Hitchens on Jefferson

I like Christopher Hitchens. I don't remember where I first ran into him, but at my house my wife gets Vanity Fair and I get the Atlantic, and he writes for both every month. He is often iconclastic and outrageous, but he writes with great clarity and skill. He cites Orwell as his inspiration.

Recently he wrote a book in the Eminent Lives Series (an attempt by HarperCollins to sell small biographies/sketches of famous Americans, and to "stunt cast" the writers) on Thomas Jefferson. Hitchens, a British born American citizen with a good eye for history, was a bold choice for Jefferson.

A less than 200 page book must, by necessity, be selective in its subject matter. Hitchens goes with nine chapters on Jefferson, and picks a few topics to hammer, after the obligatory biographical facts. His favorite Jeffersonian topics are slavery, Jefferson's enthusiasm for the French, the war with the Barbary Pirates, and the Louisiana Purchase.

Hitchens manages to turn more than a few phrases that are worthy of Orwell; for example, on the Declaration of Independence, he says: "There is no other example in history, apart from the King James Version of the Bible, in which great words and concepts have been fused into poetic prose by the banal processes of a committee." Refering to Jefferon's cutting and pasting the holy book with a razor blade to compose the Jefferson Bible, "throwing away the superfluous, ridiculous, and devotional parts, " he notes parenthetically that "This is an exercise that I have long wanted to repeat in the case of the multi-volume hagiography of Jefferson himself, penned so laboriously by Dumas Malone."

Hitchens is particlarly good when he analyzes the unconstitutional audacity of the Louisiana Purchase, and in telling the tale of the Barbary Pirates. (Obviously this is why the New York Times hired him to review some books on that topic). He could probably be accused of being a bit too topical on with respect to the campaign against the Muslim pirates, pointing out reverse Abu Ghraib prisons in which American captives were tortured (really tortured), and the rationale of the Ambassador of Tripoli, who, when asked by Jefferson and Jay to for the authority under which he demanded "tribute" (protection) payments, said "it was written in their Koran, that all nations who have not answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners."

Jefferson is too big to cover in one book unless you are Dumas Malone, whose "book" is six volumes. The only Jefferson biographies I have read are those of Fawn Browdie, who mainly cared about Sally, and Willard Sterne Randall, who went on at great length about Jefferson's law practice but gave short shrift to his presidency. Hitchens' book is a nice piece of work, on a par with "American Sphinx." It is a good, brief read that will get you thinking.

New Orleans

Internet comment threads are generally worthless; 15 year olds, basking in anonymity, usually take them offtopic and turn them into flamewars. A major exception to this rule is Slashdot. Slashdot comments are moderated by readers, so the moronic posts are relegated to not being shown. Plus, the average poster is pretty smart.

With those thoughts in mind, here is today's Slashdot thread on New Orleans, "9 Weeks to Pump Out New Orleans?" If you have twenty minutes or so, scroll down and read the posts that interest you, and you will know more about the situation than you would after twenty hours of watching TV reports.

No time? Here are some high points in the thread-- I may not agree with all of them, but they are worth reading: This post describes the geologic predicament of New Orleans. This post argues that it may be time to abandon the City. This post suggests raising the entire City, as was done in Chicago in the 19th Century. There are lots of posts against federal aid for disaster recipients; this post takes them on and argues in favor of such aid. This post blames the Bush administration for the unpreparedness. (This strikes me as likely preposterous, since the levees have been underfunded and sinking for years, but its interesting to see where politics are getting injected). Finally, this post (and some excellent followups) brings the disaster, possibily the most serious natural disaster in the history of the Country, into focus.

Memoirs of a Music Man

This is a great, long article by David Segal, who recently retired from the position of pop music critic at the Washington Post. It is worth a read-- I particularly enjoyed the parts about Guided by Voices.

William of Occam

Mac OS X has a built-in copy of the Oxford American Dictionary. I had not had a chance to play with it until last night. I typed in William to see a list of biographical entries with that name, and the one that jumped out was "William of Occam." Here is the entry:

( c. 1285–1349), English philosopher and Franciscan friar. A defender of nominalism, he is known for the maxim called “Occam's razor.”

