Nicholas Carr points to the second article in a series on technology in education, particularly whether “popular, expensive computer-aided instruction programs actually benefit students.” He ends his post with a good quote from Steve Jobs in 1996: “Historical precedent shows that we can turn out amazing human beings without technology. Precedent also shows that we can turn out very uninteresting human beings with technology.”
Nobels and Americans
D.G. Myers believes Philip Roth is the greatest living novelist, and he hasn’t gotten a Nobel for Literature. Does he or any American deserve one?
American novelists, according to Nazaryan, have only themselves to blame for not winning a Nobel since 1993. And he knows exactly what American literature needs:
America needs an Obama des letters [sic], a writer for the 21st century, not the 20th — or even the 19th. One who is not stuck in the Cold War or the gun-slinging West or the bygone Jewish precincts of Newark — or mired in the claustrophobia of familial dramas. What relevance does our solipsism have to a reader in Bombay? For that matter, what relevance does it have in Brooklyn, N.Y.?
Bad Grammar, Spelling Kill
BBC News: “Charles Duncombe says an analysis of website figures shows a single spelling mistake can cut online sales in half. Mr. Duncombe says when recruiting staff he has been ‘shocked at the poor quality of written English’.”
I agree with this article, but isn’t the period to go inside the quotation marks? Does British English differ from American English on end punctuation?
What It Is Will Be No More
“It is what it is, but it is not what it shall be. Some day, when Someday comes, we will slide on over into the re-Edened earth.” S.D. Smith meditates on the world and the world to come.
A paltry thing, but mine own
Sorry to hear of the death of Steve Jobs. I was surprised to learn, via a link to this Get Religion article provided by a commenter at Strange Herring, that Steve was raised a Lutheran and confirmed in the Missouri Synod.
Of course, by all accounts he converted to Buddhism, but one can always hope. I know Lutherans who seem to believe that once you’re baptized you’re pretty much set for eternity, unless you actually find a way to storm the gates of heaven and urinate in the golden streets.
I think I’m one of about a hundred people in this country who possesses no Apple devices at all. No iPad, no i-Anything. I don’t think I’ve even seen a Pixar film. Not on any principle, other than the principle that if I buy the Hewlett-Packard I can pay for it through selling a kidney, rather than selling a kidney plus robbing a bank.
And that penury explains my considerable satisfaction in the car repair I did today, all by myself.
Mrs. Hermanson, my old Chevy Tracker, is—like her owner—entering into a penurious and undignified old age. One problem that’s been dogging us for some time is her loose hood, which blew out completely somewhere in North Dakota on the way to Høstfest.
How does a hood blow out? Well, due to damage she suffered before I bought her, the supporting structure of the hood has always been iffy. Lots of rust, and several loose welds. One guy who changed the oil once told me I needed to look into that or the thing would separate completely and fly up in my face one day.
Which is why I adopted the practice of securing the hood with a nylon tie-down anytime I took her onto the highway. So when the wind blew it apart in North Dakota it didn’t fly loose, but it was flapping around on the unsecured side. I procured a second tie-down at a tractor supply store in the town of Harvey (if I remember correctly), strung it crossways from wheel well to wheel well, and made it to Minot and home again that way.
But I pondered the problem and treasured it in my heart, and came up with a plan. Today I drilled two holes through the outer skin (there were already holes in the support) and put a bolt, a washer and a nut in each, screwed them tight, and cut the bolt down short to fit the space.
And it worked. I couldn’t believe it. I was certain my fix would actually make things worse, which is the usual way with my work.
I like to think this is the sort of repair my dad would have done. On the farm you fixed everything with spit, twine, and fence wire, until the fatal day when you couldn’t do it yourself anymore, and you generally had to replace the whole thing (a repair man couldn’t do much that Dad couldn’t do himself). The replacement, needless to say, would be bought used.
No, come to think of it, Dad wouldn’t have used bolts. He’d have done a welding job, because he was a mighty welder (there’s a scene in Wolf Time where Carl Martell remembers watching his father weld a wagon hitch. That was based on my memories of Dad).
Oh yes, I won’t be posting tomorrow or Monday, because I’m going to Norway, Michigan for the Leif Eriksson festival. See you there if you’re in the neighborhood.
Steve Jobs and the American Dream
Ben Domenech describes how Steve Jobs embodies the American Dream.
The essence of American optimism is founded in a belief that the world we pass on can exceed the one we inherited. We are not prisoners of an all-encompassing destiny, and neither are our children. This is not a uniquely American inclination, mind you, but a human one – but not all cultures acknowledge or honor it. It was here in America where such an experience was uniquely understood from our inception in our creed. We create, as we were created, and know all who are created have worth. So they have an equal claim to life, to liberty, and to the pursuit.
R.I.P.
Redcoat, by David Crookes
Here’s another book I uploaded to my Kindle for nothing, and it was well worth the price. Not a great novel, Redcoat was certainly entertaining, and it held my interest.
The time is the 1870s. The hero is Jeffrey Guest, a young British officer in South Africa. The son of a poor Cornish farmer who sacrificed to purchase a commission for him, Jeffrey encounters the condescension of a senior officer, the sadistic Spencer Shackerly. When Shackerly is paralyzed and left comatose by a mine cave-in, Jeffrey, also injured, is sent home, where he proposes to his sweetheart.
But Shackerly regains consciousness, and blames Jeffrey for causing the accident. When soldiers come to arrest him, Jeffrey flees, first to America, then to Canada (where he joins the Mounties), and then to Australia. Wherever Jeffrey goes, Shackerly’s agents, sometimes assisted by the Pinkerton Detective Agency, are dogging him.
The story is acted out on a broad stage, and there’s plenty of action. Unfortunately, the author, David Crookes, doesn’t develop his hero as a hero deserves. Again and again, the really decisive actions are taken by Jeffrey’s friends and family, while his uniform response (until the very end) is merely to run away. He’s likeable, but he’s one of the least interesting personalities in the book.
Crookes also shows great weaknesses as a stylist. He falls back on clichés again and again (“mind like a steel trap,” “scarcer than hen’s teeth”), and his prose can be highly infelicitous:
“Angered and hurt, Lucy glowered contemptibly at her daughter.” (The word he wants is “contemptuously,” and “glowered” by itself would have been even better.)
“French showed his rash impatience once again….”
“…a lengthy article exulting the new force of brave young men who were to bring law and order to the untamed Canadian west.” (The word he wants is “exalting.”)
“The most contributing factor to their malaise was the rapidly dwindling supply of food….”
That’s just lazy writing. Such a thing is not uncommon among self-published writers, and Crookes is one of those.
Still, the story moved along and delivered plenty of spectacle and action. I recommend it as an entertainment for readers with a tolerance for mediocre prose. Profanity and adult themes are minimal.
A Poem by Debora Greger
“Theory of the leisure class”
Gold leaf, ground sapphire:
in the English book of hours,
the longest day of the year turns a page
in the season of spending
no sumptuary law can curb—
but today’s meditation has been interrupted
by a panicked feathery clatter:
a wood pigeon, ungainly in rosy waistcoat,
distracted on the way to Ascot
by an ornamental cherry at my window.
Coming to TV: The Adjustment Bureau Series
The SyFy Channel has announced its intentions to adapt the movie The Adjustment Bureau into a series. The movie was based on Philip K. Dick’s “Adjustment Team”