I shouldn't have to come up with a title everytime I want to post something - so this one contains only today's date. And this is a multi-topic post anyhow.
First, there is this fantastic interview with everyone's favorite right-wing zealot, Ann Coulter:
http://www.jambands.com/Features/content_2006_06_23.06.phtml
You will note in the interview the lament that the Dead never played "Pride of Cucamonga", as well as listing it as one of her favorite songs. If this doesn't absolutely prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, her utter wisdom then nothing does.
Secondly, but along similar psychedelic lines, Andrew looked thoughtfully at Mommy while at the store today and made the uncanny proclamation that he "really likes gravity". Elaina immediately chimed in with a chorus of "I wike it; I wike gwavity too!!" An appreciation for celestial cohesion is something we as parents have tried hard to imbue within our children, and our efforts are clearly paying off. We can only hope that they grow to have a similar enthusiasm and fondness for inertia, conservation of energy, and everyone's favorite: entropy.
And so now it is time to "close the loop": Andrew, in addition to being a fan of the Beetles quirkier and more psychedelic efforts, he has now taken to dancing to "Mexicali Blues" and various live renditions of "The Promised Land". I wonder if he likes them as much as gravity itself?
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Monday, February 26, 2007
Kafka on the Shore
You should all read this. Better yet, listen to the audio book, because the two guys who do the narration are fantastic actors and they really add depth and consistency to the characters. Here is why you, faithful blog reader, should read Kafka on the Shore:1) It's better than Atlas Shrugged.
2) It's not Atlas Shrugged.
3) It wasn't written by Ayn Rand.
4) It takes place in modern-day (as in 2006) Japan and is written by a Japanese author. Admit it - you hardly read anything translated from Japanese now a days. Oh, that reminds me. Go here: http://www.engrish.com
5) Because it takes place in Japan, miso and sushi are ubiquitous. While not as good as actually consuming miso and/or sushi, its nice to imagine yourself in japan doing just that.
6) It's a "fantasy" type book, but only marginally. Kind of like a Stephen King novel; but having to do with identity and destiny and not so much horror or the supernatural. It's hard to say why a semi-fantasy book is a "reason" to read the book, but it is.
7) As I mentioned above, the narrators are really fantastic.
8) One of the main characters is very Forest Gump-ish. "Not too bright" as he refers to himself; but purely moral and benevolent.
9) It deals with lofty, romantic notions; philosophy, and even offers some allusions and nods to literature and music. It touches all of these areas without pretense or condescension. In fact, come to think of it, the author seems almost unaware that he even does this, making these themes all the more genuine and accessible.
10) It's amazing to see how the Japanese live these days. Amazing because it sounds so "American". There are all kinds of references made (without any derision, I might add) toward American pop-culture and European "classical" (for lack of a better word) culture.
I am sure there are other good reasons to read/listen to the book. But the best reason is that I asked you to.
Friday, February 23, 2007
No bias here...
This was the lead story tonight as I log onto my email:
The AP has apparently moved up its "Free Campaigning for Democrats" program several months in advance of the 2008 elections in comparison to years prior.
Was what Cheney said worthy of ridicule? Obviously. But Obama is not the only one making such criticisms. BUT - he is apparently the AP favorite for the primaries, and so we see this lovely photo of him and his oh-so-insightful commentary as the leading news story. So - we have heard the call: vote Obama for Democratic Presidential Nomination! And since the call came in the form of a news story (OK, many news stories, this one is hardly unique), we get to pretend like it was our own idea!
The AP has apparently moved up its "Free Campaigning for Democrats" program several months in advance of the 2008 elections in comparison to years prior.
Was what Cheney said worthy of ridicule? Obviously. But Obama is not the only one making such criticisms. BUT - he is apparently the AP favorite for the primaries, and so we see this lovely photo of him and his oh-so-insightful commentary as the leading news story. So - we have heard the call: vote Obama for Democratic Presidential Nomination! And since the call came in the form of a news story (OK, many news stories, this one is hardly unique), we get to pretend like it was our own idea!
