As I think pretty much anybody reading this blog knows, I have only one good thing to say about February while I'm living in northern climes: it's only 28 days long. Everybody agrees it's just a good idea to get me out of Michigan for a couple weeks in the wintertime, and late February is one of the best times to ship me off to visit the sun.
However, that didn't happen this year, so as long as I had a February to endure, it was quite lovely to have the Winter Olympics on the tube to help me kill the last couple weeks of this frozen month. Monique, Katie the Beagle, and I have spent an awful lot of time the last couple of weeks on the couch watching people from all over the world slip, slide, and fling themselves through the air in a variety of unlikely ways. They landed on their feet surprisingly often.
This year's Olympics watching has especially benefitted from both the HDTV and the DVR. This is the first year we've had a Winter Olympics since we bought the HDTV a few years ago, and it was an especially notable improvement for the cross-country skiing and biathlon. The snow on the pines of Whistler was beautiful and as I watched all those elite athletes gliding elegantly through that winter wonderland, I wasn't at all inspired to dig my own cross-country skis out of the garage. But on several occasions I was inspired to make grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, 'cause it looked cold out there.
The DVR is the greatest thing ever for watching the Olympics. Essentially we could record the most of the daytime events and watch both them and the nighttime broadcast by fast-forwarding through all of the ads, profiles, and endless hours of figure-skating previews.
Here are my 2010 Winter Olympics awards:
Greatest Bronze Medal of All Time: Won by in the women's individual classic sprint by Slovenian cross-country skier Petra Majdic, who was injured in a pre-race crash when she slid off the course, fell into a ravine, and struck a large rock. She went on to race a qualifier, then four heats and win the bronze with four broken ribs and a punctured lung.
Seriously. That's no typo. Four freaking broken ribs and -- as if that wasn't bad enough -- a punctured lung. She had x-rays after the crash and before the race, so she had to know before she started. Kinda puts Lindsey Vonn's bruised shin into perspective, doesn't it?
Best Four-Legged Couch Companion: Katie the Beagle! (Especially after Monique gave her a bath.)
Most Welcome Gold Medal: Four-Man Bobsled for the USA, the first gold in bobsled since 1948! Seriously, I first saw bobsledding in person more than thirty years ago, and they were already on a losing streak of more than 30 years then. Rooting for the US has been like rooting for the Chicago Cubs ever since. Really, I was beginning to fear that Jamaica was going to win a gold in this event before the US.
The worst heartbreak came in Calgary in '88 when the Swiss sled went right between Buckner's legs. Just sad.
And in closing, my final word on the closing ceremonies?
Shatner!
Now my Winter Olympics experience is truly complete!
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Book Review: Murder by the Book by Rex Stout (1951)
Murder by the Book (1951) is an especially fun entry in Rex Stout's long-running Nero Wolfe mystery series. Its MacGuffin is an unpublished manuscript by a law clerk, and somebody is killing everybody who has read it. If you've never read a Nero Wolfe mystery, this is a good one to start with, as the whole cast is in good form and Stout is on top of his game.
Amazon: Murder by the Book by Rex Stout.
How acquired: Picked it up from a used book store for $2.95, probably in the time since I've moved out to Michigan.
Amazon: Murder by the Book by Rex Stout.
How acquired: Picked it up from a used book store for $2.95, probably in the time since I've moved out to Michigan.
Book Review: Pleasure Model by Christopher Rowley, illustrations by Justin Norman
Pleasure Model by Christopher Rowley with interior illustrations by Justin Norman is the first book in the new Heavy Metal Pulp series from Tor. According to the book flap the line promises, "novels combining noir fiction with fantastic art featuring the themes, story lines, and graphic styles of Heavy Metal magazine."
In Pleasure Model, veteran sci-fi and fantasy author Christopher Rowley and interior artist Justin Norman deliver the goods with a story of murder, sex, and violence in a near-future American dystopia where the denizens of the underworld are known as "the uninsured."
The title character is Pleasur, a genetically engineered pleasure model designed to serve the sexual whims of her owner with a combination of maximum sex appeal and minimum intelligence. The rest of the characters are an assortment straight from sci-fi noir casting central: the hard-boiled honest police detective, the dominatrix with a heart of gold, the helpful madam, and the friendly master of the underground. But they're brought to life nicely by Rowley and prove to be a compelling cast.
