that spout the party line no matter what, I do find it disturbing that so many lefty blogs have found harmonic convergence with wingnut demogogues on the Geithner issue. I'm not saying that should make anyone change their mind, but it would sure as hell make me take a hard look at the thought processes that made my words and beliefs nearly indistinguishable from the wingnuts.

Update: I just learned that Timmeh's middle name is Franz. Sounds like a Nazi to me. Or a silly body builder. Or a gay fashionista. Or a pumped gay Nazi fashionista! Maybe we should start calling him "Franz," just like the wingnuts call Obama "Hussein." Wouldn't that be cul?

Yep.

Photo of the day

I can't really claim this one. My daughter Jane Bob was doing a shoot. She set up all the lighting and directed the model. I just stood behind her and glommed.

Another episode of wingnut wonderland

Charles Murray and the Washington Post ask if America should be more like Europe and not surprisingly answer with a resounding no. But what's fun about the article is its total lack of intelligent reasoning. Trying to follow it is one loop-de-loop after another. But follow it we will.

How do you compare the U.S. to Europe. Well, first you have to define what Europe is like.

In Europe, government subsidizes religion, which Mr. Murray blames (without evidence) for the fact that so many churches are empty. Well maybe. He doesn't mention that most European countries have, unlike most of the United States, excellent education systems which probably better explains why their churches are empty. Education is the bane of religion. Always has been. Always will be.

Also, unlike bootstrap America, the wussy European governments help women with child rearing which results in fewer children. Generous child allowances, free day-care centers and long maternity leaves are responsible, he argues (without evidence), for declining fertility rates. But even if that is true, are low fertility rates such a bad thing. Does this planet really need an ever increasing population? If so, why? Murray doesn't get into this, but since we know that he is a notorious racist and he even admits it in this article, I think it's fair to question his concern over fertility rates for the melanin disadvantaged of Europe. As we'll see later on in the article, he thinks Americans, at least certain a certain type of them, should have fewer children.

Jobs? “They are countries where jobs are most carefully protected by government regulation and mandated benefits are most lavish.” Wow, normal people have well-paying jobs with great benefits. Just like our elected officials here and our corporate elite. That's not fair, obviously, but what's the problem? “A lot of people see work as a necessary evil and many of them say they don't love their jobs? Egads.

"Call it the Europe Syndrome. Last April I had occasion to speak in Zurich, where I made some of these same points. Afterward, a few of the 20-something members of the audience came up and said plainly that the phrase "a life well-lived" did not have meaning for them. They were having a great time with their current sex partner and new BMW and the vacation home in Majorca, and they saw no voids in their lives that needed filling.
It was fascinating to hear it said to my face, but not surprising. It conformed to both journalistic and scholarly accounts of a spreading European mentality that goes something like this: Human beings are a collection of chemicals that activate and, after a period of time, deactivate. The purpose of life is to while away the intervening time as pleasantly as possible.”

Sounds good to me. And “whiling away the time as pleasantly as possible doesn't necessarily exclude work and children. It excludes doing crappy jobs that make idiot sociopaths inordinately wealthy and unwanted children. Most people want to work, to take part in the creation of something they find valuable, and will do so if they have the time and good health. And I think most people enjoy having children. It's certainly added immeasurable value to my life and I simply don't see how the practice will just fade away if we make it less of a burden and more of a personal choice. And I'm talking about normal people. Work and children have always been less of a burden and more of a choice for the wealthy.

After that, Murry goes on to argue that science will soon prove that it is impossible for European-type society to exist at all and that anybody who thinks European-like society could exist is either a stupid liberal or possibly a member of one of the less intelligent races.

His first premise is that people are not equal, therefore they shouldn't be treated as such. His second principle is that humans can't change. Not within our own lifetime. Not as a species through the sweep of history. Therefore government should quit trying to do anything to help anyone improve their lives. “Jails not Schools” could be his motto.

Then Murray provides the obligatory attack on single mothers and comes to the startling, ultra-controversial politically incorrect conclusion that people who grow up in stable families and communities are more likely to have rewarding jobs and stay out of prisons than those who don't. Of course these brilliant insights absolutely slay the dreaded liberal, anti-family straw monster; but he makes no policy proposals to do anything about it. In fact, all of his previous arguments seem to say that nothing can be done. People are not equal and they can never change. Presumably, government only wastes taxpayer money by trying.

Funny, it seems to me there is a model of human society that adequately deals with Murray's concern for keeping people employed and out of prison. That would be, ummm, the European model.

Yep, Charles Murray and the Washington Post. Another episode of Wingnut Wonderland.

Real journalists don't twitter

Just that (okay, and this and this and this).

Children (and) of (watch) men revisited

I recently considered taking my 10-year-old son to see Watchmen. It was my idea, John Bob hadn't asked. It sounded like the type of movie I might like – intricate plot, deconstruction of a popular genre, dark and violent, visually interesting. Of course John Bob would want to see any superhero movie. I warned him that it might be boring or too violent for a ten-year-old, but he was more than willing to risk it.

