Hmmmm (V)....Diverse points to ponder

This is a popular short piece...and I can see why:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN2WzQzxuoA&feature=youtu.be

(Sherron sent me this--message, dear?)

Don't know if any of you care about the latest in military aircraft but here's some outrageous news on that front.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/04/26/the_jet_that_ate_the_pentagon?p...

Page 1 is the usual report that the money is being wasted. Page 2 shows that our fearless leaders have no greater sense of reality/physics than an adolescent James Bond fan and far worse business sense.

(Please note my brother sent me this article)

Interesting, I forwarded it to my military history nerd boyfriend.

Want to read some really negative fast food reviews?

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/weekend-web/fast-food-reviews.php

Do I need to know any of this?

Seems like a list especially written for us snobs:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-6-most-spectacular-low-points-modern-pop-culture...

The United Nations has just released a new atlas that draws a direct link between climate change and various nasty and troubling side-effects:

http://www.who.int/globalchange/publications/atlas/report/en/index.html

Free PDF download.

7: Good. We need a deluge and plague to thin out those rape-happy theocractic Red States.

When one votes tomorrow, just think of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJbRVXlpFEc&feature=related

Hey, the US elections are over. How about Andrew WK?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xemLz_fR1Ac

A few places to add to your travel itinerary:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/miniusanotnormal/25-places-that-look-not-normal-but-are-...

(From my wife)

A quick note re: that champion of liberalism and decency, President Barack Obama:

"The National Defense Authorization Act, signed into law December 21, 2011, authorizes the military, for the first time in more than two hundred years to carry out domestic policing. The military can detain, without trial, any U.S. citizen deemed to be a terrorist or accessory to terrorism. And suspects can be shipped by the military to our off shore penal colony in Guantanamo Bay until 'the end of hostilities'. It is a catastrophic blow to civil liberties...

...the FBI, the CIA, the director of national intelligence, the Pentagon and the attorney-general did not support the NDAA. FBI director Robert Mueller said he feared the bill would actually impede the Bureau's ability to investigate terrorism since it would be harder to win cooperation from suspects held by the military...

But the bill passed anyway. And I suspect it passed because the corporations, seeing the unrest in the streets (Occupy movement, anti-austerity protests) knowing that things are about to get much worse...do not trust the police to protect them. They want to be able to call in the Army. And now they can."

-from DAYS OF DESTRUCTION, DAYS OF REVOLT by Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco

12: A quick note re: that champion of liberalism and decency, President Barack Obama

Only the hopelessly naive would mistake Obama as that. Oh wait, you're talking about that intellectual monolith called the American Electorate. I retract my sarcastic statement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvq3Pf3j61c

"It ain't about right, it about money!"

The NDAA passed with overwhelming support from both parties in the House and Senate.

Civil libertarians are and have ever been a fringe group in the US, particularly since 2001.

We keep fighting but there is no majority to support us. And it is easy to see that one party is bad on these issues and the other party is the Death Star on these issues.

http://www.salon.com/2012/11/09/philip_roth_im_done/

Thoughts?

He probably should have done that several novels ago.

The Big Bloop:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCw16_Yxid0

Sigh. There was finally an announcement for an author signing at a bookstore near me... only it's for a man who wrote "The Joy of Hate: How to Deal with Whiners and Spineless Liberals."

Oh, Georgia...

You need to review that. There are no member reviews on LT and only one press review... by Jonah Goldberg. The author of Liberal Fascism…

18: "Yeah, whatevs. We won, beeyotch!" My capsule review.

Art that's wayyyyyy out on the edge:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/nov/30/bryan-saunders-artist-drugs-r...

(From Gord)

21: I'd just listen to Ted Haggard sermons to get the same effect. Crystal meth: the champagne of conservative Christian America.

The REAL face of Scientology:

http://www.lamag.com/features/2012/12/18/the-tip-of-the-spear/print

(Cheers, Gord)

23: The correct spelling is $cientology. It's to religion what Ke$ha is to pop music.

Amazon going after "sock puppet" reviews:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/technology/amazon-book-reviews-deleted-in-a-pu...;

I think the whole article was weird. I don't decide on books based on volume of reviews but what a few very thoughtful reviews are saying, the ones that are well-written and substantive. With that kind of guideline, all of these "issues" are not really issues at all.

25: Does anyone read Amazon reviews anymore? Seriously, anyone? I sure as hell don't. With LT reviews, there's no need -- besides the usual decent places on the Interwebs (Quarterly Conversation, NYRB Blog, etc.). I've also turned down requests by authors to put my reviews on Amazon for that very reason. I have more respect for a random book reviewer's blog -- no shortage of those online -- than the crap smeared all over Amazon. On a naive moron would base their book purchases on Amazon reviews. It's the fanfiction erotica of the literary reviewing world.

26, 27: I read Amazon reviews. I'm with Anna here: I read the ones which are lengthy and well-argued. I skip short reviews and ones by people who were never taught paragraphing. I read LibraryThing reviews as well. Both sites are useful when looking for opinions on a specific book.

I read from blogs more in the habit of discovery. A book blog ('professional' or 'hobbyist') whose voice and material appeals to me is then read on faith and I pick up books they reviewed automatically when I see them.

Top ten "Most Read" books--interesting graphic:

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/top-10-most-read-books-in-the-world_b62989

29: Chairman Mao is a shock. The rest is just sad.

On a similar note:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8788711/the-greats-we-hate/

"The Greats We Hate." Yes! Philistines come forth!

Good piece. Quite amusing. Instead of "guilty pleasures", it was "guilty hates".

31: Whatever, I'll watch another couple episodes of Mad Men and not care a toss about the Philistines. I find their pitching bench to be weak this year anyhow. My money is on the Huns. But my safety team is the Visigoths.

>30 nymith:. That's funny: several of those books are on my TBR pile. Maybe I'll just shuffle them down to the bottom of the pile...

Super geek Jaron Lanier turns against the technology he helped create:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/What-Turned-Jaron-Lanier-Against-the-...

(Another Gord find)

What did you think about that article, Cliff?

That's a tough one, Anna.

I'm certainly not a Utopian when it comes to the Net...on the other hand, new technologies like blogging and print on demand have allowed to to express myself more effectively and reach more potential readers than ever before. I receive very little compensation for my efforts and, frankly, get a bit queasy when I hear terms like "monetizing" the Web, not merely to protect copyright ownership but in order to enrich ourselves. Making money isn't a very high priority in terms of my own work but I also don't want to see someone else exploiting my original ideas for their selfish ends. I'm torn on the subject.

It seems Mr. Lanier has made a lot of money off the Web and he's going to make even MORE money criticizing its excesses. Does that make him a credible pundit? Or someone with a vested interest in whipping up debate on what, to others, is a non-issue? I guess individual readers will have to decide...

