Musings from Brian J. Noggle: July 2004

Brian Takes the Retrosexual Code Quiz

Back at Jen Martinez's Collection of Thoughts, Jen describes The Retrosexual Code, a retaliation against metrosexualism and girliemanism. She's got quite the list, and I know my gentle readers want to know how I stack up. Well, here you go:

The Code Says:	Brian Says/Does:
A Retrosexual does not let neighbors screw up rooms in his house on national TV. A Retrosexual, no matter what the women insists, PAYS FOR THE DATE.	Brian reserves the right to screw up the rooms, plumbing, and so on, in his house for himself and his able and smoking hot assistant/spouse. Real men, who are not married, can let a woman pay half for a date if they want. They're rational beings, too, mostly. Real men can sleep on any surface with only clothing as a pillow, which comes in handy when he is married and claims a woman can be only "mostly" rational at times.
A Retrosexual opens doors for a lady. Even for the ones that fit that term only because they are female.	A real man opens a door for a lady when appropriate, but the five second rule applies. If I see a female several dozen yards away from the door, I won't hold the door for her. I'll go in and hope the next guy has the class to hold it. Also, this does not apply to all females; the grocery store would get mad were I to let a real bitch in to snuffle among the meat and run out with a steak in her jaws to feed her pups, or just her thin beagle self.
A Retrosexual DEALS with IT, be it a flat tire, break-in into your home, or a natural disaster, you DEAL WITH IT.	I concur. Although my sainted mother gave me a super AAA membership, I would feel silly calling them for anything but a tow (real man or not, I can't lift my vehicle nor drag it for miles). Now, if only I could figure out where there's some sort of spare on my pickup truck....
A Retrosexual not only eats red meat, he often kills it himself.	My beautiful wife won't let me eat cats, so I rely on the grocery store for red meat. Although I come from a long line of hunters and have gone hunting, I've not ever had license to kill, so I've never even shot a duck for dinner....but my father ensured we would not starve with plenty of ducks, geese, and "fuzzy chickens."
A Retrosexual doesn't worry about living to be 90. It's not how long you live, but how well. If you're 90 years old and still smoking cigars and drinking, I salute you.	I don't smoke, but I appreciate the hedonism and materialism involved in this section of the code. I hope I have not been too girlie by opening IRAs recently, though.
A Retrosexual does not use more hair or skin products than a woman. Women have several supermarket aisles of stuff. Retrosexuals need an endcap (possibly 2 endcaps if you include shaving goods.)	I prefer White Rain brand shampoo, but because it's a dollar a bottle. Of course, since I keep my hair (well, okay, my beautiful wife does the cutting because I don't want to spend a half hour waiting to pay someone $10 for 5 minutes of hair cutting) under an inch (mostly), I could use the soap in the shower. Uh oh, that sounds like metrosexuality. I almost want to hump a fire hydrant.
A Retrosexual does not dress in clothes from Hot Topic when he's 30 years old.	What is Hot Topic? I feel girlie sometimes for going to Kohl's for Levis instead of Wal-Mart for $10 jeans.
A Retrosexual should know how to properly kill stuff (or people) if need be. This falls under the "Dealing with IT" portion of The Code.	By any means necessary, using whatever is at hand, with a determination that the stuff (or people) or I survive, but not both.
A Retrosexual watches no TV show with "Queer" in the title.	I recognize the multiple meanings of queer and dismisses this silly tenet of the code. Of course, I really only watch hockey and football on television, so I am only in danger of violating this if some city names its team the Queers and that team plays the Packers or the Blues.
A Retrosexual should not give up excessive amounts of manliness for women. Some is inevitable, but major re- invention of yourself will only lead to you becoming a froo-froo little puss, and in the long run, she ain't worth it.	Especially women who would dictate a man's behavior by saying real men or retrosexuals would do or not do something. I agree one hundred percent.
A Retrosexual is allowed to seek professional help for major mental stress such as drug/alcohol addiction, death of your entire family in a freak treechipper accident, favorite sports team being moved to a different city, or favorite bird dog expiring, etc. You are NOT allowed to see a shrink because Daddy didn't pay enough attention to you. Daddy was busy DEALING WITH IT. When you screwed up, he DEALT with you.	Professional help? You mean pay someone to know yourself? Give me a break. I already paid Marquette University $50,000, mostly out of pocket, to teach me how to do that myself.
A Retrosexual will have at least one outfit in his wardrobe designed to conceal himself from prey.	None of my clothing make me stand out, ever. Prey? As long as no one messes with me, I have no prey, but my gear doesn't make me look particularly tasty to predators, either.
A Retrosexual knows how to tie a Windsor knot when wearing a tie - and ONLY a Windsor knot.	I only know one knot, and I don't know if it's a Windsor. I don't even know if it's a knot or just a way to make it look like a knot. Of course, when I wear ties, a predator could grab me by the tie and have me, since I do tie something into full ties; perhaps a real smart man wears a clip-on.
A Retrosexual should have at least one good wound he can brag about getting.	Well, I've never been shot or knifed, but I did once break my nose, several bones in my face (including my eye socket), and crack my cheekbone--and the blow didn't knock me down.
A Retrosexual knows how to use a basic set of tools. If you can't hammer a nail, or drill a straight hole, practice in secret until you can - or be rightfully ridiculed for the wuss you be.	A hand drill or a power drill? Power tools are not basic tools.
A Retrosexual knows that owning a gun is not a sign that your are riddled with fear, guns are TOOLS and are often essential to DEAL WITH IT. Plus it's just plain fun to shoot.	This tenet of the code bores me. Guns are guns, shooting guns as fun is an aesthetic judgment call. I don't judge a man based on his possession of a mystical artifact, even one guaranteed to Americans by their constitution.
Crying. There are very few reason that a Retrosexaul may cry, and none of them have to do with TV commercials or soap operas. Sports teams are sometimes a reason to cry, but the preferred method of release is swearing or throwing the remote control. Some reasons a Retrosexual can cry include (but are not limited to) death of a loved one, death of a pet (fish do NOT count as pets), loss of a major body part. Retrosexuals do not cry for movies. They can get a teary lump in their throat under a few notable exceptions, such as when "the guy" heads out to die and save the day or the flag goes up on Suribachi.	It's none of your business when or where I might be moved to tears. You won't see them, and it's my business.
A Retrosexual man's favorite movie isn't Maid in Manhattan (unless that refers to some foxy French maid sitting in a huge tub of brandy or whiskey), or Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Acceptable ones may include any of the Dirty Harry or Nameless Drifter movies (Clint in his better days), Rambo I or II, The Dirty Dozen, The Godfather trilogy, Scarface, The Road Warrior, The Die Hard series, Caddyshack, Rocky I, II, or III, Full Metal Jacket, any James Bond Movie [sic], Raging Bull, Bullitt, any Bruce Lee movie, Apocalypse Now, Goodfellas, Reservior Dogs, Fight Club, etc.	Spare me the presumptiousness of knowing what a man should enjoy. Any man's favorite movie speaks to the individual's experience, and I trust his judgment. Also, please note, some refer to the Clint Eastwood series as The Man With No Name trilogy; the first Rambo movie was First Blood, the second was Rambo: First Blood Part II, and the third was Rambo III; The Road Warrior was the second movie in the Mad Max series (between Mad Max and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome); and Apocalypse Now was a piece of peacenik cavaltrava. Thank you, that is all.
When a Retrosexual is on a crowded bus and or a commuter train, and a pregnant woman, hell, any woman gets on, that retrosexual stands up and offers his seat to that woman, then looks around at the other so-called men still in their seats with a disgusted "you punks" look on his face.	Okay, I've not been particularly adamant about this one. I've felt bad about it, but I've often let them stand, and sometimes when I have offered, the woman has refused.
A Retrosexual knows how to say the Pledge properly, and with the correct emphasis and pronunciation. He also knows the words to the Star Spangled Banner.	There are three verses to the "Star-Spangled Banner". Sorry, I lose. But I know a lot of "America the Beautiful".
A Retrosexual will have hobbies and habits his wife and mother do not understand, but that are essential to his manliness, in that they offset the acceptable manliness decline he suffers when married/engaged in a serious healthy relationship - i. e., hunting, boxing, shot putting, shooting, cigars, car maintenance.	Sorry, but I have an understanding (and smoking-hot) wife, and my mother doesn't object to much that I do.
A Retrosexual knows how to sharpen his own knives and kitchen utensils.	Understand the theory? Check. Do? Not so much.
A Retrosexual man can drive in snow (hell, a blizzard) without sliding all over or driving under 20 mph, without anxiety, and without high-centering his ride on a plow berm.	I am from Wisconsin, for crying out loud. I only fear other drivers who are not, and retrosexuals who feel the need for driving over 20 mph to prove their manliness when 20 mph or less is the safest speed.
A Retrosexual man can chop down a tree and make it land where he wants. Wherever it lands is where he damn well wanted it to land.	Yeah, so? With the right number of ropes, pulleys, and friends, I can put a tree on Venus. What's your point?
A Retrosexual will give up his seat on a bus to not only any women but any elderly person or person in military dress (except officers above 2nd Lt) NOTE: The person in military dress may turn down the offer but the Retrosexual man will ALWAYS make the offer to them and thank them for serving their country.	I thank them, but I don't ride buses or trains.
A Retrosexual man doesn't need a contract -- a handshake is good enough. He will always stand by his word even if circumstances change or the other person deceived him.	Screw that. I know what contracts are for, and they're about covering you legally against the unscrupulous who might take advantage of your respect and your honor. I always argue until I get the contract I want, and then I adhere to it as written.
A Retrosexual man doesn't immediately look to sue someone when he does something stupid and hurts himself. We understand that sometimes in the process of doing things we get hurt and we just DEAL WITH IT!!!!	I've not yet sued anyone, nor would I unless greatly wronged. But I don't rule it out.

The whole quiz reminds me of my grandmother's wedding. Some years after my grandfather died, she married the her second husband and honored me by selecting me to participate as an usher. Wedding colors were black and pink, but I preferred to wear a white shirt instead. I was a college student paying my way through college by working a job that required white shirts; ergo, I had white shirts in abundance, but nary a pink shirt nor money to buy a nice pink shirt I wouldn't wear again, and let's be honest, I don't like pink. My step mother, God rest her soul and hurry about it, said, "Real men aren't afraid to wear pink."

"Real men don't fall prey to manipulation about what 'real men' do," I replied, and I wore a white shirt. Probably with a thin black tie that I had which was a couple years out of fashion even in 1991.

