Bye Bye Dennis

Sad news to report here at A & A. Seems Dennis “Tin Foil Burka” Kucinich has dropped out of the presidential race. Common reaction from attentive citizens of the body politic was along the lines of “He was running for President?” Howls of anguish emanating from the People’s Republic of Decatur were heard throughout the southeastern United States. There was brief talk of a candle-light vigil being held on the square in Decatur, but concerns over carbon footprint and having enough parking spaces for all those Priuses nixed the event. Grief counselors will be on hand at most area restaurants and businesses throughout the weekend. City of Decatur government offices will be closed for a week and flags will be flown at half staff. A group therapy session will be held at Decatur United Methodist Church Saturday at 6 pm. Organic gluten-free Tofurkey will be served.

Damn. Now Dennis will have to get a real job, just like the rest of us. Don’t worry pal, as soon as we form that Department of Peace you’ll be back in clover.

Ares

Read This and That

I started a little experiment in January of 2007. I decided to keep track of the books I read throughout the year. Didn’t do it for bragging rights or anything, just to track where my tastes took me and exactly how much I read. So it goes as follows:

The Call of the Wild and White Fang by Jack London. Finally got around to reading that high school American Lit required reading. Not too bad, but for my money The Sea Wolf is much better.

The Man in the High Castle by Phillip Dick. Interesting exercise in alternative history. For a more thorough shakedown reference this post.

Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk. “People who would never throw litter from their car will drive past you with their radio blaring. People who’d never blow cigar smoke at you in a crowded restaurant will bellow into their cell phone. They’ll shout at each other across the space of a dinner plate…….You turn up your music to hide the noise. Other people turn up their music to hide yours. You turn yours up again. Everyone buys a bigger stereo system. This is the arms race of sound. You don’t win with a lot of treble.” This was actually my second read through of what is probably my favorite book by my favorite author. Not for the faint of heart, but Chuck never is.

The Edge of Disaster by Stephen Flynn. Decent look into the sorry, decrepit state of critical infrastructure in this country. A little “We’re all gonna die!”, but not too bad.

The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. Another attempt to cross a ‘classic’ of my mental list. I think the movie was actually better.

Global Brain by Howard Bloom. A little thick and chunky but truly excellent. Again, reference this post.

The Long Tail by Chris Anderson. Concise and to the point. A good explanation of the new market dynamics at work in our world. Previous post here.

The One Percent Doctrine by Ron Suskind. Really good, if a bit over the top at times. I almost have to believe some of the dialogue he’s quoting in the book is embellished, it feels a little too slick at times. Also a few factual flubs that don’t take away from the overall work. Worth the time.

Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank. Cold war doomsday that depressed the shit out of me. On the Beach without the beach, only some of the people live. Recommended by Mrs. Ares. Not a bad read, but heavy like a cancer screening.

To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway. Flaming piece of shit. If this had been his first it would have been his last. With this one he fell pretty far from A Moveable Feast and The Sun Also Rises. I wanted my time back when I finished this one.

Rant by Chuck Palahniuk. You’d be hard-pressed to get me to say something negative about Chuck’s work. Sort of Invisible Monsters-like in the gross out factor. He’s a modern master of labeling and texturing the hidden in plain sight aspects of our society. Hemingway for Generation X.

Brave New War by John Robb. Excellent primer on the migration of 4^th Generation Warfare onto the next battlefield and its meld into 5^th Generation Warfare. Must read for anyone attempting to understand the realities on the ground in the War on Terror.

Leadership: The Warrior’s Art edited by Christopher Kolenda. Good collection of leadership essays written mostly by current or prior army brass. As with most leadership books, there are little bits to be harvested here and there.

Terror at Beslan by John Giduck. One of the best accounts yet constructed of the school siege in Russia in 2004. Gives quite a bit of back story about prior attacks that never got much play over here. If America had endured what the Russians had by the fall of 2004 we’d be coming apart at the seams. As I’ve written earlier, this book is real heart of darkness stuff. Incredible and I mean that in the worst possible way. Plan on having nightmares if you pick this one up.

The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Like trying to eat a filet mignon the size of a sofa. Both excellent and dense at times, though the latter was a result of Taleb not low-browing it. His pitching was a bit above my swing, but I fouled off most of it. At some point I’m going to reread it so I can soak in more. Good material though. For the After School Special version you can watch his presentation at PopTech! here.

