That tricky Russian letter again

Once again, Alex's team lets him down. Nobel Prize winner Konstantin Novoselov (Константин Новоселов)'s surname is not pronounced noVOHselov, but instead novuhSYOHlov (that yoh is like Yo!). Yes, that E-pronounced-YO is tricky, but you'd think the crack Jeopardy! guys could cruise by Wikipedia or something. Wouldn't you?

Happy Birthday, Paul

Paul Krugman was born today in 1953. He's a recent Nobel Laureate in economics, and you can find his blog, the Conscience of a Liberal, right here.

The Week in Entertainment

TV: House had one of those weird episodes where you couldn't be quite sure what was true and was was a lie or even what order things were happening in. Had House not been so really inappropriate with the school kids it would have been a lot funnier than it was. The Middle was actually kind of poignant, though why Brick couldn't read magazines was beyond me. I didn't get the tv turned off fast enough to miss the opening of the execrable Better With You so I got to see the parents steal a pizza from the delivery boy. Hohohaha sooooo funny. Modern Family was hysterical as usual. And as usual Phil is this wonderful combination of cluelessness, cleverness, and love. He touches me even while I'm laughing helplessly at him. Clare: "About last night... I know I get a little carried away sometimes -" Phil: "You don't have to apologize." Clare: "I don't think I was -" Phil: (seamlessly) "You were right to get angry." I saw where Big Red was on; that was one of the earliest movies I remember seeing (at the drive-in, in fact), and it was the movie that made me realize that "based on a book" doesn't mean it will necessarily do more than vaguely resemble that book. But I'd forgotten most of the actual plot of the movie; it wasn't bad at all, if hardly the Kjelgaard plot or characters. One funny thing - Walter Pidgeon was trying to teach the dog to hold his head up for the Westminster Kennel Club show by whacking it under the chin and walking it on a loose leash; when I watched the actual show last week the handlers all had leashes up under the dogs' jaws and the leashes tight. I guess they all figured out the whacking method didn't work! Also spotted Mystery Men and had to watch it (again). "We've got a blind date with Destiny... and it looks like she's ordered the lobster." And of course The Mentalist. I did guess he was working with her - I mean, how did she get that gun duct taped to him without his cooperation? - but now I'm dying to know who set her up. La Roche? That would be ironic but predictable. The director? He did quote Blake... I like this show.

Read: Braniac Ken Jennings's book. I is an Other, a sort of natural history of metaphor. A couple of Fletchers and A Master of Mysteries by Robert Eustace, and I began The Martin Hewitt Collection by Arthur Morrison. Also three lovely Vonnegut collections (Armageddon in Retrospect, Look at the Birdie, and While Mortals Sleep).

Yikes

I got a file converter, so I can play various videos for my students on the mandated software we use. The converter tells me the status is ... Successed.

Not Succeeded. Not Successful. Not even plain old Success.

Why am I not surprised that it wasn't developed by Americans?

ps - Of course it works just fine.

Bank Notes

Finished the last but one of the Joseph Fletcher novels. It's been a bit odd all the way through the way everyone carries "gold and silver" around, even though he's referring to coins. But in this one (The Talleyrand Maxim) comes this bit of dialog, dealing with some banknotes and blank checks that were taken to cover up a murder by making people think the victim had committed a robbery and run away.

"I can soon ascertain if these bank-notes have reached the Bank of England," said Byner. "That's a simple matter. Now suppose they haven't!"

"Well?" asked Eldrick.

"You know, of course," continued Byner, "that it doesn't take long for a Bank of England bank-note, once issued, to get back to the Bank? You know, too, that it's never issued again. Now if these notes haven't been presented at the Bank--where are they? And if no use has been made of your stolen cheques--where are they?"

So, back then bank notes were IOUs from the Bank of England? That's not a totally new concept - in fact I can remember silver certificates US dollars - but it's a bit startling to see that they were one-time use.

Happy Birthday, Adam

Today in 1962 Adam Baldwin was born. The Whedonverse is certainly richer for it (not only Jayne Cobb, his masterwork, but also Marcus Hamilton) which means we all are, but he's also great in My Bodyguard and (though I don't like the show) Chuck. Many happy returns of the day, Adam!

Happy Birthday, Johnny

Born today in 1932, one of the greatest American musicians of the 20th century, the Man in Black, Johnny Cash. Grammys crowned his career in its twilight and they were well earned. I've said this before but it bears repeating: if you haven't listened to these albums, you must. They're an astounding collection of songs from gospel to rock to Nine Inch Nails, and they're all Cash. They're all great. Some of them will make you laugh, and some will break your heart.

And the sixth one, even though it was released so much later, is more than just an attempt to cash in - it's good stuff. Good stuff.

Happy Christening, Kit!

We don't know what day Christopher Marlowe was born - but he was christened on this day in 1564, in Canterbury, England. A poet, dramatist, and spy, Marlowe is well-known today, eclipsed by that other author born that year, that William Shakespeare fellow. He died at 29, stabbed through the eye in what might have been a bar-room brawl or might have been a hired killing...

Izaak Walton, in The Compleat Angler mentioned "that smooth song which was made by Kit Marlow, now at least fifty years ago" and Shakespeare quoted it in "The Merry Wives of Windsor":

Come live with me, and be my love;
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies;
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair-lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy-buds,
With coral clasps and amber-studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherd-swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

Find all Marlowe on line at the Perseus Project.

DOMA going down

Maybe not. But the Justice Department will no longer attempt to defend it in the courts. So perhaps its day is coming. And about time, too.

I've never been able to understand why people who rail about federal encroachment are able to defend DOMA with a straight face. For them, it really is all about whose ox is being gored: keep the government away from what they want to do, but use it as a club to force the rest of us to do what they want to do, too.

