The Doughty Traveler

Hitting the Big Time

2007-04-17T23:55:00.000-07:00

My very first publication. For money, that is. Big money.

On Being a Clown.

Check it out. It's totally for real, and it's totally my life. Extreme.

The Good Professor and the Body

2007-04-04T14:06:00.000-07:00

The good professor dropped another wonderful word bomb in class today: interstices.

interstice \in-TUR-stuhs\, noun;
plural interstices \in-TUR-stuh-seez; -suhz\:
1. A space between things or parts, especially a space between things closely set; a narrow chink; a crack; a crevice; an interval.
2. An interval of time.

Thank you, Dictionary.com.

The fascinating professor is a walking encyclopedia. Never fail to learn a worthy word from him.

In other news, most posting is happening over the The Platinum Body. Check it out when you have a chance.

PI Newness

2007-03-28T01:06:00.000-07:00

New goodness up over at PI. More materials for the DT coming soon as other writing projects come to a conclusion...

Crossdres-...er, posting

2007-03-22T23:53:00.000-07:00

I've been remiss in posts and cross-posts. Here's the latest over at The Platinum Body.

Day 11: 'ware the Boba

Today was Thursday, a day to be spent recuperating from the Wednesday workout.

I'd like to claim, with a jaunty air and a careless toss of my sun-dappled locks, that I needed to respite from LL's pathetic entry-level workout...but such is not the case. While the workout certainly isn't the most difficult, the fact is, I haven't done squats (an essential part of the routine) since my sophomore year of high school (when I had a catastrophic knee injury...that story will have to come later).

Thus, doing squats now has created the strange sensation that I'm on the receiving end of a Fight Club fat raid that has mistaken my plump rear for liposuction product (instead of mere potential). Okay, that perverse image is entirely inappropriate. No, it feels just like I've always imagined it would feel if someone performed acupuncture (you know, sticking needles through your body) on me...but just in my derriere.

So, relative respite I took, if waking at four in the AM can be called such (I had to drop folks off at the airport). So, three in the PM found me exhausted, stumbling through a parking lot in Claremont, trying to come up with meal number four (curse you, Cool J and your Sun King-sized stomach). The closest place happened to be Captain Boba World Bobarama...or something equally offensive to the concept of ascribing names to things. Sloth's cries overwhelmed me and I stumbled inside, pausing at the door just long enough to note the "B" rating. Perfect: dirty enough to tip off health inspectors, not dirty enough to make it good.

Like so much of the strange and wonderful world of the Inland Empire (and the cities that border on that region), Boba World was a horrifying place. The vaguely humid air combined fake flora littering the counter and food space gave the impression that the place was suffering some kind of invasion of noxious plasticene weeds. My stomach growled; from hunger, fear or revulsion, I could not say.

Impressively, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, I placed an order. The croissant sandwich sounded harmless enough, though I said "just a tiny bit of mayo" to be safe. How could one go wrong with fresh mozzarella, lettuce, tomato and roast beef. I was all but the poster boy for healthy eating.

Waiting for my food, a large winged insect attempted to join me at the bar. Somehow, in the few moments it took to end this misguided Diptera's life, everything changed. A warm miasma was rising from the toaster, no doubt moisturizing the cheese and meat heating inside; the refrigerator belched loudly and expelled large quantites of water of a tube that fell into a conveniently placed drain in the center of the work area; and the young woman behind the counter was trying to expel what remained of what had once been a full deli tube of mayo onto the now-soggy croissant.

Two minutes later, I sank my teeth into the sandwich as I left the shop. It was good, but in the way that a bacon dog outside the Coliseum is good. Bacon dogs are good because you've been imbibing the brewer's finest since shortly after eight that morning and it is now nine that evening and the game has finally ended and sobriety is threatening to return in perfect completeness, at which point you'll realize that you are still completely covered from head to toe in cardinal paint (including the ear canal) and may at any point run into your disapproving romantic counterpart who is in no mood to wait for you to deconstruct in a hose for an hour.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't good like that. In fact, the only parallel was the obscene amount of mayonnaise. Perhaps it was the pleasure that one takes from drowning out the cries of one's arteries: "For the love of all that is holy, purge yourself of this plague before we are stopped completely!" Something of the maniacal dictator rests in all of us.

And the relevance of this to the Platinum Body? LL wasn't kidding: it's not easy to eat well and it sure as hell requires discipline. My best shot at the moment apparently isn't enough. Mr. Smith, I apologize. I'll redouble my efforts (hmm, didn't one of Vader's commanders say that shortly before having his throat crushed by the Force?)...I'll retriple my efforts. Starting riiiiiiiiiiiiiight....now.

PI on the PB

2007-03-20T10:50:00.000-07:00

Well, the cat's out of the bag, so I might as well announce one of the many secret initiatives of the Navigator.

Though the reasons for doing so are unclear (beyond the obvious), I'm documenting my journey from the picture of slovenly unhealth into the Platinum Body. Predictably, I'm doing so in blog format, at The Platinum Body. For the full story, you're going to have to check it out, but I'll probably be cross-posting at least some of the material.

You might say it's vanity that's propelling this enterprise and one day, yes, I may be vain about my figure. At the moment, though, that seems hardly likely, judging from this photo. Rather, it's a chance to exercise bean and pen in service of a third effort: getting in shape. I can only hope it works. My past is littered with the burnt-out shells of workout plans. This time though...

Ho Ho Ho...

2007-03-13T08:52:00.000-07:00

Merry Thanksgiving, Donald Rumsfeld.

It should be noted that this award isn't uncomplicated. The Claremont Institute (from what what I understand), far from being a conservative monolith, includes, both in staff and scholars a host of different viewpoints on the Iraq war and Donald Rumsfeld's conduct thereof. Interesting, interesting.

Flea Market Montgomery - Long Version

2007-03-12T00:05:00.001-07:00

Oh, and how I could forget to link to this classic...

All Fun, All the Time

2007-03-11T22:43:00.000-07:00

Where can you find a glass cowboy hat, nudie prints of Marylin Monroe, and more overpriced fake jewelry all in one place west of the Mississippi and south of Mt. Shasta? Why, the Rose Bowl Flea Market, of course.

After many years of living in the Pasadena area, the clan made a trek to the Rose Bowl Flea Market, an extravaganza of used trinkets, castoff curios, aging antiques, a flea market festivus. I wouldn't consider it a serious excursion; more of an initial foray, a reconnaisance mission of ample merit to justify the price of admission. We wandered about for a happy hour and a half, seeing enough to make me realize that bargains are to be had, but take some serious effort on the part of the shopper.

Like every other red-blooded American speculator who has a touch of the fey in him, I've often dreamt about stumbling across a priceless piece of lace, an invaluable image of an overlooked artist, an uncherished china set whose manufacture is sufficiently ancient or expert as to be appraised in the millions, a fact only made known to me in the middle of an episode of Antiques Roadshow. Unlike the other incredulous folks on that show, I wouldn't shed a tear for said item, pledging to preserve it on the lintel or brick it up in an alcove of home. I'd turn around and sell that thing faster than you can say, "Bob's your uncle," invest in a high-yield hedge fund and spend the rest of my life reading books and changing the world as I randomly see fit.

Aaaaanyway, after that somewhat happy insight into my daydreams, back to the Rose Bowl. The flea market is a massive, hot, crowded place that succeeded in making me vastly more respectful of all the souks and bazaars I've wandered through in the Middle East (okay, so they were in Tunisia, and they numbered three or so). By the end of my time at the flea market ("I'm talking 'bout flea market"), I found myself wishing the vendors would show more than an whiff of interest in my arrival. In the medina in Tunis, if you're eyes so much as betrayed an interest in the mass-produced hookahs piled in front of a booth or the glassware handblown by native tribeswomen in the Grand Erg Oriental (no doubt conveyed to Tunis by louage and camel), a salesman/woman will be clinging to you like the black alien suit that's taking over Spiderman this summer (and becomes Venom when it falls on that smarmy actor whose name I can't recall).

To be honest, I think I prefer the happy medium of the Sunday street market in Ljubljana. There, fellows who had aged beside their (now) antique wares peddled relics of the Cold War that once had been staples of their lives. Others sold farm implements that seemed suited for the 16th century, but appeared to still have dirt on them. But, more relevant to this conversation, they were engaged without being overbearing. Most fellows were willing to negotiate a fair amount, share information (true or false wasn't exactly clear), and explain details of the various incredibly complicated mechanical devices that may or may not have once told time, but now looked more suited to permanently detatch infant fingers from baby hands. They weren't completely buddy-buddy, nor did you want them to be, but there was an unspoken rapport. Ah, for the days of my youth and the cobblestone streets of Slovenia's capital.

Regardless, the flea market will undoubtedly be the source of much more gold in weeks (years?) to come.

Islands and the Son

2007-03-11T16:02:00.000-07:00

How not to begin an article:

HERE, on an island that might be called Camelot, the winds of democracy have blown in like the waft from a landfill.

a) Camelot was no island, unless you want to call it an island of beauty in a world of...hmph, you get the idea.
b) Winds don't waft. Scents waft. So, is the air windy or wafty?
c) The mixture of images leaves me trying to conceive of an island just offshore off a mainland dump. How silly.

But this is just nitpicking; the rest of the article is quite interesting. In fact, I dare say, fascinating. The island under discussion is Sark, a curious little spot of island planted in the middle of the English Channel. It sounds more than a little delightful:

Algernon Swinburne, the 19th century poet, called it a "small, sweet world of wave-encompassed wonder."

Sark has remained pretty much the same for 442 years, since Queen Elizabeth I declared it a noble fiefdom. Transport is by bicycle, horse-and-carriage or Wellington boots. When absolutely necessary, one may resort to one of the island's few tractors. But the neighbors, never frugal with opinions, tend to look up from their gardens and make case-by-case assessments of what constitutes necessity.

Charming, no? Even more interesting, it's one of the last few places around Europe that still operates on a feudal system.Landownership is divided among 40 "tenants." They are the descendants or successors of the 40 men with muskets recruited by the original seigneur, the ruling lord commissioned to defend the isle against pirates and buccaneers. Government administration is by fiat, with the island administrator, judge, constable and clerk appointed by the current seigneur, a 79-year-old former aeronautical engineer whose family has governed Sark since 1852. Or so it was governed until dips from England decided to move in, and have since protested the sales tithe taken by the seigneur. Anyone who purchases land must pay the seigneur a thirteenth of the sale price. To protest this, and under the guise of being "pro-democracy," the new English idiots have decided to try to upend the antiquated (but functional system) and reduce their tax burden, ignoring the fact that taxes on Sark, all told, are a sliver of what they are on the big island.

I could write no small amount more on this subject, but I'd rather not get steamed (and I do have other work to do). Instead, I'm going to hope that Sark goes democratic when it actually wants to, not when some legalistic invaders decide to appeal to EU regulations to force it upon the island. As anyone who has ever gotten involved in local politics can attest, in a democratic country, it's ridiculous. A benevolent, low-tax, non-welfare state feudal system sounds just about right to me.

Alma Mater Dear

2007-03-08T22:58:00.000-08:00

Why couldn't I have thought of this?

A former USC lecturer who taught in the university's business school pleaded guilty Wednesday to conning his students and their parents out of $1.5 million by promising huge returns on real estate investments in Chicago and Las Vegas.

Barry Landreth, 37, faces up to 20 years in federal prison on a single felony count of wire fraud. He is scheduled to be sentenced June 4.

Landreth, a 2001 graduate of USC, was living in Coto de Caza and working as a part-time lecturer when he was arrested a year ago. He also was running Webster Realty Investors Inc., which billed itself as a diversified real estate investment and development company with projects nationwide, according to authorities.

More to the point, who the hell are these people who bite on this? Apparently Landreth offered a 190% return in 45 days...people, please, give me a break. They deserved to lose their shirts: they were buying into a Ponzi scheme and they knew it. Except, of course, Landreth was, how do I put this, an idiot:

Instead, Landreth deposited $718,000 of their money into his personal bank account, officials said. He used much of the remainder of the funds for personal expenses, prosecutors said, including $500,000 to buy and care for show jumping horses, a $73,000 Cadillac Escalade and $52,000 for brokerage accounts in his and his wife's names.

Lando, my man, you have to at least pay off some of the people. What did you think was going to happen? Why weren't you salting this all away into a bank account in the Bahamas? Aye yi yi, so many questions, so little time before he's imprisoned.

I'm guessing the law enforcement radar's going to be up now for Trojan alums trying to pull a fast one...guess I should lay low.

Watch out...

2007-03-08T20:13:00.000-08:00

Be careful where you place your feet...

Fun with Professor

2007-03-07T14:16:00.000-08:00

Prof. U never fails to entertain. Among the things learned today in class...

Yet another movie I ought to have watched.
As usual, my vocabulary could use some improvement.
There's a lot of new research to be done here.

That, of course, is in addition to the substance of the class, an element of which is illustrated here.

Heavens

2007-03-07T12:28:00.000-08:00

I found this strangely inspiring. Like a friend once said, everybody's gotta have a dream.

Old Onion Rings

2007-03-06T22:31:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure how I ended up here, but when I did I couldn't stop laughing. Ah, gotta love it.

SegWay

2007-03-06T12:37:00.000-08:00

No, not the latest scooter craze, I'm talking about segregation in schools. Actually, I'm not really talking about it. Aaron Hanscom is: Consider the case of Mount Diablo High School in Concord, California. Mount Diablo's website states that students will "celebrate diversity by being respectful to all walks of life." In keeping with that ethos, last month the school divided students by ethnicity for separate assemblies.

School officials explained that the purpose of segregating the students was to talk about test scores, recognize achievements and celebrate different cultures. Spanish was presumably spoken at the Hispanic assembly because student Ronald Mares said, "When I went to the assembly, I'm Hispanic, but I don't know how to speak Spanish, so I couldn't connect." Freshman Jason Lockett was disappointed with the African-American assembly, at which the words "Black Power" were projected overhead. "It was to compare us and say how much dumber we were than everybody else," Lockett told the Contra Costa Times. Good gravy...this is supposed to be an advance? Political correctness has so turned on itself that it is now advocating segregation?

Actually, you could see this one coming a long way off. I've often noted the practice, on high school and college campuses alike, of self-segregation by minorities. Note: I've noticed it, I'm not saying that it's necessarily right or wrong. But what I always thought more curious was the increasingly splintered campus map: it seemed like school administrators could put another notch on their buckler if they could find another obscure minority to separate into their own little entity. The phenomenon could have been worse; at least at USC we had football to bring us together and they do push the whole notion of the "Trojan Family."