That's my response to anyone who would try to create an artificial code for what a real man would do. Real men know it without being guided by those who would manipulate them artificially.

(Link seen on Michelle Malkin.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:37 PM 0 comments

Good Night, Boy-John

Okay, J. Eddie, we know what you mean you say:

And we, John and I, we will have one clear unmistakable message for al Qaeda and these terrorists: You cannot run. You cannot hide. We will destroy you.

John² is tougher than Ronald Reagan, who said to terrorists, "You can run, but you can't hide."

This is why children should be seen and not heard. Now you go wash behind your ears, and make sure to dry them. You look a little damp there.

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:58 PM 0 comments

This Land Is Our Land, This Land Is Our Land

It has come to this: in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, Aurora Health Care wants to build a hospital, but some residents oppose it because a hospital won't generate as much taxes as a business park in the same spot:

Others, however, argued that the prime parcel of town land should be utilized as intended in the master plan for a business park that would bring in more tax revenue than the non-profit hospital despite a pledge by Aurora officials to make payments in lieu of taxes to be negotiated with the town.

"I want every possible dollar that land could give for our town; I don't think that it should be negotiated," said Mark Lathers, adding that he cannot negotiate his tax bill.

Worse, it will:

Others who testified agreed with arguments made by officials of Oconomowoc Memorial Hospital that the planned 88-bed Aurora hospital would only duplicate services already offered by Oconomowoc Memorial and that would drive up costs for all area consumers of health care.

Unlike the business park, which will provide a whole new set of cubicle farms engaged in business activities and service offerings that will be unique to the area.

Meanwhile, some critics (and the parrots who report uncritically their assertions) explain how supply and demand works: More hospitals means higher costs!

Neil Coakley said health insurance costs are already skyrocketing and many in the health care industry blame Aurora for driving up prices - an assertion that Aurora officials have strongly denied.

Of course, Oconomowoc Memorial Hospital has the best interests of the community at heart:

Oconomowoc Memorial officials and representatives of a community coalition called Not Another Hospital said the Aurora hospital is not needed, that there already is a surplus of hospital beds in the area and that consumers would pick up the cost for additional surplus hospital capacity.

Competition is bad for the community.

In an age where cataclysmic attacks can yield thousands of casualties, I have nothing to offer to anti-competitive health care providers and those who love them, including residents who would rather have tax dollars for amenities like water parks or whatever the hell tchotchkes municipalities in Wisconsin waste taxdollars on than hospitals. Nothing but a hearty unwritten mandate and appropriate hand gestures.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:51 AM 0 comments

More to the Story?

The Smoking Gun has the police report about the police pepperspray incident about which I wrote yesterday.

As always, remember to be snarky with an open mind.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:30 AM 0 comments

Easy Distinction to Remember

As Den Beste says:

So for the Democrats, when you vote, "Do it... for the Europeans."

For the Republicans, when you vote, "Do it... to the Europeans."

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:51 PM 0 comments

More Fun With Nonlethal Force

Meanwhile, back in Florida, an officer pepper sprays a college student and her boyfriend for taking a call in a movie theater. A witness recounts:

"The man turned and asked the officer why he was making them leave and the cop just maced him in the face," Gray said. "They weren't yelling or touching him. The man bent over and the girl asked why he maced her boyfriend. Then the cop maced her, and she dropped her soda."

Would the officer have shot them down for the offense? No, but since pepper spray is nonlethal, you see, he can do it with aplomb.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:27 AM 0 comments

Lileks Embraces Noggle Apocalypse Investment Strategy

James Lileks, in a Back Fence column, embraces the Noggle Apocalypse Investment Strategy when describing what's in his bug-out box:

Remember, the Noggle Apocalypse Investment Strategy promotes three investments:

Arable land somewhere isolated.
So you can grow enough food for you, your concubines with which you're going to repopulate the human race, and the optional cult of followers.
Guns.
So you can defend your land from interlopers and your concubines from other alpha males in your cult of followers.
Liquor.
So you can trade something besides other alpha male pelts with the neighboring cults. Hopefully, they'll have something other than pelts or liquor to trade.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:39 AM 0 comments

Summing Up

Wretchard at Belmont Club sums up the choice in worldviews offered this November:

Although the exigencies of politics and the need to attract away the conservative fringe (by playing Amazing Grace for example) may keep John Kerry from being forthright it cannot obscure the fact that two opposing, and therefore contradictory visions, are contending for the electorate this November. The first argues that despite the shortcomings of multilateralism, diplomacy and concession, it is still the best way to settle accounts with radical Islam. It will concede that more might have been done to prevent September 11 but it will maintain steadfastly that the alternative, which was to strike at enemies the way they have struck at us is fundamentally wrong and dangerous. And by exclusion it will maintain that whatever the dangers of Clintonian policy the world was safer then than it is today. Ths second point of view will argue that eight years of wilfull blindness; supporting Bosnian Muslims; ignorning the A. Q. Khan network of nuclear proliferation, buying North Korea its own reactors and receiving Yasser Araft at the White House; the whole policy of concession, bought not a whit of safety. It will argue that our enemies are even now on the point of obtaining nuclear weapons to turn against us, and will if we return to the policies of the past. It will concede that there have been disappointments in Iraq, but that by any historical yardstick our progress to victory -- and here is the unique word -- has been steady, irresistable and therefore inevitable.

Friends, I spent September 11, 2001, in a conference room, watching a grainy Peter Jennings demean the president while the World Trade Center crumbled like talc, while the Pentagon burned, and while the country wondered, "What next?" Every moment was a cliffhanger as we awaited word of how much further into the rabbithole we had fallen. In the days and weeks that followed, planes were grounded as a safety precaution and we wondered how much like Israel America would have to become to survive. I am damned, for I remember clearly.

Is Bush the perfect choice? No, of course not. But he's the better choice.

Because I don't think that a return to Clinton-era is what we need, and that's the best for which we could hope with a Kerry presidency. The worst doesn't seem all that bad, either; a Congress which hogties the lame president, opposing his crazy domestic policies and "overseeing" feckless foreign policy.

We would all enjoy a period of merry fiddling while Dark Ages II continues to cloud over, and most of us, or at least the important Baby Boomers, would be dead and lost to history before the Western books were burned and the Chinese ended Islam. The United States of America, the West? A footnote that might someday describe a failed experiment in human potential.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:40 PM 0 comments

Maybe They Can't Afford the FCC Fines

Networks Pull Plug on Teresa [Heinz-Kerry]'s Speech.

(Link seen on Roger L. Simon's and Little Green Footballs, in that order because that's the way the blogroll's ordered.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 3:36 PM 0 comments

So-Called Watch

Author Roger L. Simon commits the sin:

In fact, bloggers have one advantage over so-called professional journalists.

What's the advantage? Obviously not a better vocabulary or instinctive sense to avoid annoying clitches.

Note to readers: In an attempt to sound less French, we're officially pronouncing it clitches. Not only does it sound more manly, but I don't have to look up the character code for the e with the accent on it. Thank you.

- posted by Brian J. @ 3:31 PM 0 comments

Steinberg Gets It, Except When He Doesn't

So Neil Steinberg, of the Chicago Sun-Times, is probably going to vote for John Kerry, but he sometimes indicates that he understands foreign policy:

So much emphasis has been put on the 9/11 Commission's recommendation to overhaul U.S. intelligence that not much attention has been given its notions about winning the "struggle of ideas'' between the West and Islamic radicalism.

We need to reach out to the Arab world, its argument goes, and make them understand what really good guys we are at heart.

This is a spin on the old "What did we do wrong?/Maybe if we were nicer to them" view that surfaced immediately after Sept. 11, and is complete nonsense. Islamic radicals hate America because: a) we aren't Muslim; b) we support the country in their midst that isn't Muslim, Israel; c) we are purveyors of a non-Muslim, flashy, sexualized culture where women aren't dressed head to toe in black; and d) their governments encourage it.

They hate us because of who we are, and nothing short of an embrace of Wahhabism would make them happy (and even then it might be the wrong kind. Iran and Iraq, remember, lost a million soldiers fighting each other).

Digging wells and sending fruitcakes labeled "GIFT OF USA" is not going to do it. The United States gives more foreign aid to Egypt than any other country except Israel. And a recent poll found that 98 percent of Egyptians disapprove of the United States. The other 2 percent, presumably, haven't heard of us.

No goodwill gesture, no slick Voice of America broadcast is going to change that. Rather than worry about radical Islam understanding our ideas, we need to master their central concept, which is this: Kill your enemies. Radical Islam understands killing and being killed. That's why, at the end of the day, taking out Saddam Hussein was a good thing, even with no weapons of mass destruction found, even if the place is in turmoil for a decade. It was worth it as a cautionary tale to future enemies, and on the odd chance the United States makes it past the November election without suffering a big Madrid-style terrorist attack, it won't be because we've charmed those who might feel inclined to do it. It'll be because we've either eliminated them or because we've so scared their state sponsors that they've stopped supporting them.

Sometimes I wonder if two halves of Neil Steinberg war on each other, making him crazy, or if he's got an attractive college intern who really writes his stuff and occasionally slips these bits into the columns when The Name is too hung over to notice.

Or it could be that he's got a depth and breadth of convictions too simple to describe in a single snarky paragraph. But hey, snark is what the chicks dig, and one never chortles when one writes a well-reasoned argument, but snark? Oh, yeah, chortlechortlechortle.

- posted by Brian J. @ 12:32 PM 0 comments

Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing Tonight

Click for full size

- posted by Brian J. @ 12:28 PM 0 comments

And Many Wept

Natalie Portman in a John Kerry t-shirt.

(Link courtesy of Michelle Malkin.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:29 AM 0 comments

Scaping the Goat

Here's a neat bit in the Washington Post: Taxes Cut, Not Saved: Assessments, Gas, Lost Profits Leave Some Gasping:

Jerry Bailey is precisely the kind of taxpayer President Bush had hoped to bestow his tax cuts on: an entrepreneur brew-pub owner, a job provider, not overly rich by Washington area standards but well off enough to pay a hefty sum to the federal government each year.

But after three tax cuts in three years, the part-owner of Loudoun County's Old Dominion Brewing Co. is not exactly celebrating his gains. Sure, his federal tax bill was trimmed, by a healthy $5,600, according to a rough calculation by Clint Stretch, director of tax policy at the accounting firm Deloitte & Touche LLP.

