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July 04, 2009
More news that isn't: Americans over 50 and Michael Jackson
The mainstream media once again displayed its talent for stating the obvious, and then attaching a spurious significance to the obvious.
Let me explain. A recent CNN poll revealed that most Americans over 50 “aren’t Michael Jackson fans.”
This isn’t exactly news. For the most part, musical tastes are formed during one’s formative years. A person who is say---56 today---was born in 1953. By the time Michael Jackson became a viable solo act in the early 1980s, today’s 56-year-olds were already approaching the very adult age of 30, and were likely entrenched in the routines of career and family life. They weren’t concerned about Michael Jackson’s Thriller album in 1982. When they did have time to listen to music, they probably listened to Smokey Robinson or Aerosmith.
Likewise, as a 40-year-old I am not a huge devotee of music produced much beyond the mid-1990s. When I am in the mood to listen to music, I usually dust off something from the 80s.
CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider apparently doesn’t understand that adults generally don’t keep up on youthful musical trends. (Or perhaps he felt compelled, by virtue of his title, to utter something weighty and profound.)
Schneider stated:
"Older Americans didn't 'get' Michael Jackson. They were probably offended by his defiance of cultural norms. Younger people got him."
I remember Michael Jackson’s heyday quite well. (I was in high school then.) I don’t remember him as very controversial. Heavy metal, with its references to black magic and casual sex, was far more controversial in the 1980s. Prince was controversial back then. But Michael Jackson? No way.
Michael Jackson appeared in a Pepsi commercial in 1984. The same year President Reagan gave him an award at the White House in recognition of his work with various charities. He was a guest at the White House again in 1990---when yet another Republican was in office.
How much closer to the mainstream could you possibly get?
The CNN article went on to note that white males are less likely to be MJ fans. (The mainstream media can never, ever resist a reference to the race card.)
There may legitimately be some “gender gap” involved here. Michael Jackson probably always had a larger following among females, regardless of race. I don’t see this as conspiratorial in any way, but rather a product of the public image that MJ crafted. He didn’t exactly exude testosterone.
Being a 40-year-old white male myself, perhaps I could give Bill Schneider something to study. I neither particularly liked Michael Jackson’s music--- nor particularly disliked it. It was well….OK….perhaps a trifle overplayed during those years.
Likewise, I am sorry that Michael Jackson died at 50. I wish his family the best. But this isn’t the personal blow to me that the media suggests it ought to be. I didn’t know MJ, and I didn’t listen to his music that much. I was far more personally shaken by my grandmother’s death in 2007, and her death didn’t make the front page of CNN.com.
Perhaps it is time for Bill Schneider and other media pundits to move on and enlighten us on other topics.
July 02, 2009
Passengers, The Sixth Sense, and derivative works
Warning: This review contains spoilers! If you haven’t already seen the movie Passengers, then do so now---and come back later.
(Technically speaking, this review also contains some spoilers for The Sixth Sense, but I’m going to assume that you’ve already seen that movie---as it came out in 1999.)
In The Sixth Sense, Bruce Willis plays a child psychologist who treats a young boy with a unique problem: he sees dead people. The movie ends on a now typically M. Night Shyamalan note: Willis’s character has been dead throughout the entire movie, but he didn’t know it! “Surprise, surprise”, as Gomer Pyle used to say.
Passengers (this-is-your-last-chance-to-stop-before-the spoiler) contains a similar plotline. A small group of passengers survive a plane crash. At the end of the film, they find out that they have been dead all along.
A number of reviewers have hammered Passengers for “ripping off” The Sixth Sense. Let me say from the outset that Passengers likely is derivative. No one can categorically prove that the Passengers screenwriter was influenced by The Sixth Sense, but we can make a reasonable surmise: The Sixth Sense has been in circulation for over a decade, and it’s a well known movie. Passengers ends on a surprise note that makes anyone who has seen The Sixth Sense recall the final scene of that movie. Yep, Passengers is derivative.
Nevertheless, Passengers explores territory that The Sixth Sense never covered. Passengers is fundamentally a different kind of movie, and in many ways---a more satisfying one. Although Passengers is billed as a supernatural thriller, it doesn’t contain any really chilling moments. It is best described as a mystery story with a philosophical ending. Passengers made me think about the nature of life and death; I believe it will (or should) make you think, too.
On the general topic of “derivative” works: There is a difference between a work that exhibits the influence of a previous one---versus a movie or a novel that blatantly rips off another creator’s ideas.
Take the idea of the dead narrator. I have seen this device at least three times. Douglas Coupland’s Hey Nostrodamus (2004), and Stuart O’Nan’s The Night Country (1999) both utilize post-mortem narration. In a monologue during the opening scene of the movie American Beauty (1999), we discover that the main character of this film is also dead. The main character of American Beauty speaks to the audience again in the final scene.
I enjoyed all three of these works, even though I accept the possibility that one may have been influenced by either or both of the other two. Moreover, I am sure there are additional books and movies out there that make use of narration from beyond the grave. Perhaps they were all influenced from some third source.
When appraising derivative works, I always ask myself: Does the derivative work approach the theme/plot device in a novel way?
Every vampire novel under the sun (and there are a lot of them) is arguably a derivative of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. This doesn’t mean that Dracula is the only vampire novel worth reading. Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot (1975) is perhaps the most famous vampire novel to follow Dracula. King makes no secret of the fact that he was influenced by Bram Stoker’s classic novel. King says in the introduction to the audiobook addition of Salem’s Lot:
"One night over supper I wondered aloud what would happen if Dracula came back in the twentieth century, to America..”---Stephen King, Salem’s Lot
I personally liked Salem’s Lot far more than Dracula (although I like them both). King’s twentieth century characters and setting resonate more vividly for me than the Victorian-era inhabitants of Bram Stoker’s fictional world.
Why was Passengers dismissed by many reviewers as “derivative,” while practically no one cares that ‘Salem’s Lot, Twilight, etc., etc. all owe a tremendous debt to Bram Stoker? (King even said once that had there been no Dracula, there would have been no Salem’s Lot.)
I suspect that timing has a lot to do with it. The Sixth Sense is a mere ten years old; Dracula was published in 1897. Many reviewers seem to take the view that derivative works are acceptable only if the influencing piece was published in a previous century.
As a reader or moviegoer, I’m not that picky. There are few completely original premises under the sun. To a certain extent, every creation contains at least a few derivative elements. I can forgive a movie or novel for displaying obvious influences---provided that it shows me something new. I believe that Passengers passes this test.
June 30, 2009
New Short Story:
Blake Lewis belched noisily as he flicked the cap of his beer bottle at Vincent Chang’s head. Blake was slouched across the backseat of the rental car—a Chevy Malibu that Chang and Tony would have to detail thoroughly before they returned it to Hertz. Blake hated to travel with Chang and Tony. They were both as dull as rocks; these two could only redeem themselves by serving as objects of torment.