But it wasn't so long ago that the institution of Black Student Unions on campus was seen as controversial because it would be a kind of tacit segregation. Now, we have Asian and Pacific Islander Associations, the Taiwanese Association, the East Asian Cultures Club, the Hawaiian Islanders Student Organization, and so on...the celebration of diversity has been increasingly exclusive. Follow that to the extreme and you realize that it's not so far-fetched to forbid those other kids to attend your heritage assembly.

Speaking of which, why the hell are they having heritage assemblies anyway? And what about those with Latin American heritage who resent the term Latino? What if they want their own unique Nicaraguan heritage celebration? How dare the school district trample on their unique culture by lumping it together with everyone else south of the border?

Actually, to continue with that thought, and this stream of consciousness I've devolved into, just imagine if, instead of a Danish Day or Oktoberfest, your school had a "European Day." What the hell would that mean? And yet no one bats an eye when you celebrate "Latino Heritage Day." Yeah, as if the struggles and histories of all those little nations to the south are identical. What unbelievable condescension. Whoever cooked that up is a jackass. Welp, I'm swearing. Time to hang up now.

Mr. Who?

2007-03-06T11:28:00.000-08:00

I got a kick out of this description of a movie that's playing at USC, or at least they're having a screening at USC. It's called Mr. Conservative:

This 90-minute profile of Barry Goldwater details his rise from local Arizona businessman to hugely influential U.S. senator with a 30-year career that crescendoed in an ill-fated 1964 run for president. Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater follows that tumultuous year, as well as others in a career that encompassed numerous political and ideological triumphs. Though he never achieved the ultimate prize, Goldwater saw the conservative agenda he had long championed vindicated with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

At the height of his power, Goldwater was the symbol of conservatism, denouncing liberals and Communists while advocating limited government, free enterprise, separation of church and state, and a strong defense. But because of his unequivocal opinions, Goldwater was vulnerable to attacks that labeled him pro-war and anti-civil rights. Those perceptions, coupled with John F. Kennedy's death a year before the election, undermined Goldwater's presidential hopes, though he remained a strong and influential Senate voice for 23 more years.

Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater includes interviews with Senators Edward Kennedy, Hillary Rodham Clinton (a onetime "Goldwater Girl") and John McCain; former TV anchorman Walter Cronkite; humorist Al Franken; reporter Helen Thomas; political consultant James Carville; Goldwater's family; and others.

Okay, so let's look at that list of interviews: Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, Walter Cronkite, Al Franken, Helen Thomas, James Carville...do I see a pattern here? Why are the featured interviews about "Mr. Conservative" all bitterly partisan liberals? McCain gets thrown in there because he succeeded Goldwater and, of course, you have to have interviews with the fam, but everyone else is...ahem, not conservative in the slightest. Curious documentary, this. If I had an ounce of energy to do so, I might be able to turn up some further info on who made this, whether there are interviews with other people besides those mentioned, blah blah blah. I don't so let's just throw our hands up in horror at this utterly biased portrayal of the man.

Great opening lines...

2007-03-05T11:15:00.000-08:00

Among the more entertaining first lines of an essay:

The Spanish Cardinal Merry de Val once said that for the Protestant the Bible is a wax nose to be twisted any way one pleases.

Quoted from this essay, the interest of which I cannot vouch since I am one line into it (warning: I think you need to have JSTOR access).

Curious Word: Eftsoons

2007-03-05T11:01:00.000-08:00

What a gem, courtesy of St. Germain.

Eftsoons:

Archaic 1. Soon afterward; presently. 2. Once again.

Gee, thanks, American Heritage Dictionary! Archaic, eh? Not when I'm done with it. I can hear the Microsoft flackies now..."Sales of Zunes will balloon eftsoons."

St. Germaine Part Deux

2007-03-05T10:12:00.000-08:00

Chapter XVI of St. Germain's dialogues makes an excellent point about equity:Equity is a right wiseness that considereth all the particular circumstances of the deed, which also is tempered with the sweetness of mercy. And such an equity must always be observed in every law of man, and in every general rule thereof: and that knew he well that said thus, Laws covet to be ruled by equity. And the wise man saith, Be not overmuch wise; for the extreme right wiseness is extreme wrong: as who saith, If thou take all the words of the law giveth thee thou shalt sometime do against the law...it is not possible to make any general rifle of the law, but that it shall fail in some cage...Would that this advice were better heeded, even today! The class from which this reading comes focuses on the development of the rule of law in the Anglo-Saxon tradition, which has meant, thus far, a lot of reading of the likes of Coke, More, St. Germain, Fortescue, the Magna Charta, and, as Puff the Magic Dragon might have said, "other fancy stuff." I'm regularly shocked to realize that basic precepts that are ignored in our 2007 discussion of law were being advocated more than 600 years ago. Nothing new under the sun, though from time to time some things get sunburnt and we think we've found something entirely novel. Or at least I do. Get sunburnt. And find old things that I--...never mind.

Regardless, I'd bet you Gene Healy would have a thing or two to say about equity and the law.

St. Germaine

2007-03-05T09:52:00.000-08:00

Ah, you gotta love the phrasology of old writers:

The student starts off by saying that no such thing is in the law of England, but is rather a “general maxim” to guard against the probable possibility “that every man by a nude parole and by a bare averment should avoid an obligation.” I.e., somebody’s word or mere statement of fact is not sufficient to absolve them from an obligation—something of more “authority” is needed.

Okay, that wasn't actually an ancient writer (it was actually RW on St. German), but I tell you it must have been hard to be released on "nude parole." One can only imagine what a strange legal system it was when you could get out of jail so long as someone came to court in the buff to plead for you (bare averment) and you promised not to wear any clothes while outside the walls of the slammer. Let's just hope you didn't get paroled in the cold midwinter, King Wenceslas.

Writing Times

2007-03-05T09:51:00.000-08:00

Working on a writing project, though I can't spill the details at the moment. I will say, though, you know you're on the trail of success if you find yourself looking up words like this.

What a yob...

2007-03-02T23:05:00.000-08:00

My heart leapt at this opening. To bad it's far and away, and I can't leave the City of Angels any time soon (not that I want to, but it would be great work here...), but I encourage you to apply:

Managing Editor

The New Atlantis (Ethics and Public Policy Center) | Posted on February 11, 2007

The New Atlantis is seeking a managing editor to participate in every aspect of writing, editing, and managing the journal and its related projects.

Published by the Ethics and Public Policy Center, The New Atlantis (www.TheNewAtlantis.com) is an effort to clarify the nation\'s moral and political understanding of all areas of science and technology. Since its launch in 2003, the journal has been widely praised for essays and articles that probe the deeper meaning of everyday technologies and seek to articulate the human aspirations that drive the scientific enterprise.

A successful candidate will have an intellectual interest in the subjects the journal covers; will be a strong writer, reader, and researcher; and will be energetic and technically competent. Publication experience, management experience, or design experience (e.g., layout, graphic design, or HTML) would be pluses. This position could be a good platform from which a talented young writer, even a recent college graduate, could launch a career.
To apply, please send a cover letter, resume, and writing samples by e-mail to hiring@thenewatlantis.com or by fax to 202-408-0632. For more information, contact Adam Keiper at 202-682-1200 or akeiper@thenewatlantis.com.

Wikipeida & Plum

2007-02-28T00:35:00.000-08:00

Demonstrating once again that she is a fickle mate, ever wont to change her ways, Wikipedia has gone and pulled the rug from under my feet. I stole into her depths (hrm, that doesn't sound right), probing (still not right) a fact about a P.G. Wodehouse that I had once found there. The fact in question had disappeared, but a number of other troubling facts had since emerged, not least among them, Wodehouse's German internment.

Although Wodehouse and his novels are considered quintessentially English, from 1924 on he lived largely in France and the United States. He was also profoundly uninterested in politics and world affairs. When World War II broke out in 1939 he remained at his seaside home in Le Touquet, France, instead of returning to England, apparently failing to recognize the seriousness of the conflict. He was subsequently taken prisoner by the Germans in 1940 and interned by them for a year, first in Belgium, then at Tost in Upper Silesia (now in Poland). (He is recorded as saying "If this is Upper Silesia, one must wonder what Lower Silesia must be like...".)

While at Tost, he entertained his fellow prisoners with witty dialogues, which, after being released from internment a few months short of his 60th birthday, he used as the basis for a series of radio broadcasts aimed at America (but not England) he was persuaded by the Germans to make from Berlin. Wartime England was in no mood for light-hearted banter, however, and the broadcasts led to many accusations of collaboration with the Nazis and even treason. Some libraries banned his books. Foremost among his critics was A. A. Milne, author of the "Winnie the Pooh" books; Wodehouse got some revenge by creating a ridiculous character named "Timothy Bobbin," who starred in parodies of some of Milne's children's poetry. Among Wodehouse's defenders were Evelyn Waugh and George Orwell.

It's too late for me to defend P.G., so I'll save that for a later date. For now, check out Orwell's defense. G'nite.

Death on High

2007-02-28T00:06:00.000-08:00

Falling into the category "I-have-no-category-for-this-oddness," it appears that "six feet under" may soon be a quite inappropriate description of some final resting places.

Though it looks like something out of Perdido Street Station, it's really a skyscraping extension to the Memorial Necrópole Ecumênica, "a vertical cemetery established in Santos in Brazil in 1983."

This futuristic, insectile extension "will create another 25,000 niches, set inside a 108-metre-high tower block that will complete the complex."

It will be circled by birds, looming alien on the horizon.

Further reading on this truly odd tower reveals that "vertical cemeteries" already exist around the globe. To continue this adventure, continue reading and see other cooler pictures at BLDGBLOG.

Primo, Writer

2007-02-27T23:55:00.000-08:00

I overlooked this interesting bit of news earlier this month. I guess it got lost in the avalanche that is the web. The New Yorker recently published some short stories by Primo Levi, translated from Italian for the first time. Part of a broader effort to expose readers to the writer's work outside his Holocaust literature, among the interesting pieces is "A Tranquil Star." It caught my eye by being described as Kafka-esque. I couldn't resist seeing if the animus I share for the inestimable Kafka would extend to Levi's newly translated stories. The verdict? Well, here's a passage.

Once upon a time, somewhere in the universe very far from here, lived a peaceful star, which moved peacefully in the immensity of the sky, surrounded by a crowd of peaceful planets about which we have not a thing to report. This star was very big and very hot, and its weight was enormous: and here a reporter’s difficulties begin. We have written “very far,” “big,” “hot,” “enormous”: Australia is very far, an elephant is big and a house is bigger, this morning I had a hot bath, Everest is enormous. It’s clear that something in our lexicon isn’t working.

But it's not clear that something in the story isn't working. I just haven't yet decided how I feel about the story. So, I guess you'll have to read it as well. So there.

Sweet Meru, Sign Me Up

2007-02-27T23:10:00.000-08:00

Give it a minute...every childhood dream will come true as this guy blows your mind.

Larger Than Life: Sir William Napier

2007-02-27T12:11:00.000-08:00

For a class, I've been reading some selections of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Right at the beginning of "The Soldier's Faith" (remarks delivered on Memorial Day, May 30, 1895 at "a Meeting Called by the Graduating Class of Harvard University"), he makes the point that of all characteristics, wealth is most greatly admired in a man.

I once heard a man say, "Where Vanderbilt sits, there is the head of the table. I teach my son to be rich." He sad what many think. For although the generation born about 1840, and now governing the world, has fought two at least of the greatest wars in history...war is out of fashion, and the man who commands the attention of his fellows is the man of wealth.

...

Most of my hearers would rather that their daughters or their sisters should marry a son of one of the great rich families than a regular army officer, were he as beautiful, brace, and gifted as Sir William Napier.

This name brought me to a halt. It sounded familiar, but beyond that it was foreign.

As it turns out, Sir William Napier is a fascinating character. My immediate resource, not surprisingly, was that omniwebpresent anthology of knowledge, Wikipedia, but I'm intrigued and will be pursuing a further investigation as time permits. Napier had, depending on how you look at it, a charmed or cursed life.

Sir William Francis Patrick Napier (December 7, 1785 - February 12, 1860), British soldier and military historian, third son of Colonel George Napier (1751-1804) was born at Celbridge, near Dublin.
He became an ensign in the Royal Irish Artillery in 1800, but at once exchanged into the 62nd, and was put on half-pay in 1802. He was afterwards made a cornet in the Blues by the influence of his uncle the duke of Richmond, and for the first time did actual military duty in this regiment, but he soon fell in with Sir John Moore's suggestion that he should exchange into the 52nd, which was about to be trained in the famous camp of Shorncliffe. Through Sir John Moore he soon obtained a company in the 43rd, joined that regiment at Shorncliffe and became a great favourite with Moore.

He served in Denmark, and was present at the engagement of Kioge, and, his regiment being shortly afterwards sent to Spain, he bore himself nobly through the retreat to Corunna, the hardships of which permanently impaired his health. In 1809 he became aide-de-camp to the duke of Richmond, lord lieutenant of Ireland, but joined the 43rd when that regiment was ordered again to Spain. With the light brigade (the 43rd, 52nd, and 95th), under the command of General Craufurd, he marched to Talavera in the famous forced march which he has described in his History, and had a violent attack of pleurisy on the way.

He, however, refused to leave Spain, was wounded on the Coa, and shot near the spine at Cazal Nova. His conduct was so conspicuous during the pursuit of Masséna after he left the lines of Torres Vedras that he as well as his brother George was recommended for a brevet majority. He became brigade major, was present at Fuentes d'Onor, but had so bad an attack of ague that he was obliged to return to England. In England he married Caroline Amelia Fox, daughter of General Henry Fox and niece of the statesman Fox.

If you're beginning to notice a pattern, I congratulate you. Napier seemed to be a magnet for non-mortal wounds and crippling, but not lethal, diseases.

His resilience, of course, is not why Holmes employed as the paragon of martial spirit. Over his long active military career, he seemed to have a near-fanatical devotion to his troops (perhaps the reason he suffered so often and so grievously in battle). Further, though he was a fighting man, and largely illiterate at the time of his retirement from active service, he schooled himself in literature and became a highly popular and well-regarded historian. His major work recounted that campaign that he played a significant role in, The History of the Peninsula War, and, with the publication of each successive volume, was quite a hit (though sales weren't so torrid right out the gate).

Napier's life merits much further examination, and I regret that I may never have the time to do his life justice. I'll close by noting he came from one helluva a fighting family. Consider his brothers:

Brother Sir Charles James Napier (1782--1853) Commander-in-Chief in India. The city of Napier, New Zealand is named after him.
Brother Sir George Thomas Napier (1784--1855), Commander-in-Chief of the Army in the Cape Colony

Not a bad record at all. Righto, back to work, back to work.

Kafkannated: #93

2007-02-27T11:55:00.000-08:00

Don't call Kafka crazy...or at least don't refer him to the green couch, because he won't go, according to aphorism number 93:

No psychology ever again!