But other factors having nothing to do with federal taxes have clouded Bailey's situation. This year, the property tax bill on his Bethesda home will reach $6,725, a $950 increase over his payment four years ago. The annual cost of his 56-mile-a-day commute has jumped more than $300 since 2001, and the long, slow decline of business profits these past four years has left Bailey far behind, no matter what his federal tax payment may be.

"I'm not paying any taxes at all because we're not making any money," Bailey said with a sigh. "I loved paying taxes. It meant we were doing all right."

As the Democrats converge on Boston this week to nominate their presidential candidate, the rhetoric around the economic policies of the past 42 months will doubtless be shrill. At first blush, the Democrats' case may seem like a hard sell. Economic growth has returned. Job growth, while slow, has perked up over the past 12 months. Most of all, Republicans may expect some gratitude for cutting taxes by more than $1.7 trillion over the next 10 years.

But many Americans feel they have lost ground since 2001, and a solid 71 percent are convinced they have received no tax cuts at all. A poll by CBS News and the New York Times in March found that only 22 percent believe the policies of the Bush administration made their taxes go down; 25 percent said their taxes actually went up.

So let me get this straight: the Washington Post has found a real-life entrepreneur who has had his Federal taxes lowered, but his state and local taxes have continued to increase, as have his other costs of business while his profits have fallen in the last four years, which I would assume run from 2000 (when Clinton was in office) through 2003. For the journalist on the case, it's Bush's fault?

Please, blow more money on Public Schooling which fails to edumicate the children on the three branches of government and the role of this little bicameral legislature thing, particularly the House of Representatives, on taxes so that the newspapers may continue to blame whomever they feel appropriate, or whomever they want to see lose an election.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:02 PM 0 comments

Book Review: Non Campus Mentis by Anders Henriksson (2001)

This book represents another piece of Internet reading published in book form. The author, a professor, has collected and condensed numerous blue book blatherings from students into a one hundred plus summary of history. As a two page e-mail forward, these incidents are funny. A book-sized collection, though, goes on too long.

The joke's going to be on us someday, though. The mirth comes from we, the reader, recognizing the students' errata, but the in twenty years, only the home schooled will be in on the humor. Of course, they'll be running the world, so books like this might still get published.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:02 PM 0 comments

News Flash! Hold the Front Page

Below the fold, at least, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch offers this portrait of John Kerry: Vietnam etched Kerry's outlook: War record points to leadership and strength; critics question his recollections, motives and decision making.

Let's sum up Kerry's Vietnam experience. In country for a couple of months, wounded three times and leaves. The dude is a walking, and unfortunately talking, shrapnel cushion, where Charlie put sharp edges to keep them safe. I mean, sometime in every episode, one of his crewmen would shout, "Oh my god, they've wounded Kerry!" Leadership? You're stepping in it.

- posted by Brian J. @ 12:42 PM 0 comments

Schooner Envy

As those of you who attend Atari parties know, I have quite a collection of goblets and schooners, the pride of which is a monster which can hold 32 ounces of beer.

But I bow before the royal sceptre schooner of Germany, which can only be wielded by the True Leader of the Germanic Peoples, or some duly elected socialist thereof.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:43 PM 0 comments

Did Someone Say Bliss?

Michele at A Small Victory has the scoop:

Guinness Ice Cream.

The very thought makes me lusty.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:49 PM 0 comments

More Florid Whackiness

In another scene out of a Carl Hiaasen novel:

ERO BEACH, Fla. -- A 16-foot-long Burmese python was captured on a city street after a passing motorist spotted about three feet of it hanging over a curb and called police.

The brown-and-yellow snake was wrestled into a body bag and taken to the home of Vero Beach Animal Control Officer Bruce Dangerfield.

I want Knopf to publish my novel. They really pull out all the stops for publicity over there.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:47 AM 0 comments

Book Review: Skinny Sip by Carl Hiaasen (2004)

Clutch your chests and call out to 'Lizabeth, gentle readers, but I bought this book new, in hardcover, and I paid full new bookstore price for it.

Now that you've all choked down some nitro and your condition has stabilized, let me tell you why I did. I read another Hiaasen book earlier this year, and I liked what he did, so I bought another. Worth the price.

Hiaasen is unconstrained by series characters and, quite frankly, the bounds of sensibility when he produces his capers, and this is unexceptional in its exceptionality. A biologist on the take from a local farming operation fakes pollution numbers fears his wife has caught on and will ruin it all. So he pitches her from the deck of the ship upon which they're celebrating, sort of, their second anniversary. Unfortunately, his newly ex-wife was a collegiate swimmer, so she survives the plunge and decides to come back from the grave to make his life problematic.

Chock full of entertaining characters and situations, mostly believable with the right suspension of disbelief (except for one or more moments of "Oh, come on" back story), and a fine addition to my read list, upon which this book is #44 for the year.

I am so smart and literate. Don't you want to be my friend?

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:07 AM 0 comments

Something Out of a Carl Hiaasen Novel

Speaking of Carl Hiassen novels, here's a story you might find in one of his books:

A man hit his girlfriend with a 3-foot alligator and threw beer bottles at her during an argument in the couple's mobile home, authorities said.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:30 AM 0 comments

Stealing Documents In Socks: A Primer

The story continues to unfold about former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger stealing classified documents from secure locations. Apparently, Mr. Berger was seen to inadvertently place classified material into his socks to accidentally remove them from the premises. Although it provides an interesting detail to titter about, the documents in socks concept might not be easy for users to visualize.

Our crack staff at MfBJN provides this simple guide into how you, too, can steal documents in your socks. Eyewitnesses here at MfBJN have seen this technique used successfully in the field by adolescents who absconded with enough copies of High Society magazine to make them walk like little tin men, so it's proven effective.

Take your garden variety secret document:
Take your garden variety politico leg, clad in nice socks, slacks, and black shoes:
Hike up the trousers. Note the extra long sock and no sock suspenders:
Slide the sock down:
Roll the document around the leg:
Pull the sock up:
Drop trou, so to speak:
Stand up:

Document? What document?

So you can see, there is room for semantic disagreement that some of Sandy's defenders have seized. Is it in his socks? No, no, it's in his trousers!

Of course, this technique rules out any accidency inherent in the action because this is a well-crafted criminal strategy. Berger comes from a long, proud tradition of juveniles who can go into a convenience store with a dollar and come out with 2 bottles of soda, 3 packs of gum, 2 comic books, 1 sports magazine, and change.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:44 AM 0 comments

Coincidence? I Dare Not Speculate

Two seemingly unrelated events:

Less than a week ago, physicist Stephen Hawking maybe things can escape from black holes after all.
Today, my Guinness bar towel arrives, over a year after I completed the survey for which I should have gotten it and long after "Guinness Bar Towel" became a Fark punchline:

Perhaps I have discovered the inspiration for Hawking's sudden reversal.

Meanwhile, read this satire: Bush Labels Stephen Hawking a Flip-Flopper. The same joke crossed my mind, but I am too late to capitalize on't.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:00 PM 0 comments

Editors Not Very Tense

Headline on the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel this afternoon:

Click for large size

Militants threatens to kill 6 hostages. Swell.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:02 PM 0 comments

Phillipines Needs Strong Allies

Den Beste notes that the Phillipines still claims to be a strong ally of the United States, and that it considers the U.S. to be its big brother in security.

Gee, you think the Phillipines realizes that it cannot buy of China with a couple outlying islands and $6 million dollars?

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:18 AM 0 comments

All Hail Bob's Blog!

Bob Rybarcyzk, the world-reknowned (pending) humor columnist from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, has revived his blog: Bob Writes Stuff.

Granted, he could use a Sekimori transfusion, but if you told him that, he'd probably look for it at the corner liquor store.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:55 AM 0 comments

I Remain Uninspired

I get this mail from Bizjournals.com every once and again, and hey, sometimes I read the stories. This Entrepreneur bit, however, leaves me uninspired: New chapter, better verse: After reinventing itself, TWG Consulting writes a richer history:

Marilyn Breitenstein bought her company, TWG Consulting Inc., for $10 in 1992.

She saw enough value in the former Sprint Corp. technical writing and training development unit to happily buy it with an Alexander Hamilton note. McDermott International had picked up the unit in its acquisition of Sprint's United Information Services. But the Houston-based energy services company had no interest in following through on the unit's contract commitments.

It was a gamble because Breitenstein was giving up a director-level position at Sprint for the little consulting business. But she wanted a challenge.

So she was a director at Sprint who managed to buy a subsidiary of Sprint for $10? Yeah, that sounds like the rest of us down here scrounging for the next client.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:01 PM 0 comments

Book Review: What's Going On by Nathan McCall (1997)

I bought this book at Hooked on Books in Springfield, Missouri, for a less than a buck. As it's a frank discussion of race, I have to wonder how this book came to Springfield, Missouri. After reading it, though, I understand why it was $.33. More on that by and by.

I started reading the book with as open of a mind as I can, considering I am the blue-eyed devil (with actual blue eyes, no less). The book cover depicts McCall (I presume) with a hard look on his face. The introduction and first chapters indicate that McCall's taking the angry approach to the discussion, but I didn't write it off as a matter of course. McCall came from a tough background, including some prison time for armed robbery, but I don't discount that out of hand; I'm just a white boy from the city projects myself, and I realize that but for some accidents of fate (not necessarily my whiteness, for I've known enough white people who've done less than admirable and often prosecutable things) I could have charted a different path.

So I gave McCall a fair enough reading throughout the first section, subtitled "Mixed Messages". This section includes chapters "The Revolution Is About Basketball", "Airing Dirty Laundry" (which I read despite an italicized plea for white people to skip it), "Men: We Just Don't Get It", and "Gangstas, Guns, and Shoot-'Em-Ups". Throughout this section, McCall espouses a sort of personal responsibility message, that blacks (abstracted to all people in my hopeful reading) should take personal responsibility and better their situations as best they can, regardless of the circumstances. Of course, I want to learn something from a book that's not necessarily describing my life's experiences, and apply the lessons of others to my worldview. Regardless of the author's intent.

But the first section of the next chapter really set the tone for the remainder of the book. The next section, "American Dream", begins with a chapter entitled "Father of Our Country" which posits that the founding fathers were hypocrites because Washington fathered children with one or more slaves who cannot now join the clubs formented around his progeny or something like that. I can't argue one way or another whether these people have a case or not or whether it's true; however, McCall doesn't present a compelling case, either. His arguments come down to two:

The alleged descendents have an oral history that says it's true.
All slave owners boinked their slaves, often without consent of the boinked.