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Andrew's favorite holidays
A few minutes ago Andrew declared to his Mommy that he has five favorite holidays. Here is the list, as provided by Andrew:
1. Christmas
2. Valentines Day
3. Halloween
4. Valentines Day
5. Groundhogs Day - Because they have peanut butter cookies at school.
I don't think he really put a lot of thought into this list, but its kind of funny. At least in my opinion.
You know what else is funny? Mary L. Baldwin, an employee at the Fund was married and her new name is Mary L. Lamb. No, the L does not stand for Little. But Lea. Pretty close. I found it rather amusing. No one else did. And no one but Tina and I are likely to find Andrew's unsolicited list funny either. But that's OK. It's my dumb blog and I will fill it with any manner of inanity I deem suitable.
1. Christmas
2. Valentines Day
3. Halloween
4. Valentines Day
5. Groundhogs Day - Because they have peanut butter cookies at school.
I don't think he really put a lot of thought into this list, but its kind of funny. At least in my opinion.
You know what else is funny? Mary L. Baldwin, an employee at the Fund was married and her new name is Mary L. Lamb. No, the L does not stand for Little. But Lea. Pretty close. I found it rather amusing. No one else did. And no one but Tina and I are likely to find Andrew's unsolicited list funny either. But that's OK. It's my dumb blog and I will fill it with any manner of inanity I deem suitable.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Orange County Public Library
We have the best Library system here in Orange County. I say this beacause they ship books to you for free! How great is that? You just go online to their site, find the book you want and specify how long you're willing to wait for it, and it arrives at your door, usually in a few days :-) And what's neat is that you can choose any book from any branch and return it to whatever branch is closest to you. And they have a drive through, after-hours drop off slot as well.
Maybe its a bit silly for a grown-man to be so excited by a library, but I have been able to "read" so many more books because of it. I think I will try to comment on all of them at some point, but here is the list since August - note they are all audio books:
1) Confessions of an Economic Hitman - John Perkins
2) Frankenstein - Mary Shelly
3) Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
4) Whale Season - N.M. Kelby
5) Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
6) JPod - Douglas Coupland
7) Going Postal - Terry Pratchett
8) Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakama
9) Terrorist - John Updike
I am not yet done with numbers eight and nine, but I can say already that all of these books are are excellent, and Frankenstein is just amazing - probably a classic among classics. My praise for all of these books does not extend to Rand's work, as you might have guessed.
I do have a point to all of this: each of you should go to your local library's website and see what services they offer - they too might offer home delivery. And even if they don't, who cares? I stopped using it after Hitchhiker anyway, and am glad I did. All of the books after that one were picked up by just browsing, and I am really glad to have done so. Surely no online search would have yielded Murakama or Pratchett - two authors whose works I intend to delve into more deeply.
How about all two or three of you out there? Any recommendations. Yes, Dan - they have Hemingway in audio book: but you have to finish "Unveiled" first.
Maybe its a bit silly for a grown-man to be so excited by a library, but I have been able to "read" so many more books because of it. I think I will try to comment on all of them at some point, but here is the list since August - note they are all audio books:
1) Confessions of an Economic Hitman - John Perkins
2) Frankenstein - Mary Shelly
3) Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
4) Whale Season - N.M. Kelby
5) Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
6) JPod - Douglas Coupland
7) Going Postal - Terry Pratchett
8) Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakama
9) Terrorist - John Updike
I am not yet done with numbers eight and nine, but I can say already that all of these books are are excellent, and Frankenstein is just amazing - probably a classic among classics. My praise for all of these books does not extend to Rand's work, as you might have guessed.
I do have a point to all of this: each of you should go to your local library's website and see what services they offer - they too might offer home delivery. And even if they don't, who cares? I stopped using it after Hitchhiker anyway, and am glad I did. All of the books after that one were picked up by just browsing, and I am really glad to have done so. Surely no online search would have yielded Murakama or Pratchett - two authors whose works I intend to delve into more deeply.
How about all two or three of you out there? Any recommendations. Yes, Dan - they have Hemingway in audio book: but you have to finish "Unveiled" first.
Confessions of a styrafoam safe-T helmeted Hitman
Upon the encouragement of a friend, I am posting a blog entry. Well, why not. After all, I need a little break. I'm reading "Learn ASP.net 2.0 in 24 hours" by SAMS. It consists of twenty-four hour-long lessons. I am nearing the conclusion of hour four, and have just built a mortgage calculator. Nothing fancy or complicated, and the book walks you through making it while explaining most of what goes into it.
