The Anger of Compassion

The 'Why' of Foreign Language Studies

For the last two hundred years, anyone concerned with communicating all over the world has really depended on but two languages: French and English. Command of both tongues never did provide a perfect solution to every spot, but it was well nigh universal, and it worked. Similar accomodations have always been made.

For example, the court language of Nicholas II and Alexandra was French; the "court" language of most upper-class Romans would have been Greek (Shakespeare or no Shakespeare, Julius Caesar's terminal "Et tu, Brute?" was far more likely to have been "kai su, teknon?" as both he and Brutus were members of the Roman privileged classes), and if Pontius Pilate ever interviewed Jesus of Nazareth without benefit of an interpreter, said interview would, I think, have been conducted in Greek. And French did become, and remain for some time, the language of diplomacy (and of empire and more -- Vietnam's last emperor, Bao Dai, was always interviewed in French, and many of Lebanon's post-World War I heads of state were more comfortable in French than in Arabic), and of course in our day English is the language of commerce, of aviation, and of the internet.

Still: does it ever go away, the allure of the foreign, the remote, the exotic? Does that not include food and art and music and the language involved? I stand with the claim that it does, and Pejman Yousefzadeh agrees -- and, of course, he's right. The Pejevidence is the original Tuscan in which Dante's Purgatorio was written, even as he praises an edition featuring both that Tuscan and a translation by the American poet W.S. Merwin. Obviously, it's great to have both.

I'm entirely with Pejman on this. I remember the thrill as a youth of reading Chaucer in Middle English, and of reading Goethe, Schiller, and others in German. That was well over twenty-five years ago, and my German isn't what it was -- and it was no great shakes back then, trust me. But...but...

These writers had something to say, and they weren't Americans, and they weren't Brits. I want, want, want -- and I will have this:

I want to read Pushkin Lermontov and Gogol in Russian.

I want to read Hugo in French.

I want to read Homer in Greek -- and the great comic Aristophanes, too. And yeah, I know they were two quite different dialects: I'm not interested in doing this for the braggin' rights, but for the selfish pleasure of DOING IT.

I want to enjoy the operas of Puccini and Verdi without depending on the surtitles, just listening to the singing in Italian. And yeah, I'd like to dip into Dante, as well.

I want to go back to Schiller and Goethe and Novalis and others, in German, and you know what? I'd like to read stuff in all these languages on the internet, as well. Why not?

And if such efforts bring me to a deeper appreciation of my native English, why, that's yet another benefit.

They Don't Write 'em Like This Anymore

Hilarious early Seventies National Lampoon piece by P. J. O'Rourke on...well, on people, you could say, and some of their, er, characteristics.

Note what he finds praiseworthy about the French...and about the Germans.

Two Cheers for Passion in Music

Or, at least, one set of votes and one serious, very serious, legal action.

Both items involve one of my favorite composers, Sergei Rachmaninov, an underrated composer of the 20th century. Both are from the United Kingdom, a nation which is, to be charitable, in serious decline if we are to judge by civil liberties and culture.

This is to denigrate neither said Sergei nor any estimable Brits who may still be breathing.

In fact, quite a few Brits may indeed be in the process of redeeming the sceptered isle, because according to this BBC News story, Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto has been voted (in a survey conducted by the radio station Classic FM) the favorite piece of music in the United Kingdom. Did I speak of redemption? It is in fact more than possible that many, many Britons are possessed of quite good taste, inasmuch as Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A was voted third, and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 5 came in fourth.

Ladies and gentlemen, I claim this to be an indication that civilization has, perhaps, not yet left Perfidious Albion. In spite of the assault of Benny Hill, Tony Blair, and lesser offshore islanders on the fair United States. We shall see.

The other story involves a legal battle for an early manuscript for Sergei's Second Symphony. I don't own a recording of it, but I do have the Third Symphony, some of his piano music -- as pounded out by the composer himself on a player piano -- and all four of his piano concerti, in various renditions, including all four featuring the composer himself at the piano.

Recorded in, I smile to add, the United States of America, his adopted home: Rachmaninov lived in New York City while my mother, as a young girl, began piano lessons. He was to die in Los Angeles in, I think, 1943. The earliest classical music I could identify was Rachmaninov's Prelude in C# Minor -- which, as a matter of fact, I learned to play on the guitar.

I have most of the music I've discussed on compact disc, but I can't seem to find any of the recordings I have online, and I must retire to my beauty sleep coma, but I'll try again after I awake.

