Lost Theory
Benjamin Linus is Morpheus, and Charles Widdmore is Agent Smith/the Machines. The island is Zion. Locke is Neo, and Jack is Cypher.

That should ruin it for you, and make you kind of dread the coming explanations and denuoements that will quite probably suck.

You're welcome.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:09 AM   0 comments

 
Drop Removed From Bucket
Kudos to the Metropolitan Mass Transit Boondoggle Association for getting a bill reduced $95,000:

A consulting firm that worked on Metro’s failed lawsuit against MetroLink designers has agreed to knock $94,617 off its final bill after the agency questioned some travel expenses and other charges.

Too bad the ill-conceived bucket was so big as to make this win negligible:

Metro, formally known as the Bi-State Development Agency, spent more than $21 million on its three-year legal battle against the original designers and construction managers of the Shrewsbury MetroLink line. But after a three-month trial, a St. Louis County jury ruled in favor of the defendants, who had counter-sued.

Metro later reached a $6 million settlement with the contractors — bringing the agency’s total trial cost to $27 million.

With enough judicious budgeting like this, the whole thing will take an extra 30 minutes to go bankrupt.
- posted by Brian J. @ 6:32 AM   0 comments

 
The Public Safety Aspect of Illegal Immigration
CNN Radio reported about an automobile accident in remote Arizona that killed and injured a large number of people jammed into a truck. Just people, the radio announcer said. A special kind of people, my mind inferred. This AP article alludes to what special people they might be:

A pickup truck jammed with people has crashed in remote central Arizona. Four people are dead and nearly 30 are injured.

Authorities are investigating the immigration status of those involved in the Sunday morning rollover crash.

Funny that the Public Health aspect of illegal immigration is never discussed. That public money is spent on chasing down and treating people suffering from exposure or dehydration crossing in the desert or in treating people hurt in accidents where large numbers of them are crammed into trucks or whatnot.

Spurious and scurrilous laws are passed with larger impact to protect far smaller sample sizes of citizens. How about taking illegal immigration seriously and enforcing the laws or erecting the walls in the name of public safety?

Hah! Just kidding. People who do illegal things will do them regardless of how more illegal you make them; it's always easier to layer on more control upon the law abiding than to bring the existing criminals to heel. See also all gun control attempts.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:21 AM   0 comments

 
Ill Portents
You remember the last time the media got hopped up on a shark frenzy? Summer 2001.

Now it's an election year, and maybe I'm just on a hair trigger for my normal paranoia, but when I start hearing about the sharks ramping up their attacks, I'm suddenly worried about what effect a mass casualty attack would have on American soil right before the elections.

The truthers taking to the streets claiming Bush did it to stay in power, and maybe Bush even tries a Guiliani "I need to stay in power a little longer to handle it" attempt, and suddenly....

Well, use your fetid imagination if you've got one.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:12 PM   0 comments

 
Going for the Shallow Angle
When someone wants to offer arguments on a political subject, how does the St. Louis Post-Dispatch highlight his reasoning? Hah! Trick question. It doesn't; it highlights how he looks! The headline: A boy-next-door is fighting affirmative action. The lead:

Tim Asher sat calmly and appeared unfazed moments before he was to address a roomful of Latino leaders, some of whom were likely to be hostile to his message — that Missouri should end affirmative action programs based on race and gender.

In the last couple of months, Asher, 45, has become accustomed to speaking before skeptical crowds like this one at Hispanic Day at the Capitol.

Asher, with his boy-next-door looks, has become the face of the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative.

Well, played, Post-Dispatch journalist and editor, well, played.

Content of his character and/or intellect? Nah, that might be too convincing; let's diminish him by calling him a pretty boy.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:00 AM   0 comments

 
Point/Counterpoint, Unintentionally
ComputerWorld runs two stories this week which illustrate a point/counterpoint, albeit unintentionally.

First, an editorial shrieking about how not having electronic medical records is dangerous:

The medical data that might have saved me several hours of terror sat unused. It was unavailable to doctors outside of Dartmouth-Hitchcock's Keene clinic, except by mail or fax. And even if the clinic could transmit my records, Charlotte Regional Medical Center's systems were incapable of receiving them. According to its records department, the hospital still uses paper-based processes for its medical records.

On the other hand, here's a frightening story about online medical records:

University of Miami officials last week acknowledged that six backup tapes from its medical school that contained more than 2 million medical records was stolen in March from a van that was transporting the data to an off-site facility.

Perhaps someone in the know weighs the chances of a faulty diagnosis against the chances of the data being stolen and determined the risk of theft is greater. Perhaps not.

But that's a consideration to make, ainna?


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:29 PM   0 comments

 
Good Book Hunting: April 26, 2008
Today, we hit a couple of garage sales nearby. We did not come home empty-handed.


Click for full size

I got:

• 9 volumes (of 11, apparently) of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series of historical novels. I don't think I've heard of them. However, they were fifty cents each, and if I like them, I have a lot of them. If I don't, well, I hope my heirs like them or get similar value for them.
  
  
• A thin reference volume on using perennials in landscaping.
  
  
• A collection of Pogo cartoons that I can read while watching a baseball game.
  
  

Additionally, I bought a CD of hits of the 70s and SimCopter.

And a really nice Renoir print; I spotted it even though the signature was covered by the matting of the print. It was marked $4, but the garage sale proprietor and owner of a Lustron house offered to give it to me for $3, even after I had $4 out. I like when negotiations go like that. My beautiful wife didn't like the frame, but we found another of the same size that she liked at another sale. Providence, I tell you.

So that's 11 books for me, total, which is more than I've read this week, so I better get onto a couple more quick browsing books.


- posted by Brian J. @ 4:02 PM   0 comments

 
Book Report: Solved! Famous Mystery Writers on Classic True-Crime Cases selected by Richard Glyn Jones (1987)
Now, this is an idea book (unlike this). This volume collects 11 essays about real criminal cases, written by famous (or semi-famous, or at least published) authors of suspense or crime fiction. Most of the cases were sensational in the day, but time and probably O.J. have erased them from our minds. As such, they're worth a bit of exploration from decades later and retelling. The book also includes a science fantasy story by Harlan Ellison about Jack the Ripper, which is out of place.

A pretty enjoyable read, although as one Amazon reviewer notes, some things go on too long, including a recap of the Snyder-Gray trial in 1927 and Erle Stanley Gardner's explication of Argosy magazine's "The Court of Last Resort" series. But still worth the time, I'd say, especially if you can score a copy cheap, such as one cent plus fifteen dollars shipping and handling through the convenient link below.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:49 PM   0 comments

 
Book Report: Michelangelo: His Life and Works by Donatello de Ninno (?)
I grabbed this book because I owned it and because I've gotten into the new good habit of looking at these browseable books while I'm watching a baseball game instead of leafing through a magazine or trying to get into something of my denser, deeper reading between pitches.

This book, apparently dating from the 1960s (it's not dated inside, but Amazon or its users says 1969), so who am I to argue? It looks to be a companion to a museum exhibit or two. It contains a brief (30-40 pages of text?) biographical sketch of Michelangelo and images of his work. It explores his movement in Renaissance Italy and the trends in his work. Interesting stuff, particularly since I was not that familiar with his time period or whatnot.