Chang flinched as the beer bottle twist cap ricocheted off his ear. He nevertheless managed to keep his attention on the dark rainy highway ahead of him. The cap projectile had not been entirely unexpected. It was the third such volley that Blake had launched since they left Detroit and began their southward trek into Ohio. Chang had lost count of the number of beers that Blake had consumed. Like all of them, Blake would know that drinking on a business trip was a violation of company policy. But Blake considered himself above this sort of petty regulation. (Continue reading....)
June 28, 2009
Reader question: Where did "Giants in the Trees" come from?
Thanks for the emails about the short story “Giants in the Trees”. Some of you have wanted to know where the idea for this short story came from.
There happens to be a woods located behind my own house. (I live in the suburbs, and my “woods” are more like a glorified thicket, mind you---nothing like the woods described in the story.) My woods are located on the other side of a small ravine; and they run up a hill, much like the woods in Giants:
From where we stood inside the house, I could make out the banks of a little ravine that likely descended into a shallow creek. On the other side of the ravine the landscape rose sharply into a densely wooded hillside of dark hardwood trunks, tangled scrub bushes, and a few scattered pines. Winter had ended only a few weeks ago, so the deciduous trees were still bare. The fading daylight and the rainy weather conspired to limit the visibility to less than a few yards into the forest.
“That’s where they come from,” Paul said hoarsely. “And that’s mostly where I see them.” ---“Giants in the Trees”
One day I was busy in the kitchen when I happened to see movement outside the house with my peripheral vision. It was only a tree swaying in the wind; but for a brief instant it indeed looked like a malevolent giant---exactly like the one described in the story. The idea fascinated me, and it developed into the creatures in “Giants in the Trees.”
The character Paul Taulbee is not based on any one particular person. And the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Paul’s wife and child are wholly fictional.
This doesn’t mean that Paul himself is a completely fictional creation. During my years in the corporate world, I’ve met lots of people like this character: old warhorses who are harboring secrets and regrets.
I am interested in the process of how we handle temptation, disappointment, and their cumulative effects as we age. Several of you commented on the interaction between Paul and Jim. Is Jim destined to become like Paul someday? Or is Paul’s life a cautionary tale for Jim? Perhaps the answer here is up to the reader.
Most people start out with at least some sense of eagerness and optimism. But as the years roll on, the world takes a bite out of each of us.
I suppose that this was the main thought I was turning over in my head while writing “Giants in the Trees.”
June 20, 2009
What I'm reading:
Agincourt
by Bernard Cornwell
I am always wary of novels that involve historical settings. Too often, the authors of such works overindulge in description and extraneous details.
James Michener was sometimes guilty of this failing. His shorter works, like the Bridges of Toko-Ri and Sayonara are taut, economical tales. His longer works occasionally grind to a near halt as he force-feeds the reader paragraph after paragraph of minutiae. I recently read Mexico---a novel that Michener began in the early 1960s and completed in the early 1990s after a thirty-year hiatus. (I suppose he was mulling it over for all that time.)
Like all of Michener’s work, Mexico is worth reading. However, this 646-page behemoth would have been more enjoyable if it had been shorter, and less burdened by long expository passages about bullfighting and Mexican history. (If really want to absorb everything there is to know about either topic, there are plenty of nonfiction books for me to choose from!)
Bernard Cornwell, on the other hand, is a novelist who seamlessly blends story and history. I am currently reading his latest novel, Agincourt.
Agincourt is set in the 1300s, a period that is unfamiliar to many modern readers. There are numerous historical details that are essential to the plot of the novel: the Anglo-French Plantagenet kings, the Lollard movement, the battle tactics of the late Middle Ages, etc., etc.
How does Cornwell convey the history to the reader without boring her (or breaking the spell of the novel)? Cornwell succeeds by weaving historical background into the story itself, revealing facts, names, and dates through action and dialogue.
Cornwell’s novels never say to the reader: “Hold on while I spend five or six pages on historical background!”
For example, there is one scene early in the novel in which a group of church and royal officials are executing Lollards, who were then deemed heretics. We can safely assume that most modern readers will have only the vaguest idea of what a Lollard was, so some explanation is in order.
Cornwell places a priest in this scene. Through the priest’s statements about the Lollards, we learn why Church officials hated them so much. He also depicts the feelings of the Lollards themselves right before their execution. This gives us even more knowledge of what the Lollard movement was all about.
Cornwell could have conveyed these details with two three pages of exposition. This option might have given us more information about the Lollard movement, but so what? This would have broken the spell of the story. And Agincourt isn’t a history book---it is a novel; and a novel’s first function is to entertain.
Anyway, Agincourt receives my thumbs up for those of you who are looking for an entertaining summer read.
June 19, 2009
Women's rights in Iran?
It’s about time.
Superficially, the current wave of protests in Iran is about the disputed election. On a deeper level, though, the protests about the Iranian way of life.
For three decades, Iran’s ruling clique of Islamo-crats have forced the Iranian people to live according to a medieval set of values. Now, there are signs that a new generation of Iranians may be ready to take the country into the twenty-first century.
Women especially suffer under Islamic rule. As one young Iranian woman told CNN.com:
"Women are just living things [in Iran]. A woman is there to fill her husband's stomach and raise children."
This was not just any Iranian woman. The speaker here was none other than Zahra Eshraghi, the granddaughter of Ayatollah Khomeini.
June 18, 2009
The Victorian vampire vs. the modern zombie
Physical manifestations of the undead appear in literature in two basic forms: vampires and zombies. These two beasts are fundamentally different, and evoke different feelings in readers.
The vampire was extremely relevant during the Victorian era. If you read between the lines in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, you find a great deal of repressed sexuality.
Note this excerpt from Chapter 3, in which Jonathan Harker confronts the three female vampires in Dracula’s castle:
All three had brilliant white teeth that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips. There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips. It is not good to note this down, lest some day it should meet Mina's eyes and cause her pain, but it is the truth….
There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth. Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of my mouth and chin and seemed to fasten on my throat. Then she paused, and I could hear the churning sound of her tongue as it licked her teeth and lips, and I could feel the hot breath on my neck. Then the skin of my throat began to tingle as one's flesh does when the hand that is to tickle it approaches nearer, nearer. I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the super sensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there.
The Victorian era was an age of repressed sexuality, very much dominated by the Madonna-whore complex---especially in the United Kingdom. (Bram Stoker was Irish/ British.) “Respectable” women were encouraged to repress their sexuality and focus on becoming genteel ladies and angelic mother figures. Married men habitually sought release in the arms of professional ladies, who were not bound by such conventions. (Prostitution was particularly rampant in England during the late nineteenth century.)
As a result, contemporary depictions of the vampire have become sexualized to the point where few vampire movies and books are even scary. Note the popularity of the Twilight series among young women. The vampire tale has ceased to be horror---now it is almost “chick lit”.