Wikipedia has an extremely detailed entry on Occam's razor, which I have always understood to be: The simplest explanation is usually the best. The entry on William of Occam (or Ockham) himself is much shorter but is also interesting. The Wikipedia article links to a better brief biographical essay from the University of St. Andrews, which has the following quote from the Dictionary of National Biography:

".. with the revival of interest in late medieval thought that took place in the second half of the twentieth century, Ockham has re-emerged as one of the major figures of scholastic thought, generally ranked on the level of Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus. And from the standpoint of the philosophy of the 1980s and 1990s, Ockham's interest in terminist logic, linguistic theory, and semiotics has placed him in the forefront of those medieval thinkers used as sources in contemporary philosophical discussion."

Something to think about next time you hear about "Occam's Razor."

Virginia Blog Summit

The first annual Virginia Blog Summit was held on Saturday in Charlottesville. It was oriened towards political blogs. Steve Minor mentioned it to me when I met him last month. (As both a newbie and a culture and history blogger I didn't consider attending). Here are the two best early posts, both by Jim Bacon (the most prominent Virginia internet figure) about the summit I have read so far-- first post; second post. This page seems to me like it is the most valuable byproduct of the summit-- it is the attendance list with links to the attendee's blogs.

Nationals

I saw the Washington Nationals play the Reds yesterday at RFK Stadium. As a lifelong Redskins fan, I wanted to see something there before it is torn down. Here is a Washington Post history page on RFK. The Nationals are scheduled to move to this new stadium in 2008.

Historical Analogy: Barbary Pirates and Islamic Terrorists

I have seen this analogy used from time to time, but this Christopher Hitchens book review in the New York Times reminded me of an earlier American fight against unconnected cells of Muslims. Major US figures in this "War on Privateers" included Jefferson and Washington. One of the early post 9-11 references to this historical parallel was this excellent article in the Washington Post from October 15 2001.

Safety and Smith Mountain Lake

My job usually involves defending people who are sued in personal injury cases. From long years of litigating such cases I have become interested in safety and accident prevention. So when I see an article like this it makes me want to publicize it. It looks like the couple who were killed were very fine people. According to this article, the person who was driving the other boat was convicted of reckless operation of a boat and eluding police just last year. Smith Mountain Lake is very dangerous; it is crowded, a lot of the boaters are drunk, and injuries around and in water have a lot more potential for death than other injuries. I know the view is nice on the lake, but I'll stay on shore whenever I visit.

EDIT: Check out the message board posts about the lake on the Roanoke Times website.

Mount Vernon

I'm 37 and have lived in Virginia since I was a year old but until today I had not been to Mount Vernon. It was great; the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association has very knowledgeable guides and the agricultural/plantation exhibits were extremely well done. I also appreciated the "guides in every room" approach to getting through the house. Here is the wikipedia link. The Potomac River setting is striking; if there is a better view from a home in the Country I would be shocked.

Wikipediaing Virginians

One of the reasons I started blogging (lo these three weeks ago) was to hype the Wikipedia. Here's a post from Southwest Virginia Law Blog concerning a new entry on Virginian C. Bascom Slemp, Congressman for the Ninth District of Virginia. Good job for whoever posted that; I hope all my readers will contribute an entry for something they know about.

Virginia Traveling

We drove to Bethesda today. We left I-66 and went through The Plains, (The Plains Wikipedia entry), in Fauquier County, then took Highway 50 over to Middleberg, in Loudon County. This is the ritiziest of ritzy horse country; it puts Albermarle County to shame. Middleberg is the home of the Red Fox Inn, longest continuously operated inn in the United States. Middleberg is a picture-postcard colonial town, right up there with Fincastle, Lexington and Abington in the short catalog of frozen-in-time Virginiana. It is characterized by a great deal of stone construction, rather than the more standard Virginia brick.

