B12 Solipsism

El Coto Rioja 2006

Hmmm, sounds like a reason to have a lil’ bit…

In studies on animals, for example, scientists have found that components of red wine seem to improve intestinal health, promoting the growth of beneficial bacteria. Research on human subjects is limited. But one recent study that examined the claim was published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

In it, a small number of healthy adults were instructed to avoid all alcohol for two weeks — a so-called washout period.

Then they went through three separate phases of 20 days each. In one, the subjects drank red wine, about a cup daily. In another, they drank the same amount of red wine daily, but this time with the alcohol removed. In the third, they drank up to 100 milliliters a day of gin each day.

What’s the best digestive aid? Join in the discussion below. In the end, the researchers found that both types of red wine produced improvements in the bacterial composition of the gut, lowered blood pressure and reduced levels of a protein associated with inflammation. Slight improvements in gut flora were seen among gin drinkers, but the effects in the wine drinkers were much more pronounced.

THE BOTTOM LINE

According to research, red wine may improve digestive health.

(click here to continue reading Really? Red Wine as a Probiotic Delivery System – NYTimes.com.)

Wine Jug

and a few more details from the National Institute of Health (since I couldn’t find the specific study at the AJCN, due to a combination of their poor search feature and researcher¹ incompetence)

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Few studies have investigated the effect of dietary polyphenols on the complex human gut microbiota, and they focused mainly on single polyphenol molecules and select bacterial populations.

OBJECTIVE: The objective was to evaluate the effect of a moderate intake of red wine polyphenols on select gut microbial groups implicated in host health benefits.

DESIGN: Ten healthy male volunteers underwent a randomized, crossover, controlled intervention study. After a washout period, all of the subjects received red wine, the equivalent amount of de-alcoholized red wine, or gin for 20 d each. Total fecal DNA was submitted to polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis and real-time quantitative PCR to monitor and quantify changes in fecal microbiota. Several biochemical markers were measured.

RESULTS: The dominant bacterial composition did not remain constant over the different intake periods. Compared with baseline, the daily consumption of red wine polyphenol for 4 wk significantly increased the number of Enterococcus, Prevotella, Bacteroides, Bifidobacterium, Bacteroides uniformis, Eggerthella lenta, and Blautia coccoides-Eubacterium rectale groups (P < 0.05). In parallel, systolic and diastolic blood pressures and triglyceride, total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, and C-reactive protein concentrations decreased significantly (P < 0.05). Moreover, changes in cholesterol and C-reactive protein concentrations were linked to changes in the bifidobacteria number.

Conclusion: This study showed that red wine consumption can significantly modulate the growth of select gut microbiota in humans, which suggests possible prebiotic benefits associated with the inclusion of red wine polyphenols in the diet. This trial was registered at controlled-trials.com as ISRCTN88720134.

(click here to continue reading Influence of red wine polyphenols and ethanol… [Am J Clin Nutr. 2012] – PubMed – NCBI.)

1. me [↩]

Bent To The Right

Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution and Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute say what most of us outside the Beltway bubble have believed for years: namely that the problems with our current legislative morass in Washinton isn’t a bipartisan problem, but rather the fault of the GOP.

Rep. Allen West, a Florida Republican, was recently captured on video asserting that there are “78 to 81” Democrats in Congress who are members of the Communist Party. Of course, it’s not unusual for some renegade lawmaker from either side of the aisle to say something outrageous. What made West’s comment — right out of the McCarthyite playbook of the 1950s — so striking was the almost complete lack of condemnation from Republican congressional leaders or other major party figures, including the remaining presidential candidates.

It’s not that the GOP leadership agrees with West; it is that such extreme remarks and views are now taken for granted.

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.

The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.

“Both sides do it” or “There is plenty of blame to go around” are the traditional refuges for an American news media intent on proving its lack of bias, while political scientists prefer generality and neutrality when discussing partisan polarization. Many self-styled bipartisan groups, in their search for common ground, propose solutions that move both sides to the center, a strategy that is simply untenable when one side is so far out of reach.

It is clear that the center of gravity in the Republican Party has shifted sharply to the right. Its once-legendary moderate and center-right legislators in the House and the Senate — think Bob Michel, Mickey Edwards, John Danforth, Chuck Hagel — are virtually extinct.

(click here to continue reading Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem. – The Washington Post.)

Corporate Media

Also not surprisingly, the Washington media is not that interested in discussing the topic. Liberal media, ha. Republican sycophants is more of an apt description. 

Greg Sargent reports:

Last month, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein published an Op ed and a book making the extremely controversial argument that both parties aren’t equally to blame for what ails Washington. They argued that the GOP — by allowing extremists to roam free and by wielding the filibuster to achieve government dysfunction as a political end in itself — were demonstrably more culpable for creating what is approaching a crisis of governance.

It turns out neither man has been invited on to the Sunday shows even once to discuss this thesis. As Bob Somerby and Kevin Drum note, these are among the most quoted people in Washington — yet suddenly this latest topic is too hot for the talkers, or not deemed relevant at all.