Coupled with my other recent read of Renaissance Italy (John Hawkwood: An English Mercenary in Fourteenth-Century Italy), I'm getting more familiar with this pivotal period in history and whatnot. Interesting bonus factoid/intersection: Less than 100 years after Hawkwood was chief of Florentine defenses, Michelangelo took at turn at the walls, literally, as he was the Governor General of fortifications and lent himself to constructing the walls and whatnot.

Interesting, and something one can browse during a televised baseball game. Culture and Cardinals baseball are going to be the hallmarks of my summer.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:40 PM   0 comments

 
Canine Eugenics: The Positive Case
An anonymous commenter proffers an informed argument that pitbulls and their owners are genetically defective and should be euthanized in a comment to this three year-old post.

You meet the nicest people as the result of Google search results, don't you?


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:30 PM   0 comments

 
Revision
The St. Louis Cardinals' ninth inning pitcher, commonly called the closer, bears the name Isringhausen and the nickname "Izzy."

I so move that the nickname be revised hereby to "Izzy Or Izzn'ty."

Thank you, that is all.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:11 AM   1 comments

 
Brian's Hidden Truths, Part I
Once, when I was young, a young lady to whom I was rather attracted told me I looked sinister. I took it as a compliment.

Explains a bit about how well I got on with the young ladies.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:46 AM   2 comments

 
More Supporting Evidence
Another blog supports the thesis from my Suburban Journals column from yesterday: Some Things Are Still Cheap:

Once in a while at work I am taken aback at how cheap some things are. I find myself on occasion wondering how a certain item could be made in China, shipped over here, marked up, then marked up by me and still cost what is a relative pittance.

I have always been amazed at how cheaply you could eat if you needed to. I am not talking about USDA prime cuts here. If you were down and totally out and needed to resort to cheap food just to sustain, you can get by on just a few bucks a day. Mac and cheese is .59. A loaf of bread is still under a buck. Fruit and veggies are still relatively cheap compared to other foods.

(Link seen on Instapundit.)


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

 
Because We Can Dictate Citizens Behaviour, We Must
The St. Louis County Council has voted along party lines to continue to compel residents in unincorporated areas to use a designated trash hauler with a new designated minimum level of service (once a week recycling pickup now mandatory). A councilman wanted to repeal the compulsion, but wiser totalitarians prevailed:

The St. Louis County Council on Tuesday rejected a measure to scrap a controversial plan to divide unincorporated areas into trash collection districts that would each be served by one waste hauler.

The vote at the council's regular meeting followed two hours of fervent public comments at a special hearing Tuesday afternoon. In their arguments before the council, numerous county residents raised such diverse points as the need to preserve the free market economy and worries about the durability of asphalt.

The bill, proposed by Councilman John Campisi, R-south St. Louis County, would have removed the county's authority to establish the trash districts. The contract for waste hauling in each district is to be awarded to the lowest bidder.

Campisi said that the districts were unpopular with his constituents and that he feared they would put small haulers out of business.

His bill failed 4-3 on a party line vote, with Democratic council members Kathleen Burkett, Hazel Erby, Barbara Fraser and Mike O'Mara voting against it and Republicans Greg Quinn and Colleen Wasinger joining Campisi in support of it.

You know, it used to be government made a set of commandments you shouldn't break as laws. The thou shalt nots: Don't murder anyone, don't collect piles of disease- and rodent-bearing refuse on your property.

Then it became a bunch of laws designed to keep people out of circumstances where the citizens could possibly commit a thou shalt not: Thou shalt not have guns, thou shalt have weekly garbage pick up.

Now, it's gone beyond that, removing even more choice by limiting the citizens' behavior to well-conceived courses designated by the governments. The thou shalts: Thou shalt use Waste Management for your weekly mandatory garbage pickups and your weekly mandatory recycling garbage pickups. Thou shalt paint your house only in colors approved by the historical preservation committee. And so on.

Where does it end? It should have ended with the thou shalt nots; now, there's no principle preventing the city and county councils from mandating any behavior for the good of the municipality.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:10 AM   0 comments

 
Turtles Poached, Anthropomorphized
The headline is "Turtle-napper pleads pleads guilty", but the story indicates the animals were merely poached:

The third of three men charged in a illegal turtle-napping scheme pleaded guilty in St. Louis today to a federal felony charge.

Bobby Wayne Pyburn, 20, admitted that he and Erich Wayne Higgins, 33, had set up nets and illegally trapped dozens of turtles late last summer in Missouri's bootheel and sold them to Kenneth Brandon Reese, 26, in Arkansas. All of the men are from Lake City, Ark., the U.S. Attorney's office said.

What's the difference?

-Napping tends to refer to either the illegal capture of people or, less formally, pets. However, by applying it to wild animals instead of the more precise term for the crime that already exists, the journalist and writer are elevating the wild turtles to the same legal status as humans or human possessions.

Think I'm making too much of this? Well, try this analogy on for size. Poaching:-Napping::Hunting::Murdering.

In both cases, the gerund for an act involving wildlife is replaced with a legal term dealing with crimes against men to elevate your outrage at the lesser charge by making it sound like violence against man.

Orwell would be proud.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:59 AM   2 comments

 
Book Report: The Top 10 of Everything 2008 by Russell Ash (2007)
I received this book as a Christmas gift. It provided a couple hours of browsing while watching baseball, as it's that sort of book: a number of Top 10 lists about various and sundry subject grouped into categories like music and sports and leisure. Definitely a coffeetable/browsing sort of book, as there's not much text besides the lists, the sources, and the occasional tidbit.

The first chapters on science and nature didn't really hook me, as I really have little interest in the top animals by size or the most common or uncommon elements. Once we moved into to the entertainment sections, though, I could get through more of them in a sitting.

Probably not worth the amount it's going for on Amazon, but it was a gift. If you're looking for lists, you're probably better off with The Book of Lists series, which offers more interesting lists with better commentary/detail on the list items.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:55 AM   0 comments

 
Also Ran
Noggle on driveways today, but it still pales compared to the achievements of others.


- posted by Brian J. @ 5:57 AM   2 comments

 
The Horse Pushing The Cart
I think the St. Louis Post-Dispatch got things in the wrong order here when it describes a citizen expressing his views to his leaders:

Ignoring lobbying from a major Republican campaign donor, the House voted overwhelmingly Monday to grant the largest tax break ever in Missouri to a Canadian firm.

With little debate, legislators approved a package aimed at luring Montreal-based Bombardier Aerospace to build a $375 million plant near Kansas City International Airport.

The bipartisan vote was 125-16. The bill now moves to the Senate.

Bombardier could draw up to $40 million a year for 22 years, as could other "mega-projects" that invest at least $300 million and employ 1,000 people at above-average wages.

Critics, led by multimillionaire Rex Sinquefield of St. Louis, have questioned whether the state would get its money back. His free-market think tank, the Show-Me Institute, recommends the state give tax breaks to everyone instead of picking projects to promote.

The paper uses lobbying as a negatively laden code word these days which means "sought government attention." The fact that he often gives to Republicans is also a code that he's a fat cat. In short, the Post-Dispatch tries to marginalize the person's views, which are that the state shouldn't engage in crony capitalism and give breaks to its friends or to projects its legislators like.