I, however, had second thoughts. My tendency is to let the kids do whatever they want, even if I know they won't like it. Often best to learn for oneself, I think. But in practice I'm not so confident that's the best attitude. Once I took my daughter Jane Bob to a haunted golf course at Halloween. There were ample warnings against taking young children and the ticket taker begged me not to do it, but she wanted to and I respected her wishes. It was horrible. She screamed frantically the entire time. Not fun screaming. Absolute terror. It doesn't seem to have caused any long term damage,other than an irrational fear of golf, but nevertheless, I now sometimes think twice before exposing the kids to things everybody says they are too young to see.

So I asked a couple of comic book freaks at work what they thought about taking a 10-year-old to Watchmen. I'd have to be fucking out of my mind, they said. Watchmen is way too violent, has explicit sex and there's a blue guy walking around with his penis swinging for all to see.

A penis. Egads. Actually, I don't care a whit if the kids see nude people. We're not full frontal nudists at home or anything like that, but I don't see anything wrong with the human body. They certainly see enough of it in museums and I think that's great. I admit that I am, however, uncomfortable with watching R-rated sex scenes in popular movies with the kids. I don't think that it does them any harm, unless ten-year-olds are harmed by too much snickering. But still, it's uncomfortable for us all. I'd rather they get their jollies when the parents aren't around and I know they feel the same way. That's my general policy, but given the nature of popular movies, it sometimes happens. No big deal.

But what about the violence? The comic book guys from work said Watchmen is ultra-violent. That can't be good for children. But is it really bad for them? Especially if it scares them? I don't know.

So I asked my imaginary internet friend and superhero connoisseur Chrisv82, who had written an excellent review of Watchmen for advice. He basically said, “it's your kid, whatever.” Just what I needed to hear, so I decided it would be okay to take John Bob. He probably wouldn't like it, but it would be his choice to go and he'd have to live with any resulting nightmares. PTSD, or other forms of acute psychosis. It wouldn't be my fault.

But then a funny thing happened. I realized that I didn't want to see a violent movie. And further still, I didn't want to see another super hero movie.

I've apparently changed a lot. I used to really love ultra-violent films, at least well-written ones. A Clockwork Orange and Natural Born Killers are two of my all-time favorites. I'm not the world's biggest superhero fan, but I read and re-read Marvel comics as a kid and up until now had no problem with the various big budget superhero movies like the X-Men franchise or Ironman.

But I've had enough. No offense to my superhero-loving friends. I don't think anyone is crazy or lowbrow or anything negative for liking them. That story just no longer does anything for me. Yes, I know, the premise is interesting. We all dream about saving the world, or at least saving somebody we love, and the superhero stories give us that vicarious thrill. Watching the genre grow from the morally pure D.C. Comics beginnings through the tortured Marvel mutants, to the post-modern Watchmen psychopaths is interesting as well. I get the iconic-metaphorical aspects of the thing.

But now I find that I prefer the more old fashioned story in which ordinary people become heroes in extraordinary circumstances. Not only is it a better story, but it can be told in so many more creative ways.

I was reminded of that as a result of my tortured decision-making process about taking John Bob to see Watchmen. In order to gauge how he would react to violence , I decided to get Children of Men and watch it with him. That was a film I took Jane Bob to see (I thought it was better on second viewing) when everyone would have said she was too young. I don't think it did her any harm other than an irrational fear of England. Unfortunately though, John Bob had a play date and we watched it without him.

Children of Men is an incredible piece of film making. The cinematography is first rate. It is a nice telling of the realistic superhero formula in which the main character reacts to an extraordinary situation. And it has one of the greatest ultra-violence sequences in film history. From the entrance into the concentration camp to the ending in the boat, it documents an exquisite decent through the seven circles of hell. The ultra-violence is an integral part of an important story. It is beautiful.

Although I understand that Watchmen may attempt to pull off that trick, I find myself skeptical. Will I take John Bob to see it? On that, I'm still pondering.

Ridiculous measures for ridiculous times

You've all probably noticed the news that AIG, possibly the biggest money losing company of all time, which has received $170 billion in taxpayer money, is paying humongous bonuses to its executives who lost such prodigious amounts of cash. It's easy to see that this latest outrage will result in increased calls for government legislation to limit executive compensation.

I don't think that's a good idea. Government has no business dictating pay scales to private companies. No, what we need to do is return to the days of the ridiculously high tax bracket. Bonuses for already wealthy people should be taxed somewhere around 95 percent. And I propose a special tax rate of 110 percent for executive bonuses at taxpayer-funded loser companies. That would end this particular form of looting toot sweet. No doubt they'd find another way to swindle us, but we can at least make it a helluva a lot more difficult.

