A little Chin music

Watch out for that croco-duck!

Interesting. I knew Kirk Cameron was a crazy person, but I thought he was at least a passable child actor back in the day. I mean, Mike Seaver was painfully stupid; it takes a lot of effort to play down that far. Just look at the quality of actor it's taken to play Lennie in the two theatrical releases of Of Mice and Men: Lon Chaney, Jr. might best be remembered for the old Universal horror-fests, but he was quite an accomplished thespian; and I think John Malkovich's oeuvre speaks for itself.

Now, I realize he was just being himself.

My goodness, he's a moron. But hey, don't take my word for it. See for yourself.

Slate's Troy Patterson hoped for some revelations, but felt quite let down.

In Cameron's introductory remarks at the debate - which can be seen at something like its full and numbing length at abcnews.go.com - he coolly claimed that "the existence of God can be proven 100 percent, absolutely without the use of faith." First, I grew excited at this promise, then began to wonder why no theologian, philosopher, or sitcom star in recorded history had done it before - Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, Tina Yothers, whoever - and realized I was in for a letdown.

Big Brother has a stye in his eye

The "city" of Mesa is losing $100K a month on their photo radar program. Boo. Fucking. Hoo. I hope those fuckers go bankrupt. Followed by every other greedy town that wants to milk people to fill their coffers (not to mention the sweetheart deals you know the goodly in-civil servants cook up to line their own pockets.)

You want to give out tickets that badly? Public safety is such a big concern? Raise taxes and hire more police to enforce the laws. And keep your unaccountable, unelected, un-American private firms out of the business of public safety.

Wanna throw a piston?

In this article debunking myths about gasoline-saving techniques, Rik Paul from Consumer Reports says with a fuel-injected engine, engine restarts don't use extra fuel.

Granted it's probably not sensible shutting down the engine every time you get stuck in traffic, but if it looks like you might be at the drive-thru for more than 30 seconds to a minute, it's worth turning off your car, says Paul.

Sounds great. I'll turn my engine off just long enough to let the oil pressure drop and a good portion of it return to the reservoir. Then, I'll kick that baby back over. And I'll just repeat this over, and over again. Sure, a modern engine probably isn't going to rip itself to shreds just because it's got a little extra friction, but for a 30-second stop? Really? Does Rik Paul rebuild engines on the side?

How Language Works

Finished reading David Crystal's latest this weekend passed. It's a great linguistics primer, but not so basic that I wasn't able to learn a few things. This book, or one like it, should be required reading in high school.

Running the gamut from the anatomical bases of speech and hearing, through an overview of the study of grammar, all the way to the preservation of nearly-extinct languages, Crystal gives a pretty complete overview of the entire scope of linguistics. While the coverage is necessarily light in order to provide such breadth, it rarely feels shallow. There is enough detail throughout to whet the (hard? soft?) palate and provide entree to the topics under discussion. Further reading is, of course, encouraged.

While I'm not particularly interested in foreign language teaching techniques or children's acquisition of language, Crystal's breezy style made those relatively interesting. Of course, that means his coverage of my interests - language and grammar evolution, migration patterns of languages, the formation of pidgins and creoles - was really appealing to me. I'd have to think anyone else with interest in any of these topics would likewise be well-served.

I'd first read Crystal's The Stories of English which was a great read for me. That book pretty much hit my sweet spot. While How Language Works is broader, I still gleaned interesting information in reading it.

One caveat: Crystal is a descriptivist grammarian. For the hard-core, immovably prescriptivist out there, this might be a deal killer.

You've gotta watch out for those raccoons...they bite

He'd kick Nite-Owl's ass

The obvious review for this week should be Buffy: Season 8. The third issue was out yesterday, the penultimate of this initial story arc, and Joss is firing on all cylinders. Or I could talk about his second, awfully cool issue of Runaways, also out yesterday. Instead, I'm going to sing the praises of Jaime Reyes.

I'm coming to the scarab's party late and feel like a chump for it. I'm a fan of John Rogers and read his blog religiously - dude wrote the Global Frequency pilot, come on - but I just paid no attention to the new Beetle. Rogers was co-writing with Keith Giffen through issue 6, taking over solo scripting chores with issue 7. Because I've picked it up late, I bought the first bound volume and will get the second when it comes out in a couple of months, but from here on out BB's on my pull list.

So what's so great about the Beetle?

Jaime's 17, his best friends and family know his secret, and he's both stoked and freaked by being a cape. Plus, in issue one he goes toe-to-toe with Guy freakin' Gardner. However, as tough as Honor Guard Gardner is, Jaime's mom is an order of magnitude tougher. When Jaime returns from his lost year (all part of the OYL silliness) his moms has some problems adjusting, particularly to the alien battle suit with a mind of its own.