I ran this thesis by Ornstein himself, and he confirmed that the book’s publicity people had tried to get the authors booked on the Sunday shows, with no success.

“Not a single one of the Sunday shows has indicated an interest, and I do find it curious,” Ornstein told me, adding that the Op ed had well over 200,000 Facebook recommends and has been viral for weeks. “This is a level of attention for a book that we haven’t received before. You would think it would attract some attention from the Sunday shows.’

Ornstein also noted another interesting point. Their thesis takes on the media for falling into a false equivalence mindset and maintaining the pretense that both sides are equally to blame. Yet despite the frequent self-obsession of the media, even that angle has failed to generate any interest. What’s more, some reporters have privately indicated their frustration with their editorial overlords’ apparent deafness to this idea.

(click here to continue reading Only one party’s to blame? Don’t tell the Sunday shows. – The Plum Line – The Washington Post.)

Picasso on The Cross

Eric Zorn lists a few of the problems Richard Daley left for his successor. There are others that could be added, such as the Silver Shovel investigations, or even the continued abuse of TIF monies for real estate developers, but that’s a post for another time, as these ten are pretty devastating when you consider the bad place the City of Chicago is in because of Daley.

Wednesday marks the anniversary of Mayor Rahm Emanuel tagging in for Daley, yet even at this chronological distance, the former mayor continues to be a looming baleful presence in the news, more a subject for fury than nostalgia.

Consider, in no particular order, these 10 things:  

1. Recent revelations that Daley took advantage of obscure provisions in the law not only to avoid more than $400,000 in pension contributions but also to boost his retirement pay to $183,778 a year.

2. News that the dreaded privatization of parking meters in 2008 was worse than we thought: Chicago Parking Meters LLC, which has been cheerfully jacking up rates since buying 75-year rights to meter revenue for $1.15 billion, is billing the city $14 million for the offense of taking meters out of service for repairs and other street closings, and pursuing an additional $13.5 million claim related to parking for the disabled.

3. Headlines announcing that Daley, who quickly burned through most of that $1.15 billion parking-meter payout in an effort to conceal a structural deficit in city finances, was hired by Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, the law firm that — wait for it! — billed the city $663,000 for helping negotiate the parking-meter deal.

(click here to continue reading Change of Subject: Daley, a year later— No thanks for the memories.)

Mayor Emanuel

and this might be the worst:

5. The ever-growing realization that toward the end of his 22 years in office, Daley was frantically moving money around and playing budget tricks instead of taking on the painful job of resetting priorities to restore the city to fiscal health. “That set of choices has been avoided over the past decade,” said Emanuel one year ago of the $636 million budget shortfall he inherited.

“We cannot ignore these problems a day longer,” he said.

“Because of the appalling lack of stewardship by you-know-who,” he did not say.

Mayor Daley did some good things for the city, I won’t deny it, but at what cost? Is having a sparkling downtown worth all the corruption and crony capitalism?

Willard Romney is woefully lacking in sensitivity and empathy. Not only that, but claiming he doesn’t remember incidents of bullying is unbelievable, or else he is a psychopath.

South River Public School 197x

Since I skipped 2nd grade, I was nearly always the youngest in my class, and thus was bullied frequently until I learned to fight back, or discovered how to defuse situations of impending bullying. I can still vividly remember a few incidents, and how my nickname was “The Wildman of Borneo” after exploding in rage once to stop some older kid from fighting me, and then repeating that explosion a few times subsequently, until I stopped being a target.

Unlike Willard, more vivid in my memory are incidents where I was the bully, where I initiated fights with weaker foes, to my adult shame.

Like Dale Whats-his-name in 5th grade South River Public School who I picked a fight with and beat to a blubbering, quivering mass. His family had come from a city somewhere, North Bay maybe, or Toronto, and had only moved to tiny, rural South River, Ontario that fall. He was different from the rest of the country kids. We were friends for most of the year, I was his only friend actually, but something happened and I picked a fight with him, and won it decisively. I still recall at the end of the fight, I was sitting on top of him, punching him over and over while he wailed. I stalked away with my friends, who had all witnessed the beating, and Dale ran inside. And like it just happened Tuesday, I can recall Mrs. Sullivan, the fifth grade teacher, coming up to me later that day and asking what happened in a worried voice. “Dale is really upset”, she said. I realized what I had done, and was quiet, flushed even. The last month of school, I just avoided making eye contact with Dale, and since we moved to Toronto that summer, I never went back to that school again.

Why I’m Glad We Moved Away from East Texas

Or Harold Kennebrew, in 8th grade, Newton Junior High in East Texas,  a fat, black, insecure kid, who turned into my victim in the horribly racist culture of East Texas. In that area of Texas, there was certainly vestiges of Jim Crow lingering like a miasma, and in school there were two distinct spheres of black and white kids without much overlap, except perhaps during football games. On one day, the 8th grade boys were assembling in the gym, prior to PE class, and Harold walked by. I stuck my foot out so he tripped, than threw my library book at him (a massive volume of the complete Sherlock Holmes stories – several hundred pages thick). We boxed a bit, neither winning, but I landed blows on his face, and he didn’t land any on me and in fact didn’t really punch much. Assistant Coach Horn came over and broke up the altercation, and gave us each a couple of whacks with his paddle. The coach gave me a weird look, I recall his expression to this day. He was black, as was a razor sharp classmate who came up to me a few moments after (I wish I remembered his name, but I remember his face, and that he was the undisputed alpha male of the black kids) and said words that still echo, “What, are you going to fight all the black kids now?”