Zombies on the other hand, cannot be romanticized. Zombies are flesh-eaters. They’re pack animals. They turn ordinary people into mindless killers. They decompose and become ever more horrid in appearance.
The idea of zombies has been around for ages; but George A. Romero’s 1968 film Night of the Living Dead made the zombie part of popular culture. Over the past 40 years, countless zombie films have been created (many by George A. Romero himself). Zombie novels have also become a distinct subgenre of speculative fiction.
Zombie novels and films all have certain aspects in common. For one thing, zombie outbreaks are typically apocalyptic in scale. Seldom does a novel or a movie depict a small or localized zombie outbreak. If zombies appear, they take over the world. While there are zombie stories that have supernatural elements (like Brian Keene’s The Rising), the explanation for the zombie outbreak is usually pseudo-scientific. A malignant virus is usually to blame.
Horror fiction is always symbolic of real fears that can be isolated from the monsters themselves; and these fears vary according to time and place. The repressed sexual urges that so disturbed the Victorians cause little discomfort for us today. Therefore, the vampire has been feminized and tamed in contemporary film and literature. Modern readers find it difficult to take Bram Stoker’s Dracula completely seriously (although the original novel is still a very entertaining read).
Likewise, George A. Romero’s visions of massive zombie outbreaks may not have frightened readers of the nineteenth century quite so much. The apocalyptic zombie outbreak reflects a distinctly modern bundle of fears: urban violence, the breakdown of society, the ineffectiveness of government and other authority figures. It is no accident that scenes from the various “Living Dead” movies resemble real-life urban riots.
These fears were not as relevant in the nineteenth century, when populations were smaller, and more people lived in rural settings. A zombie outbreak is terrifying if you live in a crowded city or suburb….less so if you live in a sparsely populated rural area. And the farmer living on the Great Plains has few neighbors who can even turn into zombies in the first place. These folks are more worried about bears and wolves.
This distinctly modern relevance explains why the zombie has not yet grown stale among readers and viewers---despite the similarity (and to a degree, the predictability) of the zombie tale. The popularity of the zombie tale seems to peak when there is a spike in economic or social instability. There has been a fresh spate of zombie books and movies since 9/11, for example. And still more zombie films have appeared since the onset of the economic crisis in 2007.
June 15, 2009
New Short Story:
Giants in the Trees
Description: When Jim agreed to give Paul Taulbee a ride home from work, he unwittingly entered his older colleague’s private corner of hell.
I had not wanted to give Paul Taulbee a ride home from work that day. Indeed, I generally avoided time alone with Paul whenever I could. The prospect of thirty minutes in the car with him wasn’t exactly a pleasant end to what had been a long day at the office.
I would have escaped if I had not lingered at my desk until long after five o’clock. (Even more importantly, I would have avoided that hour at Paul’s house—but these are details which I will relate to you shortly.)
I was about to pack up my things and call it a day when Paul broke the silence of the empty office. His gravelly voice—coated with the phlegm of a lifelong smoker—startled me as I was contemplating the glorious work-free evening that lay ahead.
“Say Jim,” he said. “Not quite six o’clock and it’s just you and me here now.” (Continue reading....)
June 14, 2009
Politics and fiction: do they mix?
The idea of political ideas expressed in stories is not exactly new. Shakespeare’s Richard III contained political motifs that were relevant in the Elizabethan era, but obscure to us now. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is credited with energizing the abolitionist cause during the 1850s. (When Lincoln met Stowe for the first time, he reportedly said "So this is the little lady who made this big war.”)
Mixtures of politics and literature continued into the twentieth century and beyond. I am a big fan of Robert A. Heinlein, whose work reflected libertarian ideas. Tom Clancy and W.E.B. Griffin are two currently active authors who write with what might be called “a conservative tone.”
Conservatives represent a minority among contemporary authors, though. For whatever reason, the liberal arts tend to attract people who are politically liberal as well. Note the preponderance of evil businesspeople and right-wing conspiracies in modern fiction.
I don’t screen my reading list according to my political beliefs. On this site, I have praised the work of Eric Flint, who is a vocal leftwing political activist and was even a member of the Socialist Worker’s Party. I also like Jonathan Franzen’s novel The Corrections. Franzen isn’t a socialist; but some of his essays reflect a strong leftwing bias. This doesn’t detract from The Corrections---whatever your own political affiliation might be.
I have read most everything that Stephen King has written over the years. His work conveys many of his own political beliefs, which might best be described as boilerplate 1960s activist liberalism. I disagree with many of King’s political notions; but I will say this: most of the time, he doesn’t let politics get in the way of his stories.
King seems to understand that the story should always come first. When an author uses a story as a mere shell to convey a political belief, the result seldom pleases readers. Ayn Rand’s novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged contain many ideas that I agree with. However, I can’t say that I enjoyed these books as great literature. (Each chapter of these books seems to contain one long monologue too many.)
When I think of more recently unsuccessful political novels, two examples come to mind. (For the sake of fairness, I have selected one “conservative” novel, and one “liberal” novel.)
Orson Scott Card’s Empire decries the anti-Bush leftwing faction that coalesced in the wake of 9/11 and the subsequent Iraq War. This story is filled with wooden characters, tortured dialogue, and implausible plot twists. I was extremely disappointed, because I know that Card is capable of great writing. (His novel Lost Boys is one of my all-time favorites.)
Another of my favorite authors is John Grisham. When he is at his best, no one can craft a page-turner like John Grisham can. The Firm, The Summons, and The Brethren are literally impossible to put down.
I was therefore looking forward to another great John Grisham read when I purchased The Appeal in 2008. Rather than a tightly plotted Grisham thriller, The Appeal turned out to be a sermon embedded in some plot elements that have appeared in previous Grisham novels. Grisham wrote The Appeal to prove the old idea that corporate-money-corrupts-society. I might not entirely disagree, but I didn’t buy The Appeal for a sermon or a political treatise. I bought The Appeal to get another thrill ride like The Firm.
We live in political times. (We have always lived in political times.) And there is no reason why political ideas should be purged from fiction. (Moreover, there is no reason why political ideas that I disagree with should be verboten in fiction.) I don’t expect an author to discard her philosophical beliefs when she sits down at the keyboard. Some of my own stories (“The Caliphate” and “Citizens” come to mind) contain political ideas.
However, fiction writers must never forget that our first job is to entertain. When we forget about entertainment and focus too much on the politics, we do a disservice to our work---and our readers.
June 12, 2009
General Motors, the banking crisis, and Obama's new "executive pay" measures
This past week The Great One announced that in addition to running General Motors, the government is also going to have a say in executive compensation:
President Barack Obama's administration announced tougher restrictions on executive compensation at companies that have received bailout money and appointed a "pay czar" to oversee paychecks at seven firms that have received "exceptional" government assistance. ---Chicago Tribune
For now, federal oversight seems to be limited to financial institutions that received TARP funds. Few Americans (myself included) will have a problem with capping the pay of senior management at failed banks. Most of these clowns shouldn’t even be running banks in the first place. And the bank managers did it to themselves by asking for our money: Once you let the government in the door, you have opened the proverbial Pandora’s Box.
