For those readers who happen to be my mother, please move to the next item.
After my linking to The Mii Lebowski, Mikey points out that the best Wii-related comic thus far was VGcats' take on Wario Ware, Smooth Moves. But he failed to link to it. So, for your rather dirty viewing pleasure, here it is.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Are Wii Having Fun Yet?
This is a great article about the rise of the Nintendo Wii, the Greatest Thing to happen to video games since, well, the last Greatest Thing.
I am struck by the fact that I could now go to Best Buy and pick up a PS3, no problem (if you consider laying down $700 'no problem'), whereas you still have to do the whole 'wait outside the store Sunday morning' thing to get a Wii in most places. Sony certainly won the pre-release hype battle, but Nintendo dominated the post-release, 'wow this is pretty damn fun' war.
Which is something I have been saying for a while; better graphics is enough, for a while. But eventually, you have to actually make an entertaining experience. This holds true in movies as well as video games; it is a long time past that I would consider a well-done series of special effects sufficiently interesting for me to call a movie good on that basis alone. Call it the 'Jurassic Park' effect. The first time you saw that damn brontosaurus, I know it sent shivers down your spine. By the time J.P.3 rolled around, it was all 'yawn okay, it's a dinosaur, blah blah blah, if you want me to be interested you better start busting out some boobs soon.'
So Sony and Microsoft miscalculated in thinking that, just by making the graphics better and the games bigger, they could make them more fun. Nintendo has always figured out how to do things that were new and cool and interesting (remember, the thumbpad was an amazing development to those of us born and raised on Atari joysticks). Especially if it keeps the consoles down under $300, I say 'rock on, Nintendo.'
Completely incidentally, 'The Mii Lebowski' is pretty damn funny.
I am struck by the fact that I could now go to Best Buy and pick up a PS3, no problem (if you consider laying down $700 'no problem'), whereas you still have to do the whole 'wait outside the store Sunday morning' thing to get a Wii in most places. Sony certainly won the pre-release hype battle, but Nintendo dominated the post-release, 'wow this is pretty damn fun' war.
Which is something I have been saying for a while; better graphics is enough, for a while. But eventually, you have to actually make an entertaining experience. This holds true in movies as well as video games; it is a long time past that I would consider a well-done series of special effects sufficiently interesting for me to call a movie good on that basis alone. Call it the 'Jurassic Park' effect. The first time you saw that damn brontosaurus, I know it sent shivers down your spine. By the time J.P.3 rolled around, it was all 'yawn okay, it's a dinosaur, blah blah blah, if you want me to be interested you better start busting out some boobs soon.'
So Sony and Microsoft miscalculated in thinking that, just by making the graphics better and the games bigger, they could make them more fun. Nintendo has always figured out how to do things that were new and cool and interesting (remember, the thumbpad was an amazing development to those of us born and raised on Atari joysticks). Especially if it keeps the consoles down under $300, I say 'rock on, Nintendo.'
Completely incidentally, 'The Mii Lebowski' is pretty damn funny.
Rough Afternoon
I know that I am going to draw serious sympathy from the 9-to-5ers out there amongst my Faithful Readers, but between the 7 AM conference call this morning, the 2 hour lunch that we held to celebrate hitting all of our milestones this week, and the extra beer (which of course was the Pumphouse's Kiltlifter, an incredibly tasty 7.8% Alcohol By Volume brew) that I had to drink just so the pitcher didn't go unfinished, I have the distinct feeling that it's going to be a very unproductive afternoon...
My Man-Crushes Collide
Ezra Klein deconstructs Obama's announced health care plan in the pages of The American Prospect. His review of Obama's plan, and also his personality, is less than favorable. Since Ezra is my personal hero on the subject of health care, and the only guy whose opinion I might respect more than Jon Cohn of The New Republic (who incidentally gave the plan a more positive review, although still declaring it to be overcautious), I am forced into taking a pause as well.
This is one of those points where I think Obama's inherent caution is a drawback. One of the ways in which conservatives have been very effective on the legislative stage, since '94, is that they come to the table with completely over-the-top proposals (eliminate the estate tax! and the department of education!) so that, when they meet the liberals' less extreme proposal halfway, the conservatives end up getting much more of what they want in the eventual compromise bill.
Once again, Obama, like so many Democrats before him, is ceding too much ground in his initial proposal, which means that come time to negotiate with the nutjobs in the House, he will have to yield too far to get something passed in a 'bipartisan fashion.'
As Ezra points out, it's early in the campaign, and there's still lots of time for movement. And as Jon points out, this proposal is a massive improvement over the system that is in place right now. I think it's more a political problem than a policy problem. I'm very much still an Obamanian, for the reasons I outlined earlier. I just hope that he manages to live up to his promise, rather than failing to meet his lofty goals.
This is one of those points where I think Obama's inherent caution is a drawback. One of the ways in which conservatives have been very effective on the legislative stage, since '94, is that they come to the table with completely over-the-top proposals (eliminate the estate tax! and the department of education!) so that, when they meet the liberals' less extreme proposal halfway, the conservatives end up getting much more of what they want in the eventual compromise bill.
Once again, Obama, like so many Democrats before him, is ceding too much ground in his initial proposal, which means that come time to negotiate with the nutjobs in the House, he will have to yield too far to get something passed in a 'bipartisan fashion.'
As Ezra points out, it's early in the campaign, and there's still lots of time for movement. And as Jon points out, this proposal is a massive improvement over the system that is in place right now. I think it's more a political problem than a policy problem. I'm very much still an Obamanian, for the reasons I outlined earlier. I just hope that he manages to live up to his promise, rather than failing to meet his lofty goals.
Strained Metaphors
A trip to Costco yesterday ended up with me leaving with a box full of mangoes. What can I say? Some guys dig electronics. Me? I'm an impulse-buyer when it comes to fruit.
As I was savoring one of those succulent treats this morning, jotting over the sports section, it occurred to me that mangoes are the Phoenix Suns of fruit. They are exotic and interesting. I would never get tired of them. And, while they are soft and squishy on the outside, they have a hard core at the center which could, in a pinch, be used in a barfight.
The San Antonio Spurs, on the other hand, are like strawberries. They're a bit omnipresent, and after you've had them for a while you get a little bored of them. But after a few weeks, you take another look at them, and realize again 'damn, those things are pretty freaking good!' Plus, if you give me Eva Longoria and a basket of strawberries...well, let's just say anything I'm thinking right now is immensely inappropriate for this mostly family-friendly blog.
Which means that the Detroit Pistons are like bananas. They're pretty good, and always in the mix. They're a bit dull, but a good standby when you just need something to eat. But they're starting to get a bit old, which means that they're getting those little brown spots all over them, and a few flies buzzing around, and by tomorrow they're simply not going to taste nearly as good as they used to.
And clearly (this one's for Shane) this leaves the Denver Nuggets as papaya. You hear everyone talking about it, and how good it's supposed to be on paper. It's full of good things (Allen Iverson, papayene, etc.) But then you actually have one, and it tastes like crap, plus it makes you have to poo. But somehow, by the beginning of next season, you're thinking 'yeah, a papaya sounds like a good idea...'
As I was savoring one of those succulent treats this morning, jotting over the sports section, it occurred to me that mangoes are the Phoenix Suns of fruit. They are exotic and interesting. I would never get tired of them. And, while they are soft and squishy on the outside, they have a hard core at the center which could, in a pinch, be used in a barfight.
The San Antonio Spurs, on the other hand, are like strawberries. They're a bit omnipresent, and after you've had them for a while you get a little bored of them. But after a few weeks, you take another look at them, and realize again 'damn, those things are pretty freaking good!' Plus, if you give me Eva Longoria and a basket of strawberries...well, let's just say anything I'm thinking right now is immensely inappropriate for this mostly family-friendly blog.
Which means that the Detroit Pistons are like bananas. They're pretty good, and always in the mix. They're a bit dull, but a good standby when you just need something to eat. But they're starting to get a bit old, which means that they're getting those little brown spots all over them, and a few flies buzzing around, and by tomorrow they're simply not going to taste nearly as good as they used to.
And clearly (this one's for Shane) this leaves the Denver Nuggets as papaya. You hear everyone talking about it, and how good it's supposed to be on paper. It's full of good things (Allen Iverson, papayene, etc.) But then you actually have one, and it tastes like crap, plus it makes you have to poo. But somehow, by the beginning of next season, you're thinking 'yeah, a papaya sounds like a good idea...'
Peace Offering
Okay, you won't see me doing this all too often, but give credit where credit is due: it's a wonderful use of the bully pulpit for President Bush to call for a $30B expenditure to fight AIDS in the developing world. The NYTimes article makes this move out to be a bit of a power play, to distract the rest of the G8 countries from the fact that we are the major recalcitrant on climate change by highlighting our work on alleviating poverty, hunger, etc. worldwide. Which may or may not be true, but the fact is that this is money extremely well-spent, in terms of human capital returns, and I don't give a rat's ass why he's doing it.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Weekend Roundup
So, three days too late, a brief roundup of a few activities pursued over the weekend.
Friday night, I went to see the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. It was not the finest performance that I've ever seen, but probably the most interesting. It was a mostly jazz-inspired evening (you can see the program details here). Undoubtedly the most fascinating part of the evening was the performance of Edgar Meyer's 2nd Concerto for Double Bass. Really cool stuff. Apparently, Meyer is the world's preeminent double bassist, which was pretty apparent. He rocked the living crap out of that music, which is not surprising, since he wrote it pretty much for himself. But still; while the music itself was only so-so (he's a good composer, but not great), his technique is fantastic and his playing was very exciting.
Interesting in theory, but lacking somewhat in living up to its potential, was an as-of-yet unnamed instrument which resembles nothing so much as a huge xylophone, only with the keys made of lengths of PVC pipe which are 3 to 6 or 7 feet long. We are told that the pipes are tuned to quarter-tones, instead of halves (imagine an extra key in between each key on a piano). And it did sound interesting. But because PVC carries vibrations so poorly, the instrument had no reverberation at all, so it was mostly drowned out by the rest of the orchestra, or even Meyer himself on the double bass. Still, cool idea.
Saturday morning there was a painting party at Shane's house, followed by a belly dancing performance by Daisy at the Boulder Creek Festival. The painting party was, well, much like a lot of people hanging out and painting. Not especially exciting, but not bad, plus I'm pretty sure I got at least a bit high on paint fumes, always a good thing. Daisy's performance was quite impressive; hopefully I will have pictures up soon.
Sunday night was Jess and Nate's wedding in Estes Park. The wedding was quite fantastic. It was the first time I've ever been to a Quaker wedding, and I really enjoyed it. In particular, the fact that the wedding ceremony is performed by the community, rather than by any special officiant. This gave plenty of opportunities for laughs and fun during the ceremony, which makes it more enjoyable, in my opinion, and also is completely appropriate for Jess and Nate, who are both wonderful and wonderfully silly.
Dancing into the wee hours (okay, not really, since the hotel mandated that the DJ shut it down at 10 PM), and then further celebrations at the 'party cabin' at the YMCA in Estes, all very fun. Not at all surprising to find that Jess and Nate had a really spectacular group of friends back in DC and generally on the East Coast, and I felt very fortunate to be at the wedding.
Then, on Monday, I managed to drag my ass out of bed and down into Boulder in time to meet Geir at the base of Flagstaff mountain for a refreshing little trail run. This was my primary long-term goal after my ACL surgery; since I have no plans to play Ultimate again, I had to come up with something specific to be working towards, and it was very satisfying to make it all the way to the top just 6 months after the surgery. There's still plenty far to go until the knee is completely healed, but so far this recovery has been scads easier than the first one, for which I am thankful. Plenty painful enough that I have absolutely no desire or intention to go through a third, but still...
Friday night, I went to see the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. It was not the finest performance that I've ever seen, but probably the most interesting. It was a mostly jazz-inspired evening (you can see the program details here). Undoubtedly the most fascinating part of the evening was the performance of Edgar Meyer's 2nd Concerto for Double Bass. Really cool stuff. Apparently, Meyer is the world's preeminent double bassist, which was pretty apparent. He rocked the living crap out of that music, which is not surprising, since he wrote it pretty much for himself. But still; while the music itself was only so-so (he's a good composer, but not great), his technique is fantastic and his playing was very exciting.
Interesting in theory, but lacking somewhat in living up to its potential, was an as-of-yet unnamed instrument which resembles nothing so much as a huge xylophone, only with the keys made of lengths of PVC pipe which are 3 to 6 or 7 feet long. We are told that the pipes are tuned to quarter-tones, instead of halves (imagine an extra key in between each key on a piano). And it did sound interesting. But because PVC carries vibrations so poorly, the instrument had no reverberation at all, so it was mostly drowned out by the rest of the orchestra, or even Meyer himself on the double bass. Still, cool idea.
Saturday morning there was a painting party at Shane's house, followed by a belly dancing performance by Daisy at the Boulder Creek Festival. The painting party was, well, much like a lot of people hanging out and painting. Not especially exciting, but not bad, plus I'm pretty sure I got at least a bit high on paint fumes, always a good thing. Daisy's performance was quite impressive; hopefully I will have pictures up soon.
Sunday night was Jess and Nate's wedding in Estes Park. The wedding was quite fantastic. It was the first time I've ever been to a Quaker wedding, and I really enjoyed it. In particular, the fact that the wedding ceremony is performed by the community, rather than by any special officiant. This gave plenty of opportunities for laughs and fun during the ceremony, which makes it more enjoyable, in my opinion, and also is completely appropriate for Jess and Nate, who are both wonderful and wonderfully silly.
Dancing into the wee hours (okay, not really, since the hotel mandated that the DJ shut it down at 10 PM), and then further celebrations at the 'party cabin' at the YMCA in Estes, all very fun. Not at all surprising to find that Jess and Nate had a really spectacular group of friends back in DC and generally on the East Coast, and I felt very fortunate to be at the wedding.
Then, on Monday, I managed to drag my ass out of bed and down into Boulder in time to meet Geir at the base of Flagstaff mountain for a refreshing little trail run. This was my primary long-term goal after my ACL surgery; since I have no plans to play Ultimate again, I had to come up with something specific to be working towards, and it was very satisfying to make it all the way to the top just 6 months after the surgery. There's still plenty far to go until the knee is completely healed, but so far this recovery has been scads easier than the first one, for which I am thankful. Plenty painful enough that I have absolutely no desire or intention to go through a third, but still...
And One More Thing
[soapbox]
One further thought about my column yesterday. A.K.'s letter accused me of not being sensitive to the concerns of women, on account of the fact that I have testicles. Although, I would think that my saggy man-boobs would give me a little double-X-chromosomal street cred, but apparently not.
Anyhow, I am not accusing A.K. of this, but it got me in the mind of self-marginalization in politics. It is obviously a Good Thing that people of all races, colors, creeds, genders, sexual orientations, and what-have-you can vote and run for office. But there is this obsession with proportional representation, and worrying about whether you need to have so-many representatives of this gender, or that race, in order to 'represent everyone's opinions.'
Of course, this mostly is with regards to members of minorities, or otherwise rights-restricted subclasses like women, accusing, well, upper-middle class white guys like me, of not understanding them and their specific needs. This is undoubtedly true-I cannot have a subjective understanding of what it is like to be Muslim, or black, or a woman. But I think that it's quite short-sighted, because it is my sincerest of sincere opinions that the things that tie us together are much deeper, broader, and more important, than those shallow things that define us separately and individually.
With that in mind, it is counterproductive to say that only people of your race, gender, etc. can represent you, because then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. People who aren't in that group (say, women) start thinking 'well, if women don't think I can possibly have any appreciation for what they're going through, why should I bother trying?' Whereas, if you speak to your ideas without making accusations of racism, sexism, religiousonism, or what have you, I think that you can open lines of discussion, rather than closing them off.
[/soapbox]
One further thought about my column yesterday. A.K.'s letter accused me of not being sensitive to the concerns of women, on account of the fact that I have testicles. Although, I would think that my saggy man-boobs would give me a little double-X-chromosomal street cred, but apparently not.
