Genres of Literature

People talk smack about certain types of book. Well, I'm here to tell them to shove it. Because you never know what might be a good book.

For instance, many people denigrate science fiction and fantasy (lumping them together as I just did is pretty nasty in and of itself, since they are two separate genres). The problems cannot be denied: there are a lot of crappy science fiction books out there (ditto for fantasy). Guess what though: there are a lot of crappy books out there in general.

Just because some genre might have its roots in pulp doesn't mean squat. If you read "classic" literature, you'll probably find more than a few "great books" which are nothing more than pulp, albeit with less attractive cover art. Romances have a long and storied tradition, and just because the genre is replete with examples of terrible, hackneyed writing is no reason to write the genre off as a whole. Mysteries too.

In fact, the very fact that genres are separated from the mass of "general fiction" is proof that they deserve recognition. There are enough of that type of book to warrant a few examples of terrible writing, but that doesn't invalidate the genre. People play to stereotypes without examining the qualities of individual works.

This is not a defence of any particular genre, despite my mentioning a few. This is simply a defence of books in general. Regardless of the section of the library in which they happen to be located, books can be good, bad, or indifferent, and the only way to tell is to read them. And just because a particular author liked to make up stories about the Old West which might not ever have had any chance of happening, it doesn't make that author inferior to another author who writes personal narrative with embellishment. Unless it's nonfiction, it is to some degree imaginary, and imaginary covers a lot of ground.

At the moment, everything in life seems to be about categorization. Mark my words though; in a while (I'll couch my prediction in that incredible vagary so I can seem prescient without trying) people will start to see that you can't define something solely by labels. Since the entirety of human history thus far has been leading up to that, and will presumably continue leading up to it, that while might be a long time coming. I hope it comes eventually.

Agendas

Have you noticed that, more and more, people all seem to have an agenda? I mean, people just can't help but relate everything they talk about or hear about or see to whatever their pet peeve is.

I'm not sure if it's really true. It seems like it to me, but I don't know. Maybe I'm just hanging around the wrong people. Maybe it was always this way and I've just stumbled into it (finally). Maybe I too have an agenda. Actually, I probably do, several in fact.

Remember way back when. I don't, but I like to pretend I do. Remember when people said the topics not to talk about at dinner included politics and religion. I think those topics should be able to be discussed politely too, but let's face it, they're a far cry from reasoned discourse in most people's books. But it used to be just those two (and various other unmentionables) topics which were acceptable in polite society but unacceptable dinner conversation (so I guess the unmentionables don't count, since they weren't acceptable in polite society).

Now, you can be talking about a movie you saw and the topic of conversation inevitably shifts to politics or religion (or, if you're with me, both, since I like to muddy the waters and drive other people crazy, but that's just me). You see it a lot on Internet forums. Someone will start out talking about cats, and the conversation inevitably degenerates into a shouting match between liberals and conservatives, or atheists and theists (or all of the above). There's that law about calling people Nazis online, but there should be another law which says that every single online conversation will be used as a forum by someone to discuss something partisan. And that's caused by agendas.

I don't think there's anything wrong with having a cause, or believing things strongly. I also don't think that online forums mimic real life to the extent that some people seem to believe. But real life does it too. And the problem isn't with the agendas, it's with people not being able to lighten up about them.

Maybe our agendas have gotten more serious. I find myself unable to laugh at certain things (which is depressing) simply because they are mocking a point of view I happen to support. Why do I take it seriously? Why does everyone else? And why can't we take a break from it all on occasion?

Just as you can't be on the job 24/7 without going crazy ("All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"), polite conversation is on the verge of being replaced with constant agenda. That can't be healthy. It certainly doesn't let us enjoy things, and it makes it hard to eat when you're arguing all the time. But we have to be able to talk about something besides the weather (and don't try talking about that either).

I don't know what the solution is. This isn't one of those times when I have a solution. It's one of those times when I have a problem.

Adsense

I will not be selling advertising space on this blog.

I'm sure you're all heaving huge sighs of relief right now. Okay, maybe not. In fact, the biggest reason why I'm not planning on selling ad space is because no one would see them. I wonder exactly how many people will even read these words. I wonder whether some people visit the blog, see that, seemingly, it hasn't been updated in a month, and don't read it even if they visit the page. I wonder about all these things.

Another reason I won't be advertising is because I don't click on ads when other people use them on pages I actually read. I try very hard to pay as little attention as possible to ads, and while I don't always succeed, I certainly don't click on random ads.

Ads clutter up the page, too. And they don't look pretty. They usually don't match the scheme of the page, so either they have to be segregated in their own little section which blinks and whirs and so on, or someone tries really hard to make them look like they're part of the page and fails miserably. I would be more inclined to use the advertising concentration camp model, were I to participate, but as I'm not, I don't have to choose.

Plus the money you make, unless you have a fabulously popular site, is peanuts. And in order to receive those peanuts you have to give away your soul. I don't mean artistic integrity or anything; most advertising services require the deposit of your soul in a jar, along with your identity and bank account information, to even begin doing business. I'm cagier than that, thank you kindly.

But there's also the element of artistic integrity. If I were rich, I would run my own site on my own server with absolutely no product placement, as some good people do. As it is, I have to put up with Google/Blogger's rather minor infringements, which I'm okay with, frankly. But I will not volunteer to give them more of my soul.

The context-sensitivity of ads is usually horrible too, unless you pick them out yourself. And frankly, I can't think of too many ads that would fit the context of these little pieces. Undoubtedly there are a few, but I'm not going looking for them, for the aforementioned reasons.

So, to be brief after being long-winded, there will be no ads to the right unless someone makes me an offer I can't refuse.

Chinese

I have no patience for immigration debate. None whatsoever. Largely because I don't think there's anything to debate, really. There's nothing wrong with immigration, and there's not the huge problem that people keep mentioning. But I'm not here to debate that.

I am here to talk to all the people who think that our country is on the verge of being taken over by Mexico. Surprisingly, there are a lot of people, seemingly intelligent people, who seem to feel this way. Here is my response.

Do we all speak Chinese?

It's less of a silly question than you might think. Because you see, if Mexico takes over the United States as many people fear it will, we will, consequently, all be forced to speak Mexican. After all, they'll worm their way into our government, and all of us poor disenfranchised Anglos will be SOL. It's happening right now! Look out, there's a Mexican behind you with an ax!

Now, replace the word, "Mexico," with the word, "China," (and all the sundries). Rewind time one hundred years or so (roughly speaking). Funny how California wound up not becoming the Peoples Republic of China, California Chapter, isn't it? Because when the waves of Chinese immigrants started coming over, that was just what everyone expected. Which gave them a perfect excuse to commit serious civil rights violations, among other things.

But wait, there's more. See, we actually let the Chinese in. No illegal immigration there. We welcomed them with open labor camps. So obviously the problem must have been even worse. It must have taken serious steps by white supremacists to keep down the Yellow Hordes. Thank goodness for that, right?

In case you can't tell, I'm being very sarcastic. But I have a point. The Chinese didn't take over our country. They built America for little pay and even less thanks. They took all the work that we wouldn't take, and they did it for less. Just like our current crop of immigrants, actually, who aren't all from Mexico and don't all speak Mexican. And our current worries are illegal immigration, which is only illegal because we're afraid that if we make immigration legal, the Mexicans will own our country.

I have a simple solution, and then I can stop talking about this because like I said, I have no patience for it. Make immigration ridiculously easy. Sure, citizenship can still be tough, but make it really easy to come to this country if you want to work. And don't be fooled by all the propaganda: they do. It's harder than many people who've never been on the dole make it out to be to get welfare.

So we wind up supporting a few low-lifes. We do that anyway. But we open our arms to a group of people who can do us good. Look at it from a purely greedy motivation, if you like.

But we also have to improve labor laws so immigrants are treated fairly. And we have to stop being such white-supremacist assholes about the whole thing. Which makes me wonder whether or not it will ever happen.

Oh, the hell with it. Build a big old wall in Texas. Around Texas, in fact. And then everyone who's worried can hole up there, and I can get on with my life and with worrying about things that really need worry. Like many of the problems currently being eclipsed by stupid people worrying about Mexico taking over the US.

That's Cool, But...

I could easily have called this, "Feature Creep," because I like to talk about that too. Maybe after a suitable interval I'll talk about it. But rather than feature creep, today our topic will be bells and whistles.

What was wrong with Google way back when? Everyone I know migrated to Google because it was clean, fast, and simple. Those are hard things to do; just ask a designer if you don't believe me. Google was the anti-web, sort of. I'm not setting out to write a review of Google, so that sort of will have to suffice.