Boots on the Ground by Karl Zinsmeister. Quick read by a reporter that was embedded with the 82^nd Airborne during the march up to Baghdad in 2003. Passed along by a coworker who was in the unit. It’s a bit brief and shallow, with an obvious prejudice towards the soldiers he was with. Not that I have the tiniest problem with that, but that’s my own personal bias riding along.

On the Wild Edge by David Peterson. Well written piece by a guy that went off the grid without going around the bend. Good nature writing, he needs to write more.

Make Love* The Bruce Campbell Way by Bruce Campbell. Funny self-deprecating near fiction by Cheese Theater’s leading man. Gotta love any guy that doesn’t take himself too seriously.

Microbrewed Adventures by Charlie Papazian. Beer around the world from the godfather of home brewing. Made me really, really thirsty.

Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell. Excellent, tough read. Part autobiography, part homage to his team mates. If you don’t choke up a few times during this you don’t have a pulse.

Removing Managerial Barriers to Effective Leadership by Norm Stamper. Read it mainly for work, plus a title that I fell in love with. I dare you to try and find a copy of this in the wild.

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan. Great, stellar, well-done work about the Dust Bowl. Shows how the “Greatest Generation” got its start in low-grade hell. Very much worth the time and the National Book Award that it received.

The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright. Excellent read. For more on the book slide over to this post. Very deserving of the Pulitzer it received.

Leadership and Self-Deception by The Arbinger Institute. Thin little read about ‘getting it’ leadership. Would probably be lost on leaders that don’t think anything is ever wrong or other people are always the problem.

U-Turn by Bruce Grierson. Very interesting collection of stories about people that woke up mid-life and called a “Do Over”. Gets a bit introspective and navel-gazing at times, but it doesn’t hurt the journey. Very worth the time.

Unconquerable Nation by Brian Jenkins. Jenkins is one of the smartest guys in the room when it comes to terrorism. Pay attention to what he has to say. Also has the distinction of being the rare academic that has seen combat. Good temperature taking of the War on Terror. Bonus: Free on the internet.

No True Glory by Bing West. Excellent look into the problem that was Falluja. Starting with the murder of 4 U.S. contractors in April of 2004 and culminating with the retaking of the city by Marines in November of that year. West scales up and down effortlessly; from the macro political to the micro combat. He also makes it hard not to love grunts.

Overblown by John Mueller. Academic dissection of the domestic consequences and play of the war on terror. It gets a bit long and dry at times, but there are some genuine sparklers to be found. Book doesn’t try to call bogus on the entire apparatus but tries to place it into context, something that is sorely needed.

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene. Not bad, but I finished and wondered exactly what I was supposed to take away.

The Grid by Phillip Schewe. Fun look into the evolution of what’s been called the most complex thing ever created by man: Our national power grid.

We the Living by Ayn Rand. I promised myself another Rand when I gave up on The Fountainhead 2/3 of the way through. Rand was a talented story teller that desperately needed an editor. (Case in point: In Fountainhead I don’t need 5 pages of how great Ellsworth Toohey was as kid. I get the f****** point!) The book is a harsh indictment of the Russian revolution of 1917 and its aftermath. Being Rand, everyone dies and no one is happy.

Leadership and Training for the Fight by Paul Howe. Howe is a retired career soldier and former Delta member. I thought there might be some good work to mine, but it turned out to be largely a manual for first time NCOs.

Overall I was a little surprised at the final tally. Part of this was aided by taking over a month off work. Everybody should take at least a month away from work with the sole purpose of being a lazy bum. Those Europeans are on to something. Out of the above list I would strongly recommend Lone Survivor and The Worst Hard Time. If you’re any kind of reader it will be time well spent.

Ares

Rotting, Putrid, Fetid...........

Wow, this blog's as smelly as an Atlanta Port-O-Potty in August. Mea Culpa Maxima. A confluence of work, events, and lack of ambition pulled me to the bottom of a pit of inactivity. Actually, there are two good reasons for the empty space of late. First is that I didn't feel much like writing, and I'm not gonna ramble on just to fill space. The second is that I came across the blog of a coworker that is truly awful (whose link I'm not even going to torture you with). The Unnamed Idiot's complete lack of a filter or any sense at all made me more than a little self-conscious. After some review and reflection I can safely say I'm not that guy. (Sometimes in life it's good enough to simply not be "That Guy".)

