My mother...

Five years ago, my mother died, after a long illness that essentially took her from us years before.

This is a picture of her at age two, or thereabouts. She had that smile almost as long as she lived.

She was much loved. She is much missed.

Great and white, indeed, and even a heron... just not Great White Heron

My father gets a magazine called The Tennessee Conservationist, published by the state's Department of Environment and Conservation. It's a very good publication, but this month they fell into a trap.



The above photo was captioned "A Great White Heron at Reelfoot Lake". That's wrong. To begin with, the GWH is restricted to southern Florida. Sure, it's not impossible for one to be in Tennessee, but it would be amazing. Everyone in the birding world would be there, taking pictures. Next, the legs are the wrong color - GWH's legs are brownish/yellowish, not black. GWH has short plumes on the back of its head, and utterly lacks the long decorative plumes seen on this bird - he's not in full breeding plumage, his face has no green, but he still has a few of those plumes that caused this magnificent heron to be hunted into near extinction. What is he? He's a Great Egret.

In short: just because some birds have names like "Yellow-headed Blackbird" when they are, in fact, black birds with yellow heads, don't fall for thinking that all those apparently descriptive names match up. For instance, the "Red-bellied Woodpecker" has such a tiny, inconspicuous bit of red between its legs that most of the time you can't even see it. And this bird is certainly great and white and a heron, but... it's not a Great White Heron.

Happy Birthday, Ray

Today is Ray Harryhausen's birthday.

His movies were technical marvels of storytelling wonder. It Came From Beneath the Sea, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Clash of the Titans, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, and even The Valley of Gwangi: maybe they didn't always make sense, but they made you watch and say "oooooo". What more can we ask?

A very happy birthday, Ray, and many returns of the day!

Flash Oddness

So, my father was complaining about browsing being slow, and I took the opportunity to update his browser. Along the way, I got a dire warning about Adobe having released a new update to Flash Player to fix some serious problem (Adobe has released a critical security update for the Flash plugin.), so I downloaded the update (10.3.181.34).

And none of the flash-based games my father plays worked. Primarily, these are crosswords, but also the Jumble - and in none of them could you type the letters. On most, you could type one letter, but in a few you could type one letter and then all the other squares filled in with a one-up number sequence. This regardless of which square you started in or which keys you hit.

Well, what's the point of having Flash if it's not going to work? I hunted around the net a while, including at Adobe's support boards, and the only non-Ubuntu or non-Windows 7/IE 9 (my father still has XP) solution I found (the Ubuntu one I didn't get into, the Windows one involved setting ActiveX permissions) was a guy who reverted his system.

So I did that, and then found a nice site (www.oldapps.com/flash_player.php) where I could download the latest-but-one Flash Player ((10.3.181.14).

Playing problem solved. Crosswords are again doable. I just wish I understood what the problem was...

Happy Birthday, John

Today John Gay was born in Barnstaple, England, in 1685 - he wrote The Beggar's Opera. Although its sequel, Polly, was banned by then Prime Minister Walpole from being performed, sales of it made Gay rich. Unfortunately he then lost everything in the South Seas Bubble. He died in 1732 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His epitaph, written by Alexander Pope, is followed by two lines that Gay himself composed: "Life is a jest, and all things show it. I thought so once, and now I know it."

LOVE in her eyes sits playing,
And sheds delicious death;
Love in her lips is straying,
And warbling in her breath;
Love on her breast sits panting,
And swells with soft desire:
Nor grace, nor charm, is wanting
To set the heart on fire.

Happy Birthday, Antoine

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,

author of The Little Prince,

was born today in 1900

Of course they did

So Jeopardy! had a whole category of category names translated into French ... I thought it would be funny if the Double round had used them (especially 'Those Darned Etruscans', but they didn't.

I suppose we should be grateful they chose a language Alex can actually pronounce. I'd have winced my way through категории «Своей Игры», after all (and Kathie if it had been the Portuguese version!).

Happy Birthday, Krzysztof

Krzysztof Kieślowski was born today in Warsaw, in 1941. He wanted to direct in the theatre but there wasn't room at school, so he went into film as an intermidate step. Of course, he never went "further", but what an intermediate! The Decalogue and Three Colors are world-famous, and rightly so...

His grave in Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw bears the classic 'framing hands' - the view through which he showed us so much.

The Week in Entertainment

Film: Beginners - I know some people find it faux-naive or sentimental or what-have-you. I personally enjoyed it tremendously. I thought it was brilliantly done. A film about a very sad person which was not itself sad, but funny and ultimately uplifting.

DVD: Finished up Leverage in time for the new season to start! Deja Vu, which was pretty good. A few echoes of Laura, but tense and exciting and demanding you pay attention, not a bad thing in a thriller.

TV: The Scarlet Letter - the Lilian Gish silent version, which I liked, actually. Quite good.

Read: Some more of the Simonov. The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, which is a bit repetitive if you read all the stories at a go, but otherwise entertaining. Riccardi caught Doyl Watson's voice nicely. The Alchemy of Murder, a fairly entertaining Nellie Bly story, though it was a bit too long. And I started Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, which is intriguing.

Happy Birthday, Walter

Born today in Syracuse, New York, in 1916, Walter Farley ... Wow. That name brings back a lot of memories. In elementary school and junior high I read a lot of his books. The Black Stallion of course, and its sequels about him and his offspring - I still remember the one where Alec gets involved in harness racing and everything he "knows" is wrong - and The Island Stallion, and the long awaited match-up of The Black and Flame...

Yay! Go New York!

New York becomes the sixth state (along with the District of Columbia) to legalize same-sex marriage, and by far the largest (if you don't count California, which just might overcome the backlash of Mormonism, fundamentalism, and hatred engendered by Proposition 8).

Some day - and I hope it's sooner rather than later - DOMA will fall, and other states will join in ratifying this rather basic civil right. Our grandchildren will wonder why it took so long.

Happy Birthday, Roméo

Roméo Antonius Dallaire was born today in 1946, in Denekamp, Netherlands, the child of a Canadian soldier and a Dutch nurse. He was raised in Canada, and joined the army himself. He eventually became the Force Commander of UNAMIR, the ill-fated United Nations peacekeeping force for Rwanda between 1993 and 1994, and for trying to stop the genocide... You may have seen Hotel Rwanda. Without taking anything away from that wonderful film, let me say that its depiction of the UN office - well-enough done by Nick Nolte - is not a fair depiction of Dallaire. Watch, or read, Shake Hands With the Devil in any of its incarnations if you want to know what was going on there. But be aware: the things that happened damn near tore Dallaire's soul (for lack of a better world) into pieces.

Read the following quotes and wonder if anything has really changed since then... and then join me in raising a glass to Senator Dallaire and wishing him a happy birthday.

What is the reason for this marche seul by the developed nations? In the last decades of the twentieth century, self-interest, sovereignty and taking care of number one became the primary criteria for any serious provision of support or resources to the globe’s trouble spots. If the country in question is of any possible strategic value to the world powers, then it seems that everything from covert operations to the outright use of overwhelming force is fair game. If it is not, indifference is the order of the day.

