NPR's Reaction to is it's top 100 SciFi/Fant Book List...priceless.

So NPR ran a contest to see the most popular 100 Sci Fi and Fantasy books. 60K voters later, they had a list. Then they handed the reigns to Glen Weldon on their Monkey See blog for a reaction. Result...a splendid dissection of the content. That includes the first and obvious comment: Why are we even lumping Sci Fi and Fantasy together?

The one questions I still need answered: Cryptonomicon is Sci Fi/Fantasy? Really? Ever heard of historical fiction?

The C(a)lt of Galt

Ayn Rand and Objectivism are rearing their ugly heads again. I noticed when the newly stamped copies of Altas Shrugged - this coffee table cum paperback graced the shelves at Costco. Seriously? Costco? I understand the desire to sell paper in such large volumes, but lets all admit to ourselves that this is the Brief History of Time for the Tea Party Set. The first 3-23 pages will show wear and the rest may as well be blank.

But more important of course is the risk that objectivism could begin to influence policy. I read Atlas Shrugged. And the Fountainhead. And Anthem (BTW - it does in 100 pages what it takes her 1000 pages to do elsewhere.). I read them around the age of 20. I tried on the ideas. I am a smart, above average height, ok looking, athletic guy. I mean, yeah, don't deserve to be me? Haven't I earned everything I've gotten? Why should others ride on my coattails as I ascend to greatness?

How long before you meet your first walking reality check? Someone whose father has cancer? Someone whose company lays them off at just the wrong moment? How long before you realize that there but for the grace of god go you?

I am all for more personal responsibility. It could go a long way to improve the functioning of our society. But it doesn't change that we live together and our aggregate interactions require policies to govern them. Otherwise a free spirited mother is getting my kid sick with TB because she refuses to vaccinate. Where's my freedom there?

Ayn Rand takes the extreme position that there should be no regulation and no social safety net. You just need one exception to derail such an ethos and I think even the starkest libertarians among us have lived a few of those exceptions themselves. To do otherwise can be barbaric.

Ex Libris

Stifle your murmurs of, "You keep using that [phrase]. I do not think it means what you think it means." Philadelphia's Public Libraries - every one - will be closing Oct. 2 due to budget shortfalls. I haven't been to a public library in nearly a year. I'd venture to guess that most of my yuppie friends (those without kiddies) have gone much longer without setting foot in one. That said, I fully recognize their important place in making knowledge open and free to everyone.

This kind of post usually devolves into a heady diatribe about the need for an informed electorate, and that's true. But besides that, a library is a cultural node. It is a community center - often the site of many organizations and activities. It promotes the arts to those often unlikely to encounter them. Today, it provides those who cannot afford it at home access to the internet. Turning that off is literally shutting them off from the mainstay of the new economy in which we expect them to compete.

It is, in short, a very, very bad idea.

Anarchist's Cookbook II

Absinthe and flamethrowers is much prettier than the black and white photocopied version of the Anarchist's Cookbook that my high school buddies got their hands on, but isn't it basically the same. Perhaps including Absinthe, a product that is increasingly legal in the U.S., in the title is an indication of a more tempered approach. Nevertheless, the presentation may be novel, but the idea is seriously dated.

HT: Uncrate.com

Diamonds Are Forever; You Owning Those Diamonds, Not So Much.

Wired ran a long piece about the "biggest diamond heist" in the world. I am not sure it is the biggest heist because there is some disagreement as to the size of the "take." It's a tad long, but, if you need a sense of the excitement factor, the story has already been optioned for a movie. Read it now before the bastards ruin it.

Truthiness Hurts

Jason Kottke (www.kottke.org) just posted a piece from New York Magazine taking Michael Lewis (Liar's Poker/Moneyball) to task for piece he just penned for Vanity Fair about Iceland's economic woes. I've read both the New York piece - which actually critiques three pieces, includeing Lewis's piece. The writers seem to overstepped in the interest of adding some color; on the other hand, the critique isn't particularly heavy on the facts either.