Now that we've disposed of that little moment of insecurity I'll be moving on. More to follow soon. The above is a little bit of the rare white stuff that left its mark all over this godforsaken town yesterday. A little cold blanket of white to cover that pee smell for a few days.

Ares

Happy New Year!

and much love from A&A...

Athena

Short Diversion

Just a short drive-by here; wanted to drop a few links to make you think. First is a bit of a diversion from the usual fare. Gateway Pundit threw up a little composition last week about six bogus stories that have recently come out of Iraq. My purpose isn’t to drag that little tempest into this space but to call down even more fire upon my favorite slapping bag: Big Media. (Who happen to have positive approval ratings in the low to mid 20’s. Take a look at Congress’ numbers: 14%. Holy cow! Lower than HMO’s, and that’s saying something.) If CNN et al. were employees we’d have fired them long ago. Instead we’re just voting with the remote. Now I'm just waiting for them to realize no one's watching anymore.

The second is another excellent installment from the always switched on Michael Totten. The interesting thing about this particular piece isn’t its substance, but the backlash it’s generating. All Michael does for a living is go to a particular place and document what he sees to the best of his ability. (The difference being that he’s self-financed, beholden to no one, and isn’t filtered through an editor.) This documentation isn’t jiving too well with some folks, who are basically calling him a sellout and patsy for not saying things are a complete disaster. If you’ve read Michael for any length of time you’ll know that he’s nobody’s bitch when it comes to maintaining the party line.

That is all. Go forth and think for thyself.

Ares

A Little Dope

I had the distinct displeasure of recently donating a chunk of my life to a piece of crap in Rolling Stone entitled How America Lost the War on Drugs. I had high hopes for the piece, given the depth and breadth of the topic. It’s a ripe and nuanced subject that the author bludgeons his way through with blunt political indictments and stubby metaphors. In a topical landscape that cries out for reason and logic-based analysis we instead get Ben the finger pointing doomsayer.

The stupid f’ing position of pieces like this is that the “War on Drugs” is a finite, closed-ended thing. Let’s place it alongside the unreferenced War on Crime and War on Fire, shall we? Somebody’s house got robbed somewhere yesterday, therefore we’ve lost the War on Crime. A house burned down somewhere today; therefore we’ve lost the War on Fire. Sounds stupid, doesn’t it? No more stupid than invoking the name of every two-bit bandito hiding in a mountain cave or jungle hut and equating their continued existence to a complete failure of the entire system. The real battle here is climbing the mountain of human apathy and ignorance.

Here’s another little booger in the sterile salad bar of the article’s reasoning: Pablo Escobar had to be killed, basically executed outright, because he could not be brought to justice. If you don’t believe me read Killing Pablo by Mark Bowden. Pablo was the embodiment of the idea that not every devil will be prosecutable. Some people will just need to be killed, and they won’t always offer you the conscience alleviation of pointing a gun at you. (Don't think of it as assassination, think of it as Goodbye Earl on a geopolitical scale.) If you want to reduce it to a numbers comparison Pablo is probably responsible for more deaths than Osama bin Laden. Osama does it on television; Pablo did it in a cellar. Dead is still dead.

Further on the article trots our more of the same tired and thin “analysis”. The author talks about Gene Halislip, a “top ranking DEA administrator” that says we missed the magic moment when we could have shut down the meth epidemic before it even started. (According to the author meth used to be confined to biker gangs in northern California prior to becoming a national problem. He should have been in my summer school classroom in 1988 when the kids next to me were doing lines of it.) Apparently all problems in life boil down to retrospective moments where it all could have been prevented and someone is always to blame. In the author’s case it’s the Regan administration, which had the chance to outlaw ephedrine and didn’t. (Funny, I always thought Congress passed the laws in our system of government.) Nothing like being a few decades beyond a decision to render a nice, round, post hoc opinion about how stupid people were at the time.

Then we move on to that “most powerful country on Earth” reference. Because having a slew of nuclear weapons and putting humans on the moon is the same thing as finding a guy hiding in a South American jungle hut. That’s a lazy-assed pluck of a lowest common denominator metaphor. I’m calling a euphemism flag on that journalistic play.