Anyhow, I am not accusing A.K. of this, but it got me in the mind of self-marginalization in politics. It is obviously a Good Thing that people of all races, colors, creeds, genders, sexual orientations, and what-have-you can vote and run for office. But there is this obsession with proportional representation, and worrying about whether you need to have so-many representatives of this gender, or that race, in order to 'represent everyone's opinions.'
Of course, this mostly is with regards to members of minorities, or otherwise rights-restricted subclasses like women, accusing, well, upper-middle class white guys like me, of not understanding them and their specific needs. This is undoubtedly true-I cannot have a subjective understanding of what it is like to be Muslim, or black, or a woman. But I think that it's quite short-sighted, because it is my sincerest of sincere opinions that the things that tie us together are much deeper, broader, and more important, than those shallow things that define us separately and individually.
With that in mind, it is counterproductive to say that only people of your race, gender, etc. can represent you, because then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. People who aren't in that group (say, women) start thinking 'well, if women don't think I can possibly have any appreciation for what they're going through, why should I bother trying?' Whereas, if you speak to your ideas without making accusations of racism, sexism, religiousonism, or what have you, I think that you can open lines of discussion, rather than closing them off.
[/soapbox]
Insert Racially Insensitive Joke About Yoko Ono Here
I'm completely unclear as to how eating a dog effectively protests the practice of fox hunting in England. But, hey, it got the guy on the radio, and also mentioned on news websites. That must be worth, ummm, something.
To All The Jew-Hating Jews Out There
Matt Yglesias is of course right here, but he doesn't take it quite far enough.
There is a wonderfully symmetric insanity to the Palestinian 'situation' in Israel. Namely, this is that the hawks in Israel insist on tit-for-tat, force-on-force responses to attacks on Israeli property and people. While this is an eminently sensible policy from a simple, but satisfying, worldview, the net result of these attacks, which invariably result in civilian casualties and damage, is to continue the anger at the Israelis among the Palestinians.
As a result, Hamas continues to enjoy support, both as a government and as a resistance movement, among the Palestinian people. This means that attacks into Israel will continue, which means that the hawks get to stay in power by saying "see? You can't trust those Arabs. You need to keep electing me, because I am the only one strong enough on homeland defense to keep you safe." And this shit keeps working.
Likewise, Hamas continues lobbing rockets into Israel, which means Israel will keep retaliating, which maintains support for Hamas, which means that Hamas, essentially, sacrifices the lives of Palestinians in order to maintain their hold on power.
Since neither side actually cares much about the lives of the Palestinians (Israel being mostly indifferent, Hamas seeing them as actual pawns to be sacrificed in the larger goal of maintaining their political support), they end up kind of, well, screwed by the whole affair. But still, because they are angry, and they'd rather be angry at those damn well-to-do Jews on the other side of the border, they keep supporting and electing people who keep doing things that lead to more of them being killed.
And the Middle East Merry-Go-Round of Death rolls on...
There is a wonderfully symmetric insanity to the Palestinian 'situation' in Israel. Namely, this is that the hawks in Israel insist on tit-for-tat, force-on-force responses to attacks on Israeli property and people. While this is an eminently sensible policy from a simple, but satisfying, worldview, the net result of these attacks, which invariably result in civilian casualties and damage, is to continue the anger at the Israelis among the Palestinians.
As a result, Hamas continues to enjoy support, both as a government and as a resistance movement, among the Palestinian people. This means that attacks into Israel will continue, which means that the hawks get to stay in power by saying "see? You can't trust those Arabs. You need to keep electing me, because I am the only one strong enough on homeland defense to keep you safe." And this shit keeps working.
Likewise, Hamas continues lobbing rockets into Israel, which means Israel will keep retaliating, which maintains support for Hamas, which means that Hamas, essentially, sacrifices the lives of Palestinians in order to maintain their hold on power.
Since neither side actually cares much about the lives of the Palestinians (Israel being mostly indifferent, Hamas seeing them as actual pawns to be sacrificed in the larger goal of maintaining their political support), they end up kind of, well, screwed by the whole affair. But still, because they are angry, and they'd rather be angry at those damn well-to-do Jews on the other side of the border, they keep supporting and electing people who keep doing things that lead to more of them being killed.
And the Middle East Merry-Go-Round of Death rolls on...
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Oh Dear Lord
Especially in light of my previous post is there anything that I, as a heterosexual and occasionally sexually active male, can say about the article "Crying Over Spilled Semen" that won't get me in Big Trouble?
I Am Such A Tool Of The Patriarchy
Faithful Reader A.K. writes in to excoriate me for my post of last week about the 60-year-old who gave birth to twins. She writes
Two points here. Firstly, I mostly, although not exclusively, date older women. Even the younger ones I've dated have generally not seen themselves as being Ready For Kids anytime this decade, if not for longer than that. That means that, for all intents and purposes, I have a biological clock as well. Of course it is not as hard-wired, in that I could always change my dating preferences if I decided that 1) women my age were too old to have kids and 2) I really needed to have biological kids. Still, I don't think of myself as the type of person to just start randomly dating women 20 years younger than me in order to capture their fertile years and seed the planet with my offspring. Maybe I will become that person, but if so, I join A.K. in excoriating , or at least relentlessly mocking, him.
Second, A.K. writes
And not just that, but you get to control it: you don't have to let it control you. If, at any point in the period between when I got to college and when I quit grad school, you had asked me where I would be in life on the eve of my 30th birthday, I can guarantee you that the answer I gave would not bear much resemblance to life as I currently live it. For one thing, they haven't even invented laser-guided robot bees yet, let alone the fact that I do not sit up into the wee hours, perfecting my evil cybernetic bee army, preparing for the day when I unleash my onslaught of steel stingers and extra-sticky honey on the world.
So my life hasn't developed along the path I thought it would, or even what I would have chosen, given the opportunity. But it's the life I have, I got it by making the decisions that seemed right to me at the time, and so I have no choice but to own it, and love it. I always assumed I would have kids by now, which has not yet, to my knowledge, happened. But it never occurred to me to be bothered by that fact, because, well, what point would be served by it?
And so, while I greatly sympathize with A.K.'s dilemma on this point, to me the solution is not to spend ever-increasing amounts of resources overwhelming the limits of our biology. Instead, adapt our expectations to a reasonably happy acceptance of the world around us. As a specific rejoinder in this case, I mentioned adoption in my earlier post; it's the closest thing to holy work I can imagine doing in my lifetime. If everyone felt like this, I believe the result will be less time, effort, and money wasted, and more happiness created in the world. A real win-win.
Your blog was spoken like a true man whose reproductive capabilities do not decrease with age. Congrats to you for that, by the way. Way to go, testicles, which simply keep on plugging long after your hair turns gray and your knees give out. However, some of us, ie: half the population on this planet, aren't that lucky.At the least, I wish I had A.K.'s sense of humor, if not exactly her outlook.
Two points here. Firstly, I mostly, although not exclusively, date older women. Even the younger ones I've dated have generally not seen themselves as being Ready For Kids anytime this decade, if not for longer than that. That means that, for all intents and purposes, I have a biological clock as well. Of course it is not as hard-wired, in that I could always change my dating preferences if I decided that 1) women my age were too old to have kids and 2) I really needed to have biological kids. Still, I don't think of myself as the type of person to just start randomly dating women 20 years younger than me in order to capture their fertile years and seed the planet with my offspring. Maybe I will become that person, but if so, I join A.K. in excoriating , or at least relentlessly mocking, him.
Second, A.K. writes
...do me a favor, for the next 30 seconds, just try to imagine that you could only create biological off spring for 5-15 years in the early part of your life. Imagine the pressure you would feel to first determine if you want to have kids, then "find the right girl" then convince said girl to let you impregnate her. Imagine how that would effect every single decision you make for the first 30 years of your life.But I wouldn't. I believe that you only feel that pressure if you let yourself. My general life philosophy, and something I hope to continue developing both for my own, selfish purposes and also for the purposes of trying to let you, Faithful Reader, live a happier life, is that There Is No One Right Way To Live. Everyone has different goals, aspirations, inspirations, hopes, dreams. Only you know what those are, and only you can have any real idea as to how to midwife them into existence (pun not intended).
And not just that, but you get to control it: you don't have to let it control you. If, at any point in the period between when I got to college and when I quit grad school, you had asked me where I would be in life on the eve of my 30th birthday, I can guarantee you that the answer I gave would not bear much resemblance to life as I currently live it. For one thing, they haven't even invented laser-guided robot bees yet, let alone the fact that I do not sit up into the wee hours, perfecting my evil cybernetic bee army, preparing for the day when I unleash my onslaught of steel stingers and extra-sticky honey on the world.
So my life hasn't developed along the path I thought it would, or even what I would have chosen, given the opportunity. But it's the life I have, I got it by making the decisions that seemed right to me at the time, and so I have no choice but to own it, and love it. I always assumed I would have kids by now, which has not yet, to my knowledge, happened. But it never occurred to me to be bothered by that fact, because, well, what point would be served by it?
And so, while I greatly sympathize with A.K.'s dilemma on this point, to me the solution is not to spend ever-increasing amounts of resources overwhelming the limits of our biology. Instead, adapt our expectations to a reasonably happy acceptance of the world around us. As a specific rejoinder in this case, I mentioned adoption in my earlier post; it's the closest thing to holy work I can imagine doing in my lifetime. If everyone felt like this, I believe the result will be less time, effort, and money wasted, and more happiness created in the world. A real win-win.
Now *That's* How You Make A Movie Rated R
Bill Simmons on Castaway
I got sucked into that movie this weekend...it gets 5% better every time. The parts with Wilson kill me. I wanted them to include a scene where he gets a hooker after she comes back and makes her wear a volleyball mask.Is there really anything else you can say here?
Long Time No Blog
Sincerest apologies for the long gap since I last wrote. The holiday weekend, while immensely enjoyable, was also crazily busy. I hope to get a chance to catch up soon with all manner of current events, but we have the biggest customer demo in the yearlong history of my current project going on today, so I will have to leave you with this, instead.
Happy Tuesday!
Happy Tuesday!
Friday, May 25, 2007
On Andrew, On Obama
Andrew Sullivan has an excellent post up on the Obamanomenon. Many of you probably know that am an Obamite; I have sent them some money, plan to send some more, and hope to volunteer with the campaign during the summer, although since Colorado is a post-Feb 5th primary state, that's kind of wasted time.
Now, this is not to say that I necessarily think Obama would be the best president. I like his positions, for the most part, but he is frankly a bit too cautious for my taste. Sometimes, there is value in compromise. But sometimes, you are just right and the other guy is just wrong, and you have to be willing to say so. His instincts are a bit too bipartisan, and I'm vaguely afraid that the right wing smear machine might chew him up and spit him out.
For pure policy reasons, I mostly like Edwards. Almost all the specific policies his campaign has released so far, I have been in favor of. I love that he's driving the debate on health care, and specifically I love that his plan give the opportunity to really see how truly public health insurance stacks up in an honest competition to private insurance.
But I think that, more than anything right now, America needs a rebranding. We've done the Southern White Guy thing for quite a while now (even Reagan was a Southern-wannabe, which means George HW was the only non-SWG in the last 30 years.) Frankly, it's time for something new. The world wants to follow America's lead, especially after 9/11, but this administration has consistently pissed on the shoes of anyone who tried to do anything other than follow us in exact lockstep, to the point that large portions of democratic Europe thinks that we are more damaging to the concept of world peace and order than Islamic theocrats are. This is, to say the least, a non-ideal situation.
As far as I am concerned, the only thing to do is start over again. Get a new face, a new set of positions. Hell, I'd be excited about renaming the country, at this point. Nothing major; just pull a Kentucky Fried Chicken on 'em and change the name from the 'United States of America' to 'USA'. And nothing would say 'this is a whole new USA' better than electing Obama. It will be much easier to accomplish all the wonderful things our country is capable of if we can move past all the bile and hatred of the last 25 or so years, and I think he's a big step in the right direction. For that reason, among others, I'm supporting Obama for President in '08...
Now, this is not to say that I necessarily think Obama would be the best president. I like his positions, for the most part, but he is frankly a bit too cautious for my taste. Sometimes, there is value in compromise. But sometimes, you are just right and the other guy is just wrong, and you have to be willing to say so. His instincts are a bit too bipartisan, and I'm vaguely afraid that the right wing smear machine might chew him up and spit him out.
For pure policy reasons, I mostly like Edwards. Almost all the specific policies his campaign has released so far, I have been in favor of. I love that he's driving the debate on health care, and specifically I love that his plan give the opportunity to really see how truly public health insurance stacks up in an honest competition to private insurance.
But I think that, more than anything right now, America needs a rebranding. We've done the Southern White Guy thing for quite a while now (even Reagan was a Southern-wannabe, which means George HW was the only non-SWG in the last 30 years.) Frankly, it's time for something new. The world wants to follow America's lead, especially after 9/11, but this administration has consistently pissed on the shoes of anyone who tried to do anything other than follow us in exact lockstep, to the point that large portions of democratic Europe thinks that we are more damaging to the concept of world peace and order than Islamic theocrats are. This is, to say the least, a non-ideal situation.
As far as I am concerned, the only thing to do is start over again. Get a new face, a new set of positions. Hell, I'd be excited about renaming the country, at this point. Nothing major; just pull a Kentucky Fried Chicken on 'em and change the name from the 'United States of America' to 'USA'. And nothing would say 'this is a whole new USA' better than electing Obama. It will be much easier to accomplish all the wonderful things our country is capable of if we can move past all the bile and hatred of the last 25 or so years, and I think he's a big step in the right direction. For that reason, among others, I'm supporting Obama for President in '08...
Hermione Is Really Voldemort's Daughter
An interesting, although finally unconvincing, theory about the 7th Harry Potter book.
I don't yet have any good theories about who the mole at Hogwarts and in the Order of the Phoenix is going to end up having been, but it's quite clear to me that Snape is going to end up being a triple-agent; in other words, he is going to have been doing Dumbledore's bidding the entire time. It's really the only way that the entire Dumbledore death scene in #6 makes any sense at all; why else would he allow Malfoy to disarm him?
Most of the way through the books, one of the big lessons has been 'do not trust appearances.' Moody (in #4), Barty Crouch, Krum, Snape, the wussy prof from #1, Sirius Black, and others have ended up being not at all what they seemed at some point during the storyline. Snape is clearly the most obvious example of this, as he was originally made out to be eeevil, later reshaped to just be sort of a jerk, then almost helpful as he was teaching Harry to defend his dreams, then eeevil once again.
To me, he is a jerk. A 'good guy' but not a good guy, if that makes any sense. It will end up being that he had to appear to have killed Dumbledore in order to get fully back into Voldemort's good graces. Then, when the time comes, he will step aside at the key moment to allow Harry to get his final shot at Voldemort. Incidentally, Malfoy will also end up playing an important role for the good. Part of Dumbledore's allowing himself to get stunned was to plant the seed in Draco's head that he's really not a Death Eater. And whether it's by conciously helping Harry, or simply by losing his cool and making some sort of key mistake in his hatred for Harry, Malfoy will play a key part.
I don't yet have any good theories about who the mole at Hogwarts and in the Order of the Phoenix is going to end up having been, but it's quite clear to me that Snape is going to end up being a triple-agent; in other words, he is going to have been doing Dumbledore's bidding the entire time. It's really the only way that the entire Dumbledore death scene in #6 makes any sense at all; why else would he allow Malfoy to disarm him?
Most of the way through the books, one of the big lessons has been 'do not trust appearances.' Moody (in #4), Barty Crouch, Krum, Snape, the wussy prof from #1, Sirius Black, and others have ended up being not at all what they seemed at some point during the storyline. Snape is clearly the most obvious example of this, as he was originally made out to be eeevil, later reshaped to just be sort of a jerk, then almost helpful as he was teaching Harry to defend his dreams, then eeevil once again.
To me, he is a jerk. A 'good guy' but not a good guy, if that makes any sense. It will end up being that he had to appear to have killed Dumbledore in order to get fully back into Voldemort's good graces. Then, when the time comes, he will step aside at the key moment to allow Harry to get his final shot at Voldemort. Incidentally, Malfoy will also end up playing an important role for the good. Part of Dumbledore's allowing himself to get stunned was to plant the seed in Draco's head that he's really not a Death Eater. And whether it's by conciously helping Harry, or simply by losing his cool and making some sort of key mistake in his hatred for Harry, Malfoy will play a key part.