A good principle, but not one to even consider when it comes from a wealthy Republican lobbyist.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:47 AM   0 comments

 
The Sun Never Sets On The Taxation Empire
A tax scheduled to end? Stop!

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and two local law enforcement officials want telephone users to help pay for police, firefighters and paramedics through their phone bills.

Barrett, Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and Police Chief Edward Flynn are asking Gov. Jim Doyle and the Legislature to give municipalities control over the 911 telephone surcharge that is supposed to expire Nov. 30. They're hoping to add that provision to the budget-repair bill now under consideration.

Even better, the mayor wants to expand the tax:

The surcharge on cellular telephone users was created in 2005 to cover the costs of technology to pinpoint the locations of cell phones during calls to the 911 emergency number. Montgomery said that technology has saved at least 15 lives statewide.

The fee started at 83 cents a month, rose to 92 cents in 2006 and then dropped this year to 43 cents.

But before the fee expires, Barrett wants lawmakers to authorize municipal governments to retain the surcharge and expand it to cover all telephones, including land lines provided by both telephone and cable companies. Milwaukee would be able to boost its charge to a maximum of $1 a month in 2009 and $1.50 a month in future years. [Emphasis added]

In the sidebar, the mayor as quoted as saying, "Gun crime is expensive, and fighting crime is expensive." Gee, mayor, how about some prioritization? Pick either gun crime or fighting crime then, instead of making taxpayers of your (formerly) fair city pay for everything you can dream of in your power-mad dreams?


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:43 PM   0 comments

 
Rah! Rah! Go, Crony Capitalists!
The piece in bizjournals.com is entitled Yeah, it's tax deadline, but government isn't all bad, but I think I've summed up the point with my headline. Author asserts:

Sorry to disappoint all you tax-and-spend bashers out there. This won't be another article bemoaning profligate government spending and the ill effects of our tax system on American businesses, jobs, consumers and bank accounts.

As worthy a cause as that is, it's really too easy - shooting the proverbial fish in a barrel. I need a more challenging task.

How about all the benefits our government bestows on us when it spends all that tax money?

Yeah, that's the ticket - science fiction.

Let's see.

Wait. Give me a minute. I'll think of something.

Now, I've got it!

Technology.

We live in a society and economy that requires constant technological advances. Whatever your views on government, one is forced to admit the fact that government is responsible for funding basic research.

Well, the author certainly killed a number of words in his minimum with that transition, didn't he?

But from then on, it's all about how government buys us Tang by taking from my poor elderly one-eyed neighbor and giving to universities sitting on fat endowments and defense companies awash in government contracts.

Spare me the huzzahs.


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:00 PM   0 comments

 
Book Report: Strange But True: Mysterious and Bizarre People by Thomas Slemen (1998)
I hoped the book would be a good idea book for historical essays. However, the "But True" part was overstated. Maybe it would be a good book for fiction, particularly science fiction and fantasy, ideas instead.

I guess I should have guessed by page 43, in a piece about Springheeled Jack, where the sentence "But one theory that does fit the facts is the alien hypothesis." appears. Prior to that, we've got some interesting historical anecdotes which might provide fodder for historical research and some "Hmmmmm" essays, but this piece on the English folklore tips the author's hand: he's ready to accept the Fortean and the Fate magazinean as "true".

Well, that's not what I was looking for in this book. Don't get me wrong; I've read many of the anthologies of the mysteries of the unexplained (Reader's Digest, of course), but I was hoping for something more, um, proveable from this book. Not (from p311-312, in the chapter "The Green Children" which doesn't provide much more data than the Reader's Digest book and lacks the black and white reimaginative photo) "The only credible explanations seem to point to extraterrestrial life or a parallel world." Not (from p370, the chapter "Doppelgangers", which comes after the chapter "Vampires" and the chapter about the intelligent life on the moon) "Until scientists can open their minds to the reality of the doppelganger, societies will continue to live in fear of this phenomenon."

Some of the things prove interesting food for thought and speculation (Was Edgar Allan Poe a murderer? Who was Prester John? What about that song by Reszo Seress?), but ultimately I was a tad disappointed that the material skewed speculative fiction instead of speculative historical fact.

I don't know how much more I can explain that. I did, however, read the book. Whether fiction comes of it or not remains to be seen.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:51 PM   0 comments

 
Too Far Along The Line For What's Right
The new Missouri license plates contain a grammatical error. Who cares? Well, some of us, but not the officials in charge.

The problem?

The plate, featuring a bluebird perched on a hawthorn branch, was the landslide winner of an Internet vote last year among three plate designs. During the competition, the words "Show Me State" ran vertically along the right side of the plate. Vertically, there was no graceful spot for the hyphen.

Later, the state found that the vertical placement caused production problems, so the slogan was moved to a horizontal position near the top of the plate.

Because the words "show" and "me" form a compound modifier for the word "state," they should be joined by a hyphen.

Official response:

David Griffith, spokesman at the Missouri Department of Revenue, said the state doesn't consider the lack of punctuation a fatal flaw and won't be replacing the plates. "We're too far down the line," he said.

Makes me glad my children won't participate in an educational system run by a government where mistakes too far down the line won't be corrected.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:28 PM   2 comments

 
A Ballot Initiative Robin Carnahan Will Approve
Compulsion for corporations? Sign her up!

Missouri residents could get the chance to force some of the state's biggest utilities to sell more renewable energy.

A group called Renew Missouri is trying to collect 150,000 signatures to get a November ballot initiative that would ask voters to decide whether the state should have a mandatory renewable energy standard.

Hey, we can force utilities to enact policies to make electricity more expensive! What's not to like?

Don't we have a legislature to handle these things?

Since 2000, legislative attempts to establish mandatory renewable energy standards have faced utility opposition and failed.

That's a nice sentence, Brody. I notice you've stopped stuttering.

It would appear that reality diverges from this journalist's wildest yearnings:

Last year, however, Gov. Matt Blunt signed into law the Green Power Initiative, which creates a goal of 4 percent renewable energy use in 2012 and 11 percent by 2020.

Several utilities also offer their customers the chance to buy renewable energy. For example, AmerenUE sells renewable energy through its Pure Power program, which was rolled out last year.

But let's cut to the compulsion, shall we?

But supporters of a ballot initiative say voluntary goals and programs are not enough.

It never is. Not until the ruled live in hovels and are no longer a threat to their betters, who are the animals who will be more equal (that is, not subject to rolling brownouts) than others.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:22 PM   0 comments

 
Good Book Hunting: April 19, 2008
After yesterday's book fairs, today we stuck to yard sales around Old Trees. It was a grey, rainy day, so many of the yard sales in the paper were rolled up before we arrived. Others had wet stock, which sucks for books. However, one in the area had an indoor room with books going at 2 bags for $1. It was an enclosed porch, not laid out for good book browsing, and one fat guy spent twenty minutes in the middle of the spread blocking everyone else's access while he filled two dry cleaner sized bags so he could get just the books he wanted for only $1. One other fellow had his bag break while he waited, so he stomped out in disgust.

We waited patiently, though, even dissuading the toddler from taking a piece of trim with exposed nails to the prominent, semi-bared backside of the fat man. We managed patience, though, for a handful of books we stuffed into a bag. They charged us a whole dollar for it, too, but we just wanted to get out of the sale without inflicting casualties.