He was absolutely right: I had started the fight with Harold Kennebrew just because he was an easier target for my adolescent anger. Black kids could get into worse trouble on the playground if they fought white kids, there was a double standard at work. I’m still regretful of my actions, all these long years later, though to my credit, that was the last fist fight I picked with a black kid. Luckily for my mental development, that summer we moved the decidedly less racist, so-called liberal oasis of Texas, Austin.

If Romney can’t recall his actions as a high schooler, then there is something mentally wrong with him, or else he is lying to avoid scrutiny for his actions. I don’t necessarily consider Romney’s Cranbrook history as that relevant to 2012, except it is an insight into his character, and his flawed view of the world. Being a corporate raider, destroying companies from within, firing workers, these are much easier tasks to accomplish if you are already lacking in empathy, if you are a bully.

I don’t want a bully to be my president.

Stacks of Knowledge and Honor

Charles Blow of the NYT writes, in part:

There is so much wrong with Romney’s response that I hardly know where to start.

But let’s start here: If the haircutting incident happened as described, it’s not a prank or hijinks or even simple bullying. It’s an assault.

Second, honorable men don’t chuckle at cruelty.

Third, if it happened, Romney’s explanation that he doesn’t remember it doesn’t ring true. It is a searing account in the telling and would have been even more so in the doing. How could such a thing simply melt into the milieu of other misbehavior? How could the screams of his classmate not echo even now?

Fourth, “if someone was hurt or offended, I apologize” isn’t a real apology. Even if no one felt hurt or offended, if you feel that you have done something wrong, you can apologize on that basis alone. Remorse is a sufficient motivator. Absolution is a sufficient objective. Whether the person who was wronged requests it is separate.

Lastly, this would have been an amazing teaching moment about the impact of bullying if Romney had seized it. That is what a real leader would have done. That is what we would expect any adult to do.

A 2010 CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll found that 77 percent of Americans believed that bullying is a “serious problem that adults should try and stop whenever possible.” Romney passed on that chance.

While I have real reservations about holding senior citizens to account for what they did as seniors in high school, I have no reservations about expecting presidential candidates to know how to properly address the mistakes they once made.

This is where Romney falls short, once again.

There was a malicious streak at the core of the high-school boy in these accounts. Romney’s muddled and confusing explanation and half-apologies only reinforce concerns that there is also something missing from the core of the man: sincerity and sensitivity.

Targeting the vulnerable is an act of cowardice. The only way to vanquish cowardice is to brandish courage. Romney refused to do so. This is an amazing missed opportunity to exhibit a needed bit of humanity by a man who seems to lack it.

 

(click here to continue reading Mean Boys – NYTimes.com.)

Mixed Messages

Ruth Marcus adds:

Romney’s reported leadership in the episode; his merciless wielding of the scissors to snip off the bleached-blond hair that seemingly so offended his sense of propriety; his continuing cuts in the face of John Lauber’s cries for help — these do not speak well of him.  You want to imagine your future president in the role of the wise-for-his-years leader who intervenes to calm the howling mob of his more foolish peers.

But that is not the chief concern with the Romney story. The real problem lies in the adult Romney’s reaction to it — or, more precisely, his non-reaction. Others involved in the episode told The Washington Post’s Jason Horowitz of their continuing shame and guilt. One said he apologized to Lauber years later.

Romney, judging by his own words, seems not to have given the ugly encounter a second thought. His campaign’s initial response was denial. “The stories of fifty years ago seem exaggerated and off base, and Governor Romney has no memory of participating in these incidents,” said spokesman Andrea Saul.

As it turned out, The Post story was so detailed, gripping and well-sourced that brush-off wasn’t going to suffice, so response No. 2 was to issue the classic, conditional quasi-apology. “Back in high school, I did some dumb things, and if anybody was hurt by that or offended, obviously I apologize for that,” Romney said in a radio interview.  “I participated in a lot of hijinks and pranks during high school, and some might have gone too far, and for that I apologize.”

Hijinks? Pranks? This was an assault, pure and simple. Romney insists that sexual orientation had nothing to do with the incident he doesn’t recall. “I certainly don’t believe I thought the fellow was homosexual. That was the furthest thing from our minds back in the 1960s.” But it’s clear that Lauber’s offense lay in his being different from the others on the island of Cranbook prep, whatever label was attached

So I don’t really blame Romney for what he did. I blame him for what he fails to remember, or to acknowledge, that he did. Imagine if Romney’s response to The Post story had been to own up to the episode and talk about his enduring regret.

