Refutation of "How Obama Thinks" by D'souza

The story of why I can not and will not support the Tea Party.

A friend of mine sent me this today:

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0927/politics-socialism-capitalism-private-enterprises-obama-business-problem_print.html

He sent it as an "example" of how the Tea Party thinks. Articles like this make me a bit rancorous, so I wrote the following analyrant (analysis/rant).

You know, the interesting thing is that this article is exactly the sort of thing that makes me so against the Tea Party.

First, it makes factually FALSE points.

For example: "Obama underwrites offshore drilling" was published in 2009, and was REFUTED in 2009: https://pod51000.outlook.com/owa/redir.aspx?C=91272bdb25314301a2fb37d7aaeb8ac1&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.snopes.com%2Fpolitics%2Fgasoline%2Fbraziloil.asp

Wall Street Journal, btw, is very conservative-biased, so be careful with them (they do have some good stuff, but also, as you can see, they do tend to be all to happy to publish badly researched stuff, if it aligns with the political bent). Interestingly, notice that Forbes and WSJ, the two magazines/journals mentioned so far, are supported by the finance sector - which is many of the rich today. This should set off your warning lights.

And that's the first fact he cites!

Another one: "releasing Megrahi on 'compassionate grounds' was acceptable..."

https://pod51000.outlook.com/owa/redir.aspx?C=91272bdb25314301a2fb37d7aaeb8ac1&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fuk-scotland-10769210

The letter actually said: "The US is not prepared to support Megrahi's release on compassionate release or bail.
"Nevertheless if Scottish authorities come to the conclusion that Megrahi must be released from Scottish custody, the US position is that conditional release on compassionate grounds would be a far preferable alternative to prisoner transfer, which we strongly oppose."
This doesn't say it's acceptable, just that it's better than the alternative. Furthermore, this comes at the end of a long discussion between the US and Scottish governments on the issue. To say picking things out of context the way D'Souza did is exactly what's wrong and horrible about our media today.

These two things ALONE are enough for me to not support this article, and the dozens of other examples of Tea Party rhetoric that follow the same lines are enough that I can never support them - no matter what I feel about their policy suggestions. Any group that is so flippant with TRUTH and with TRUSTWORTHINESS and RESEARCH cannot be supported, because to do so is to undermine the TRUSTWORTHINESS of one's own cause, and trust is the only grounds on which one can make meaningful progress.

Beyond even this, where D'Souza does not tell lies (he may not know they are lies, but repeating lies is bad enough for a writer) he MISSES THE POINT.

His line about "the top 10% pays 70% of the taxes." I would say why not - the top %10 earns a tremendous amount of the income (40%) - and they have been more blessed by the opportunities available in this country - and percentage-wise, they pay far less of their income to live than the bottom 40% - which, by the way, I'm apparently part of (though just barely) - and which I can say, from experience, does not pay "close to nothing" compared to our income. We pay close to nothing compared to the top 10% - but that's because, compared to the top %10, we MAKE NEXT TO NOTHING.

Beyond that, why does taxing the wealthy make Obama "anti-business"? Aren't businesses helped by infrastructure? Would McDonalds (not that I support them) have started without the government building highways? Starbucks? Wal-Mart? Without taxing the wealthy to pay for government research, we wouldn't have the Internet. We probably wouldn't have Boeing - at least not as it is today.

Another point where D'Souza misses the point, and makes a factual error:

"Obama's foreign policy is no less strange. He supports a $100 million mosque scheduled to be built near the site where terrorists in the name of Islam brought down the World Trade Center. Obama's rationale, that 'our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable,' seems utterly irrelevant to the issue of why the proposed Cordoba House should be constructed at Ground Zero."

FOREIGN POLICY!? This is not foreign policy! This is domestic policy! To call this foreign policy is paramount to calling Muslims un-American, and saying that Islamic buildings can never be domestic, they are always foreign.

When reading that, I did happen across the line "to be built near the site..." and I thought "good" he's not saying it's "on the sight"; then he said, "constructed at Ground Zero." You know what? You want to support editorial honesty? Call it "Ground Two". It's two blocks away from Ground Zero, so that makes sense to me. Let's call it "Ground Two".

And then he doesn't go at all into the "issue" of why the proposed house should not be constructed at "Ground Two".

So let's take another: I haven't even fact-checked this, but apparently Bolden said that the "primary mission" of the space agency would be to improve relations with the Muslim world. Okay, I somewhat doubt primary mission, even if those were the words used (which I don't know) means what you think is means. But let's take that at face value. What did Obama actually say "find a way to reach out to the Muslim world... to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and math and engineering." Well... why not? We have here a people who preserved the writings of Aristotle, who ran perhaps one of the greatest information societies the world has ever seen, and who had a hand in inventing the math that has allowed us to do all the things we've done, and they are now under the oppression of an anti-intellectual interpretation of their religion - and what better way to bring them back into some agreement with the west than asking them to join in a great venture, begun by the west, but with roots reaching back into their own culture and history, which may now save them from further violence and stupidity.

And this is the elemental point which leads into refuting the chain of conspiracy that D'Souza launches into. I won't get into all the links he makes - I have neither the time nor the interest to refute or reinterpret them. Even if they are true, they make little difference to the conclusion, so let us jump there.
D'Souza's conclusion:
"Colonialism today is a dead issue.... China, India, Chile and Indonesia have solved the problem of backwardness; they are exploiting their labor advantage..."

And here's the kicker:

"If America is going to remain on top..."

D'Souza cares about Colonialism! He just doesn't call it that. He considers it competition. He wants to remain on top - not to maintain a lifestyle, not to encourage wealth, not to participate in future, he wants to remain on top. He sees America's right position as being above other nations. Is colonialism, at root, anything else?

Beyond that, he says, "No one cares about [colonialism] except the man in the White House. That's where he's wrong. I care about colonialism. I care about it a great deal. With hundreds of my country's military bases overseas, I don't see how I can not. Having talked to Chinese people, and heard their concerns about America invading their country, I care about it a great deal - because I don't want them to think we'd do something we wouldn't. Because having lived in Israel, and talked to Muslims there about colonialism, I care about colonialism. Because I believe we are abusing the willingness of Chinese workers to be abused, I care about colonialism.

More than that - and, I hope, like Obama, I want to do something different.

I want to encourage others. I don't believe we will remain "on top" by competing in the traditional sense. I believe we can remain on top by careful, intelligent participation. By lending money to other countries that are interested in buying oil drilling equipment from our country. By inviting a people of a great intellect and intellectual history to turn that weight away from wrath and fear, and towards a great human project. Will there be competition? Sure. But I think competition is a given. It'll happen no matter what we do. What we need is participation. Participation, from the lowest wage earner to the most exalted of businessmen, participation from developing, developed, and post-developed countries. Participation from the government and from Business.

And what do we need if we want participation?

We need trust.

And that's why I can't support the Tea Party.

Peter Wallis

P.S. We could discuss this more, but honestly, you need to develop your own, for lack of a better term, "shit detector" - as Hemingway said:

"The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it."
Do your own research. When an article like this makes factual claims, investigate the first few of them. I don't have time or interest enough in politics to do that for you. I have other things to do, other things to fix. I have my own participation in this, and unfortunately, I must compete against some cruel and foolish men of great power - and some unfortunately mislead men of kindness and equally great power. I don't write any of this in support of Obama or anyone else for that matter, but merely to say why I don't support the Tea Party, its agenda, or, I suppose, the agenda of nationalistic capitalism- called by a better term, colonialism reborn.

If you agree with this, and want more trustworthyness, you know what, feel free to create one of those email-forwards out of it. Lord knows we need some better material out there.The story of why I can not and will not support the Tea Party.

A friend of mine sent me this today:

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0927/politics-socialism-capitalism-private-enterprises-obama-business-problem_print.html

He sent it as an "example" of how the Tea Party thinks. Articles like this make me a bit rancorous, so I wrote the following analyrant (analysis/rant).

You know, the interesting thing is that this article is exactly the sort of thing that makes me so against the Tea Party.

First, it makes factually FALSE points.

For example: "Obama underwrites offshore drilling" was published in 2009, and was REFUTED in 2009: https://pod51000.outlook.com/owa/redir.aspx?C=91272bdb25314301a2fb37d7aaeb8ac1&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.snopes.com%2Fpolitics%2Fgasoline%2Fbraziloil.asp

Wall Street Journal, btw, is very conservative-biased, so be careful with them (they do have some good stuff, but also, as you can see, they do tend to be all to happy to publish badly researched stuff, if it aligns with the political bent). Interestingly, notice that Forbes and WSJ, the two magazines/journals mentioned so far, are supported by the finance sector - which is many of the rich today. This should set off your warning lights.

And that's the first fact he cites!

Another one: "releasing Megrahi on 'compassionate grounds' was acceptable..."

https://pod51000.outlook.com/owa/redir.aspx?C=91272bdb25314301a2fb37d7aaeb8ac1&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fuk-scotland-10769210

The letter actually said: "The US is not prepared to support Megrahi's release on compassionate release or bail.
"Nevertheless if Scottish authorities come to the conclusion that Megrahi must be released from Scottish custody, the US position is that conditional release on compassionate grounds would be a far preferable alternative to prisoner transfer, which we strongly oppose."
This doesn't say it's acceptable, just that it's better than the alternative. Furthermore, this comes at the end of a long discussion between the US and Scottish governments on the issue. To say picking things out of context the way D'Souza did is exactly what's wrong and horrible about our media today.

These two things ALONE are enough for me to not support this article, and the dozens of other examples of Tea Party rhetoric that follow the same lines are enough that I can never support them - no matter what I feel about their policy suggestions. Any group that is so flippant with TRUTH and with TRUSTWORTHINESS and RESEARCH cannot be supported, because to do so is to undermine the TRUSTWORTHINESS of one's own cause, and trust is the only grounds on which one can make meaningful progress.

Beyond even this, where D'Souza does not tell lies (he may not know they are lies, but repeating lies is bad enough for a writer) he MISSES THE POINT.

His line about "the top 10% pays 70% of the taxes." I would say why not - the top %10 earns a tremendous amount of the income (40%) - and they have been more blessed by the opportunities available in this country - and percentage-wise, they pay far less of their income to live than the bottom 40% - which, by the way, I'm apparently part of (though just barely) - and which I can say, from experience, does not pay "close to nothing" compared to our income. We pay close to nothing compared to the top 10% - but that's because, compared to the top %10, we MAKE NEXT TO NOTHING.

