Scotland Yard have? has?

Hmmm. Watching the replay of Doctor Who's first episode of this season, and just spotted a mistake. Canton asks, "So, we're in a box that's bigger on the inside and travels in time and space... How long have Scotland Yard had this?"

I think any American would say, "How long has Scotland Yard had this?"

iLies

The iPhone ad says

"If you don't have an iPhone, you don't have iBooks. So you don't have your favorite books right in your pocket. And you don't have the iBookstore, an entire bookstore right in your pocket. So whether you're looking for a certain author or a New York Times bestseller, a good book is only a tap away. Yep, if you don't have an iPhone, well, you don't have an iPhone."

See, I don't have an iPhone. So I don't have iBooks or the iBookstore. But guess what?

I have Kindle for BlackBerry. (Which is free.) So I do have my favorite books right in my pocket, even if they're not iBooks. And I have the Kindle store app, so I do have an entire bookstore, ditto.

Now, they weasel around the iBookstore line. But they specifically say

"If you don't have an iPhone, you don't have iBooks. So you don't have your favorite books right in your pocket."

And that's just a lie.

Two numbers

Two simple facts.

One. Exxon-Mobil’s first quarter earnings are $10.7 billion (up 69 percent from last year).

Two: The oil industry has a $4 billion annual tax subsidy from the U.S. government.

If you ask me, there's a nice bit of revenue right there ... assuming you really care about the deficit.

There's no there there

Paul Krugman on Paul Ryan and the media:

And there is, as some of us have tried to point out, a huge magic asterisk in the revenue projections: Ryan calls for $3 trillion in tax cuts, but insists that his plan will be revenue-neutral, because they will do something unspecified to broaden the tax base. Ryan and his colleagues have stonewalled all inquiries about what that something might be.

The best guess has to be that there is no there there — that if they ever get to the point of making this an actual plan, they’ll invoke the wonderful “dynamic” effects of lower taxes on rich people to fill that $3 trillion gap. ...

Once again, let us wonder at the way this plan has been treated by the commentariat. A guy says, “I care deeply about the deficit!” And then he releases a plan that depends on finding $3 trillion over the next decade from some unspecified source — oh, and he comes from a party that has a 30-year track record of promising to reduce the budget deficit but actually increasing it.

And everyone takes him seriously!

Happy Birthday, Duke

Today, in Washington DC in 1899, Edward Kennedy Ellington - Duke Ellington - was born.

12 Grammys, 9 Grammy Hall of Fame Awards; a host of awards including a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the French Legion of Honor, and a Pulitzer ... What a treasure.

Here's Mood Indigo



Take the A Train

Happy Birthday, Constantine

Today in 1863 Constantine Cavafy (Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis) was born, in Alexandria, Egypt, where (with a few short breaks in Liverpool and Constantinople) he spent most of his life.

Here, in the translation by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard, is arguably his most important poem, Waiting for the Barbarians. I'm showing you three translations (if you read Greek, ther original, Περιμένοντας τους Bαρβάρους, is here) - enjoy!

First, the Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard translation:

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today.


Why isn’t anything happening in the senate?
Why do the senators sit there without legislating?

Because the barbarians are coming today.
What laws can the senators make now?
Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.


Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting at the city’s main gate
on his throne, in state, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.


Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.


Why don’t our distinguished orators come forward as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and they’re bored by rhetoric and public speaking.


Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?
(How serious people’s faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home so lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.


And now, what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.

Now, as translated by Stratis Haviaras

What are we waiting for, gathered here in the agora?

The barbarians are supposed to show up today.


Why is there such indolence in the senate?
Why are the senators sitting around, making no laws?

Because the barbarians are supposed to show up today.
Why should the senators trouble themselves with laws?
When the barbarians arrive, they’ll do the legislating.


Why has our emperor risen so early this morning,
and why is he now enthroned at the city’s great gate,
sitting there in state and wearing his crown?

Because the barbarians are supposed to show up today.
And the emperor is waiting there to receive
their leader. He’s even had a parchment scroll
prepared as a tribute: it’s loaded with
all sorts of titles and high honors.


Why have our two consuls and praetors turned up
today, resplendent in their red brocaded togas;
why are they wearing bracelets encrusted with amethysts,
and rings studded with brilliant, glittering emeralds;
why are they sporting those priceless canes,
the ones of finely-worked gold and silver?

Because the barbarians are supposed to show up today;
And such things really dazzle the barbarians.


Why don’t our illustrious speakers come out to speak
as they always do, to speak what’s on their minds?

Because the barbarians are supposed to show up today,
and they really can’t stand lofty oration and demagogy.


Why is everyone so suddenly ill at ease
and confused (just look how solemn their faces are)?
Why are the streets and the squares all at once empty,
as everyone heads for home, lost in their thoughts?

Because it’s night now, and the barbarians haven’t shown up.
And there are others, just back from the borderlands,
who claim that the barbarians no longer exist.


What in the world will we do without barbarians?
Those people would have been a solution, of sorts.

And finally, by John Cafavy, his brother, as Awaiting the Barbarians

— Why are we come together in the market place?

Barbarians are expected here to-day.

— Why in the Senate-house this inactivity —
why sit the Senators and do not legislate?

Because barbarians are to come to-day
What laws should they make now — the Senators?
Presently the barbarians will make laws.

— Why has our Emperor risen close upon the sun —
why is he waiting there, by the main city-gates,
seated upon the throne, — august, wearing the crown?

Because barbarians are to come to-day
And so the Emperor in person waits
to greet their leader. He has even prepared
a title-deed, on skin of Pergamus,
in favour of this leader. It confers
high rank on the barbarian, many names.

— Why do our consuls and the praetors go about
in scarlet togas fretted with embroidery;
why are they wearing bracelets rife with amethysts,
and rings magnificent with glowing emeralds;
why are they holding those invaluable staffs
inlaid so cunningly with silver and with gold?

Because barbarians are to come to-day;
and the barbarians marvel at such things.

— Why come not, as they use, our able orators
to hold forth in their rhetoric, to have their say?

Because barbarians are to come to-day;
and the barbarians have no taste for words.

