Teen Literature

Schadenfreude is quietly glowing at Harvard because a sophomore's highly publicized teen novel is found to have plagarized from other teen novels. Gotta love 'soul-burning jealousy' turning to joy over a 19-year old's shattered career among our nation's young elite.

The teen novel 'How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life,' apparently plagarized passages from two other teen novels: 'Sloppy Firsts' and 'Second Helpings.'

'Sloppy Firsts?' As in a reference to Sloppy Seconds? Great.

I can't claim any expertise on teen lit since I have not read any of it since eighth grade -- ninth grade if 'Catcher in the Rye' counts. But it seems to me not only unnecessary, but in a way insulting.

In third grade my language arts teacher, Mrs. Fink, would read to us everyday from a book. Among children's literature she read 'Sounder,' 'The Velveteen Rabbit,' and 'The Secret Garden'. She also read to us (some possibly in simplified versions, but still) 'Tom Sawyer,' 'Jane Eyre,' and 'MacBeth.'

She read Shakespeare to third graders! How blankety blank cool is that? I still remember the horror of the burning house and the death of Rochester's mad wife. I still remember Mrs. Fink, after reading, "Out, out damn spot!" explaining to us what was causing Lady MacBeth to wash her hands in her sleep.

She challenged us, and led us to some good literature at an age that could be described as precocious. While obviously some went over our heads, we understood most of it. And I am grateful.

Most teen lit seems to be pushing the envelope about subject matter ('Sloppy Firsts') which I would have no problem with except that I also think most teen lit is condescending. Messages like, "Be yourself," or "Sometimes people aren't as happy as they seem," or "Sleeping around looking for love will not work," often assume that teens are too dense to not already know this; that they need to be subtly lectured to under the guise of healthy, easy to digest, guides to life called the teen novel.

Why not instead challenge with some Jane Austen, Steinbeck, or Bronte sisters?

Googling Your Blog

Suffering from severe blogger's block, I decided to go over to Google and search both "Digital Nicotine," and the misspelling of it I'm stuck with in my URL, "Digital Niccotine."

Doing so was fun in that I got to see when other bloggers mentioned me on their sites. I also discovered this whole thing called BlogShares, which appears to be a fantasy stock market game involving blogs instead of stocks. Had no idea I was listed.

Finally, and this was way cool, I discoverd a site called 10 Fingers, Six Strings, that has me blogrolled. I looked over at his blogroll, and the only site on his list that I had ever posted a comment on was Donald Sensing's One Hand Clapping, and that was at most only four or five times.

Gotta love how the Internet works. And I've got somebody now to add to my blogroll. Actually two to add, since I'm reading Zoo Station as well.

Codified Vengeance

Hope Ann Rippey leaves prison in a few days at the age of 29. What did she do as a 15-year old back in 1992 that had her in prison for 14 years?

She and three other girls kidnapped a 12-year old girl. They beat her. They stabbed her. They choked her. They then placed her in the trunk of a car and drove around for several hours to a rural area of southern Indiana. They beat her some more with a tire iron. Then they took the tire iron and sodomized her with it. Then they poured gasoline on the 12-year old. They set her on fire.

The autopsy proved she was alive when set on fire.

14 years for that.

Rippey's 30th birthday will be spent as a free woman.

"[The early release] is, in fact, the realization of a vision of a long-time volunteer worker at the women's prison, Martha Adams, who was impressed by Rippey and her progress as an inmate.

In about 1999, shortly before her death from cancer, Adams hired a lawyer for the express purpose of getting Rippey's sentence reduced -- a goal accomplished in 2004, when a judge in South Bend, Ind., knocked 15 years off her sentence.

Adams thought Rippey's confinement "was a waste of a personable young woman," said Shirley Christensen, 73, another former prison volunteer and a close friend of Adams who now lives in Kansas City, Mo. "Everybody changes, and she (Rippey) had made a very noticeable change." From the Courier-Journal article.

[...]

"She's just a very charming young woman, she really is," Christensen said of Rippey, adding that Adams thought "it was time for her to get out and do something meaningful."

The mother of the beaten, choked, stabbed, sodomized, burned alive, and ultimately murdered 12-year old doesn't care.

For Vaught [the victim's mother], Rippey's release calls up "a devil" -- the overwhelming anger that she said she has tried to keep at bay for more than 14 years. "I do not accept this," she said yesterday of Rippey's release.

And here is the point of this post. Rippey may be a completely changed person who is absolutely 'charming' and can now go out and have a 'meaningful life.' She will no longer live on the tax payer's dime in prison. But a mother must deal with her lack of vengeance for her daughter, and for herself.

Vengeance, it has its ugly connotations. Not condoned by Christ. Shuddered at by some of the more tender-hearted. Not really politically correct. But it does exist. Just as each one of us is born with a sexual fire that can at times be controlled but never truly quenched, each of us also has that fire within for vengeance when we are wronged. It can be controlled, but never fully doused. As long as we have some animal within us, it will be present.