And this is the root of the real problem. It is easy (and reasonable) to make the following argument:
“Once large amounts of taxpayer dollars have been given to a private institution, the government should be able to cap executive pay.”
The key question is: Why are we giving private institutions taxpayer dollars in the first place? You have heard the old chestnut: If you tell one lie, you will have to tell another one to cover your tracks. The same is true of government meddling in the economy: Once you break the fundamental rules of competition and free enterprise, you pave the way to socialism and all its attendant inefficiencies. (If you bristle at my use of the term “socialism” as extreme, ask yourself this: What else do we call an America in which the federal government owns significant stakes in General Motors and various banks? Do you have another term in mind?)
On the larger issue of executive pay at publicly traded companies: I agree that CEO salaries have grown too large. Is a big salary for the top man (or woman) warranted? Certainly---this incentive is needed to attract the best and brightest. But none of these CEOs are worth the “rock-star” compensation packages that we have seen in recent years.
So how to fix the problem? We might start by letting the market do its job. Case in point: For years, General Motors was a slipshod company with overpaid managers and overpaid union workers. The market pronounced its verdict on General Motors. But rather than listening to the market, we placed our faith in government bureaucrats. (While the average CEO is considerably less brilliant than he thinks he is, the very worst of them possess more common sense than Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi.)
To make up for this government meddling in the market, we now need even more government meddling. It would have been far more efficient to simply let the market do its job in the first place. That might have meant the end of GM---but a more efficient, market-responsive automaker could have arisen in its place.
Which brings us back to CEO pay. Allowing the government to set executive pay levels is like allowing your landscaper to give you a root canal. You may acknowledge that your tooth hurts---but your landscaper will only make the problem worse.
The same is true with Washington’s current “hands-on” approach to various aspects of our economy.
June 12, 2009
What I'm reading:
A Spell for the Revolution
by C.C. Finlay
I am currently reading the second installment in his Traitor to the Crown series. This is fantasy fiction that doesn’t skimp on story, I’m happy to report.
A Spell for the Revolution is set in the American Revolutionary War era. The novel is an interesting and original mix of historical fiction and fantasy. (C.C. Finlay has an academic background in history.) There are witches, magic, zombies, and exciting fight scenes. Solid entertainment so far---two thumbs up!
June 12, 2009
The stakes in the Iranian election
As I write this, the Iranian population is headed to the polls to elect a new president….we hope. Mahmoud Amadinejad has been in power since 2005, and he has brought Iran nothing but economic chaos, pariah status abroad, and more hard-line Islam.
Amadinejad’s main rival, the reformist Mir Hossein Moussavi, leads in the cities, and among younger voters. Mahmoud Amadinejad is ahead in the more conservative and fundamentalist countryside.
The catch, of course, is that Iran’s democratically elected president has limited powers. The Iranian version of “checks and balances” basically means giving the Islamic clerical institution significant control over the nation’s legal system, economy, and foreign policy. The chief Iranian cleric is Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei---the successor of the infamous Ayatollah Khomeini.
There are reasons for optimism in Iran, however. For one thing, Iran’s population is young. Over half of all Iranians cannot even remember the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Educational standards are generally higher in Iran than in neighboring countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.
My columns are often critical of the Muslim Middle East, and I am unapologetic on this point. Political correctness will not deter this writer from calling a spade a spade.
At the same time, we have to realize that the collective delusions of this region are not necessarily permanent. The Muslim Middle East is a horrid place at present because it is governed by a horrible set of ideas---not because of any innate flaws its people.
June 09, 2009
Should you learn Hindi?
Since writing Why You Need a Foreign Language & How to Learn One, I frequently receive emails from language students asking for advice.
The other day I received the following email, from Sharon B. in Pittsburg:
Dear Ed:
You don’t discuss Hindi very much in Why You Need a Foreign Language & How to Learn One. Do you have something against Hindi?
First of all, let me make one point clear---I have absolutely nothing against Hindi (or any language for that matter). I like them all.
Nevertheless, I realize that all language students have limited time, energy, and resources. I therefore advocate a focus on those languages that will give you the “biggest bang for the buck”.
At present, my “biggest bang for the buck” list is as follows:
Chinese
Japanese
Spanish
German
French
Why these languages, you ask? Each of the above languages is spoken in at least one of the world’s major industrialized nations (Spanish in over 20 nations). Therefore, each of these languages is a resume/career-booster.
Of equal importance is the fact that these languages are all relatively easy to learn outside the area(s) where they are spoken. Walk into any Barnes & Noble and you will find an ample selection of books, CD courses, and software designed to help you learn Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, and German.
So what about Hindi? I am personally fascinated by Hindi. I love the Devanagari script. A page of written Hindi has the “exotic” appeal that originally drove me to study Chinese and Japanese.
However, courses for foreign students of Hindi (while increasing in both quantity and quality) still lag behind those of other languages. This is simply a function of supply-and-demand. Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, German, and French are widely studied throughout the world. Hindi (for the present, at least) can claim only a handful of foreign students.
There are a few other reasons that have kept me (grudgingly) away from Hindi. Every Indian I meet in the United States seems to speak some language other than Hindi---whether it’s Gujarati, Telugu, or whatever. Hindi is to them as Spanish is to me: a second language.
The political situation in India is characterized by intense competition between the regions. In southern India, there is a grassroots resistance against the “tyranny” of official Hindi. Therefore, southern Indians are rarely interested in chatting with you in Hindi.
There is also the status of English in India to consider. As you all know, I devote an entire chapter of Why You Need a Foreign Language & How to Learn One to debunking the common misconception that “everyone speaks English.” This is true in India as elsewhere. Only about 5% of the Indian population speaks fluent English.
However, English is an “official subsidiary language” in India, owing to the country’s British colonial past. The Indian people technically recognize English as one of “their languages”---albeit with an asterisk. Indians therefore aren’t resentful of monolingual Americans in the same way that Spanish-speaking Mexicans are. (This doesn’t mean that all Indians will understand your English, mind you----only that they won’t resent you for speaking it.)
For an educated Indian, a command of English is a mark of prestige and intellectual attainment. This factor--- combined with the diversity of the indigenous language situation---- means that Indians, as a group, don’t encourage foreigners to learn Hindi.
This is likely to change in the future, of course. (Let us not forget the days when the educated classes in England and Russia conversed with each other in French.) English is ultimately a foreign language for most Indians. Countless times I have witnessed two Indians confuse each other when speaking in broken English, before switching to Hindi or another Indian tongue to gain clarity.