Over at Slacktivist, evangelical Fred Clarke takes a couple of looks at the subject, first at why DOMA can't be defended and then at kneejerk 'will of the people' reaction from what Fred calls "he no-longer-Baptist Southern Baptist Hierarchy."

A couple of paragraphs to whet your appetite:

What's most telling here is that this forward-moving reversal arose from the Justice Department, which had been tasked with the unenviable job of providing valid and compelling legal arguments for inequality under the law. Like everyone else who has tried, they found that impossible. And unlike many others who are still trying, they decided to stop faking it and just admit that the Constitution and particularly the 14th Amendment really don't allow for that sort of unequal treatment.

And

Implicit in this is a notion of democracy that we've encountered again and again among American evangelical Christians attempting to engage in politics. It is the idea that democracy means everything is subject to the will of the majority -- including the rights of minorities, which therefore aren't rights at all, merely privileges permitted or withheld by the sentiment of the majority. It is, bluntly, the idea that democracy is just a fancy word for mob rule.

So go over and read both posts (they're not long). And then send Mr Holder a nice email, thanking him for (a) standing up for civil rights, (b) refusing to waste taxpayers' money, or (c) both.

Too many countries!

The category of Final Jeopardy was Geographic Terms. The clue was "This region that includes several countries got its name because the colonizers spoke Spanish, French, and Portuguese." I guessed the right answer (Latin America), but the reason I was a bit hesitant was that tricky word "several".

I'm aware that for many people "several" can be six or even seven. The dictionary (Merriam-Webster's Unabridged) rather weasellily in a rather weaselly fashion says

2 a : more than one b : consisting of an indefinite number more than two and fewer than many
("many" they define as "a large but indefinite number")

But there are twenty countries in Latin America. Twenty! Surely that's more than "several".

ps - It occurs to me that they may be using MWU's first definition, the "separate, distinct" meaning. But I doubt it - this is the Teen Tournament, not Champions, and that would be too tricky. Besides, who really talks about "several countries" in that meaning?

They don't rhyme?

A recent Visual Thesaurus Word of the Day email indicated that "remonstrate" and "demonstrate" were rhymes. A more recent one said:

The rupt that you see in bankrupt proceeds from the same ultimate source as the one you see in disrupt and interrupt, though it's easy to overlook the similarity because of pronunciation differences. Latin rumpere, "break," lurks in the background.

So this time when I looked them up, there was no support for the claim - not even a "sometimes" entry lurking in the background. There's some stuff going on with the "bank-" part, and the stress is shifted, but still ... "pronunciation differences" strong enough that you wouldn't associate the "-rupt" of these three words?





What's up with the guys at Visual Thesaurus? Where do they come from, that they don't rhyme these words?

Happy Birthday, George

George Harrison was born today. I always liked him best (I screamed "George!", or would have had I ever gone to a concert) and post-Beatles, I found him the most engaging, talented, and consistent of them all. His later albums are good - his very last one I reviewed like this when it came out

Brainwashed I always liked George best, and this album is probably the best one. It's pure George, the man who couldn't tell the difference between a hit song and a metaphysical speculation. Marwa Blues showcases his guitar playing, and his voice rarely sounded better than it does on Any Road and I'll Never Get Over You. And he and Dhani chanting the Naamah Parvati at the end of the album -- the perfect way to say 'goodbye, George...'

I have a double cd of Live in Japan (which is an energetic performance) and Beware of ABKCO!, (which is an engaging and sometimes odd compilation of acoustic backing and demo tracks, different looks at old favorites) put out in Russia. Live in Japan has 19 tracks, and ABKCO has 15. But the first cd has 21 tracks - all of ABKCO and six tracks from Live in Japan, and the second finishes up Japan. On an mp3 player that doesn't matter, but it's weird nonetheless.

I have quite a bit of his stuff, including the wonderful Concert for George ... He went too young, and I miss him. But thanks to technology, we'll always have his music.

It's been a long cold lonely winter, seems like years since it's been clear. Here comes the sun, here comes the sun and I say It's all right...

Honor Eye

Words are confusing. Especially without any context or warning.

I was walking towards the Metro station this afternoon after work, ambling down the middle of the path and keeping a lookout for finches or cardinals or blackbirds or whatever, when suddenly I heard a man call out behind me "Honor eye!"

I had no idea what that meant, but I realized someone was approaching me from behind, and I moved to the side of the path. A jogger ran past and said, "Thanks" as he did.

About three minutes later I realized what he'd actually said was: "On your right."

It just kept getting better

So, they finally got to this (in "On The Map"): A_CKLAND NEW ZEALAND.

One of them guessed "Ackland" but Pat didn't let her have it. He pointed out that the missing letter was a vowel. The guy visibly wavered between I and U, and guessed U. Then he said, tentatively, "Auckland, New Zealand?"

Pat said yes, and the women both made faces and shrugged with their hands up. The guy said, audibly, "Can't say I ever heard of it."

And then Pat said: It's the capital.

(After the commercial Pat alerted us to the sudden political change in New Zealand...)

(And in fairness, my browser's spellchecker doesn't even know the word "Zealand"!!!)

Without Unions and We don't shout

A good call at Indignant Desert Birds, on supporting unions:

The other party – my party – looked at those hours-long lines and shouted out “Never Again!” Well. Alright. Democrats never shout. Shouting is for socialists like Bernie Sanders.

And

Without unions, the arc of history is bent less steadily towards justice. That’s everything you need to know.