For the sexual fire, society has created remedies such as marriage to control that fire. And for vengeance society has created the legal system. The codified vengeance that is our legal system often goes by a more pleasant name: justice.

If the friends and family of the victim had no recourse to a system that could cooly and without passion dispense the right amount of punishment to alieviate the firey vengeance coursing through them, there is a good chance they would have administered their own punishment. That same tire iron would have been most likely used again. And gasoline. Such can be human nature. Such is how society can be torn apart.

It is fair to say 14 years is not enough punishment. Not enough vengeance. It is fair to say 14 years is not enough justice.

And let's hope the mother of the victim will seek out to find some peace regardless.

European Compassion

The UN is slashing funds for food to Sudan, which is sad because the genocide in Darfur is the third (Kosovo, Rwanda) since Europe bravely said after the Holocaust, "Never again."

What caught my eye in the Reuters article is this passage concerning donation of funds.

The United States was the largest donor at $188 million, [the UN] said, while Italy was the only major European country to contribute so far ($1.2 million).

Where are you France? Hello Germany? Calling Scandanavia? Spain? Belgium? Where are you? The UN is not asking you for troops to actually deliver the food. Nobody is silly enough to expect that. But I'm sure the funds to buy food would be greatly appreciated. And I cannot wait for some European diplomat, because you know it's coming, to complain that the US isn't taking the lead on this. Because it's not like we have other things on our table right now or anything.

Dexterious Fingers

Well, since I'm already being politically incorrect with my last post below, might as well stay un-PC and simply pass on this entertainment tidbit.

I know there is many a joke that could be told, but I don't dare go there.

Those Are The Kinds of People I Want Working For Me

Found an innovative idea over at Gabbatha for a solution to the immigration problem, especially border security. I think it might work.

I also think it would have made one heck of a Monty Python sketch.

Leaving a Job Interview

I promised I'd tell the story of why I left a job inteview after only five minutes, so here I go.

Look at this job listing. I mean, doesn't this job sound great. It's for recent grads, and this company will teach its employees,

~ Client Relations
~ Customer Behavior
~ Direct Marketing
~ Face to Face Sales
~ Promotional Sales
~ Public Speaking
~ Leadership Skills
~ Profit and Loss

Whoo-hoo, sign me up. And in fact, I almost did sign up for a company similar to this one right after I got out of school. I had the misfortune of graduating college in the spring of 2002, less than a year after 9/11, and the job market, it wasn't good. However, if you interview for a company like this, they treat you great for the whole day, but you find out towards the end certain things.

They want you to quit your current job immediately and start working for them that next day, for they discourage the commom courtesy of a two week notice. Everybody in the office is under 30, if not 25. They want you to sign some sort of contract of employment. Chances are you will be paid commission only, to hawk some product or coupon packet, probably door-to-door (Direct Marketing, Face to Face Sales), and you will be expected to drive your own vehicle to do so. If you work hard enough, you will be given "the opportunity to branch out and manage one of our accounts."

In other words, move to a new market and begin to sucker other recent college grads the same way you were suckered two years back.

This 'opportunity' is presented in a much more appealing manner than I just did, but that's the basics of it. Luckily, I avoided that trap and in the process discovered the modus operandi of how this and similar companies advertize so I could avoid them in the future. Yet on my current job hunt, one slipped through my radar, and as I approached this company's office, I was actually excited, for they were located across the street from the large General Electric plant in town, and the other businesses in the office park were clearly either contracted to or subdivisions of GE. This had potential.

Yet I walked in the office, saw the bare walls, was greeted by a secretary who would be ID'd if she tried to buy ciggarettes, and handed a application that contained such insipid questions as, "Do you see yourself as a leader," and, "At a party, do you..."

I looked around and saw the employees hanging around, almost all under 25. And finally, the coup de grace, the question on the application that asked if I had a reliable source of transportation. It was this normally benign question that caused me to realize I'd just wasted $5 of gas and one hour of my life by getting dressed up and driving half way across town.

I put down the clip board, grabbed the application with my info on it, and walked out of the building, less than five minutes after I had entered it. Didn't give an explanation, didn't say bye, just left.

And that was a good feeling. I'm only 27, but I'm way too old to waste my time with that crap.

Getting Good People to Run

Many times you may have heard, for I certainly have, the refrain that nobody wants to run for public office because they don't want to put themselves or their family through such garbage.

I am used to seeing anti-war protestors at certain street corners thoughout the Louisville streets. While I disagree with them, it is in a way comforting to see such demonstrations. Gotta love the First Amendment. Such demonstrations are most common in the Highlands, the part of town with the cool bars and great restaurants, and a magnet for the young, the bohemian, and the homosexual--and I don't blame them, for it is a neighborhood drenched in character.

I was reading over at The BlueGrass Report, a liberal blog, that in the Democratic primary race for Kentucky's 3rd Congressional Distict (to face Republican incumbent Anne Northup) between alt-weekly (LEO) publisher John Yarmuth and soldier-against-the-war Andrew Horne, that Yarmuth's internal poll had Yarmuth well ahead.

