Your morning dose of Rich
To Live and Shave in LA (great blog name, eh?) has reprinted NY Times’ Frank Rich’s Op Ed piece, Dishonest, Reprehensible, Corrupt . . . It’s behind the NY Times Select firewall, which I won’t pay for (Judy Miller) on general principle (Judy Miller).
Rich does his usual fine job summarizing the Administration’s falsehoods vis a vis the run up to war. To someone who has been following the news, there’s no new material here. Yet the punch line, delivered in the last two paragraphs, warrants emphasis. Quick snip:
“No debate about the past, of course, can undo the mess that the administration made in Iraq. But the past remains important because it is a road map to both the present and the future. Leaders who dissembled then are still doing so. [My emphasis — D.] Indeed, they do so even in the same speeches in which they vehemently deny having misled us then – witness Mr. Bush’s false claims about what prewar intelligence was seen by Congress and Mr. Cheney’s effort last Monday to again conflate the terrorists of 9/11 with those “making a stand in Iraq.” . . . . These days Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney routinely exaggerate the readiness of Iraqi troops, much as they once inflated Saddam’s W.M.D.’s.”
Did Cheney really think he could say, “We’re not going to sit by and let them rewrite history” and not expect it to get thrown back into his face?
Those who forget history . . .
On that last note, Rich offers up an interesting tidbit (which was news to me):
As Scott Shane reported in The New York Times last month, Vietnam documents are now off limits, too: the National Security Agency won’t make public a 2001 historical report on how American officials distorted intelligence in 1964 about the Gulf of Tonkin incident for fear it might “prompt uncomfortable comparisons” between the games White Houses played then and now to gin up wars.
It wasn’t that long ago that the victor had free rein to write its own history. Bush and Cheney think that rule still applies; but this is the Information Age, and history will not be written, rewritten, edited, or fabricated by the hands of a few dishonest men.
More from me later, droogs.
D.
Technorati tags: Frank Rich, Bush, Cheney
Atlantic Boulevard
This afternoon, Jake and I had a slightly disappointing time tidepooling. Not much but snails, hermit crabs, and a few sad-looking anemones. This was only slightly disappointing since the sea was beautiful and, hey, on the North Coast, any sunny day after Halloween is pure gravy.
On the drive home, I exercised a father’s prerogative, attempting to inculcate similar values in my son. In other words, I played Soft Cell’s Sex Dwarf for him, stopping periodically to make sure he understood every delicious line of the lyrics.
Then I told him about the time in med school that Karen and I used a snip from the song, I would like you on a long black lead/You can bring me all the things I need, for our answering machine, figuring, “Hey, who calls us?” Our parents, our friends . . . either way, good joke, right? No. The first person to leave a message was my medical statistics prof. “Um . . . sounds like a fun party. I’m calling to let you know the time of the final has changed . . . ” Yeah, whatever. Oh, how I hated medical statistics.
But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. (more…)
NaNoSchlomo
I had a distant cousin Schlomo, long dead, who was such a bastard that all his kids left the farm and the religion. Seems he drove them a wee bit too hard. NaNoWriMo has become my Schlomo. Some thoughts:
1. Yes, I think I’m going to make it to 50,000. 7000 words in five days? Piece of cake. But that’s not the point. The point is,
2. When you emphasize quantity over quality, you get trite material. My muse keeps falling back on stock images and characters. I’ve tried to compensate for this by setting my story in a make believe society that yearns to be like Earth, Hollywood-style, but the lack of originality is really starting to gall me. Muse, are you listening? Give me something really weird tomorrow, or . . . or . . . I’m airing all your dirty laundry on this blog. I mean it. And another thing,
3. Why must you make the plot ever more tortuous? How am I going to unknot this beast? I purposefully chose a single first person POV to keep your smorgasbord tendencies in check. And what do you do? You keep wrapping my protag in ever more layers of intrigue. This would be fine if the intrigue were truly intriguing, but see #2.
Grrr. No, it’s not crap, but I have serious doubts as to whether it will be publishable in any form. TBC, my numero uno NiP — that’s a keeper, provided I can find someone willing to do a Golden Age on it. (John C. Wright gave his publisher a whopping HUGE first novel. They chopped it into three separate books and marketed each one separately.) But, Get Well Soon? It’ll be one of those novels that gets released when I’m as prolific and well sold as Stephen King, and my publisher says, “Oh, please oh please oh please, give us anything, even your funkiest piece of crap.”
So. NaNoScrewYou is a good thing why?
D.
Technorati tag:
NaNoWriMo
Mu Mu’s secret message
Yesterday, the New York times featured a story on Mu Mu, self-described “party-girl” and author of China’s most popular blog. The 25-year-old goes on to say,
“I don’t know if I can be counted as a successful Web cam dance girl,” that early post continued. “But I’m sure that looking around the world, if I am not the one with the highest diploma, I am definitely the dance babe who reads the most and thinks the deepest, and I’m most likely the only party member among them.”
Go Mu Mu — that’s what the blogosphere is saying. Given China’s notorious reputation vis a vis human rights, Mu Mu seems like a breath of fresh air.
. . . Or is she? (more…)
Moore’s Absolute Watchmen: a review
In the November 20 New York Times Book Review, Dave Itzkoff has written an excellent review of the Watchmen reissue, Absolute Watchmen. Read it online.
FYI: this oversized hardcover edition includes “preliminary notes of the illustrator Dave Gibbons . . . script pages, the original series proposal and other long-unavailable material,” but it’ll also set you back $75.
D.