The book itself is a quick, breezy read that ends in a cliffhanger. This is supposed to be Book One of The Netherworld Trilogy, and indeed it reads like the first act of a full-sized novel. This is sci-fi noir with some of the best features of the genre: adventure and suspense blended with an interesting mix of speculation about the future. Rowley's makes some interesting observations about where America has been recently, and where it might be going, and that gives this whole thing a bit more substance than might be expected.
An interesting feature of this book is that as part of this new Heavy Metal Pulp line it is heavily illustrated with black-and-white interior drawings by Norman, usually one-to-three drawings on every two-page spread of the book. Here's how this looks in print:
The illustrations add a nice cheesecake n' cleavage frosting to this gritty confection. A few of them -- especially one series illustrating the death of one of the characters -- are powerful enough to stay with you after you've set down the book. The sum total of text plus images is somewhere between novel and graphic novel, and it proves to be a pretty effective combination.
I can't say it ever feels like the illustrations are an integral part of the text. They feel as if they were added on after the manuscript was written, but they're a fun addition. I can see how a closely integrated creative team might take more complete advantage of this format.
Despite the decidedly adult content, it often feels like a heavily illustrated young-adult novel. Outside of we middle-aged fanboys, I wouldn't be surprised at all if it finds a niche among the 13-18 year-old boys who have always formed a core demographic of the Heavy Metal illustrated magazine's readership. (And hey, let he who didn't first come across Heavy Metal when he was 13 or 14 throw the first stone on this account!)
Summary: A fun read and an interesting look at what might be the start of an interesting new line. Well worth the quick read.
How acquired: I ordered it through the Science Fiction Book Club. The cover image caught my eye in the catalog and the description plus my curiosity about this new Heavy Metal Pulp imprint made me decide to give it a whirl.
Amazon (paperback): Pleasure Model by Christopher Rowley.
Science-Fiction Book Club (hardcover): Pleasure Model by Christopher Rowley.
In Pleasure Model, veteran sci-fi and fantasy author Christopher Rowley and interior artist Justin Norman deliver the goods with a story of murder, sex, and violence in a near-future American dystopia where the denizens of the underworld are known as "the uninsured."
The title character is Pleasur, a genetically engineered pleasure model designed to serve the sexual whims of her owner with a combination of maximum sex appeal and minimum intelligence. The rest of the characters are an assortment straight from sci-fi noir casting central: the hard-boiled honest police detective, the dominatrix with a heart of gold, the helpful madam, and the friendly master of the underground. But they're brought to life nicely by Rowley and prove to be a compelling cast.
The book itself is a quick, breezy read that ends in a cliffhanger. This is supposed to be Book One of The Netherworld Trilogy, and indeed it reads like the first act of a full-sized novel. This is sci-fi noir with some of the best features of the genre: adventure and suspense blended with an interesting mix of speculation about the future. Rowley's makes some interesting observations about where America has been recently, and where it might be going, and that gives this whole thing a bit more substance than might be expected.
An interesting feature of this book is that as part of this new Heavy Metal Pulp line it is heavily illustrated with black-and-white interior drawings by Norman, usually one-to-three drawings on every two-page spread of the book. Here's how this looks in print:
The illustrations add a nice cheesecake n' cleavage frosting to this gritty confection. A few of them -- especially one series illustrating the death of one of the characters -- are powerful enough to stay with you after you've set down the book. The sum total of text plus images is somewhere between novel and graphic novel, and it proves to be a pretty effective combination.
I can't say it ever feels like the illustrations are an integral part of the text. They feel as if they were added on after the manuscript was written, but they're a fun addition. I can see how a closely integrated creative team might take more complete advantage of this format.
Despite the decidedly adult content, it often feels like a heavily illustrated young-adult novel. Outside of we middle-aged fanboys, I wouldn't be surprised at all if it finds a niche among the 13-18 year-old boys who have always formed a core demographic of the Heavy Metal illustrated magazine's readership. (And hey, let he who didn't first come across Heavy Metal when he was 13 or 14 throw the first stone on this account!)
Summary: A fun read and an interesting look at what might be the start of an interesting new line. Well worth the quick read.
How acquired: I ordered it through the Science Fiction Book Club. The cover image caught my eye in the catalog and the description plus my curiosity about this new Heavy Metal Pulp imprint made me decide to give it a whirl.
Amazon (paperback): Pleasure Model by Christopher Rowley.
