Milton Babbitt, composer.
And:
Obit watch: “Who Cares If You Listen?”
January 30th, 2011Radio, radio.
January 28th, 2011Dashed off in great haste: this appears to be a good current schedule for Radio Cairo on shortwave.
I still have my shortwave gear, but I haven’t fired it up in a long time and I’m not sure how well it still works. If any of my readers are shortwave listeners and have other schedules from the Middle East, or reception reports on Radio Cairo, I welcome those here.
“Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism.”
January 28th, 2011I have a friend who hates blogs.
(That’s not the only thing he hates. Lawrence and I have been discussing the construction of a sentence designed to make his head explode. So far, we’ve got “Prominent blogger Cory Doctrow really likes Quentin Tarantino’s new movie, especially since he released it under a Creative Commons license without DRM.” I think we’re almost there, but we need to work “Rob Enderle” in somehow.)
I don’t want to go into all the reasons my friend hates blogs; I’m not even sure he knows all the reasons himself, or that his reasons are even rational. But one of his major complaints is that blogs don’t do any original reporting; they just link to other people’s work. His question is, “What will the blogs do when they kill off the newspapers, as they keep saying they want to do?”
This certainly is true of some blogs, of course. I’ve pointed out the existence of counter-examples, such as Michael Yon, but my friend really isn’t interested in Yon’s reporting; and, to some extent, his attitude is “If I’m not interested in it, it doesn’t exist, or isn’t worthy of consideration.”
(I know this makes my friend sound like a jerk. He’s really not; he’s a good guy who I’ve known since Jesus was a 2nd lieutenant. He just has very strong opinions.)
I come down more on the side of Clay Shirky. The title quote is from his excellent essay, “Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable“, about the possible demise of the newspaper and what it means for society. Yes, there may not be many blogs doing original reporting right now, and it is legitimate to wonder what will happen to them when the last newspaper reporter is strangled with the entrails of the last newspaper editor, but…
When someone demands to know how we are going to replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won’t break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren’t in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to.
Haiti started me thinking some more about what Shirky says here. (Yes, I’ve been working on this post for a long time.) It seems clear that we needed boots on the ground to cover that situation. Those boots needed infrastructure; they needed food and water and communications and power and security and living quarters. In a chaotic environment like Haiti, those things are nearly impossible to provide without a substantial investment of money.
Who has the resources to provide that? The NYT, the WP, the WSJ, and the TV networks. Who doesn’t have the resources to provide that? Individual bloggers.
And now Egypt is burning, and the Internet is cut off.
I think it’s very easy for Shirky to say that people who want to know “what’s next?” want to be lied to. But maybe that’s not the case. Maybe the people who want to know “what’s next?” think Haiti and Egypt and the next crisis after that are too important to be left to chance.
(Note: I’ve been working on this entry for a long, long time, and I’m still not 100% happy with the way it hangs together. But it seems like the the time to post is now, and I’m not sure picking at it much longer is going to make it any better.)
All the old paintings on the tombs, they do the sand dance, don’t you know…
January 28th, 2011Who says school is useless?
One of the things I picked up last semester in my Modern Revolutions class (this specifically comes from James DeFronzo’s Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements
- Frustration among the masses, resulting in unrest and uprisings in the cities or in rural areas. It sure seems to me like we’ve got that in Egypt.
- The presence of “elite” political movements in opposition to the ruling powers. By “elite” DeFronzo means that these movements have access to wealth, power, specialized skill sets, or higher levels of education than the average population. This is something I’m not so clear on; are there “elite” political movements in Egypt? If the coverage I’m seeing in places like the CSM is any guide (hattip: Battleswarm), the Egyptian government has been rigging elections; I can see that leading to pent up political opposition which finally has a chance to vent, but I’m not sure that meets DeFronzo’s criteria.
- Motivations that serve to unify major classes and that cut across class distinctions. Again, looking at the coverage in the CSM and other places, we’ve got that:
- Some sort of severe political situation that paralyzes the administrative authority of the state. Such a crisis allows the revolutionary movement to flourish, free of government repression. At this point, I’m not sure we have that; is the army going to continue to avoid confrontation? Or is cutting off the Internet and cellphones a prelude to Mubarak mobilizing forces and machine-gunning people in the streets? If he gives that order, will the army obey?
- The rest of the world has to, if not actively support the revolution, at least not interfere with it. DeFronzo calls this “a permissive or tolerant world context”. At this point, I don’t see the U.S., or the rest of the world, actively trying to interfere in an Egyptian revolution.
I’d welcome thoughts and responses in the comments below.
Edited to add: I think this post from Megan McArdle (obligatory: my favorite CNE) has some bearing here, too. Especially this part:
Edited to add 2: One thing that I should have mentioned, but forgot to, is that I’m not 100% sure DeFronzo’s criteria are sufficient for a successful revolution. In particular, I think DeFronzo and other revolutionary theorists underplay the role of a charismatic leader in the success of a revolution: Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Khomeini…
Edited to add 3: The Scalz doesn’t have much to say, but many of his commenters in this thread do.
And I rode away on the Tennessee stud…
January 27th, 2011Jeff Fisher out as coach of the Tennessee Titans. Well, that was somewhat unexpected. (Nashville Tennessean link.)
