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  • Asking for a little accountability

    Among the variety of things in my RSS reader is Robert Reich’s blog, and today he has an excellent set of observations about the coming socialism in America corporate welfare salvation of the world economy: What Wall Street Should Be Required to Do, to Get A Blank Check From Taxpayers

    Why should Wall Street get bailed out by me when I’m getting screwed?

    So if you are a member of Congress, you just might be in a position to demand from Wall Street certain conditions in return for the blank check.

    (Send a letter to your elected officials about subjects that concern you.)

  • Resist the present!

    Not to mention the future: Online Literacy Is a Lesser Kind — ChronicleReview.com

    So let’s restrain the digitizing of all liberal-arts classrooms. More than that, given the tidal wave of technology in young people’s lives, let’s frame a number of classrooms and courses as slow-reading (and slow-writing) spaces. Digital technology has become an imperial force, and it should meet more antagonists. Educators must keep a portion of the undergraduate experience disconnected, unplugged, and logged off. Pencils, blackboards, and books are no longer the primary instruments of learning, true, but they still play a critical role in the formation of intelligence, as countermeasures to information-age mores. That is a new mission for educators parallel to the mad rush to digitize learning, one that may seem reactionary and retrograde, but in fact strives to keep students’ minds open and literacy broad. Students need to decelerate, and they can’t do it by themselves, especially if every inch of the campus is on the grid.

    Obviously this guy is a complete lightweight, or he’d be holding the line at oral recitation. Pfft.

    While I heartily disagree with him (I believe he is confusing the medium with the method, and reactively at that), his essay is worth reading.

  • Books as a business

    Fascinating article in New York Magazine, as a reader, as an editor, and as a new owner of a kindle: Have We Reached the End of Book Publishing As We Know It?

    Debbie Stier, Miller’s No. 2 at HarperStudio as this little imprint is called, has been collecting videos for their blog. “You want to see what happens to books after they go to book heaven?” she asks. On the screen of her MacBook, a giant steel shredder disgorges a ragged mess of paper and cardboard onto a conveyor belt. This is the fate of up to 25 percent of the product churned out by New York’s publishing machine.

    Everyone’s eyes widen, as though watching some viral YouTube gross-out. “It’s like Wall‑E,” says marketing director Sarah Burningham. “It’s depressing,” Miller adds. They had sent in a Flip camera with a warehouse worker. “You can see our books go through there,” says Stier. “The Crichton, the Ann Patchett.”

  • White Privilege

    I don’t know this author, nor am I familiar with the website, but this is a wonderful rundown of what white privilege looks like in the U.S. presidential campaign: White Privilege, White Entitlement and the 2008 Election | BuzzFlash.org

    White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

    White privilege is when you can call yourself a “fuckin’ redneck,” like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you’ll “kick their fuckin’ ass,” and talk about how you like to “shoot shit” for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy and a great son-in-law to be rather than a thug.

    White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college, and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

    (tip of the hat to CoyoteAngel Dimsum)

  • Living through a plague

    Or rather, living through the plague: Thursday 14 September 1665 (Pepys’ Diary)

    Then, on the other side, my finding that though the Bill in general is abated, yet the City within the walls is encreased, and likely to continue so, and is close to our house there. My meeting dead corpses of the plague, carried to be buried close to me at noon-day through the City in Fanchurch-street. To see a person sick of the sores, carried close by me by Gracechurch in a hackney-coach. My finding the Angell tavern, at the lower end of Tower- hill, shut up, and more than that, the alehouse at the Tower-stairs, and more than that, the person was then dying of the plague when I was last there, a little while ago, at night, to write a short letter there, and I overheard the mistresse of the house sadly saying to her husband somebody was very ill, but did not think it was of the plague. To hear that poor Payne, my waiter, hath buried a child, and is dying himself. To hear that a labourer I sent but the other day to Dagenhams, to know how they did there, is dead of the plague; and that one of my own watermen, that carried me daily, fell sick as soon as he had landed me on Friday morning last, when I had been all night upon the water (and I believe he did get his infection that day at Brainford), and is now dead of the plague. To hear that Captain Lambert and Cuttle are killed in the taking these ships; and that Mr. Sidney Montague is sick of a desperate fever at my Lady Carteret’s, at Scott’s‑hall. To hear that Mr. Lewes hath another daughter sick. And, lastly, that both my servants, W. Hewer and Tom Edwards, have lost their fathers, both in St. Sepulchre’s parish, of the plague this week, do put me into great apprehensions of melancholy, and with good reason. But I put off the thoughts of sadness as much as I can, and the rather to keep my wife in good heart and family also.

  • New knitting guild

    Last night I attended a wonderful event organized by the new Common Cod fiber guild. The room was absolutely packed, evidently far outstripping the organizers’ expectations. The speaker was the downright effervescent (and very cute) Franklin Habit. I look forward to seeing where this guild goes!

  • Mmmm. Bacon!

    The Canonical Bacon Page

    Any conversation on the internet will eventually include bacon in some way. And then be forwarded immediately to John Scalzi.