Bravo. No more psychology. I'm happy you don't need it. Then again, given that you are celebrated for writing a book about a man that turns into a cockroach, maybe you shouldn't be writing it off so quickly.

Oh, and I should note that I've been attending psycho-therapy to deal with having to read these "aphorisms." But I will endure any pain, bear any burden, pay any price to see you and your aphorisms be ridiculed. And since I don't know of any other warriors on this divine crusade, I must keep on. Down with psychology, and down with you Kafka.

St. B

2007-02-27T11:53:00.000-08:00

On a recent weekend, I was able to scratch the traveling bug a wee bit, spending the non-working days in Santa Barbara (I guess that's not entirely accurate, given that my weekends are often filled with paid employment, but you get the idea). The occasion? A retreat for engaged couples provided the opportunity for the best beloved and I took take our first trip in our jointly purchased vehicle.

I won't be so bold as to claim the days of solo travel are alone, but those days are certainly numbered, and that is a date whose arrival I will not dread (though I might dread ever again writing such circumlocutions). The pleasures of traveling in tandem, specifically with the one you love....I couldn't possibly list them all, but high on that list is having someone who feeds you snacks while you're driving (hey, it's the simple joys).

So, Santa Barbara will splash across these pages in the days to come. Um...get ready?

Hail to Heinie

2007-02-27T08:49:00.000-08:00

"All Hail to Alma Mater
To thy glory we sing;
All Hail to Southern California
Loud let thy praises ring;
Where Western sky meets Western sea
Our college stands in majesty;
Sing our love to Alma Mater,
Hail, all hail to thee!"

So go the words to USC's alma mater, "All Hail." I just thought I'd preface this action by a member of the men's hockey team. Majesty, indeed.

I would just like to note that the headline indicates (if you click through) that an investigation is being launched. An investigation? Into what? Whether or not the man actually has a rear end?

Ossuary's 15

2007-02-26T18:17:00.000-08:00

And in other news, James Cameron is an idiot. Make sure you note the dissenting view: the archaeologist that discovered the tombs.

Can I Have Some More, Please?

2007-02-25T22:32:00.000-08:00

That's Thomas More, some of whose work we will be discussing in a class this week. And in case I hadn't suckled full on the teat of More's wisdom (that metaphor failed worse than the time I described a co-workers commitment to finishing a job to a cancer that won't stop till it kills you), Ms. A kindly passed along some of the saint's epigrams. My radar was on high thanks to Kafka, and my attention was swiftly rewarded.

That the Tyrant While He Sleeps Is No Different from the Commoner (#114)
Well then, you madman, it is pride which makes you carry your head so high—because the throng bows to you on bended knee, because the people rise and uncover for you, because you have in your power the life and death of many. But whenever sleep secures your body in inactivity, then, tell me, where is this glory of yours? Then you lie, useless creature, like a lifeless log or like a recent corpse. But if you were not lying protected, like a coward, unseen indoors, your own life would be at the disposal of any man.

Ahem. Indeed. A lifeless log, your More-ness? That's how the commoner sleeps, eh? Like a recent corpse. Well, I've got news for you, bub. If my style of sleep (thrashing, screaming, conversing, sleepwalking) was how a recent corpse behaved, then Annabel Lee would have been an even more disturbing poem than it is.

As it is, Tom, I respect you and the great play you're the star of. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater, dude. If the tyrant sleeps like a commoner, and the tyrant also sleeps like a slab of pre-processed bologna, then the commoner ends up getting the same shaft. So, let's just say the tyrant sleeps like a man with boils on his soul (whereas the commoner probably just has them on his body).

Win Friends

2007-02-25T22:12:00.000-08:00

Influence horses...

At $12/hour.

Who do we hate?

2007-02-25T21:13:00.000-08:00

I hate politicians, I hate politicians, I hate politicians, you-should-too!

Especially Trent Lott. You racist old dirtbag.

Curious Word: Patois

2007-02-21T22:28:00.000-08:00

Today's curious word comes from the proofs of a highly esteemed publication, which is possibly illegal, so I'll keep my quoting and referencing to a minimum.

Actually, now that I have looked about the room, I realize I don't have those proofs, so I can't even be the fool that I planned on being. Aaaaaaanyway, the word is...

Patois, although without a formal definition in linguistics, can be used to describe a language considered as nonstandard. Depending upon the instance, it can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects, and other forms of native or local speech, but is not commonly applied to jargon or slang, which are vocabulary-based forms of cant. Class distinctions are embedded in the term, drawn between those who speak patois and those who speak the standard or dominant language used in literature and newscasts—the "acrolect" in professional jargon.

The origin of the French word patois is uncertain. One derivation^[1] is from Old French patoier meaning "to handle clumsily, to paw". The language sense may therefore arise from the notion of a clumsy manner of speaking. Alternatively^[2] it may derive from Latin patria (homeland) referring to the localised spread of the language variety.

Thank you, Wikipedia. I can't help but wonder if any famous impressionists betrayed evidence of this speech condition...perhaps Degas' patois?

Kafkannated: 46 & 45

2007-02-21T22:07:00.000-08:00

Kafka may have thought he would not be pilloried on the DT, but how wrong he was. I have not forgotten about him and his aphorisms...and this post is my witness.

46: The German word sein signifies both "to be there" and "to belong to Him."

Uh huh. And if I was German, perhaps everyone in my knitting club would have a great nosh about just how wild it is that the words we use often have meanings we don't intend and don't your remember the time the Romish immigrant with the laundry store down the street kept saying "business" but pronounced it "beezneez," so when she said in her broken English "Let's get down on business," my husband laughed so hard his hernia down there got so bad he had to have surgery. Of course, it I was German, that wouldn't make any sense (everything, that is).

45: The more horses you put to, the faster your progress--not of course in the removal of the cornerstone from the foundations, which is impossible, but in the tearing of the harness, and your resultant riding cheerfully off into space.

Okay, all this makes me think is that the guys who ride the Clydesdales got drunk and uppity and tried to a coup at the Budweiser brewery, which was so unexpected the entire world went *pop* and vanished except for the horses and the two inebriates. Why do I think that? Because Kafka is so deeeeeeep, man.

Ridiculous.

Washington: King of the Hooch

2007-02-21T21:40:00.000-08:00

Thank you, GW. No, not you, Mr. Spending Fiend, I'm talking about the OG gee-dub. That's right, George Washington.

If you're anything like me, you've brewed your own beer. And, if you're anything like me, you ran into stiff opposition from roommates and significant others who complained of the stench of hops and bleach (no, bleach is not an ingredient in beer). If only I could have invoked our nation's Foundingest Founding Father as my ally in defense of homebrewed alkeehol.

MOUNT VERNON, Va.--Although George Washington was born 275 years ago tomorrow, most Americans think they know a great deal about him. He led American soldiers in winning our independence from Britain. He was the nation's first president. He adorns our dollar bill and a new dollar coin. But how many people know he was also a leading businessman, probably the No. 1 whiskey producer in all of colonial America?

Not me, thank you very much. The inestimable John Fund (actually, I'd estimate him to be more than a tad over 200, based on my one personal encounter, but that's neither here nor there) has a fun column on the subject.

Of course, I think I'll stick to my beer instead of bathtub gin...I sampled the re-created product--made of 60% rye, 35% corn and 5% malted barley--during the recent dedication of the rebuilt distillery. Truth to tell, while the color was a pleasing amber with reddish tones, the taste was more reminiscent of moonshine than today's bourbons. In Washington's time, "quality" was a term that referred to the alcohol content far more than the complexity of the distilling process.

Indeed. A mistake that many of us have made, even unto the present.

Quiet Riots

2007-02-21T21:17:00.000-08:00

Things have gotten perilously quiet round here the past week or so. Quiet on this page usually means chaos elsewhere in the world and the past few days have been no exception. That's not to let me off the hook for my obligations here (whatever that might mean). But many things of note have been happening.

Unhappily, this curious thing called "discretion" (hadn't heard of it until just this Tuesday) intrudes upon me relating all of these events. Some may come to naught, others to glorious fruition. Regardless, changes are afoot, and some of them may spring from, you guessed it, Craigslist.

Anyway, more on that later...

Bloc Party

2007-02-17T00:43:00.000-08:00

The new release from the first group to challenge Radiohead for title of best UK group (in my book, anyway) is called "Weekend in the City" (I'd hyperlink that bad boy if I wasn't more tired than Sisyphus...who is a favorite on this page).

Notably, the disc includes a track called, Waiting for the 7.18, which is, of course, a numerical anagram for 187, which just so happens to be the bus I ride for hours every week. Looks like the spirit connection between these rockers and I just deepend ten-fold.

Pages vs. Wages

2007-02-16T15:05:00.000-08:00

Purchasing books has long been a compulsion of mine. Typically, though, the practice was limited by my income and relatively little access to a decent used bookstore. Between the boxes that have started flooding into the Salvation Army, Thursday specials at the Huntington Annex, and, the mother of them all, Amazon used-book sellers, my book buying has exploded.

Amazingly, this comes at a time when I have unprecedented access to free books, largely through castoff pile of books that don't get reviewed at work. As a consequence, my library has been growing by leaps and bounds, even though most new arrivals are either ratty copies of classics or clean, crisp volumes that I will glance at maybe once. So, my library will be full of crummy editions of what I do want to read and classy copies of what I don't. A lose-lose, I guess.

That, at least, is the charge that has been leveled at me by those in my immediate circle: family, friends, co-workers, and the best beloved herself. And, I admit, it's a charge hard to deny.

That being said, I defy you. All of you. All the naysayers, all those who chuckle "what a packrat," each and everyone who looks askance at my four paperback copies of Bleak House (I've read most of it, and written a rather astounding research paper on Mrs. Jellyby, thank you very much). I scoff at all of you. Go ahead, leave me, because my books certainly never will.

The most recent salvo from the would-be book burners comes from a family member who passed along this article from the WSJ Personal Journal. Tunku Varadarajan writes:

I was once told by an old graybeard (was he a teacher at school? an uncle in Madras? alas, I can't remember . . .) that a cultured man should have very few friends but very many books. I must have been a youngish mite at the time, for I feel that I've carried the imprint of those words for as long as I've been sentient.
As my friends--all 2 1/2 of them--will testify, I've remained true to the first part of the sage's dictum. And my wife, bless her--and bless, also, her fortitude--will leap to give evidence that I've not merely been faithful to its second half but have complied with its dictates in a manner that might easily be described as fervid. A veritable Katrina of books deluges the two places we call home, and a day seldom goes by without my slinking in the front door with even more of the darn things in the pockets of my trench coat.

Ah, a kindred spirit, I thought, which immediately aroused my fears. They were justified:

So imagine my consternation when, on having to pack up the contents of my office last week--I start a new job at the Journal, and must park myself in a new cubicle, with fewer shelves--I was faced with a devilish question: What to do with the books I'd accumulated there these last four years, books numbering, conservatively, well into four figures.

Tunku is forced (spoiler alert) to purge his books. Apparently, the kind soul that forwarded me this article intended to warn me of the dangers of clutching too tightly to every book that comes my way.

Happily, Tunku's fears are not my own. For though I never received the maxim the "graybeard" imparted to him, I've followed a version of it. Many books I own, and many more I will acquire soon, but few among these books are my friends. At the core of my collection lies a select group of works which I can't part with. Outside this inner sanctum circle all kinds of books about all kinds of subjects, with whom I might not part willingly, but without violent attachment.

Take, for instance, one of my weekend tasks. I've been lucky enough to come into possession of a pair of fascinating tomes: one profiling four centuries of Virginia history, the other seven generations of the Lee family. The two seem to complement each other from my cursory reading, but odds are long that I'll have a chance to do either justice. So, I plan to ship them off to an uncle in Virginia, whose home lies not far from the haunts of the Lee dynasty. He has an encyclopediac knowledge of the area and, I hope, would find much of interest and use in the two books.

Further, my library's new acquisitions, which went through many other hands before they sat on the castoff shelf, don't simply gather dust at my house. I've managed to delve into at least five this year alone, getting through three cover to cover. A stack of thin paperbacks from Osprey Publishing were a smash hit with my brothers. My sister snatched up a book of short passages on celebrated events in English history (the name of which escapes me) before I could look at it myself. And I've got two takers for P.G. O'Rourke's book as soon as I'm done pretending I'm going to review it for some publication.

I won't lie. A wall of books is an attractive sight. But better the books be read, and they are.

Phototimes

2007-02-16T10:40:00.002-08:00

The ol' DTrav has been a little media starved as of late, so I went ahead and posted some macrotic shots (I guess that was intended to make "macro" sound sexy, but instead I think I created a horrible fusion of "necrotic" and "crotch rot"...that is unspeakably terrible).

As you can see below, the pictures come to you courtesy of the Flickr account. In fact, I recommend you check out the photoset, there, as opposed to on the pages of the blog, since the pictures look way cooler than in the cheeseball format they are displayed on Blogger. Sigh. Also, you can get the full-size versions of the pictures on Flicky-Dicky (hrm, another mistaken attempt at a novel phrase, methinks), which, since they are (attempts at) macros, should be much cooler than the sad pint-sized near-thumbnails that show up on this page.

P.S. The bonus for reading the blog, of course, is the captioning which faithfully details the context of each picture. Enjoy.

Wide Web

2007-02-16T10:40:00.001-08:00

Wide Web
Originally uploaded by wgoodwin.

Let me tell you, if you are ever caught by an enormous spider, be sure to bring a camera along, like I did. Also, be sure to get the hell out of the web.

Ambered

2007-02-16T10:39:00.001-08:00

Ambered
Originally uploaded by wgoodwin.

The tree had two odd characteristics:

a) Some kind of woodland nymph was glowing from within the tree.

b) The amber poured out like an ash flow down the side of Pinatubo, catching this wee little bug in an instant. It had already covered my feet before I realized I should flee, lest I become a tasty treat for whatever dryad was hiding within.

Foreign Stores

2007-02-16T10:36:00.001-08:00

Foreign Stores
Originally uploaded by wgoodwin.

This looks just like a store I used to walk by in Greece every night...except tiny. So, maybe a store for ants.

Droptop

2007-02-16T10:35:00.003-08:00

Droptop
Originally uploaded by wgoodwin.

The homeless man climbed out of the dumpster, with a large selection of recyclables in tow. Just as I was about to wish him well, he clubbed me with the remains of a nightstand. This is what I saw, coming to on my left side, realizing that maybe people who dumpster dive are pondscum.

P.S. The above story is absolutely untrue and dumpster divers are often the finest of human beings. Actually, I was sunbathing in the nude on the blacktop in the parking lot.

Run Over

2007-02-16T10:32:00.001-08:00

Run Over
Originally uploaded by wgoodwin.