What I have come to realize as the root of it all, however, is the fundamental indifference of the world community to the plight of seven to eight million black Africans in a tiny country that had no strategic or resource value to any world power. An overpopulated little country that turned in on itself and destroyed its own people, as the world watched and yet could not manage to find the political will to intervene.

Sky Watch: A Brief Glory

Just for a few minutes this morning the sun struck through the clouds to create a glory in the skies before all the angles changed and they subsided to gray. But it was marvellous while it lasted.




more Sky Watchers here

Happy Birthday, George

Today in 1903, George Orwell was born in Motihari, Bihar, in Bengal under the British Raj. As Wikipedia puts it: . His work is marked by keen intelligence and wit, a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language, and a belief in democratic socialism. Two of his books - 1984 and Animal Farm - have sold more than any two books by any other 20th century author. He was also a prolific journalist.

And over at The Orwell Prize you can read his diary - it's 1941 there.

Happy Birthday, Ambrose

Ambrose Bierce, born this day in 1842.

He left us

An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge,

The Devil's Dictionary,

an opinionated style manual called Write it Right which is more fun than Strunk's "horrid little book",

several fantastic short stories,

and the abiding legacy of a mysterious disappearance...

(Are you still out there, somewhere, Old Gringo?)

Only the French, eh?

Ha! "It's the literal translation of "my love" into French," reads the clue. I notice that while Alex is quick to point out that "mon ami" is French for "my friend" not "my love", he totally doesn't know that "mi amor" is Spanish (or Portuguese, right Kathie?) for the clue! Because if he did, he'd point it out, he's so insufferable! Ha!

Wow. None of them knew "The mirror motif of this 1871 sequel includes two characters who are enatiomorphs, or mirror-image twins." (It's Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There, of course.) The Picture of Dorian Gray is a weird enough guess, but the champion comes up with ... The Man in the Iron Mask?? WTF, Jay?

I wish he was kidding, but he's not

"We stand not for empire, but for self-determination."

That was possibly the most egregious thing Obama said last night.

Self-determination?

You mean like in, say, Gaza?

It's more like Tom Lehrer used to sing:

They've got to be protected, all their rights respected, until somebody we like can be elected!

Happy Birthday, Joss

Joss Whedon was born today in New York City in 1964.

Buffy, Angel, Firefly & Serenity the movie ... even Dollhouse (I guess). And not forgetting Dr Horrible! Wonderful, wonderful stories.

Many happy returns of the day, Joss!

Happy Birthday, Alan

Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS, was born today in Maida Vale, London, in 1912. Every person reading this owes a debt to Turing. As Time put it, naming Turing one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century: "The fact remains that everyone who taps at a keyboard, opening a spreadsheet or a word-processing program, is working on an incarnation of a Turing machine."

Turing was also an important figure at Bletchley Park, Britain's WWII code-breaking center, and was for a time head of Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. He devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers, including the method of the bombe, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine. (If this interests you, check the National Cryptologic Museum's working Enigma the next time you're in the DC area.)

Turing was also gay, living in an era when homosexuality was still both illegal and officially considered a mental illness. After he was outed (in the course of an investigation into his house's being burgled), he was criminally prosecuted - on the same charge as Oscar Wilde had been - and this ended his career, and his life. Offered the choice between prison and probation plus chemical castration, he opted for the latter, but his clearance had been revoked. The next year he died from what was officially declared self-induced cyanide poisoning.

Here's a website maintained by his biographer, Andrew Hodges.

С днем рождения, Анна!

Anna Akhmatova (Анна Ахматова) was born today in 1889 in Odesa, Ukraine. That was her pen name; she was born Anna Andreevna Gorenko (Russian: Анна Андреевна Горенко; Ukrainian: Ганна Андріївна Горенко). She wrote under her grandfather's Tatar surname because her father didn't wish her to embarrass him by publishing verse using the family's honorable name...

One of Russia's greatest poets. Once, long years ago (1974 in fact), one of my Russian professors (Russian by birth) was talking about gendered nouns to a first-year class. One of his examples of professions: поэт and поэтесса (poet and poetess). All women were "poetesses", not poets, he said, and something in the way he said it evoked Victorians and their "lady authoresses". So I asked him, Even Akhmatova?

And he said: Аг! Ахматова! Она настоящий поэт! (Ah, Akhmatova! She is a genuine poet!)

Как слепоглухонемая,
Которой остались на свете
Лишь запахи, я вдыхаю
Сырость, прелость, ненастье
И мимолетный дымок...

1959о

And as translated by me:

Like one deaf, blind, and mute,
For whom the only things remaining
In the world are scents, I breathe in
Damp, mustiness, rough weather,
And fleeting wisps of smoke...

1959


Find her in Russian and English here. And her Poets.org page.
And her Requiem in Russian and English.

The definition of "terrorism"

So, rather than listen to Mr Obama explain how taking a few thousand troops out of Afghanistan now and twenty thousand or so next year, while leaving more than double the number he brings home - which will be more than double the number that were there when he became president in place - is "withdrawal", I went to Glenn Greenwald's.

(Funny, I can read things that make me angry without throwing stuff at my laptop, but listening to them and looking at their faces? Anyway...) Greenwald has one of his typical good pieces there. An excerpt:

One can have a range of views about the morality and justifiability of Iraqi nationals attacking U.S. troops in their country. One could say that it is the right of Iraqis to attack a foreign army brutally invading and occupying their nation, just as Americans would presumably do against a foreign army invading their country (at least those who don't share Mitch McConnell's paralyzing fears and cowardice). Or one could say that it is inherently wrong and evil to attack U.S. troops no matter what they're doing or where they are in the world, even when waging war in a foreign country that is killing large numbers of innocent civilians. Or one could say that the American war in Iraq in particular was such a noble effort to spread Freedom and Democracy that only an evil person would fight against it. Or one could say that it's always wrong for a non-state actor to engage in violence (a very convenient standard for the U.S., given that very few nations around the world could resist U.S. force without reliance on such unconventional means). And one can recognize that most nations, not only the U.S., would apprehend those engaged in attacks against their troops.

But whatever one's views are on those moral questions, in what conceivable sense can it be called "Terrorism" for a citizen of a country to fight against foreign invading troops by attacking purely military targets? This is hardly the first case where we have condemned as Terrorists citizens of countries we invaded for fighting back against invading American troops. The U.S. shipped numerous people to Guantanamo, branded them Terrorists, and put them in cages for years without charges for doing exactly that (indeed, the Obama administration prosecuted at Guantanamo the first child soldier tried for war crimes, Omar Khadr, for throwing a grenade at U.S. troops in Afghanistan).

I've often written that Terrorism is the most meaningless, and thus most manipulated, term in American political discourse. But while it lacks any objective meaning, it does have a functional one. It means: anyone -- especially of the Muslim religion and/or Arab nationality -- who fights against the United States and its allies or tries to impede their will. That's what "Terrorism" is; that's all it means. And it's just extraordinary how we've created what we call "law" that is intended to do nothing other than justify all acts of American violence while delegitimizing, criminalizing, and converting into Terrorism any acts of resistance to that violence.

