Slate sends dispatches from Haiti's wreck of a state. Without drawing too many parallels with you-know-where, this is surely a reminder that sending in the marines and mailing out voting cards does not, by itself, a democracy make. It's heartening that so many Haitians continue to register for elections - although by the sounds of it part of the reason is that it's their best opportunity for getting the hell out of Haiti.
It seems like Martha and I are done with Fatal Shore. Is it time to pick a new book for the reading group? My suggestions are below the fold.
Here are a few general-interest books I've been meaning to buy:
Here are a few books I've got sitting around and been meaning to get to:
And of course Robbie recommends that Mao biography.
Over on Harry's Place, Gene posts about George Galloway's upcoming US tour, lamenting that "if I was looking for cities with enough people willing and able to pay good money to hear a Galloway rant, I suppose these are the ones I'd choose."
I don't have much advice for Gene, but might suggest that Galloway's publicists add Coeur d'Alene, Idaho to his itenerary. A few weeks ago, I found a brand-new June edition of the Idaho Observer at my bus stop. It had the usual hodgepodge of loony-right causes, from silly legal theories about admiralty law to dire warnings about vaccinating your children; from half-subtle anti-semitic screeds to ads for tax protester courses.
What surprised me, however, was finding the entire transcript of George Galloway's testimony before Congress. Guess there's something to the old adage about the two extremes meeting.
For some reason I found myself skimming the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo this morning. Article XXII states some restrictions on the conduct of war between the two countries, that apparently outlaws the freezing of enemy assets or strategic bombing:
The merchants of either republic then residing in the other shall be allowed to remain twelve months (for those dwelling in the interior), and six months (for those dwelling at the seaports) to collect their debts and settle their affairs; during which periods they shall enjoy the same protection, and be on the same footing, in all respects, as the citizens or subjects of the most friendly nations; and, at the expiration thereof, or at any time before, they shall have full liberty to depart, carrying off all their effects without molestation or hindrance, conforming therein to the same laws which the citizens or subjects of the most friendly nations are required to conform to. Upon the entrance of the armies of either nation into the territories of the other, women and children, ecclesiastics, scholars of every faculty, cultivators of the earth, merchants, artisans, manufacturers, and fishermen, unarmed and inhabiting unfortified towns, villages, or places, and in general all persons whose occupations are for the common subsistence and benefit of mankind, shall be allowed to continue their respective employments, unmolested in their persons. Nor shall their houses or goods be burnt or otherwise destroyed, nor their cattle taken, nor their fields wasted, by the armed force into whose power, by the events of war, they may happen to fall; but if the necessity arise to take anything from them for the use of such armed force, the same shall be paid for at an equitable price.
Were such stipulations common in 19th century treaties? It seems like these provisions presuppose the violation of other parts of the treaty, making them irrelevant, but then again:
[I]t is declared that neither the pretense that war dissolves all treaties, nor any other whatever, shall be considered as annulling or suspending the solemn covenant contained in this article. On the contrary, the state of war is precisely that for which it is provided; and, during which, its stipulations are to be as sacredly observed as the most acknowledged obligations under the law of nature or nations.
I keep hearing that Christopher Hitchens is GO’s literary offspring, but I’m not convinced. Admittedly, it’s difficult to be objective, as I don’t share his views on the war in Iraq. Still, it seems to me that he goes far beyond any vitriol Orwell may have possessed. I’ve never sensed that Orwell spewed anything.
This Slate piece on Cindy Sheehan being case in point.
I’m not one to canonize Ms. Sheehan, and I won’t excuse her mistakes. But the nastiness (perceived?) Hitch directs at her compels one to rush to her defense.
Clearly, the pro-war faction cannot bear a peace or anti-war movement to exist in any form. It must be crushed.
I don’t mean to start a conversation about the war, but am looking for some input on Hitchens’ claim on Orwell. Hitchens obviously wants to destroy Cindy Sheehan. I can’t recall Orwell wanting to destroy people (unless they were fascists). I don’t remember him carrying a ready supply of meanness of spirit. I know he was a hard man, firm in his convictions, convinced of the wrongheadedness of his opponents. But was he cruel? I mean, in his writing?
The problem with applying facts to paper comes when the paper appears some morning on the doorstep of your house of memory, like an orphan claiming kinship. You stand in doorway, inspecting the child, unable to deny the family resemblance. You listen to house joints shift. You notice the front walk is missing some bricks. You wonder if the roof needs patching.