Beyond that, why does taxing the wealthy make Obama "anti-business"? Aren't businesses helped by infrastructure? Would McDonalds (not that I support them) have started without the government building highways? Starbucks? Wal-Mart? Without taxing the wealthy to pay for government research, we wouldn't have the Internet. We probably wouldn't have Boeing - at least not as it is today.

Another point where D'Souza misses the point, and makes a factual error:

"Obama's foreign policy is no less strange. He supports a $100 million mosque scheduled to be built near the site where terrorists in the name of Islam brought down the World Trade Center. Obama's rationale, that 'our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable,' seems utterly irrelevant to the issue of why the proposed Cordoba House should be constructed at Ground Zero."

FOREIGN POLICY!? This is not foreign policy! This is domestic policy! To call this foreign policy is paramount to calling Muslims un-American, and saying that Islamic buildings can never be domestic, they are always foreign.

When reading that, I did happen across the line "to be built near the site..." and I thought "good" he's not saying it's "on the sight"; then he said, "constructed at Ground Zero." You know what? You want to support editorial honesty? Call it "Ground Two". It's two blocks away from Ground Zero, so that makes sense to me. Let's call it "Ground Two".

And then he doesn't go at all into the "issue" of why the proposed house should not be constructed at "Ground Two".

So let's take another: I haven't even fact-checked this, but apparently Bolden said that the "primary mission" of the space agency would be to improve relations with the Muslim world. Okay, I somewhat doubt primary mission, even if those were the words used (which I don't know) means what you think is means. But let's take that at face value. What did Obama actually say "find a way to reach out to the Muslim world... to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and math and engineering." Well... why not? We have here a people who preserved the writings of Aristotle, who ran perhaps one of the greatest information societies the world has ever seen, and who had a hand in inventing the math that has allowed us to do all the things we've done, and they are now under the oppression of an anti-intellectual interpretation of their religion - and what better way to bring them back into some agreement with the west than asking them to join in a great venture, begun by the west, but with roots reaching back into their own culture and history, which may now save them from further violence and stupidity.

And this is the elemental point which leads into refuting the chain of conspiracy that D'Souza launches into. I won't get into all the links he makes - I have neither the time nor the interest to refute or reinterpret them. Even if they are true, they make little difference to the conclusion, so let us jump there.
D'Souza's conclusion:
"Colonialism today is a dead issue.... China, India, Chile and Indonesia have solved the problem of backwardness; they are exploiting their labor advantage..."

And here's the kicker:

"If America is going to remain on top..."

D'Souza cares about Colonialism! He just doesn't call it that. He considers it competition. He wants to remain on top - not to maintain a lifestyle, not to encourage wealth, not to participate in future, he wants to remain on top. He sees America's right position as being above other nations. Is colonialism, at root, anything else?

Beyond that, he says, "No one cares about [colonialism] except the man in the White House. That's where he's wrong. I care about colonialism. I care about it a great deal. With hundreds of my country's military bases overseas, I don't see how I can not. Having talked to Chinese people, and heard their concerns about America invading their country, I care about it a great deal - because I don't want them to think we'd do something we wouldn't. Because having lived in Israel, and talked to Muslims there about colonialism, I care about colonialism. Because I believe we are abusing the willingness of Chinese workers to be abused, I care about colonialism.

More than that - and, I hope, like Obama, I want to do something different.

I want to encourage others. I don't believe we will remain "on top" by competing in the traditional sense. I believe we can remain on top by careful, intelligent participation. By lending money to other countries that are interested in buying oil drilling equipment from our country. By inviting a people of a great intellect and intellectual history to turn that weight away from wrath and fear, and towards a great human project. Will there be competition? Sure. But I think competition is a given. It'll happen no matter what we do. What we need is participation. Participation, from the lowest wage earner to the most exalted of businessmen, participation from developing, developed, and post-developed countries. Participation from the government and from Business.

And what do we need if we want participation?

We need trust.

And that's why I can't support the Tea Party.

Peter Wallis

P.S. We could discuss this more, but honestly, you need to develop your own, for lack of a better term, "shit detector" - as Hemingway said:

"The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it."
Do your own research. When an article like this makes factual claims, investigate the first few of them. I don't have time or interest enough in politics to do that for you. I have other things to do, other things to fix. I have my own participation in this, and unfortunately, I must compete against some cruel and foolish men of great power - and some unfortunately mislead men of kindness and equally great power. I don't write any of this in support of Obama or anyone else for that matter, but merely to say why I don't support the Tea Party, its agenda, or, I suppose, the agenda of nationalistic capitalism- called by a better term, colonialism reborn.

If you agree with this, and want more trustworthyness, you know what, feel free to create one of those email-forwards out of it. Lord knows we need some better material out there.

Some Chesterton research

Take note, lit-heads! A tale of paraphrase masquerading as quotation on the high seas of popular debate! Startling discoveries! A cunning plan!

A friend posted the following on my facebook wall:
Do you know where this comes from in Chesterton's writing?

"A society that claims to be civilized and yet allows the sex instinct free-play is inoculating itself with a virus of corruption which sooner or later will destroy it. It is only a question of time"

Which prompted this response:
Now this is such an interesting case, I think I'll make a blog post of it (partially because I hope my method of literary detection might come in handy for others).

As soon as I read the quote, I suspected it was a paraphrase, and not a quote at all. Chesterton is known for his aphorisms, but this is too brief, and frankly too shallow. Beyond that, even in his day "it is only a question of time" must have seemed like one of those tired young phrases trying to seem like an old phrase, something Chesterton would have avoided.

Yet, Chesterton had an enormous output, so it's inevitable that he didn't always rise to his standards. So I began my search.

I found that the paraphrase comes from this article: http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/sexual_insanity/

"As G.K. Chesterton wrote a century ago: A society that claims to be civilized and yet allows the sex instinct free-play is inoculating itself with a virus of corruption which sooner or later will destroy it. It is only a question of time. He is worth quoting at length:

What had happened to the human imagination, as a whole,"...

Ah-ha! It does seem like a paraphrase in the first case, and a quote in the second. Let us use (and here's the really useful bit) Google Books "inauthor" search.

http://www.google.com/search?tbs=bks:1&tbo=1&q=%22it+is+only+a+matter+of+time%22+inauthor:G.K.+inauthor:Chesterton&btnG=Search+Books

Absolutely nothing there for "it is only a question of time." in all of GK Chesterton's works. How vindicated I feel by modern technology!

Let us try the second section.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=1&tbs=bks:1&q=%22What+had+happened+to+the+human+imagination%22+inauthor:G.K.+inauthor:Chesterton&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

And there it is a quote. "What had happened to the human imagination" immediately gets us Chesterton's biography of St. Francis of Assisi, in both collected and uncollected form. If you read the full quote, below, you will see how much more specific and deep the analysis is - though it is saying "essentially" the same thing it says it both with more care and with more understanding, and makes an argument rather than just a statement.

"What had happened to the human imagination, as a whole, was that the whole world was coloured by dangerous and rapidly deteriorating passions; by natural passions becoming unnatural passions. Thus the effect of treating sex as only one innocent natural thing was that every other innocent natural thing became soaked and sodden with sex. For sex cannot be admitted to a mere equality among elementary emotions or experiences like eating and sleeping. The moment sex ceases to be a servant it becomes a tyrant. There is something dangerous and disproportionate in its place in human nature, for whatever reason; and it does really need a special purification and dedication. The modern talk about sex being free like any other sense, about the body being beautiful like any tree or flower, is either a description of the Garden of Eden or a piece of thoroughly bad psychology, of which the world grew weary two thousand years ago."

I suspect many others have the same feeling of suspicion when they read quotes that seem too convenient, and I hope this record of my own suspicions and investigations has proved helpful.

Now go search inauthor:Tocqueville for "America is great because she is good" and see where that gets you.

Worth seeing: This.

Talk about your Baudrilliardian conceptions of reality.

Probably my new favorite video on the internet. Philosphically interesting (for the reality-layerings) visually complex and interesting, strangely rhythmic.

Enjoy!

Something to look forward to

I've often thought that getting old is underrated.

It's a vicious cycle - people think getting old makes one boring, so they don't prepare for it, so when they are old they are boring.

Me? I think one of the things to look forward to when I get old is looking even more badass.

As evidence, I submit this photo shoot from empire magazine.

Who would you rather have holding that gun on you? Edward the emopire, or Clint Eastwood?

I'd be more scared of Morgan Freeman holding that axe than Christian Bale.

Mel Gibson looks crazier now than he did when he played Wallace.

Also, for anyone interested in older people being badass, I suggest the film "Bad Day at Black Rock"

Guidelines for any writer

So, I was reading a story sent to me by a friend, in strange horizons magazine. Browsing for a place to submit my own fiction to the fairly impressive magazine, I happened across this list, and thought that you might want to pass it to your friends who think they can write stories, and/or use it for your own reference:

http://www.strangehorizons.com/guidelines/fiction-common.shtml

Enjoy!

World Cinema and Framing Narrative

Toward a Neuroscientific Literary Criticism

I have always felt somewhat ill at ease with the films of Joel and Ethan Cohen. While they have been lauded with accolades from literally every court, I have found myself, with a few friends, consistently feeling that their movies ring false. While there were always elements I recognized as false in their scripts, these elements never did fully explained the way their films unnerved me. It was only recently, as their short “World Cinema” (available here) made its rounds of the internet, that I came to realize one of the major failings of their storytelling.
(begin traditional plot rehash, skip this part if you’ve seen it)
In World Cinema we are presented, at first, with two men, standing in a small theater, in what could really be anytown, USA. The two men are the classic dichotomy of America – one, the intellectual, the anglophile, the goateed, the small man, who is showing only two films in what is probably his theater, both in a foreign language, and both on the, well, artistic side of film making, shall we say. The other man, standing across the counter, is the classic American cowboy. Tan straw cowboy hat, plaid cowboy shirt, mustache, the works. We are obviously witnessing the meeting of two stereotypes.
After some deliberation and descriptions, the “cowboy” chooses Climates, the complex, difficult Hungarian film, presented in Turkic. When the cowboy emerges from the theater, he surprises the audience by leaving a message with the person at the desk (our short man has left) to tell the original man that he really enjoyed Climates. The “cowboy” comments that “there’s a hell of a lot of truth in that movie, in my opinion.”
(end traditional plot rehash, pick up here.)
On the surface level, the characters play out well – as wary of each other as they should be, their language and knowledge appropriate to their situations. The point that rings false is the cowboy’s acceptance of Climates. Now, of course, one could critique my criticism at this point by saying that it only rings false to me because I have my own expectations which I approach the people with – that I am too easily drawn into stereotypes. Yet, there is a good, academic reason for my finding this falsehood. To put a lot of deep, complex academic work simply: Neuroscience has discovered that we interpret our experiences, especially our experiences of art, through formerly constructed framing narratives. In short, then, the cowboy would not have the framing structure present to recognize and accept the truth in Climates. In essence, the cowboy has lived out the enlightenment, rationalist thinking George Lakoff tells of, as the attitude, “if we present the truth, people will think themselves to the right conclusion.”
Now, could this simply be a surprising cowboy? Could he have been pondering these things in his inevitable pickup? Could his latent sexual desire for the short man have opened his framing? It is possible, certainly, but let us now think of the Cohen brother’s films as a whole. Each of them seems to have the same basic elements on some level – someone lacking the framing narrative necessary to deal with some philosophical issue enters into that issue experientially, and emerges with a changed perspective, with no clear change of the framing narrative. This is most clearly present in No Country for Old Men where the “Old Man” makes his clear, even philosophical change despite the fact that his framing clearly has no way of assimilating these philosophical thoughts.
Perhaps I am tainted by the time I spent living in Montana. It is true that there are some people who do have more beneath their surfaces than meets the eye. These people, however, seem all too common to me in Cohen brothers films. I have the feeling the Cohen brothers write about these people without ever having really met them, and I likewise have the feeling that, someday, when the two haves of this country meet, their bitter battle will only be exacerbated by a misunderstanding on the “intellectual” side of the ability and the conditions of the change of the other party. To some extent, this is already happening, and my own framing makes me quite likely to grow tired of it.

