Rezzies (Quasi-Belated '07)

I didn't quite meet my, in retrospect, insanely aggressive New Years Resolution '06. (At least not without resorting to Enron style accounting.) It was still worth it, and will be revised for this year, though reduced by 50% to account for my increased work hours. So, 2.5 books a month = 30 books in '07. I already have 3 down, so I'm ahead of the curve. But, been there done that, so I need a new one.

Obviously, passing the AK bar is a priority as well, but that's for, like, work, so it doesn't count either. Plus, I've done it once, what could possibly go wrong?

Which brings me to the actual resolution. With due respect to Lauren's concern (hey, I've been a gym regular since August, so I don't count as one of those pikers. I note that the herd is thinning already,) being careful to avoid tragic mistakes and being cognizant of the generally pernicious effect of using weight as a proxy for health, I still have a resolution regarding weight loss.

Thankfully, it's both modest, and, I think, obtainable. I'm down to about 215 now (from a very mirthful* 230 or so, circa the wedding) I'd like to be under 200 by MARS, and down to around my 'playing weight' (was about 180 in college, but would be more like 190 now given that my upper legs and hips were skinny and not at all powerful back then) by the end of the year.



* Cherubic, some might even say.

Difficulties

I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that I probably won't reach the 50 in 52 mark...unless, I account creatively. Hey, Ezra says it's ok:

I find actually listing the books I read throughout a year a troublesome enterprise. So many of them end up half-finished, somewhat-skimmed, or otherwise partially absorbed that I'm generally left with a fairly small number of books read, and a somewhat overwhelming mass of books somewhat read.

Indeed. I mean if I add together fractional books read, I think I'm probably over the hump. As it is, should I force myself to finish a book that kinda and/or totally sucks just to meet some arbitrary goal?

In my defense I had just finished reading this which I enjoyed immensely, and thought to myself "if I like a 'rivalry' book so much when the author hates my squad, it would be even better to read one where I'm with the Good Guys." Except that Blythe's book is well-written and original, whereas the Sox-Yankees book is reheated, rehashed and probably a staple on many remainder racks at this point.

So I may not reach 50 individual books completed, but will have read the equivalent of 50 full books by the end of the year. This strikes me as a plausible interpretation* of my resolution.

P.S. If you are a hoops guy, I thoroughly recommend "To Hate Like This..." One of my top five or so for the year, and certainly in the top two for sports (along with "Fantasyland" which I still hope to blog about at TWT prior to the New Year")


* It's true, The Law has destroyed what little shred of soul which may have survived the first 29+ years o'life. I'm legalistic parsing my own new year's resolution. This does not end well...

Mas Bookblogging

Finished #40 over the weekend (and it was a doozy), but need to get caught up after the quickies from last week.

#32 "In the Shadow of the Law" by Kermit Roosevelt: Probably this year's winner of the "Wolf" memorial "all setup, no payoff award." Continuing my trend of doing unwise things before a big life change, (like viewing "The Paper Chase" the night before my first day of law school...and then my torts prof turns out to look just like Kingsfield. Of course, he turned out to be a real sweetheart, but I was yet to know that and was thoroughly terrified...) I read this legal thriller (use of term is advised) the weekend before starting the new job.

From what I can tell, Roosevelt gets BigLaw culture pretty right on. There's the superstar, the striver, the frat-boy, the burn-out, the old coot, etc.

And then, well, it gets silly. I won't spoil it for you because describing the various plot set ups would take too long, but suffice it to say that there is not one, but two ridiculous deus ex machina reversals that would have John Grisham himself shaking his head and saying "no f'in way." Not quite as cringe-worthy as Dan Brown's hand held parachute in Angels and Demons, but close.

#33 "Assassination Vacation" by Sarah Vowell. If only "Killing Yourself to Live" had been as witty, fun, and oh yeah about the advertised topic as this one. A meandering journey through the twists and turns of the Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley assassinations, and the motley cast of characters each seemed to throw up. Most intriguing and tragic was the story of Lincoln's son, who, Forrest Gump-like was more or less present for all three. Just the right dose of modern politics for my liking as well (Vowell, unsurprisingly considering her oeuvre, is decidedly, though not viciously, left-of-center.)

#34 "What's My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States" By Dave Zirin. Is it odd to be a Marxist sportswriter? It would have to be - I can't imagine a more perfect "opiate of the masses" than spectator sports. In some places *cough*NotreFreakinDame*cough*, football really is religion. But anyway, Zirin is in fact a Marxist sportswriter. Unfortunately for this reader, he spent a little too much time in the Rick Reilly School of Overwrought Simile. Combined with his decidedly Leftist politics, there are some profoundly silly passages. I'm all for more Dick Cheney jokes. But just not bad ones.

Anyway, some parts of the book are actually decent - the historical sections dealing with Jackie Robinson, Ali, and the Carlos/Smith black power salute. Easy enough where events have shown the protagonists to be on the Right Side of History, as they say. The more recent stuff, not so much. Too often, he confuses "wit" (advisedly used) with substance. Further, sports seen through a completely political lens is uh, lame. He can't decide whether the players are the avenging angels or class traitors. I get confused.

That said, there are some decent bits in the more recent stuff. He takes a nice healthy run at George Foreman, and actually had two very thought-provoking essays defending Barry Bonds. Overall, too much vinegar, not enough...(huh?)


More soon...

Bookblogging Update and Quick Hits

Well, I'm at 39, just finished Sully's, will get to that sometime this wkkend. Since I'm hopelessly behind in blogging the quest for 50 in 52, I might have to cheat a little and give some quick hits.