Happy Birthday, Sam

Today in 1633 Samuel Pepys (pronounced "peeps") was born. Well known for his diary, Pepys was a Londoner to the bone, rarely leaving the city, and a civil servant who helped shape England's navy. His diary, covering only six years of his life, was abandoned by him when he began to fear the loss of his sight - the work of keeping it up threatened blindness, and so he stopped and gave it to his college - Magdalen at Cambridge, where it remains to this day (and where I got to see it a couple of years ago!). As the College says,

Pepys's diary is not so much a record of events as a re-creation of them. Not all the passages are as picturesque as the famous set pieces in which he describes Charles II's coronation or the Great Fire of London, but there is no entry which does not, in some degree, display the same power of summoning back to life the events it relates.

Pepys's skill lay in his close observation and total recall of detail. It is the small touches that achieve the effect. Another is the freshness and flexibility of the language. Pepys writes quickly in shorthand and for himself alone. The words, often piled on top of each other without much respect for formal grammar, exactly reflect the impressions of the moment. Yet the most important explanation is, perhaps, that throughout the diary Pepys writes mainly as an observer of people. It is this that makes him the most human and accessible of diarists, and that gives the diary its special quality as a historical record.

Here's a sample (his first tweet for today):

My wife reckons she hath 150l. worth of jewells; and I am glad of it. It is fit the wretch should have something to content herself with.

(Note that "wretch" was a jocular, affectionate term.) And here's the entry for 22 Feb in the "current" year of the diary (a hypertext, annotated version is here) (note on the date - if you follow the link you'll see it says 1667/1668 - this is because until 1752 the new year began on March 25 in England, slow to adopt the new calendar, so for Sam himself it was still 1667):

Up, and by coach through Ducke Lane, and there did buy Kircher’s Musurgia, cost me 35s., a book I am mighty glad of, expecting to find great satisfaction in it. Thence to Westminster Hall and the lobby, and up and down there all the morning, and to the Lords’ House, and heard the Solicitor-General plead very finely, as he always do; and this was in defence of the East India Company against a man that complains of wrong from them, and thus up and down till noon in expectation of our business coming on in the House of Commons about tickets, but they being busy about my Lord Gerard’s business I did give over the thoughts of ours coming on, and so with my wife, and Mercer, and Deb., who come to the Hall to me, I away to the Beare, in Drury Lane, and there bespoke a dish of meat; and, in the mean time, sat and sung with Mercer; and, by and by, dined with mighty pleasure, and excellent meat, one little dish enough for us all, and good wine, and all for 8s., and thence to the Duke’s playhouse, and there saw “Albumazar,” an old play, this the second time of acting. It is said to have been the ground of B. Jonson’s “Alchymist;” but, saving the ridicuiousnesse of Angell’s part, which is called Trinkilo, I do not see any thing extraordinary in it, but was indeed weary of it before it was done. The King here, and, indeed, all of us, pretty merry at the mimique tricks of Trinkilo. So home, calling in Ducke Lane for the book I bought this morning, and so home, and wrote my letters at the office, and then home to supper and to bed.

Find the whole of Pepys' diary, day by day with hyperlinked annotations here, and in plain text here at Project Gutenberg (also downloadable, and in Kindle format, too).

Happy Birthday, W.E.B.

Born today in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in 1868, W.E.B. DuBois. He went to Fisk University in Nashville and then to Harvard, where he was the first African-American to get a Ph.D. He taught sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, and he carried out the first serious sociological study of African-Americans, which showed that poverty and crime in black communities were a result of racial barriers in education and employment. In 1909, he founded NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

"The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression."

Happy Birthday, Edward

Born today in 1925, in Chicago, Edward Gorey, master of the disturbingly macabre illustration and story.
I definitely recommend you read his three Amphigorey collections.



The "life is sweet" sweatshirt gets a lot of grins and compliments.

Here's a fan animation of the Ghastlycrumb Tinies.


And by all means, take this quiz: Which Horrible (Edward) Gorey Death will you die?

It's no Snopocalypse

but it'll do...

Happy Birthday, Vincent

In 1911 a slim, red-headed, 19-year-old Maine girl got up and read her contest-winning poem, Renasence (find it here), in Camden, Maine. She couldn't afford college, but the poem inspired a woman in the audience to pay her way to Vassar. That girl was Edna St Vincent Millay, born this day in 1892. An icon of the Jazz Age and a rock-star poet, Vincent (as she preferred to be called, hating the name 'Edna' - she was named for the hospital where her uncle escaped death just before her birth) lived in Greenwich Village and Paris, and reveled in the Bohemian life style (perhaps you could say she truly was a Mainiac). After her marriage she lived in Austerlitz, New York, until her death in 1950; the farm, Steepletop, is now a writers colony. She was the first woman to win a Pulitzer, and the second to win the Frost prize.

Probably her best known poem is "First Fig", not least because it's short enough to memorize easily:

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light!

And here are two more:

Kin to Sorrow

Am I kin to Sorrow,
        That so oft
Falls the knocker of my door --
        Neither loud nor soft,
But as long accustomed,
        Under Sorrow's hand?
Marigolds around the step
        And rosemary stand,
And then comes Sorrow --
        And what does Sorrow care
For the rosemary
        Or the marigolds there?
Am I kin to Sorrow?
        Are we kin?
That so oft upon my door --
        Oh, come in!


Witch-Wife

SHE is neither pink nor pale,
        And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
        And her mouth on a valentine.

She has more hair than she needs;
        In the sun 'tis a woe to me!
And her voice is a string of colored beads,
        Or steps leading into the sea.

She loves me all that she can,
        And her ways to my ways resign;
But she was not made for any man,
        And she never will be all mine.


(More Millay is here)

UT on ESPN2!