Then the back and forth began between the Yarmuth and Horne supporters in the comment section. (Heads up, unlike most blogs, the comments read chronologically down/up, not up/down). An especially loud Horne supporter complained that Yarmuth put his lone billboard ad in front of Horne campaign HQ and called it bad form, to which a Yarmuth supporter countered that this was hypocritical since anti-war protestors with Horne bumper stickers protest every Sunday morning on the sidewalk in front of Rep. Northup's house.

And that's when I was stunned. Protestors in your front yard. They went Cindy Sheehan on her ass.. But while President Bush has the Secret Service and a large buffer of real estate to protect him, Rep. Northup does not. Sidewalk is legally public property, so while I do not think they are breaking any legal rules, but they are breaking the rules of taste.

I'm sure that if you talked to the protestors they could find a way to justify protesting on the edge of someone's yard. Thet'll say she asked for it, but I don't care for such rationalizations. It crosses some line of political decency that must be respected.

And I'll remember it when I hear someone say they would run for public office but they don't want to put their family through such garbage.

On Think Tanks and Tony Snow

While reading about Tony Snow becoming the new Press Secretary, this part of the AP story caught my eye.

"As a conservative columnist and commentator, Snow has been sharply critical of Bush and Republicans in Congress at times. The Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, circulated unflattering observations by Snow about Bush."

The article then quotes some of those criticisms Snow had for the White House. What interests me about this is not that a liberal or Democratic group spent time researching Snow for unflattering things he said about his future boss. That is a fairly routine technique that I saw Keith Olberman gleefully engaging in last night on Countdown. This is standard run-of-the-mill politics.

What is interesting was that it was a think tank engaging in such techniques. Think tanks are organizations of like minded experts, often with advanced degrees. They are the somber ones, who research the nuances of policy and publish their findings in papers that can be peer reviewed by other experts in their chosen field. They then use their clout and collected resources to get their information out to the public in a way that can be understood by the average layman. They are not political operative spinners.

The Cato Institute and The Heritage Foundation are two well known think tanks, conservative/libertarian and conservative respectively.

While ideological in nature, they are generally not partisan as in the daily squabbles between Donkey and Elephant. They delve into ideas, philosophies, policy, and effective ways of implementing them. They were pioneered in the 1970s on the right by academics who felt uncomfortable and stifled on liberal college campuses, and they have been a boon to the conservative movement--and the left is trying to catch up by creating their own. The above mentioned Center of American Progress, founded by Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta in 2003 is one of the new liberal think tanks trying to counterbalance this conservative advantage.

Therefore my surprise that this organization, who I assume is trying to be one of the esteemed along with Heritage and Cato, resorted to such political hackery as doing opposition research on a mere Press Secretary. It belies a certain immaturity in CAP's thinking and attitude, a focus on adolescent game playing as opposed to the actual gray-haired delving into big ideas.

It is somewhat funny.

Breaking Out the Ugly Stick

Many may have heard about the alt-weekly Boston Phoenix's Top 100 Ugliest Men list. Gilbert Godfrey was voted #1. The guys over at Daily Snark asked that a Top 100 Ugliest Women should be made.

Therefore, DN now delves into a dark mean place... a place that judges women not by their accomplishments, but by their physical unattractiveness. Is this mean? Yes. Is this morally reprehensible? Most likely. Was this fun to compile? You bet.

Therefore, I submit 1/5 of the Top 100 Ugliest Women list. (In alphabetical order.)

Christiane Amanpour: Cool accent, manly face.
Pamela Anderson: May seem an unlikely pick, but once heard her described as a 'female female impersonator.'
Bea Arthur: Been ugly since the mid 70s.
Eileen Brennan: Tortured Pvt. Benjamin with looks alone.
Ann Coulter: Described by a commenter (Newscoma) over at Aunt B's as "a rodent with an Adam's apple." That's funny.
Shelly Duvall: If I had to spend a winter trapped with her in a hotel, I'd be trying to kill her with an axe too.
Jocelyn Elders: Gee, wonder why she knows so much about masterbation?
Michael Jackson: Not sure if s/he belongs here. But damn ugly regardless.
Madonna: Never been a big fan, but her attempts at her age to still use provacative sexuality to sell herself starting to border on parody.
Liza Minelli: Ugh. How'd she pop out of Judy Garland?
Nicole Richie: Used to be cute, but needs to eat a sandwich or two (or 12). Anorexia is sad and ugly.
Joan Rivers: Makes fun of how other people look. At least has sense of humor over own looks.
Melissa Rivers: Merely riding the coat tails of mom.
Rosanne: Ugly voice as well.
Patti Smith: Kinda hate to put her on this list. Cool musician.
That Creepy Looking Woman From That Dual Action Cleanser Infomercial: Have you seen that informerical? Whole group of them is creepy, as is the product.
Helen Thomas: Scott McClellan will be having nightmares of her for years to come, with or without her questionings.
Donatella Versace: I wonder if she has the nerve to judge fashion models on their looks, cause this woman looks like a freak.
Jocelyn Wildenstein: But this woman is a freak. Her tabloid nickname is Catwoman, but not because she looks like Halle Berry or Michelle Pheiffer. Wow.
Yo Momma!: That's right. Your mom's ugly. Burn.