Just consider: in American political discourse, it's not remotely criminal that the U.S. attacked Iraq, spent 7 years destroying the country, and left at least 100,000 people dead. To even suggest that American officials responsible for that attack should be held criminally liable is to marginalize oneself as a fringe and unSerious radical. It's not an idea that's even heard, let alone accepted. After all, all Good Patriotic Americans were horrified that an Iraqi citizen would so much as throw a shoe at George Bush; what did he do to deserve such treatment? The U.S. is endowed with the inalienable right to commit violence against anyone it wants without any consequences of any kind.

By contrast, any Iraqi who fights back in any way against the U.S. invasion -- even by fighting against exclusively military targets -- is not only a criminal, but a Terrorist: one who should be shipped to Guantanamo. And this notion is so engrained that no media account discussing this case would dare question the application of the "Terrorism" label to what they've done, even though it applies in no conceivable way.

He's just messing with them, now

Category: Literary Characters.
Clue: His "remarks about the Confederacy ... made Atlanta look at him first in bewilderment, then coolly and then with hot rage"

Answer, of course, Rhett Butler.

But when the music stopped, Alex looked at them and said, "I wonder if any of you thought of a living person instead of a literary character? We're gonna find out right now."

And Kate, first to answer, looked stricken even though she was right, clearly panicked into thinking she should have said Lincoln or Sherman or somebody.

ps - Uncle Tom? Uncle Tom?

Has he heard of Hawaii?

Karl Eikenberry, Amabassador to Afghanistan, is hurt. Hamid Karzai's words about the relentless bombing and civilian deaths are "hurtful and inappropriate", he says. America's presence - permanent presence if the administration has its way - in Afghanistan is for the Afghans' own good. Further - the emphasis is mine:

"I must tell you that I find occasional comments from some of your leaders hurtful and inappropriate," Eikenberry said, according to a transcript released by the United States embassy in Kabul.

"When Americans who are serving in your country at great cost in terms of lives and treasure hear themselves compared with occupiers, told that they are only here to advance their own interest and likened to the brutal enemies of the Afghan people, they are filled with confusion and grow weary of our effort here."

Eikenberry acknowledged that the US had made "mistakes" in Afghanistan but insisted that Americans were "good people" who had "never sought to occupy any nation in the world".

"Yet when we hear ourselves being called occupiers and worse, our pride is offended and we begin to lose our inspiration to carry on," he added.

First up, telling someone who says he wants you to go away that his words are so hurtful you aren't sure you can keep on going - I'm just not sure that proves you understood him, or actually will make him shut up.

And second, playing the bewildered, hurt, do-gooder card? So over. So over.

Happy Birthday, Abbas

Abbas Kiarostami ( عباس کیارستمی ) was born today in 1940, in Tehran. A poet and a filmaker, he's one of the few who remained in Iran after the 1979 revolution. As he puts in:

When you take a tree that is rooted in the ground, and transfer it from one place to another, the tree will no longer bear fruit. And if it does, the fruit will not be as good as it was in its original place. This is a rule of nature. I think if I had left my country, I would be the same as the tree.

His movies (such as Where is the friend's house?, The olive trees, The wind will carry us, Shirin, and Life and nothing else) are indisputably brilliant, though it's equally indisputable that as many people hate them as love them.

America's Endless Wars

Glenn Greenwald has a couple of good pieces on America's endless wars. One talks about how critics should "just shut up" and why:

Beyond the desire to render democratic opinion irrelevant, there is another, more specific reason why war advocates so frequently insist that critics should "shut up": because the policies they are implementing are so ludicrous and indefensible and redound to the benefit of a tiny sliver of the population. They can't be sustained if there is debate and examination over them.

...

This state of Endless War continues despite the fact that, as a new poll shows, 72% of Americans believe the U.S. is fighting too many wars. The poll itself is revealingly amusing: in what other country could that question -- are we fighting too many wars? -- even be meaningfully asked?

And the other looks at some recent disheartening events:

As usual, there are multiple events from just the last 24 hours vividly highlighting the nature of America's ongoing -- and escalating -- posture of Endless War: ... So even under the most "aggressive" withdrawal plan the President is considering -- one that he and media outlets will undoubtedly tout as a "withdrawal plan" (the headline on the NYT front page today: "Obama to Announce Plans for Afghan Pullout") -- there will still be "twice the number" of American troops in that country as there were when George Bush left office and Obama was inaugurated.

...

The war in Libya is starting to resemble virtually every other war: commenced with claimed humanitarian justifications; supported by well-meaning people convinced by the stated, official objectives; hailed as a short and easy task ("days, not weeks"); and then warped into a bloody, protracted conflict far from the original claims and without any real end in sight.

Read them - and be prepared to get angry. Again.

Olbermann is back

... and some people are happy and others aren't.

I'd venture to guess that which you are has much to do with how much you agree with KO

"that the weakest citizen of this country is more important than the strongest corporation; that the nation is losing its independence through the malfeasance of one political party and the timidity of another; and that, even though you and I should not have to be the last line of defense, apparently we are, so we damn well better start being it."

Happy Birthday, Billy

Billy Wilder was born today in Sucha (now Poland, then Austria) in 1906. It always - always - startles me to hear him speak. He gave us the incomparable Some Like It Hot... which alone would have been enough. But of course it isn't alone - there are also Sabrina, Stalag 17, Lost Weekend, Witness for the Prosecution, Sunset Boulevard... Thanks!

Happy Solstice!

Midsummer Solstice - the longest day in the year - here in the Northern Hemisphere. If you live in the Southern, it's Midwinter, and your days are beginning to lengthen.

Either way: Happy Solstice to you!



ps: this picture is from last week; here's what today's actual dawn looked like... somewhere out there, the sun is inevitably rising:

Dying words?

Ummmmmm.

Were "Lay on, Macduff, and damn'd be him that first cries 'Hold, enough!'" really Macbeths's dying words? Or were they just the last thing he says on stage?

(ps - that really ought to be "damn'd be he", right? Goodness how easily word order trumps case in English!)

Watching the news ... why again?

Mr Justice Scalia is a dick. He is so blatantly on the side of corporations against peoples that it isn't even dubious any more.

John McCain is running him a close second. Blaming undocumented aliens for setting Arizona's wildfires is a despicable act. Period.

Rick Perry for President? Didn't that jackass threaten to secede? And cheap jobs with no benefits aren't the blueprint for economic success (unless you're Scalia, I guess).

Now I'm remembering why I don't watch the news on tv. I hate listening to these people and looking at their faces.

/rant


Mute button ... now.

Goldfinches

A couple of those tiny jewels, American goldfinch males.

The Week in Entertainment

Film: Beginners - utterly brilliant, moving, and sweet in many ways. Ewan McGregor is such a nuanced actor, and Christopher Plummer has always been great.

