LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Re: Pity Party by Peggy Noonan
Wall Street Journal | May 17, 2008

Peggy Noonann is right: the GOP is in serious trouble.  But Ms. Noonan seems to think that Republicans could have saved themselves (and their party) by breaking with the administration sometime between Bush’s second inaugural address in 2005 and the midterm elections in 2006. This timeline is ill-judged.

While some maintain that the magnitude of the administration’s failures did not come to light until after Mr. Bush was reelected, there is no disputing that these failures were the direct result of decisions made, budgets implemented, and wars started during the President’s first term. That those who anticipated the devastating outcome of these indiscretions turned out to be right is not a matter coincidence.

After seven and a half years of reckless leadership, America is craving prudence, accountability, and intuition. The wise Republican would have broken with the administration long before Mr. Bush renewed his four-year lease on Pennsylvania Avenue.

The pink slips are stamped, sealed, and ready to deliver. But they were filled out six years ago.

Click here to read Noonan's column.

THE BATTLE LOST AND WON

Christopher campaigning in Gary, Indiana.


For more photos, see the New York Times Polling Place Photo Project.

Orient Express

Check out my new photo blog The Orient Express to see pictures of Istanbul. Click here

DARJEELING LIMITED

Opens September 29. Excited?


Click here for HD trailer.

WEEK IN REVIEW

Highlights from Harper's Weekly Review

[Titles added.]

HOLY JURIS DOCTOR, BATMAN!
Patrick Leahy, the 67-year old Democratic senator from Vermont who as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is pressing the Bush Administration to turn over documents relating to its warrantless wiretapping program, revealed that he has a small part in the upcoming Batman movie, and that he had to let his remaining hair grow out for the role.

GET YOUR FLAGS READY...
Melting ice in the Arctic revealed previously unknown islands that have yet to be claimed.

YOU MEAN PEOPLE MAGAZINE DOESN'T COUNT?
Studies in the U.S. showed that one in four adults read no books last year.

HAVE YOU TRIED E-BAY?
After waiting 55 years for a Purple Heart, Nyles Reed, a 75-year-old Korean War veteran and former Marine, received a form letter from Navy Personnel Command saying the medal was out of stock and suggesting that he buy his own.

ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT'S ME, TERESA
Previously unpublished letters by Mother Teresa revealed that beginning in 1948 and continuing until the end of her life in 1997 she was unable to sense the presence of God. "Repulsed--empty--no faith--no love--no zeal," she wrote. "Heaven means nothing."

Life Is Beautiful

Super Mini RF Wireless Optical Mouse
User Manual

Welcome
Thank you for selecting this product! Your RF wireless optical mouse uses a newly developed wireless technology that replaces the traditional wired mouse. You can use your wireless optical mouse freely and improve your efficiency and enjoy your beautiful life from the high technology.


Product Features
1. Radio frequency 27MHz, enjoy your freely wireless spacs
2. It has 256 ID code, there is no interference even many mice being used at the same time.
3. Automatically save power sleeping functions, battery life be prolonged.

The Steps of Install Battery
1. Please prepare for two PCS new AAA alkaline batteries.
2. Press the button of the mouse upper cover and pull the battery cover rearward.
3. Please insert the batteries.
4. Pull the battery covers forward, when you heaf "crack" sound which shows the battery cover is locked successfully.

Receiver Installation
1. If you use PS/2 connector, please use the USB to PS/2 adaptor and connect with the connector before your computer start-up.
2. If you use desk PC, there is a little far between the case and your working surface, suggest you use an extended USB cable to connect your case and the receiver, so you can place the receiver on your working surface conveniently.

ID Setup
1. Please move the mouse near to the receiver
2. Press the ID button of the receiver by your hand, the receiver light begin to flash
3. Press the ID button of the mouse bottom with some hard and acuate object within 10 seconds, the receiver light will flash successfully to finish the digital transmission between the mouse and the receiver. You may start to use it.
4. Working distance:within 1-2 meters.

