I Hope They Appreciate It

As I sat in one of the Signature Medieval Interrogation Collection devices at Gold's Gym, I was heartened to learn that the intense burning sensation I was feeling was in my tensor fasciae latae.

Cripes, I better hear at least one woman tell me I have sexy tensor fasciae latae.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:21 PM   0 comments

 
Light Posting

Okay, I have been posting lightly lately. I've been out of town, and I have started a new job which involves business hours and a suburban commute. When I get used to it, and when I figure out how to take an afternoon nap when I don't get home until the evening, posting will get back to abnormal.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:00 PM   0 comments

 
Wisconsin Busybody State Law Thwarted

The Mighty Wisconsin Legislature (and its governor), Took Firm Action against hoteliers who would gig their customers. Wisconsin State Statute 254.83 states:

Every hotelkeeper shall keep posted in a conspicuous place in each sleeping room in his or her hotel, in type not smaller than 12-point, the rates per day for each occupant.

Amid some other conditions.

Of course, hoteliers are happy to oblige by posting rates higher than their actual prices on the doors of the rooms into which you have already checked in. For example, the room at the Milwaukee Hyatt Regency, where I stayed this weekend, cost me $139.00 a night. The rate posted on the door: $300.00 a night. I've stayed in a number of hotels and motels in Milwaukee, and the practice is the same. Inflate the rate for the door, and give anyone who actually books the room a great discount.

Even if you factor in the "Welcome to our friendly town/state (sucker) tax rate of 15% on the room, you're not going to pay the posted rate in Wisconsin, ever. But their state legislators cracked down on someone, sometime, and made a new law that's easily dodged by everyone in the industry. But taxpayers pay for its enforcement, assuming its enforced, and hotel guests pay for its avoidance. Good work, legislators!

I mean, I would never pay over $300 for a room in Wisconsin unless it included a private indoor swimming pool with waterfall, a sauna, a bidet, and a complimentary bottle of California Sparkling White Wine.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:43 PM   0 comments

 
Addresses on Emergency Notification Forms

I started a new job today, and as part of the mound of personnel Human Resources department paperwork, I had to fill out an Emergency Notification Form. Just in case something were to happen to me while I am at work. Such as a developer finally snaps under the nihilistic blizzard of defects I am logging and staps me with a black Bic right through the spot where the bones of the skull have knit together. And then, once he or she realizes that ramming a writing instrument into my "brain" has not harmed me, stabs me through the neck.

I tried envisioning the emergency scenario wherein the address of my emergency contact would become relevant....

"Simpson! Something has happened to Noggle! Send out the Died in His Cubicle postcard, and try to get his next of kin to schedule removal sometime this week. Oh, and turn up the air conditioning."

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:35 PM   0 comments

 
Poor Search Engine Optimization

It seems as though I am only number 17 in MSN's search engine for Muscular women who spank.

Nuts! Maybe I have to hire a highly paid professional consultant to ensure I get all the irrelevant search hits.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:51 PM   0 comments

 
BloggerConned 2003

Honey, is this the blogger conference you asked me if I wanted to attend?

Make that no, again.

(Link seen on Fark.)
- posted by Brian J. @ 4:12 PM   0 comments

 
Okay, I Get It

Last Man Standing = A Fistful of Dollars.

You see what cinematic sophistication I can achieve when left to my own devices, when "my own devices" means a Playstation 2 DVD player and a phone to call Pizza Hut?
- posted by Brian J. @ 11:56 PM   0 comments

 
Battle of the Voices: Tara Reid Versus Joey Lauren Adams

This month's Barron's asserts that the cover girl mutual fund Tara Reid has a sexy voice. I performed a bit of due dilligence so that I could properly compare her voice to another luminary of the field: Joey Lauren Adams.

Both have a whisper quality to them, which conveys an immediate intimacy. You have to pay attention (of course, it helps that both Tara and Joey rate highly on the *.that scale) to their words.

However, in head-to-head (or larynx-to-larynx) competition, Joey's voice is a little smokier, a little huskier, a little more babada-babada-boom (sorry to borrow your expression, Mrs. Griswold, but understand you are not up for consideration tonight). Advantage: Joey Lauren Adams!

Thankfully, though, both women have chosen to use their powers for good (acting) and not evil (telemarketing). If they had chosen the dark path, undoubtedly they could have wreaked havoc. Undoubtedly, men's households would have more Time-Life Books and the back windows of their vehicles would have more law enforcement association stickers on them.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:01 PM   0 comments

 
Thought for the Day

"The future [is] dead; long live the aimless present."

If you're not reading Lileks every day, you should. Bird is the werd.
- posted by Brian J. @ 6:06 PM   0 comments

 
Can't Wait for the Holidays?

Get your LotR fix with the hand puppet show.
- posted by Brian J. @ 4:00 PM   0 comments

 
Charity Begins At, er, Home

Beer for the Homeless. Can't you help?
- posted by Brian J. @ 3:56 PM   0 comments

 
Movie Review: Donnie Darko

Based on recommendations from "Burning Eye" Cullina and Robert Prather, I borrowed Donnie Darko on DVD from Adam's House of Grilling and DVDs last weekend. I watched it tonight as part of the "Heather's Not Here Watch DVDs Until I Collapse Feature."

Well, I was very disappointed. I thought there'd be some barking and crawling around by a sexy chick, but then I realized this movie starred the wrong Gyllenhaal. Hey, cut me some slack, if you didn't know there was more than one, how many Gyllenhaals would you expect to find in show business? Granted, Maggie had a small role in this film, but it would have been so bad to..... well, never mind.

So I popped in the DVD and was treated to what amounted to 113 minutes of Gothic John Hughes meets American Beauty.

Actually, you want to know the movie to which I want to compare it most easily? Pump Up The Volume for the sheer quantity of red wine drunk by the authority figures when lounging at home. Do a double feature of the two and you'll agree.

Perhaps I am reflecting upon the movie too quickly after viewing it. Maybe this is, in fact, one of those movies that you need to think about and discuss. However, I have quite a bit of faith in my perceptions of storytelling (of which moviemaking is a subset), and when confronted with a movie that makes me think too much, I just assume the artiste with the bullhorn on the set was incompetent. Sorry, such is the case here.

I am being gracious and avoiding spoilers, friends, because I realize that you might enjoy the film otherwise (you simpleton). Still, the matter's open for debate over a couple of yummy Guinness Draughts, Adam or Robert, should you choose.
- posted by Brian J. @ 11:47 PM   0 comments

 
I Did It! Almost a Movie Review of The Long Goodbye

Well, friends, I am pleased to have made it through the entirety of The Long Goodbye, a Robert Ctrl-Alt-Deleteman travesty based on a novel by Saint Raymond Chandler. And by made it through, I admit it's not the first time I tried.

You see, here at Honormoor, tradition holds that when Heather leaves town, Brian J:

1. Laments the home without the beautiful wife.
2. Counts the hours until her return, and decides to soldier on.
3. Pours a yummy Guinness Draught.
4. Rearranges the den so that the recliner takes its deserved prominence before the television.
5. Procures a folding table to hold the remote, the aforementioned yummy Guinness Draught, and the reading material (Barron's, Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, and so on).
6. Inserts The Long Goodbyeinto the PlayStation 2 DVD player.
7. Tries to struggle through the lingering close-ups and extraneous emoting Altman demands.

This time, though, I made it through. Last time Heather was AFT (Away From Town), I only made it to the conversation between Wade and his wife describing the impotence of the writer with the innovative use of the reflection of Marlowe on the beach. When I passed that mark this time, though, I startled a cat with a loud "Huzzah!"

So what's good about the film?

• Elliot Gould as Philip Marlowe. Of course, Gould's done a lot of the audiobook versions of Chandler's novels, so I am used to his narration.
• Speaking of which, Marlowe does a lot of talking-to-himself asides (when wandering out of earshot of other characters), and these asides are properly in the voice I would expect from the Chandler detective.
• As a viewer from 30 years in the future, I was interested in the contemporary settings into which Altman placed the (then) 30-year-old Marlowe. The depiction of L.A. in 1973 was interesting in itself.

What's bad?

• Running a Chandler plot through an Altman prism? Double plus ungood.
• Lingering about six beats too many on plot points or conversations that do not advance the script.
• Marlowe never finds out about his cat.
• The ending, in which Marlowe....well, it would never fly today as it flew then. Not in a blockbuster which appealed to the unwashed masses for whom Chandler was actually writing. It was too abrupt, as though Altman knew he'd expended two hours on irrelevant closeups and repeated renditions of the title song and had to cut something like "plot."

So if you're a Chandler fan, I'd recommend viewing it. It's not The Big Sleep or The Big Sleep, but Gould might make a better Marlowe than Bogart or Mitchum. Until The Blue Dahlia comes out on DVD, we Chandlerites have to choose our battles among those who would dare interpret his work on screen.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:03 PM   0 comments

 
Tips for the First Date

MSN's running a list of five tips for an effective first date. It looks like a pretty good list, undoubtedly compiled by a trained therapist or whatnot (all right, I did not Google "Jim Sulski" to find out, dear reader; I leave the in-depth show prep to Rush Limbaugh).

Instead, dear reader, I offer my tips for a first date. I think I am qualified, since my last first date worked out okay. So here's the StLBrianJ tips:

• When meeting your Internet pen pal for the first time in person, select a neutral, out of the way spot to meet.
  We met at a commuter lot off of Interstate 70. Somewhere out of sight will comfort your date, ensuring her that no one will see you and her together in case you're a dweeb.
  