So now it has features. Creeping features, too, but even features which I don't consider creepy. Features which make me look at them and say, "That's cool, but why use it?"

Sometimes in creation, the first impulse is to cater to the interesting aspects of things. One makes things that look good, or that do things that no one else can do, or that combine features in new ways. It's what innovation is made of; newness.

But sometimes, you wind up with a thing which doesn't do anything useful. Certainly, it's something new, but it's form without substance, or it does something different that no one wants, or it combines two features that don't need combining. There are legions of very attractive, very new things which are cool but useless.

The Web, as a constant orgy of innovation, seems to foster more of these things than is really its fair share. The Dot Com Bubble brought us web sites that no one in their right mind would actually use, true, but now we seem to be more interested in doing things no one has ever done in a cool way. Which leads us back to my original question.

If something is cool but meaningless, I can't help but wonder whether it's necessary. I'm not saying it isn't, I'm just saying that maybe we should examine the question. Maybe cool is enough. Maybe not. But right now, it doesn't seem like anyone is asking the question at all for fear of being labeled a reactionary, or a conformist, or conservative, or whatever ugly word the Web has for people who are seemingly negative toward all innovation.

I'm not negative toward innovation. I just wonder whether creative energies aren't being directed into things which are wastes. It's not really for me to say; I'll keep using the things I use, and not using the things I don't. But bells and whistles and cool aren't enough to make me change my mind about something.

Quickness

John Madden, this one's for you.

See, quickness is John's favorite adjective (well, actually dumbo, it's a noun), and it's migrated into the vocabularies of all sorts of commentators, usually sports-related. The problem is that it's a stupid word. Either it means speed, in which case saying, "He's got great speed and quickness," as they sometimes do is redundant, or it means something different from speed, in which case, what.

I just dislike the word, that's all. Does it mean agility? Why not say agility? Are you afraid we are too stupid to understand the word, or are you too stupid to know it.

It's like nice. Nice is a bland word suitable for bland topics. And there's nothing wrong with using it every once in a while. But in a world where superlatives are king (sports writers and commentators love superlatives), why not go for a bigger word? Why not, "personable," or, "superb," or, "reasonable?" Why not one of the millions of words the English language possesses which mean roughly the same thing as nice?

We English speakers are fortunate to live with synonyms out the wazoo, and when we continually use one word, we get boring quickly. Or with quickness, rather. There's nothing which says that you need to be a snooty word-monger to use interesting words. Alacrity works just as well as quickness, or speed, or fastness, or any number of other ways of saying that someone moves quickly, or whatever the hell quickness is supposed to mean. See, that's what bothers me: what is quickness? It's a sports term with no definition which is used too often.

So stop talking about quickness and tell us something we really can understand. Don't deal is vague generalities. Tell us how the player is quicker. You hear?

Links and Summaries

You should actually visit links in articles.

That was an abrupt intro, but brutal is best. Because links are like footnotes, or rather like end notes since unless you look them up, you can't read them. And end notes are a notoriously abused form of information-passing. It's very easy to stick data in an end note, knowing full well that most readers won't bother to look at the note and discover you're being disingenuous at least, or outright taking a quote out of context and lying about it at most.

In books, there are often citations in notes which point you to chapter and verse, but since they don't actually give the chapter and verse, you have to go out of your way to read it. Internet sites aren't like that. If they give a citation to another site, you can click on the link. And you should.

How do you know that what the person is saying about the link is true? Unless they quote it extensively (which I try to do because it keeps the information around to be read, but even then) there's a fair chance you are simply taking the author of a criticism at his or her word. Why should you do that?

Sure, there are times when you can't click the link. Maybe it's a site which is not work safe, and you're just reading a review of it. Maybe the content doesn't matter, and you're just reading a snarky commentary on it. But there's a fair chance that you should at least look at the link. Why trust the commentator? Everyone has a bias.

If you genuinely want to know what a person said, you need to read it for yourself, not some other person's summary of it. It's the first (well, maybe not the first, but an important one) rule of historical research: go to the source. And oftentimes, the person being criticized has some valid points to make, and while you might not agree with them in toto, there's a fair chance you might take something out of it. You shouldn't ever agree with everyone completely. Not even commentators who link to other people.

And especially not me. I'm crazy. Don't agree with me.

Prove It

There are a lot of people out there who like to flaunt their superior minds by saying that they don't believe God exists because no one has proved it to their satisfaction. I had a similar topic a while back addressing the other side, and I felt turnabout is fair play. Actually, self-righteous atheism gets under my skin the same way that self-righteous fanaticism of any stripe does, and not least of which because I have a hard time spelling, "righteous."

To begin, let us first note that all these self-aggrandizing purveyors of "logic" fail to realize a fundamental truth of the method: there are some things which are true, some things which are false, and a whole mess of things which are unprovable. I don't claim absolute mastery of Gödel, but his theory is pretty waterproof. So for any system of logic, most intelligent people would posit that God's existence is one of those multitude of problems which cannot be proved within the system. There are elegant proofs, indeed, that there are things which cannot be proved in any system, but I'm too dumb to understand them, much less regurgitate them in this space. So the intelligent response to people who demand proof of God's rationality (which isn't the one given by most religious types) is that you can't prove it, but that doesn't make it false.

With that out of the way, let's address some more rational arguments (I use that term ironically). If you demand that everything be proved before you believe it, you probably believe in science, right? Most adherents of these ideals seem to. If not, disregard this section. But if so, you obviously believe, as scientists have told you (more on this later) that electrons exist. Well, I defy you to prove that they do.

How can I make this neat defiance without worrying about the results? Well, Heisenberg tells me (and I also don't claim to understand all things Heisenberg, let alone be able to spell his name without help) that I can't see electrons and determine what electrons they are. Well, to be fair, he just said that I cannot both determine an electron's position and energy simultaneously. So I'll accept that there is such a thing as an electron, but you can't prove that any given electron exists. I want to see it with my own eyes (and you can't really do that anyway). If I can see it, I can't tell which electron it is, and if I can tell, I can't see it. You see the dilemma this poses.

Not to mention the fact that there are lots of things we can only prove by their affects on other things (you could make a case that this is true of everything, but I'm not interested in being that deep). Why should I accept their existence any more than I accept a supernatural power? I can't demand to see them, so why should I demand direct proof of anything else? I'm not saying I shouldn't, I'm just saying that if I worship proof as higher than anything else, I'm out of luck.

Then there is my favorite argument: taking things for granted. Note that I don't mean forgetting things exist; I mean the literal taking of things as truth without proof. We do this all the time and it doesn't affect us. If we demanded absolute proof of everything we experience, we would quickly go insane. So we accept certain things as truth without ever proving them to ourselves.

So I ask you, people who want proof of God, "Do you believe in Pluto?" It's not an idle question. You can't see it without a telescope, and even then it's a bit dicey. Mostly, scientists believe in Pluto because of its affect on other things. But no one has ever been there. So why do we believe in it? Because we've seen conclusive proof? Or because someone told us and we accepted it as truth.

And suppose you have seen conclusive proof. Suppose you've seen the photos of Pluto, or seen the abnormality of Neptune's orbit. That proof is based on other assumptions, and if you prove those assumptions you will find that they rest on further assumptions. Eventually they work back to assumptions everyone takes for granted. And occasionally, one of those assumptions that everyone takes for granted turns out to be provably false. And then where are you?

So am I saying you should never seek proof? Far from it. Examining your assumptions is a very healthy thing to do. But even great logicians realize that some things are conclusively non-provable one way or the other. So stop using the lack of proof for something as an argument against that thing. It's tedious and intellectually lazy. Instead of trumpeting lack of proof, you should have to prove that it's false. But then you fall into the topic previously mentioned, about how difficult proving something really is.

People Don't Know What They're Doing

And what a complete truth that statement is. I guess I'm eventually going to get tired of making lists of people with pithy comments and naming them things having something to do with people, as the above title, not to mention the various others. But I haven't yet.

Quentin Tarantino

Frankly, it mostly boggles my mind that everyone at the Cannes Film Festival loves you, but since French people also love Jerry Lewis, I don't know that I should be that surprised. You seem to have made a career of doing pastiche of other people's work which you wish you'd done but which you didn't. And the work you're copying wasn't all that terrific to begin with. Maybe some of it's enjoyable as camp, or something like that (and as I don't really believe in camp as a philosophy, I'm not saying), but it certainly isn't worthy of being called high art. You're a hack. And ugly. My God man, put your face away before you hurt someone.