#25 - Ghengis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford: I can save a ton of time here by simply saying 'What Angelica Said.' The main thing I took away from the book is how ruthlessly utilitarian the more famous of the Khans (Genghis and Kubilai) were. They get a bad rap for being cruel and all that, but the time period, they weren't so bad. Ok, if you were an enemy soldier, they killed you, but there wasn't nearly the wholesale slaughter, rape and pillage which seems to be a staple of other 'civilizational' contests.

#26 - A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage: Like Salt, but with liquor instead. Since I like drinking more than I like cooking...

#27 - How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin Foer: Think of P.J. O'Rourke doing his "everything is crap" routine, but instead of warzones, soccer clubs. Really would have been better titled "How Soccer Reflects the World," but that's a minor quibble for a very readable book.

#28 - Brilliant Orange: The Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football by David Winner: Quite possibly the best book I've read this year. Wide ranging discussion of Dutch culture, ingenuity, individualism, racial integration and the 'style vs. substance' debate, seen through the prism of Dutch soccer. The Dutch are, with reason, often known as 'the Brazilians of Europe' for their stylishly attacking football. At least prior to this World Cup's much less extravagant side, they were. But there are particular psychological, perhaps even psychiatric reasons why they never seem to come good in the end. Fascinating read.

#29 - 31 - The Mind of Bill James by Scott Gray; Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville by Stephen Jay Gould; Fantasyland by Sam Walker; 3 baseball books, which I'll cover at TWT sometime soon.

More to come sometime this weekend...

Belated Bookblogging: "The Good Fight"

Apolgies for the age of some of the links here, I wrote the bulk of this almost two months ago. FWIW, I'm up to 38 for the year, so I think I can still make my 50 in 52 plan.

In reading "The Good Fight," and then thinking about why it left me feeling more than a bit high and dry, I recently came across a series of questions. Questions which author Peter Beinart should be able to answer in the course of developing his vision of "liberal internationalism." But in the end, he probably can't, at least not within that framework, because for all the high-minded rhetoric and historical analogy at his disposal, there's no there there when we drill down from a philosophy to what polcies to follow. First, the questions

---

A common query:

So here’s a question: What happens if the war had been executed competantly? Let’s assume this wasn’t Donald “Special Forces Solve Everything” Rumsfield, but a real military leader like Eisenhower or MacArthur and we’d gone in the right way. Let’s assume for one imaginary moment that we played it smart, maintained stability in the region, and installed a pro-Western Democracy on par with Jordan or Turkey. Would you approve of the war then?

Callimachus (quoting Abe Lincoln):

Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert ? This is none the less injurious when effected by getting a father, or brother, or friend, into a public meeting, and there working upon his feelings till he is persuaded to write the soldier boy that he is fighting in a bad cause, for a wicked Administration of a contemptible Government, too weak to arrest and punish him if he shall desert. I think that in such a case to silence the agitator and save the boy is not only constitutional, but withal a great mercy.

M. Takhallus:

Sixty five years ago we fought a war with Japan following their attack on Pearl Harbor. Within a matter of a few months we were burning down Japanese cities. The Japanese of that era favored wood construction and we dropped incendiary bombs. Later, when the technology became available, we dropped atomic bombs. You can argue one way or the other whether there were significant, legitimate military targets in each and every case, but let's take it as granted that there were. Nevertheless, incendiaries in packed cities full of wood houses, I think we knew what would result. I think we knew the firestorms might suck the oxygen from the lungs of children as well as adults, women as well as men, opponents and supporters of the regime alike. Fair enough so far? Question: were we right or wrong to do it?

(See also here for a thoughtful follow-up)

---

Admittedly, these are tough questions, but a serious, 'important' tract on a "new approach" to U.S. foreign policy should provide some guidance as to how that approach would handle difficult questions...if the problem was easy there wouldn't be such strenous disagreement now would there.

And for all the good work Beinart does leading into his prescriptions, this is where he fails. Much like Andrew Sullivan, Beinart talks a good game about lessons learned, and hubris, and multilateralism. But these 'epiphanies' don't mean much if they amount to calling for "more of the same, just better."

That said, there is much to recommend here. I don't have the historical chops to dissect Beinart's discussion of post-WWII liberal foregin policy or his chapter on the rise of the violent strain of salafist Islam which seems to be the motivating ideology of Al Qaeda ("The Looming Tower" is on the book pile, and hopefully it will tell me more ), but these historical chapters are a useful primer. Further, Beinart's demolition of the errors of the Bush administration carries the tone most easily recognizable as that of a scorned lover.

In particular, I think Beinart is correct on the dangers of overly moralistic absolutism (I think the major point of contention among the posters at my other place [ed: nice catch, 'Pick] is our individual tolerance for ugly outcomes. Or, more harshly, the extent to which we believe ends can justify means.) It may came down to us having to do some nasty things that in a better world, we'd prefer not to, but a demand for purity uber alles strikes me as having the practical effect of demanding we do nothing, ever.

This is not to say that we should no longer strive for morality and ethical behavior, to the contrary. Beinart is explicit in his view that an important aspect in this conflict is the degree to which we remain true to our ideals, as well as the degree to which we are seen to remain faithful.

Which is nice, but there is a not-so-subtle irony of a book which purports to fill the void of concrete vision in liberal circles, but gives us not much more than the very platitudes sought to be replaced.

Beinart could have saved us all a lot of time by simply saying "I was very wrong. I'm sorry that I was an ass. Everything is a mess, and I have no idea what to do now. Send me a check."

"Blink" (Bookblogging #22)

"Failure to prepare is preparing to fail"
- Mike Murdock (hey, I thought it was a Bobby Knight quote. In fact assume it is...)