Punk Kids And Their Blogs
I can't believe I didn't write this post. Partly because it sounds almost exactly like I wrote it, except for the gratuitous Entourage reference. Mostly, however, because I'm pissed at myself for not thinking of it, because, frankly, it's entirely right and mostly brilliant, and I'm jealous.
Bob Wright develops a wonderful theory in his book Non-Zero (by the way, if you have not bought this book you should, and you should read it. Then you should read it again, because it's that good.) that the 'arrow' of human history points almost monotonically in the direction of expansion of the quantity and quality of non-zero sum relationships between people around the world. A large part of this in the last 150 years has been the recognition of all peoples' fundamental humanity, and the implication this has for our foreign policies.
It basically doesn't happen in polite company any longer that one assumes that any people, by dint of their racial makeup, are incapable of any particular good quality that we appreciate about humanity. It is, however, still possible to claim in the most polite of company (Martin Peretz of The New Republic, as a for instance) that people of certain cultures are culturally incapable of processing certain ideals that we might wish them to have. And this is almost certainly not entirely wrong; although I think most cultures are much more similar than they are different, there are certainly still large differences between many of them, which almost certainly influences the speed and efficacy with which certain ideas diffuse throughout the culture.
Anyhow, my point is that it is definitely still allowable to think less of certain cultures, we no longer would allow legal discrimination against them, at least not to people of said culture who were residents of the US. We're not quite there with homosexuals yet, but my thinking on this is that it really represents one of the last barriers to that non-zero growth, because to many peoples' minds, your race is something you are born with and can never escape. Your culture is something you are born into, and can never fully escape. And many people still think of homosexuality as a lifestyle, a choice, and hence something which can still be discriminated against with a reasonably clear conscience, in the same way that we discriminate against people who choose to speed, or don't pay their taxes.
As science continues to reveal the inadequacies of this viewpoint, and also as more and more people are exposed to gays in their daily lives, this will become less and less the case, and discrimination will fade away, in the same way it is slowly doing in the racial realm. Please note that I am not trying to say that racial discrimination has disappeared altogether, that certainly is not the case. But it is the case that, again in polite company, it is pretty much verboten to openly discriminate against someone because of their race and/or gender. And I firmly believe that we'll be in the same place in 30 or 40 years for gays.
For the moment, though, you can't force people who grew up thinking one way to suddenly about-face. Instead, the best you can do is mandate that they not act on their discriminatory feelings by such things as mandating equal rights, including gays as a protected class in hate crimes, etc. etc.
Bob Wright develops a wonderful theory in his book Non-Zero (by the way, if you have not bought this book you should, and you should read it. Then you should read it again, because it's that good.) that the 'arrow' of human history points almost monotonically in the direction of expansion of the quantity and quality of non-zero sum relationships between people around the world. A large part of this in the last 150 years has been the recognition of all peoples' fundamental humanity, and the implication this has for our foreign policies.
It basically doesn't happen in polite company any longer that one assumes that any people, by dint of their racial makeup, are incapable of any particular good quality that we appreciate about humanity. It is, however, still possible to claim in the most polite of company (Martin Peretz of The New Republic, as a for instance) that people of certain cultures are culturally incapable of processing certain ideals that we might wish them to have. And this is almost certainly not entirely wrong; although I think most cultures are much more similar than they are different, there are certainly still large differences between many of them, which almost certainly influences the speed and efficacy with which certain ideas diffuse throughout the culture.
Anyhow, my point is that it is definitely still allowable to think less of certain cultures, we no longer would allow legal discrimination against them, at least not to people of said culture who were residents of the US. We're not quite there with homosexuals yet, but my thinking on this is that it really represents one of the last barriers to that non-zero growth, because to many peoples' minds, your race is something you are born with and can never escape. Your culture is something you are born into, and can never fully escape. And many people still think of homosexuality as a lifestyle, a choice, and hence something which can still be discriminated against with a reasonably clear conscience, in the same way that we discriminate against people who choose to speed, or don't pay their taxes.
As science continues to reveal the inadequacies of this viewpoint, and also as more and more people are exposed to gays in their daily lives, this will become less and less the case, and discrimination will fade away, in the same way it is slowly doing in the racial realm. Please note that I am not trying to say that racial discrimination has disappeared altogether, that certainly is not the case. But it is the case that, again in polite company, it is pretty much verboten to openly discriminate against someone because of their race and/or gender. And I firmly believe that we'll be in the same place in 30 or 40 years for gays.
For the moment, though, you can't force people who grew up thinking one way to suddenly about-face. Instead, the best you can do is mandate that they not act on their discriminatory feelings by such things as mandating equal rights, including gays as a protected class in hate crimes, etc. etc.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
I Hate Children
This kind of story makes me anxiously await the day that the hostile aliens arive, judge us to be a species unworthy of existence, and vaporize us all with their Kill-o-Ray. I just hope I escape the anal probing first.
Look, of course there is an inherent selfishness in the very act of having children, regardless of the circumstances. Whether you believe in 'carrying capacity', or are worried about overpopulation, or whatever your ecological causus belli, you have to admit that there are a lot of unhappy, suffering people on this planet, including lots of children who could probably have a much better life if they were adopted into your family, and my understanding is that there is no shortage of them.
But I understand that the desire to procreate is entirely natural, given that, you know, we wouldn't be here if our ancestors hadn't had that selfsame urge. Plus, sex is fun (you don't get that kind of deep insight and analysis in The New York Times!) So I don't begrudge people that right and opportunity. Besides, I imagine I will probably have biological kids myself someday, and while I do believe in the old saying about 'A foolish consistency', I like to think I'm a little above outright hypocrisy.
But come on...you really think the best possible use of your resources is to spend tens of thousands of dollars, flying around the world, getting yourself artificially inseminated, so that you can bring into the world extra children, who are at significantly increased risk of birth defects and lifelong genetic conditions, and who will in all likelihood see their parents dead before their 30th birthday? If our society is at the point where we are this self-involved, all I have to say is, bring on the revolution.
Look, of course there is an inherent selfishness in the very act of having children, regardless of the circumstances. Whether you believe in 'carrying capacity', or are worried about overpopulation, or whatever your ecological causus belli, you have to admit that there are a lot of unhappy, suffering people on this planet, including lots of children who could probably have a much better life if they were adopted into your family, and my understanding is that there is no shortage of them.
But I understand that the desire to procreate is entirely natural, given that, you know, we wouldn't be here if our ancestors hadn't had that selfsame urge. Plus, sex is fun (you don't get that kind of deep insight and analysis in The New York Times!) So I don't begrudge people that right and opportunity. Besides, I imagine I will probably have biological kids myself someday, and while I do believe in the old saying about 'A foolish consistency', I like to think I'm a little above outright hypocrisy.
But come on...you really think the best possible use of your resources is to spend tens of thousands of dollars, flying around the world, getting yourself artificially inseminated, so that you can bring into the world extra children, who are at significantly increased risk of birth defects and lifelong genetic conditions, and who will in all likelihood see their parents dead before their 30th birthday? If our society is at the point where we are this self-involved, all I have to say is, bring on the revolution.
The New York Times Hates Fat People
Okay, shorter Maureen Dowd from yesterday:
Al Gore is Fat.
Seriously? This is worth publishing in The Gray Lady, The Paper of Record? Look, I know that we can't talk all serious all the time. But do we have to take up valuable real estate in the Op-Ed section with trash like this which is not only pointless, but actually reduces our ability to have a legitimate conversation?
Plus, she missed all the obvious jokes, like the fact that he is now drought- and famine-resistant, a valuable resource in the post-global warming apolocalyptic world.
Al Gore is Fat.
Seriously? This is worth publishing in The Gray Lady, The Paper of Record? Look, I know that we can't talk all serious all the time. But do we have to take up valuable real estate in the Op-Ed section with trash like this which is not only pointless, but actually reduces our ability to have a legitimate conversation?
Plus, she missed all the obvious jokes, like the fact that he is now drought- and famine-resistant, a valuable resource in the post-global warming apolocalyptic world.
Thursday Lostblogging
I think this is the final Lostblogging of 2007, since they have announced they are going to a 16-consecutive-weeks schedule starting next year. Assuming they still want to finish in late May, that means a late January-to-early February start next season/year. On the downside, this means 8 months until Lost starts again, which is an awful long time to keep momentum going. On the upside, it means that we can from here on refer to seasons both by their numerical order (4th, 5th, 6th season) or as the '2008', '2009', '2010' season.
As always, spoilers below.
I liked it. Really, really liked it. After limping through the early second part of this season, it *really* improved, giving a good reminder of the reasons that I watched the show in the first place.
I like Jack finally discovering that, as a male character, he actually does possess a pair of testicles. It only took 3 years for them to give him some actual, you know, character development, but there is simply something much more inspiring about Jack, the potential addict/raving lunatic than Jack, the over-emoting ball-less wonder he has been for about the past 1.5 years.
Lots of good plots reraised. Glad that we finally saw Walt again; you know that he and Michael are going to enter back into the equation at some point. "The island" seems to give him some pretty serious powers, with which so far all he did is get Shannon killed. And I like the flashforward, which I assume will continue next year as we see Jack W. Bush's epic mistake unfolding. Somehow, his father is alive again? I did hear Jack refer to him in the present tense, right? And this could have been the ravings of an oxycontin addict, but the other doc didn't respond by saying something like 'ummm, Jack, your father is dead.' I assume this was a parting gift from the island, or possibly the 'bad guys' for futureJack.
Likewise, I'm glad that presentJack had, once again, the onions to both kiss Juliette and declare his love for Kate. It's obvious that Jack is not very good at actually making decisions when not in an emergency situation (not that his decisions there tend to be very good, but at least he makes them), so it seems quite natural that he is going to vascillate between the two until some crisis forces him into making a decision.
And finally, it's about time that Sawyer descends into his inner demons for a while. He played the 'scampish, slightly malevolent' rogue for far too long. Then this year, he swung all good and happy, at least for Sawyer. Facing off with the actual Sawyer, while he always thought it would be a cathartic moment, was bound to unleash those demons that led to him killing Tom. It will be fun to see evil Sawyer save them from Naomi's people next year. I can only assume it will involve him convincing Sayeed to get medevial on someone's ass.
Of course, as with any good Lost episode, we're left with about as many questions as answers. We still have no real idea what they're doing with the kids they kidnapped, or the woman who Jack saw briefly from his cage, the one who was with Ana-Lucia's tribe on the other side but was snatched as they got close to the main tribe. We don't yet know how the Widmer Foundation is related to the Dharma Initiative, or The Hostiles/Others. Is Walt really back on the island, or just exhibiting his magical teleportation powers that the black woman hinted at to Michael? Is Mikhail some sort of cybernetic organism? Surely after having his brain exploded and taking a harpoon through the heart, a little 'underwater grenade explosion' isn't going to be enough to finish him off.
Good stuff. I'm already pissed that I have to wait 8 months to see more, which is a sign of a well-done show.
As always, spoilers below.
I liked it. Really, really liked it. After limping through the early second part of this season, it *really* improved, giving a good reminder of the reasons that I watched the show in the first place.
I like Jack finally discovering that, as a male character, he actually does possess a pair of testicles. It only took 3 years for them to give him some actual, you know, character development, but there is simply something much more inspiring about Jack, the potential addict/raving lunatic than Jack, the over-emoting ball-less wonder he has been for about the past 1.5 years.
Lots of good plots reraised. Glad that we finally saw Walt again; you know that he and Michael are going to enter back into the equation at some point. "The island" seems to give him some pretty serious powers, with which so far all he did is get Shannon killed. And I like the flashforward, which I assume will continue next year as we see Jack W. Bush's epic mistake unfolding. Somehow, his father is alive again? I did hear Jack refer to him in the present tense, right? And this could have been the ravings of an oxycontin addict, but the other doc didn't respond by saying something like 'ummm, Jack, your father is dead.' I assume this was a parting gift from the island, or possibly the 'bad guys' for futureJack.
Likewise, I'm glad that presentJack had, once again, the onions to both kiss Juliette and declare his love for Kate. It's obvious that Jack is not very good at actually making decisions when not in an emergency situation (not that his decisions there tend to be very good, but at least he makes them), so it seems quite natural that he is going to vascillate between the two until some crisis forces him into making a decision.
And finally, it's about time that Sawyer descends into his inner demons for a while. He played the 'scampish, slightly malevolent' rogue for far too long. Then this year, he swung all good and happy, at least for Sawyer. Facing off with the actual Sawyer, while he always thought it would be a cathartic moment, was bound to unleash those demons that led to him killing Tom. It will be fun to see evil Sawyer save them from Naomi's people next year. I can only assume it will involve him convincing Sayeed to get medevial on someone's ass.
Of course, as with any good Lost episode, we're left with about as many questions as answers. We still have no real idea what they're doing with the kids they kidnapped, or the woman who Jack saw briefly from his cage, the one who was with Ana-Lucia's tribe on the other side but was snatched as they got close to the main tribe. We don't yet know how the Widmer Foundation is related to the Dharma Initiative, or The Hostiles/Others. Is Walt really back on the island, or just exhibiting his magical teleportation powers that the black woman hinted at to Michael? Is Mikhail some sort of cybernetic organism? Surely after having his brain exploded and taking a harpoon through the heart, a little 'underwater grenade explosion' isn't going to be enough to finish him off.
Good stuff. I'm already pissed that I have to wait 8 months to see more, which is a sign of a well-done show.
Thursday Funny
From last week's Real Time with Bill Maher, re: Paul Wolfowitz's problems at the World Bank:
Leave it to the Bush Administration to find the one Jew who couldn't run a bank!
Comments On Comments, And Gassy Emissions Blogging
Firstly, good job on all the comments; I'm enjoying the feedback, hopefully everyone else is as well. I'll have some real comments on it, well, soon.
Secondly, does anyone out there really doubt that, in 50 years, when the history of the oil age is being written, our children are going to look back at us, and the way we've allowed the megapetrocorps to completely dominate large sectors of our economy, in much the same way we look back and laugh at how the coal barons were allowed to make up their own rules in the late 1800's?
Okay, fine, we don't literally have gas mines where the employees are forced to work 80 hours a week for slave wages, then only allowed to spend their meager earnings at the company store. Although maybe we should, so we had something useful to do with all those damn teenagers, who clearly shouldn't be allowed to run free; do we still have salt mines? So things are better. At the same time, would any of us be surprised if it eventually comes out that the current 'supply crisis' is not entirely legitimate, and there might be a wee bit of supply restrictions going on, just as Enron did in California with electricity?
I'm not a hystericist. I don't support silly boycots of Exxon gas stations. And, frankly, high gas prices are good. People should drive less, or, at the least, the cost of gas should more closely reflect the true economic costs, with regards to pollution, infrastructure upkeep, and some potential future costs as a result of global warm...er....climate change. The problem is, by failing to do anything useful back when gas prices were relatively cheap, you allow patterns to be set. Now people are pretty much stuck with their 40-mile commutes, and their exurban McMansions, and it's going to be a long time before high gas prices can really put a dent in that. As we say when teaching young Ultimate players, it's much easier to form a good habit then to break a bad one, and we've allowed ourselves to form some pretty damn bad habits.
The long-term solution to this is a reduction in demand. It's the only thing that will work. But it's not quite as easy as saying 'drive less.' I'm in favor of a carbon tax, again because that helps reflect the true costs of emitting a ton of CO2, but given the extremely regressive nature of such a tax, it has to be finagled quite a bit to get it to work.
Secondly, does anyone out there really doubt that, in 50 years, when the history of the oil age is being written, our children are going to look back at us, and the way we've allowed the megapetrocorps to completely dominate large sectors of our economy, in much the same way we look back and laugh at how the coal barons were allowed to make up their own rules in the late 1800's?