It will be interesting to see where, if anywhere, Fisher lands. He seems to have been a highly regarded NFL coach, but why?
147-126 is about a 54% winning percentage.
Things I have learned in the past 24 hours.
January 27th, 2011Something called Vladimir Putin Action Comics exists, and is funny. (I am particularly amused by this one.)
(Found by way of “Hipster Hitler“, which in turn I found by way of Borepatch.)
Ford produced “Bullitt” commemorative special edition Mustangs in 2001, and again in 2008/2009.
There is an “International Mustang Bullitt Owners Club“.
(The latter two facts were fallout from reading this WSJ article.)
Bad boys, bad boys…
January 27th, 2011…what you gonna do, what you gonna do when your city government runs out of money because corrupt city officials have been pillaging the treasury, and the city decides to disband the police department and outsource to the L.A. County Sherrif’s Department?
(Okay, so I need to work on the scansion a bit.)
Edited to add this bulletin from Captain Obvious:
Things you may have wondered about. (#2 in a series)
January 27th, 2011What ever happened to Jacqueline Kennedy’s pink suit and matching pillbox hat?
And the hat? Sadly, it did not wind up on top of a cantaloupe honeydew melon in an episode of Penn and Teller’s “Bullshit”. Indeed, nobody knows for sure where the hat is…
Important safety tip. (#2 in a series)
January 26th, 2011A gun is a gun. It is designed to shoot things.
A gun is not an all purpose tool. A gun is not a club. A gun is not a prybar. A gun is not a bottle opener (the Galil aside). A gun is not a tool for breaking out windows.
Bad things can happen when you use your gun for things other than shooting. For example, if you use your gun to club someone (no matter how deserving) you may mar the finish. Blood does awful things to a gun’s finish, especially the beautiful bluing on older Smith and Wesson revolvers.
Hitting things with your gun can also bend parts. Then your gun won’t go off when you need for it to go off. As the great Peter Hathaway Capstick once said, “The most terrifying sound in nature is not the roar of a charging lion, nor the whistle of a descending bomb; rather it is a click when you expect a bang.”
But the worst thing that can happen is that your gun might go off when you don’t want to go off. (I’d almost be willing to argue with Capstick that the sound of a “bang” when you expect a “click” is even more terrifying. However, I haven’t spent much of my life hunting lion and elephant in Africa, more’s the pity.) For example, when you’re breaking out a car window.
Bad move, space cadet. (Edited to add: Just to make it clear for my readers outside Texas, “Humble” in this case is a city near-ish to Houston, not a description of the police officer.)
Dinner with Dick.
January 26th, 2011Or “Nixon In China: The Dinner”:
I’d always thought that Nixon had rather crappy taste in food; his cottage cheese with catsup is notorious. However, at least according to this web site (which provides sources) the catsup thing is a base canard, and the Nixon family was quite fond of seafood. That puts the shrimp dishes in a new light.
I tried searching for maotai online, but couldn’t find any sources. However, I did turn up this Washingtonian article that goes into more detail about the banquet.
TMQ watch: January 25, 2011.
January 25th, 2011It’s a travesty! It’s a sham! It’s a mockery! It’s a travishamockery! All in this week’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback, after the jump…
We are amused.
January 24th, 2011By this story in the LAT about the arrest of rapper “40 Glocc” (sp?).
Specifically, we are amused by:
- the name “40 Glocc” (which, Lawrence points out, is both distinctive and not subject to trademark infringement suits).
- Mr. “Glocc”‘s arrest (his real name appears to be Lawrence White) on weapons charges.
- the fact that he was arrested carrying a 9mm handgun and not a .40 S&W. The LAT does not specify if it was, at least, a Glock.
Random notes: January 24, 2011.
January 24th, 2011Things are still kind of up in the air, but improving slowly. In the meantime, have a handful of random crap:
Your Jack LaLanne obit from the NYT. And from the LAT.
Just for Lawrence, a review of the New World Center, designed by Frank Gehry.
Happy belated birthday, John Moses Browning.
The Pack is back, baby! (Mostly, I’m linking this for the font: may not be valid after 1/24. Did they drag the “Japs Attack Pearl Harbor!” font out of the Linotype case?)
A sad end to a sad story.
January 20th, 2011Remember the case of the clerk who shot the beer thief? The one who got eight years probation for his murder and evidence tampering conviction?
Yeah. Well, there’s a follow-up to that story. You see, it turns out that the jury couldn’t do that.
So the judge tossed the verdict, and everybody involved made a deal. Romero pled out to manslaughter instead of murder, and got the same eight year probated sentence.
I would have preferred to see a retrial, and a fight at the appellate level if Romero was convicted again. But I can’t blame Romero and his lawyers for taking the deal.
Here I stand; I can do no other.
January 19th, 2011
Someone who can claim credit in the comments (or send me an email if they want) suggested a T-shirt:
Front: “One down, 534 to go.”
Back: “Wearing this t-shirt is cause for revoking your civil rights. At least in Massachusetts.”
I don’t have time to work on the design (the personal situation I alluded to in an earlier post is not improving as rapidly as I would like) but if someone does want to take the ball and run with it…I would suggest that any proceeds go into TJIC’s legal fund.
