Joe Queenan’s latest piece for the WSJ is a take on book reviews in the age of anyone-can-opine-on-any-subject-on-the-Internet. It’s not Queenan at his most acerbic, but it’s got its points.
(I have to say that most of the reviews I've seen on Amazon tend toward the five-star variety. Even people who say the book was so-so give it five stars. Makes you wonder if they understand the whole rating concept. Or maybe they're like classical music audiences in LA who'll give performers a standing ovation if they make it to the end of the piece.)
What I find interesting is the comments. Two points in particular:
The very fact that people feel obliged to go through the registration process in order to add their frequently quasi-illiterate comments proves my characterization of the age in the first graf, above.
For the most part they seem to have missed the point that Queenan is a satirist. Obviously the idea that you should get a grip on that which you’re commenting on is not a part of this equation.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Touch the happy isles
It’s certainly a cliché, but the death of Ted Kennedy really does mark the end of an era. The last of his generation of Kennedys dedicated to the concept of public service.
I wasn’t a particularly huge fan, but it’s clear that he was a driving force in the Senate for at least 35 years. (He held back for the first few years in office.) & he won the respect of colleagues on both sides of the aisle.
Can’t say that of too many incumbents these days. In any legislature.
News reports are citing Kennedy’s concession to Carter at the 1980 Democratic Convention as his greatest speech. In it he quoted some lines from Tennyson that he said were close to both his brothers & himself:
"I am a part of all that I have met....
Tho much is taken, much abides....
That which we are, we are—
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
That’s a cobbled-together mashup of “Ulysses”, one of my own favorite poems from the romantic period. It’s interesting that Kennedy was then 48 when he cited it; & that his brothers were both in their forties when they were murdered, & had already latched onto the poem.
The reason I find it interesting is that “Ulysses” is the musing of the hero of the Trojan war—as an aged man all too aware of his growing feebleness. The king of Ithaca is looking back at his long life & ahead at a future that can’t possibly live up to the past. It’s an old man’s tale, not a young one’s.
What is certainly applicable to Kennedy (& perhaps to his brothers, too) is Ulysses’ resolution to not go gentle into that good night, even at his age & condition. “I will live life to the lees,” he vows.
“How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.”
I rather think of Ted Kennedy, working phones from his sickbed to garner support for his lifelong cause of healthcare for all Americans, as scorning to rust unburnished. There was a grey spirit yearning in desire to follow knowledge if ever there was one.
Ulysses talks of the responsibility of statesmanship, of the decades of governing his people & the legacy he’s leaving to his son, Telemachus.
& the final section is him planning another voyage—gathering the lads from his old unit, outfitting a ship & setting sail into the unknown. Here are the complete last lines:
“Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
& that’s a picture of Ted Kennedy-made weak by time & disease, but strong in will—& never yielding.
I wasn’t a particularly huge fan, but it’s clear that he was a driving force in the Senate for at least 35 years. (He held back for the first few years in office.) & he won the respect of colleagues on both sides of the aisle.
Can’t say that of too many incumbents these days. In any legislature.
News reports are citing Kennedy’s concession to Carter at the 1980 Democratic Convention as his greatest speech. In it he quoted some lines from Tennyson that he said were close to both his brothers & himself:
"I am a part of all that I have met....
Tho much is taken, much abides....
That which we are, we are—
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
That’s a cobbled-together mashup of “Ulysses”, one of my own favorite poems from the romantic period. It’s interesting that Kennedy was then 48 when he cited it; & that his brothers were both in their forties when they were murdered, & had already latched onto the poem.
The reason I find it interesting is that “Ulysses” is the musing of the hero of the Trojan war—as an aged man all too aware of his growing feebleness. The king of Ithaca is looking back at his long life & ahead at a future that can’t possibly live up to the past. It’s an old man’s tale, not a young one’s.
What is certainly applicable to Kennedy (& perhaps to his brothers, too) is Ulysses’ resolution to not go gentle into that good night, even at his age & condition. “I will live life to the lees,” he vows.
“How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.”
I rather think of Ted Kennedy, working phones from his sickbed to garner support for his lifelong cause of healthcare for all Americans, as scorning to rust unburnished. There was a grey spirit yearning in desire to follow knowledge if ever there was one.
