NOTE: Sorry Iglesia fans! I’m not doing well today (teh back) and have no juice….so here is a reprint of Episode #1. The series resumes Tuesday.

(Iglesia is a serialized novel, published on Tuesdays and Saturdays at midnight ET, you can read all of the episodes by clicking on the tag.)

Previous Episode (#22)

Waiting is almost always cold. Or at least it seems that way. She can, of course remember times when she has waited in the sunlight or on hot steamy days. But when she thinks of waiting….she shivers. Just some trick of her mind. There is something about waiting to her that always seems cold …..or is it just lonely? Sitting somewhere by yourself. A small girl, waiting with her arms wrapped around her, cold, alone and unhappy. The abject existential aloneness that we all try to avoid at all costs, that feeling of abandonment and separation and resentment we all feel when we are at our lowest points in life. A spiralized descent into a place frost and ice….After a break up or the death of someone close to us, that cold, that chill, that sense of being totally alone in an isolated black bleakness of despair and solitude…a chill of and to the very soul, cold cold cold, and afraid, in the frozen void of the ultimate and final unfightable and undeniable aloneness, deep inside of ourselves. A deep black cold.  

buhdydharma :: Iglesia

Of course it was January in Philadelphia and she was sitting by a broken window, so that may have had something to do with it, too.

But she was definitely cold.

And waiting.

And no longer a small girl. The coffee wasn’t helping much, nor was all the extra clothing, except to make her feel even more removed and barriered off from the world, outside of herself. And making her have to pee….the coffee, that is. The long hours of waiting with nothing to do but watch and listen always took their emotional toll, always….the cold just added to it. It made her even more sedentary than usual, seeking to huddle in on herself and instead of watching, searching instead for some form of inner warmth. She got up and crossed the room to kick the pathetic tiny radiator out of sheer spite. Even her gun was cold against her hip.

Frank snoring from the other room like a sea lion in heat didn’t make her feel less alone, not on the level she was currently working with. Even when she was in bed with Paul, there were still times when the aloneness would creep in….on tiny cats feet, as someone once put it. Even there it got cold, sometimes. Even on hot nights with her whole body pressed up against him after making love, she had felt it. She always wondered if others got cold too. Like that. It was one of those things you can’t ever even really compare with other humans, since degrees of sensation and sensitivity were always subjective. Especially coldness. How cold are you is not a real question, really. She also wondered if being Latina made her colder too. It is one of those things, no other people can tell you. There is just no language for things like that, they only exist inside of us.

Her mind snapped back.

Pinche Tejano gangsters! They could have at least hid out near a fucking Starbucks!

In the Iowa wrap-up diary last week, I posted this comment.  It turned out to be prescient, so I’m going to flog it a little.  The key insight is that, without an incumbent running, Iowa and New Hampshire are generally won by different candidates.  This year, that worked in both parties.  Part of this may be due to Granite Staters desire to defy expectations, part to the less populist and more libertarian politics of the state, and part of it may be due to the different campaign strategies and tactics (and infrastructure) required to win the two states.

Anyway, having said four days ago about the race what people are saying now, I’m going to take a victory lap.  Yes, this is obnoxious; we’ll all get over it.  I think what we’re likely to see now is Edwards decides to withdraw if he doesn’t do well in Nevada — assuming (as I expect) that he does prefer Obama over Clinton — and tosses his support to Obama, most of which sticks on Feb. 5.  But unless Obama beats Hillary by over a 60-40% margin on Feb. 4, this will not be over for a long time, for reasons discussed below.

(Consider this a virtual blockquoting of the post below from Jan. 4:

——

Like Huckabee (and Carter and Robertson and Hart) (4.00 / 1)

and others who have done unexpectedly well in Iowa, Obama adapted well to the rules of the caucus; his community organizing background actually turned out to be a huge plus, and now we know why he’s been going after moderates while neglecting the likes of us.  (On the GOP side, there may never be another non-evangelical who tries to compete in Iowa.  It’s a fool’s game, as Huckabee showed.)

