Seasons

Dave Morris, author of a number of successful 1980s titles for youth, writes about the coming of fantasy gamebooks:

It was the early 1980s, and children's publishers really didn't know what hit them. For decades they'd been turning out nice cozy books based on their mental picture of a short-trousered scamp with a cap gun in one hand and a bottle of ginger pop in the other. In fact, even that view may be too generous. Hardly a single children's editor was male, or under forty, and mostly I think all those nice ladies just wrote boys off as not wanting to read books. Their ideal reader was sweet, quiet and mild as milk. So, not really like most girls at the time either.

They got a rude awakening. Boys did want to read books, and tomboys too - just not the books the publishers had been churning out. They wanted blood, guts, gore, mayhem, violence, and gutsy action. And most of all they wanted to be the hero.

Any reason to think that a similar situation doesn't obtain today -- in not only children's literature, but young adult literature?

My usual preferred response is to say that there are plenty of wonderful titles for boys, they just are older. But being older, they are better! As indeed they are.

But these gamebooks serve a role as a gateway to reading, and a bridge to the older titles for children whose elders think of themselves as categorically different from the generations that came before. Why then read a 19th century redaction of a 15th century work? Why read chronicles of the Hundred Years War? Why even read about hobbits and Rangers?

Well, perhaps because you were introduced to them, and found yourself at home in their company.

A Source for Further Anecdotes, if Not Statistics

The CATO Institute has apparently opened a project on police misconduct, not limited to SWAT teams, which is attempting to aggregate news that may inform the longstanding debate we've had here. Some of the allegations are insignificant because they're trying to aggregate everything, and it's of no matter to us that a policeman got a DUI (say). It's true that this means he's breaking the laws he is sworn to enforce, but we aren't interested in whether policemen are saints. Of course they are not. A momentary lapse on the part of a single officer is not telling, and indeed may not even indicate that the one particular cop is generally unfit. Anyone can have a bad day.

We're not even really interested in cases of outright corruption, such as the case mentioned of stealing gasoline for personal use from the county depot. It may be true or false, but it doesn't affect our concern about whether the relationship between the police and the citizenry has become unhealthy. No one expects a society in which there is no corruption.

Still, there remain plenty of items that do apply to our question about the relationship between the police and the citizenry. Here's a very recent incident they're tracking. This was a mixed race marriage, so what the police saw was a large black man chasing a Latina. In the context of our culture's usual assumption that black men are violent and predatory toward women, that might have alarmed the police. The man then tried to shove past them when they got between him and her.

Phase shifts

One minute the tower is standing.  The next, it's rubble and dust.  Richard Fernandez on the hollowing out of societies before the final collapse:

One reason why Japan recovered relatively quickly after the Second World War was while the massive aerial assault leveled Japan’s cities it did not destroy the cultural and social institutions of Japan.  When the smoke cleared the Japanese were still there and they rebuilt.  By contrast destroying culture is so much more lethal.  Detroit was untouched by the war.  Not a bomb fell on it.  But years of public education worked their magic.  It dismantled the culture and social institutions which once built its factories.  Time reports Detroit had posted the lowest math scores in the history of the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

“These numbers are only slightly better than what one would expect by chance as if the kids had never gone to school and simply guessed at the answers,” said Michael Casserly, executive director of the Washington-based Council of the Great City Schools, which represents large urban school districts.  “These numbers … are shocking and appalling and should not be allowed to stand.”

Scientific literacy

Maggie's Farm links to a horrified Discovery.com article citing a poll showing 1/4 of Americans don't know that the Earth revolves around the Sun.  The author leaps right to the American enthusiasm for creationism science, but I think instead about this kind of article:

Yes, Global Warming can totally produce colder winters.
And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

That's just the first two pages of Google hits.

Aerial view of Grim's house

I got it off of Google maps.  Or else from Maggie's Farm, where it depicts Gwynnie's family cabins near the Donner Pass.  There are three cabins in the photo.

A man's car for manly men

And while we're on the subject of the place of the American car in the American psyche, here's a terrific Cadillac commercial courtesy of Ace:



It won't do to try to make the ad make sense, but it's very effective if you let that part go.  The important thing to remember is:  effete Frenchmen wouldn't understand.  And it's electric, baby.

'Taint Union Country

At least, not in Tennessee's VW plant.

 

The WaPo's reporter is pretty unhappy about it, too.  The 53-47 vote was "close" and probably a result of unfair tactics employed by Republic lawmakers and outside agitators.  A vote against the union is an inexplicable vote against Workers' Councils that could cooperate with management in implementing employee ideas!  Though why management couldn't institute and listen to Workers' Councils at any time, with or without a union, I can't imagine.

Another anecdote. Or data point. Take your pick.

The comments are uniformly negative on the police.

Glenn Reynolds posted this item on his site and has over 100 comments last I looked, and they're also uniformly negative.

So what? You might say. Well, I remember a young black stand up comedian, sometime in the 1980's doing a joke about the Los Angeles police--'BANG BANG BANG--FREEZE!" much like the audio suggests in the film, and it all got a laugh at the time, because well, if that was happening, it was happening to minorities in minority neighborhoods. 

The people commenting are basically middle class Americans. The sort that used to support the police. They're not, anymore.

Friday Night AMV

I guess this is appropriate....given the day.



I'm always interested in seeing different culture's takes on other culture's literature/stories/myths/etc...

Although this would work too.

I didn't see the original movie, but I think I'd watch this one.

