Summer Reading
or
Harry Potter vs. What's-His-Face

     Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is to the early charming Harry Potter adventures as the latest Star Wars film is to the early charming Star Wars films: an overblown display of an artist's ego unencumbered by much needed editorial interference.
   The script for Attack of the Clones was so horrible that no studio on earth would have touched it if George Lucas's name weren't on it. Similarly, any editor in his right mind who received the manuscript for Order of the Phoenix written by anyone other than J.K. Rowling would have immediately cut out at least 300 pages. But telling Rowling, the most popular novelist on earth, that she over-wrote the damn thing, would have taken the same amount of balls it would have taken to tell George Lucas that he needs a psychiatrist. 
     A hit corrupts, an absolute hit corrupts absolutely, and Rowling and Lucas are prime examples. Apparently people who reach the commercial top of their game can get so taken by their creations that they think every whim is genius, and nobody involved will dare argue against such phenomenal success by hinting that the monstrosity laid before them might need a little tweaking.

      Two small examples:

    In Clones, there's a scene where what's-his-face and the-other-guy go up an elevator, and what an elevator it is, one of those outside jobs with a spectacular view of the most art-directed future city in the history of film, a view that gets better and better as the elevator goes up and up, and we know because we see it, but what's-his-face and the-other-guy DON'T see it because they face the other way and stare at the elevator buttons the whole trip.
     Had a screenwriter been on the set, or anyone with common sense and a lot of nerve, they could have recommended to the director that this might be a superb opportunity to humanize the characters by having them do something remotely human. "Why not have the two of them face the other way and look at the view?" they might have asked. "Nobody rides in an outdoor elevator facing the buttons."
     "Let the characters comment upon the sights," would have been an excellent suggestion. Let these guys say things meant for each other instead of just reciting expository meant for the audience. "I never get tired of this view," says what's-his-face. "Look, you can see The Sodomy Club from here," says the other guy.
     But nobody dared offer a suggestion to the almighty Lucas, especially on the set, leaving us with a film full of people who refuse to behave like human beings. (of course, I know, they're NOT human beings, they're JEDI, but still...)
    Same with Rowling and her poor hapless editors at Scholastic, who are enjoying success beyond their wildest dreams. If you removed everything from Phoenix that wasn't absolutely riveted to the story, you'd have a fun and rollicking adventure that moved like gangbusters, totally equaling the success of the previous books in under 400 pages. Instead, Scholastic has bestowed upon the marketplace an 870 page first draft, being read by millions of people, where the author blabs on and on about absolutely everything, apparently SO enamored of her own words she insisted the publisher leave every single syllable intact.
     A small example: Harry has been banned from the living room so he sneaks outside and surreptitiously listens to the TV news from outside the window...

  He kept listening, just in case there was some small clue, not recognized for what it really was by the Muggles -- an unexplained disappearance, perhaps, or some strange accident...but the baggage-handler's strike was followed by news on the drought in the Southeast ("I hope he's listening next door!" bellowed Uncle Vernon, "with his sprinklers on at three in the morning!"); then a helicopter that had almost crashed in a field in Surrey; then a famous actress's divorce from her famous husband ("as if we're interested in their sordid affairs," sniffed Aunt Petunia, who had followed the case obsessively in every magazine she could lay her bony hands on.)