Sometimes, an experience like that sets a poor tone for the day, and this seemed to prove true today. Not a lot of fun to be had, but some books to acquire. These:
Click for full size

• Three Nights in August, a recent book about the St. Louis Cardinals. Did I mention I'm watching baseball this year?
  
  
• Inventing for Fun and Profit. Hey, I have a couple ideas I might want to patent one of these days. Why not get inspired?
  
  
• The Mousetrap and Other Plays by Agatha Christie.
  
  
• The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler. Sure, I already have it, but I'm programmed to buy Chandlers that I find in the wild. Plus, I haven't read it for maybe almost a decade now. I should read it again.
  
  
• A collection of mysteries. I bought it because it was a Walter J. Black edition. I'm pathetic.
  
  
• Modern Electronics. Given the typeface, perhaps I can use it to learn about TRS 80s and calculators powered by nine volt batteries.
  
  
• Making Decisions Ethically. I've tried everything else. Maybe this methodology will lead to wealth and fame.
  
  
• Mysteries of Mankind; since it's a National Geographic book, maybe it will be a more serious idea book than a Reader's Digest book with a similar name.
  
  
• Cabinetmaking, an honest-to-goodness textbook about making cabinets. Because I was thinking of making one for my bathroom. I'll probably only put in shelves, but in case I get really serious, I have this.

Additionally, I bought a Dwight Yoakum CD and an Andrews Sisters audiocassette. The boy and the wife got a couple things, too, but I retain my title of champion accumulator.

Total books acquired: 9. Total spent: Under $10.
- posted by Brian J. @ 3:18 PM   0 comments

 
Good Book Hunting: April 18, 2008
Uh oh, it's the annual Kirkwood Friends of the Library Book Fair. I hit the Automated Teller Machine Machine, entered my Personal Identification Number Number, and got out a pile of money, and oddly enough, it was just enough:


Click for full size That's $85 in books and $8 in audiocassettes; I bought most of the books, and my beautiful wife bought most of the cassettes, although our son apparently picked up two cassettes of his own while mommy was browsing and we bought them instead of wasting the time to put them back.

I got:

• A handout from a program in 1984 where local citizens put on a walking tour of their homes on a street that the county wanted to widen. 24 years later, the road is still only two lanes, but the county is chomping at the bit still to improve it. Recently, stop lights appeared on a cross street and last year, paint markings appeared showing where the current right of way extends so they can chop turn lanes out of people's yards. Remember, when you fight city hall, you're only fighting a holding action. Bureaugnarok is still coming.
  
  
• Democracy in America by de Tocqueville. Because I want to read about what that was.
  
  
• A couple of literary magazines from the late 1970s with Lyn Lifshin poetry in them. Because my wife collects them, so must I.
  
  
• An autobiography of Bob Gibson, because I'm watching a lot of baseball this year. And because they lowered the mound because of him.
  
  
• A book by the recently deceased Clarissa Start, a resident of this municipality for a while and the author of its official history and a former columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. This will be the third book of hers I've read and the second I own.
  
  
• St. Louis 365, a trivia bit about St. Louis.
  
  
• Inter Ice Age 4, a science fiction bit. A collection, I think.
  
  
• Myst: The Book of Ti'ana, because I'm suddenly into books from video games, I think (see below). The pages are special paper with a background design in them. I think that will annoy me when I start reading it.
  
  
• Cell, the latest novel from Stephen King.
  
  
• 3001: The Final Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke. Completes my collection. For some reason, I left behind the hardback copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey. What kind of collector am I?
  
  
• Lipstick Jungle by the woman who wrote Sex and the City. To get in touch with my feminine and kinda slutty side.
  
  
• Lovelock, an Orson Scott Card title. Because the other bloggers say he's good, I've accumulated a couple. However, I haven't delved into one yet because some bloggers encourage you to read Greg Bear, too.
  
  
• Alfred Hitchcock Presents a Month of Mystery because sometimes these collections hit the spot.
  
  
• The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy. Earlier this year, I picked up a book club edition of this title; this is a fourth printing (not book club). I'm getting closer to the first printing, werd.
  
  
• Children of the End by Orson Scott Card. See above.
  
  
• Why Orwell Matters. I would have bought it on the title alone, but it's Christopher Hitchens. Back in the last decade, I read No One Left To Lie To and I think it was okay, but this decade and the Internet have been good to him and my appreciation of him.
  
  
• Burnt Sienna by David Morrell. Bloody heck, aren't two books (First Blood and Rambo: First Blood Part II) enough from this author this year? Maybe not.
  
  
• The Dark Tower V-VII by Stephen King. I read the first three when they came out. I guess I'll have to pick up IV somewhere and probably re-read the first three if I'm to make a real run of it. However, I don't think I really liked how III went, but it's been a long time.
  
  
• Titan AE; I thought the book Forge of God reminded me of the trailer for the movie. I'll have to see how the book compares to the trailer, since I've not seen the movie. I'll probably like it better than Forge of God regardless.
  
  
• Cyrus the Great, a mass market paperback history of Cyrus of Persia. It might make me a better Civ IV player.
  
  
• The Age of Reason, a novel by Sartre. The book fair also had a copy of Nausea; the former is hard enough to find, and I'd never seen the former. But I own it now! It should brighten a day for me.
  
  
• Why Things Are by Joel A. I used to read his bits on WashingtonPost.com.
  
  
• A Catskill Eagle by Robert B. Parker. A first printing; I'll have to see what my existing printing is.
  
  
• The Mahdi by A.J. Quinnell. I own Man on Fire (because it's the novel upon which a movie is based, natch). In case I like it, I now own another book by the author. As you can see, at the Kirkwood Book Fair, it doesn't take much of a rationalization for me to buy a book.
  
  
• The Case for Mars, a book arguing for space exploration and colonization. What's not to like about that?
  
  
• One More Time, another collection by Mike Royko.
  
  
• Love, Poverty, and War, another Hitchens title that promises to cover three of my favorite things. Hopefully, there's a sequel about guns, famine, and software quality assurance.
  
  
• Pearl by Tabitha King. I don't remember seeing a book by Mrs. King before.
  
  
• Nobody Safe by Richard Steinberg. The title looked cool, the inside of the flap looked cool. How rarely I buy books based simply on that.
  
  
• David Copperfield by Charles Dickens in the Reader's Digest edition (unabridged). Whereas if you order it from Reader's Digest, it's $30 by the time it's all said and done. Here at the Kirkwood Book Fair, random pricing for these editions was in effect. This book was $4.50 (probably because it's so thick) and the other titles in the series were $2-3.
  
  
• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories by Washington Irving in Reader's Digest edition.
  
  
• The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens in the Reader's Digest edition.
  
  
• Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne in the Reader's Digest edition.

Whew, that's quite a bit. Fortunately, our circumstances allowed us to go on a Friday. We spent a bit more than an hour before our toddler alarm went off, but that's about as many books as I could carry anyhow.

Fortunately, though, there was a smaller book fair that evening at church, so I got a chance to spend the last of the hundred bucks I'd gotten at the ATM machine after entering my PIN number and whatnot. A smaller haul, to be sure:
Click for full size I got:

• Rebel Moon, another science fiction novel based on a video game.
  