So what does an Anglo-Celtic-Teutonic Pole know, anyway?

"Happy Dyngus Day," she tells us.

Never heard of it.

High Tech Here! Git Yer High Tech News from Newsweek!

From MacMerc:

In a pretty serious story about hunting down terrorist webmasters, Newsweek shows off a large screenshot of a terror website. The page is shown off in IE which isn't too much of a surprise, but the big surprise is that it's in OS 9! With the 5th version of OS X about ready to ship, Newsweek seriously needs an upgrade. (Photo is cached here in case of link rot.)

No comment.

Water, water everywhere, and nor a drop to drink...especially in Manila

This Asia Times story is sadly typical of journalists writing about "privatization" and "capitalism" and "free" markets.

PENANG - Selling water rights to private institutions and then having people buy them back again is an issue that rears its ugly head at every World Water Day, which fell on Tuesday.

Goaded by international financial institutions and corporate interests, regional governments are pressing ahead with plans for more private participation in water services. And yet all across Asia, water privatization schemes are failing to deliver clean and safe drinking water to communities, despite forcing consumers to pay for a basic human right.

"If you look for a water privatization arrangement that works ... I cannot think of any," Manila-based Mary Ann Manahan, a researcher with Focus on the Global South, told Inter Press Service in a telephone interview.

In contrast, the sterling performance of some major publicly managed water utilities in Asia has demolished the argument that private-sector participation is the only way to improve efficiency.

There follows a litany of woe about "privatization arrangements" -- your first clue, that word "arrangements" -- and "schemes."

(Also, note the assumption that having clean drinking water provided to one is a "basic human right." Provided -- by whom? How? Ah, sorry, no answer provided. This isn't a philosophy journal, after all.)

Now where, again, are things said to be so bad? Hmm...Jakarta and Manila, according to the story. Wow. Indonesia and the Philippines, two shining cities on hills of the rule of law, respect for property rights, and honest, corruption-free public officials...really, isn't that your view of both nations as they exist today?

But let's take a look at this story again. Let's see what else we can see, shall we?

"There has been an extremely high failure rate for private concessions and long-term BOT [build-operate-transfer contracts] which may get worse if Suez and Thames leave their contracts in Manila and Jakarta," said the study.

And yet, privatization schemes are being pushed with vigor by international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, coupled with lobby groups such as the Global Water Partnership and the World Water Council. Manahan pointed out that the World Bank has increased its lending on water projects from US$546 million in 2002 to $3 billion in 2005. "But there is no clear indication that this has led to cleaner, more affordable water for people on the margins," she said.

In addition, the European Union has come up with initiatives in the World Trade Organization to pry open national water services to the big foreign players. Indeed, since the mid-1990s, developing countries have been coaxed to privatize water services through "public-private partnership" or private-sector participation.

Oh my, oh my oh my oh my, now that was a shock, was it not? "Public-private partnership." Boy, we sure didn't expect to see anything like that, did we?

As it ever has been, whether here in the United States or in the fair, corruption-free republics of southern Asia, which "partner," gentle reader, would you imagine to be the senior of the two: the public partner or the private one?

Hmmm. Yeah, that was my guess, too. Funny, isn't it?

But there's more. The story goes on, innocently using Manila as an example of its privatization horror story:

For instance, in Manila, the government touted water privatization as the solution to a looming water crisis in the Philippines. "They promised there would be no price hikes in water for five years," Manahan pointed out. "But within three years, they filed for tariff increases."

Instead of the promised lower rates, Maynilad Water Services, which holds Manila's west zone concession, raised tariffs by as much as 400% between 1997 and 2003. Manila Water Company, the east zone concessionaire, raised water tariffs by 700% in the same period.

When Manila's privatized arrangements failed, the eventual "solution" by the Philippine government was "rehabilitation". But Manahan prefers to call a spade a spade. "It's a bailout," she said starkly.

Did you catch the term "concession?" That's a polite term for "monopoly," isn't it? A government-granted, government-enforced monopoly. Period. Is Manahan willing to call that spade a spade? I didn't think so.

Again, that's the way it is here, that's the way it is anywhere. Remember energy "deregulation" and "privatization" in California in the late 1990s? Remember the result? It was Enron and brownouts all over the state of California, and the destruction of the accounting firm Arthur Anderson. There is no reason to think that things are any different in Manila or Penang or Jakarta. None.