Please present any other suggestions and/or hate mail for doing this in the comment section.

Two Types of Sweat

There are, I just realized a few days ago, two types of sweat. One is a good type of sweat, one is a bad type of sweat.

The good type of sweat is the one you acquire playing pickup basketball at the local Y. The one of mowing the lawn on a humid July day; patching the fence on the family farm; running through the park at a twilight hour; laying on the porch seeking a tan; spending 'quality time' with your lover.

That is the good type of sweat.

The other type of sweat, the bad sweat, is the feverish one that has you curled up under a blanket on the sofa, wondering if it was a dream you just had or a hallucination, cold chills rocking your body with severity enough to cause twitches, and sweat both soaking through your shirt, dampening your brow. That's the bad sweat.

Guess which one I had the pleasure of experiencing for the past four days.

That Other Twenty Percent

I don't really like much of country music. To be honest, I believe most of it is fake.

The inauthenticity of listening to people who speak without accents develop one whenever the music begins is annoying. As is listening to lame pop ballads sung by somebody who is country because they wear a cowboy hat. As is listening to third-rate Skynryd wanna-bees. As is the white race's equivalent of black-face that too many performers put on when singing songs like Hicktown. As is Kenny Chesney. As is Rascal Flatts. As is....

Fifty percent of country music is deep fried excrement. Thirty percent I'm indiffferent to, but that other twenty percent... that other twenty percent is just so damn good.

Thus was my thoughts when I heard The Seashores of Old Mexico by George Strait. Some of Strait's best stuff is amazing (my personal favorite: Amarillo by Morning) while some of his other stuff lends itself to the basic country background music that I'm indifferent to. But the guy seems authentic, someone who actually wore a cowboy hat and boots before he decided to try for a record deal. That means something.

And Old Mexico is one of his best songs. When I first heard it, the song recalled some of the best stuff the genre was producing a few decades ago. Simple stuff done right: nice melody, interesting lyrics, and a nice touch of strings in the background.

I thought, "Man, this is a really good song." Then a week or so ago I saw the video, and the songwriting credit listed at the end of it: Merle Haggard.

Strait + Haggard = Good. Really, really, good.

Insipid Political Correctness

I was reading an article over at The Weekly Standard's website about foreign entities and foreign legislators filing amicus briefs with the Supreme Court, which is an interesting and disturbing enough trend, when I came across this tidbit about a speech given by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in which she quoted lines from the Declaration of Independence. From the article:

In a 2005 speech to the American Society of International Law, Justice Ginsburg quoted the Declaration of Independence (complete with gender-sensitive modifications) to assure the audience that "we will continue to accord 'a decent Respect to the Opinions of [Human]kind' as a matter of comity and in a spirit of humility."

[Human]kind.

[Human]kind!!

This is just insipidness, that apparently some modern speakers feel they must up the PC'ness of a historic document when they directly quote from it. We're all big boys and girls, we are not offended by somebody referring to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or the United Negro College Fund. And truly, what is so offensive about the word mankind anyway... unless you're a Women's Studies major.

We understand history. We are not easily offended idiots.

And by the way, the single word that pisses me off more than just about any other: s/he

Scott McClellan Resigns

Scott McClellan resigned as White House Press Secretary. Here is his statement.

"After three-plus years faithfully serving this White House, I have come to the conclusion that it is time for me to pursue other endeavors. I have tendered my resignation to the President, and he has accepted it. I would like to thank President Bush for allowing me to serve, and want him to know that I have given him and the American people my all."

"While I do not know what the future holds, my immediate plan consists of going over to Duncan's Pub & Grill, and guzzling down the world's largest alcoholic drink. It may be a martini, it may be Jim and Coke, I have not decided yet. What I have decided though is that I will be in a debauched drunken stupor for the next six to eight months that would put Caligula to shame. I feel I've deserved it. During said debauched drunken stupor, I shall periodically visit various members of the White House press corps, and tell them exactly what I think of them. Yes, David Gregory, I'm talking about you. And Helen, you'd better watch out. No, I'm not threatening you, I'm merely saying you'd best keep your pets indoors for a while."

"I consider it an honor to have served this White House, and wish all those who I have had the privedge of knowing the best in life, as I take the next step forward in mine. I might even pursue my life-long ambition of trying to grow facial hair."

CNN Guilty of Grammatical Pet Peeve

The headline over at CNN.com says, "IT industry eye's Vietnam." I don't believe eye is supposed to be possessive.