    Let us for the moment consider the Elmore Leonard version of this paragraph. "There was nothing but garbage on the television but Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were eating it up. What morons." He certainly wouldn't have bothered to blow our minds with the tidbit that Harry's uncle's neighbor occasionally leaves his sprinklers on.
     I mean look at it. Here we have not only a list of everything Harry DIDN'T want to hear on the television, therefore meaningless to the story, but two parenthetical commentaries on the pointless list by peripheral characters who have nothing to do with anything. What possible reason do I need to know what's in the final parenthesis, where Aunt Petunia sniffs? Does it move the plot along? No. Does it elucidate character? Yes, it tells me that Aunt Petunia's a hypocrite, which is something I already knew. Indulgent reiteration from a writer who refuses to get to the point.
     Not that sidetracks are always a bad thing. Tom Robbins wouldn't be Tom Robbins if he didn't occasionally veer wildly away from the story in order to ruminate on the nature of the moon, but he's forgiven because a) he's funny and b) he actually has something interesting to say about the nature of the moon. Rowling doesn't seem to have anything to say other than broad strokes like "no matter how bad things seem, they can get better and worse at the same time." She's telling a children's story in simple declaratory sentences, which is fine as long as she doesn't take 870 goddam pages to tell it. (Of course the New York Times disagrees. They think it's brilliant.)
    Phoenix is a sequel to the most popular series of all time. Rowling is secure in her success. She knows she's already got your interest so she neglects to pique it. Why bother. The above paragraph is a minor point, not PARTICULARLY bothersome, and easily forgiven if it weren't repeated throughout the opus, which you end up skimming. There are no whole chapters that can be deleted and few whole pages. It can't be edited by a lumberjack. It needs a surgeon willing go in and excise thousands of extraneous phrases that kill the momentum. 
     I should mention I'm not just a geek who picked up THIS one having ignored the rest. I've read every Harry Potter as they came out and was as enthralled with them as my kids, except for the last, which I used to put my budgie down. (Hit them over the head with the book.)
     I stared at the books awaiting me next to the bed: Drop City by T.C. Boyle, The Bad Beginning, Book the First of A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, and Jolie Blon's Bounce, the latest adventure of Louisiana detective Dave Robicheaux by James Lee Burke. I opened up Drop City and read "Outside was the California sun, making a statement in the dust and saying something like ten o'clock or ten-thirty to the outbuildings and the trees." A sentence already ten times more creative and interesting than anything in Phoenix, but it's unfair comparing such an adult writer with such a juvenile one. 
     Lemony Snicket is more in line with the child market, so I open to the first page: "If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle."
     I'm already happier than I was reading Phoenix. It's a children's book aimed at the adult in the child rather than the child in the adult.
     And so I made a decision I rarely do. I'm changing books in midstream. Once my local librarian actually asked for it back, telling me there were more than 60 requests for it, and I realized it would probably take me at least another month to slog through the damn thing, I decided to return Phoenix unfinished and move on to T.C. Boyle or James Lee Burke or Lemony Snicket. As masterful as her plotting and characters and ability to create a magical world may be, Rowling's style has turned into Stephen King at his worst, someone so enamored of their own words they seem to forget they're telling a story.
     Sure, I want to know what happens next, but not THAT much. I'll wait for some screenwriter to whittle it down to the essentials. This is one case where the movie will be better than the book.
     Unless it's directed by George Lucas.

The War Against Mother Nature

In January 2003, the Bush Administration revived an obscure 137-year-old loophole - known as R.S. 2477 - to allow special interests to convert old livestock trails, footpaths, even streambeds on our public lands into paved highways. Private interests could use this loophole to plow a spider web of roads through National Parks, Wildlife Refuges, National Forests, Wilderness Areas and potential wildlands. Good for mining and logging companies, great for oil & gas developers, bad for everyone else unless they add the Udall Amendment to the Interior Appropriations bill. Tell your congressman to support the amendment, but be sure to make a big donation first.

Vietnam Redux

The last time I checked the ticker at Cost of War in Iraq, it was at $68,096,688,322.

So Let's Hear it for Them

"The very people who traded in slavery helped to set America free."
- Dubya in Africa -

Picture Gallery of the Week

Surely you've got something better to do than check out this guide to the abandoned sofas of Los Angeles.