James Carville

I think hair and a beard would help your looks immensely. You seem to have perfected the art of politics as abrasiveness, or maybe the other way around. In any case, I sometimes agree with you, but I usually hate myself just a little bit because of it. Are you sure that you and Quentin weren't separated at birth? I mean, I'm not the playboy of the Western world or anything, but occasionally people are just too ugly to ignore. Tarantino has hair and I've seen him with a beard if he doesn't have one now. It didn't help him, but at least he tried. You, Jim, have removed any doubt as to your ugliness by removing any concealment it might once have had.

Raymond Burr

That smile of yours... if I were a woman, I think it would melt me. I'm not a woman, but even I feel a tingle. I have no other comment, but since I was catty about everyone else's looks in this particular list, I guess I needed to address yours.

Bill Clinton

I've never met you in person, so I don't know whether what they say about your legendary charisma is true. You're not bad-looking, sure, but you don't have a smile that might conceivably melt me were I of the opposite sex. I have made a devout oath at a high altar in the Himalayas that I will not discuss politics in these little lists, reserving them for more vapid matters (and boy am I succeeding so far, huh), so I'll just say that you don't film as well as Mr. Burr. Maybe if you dropped a little of the Good Ol' Boy persona, you could approach things more Burr-esque-ly. Wow, that's really not a word.

France

What the hell happened? I mean, you used to be huge in film. Then, all of a sudden, you're just as bad as the rest of us. And Tarantino? Come on, even you can do better.

Wacko Terrorist Fundamentalists

I don't believe in killing people for any reason, so you're pretty much not ever going to be high on my list. But if you just wanted to complain loudly about the depravity of Western Culture, I would offer to make signs proclaiming your opposition to Quentin Tarantino. But you'd probably use them to bash people over the head or something. It's really all you've got in your bag of tricks, isn't it? Try writing letters to the editor next time, but please get someone to translate them who has at least a passing knowledge of the language. The anthrax letters sounded like they'd been written by Third Graders.

Wow, Quentin T. sure took it in the shorts from me for that one. But then what I really wanted to do was write a whole article bashing him and I chickened out.

If the FBI is reading this, I did not offer to materially support terrorists. I offered to help them renounce violence. Please don't arrest me.

Machiavelli vs. Occam

A guy named Occam had a rule about the world: the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. I hope you all knew that already, just as you already knew that said rule is generally know as Occam's Razor. A guy named Machiavelli did not have a philosophy about the world wherein he posited that there should be obscure conspiracies running everything. It's a common use of the adjective which bears his name, Machiavellian, but he never actually posited that philosophy, at least not to my knowledge.

I use Machiavelli as a personification of conspiracies even though he wasn't a proponent of them. I'm sure he would have felt that a true leader didn't need them. But people tend to speak of Machiavellian conspiracies. I chose Occam as his opposite because he would have laughed at some of the conspiracies we've come up with, not because he wasn't a member of a secret order of Freemasons and Luddites plotting to return the world to pre-Roman technology in order to serve a dark power. As far as I know, he wasn't, but that's not why I chose him.

It's fun to ascribe a massive conspiracy to everything. If something doesn't go your way, it's nice to believe that someone has it in for you rather than that life is brutally fair. But it gets old after a while, unless you're paranoid. Most of the time, simple explanations are true, and there's no reason to ascribe convoluted motives to something which is really a simple case. This is, of course, different from the debate about human morality; base instincts are very simple motivations, even if they usually result in negative consequences, and if you happen to believe that the simple truth is that humans are basically evil, then you don't need to make it any more complicated to justify your belief that evil is behind bad things that happen.

The opposite side of the coin is to believe that everything has the simplest explanation, as Mr. Occam would have us think. The problem is that we misinterpret Occam and believe that what appears simplest at first glance really is the simplest explanation. We use Occam as a crutch to keep from having to work toward the truth, when in fact the he never said the easiest explanation, just the simplest. Then, of course, there are times when the simplest is just plain wrong, even with all the facts. Humans are complicated. Our world is complicated. There aren't necessarily always simple answers.

The truth of the matter is that simple things sometimes give rise to complications far beyond the thought of any individual participant. A lot of the time, there is no grand ringleader, but there's still a conspiracy. Scientists would call this complexity or distribution; I call it complicated. Sometimes convoluted. The problem is that people who are looking to point fingers at someone don't want to face the reality that there is no one in particular at the head, that the only people the blame are everyone involved. It's hard to blame massive numbers of people like that.

Sometimes we try. Nazi Germany has some easy people to blame, but really, the entirety of Germany was party to a conspiracy which, more and more, seems to have been led at points but un-led in many others. Things just happened. That's not intended to seem blameless; far from it, blame should be assigned to everyone who let things happen, or who participated in things happening. And blame we do, but it's harder than being able to point and say, "Hitler was the problem and he was a bad man." Real life isn't that simple.

In other cases, we have conspiracies which probably will never be completely sorted out. We have no head to blame so it's hard to get the ball rolling to blame anyone. I don't genuinely believe that too many people are conspiring to manipulate the country in certain ways; it's not that simple. Societies work in trends, except in rare revolutionary cases, and even these are quickly swallowed up. Rare indeed is the dictator who can single-handedly conspire to run the entire country. It's a balancing act between complete self-determination and complete subjugation.

I guess what I'm trying to point at is that people ascribe motives to trends which may or may not be present, but usually are a mix of both. And often enough, the people ascribing these motives are written off as paranoid because they seem to be saying that a conspiracy is actively intending some end or at least some direction. People are unwilling to believe that there is a secret cabal which controls aspects of their lives arbitrarily, and they are right to be suspicious. Much of the time, Machiavelli and Occam dance the tango.

Prison

Anyplace that won't let you out once you get in is a prison. You can quote me on that, Sweet Thang.

There are jobs like that. If it's hard to get out of a job, it's a prison. You should always have an escape clause written into your contract because it's just too important to miss. It seems underhanded, or like you're trying to get out of an obligation, but have one anyway.

But I'm not really interested in talking about jobs. I'm really talking about apostasy, which is a fancy term for leaving once you're in. And it only applies to religion.

Apostasy is actually a more complicated term than my simple definition, but the long and the short of it is that if you are a member of a religion and then leave, you're an apostate. But what apostasy really means is double standard. If you aren't a member of a religion and you become one, you're a convert. If you are and you cease to be one, you're an apostate. The former seldom carries any negative connotation beyond being a newcomer to the religion. The latter carries the death penalty in the extreme.

I'm not just talking about Muslims, so please don't get up in arms. Apostasy is an old Christian term anyway. So while Islamic Fundamentalisms use apostasy as a weapon against what they view as heretical or anti-State elements, they aren't the only ones. Cults, for instance, tend to frown on people leaving the fold, usually because they fear these people will divulge secrets. Other religions simply blackball the ex-members (albeit that some religions blackball anyone who isn't a member of the religion, a ludicrous concept in and of itself) and forbid any contact with them. So it's all over the place.

An interesting comparison could be made between apostasy and emigration. The difference, of course, is that many nations resist "converts," i.e. immigrants, more fiercely than they resist "apostates," i.e. emigres. But look at places that are difficult to leave. They aren't usually places you'd want to live, are they? That's a leading and condescending question, but it really ought to be pointed out: places that are tough to leave, even temporarily, tend to be fairly unpleasant places to be. Why else would they make it hard to leave?

I could back this up with examples but there are numerous ones and I don't want to pick on anyone. I'm just wondering why apostasy should be such a problem? If your religion or country is so terrific that no one wants to leave, why should you even have a punishment for it? If, as you claim, you have no problem, why mention that you have no problem in the first place?

Forcing people to stay makes where you are a prison. I don't want to live in prison, and I'm pretty sure no one else does either. I know the counter arguments, but they all run up against a fundamental problem; if it's so great, why punish people who leave at all? Why not just pity them for leaving? Are you afraid it might not be so great after all, or are you simply keeping people from leaving because you know it's not so great after all?

Look over any situation you enter into, and if you can't get back out somehow, you should ask why not. I don't care if you don't think you ever will want to get out; if you're not allowed to, there has to be a reason why, and it's likely that the reason isn't as pleasant as it ought to be.

Sometimes I'm Wrong

Well, more than sometimes. A lot. But I'm not usually public about things about which I wind up being wrong. And in the case I'd like to highlight, I didn't say anything. You'll see what I mean.

I have an ingrained distrust of many things. So when I saw that people were calling Liviu Librescu a hero, I immediately had a distrustful reaction because I saw it in a headline. In case you don't know who Prof. Librescu was, he was a teacher killed at Virginia Tech. It's tragic that his life will be summed up by that, and extremely tragic that he survived so many other things, including the Holocaust, and was killed by a schmuck. But that's why his name is coming up: killed by schmuck is a good way to get mentioned at the moment. Such a pissant little schmuck, too.