Thoughts on two films

Excuse the long absence - other projects have taken much of my time. Hopefully, I will be able to link to them here sometime...

In any case, I just finished watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - I watched Slumdog Millionaire a couple weeks ago (for the record, I very much preferred Button, for reasons I will not go into now).

What I did want to mention, though, is the interesting theme of time - and film - running backwards in both, and the opposite way in which this motif is handled by the movies - in one, it is the successful private reversal of past pain, gained at the end of a long journey, the other is the hope for a reversal of a very public and shared pain, at the beginning of the film's journey, and treated with a very public reverence.

It is a curious exercise to relate these moments, and why we are drawn to them in film - perhaps they are simply an expression of our hopes for a more innocent time, or for the work of mercy, forgiveness, and an ultimate redemption. Perhaps they are a misunderstanding of redemption, which must come, rather than against time, through time - which reminds me of something in Eliot's Four Quartets. It does seem, whatever the case, that two major movies coming out with such scenes in the same year may be a little more than coincidence.

In any case, I hope this has given you food for thought.

Common Discourse

"Life is a dreary monotonous scheme
I do not enjoy it except when I dream."

My wife said that to me the other day. She is not a professional or, really, an amatuer poet. It reinforces to me the joys that can often be found in common discourse. I suppose I should call it normal talking.

Notes on Learning, part 6 (beta version ./appendix -[burst])

As an appendix (there's a lovely English metaphorical word) to yesterday's post, I present a couple of the synonyms I'm studying now:

Who needs two words for:

Oneself: can be Jibun or Watashi

to close: Shimeru (to close a book) Tojiru (to close a door) and no, they don't include the idea of "door" or "book" you just have to use the different ones in different contexts.

Rice: Kome is raw, uncooked rice. Gohan is cooked rice, or, by extension, a meal.

I love you, Japan, but seriously, WTF?

Notes on Learning, part 5 (beta version .0001)

I've read several places (most notably in the wonderful "Book of Common Ignorance") that the longer a language is around, the more it looses grammatical complexity and gains vocabulary size and density.

One good measure of this is the number and complexity of synonyms, since many of our words focus around the same thoughts (side-note, if any of you tell me the popular lie about certain Eskimos having many words for snow, I'll hit you over the head with a dictionary).

Japanese is a good example, it's been around a long, long time, and I wouldn't say it's a grammatically complex language at all, however, its vocabulary is pretty big, and it has lots and lots of synonyms, enough to garner its own wiki, here: Japanese Synonym Wiki

Some shining examples include:

The fact that there is actually a specific word (maitsuda) that one would only use to verbally tell an uncle something is not good, and this is only one note of aggravation in a symphony. Self-disappointed missing out gets its own word, as in "I slept late and missed out on ______" as does a word (haibaku) specifically for loosing a game or war.

other good examples from the website:

Many words for annoying.

Many words for investigating.

I am also fascinated by the fact that "image" has several different words, moving image (reflection, mirror, tv screen,cartoon), still image (picture), painted still image, and a sculpture. This would make art criticism rather interesting in some ways, and could make parts of the philosophy of semiotics very different. Please note that these aren't just equivalent to our words "painting" and "drawing" as these refer specifically to their operation as images, not just as their presence as works of art.

Also interesting from this philosophical perspective is a difference of borders.

Notes on learning, part 4 (1001 apologies, or not)

Yea, so coming up with insightful, non-generalized, researched things to say about a whole language is difficult. Who knew?

For those of you politically minded...

Through my subscription to the often enjoyable very short list service (veryshortlist.com) I found http://www.nixontapes.org/ this morning. It's certainly an interesting resource for those of us that like to peek behind the curtain of political history, and see just how political our history is.

One particular moment of note, for example, is a tape of Nixon, Kissinger and Reagan. The highlight of the tape is really the awkwardness that comes of Regan inquiring into the Vietnam war, but listening to them plan the shipyards in San Diego smells highly of guilt by association, and makes one suspect that the true evil of pork-barrel projects is the way they serve the ends of whoever is in power.

Video Game Gets Banking License! Eruptions in the Blogosphere!

Some are frightened, some are angry. Some, like me, are just amused.

BBC story here

Thinking about the Auto Companies

It seems like every time I turn around someone is saying that the problem with car companies is that they haven't been building cars people want to buy. Has it occurred to anyone that they're maybe just pumping out too many cars - that we may have reached and even exceeded the saturation point. I speak as someone who lives near LA, doesn't have a car, and doesn't want to have a car. If I had my way, I'd never own a car. If I was wealthy enough, I might, however, buy into a car pool, because cars can be a lot of fun, but not every day, and not the sort you (probably) drive to work.

Notes on Learning, part 3 (beta version .0101)

A less happy thought on Japanese:

What mad, topsy-turvy people come up with three different systems of writing, and then use them all? For that matter, what sort of mad exclusivists create a whole system of writing just for foreign words - who needs to know every time they use a foreign word in writing? At that, why do that when so much of their "original" language is "borrowed" from Chinese to begin with?

I like learning Japanese, but honestly...

Notes on Learning, part 2 (beta version .011)

The Japanese word for "good" or "pleasure" is literally just "ii."

This reminds me of the Kiki and Bouba experiements, and makes me think about the possibilities of vocal representation and automatic exclamation at the roots of language.

Notes on Learning, part 1 (beta version .001)

Okay, to try to give this dying blog a shot of whatever it is they give those people who are dying with a whimper, I'm going to try out a new series. As some of you may know I've been working on learning Japanese. Sometimes, learning Japanese allows some interesting insights into a completely foreign culture and language, some wonderful, some strangely familiar, and some incredibly distant. A friend suggested I write about them. So, without further ado, two ponderings on learning Japanese for today follow above, and hopefully, there are more to come.

Thoughts on Lars and the Real Girl

Sometimes, the uncanny valley is more like the uncanny catacombs.

Sometimes we forget that mountaintops with snow, and sun, and vast backgrounds can be uncanny too.

Red, color perception, and amorism: a random thought

It is said that red is an aphrodisiac.

It is rarely observed that a fat woman in red rarely is.

Odysseus at the dentist: A freeform outline

I went to the dentist this morning. It wasn't a terrible visit, but it did put certain things to mind about heroism and bravery. I wanted to get these thoughts down before they were lost in the muddle that is a modern life. Hopefully, they will be refined later, and possibly even submitted, in refined form, to Literary Latte, but I wanted to invite any comments now, and get something out, so that there is record of the growth of the essay.

Odysseus never went to the Dentist
Meditations from the Chair
1. Odysseus never went to the Dentist. It is certain he faced horrors, but never the horrors which the modern man is forced to daily face, the horrors of science, the horrors of authority, the horrors of art, and the horrors of time. Odysseus never suffered quietly the million small indignities forced upon the modern, so called, man.
2. Odysseus never went to the dentist. He never felt the splatter of paste with a badly imitated grape flavor upon his gums. He never submitted himself to the teachings of the school of dentists. It is odd to me, perhaps, that we suffer dentists – that we have so long suffered dentists, and react so strongly against other teachings of so-called science. There are studies, even, some might say, scientific studies, which would indicate that dentists are unnecessary to those who live properly, but we suffer their prices, indignities, and pains – demonstratible and obvious pains – pains with which no one could argue – yet will not suffer the distant and uncertain mythos of evolution, and argue against by saying it drives the young to atheism and adultery, and yet, still, we will not consider that more teenagers may have been driven to atheism and even adultery by the dentist than ever by the teacher.
3. Odyesseus never trusted himself into the hands of a remote and uncertain science, merely to maintain what his culture called a normal life. Each of these modern indignities has its twin in other fields. From what we can tell, there never was much distant from Odysseus’ life – his religion was a close one, even a local one, and he never seems to have worshiped another land’s god through a strange expert priest or pastor. What Gods he did worship were close and local, or he was passing through their lands and seas. In each of these cases, too, he did not worship them so much as they touched him, and he was not interested so much in learning the particulars of their theology as how to play their game, or at least to survive. He did not worship Gods who had made some questionable sacrifice two thousand years ago. From what we can know too, Odysseus’ science was not far from his life, nor were his authorities, nor even the makers of his cheese. He probably made his cheese himself more than once or twice, and when his cheese was made ill, he could likely reach out and touch the one who made it. He could likely reach out and kill the one who made it, if he so desired. When his cheese was expensive, he could ask why, and when it was delicious, he could praise the cheesemaker to his face.
4. We must also remember that Odysseus was born into power, as were so many of the heroes of Western literature. They were not set apart by their skill, at least, if they were, that was a post-mortem evaluation. Let us not forget that while the vast majorities of humanities have toiled away quietly, their leaders have waged wars, upon which they had a part in deciding. Today, the modern man, as he is pictured here, toils away under the authority of powers he does not understand, and over which he has the minimal amount of control afforded by democracy, even by republic. Distance has something to do with this too – the closeness of the cheesemaker, along with Odysseus’ priority of birth, allowed him to move against the cheesemaker. The closeness of the God even allowed Odysseus to strike out against him, if he so choose.
5. You will rarely hear, I think, a lit-head admit that the heroes of literature are indeed, in Churchill’s phrase, “not only distant, but prosaic;” Though the sentiment is respected from one so eminent as that great speaker and leader of men, speaking at so momentous a time, it is so often despised reflected, in even truer form, in the mouths of the teenagers who can barely tell you what they mean, but who have no interest in reading the Odyssey. They complain that these things share no relationship to modern life, and I think they are quite right. The courage Odysseus had is quite a different sort than the modern man must have. I am not attempting to argue against any of the distances we face today – save this one. In some cases, the distances must be argued against, in some cases defended. In some cases they are incredibly good, in some cases, terribly dangerous. There can be arguments for each. But it seems to me, perhaps our most strange distance today is our distance from our heroes. Odysseus never was told by his culture that his heroes were, or should be, men who lived in strange histories and myths so distant from him. His literature was often songs of his friends. Even Hamlet, who displays some of the suffering of indignities, some of the arrogance, the academia, and the impotence of the modern man, was still born into power, and could still compare himself, however sadly, to Hercules. But now that comparison is meaningless to most who can read – it is not that either falls short, it is that the comparison is so distant, and so different. We are, no doubt, in need of heroes today, of examples every day, and we cannot afford to continue to produce and revere heroes with whom we share so little relationship, be they Odysseus, Arthur, Hamlet, or any one of the myriad of action heroes who, while closer, face adrenaline we do not in our moments most needful of heroism. The dentists’ chair does not allow for adrenaline. The absence of God does not allow for action. We are in desperate need of heroes who live modern life, and do so with modern heroism, facing the distances of science, of power, of art, and of time, with dignity, with creativity, and with good will. Come to think of it, we need Chaplin. His little tramp is often exactly the man who I speak of, and who we need to replicate again.