“I would think this would be seared in his memory,” one classmate who participated, Philip Maxwell, told the New York Times. “Certainly for the other people that were involved, nobody has forgotten.”

That Romney has forgotten, or says he has, speaks volumes — more than anything that happened on a spring day in Michigan half a century ago.

(click here to continue reading Romney’s troubling reaction to the bullying story – PostPartisan – The Washington Post.)

Stereo Sanctity

I haven’t played this game in a while¹, so I’ll participate today. Apparently this is a joint France/Los Angeles joint. My notes in clover, duh…

1. Beastie Boys- Flute Loop
   Ill Communication
   Saddened by MCA’s death, the Beastie Boys were my age, basically, so having one of them die is a reminder that we have a short brutish time on the planet, and why wait? Smile now, there might not be a tomorrow. Two minute song from one of my favorite Beastie Boy albums, built off a funk/jazz flute loop. Rock the Nation, indeed.
2. Lowe, Nick- No Reason
   Basher -The Best of Nick Lowe
    No reason in the world…song originally from the Jesus of Cool album which every self-respecting hipster already owns.
3. Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers- Blues March
   Paris 1958
   I’m ready to march around the office, coffee cup in hand. I’ve never been to Paris, this might be close enough. Originally part of an 11-song three-LP set. 
4. Johann Sebastian Bach – Bach: Partitas, BWV 825-827, Vol. 1
   Bach: Keyboard Partita #2 In C Minor, BWV 826 – Courante- Gould, Glenn
   ahh, Bach… 
5. Beltuner- De Rien
   Beltuner
   speaking of France, this is French folk music, with accordions, acoustic guitars and what not. Not sure how I got this, but it is fun. Unfortunately, too early to have a glass of wine with my coffee…  
6. Sun Ra- Love In Outer Space
   Purple Night
   not the best Sun Ra album, if you have never heard Sun Ra, start elsewhere. The vocals seem to be coming from outer space, appropriately.
7. Love- A House Is Not A Motel
   Forever Changes
   I love this song. I’ve heard it hundreds of times and am still not absolutely sure what is about, other than Arthur Lee’s drug influenced weirdness.  Another Los Angeles reference. 
8. Mekons- Learning To Live On Your Own
   The Mekons Rock ‘n’ Roll
   A great album, oft called country punk-esque, though this particular track is more sweet than crunchy.  Robert Christgau’s note on the Mekons is worth reading
9. Watson, Doc And Clarence Ashley- God’s Gonna Ease My Troublin’ Mind
   Original Folkways Recordings 1960 – 1962 (Disc 2)
   you can’t play guitar nor banjo this well, and neither can I. Allegedly, Doc Watson didn’t even own an acoustic guitar at the time of this recording, though that could be apocryphal legend.
10. Gram Parsons & The Flying Burrito Brothers- Sin City
    Gram Parsons Archives Vol. 1: Live At The Avalon Ballroom April 4th, 1969 
    I’ve never to Los Angeles either, though I lust after photographing the vintage neon there. A slice of country rock from the master of the Cosmic American genre, created in San Francisco a couple of days before me. 
11. Kings Of Leon- Holy Roller Novocaine
    Youth & Young Manhood
    debut album of this middle of the road “Southern Rock” band. Nothing special, but good in certain moods, especially if played loudly. Irritatingly, there is a multi-minute long silence in the middle of the song.
12. The Saints- The Prisoner
    Prehistoric Sounds
    punk rock with saxophones. Awesome! How come no one told me about the Saints years ago? Love this album.
13. Soul Brothers- Heyi Wena
    Jive Soweto (The Indestructible Beat Of Soweto Volume 4)
    From Allmusic: “Jive” is the generic term used to refer to South African pop music, and is often modified by reference to the featured instrument — hence sax jive and pennywhistle jive. If you’ve never heard South African jive, seek it out, you are in for a treat. Bouncy, happy music. The very first international album I got (or one of the first) was an earlier edition in this series, The Indestructible Beat of Soweto, volume 1 & 2.
14. The Full Treatment- Just Can’t Wait
    Where The Action Is!: Los Angeles Nuggets 1965-1968 [Disc 3]
    Garage pop from Los Angeles. Another Rhino collection of single from another era. This song is a little too Beach Boys-esque for my taste, but there are a few seconds of psychedelic fun near the end.
15. De La Soul- Talkin’ Bout Hey Love
    De La Soul Is Dead
    Built off of a nice sample (Stevie Wonder maybe?), but disposable otherwise. 

Ok, I can’t count. Fifteen is not ten, a house is not a home, black is not grey…

A Little Wine With My Dinner

So I’m In My Grape Ape

I Feel Like A Winner When I Make A Mix Tape

Because I Get Ill

When I’m On The Pause Button

And I Get My Fill

And You Can’t Say Nothing

More Soul On This Train Then Don Cornelius

Got The Mad Subwoofer Pumping Bass For Your Anus

Just Getting On The Mic

At The Monthly Function

Wires Hitting Switches

Connecting At The Junction

Perlman’s Got Beats

And It Ain’t No Secret

Dante Found His Shit

But You Know He Freaked It

And So The Story Goes On

And On Down In S. D. 50 ’till Early Morning

1. the rules are simple, shuffle your music by song, pick out the first ten songs, list ‘em [↩]

dismissals

Paul Krugman muses on the dismal science a bit, and the dismal scientists known as structural economists

So what’s with the obsessive push to declare our problems “structural”? And, yes, I mean obsessive. Economists have been debating this issue for several years, and the structuralistas won’t take no for an answer, no matter how much contrary evidence is presented.