The question is whether New Hampshire — a state requiring a very different strategy — follows Iowa.  The answer, notwithstanding 2000 and 2004, is: except when there is an incumbent running, usually not.  I have a chart buried in DKos about this:

1972: IA, Muskie; NH, McGovern

1976: IA, uncommitted (then Carter); NH, Carter

1980: incumbent

1984: IA, Mondale; NH, Hart

1988: IA, Gephart; NH, Dukakis

1992: IA, Harkin (uncontested); NH, Tsongas (then Clinton)

1996: incumbent

2000: IA, Gore; NH, Gore (but by only 4% over Bradley)

2004: IA, Kerry; NH, Kerry

New Hampshire is a very different state than Iowa.  Huckabee will likely lose there.  (Among Republican races since 1976, a different person has won Iowa and New Hampshire in every race without an incumbent.)  If Obama wins, NH it will be because he has neither elicited great dissatisfaction as a frontrunner (as did Mondale or Gore) nor doubts about electability (as did Gephart and Harkin) that brought down previous Iowa victors.  But NH does not play to Obama’s organizational strength the way that Iowa did; you can’t likely community-organize your way to a general election victory.  (Though it would be sweet if he could!)  The main thing benefitting him, and the thing to watch for in the polls over the next few days, is that Edwards may falter now, and his voters are more likely to go to Obama, just as people long predicted before it became too much predicted to be worth predicting.

But this is likely to be a long race: Hillary simply will not drop out before Tumultuous Tuesday unless she’s losing so badly that it hurts her image to continue.  In fact, I’ve argued that if she isn’t knocked out on Feb. 12 (VA and MD), with this primary calendar it doesn’t really make sense for her to drop out before March 4 (OH and TX), and if she’s still in the race at that point it makes sense to wait for Pennsylvania on April 22.  The races in between these benchmarks — respectively Wisconsin and Hawaii, and then Wyoming, Mississippi and the territories — are just not big enough to settle things.  If her argument is that Obama is green and liable to be torn apart under press scrutiny, it’s better for her to wait and see if he stumbles over this two-and-a-half month period as the presumptive nominee, after which she can try to salvage the day in PA, IN, NC, WV, KY, and OR over the following month.

If Clinton wins the early races, by contrast, the pressure on Obama to withdraw will be huge.  I don’t think we’ll have a sense of how this comes out before Feb. 5.  I agree that Edwards won’t likely come back barring some meltdown by one of the other two, but that’s possible.

——–

So far, so good!

(@Ten PM – promoted by On The Bus)

I think I will say this as often as is possible.

Our government is broken. We will not be able to deal with issues, from Iraq to health care or from ecological to economic collapse, until we (all of us) restore Constitutional order, balance of power and, most importantly, accountability and consequences in Washington.

I hold these truths to be socially and politically evident…

1. The administration of George Walker Bush has been allowed to destroy our governmental infrastructure. And make no mistake. This destruction was done in order to outsource all major functions of our government for the benefit and profit of a few. We need to immediately stop the outsourcing of our military, our intelligence gathering, and our public education. For starters.

2. The administration of George Walker Bush has been allowed to siphon power from our country and into board rooms of global corporations via sovereignty-sucking trade agreements.

3. The administration of George Walker Bush has been allowed to TORTURE. Not just the torture of what Bush calls enemy combatants. It extends to the million plus dead in the Iraq debacle. It darkens the homecoming of our troops who, broken mentality/physically/emotionally fighting an illegal war, are cast aside.

4. The administration of George Walker Bush has been allowed to cast cultural issues like chum into the political debate. All to stir theocrats into a feeding frenzy over gay marriage and abortion et al. Make no mistake. George Bush could care less if you’re gay or suffered through an abortion or had sex as a teenager. He does care about using theocrats as foot soldiers in his war on our Constitutional freedoms. What better way to kill freedom than to endorse those who would legislate their bibles, korans, or torahs???

Here I am again. Making more lists. But I believe these things are the underpinnings of George Bush’s assault on America. Of course, the killer is the one for which I have no number:::  The Senate’s inability to force compliance with its subpoenas has critically wounded our democracy. Nobody is stopping them. Nobody is fucking stopping them. So why should they stop?

Let me wrap it up with this… it is imperative for our souls that justice be invoked and George Bush, Dick Cheney, et al be brought to trial for their crimes. It isn’t optional. It isn’t a nice-to-have… this is an absolute NEED-TO-HAVE.

We must have accountability. We must demand that those in POWER SPEAK TRUTH TO US. The only way to start to climb out of this mess is through the truth. We need to know how bad our situation is. We desperately need some orchestration and coordination of efforts at federal, local, state, and regional levels.

Warning…. using the words change or hope will not make it all better. We don’t need a change candidate. Bush was a change candidate. You know… from democracy to fascism. Heh. I want a candidate who understands the work needed here is restoration. There is no equitable change, no beneficial change without repair of our infrastructure… our very foundation. It’s like investing lots of money on cosmetics in an old house… you know, granite counter tops and fancy trim and hard wood floors and soaker tubs. Those investments can’t stop a house from collapsing when its foundation is rotting away.