But anyway, I saw that he was being hailed as a hero in a headline, and my mind immediately drew a conclusion. I'm sort of ashamed to admit it. I was tempted to write a little piece about how being killed, no matter how senselessly, or in what circumstance, seems to automatically set you up for sainthood in the eyes of the media. I was all set to point out that the people who were killed were human, and merely being killed by a schmuck is no cause to be called a hero. I had some talking points ready to go.

I would have been screamingly wrong. Because Liviu Librescu is not a hero because he was killed by a schmuck. He is a hero because he saved the lives of his students at the expense of his own. He stood up and gave his life to try to save others. The man is a bona fide hero.

So the lesson here, kids, is that distrust can be healthy, but you probably shouldn't let it be your sole guiding force. After I had all those thoughts, I decided, what the hell, I'll look at the article, even though I was already sure of what I would read. I didn't read that. I read about a hero. Now I'm writing about a hero to prove that I don't just make snap judgements, but mostly to pay tribute.

Liviu Librescu is a genuine hero. And I'm sorry I was wrong about it even for a second.

Health Care

I don't claim to be an expert on the subject. Far from it; I know very little. But the debate has come up recently and I'm afraid people are missing the point.

People talk about Universal Medical Coverage a lot. Michael Moore is going to release (well, has released, but let's maintain the fiction, shall we) a movie on the subject. I haven't seen it, nor do I plan to because I find Michael Moore annoying. But it sure has stirred up some debate.

We have, on the one side, people who say that the market should be allowed to rule. If we just get the Federal Government (of the USA, sorry foreign folks) out of it, the market, and wonderful capitalism red in tooth and claw, will work itself out. Medical insurance will become cheaper, and all will live in a wonderful Utopia of virtually free health care.

Then the other side, who believe that the government should take the whole thing over and give everyone medical insurance. Socialized medicine, Medicaid on a grand scale, workers comp for all... and so on. And then all will live in a wonderful Utopia of virtually free health care.

The problem, as I see it, is actually twofold. One, both of those ideas are simplistic and stupid. The pie in the sky may be apple, but I don't expect us to taste it any time soon. The market does a great job of screwing the poor, sad to say, and those are the people who need health insurance most. And the government, in its infinite wisdom, would no doubt make an even bigger mess of things than they are already. I'm not saying the system works, or doesn't need changing. I'm just saying that the extreme options are bunk.

But the second problem is a problem of discussion. Because, you see, what these people are talking about is health insurance. Insurance is great if there isn't universal free health care. And no doubt the market would act on insurance prices, just as the government might be able to insure people who couldn't get it anywhere else.

However, actual universal free health care is not insurance. It is free medical care. The price you pay is not based on anything other than how much health care the country uses. The government pays for it all and then gets that money back from the taxpayers, who all pay said tax regardless of whether or not they have used any of said free health care in the past. That's what socialized medicine really means.

I'm not saying that I'm in favor of that system any more than the current one. The United States government doesn't handle Socialism well, which is why we aren't one. But it is a completely different debate from the debate over the cost of medical insurance.

By way of illustration by analogy (a tricky business at that), suppose you have a government that charges you money any time you need to submit a government form. That money pays for someone to examine the form and then file it. If you needed to fill out a lot of forms, you might be tempted to hire your own bureaucrat who would examine and file all of your forms for a flat rate, rather than per form.

That private bureaucrat is insurance. If you don't require his services often, he doesn't charge much. The more forms you make him examine and file in the government building, the more he's likely to charge you next time his contract comes up for negotiation. In a free market, there's a good chance that you might find another bureaucrat who was willing to charge you less because of healthy competition. It is doubtful that you would ever find one who would do it for free. And if bureaucrats hear, at the annual bureaucrat union meeting (Local 723), that you submit a lot of forms, word is likely to get around and you're likely to have to pay more, regardless of the wonders of the free market.

Now suppose the government steps in and says they will mandate a bureaucrat's wages. The government passes laws saying that private bureaucrats can't charge too much. This is, in a way, insurance reform (a very over-simplified way). But you still have to find a good bureaucrat, even if you pay him the mandated amount. And bureaucrats might be inclined to simply decline to work for you if they thought you had too many forms to examine and file (in that same mythical government building)

Now suppose the government says that everyone must have a bureaucrat of their very own. Since some people have too many forms to fill out and no bureaucrats will work for them, the government hires bureaucrats for these unfortunate people. This is universal insurance. The government has stepped in and mandated not only the wages of bureaucrats but also that everyone must have one. But the bureaucrats who work for the people who fill out too many forms are likely to be overstretched and underpaid, and the system is likely to collapse.

Lastly, suppose that the government hires its own bureaucrats to work in the big government building, and instead of forcing people to pay to file forms, the government lets them do it for free. It pays its own bureaucrats from the taxes it collects from everyone. If you filled out lots of forms, you will still only pay taxes based on what you own. If you filled out none, then you're picking up the tab for nothing, but that's what taxes are for. The government no longer charges for forms; it makes that cost part of its operating budget. That's socialized medicine.

I used bureaucrats in the example for a reason, although it required a bit of logical legerdemain, because bureaucrats are actually a prime example of socialized bureaucracy in the United States. They aren't elected, they aren't payed by individuals, they are employees of the government. Under the purest form of socialized medicine, doctors would become employees of the government, and they wouldn't charge people anything for medicine.

That's not likely to happen, and looking at the track record of bureaucracy, I can't say I'm sorry. Like I said, I'm not pushing in favor of the extreme in any of these cases. But I do think people should understand the distinction between insurance and medical care, and a lot of people don't seem to have any idea there is one.

This got quite long with the analogy, didn't it. I didn't try to prove anything via analogy though. It's just a useful tool for looking at the situation another way, not a proof the the situation is as I've said. Look for yourselves.

Let Us Pray

Far be it for me to tell anyone how to grieve. I think if you want to kneel down in the street and bawl, that's your right, and it really shouldn't be all that surprising in many situations. I know a lot of people have problems grieving too, so I guess any way they let it out is good.

But I find it paternalistic and insulting to assume that grieving should involve prayer. Sadly, they always seem to be Christian prayers too, in this country. We recite the "Our Father" or sing "Amazing Grace," and that's supposed to be a profound expression of our grief.

Philosophically, I'm against it from the standpoint that grief is a personal emotion and shouldn't be expressed by a mass chanting of some familiar tune. As part of the ritual of a particular faith, I think prayer can have its place, but in a mass convocation (I'm talking about the Virginia Tech business if you haven't guessed) all a prayer does is obfuscate our actual feelings. Since I have no feelings on the subject one way or the other, I guess it's not my business, but I don't think it should be any other individual's business either.

Sectarian-ly, I'm against it because not all of us are Christian, and not all Christians say the prayers the same way. Sure you can give equal time to other religions, but why bother? It could take years to give equal time if you're really going to do it, and if you're just going to pay lip service to the concept of equal time, you're not helping. Plus, the prayer that everyone says all together now is a Christian prayer, and they say it in a Protestant way.

What's wrong with a moment of silence? What's wrong with playing something other than "Amazing Grace?" Who are the administration and organizers of grief to tell people what they should say to God, if anything? It's insulting.

I guess it comes back to the arguments about school prayer. People who care enough to make a stink are the ones who want everyone to say it their way. People who are more reasonable don't usually get hot and bothered on the issue. And in situations like memorials and grieving, people think it's not the time or place to make waves. Maybe they're right. Maybe you should just sit back and let it slide.

I don't have any real reason to grieve, other than fellow human feeling. Neither, I imagine, do some of the guests at the ceremony. So I'll let people grieve how they see fit, but I wouldn't hold it against them if they decided that they saw fit to grieve in some manner not prescribed by the masses. From their lips to God's ear.

That's Life

I hate it when people say, "That's life." What's life? Give me a break.

It's like people saying, "Life isn't fair." Usually that means, "I'm being unfair to you, but there's nothing you can do about it." That's true enough, I guess.

The problem is, life is fair. Brutally fair. Just not necessarily always in your favor. People who say life isn't fair are just trying to give justification to their unfairness. When it's genuinely necessary to be unfair, it's usually not really unfair, just not necessarily fair in your favor.

See, "fair," means evenhanded, balanced. To say that life isn't always beneficial, or that it doesn't always favor you, now that's fair. But unfair? Life isn't unfair.

So, "That's life," usually means, "You should accept this bad situation without protest." Most of the time, that's just life being brutally fair. Things don't always work out. Things aren't always fun. That's life.

