Blogging, Books, Cats, Music, Mayhem
Perfect song for an Autumn Sunday. One of my favorite Robyn Hitchcock songs – and that’s saying something, really. He has an amazing body of work, but this is quiet and beautiful little song that always catches my ear when it’s on.
I chose a YouTube video of him playing the song live, rather than a “perfect” clip of the song with only the album cover. Continue reading “Autumn Is Your Last Chance”
More than 100 years ago in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a black man named Ed Johnson was dragged from his jail cell and taken to the Walnut Street Bridge and lynched. That Johnson was almost certainly innocent, and that he was already condemned to die by hanging, mattered not at all to the mob that wanted to see “justice” done swiftly, and resented the federal government’s intrusion into the state of Tennessee’s justice system.
Contempt of Court is a detailed account of the trial of Ed Johnson, the futile attempts at appealing to state and federal courts to save his life, and the subsequent decision that opened the door to federal oversight of state courts.
It would probably surprise many people today to learn that it was generally not believed that the Bill of Rights applied to the states. That is, it was not assumed that states had to abide by the Bill of Rights — courts held that the rights against unreasonable search and seizure, the rights against self-incrimination, etc., were protections against the federal government only. Thus, a man like Ed Johnson tried in state court had no protections or guarantees of a fair trial granted by the federal government.
Written by Mark Curriden and Leroy Phillips, Jr., Contempt of Court is an extremely well-written and researched account from the impact on the individuals involved in the trial and lynching, to the impact of the legal decisions on the rest of the country.
It is a sad fact that Johnson’s lynching was not unusual, excepting the resulting trial held by the United States Supreme Court that found the town sheriff and several members of the mob guilty of contempt of court. Curriden and Phillips take care to put Johnson’s case in context, lest the reader think that Johnson’s case received special attention because it was so horrific.
It was against the odds that Johnson’s appeal would be heard by the Supreme Court, and the contempt charges that the court levied against the sheriff and members of the mob were unique. The Supreme Court had not held a trial of the sort before, nor since.
The authors have done a masterful job of telling the story and making it engaging, without shying away from explaining the legal issues to the layperson. It paints a bleak picture of life in the 1900s south, and what it meant to a black person accused of a crime against a white person – or to be a white person who committed the sin of trying to defend a black man accused of a crime.
I give Contempt of Court very high marks on all counts. Its writing is solid and compelling. The book delivers on the promise of its title and topic, and it’s really something that anyone living in the U.S. should read.
For years, I’ve resisted installing AdBlock or any other type of ad-blocking software. Not because I love ads, but because so much content is ad-supported (including content I used to write) and there wasn’t a clear way to support “free” content otherwise.
What finally drove me over the edge wasn’t an actual “ad” at all, but the affiliate network run by Taboola. You know the ones, you can’t visit many popular sites without seeing something like this:
Ads are annoying enough, but the Taboola stuff is linkbait too far. I’m not shocked to see it on sites like Newsmax, but when it started popping up on Daily Kos and Talking Points Memo, I decided I’d had my fill. (That, and the “one weird trick” ads had also just gotten too damn annoying as well.)
I keep wondering when, or if, we’ll hit the point when people are willing to pay for quality content online and obviate the need for these crap-festooned banners.
(Post rescued from the dustbin of history courtesy of Archive.org. Originally posted on zonker.net.)
Knocked down a couple of fiction books this weekend while traveling to and from Southeast LinuxFest. They Eat Puppies, Don’t They? by Christopher Buckley, and No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy.
I’ve been a fan of Christopher Buckley since I picked up Little Green Men years ago, but he’s probably best known for Thank You for Smoking. (It may be a cliche, but the book truly is better than the film – and the film’s plot diverges pretty heavily from the novel.)
They Eat Puppies is billed as political satire of the relationship between the U.S. and China, but it’s really a farce using China and U.S. relations as a framework. It was a quick read, I got a few chuckles out of it, but it’s far from Buckley’s best work. It’s sitcom-quality humor, and makes for good light reading, but I would be hard-pressed to give it a strong recommendation. If you like Buckley’s other work and want some lightweight reading, give it a try. If you haven’t read Buckley’s other work, pick up Thank You for Smoking and save They Eat Puppies for a long flight when you really just need a distraction. (It was a great palette cleanser after finishing The Corner.)
