Opining Online

Just read it, OK? It’s short and you’ll thank me. Maybe.

Retriever asks for recommendations of good driving tunes to keep her and her co-drivers awake and happy.

Here’s the list I posted for her:

Charlie Mingus – Moanin’

Something fast light and airy from one of the elli’s (Locatelli, Corelli, Torelli, et al) 

Grateful Dead – Deep Elem Blues

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – Will the Circle Be Unbroken

Pump Boys & Dinettes – Vacation 

Mormon Tabernacle Choir – The United States Marines Hymn

Mormon Tabernacle Choir – Hallelujah Chorus (despite bad video and spelling, it’s pretty good audio)

The Beach Boys – Barbara Ann

Earl Scruggs & Steve Martin – Foggy Mountain Breakdown - be careful… this one tends to encourage speeding!

Another one that triggers lead foot syndrome is the Ventures’ Wipeout.

John Philip Sousa – Stars & Stripes Forever

Janis Joplin – Brand New Key (I’m not sure what the title is… I got a brand new pair of roller skates, you got a brand new key… ) SEE comments – by Melanie, not Joplin.

Warren Zevon – Werewolves of London

Marty Robbins – Ghost Riders in the Sky

Roger Miller – King of the Road

and… as an afterthought for 55 mph driving: Massenet’s Meditation from Thais.

What’s your favorite driving music?

Of Booze And Babies: Late Night At The Palm

Finally, a topic worthy of Twitter.

CWCID – Dustbury

When theory and fact fail to intersect – Bookworm Room. Political lessons from buildings.

Who Goes Nazi? – The Anchoress, via Assistant Village Idiot. Suggested further reading: The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements.

Masterminds or Muddlers? - the glittering eye.

The prototype for a mastermind would be Napoleon, someone who with a combination of brilliance, insight, savvy, guile, and the urge to power was able to bring complicated plans with many moving parts to fruition.

Letting Go: What should medicine do when it can’t save your life? — The New Yorker, by Atul Gawande. And… as I see it, a complete misunderstanding of that article by Megan McArdle and most of her commentariat. That misunderstanding is further displayed in this McArdle post:  Does Medicaid Kill? Though not easy to identify, there are multiple points where medicine becomes harmful rather than helpful. Part of this has to do with the way we evaluate drugs — by choosing an endpoint (ie, blood pressure reduction) without evaluating whether that leads to longer life, much less the quality of that life.

That’s enough deep thought for a while. I will now return to my regularly scheduled whining, ranting, silliness, and non-blogging.

Margaret Shepherd, artist, calligrapher, author, is trying to bring civilization back with the stroke of a pen.

Being essentially uncivilized myself, is anyone surprised that I hadn’t heard of her before now? Writing thank you notes fills me with dread and anxiety. I can count the number of personal letters I’ve written in my life on one hand easily. Complaint letters are my forte, but I’ve stopped writing them too.

I have been on the receiving end of notes and letters that thrill me when I picked them out of the mailbox, so that makes my not returning that joy even more egregious. I’m a bit ashamed of myself right now. Blogging and short emails make up for this not one bit.

Margaret Shepherd’s Amazon Page. You can view more of her calligraphy art (bigger images) at Neatorama. I’m especially fond of what I think of as the “childbirth series” at the bottom of that page. I found this artist thanks to a civilized man who writes The Fire Ant Gazette.

I was complaining over at Amba’s place a few days ago how some videos/visuals distract and subtract from the songs they are trying to illustrate rather than add value.

Well… since then, Jim at My Bossier opened my eyes to how it could be worse. But much funnier. Literally.

My Momma used to say that all the music I listened to sounded like just noise. Now I say to my kids that the music they listen to all sounds alike… which makes it similar to just noise.

What will my grandchildren hear? Chances are it will pretty close to the same thing I heard and their parents heard. Both the complaints and the music will likely have this sameness in common.

Though the video below is fairly constrained on an historical time scale, there’s bait in there for several decades. I have to admit, I’m not familiar with a lot of the artists… but doesn’t all the music sound familiar and familial?

Via Megan McArdle, here’s Slate’s In Search of Lost Sounds: Why you’ve never really heard the “Moonlight” Sonata.