36: It seems Mr. Lanier has made a lot of money off the Web and he's going to make even MORE money criticizing its excesses. Does that make him a credible pundit? No, that makes him a hypocrite. Oddly enough, pundit comes from the ancient Greek for "bullshit artist."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl4VD8uvgec

I don't see the term "monetize" as inherently evil as Cliff does. But I'm more of a pragmatist in that regard. Nothing wrong with wanting to enrich oneself, especially if one has talent and the means to do so. After dealing with this crapulent economy for so long, I fail to see the virtue in poverty and asceticism. Blecch! I hate austerity and all its minions.

LOVE that headline:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21141244

I had no idea that Viggo was such a common name.

Converting to the "datti":

http://www.datti.org/what-is-a-datti

I have a bridge in New York that I'd like to give away with my dati.

The beginning of the end for China's despotic rulers:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-21272322

43: Hardly. I really don't see how translating Finnegans Wake will do anything in terms of national libertation. Just trading in staid command economy Communist tyranny for free market capitalist Communist tyranny:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n14/slavoj-zizek/berlusconi-in-tehran

Besides, the Chinese govt embraced the smutty works of Mo Yan, so Joyce's voices will be rendered harmless and benign.

If they translated Joyce's Occasional, Critical and Political Writings, that's be a different story. The Chinese Communists allowed the translation of a nigh-incomprehensible High Modern epic. Big deal.

A couple of ancient burial reports for you all:

They've found Richard III.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-21063882

Mummification in Italian catacombs.

http://www.worldsbiggests.com/2011/02/worlds-bizarre-catacombs-capuchin.html

The Richard III stuff has had me fascinated all weekend. Some funny takeoffs and jokes regarding it on this article:
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2013/02/breaking-richard-iii-found-dead

I especially want to pull out the comment by some guy with the internet handle of "oldster" who wrote:
"somehow this feels like a missing verse from “A Day in the Life”

I read a blog today, oh boy…
they found the missing, twisted tricky Dick
in Leicestershire, beneath a lot
they’d seen his spine before
now they know how many cars it takes to cover up the plot!"

In other news: Here is a very nice article in a Q&A format about Anonymous and their many exploits. (Have to say I adore the title.)

http://prospect.org/article/i-can-haz-internet-freedom

Cheers, Anna

Also, once Woody Guthrie wrote a book. You can now buy it.
http://www.amazon.com/House-Earth-Novel-Woody-Guthrie/dp/0062248391?tag=hydfbook...

46: Conspiracy theorists take note: Cliff starts reading Nixonland and they find Richard III in a parking lot. May I suggest our Canuck friend read the bio of Jimmy Hoffa next.

48: Or maybe he can shed some light on the whereabouts of Lord Lucan
http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/is-lucan-mystery-cracked-on-eig...

Seems to me the wilds of Canada are as likely as a Scottish island. Does Cliff have a shed?

Lots of space to hide out in. Rumor has it our vast wastes also contain three or four halfway decent writers...

Here is a link to make one's skin crawl. The idiot wants to also require that all students pass a test about it in order to graduate.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2013/feb/05/bill-requires-all-idaho-kids-read-a...

I'm posting this in the secret hope that kswolff has something new to add to his brilliant and legendary takedowns of this drivel.

51: I wonder if I can get a couple states to require that all students read my books. Might be the only way to sell the bloody things.

52: Buy a congressman. It's easy and cheap.

51: Apparently they don't understand the term "irony," since Atlas Shrugged is a shrill call to arms against government meddling and intervention, like, say, MAKING A F-----G LAW REQUIRING PEOPLE TO READ ATLAS SHRUGGED. Goes along with my assertion that Objectivists are just lazy Stalinists, minus the actual achievements in space, defeating Hitler, and generally being decent human beings. What next? Mandating a law that students need to get gangbanged for their virginity? Cue Cylon Basestars for our much needed extinction.

Yes, seems to be quite the contradiction in terms. The government forcing you to read an anti-government screed?

50: Well, there's you for one, of course.

And the Playboy Mansion is kind of a skeevy shithole:

http://www.vice.com/read/i-went-to-the-playboy-mansion-and-it-was-kinda-depressi...

>51 gravitysbook:: Given most people's opinions about what they're forced to read in school (as opposed to what they discover to read in school), I don't think we have to worry too much...

58: I actually hope more people read it (whether forced to or not), especially after they've had high school English class. Granted, some will be lost like moths to the flame, but I think most will sniff it out as BS, especially when you have authority figures trying to cram it down your throat.

Perhaps we will see more public ridiculing of Rand's alleged masterpiece. Sharpen the critical teeth of high schoolers on this insipid trash. Then they can take down the resurgent rugose and eldritch threat of the Tea Party, this time quoting chapter and verse back at them, like atheists are wont to do with the Westboro Baptist Church and NAMBLA, er, The Catholic Church, when both decide to unsheath their homophobic fangs.

Whatever hastens Objectivism's imminent irrelevancy, I'm all in favor of it. Ironically, I'm a hyper-libertarian (socially-speaking) in terms of reading material. More people should read Atlas Shrugged, The Turner Diaries, Mein Kampf, etc., along with exposing them to good literature and a basic comparative politics and civics. Let all literature be available to read so we can strangle ignorance in its sleep and then mount it on the mantelpiece as an object lesson.

I'm still not sure what to make of the proposed Idaho law: Either the Right is showing its hand in its Randophilia or it is completely ignorant about what Objectivism actually is.

A point to ponder: Include Atlas Shrugged in High School English, provided they ever get as far as post-WW 2 literature. Read Atlas Shrugged and On the Road: compare and contrast. Alternately: have a seminar on dystopias: read 1984, Swastika Night, We, Brave New World, Handmaid's Tale, and Atlas Shrugged -- compare and contrast. Further, choose which dystopian vision is the best in literary terms and the best in terms of making its case ideologically. In addition, one could also stage a series of mock-debates on each dystopia. Which is better, X or Y dystopia? One's critical thinking skills are best utilized when one can argue both for or against a specific proposition. (I myself understand where Rand is coming from and see the reasoning behind her arguments. Major demerits for how that reasoning is executed. I don't agree with Rand's philosophy -- at all -- but I understand it.) Does that make me the anti-Objectivist Richard Dawkins? Given the stridency and monomania I exhibit against Rand's philosophy and her deluded fandom?

50: Forget Lord Lucan in Scotland or Canada. Something much more sensational has turned up in Dublin
https://twitter.com/OverheardDublin/status/299570772010213376/photo/1

First the dark labyrinths of NIXONLAND...now it turns out that Vietnam was even WORSE than we thought:

http://www.salon.com/2013/01/17/vietnam_was_even_more_horrific_than_we_thought/

57: I always wanted to visit the grotto. But I'd always planned on taking a shower elsewhere, asap.

For all you scientists out there, stick with this now, read each a few times if you must:

http://www.mentalfloss.com/article/48793/18-complicated-scientific-ideas-explain...

<61 Reminds me of a comment from the first Gulf War made by a Vietnamese nurse who was working in Iraq, as I recall it was, "the American's aim has improved."