  
• Barbarians at the Gate about the takeover of RJR Nabisco in 1988.
  
  
• Family Rooms, Dens, & Studios, a Sunset book. I think I might already have this one, actually, but its list price was fifty cents, so I had to get it just in case.

The boys made out like bandits, though.

Fortunately, the ATM machine was still there on Saturday morning for our weekend (proper) book hunting.

Total books acquired: 37 (and 2 literary magazines). Total spent (for family): $103.

Even more fortunately, these dangerous book fairs only come once a year, and only 3 or 4 are that tempting.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:33 PM   2 comments

 
Book Report: Case of the Horrified Heirs by Erle Stanley Gardner (1964)
This is a short Perry Mason book (171 pages, but the short chapters make it seem like less). When a woman is framed for carrying narcotics, Perry Mason proves her innocence, but it turns out that the charge was part of a greater plot to discredit her as a witness for a will of a wealthy woman. When the wealthy woman's recent bouts of stomach illness prove to be arsenic exposure, Mason semi-investigates but has to find out the real story when his client is charged with her murder.

It's a Perry Mason novel. Quick, pulpy, and not dated much. I cannot get enough of them, and someday I hope to own the complete set in Walter Black editions.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:30 PM   0 comments

 
Book Report: The Running Man by Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachmann) (1982)
I have the movie tie-in edition for this book, so it has Arnold Schwarzenegger on the cover and movie photos inside. The novel, however, is not the movie. As I do a number of these books upon which movies were based, I'm discovering vast differences in the books, and at least between this one and First Blood, I'm ultimately disappointed in the book.

In this book, Richards is married and has a kid and he goes to the network to participate in the Running Man game show to get some money to support them. Instead of a confined area with comic book villains, the contestant tries to hide out in the open United States with law enforcement trying to find him and citizens looking for him for bonus money. I don't think that would have been good movie material, so I can see why the movie changed it a bit.

Still, I enjoyed it a bit until we came to a sudden absurdity and the final climax which was ultimately dissatisfying. We end up with the offer from the movie, where Richards can be one of the network people, but ultimately he exacts suicidal revenge upon the network.

It's definitely not a Stephen King book, so you should expect a different writing style. It's not bad for a pulp paperback, but a little unsatisfying, as I mentioned. I liked the movie better. Of course, I was kind of hot for Maria Conchita Alonso, so that last goes without saying.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:20 PM   0 comments

 
Book Report: Man O' War by William Shatner (1996)
Well, this book certainly wasn't steeped in the hard science fiction that is hard to read, nor the bureacratic science caper that would thrill readers of Bob Woodward's books about the presidencies, although it does feint in this direction by making the main character an ambassador and a diplomatic negotiator who's made governor of Mars in a tough spot. After establishing the colonies off world, Earth has become dependent upon them for food and for resources. A strike and violence threaten that, so as punishment for siding against a career politician in adjucating a corpor/national plot to annex part of Australia, the negotiator finds himself sent to Mars not only to solve the problem, but to find out who wants him dead enough to invade his home and kill some of his employees and his dog.

It could have been boring, I suppose, but it's space opera. The bureaucrat picks up a gun and investigates, gets into scrapes on the fourth planet, and ultimately comes to a successful resolution. The ending is very abrupt, though, and it's clear that either Shat or his ghostwriter had watched Total Recall, but it's a fun enough book with semi-Libertarian demirants against The Man.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 3:04 PM   0 comments

 
Book Report: The Dead Zone by Stephen King (1979)
Well, that's interesting. Given how this book ends, they must have done a Morrell on the story to get a whole television series out of it.

If you're not aware of the plot, it involves a psychic from Maine and a politician from New Hampshire who might become President with disastrous results. Actually, it's more of a character study of the psychic from Maine who awakens from a coma with the ability to recognize the future and the present and the past from a touch of a person or an object. He solves a serial killer case and then encounters the politician, but given that the main story bit comes late into the book, the ending ultimately seems a little rushed and the story goes from the first person limited omniscient narrator to a series of letters and then back to action. That cheapens it a bit.

The book runs only 350 or so pages, which is very short compared to King's later work. Later works which sometimes seem to drag, but are not often rushed.

The book also contains a number of noteworth allusions: One to Ed McBain's 87th Precinct stories, where Cotton Hawes has his white streak of hair from a knifing; one to the novel Carrie, written by King himself; and unfortunately, one to the Dirty Harry movies, but Harry's gun is misidentified as a .357 Magnum. Very contemporaneous to the time in which the book appeared.

A pretty good book in King's line.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:22 PM   0 comments

 
Tool Warz
Tam K takes on the Stanley vs. Craftsman war, or something equally superfluous.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:16 PM   2 comments

 
The Navy's Maid Service
A local Navy serviceperson dies, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is happy to run with the mother's belief that the Navy caused her death through negligence. The conspiracy theory is a bit stunning in its details, including the charge that the servicewoman was ordered to clean up a bathroom instead of leaving it for the military's maid service:

Her daughter returned to find sewage backed up in her bathroom at her barracks. The barracks chief provided the sailor and her roommate rubber gloves, scrub brushes and detergent and ordered them to clean it up.

Both became ill, but the roommate recovered.

. . .

"Whoever told those girls to clean up that bathroom, they have other people to clean those things up," she said.

The woman's death is sad, the grieving understandable. However, thinking the military is negligent for having a servicewoman clean a restroom (raw sewage? You mean the toilets backed up? Heaven forfend someone less than a hazmat team tackle that!) and agitating (for a settlement? An apology from George W. Bush? A chance to be the Cindy Sheehan of sewage?) is not understandable nor does it elicit sympathies of any but a few with an existent anti-military doctrinaires.

Like the editorial staff of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who runs these questioning stories relatively regularly.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:45 AM   0 comments

 
Man Hits Tree With Car; Two Women's Cars Hit Trees with Women Inside
Check out this reportage of three accidents in Missouri in the last day:

The man is active voice and is responsible for his accident:

Just after it started raining Wednesday evening, Jeremy D. Evans, 34, of Imperial, ran his 1986 Ford F150 pickup truck into a tree.

The first woman, though, was just unfortunate that her big mean vehicle acted of its own accord:

Allen's car left the road and hit a tree, police said.

Finally, a second woman fell prey to wandering car syndrome:

The car went off the left side of the road, hit a concrete median and came to rest on the left shoulder of the highway, police said.

Also, note that the women were wearing seatbelts, which led to "moderate" injuries; the man, not wearing a seatbelt, also had "moderate" injuries, as though the consequences of ignoring the government diktat had no affect at all.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:53 PM   0 comments

 
The Gerber Reaper
There's just something slightly macabre about the little Gerber baby offering payouts if some disaster should befall your baby.


- posted by Brian J. @ 7:11 PM   0 comments

 
Heartless Missouri Lawmakers Keep the Unborn out of College
I'm going to get ahead of the curve and express outrage about the Missouri legislature's attack not only on unpapered pioneers, but also its bias against unborn children identified in this story:

The Senate legislation generally doesn't go quite as far. For example, illegal immigrants who are already born could go to college if they don't get in-state tuition.

Why can't the unborn go to college with the in-state rate? Or is there an in-utero rate that's cheaper?