DVD: More of Monroe - he's growing on me, and his cases are intriguing. Season 3 of Leverage arrived so I've been eating up the commentaries. Also, that wonderful Jim Hutton-David Wayne Ellery Queen - so many great actors as guest stars - a real treat.

Read: More Simonov. A very funny light mystery by Brahms and Simon, A Bullet in the Ballet. Embassytown by China Miéville which, wow. Can't recommend this one strongly enough. Just brilliant.

Two early butterflies

Here are two butterflies - a silver-spotted skipper and a pale Spring azure. Look at the way that skipper is caressing the buttonbush flower with its antennae.

Happy Birthday, Blaise

Today in 1623 Blaise Pascal was born in Clermont, France. He was a mathematician and physicist, and made a lot of contributions to both areas of study, especially in probability theory. He had some kind of mystical experience at the age of thirty, and spent the next nine years - the last of his short life - attempting to convert skeptics to Christianity. He's the author of a much-quoted gambit that bears his name, Pascal's wager, which essentially says that if there is no god, you lose nothing by believing, but if there is, you lose all by not. (The wager is, of course, fatally flawed in several places, but you still hear it...)

But he also said, "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."

Happy Birthday, Salman

Today is the birthday of Salman Rushdie, born in Bombay (now Mumbai). His novel Midnight's Children won the Booker Prize. His novel The Satanic Verses won him a death sentence from the Ayatollah Khomeini (which was revoked in 1998) - and got his Japanese translator killed, his Italian translator and Norwegian publisher wounded, and the hotel of his Turkish translator set on fire - a fire which killed forty others staying there. Then his knighting the year before last brought the crazies out again (and yes, they're crazies, those who claim killing the author is the only response to a book they don't like - you didn't see any Christians calling for the death of Robert Graves or rioting over The Last Temptation of Christ, blasphemous though those may have been. Even those protesting The DaVinci Code restricted themselves to saying "Don't watch this blasphemous film!", not "Kill Tom Hanks!").

So another birthday arrives for Salman Rushdie, who still writes: recently he published The Enchantress of Florence.

May he enjoy many more.

Juneteenth

Today is Juneteenth -

"On Juneteenth we think about that moment in time when the enslaved in Galveston, Texas received word of their freedom. We imagine the depth of their emotions, their jubilant dance and their fear of the unknown."

Fathers' Day

Or Father's Day (or even, I suppose, Fathers Day) - I test such things with an irregular noun, and it wouldn't be "man's day", would it?

Anyway, however you spell it, if your father is still in your life, celebrate it and him.

Here's mine - age about three. I won't see him today, but I will within the week.

Happy Father's Day to him!

С днем рождения, Иван Александрович!

Today in 1812, in Simbirsk (now called Ulyanovsk), Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov (Иван Александрович Гончаров) was born. He's best known for writing the classic novel Oblomov (Обломов). No other novel has been used to describe the "Russian mentality" or "Russian soul" as frequently as this one, first published in 1859 - by Russians as often as anyone else. You can find it in English here or in Russian here.

ps - the picture is a USSR 4 kopek stamp

Обломов видит в сладостном сне свою прошлую, давно ушедшую жизнь в родной Обломовке, где нет ничего дикого, грандиозного, где все дышит спокойствием и безмятежным сном. Здесь только едят, спят, обсуждают новости, с большим опозданием приходящие в этот край; жизнь течет плавно, перетекая из осени в зиму, из весны в лето, чтобы снова свершать свои вечные круги. Здесь сказки почти неотличимы от реальной жизни, а сны являются продолжением яви. Все мирно, тихо, покойно в этом благословенном краю — никакие страсти, никакие заботы не тревожат обитателей сонной Обломовки, среди которых протекало детство Ильи Ильича. Этот сон мог бы длиться, кажется, целую вечность...

(Oblomov dreamed a sweet dream of his past, a bygone life in his native Oblomovka, where there is nothing wild or grand, where everything breathes calm and serene sleep. All they do there is eat, sleep, discuss the news which arrives from outside only after a long delay; life flows smoothly, flowing from autumn to winter, from spring to summer, to once again accomplish its eternal round. Here, stories are almost indistinguishable from real life and dreams are a continuation of waking. Everything is peaceful, quiet, and calm in this blessed land - no passions nor worries disturb the inhabitants of sleepy Oblomovka, among whom Ilya Ilyich had spent his childhood. This dream could, it seems, have lasted for an eternity ...)

Happy Birthday, MC

Today in Leeuwarden, Netherlands, in 1898, M.C. (Maurits Cornelis) Escher was born. His works featuring regular divisions of planes (Symmetry) or impossible spaces are the most famous, but he also did wonderful realistic drawings as well. Here's one that sort of combines themes, "Snakes":



(official website with many, many more)

So close ... but not quite there

In today's "Mother Goose and Grimm", Ralph the Boston terrier continues his week-long conversation with the Monopoly Scottie. Today, the Scottie tells Ralph that he doesn't run around the house anymore, because the last time he did that he "knocked over some furniture and it fell on a famous board game character." "Oh," says Ralph, "I think I read about that." And the Scottie replies, "Yes. Mrs Peacock in the kitchen with a candlestick."



Now, set aside that a candlestick is not exactly what I'd call "furniture" (though it's surely the closest thing in Clue (or Cluedo for all our non-American friends)). Mrs Peacock isn't killed with the candlestick in the kitchen: she kills Mr Boddy (or Dr Black, as you prefer).

The joke just falls short of working. But with humor, a miss is as good as a mile (or kilometer...)

Happy Birthday, Barbara

It's the birthday of one of the most distinguished scientists of the 20th century, Barbara McClintock, born in Hartford, Connecticut (1902). She grew up in the semi-rural Flatbush section of Brooklyn, and, growing up, she was much more interested in playing sports with the boys of her neighborhood than she was in studying.

Unfortunately, McClintock's mother refused to let her attend college. So McClintock got a job at an employment agency and spent all her free time at the library. Her parents eventually realized that she wasn't going to come to her senses and get married any time soon, so they relented and let her study biology at Cornell University.

She became interested in the study of maize, or Indian corn, because its multicolored kernels showed visible evidence of genetic changes from one generation to the next. She became one of the first scientists to show that the visible traits of a plant were directly linked to the structure of its chromosomes.

Despite her revolutionary work, Cornell would not give her a faculty appointment, because she was a woman. A friend eventually got her a permanent research position at another school, and she was elected president of the Genetics Society of America, but her research into genetics was so radical that it was ignored by other scientists. Nobody accepted her theories. She eventually stopped publishing her work altogether.

It wasn't until the 1970s that molecular biologists with more sophisticated tools began to prove that Barbara McClintock's theories about genetics were correct, and suddenly she was seen as a visionary. In 1983, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for the work that she had first published in 1951.

She said, "I know my corn plants intimately, and I find it a great pleasure to know them."
---
This is taken from The Writer's Alamanac

Compensation

The J-bus driver pulled up at the stop though I was waving him by. He opened the door and called, "Ma'am, the B bus is broken down."