For the time being, however, your study of Hindi is likely to be an uphill battle. I believe that the study of numerous other languages yields more rewards for less effort.
June 08, 2009
What I'm reading
Songs for the Missing
by Stuart O'Nan
I don’t have anything against so-called “serious fiction”; but I confess that much of it bores me. Too often, the plotlines in “serious fiction” plod along too slowly. When this happens, I put down the book and surf the Internet…or turn on the television…or pick up the latest Joseph Finder or Michael Connelly novel.
Stuart O’Nan writes serious fiction; and I like many of his books. O’Nan’s novels contain almost nothing in the way of gunfights, car chases and monsters. (His 2003 novel The Night Country contains supernatural elements, but they are presented in a non-threatening manner.) Movie versions of O’Nan’s novels would require no special effects experts or stuntmen.
However, Stuart O’Nan doesn’t need these devices to capture the reader’s imagination. O’Nan’s genius lies in his ability to make the superficially mundane interesting. His novels always contain some central conflict or loss---but his focus is typically on the “aftermath”.
Songs for the Missing begins with the daily life of Kim Larsen, an 18-year-old woman who is enjoying her last summer before the start of college life. Then Kim suddenly disappears, the apparent victim of an abduction.
O’Nan proceeds to describe the struggles that Kim’s family members endure after her disappearance: dealing with the law enforcement bureaucracy, reconciling themselves to loss, etc.
On the surface, this doesn’t sound like exciting stuff---especially if your usual fiction fare consists of Greg Iles or John Grisham. Songs for the Missing isn’t a nail-biting thriller; but it is equally engrossing. It is a story that you become involved in. How does O’Nan do it? I have a few ideas…
In a previous post, I described the fantasy genre term “world building” O’Nan constructs a suburban world that is as engaging as Tolkien’s middle earth---because he makes it so real. I am not talking about page after page of self-indulgent descriptions here. O’Nan constructs characters that come to life on the page. You will care about the story because you will care about the characters.
There is nothing profound about the idea of pulling in readers with strong characters---but it is all too rare in fiction of any genre.
I think that you will like this book, even if you normally prefer novels with a bit more “action.”
June 07, 2009
Debt, Obama, and the Tiananmen anniversary
The Chinese government’s preferred method of crowd control can be summed up in a very simple set of instructions: Fire at will. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) demonstrated this maneuver with crack efficiency on June 4, 1989. Over the next few days, PLA soldiers gunned downed more civilians in the Chinese capital. No one really knows for sure how many people died. Some estimates say hundreds---others put the number as high as three thousand.
I was in college then. Like most Americans, I was outraged that, on the cusp of the twenty-first century, the government of a major nation-state could behave so barbarously toward its own citizens. But we should not have been too surprised. Mao Zedong---the founder of the People’s Republic of China---once said that “Political power comes from the barrel of a gun.” We should never forget this fundamental truth about the government in Beijing---even as the feckless managers of Corporate America rush to ship our manufacturing base to China.
This past week marked the twentieth anniversary of Tiananmen. In accordance with the custom that has developed since 1989, America’s blowhard politicians used this opportunity to waggle their fingers at Beijing and issue the obligatory tisk, tisk: Please, China, try to stop murdering so many of your own citizens.
Hillary Clinton said:
A China that has made enormous progress economically, and that is emerging to take its rightful place in global leadership, should examine openly the darker events of its past and provide a public accounting of those killed, detained or missing, both to learn and to heal.
---Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State June 3, 2009
The leaders in Beijing no doubt read the Chinese-language translation of this little bit of posturing with a mixture of amusement and weary annoyance. China’s leaders aren’t interested in “healing.” They are interested in holding on to power. If they can accomplish this end by developing “capitalism with Chinese characteristics,” so much the better. If they need to crush some of their citizens beneath tanks---well, they are up for that too.
What I really want to talk about here is not China, but us. We know---or should know---the score in China. Mao’s portrait still looks down on Tiananmen Square. And from whatever corner of hell he now occupies, I would be willing to bet that the Great Helmsman is having a hearty laugh at the foreign devils.
The Tiananmen anniversary used to be accompanied by a protracted debate in the U.S. Congress about revoking China’s most favored nation (MFN) status. Notice that you heard barely a murmur about holding the economic club over Beijing this year.
Why?—because China is now able to hold the economic club over us. When Hillary Clinton visited China earlier this year, she had to practically beg Beijing to continue to service American debt. The Chinese government doesn’t need nukes to threaten America anymore---it can simply threaten to revoke our credit cards. This is why Clinton’s words of “a public accounting” of “dark events” rung hollow.
Twenty years ago the American president was a decorated World War II veteran. Today our president is a worthwhileness-challenged huckster whose economic strategy is borrowed from the playbook of the Soviet Gosplan.
“Hope and change” comes with a price tag. When Washington announces the latest multi-billion dollar bailout plan, we should not forget that those are real dollars we are talking about. And every dollar printed or borrowed for these schemes makes Americans ever more subject to the whims of Beijing.
This realization should cause any American more than a little discomfort. On June 4, 1989, the Chinese government demonstrated its disregard for its own citizens. So how much do you think it cares about you?
June 05, 2009
A few words on the Big O's Middle East speech
This past week President Obama gave a speech in Cairo. He said assalamu alaikum with a reasonably accurate pronunciation, and called for a foreign policy version of “hope and change” in the realm of U.S.-Muslim relations.
The President’s speech got mixed---and predictable---reviews. Apologists for Muslim extremism predictably gushed at the President’s potshots at Israeli settlement building and Cold War-era missteps by the great powers. GOP leaders predictably accused the President of kowtowing to the Muslim world.
If you poke through my columns, my position on Islam is pretty clear and unambiguous. I regard Islamic law as brutal, barbaric---and wholly inappropriate to the twenty-first century. The Muslim world needs a secular enlightenment, like the one that brought moderation to Western Europe in the eighteenth century. I won’t mince words here for the sake of political correctness. I won’t lie in order to sound “multicultural.” Islamic law is the polar opposite of everything that the Western democracies hold dear.
But I am a private citizen. I don’t decide the foreign policy of the United States. And while I believe that commentators such as myself perform an important role, I wouldn’t necessarily encourage a U.S. President to open a speech to “the Arab street” with one of my columns. I write primarily for a U.S. audience. The President simply can’t stand at a podium in Cairo and say to the Muslim world: “You suck.” Even with our geopolitical opponents and adversaries, there is room for tact and timing.
I am reminded of a moment late in the Cold War, when President Reagan said something like the following about U.S.-Soviet relations: “Although we have irreconcilable differences regarding the way societies should govern themselves, we can work together to find common ground and build a more peaceful world.” [paraphrase]
This particular Reagan sound bite is from the heady Gorbachev years. At this point everyone (including yours truly) was thrilled that a Soviet leader didn’t have the explicit goal of “burying” the West.