Review: The Dark Knight

Okay, so I just saw the Dark Knight, for the first time. I didn't see it in theaters for a number of reasons, and I'm glad I didn't. I'm glad I didn't give in to the hype, I'm glad I stood by my now-more-solid-than-ever convictions that it wouldn't be the end of the world if I didn't see this movie in theaters, despite what certain friends said. Partially because very few movies are that important – and the ones that are are very, very, very rarely accorded all this hype.
A few disclaimers before I launch my all-out assault. I did not like Batman Begins. Though I have a tremendous respect for Christopher Nolan, that was by no means his best work – ever, at all, in any way. That film had a number of problems which inform my problems with this film, both in character and action. Fortunately, a number of them are repaired in this film, unfortunately, many others are not, and some are compounded. Let me also say, as the harshest critic of this film I know, that even I have to admit Heath Leger's performance was impressive – perhaps even astounding. I have long approached Joker with a very different mental picture. Despite this, Leger remains relentlessly convincing. My inability to critique his performance is quite honestly, a vague annoyance to me, as I would have loved to, given all the hyperbole gushed in that area. Still, I find it delightfully ironic that the one character in the movie who doubts human nature most is the only one that seems able to restore my faith in the human ability to act. This also leads into the fact that in many respects, the best parts of this movie were the parts that were not the way I pictured they should be, but which still remained convincing – still seemed to get at the heart of this story, still seemed to exploit all the rich emotional, psychological, and philosophical material with which any such story is imbued, though it is so rarely exploited. Though I was over all expectedly disappointed with the Dark Knight, it did some things right – and it had what every movie of its kind should have – an excellent beginning and ending. It was almost a full hour into the movie before I began to notice the edges fraying, which is far longer than many other movies last for me.
The edges, however, did fray, and then they began to run out as fast as that beautiful little thread from the back of Joker's coat in the opening. And so, without further ado, the angry, grouchy part of the review where I tell you what I thought was wrong with the movie, and challenge you with Arizona stone eyes to have any explanation which would make it all right. I warn you, I'm a little angry. I'm partially angry because parts of the movie were so damnably good, and so convincing, and I wanted to like it, I really did, at times. I wanted to believe someone out there could give me a convincing, alternative version of a Batman story, and still let me believe in it. So, yes, I will be passionate. I hope it entertains - and please do take it as entertainment – don't be upset that I didn't like your favorite movie.
First, and most important (the rest are really just physical incontinuities – yes that was an intentional pun on incontinence -, this first issue is psychological, and therefore far more important to the story and the characters). Okay. Let's set this straight. Bruce Wayne is not a struggle! Batman does not want to be Bruce Wayne! He does not want a normal life! Get it right! Bruce Wayne died (spiritually) the night of his parent's murder, and he has been OBSESSED ever since with “justice” or “vengeance” depending upon which side of the law you sit on, and which label you prefer. Yes, he will not kill, but that is Batman – that is because of his parent's death – that is not Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne is as much of a front as Clark Kent is – even more so, in fact, because in some sense, Superman does seem to want to be Clark Kent – he does seem to at times envy the normal man, though even he knows he can never be one. Batman however, not only knows he could never be one, he does not want to be one. What is ironic about this is that in creating this “conflicted” Bruce Wayne/Batman, the screenwriters actually shot themselves in the foot because in the scene DIRECTLY AFTER he's saying he can not risk the lives of “innocent people” Batman is risking their lives by blowing up cars, plowing through a mall in a supercar (shooting in its windows with no way of seeing what's beyond) and generally being an innocent-life-risking bastard. The Dark Knight cleared this up for me. I always knew there was something wrong with portrayals of Batman in which he wants to be a normal man, but this film, like Batman Begins, reveals to me negatively where these sad attempts at character conflict spring from. Batman can not be an ordinary man – a man does not put on a bat suit and nightly risk his life just because he is rich, or even because his parents were killed – many people have to suffered that, and not been so afflicted. What is unique about Batman is that he is so struck by it, so psychologically changed, or even damaged, that he must take up this mantle himself, alone, and to do that leaves no room for hopes of a normal life, and to see that tangential, sappy hope levered into so many superhero plots annoys me. Superheroes are superheroes because something hugely unique happened – this is inescapable – they are born of alien intervention, strange experiments, or, in this case, and really only in this case, the death of loved ones. It is one of the most beautiful ironies of Batman that he who begins most human becomes, through a human action, the least human-like superhero of them all, and that is so much the foundation of his strange comparisons with his villains, especially Joker. So much for the psychological.
Now, to the other legion of swarming annoying little mosquito problems. In no particular order., beginning with something I am unsure of, but which still bugs me. Most of the time, from what I know, when facial trauma of Dent's degree is suffered, facial reconstructive surgery is undertaken as soon after the event as possible – so probably when he would be unconscious – to save further damage to the muscles, skin, etc. The longer they wait, the more scar tissue develops, the harder it is to deal with. Not a big deal, but annoying nonetheless. Like I said, mosquitos. A bigger problem (okay, this is more like a mosquito the size of an elephant) is how the heck did Joker get out of the interrogation room – sure, he's got glass to the guy's neck, but the room can only be opened FROM THE OUTSIDE, that is the POINT of a secure interrogation room. The writers even make this obvious earlier. Why the guy was in there in the first place is a whole other question. What took Batman so stoinking long in coming to rescue Harvey Dent from Joker's assaults? There's just long enough that the Joker can succeed in so much of his plan, and just short enough that Batman couldn't have come from his penthouse. Brilliant. Speaking of the penthouse, how is it that the penthouse which was, may I remind you, successfully breached by so few as five gangsters during a wine and dine fundraiser, when one would think security would be tight, why is this penthouse suddenly the safest place in the city? Why does Harvey Dent not bleeding insist on this being true, especially given that he himself was endangered there not three nights ago? Furthermore, since when is a cheap RPG (and trust me, the Joker had only a cheap RPG) enough to punch a hole in the new and improved Batmobile? And not only punch a hole, but put the thing completely out of service? An upgraded Hummer easily survives an RPG, and it is built by the lowest bidder, not by the personal servants of a multi-billionaire who cares about nothing more than his personal safety during his midnight vigilantianism. I would scour Batman Begins for film of it surviving worse, but, alas, I have neither the time nor inclination – and to those who would say “well, all it had to do was take out the tires” Watch the film! The tires are fine! The system says “massive damage” or some crump like that, and the tires aren't even deflated!
Okay, on to Batman's personal physical problems – he survives a fall from a penthouse onto a car, is landed on by a girl (who, by the way, seems entirely too uninjured – I was so glad she died) and still has breath to chat her up in a growly, breathy he-man tone, and then, woopiddy do, he's knocked out of commission for a number of seconds by a slowed crash, tires beneath him, into a yielding semi, a crash he never should have been in, because the batbike could obviously stop faster than that – he didn't have to lay it down to turn around, and besides, it was built to be able to go sideways if it needed to. Are we not paying attention to what happened when we said cut five minutes ago? The fall at the end is even better – he falls a maximum of three stories – MAXIMUM, probably less (after that wonderful “oh look, fingers loosing grip, at least he saved the kid” shot) and he's out of it enough to still be lying there, and then to be limping, when Gordon comes down, all because he didn't have anything as soft and yielding as a CAR to break his fall.
Right, onto problems with the villains and their plots. First off, wonderful job on the face for Harvey Dent – nice makeup. The voice, however, sounds EXACTLY like it did before. Let me remind you of a little anatomy – the sound of a voice is projected and formed partially by the movement of the cheek and lips. Hold onto your cheek – just hold onto it from the outside, and pull it for a second, and then try to talk – sounds different, doesn't it? And Harvey Dent, with half his face, lips, cheek, you name it, gone, sounds exactly the same. How could they miss that – making a multiple quatillion dollar movie, with so many other great, wonderfully done details, and no one says – wait a second, that doesn't sound right. Hold on just one gold picking, lambbasting, carrot and celery minute. Let's at least get this freakishly obvious piece of sound engineering right. Okay, enough of that one. What of the Joker? How does he get into the Hospital? They have cops crawling all over, and there he is, the nurses' uniform fools them? Besides that, they're evacuating, and no one takes the trouble to actually look around for the bombs? What? Gotham has no bomb squad? They don't check Harvey Dent's room? He's not even prepped to go in the evac? Furthermore, TV SHOWS SCREEN CALLS! Yet there's Joker, on the TV, at a dial's command, right away. There are hundreds of people watching that show, (if you don't remember, I'm talking about the part where Mr. Accountant (because we've never seen an evil accountant before) says he's going to betray Batman's identity) trying to call in, it's obviously almost the only thing on TV, and he gets right on? Hunh. On to the ferrys- it's the army, and they don't think to check the engine rooms before they leave AT ALL? On top of that, since when do they evacuate prisoners because of a terror threat? Okay, so I believe it could happen in a system as messed up as ours, but really, doesn't it seem just a little bit levered in, so that the movie isn't quite so dark, and so that a few people who believe in the goodness of the ordinary man, not to mention the goodness of the tattooed and physically disabled, but frighteningly strong prisoner? The worst part is there are more convincing ways of talking about the “goodness of man” there are better arguments, and there could have been better scenes, but that seemed far too much like a cop-out. And the guy (the non-criminal) who offers to do it, then can't? Entirely unconvincing, if you want my opinion, though I'm sure you must be sick of that by now. Okay, more stuff, they wouldn't let that prisoner get that close, bye the way, anyway, the “hostage” clowns could have LAID DOWN (they're hospital patients, and they don't think of this? They must have been wanting to lie down!) I know, maybe not earlier, but at least when the swat teams burst in? That's a more minor point, and I could have let them get away with it, but no, not when they're messing up like this. Even worse- perhaps the worst of all these is the interrogation room with the Joker in it - and on top of that, why didn't the cops take his makeup off? You know the first thing they'd want to do – the first step in interrogation – would easily be to deprive him of his face – to wash it off, which could have been so good, because his face could have been almost creepier without the makeup, but no, they didn't think of that, because they get paid obscene amounts of money to make mistakes.
Okay, all that said, like I said, there were parts I really liked. There were bits and pieces I thought fantastic. I wanted to love the movie – which in itself is impressive, because usually I love to hate hyped action flicks, especially ones about superheroes. I love that Batman predicted- absolutely predicted Lucius' behavior about the sonar – and I love that he thought of it, that was really, really good. The ending was great – Gordon's conclusion that Batman has to be chased is right on the money of the character and tone of the movie. If the whole movie could have been like parts of the movie, I would have been so happy, really, I would have. But it wasn't. And I'm not. So consider yourself warned, if you ask me about this movie, if you try to tell me it was oh so good, if you try to convince me that I'm wrong, I'll go down fighting. Not that it isn't possible for me to be convinced – you've seen my weapons, now, you'd better have answers if you're going to try to tell me I should like it anyway, you'd better have your own.
All this to say – the Dark Knight is not a bad movie. It is much better than the majority of movies of its type – but there are movies of another type, and it is to movies of the greater type that I often hear Dark Knight compared – but those movies are made more carefully, and with a greater thought for continuity, and it is annoying to me that these films are not recognized for being great in how they are great. If there were that recognition, maybe both action movies and the “dramatic” movies could begin to care about everything, because it is only in caring about everything – caring that every little bit of the movie is at least interesting, or helpful, or meaningful, caring that every bit works – that any movie can be, in my book, truly great, and that is why not caring enough about the details – every type of detail – is the great sin of so many works of so-called art, be they films or books or poetry or paintings or music or anything else. Oh, and if you agree with me, and want to pass along your ideas without doing your own writing, please do pass on this link to anyone else, I won't complain about free publicity.