I'm not really a stickler on grammar so much. I'm sure many a grammatical error or misspelling can be found on Digital Nicotine. In fact, on my URL, Nicotine is spelled incorrectly.

But I, as well as most bloggers, are amateurs who get paid zilch to do this. More should be expected from those who get a paycheck. Especially on a freakin' headline.

Update: Apparently somebody finally caught it, as it is now fixed. Trust me though, it was there.

Couldn't They Do Better Than Eastern European?

Reading about some sort of anti-racism regulation that FIFA has instituted for the upcoming World Cup in Germany, and suddenly the story takes an odd ninety degree turn with this sentence:

"[FIFA President Sepp] Blatter was abrupt when asked about reports that 60,000 women from Eastern Europe would be trafficked into Germany for use in prostitution during the World Cup."

60,000!?

I've met some women of Eastern European descent. Some are out-and-out stunners. Others... well, others better hope potential johns consume mass quantities of Germany's finest bier.

The Power of the Tie

Today, for the first time in ages, I put on a tie. It feels good, better than it really should.

I put on the tie because I used my day off today to go to a job interview. My current job is okay, but it is simply that: okay. It does not pay great, I often leave the office feeling a bit guilty because I did not really achieve much, and there is no future that I can see. The final determination for me deciding to check out other options was that I managed to discover roughly how much my boss makes.

I can do better. My boss most assuredly can do better as well.

Back to the tie. The reason I haven't worn one recently is because my current job is business casual. All I need to wear is slacks and some sort of collared shirt. On Fridays I wear jeans. After months of casualness, actually ironing your slacks, actually standing in front of a mirror and adjusting that tie, it invigorates. There's some sort of power to it, especially if you have not done it in a while.

And about that job interview. I left before I spent even five minutes in the office. It's a good feeling to go job hunting when you already have one that at least pays the bills. I'll explain why I left in an upcoming post.

Liberals, The Free Speech Ball is in Your Court

I was originally going to title this, "Silly Me, I Thought Liberals Believed in Free Speech," but I realized that is a fairly large and unfair brush to paint with. However, below are three anecdotes of liberal intolerance of speech I came across today.

Liberal Intolerance of Speech #1

A librarian at Ohio State recommended to some students four books with conservatives themes in response to some professors on campus recommending books with liberals themes. The liberal professors didn't like the librarian's choices, but they didn't debate him. They filed a sexual harrassment suit against him.

Liberal Intolerance of Speech #2

A pro-life student organization got permission to place a series of crosses on campus grounds to protest abortion. A professor on campus disagreed with the symbolic speech presented, but she didn't debate them, or present her own symbolic speech. She gathered some of her students together and went out and vandalized the display.

Liberal Intolerance of Speech #3

Nashville-area blogger Bill Hobbs, an outspoken conservative, briefly posted his own cartoon of Mohammad on his website, but thinking better of it, took it down. Long story short, this led to a hit piece in the Nashville Scene that mentioned his place of employment thrice, and now Mr. Hobbs has not a job. For more info, read here, cause half of on-line Nashville is talking about it at the moment.

All three stellar examples of liberal tolerance towards speech they find objectionable. I know not all liberals are cool with this, and this is especially true in the Hobbs situation, where some are taking a positive stand on principle.

What is disturbing, you need to remember, is that I came across all three stories only today. Once is a fluke, twice is a coincidence, but three times and you have a pattern forming.

2008 is 1968?

David Corn, most widely known as a left-wing reporter for The Nation, makes an interesting case that the Democratic primaries of 2008 may mirror the ones of 1968. In his analogy...

~ Sen. Hillary Clinton is VP Hubert Humprey
~ Sen. Russ Feingold is Sen. Eugene McCarthy
~ Fmr. Sen. John Edwards is Sen. Robert Kennedy

Corn makes the assumption that the Iraq war will still be hot come election time, making the Vietnam comparison a bit more logical. If so, that would mean Edwards would get the nod (and hopefully avoid the assasin's bullet).

It's an interesting read from a liberal point of view.

Politicizing Easter Eggs

A group is planning a political stunt at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. How sad. Cannot people simply come together to enjoy the springtime sun, while young children run about on the green turf looking for Easter eggs without having the event shadowed by a political cause? No matter how passionate those people feel about that cause? Can some people leave at least some aspects of American life apolitical?

The group involved claims there is absolutely nothing political about its participation in this event.

I call bullshit.

Why would this even be reported by the AP unless there are folks trying to ratchet up some publicity about this? I've intentionally not mentioned those involved because I don't want people's particular views about that cause to influence their thinking on this. I will link to the article below.

So people, let's enjoy the simple fun of watching small children rolling around in the grass looking for Easter eggs without getting politcs involved. Okay?

Here's the AP article.

Bad Fish

"Do you smell it? That smell... the kind of smelly smell. A smelly smell that smells... smelly." ~ Eugene Krabs

Such was my reaction when one of the girls over in HR started to eat her fish sandwich today in her office at work, approximately 40 yards away from my cubicle. It smelled as if the bloated carcass of a monster catfish had been deposited in a heating duct. So bad was the stench, the guys over in the dispatch room, who you have to go through two doors, one always closed, in the building to get to, were dumping out their garbage cans thinking something was rotting in one of them.