The Muslim world has yet to find its Gorbachev. In most Muslim countries, the worst of the worst still write and interpret the law. Nevertheless, the aforementioned Reaganesque sentiment is relevant in the context of U.S.-Muslim relations.
We cannot impose democracy on people who would rather govern themselves according to a religious text penned in the desert more than a thousand years ago. We cannot impose the ideals of Locke and Jefferson on societies who presently hang on the sputtering utterances of bearded clerics.
In short, the Muslim Middle East is going to be enlightened and democratic when it wants to be---and not a day before.
We should never kid ourselves about the true nature of Islam----anymore than we kidded ourselves about the true nature of Communism or fascism. We do, however, need to realize the limits of American power. We also need to find common ground with societies that are governed differently than our own.
June 04, 2009
Dick Cheney and the same-sex marriage brouhaha
For GOP watchers, Dick Cheney’s June 1 speech before the National Press Club contained an interesting tidbit. The former VP declared his support for same-sex marriage--- no doubt prompting at least a few social conservatives in the Midwest to commit hara-kiri before their television sets.
Cheney qualified his statement with the proviso that the nuts and bolts of regulating marriage should be left up to the states. But in terms of the big picture, this fine point is just that---a very fine point indeed. This is the equivalent of uber-socialists Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi declaring that they believe in the free market---while noting that they also support the funding of public libraries. This is like Mahmoud Amadinejad declaring his affection for International Jewry, with the qualification that he doesn’t really care to eat matzoh balls.
Here’s a little secret: Same-sex marriage really isn’t a big deal for most conservatives. Being a fiscal conservative/social libertarian myself, I could care less if you marry a man, woman, or housecat (just not my housecat, thank you very much). As long as you are a consenting adult, what you do with other consenting adults is your own business. I’m all for same-sex marriage, in fact: Why shouldn’t we give homosexuals the right to be every bit as miserable as their heterosexual counterparts? Why in the world should gays get off the hook so easily?
When it comes to sex, we Americans have a way of being in-your-face liberated and oddly prudish at the same time. As we approach the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, sexual imagery bombards us at every turn. Advertisers use sex to sell everything from sports cars to cheeseburgers.
And sex isn’t limited to television and the Internet. Liberated parents in the suburbs buy birth control pills for their high-school aged Tiffanies and Abigails. Our young people no longer send Valentine’s Day cards to express their affection; instead they send nude images of themselves via cell phone. Cohabitation before marriage---still controversial in the 1970s America of my youth---is now almost universally accepted.
On the other hand, the ghosts of our Puritan past occasionally rear their heads. As I have noted before, we have a paradoxical hang-up about commercial sex---even when everyone involved is a consenting adult. And then there is the gay marriage thing…We are selectively liberated and selectively prudish.
Perhaps we are ambivalent about the changes that have taken place in the past 40 years or so. I don’t know if America was better off in the 1950s world of Ozzie and Harriet, when ladies wore their hemlines at calf-length and sex was a mystery reserved for marriage. To borrow the cop-out employed by our Chump-in-Chief, that sort of question is “above my pay grade.”
What I do know is this: The genie of sexual liberation is not going back into the bottle---not in your lifetime, at least. The generation that first gave us a liberated view of sex is bumping and grinding its way into old age, arthritis and all. The easy young girls who once wallowed in the mud at Woodstock are now in their sixties. How can we expect today’s youngsters to be prudish about sex when even grandma admits to sowing a few wild oats in her day?
Which brings us back to same-sex marriage. Homosexuals, like liberated Baby Boomers, are a fact of life. Deal with it. For the most part, homosexuals aren’t hurting anyone. They comprise about 4 or 5 percent of the population. If they want to get married, why not let them? Don’t we have more important things to worry about----like how we are going to pay down the massive amount of debt that Obama and Pelosi are adding to daily?
I think that some sort of an accommodation for same-sex couples is more or less a fait accompli. Then the cottage industry that has sprung up around this issue can quietly go away and do something more productive with its time.
For those on the political Left, same-sex marriage has become the ultimate Fashionable Concern---trumping even global warming and the latest cockamamie rightwing conspiracy theory.
For social conservatives, same-sex marriage has become the ultimate boogeyman. Some conservatives are very worried about a “gay agenda”. Mass, covert conversion to the gay lifestyle looms at every turn, according to this view.
Will the legalization of same-sex marriage give straight males a sudden desire to tastefully decorate their apartments and listen to show tunes? Speaking as one very straight male---I don’t think so. Same-sex marriage has been legal in a handful of states for months now, and I’m still a slob. I still like my heavy metal music. And I still like women.
To my fellow conservatives: Let’s leave same-sex couples alone, and focus on the fiscal foolishness of the Obama Administration. Obama has not yet begun to wreck the country, and he still has the better part of four years left.
To my opponents on the Left: Dick Cheney’s endorsement of same-sex marriage has a price for all you latte-sipping denizens of the Daily Kos. You may soon need to find a new Fashionable Concern to occupy your attentions.
June 03, 2009
CNN reports: "Few Americans have favorable view of Muslim world"
According to a new national poll, only one in five Americans has a favorable view of the Muslim world. Nearly half of the American public (46%) has an “unfavorable opinion” or a “negative impression”.
Gee, imagine that. What the heck is wrong with us? What in the world could have given us the aforementioned “negative impression”?
Was it that big misunderstanding with the jetliners and the World Trade Center that gave us “an unfavorable impression” of the Muslim world? How about the bombings in Bali, Madrid, Tel Aviv or London? How about the beheading of Christian schoolgirls in Indonesia? Was it Abu Sayyaf, al-Qaeda, Hamas, or Hezbollah?
I know: Maybe it was the Saudi-sponsored madrassas that fill young minds with hate and bigotry in Afghanistan and Pakistan…
Was it the Taliban? Or was it the Sudanese government’s attempt to prosecute a British schoolteacher in 2007 over the name of a freaking teddy bear, for goodness sake?
No, perhaps it was the revered practice of honor killing. No, wait---it might have been Muslim radicals firebombing the UK office of the publisher of Jewel of Medina in 2008---because they believed that the book was offensive to Islam.
I don’t know: Which horror story or outrage could have given us a bad impression? Difficult to say--- with so much to choose from…..
Allow me to establish a reference point for my own views here. I am fascinated by foreign cultures and languages. I speak four languages myself, and I wrote a book entitled Why You Need a Foreign Language & How to Learn One. So I’m not exactly Archie Bunker. I can argue geopolitics and world history with the best of them.
But what goes on in much of the Muslim world is simply too backward and medieval to excuse with multicultural gobbledygook like, “Well, that’s just they way they do things over there. Ya can’t judge, you know.”
The cult of militant multiculturalism has made us afraid to pass judgment on any crime against humanity---unless it is perpetrated by white, nominally Christian Europeans or Euro-Americans.