Once-frozen droplets melting off fallen leaves just outside of work. I don't have the slightest idea how I noticed this, since I was at a dead run at the time...yes, late as usual.

Linklight

2007-02-16T10:31:00.001-08:00

Linklight
Originally uploaded by wgoodwin.

If you were a severely myopic bug, clinging to the interior of a Metrolink train, this is what you're life would be like...until you were smushed.

Bridges Falling Down

2007-02-16T10:28:00.001-08:00

Bridges Falling Down
Originally uploaded by wgoodwin.

Just on the other side of this rusty metal wall, a five-toed dragon was trying to claw his way through. Happily, it only succeeded in dulling his talons.

How did I know if was a male dragon? Easy, females have four toes.

Sappy Tracks

2007-02-15T22:58:00.000-08:00

Memory lane's always just down the street for me.

The normal paths the mind wanders are, for me anyway, filled with the pits and deadfalls of the past. I have little control over the triggers that send me into way back when, for better or for worse. All too often, it's for worse; if you've ever seen me suddenly shudder and grimace, it's almost certainly the unexpected return of an univited visitor from a less than impressive point in the past.

Fortunately, the rabbit-holes of the mind don't always send me to unhappy places. And one happy place, triggered by the strangest things, are memories of trains.

I love being on a train. Trains stand for motion, for direction, for certainty and speed. Better yet, most anything you do on a train is what you ought to be doing. You can be as productive as need be, but there's nothing lost in simply staring out the window, because the view from the train is unlike any other. Trains take care of the busy work, the stopping and going. They cut through cities and mountains, tearing along heedless of impatient cars halted at crossings, cheered on by waving children and barking dogs. The infinite turns of driving, the red lights and the crosswalks, appeals to the map, fillups at the gas station: the train dispenses with all that administration of life, the paperwork of being.

I've spent many happy hours staring at the pastoral ideal France has quilted across its countryside in many kinds of trains. Pulling into Orleans after a day of touring chateaux along the Loire, the aging train slumps into the quay seeming as tired as your feet (from hiking the miles between the royal residences and the tracks). The train to Chartes is busy and efficient, a not unfriendly contrast to the bumpy carriage ride under the shadow of the cathedral. The TGV fancies itself a demi-plane, smoothly hurtling across the miles without even the hint of a clickety-clack to remind you it runs on rails and not just the will of the starch conductor.

The journey is certainly not more important than the destination, unless your destination is the journey. Training across Hungary without another thought in my mind, I caught a blurry snapshot of a single home, perched on a hill, no others around as far as the eye could see. Eleven hours on the train and that house was the most poignant thing I saw out the windows, though many other sights were much more spectacular. Similarly, across Spain, from Madrid to Santiago de Compostella and from there to San Sebastian: the journey ended the moment I stepped on the train, for I had arrived, content to see the world outside the glass evolve hour after hour, the words of Jose Maria Gironella coming in snatches.

I could go on, and will soon, no doubt, but it's funny what occasioned this whole reminisce. Someone had Jack Johnson playing, and for a minute or so, I heard his song, Breakdown. Good eclectic though I may strive to be, I won't deny enjoying the tune, in no small part because it instantly took me to a train in the Swiss Alps, smokily puffing along the many hours from Interlaken to a town near the Chateau de Chillon. The windows of the train come down just right to rest your elbows on the ledge and your chin on your hands. Only a pair of German women and I are in the whole car, taking turns to alert the each other of sights of particular interest. Outside the peaks wear white fez's of snow, though it's a brilliant and warm day, while the scattered farmhouses are lined with the rouge of flowerboxes in bloom.

It's a moment you don't want to end, but, funnily enough, I never wished that train would breakdown.

Mamasita

2007-02-15T11:00:00.000-08:00

Sweet Meru...by the far the most inappropriate link ever from a MacDailyNews article.

Don't let your imagination run too wild. It's from the SI Swimsuit Edition and the caption is "Swimsuit by Apple." It is, in no small coincidence, the most salacious link to ever grace The Doughty Traveler.

UPDATE: Richard S suggests the next feature be the 1985 Bears wearing the iPod Shuffle. I respectfully disagree.

Working Man

2007-02-14T10:30:00.000-08:00

As part of internet research for work, I stumbled across this:

Crack kills.

Yes, it does.

William Graham Sumner: Crotchety Ass

2007-02-12T21:42:00.000-08:00

Well, the votes are in for grouch of the century and Sumner wins hands down. I'm reading through a number of his essays for a class, and I can safely proclaim myself no fan of his.

But before I get into the meat and potatoes of this meal of criticism, perhaps a little background is in order. Graham's claim to fame is not the cracker that bears his name. Rather, Sumner was, of all things, a Yale professor (strike one):

He graduated from Yale College in 1863, where he had been a member of Skull & Bones. Later he was appointed to the newly created Chair of Political and Social Science at Yale. As a sociologist, his major accomplishments were developing the concepts of diffusion, folkways, and ethnocentrism. Sumner's work with folkways led him to conclude that attempts at government-mandated reform were useless. He was a staunch advocate of laissez-faire economics. Sumner was active in the intellectual promotion of free-trade classical liberalism, and in his heyday and after there were Sumner Clubs here and there. He heavily criticized socialism/communism. One adversary he mentioned by name was Edward Bellamy, whose national variant of socialism was set forth in Looking Backward, published in 1888, and the much more powerful sequel "Equality."
Like many classical liberals at the time, including Edward Atkinson, Moorfield Storey, and Grover Cleveland, Sumner opposed the Spanish American War and the subsequent U.S. effort to quell the insurgency in the Philippines. He was a vice president of the Anti-Imperialist League which had been formed after the war to oppose the annexation of territories. In his speech "The Conquest of the United States," he lambasted imperialism as a betrayal of the small government ideals of anti-militarism, the gold standard, and free trade. According to Sumner, imperialism would enthrone a new group of "plutocrats," or businesspeople who depended on government subsidies and contracts.

Hey, wait! Sumner doesn't sound so bad: anti-communist, thinks socialism is crap, like free trade...hell, he's a 'classical liberal.' How bad could he be?

To be honest, I don't know. He does sound like a great guy, until you read him. I'm not going to use the phrase, "tedious as hell," but I'm sure some other student has. More importantly, regardless of how much he loved free markets, he had an extreme stick up a certain bodily orifice. This specific example comes to us via his essay, "The Forgotten Man."

Now you know that "the poor and the weak" are continually put forward as objects of public interest and public obligation...The paupers and the physically incapacitated are an inevitable charge on society. About them no more need be said.

Weeeeeeeeell, la dee-frickin'-da, Mr. Sumner. No more to be said about the poor and crippled, eh? What do you do when you see a bum on the side of the road? Run him over? Hey, I'm glad ol' Steve Hawking wasn't your child, Sums. I can picture you bricking him up in some corner of your drafty old house and destroying his birth certificate. Hell, who cares? He's an inevitable charge on society. There's nothing he could contribute, right?

Of course, even though "no more need be said" about these subhuman scum, Sumner continues his campaign for captain of the snotbag team.

The weak who constantly arouse the pity of humanitarians and philanthropists are the shiftless, the imprudent, the negligent, the impractical, and the inefficient, or they are the idle, the intemperate, the extravagant, and the vicious.

Hey Summie, you missed "the filth," "the dirt beneath my feet," "the sewage in the river of humanity," and "cockroaches I want to crush." Seriously, dude. I considered myself pretty unsparing when it came to welfare reform and the indigents by the side of the road. When an able-bodied man asks me for change, I tell him to get a job. Just two nights ago, I passed by a girl in a wheelchair begging, who made the mistake of getting dressed up in a Goth outfit (not sure why she thought that would really call forth the denarii). When she tried passing the cap, no doubt to fuel a couple more purchases of spikes and leather, I laughed in her face (and her non-functioning legs).

So, William, I get where you're coming from. You hate the welfare state, the nanny state, just about any state and idiotic charities that promote slavish dependency instead of rehabilitation of the fallen man. Once upon a time, we were on the same side.

But, dude, you blindsided me with this viciousness. I know, I know, all you want to do...

is point out the thing which is overlooked and the error which is made in all these charitable efforts. The notion is accepted as if it were not open to any question that if you help the inefficient and vicious you may gain something for society or you may not, but that you lose nothing. This is a complete mistake. Whatever capital you divert to the support of a shiftless and good-for-nothing person is so much diverted from some other employment, and that means from somebody else. I would spend any conceivable amount of zeal and eloquence if I possessed it to try to make people grasp this idea.

Believe me, WG, you don't have it, so please spare yourself the trouble. All you've accomplished is given my hardcore libertarian peers reason to talk like complete jerks.

I'd go on, but this rant needs to end so that I can accomplish some schoolwork. More coming on Sumner the Bummer later, if I can stomach it.

Heard Word

2007-02-12T20:34:00.000-08:00

I may have been mistaken, but I thought I heard RW use the word, "jurisprude," in class today. Given that he wasn't referring to someone who "makes an ostentatious show of learning in jurisprudence," he may have been, in fact, acting like a jurisprude simply by using the term. I'm going to call him out on it tomorrow. I'll let you know if fisticuffs result.

Lawyers.com has the whole story on this word...

Definition - Noun
[back-formation (influenced by prude) from jurisprudence]
: an individual who makes ostentatious show of learning in jurisprudence and the philosophy of law or who regards legal doctrine with undue solemnity or veneration might long and profoundly debate the question of which was the greater right and which was the lesser Howell v. State, 425 A.2d 1361 (1981)>
Pronunciation'ju'r-&s-"prüd

Kafkannated: No. 58

2007-02-12T20:11:00.000-08:00

It's time for our daily dose of the Zaphorisms (if you're curious as to why this is a daily feature, poke down the blog a day or two, where all is explained). Today's special? No. 58.
The way to tell fewest lies is to tell fewest lies, not to give oneself fewest opportunities of telling lies. Thank heaven for Franz Kafka, what would we do without him? "The way to tell fewest lies is to tell fewest lies." Ah! I see! It's been staring me in the face this whole time! For years I've been walking around with a polygraph permanently attached, giving a constant readout of my veracity to any in the vicinity (there has to be some way to get those words closer together). If only I had read the big K, I would have known that instead of having my manservant rap me over the head any time falsities tumbled off my lips, I could just not tell them. Oh, thank you Franz, thank you. I can take off the wires and spare my head from Rabadash's lumps.

(Bonus points in the ongoing DT Challenge for anyone who can tell me who my fictional manservant is named after...)

Curious Word: Noetic

2007-02-12T19:48:00.000-08:00

The latest star in the constellation Curious Word comes to us via P.G. O'Rourke in his latest work, a dissection of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Sadly, I've once again managed to lose the exact page...actually, I don't have any idea what the page was. I finished the book late last night after soaking up the remains of decent bottle of the ol' chard from Clos du Bois. Of course, the remains of a bottle were not nearly enough, so Mr. Daniels and I struggled with the last few pages as a team.

As a result, I can't tell you quite where the word was used. Fortunately, after a little research to become better acquainted with the term, I can tell you what it means.

Noetic:

The term is usually philosophical in its usage, and is broadly defined, though everyone seems to agree that it has something to do with your noggin or whatever is canoodling about inside the old bean.

Okay, I admit, that is a definition of my own invention. Let's turn to some wikimagic for a better description.

In philosophy and religion, the word noetic, from the Greek νοῦς (nous) is usually translated as "mind", "understanding", "intellect", or "reason". Most dictionaries define the term noetic as a synonym of "mental" or "intellectual." From the nous emerges the world soul, which gives rise to the manifest realm.

Hmm. There you have it. Happily, the term is eminently flexible, as you can see by the various, vague definitions offered. For instance, one might readily employ the term to sketch a thoughtful versifier: "What a noetic poetic."

Indeed.

Kafkannated

2007-02-11T17:11:00.000-08:00

The essential philosophical writings of one of the twentieth century's most influential writers are now gathered into a single volume with an introduction and afterword by the celebrated writer and Kafka scholar Roberto Calasso.

So begins the jacket description of The Zürau Aphorisms, by Franz Kafka. I say that's a bunch of hooey. Or better yet huey, as in Huey Lewis. Moreover, I think anyone who has ever bothered to crack the cover of Kaf's Zaphs (as they are derisively known) would agree with me. The aphorisms are "freshly translated," culled from Kaf's original notebooks and laid out as he had done. The result, visually, is quite pleasing, and it's an attractive little volume. Until you start reading, that is.

I took a look at this book (to paraphrase LeVar Burton) for two reasons: a) it looks nice and readable, and b) it was free. As a bonus, I kinda hoped I might be able to casually drop snobby statements at cocktail parties: "You'd like another drink, as well? Well, I guess we're all shooting to reach Kafka's number 5...oh, I'm sorry, I've been reading Zürau. No. 5 of the aphorisms is 'From a certain point on, there is no more turning back. That is the point that must be reached.' Sounds to me like the point of being sauced. Hey hey!"

As a matter of fact, I think I will use that line at a cocktail party. Watch out, socialites and local soaks.

But, I will also add Kafka as a feature here on the Doughty Traveler, to spare you the pain of reading this tripe...well, actually to inflict upon you the pain of reading this tripe, albeit leavened by my bitter criticisms of it. I could start with the saying just listed, but who are we kidding? Kafka, that clever little saying is nothing more than a crappy version of the lyrics to an Andrew Lloyd Webber song. Except it's much easier to sing "past the point of no return," than "Frooooom a certain point, there is nooooooooo more turning baaaack."

So, let's offer up another aphorism for skewering...ah, No. 15:

Like a path in autumn: no sooner is it cleared than it is once again littered with falling leaves.

Zür-wow, Franz. You font of profundity. Oh, the agony of sweeping the walk, that perennial torment of the later months that inspires such despair in the soul. Raking leaves, what an exercise in futility, how it conjures up that despair of the soul occasioned by laboring in vain. Congratulations, FK, for that piece of polenta prose (no offense to polenta-lovers).

Journal of Love

2007-02-10T09:38:00.000-08:00

Another bleeding edge find (from yesterday) in the Wall Street Journal. Affairs to Forget: How Hollywood lost its romantic groove:

Among many similar spam emails, I recently got one from a hook-up site headed "No commitments." It began: "Its [sic] your birth right to 'Date-Beautiful Women and Men' " [sic, sic, sic].

Okay, so it doesn't start out very promisingly. But it does make an excellent point about love, believe it or not. In short, how much can love matter when the stakes are so low?