Attention Please
1. Please don't make the mouse far away from the receiver in order to work more smoothly.
2. You'd better use the mouse on the white desk, in this way the batteries can be used longer time. Please remove thebatteries if the mouse will not be used for a long time.
3. This mouse with save power sleeping functions, Please press any key or scroll the wheel to wake up the mouse when it is sleeping.
4. If you want to take off the mouse power, please continue to press the ID switch of the mouse bottom over 3 secons.If you want to take on the power,please click the ID switch once again.
5. The optical mouse will not work freely on a smooth desk, glass, any reflecting surface,3D mouse pad.
6. No need to check the digital connection within 10 seconds when change the batteries, if more that thatplease according to the above way to re-operate.

Caution
Any changes or modifications not expressly approved by the party responsible for compliance could void the user's authority to operate the equipment.

Reading and Writing

From an essay titled "Defeating the Poem" by Denis Donoghue, which appeared in the New Criterion in April 2006:

When I started teaching, at University College, Dublin many years ago, I urged students to believe that the merit of reading a great poem, play, or novel consisted in the pleasure of gaining access to deeply imagined lives other than their own. Over the years, that appeal, still cogent to me, seems to have lost much of its persuasive force. Students seem to be convinced that their own lives are the primary and sufficient incentive. They report that reading literature is mainly a burden. Those students who think of themselves as writers and take classes in "creative writing" to define themselves as poets or fiction writers evidently write more than they read, and regard reading as a gross expenditure of time and energy. They are not open to the notion that one learns to write by reading good writers.

In class, many students are ready to talk, but they want to talk either about themselves or about large-scale public themes, independent of the books they are supposedly reading. They are happy to denounce imperialism and colonialism rather than read "Heart of Darkness" Kim, and A Passage to India in which imperialism and colonialism are held up to complex judgment. They are voluble in giving you their opinions on race and its injustices, but nearly tongue-tied when it is a question of submitting themselves to the languages of The Sound and the Fury, Things Fall Apart, and A Bend in the River. They find it arduous to engage with the styles of Hard Times and The Wings of the Dove, but easy to say what they think about industrialism, adultery, and greed.

Amazon Don

From an essay titled "Literary Entrails: The boys in the alley, the disappearing readers, and the novel's ghostly twin" by Cynthia Ozick, which appeared in the April 2007 issue of Harper's.

Less innocent is the rise of the non-professional reviewer on Amazon--though "rise" suggests an ascent, whereas this computerized exploitation, through commerce and cynicism, of typically unlettered exhibitionists signals a new low in public responsibility. Unlike the valued book club reviewer, who may be cozily challenged by companionable discourse, Amazon's "customer reviewer" goes uncontested and unedited: the customer is always right. And the customer, the star of this shoddy procedure, controls the number of stars that reward or denigrate writers. Amazon's unspoken credo is that anyone, or everyone is well suited to make literary judgements--so that a reader of chick lit (the term defines the reader), perhaps misled by ad hype (the term defines book marketing), will howl with impatience at any serious literary fiction she may have blundered into. Here is "Peggy of Sacramento (see my other reviews)" grudgingly granting one ill-intentioned star to a demanding contemporary novel: "boring slowness, hard going, characters not even a mother could love." Or Tim: "A thoroughly depressing book. The home life was not a pleasant atmosphere in which to raise children." Most customer reviewers, though clearly tough customers when it comes to awarding stars, are not tough enough--or well-read enough--for tragic realism or psychological complexity. Amazon encourages naive and unqualified readers who look for easy prose and uplifting endings to expose there insipidities to mass audience. It is true that one can, on occasion, find on Amazon a literate, lively, penetratingly intelligent response: an artful golden minnow in a fetid sea, where both praise and blame are leveled by tsunamis of incapacity.

(Academic theorists equipped with advanced degrees, who make up yet another species of limited reviewers, are worthy only of a parenthesis. Their confining ideologies, heavily politicized and rendered in a kind of multi-syllabic pidgin, have for decades marinated literature in dogma. Of these inflated dons and doctors it is futile speak, since, unlike the hardier customers reviewers, they are destined to vanish like the fog they evoke.

INDEX

Highlights from Harper's Index
June 2007

[Interested in a career in print media?]