I thanked him and set off walking to the Metro stop. I was disgruntled. Sure, at least I would get there in time, since I wasn't losing time waiting for a B that never arrived. But starting the day with a 1.64-mile hike isn't my idea of fun.

But.

Because I was walking, as I crossed the Patuxent, I heard a bird singing an unfamiliar song. I looked up and saw him on the telephone wire - though he flew off into the trees when I pulled out my camera. A glorious dark blue against the sky - an indigo bunting, the first one I've seen.

Almost made the hike worthwhile... No, it did.

Happy Birthday, Issa!

Today is the birthday of Kobayashi Issa, a master of haiku. He was born in Kashiwa- bara, Japan, in 1763.



One of his most well-known:

.かたつぶりそろそろ登れ富士の山
katatsuburi soro-soro nobore fuji no yama
little snail
inch by inch, climb
Mount Fuji!

Above is one Issa wrote and illustrated:

.庭のてふ子が這へばとびはへばとぶ
niwa no chô ko ga haeba tobi haeba tobu

garden butterfly
as the baby crawls, it flies―
crawls close, flutters on

And a few more:

.慈悲すれば糞をする也雀の子
jihi sureba hako wo suru nari suzume no ko

when you hold it kindly
it poops on you...
baby sparrow

.地蔵さへとしよるやうに木の葉哉
jizô sae toshiyoru yô ni ko[no]ha kana

even holy Jizo
is looking older...
fallen leaves

.罷出るは此薮の蟾にて候
[makari] izuru wa kono yabu no hiki nite sôrô

"Allow me to present myself--
I am the toad
of this thicket!"

(more, and image from contemporary haiga)

What the heck is happening?

In a comment over at Literal Minded just now, I typed "words they write" and after a pause, my couceder produced "worea ndcy write". Just now, I typed "computer" and you see what the dumb thing put down.

This has just pening. happening. (started happeninga ntto bas meant to be. (happening, that was)) I've never seen anything like it before.

With luck, a reboot will fix it...

Happy Birthday, William

Born today in 1865, in Dublin, Willam Butler Yeats.

The Moods

TIME drops in decay,
Like a candle burnt out,
And the mountains and woods
Have their day, have their day;
What one in the rout
Of the fire-born moods,
Has fallen away?

A Song

I THOUGHT no more was needed
Youth to prolong
Than dumb-bell and foil
To keep the body young.
Oh, who could have foretold
That the heart grows old?

Though I have many words,
What woman’s satisfied,
I am no longer faint
Because at her side?
Oh, who could have foretold
That the heart grows old?

I have not lost desire
But the heart that I had,
I thought ’twould burn my body
Laid on the death-bed.
But who could have foretold
That the heart grows old?

(more here)

The Week in Entertainment

DVD: The rest of Vera - it's one of those 4-shows-a-season ones, like Lewis, though not nearly as good as Lewis. A few more eps of Monroe, which is engaging, though why Shepherd still likes him is a bit of a mystery.

TV: Them - James Arness, you are missed... Doctor Who - Rory! How splendid! I love the opening. The Last Centurion, indeed. I like this business of the Doctor calling in his debts - I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the River reveal (or why she didn't recognize Rory at the Pandorica) but I have to admit it was a helluvan ending.

Read: A brilliant YA called Shine, and an amusing one called Frindle - that recommendation via Arnold Zwicky's blog, by the way, as it's got a linguistic hook to it: what makes a word a "real" word? Three by GM Maliet, her DCI St. Just books Death of a Cozy Writer, Death and the Lit Chick, and Death at the Alma Mater. The culprit was a similar character in the first two books, but she changed it up drastically in the third. I like them. And some more of the Simonov - the war is still not going well for the Soviets.

Loving Day

In 1958 a Virginia couple were rousted from their bed in the middle of the night by a county sheriff, arrested, tried, and convicted of the crime of miscegenation, for which they were sentenced to a year in jail. With the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union, they appealed the conviction all the way to the Supreme Court, which on June 12, 1967 ruled unanimously that the Virginia law against inter-racial marriage violated the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution and overturned the convictions.

Richard Loving died in 1975 at the age of 41, when a drunk driver hit their car; Mildred died in 2008 at the age of 68.

Declaration of Rights

Today in 1776 the Virginia Declaration of Rights was adopted.

Happy Birthday, Sweet Ben

Ben Jonson, born June 11 in 1573, a contemporary and in his day peer of Shakespeare and John Donne... An orphan, victim of religious persecution (his Protestant father was executed by Mary), a soldier for the Protestant cause in Holland and by all repute a formidable swordsman, a man of fiery temper who killed another playwright in a duel and nearly hanged for it (his dramatic genius was his salvation (the play Every Man In His Humor is said to have freed him)), who lost several children to childhood deaths (including the son he called 'his best piece of poetry'), an immensely popular poet and playwright who courted prison for his political views and yet was a poet at the Stuart court, who reigned supreme among English writers long after Shakespeare had died until his own death at the age of 64...

"Drink today, and drown all sorrow;
You shall perhaps not do it tomorrow;
Best, while you have it, use your breath;
There is no drinking after death."

To Celia

Drink to me only with thine eyes,
   And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup
   And I'll not look for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
   Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
   I would not change for thine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
   Not so much honouring thee
As giving it a hope that there
   It could not wither'd be;
But thou thereon didst only breathe,
   And sent'st it back to me;
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
   Not of itself but thee!


(more here)

Sky Watch: Sun Break

For some reason, it's been a while since I remembered to do this. But here's today's blazing sun, barely covered by an isthmus of cloud and spreading glory (and heat!)



more Sky Watchers here

Errrrrrrr. Okay. How will it appear?

I'm getting my father an Applebee's gift card (won't spoil the surprise even if he reads this - it's what he asked for). They have an option for customizing a digital card. There's a rather odd note on it: Please note that the preview below may not appear exactly as shown.

Okay, I think I know what they mean: the card as delivered may not look like the preview. But that's not what they said.

Progress!

In today's Hindustan Times is this story: 10 to hang in UP for honour killing.

Udai Pal Singh, alias Bhura, (30) of Pilakhtara village in Etah district, some 350km from [Lucknow], eloped with Vijaya (22) of the same village on October 30, 2008. Fifteen days later, on November 13, 2008, Vijaya’s father, Ramesh Pal, and his associates traced the couple and Singh’s brother Satyabhan Singh to the neighbouring Balukhera village.

They dragged the three, tortured them and then unloaded dozens of bullets into them. Their faces were mutilated beyond recognition — all in full public view, ignoring pleas of villagers for mercy.

So far, a depressing and familiar story. But here's the difference:

Awarding death to 10 of the 12 accused, Etah additional sessions judge Rajendra Babu Sharma relied on the May 9 Supreme Court observation that honour killings came in the category of ‘rarest of rare’ cases, and were barbaric, feudal and a slur on the country. “All persons who are planning to perpetrate honour killings should know that the gallows await them,” the court had said.

Progress is being made.

It's not that I'm in favor of the death penalty. But I am much less in favor of men slaughtering women (and sometimes other men) over who they marry to avenge their "honor". Whatever puts an end to that way of thinking - the proprietary and violent ownership of other people - is good enough.