Just beneath the surface of Malcom Gladwell's "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking" is a motif of preperation as a key to good decision making. Not necessarily a CPU-like heuristics routine or a detailed internal decision tree, but a backdrop of knowledge. Gladwell's proposition is that for all of our conscious learning, the power of the unconscious - the connections and relationships that we can see without necessarily being aware of what we are doing, can be a far more powerful tool.

This "Thin Slicing," as he calls it, is simply taking a mental 'snapshot' of something and allowing your subconscious to make the necessary calculations (to the slightly mathematical side of my brain, this strikes me as a similar approach to dx/dy) Unsurpisingly, this seems to have a great deal of applicablitly to athletics, among other endeavors. (Indeed, when I was in Seattle to see the Sawx second to latest Safeco debacle - it was listed as the favorite book of Raul Ibanez. This is the kind of in depth tid-bittery for which you pay me the big bucks.)

As intriguing as this theory is, and as compelling his examples (particularly that of Gen. Paul van Riper (ret.), I'm not sure there's really a whole book's worth of material here. As my roommate puts it "it's a two sentance thesis extended to 200 pages."

Pooh's View: Probably a magazine feature's worth of material extended Fortunately, Gladwell is such a talented author that it's a pretty breezy read. Where I a punster, I might even suggest that you shouldn't "Blink" - were I a punster...

Update: #23 "The Devil Wears Pinstripes" is up at Tuesdays With Torii.

SnakesCrap Novels! On A Plane (Bookblogging #21)

Because I read fast, I often burn through my reading material well before the end of a road trip. In these cases, I have to buy a cheap paperback at the airport and hope. Sometimes it works out, sometimes I end up with Killer Instict by Joseph Finder. This is a bad book which only wishes it could get optioned to become a bad movie.

First things first - the plot is ludicrous. Random down on his luck super-baddie insinuates his way into our hero's life and, and, and...James Spader! Somehow our hero transforms himself from complete wuss to corporate knife-fighter, yet is still too much of a doofus to see that JAMES SPADER is in fact, a Bad Influence.

Second, this is NOT a plot where starting at the end works well. Any suspense as to where we are headed is kinda ruined by putting the denoument in the prologue.

Third, TALKING KILLER FALLACY! This one just drives me nuts, even moreso in books than in movies. Just kill him and stop talking about it. Of course, that's a much shorter book with no happy ending, and we can't have THAT, now can we?

I guess the one positve is that there is an attempted assasination using Snakes...In A Bedroom? wATFO of that?

I'm skeptical of Amazon reviews, becuase I think there is a great deal of Astroturfing going on (and that's in cases where The General has not been at work.) That said, this one (amidst the sea of recycled tire products) tells it like it is:

What Mr. Finder does not know about the military could easily fill a book. Unfortunately, he chose to fill THIS book with a lot of made-up (at times laughable) cliches about what he thinks the military ought to be about -- and he is equally ignorant about how the corporate world really works. sometimes his dialogue and plot devices make one want to laugh out loud, though the author is dead serious and that is not the reaction he was seeking. The only thing that saves this book from zero stars is its rapid pace and serviceable prose. I will never buy any book written by him again.

Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?

Pooh's View: Thank you, no.

Cross-Posted at Kakistocracy

More Klosterman (Bookblogging #20 - "Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs"

Via Nicholas B., the inimitable Chuck Klosterman weighs in on the "Snakes on a Plane" phenomenon (or should I call it "phenomenon" since the movie's internet bark was significantly worse than it's box office bite, if I may so horridly mix metaphors):

I have not seen Snakes on a Plane, so I have no idea how good this movie is (or isn't). But I do know this: Its existence represents a weird, semidepressing American condition, and I'm afraid this condition is going to get worse. I suspect Snakes on a Plane might earn a lot of money, which will prompt studios to assume this is the kind of movie audiences want. And I don't think it is. Snakes on a Plane is an unabashed attempt at prefab populism, and (maybe) this gimmick will work once. But it won't keep working, and it will almost certainly make filmmaking worse.

Archetypical Klosterman. Incredibly readable. Completely compelling as you are reading it. And whne you think about it later, there is the distinct impression that he's at least 25% completely full of shit in everything he says. Mostly, I think that's the way he wants it.

In that vein "Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto" is a compilation of Klostermanian goodies from Pam Anderson, to the umpteenth rumination on the importance of Lakers/Celtics in the 80's, to a spectacular (and to me, spectacularly annoying) hatchet job on the sport of soccer, it's all here. Probably the best piece is the essay exploring the insidious effect of Lloyd Dobler on the world of post-adolescent relationships (how is standing outside of a window with a boombox blaring Peter Gabriel anything other than "stalking," one might ask.)

Per usual, Klosterman is at his best when tackling topics where he can authoritatively take bold, yet completely non-falsifiable, positions (as he did so well in Fargo Rock City) - that is to say, rank opinionating. I can relate to that, I suppose...

Pooh's View: Entertaining as just-kidding-but-not-really pseudo-intellectual commentary on the things that the MTV generation finds important. Or is it "important?" I'm not quite sure how much ironic distance is sufficient...

"The Cold War: A New History" (BB #19)

Much like the students described in the preface of John Lewis Gaddis's The Cold War: A New History, I don't know much about history...at least certain parts of it. Certainly I could name some big events (Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Watergate, Afghanistan, glasnost, etc) in rough order, but for whatever reason, I knew much more about the American Civil War then about the the conflict of a century later. Gaddis's explicit intent is to make at least a very skeletal view accessible. And in this regard, he succeeds mightily.

Beyond this, several themes seem to emerge, and while Gaddis nowhere makes this explicit they do seem to have some application to whatever-name-you-want-to-ascribe-to-our-current-conflict:

1. Ideas matter: As much as the Cold War can be seen as a triumph of the U.S. over the U.S.S.R., it was market capitalism defeating communism. However a key aspect was a softening of some of capitalisms harder edges, which caused reduced support for collectivism amongst "the proletariat" - Gaddis even alludes to the notion that under a perfectly Hobbesian market, many people are less free, in effect.