Okay, fine, we don't literally have gas mines where the employees are forced to work 80 hours a week for slave wages, then only allowed to spend their meager earnings at the company store. Although maybe we should, so we had something useful to do with all those damn teenagers, who clearly shouldn't be allowed to run free; do we still have salt mines? So things are better. At the same time, would any of us be surprised if it eventually comes out that the current 'supply crisis' is not entirely legitimate, and there might be a wee bit of supply restrictions going on, just as Enron did in California with electricity?
I'm not a hystericist. I don't support silly boycots of Exxon gas stations. And, frankly, high gas prices are good. People should drive less, or, at the least, the cost of gas should more closely reflect the true economic costs, with regards to pollution, infrastructure upkeep, and some potential future costs as a result of global warm...er....climate change. The problem is, by failing to do anything useful back when gas prices were relatively cheap, you allow patterns to be set. Now people are pretty much stuck with their 40-mile commutes, and their exurban McMansions, and it's going to be a long time before high gas prices can really put a dent in that. As we say when teaching young Ultimate players, it's much easier to form a good habit then to break a bad one, and we've allowed ourselves to form some pretty damn bad habits.
The long-term solution to this is a reduction in demand. It's the only thing that will work. But it's not quite as easy as saying 'drive less.' I'm in favor of a carbon tax, again because that helps reflect the true costs of emitting a ton of CO2, but given the extremely regressive nature of such a tax, it has to be finagled quite a bit to get it to work.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Sport Whining, or, The Lament Of The Mighty Who Have Fallen
Bill Simmons, only the most entertaining sportswriter in America, whines about his Celtics doing as poorly as they possibly could in the NBA Draft Lottery last night.
Two points. Firstly, I have no sympathy for a team that tanks. Say what you want to about the Sixers, who are nominally my hometown team. They are terribly managed, not particularly well-coached, and spent an unbelievable amount of money last year locking up Andre Igoudala, who has perennial 'about to make the leap' All-Star written all over him. But they try. When Iverson was there, they busted their undersized, incompetent humps to get into the playoffs. After he left, they played even harder, with less talent, and hosed their lottery chances. You know what? At least they get to be sitting today, with a little pride left, if not Kevin Durant. Also, it helps that they all make millions of dollars to be only middling at their jobs. That would be sweet.
The Celtics, on the other hand, blatantly tanked games late in the season, with one of their players admitting as much in a nationally-televised postgame interview. Now they have shamed the sport, their franchise, and they're still going to suck next year. So nyah.
Secondly, and this is the more important point: Simmons says, with regards to fans of perennial also-rans
But you can only have a pastrami sandwich. Nothing wrong with a pastrami sandwich, and there are times when that's really all I want (especially with a nice half-sour pickle, mmmm...) But when everyone around you is having steak, and you can see just how much they're enjoying it, your normally satisfactory pastrami pales by comparison.
Incidentally, this is a fundamental problem with economic measures of wealth vs. happiness. By any reasonable standard, I am approximately infinitely more wealthy than even an industrial robber baron of 100 years ago. JP Morgan could not have bought a cell phone, no matter how badly he wanted one, whereas all I have to do is give Verizon $100, sign a contract that says I will pay them $50 a month or give up my firstborn if I void the contract, and voila! Cell phoneage!
But humans are incredibly adaptable to their external circumstances. Put someone in the ghetto and they'll adapt to that way of life, learning to live on whatever money they can scrape up, and consider their lives pretty okay, but boy wouldn't it be nice if they could just have a few more bucks a week to pay the bills. That would help. Give them a bazillion dollars and they'll buy a floating mansion and hire a few dozen servants, and manage to scrape by on a few million a week, and consider their lives pretty okay. But boy, wouldn't it be nice if I could just hire a few more people, maybe get a slightly faster jet, or buy my own island. That would help.
Either way, they generally end up living close to their means and thinking that their lives are okay, but could be better. We've long since learned that happiness is not really to be found in increasing economic means. It's nice not to starve, and to have a house to call your own, and a little security. Beyond that, eh, it's just more stuff. But economists continue to claim that maximization of economic opportunities is how to maximize human satisfaction, and while it's a nice story to tell, it simply ain't true.
In the same way, obviously winning 16 championships in 30 years hasn't made Simmons a satisfied sport fan; he just wants more. I'm not jealous of him, really. I take my victories where I can get them (an unexpected Eagles win, Ryan Howard hitting well for the Phillies even though he resembles nothing so much as a cream-filled eclair) and consider my sports life good enough.
Two points. Firstly, I have no sympathy for a team that tanks. Say what you want to about the Sixers, who are nominally my hometown team. They are terribly managed, not particularly well-coached, and spent an unbelievable amount of money last year locking up Andre Igoudala, who has perennial 'about to make the leap' All-Star written all over him. But they try. When Iverson was there, they busted their undersized, incompetent humps to get into the playoffs. After he left, they played even harder, with less talent, and hosed their lottery chances. You know what? At least they get to be sitting today, with a little pride left, if not Kevin Durant. Also, it helps that they all make millions of dollars to be only middling at their jobs. That would be sweet.
The Celtics, on the other hand, blatantly tanked games late in the season, with one of their players admitting as much in a nationally-televised postgame interview. Now they have shamed the sport, their franchise, and they're still going to suck next year. So nyah.
Secondly, and this is the more important point: Simmons says, with regards to fans of perennial also-rans
You can't even fathom the pain. Everyone believes Celtics fans get a free pass with this stuff because we won 16 titles in 30 years. Actually, it's the opposite. Long-suffering fans of perennial losers don't know what they're missing. After all, how would they know? You can't miss steak if you've never eaten steak, right?This is, pardon ma francais, bullshit. I speak from a position of some authority here, being a default fan of teams from a city that hasn't won a title in any of the "Big 4" since 1983, when I was 6 years old. And it's much more like sitting in a restaurant where you can see people at the next table over having steak, and the table past them, and the one behind you, and even over there you can see the people just sitting there, enjoying the steak they had 3 or 4 or 10 years ago.
But you can only have a pastrami sandwich. Nothing wrong with a pastrami sandwich, and there are times when that's really all I want (especially with a nice half-sour pickle, mmmm...) But when everyone around you is having steak, and you can see just how much they're enjoying it, your normally satisfactory pastrami pales by comparison.
Incidentally, this is a fundamental problem with economic measures of wealth vs. happiness. By any reasonable standard, I am approximately infinitely more wealthy than even an industrial robber baron of 100 years ago. JP Morgan could not have bought a cell phone, no matter how badly he wanted one, whereas all I have to do is give Verizon $100, sign a contract that says I will pay them $50 a month or give up my firstborn if I void the contract, and voila! Cell phoneage!
But humans are incredibly adaptable to their external circumstances. Put someone in the ghetto and they'll adapt to that way of life, learning to live on whatever money they can scrape up, and consider their lives pretty okay, but boy wouldn't it be nice if they could just have a few more bucks a week to pay the bills. That would help. Give them a bazillion dollars and they'll buy a floating mansion and hire a few dozen servants, and manage to scrape by on a few million a week, and consider their lives pretty okay. But boy, wouldn't it be nice if I could just hire a few more people, maybe get a slightly faster jet, or buy my own island. That would help.
Either way, they generally end up living close to their means and thinking that their lives are okay, but could be better. We've long since learned that happiness is not really to be found in increasing economic means. It's nice not to starve, and to have a house to call your own, and a little security. Beyond that, eh, it's just more stuff. But economists continue to claim that maximization of economic opportunities is how to maximize human satisfaction, and while it's a nice story to tell, it simply ain't true.
In the same way, obviously winning 16 championships in 30 years hasn't made Simmons a satisfied sport fan; he just wants more. I'm not jealous of him, really. I take my victories where I can get them (an unexpected Eagles win, Ryan Howard hitting well for the Phillies even though he resembles nothing so much as a cream-filled eclair) and consider my sports life good enough.
Fantastic!
Most of you probably know that I am fairly...frugal, for the most part. If I can get a comparable device, minus some bells and whistles, for less money, I will almost always do so. So, for instance, I get by with a $100 mp3 player, and have never really felt to need to get an iPod or anything from the Apple suite of devices.
If I was a woman, however, this would definitely change my mind.
If I was a woman, however, this would definitely change my mind.
Even More Edumacation
Shane posts an excellent comment to my post on education, which I have to respond to.
Firstly, he says
With regards to intelligence, the term itself is a ridiculous throwback concept to an overly simplistic view of the brain as a very powerful general computational machine. Now, you may not believe in the evolutionary psychology model of the brain evolving as a vast series of independent but interconnected 'demons', in the parlance of the field, but I think we can surely all agree that people can be intelligent in very different ways.
For instance, I am capable of holding vast numbers of facts about things in my head, and making sometimes quite nonlinear connections between two seemingly unconnected concepts using these facts. Also, I am very good at applying math to everyday problems, and at solving math problems generally. This is, quite clearly, a type of intelligence.
However, any number of my ex-girlfriends will tell you that I am absolutely horrible at 'reading' people. I cannot read between the lines at all, and have an awful tendency to fail to understand how words I use might interact with the mental state that someone is in to have a completely unintended effect. This has led to some comically funny and some tragically sad misunderstandings.
You can call this 'emotional intelligence', which I personally think is a belittling term. It's a type of intelligence, is all. Totally different from the type that I have in spades, but just as valid a measure of brainpower, and also just as important in thriving in society. Everyone knows the stereotype of the super-smart engineer who can barely carry on a conversation about topics other than his or her field of study, but I don't think that person is any smarter than an incredibly intuitive artist, who can capture the emotions of a scene flawlessly in a painting, but can't balance his or her checkbook.
So, getting back to the concept of achievement, which is the crux of Shane's comment. My problem is not that they necessarily do a bad job of measuring achievement. There is undoubtedly some correlation between, say, SAT scores and college grades, if not an especially strong one. But I bet that some really good testbuilders could make a test that would have an even stronger correlation with college grades, graduation rates, etc. My point is none of that really matters.
I don't want to know how you're going to do in school. Success in school is good at predicting pretty much one and only one thing: how well you will do in more school. It's a sad, sad way of predicting whether you have the abilities, curiosity, dedication, etc. to do well in "the real world." That's the problem I have with our schooling system. By mandating so many fields of study (and the wrong ones, but that's another post altogether), they have prevented students from being able to, at least until they get to college, actually study, in depth, the things they are interested in. Any better school system is going to have to provide for these opportunities before it can be an improvement at all on the current setup.
The last point I will make here is that no single school model can possibly account for all this. There's no way that a single school, or even educational model, can properly teach gardening, automotive mechanics, physics, and post-modern painting. There is no 'best system' that somebody very smart is going to come up with. It's going to start when someone is given the opportunity to try something really new, and it works well for some people, and someone else says 'hey, I can do better than that' and applies those ideas in some new direction altogether. Any new system we have ought to be flexible enough to allow all this to happen.
Firstly, he says
The salient point (to me, at least) is that arbitrary measures of educational success (like, oh, standardized test scores) don't really take into account the inherent differences in everyone's intelligence (and this doesn't even get into the concept of different types of intelligences).I don't really think this statement is even accurate anymore. At least, maybe, I hope that it's not. I would pray that in this day and age, we (by which I mean school systems and, more generally, society at large) do not claim that standardized tests measure intelligence at all. More on this later, but they instead claim to measure achievement.
With regards to intelligence, the term itself is a ridiculous throwback concept to an overly simplistic view of the brain as a very powerful general computational machine. Now, you may not believe in the evolutionary psychology model of the brain evolving as a vast series of independent but interconnected 'demons', in the parlance of the field, but I think we can surely all agree that people can be intelligent in very different ways.
For instance, I am capable of holding vast numbers of facts about things in my head, and making sometimes quite nonlinear connections between two seemingly unconnected concepts using these facts. Also, I am very good at applying math to everyday problems, and at solving math problems generally. This is, quite clearly, a type of intelligence.
However, any number of my ex-girlfriends will tell you that I am absolutely horrible at 'reading' people. I cannot read between the lines at all, and have an awful tendency to fail to understand how words I use might interact with the mental state that someone is in to have a completely unintended effect. This has led to some comically funny and some tragically sad misunderstandings.
You can call this 'emotional intelligence', which I personally think is a belittling term. It's a type of intelligence, is all. Totally different from the type that I have in spades, but just as valid a measure of brainpower, and also just as important in thriving in society. Everyone knows the stereotype of the super-smart engineer who can barely carry on a conversation about topics other than his or her field of study, but I don't think that person is any smarter than an incredibly intuitive artist, who can capture the emotions of a scene flawlessly in a painting, but can't balance his or her checkbook.
So, getting back to the concept of achievement, which is the crux of Shane's comment. My problem is not that they necessarily do a bad job of measuring achievement. There is undoubtedly some correlation between, say, SAT scores and college grades, if not an especially strong one. But I bet that some really good testbuilders could make a test that would have an even stronger correlation with college grades, graduation rates, etc. My point is none of that really matters.
I don't want to know how you're going to do in school. Success in school is good at predicting pretty much one and only one thing: how well you will do in more school. It's a sad, sad way of predicting whether you have the abilities, curiosity, dedication, etc. to do well in "the real world." That's the problem I have with our schooling system. By mandating so many fields of study (and the wrong ones, but that's another post altogether), they have prevented students from being able to, at least until they get to college, actually study, in depth, the things they are interested in. Any better school system is going to have to provide for these opportunities before it can be an improvement at all on the current setup.
The last point I will make here is that no single school model can possibly account for all this. There's no way that a single school, or even educational model, can properly teach gardening, automotive mechanics, physics, and post-modern painting. There is no 'best system' that somebody very smart is going to come up with. It's going to start when someone is given the opportunity to try something really new, and it works well for some people, and someone else says 'hey, I can do better than that' and applies those ideas in some new direction altogether. Any new system we have ought to be flexible enough to allow all this to happen.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Ceci n'est pas une camera
I didn't think that I was paying for this, but out of the goodness of their hearts, J+K Camera in New York put my camera on next-day delivery, which means that it arrived at work today. Somehow, after having my house broken into, I'm a bit leery about leaving $1000 worth of hardware sitting on my porch all day.
Anyhow, in honor of Godel, Escher, Bach and Rene Magritte's Ceci n'est pas une pipe, here is my first photo, entitled Cette photo a été prise avec un appareil-photo très cher.
Anyhow, in honor of Godel, Escher, Bach and Rene Magritte's Ceci n'est pas une pipe, here is my first photo, entitled Cette photo a été prise avec un appareil-photo très cher.
Monday, May 21, 2007
How Blogging Improved My Life
After all the writing about vacation last week, I was inspired to check up on my paid time off days accrued. At my company, you can roll over vacation days from year to year, but you have a maximum that you can have 'in the bank' at any given time. The maximum increases the longer you have been with the company. Right now, my max is at 23 days. I checked, and was surprised to see that I was at 21.75. Yikes!
So, it's a road trip! I am thinking Yellowstone and Grand Tetons in June sometime. I went two years ago with the family, which was fun, but inherently quite restrictive, because The Official Bro-in-Law and the Middle Sister are the only other serious hikers in the family, and since we only had one car for the whole gang, there was no chance for an overnight camping trip or anything of the sort.
This time, I am going to be backwoods enough to be threatened by some bears if it (they) kills me!
On a related note, I was looking at my bank account last week and thinking 'boy, where did all this money come from? I need to get rid of some of that.' To that end, I bought myself a brand spanking new digital camera, a Canon Rebel XTi. It consists of the vast majority of the remainder of my insurance settlement from the break-in. It is approximately 1.73 bazillion times nicer then what I would usually buy for myself, but with my Summer Of Travel beginning (big plans this summer for Yellowstone/Tetons, motorcycling around CO with The Official Dad, and The Big Island in Hawaii in September for the 30th bday), I feel like having a good camera would be a Very Nice Thing. Now I just have to see if I remember how to take pictures after it gets here...
So, it's a road trip! I am thinking Yellowstone and Grand Tetons in June sometime. I went two years ago with the family, which was fun, but inherently quite restrictive, because The Official Bro-in-Law and the Middle Sister are the only other serious hikers in the family, and since we only had one car for the whole gang, there was no chance for an overnight camping trip or anything of the sort.