"Can we just do nothing?"

And speaking of Mark Steel, did you see this lovely bit on Libya a while ago? He starts funny and ends up bitterly pointed:

Isn't it marvellous that all these governments are determined to do "something" about Colonel Gaddafi? For example Hillary Clinton said she supported military action once the Arab League – made up of countries such as Bahrain, Syria, Yemen and Saudi Arabia – backed the air strikes. And it is encouraging that the policy of not tolerating a dictator has the backing of so many dictators.

...

Others will say the West might now turn a blind eye to repression that happens in countries which have backed the bombing of Libya, but that would mean an American government has bombed somewhere without being honest about its motives, and that would be highly cynical. For example, Hillary's comments about the need to act once the Arab League asked for help explain why no government helped Gaza when it was attacked two years ago. Because Gaza obviously forgot to ask. It's a bit shy, I suppose, and didn't want to be any trouble.

But the person to be most sorry for is Tony Blair, who must feel like one of these people who get interviewed when their neighbour's gone berserk and shot everyone in the shopping centre. Tony will make a statement soon that goes "I knew Mr Gaddafi for years. He just kept himself to himself, I had no idea he'd end up like this. I even had my photo taken with him after selling him dozens of tanks – who'd have guessed he'd use them for military reasons? I'm shocked."

The main argument for the bombing seems to be that we have to do something. This suggests that up until now we've been doing nothing, which is true if you don't count drawing the boundaries of Arab countries in the first place, installing an assortment of Kings and helping them to fire on anyone who objected, backing every Israeli invasion, arming the Shah, arming and financing a list of dictators as long as they sent us their oil, invading Iraq and then making Tony Blair the Middle-East poxy sodding peace envoy, to give his job its full title.

This may explain why most Arabs are reluctant to welcome Western backing, and why they might reply to a question from Britain and America that went "Can we just do nothing?" by answering, "Why don't you give it a go? For about a hundred years. Then we'll see how we're getting on and get back to you".

So while the people of Benghazi must have been relieved that the UN has forced Gaddafi back, it must be in the same way that if you were being attacked by robbers you'd be relieved to see the Mafia turn up and fire on them.

Then afterwards you'd have a new problem, that you owed them something. And that might be the aim of the governments involved in the bombing. Because none of them have ever seemed bothered whether the regimes in the Middle East are democratic, or brutal, as long as they're happy to trade their oil on favourable terms. They want to make sure that whatever emerges from these rebellions, there are rulers who will carry on with that arrangement.

So true, so true.

Words and Music: Happy Birthday, Cole

Today in 1891, in Peru, Indiana, Cole Porter was born.

For "Midnight in Paris" here's one version of Let's Fall In Love (Louis Armstrong's)

Birds do it, bees do it
Even educated fleas do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

In Spain the best upper sets do it
Lithuanians and Letts do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

The Dutch in old Amsterdam do it
Not to mention the Finns
Folks in Siam do it
Think of Siamese twins

Some Argentines, without means do it
People say in Boston even beans do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

Romantic sponges they say do it
Oysters down in Oyster Bay do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

Cold Cape Cod clams, 'gainst their wish, do it
Even lazy jellyfish do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

Electric eels, I might add, do it
Though it shocks 'em I know
Why ask if shad do it
Waiter, bring me shad roe

In shallow shoals, English soles do it
Goldfish in the privacy of bowls do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love


Anything Fred Astaire sang by him is timeless - like Night and Day:

Like the beat beat beat of the tom-tom
When the jungle shadows fall
Like the tick tick tock of the stately clock
As it stands against the wall

Like the drip drip drip of the raindrops
When the summer shower is through
So a voice within me keeps repeating
You, you, you

Night and day, you are the one
Only you beneath the moon and under the sun
Whether near to me, or far
It's no matter darling where you are
I think of you night and day.

Day and night, why is it so
That this longing for you follows wherever I go
In the roaring traffic's boom
In the silence of my lonely room
I think of you
Night and day

Night and day, under the hide of me
There's an oh such a hungry yearning burning inside of me
And this torment won't be through
Till you let me spend my life making love to you
Day and night, night and day


I really enjoy Rod Stewart's cover of Every Time We Say Goodbye:

Every time we say goodbye, I die a little,
Every time we say goodbye, I wonder why a little:
Why the Gods above me, who must be in the know,
Think so little of me, they allow you to go.
When you're near, there's such an air of spring about it,
I can hear a lark somewhere begin to sing about it,
There's no love song finer,
But how strange the change from major to minor
Every time we say goodbye.

And I'm enormously fond of Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons' cover of (I've Got You) Under My Skin - if you haven't heard it, look it up and give it a listen.

I've got you under my skin.
I've got you deep in the heart of me.
So deep in my heart you're really a part of me.
I've got you under my skin.
I'd tried so not to give in.
I said to myself: this affair never will go so well.
But why should I try to resist when, darling, I know so well
I've got you under my skin?

I'd sacrifice anything come what might
For the sake of having you near
In spite of a warning voice that comes in the night
And repeats and repeats in my ear:
Don't you know, little fool, you never can win?
Use your mentality, wake up to reality.
But each time I do just the thought of you
Makes me stop before I begin
I've got you under my skin.

And Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong's cover of I Get A Kick (Out of You) is fabulous!

My story is much too sad to be told,
But practically everything leaves me totally cold.
The only exception I know is the case
When I'm out on a quiet spree
Fighting vainly the old ennui
And I suddenly turn and see
Your fabulous face.

I get no kick from champagne.
Mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all,
So tell me why should it be true,
That I get a kick out of you?

Some get a kick from cocaine.
I'm sure that if I took even one sniff
That would bore me terrific'ly too
Yet I get a kick out of you.

I get a kick ev'ry time I see
You're standing there before me.
I get a kick though it's clear to me
You obviously don't adore me.

I get no kick in a plane.
Flying too high with some guy in the sky
Is my idea of nothing to do,
Yet I get a kick out of you.

Tumbled?

I'm reading a short story called "Tomorrow's Dead" by David Dean. He's a writer from Georgia now living in New Jersey, and his protagonist, who also lives in New Jersey, goes back to his home town of Columbus, GA. He has a conversation with the police chief, who gets down to business like this:

"So then, what is it we can do for you?" he asked in the gently tumbled grammar of the Piedmont.

I have no idea why that question is being singled out as odd in any way, let alone as "gently tumbled" (whatever that is supposed to mean). Is this just because I grew up in Tennessee? Nowhere near the Piedmont, of course, but ... No. It sounds perfectly standard to me.

You?

For certain values of "work"

Mark Steel on the IMF in today's The Independent:

If the IMF got a job as an agony aunt, and someone wrote "Dear IMF, I am happily married with two adorable children, but lately have felt frustrated at being tied to the house, and wish I could escape. What should I do?," they'd reply "Dear Frustrated, your children yield no returns and must be sold to Balfour Beatty. You must move out of your house and use it to grow kidney beans for sale to Tesco, and if your husband complains, cut off his access to water." Yet they're portrayed as kindly souls, cheerily travelling round the world trying to rescue stranded economies, like a monetarist RAC. But their method is to turn up with a few million dollars to bail you out, and in return ask only to run the economy the way they fancy.