And note the tone of the story: where is the fault to be found? Gentle reader, not with the government, at any level, oh no -- but only with one partner in that "public-private" partnership. The one "partner" which is always blamed (hint: it will never be the "public" partner). Notice that there is no sense of partnership liability here, as there would be with, say, a law firm in the United States, or an accounting firm, or, as may be relevant here, a civil engineering firm -- law and accounting and engineering being three professions whose practitioners commonly associate themselves as partnerships. Oh no. Not at all.

No, the senior "partner" gets to write all the rules, set all the terms, and cast all the blame if things don't go as planned.

(One might also find it fruitful to ask which "partner" did the planning, and which one did the approving.)

Consider: we're talking here about nations where people are employed to make hundred-dollar-a-pair running shoes, nations which manufacture our automobiles and automobile parts, our computers and computer parts and peripherals. These are not nations full of stupid, lazy people.

But if you spend a week in southeast Asia you're likely to endure rain on eight of those days, and yet they can't provide clean drinking water to their people? And this is blamed on the private sector?

Have we found an Asian language in which the word for "water" is deja-vu?

The End of the Witch Doctor's Weekend

Well, at least for this one: our Catholic and Protestant brethren celebrated Easter today, but the Orthodox faithful will tune in for theirs on May 1. But today seemed a good day to remind Anger of Compassion readers of two little items, what with (among other things) all the news about Congressional interest in a dying Florida woman, an ailing Pope, and FCC attempts to regulate "decency" and its first cousin, the FEC, trying to regulate political speech on the internet. So, without further ado:

1. The United States is not -- really is not -- a Christian nation. Sorry, but I don't give a damn whether 80 per cent of Americans believe in the Christian God or not: and that is a stupid, unprincipled argument from the get-go. Think, people: we either have a government of laws and not men, or we don't. Period. Readers might be well served by taking a gander at Brooke Allen's article in the 21 February 2005 issue of The Nation:

Our Constitution makes no mention whatever of God. The omission was too obvious to have been anything but deliberate, in spite of Alexander Hamilton's flippant responses when asked about it: According to one account, he said that the new nation was not in need of "foreign aid"; according to another, he simply said "we forgot." But as Hamilton's biographer Ron Chernow points out, Hamilton never forgot anything important.

Just so, every word of it.

Actually, I think Brooke Allen (not that I know anything about Brooke Allen) is a bit tepid in this article, and yes, The Nation provides sanctuary for far too much of the barking moonbat Left, but you still should read the whole thing. Not enough others are saying this kind of thing in public.

2. In light of the above, consider that Ayn Rand wrote, in 1960's "Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World," that "The 'middle-of-the-road' is like an unstable, radioactive element that can last only so long -- and its time is running out. There is no more chance for a middle-of-the-road." Quite true, I think, and this would be an appropriate weekend in which to consider the stakes:

If all the manufacturers of railroad engines suddenly went irrational and began to manufacture covered wagons instead, nobody would accept the claim that this is a progressive innovation or that the iron horse has failed; and many men would step into the industrial vacuum to start manufacturing railroad engines. But when this happens in philosophy -- when we are offered Zen Buddhism and its equivalents as the latest word in human thought -- nobody, so far, has chosen to step into the intellectual vacuum to carry on the work of man's mind.

Thus our great industrial civilization is now expected to run railroads, air lines, intercontinental missiles and H-bomb stock piles by the guidance of philosophical doctrines created by and for barefoot savages who lived in mudholes, scratched the soil for a handful of grain and gave thanks to the statues of distorted animals whom they worshipped as superior to man.

Gentle readers, are we not there, now?

In the same essay (the title essay of her 1961 volume, For the New Intellectual, Rand continues, after referring again to the issues of faith and force, and introducing the archtypes of those two values -- Attila and the Witch Doctor -- by pointing to what a conceptual level of consciousness can make possible:

Man is the only living species which has to perceive reality -- which means: to be conscious -- by choice. But he shares with other species the penalty of unconsciousness: destruction. For an animal, the question of survival is primarily physical; for man, primarily epistemological.

Man's unique reward, however, is that while animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background, man survives by adjusting his background to himself. If a drought strikes them, animals perish -- man builds irrigation canals; if a flood strikes them, animals perish -- man builds dams; if a carnivorous pack attacks them, animals perish -- man writes the Constitution of the United States. But one does not obtain food, safety or freedom -- by instinct.

It is against this faculty, the faculty of reason, that Attila and the Witch Doctor rebel. The key to both their souls is their longing for the effortless, irresponsible, automatic consciousness of an animal. Both dread the necessity, the risk and the responsibility of rational cognition. Both dread the fact that "nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed." Both seek to exist, not by conquering nature, but by adjusting to the given, the immediate, the known. There is only one means of survival for those who do not choose to conquer nature: to conquer those who do.