Because a lot of people my age grew up hearing more of the old, out of tune upright pianos prominently featuring chipped ivories and a funky smell… than we did well-made, well-cared for, and thus rare, older pianos, it’s easy to understand why we preferred the new.

The story is about the Frederick Historic Piano Collection – 24 pianos made from 1790 to 1928. They are housed in a small Victorian library building in Ashburnham MA and they are featured in a yearly concert series. Hearing one of those concerts and seeing the pianos is one of the most appealing reasons I can think of to visit Massachusetts.

There are several clips in the article comparing compositions by Beethoven, Brahms, and Debussy played on a Steinway to them played on pianos the composers might have actually used. I checked YouTube for more recordings by the pianists playing the old instruments, but didn’t find any. That’s a void begging to be filled.

Fascinating… and somewhat of an indictment of standardization. Heed this, autotune.

It is the vitality of Henrietta Lacks and her descendants that captured my imagination while reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

It’s just a darned good story and it pushes all my “I want to read that” buttons – lively characters, science, mystery, public policy and politics, genealogy, plus a few I’ve probably not yet identified.

When you finish a book with a feeling you know some of the characters, and wishing you could visit further with them, you know it’s been worth your time. I can’t recommend this book highly enough. It’s just that good.

My granddaughter, Issie, just had the perfect birthday celebration for a princess-obsessed 3 year old.

First, getting to spend three days at an amusement park with the undivided attention of both parents is pretty awesome. What child wouldn’t be having fun? Add to that the attentiveness and playfulness of the Disney character actors.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the adventure:

I thought it was pretty awesome that she wore her Halloween Cinderella dress on one day. I wish I could have done that! I plan to ask her to wear it and tell me Cinderella’s story when I visit next month.

Her favorite rides were the Tea Cups and the Ferris Wheel. I never liked the Ferris Wheel because I didn’t like getting stopped on top during the loading and unloading. This one had a cage, not like the old (ancient?) ones I remember, so maybe it would be better. But I always loved Tea Cup rides.

And it’s such fun to see how much she’s grown On her first birthday, wearing the cake was more fun than eating it!

Of course, I’m a day late in acknowledging what should have been Elvis’ 75th birthday.  I’m always late.

Jim at My Bossier has a short, sweet tribute that reminds me why I originally thought Elvis was a fine and talented performer. It’s a clip of two songs from 1954 sang on KWKH’s Louisiana Hayride show. (That’s the 2nd clip.)

The first clip is of the first time the phrase “Elvis has left the building” was used, from the same radio program a few years later.

I do not recommend One Second After as a good book to start reading by candlelight and/or a Coleman lantern when the power is out on a cold winter holiday evening.

And now that the lights are back on, I find myself not recommending the book for most other times. It’s not that it contains bad information, or that the plot couldn’t have been riveting, it’s just sappy. This kind of book should be anything but sappy.

One thing I found annoying was the author’s comparisons to the plight of the people after an EMP attack as reducing living conditions to those of medieval times. That is annoying because the situation he describes makes medieval times look good by comparison.

The message that civilization is fragile and must be guarded by those seemingly uncivilized is a difficult one to swallow. It was the same in medieval times… yet completely different because nothing ‘better’ was known.

The huge difference is that we today are not fully aware of the slippery place of civilization that protects us from the demons below. No parent in medieval times would have worried about the availability of insulin, for their diabetic child would never have lived in the first place.

There is the conundrum. The problems of the fall of civilization are due to the rise of civilization. In medieval times, civilization was new. It was not the norm for most, but rather for the few.

So… this book is not recommended for most, yet highly recommended for a few. It is up to you which group you belong to.

of someone.

Which Hogwarts house will you be sorted into?

via Tigerhawk (who I shouldn’t link because that is a much better compliment)

First is Gene Expression. Second is Assistant Village Idiot. And… I do not want my audience, however limited it may be, to think I disparage either for my monetary expenditure. I don’t call it a monetary loss because it isn’t. Sure, my pocketbook suffers, but my knowledge grows beyond that cost. Result = gain.

Currently I am reading The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, because it was recommended on Gene Expression. This follows several books I was introduced to by the Assistant Village Idiot by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Though I am susceptible to suggestions by those two bloggers, I cannot remember who/where I came across suggestions to From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present
or Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (America: a Cultural History)
– both books that I refer to often.