But sometimes, life is fair, but people in it are not. And while that's brutally fair (i.e. life doesn't presuppose any fairness on the part of the participants), that doesn't mean that you have to take it lying down. So you should ask yourself, the next time someone tells you, "That's life," whether or not that person is being reasonable.

It's a hard thing to swallow. Some people want life to always decide in their favor, so any time it doesn't, they think it isn't fair. But a lot of people are more reasonable than that, and sometimes when you think something isn't fair, it might not be. Doesn't change the fact that life doesn't charge a cover to keep out the riff-raff. But sometimes you can do something about it.

You'll notice that no one says, "That's life," after something good happens. You don't win the lottery and declare, "Oh well, that's life." But it is life, just like the bad things are life. So the next time someone tells you about something good that happened, tell them, in all seriousness, "That's life." And then come back and tell me that the words aren't biased toward the negative.

So is life really all that bad? Or are people that unfair? Do we really need to reaffirm the supposed unfairness and negativity of life all the time? Or are all the people who say, "That's life," trying to sell you something you don't want? Think about it.

Act Your Age

People need to act their age. By that, I don't mean that people who are young should be relegated to the dustbin, nor that people who are older are better. Far from it. Acting your age doesn't have anything to do with your intelligence (well, maybe it does, but it doesn't improve it).

Acting your age has more to do with the company you keep than anything else, I suppose. If you are spending all your time hanging around with people significantly older or younger than you, out of your age bracket (and don't ask me to define that because I guess it's probably something which is rightly-resistant to definition) then there's a fair chance you should examine your circumstances. But it also has to do with mid-life crises of all stripes.

I am more annoyed at people who try to act younger than they are because I have been frequently put in situations where I had to act older than I was. And that's hard, so I have a certain amount of patience toward those in similar situations. Precocious is a tough cross to bear, and many people will unjustly label any younger person precocious simply because they believe that younger people aren't as smart. Since younger people frequently are as smart, or smarter, it's not fair. Also, elevating your status, age-wise, is hard on yourself and is usually in service of some goal other than making yourself feel good.

Acting younger is epidemic, and since I run into it so often I guess I have less patience with it. It's self-serving for the most part, and it doesn't require much sacrifice. And I'm not just talking about looking or talking younger. I'm talking about doing things which are immature, things which most mature people of the age you'd like to emulate don't do anyway because they have sense. I'm talking about pretense which goes beyond simply being in touch with youth and moves into acting in ways which hold a very distorted mirror to youth.

I could give examples but I won't. I will, however, share a quote which no doubt you've heard. "Children, there's a time and a place for everything, and it's called college." Many people wish they were in that mythical college, either because they feel restricted in youth, or because they long for youth again. The problem is that that college is a myth, mostly. And it only accepts people of a certain age. If you try to get in before or after, you just wind up looking foolish (that is, if you're lucky; you can also wind up acting foolish, which is infinitely more dangerous).

Stop the nostalgia. Maturity isn't all that bad. And you don't have to pretend to be back in college to be immature. There are lots of age-appropriate methods for that. I know this comment is addressed mostly at the older folks, but that's to whom I was talking all along, wasn't it?

Auditions

This is not a theatre blog, so I hope no one came here in that mistaken belief. I know some people who write theatre blogs, but I don't. I also don't remember (or have never been told) the addresses to those aforementioned theatre blogs so I can't redirect you if you've been linked here under false pretenses. Sorry.

I am not an actor, but I occasionally enjoy the diversion of acting. I make no money at all, and I'm not sure that, if someone offered me money to act, I would take it. Okay, I would, but because I'm a whore, not because I want to make a living as an actor. I work with enough actors to be disabused of any notions I might have to the contrary.

But as I said, I do occasionally, for a lark, participate to some scenery-chewing. It's all good fun. So today I'd like to talk about auditions, which I've seen from every vantage point in smaller theaters (note that I spell it that way when talking about actual locations rather than the abstract "theatre" concept, as is proper, or should I say snobby).

Auditions make me nervous. Even if I don't want to be in the play and am simply there because I was in the building and they asked me if I would, even if I know for a fact that I've got the part and the audition is merely a formality (it doesn't happen often, but once or twice), even if I'm doing the whole thing as a lark and I could care less whether or not I get a part, I get a little nervous. Sometimes I go to auditions because I like reading plays, or at least that's what I tell myself, because mostly it's to keep from freaking out the next time I have a real audition to which to go. I do like reading plays, but if I have no real vested interest, I go just to try to keep acclimated to the audition fear.

Auditions where you show up, they hand you a script, and you do a cold read are the best. I don't have to do anything other than show up, although I usually try to have read the play beforehand. But I don't have to be really prepared. When you have to prepare a monologue or a song (yes, I've done musicals too) that's what really gets me. So I don't audition for many musicals.

Over the years I've gotten better. I used to be a basket case before an audition. Some people talk about stage fright; well, I had audition fright. It's a wonder I ever auditioned for anything at all. Sometimes I wonder if I wouldn't have been better off never treading the boards. I certainly would probably be a completely different person, and might be making a hell of a lot more money to boot. Well, I've gotten better, but I still get nervous.

It's odd, really. Most of the time I audition in front of people I know. And I can tell you that I would rather go up on stage and play a part where I had to pull my pants down in front of several thousand strangers than recite a small monologue in front of three people I know. I have the same problem with public speaking actually. I don't know why, but I have a theory.

I think it has to do with playing a part. I am not actually up on stage (I don't get stage fright much at all). The part I'm playing is up on stage. Whereas I myself am a very nervous person, the parts I play give me a remove from anything I'm doing. Maybe that's why I like acting.

Well, whatever the reason, I don't like auditions. That's pretty much all I wanted to say, and it just went longer than I expected. Sorry.

People Aren't Terribly Bright

Oh what fun it is to list in a one horse open sleigh! Hey!

No, no, that's not it at all. But there is a list a-brewing:

Don Imus

Frankly, I never knew you were supposed to be a shock jock. I've been forced to hear you on multiple occasions, and while annoying you might be, perhaps even offensive to those with weakly-offended sensibilities (at the time, understand, since I never heard you make any comments like the ones for which you're currently being hung out to dry), you were never terribly shocking. Have you ever had strippers on your show to perform acts of oral sex? Well, I guess the point is moot now. I will say that you are ugly and annoying and your voice was never meant for broadcast, which annoys me further because there are many people who are much more talented than you who will never get a chance. Mostly ugly though.

Diane Keaton

Your name came to mind. I hope your movies do well, but I'm not terribly interested in seeing any of them. And don't think it's a Woody Allen thing. I didn't like Annie Hall either. Loved Love and Death though.

Bob Crane

Now, every time I watch Hogan's Heroes I am reminded of the more sordid details of your life. Why did you have to spoil it for me? Why couldn't you have simply died peacefully, or at least unremarkably? There is a slight chance that I've got you mixed up with someone else, in which case I'm sorry but I'm not looking it up to preserve that minor amount of ambiguity.

Werner Klemperer

Kinch did not have a radio hidden in the coffee pot. I know that Homer Simpson might have convinced you otherwise, but Kinch had the receiver to a microphone hidden in the coffee pot. Much worse, actually, from the point of view of Col. Klink. Since you aren't Col. Klink, I don't know that it matters that much.

Will Farrel

Damn man, let some other comedians have a shot. You seem like you might be a decent guy. I don't like any of your movies, but you seem like a decent guy. Why don't you make more movies like the one you made with Emma Thompson that I didn't see and I'm not sure was out for more than ten minutes? Wait, I answered my own question.

Emma Thompson

According to Christopher Reeve, you cook chicken well. Good for you.

Ralph Bakshee

I can't blame you that people seem to think you are some kind of animation god. It's not your fault that people have no taste. I can blame you for sucking though. Wow do you suck. Way to go on Lord of the Rings, man.

I think we've pretty much come full circle with that one.

Atheism as Worldview

Dear Richard Dawkins et. al.,

I agree with you completely on the subject of organized religion. It's dangerous, usually a bad influence, and we'd probably be a lot better off without it. There is no question in my mind that religious people do terrible things in the name of their religion, just as there is not one question in my mind that those things are terrible.

However, there is a great deal of difference between organized religion and belief in God. Unfortunately, you all don't seem to get that, or if you do, you need to make it more plain. I don't happen to believe that atheism is the only way to be a good person, any more than I believe than only religion causes people to do terrible things. But if you believe (funny how that word believe keeps cropping up) and want to try to prove that belief in God is the real ill in our world, you have a funny way of doing it.