The Lady Vols are playing on ESPN2 tonight - SEC play against Georgia. Half time and a nice 40-21 lead. Looking good - getting those offensive rebounds (especially Manning), as well as defensive rebounds and turnovers. Glory Johnson is playing really well (she scored her 1000th point tonight) and Bjorklund after sitting out six with an injury is dropping the three-pointers again. They're all over the Bulldogs. Shiny.

Very shiny - eye-poppingly so, since everything is pink (for Melissa McCray-Dukes), including the band, cheerleaders, Pat's jacket, and the uniforms - even Dean's tie (though fortunately not his suit!). At least they didn't paint the floor!

Final score: 77-44, UT wire-to-wire. Their 17th straight win (and only 2 losses all year), 25 straight SEC wins (14-0 this year) - and their 16th straight SEC title, won outright though there are still two games left in the season. It's looking good for the tournaments (not a Batiuk here, I mean the SEC and then the NCAA).

Happy Birthday, Wystan

Born today in York, England, in 1907, W.H. Auden. Here is one of his poems - most are too long for posting here.

The Fall of Rome

The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.

Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax-defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns.

Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep;
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend.

Cerebrotonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines,
But the muscle-bound Marines
Mutiny for food and pay.

Caesar's double-bed is warm
As an unimportant clerk
Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK
On a pink official form.

Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city.

Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast.

Find more Auden at Poetry.org

The Week in Entertainment

TV: House 0kay, first I want to know why would that waitress insist on busting the woman who said she hadn't been there before? If she'd picked up on the denial, wouldn't she have been hoping for a bigger tip? Was the woman a bitch earlier? That made no sense ... On the other hand, as we watch the episode, she's kind of a bitch to other people over what she - and they - can remember. I also watched Jeopardy!, as usual, but paid a lot more attention since Watson was playing. The Westminster Kennel Club show - yay! I love Scottish deerhounds. The Mentalist - Hightower had no real clue how to handle Jane, despite her ultimatum to Lisbon earlier. The Cider House Rules - I'm not sure why I'd never watched it before. A Single Man, which I had intended to see in theaters - Colin Firth deserved the Oscar for this one. Damn.

Read: Some more Craig Kennedy. Also, Fianl Jeopardy: Man vs Machine and the Quest to Know Everything, a pop-sci history of Watson that was pretty interesting.

Happy Birthday, Ansel

Ansel Adams was born today in San Francisco in 1902. This photograph, The Tetons and the Snake River, is one of the 116 images recorded on the Voyager Golden Record aboard the Voyager spacecraft. These images were selected to convey information about humans, plants and animals, and geological features of the Earth to a possible alien civilization.

Not-so-cutting-edge science of 1912

Into the third of the Craig Kennedy books, and three things are very evident.

One: half of the methods he uses to solve crimes are illegal today. He blithely taps phones and bugs rooms with equipment no one has heard of (at the time) - things like wire recorders, microphones, heat-detectors, and special photograph tricks. He also breaks into apartments and offices, and steals mail and opens it - that should have been illegal back then, too.

Two: he's very naive and Utopian. He predicts a very near future in which "a murder science bureau not only would clear up nearly every poison mystery, but also it would inspire such a wholesome fear among would-be murderers that they would abandon many attempts to take life." Tell that to the CSI franchise!

Three: he's a little too cutting-edge sometimes - for one example, he asserts that from a drop of blood no larger than the head of a pin you can tell even the race and sex of the bleeder, something we don't guarantee to do today with 100% accuracy; for a second, he thinks that "telautomatics" will within a few years mean that battleships will be remotely piloted, crewed, and fought - and sometimes not cutting-edge enough - a quarter century after Michelson and Morley's famous "null result" experiment, he still speaks of "the ether", as in this quote: "A heated mass can impart vibratory motion to the ether which fills space, and the wave-motions of ether are able to reproduce in other bodies motions similar to those by which they are caused."

Oh, yes, There's a fourth. The author uses the school of "things no one would ever say" to wrap up his stories in a neat narrative package. Instead of answering "He can't prove anything, can he?" with a simple "No, no way" the crooked attorney gets taped saying "But he can't do that. No one could ever have recognized you on your flying trip to London disguised as a diamond merchant who had just learned that he could make his faulty diamonds good by applications of radium and who wanted a good stock of the stuff." It does keep things at short-story length, but it makes you giggle just a bit, too.

Still, the stories are good entertainment. I'm about a quarter of the way through the omnibus (yay, Kindle!) and will probably leave the next nine books till after I've read something else (got a few new novels, the latest previously uncollected Vonnegut, some Russian WWII novels, and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks at the top of the list), but I will come back and finish them.

Sky Watch: Two dawns, two lights

Nike used to have an ad that read: Sometimes light behaves like a particle. Sometime like behaves like a wave. And sometimes light behaves like a spoiled, tempestuous child.

On Wednesday the light was almost liquid, spilling out around the dark clouds like billows and glowing through their edges like an aura. On Thursday, it cut straight-edged through holes in the darkness to fall slanting to the ground. Gorgeous both days, but o how different.






more Sky Watchers here - and this week's host shot is too beautiful to miss. Seriously; check it out, you won't be sorry.

Happy Birthday, Nicolaus

Born today in 1473, the originator of the theory which bears his name - the Copernican, or heliocentric, system, which challenged and then (for most people) replaced the geocentric system, which held that the earth was the center and everything revolves around it. Nicolaus Copernicus was a brilliant polymath who merely dabbled in astronomy, and yet he removed the geocentered (and anthrocentered) universe from the realm of science.

He died in 1543, apparently, of a stroke, and legend has it that he regained consciousness in time for the first printed copy of his, if you'll pardon the pun, revolutionary work De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) to be placed into his hands, allowing him to see his life's work before he died. It's only a legend, but it's a nice one, isn't it?