Our most urgent issue is restoration. We can not deal with the overwhelming issues that we face without a sound governmental infrastructure. We can’t afford to wait and hope the next president will untangle these things. Those people in Washington need to know we demand these things NOW… because these things are evident… we need to be told  the truth, to go after the criminals, and we all need to get to work, fixing our house…

It’s still up to us. How this will go. Up to us.

Mexican Farmer Protests Price Of Corn

Another disgrace.  On January 2, I wrote that dozens of Mexican farmers had blocked a lane of the border bridge from Ciudad Juarez to El Paso for 36 hours to protest the removal of Mexico’s last tariffs on US and Canadian farm goods.  And now Mexico’s President, Felipe Calderon, has responded to the protests by saying that there’s no problem, NAFTA’s good for Mexican workers.  He has to be joking, right?

Join me across the Rio Pequeno.

According to Reuters:

Mexican President Felipe Calderon defended a regional trade deal on Monday even as farm groups were mounting protests against an expected flood of cheap U.S. agricultural goods since all tariffs ended January 1.

At the start of the year Mexico lifted 14 years of protection for corn, beans, milk and sugar under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that took effect in 1994. The regional trade pact groups Mexico, the United States and Canada.

The move will allow the United States, the world’s biggest corn producer, to sell more to the country that claims to have discovered the grain.

The Mexican Legislature, of course, disagrees.  According to Bloomberg:

Mexican lawmakers demanded [on 1/4/08 that] President Felipe Calderon consider renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement and meet with farmers, who fear a flood of cheap U.S. imports.

Members of Calderon’s National Action Party and the two largest opposition groups agreed on the demand after farm workers staged scattered protests against the Jan. 1 elimination of duties on U.S. corn, sugar, beans and milk as part of Nafta. The request was approved in a vote today.

“This is a national security issue,” said Samuel Aguilar, of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, in a speech before the Congress. “The agricultural chapter of Nafta could generate a social conflict.” /snip

Mexico may lose as many as 350,000 farm jobs this year because of competition from the U.S., Cruz Lopez Aguilar, president of the Confederation of National Farm Workers, said in a Jan. 2 interview. Confederation leaders will meet with the Agriculture Minister tomorrow in Veracruz state to ask him to renegotiate the terms of Nafta, he said.

And, of course, Mexican farmers, who are most imperiled, vehemently disagree with Calderon.  They fear that competition with subsidized US corn will force them out of business (and indirectly and inevitably into fleeing to the US for work):

Some Mexican farmers say competing against highly subsidized U.S. goods could put thousands out of work on top of about 2 million Mexican farm jobs lost over the last decade.

But Calderon said increased trade integration with the United States and Canada was the only way to strengthen Mexico’s economy.

“The free trade agreement, negotiated almost 15 years ago, has its pros and cons, but overall it has benefited the country,” Calderon said in a speech.

And what, you might ask, is going to prevent Mexican subsistence farmers with poor land and not much of it, from being driven out of business by highly subsidized US Agribusiness and exportation of corn to Mexico?  And what, exactly, is the benefit to Mexico’s economy from causing hundreds of thousands of farmers to lose their jobs?

Calderon says:

“There are more, and better-paid, jobs than in 1994 in the sectors linked to the treaty,” said Calderon.

“Countries in the region now buy almost five times as many Mexican farm products than in 1994,” said Calderon. “We are the second largest providers of agricultural goods to the United States and the third largest to Canada,” he said.

But farmers complain they have not received enough support from the government since NAFTA was signed and say they will continue protest marches this month against the trade opening.

Calderon is also quoted in the Canadian press as claiming:

NAFTA, negotiated in 1993, has generally “been beneficial for Mexicans because it has given consumers access to a greater range of high-quality products at better prices,” Calderon said in his first broadcast address of 2008.

“At the same time, it’s allowed us to export more Mexican products,” Calderon said.

What do these claims mean exactly?  They mean that in production of some agricultural products (for example, tomatoes, vegetables) agribusiness in Mexico has expanded.  And because of low wages, those products compete against US products in the US. The large producers have entered US markets and sold large amounts of Mexican produce.  You can verify this in your supermarket’s vegetable aisles.  And, of course, Mexican supermarkets have more US goods for middle class purchasers to buy.

But this has nothing at all to do with poor, subsistence farmers in Mexico who cannot compete in sales of corn and now actually must buy corn from the US to feed their animals. source.