Most radical atheists point out all sorts of wrongs committed in God's name, or committed by believers, and expect that it follows that God, or rather belief in God, is the cause of these terrible wrongs. They claim that belief in God is contrary to science because religious people regularly believe that science is wrong, or at least opposed to their religious world view. The radical atheists mix up a whole mish-mosh of belief, from fundamentalist religious types to people who are simply spiritual believers with no organized religion at all.

Guys, you're buying into their lie. You're so intent on proving that they are wrong that you're lending credence to their opposition. There is nothing in science which denies religion, and simple belief in a higher power in no way invalidates science. So atheism isn't a prerequisite for scientific learning. Then there's the fact that organized religion and belief are two separate things which you lump together, which weakens your argument. Then there's the fact that trying to prove God doesn't exist is like trying to prove God does: that way madness lies.

In short, boys and girls, if you want to convince people of the fallacy of organized religion, be my guest. Group thought of all stripes (including radical atheism and science) needs to be exploded (that's iconoclasm for you, always going after icons they don't personally hold dear) more often. So write that book. Call it, "The Group Delusion," or, "The Evils of Group-think." I might read it, and I'd certainly stand behind it (although groups ain't always a bad thing, Charlie).

Or if you want to write a book saying that belief in God causes people to do bad things, write that. Don't make a case for organized religion at all; talk about how belief in God makes people more willing to accept bad things in the world, or how belief in God keeps people from a healthy fear of death, or blinds them to the truth. Don't mention religion. Talk mostly about psychology. I won't personally agree with most of what you say, I imagine, since I don't think that belief in God (or higher power, what have you) is anathema to the truth, but I won't feel like the book is confused and pointless.

But what radical atheists world-wide are having a problem with is picking their fights. You can't take them all on at once. It stops being logical and starts being ranting. And sadly, guys and gals of atheism, you're just not terribly good at sermonizing that I've seen, and it's hard to convert people away from religion without giving them another one as a substitute. Hell, it's hard to convert people away from religion period, as evidenced by the various attempts at it.

Organized religion: mostly bad. Belief: indifferent. Radical atheism: just secular religion, therefore mostly bad. Philosophical ideals of any stripe when used as an excuse to do bad things: bad all over.

Love,

Me

Shift Key

I am willing to allow that certain things are not easy to type quickly. Since I type fairly quickly and make all sorts of mistakes, I can attest to the fact that it's hard to spell quickly. If you don't have a chance to check over what you're typing, mistakes can be made.

Also, if you have to type at the speed of thought, you're going to make some concessions for the sake of brevity. You might (I don't, personally, because I'm a grizzled old prospector from the 1890s) utilize certain shortcuts, euphemisms, or abbreviations in speedy typing. If the number of characters counts, you might leave out words that don't matter or even letters.

I am not here to complain about the fact that these shortcuts, born of necessity, are creeping into places where they do not belong. No sir, that is a topic for another time that I may already have covered (I can't honestly remember).

But how hard is it to capitalize properly on a keyboard? I can't be sure, but I'm fairly sure that it doesn't take me any longer to type a letter while holding the shift key down. I understand that cell phones don't have the same degree of utility, but on computers, how hard is it really?

I also excuse the occasional mis-capital, simply because as I said, mistakes are made. God knows I make enough of them. But to type an entire missive without once pressing the shift key, or worse yet to type the entire thing in capital letters (I assume through the use of the caps lock key, but I can't be certain; people are deranged sometimes) is lazy and annoying.

I've seen people do it for artistic purposes, which I generally oppose from design purposes but which I guess I can let slide from a strictly artistic point of view. But text without sentences is worse than text without paragraphs, and often enough the two go hand in hand. Would it kill you to press that key a few times? I don't think so, unless many people's keyboards came from a company that manufactures them with contact poison on the shift key, in which case I'm obligated to inform you that there are many keyboards on the market and I've never seen one with this feature.

It's all part of my complaints about the degradation of language online, which I may or may not have put into form in the past. And the complaints get tedious even to me after a while. But I promise to keep making them at regular intervals, and spell-checking each one to catch my more boneheaded mistakes. The ones that get by the spell-checker are fair game; please complain to me about them to your heart's content.

People Should Get a Life

Well, this list could consist of everyone on Earth, really, including yours truly. Okay everyone, get a damn life. I find myself cursing more as my sleep level drops. Nevertheless, here are some people in particular.

Football Fans

I enjoy a good game of football. It is not, however, the Second Coming of Christ, nor is it worth destroying your marriage and/or life simply to see a game featuring two teams in which you have no interest. It's just a game, and while it can be an enjoyable game to watch, nine months of the year do not need to be spent doing nothing on weekends but watching it. Ah, who am I kidding, there's some kind of football on 24/7 now in the land of cable tomorrow.

Baseball Fans

The game is boring as hell. Sorry, those are the breaks. I guess I can see enjoying it as a minor diversion, but then all the stuff I said to football fans applies. Any game that requires a calculator to enjoy is probably a game which shouldn't be televised. And Red Sox fans, get over yourselves. We're tired of hearing about it. Sure, the Yankees have the money to purchase every single player in baseball and put them all on the field at once, but that's less of an insult to you personally and more of an indication that some kind of regulatory body should probably step in.

Basketball Fans

See Football Fans, and then see yourselves out the damn door. I'm tired of hearing about it. Basketball is boring in a completely different way than baseball, but that doesn't make it any less boring.

Hockey Fans

I wish they still let the players fight on the ice. I remember in the distant past playing a video game where you could do that, and it was the only part I was any good at, or enjoyed at all.

Soccer Fans

Some day, you will get the Americans to change the name to football like everyone else in the world, but that day will be a long time coming. You are infinitely more crazy than people give you credit for, and that's a point in your favor, I feel. But I still can't summon up a lot of passion about it. Live soccer kicks the ass out of any other sport as a spectator, but only because the fans are insane.

Cricket Fans

Right.

College Sports Fans

Give it up. It's not more interesting than professional sports. It's not more pure. If you want purity in sports, you've come to the wrong place. What you do get is slightly less experienced players who are payed slightly less, suck the life out of academics at college, and populate more teams than you can shake a stick at. Seriously, what's with the teams? There are too many of them in any given sport, and multiply that by several hundred different sports and you've got a problem.

High School Sports Fans

I didn't realize this type of person existed, but sadly they do. If your child is not actively playing on the field, you need to leave. Right now.

I know I was brutal back there, but it's for their own good.

I Had No Idea

Apparently, e/n is what I am. That's slightly depressing because I always thought that e/n meant something having to do with one's inner emotional life or something like that. But it turns out that it just means that what you're writing is only important to you.

Yep. Well I guess that's it then. I should change the title to "Nobody Cares About My E/N Crap."

Okay, not really. I'm writing this because I have a problem with the epithet. Basically, anything which isn't a reprint of information already available elsewhere is e/n by a vague definition. Someone's opinions aren't important, really, to anyone but them, and pretty much anything other than the above reprints are opinion-based if not driven. I guess something which is simply fiction, or an amusing story of real life, isn't opinion per se, and if you happen to be one of the lucky few people clued in enough to to the news world to be able to scoop others, then I guess exclusive news isn't opinion either.

But by a broad definition, most humorists are e/n. Humorous essays expressing an opinion - why would anyone want to read that? In fact, the case could be made that to any given individual, things are divided up into two groups: e/n and interesting reading. Obviously if you don't care about someone's views, they don't matter to you, and therefore, from your point of view, those selfsame views are meaningless to anyone except the writer.

It's a bullshit term which, like many other words, has come to mean something which is pretty much meaningless. E/N, I excommunicate thee, I excommunicate thee, I excommunicate thee! It's going in the bin with all the other forum garbage.

Plus, the title already says that nobody cares. And if I don't even care (the definition of nobody hasn't been excepted in the title, at any rate), then I can't possibly be everything/nothing. More like just nothing.

The Ease of Forgetting

I've got a suggestion for all those people who want to "Never Forget." Who plaster American flags all over everything like somehow, oh, I don't know, it would get them into Heaven (John Prine, that one's for you). Who "Support Our Troops," with little yellow ribbons. In short, the fair-weather home front. Yes, I've got a suggestion for you.

On Memorial Day, instead of getting out the barbeque and pounding a few (not that I'm suggesting that you all drink, but it's an option that many people seem to regard highly on that particular day), take the family to a military cemetery. Arlington is probably pretty crowded around that time, but I'm sure you can find a nice out-of-the-way cemetery; there certainly seem to be a lot of military dead people for some reason. If you wanted to go hardcore, you could go overseas to a military cemetery, say in France or Holland, but any military cemetery will do.

It sounds like a fun time will be had by all, I'm sure, quietly reflecting on the fact that there certainly are a lot of dead military people. How supportive are you of that?

