Tiel's first poetry collection - Knocking From Inside - has just been published by Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore's The Ecstatic Exchange. It is available for sale on Lulu Press' website. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy. It's not the usual unedited self-indulgent confession. Her poems are wonderfully crafted and come straight from the heart. They illuminate the search for the Divine in everything from urban crows and silence to Treblinka and the Dead Letter Office of insincere prayers.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Tiel's First Book is Out
Tiel's first poetry collection - Knocking From Inside - has just been published by Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore's The Ecstatic Exchange. It is available for sale on Lulu Press' website. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy. It's not the usual unedited self-indulgent confession. Her poems are wonderfully crafted and come straight from the heart. They illuminate the search for the Divine in everything from urban crows and silence to Treblinka and the Dead Letter Office of insincere prayers.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Yes, a Spoonful of Vampires Makes the Liver Flukes Go Down
At least that's what I think Mary Poppins would have said about Peeps. On its own it's a good, fun short YA novel. There's a little sexual tension, some violence, engaging characters, decent pacing and dialog and above all it doesn't talk down to its audience. Scott Westerfeld hammers out the same workmanlike prose that characterizes his other novels.
Where it really shines is the science. Science education in America is notoriously bad for the most part, and its treatment in popular culture usually isn't even that good. If it isn't cybermagic it's Cargo Cult Science or soft-pedaled because the witch burners are afraid that asking tough questions will make their Invisible Friend angry. You have to pan a lot of gravel to find the rare Bill Nye or Jared Diamond let alone Steven J. Gould (ztl) - (Unofficial SJG archive) We haven't yet gotten back to the bad old days of the Snopes trial. But we're pretty darned close when legislatures pass laws stating that students can not get marked down for any statement on an exam that stems from religious beliefs. Much as I want the whole world to be touched by His Noodly Appendage, Pastafarianism belongs in the kitchen and pirate ships, not the classroom.
That's why I'm so fond of Scott Westerfeld's YA novel Peeps and its sequel The Last Days.
Peeps starts off with a stock premise. There are vampires. Not many people know about them. Our hero is part of an old, secret government organization that captures and studies them. Then it takes a sharp turn to the educational. Vampirism is caused by a parasite which has profound effects on its host's behavior and biology. The even numbered chapters are entirely factual accounts of the strange and wonderful if disquieting world of parasite biology. The odd (sometimes exceedingly odd) chapters tell the story and use it to illustrate complex principles like optimum virulence, commensal ecological relationships, the profound effects of simple changes, parasite-host and predator-prey coevolution, and multiple-host lifecycles. It's entertaining. There's a lot of good information. It gets past cataloging facts and into the guiding principles. Great stuff even if you're old enough to have Young Adult Readers of your own.
The Last Days isn't quite as good, but it brings the more conceptual material in the first volume into focus. The mechanics of societal breakdown and of host-parasite coevolution get a more dramatic, personal treatment. It's definitely worth a read if you liked Peeps.
I don't think it will get the kids to switch from Nintendo to, well, this. But it's worth a try.
The book owes a lot to Parasite Rex, a debt which Westerfeld proudly acknowledges. If you can make it through Peeps without getting the creeping horrors you should check out Parasite Rex and some of Carl Zimmer's other excellent books on natural history. Just keep in mind that he's on the parasites' side, not ours. Waxing lyrical about the life of the bilharzia worm as a romantic love story and praising the ichneumonids speaks for itself. He claimed in an interview that he'd traveled all over doing the research and had never gotten the tiniest parasitic infestation even though other members in his party did. It's not an accident. The parasites know their own and extend their protection to fellow-travelers and quislings.
Where it really shines is the science. Science education in America is notoriously bad for the most part, and its treatment in popular culture usually isn't even that good. If it isn't cybermagic it's Cargo Cult Science or soft-pedaled because the witch burners are afraid that asking tough questions will make their Invisible Friend angry. You have to pan a lot of gravel to find the rare Bill Nye or Jared Diamond let alone Steven J. Gould (ztl) - (Unofficial SJG archive) We haven't yet gotten back to the bad old days of the Snopes trial. But we're pretty darned close when legislatures pass laws stating that students can not get marked down for any statement on an exam that stems from religious beliefs. Much as I want the whole world to be touched by His Noodly Appendage, Pastafarianism belongs in the kitchen and pirate ships, not the classroom.
That's why I'm so fond of Scott Westerfeld's YA novel Peeps and its sequel The Last Days.
