Musings from Brian J. Noggle
Thursday, December 07, 2006
 
Forget Pearl Harbor
Harry Levins of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch rationalizes why the newspapers help Americans forget historic anniversaries:
    The bombs had barely stopped falling on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, when Tin Pan Alley produced a tune that was eminently forgettable, except for its title:

    "Let's Remember Pearl Harbor."

    But today, precisely 65 years later, demography has determined that very few of us still "remember Pearl Harbor."

    Most of us have to be 5 years old before news events imprint themselves in our memory. And Census Bureau estimates drawn up last year show that only 26 million Americans are old enough to remember Pearl Harbor.
Funny. I think let's remember Pearl Harbor is less a directive to think back to where we were than it is to work at not forgetting the lessons of history.

Never mind, there's column inches to spend on Barry Bonds becoming a Cardinal.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:13 PM   0 comments
 
A Hipster Test
A new scientific experiment to determine the nature of hipsters:
    Apple Computer Inc. may be cool and hip with consumers, but it's anything but a trend-setter when it comes to good environmental policies, according to the activist group Greenpeace.

    In its latest report on major electronics manufacturers, Greenpeace ranked Apple dead last on environmental issues because it still uses harmful chemicals in many of its products and because it does a poor job promoting recycling efforts for its iPods and other products.
If the hipster under study receives this news and changes to HP and Zune, he or she is genuinely concerned about the environment; if the hipster under study receives this news and continues with the Macs, iPods, and contributions to Greenpeace, the hipster only cares about appearances or his or her own creature comforts, with the money going to environmental causes as a sop to his or her own conscience. Or, I suppose, the person likes Apple stuff and thinks this is a cynical ploy by Greenpeace to increase donations by conscience-stricken materialist hipsters.

Aw, heck, I guess it could mean anything. I, Mr. Noggle, am a poor scientist. But that's why I got an English degree.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:58 AM   0 comments
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
 
Book Report: So Long As You Both Shall Live by Ed McBain (1976)
I found a pile of Ed McBain books at the Carondolet Y book fair this year, and I bought them. This book clocks in at 147 pages, so it's more like a novella than a novel, but it was a quick read.

The book deals with Bert Kling's marriage to the model, Augusta, and her kidnapping on their wedding night. The detectives of the 87th, along with Fat Ollie Weeks, beat the bushes, grasp the straws, work the informants, and ultimately find her just in time.

Even though I know the longer story arcs of these characters, I can still enjoy individual books pulled from the middle of the 87th Precinct series. It would be a neat endeavor to read them all in order. Someday, perhaps, when I get them all.

Sure, it's a short review. It's a short book. And you don't read these anyway.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:13 PM   1 comments
 
Book Report: Thunderball by Ian Fleming (1961)
Mark Steyn has been talking about the old James Bond books and a new book about James Bond books, so I was inspired to draw this old paperback from my shelf. It had been a while (at least two years, since there are no book reports) since I read the first three Signet paperbacks in my library (Live and Let Die, The Spy Who Loved Me, and Diamonds Are Forever), but I liked them enough to buy a couple more when I found them at garage sales.

Thunderball is based on the screenplay of the same name, so it's not a straight James Bond novel, I suspect. Still, the author has a lot of fun making cracks about the plot being like a B movie plot, so Fleming didn't take it too seriously. Much like the movie Never Say Never Again didn't take it too seriously when they remade it.

The story, for those of you who don't know and probably don't care, is that SPECTRE (not Spectra, that was Battle of the Planets, silly!) has stolen a plane with a couple of nukes on it and they're going to blow them unless they get ransom. The West looks for SPECTRE and thinks about paying, but Britain sends James Bond to Bermuda just in case it's there. It is.

A quick read (188 pages) and, apparently, a piece of British history. Shorter and more engaging than a Clancy, anyway.

Books mentioned in this review:

   

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:45 PM   0 comments
 
John McClane, Escorting a Prisoner Back From Brazil, Smirks
Brazil Cancels Flights at 3 Big Airports:
    Virtually all takeoffs from three major airports in Brazil were canceled Tuesday night after an air traffic communications system broke down, making it difficult for controllers to communicate with pilots and creating air travel chaos.
Hey, it's [almost] Christmas!


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:04 AM   0 comments
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
 
Sometimes Taxes Just Ain't Enough
Milwaukee Public School seeks "donations":
    Is it worth $300 a year for your child to go to the Milwaukee High School of the Arts?

    A group of parents involved with the Milwaukee Public Schools' specialty school is answering yes and has sent all the school's parents a letter asking them to donate or raise that much per student to strengthen arts programming there.

    Although the $300 is not a fee or a requirement, the campaign is about as close as a public school can come to making parents pay extra for activities that are part of the regular content of a school's program and may be unprecedented in MPS.
Hey, how about firing a couple junior-level administrators?