We’ve got to get beyond this lazy fixation with defining moments. All human behavior is attached to a time line and will continue accordingly. Crime and the drug trade are only one aspect of that behavior. The supposition of articles like this is it’s possible to have a closed, neatly tied ending to all of this. With that underpinning you can attack any direction you see fit, and lob criticism into any set of coordinates that supports your thesis. I suppose if there is any fault to be found here it’s in my expectations. I was hoping for insight and thoughtful analysis from a magazine that is devoted to celebrity aggrandizement. Tiger Beat for adults that never quite outgrew the fascination with the beautiful people.

Ares

Baby Lothario

So, my lovely assistant D. and I trundled over to La Fonda Latina for some good chow on a day full of office politics and nonsense. I’m proud to say I got her hooked on their Seafood Paella, while I’m still partial to the Bocadillo Vegetariano. We park ourselves in the sun room, next to a woman with two small children: a boy, perhaps 3 years old, and a girl, about 18 months. The boy, though wandering a bit with his chips and queso, is quiet and well-behaved, a perfect angel with big blue eyes and blond hair.

After ordering, I visit the restroom, and when I return, D. tells me she has been “making friends.” No sooner have I regained my seat when I feel small hands encircle my elbow. A tiny intense face, covered in snot and queso, leans close. “And what is your name?” he asks quietly. “My name is Athena. What is your name?” “Gus” he whispers.

My brain is completely divided. One half is recoiling in horror at the snot and queso that is being deposited on my sweater and hand-woven scarf (Christine Stanton, for the fiber fanatics among you). The other half is completely smitten with this little Casanova. My dilemma is solved: his lunch arrives, and he takes his seat. Then our lunch arrives, and we jump into it. Throughout our dining experience, he stands on his chair periodically, quietly facing my back, and placing his hands on my shoulder blades, as though performing some toddler variation of Reiki.

We finish before the woman and children, and after we leave the restaurant I tell D. she needs to check my back for tiny snot-and-queso handprints. She informs me she cannot find any, which is a relief.

Later, back at the office, I tell C., another co-worker, about the Baby Lothario. As I tell the story, my left hand rests on my left hip, and I feel something. Dammit. Tiny snot-and-queso handprint.

Athena

Pimping Out A Paste Eater

This transcends silly and plants both feet firmly in the stupid. Hillary’s campaign issued a press release taking shots at Barack Obama. The particular angle of this issue was that Obama has really planned to run for president all along. (Can we get an official ruling on how many years constitute an “all along” tag?) As reference to their claim the Hillary campaign cites Obama’s kindergarten and third grade teachers. WTF? Good thing I won’t ever run for president. The quote would be a little something like this:

Mrs. Mansburger, Ares’ Kindergarten teacher: “He was a hyperactive little boy that spent a lot of time with his finger up his nose and ate a lot of paste.”

Dude, seriously, WTF? If we’ll all consult our collective rear-view mirrors we’ll see the caricature of presidential elections far behind us. We’ve now moved into strange, unfathomable territory.

Ares

Future Branding

I’ve had a little thought dingle berry floating around my head for a few years. I wonder what kind of sports mascots we’re going to have in one hundred or two hundred years. The Pittsburg Pirates and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers inspired this power think. Pirates were the equivalent of common thugs back in their day. For that matter, there are still parts of the world where people are killed by pirates. I suppose the difference is nobody in our society is dying at their hands. Once everyone who was victimized by a given group of criminals or thugs is gone the stigma dies out with them.

So this leads to my only partially joking hypothesis. A hundred years from now Los Angeles will have a pro sports team called the Crips. New York will have one called La Cosa Nostra. Detroit will probably have one called the Jihadis. And our current home town of Atlanta will most likely have a team of some variety called the Thugs or the Pimps. Not too much of a stretch of the imagination if you just go forward far enough.