Science-Fiction Book Club (hardcover): Pleasure Model by Christopher Rowley.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
The Twitter Experiment Continues: Weeding the Feed
I'm now about six weeks into my Twitter experiment. I've thrown myself into this thing with enthusiasm because I would really like to better understand why some social media works for folks, and why others do not. But I haven't exercised much intellectual rigor here. Instead I've chosen to generally kinda bumble around as time permits to get the lay of the land while I try to figure it all out. For the most part, I continue to find myself less impressed by Twitter than I expected to be. I still expect that this may be a matter of working out better following lists and better mastering the tools. We shall see.
As near as I can tell as a six-week Twitter veteran, sheer volume is the king on this platform. Tweeters who tweet 30 times a day far outdraw once-a-day Tweeters. In part this is probably because the odds that they spit out something worth retweeting in those 30 posts is pretty decent, and that's a good way to eventually build a following.
Celebrity outside of Twitter is certainly a big currency here, too. In fact, that was my biggest worry, that I would just find a bunch of feeds with celebrities tweeting about how ridiculous it was that they had to stand in line at the rental-car counter. There's some of that, but it hasn't been as bad as I expected. Perhaps because I have consciously avoided most of those from the start.
News feeds are also big. I can really see why Twitter seems to be much more beloved among journalists and information specialists than the rest of the world. It does make it easy to follow a lot of sheer volume on a particular topic. That sort of unfiltered flow is irresistable to the news media. But unless it's your job to follow the news full time, the noise-to-news ratio that I have so far discovered is pretty discouraging.
As an information professional, I can assure you that obtaining a huge quantity of information on nearly anything is pretty easy these days. Distilling the raw data to a concise and informative format is the real trick. As a consumer of information, I don't always want filters. But I don't want to be blasted by a huge fire hose of information every day, either.
So with all that in mind, I took it upon myself to spend my lunchtime weeding out my Twitter garden. Here's what I thought about some of the flowers and weeds that I found.
The Best: The crown jewel of the Tweeters that I've picked up in the last month or so.
Astro_Soichi (Japanese space station astronaut Soichi Noguchi) -- He mostly tweets pictures that he's taken from the space station, and most of them are truly fantastic. If you're on Twitter and aren't following this guy, you should. Even if half of his tweets are in Japanese.
Keep: These Tweet monkeys were all keepers for me. Don't feel discriminated against if you don't find yourself here. I was mostly judging the high-volume Tweeters today, and these are a few that I made a conscious decision to keep.
Comics and fantasy/SF writers
catvalente (Catherine Valente) -- Usually interesting comments on the writers life. Plus she lives on an island in Maine and has the occasional interesting tweet on that, too.
tobiasbuckell (Tobias Buckell) -- had especially interesting things to say about publishing during the Amazon/Macmillan kerfluffle.
scalzi (John Scalzi) -- A reasonable volume of interesting and original Tweets.
NSAuthors (Night Shade Books) -- Retweets for lots of their authors. Generally an interesting assortment of links to blogs.
Local comics guys
elephanteater (Ryan Claytor), DeanStahl (Dean Stahl) -- Well worth following if you're interested in the Michigan comics scene or indy comics in general.
Sports
Mavericks_Surf (Maverick's Surf alerts for MavericksSurf.com) -- Okay, so it's probably only useful once a year to let us know when the annual big-wave contest has been called. Watching this year's contest live via Internet on my plasma TV made it all worthwhile.
Cut: Bad Tweet monkey. No banana.
Most of these Tweeters were victimized by having a noise-to-news ratio that was waaaaaaay too low. If I have to wallow through 20 or 30 of your tweets per day to dig out the one or two that might amuse or inform me, it's time for you to go. It's possible that I may go back and try to redeem a few of these who do occasionally Tweet some nuggets by putting them in a list, but not "following" them. That way they won't clog my usual feed, but I can see whether they might amuse me if I pull them up once a month or so.
Sports
OGOchoCinco -- It was fun to follow the strange, frequent and occasionally funny self-centered tweetings of Chad "OchoCinqo" Johnson (or is it Chad "Johnson" OchoCinqo ... I've kinda lost track) for a day or two. But really, a little bit went a long way.
SI_PeterKing (Sports Illustrated's Peter King) -- A sentence or two in the Monday Morning QB column about attending a hockey game or being stuck at the airport adds flavor. Fifteen tweets about these things just clogs up my Twitter feed.