Neil MacDonald strikes again. You can get away with pretty much anything if you're judged Too Big To Fail:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/02/10/f-rfa-macdonald-wall-street.html

64: See, this is why I advocate drone strikes on domestic targets. He'd only get a small fine and a slap on the wrist in the courts anyway. If the SEC had SEAL teams and could use drones, I think we'd see more deterrence of financial malfeasance. The Left needs to get this into their self-righteous skulls: drones are a tool and citing deaths of Pakistani children is emotional blackmail. Drones are an effective tool, it's just that they need to hunt down the right targets.

I know you are being facetious, but giving the SEC all the power in the world would not change the fact that the main problem with Wall STreet is the revolving door between regulators and bankers.

66: True that. So make the SEC a branch of the CIA. That would give conspiracy theorists something to ponder.

The Pope resigns! - and moves into the monastery of cloistered nuns inside the Vatican. Has Hugh Hefner recently had an audience with the Pope? ;-)

I heard he's joining the private sector (Goldman Sachs ?)

#61 ...Made me nauseous to read the article even though I lucked out on the draft and did not go to Vietnam or move to Canada which was the choice back then.

There were huge numbers of, literally, "pot chain smoking" veterans I met all the time during and just after the war. From a joint to a cigarette and back, one right after another all day long. Even with the war on TV every night with nearly same day battle footage there was enough editing to make My Lai a surprise still I guess. Imagine being drafted with all of the societal incentives and propaganda making it the "patriotic" thing to do and then being dropped into situations as described by the article. Back in the USA a haze over the strain of surreal violent memories and the attempted reconciliation with society's macabre interpretation of the war must have been desirable.

Never see anybody like that around any more - I guess they are all cured.

Hence the popularity of Country Joe & the fish at the time... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk68D91hTXw

> 68: And this morning, Joseph Ratzinger awoke from a drug-induced sleep to find himself in Portmeirion. (Kim Newman)

FANTASTIC piece of sports journalism--Michael Jordan at 50:

http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/page/Michael-Jordan/michael-jordan-not-left-buil...

Wow, seems like a share whatever bonanza!

How about Morphic Resonance by Rupert Sheldrake?

Science well-written---even Understandable :-)

73: Not to be confused with the "morphic field" in the Dr. Whoverse:

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Morphic_field

Cool, kswolff :-)

#72 Great article about Jordan, like you say it stands above most of what I have read recently in sports. I wonder how the journalist got so close to him?

Yes, so much sportswriting is hagiography--building up people like Oscar Pistorius, Lance Armstrong, Barry Bonds or O.J. Simpson (or whoever) and then expressing outrage when they turn out to be the same sort of bastard as all the rest of us. The sense of betrayal is hilarious. How stupid can people be?

I don't have many living heroes and, other than Bobby Orr, I can't think of any in sports.

(Who are my heroes? Stephen Lewis, Wade Davis...er....and then the list sort of tails off...)

77: Yes, so much sportswriting is hagiography--building up people like Oscar Pistorius, Lance Armstrong, Barry Bonds or O.J. Simpson (or whoever) and then expressing outrage when they turn out to be the same sort of bastard as all the rest of us. The sense of betrayal is hilarious. How stupid can people be?

Exactly like everyone who deigns to call themselves a "political pundit" and their manufactured outrage whenever their Christ-surrogate gets caught with his pants down with another dude at a freeway rest-stop. It's not like sports or politics exploits stupidity for fun and profit? Nah, that would be too dark and cynical.

When sportswriting isn't hagiographic, it's just plain repetitive, derivative, and juvenile. Case in point:

http://www.postbulletin.com/sports/localsports/faceoff-lots-of-season-left-for-w...

Phersy? Feldy? What am I, six? Use your real names, you posturing, lowest-common-denominator feebs!

And, please, folks, if you're going to hire yourself out as an assassin for Mossad, have the good grace not to brag about it. Otherwise...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21496738

& To make myself clear since I live in Michael Jordan's team and his home town and went to school where he played B ball - I was not surprised that he is human as is explained in the article. "I like Mike" as the expression goes and he has huge charities. My take on the article was that he does his best to be a good guy and usually is but can be jerk to his {well paid} friends. I have never heard any stories of him trying to "destroy" anyone either socially or in business and he does not live for the media which is an occupation for many these days.

And Mike, if I can call you Mike, when those tickets go on sale for $10 again if you find me the top row and let me keep a court side seat warm for someone that would be nice!

#79 Was he one of the "tennis players" caught on video at the hotel where an enemy of Israel suddenly died?

Indeed, I believe it was in Dubai. An Israeli hit team, crack killers. Like the Americans, Mossad doesn't seem to understand notions like, oh, national borders, extra-judicial executions, violations of international law...

But...better leave it at that. Don't want another thread getting hijacked by bickering.

79: Not to be confused with My Life in CIA by Harry Matthews. It's like a novel-length metafictional Onion article.

I like Hilary Mantel more and more:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21502937

83: Her statement is insulting to shop window mannequins everywhere. Kate Middleton is just Kristen Stewart with a better accent. If Middleton rescinded her aristocratic title, she'd convert back to her original Kardashian-based life form.

Well Karl, you just blew your chance to be invited to the royal christening.

I've already RSVPed.

85: I remember seeing one of those:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSqkdcT25ss

That Mantel thing is just the scumbag press trying to drum up controversy. Mantel's comments were taken from a speech she gave six months ago, and which was chiefly about the Tudors. See http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n04/hilary-mantel/royal-bodies

Thanks for posting that, Ian. I find some of the preceding comments a bit tawdry. At the end of the day, Kate Middleton is just someone doing a high-profile job. In no way is she a Kardashian.

88: No, that would be Anne Boleyn

Canadian publishing woes and CanLit...Cliff might have more to say about this...

http://thewalrus.ca/end-of-story/

89: True.

No, that would be Mary Boleyn renowned as the infante of fellatio.

92: Whose to say Dame Middleton isn't lacking in skills for motivating the heads of state?

Thanks for the heads up.

#90 "The heroic narrative of Can Lit"????!!!!

(Clears throat. Takes a deep breath. Begins:)

The problem is that Canadian writers are absolutely incapable of concocting any kind of compelling narratives AT ALL. And that's because our literature has never been about story, it's about place and identity, self-conscious meditations on what it means to be...(wait for it) Canadian. It is a national literature that takes navel-gazing to ridiculous extremes. Can Lit is entirely socially engineered, a figment of imagination dreamed up by waterhead arts administrators, dingbat academics and liberal-democrats with their eyes on the clouds and their heads up their arses. Defended by cultural whores who've been lapping at the teats of the Canada Council and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation so long, they've lost the power of rational thought...even sentience.

And...I think I think I'll stop there. My keyboard is smoking.

Then there's Choc Lit---rhapsodies of gluttony raising cacao to new heights of absurdity...

95: Canada is not unique. This is the downside of anywhere that government administrators are involved in deciding what gets published. My home country of Scotland is not much different. In theory it's great that there is government support for the arts, but it does tend to create a self-perpetrating clique of "artists" who are important because other members of the clique have decided they are. It also tends to lead to the publication of books that are not actually read by the public.