Meditate on this and grow wise, Grasshopper, for she was scorned in her day and is now gone, whereas Attila and the Witch Doctor we have always with us.

And if you find the archetypes of Attila and the Witch Doctor to be an oversimplification, take a look at the United States Congress and the White House.

What, am I Burgess Meredith or something?

Maybe not, but I guess I'm part of the blogosphere, because this book meme was passed to me by Alexandra:

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

I'd like to be flip and answer The Cat in the Hat, especially in Latin, but I'd probably go for The Canterbury Tales. Maybe just the Prologue, which weighs in at approximately 800 lines...

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Ooh, Dagny Taggart, of course: I just know she had to look like Raquel Welch. Well...a real, honest to God crush? I'm not sure.

The last book you bought is:

New? The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics, by James Valliant. Used? A boxful.

The last book you read:

Do you mean actually finished? It was probably High-Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way.

What are you currently reading?

As if I'm reading one book (I do tend to dip in and out of, ahem, a few books at a time). Being Direct, by Lester Wunderman (the guy who brought you the Columbia Record Club and the American Express card), Getting Things Done, by David Allen, and Anton Chekhov's Short Stories. And an old, out of print Mickey Spillane: Me, Hood.

Five books you would take to a deserted island:

THIS IS EASY!!

1. The complete works of Victor Hugo, in French.

2. Charles Duff's French For Beginners.

3. R. de Roussy de Sales, Easy French Reader.

4. Wallace Fowlie (editor), French Stories (dual language).

5. Anne Hooper and Stephanie Farrow, Ultimate Sex.

Uhh...okay, so assuming I won't be stranded with French actress Julie Delpy (damn the rotten luck), here's the real list:

1. Some sort of complete William Shakespeare: I haven't read all of the plays, nor have I read all of the sonnets. Explanatory footnotes would be nice.

2. Human Action, Ludwig von Mises.

3. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand.

4. The Penguin History of the World, J.M. Roberts.

5. Forbidden Pictures of Julie Delpy, in six volumesThe Chambers Book of Araucaria Crosswords

Who are you going to pass this stick to (3 persons)? And Why?

1. Charles G. Hill: I enjoy his takes on American popular music and I wonder what else he reads about.

2. Diana Hsieh: Have to wonder what an Objectivist grad student has time to read!

3. Ian Hamet: Curious to find out whether or not he's finished his first edition of Fowler's Modern English Usage.

Ideas Illustrated

I like this guy, for his art, his attitude, and his blog. The blog's name, "Illustrated Ideas," is pretty cool, too.

First of all, I like his studies and his work, and he has the fine eye of a critic as well, as he demonstrates here, and here.

And he's a jarhead as well.

So, later today I'll be adding him to the blogroll, and to my news aggregator. Welcome aboard to Mr. Tracy, and be sure to check him out.

Turn On, Tune In...but not from a hotel room

I travel a lot on business, so this story in USA Today caught my eye...and caused me to sigh, yet again, at how little the marketing "experts" paid -- and paid quite well -- by corporate America really "get it."

Yes, the little things matter. But the "little" things and the basics aren't necessarily the same thing, okay? A few examples:

If you offer guest laundry and I ask for laundry soap, do not hand me a box of powdered bleach and insist that it's soap. This means you, Country Inn & Suites of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

If your ads state that you offer free high-speed internet access, it would be nice if you mentioned, even once, that it's wireless only. This means you, Holiday Inn Express of Newport News, Virginia.

If you offer "free" breakfasts -- look, first of all, understand that we know better, okay? Those are reflected in the basic price of the room. But okay, let's say for the sake of argument that you do offer free breakfasts: if you do so, and and you try to cater to groups of lodgers, is it not likely that there will be a run on breakfast items the next day? Does it require a degree in multi-valued advanced rocket science to, oh, I don't know, plan ahead so as not to run out of breakfast staples four or five times a week, hours before your "breakfast" service closes? This means you, Country Inn & Suites of Clarksville, Tennessee.

(Especially if you're catering to groups of senior citizens. Jesus, those people eat like wolves.)

And basics really do mean basics, hotel people: hot water. Toilets that flush. Water pressure sufficient to clean a razor while shaving. And electrical outlets.