  
• Be patient while waiting for your date.
  When you're anticipating a single woman with auburn hair in a white Ford Tempo, do not peel out of your parking spot in reverse when a white sedan bearing a woman with auburn hair and THREE CHILDREN parks in the spot RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU. Instead, gallantly remain patient and think of all the ways you can end the date very early. That way, if it turns out that this family were really meeting some guy in a monster SUV, you have not sacrificed your chance to snare a hot conservative chick on a bicycle.
  
  
• Dress appropriately.
  Remember, a black fedora is the way to say "creepy," and the added touch of a 1-inch stump of a ponytail says "but dorky."
  
  
• Listen to what she has to say.
  By "Listen to what she has to say," I mean don't say a freaking word. She'll think you're interested in her, and you don't volunteer that you're a geek who thinks a good Saturday night involves sitting around playing Ataris, drinking beer, and passing around laddie magazines.
  
  
• Show no emotion.
  Don't smile at all. Lead her to wonder why you're so mysterious, even though you're just really afraid you're going to blow it.
  
  
• She doesn't drink coffee or like cigarette smoke? Take her to the Grind!
  Nothing shows your sophistication like a European-style coffeehouse where all the au pairs have nicotine breath and the coffee is expensive.
  
  

In other words, I had no idea what I was doing or why it went so swimmingly.
- posted by Brian J. @ 11:15 AM   0 comments

 
Raging Packs of Chihuahuas

The Chicago Tribune's John Kass has uncovered the story of a raging pack of Chihuahuas, over 150 strong, on the rampage in California.

Who's laughing about this horrible force of nature? Probably everyone not in California.
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:30 AM   0 comments

 
Memo to Chicago Tribune: Snopes.com

The venerable Chicago Tribune has a story about the dangers of Aspartme.

Of course, aside from the headlines and assertions, the story does indicate:

But does it really cause headaches or, worse, seizures, lupus and multiple sclerosis?

Most experts and studies say no.

Anyone who's been to Snopes knows that "Warnings about drinking too much diet soda have circulated on the Internet for years" but that the warnings are bogus.

So it's good to see the Chicago Tribune wasting column inches dignifying these assertions by exploring them (next week's e-mail undoubtedly will say As scene in the Chcago Tribune!!!).

I am looking forward to upcoming hard-hitting Tribune investigative exposés (what you don't know might hurt you):

• The health benefits of blooding.
• World is round, Earth not center of universe.
• Disco rocks the house.
• No aether in space.
• They don't actually live, it was just a movie, learn and obey, citizen.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:25 AM   0 comments

 
Compulsion...taking over....Cannot...stop...myself....

As part of the "engagement" curriculum in my Honors English I class in high school, the teacher roped us into a discussion of the short story "The Scarlet Ibis". However, instead of extensive discussions of the white patriarchal hegemony's oppression of the differently-abled which a true "college prep" curriculum would have enjoyed, we got to do a mock trial that prosecuted the narrator of the story in Doodle's death.

I got to play the defendant, which sucked because my public-defender quality lawyer didn't object enough. The prosecutor kept pulling out information from within the story that only the defendant would know. As a seasoned veteran of many Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, I knew how to expose "player knowledge" from "character knowledge" in other players while masking my own exploitation of this systemic flaw. So, to make a short story long, the defendant was convicted.

So what's my point? (Ahh....here...it....comes....) That although the Internet has made cheating easier, as early as seventeen years ago, public schools were formally teaching

Play Jurism

(Ahhhhh.....compulsion....relieved......)
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:03 AM   0 comments

 
Atari Partiers Gone Wild!

Ever wondered what goes on at an Atari Party? Here are the blackmail photos I will be using for my extra income this year.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:53 PM   0 comments

 
Experiment Success: The Magazine Rack at APIV

It has been postulated, or it will be in the next clause of this sentence, that geeks who gather (GwG) to celebrate arcane electronic amusement systems also share certain aesthetic preferences and interests. As most (but not all) of the GwG share the male gender, it has been postulated that certain seemingly-stereotypical male-centric P&I might be anticipated. That is, that the GwG would prefer, in information sources, those sources which offered:

• Information regarding mating rituals from the male point of view, including technique modification and standardized communication approaches to use during social events.
  
  
• Aesthetically-pleasing but not norm-challenging visual depictions of anatomy one might uncover during a mating ritual.
  
  
• Deliberative investigations into the technological or plumage accoutrements to enhance one's social standing and mating potential as well as increase revenue streams for the information sources' advertisers.
  
  
• Dietary instructions and recommendations for brewed wheat products.

To prove this hypothesis, an experiment was devised wherein a GwG collection would be exposed to a number of information sources; individual members of the GwG herd could then select and inspect information sources. This collection was meticulously contrived to include a broad selection of information sources and to expose them adequately so that the GwG group members could conceivably select from among them.

The magazine rack used within the experiment looked like this:



The visible magazines include:

• FHM, the experimental information source whose properties are outlined above.
  
  
• Barron's, a control information source. This information source contains information that a more mature and slightly older member of the GwG class might find interesting if his or her interests lie in increasing material holdings to provide for the product of successful, or inadequately protected, mating rituals.
  
  
• Spin, a control information source that explores the aesthetics of contemporary aural art forms which some people call "music."
  
  
• Skeptic, a control information source that investigates and often debunks paranormal phenomena and junk science.
  
  
• Java Developer's Journal, a control information source that contains standard geek fare that feeds the 733t skillz that comprise the elaborate dance geeks do at the workplace to show dominance over coworkers.
  
  
• Harper's, a control information source that higher social order GwG, and other humans in general, or those who aspire to higher social position as alphas in the herd utilize to determine what alphas should think about the nuanced social structure of humanity, those poor bastards.
  
  

This magazine rack was presented to the subjects as part of a domestic environment, albeit a GwG-friendly domestic environment that contained three television/Atari 2600 sets as distractive stimuli. The magazine rack was carefully designed to be unobtrusive, but arrayed as noted above with several titles visible. Thus, although the subjects were not informed of the nature of the study, it was assumed by the research staff that the subjects would observe the magazine rack and would select information sources suited to the subjects' natures.

The results of the experiment are as follows: as expected, during the course of the time period allotted for the experiment, a subject discovered the FHM information source and perused its contents and commented to other subjects. At this time, some the subjects passed the information source amongst themselves and reviewed it. In one exit interview, a subject claimed "the magazine was a hit!"

This experiment would seem to prove the hypothesis that GwG P&I, in a social environment, tend to information sources characterized popularly as "laddie magazines."

This experiment has not delved into actual cause of the P&I, nor has this experiment explored what might be termed the "irony" construct, which might indicate that the most vocal of the GwG members who perused the magazine might have actually performed an "ironic" social ritual of displaying mockery or good-humored contempt of the information source to establish social rank within the GwG sample. Further, it is unclear to what extent the subjects would have sought out the magazine, or what portion of the magazine could have been obscured from view with the same result of the subject accessing the information source.

Further research will be required, including other experiments, to uncover the answers to these questions. In the future, the following experiments might be conducted:

• Presenting the experiment information source in other incongruous locations, such as medical offices, church lobbies, and EEOC cubicles.
  
  
• Obscuring the cover of the experiment information source more completely, to determine whether the title of the information source and its reputation yield the expected behavior, or if the aesthetically-pleasing but not norm-challenging visual depictions of anatomy drive the behavior.
  
  

Additionally, comprehensive study of information sources of this class is warranted, including comparisons of British versions to their American counterparts and, if possible, personal interviews with the owners of the anesthetically-pleasing anatomies.

A grant from the National Institute of Health, National Institute of Mental Health, or Center for Disease Control would help in any case. Please make that check out to StLBrianJ Laboratories, care of this Web site.
- posted by Brian J. @ 6:56 PM   0 comments

 
Method Call

christmasList.add (videoGameSystemDevelopmentKit);

// *******************
// As seen on SlashDot
// *******************
- posted by Brian J. @ 2:18 PM   0 comments

 
Sorry, Classic Gaming Expo

This year's Classic Gaming Expo is only going to draw 1200 people. I apologize; I realize that the Fourth Annual Atari party is siphoning some of the attendance.

(Link seen on Fark.)
- posted by Brian J. @ 12:41 PM   0 comments

 
The Resume

Today was my last day at my current job, and the end of a personal era. Let me explain.

I entered the work force in 1990 when I moved from a forsaken Marcellus (that is, not a town, not a village, not even a Hamlet, but rather a minor character therein) to Milwaukee to attend the prestigious (to those in Milwaukee) Marquette University. I worked my way through college since I screwed off my way through scholarships (quickly), so I held that first job for the four years it took me to complete Writing Intensive English (WINE--who could ask for a better degree?) and Social Philosophy degrees.

After that, though, I graduated with degrees that "prepare you for anything" but give you little in terms of an actual job path. As such, I held a number of positions, many in retail and many part time overlapping with other positions.

I've often told stories of my varied resume for the amusement of my co-workers. However, the allusions to my resume can fail to capture the nature and breadth of the job bouncing I've done, so I provide the following accounting for their reckoning and your amusement:

Company	Title	Duration
Gold's/Sheridan's Shop Rite	Bagger/Checker/Produce Clerk	47 months
Blue Horseshoe Productions	Telemarketing Fund Raiser	1 months
Price Chopper	Utility Clerk	3 months
National Systems, Inc.	Marketing Research Assistant	1 months
Better Business World	Guy Friday/Computer Assembler	3 months
Artmart	Shipping/Receiving Clerk	8 months
Sappington Farmers Market	Produce Clerk	15 months
The Paint Dealer	Assistant Editor	4 months
Drug Package, Inc.	Class II Web Printing Press Operator	24 months
TALX Corporation	Documentation Specialist	8 months
Data Research Associates, Inc.	Technical Writer/Automated Tester	21 months
MetaMatrix, Incorporated	Technical Writer	35 months
Tripos, Incorporated	Quality Assurance Engineer I	?