The drive on 50 from The Plains to Middleburg was particularly pleasant given the I-81 traffic before we hit 66. I-81 has become a travel disaster area; we had 2 20 mile periods of 20-40 MPH driving, just north of Lexington and again near I-66, which were apparently caused by tractor-trailers passing each other on long hills. I-50 was also pleasantly rural; there were a number of signs commemorating conservation easements. Good for those counties and their far-sighted citizens. Of course, I will spare you a description of the drive from about 5 miles from Middleberg to Bethesda-- suffice it to say that the beltway and its environs are now completely nuts even at 4:00 on a Sunday afternoon in August.

The Summer of Oasis and Blur

Its hard to believe this was ten years ago. The link goes to a pretty good article on the high point of 90s British pop in 1995.

Capability Brown

Yesterday I ran across Lancelot "Capability" Brown in Sir Roy Strong's "Story of Britain." (You may recall from an earlier post that Sir Roy's one volume history only rarely stops to take heed of a non-royal person; since the ones in that post he has added Sir Isaac Newton, Oliver Cromwell and now Mr. Brown.) Brown was England's greatest landscape designer; he was the primary reason English country estates switched from the formal, Versailles-style French garden to the more naturalistic "serpentine lakes" and "clumps of trees with sweeping vistas" look. His gardens at Blenheim and Kew still survive.

Now when somebody mentions landscape architects at a cocktail party I will know of one besides Fredrick Law Olmstead, designer of Central Park and the grounds at the Biltmore Estate.

The Powell Memorandum

There was a piece on NPR this morning about a liberal attempt to unite the diverse interests of progressives. In comparing these efforts to those of conservatives,the piece discussed the "Powell Memorandum," a letter from Lewis F. Powell Jr., written about a year before President Nixon named him to the Supreme Court. The Powell Memorandum (also known as the "Powell Manifesto") is probably the most important (and certainly the most influential) piece of political theory to come out of Virginia since Jefferson and Madison walked the earth.

Here is a fairly long piece of analysis on the Manifesto and its effects that is worth reading; although it has a bet of lefty editorializing it seems to be ultimately fair and correct. Here's an excerpt: "The American economic system is under broad attack," the manifesto began. The assault was "gaining momentum and converts" in centers of influence -- "perfectly respectable elements of society who shaped opinion: from the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual community...and from politicians." Powell's language was baldly militant. American business had to use "confrontational politics"..."to stop suffering in impotent silence, and launch a counter-attack." Business had to learn, he wrote, "that political power is necessary; that such power must be assiduously cultivated; and that, when necessary, it must be used aggressively..." As for Ralph Nader and his ilk, "There should be no reluctance to penalize politically those who oppose [the system]."

Whether or not you agree with it, the Powell Manifesto is a bold piece of writing. Clearly, if John Roberts had written something like it he wouldn't have even been nominated to the Supreme Court.

The Great Henrico County ibook riot

Here's the CNN take on this: Henrico County sold its used G3 ibooks this morning at the Richmond International Speedway for $50 each. (The system is switching to Dells; good luck). Anyway, the computers they were selling routinely go for $300 or more on ebay. Needless to say, there was a riot. Here's a characteristically blunt but accurate slashdot post with the correct analysis of the situation.

(Disclaimer: My new ibook was delivered yesterday).

Lincoln Cathedral

Nine years ago this summer my wife and I went to Lincoln, England on a weekend during our ten day London honeymoon. We rented a car for a weekend trip to Lincoln and York. We were so impressed with Lincoln we cancelled our York reservations and stayed in Lincoln an extra night. We were the only Americans in town; even the tourists there were English. The town is dominated by a hill, which is dominated by a beautiful cathedral and a Roman Fortress/William the Conquerer Castle that was later converted into a Victorian Prison.

This story leads me to believe that Lincoln's era of obscurity is about to come to an end. Lincoln is most likely destined to be swamped with tourists soon. Too bad; particularly in service to a movie made from a mediocre novel.