Celebrities and Entertainment
neilhimself (writer Neil Gaiman), ThatKevinSmith (director Kevin Smith), and rainnwilson (actor Rainn Wilson) -- I picked them up when I first signed up because they were under some category (presumably "lots of followers" or somesuch) and I figured I'd give them a whirl. They're all occasionally interesting and funny, but I think I'll stick to their creative work that gets some editing first.
Editing. Our friend!
DailyShowClips -- I love the Daily Show. But I don't need five tweets a day telling me where to find clips from the show on the Internet.
Comics and fantasy/SF writers
neilhimself (writer Neil Gaiman) -- Naw, I only cut him once, not twice. However, although I lumped him in with "Celebrities" because that's how his tweets read. He supposedly belongs in this "writers" category. Based on his tweeting, that could be shocking news for him, so I hope somebody breaks it to him gently.
mattfraction (comics writer Matt Fraction) -- I've concluded that he's speaking a language in which I am not conversant. I give you an example Tweet from today in its entirety: "psychocrat herculeez b. pussyfiend". Farewell for now, Matt. Editors are your friend.
News
globalenergywar -- Sort of a central exchange for an odd variety of news posts, some of which are related to the energy industry. Whoever's running it seems to be more interested in building sheer traffic than in a coherent point of view. It seemed like literally 50 retweets and web links a day, 49 of which left me thinking, "Why did you retweet that?" Oh, it's because you're building a spam service. I get it.
GStephanopoulos (George Stephanopolous) -- mostly seems to be plugging interviews that I'm not interested in watching because they generally come across as platforms for unchallenged blather. Reminder to George: I know you started your career as a PR flack, but if you're supposed to be committing journalism, it's okay to let your viewers know when somebody on your show is spewing factually incorrect bilgewater.
On the Bubble: Dance for me Tweet monkeys! Dance! Did I mention that your jobs are on the line?! These tweeters and feeds are in danger of feeling the cold cut of the garden hoe.
Sports
mortreport (ESPN's Chris Mortenson) MoveTheSticks (former pro football scout Daniel Jeremiah) -- Both of these guys provide really good, detailed pro football information. But I'm not sure I need that much information during the NFL offseason. They may eventually get bumped from "following" to some sort of "good football reads if I have the time to kill" list. Their bubbleness is not through any inherent fault of their own, and I may find their volume easier to take after I've weeded out the worst of the noise-to-news offenders.
News
nprnews (National Public Radio news) and MichiganRadio (Michigan Radio news) -- Lots of interesting stuff, but they seem to repeat themselves an awful lot. I'm not sure what following them on Twitter is getting me that's better than visiting their web site on occasion. And I'm not sure that shortening the news cycle to minute-by-minute tweets is all that good for my general state of mind.
I'm beginning to think that this is not the most efficient way to get my public radio news, but am willing to hang on a bit longer with them to see what I think in a few more weeks.
NYTimeskrugman (economist and columnist Paul Krugman) -- The Chad OchoCinqo of Nobel-Prize-winning economists. I think I'm finding that I'm really only interested in his pronouncements about once a week or so, when I read his column in the Sunday New York Times.
Celebrity and Entertainment
StephenAtHome (Stephen Colbert) -- Not quite making it right now. But I'll hang on another week or two, to see how I feel he does in the weeded-out feed.
Comics and Fantasy/SF writers
TomBrevoort (Tom Brevoort, from Marvel) -- I haven't yet concluded if he's just shilling, or putting out genuinely interesting and insightful nuggets. Shilling seems to have the upper hand for now.
And that's today's tweet-weeding report. Stay tuned to the Patio Boat blog for all your 140-paragraph bloviations about 140-character tweeters.
As near as I can tell as a six-week Twitter veteran, sheer volume is the king on this platform. Tweeters who tweet 30 times a day far outdraw once-a-day Tweeters. In part this is probably because the odds that they spit out something worth retweeting in those 30 posts is pretty decent, and that's a good way to eventually build a following.
Celebrity outside of Twitter is certainly a big currency here, too. In fact, that was my biggest worry, that I would just find a bunch of feeds with celebrities tweeting about how ridiculous it was that they had to stand in line at the rental-car counter. There's some of that, but it hasn't been as bad as I expected. Perhaps because I have consciously avoided most of those from the start.
News feeds are also big. I can really see why Twitter seems to be much more beloved among journalists and information specialists than the rest of the world. It does make it easy to follow a lot of sheer volume on a particular topic. That sort of unfiltered flow is irresistable to the news media. But unless it's your job to follow the news full time, the noise-to-news ratio that I have so far discovered is pretty discouraging.