The folks in Sales, Damage Claims, and Accounts Receivable teamed up to tell the HR girl the fish had to go. Lysol was liberally sprayed.

PS: I may be refraining from quoting Orwell (see two post below), but I have no problem quoting Squarepants.

Except in the Special Olympics, Everyone's a Winner

Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit describing the upcoming elections:

The good news for each party is that they only have to run against the other, and not against a competent one. The bad news for each party is that the same thing is true for their opposition. As I've noted before, it's like the Special Olympics of politics or something.

Sparing Eric Blair Further Abuse

I was going to post about the European Union's dysfunctional decision to ban the terms Islamic Terrorism, Islamist, Fundamentalist, and Jihad in favor of the bland Terrorists Who Abusively Invoke Islam.

I was going to invoke Orwellian Newspeak, but since it has been years since I've read 1984, I wanted to research and confirm my remembrance from the novel that Orwell's dystopia actually evolved from a left wing goverment, as opposed to a conservative one.

However, having googled the Internet looking for confirmation (which I never found, either for or against) I noticed so many people, left-wing and right, excessively invoking Orwell for their own use, and the epiphany struck: It is just damn obnoxious when people quote George Orwell. Sure, there are the responsible ones who either do so sparingly, or acknowledge the complexity of what he wrote, but these few are lost in the mass of those crying, "Newspeak! Newspeak! Big Brother! Big Brother!" that a powerful idea risks losing its effectiveness through overuse.

It's kinda like how I turn off Stairway to Heaven anytime it comes on the local rock station. While a great song, the threads on that sucker have been run thin.

So, to spare Orwell further abuse, I promise that I will never allude to 1984 on Digital Nicotine. However, I do reserve the right to hijack Animal Farm and assorted Orwell essays from time to time for my own sundry purposes.

A Defiant Visit

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is notorious for many reasons, one of which is calling the Holocaust "a myth." This makes his announcement that he will travel to cheer on the Iranian soccer team in its opening game of the World Cup oddly fascinating, in a horrific train derailment sort of way.

Ahmadinejad, who is currently seeking nukes and has called for Israel to be wiped off the map, is attending this game, to be played in Nuremberg, Germany.

Think about that. Nuremberg.

$1000 Mint Julep

Kentucky sure goes all out for its vices. At the Derby, Woodford Reserve will offer a $1000 Mint Julep. As you can imagine, such a libation is made with only the finest ingredients. Moroccan mint, Arctic ice, and South Pacific sugar will mix with a special batch of bourbon, and served in a gold-plated julep cup, to be sipped on with a silver straw.

The proceeds will go to a horse related charity.

She Blinded Him With... Well... Most Likely Not Science

Thomas She Blinded Me With Science Dolby is not only mad at Mr. Brittney Spears, but is actually threatening him with a lawsuit, due to Mr. Spears' sampling of Dolby's hit song without permission in a rap.

First of all, I think anybody who, without sufficient forewarning, hears Mr. Spears rap should be eligible to join a class-action.

And second, I think it [Science!!] hilarious that Dolby actually refers to Mr. Spears as K-Fed.

What If There Was No Rape?

According to some lawyers for the Duke lacrosse players, there were no DNA matches on the victim to any of the players. Not only no semen found, but no skin under her nails after a supposedly violent rape, and not one stray body or pubic hair. I've stated before that I believe a rape occured, but what if I and everybody else are wrong?

What if the victim is not really a victim?

What if an entire community protested a horrific crime that did not occur? What if these lacrosse players, who only get to play collegiate sports for four years, lost a year they will never be able to recover (especially the seniors), because of a lie?

What if every true rape victim from here on out is stigmatized by this bearer of false witness?

In a strange way, I hope a rape did occur and there is evidence to convict. I have friends who have been raped. For their sake, I hope these guys are guilty and are punished. If they are innocent of what is accused of them, not only are the Duke lacrosse players victims, but every other woman out there who was or will be afraid to report an assault.

Again, in a strange way I hope there was a rape, and a forth-coming conviction.

Global Cooling?

Good news. According to the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, not only has there been no global warming since 1998, there has been a negligible drop in world temperatures. Imagine, this without having to strangle the world economy with the Kyoto Treaty.

I'll let the UK's Daily Telegraph, which reported this news, handle the rebuttal.

In response to these facts, a global warming devotee will chuckle and say "how silly to judge climate change over such a short period". Yet in the next breath, the same person will assure you that the 28-year-long period of warming which occurred between 1970 and 1998 constitutes a dangerous (and man-made) warming. Tosh. Our devotee will also pass by the curious additional facts that a period of similar warming occurred between 1918 and 1940, well prior to the greatest phase of world industrialisation, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1965, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate.

