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Thursday post-mortem

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Things are looking better and brighter now. I’m not referring to the weather forecast, which calls for a cold snap over the weekend, but to my personal psychological climate. Yesterday’s storms have largely passed. You want to know more? Well, if you insist…



The first thing that got me down yesterday was Romney’s withdrawal speech at CPAC. I wasn’t enamored of him as a candidate, but he seemed to me the best of the field. I think my dislike for McCain, like that of many conservatives, is mostly feelings-based. He bugs me, and I’m pretty sure I’d bug him if he knew me. I suspect that whenever he finds an excuse to give the Christian Right a wedgie, he goes away from the finished task with a warm feeling of having made the country a better place.

That said, I’m really tired of the people who call into radio shows and bark that McCain’s a liberal and they’d rather see Clinton or Obama in the White House. You have to live in a very bizarre alternate reality, it seems to me, to say that. I’d rather hire a guy who does his job well and cares about the welfare of my business, but gives me a hard time now and then, than hire a guy who’s polite and empathetic and keeps giving the stock away.

I like hyperbole as a satiric technique. I’ve been a big fan of Ann Coulter’s until recently. But some people seem to be taking their own hyperbole seriously.

If I wanted to be a member of the Silly Party, I’d register as a Democrat. Continue reading Thursday post-mortem →

Coffee, Tea, Drinks

Woman Arrested in Saudi Starbucks After Boasting of Her Freedoms

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This is sad, but instructive. One week a businesswoman in Riyadh praised the freedom she had as a woman, saying the city had a bad reputation which it did not deserve. The following Monday, she sat with a male colleague in Starbucks, violating a strict law against “public contact between unrelated men and women.” Somehow the contact law doesn’t prohibit the strip search she received after her arrest. Fox News reports:

She was thrown in jail, strip-searched, threatened and forced to sign false confessions by the kingdom’s “Mutaween” police.

“When I was arrested, it was like going through an avalanche,” she said. “All of my beliefs were completely destroyed.”

Reviews

Winter Haven, by Athol Dickson

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Vera Gamble goes to Winter Haven, an isolated island 50 miles off the coast of Maine, in response to a surprising call. Her brother’s body has been found on a beach there. She hasn’t seen him for years and had hoped he wasn’t dead, but at the same time, she has been trying to forget him. How did he get across the country and ocean to die on Winter Haven’s beach? Her initial questions seem irrelevant once she gets to the island, because the body isn’t her brother’s. At least, if it is her brother’s body, how could he be the same age he was when she last saw him?

That’s the primary mystery of Athol Dickson’s new novel, Winter Haven, coming in April. Vera must stay on Winter Haven until some facts on her brother’s death are collected, but the village folk aren’t warm people, particularly the widow with the only spare room for her sleep in (cash in advance, two night minimum). And she shouldn’t leave the village, because the local witch could kill her, the ancient trees could trap her, or one of the ghosts could drive her mad—if she isn’t actually mad now.

It’s an interesting, uncomplicated story which I enjoyed, but it has one weakness. You know how authors often hint at something troubling without telling you what it is until later? Sometimes it’s an undefined danger, something the characters only understand enough to see the danger or suspect it. Naturally the reader does not know what’s coming because the characters don’t. But when the character does know and simply doesn’t tell you, the story arc feels different.

That’s the weakness of one character in Winter Haven. Throughout the story, she hints at troubling memories, perhaps past abuse which she can’t allow herself to dwell on, and she won’t tell the reader until much later. It doesn’t feel like undefined danger; it feels like obstruction. Perhaps if we see her worry and fear when she does remember something and hear much less that she doesn’t want to relive the worse memories (the ones that come later in the book), then the suspense would be maintained. As it is, I was a little tired, in fact a bit disappointed, at the artificial suspense of her refusal to level with me.