Oral history? The Greeks had a oral history that actual dieties intervened in their wars. The Anglo-Saxons had an oral history that indicated that Beowulf slew a monster and its mother, the latter in its lair in the bottom of a lake. Oral histories prove only that people have been saying things. As for every single slaveowners boinking their slaves, undoubtedly for free extra slaves, all is an awful big number, and it's refuted by one did not. Although I don't have a single instance to refute the point, I can more easily accept one did not than all did. But this chapter's only Fonzie revving the motorcycle before he goes over the tank.

The next chapter, "Old Town: The Negro Problem Revisited", examines the gentrification of a black neighborhood in Virginia. Apparently, Old Town lies on a waterway, which is always a target for revitalization, from the Landing in St. Louis to the Riverwalk in Milwaukee. When McCall talks about the iniquities of eminent domain, I am with him. Frequent readers know how I feel about that. But McCall also charges some racial superiority issues when whites knock on homeowners' doors and make offers for the homes. McCall thinks this is whitey talking down to the "poor" black folk; I see it as people making offers in the market, where both are free to choose what offers to make or accept. But I'm not as tribalist as McCall, who's all about defending black ownership in a downtrodden area, even if that means the area has to remain downtrodden. I like revitalization, and I don't mind it if it's done without the power of the government.

This chapter, though, contained the passage that turned me from an "Oh, Please," reader to a "Fuck You" reader:

I am reminded of an incident that happened several years ago at a Shoney's restaurant in North Carolina. While heading to the salade bar, I heard a commotion. When I moved closer, I saw a thirtyish black man yelling at a scruffy white guy. It seems that the white man had shoved an elderly black man, who was standing in lin in front of him. The younger black, seeing the insult, intervened in his elder's behalf. I got there just in time to hear the redneck angrily justify his rudeness. "He was in my way!" he snarled, pointing at the old man.

The white man's audacity infuriated the brother. Stepping closer, he shouted, "He was in your way? Your way? Motherfucka, you ain't

no way!"

The old man seemed embarrassed by it all. He stood quietly, watching the tension between the two young hotheads escalate. At some point, the brother stepped even closer to the white man--he got to within an inch of his noes, daring him to make a move. And as he did that, I instinctively slipped behind the redneck, readying my plate, which I fully intended to crash upside his head.

I didn't know the old black man any more than I knew the brother defending him--we were all strangers. But I was fairly certain we shared some common experiences: If they live long enough, most blacks experience being deemed a problem because some white person or persons decide that we're in their way.

That realization was enough to make that brother and me want to take out the wrath of slavery on that redneck--not only for hassling the elderly black but for all the Old Towns, where black life is disrupted or vanquished to accommodate white folks' fancies, for all the times white America has said to blacks,

This is a Washington Post reporter explaining, even justifying racial violence. He was going to sucker this "redneck" to avenge slavery. He didn't see how the incident started, but he's ready to bust whitey over the head.

Never mind what else I have to say about this book. I finished it, but with less credulity than before. I cannot speak for all black experience, but neither can McCall. Our country is too large and the experiences of its people too diverse to base any all on something as simple as skin color. But McCall's obviously got some issues. He throws out racial epithets like cracker and regional epithets like redneck to bolster his points, or to keep his voice and speech "real."

I'm probably harsher on the book because when the book started, I thought the author and I shared different life experiences, we shared similar beliefs in personal responsibility. The reality of the author's viewpoint crashed on me like Shoney's china, though, and I realized that the author thinks I am to blame for the ills which befall his perceptions of the world. Defensive? You bet I am, but he was offensive first.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:24 PM 0 comments

Tin Foil Hat Set to Roast

From a Reuter's profile of Teresa Heinz Kerry:

She is wealthy from her marriage to Heinz, the heir to the Pittsburgh ketchup empire who died in a plane crash and who, she said, was "kind enough to even introduce me to John (Kerry) the day before he was killed."

That's an interesting turn of phrase to describe a plane crash, ainna?

(Link seen on Best of the Web Today.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 6:07 PM 0 comments

Arab Street Rises Up

Roger L. Simon has a photo that warms the heart: a female Iraqi soldier on patrol in Iraq.

Now that's the street rising up.

More photos on Centcom's Web site.

Arm the women. That will change the Middle East, you bet.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:44 PM 0 comments

Discriminating Taste Part II

Would you choose a wine because it was named after a sainted philosopher?

Aquinas Cabernet Sauvignon 2002

St. Thomas Aquinas

My beautiful wife points out that I don't even like Cabernet Sauvignon. But honey, I went to Marquette University, a known Thomist redoubt until well into the second half of the twentieth century.

(More Discriminating Taste here.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:12 PM 0 comments

A Blue Book Value By Any Other Name

From today's junk mail:

This is the most aggressive Incentive Program to hit the St. Louis Market and it's only available to 1997-2002 Model Year vehicle owners in your area. Any customer trading in a 1997-2002 GM vehicle on a like or upgraded 2004 Buick, Pontiac, or GMC will receive 100% of the factory full base model MSRP when new, less a reasonable deduction for mileage and wear!

Perhaps I try to read things too logically, but:

Isn't 100% minus something not 100%?
Isn't that 100% less mileage and wear typically called "blue book value"?

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:57 PM 0 comments

Overseen

On a bottle of Sea Breeze Oily Skin Astringent:

Deep Cleans Excess Oil Down To The Pores

I am no dermatologist, but I had not realized that one should deep clean the oil on one's face. I was under the mistaken impression that all oil was bad oil, but apparently it's dirty oil that causes acne. Given that, would Sea Breeze go so far as to recommend oil changes for one's face? After, say, three months or thirty scowls and smiles?

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:53 PM 0 comments

Book Review: The Official Nintendo Player's Guide (1987)

I bought this book last week at a yard sale for a quarter as the annual search for old gaming systems and small televisions reaches its crescendo immediately before the Atari Party. I also got a third Sega Genesis almost as cheaply, but that's beside the point.

Back in 1987, the Nintendo Entertainment System was under two years old, and Nintendo was still driving the PR bandwagon pretty hard, so they published this tome. Part strategy guide and part catalog, this book was designed to get you excited about your Nintendo Entertainment System and excited about spending more money on more cartridges.

Still, it offers a quick overview of the cartridges that addicted users to the NES, including Super Mario Brothers, Metroid, Kid Icarus, and There's Something about Zelda. It provides tips, maps, and pointers to help you get hooked, and once you're done with the basic cartidges, surely you're going to want to buy more.

The individual chapters on each game were written by different writers, all Japanese, and all probably marketing flacks. This led to several interesting turns of phrase that are too formally casual to be native and an excess of exclamation points, as well as declarations that anything that ran on an NES was a "realistic simulation" of anything other than the height of mid-1980s computer game console technology.

Still, it was an interesting flashback and pre-Atari Party 5: The Fellowship of the Joystick preparation. The book was also unintentionally a read-n-sniff experience; the person from whom I bought the book obviously had stored it with a Nintendo or the Sega for some time, for this book carried the scent of obsolete electronics, which was worth the quarter itself for an aging Gen Xer like me.

- posted by Brian J. @ 3:07 PM 0 comments

Add More Cameras

Another law enforcement official proves that technology is only as good as the user:

A San Francisco police officer faces internal charges that he abandoned his traffic control duties at the airport so he could fiddle with surveillance cameras and ogle women as they walked through the terminal.

Officer William Rossi, a 25-year veteran assigned to the traffic company at San Francisco International Airport, is accused in departmental charges of using the closed-circuit surveillance system at Terminal One substation three different times Feb. 29 to "focus on women's breasts and buttocks."

Yessir, for every argument that cameras will prevent crime or keep us safer (as opposed to merely documenting our demises for posterity), there's an argument that, given human nature, cameras merely allow security officials to engage their inner Porky's.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:23 AM 0 comments

When Headline Writers Are Paid By The Word

Here's the front page of today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Click for larger

In a surprise move, Danton pleads guilty.

That headline is twice as long as it needs to be; as a matter of fact, the headline contains a fact and a response to the fact, that the writer of the headline is surprised.

This, my friends, is a cry for help. Whoever felt the need to include his or her reaction into the headline of a marginally-relevant story wants us to look at him or her, the surprised innocent or the surprised cynic who would assume that Danton would plead not guilty and appeal as far as he could before trying an insanity defense. But no, Danton plead guilty. And that's the story, not the author or editor's reaction.

Unfortunately, all journalism nowadays seems to require the professional journalists insert their own voices into the facts.

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:36 PM 0 comments

The One I Turn To For Sociopolitical Insight

Sir Reginald Dwight:

"There's an atmosphere of fear in America right now that is deadly. Everyone is too career-conscious," he told New York magazine,

.

...

"There was a moment about a year ago when you couldn't say a word about anything in this country for fear of your career being shot down by people saying you are un-American," he told the magazine.

The singer said things were different in the 1960s.

"People like Bob Dylan, Nina Simone, The Beatles and Pete Seeger were constantly writing and talking about what was going on.

"That's not happening now. As of this spring, there have been virtually no anti-war concerts - or anti-war songs that catch on, for that matter," he said.

...

"On the one hand, you have someone like Toby Keith, who has come out and been very supportive of the Bush administration and the war in Iraq - which is OK because America is a democracy and Toby Keith is entitled to say what he thinks and feels.

"But, on the other hand, the Dixie Chicks got shot down in flames last year for criticising the president. They were treated like they were being un-American, when in fact they have every right to say whatever they want about him because he's freely elected, and therefore accountable."

Elton John seems a little confused about the difference between the right to free speech, which exists, and the right to be loved, lauded, and underwritten by government grants when speaking in ways that people don't approve, which exists only in his fevered flashbacks of 1960s utopian dreams.

Unintentionally ironically, undoubtedly, he voiced these concerns in New York City and was not immediately shot by government speech code enforcement officials.

- posted by Brian J. @ 2:32 PM 0 comments

One of These Things Is Not Like The Others

The article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch begins with a litany of unbulleted things it must want its readers to see as equivalent:

A stolen SUV.

Five unsupervised kids inside.

Police in pursuit.

An innocent in the way.

Did you spot how they are different? The Post-Dispatch wants you to know how they are the same. That's why you bullet point things like that. To show their similarity. And here's how the Post-Dispatch thinks there the same:

The elements of St. Louis' ever-unfolding tragedy came together once again in a fierce collision on Kingshighway early Friday.

See? They're all elements in the ever-unfolding tragedy that is the city of St. Louis. Want to know what happened?

Killed was Gary "Chip" Alter, 24, a recent St. Louis University graduate, a world traveler and a "handsome devil" with unlimited potential, in his mother's words.