As an information professional, I can assure you that obtaining a huge quantity of information on nearly anything is pretty easy these days. Distilling the raw data to a concise and informative format is the real trick. As a consumer of information, I don't always want filters. But I don't want to be blasted by a huge fire hose of information every day, either.
So with all that in mind, I took it upon myself to spend my lunchtime weeding out my Twitter garden. Here's what I thought about some of the flowers and weeds that I found.
The Best: The crown jewel of the Tweeters that I've picked up in the last month or so.
Astro_Soichi (Japanese space station astronaut Soichi Noguchi) -- He mostly tweets pictures that he's taken from the space station, and most of them are truly fantastic. If you're on Twitter and aren't following this guy, you should. Even if half of his tweets are in Japanese.
Keep: These Tweet monkeys were all keepers for me. Don't feel discriminated against if you don't find yourself here. I was mostly judging the high-volume Tweeters today, and these are a few that I made a conscious decision to keep.
Comics and fantasy/SF writers
catvalente (Catherine Valente) -- Usually interesting comments on the writers life. Plus she lives on an island in Maine and has the occasional interesting tweet on that, too.
tobiasbuckell (Tobias Buckell) -- had especially interesting things to say about publishing during the Amazon/Macmillan kerfluffle.
scalzi (John Scalzi) -- A reasonable volume of interesting and original Tweets.
NSAuthors (Night Shade Books) -- Retweets for lots of their authors. Generally an interesting assortment of links to blogs.
Local comics guys
elephanteater (Ryan Claytor), DeanStahl (Dean Stahl) -- Well worth following if you're interested in the Michigan comics scene or indy comics in general.
Sports
Mavericks_Surf (Maverick's Surf alerts for MavericksSurf.com) -- Okay, so it's probably only useful once a year to let us know when the annual big-wave contest has been called. Watching this year's contest live via Internet on my plasma TV made it all worthwhile.
Cut: Bad Tweet monkey. No banana.
Most of these Tweeters were victimized by having a noise-to-news ratio that was waaaaaaay too low. If I have to wallow through 20 or 30 of your tweets per day to dig out the one or two that might amuse or inform me, it's time for you to go. It's possible that I may go back and try to redeem a few of these who do occasionally Tweet some nuggets by putting them in a list, but not "following" them. That way they won't clog my usual feed, but I can see whether they might amuse me if I pull them up once a month or so.
Sports
OGOchoCinco -- It was fun to follow the strange, frequent and occasionally funny self-centered tweetings of Chad "OchoCinqo" Johnson (or is it Chad "Johnson" OchoCinqo ... I've kinda lost track) for a day or two. But really, a little bit went a long way.
SI_PeterKing (Sports Illustrated's Peter King) -- A sentence or two in the Monday Morning QB column about attending a hockey game or being stuck at the airport adds flavor. Fifteen tweets about these things just clogs up my Twitter feed.
Celebrities and Entertainment
neilhimself (writer Neil Gaiman), ThatKevinSmith (director Kevin Smith), and rainnwilson (actor Rainn Wilson) -- I picked them up when I first signed up because they were under some category (presumably "lots of followers" or somesuch) and I figured I'd give them a whirl. They're all occasionally interesting and funny, but I think I'll stick to their creative work that gets some editing first.
Editing. Our friend!
DailyShowClips -- I love the Daily Show. But I don't need five tweets a day telling me where to find clips from the show on the Internet.
Comics and fantasy/SF writers
neilhimself (writer Neil Gaiman) -- Naw, I only cut him once, not twice. However, although I lumped him in with "Celebrities" because that's how his tweets read. He supposedly belongs in this "writers" category. Based on his tweeting, that could be shocking news for him, so I hope somebody breaks it to him gently.
mattfraction (comics writer Matt Fraction) -- I've concluded that he's speaking a language in which I am not conversant. I give you an example Tweet from today in its entirety: "psychocrat herculeez b. pussyfiend". Farewell for now, Matt. Editors are your friend.
News
globalenergywar -- Sort of a central exchange for an odd variety of news posts, some of which are related to the energy industry. Whoever's running it seems to be more interested in building sheer traffic than in a coherent point of view. It seemed like literally 50 retweets and web links a day, 49 of which left me thinking, "Why did you retweet that?" Oh, it's because you're building a spam service. I get it.