It's a lot of job bouncing, undoubtedly, but a lot of it took place in the early part of my "career," when an extra fifty cents an hour meant a ten percent pay raise.

Overall, within my employment history, jobs have been fluid, plentiful, and easily changed. In today's economy, it's important to keep this in mind. I've never felt that a single job's going to provide for my retirement (nor will a single government system like Socialism Security). I've also been comfortable moving forward as well as backward or side-to-side to find something new, and I've worked at crummy jobs enough to realize that you can always find something if you're willing to be honest and to work earnestly.

It's a big step, though, leaving a place I've worked for almost three years. Don't laugh; these have been three important, formative years in my life. They represent years 2-4 in my marriage and 1-3 in home ownership. I wrote my best novel manuscript yet, John Donnelly's Gold, while at this last job.

So I'm moving on, and as I reflect on my job history, several things clarify:

• I'll always need to attach an extra sheet as necessary when filling out those foolish job applications for advanced positions which demand your complete job history from the time you were a "sonographic model."
  
  
• Every job is a McJob now, no matter what its rank or salary.
  
  
• My latest novel manuscript, John Donnelly's Gold, has not yet made me independently wealthy to the point wherein I can sleep until ten o'clock, putter until two o'clock, nap until four o'clock, and write about the fictional human condition until one or two in the morning.
  
  
• The position into which I am going is my thirteenth job, and I should resign now before the dire consequences occur.

- posted by Brian J. @ 12:12 AM   0 comments

 
What Drink Are You?

Here's a quiz for you.

Personally, I am a:

Congratulations! You're a black velvet! What Drink Are You? brought to you by Quizilla

"Smooth and dark, you are potent and bitchy yet seductive and irresistible."

Smooth, check. Dark, check. Potent, check. Bitchy? I prefer demanding or standards-based, but check. Seductive and irresistable? You have to ask someone else who can be objectively seduced.

(Link seen on Suburban Blight, whose author finds all the coolest quizzes.)
- posted by Brian J. @ 11:18 PM   0 comments

 
While You're Waiting for Atari Party IV

As some of you know, the fourth annual world-reknowned Atari Party takes place tomorrow. Unfortunately, you still have to wait until tomorrow, and you're stuck at work today.

To tide you over, I recommend you visit this Fark Photoshop thread: Computer/video games that were never made.

And go to bed early to ensure your reflexes are sharp tomorrow.
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:48 AM   0 comments

 
Forget Outsourcing, My Geek Friends

A clamp down on H1Bs won't stop your employers from deploying the primate programmers.

We need Frank J., stat!

(Link seen on Misha's site.)
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:07 AM   0 comments

 
Book Review: Deathstar Voyage by Ian Wallace

While researching for my last book review, a non-fiction book, I discovered some Amazon retailers were selling (I mean, trying to sell) the fiction book I was reading in tandem with the nonfiction book I reviewed for outlandish sums of money. This fact piqued my interest in the fiction book; also, I discovered it was the beginning of a series. So I paid more attention to it and chewed my way through the first couple of chapters.

Of course, the research reminded me of the subtitle and genre, so I could grasp it's a mystery in space. A Galactic detective, the series character Claudine St. Cyr, is guarding a planetary monarch from assassins, when suddenly the ship's in danger of going nova and then the captain and subsequent acting captains start dropping of hearts that are inverted en media chest.

Once I got through those first few chapters, I started recognizing that rabbits were going to come out of hats, caps, sweaters, suit jackets, and many other items of apparel, and a whole pantheon of deus ex maquinas were at work here. Understanding this, I could more easily read the book. It wasn't as though I missed some information, it's that it just wasn't there before it was relevant. Subtle things, like psychokinesis would make a good a murder weapon.

But it's a quick read, and a junk read, and an interesting time capsule of the female protagonist written by a male author in 1969. Claudine St. Cyr is beautiful, intelligent, dutiful, and somehow every named male character in this book wants to marry her, and most of the major characters propose marriage to her in the 170 pages. But she remains chaste, although tempted to kiss on several occasions. A sixties male character in this situation, say an interstellar Mike Hammer, would have Kirked every carbon-based female (or nongendered) life form, would have shot one or more of them later, and would have set the ship to supernova himself to make a point.

So what's my point? I will read anything, I think.
- posted by Brian J. @ 11:51 PM   0 comments

 
Can Gray Davis Make the Top 11?

Here are the Top 11 Adversaries of Arnold. For your reference.
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:20 AM   0 comments

 
Another Actor Succumbs to the Predator Curse

Arnold Schwarzenegger is the second actor to to succomb to the Predator Curse.

The Predator curse seems to be that actors who starred in the movie Predator, some years after the filming of the movie, become governors of states. Jesse Ventura was the first. Can Carl Weathers be far behind?

This brings to mind two considerations:

1. I would vote for Kevin Peter Hall to replace B. Holden in Missouri;
   
   
2. I hope this curse doesn't extend to Predator 2, because that would mean Danny Glover is likely to get it and become governor of New York, and I wouldn't wish that on any state, even New York.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:21 AM   0 comments

 
Another Marketing Idea Supplied By Googler

Musings from Brian J. Noggle: Your number 1 source for indian heroin nude since on the Internet!
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:46 AM   0 comments

 
An Old Flame Reappears

I think I tried to date this girl once.

Well, several times, actually. More than I can count, or more than I would publicly admit.
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:44 AM   0 comments

 
Airlines Are Like The Soviet Union

In today's Washington Post, Anne Applebaum compares the impolite, overly-subsidized airline industry to the bureaucracies in a totalitarian regime.

She's right.
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:42 AM   0 comments

 
Leave the Metaphors to the Professionals, Son

A post on TechRepublic.com, entitled " Job seekers beware: These five myths may derail your search efforts", purportedly gives five myths about Internet job searching. But who can comprehend what the gestalt of the article when trying to reconcile the rapidly flashing discordant metaphors that almost sent me into an epileptic fit?

Let's hit some of them in rapid succession:

• Myth one: The Internet is a Mecca for finding jobs.
  The holiest city of Islam, to which Muslims should make one pilgrimmage in their lifetimes if they can.
  
  
• Internet job boards can become a Delta Triangle for resumes to disappear into....
  Delta Triangle? Do you mean Devil's Triangle, a superset of the Bermuda Triangle, into which nothing has mysteriously disappeared recently?
  
  
• Debbie Harper, a veteran executive IT recruiter at Harper Hewes, Inc., likened posting your resume online to posting it on a sandwich board that reads "I need a job" and walking up and down Fifth Avenue with it hoisted over your shoulder.
  But you don't hoist a sandwich board over your shoulder like a picket sign....you wear it over your torso.
  
  
• ...soft skills—like communication—are also important.
  These "soft" skills seem to be too hard for many people in IT, including the employed ones.
  
  

Wow, that's enough to leave a man comatose from metaphor overdose, except that those metaphors break down quicker than a high mileage 1983 Mustang GT you buy used.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:42 PM   0 comments

 
Second Draft of History

In this story about warships that the Germans sunk in World War II to impede the advancing Russians, we find this gem of geographic history:

Fisherman Curovic said some of them were pulled out of the river when Romania and Serbia started building the nearby Djerdap dam 30 years ago.

Granted, I'm not old enough to remember it first hand, but wasn't there another country abutting Romania at about that spot thirty years ago. This little country called Yugoslavia?

(Link seen on Fark.)
- posted by Brian J. @ 3:44 PM   0 comments

 
A Good Headline, Or, Well....

Taranto over at Best of the Web Today mocks this Reuters headline by saying "Where'd We Ship It Off To?"

But Taranto overlooks the true "beauty" of the headline: Its unironic use of the doublespeak Peace Troops.
- posted by Brian J. @ 3:27 PM   0 comments

 
Spreading the Jackpot

A lottery winner who left more than half a million dollars in his car while he went into a strip club was surprised to find his car broken into. The thief made off with a briefcase containing $245,000 in cash and three $100,000 cashier's checks.

Fortunately for the intrepid "hero" of this story, or at least its "victim," that sort of money looks like mob or drug money to a common thief; whoever stole it ditched it pretty quick.
- posted by Brian J. @ 3:22 PM   0 comments

 
The Difference Between Whiskey and Bourbon

This weekend at Adam's House of Grillin', certain acquaintances discussed the difference between bourbon and plain whiskey. These people consulted a bar guide for a definition, but certainly they didn't think to do a qualitative analysis flame test.

Because everyone knows that bourbon burns differently than regular whiskey.

(Story spotted on Fark, although its link goes to a registration-only site.)
- posted by Brian J. @ 3:18 PM   0 comments

 
Symptoms of ADD/ADHD

MSN.com has a story that
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:17 PM   0 comments

 
Book Report: Flappers 2 Rappers by Tom Dalzell

Book review number 2, friends, and this one's another nonfiction title since the only junk fiction I have currently is Deathstar Voyage, a late 1960s piece of science fiction that has nothing to do with Star Wars. So, while hiding from the unattractive storyline in that piece of sci-fi, I read Flappers 2 Rappers: American Youth Slang by Tom Dalzell.

Personally, I like a bit of linguistics and loving Norma Loquendi every once in a while. So I delved into this piece, which I picked up in June at Powell's in Chicago (which explains why the link above goes to Powell's and not Amazon). Its chapters reflect decades from the 1920s to the 1990s, with some decades (1950s, 1960s) split to reflect different subcultures within those decades, and others (1970s-1980s) lumped into a single chapter. Each chapter begins with a short essay thing that captures the spirit of the times/subculture. After that, you're treated to a list of words, like a glossary, and a couple of sidebars that collect synonyms for common concepts like "good," "girlfriend/boyfriend," "greeting," and the like. At the end of each chapter, the author provides little article things that evaluate certain archetypal words from the period and trace their lineage. Good structure.