No Country for Old Men is a quick read, but I don’t think you could call it light reading. I suppose it’s a great novel for people who find Steven King horror novels too uplifting.
On the surface, No Country is a tale about a welder who finds a satchel full of cash at the scene of a drug deal gone bad – and the unrelenting assassin who comes after the money and drugs. It goes deeper than that, though. The primary themes is societal decay, and how one person chooses to react in the face of the decay.
Having seen the movie, I was eager to read the book and get a little deeper into the characters and gather some understanding of Anton Chigurh. On that front, I was disappointed, as the book doesn’t really get into any deep characterizations or go into Chigurh’s thoughts. If you’ve seen the film, you can probably safely skip the book, unless you just really enjoyed the film and would like to relive it with a bit more detail. (I will say that the book is totally unambiguous on a point that the film is slightly queasy about showing explicitly.)
(Post rescued from the dustbin of history by Archive.org and copy/paste. Originally posted on Zonker.net.)
A few years ago, I came late to The Wire, but caught up quickly. Usually I’m not one to buy the hype for television series, but I had to admit that The Wire was every bit as powerful, funny, and eye-opening as its fans claimed. It’s a show that you tell friends “you need to watch this” rather than “you’ll really enjoy it,” because they really do need to watch it.
The Wire is necessary because it actually provides a glimpse into the reality of ground zero in the War on Drugs – a topic that any person (at least in the U.S.) should be well-educated on, but probably is not. And if The Wire is required watching, the book that preceded and inspired it should be required reading. It should be required reading, starting in jr. high if not sooner.
The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood, by David Simon and Edward Burns, is as gripping and compelling as any work of fiction I’ve ever read. But it has the virtue of being a true story, and true journalism. Simon and Burns spent months getting to know the subjects in the book, then a solid year following their lives on the corner. Interviews, observation, and follow-ups after the year was over.
The Corner gives a first-hand look at what life is like for those living in the middle of one of the worst neighborhoods in the United States. It provides a look at what growing up in poverty is really like, and why it’s not just as simple as “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.” It might surprise people to learn that the corner that Simon and Burns chose is near the birthplace of H.L. Mencken, the sage of Baltimore. The world of Mencken and the world of teen drug slingers and desperate dope fiends are separated only by a few decades and less than a mile.
And The Corner tells the tale from the beginning. Simon and Burns cover the scope of Baltimore’s downfall, from the early 1900s when the McCullough family first settled into Baltimore, through four generations of McCulloughs. From stand-up citizen and family man, to his fallen son who essentially abandons his son to pursue his addiction, to a teen who plays at slinging drugs and fathers his own son while still too young to drive. This is how fast our cities decay.
You’ll find some hope, but not much, at the end of the book. The book is set in 1994, and published in 1997. More than a decade and a half later, we know how the story goes for many of the people in the book.
As a work of journalism, I’m simply in awe. We need so much more of this. I can’t say that I “loved” the book in the same way I enjoy a good book of fiction or entertaining non-fiction. After 500+ pages, I was ready to leave this world behind and only regretted that there isn’t more of Simon’s work out there to take on next. (Simon has only two books to his name, this and Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets.) This book is a five out of five stars, perhaps six. It should certainly be required reading for anyone who aspires to have an opinion about the war on drugs or welfare policy in the United States.
It’s a lazy Sunday. Here, have a cat picture.
Mary Roach’s Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal is typical of her books, which is to say it’s a highly enjoyable read that belies the amount of research that’s obviously gone into the work.
Like her other books, Stiff, Bonk, Spook, etc., Roach takes a topic that doesn’t necessarily lend itself to polite conversation – and then takes the reader on an extensive tour of the topic by way of speaking to a slew of experts and extracting the most interesting trivia from previous research.
The bibliography in the book is 15 pages, and it’s copiously footnoted throughout. What distinguishes Gulp and the rest of Roach’s oeuvre from more traditional research is that she makes it entertaining and engaging.