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:58 PM   0 comments

 
The Animal Effect
The Animal Effect, wherein an animal in jeopardy in a movie is more poignant than human carnage (a la Independence Day, where the loudest cheer erupted in the theater when the dog survived the destruction of LA whereas presumably hundreds of thousands of humans, including minor characters, did not), strikes the news:

Zookeepers were called in to help when police discovered a man-sized alligator in the basement of a Carthage home.

Police found the American alligator while responding to a call about an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound Monday.

The remainder of the story discusses the efforts to rescue the animal. No word on the accident victim or attempted suicide.

The man is just the man, but the alligator is an unspoiled child of Mother Gaia.

I only wish I were kidding, but I think it does fit into the current inversion of values, where all things of nature are more valuable than damn, dirty humans.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:52 PM   0 comments

 
It Could Have Happened To Any Of Us
Prosecutors recognize that any of us who experience frustration with home improvement project are only a couple steps and some intelligence away from this:

Prosecutors are not expected to file charges against a Missouri man who fatally shot his wife while he was trying to install a satellite TV system in their home.

Henry County investigators ruled that Patsy Long's March 22 death was accidental. Her husband, Ronald Long, fired his .22 caliber pistol from inside their Deepwater home after he couldn't punch a hole through the exterior wall using other means.

On one hand, I am being a little snarky because this seems so foolish as to be negligent, but on the other, I am happy to see prosecutors who can see an accident that doesn't want responsibility and a couple percentage points on their conviction rate.

I do think a gun safety course might be in order, though, ainna?


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

 
Book Report: Mad As Hell by Mike Lupica (1996)
I love Mike Lupica's fiction, and this is the first of his nonfiction I've tried. Its subtitle is "How Sports Got Away From The Fans And How We Get It Back". I read it over the course of two nights, and each was different.

I read the most of the book on the first night, and I almost felt like I'd been plagiarizing Lupica's points about sports since he wrote it in the middle 1990s, and I hadn't cared enough to make points until after 1999 or so. Still, he lays into the owners who don't understand the sport, city "leaders" that give rich owners what ever they want just to attract/retain a sports team for the prestige it gives the city and themselves, the players who are out for themselves at the expense of the sport and the fans, and the fawning media that offers little but rah-rah coverage and machismo posturing from its jock-wannabes sports reporters. So I was really into the book.

On the second night, I got further into it and into some solutions. First, though, we have the problem of all the white people in attendance at the sporting events when most of the athletes are black and Hispanic. All righty then, I thought we'd covered that with the expensive nature of sporting events, but Lupica needed another chapter, so he introduces with a Bryant Gumbel bit about showboating as cultural and then goes into some sort of racial overtones of his own. And then he offers as a megasolution a consumers' watchdog group for sports fans headed by Ralph Nader (this, remember, is when he was a semi-obscure consumer advocate before he became a semi-obscure presidential election spoiler).

Ultimately, the book is a bit repetitive at the end and really seems to want some sort of macro-level top-down solutions to the crisis in sporting, but ultimately I think that the problems inherent in the sports world are reflections of the diminishing class in the country at large. So having a special commission or board of fan poobahs along for rules changes or whatnot would really only give a set of corruptive influence to another set out people who would ultimately lack class and would act in their interest as board members instead of fans.

So my enjoyment of the book is not unqualified, but since I agree with many of the viewpoints, I appreciated seeing them represented in print by someone I enjoy reading.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:44 PM   0 comments

 
Get Offa My Lawn, Etc.

You Belong in 1952

You're fun loving, romantic, and more than a little innocent. See you at the drive in!

What Year Do You Belong In?

Older than Dustbury. Older than his source.

I'm probably just lucky the quiz only included questions about 20th century pop stuff, or I might have been an ancient.


- posted by Brian J. @ 11:30 AM   1 comments

 
Holding a Line
A line, any line. The St. Louis County municipality of Clayton refuses to give something to a land developer:

Clayton turned down a request last fall by the developer to include the land into an adjacent tax increment financing district.

Of course, my inner cynic (inner cynic? It's showing all the freaking time) says this is only because the Soviet of Clayton has a better 10-year plan for a different TIF district gift to a different developer that includes the other land, but maybe, just maybe, Clayton is holding a line.


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

 
Schools Put It All On Black 31
A Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel watchdog report finds that some school districts have been funding pension plans and whatnot with risky investment schemes:

Five Wisconsin public school districts have made an investment gamble that could force taxpayers to finance multimillion-dollar bailouts.

The districts - Kenosha, Kimberly Area, Waukesha, West Allis-West Milwaukee and Whitefish Bay - have piled up debt in deals to help fund health insurance and other non-pension benefits for retirees. But as global financial markets have seized up, the districts have been told the value of their investments has fallen so much that they might need to come up with a combined $53 million to avoid default.

Ah, what the heck, it's funny money anyway, right? The taxpayers always have more.


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:07 PM   0 comments

 
Book Report: Journey to Cubeville by Scott Adams (1998)
In the midst of reading a Jane Austen novel triggering an Anna Karenina moment, I read this collection of Dilbert cartoons from a decade ago. Dilbert's comedy level is pretty good and pretty consistent, and fortunately the corporate world has continued to live down to the comic strip's estimation.

What more insight into it do you want? It's Dilbert, for crying out loud.

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 9:07 PM   0 comments

 
Thank God He's Not A Country Boy
Thank God He's Not A Country Boy This weekend, someone posted a bit about how Barack Obama should take note lessons from Hank William, Jr.,'s "A Country Boy Can Survive" to court the rural vote. As someone who listens to Hank Williams, Jr., for pleasure, I'd have to point out that Barack Obama could not actually adhere to the philosophy the song encompasses. Let's do a line-by-line of the lyrics, shall we?

The preacher man says it's the end of time
For starters, this line indicates going to church, and many of the Democrat leaders only appear in church around election time. Some of the most faithful Democratics I know in the urbanati are active, enthusiastic atheists. So this line and its millenial, evangelical preacher man don't conform with many Democrat candidate leanings, much less Obama's--who has preacher man problems of his own, as those who dwell amongst the blogs know.

And the Mississippi River she's a goin' dry
A good environmental millenialism. Democrats already tap into the global warming/environmental disaster meme, but so does McCain (sadly). So Obama has nothing to learn here.

The interest is up and the stock market's down
Well, this economic malaise millenialism fits a Democrat theme, but it doesn't hold terribly true according to current metrics. The interest rates are way down, and the stock market is a bit behind, but not far off. The song was originally recorded in 1981, and the economic malaise was inherited from Carter (D) with the conditions. Put that sweater on and shiver in it.

And you only get mugged
If you go downtown
Now, we have a bit of a disconnect. The fear of crime and a strong law-and-order impulse are mostly Republican weighted issues. City cores and the urban rulers and voters trend Democratic, so some suburban types (such as me) see the hellholes in cities and think they're problems caused by Democratic policies until a Giuliani cleans them up. Banging a drum too loudly about how screwed up cities are might draw attention to how they got that way.

I live back in the woods, you see
A woman and the kids, and the dogs and me
A nuclear family. Sounds good. But who is it that mocks family values? Oh, yeah, the urbanati.