I like that word, tosh. And I was starting to get worried. To get very worried.

HT: GR

Economic Compare and Contrast

An editorial in the Courier-Journal complains that the rich are getting richer. The editorial notes that the share of American income rose among the wealthy to 33.2%. Oddly, what it rose from is not mentioned.

Was it from something drastic like 28%, or something negligible like 33.0%? They fail to clarify.

They do not address economic growth. Yes, the wealthy may be getting a larger slice of the pie, but what is the size of the pie? Is the pie the same size, is it smaller, or is the pie getting bigger? If bigger, who cares, since then the middle class is getting more pie as well.

Some recent stats from the AP found via Powerline offers a completely different view of the American economy.

"Unemployment down to 4.7%.
211,000 new payroll jobs added in March.
Economic growth has now continued for 17 consecutive quarters.
Consumer confidence is at its highest level in 4 1/2 years.
Since January 2001, real after-tax income per person has risen 8.3 percent.
Construction spending is at a record high."

The AP story also reports the time it takes the unemployed to find employment is decreasing.

Well, crap. If this is a result of the rich getting richer, then I'm all for it.

Free Speech on Campus

An Indiana State student was prohibited from handing out fliers comdemning the presence of army recruiters on campus because ISU is merely an arm of the fascist state.

No, check that. He was prohibited because ISU has a long-standing policy that those handing out literature on campus must be sponsored by some sort of student group or campus organization. This is so university officials can have a general idea if any outsiders, especially companies targeting students, are on campus. The student was allowed to continue by moving to a nearby off-campus sidewalk.

A local anti-war activist sees this as a black or white issue. "You either have freedom of speech or you don't," she said. Those wingnuts at the ACLU, however, say the school's guidelines "probably are constitutionally permissible if applied consistently to all organizations."

My advice to this young activist: go join a student organization, or start one of your own. The College Republicans, the Young Democrats, the religious organizations, the Greeks, the Feminists groups, and any other campus group can pretty much say what they want on campus.

Try not to play the victim. It's annoying.

Wicked, Wicked Clouds Approaching

It is currently 7:41pm here in Louisville, and I am at work scheduled to leave the office at 8. I'll be staying here a while beyond though, for I just took a look outside at the clouds approaching.

Oh... my...

Ominous only begins to describe...

I have the TV on to weather right now, and there are tornado warnings directly to the west of me. No way I'm going out in that. No freakin' way.

Update: There's hail, and sirens. I think I'll stop blogging for now.

Update II: All okay, seems like some tree and roof damage was the worst of it around here, but Tenn looks like it got hit pretty hard.

Dueling Tom Wolfe Novels In Durham... and A Postscript

Ezekiel, Isaiah, and now... Tom Wolfe? Apparently, because no matter the outcome of the Duke lacrosse rape scandal, Wolfe is looking to be almost prophetic. The only question is whether this is The Bonfire of the Vanities, or I am Charlotte Simmons? (Note: I've read Bonfire, what I write about Simmons is from easily googable articles.)

I am Charlotte Simmons discusses preppy, loutish, upper-crust white students at an elite southern school named DuPont University (Duke=DuPont? More than likely, since Wolfe's daughter is a recent Duke grad) where "drinking, watching rap videos and having sex are the primary recreational occupations of the male students in the book. Lacrosse players, for what it's worth, are not portrayed flatteringly."

If the Duke lacrosse members are actually innocent of the alleged rape, then this is The Bonfire of the Vanities. In that novel, a wealthy, self-described 'Master of the Universe' gets caught up in a racially infused episode of which he is innocent, yet his otherwise loutish behavior damns him to ruin nonetheless.

Looking at what I've been able to gather, I'm guessing this is not a Bonfire situation. But I could be wrong. We'll know for sure shortly.

PS: For those Duke lacrosse players who escape charges yet will not be able to attend class again due to the atmosphere on campus towards them, may I suggest a transfer... to Yale.

I mean, if Yale considers a former spokesman for the Taliban a prize student, the Taliban of course being the regime that liked to pull fingernails from women for wearing nail polish, and beating them senseless for accidently showing ankle while walking down the street, then Yale surely must consider rape enablers Eli material.

A Sure-Fire Blockbuster

I know this probably makes me a bad person, but I would most definately go to the theater to watch this movie.

Cows Are Not Too Bright

There is something funny about cows. Both Gary Larson and the guys at South Park know this. Though not certain, I believe it has something to do with cattle not being the brightest creatures in the world.

Thus our family's luck on this past Sunday before the storms moved in. That day was spend patching fence on a piece of pasture we are renting to keep some heifers on. For those not familiar with bovine nomenclature, heifers are females yet to be bred.

After fixing the fence and dodging the worst of the first wave of storms to go through the area, we move the ten heifers from the pasture they were on to the new one with the just-patched fence.

That night as the storms roared through, uprooting trees and overturning trailer homes, they also tore down electric lines, including a high voltage wire passing over the original pasture the heifers had been on just hours before.