Or how about Veterans Day? This November, all you flag-wavers hunt down a veteran and say hello. Go to the VA Hospital in your area, bring the kids, and have a blast. The catch-phrase for Veterans Day used to be, "Thank a Vet." So find one, preferably one you don't know, and thank them.

Hell, you shouldn't even wait for a specific day; support those troops. Get out there and support the heck out of them. And I don't mean buy that second American flag decal for the moped. I mean support them.

I'm being condescending here, and I know it, and I guess I'm sorry. But it's easy to say you support something. I think people should understand what support really means. It doesn't mean blind cheering. It means support.

The irony of it, which come November I may revisit (but don't hold your breath because I have a bad memory) is that Veterans Day used to be called Armistice Day because it was celebrating the Armistice that ended World War I. We've done a pretty good job of forgetting that, and that's unfortunate because we really should remember it. We don't have holidays to celebrate wars. I defy you to name one. We have holidays to celebrate the ends of wars, and we set aside days to honor the dead, but to glorify war? I won't be getting out my barbeque for that.

Fogey Vs. Names

Occasionally I get the urge to get out a cane, put in my chewing-out dentures, hike up my pants to my neck line, and say, "Consarn it!" a lot. Then I realize that I don't need to walk with a cane (yet), I have all my own teeth (for the moment), I hate wedgies, and I'm not living in the early 1900s. That's my inner crotchety fogey coming out to play, because darn it, sometimes change annoys me.

Today's change is the sudden trend in names. I don't mean people's names either; that's a topic for another time (and another place, since any time I talk about it I get accused of being a racist). I'm talking about the names of sports teams and music groups.

I remember back in the good old days when teams had plural names. The Wildcats? Check. The Cardinals? Check. The Heat? Sorry. The Jazz? Especially not in Utah. What was wrong with being able to say, "Oh, he's been traded to New York, so he's a Yankee now," as opposed to having to say, "Oh, he's moved to another team; he's a Heat now." See, you can't say it. It doesn't work. Stick to plurals, so we don't have to call people players for the Heat.

And then there are bands. The Bravery? What the hell? That's a combination of two trends which I oppose, the trend of naming bands after singulars (which is okay when not combined with the next trend) and the trend of all bands being named, "The Nouns." In their place, either of these trends could be okay, but combined, I begin to wonder whether or not The Bravery are a new hockey team or something.

What was wrong with the old way of doing things? We got out of the era where all bands had to be named things like, "Rick Breem and his Band of Esteem," the era of, "Dina and the Wharf-Rats," even the era of all bands simply being named, "The Nouns." We had moved into an era where all bands didn't have to be named any particular way, and it was glorious. It was an era that could encompass The Smashing Pumpkins, sometimes know as Smashing Pumpkins, and sometimes known as Billy Corgan and the Pumpkin-Smashers (it's a joke, I say, a joke, son).

Now we get The This and The That and The Other Thing, and some of them have the decency to give themselves plural names, but I can see the creep arriving. Soon, every band will be named, "The Feeling," or, "The Ugly," or, "The Jazz."

Maybe by then all the sports teams will have adopted soccer-style European-esque names like The Utah United and we'll be really in trouble.

Plebiscite

Who wants what here? And by here, I mean in Iraq, mostly. Who wants us to stay? Who wants us to go?

These are not idle questions. For one, supposedly the Iraqis want us to stay, as evidenced by the demands of certain Iraqis for us to stay. All well and good for those certain Iraqis. I fully believe that certain Iraqis do want us to stay, just as no doubt certain Iraqis want us gone. The problem is which Iraqis want us where.

And how about at home. If you listen to any pundit, they will tell you conclusively that the American people want us to do something in Iraq. Stay, go, some stay and some go, most go and only a few unlucky stay, etc. and so on. According to the people who get to tell us what we think, we think a wide variety of very different things. I'm prepared to believe that some American citizens want certain things in Iraq, just as they want certain various things elsewhere. The question is which Americans want what.

The assumption always seems to be that people make their will known through their government, so if the government of the United States wants something, clearly the people want that too. And if the Iraqi government wants American troops to stay, well then the Iraqi people must want that too, lock, stock, and barrel. How idiotic is that?

For one thing, the elements of the government don't agree. Sure, one person in the government of any given country might want something, and if that person happens to be in a position of power, the government winds up wanting that thing too, so the people want it too, which means that several gazillion people have their opinions made known through the mouth of one individual. I don't buy that for a second. I don't care which side you're on; surely you must concede that some people don't agree with you.

So if the government can't make up its mind, why should its will be interpreted as the will of the people? Especially when the people weren't asked a direct question? It's common these days to call a general election a "referendum" on an issue if the two parties are divided on the subject. But that's not a referendum (which should be a direct vote on a particular issue, by the way), and that's why you shouldn't use the term because it's tainted.

The term of art is plebiscite, which, according to Princeton, is, "a vote by the electorate determining public opinion on a question of national importance." That's asking the question. Putting it to a vote, as it were. Why can't we do that? Why not ask the question? It seems important enough to me.

This is, of course, leaving aside the other issue of pure majority-rule democracy: roughly half of the people are going to lose any vote. That's something to think about too. Because if someone asked every Iraqi (and the fact that universal voting is practically impossible should also give us pause) whether or not American troops should leave, roughly half of them would hold both sides. I say roughly because statistically, that's the chances. There's a good chance that the vote would be less evenly divided.

So you have to ask yourself, is pursuing any course of action we decide (and notice that we're deciding it, not them) to pursue worth disenfranchising roughly half of the people involved? A third? One person? I don't know the answer, and it's not as simple a question as it appears. If one Iraqi wants us to stay because he or she is afraid for the children of the country, that's a good reason. If, on the other hand, he wants us to stay so he can grow rich on the black market, maintain corrupt power, and kill his political enemies without recourse, that's maybe not such a good reason.

But maybe we should ask the people, here and there, what they think, rather than assuming that because they elected a government for many reasons, they agree with it for one. That might stifle everyone who claims to know the will of the people for a few minutes.

100

I'm still here. Late, but here. There is a certain fulfillment in that, actually.

But does it get any easier to do something if you've passed a benchmark? It's possible. Knowing that something is half over would seem to make it much easier to suffer through the rest of it. But when you're actually doing something, the last few feet of the race can be the most difficult.

I'm not completely sure what I'm writing about here because I really just wanted to paste a big "100" on the front and ship it on in. That's 97 more posts than the last blog I tried, and at least 80 more than any other sequence of articles I've ever sat down to write. You can debate the quality (please don't, you know I love you) but the quantity is there. If I were writing this on the day I should have been, it would only be 99 days into the year, but it's more than 100 now. So that's more than one fourth done.

I have found, over the past month or so, that it's hard to be on topic if the topic you want to discuss in something dated two weeks ago is occurring now. It does keep me from being entirely driven by current events, but sometimes I have to write things and then wait to post them. And sometimes I just don't write the things in the first place. I imagine that's probably often for the best, because some things I write are terrible. Like this, for instance.

I try to stick to views, rather than fiction or diary, largely because I don't get to express myself very often in other forums. This is largely by choice. So I won't try to sneak in a short story while no one's looking, mostly because I know so few people are looking anyway as to make any sneaking on my part a mockery of the form. I'm also trying not to simply complain about things that should be different, or regurgitate other people's views with commentary. But both of those things are views, in a way; complaints are points of view which differ from the state of things, and commentary is views on views. And I do have both, sometimes. More than sometimes. I try to keep them as general as possible.

Just remember, in 200 or so more days, I will have gone insane and will be writing manifestos about cheese in our nation's banks. Wait up for that, won't you? I know I will.

Strike

I might have mentioned that I am a scenic carpenter by trade. That means I build scenery, not that I'm good to look at while I carp. Or is that, "carpent?" I don't know. Perform acts of carpentry. It's a joke, son.

A question I get asked a lot when people find out what I actually do is whether I get depressed at having to build things which are just destined to be torn down after the play closes (that's theatre-folk talk for no longer being performed at that theater). Since I usually build things which last for a few months at most, many people seem to think that it must be very saddening to me to put so much work into something so impermanent. It's a valid question, which is why I'm answering it now.

No.

Well, that was easy. I think I'll run out for a beer or something, leave the audience here to ruminate on that. Oh, wait, there's not much upon which to ruminate. Okay, I'll take another stab at it.

I could get all deep and say that everything is impermanent. I won't because that dodges the question. The work I do sometimes does seem like a whole lot of effort for very little result, it's true. Sometimes I put tremendous amounts of time into things which last for a week and are seen by a few hundred people at most. Sometimes that does get to me.