P.S. I would be remiss if I did not thank a friend for loaning the movie to me – his action was very gracious, despite my not liking the movie.

Postcards from a time-traveling punk bunny: an opportunity for collaboration

So, I was lying in bed tonight, and I had an idea...
Well, that's not quite true. I was helping a friend move today, and I happened across a little orange book "The Book of Bunny Suicides" it proclaimed, in large and cheerful font. What a fortuitous meeting, I thought, just my sort of dark humor. So I read, and was inspired. (here's the amazon page, if anyone is interested: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Bunny-Suicides-Andy-Riley/dp/0452285186/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230461339&sr=8-1)

So, tonight, I was pondering a few of my favorite illustrations (a bunny peppering the eye of Sauron, a bunny V-signing in a row of Nazi troops.) and pondering just how for-crying-out-loud-a-zucchini-in-a-zebra lucky that Andy Riley is, sitting around, getting paid for those odd thoughts. And I had an idea. Surely there must be room in this market for two darkly humorous bunny people.

And so, a dream was born. Unfortunately, I have neither the time nor the inclination for drawing my idea out, so, for an artist who is interested enough to collaborate, I'll split any profit 50-50. My idea is of a new world's hero, suitable for internet distribution and newspaper syndication alike (and God knows we need some better comics in the paper) My idea is simply this:

Postcards from a time-traveling punk bunny. A series of brief, sometimes one-image comics, of a raffish bunny causing trouble in different time periods, for example:

Bunny posed to strike the nose off the Sphynx
Bunny riding the head of a stampede through a McDonalds
Bunny giving Hitler the finger.
Bunny giving (insert political figure here) the finger.
Bunny rubbing himself with rosemary and garlic in front of Ghandi

We could, of course, include a number of story-telling multiple-frame comics, for example:

Bunny gets in remote-conrol plane, remote in hand. Bunny flies. Bunny waves at astonished Wright brothers, trying to get their plane off the ground.

We could also include stories from bunny's normal life:

Background noise: Brapp brapp brapp! Bunny's wife: Pesky kids on motorbikes. (next frame) Bunny: Don't worry, I installed a raised speedbump. Wife has quizzical look. (next phrase) Wife opens window, sees kid on motorbike headed toward speed bump, which is literally raised by poles at either end - to about neck level.

So, that's the idea. Any interested illustrators, please contact me: rascalyboy [at] gmail [dot] com. Inclusion of work samples, or possible mock-ups, especially of bunny-face expressions would be greatly appreciated.

To do more research on: Hope it dies with the downturn: Too many titles.

Leveraged Buy Outs, or LBO's, are something I really wish I could investigate further, especially in the form of "Juicing the Returns". Unfortunately, my personal interests, lack of resources, and lack of funding, all point to me continuing to skip across the waters of interest, wishing someone would fund an extensive search of the milky depths.
To my mind, there are few things more worth researching. I first came across Leveraged Buy Outs in the book "Ahead of the Curve" by Philip Delves Broughton, a memoir of two years at Harvard Business School. In his chapter "Extreme Leverage" Broughton describes the process by which an investor will buy out a company using borrowed money, (essentially, the lenders buy the business with then take out loans on the companies' assets in order to pay himself, attempt to load the business with as much debt as possible, until the company strips down to the bare butt naked thread of its operating expenses. At this point, the company is offered up to the public market as new and efficient, and will commonly sell back for a lot more than it originally was purchased for - sometimes three times as much.
The short term profits, and the attraction for investors, are obvious. What raises a harrowing hall of alarm bells in my mind is the simple question of sustainability - can a company that is so laden with debt, and made so "efficient" actually survive beyond that initial year of plenty - even more so, even if the company does survive, will the slightest hiccup (like a recession) send it spiraling into bankruptcy quicker than cockroaches leave a lit room?
What makes these questions all the more interesting is that there does seem to be some form of this sort of lending/buying before every major recession in our nation's history - a "debt" bubble is certainly one of the operative interpretations of the situation in 1929, the 1970's stagflation era, and Black Monday of 1987. Interestingly, leveraged buy outs "began" in the 1950's, became more and more popular through the 1960's, and disappeared in the 70's. They reappeared in the 80's, were implicated in the junk bond crashes, and went underground for a while. Perhaps the best illustration of this recurrence today is this chart, apparently from the Bank of England.

So, what do I want done? Well, first off, I'm not at all sure this is a culprit. More research needs to be done - specifically into the performance of the companies of which we speak. Even if a solid link can be made between bad performance and leveraged buy outs, and even if this link extends to the depressions and fallbacks however, I would not say the proper solution - at least the proper long-term solution, is to make some government rules about how much can be done. Rather, the solution must be to advance the learning and expected learning of investors - who must learn not to invest in such companies, companies that have been loaded with leveraged buy outs in their past. If this can be accomplished, leveraged buyouts will disappear simply because no one will buy them back, and the possible profits will be nil.

Further resources:
http://shareholdersunite.com/2008/09/08/asset-deflation-spirals-through-de-levering/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveraged_buyout
http://seekingalpha.com/article/110306-overly-leveraged-private-equity-deals-deepen-recession
http://ukhousebubble.blogspot.com/2008/10/so-farewell-leveraged-buy-out-loans.html
http://eh.net/Clio/ASSAPapers/Parker.pdf

Literature and History in Japan

Along with attempting to organize my writing projects, in order to prioritize them, I'm going to go ahead and start writing. Right now, my essay is one about Literature and History in Japan, specifically the influence and representation of the end of WWII, and of the Meiji restoration.

For now, it'll focus more on the whole atomic issue, as that's what I've seen more of.

When finished, hopefully it'll get itself submitted to a few essay contests to line my resume.

The first paragraph runs:

Some things are only visible through distance, and some things only in mirrors. Distance, both chronologically, and spatially, has functioned as both a gear and metaphor of clarity in literature, and mirrors, even in Shakespeare, are a way of more clearly seeing our selves – of seeing ourselves differently. Sometimes, too, as we view from afar the literature of distant cultures, we may see things they themselves have no access to. Sometimes, even, we may have the privelege of seeing, in these cultures, a mirror of ourselves, either of those things we are grown too attached to, or of those things we have not, and may want to acquire.

I'm not sure how comfortable I am with the generalizations.

Is it bad?

Is it bad that I like a world in which thrown shoes can make it to top news?

I think the surreality of it hasn't even entirely hit me yet.

Two thoughts for today: Dialectic

I know people who fight against thesis, and I certainly know people who will fight against an antithesis, but does anyone (or can anyone) fight against a synthesis? If they can, is it really a synthesis? (my tendency would be to say their first argument is that it isn't)

Is there really any thesis that isn't a synthesis, and an antithesis? Ditto for the others?

My next project

Okay, so I've been thinking about my writing. I think the first thing I need to do is actually organize a list of projects I'd like to work on, before I get started on one or two...

Help wanted: solving a puzzle

So, a very evil librarian friend of mine posited a puzzle to me. Apparently, the title of a "classic" or "good" book (possibly modern?) is encoded in:

"2 (33-97)"

I have constructed a table of possible pieces of the solution, available here:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pWzUpNqryfmDEDZ1GYyG5Ww

It's messy, but it's a start. Go ahead and edit it, add something, make a suggestion (you should probably do that in the comments) and best (here comes the self-promotion) spread the puzzle around. It'd be fun to see how many people get in on solving it (and it means less work for me, ha-ha!)... if you're interested, and have time.

Update: Here is the whole list, to give one an idea of the sort of solution one might want to look for: (thanks to Janet Tillman)

Here’s something to stretch the imagination and keep the ole’ grey cells from becoming soft. Enjoy!