And if subsistence farmers cannot make a go of it on their small, subsistence farms in Mexico, they will, of course, be driven by economic necessity to find work elsewhere (read: the US).  They will be forced to migrate to the US for work.

That’s the connection between NAFTA and immigration, the very connection that the US government and the Mexican government just do not discuss.  To be clear: US trade policy impoverishes Mexican subsistence farmers and forces them to migrate to the US, but the US government persists in making believe that immigration of undocumented Mexican farm workers has nothing to do with US policy, but instead, is a matter of “legalities.”  And the Mexican government, which has a distinguished record of ignoring the plight of poor, subsistence farmers, and has had to pass legislation placing a ceiling on price of tortillas (which are made of corn) so that the Mexican poor could continue to eat, doesn’t care if poor families are displaced and leave so long as US products are in the supermarkets for those who can afford them.

(how about a little levity???  join us in a Pony Party. all lurkers and regulars welcome.   – promoted by pfiore8)

     Welcome to the Pony Party Special Hands-Free Edition, brought to you tonight by Dr.  Phil, for so astutely diagnosing Britney Spears as being “in dire need of help.” Thank you, Dr. Obvious. The guys down at the tractor pull were saying this last year, and the four-year-old next door phoned it in way before you did. But the good news is you’re now a leading contender for the first annual Bill “Diagnosis by Video” Frist Award for practicing medicine without any apparent medical knowledge.

    And now, without further ado, we present a very special Pony Party segment — “Now Who Looks Like a Dope?” complete with re-creations from the Los Angeles Chapter of the Archives of Overhead Cell Phone Conversations.      

Exhibit A:

“Hi, it’s me. I’m at the airport, waiting. Yeah, the plane’s late. So whatcha doing? Do-nuts! Where’d you get do-nuts? Did he like them? Yeah, I know, he loves those ones. I like the ones with the different colored frosting. Or the chocolate sprinkles, those are good too. Sometimes at work we get the kind that are like all cake or something, those are nice. But not the powdered ones, I hate those. That stuff gets all over my face.”  

Exhibit B:

“He did — he said that? And what’d you say? And then what’d he say? He did? And what’d you say?  What? For real? And what’d you say then? Serious? And then what’d he say? So what’d you tell him? (laughter) That’s a good one. And then what’d he say? Well, how could he say that?”

Exhibit C:

“Okay, I’m in the bread aisle now…Let’s see. The sliced kind or rolls? No, only sourdough. Yeah, there’s seeds on it.  Yeah, the little ones that get stuck in your teeth. Okay, I’m going over to the chips and sodas. You want Fritos?  They have hot and spicy or cool ranch are good.  Should I get some Diet Coke? Okay, after I leave here, I have to go back to the office for a while and then I’m going to the drycleaners and I have to pick up some stuff at the drug store later, but I’ll be over tonight. Yeah, I’ll call first.”  

    I’ve been collecting overheard cell phone conversations for a long time. Based on the samples above, and many, many others just like them, all I can say is, “Thank you, techno gods, for giving us the miracle of cell phone communication, because clearly it is a gift to humankind. How did we survive before we were able to instantaneously relay this kind of vitally important information to one another? Honestly, I have no idea.  

    Sarcastic?? Me???? Nuh-uh! Miss Sincere here. Sure, I used to think cell phones were stupid and annoying, and conversations like these were banal beyond belief. My bad. I just didn’t realize how important it is for citizens of a nation at war, who are sitting on a powder keg economy with a lit fuse deficit and crumbling infrastructure, not to mention facing an ongoing constitutional crisis, to thoroughly deconstruct donuts, secondhand conversations and shopping trips.  

    So what changed my mind? I ran across this survey at National Geographic (http://tinyurl.com/ysrud9) showing that out of 34 nations, America ranks next to last when it comes to the number of people who believe in evolution. And apparently, we’re slowly working our way toward the bottom.  

“Researchers point out that the number of Americans who are uncertain about the theory’s validity has increased over the past 20 years.”

    Add in there the fact that Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, another non-believer, has started moving up in the polls and you’ve got to wonder – is it really just a few lunatics skeptics who wouldn’t want to buy Darwin a drink? Or has all that slick “science” stuff suckered some of us into believing humans evolved from primates (pretty goofy, if you think about it!)? Clearly it’s time to get a clue, and what better way to do it than revisiting regular people’s cell phone conversations to see what important information we might learn from our more enlightened fellow citizens.  