97: "The public" needs to be clarified to people who have never understood the basic concepts of marketing. Academic texts have a small specialized audience, as opposed to most of the stuff one can buy at Barnes & Noble. On the other hand, there's always the "cult writer" -- William T. Vollmann, Chris Ware, Jim Thompson -- who create a diehard audience because of their individualistic writing style and subject matter. Books marketed to "the public at large" tend to be watered-down middlebrow bores, mainly consumed because everybody else is consuming them. Big mainstream publishers, if they had any horse sense, would cultivate their own "minor league" of cult writers and then groom them towards "The Game," a breakout book with crossover appeal, yet still retains everything about the author that makes them unique. But since the Big 6 are more concerned with the Snookis and Kardashians as their cash cows (pun intended?), it's high time the mid-sized and small indie presses follow that business practice.

In light of turning this post into a treatise of business practices, I'll stop here.

Now, now, Cliff. You misunderstand Foran's point.

By "the heroic narrative of CanLit" Foran means the cultural nationalist project itself, which is cast as a heroic narrative by its proponents.

And you ignore Foran's point that CanLit has outgrown CanLit. There is no recognizable "CanLit" anymore. I don't think writers like Peter Derbyshire or Corey Redekop (who both pop in here from time to time) represent some rigid CanLit orthodoxy where imagination goes to die. Meanwhile, the fiction of Graeme Gibson, so heavily promoted in Survival, is justly forgotten.

But I don't think Foran was strong enough on the idea that creating a national literature, artificially manufacturing one, is simply wrong-headed and stupid. Rather than creating a culture of diversity (as its proponents claim), it sets up a points system for the arts, whereby X receives a grant or publication because s/he meets a certain set of criteria, and Y is left in the cold because s/he works in a field or genre that excludes it from consideration.

The notion of a "cultural nationalist project" was idiotic from conception...but it STILL persists among the major publishers in this country and it is an attitude that is positively endemic among the regional presses. My writing has been accused of being "not Canadian enough" or "well-written but not our kind of thing". What, exactly, is their "kind of thing"? Lonely, misunderstood women, oppressed minorities, multi-generational stories about suffering and redemption, victim narratives...all presented with the intention of righting great wrongs, giving voice to the "forgotten ones" (even if they have little talent or insights deeper than "poor me, look what your racist, power-based, patriarchical society has done to me but, yea, I shall overcome and proudly shout my identity").

Bleh.

Peter Derbyshire was very fortunate (maybe replace that with "extraordinarily lucky") to find an editor at HarperCollins who was a bit more adventurous. Corey is published by a small press (ECW) with a more literary bent. I admire and applaud both of them (and you, A.J.), but they are exceptions on the Canadian writing scene. Welcome rays of light but hardly an indication that massive changes are afoot. Not while bubble-brained editors are still coming out of liberal arts colleges, brain-washed by multi-cultural ideologues and gender studies hacks, convinced they know what's best for the rest of us.

End of rant.

From a September, 1998 article in THE NATIONAL POST, discussing Canada's cultural policies:

"...by protecting our cultural industries from competition, Canadian cultural policy has promoted mediocrity and lethargy among many artists. Even one of Canada's artistic legends is dismayed by this phenomenon. Mordecai Richler writes, 'nationalists are lobbying for the imposition of Canadian content quotas in our bookshops and theatres ... In a word, largely second-rate writers are demanding from Ottawa what their talent has denied them, an audience.'"

Amen.

If I hadn't met my wife...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/04/11/us-hermit-arrested-theft.html

Aw, c'mon Cliff,

You'd be like my local hero, this guy?

http://www.ghostvillage.com/legends/leatherman.shtml

Wandering bum...sounds like me, all right.

Willful cultural ignorance:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/willful-cultural-ignorance,96100/

The anniversary of a world-shattering event passes with little fanfare:

http://www.psychedelic-library.org/hofmann.htm

(Thanks for the reminder, Gord)

#106 Yep, that stuff and bicycle riding don't exactly mix. I have it from the most reliable sources that bicycles become very plastic and tend to melt with the handlebars dripping to the ground while fueled by the substance! Keeping a firm grip on the handlebars will retain the cycle's integrity but it is disconcerting.

The first of a series of articles on the czars of banking and how a small elite designs and conducts economic policy:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/04/26/f-rfa-macdonald-power-shift-savers...

Neil MacDonald is a gem.

108: Capsule summary: Not very well. I expect more from my global plutocratic overlords.

Now this definitely warrants a "Hmmmm....":

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22426766

What a waste of time. Why not Infinite Jest instead?

111: He's no Pierre Menard, author of Don Quixote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Menard,_Author_of_the_Quixote

112: That sounds like a fascinating story. I'll have to find it and read it.

That was a TERRIFIC short story. I love Borges.

Oh...my...God:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22464360

I don't see how the barrel can be made of plastic. Would it withstand the heat and pressure? Is the barrel rifled?

I have read a bit about this since the story broke a few days ago. Apparently the plastic lasts long enough to fire the gun for a couple of times, but will eventually explode.

given how expensive 3D printers are and how easy it already is to get a gun in the US, this is not very worrying in my country, but I expect it would be more of an issue in countries that already have stringent gun control like the UK.

Plastic gun etc. Breaking new ground I guess for technology but self assembled "Zip Guns" have been around a long time. The last time I think I saw one was when some irate guy had a heavily duct taped , what looked like piece of pipe just slightly bigger than his fist, object pointed in my general direction while we were having a heated discussion of why he was shocked on a construction site. I explained I had just arrived and one of his buddies had probably tried to kill him by having the live wire in a puddle of water on the roof so not to take it out on me!

Most of the people who downloaded the design probably do not have access to a 3D printer. They're just curious.

As it stands, I can spend $10,000 on a 3D printer to manufacture a handgun that will disintegrate after firing a few shots, or I can go down to the local gun shop and buy a used gun for a couple hundred bucks. I can also build a zip gun. If I want to, I can get my hands on a few machine tools and build a Sten gun in my garage, using plans freely available online, or I can buy an SKS rifle for less than $200 and convert it to full auto fire, again from plans freely available online.

In the longer term, as the technology gets cheaper, the implications are disturbing. Who most needs an untraceable gun that only has to last long enough to fire a few shots? No, not a career criminal -- as Wright & Rossi showed in Armed and Considered Dangerous: a Survey of Felons and their Firearms, those guys actually carry guns to protect themselves from their associates, and favour big, reliable, powerful guns when they can get them. The person who needs that untraceable, one-time gun is the premeditated killer.

But for now, what we're really looking at here is a political demonstration, a simple attempt to prove that regulation is futile because people can get around it. The argument is a bit silly because people can already get around all kinds of regulations, but we still regulate things regardless.

The tech world has started to remind me of Damon Knight's novel, A is for Anything, which imagines a future in which someone has invented a machine that can copy anything, including people. Naturally, society immediately collapses. People like the guy behind this gun are essentially pushing for the same outcome: they hope to completely subvert the powers of government.