...

Because when the IMF say a policy will "work", they mean work for their sort, the bankers, the chief executives, the men who own the oil and the water or will own it soon if they get their way.

Or, in short,

"these IMF demands aren't the result of economic expertise, they're political decisions."

Indeed. As he says, ask Haiti. Or Tanzania. Or Bolivia.

Or, I venture to say, anybody.

Happy Birthday, all!

A number of people were born today, including Emmanuel Ax, in 1949 - I love his playing; Francis Crick, in 1916, who helped discover DNA; John W Campbell, in 1910, arguably the greatest influence on science fiction ever; and Giovanni Domenico Cassini, in 1625, who discovered the Cassini Gap in the rings of Saturn, the broad black band in the 2004 Hubble telescope's picture below...

Apropos

As I said in an earlier post, I saw "Midnight in Paris" over the weekend (and enjoyed it very much). But I had to laugh when I ran across this Mayakovsky quote today (looking up a usage point):

Я хотел бы жить и умереть в Париже, если б не было такой земли-Москва. (I would want to live and die in Paris, if this place had never existed - Moscow.)

Happy Birthday, Orhan

Today in 1952, Ferit Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul.

In February 2005 Pamuk gave an interview to the Swiss publication Das Magazin, a weekly supplement to a number of Swiss daily newspapers (like Parade, for you Americans). In the interview, Pamuk stated, "Thirty thousand Kurds have been killed here, and a million Armenians. And almost nobody dares to mention that. So I do." In June 2005 Turkey introduced a new penal code including Article 301, which states: "A person who, being a Turk, explicitly insults the Republic or Turkish Grand National Assembly, shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months to three years." Pamuk was charged under this law for what he'd said four months earlier.

Because it was a retroactive charge, the Ministry of Justice needed to approve the prosecution. The case was eventually dropped on the technicality that the MoJ had not done so. There was a lot of international outcry - Amnesty International, for one, and eight world-renowned authors (José Saramago, Gabriel García Márquez, Günter Grass, Umberto Eco, Carlos Fuentes, Juan Goytisolo, John Updike and Mario Vargas Llosa) who issued a joint statement - and doubts were raised about Turkey's fitness to enter the EU (which may, or may not, have influenced the MoJ and judge's decisions...)

Pamuk now lives in the US, where he teaches at Columbia. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006. In his acceptance speech, he said:

What literature needs most to tell and investigate today are humanity's basic fears: the fear of being left outside, and the fear of counting for nothing, and the feelings of worthlessness that come with such fears; the collective humiliations, vulnerabilities, slights, grievances, sensitivities, and imagined insults, and the nationalist boasts and inflations that are their next of kin ... Whenever I am confronted by such sentiments, and by the irrational, overstated language in which they are usually expressed, I know they touch on a darkness inside me. We have often witnessed peoples, societies and nations outside the Western world–and I can identify with them easily–succumbing to fears that sometimes lead them to commit stupidities, all because of their fears of humiliation and their sensitivities. I also know that in the West–a world with which I can identify with the same ease–nations and peoples taking an excessive pride in their wealth, and in their having brought us the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and Modernism, have, from time to time, succumbed to a self-satisfaction that is almost as stupid.

Happy Birthday, Aleksandr Sergeevich!

On this day in 1799 Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin was born in Moscow. Pushkin, the father of Russian literature and literary Russian as a language, was beloved in his lifetime - when he died as the result of a duel the government feared rioting. Instead, there was national mourning... Ruslan and Lyudmila, Eugene Onegin, The Captain's Daughter, Boris Godunov, and countless poems ...

Vladimir Nabokov once wrote, "Russians know the conceptions of 'homeland' and 'Pushkin' are inseparable. ... To be Russian means to love Pushkin."

Here's a poem with a translation (not polished at all) by me:

Winter Road

Through the fleecy wisps of fog
The gleaming moon pierces,
And on the melancholy fields
She lays her sad light.

Down the long dull winter road
The fleet team bears the sleigh,
The bells ring out their one lone note
The whole monotonous way.

There’s something dear and even homey
In the driver’s endless singing –
Sometimes it’s loud and raucous,
Sometimes full of aches and longing.

No fire’s here, no darkened cottage,
Only stillness here and snow…
Lonely acres of striped fields,
Are the only things that I can see.

Tedium, sadness … but tomorrow, Nina,
Tomorrow when I come home to you
I will lose myself at the hearthside
Never ceasing to gaze at you.

I can hear the towerclock chiming,
It has finished its long circling round
As it winnows out the irksome hours:
Midnight cannot part us forever.

I’m sad, Nina, and my way is boring,
My driver’s nodding off and silent,
The bells ring out their one lone note
And the mist has hidden the face of the moon.



ЗИМНЯЯ ДОРОГА

Сквозь волнистые туманы
Пробирается луна,
На печальные поляны
Льет печально свет она.

По дороге зимней, скучной
Тройка борзая бежит,
Колокольчик однозвучный
Утомительно гремит.

Что-то слышится родное
В долгих песнях ямщика:
То разгулье удалое,
То сердечная тоска......

Ни огня, ни черной хаты,
Глушь и снег.... На встречу мне
Только версты полосаты
Попадаются одне...

Скучно, грустно..... завтра, Нина,
Завтра к милой возвратясь,
Я забудусь у камина,
Загляжусь не наглядясь.

Звучно стрелка часовая
Мерный круг свой совершит,
И, докучных удаляя,
Полночь нас не разлучит.

Грустно, Нина: путь мой скучен,
Дремля смолкнул мой ямщик,
Колокольчик однозвучен,
Отуманен лунный лик.

Much more Pushkin - in English translations and по-русски

Krugman on Medicare

Paul Krugman has been on a bit of a spree on Medicare recently - especially versus Voucher- care. Check it out. Canadians using US health care (where the chart is from - actually pointing you to The Incidental Economist, where that chart and many others are from) ... Canadian health care in perspective ... Medicare sustainability ... yes it is sustainable ... Ryancare vs Medicare ... the name is all that's the same (that last one reminds me of Lincoln's line about how many legs a dog would have if you called its tail a leg...)

All those are short blog posts. Here's his recent column on the same topic - the culmination, it's the one you should read if you've got issues with paying for NYTimes stuff - Vouchercare is not Medicare:

I’m seeing many attempts to shout down anyone making this obvious point, and not just from Republican politicians. For some reason, many commentators seem to believe that accurately describing what the G.O.P. is actually proposing amounts to demagoguery. But there’s nothing demagogic about telling the truth.

It's all good. Read as much of it as you can.

The Week in Entertainment

Film: Midnight in Paris - perhaps it's minor Woody Allen, but it was greatly entertaining. I highly recommend it .