(painting by Jan Matejko, displayed in the Nicholaus Copernicus Museum in Frombork)

And let's not forget to teach the controversy!Ha

Happy Birthday, Amy

Today is Amy Tan's birthday; she was born in 1952 in Oakland. She's written several books, all good - The Kitchen God's Wife is one of my favorite novels.

Honors?

Fred Clark has good news and bad news. The good is that his daughter's qualified for honors English. The bad is that the teacher is making her read The Fountainhead. As Fred puts it, with humor as well as truth:

I like the idea of my daughter taking honors English. I do not like the idea of my daughter taking honors English from someone who regards The Fountainhead as worthwhile. I do not like the idea of her studying literature with a teacher who doesn't like literature and who seems intent on infecting students with her distaste for it.

Set aside the appalling themes and juvenile narcissism of the book's pseudo-philosophy. It's dull. Numbingly, claw-your-eyes-out dull. It's horribly written, yet its horribleness never manages to be horrible in an entertaining way. This is the sort of book that can ruin reading -- the very idea of reading -- for months or years afterward.

...

We can't read everything. Most of us won't get around to reading most things and we'll wind up leaving inspiring, insightful, beautiful, life-enhancing books on the shelf. Time spent reading repetitive dreck like The Fountainhead is time spent not reading those other books -- books that actually deserve to be read, the reading of which will enrich us and maybe even improve us.

Reading The Fountainhead does not enrich or improve. It stupefies. Time spent reading this book would be better spent watching television. Time spent reading this book would be better spent watching a Jersey Shore marathon on television. That execrable MTV program would do just as much to prepare a high school student for college. And Snooki is a better role model -- a better person -- than Rand or her protagonists.

If the honors English teacher actually did require students to watch a Jersey Shore marathon, I would suspect that this wasn't a very good class. But I would be less suspicious of that teacher than I am of this one.

Happy Birthday, Audre

Audre Lorde was born today in New York City in 1924. She worked in a series of low-paying jobs between high-school and her eventual attendance at college, earning a BA in literature and philosophy from Hunter in 1959 and an MLS from Columbia University in 1960. Being gay, she was unable to find a home in the Harlem Writers Guild - being gay and black and a woman, she was an outsider in many ways, and her collection of essays "Sister Outsider" is widely acclaimed and taught. Here is one of her poems.

From the House of Yemanjá

My mother had two faces and a frying pot
where she cooked up her daughters
into girls
before she fixed our dinner.
My mother had two faces
and a broken pot
where she hid out a perfect daughter
who was not me
I am the sun and moon and forever hungry
for her eyes.

I bear two women upon my back
one dark and rich and hidden
in the ivory hungers of the other
mother
pale as a witch
yet steady and familiar
brings me bread and terror
in my sleep
her breasts are huge exciting anchors
in the midnight storm.

All this has been
before
in my mother's bed
time has no sense
I have no brothers
and my sisters are cruel.

Mother I need
mother I need
mother I need your blackness now
as the august earth needs rain.
I am

the sun and moon and forever hungry
the sharpened edge
where day and night shall meet
and not be
one.

(more poems and info on Audre Lorde here)

Wow

I was walking home this afternoon, along MD 198 near the BW Parkway. Ahead and to my right I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a largish dark bird rising into the air. My immediate, somewhat dismissive thought was, of course, crow. But almost as soon as I thought it I reconsidered. Too large. Buzzard. But I was looking now and ... no. Wings aren't right. And it's windy - too much flapping. Flapping not right. And then I had a thought... but no. Not in town ... Could it? This way. Come this way. He circled, rising, circled and came eastward and yes. Yes, it was.




These aren't the greatest photos in the world, but here he is. An adult bald eagle, flying over MD 198 smack in the middle of Laurel.

Oh, wow. What a great way to start out the Presidents Day weekend.

Asking for a raise

I have long said that anybody who compares the federal government to a family with a budget is being fundamentally dishonest when they pretend that that family doesn't ever think about (a) asking the boss for a raise or (b) getting a higher-paying job or (c) getting a second job.

Today Paul Krugman points out the same thing.

This brings me to the seventh word of my summary of the real fiscal issues: if you’re serious about the deficit, you should be willing to consider closing at least part of this gap with higher taxes. True, higher taxes aren’t popular, but neither are cuts in government programs. So we should add to the roster of fundamentally unserious people anyone who talks about the deficit — as most of our prominent deficit scolds do — as if it were purely a spending issue.

The bottom line, then, is that while the budget is all over the news, we’re not having a real debate; it’s all sound, fury, and posturing, telling us a lot about the cynicism of politicians but signifying nothing in terms of actual deficit reduction. And we shouldn’t indulge those politicians by pretending otherwise

Raising taxes is as reasonable as cutting spending if all you're concerned about is the deficit. Those who flatly refuse to even think about taxes are not serious about the deficit; they have a different agenda.

Oh, no no no no

I'm reading Final Jeopardy: Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything, the book about making Watson. In Chapter 1, the author is discussing the problem of simply parsing the question "What is Francis Scott Key best known for?" (a question that derailed Watson's precursor in 2005 tests). After explaining how the computer has to figure out what the question is even about - for instance, is "Key" part of a name or something that Francis Scott made or used? - he points out that a person will either know or not that Key wrote the US national anthem, but won't in either case spend time wondering if pies or locks figure into it.