    Actually, in the first instance, I didn’t know anyone still ate do-nuts, so right there I learned something. Also, I was able to gain a whole new perspective on types of donuts that are available – and now all I can say is, what primary? People, wake up and smell the pastries! This election thing will work itself out. We need to pay more attention to baked goods, like normal Americans. (Meanwhile, I am hopeful that maybe one day some genius will come up with something that woman could use to remove powdered sugar from her face. Come on, inventors! Get busy – you can totally do this!!)  

    The second conversation gave me a brand new perspective in communications. I had no idea it was possible to converse while using less than 100 different words, most of them consisting of no more than two syllables! What economy of language! What conciseness! Outstanding work, distilling needless verbiage down to its essence. Continue in that vein and soon we’ll have communication streamlined to nothing more than grunts and squeaks. (It won’t be hard. Listen to any show on Fox News – they’re almost there now.)  

    The third conversation made me realize how remiss I have been about keeping friends updated on my whereabouts, in minute and mind-numbing detail. Yes, the “I’m in the bread aisle” guy opened my eyes, truly he did. ‘Holy shit,’ I said to myself, ‘my friends, too, deserve to know where I am at all times,’ and I’ve started calling to give them progress reports. Lately, I’ve had to leave messages, though – for some reason, they don’t seem to be home as often as they used to be, but whatever. When they check in, they’ll realize that I was not only in the bread aisle, but in frozen foods, paper goods and produce, too! I call from the parking lot, also, just to let them know the shopping’s done and I’m on my way home – or possibly on to the dry cleaners, drug store or gym. What are friends for?

    Thanks to the combination of cell phones and average citizens, my knowledge base has expanded exponentially in so many other ways. For example, I now know:  

    Green Day’s latest album may not be as good as some other band I’ve never heard of, but it seems this is still being debated.

    Josh’s ass is definitely way hotter than Jason’s. And Josh also drives an Audi. Yes, the Josh who’s totally into video games, that one.

    There are black suede pumps on sale somewhere and they have rhinestones (the actual words were “sparkly things like jewelry,” which – just a guess here – are most likely rhinestones) that can be removed, so it’s like having two different pairs of shoes! Leggings are also on sale.

    Portland and Seattle are now states and Oregon is a city. (As in “He’s moving to Oregon. No, not in Seattle – it’s in Portland.”)

    There are levels of Grand Theft Auto that you can get to without using something or other. It was a compelling conversation, but I lost focus because of intrusive thoughts like: “Cute butt, how’s about following him around the store for a while?” (Note to self: Could this be Josh??? Well, hellllllloo there, honey!)

    The snowboarding at Mammoth was epic for slaying powder, but not so much at Snow Summit.  

    I do not have Demi Moore disease. What’s wrong with going out with a younger guy…. (Oh, wait, that was my own conversation – strike that, please.)

    Just a theory, but it seems that if we could listen in on more of our fellow Americans’ cell phone conversations, we could catch up on a lot of issues where we’re lagging, like evolution and … hold on a second, my cell phone’s ringing. Sorry, gotta go – it’s Josh! He’s coming over to show me some new strategies for Guitar Hero and Final Fantasy IV (Is that not an oxymoron? We seem to agree on everything but this!)

    Remember, the ponies do not like it when you Rec the Pony Party. And if you do it anyway, they will find you and leave little tiny Pony sized “presents” in places where you’ll step on them. At night. In your bare feet. Get it? Good. Giddy up, and when you’re done here, please, for god’s sake, do yourself a freaking favor and move on to the Golden Globe-nominated Front Page (there’s no fact checker here, is there?) and Recommended and Recent Essays. I would do it myself, but Josh will be here soon – and he’s bringing his joy stick!!    

     

Greetings, literature-loving Dharmenians!  I regretfully have to announce a few-month hiatus on the series, at least until the summer.  Unfortunately the real world has a way of infringing on my valuable internet time, and with a dissertation defense looming at the end of the semester I can’t really justify the weekly half-day spent putting these diaries together.  

But a hiatus is not a GBCW, and I fully expect the return to the series as soon as this particular hurdle is cleared.  In the meantime, follow me below for a few quick announcements, future writers to be explored, and requests…

Again, I really hate to cut the series off for now, but I’d also like to graduate and get a job and put food on the table.  And given my small but dedicated readership, I don’t expect this labor of love to pull in any revenue anytime soon.  I hope you’ll be patient with me in the meantime.

I’ll still hang around to post the occasional essay (keep an eye out for my review of E. E. Cummings’ Eimi, his travelogue from Soviet Russia): it’s just the weekly block of prep time that I can no longer afford to schedule regularly while I weep under the daily lashings of my advisers.