Anyhow, speaking of books - I am very much into Audio books lately. I listened to my first this past August: "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by Edward McWackenjob (or something like that). It was actually a fairly interesting book; which surprised me since it came upon the recommendation (insistence, really) of my friend Dan. He was supposed to read "Islam Unveiled" in exchange for subjecting me to the made-up-world of John Perkins ('Confessions' actual author), but he never completely read it. I could speculate for a while as to why he chose to go against his promise to me to complete the book, but I think the most likely reason of all was that his brain was two sizes too small (got to start reading the kids less Seuss). Well, if I am going to bring up Confessions, I may as well critique it a bit:
John Perkins was an engineer who worked for a big evil corporation. An electrical engineer, and not too-talented by his own description. His job was to jet around the world to forecast load requirements on the electrical grids his company was about to burden the host nation with. He was encouraged to inflate the numbers so that the evil corporation could build the biggest possible grids (we need to that here in the States!!!) and thereby maximize their evil profits, earned evilly and to be used toward all sorts of evil purposes; most notably the Guild of Evil Evil-Doers, the Rotary Club, Girl Scouts, Bechtel, Halliburton, Halliburton, Halliburton, etc. So this is why the book is entitled "Confessions"... because he would dupe all of those dumb world leaders into buying more electrical capacity than they really needed. In some countries, he even tricked them into getting the undercoating and over-charged for the scotch-guard too. And just where did these benevolent, if naive, Third-World leaders get the scratch to build such a fancy-schmancy electrification system? The US: by way of the World Bank and the IMF.
Perkin's assertion is that the US grants loans to third world countries so that it can call in favors from these countries when the US wants to flex its Empirical muscle. The US also insists that the country uses US firms to complete the work (no way, really???!!!). This brazen selfishness of lending money with a few strings attached is of course why 9/11 happened, according to the author. You see, in his mind the world is just so tired of the US bullying small helpless countries, that it was only inevitable that we would be attacked in the name of Allah. Now, the ignorant among us might perceive a slight disconnect between Islamic Terrorism and how the World Bank and IMF loans money to impoverished nations. If you are one of these people, you might just be lacking the colorful imagination required to fully grasp the nuances here.
Huh... this blogging stuff really is cathartic...
In all fairness to Perkins, he brings up VERY important points:
1) Politicians, using our tax dollars, loan money to countries and then that money immediately gets used by huge corporations. In turn, these corporations make big donations to campaign coffers, and surely influence legislation that directly affects their own business.
2) Even though we ARE helping the third world, they often don't appreciate this. I mean, Perkins himself didn't even see the value in what he was doing. He spoke about how he arrived in country and saw men using a small river as their "bathroom", while another person bathed in it down stream a bit, and yet another drank from it. First of all... like many parts of this novel, Perkin's experiences are too obviously allegory or metaphor to be taken seriously as actual experiences. Anyhow, what do you suppose his thoughts were upon seeing the river being used in such a way? He felt pity for the people having to use a single body water as bathroom/shower/tap, but he thought about how he was being so evil by "exploiting" them by burdening them with the loans... which would be used to do such awful things such as provide indoor plumbing, electricity, jobs... oh, the humanity of it all!! OK, I digress. The point is that there are many out there who think in Perkins stupid fashion. So why should we, the taxpayers, foot the bill?
3) We use our power for the sake of "Global Empire", is Perkin's assertion. But I can't say that he is wrong about this. I for one believe we need to be much more isolationist, at least from a political-perspective, than we have been.
In conclusion, I actually do recommend the book. Too often in this day and age we are not subjected to how other people think, despite or perhaps because of the fact that we have so many more choices in media, we end up consuming only that which affirms our already-established beliefs. Perkin's did open up my eyes to the need for democracies such as ours to be better stewards of where our money goes. And just how much we are dumping into endeavors that just have no place being funded by a government. But unfortunately, too many people - from the left and the right - don't understand that government needs to be extremely limited and controlled. It's just not in the zeitgeist of modern thinking like it once was.