There's a sense of (forgive the irony of this comment) realism to Rogers' and Giffen's portrayal of the Reyes family and friends that's missing from most funny books. If a real teenager found an ancient blue scarab that latched onto his spine giving him super powers, he might behave a lot like Jaime. At least I hope he would. Especially if that scarab keeps giving the kid very bloody and destructive suggestions during battle. I wonder what that's about? :)

One more great thing about BB: the artwork. I've seen prettier comic art and I've seen more exciting comic art, but the sense of proportion and movement are quite natural here. Rogers sums it up best: "You will notice the distinct lack of massive, levitating breasts, a choice further marginalizing us in the mainstream comics community."

Ill-trained thieves roam these lands

Apologizing in advance for providing TMI...
I just got back from lunch at my usual restaurant. Before I left there, I needed to make use of their facilities, so I went into the restroom and put my book and glasses - in their case - on the vanity and made haste to make waste.

A moment or two later, I stepped out of the stall and went to wash my hands - cleanliness is next to godliness, after all - and found my glasses-case open and empty on top of my book. Barring the possibility of a prank by a waiter (I really go to this place a lot), some nimrod absconded with my glasses, but left the case. So...

1. Someone wanted my butt-ugly Versaces with prescription lenses
2. He (it was the men's room, so I'm pretty confident my pronoun choice is good) didn't want the case
3. He took the time to open the case and examine the glasses instead of just the safer grab 'n' go
4. He had no interest in my book^*
   

Mind you, I am irritated by this, but more in principal than anything else. While I do use my glasses in order to minimize eye strain and headaches, since zap-zap a few years ago I have perfect vision. Also, I have hated these frames since the day I wore them longer than five minutes. My great hope is that my very particular and discriminating thief keeps the frames and wears them. That might be the greatest punishment of all!

---

^* I mention this for completeness, but let's be real: a tool who steals a pair of prescription glasses probably doesn't need them; he's more likely functionally illiterate.

These grapes are a bit tart...no, wait, sour. Yes, they're sour.

A few months back, McSweeney's had a contest to take one of these story ideas F. Scott Fitzgerald had come up with, but never made flesh, and bring it to life.

I knocked out a story (not my best work, but I didn't feel any of the premises) based on the premise: "A criminal confesses his crime methods to a reformer, who uses them that same night." I'd been rejected by McSweeney's before (and when you consider some of the tripe they publish online, that's a bit insulting), so my expectations were low. Still, I figured I'd give it a shot.

Over the last month, month and a half, they've posted three runners-up and today, the winner. Now, I know I'm biased, but I'm pretty sure my crap effort is better than at least one, probably two of the runners-up. The winner? It beats my piece, hands down. The final runner-up - "High Branch"? It kicks my ass and the winner's ass down the street like over-inflated soccer balls. But I'm still damned if I get the sensibilities of McSweeney's online editor.

But don't take my word for it...here's a link to the selections and below is my sub-par effort. Please feel free not only to comment, but to be brutal. Rip and shred, rank the pieces, criticize me at will. If you normally just come and read quietly, shaking your head, take this opportunity to bash. Invite others. Really. I particularly look forward to comments from the Donut shop. :)

Sunday in the Park with Miriam

"Thank you, ma'am, I surely do appreciate the hot meal. Last one I had was down to the jail, and the bulls ain't as nice as you."

"Jail? Have you spent much time there Mr. Galway?"

"Enough Miss Addams. Enough so's I hope never to go back."

Jane placed her frail, mottled hand atop Joseph's smooth and delicate one and locked her eyes on his. Smiling slightly, the corners of her eyes crinkling, she bade him tell about his troubles with the law. Tentatively, he spoke of his life. He spoke of the predations he suffered in the rundown orphanage back in Gary and the desperate midnight dash he took to escape. He told Jane of riding a coal car to Chicago and rooting in the trash for scraps of food to survive the first cold nights.

Cocooned in the warm embrace of her gaze, Joseph lowered his defenses and told Jane about the other Irish boys he met on the South Side. Only a child, he was recruited to serve as lookout while the others robbed the swells leaving theaters and speakeasies. Quickly caught up in the gang life, he soon graduated to robbing homes and stores and rose within the gang's ranks.

"One evening, pawning our haul, Johnny the Fence told us he could get us a lot more money. There was a traveling exhibit at the Art Institute, and Johnny knew a man who'd pay a fortune for one of the paintings on display. If we did the job for Johnny, we'd get half the take.

"I don't know how we got out without gettin' pinched, but we did. Johnny gave us fifty bucks for that painting and we figured he was crazy. That, or some old fellow was crazy wanting to pay so much for a picture. It wasn't 'til later we found out how much it was worth. From then on, we were Johnny's regular crew for museum jobs."