Fake Headlines of the Week

U.S. Offers $25 Million for Saddam Saddam offers $50 million for Bush
- Ironic Times -

SADDAM SIGNS UP FOR DO-NOT-CALL LIST
Attempt to Elude Manhunt, U.S. Believes
- The Borowitz Report -

Letter from Saddam Good Morning Viet... I mean Iraq! And all you Infidels!
- Democracy Means You -

Please Don't Make Me Put My Family Back on eBay! 
My Open Letter to President Bush by Steve Young
- American Politics Journal -

Today is Canada Day - Please Carry On with What You Were Doing
- The Chortler -

Shape Magazine Declares July 'Let Yourself Go' Month
- The Onion -

Bush, Rumsfeld Vow to Say "Whatever It Takes"
- The Specious Report -

Google Smackdown of the Week

vs.

and the winner is...

"You are an idiot" by 5,200

Shockwave of the Week

Here's a lovely video about the separation of church and state.

 I Feel So Much Safer Now

Anybody can correspond with the Penpal from hell.

Warmongers 'R' Us

The United States Army has developed and patented a new grenade that it says can be used to wage biowarfare. This is in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention, which explicitly prohibits development of bioweapons delivery devices. US Patent #6,523,478, granted on February 25th 2003, covers a "rifle launched non lethal cargo dispenser" that is designed to deliver aerosols, including - according to the patents claims - crowd control agents, biological agents, [and] chemical agents..." The development of biological weapons delivery devices is absolutely prohibited - in any circumstance - by Article I of the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, to which the U.S. is a party. There is no exemption from this prohibition, neither for defensive purposes nor for so called non-lethal agents.
- The Sunshine Project -

Calling All International Travelers

If you're leaving the country and want to reduce your chances of getting shot or kidnapped, be sure to wear this t-shirt that says "I'm sorry my president's an idiot. I didn't vote for him." in lots of languages. 

The War Against Plants

According to a new study by Dr. Igor Grant, published in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, long-term and even daily marijuana use doesn't appear to cause permanent brain damage, adding to evidence that it can be a safe and effective treatment for a wide range of diseases. Dr. Grant had no comment upon the effects of long-term or daily listening to Phish.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration wants the Supreme Court's permission to strip prescription licenses from doctors who recommend marijuana to sick patients. The administration asked the high court to strike down an appeals court ruling that blocked the punishment, or investigation, of physicians who tell patients they may be helped by the drug.

Understatement of the Week

"It is not easy to do the public's bidding."
- The Desert Sun: Public access gets boost from Senate -

Free Music

Surely you've got something better to do than listen to Silence of the Lambs: The Musical.

Internet Joke of the Week

How does George W. Bush change a light bulb? 

1) He tells everyone that the allegedly burnt-out bulb is using the darkness to harbor terrorists and weapons of mass destruction thereby convincing Congress and the American public that he should be immediately allowed to change the light bulb. 

2) Next he gets Donald Rumsfeld to refer to the bulb as a "dead-ender" in several Pentagon press briefings. 

3) Thereafter he orders the Air Force and the Navy to attack the light bulb with cruise missiles and smart bombs for several weeks. 

4) Then he sends in 250,000 soldiers and marines using night vision in to look for the burnt out bulb for the next three months 

5) Meanwhile, he grants Halliburton, Bechtel, and the Carlisle group, multibillion dollar no-bid contracts to maintain the new bulb for the indefinite future. 

6) Finally, after several years we learn that the bulb was actually fluorescent, really located in someone else's house, and it never burned out in the first place. 

History Lesson from Hell

Benedict Arnold was court martialed and found guilty on two charges: using government wagons for his personal use and issuing a pass to a ship he later invested in. He's most famous for bargaining with the British during the war of independence. 

Dick Cheney has used government property for his personal use, has gone to war to provide profits to a company he is heavily invested in, and bargained with Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War.