  • RNC demonstrations

    First-person reflections on the Republican National Convention in St. Paul over at Showers of Blessings

    But I was appalled at the disproportionality of the display of force throughout the week. It started with forcible entries to four or five homes Saturday morning to arrest RNC WC members and to execute search warrants. Police reportedly used battering rams to break open unlocked doors and came in with drawn guns, despite there being no reason to suspect that the residents posed any threat of violent resistance. There were also many reports of harassment of journalists prior to and throughout the week.

    At the march, hundreds of police were dressed head-to-toe in armor and battle gear, far exceeding any danger they may have reasonably anticipated, especially from the 10,000 peaceful marchers. The display seemed clearly intended to frighten and intimidate others by creating a false aura of danger, creating fear and uncertainty in the public mind. I cannot escape the conclusion that the police let themselves be used as part of a larger propaganda and public relations effort to delegitimize the protesters.

  • Stratford Tea Leaves

    I spent the recent Labor Day weekend in St. Mary’s, Ontario, at a small convention of people I know from the Independent State of Caledon, a neo-Victorian, Steampunk community in the virtual world of Second Life. One afternoon, four of us went into nearby Stratford for lunch and a very pleasant (and informative) tea-tasting at Stratford Tea Leaves.

    The proprietor, Karen Hartwick, is one of only a few certified tea sommeliers. She began by asking each of us what kinds of tea we enjoy drinking. She then took canisters off the shelves for us to smell, pointing out how each tea was similar or dissimilar from teas we mentioned enjoying.

    tea cannister

    Each of us selected a tea to taste, which Karen carefully prepared as to quantity of leaves and steeping time. She used special tasting cups, which had lids to keep the tea hot as it steeped, and a section of grooves in one edge, so the tea leaves could be captured in the cup when the liquid was poured into a drinking bowl.

    tasting cup

    Karen gave us smaller cups so that we could give each other samples of our selected tea. Two of us tasted several additional teas and went home with happy purchases.

    The aftermath:

    aftermath

    If you are ever in the area, I recommend a visit. Karen told us that she plans to add online ordering soon.

  • The Omnivore Meme

    Instructions: (but you already know the drill, of course)

    1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
    2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
    3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
    4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results. (There are links there to wikipedia

    1. Venison.
    2. Nettle tea.
    3. Huevos rancheros.
    4. Steak tartare.
    5. Crocodile
    6. Black pudding.
    7. Cheese fondue.
    8. Carp.
    9. Borscht.
    10. Baba ghanoush.
    11. Calamari.
    12. Pho.
    13. PB&J sandwich.
    14. Aloo gobi.
    15. Hot dog from a street cart.
    16. Epoisses.
    17. Black truffle.
    18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes.
    19. Steamed pork buns.
    20. Pistachio ice cream.
    21. Heirloom tomatoes.
    22. Fresh wild berries.
    23. Foie gras.
    24. Rice and beans.
    25. Brawn, or head cheese.
    26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper.
    27. Dulce de leche.
    28. Oysters.
    29. Baklava.
    30. Bagna cauda.
    31. Wasabi peas.
    32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl.
    33. Salted lassi.
    34. Sauerkraut.
    35. Root beer float.
    36. Cognac with a fat cigar.
    37. Clotted cream tea.
    38. Vodka jelly/Jell‑O.
    39. Gumbo.
    40. Oxtail.
    41. Curried goat.
    42. Whole insects.
    43. Phaal.
    44. Goat’s milk.
    45. Malt whiskey from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more.
    46. Fugu.
    47. Chicken tikka masala.
    48. Eel.
    49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut.
    50. Sea urchin.
    51. Prickly pear.
    52. Umeboshi.
    53. Abalone.
    54. Paneer.
    55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal.
    56. Spaetzle.
    57. Dirty gin martini.
    58. Beer above 8% ABV.
    59. Poutine.
    60. Carob chips.
    61. S’mores.
    62. Sweetbreads.
    63. Kaolin.
    64. Currywurst.
    65. Durian.
    66. Frogs’ legs.
    67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake.
    68. Haggis.
    69. Fried plantain.
    70. Chitterlings, or andouillette.
    71. Gazpacho.
    72. Caviar and blini.
    73. Louche absinthe.
    74. Gjetost, or brunost.
    75. Roadkill.
    76. Baijiu.
    77. Hostess Fruit Pie.
    78. Snail.
    79. Lapsang souchong.
    80. Bellini.
    81. Tom yum.
    82. Eggs Benedict.
    83. Pocky.
    84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
    85. Kobe beef.
    86. Hare.
    87. Goulash.
    88. Flowers.
    89. Horse.
    90. Criollo chocolate.
    91. Spam.
    93. Rose harissa.
    94. Catfish.
    95. Mole poblano.
    96. Bagel and lox.
    97. Lobster Thermidor.
    98. Polenta.
    99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee.
    100. Snake.

    (A tip of the hat to Alan.)