But not for the reason you might think, I maintain. I dislike putting more work into something than it's worth, true, and sometimes if I spend a lot of effort on something which isn't appreciated or isn't used to its full potential, it does bother me. Can anyone honestly say that they've never had something they've done be under appreciated? If so, you're lucky. If not, that's life I suppose. I hate it when people say that's life. Maybe I'll write something about that. Hold on a second.

Okee dokee, I'm back. The point is that no matter how long I spend on something, seeing it misused does bother me. But the point of scenery is to be impermanent, so I don't consider that misuse.

And being impermanent has its definite advantages. You don't have to build for the ages, for one thing. It only has to last as long as the run of the show, so you can avoid a lot of headaches. There's also the fact that, if you really dislike your work on a set (that's play-folk talk for the scenery) it doesn't hang around to remind you of it. Actually, that's a fabulous bonus to all theatrical endeavors: they have a finite end-point, so if you hate doing them, they won't last forever (unless you're doing Cats, in which case you're screwed).

So no, I don't find it depressing to tear down things into which I've put hard work. It can be quite rewarding, actually, if you hated a particular element and get to destroy it. And not all scenery gets destroyed; if it's useful, sometimes it gets saved for the next time you'll need a platform on wheels, or a man-eating plant, or what have you. That's not always the case, and it's not good to save everything because you rapidly run out of space, but sometimes you contribute something lasting.

Even if I don't ever see any set piece that I've built ever again, I take photos of the good stuff to show off to prospective employers, and I don't mind returning the stage to the formless space from which it began. There's something wonderful about going back to square one, even if it can be a little daunting. It's a good way to end, just like it's a good way to begin.

Oh, and nothing lasts forever. I would have kicked myself if I hadn't said that.

Those Who Can't

I went to a college which believed that teachers should also be practitioners in their field, which meant that these poor bastard teachers had to pursue their professional careers while at the same time being teachers. It was hard on them, and I can't say that it was easy on the students, and probably not on the administration either. It's a noble ideal, I guess, and many institutions of learning believe in it to a greater or lesser extent. But I'm not sure it works well.

The old saying, of course (referenced it the title, obviously) is, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." It's snide but not completely fair or true. Many people who have had excellent records in the doing department go on to rack up the points in the teaching department, and you don't have to be able to do in order to do, as I'm sure we've all discovered at one point or another. The saying reflects an opinion about teachers which isn't new, but certainly wasn't always the case.

Teachers are terribly important to education, especially our current system of it, and whatever my feelings on particular teachers, I do believe this to be true. If it weren't for teachers, the only education we would get would be from family and then as apprentices in our chosen trade. Not a particularly good lookout for higher education, that. So obviously it's important to have people who don't "do." Historically, people who have already "done" and have then turned to "teaching" have made excellent teachers, as have people specifically instructed in teaching.

We can quibble with that history, but therein lies my point: there is education that goes into becoming a teacher, at least a good one. It is not enough to simply be a practitioner in the field; that's mere apprenticeship, and for some things it works but for others it does not. Apprentices learn technique, whereas students can learn theory. So why the stigma on teachers as people who don't "do?"

Well, it comes mostly from the fact that teachers are, by and large, either lousy or not present, or both. The people who "can't" often do wind up teaching, because teaching is such a low-profile position that no actual doers want to sully their names with it. That's too bad. But actual doers are also at fault because they perpetuate the stereotype. Teaching is a form of retirement for some, sure, but why does it have to be a demotion or ignominy? Many great thinkers have been excellent teachers. The "can't" of the saying should be replaced by "don't." There is nothing that says that teachers can't, it is that they don't.

Or perhaps they shouldn't. It's too difficult to hold down two careers; the students inevitably get short shrift, or the teacher wears him or herself down to the bone and quits one or the other, either reinforcing the fact that they can't and teach, or that they can and therefore are better than teaching. Also, in the arts in particular, being an active practitioner in a field as subjective as art makes one biased in a way which is not appropriate for a teacher, and may make one have vicarious careers through one's students. More trouble.

But more than that, there aren't enough people who are actually skilled at teaching. The pendulum swings the other way and all doers go and teach, but without preparation. Simply doing something doesn't inform one of how to learn it, or how best to present it. It takes more than education in the subject to be a teacher; one must learn how to learn the subject as well.

In short, the best teachers I have had in certain avenues have not been practitioners as well. There is less personal stake in it, for one thing. Editors, for instance, make excellent teachers of literature because they know how to read, not because they know how to write. They can help people learn to analyze other work, and also critique student work from a non-biased standpoint. And they would be classified as "can't," just as critics, art historians, efficiency experts, and economists "can't" produce plays, create art, start businesses, or play the market, respectively.

In that last example, however, it must be noted that none of those people is automatically qualified to teach, any more than someone who knows nothing of the subject. In fact, another saying that I could close with is, "A good teacher can teach any subject." That's also not true, because there are basic understandings that many advanced topics require that all good teachers don't have. So let's draw a middle point between the two. If you don't know the subject, and you don't know how to teach, you are doomed to failure. Beyond that, as long as you don't get tenure (academic joke alert), you can try. After tenure, graduate students handle all of it for you, so make sure you get graduate students who know the subject and how to teach.

That joke just depressed me because it wasn't much of a joke and because it's true.

The Right Occasion

Why is it that some people, no names, no blame, seem not to know when a good time is for things to be done or said? I'm not talking about the appropriateness of comments; I could write a book on people being inappropriate, but it wouldn't be terribly fun, or it might be huge fun, but regardless, that's not of what I speak. Why can't people see when someone is busy, or unable to respond?

I do it sometimes too; I think we all do. We think that our problems or comments or questions are more important than other people's. And sometimes they are, but usually they aren't, or if they aren't less important, they're not more-important-enough to warrant cutting in. And some people seem to make a habit of these barging-ins.

When you have just awoken, that is not the time to be told to do something, or asked a question of life and death that can wait until later. It's not hard; usually our brains have not completely revived even after our bodies arise. So asking someone to make a split-second decision when they're still really asleep is probably going to lead to poor decision-making. Sometimes, true, it must be done. But most of the time, you can wait for a few minutes until the person being asked has fully emerged from the cocoon of sleep.

When someone is trying to do something else, don't expect that person's undivided attention. Most of the time, the things we are doing when we're busy aren't terribly important, but they usually occupy our brains, and if you ask us questions or force us to make decisions, we might not really be listening to you. Sometimes we should be, but you just have to expect it.

And why, when I am out of the area in question (what question, you'll see) do people always give me things which need to go in said area? It's only when I'm not on the computer that people want me to do things on the computer for them. It's only when I'm not carrying my wallet that people hand me things which should go in my wallet. It's only when I have no pockets that people give me things I need to put in a pocket. Why can't you wait until I have the thing I need or am where I need to be? Why can't you put it there yourself?

I do this too. I claim I will forget if I don't give it to you now. And that's probably true. But to put the shoe on the other foot, if you give it to me so you won't forget it, if I'm not in a position to do the appropriate thing with it, it will probably get put somewhere else and forgotten, so we both lose.

In conclusion, don't hand me mail as I'm heading to the bathroom. Don't give me money when I'm miles away from my wallet. Don't wake me up in the middle of the night and ask me to make important, but not immediate, decisions. You will continue to do these things, but if we all try, maybe we can all lose fewer things.

There, I've said my piece. Not a terribly appropriate forum though, since no one who's likely to need to follow any of these edicts will read it.

April Fish

I'm pretty much against April Fools Day. The pranks usually aren't funny, and we see them coming, so most of them aren't funny even if they would have been funny if we hadn't seen them coming. Plus, since April 1st tends to fall on days when I've got to be doing something which doesn't lend itself to pranks, I don't prank people, and if people prank me, I wind up mad because it wasn't appropriate.

Mr. James from News Radio (a terrific show, by the way, and one which I heartily recommend) believed that April Fools pranks should be played on other days, so people wouldn't see them coming. I must confess I'm an adherent of that logic. But I don't believe in pranks which don't serve some end. Simply vandalizing things, for instance, isn't a prank, it's just dumb. And that seems to be what most pranks come down to these days.

As I am religiously obligated to note, there is a proud history of the jake being used to freak out the norms, and I heartily endorse this product and/or service. But there's a difference between freaking out the legions of Thud and being pointlessly destructive or annoying. To every thing there is a season, I suppose, and I guess the season for such thing is April Fools Day and Halloween.

I didn't notice any April Fooling going on this April 1st, but as I said I wasn't in the right place at the right time. Come some boring day in September, however, I might spring something on someone, when they least suspect it.

Happy Anti-Jake Day!