The answer, I’d suggest, lies in the way claims that our problems are deep and structural offer an excuse for not acting, for doing nothing to alleviate the plight of the unemployed.

Of course, structuralistas say they are not making excuses. They say that their real point is that we should focus not on quick fixes but on the long run — although it’s usually far from clear what, exactly, the long-run policy is supposed to be, other than the fact that it involves inflicting pain on workers and the poor.

Anyway, John Maynard Keynes had these peoples’ number more than 80 years ago. “But this long run,” he wrote, “is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the sea is flat again.”

I would only add that inventing reasons not to do anything about current unemployment isn’t just cruel and wasteful, it’s bad long-run policy, too. For there is growing evidence that the corrosive effects of high unemployment will cast a shadow over the economy for many years to come. Every time some self-important politician or pundit starts going on about how deficits are a burden on the next generation, remember that the biggest problem facing young Americans today isn’t the future burden of debt — a burden, by the way, that premature spending cuts probably make worse, not better. It is, rather, the lack of jobs, which is preventing many graduates from getting started on their working lives.

So all this talk about structural unemployment isn’t about facing up to our real problems; it’s about avoiding them, and taking the easy, useless way out. And it’s time for it to stop.

(click here to continue reading Easy Useless Economics – NYTimes.com.)

I vowed I was going to stop making drive-by posts¹ like these, but here’s the quandary. I know next to nothing about economics and even economic history, so I can’t dispute or amplify what Dr. Krugman asserts. However, I like his turn of phrase, and his reasoning sounds plausible. Maybe in the future, I’ll be able to use this post as a footnote to a different post?

What do I know about partying or anything else?

1. posts where I don’t add much to the discussion [↩]

Spewing

Not sure why anyone would waste time reading anything written by Jonah Goldberg, but then I whiled away a few minutes reading a review of Goldberg’s latest turd, so…

Alex Pareene writes, in part:

The full title of the new one is “The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas.” (Yes, the title “The Tyranny of ___” is itself a cliché. It’s by no means the only one Goldberg employs in the book.)

I just opened “The Tyranny of Clichés” to a random page. It is the start of Chapter 9, “Slippery Slope,” and it begins with quotations from Hume, Lincoln and T.S. Eliot. Then we’re treated to the prose of Mr. Jonah Goldberg, who is here to share his presentation on “slippery slopes.” It reads very much like a high school student’s essay assignment:

Ultimately slippery slope arguments are a mixed bag. They are useful as a way to reinforce good dogma, but they are also used to reinforce bad dogma. Similarly they can scare us away from bad policies and good policies alike. There are good slippery slope arguments and bad ones for good ends and bad ends.

What insight! What a masterful grasp of nuance! Let’s try one of our own: Airplanes can be used for good things and bad things. Some airplanes carry medicine or ice cream, but other airplanes carry bombs or bad people. But an airplane with bombs might be good because the bombs are for using on bad guys, and on the other airplane maybe the ice cream has melted.

Throughout the book, Goldberg brings his disposable Bic-sharp wit to bear on the most deserving straw men he can imagine. From the chapter on “Let Them Eat Cake”:

The notion that today’s rich are the most likely to say ‘let them eat cake!’ is a form of cultural propaganda. To be sure, there are many wealthy and politically conservative individuals who are out of touch with the hardships of poverty. But the most obvious inheritors of the cocooned arrogance and self-indulgence we associate with members of the monarchical courts of Europe are to be found not in boardrooms, but among the most celebrated liberals of American life: Hollywood celebrities.

The celebrities whose excesses Goldberg goes on to document — those he deems “among the most celebrated liberals of American life” — are Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey, John Travolta, (Republican) Sylvester Stallone, Kim Basinger and Sean Penn. Ah yes, the modern American aristocracy.

The book is, plainly, another dumb piece of assembly line conservative argument, gussied up with extensive footnotes. It will not impress any academics or intellectuals and it will not get the blood of true believers boiling with indignation. (It will likely sell well, thanks to bulk orders and conservative book clubs.) The phony Pulitzer bragging, that bit of slightly sad résumé-enhancement, is Goldberg all over: Desperate to impress, but utterly unconvincing.

(click here to continue reading Jonah Goldberg’s desperation – Editor’s Picks – Salon.com.)