Peeps starts off with a stock premise. There are vampires. Not many people know about them. Our hero is part of an old, secret government organization that captures and studies them. Then it takes a sharp turn to the educational. Vampirism is caused by a parasite which has profound effects on its host's behavior and biology. The even numbered chapters are entirely factual accounts of the strange and wonderful if disquieting world of parasite biology. The odd (sometimes exceedingly odd) chapters tell the story and use it to illustrate complex principles like optimum virulence, commensal ecological relationships, the profound effects of simple changes, parasite-host and predator-prey coevolution, and multiple-host lifecycles. It's entertaining. There's a lot of good information. It gets past cataloging facts and into the guiding principles. Great stuff even if you're old enough to have Young Adult Readers of your own.
The Last Days isn't quite as good, but it brings the more conceptual material in the first volume into focus. The mechanics of societal breakdown and of host-parasite coevolution get a more dramatic, personal treatment. It's definitely worth a read if you liked Peeps.
I don't think it will get the kids to switch from Nintendo to, well, this. But it's worth a try.
The book owes a lot to Parasite Rex, a debt which Westerfeld proudly acknowledges. If you can make it through Peeps without getting the creeping horrors you should check out Parasite Rex and some of Carl Zimmer's other excellent books on natural history. Just keep in mind that he's on the parasites' side, not ours. Waxing lyrical about the life of the bilharzia worm as a romantic love story and praising the ichneumonids speaks for itself. He claimed in an interview that he'd traveled all over doing the research and had never gotten the tiniest parasitic infestation even though other members in his party did. It's not an accident. The parasites know their own and extend their protection to fellow-travelers and quislings.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Every Once in a While He Gets Something Right
Maybe Caren's spiking Bobbe's Chimay with smart drugs. Or maybe he's just gotten old and slowed down enough so that the (very) odd thought can catch up to him. His most recent post on FMA Talk nails a number of important issues dead on and presents the Unvarnished Word clearly and concisely.
Paranoia? Or Are We Playing in the Big Leagues Now?
The Republican Noise Machine is revving up to trash Barrack Obama, but it will have to wait in line for a while yet. A former head of the Wellesley Young Republicans, Goldwater Campaign worker, previously Wal-Mart Board Member and Coca Cola corporate lawyer, currently Senator from New York and Democratic Presidential candidate is borrowing heavily from the Nixon playbook.
Politics is a dirty game. Nobody gets into high office completely clean. If they do, well, there's a two headed monster squatting on Pennsylvania Avenue and K Street that will dirty or devour them. The last real outsider to gain the White House was Jimmy Carter who was very effectively shut down. The last reformer to come from the Republicans was Teddy Roosevelt. When he turned his formidable will to the job and the good of the Nation it horrified the Party bosses. They gave the Presidency to the more biddable Taft who furthered their Gilded Age policies.
Barrack Obama is a Senator, a politician and an Illinois politician no less. Jokes about letting him near ballot boxes notwithstanding he's had to make his peace with the Machine. But he's the best candidate out there and has excited the electorate in some very important ways which we haven't seen in decades. Lord knows he's smart and charismatic enough for three or four. It doesn't hurt that he's the first member of the African Diaspora to get within spitting distance of the White House other than by pushing a broom. And anyone who can inspire this sort of vitriol from the economic Establishment deserves at least a second look.
The ability to inspire and desire to shake things up that are beginning to worry me. Forget the "Obama supporters are a cult" crap that the Clinton campaign and various Republicans are spreading. They wouldn't know what to do with an unscripted moment if it bit them on the ass. Come to think of it, that's exactly what it's doing.
No, it's the memory of John and Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. America is very very hard on its charismatic popular reformers. If they don't get bought they have a habit of suffering mysterious assassinations that are never really explained. Dr. King says "Black men will not kill Yellow men to keep White men in power" and dies days later after his police protection is mysteriously withdrawn. Ray never goes to trial. The JFK and RFK assassinations have provided forty years of entertainment to thousands of obsessives, paranoids and people with little reason to trust the government. Nobody believes the official accounts of Malcolm X's murder. And so on.
From all reports the racist bulletin boards and websites are full of real hatred for the Senator from Illinois. The more public ones are circumspect. It's difficult not to be when you know that you're being watched by every law enforcement and three letter government agency out there. The more private ones, so I am told, look forward to the prospect of a Black President with open horror and are talking about assassination and race wars. Colin Powell's refusal to run makes a whole lot of personal sense.
