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.
"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.
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 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
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!
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.
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.
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 WorldTrade 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…
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 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
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...
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....)