I got a shotgun, rifle, and a 4-wheel drive
Guns and a fuel-consuming sport utility vehicle (with dogs and kids, I'd picture a Chevy Blazer). Any urbanati Democrat candidate that espoused these would look foolish and somewhat hypocritical. Like Obama is doing now.

And a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive
I don't think this is what the urbanati care about. All they care is that the rural folks fail to outvote their urban voters, who will probably go Democrat anyway.

I can plow a field all day long
I can catch catfish from dusk till dawn
As Kerry and other urban Democrat candidates know, regaling voters with stories of harvesting grain or being lifelong hunters doesn't work, since you're likely to make a gaffe or slip into cornpone accents.

We make our own whiskey and our own smoke too
Ain't too many things these ole boys can't do

Whereas Obama might appreciate a good homemade smoke, Democrats aren't terribly interested in unregulated craft manufacturing. None of our government officials are, really; if there's a lobbying group that wants to keep upstarts out, the government leaders pass certification and licensing laws. Never mind that; what else are we talking about here? Ah, yes, smoking and drinking, the new anathemas to modern urbanati living, which must be banned in as many locations as possible. Which is "all" to some minds.

We grow good ole tomatoes and homemade wine
And a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive
The song is an anthem to self-reliance. Growing your own food and making your own booze? But Democrat initiatives don't expect that much of constituents. No, instead, here, have some free money and free cheese. Vote for me, and next time it's more free money and maybe some chicken. Please don't spend that money on seeds, or we'll cut your benefit.

Because you can't stomp us out
And you can't make us run
'Cause we're them old boys raised on shotgun
Resilience and tenacity. Put some bombs bursting in air, and you've got "The Star-Spangled Banner".

We say grace and we say Ma'am
And if you ain't into that we don't give a damn

This is a libertarian impulse coupled with a traditional conservative respect for others and belief in God. Unfortunately, one does not get the sense that the Democrat party platform is about not giving a damn about other people's business. Sadly, neither is the Republican party's in many places. But I doubt Obama's "Change" involves not freaking out about how tall your neighbor's lawn is or whether Georgia allows this when Connecticut does not (What! Let's pass a Federal statute to make it the same everywhere according to the prevailing busybody taste!)

We came from the West Virginia coal mines
And the Rocky Mountains and the western skies
No, the Democrat frontrunners come from the cities and other urbanati enclaves in academic environments. Saying you're authentic or that you've worked for a living won't make it so, so let's not just drop a hard hat with a carbide lamp on you for a photo op, okay?

We can skin a buck; we can run a trot line
And a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive
Skinning Bambi? Catching fish? Hurting Mother Gaia's more important children? Okay, I'm adding urbanati hysterics for fun here, but a lot of urbanati want to limit hunting in myriad ways. I don't know Obama's voting record on these issues, but I'd guess they're either "Present" or not against the limitations.

I had a good friend in New York City
He never called me by my name, just hillbilly
That's actually probably in line with urbanati conversation, although "redneck" has replaced hillbilly as the appellation for choice for those not fortunate enough to live amid the concrete warrens of the like-minded.

My grandpa taught me how to live off the land
And his taught him to be a businessman
He used to send me pictures of the Broadway nights
And I'd send him some homemade wine
An exchange of the "service economy" versus people who actually make stuff for a living. A photo for a product. To the urbanati, that's a good exchange. Perhaps Obama has already tapped into this, offering style instead of substance.

But he was killed by a man with a switchblade knife For 43 dollars my friend lost his life
Again, the crime in the city. The Ed Koch years. Remember the 1970s and 1980s and the New York City of that era? Yeah, to urbanati of a certain age, living there amid the crime and the crumbling gives them credibility. Unfortunately, Obama's not that old. Banging the drum of street crime won't endear him to the urban vote.

I'd love to spit some beechnut into that dude's eyes
And shoot him with my old .45
Cause a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive
What, with a handgun? Citizens cannot be trusted with handguns. Just lock yourself behind a hollow core closet door and call 911. Then your survivors can lose a lawsuit because police do not have a duty to protect any individual.

Cause you can't stomp us out, and you can't make us run
'Cause we're them old boys raised on shotgun.
We say grace, and we say Ma'am
And if you ain't into that we don't give a damn.
We're from North California and south Alabam
And little towns all around this land
And we can skin a buck; we can run a trot line
And a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive

I don't think there's much in the song for Obama to embrace, authentically and sincerely. The Democratic Party encourages dependency, more than even the other party that encourages dependency upon its largess when in power. Strong libertarian messages coupled with a marked belief in traditional values won't sound right coming from Obama's mouth, not if he's also professing to be the fount of all change and goodness and impending utopia.

(Links courtesy of Outside the Beltway and .)

- posted by Brian J. @ 3:26 PM   0 comments

 
A Positive Spin on a Recession
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch front page headline on Sunday put a positive spin on any potential recession or economic slowing:



That is: A recession would have a positive impact on the obesity epidemic in America! I mean, if you're tightening your belt, you're losing weight, am I right?

Apparently, the Post-Dispatch thought it over and didn't want any positive spin on it at all, which is why the story is entitled As the economy slips, consumer face tough choices.

Still, a recession or, even better, a depression, would get Americans back down to sustenance level calories, which would no doubt prepare us for a post-Kyotoesque-treaty economy.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:10 PM   0 comments

 
Do The Math
8-3=5.
- posted by Brian J. @ 1:01 PM   0 comments

 
Good Book Hunting: April 5, 2008
So this weekend marked the first really dangerous book fair of the season: The St. John's United Church of Christ book fair. We went to this one last year, so I knew what to expect: I picked up a box right when I went through the door instead of pretending I was only going to buy one or two things and then picking up a box after I accumulated a dozen books.

In the end, I needed two boxes for my books, not including the books for the other residents here. The stacks:
Click for full size

To sum up my acquisitions:

• 19 volumes of the Time-Life Books series The Great Ages of Man. Okay, it's apparently 18 volumes (1 duplicate) from the (I know see) 21 volume set. Still, a nice primer on some history stuff. Good idea books, I hope. As I get older, I'm acquiring more and more of these sets so that I or my children will have them to kind of page through in a way you really can't with Wikipedia.
  
  
• A couple Dell Shannon mysteries. He wrote mysteries in the 1960s where the crimes are all fairly minor. They're police procedurals, and sort of pastoral police procedurals now.
  
  
• A couple of Mike Shayne paperbacks. Good, short pulp bits that I cut my teeth on when I was a lad.
  
  
• The April Robin Murders, a paperback co-written by Ed McBain?
  
  
• Take the Money and Die, a paperback mystery I bought simply because it was that close to the others I picked up. Seriously. Collateral collectage.
  
  
• No Witnesses by Ridley Pearson, a writer from the next suburb whose work I have yet to read. I own one of his books in Swedish, so it's nice to have something by him that I can read.
  
  
• A stack of gardening books because I've planted some things. Most of them are small, brochurish things from the 1940s and 1950s.
  
  
• Coping in the 80s because I want to see how I managed.
  
  
• Tantalizing Locked Room Mysteries.
• A biography of Robert Burns because I don't already have one.
  
  
• Dickens's Hard Times and Steinbeck's Cannery Row to pile onto my classical material.
  
  
• A couple of Rod McKuen books, Lonesome Cities and And to Each Season, so I can screw up the next childright from birth, too.
  