He was a nice, quiet kid

Mark Ames has an article up on Alternet about the recent killing spree my a nice youn man with an assault rifle in Alabama which left 11 dead. Ames points out that the authorities promised to reveal the killer's motive then stopped talking about it altogether, claiming there was no motive. Ames then speculates that the killings were attributable to Reaganomics and the economic devastation it unleashed on America's middle class. Perhaps, but Ames wrote a book on the subject so it's not surprising he would find it as the root motive for anyone gone postal.

And perhaps that's true, I have little doubt that it's a contributing factor, but I'm not sure that the sorry plight of the working man in bumfuck is something the authorities would bother to cover up. I'm guessing the self-described survivalist who was obviously a gun nut was a big fan of conservative hate radio and Fox News. If I had to bet on why the authorities don't want to talk about the motive, I'd bet it's something to do with names like Limbaugh, Hannity or O'Reilly, the Republican party, right wing religious nuts, right wing bloggers, or some combination of the four whipping up irrational hatred among poor violent idiots across the land.

Just my guess, but since they ain't saying, guesses are all we got.

Notes on photography

This picture is another example of a practice exercise in lieu of any kind of creative idea. This is just a typical stand of trees. If I were to take this photo with a point and shoot, or even a high end color camera, it wouldn't be the least bit interesting. The composition is too busy, the colors uninteresting. Even the eye is likely to see nothing special here. Yet this is a scene of beautiful complexity. My assignment is to capture something of that. Then take that skill and use it for something more important than a picture of trees. In case you haven't figured it out yet, you can click on the photos and see a larger copy. Though the final product will be a 24 x36 on art rag.



In other photo news, I bought a car. People who have never lived in a great walking city like Paris or New York have a lot of trouble understanding how someone can live without a car. Actually, it's quite nice, especially for an artistic type. Apartments are nice in that respect as well. Never having to go to the dmv, to fuck with a fucking mechanic, no traffic jams, no mowing the lawn, no unclogging the drain. All that time just for art. Or drinking. Whatever. Anything beats drudge work.

Anyway, regular readers may have noted that I'm so fucking sick of New York City. Not having a car compounds the misery. Now at least I can get out for a day. Though I like cities, at heart I am a nature boy and suffer exponentially the longer I am cut off. And as a photographer, although it's healthy to be forced to photograph the same places endlessly, to have to struggle to see the beauty in the familiar, it's also nice to be able to see something different.

Of course what you usually end up with are tourist photos like these. Oh well. Tourists go to these places for good reason. And I do actually have a creative idea, but it requires some planning. Maybe I'll show you something in early April.

Notes on photography

These photographs are work from yet another one of those days that I was totally bereft of any creative gumption. As I've mentioned before, on those days I often photograph a color, just to have something to do, kind of like whittling. Today, I chose the ever-popular pink. Go pink.

Rush Limbaugh is a ...

What's the difference between Rush Limbaugh and the Hindenburg? One's a flaming Nazi gasbag, the other is just a dirigible.

I think it's very sad that flaming Nazi gasbags have now officially taken over the Republican party. Whither the moderates? Will they form a third party? Come out of the closet and declare themselves Democrats? Become independents? Or will their families simply put them on a chunk of ice and float them out to meet their lonely fate?

Rush Limbaugh and his wife are divorcing and experts say this could get ugly. I'm confused, are they splitting up or having sex?

I still can't believe no one ever investigated exactly what Limbaugh was doing in the Dominican Republic with a bottle of Viagra. Of course he was whoring around, but with what kind of whores? The D.R. is a mostly black country where sex tourists go to make it with underage girls and boys. So was Limbaugh fucking little black boys? That's what it sounds like. Where's the moral outrage from the Bible belt faction of the party? Or was it just young black girls? The fantasy of every true conservative. To play master and slave with a nubile young thang.

Rush Limbaugh admitted that he is addicted to pain killers and I'm sorry to say, hoagies. Limbaugh blames his addiction on a botched back operation and lesbians.

I have nothing against people using drugs, but dude ratted out his supplier. Dude's a narc. Nazi gasbag racist pedophile narc. And leader of the party of morality, no less.


Update: Oh god, sweet jesus, merciful Rush, I am so sorry, so terribly sorry, I am crawling on my hands and knees, heartbroken if anyone were offended by anything I wrote. I'd be happy to let Rush put on black face and suck my cock while calling me master if only he would forgive me. Please, please, please, forgive me. Please. Forgive. Me. Oh, please. Ho, please. Forgive.

Recommended reading

Haruki Murakami in Israel.

My answer would be this: Namely, that by telling skillful lies - which is to say, by making up fictions that appear to be true - the novelist can bring a truth out to a new location and shine a new light on it. In most cases, it is virtually impossible to grasp a truth in its original form and depict it accurately. This is why we try to grab its tail by luring the truth from its hiding place, transferring it to a fictional location, and replacing it with a fictional form. In order to accomplish this, however, we first have to clarify where the truth lies within us. This is an important qualification for making up good lies.

Hat tip to Jim Johnson.