Percentage change since 1990 in worldwide demand for newsprint: +18
Percentage change in North America: -26
Minimum number of different books sold in the U.S. last year, as tracked by Nielson BookScan: 1,446,000
Number of these that sold fewer than 99 copies: 1,123,000
Number that sold more than 100,000: 483

[Mudslide]

Number of months that mud has been erupting from the ground in eastern Java, Indonesia: 10
Amount that is currently emerging per day, in gallons: 36,900,000

[Flying Objects]

Grant that NASA has given an Arizona astronomer to study how to block solar rays with a cloud of small spacecraft: $70,000
Number of two-foot-wide spacecraft he says would be required: 16,000,000,000,000


[Published in Harper's, June 2007. "Harper's Index" is a registered trademark.]

SECTION IV, Part B

LOGIC/REASONING

Following a refreshing dip in Central Park's Lasker Pool, you discover, much to your dismay, that you forgot to remove your cell phone from the cargo pocket of your new swim trunks.

Oops!

Oberto, the technical specialist at the Gramercy Park Verizon Wireless Retail Center, is pleased to report that your SIM card survived the flood. He assures you that, after purchasing a new LG VX9400 phone ($199.99 after 2-year service agreement and $50.00 mail-in rebate), you will be able to make and receive calls with no trouble at all.

Here's what Oberto doesn't realize: Due to its prolonged submersion, your SIM card has short circuited, and--perhaps a mere freak occurrence--it now operates in a manner similar to that of the Flux Capacitor. (See SECTION XI, Part A. CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF FILMS SET IN 1985.) Each time you place a call, you find that the recipient is trapped in the past--somewhere between 1992 and today.

Moreover, Oberto--who is probably just trying to be courteous; he probably doesn't want to embarrass you--fails to question the fact that you only have 3 telephone numbers stored on your SIM card. Again, however, what Oberto doesn't realize is that, because of your SIM Card's prolonged exposure to public bathwater, out of your 126 contacts, you are only able to access 3 numbers at any given time.

Finally, it should be noted that some of the numbers that appear in your address book (which will, as mentioned before, invariably connect you to a different hour, day, month, or year) are numbers you have never seen before--though they may belong to people with whom you're quite familiar. (This, too, seems to be the result of the chlorine marinade.)

Below, you will find a series of situations in which you might need to place a phone call. After each scenario, you will see a list of the only 3 contacts your phone will display at that given time, coupled with a brief description of the circumstances in which each of these contacts finds him or herself.

For each scenario, pick the person who you think would be the most helpful. Include a brief explanation (no more than 65 words) of your choice in the space provided. You are allowed just one selection per scenario. Note: There are no "right" answers.

1. You have a flat tire and your Aunt Mary's Volvo station wagon doesn't seem to have a car jack. Your AAA membership expired four months ago. Who do you call?

a) MRS. O, who has just discovered that her son Nick appears in the Winnetka Talk Police Blotter for the second time in two weeks. (He was caught with two ounces of Marijuana in the glove box of his car, and a spelling error in last week's blotter resulted in a reprint of the entire section.)

b) DICK DURBIN moments after he inadvertently confused the name "Osama" (as in Al Qaeda mastermind Osama Bin Laden) and "Obama" (as in fellow Illinois Senator Barack Obama), replacing the latter with the former.

c) ELLIOTT G., your best friend from high school, who has just taken the first three bong hits in his life (part of a hazing ritual for a secret society at Yale University). He is now marching in a circle chanting: "We want the Cooks! We want the Cooks!"

2. You've broken up with your girlfriend of two years after discovering that she has, for quite some time, been attending weekly Catholic Mass (it makes her feel "welcome") in spite of the fact that both of your fathers are Rabbis at Temple Beth Torah in Nyack. You need some support, who do you call?

a) WHITNEY D., your ex-girlfriend's best friend, who is lip-locked with the boy of her dreams (second dream-boy in three years) on her Birthright trip (fourth trip in five years) to Tel Aviv.

b) CHAD LIBERMAN, your little sister's ex-boyfriend, who was expelled from his birthright trip yesterday, after repeatedly referring to his group leader as "Yasser Arafat." He is waiting for his father to pick him up at Kennedy International Airport.

c) THE REVEREND TED HAGGARD, who has just graduated from a three-week gay conversion course, and is now 100% heterosexual.

