the past is another country
Wednesday, May 30, 2001
George F. Will is not my favorite pundit. Not even a little. He goes into fits of indignation over the calumnity of liberals at the least provocation, he plays loose with facts, and his arguments often fall apart when you give them a hard look (witness, for example, this column in defense of the S.A.T., in which Will waxes indignant over those vicious egalitarians trying to wipe out the supposed meritocracy of college admissions by eliminating standardized tests, leaping from the noble origins -- skipping that nasty eugenicist bit -- of the test to the present day while failing to provide a single piece of evidence that the S.A.T., fifty years later, is still a tool in the service of merit). I don't know that the statement quoted in this Slate piece, about the McVeigh case and the FBI's belated discovery of withheld evidence, was from one of his columns instead of Sunday afternoon blather, but if it was, the editor should be ashamed of herself. Will is quoted as saying "He's guilty. He's not remorseful about having killed 20 more people than were killed in the Gulf War." McVeigh is guilty, and McVeigh isn't remorseful, but he sure didn't kill 20 more people than were killed in the Gulf War. I'm not a pundit. I don't get paid to think all day, bang out a smug column twice a week, and make an occasional talking-head TV appearance. But a 5 minute Google search confirmed that even the lowest estimates say that over two thousand Iraqis were killed. Perhaps George thinks that those who never saw DiMaggio hit one over the fence aren't people. (more...)
11:53 pm 
Tuesday, May 29, 2001
I don't know what it is that makes me such a sucker for old things. Although it's not my bag, I understand the impulse that leads people to collect old soda bottles or pictures of baseball players from their grandparents' day -- or old soda bottles with pictures of said ballplayers. One of the reasons I like Providence so much is that you can wander around Federal Hill or College Hill, surrounded by the buildings worn down by hundreds of years of mildly seedy history. It's tangible. The obscenely talented James Lileks devotes his attention to the Midwest of his youth and glimpses of the faded past. I have no desire to ever go to Disneyland, but I could read Yesterland for hours. Old girlie calendars, old country singers, old buildings, old pulp novels, all the cultural detrius of the twentieth century holds more attraction to me than the recognized artifacts of real historical importance. There's something touching about ephemera that's passed its appointed hour. But the air of importance we attatch to anything a few years old, anything which speaks of our connection to an exclusive cognoscenti who know just which blues guitarists or starlets or brands of bubble gum hold cachet through being nigh-forgotton is ridiculous, too. Which is why The New York that Really Never Was is such a brilliant sendup of the kind of inside skivvy, the appreciation for history of the absurd, dished out by people like me. Someday I'll go to New York and I'll find the hidden speakeasy, preserved through neglect, that contains those "golden coffers...filled with remnants of departed partygoers as an even more morbid momento mori."
11:26 pm
Monday, May 28, 2001
Memorial Day isn't just about cookouts and parades, of course. It's also about remembering those who have given their lives for this country through the form that suits this remembrance best: bombastic war movies. In the current wave of greatest-generation swooning, we've decided to bring back the jolly war-time propaganda movie. Even Saving Private Ryan decided to stop its visceral display of the horrors of war -- even the last good war -- in favor of a ridiculous morality tale in which the moral is "Just shoot the prisoner." It's a wave of sentiment about the WWII-era sacrifice this nation went through without any underlying understanding of the myriad downsides of that period. My grandfather was a navigator during World War II; he didn't tell war stories. He hid his Purple Heart in the basement; we only found it after his death. I don't know if he was embittered about the war or reluctant to dredge up memories or just intent on proceeding with his life. But on this Memorial Day, I'd like to salute his memory. I worry that my grandfather's reluctance to talk about the war is being replaced by second-generation revisionism, that our collective memory of the war is going to dwindle to rah-rah jingoism and a sort of Hogan's Heroes notion of a relatively clean war. Great aerial combat sequences and the lovely Kate Beckinsale notwithstanding, that's just not right. Let's leave Michael Bey's vision of the war, told "with such high zest / To children ardent for some desperate glory," to another weekend next time.