Well, enough of that. There, I posted. Are you all happy now?...
(crickets chirping)
Anyhow, speaking of books - I am very much into Audio books lately. I listened to my first this past August: "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by Edward McWackenjob (or something like that). It was actually a fairly interesting book; which surprised me since it came upon the recommendation (insistence, really) of my friend Dan. He was supposed to read "Islam Unveiled" in exchange for subjecting me to the made-up-world of John Perkins ('Confessions' actual author), but he never completely read it. I could speculate for a while as to why he chose to go against his promise to me to complete the book, but I think the most likely reason of all was that his brain was two sizes too small (got to start reading the kids less Seuss). Well, if I am going to bring up Confessions, I may as well critique it a bit:
John Perkins was an engineer who worked for a big evil corporation. An electrical engineer, and not too-talented by his own description. His job was to jet around the world to forecast load requirements on the electrical grids his company was about to burden the host nation with. He was encouraged to inflate the numbers so that the evil corporation could build the biggest possible grids (we need to that here in the States!!!) and thereby maximize their evil profits, earned evilly and to be used toward all sorts of evil purposes; most notably the Guild of Evil Evil-Doers, the Rotary Club, Girl Scouts, Bechtel, Halliburton, Halliburton, Halliburton, etc. So this is why the book is entitled "Confessions"... because he would dupe all of those dumb world leaders into buying more electrical capacity than they really needed. In some countries, he even tricked them into getting the undercoating and over-charged for the scotch-guard too. And just where did these benevolent, if naive, Third-World leaders get the scratch to build such a fancy-schmancy electrification system? The US: by way of the World Bank and the IMF.
Perkin's assertion is that the US grants loans to third world countries so that it can call in favors from these countries when the US wants to flex its Empirical muscle. The US also insists that the country uses US firms to complete the work (no way, really???!!!). This brazen selfishness of lending money with a few strings attached is of course why 9/11 happened, according to the author. You see, in his mind the world is just so tired of the US bullying small helpless countries, that it was only inevitable that we would be attacked in the name of Allah. Now, the ignorant among us might perceive a slight disconnect between Islamic Terrorism and how the World Bank and IMF loans money to impoverished nations. If you are one of these people, you might just be lacking the colorful imagination required to fully grasp the nuances here.
Huh... this blogging stuff really is cathartic...
In all fairness to Perkins, he brings up VERY important points:
1) Politicians, using our tax dollars, loan money to countries and then that money immediately gets used by huge corporations. In turn, these corporations make big donations to campaign coffers, and surely influence legislation that directly affects their own business.
2) Even though we ARE helping the third world, they often don't appreciate this. I mean, Perkins himself didn't even see the value in what he was doing. He spoke about how he arrived in country and saw men using a small river as their "bathroom", while another person bathed in it down stream a bit, and yet another drank from it. First of all... like many parts of this novel, Perkin's experiences are too obviously allegory or metaphor to be taken seriously as actual experiences. Anyhow, what do you suppose his thoughts were upon seeing the river being used in such a way? He felt pity for the people having to use a single body water as bathroom/shower/tap, but he thought about how he was being so evil by "exploiting" them by burdening them with the loans... which would be used to do such awful things such as provide indoor plumbing, electricity, jobs... oh, the humanity of it all!! OK, I digress. The point is that there are many out there who think in Perkins stupid fashion. So why should we, the taxpayers, foot the bill?
3) We use our power for the sake of "Global Empire", is Perkin's assertion. But I can't say that he is wrong about this. I for one believe we need to be much more isolationist, at least from a political-perspective, than we have been.
In conclusion, I actually do recommend the book. Too often in this day and age we are not subjected to how other people think, despite or perhaps because of the fact that we have so many more choices in media, we end up consuming only that which affirms our already-established beliefs. Perkin's did open up my eyes to the need for democracies such as ours to be better stewards of where our money goes. And just how much we are dumping into endeavors that just have no place being funded by a government. But unfortunately, too many people - from the left and the right - don't understand that government needs to be extremely limited and controlled. It's just not in the zeitgeist of modern thinking like it once was.
Well, enough of that. There, I posted. Are you all happy now?...
(crickets chirping)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)