119: "But for now, what we're really looking at here is a political demonstration, a simple attempt to prove that regulation is futile because people can get around it. The argument is a bit silly because people can already get around all kinds of regulations, but we still regulate things regardless."

Yes, this is a particularly irritating anti-gun-control argument. People flout laws all the time. So we should have no laws? It is almost as bad as that stupid analogy "if guns kill people, pencils misspell words" etc. Really, gun nuts seem to win arguments just based on volume alone, because it sure ain't because their arguments make any logical sense.

I remember that you have been researching gun issues. How is that going? Did your article get published yet?

I am in the throes of editing the 225,000 word manuscript ... the book is scheduled for next year.

I have to rewrite the bit about printable guns now. ;)

The disturbing thing, to me, is not the existence of printable guns, but the existence of the ideology that has created them. This is the mentality of Anonymous, with guns.

Gay Scouts are ok it is decided. Some good speeches made when the decision was announced - " making scouts a safe place for any kid". Great concept.

But quick! {falling off the PC wagon perhaps} Before the late night pundits have a chance, what new merit badges will be needed for scouting? I have no doubt that joke will come up.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/boy-scouts-vote-end-ban-openly-gay-youth-221...

122: Now who will be good at knot-making and fire-starting on planets where the Saints populate their distant planets with more spirit-children?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/us/mormons-and-scouts-act-as-partners-in-moldi...

Now with more shouty outrage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W59Fnn4NbSc

I guess I need to renew my subscription to Wired Magazine. I had no idea who/what David Karp of tumblr was.

"Can Tumblr’s David Karp Succeed at Yahoo?" is the title of the article the quote below is from:

"Born on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, he dropped out of high school at 14 years old, ending his formal education slightly before technology giants like Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison of Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL), and Mark Zuckerberg, all of whom dropped out of college. But once he read a book about HTML software, he began dabbling in the technological world, following a varied career path. He worked at the Apple-repair specialist Tekserve, as a programmer for Fred Seibert’s Frederator Studios in the middle of Times Square, and as an engineer for UrbanBaby, which he described as a “somewhat raunchy forum for progressive New York moms.” All this occurred before he turned 16.

He even continued working for both Seibert and UrbanBaby from Japan without either employer realizing he had left New York."

Horrific sex scenes in fan fiction:

http://www.cracked.com/article_20471_the-5-most-horrific-sex-scenes-in-fan-ficti...

#125 Hey, I thought that was the first thing everyone thought of as soon as characters become a cliche.

Yes, but they don't always get it right. After all, in Star Trek "K/S" fan fiction, whoever thought the S was for Sulu?

You devil, Robert.

#127 {after spending five minutes looking up the definition of K/S fiction on wiki} That would depend on which iteration of Star Trek you were referring to, according to recent rumors, correct?

{I saw Trek Into Darkness over the weekend & liked the new time-stream tweaks}

Patton Oswalt on thievery, heckling, and rape jokes:

http://www.pattonoswalt.com/index.cfm?page=spew&id=167

More on the Voynich Manuscript:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22975809

The old e-book vs. paperback debate dusted off once again with a new argument for exaggerating the controversy:

But there are many who believe reports of the paperback’s death have been greatly exaggerated—or just plain invented. Gerry Donaghy, book buyer at the largest indie bookseller in the U.S., Powell's in Portland, Ore., says that the major publishers have a compelling reason to perpetuate a paperbacks-are-dying narrative, for one simple reason: because paperbacks are the most common books to be bought secondhand. “Publishers have a vested interest in keeping the e-book dominant—it allows them to control the ecosystem, because there are no used e-book sales,” Donaghy says. A paperback copy of, say, Eat Pray Love can be sold and resold ad infinitum, thanks to Amazon and your local used book store. But for multiple people to read that same book on a Kindle or Nook, each of them has to buy it for $10. And if last spring’s Capitol Records court victory—which found that MP3 files can’t be resold—is any precedent, eBooks will likely retain their value in a similar way.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/06/declining_sales_of_p...

That warrants a "Hmmmm" all right, Anna...

I just found this via the Lawyers, Guns and Money political blog I constantly read, and am entranced, especially by their Sunday poems.

http://www.gwarlingo.com/

Check out this article, some of you are Tarkovsky fans I know:
http://www.gwarlingo.com/2013/the-polaroids-of-andrei-tarkovsky-the-mystery-of-e...

Those Tarkovsky stills are stunning--I've had my eye on both volumes cited in the piece for some time.

Thanks, Anna.

English majors a dying breed:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/opinion/sunday/the-decline-and-fall-of-the-eng...;

136: Meh! Who needs college in the first place:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biH4JO6jYow

And here's a title that fits appropriately for this group:

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/48769/james-kurth/the-decline-and-fall-of...

Good stuff.

Now here's a little something for all you folks who believe, as I do, that people are fundamentally fucking stupid:

https://vicpd.ca/media/media-releases/2013/bear-spray-duel-confounds-cops

(Thanks, Gord, this one's a peach)

138: Always the optimist. Watch out, you might get pegged into self-caricature.

http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2012/043/f/f/vday__misanthrope_by_midnight_mus...

138> There's gotta be a Foxworthy-esque redneck joke in there somewhere.

"Joyce Carol Oates is a "popular" novelist because her stories are suspenseful (and the suspense is never fake: The horror will really come, as well as, sometimes, the triumph), because her sex scenes are steamy and because when she describes a place you think you're there. Pseudo- intellectuals seem to hate that popularity and complain, besides, that she "writes too much." (For pseudo-intellectuals there are always too many books). To real intellectuals Miss Oates's work tends to be appealing, partly because her vision is huge, well-informed and sound, and partly because they too like suspense, brilliant descriptions and sex. Though "Bellefleur" is not her best book, in my opinion it's a wonderful book all the same." -- John Gardner's review of JCO's Bellefleur

Farewell to Nook e-reader?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23237000

142: Kinda bummed about that. It was a nice, easy, light mini computer. I love my Ipad but I still use the Nook to read, play games, and sometimes to browse, because it is so light and simple.

If the Nook fails, can Barnes & Noble be far behind? The e-reader was touted as a savior for the company.

It's not the entire Nook range, I think.

144: The e-reader was touted as a savior for the company. Wasn't the Edsel given the same assessment for the Ford "We're not anti-Semitic anymore!" Motor Company?

Sherron sent me this--pretentious people:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukelewis/the-most-pretentious-things-ever

That was great. I could really get into some of them, especially the hubris of the famous people like Kanye, Sting and Gwyneth Paltrow. I also loved the symbiotic chair.

I didn't mind the instagram photo. Alas, I am a dog...

147: Excellent! I love the picture of Sting with his lute. He is very overrated, especially by himself.

Forgot one on that list:

#25: This group (at times).

Because if we can't laugh at ourselves and our pretensions, then we're just playing a lute in a yoga pose. (And anyone who denies they can be pretentious in a group with a name like "Literary Snobs" is a) a pretentious ass, b) fooling themselves, c) intellectually dishonest, or d) one Tarkovsky reference away from ruining my attempt at a joke.)