Let me explain what would have happened had we not moved those animals.

Power line goes down. Heifer sees this, sees the sparks, gets curious. Lumbers over. Starts sniffing. Sniff, sniff, sniff, zzZZZtt. Plop. Dead.

Second heifer sees this, gets curious. Lumbers over. Sniffs dead heifer. Sees sparks. Starts sniffing. Sniff, sniff, sniff, zzzZZZtt. Plop. Dead.

Third heifer sees this...

I guarantee you that when Grandpa went out to check on the cattle that next morning, he could have seen ten dead hiefers laying in one big pile next to a sparking electic line. We got pretty lucky.

Misanthopy at the Boat

The girlfriend and I were driving down Indiana Hwy 111 to Ceasar's to meet two of her friends and do some Ohio River gambling this past Saturday. It was the first day of warm weather in a while, and I had the windows down, cracking the girlfriend up by singing along with Zeppelin's Black Dog. "I don't know... But I've been told... A big-legged woman ain't got no soul...."

After wandering around the bells and whistles, levers and flickering lights, we come across Joe and Sasha. Sasha is playing the one-armed bandits while Joe is sitting at a poker table. I try to join him but find his table is full so I join the game at the next table.

This is only the third time I have ever been to a gambling boat. The first time, in college, I lost $40. The second time, about a year ago, I lost $160. This time I brought exactly $100 to spend, and nothing more.

I sit down at the table playing Texas Hold'em, and they're doing No Limit with $1 and $2 blinds. I sit, greet the other eight or so players, begin to stack my chips, and then realize with chagrin that I have the second shortest stack at the table. I play conservatively but end up losing most of my chips betting on high pair and losing when the other guy got three of a kind on the fifth flopped card. Ugh. I lose the remainder of my chips shortly after and wander around lost looking for the girlfriend.

Ever wander around a casino, not to play, but to look at the other players? What a sad, sad sight. Rows upon rows upon rows of brighly colored, musically ringing, slot machines with limp people sitting before them, ciggarette hanging from the lip, hitting one button over and over, slowing losing money, for the self-deluding chance of winning some sort of prize.

People anxiously waiting for the right flip of a card, the right roll of the dice, the right bounce of the ball. An extreme seizure of misanthropy took hold, hating the species, hating the idle ways we spend our money and resources and time playing silly games that achieved nothing but to enrich a few boat investors.

Then I got over it. A good number of people there were like me, simply indulging a sporadic and ultimately harmless craving for the gambling vice that would soon be satiated. But still, there is something about a casino that screams cheap decadence and waste.

Had I won, I wonder if I would have been in a better mood.

I found the girlfriend, and we left soon after. Sasha blew about $40 while Joe won over $350 at the poker table, which is somewhat funny because when the guys occasionally get together to play on Fridays, Joe is usually the second or third person of the usually eight of us to lose out.

It was a good ride home.

Bingham and Media Control

Barry Bingham Jr. passed away today at the age of 72. For many years he was the publisher and editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal. Condolences to his family, and anybody reading this who happened to know him.

Bingham was the patriarch of the Bingham family, which in the not too distant past owned not only the CJ, but The Louisville Times, the city's only other daily when it was still being published, as well as WHAS-11, one of only four TV stations in town at the time, and WHAS-840 AM, the city's flagship radio station. These properties were sold off during the Eighties, most likely due to internal family squabbles.

These properties were all owned in an age with no cable, and no Internet. Power? Yeah, the Binghams, who were big supporters of the Democratic party, had it. If they wanted you to know about something, or how they thought about it, it was impossible to escape it.

Therefore there is irony in this article concerning media consolidation that laments the media buys of WHAS-840 AM by Clear Channel and the CJ by Gannett.

Need even more irony? This editorial cartoon (the top one) by Nick Anderson concerning media consolidation published in... the Courier-Journal.

Not to say there may be some danger in a few companies owning all the major media outlets in the nation, but in Louisville there is now much less centralized control of the media than 30 years ago.

Ten Lil' Knuckleheads

This made me laugh.

Cynthia McKinney is a Bigot

My only comment on this whole affair of Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D) striking a police officer who stopped her and asked for some ID is this: She is a bigot.

Her lawyer: "Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, like thousands of average Americans across this country, is, too, a victim of the excessive use of force by law enforcement officials because of how she looks and the color of her skin."

He then continues: "Ms. McKinney is just a victim of being in Congress while black."

If a white officer stops a black person simply because of skin color, that is racist. If a black person publicly slanders a white officer with a racism charge when that officer was simply following normal procedure, that in turn makes that black person racist. Assuming white people are racist is bigotry.

Rep. Cynthia McKinney is a bigot.

PS: Bigotry runs in the McKinney family.

Thinning The Herd

In North Carolina, three people have been arrested for castrating willing men. These voluntary eunuchs went under the knife for sexual kicks.

I think that we can all agree this is healthy... not the castration, but the inability of these perverts to ever procreate.