All well and good, and even interesting. But then he says:

For the machine, things only got worse. The question lacked a verb, which could disorient the computer. If the question were, "What did Francis Scott Key write?" the machine could likely find a passage of text with Key writing something, and that something would point to the answer. The only pointer here -- "is known for" -- was maddeningly vague. Assuming the computer had access to the Internet (a luxury it wouldn't have on [Jeopardy], it headed off with nothing but the name. In Wikipedia, it might learn that Key was "an American lawyer, author and amateur poet, from Georgetown, who wrote the words to the United States national anthem, 'The Star-Spangled Banner.'" For humans, the answer was right there. But the computer, with no verb to guide it, might answer that Key was known as an amateur poet or a lawyer from Georgetown. In the TRec competitions, IBM's Piquant botched two out of every three questions.

Again, this is fascinating. But.

But.

Dammit there is too a verb there. Even if you stubbornly refuse to accept "is known for" as a phrasal verb, if you refuse to take "known" as a participle and insist it's an adjective, what is that is in there? Chopped liver?

I'm sure what he's trying to contrast here is the presence of a good, content-full lexical verb like "write" with the copula, and its function, which some people argue is merely a tense marker. And even if they taught the computer that known is an inflection of know, it's true that "what is FSK best known for?" is probably very hard for a computer to figure out. But that doesn't mean he should say things like "lacked a verb" when it actually has one.

Small? Guess it's relative

Knoxville, TN - close to where I grew up and my father still lives - has a population of slightly more than 180,000. It has 32 ZIP codes, covering 92.7 square miles. It has a major university and several smaller colleges.

But in today's Post TV Highlights is this:

New documentary series "Sins & Secrets" (Investigation Discovery at 9) premieres, and each episode looks at how a small town is forever changed after a terrible crime is committed. The first investigated is Knoxville, Tenn., where two college-age sweethearts were murdered in 2007.

I don't know whose judgement that is. I see that the actual show description says

In SINS & SECRETS, the location of the crime is a central character in each case. Each immersive one-hour episode shows how a crime alters the community in which it occurs, and reveals how the people and place are irrevocably changed by the terrible aftermath. Cities spotlighted in the series include Aspen, Nantucket, New Orleans, Knoxville, Albuquerque and Shreveport

So it must be someone on the Post's... but "small town"? Isn't a town usually less than 10,000, so "small town" would be ... you know, like a twentieth the size of Knoxville?

(Plus, that murder - though it was gruesome and did stir up a lot of passions - didn't really "forever change" it. Trust me. I've read its paper.)

Happy Birthday, Alice Mary (aka Andre)

And one more birthday: Alice Mary Norton, who wrote as Andre Norton and also Andrew North, was born today in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1912. Norton wrote more than 130 novels (and I think I've read them all) in her 70 years as a writer, as well as nearly a hundred short stories. She was the first woman to receive the Grand Master Award from the World Science Fiction Society. A month before her death in March 2005 at age 93, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America created the Andre Norton Award for an outstanding work of science fiction or fantasy for young adults. Her books were among the first science fiction I ever read as child, and I still like them - especially the Solar Queen novels and the Beast Master books (no real relation to the movies no matter what they say). Her books were the first ones I remember featuring non-white and non-male protagonists, too.

Happy Birthday, Banjo

Today Andrew Barton Paterson, known as Banjo to his readers, was born in Narrambla, New South Wales, 1864. I expect most Americans only know "The Man from Snowy River", but he also wrote the words to "Waltzing Matilda". For a time this prolific poet was one of the most popular in the English-speaking world. And look - the Australians even put him on their money! Many of his works are here, and here are a couple of lighter ones to go on with:

Any Other Time

All of us play our very best game—
      Any other time.
Golf or billiards, it’s all the same—
      Any other time.
Lose a match and you always say,
“Just my luck! I was ‘off’ to-day!
I could have beaten him quite half-way—
      Any other time!”

After a fiver you ought to go—
      Any other time.
Every man that you ask says “Oh,
      Any other time.
Lend you a fiver! I’d lend you two,
But I’m overdrawn and my bills are due,
Wish you’d ask me—now, mind you do—
      Any other time!”

Fellows will ask you out to dine—
      Any other time.
“Not to-night, for we’re twenty-nine —
      Any other time.
Not to-morrow, for cook’s on strike,
Not next day, I’ll be out on the bike —
Just drop in whenever you like —
      Any other time!”

Seasick passengers like the sea—
      Any other time.
“Something . . I ate . . disagreed . . with me!
      Any other time
Ocean-trav’lling is . . simply bliss,
Must be my . . liver . . has gone amiss . .
Why, I would . . laugh . . at a sea . . like this—
      Any other time.”

Most of us mean to be better men—
      Any other time:
Regular upright characters then—
     Any other time.
Yet somehow as the years go by
Still we gamble and drink and lie,
When it comes to the last we’ll want to die—
     Any other time!


Old Man Platypus

Far from the trouble and toil of town,
Where the reed beds sweep and shiver,
Look at a fragment of velvet brown -
Old Man Platypus drifting down,
Drifting along the river.

And he plays and dives in the river bends
In a style that is most elusive;
With few relations and fewer friends,
For Old Man Platypus descends
From a family most exclusive.

He shares his burrow beneath the bank
With his wife and his son and daughter
At the roots of the reeds and the grasses rank;
And the bubbles show where our hero sank
To its entrance under water.

Safe in their burrow below the falls
They live in a world of wonder,
Where no one visits and no one calls,
They sleep like little brown billiard balls
With their beaks tucked neatly under.

And he talks in a deep unfriendly growl
As he goes on his journey lonely;
For he's no relation to fish nor fowl,
Nor to bird nor beast, nor to horned owl;
In fact, he's the one and only!