Gulp starts at the beginning, as it were, with the role that smell plays in taste. (Which is to say, way more than most people realize.) From there, she looks at why humans and their pets prefer different foods, some of our past misconceptions about food and digestion (be thankful you’re not expected to Fletcherize), all the way the lower colon and out again.
Along the way we learn that, perhaps, Elvis’ death and “bloated” look may have had more to do with a genetic disease of the colon than drugs or overeating. Roach also touches drug smuggling in uncomfortable places (sadly, no Pulp Fiction references), how flammable flatus is, and (the word of the day) all about boluses.
The only thing I don’t like about the book? The cover art. For some reason I find it really obnoxious, which is not at all fitting for the book or Roach herself.
I had the opportunity to meet Roach, briefly, earlier in April when she made an appearance arranged by Left Bank Books. The evening, which included some food that emphasized points made in the book, was punctuated by a forced intermission where we all decamped to the basement to wait out a tornado warning. Roach was undaunted by this and spent the time talking to attendees and signing books.
Rather than doing a reading from the book, she just talked a bit about her experiences writing the book and covered some of the information you’ll find in the first few chapters. The rest of the time was spent answering questions or trying the food.
If you have the opportunity to see Roach in person, I strongly recommend it. She’s intelligent, personable, and funny as hell. I also recommend picking up Gulp and/or any of her other books. Her work makes for fast reading, and you’ll likely learn quite a bit you didn’t know before about how your body works.
Rating: 5/5
Not sure how I missed this. Psalm 69 turned 20 last year. It was definitely one of the high points of mainstream industrial rock, along with Nine Inch Nails’ Broken, Pretty Hate Machine, and The Downward Spiral. (For me, anyway. I’m just catching up with Front Line Assembly…)
I’m not a huge Ministry fan, but I really loved this album and caught them live at Lollapalooza in 1992 on tour for Psalm 69 – they killed it onstage and had a massive mosh pit going in the field. (The only performance of the day that matched Ministry was Pearl Jam, with Eddie Vedder climbing the rafters, literally.)
I have checked in with Ministry periodically since then, and nothing they’ve done since quite lived up to this album, IMHO. Pity, because I’d love another 20 albums like this.
20 years, man. Actually, closer to 21. That’s just crazypants. When I was a kid in the mid-70s, we listened to an oldies station a lot – and they played stuff from the 50s and 60s as “golden oldies.” So I guess this means that “Jesus Built My Hotrod” and “N.W.O.” are officially oldies now.
If you’re my age, you may now commence telling kids to get off your lawn.
People often try to fluff up the importance of an event or person by saying it “changed history,” “changed the course of history,” or “changed history forever.” (Or something along those lines, you get the idea.) There’s just one problem with that type of phrase: it’s completely, 100% wrong.
History is stuff that has already happened, or the study of stuff that’s already happened. No matter what you do today – no matter how important or how much it upsets the expectations one might have for events to come – unless you’ve invented time travel and actually gone back in time and changed the past you have not changed history at all.
What one usually means to say here is that something happened that had a major impact and events would unfold differently than one would have expected.
For instance, Abraham Lincoln “changed history” by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. But, of course, he didn’t change history at all. He did something that had an immense impact at the time, and that would have a ripple effect that lasts to this day. It was enormously important. But, and this is crucial, he did not change history one tiny little bit. He made history, but he didn’t change it. History, as Lincoln knew it, remained the same. But the future was as of yet unwritten, and so our history is what happened as a result of his actions.
In short, “changed history” is a lazy, awful phrase. Don’t use it.
Living in the city of St. Louis, the odds are that you’re going to be called for jury duty pretty frequently. From most of the folks I’ve talked to, it’s about every two years, if not more often.
I moved back to Missouri in June of 2010, and got my first summons for jury duty for July or August of 2012, so… that sounds about right. Because of work, I had to postpone jury duty, and wound up serving this past week. Here’s how it went. Trigger Warning I was assigned to a jury for a sexual assault case, so if discussion of the circumstances of a sexual assault are likely to upset you, you’ll want to skip this post. Continue reading “Thoughts on jury duty”