This time, I am going to be backwoods enough to be threatened by some bears if it (they) kills me!
On a related note, I was looking at my bank account last week and thinking 'boy, where did all this money come from? I need to get rid of some of that.' To that end, I bought myself a brand spanking new digital camera, a Canon Rebel XTi. It consists of the vast majority of the remainder of my insurance settlement from the break-in. It is approximately 1.73 bazillion times nicer then what I would usually buy for myself, but with my Summer Of Travel beginning (big plans this summer for Yellowstone/Tetons, motorcycling around CO with The Official Dad, and The Big Island in Hawaii in September for the 30th bday), I feel like having a good camera would be a Very Nice Thing. Now I just have to see if I remember how to take pictures after it gets here...
And More Education
Firstly, a correction. The Official Bro-In-Law of The Consistent Fool writes in to say that he only attended Montessori schools for preschool. I refuse, however, to take back the nice things I said about him.
Matt writes about vouchers and the DC public schools. He makes the eminently sensible point that it might be worth waiting to see what effect the program is having on educational outcomes before declaring it a rousing success or miserable failure.
However, I come at it from a totally different perspective (with all respect due to Daniel Quinn and My Ishmael.) I think that the educational outcomes have absolutely nothing to do with the relative success or failure of the program, because they have nothing to do with the success or failure of the school system as it is designed.
If you think about it, it seems quite obvious that the design of the modern school system has absolutely nothing to do with its nominal goal, which is to prepare students to function in the outside world. My evidence for this rather outlandish claim is the fact that many, if not most, people leave 12 or 16 or more years of schooling with no obvious job skills. They enter the workforce doing the same grunt, entry-level labor that was done by HS dropouts 30 or 40 years ago. Then they gain skills and go on to often rewarding and enjoyable lives.
So what was the point of that 12 or 16 years of school again?
Now, of course school is not entirely useless. You learn to read; very important. You learn math skills; equally so. You even learn some critical thinking abilities, the ability to read a text and pull the relevant information out. Plus, freshman year of college is one massive bender of sex, drugs, rock-n-roll and late-night philosophical bullshit sessions that everyone should partake in at least once. But you also spend a whole lot of time learning things, like the function of acetylcholenesterase and the name of the evil daughters in King Lear which is, you know, nice to know, but not exactly vital to your ability to be a good stockbroker, or real estate agent, or HR manager.
And realize, please, that this plea comes from a person who is absolutely in love with the concept of information. I love knowing about acetylcholenesterase and King Lear. Even for someone who revels in the concept of trivial knowledge, I felt like about half the time I spent in school, pre-college, was wasted. For someone who isn't so inclined to care about all manner of trivial topics, the figure must approach 80% or more! Is it any wonder we have high schools with 40% graduation rates?
Fundamentally, our system makes the same mistake that so many of our bad policies do: it substitutes hope for how people could or should be for actual understanding of the way we are. It would be great if everyone loved Shakespeare. Most people won't, and to force them to read it is only going to piss them off and make them hate learning.
My point, I think, is that any school 'reform' which keeps doing this, trying to improve on people rather than trying to improve for people, is doomed to ongoing failure. That's the best thing I can say about the Montessori Schools, or Waldorf, or anything else. They're giving people freedom to explore the space of what works for them, and what they are interested in.
And, most importantly, they're just trying something different. They're inventing. What they try may or may not work, but it's a pretty well understood fact that when what you're doing isn't working, the solution absolutely is not to keep doing it, only harder.
Matt writes about vouchers and the DC public schools. He makes the eminently sensible point that it might be worth waiting to see what effect the program is having on educational outcomes before declaring it a rousing success or miserable failure.
However, I come at it from a totally different perspective (with all respect due to Daniel Quinn and My Ishmael.) I think that the educational outcomes have absolutely nothing to do with the relative success or failure of the program, because they have nothing to do with the success or failure of the school system as it is designed.
If you think about it, it seems quite obvious that the design of the modern school system has absolutely nothing to do with its nominal goal, which is to prepare students to function in the outside world. My evidence for this rather outlandish claim is the fact that many, if not most, people leave 12 or 16 or more years of schooling with no obvious job skills. They enter the workforce doing the same grunt, entry-level labor that was done by HS dropouts 30 or 40 years ago. Then they gain skills and go on to often rewarding and enjoyable lives.
So what was the point of that 12 or 16 years of school again?
Now, of course school is not entirely useless. You learn to read; very important. You learn math skills; equally so. You even learn some critical thinking abilities, the ability to read a text and pull the relevant information out. Plus, freshman year of college is one massive bender of sex, drugs, rock-n-roll and late-night philosophical bullshit sessions that everyone should partake in at least once. But you also spend a whole lot of time learning things, like the function of acetylcholenesterase and the name of the evil daughters in King Lear which is, you know, nice to know, but not exactly vital to your ability to be a good stockbroker, or real estate agent, or HR manager.
And realize, please, that this plea comes from a person who is absolutely in love with the concept of information. I love knowing about acetylcholenesterase and King Lear. Even for someone who revels in the concept of trivial knowledge, I felt like about half the time I spent in school, pre-college, was wasted. For someone who isn't so inclined to care about all manner of trivial topics, the figure must approach 80% or more! Is it any wonder we have high schools with 40% graduation rates?
Fundamentally, our system makes the same mistake that so many of our bad policies do: it substitutes hope for how people could or should be for actual understanding of the way we are. It would be great if everyone loved Shakespeare. Most people won't, and to force them to read it is only going to piss them off and make them hate learning.
My point, I think, is that any school 'reform' which keeps doing this, trying to improve on people rather than trying to improve for people, is doomed to ongoing failure. That's the best thing I can say about the Montessori Schools, or Waldorf, or anything else. They're giving people freedom to explore the space of what works for them, and what they are interested in.
And, most importantly, they're just trying something different. They're inventing. What they try may or may not work, but it's a pretty well understood fact that when what you're doing isn't working, the solution absolutely is not to keep doing it, only harder.
Alternative Sports News
Today, in the women's professional...
*yawn* what? Oh, sorry.
Haha, just kidding. In other non-real sport news (defined loosely as 'things I would actually look in the paper or on the net to see when they are on TV), Roger Federer ended Rafael Nadal's mindblowing 81-match clay winning streak by beating him in the finals of a French warmup tournament.
I think this is great. I am not a huge tennis fan, but do enjoy watching occasionally, and I have to admit that Federer is amazing. I enjoy watching him much more than I enjoyed watching Sampras in his dominant days; to me, he is a pleasant mix of Sampras' cool consistency and Agassi's emotional court catharsis. And we all should appreciate greatness and beauty for those short, fleeting existences they tend to have on this planet. Also, the end of Nadal's clay invincibility makes for a good leadup to the French, the only major Federer hasn't won in his ridiculous 4-year run of dominance.
Incidentally, if you've never seen a Youtube slow-mo high-def video of Federer hitting the ball, like this one, it's worth a look-see. As a former frisbee player, I recognize the perfection in the way he generates motion in his hips and chest, and uses his arm and wrist to efficiently transmit that torque onto the poor ball. As my man John Keats said, 'a thing of beauty is a joy forever.'
*yawn* what? Oh, sorry.
Haha, just kidding. In other non-real sport news (defined loosely as 'things I would actually look in the paper or on the net to see when they are on TV), Roger Federer ended Rafael Nadal's mindblowing 81-match clay winning streak by beating him in the finals of a French warmup tournament.
I think this is great. I am not a huge tennis fan, but do enjoy watching occasionally, and I have to admit that Federer is amazing. I enjoy watching him much more than I enjoyed watching Sampras in his dominant days; to me, he is a pleasant mix of Sampras' cool consistency and Agassi's emotional court catharsis. And we all should appreciate greatness and beauty for those short, fleeting existences they tend to have on this planet. Also, the end of Nadal's clay invincibility makes for a good leadup to the French, the only major Federer hasn't won in his ridiculous 4-year run of dominance.
Incidentally, if you've never seen a Youtube slow-mo high-def video of Federer hitting the ball, like this one, it's worth a look-see. As a former frisbee player, I recognize the perfection in the way he generates motion in his hips and chest, and uses his arm and wrist to efficiently transmit that torque onto the poor ball. As my man John Keats said, 'a thing of beauty is a joy forever.'
Monday morning quarterbacking
Sorry for the light posts over the weekend. Somehow, as I've gotten old(er), I seem to have acquired myself a social life. Not quite sure how it happened, and trust me I am as shocked and awed by the fact as you are, Faithful Reader, but there it is.
Very strong post by Neil over at casa Ezra. Short summary, for those too lazy to click over; the Missouri legislature shot down an attempt to reintroduce public funding for birth control, of course generally for poor women, at the behest of pro-life groups. Money quote:
Now Missouri wants to assure that this woman will either be celibate or pregnant in the near future. To my mind, this means that their definition of 'promiscuity' is equivalent to 'having sex.' Now I'm not Andrew Sullivan (I don't even play him on TV!) so I am not going to throw a hissy fit here about the Christianists, and the danger of their dominance over American public discourse. Although that is, mostly, true. To me, it's simply a demonstration of the intellectual bankruptcy of much of the pro-life movement, in that birth control helps prevent abortions from happening, but the 'conservatives' would rather stick their fingers in their ears and sing 'la la la la laaaa' and declare that birth control encourages people to have sex (because, you know, before birth control people almost never had sex!), and sex is bad unless it's for the cause of making more babies, hence birth control is bad!
I'll leave with words from Neil:
Very strong post by Neil over at casa Ezra. Short summary, for those too lazy to click over; the Missouri legislature shot down an attempt to reintroduce public funding for birth control, of course generally for poor women, at the behest of pro-life groups. Money quote:
"If you hand out contraception to single women, we're saying promiscuity is OK as a state, and I am not in support of that," Phillips, R-Kansas City, said in an interview.Apparently, 'promiscuity' is now defined as 'having sex.' Since, of course, it is conceivable that someone who is happily married might want to have sex. And it is possible that this person might not want to get pregnant at that time. Maybe she is sick, or young, or already exhausted from dealing with her 2 toddlers already at home. And it is possible that she might be so poor that she cannot afford birth control on her own, maybe because she took off work to spend time raising her 2 toddlers, and the hubby, well, he's a great guy but just doesn't bring home much bacon with his GED.
Now Missouri wants to assure that this woman will either be celibate or pregnant in the near future. To my mind, this means that their definition of 'promiscuity' is equivalent to 'having sex.' Now I'm not Andrew Sullivan (I don't even play him on TV!) so I am not going to throw a hissy fit here about the Christianists, and the danger of their dominance over American public discourse. Although that is, mostly, true. To me, it's simply a demonstration of the intellectual bankruptcy of much of the pro-life movement, in that birth control helps prevent abortions from happening, but the 'conservatives' would rather stick their fingers in their ears and sing 'la la la la laaaa' and declare that birth control encourages people to have sex (because, you know, before birth control people almost never had sex!), and sex is bad unless it's for the cause of making more babies, hence birth control is bad!
I'll leave with words from Neil:
For all their lofty rhetoric, they're trying to create a world where being a sexually active single woman is punished by forced childbirth, or by cancer. There may be more destructive people in American politics, but there are none I hate more.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Sunday Edublogging
Nice article in Slate about Montessori schools. There's a bit at the end about Waldorf schools, and also the Reggio Emilia teaching techniques. I don't know nearly enough about the differences between the methods to have a strong opinion either way. I do know that my brother-in-law, David, is one of the smartest, nicest, and generally wonderful people that I know, and he went to Montessori schools. And while he certainly got some aspect of his brains genetically (his dad is the very widely-published economist Dan Hamermesh), I feel like the schools have to have had some impact on his impeccably good manners and general sociality, because he sure as hell did not get that from Daniel, who is a wonderful person but not, shall we say, the planet's most tactful.
I do know Faith, who is almost certainly never going to read this, is a huge believer in the Waldorf method, and the only adults I've ever known who came out of that program were also smart and interesting and generally wonderful people. But, at the end of the day, I think the point to take home is that there is no one right way to educate a child. Which is really, I think, a generalizable lesson; there is no one right way for people to live. No two species of animal live in exactly the same way, hence every possible ecological niche is filled. If every animal were to adopt the same strategy (say, eating mangoes to get calories), then the world would run out of mangoes quite quickly, and also out of animals.
In the same way, while the world can certainly support a lot of people living a fairly destructive, 20th-century style Western lifestyle, I'm not so certain that it can support 6 billion of them nondestructively. At the same time, those 6 billion are here, and they want that lifestyle. So the trick is going to be to figure out how to get them the parts that they want (heated houses, drinkable water, Twinkies (tm)), without bringing all the bad parts of that 20th-century lifestyle along for the ride.
I do know Faith, who is almost certainly never going to read this, is a huge believer in the Waldorf method, and the only adults I've ever known who came out of that program were also smart and interesting and generally wonderful people. But, at the end of the day, I think the point to take home is that there is no one right way to educate a child. Which is really, I think, a generalizable lesson; there is no one right way for people to live. No two species of animal live in exactly the same way, hence every possible ecological niche is filled. If every animal were to adopt the same strategy (say, eating mangoes to get calories), then the world would run out of mangoes quite quickly, and also out of animals.
In the same way, while the world can certainly support a lot of people living a fairly destructive, 20th-century style Western lifestyle, I'm not so certain that it can support 6 billion of them nondestructively. At the same time, those 6 billion are here, and they want that lifestyle. So the trick is going to be to figure out how to get them the parts that they want (heated houses, drinkable water, Twinkies (tm)), without bringing all the bad parts of that 20th-century lifestyle along for the ride.
Matthew Yglesias Is My Hero
And not just because he stole one of my posts, albeit significantly well-more informed, as is his wont as the type of person who, you know, knows about things.
He also name-checks me in another one of his posts!
Unfortunately, it's not actually me. It's that other damn David Samuels, who wrote a wonderful piece about Condoleeza Rice for the Atlantic. Incidentally, the best practice joke I think I've ever played involved convincing Licia that I wrote this piece, about Yasser Arafat, also for the Atlantic. Hilarity ensued.
He also name-checks me in another one of his posts!
Unfortunately, it's not actually me. It's that other damn David Samuels, who wrote a wonderful piece about Condoleeza Rice for the Atlantic. Incidentally, the best practice joke I think I've ever played involved convincing Licia that I wrote this piece, about Yasser Arafat, also for the Atlantic. Hilarity ensued.
Friday, May 18, 2007
The Postal Service Rips You Off
Brilliant Explainer in Slate yesterday.
Short version: don't buy the 'Lifetime' stamps currently being offered by the USPS. Apparently, someone bought $8000 worth as an 'investment'. The only problem is that, historically, the price of stamps has lagged behind inflation. Now, it is actually the law of the land that the price cannot go up any faster than the rate of inflation. Hence, this is a really really really stupid kind of investment, as the "real" cost of sending a letter will only go down or stay the same over time.
Short version: don't buy the 'Lifetime' stamps currently being offered by the USPS. Apparently, someone bought $8000 worth as an 'investment'. The only problem is that, historically, the price of stamps has lagged behind inflation. Now, it is actually the law of the land that the price cannot go up any faster than the rate of inflation. Hence, this is a really really really stupid kind of investment, as the "real" cost of sending a letter will only go down or stay the same over time.
On Immigrants, The Poor, And The Poor Immigrants
I'm of (at least) two minds regarding the immigration compromise that is brewing in the Senate right now. It is obviously a problem that requires some sort of solution-the concept of 12 million plus people living outside of the official systems in this country is, well, absurd. At the same point in time, those 12 million people are here, and they're not going home. Any solution that requires that, even the current one that requires that they go home before getting their green card, is a red herring.
However, I am definitely a believer in preventing illegal immigration. To my mind, however, the solution isn't to close the borders. Although I think that we could do that, with appropriate investment and ongoing efforts, the easier and more humane thing to do is to remove the incentive to cross illegally. To that end, you need two efforts. One is to reduce the benefit of employing illegals here in the U.S. And that, unfortunately, means enforcement. Stiffen the penalties for employing illegal immigrants, and up the amount of checking that gets done. But there's no need to penalize the people who are here directly, by arrest, fines, or deportation. Simply make it such that nobody will want to employ them, and they won't come.