Coastal valentine

Our Representatives in Washington

Hey, how'd you vote on that bill to spend tons of money?

On an average day, any C-SPAN viewer would know how senators voted in real time because votes are read aloud. (See our post on the six senators who appear to have changed their votes.) But on Wednesday, the clerks did not name names. Instead of announcing the rolling vote tally as the vote went along on the critical motion to limit debate on the debt limit measure, senators were allowed to cast their votes in relative secrecy.

Turns out one of my Senators didn't vote at all. I guess once you announce your impending retirement, it's not so important to get around to voting on the future of the nation.

"Cassandra of the Week"

It's hard for us to recognize any Cassandra aside from our own, but hat's off to an NSA "threat predictor" (presumably their version of the Red Cell) who warned about Edward Snowden. In 1996.

St. Valentine's Day Post

How about a post on the Medieval Spanish debate about the role and status of women? The terms of the debate among modern scholars are kind of strange:

There are also a number of studies on the sources and traditions informing two superficially differentiated currents. The first is defined by a somewhat misogynistic approach, generally described as medievalising and with its roots in the Old Testament. The second is a more progressive one which has been perceived, not without unhealthy doses of presentism and anachronism, as protofeminist, in defence of women and usually linked to an incipient lay and humanist philosophy.

Calling the reference to the ancient Old Testament "medievalizing" demonstrates some unwarranted assumptions about the Middle Ages, especially since the "humanizing" argument was a product of the Medievals in reaction to the ancients and their defenders. We still have defenders of the ancient view in the Modern age, but nobody would call them "modernizing."

In any case, you might enjoy reading about the poem, in this article on "Hugo de Urriés and Egalitarian Married Life." (H/t: Medievalists.net.)

Bread & Circuses, Day V

As expected, the snow that was melting into slush yesterday froze into a solid sheet of ice overnight. My scouting yesterday led me to believe that it would be fine to drive if you could get to the road, so I pulled the van down the driveway and parked it by the road last night before things re-froze.

However, that still meant getting down to the van this morning. Our driveway is a good length for one in rural Georgia, and the house was wisely built by its original owners on a hilltop. As a consequence, there was a length of serious ice to traverse in order to reach the van, and my wife had to go out this morning.

I went with her, and broke holes in the ice for her to walk in. She can't stomp hard with her recently broken leg, which is still healing, although she can now walk again. With patience we eventually reached the bottom of the hill, and she had no trouble getting the van up onto the roads, which seem to be completely clear except in shadowy places. I'd scouted a route to the nearest state highway that should be clear all the way.

This is why I get away with so much the rest of the time.

Bread & Circuses, Day IV

Things are good today. I scouted the roads on foot as far as the state highway, and they're mostly clear after the sun we had today. If you can get down the driveway, you can get where you want. In spite of the ice and snow, we never did lose power. It's been a pretty pleasant interlude, honestly.

How are things for you, Eric Blair?

But of Course

At Washington, DC’s direction, dozens of groups operating as 501(c)(4)s were flagged for IRS surveillance, including monitoring of the groups’ activities, websites and any other publicly available information. Of these groups, 83% were right-leaning. And of the groups the IRS selected for audit, 100% were right-leaning.

In Praise of Georgia's Politicians

Townhall magazine has some kind words for a Republican governor and a Democratic mayor, who pulled it together pretty well for this ice and snow storm. It helped that we had the 'dry run' just a bit earlier, however, to help them work out the kinks.

Bread, Day III

Sent the neighbors another loaf of bread, because apparently their growing boy eats a lot of it. Power and comms still operative as of now. The ice is still falling, and another inch or few are expected tonight, but the winds haven't been as bad as predicted.

So far, all is well.

Well, This Should Be Fun

Nothing bothersome yet, but they've convinced me that tomorrow is going to be a fun day. May be a few fun days before it's over.

Blurred lines

I had very sharp vision in my youth.  In my mid-twenties, I started to get near-sighted and reconciled myself to wearing glasses.  In my forties, I started to get the far-sightedness that is usual for that age, which for a while nearly canceled out my near-sightedness.  Now I can't see well near or far, though my uncorrected vision isn't really that bad:  about 20/60.

I was aware it had been a long time since I'd seen the eye doctor, but was embarrassed to find that their records show it has been eight years.  Strangely, though my vision had noticeably degraded in the last few years, the visual acuity exam suggested the same prescription.  Sure enough, the glasses, when they arrived, were disappointing.  They were great for close-up fine-gauge crochet work, but for things more than about four feet out, there was no difference with them on or with them off.

When I went back in, they tried every explanation in the book, up to and including wild variations in blood sugar--not an issue, according to a recent blood test.  "Well, have you been wearing the glasses?"  Not since I found they didn't make the tiniest difference.  "Maybe you're just not used to glasses."  Oh, come on, really?  I tried them for three days.  The only good explanation I could think of was that I'd never before had my eyes dilated before the visual acuity test.  The eye doctor's personnel didn't seem to think that could be it, but there's no doubt that when they retested me that day, without dilation, the prescription was quite different and they were able to correct me back to better than 20/20, whereas on the first go-round they could achieve only 20/20 in one eye and 20/25 in the other.  In a week or so when the new lenses arrive, we'll see.

In the meantime, I've been trying to read up on whether it's a good idea to dilate the eyes before a visual acuity test.  The answer is proving hard to pin down.  Have any of you guys run into this?