That's why this story from the Dallas Star-Telegraph and the follow up are so disturbing. In case they've disappeared by the time you read this post, here are the high points (emphasis mine)
What should the Obama campaign do? That's in the realm of high-level security, far beyond my training and experience. It wouldn't be a bad idea to get a few of the eggs out of the Secret Service's basket and have some very skilled people loyal to the Senator or at least their contract with the Senator reviewing plans and operations. Blackwater and Dyncorp have experience in that sort of thing. So do the Fruits of Islam. The awful possibilities just multiply, don't they?
There's a lot of people who don't want him to be President. Most of them don't want it enough to hurt him. Most of the ones who do wouldn't or couldn't. All it would take would be one with the determination and a lapse like the ones in Massachusetts or Texas. One or two disgruntled nuts or losers. The right opportunity. A word at an opportune moment. His really powerful enemies wouldn't have to get their hands dirty. Someone else would pull the trigger and take the fall. And we're left wondering what sort of mark he might have made.
I'm not terribly good at the whole prayer thing. But mine now include requests that Senator Obama be spared the assassin's bullet. Otherwise we might just have to revise that melancholy Sixties song to "Abraham, Martin, Barrack and John"
Politics is a dirty game. Nobody gets into high office completely clean. If they do, well, there's a two headed monster squatting on Pennsylvania Avenue and K Street that will dirty or devour them. The last real outsider to gain the White House was Jimmy Carter who was very effectively shut down. The last reformer to come from the Republicans was Teddy Roosevelt. When he turned his formidable will to the job and the good of the Nation it horrified the Party bosses. They gave the Presidency to the more biddable Taft who furthered their Gilded Age policies.
Barrack Obama is a Senator, a politician and an Illinois politician no less. Jokes about letting him near ballot boxes notwithstanding he's had to make his peace with the Machine. But he's the best candidate out there and has excited the electorate in some very important ways which we haven't seen in decades. Lord knows he's smart and charismatic enough for three or four. It doesn't hurt that he's the first member of the African Diaspora to get within spitting distance of the White House other than by pushing a broom. And anyone who can inspire this sort of vitriol from the economic Establishment deserves at least a second look.
The ability to inspire and desire to shake things up that are beginning to worry me. Forget the "Obama supporters are a cult" crap that the Clinton campaign and various Republicans are spreading. They wouldn't know what to do with an unscripted moment if it bit them on the ass. Come to think of it, that's exactly what it's doing.
No, it's the memory of John and Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. America is very very hard on its charismatic popular reformers. If they don't get bought they have a habit of suffering mysterious assassinations that are never really explained. Dr. King says "Black men will not kill Yellow men to keep White men in power" and dies days later after his police protection is mysteriously withdrawn. Ray never goes to trial. The JFK and RFK assassinations have provided forty years of entertainment to thousands of obsessives, paranoids and people with little reason to trust the government. Nobody believes the official accounts of Malcolm X's murder. And so on.
From all reports the racist bulletin boards and websites are full of real hatred for the Senator from Illinois. The more public ones are circumspect. It's difficult not to be when you know that you're being watched by every law enforcement and three letter government agency out there. The more private ones, so I am told, look forward to the prospect of a Black President with open horror and are talking about assassination and race wars. Colin Powell's refusal to run makes a whole lot of personal sense.
That's why this story from the Dallas Star-Telegraph and the follow up are so disturbing. In case they've disappeared by the time you read this post, here are the high points (emphasis mine)
andDALLAS -- Security details at Barack Obama's rally Wednesday stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena.
The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security.
Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence, head of the Police Department's homeland security and special operations divisions, said the order -- apparently made by the U.S. Secret Service -- was meant to speed up the long lines outside and fill the arena's vacant seats before Obama came on.
"Sure," said Lawrence, when asked if he was concerned by the great number of people who had gotten into the building without being checked. But, he added, the turnout of more than 17,000 people seemed to be a "friendly crowd."
The Secret Service did not return a call from the Star-Telegram seeking comment.
Doors opened to the public at 10 a.m., and for the first hour security officers scanned each person who came in and checked their belongings in a process that kept movement of the long lines at a crawl. Then, about 11 a.m., an order came down to allow the people in without being checked.
Several Dallas police officers said it worried them that the arena was packed with people who got in without even a cursory inspection.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because, they said, the order was made by federal officials who were in charge of security at the event.
"How can you not be concerned in this day and age," said one policeman.