11:31 pm
Sunday, May 27, 2001
A long weekend for me is a time for much drinking -- not just alcohol, either. I'm headed to the Southwest Baltimore Sowebo Festival tomorrow, and if it's not raining, I plan on drinking plenty of delicious lemonade. There's nothing better at a hot street fair than something cold to drink; I'm not a big soda drinker, having weaned myself off the ridiculous amount of Mountain Dew I drank as a college student, but I like a Dr Pepper now and then. Poker night regulars (and sons of the Palmetto State) Greg and Chas have tipped me off to a regional delicacy -- Blenheim's Ginger Beer. (It's hotter than Reed's Original, although I haven't taste-tasted it against Reed's Extra; ginger beer, mixed with vodka and lime juice, makes a Moscow Mule, one of my favorite drinks.) And Jimmy at work informed me of Virginia's Dominion Root Beer, which is just excellent: not harsh at all, but mellow and flavorful. V. and I had root beer floats tonight over a round of cards. Soda fountain classics and talking trash over cardplaying are a fine way to spend a rainy weekend night.
12:16 am
Wednesday, May 23, 2001
So the Bush Administration energy plan is out, with its accompanying war of spin. (Given the willingness of political reporters to regurgitate spin, the press battle may largely hinge on which side can press their case more effectively, rather than on a reading and review by the nation's reporters -- not that I blame them; I've only skimmed the thing myself, because it's enormous.) I think looking at nuclear power is probably a good thing, but the rest of the plan's particulars don't thrill me. There are a number of real, technological solutions to help conserve it, and the government knows it, even if Dick "Conservation may be a personal virtue" Cheney doesn't. (more...)
11:42 pm
Sunday, May 20, 2001
It's been a busy couple of days here at the Kozy Shack; it seems like everyone I know is moving to a different apartment (or a different city). After hauling furniture into a U-Haul on Friday, we were off to a wedding on Saturday morning; after the ceremony, we ferried the minister to the reception (and had a fascinating conversation with her in the car and waiting in the restaurant, about everything from the performative aspects of reading Scripture to Gullah and the use of Quecha in Star Wars). Our friends Greg and Colleen are moving, but managed to get everything into their new apartment by the time we made it there. So we had no commitments on this rainy day -- we can just relax, drink a beer or two, listen to the Maytals on the stereo, clean the kitchen, do some laundry, read a DeLillo book, start making some mushroom sauce... Rainy weekends in spring are beautiful for their possibilities.
7:55 pm
Like most Americans, I'm not very familiar with the Algerian war for independence (fought against the French, largely between 1956 and 1962). What familiarity I do have is through a cursory knowledge of the life of Albert Camus (who was attacked by some French leftists for not coming out definitively in favor of the Algerians) and through a remarkable movie, The Battle for Algiers. (more...)
1:05 am
Friday, May 18, 2001
I just spent a few hours helping my friend Amanda load furniture into her U-Haul. I desperately need a shower, but first I need a cool, refreshing drink. I just won some Pocari Sweat, a Japanese drink akin to Gatorade, in a contest over at Metafilter run by all-around good guy Jeremy Bushnell. Unfortunately (or fortunately, because I have no idea how the stuff tastes), it's not here yet, so water will have to do. (Check out the contest; there's some weird stuff out there on the web.)
11:40 pm
Monday, May 14, 2001
What sort of child wants to read Dickens rather than play SimCity? A Washington Post article posits that
[a]literacy...is like an invisible liquid, seeping through our culture, nigh impossible to pinpoint or defend against. It's the kid who spends hours and hours with video games instead of books, who knows Sim Cities better than "A Tale of Two Cities."
Oh my stars and garters! The average teenager has no interest in reading Victorian novels! There are problems with an aliterate society, but phrases like "missing out on our cultural heritage" set my Spidey sense a-tinging. (more...)