However, it's obvious that the author slapped together this quick-read, coffee-table-linguistics book. The fact that glossary entries replicate themselves, unself-consciously, from chapter to chapter, as though "gasper" were a new term for a cigarette in the 1940s, when the preceding chapter called it the lingo of the soda jerk.

It was only when I got to the 1980s, my youth, that I realized all was not well. In the chapter that lumps the 1980s along with the 1970s, I spotted several errors:

• "animal" (p 168) attributed to the movie Animal House (1978) when The Muppet Show debuted, and popularized, the term earlier;
  
  
• "waldo," (p 184) defined as "Out of it, as in 'That new kid in Biology class is totally waldo--clueless to the max.' Derived from the popular Where's Waldo picture books of the 1980s...." Pardon me, sir, but Where's Waldo seems to stem from 1987 whereas I distinctly remember the perjorative term applied to me in 1985 by the punks in middle school. Oh, and Waldo was a character in the video for "Hot for Teacher" from the Van Halen album 1984, which came out strangely enough in 1984;
  
  
• "Hasta" explained in a sidebar on p 185 as "from the Spanish 'hasta luego' or 'hasta la vista,' popularized by the movie The Terminator...." Um, no, "Hasta la vista, baby," was from Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991);
  
  
• Misspelling of Eddie Murphy's name as Eddy Murphy (p 195)
  
  

And these represent a sample of the incongruities and typographical mistakes I found in that single chapter.

Suddenly, the author's research (regurgitation of others' research+some faulty memories, perhaps) is at odds with known facts and my own memory. Suddenly, I couldn't trust the author for the era I knew, which means I probably can't trust him for the eras I don't. Crap! This book was a waste of time. Sloppy research, fanciful assertions, and typographical errors are intolerable when they directly impact the veracity of the subject matter, which is the usage and spelling of words themselves.

Still, the book might illustrate how words never leave vogue, assuming that some of the words and phrases ascribed to the 1920s were really used then. Based on the fluid, evolutionary nature of slang, I don't think any one of us would be completely out of touch if we stepped through a time-warp into a previous era, or vice versa.
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:04 PM   0 comments

 
Exploitive Child Labor in the Twenty-First Century

John Kass of the Chicago Tribune has uncovered (registration required) a shocking case of child labor in Chicago.

Fortunately, the Illinois Department of Labor has stepped in and used its Powers of Discretionary Persecution Prosecution to punish the grandmother who paid her grandchildren in token money or candy to wash the window of her resale shop.

Coming next: an all-out assault on parents who expect their offspring to do chores for their allowances. Undoubtedly, the parents, like the state, should just dish out money for nothing.
- posted by Brian J. @ 11:28 AM   0 comments

 
Something Else to Worry About

One more thing to worry about when you get bitten by an alligator: They can transmit the West Nile virus.

Keep that in mind the next time one has you in the "death roll."

(Link seen on Drudge.)
- posted by Brian J. @ 11:21 AM   0 comments

 
Good Marketing

Perhaps I should make more of this potential tagline:

Stlbrianj.blogspot.com: Apparently, Your #45 Source for Samus Aran Naked on the Internet

Those whacky Googlers!
- posted by Brian J. @ 5:11 AM   0 comments

 
It's Guiliani Time in Chicago, Except for the Guiliani and the Time

A schizophrenic article in today's Chicago Sun-Times describes the steps New York has taken to drastically cut its crime rate and how Chicago, which is now less safe than New York, can apply the same methods, just not so harsh.

We start with a success anecdote from New York:

BROOKLYN, N.Y.--Ric Curtis used to watch from his window as dogs fought to the death in an empty lot across from his apartment.

Now the cheering gamblers and snarling pit bulls are gone and the lot has become a tiny, gated park with trees and shrubs.

The shootings, robberies and drug dealing that plagued the corner are mostly gone, too.

"When we first moved here in 1991, we put the baby to sleep on a mattress on the floor," Curtis said. "We worried about a bullet coming through the window. Now we have two daughters and they sleep in bunk beds."

In this gritty Brooklyn neighborhood called Brownsville, crime rates have fallen at a stunning rate in the last 10 years. In 1993, 74 people were murdered here. Last year, only 16 people were killed.

Hooray! Kids in bunk beds. But wait! Not everyone is happy:

To New Yorkers like Curtis in the city's toughest neighborhoods, the streets seemed to get safer overnight. To others, like developer Bill Webber of the tony Upper West Side, the change was more gradual, and in some ways not as welcome.

"Of course, it's because of Giuliani," Webber said. "Sure, with my long view over 30 years here, I think the neighborhoods have become more secure.... In Times Square, the seamier elements have been driven away, like the peep shows. But some of us in New York do not think this is progress. I miss some of the grunge. If you take some of the friction out of urban life, it becomes less interesting."

That's right, people who sell property in expensive neighborhoods miss the texture of the gritty life-and-death struggles in the city. Struggles that occur in other neighborhoods, which inflate the value of his holdings in safe neighborhoods. That's the other side.

No, wait, there's another side:

He [a criminologist] came across "Hamp," a 62-year-old addict. Hamp told Curtis that NYPD's zero-tolerance policy has hit the neighborhood hard.

"They'll bust you for the least little thing," he said, standing in a trash-strewn parking lot. "They used to come out and say, 'Good morning, how you doing, Hamp?' Now they look at you like a piece of s---."

Addicts like Hamp scrape together enough money to buy their heroin through a variety of hustles. They work as prostitutes, sell small amounts of drugs, and even sell the needles they get free from needle exchange programs.

"It's been driven underground," Hamp said. "The police will no longer tolerate addicts shooting up outside in parking lots and on park benches.... Right after Giuliani initiated it, they started going after open cans of beer and loitering."

Over the past decade, Curtis said, New Yorkers have become less tolerant of criminals and more likely to call the cops.

That's right, zero tolerance hurts criminals. It's a pretty discriminatory practice, wot?

Don't worry, Chicago criminals, because the Chicago city government is only wasting tax payer dollars to study New York policing methods. It won't actually implement them:

But Cline and Crowl came to believe the New York strategy was not a perfect fit for Chicago. It would have to be customized to target street gangs--a much bigger source of crime in Chicago than in New York--and to maintain a reservoir of goodwill between Chicago police and the public.

Remember, it's all about the feelings. Furthermore, the academics from respected Loyola University intone:

Arthur Lurigio, head of the criminology department at Loyola University in Chicago, said Chicago would be wise not to simply copy New York's strategy.

"Chicago would have to be very selective in choosing elements of the New York model," he said. "It does not make sense to import models of policing. Order and maintenance policing--the kind they do in New York--is effective if it is not too heavy-handed and construed as harassment."

Lurigio said he would like to research whether complaints against New York cops have skyrocketed during the crackdown on crime.

"That's part of the 'New York miracle' that does not become public," he said. "I have a feeling there is an interesting story there."

Whew! For a minute there, it looked as though Chicago was going to become safer, but fortunately, the Chicago city police are apparently more interested in public relations and possibly listening to nattering academics who make a living out of finding "an interesting story there" whether "there" is a Shakespeare's The Tempest and the interesting story is "homoeroticism among heterosexual minority women" or there is "This city where children are killed in murderous crossfire" and the interesting story is "the pigs are mean."
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:04 PM   0 comments

 
One More Reason to Disdain Microsoft

It made a lot of goofy left wing nutjobs insanely rich. Of course, if they hadn't had stock options, they would have been insanely middle class, being left wing nut jobs and all.

You know, if my start-up company experience had left me with fifteen million dollars, do you think I would be talking to a grief counselor about it? Heck, no, I'd be refusing to let Bob Cratchit throw an extra log on the fire. You know why? Because I am a capitalist. I like making money with money.

Imagine, cutting your own children out of your legacy to better a foundation or a charity! Egads!

I can only hope we get to see some of these unhinged (I mean "enlightened and philanthropic") stock option millionaires pulled naked from their pickup trucks someday.
- posted by Brian J. @ 6:56 PM   0 comments

 
Acute Apotheosis

Both Heather and I have come down with acute cases of apotheosis. Symptoms include pantheon inclusions and raging delusions of grandeur. Unfortunately, there is no known cure.
- posted by Brian J. @ 12:16 PM   0 comments

 
Slate Chews More Carrion

Slate magazine urinates on a grave. Again. Most disappointing, it's Christopher Hitchens relieving himself of some pent-up hostility this time.

Bob Hope might not have been laugh-out-loud, paradigm shifting, sticking-it-to-The-Man funny, but he was warm and amusing, eliciting a chuckle or two.

Remember, this is the second time I have taken them to task for disrespecting the dead. The first was Strom Thurmond. Guys, it's one thing to disagree with someone when they're alive, but leave your spite and your dismissive wit at the door of the funeral parlor, okay? Bob Hope was not Uday or Qusay.

(Link seen at Andrew Sullivan's.)
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:47 AM   0 comments

 
Throwing Birdseed Not Yet a Felony

Today, on FelonyWatch, we visit lovely Bloombertopia, where Augusta Kugelmas, pigeon lover, threw birdseed at an overzealous and power-mad park volunteer who wanted to stop Augusta from feeding the birds. Augusta has been charged with third degree assault.

FindLaw.Com indicates that this is not yet a felony in New York:

S 120.00 Assault in the third degree.

A person is guilty of assault in the third degree when:
1. With intent to cause physical injury to another person, he causes such injury to such person or to a third person; or
2. He recklessly causes physical injury to another person; or
3. With criminal negligence, he causes physical injury to another person by means of a deadly weapon or a dangerous instrument.
Assault in the third degree is a class A misdemeanor.