Ares

Almost Shot My Eye Out

Tonight was the first in what will probably be many viewings this holiday season of A Christmas Story. It was with belated irony that I remembered I too had a Red Ryder BB gun when I was about Ralphie’s age. I also recalled that I really did almost shoot my eye out. One of those hundreds of childhood moments you’re glad your mother wasn’t there to witness. (I’d have to say a close second was setting the back yard on fire when I was 13.) Moms just don’t understand the relationship between a boy and his BB gun. Before you hit puberty it’s probably the strongest you bond with any implement. What moms also don’t know is that the Red Ryder is a gateway gun. It starts with BB guns, then by the time you’re a teenager you just can’t get enough of that .22 rifle. By early adulthood you’re up to .308’s and 30-06’s. Somewhere around your early to mid twenties it grows into 1911-style .45’s and 12 gauges. By my 30’s it was an AR-15 with magazine connector and a Trijicon Reflex. I think the only place left for me to go is a Springfield Armory standard M1A or a Barrett model M468. Dad, I raise my glass of Tang in salute to your calling that one from way back, and taking all the heat came with it.

Ares

Metal Abuse

In the wee small hours of this morning I happened to get a few moments with my remote and television. VH1 had something called Metal Mania listed in the directory. When I was freshly pubescent VH1 was where mini-van driving soccer moms and wine sipping, sweater wearing, sensitive guys got their music. Now they have an ‘effing “metal show”? Thinking it would be interesting to see what passes for “metal” these days, I sat back on the couch and pressed “Enter” on the remote. It’s a good thing I wasn’t drinking, because it would have probably shot out of my nose. Displayed with the prominent “VH1 Classic” symbol in the corner was Judas Priest’s Turbo Lover. A heavy sigh, followed by some drive-by depression, quickly followed. Dammit.

Following closely on the heels of this little booger in the punchbowl of my disposition was a viewing of Mad Max2: The Road Warrior. Many a Sunday afternoon was pissed away with me, Jeff, and Matt watching that little celluloid gem. You absolutely have to be a teenage boy to truly enjoy that movie. (It’s where we went in the entertainment continuum after we discovered girls.) The only way to get three boys in puberty to be quiet for an hour and a half was to pop that cassette into the top-loading VCR. One question occurred to me as I watched The Road Warrior. The characters in that movie are dressed pretty much exactly like all of the metal bands that passed through the ‘80’s. Is that movie where that wardrobe guidance came from? Somebody older than me answer that one, I was still in Toughskins when The Road Warrior was in theaters.

On top of this now XM has an all-Led Zeppelin channel. I think Don Henley said it best in The Boys of Summer: “Out on the road today I saw a Dead Head sticker on a Cadillac, a little voice inside my head said don’t look back.”

Ares

Damnable Statistics

You can do all sorts of things with numbers. A data set can be used to prove or disprove a given position, depending on the author’s angle and objective. Just like lawyers can make facts irrelevant by composing a better argument, writers can pull statistics as far as their talent will take them. It was with this in mind that I came across a Congressional Research Service report entitled American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics.

I think we can safely assume from the report CRS doesn’t have a political axe to grind. It’s very Joe Friday “Just the facts, Ma’am”. These numbers don’t tell too much of a story by themselves, but they offer some interesting insight. From 1980 to 1983 there were 7091 military deaths. From 2004 through the end of 2006 there were 5674 military deaths. Total military deaths from 2001 through 2006 are 8795. From 1980 through 1985 there were 13807 fatalities. Mind you, some of those where due to places like Beirut and Grenada, but even with those combat fatalities factored in there’s still quite a gap. The really interesting statistic is the suicide numbers. We occasionally get hit with stories about the jump in military suicides since invading Iraq. From 1980 through 1985 there were 1444 self-inflicted life exits. From 2001 through 2006 there were 960. The highest scoring year since 2000 (2004 with 188) is lower than the lowest year of the 1980’s (1983 with 218).

What does all this tell us? Not much overall. Numbers don’t tell the story, context does. For me, this is further evidence of one of Thomas Barnett’s theories that the world is actually getting to be a better, safer place. Hard to believe that if you imbibe in the daily multi-media swill that’s pushed in front of us, but if you dig a little deeper and look a little more critically you can find it. Now if we could just get people to stop plugging into that pleasure center in the brain that is activated by distant feelings of doom. I’ll do my part by starting on myself.

Ares

Happy Birthday P.J.

A bit fat Ares and Athena happy birthday goes out to P.J. O’Rourke, who turns 60 today. Congratulations P.J., you’re now the old man you spent your youth railing against. For those not familiar, P.J. is the smartest funny man that nobody reads. Okay, some of you read him. My next door neighbor economics professor uses Eat the Rich as an intro text, as well he should. P.J. has the rare ability to entertain and inform at the same time. Give War a Chance and All the Trouble in the World should be required reading for all high school graduates. Parliament of Whores should be the nationwide high school civics text.