The other effort that's needed is to make it easier for people to immigrate legally, and get jobs while they are here. The guest worker program is a good move in that direction. It's the same idea as iTunes. People don't want to be lawbreakers; if you give them a legal option, even if it's a bit more expensive, most of them will take it. Likewise, if you give people a legal way to get into the country and work, even if they have to pay taxes, and even if the employers have to pay them legal wages, I think that will severely reduce the motivation to be here illegally.
The most irritating canard, which is usually the one floated by corporate shill Republicans, is this idea that immigrants are willing to do jobs that Americans just won't. This is patently absurd, and absolutely hilarious to hear coming from the mouths of those who declare their faith daily at the Church Of The Free Market. If Americans aren't willing to do the jobs, that's just because they aren't paying enough. I would happily pick strawberries if they paid $200,000 a season. That would result in some seriously expensive strawberries at Safeway, to be sure, but hey-last time I read the Declaration of Independence it didn't mention the inalienable right to 'Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness, and Cheaply Affordable Produce.'
However, I am definitely a believer in preventing illegal immigration. To my mind, however, the solution isn't to close the borders. Although I think that we could do that, with appropriate investment and ongoing efforts, the easier and more humane thing to do is to remove the incentive to cross illegally. To that end, you need two efforts. One is to reduce the benefit of employing illegals here in the U.S. And that, unfortunately, means enforcement. Stiffen the penalties for employing illegal immigrants, and up the amount of checking that gets done. But there's no need to penalize the people who are here directly, by arrest, fines, or deportation. Simply make it such that nobody will want to employ them, and they won't come.
The other effort that's needed is to make it easier for people to immigrate legally, and get jobs while they are here. The guest worker program is a good move in that direction. It's the same idea as iTunes. People don't want to be lawbreakers; if you give them a legal option, even if it's a bit more expensive, most of them will take it. Likewise, if you give people a legal way to get into the country and work, even if they have to pay taxes, and even if the employers have to pay them legal wages, I think that will severely reduce the motivation to be here illegally.
The most irritating canard, which is usually the one floated by corporate shill Republicans, is this idea that immigrants are willing to do jobs that Americans just won't. This is patently absurd, and absolutely hilarious to hear coming from the mouths of those who declare their faith daily at the Church Of The Free Market. If Americans aren't willing to do the jobs, that's just because they aren't paying enough. I would happily pick strawberries if they paid $200,000 a season. That would result in some seriously expensive strawberries at Safeway, to be sure, but hey-last time I read the Declaration of Independence it didn't mention the inalienable right to 'Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness, and Cheaply Affordable Produce.'
Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing
I was in my friends Michelle and LJ's wedding in Raleigh, NC a few weeks ago. All-around fantastic weekend. Good food, good friends, and if the DJ at the reception was kind of a dork, well, that's in his job description, right?
Anyhow, all of the groomsmen received a gift from LJ, which was a bottle of the liquor of their choice. I picked scotch, although I felt a bit bad because I didn't know if there would be anything any good in the price range that was requested ($30-$50 a bottle). Apparently, all my unpaid psychotherapy for Michelle is finally paying off, as I received, to my very pleasant surprise, a bottle of 17-year Glenfarclas single-malt. I finally had time to sit and open it last night, with all the appropriate ceremony and opportunity for appreciation. And, daaaaamn.
I love you, LJ.
Anyhow, all of the groomsmen received a gift from LJ, which was a bottle of the liquor of their choice. I picked scotch, although I felt a bit bad because I didn't know if there would be anything any good in the price range that was requested ($30-$50 a bottle). Apparently, all my unpaid psychotherapy for Michelle is finally paying off, as I received, to my very pleasant surprise, a bottle of 17-year Glenfarclas single-malt. I finally had time to sit and open it last night, with all the appropriate ceremony and opportunity for appreciation. And, daaaaamn.
I love you, LJ.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Thursday Lostblogging
Spoilers below.
I usually hate second-to-last episodes of the season. Much like the second movie in a planned trilogy, they're all set-up with no resolution.
Even by those standards, this was a pretty weak episode. I do approve of the use of flashbacks for cuteness moments, rather than to try to explain completely inexplicable plot details. But there just wasn't much drive to the episode; it felt like they were just going through the motions so that we can get to the good stuff next week.
Jack W. Bush has begun his surge strategy, upping the intensity of the fight by planning to kill the Others' assault force. I'm sure it will work just as well.
We are nearing resolution of the 'Please oh please oh plea-ea-eaaaaase let this be the week Charlie dies' plotline. I am hoping for the best. But really-why was he so amazed to find out that he survived the swim that he had to declare his aliveness to the heavens? He hadn't even flipped the switch yet! And seriously, does anyone actually ever shout "I'm alive! I'm alive! Ah-ha-haaaa I'm alive!" outside of old campy movies?
Deus ex Desmond is alive and well, fortunately. If he doesn't wake up and swim to the station just in time to rescue Charlie and let him flip the switch next week, along with some sort of concomitant drama about trying to take his place, and blah blah fucking blah, well, let's just say I'll be very surprised.
I chose not to watch Heroes this week, instead taping it and planning to watch both weeks together with Shane next week. After the lameness of this Lost, I am really thinking that was a smart move....
I usually hate second-to-last episodes of the season. Much like the second movie in a planned trilogy, they're all set-up with no resolution.
Even by those standards, this was a pretty weak episode. I do approve of the use of flashbacks for cuteness moments, rather than to try to explain completely inexplicable plot details. But there just wasn't much drive to the episode; it felt like they were just going through the motions so that we can get to the good stuff next week.
Jack W. Bush has begun his surge strategy, upping the intensity of the fight by planning to kill the Others' assault force. I'm sure it will work just as well.
We are nearing resolution of the 'Please oh please oh plea-ea-eaaaaase let this be the week Charlie dies' plotline. I am hoping for the best. But really-why was he so amazed to find out that he survived the swim that he had to declare his aliveness to the heavens? He hadn't even flipped the switch yet! And seriously, does anyone actually ever shout "I'm alive! I'm alive! Ah-ha-haaaa I'm alive!" outside of old campy movies?
Deus ex Desmond is alive and well, fortunately. If he doesn't wake up and swim to the station just in time to rescue Charlie and let him flip the switch next week, along with some sort of concomitant drama about trying to take his place, and blah blah fucking blah, well, let's just say I'll be very surprised.
I chose not to watch Heroes this week, instead taping it and planning to watch both weeks together with Shane next week. After the lameness of this Lost, I am really thinking that was a smart move....
David Stern Is Such A Tool
Listening to yesterday's Pardon The Interruption on my mp3 player coming into work this morning. David Stern on the suspensions: "Both the letter and the spirit of the rule is, Thou Shalt Not Leave The Bench."
That's, ummm, the stupidest thing I have ever heard. The letter of the law regarding driving is Thou Shalt Drive On The Right Side Of The Road. The spirit, however, is that you shouldn't drive on the side of the road that requires you to go opposite of the way everyone else is driving. That's why, if you end up in some crazy traffic zone where you are briefly driving on the left, the solution is not to charge across traffic cones to be on the Right Side. The solution is to drive whichever way everyone else is driving. You won't get pulled over if you're doing that.
In this case, the spirit of the rule is that you should not leave the bench area and exacerbate the already-high tensions in an altercation that has begun. Because it leaves too much to the judgement of the viewer to say that, we say 'don't leave the bench during an altercation.' But the goal of the rule is not to keep everyone on the bench. If, during an altercation, Amare Stoudemire started doing cartwheels down the sideline, would this make the situation any worse? No, of course not. So the rule needs to have the flexibility to allow for situations where a player might leave the bench without contributing to the tensions and not get punished, at the commish's discretion.
Stern lost about 50 points in my esteem last night, especially when Phoenix lost the game mostly because Nash ran out of gas late in the fourth and simply couldn't get anything done anymore, and they blew an 11-point lead. If the Spurs win this series, I'm done with the NBA for the year.
That's, ummm, the stupidest thing I have ever heard. The letter of the law regarding driving is Thou Shalt Drive On The Right Side Of The Road. The spirit, however, is that you shouldn't drive on the side of the road that requires you to go opposite of the way everyone else is driving. That's why, if you end up in some crazy traffic zone where you are briefly driving on the left, the solution is not to charge across traffic cones to be on the Right Side. The solution is to drive whichever way everyone else is driving. You won't get pulled over if you're doing that.
In this case, the spirit of the rule is that you should not leave the bench area and exacerbate the already-high tensions in an altercation that has begun. Because it leaves too much to the judgement of the viewer to say that, we say 'don't leave the bench during an altercation.' But the goal of the rule is not to keep everyone on the bench. If, during an altercation, Amare Stoudemire started doing cartwheels down the sideline, would this make the situation any worse? No, of course not. So the rule needs to have the flexibility to allow for situations where a player might leave the bench without contributing to the tensions and not get punished, at the commish's discretion.
Stern lost about 50 points in my esteem last night, especially when Phoenix lost the game mostly because Nash ran out of gas late in the fourth and simply couldn't get anything done anymore, and they blew an 11-point lead. If the Spurs win this series, I'm done with the NBA for the year.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
In The Immortal Words Of Darth Vader: "Noooooooo!"
George Lucas announces two more Star Wars-based projects: a continuation of the very-cool Clone Wars animated sequel which originally showed as a series of short vignettes on the Cartoon Network, and two one-hour live-action movies which take place between the birth of Darth Vader and the rise of the Rebel Alliance.
Okay, these will probably suck. The live-action ones, anyhow. As I mentioned, The Clone Wars was actually quite entertaining. And, as Ross points out, the second trilogy actually had the extra-negative effect of retroactively reducing your enjoyment of the early ones. But my theory is, at this point, he can't really do any more damage to the previous movies, unless he puts out a new movie at the end of which we see Mark Hamill wake up in modern-day Peoria, Illinois, and declare "it was all a dream!"
Although you have to love Lucas' attempted takedown of Spider-Man 3: "there's not much story, is there?" Well, George, you are clearly the prosecution's expert witness in the area of 'movies without much story,' so I guess we'll have to take your word for it!
Okay, these will probably suck. The live-action ones, anyhow. As I mentioned, The Clone Wars was actually quite entertaining. And, as Ross points out, the second trilogy actually had the extra-negative effect of retroactively reducing your enjoyment of the early ones. But my theory is, at this point, he can't really do any more damage to the previous movies, unless he puts out a new movie at the end of which we see Mark Hamill wake up in modern-day Peoria, Illinois, and declare "it was all a dream!"
Although you have to love Lucas' attempted takedown of Spider-Man 3: "there's not much story, is there?" Well, George, you are clearly the prosecution's expert witness in the area of 'movies without much story,' so I guess we'll have to take your word for it!
Of Shrinking Photons
An actual life update, for once. My much-discussed CTE Tester (CTE stands for Coefficient of Thermal Expansion, for those who care) officially came online yesterday, and I finished analyzing the first set of data today. The theoretical prediction for the value I was measuring was just a touch under 0.29, and the measured value was between 0.295 and 0.298, an error of 2.7%, which is well within the expected statistical noise of the measurement.
Needless to say, this is pretty good news. If Einstein could have gotten within 2.7% of his Grand Unified Theory, we'd lionize him as a pretty smart dude, not the abject failure that we remember him as now.
How does this affect you, Faithful Reader? Well, in the short run, it probably means I'll have to be taking data, which might reduce the working-hours frequency of my posts here. Not that I should be posting here at all during working hours, but I won't say anything if you don't. In the long run, after the system is automated, I will be doing a lot of button-pressing and walking away while my lovely computer runs the datataking and analysis process. More leisure time for me (click here for Ezra Klein's take on leisure time in the U.S.) Also, the fact that I am now the only one who knows how the hell this thing works ensures that I will keep my job for a little while longer now. The unofficial rule here is you have to go two years without accomplishing anything to actually get fired, so I guess my 2-year clock just got reset.
Needless to say, this is pretty good news. If Einstein could have gotten within 2.7% of his Grand Unified Theory, we'd lionize him as a pretty smart dude, not the abject failure that we remember him as now.
How does this affect you, Faithful Reader? Well, in the short run, it probably means I'll have to be taking data, which might reduce the working-hours frequency of my posts here. Not that I should be posting here at all during working hours, but I won't say anything if you don't. In the long run, after the system is automated, I will be doing a lot of button-pressing and walking away while my lovely computer runs the datataking and analysis process. More leisure time for me (click here for Ezra Klein's take on leisure time in the U.S.) Also, the fact that I am now the only one who knows how the hell this thing works ensures that I will keep my job for a little while longer now. The unofficial rule here is you have to go two years without accomplishing anything to actually get fired, so I guess my 2-year clock just got reset.
Once Again, The Mighty Powers Of The Blogosphere Conspire To Rip Off My Ideas
Okay, it's not like I really think this is happening, but is it purely coincidence that less than 24 hours after I post about happiness, GDP, and the lack of a clear correlation between the two, Atrios posts...the exact same thought?
Actually, I prefer to think of it as evidence that I am just ahead of the curve. Also, evidence that I must be right, if such wise and smart people have the same opinions I do. Go me!
Via Ezra.
Actually, I prefer to think of it as evidence that I am just ahead of the curve. Also, evidence that I must be right, if such wise and smart people have the same opinions I do. Go me!
Via Ezra.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Comments On My Comments
Okay, I hope to eventually turn this into a 'comment of the week' sort of thing, but frankly y'all are going to have to start commenting a bit more often.
First off, LJ helpfully points out the fact that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. It kind of seemed to me that the material my dog's bed was made of was a bit heavy for a parachute, which I always think of as very light and very flexible material. At the same time, I had this vague memory of cordura and parachutes being connected somehow, and I was too lazy to do any real research on the field. So thanks, Mr. Staben, for now ensuring that I will have nightmares of my dog dying a terrible, splattery death after plummeting to the ground with only his sadly non-parachute-capable pillow for protection.
Jenny points out that even Sarkozy's conservative reforms are the kinds of things that even a liberal in America wouldn't have the onions to suggest. Specifically, he is in favor of allowing (but not requiring) workers to exceed the 35-hour work week limit, if both they and their employer agree that this would be a good thing. Likewise, when conservatives cry "Socialism!" as Democrats ponder the idea that maybe, just maybe, allowing big multinational corporations to be entirely in charge of our health care system isn't the single, most efficient, most productive system imaginable, remember that America is so far to the right of most of the rest of the developed world that an accusation like that has no basis whatsoever in reality.
The thing that, seriously, amazes me more than anything else about the American political discourse is how one-sided it is in terms of quality-of-life vs. quality-of-production modes of thought. I never remember a single serious politician or even mainstream pundit ever mentioning the fact that maybe, juuuust maybe, a policy, which reduces economic growth while increasing opportunities for people to live happy, satisfying lives with the less money they'll have in their pockets, might actually be worth pursuing. Any economic, fiscal, or tax policy has to be represented as increasing growth opportunities, otherwise serious discussion of it is verboten.
This is completely whack, as the kids say these days. If you believe at all in the measurability of the ephemeral concept of 'happiness', then sociologists will tell you (and keep on telling you. Never talk to a drunk sociologist-BORING!) that once you reach a minimum sustenance level of material comfort, which works out to roughly $12K per person per annum in average America, there is almost no correlation between material compensation and happiness. Billionaires are almost as likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, and reckless financial behaviors as Joe Mechanic, who pulls in $40K a year and struggles to put his kid in braces.
So if the goal of our government is to provide the maximum opportunity for happiness to the maximum number of people, which I think is a concept most people would support, then we need to seriously think about supporting concepts like free trade, which have big net positive benefits for the economy as a whole, but from which the lion's share of the upside goes to those who don't need it to be happy (as in, those who comfortably make well over that $12K per person per year threshold), while the biggest losers tend to be those who are skating right at that threshold even on a good day.
All of which is a long way of saying, Vive la France!