Hopefully, an enlightened politico on his or her way up will soon recognize the danger thrown birdseed poses and will bump this up to a felony.

I'm Brian J. Noggle with FelonyWatch.
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:08 PM   0 comments

 
Haven't you always wanted a monkey?

Don't look now, but there's a blogging virtual monkey trying to type the complete works of Shakespeare.

Don't tell Frank J. about MonkeyNet becoming self-aware, or he'll take it to DefCon 1.

(Link seen on NRO's The Corner.)
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:46 PM   0 comments

 
Query

When the Barenaked Ladies sing "If I Had a Million Dollars", do they mean a million American dollars, or a million dollars Canadian?
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:43 PM   0 comments

 
Time For Your Haircut, Little Sheepies

Charter Communications announced on its investor conference call that it's going to raise the rates for its Charter Pipeline cable modem offering because it can.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch story says:

Charter Communications Inc. is considering raising the price for its high-speed Internet service and eliminating its slowest-speed service to "extract more revenue" from its markets, Chief Executive Carl E. Vogel told analysts Thursday.

"High-speed data has been a wonderful business for us," Vogel said.

It's the most profitable product as well as the one requiring the least capital expense for Charter to deploy.

That's right, little lambs, Charter needs a new pair of woolen socks, so give it up. It's not passing on increases in its costs. It's just extracting revenue from you.

Meanwhile, the Noggle household happily continues to pass on any Charter offerings.
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:24 AM   0 comments

 
Snopes Gets Props

Techdirt links to a story wherein Snopes.com gets props for debunking the 'Bambi Hunt' story. Bravo, Snopes!

I have been a fan of Snopes for almost five years (since I worked at my first "sit down in front of a computer" job). I use them as a resource to debunk e-mail forwards that I get and just to keep abreast of the latest foolishness on the Internet.

Bravo, David and Barbara Mikkelson! You're better than the World Book, werd.

Look for the Snopes.com IPO coming soon to a new-and-improved Internet bubble near you!
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:40 PM   0 comments

 
Layoff Warning Signs

MSN has a list of signs you're going to be laid off. While somewhat descriptive, it's obvious that a writer, and a "business" writer, composed this list.

You want to know if you're going to be laid off? Let your Paranoia Shidoshi, who has been laid off before (schnuck those schuckers), guide you.

You're facing impending layoff if:

• The vice president in charge of your section suddenly knows your name, or employee number.
  
  
• Colleagues no longer ask to borrow your office supplies; instead, they want to know where you hide yours.
  
  
• You are reading this at work. So, how much time do you have?
  
  
• You know the names of your children and you certain they're all yours.
  
  
• You have not yet received any notice from your subdivision's Homeowner's Association about the length of your lawn or the state of your home.
  
  
• A technical writer (or QA Engineer) named Brian J. sits in the cubicle next to you and says, "I am excited about this company's prospects!"
  
  

What to do?

As previously enumerated, you can:

• Get into a job that cannot be done anywhere else. That includes construction, repair, and other location-utility trades.
• Start your own business.

Or you can start sending your resumes out now.
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:30 PM   0 comments

 
Call Wayne LaPierre, Stat

I didn't see this in the "Armed Citizen" column of America's First Freedom, but apparently, according to MSN, the actress Gabrielle Union (of Bad Boys II) once exchanged gunfire with a robber/rapist.

Is she the NRA? If not, why not?
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:54 PM   0 comments

 
Enabling Illegal Behavior for the Greater Good--Well, No

The first time I read Steve Chapman's piece in today's Chicago Tribune, entitled "Eliminating death penalties for drug use" (registration required), I misunderstood its contents.

The title, of course, does not refer to state-imposed death penalties. Instead, he's talking about some of the unintended consequences friends of the White Lady suffer. Heroin addicts swap needles and give each other a bunch of neat blood-borne diseases. They overdose, too, in increasing numbers. These aren't death penalties, they're just the unexpected results that can occur when you use the human body in ways not explicitly covered in the documentation.

When I first read it, I thought Chapman was talking about whacky enabling behaviors, like hypodermic giveaways, but I should have known better. He's simply talking about making it legal to buy as many hypodermic needles as you want and making the antidote to overdose, a non-addictive and non-enjoyable drug, into an over-the-counter medication. These subsidary things are only illegal because heroin is, and because in the national War on Drugs, some collateral damage is acceptable.

So Chapman's comments are really applicable. Read them more carefully at your first glance than I did.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:33 PM   0 comments

 
A Hatchet is a Valuable Tool in Any Workshop

The Professor links to a piece by John Scalzi. Scalzi's critical of workshops for writers, which are more often than not touchy-feely confabs for consumers in the ever-profitable writer-wannabe market. I understand the feeling.

On the way to my Writing Intensive English (appropriately enough, acronymed as WINE) degree, I enjoyed many workshop-centric classes and extra-curricular activities. As you can imagine, my style was much like that of Gene Wolfe, the protagonist of the Scalzi posting. Blunt and acerbic, I pointed out flaws in the other writers' work.

Hey, if they cannot take it from a peer, I didn't expect they could take it in the cold, cruel world of publishing. Besides, if I broke their hearts and drove them into a Business Administration degree, I was thinning the herd and eliminating potential competition early.

Funny, I haven't had much more publishing success than they did anyway. But at least I had fun.
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:38 PM   0 comments

 
Journalist Steals Our Heritage

Today's Washington Post has a story about the New Zealish guy who's doing a complete ASCII art remake of Star Wars. Unfortunately, the author makes the astonishing claim:

Anyone who's ever come near a computer knows how to create little text "emoticons," such as a sideways smiley face :-) or a winking face ;-), but Jansen has taken this idea to extravagant, or possibly insane, extremes. He's tapped out whole "Star Wars" tableaux -- hyper-driven spaceships, storming Storm Troopers, the famous bar scene -- with nothing but dots, dashes, parentheses, asterisks and what-have-you.

Simon Jansen, the artist, is not taking emoticons to a whole new level. ASCII art is not an extension of AOL-inspired colonic stupidity. By making that claim, the author is denying we old-time geeks of our culture and heritage and represents a great deal of insensitivity duly worth of italics and sometimes bold!

After all, ASCII art has been around for much longer than AOL. Am I the only one who remembers Color 64 BBSes, with their medium res ASCII animations, and St. Louis's own Dave Hartmann?
- posted by Brian J. @ 6:56 PM   0 comments

 
Journalist Overstates Importance of Variant Spelling

In a story on FoxNews.com entitled Hip Hop Artists Rewrite Dictionary, Jennifer D'Angelo fawns over variant spellings used by hip-hop and rap artists, such as Nelly ("Hot in Herre"), Mya ("My Love Is Like … Wo"). and Christina Iwannabareall ("Dirrty"). She goes so far as to assert:

Every generation invents its own slang (think of the ever-changing synonyms for "cool.") But this crop of artists is changing the spellings of already established English words.

I beg to differ. Ms. D'Angelo is forgetting:

Song Title:	Artist:	Year:
"Tip Toe Thru' The Tulips With Me"	Tiny Tim	1968
"Gimme Dat Ding"	Pipkins	1970
"Tuff Enuff"	Fabulous Thunderbirds	1986
"C'Mon And Get My Love"	D-Mob featuring Cathy Dennis	1990
"Nothing Compares 2 U"	Sinead O'Connor	1990
Source: The Billboard Book of One Hit Wonders

Song Title:	Artist:	Year:
"Do Ya Think I'm Sexy"	Rod Stewart	1979
"I Gotcha"	Joe Tex	1972
"Outa-Space"	Billy Preston	1972
"Pop Muzik"	M	1979
"Use Ta Be My Girl"	The O'Jays	1978
Source: The Billboard Book of Gold & Platinum Records

Song Title:	Artist:	Year:
"Betcha By Golly Wow"	The Stylistics	1972
"C'mon Everybody"	Eddie Cochran	1958
"Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing"	Stevie Wonder	1974
"Every 1's a Winner"	Hot Chocolate	1978
"Lawdy Miss Clawdy"	Lloyd Price	1952
"Rockit"	Herbie Hancock	1983
"U Got The Look"	Prince	1987
Source: The Heart of Rock and Soul

And I didn't even dig into my copy of Billboard Top 1000 Singles - 1955-2000, okay?

So D'Angelo has discovered a trend in song titling that has extended back 50 years at least. Perhaps she should have gotten a government grant of some sort to unearth it.

The difference, of course, between then and now is that some people, including some educators, are trying to legitimize these alternate spellings in written communication. In the name of self-expression, of course. However, half of written communication is expressing what you want to express. The other half is conveying that meaning so that the reader can understand.

Hence, variations in song titles are okay, because the actual communication is aural; that is, the recipient gets the benefit of a beat you can dance to and inflection. However, in written communication, standard spelling, syntax, and semantics alone convey all meaning, so if you're busy "expressing your individuality" by writing gibberish and higherglyphics, you're losing readers. Sorry to dent your self-esteem.

So what're my points?

1. Variant spelling in song titles and lyrics isn't a new phenomenon.
2. It's okay for song titles and lyrics, but not for "the dictionary."
3. I have a lot of cool books about music.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:47 PM   0 comments

 
Phrase Those Questions Carefully

The illuminated state of Illinois has clarified, according to a story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, that:

"No" always means no, even when someone says it during the middle of consensual sex, according to a new state law.

The law clarifies the issue of consent by spelling out that people can change their mind even while having sex. If someone says "no," the other person must stop or it becomes rape.

So during those coital communications, take care in choosing your words for communication with your partner. Such inappropriate questions as "Did you hear the doorbell?", "Is that your husband's car pulling into the driveway?", or simply "Do you like that, baby?" might lead to you committing rape.