In an era when anyone can be, as Catullus put it in the Amores, a "horse-jumper of love," the stakes for any given romantic relationship are slashed. Where's the tension, the terror, the drama in a relationship when you don't believe in your one true love? But hey, I'm not doing justice to the topic. Let's let James Bowman explain this one:

The origins of romantic love, like its name, lie in the verse romances of the Middle Ages, which took from the troubadours of the 12th century the novel idea that the lover's whole life could depend on his lady's willingness to grant him her favors.
This idea later became a commonplace of medieval love poetry. The anonymous 13th-century English lyric that begins, "With longygne y am lad," for instance, includes the lines: "Lady, have mercy on me! / You have brought me to piteous sufferings / Be you the remedy that I beg / My life depends on you."
People were well aware that the last line was, at least partly, a figure of speech. But it also stood for a daily reality at a time when the cultural expectation was that love, like marriage, was for life. In Shakespeare's "As You Like It," Rosalind, in male disguise as Orlando's love-tutor, rehearses for him the stories of those who are supposed to have died for love and then dismisses them: "These are all lies," she says. "Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love."

It's a wonderful and concise argument against the idiotic approach to relationships that characterizes most of my peers. Fie on them. But up with James Bowman.

Crime and Punishment

2007-02-10T00:16:00.000-08:00

Might I recommend, for those looking for ocular entertainment, Mafioso, which is now showing at a number of Laemmle's Theatres in the Southland. I don't know what the occasion is, but the chain is showing a number of old films on the big screen, including Becket (which would be a good watch as well).

I hadn't seen Mafioso before and it wasn't what I expected, but a fair amount of it certainly rang true. A brief synopsis: Sicilian fellow who moved to Milan and become a successful factory manager visits his old hometown, and his family, after an absence of a decade or so, new wife and kids in tow. Northern Italy meets Southern Italy and hilarity ensues. Until the local mafia don has a favor to ask.

More than that, and you've gotta watch the movie, as far as plot goes. But there were a number of key points that I could relate to. Most significantly had to be the omnipresence of food. As the long-missing family arrives, a veritable feast is thrown for them, with the new wife mistaking the appetizers for the whole meal. Everywhere they go in town, someone else forces more food upon them. You can't turn a corner without a canoli or a calzone getting stuffed down your throat.

Visiting the best beloved's family in Cleveland, I felt exactly the same way. Warm, effusive, welcoming...but they put more food in me than an In 'N Out after a twelve year famine. The night of my arrival, even though we got to the house around eleven, I ended up having two sandwiches and I wasn't even hungry. The next morning, Thanksgiving, I had barely slogged through breakfast when they were pulling the pizza out of the oven for lunch. And by the time I got done with lunch it was time to head over to an aunt's, where the first thing she did, after giving me a hug, was cram a piece of some kind of cheesy bread in my mouth. I felt like I was training to be a beach ball.

The best part about it, though, was that the food was unbelievably good. So, too with the food in this movie. Even when they're chowing down on what is supposedly "lamb guts," it looked so savory, I think I might have given it a try.

Mafioso, though, has more than me going for it. It's well shot and I found the score entertaining, if a bit manic at times. I certainly regret not visiting Sicily two years ago when I had the chance, and this movie was in black and white, so you see how convincing it was. Great film, though the endings more serious than one might expect given the light-hearted happenings through most of the film.

Afar In Navarre

2007-02-08T11:36:00.000-08:00

The Doughty Traveler now has a digital sister. The Navigator's hermana is overseas and chronicling events in blog format at Afar in Navarre. She'll have the dirt on Pamplona over the coming semester, so take a look when you're so inclined.

Yes or No?

2007-02-07T23:34:00.000-08:00

I'm all about one-liners tonight, so I'll make this two.

You've gotta watch this. It'll make no sense (it's a deposition video), but watch it to the end regardless.

Courtesy of Prof. Brainbridge.

What on earth...

2007-02-07T23:28:00.001-08:00

Prepare to waste time.

Not So Happy

2007-02-07T23:08:00.000-08:00

Unlike me, Bluejake is not thrilled with life.

Curious Word: Megillah

2007-02-07T14:20:00.000-08:00

Another classic from Prof. U. In class, he dropped the phrase, "the whole megillah." Our blank stares were enough to convince him to explain that it meant something akin to "the whole enchilada" in Yiddish. But Richard had a better explanation, which I also found here.

It’s the Hebrew word for a scroll. In particular, it refers to one of five books of the Old Testament, namely Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther, which are read on certain Jewish special days. The most common reference, though, is to the Book of Esther, which is read in its entirety at the feast of Purim.
Though the feast day is a joyous one, the story wanders at great length through vast amounts of detail and it can be a bit of a trial to sit through it all. So it isn’t surprising that the whole Megillah (in the Yiddish from which American English borrowed it, gantse Megillah) came to be a wry term for an overly extended explanation or story, or for something tediously complicated, or an involved situation or state of affairs.

The original scrolls were apparently quite heavy, leading Richard to suggest you'd need a Megillah Gorilla to hold them aloft.

Money.

Reasons for Optimism

2007-02-07T13:35:00.000-08:00

I'm not quite sure if I'm an optimist.

Those of you who were lucky enough to encounter me overseas probably got the impression that I insufferably so (perhaps "insufferably careless" might be a better description for that time period). Family and other intimates would probably emphasize my more critical elements, ahem, which seem to imply a constant belief that things are going to hell in a handbasket and it's my duty to vocalize that.

I'll take a middle ground. I'm a fault-finder, but I prefer to hope. Today, optimism abounds.

You may ask, why? An excellent question. In some part, it's the imminent prospect of seeing my name in print with remuneration involved (that is, if I the article I'm working on isn't complete crap). Another element certainly is the tall Boont Amber that accompanied lunch. But the main reason has to be opportunity.

My lunch compatriot reminded me of the potential that life offers. At times, I despair of finding a job or stumbling onto any real career track. Such concerns are flimsy and ridiculous, to say the least. But encounters like today generate a kind of deep-seated joy. The world is a fantastic place, swimming with opportunities for one to make a difference. Life, man. Just waiting to be lived. Onward.

P.S. Apple stock is also up more than two points, so I'd be stoked regardless.

Rent Control: Punching Bag

2007-02-07T08:52:00.000-08:00

Rent control...what a terrible idea:

The trail led to the Badlands.

His name is Bill Golodner, private investigator. Along with partner Bruce Frankel he hunts down absentee tenants of rent-regulated New York City apartments. Golodner's subject was clearing a cool $1,500-plus every month by covertly subletting her digs in Manhattan while holing up in South Dakota. Her fatal mistake: Applying for a license to work in the gambling industry. That caused her true address to pop up in a search of public records.

Score one for the landlord. In New York, evicting a phony occupant makes it possible to increase the rent on an apartment. Almost everywhere else, nothing more is required than a rise in the unit's rental value on the open market.

Martin Fridson isn't breaking any new ground on the failures of rent control, but he's got a timely read up on TCS Daily. Concise and complete, he debunks rent control (for the umpteenth time), giving me a nice set of statistics to add to my arsenal when debating inane "advocates for the poor."

Anyone who has gone to college in a major American city can tell you that rent control is a complete scam. In my own experience, subletting was the least of landlords worries. While many students often secret subletting, it's usually just a room in the house. The larger problem had to be "continuous leasing."

Due to some arcane rule that I never entirely grasped, so long as one member of the apartment re-upped his lease at the end of the year, the landlord is forbidden from raising the rent. Not surprisingly, this fact quickly led to collusion across classes, as seniors recruit a junior to live with them and thus inherit the property for the same price. Most notably, there was a house that theater kids had been continuously leasing for the past seventeen years. Three bedrooms, with an in-house washer and dryer, water and electricity paid: around eight hundred bucks. Within walking distance of USC. The apartment I lived in, which was two thirds the size, with three smaller bedrooms, cost 1,500.

So, rent control, what a joke. My favorite new stat comes near the end of this article:

The ill effects have long since been a staple of introductory economics textbooks. In a nearly unparalleled demonstration of unanimity, 93% of economists surveyed on the matter in the early 1990s agreed with the statement that placing a ceiling on rents reduces both the quantity and the quality of available housing.

Bashing rent control is always worth a read.

Curious Word: Majeure

2007-02-05T21:54:00.000-08:00

I can't recall where I exactly this word tripped me up, but it sure did send me sprawling. As it turns out, majeure is a word I ought to have known all along. For one thing, it's French. For another, it's not intended to be used solo (at least not typically).

Force majeure (French for "greater force") is a common clause in contracts which essentially frees one or both parties from liability or obligation when an extraordinary event or circumstance beyond the control of the parties, such as war, strike, riot, crime, act of God (e.g., flood, earthquake, volcano), prevents one or both parties from fulfilling their obligations under the contract. However, Force Majeure is not intended to excuse negligence or other malfeasance of a party, as where non-performance is caused by the usual and natural consequences of external forces (e.g., predicted rain stops an outdoor event), or where the intervening circumstances are specifically contemplated.

Ah, would that I could remember the context in which I encountered this phrase, for I would certainly return to it and set things right. As it is, I'll have to wait till I encounter it again in the wild.

On Fairy Tales

2007-02-05T13:27:00.000-08:00

Just last night, while helping the best beloved slog through another inane assignment for her Masters program (it's in education, go figure), I came across this bit of babble.

Children receive messages from literature beginning at a very early age. We teach them social roles through seemingly innocent fairy tales. We teach girls to be passive and wait for a handsome and charming prince to sweep them off their feet so they can live happily ever after. We teach that everyone is white, able-bodied, and heterosexual...Clearly, we must begin to educate children as early as possible that oppressing people based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, class, age, or anything else is wrong.

Whooooeee, that's a handful. We can thank Jesse W. Birnstihl of St. Cloud, Minnesota, for that crapola. Perhaps if he wasn't so busying canonizing elements of the weather, he'd have taken the time to make some sense.

Jesse is responding to an article to Education Journal about social justice. I'd rather not get into a broader discussion of that topic at the moment (I still need to read several articles for class in an hour), so I'll stick to my quote above. Serious logic jump there, Jesse. Maybe I missed something in the ellipses (which were in the original, mind you), but how exactly do the teachings listed "clearly" imply that kids will be discriminatory as a result. So, you tell girls to grow their hair long and play Rapunzel in the playhouse. Is that really one step from them burning crosses? Or is it more subtle: will they be emotionally abusive to the shorter-haired girls on the playground?
Numbah two, I dunno what fairy tales you've been reading, Jess, but they sure weren't those fed to me. Take Hansel and Gretel, for instance. The witch was going to eat them. Oh, look at that innocent fairy tale. No, sorry Birnie, but fairy tales often made me lay awake at night.
As regards those passive females: whose being so passive? It's a pretty active move to kiss a frog; Cinderella was working her little tuckass off; the original mermaid in The Little Mermaid dances for her prince even though it's like dancing on knives (and she loses her voice...and she loses her life); Jesse, what fairy tales are you reading?
Oh, wait, perhaps JB is focusing on modern interpretations, those pretty Disney-fied versions. But, in all those cases, we tend to get strong female characters as well. Remember how Nala pinned Simba, even when he was older and tougher? How about Beauty saving Beastie's life? And let's not overlook the celebration of Mulan, which pretty blatantly challenges whatever passivity stereotypes existed.
Further, what about modern fairy tales? What about the C.S. Lewises, the Lloyd Alexanders, the J.R.R. Tolkeins? Do they fit neatly into these white man stereotype boxes? I think not. If you need any persuading, take a look at the book I stayed up way too late last night reading: The First Two Lives of Lukas-Kasha. Among the topics dealt with: racism, slavery, class conflict, the role of women in society, social justice. Of course, this is all done organically, as it should be. These themes become part of the story because they are aspects of the human condition, not because of some idiotic writer's social agenda.

Ack, I'd love go on, but I just realized what time it is, and the demands of class are pressing. I'll leave you with a quote from an interview with Lloyd Alexander that I agree with heartily:

When asked how to develop intelligence in young people, Einstein answered: "Read fairy tales. Then read more fairy tales." I can only add: Yes, and the sooner the better. Fairy tales and fantasies nourish the imagination. And imagination supports our whole intellectual and psychological economy. Not only in literature, music, and painting spring from the seedbed of imagination; but, as well, all the sciences, mathematics, philosophies, cosmologies. Without imagination, how could we have invented the wheel or the computer? Or toothpaste? Or nuclear weapons? Or speculate "What if—?" Or have any compassionate sense what it's like to live in another person's skin?

For me, writing fantasy for young people has surely been the most creative and liberating experience of my life. As a literary form, fantasy has let me express my own deepest feelings and attitudes about the world we're all obliged to live in.

A paradox? Creating worlds that never existed as a way to gain some kind of insight into a world that is very real indeed? The paradox is easily resolved. Whatever its surface ornamentation, fantasy that strives to reach the level of durable art deals with the bedrock of human emotions, conflicts, dilemmas, relationships. That is to say: the realities of life.

Who you gonna believe? Jesse W. Birnstihl or Einstein. Exactly.

The Third Book

2007-02-04T22:33:00.000-08:00

The Third Book is a term I will employ from here on out when describing the books I am actually reading (as opposed to all the books I'm supposed to be reading...say, for school or other such important endeavors).

The favored tome of the moment (or the past two hours) was Graham Greene's The Third Man (aha! See the parallels? Clever? No? No. Humph.). Yes, I'm aware that what I'm holding in my hands (that's right, I'm typing this with my nose...try it, it's not that hard) was never intended to be published. The book version is, in fact, a draft of the plot written up for a screenplay Greene was working on.

The movie, starring Orson Welles and...other people, is apparently a classic. No, I haven't seen it. Nor have I seen Citizen Kane. Or The Godfather. Or Psycho. Or Chinatown. Or anything made by George Romero. I haven't seen plenty of classics, so don't give me grief about this one. If it's any consolation, this is the first text I've read that made me think, "Great book. I bet the movie is even better."

Whether or not such a statement is true must wait, sadly, for scholastic demands are beckoning. Or they would be if I'd remembered to pick up the packet of essays for my class tomorrow. Since I did not, I think I'll take a walk down memory lane and investigate this text, which just fell from the hands of a now sleeping sibling. Poifect!

The Day Scalia Came to Class

2007-02-04T22:08:00.000-08:00

Whoof, what a week.

Justice Scalia came to class, I played drunken air guitar at a party with a parent of a notorious criminal, and the Colts won the Super Bowl, which I attended.

Guess which one is false?

The answer is none, since I think of the Super Bowl as an international event that transcends the typical definitions of place and space. Or at least my post-modern self believes that.