In 1981, using a blank journal, I began documenting the books I read. So, for the last twenty-five years it’s all there. Anything before that can’t be vouched for.
This weekend I started entering the information into an Excel worksheet.
According to the journal, in 1981 I read Jude the Obscure. In 1982 I read The Mayor of Casterbridge and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
In June I reported here I read Hardy’s major novels when I was twenty and never touched them again. Now I’m discovering I read two of them when I was twenty-seven. So either I didn’t read them when I was twenty (and under the circumstances I’m remembering) or I did and reread them just a few years later. Either way, my Hardy story doesn’t hold up.
On at least one occasion, I’ve informed Martha I’ve never read a word of Douglas Adams. But I have proof I did read the Hitchhiker’s Guide in 1982.
I haven’t been lying, but there’s no getting around the fact of a faulty memory.
Whenever I hear a public official tell an investigating panel they have no recollection of a specific incident I figure they’re liars. In the future I’ll have to be a little kinder.
"Alligators are not native to the state of California."
Mags is dissing both book clubs and Thomas Hardy. Are you boys gonna stand for that?
A federal judge in California slam-dunks a developer who sued a local activist and some Forest Service workers for "racketeering." Then he sanctions the law firm that agreed to bring the case. (Here's the more extensive LA Times coverage, accessible free only via Google News search.)
BTW the location in question -- Fawnskin, California, on the shore of Big Bear Lake outside Los Angeles -- may be the model for the summer resort where Raymond Chandler set his mystery "The Lady In The Lake."
A couple of months ago, Martha posted a link to the terrible ethical quandries faced by new parents choosing disposable vs. cloth diapers. The problem with these debates is that they're very public, but only if you are a parent. Otherwise, you pay them as much attention as you do a bitter theological dispute that's splitting apart someone else's church — if you're even aware of it, it seems like a big flap over nothing.
What I discovered as an expectant parent was that child-rearing and even child bearing are conversational minefields. It's as if a simple introduction invited strangers to tell you what they believed about God, personal finance, and the next election. The guy who sells me coffee once a week launched into a tirade about the evils of hospital births. Coworkers admit to having received anaesthesia during labor, but only in whispered tones after giving the office a good scan to make sure we're not overheard.
There's a great article in Salon this week by Ayelet Waldman, who probably gets tired of being described as Michael Chabon's wife. It contains gems like "While many baby wearers surely care little about what anyone else is doing, it is inarguable that certitude generally does not tolerate dissent." And my favorite: "I'm sure that there are women who circumcise their sons, use disposable diapers and feed their infants formula who are smug, snarky and unpleasant. But..."
Living in Austin, I inhabit much of the same world that Ayelet Waldman does. I recognize the whispered admissions about cribs, the conversations that take the tone of a consciousness-raising when the difficulty of breastfeeding is mentioned, as well as the hasty retreat in the face of scorn from "AP" practitioners. And thanks to her, I now understand another reason why a man with a baby carrier gets strange looks from passers-by: they're afraid I'll denounce them.
In present-day Japan, some awfully generic apologies.
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The little-known San Francisco V-J Day riot 60 years ago.
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I hate to make a Harry Potter post, but this is too good.
The Guardian had a contest to write a bit of Harry Potter in the style of any other author. What do you know? My favorite novelist is parodied there, although in my opinion not all that well. Passably, though.
There's also Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Sappho, Angela Carter, and, of course, Orwell.
Apologies for a personal note. Bob Koch, the owner of Koch's Deli on 43rd & Locust Street in West Philadelphia, died suddenly on Monday at the age of 58. I didn't go to Koch's as often as I'd have liked, even though I lived just a block away from the place for over two years, but that was partly a testament to its popularity: the tiny store could be guaranteed to be chock-full of people almost every day of the week (Sundays a particular impossibility), and you'd have to anticipate at least an hour's wait for your food. But what food! The most wonderful hoagies and sandwiches I've ever eaten. And to describe Bob as a 'character' doesn't do him justice: he was a one-man vaudeville act with an apron. Koch's was opened by Bob's parents 39 years ago; it's not clear what'll happen to it now. University City will never be quite the same again.
I have a confession to make. I occasionally make purchasing decisions based on public protest. My choice, however, is usually to buy a product (or in one case, stock) based on revulsion at the protesters of the company, rather than in sympathy with them. For some reason, I'm more swayed against a cause by a bad argument for it than persuaded by the critics of the cause itself.