A Dance with Dragons

I finished zipping through the first five books of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels in record time (started the first novel, April 4th, finished the last May 9th.) Heavy, dense histories and political dissertations are my more usual fare, but I never consume those kind of books quite so fast as I sprinted through the faux history of Westeros and Essos and the dynastic civil wars engulfing these continents. Almost 2 million words in a month. Yikes…

Was it great literature? No, but it was fun to read, and iBooks/ebooks are easy enough to read while running on my treadmill, or whenever I have a moment before a meeting somewhere.

Wordcount of A Song of Ice And Fire – George R. R. Martin

• A Game of Thrones: 298k words
• A Clash of kings: 326k words
• A Storm of Swords: 424k words
• A Feast for Crows: 300k words
• A Dance with Dragons: 422k words

Total: 1M 770k words

(click here to continue reading Wordcount of popular (and hefty) epics | The Cesspit..)

I enjoyed puzzling over the various maps of the kingdoms as well. The maps changed, grew more detailed as the series continued. According to the author, this was intentional.

My main complaint is that the sixth volume of the series, to be called The Winds of Winter, is not published, and only the Seven know when it will be, besides the author. So there are plenty of cliff-hangers waiting to be resolved.

The previous installment, A Dance with Dragons, covered less story than Martin intended, omitting at least one planned large battle sequence and leaving several character threads ending in cliff-hangers. Martin intended to resolve these cliffhangers “very early” in The Winds of Winter, saying “I’m going to open with the two big battles that I was building up to, the battle in the ice and the battle at Meereen—the battle of Slaver’s Bay. And then take it from there.”

Martin confirmed in March 2012 that the final two novels will take readers farther north than any of the previous books: “What lies really north [The Land of Always Winter], we haven’t explored that yet, but we will in the last two books.” The sample chapter on Martin’s website is written from Theon Greyjoy’s viewpoint and shows his interactions with Stannis Baratheon as they are camped in the snow on his march to Winterfell. Martin has also said that “you’re definitely going to see more of the Others in The Winds of Winter”.

At 2011 WorldCon, Martin read an Arianne chapter, during which she heads for Griffin’s Roost to see the young boy who is calling himself Aegon. Victarion’s chapter will take off five minutes after A Dance with Dragons, taking place on the eve of the Iron Islanders’ surprise attack on the cities in Slaver’s Bay

The HBO series is fun, too, btw, if a bit like a Reader’s Digest version of the plot, and with more sexposition.

Kodak Gallery

I’m saddened by the news of Kodak’s demise…

I have some very important news regarding your Kodak Gallery account and images. You may have heard that we recently entered into a process to sell Kodak Gallery as part of Kodak’s broader restructuring efforts. I am writing today to let you know that we have closed on a buyer: a public company called Shutterfly.

Although I am sad to announce that our Kodak-branded service will be closing on July 2 as a result of this sale, I am very pleased to announce that we have found a strong partner in Shutterfly. We will be working with them as we officially transfer your information and photo images to Shutterfly. They have an award-winning user experience that mirrors ours in many ways, and many of the services and products that you enjoy today on Kodak Gallery also exist at Shutterfly.

(click here to continue reading Message from our general manager at KODAK Gallery.)

This is all well and good, but unfortunately, Shutterfly doesn’t offer the professional grade prints that I used Kodak for. 

With Pro Prints You Get: Award-winning line of silver-halide color-negative papers Showcases interest and depth, color and incredible detail Archival papers set the standard for print longevity of 100+ years in typical home display and 200+ years in dark storage

Professional Paper Options Color: Professional Color Management gives outstanding color saturation, enhanced highlight and shadow detail Metallic Finish: Enhances water and sky landscapes with chrome-like feel, sharp detail Black & White: Enhances portraits and landscapes with dark blacks and intense whites with sharp archival characteristics

(click here to continue reading Photo Prints, Print Photos Online, Order Prints Online at KODAK Gallery.)

The Metallic Finish really pops, I’ll miss using it. Kodak also learned quite a bit from being Apple’s iPhoto print fulfillment back-end, Kodak’s process of uploading and ordering prints is a lot simpler than Shutterfly’s. Especially for non-typical photo sizes. 

Well, if you were considering ordering a print from my website, or elsewhere, let me know before the end of June, so I can create it utilizing the better options that Kodak offers. 

I Was Doing Foul Shit Very Young

If there were justice in this world, Rupert Murdoch would have long ago been stripped of his media empire, and forced to rot in a dungeon. But since money and power trump justice 99 times out of a 100, Rupert Murdoch can continue smiling, and thumbing his nose at the law.

David Carr writes, in part:

There are many reasons Rupert Murdoch has avoided any serious consequences from the scandal despite hundreds of British citizens having had their phones hacked, dozens or more being bribed in law enforcement and several dozen more of his employees having been arrested.

…Mr. Murdoch also remains mostly unscathed because much of News Corporation’s business and most of its profits lie here in the United States, where the scandal is viewed as something happening on a distant island.

There have been reports of corporate misdeeds in America, including computer hacking at its News America Marketing division, but other than some faint rumbles in Washington about further investigations, it’s been mostly smoke, no fire.

…But the primary reason Mr. Murdoch has not been held to account is that the board of News Corporation has no independence, little influence and no stomach for confronting its chairman.