  
• On Flirtation, a psych book about flirting.
  
  
• A book by Bob Hope from the 1960s. You know, I've not read any book by him. He can't be worse than Sinbad or Judy Tenuta.
  
  
• The Giant Book of Insults because I have a long list of people to insult.
  
  
• Literary St. Louis: A Guide. Ironic, isn't it, that I'm actively catching up to William Gass (I hope) with one of his books?
  
  
• Godless by Ann Coulter. It's worth a buck, and she's not getting any portion of it.
  
  
• Gravity by Tess Gerritsen. At the checkout, my wife said she already owned a copy. However, she is not me. Now I own a copy and will read it, eventually.
  
  
• The World of George Orwell, a picture and sort of bio of Eric Blair. Because (say it with me), I didn't own one already.

I also got two videocassettes, National Lampoon's Class Reunion and Pink Floyd at Pompeii. They were $2.00 each; had I known that, I would not have gotten the first. Had I seen it before I bought it, I wouldn't have spent another dollar on it.

Total spent: $61.75. Total books for me: 48. Total for household: 61.

Looks like I'm going to have to forgo some heavy reading for a bit to clear some of the backlog.

And the Old Trees and Kirkwood library friends, not to mention the Carondolet Y book fair, are still to come this year.


- posted by Brian J. @ 12:21 PM   0 comments

 
In the Pecking Order, Citizen, It's Government > You
Here in the great county of St. Louis (no relation any more to the city of St. Louis, ha ha!), the county council has determined that you, citizen, must not only pay for weekly trash removal under penalty of a fine, but you must now also have weekly recycling pickup, too, whether you want it or not. Oh, yeah, you have to pay for it, too, which makes it yet another unfunded mandate from your elected representatives.

One of the good councilmen, John Campisi, is trying to get an exemption for citizens who don't generate that much. But one of the whiny government officials is afraid of what that would cost the government:

Garry Earls, the county's chief operating officer, said finding out who would be exempt would be an administrative nightmare. "Somebody would have to pay the cost" of such an effort, he said.

Companies that add a charge for recyclable pickups "are challenging customers to shop around for another hauler," Earls said. The bidding by hauling companies for the trash collection districts should drive down prices, he said.

Hah, hah! One, Earls is pointing out that it's okay for the government to force citizens to pick up a tab based on its whims, but the government paying for administration of its own intrusive powers, whoa, Chester!

Also, the fair COO fails to note that in many municipalities and garbage collection districts, your government does not let you choose a waste hauler and/or subsidizes a particular hauler. Because that would distract the reporter and the paper readers with facts, when it's more important he get a self-serving snarky remark in.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:10 AM   0 comments

 
Like Regular Citizens, But Better
Blanket immunity means cops in Missouri can brandish weapons in anger and not get charged for a felony.

This actually is a good intersection of bad laws with belligerent behavior of law enforcement, the two things that are working most quickly to sap the respect for the rule of law in this country.

Some people might point to rap music or movies, but I'll point to the ill-conceived institutional examples.


- posted by Brian J. @ 8:24 AM   0 comments

 
If the Headline Has A Question Mark, The Answer Is No
Funny how newspapers run stories that agree with their unmarked policy positions with headlines that assert truth, but stories that call into question their rah-rahing of government growth or crony capitalism merit question marks. Here's one in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about the new ballpark, Miller Park: Miller Park: Economic promises got it built. Has it paid?

If the experts are questioning or debating, the answer is not an untrammeled "Yes," is it? It just means some experts could find some metric that was encouraging.

Maybe Milwaukee needs a new, public-funded archery arena in the same neighborhood to really turn on the destination venue tap.


- posted by Brian J. @ 6:14 AM   0 comments

 
Crestwood Mall To Become Land Boondoggle To Benefit Private Developer At Expense Of Taxpayer Money
Well, the actual headline is Crestwood mall to become open-air lifestyle center, but it looks to be another case of a mechanism to support the risk-free lifestyle large land developers enjoy in the 21st century:

Crestwood Plaza will be at least partially demolished and transformed into an open air lifestyle center, according to one of its new owners, Chicago-based Centrum Properties.

Centrum along with New York investment advisor Angelo, Gordon & Co purchased the 48-acre mall from Australian shopping-mall giant Westfield Group for an undisclosed sum. Westfield bought the mall, built in 1957, for $106.4 million in 1998.

The deal, reported first in the Post-Dispatch by columnist Joe Whittington two months ago, closed on March 26. The mall has been temporarily renamed Crestwood Court.

"It had not been aggressively managed for years," said Sol Barket, Centrum's managing partner of retail development. "We saw it as a great opportunity to create an open air lifestyle center."

A great opportunity to soak the taxpayers of another state, you mean.

"We will also require subsidies from the city of Crestwood," he said.

Of course.

The sale came as the mall's future was hanging in doubt. A number of retailers have pulled out of the center, including anchor retailer Dillard's Inc., which closed in October. Crestwood has two other anchors, Sears and Macy's.

You know why the future was in the balance and why traffic dwindled and whatnot? Partly, because businesses couldn't prognosticate what sort of cockamamie plan the city would come up with and get suckered into. Well, there it is.

Money paid to developers, or money not collected from developers. Meanwhile, watch your ballots for incremental tax increases to fund basic services that will suffer from a mysterious problem in lack of funds from existing sources.


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:07 PM   0 comments

 
Headlines, Juxtaposed
I'm not saying there's a causal relationship here, but:

Insurer Anthem to no longer pay for medical errors

Study: Most doctors back national health insurance


- posted by Brian J. @ 2:03 PM   0 comments

 
Forgetting For Whom You Play
Blues defenseman Jay McKee dissembles about the latest Blues loss:

"I feel bad for the teams that (Nashville) is battling with," McKee said. "Those teams were counting on us tonight."

Do you fellows have any more feel-bad in your tanks for the St. Louis Blues fans?


- posted by Brian J. @ 1:11 PM   0 comments

 
Book Report: Rambo: First Blood Part II by David Morrell (1985)
As you might remember, I just read First Blood recently and liked the first part of it, but didn't like the ending. I'd bought this book, but later bought that book and read it first so I could follow the story. Not that "the kid" from First Blood, who died at the end, and a character played by Sylvester Stallone would have much in common. This book follows the movie from First Blood.

Well, what can I say? It expands a bit on the movie, giving some interior world to the stock characters from the movie, but it also sexualizes the violence a bit, and Morrell must have worked from an incomplete script, because it doesn't follow the movie exactly. Still, it was 250 pages, and I read it in 3 hours, so it's not as though I spent weeks on it. It was a good break between outings in pre-Victorian English novels.

The author's forward provided a bit of a bright spot. In it, the author said, "Yeah, he died in the first book. But here's where you can buy the cool knife, bow, and arrows from the movie!" Also, another amusing bit occurred when I read about Rambo gearing up for his insertion into Vietnam. I misread a passage, and snorted. "He's putting .45 rounds into an AK-47," I told my beautiful wife. "Everyone knows AK-47s take 7.62mm rounds." "How do you know," she asked, almost like she challenged me when I mocked Spare Change. I mean, I'm a man, aren't I?

Books mentioned in this review:


- posted by Brian J. @ 10:55 AM   0 comments