And to the extent that poverty and underdevelopment fuel the appeal of radical Islamism, the problem is with us today. As an example, consider Greg Djerejian's (per usual) perceptive commentary on the Israeli-Hezbollah cease fire:

Let’s be clear. Beating Hezbollah ultimately must rely more on what might be described as counter-insurgency tactics, not some Dresden redux. To beat back Hezbollah one must moderate the 40% of Lebanese who are Shi’a, by over time having them pledge their primary allegiance to a strong central government, one that is sharing the economic fruits of Lebanon’s revival with all ethnic groups, so as to ultimately render the social welfare arm of Hezbollah largely irrelevant. (emphasis mine)

2. Relatedly Ideals Matter. And living up to them, at home as well as abroad is important. Truman seems to have realised this before everyone else (it's no mistake the Bush frequently adopts Trumanesque rhetoric, btw) - if we want to preach to the rest of the world about freedom and democracy, then we had better be free and democratic ourselves. In Truman's time, this meant integrating the army (above howls of protest) and pushing (with varying degrees of success, it must be said) for civil rights legislation. In counterpoint, there was McCarthyism which, to put it mildly, did not help our image (not to say that there were not Communist spies, of course there were, but the irresponsible demogaguery and fear mongering did not present our political system in the best light.)

However...

3. Transparency Is Increasing. And relatedly, the populous has less tolerance for what was once known as a "credibility gap" - the difference between rhetoric and action. This bit LBJ, and especially Nixon. (Though Gaddis makes the point that lying to the people is somewhat ok if the lie passes a sort of "sunlight test;" the necessity of the secrecy being clear in retrospect - Nixon's early diplomacy with China or Eisenhower denying the U2 program being examples of things which pass this test, whereas LBJ's escalation of Vietnam and Nixon's Watergate and Pentagon Papers actions, not so much.) The problem we are facing today is the words of Truman and the photos of Abu Ghraib.

4. Peoples and Nations Have Interests. For all the talk of the Cold War representing a stable "bi-polar" system, the time was rife with examples of the tail wagging the dog - little countries dragging the superpowers this way and that (what was the strategic importance of Korea, or Hungary, or Vietnam, or Afghanistan if not for "dominos?") Further, there is a danger in having your best laid plans rely on your allies doing what you know to be best for them, even if they themselves disagree (see, e.g., de Gaulle, Charles).

5. Lastly A Time For All Things. Sometimes ugly choices and realpolitik-based compromises are the best you can hope for. Gaddis certainly believes that in the first 20 years or so following WWII bold actions aimed at 'winning' the Cold War in the immediate future were not only futile, but destabilizing in a particularly dangerous manner. He even posits a plausible and very, very frightening counterfactual for the outcome of the Korean War if such an aggressive line had been taken - the 'bold' action would have been trying to decisively win that conflict through the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

But at on the other hand, a lack of ambition tends to ossify that status quo. While Kissingerian detente was stable, it wasn't good. Opinions differ as to whether it was Reagan's boldness or the simple failure of Communism as a viable economic system, but it seems clear that the Soviet Union needed a push (and perhaps a more worldly leader, such as Gorbachev - the only Soviet leader after Lenin to have attended a university). The difficulty lies in deciding whether it is a time for patience or a time for action - neither is always true, nor always false.

Pooh's View: A very crisp, useful and educational overview. Also a very quick read. Highly recomended to people of my generation who don't already know much about the period from 1946-1990.

A Failure of Conceptual Imagination (Bookblogging #18 - "Zero")

It was fairly easy for me to identify at exactly which point in "Zero: A Biography of a Dangerous Idea" (by Charles Seife) I surpassed my mathematical comfort zone. Up til we get into truly modern physics I found myself nodding along thinking 'well, that's obvious.' Until all of a sudden, it wasn't so obvious, and while I understand the concepts to a degree, I couldn't conceptualize them. I suppose some people can think in 10-dimensions of space/time, but I ain't one of them.

This is no fault of Seife's, who writes with wit and clarity, but rather reflects the intellectual paradigm in which I've grown up. Not just educationally, but experientially. I can't understand the posited fifth through tenth dimensions because I have lived in 3 (and with consideration, 4. "Time" fits in quite well with length, width and depth. If you think about it, you take it into account everday, whether it's driving, crossing the street to avoid traffic, or running to catch a flyball playing softball) and am perhaps only physiologically capable of seeing the world in those terms. (I may be splitting the logicial hair here, but the fact that humans cannot observe something does not mean it is necessarily unobservable.)

So while it's easy to ridicule the anti-Copernicans, or the Greeks who refused to even countenance the existence of 'zero,' to them, the concept of a void and/or infinity (the book is particularly excellent in discussing the infinity/zero duality) seemed as bizzare, counter-inutitve and frankly looney as something like String Theory might seem to me.

There's a generalizable principle at work here, I think, but I'm not sure I can spell it out just right, any suggestions?

Pooh's View: informative, educational, and most importantly digestable even for those who are terrified by derivatives, limits and Zeno's Paradox.

Learned BS (Bookblogging #17)

[H]e is neither on the side of truth nor on the side of false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whethe the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.
- Harry G. Frankfurt, On Bullshit

This is a wicked little pleasure of a book. (Emphasis on "little" - it's only 67 index-card sized pages. I've read, and probably written, wordier blog posts.) It's Frankfurt's, Princeton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, attempt to set forth a unifying theory of BS - he examines and rejects comparisons to a similar study of "humbug," and eventually settles on a the definition implied above - not intentional perverecation so much as a complete disregard for truth and fact.