Remember to phrase the questions as true/false ("True or false: You like that, baby."), short answer ("What did you hear just then that sounded like 'ding-dong'?"), or multiple choice ("The crunch of wheels on gravel was caused by, a) your husband returning home, b) your husband's assistant, Johnny 'Cheeks' Moreso, arriving to pick you up for your shopping trip, c) my frightened-but-strangely-excited imagination, or d) both a and b?").

---

Note:

Some might say I am misinterpreting the written communication this article poses. An article written by a journalist I assume to be calm and rational, an article covering a law composed by reflective and deliberate legislators, an article I read while sober and reasonable. If I can misinterpret this written communication in the best of circumstances, how absurd is it then to criminalize a potential misinterpretation of a spoken communication composed and delivered while in the throes of hormones, passion, and/or quite frankly oftentimes a bunch of booze? Also, does the application of the term "bad boy" or "bad girl" assign criminality?

---

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:04 PM   0 comments

 
Defective Shirt Alert!

Everyone knows that Frank J.'s Nuke the Moon tee shirts impart extra chutzpah, moxie, and other worthy attributes upon wearers, but sometimes the finely-tuned magic can go disastrously awry.

For example, the one that Rachel Lucas got is apparently defective, and dangerously so.

Can't you see she's leaning to the left!
- posted by Brian J. @ 3:32 PM   0 comments

 
Iraqi Population Brought Into 21st Century

The Professor links to an article about the drive of Iraqis to learn English. It's a neat piece, but here's the most telling quote:

''We have not seen anything from the United States of what they promised,'' he said. ''I want to help them help me.''

This particular Iraqi wants the United States to provide him with fresh water, electricity, phone service, and who knows what else. He wants the United States government to help him personally.

Sounds like these people are well on their way to the American form of government already. For whom can he vote to receive the best goodies?
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:07 PM   0 comments

 
Support Trade Paperback Publishers

Pejmanesque links to a Washington Post review of Ann Coulter's Treason and Tammy Bruce's THE DEATH OF RIGHT AND WRONG: Exposing the Left's Assault on Our Culture and Values. Anne Applebaum, the reviewer, says:

Yet about halfway through Treason, an extended rant on these subjects, I felt a strong urge to get up, throw the book across the room, and join up with whatever Leninist-Trotskyite-Marxist political parties still exist in America.

As I often suggest, Anne, get those books with which you are wont to disagree, particularly the more screedulous, in trade paperbacks so they're suitable for throwing and stomping. My copy of Stupid White Men has been flung and crushed to the very brink of losing pages. If you're reviewing galleys or advanced review copies, they should be safe for the throw.

Bonus question: Ann Coulter has escalated her criminal allegations against liberals from Slander to Treason in just one book. Wouldn't it have been wiser to have different, intermediate level crimes between the two books. Perhaps Arson or Grand Theft Auto or Photographing Missouri Animal Research Facilities. Instead, by going directly to the most capital of crimes, how can Coulter escalate the rhetoric further? Will her next book be called Genocide or Crimes Against Humanity, or has she titled herself into a corner?
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:54 PM   0 comments

 
Ex Post Facto Are Just Words from a Dead Language

In Waukesha, Wisconsin, they're throwing the new book at a guy who surreptitiously videotaped girlfriends nude. Well, not nude, since that's art. They were naked. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports:

Avello was charged with two felonies in February for possessing the tapes without the women's consent and producing them while each was "nude in a circumstance in which she had a reasonable expectation of privacy."

A possible legal problem arises since the videotapes were made in the late 1990s, and the law that they're rolling up and spanking Avello with was enacted in 2001. Obviously, this would be an unconstitutional application, ex post facto, of laws. But this is a CINS (Crime Involving Nakedness or Sex) situation, so it's important to chillingsworth this guy, lock him up for a decade or two, deprive him of rights to vote and own guns, and put his name in an extra bad database registry.

One of the State's men says:

Assistant District Attorney Ted S. Szczupakiewicz disagrees.

"I don't believe that time and place is relevant at all under the law as it existed in November, when the tapes were located and, according to the state's position, found to be in Mr. Avello's possession," he told Binn.

There you have it. Ex Post Facto overruled by an ADA. Thanks for coming up with the idea, founding fathers, but it's so eighteenth century.

Just in case you bump into a judge who disagrees, Mr., uh, Ted, you can always charge Avello with not having a business license.
- posted by Brian J. @ 6:26 PM   0 comments

 
Bullets and Beer

I have not yet plugged it here, but Bob Ames is running a great site on Robert B. Parker and his Spenser novels at Bullets and Beer.

As I grew up a potential writer, Robert B. Parker offered a shining example on a hill. I described the experience on Bullets and Beer with my essay "Meeting Robert B. Parker."

As a result, I have collected the works of Robert B. Parker. Bob's got a list of my covers, but I've got a better listing of my collection.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:36 PM   0 comments

 
Microsoft BBBOOOOBBBBBB!

Sorry. I never saw it, but I remember the nature of Microsoft's failed user-friendly construct, Bob. My darling Heather said that I was the second person to mention Bob to her recently(her formerly blue-haired boss was first). This Seattle Weekly story, which I saw on /., is the third source which confirms the fool thing actually existed.

Honestly, honey, Microsoft, back around Windows 95, had this little animated character that showed you everything you wanted to know about your home computer. Think of Clippy running whenever you turned the computer on.

Heck's pecs, I had the Little Computer People Discovery Kit on my Commodore 64. Bradley, my little computer person, looked like Bob. In 1987.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:09 PM   0 comments

 
Paranoia Is Just Another Word For Something Left To Lose

More wireless networking hysteria in today's Washington Post.

Rule #1: The hackers are always smarter than you are.
Rule #2: The hackers will always have more time to try to break your security than you have time putting the security in place.
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:52 AM   0 comments

 
Raises A Constitutional Right

In Illinois, anyway, where the Supreme Court has recently abjudicated its members and other statewide judges into a raise when the governor said the state couldn't afford the cost of living adjustments this year.

Forget the constitutional crisis that occurs when the state comptroller doesn't dish out the money. Let's think about the wisdom of allowing a bunch of judges to sue non-judges. Where the hell do you find an impartial trial for that?

Oh, and lest we overlook it, these sagacious twits have decreed themselves a raise to $162,530 a year because they were barely scraping by at $158,103 a year.
- posted by Brian J. @ 5:22 AM   0 comments

 
Stating the Obvious

News flash:

"The nation needs to break the chains of our addiction to prison...."

Maybe we just need to make going to prison into a felony to deter people from doing it.

(Link seen on Drudge.)
- posted by Brian J. @ 5:15 AM   0 comments

 
One More Reason To Boycott French Wine

Mapchic tells a diabolical story about the hijinks that occur in the wine industry, particularly how those dastardly French winemakers operate.

Who needs French wine? Not me! Might I recommend, if you absolutely need a wine that sounds foreign (shiraz not withstanding), try the Concha y Toro Frontera Merlot. It's dry. It's red. It's got alcohol.

The only thing better than a $4.99 merlot is a lot of $4.99 merlot, and the two often go hand-in-hand!
- posted by Brian J. @ 9:35 PM   0 comments

 
Corollaries to the Axiom

In the June 2003 issue of Esquire, Ilene Rosenzweig writes "10 Things You Don't Know About Women" which offers the following sage advice:

10. Women judge men by the way they drive. If you aren't at least ten miles per hour over the speed limit, we think you're a wimp with no ambition. Heavy foot on the brake? Too neurotic and can't dance. We also analyze your sexual potential at mealtime. Drive fast. Eat slow.

I've been looking for a new philosophy, so I decided this one was it: Drive fast. Eat slow. Especially when trying to impress a babe.

I conducted some surreptitious research on this new axiom while trying to impress a beautiful woman last weekend and can offer the following corollaries:

• Do not use the red four-cylinder "sports" car owned by the babe when proving you're not a wimp and that you have ambition.
  
  
• When assertively and decisively changing lanes, remember to leave a distance approximately equivalent to the 6:15 Freight Express, that is, about four train cars and a locomotive, between you and the vehicle in front of you. Particularly if you're driving the red "sports" car.
  
  
• Don't utter, at about 85 dB, invectives to the other drivers.

You can call these the Brian J. Corollaries, if you wish, and you may use them at will in geometric proofs as necessary. Follow the corollaries as the axiom, and you will lead a more fulfilling life.

Oh, and one more hint, but this one doesn't earn corollary status: order the couscous. You cannot eat couscous quickly without using a spoon.
- posted by Brian J. @ 2:54 PM   0 comments

 
You've Forgotten A Key Point, My Dear

My beautiful wife links to a story about an Oracle manager, an Indian, who used his undue managerial influence to receive monicas from a developer, also an Indian. So of course she sued Oracle.

My beautiful wife says:

And the kicker.
The lawsuit said that Oracle knew or should have known of the different cultural and legal context in which Anand was used to working in India, where managers can often exert unfettered power over their female subordinates.
Um, no. What could Oracle have done, anyway? If it, as an entity, was unaware of said manager's particular behavior, what could it have done?

You poor, uncynical creature. This is a perfect case of DIYD/DIYD (an acronym pronounced "died-died"). Because the Oracle did not treat the non-Caucasian differently than it would treat an American, it's getting sued. Of course, had it treated him differently, he would have sued them.

Lawsuits all around! It's a paradise!
- posted by Brian J. @ 1:24 PM   0 comments

 
Hijinks Still a Misdemeanor in Las Vegas

The St Louis Single Point-of-View is reporting that the whole Bambi-hunting thing, where people could pay $10,000 to hunt naked women in the Nevada desert and then, um, mount the trophies for a Nevada dessert, is admittedly a publicity stunt designed to promote videos depicting men hunting and, um, stuffing their 'kills' without a certified taxedermist present. Publicists would call that guerilla marketing, but those sorts of spoofs and hijinks are no laughing matter in LVNV.