Our Founding Fathers lacked the special literary skills with which modern writers on the subject of government are so richly endowed. When they wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, they found themselves more or less forced to come to the point. So clumsy of thought and pen were the Founders that even today, seven generations later, we can tell what they were talking about.

The opening lines of Eat the Rich hit the literary nail on the head.

I had one fundamental question about economics: Why do some places prosper and thrive while others just suck? It’s not a matter or brains. No part of the earth (with the possible exception of Brentwood) is dumber than Beverly Hills, and the residents are wading in gravy. In Russia, meanwhile, where chess is a spectator sport, they’re boiling stones for soup. Nor can education be the reason. Fourth graders in the American school system know what a condom is but aren’t sure about 9 x 7. Natural resources aren’t the answer. Africa has diamonds, gold, uranium, you name it. Scandinavia has little and is frozen besides. Maybe culture is the key, but wealthy regions such as the local mall are famous for lacking it.

P.J., I hope there’s more where that came from.

Ares

Create A Flow of Dollars

After another long silence I’m back at the keyboard helm. That whole earning a living thing sort of got in the way of blogtime. Part of the reason for my silence is that I simply haven’t had much to say. I subscribe to the less-is-more theory of blogging. If I were advancing an academic interest or chronicling an ongoing whatever there would be cause for more frequency. But this is mainly just rant space.

One little juicy thing caught my eye in today’s online Atlanta Urinal-Constipation. Nice, big piece about the Senate investigation into the finances of a few mega-churches in town. The two big ones are Eddie Long’s Newbirth and Creflo Dollar (for those out of town, I swear I’m not making that name up) and his World Changers. Seems Creflo took in $69 million in 2006. That’s a lot of collection plate passes. In the piece he says he doesn’t receive any income from the church, and his revenue is derived from real estate. Wonder where he got the money for his real estate investments? Also says that the church ‘bought’ him a Rolls Royce. ‘Nuff said on that one. Eddie Long isn’t quite as conspicuous with his wealth, although he’s rolling as well. Although the money is theirs to do with as they please, it raises the good question of what does a minister need with a private jet? Suicidal Tendencies nailed this one eloquently in their 1990 ditty called “Send Me Your Money”. Ah, the classics.

I suppose on some level this is a mark of progress. What’s good enough for Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson is good enough for Eddie Long. Equal opportunity hucksterism at work. The worrisome aspect of Creflo and Eddie’s churches is the underground power. There are a lot of buried cables of political current at work here. Vernon Jones, my favorite local elected idiot savant, has been playing touch & rub under the table with local preachers for years. He’s not the first; the Southern Baptists have been doing this for over a hundred years in this town. Vernon leased a county building to a local church for a buck a year right after he was elected. When he fired the police chief a few years ago, a local preacher was tasked with going to the chief’s home to tell him. (Typical Vernon, didn’t even have the sack to tell him face to face like a man.)

Back to Creflo, anybody that’s watched him preach will get a familiar feeling. Creflo comes off as a pimp in a thousand dollar suit. Hey, I just had an idea for slogan for World Changers: Pimpin for Jesus. Or maybe the less caustic “Blinging for Jesus”. I actually sort of hope this Senate investigation doesn’t run too far. Not because there isn’t anything to find, but because of the price we’ll pay if it goes too deep. If it gets beyond cursory it will immediately become racial and we won’t be able to swing a dead cat without tales of victimization. What I really wish is that some A-list investigative journalist/author would do a thorough book about the power/wealth nexus of these churches and politics. Mark Bowden would probably come away thinking Somalia was simple by comparison.

Ares

Children of Men

I actually sat still long enough tonight to get through a movie: Children of Men. Gotta say, it wasn’t an easy view. The plot goes a little something like this: It’s 2027 in Britain and women worldwide have been infertile for almost 20 years. Some nebulously unspecified holocaust has racked the rest of the world and the U.K. is the only bastion of ‘civilization’ left. Because of this foreigners and immigrants are declared illegal. With no children society is coming unglued because The End is in sight. Sort of like On the Beach with the end of humanity happening in slow motion.