By all means let us hold Europeans and Euro-Americans (Christian or otherwise) accountable for their sins. But let us not put on blinders when the jackass in question happens to be non-white and non-Christian-- out of fear that some nitwit cultural relativist is going to label us “insensitive.”
We didn’t excuse Hitler on the premise that the persecution of Jews was simply a “Teutonic thing” that was too complex for non-Germans to understand. In the same way, Muslim crimes against humanity deserve our condemnation---even if it is only expressed in a public opinion poll.
June 02, 2009
More bizarre news out of North Korea…
There is no such thing as a normal news story about North Korea. Every single dispatch from the land that Kim Sung Il built is either alarming, tragic, or bizarre---and sometimes all three. If Pyongyang isn’t threatening to nuke someone, then it is starving its people, or kidnapping Japanese schoolteachers.
Sometimes the North Korean powers-that-be are simply engaged in something moronic. A few years ago, Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son of North Korean dictator Kim Jong il, was arrested at Narita Airport. He was trying to sneak into Japan with a fake passport. His mission: the youngster (he was then 29) wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland.
That little stunt may have cost Kim Jong Nam the dictator’s chair in North Korea. Daddy Kim (67) suffered from a stroke earlier this year, and he reportedly wants to solidify the succession. Since Kim Jong Nam has proven himself to be a flake, Kim Jong il’s youngest son, Kim Jong Un, has been tapped to take over at an undisclosed time in the future.
Some optimism has been expressed regarding Kim Jong Un. He received an international education at a private school in Switzerland. He likes Michael Jordan and Steven Segal movies. Jong Un attended classes with the children of American diplomats, and he did not try to booby-trap their lunchboxes (as far as anyone can determine). Maybe we can be cautiously optimistic. The twenty-something Kim Jong Un is also clinically obese. Perhaps Jenny Craig will be invited to set up a liaison office in the North Korean capital.
It has been said that family businesses typically fail in the third generation. The state of North Korea has been run as family-run criminal enterprise since the end of World War II. I personally hope that Kim Jong Un never has the chance to take power. The sooner the Kim Dynasty ends, the better for the people of Korea, Asia, and the rest of the world.
North Korea isn’t the only screwed up country, of course; but it is quite possibly the only screwed up country that has absolutely no redeeming features. At least the Saudis and the Iranians have some impressive architecture, while the Pakistanis and the Afghans make some mean lamb-and-rice dishes. North Korea, on the other hand, has nothing but human misery, silly military parades, and a whole slew of dictators whose names begin with the syllables “Kim Jong”.
If you want to learn more about North Korea, I recommend the book Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty, by Bradley K. Martin.
At 896 pages, this is not a quick weekend read; but it is a compelling and informative read. The author has actually spent time in North Korea, and his insights into the country are rare among Westerners. You will finish this book with a solid understanding of North Korea’s history, and the conditions under which its people must live.
June 01, 2009
How the government screwed you today
Today General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The multiple bailouts of the Detroit automakers have not been….shall we say….successful.
There is an old saying: “If you can’t turn a profit with your own money, then you can’t turn a profit with other people’s money.”
General Motors has proven the truth of this axiom since bailout fever began late last year. Despite burning through billions of taxpayer dollars, GM still cannot make money selling cars. (The company’s new sideline of lobbying Congress has netted a cool $19.4 billion since January, though.) There are many factors to blame: an arrogant and incompetent management team, a union that is 50 years behind the times, and competing brands that cannibalize each others’ sales.
The bottom line is that you, the taxpayer will receive nothing for your coerced “investment” of nearly $20 billion.
As if this weren’t bad enough, the federal government isn’t done throwing (your) good money after bad. While GM undergoes Chapter 11 restructuring, another $30 billion of your tax dollars will go toward the operating expenses of this failed company.
The Chapter 11 deal gives the taxpayers a 60% stake in GM. In practical terms, this means that Washington D.C. has just become the new management of GM. We had might as well rename the company “Government Motors.”
The Soviet Union proved that government managed consumer industries are hopelessly inefficient. A “government-run automaker” makes about as much sense as “a strip bar managed by a council of Catholic priests”. The very idea is one huge oxymoron.
I realize that Obama is still officially our messiah and all; but this scheme represents a fundamental violation of basic economic principles---not to mention common sense.
May 28, 2009
What I'm reading
Freakonomics
by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt
Yes, I know I’m sort of a late adopter here. Freakonomics was published in 2006. Nevertheless, I wanted to provide a few teasers for any of my readers who haven’t yet read this book.
Freakonomics won’t teach you econometrics, or how to predict the change in the demand for gasoline when the price of oil increases. Although the authors of this book are economists, they haven’t written a conventional economics book.
Dubner and Levitt acknowledge early on that Freakonomics has no particular theme or thesis. The book is best described as a series of random vignettes that contradict conventional wisdom.
For example, we tend to think of drug dealers as bling-bling guys with loads of cash and gaggles of women---just like the “gangstas” on the MTV videos. The reality is that most drug dealers live with their mothers, and earn an hourly rate below the minimum wage.
Liberals and conservatives will both find reasons to love---and hate---Freakonomics. Traditionally, the economist is morally neutral. The authors share revelations that will strike some readers as cold-hearted, and sacred cows are killed by the herd.
For example, Dubner and Levitt establish a convincing correlation between the legalization of abortion in the early 1970s and the fall in violent crime rates in the mid-1990s. (The idea here is that fewer unwanted---and therefore criminally prone---children were born after Roe v. Wade.)
Think these guys are shills for the political left? Think again. Freakonomics throws several wet blankets on the hysteria about guns. Statistically speaking, the average American child is much more endangered by the swimming pool in the backyard than she is by the revolver in daddy’s sock drawer.
None of these tidbits constitutes the last word, of course. Perceptive readers will surely be able to craft counterarguments.
Nevertheless, Freakonomics will teach you to think in innovative ways. It will also encourage you to look outside the bounds of your own particular brand of “conventional wisdom.”
May 27, 2009
The end of the road for Kim Jong il?
North Korea is a living fossil, the geopolitical version of the platypus. Just take a look at the absurd artwork that the regime commissions for rallies in downtown Pyongyang. The typical one features serious-looking workers and soldiers staring off into the distance, ever vigilant for the coming of the hated capitalists.
The problem (from Pyongyang’s perspective) is that the regime’s traditional supporters---China and Russia---have become capitalists. Neither China nor Russia is exactly democratic by Western standards; but the average Chinese or Russian youth would yawn if you tried to lecture her on dialectical materialism.
The Chinese are busy buying Guccis, i-Pods--- and failed American companies. When Hillary Clinton visited Beijing earlier this year, she had to practically beg the Chinese to continue underwriting American debt. Why would China want to go to war with the U.S., when our lamebrain politicians are bankrupting us from within?