Yes, electrical outlets. You no longer offer enough, and trust me, I'm not unique in this complaint. Yes, a television in the room is nice, and so is a lamp and a fridge. And now I see, according to the USA Today article, that some locations are offering stereos along with Sirius or XM radio.

Very nice, and thanks (although I've never seen the latter). But I travel with a laptop computer, a beard/mustache trimmer (and recharger), an iPod (with recharger), an alarm clock, and sometimes with a portable cassette player or CD player. Yes, you have outlets in the room -- but they're already occupied, by your TV, your cable box, your lamp, your fridge. I think you can do better, before you start boasting of satellite radio service or electric aromatherapy candles.

Am I being Baby Boom-curmudgeonly about this? I think not: the caption to the photo accompanying the story reads, "Gen Xer Leslie Liberatore, 36, checks e-mail in the lobby at Chicago's W Hotel."

Well, of course she's in the lobby! There weren't enough outlets in her damn room!

Q.E.D.

The Sons of Capitalism need to check their premises

She said:

I am speaking here today on the assumption that I am addressing an audience consisting primarily of "liberals" -- that is: of my antagonists. Therefore, I must begin by explaining why I chose to do it.

The briefest explanation is to tell you that in the 1930s I envied the "liberals" for the fact that their leaders entered political campaigns armed not with worn-out bromides, but with intellectual arguments. I disagreed with everything they said, but I would have fought to the death for the method by which they said it: for an intellectual approach to political problems.

Today, I have no cause to envy the "liberals" any longer.

That's how Ayn Rand began her speech, "The Intellectual Bankruptcy of Our Age," delivered at Boston's Ford Hall Forum on this day in 1961. To find out why, by 1961, she no longer envied the liberals of her day, you can read "The Intellectual Bankruptcy of Our Age" here, or listen to her delivering the speech itself, on cassette or on CD.

I'll let Ayn Rand herself enjoy the last word (as, on this issue, I believe she already has):

Those of you who may still be "liberals," in the original sense of that word, and who may have abandoned everything except loyalty to reason -- now is the time to check your premises. If you do, you will find that the ideal society had once been almost within men's reach. It was the intellectuals who destroyed it -- and who committed suicide in the process -- but the future belongs to a new type of intellectual, a new radical: the fighter for capitalism.

Posted by Craig Ceely at 08:19 PM | Comments (0)

Terrorists thwarted, for sure, at the Nashville Airport

Vin Suprynowicz writes, recently, that the federal anti-terror measures won't do jack shit to protect innocent American lives, and he's right. What good does it do, now, to show "government-issued photo ID" every twenty feet once you're in an airport, or to ban lighters and matches? How on earth does the FAA injunction to use the lavatory in your own compartment -- first class or coach -- make anyone at all safer?

How bad, how truly senseless and stupid can it get? Try returning a rental car at the airport in Nashville, Tennessee. You get stopped by a guard, and you have to show a photo ID in order to get by. Not, mind you, to get away with the car, but to return the goddamned thing.

No wonder Bin-Laden probably did escape from Tora Bora.

"Well it's not really silly, is it?"

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution is really earning his windfall blogging profits by pointing to the 20 Best Monty Python Sketches.

The good Dr. Cowen cavils at "The Argument Clinic" placing no higher than # 20. At least it made the list: conspicuous by their absence, I'd argue, are the Great Australian Mosquito Hunters, the Latin Grammar Lesson ("Romans Go Home!"), the Encyclopedia Salesman and Psychiatrist Dairies.

But I wouldn't argue with their top choice.

Some Assembly Required

But not assembly language, just so you know.

Caught wind of this one on TV this afternoon: you, too, can build the cyber babe of your dreams.

No, not all of those dreams...but you can choose her -- well, just check it out:

Build A Cyber Babe
Free Online Games | MSN Emotions

Top 100 City Skylines

Paul Hsieh at NoodleFood points to this page by Emporis, which ranks cities around the world according to "the visual impact of their skylines."

I'm neither architect nor critic, and I don't have much to say about the rankings or the justice or injustice of any of them, or about any of the buildings involved, either.

Except...except that...well, damn if it ain't a list of a hundred cities, and my quick count finds that twenty of those burgs are in the United States. Make what claims you care to about multiculturalism, but I guess that when it comes to judging the visual impact of a skyline, skyscrapers beat mud huts all the way.

I don't suppose that has anything to do with capitalism and freedom, right?

What may or may not rise again...