What can we expect come summer?  Here are a few authors I’ll be ready to discuss:

Chinua Achebe – his Things Fall Apart is a perennial favorite with readers, but I really want to discuss Anthills of the Savannah, a strange mix of satire and suspense aimed at the heart of modern African politics.  

Isaac Babel – Jewish writer from Odessa who wrote powerful, violent, colorful short stories before his execution by a paranoid Soviet state.  Babel paradoxically matched the unpredictable chaos of his narrative with a cool, precise, and very efficient prose.

James Baldwin – passionate and multifarious, Baldwin’s novels translated American race relations into compelling drama without losing the complex psychology of the people involved; his nonfiction essays are among the best America has produced.  

Beowulf – well, I already did Gilgamesh, so there’s no avoiding the grand-daddy of Old English literature.  The recent translation by Seamus Heaney gives us non-readers of Old English a vibrant new text to work with, and a cornucopia of valuable information in the introduction.

Mikhail Bulgakov – once a footnote in literary history, Bulgakov became a legend after the posthumous publication of his wicked masterpiece The Master and Margarita.  We’ll discuss the sly interaction of fantasy and politics in this and other works from the Russian master.

Anton Chekhov – both the most influential dramatist and the most influential short story writer of the past 200 years.  Not too shabby!  Chekhov was the kind of ironic understatement, and viewed life with a complexity that helped break literature out of its own literariness.  

John Christopher – among the least-known writers I’ll cover, Christopher was a moderately well-respected British sci-fi writer who found a second surge of popularity when he began writing sci-fi for young adults in the mid 60s.  As an adult I still love the psychological sophistication of his teen lit.

Edwidge Danticat – I don’t yet know much about Danticat, a Haitian-American author and National Book Award nominee, but I’ve picked up a few of her books on a strong recommendation.  And this is another reason for the hiatus: I need time to catch up on reading!  

Stanislaw Lem – the great philosopher of science fiction, Polish author Lem imbued the genre with an intense introspection: what does it mean to be human in a universe not designed for humanity?  His Solaris made it to film twice, though neither captured the powerful  depth of Lem’s novel.

Fernando Pessoa – poet, critic, and essayist, the Portuguese author Pessoa turned the notion of the Author inside-out by creating a whole set of fictional authors out of himself, giving each one a history, a creative output, and a distinct artistic style.  Harold Bloom called him the “most representative poet of the 20th century” – we’ll see if you agree.

Annie Proulx – contemporary American author best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Shipping News and a little short story called “Brokeback Mountain” (that for some reason rankled some talking heads on the Right).  

Alexander Pushkin – I can’t say much about Pushkin without dribbling into incoherent praise for the best writer since Shakespeare, so suffice to say that I’m not looking forward to condensing his enormous and very varied output into a single essay!

Murasaki Shikubu – author of the classic epic/novel The Tale of Genji, Murasaki was writing in 11th century Japan while European culture was still wearing diapers.  Genji paints a sweeping portrait of court culture that’s still enormously popular today.

John Steinbeck – very appropriate for this joint: Steinbeck is the go-to man for good political literature, combining a passionate sense of social justice with strong characters and a sweeping view of history.  I’m especially a fan of East of Eden, which filters a multi-generational story of the West through a sometimes-serious, sometimes-ironic Biblical lens.

Tom Stoppard – playwright most known for his nimble wit and meta approach to theatre.  We’ll touch on his enormously popular Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, but I expect to devote more time to his real masterpiece, Arcadia, a play that unforgettably combines history, thermodynamics, and heartbreak.

Thucydides – not fiction?  No problem!  Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War remains arguably THE great history of warfare, despite a methodology that wouldn’t pass muster with modern historians.  Through reconstructed speeches and debates, Thucydides pries away the layers of politics, ideology, money, and personality that led to the tragic internecine Greek war.

John Kennedy Toole – Author of only two novels, Toole skyrocketed to fame only after his suicide, leaving behind the seminal novel about life in New Orleans.  Andrei Codrescu argues that Toole’s comedy is really putting the ugliest side of New Orleans under a grotesque magnifying glass, which is a great jumping-off point for discussion.

E.B. White – my favorite English-language essayist, White’s virtuosity with the language was as crisp and pleasant as a Mozart sonata.    We’ll talk about his work with The New Yorker, and hopefully reevaluate the notion that he was a stodgy old pedant (the kind of criticism made by people who haven’t read Elements of Style carefully enough!)