Despite that, the book is fun and well-written. Several times I wondered if Dickson was describing the actual landscape of Maine or an island in that area of the continent or if he was imagining the setting with rich detail. Everything in Winter Haven feels authentic from the ghostly fog to the discovery of . . . well, I shouldn’t tell you that part.

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Checking in, checking out

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Sorry I can’t do a proper post tonight. I’m having a rather bad day (nothing terrible or life-threatening, just a pile of aggravations that ganged up on me all at once), and I’ll spend the evening putting out little fires. Metaphorically, of course.

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Hairy Faces

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Scholar Meir Soloveichik notes, “[T]he careful reader of the Bible and the Talmud cannot but conclude that the spirit of the law, if not the letter, is quite clear: Jewish men are encouraged to have beards.” Why? It has to do with a visible rejection of pagan hopes for immortality apart of the Lord of creation.

“By forbidding Jews to destroy their hair, the Bible warns them away from seeking the siren song of eternal youth. By encouraging Jews to grow beards, it reminds them that they will not be young forever, that they must prepare the ground for those who come after, just as their fathers did for them.” Is that why you wear your beard? (Thanks to Abe Greenwald)

Fiction, Goofing

And Now for Something Completely Different

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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight–The Short Version!

Chestertonian Rambler has edited and modernized the story of everyone’s favorite medieval giant.

Gawain: I’m not good at anything but talking. I’ll take the honors.

Arthur: Helpful tip: Beheaded Enemies rarely have the ability to return the blow.

Gawain: Sure thing. *cuts off Green Knight’s head in a single stroke*

Green Knight’s head: Jolly good times! See you next year, at the green chapel!

Poetry

It’s Raining

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I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,

From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid

In their noonday dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken

The sweet buds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother’s breast,

As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under,

And then again I dissolve it in rain,

And laugh as I pass in thunder.

From “The Cloud” by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Reading

Ash Wednesday Intensity

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Sorry I’m late tonight, and I’m afraid I’ll be short as well. Tonight I read scripture for our Ash Wednesday service (turned out the verses they’d given me to prepare were the wrong ones. No matter, I’m a quick study), and my bathroom sink has suddenly developed a massive clog. I hadn’t even noticed it was running slow before this morning.

Must be my renter’s fault.

I’m currently reading Dean Koontz’ Intensity. I remember, back when I had cable, that one of the networks ran it as an original film. I remember looking at the ads and thinking, “That’s precisely the kind of story I don’t want to see or read. I have no interest in spending quality time with a psychopath.” I’m pretty sure that was one of the reasons I avoided checking Koontz out for so long.

My opinion, as far as this book goes, haven’t changed with the reading thus far. Usually Koontz treats us to a group of interesting good characters whom I enjoy getting to know. There was such a group in this book, but they got removed from the stage early on. Now there’s just the heroine and the psychopath. The heroine’s fine. I like her. But I’m spending much more time with the serial killer than I’d choose if given my druthers.

That’s my personal taste. Apparently a lot of people feel differently.

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Political History

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The historical angle in this column by Tony Blankley is pretty interesting. He describes the men in the current GOP nomination process and looks at McCain’s potential nomination in light of the Goldwater campaign in 1964. No, no, it’s not that boring. Read it.

We were losing the decisive California primary until a few days before the vote, when Nelson Rockefeller’s new young second wife, “Happy” Murphy Rockefeller, gave birth to little Nelson Jr. — reminding social conservatives of his previous, presumed adultery. Goldwater won by a thin 2 percent.

We went on to the Cow Palace Convention in San Francisco, where we Goldwaterites and Rockefeller exchanged vulgar, angry epithets. Rockefeller, Mitt’s dad, George Romney, and other moderates refused to support Goldwater. Some moderates formed “Republicans for Lyndon Johnson.”

Will history repeat itself with the sides reversed?

Writing

Hollywood Writers Strike Alienates Viewers

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News that the Hollywood writers strike may be over meets a yawn from Kristen Chapman of World who says the vacation she took from TV watching has uncovered new things to do with the time. Hurrah!