Benevolent Moves Real Fast

1. Bye bye three minus one two limbs
2. Chronological condition that belongs to purity
3. Butcher home half of ten
4. Young raisins associated with anger
5. Pumpernickel outside Johnny Bench
6. Double murder one heckling fowl
7. Fajita wrap not sharp
8. What you hang pictures on and where lions live
9. David’s son squared
10. Felony without impunity
11. Tossed yesterday da seeing tumbler
12. Blades
13. Hubris as well as bias
14. Recline feminine Mr. un Mr. Curfman
15. Hare Race
16. Astounded purchase mirth
17. Sob the dear land
18. Ass after terre a drink with jam and bread
19. The returning to consciousness
20. Red missive
21. Male child gets up too
22. The dissatisfaction that belongs to us owns the coldest season
23. 2(33-97)
24. Consumes Fires plus Foliage

P.S. Benevolent Moves Real Fast translates to Good Books (as in “He really books”). This will help you understand the spirit of the game. One of them is Leaves of Grass and another one is Walden. They are all classic books, some might even call great books. Please let me know if you solve 2(33-97).

Paying attention producers?/ What Quantum of Solace should have been./The greatest Bond cliffhanger ever.

Okay, so, I'll admit, I haven't seen Quantum of Solace, so there may be premature judgment in the following (isn't there always?) but I trust my friends to some extent, and when they all say a sequel is crap, it pretty much cements my generally correct opinion that if X is sequel, X will suck, especially if X is written after, and by a different team than A, the “original.” This conclusion seems to have held true despite my great respect and hope for Marc Forster, Daniel Craig, and Paul Haggis (especially his work on Crash), and my hope in the greatest title I think a Bond film has ever had (and there have been some good ones, IMHO). So, believing that all these could do better, I wonder what went wrong, and pitch my own idea of what should have happened.

The film opens, after lavish, water-themed opening credits, with the last of them melting into the desert, sizzling on the sands. Bond sits in the sand, back against his car, looking into the distance. He glances to his left. Over the distant dunes, a huge procession is coming, most on camels.
We flash back to Bond searching Mr. White's house. He comes downstairs. White is tied to a chair, and has already obviously been worked over rather badly. Silently, Bond gives him a grim look, and begins to beat him again. We return, mercifully, to Bond in the desert. The caravan is much closer. We flash in and out of the interrogation of Mr. White throughout the first act, learning that Mr. Bond is contacting this caravan because it has some unstated connection with the organization “SPECTRE”, which is not stated by Mr. White, but found on a single piece of notepaper – “SPECTRE, 25.039198, 50.019979 Nov. 3?” It is there that Bond waits now. During the flashes we learn that Mr. White has been taken back to MI5 to be under interrogation there. M begins to talk to Bond about revenge. During the flashes the caravan moves closer, until it directly in front of Bond. When the caravan is half-past him, all of them stop, and Bond is suddenly covered by dozens of guns. He is entirely unperturbed. One of the men comes forward to talk to him.
“SPECTRE?” Bond asks.
The man smiles. “You don't want SPECTRE.”
“What is SPECTRE?”
“To find out what SPECTRE is, is to join SPECTRE.”
“How do I find out more?”
“Go to Dubai. SPECTRE watches over Dubai.”
“Is that where you are going?”
“Yes.”
“Can I travel with you?”
“No, we go too slow for your purposes. You may, however, dine with us.”

Bond dines with them, and, in the darkness around the tents, drives away after the dinner. Later, in the darkness surrounding the tents, he returns, and roughs up a few young men indiscriminately, questioning them about SPECTRE. One of them, he discovers, is a disguised Estonian spy, after she repels his attacks. Her name is Maria, she's the main bond-girl for the movie. She asks to go with him. They drive to Dubai. The second act is split half-and-half between Dubai, and Moscow. In Dubai, Bond-girl tells him where he can find Mr. White's handler. Mr. White's handler asks Bond, just before he commits suicide, if Bond is SPECTRE. This puzzles Bond, and Bond, searching the handler's apartment, is taken captive by a Dubai police task force. They take him, to his surprise, before the Emir of Dubai, who takes him for White's handler, and tells him, after Bond's credentials are cleared, that SPECTRE actually works with the government of Dubai, as well as the governments of Russia, Great Britain, and the United States. The Emir also tells Bond that SPECTRE says there were indications of Mr. White's handler having connections in Moscow. Bond goes with bond-girl to Moscow, to continue to research. There we brow more embroiled in a number of suspicions and paranoias, of Dubai, of the Emir, of the girl, of Moscow, of SPECTRE.
The beginning of the third act, Bond meets a self-described “SPECTRE” agent in Moscow, who tells him that he's “Not from the government, but here to help.” Bond learns more about the apparent structure of SPECTRE, how a number of government agents work with it, but none are allowed to tell of its existence to any others – essentially, the test to enter SPECTRE is to find it. Bond and Bond-girl have a couple more adventures, she could die (she's a Bond girl, she's expendable). M starts to doubt Bond's dedication to revenge, and tells him that Revenge is a quantum of solace – the smallest possible piece of solace, because revenge is always tinged with regret. Revenge means one has power- and probably had the power to stop the thing from happening which now must be avenged.. Bond just looks at her blandly, and tortures White more. White asks Bond if Bond is looking for revenge. Bond says yes. White says, well, that's easy, for that, you need to go back to where you started. Bond girl (if alive) goes back with Bond to the desert (either way, that's where Bond goes), where he tells the nomad (still camped there) he does want SPECTRE. The nomad smiles, and they join the caravan into the desert. If we want to do a classic Bond, they are making love in a covered camel saddle, or wagon, or whatever, when the caravan stops, at the apparently empty edge of the sea. A door opens in the sand, and Bond goes in. M's voice comes on over the loudspeaker.
“You know Bond, you were right. You may not have known it, but the quantum, while it is the smallest possible piece of revenge. But quantum is also a level, and once you get down to where those smallest particles matter, the big ones don't matter anymore. In any case, you're at the right place now. Welcome to SPECTRE.”

There we go. Leaves us wondering whether M is working for the greatest criminal organization ever, leaves us with a great jumping off point where Bond starts suspecting SPECTRE, and, to M's protests, teaches M a lesson about watching her friends. At that point, one could keep creating new Bond films, or return to the originals. Remake anyone? I'll write a script if Marc Forster, Daniel Craig, or Paul Haggis contact me... :)

True enough, and most useful for its air of condemnation.

"The public school headmaster and the public school prospectus use the word "philosophy" much as Californian Valley Girls use the word "like," ceaselessly and senselessly." - Steven Fry, Moab is My Washpot, "Falling in" sixth paragraph.

The only trouble is, if they were to attempt to use it any more rarely and thoughtfully, it would only reveal, unbeknownst to them, the poverty of their thought.

Our thought for today.

You know what bureaucracy is, don't you? Bureaucracy is a way of making your rise to power so slow that by the time you have power anyone you were going to use it against is dead, and all the evils you were going to fight have been replaced. By you.

National Novel Writing Month: My Experience, and the Modern World

1. Words without thought (or other qualitative measure) are stupid and lacking in quality.
2. A high volume of production causes a devaluation of quality products in both economic and intellectual areas.
3. It is therefore the economic, social, and intellectual responsibility of everyone to strive to only produce and only reward quality – in anything we pay for or support.

If you agree with me on the above points, and don’t have much time, or don’t want to hear my conclusions from these theses, you needn’t read further.

As the few who read this blog with any regularity perhaps know, I have been participating in the National Novel Writing Month, hosted by the so-called “Office of Letters and Light.” On Saturday I “finished” with a total of 52,698 words, making me one of the 2008 “winners.” In their vapid and hyperbolic prose, the office of letters and light would like to call this a resounding victory. If my victory resounds, it is only because this victory is hollow – and that is the only reason I would like it to resound.
I will not be posting the rest of my novel on this blog. I apprehended, even in chapter 1, that this writing would not be of the quality I desired. My “novel” suffers most from a complete lack of organization – a trouble I feel is deadly to any story, especially a detective story. While there are certain passages of my novel I do like, while there are certain parts I enjoyed writing, I generally found the exercise not to be worth my time.
I find the reason this exercise was not worth my time interesting, and symptomatic of modern culture as a whole. The reason, specifically, I found this experience hollow, is that the focus of the National Novel Writing Month is entirely upon the production of a set number of words. I believe, however, that the quality of writing should never be judged or even referred to by the number of words. I believe, furthermore, that not even the quantity of writing, and especially of novels, should be judged in words. A novel is not a creature of words - this is obvious as soon as we consider collecting a jumble of words and calling it a novel. It is not a novel. A novel therefore is composed of something other than words – it is composed of ideas, and the quantity of these ideas, the number and depth of them, is the true and only quantitative measure of any writing.
Yes, one might say, but the Office of Letters and Light cannot measure that. Exactly so, and therefore, they should not encourage the production words without content. So far in 2008, according to their webpage, 1,519,501,005 words have been written as a part of National Novel Writing Month, and through the writers, the Office of Letters and Light received donations of $333,682. Needless to say, I find it unbelievable that even a small percentage of these words were produced with worthwhile content. I once had a teacher who would doubtless be happy with this result. He told us often that, to become good writers, we must write every day. I disagreed with him then, and I do so more now. If writing every day were the content of the practice of becoming a great or even good writer, romance novelists would be great writers, as they produce huge amounts of fiction every year. In any list of the most prolific authors of western literature, I would challenge anyone to actually recognize as reasonably good any but Alexandre Dumas, who ranks somewhere around 19th, and wrote many of his books with co-authors. The most prolific authors of the western world are known for novels such as “Wind of Desire” “Gathering Storm” and “Wild Bill, the Pistol Prince.” It seems to me that to encourage the production of novels in the same method as these – as Shakespeare, and later T.S. Eliot phrased “words without thought”, is not only a step backwards in literature, but literally irresponsible.
To save time, and to save myself from proving my point while making it, I will refrain from making suggestions of what might replace it, but I have thought of some which could likely be implemented with less than $333,682 (as a side note, they’re still griping that they don’t have enough money).
I would, however, like to say (at this point my complaint about NaNoWriMo has ended, and my subject becomes the culture) that I think this seems to be a symptom of much of the character of the nation today, a character which the internet makes daily and increasingly apparent. Many pundits refer to western culture as “consumption” or “consumerist” culture, but I think that in some respects, they may have the thing completely backwards. Western culture may be more dangerously “productionist” or “producing” culture. I have heard that one of the contributing factors to the great depression was that there were large volumes of low-quality products warehoused, which began to destroy the value of new production. It has been said that the current bust is deeply related to the production of houses which were assumed to have value, although there were too many houses for any to be of the assume value. Though stores were crowded, and people died, black Friday was considered a failure, because not enough product was sold – so which is there more of? Production or consumption? Of course, especially in this case, the over-production could be symptomatic of too much consumption, but, especially in the case of letters, a terrific amount is produced which is not meant to be read, largely the form of National Novel Writing Month. This production is present not only on the internet, but in Academia, where academics are pressured to (or do of their own free will) produce new books constantly repeating what they have already said, in order to satisfy tenure boards or research grants, rather than taking their time to produce really quality material.
It seems to me that this over-production, without a careful eye to quality (and it is extremely rare when quantity is raised but quality not lost), de-values the qualitative product, burying it in a huge number of suitable but low-quality replacements that consumers will consume, because they are cheap and easy, and, more so, because it is difficult to wade through the thousands of low-quality products to find one or two high-quality ones. Therefore, because no one can find the high-quality product, and high national sales are generally generated through ubiquity, there is even less encouragement for those with the ability to produce to produce a high-quality product, and the bar is lowered again. This is the system which it seems to me the National Novel Writing Month participates in, to name just one.
As an expected result of this, I will not recommend that anyone engage themselves in either National Novel Writing Month or Script Frenzy in the future. I will also recommend that if they really want to, they should be of a specific, and very rare character – a character which has more trouble writing words than planning them, and who, while they might have a refined plot, developed characters, and a host of interesting ideas, lack the impetus to actually sit and write them down. This is not my character (really? You could tell?), but to those who have such a character, I would encourage them, too, not to force themselves through National Novel Writing Month or any other means, to write, but rather, share their ideas with someone, perhaps a friend, with a gift for writing, but little gift for ideas, characters, or plots. Work with someone else. The internet is rife with the production of possibilities of social network, so network, so that you may concentrate on doing what you do best, rather than trying to do something you aren’t really excited about, and depriving someone else of the opportunity to do it. Quality is the only really rare thing in the world, and I still believe that when people see it, especially in writing and philosophy, they long to pursue it, to be a part of its production.
What shall I do? Well, first, I am going to hound a friend of mine, who is a far better proofreader than I, and has a different eye for stories. I’m going to hound him to work with me, because I greatly respect him as a thinker, and don’t want to miss an opportunity to write with him, even though that probably means we’ll disagree about a number of items. Second, I am going to focus on my short stories (since I can’t find someone to write plots for me, I’d best improve on mine) in part so that I can work on my editing, and try to produce small things of unquestionable quality. This will not be easy. Finally, I will work on another blog, the sartorial screen, which will speak mostly of the cinematic history of men’s style, something for which I have a passion, as my loving wife has often pointed out. Through these three things, and in my posts here, (which will large be concerned with the quality of my short stories and essays) I hope to pursue a quality and brevity unmatched by my previous writing, and a quantity of ideas unalloyed with the dross of vapid production. Also, I will be producing less total words. Hopefully. A higher percentage of them should be on my blogs, because a higher percentage will be readable.