151: All my pretensions are completely justified by my fabulousness.

I'm not pretentious, but the rest of you are.

Now, off to practice my lute.

Fascinating interview with Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, discussing some of the issues raised in his new book, THE PRICE OF INEQUALITY:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01brr81

Real food for thought. And here's a piece from the N.Y. TIMES that talks about Stiglitz's views:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/books/review/the-price-of-inequality-by-joseph...

For those of you as sick of the "Royal Birth" as I am:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/things-way-more-exciting-than-the-royal-baby

Makes even me yearn for the Protestant dictatorship of Calvinist killjoy and power-mad lunatic Oliver Cromwell Then again, here in Murrica, we'll be wetting ourselves when Chelsea Clinton pumps out a shortie. Ugh, as if leadership and good public speaking skills were an inherited trait. I guess all political junkies are inherently Lamarckian boot-licking sycophants. Although the difference between the House of Windsor and the House of Lannister is one of degrees:

http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Incest

What royal birth? I have been out of town since 1776.

157: Britain's been out of town since at least William the Conqueror

158: I remember reading the William books as a child. I don't think he would have had much time for something as soppy as the royal baby.

Re: UK Royal Birth. The Guardian has an amusing Royalist/ Republican button on the front page that neatly shows or hides the stories.

If you click "Republican," MI5 puts your name on a list....

I think the Royal Birth is a fine thing, redeeming itself in the USA by mentioning the $400 million merchandise fallout from the event, but I resent the evening national news being called the Royal Birth news. Having that quick half hour dominated by royal birth parades was a bit much. People in the USA who don't make a living from hobnobbing with celebrities still take a dim view of royalty, believe me. Any healthy baby is a wonderful event, hats off to the folks for that and may good health continue to bless all concerned.

162: And 3rd in line to a basically symbolic monarchy. That comes in a close second behind Kim Kardashian's spawn in terms of all-round human uselessness.

WolframAlpha indicates there are 371,124 children born on an average day. That seems like a lot.

Here in the UK the news has been dominated by the royal birth, which I think is understandable as it represents the amount of interest there is in the birth of a baby who will one day be our monarch, and I know commonwealth countries will also be taking an interest for similar reasons.

However I think your right it is strange for US news (and other non-commonwealth countries) to be making such a song and dance over it, why would you have more than a passing interest in the dropping of said royal sprog? I think it's just that this sort of thing is a gift to the world of rolling news who are always desperate to find things to keep filling time.

The media here might have been dominated by news of the new Royal prog, but most people couldn't give a shit. I suppose we should be grateful it doesn't have six fingers, webbed hands or two heads, but there are towns and villages in the UK just as inbred as the Royals and which produce their fair share of monsters, so it's not as if the birth is special in that regard either.

Meanwhile, in Canada, the right wing is falling over itself to laud the Royal Rugrat, with their captive newspapers proclaiming long live whatever-they-call-him. On the other hand Quebec launched a constitutional challenge against changes to the rules of succession, not because Quebec feels hereditary patriarchy is a great system, but because nobody asked their permission. And a group of people is bringing another constitutional challenge, trying to remove the oath of allegiance to the crown from our citizenship oath. It is hard to argue against that when you consider that I as a Canadian am deemed to owe allegiance to inbred foreigners by virtue of the fact that they and I were born.

Thankfully, I will be dead before the Royal Rugrat ascends to the throne. One has to phrase that carefully: "I will die before the Royal Rugrat becomes king" is factually accurate but could lead to a visit from the RCMP.

Swimming with whales...can be hazardous:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/07/23/divers-eaten-humpback-whales_n_3639263.h...

(From Sherron)

A.J. I wonder how the North Koreans view all these royal baby hijinks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Irw7SRv-l44&feature=youtu.be

John Oliver on the new inbred royal progeny, George Philip Nigel Ian Lamppost Busstop Pram Augustus Windsor:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/24/john-oliver-royal-family-inbred_n_36438...

I hadn't heard from Boris Zhirinovsky in a while, but it seems he won't be sending the royal bub a gift: "the birth of another British monarch, who will suck our blood somewhere in the mid-21st century, cannot bring us any kind of happiness.”

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/zhirinovsky-not-pleased-about-bloodsu...

I think he's being optimistic. Russia won't have any blood left after Putin finishes with it.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/07/25/hwbush-shaves-head.html

Unfortunately, they didn't use a cheese grater.

172: I dunno, they did fine after Ivan the Terrible and Stalin Stacked up to them, Putin is like a minor league shortstop.

US Army/Air Force exchanges stop selling adult magazines, National Enquirer sales remain strong:

http://www.freep.com/usatoday/article/2606105

If you follow the link, there's a terrific picture of Brigitte Bardot, which has nothing to do with the story.

"The 7 Most Baffling porn trends in the US":

http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/the-7-most-baffling-porn-trends-across-united...

Bullshit jobs:

http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

(Thanks, Gord)

177: What an excellent article. He expresses concisely what I have long felt.

I am reading his book on debt. It is long and difficult for me, but I have learned a lot...

Hmmmmmmm:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/digital-piracy-not-harming-entertainment-industr...

Another timely piece from Gord, this one on America's long association with guns:

http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/why-americans-love-guns/

Ho ho, right up my alley. The magnum opus on our love of the gun is in my publisher's loving arms. All that horrible reading I did over last fall and winter, which leaves me crippled and unable to read actual literature, has to count for something....

That's a good piece. Few people realize how significant was the revolution in firepower in the 19th century. But there is more than cowboy mythmaking and a romantic whitewashing of the frontier at work. The author doesn't consider romantic militarism, which peaked as the frontier closed, and affected Europe and Canada just as deeply as the US. The NRA was founded on British and Canadian models, after all ... but WWI put paid to romantic militarism everywhere but in the US.

I loved this comment on that article:
"The Europeans who came to America were aggressive people. The people in Europe who were content, or who didn’t want to change their situation, stayed. The people who were aggressive risk-takers came here. They knew they would face violence here, and so the only people who came here were the ones willing to do that. We selected the most aggressive and, yes, violent people from Europe to be the founding population of America."

Ah, yes, bullshit American exceptionalism. How I love you.

Thanks for that one, Cliff.

I'm compelled to add that there is no formal, rulebook shootout in High Noon. The author, like most people, is more familiar with the idea of High Noon than with the movie itself. Boo, hiss.

You're welcome, A.J.

On behalf of Gord, who usually discovers these beauties.

And be sure to drop us a plug when your book comes out. I have a feeling it might be my kinda thang.

> 181: Fascinating article.
> 182: AJ makes some good points. Interestingly, there are major parts of central Europe where there is a hunting culture, and firearms are openly available (I have a photograph of a shop in rural Austria called 'Iron Apple' that sold fresh fruit & veg, kitchen utensils and semi-automatic weapons), but there is no tradition of carrying and using firearms in any other context - doubtless because of the impact of WWI AJ refers to.