Tristram Shandy Redux

I'm not trying to turn this blog into Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, or into "My Favorite Tristram Shandy Quotes"... but before I put the Randall Jefferson bio back on the shelf I thought I would copy out one more Shandy quote; one that Jefferson copied into his Literary Commonplace Book while a student at William and Mary. Being middle aged; it hits me right in the solar plexus:

Time wastes too fast; every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity life follows my pen; the days and hours of it, more precious, my dear Jenny, than the rubies about thy neck... Every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, and every absence which follows it, are preludes to that eternal separation which we are shortly to make...

Hold yourself accountable for the wasted hours.

David Buschman

My friend David Buschman has just gone live with a new website containing his artwork. Dave is a reniassance man who lives in New York City; he's a Washington and Lee Graduate (a "seven year man" with undergrad and law degrees); a Baltimore native and a securities attorney. He is well-traveled, well-read, witty and literate and a hell of a good artist and it is an honor to know him. Please check out www.davidbuschman.com as soon as you can.

Current Reading List

It's been over a week since I posted a book review; sorry. The problem is that I'm in the middle of three books, and there's no hope of finishing one any time soon. The first is one I've blogged on a bit already; Sir Roy Strong's The Story of Britain. That's an audiobook on the ipod-- no long drives this week and only a couple of gym visits.

I'm also reading Tristram Shandy (aka "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman") by Laurence Sterne. Apparently it was Thomas Jefferson's favorite book. He called it "the best course of morality that was ever written."* Jefferson and his wife read it aloud to each other; when she was dying Patty Jefferson picked up a pen and wrote lines from it from memory.** I am enjoying it very much; it consists of an endless series of very funny digressions. Every time I pick it up I think it gives me an excellent blog entry; here is today's:

"It is the nature of an hypothesis, when once a man has conceived it, that is assimilates every thing to itself, as proper nourishment; and from the first moment of your begetting it, it generally grows the stronger by every thing you see, hear, read or understand. This is of great use."***


Finally, I am reading Virginius Dabney's Virginia: The New Dominion. A nicely done one volume history of the Commonwealth. I'm in the early 17th certury; my stongest impression so far is that Mr. Dabney seems to have a fixation on the sadistic characteristics of the Native Americans; on two occasions they have scraped the flesh off of unfortunate live English colonists with oyster shells.


* Willard Sterne Randall, Thomas Jefferson, a Life at 68.
** Id. at 347-8
*** Tristram Shandy, Modern Library Ed. 1950 at 156. Here is the page in Google Print, which is a different edition than mine.

The Best Obituary I've Ever Read

British obituaries are a lot better than American ones. They are remarkably clear eyed and free of decorum, sympathy and pathos. Read this-- its like a whole novel in about twenty short paragraphs. I found a link to it in a good Slate piece by Jack Shaffer about negative book reviews.

This is hard to believe

Giant waterfall discovered in California national park When you consider all of today's satellite and aerial maps*, the population density, and the ever-increasing volume of "outdoor enthusiasts," it seems incredible that a 400 foot waterfall in a national park could have been a secret until 2005. Great article.

*To give you an idea of the pervasiveness and easy availability of mapping, heres a link to a satellite image of the Whiskeytown National Recreational Area, courtesy of the amazing Google Maps.

The Best Sportswriter in America

This is Gregg Easterbrook's NFL column. It is now on NFL.com; it originated in Slate and later moved to ESPN. It is a sterling example of what an active and interesting mind can do with unlimited internet print. In years past, the column has been called "Tuesday Morning Quarterback" (it comes out on Tuesday Morning during the season). The one I linked to is a "special offseason edition." Enjoy it.

Antique License Plate Scam: Followup

This was taken this morning on Day Avenue in Roanoke. The photographer, Peter Vieth, emailed it with this note: "Enjoyed your post about antique vehicle tags. Here’s the poster child for antique tag abuse." Thanks to Peter for the evidence.

Linking to itunes

This is a test of a direct link to itunes. It links to the new Rolling Stones single. I hope to be able to link directly to itunes when discussing music-- I find such a link to be a whole lot less disruptive than an Amazon link to a page that may or may not contain a song sample. For example, in one of my posts last week I recommended that you go to itunes to download the original "New York" versions of Tangled up in Blue and Idiot Wind. Now I can send you there if you want to go. Interestingly, last week I spent an hour or so trying to figure out how to direct link in this manner, and I read all sorts of horribly complicated explantions; then this morning I right-clicked on a song in itunes and it gave me the option to "copy itunes music store URL."

By the way; I'd be interested to know if itunes as ubiquitous as I think it is-- comment if you dont have it or use it.

EDIT: The test worked-- the links work well, although they do gin up some security precautions.

Lesser Varieties of Religious Experience

There is a a recent article in the "Journal of Consumer Research" called Religiosity in the Abandoned Apple Newton Brand Community (Link is to an abstract). This is a link to the PDF of the entire paper. Take a look at the paper for a minute or two; it is worth a glance for its off-putting and uncomfortable mix of marketing and academic jargon, and its often laugh-out-loud attempts to shoehorn committed hobby-fanatic speak into "religion." The parts about "motifs" and "magico-religious metaphors and imagery" remind me of George Lucas's bogus project to retroactively turn his space-western into a Joseph Campbell myth. The writers could have much more easily found parallels between fandom and religion by taking a look at serious sports fans (i.e. Red Sox fans).

How the web is changing TV

A couple of years ago, I realized that I pretty much had read the morning papers, on the internet, at 9 PM the night before. Some wire stories in the Roanoke Times are even two days old. The nightly newscasts have the same feel. CNN's The Situation Room looks like an attempt by TV to catch up with the web. Oddly enough, most of my exposure to CNN is now on the radio in the car-- there is a live simulcast on XM channel 122.

Helmet Laws

This is always a great topic-- should government be paternalistic; or should it grant everyone the freedom to bash their skulls in? Here are the stats from the Florida Helmet law repeal. Fatalities in Florida increased more than 81 percent, and the number of deaths for riders younger than 21 nearly tripled. That's pretty serious stuff. I saw a lot of motorcycles today on a drive today to and from Abington (Virginia has a helmet law) and noted that about every motorcyclist I saw was wearing one of these "beanie helmets." This incredibly forthright Harley Dealer (scroll down) says that such helmets provide "absolutely no protection at all."

Hanging Rock Battlefield Trail

Took a hike yesterday at the Hanging Rock battlefield trail. It starts out really nice along Peters Creek through a shady gorge; unfortunately it crosses I-81. So you get natural beauty with the roar of a million tractor trailers. I also had the impression that a few of the trail markers were missing or vandalized. I hadn't heard much about the Hanging Rock battle; it was at the end of Hunter's Raid, which anyone from Lexington knows about. Apparently Jubal Early's cavalry overttook Hunter's retreating supply chain and took a few artillery pieces in the "Battle of Hanging Rock."

Bigfoot Wallace

The finest publication in the Commonwealth (internet or print) is the Rockbridge Advocate, a monthly print-only publication from Lexington edited and published by Doug Harwood. Every issue is a perfect blend of local (Lexington, Buena Vista and Rockbridge County) politics (often development-related), true crime, W&L and VMI news, and history. In this month's issue Doug starts a three-issue serialization of an excerpt from a 1871 book by John C. Duval called "The Adventures of Big-Foot Wallace, Texas Ranger and Hunter." William "Bigfoot" Wallace was a Lexington native who left for Texas at age 19 and became legendary for his prowess as an Indian and Mexican fighter. The except from the book concerns Wallace's only return trip to Lexington, after the Mexican war. Alas, Google Print has not scanned it yet so I can't share it here.

Virginians, take note: There are generally considered to be three larger than life 19th Century Texans who "defined" Texas: Bigfoot Wallace, Sam Houston, and Davy Crockett. Wallace and Houston were both from Rockbridge County, Virginia-- Wallace's father's farm was in Lexington, Houston's cabin was a couple of miles northeast of Lexington.

Wikipedia to tighten editorial rules

According to the founder of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia is going to crack down on vandalism. In my post about my wikipedia entry, I noted that anybody (I think I said "any idiot") can change a wikipedia post. From the article: "Citing a recent example of vandalism, Wales recalled how following the election of the new Pope Benedict in April, a user substituted the pontiff's photo on the Wikipedia site with that of the evil emperor from the Star Wars film series." It will be interesting to see how this kind of thing gets stopped, or if it can get stopped. Here's a slashdot thread on the crackdown-- as I post, it is just getting underway, but I expect it will be good, and funny.

Virginia Antique License Plate Scam

Virginia allows its citizens to put antique license plates on their vehicles that are over 25 years old. : Supposedly, such plates are only issued "If you plan to use your antique vehicle or trailer solely as a collector's item." You are then allowed to "1. Participat[e] in antique car club activities, exhibits, tours, parades, and similar events, and 2. Test its operation, obtain repairs or maintenance, transportation to and from events as described in number 1 above and for the occasional pleasure driving not to exceed 250 miles from your residence. You may not, however, use your vehicle for general, daily transportation." The Code of Virginia (§ 46.2-730) says the one time fee is $10. $10, incidentally, is the same price you pay to get a replacement plate on a regular, non-antique car.

Not unpredictably, I think these things are being abused. I passed a beat up old pre-1980 Chevy Pickup this morning with antique plates. I guarantee you that the driver wasn't headed to a parade; and given the work tools in the back of the truck, I don't think this was a pleasure drive. This guy knows that the antique plate law is unenforceable, and so he got to pay a one time $10 "antique" fee rather than the standard, annual registration fee of at least $30. I'm not certain, but I think he's also getting out of annual safety inspections.The code allows you to get antique plates and use the car regularly if you annually register and inspect the car AND put the current decals on the license plate; however, I have yet to see an antique with such decals. I have, however, seen a couple of "antique," unregistered and (I think) uninspected Chevy Vegas, Ford Pintos, and other "classics" on the roads of the Commonwealth. What a scam.

Freakonomics

I just finished Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt, University of Chicago Economist, and Stephen J. Dubner (name in slightly smaller print); New York Times credited Ghostwriter. Some of the stuff in the book is great; the book itself is slightly disappointing but worth a read (although I'd wait for the paperback).

The moral of the book is (a) correlation does not equal causation, or, more interestingly, (b) "conventional wisdom" is not wisdom at all, in fact, (crediting John Kenneth Galbraith), conventional wisdom must be "simple, convenient, comfortable, and comforting-- through not necessarily true." (p.90)

Levitt is portrayed in the book as a wacky, eccentric icononclast. I bet he's probably more of a geeky, odd Professor, but either way he is all about, as the cliche goes, "thinking out of the box."

Levitt's first big splash was his paper concerning the fact that the crime rate drop in the mid-90s was due to Roe v. Wade. He says that legalized abortion resulted in a fewer criminals. He (and his credited ghostwriter) are well aware of the potential for outrage on this, so they spend at least as much time apologizing for the conclusion as they do explaining it.

Other conventional-wisdom shattering stuff in the book (and I'm not giving it away, its on the book jacket and in the introduction) includes: 1) Its 100x more dangerous to have a swimming pool than it is to have a gun in the house; 2) standardized testing (aka the Virginia "Standards of Learning Tests" mandated by "No Child Left Behind" federal laws) encouranges teachers to cheat; 3) the "Manhattan miracle" attiributed to Mayor Guiliani and Chief Bratton (and their "broken window" theory of policing) was actually attributable to simply hiring more police, and 4) crack dealers don't get rich-- actually, they are often no better off than McDonald's salespeople, with a higher mortality rate. There are more nuggets about real estate agents and Klansmen, too.