That’s plenty for now, and more than enough to keep me busy once the summer hits.

Which brings me to you:

You’ll notice that my list is pretty heavy on the men, and pretty heavy on the West.  I’d like to think that I’m a pretty broad reader, but no one can read everything, and I have significant gaps.  I’d also like to think I can start filling in those gaps while continuing the series, but since a good part of what I do involves rereading, there’s just not enough time in the day to cover all my bases with equal dexterity.

So when the series reboots during the summer, I’d like to recruit a few of you: those of you who have read more women authors, or who have read more non-Western authors, or who’ve otherwise got some experience in one of my many reading gaps, please raise your hands!  I’m going to tap you for future installments, and I sincerely hope you take me up on the offer.  Part of the reason I started this series in the first place was to introduce people to authors they haven’t read, so I need your help to cover areas that I haven’t read myself.

In the meantime, thanks to all of you who’ve help make this a worthwhile series so far, and I’ll see you ’round.

Wish me luck.

Well if you were wondering exactly who decides that every move Britney Spears makes is newsworthy, look no farther than the GOP-worshipping Associated Press.  

An AP internal memo reads as follows:

From: Baker, Frank S.

Sent: Tue 1/8/2008 11:58 AM

To: News – Southern California Editorial Staff

Subject: Britney

All:

Now and for the foreseeable future, virtually everything involving Britney is a big deal. That doesn’t mean every rumor makes it on the wire. But it does mean that we want to pay attention to what others are reporting and seek to confirm those stories that WE feel warrant the wire. And when we determine that we’ll write something, we must expedite it.

Thanks.

Frank

I have long despised the AP.  They have a history, since Bushco came into power, of doing the bidding of the neo-cons and the right-wing.

I’ve written several examples over at Dailykos:

One was titled The AP makes me sick.

Another was How the AP smears the Plame story

Both were recommended and received lots of comments.  In the first, I described how the AP came out with a story about how, according to them:

Why So Many Upset by Iraq Death Toll?

Where they actually had the unmitigated gall to say this:

But are Americans willing to hang in a tough fight anymore?

Some wonder if U.S. society, now populated by baby boomers who recall Vietnam and never knew the hardships of the Great Depression or World War II, has simply lost its stomach for great sacrifices.

And in the second one, this is how they described Valerie Plame’s appearance before Congress:

lame’s appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was a moment of political theater that dramatized Democrats’ drive to use their control of Congress to expose what they see as White House efforts to intimidate dissenters.

Can you believe that spin?   This is what they send out on the wires as “news”.  Could it be any more blatantly biased than that?

Keep in mind, too, that this is the company who started making available two versions of the same story, one “regular” and one “neo-con dark”:

“The concept is simple: On major spot stories we will provide you with two versions to choose between,” the AP said in an advisory to members. “One will be the traditional ‘straight lead’ that leads with the main facts of what took place. The other will be the ‘optional,’ an alternative approach that attempts to draw in the reader through imagery, narrative devices, perspective or other creative means.”

AP “TRADITIONAL” LEAD:

MOSUL, Iraq (AP)–A suicide attacker set off a bomb that tore through a funeral tent jammed with Shiite mourners Thursday, splattering blood and body parts over rows of overturned white plastic chairs. The attack, which killed 47 and wounded more than 100, came as Shiite and Kurdish politicians in Baghdad said they overcame a major stumbling block to forming a new coalition government.

AP “OPTIONAL” LEAD:

MOSUL, Iraq (AP)–Yet again, almost as if scripted, a day of hope for a new, democratic Iraq turned into a day of tears as a bloody insurgent attack undercut a political step forward. On Thursday, just as Shiite and Kurdish politicians in Baghdad were telling reporters that they overcame a major stumbling block to forming a new coalition government, a suicide attacker set off a bomb that tore through a funeral tent jammed with Shiite mourners in the northern city of Mosul.

And now this.  Britney Spears, 24/7.  Why?  Because the real news might piss people off.  It might make them angry, at, say, the AP.  It might make them REALLY angry at, say, the neo-con criminals who have their hands up the AP’s ass (and the rest of the “msm”).

I don’t know what we, or anybody, can do about this except to attempt to expose it every chance we get.  The AP really needs to be driven out of business, or just merge with Fucks News and quit being a wire service.

Edited many hours later to add the original link!  (man, you guys need to help a brother out with this stuff!)

