Archive for November, 2008
 I am a sucker for a snappy book cover, and the cover for Paul Auster’s new novella, Man in the Dark, is about as snappy as I’ve seen in a long time.
 But, as you may recall, there’s a well-worn adage about books and covers.
Man in the Dark, a thin volume only eight-and-a-half inches tall and not quite six inches wide, caught my eye with its leafy, mulchy , concretey artwork, beautifully embossed and glossed and splashed with just the right dash of stars-and-stripes color.
It’s hard to capture an impression. But the book made one. The text on the inside flap drew me in even more. This cover had me, book, first line, and sinker.
I should really, really know better by now.
Man in the Dark hardly delivers on anything its cover promises.
That said, the novella is a quiet, elegant exploration of the loneliness that comes from physical and emotional isolation. It’s a beautiful little book (its cover notwithstanding). Full story »
 “Sooner or later, [the arms control] community will. . . have to struggle with how to adapt its conceptual paradigms to the 21st century. When it does. . . the arms controllers will owe the Bush administration much for having opened the debate.”
– Christopher Ford
Odd as it sounds, some believe that the perspective of history will yield redeeming characteristics to George Bush’s presidency. While Iraq, like Vietnam, is a lost cause, perhaps, like Lyndon Johnson’s domestic programs and Richard Nixon opening China to trade, something positive will emerge from the Bush administration. Full story »
 In an article in the October Atlantic, Ross Douthat raises the age-old question, Is Pornography Adultery? He cites sex columnist Dan Savage addressing women:
Tearful discussions about your insecurities or your feminist principles will not stop a man from looking at porn. That’s why the best advice for straight women is. … If you don’t want to be with someone who looks at porn. . . get a woman, get a dog, or get a blind guy. … telling women that the porn “problem” can be resolved through good communication, couples counseling, or a chat with your pastor is neither helpful nor realistic. Full story »
 Happy Thanksgiving from all of us here at S&R. Today we invite those of you reading (and really, don’t you have anything better to do?) to tell us what you’re thankful about.
I’ll go first. While I have much to be thankful for – a wonderful wife, the coolest dog alive, etc. – I find myself really appreciating the fact that for the next four years I won’t have to hold my breath every time the president opens his mouth. I won’t have to worry about his inability to speak in complete sentences, about whether or not he’s going to make up some new words, about whether he’s going to say something insanely stupid and embarrass us even further in the eyes of the rest of the world. Full story »
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire remains the archetype for whenever we consider the collapse of any great structural entity. But the current entity the Decline now relates to is no longer a national or political system; it is economic. Full story »
One of the larger problem with climate models, and with climate science in general, is a general lack of fidelity in how the water cycle will be affected by anthropogenic climate disruption. This is especially important given that water vapor in the atmosphere is responsible for the bulk of the energy absorption (aka the greenhouse effect) that keeps the Earth’s average temperature well above freezing. But because of water vapor’s relatively short lifetime in the atmosphere before it’s removed via precipitation or chemical reactions, scientists have generally had a difficult time estimating just how water vapor affects climate. Full story »
A person consists both of their being and of the works that their being produces. Whether those works are physical or as intangible as the time spent on a particular task.
A traditional Westminster approach to politics, with a typical Left / Right political duopoly, has become the gold standard of democratic representation. It is also conflicted and inherently incapable of resolving its core contradiction. Full story »
 “War means fightin’, and fightin’ means killin’,” Confederate cavalry commander Nathan Bedford Forrest once said.
While that might seem like a statement of the obvious in the context of the American Civil War, the topic of death and the war has largely gone unexplored. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust is the first in-depth examination of the nation’s most intimate experience with death.
And although the subject is grim, the book is fascinating—not only for what it tells us about mid-nineteenth century America but also because of the light it sheds on us today.
Full story »
 As one of my colleagues might put it: sweet fancy mouth-breathing Jesus!
Ann Coulter’s Jaw Wired Shut
By Brandon Barker
Nov 25th 2008 11:40AM
For the next few weeks, fans of Ann Coulter–anyone?–will have to rely on Lindsay Lohan to provide insensitive, backward-thinking sound bites.
Because of a nasty fall last month, says the New York Post’s Page Six, the 46-year-old will have her jaw wired shut.
I’m thinking of changing my middle name to “Schadenfreude.”