Alter was driving north on Kingshighway from a friend's home in the Hill neighborhood. He took a left to go west on Interstate 44 and home to Manchester.

About 3:30 a.m., a Dodge Durango was 90 mph northbound in Kingshighway's southbound lanes. It broadsided Alter.

"My son's life was taken much too soon," a broken Joan Alter said later.

Schnuck it, the Post-Dispatch isn't going to tell you; the whole article is an exercise in passive-voice journalism, where unfortunate things occur. This pyramid structure has all of the important facts at the bottom of the article, building a sleepy storyline that casts no blame except to the abstract iniquity. Here's what happened:

Five kids, between the ages 12 and 16, stole a Dodge Durango in the afternoon and spent the night breaking into cars while leaving the Durango running; when someone called the cops at 3:30 am, the St. Louis Tin pursued until a cop supervisor told them to back off. After the pursuit ended, the Durango, still fleeing, broadsided another car and killed its driver.

Cripes, if only the driver had been drinking, he'd have a future with the Rams when he got out of juvenile camp and if he finished high school.

Of the four things mentioned in the first lines of the article, one is responsible for the tragedy, but the Post-Dispatch really wants to blur that distinction and reduce all to just equally-weighted "elements," probably because the actual responsible line item isn't the SUV, the police, or the innocent. It's the known juvenile delinquents.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:27 AM 0 comments

50 Worst Beers

BeerAdvocate rates the fifty worst beers. Surprisingly, Anheuser-Busch products are represented better than those of that great ~~South African~~ Milwaukee product, Miller!

Hey, there's nothing wrong with South Africa. They've let go of apartheid, they gave up their nuclear program before ending apartheid, and they let Kim du Toit escape. What's not to like about South Africa?

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:39 PM 0 comments

What Are The Odds Of That?

When prompted to download the latest Yahoo! instant message client, I found that it "accidentally" stopped my MSN IM and AOL IM clients but restarted itself in its new, badass Windows XP-looking interface.

Undoubtedly, this was a problem specific to my user configuration.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:35 PM 0 comments

Taking One for the Team

All the cool bloggers are, about an account in Women's Wall Street that apparently details a dry-run of some sort of terror attack in a flight from Detroit to LA:

When I returned to my seat I was unable to assure my husband that all was well. My husband immediately walked to the first class section to talk with the flight attendant. I might be overreacting, but I've been watching some really suspicious things... Before he could finish his statement, the flight attendant pulled him into the galley. In a quiet voice she explained that they were all concerned about what was going on. The captain was aware. The flight attendants were passing notes to each other. She said that there were people on board higher up than you and me watching the men. My husband returned to his seat and relayed this information to me. He was feeling slightly better. I was feeling much worse. We were now two hours into a four-in-a-half hour flight. Approximately 10 minutes later, that same flight attendant came by with the drinks cart. She leaned over and quietly told my husband there were federal air marshals sitting all around us. She asked him not to tell anyone and explained that she could be in trouble for giving out that information. She then continued serving drinks. About 20 minutes later the same flight attendant returned. Leaning over and whispering, she asked my husband to write a description of the yellow-shirted man sitting across from us. She explained it would look too suspicious if she wrote the information. She asked my husband to slip the note to her when he was done. After seeing 14 Middle Eastern men board separately (six together, eight individually) and then act as a group, watching their unusual glances, observing their bizarre bathroom activities, watching them congregate in small groups, knowing that the flight attendants and the pilots were seriously concerned, and now knowing that federal air marshals were on board, I was officially terrified..

The author of the piece followed up with the proper authorities and the airlines:

Through a series of events, The Washington Post heard about my story. I talked briefly about my experience with a representative from the newspaper. Within a few hours I received a call from Dave Adams, the Federal Air Marshal Services (FAM) Head of Public Affairs. Adams told me what he knew: There were 14 Syrians on NWA flight #327. They were questioned at length by FAM, the FBI and the TSA upon landing in Los Angeles. The 14 Syrians had been hired as musicians to play at a casino in the desert. Adams said they were scrubbed. None had arrest records (in America, I presume), none showed up on the FBI's no fly list or the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists List. The men checked out and they were let go. According to Adams, the 14 men traveled on Northwest Airlines flight #327 using one-way tickets. Two days later they were scheduled to fly back on jetBlue from Long Beach, California to New York -- also using one-way tickets. I asked Adams why, based on the FBI's credible information that terrorists may try to assemble bombs on planes, the air marshals or the flight attendants didn't do anything about the bizarre behavior and frequent trips to the lavatory. Our FAM agents have to have an event to arrest somebody. Our agents aren't going to deploy until there is an actual event, Adams explained. He said he could not speak for the policies of Northwest Airlines.

Here's what Hugh Hewitt had to say:

If this account is true, the plane should have been obliged to land upon the first indication of concern among the flight attendants and passengers. Calling the Homeland Security Department: Is this a true account, and if so, are you happy with the actions of the pilot/marshalls etc?

How easily the simple solution eludes us, Hugh. Ladies and gentlemen, if you are on a plane, witness suspicious activity, communicate with the authorities in the air, and although they're afraid and suspect something might be amiss but cannot act because protocol indicates they cannot until an event occurs, make an event. Stand up in your seat and say, "There is a bomb on board this plane." They will land the plane, my friends, and they will take you into custody. You'll face a felony charge or more if they actually find a bomb or bomb-making components on the plane, but if the people around you are crying into their husbands' shoulders and you're facing death, you are not impotent. You just have to work the impotent system to survive and achieve your goals. Why shouldn't you? They will. Bear in mind this tactic is something to use only if you are honestly afraid for your life and the lives of those around you. It carries a high penalty, regardless of if you're crying wolf when there's a wolf around or not. UPDATE: More good ideas here.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:01 AM 0 comments

High Tech Red Neck

According to Slate's Red or Blue--Which Are You? quiz, I am:

It's time to get out of the sun. You're looking a little red.

As if a little red, in this case, is bad.

I think the quiz was targeted to people who have lived in Wisconsin and Missouri and attended a Jesuit university. Jeez.

Some other commentators brag that they're purple. That's like saying your proud of your grey morals. As El Guapo indicated last night in a feeble blue defense of Farenheit 9/11, "There are two sides to every store."

"Yeah," our hero responded. "Right and wrong."

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:44 AM 0 comments

Too Much Information

After some introspection, I have discovered:

I am Mary Kate

Which Olsen Twin Are You quiz

I feel freshly-legal.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:44 AM 0 comments

Brian Digs Up The Dirt on Michael Moore

So there I was at the happy hour, enjoying a refreshing Sierra Mist with some former coworkers because the bloody establishment stopped carrying Guinness on draught. I had purchased a copy of Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man as part of an intervention program for El Guapo, who apparently saw some value in something in Farenheit 9/11besides the previews beforehand. So the book was lying on the table, which is quite unlike any of Michael Moore's books, which lie anywhere they are, when a former x2 coworker (with whom I had worked at two different companies--hey, it's a not what you know but who you know) joined us. She sat at the table, spotted the picture of the Macy's parade-sized director, and made the noise and shudder with which we conservatives are familiar.

"I hate him," she said.

The group at the table made agreeing noises, except for El Guapo, whose intervention is still in early stages.

No, she insisted, she hated him. Although we knew she was from Michigan, we did not know she was from Davison, Michigan, and that she graduated in 1973 from Davison High School--a year after Michael Moore was lifted by his parents' bootstraps into graduation in that suburban school.

He had anger management problems even then, she informed us. She mentioned he played clarinet, although was third or fourth chair, and that he didn't have a girlfriend in high school. There you have it: the MfBJN exclusive revelation. Michael Moore is an outcast band geek with no girlfriend gone bad.

I know, you're thinking the same thing we all are: If only my former x2 coworker had made the ultimate sacrifice in 1971 and had gone out with that creepy Mikey guy, and maybe even, you know, kissed him, perhaps the world would have been spared his slothful wrath.

But friends, some sacrifices are too horrible to contemplate, much less ask.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:41 PM 0 comments

Another One That Previously Eluded My Attention

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the latest felony that has come to my attention courtesy of a news spot on the radio and confirmed by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

The suspect, Dennis A. Hobson, 43, was charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the death of Maxine Cheeks, 55. Police say Hobson led them to her badly beaten body on a vacant lot off South 14th Street near Soulard Street.

Hobson's son, Antoine M. Ward, 26, of the 3000 block of Walton Place, was arrested Wednesday. He was charged with abandonment of a corpse, a felony.

Abandoning a corpse is apparently a felony. Because sometimes accessory after the fact just won't do it. My goodness, why aren't all murderers charged with this secondary crime that often succeeds the first?

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:37 PM 0 comments

No Irony to See Here

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, in a story about government-mandated nonsmoking restaurants, cites a number of restaurant figures who say that the whole industry will be non-smoking in the near future because patrons want it.

The restauranteurs interviewed have restaurants with both smoking and non-smoking sections, so they're not in a hurry to do what their patrons want, are they?

Instead, they wait for government to strip them of their property rights, and then they do what they say the public wanted all along.

If I had to guess, I would say that these quotables are mouthing the story line to get the name of their establishments listed in the paper. But I'm just cynical.

- posted by Brian J. @ 2:57 PM 0 comments

LeMond....Le Monde....Coincidence?

Poor form, old boy, criticizing a countryman in a foreign paper:

The French newspaper Le Monde, which has previously leveled doping accusations at Armstrong, on Thursday ran an interview with three-time Tour winner Greg LeMond, who suggested he doubts his fellow American is drug free. "Lance is ready to do anything to keep his secret," LeMond was quoted as saying. "I don't know how he can continue to convince everybody of his innocence."

I don't know if Lance is mainlining schucking Cheetah urine, but I can smell some amount of pungent envy trickling down someone's leg, Greg.

- posted by Brian J. @ 2:22 PM 0 comments

It Wasn't Me

As previous co-workers can attest, I have always been, well, let's just say "open to the [negative] possibilities" about the fiscal and marketplace health of my employers.

This reputation means I must firmly refute that this internal MCI memo refers to me at all:

It has come to my attention, that there is a small group of employees who are extremely negative in the work environment (and vocally so), about the future of a) MCI; and b) their current job status in Ashburn. I'm not sure what's driving the doubt or the negative commentary, but I can tell you that it is unprofessional and I ask that you direct your concerns to me, directly, versus continuing the disruptive commentary with other colleagues.

Let me say unequivocally that I have never been to Ashburn.