But now he's going to get the "Las Vegas is a Family Place" marketing brochure thrown at him. He's being charged with a trumped-up misdemeanor charge because apparently misleading the news media is not yet a felony.

The story says:

The mayor said, "I'll do everything I can to see this man is punished for trying to embarrass Las Vegas."

So the mayor admits that he will wield all power that he has as a government official to punish this man for the bad behavior (not a crime, mind you, just bad behavior) of embarrassing (that is, causing a human emotional response of shame-lite) in a freaking social construct (the fiefdom of said government official).

What is everything in the mayor's power? Fortunately, it's not much:

"This man" is promoter is Michael Burdick. He could get six months in jail and a $1,000 fine for operating without a proper business license.

Fortunately, the avatar of Las Vegas has conjured a law with which to prosecute This Man so that he, the Embodiment of the Glorious City On Earth can find vengeance for the vast wrongs done upon The Almighty Yet Easily Embarrassed City of Sin. With this mighty cudgel, the petty tyrant shall once again affirm his power and his will.
- posted by Brian J. @ 12:42 PM   0 comments

 
Jack Blade, American Poet

And all this could seem like a dream out the door With everyday people, face down on the floor

from "The Secret of My Succe$s" in the collection Big Life

Class, discuss:

1. Why would a dream leave the building, and would it use a door? Does this personification of the concept of "dream" work in the complete context of the poem?
   
   
2. What aspects of modern life command common people lie to face down on the floor and to not move, it's not kidding this is a real gun? How does this compare to Thoreau's assertion that most men lead lives of quiet desperation?
   
   
3. Does the juxtaposition of metaphors identify the harried nature of the contemporary world, or is it a feeble attempt to force rhymes?

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:25 AM   0 comments

 
Sitting Up With Mother Jones

My dear readers, I have hit for the monomyth cycle for you this time. I heard the call to adventure, that is, to read a left-leaning magazine to try to empathize with and understand the arguments of others. I crossed the first threshold when I bought such a magazine when I was in the belly of the whale at the bobomart where my beautiful wife buys her uberhealthy snacks and where I once bought an organic beer that tasted like barley soup. So I was initiated when I met with woman as the temptress, in this case Mother Jones (although I must admit I am not quite into the whole crone fetish). So I have returned, by the magickal flight of the magazine looping through the air as I tossed it in disgust, to bring knowledge, or at least a lot of words, about the experience.

* * * *

The cover story, "Goodbye, New World Order", retells the story of how the unilateralist cowboys in the Bush administration have wrecked the great edifices of the New World Order. You know, of course, what I say. I sing, "Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road". The New World Order can start picking through its own rubble for loose change to afford its bloated needs. Got enough to retire your population with full pay at age fifty and develop the third world (now promoted to the second world with the collapse of the original "Second World") to a state of state largesse wherein the formerly-impoverished can also retire at fifty, too? No? Well, maybe you can find enough for a burrito instead.

* * * *

Then, we hear about the weepy circumstances in Tuvalu in a story called " All the Disappearing Islands".

It seems that this idyllic paradise features no arable land, offers jobs in fishing and gathering coconuts, and has a per capita income of $1,100, is threatened by (one supposes) George W. Bush (remember, he determines the fate of every living being on the planet). There's no crime in Tuvalu (apparently, there's no market for hot coconuts), and the people live close to nature (that is, at about sustenance level). It's paradise to certain political thinkers.

Of course, the piece is more of a dirge than a stirring reveille. The piece harps that global warming is gonna keep happening, regardless of what we do, and humanity's going to die out from our own wretchedness. So I won't opt for a subscription to Mother Jones in case that happens before the subscription would lapse.

* * * *

The photo essay "Too Beautiful For Death" describes Kashmir, the Indian province upon which Pakistan wants to get its mitts. The pictures are beautiful, of course, as the region must surely be. The text by Suketu Mehta wrings its hands suitably about how this area could lead to the single most devastating war to ever occur, and soon. It's hard to miss the significance of the numbers of millions or hundreds of millions who could die in such an event. As if that's not bad enough, the article's final pièce de résistance:

But so violently vital is the idea of Kashmir to both nations that they have thrice gone to war over it. The next war could escalate into a nuclear confrontation. One nuclear bomb on Bombay or Karachi could kill more people than the entire population of Kashmir; and it would not stop at one bomb. Kashmir is an impossibly beautiful greenhouse for death, which could grow to engulf the peoples who have planted it and nurtured it with Kashmiri blood and tears, grow until the entire subcontinent is filled with the insane screaming of dying elephants. [Emphasis mine]

Dying elephants? What the schnuck? Never mind the people, but save the Indian elephants?

* * * *

In the story "Keeper of the Fire", a writer wraps its forelimbs around the leg of an anti-capitalist crusader who's out to raise labor costs required to manufacture the cheap goods we enjoy in this country without realizing that this successful crusade will drive investment from the underdeveloped regions benefitting, belatedly, from the Industrial Revolution and will make products we take for granted impossible to afford. After all, if a low-seniority union laborer who earns $20 an hour plus benefits spends two hours making your blue jeans, they're not going to cost $20 at Kohl's any more.

By the second paragraph, before anyone sensible could grab a break stick to pull the swooning writer from the profilee's trousers, the writer gushed this about the dreamboat liberal:

Technically, he is a part of the National Labor Committee, a letterhead group of four or five in a small warren of rooms loaned by UNITE in New York City. But beneath this façade he is an independent, a man controlled by no backers, free of any union, immune to academic nuance.

All righty then. Dick Cheney once worked for Haliburton, and he's forever damned as their puppy. George W. Bush once ran the Texas Rangers, and now he's in Major League Baseball's batting gloves' pocket. But this guy is actively employed by the unions, and he's a renegade, unbeholden to anyone? That's when I fell for leader of the pack (vroom!).

* * * *

About this time, I am just flipping through to find the back cover. Hurrying past the reviews, and BAM! There it is! An ad for www.banpoundseizure.org. It says:

The betrayal must end.

(cute dog picture)

Some states still allow or require the release or sale of healthy, adoptable dogs and cats from shelters and pounds to research labs or schools where they likely will be killed.

Oh, please, it's not as though the shelter gets on the horn the minute a golden retriever arrives and says, "Hey, Igor, I got that brain you wanted." I would guess that research labs are the second to last resort for animals that have not been adopted and are going to be put down. And not all research labs kill all the animals that pass through.

Oh, I do understand that animal whack job organizations want every shelter to be a no kill shelter, which means public animal control become infinitely growing housing projects and welfood programs for the good of a sub-sentient species. However, it's just not feasible. Don't say it is. Don't. You nutbar.

* * * *

And then I finally made it to the end of the magazine, not much dumber than when I started. Some of this stuff is so a priori wrong that I cannot understand it. To whom are they talking? People who don't like Indian elephants or puppies dying or don't want impoverished people earning money, I guess, and unfortunately this American nation has too many who hold those soundbite views without deeper understanding.
- posted by Brian J. @ 11:09 PM   0 comments

 
The New Traditional

I heard on the radio today a commercial for the newest and bestest Lasik eye surgery techniques, which explained that whatever new gimcrackatron they've devised certainly beats the traditional Lasik methods.

Undoubtedly, Dr. McCoy would agree that those old, traditional means of Lasik surgery (such as those deployed against Virginia Postrel) were medieval butchers and that they were only one step above using leeches to suck that astigmatism right out of the eyeball.

Pardon me, but my family doesn't have a generations-long tradition for opening the front of the eyeball like a can of french-cut green beans and firing a computer-guided thing-we-used-to-call-a-"laser" against the retina until it scorched enough of the cones and rods to make things better, as though it was a military expedition to win over the hearts and minds of my optic nerve with napalm. Oh, yeah, and then they close it back up, and it either works or you're blind, oops.

Pardon me, but I have done too much QA with computers to trust them with anything like the impressionist-themed remainder of my vision, thankyouverymuch. Sure, I realize that the chances of failure are slim, but I buy lottery tickets with slimmer odds.

So my traditional Lasik surgery technique is mocking the very prospect. And as a conservative, remember, I demonstrate:

• Fear and aggression of losing what remains of my sight.
• Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity in adhering to my gruesome description of the procedure.
• Uncertainty avoidance because new technology bad.
• Need for cognitive closure so let's just drop the subject.
• Terror management by thinking happy thoughts instead of Lasik procedures as I go to sleep to keep away the nightmares.

So thanks, but no schnucking way thanks.

This sentiment guaranteed only until next midlife crisis.
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:48 PM   0 comments

 
Steve Chapman on Liberia

Steve Chapman, of the Chicago Tribune, asserts (registration required) that intervention in Liberia would be a pointless waste of American time, money, and lives.

He's right.

Sorry. I meant to say, "Indeed."
- posted by Brian J. @ 6:39 PM   0 comments

 
Todd Aiken Responds

El Guapo, an actual card-carrying Libertarian, has recently taken to writing to our shared Congressional representative Todd Akin to express his views as a constituent. El Guapo apparently e-mailed Representative Akin about his views on medicinal marijuana. Rep. Akin replied:

Thank you for contacting me to express your support for legalizing medical uses of marijuana.