But of the three, the only one that merits real explanation is Justice Scalia's visit. He did, in fact, come to class. As it turns out, he and my professor were buddies "in the trenches" of the Ford administration. Judging from their descriptions of how miserable being in the Ford admin was, I'd say "in the shark feeding tank" might be a better descriptor. Regardless, the bond they forged remains strong and before the Justice addressed the Claremont McKenna community at large, he popped in for a little over an hour. My thoughts:

Justice Scalia is a warm, jovial figure who would make an evil uncle, benevolent granddad, and very shrewd paterfamilias.
He's got a knack for catchy turns of phrase. I'm almost thirty two percent positive his improptu lecture cum Q&A was off the record, so I'll stick to generalities...except for this choice quote. Referring to judicial activism (of both political persuasions), he managed to describe the federal judiciary as the "black-robed mad mullahs of the West." We all laughed.
I really should have typed my notes instead of writing them. I can't read most.
He really doesn't like independent counsels. And after hearing him talk, I don't either.
Another funny anecdote, this one repeated in his later talk, so I'm happy to describe it here. In the recent flag-burning case, Scalia agreed with the majority ruling that declared the ban on flag-burning unconstitutional. His logic was sound: you can have a ban on burning in a specific place, but if so it must be a ban on burning "bags, rags and flags," a ban on any type of burning, not exclusively on flags. As a result, an explicit ordinance against the combustion of the Stars and Stripes (or the Stars and Bars for that matter) violates the First Amendment. Even though he would have loved to throw that "bearded, sandal-wearing, reprobate" (I'm not sure about that last one) in prison, he can't. Unfortunately, people don't like burning flags, which is why they often don't mind judicial activism, in this case and many others. The best illustration of how people feel viscerally had to be his wife, who, on the morning after the judgment, whistled "It's a Grand Old Flag" as she prepared breakfast.
And, finally, ol' Scales should really hit the treadmill.

That last point should be qualified. Anty is packing some major pounds, but I will say he looked about twenty years younger than he is. It wasn't until much later that I discovered he is approaching 71...after seeing him in person, I would have guessed mid-fifties. Perhaps that's just because his hair isn't graying (though thinning) and he smokes (ergo, he is hip which means he must have been a twenty-something in the seventies, wriggling into leather pants...whoops, just went too far in the bizarro imagery department there).

So, maybe there's something to his rolls that is keeping him fresh and spritely. If so, Justice Scalia, let me be the first to point you to the truffle tray (unless, of course, the gout is acting up). May you judge many years yet. More stories on Scalia to come as I recall the wild after-party that followed (somehow, I managed to give every penny of my own and a ten of a friend of mine to the bartenders...even though it was a free bar...and they refused my tips...hrm).

FRMSHAHA

2007-01-30T12:30:00.000-08:00

I'm not laughing at the Fred Rogers Memorial Scholarship. Rather, I'm chuckling at the five minutes I spent trying to think of a way to spin my work in political philosophy in such a way as to apply for this. Needless to say, I was unsuccessful.

But perhaps, you'll have better luck. Check it.

CMsCalia

2007-01-30T10:31:00.000-08:00

Okay, silly title. But Antonin Scalia is going to be speaking at CMC on Wednesday. And thanks to a last minute class change, I'll be able to attend the rager (er, reception) to follow. Coo, coo.

2007 Pacesetters Fellow
A Matter of Constitutional Intrepretation

ANTONIN SCALIA

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2007

The Honorable Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, graduated summa cum laude from Georgetown University where he was class valedictorian. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School where he served as note editor for the Harvard Law Review. In 1960, he was the Sheldon Fellow at Harvard University, allowing him to spend a year traveling in Europe.

Justice Scalia began his legal career with a nationally-prominent law firm in Cleveland where he practiced corporate finance, labor, and antitrust law. In 1967, he became a professor of law at the University of Virginia Law School. During the 1970s, Presidents Nixon and Ford appointed him to a number of administrative posts, including that of assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. He subsequently joined the faculty at the University of Chicago School of Law.

In 1982, President Reagan appointed Antonin Scalia to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where he honed his reputation for meticulous jurisprudence. In June 1986, President Reagan nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created by William Rehnquist’s elevation to Chief Justice. On September 26, 1986, he took the oath of office.

Justice Scalia was born in Trenton, New Jersey. He married Maureen McCarthy in 1960.

"That's nihilism!"

2007-01-30T09:17:00.000-08:00

Such is a phrase one of my professors likes to employ to describe...well, just about anything. He, and you, will appreciate this transformation of the funnies:

The Nietzsche Family Circus

Old Ironsides

2007-01-30T00:15:00.000-08:00

Since Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., passed away many years ago, I can, without fear of legal action reprint in whole perhaps his most famous poem. This is a wonderful poem. As a youth, the actions of America's nascent navy featured prominently in my military history reading. Names like John Paul Jones, Stephen Decatur and Oliver Hazard Perry still hold a special place in my heart, a love that will soon be renewed when I have the chance to take a look at this book (which looks quite promising indeed).

To commemorate a lifelong passion for our fighting sailors and the imminent renewal of that intimate friendship, I offer "Old Ironsides," by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

--Note: due to my lack of technical skills, I have to resort to ridiculous measures to keep formatting for poems. As a result, the poem appears above the post, when it ought to appear below...so sorry.

--Contest note: Name your favorite nautical poem...

MovieTimes: Devils and Such

2007-01-30T00:05:00.000-08:00

I just stumbled across this piece of bile that was intended for The Doughty Traveler, but never quite made it. So, I share it with you now. It is, as you might have guessed, a movie review:

This Thanksgiving, I was in Cleveland, enjoying the company of the fiance's family (and getting stuffed with more Italian food than there is dough in a calzone factory). But that's all blah blah blah (not really...it was an amazingly wonderful time and her extended family couldn't have been warmer. The food was incredible, and I love her cousins--they're little kids, so it was probably the clown skills. For the sake of this post, however, blah blah blah will do for ellipsis). The important thing is that I saw the worst movie ever on the plane home.

No, no, I kid you not. The worst movie made by man (or woman or beast or whatever unfertilized zygote masquerading as intelligent life that was behind this shitstorm of a project).

The title of this movie: The Devil Wears Prada.

My title for this movie: A Flaming Piece of Monkey Scat.

My comments at the end of the movie, and I paraphrase loosely: "Did this just happen? Do people make movies like this? Do people watch movies like this? Do I still have an ounce of gray matter in my skull or is it somewhere under the folks back in row 37, having putrified into some kind of maggot-ridden tapioca as a result of the mere ten total minutes I watched of this movie."

I didn't even WATCH the movie and I wanted to cry. I did cry...tears of blood. Like a horned toad...but I'm a human.

You wanna know the plot of this movie? Take a blender, swallow some frozen corn whole; after you pass it, throw in the intestine peelings that they wrap tubes of sausage with, and hit liquify. Smell it and then pour on top of wherever you ended up wretching. That is the plot of this movie.

A million monkeys with a million typewriters couldn't have up with this story. It would have been too smart. It must have been one monkey, born without limbs, fed lead paint chips for a decade, whose only typing occurred when sufficient quantities of drool depressed a key.

Predictability on a scale of 1-10, the higher the score being better: Um, lemme think, I'd give a....0. That's 0 degrees Kelvin, as in Absolute Zero. That's like saying I hated it infinity times, but in negative.

Oh Meryl Streep, you're so tough and yet your life is soooo hawd? Well, then maybe stop pretending you're a cartoon and have a real life (that goes for off the screen as well...what on earth provoked you to audition for this dunghill?). Oh wait, you can't because you're trapped inside the worst movie made by anything with opposable thumbs. Hey, what's happening? Are they speaking in tongues? No, the blather that passes for dialogue is so mindless, I had to mentally translate it into gibberish to prevent me from being driven insane.

It continues, but I won't, lest you think less of me. Don't ever see Devil Prada I Hate Myself or whatever it's called. If you do, you're not my friend.

New Treads on Old Wheels

2007-01-29T23:00:00.000-08:00

It's been done before at the Doughty Traveler, and it was a disaster. I proposed a contest. And I'm doing so again.

Here's the deal...after all these years, we're finally closing in on 1,000 posts here at the ol' TDT. As that auspicious moment draws nigh, I figure if I save a dollar a post, I could come up with a sweet prize for whatever contest I create. Long-term readers will recall this is how the last contest began...so promising, so long ago, such a failure.

In that case a mix of shame and penury prevented me from completing the deal. Now that I am shameless and living high on the hog (thanks to my employment with this august institution), I can say neither of those two variables threatens this new idea.

Reason would tell you this is a ploy to gain more readers. I will tell you it's part of a perverse desire to part ways with money as quickly as possible. Given your experience with my writing (and my unwillingness to abide by any of Alex Tabbarok's dictums when it comes to blogging), you decide which is more accurate.

So, here's the deal: I'm gonna pose random questions without any order, rhyme or reason. You respond in the comments or via email. I will post the winner of each question in a vaguely timely fashion and from that you will be able to discern the criteria I'm using to award victory. And so will I, since my rubric is as yet uncreated.

Why on earth would you care, would you bother? Well, for one, your odds are good. I can count my readership on one hand, as far as I know, and that's a Civil War veteran's hand, with several fingers missing. So, the competition is about as stiff as a cattail in a hurricane. Moreover, the prize is pretty sweet. It'll be worth less than a hundred dollars, but no less than fifty. It will probably be an iPod shuffle...if you can think of something more hilarious and useless (like a complete set of Sonny Bono's used contacts), I'll see what I can do, but I promise you nothing.

So, there it is. The game is on. All you gots ta do is respond to any posts that pose a question, even if it's rhetorical. Brownie points for creativity, but I won't tell you what kind. If you send me scurrilous crap, I'll try to remember to email you back angrily...so don't.

So, for the first question: what's the funniest thing that ever happened to you involving an orange and who is your favorite president and why? Bonus points if you manage to combine those two.

Plato, TCS, and More

2007-01-29T12:59:00.000-08:00

A trio of interesting articles from TCS Daily:

Plato's Republic or Milton Friedman's Market?

Sounds intriguing, no? Well, it's a little disappointing. Kling does belabor this comparison. But it's a quick, reasonable read.

Fantasy Island:

SAINT HELENA, UK (SatireNewsService) -- Tyrants exiled to this rocky south Atlantic island do not simply retire with terrified members of their retinue and large portions of their vast, ill-gotten gains. Rather they enjoy their golden years by playing United Nations sponsored, on-line games that simulate the lives they wanted to live in their third-world hell-holes.

The U.N.'s Saint Helena International Tyrants project is known as "The Project" due to its unfortunate acronym. It was created following the recent reorientation of the U.N.'s mission from the support of dictatorial governments and the advancement of human oppression and misery to the pursuit of projects and actions that advance human rights and democratic governance.

I admit it. My satire-meter is off today, and I actually believed this for several paragraphs.

And, finally, the best and most worthwhile of the lot, authored by Prof. Bainbridge...

Cafeteria Catholicism and the Minimum Wage:

When liberal Catholic politicians support abortion rights, conservatives are quick to accuse them of being cafeteria Catholics. When conservative Catholic politicians oppose increasing the minimum wage, liberals are quick to hurl the same accusation.

The metaphor is an apt one. Many Catholics stroll past the array of teachings offered by the Church, choosing to obey those that appeal to them personally and rejecting those that do not. Unfortunately for cafeteria Catholics, however, the Church makes clear that the cafeteria approach is not an authentic form of Catholicism. To the contrary, the faithful "have the duty of observing the constitutions and decrees conveyed by the legitimate authority of the Church." (Catechism ¶ 2037.)

Yes, this article is definitely worth a read. Over my few years on this earth, I've been struck repeatedly by the willingness of Catholics to pick and choose the elements of the religion they find appealing and leave the rest behind. It's a mild form of the "personal spirituality" that most of my college classmates ascribed to. In their case, the buffet includes any and all world religions, so their religious potpurri can have some exotic aromas.

The very same person who abides by this approach (Catholic or otherwise) tends to be willing to adhere to the rules of a dietician religiously or follow doctor's orders to a tee. In all things but religion/spiritual life, such people are willing to abandon all judgment and rely on experts. But pose the tough questions ("How does one determine right and wrong?" "What is my purpose in life?" "Should I really give up my wool mittens because some poor sheep got a haircut to make them?) and there is no authority on God's green earth that can help them. They prefer to wrestle with these issues alone.

The results are no more surprising than the family that refuses to vaccinate its children or relies exclusively on homeopathic remedies for diseases. One's spirit will decline in health just as one's body would.

This, however, isn't the issue that Bainbridge is addressing. He's concerned with this question:

How do we distinguish between those areas in which faithful Catholics may properly disagree with pronouncements by the Pope or a bishop and those as to which faithful Catholics must give their assent even if their personal judgment is to the contrary?

An excellent question and one which I'll let him answer. Read on.

P.S. The comments attached to the article are hilarious and mind-numbing. Classic forum-nerd battle-posting.

BusTales: II

2007-01-29T00:51:00.000-08:00

More tales from traveling on the bus.

The bus after-dark is a world of its own. That's not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, when the sun's down, the arrival of the bus seems like the approach of a bright-eyed snorting creature, waiting for you to crawl inside it before it tears off into the dark. Okay, that sounds odd, but it feels good to be ingested by the bus.

I guess it's not surprising, then, that people seem so intent on ingesting on the bus themselves. Such individuals overwhelmingly respond to my scent. Several nights ago, I faced a classic case. Perched in the back corner of the noisy people-mover, I was trying to keep my nose in a lil' Linoln-Douglas debate action, pretending to be a responsible student. As the bus stopped near Towne, a curious couple boarded and retreated to my area of the bus.

Two things marked this strange pair:
a) The woman could have eaten me for lunch, judging from her tragic size.
b) The man refused to take his hand out of his backpack.

Upon the woman's imminent departure I witnessed two acts that directly relate to the above two points.
a) The couple kissed, a process which involved a horrifying and necessarily calculated process of girth-shifting on the part of the poor, poor lady (necessary in order to keep her balance...while sitting mind you).
b) The man had a Mickey's in his backpack.

A well-dressed, talkative, and kindly fellow, he was also putting away malt liquor at a rate that would impress most college freshmen (they're too jaded by senior year). And I wasn't surprised.

Frankly, the back of the bus is where the sh** goes down and the bottle goes up. The BOB, as we call it, draws the functional alcoholics and casual drinkers alike. It also attracts me, but I tend to be dry (or be coming from a mega-pint at Heroes', in which case drinking on the bus is secondary to sleeping on the bus).

They brownbag it, backpack it or brazenly booze. But they drink, and they love to drink near me. One guy was even brazen enough to ask the driver to wait, while he ran his empty cans to a recycling can. I'm at the end of my rope. The only solution seems to be the classic adage: if you can't beat 'em, then drink in public, get arrested and join them in jail.

Right?

Books and the Platonic Soul

2007-01-29T00:13:00.000-08:00

While I hope my tombstone doesn't resemble Royal's, I wouldn't mind so terribly if it mentioned a thing or two about being a bibliophile (presumably after such phrases as devoted husband, loving father, and all the important things). I'll be the first to admit it: I love collecting books almost as much as I enjoy reading them. In the case of classic works such as, say, Dicken's Bleak House, the order of preference is reversed, which is why I have three copies of the volume and have spent little scrutinizing it for anything other than the significance of Karl Popper's reference to Mrs. Jellyby in the Open Society and Its Enemies. But either way, me and books jive pretty well...especially if I don't have to read them, a demand that a class might make.