— Why this confusion all at once, and nervousness:
(how serious of a sudden the faces have become):
why are the streets and meeting-places emptying,
and all the people lost in thought as they turn home?

Because the daylight fails, and the night comes,
but the barbarians come not. And there be
who from the frontier have arrived and said
that there are barbarians now at all.

And now what shall become of us without barbarians?
These people were in sooth some sort of settlement.

Many more of Cavafy's poems are here

It's up to the man, animals. It's up to the man

I'm posting this because it strikes me as very funny. But the very first thing I want to say is that I'm quite sure if I were writing extemporaneously in a language other than English, I'd make hilarious mistakes too. And note that the meaning is really quite clear.

That said, this was posted on Tet Zoo on an article about a tiny elephant in an Egyptian painting. "Mouflon", by the way, are big-horn sheep.

The survival of the Syrian's elephant is certain because it is not only artistically or paleontological documented, but historically, with plenty of written sources.

However, in my opinion, all the large animals that live in Europe now (deer, bison, mouflon, roes etc.) live there because the man decided it, otherwise they would become extinct.

Those two extra definite articles (the Syrian and the man) make this otherwise unremarkably accurate statement pretty funny.

Happy Birthday, Lionel

Lionel Barrymore (of the famous acting family) was born today in 1878 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In later years his arthritis kept him in a wheelchair, but he kept on acting - Key Largo, for instance. Dr Gillespie in the Dr Kildare films, Mr Potter in It's A Wonderful Life, Grandpa in the wonderful You Can't Take It With You, Peggoty in David Copperfield, Billy Bones in Treasure Island, Disko Troop in Captains Courageous, and his Oscar-winning turn in A Free Soul: he left behind a wonderful body of work.

Happy Birthday, Terry

Today is Terry Pratchett's birthday! As WOSSNAME, the Newsletter of the Klatchian Foreign Legion, puts it:

WOSSNAME would like to raise a toast to Sir Pterry on the occasion of his birthday (28th April). Congratulations, and keep those books coming!

Indeed. He has a new book coming out this year; I can't wait to read it. Each new one is a precious gift, as is each day he remains with us.

Explore his world at Terry Pratchett books.com

A certain something in the air...

It's been hot here the last few days - not sweltering, but then again my apartment doesn't have any cross-ventilation (all the windows are on the same side) so I've been sitting out on the balcony in the evening.

There's been a little problem though.

They uncovered the swimming pool over the weekend. It used to sit open all winter, but in the last few years they've put a tarp over it, with those spring-holders to fasten it down. This winter one of the corners came loose - a couple of the big springs broke. Before they took the cover off they pumped it out, but some water was still in the deep end, and more collected after the rain. But that's not the problem.

A cat somehow fell into the pool - must have gotten under the tarp - and drowned. Which is sad. (If you live in Maryland city and you lost your Siamese, this is where he ended up... Don't let your cats wander, people!) But the problem is, the guys who took the tarp off left the body there. Yesterday it was starting to stink a bit. Tonight it really was.

Yesterday evening I thought to myself it that it was surprising no carrion eaters had been at it yet. Today, obviously some had - you couldn't tell it was a cat any more.

And then just an hour or so ago, I saw this guy arrive - that stink brought him though there wasn't much left - in fact, he kind of minced around it so that I was wondering if he'd even eat any (he did, but I'll spare you the pictures of that).

Sitting on a light pole and watching the pool to make sure that it's not ... a trap!

Deciding whether to go in for the ... banquet.

Into the deep end! Well, relatively deep. But he does have wings...


Walking to the meal - look at those chicken feet!

Leaving because a mockingbird decided he was a hawk or some other horrible threat. Mockingbirds cannot smell, after all.

Local boy

We're getting a lot of tornado/storm warnings tonight. Our local weatherman (with Maryland's Most Powerful Radar!) is going over the areas where the storms are coming through. He's a very local boy.

He says Odington (for Odenton). He says "northeastren" and "northren" instead of "-ern". And he says "concerning", as in "this is the most concerning cell" and "this is a very concerning storm."

He's so very local...

(I can make these observations because none of the storms are heading my way ... at the moment, anyhow.)

Beary wrong

Are you serious? They're calling her wrong for mispronouncing "Berenstein Bears" as steen instead of stain? Yes, I'd have gotten it wrong, too, but honestly.

I've always thought they were too rough on pronunciation, especially since they don't penalize for spelling in Final Jeopardy...

Oh. Er... Just looked it up, and it's spelled -stain. I guess they were right.

Well... live and learn. My excuse is that I'm way too old to have ever read one of those books...

Happy Birthday, John

Jean-Jacques Audubon was born in 1785, in Les Cayes in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), the illegitimate son of a sugar planter and one of his slaves. Audubon's father raised the boy in France and sent him to America to avoid his being conscripted into the army. And the rest, as they say, is history ... Audubon's drawings of American birds revolutionized not only ornithology but art. Here is one of his plates - the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker.

On this and that from the latest WikiLeaks dump

Glenn Greenwald looks at the latest WikiLeaks dump - noting several key points, among them that

Given that multiple media outlets have just published huge amounts of classified information, it is more difficult than ever to distinguish between WikiLeaks and, say, the NYT or the Post under the law.

and that

The difference among the various newspapers in how these leaks are being presented is stark, predictable and revealing.

One of the most important topics he discusses is the case of

Sami al-Haj, the Al Jazeera cameraman who was encaged at the camp for more than 6 years and then abruptly released without ever being charged.

As Greenwald notes,

Al-Haj has long claimed that he was interrogated almost exclusively about his work for Al Jazeera, and virtually nothing about the accusations against him (being an “Al Qaeda courier”). The files released about him corroborate that claim

Go read it; it's well worth your time.

"The Hurt Feelings of the Rich"

Paul Krugman addresses the possibility that "the right is, implicitly, conceding that trickle-down economics doesn’t work". If only!