I'm sure there was a "comprehensive and layered security plan". But a charismatic and controversial Democratic candidate speaks in freaking Dallas, and they suddenly stop checking people for weapons? What are they going to do next? Invite him back to Dallas to ride down Main Street in a motorcade with the Governor and detour along Elm past the textbook repository? If they don't have his best interests at heart you'd think they'd at least get lab tests for the irony deficiency they're exhibiting. The Dallas police seem to have a handle on just how touchy this is. They may be haunted by the ghost of Jack Kennedy in ways that the Boston PD just can't understand.FORT WORTH -- The U.S. Secret Service on Friday defended its handling of security during a massive rally in downtown Dallas for Barack Obama, saying there was no "lapse" in its "comprehensive and layered security plan," which called for some people to be checked for weapons, while others were not.
A report in the Star-Telegram that said some security measures were lifted during Wednesday's rally sparked a public outrage across the country, with most people saying they were shocked that a routine weapons search was lifted at the front gates of Reunion Arena an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage.
"This relaxed security was unbelievably stupid, especially in Dallas," Jeff Adams of Berkeley, Calif., said in an e-mail to the Star-Telegram, noting the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas more than four decades ago.
Others said they had recently attended large political events, many for Obama, where security screening was halted. Jeremy Dibbell of Boston said in an e-mail that he attended an Obama event in Boston at which "the same thing happened there. We waited for hours in line as people were screened, and then suddenly everyone was just allowed in without going through any inspection at all."
What should the Obama campaign do? That's in the realm of high-level security, far beyond my training and experience. It wouldn't be a bad idea to get a few of the eggs out of the Secret Service's basket and have some very skilled people loyal to the Senator or at least their contract with the Senator reviewing plans and operations. Blackwater and Dyncorp have experience in that sort of thing. So do the Fruits of Islam. The awful possibilities just multiply, don't they?
There's a lot of people who don't want him to be President. Most of them don't want it enough to hurt him. Most of the ones who do wouldn't or couldn't. All it would take would be one with the determination and a lapse like the ones in Massachusetts or Texas. One or two disgruntled nuts or losers. The right opportunity. A word at an opportune moment. His really powerful enemies wouldn't have to get their hands dirty. Someone else would pull the trigger and take the fall. And we're left wondering what sort of mark he might have made.
I'm not terribly good at the whole prayer thing. But mine now include requests that Senator Obama be spared the assassin's bullet. Otherwise we might just have to revise that melancholy Sixties song to "Abraham, Martin, Barrack and John"
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
It's the Currythief's 39th Birthday
Note: The birds at the bottom are a pair of (female) Chinese Great Tits
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Now THAT'S a campaign ad
Mushtaq has posted one of Barrack Obama's video ads. It's OK. Black, White, Female, Male, Old, Young, Poor and Rich all together expressing their hope for the future. Good stuff. But the best one of the primaries? No, not anymore. Not when we have this:
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
There are flashlights, and there are flashlights...
Todd Erven and Steve Perry have been talking flashlights lately, wimpy little things that just give enough light to see by. Wicked Lasers has created the baddest, if not the biggest, of them all - The Torch. At 4100 lumens it can fry your eyes, melt plastic or start a fire. Literally. Sure, it goes through batteries in about fifteen minutes. If you can afford the $300 price tag you can afford a few "C" cells.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Mixed Feelings
I've been using my wife's PT Cruiser as a small pickup truck for the ongoing basement remodel. It's just big enough, and you can take the back seats completely out. On Thursday my Silat buddy Toby and I had to put the seats back in. Drawer slides had been selling for five cents apiece at the ReBuilding Center, so my car was full of drawer slides, plywood and electrical parts. Class started in about half an hour. We were going to drive up in the Gray Lady. The only thing left in the back was a wooden tamper handle that I use in a different martial arts group. Japanese white oak bokken $70. Hickory stick $7. What it lacks in tradition it more than makes up in price.
We headed back to the house and just about ran into a pre-teen girl. She stopped. She looked at us. She let out a scream, turned around and ran up the sidewalk, across the street and kept on going still screaming.
I don't know why she was so scared. Was it the two guys walking on the sidewalk? Was there some kind of traumatic incident with an pick handle or baseball bat in her past? I'm sorry she was frightened. If it's something we did it would be nice to know so that we don't do it again. But as someone who cares about self defense I have to say she did exactly what she was supposed to. She reacted quickly and effectively. She put as much distance between herself and the large scary strangers as she could and did everything she could to startle us and attract attention.
Someone who cares about her taught her what to do in situations like this. Whoever you are, you should be proud. She took your lessons to heart and used them without hesitating. She didn't need to this time, but someday it might be for real. It's good to know that there is one little girl who will be ready.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Old School. Hardcore. Mad Skillz
Video of a man who makes his own triode vacuum tubes from scratch.