And in case you're wondering, my current employer's position in the marketplace is non-existent and his fiscal position is tenuous, at best.

It's less satisfying when you're self-employed, though. Also, I have no coworkers with which to kvetch.

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:18 PM 0 comments

Please Let Me Break This To Heather, Privately

Friends, I ask you to let me break this news to my beautiful wife when she returns from Buffalo tomorrow. I don't want her to hear it on the news, and I don't want someone else to mention it in an offhand e-mail or phone conversation. I know what it will mean to her, and I want to tell her in a safe place for her, where she's surrounded by cats.

When we saw Spiderman 2 last week, I got out all of my comic books, four boxes' worth, and showed them to her, and she showed me her smaller collection, which included a bunch of DC stuff and one fairly complete set of a single Marvel title. Dazzler. That mutant chick must have served as some role model for my wife as she grew up, and undoubtedly Heather will feel some deep connection to Dazzler, perhaps even a sense of protectiveness to Dazzler and what Dazzler meant to her.

So I just want to be there to comfort my beautiful wife, to hold her if she needs it, and to have some Puffs with lotion nearby, when I tell her that Jessica Simpson will play Dazzler in the next X-Men movie.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:57 PM 0 comments

The Former Television Critic Weighs In

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which by the way does not include me as a columnist, has former television critic Eric Mink dissing the Bush Administration in a serious column. I guess Mink grew up and turned off the television and started reading the Post-Dispatch for news insights:

Late last week, yet another august body - this time the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence - issued yet another massive report again confirming that the U.S. intelligence establishment got just about everything wrong when it came to Saddam Hussein's nonexistent biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.

But buried deep in the Senate report - little noticed and even less remarked upon - is something important that the committee credits the intelligence community for getting right. And it puts the torch to whatever flimsy tissue of credibility the Bush administration had left:

With respect to contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida during the 1990s, the committee found that the CIA "reasonably assessed . . . that these contacts did not add up to an established formal relationship."

Got that? Without a mutual protection pact treaty, it didn't exist, and Eric Mink is there to analyze it.

Wait a minute, Eric Mink, former television critic, is now the commentary editor for the Post-Dispatch editorial page? Muhahhahahaha! You cannot make this stuff up.

Of course, my chances of being a paid columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch will greatly diminish the next time Mink googles himself. To a slightly lower nil than they were before the search.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:36 PM 0 comments

Weird Cinematic Musing

Intermittent Pseudo-Bachelorhood, Day 2, wherein our hero watches Beat the Devil (1953) because it's got Humphrey Bogart in it and he got it as a Christmas gift from his wonderful mother-in-law (hi, ML!). Upon reviewing this black and white piece filmed in Italy, which modern DVD technicians have not spent any time at all restoring, our hero muses that only 11 years passed between John Huston blowing a lot of budget in Europe on froo froo drinks for Truman Capote, the screenwriter, and another seminal film shot in Italia: A Fistful of Dollars.

I mean, jeez, man, the shift from black and white to color was huge, man, but that's not all that changed. I mean, look at story pacing and film making conventions and see how they change in that decade and a tenth.

By way of comparison, look at how slowly things evolve after that. For example, the differences between Dirty Harry (1971) and The Dead Pool (1988). Minor. Between Dirty Harry and any of the others in its ilk. Sure, more stuff explodes now, and studios spend more money on fake-looking CGI, but you know, you could watch something from the 1960s and something from 2003 and not feel too out of place.

Crap, I think I had a point when I started this post. I forget it now. Perhaps it was merely to confirm to our hero's wonderful mother-in-law that her Christmas gifts are going to good use--filling those awful, empty hours until her daughter returns.

Oh, yeah, and memo to Hollywood. Explain this to me: Beat the Devil is available on DVD, and The African Queen is not. What are you people doing out there? Hello?

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:12 PM 0 comments

Venting the Venom

Hey, check out Thomas Sowell's latest column, wherein he takes on the notorious ~~extraneous bells and whistles~~ software industry:

One of the maddening things about some computer programs and computerized products is their making you fight your way through a maze of complications to do simple things. Whether you want to play chess, take a picture, or do some other obvious and straightforward thing, you must first deal with a zillion options to do things you have no interest in doing.

The fact that there are innumerable features built into any product -- whether computerized or not -- does not automatically mean that you have to deal with the features you don't want.

That's because too much software is designed by developers, many of whom think vi was a pretty good interface.

- posted by Brian J. @ 4:05 PM 0 comments

Best Columnist in St. Louis

The best columnist in St. Louis is David Nicklaus, business columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Check out the wisdom from his latest column taking on light rail groupies:

With what's spent on the trains, Castelazo and Garrett figure that taxpayers could buy a Toyota Prius for each needy MetroLink rider and have $49 million a year left over.

It's good to see someone in the Post-Dispatch examining the actual return on the copious public wealth redistribution the paper favors as a matter-of-course.

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:33 AM 0 comments

Political Musings from Pseudo-Bachelorhood, Part XIII

Alternate Title: Embrace Your Mythology, America!

So let me get this straight, again: In The Magnificent Seven, Americans ride in to save a Mexican villiage from bandits, who happen to also be Mexican, and they ride out with fewer than the advertised seven. What propoganda! Forty-some years later, "sophisticated" Americans would appreciate no such venture.

Meanwhile, leftists diminish the sacrifice contained within this American myth by saying that:

White men oppressed red men
Of course, ignore the fact that some white men and one partially brown man (Bernardo) saved brown men (and women and children) from oppression from other brown men.
Americans fight for their own interests
Well, these seven Americans got twenty dollars, a low sum by the standards indicated within the film, to protect oppressed Mexican farmers.
Americans always win, and their heroes never run out of bullets.
I know it's out of fashion, but let's run the numbers through this little bit of reality we call arithematic. Seven gunslingers, including those portraued by Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, James Coburn, Steve McQueen, and Yul Brenner ride in. Three ride almost out, but one decides he likes a Mexican babe and stays. Frankly, a less than fifty percent survival ratio is pretty low, even for realism circa the late 1800s that a Western embraces. Particularly that 22.2% returns to America, after defending the foreigners.

Pah, you all can guess what point I am trying to make. I am no Edith Hamilton or Joseph Campbell, but I understand the power of the stories we tell each other about our common heritage, and brothers, Abu Ghraib ain't it.

P.S. In the arithematic of American mythology, the The Dirty Dozen (-11) and The Magnificent Seven (-4) do not yield the same actor in the role of survivor. Just in case you damn kids watched one, I wanted to inspire you to watch the other.

- posted by Brian J. @ 2:45 AM 0 comments

Political Musings from Pseudo-Bachelorhood, Part XII

Alternate Title: When Was Hollywood Ever the Friend of Capitalism?

So let me get this straight: In This Gun For Hire, which "introduces" Alan Ladd and co-stars Veronica Lake, the "good guy" is an product of child abuse, and the "bad guy" is an old white guy who's selling poison gas chemicals to the Japanese.

Hey, I appreciate the film as a story, but the theme indicates that Hollywood was not always in favor of capitalism. Remember that heyday of propoganda around World War II? A by-product of the future history, wherein the box office victors, which is to say the American people select those movies which represented John Wayne and company whipping the Axis, represent the remembered movies, and other films which presented a "nuanced" vision of America find themselves, 52 years later, represented by a single copy in Best Buy snapped up by an Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake fan. Undoubtedly, this Best Buy store sighed in relief and ordered an extra copy of The Transporter to cover the shelf space.

P.S. Note to studios: Alan Ladd. Veronica Lake. Raymond Chandler. For the love of all that is holy, release The Blue Dahlia on DVD.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:42 PM 0 comments

Not ACCOUNT DELETATION!

From today's junk e-mail:

Dear U.S. Bank valued member, Due to concerns, for the safety and integrity of the Internet Banking community we have issued this warning message. It has come to our attention that your account information needs to be updated due to inactive accounts, frauds and spoof reports. If you could please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and renew your records you will not run into any future problems with the online service. However, failure to update your records will result in account deletation. Once you have updated your account records your online banking account will not be interrupted and will continue as normal. Please follow the link below and renew your account information. U.S. Bank Internet Banking

Ladies and gentlemen, good grammar and good knowledge of proper English are a stalwart defense against junk e-mail.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:57 PM 0 comments

Scenes of Intermittent Pseudo-Bachelorhood, Part XII

Wherein our hero copes with life in a large household while his wife enjoys business-related adventures in Buffalo, New York.

Heather

Join us for our thrilling next adventure, when our hero tries to find a new cookie sheet with which to replace the new contents of his garbage can. Where do you buy cookie sheets? Like, Best Buy is all out of them.....

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:49 PM 0 comments

I Hope They Got a Good Price on That Print Job

A hearty, hey, yer knuckleheads to the folks at the Home Handyman Club of America, whose membership I am abandoning since it managed to lose my subscription renewal a couple years ago, and then promptly sent me books I refused and for which they continued to bill me.

As a new example of its genius, it has sent me a professionally-printed envelope that instructs those suckers seeking to renew to enclose the invoice so that the club address appears in the window on the other side. The problem? It's not printed on a window envelope. All the better for our recycling bin.

Man, I am glad I never had these handy fellows over to help me do anything to my house.

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:48 PM 0 comments

Real World Experience Apparently Worthless

Meanwhile, back in the San Francisco Chronicle, David Lazurus reads the grounds in his coffee cup to undercover conspiracy! in the nomination of Francis Harvey as Secretary of the Army:

President Bush was widely reported last week to be on the verge of nominating local boy Francis Harvey to serve as secretary of the Army. So let's meet the man who may soon be the newest player in the top ranks of the military-industrial complex.

Harvey, a Los Gatos resident, sits on the board of Bridge Bank of Silicon Valley and is a member of the board of regents of Santa Clara University. But it's a safe bet that neither of these gigs placed him in the running for the Army's senior civilian post.

More likely, it was Harvey's ties to the defense industry and the influential Carlyle Group that won him the Bush administration's favor.

Okay, let me summarize how this left coaster knocks Harvey:

Harvey is former chief operating officer for a division of Westinghouse Electric, a leading defense contractor.
Harvey sits on the board of a couple companies affiliated with the Carlyle Group, an investment company.
Because the Carlyle Group has had as its "advisers and leaders" (which could mean that among the numerous firms funded or invested in by the company, an investment company for crying out loud) numerous other, well, leaders, it is obviously the American Illuminati Clubhouse.
Harvey serves as vice chairman of Maryland's Duratek, which specializes in the handling and disposing of radioactive materials. Oddly enough, the Departments of Defense and Energy do business with firms that handle and dispose of radioactive materials. The Department of Education does not--and that in itself must insinuate something!
Harvey is a board member of Carlyle-owned Kuhlman Electric, a maker of transformers. Even though it has no defense contracts, it's Carlyle-owned and therefore must do something bad, of which Harvey is undoubtedly the mastermind, or in which he is implicitly explicitly complicit.