Ulysses talks of the responsibility of statesmanship, of the decades of governing his people & the legacy he’s leaving to his son, Telemachus.
& the final section is him planning another voyage—gathering the lads from his old unit, outfitting a ship & setting sail into the unknown. Here are the complete last lines:
“Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
& that’s a picture of Ted Kennedy-made weak by time & disease, but strong in will—& never yielding.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
The GM MBA course
Poor old General Motors—even the “new” GM can’t seem to manage its way out of a paper bag. And it can’t seem to sell off its own toxic assets, which is a key part of it rising from the dead.
The Associated Press reports that the company is squabbling with Germany over dumping its Opel/Vauxhall unit. GM’s scrapped the proposed sale to a group headed by Canadian auto parts manufacturer Magna, even though the deal was backed by €4.5B ($6 B) from the German government.
This despite the fact that Opel is a money pit for GM.
The company seems stuck in the same time warp as some Seattle home sellers—thinking they should be able to get 25% over what they paid for the property two years ago. Hello? That horse is long out of the barn.
Actually, what GM is after is to escape any liability for Opel defaulting on any of its debts in the future.
Well—this corporate weaseling out of responsibility has worked for GM so far. Witness my tax dollars supporting their special welfare system.
On a side “we’re-not-accountable” note, GM has also announced that it’s removing its “Mark of Excellence” logo from whatever it makes going forward. Not that it ever meant much anyhow.
And it’s probably a cost-cutting measure—save on materials and labor—rather than any admission that their products have earned them an ever-diminishing market share over the past few decades.
Really—these clowns would make any B-school proud.
The Associated Press reports that the company is squabbling with Germany over dumping its Opel/Vauxhall unit. GM’s scrapped the proposed sale to a group headed by Canadian auto parts manufacturer Magna, even though the deal was backed by €4.5B ($6 B) from the German government.
This despite the fact that Opel is a money pit for GM.
The company seems stuck in the same time warp as some Seattle home sellers—thinking they should be able to get 25% over what they paid for the property two years ago. Hello? That horse is long out of the barn.
Actually, what GM is after is to escape any liability for Opel defaulting on any of its debts in the future.
Well—this corporate weaseling out of responsibility has worked for GM so far. Witness my tax dollars supporting their special welfare system.
On a side “we’re-not-accountable” note, GM has also announced that it’s removing its “Mark of Excellence” logo from whatever it makes going forward. Not that it ever meant much anyhow.
And it’s probably a cost-cutting measure—save on materials and labor—rather than any admission that their products have earned them an ever-diminishing market share over the past few decades.
Really—these clowns would make any B-school proud.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Room service
If the idea of a staycation just makes you want to barf, here are some hotel suggestions from Bing’s Budget Travel: weird hotels.
I have to say none of them makes me want to whip out the plastic & book a stay. But the one that has been tiptoeing around my brain for a few years is the Ice Hotel. That’s the place in the Arctic Circle of Sweden that’s constructed out of actual, you know, arctic ice blocks every winter.
Over the years they’ve developed a whole schtick out of the concept. There’s a restaurant & a bar. In the latter, your vodka is served in glasses of ice. You’re issued arctic outerwear to put over your normal warm stuff & in what they’re now referring to as “cold rooms” you sleep on a bunch of fur pelts over a block of ice.
I don’t know why this should appeal to me, since I’m not a fan of cold weather. I think it’s a combination of the possibility of watching the Aurora Borealis & drinking vodka out of ice glasses.
Of course, I am a little concerned about needing to, er, dispense with the, erm, processed vodka. I mean—how quickly can one drop one’s multiple layers of warm clothes to take a whiz? & then get them back on?
Anyhow—my contribution to your leisure possibilities.
I have to say none of them makes me want to whip out the plastic & book a stay. But the one that has been tiptoeing around my brain for a few years is the Ice Hotel. That’s the place in the Arctic Circle of Sweden that’s constructed out of actual, you know, arctic ice blocks every winter.
Over the years they’ve developed a whole schtick out of the concept. There’s a restaurant & a bar. In the latter, your vodka is served in glasses of ice. You’re issued arctic outerwear to put over your normal warm stuff & in what they’re now referring to as “cold rooms” you sleep on a bunch of fur pelts over a block of ice.