But my take is that what we’re looking at is the closing of the conservative intellectual universe, the creation of an echo chamber in which rightists talk only to each other, and in which even the pretense of caring about ordinary people is disappearing. I mean, we’ve been living for some time in an environment in which the WSJ can refer, unselfconsciously, to people making too little to pay income taxes as “lucky duckies”; where Chicago professors making several hundred thousand a year whine that they can’t afford any more taxes, and are surprised when that rubs some people the wrong way. Why wouldn’t such people find it completely natural to think that the hurt feelings of the rich are the main consideration in economic policy?

Happy Birthday, Ella

Ella Fitzgerald was born today in Newport News, Virginia, in 1917. Recording more than 200 albums, many still available - or available again on cd - The First Lady of Song was one of the most influential jazz singers ever. Her voice spanned three octaves and she had a legendary purity of tone and phrasing, and a tremendous improvisational ability, especially in scat. I grew up listening to her (she's one of my father's favorite singers), and one of my favorite albums is the wonderful Complete Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong - Ella & Louis, Ella & Louis Again, and Porgy and Bess.

The Week in Entertainment

DVD: A thoroughly delightful Bollywood film called Bunty aur Babli, with Amitabh Bachchan as a cop pursuing a pair of con artists, played by Abishek Bachchan (his son) and Rani Mukerji (eventually his daughter-in-law), who definitely make this a "caper" film. So much fun! (and if you've ever eaten in an Indian restaurant that plays video clips, you've probably seen Kajra Re with the two Bachchans and Aishwarya Rai, a number that really has nothing to do with the story but is a lot of fun.)

TV: Forgot last week that I watched National Velvet (and was mightily amused at the scene where Angela Lansbury's character paints her little brother's toenails) and also Born Yesterday, Judy Holliday's delightful Oscar turn. House - and dammit, 13 is back, so of course Masters is gone, because god forbid they should have three women on the show. Yes, I didn't like Masters much but she was much preferable to 13. Still, I'm glad for the character that she listened to Chase; House would have destroyed her. The Greatest Game Ever Played, Shia LaBouef as Francis Ouimet, who won the US Open in 1923 as an amateur, at the age of 20. Not a bad movie - Disney does a good underdog film. Caught up on Harry's Law - I liked the series ending, er, the last episode. "Did you get lucky with Tommy?" "Very: he left with someone else." A touching The Middle - I liked Axl giving her the plate at the end. A very funny and touching Modern Family. "I just want to know: were we even considered? Because you know we've raised three wonderful kids -" "Honey, we have to go to the police station; the girls just vandalized the high school." "... This isn't over." Doctor Who!! They played the whole fifth season and the Christmas special first ... I do like Rory. Asked if he'd mind going down into the creepy tunnels with River he actually says "Yeah, I would. A little." (to which the Doctor replied, "Then I'll appreciate it all the more." hee hee.) Wonderful that it's back. Lovely foreshadowing from River about something we do (but she does not) know has already happened. And great line from the Doctor, after asking River if there are life signs and being told, "No, nothing's that's showing up": "Oh, those are always the worst kind." Dinner at Eight - can you go wrong with Kaufman & Ferber directed by Cukor? Not so's I can tell, you can't.

Read: Finished the "Book of Dreams" trilogy (or maybe it's not). Pretty good stories, though a copy editor was definitely needed. Word of warning about the last (third, anyway) one: they try to tell a story in first person that you can't really tell that way. If it annoys you to have the narrator telling you things she can't possibly know, don't read this one. Alison Wonderland, a quirky novel that was a breath of fresh air after the Dreams, but which I imagine I'd have loved anyway. Great characters, an odd situation, and a story that went where I didn't expect it to go. Lovely stuff. Began The Tiger's Wife, very good so far.

Rory wouldn't know ...

but when River met the Doctor (from our and his POV, "will meet" from hers) in the episode "The Empty Library", he didn't know her. And although that's not what killed her, she didn't survive...

Brilliant writing, just brilliant.

Well, we didn't...

Here's a sobering and prescient piece (which I saw referred to in comments to this Fire Dog Lake post wondering who would be Obama's John Mitchell (pointing out that the president can't decide someone's guilt), which I was sent to by this Glenn Greenwald article discussing Obama's doing just that in the case of Bradley Manning. Both of those are excellent posts, too.).

This one is by Arthur Schlesinger, written in May of 1974, and called "What If We Don't Impeach Him?" It's a warning about the Constitutional and moral dangers awaiting the country if Nixon was not impeached. Here are two snippets to whet your appetite (select to get more readable copies):



and

New Season!

The loss of Elisabeth Sladen is all the more poignant since this year, for the first time, the new season of Doctor Who - like the Christmas special - will be broadcast in the US on the same day as in the UK.

And that's today, in case you'd forgotten!

I hope we get the Sarah Jane special, too.

"I'll miss you too, Sarah Jane"

Oh, damn.

Elisabeth Sladen has died.

...With Three...	...with Four ...
... with Ten ...	... with Eleven ...
... and on her own	Sarah Jane Smith...

Her obit reads, in part:

[F]ans celebrated when, in 2006, 30 years after leaving the series, Elisabeth Sladen returned to Doctor Who, in an episode called “School Reunion”. The programme sketched out the path Sarah-Jane’s life had taken in the years since she and the Doctor had said their goodbyes on an Aberdeen street (the Doctor had intended Croydon, but erred in navigation).

Such was its success that she was invited to lunch by the show’s executive producer, Russell T Davies. Worried that she would be asked to appear in more bit-parts, she prepared her excuses. “I was actually thinking: 'How can I turn this down?’” In fact, Davies offered her the lead role in a children’s series of her own, entitled The Sarah Jane Adventures. Though filmed on the same set as Doctor Who, and sharing some monsters and characters (including walk-ons from the Doctor), the series recast the former sidekick as the heroine. It proved a smash hit, generating warm reviews, a Children’s BAFTA nomination, and three further series [Brit for "seasons" -me].

I always loved Sarah Jane. I enjoyed The Sarah Jane Adventures. I'm sad that she's gone.

How horrible! What an anticlimax!

The Visual Thesaurus's Word of the Day is anticlimax, which they define thus:

Not much head-scratching accompanies the attempt to unpack this word, which denotes an event or outcome considerably worse than what was expected.

What? Oh, I see what they mean.