Of course, there is a sense throughout the whole essay that Frankfurt is simply, well, bullshitting. Consider the following:

There are similarities between hot air and excrement, incidentally, which make hot air seem an especially suitable equivalent for bullshit. Just as hot air is speech that has been emptied of all informative contente, so excrement is matter from which everything nutritive has been removed. Excrement may be regarded as the corpse of nourishment, what remains when the vital elements in food have been exhausted. In this respect, excrememnt is a representation of death that we ourselves produce and that, indeed, we cannot help producing in the very process of maintaining our lives. Perhaps it is for making death so intimate that we find excrement so repulsive. In any event, it cannot serve the purposes of sustenance any more than hot air can serve those of communication.

Now, either that is the most pretentiously high-falutin' academia ever, or Frankfurt's tongue is practically stapled to his cheek.

Not that it matters of course - Franfurt's conclusion:

[S]incerity itself is bullshit.

Depending on the intended inflection, either shockingly relatavistic or delightfully ironic.

Update: In light of such things as "Informational Anarchy" and the Reuters fake photo controversy, I'd feel remiss if I didn't quote one more lenghty passage:

[T]lling lies does not tend to unfit a person for telling the truth in the same way that bullshitting tends to. Through excessive indulgence in the latter activity, which involves making assertionas without paying attention to anything except what it suits one to say, a person's normal habit of attending to the way things are may become attenuated or lost. Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game. Each responds to facts as he understands them, although the repsonse of the one is guided by the authority of the truth, while the response of the other defies that authority and refuses to meat its demands. The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are. (Emphasis mine)

Indeed.

"Salt" - Bookblogging #15

Before petroleum was the strategic resource, there was Salt. Or so is a thesis of "Salt: A World History" by Mark Kurlansky. And it's hard to argue with the case laid out. Between the salt administration in China (alternatively causing insurrections and financing the armies to put them down), the 'Gabelle' in France (a main cause of Le Revolution) and Gandhi's Salt March, the governance of salt has played a large roll in many of history's pivotal events.

Of course it's also food, which makes "Salt" a bit of a mix between the historical and the gastronomical. I'm not much of an epicurian myself, so I wasn't able to decipher many of the provided recipies (other than to say that many of the older dishes sound just awful, but I suppose that the pre-refrigeration palate differs rather greatly from our own.)

Also of interest are the linguistic aspects of salt. Many modern idioms from "worth his weight" to "red herring" as well as the description of certain nomadic tribes as "Celts" (almost literally "Salt People") come from the exploration, mining and trading of salt. Technology was also driven by salt exploration - in particular the Chinese method of percussion mining (according to the book, the Chinese were literally thousands of years ahead of the West on this front.)

And to bring it full circle, we learn that the best places to find oil? Underneath subterreanean salt-domes.

Pooh's View: Enlightening, entertaining read - if I was more into cooking I would have liked it that much more. Bonus points for discussing, at length, the origins of Tabasco Sauce.

Update: Bookblogging #16, "Baseball Between the Numbers" is up at Tuesdays With Torii.

Fiasco In the Making? (Bookblogging #14 - 'Fiasco')

One of the previews before Pirates II (ARRRR!) was for the latest Kevin Costner bombflick, 'The Guardian.' I say "bomb" because it has several characteristics of the films described in "Fiasco: A History of Hollywood's Iconic Flops:"

1. A series of production delays - part of the filming was to be done in New Orleans, then moved to Shreveport for obvious reasons. Location shooting was also planned for Kodiak, Alaska, but apparently locating Costner's massive forehead (and even more massive ego) this far north for a month or more at a time would cause the Earth's rotation to become unbalanced, forcing a game of interstellar marbles. And nobody wants that, right?
2. Filming on water. One might think that people would learn that filming on open water is hard. It's probably no accident that more than 20% of the films discussed in "Fiasco" went massively over budget, in part due to watery sets. (Even successful aquatic films have this problem) Of coure, it would be hard to have a movie about the Coast Guard without using water - I might suggest that's a reason not to make a Coast Guard 'blockbuster'.
3. Kevin Costner - the overriding commanality in movie disasters is ego/hubris either at the studio, directorial or most commonly star level. Costner is absolutely notorious in this regard. Who else would try to followup "Waterworld" with the freaking Postman? Perhaps the theory was that if you kept remaking The Road Warrior, you'd eventually get it right...

Of course I could be wrong and this one could blow up (destroying my HSX portfolio in the process...bastards...)

You may have noticed that I'm well into this post without really discussing James Robert Parrish's book itself. There's a reason for that - the less said about the book, the better. There is a certain irony in a book catalogging the sins of various studio disasters, top of nearly every list being some iteration of "it's not there on the page," wherein the writing of the work is alternatively leaden, overwrought or dry. How can you spend 20 pages discussing Showgirls and get nary a laugh?

Or perhaps I'm just so used to blog-quality snark that Parrish can't keep up. But it really is inexcusable to tackle such a schadenfreude-rich topic so joylessly.

Pooh's View: Skip it. If it wasn't for the 50 in 50, I wouldn't have finished it myself.

BookBlogging #12: How Would A Patriot Act?

Where, as here, no emergency prevents consultation with Congress, judicial insistence upon that consultation does not weaken our Nation’s ability to deal with danger. To the contrary, that insistence strengthens the Nation’s ability to determine—through democratic means—how best to do so. The Constitution places its faith in those democratic means. Our Court today simply does the same. (emphasis added)
- Justice Breyer, concurring in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (.pdf)

Regular readers must know that I'm a huge fan of Glenn Greenwald's work, so naturally I had to peruse his new book rather quickly after it's release. And given the good news of the Hamdan decision, now seems as good a time to post on it as any.