I am not sympathetic with the movement to legalize marijuana for medical use. The active intoxicant in marijuana, THC, is already available by prescription in pill form. I am not aware of any convincing evidence that raw marijuana provides any notable advantage over this legal pill. On the other hand, I am certain that marijuana is a gateway drug for millions of teenagers. While not every marijuana smoker moves on to harder drugs, virtually everyone who abuses cocaine and heroine begins by smoking pot. I am hesitant to support any legislative initiative which might jeopardize the lives of youths, and undermine the efforts of conscientious parents, by legitimizing marijuana use in the eyes of the public. No one doubts that the legalization of medical marijuana use is the first step toward legalizing its "recreational" use; advocates of drug legalization openly admit this. To me, this first step constitutes an unwise gamble: risking the lives and health of teenagers to achieve a small-scale and dubious medical benefit.

Please do not hesitate to contact me again with any thoughts or concerns.

A principled response, apparently to El Guapo's e-mail.

I wonder, though, if the answer was canned. After all, someone I know once wrote, with pen and paper and stamp, to Def Dicky Gep, her congressional representative, to protest that the government had made AVSCOM, a military command and her place of employment, into a smoke-free environment. She smokes. So she wrote her Congressman.

Someone in the Congressman's office scanned her letter, found the word AVSCOM, stamped the canned response letter with the Congressman's signature, and stuffed it into an envelope. The constituent received a nice letter addressing her concerns about the impending closure of the command to save the federal budget. Def Dicky Gep was against it, believe him.

So that, too, was a principled, well-reasoned response.
- posted by Brian J. @ 4:25 PM   0 comments

 
Hollywood Scientists Discover Cure for Sapphism

Hollywood scientists today have announced that they have found a cure for sapphism. Sapphism is an affliction known to, well, afflict innumerable sorority sisters, cheerleaders, housewives, and female prison inmates as well as other members of society, as studies (well, visits to the local non-chain video store) have shown.

The cinemackly-proven treatment for this affliction: the Ben Affleck character.

In the first trial, Chasing Amy, Ben Affleck's "character," a comic book illustrator of a singular facial expression, cures Joey Lauren-Adams' character of rampant and visible Sapphism. Although this first trial was promising, Hollywood scientists were cautious, not yet proclaiming their discovery.

However, in a second trial, Gigili, the Ben Affleck character, a person of undoubtedly immobile visage, cures the Jennifer Lopez character, inducing her to seduce a male with such come-hither lines as "It's turkey time. Come on, gobble gobble." (as reported by researcher Dr. Drudge.)

In double-blind studies, the Ben Affleck character was not found to cause harm to straight males (the Good Will Hunting study) or females not afflicted with Sapphism (the Bounce trial, among others). Scientists are encouraged by these findings and hope to submit the Ben Affleck character for FDA approval.

Competeing scientists, afraid of being locked out of a Ben Affleck character patent, have begun studying similar compounds such as the Bruce Affleck character or the AFLAC duck character in hopes of producing a similar affect. Early tests of these generic alternatives, however, are not promising.
- posted by Brian J. @ 11:00 AM   0 comments

 
The Father of Pragmatism

Charles Sanders Peirce is one of the smartest guys you never heard of. He lived in the 19th century, studied a bunch of sciences, and pretty much founded the particularly American philosophical movement called Pragmatism. Granted, if you have heard of it, you've heard about what later thinkers like William James and John Dewey did to a perfectly good philosophy.

For example, I just re-read "The Fixation of Belief" which describes scientific inquiry as an epistemology that beats out mysticism and insanity. If you've got time, I'd recommend you read the whole thing. It's written clearly, without the cant used by contemporary academics to defend their tenure in esoteric philosophical journals. This essay appeared in Popular Science magazine back when scientific thought was popular.

Maybe I'll do a longer post sometime about how Peirce's thought meshes well with Objectivist and Existentialist strains in my own thought. If you, gentle readers, could stomach it.

christmasList.add(book );
christmasList.add(book );
christmasList.add(book );

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:46 PM   0 comments

 
On July 21, 2003, BurningEye Became Self-Aware

Hey, my second blog spawn is now online: Adam's Burning Eye.

Everyone stop by and snicker. With him, not at him.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:09 PM   0 comments

 
The Difference Between Republicans, Democrats

I urge all of you except my family members to read this piece of humor.

I shall unveil it live, using puppetry, to you family members at the family reunion this weekend, so do not spoil the surprise.

(As seen on Right We Are.)
- posted by Brian J. @ 6:27 PM   0 comments

 
The Headline I Want To See

Uday, Qusay Ead-Day

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:23 PM   0 comments

 
Michael Jackson Speaks Sense?

Drudge links to a story about Michael Jackson opposing jail for music swappers. I'd like to see more artists come out with this sensible position if and when they realize that prison inmates will spend their money on chocolate and cigarettes instead of $20 CDs with three good songs and eight filler tunes.
- posted by Brian J. @ 11:00 AM   0 comments

 
Point / Counterpoint: Foreign Intervention

Iraq: Damned if you do.

Liberia: Damned if you don't.

Bush = Hitler? No, Bush = GOD. He kills people by acting, he kills people by not acting. This man apparently determines the fate of every person on the planet (and a couple cosmonauts on the International Space Station). Maybe I ought to start sending burnt offerings to Mark Racicot and the Republican National Committee.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:01 PM   0 comments

 
Ending the Felony Rampage

You loyal readers have noticed I often spit upon proposals to create new felony crimes or bump existing infractions up into felonies (come on, jaywalking causes over $1000 damage to public safety?). Well, some other digitaluminaries are weighing in on this very subject, including Professor Reynolds and Robert Prather (Not Richard Prather, sorry Shell Scott fans).

Now, if each of us could convince one of our senators that this is a good idea, we're a little under 6% of the way to reform! Well, not quite 6 percent, but closer than we are now.
- posted by Brian J. @ 10:47 AM   0 comments

 
Paranoia Would Have Paid Off

Techdirt is linking to a story about a guy who installed keylogger software on Kinko's computers in Manhattan for years. He grabbed many, many sets of usernames and passwords and accounts before being caught.

How did he get caught?

A guy who used a remote access program called GoToMyPC to log into his home personal computer from Kinko's. Several days later, as this poor sap was sitting at his home PC, he was startled to see the mouse cursor moving on its own and looking through his computer, and then the computer made a new bank account with the mark's info, much to the mark's surprise.

The mark logged into his home PC from Kinko's! Class, how many security rules has this mark broken?
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:14 PM   0 comments

 
Is "Iris" a Love Song?

Some people seem to think that the Goo Goo Dolls' song "Iris" is a love song.

Personally, I think it's begging for a restraining order. Hell, I creeped out women with mere sonnets describing their beauty, much less anything with the lines of

You’re the closest to heaven that i’ll
Ever be
And I don’t want to go home right now

Or

When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

John Hinckley, Jr., might have hummed this tune were it around in 1981.
- posted by Brian J. @ 8:03 PM   0 comments

 
Someone Put This on a Bumper Sticker, Stat!

SPAM HAPPENS
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:50 PM   0 comments

 
Book Report: We Can't Go Home Again by Clarence E. Walker

Since I read a lot and nothing good seems to come of it, I've decided to do a bit of brief book reviewing for you, my five Internet readers. I shall incorporate some puppetry for the sixth person who cannot read but logs in for the soothing blue tones.

I have just completed We Can't Go Home Again: An Argument about Afrocentrism by Clarence E. Walker, a professor at University of California at Davis. It's a highly academic book, as the 31 pages (out of 164) are end notes, and it's split into only two chapters: "If Everybody was King, Who Built the Pyramids: Afrocentrism and Black American History" (83 pages) and "'All God's Dangers Ain't a White Man' or 'Not All Knowledge Is Power'" (50 pages). Personally, this limitation (only two chapters) rather makes it difficult to read, since the organization of the material in the macrochapters is not readily apparent (by the subdivision).

Instead, we have super-sized chapters ill-suited for consumption by a McDonald's audience. The first chapter, "If Everybody was King, Who Built the Pyramids: Afrocentrism and Black American History", is the pure science of the book. Walker examines certain tenets of Afrocentric thought, such as Egypt (Kemet) as the primary source for most intellectual thought in the ancient world (which the white men of Greece and Rome ripped off) and that Egypt was even a "black" culture. Instead, Walker identifies Afrocentrism as a therapeutic movement that bears little relationship to actual history. Walker also explores how black African-Americans (not redundant) in the United States diverged from Africans by the nature of their passage to this hemisphere and their bondage.

I didn't trace the quotes nor research from his endnotes, so I cannot comment on the thoughts and arguments to which he is responding, but his historical points and interpretation make sense in themselves.

However, when we get to "'All God's Dangers Ain't a White Man' or 'Not All Knowledge Is Power'", Walker fails to signal for the left turn he makes. Just because Afrocentrism is wrong doesn't mean that affirmative action should be eliminated, I think he means. He begins the second paragraph of the second chapter (page 85, remember):

A rightward drift in American politics is moving the country toward what I call "free market racism," the state of American race relations during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when the ideology of lassez-faire reigned supreme in the realm of economics and race on the national level.

There he lost me. Not in a violent explosion of disbelief, during which I fling the book against the wall and/or stomp on it (this wasn't Stupid White Men, after all, and it is not a paperback). But by coining a term "free market racism," Walker provides the good citizens of Oceania academia with a twist of logic.

Racism and affirmative action, the practice this book defends, represent a statist intrusion into thought and practice in one form or another. Free market, on the other hand, represents a rational system of commerce wherein the best value wins. In a free market of ideas, individual performance should prove a better value than racism or affirmative action. Hence, "free market racism" is a paradox, a contradiction, and a big fat hanging straw man that Walker cracks with a full swing.

I was greatly disappointed with the practical application of repudiating Afrocentrism. Quit following a foolish, bankrupt, therapeutic ideology and start supporting affirmative action. Well, the professor does teach at the University of California at Davis. What did I expect?
- posted by Brian J. @ 7:38 PM   0 comments