At any rate, tonight I'll be eating steak.
I love the Raleigh-Durham airport. I probably fly through it three times every two years, and have found something in RDU I've never seen anyplace else: an excellent used bookstore. Space is at such a premium in an airport, and travellers are so busy that the bookstore at Gate A-16 has been relentlessly culled. You won't find any bargains, but you're guaranteed to find several titles that tempt you.
A few years ago at that bookstore, I picked up a $3 copy of W. J. Cash's The Mind of the South. Somewhere in the eighty pages I read on the flight back to Austin, there is a rejection of John Crowe Ransom's theory of southern leisure as a "settled," European phenomenon:
He had much in common with the half-wild Scotch and Irish clansmen...; but with the English squire to whom the legend has always assimilated him, and to whom the Southern Agrarians have recently sought to reassimilate him, not much.The whole difference can be summed up in this: that, though he galloped to hounds in pursuit of the fox precisely as the squire did, it was for quite other reasons. It was not that hoary and sophisticated class tradition dictated it as the proper sport for gentlemen. It was not even, in the first place, that he knew that English squires so behaved, and hungered to identify himself wiht them by imitation, though this of course was to play a great part in confirming and fixing the pattern. It was simply and primarily for the same reason that, in his youth and often into late manhood, he ran spontaneous and unpremeditated foot-races, wrestled, drank Gargantuan quantities of raw whisky, let off wild yells, and hunted the possum: because the thing was already in his mores when he emerged from the backwoods, because on the frontier it was the obvious thing to do, because he was a hot, stout fellow, full of blood and reared to outdoor activity, because of a primitive and naïve zest for the pursuit in hand.
There you have it. The core of Southern culture is longstanding, European-style settlement. Or maybe the frontier. As Dan Savage said at the end of a classic (but NSFW) column, "I hope this was helpful".
Michael Chabon talks about the books which changed his life, more or less.
I think Bobby started a conversation on just this topic some time ago.
Please, no more symbolic releases of doves. Not only is it a cliche, but the poor bloody things don't have a chance.
It needs more money. But it also needs to shed its bloated bureaucracy and stop being so boring.
I just stumbled across this 2002 Bruce Bawer review of Thomas Underwood's biography of Allen Tate. What's most interesting is a paragraph about the origins of the Twelve Southerners:
The biography’s most absorbing section begins when Tate, in 1929, comes up with the idea for "a society, or an academy, of Southern positive reactionaries" that would be modeled on – of all things – the French fascist group the Action Française and that would labor to turn "the Old South...into a convenient symbol of the good life for everybody." Speaking up for what he called "a sectionalism of the mind" and envisioning "a complete social, philosophical, literary, economic, and religious system," Tate proposed "the drawing up of a philosophical constitution...as the groundwork of the movement." Thus was born the so-called Agrarian movement – and the manifesto I’ll Take My Stand...
I had no idea about the Action Française connection, but certainly understand the South as a "symbol of the good life." About a decade ago I found myself working long hours, living on four-gallon pots of beans, and gobbling up John Crowe Ransom's vision of European leisure in Southern guise in "Reconstructed but Unregenerate." After developing his theory about settled life and a culture of leisure, and after a long rant about industrialization and its effects on the life of the spirit, he writes:
The Southern tradition came to look rather pitiable in its persistence when the twentieth century had arrived.... Unregenerate Southerners were trying to live a good life on shabby equipment, and they were grotesque in their effort to make an art out of living when they were not decently making the living. In the country districts great numbers of these broken-down Southerners are still to be seen in patched blue-jeans, sitting on ancestral fences, shotguns across their laps and hound-dogs at thier feet, surveying their unkempt acres while they comment shrewdly on the ways of God. It is their defect that they have driven a too easy, an unmanly bargain with nature, and that their aestheticism is based on insufficient labor.
Rejection of Modernity by "just sitting around" — this was a romantic vision for me!
Sometimes a dream survives better unrealized. I find that now, as an absentee landlord in the rural South, the image of shotguns and hound-dogs reminds me more of flagrant poachers on my property than of any kind of leisure for myself.
I wonder who is the more stupid: someone who mispronounces the word 'iconic', or someone who convinces themselves that a life spent arranging and hosting discussions of hot pants on TV, and writing about them afterwards, is a life well spent.
Jack Shafer at Slate thinks that the average decent newspaper-reader is full of it. I think he's got a point.
We say "Pop Rocks," y'all say "Space Dust."
Who knew?