But their definition would fit this, which is what I first thought of:

Geologists had predicted a minor event, but instead the volcano exploded into a pyroclastic cloud that killed thousands. What an anticlimax!

I think I'd have chosen a word other than "worse" had I been they...

Happy Birthday, Will

Today (most likely) in 1654 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon was born the Swan of Avon, the Bard, William Shakespeare.

Does anything need to be added to that? How does one choose which poem, which quote?

I can't.

Go here to find your own.

ps - I definitely, whole-heartedly recommend to you Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? by James Shapiro. (Spoiler: It was Shakespeare.)

Puzzlement from the comics

Today two strips puzzled me. First, I kind of understand this - especially in light of all the people who get pissed at those talking on their cell phones:

But why doesn't Jeremy have his mom's number in his contacts? Because if he does, and she figures it out, she'll realize he has to be ignoring her, not just "calls"... Still, this is more puzzling:

In what universe is Dick Tracy a serious strip instead a an admittedly entertaining but surreal journey through crime, bloodshed, and incoherence?

Earth Day

(image from NOAA)

Swimming Lesson

Earlier this week, and last, there were several geese swimming on the pond. Tuesday there was one.

On Wednesday morning, I spotted these two. Something about the way the one lying down had her wings positioned made me wonder: does she have goslings under there? (Even if I'd felt like startling her to find out, I wouldn't have: the gander takes things very seriously.)

Yes. Yes, I believe she does.

And then yesterday afternoon - yes. She did. Here she is, giving the babies their first swimming lesson. Dad and two of the goslings, who seem unsure about this whole thing, are on the bank as mom and the other four paddle nearby.



One gosling jumps in to join them. Dad and the other stride (and patter) along the bank keeping up.


Finally all six are in the water, and keeping as close to mom as they can. She spun in a circle, making them paddle hard to keep position.
Then she swam a short ways along the bank, with them keeping up, and close.

Then she reversed, struck out swiftly, and spun sideways. The goslings hastened to catch up, and two of them - maybe the last two in the water - splashed and bobbled as they tried to match the smoother swimming of the other four.


After another reversal, everyone seems to have it down.


As the family passes dad, mom raises her head to look at him.

Still some splashing going on as they sail past dad...

... who watches, apparently unsure if he'll join his offspring who are still splashing up a storm.



I had to go catch my bus, so I don't know how long it was before he joined them. I'm sure he did, eventually. He's a good dad...

Got away from a near miss!

The WaPo print headline said:

First lady's jet escapes close call

Most other media were calmer, saying the plane "had a close call". Though this somewhat hysterical headline at Pat Dollard screams

Michelle Obama Escapes Near-Death Incident – “Just Misses Military Jet”, Nearly Killed By Air-Traffic Controller

O Rly?

The thing is, in English you "escape" from something, like, say, a burning building. So we see this one from All Voices

Michelle’s plane escapes crash

This is still a bit weird, because "escaping a crash" isn't quite the same as "avoiding a crash", which is, after all, what happened. At least not to my ears. The formulation "jet escapes near miss" sounds like the jet ... what? I'm not sure. Didn't have a near miss? And what does that even mean? Nearly missed but didn't? Crashed into each other? Or, perhaps, never got near at all? (And that would be headline news why, exactly?)

Of course, well, yes, actually, there was no "near miss". The two planes were never closer to each other than 3 miles. The tower's prompt action prevented the near miss. (In fact, per the FAA, this sort of thing - a pilot being told to abort a landing and circle the field so another plane can clear the runway - is fairly common. Heck, I'm no frequent flyer (a few times a year) and it's happened to me.)

But using the word "escapes" is deeply strange - and I think the only reason it is there is to ratchet the incident up in our imaginations from a normal, mundane occurrence to an"OMG Michelle almost died!!! Damn the FAA!" piece of fear mongering.

(Would I be too cynical if I wondered about that poor union getting busted, again?)

Spring

It is definitely spring. The first broad scatter of dandelions are out, and all the bulb flowers - tulips, crocuses, daffodills. The callary pears are edging into leaf, most of their flowers gone, while the other flowering trees are in their prime but for dogwoods which are just filling the roadsides with their flights of white and pink, grace notes in the dark green. Other trees are leafing, too.

The birds know it, too. First, all the seasonal migrants have gone, and come. No more juncos - hello to redwing females, to the flickers, and to the grackles. (It's true none of these are summer-only residents, but they tend to flock elsewhere in the winter and show up right around here only when spring comes.) In fact, the redwings are dueling madly for the territory around the pond; where three were last year I saw six this morning- three in position, two at the pond and one at the wet, reedy spot down by the bridge; and three more jockeying around the periphery, displaying and calling and chasing each other. There's another further along the creek, too. Two females at least - they're so much harder to spot.

Tax wealth like work 2

(see part 1)

Over at Mother Jones there's a neat set of charts and graphs addressing the tax disparity between wealth and work. Here's one:

Yes, the millionaire is paying more in absolute dollars. But it's the percentage rate we're looking at. After paying their taxes, the millionaire has $996,357 (and if all his income is from investment (or inheritance) he's not paying those payroll taxes, so he'd have $1,008,193), while the janitor has $24,850. That's perilously close to poverty if the janitor has a wife and two kids and over it if he has three kids. And for New York, well, a huge part of that is going to either his rent or his commute...

If the millionaire were taxed at the same rate, he'd have $876,949 left...

Check out the whole MoJo article, why don't you?

Obama isn't a socialist (but he ought to check it out)

Back in March 2009 President Obama denied being a socialist, insisting that he was "actually been operating in a way that has been entirely consistent with free-market principles." As John Nichols observes:

There’s more than a kernel of truth to this statement. Obama really is avoiding consideration of socialist, or even mildly social democratic, responses to the problems that confront him. He took the single-payer option off the table at the start of the healthcare debate, rejecting the approach that in other countries has provided quality care to all citizens at lower cost. His supposedly “socialist” response to the collapse of the auto industry was to give tens of billions in bailout funding to GM and Chrysler, which used the money to lay off thousands of workers and then relocate several dozen plants abroad—an approach about as far as a country can get from the social democratic model of using public investment and industrial policy to promote job creation and community renewal. And when BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil well exploded, threatening the entire Gulf Coast, instead of putting the Army Corps of Engineers and other government agencies in charge of the crisis, Obama left it to the corporation that had lied about the extent of the spill, had made decisions based on its bottom line rather than environmental and human needs, and had failed at even the most basic tasks.