Watson again

So, he (it?) won handily. But he did get some things wrong - some the sort of things you'd have thought he could look up easily (Serbia instead of Slovenia as the only former Yugoslav republic in the EU), and some just weirdly wrong ("Dorothy Parker" as the answer for "The New Yorker's 1959 review of this said in its brevity & clarity it is 'unlike most such manuals, a book as well as a tool'"???), though to be fair that was a daily double; his 14% confidence rating got it a "let's try" and wouldn't have been a ring-in level for a normal question. Still, I don't think a human would have said "Dorothy Parker" for "review of this" coupled with "manuals, a book".

It was interesting, too, to see the categories he wouldn't ring in on - the 'also on your computer keyboard' category, with things like 'abbreviation for Grand Prix autoracing' (F1 - Watson's best guess, not good enough to try, was 'gpc' at 57%); 'an additional section placed within the folds of a newspaper' (insert - Watson had that at 12%, behind broadsheet at 16%, neither good enough to ring in with); and 'football position that can be split or tight' Watson had "linebacker", at 20%, behind "fullback" at 13% and the right answer, "end", at 12%. And when he did ring in, (on the fourth question they tried, for $400) he said "Chemise" for "Shift" - got the "loose fitting dress" right but 'forgot' about the 'computer key' part of the question. The last one (proverbially where the heart is), was trickier for him - he had the proverb at number one - but the whole proverb, not just 'home' - but also had delete at 11% and encryption (the encryption key?) at 8%).

A classically structured question, 'A 15-ounce VO5 Moisture Milks conditioner from this manufacturer averages about a buck online' (who has any idea what it costs?) should have had the answer "Alberto", but Watson's best guess (at 40%), weirdly was "butter". Of course, he didn't ring in with that, because he knew it was wrong, but what a weird answer. Another was "white clothing" for "Wellingtons at Wimbledon", 20% (ahead of panties at 14% and boots at 10% so nothing would have been right).

Also, sometimes he was he was right but doubtful: the "buck or less" rap singer signed by Eminem was indeed Fifty Cent, but Watson only had 39% confidence.

But when his confidence was high, he could clearly ring in much faster. And he won. As Ken Jennings wrote on his Final answer screen: I for one welcome our new computer overlords...

Cutting-edge Science ... of 1910

These Craig Kennedy books really are fascinating from a cultural point of view. One of the very first stories dealt with really advanced medicine: using X-rays as medical treatment (to remove a birthmark). Another was about a guy trying to use a gyroscope to make a fixed-wing aircraft hover. Another dealt with the unheard-of technology of ... microphones!

Wow.

Happy Birthday, Susan

Susan B. Anthony was born today in Adams, Massachusetts in 1820.

This speech was given by Anthony after her arrest for casting an illegal vote in the presidential election of 1872. She was tried and then fined $100 but refused to pay.


Friends and fellow citizens: I stand before you tonight under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted at the last presidential election, without having a lawful right to vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen's rights, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any state to deny.

The preamble of the Federal Constitution says:
"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people - women as well as men. And it is a downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government - the ballot.

For any state to make sex a qualification that must ever result in the disfranchisement of one entire half of the people, is to pass a bill of attainder, or, an ex post facto law, and is therefore a violation of the supreme law of the land. By it the blessings of liberty are forever withheld from women and their female posterity.

To them this government has no just powers derived from the consent of the governed. To them this government is not a democracy. It is not a republic. It is an odious aristocracy; a hateful oligarchy of sex; the most hateful aristocracy ever established on the face of the globe; an oligarchy of wealth, where the rich govern the poor. An oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant, or even an oligarchy of race, where the Saxon rules the African, might be endured; but this oligarchy of sex, which makes father, brothers, husband, sons, the oligarchs over the mother and sisters, the wife and daughters, of every household - which ordains all men sovereigns, all women subjects, carries dissension, discord, and rebellion into every home of the nation.

Webster, Worcester, and Bouvier all define a citizen to be a person in the United States, entitled to vote and hold office.

The only question left to be settled now is: Are women persons? And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not. Being persons, then, women are citizens; and no state has a right to make any law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities. Hence, every discrimination against women in the constitutions and laws of the several states is today null and void, precisely as is every one against Negroes.

Watson redux

I find looking at Watson's second choices fascinating. "Porcupine" for what stiffens a hedgehog's quills? "Gardiner museum" for Rembrandt's Storm on the Sea of ____? These are not the answers a human would have as second choices.

He may be getting to the right answers (mostly is getting there), but clearly he's not going the way a human would.

It just keeps getting better

Oh, man. Mark Trail just keeps getting funnier. I mean, Kelly walks in on his shower, Cherry thinks he's canoodling, Kelly messes up his stake out, Kelly can't untie his boat and he's dumped in the water, and now - well, now he gets shot by a gun that hilariously goes WHAM!




I mean, I don't condone shooting people, or Mark Trail for that matter, but who has a gun that goes "wham!"?

Webcomic Valentines

Leave it to Kate Beaton and Crazy Nancy from Hark, a vagrant to give us the best Valentine's Day cards ever.

Except maybe this sweet one from Sanjay at Cowbirds in Love... awwwwwwwwwwwww

Valentine's Day Birds

Today was not only a bit of spring - finally getting into the 50s - but also Valentine's Day. And the birds seemed to know it. Though I didn't see the pair of red-shouldered hawks - I expect my clock-schedule and their sun-schedule are out of synch - I did see other pairs. First up, though, one of the three calling male redwinged blackbirds, staking out territory.



Next up, a lone Cooper's hawk that scared the blackbirds (and is probably the juvenile from last fall). Hopefully, there's a mate around somewhere.



Then, several pairs - first, the geese are back - check out that dirty water line!



Then, a pair of mallards.



And finally, goldfinches! Granted, I'm not sure this is a pair, but there were four in the tree.