I was not disappointed, "HWAPA" is essential reading for anyone trying to make sense of the legal issues surrounding various recent stories of the Bush administration's will to power. Greenwald concisely and elegantly demolishes the Yoo/Addington doctrines invoked in support of everything from 'coercive interogation' to the NSA scandal.

Though it has been largely lost in the wake of Greenwald's rise to liberal-blogospheric prominence, he doesn't see the arguments over executive powers as a partisan issue, but rather a matter of fundamental principle. The title, (in addition to the word play at work) is demonstrative - in Greenwald's view, patriotism is almost synomous with a defense of such founding principles as limited, divided government, and individual civil liberties.

In a way, Greenwald's ascension has diminished his authority on the subject - before (understandably) becoming the NetLeft's go to guy on debunking Unitary Executiveisms, he presented very compelling, well-researched positions. And he still does, but he is wholly preaching to the choir: he is an anti-Bush blogger, for better or for worse. The fact that he has repeatedly and consistently presented his case for opposing the present administration is far less important than that he has adopted that position.

And far be it for me to criticise, but his blog covers a much wider swath then simply his areas of expertise. It is always dicey for one to attempt to transpose authority between venues (the best example is Cindy Sheehan, who had moral authority as a simple grieving mother, but far less so as a 'movement leader,') and though I tend to agree with Glenn much more often than not, his broader base serves to reduce his persuasive power to the unconvinced. "You would say that" is a fairly powerful rhetorical dismissal.

Despite these concerns, however, the book is crisply executed. Greenwald's writing is always superbly constructed, and given the greater time for reflection a book allows over a blog has only served to fine tune this quality. It is also concise - a perfect airplane read perhaps, to serve as a primer for one of the more important issues we face.

Bookblogging #11: Crashing the Gate

We return from our regularly scheduled World Cup Blogging to pop off for a bit about a few of the books that we've finished in pursuit of 50 in 52. Today, Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitasis Zuniga's "Crashing the Gate".

I had avoided the book for the same reasons I don't visit DailyKos often - I was worried about polemics, high noise-to-signal ratios and the 'preaching to the choir' effect. However, since it came as part of a package with Greenwald's book, I figured what the hell?

In the end, I was pleasantly surprised. Aside from the introduction, (which seems almost as a catechism of anti-GOP opinion, required of a liberal author before he or she can continue), the work is largerly sober and cooly analytical. Indeed, while obviously disapproving of many of the specific tactics used by the Right, Kos and Armstrong are openly admiring of the infrastructure which allows the tactics to succeed - yes the Swiftboaters were vile and scurrilous, but the manner in which the message was transferred from politicos to bloggers to the media to voters was a thing to behold. The Dems have no such message machine, and in this context, the complaints about the 'Mighty Wurlitzer' or the 'Republican Noise Machine' ring hollow and taste a bit of sour grapes.

By comparison, the authors are openly derisive of many elements of the Democratic electoral 'machine'. From the perverse reward system for Democratic pollsters and consultants (an odd area of agreement between Kos and Joe Klein, though I'd imagine that Kos would say that Klein correctly identifies the symptom while misdiagnosing the disease) to the perverse actions of 'single-issue groups' to the subtitution of 'psychic' income for actual lucre as compensation for the frontline footsoldiers of the liberal movement.

This last point in particular is well made. For all the kvetching done by many progressives about the 'Wingnut Wellfare' which ensures monetary comfort for those such as the Cornerites, this concern is misplaced. Kos and Armstrong argue, quite compellingly, for a more professional approach - not forcing someone to choose between paying student loans or working for 'the cause.' It is probably no mistake that the well-compensated tend to be well-motivated.

All told, a compellingly argued take on the process of politics, from the left side of the aisle.

World Cup Stuff (BookBlog #10)

Highly recomended: "The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup" - a collection of essays based (ratehr loosely) on the soccer teams of the 32 participants. The amount of actual soccer content varies greatly, but a good, quick read. My favorite pieces being Nick Hornby's feelings as more of an Arsenal supporter (wanker) than an England fan, as well Tim Parks's surprisingly moving eulogy for his Italian father-in-law.

But in particular, I wanted to highlight two passages. The first could well have been written by a cranky Floridian as to why soccer is for commies (and in fact, see here et seq for just that). From Dave Eggers's entry from the United States:

The abandonment of soccer is attributable, in part, to the fact that people of influence in America long believed that soccer was the chosen sport of Communists. When I was thirteen - this was 1983, long before glasnost, let alone the fall of the wall - I had a gym teacher, whom for now we'll call Moron McCheeby, who made a very compelling link between soccer and the architects of the Iron Curtain. I remember once asking him why there were no days of soccer in his gym units. Hi8s face darkened. He took me aside. He explained with quivering, barely mastered rage, the he preferred decent, honest American sports where you used your hands. Sports where one's hands were not used, he said, were commies sports played by Russians, Poles, Germans and other commies. To use one's hands in sports was American, to use one's feet was the purview of the followers of Marx and Lenin. I believe McCheeby went on to lecture widely on the subject.

So why then is soccer popular, and why do I love it so? Well, because it's hard. From John Lanchester's essay on Brazil (who else?):

That's what you learn, as soon as you start to play and watch football: that football is difficult and beautiful, and that the two are related. Players kick the ball to one another, pass into empty space which is suddenly filled by a player who wasn't there two seconds ago and who is running at full pelt and who without looking or breaking strike knocks the ball back to a third player who he surely can't have seen who then, also at full pelt and without breaking strike, crosses the ball at sixty miles an hour to land on the head of a fourth player who has run seventy meters to get there and who, again, all in stride, jumps and heads the ball with, once you realize how hard this is, unbelievable power and accuracy toward a corner of the goal just exactly where the goalkeeper, executing some complex physics without conscious though and through muscle-memory, has expected it to be, so that all this grace and speed and muscle and athleticism and attention to detail and power and precision passion comes to nothing, will never appear on a score-sheet or match report and will likely be forgotten a day later by everybody who saw it or took part in it. This is the beauty and also the strange fragility, the evanescence of football.