So what does it all mean? That if Harvey is confirmed, he will favor his friends and companies for which he's worked? How will Haliburton stand for it?

I guess the messages we can take away from this column, and those of its wide stripe, are that the only people qualified to run the government are not people who have real world experience managing organizations in relevant fields; oh, but no, the only people qualified for appointment are people who have hidden in academia or in newsrooms for most of their adult lives. These people have integrity, and presumably no friends to help.

Also, the second message is that any appointment from the business world would not throw himself into a new, govern-mental position with the same enthusiasm for maximizing resources and utility that made him or her successful in business and worthy of appointment; oh, but no, once they're on the government payroll, it's all about sucking the teat, unlike academics, intellectuals, or integrous media or entertainment icons.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:28 AM 0 comments

Activists Are Standing By

This column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch indicates that Missouri currently does not have seatbelt laws for pets:

On Illinois and Missouri's state highways, though, that's perfectly legal, police say. Not for a dog to drive with no hands, but for one to roam free in a vehicle. There are no laws against it, and a lot of pet owners let it happen.

In a 2002 survey by the American Animal Hospital Association, 74 percent of 1,200 pet owners in Canada and the United States said they don't use pet restraints while on the road.

The association, though, said that could cause trouble. It urges owners to use harnesses, seat belt attachments, or carriers.

"They help protect pets in case of a collision, and they keep pets from running loose and distracting the driver," the association's Web site says.

Undoubtedly, though, a crack team of activists are, well, acting to ensure this travesty will not continue, and that eventually drivers will not be allowed to have any unsecured item floating around the cabin of the car. Fast food wrappers, CD cases, pets, and loose change--by 2013, legislators will mandate that you need to lock all of these down as though you were piloting the space shuttle through re-entry every time you go down to the U-Gas for a lotto ticket and a fill-up.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:55 PM 0 comments

Let the Cacaphony Begin!

Let this story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch with the headline 3-year-old wounds grandmother with gun lead to a bevy of batties in the belfry rattling their sightless bodies in favor of more gun control legislation because of this stupid, preventable accident.

Because they need a break from their machination mastications that take place in favor of banning cars whenever some SUV-armored pinhead on eating while on a cell phone plows into a Honda and shuts down I-270 for hours.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:49 PM 0 comments

NAKED NAKED NAKED!

Sorry, nothing to report. I did, however, want to make this page in my archives the only Google hit for the search "Liz Phair" "Tony Twist" naked.

Sure, there's nothing there now....but give me a few days.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:33 PM 0 comments

I Guess Nobody Caught Her In Concert

Okay, let me get this straight. Smash Mouth is not allowed to perform at Fair St. Louis because they're not family-friendly.

Now appearing at River Splash, Liz Phair.

Perhaps the bookers had not heard the songs "Fuck and Run" or "H.W.C." (neither of which is particularly work-safe and will earn you content-scanning demerits should you click the links). Of course, I have never heard those songs, but I know Liz Phair might be moderately radio-friendly these days, but family-friendly, she ain't.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:23 PM 0 comments

Close Second to Censorship

Headline in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Tony Twist wins $15 million verdict. The story goes like this:

Tony Twist, the former rock 'em-sock 'em Blues hockey player, was awarded $15 million Friday by a jury that concluded comic book artist Todd McFarlane had profited by using Twist's name without his permission.

McFarlane, formerly the principal artist and writer of Spiderman comics, gave the name Tony Twist to a violent New York mob boss in McFarlane's Spawn comics in the early 1990s.

In a case that could have broad meaning for artistic freedom, McFarlane insisted the name had literary value and his use of it was protected under the First Amendment, but Twist contended McFarlane had exceeded free speech rights.

It was the second time for Twist's claims to go to trial. A St. Louis Circuit Court jury ruled in Twist's favor in 2000 and awarded him $24.5 million, but the trial judge overruled the verdict and the state appeals court later ruled in McFarlane's favor citing his free speech rights. The Missouri Supreme Court, however, last year ordered a new trial after concluding that McFarlane's use of Twist's name was driven more by moneymaking than by "artistic value."

"They made Tony into a Mafia boss," said James Holloran, an attorney for Twist. "He was involved in murders and kidnappings and rapes."

Reporters have a constitutional right to write freely about Twist as a hockey player, even calling him a "goon" or "enforcer" for his rough play on the hockey rink, but that First Amendment freedom does not extend to using his name for commercial advantage, Holloran said.

McFarlane's attorneys argued that his use of the name was protected and that no reasonable person would confuse the fictional character with the real person.

McFarlane did not name the mobster Tony Twist. Tony Twist in the Spawn comic book was a nickname given to a mobster whose real fictional name was Antonio "Tony Twist" Twistelli (more detailed Sports Illustrated article). So a tough guy enforcer thug with a name of Antonio Twistelli was given the nickname Tony Twist, an allusion to the hockey player made his living espousing those qualities. Not a rapist nor a murder, but the nature of metaphor is that it's not an exact photograph, merely an outline and comparison.

I get it. I don't mistake an inked mobster with the former Blues favorite. But then, I am capable of cognitive thought, and am not of the great abstract masses purportedly unable to tell the difference.

The use of the Twister's name (hey, will he sue the producers of that movie for stealing his nickname?) represents realistic idiom. When people talk, make slang, and assign nicknames, they often use allusions to contemporary events, celebrities, and sub-celebrities in the public eye. Writers often make idiomatic use of a famous person's name to describe something about their characters and the story. However, this ruling sets the precedent that if the idiomatic use is not flattering, the sensitive celebrity whose name is getting used in a less-than-flattering light (often because the celebrity has done something mockworthy or less than flattering) can sue for millions of dollars, no matter how little the celebrity's actual worth is impacted. Woe to the writers in America, since these little casual asides now must be vetted for legal exposure and liability.

Coming soon, Monica Lewinsky's action against Law & Order and countless other stupid lawsuits. The government, by encouraging (and make no mistake, the precedent will encourage) these worthless lawsuits indirectly prohibits another small measure of free speech in America.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:57 PM 0 comments

The Personal Is The Political

Count this as a victory for the agitators of the 1960s: personal things take on political overtones, such as getting fired:

One day after she was fired, former U.S. Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers accused the Bush administration Saturday of silencing dissenting views in the rank and file.

Chambers' departure may not garner the same spotlight as those of former counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, but it appears to fall into a similar category: officials who leave or are forced out after questioning Bush administration policies.

Just Jo Functionary doing the job to the best of her ability, but fired because she was a maverick who didn't follow the book? Well, yes:

Chambers said that she didn't expect to be fired seven months after the Interior Department put her on administrative leave with pay for talking with reporters and congressional staffers about budget woes on the 620-officer force.

You know, we here in the private industry world would get canned and possibly sued if we were to disparage our employers in the media. In government, you get seven months of free money without having to pretend you're working and a gold bullhorn to trumpet the iniquity of it all.

- posted by Brian J. @ 1:05 AM 0 comments

Book Review: The Pocket Muse: Ideas and Inspirations for Writing by Monica Wood (2002)

I bought this book as part of a package for signing up with the Writers Digest Book Club. As part of the package, I paid something like a dollar for it plus shipping and handling, and undoubtedly it was the last book in the required allotment of four or five to get the free Writer's Market that year. To make a short story long, I don't normally seek out this sort of book, but I got it, and I read it.

Essentially, it's a little collage of writing ideas, some microessays about writing, and a lot of photographs. The style's such that you can pick it up, flip it open, and have something to write or some lesson about writing. Numerous single-sentence mandates dictate that you should write about a particular topic or situation; other pages contain a single, often vertical, "horiscope message" that could serve as a plot. So there you have it.

The author embraces the writer lifestyle, which involves teaching college classes, going on writers' retreats, and "getting published" along with all the touchy-feely, grok-the-word crepe that festoons the lives of the lifestyle's participants. Personally, I'm not all into that--particularly the last part, apparently--so I could do without it. Still, it's an interesting little book, a quick enough read (since it's probably under 10,000 words all told in its unnumbered pages), and maybe something from it has stuck in my mind and has been encysted into a pearl of a story or essay for the future.

At worst, it's book number 41 for me on the year and will add a small element of color to my trophy bookshelves.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:37 PM 2 comments

Were But That It Were True

Pardon my mangling of the subjunctive tense, which many of you did not know existed anyway, but read this article:

Nations [sic] Liberals Suffering From Outrage Fatigue

Unfortunately, it's The Onion. Curses!

- posted by Brian J. @ 12:56 AM 0 comments

Adding Flour to the Conspiracy

The San Francisco Chronicle plays with verbs when it presents this on its Web site:

Click for full size

Text:

Bush Military Info Destroyed
Payroll records that could clarify his service history were damaged. Pentagon blames 'deterioration.' AP

Really? The Pentagon--Bush's Pentagon--blames deterioration? What about "explains fact" or "cudgels conspiracy theory advocates with facts, to no avail"?

Here's the words from the article:

The letter said that in 1996 and 1997, the Pentagon "engaged with limited success in a project to salvage deteriorating microfilm." During the process, "the microfilm payroll records of numerous service members were damaged," the letter said.

This process resulted in "the inadvertent destruction of microfilm containing certain National Guard payroll records," including Bush's, the letter said.

This particular conspiracy stretches back to the last year of Clinton's first term and the first year of his second! Damn, these Bushies are thorough.

I mean, it must certainly be unthinkable that this particular set of undifferentiated records from thirty years ago were damaged by underpaid, but underwhelming, low-ranking government and military functionaries. Instead, the San Francisco Chronicle would seem to have you connect the stars to make damning constellations.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:31 PM 0 comments

Deeper and Deeper

Not only do campaign finance laws protect incumbents, but as Owen at Boots and Sabers points out, apparently they also protect polisci majors and other non-productive members of society. Or at least they penalize business owners who run for office:

The next few months are a vital time for selling cars, but the Russ Darrow Group, with 20 dealerships throughout the state, may have to stifle its familiar pitch.

That's because it is a vital period for selling candidacies, too. And the namesake of the car dealership chain, Russ Darrow Jr., is in the hunt for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination.