So we should take the president at his word when he says he’s acting on free-market principles. The problem, of course, is that Obama’s rigidity in this regard is leading him to dismiss ideas that are often sounder than private-sector fixes. Borrowing ideas and approaches from socialists would not make Obama any more of a socialist than Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt or Dwight Eisenhower. All these presidential predecessors sampled ideas from Marxist tracts or borrowed from Socialist Party platforms so frequently that the New York Times noted in a 1954 profile the faith of an aging Norman Thomas that he “had made a great contribution in pioneering ideas that have now won the support of both major parties”—ideas like “Social Security, public housing, public power developments, legal protection for collective bargaining and other attributes of the welfare state.” The fact is that many of the men who occupied the Oval Office before Obama knew that implementation of sound socialist or social democratic ideas did not put them at odds with the American experiment or the Constitution.

The point here is not to defend socialism. What we should be defending is history—American history, with its rich and vibrant hues, some of them red. The past should be consulted not merely for anecdotes or factoids but for perspective on the present. Such a perspective empowers Americans who seek a robust debate, one that samples from a broad ideological spectrum—an appropriate endeavor in a country where Tom Paine imagined citizens who, “by casting their eye over a large field, take in likewise a large intellectual circuit, and thus approaching nearer to an acquaintance with the universe, their atmosphere of thought is extended, and their liberality fills a wider space.”

It's a good read.

ps - He closes with this thought:

We live in complex times, when profound economic, social and environmental challenges demand a range of responses. Socialists certainly don’t have all the answers, even if polling suggests that more Americans find appeal in the word “socialist” today than they have in decades. But without socialist ideas and advocacy, we will not have sufficient counterbalance to an anti-government impulse that has less to do with libertarianism than with manipulation of the debate by all-powerful corporations.

Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy were not socialists. But the nation benefited from their borrowing of socialist and social democratic ideas. Barack Obama is certainly not a socialist. But he, and the nation he leads, would be well served by a similar borrowing from the people who once imagined Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the War on Poverty.

Not quite the right word, book 2

Hee, hee. I just realized - when I said that I couldn't put the "silk robe" for Number One Son "into the same category", I hadn't actually posted this yet...

Anyway, I pointed out couple of mischosen words in the Book of Dreams vol 1, but said that otherwise it was a pretty engaging story. I'm nearly done with the second one, and - while it's still fairly engaging, I mean I am still reading it - it's really crammed with errors. Again, though, let me say there's nothing wrong with the actual writing, just the, uh, ... writing?

There are the common or garden variety typos, missing commas, and misplaced apostrophes

there were Rembrandts and Mozart's out there

the fatal possession/contraction homophones (which I have been known to write myself, but hopefully not let through the draft stage!)

"You're car or mine?"

There's was a blind date set up by friends

and plenty of subjectless participle clauses that pick up the wrong subject, for instance:

Hitting the woman in the face with the back of my gloved hands, her words instantly stopped.

I was met at the door by a gentleman collecting invitations. Showing him mine he simply greeted me.

Stomping the break peddle, our car came to a sliding halt

That last one also shows us two of the homophone problem, also seen here

(of a bomb) "Can we diffuse it?"

Apparently my handy work had been noticed.

Then there are the trickier ones like these:

Carson looked up ... to see his opponent advancing for the coup d'gras.

Complete with red hair and beard and pointy ears and hat, I felt like poking his nose through the hole in the door.

The first being a complex spelling error based on American pronunciation coupled with a very wrong d' (the d' only comes in front of vowels in French), and the second is a combination of a subjectless phrase and the not-quite-right word - one doesn't poke someone else's nose, through a door especially; one pokes at or gives a poke to or (more likely) tweaks someone else's nose. This sentence sounds like she wants to take his nose and poke it through the hole in the door, rather than reach through the door and grab at it.

And then there are things like this, which I have a hard time categorizing:

I dressed quickly, pulling on clothes without looking and hoping I didn't look like I had been dressed by a color-blind five-year-old. I also hoped my bra didn't show through my white sweater. Black underwear was all I had been able to find in the lingerie drawer.

That's just not well thought out. Why a color-blind five-year-old? Especially why bring colors into it if the sweater is white? White goes with whatever color her pants could have been. And if she didn't look, how does she know she has a white sweater and black bra? Not to mention how could black underwear be "all I was able to find" if she wasn't looking? And if she has time to stand around worrying about that before her ride shows up, surely she has time to pick up a different sweater.

Summing up ... the Jacksons need a copy editor. It's too bad, because they know how to spin a story.

"Silk Robe"?

I can't put this into the same category, because it could very easily be a deliberate attempt to attribute the mistake to the character, but ...

In the second Book of Dreams novel, when they are dreamside and changing their appearance, the narrator puts on a trench coat and "Kitteridge retailored himself as number one son, complete with Fu Manchu and silk robe." And a queue...

Now, that's just wrong. I mean, really. Have they ever seen a Charlie Chan movie? Lee Chan, Number One Son, was aggressively, modernly American. (For that matter, Charlie usually wore a western suit.) Take a look:

Tax wealth like work

Nowhere is the disconnect between the values we as Americans profess to admire (hard work, etc.) and those we actually do admire (being rich) more evident than in the way we tax income made from work and income made from already having money, either by investments or inheritance.

It's well known that restoring the pre-Bush tax rates on the wealthy would have more than made up for all the spending cuts the GOP and Blue Dogs were fighting for (whether money was really their point isn't my point this time). But it's rather startling to realize how differently you're taxed if your money comes from earning it (and not the Smith Barney definition of "earning it") than from making it off more money. The more your income derives from money, the less you pay on it. Money not only breeds, but it breeds cheaply.

See these wealth vs. work tax charts.