Don't Take My Word For It

"Here's a fun game: Imagine the Chinese government announces itself threatened by a secret American plot, and declares it is preparing preemptive military action against us. Making Beijing's case before the UN, President Hu Jintao waves around a set of documents laying out a complicated conspiracy. One of the documents purports to be from 'Prime Minister Richard Cheney of the Unionized States of America.' Another, dated October 2000, is signed by 'Secretary of State James Baker.' The Chinese would look absolutely deranged, relying on such obvious forgeries; the world would recoil in confusion and fear. Yet this is what our President did in his State of the Union address, when he cited similarly ludicrous forgeries as evidence Saddam was uranium-shopping in Niger."
- Matt Biven: The Daily Outrage -

"This is to be done by one skilled in aims
who wants to break through to the state of peace:Be capable, upright, & straightforward,
easy to instruct, gentle, & not conceited,
content & easy to support,
with few duties, living lightly,
with peaceful faculties, masterful,
modest, & no greed for supporters. Do not do the slightest thing
that the wise would later censure."
- Buddha: Sutta Nipata I, 8 -

"A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."
- Thomas Mann -

"Just three days removed from these events, Americans do not yet have the distance of history. But our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil."
- Dubya: September 14, 2001 -

"Having forthrightly set out to rid the world of evil, first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq, has the United States, willy-nilly, become an instrument of evil? Lying (weapons of mass deception). Torture (if only by U.S. surrogates). The killing of children ('collaterally,' but inevitably). The vulgarization of patriotism (July Fourth's orgy of bunting). The imposition of chaos (and calling it freedom). The destruction of alliances ('First Iraq, then France'). The invitation to other nations to behave in like fashion (goodbye, Chechnya). The inexorable escalation ('Bring 'em on!'). The made-in-Washington pantheon of mythologized enemies (first Osama, now Saddam). The transmutation of ordinary young Americans (into dead heroes). How does all of this, or any of it, 'rid the world of evil'?"
- James Carroll: A Bottomless Void -

"According to Ashcroft, the government won't release the names of detainees because doing so would tell Al Qaeda that we've arrested some of their agents. Apparently Al Qaeda is sophisticated enough to exploit the Freedom of Information Act, but wouldn't know if one of its agents has been rotting in a U.S. prison for two years."
- Richard Blow: The Anti-information Administration -

"On July 6, George W. Bush turned 57. William White was born the same day in 1946. I mention this because, if you're old enough, you'd remember that young men were drafted for Vietnam based on a grim lottery - if your birthday was picked out of a hat, you went. I got White's name off a black wall in Washington. He went to Vietnam when George W went to the Air Guard in Houston. White never came back. Happy birthday, Mr. President."
- Greg Palast -

"A few months after Rumsfeld joined the Bush Regime stable, the American master of war bagged an estimated $500,000 by cashing in his joint investment with Jiang Mianheng, son of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin. The pair had been partnered in Shanghai's Red Flag Software, which is used by the godless Chinese commies to, er, block attempts by American spies to penetrate Beijing's computer networks. Naturally, Red Rum was not bothered by these national security considerations--not when there was easy money to be had."
- Chris Floyd: Rumsfeld Filled His Pockets with Pyongyang's Nuclear Loot -

"The Bush regime couldn't give a rat's ass about catching terrorists, in fact they're against it. Thanks to them we've become the biggest group of terrorists on the planet, yes Amerika we've arrived, we're number one! If our CIA and FBI, which couldn't catch a cold, couldn't have rounded up a few hundred fellow psychopaths being led by a 6 ft. 5 in. tall Arab attached to a kidney dialysis machine I'm willing to bet that a real life Tony Soprano could. If we'd have said, 'Hey Vito it's a hit, take that monkey out,' we would have had Osama's head in a bowling ball bag inside of a week. No, we're not really trying to catch him, like I said thats not the point of this exercise in greed. The point is to steal the world!"
- Ernest Stewart: Sending A Giant To Kill A Flea -

"The U.S. Department of Education plans to spend a half-million dollars - yes, a half-million dollars! - on a public relations campaign aimed at quieting the critics of No Child Left Behind. During three decades in Congress, I have never heard of such an ad campaign. Yet as schools are cutting early education programs for lack of money, the President has no problem with assembling an eight-person 'communications' team to try and make a bad plan look good."
- Senator Jim Jeffords -