There’s a bit more to it, but I don’t want to blab too much for those that haven’t seen it. With the concepts the movie is based on it would have been exceeding easy for it to devolve into a world class downer or a “message movie”. While it was a bit depressing it was also pretty compelling. Overly active minds will probably extract cautionary tales from every angle of the film. Case in point; go to YouTube and type Children of Men into the search bar. Look at a few of the comments below each clip. Lazy thinkers love their dystopia wrapped neatly and presented to them whole. The work is science fiction.

The First World has had a fixation with dystopian futures for a few generations now. Thus far nearly all of it hasn’t panned out. People’s Exhibit A: Paul Ehrlich. Another aspect of this first world dystopia fetish; it’s always just around the corner. People’s Exhibit B: Mega Disasters on the History Channel. Not that this particular series is unique. Nearly all the science documentaries produced in this country have some sort of tie in to potential future calamity. The entire genre seems to have enlarged considerably over the past decade or so. You have to be a certain level of rich to allow dystopian fiction into your entertainment repertoire. Maybe this is where our guilt lives when we remove god from the equation. (Those that know me will know that was not an evangelical statement.) Sounds like somebody’s thesis waiting to be written.

From an academic standpoint it’s an excellent movie. It’s so cleanly filmed that at times it felt like a Stanley Kubrick production. The ugliness was beautifully shot, if that makes any sense. The violence is presented to look unchoreographed. Violence that is scripted and presented to look clean ends up making it more palatable, which it shouldn’t be. As I said, it’s a tough film to view but strangely compelling. Probably worth watching, just not before bed.

Ares

The Price of Beer

While Mrs. Ares and I were on our illustrious journey out west we toured a few breweries. It’s just something we do on vacation to pass the time and sample the local brew. (On a side note, by and large they’ve got it going on out west when it comes to beer. In some small towns we visited the locals don’t even buy beer at stores. They take a gallon jug to the brewery every few days and have it filled. Like going to the dairy for your milk. Why can’t we do that here in the south? That’s another day’s post.) One of the breweries we visited was Butte Creek Brewing Company in Chico, California. Something the tour guide said caught my attention. As we were in the grain area of the brewery she said the price of grain was rising sharply, which was going to result in beer becoming more expensive and probably some smaller breweries going under. My amateur observation and this article confirmed her statement.

Why is this happening, you ask? Really it comes down to one word: Ethanol. In our inane attempt to achieve “energy independence” we’ve started converting cropland into fuel. With greater subsidies available, farmers (read: Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill) are planting more corn and less of everything else. Those of us who passed high school economics know that when there is less of something the price goes up. Another way this is playing itself out is a rise in soy prices, which is a result of switching cropland to corn. This is going to manifest in a lot of areas because soy is used in so many products. Earlier this year Mexico was rocked by a jump in the price of corn. Reason for the jump: More corn going to Ethanol production.

As for Ethanol itself, I have a few issues. By every account I’ve read there is a net energy loss in production. In other words, it takes more energy to make a gallon of Ethanol than the energy you get from that gallon. While on vacation I read The Worst Hard Time, which is about the Dust Bowl. (Excellent read, by the way.) One of the major contributing factors was that during World War I the government guaranteed a price of $2 a bushel for grain, which was drastically high. This caused a huge increase in breaking new land for grain production, which accelerated topsoil loss. Anybody here think ADM or Cargill is going to be all that concerned about crop rotation and conservation? Finally, there is a basic and fundamental premise to our survival as a species: You don’t mess with the food. This feels like we’ve started down a bad path. Unfortunately there are large amounts of money and emotional political issues tied to this, so it will probably take longer than usual to see it for what it is. On a personal level, they lost me when they started messing with the beer.

Ares

The Looming Tower

I just finished The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright. It starts off outlining the life and development of Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian intellectual father of militant Islam. Qutb lived in the U.S. during the 1950’s and thought it was the most decadent place on earth. He took this view back to Egypt and spun out a medieval interpretation of Islam. This in turn influenced another fire-beard named Ayman al-Zawahiri, who started plotting to overthrow the government at age 15. Zawahiri went on to found al-Jihad, which based on the name you can pretty much guess what they did. Al-Jihad and Zawahiri had a John Hinkley/Jodie Foster type fascination with the government of Egypt.