Update: and see Katrina vanden Heuvel's article where she points out that

Taxing capital gains and dividends at regular income rates would save $84.2 billion in 2011 alone, twice the amount we’re cutting from this year’s budget.

an aquatic moose

Here's a headline I spotted in the Boston Globe while I was on vacation:

New moose may be neighbor; animal wandering in Leicester could be a resident of a local pond

Happy Birthday, Clarence

Clarence Darrow was born today in 1857. Darrow was the preeminent lawyer of his day: the defense attorney for Ossian Sweet & his family, in one of the most racially charged cases ever tried (a black doctor moving into a white neighborhood in Detroit finds his house under attack, and someone in the white mob is killed; the whole black family is charged with murder); for Leopold & Loeb (arguing not that they were innocent, but against the death penalty); for several union men in the Haywood trial and other Western Mining Union trials; and of course, in the Scopes Monkey Trial.

There will never be another Darrow. He was, like us all, a product of his times. For him, it was a time of class conflict so intense as to border on class warfare. It was a time during which the Radical Left-- anarchists, socialists, communists-- were at the peak of their influence. It was a time of Jim Crow, of lynchings, a time during which the Klu Klux Klan called the shots in parts of our country. It was a time of unprecedented xenophobia. It was a time of whirl and social change-- a time when the modernist notion of asking whether a behavior pleased one's own intellect began to challenge the Victorian way of asking whether the behavior was approved of by society. Mechanistic thinking was in the air: Darwin, Herbert Spencer, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud. Darrow was shaped, in both positive and negative ways, by these forces. Invariably, he saw his client's cases as inextricably linked to these large philosophical and social issues. He fought his battles not just for his clients, but also for the hearts and minds of the American people.

There will never be another Darrow. Power has shifted in the American courtroom since he ended his career. It's shifted away from attorneys and juries and to judges. There are more constraints operating on trial lawyers today; trials are more scripted. Few modern judges would let a defense attorney call a prosecutor as a witness; few judges today let attorneys depict their client's cause as bound up in the mechanistic workings of the ambivalent universe; the personal stories, the biting sarcasm, and the everpresent poetry that we find in Darrow's summations would likely be met today with judicial disapprobation.

There will never be another Darrow. In the pre-television, newspaper world of Darrow, words mattered more than images. Oratorical skills were valued; whole speeches were heard and were read-- not just sound bites. The ability to use words well could make one a hero in Darrow's time, a time that was the Age of Heroes (Ruth, Lindbergh). Clarence Darrow was at the same time one of the best loved and most hated men of his time-- it is hard to imagine a trial attorney achieving that status today.

There will never be another Darrow. In his time, there was a general belief that intellectual battles could be won, not just fought. That Science could beat Fundamentalism or that Fundamentalism could beat Science. That Trade Unionism would win, or Trade Unionism would be routed-- there seemed no middle way.

This is from an essay by Prof. Douglas Linder, to be found here

The Week in Entertainment

While I was in Oregon I didn't even watch a single tv show... I did read, but I'll just fold it all into this one

Live: West Side Story at the Hippodrome - I hadn't seen the play before, only the movie. This production was energetic and captivating.

TV: Caught up on House - damn, 13's back to stay. And the whole 'I killed a man - but it was my brother - and he had Huntingdon's!!! -just like me!!!!! - and I'm so alone now!!!!!!' is of course meant to make us like her even more. But I don't. I don't like her at all. Also caught up on The Mentalist, which I enjoyed greatly. The final scene between Jane and Schneider was genuinely moving (to contrast it with 13's similar one). BUT - what's up with those four-and-a-half-minute long commercial breaks? Good Will Hunting - not sure why I hadn't ever watched that before, to be honest. Quite a good movie - I'm liking Matt Damon as an actor more and more. And Stellan Skarsgaard was also quite good. The Wooden Horse, which I remember reading the book it was based on back in high school; very low-key compared to, say, The Great Escape. Started watching K-19: The Widowmaker but found it kind of ... boring, so I didn't finish.

Read: Finished Sarah Vowell's latest - Unfamiliar Fishes, about Hawaii and the missionaries and the overthrow of the monarchy - the rise of American imperialism stripped of all 'manifest destiny' coverings. In some ways this is the most disturbing of her books. For instance, she quoted Henry Cabot Lodge's argument that the US has never been founded upon "the consent of the governed" (you can find his argument at document 26 here) - and he was arguing for imperialism approvingly. Excellent, excellent book. Also the seven Chloe Boston cozies - very amusing - and the first of the "Book of Dreams" series by the same author (Melanie Jackson). The Dreams books (I've started the second) are rife with typos and the occasional jarring grammatical/syntactic error, but the story is intriguing and well-enough plotted to keep me reading - so far. Two Reginald Fortune novels by HC Bailey - quirky style, and Reggie works better in short story form!, but interesting mysteries.

sheesh

I really hate when I read over a clue in the crossword too quickly. Yesterday's had the clue (I thought) "chuckled". I was getting nowhere with what eventually proved to be "threw". Yeah... "chucked".

Now there are 8

One more! Good news from Delaware as civil unions are made legal:

Delaware's House of Representatives voted 26-15 Thursday night to grant legal status to same-sex civil unions, giving those couples the same rights, protections and obligations now granted only to married couples.

Maryland's anti-gay foes got the bill tabled here (avoiding going on the record with their votes), but Delaware has come through.

Not quite the right word

So, I enjoyed the cozy Chloe Boston mysteries enough to pick up the ones they hawk so relentlessly in the back of the book (two chapters of one of them, which made the ending of one Chloe Boston story seems quite abrupt, judging by how much book I had thought was left). These are called the Book of Dreams series, about someone who mostly works in the Narcoscape, the land of dreaming, rescuing coma patients and the like. They're - well, it's, I've not quite finished the first one - not bad, though a certain amount of suspension of disbelief is (obviously) required. But the authors (the Chloe Boston writer and her husband) occasionally use the wrong word.

And I don't just mean the wrong shade of meaning.