GStephanopoulos (George Stephanopolous) -- mostly seems to be plugging interviews that I'm not interested in watching because they generally come across as platforms for unchallenged blather. Reminder to George: I know you started your career as a PR flack, but if you're supposed to be committing journalism, it's okay to let your viewers know when somebody on your show is spewing factually incorrect bilgewater.
On the Bubble: Dance for me Tweet monkeys! Dance! Did I mention that your jobs are on the line?! These tweeters and feeds are in danger of feeling the cold cut of the garden hoe.
Sports
mortreport (ESPN's Chris Mortenson) MoveTheSticks (former pro football scout Daniel Jeremiah) -- Both of these guys provide really good, detailed pro football information. But I'm not sure I need that much information during the NFL offseason. They may eventually get bumped from "following" to some sort of "good football reads if I have the time to kill" list. Their bubbleness is not through any inherent fault of their own, and I may find their volume easier to take after I've weeded out the worst of the noise-to-news offenders.
News
nprnews (National Public Radio news) and MichiganRadio (Michigan Radio news) -- Lots of interesting stuff, but they seem to repeat themselves an awful lot. I'm not sure what following them on Twitter is getting me that's better than visiting their web site on occasion. And I'm not sure that shortening the news cycle to minute-by-minute tweets is all that good for my general state of mind.
I'm beginning to think that this is not the most efficient way to get my public radio news, but am willing to hang on a bit longer with them to see what I think in a few more weeks.
NYTimeskrugman (economist and columnist Paul Krugman) -- The Chad OchoCinqo of Nobel-Prize-winning economists. I think I'm finding that I'm really only interested in his pronouncements about once a week or so, when I read his column in the Sunday New York Times.
Celebrity and Entertainment
StephenAtHome (Stephen Colbert) -- Not quite making it right now. But I'll hang on another week or two, to see how I feel he does in the weeded-out feed.
Comics and Fantasy/SF writers
TomBrevoort (Tom Brevoort, from Marvel) -- I haven't yet concluded if he's just shilling, or putting out genuinely interesting and insightful nuggets. Shilling seems to have the upper hand for now.
And that's today's tweet-weeding report. Stay tuned to the Patio Boat blog for all your 140-paragraph bloviations about 140-character tweeters.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Watching Too Much Olympics
If you're wondering why Mr. Crankypants didn't blog over the weekend, it was because he was sitting mesmerized in front of his big, honkin' plasma TV. I'm not sure exactly why, but I have been flat-out addicted to the Olympics this year. I've always has a soft spot for the Olympics, especially the Winter Olympics. Undoubtedly fond memories of attending the games in Lake Placid in 1980 play their part, and I've always loved to watch the sheer drama of years of training coming down to sometimes as little as mere seconds of competition decided by hundredths of a second of difference. But something has sent me into the realm of vast overkill this time around.
The cause of the extreme addiction this time around could be the long winter that has worn on me, or it could be a backlash spurred by my growing disgust at the news. But in truth, my primary suspect is the deadly combination of HDTV and the DVR. Monique and I have been recording the daytime competitions and the primetime competitions, then fast-forwarding through all the dreck -- the ads, the spotlights, the studio interviews, etc. -- and just watching competition after competition. The recording-and-fast-forwarding of Olympics is nothing new for us. We started doing that back in our VCR days with the 2004 Summer games. However, the DVR makes it especially easy to program the recording and to fast-forward through the dreck. Plus, the HD visuals of Vancouver and its environs have been as mesmerizing as a good nature show.
Add it all together, and ... well, I'm hooked.
Fortunately for all of us, I'll have to go cold turkey in a week, but even now, as I type this brief message, curlers are sweeping in full high-def plasma glory. I can't look away ... must watch stones sliding on ice.
(Thank goodness I was able to touch typo this post!)
The cause of the extreme addiction this time around could be the long winter that has worn on me, or it could be a backlash spurred by my growing disgust at the news. But in truth, my primary suspect is the deadly combination of HDTV and the DVR. Monique and I have been recording the daytime competitions and the primetime competitions, then fast-forwarding through all the dreck -- the ads, the spotlights, the studio interviews, etc. -- and just watching competition after competition. The recording-and-fast-forwarding of Olympics is nothing new for us. We started doing that back in our VCR days with the 2004 Summer games. However, the DVR makes it especially easy to program the recording and to fast-forward through the dreck. Plus, the HD visuals of Vancouver and its environs have been as mesmerizing as a good nature show.