No, instead, since the normal year-round student-centric fundraising isn't doing it, how about making them come up with "donations." We can be sure that students will continue to be chosen for this specialty school on talent, but it might not continue to be artistry in the future.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:04 AM   0 comments
Monday, December 04, 2006
 
Headline of the Day, You Can Say That Again Edition
Agency closing ends era in U. City Era ends with closing of agency

- posted by Brian J. @ 8:38 PM   0 comments
 
Like the Man Said
Robert Frost:
    SOME say the world will end in fire,
    Some say in ice.
    From what I’ve tasted of desire
    I hold with those who favor fire.
    But if it had to perish twice,
    I think I know enough of hate
    To know that for destruction ice
    Is also great
    And would suffice.
As Robert Frost was from New England, of course he wouldn't initially think that ice and snow were threatening enough to end the world. But he never lived in Missouri.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:51 AM   0 comments
Sunday, December 03, 2006
 
Waiting for the Rioting
Crass commercial use of the image of a religious icon? Let the riots begin!
    Plastic charge-card consumerism and yoga-minded, organic-eating activism — they seem to clash.

    But there they are, fused in new Visa credit cards bearing such images as a meditating Buddha and sunlit hands folded in prayer.
Oh, wait, I guess we hold some religions and their adherents to a higher standard.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:49 PM   0 comments
 
Found Humor
From an e-mail to Instapundit regarding game systems:
    I'm you're[sic] typical colelge[sic] guy, but bringing it home for thanksgiving[sic], every member of my family played it and loved it.
Three grammatical errors in one sentence. Typical colelge guy, indeed. Sadly.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:56 PM   2 comments
Saturday, December 02, 2006
 
In 360 Degree About Face, Wisconsin Governor Doyle Urges Higher Taxes
The headline: Doyle urges uniform sales tax rules: Governor, top aide say they will push national standards for third time. Sounds good, right? Why, the lead even makes it sound like he wants to level the playing field:
    Gov. Jim Doyle and the top deputy he appointed Friday said Wisconsin must join the list of states that have agreed to uniform national standards for sales tax collections and promised to try a third time to get it through the Legislature.
Level-up the playing field, that is:
    Doyle and Michael Morgan, whom the governor Friday named secretary of the state Department of Administration, said it is unfair that Wisconsin retailers have to charge 5% state sales tax to customers in their stores while those who buy over the Internet rarely have to pay the sales tax.
Wisconsin consumers don't pay a sales tax on Internet purchases, and Doyle thinks that's unfair to Wisconsin retailers.

Right. Doyle thinks that's unfair to the Wisconsin state government which loses out on all that sweet, sweet tax revenue slush.

I mean, those commissions commissioned to recommending higher taxes don't just pay for themselves.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:39 AM   0 comments
Friday, December 01, 2006
 
Why Can't All Educational Professionals Emulate This Man?
A man, robbed by a juvenile who snatched his cash as he turned away from an ATM, displays empathy worthy of an educational professional:
    Gallagher laughed. "I'm a substitute teacher," he said. "I deal with these little monsters on a daily basis."
How come no districts have snatched him up as a full time teacher?


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:26 PM   0 comments
 
The North Shall Rise Again
Obviously, I've chosen my side: Bears-Packers Rivalry Now Classified As "Civil War":
    In a major decision by NBC, the long-standing rivalry between the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears will now be referred to as a "Civil War".
The Oval G flies over my house.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:19 PM   0 comments
 
Heart Attacks in Pleasantville, New York
Leno, other comedians sue over joke books:
    It's no laughing matter to Jay Leno.

    The "Tonight Show" host and NBC Studios have sued humor editor Judy Brown and her publishers in U.S. District Court, claiming that her collection of joke books has profited from material filched from his standup routines.

    Leno and other comics, including Rita Rudner, are seeking unspecified damages and a permanent injunction against Brown's 19 books -- mainly compilations of jokes by comedians including Ellen DeGeneres, Joan Rivers and Jerry Seinfeld, according to the lawsuit.
The publishers of Readers Digest have all just keeled over, so it will be up to their estates to settle the coming claims against them for the rehashed material served up in the magazine's sundry user-submitted humor features.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:17 PM   0 comments
 
Book Report: Ballroom of the Skies by John D. MacDonald (1951, 1968)
I bought this book for $3.00 from Hooked on Books. It's gotten easier to tell, since Hooked on Books has begun marring the inside front covers with large labels attesting to the fact. It's perhaps slightly less risable than stamping the page edges, but not much.

It's one of MacDonald's science fiction efforts (he calls it science fantasy, but it's the same difference). In a world not too far in the future, after the First Atomic War, India has risen into prominence in the world, vying with Irania and Brazil for power. As tensions escalate, a United States diplomat tries to engage calm tensions, but they get to him. His assistant investigates and finds that a dark conspiracy of alien forces with psi powers are fomenting tensions on earth, and he has to discover why.

Which he does. MacDonald's science fantasy books are somewhat less than his crime fiction, and let's be frank, this is an old example anyway. But the book was engaging and moved along fairly well. After working on Emma for a couple weeks, it was nice to run through a book in a couple of nights.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:20 PM   0 comments
 
Dueling Headlines
Now appearing on the front page of StLToday.com, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch online presence:

Snow shouldn't be a problem for College Cup:
    It figures to be cold for the NCAA College Cup semifinals at Hermann Stadium, but the field should be clear and the games will be on.
NCAA soccer semifinals at SLU postponed:
    The NCAA men's soccer semifinals scheduled for today have been postponed because of the weather and will be played Saturday morning.

- posted by Brian J. @ 12:00 PM   0 comments
To say Noggle, one first must be able to say the "Nah."