And exhale.

As an aside, why is the most 'literary' sports about either baseball of 'football'? My theory is downtime. In baseball, for the majority of the game nothing is happening. Literally. In a soccer match, there are often long stretches where nothing happens, figuratively. There's also an element of unreason and the supernatural about both games. In baseball, it manifests as superstition and numerology (as well as the extreme misuse of statistics as evaluative tools). In soccer, without all those numbers we here about 'magic' and 'inspiration' - top players getting such nicknames as La Brujita ("the little witch" aka former Argentine international Juan Sebastian Veron) or O Phenomeno (Ronaldo, simply "the phenomenon.")

If you can't tell, I'm massively fired up for the World Cup, so allow me to direct your attention first here for some YooTubish greatness featuring Ronaldihno and the boys from Brazil, here for TNR's intellectualist approach the proceedings, and here for Bill's month of all World Cup, all the time.

Oh, and predicitions -

Advancing to knockout rounds
Germany
Costa Rica
Sweden
England
Argentina
Holland
Portugal
Mexico
Czech Republic (simply too good for us, assuming Nedved plays)
Italy (We lose 1-0 in a game that looks pretty much just like the QF loss to Germany in 0-2, but with our opponents gesticulating a bout more expansively and flopping a bit more liberally. I hate the Italian national team...)
Brazil
Australia
France
Korea
Ukraine
Spain

Round 2
England over Germany (Roooonaldo returns)
Argentina over Mexico
Czech over Oz
France over Spain
Sweden over Costa Rica
Portugal over Netherlands
Brazil over Italy
Korea over Ukraine

Round 3
England over Argentina (slaying old ghosts, one at a time...)
Czechs over France
Portugal over Sweden
Brazil over Korea

Semis

England over Czech
Brazil over Portugal in the game of the tourney

Final
Engerland...on penalties no less.

I'm clearly delusional.

BookBlogging #9: The Republican War On Science (or How to Blunt Your Point By Choosing an Overly Polemical Title)

"The Republican War On Science" by Chris Mooney is a searing indictment of the attacks upon the naturalist scientific method perpetrated by Big Business and Religious Conservatives over the past two decades. It is exhaustively sourced and seems very soundly researched. Yet it is almost certainly preaching to the choir, for the simple reason of the inclusion of "Republican" in the title. I don't think much would have been lost by simply entitling the work "The War On Science" with perhaps a subheading of sorts.

In much the same way that Ramesh Ponnuru's "Party of Death" has largely been dismissed by left-of-center-types as a partisan attack piece, "RWOS," merely through it's title, forestalls serious, two-sided discussion. Easy enough for me to say "great book - look at what those bastards did now..." But, I'm singing in the choir as far as that goes. But for someone to my right, who might be suprised by some of the incidents documented, it can easily be viewed as a slightly more urbane attempt to describe conservative as backwards, theocratic rednecks - what intelligent person could possibly be anti-science?

And, to a degree, the title is something of a misnomer - it most cases, it is not Republicans qua Republicans who are fighting 'science,' it is certain distinct constituencies within the GOP that are battling against the scientific consensus on many issues. A perfect example of this can be seen in the furor over the Al Gore global warming film. While certainly Republicans are sniping this seems to be on the political front (despite evidence that Gore is probably not running in '08 Too bad, I think.) Those attacking the substance of the film seem to be more of Big Industry variety.

Incidentally, this makes perfect sense from an 'interest' standpoint - once a technology is 'discovered' those who control it's use have a vested interest in A) not letting it be supplanted; and B) not being exposed to additional costs. Thus, there is a clear incentive to muddy certain waters. When something is first invented there really isn't much known about empirical 'side-effects', which often take the form of negative externalities. Naturally, any good supplier doesn't want to be forced to internalize these outputs, because then they would just be "costs" which result in lower "profits" and one less Bentley in the CEO's garage, and perhaps having to settle for Jermaine Dupri over 50 Cent at your kid's Sweet 16. Further, a characteristic of a market with negative externalities is societally inefficient overproduction - also good for the producer, less good for consumers and/or everyone else. If costs rise, quantity and margins are likely reduced. Once again, no Bentley, and we're probably down to Kris Kross or Funkdoobiest - for which your son resolves to hate you, drops out, moves to Seattle to work at Starbucks and protest the WTO, giving you ulcers and huge bills from Dr. Melfi's office. Not good times.

So, naturally, Mr. CEO wants none of this to come to pass, so he has to beat back the scientific consensus. Funny how studies tend to produce outcome favorable to the funders...And here's the neat trick - you talk to your business-friendly Congressman, (who probably doesn't know science from a hole in the ground) and you show him your study, and suddenly

global warming [is] “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people”

Interest politics are less clear in the other constituency at issue, the Religious Right - certainly the economic incentive is not there for 'Intelligent Design' as it is for the global warming skeptics. Rather, it is a clash of outlooks, perhaps based on a misperception. Science doesn't claim to have the answers - it seeks to determine the observable process.

Such empricism may have some inherent tension with faith, but it certainly isn't required until God is posited as the reason for all that is unobservable. Naturally, as the universe of knowledge increases, God's role 'decreases' - which was heresy for Galileo, and apparently not much has changed for some.