The Russians are irascible and paranoid as ever, but they too, abandoned the workers’ revolution long ago. At present, there aren’t enough sober Russians to support many manufacturing enterprises---but Moscow’s quasi-capitalists make a lot of money extracting oil and other resources from the ground.
So much for Communist Bloc solidarity. Kim Jong il should have been hung upside down from a meat hook in 1989 or 1990---1991 at the latest. Representatives of the imprisoned masses should have machine gunned him and his entourage at the same time that the Romanians rid themselves of the Chauchescus in a similar manner.
But as we all know, this was not to be. The North Korean government has limped along for the past few decades as the embarrassing ex-kin of Moscow and Beijing. Both the Chinese and the Russians have upbraided Kim Jong il from time to time. They have yet to lift him up by his shirt collar and haul him off the woodshed for an earnest ass-whooping.
Kim’s current round of nuclear brinksmanship may be the straw that broke the camel’s back. North Korea is essentially a problem that Stalin and Mao created. I would like to see the Chinese and the Russians clean up this old mess of theirs. I vote for a quick coup of some sort---a bullet for Kim---followed by the establishment of a more moderate regime for the North Korean people.
I am usually pessimistic about the intentions of China and Russia (especially Russia). But in this case I believe that their self-interest may serve the greater global good. We Americans often grow frustrated when Beijing and Moscow mollycoddle Tehran. Iran, however, has oil---and hard currency to buy Chinese and Russian goods.
North Korea, on the other hand, has negative foreign exchange reserves, 16 million starving people, and a sadistic dictator who embodies the notion of the bad hair day. Kim Jong il is constantly threatening to lob nuclear missiles on South Korea and Japan. Do the Chinese want this? I don’t think so: A WMD attack on either South Korea or Japan would eliminate millions of consumers of Chinese-made televisions and shower flip-flops---without any tangible payoff.
In short, there is no upside to the status quo in Pyongyang---even for America’s geopolitical rivals.
May 26, 2009
My take on Sonia Sotomayor
You have been emailing me today about Sonia Sotomayor.
I haven’t had a chance to analyze her record yet. Based on my opinion of Obama’s appointees thus far (think Timothy Geithner, just to cite one example), I don’t expect that I will be turning cartwheels over the Prez’s choice.
But then, I probably wouldn’t be turning cartwheels over President McCain’s choice, either. I am a fiscal conservative/social libertarian who believes in law and order. This unlikely combination of biases sometimes puts me at odds with all sides.
On one hand, I think that the conservative hubbub over same-sex marriage is just plain silly. (Gays comprise about 4% of the population and sexual orientation is determined at birth. Why not allow them to marry? It isn’t as if they’re going to take over the country or forcibly convert the rest of us.) I am similarly lenient on lifestyle issues like private marijuana use and strip bars. (Although, for the record, I think that marijuana usage is moronic. Strip bars, meanwhile, are a colossal waste of time, money, 80s dance music, and fire poles.)
I am a hard-core conservative on the issue of violent crime. Lock ‘em up and throw away the keys, I say. The “criminal rights” movement of the 1960s and 1970s contributed to the sharp increase in street crime that the U.S. experienced in the 1980s. Deterrence is an important part of crime prevention, although many on the left would prefer to ignore this inconvenient fact.
Back to Ms. Sotomayor. The mainstream media has given us scant information so far about her legal record. The lion’s share of the focus has been on the whole first-Hispanic-woman-supreme-court-nominee-hooray! bit. The mainstream media loves to crow about race, because it is a sure bet for political correctness points, and it is an issue that even the average journalist can grasp.
More about Ms. Sotomayor later….
May 25, 2009
Current events and "Citizens"
You’ve been emailing me a lot about the short story “Citizens.” Most of the email has been positive; quite a few of you liked the time travel angle.
I keep getting the question: “Is the Barry Olsen character Barack Obama?”
Here’s the short answer: “Citizens” is set in 2109, so obviously Barack Obama could not be cast as a politician in “Citizens.”
That having been said, the “groupthink” surrounding the Barack Obama movement certainly did inspire the story to a large degree. Those who presume to speak in the name of “the people” usually have an agenda that involves personal power. We need look no farther than the White House or the Congress for proof of this. (Click here to read “Citizens”)
May 25, 2009
What I'm reading:
Retribution: the Battle for Japan 1944-5 by Max Hastings
If you already know the basics about the Pacific War, this is a book that you won’t want to miss. I picked this up about a week ago and I’ve read roughly 80% of it.
Retribution is not “The Pacific War for Dummies.” It isn’t a chronological, blow-by-blow cataloging of the last two years of the war against Japan. (And several Amazon.com readers have claimed that the book contains some minor errata concerning details like the number of Japanese battleships involved in a particular battle.) Retribution isn’t structured to help you pass a history test.
However, Retribution will give you a sense of what it was like to be there. This book is full of human stories: numerous personal accounts and letters from those who were actually on the front lines.
As the World War II generation passes into history, books like this will become increasingly difficult to write. Max Hastings deserves kudos for pulling this together.
FICTION AND NONFICTION BY EDWARD TRIMNELL
The Caliphate
an online short story..
When a terrorist group establishes an Islamic republic in Canada, two friends are forced to confront their own loyalties---and each other
December 22, 2008
"It gave me nightmares for a week!" --Wendy S., in Birmingham, Alabama
Readers are responding to Edward Trimnell's new short story, Hay Moon. Click here to read it online.
General Non Fiction
Why You Need a Foreign Language & How to Learn One
The widely quoted book about foreign languages and language study. Why You Need a Foreign Language & How to Learn One has been used in university classrooms.
UNDERSTANDING THE MIDDLE EAST: History, Religion, and the Clash of Cultures
"Quite simply, the most concise and thorough introduction to the history of the Middle East, from ancient times through the present.."
Japanese Culture from A to Z: History, Religion, Politics, Sex & More
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Short Fiction
The Caliphate When a terrorist group establishes an Islamic republic in Canada, two friends are forced to confront their own loyalties---and each other
Hay Moon : In the summer of 1932, the undead invaded a rural county in Ohio. More than seven decades later, one man still lives with the memories...
“What’s the scariest thing you ever saw, Gramps?”
It is odd how an innocent question like that can bring back such horrible memories; and even more odd in this case, since the question came from none other than Lisa, my little great granddaughter. (continue reading...)
Gate Time: Do you airports scare you? Airports scared Josh Geiger...
photo by Joe Jones...
Josh Geiger spent a lot of time in airports. That territory came with a job in software sales. As a sales rep for EntroSoft, Josh was responsible for three dozen corporate accounts in eleven states. Every week it was the same routine (Continue reading....)
Foreign Language Study
Modern Japanese Vocabulary: A Guide for 21st Century Students, Hiragana/Katakana Edition
Tigers, Devils, and Fools: A Guide to Japanese Proverbs
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A compendium of commentary on economics, history, social issues, popular culture, and more, from 2005 - 2008.
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