This seems to be to be reinforced by the example of Switzerland, where, as is widely known, all reservists (i.e. a major part of the population) have to keep their weapons at home (though the requirement to keep five rounds as well has been relaxed recently). Switzerland was not a combatant in either world war, and whilst their military provenance is not in doubt, and the need to carry arms on an everyday basis is perhaps the least of any European nation, the sad (and little-reported) fact is that Switzerland has the highest incidence of the use of firearms in domestic disputes and suicides of any European nation.

Oh yay, I came back after reading Cliff's great find, to see if AJ had appeared. Glad you saw that. Glad you are done with your book and I am planning on reading it once it's out!

To me, that's what this group is all about--sifting through all the sludge for that sparkling diamond. Identifying the smart writers, reviewers and commentators and introducing their work/ideas to folks who might have missed it because of the hectic nature of their lives or the sheer amount of STUFF that's out there.

185: interesting point re Switzerland, which of course is oft cited by pro-gun pundits as proof that you can have high gun ownership with low crime rates. The problem is of course always more complex than pundits pretend.

186: Spring! Allegedly....

Sherron found this: a slum tent city...in a skyscraper. The fascinating culture that has evolved. It reads like a J. G. Ballard novella:

http://weburbanist.com/2013/09/26/skyscraper-slums-insider-tour-of-worlds-talles...

An article from Scientific American about the brain and the upside of giving it regular sustained mental breaks....

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=mental-downtime&WT.mc_id=SA

I wasn't sure where to post this.

I know that there are several readers/enthusiasts of Arabic fiction among us, while there is at least one translator in the group. Of course, there are more than a few around here with strong opinions about contemporary publishing.

So for our little "diverse" group, this seemed as good a place as any.

http://www.complete-review.com/saloon/archive/201310c.htm#jm2

There is a librarything group for Arabic lit here:

http://www.librarything.com/groups/arabicnorthafricanan

Thanks for the link!

Chris Hedges says no more beating around the bush: let's get this class war started:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/lets_get_this_class_war_started_20131020

...and further:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_folly_of_empire_20131014

The Onion speaks the truth:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/nation-not-about-to-start-giving-a-shit-about-c...

I don't see how one can fail to be interested in a man whose excuse for smoking crack cocaine was "I was just in one of my drunken stupors". I was driving when I heard this on the news, I had to pull over I was laughing so hard.

196: I thought it was much better as an excuse than "the bitch set me up" (I was living in DC when that one went down) and I can't stop giggling about it either.

> 196: as someone said on Facebook, "that's as good as being pulled over for speeding and explaining, 'Well, I always like to see just how fast a stolen car will go.'..."

On video, the mayor of Canada's largest city. And people say Canucks are dull?

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/11/07/mayor_rob_ford_caught_in_video_rant.h...

199: Dull compared to Marion Barry Now there's a guy who knew how to party!

I found this a hoot:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-24929907

Like espionage novels? Here's a list of 60 of them:

http://hilobrow.com/2013/11/10/60-spy-novels/

Anyone heard of this custom:

http://www.thedeadbell.com/2013/06/bees-funerals-interrupted-and-death.html

"Telling the bees". Love it.

Another doozie from my wife.

Oh yes, Cliff. "Telling the bees" is a long-established custom.

Re: Bees

Robert, I think this is the article Sherron initially read that prompted her interest (posted on Facebook, of all places):

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1891&dat=19760808&id=bJdGAAAAIBAJ&...

I love with when news headlines read like Dadaist poetry:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/11/15/erotic_benedict_cumberbatch_fan...

> 205: Thanks for that, Cliff. "Telling the bees" is an old custom; a member of the family is required to tap on the hive with a door key before passing on the news.

"...tap the hive with a door key before passing on the news".

That's a great bit of detail, chum.

Thanks.

"This is water."

David Foster Wallace.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaVrn1Sz0H8&feature=youtu.be

(Thanks, Sherron)

In honor of the latest Andy Kaufman "sighting", one of his greatest performances:

http://www.yourememberthat.com/media/12069/Andy_Kaufman_Imitates_Elvis/#.Uo4yOBx...

Jeez, Cliff. That was great! thanks.

Kaufman's performance reminded me of the TV series , "Taxi"he was on. I kept waiting for the new TV detective series Unforgettable , featuring a "photographic memory" red haired {no less} lady detective , to give some credit to who inspired the character - Marilu Henner. She was the red head that was on Taxi and actually has that kind of memory {along with only 14 other people in the world according to some sources}. I saw where she would read through a script for the show once and then prompt everyone else on their lines if they had a problem.

edited in a couple of facts

Reconsidering Miley Cyrus:

http://hilobrow.com/2013/11/23/miley-cyrus/

Top dollar for L.F. Celine:

http://www.cocosvariety.com/2013/10/first-edition-of-celines-voyage-au-bout.html

212 Yep, Miley is easy to lampoon but she nailed her recent post "wrecking ball" appearance on Saturday Night LIve. I had forgotten/sniffed at all the acting she did growing up but she could walk on any skit at SNL and have the regulars trying to keep up. Great stage & camera presence.

214: And her father is Billy Ray Cyrus, best remembered for his cameo in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive Also, a singer of some genre or whatever.

http://www.businessinsider.com/11-surprising-things-you-didnt-know-about-mormons...

The CIA and the FBI have Mormon recruitment programs.

The apparent incorruptibility of Mormons' moral righteousness make them ideal candidates for the nation's law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Mormons are disproportionately represented in the CIA. A recruiter told the Salt Lake Tribune that returned Mormon missionaries are valued for their foreign language skills, abstinence from drugs and alcohol, and respect for authority.

Yeah ... not at all creepy.

Don't you love those stories about the internet bringing people with wild but congruent interests together?

"A German police officer has been arrested on suspicion of killing and chopping up a man he met on the Internet who had long fantasized about being killed and eaten, authorities said Friday."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/29/german-police-officer-arrested-killing_...

Wasn't the last one of these in Germany too? Makes me wonder if there's a real hunter in my Jaegerschnitzel and a real gypsy in my Zigeunerschnitzel. As for Wienerschnitzel....

"Hey, mom, a drone just delivered your Amazon order...then it blew up the Marshall's mean dog with a Hellfire missile and..."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/amazon-primeair-drone-deliveries-possible-in-5...

218 Yeah, I was feeling Deja vu when I first saw the article and thought it was an old one. What's that saying , something about never watch sausage being made? ;-)

219. I watched the Amazon drones on TV yesterday and immediately thought of a great way to use my old 12 gauge shotgun shells. Think there will be a job for rogue drone hunters?

Amazon has become Ender's Game

Russell Brand on Rupert Murdoch:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/nov/29/russell-brand-rages-sun-rupert-murd...

I like ol' Russ more and more every time I read about him.

Remind me never to visit Texas....

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57613733-1/no-books-here-new-texas-library-i...

223: How on earth could a library with no books in what looks like a strip mall unit cost $2.4 million?

Gillian Anderson ties the knot on new X-Files series ending?