I've been troubled for some time now by a phenomenon that must plague every partisan of the printed page. One can collect books at about seventeen times the rate one can read them. With unlimited resources (as are occasionally available to me when drink and Amazon collide), the ratio grows even more dire. After a time, when one stops collecting books previously read and moves onto tomes that one's eyes have yet to examine internally, the question must arise...should I stop? That is, should I stop purchasing books at a much faster rate than I can read them?

Though this question has troubled me for quite some time, I can say, with complete confidence, it troubles me no more. The answer: no. The answerer? Plato.

Yes, indeed, Plato's quick sketch of the soul has liberated me from this concern.

As everyone knows (ahem), Plato divided the soul into three parts (okay he divided it a bit more than that, but three will do for now, thank you very much). Each portion of the soul has a love or desire. The philosophic part loves wisdom, the courageous portion honor, and the desirous or money-making loves gain. In short, the trick to happiness is making sure that each part minds its own business, which for Plato means that the reason-loving part gets to kick the crap out of every other part.

Ooookay. So, book loving...how does that fit in hear? Well, I ask you, what's the better way to satisfy the reason-loving part of your soul? Presumably, when you can't get in a good argument, to read a good book. And does not a sweet book collection make you the envy of your intellectual (read: worthwhile) friends? And doesn't the purchase of massive numbers of books sate that gain-loving beast that inhabits the depths of your soul?

Ah, yes, thank you Plato. With your aid, we would never have realized it's okay to buy lots of books and that the world should like The Giver.

Okay, come on all you smart*** philosophy types. Tell me how stupid this comparison is. I dare you. Plato's got my back.

Frosted Tips

2007-01-28T23:55:00.000-08:00

Okay, let's be honest. The Notebooks of Robert Frost isn't (aren't?) a piece of cake. It's not bathroom literature, nor does one read it casually. You can't read it straight through, at least I can't, and large portions of it don't make the slightest sense if you're skipping around.

All that being said, I'm glad it's on my shelf generally, and, more recently, in my hands. First off, I'm a big fan of the introduction. Yes, it may sound silly, but without it, there wouldn't be any reason to pick up the notebooks. Given Frost's opaque and obscure writing, it would be largely unintelligible to the layman, and completely unintelligible to the average village idiot, myself possibly included. For instance,

As Frost puruses his meditation on 'gossip,' he makes casual reference to another ancient wise saying, ;Good fences make good neighbors.' This line in "Mending Wall" isusually quoted as Frost's invention, although in these notebooks he says otherwise. The poem's famour competeing maxim, 'Something there is that doesn't love a wall' is usually quoted without reference to the other line. Both those sayings play off of a remarkable proverb in an earlier poem, "The Tuft of Flowers": 'Men work together I tell him from the heart / Whether they work together or apart.'

That small passage illuminated a phrase often bandied about in today's debate about immigration and was part of a deeper discussion of Frost's epigrammatic style and nature. Extremely thought-provoking, both in its broad questions (What makes a writer epigrammatic, particularly since so many memorable and beloved poets and authors never acquired the skill?) and particular (Will I ever write an epigram? Will I ever write an epitaph? Will I have an epitaph? Will it be as boring as the epitaph gracing the grave of the first Lee, the Lee whose seventh generational descendant was the famous Robert E.?). We owe a debt of gratitude (about sixty-four cents or so) to Robert Faggen, who edited the notebooks and authored the intro.

The notebooks themselves, though, are fun to page through, intelligibility be damned.

My name is Christopher Columbus
I cant be moved by all this rumpus
Put up your knives and go below
We're members of the O.Hi.O.

Bob Frost. Inscrutable, but entertaining. More thoughts as they come to me while browsing through this beast of a book.

Movie Times: Seraphim Falls

2007-01-28T23:25:00.000-08:00

I refuse to issue a spoiler alert for this movie. Let me put it this way: if you are ever unfortunate enough to be in a theater when this movie is playing, wait for the right moment to club the man with a gun who is forcing you to watch it. If he shoots you, you've lost nothing: the movie would have killed you anyway.

Seraphim Falls is the worst movie I've seen since Babel. It also happens to be the only movie I've seen since Babel, so perhaps a better explanation would be necessary. I have to assume that only intelligent people are reading this (yes, all four of you...three? Maybe?) and as a consequence, I can also assume you will not see this movie, unless you have a perverse interest in feeling your eyeballs try to pop out of your head and run down the aisle. So, I'll give it to you in brief.

Here's the deal...the movie starts out good.

No, I'm not kidding, it actually starts out real darn good. Yeah, and so did Anakin, tell me something I don't know. Seriously, though, this movie looked like a keeper, set in 1860-something, all about a chase of an ex-Union officer (Pierce Brosnan) by some dude (Liam Neeson) who wanted revenge. But let's break it down.

Strengths:
a) It's cryptic. You haven't a clue what the hell is going on, but Pierce Brosnan is being chased by bad guys after getting shot. It's like a realistic Bond movie. For instance, ol' fatso Brosnan tries to shimmy on a log across a raging river (albeit with one arm hurting from a bullet wound), loses balance like a past-his-prime movie star would, and falls in. He goes over the waterfall (not Seraphim Falls, mind you, but the incredibly overt symbolism gets worse later), but survives. How? Well, as any idiot who got shoved off a college high dive can tell you (read: me), falling thirty feet will hurt the soles of your feet...or give you a mean bellyflop, but it won't kill you. So, surprise! Brozzie lives.
b) It masquerades as realistic. I admit, (a) was real long. But the movie is realistic. After the Broz gets soaked, he has to start a fire to avoid hypothermia (snow lies all around in the forest). He accomplishes this while shivering like William Tell's son. Then, he takes off his shirt and digs the bullet out of his arm using his bowie knife. He is not happy about this. Who the hell would be? Instead, he makes noises you haven't heard since you tried to wrestle that greased pig and he kicked you in the gonads. Finally, he sears the wound shut by heating his knife in the fire and taking an iron to the gory flesh. Sweeeeeet. Oh, and he is in pain. Like these guys, after their first major battle.

So, I'm on board. In the extended opening sequence, there's almost no talking (bonus for PB, who still, um, sounds like Bond...in a bad way), a dude gets a knife dropped through his skull, and grown men cry...a lot. So, we're cool.

But then it goes to hell.

The realism of the movie drops faster than a feather in a vacuum (hrm...), and the jump the-, I mean, the "hey, this movie is worse than the movies Elmer Bernstein scored in the 1950s" moment came when Pierce Brosnan escapes Liam Neeson, who is holding a rifle on him, standing five feet away, by simply grunting and running off screen left.

It only gets worse. For hours, they ride along, with Brosnan somehow evading capture and killing people awesomely with his knife (the only bright moments). By the end, though, Anjelica Huston has showed up as some metaphor for something and somehow Brosnan shoots Neeson, but they both survive and walk away into the middle of a desert and disappear.

No, you're not missing anything. It's that retarded. Throw in a highly symbolic Mormon knock-off group, sage old Indian, and you've got yourselves a terrible movie. Throw in Ms. Huston in a garment that attempts to force her aging bosom into her face and you've got yourself a throat-slitter. Just remember to slit the throat of the person next to you first, unless they're incapacitated by how bad this movie is.

The cinema...what hell.

Whoa Nelly...

2007-01-28T23:20:00.000-08:00

Times like this, I'm glad not to be in college anymore. Sometime, I'll tell you why there are no doors on the stalls in the bathrooms in the bottom of Taper Hall. Then, I'll write a sentence that has seventeen consecutive prepositional phrases.

BusTales: I

2007-01-26T15:16:00.000-08:00

New feature here at The DTrav: BusTales. Just riding the bus has been sufficiently ridiculous to merit a descriptor of its own. Now, I know what you're thinking...what happened to those "regular features" introduced months ago? To that I say, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. And frankly, I have some great times in the past (I think), and I'd love to live them again.

Regardless, BusTales it is, with the first burst coming at you...now!

Two days ago, I missed the bus I was aiming for. Then, I gave the rifle to my little brother and he hit it, setting off a chain of events that would culminate in my death and the making of one of the worst movies in American cinema history (a close second to Manos: Hands of Fate, which at least was decently mocked by these guys), featuring, among other things, a deaf Japanese chick who constantly exposes herself for no apparent reason. Oops, that's the plot summary for Babel, a movie you need to see like Maria Shriver (aka "Skeletor") needs more plastic surgery.

Seriously, though, you shouldn't see Babel.

Even more seriously, I did miss my bus two days ago. I was shooting to get on the 7:15, but let's be serious. That means I was already an hour late. Rabadash! Join me in my attempt to get C.S. Lewis characters to double as exclamations of frustration). So, having to take the 7:35 was no worse spilling teriyaki sauce on an open cut...it's salty, but not pure salt.

Thank heaven I did miss my bus, however. Halfway through the trek, we came up on the 7:15, with its former riders clustered outside. As they piled aboard to make our bus a merry madhouse of metro mavens, a young lady with a stentorian bent recounted the adventure. If I was a clever writer, I would reproduce her urban accent and those unique phrases springing from her roots that peppered her telling. Not being half so clever, I fear I would come across as awkward and mostly racist, so I'll forbear.

In short, it went down like this--or, rather, this is how it came up. The contents of one man's stomach, that is. Yes, violent nausea of the explosive kind overcame one of the occupants of the ill-fated 7:15, provoking a geyser that would have brought out the crow's nest jack in all of us ("Thar she blows!"). The poor (besotted) soul couldn't stop himself and they all musta cussed cuz the bus had a musk of bile. Miraculously, no one got in the line of fire, but I doubt somehow that I would have been so lucky.