"How were you able to elude capture, Mr. Galway? I'd imagine museums have considerable security to protect their valuable contents."

"They do. Next job we went on, I got nabbed. But bein' as I was just a boy and nothing was missin' - seein' as I'd got caught before we got the painting - the judge let me off after a couple days in jail. That's when we figured out our angle. If we could always make it look like nothin' was missin', we'd be a whole lot better off. It took us a while, but we found a fellow could make copies for us before we went in. Every picture we took, we put a fake in its place."

With a glint in her eye, Jane asked "wouldn't it have been safer to simply provide the fraudulent paintings to the clients?"

"We tried that once. But the fakes didn't fool the rich men...or Johnny. I got pistol whipped for trying."

"But the forgeries weren't detected by the museums?"

"No, ma'am. I guess they just never think to check."

"And what's brought you to Hull House, Mr. Galway? I'd think a successful art thief would have no use for our services."

"I been running since I was seven. I just wanna rest. I'm through with that life."

* * *

"Hullions! Assemble!" Jane's steely voice echoed in the lamp-lit cavern deep beneath the sleeping city.

* * *

More than forty years ago, workmen laying the foundations of Hull House discovered a small subterranean cave. Sealing over the entrance, it was quickly forgotten. One cold morning late in the winter of 1926, Jane went to the basement to get the last of October's canned beets. Noticing a crack that had appeared in the hastily cemented opening, she found a hammer and began to chip at the wall. In a few moments, she'd opened it wide enough to squeeze into the long-forgotten cave. Pushing into the darkness with her small lantern, her own breath warmed the small space, barely wide enough to pass. Just as Jane was about to conclude her first adventure in spelunking, the dust she'd kicked up tickled her throat and she coughed. The echoes seemed to last for eternity.

As she crouched down, a gentle breeze caressed Jane's face. Crawling forward as though she were still a little girl in Cedarville at play with her sisters, her head breached a large cavern. The small lantern's glow barely reached the far wall.

It took Jane and her closest confidants a month to fully map out the cave system and another six months to match that up to the streets above. In four-hour shifts, teams of women would measure and explore the tunnels and chambers while others brought down equipment and tools. Two women died falling into open chasms, which were quickly fenced off. Wiring the caverns took most of '26, but when it was complete, Jane and her coterie had a private retreat from the chaos above.

When the maps were complete, Jane and the women were able to move about the city undetected. Sewer lines, gas lines, and tunnels for telephone, telegraph, and electrical cable were accessible at various points through the cave system. An amusing game in the '20s, this became a necessity in the '30s.

* * *

A few weeks after the crash Jane first had the notion to get into crime. During the boom years, there had been plenty of work for the residents and enough donations from the gilded class to keep Hull House running smoothly. All of that had vanished by mid-November, and Jane grew anxious. Their great experiment couldn't run on dreams and empty promises; it needed money. She resisted the temptations until spring.

At Christmas time, she had reluctantly recruited a few of the younger girls for panhandling; by March it was clear that no one could - or would - give money willingly, so they progressed to pickpocketing and purse snatching. Seeing positive cash flow for the first time in months, Jane decided to branch out into prostitution and robbery. The Hullions were born.

* * *

Joseph Galway came to Hull House in November of 1934, looking to find peace and salvation. By February, Jane had learned all she could about the layout, security protocols, and weak spots of the Art Institute. Meanwhile, she'd found a forger from within the ranks of her Hullions: Miriam Sikorski had studied art in her youth in Krakow; in her twilight years she found use for those skills. Working diligently for ten hours each day, Miriam touched brush to canvas tens of thousands of times, finally completing the forgery in early May of '35.

Jane, still spry at 75, led three of her cohorts - Miriam, Lucille McGrady, and little Noelle Brown - through the caves to the eastern-most exit. While only two miles from the Art Institute, they'd need to be above ground for half the trek while carrying the seven foot by 10 foot painting. Even rolled up it was awkward; however, it was the return trip that most concerned them. Getting into the museum was easy. What they didn't count on was how hard it would be to swap out the huge canvas with their copy. The four women struggled for five full minutes replacing the 50-year-old masterpiece with its doppelganger. Failing to replace the painting would be as bad as being caught in the act. At the last moment, it was finally in place and the women ran to the exit and into the night.

With the original rolled up and resting over the shoulders of two of the Hullions, the women continued to run back to the nearest entrance to the caves, arriving out of breath but exhilarated. Composing themselves, they sealed off the entrance and walked back to the main cavern, their laughter echoing around them.

Jane Addams passed away two weeks later. Despite the loss of her steely hand at the helm, Hull House continued for many years; however, the Hullions went adrift. No instructions were left regarding the painting, so it was left unsold and untouched in the cave which Lucille and Noelle sealed off shortly after the funeral. With the Hullions dispersed, the cave, the crime spree, and the painting became memory.