Add it all together, and ... well, I'm hooked.
Fortunately for all of us, I'll have to go cold turkey in a week, but even now, as I type this brief message, curlers are sweeping in full high-def plasma glory. I can't look away ... must watch stones sliding on ice.
(Thank goodness I was able to touch typo this post!)
Thursday, February 18, 2010
The Naughtful Naughties: What Went Wrong - The Growth of Ignorance in Public Policy
No poetry today. In fact, what I have for you today is more of a rant than anything else because I'm still flabbergasted by the results of the CBS News / NY Times Poll released Feb. 11, 2010, on the Tea Party Movement.
In particular, I'm flat-out astonished by two statistics. Only 2% of self-identified "Tea Partiers" know that tax rates have gone down since Obama took office. This means that 98% of them are flat-out factually ignorant about the tax rates that are allegedly their primary point of protest.* Is it any wonder that Sarah Palin is their queen? **
Nearly as astonishing is that only 12% of all Americans know that tax rates have gone down since Obama took office, but at least they have the excuse of not being so obsessed with taxes that they are running around waving tea bags at TV cameras. I would at this point pull out some comparative poll statistics on how many people know who won the last season of American Idol or Survivor, but why make this post any more depressing than it has to be?
I probably wouldn't be so irked if I didn't believe that public ignorance of the basic facts of our governance has grown significantly over the last decade. I truly believe this is one of the most important factors that has led to the disastrous partisanship we see these days in Washington, in our state capitals, and even in county governments.
Having abandoned their responsibility to be informed citizens, it seems that far too many people have decided to choose their positions based on a concept of politics as a sporting event in which the only thing that matters is that their side wins. And in this win-at-all-costs view of politics, lying and cheating are perfectly okay if it leads to electoral victory.
I would at this point like to lay the blame at the feet of convenient whipping boys like "the media" or "pundits" or "the blogosphere" or "those lying politicians" but I that is the attitude among too many citizens that has led us down this disastrous path. Because ultimately the media, the pundits, or even the polticians are not responsible for educating us.
We are responsible for educating ourselves. This is a democracy, and too many people in the last decade have abandoned that basic responsibility of citizenship. They think that somehow relying on Glenn Beck or Keith Olberman or some other entertainer for their "news" makes them educated. Listen up folks. It doesn't make you educated. It makes you ignorant. And the saddest part is that you are so ignorant that you don't even see the bars and walls of the prison that you have chosen.
In the last decade there was a phrase that was thrown around with quite a bit of disdain among the punditry, especially by some in the Bush Administration: "Fact-based politics."
Count me as a big fan of fact-based politics. Because I'm really, really, really tired of what ignorance-based politics has done to my country, and I would very much like to see a return to fact-based politics. I think it's our best chance to get out of this hole.
*Yeah, I know. Their primary purpose seems generally to be opposition to Obama being the president under any and all circumstances, but I'm willing to cut them some slack and credit them with taxes as their rallying point.
**How's that "hopey-changey" thing working out for me, Sarah? A lot better than electing an ignorant quitter as our vice-president would've worked out.
In particular, I'm flat-out astonished by two statistics. Only 2% of self-identified "Tea Partiers" know that tax rates have gone down since Obama took office. This means that 98% of them are flat-out factually ignorant about the tax rates that are allegedly their primary point of protest.* Is it any wonder that Sarah Palin is their queen? **
Nearly as astonishing is that only 12% of all Americans know that tax rates have gone down since Obama took office, but at least they have the excuse of not being so obsessed with taxes that they are running around waving tea bags at TV cameras. I would at this point pull out some comparative poll statistics on how many people know who won the last season of American Idol or Survivor, but why make this post any more depressing than it has to be?
I probably wouldn't be so irked if I didn't believe that public ignorance of the basic facts of our governance has grown significantly over the last decade. I truly believe this is one of the most important factors that has led to the disastrous partisanship we see these days in Washington, in our state capitals, and even in county governments.
Having abandoned their responsibility to be informed citizens, it seems that far too many people have decided to choose their positions based on a concept of politics as a sporting event in which the only thing that matters is that their side wins. And in this win-at-all-costs view of politics, lying and cheating are perfectly okay if it leads to electoral victory.
I would at this point like to lay the blame at the feet of convenient whipping boys like "the media" or "pundits" or "the blogosphere" or "those lying politicians" but I that is the attitude among too many citizens that has led us down this disastrous path. Because ultimately the media, the pundits, or even the polticians are not responsible for educating us.