For instance, at one point a character gives "a plaintiff howl". And in a description of a pool table there's a reference to "queue sticks". (Amusingly, Google ads knows I want 'cue sticks' though Google offers me pages of complaints about "print queue sticks")

Happy Birthday, Leonardo

Bernard Berenson wrote in 1896: "Leonardo is the one artist of whom it may be said with perfect literalness: Nothing that he touched but turned into a thing of eternal beauty. Whether it be the cross section of a skull, the structure of a weed, or a study of muscles, he, with his feeling for line and for light and shade, forever transmuted it into life-communicating values."

Happy Birthday, Tom

Today is the birthday of Thomas Jefferson.

Surely - surely - no more need be said.

Happy Birthday, Edward

Today in 1550, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, was born.

He didn't write Shakespeare, but he did write plays and poems, and here's one:

Of fortunes power.

Policrates whose passing happe, causd him to lose his fate,
A golden ryng cast in the seas, to change his constant state,
And in a fishe yet at his bourd, the same he after found,
Thus Fortune loe, to whom she takes, for bountie dooth abound.

The myzers vnto might she mountes, a common case we see,
And mightie in great miserie, she sets in lowe degree:
Whom she to day dooth reare on hie, vpon her whirling wheele,
To morowe next she dingeth downe, and casteth at her heele.

No measure hath shee in her gifts, shee doth reward eache sort.
The wise that counsell haue, no more then fooles that maketh sport.
Shee vseth neuer partiall handes for to offend or please,
Geue me good Fortune all men sayes, and throw me in the seas.

It is no fault or worthines, that makes men fall or rise,
I rather be borne Fortunate, then to be very wise.
The blindest man right soone, that by good Fortune guided is,
To whome that pleasant Fortune pipes, can neuer daunce amis.

(more of Oxford's poems here)

Happy Birthday, William

William Wallace Campbell was born today on a farm in Ohio, in 1862. He was a a pioneer of astronomical spectroscopy and catalogued the radial velocities of stars, was director of the Lick Observatory for 30 years, and led expeditions to photograph stars and solar eclipses in the Southern Hemisphere, one of which provided further evidence supporting Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. His obituary in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 99, p.317, says, in small part:

Campbell was not one of those blown about by every idle wind of astronomical doctrine; no-one ever called him a weather-vane. And the implication that he was not especially receptive to new tenors of thought is true. His method was to push ahead in his own established line of research rather than to experiment with trial balloons in the hope of reaching other levels. He has been criticized on this score, but, if criticism be limited to those who have accomplished as much as he, not many are entitled to be heard.

Happy Birthday, Joseph

Today in 1847, in Makó, Hungary, Joseph Pulitzer was born (yes, the Prize Pulitzer). He said:

"Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together."

Gosh. I hope not....

Happy Birthday, Eadweard

Today in 1830 Eadweard Muybridge was born. A social climber and kind of a jerk, he was also an extremely talented photographer. He was able to freeze the motion of a galloping horse - and change the way we looked at it forever.

Check out the Wikipedia entry where they have animations of this sequence and a galloping bison, too!

Happy Birthday, Tom

Today is the 82nd birthday of the inimitable Tom Lehrer. His performing career was brief but wonderful.

Here's one of his many very funny songs - one of my favorites - along with the introduction he usually gave it when he performed.

I'd like to take you now on wings of song, as it were, and try and help you forget perhaps for a while your drab, wretched lives. here's a song all about spring-time in general, and in particular about one of the many delightful pastimes the coming of spring affords us all.

Spring is here, a-suh-puh-ring is here.
Life is skittles and life is beer.
I think the loveliest time of the year is the spring.
I do, don't you? 'course you do.
But there's one thing that makes spring complete for me,
And makes ev'ry sunday a treat for me.

All the world seems in tune
On a spring afternoon,
When we're poisoning pigeons in the park.
Ev'ry sunday you'll see
My sweetheart and me,
As we poison the pigeons in the park.

When they see us coming, the birdies all try an' hide,
But they still go for peanuts when coated with cyanide.
The sun's shining bright,
Ev'rything seems all right,
When we're poisoning pigeons in the park.

Lalaalaalalaladoodiedieedoodoodoo

We've gained notoriety,
And caused much anxiety
In the audubon society
With our games.
They call it impiety,
And lack of propriety,
And quite a variety
Of unpleasant names.
But it's not against any religion
To want to dispose of a pigeon.

So if sunday you're free,
Why don't you come with me,
And we'll poison the pigeons in the park.
And maybe we'll do
In a squirrel or two,
While we're poisoning pigeons in the park.

We'll murder them all amid laughter and merriment.
Except for the few we take home to experiment.
My pulse will be quickenin'
With each drop of strychnine
We feed to a pigeon.
It just takes a smidgin!
To poison a pigeon in the park.

more Lehrer lyrics here

¡Feliz cumpleaños, Pancha!

Born today in 1816, in Carago, Costa Rica, Francisca Carrasco Jiménez, known as Pancha. In 1856 (age 40), when William Walker and his filibusteros invaded Costa Rica, Carrasco volunteered as a cook and a medic. She is most famous for filling her apron pockets with bullets, grabbing a rifle, and joining the defending forces at the Battle of Rivas, becoming Costa Rica's first woman in the military. (Walker's forces were defeated, by the way.)

Implied "or"

Okay, look. I hold no brief for Newt Gingrich - seriously, the man was always loopily evil and would now mainly be an embarrassment if so many people didn't take him seriously - but, come on.

"I have two grandchildren - Maggie is 11, Robert is 9. I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American."

Why are people acting as though he thinks "secular atheist country" and "potentially one dominated by radical Islamists" are the same thing? (Plus, I'm sure there's meant to be a comma after "Islamists".)

"If we don't get him into football now, by the time he's in college he'll be playing baseball, potentially lacrosse, and have no idea what a real sport is."

Newt obviously is preaching to the choir here - for crying out loud, it's John Hagee's megachurch - and he's trotted out the two horrible boogeymen to scare them with. But I don't see any reason to assume that he means Islamist atheists will be running things.

Can't we stop thinking that laughing at people like Newt is enough of a response?

(Especially since, sadly, a secular atheist country is about as likely as a radical Islamist one...)

Happy Birthday, Jackie!