Today, I judiciously slept through my alarms.

~~~

Coming up soon, "Drinking on the Bus: Who Does It and Why?"

El Profesor

2007-01-24T19:52:00.000-08:00

Fun phrases emanating from the professor in class today.

Saint Vitus Dance:

A comedian at Rome, martyred under Diocletian in 286 or 303. Feast, 25 August. He is invoked against epilepsy, and is honoured as patron of theatrical performers and of musicians. The legend (Acta SS., Aug., V, 119) relates: Genesius, the leader of a theatrical troupe in Rome, performing one day before the Emperor Diocletian, and wishing to expose Christian rites to the ridicule of his audience, pretended to receive the Sacrament of Baptism. When the water had been poured upon him he proclaimed himself a Christian. Diocletian at first enjoyed the realistic play, but, finding Genesius to be in earnest, ordered him to be tortured and then beheaded. He was buried on the Via Tiburtina. His relics are said to be partly in San Giovanni della Pigna, partly in S. Susanna di Termini and in the chapel of St. Lawrence. The legend was dramatized in the fifteenth century; embodied in later years in the oratorio "Polus Atella" of Löwe (d. 1869), and still more recently in a work by Weingartner (Berlinn 1892).

The relevance to our class? None. There is another definition of the term, one more applicable to what the professor what trying to convey, namely the awkward and often violent dance that both the legislative and the executive branch partake in. As always, the Wikigod provides:

Chorea sancti viti (Latin for "St. Vitus' dance") is an abnormal involuntary movement disorder, one of a group of neurological disorders called dyskinesias. The term chorea is derived from a Greek word khoreia (a kind of dance, see chorea), as the quick movements of the feet or hands are vaguely comparable to dancing or piano playing.

So, apparently, the two branches of government don't get along too well. Of course, if this is normal, I would hate to see what things would like if they were butting heads.

"Vaunting ambition": It's a great phrase and one that doesn't need a lot of explanation. Obviously, someone with a lot of ambition, someone driven, someone aiming to climb the ladders of power would be described by this pair of words. But "vaunting"? Not the most common adjective. Here's a little background:

1. having a boastfully proud disposition: a vaunting dictator.

2. marked by boastful pride: a vaunting air of superiority.

Ah, gee, thanks Dictionary.com. You're real swell!

The Hora: Okay, this actually came from R.S. (he hasn't given me permission to publish his name yet...well, I never asked, but you get the idea), but it merits a mention. While El P waxed eloquent about the "admixture of the legislative and the executive" it was up to Richard (oops, that cat is out of the bag) to remind Prof. U that sometimes the two avoid each other like the plauge, dancing in concentric and untouching circles.

But wait, everyone knows the Hora is just a wonderful dance of the Jewish people...why is this news? Ah, because it is not originally Jewish, grasshopper.

Hora is a Romanian (hora-singular; hore-plural), traditional circle folk dance which gathers all people present in a big closed circle. The dancers hold each other by hands and the circle turns on itself usually clockwise as each participant follows a sequence of taking three steps forward and one step back. The dance is usually accompanied by musical instruments such as the cymbalum, the accordion, the violin, the viola, the double bass, the saxophone, the trumpet or even the panflute.

Hora is popular during wedding celebrations, popular festivals, and it's an essential part of the social entertainment in rural areas. One of the most famous horas is the Hora Unirii, (Hora of the Union) which became a romanian patriotic song after being the hymn in 1859, when Wallachia and Moldavia united to form the Principality of Romania. During the 2007 New Year's Eve celebration, when Romania and Bulgaria joined the European Union, people were dancing Hora Bucuriei (Hora of Joy) over the boulevards of Bucharest, as a tribute to The Ode to Joy European anthem. The hora was also danced by the Vlachs (Romanians) of Bulgaria, hence it has been introduced into the folklore of Bulgaria under the name of horo (singular), hora (plural). Some of the biggest hora circles can be found on early XXth century movies, taken by Manakia brothers in Pindus, and performed by local aromanian people.

So, you see, there are many things left to learn. Romanian dances among them.

Whoa, Mexico

2007-01-24T16:52:00.000-08:00

You better hope that you don't have to rely on a cop to save your life in Tijuana. Or at least he better have real good aim.

Cook the Books

2007-01-23T12:15:00.000-08:00

Ha! Following close on the heels of my earlier post, I have managed to score my very own copy of the The Notebooks of Robert Frost.

This thing is a tome and a weighty one at that. The cover consists of a curiously unattractive image of an aged Frost, jotting away with a lap desk. There are no pictures inside.

These are my initial reflections. When I actually have some time to read it...er, more like breeze through it hastily, I'll offer some more feedback. While TNR apparently deemed it worthy of a review, this august publication cast it aside like yesterday's dryer lint, though I had to battle an editorial assistant (who was busy ransacking the castoff pile for other such finds).

Sweet Meru

2007-01-23T09:28:00.000-08:00

Apple's first logo was awesome. I'd post it instead of linking but the WikiMage tells me that I Apple lawyers might put a lizard head in my bed (I don't own any horses).

Righto, back to work.

Roundup Fun

2007-01-23T09:13:00.000-08:00

I've always felt a latent brutishness, waiting just below the surface of most Greek events in college, ready to explode at the slightest provocation. Lo and behold, my hypothesis now has at least one piece of anecdotal evidence:

A DPS officer was challenged to a fight following an altercation involving "chairs, pipes and other objects" and approximately 60 people outside the Beta Omega Phi fraternity house early Sunday morning.

An unnamed DPS officer was flagged down around 2:30 a.m. by Jae Chang, vice president of Beta Omega Phi, an Asian Greek Council fraternity located on The Row.

According to crime reports, the officer arrived on the scene to find "several large groups of males" in an altercation apparently initiated by two females at a party hosted by Beta Omega Phi.

There has to be a zoological term for congregations of idiots such as those most frequently present at Greek gatherings (don't worry, I've attended a few in my day...I just classify myself as a moron). I must say I love what happened next:

When the officer ordered the groups to cease fighting, four of the males challenged him to a fight while being urged on by other participants.

"(They) were not responding to the officer's order and actually advanced on him," said DPS Capt. David Carlisle. "It was a large, out-of-control brawl."

Saitoh called the situation a "slight altercation."

...

Crime reports state that the suspects fled when officers sprayed them with pepper spray after they refused to comply.

The incident is still under investigation by DPS and has been referred to both Student Affairs and Judicial Affairs.

"Girls fight about everything," said Saitoh. "I imagine it was a bit of drunken rage mixed with jealousy."

Congratulations to Kent Saitoh, a former president of Beta Omigoddidyoujustmakefunofmyhair PhightClub, for terrible damage control coupled with a little misogyny. More importantly, I love the fact that the tough guys got a face full of pepper spray. In this case, I can say that DPS has served humanity well.

In a note only related to the earlier links to the words "moron" and "idiot," it is worth noting that the scale for mental retardation no longer employs those terms. Now, mentally challenged folks are classified as mild, moderate, severe and profound. Oddly enough, I find most political moderates to actually be quite profound.

Huzzah!

2007-01-23T09:02:00.000-08:00

Ding dong, the witch is dead! Which old Witch? The wicked Kiffich...

Okay, that was a stretch, but there is good news. Lane Kiffin is outta here. And, boy, does that make me happy.

Lane Kiffin grew up dreaming of becoming a head coach in the National Football League.

On Monday, the Oakland Raiders fulfilled that dream years before anyone other than Al Davis could have anticipated when they hired USC's 31-year-old offensive coordinator as the team's 16th head coach.

"I always thought a lot of things have to go right and work out, but if you continue to work hard and believe in yourself good things can happen," Kiffin said in a telephone interview.

I grew up dreaming for a decent playcaller for the Trojans, but that turned into a nightmare after Norm Chow departed. Okay, again, another exaggeration on my part, but Lane Kiffin and I are about as good friends as Noam Chomsky and John Candy (who actually bothers to click on these links, eh? I could put anything there). That's because John Candy's dead, but you get the idea.

In other news, this man really defies description. I guess I'm...amazed?

It's Over

2007-01-22T16:27:00.000-08:00

If you're hip or think you're hip...or have cultivated an image such that other people mistakenly believe you're hip...or even wish you were hip...or were born before 1978, you probably have heard that super-hip phrase, "jump the shark."

For those who don't get a Wired fix, aren't up to date on their smarmy cynical blogs, or are doing worthwhile things with their lives, I appeal to the allmighty Wikigod (what I have taken to calling that grand information dump in the sky, Wikipedia):

The phrase specifically arises from a scene in the hit TV comedy series Happy Days. In the early days of the series, Fonzie had performed a trademark jump on his motorcycle with a ramp over a number of cars - Evel Knievel style. Evel Knievel, at the time had established himself as a real-life motorcycle daredevil and was significant in pop-culture.

In later years of the show, after the high school plot had finished and the college years began, and in an attempt to resurrect the show's run, the writers were challenged to come up with new, fresh stories; they developed a story where Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli, wearing his trademark leather jacket despite the well-known negative effects of salt water on leather, literally jumps over a shark on water skis.

Many have noted the shark episode as the moment when they realized the show was no longer worth watching, considering the scene to be unrealistic and of poor quality, making it impossible to maintain suspension of disbelief. Even before "jumping the shark" was employed as a pop culture term, the episode in question was cited many times as an example of what can happen to otherwise high-quality shows when they stay on the air too long in the face of waning interest. Producer Garry Marshall later admitted that he knew the show had lost something as the crew prepared to shoot the scene. However, as he pointed out in the reunion special that aired on February 3, 2005, Happy Days went on to produce approximately 100 more episodes after the "jumping the shark" episode. During the same special, in response to an audience member's question, Marshall introduced the notorious clip and noted how the show had inspired the term.

Laughing your face off? I laughed, too, once upon a time, before I had heard three quarters of the world's population use this phrase, all trying to outsnark each other.

Think I'm being dramatic? Check out the litany of ways the phrase has been used, which conveniently provide empirical evidence to support my hysterical claim. I mean, hell, Maureen "I'm going to be saucy right up until they put into a nursing home alone and I weep because I never had a real friend, much less a husband" Dowd used the damn phrase.

But today, my friends (presuming its friendlies that are reading this, not mortal enemies), "jumped the shark" has...no, I'm not going to say that the phrase has "jumped the shark," because if I did, I'd have to go suck on an outlet. No, "jumped the shark" has reached a necrotic state that exceeds untreated gangrene. Why? John Fund:

When politicians break their pledges not to raise taxes, they come up with the darnedest evasions. Take Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who wants to levy new charges on California doctors, hospitals and employers to help pay for his $12 billion health-care plan. "It is not a tax, just a loan, because it does not go for general [expenditures]," he told the Sacramento Bee last Thursday. "It goes back to health care."

A loan? The first reaction of many Californians was: What state office will I be able to go to and get my loan back--perhaps with interest? It's preposterous, for example, to characterize as a "loan" the 4% payroll levy the governor wants to impose on employers who don't offer health benefits. California's gas taxes are dedicated to transportation but no one would call them "gas loans." Property taxes go to local education. Are they not taxes?

Wait, that sounds reasonable...what's the deal? And where's the shark-jumping? And John Fund is a great writer over at the WSJ, right?

Okay, you're right. It's not the article or the author persay that causes the bile to boil, but the subheading: "Has Arnold Schwarzenegger jumped the shark?" The last line repeats the phrase, "Should he reach a point where his about-face on taxes becomes a serious issue, he may find the political floor he's standing on falling precipitously. Or, as they say in Hollywood, the health-care plan may prove to be the moment Mr. Schwarzenegger jumped the shark."

There it is. John Fund, God bless his soul, just used "jumped the shark," in the same way one's curmudgeonly grandfather might growl "rotten bebop music," or a spinster (perhaps Maureen Dowd in a few years) might coo, "Would you like to play some tunes on the Victro-, I mean, musical cassette tape?)

Proof, all you insufferably hip people, who are SOOOO bleeding edge when it comes to your phrasology, that you are about as sharp as a hatchet recently used to split rocks.

Oh, and yes, I think Schwarzenegger's "health-care loan" is Bologna...Bologna, Italy.

Sweet Meru

2007-01-20T01:43:00.001-08:00

Holy early death, Batman, Chesterton doesn't beat around the bush:

"As I feel it, the Cubists are not Cubist enough," replied the stranger. "I mean they're not thick enough. By making things mathematical they make them thin. Take the living lines out of that landscape, simplify it to a right angle, and you flatten it out to a mere diagram on paper. Diagrams have their own beauty; but it is of just the other sort. They stand for the unalterable things; the calm, eternal, mathematical sort of truths; what somebody calls the 'white radiance of'—"

He stopped, and before the next word came something had happened almost too quickly and completely to be realized. From behind the overhanging rock came a noise and rush like that of a railway train; and a great motor car appeared. It topped the crest of cliff, black against the sun, like a battle-chariot rushing to destruction in some wild epic. March automatically put out his hand in one futile gesture, as if to catch a falling tea-cup in a drawing-room.

For the fraction of a flash it seemed to leave the ledge of rock like a flying ship; then the very sky seemed to turn over like a wheel, and it lay a ruin amid the tall grasses below, a line of gray smoke going up slowly from it into the silent air. A little lower the figure of a man with gray hair lay tumbled down the steep green slope, his limbs lying all at random, and his face turned away.

The eccentric fisherman dropped his net and walked swiftly toward the spot, his new acquaintance following him. As they drew near there seemed a sort of monstrous irony in the fact that the dead machine was still throbbing and thundering as busily as a factory, while the man lay so still.

Good lord, I can only imagine what happens next....I promise, though, not to do this with the entire book...I was just momentarily overcome.

Politics & Politics

2007-01-20T01:35:00.000-08:00

God bless the Harold Marches of the world:

Harold March, the rising reviewer and social critic, was walking vigorously across a great tableland of moors and commons, the horizon of which was fringed with the far-off woods of the famous estate of Torwood Park. He was a good-looking young man in tweeds, with very pale curly hair and pale clear eyes. Walking in wind and sun in the very landscape of liberty, he was still young enough to remember his politics and not merely try to forget them. For his errand at Torwood Park was a political one; it was the place of appointment named by no less a person than the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Howard Horne, then introducing his so-called Socialist budget, and prepared to expound it in an interview with so promising a penman. Harold March was the sort of man who knows everything about politics, and nothing about politicians. He also knew a great deal about art, letters, philosophy, and general culture; about almost everything, indeed, except the world he was living in.

So begins Chesterton's novel, The Man Who Knew Too Much. I have given up entirely upon Ignatius Press and their supposed efforts to publish the entire Chesterton canon and have instead resorted to what is publicly available online. Thus my evening reading begins, aided by a glass of dry Spanish red and a healthy quantity of pepperjack and Triscuits. Alright, so the evening is long over...I should have said, so my painfully early morning begins, which result in my midday beginning later than it should. But back to GKC.

Freebird

2007-01-20T00:00:00.000-08:00

If I was young and sober...er, make that younger and unattached...which is not to imply that I'd like to be (free-er, that is), since I'm counting happily the days until my finger is graced with a ring.......

Okay, let's start over.

Were I bound by no obligations and gifted with a greater talent for writing, though tragic my life might be (seeing as how, absent obligations, I could not have found my true love, which I have), I would be able to apply for...this position. But you should. Assuming you're a good RC or reasonably smart believer.

Sweet Meru

2007-01-19T23:44:00.000-08:00

Holy Malloy, this has got to be one of the most impressive amateur films since I lit myself on fire. Oh, and that will be coming out as soon as I find a copy...

Ouch

2007-01-19T00:53:00.000-08:00

Worst...editorial...ever?

Gotta love college journalism.

Band Waggin'

2007-01-19T00:49:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure if there's even a soapbox racer for the hoopsmen of me alma mater, but after the UCLA game and this, I'm on whatever bandwagon exists. Maybe I'll even go see a game.

Post-phoric

2007-01-19T00:24:00.000-08:00

The bliss has dwindled as reality forced me to recognize the three unfinished papers leering at me from my computer screen. If it's any solace to anyone, I have read and reread NSC-68 countless times now and learned only one thing: I should not be in the business of writing defense memos that will dictate strategy for half a century.

Shucks...that, sadly, is the assignment I'm now trying to complete.

On a happier note, NSC-68 has a real swell description of the purpose of the United States.

The fundamental purpose of the United States is laid down in the Preamble to the Constitution: "...to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for our common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." In essence, the fundamental purpose is to assure the integrity and vitality of our free society, which is founded upon the dignity and worth of the individual.

There's more, but I'll spare you the pleasure. If you're interested, read the whole thing here.

Celebrate with Colbert

2007-01-18T23:31:00.000-08:00

I'm happy to be done with at least one paper (of four) and I want you to be as well. So watch this clip from the Colbert Report and have a chuckle at AT&T's expense. He does come up with some pretty funny stuff...

Yowzah!

2007-01-18T22:18:00.000-08:00

A paper is done, a paper is done! Bring a torch, Jeannette, Isabella, and let's burn a couch in Columbus!

Pickwick and Plato

2007-01-18T15:50:00.000-08:00

Somehow, when revising my Plato paper, I found myself wading through a page of G.K. Chesterton reviewing Dickens. Don't ask me how I got there; how does the ladybug happen to land on your finger or the butterfly wend its way into the heart of a city? What errant turn sends the swallow to the coast instead of Capistrano, the goose to California rather than Canada? On one of those invisible paths, I lost my way, but it was to my great fortune and your own:

Now laughter is a thing that can be let go; laughter has in it a quality of liberty. But sorrow has in it by its very nature a quality of confinement; pathos by its very nature fights with itself. Humour is expansive; it bursts outwards; the fact is attested by the common expression, "holding one's sides."

But sorrow is not expansive; and it was afterwards the mistake of Dickens that he tried to make it expansive. It is the one great weakness of Dickens as a great writer, that he did try to make that sudden sadness, that abrupt pity, which we call pathos, a thing quite obvious, infectious, public, as if it were journalism or the measles. It is pleasant to think that in this supreme masterpiece, done in the dawn of his career, there is not even this faint fleck upon the sun of his just splendour.

Pickwick will always be remembered as the great example of everything that made Dickens great; of the solemn conviviality of great friendships, of the erratic adventures of old English roads, of the hospitality of old English inns, of the great fundamental kindliness and honour of old English manners. First of all, however, it will always be remembered for its laughter, or, if you will, for its folly. A good joke is the one ultimate and sacred thing which cannot be criticised. Our relations with a good joke are direct and even divine relations. We speak of "seeing" a joke just as we speak of "seeing" a ghost or a vision. If we have seen it, it is futile to argue with us; and we have seen the vision of Pickwick. Pickwick may be the top of Dickens's humour; I think upon the whole it is. But the broad humour of Pickwick he broadened over many wonderful kingdoms; the narrow pathos of Pickwick he never found again.

Of all Dickens' works, I must say I found the most of life in The Pickwick Papers. And I think, Chesterton nails the greatness of Dickens without diminishing his other works. I was so affected by Mr. Murdstone I once dreamt he was the anti-Christ, who was storming about town, literally ripping people apart. But every time I reread David Copperfield, it is Mr. Micawber who lures me back (to whom credit goes for the quote: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.") Similarly, though Pip does make the heart ache on occasion, aided largely by that venomous vixen Estella, it was not his torments that draw me back to Great Expectations, but Wemmick and "The Aged."

Insofar as that corresponds to what Chesterton is arguing, I agree wholeheartedly. I will now proceed to reread every book Dickens wrote before I continue my papers.

WPE

2007-01-17T00:46:00.000-08:00

Speakling of TNR, I bring you the...

Worst...Poem...Ever...