First off, LJ helpfully points out the fact that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. It kind of seemed to me that the material my dog's bed was made of was a bit heavy for a parachute, which I always think of as very light and very flexible material. At the same time, I had this vague memory of cordura and parachutes being connected somehow, and I was too lazy to do any real research on the field. So thanks, Mr. Staben, for now ensuring that I will have nightmares of my dog dying a terrible, splattery death after plummeting to the ground with only his sadly non-parachute-capable pillow for protection.
Jenny points out that even Sarkozy's conservative reforms are the kinds of things that even a liberal in America wouldn't have the onions to suggest. Specifically, he is in favor of allowing (but not requiring) workers to exceed the 35-hour work week limit, if both they and their employer agree that this would be a good thing. Likewise, when conservatives cry "Socialism!" as Democrats ponder the idea that maybe, just maybe, allowing big multinational corporations to be entirely in charge of our health care system isn't the single, most efficient, most productive system imaginable, remember that America is so far to the right of most of the rest of the developed world that an accusation like that has no basis whatsoever in reality.
The thing that, seriously, amazes me more than anything else about the American political discourse is how one-sided it is in terms of quality-of-life vs. quality-of-production modes of thought. I never remember a single serious politician or even mainstream pundit ever mentioning the fact that maybe, juuuust maybe, a policy, which reduces economic growth while increasing opportunities for people to live happy, satisfying lives with the less money they'll have in their pockets, might actually be worth pursuing. Any economic, fiscal, or tax policy has to be represented as increasing growth opportunities, otherwise serious discussion of it is verboten.
This is completely whack, as the kids say these days. If you believe at all in the measurability of the ephemeral concept of 'happiness', then sociologists will tell you (and keep on telling you. Never talk to a drunk sociologist-BORING!) that once you reach a minimum sustenance level of material comfort, which works out to roughly $12K per person per annum in average America, there is almost no correlation between material compensation and happiness. Billionaires are almost as likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, and reckless financial behaviors as Joe Mechanic, who pulls in $40K a year and struggles to put his kid in braces.
So if the goal of our government is to provide the maximum opportunity for happiness to the maximum number of people, which I think is a concept most people would support, then we need to seriously think about supporting concepts like free trade, which have big net positive benefits for the economy as a whole, but from which the lion's share of the upside goes to those who don't need it to be happy (as in, those who comfortably make well over that $12K per person per year threshold), while the biggest losers tend to be those who are skating right at that threshold even on a good day.
All of which is a long way of saying, Vive la France!
Totally Uninformed Basketball Commentary
Take this for what it is, which is NBA playoff commentary from a guy who doesn't have cable, hence has actually, you know, seen very few of the games.
That said, I like San Antonio biting and clawing their way through the series with Phoenix. And, I like Phoenix calling them on it. Plus, I love Nash taking the high road until someone personally goes after him, at which point he goes all North-of-the-border batshit insane on Horry's geriatric ass. My guess on what he was yelling at Horry: "I'm gonna pound you so hard you'll be drinking maple syrup through a straw all summer, eh!"
Obviously, San Antonio knows that, although they can play the Phoenix pace well for a quarter or so a game, they can't keep it up for 48 minutes. Plus, if they let Phoenix go to the hole without paying some sort of price for it, the Suns will run them off the planet. So the physicality is necessary. And Phoenix knows how terrible NBA refs are, and if they can get popular sentiment on their side, that could swing 3 to 4 calls a game their way, which can be enough to win a tight series. And Nash knows that he is the face of the franchise, so if he holds the 'good cop' line while Stoudemire and Marion and Bell trash talk the Spurs, they get the best of both worlds, keeping a good rep while turning public opinion their way.
All that said, The Sports Guy makes some good points in arguing for a potential blowing up of the Phoenix roster in the offseason. In particular, I like KG-for-Stoudemire, with salary-fitting pieces thrown in. KG will slow down the Suns O, because he doesn't run as well as Stoudemire. Let's face it, nobody that big has ever run as well as Stoudemire. But Phoenix has been thriving as a defensive team this year (one of those counterintuitive facts that takes a Hollinger-esque points-per-100-possessions analysis to see), and Stoudemire is a liability here. He's not a great rebounder, and a bad defender. KG on the Suns would actually gnaw Duncan's face off, Hannibal Lecter-style, if that was what it took to get to the finals. KG has a lot of miles on the odometer, but has had short seasons the last 3 years, which has to help.
Damn, I really wish I had cable this month...
That said, I like San Antonio biting and clawing their way through the series with Phoenix. And, I like Phoenix calling them on it. Plus, I love Nash taking the high road until someone personally goes after him, at which point he goes all North-of-the-border batshit insane on Horry's geriatric ass. My guess on what he was yelling at Horry: "I'm gonna pound you so hard you'll be drinking maple syrup through a straw all summer, eh!"
Obviously, San Antonio knows that, although they can play the Phoenix pace well for a quarter or so a game, they can't keep it up for 48 minutes. Plus, if they let Phoenix go to the hole without paying some sort of price for it, the Suns will run them off the planet. So the physicality is necessary. And Phoenix knows how terrible NBA refs are, and if they can get popular sentiment on their side, that could swing 3 to 4 calls a game their way, which can be enough to win a tight series. And Nash knows that he is the face of the franchise, so if he holds the 'good cop' line while Stoudemire and Marion and Bell trash talk the Spurs, they get the best of both worlds, keeping a good rep while turning public opinion their way.
All that said, The Sports Guy makes some good points in arguing for a potential blowing up of the Phoenix roster in the offseason. In particular, I like KG-for-Stoudemire, with salary-fitting pieces thrown in. KG will slow down the Suns O, because he doesn't run as well as Stoudemire. Let's face it, nobody that big has ever run as well as Stoudemire. But Phoenix has been thriving as a defensive team this year (one of those counterintuitive facts that takes a Hollinger-esque points-per-100-possessions analysis to see), and Stoudemire is a liability here. He's not a great rebounder, and a bad defender. KG on the Suns would actually gnaw Duncan's face off, Hannibal Lecter-style, if that was what it took to get to the finals. KG has a lot of miles on the odometer, but has had short seasons the last 3 years, which has to help.
Damn, I really wish I had cable this month...
Old People Vs. Sick People
Ezra points out a serious flaw in the usual debate about entitlement programs as a proportion of GDP. Namely, while Social Security is expected to rise in the near term but level off in the long run, healthcare entitlements, namely Medicare and Medicaid, are going to rise off into the future like some sort of Himalayan pile of oxygen tanks and erectile-dysfunction drugs.
Ezra points this out as a way of belittling the Political Jesus (a.k.a. Barack Obama) and his statements that he is open to changing the way Social Security benefits are handed out. While I agree with Ezra that Social Security isn't going to be the bank-buster, I'm still quite open to changing the benefit structure; namely, it's about damn time we up the government-funded retirement age, to 70 or maybe even a bit higher, and it's also time to means-test those benefits.
To my mind, the whole point of Social Security is, ummm, security. All people, by virtue of being human beings, are due certain inalienable rights and minimal standards of living. If you reach 65, or 70, and have nothing to your name, then the government will give you enough to get by with a frugal lifestyle. If you have enough to provide yourself that frugal lifestyle already, then good on you; congratulations and good luck. Some people will be bitter about the fact that they, for saving, end up living a similar lifestyle to someone who was a spendthrift and acted irresponsibly. Oh well; suck it up. You both still get to live in a pretty damn good country, so count your blessings and enjoy the shuffleboard.
But of course, Ezra's point is that this won't make the big difference in saving the federal budget. For that, we need healthcare entitlement reform. And here, of course, the answer is more government-run health care. But that's a point for another post.
Ezra points this out as a way of belittling the Political Jesus (a.k.a. Barack Obama) and his statements that he is open to changing the way Social Security benefits are handed out. While I agree with Ezra that Social Security isn't going to be the bank-buster, I'm still quite open to changing the benefit structure; namely, it's about damn time we up the government-funded retirement age, to 70 or maybe even a bit higher, and it's also time to means-test those benefits.
To my mind, the whole point of Social Security is, ummm, security. All people, by virtue of being human beings, are due certain inalienable rights and minimal standards of living. If you reach 65, or 70, and have nothing to your name, then the government will give you enough to get by with a frugal lifestyle. If you have enough to provide yourself that frugal lifestyle already, then good on you; congratulations and good luck. Some people will be bitter about the fact that they, for saving, end up living a similar lifestyle to someone who was a spendthrift and acted irresponsibly. Oh well; suck it up. You both still get to live in a pretty damn good country, so count your blessings and enjoy the shuffleboard.
But of course, Ezra's point is that this won't make the big difference in saving the federal budget. For that, we need healthcare entitlement reform. And here, of course, the answer is more government-run health care. But that's a point for another post.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Matt Finds His Position A Bit Tenuous
I've said before, and I'll say again, that Matt Yglesias is my favorite blogger. However, he had a post last week defending Bud specifically, and cheap beer generally. Ezra Klein, on the other hand, posted in defense of good beer, particularly the ultraexpensive, $9, 22 oz. bottles that you can only find in the finest liquor establishments. Needless to say, this raised him significantly in my estimation, especially because he shows a well-developed palate for a punk 23-year-old.
Well, between that, and the series of posts he had today (such as this, this, and this), Ezra is moving up my blogger admiration rolls quickly. Watch your ass, Matt!
In particular, his first post, on high schools, is gold. Honestly, I think that our education system could barely be put together any more incoherently, so any change represents a de facto improvement. Maybe I'll post on this someday. But, specifically, the idea of giving young kids the option of receiving more specific job training, so that they are doing something that they are interested in, and also so that they are able to enter the job force with some actual, you know, job skills, seems pretty intuitively obvious to me. Then again, I am the world's last holdout against the concept of compulsory comprehensive liberal arts education, so what do I know?
Well, between that, and the series of posts he had today (such as this, this, and this), Ezra is moving up my blogger admiration rolls quickly. Watch your ass, Matt!
In particular, his first post, on high schools, is gold. Honestly, I think that our education system could barely be put together any more incoherently, so any change represents a de facto improvement. Maybe I'll post on this someday. But, specifically, the idea of giving young kids the option of receiving more specific job training, so that they are doing something that they are interested in, and also so that they are able to enter the job force with some actual, you know, job skills, seems pretty intuitively obvious to me. Then again, I am the world's last holdout against the concept of compulsory comprehensive liberal arts education, so what do I know?
Further Secrets Are Revealed
I always knew I was really a fat man in a fairly thin body...
Okay, technically speaking, I really think that I'm a fat lesbian in a fairly thin man's body, but that's neither here nor there.
Okay, technically speaking, I really think that I'm a fat lesbian in a fairly thin man's body, but that's neither here nor there.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Sunday Spideyblogging, Take 2
Well, the Internets swallowed my first attempt to post this, so I will try again, only hopefully both shorter and tighter than my first try.
As I mentioned yesterday, a group of us went to see the IMAX screen version of Spider-Man 3 yesterday in Denver. Highly enjoyable evening, although this was mostly due to the company and conversation, not the movie, as it should be. Having friends rules; I wish that it hadn't taken me about 23 years to mature enough that I could really pull it off (with the notable exceptions of Mikey and Mira), but that helps me appreciate it all the more now, I guess.
As for the movie, I was very disappointed. Not so much because the movie wasn't that great, although it wasn't. But hell, most movies aren't that great, so that's no sin, especially in a popcorn flick. But I had slightly increased expectations, just because the first two were so good. The killer, to me, was the fact that there was enough material there to make a really great movie. In fact, there was enough material to make the core of 3 great movies. But, compacted down into 2.5 hours, it just didn't work at all. Arbitrary transitions, stretches of time where major plotlines are completely ignored, and at least 3 completely gratuitous retcons that do the extreme disservice of actually reducing your appreciation of the first two.
Below, my spoiler-containing critiques of the three villain plotlines.
As for Sandman, he was just a CGI looking for a plotline. The generation scene, where he gets his powers, is as beautiful a thing as I've ever seen on the silver screen. Just fantastic. And the character is cool. But he brings nothing to the table, other than forcing Spider-Man to repeat the exact same "I am so furious, I will kill you, rawr! Oh no, I really regret what I did!" plotline as we already went through in #1. Except, in #1, Peter actually could have stopped Uncle Ben from being killed, which is what drives him to act responsibly, a responsibility which we removed by changing the killer's identity. What the fuck?
Harry's plotline was great, and the development was just excellent. The fact that they dragged it through the entire second movie was fantastic forethought, I felt. And frankly, the first fight scene between the new Goblin and Spidey is the best fight scene from the series so far, and worth the $13 for the IMAX experience alone. But the butler? Really? Was there some kind of writer's strike as they were almost done writing the movie, and the only people they could find in all of L.A. to write that scene were some drunken, syphilitic sailors just in from 3 years in Malaysia? Just off the top of my head, here's how I would convince Harry that Spidey didn't kill his dad: Spidey is fighting Sandman, and Goblin shows up and also starts fighting Spider. Harry has found out that Sandman killed Uncle Ben. Spidey has the chance to let Sandman die, but instead saves him from death. In doing so, he opens himself up to attack from Goblin, who immobilizes him. Sandman gets away, and we have one of those hyperdramatic scenes where Harry is almost crying and Spidey has had his mask half-ripped off. Harry says 'why didn't you kill him, like you killed my dad?' and Peter yells back 'Because I am not a killer! But you are, so do what you have to do!' and Harry is all taken aback and Spidey manages to escape. Harry goes back home and is all tortured, like listening to Joy Division or The Cure or something, and voila! he realizes that Peter is his friend after all and rides to the rescue.
In 5 minutes, I just came up with a more dramatic, more believable, and more enjoyable solution to the problem of how Harry completes his transformation back to the good side. And for $350 million dollars, they give us the all-knowing Butler, who just forgot to mention to Harry for the last 2 years that his dad was a raving psychopath whose evil science lab was hidden in the attic and who was killed by his own sled?
And, finally, Venom. Great CGI, and the choice of Topher Grace as Eddie Brock was inspired. But, really...a spacebooger that gloms onto his moped, disappears for about half the movie, and then gives him a combover and makes him into a great piano player? I know that they can't use the comic book version of the black suit's appearance, because it's a bit much to suddenly put Spidey into the entire Marvel universe and have him whisked off to the far side of the Universe to meet the symbiote. But the Ultimate Spider-Man version would be just fine, right? It's a medical experiment, an attempt at an engineered organism which can amplify its host's healing factor, or something like that, which gets out of control. Okay, fine, we already had human amplification projects run amok in both #'s 1 and 2. But I'd rather be repetetive than retarded, and the spacebooger fails the sniff test.
So, good movie, but it could have been oh-so-much better had they tried to do less, and did what they did better, which just should not have been so hard. Very frustrating, for that reason.
As I mentioned yesterday, a group of us went to see the IMAX screen version of Spider-Man 3 yesterday in Denver. Highly enjoyable evening, although this was mostly due to the company and conversation, not the movie, as it should be. Having friends rules; I wish that it hadn't taken me about 23 years to mature enough that I could really pull it off (with the notable exceptions of Mikey and Mira), but that helps me appreciate it all the more now, I guess.
As for the movie, I was very disappointed. Not so much because the movie wasn't that great, although it wasn't. But hell, most movies aren't that great, so that's no sin, especially in a popcorn flick. But I had slightly increased expectations, just because the first two were so good. The killer, to me, was the fact that there was enough material there to make a really great movie. In fact, there was enough material to make the core of 3 great movies. But, compacted down into 2.5 hours, it just didn't work at all. Arbitrary transitions, stretches of time where major plotlines are completely ignored, and at least 3 completely gratuitous retcons that do the extreme disservice of actually reducing your appreciation of the first two.
Below, my spoiler-containing critiques of the three villain plotlines.
As for Sandman, he was just a CGI looking for a plotline. The generation scene, where he gets his powers, is as beautiful a thing as I've ever seen on the silver screen. Just fantastic. And the character is cool. But he brings nothing to the table, other than forcing Spider-Man to repeat the exact same "I am so furious, I will kill you, rawr! Oh no, I really regret what I did!" plotline as we already went through in #1. Except, in #1, Peter actually could have stopped Uncle Ben from being killed, which is what drives him to act responsibly, a responsibility which we removed by changing the killer's identity. What the fuck?