I don’t know why this should appeal to me, since I’m not a fan of cold weather. I think it’s a combination of the possibility of watching the Aurora Borealis & drinking vodka out of ice glasses.
Of course, I am a little concerned about needing to, er, dispense with the, erm, processed vodka. I mean—how quickly can one drop one’s multiple layers of warm clothes to take a whiz? & then get them back on?
Anyhow—my contribution to your leisure possibilities.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Begging your attention
The elephant in the room that Seattleites never seem to want to bring up is the number of beggars you see around town.
I was struck by the population in downtown Seattle the first time I went to the Nordstrom Mother Church—you can’t walk through the Pioneer Square area without wading through panhandlers cadging money.
I haven’t seen that sort of thing outside of Skid Row or a third world country.
Yeah, there are homeless on exhaust grates in DC, but not whole colonies of them; & go out into the ‘burbs & you don’t come across moochers trying to make eye contact.
Here—they’re all over. On the Redmond Road & 148th Avenue exits off the 520 in Redmond; the 8th & 4th Street ramps in Bellevue off the 405; the 45th & 50th Street exits (both north & southbound) off the 5 in Seattle. (On one, where there are a couple of islands, I’ve seen three beggars staked out at once.) On 45th & Montlake, by University Village a 20-something tattooed chick alternates with the more typically grizzled male.
Which brings me to another point—these people are regulars. The one at the Redmond Road/520 ramp brings a cooler & a lawn chair. Ditto the one on the Ravenna Avenue exit off the 5; he always waggles his fingers at you. I don’t know whether he’s putting a curse on you or just thinks he needs to do that to grab your attention.
They also cluster around Trader Joe’s & Whole Foods in Seattle. I presume the marketing strategy is that those establishments’ customer base are more likely to respond to victims of social injustice. The TJ on Roosevelt Avenue has even put up a sign telling customers that no one soliciting for anything outside the store is associated with it & that shoppers should in no way feel obligated to fork over.
Last Friday I even found one at a branch post office. He was careful to park himself on the sidewalk, not on post office property. But you couldn’t go in or out without passing him.
I don’t know what this signifies. I can’t believe that the King County has a larger population of the underclass than other cities, or a greater percentage, or even fewer social programs to help them. Apparently what it does have is an entrepreneurial approach to begging amongst them.
I was struck by the population in downtown Seattle the first time I went to the Nordstrom Mother Church—you can’t walk through the Pioneer Square area without wading through panhandlers cadging money.
I haven’t seen that sort of thing outside of Skid Row or a third world country.
Yeah, there are homeless on exhaust grates in DC, but not whole colonies of them; & go out into the ‘burbs & you don’t come across moochers trying to make eye contact.
Here—they’re all over. On the Redmond Road & 148th Avenue exits off the 520 in Redmond; the 8th & 4th Street ramps in Bellevue off the 405; the 45th & 50th Street exits (both north & southbound) off the 5 in Seattle. (On one, where there are a couple of islands, I’ve seen three beggars staked out at once.) On 45th & Montlake, by University Village a 20-something tattooed chick alternates with the more typically grizzled male.
Which brings me to another point—these people are regulars. The one at the Redmond Road/520 ramp brings a cooler & a lawn chair. Ditto the one on the Ravenna Avenue exit off the 5; he always waggles his fingers at you. I don’t know whether he’s putting a curse on you or just thinks he needs to do that to grab your attention.
They also cluster around Trader Joe’s & Whole Foods in Seattle. I presume the marketing strategy is that those establishments’ customer base are more likely to respond to victims of social injustice. The TJ on Roosevelt Avenue has even put up a sign telling customers that no one soliciting for anything outside the store is associated with it & that shoppers should in no way feel obligated to fork over.
Last Friday I even found one at a branch post office. He was careful to park himself on the sidewalk, not on post office property. But you couldn’t go in or out without passing him.
I don’t know what this signifies. I can’t believe that the King County has a larger population of the underclass than other cities, or a greater percentage, or even fewer social programs to help them. Apparently what it does have is an entrepreneurial approach to begging amongst them.