Like many media companies (including the one I work for), News Corporation has a two-tiered stock setup that gives the family control of the voting shares. The current board includes family members and several senior executives; the independent slots are filled by a host of familiars.

Viet Dinh, a former Bush administration official, is godfather to Lachlan K. Murdoch’s son. Roderick Eddington was deputy chairman of a division of the company in the late 1990s. Andrew S. B. Knight and Arthur M. Siskind are both former senior executives, and John L. Thornton, the former Goldman Sachs president, served as an adviser to News Corporation on several major deals.

The board also includes Natalie Bancroft, a trained opera singer who made a great deal of money when her family sold Dow Jones, which included The Wall Street Journal, to Mr. Murdoch in 2007, and José Maria Aznar, a former prime minister of Spain, who is a friend of Mr. Murdoch’s.

Being a board member of News Corporation is not a bad gig; it pays over $200,000 a year and requires lifting nothing heavier than a rubber stamp. The directors apparently haven’t asked why the company maintained its “rogue reporter” defense after it became clear that “rogue enterprise” was a more apt description. They appeared to sit silently by while Mr. Murdoch and his son James waited for law enforcement officials to finally ferret out employees of the company’s British newspaper division who were accused of engaging in criminal conduct.

Still, the board may regret being quite so quick to throw its full support behind Mr. Murdoch and the current management. The parliamentary report, as scathing as it was, is only the first of many dominoes expected to fall in the next few weeks and months. Ofcom, the British broadcasting regulator, is assessing whether News Corporation should be allowed to continue to hold its stake in British Sky Broadcasting. For its part, BSkyB was quick to get out the 10-foot pole, reminding everyone that the two companies are separate even though News Corporation owns a 39 percent stake.

(click here to continue reading The Cozy Compliance of the News Corp. Board – NYTimes.com.)

A public company in name only, in other words. A true public company would have to do what was best for shareholders, and a public company’s Board of Directors is supposed to lead a corporation down the Straight and Narrow. Instead, News Corporation smiles at corruption, blinks at lawlessness, and counts profit.  

I don’t know who Kate Beckinsale is, I don’t think, but her satirical commercial, called Republicans, Get In My Vagina, made me laugh:

Watch it if you can…

Kate Beckinsale, Judy Greer and Andrea Savage “spread” the message that the one thing women really want in their vagina is the government.

Light

I have two thoughts regarding this horrific article as reported by Nicholas Kristof:

Pine Ridge, one of America’s largest Indian reservations, bans alcohol. The Oglala Sioux who live there struggle to keep alcohol out, going so far as to arrest people for possession of a can of beer. But the tribe has no jurisdiction over Whiteclay because it is just outside the reservation boundary.

So Anheuser-Busch and other brewers pour hundreds of thousands of gallons of alcohol into the liquor stores of Whiteclay, knowing that it ends up consumed illicitly by Pine Ridge residents and fuels alcoholism, crime and misery there. In short, a giant corporation’s business model here is based on violating tribal rules and destroying the Indians’ way of living.

It’s as if Mexico legally sold methamphetamine and crack cocaine to Americans in Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez.

Pine Ridge encompasses one of the poorest counties in the entire United States — Shannon County, S.D. — and life expectancy is about the same as in Afghanistan. As many as two-thirds of adults there may be alcoholics, and one-quarter of children are born suffering from fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.

In short, this isn’t just about consenting adults. Children are born with neurological damage and never get a chance.

(click here to continue reading A Battle With the Brewers – NYTimes.com.)

The Longhorn Saloon – Main Street, Scenic, South Dakota

First, Anheuser-Busch aka InBev has long been a sleazy corporation. You don’t give large amounts of corporate donations to scum like the Heartland Institute unless you are a willing tool of Republican agenda, and Anheuser-Busch is a willing tool of the GOP.

More Beautiful Desolation

Second, and this is just wild speculation, what would happen if the Pine Ridge Reservation legalized booze sales, but vigorously controlled the sale? Stop selling to obviously intoxicated people, have a quota for how much beer a particular household could purchase in a month, and so on. Try the drug legalization model, in other words, like Switzerland or The Netherlands do (did?). Of course, the slightly-over the county line store would have to be removed, or incorporated into the plan. But isn’t this just as feasible as a public shaming of corporate scum like InBev?

I don’t doubt alcoholism is a big, big problem on the Res, but perhaps there are other ways to tackle this problem. Heroin junkies in Vancouver are allowed to shoot up, but only under watchful eyes of public health officials.

Just days after Canada’s Supreme Court smacked down the ruling Conservative party’s attempts to close Insite, the cutting-edge walk-in safe-injecting clinic in Vancouver, comes the latest volley from harm-reduction advocates north of the border. Over the next three years a new trial will test whether giving heroin addicts access to free, clean opiates can be an effective way to stabilize hardcore users and ultimately entice them into drug treatment.