Jackie Chan (Chan Kong-sang, 陳港生) was born today in 1954, in Hong Kong. His movies are a lot of fun, from Drunken Master through Twin Dragons to the recent Karate Kid remake.

W. T. F.

Okay, Disney has long been famous for making movies that have virtually nothing in common with their source material (I first noticed it personally in 1962 with Big Red, a movie that shared with the novel (a) an Irish setter and (b) Canada. Period. Other "favorites" include Bedknob and Broomsticks, The Jungle Book (animated or live action), and The Ugly Dachsund ... but nothing, nothing, can top this.

Jennifer Garner as Miss Marple.

And before you say "Hey! You liked Sherlock, you hypocrite", let me point out that precisely one thing changed there: the time-period. Nothing else. Garner's Marple won't just be a 21st-century Marple, she'll be a 38-year-old American 21st-century Marple. And I'm betting she'll end up with a man by the end of the movie...

But I won't be watching it.

Congrats to the Aggies!

Texas A&M won their first national championship last night. I must admit I was thrilled that Notre Dame took the UConn Huskies out of it, but I wasn't necessarily rooting for them to go all the way. It's nice when a new team can win it.

Happy Birthday, Raphael

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (Raphael Santi) was born today in 1483, in Urbino, Italy. Along with Michelangelo and Leonardo he is one of the great High Renaissance painters. (Donatello is from the early Renaissance...)

John Ruskin described the thought behind the Pre-Raphaelites thus:

The perfection of execution and the beauty of feature which were attained in his works, and in those of his great contemporaries, rendered finish of execution and beauty of form the chief objects of all artists; and thenceforward execution was looked for rather than thought, and beauty rather than veracity... In mediæval art, thought is the first thing, execution the second; in modern art execution is the first thing, and thought the second. And again, in mediæval art, truth is first, beauty second; in modern art, beauty is first, truth second. The mediæval principles led up to Raphael, and the modern principles lead down from him.

Not bad - to be the man whose art was so perfectly beautiful that everyone tried to match you.

Mystery Cormorant

This cormorant was in the harbor at Bandon, Oregon, today. I'm not sure what kind he is - the color on the face is a bit puzzling. I think he is a Pelagic... Any confirmation or help would be appreciated!

Happy Birthday, Gregory

Born today in 1916, one of our greatest film actors - Gregory Peck.

Hornblower - Ahab - Philip Schuyler Green - Gen. Savage - Joe Bradley - Mengele - Ambrose Bierce - Atticus Finch.

Splendid...

Happy Birthday, Muddy

McKinley Morganfield was born today in Jug's Corner in Issaquena County, Mississippi, in 1913. Better known as Muddy Waters, the father of Chicago-style blues, he's one of the great American musicians. After his death, John Hammond said:

"Muddy was a master of just the right notes. It was profound guitar playing, deep and simple... more country blues transposed to the electric guitar, the kind of playing that enhanced the lyrics, gave profundity to the words themselves."

The Week in Entertainment

Not much happening this week as I got ready for vacation!

TV: Some NCAAW basketball.

Read: Several Earl Derr Biggers things - The Agony Column,which was very amusing, Seven Keys to Baldpate, and Fifty Candles.

Happy Birthday, Igor

Igor Svyatoslavich (April 3, 1151 – 1202) was the prince of Novgorod-Seversky from 1180 to 1202. As Wikipedia says: His skirmishes against the Polovtsians would most likely have passed into oblivion if they had not been immortalized in The Tale of Igor's Campaign and the opera Prince Igor.

Не начать ли нам, братья, по-стародавнему скорбную повесть о походе Игоревом, Игоря Святославича! Или да начнется песнь ему по былям нашего времени - не по замышлению Боянову! Ведь Боян вещий когда песнь кому сложить хотел, то белкою скакал по дереву, серым волком по земле, сизым орлом кружил под облаками. Поминал он давних времен рати - тогда пускал десять соколов на стаю лебедей; какую догонял сокол, та первая песнь пела старому Ярославу, храброму Мстиславу, что зарезал Редедю пред полками касожскими, красному Роману Святославичу. Боян же, братья, не десять соколов на стаю лебедей пускал, но свои вещие персты на живые струны возлагал; они же сами князьям славу рокотали.

«Would it not be fitting, brothers.
To begin with ancient words
The sorrowful song of the campaign of Igor,
Igor Svyatoslavich. Now let us begin this song
In the manner of a tale of today,
And not according to the notions of Boyan.
Now the wizard Boyan,
If he wanted to make a song to someone,
His thought would range through the trees;
It would range like a grey wolf across the land,
Like a blue eagle against the clouds.
His words would recall the
Early years of princely wars:
Then he would release ten falcons
Onto a flock of swans;
The first swan to be touched,
It would be the first to sing:
To old Yaroslav, to brave Mstislav,
Who cut down Rededya before the
Armies of the Kasogians,
To the handsome Roman Svyatoslavich.
Now Boyan, brothers, would not
Release ten falcons
Onto a flock of swans,
But his magic fingers would
He place on the living strings,
And they themselves would
Sound forth praises to the princes...» (tr Robert Howes)

You can find the Slovo on line: in OCS and several Russian translations here, along with poetic works inspired by it, with Ukrainian studies, and in Leonard Magnus's English translation (see below.)

Were it not seemly to us, brothers, to begin in ancient diction the tales of the toils of the army of Ígoŕ, Ígoŕ Svyatoslávič?

[Or] to begin this song in accordance with the ballads of this time, and not like the invention of Boyán?

For the wise Boyán when he wished to make a song for any man, in his thought used to fly in the trees, [race] like a grey wolf on earth, [soar] like a dusky eagle beneath the clouds. He used to recall the words and the dissensions of the early times.

Then he released falcons on a flock of swans; whichever [falcon] first arrived, its swan sang a song,--to the elder Yarosláv, to Mstíslav the Brave who slew Redélya in front of the Kasog hosts, [or] to Román Svyatoslávič the Handsome.

Yet, Boyán, my brothers, did not let loose ten falcons on a flock of swans, but laid his own wizard fingers on the living strings, which then themselves throbbed out praise for the princes.