We are not worthy!
We are not worthy!
We are not worthy!
We are not worthy!
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Unleash the Beast
For the past couple years the Buffalo Beast has raised cynical curmudgeonhood and hypertensive outrage to new heights with its "Fifty Most Loathsome People in America" list. This year's offering is as good as ever.
2006
2005
2004
2002
48. Carson Daly
Charges: Otherwise too banal for derision, Daly, who cut his shmuck-teeth warming musical Similac for tweens on MTV, acted as Writer's Guild strike breaker by returning to air without them.
Exhibit A: We didn't know his show employed writers.
Sentence: Forced to appear nightly on The Carson Daly Show.
...
30. Duane "Dog the Bounty Hunter" Chapman
Charges: Shocked a handful of innocents and turned into self-recriminating chum for Sean Hannity with the revelation that a redneck bounty hunter is-gasp!-a racist. Looks like an extra from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. Married to a silicon-based life form. When a guy's own son intentionally destroys his career, you know he's got to be a singular fuckhead. Played at extraordinary rendition this year; got arrested for trying to physically extradite a Mexican national.
Exhibit A: "I'm not gonna take a chance ever in life of losing everything I've worked for for 30 years because some fucking nigger heard us say nigger and turned us in to the Enquirer magazine." Yeah, 'cause not saying "nigger" is just out of the question.
Sentence: Neutered, dewormed, given to Michael Vick's buddies for sparring practice.
...
23. Bill O'Reilly
Charges: If judgmentalism were sugar, anyone in the same city as this paragon of intellectual overconfidence would lose their teeth within five minutes. O'Reilly is everything that's wrong with America: Won't ever admit he was wrong about anything (and will lie repeatedly rather than correct himself), accuses all who disagree with him of treason or insanity, attacks all who criticize him, and glories in his own troglodytic bluster. Anoints himself an authority on morals, despite common knowledge that he is a sexual harasser. Pretends to be an "independent" who just happens to look, sound, and act exactly like a Republican. Hasn't engaged in a valid exchange of ideas in his entire career, because he knows he'd be crushed in seconds by an average college freshman. O'Reilly wins by interrupting, shouting, and if all else fails, cutting off his opponent's microphone. A tiny, scared child of a man.
Exhibit A: "And this is what white America doesn't know, particularly people who don't have a lot of interaction with black Americans. They think that the culture is dominated by Twista, Ludacris, and Snoop Dogg." Gee Bill, where would they get that idea?Sentence: Marinated, barbecued, and served at Sylvia's restaurant in Harlem, where the blacks eat just like real people.
...
17. Hillary Clinton
Charges: Began in politics as a teenage Nixon supporter -- that's twisted. Moved on to corporate law, representing Wal-Mart and bravely defending Coca-Cola from disabled employees. Married out of ambition. Failed miserably as the first lady of health care. Has spent whole of senatorial career as a hawk and a panderer. Would have no shot at becoming president if she didn't just happen to be married to one already.
Exhibit A: Has deftly avoided the flip-flopper label -- by never, ever answering a question directly or committing to a position in the first place.
Sentence: Victim of vast right wing conspiracy to shove a brick up her ass.
...
9. You
Charges: You believe in freedom of speech, until someone says something that offends you. You suddenly give a damn about border integrity, because the automated voice system at your pharmacy asked you to press 9 for Spanish. You cling to every scrap of bullshit you can find to support your ludicrous belief system, and reject all empirical evidence to the contrary. You know the difference between patriotism and nationalism -- it's nationalism when foreigners do it. You hate anyone who seems smarter than you. You care more about zygotes than actual people. You love to blame people for their misfortunes, even if it means screwing yourself over. You still think Republicans favor limited government. Your knowledge of politics and government are dwarfed by your concern for Britney Spears' children. You think buying Chinese goods stimulates our economy. You think you're going to get universal health care. You tolerate the phrase "enhanced interrogation techniques." You think the government is actually trying to improve education. You think watching CNN makes you smarter. You think two parties is enough. You can't spell. You think $9 trillion in debt is manageable. You believe in an afterlife for the sole reason that you don't want to die. You think lowering taxes raises revenue. You think the economy's doing well. You're an idiot.
Exhibit A: You couldn't get enough Anna Nicole Smith coverage.
Sentence: A gradual decline into abject poverty as you continue to vote against your own self-interest. Death by an easily treated disorder that your health insurance doesn't cover. You deserve it, chump.
2006
2005
2004
2002
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