SALOME (Study to Assess Longer-term Opiate Maintenance Effectiveness) grew out of the earlier NAOMI (North American Opiate Maintenance Initiative) study. whose conclusions were similar to those of similar trials in Switzerland, Germany and other highly evolved nations: “Heroin-assisted therapy proved to be a safe and highly effective treatment for people with chronic, treatment-refractory heroin addiction. Marked improvements were observed including decreased use of illicit “street” heroin, decreased criminal activity, decreased money spent on drugs, and improved physical and psychological health,” as NAOMI’s authors wrote.

Unlike the earlier trial, the focus of SALOME is not on heroin prescribing. With the Conservative government’s panties already in a bunch over injecting rooms, a less controversial alternative to handing out heroin had to be foundt. The solution?  Hydromorphone (trade name Dilaudid), a legally available painkiller whose effects are almost indistinguishable from heroin—not a surprise given that it is synthesized from morphine. “There’s less of a stigma, less of an aura, around hydromorphone, and it’s legally available,” said British Columbia’s medical health officer, Perry Kendall. “In Switzerland and Germany, they don’t have a problem with treating people with heroin, but here we do.”

(click here to continue reading Junkies Get Free, Clean Heroin Alternative in Vancouver Trial | The Fix.)

What do you think? Could this work for alcohol too? Of course, this is idle speculation, and as long as the GOP is around, public health initiatives will get short shrift.

Continuing a tradition: these are my 24 (!) personal favorites, all developed in my digital darkroom last month. In no particular order…

/ Posted in / 2012 / April (122 items)

(click here to see more Flickr: Archive of your uploads to Flickr in April 2012.)

And yeah, I have too many favorites this month. A good problem, but a problem nonetheless.

Where Did All The Blue Skies Go

Waiting for the Seed To Sprout

Golden Plowshares

Waiting for A Friend

The former USPS building, still not being developed.

River City and Van Buren Street Bridge

Washing the Trump

Don’t Reveal a Thing You’ve Learned

April 18th Blues

Franklin Street Bridge at Night
This one made it to Flickr Explore. Taken from the Holiday Inn at Wolf Point – my folks were in town for the night on their way to Italy for three weeks.

Wounded In The Line of Duty

Little Tramp

London.

Eyeing John Marshall Law School

Word Gets Around Eventually

World Weary – Copper Blue

World Weary – Red Bleach

World Weary – Duotoned

London Towers

Someone To Tell Your Troubles To

Suspicions

Painted Trees Overlooking LSD

Wherever I Lay My Head

Mysterious Language of Lines and Circles

Coach Has Arrived

Waiting For Air Traffic Control

Slide show version here

Put Money in the Parking Meter or else!

More of Daley’s sad legacy…

The parking meter company took in more than $80 million from meters across Chicago in 2011, according to documents it filed this week with city officials.

Chicago Parking Meters’ financial performance last year slightly exceeded projections of Wall Street analysts, who have rated the company a smart investment, said Matthew Hobby, an analyst with the Standard & Poor’s ratings agency.

For $1.15 billion, paid upfront, the City Council approved a plan championed by then-Mayor Richard M. Daley in 2008 that privatized Chicago’s 36,000 meters for 75 years. In a deal that was widely criticized for selling taxpayers short, Chicago Parking Meters was given the right to keep all meter revenues until 2084. Drivers have since seen sharp increases in parking rates under the deal.

After leaving office a year ago, Daley, along with his former corporation counsel and two top press aides, went to work for Katten Muchin Rosenmann LLP, the law firm that handled the parking meter deal for the city.

Since the meter deal took effect, city officials have paid the parking meter company more than $2 million in what they call “true-up adjustments” to make up for parking spaces taken out of service.

The amount billed for those adjustments skyrocketed in the first nine months of the 2011 budget year, to $14 million — a sum Emanuel is refusing to pay. The company hasn’t submitted its claim for the last three months of the year yet.

In an April 5 letter to Chicago Parking Meters chief executive officer Dennis Pedrelli, Emanuel’s chief financial officer, Lois Scott, blasted the way the company calculated those adjustments for last year, calling its invoices “legally and factually erroneous.”

Scott said that, under the parking meter deal, City Hall should be determining how much money Chicago Parking Meters is owed for those out-of-service meters — something the Daley administration had allowed the company to do.

(click here to continue reading Chicago parking meter company wants more money; mayor balks – Chicago Sun-Times.)

300 S Jackson – Ilford Delta 100

It might be fun to attend this, but on the other hand, I like to sleep in a bit on Sundays.

Union Station 225 South Canal Street, Chicago, IL 60606

When: 11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., Saturday, May 12 General Admission: Free

Now in its 5th year, National Train Day is back to celebrate train travel and the ways trains touch the lives of people with events across America. This year, festivities will highlight the unique perspective passengers enjoy as they take in the vastness and beauty of the American landscape, from cities big and small, to country vistas and everything in between, when traveling by rail. As part of National Train Day, each major market event features live entertainment, interactive and educational exhibits, kids’ activities, model train displays and tours of Amtrak equipment, freight and commuter trains, and notable private railroad cars.

(click here to continue reading National Train Day In Chicago.)

Got the Wine Country Blues