Make a note in your tickler files: in the western world, March 27 is Easter Sunday (the Orthodox will be celebrating Easter on May 1 this year), but in Myanmar, March 27 is Army Day. What does Army Day mean? Possibly everything, if you're a Karen nationalist.

According to this Asia Times Online story by Lucy Murray:

One of Asia's longest-running conflicts and one of its least well known may be drawing to a close. On January 6 Myanmar's military junta, known as the State Peace and Development Council, or SPDC, launched an all-out attack on Nya Moe, the remote hill-top base that is the last remaining stronghold of the Karenni Army (KA). This is not the first time the base, which lies on the border between Myanmar's Karenni state and Thailand, has come under attack. After all, the Karenni leadership, backed by the KA, has been fighting the military-controlled government in Yangon for almost 50 years. However, this is the most sustained campaign Karenni leaders have seen.

No, I'm not an Asia expert, nor do I follow the world's plethora of "civil" wars -- but as a young Marine more than twenty years ago I, like many others, would read Soldier of Fortune, Eagle, and New Breed magazines, in which the struggling "Karen Republic" was portrayed sympathetically and frequently.

Since those days, Eagle and New Breed seem to have passed their sell-by date, but Soldier of Fortune is still around. So, it seems, is the Karenni opposition to the regime in Yangon. I have to say, I was never really attracted to the life of a mercenary (yeah, I was reading SOF, but I was also reading "Doonesbury" and Philip K. Dick and Ayn Rand and Catch-22), but they easily engaged my sympathy for the Karen Republic in their fight against the brutal miltary dictators in Burma. Callow youth that I was, it was an easy call, and I've never changed my mind about it.

I've seen predictions and announcements over the years about the impending doom of the Karen resistance, but I guess they're still kicking:

For now, the KA is digging in for what might be its final stand. The base at Nya Moe is in a good strategic location, high up on a steep and thickly forested hill. The nearest SPDC base is just visible across the steep sides of the valley. Repeated attempts in recent weeks to take Nya Moe, backed by heavy artillery fire, have failed. But the base is not invulnerable. An ordinary Karenni soldier, visibly exhausted as he treks down from the base on leave, says: "Many SPDC soldiers will die for sure if they try to take the base. But if they attack very strongly with heavy artillery, we could lose it."

According to Tu Reh of the KNPP, things may be about to get worse. "March 27 is Army Day in Burma. We believe the SPDC may try to end it by then." General Aung Htay remains confident that his troops can hold out, saying "We're ready to fight ... we'll fight as long as we can hold our weapons."

Perhaps on Easter Sunday/Army Day we'll see what's risen, what's still alive, and what is once and for all dead.

El Camino...

Via MacMegasite: the Camino browser project has its own website.

Americans, as seen by the German MSM

"Mainstream media," that is.

Just found this one this evening, at Davids Medienkritik: an examination of views of America as presented to German readers, courtesy of Der Stern. The presentation and the message to be taken is a bit, shall we say, predictable.

One thing, though, caught my eye (well, in more than one way, believe me): the item on Stern's page 7, which contrasts Aubrie Lemon with Corporal Theresa Mazluf, who is listed as a "Marine trainer (note: not "Drill Instructor," even though she's wearing The Hat). She's quoted as saying, "It is my duty as a soldier to fight for this country to make it safer and better."

Ugh. Twice, in fact. First of all, soldiers don't make this country "better." When they are performing their missions, they're defending this country. That's it. That is necessary and honorable work -- but they're not making the place any better by that. But that's not what chaps my ass: I spent twelve years in the Marine Corps, and it was against the cultural grain for any of us to refer to ourselves or to each other as "soldiers," or to accept that moniker from anyone else. I'd like to think that Corporal Mazluf was misquoted.

Oh, and both women are babes, no problem there.

(Hat tip: Marnee at View On Life, who wears miniskirts and contributes thereby to the daily beautification of Tucson, Arizona. Perhaps that should have been Marnee in the Stern article, rather than the dubiously named Aubrie Lemon.)

Take a Giant Step

Fun visual representation of (an abridged) version of John Coltrane's classic tune, "Giant Steps."

That CD, by the way, contains alternate versions of the originally-released tracks.

Perhaps this is timely: Coltrane also released an album named A Love Supreme, which was explicitly religious, and apparently the religion in question was Islam (I'm not a 'Trane expert, so correct me if I'm wrong here). The now out of print Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide (1979, 1985), edited by John Swenson, gave both albums five stars out of five. Jazz classics both.

Or you could just watch the Michal Levy film again.

(Hat tip: Radley Balko)