DVD: Since regular tv is done and the summer series haven't started yet, I devoured The Murdoch Mysteries, season 3. They're delightful, maintaining their high standard of enjoyability. A couple of episodes of a British mystery series called Vera, fairly standard, and of a British doctor show called Monroe, which was slightly Housish, though the main character is much more engaging if as weird.

TV: Not much on this week, barring a kick-ass episode of Doctor Who. Lovely to see Rory coming into his own, and that last moment when he trusted the Doctor and stepped back... goosebumps. Caught up on some DVR'd stuff - South Riding and Upstairs Downstairs. The former was okay, the latter pretty good.

Read: Some more of The Dead and the Living - Simonov has really caught the chaos of the early days of the war. I read more slowly in Russian, and find myself contemplating the language.

Happy Birthday, Bill

Today in 1934, in Hugo, Oklahoma, Bill Moyers was born. Recipient of virtual every major prize fro tv journalism, honored for journalistic integrity and investigative reporting, Moyers and his programs - particularly Bill Moyers Journal - have been a beacon into the darkness of American politics and social policies. His programs on the run-up to the Iraq war of 2003 are genuinely outstanding journalism. He is a national treasure.

Many happy returns of the day, Bill.

Someone dies today?

Okay, I admit it. I was startled by the headline until I noticed the name and dates above it... especially as it was on the first page of the NY Times...

Really? 70% more?

In China Daily yesterday (China Daily 06/03/2011 pg 9), Amy Chua has a piece called "The Real Hymn of the Tiger Mother". It's more of her saying "look, I was misunderstood", but with a slant for her readers of "what Chinese parents can learn from my book" - including not trying to force their kids into a single mold. Kind of interesting to get this different slant ... but in it she says:

The average American child spends almost 70 percent more time watching television than attending school.

O rly? 70% more?

It's totally ludicrous for a school day, so let's be fair and look at a week. There are 168 hours in a week. If the kid goes to school for 8 hours (8-4), then that's 40 a week - leaving 128. Okay, 70% of 40 is 28, so she's saying they watch 68 hours of tv a week. That leaves 60 hours. If they sleep 8 hours a day, that's 56 hours, leaving ... 4. Four hours to eat, get to and fro, shower, text, play, feed the dog, do their chores... Even if you cut their sleep down to 6 a day, that's only 18 hours for all the rest. If you cut school to 7 hours, we get 168-35-59-40=34 hours for non-school/sleep/tv.

Sure, you could factor in summer, when there's no school. But really. 70% more time? She's saying they watch tv for more than 2300 hours a year - more than 2700 hours a year if they're in school 8 hours a day. That's an average of seven and a half hours a day. Honestly, now: do you know any child that watches that much?

Most of the things I found (such as the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry) say only

Children in the United States watch an average of three to four hours of television a day. By the time of high school graduation, they will have spent more time watching television than they have in the classroom.

Let's look at that: 4 hours a day, 365 days a year = 1460. An 8-hour school day, 40 weeks a year = 1600 ... a 7-hour day = 1400. Okay, that's more. But nowhere close to 70% more.

That's not a statistic. That's a scare tactic.

Happy Birthday, Apollon

Apollon Nikolayevich Maykov (Аполлон Николаевич Майков) was born today in Moscow, in 1821. His short poetry is pretty good, his longer works are somewhat dated and rather Victorian.

His greatest contribution, though, is translating the Igor tale into modern Russian.

Here's one of his (from here, translation, such as it is, mine):

ЗИМНЕЕ УТРО

Морозит. Снег хрустит. Туманы над полями.
Из хижин ранний дым разносится клубами
В янтарном зареве пылающих небес.
В раздумии глядит на обнаженный лес,
На домы, крытые ковром младого снега,
На зеркало реки, застынувшей у брега,
Светила дневного кровавое ядро.
Отливом пурпурным блестит снегов сребро;
Иглистым инеем, как будто пухом белым,
Унизана кора по ветвям помертвелым.
Люблю я сквозь стекла блистательный узор
Картиной новою увеселять свой взор;
Люблю в тиши смотреть, как раннею порою
Деревня весело встречается с зимою:
Там по льду гладкому и скользкому реки
Свистят и искрятся визгливые коньки;
На лыжах зверолов спешит к лесам дремучим;
Там в хижине рыбак пред пламенем трескучим
Сухого хвороста худую сеть чинит,
И сладостно ему воспомнить прежний быт,
Взирая на стекло окованной пучины,-
Про зори утренни и клики лебедины,
Про бури ярые и волн мятежный взрыв,
И свой хранительный под ивами залив,
И про счастливый лов в часы безмолвной ночи,
Когда лишь месяца задумчивые очи
Проглянут, озлатят пучины спящей гладь
И светят рыбаку свой невод подымать.

1839, Санкт-Петербург


Winter Morning


Hard frost. Snow crackles. Fog lies on the fields.
From cottages an early smoke rises in puffs
Into the glowing skies of an amber dawn.
Deep in thought I look out at the bare forest,
At the houses covered in a blanket of new snow,
At the mirror-bright river, frozen along the banks
And lit by the day's crimson heart.
The silver snow shimmers in purple;
And strange new thorns, like a white down,
Stud the bark of pale branches.
I love to delight my eyes with a new view
Seen through a window pane's coruscating patterns;
I love to look out in the stillness at the village
As in the early hours it joyfully greets the winter:
There on the smooth slippery ice of the river
Gleam the skate blades, whistling thinly;
There trappers on skies speed toward the dense forest;
And there in a cottage, before a crackling fire
Of dry brushwood, a fisherman is mending his worn net,
And he spends sweet hours thinking of his former life
Looking at his window where the frost has drawn waves in ice:
He thinks of daybreaks and the cries of swans,
Of fierce storms and the waves' rebellious leaping,
And of his sheltering harbor under the willows,
And of a fortunate cast in the silent hours of the night
When only the moon's pensive eyes are watching,
Turning the sleeping sea to a mirror of burnished gold
And lighting the fisherman's nets for raising.

1839, St Petersburg

Splitting infinitives and fugo

Over at the Independent, in the "Errors and Omissions" column, Guy Keleny weighs in on splitting the infinitive:

Safe splits: A news story yesterday reported on a club that will offer London diners the celebrated Japanese poisonous fish: "The torafugu is one of the most toxic marine creatures. It is extremely difficult to safely prepare, and consequently among the priciest dishes on Japanese restaurant menus."

Let's not be too hysterical about never splitting infinitives. Indeed, this is one of the three great shibboleths of pointless pedantry. The other two are never to end a sentence with a preposition and never to begin a sentence with "And".

The wise advice of Fowler's Modern English Usage is to try to avoid splitting an infinitive, but if the alternative is an awkward sentence, split away. However, there is no such dilemma about "to safely prepare". Just make it "to prepare safely".

I have to say that this is actually reasonable (though there's no more reason to try to avoid doing it than to try to do it). But, and very amusingly, his headline writer undermines him by crafting this gem:

It's better safely to prepare a Japanese fugo fish than split an infinitive

This could, I realize, have been on purpose... Here's a screenshot, in case it wasn't: