Blogging is bad for Economic Development

This is interesting, in a creepy way. In a "sponsored link" on Bacon's Rebellion, a Richmond-based economic development guru expresses her dismay that marketing can be disturbed by bloggers. Of course, if you think it is not necessarily a bad thing to have marketing disturbed, you could disagree. Of course there are nutty bloggers; but there are nutty marketers too. I'll vote for the bloggers having the freedom and ability to opine, and the wisdom of the readers to sort it out.

King Tobacco Deposed

Soybeans, and not tobacco, were Virginia's #1 cash crop in 2004. Neither the linked Times-Dispatch article nor the site of the Virginia Agricultural Statistics service contains historical information, but I would imagine that there are no more than a handful of the last four hundred years in which tobacco has not been #1 in the Commonwealth. Here is a pretty decent one page history of tobacco growing in Virginia.

Thanks to Waldo Jaquith, whose link led me to this story.

Thanksgiving, Jefferson and Nihilism

This is a good post I stumbled across on the website of a politically conservative Apple zealot (a rare bird indeed). The post starts off with a screed inspired by an email about Thanksgiving being a celebration of genocide. Then (and this is why I posted it) he branches off into a tangent about jokes about Jefferson and Sally Hemings. The fact that the jokes exist is not troubling to me; I don't think that the topic is (or should be) off limits. The problem is that the jokes are on their way to becoming the main thing we (that is, our culture) remember about Jefferson. That's no good at all.

Welcome to Virginia

This is the current 50 year old design of the "Welcome to Virginia" highway sign. VDOT has some suggested new signs at this site and is taking a vote. I'm not crazy about any of them (I'd rather see an architectural theme-- (UVa grounds, Williamsburg, Monticello, Mt Vernon, Stratford Hall, &c); but of the ones suggested I'd have to go with the one with the ship-- it fits in best with the 400th anniversary of Jamestown and it is the least ugly.

Infinite Jest

After about a month and a half of steady reading, I finished David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest . (900 pages, with over 100 pages of small-print end notes). Like most great novels, Infinite Jest is about human nature. Infinite Jest’s human nature angle is a pessimistic look at addiction and at the broken people who become addicts. There are plenty of ways for future addicts to be broken; Most of the addicts in Infinite Jest were broken in childhood; mostly by means of abuse or incest.

One of the protagonists, Hal Incandenza, is an exception to the abuse or incest rule; he is a top-ranked junior tennis pro who is apparently addicted to marijuana and kodiak (and, perhaps, to a more sinister hallucinogen that came from a household mold he ate as a child.) Hal is the son of a dead alcoholic (who lives in the novel via flashback) who was also a genius inventor and a cult filmmaker. Hal attends a top level tennis academy, populated by a cast of eccentric athletes who squeeze tennis balls and cheat on their urine tests.

Down the hill from the Tennis academy is Ennett House, a halfway house for drug addicts. We get to know eight or ten of the addicts pretty well, and their horrendous personal stories, and their lives of petty crime and cruelty and abuse. Some of the best scenes in the book take place in AA and NA meetings; which, in spite of their many absurdities, actually work pretty often. The principal addict character is Don Gately, a painkiller addict who is shot and horribly wounded and who cannot, of course, take any painkillers. Gately’s pain and hallucinations are incredibly vivid, and the stories of his pre-sobriety binges and criminal acts are some of the standout pieces in the book.

Oddly enough, the novel is set in a dystopian future, mostly in Boston, in which the US has annexed Mexico and Canada and turned the northeast into a waste dump. In order the raise funds, the Organization of North American Nations (ONAN) sells “naming rights” to years-- most of the book takes place in the “Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment.” In a way, then, the book is “science fiction;” but it is science fiction in the way that early Vonnegut is science fiction-- part of the setting but in no way integral to the characters. Wallace sets the book in the future for three reasons; (he wrote it in 1996); one was a need to have an internet terminal in every home, capable of playing movies on high-def cartridges (It turns out that one of the cult filmmaker’s films is addictive, so addictive that a viewer will cut his or her own fingers off in order to watch it again), the second is the need to set in motion a plot by a group of anti-ONAN Canadian separatists; and the third is an underlying environmentalist theme; the giant wasteland (formerly New England) is continually refilled with giant catapulted dumpsters and (if rumors are true) giant hydrocephalic babies and bordered by deformed, mutated Nucks.

The book is huge and sprawling and aggravating. It has a million dead ends; some of them pay off and some of them don't. (Apparently Wallace and his editor cut 500 pages out of the manuscript.) I have always had trouble with these great sprawling books (I’ve started Gravity’s Rainbow and Ulysses 3 or 4 times each, never finishing either); and I am very pleased with my reading discipline in getting through this one. It was well worth it for the understanding I gained about drug addicts and AA. I’d say this is one of the very few books I've read that I will probably re-read.

Here is the Wikipedia entry for Infinite Jest. The web resources at the bottom of the wikipedia page are particularly good.

Books Famous People Loved in College

From Slate. I enjoy reading these lists. Personally I'd probably go with Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Absalom, Absalom! and All the King's Men.

Rubber Soul at 40

The Beatles' album Rubber Soul was released in December of 1965, 40 years ago. (US release 12-6-65). Rubber Soul is clearly one of the top 10 records ever released; and it is not even the best Beatles record. I came to the Beatles late and did not comprehend their greatness until after the CDs came out in 1987; since the CDs are configured with the British track order I'm a little repulsed by the US/Capital version of Rubber Soul that opens with "I've Just Seen a Face" instead of "Drive My Car," the greatest opening track on any album ever recorded (and I LOVE "I've Just Seen a Face", incidentally).

Nat Turner

This is a very nice and concise piece from American Heritage on Nat Turner. I was not familiar with the details of the treatment of his remains.

I shamelessly lifted this excellent link from the great Steve Minor at Southwest Virginia Law Blog.

Berry Hill

This is a nice Washington Post piece on Berry Hill, a "plantation" in South Boston that actually lives up to the stereotypes-- a huge, lavish house with breathtaking grounds. The place is beautiful. I stayed there three Christmases ago (I think it has opened and closed twice since then). I hope they can make a go of it this time. Here is the official site, and here is a direct link to the History page of the official site.

The recent story of the house and grounds is that AXA, an international insurance conglomerate, purchased the plantation in the mid-90s to use it as a corporate retreat. Here is a stray PDF I found on the website of the consulting engineer-- it was called AXA University. AXA completely refurbished the house, adding first class dining facilities, a 100 room hotel (hidden from view) and an indoor pool, then they decided not to use it and sold it to some local folks, who then sold it to Marriott, who has since sold it to someone else. It now appears to be owned by an outfit called "Benchmark Hospitality International." Given South Boston's non-proximity to an airport, they may have a tough time doing enough business to keep a resort going. I wish them good luck, and I recommend the place highly.

NOTE: This piece was modified after Eric Monday recalled the history of the AXA ownership and emailed me with details-- thanks very much Eric--

Why the New Yorker DVD feels like microfiche

According to this Wall Street Journal Article (probably accessible for free this week only); the New Yorker DVD uses scans of the original pages to get around copyright law, which allows re-publication of articles in their "original print context," but does not allow republication in a new and different format without compensation to the original writer. As I have pointed out before, a by-product of this method is ability to see every single original page. with cartoons and ads. The downside is an inability to copy and paste and search all of the actual text. As a computer geek would say, the inability to get to the text itself is "not a bug, its a feature."

John Fowles Dies at 79

John Fowles died this week. Here is the New York Times obituary. He wrote "The French Lieutenant's Woman," which is one of my favorite books. Here is the original 1969 New York Times review. I like historical fiction, and The French Lieutenant's woman is a novel about Victorian England as told by a writer who is not afraid to butt in and give a digressive lecture, on about any topic, right in the middle of things. The lectures/digressions are excellent-- there are several on the nature of the Victorians, and there are others on the nature of writing, and on the interpretation of history, and on Darwin. The book is great; don't be put off by all of the highfalutin' literary criticism of it as "postmodern;" the clarity and frankness of the writing is George Orwell quality.

Governor of Virginia

The Wikipedia is updated very quickly. Tim Kaine's entry is up to date; so is the entry for Governor of Virginia. Mr. Kaine will be the Commonwealth's 77th Governor. Because of renovations to the captial in Richmond, Mr. Kaine will be the third governor (after #1 Patrick Henry and #2 Thomas Jefferson) inaugurated in Williamsburg. Here is an outdated page from the Library of Virginia concering the history of Virginia inaugurations.

Remember, remember the fifth of November

Here is a fine piece on Guy Fawkes day by John Derbyshire. The article ends with some fit comparisons between the Gunpowder Plot and today's Islamic terrorism. On November 5, 1605 Fawkes, a Catholic in a time of horrific persecution of Catholics, attempted to blow up the House of Lords with thirty-odd barrels of gunpowder, while James II was present. Later, the anniversary of Fawkes' attempt became a commemoration day also known as Gunpowder Treason Day or Pope's Day.

Here is an article about the celebration of Guy Fawkes Day in Colonial America, and here is an oath administered to the Jamestown settlers in 1607 which was pretty clearly inspired by the Gunpowder plot and the general anti-Catholic sentiments of the time.

Dopes United Against Google Print

Patricia Schroeder, one of the worst Democratic members of Congress in my lifetime, has joined forces with Bob Barr, one of the worst Republican members of Congress in my lifetime, to condemn Google Print in the redoubtable Washington Times because it "crushes creativity," and it constitutes a "license to Steal." The column is an unbelievably stupid and shortsighted piece of writing that has to be read to be believed. The postscript to the article says that Shroeder, like most other ex-Congresspeople, is cashing in as "President of the American Association of Publishers;" Barr is just a publicity-addicted pundit gadfly, still in recovery from his days as a publicity-addicted gadfly Congressman. Incredibly, the article fails to disclose that Shroeder's organization is suing Google.

England and the English

This is a very interesting piece (by a Scot) that investigates the English sense of humor and concludes that anger is at the heart of the English character. It's a messy essay, but I think it contains some truth and is worth a read.

Google Resume Scanning Library Books

Google has ended a self-imposed moratorium on scanning the libraries at U. Michigan and Stanford. Good. This is good for the internet, good for the publishers (whether or not they know it) and good for readers, writers, historians and citizens. Here's that rarest of things, a free Wall Street Journal article, with the details.