The Joy of Duck
Guess what we had for dinner tonight.
Will someone please tell me what they’ve done to this bird? I’m imagining CIA interrogators at one of our Eastern European prisons (one of the ones that doesn’t exist) :
Tell us al Qaeda’s next target.
Quack!
Dimitri — use the nipple electrodes.
Quaaaack!
Yes, I know ducks don’t have nipples. (more…)
Writer’s kid with demonic cats
From left to right: Jake, Emerald, and Melantha.
One of these days, I’ll figure out how to use this damned digital camera.
The Science Fiction Top 10
Over at the Science Fiction Writing Yahoo group, folks are posting their top ten favorite SF novels. This was a toughie; how could I leave out Vance (Demon Princes), and Varley, and Zelazny, oh my? But I have to start somewhere. I reserve the right to yank my choices when Pat J. inevitably comes along and sez, “But you forgot . . .”
Silverberg’s To Live Again, that’ll be the first to go.
Here’s my (current, soon to change) top 10 list. NOVELS, mind you. We’ll do short stories some other day (Varley’s “Bagatelle” — number one — read it now!) Here we go, in no particular order:
1. Frederick Pohl’s Gateway. Hop in an alien ship, pre-programmed to take you to your violent death, hideous lingering disease, or fantastic treasures. It’s a crap shoot every time. Sure, the computer shrink gets on my nerves to this very day, but the harsh realities of Gateway itself more than makes up for Sigmund.
2. Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War. This is one of my favorite anti-war novels. Maybe it isn’t as famous or as funny as Catch-22, but I like it much better. Clean writing, great story, great message.
3. Jonathan Lethem’s Gun, with Occasional Music. Metcalf is a futuristic gumshoe with an evolved kangaroo after him. This is THE best marriage of Raymond Chandler with science fiction, bar none.
4. Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash. Computer nerd as Samurai hero; listen to Reason. Nuff said.
5. Peter Hoeg’s Smilla’s Sense of Snow. Smilla’s only friend is a six-year-old boy who lives in her apartment complex. When he dies, she refuses to believe it’s an accident.
The ending makes it SF, but Smilla is as hardboiled as they come. Another superbly written novel.
6. Michael Swanwick’s Stations of the Tide. How can a novel with lots of sex and allusions to Heart of Darkness not make my top ten list? Speaking of Heart of Darkness . . .
7. Alan Moore’s Watchmen. I don’t know what to say about Watchmen. If anyone out there hasn’t read it, beg, borrow, or steal a copy. Better yet, buy it.
8. Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle. The Axis has won World War II (wait a sec . . . is this fiction?), and America has been divided up between the Germans and the Japanese. Bob Hope is the only comedian whom the Nazis let live.
This is Dick’s masterpiece, in my opinion, although the Valis trilogy also has a warm place in my heart.
9. Robert Silverberg’s To Live Again. The recorded knowledge and personalities of great men and women are available to the living, for a price. This is my favorite of Silverberg’s body of work. I’m not sure how well it holds up over the years, but it stuck to my ribs for the last few decades — more than I can say about a lot of books.
10. Arthur C. Clarke’s Against the Fall of Night. In the far, far future of Earth, a kid goes on a journey of discovery, leaving behind everything familiar.
One of the first SF paperbacks I bought with my own money loooong ago. I read it many times as a kid. I hesitate to read it as an adult, because I’m afraid the magic will go poof.
Okay — your turn! And if you’re one of those Luuuuuurveâ„¢ junkies who has never read SF, make it your top 3 or 4 or whatever favorite SF movies.
D.
Harry Potter spoilers.
I saw the new Harry Potter movie last night* and I’m sad to say, yes, religious fundamentalists have a legitimate gripe on this one. The scene in which Harry and Ron kidnap newborn twin girls from Brighton, take them to Stonehenge, and sacrifice them to “the Dark Lord” went a wee bit over the top. Add to that the scene in which Professor Snape tells the Archbishop of Canterbury, “Your God is dead, you silly, silly man,” and I think we’re seeing some definite antireligious bias.
Of course, the ire of the religious right might have more to do with the now famous date rape scene in which Harry waves his wand over Hermione, incanting the magic words, “Damnitall Rohypnol!” But I choose to interpret that scene somewhat differently than most viewers. Did you notice that Hermione winked at the camera when Harry cast his spell? In this viewer’s opinion, this lent the scene a delicious ambiguity. The fact that Witchcraft played in the background also suggests Hermione’s complicity — and we all know who the most ‘talented’ witch at Hogwarts is, don’t we?
The love scene itself was the epitome of tameness, but do you expect more than tongues in a PG-13 movie? I think not. In any case, the story has been building up to this point, and I’m happy to see Harry get a little satisfaction, especially considering the fact he dies at the end of the movie.
Oh — I almost forgot:
Warning! Spoilers!
Technorati tag: harry potter, religious fundamentalism
D.
*Not strictly accurate. Actually, I saw that “Harry Potter” had top billing on the Technorati hit parade, and realized wistfully how long it had been since my last spell of Technorati whoredom.
Sharper image
Yup, it took me all of about two days to get sick of that buff-me photoshopped image. I’ve replaced it with a cute poison dart frog. Look at the full-sized image here.
Gradually, it dawned on me that folks wouldn’t take me seriously if I looked all ‘roided out. On the other hand, if I look like a venomous frog, they’ll surely pay attention.
We’ll see how long this lasts.
D.
Note added in proof:
Hmm. That “No, you may not breed with me” bit has taken on new layers of meaning.