* * *

To this day, Miriam Sikorski's Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte hangs at the Art Institute of Chicago while Georges Seurat's original molders in the almost-forgotten cave beneath the Hull House Museum. The sole surviving Hullion - Mrs. Leonard Bloom of Oak Grove, Illinois - delights in taking her grandchildren to the Art Institute at least once a year. The children look forward to the trip to the city and have never asked their Nana Noelle why she laughs so hard when they stop to admire the pointillist masterpiece.

Philosmithical Musing

Rudely stolen from: The Illustrated Smiths

I, um, don't know what to say. Granted, Morrissey is our greatest living singer-songwriter, but who knew he had so much to say about the philosophy of language.

A little bit of Astronaut

Yesterday on CNN's front page, the top story in the Science & Space section was on a NASA document (draft, I assume) on crew health for long-distance voyages. Since this is 2007, and nobody cares about the ISS and its feeble experiments, there aren't a lot of "science and space" stories. The story is still the lead item for that section today.

Big questions need to be addressed when planning months-long missions millions of miles from home, but it looks like the answers are going to take a while to work out.

• "How do you get rid of the body of a dead astronaut on a three-year mission to Mars and back?"
• "When should the plug be pulled on a critically ill astronaut who is using up precious oxygen and endangering the rest of the crew?"
• What about space booty?!?

NASA is addressing the first two, and similar topics, in this document but the doctors and bioethicists are going to punt sex chat to somebody else. Seems like that's the easiest of these three sample questions - just don't get pregnant - but they're calling it a "behavioral issue".

Anyway, I know I'm a cold-hearted bastard, but the first two seem painfully simple to answer: airlock it; and immediately. Actually, my gut reaction on the first topic was to go all Donner party on the corpse (cause of death taken into consideration), but that's unnecessary. The rations for N crew-members are now to be split for N-1, so it's not that important to save the body. Then again, eating all those pre-packaged rations will get tiring and a little Lt. Cmdr. Tommy Tartare might be a welcome break. And just think of the songs!

Stfu b4 i smak u old git!

It's Thursday, so someone is whining about text messaging and its "threat to traditional conventions in writing." The report from the State Examination Commission in Ireland found 15-year-olds "unduly reliant on short sentences, simple tenses and a limited vocabulary".

Now, in the land of Joyce, I can see why they'd be lamenting any move toward Hemingwayesque stylings, but seriously! Prescriptivists really need to learn to get a grip. Couldn't it be a general trend away from literacy - rather than the rise of a new mode of communication - that is the problem? Is there something inherently bad about texting's "use of phonetic spelling"?

I can be as much of a hard-ass grammarian as the next overly educated prig; however, I don't get the hand wringing and breast beating that occurs every time a new pidgin or full-fledged dialect gains popularity. Fo' shizzle beyatches...ain't no thing but a chicken wing...tarry not over such trifles, lest ye perceivest a tempest where none be.

I love my mother tongue. It's the most dynamic, fluid, vital language in the world (I'm biased, can y'all tell?). No academy or crazy Culture Minister dictates what can or can't be said. The sun may have set on the British Empire, but English prevails. Eventually, all languages are absorbed into some dialect of English (I'm waiting for Khosian and the other African click-languages) and in time, even the "standard" gets many of those additions. Its grammar and spelling change according to fashion, whimsy, and local colouration, but English prevails.

As with telegraphs and radios before, English will survive the onslaught of texting teens. English prevails.

Operation Argo

1. Take one cwaaazy Imam, a CIA division chief, an Academy Award winning makeup artist, a rejected screenplay, and drawings by Jack Kirby
2. Add American hostages in a country in revolutionary turmoil
3. Toss in a dash of six Americans hiding out in its capital
4. Shake well and serve

Wired has its most compelling story in years about the daring exfiltration of six Americans who slipped through the fingers of Iran's Revolution Guard in '79. I just hope that whomever optioned/options this doesn't plan on casting some flavor-of-the-month as Tony Mendez.

John Roves a Lott

Wow! This is so exciting! Hi, all. This is Mary Rosh, guest posting again. My favorite (and the best ever) economist is in the news again today. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo says that Karl Rove got his information on vote fraud from an op-ed by John Lott. Can you believe it? Professor Lott is really moving up in the world, advising Presidents and Kings, now.

Of course, that's just one little blogger. But I'm sure Professor Lott's impact on this will be heralded far and wide, very soon. In just a few short weeks, I'll bet we'll hear about it a lot.

B5 in just 98 days!

Babylon 5 - The Lost Tales will be here on July 31. Amazon is taking preorders now. I'll be getting mine, of course!