Harry's plotline was great, and the development was just excellent. The fact that they dragged it through the entire second movie was fantastic forethought, I felt. And frankly, the first fight scene between the new Goblin and Spidey is the best fight scene from the series so far, and worth the $13 for the IMAX experience alone. But the butler? Really? Was there some kind of writer's strike as they were almost done writing the movie, and the only people they could find in all of L.A. to write that scene were some drunken, syphilitic sailors just in from 3 years in Malaysia? Just off the top of my head, here's how I would convince Harry that Spidey didn't kill his dad: Spidey is fighting Sandman, and Goblin shows up and also starts fighting Spider. Harry has found out that Sandman killed Uncle Ben. Spidey has the chance to let Sandman die, but instead saves him from death. In doing so, he opens himself up to attack from Goblin, who immobilizes him. Sandman gets away, and we have one of those hyperdramatic scenes where Harry is almost crying and Spidey has had his mask half-ripped off. Harry says 'why didn't you kill him, like you killed my dad?' and Peter yells back 'Because I am not a killer! But you are, so do what you have to do!' and Harry is all taken aback and Spidey manages to escape. Harry goes back home and is all tortured, like listening to Joy Division or The Cure or something, and voila! he realizes that Peter is his friend after all and rides to the rescue.
In 5 minutes, I just came up with a more dramatic, more believable, and more enjoyable solution to the problem of how Harry completes his transformation back to the good side. And for $350 million dollars, they give us the all-knowing Butler, who just forgot to mention to Harry for the last 2 years that his dad was a raving psychopath whose evil science lab was hidden in the attic and who was killed by his own sled?
And, finally, Venom. Great CGI, and the choice of Topher Grace as Eddie Brock was inspired. But, really...a spacebooger that gloms onto his moped, disappears for about half the movie, and then gives him a combover and makes him into a great piano player? I know that they can't use the comic book version of the black suit's appearance, because it's a bit much to suddenly put Spidey into the entire Marvel universe and have him whisked off to the far side of the Universe to meet the symbiote. But the Ultimate Spider-Man version would be just fine, right? It's a medical experiment, an attempt at an engineered organism which can amplify its host's healing factor, or something like that, which gets out of control. Okay, fine, we already had human amplification projects run amok in both #'s 1 and 2. But I'd rather be repetetive than retarded, and the spacebooger fails the sniff test.
So, good movie, but it could have been oh-so-much better had they tried to do less, and did what they did better, which just should not have been so hard. Very frustrating, for that reason.
A Cure For Insomnia
You know how sometimes it's Sunday afternoon, and you didn't get quite enough sleep the night before, and you really need a quick nap to freshen up for the rest of the day, but for whatever reason you just can't quite settle down enough to actually get to sleep?
It's at times like this that I thank my lucky stars that they have golf on TV.
It's at times like this that I thank my lucky stars that they have golf on TV.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Saturday Ninjablogging
Sorry for no posts today; I am busybusybusy, between the start of the Longmont Farmer's Market, running up a mountain with Neil, and then gathering my harem (seriously, it's like me, one other guy, and 6 women. Go me.) to head off to see Spider-Man 3 on the IMAX screen in Denver. Should be fun.
For today's assignment, read this site instead. I love it with all of my body, even my pee-pee.
For today's assignment, read this site instead. I love it with all of my body, even my pee-pee.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Lost As Politics
I realized something about Lost today. I'm sure I'm not the first person on the web to propose this, but I don't read all the message boards, so I don't know one way or the other.
Jack is the George W. Bush of the island. When things started going bad, everyone looked to him for leadership, because he was the most natural leader (a doctor, good looking, white, etc.) And, for a while, he seemed to be doing well. He got them water, found the caves, toppled the Taliban, etc. He was decisive and clear, and had an 83% approval rating in the tribe.
But then, a new foe appeared (The Others, Iraq), and the shit hit the fan. Jack continued to be clear and decisive. The only problem was, every decision he made ended up being 100% entirely wrong. So, you're saying it's a bad idea to follow the obviously-compromised Michael into the jungle, in search of The Others, with just Sayeed and Jin as backup? It's a bad idea to lead a force of 150,000 troops into a nation of 22 million, depose the leadership, and assume that it'll just, kind of, take care of itself?
Now, he's reemerged from his struggles with a new sidekick (Juliette as Condi Rice?), only he still feels that the entire tribe is on a need-to-know basis, and that as far as they should be concerned, everything is going fine.
I am officially predicting that, sometime in Season 4, Jack's party will suffer a major defeat at the polls, which will lead to him becoming a marginalized force in the island's politics. John Locke (read: Nancy Pelosi) will lead a new, stronger coalition, whose first order of business will be to halt hostilities with The Others, and peace and prosperity will reign supreme. Also, gas prices will be lower.
Jack is the George W. Bush of the island. When things started going bad, everyone looked to him for leadership, because he was the most natural leader (a doctor, good looking, white, etc.) And, for a while, he seemed to be doing well. He got them water, found the caves, toppled the Taliban, etc. He was decisive and clear, and had an 83% approval rating in the tribe.
But then, a new foe appeared (The Others, Iraq), and the shit hit the fan. Jack continued to be clear and decisive. The only problem was, every decision he made ended up being 100% entirely wrong. So, you're saying it's a bad idea to follow the obviously-compromised Michael into the jungle, in search of The Others, with just Sayeed and Jin as backup? It's a bad idea to lead a force of 150,000 troops into a nation of 22 million, depose the leadership, and assume that it'll just, kind of, take care of itself?
Now, he's reemerged from his struggles with a new sidekick (Juliette as Condi Rice?), only he still feels that the entire tribe is on a need-to-know basis, and that as far as they should be concerned, everything is going fine.
I am officially predicting that, sometime in Season 4, Jack's party will suffer a major defeat at the polls, which will lead to him becoming a marginalized force in the island's politics. John Locke (read: Nancy Pelosi) will lead a new, stronger coalition, whose first order of business will be to halt hostilities with The Others, and peace and prosperity will reign supreme. Also, gas prices will be lower.
Matt Yglesias Rips Me Off
Typically brilliant stuff from my favorite blogger, and I'm don't just say that because he's stealing my idea and using the Northern Ireland peace accords as a springboard into talking about a problematic Middle East issue. He also happens to be both contrarian and right.
If those readers who happen to be my dad clicked through the link, steam is coming out of their ears by now, so I might as well continue digging. The only two ways to permanently settle the Israel/Palestine problem is to either discredit the extremists such that they lose public support and disappear, or bring them to the bargaining table and convince them that the only way they will get anything they want is to take part in the negotiations.
Israel has to remain strong and resolute and inflexible on her core values. But right now, her policy mostly seems to be to do as much as possible to undermine any real chance of bringing Hamas to the bargaining table (by cutting off funding to the government, insisting that they renounce their core belief about Israel's right to exist before bargaining can begin, etc.), while simultaneously doing as much as possible to hold up Hamas' public support among the Palestinians, by razing buildings which house some terrorists in addition to a bunch of other people, making it difficult for humanitarian aid to reach refugees in Gaza, etc.
Don't get me wrong; Israel is the good guys in this fight, at least relatively speaking. But they don't win until they aren't hated anymore, and that doesn't happen so long as they're effectively keeping Hamas strong and in power through their own short-term thinking.
If those readers who happen to be my dad clicked through the link, steam is coming out of their ears by now, so I might as well continue digging. The only two ways to permanently settle the Israel/Palestine problem is to either discredit the extremists such that they lose public support and disappear, or bring them to the bargaining table and convince them that the only way they will get anything they want is to take part in the negotiations.
Israel has to remain strong and resolute and inflexible on her core values. But right now, her policy mostly seems to be to do as much as possible to undermine any real chance of bringing Hamas to the bargaining table (by cutting off funding to the government, insisting that they renounce their core belief about Israel's right to exist before bargaining can begin, etc.), while simultaneously doing as much as possible to hold up Hamas' public support among the Palestinians, by razing buildings which house some terrorists in addition to a bunch of other people, making it difficult for humanitarian aid to reach refugees in Gaza, etc.
Don't get me wrong; Israel is the good guys in this fight, at least relatively speaking. But they don't win until they aren't hated anymore, and that doesn't happen so long as they're effectively keeping Hamas strong and in power through their own short-term thinking.
Laser Guns: ZAP! POW!
Okay, I know that I'm about 2 weeks late to this party, but I just have to add my 2 cents here. Mitt Romney recently said that his favorite novel was the L. Ron Hubbard classic, Battlefield Earth.
It's bad enough that a serious presidential candidate who belongs to a cult of crazy people is recommending a book written by someone who founded a cult of even crazier people. But there's the small problem that Battlefield Earth is an absolutely terrible book! I'm not proud of this fact, but I've read it. I bought it at a airport bookstore at the beginning of a multi-state, multi-school grad school visit trip in college. I figured "hey, I like sci-fi. And it's long-I have a lot of flights and train rides and bus rides coming up, so why not?" Then I started reading it.
It's like a 1000+ page car wreck-you can't look away, even though you know you're going to have nightmares. The writing is terrible, the story is ridiculous, it's as if it was written by someone who had a few very poorly-fleshed out ideas, started writing a book about it, realized that it sucked, and then said 'well, I've spent so much time on this crap, I might as well pound out something and see if I can sell it.'
It's not like I was going to vote for Romney anyway. He seems like a nice guy, but he's clearly an opportunistic political type, who will literally take whatever position seems best that morning to get himself elected. And I kind of doubt that John Edwards could engage me in a particularly thoughtful discussion about James Joyce. But shouldn't we have some minimal standards of cultural appreciation in our elected officials? Fine, you can watch Everybody Loves Raymond reruns if you must. But please, just throw me the bone of, when you are asked what your favorite novel is, pick something that has actually added positively to the sum total of goodness on the planet.
It's bad enough that a serious presidential candidate who belongs to a cult of crazy people is recommending a book written by someone who founded a cult of even crazier people. But there's the small problem that Battlefield Earth is an absolutely terrible book! I'm not proud of this fact, but I've read it. I bought it at a airport bookstore at the beginning of a multi-state, multi-school grad school visit trip in college. I figured "hey, I like sci-fi. And it's long-I have a lot of flights and train rides and bus rides coming up, so why not?" Then I started reading it.
It's like a 1000+ page car wreck-you can't look away, even though you know you're going to have nightmares. The writing is terrible, the story is ridiculous, it's as if it was written by someone who had a few very poorly-fleshed out ideas, started writing a book about it, realized that it sucked, and then said 'well, I've spent so much time on this crap, I might as well pound out something and see if I can sell it.'
It's not like I was going to vote for Romney anyway. He seems like a nice guy, but he's clearly an opportunistic political type, who will literally take whatever position seems best that morning to get himself elected. And I kind of doubt that John Edwards could engage me in a particularly thoughtful discussion about James Joyce. But shouldn't we have some minimal standards of cultural appreciation in our elected officials? Fine, you can watch Everybody Loves Raymond reruns if you must. But please, just throw me the bone of, when you are asked what your favorite novel is, pick something that has actually added positively to the sum total of goodness on the planet.
The Bush Doctrine, in 36 Words
Great line from last week's Real Time with Bill Maher (paraphrased)...
This was the week when the Democratic Congress sent President Bush a bill which would set a timeline on withdrawing from Iraq, which the President promtply vetoed...because as we all know, he likes his failures unscheduled.
This was the week when the Democratic Congress sent President Bush a bill which would set a timeline on withdrawing from Iraq, which the President promtply vetoed...because as we all know, he likes his failures unscheduled.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Plus Ca Change, Plus C'est La Meme Chose
Fred Kaplan delivers some more seriously depressing news from the defense budgeting process. Another year, another insane record set on defense spending. Over one half trillion dollars spent on our defense department, not counting the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Look, I am no dove. I think it's important that we spend more on defense than any other country in the world, and given that we have some responsibility to act as the World's Police force, I think we need to spend much more. But when we spend more than every other country, combined? Seems just a bit rich.
I love movies where shit blows up. I thought the only problem with the movie Independence Day was that they spent too much time with characters, and plot, and not enough time blowing shit up. And I'm proud to say that I am a citizen of the country which can now blow shit up more accurately, and more thoroughly, than any other country which has ever existed. I am. But the fact that the US currently operates 11 of the 24 aircraft carriers in the world, consisting of 76% of the total displacement of said carriers (see Wikipedia for more info), well, I think we've won the arms race. For real. Maybe we could find a couple more billion to help, I don't know, put kids into college, or some starving people in Africa somewhere, or to pay for my lawn's xeriscaping.
Look, I am no dove. I think it's important that we spend more on defense than any other country in the world, and given that we have some responsibility to act as the World's Police force, I think we need to spend much more. But when we spend more than every other country, combined? Seems just a bit rich.
I love movies where shit blows up. I thought the only problem with the movie Independence Day was that they spent too much time with characters, and plot, and not enough time blowing shit up. And I'm proud to say that I am a citizen of the country which can now blow shit up more accurately, and more thoroughly, than any other country which has ever existed. I am. But the fact that the US currently operates 11 of the 24 aircraft carriers in the world, consisting of 76% of the total displacement of said carriers (see Wikipedia for more info), well, I think we've won the arms race. For real. Maybe we could find a couple more billion to help, I don't know, put kids into college, or some starving people in Africa somewhere, or to pay for my lawn's xeriscaping.
The Secret And A.A. Milne
Another one of Time's 100 Most Influential People is the author of the book The Secret. Haven't read it, don't plan to. But in Slate's Human Guinea Pig, Emily Yoffe explains what happens when she tries to live her life according to its precepts. To get there, she has to explain a bit of its history and philosophy.
It sounds, to me, like an awfully dreamy, silly, and not nearly as fun compilation of ideas which closely resembles The Tao of Pooh. Only, Pooh doesn't make you do stupid things like talk about how wonderful it is that the things you want in life have already come into existence, when they quite clearly haven't. Plus, Pooh would say that it's silly to spend all your time wanting a new floor, when how does that help you get more honey? But anyhow, the point is much the same; if you don't worry about how you're going to do the things you think you need to do, but instead just focus on living your life, somehow those things tend to take care of themselves.
Personally, I like TTOP's philosophy. But I don't think that you have to appeal to a higher power or any supernatural sort of explanation. My theory is that, if you have yourself in the mindset of the present, and appreciating what is going on around you, then you are able to accept the circumstances of your life much more easily. If you have a specific, 'this is what is supposed to happen' sort of plan, then any deviation from it is stressful. If, on the other hand, you have an attitude of 'I might like for this to happen, but if it doesn't, it's not such a big deal either', then you will almost always end up finding out that whatever happens is fine, and can be easily adapted to and lived with.
Certain Licia's I know will almost certainly argue that I do not do a very good job of living up to this standard, and I can't really argue. But I do try to do so when I can, and like to think that I'm getting better at it as I get a little older.
It sounds, to me, like an awfully dreamy, silly, and not nearly as fun compilation of ideas which closely resembles The Tao of Pooh. Only, Pooh doesn't make you do stupid things like talk about how wonderful it is that the things you want in life have already come into existence, when they quite clearly haven't. Plus, Pooh would say that it's silly to spend all your time wanting a new floor, when how does that help you get more honey? But anyhow, the point is much the same; if you don't worry about how you're going to do the things you think you need to do, but instead just focus on living your life, somehow those things tend to take care of themselves.
Personally, I like TTOP's philosophy. But I don't think that you have to appeal to a higher power or any supernatural sort of explanation. My theory is that, if you have yourself in the mindset of the present, and appreciating what is going on around you, then you are able to accept the circumstances of your life much more easily. If you have a specific, 'this is what is supposed to happen' sort of plan, then any deviation from it is stressful. If, on the other hand, you have an attitude of 'I might like for this to happen, but if it doesn't, it's not such a big deal either', then you will almost always end up finding out that whatever happens is fine, and can be easily adapted to and lived with.
Certain Licia's I know will almost certainly argue that I do not do a very good job of living up to this standard, and I can't really argue. But I do try to do so when I can, and like to think that I'm getting better at it as I get a little older.
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