1. The New York Times reports a Record New Hampshire voter turnout is predicted. “In the Democratic and Republican primaries here, a large group of voters who are not registered in either party hold significant sway over the outcome. Those independent voters, 45 percent of the state electorate, are free to cast ballots in either primary… On a day that felt like springtime, with temperatures expected to reach 60 degrees, voters flooded the polls at a steady pace throughout the morning. The secretary of state, Bill Gardner, predicted that at least a half-million people would vote in the primary.”

2. Spiegel asks Is America slouching towards protectionism? The article begins by describing the US-Mexican border crossing:

   The border crossing, in its coarseness, is reminiscent of the East German side of the former border between the two Germanys, except that the face on wall posters is that of George W. Bush and not of the former East German leader Erich Honecker. It isn’t exactly a welcoming sort of place, this border crossing with its posters cataloging the potentially dire consequences of breaking the rules — including the illegal purchase of parrots (“You’re buying yourself bird flu”) and human trafficking (“Death is only one of the ways of losing your life”).

   While certainly the description is a tad gratuitous, I thought it was too good to pass over. Continuing, the article explains the factory boom in Mexico as manufacturing jobs in the United States has plummeted in the era of free trade.

   Americans, Spiegel explains “were promised a modern service industry, but what they got instead were low-paying, unskilled jobs packaging and delivering products. Even after five years of economic recovery, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics recently wrote in a special report, real wages are now lower than they were in 1999… Many Americans have stopped believing that vigorous international trade promotes the wealth of nations… Only 28 percent of respondents agreed that globalization is a good thing. White-collar workers have now joined their blue-collar counterparts in rejecting the form of international trade in place today. For the first time, a majority in both political camps — 55 percent of Republican and 63 percent of Democratic voters — are convinced that globalization is bad for the country.“

   The article continues to describe what life is like in “America’s poor backyard” — “surreal, hostile and, most of all, filthy” and “plagued by a high crime rate”. Then concludes with the impact on the United States.

   Nowadays America is both the world’s biggest borrower and its biggest importer. Many of the suppliers of days gone by are now competitors in their own right. Big US corporations may be reporting record profits and Wall Street may be awash in bonus payments, but workers — blue-collar and white-collar alike — are suffering.

   The American middle class is suddenly finding itself confronted with the conditions of the past, as wages decline and companies increasingly eliminate their contributions to their employees’ health insurance and retirement pensions…

   The gap between rich and poor has grown by leaps and bounds in America, far more so than in countries like Germany. One-fifth of Americans earn more than half of all wages and salaries. Ten percent of the population owns 70 percent of all assets.

   And according to The New York Times, even Bush admits economy faces challenges sucks.

Four at Four continues below the fold with deadly winter tornadoes in the Midwest and more…

3. The AP reports Rare winter tornado reported in Arkansas. “A tornado was reported blowing across eastern Arkansas Tuesday, a day after a freak cluster of January twisters sprung up in the unseasonably warm Midwest and demolished houses, knocked a railroad locomotive off its tracks and shuttered a courthouse. The twister swept through Pope County, the National Weather Service said. One person was killed… The tornadoes came as record high winter temperatures were reported across wide areas of the country. Tornadoes were reported or suspected Monday in southwest Missouri, southeastern Wisconsin, Arkansas, Illinois and Oklahoma. Two people were killed in Missouri.” Hrmm… wasn’t strange and more extreme weather one of the changes global warming promised? Hrmmm.

4. The Star Tribune reports For girls, eating with family is eating healthy.

   The survey of 2,000 Minnesota adolescents found that girls who have five or more meals a week with their families are one-third less likely to develop unhealthy eating habits. That could be anything from skipping meals to abusing diet pills to anorexia.

   For reasons experts say are hard to explain, the same is not true of boys. The study by University of Minnesota researchers was published Monday in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

   It is the latest in a growing body of evidence showing regular family meals seem to help adolescents avoid a wide variety of health risks, including obesity, drug use, smoking and suicidal thinking. Earlier U of M research has shown that’s also true for adolescents who say they don’t have the best relationships with their families, but who still eat with them regularly.

5. Lastly, in the “are they out of their freakin’ minds” category, The Guardian reports on a Taser/MP3 player combo. Dubbed the iTaser, “it combines a Taser stun gun, used by 12,000 police and security forces worldwide including the Metropolitan police, with an MP3 player and earphones… The gun generates a staggering 50,000 volts but the actual ampage – which is potentially very dangerous to life – is a mere 0.0021 amps, while a household plug carries 13 amps. The ampage is so low that the Taser’s two lithium camera batteries can stun 100,000 people.”