The best part of the book, for me, was the chapter about parenting. You'd be surprised about the correlation/ causation fallacies in parenting. My favorite is this: there IS NOT a correlation between high test scores and the fact that the child's parents read to him every day. But there IS a correlation between high test scores and the fact that the child has many books in his home. (Think about why; you can probably figure it out). The book also gets into the "black-sounding name" debate-- Levitt is clearly not afraid to hop on third rails to see where they take him.

Again, the book has a bunch of good stuff; it is worth reading. However, it is never particularly coherent; it leaps all around. It has some great facts, and it suggests a new way to think critically, but it is ultimately too disjointed to be particularly satisfying. It seems like a great magazine article, padded out. Some of the Amazon reviewers think the same thing-- so here is the original New York Times Magazine piece by the authors.

SW Virginia law blog

Thanks to Steve Minor for his kind mention on his SW Virginia law blog. Welcome if you followed his link. I met Steve and his partner Jim Elliott last week at an excellent seminar they taught on Zoning and Land Use in Virginia. Like Steve, I am a lawyer; however, I'll rely on Steve for SW Virginia Law Blogging and try to stick to books, Virginiana, music, and technology when it intersects with those things, at least for a while. Thanks for checking me out.

Broadband Users, Technology Optimists Watch Less TV

This is interesting. Obviously, I'm a technology optimist. I've had broadband for about 4 years and have basically stopped watching TV.

Big Sprawling Post Modern Novel Thread

Is right here. No blog of mine is going to ignore Pynchon, Stephenson, Calvino and Eco for long.

Great Slashdot post on the Space Shuttle

Discovery's Dangling Gapfiller Removed by Hand I agree with this 100%-- the Shuttle is a lemon.

Inigo Jones

I'm listening to Sir Roy Strong's The Story of Britain on the ipod. It is very well done; a masterpiece of concision. I'm at about 1650 and getting ready for Charles' head to roll. So far, Black has dedicated chapters to four non-royal men-- and in a book with this much material you need to be pretty important to warrant your own chapter. The men are: Chaucer, William Tyndale, Shakespeare, and Inigo Jones. I knew the name from books on London, but I was totally unfamilar with his work in stage design-- he invented movable scenery and the proscenium arch. Here's a link to the Wikipedia entry on Jones-- an excellent example of a really good but brief article with links to his most important designs.

Today's Drive

Today I had a small trial in Henry County. I took Route 220 South, historically the "Carolina Road," south from Roanoke.
The pictured Marker is near the Franklin/Roanoke County Line; it says CAROLINA ROAD-- Here, through the Maggoty Gap, the Great Wagon Road from Philadephia to Georgia, known locally as the Carolina Road, passes through the Blue Ridge. Originating as the Great Warrior Paths of the Iroquois centuries before, the path was frequently used by the Iroquis before being ceded to the whites in 1744 to become one of the most heavily traveled roads in all Colonial America.

Route 220 took a lot of work to build and there are a lot of steep cuts, all of which are covered in kudzu. Here's a great page about Kudzu, which notes that the CCC paid farmers $8 an acre to plant it in the 30s. Now it is viewed as a pestilential weed, which serves as a natural example of the law of unintended consequences. I should also note that I saw a lot of dead kudzu, particularly in the Collinsville town limits in Henry County-- perhaps the herbicides have gotten more potent than the ones discussed in the linked article.

Snapshot of the Metaverse, July 2005

Take a look at this Slate article. The writer discovered an attempt to create an "internet sex hoax." The short-lived hoax, which was elaborately planned on a couple of message boards, involved use of the Wikipedia, and ended up with old fashioned telephone threats. What a zoo.

Ipod Shuffle Screed August 1

I have a 30 gig ipod; one of the older pre-click wheel ones like the one in the picture. The mass of journalism and hype about the ipod has generally missed what makes it great. The ipod takes something you already own, your music, and makes it incredibly easy to access and enjoy. Anyone who calls it the "new walkman" totally misses the point. Its' the new walkman' only in the sense that it is a headphone-using music player. The walkman could only play one cassette at at time. The greatness of the ipod is not what it is; rather its greatness is what it does. I haven't bought more than 50 songs from the itunes store, but I have ripped about 4,200 songs from my own CDs (and maybe even a few I don't own). Assuming 15 songs an album (which is generous) that's 280 albums. When you have 280 albums that you like on one gadget, that's revolutionary and a real source of pleasure. Like the best radio station you ever heard.