Watson?

Watson plays Jeopardy! tonight.

Over at the Log, Philip Resnick looks at the project and why picking this game show is maybe the smartest move of all.

I'll be watching... will you?

I ♥ my readers

(from here. Spread sciency love for Valentines Day.)

The Week in Entertainment

Film: The Illusionist (a hand-drawn animated version of Jacques Tati's last script) which was beautiful to look at and a good story, too - somber, yes, even sad, but good. One thing - I saw that Jane Horwitz in the Post noted: "There are no subtitles; the few bits of dialogue in French and English are deliberately unintelligible." Actually, most of the French was intelligible enough, just French - and most of the "English" (all of Alice's dialog) was actually Gaelic. But you don't need to understand the words, what few there are; the visuals carry you right into the heart of the movie and never let you go.

TV: The Mentalist: we now know Jane's m.o. so well that it came as absolutely no surprise that he didn't really hypnotize the girl. The only question was who was supposed to think he had... Modern Family's Valentine's Day episode was funny, especially Gloria's "I win! I win!" And I'm glad to see Dylan back, because I liked that character. The Middle - amusing, especially the "banned from volunteering" bit. House - I really do not like that med student character. More the idea of her, I think, because it's simultaneously ludicrous to believe she'd be put in that situation and horrible and unprofessional that she is.

Read: Reread a couple of Lord Peter Wimseys, and then an extremely good YA called Zora and Me about Zora Neale Hurston that was reviewed last week. A couple more Fletchers. Started Craig Kennedy, Scientific Detective, turn of the century novels that are nice looks at what was cutting-edge back in 1910. Also, something called The Fat Man, subtitled "A North Pole Noir" and sold as a funny hard-boiled detective novel with an elf (he used to run the Naughty List, but went too far) as the protagonist. It was okay, though I am not at all sure whether we were meant to take Potterville and the Island of Misfit Toys as archetypes that bled into our world, or if they were supposed to be things from here that crossed over into there and then sort of always were... it wasn't that well laid out. But that's because it wasn't really a noir. It was apologetics. By the end it was overtly Christian, with the message that we're all Naughty and getting presents is how children learn about grace and mercy... I resent things being marketed in that kind of underhanded way. If I want to read heavy-handed Christian propaganda, I will. But pretending I'm getting a Jasper Fforde-like noir (The Third Bear is excellent) when I'm getting is a sermon - not cool.

Blue Hawk

One of the red-shouldered hawks in a cold dawn...

Sky Watch: Cold Gold

This one doesn't need words, does it? Tuesday's dawn...





more Sky Watchers here

I beg to differ

James Patterson just informed us all that "New York never had a great detective" - until he made one up, of course.

I only have one name to say: Nero Wolfe.

You might add Theo Kojak, or any of the L&O gang that you like, but in books, Wolfe is the hands down winner. And better than anything Patterson is likely to write...

Happy Birthday, Charles

Charles Darwin was born 202 years ago today. Of course, a couple of years ago was the big celebration all over the web, including the terrific stuff linked at blog for Darwin and what the Digital Cuttlefish came up with.

This year's not a big round number, so there's less. But the man is still worth celebrating. Why? Not because he was perfect, infallible, or laid down a sacred text. No. Because he opened our eyes to understanding out place in nature; because nothing in biology makes sense without his insight; and because his work was so good that 150 (oops, 151) years later, it still stands up. So here's to you, Charles Darwin! And here's a bit from Verlyn Klinkenborg's essay last year in the New York Times - it's still good, especially that last paragraph.

His central idea — evolution by means of natural selection — was in some sense the product of his time, as Darwin well knew. He was the grandson of Erasmus Darwin, who grasped that there was something wrong with the conventional notion of fixed species. And his theory was hastened into print and into joint presentation by the independent discoveries of Alfred Russel Wallace half a world away.

But Darwin’s theory was the product of years of patient observation. We love to believe in science by epiphany, but the work of real scientists is to rigorously test their epiphanies after they have been boiled down to working hypotheses. Most of Darwin’s life was devoted to gathering evidence for just such tests. He writes with an air of incompleteness because he was aware that it would take the work of many scientists to confirm his theory in detail.

I doubt that much in the subsequent history of Darwin’s idea would have surprised him. The most important discoveries — Mendel’s genetics and the structure of DNA — would almost certainly have gratified him because they reveal the physical basis for the variation underlying evolution. It would have gratified him to see his ideas so thoroughly tested and to see so many of them confirmed. He could hardly have expected to be right so often.

....Darwin recedes, but his idea does not. It is absorbed, with adaptations, into the foundation of the biological sciences. In a very real sense, it is the cornerstone of what we know about life on earth.

Update: Here's a video a friend of mine sent me:

Too. Funny.

O.M.G. This whole comedy of errors (which began well over two months ago when the hilariously inept Kelly Welly decided to follw Mark on his secret 'find the diamond smugglers' fishing trip) has now reached epic proportions. Yesterday, Kelly untied the wrong boat and Mark, accelerting at enormous speed, hit the end of his rope.

Today. Oh, yes.



Okay, it isn't Mark being chopped up by the propeller and scavenged by the seagull, but it is funny.

Happy Birthday, Abraham

Today is Abraham Lincoln's birthday. Here are some of his words:

This passage comes from a letter he wrote before his death:

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war.

The money power preys on the nation in times of peace, and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes.

And this, from his days in the Illinois legislature:

The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me.

Not a perfect man, not a perfect president, but perhaps the best we could have had at such a time, and better than we have often had in such times - or any times.

Best Mark Trail panel EVER?

Oh, that Kelly Welly! What a lovable nincompoop!