New federal election law may forbid any television or radio advertising bearing Darrow's name and not funded by his Senate campaign during the 30 days before the Sept. 14 Republican primary.

"It would appear as if such (car) advertisements might be considered electioneering communications," and thus prohibited, said Ian Stirton, a spokesman for the Federal Election Commission.

Citizens, I ask you, is this freeing you from the corrupting influence of advertising impressing messages into your malleable mind or is it protecting a self-appointed ruling class who can schmooze their way through four years of schmooze classes, a couple of D.C. internships, an appointment or two, and then election through incumbent indulgence?

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:06 PM 0 comments

1-800-888-4848, Ext. 8201

Apparently, Subway restaurants have determined:

Beginning Sunday, Subway stores throughout the

metro area stopped handing out a stamp for each 6-inch sandwich purchased, as did Subway restaurants in Knoxville, Tenn.; Madison, Wis.; and Lansing, Mich.

"A number of franchisees feel that we are too big of a company to have an incentive program. They have elected to participate in a test to see what the customer feedback will be," said Subway spokesman Les Winograd at company headquarters in Milford, Conn. "They may replace it or go back to the way it was or drop it entirely."

Apparently, St. Louis is one of the test markets for this new "program" of discontinuing a program that has been in place for 39 years, since Subway's founding. Subway has determined that its name recognition alone will spur brand loyalty, even when faced with competition here with Quiznos, Blimpies, Mr. Goodcents, and other smaller shops just trying to get a foothold in the apparently-lucrative submarine sandwich franchise space.

You can call Subway at the number listed above to register your feelings on the subject or just to let them know you're a consumer who's paying attention and don't subscribe to the theory that less-for-the-customer-is-more theory.

Class, what would Niccolo Machiavelli say about this particular idea? Hmmm?

- posted by Brian J. @ 10:52 PM 0 comments

I Am Honored

Someone nominated me as one of the top 260 underrated blogs. I am humbled, particularly as I suspect my beautiful wife was not the submitter.

Thank you, unknown benefactor.

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:50 PM 0 comments

Discriminating Taste

Would you choose a wine because it was named after a hockey player?

Michel Picard, former St. Louis Blue

Michel Picard Syrah

Man, it's going to be a long year without a hockey season.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:18 PM 0 comments

Comparable Sins

From Neil Steinberg's column today, wherein he describes how polarized political society has gotten, we have this:

he electorate is as calcified and entrenched as I've ever seen it, divided by those who would vote for Bush if it turned out he was paid by Osama bin Laden to invade Iraq and so hasten the day of Islamic jihad there, and those who would vote for Kerry if photos surfaced of him in Hanoi in the 1960s standing behind Jane Fonda, his fist in the air in the black power salute as she inspected Viet Cong anti-aircraft guns.

I don't know how I should take that comparison. Right wingers, which I would guess includes me, would vote for Bush even if he were a paid operative of a foreign power actively involved in a conspiracy against the best interests of the United States, whereas more reasonable left wingers would vote for John Kerry if he openly supported, through "protests," an enemy power currently at war with the United States while he was in that foreign country (which is the key difference, since he only did that here and in Paris, France, but never in North Vietnam).

Message, again: People who support Bush are whackos.

I must be the most whack of the lot since I support Bush and read Steinberg three times a week.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:47 PM 0 comments

So-Called Watch

Perhaps Associated Press writer A. Josef Hebert only dabbles in American English as a second language, as he resorts to the dreaded so-called adjective:

In a secret operation, the United States last month removed from Iraq nearly two tons of uranium and hundreds of highly radioactive items that could have been used in a so-called dirty bomb, the Energy Department disclosed Tuesday.

I'm unsure what that particular adjective adds to the sentence. Unless Hebert's paid five cents a word, in which case it adds a dime to Hebert's pocket.

(Link courtesy Perry on Politics.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:34 PM 0 comments

Knowing Your Place

Jeff Jarvis notes the rise of blogs, again. For all the hoopla, I remind other bloggers to remember our place.

Bloggers write for other bloggers and about a half dozen readers who don't blog (yet).

We're Citizens Band Radio dot com.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:14 AM 0 comments

Architectural Musings

Whitney Gould, the architectural columnist for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, muses on what to do with "big box" store buildings after the big box stores have moved on. Go check out her July 4 column.

Me, I read her all the time as a residual effect of too many adolescent readings of The Fountainhead and too much adolescent appreciation of Patricia Neal as Dominique Francon. But you can read her for other reasons, as ye liste.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:48 PM 0 comments

Significant Authority Always Exists

The mayor of a small newly-suburban outpost in St. Louis County has discovered the joys of property rights infringement: Arnold Mayor declares war on vacant buildings:

Arnold Mayor Mark Powell is hoping that unsightly, abandoned buildings in the city will soon be nothing but an ugly memory. Powell reported that the city is cracking down on building owners who fail to maintain their properties.

"I have reviewed our property maintenance codes and have determined that sufficient authority exists within the code to deal with the maintenance of the boarded-up buildings," said Powell. "The code provides for buildings to be kept up such that the building looks ready for use. This means no peeling paint, no boarded up windows, no missing shingles, no missing sign faces."

Or else it will be seized for a new Wal-Mart or New Utopianist mixed use apartment/condo/retail development that will be boarded-up buildings belonging to someone else in twenty years.

Yo, Powell, if you're so interested in making Arnold something more than a St. Louis-area punchline, how about you reform its ordinances to make it a business-friendly environment, so that the owners of the properties to which you refer would lose money by leaving them in their current states.

Oh, but no. Just seize them, dish them out to friends, and screw the person who put down capital on it in the first place. It's your perogative as duly-elected despot.

These guys always have sufficient authority, don't they?

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:18 PM 0 comments

Global Warming's Interplanetary Consequences

The joke's set up line, as published by the BBC, begins with the headline Sunspots reaching 1,000-year high:

A new analysis shows that the Sun is more active now than it has been at anytime in the previous 1,000 years.

Scientists based at the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich used ice cores from Greenland to construct a picture of our star's activity in the past.

They say that over the last century the number of sunspots rose at the same time that the Earth's climate became steadily warmer.

This trend is being amplified by gases from fossil fuel burning, they argue.

Got that? Driving an SUV causes sunspots. Maybe even space-time distortions that threaten our very existence, or perhaps just the holes that stupid people will punch in November.

On the other hand, global warming has proven to be our main defense against planetary invasion from the venomous snowcrawlers from Dis X. So I guess you have to take the bad with the good.

If I weren't laughing, I would be crying.

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:10 PM 0 comments

Book Review: The Total Woman by Marabel Morgan (1973)

I am sure some of you are going to ask me why I read this book in hardback. Hey, I don't know. I just read lots of books. The little red dot indicates either I paid thirty-three and a third cents for it at Hooked on Books or that the International Masculinity Squad has someone in the treeline about to take me out for my gross transgressions against manhood. I guess I picked it out from the bookshelf outside the bookshop where the booksellers put the books they want people to steal. So I flipped a 33-cent piece onto the counter and walked out of the shop with this handbook for becoming The Total Woman.

All right, I read the book because I thought it would be amusing to read. It's carbon-dated to 1973, which means it was written about the time I was born and coming home from the hospital. The back cover contains a photo of Ms. Morgan, who looks like an amphed-up Liz Crocker from the time period. A former beauty queen from an upper-middle class suburban Wonder bread world dishes out some advice to other high-strung married-too-early tract house denizens. Man, urban-born and 21st century me was going to laugh, laugh all the way through the book.

A funny thing happened on the way to that mockirvana. I started respecting the book and its viewpoint.

It's not that different from any other self-help style, inspire-yourself book. Whereas other, more contemporary tracts tell you how you can be a better businessperson, salesperson, or more complete self-actualized Bobo, all of them seek to make you better at a particular role. This book's not that different. It definitely presents a different set of lines in which to color--those of a Christian housewife--but it offers a certain amount of pluck, vibrance, and intelligence to the role. It's not so much about remaking yourself as a Stepford Wife (a reference contemporary to the time in which this book was written, remember) as remaking yourself as the Wife of Bath.

Because although the book encourages a certain submissiveness on the part of the wife, it's not because of a woman's inferiority--rather, it's because she can, and because she wants to be part of the whole that is the functioning nuclear family unit. Not only a part, but the backbone. Of course, in 2004, "nuclear family" is a perjorative in many circumstances, but I still personally admire the goal and the imperfect-but-striving examples in the world. So screw you if you're too smart to be constrained by tradition and morality that won't let you have open marriages or that require committments to your spouse and your children.

So, what should you do if you're a Christian housewife who wants to strengthen her marriage (and, in most cases, fears that her marriage is failing or is not satisfied with its current state)?

Focus on the good things
You got married to this person for some reason, theoretically because you guys liked each other. Focus on those things, and make an effort to be more like the person you were then, and not the nagging harpy you are now. Okay, not nagging harpy, but look beyond the concerns of the day-to-day household management to reconnect with the people who have made the household.
Feed his ego.
He's only a man, and he needs to be stroked. When he's stroked, he'll stroke back.
More, imaginative sex.
Okay, here's my favorite passage from the book:
Indeed. Sex comprises one quarter of the book, and she advocates dressing differently, wearing costumes, role playing, and other things--in the name of family values! Good marital sex helps a good marriage. Also, she's an advocate of the female climax, which she says has helped many class attendees learn to appreciate sex. Morgan's writing about the dark ages, undoubtedly, but it's interesting to note that the book is geared toward church-going women. Contrary to the popular caricature, maybe women who are Christians and who go to church can be sizzling lovers.

Don't tell them, though, or those coastal Democrat types will come to carry off our womenfolk like the barbarian invading hordes they are.

So I read the book, and although I laughed at certain parts, I appreciated the sentiment and the intelligence of the author. She certainly seems earnest enough, and she's smart enough; although the only endnotes are scriptural citations, she quotes Shakespeare and Robert Browning easily. Also, the churchgoing aspect of the book isn't overwhelming--she's not proselytizing, she's talking about her convictions. The shortest chapter in the book, near the end, talks about her relationship with God. Interesting, a little personal and common, but not something the make the book unreadable.

If you can find a copy for under a buck (with shipping, if you're Internet inclined), this book will offer a view of marriage from a viewpoint outside your own (most likely) and will offer ideas and insights that you might apply to your own marriage. If you want it to work.

For example, tomorrow night I shall greet my wife at the door wearing black mesh stockings, high heels, and an apron. (Don't tell her, though!)

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:08 PM 0 comments

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