11:08 pm
Saturday, May 12, 2001
Recently, The Atlantic had an little back-and-forth between one of its book critics and Barbara Ehrenreich. It's worth reading -- as is the MetaFilter discussion which led me to it -- but Ehrenreich, who worked three different pink-collar "invisible" jobs (as a waitress, a house cleaner, and a Wal-Mart employee) and attempted to live off the income, tosses off an aside:
But it would be nice, too, if more of the people who live the low-wage life year in, year out, could get a chance to tell their own stories, and finally get the attention they deserve.
It lead me to a couple of interesting questions. For one, why aren't there more working-class weblogs? (more...)
5:25 pm
Wednesday, May 9, 2001
Followups on a couple of previous stories -- those who managed to digest my long and rambling screed about comic books, or just those of you who are interested in comics as an art form, should read the Onion AV Club interview with self-deprecating illustrator-slash-genius Chris Ware. Further, mention of Michael Chabon on Memepool served as a reminder that, celebrated author though he may be, Mr. Chabon is a superhero-lovin' dork. (And the always-amazing James Lileks is right; this is the worst Spirit ever.) Also, via rc3.org, you can drop in on this conversation at The Well about "zines and blogs." Finally, the fine folks at Invisible City do regular zine reviews; it's good to know that the medium ain't dead.
9:57 pm
Monday, May 7, 2001
Ooh! Ooh! A Salon article on guides to being girlie mentioned in passing that Lynn of Mystery Date: One Gal's Guide to Good Stuff, one of the dandiest zines I remember from the mid-Nineties (although it and paled, like everything else, before the awesome juggernaut of weird trivia that was Johnny Marr's Murder Can Be Fun), has a book coming out next year! Lynn knows everything, and I'm sure her book will be just dandy. But what happened to all the other books we were going to see from those zinesters of yesteryear? Did the Web suck up all the publishing dollars that were going to go to people like Al Hoff and Johnny Marr?
The Salon piece also mentioned Miss Abigail, a treasury of antiquated advice, which seems a good point to mention both Sir Charles Grandiose's hysterical upper-class-twit advice column and the copy of the 1928 edition of What a Young Boy Ought to Know sitting on my bookshelf. Now that's advice!
10:16 pm
Sunday, May 6, 2001
I came across a reference to the McLibel 2 in Fast Food Nation and I'm glad to see that, three years after I wrote a piece of them for a college magazine, they're still fighting. The McLibel 2, for those not up on British court cases, were two members of London Greenpeace who distributed a nasty little pamphlet outside a British McDonald's, accusing the company of all sorts of bad labor, environmental, and health practices. McDonald's took advantage of Britain's strict libel laws and sued the individuals distributing the pamphlet for libel. Unfortunately for the company, two of the people they sued just wouldn't cave; they had gotten their jaws into McDonald's leg, they wouldn't let go, and the case just kept going on and on in a public relations nightmare for Mickey D's. In British libel law, the burden of proof is on the defendent, and a number of statements were found to be libelous. But a number of statements in the pamphlet were found to be true, and information the two (untrained and underfunded) defendants wormed out of documentary evidence and cross-examination was just amazing -- everything from details about McDonald's techniques in dealing with union organizations to the fact that McDonald's had sent corporate spies (with help from the police) to infiltrate London Greenpeace. Apparently, there's a book on the original trial (which lasted from 1994 to 1996) -- I think I'll see if the library dig up a copy for me.
11:46 pm
Wednesday, May 2, 2001
Salon recently ran a story on Amy Kapczynski, a Yale Law School student who was instrumental in pushing Yale into committing itself to less expensive access to AIDS drugs for Africans. Kapczynski and Doctors Without Borders started the ball rolling, but I think the key moment was a New York Times interview given by Prof. William Prusoff, the author of the work that resulted in Yale having a patent on on AIDS drug d4T. (Prusoff and Yale have, of course, profited immensely from the current patent on d4T, but Prusoff's support for making generic versions available in the Third World was certainly candid. As far as I'm concerned, it was morally right. It was also, I assume, immensely embarassing to Yale.) What made the story noteworth, though, was some amazingly wrongheaded comments by a policy analyst. (more...)
9:04 pm