3. You're writing an essay about Shakespeare's use of the subjunctive mood in "Macbeth." The essay, your final assignment for the semester, is due in twenty-five minutes, and you can't seem to remember the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. Your Internet access is down and your reference books are already in storage for the summer. Who do you call?

a) AL GORE, two minutes after the United States Supreme Court delivered its per curiam opinion on "Bush v. Gore"--ultimately ruling that a manual ballot recount in Florida would be unconstitutional.

b) H. MEYERS, who, moments ago, walked in on her seventeen-year-old son, Arthur, lying naked on his bed, masturbating. (She just wanted to tell him that dinner would be ready in five minutes.)

c) RONALD REAGAN.

When you have made your selections, please put your pencil down and wait for the proctor to deliver additional instructions. You MAY NOT return to previous sections of the exam.

But you didn't.

Following, is a letter I wrote to the Editor of the New York Times in response to Aimee Mann's June 3 op-ed "P.S. I Loved You." Below, you will find the complete text of the editorial.


Dear Editor:

In her June 3 editorial, "P.S. I Loved You," Aimee Mann confesses that she is "burnt out" on the Beatles' 1967 LP, "Sgt. Pepper's." She gripes that the lyrics lack "emotional depth," and that Lennon's melodies are "underwritten." In the end, Mann likens her experience with "Sgt. Pepper's" to beating her father at chess.

I am reminded of an apocryphal story about a young artist who, upon seeing Picasso's "Guernica" (or was it Pollock's "Summertime"?) brazenly asserts, "I could do that!" The artist's mentor is quick to confirm this sentiment: "Yes, you could do that," he says. "But you didn't."

Let's be clear about one thing, Aimee: You haven't beat John Lennon at chess.

Christopher Devine
Chicago, IL



P.S. I Loved You
By Aimee Mann

MY big brother was always the one to bring new music into the house. Until I heard the Beatles playing on his stereo in the basement, my favorite music had been Glen Campbell singing “Galveston” or my father playing “Won’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey” on the piano.

I was young enough to giggle when my brother changed the words of “P.S. I Love You” to...something more puerile, and four years later, young enough to think that “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” was really a band, and not the name of a Beatles record. In those intervening years, a transformation had taken place, and both the sound and the look of the Beatles had completely changed. Also, I was a little slow on the uptake, and didn’t notice the name “Beatles” spelled out in flowers on the cover.


Is it a testament to the quality, or purity, or beauty, or timelessness of that record (released 40 years ago this weekend) that it appealed so thoroughly to an 8-year-old, one who had virtually no contact with pop culture? I could not have been more out of tune with the zeitgeist — it would be two more years before I discovered radio, and even then I would have only the vaguest notion of what was out there. I bought my first LP solely on the basis of the cover (one of the reasons today I try to take extra care with the packaging of my CDs). It was pure dumb luck that it turned out to be Elton John’s “Madman Across the Water,” still one of my favorite albums of all time.

But the favorite is, and was, and must remain “Sgt. Pepper’s.” I had a love affair like no other with that record. My brother had bought it, of course, and when I heard it, I braved his wrath and smuggled it out to my friend’s house so I could play it over and over. You’d have had to know my brother back then to fully understand how daring that was.

In a way, that record seemed made for children: the fun false mustaches that came with the package, the bright shiny outfits, the cheery melodies, the jaunty horns. The band itself seemed almost irrelevant — scruffy mustachioed men in costumes, lost in a sea of collaged faces. I ignored them.

My ignorance extended to the opening song, which I took at face value as a real live introduction of the singer Billy Shears, who, whoever he was, became my favorite, with his dopey baritone, in humble gratitude for his pals — bless them, it all was so innocent, those marmalade skies and winking meter maids (whatever they were). The darkest moments were with the runaway girl — although a throwaway line in “Getting Better” (“I was cruel to my woman, I beat her...”) gave me pause. He beat her? What the heck? But hey — things were getting better all the time, so ... I shrugged and let it go.

And then things took a weird turn: a nightmare cacophony of strings, someone blowing his mind out in a car — what was that? Did he get shot in the head? What were the holes in Albert Hall? Things had gotten creepy and dark, and it lost me. I started skipping that last song.