"It shows that voters are sick and tired of having their electoral choices severely limited by a ruling class that has done everything in its power to maintain the status quo -- including the latest round of under-the-radar redistricting deals that make it all but impossible to unseat incumbents. And this is a bipartisan power play: In California, for instance, a secret redistricting deal agreed upon by both parties in 2001 created safe (i.e., voter-proof) seats for almost every member of the state Legislature."
- Arianna Huffington: The California Recall: Looking For The Silver Lining -

"By civil liberties, I mean an individual's immunity from governmental oppression. A society which respects civil liberty realizes that the freedom of its people is built, in large part, upon their privacy. The Bill of Rights, in the eyes of its framers, was a catalogue of immunities, not a schedule of claims. It was, in other words, a Bill of Liberties. The immunities defined in this Bill of Liberties were set forth in order that the promise of individual freedom might be made explicit. The framers dreamed that if their hope were codified, man's energies of mind and spirit might be released from fear." 
- Edward Bennett Williams: One Man's Freedom -

"One cannot directly perceive intelligence in another beyond the limit of one's own."
- Edgar J. Steele -

"So why is Martha Stewart being charged and prosecuted when no progress has been made in the hundreds of cases involving corrupt corporate executives? The money involved in Martha Stewart's stock deal is tiny compared to the Enron and Arthur Andersen scandals. The answer is easily found with a look at the 2000 election campaign finance records. Martha Stewart contributed to Al Gore and Bill Bradley. Fellow defendants Peter Bacanovic and Sam Waksal also contributed to Gore. President Bush has repeatedly stated that 'You are either with me or against me' and 'We will help our friends and punish our enemies.' With the 2004 election approaching, it's time that all Americans understand just what that means."
- Dale Ohda - 

"There is the great, silent, continuous struggle: the struggle between the State and the Individual; between the State which demands and the individual who attempts to evade such demands. Because the individual, left to himself, unless he be a saint or hero, always refuses to pay taxes, obey laws, or go to war." 
- Benito Mussolini -

"Probably all laws are useless; for good men do not want laws at all, and bad men are made no better by them." 
- Demonax: Roman philosopher c. 150 A.D. -

"Life is like a pubic hair on a toilet seat - eventually you get pissed off."
- Xarvon, alien investigator -

"I desire what is good. Therefore, everyone who does not agree with me is a traitor and a scoundrel." 
- King George III of England (1738-1820) -

"I'm in shape. Round is a shape."
- Ben Baker -

Mr. Conspiracy Says...

On Oct. 27, 1941, FDR, locked in mortal combat with an America First Committee that was resisting his drive to war, played his trump. On Navy Day, at the Mayflower Hotel, FDR declared, "I have in my possession a secret map, made in Germany by Hitler's Government - by planners of the New World Order..." The Nazi plans for eradicating Christianity were never found. And the map? A forgery by British agent Ivar Bryce, who worked under Churchill's man William Stephenson, who had been given his mission: Provoke America to go to war with Germany. As Nicholas Cull relates in "Selling War: The British Propaganda Campaign Against American 'Neutrality' in World War II," the "most striking feature" of Bryce's fake map "was the complicity of the president of the United States in perpetrating this fraud."

Sound familiar?

Thank You, U.S. Supreme Court

Mandatory Listening

On Thursday, July 17, 2003, go to http://www.meria.net and listen to her interview with Greg Palast.

The War Against Ourselves

In 2002, California issued more than $172 million in food stamps to recipients who were not entitled to receive them and failed to issue $79.5 million worth of food stamps to those who WERE entitled to receive them. What's the federal government doing about it? Fining California $62.5 million. Yeah, that'll help.

Belated Christmas Gift from Hell

A wearable camera that records whatever you are watching. 
When you press a button on the $350 device, 
the last 30 seconds of video are recorded for permanent storage.

Everything Else

There is nothing else. You now know everything there is to know.