Identifying the 'real' culprits does not obsolve those (like Inhofe or Frist or Gingrich) who sign on to these efforts of culpability, but I think the book would have had more universal appeal had it focused more on the former than the latter - the underlying problem is the politicization of science, and calling out the GOP for doing so isn't likely to help.

Pooh's View: Another one to get my liberal (as well as 'economist' dander up) - suffers a little from Mooney's (understandable, considering the evidence) polemicism. For further reading, the motley crew of academics at Crooked Timber recently conducted a fascinating 'seminar' on RWOS. The author participated, as did Steve Fuller, a noted skeptic/techonological optimist. Good stuff.

Pooh'sDay Blues: On the Road With Klosterman (Book #8)

So, when I like a guy's writing, I tend to like his writing and go whole hog. After breezing through "Fargo Rock City", I jumped the queue and tore through "Killing Yourself to Live." Billed as a story of a roadtrip across America to try to understand how one in fact must die in order to be fully alive. In the memories of others. If you are a musician. Or something like that.

But it's not really about that at all. Klosterman amost goes out of his way to prove the aphorism that criticism inherently says more about the critic than about the subject. Without counting pages, I'd guess that Klosterman spends more time talking about his love life than about any of the musicians or their 'meaning' over the course of the book. This isn't surprising since the book is actually about his love life - "Killing Yourself to Live" is as good depiction as any of the self-flagellation he engages in over the 3 (point whatever) women in his life over the course of his road trip.

The whole thing is, naturally, set to music. And in these parts he at least head-fakes towards the ostensible topic - the obligatory Cobain/Corrigan/Vedder death, genius and relevance discussion, a truly great passage about the enduring utility and greatness of Zeppelin and standard Rock-Critic Snobbery - he wants you to know that he f'ing hates punk, country and, worst of all, "the F-ing blues" though he loves blues rock.

To be sure the blues he's thinking of (your Parchman Farm era Robert Johnson's, Charley Pattons and Skip James) are something of an acquired taste for one used to the 'majesty' of modern production values. The simplicity of a Robert Johnson man-and-a-guitar-on-literal-wax track must be jarring to one who genuflects at the altar of O.K. Computer every few hours.

All my complaints aside, Klosterman is such an engaging narrator that I end up not caring what he says. The way he says it is diverting enough, and there is plenty of meat on the story, with the music and the girls and the random Midwest observations (homesick much, Pooh?) thrown in as he drives his trusty "Ford Tauntan" from one end of the country to the other.

But he should like the blues. Strike one...

Book #7: Follow Through

When riding on an aeroplane, I sometimes find it hard to concentrate on 'serious' reading materials. At the same time, I'd be slightly embarassed to be seen reading a Maxim by the grandmother or rabbi likely to be seated next to me. So I try to find a middle ground, and the trip back from Minneapolis was no different - In honor of my first round of golf of the year (and perhaps last if it snows again...), I settled on Rick Reilly's "Shanks for Nothing". This is Reilly's follow-up to "Missing Links", one of the funniest sports books I've ever read. ("We called him Hoover because he sucked.")

You get the sense that Reilly enjoyed writing this because it got him away from the pseudo-profound inanity he has to bang out every week for the back page of SI. The book contains tales of golf; sex; golf; gambling; gambling on sex and golf; prison breakouts; golfing in prison; gambling on golfing while breaking out of prison; and good scotch (Macallan's to be precise).

Despite much of the same characters, this book isn't quite as fun as "Missing Links" for two reasons: first, the terribleness of 'Ponky', the local course, and its cast of 'chops,' are very well established from the first story; much of the humor comes from the introduction of quirks in the course and its denizens. Second, the villains just aren't as compelling (and indeed, are somewhat recycled from Reilly's non-fiction "Who's" Your Caddy?") as the slimeballs at work in the original tale.

An enjoyable, though completely disposable read, with the downside being it didn't even get me all the way from Minneapolis to Phoenix, much less back to The 'Berg..

Focus!

As I noted, I'm making progress on catching up on my reading (a book a week is a lot for someone who watches as much TV and movies, plays as much sports and video games, and likes to hang out as much as I do. Oh yeah, and that whole 'job' thing. And the whole 'job search' thing. Woe is me. Drat, bebother...You get the idea.)

Though a lot of the progress is invisible, since I have the stupid habit of starting a book, reading a bit, starting another, reading a bit, starting a book, etc...

To give an idea, here's the list of titles I have currently open to one extent or another (not to count the two I've finished, but haven't gotten around to posting about yet)

• "Salt: A World History" by Mark Kurlansky
• "Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs" by Chuck Klosterman
• "The Left Hand of God" by Michael Lerner
• "The Republican War On Science"
• "Soul of the Samurai" by Thomas Cleary
• "The Sling and the Stone"
• "Cobra II" by Michael Gordon
• "A Feast for Crows" by George R.R. Martin
• "A History of Warfare" by John Keegan
• "American Theocracy" by Kevin Phillips
• "A Death in Belmont" by Sebastian Junger
• "To Hate Like This Is to be Forever Happy: A Thoroughly Obsessive, Intermittently Uplifting, and Occasionally Unbiased Account of the Duke-North Carolina Basketball Rivalry" by Will Blythe

And then there are those just on 'top' of the pile (or en route)

• "Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich" by Kevin Phillips
• "A Conflict of Visions" by Thomas Sowell
• "The Demon-Haunted World" by Carl Sagan
• "Crashing the Gates" by Kos
• "How Would a Patriot Act?" by Glenn Greenwald
• "Blink" & "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell
• "Blue Blood: Duke-Carolina: Inside the Most Storied Rivalry in College Hoops by Art Chansky

Not to mention any old title that pings my interest on my next pass through B&N or Borders.

So, apparently, I've got some work to do...