I can’t listen to “Sgt. Pepper’s” anymore. As a musician, I’m burnt out on it — its influence has been so vast and profound. As a lyricist, I find that my ear has become more attuned to the likes of Fiona Apple and Elliot Smith, and though the words of “Sgt. Pepper’s” are full of vivid images — Rita’s bag slung over her shoulder, Mr. Kite sailing through a hogshead of fire, the runaway girl with her handkerchief — there’s an emotional depth that’s missing. I’m ashamed to say it, but sometimes John Lennon’s melodies feel a bit underwritten, while Paul McCartney’s relentless cheerfulness is depressing. The very jauntiness I used to love as a girl feels as if it’s covering up a sadder subtext. And what’s bleaker than a brave face?

The whole experience is uncomfortable, like realizing you can beat your own father at chess or arm-wrestling. I don’t want to go back and find that the carcass has been picked clean. Because I know without a doubt that “Sgt. Pepper’s” changed the course of my life. If the magic is gone, it’s only because first loves can’t be repeated. When I was 8, I’d never heard anything like it, and I can honestly say that if I live to be 100, I’ll never hear anything like it again.

Week In Review

Highlights from HARPER'S WEEKLY:

[Forgive my extended hiatus. I will do my best to post more regularly.]

Texas Congressman Ron Paul said that not going to war in Iraq would have been "conservative," because "it's a Republican, it's a pro-American, it follows the Founding Fathers. And besides, it follows the Constitution."

[Excuse me?]

It was announced that Reagan's diaries would be published. "Getting shot," he wrote in 1981, "hurts."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that he will announce his resignation next week.

Police in Tehran forbade barbers from giving men Western style haircuts or plucking their eyebrows.

President Bush vetoed an Iraq spending bill that included a timetable for troop withdrawal and threatened to use his third veto on a bill that would expand the legal definition of hate crime to include violence based on gender or sexuality.

Sony apologized and admitted that it might have been "inappropriate" to promote a new videogame based on Greek mythology by holding a launch party in London featuring topless serving girls and guests eating offal from the stomach of a decapitated goat.

Britons were enjoying a new reality television series called "Fat Teens Can't Hunt" in which ten overweight teenagers were sent to Australia's outback to live and eat with Aboriginal communities.

The Pocket

Check out my new blog:

THE POCKET VETO


Leave it on your desktop.

Sleeping Beauty? ...not so much

For more than a year, I slept on a Swedish-made Tempur-Pedic mattress. I’m absolutely positive that you’ve encountered their relentless marketing campaign: The only mattress recognized by NASA and certified by the Space Foundation, Tempur-Pedic features heat sensitive memory foam designed to conform to the contours of the human body, relieve pressure points, and promote deep, uninterrupted sleep. How could anyone resist?


Actually, it’s like sleeping in a giant bowl of reheated oatmeal. The memory foam envelops your body, and you become entangled in a mess of wrinkled, sweaty sheets. With every move that you make, you sink deeper and deeper into the void. The Tempur-pedic is, in words of John Milton, “a dark illimitable ocean, without bound, without dimension: where time and place are lost.”


And, no, it's not good for you back.

VOTE!

If you live in Chicago, please vote today!

Faustus

Does anyone else think it's kind of funny that Harvard's new president is named Dr. Faust?




(Incidentally, Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust is the first female president since Harvard's inception in 1636.)

What "Dime" Is It?

We have divided our days into twenty-four hours. Each hour contains sixty minutes, each minute contains sixty seconds, and--get this--each second contains septillion yoctoseconds. (If you can believe it, “yoctosecond” is one trillionth of one trillionth of one second.)


We accept this twenty-four hour clock without hesitation, but it is not unrivaled. In 1793, the French--God bless them and their baguettes--introduced a system of decimal time. Midnight became ten o’clock, noon became five, and so on. Needless to say, this system never really caught on. But, like all things unpopular and impractical, decimal time has a substantial cult following. In fact, decimal advocates recently re-proposed this system, which they have now dubbed “Dime.” Each Day contains ten “Dours,” each with 100 “Dinutes,” divided into 100 “Deconds.” (This is not a joke.)