Do you find it odd that I do not buy books from Instapundit’s or Althouse’s link? Why do you think that is so? Personally, I think it’s because they often recommend books they have not themselves read.

Though he touched my life much less than either Farrah Fawcett or Ed McMahon, I feel almost obligated to post about him and his obviously premature death. The premature part is what sets it apart from the other two even though Farrah was also too young to die.

Farrah Fawcett had a disease that’s, in reality, impossible to defeat. While it is a shame that she got it while so young, her death was not a surprise or a puzzle. Her life was much more of an open book to the public, therefore it did not create quite the buzz that Michael Jackson has for the last 20 or so years.

Poor Michael. That’s really all I can say. He apparently had a horrendous celebrity childhood and suffered even more as an adult celebrity. It’s far too possible that he was never allowed to be human. He has my sympathy.

But… none of the three have my worship or can garner enough caring from me for more than this post, acknowledging their celebrity. Really, they were only people I did not know but had heard of. None of them, except Farrah, made the slightest bit of difference in my life and her only contribution was a determination for a few months to copy her hairstyle. Quite unsuccessfully.

If I sound harsh and cruel, then go read the obituaries in any newspaper and tell me you’d hold a candlelight memorial for any of those people you have never met and whose families you do not know.

I’m currently reading The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II and it is one of the most difficult books I’ve ever read.

Oh, it’s not overly footnoted or heavy on scientific terms. It’s just that I have about a 40 minute tolerance of the sheer human depravity depicted. It is perhaps more depraved than the holocaust, even though the numbers do not compare. Why is this so? It is because the depravity of the Rape of Nanking was much more personal.

It is the difference between industrial killing and experiencing first hand the spurt of blood and dying moan from each victim. The Nazis, though killing many more people, were not, for the most part, individually involved in the killing of individuals.

I do not mean to imply that assembly line killing is a lesser evil. It is, I think, the greater evil. What I am saying is that is does not involve as many killers and it is spared the grotesque experience of massive blood and guts. The resemblance lies in the requirement of the agreement of many people to acquiesce. The difference lies in the actions of those who acquiesce.

Is it less moral to herd prisoners onto a rail car not knowing for sure (though cognizant of the possibility) that are on their way to die or is it less moral to personally rape, tortue, disembowel, and kill a prisoner? Is there, in fact, a moral difference?

Does the fact that the more personal killing is based on the fact that the prisoners could not be fed therefore they must die (a painful and humiliating death) a more moral position than one that says the prisoners are inferior human beings and therefore must die to preserve a perceived genetic preference?

Why were the Germans prosecuted with the utmost zeal and the Japanese were prosecuted with negligible fervor after WWII?

Which do we rally against? Why has it been so much easier for most of humanity to rally against the industrial style? Is that because our governments are getting bigger and bigger and more controlling?

Or is it because it is simply easier to protest government actions than it is individual actions — even when those individual actions are at the behest of a government?

The bottom line to me seems that individual action is likely to kill fewer people but do so more gruesomely. State actions are much more efficient and bloodless thus more people are killed.

Which is better? Individual violence or government violence? That is one question. There are many others.

Bite Me!

The book is due out in the U.S. in a few days. I was fortunate to have been given a paperback of the UK release by my sister on her recent visit to the U.S. When she gave it to me, she warned “it’s gory and graphic, but I think you’ll like it.”

Gory it is. I’d give it a 10 on the gore scale as it is a book that contains chapters you might not want to read while eating. The methods of torture (not necessarily used to gain information, but used to prolong the suffering of death) aren’t new. They are likely accurate descriptions, which is more chilling than if they were made up.

What is distinctly NOT made up is the archaeology in the book. Gobekli Tepe definitely exists and the linkages between it’s location and biblical events are fairly well documented, extremely interesting, and intriguing.

Christian fundamentalists and young earth creationists are going to hate this book. While the link between Gobekli Tepe and the Yezedis is somewhat tenuous as presented, the idea of the evolution of ancient religions and myths is not. If Gobekli Tepe is “the Garden of Eden” of old, it’s certainly been upgraded many times.

It’s been well over a month since I read this book and I still find myself wondering about ideas and simple facts brought up in it. Whether you love it or hate it, this book will likely stay with you.