Tonight while pulling weeds in the twilight and getting bitten by mosquitos I put the ipod on "shuffle songs." I've read several accounts of the creepy way the ipod on shuffle often "reads its user's mind" and hits upon a perfect chain of songs. Somebody wrote about the phenomenon this week in the New York Times. Mine did tonight. My ipod "picked" mostly 60's rock /early 70's American rock, which constitues considerably less than 10% of the ipod's contents.

Here's what I listened to in about an hour-- all on "shuffle songs:"

Mama Tried from "Grateful Dead"-- live version of the Merle Haggard song. Classic Americana. Read the Lyrics.
Helpless by Sugar (Copper Blue). Nice Bob Mould chestnut from the early 90s.
Carry On -- live version by Crosby Stills Nash & Young from 4 Way Street, 14:19. That rarest of things; a great instrumental jam that's not too long. One of the few groups aside from the Allmans who can pull this sort of thing off.
Sandusky-- Uncle Tupelo from March 16-20 1992 (instrumental)
Why Should I Care-- Beck Bogart and Appice. As per usual for Jeff Beck, a throwaway third rate song with incredible, impossible to duplicate multiple-track guitar.
Slide Away-- Oasis from Definitely Maybe-- tonight's hidden gem. (Hidden Gem: when listening to a huge shuffle, about 1 in every 10 or 12 songs you find a track buried somewhere on an album you never noticed before in the context of the original album-- this one is tonight's. Oasis was as good as the hype for their first 2 albums; maybe better.
Here I Go-- Eugenius from Ooomalama. Eugenius was allegedly Kurt Cobain's favorite bad-- kind of acidic sweet pop. I've never seen another Eugenius album aside from the ones I .
Long Time Gone-- live by Crosby Stills Nash & Young from 4 Way Street -- tonight's weird coincidence second track from one album-- from 4500 songs, what are the odds of that?
Hawaiian Island World by World Party from Private Revolution-- runner up for hidden gem.
The Very Thing that Makes You Rich Makes Me Poor-- Ry Cooder from Bop Till You Drop-- Best track of the night; a brilliant tour de force of perfect guitar and vocal. It may be the best JJ Cale song ever and JJ had nothing to do with it.
Funeral in My Brain by the Wayfaring Strangers from Shifting Sands of Time-- just got a bit of this before the bug bites ran me inside. This is a terrific, genre-defying record. You can find it on itunes listed under "country," which is dead wrong. Check it out.

That was all I listened to. Next would have been U-2 Schnieder by Bowie from Heroes.

Blood on the Tracks (1975)

This is the finest essay I have read on Blood on the Tracks (1975). Emails are trickling in about it from the book review below. I have this page favorite-placed on my computer at home and I return to it every few months. It gets a little guitar-technical near the end, but I think it nails the record, which is, for my money, at the height of pop culture beside Revolver, Let It Bleed, The Queen is Dead, and a few others.

Wikipedia Article

This is (so far) the definitive magazine article on Wikipedia. It's well worth a read.

Google Books

Check this out: I googled the word "Virginian" to make sure that I had not misspelled it (the Blogger spell-check does not seem to be working for me; another downside to not using Internet Explorer) and I found this. It is the beta test of Google Print, which allows a web user to search books. As you can see from the link, it contains a full, scanned, print version of the novel "The Virginian," which I have never read. When you click the "next page" button it takes you to the next page; however it seems to stop after about 3 pages. I'm sure this is to encourage you to buy the book (links are provided). However, you can also just type in the page number you want and get the next batch of pages. I did not try to do it, but I think I could read the whole book online. Wow.

About Google Print (contains an FAQ).