My Apologies

Hey everybody (or anybody - is there anybody out there, and all that) Sorry about not posting in a while. I have been working on the novel, and just posted three more chapters. I'm a little more than a third of the way through, and if I can only avoid writer's block, I should be able to finish on time for NanoWriMo. Please do keep in mind that what I'm posting is quite unedited, so be kind (wife).

Thanks all for reading.

Cooking with Arsnic - Full fifth chapter

Chapter 5
Going Home
It got dark quickly. I had forgotten how hungry I get when I skip lunch. Fortunately, I found a box of raisins in my pocket. It was still a long night. Some thing to do a second coming for. I was sitting outside the window of a house of a woman whose husband did not care what she did, while she might or might not be hearing important military secrets from an Admiral with whom she might or might not actually be sleeping with, and might be spreading said secrets to the other men with whom she did or did not sleep. I had no trouble, however, believing that she might actually be sleeping with an Admiral. Of course, if it weren't for the fact that my boss and mentor was lollygagging around a boat, busy pretending to be dead for this strange assignment, I would probably delegate this watch to one of the kids. Of course, with my partner "dead", I couldn't exactly involve them in the case. Typical of Hartley, picking a route which creates more work for others, leaving less for himself. Slowly, the lights went out in the house, ending with what must be the servant's quarters. I check my watch, and it's nearing midnight. I'm powerfully hungry, and if anyone else owns the cars, they're staying for the night. Another thing which I find entirely believable. I am consistently surprised at how little people think their neighbors notice over a fence.
If Mrs. Miller's neighbors weren't busy ruining their own pleasant little lives, and that is admittedly likely, they could easily know not only that Mrs. Smith was very busy with other men, but exactly who those other men were, and how little Mr. Smith visited or cared. I once was involved in the case of a sweet little old lady who went into a nice little business for herself blackmail three sets of neighbors, after she, bored one afternoon, simply set out a lawn chair in her own back yard, and watched and listened. She grew addicted to watching and listening, then to the thrill of blackmail, and it was only when that had worn off that she realized just what a predicament she might be in, so she hired us to try to fix her legal problem. We did, by finding out what each house would take to secure the secret of our little old lady's blackmail, and then supplying it. I heard tell they all moved away fairly soon, and that the little old lady, struck deep with remorse, actually gave all the money back anyway. There were piles of it, but people have done stranger things.
Anyway, it was about time I got down out of that tree. Another day I might actually strike up a conversation with her neighbors, or, better yet, her friends. I wonder if the people who receive the gossip of Admirals are as likely to have friends who gossip as anyone else. Probably. It was a fairly and fortunately short walk to the nearest phone booth I could call a cab. I got my taxi, after a wait, got in the back, and was glad of the driver's silence. He drove me to my apartment building in his silent manner, asking me once which way was better. He obviously didn't go to my apartment building often, and seemed distressed to be entering my part of town. It was late enough, all the groceries, food stands, and various other places one might possibly eat were locked up and silent. Otherwise I would have had my intrepid cabbie stop off at the meanest looking one, go in for a quick bite, and come back out, probably to find him gone. Just as well, we went straight to my house, and I held my head as high as I could with thoughts of the pastrami I had stashed at my apartment from yesterday's lunch. It should still be good. That, day old french loaf, a tomato, cheese, a sprinkle of onion. I usually liked my pastrami only with mustard, but tonight I was in no mood to be simple. I wanted to stuff as many tastes into my mouth as it might fit.
I hobbled up the steps to my apartment, legs stiff from a night of waiting and watching, and found, to my surprise, my beautiful young lady, fallen asleep sitting next to my door. Tony, a neighbor poked his head out of his apartment.
"Hey Jimmy, you shouldn't keep her waiting so long."
"I know. Thanks for keeping an eye out."
"Anytime."
"Goodnight."
"Goodnight."

Tony was an odd man. I pondered waking the young lady, but decided my chivalry would be challenged either by carrying, or by waking, and it seemed the more gracious thing to do to carry her into the apartment. And so, tiredly bending, I did, picking her up, I felt huddled against her, a bag I did not expect. From it wafted the aromas of fresh cooked bread, and I could only believe that in some strange way, she had sensed my hunger, and come to fulfill it, arriving, sadly, far too soon - or at least at the wrong location. I carried her, while still she slept, into my small apartment. It was half one bedroom, half loft, and I laid her on a mostly empty couch, her head resting on a book or two, and some magazines. Thankfully, they were generally clean. As gently as possible, yet with firm determination, I removed the prize form her hands. It was still warm, huddled as it had been against her sleeping form. I could not wait, and bit straight into the loaf of bread, walking towards my small kitchen as I did. I was only a moment before she woke, turned, stretched, fell back asleep for a few moments, and woke again.
"Hi." She said, as if waking on my couch were completely normal.
"Hi." I said, as if it were not.
"See you found the bread."
"Thank you. I don't deserve you."
"That's right you don't. Leaving me waiting like that."
"Sorry. Had a watch."
"I know. I asked at the office. Maybe I can use this to buy some sympathy with Mrs. Tummley."
"Probably. Easiest way to get sympathy with her is to turn her against someone else. In this case, me."
"You going back out there tomorrow?"
"Fortunately, no. Tomorrow I have to case a few bars. Look into the Heartley murder."
"How are you doin' with that?"
"Kind of lonely, but okay."
"Yea, Mrs. Tummley seemed to take it really hard. McAven said you should take the corner office."
"I just might."
"A little heartless of you, the man still being warm."
"Yea, but it's a great view."
"Yea."
We were silent as I ate more of the loaf, and, cutting off some slices, loaded them with a variety of goods. She took one sandwich, and the only sounds, for a time, were the welcome sounds of the uncontrollable smacking of lips trying to navigate silently the sticky waters of good, fresh bread.
We finished, and still were silent, lethargic in our engorged state. All the blood in my body was rushing to my stomach to deal with the sudden influx of food. I knew I had to get to sleep soon, or I would be awake throughout the ordeal of my body screaming at me for so ignoring it. The pains and wearynesses of sitting in a tree for a whole day catch up quite quickly, but, if sleep can be had, the right sleep, before those pains take hold, one can easily avoid their worst manifestations. One look from me was all it took to convince us both that we had the same thought. Silently, she rose, and I walked her to the apartment she shared with three other girls, three buildings away. We walked largely in silence, and I kissed her on the cheek at the door. Our delighted innocence welled up, but you don’t want to hear about that. Suffice it to say, she went to bed, and I, alone, hobbled back to my apartment through the warm Los Angeles night. Once at my apartment, I went straight to bed, stopping only to strip myself of the day’s clothes, not stopping to put them away properly. My mother would be incensed, I knew. My mother could deal with it, and she never had to know.
The half-room I call my bedroom, with only a wall and no door separating it from the main room was not uncomfortable, taken up as it was, largely by a single bed. I buried myself under the unkempt covers, taking care always to make sure that I was positioned properly. I discovered even in my high school years that there were certain ways of sleeping which would stretch the body properly, helping it to recover from a day’s strenuous exercise, or from the long niggling the muscles receive from the stiff positions of a watch. I positioned myself properly in my bed, closed my eyes, and waited for sleep to come over me.
I waited for a long time, a thousand butterflies in my brain, each one trying to settle itself to sleep, but as each butterfly of thought settled, it turned up another, which, restless, would flap its orange wings of the mind, float, listless in image, sound, or concept across my brain, and hover into rest in a spot calculated to disturb one of the crowded companions of my brain. Every now and again, the floating butterflies would all come to rest, and I would, for a moment, skim across the surface of sleep, feeling the warmth of that glowing ocean call me and reach up from its depths, but, some butterfly would discover, at that moment, that it could not endure the snoring of its neighbor, or that it had not vacated its bowels before settling in, and the wings would stretch out, and the pattern would begin again. Somewhere deep in my stomach, a thunder of earthworms began to rumble, disturbing, now and again, the butterflies of my mind. I grew all too glad that the next day’s work would generally be in bars, which are only profitable for anyone after noon.
My first visits, of course, would be to those half-bars half-cafes so often frequented by military workers on their lunch break. Then there would be a hopefully quiet afternoon, followed by the loosened tongues of the bars around town to which the navy men might resort when they grew tired of their officer’s clubs, which was often enough. Finally, at who knows what time of morning, the butterflies themselves grew tired enough of their shifting that they entered into mutual pact no longer to disturb my slumbers, settled down, rose, bloodily slaughtered the single thought that dared rustle its wings, and tumbled back into sleep, to be shifted only by the strange and tectonic patterns of dream. I slept fitfully, secure in the knowledge that I had closed my blinds, and that the morning light would not intrude too early upon my slumbers.