Do We Mark Timmy Down for the Undead?

Take a classic that I, for one, couldn't stand, and add the undead. Voila! Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I think I just heard Jane Austen scratching at the inside of her coffin.

Books.

I haven't blogged about books in a while, though there is a long list of good ones I have been reading. Here is a smattering:

Sandman Chronicles: TheGameIAm lent these to me and, well, wow. If you haven't read the Watchmen, start there. But then come here. I don't count myself a comic "fan," but I like the genre. This is far and away better than anything else I have ever seen because of the choice in characters and the sophisticated weave of story-telling. RSC finished it even faster than I did and she never reads comics.

To give you the briefest of backgrounds, the series charts Dream's travels through the realm of Dream and the waking world. Plot lines involve the complex relationships that he has with his siblings, Death, Despair, Destruction, Desire, Destiny, and Delirium, who was once Delight. It is fantastic in every sense of the term.

Confessions of an Economic Hitman: "Hi, I made a lot of money at the top of a very succesful American company helping other American mega-corporations win development contracts in the second and third worlds. Early on, I had a crisis of conscience when I met these poor people in far off countries. I envied their passion for their countries and their dignity and hard work. But i didn't leave my job. No, no. I stayed another 10-15 years, going from country to country, womanizing with 'inspiring' dames, and complaining when my favorite five-star hotels were unavailable on return trips. But, really, I had a crisis of conscience. We are destroying these people's countries. Oh, and the NSA made me do it, after they sanctioned my entering the Peace Corps."

You can thank me. Now you don't have to read John Perkins's tripe. First, the State Department contests his facts without the histrionics or vague pronouncements that might raise eyebrows. Second, Mr. Perkins's lack of skill as a writer (it's ok, he's an economist) is overshadowed by his false indignation. Listen, man. If you really felt for the little guy, you should have stopped doing what you did, particularly if, as you claim, the work you were in charge of was so destructive. To write the "tell-all" (which is not news to any student of IR) after you made your money is, to put it mildly, tacky.

Pop Culture Tidbit

Like the Great Black Hope did yesterday, I am taking a break from politics today to sound off on pop culture. John Grisham openly states that he doesn't take himself too seriously as a writer -- he just writes pulp for the masses and rakes in the dough. That puts him in with Coldplay, who often deflect criticism of their music as bland and unoriginal by saying that they aren't innovative -- they just give the people what they want.

Just two questions:

1. If you are a fan, aren't they laughing at you? "Yeah, this isn't very good, but, then, you aren't very discerning."
   
2. What satisfaction do you get from producing in a medium that is normally associated with artistic free expression, but which you have purposely wittled down to mere artisanship?

Harry Potter 7

RSC said it best: This book is very satisfying. It has the sort of breathless air of a seven year old explaining Disneyland. Every sentence in the book should start with "And then...(!)"

"...the post-scholastic set..."

This is how Natalie Angier, NYT columnist and author of The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, describes folks like me: out of school and no longer able to dedicate the time to go back and learn things like the hard sciences.

Strikes me that this is one of those phrases that misses from both ends:
(a) anyone hep to the phrase "post-scholastic set" is likely a grad in a good job with either an express or implied continuing education requirement. True, they aren't in a science lab, but they certainly aren't beyond picking up a slightly more technical overview of the field. Whether they choose to or not is a different question. A question which "pop science" likely does not answer.

(b) anyone who has no idea what "post-scholastic set" might mean is also the kind of person for whom "pop science" holds little to no appeal.

Absurdistan
This is a delicious romp through what I have to guess is modern Azerbaijan. I commend it to the attention of those who appreciate less-than-likable protagonists, wry commentary on the steel-and-glass instant empires springing up in places like Dubai, and stabs at the current trend toward "revolution viz. the media."

You can find out more at Amazon. Or, as always, you can ask us and we will loan it to you!