We are responsible for educating ourselves. This is a democracy, and too many people in the last decade have abandoned that basic responsibility of citizenship. They think that somehow relying on Glenn Beck or Keith Olberman or some other entertainer for their "news" makes them educated. Listen up folks. It doesn't make you educated. It makes you ignorant. And the saddest part is that you are so ignorant that you don't even see the bars and walls of the prison that you have chosen.
In the last decade there was a phrase that was thrown around with quite a bit of disdain among the punditry, especially by some in the Bush Administration: "Fact-based politics."
Count me as a big fan of fact-based politics. Because I'm really, really, really tired of what ignorance-based politics has done to my country, and I would very much like to see a return to fact-based politics. I think it's our best chance to get out of this hole.
*Yeah, I know. Their primary purpose seems generally to be opposition to Obama being the president under any and all circumstances, but I'm willing to cut them some slack and credit them with taxes as their rallying point.
**How's that "hopey-changey" thing working out for me, Sarah? A lot better than electing an ignorant quitter as our vice-president would've worked out.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Book Review - The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates by Des Ekin
A true history: a great power ignores the signs of the small attacks of Islamic terrorists whose power is growing. Then a nation is shocked by a daring, well-planned attack on a much larger scale. The U.S., Al Qaeda, and 9/11? Nope, this story takes place nearly 400 years earlier when Barbary pirates from Algiers seize more than 100 men, women, and children from the Irish fishing village of Baltimore and cart them off to slavery in the Ottoman Empire.
In The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates, Des Elkin takes upon himself the task of tracking down the facts of the long-ago Sack of Baltimore in 1631, and it's a fascinating history. Although little is known of the fate of most of the individual villagers who were carried into slavery, Ekin expands his story to include accounts from a wide assortment of Europeans who were carried into slavery during the 400 years when the pirates of the Barbary Coast roamed the seas.
Before I read this book, all I had known of this was a bit of the history of the Barbary War during Thomas Jefferson's administration and the later outbreak just after the War of 1812. So I was especially grateful to gain a broader appreciation for just how long the pirates of the Barbary states -- especially Algiers -- had been a thorn in the side of Europe.
Ekin does a good job of incorporating the original stories of many Europeans who were carried into slavery in Algiers, and also mixes in a few captive stories from North America. Some of the accounts make for truly gripping reads. And beyond the broad scope of history, there's a fascinating history to just why pirate captain Morat Rais may have chosen the Baltimore for his raid. I recommend reading this one right to the final sentence.
Summary: A fascinating history of an incident that I hadn't heard of before, and a well-written history that gave me great insight into a really interesting period.
Amazon: The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates by Des Ekin.
How acquired: Picked it up on a whim in the bookstore at the Dublin, Ireland, airport a couple of years ago when I saw the title and subtitle, then the back-cover blurb sucked me in. (However, I didn't get around to reading it on the plane, and then it languished unjustly in my to-read pile until now.)
In The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates, Des Elkin takes upon himself the task of tracking down the facts of the long-ago Sack of Baltimore in 1631, and it's a fascinating history. Although little is known of the fate of most of the individual villagers who were carried into slavery, Ekin expands his story to include accounts from a wide assortment of Europeans who were carried into slavery during the 400 years when the pirates of the Barbary Coast roamed the seas.
Before I read this book, all I had known of this was a bit of the history of the Barbary War during Thomas Jefferson's administration and the later outbreak just after the War of 1812. So I was especially grateful to gain a broader appreciation for just how long the pirates of the Barbary states -- especially Algiers -- had been a thorn in the side of Europe.
Ekin does a good job of incorporating the original stories of many Europeans who were carried into slavery in Algiers, and also mixes in a few captive stories from North America. Some of the accounts make for truly gripping reads. And beyond the broad scope of history, there's a fascinating history to just why pirate captain Morat Rais may have chosen the Baltimore for his raid. I recommend reading this one right to the final sentence.
Summary: A fascinating history of an incident that I hadn't heard of before, and a well-written history that gave me great insight into a really interesting period.
Amazon: The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates by Des Ekin.
How acquired: Picked it up on a whim in the bookstore at the Dublin, Ireland, airport a couple of years ago when I saw the title and subtitle, then the back-cover blurb sucked me in. (However, I didn't get around to reading it on the plane, and then it languished unjustly in my to-read pile until now.)
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