Nor is our clock immutable. In the year 1752, the English-speaking world went to sleep on Wednesday, September 2nd, and awoke, the following morning, on Thursday, September 14th. This leap was implemented in order to align England’s calendar (Julian) with that of Continental Europe (Gregorian). Prior to this transition, a traveler headed from London to Paris had to set his watch ahead by two hundred and sixty-five hours! And so, under the mandate of King George II, eleven days were excised from our calendar. Poof.


(Ever wonder why we celebrate George Washington's birthday on February 22 when he was, in fact, born on February 11?)



Click here to find out what "Dime" it is.

(Cartoon by Kyle Baker, (c) 2005)

Chief.

This is kind of brilliant.

From the Op-Ed page of The New York Times:

At Ease, Mr. President
By Barry Wills
Saturday January 27,2007

WE hear constantly now about “our commander in chief.” The word has become a synonym for “president.” It is said that we “elect a commander in chief.” It is asked whether this or that candidate is “worthy to be our commander in chief.”

But the president is not our commander in chief. He certainly is not mine. I am not in the Army...

The president is not the commander in chief of civilians. He is not even commander in chief of National Guard troops unless and until they are federalized. The Constitution is clear on this: “The president shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States.”

When Abraham Lincoln took actions based on military considerations, he gave himself the proper title, “commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” That title is rarely — more like never — heard today. It is just “commander in chief,” or even “commander in chief of the United States.” This reflects the increasing militarization of our politics. The citizenry at large is now thought of as under military discipline. In wartime, it is true, people submit to the national leadership more than in peacetime. The executive branch takes actions in secret, unaccountable to the electorate, to hide its moves from the enemy and protect national secrets. Constitutional shortcuts are taken “for the duration.” But those impositions are removed when normal life returns.

But we have not seen normal life in 66 years. The wartime discipline imposed in 1941 has never been lifted, and “the duration” has become the norm. World War II melded into the cold war, with greater secrecy than ever — more classified information, tougher security clearances. And now the cold war has modulated into the war on terrorism...

The glorification of the president as a war leader is registered in numerous and substantial executive aggrandizements; but it is symbolized in other ways that, while small in themselves, dispose the citizenry to accept those aggrandizements. We are reminded, for instance, of the expanded commander in chief status every time a modern president gets off the White House helicopter and returns the salute of marines.

That is an innovation that was begun by Ronald Reagan. Dwight Eisenhower, a real general, knew that the salute is for the uniform, and as president he was not wearing one. An exchange of salutes was out of order. (George Bush came as close as he could to wearing a uniform while president when he landed on the telegenic aircraft carrier in an Air Force flight jacket).

We used to take pride in civilian leadership of the military under the Constitution, a principle that George Washington embraced when he avoided military symbols at Mount Vernon. We are not led — or were not in the past — by caudillos.

To read the full article click here.

"Revoluton, Evolution, Masturbation, Flagellation, Regulation, Integrations, Meditations, United Nations, Congratulations..."

Following are some photos a friend of mine took at the January 27 anti-war protest in the District of Columbia.














Photos by Alex Barnard.
Lyrics by John Lennon, "Give Peace a Chance."

Mr. President?

John Edwards is pretty good looking. (As a matter of fact, in 2000, People magazine named Edwards the sexiest politician alive.)

He is also an incredibly attractive candidate and, this time around, he's packing quite a punch.

Following are three excerpts from his response to President Bush's State of the Union Address:

1. Instead of increasing the number of troops in Iraq, we should immediately withdraw 40–50,000 troops... Since the President refuses to change course, Congress must use its power of the purse and block funding for an escalation of war. Over 80,000 people from across the country have joined me in calling on Congress to stop President Bush's misguided plan to escalate the war. Congress has the power to stop this escalation — they should use it.

Well, I can't argue with that.

(Click here to see the note Edwards sent to Congress. If you look really closely, you will see my name.)

2. The time for patching up our health care system has ended. We need universal health care in this country and we need it now.

(Senator Clinton, on the other hand, has proposed "affordable" health care. Let me be the first to tell you: "Affordable" is not the same as "Universal.")

3. In order to curb our dependence on foreign oil and address global warming, the United States needs a major investment in energy innovation, on a scale that this President isn't talking about. We need to ask Americans to be patriotic about something other than war and involve everyone — government, industry, and individuals — in the solution.

He is back. And he's back with a vengance.


www.johnedwards.com