As usually happens when you start pooping where others eat, Egypt soon became too hot for Zawahiri, so he fled to Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia he came across pious piss-ant named Osama bin Laden. About this time bin Laden, like a lot of other rich boys in the Muslim world, wanted to go play danger against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The bin Laden family’s connections to the royal family of Saudi Arabia allowed him to channel large amounts of money and aid to the mujahideen. One interesting factoid brought out in the book: The Arab fighters were largely worthless against the Soviets and the mujahideen couldn’t stand them. Also, bin Laden’s legend as a brave battlefield commander is myth he marketed and promoted. When the conflict ended bin Laden and a few other key players decided that liked playing adventure and wanted to continue jihading. After a lot of brainstorming they decided that the U.S. would make a good enemy and the elected bin Laden head of the club because he could swing the most money. Eventually Zawahiri merged al-Jihad with al-Qaeda because he ran out of money.

One of the most interesting concepts brought out in the book is the idea of takfir. Takfir is the intellectual fig leaf militant Islam uses to create its circular, adolescent nihilism. In short, takfir is the idea that it’s okay to kill infidels, and anyone that doesn’t think like you do is an infidel. For example, when an al-Qaeda member was being interrogated about the embassy bombing in Nairobi in 1998 he was asked how killing women and children could be justified. The bombing took place on a Friday, and the al-Qaeda member said that if the victims were good Muslims they would have been at the mosque and not where the bombing took place.

The book takes a lot of air out of the myth of al-Qaeda. What is painted as a worldwide network of legions of committed religious zealots is actually a very loose association of deranged sociopaths. Modern society has enabled their reach to exceed their grasp, and modern media tells the narrative of the image, not the substance. Over the years of its existence a lot of members have left. 9/11 did not result in hordes of the faithful joining the fight, as bin Laden had hoped. The ones that enter today have bought into a marketing campaign that would make B.F. Skinner and Madison Avenue blush. If you study the composition of cults al-Qaeda very much fits the pattern. Even without an academic analysis the book makes for compelling reading. It’s a measured, wide-ranging examination in a field of shallow understanding.

Ares

Go West Young Man

There’s an honest reason for the stale stench on this page. Mrs. Ares and I spent the past few weeks on vacation out west. After a few days in northern California we did the great American Road Trip to Montana. Not much, only 2,000 miles in a little over a week. Never had a vacation that was that much fun and that much work.

After some quality time on Interstate 90 we rolled into Missoula. I-90 through northern Idaho is one of the most beautiful interstate drives you can do in this country. Missoula is a little rough and a little industrial, but pretty thinned out by Atlanta standards. Best part of Missoula was visiting the Big Sky Brewing Company. The next day took us down state highway 93 and along the eastern edge of the Bitterroot Mountains. I’ve seen a few mountains in my day, but this place will stop you cold. After a few hours in Hamilton I wasn’t sure I wanted to leave.

Alas, we had to press on as we needed to take possession of a U.S. Forest Service cabin north of Dillon. While the cabin had electricity, that was as far as it went into modernity. Being 8 miles down a dirt road that was shaky at best in a rental car was another obstacle. Still, it was clean and quiet with views you couldn’t beat. I was pretty okay with it until the mouse ran across my arm in my sleep. That was where sleep and I parted company for the duration of the cabin stay.

After the a few days of outhouses and cabin mice we gladly checked into a hotel in Bozeman. Aside from checking out the town we were taking a crack at the Lewis & Clark Marathon/Half-Marathon/5K. I settled on the 5K and Mrs. Ares joined me. Or, as we’ve taken to calling it, the Pneumonia 5K. It was 43 degrees and raining throughout the run. Still a lot of fun though. Bozeman seems like a nice town, and you can’t beat having mountains on 3 sides to view.

Montana is an interesting place. The residents are fiercely rugged and don’t seem to like outsiders too much. (Except Bozeman, which is a tourist and college town.) With the land speculation that’s been going on there the past dozen years or so I can’t say I blame them. I also came to the conclusion that I probably couldn’t live there for three reasons: I don’t have enough facial hair (and I look really stupid with it), I don’t have giant pickup truck, and I don’t have any Carhartt clothing. Carhartt is the state uniform of male residents between 6 and death. Overall I think my friend Dave described it best when he used the term “Gun-toting tree-huggers”. As for me, I’m just glad to have showers and flushing toilets at my disposal again. Remember, plumbing is what makes civilization great.

Ares