No such luck, "Skully" is bringing attention to our sea dwelling neighbors. {If this is too risque let me know}
http://omg.yahoo.com/blogs/celeb-news/eel-love--gillian-anderson-poses-topless-f...

The fish looks pleased about it.

So all these pictures to save fish feature dead fish. Am I getting that right?

#227 My very unprofessional opinion is that the fish are all from a typical fish market and none are a threatened species. I didn't see anything that looked like an Atlantic cod etc. Although shark fin soup is being discouraged - the truth might be just the opposite. I have not followed any link to an actual ad with explanation.

Hell, as for me, I'll read anywhere...

http://bookriot.com/2013/11/13/10-terrific-reading-nooks/?utm_source=ebookfling&...

An absolutely perfect article for this group: Smarm vs. Snark

http://gawker.com/on-smarm-1476594977

Snark vs. Smarm: a false dichotomy. The ongoing problem in reviewing is not whether it's nasty or nice, but whether it's serious.

It's easy to write book reviews that don't really engage with the work, and that's how too many reviews are written. It's easy to be snarky about something without really digging into it; it's easy to utter nice, vacuous praise of something you haven't really engaged with. What's needed is intelligent, engaged, critical reviewing, not reviewing that cleaves to some half-witted agenda.

Proponents of empty snark claim their willingness to be harsh is their critical credential. It is not. "Snark," to me, implies superficiality: it's nasty for the sake of fun, a kind of preening viciousness, filled with self-regard. It's also essentially cowardly, because the snarker offers nothing; he merely takes shots at others. As Jim Harrison has said, second-rate writers trade in irony because to be serious is to open yourself to criticism. Snark is the same. If we restored the duelling tradition, snark would fade away overnight, because the snarker isn't serious enough about what he does to risk anything.

If you've ever been the victim of a vicious, superficial review written by someone who didn't seem to have done anything more than skim your book ... it's not fun.

Absolutely bang on, A.J.

Well, I don't think the article was arguing that all nastiness is a good thing. It was written because of the Buzzfeed "no more negative reviews" edict, which is obviously stupid on its face.

Some bad things need to be called out as bad. At the same time it is definitely true that some reviewers are just merely snarky without having any actual content of their critiques, and they are idiots. There are also reviewers that are making real critiques, that are also funny/snarky, and then they get attacked by the tone police, in spite of the fact that they are right, and that's just stupid too.

I once told you guys about a partially negative review I did on Library Thing for the early reviewer program where the publisher and author sent me a bunch of angry emails. My review was a true reaction and it was not humorous at all. Sometimes people have to be ready for the idea that their written product has some flaws, and the fault is not only in the beholder.

Unthinking sarcastic remarks and unrelenting negativity are really not what I would dignify with the word "snark". I'd just call that a kind of pathetic bid for attention that's a mirror image of the smarmy concern troll with his "do you know who I am? You are such a little person for criticizing me."

I've never bought into this policy of only publishing good reviews--our "national" newspaper follows that mentality and, as a result, its book review pages are about as interesting to read as Amish pornography.

Exactly - one of the things the "smarm/snark" article was responding to is the statement that one would re-read a positive review but not a negative review, and I was just thinking to myself, yeah, no. I have re-read both kinds, because some positive reviews are indeed very thoughtful and sometimes require more than one reading, but the ones I re-read for FUN are always the brilliantly negative ones.

Also, I like spoof reviews. Do they count as snark? (E.g., Amazon reviews on things like the 85" Samsung TV that costs $40,000 -- or the banana slicer or the wolf t-shirts) Spoofs and other "unserious" things are attacked a lot by the "smarmy" side and I will loudly proclaim our right to sophomoric but funny things to read that poke fun at various foibles of our society and particularly its upper classes.

Well, I'd say that whether you'd re-read a snarky review or a smarmy review is the wrong question. I'd take it as given that the only review you'd re-read would be a smart review.

This has been an ongoing argument in Canada for as long as I can remember. We have several magazines with explicit policies against negative reviews, the theory being that a bad book is best answered with polite silence. This is a terrible theory when the bad book in question wins the frigging Giller Prize. Then we have a number of others known for being nasty, who feel we should tear down the icons; this is a terrible theory when the icon is a first novel that has only sold a few hundred copies. There are ongoing spats. The Canadian equivalent to VIDA, CWILA, decided that negative reviewing is gendered, and threw in with the smarmers, for example. So I find the whole discussion kind of oh-my-look-at-the-time. Neither snark nor smarm, sez I; give me smart.

(If only the word smart ended in a "k"....)

Anyway, I guess my take is that "positive reviews only" should not lead to "smarm is bad; snark is okay" but rather to another option.

Dunno if the G&M policy of being nice will continue, Cliff. New books editor there now (Jared Bland).

Hope to see some changes at the ol' GLOBE.

The horror that was the Korean War:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/merrill-newman-a-victim-of-more-than-north-korea-s-...

Fighting the urge to canonize Mandela:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/10/mandela-coverage-banality-o...

(From the comments afterward, I'd say a nerve was struck.)

Are video games some form of...literature?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25305351

Comparing video games to the oral tradition handed down in the time of Homer...

Hmmm.

240: Oral tradition and video games (at least RPGs) both have interactivity and both are narratives. Not sure if I'd put Ethan Frome next to Skyrim, then again, what kind of masochist would want to read Ethan Frome in the first place?

The real story behind the lady burned by McDonald's coffee:

http://www.upworthy.com/ever-hear-about-the-lady-that-spilled-coffee-on-herself-...

# 242 Enlightening Cliff, thanks.

Yeah, sheds a whole new light on the way you thought about the incident, doesn't it?

Yes, thanks for posting this Cliff. I remember reading this, 11 years ago, and (fortunately) even the most severely edited of stories retained the mention of "3rd degree burns".

I knew there was more to the story...

It's of a piece with that story about the "welfare queen" that was in Slate recently. Take a story. strip all the context and then make it an emblem of something you want to attack. Mission accomplished because the media totally go along with you.

A guy I met a couple of times in school years ago, David Zucchino, wrote a book "The Myth of the Welfare Queen. It was well received but I have not read it yet. I read his book Thunder Run which was great.

Aha, here is a recent article by David about wounded kids from Afghanistan . Evidently he was in town over the summer, this all took place near where I windsurf on occasion.
http://www.thestar.com.my/Lifestyle/Family/Features/2013/08/07/Healing-love.aspx

Addendum to post 247, David's article on wounded Afghanistan children being treated in the USA and staying with foster families is very heart warming. It is always good to hear of someone aiding innocents in escaping a horrid situation. An afterthought was that my tone might have trivialized that.

Do we need a new thread? Maybe I will start one for 2014. In the meantime, this had a fun conceit. http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/book-of-lamentations/

Ayahuasca as psycho-therapy:

http://www.citypages.com/2013-11-20/news/how-ayahuasca-can-revolutionize-psychot...

Getting tired of those once ubiquitous TED Talks? You ain't the only one:

http://www.bratton.info/projects/talks/we-need-to-talk-about-ted/