 A lot of bands have released pretty good debut records, only to follow them up with less-than-spectacular careers. The rule used to be (before the FCC, the recording industry and the radio industry conspired to destroy all music) that you learned what you needed to know about a band with its third album. Given how things worked, you often saw a pattern that looked something like this:
- Debut: Band (or solo artist) has been on the road for awhile, writing and building an audience and developing as a creative and performing force. Full story »
There are thousands of banks in the United States, most of which are local and have less than a billion dollars in assets. Some of them are even making a profit this year because they were careful and didn’t expose themselves to the mortgage and credit crises. Some of them were (gasp!) risk averse and (double gasp!) run wisely. So why are these strong banks being forced to accept federal bailout funds that they don’t want or need? Full story »
 Finally, FINALLY we’re starting to treat the RIAA like an organized crime syndicate. Check the latest on a RICO class-action in Missouri, via Slashdot:
“In Atlantic Recording v. Raleigh, an RIAA case pending in St. Louis, Missouri, the defendant has asserted detailed counterclaims against the RIAA for federal RICO violations, fraud, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, prima facie tort, trespass, and conspiracy. The claims focus on the RIAA’s ‘driftnet’ tactic of suing innocent people, and of demanding extortionate settlements. The RICO ‘predicate acts’ alleged in the 42-page pleading (PDF) are extortion, mail fraud, and wire fraud.
This is a wonderful approach. Full story »
 I hope you know The dBs. If not, let me open the door for you. Peter Holsapple, who became the primary creative force in the band after the departure of Chris Stamey, had a NYT blog piece the other day on the making of “Love is for Lovers,” one of those songs that ought to have been a monster hit.
So . . . what’s my deal? I have never had a hit in my life.
Once upon a time, though, I think I wrote a hit. It was called “Love is for Lovers” and the dB’s recorded it for an album called “Like This” in 1984. It had (and has, I believe) an undeniable hook, the kind you’d find yourself singing in the shower or pounding along to on your steering wheel while driving. The performance, produced by Chris Butler at the old Bearsville Studio in upstate New York, has all the power of the best kind of rock: slamming drums, inventive bass, a solid riff and a fantastic solo. Full story »
Part two of the Zero Coordinate and EccentricProduction Web documentary series on blogging and political media is now posted. Have a look.
After days of leaks coming from the Obama transition team, the President-elect has reportedly decided to go the path of least resistance, embracing the enlarged prostate flow of chatter with the new cabinet position of Leakmaster General.
Former Clinton administration officials involved in the transition, who declined to give their names because “that would kind of spoil a leak,” say the Leakmaster General’s duties will be to deliver all leaks, however nonsensical, through a central command — the Office of Leaks, Gossip and Utter Horseshit (OLGUH).
Other Clinton administration officials close to the transition efforts say that Obama has chosen Lanny Davis, former special counsel to President Clinton and longtime Hillary loyalist, to fill this new cabinet position. Reached for comment, Davis declined to confirm the leak. A few minutes later, however, he called back from another number, disguised his voice, gave his name as “Gustav Demetri Jones Jr. III,” and said, “If Lanny Davis wants this position, it’s his for the taking.” Full story »
 It started innocuously enough when one of my co-workers e-mailed us the other day to say that his wife had given birth to their second child, a cute little girl named “Brooklyn.” Cool, that – never heard Brooklyn as a name, and I kinda like it. (BTW, many congrats, Scott.)
But this morning the storm clouds began to gather. Ashlee Simpson just had a baby (with hubby Pete Wentz of Fallout Boy, and I don’t even want to talk about that), and they named the kid – get this – Bronx Mowgli Wentz.
Brooklyn. Now Bronx.
I am so not looking forward to Brangelina spawning a son and naming him “Queens.”
 And you may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house?
And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go?
And you may ask yourself
Am I right? …am I wrong?
And you may tell yourself
My god!…what have I done?
-Talking Heads
The Dow ended its day at its lowest point in eleven years. Full story »
We all know that Hillary Clinton voted for the resolution authorizing the war on Iraq. And when Barack Obama objected to the use of nuclear weapons against terrorists, she replied, “I don’t believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or nonuse of nuclear weapons.”
Surely though, as secretary of state, she would do President Obama’s bidding. Not necessarily, according to the dean (if only due to his tenure) of political writers, the Washington Post’s David Broder. In his already much-commented upon Wednesday column, “A Force for Good – but Not at State,” he wrote:
What Obama needs in the person running the State Department is a diplomat who will carry out his foreign policy. He does not need someone who will tell him how to approach the world or be his mentor in international relations. … The last thing Obama needs is a secretary of state carving out an independently based foreign policy. Full story »
 Sometimes it’s the small things that get the day off to a rollicking start. Like this, from the Denver Post.
“The opportunity to run one of the state’s most prestigious research universities sounds pretty good to soon-to-be unemployed politicians like Sen. Wayne Allard and state Rep. Bernie Buescher. “
For those of you unfamiliar with the state of Colorado, we probably have upwards of two research universities. So when you get a chance to run one of the more prestigious ones, you really have to jump at it.
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