Cooking with Arsenic - Full fourth chapter

Chapter 4
Climate
“Mister Miller?”
Despite appearances, John Smith was not as nervous as he seemed to be. He was more calm than the day before, and the fidgeting Miller interrelated as nervousness were part and partial to a excess of energy and conscience which, now that movement had finally occurred, had dug itself deep into the psyche of John Smith. Fingers twitching, legs shifting, and rapid eye movements were the symptoms of a man who had lived without adrenaline for so long that when it began to rush through his system for the first time, perhaps in years, it affected him in a way similar to a rich grande cup of espresso, downed by Mormon, forever previous, abstinent of caffeine.
“I want to assure you, your partner’s death had nothing to do with me or my friends. I do not even think it is attached to my case. I have considered it, and I do not think it is likely, furthermore, I hope it is not likely.”
“If you will forgive me.” Miller replied, “I think it is best, no matter what, to proceed with your case as if my boss’ death was directly related. After all, the cases Mr. Hartley usually took often had more to do with Hollywood heiresses than half town hit men. Hollywood heiresses, though they may hold quite a grudge, will rarely plot murder.”
“Surely, he’s made other enemies. Is it not possible, also, that his death was merely a mistake, just one of those things that happens in that part of town?”
“I didn’t say it’s not possible. I said it’s best if we proceed as if that were not the case. I think it’s best if you tell me everything you can, and then leave the rest to me.”
“I suppose I have no choice. I do feel badly for your partner. If I may offer my condolences.”
“Thank you.”
As they spoke, they entered Miller’s office. He pushed a stack of papers from one side of his desk to the other, then put his feet up on the edge of the desk, and lit a cigarette.
“Lucky Strikes?”
“What the doctor ordered.”
“May I?”
“Please.” Miller tossed the pack to him, and for a moment, they joined in one of the oldest conspiratorial traditions in mankind. The warm glow of the cigarettes released from them the glow of Mrs. Tummley’s glare, and gave strange, warm relief from the heat of the day. In hot climates, cigarettes can be strangely homeopathic medicines.
“So. First, what’s your real name?”
“My real name? John Smith.”
“Come on. Now’s not the time to pull my leg.”
“Would you like to see my identification?”
“Yes, actually.” Miller studied the document closely, wrinkling his eyebrows. “John Smith. What sort of parents did you have, that’s been a cliché since Sherlock Homes.”
“My parents did not expect me to be in the midst of a murder investigation, Mister Miller.”
“Really? They seemed to have planned it well enough – a real name everyone will think is an alias.”
“It was certainly partially that they were not raised American. Irony does not translate terribly well I find.”
“True enough. Where were they from?”
A long sigh. “America. But their parents came from Japan.”
“Japan?”
“Japan. This is part of why this so concerns me. My mother was born in America, raised by parents who spoke Japanese almost exclusively. She was raised to speak American. My father was of Scottish blood, adopted by first-generation Japanese parents, who also spoke little English. My father, not knowing his real name, at some point took the name Smith, and my parents desired me to have a name they considered American. I am a very patriotic man, and understand why my so-called people are now under suspicion, but I have no desire to come under suspicion myself.”
“You work as a lawyer?”
“Yes, how did you guess?”
“Not unexpected, along with an American name you were given an American schooling, and the most American of carriers. Being a lawyer gives you the longer lunch break to speak with me, without arousing suspicion, and explains why you have so easily put your ancestry out of the way of notice.”
John Smith checked his watch. “You are more perceptive than I first gave you credit for. I am a lawyer, specializing in business law.”
Miller imagined, for a moment, that he heard a mocking laugh from next door. McAven hated business lawyers.
“So, who is this Admiral?”
“I’m not sure. She just talks about big brass, and about military secrets. She tells me things, reports before they’ll come out.”
“Do you know how they met?”
“Mr. Miller, this may come as a shock to you, working in your business of broken homes and weeping, emotionally betrayed people, but I do not really care what my wife does.”
“For your information, that isn’t what I was asking. You might be surprised. My business is rarely involved with the passionate and betrayed. Usually, I’m called in at the end of a long marriage the couple both knew was over for some time; one side just needs some evidence to ratchet up their winnings in court. I have actually simultaneously represented both sides in divorce hearings.”
“I’m sorry. I tire of those who judge my position on marriage. I was, you see, rather forced.”
“Isn’t every man?”
“True enough.”
“I’m just looking for anything that can help us to understand what is happening, or to help me find the man your wife is… seeing.”
“You could just follow her.”
“That is certainly an option, but I vastly prefer not to, if someone else already is, the situation might very quickly become dangerous, and I think it’s quite dangerous enough as it is.”
“I suppose that is true. Unfortunately, I have no information, as my wife and I live very separate lives, exactly what we came to Los Angeles to have the ability to do.”
“Very well then, what’s your address?”
“24243 Sycamore. But that won’t help you much.”
“Why’s that?’
“My wife’s address is 1322 Canary.”
“The other end of town.”
“Correct.”
“You do live separate lives.”
“I did inform you of that before.”
“Not even keeping up appearances?”
“For whom would we do that?”
“Why stay married?”
“Two reasons, the first being taxes, the second, simply I think we both get some benefit from it. We both found, rather quickly in our marriage, that we were attracted to a certain sort of people who find their joy in thinking themselves home-wreckers, able to turn people away from their wives. There is an inexplicable number of men and ladies willing to throw themselves at those they would not touch, were they not married.”
“The seal of approval of another woman is the greatest attracting factor?”
“Something like that, I do believe. Perhaps a penchant for drama, I don’t know. With those already married, our being married extends to them a feeling that we are living as dangerously as they. I will admit, to a man such as yourself, that this has, at times, proved financially helpful.”
“Blackmail.”
“Only from those who could afford it. I’m sure you understand. We actually help each other sometimes, she will create drama at times when I feel my relationship needs it, or she will help me blackmail to prove I have nothing to loose. All in all, it’s a wonderful marriage, despite appearances.”
“Sounds like it. You aren’t nervous are you?”
“Yesterday? Yesterday I thought I would soon have the immigration bureau breathing down my neck. Today, I know it’s something much larger, and I, sir, prefer prison to paperwork.”
“Very well. I guess I’ll follow your wife.”
“Ironic, you following the wife of a man who couldn’t care less.”
“I told you, it’s what I do. Any idea when I should watch her?”
“Did it sound like I kept track? Do what you do.”
With that, John Smith left.
Jim Miller muttered, and his stomach followed suit. He had been leaning against the desk for the entirety of his interview. He threw himself into his chair, and put his feet up on the desk. Leaning back, he closed his eyes, and ran his hands across his face. He took one three second glance out of his window, swung his feet back down off of his desk, and left the room. As he passed Mrs. Tummley on the way out, he spoke:
“Mrs. Tummley. I will be out for the rest of the day on a trail.”
“Thank you Mr. Miller.” Though Mrs. Tummley disliked rudeness, she did appreciate a businesslike, hardworking attitude. She liked to see them busy, and it was often jested that she was more a slave-driver than Mr. Hartley. The jest was funny because it was an understatement. Jim Miller caught a quick “Very good, sir,” Emanating from her battleship of a desk before he was out the door.
Miller after taking the stairs as quickly as gravity and agility would let him, he paused, and peered out of the doorway, looking for John Smith. John Smith, apparently, had been eager to depart, and had disappeared entirely. After making sure of this, Miller stepped into the street, and, after some watching, managed to flag down a taxi.
“1333 Canary.”
“Right.”
In the taxi, Miller thought of his two trips to New York – taxis there were places of talk and chatter, only occasionally struck by silence, in rare moments when passengers and driver were both quiet. Here in Los Angeles, taxi rides were silent affairs, even the cars more silent than in New York, and the cacophony of horns, motors, and screeching tires. He rode silent through the streets, pondering the movement, and the long, low buildings. After some time, the taxi turned into the residential area, and long low businesses gave way to the long, low houses that form the backbone of the Californian rich life. Canary street was a brief side street, with no number 1333. The cab driver seemed unnaturally perturbed when he was told to stop in a cul-de-sac and just let his passenger out. He took his pay, however, and left. Miller walked back part way back to the gate for 2311. The neighborhood here existed almost completely of gates, the houses being set far enough back from the road that roofs alone were visible. Around 2315, Miller slipped into a hedgerow, and swung himself easily over a fence. He tried to spend as little time as possible in either breaking and entering or trespassing, but the police tended to look with a blind eye toward private investigators with good records who committed minor crimes while doing their job. The police, so long as their more important and public cases were not interfered with, tended to see private investigators as doing work they would prefer not do themselves. Those who extended no such grace were the sort that could often be bribed.
That was trouble Miller would rather not go to, and he was glad to see neither cars in front of 2315, nor any lights on inside. Silently, and staying toward cover, watching the house carefully despite its apparent emptiness. The next yard was occupied by a dog, yet Miller quickly and easily navigated it through trees and fences, keeping well out of the dog’s reach.
Miller, crossing the final yard, found a perch in a tree near the gate. Best of all, he was technically on public property, the tree extending over the sidewalk, and could drop if escape or pursuit was necessary. He so ensconced himself in the brush and bushiness of the tree, it was, after all, a pine, that he could not be seen from nearly any angle. There, he waited, nearly motionless, and without result, for the rest of the afternoon.
There were three cars outside of the house, and Miller could easily believe that all, or none, of them actually belonged to Mrs. Smith. They were each of a certain sort - a rich sort, a sporting sort, yet slightly antiquated. They could have been all of the sort one person might choose, or all of the sort one person's friends would choose, were that person particularly limited in friends. In any case, Miller took all their license plates down, and used the idle moments to memorize license plate numbers and descriptions, and plan routes up and into the house. By the time darkness had fallen, he had worked out fourteen ways he could most likely get into the house, including a daring chimney entrance. Chimney entrances are always problematic, and generally unnecessary, as people who might lock upper windows rarely realize how easy it is for one with practice to climb a house.