Entries from January 2003 ↓
January 30th, 2003 — brain-candy
The always-excellent Bookslut site has terrific conversation between two of the site’s principals, Jessica (the bookslut) and Michael, about the advantages and disadvantages of the two major types of bookstores: the independent store and the chain store.
They particularly go off on one local (Austin, TX)independent/feminist/lesbian bookstore called Bookwoman. Jessica — a woman — was looking for
a book about gay studies. Lesbian and male. It happened to be written by a man. This was for the Sexuality Education Center I worked at, and they knew I was from there. I read the title and the author and I was told, “We wouldn’t have that, because that’s by a man.” And I said, “Yes, I know, that’s why I’m asking you to order it.” And when I went into pick it up, she said, “Oh, you’re the one who ordered the book by the man.”
M: Oh my God. So they don’t carry any male authors?
J: None.
I must admit, I approach articles like this with quite a bit of trepidation. I’ve worked in indy stores and in the big chains, my wife has managed multi-million dollar stores for both of the big chains. Usually, these kinds of articles are so full of the “spirit” of the independent and the soul-crushing evilness and conformity of the chains. Not so for this article.
Both participants in the conversation were very realistic, bringing up pluses and minuses for both types of store. Besides the “Mom & Pop”-store-killing aspects of the chains, most of their ire was reserved for the local indy stores. Indies used to have the monopoly on “alternative-lifestyle” books, but now, “All bookstores, even bookstores in fucking Kansas have gay studies sections…” Indies don’t have the selection of the big stores: “The small bookstores don’t have the space, so they tend to go for what they think will sell. The big bookstores can put anything they want.”
Besides the selection, they also talk about the employment practices of the stores:
J: …For an independent bookstore to say they’re better than the chains, they should a) pay their employees better; b) I don’t know if they offer health care, but I’ll go out on a limb and guess no; c) and hire people who know something about literature.
M: And Borders does. My brother worked at Borders, and they gave you a test. And they name books and you are asked to name the author. It’s not all easy. It’s not all John Grisham and Danielle Steele. They ask you about Kathy Acker. They really want to make sure people know their stuff. And the people who work there, there are a lot of graduate students, a lot of college students who are really smart. They’ve helped me find stuff before.
J: When I first moved to Austin I got applications for the bookstores, and Borders offered a higher pay baseline than any of the independents.
Good article. Makes much sense.
January 30th, 2003 — brain-candy
In an interview with the leftist In These Times magazine, Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favorite writers and an unabashed pacifist and socialist gets a chance to rant about the state of the nation and the world. At 80 years old, he has lost none of his humor or his sharpness, as in this quote:
…those now in charge of the federal government are upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka “Christians,” and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities…
I think I’m going to go back and read Slaughterhouse Five again. It’s been a few years, and, since our nation is once again on the brink of war, it seems an appropriate time.
On his site, Vonnegut announces the release of a musical collaboration with Simon Heselev, entitled “Tock Tick”. Heselev composed a piece of electronica, then cut and chopped and looped a performance by Vonnegut, reading from Slaughterhouse Five over the track. Sounds interesting. (You can find a sample here, and you can order it here.)
January 30th, 2003 — impolite company
David Ehrenstein has produced a line-by-line commentary on Bush’s State of the Union address, filled with very funny inuendo, asides and revelations of what the speechwriters really meant.
Throughout the 20th century, small groups of men seized control of great nations, built armies and arsenals, and set out to dominate the weak and intimidate the world.
They were called Republicans!
In each case, their ambitions of cruelty and murder had no limit. In each case, the ambitions of Hitlerism, militarism and communism were defeated by the will of free peoples, by the strength of great alliances and by the might of the United States of America.
Now, in this century, the ideology of power and domination has appeared again and seeks to gain the ultimate weapons of terror.
Box-cutters.
And David Weinberg pointed me to Steve Yost‘s QuickReview-enabled posting of the SOTU, where anyone can add a comment to any paragraph of the speech.
Lots of fun, but almost too easy a target.
January 29th, 2003 — impolite company
Someone in North Korea has a great sense of applied irony. Today, the North Korean government demanded that the US withdraw all its nukes from the Korean peninsula. The thing is, the US claims it withdrew all the nukes when Bush’s daddy was president.
I can just see that North Korean strategist, rubbing his hands together in glee, demanding the establishment of a UNMOVIC-type inspection team to verify that there are no nukes left in South Korea.
Washington has already been forced to bluster its way around the question of why North Korea should be treated differently than Iraq in regards to weapons of mass destruction. It has also been forced into the possibility of talks which will likely reinstate the “Agreed Framework” which the Clinton Administration settled 1n 1994 — and which the Bushies have called “appeasement.”
What twisted logic will they use to deny inspectors access to the grounds of the US Embassy in Seoul or to the naval ships and Army bases around the DMZ? How will Germany and France and Russia and China — all frustrated by the US seeming refusal to wait for international agreement before attacking Iraq — respond to the US scoffing at any demand to open its facilities to international inspectors.
January 26th, 2003 — impolite company
We’ve been using up our Strategic Petroleum Reserve since the start of the Venezuelan strikes. Can’t have that happen when we’re building up to war, so the big oil companies (Chevron, Exxon, BP and Shell) have doubled their imports from — you guessed it: Iraq!
The trade, though bizarre given current Pentagon plans to launch around 300 cruise missiles a day on Iraq, is legal under the terms of UN’s oil for food programme.
Bizarre isn’t the word for it. Everytime I think I’m being just a little too cynical, something like this pops up to reassure me that I’m not being cynical enough. After all, late last week, our military “leaked” the info that protecting the Iraqi oilfields is a priority in battleplans. And then there’s the whole issue of deciding who gets to run the oilfields after Mr. Hussein has gone to his just rewards (or to Despotamia).
All in all, I can’t see it being a bad time for the owners of oil company stocks.
January 26th, 2003 — ear-candy
Saw my favorite band on Friday night. Jenn got me tickets to see Luna for my Christmas present and I’ve been waiting patiently for the show to come around. I wasn’t disappointed. This was the third time I’ve seen them live, and the first time I’ve been to Fletcher’s here in Balto.
The first time I saw them was at the Academy in Manhattan. (The venue was in midtown, but I think it’s gone now.) Luna was opening for the Sundays, and although I loved the Sundays, I was transfixed by Dean Wareham’s guitar and his almost-just-talking voice, and the sardonically funny lyrics like: “You can never give/ The finger to the blind”, “I look at my dog/ we’re both confused.” I couldn’t find the album anywhere — maybe it hadn’t come out yet.
The next time I heard them , though, was on a CMJ “Certain Damage” disc which my friend Rob — a CMJ employee — had given me. When I came across “Tiger Lily,” [clip at Amazon] I put the Discman on repeat and listened to it for the rest of my shift at the newspaper. The next morning I went and bought the first album, Luna and the Slide EP, and subjected everyone I knew to my endless rants about how awesome they were.
The second time we saw them play was at Irving Plaza on the Penthouse tour. We’d driven down to Manhattan from our place in Albany, NY just for the show, and we’d be driving back right afterwards since we both had to work the next morning. We had no drugs in us, no alcohol (Irving Plaza back then only served Heineken & Rolling Rock in plastic cups for US$5 a pop, and life is too short for bad beer) and still, I became lost in “Chinatown” and I didn’t surface again until the houselights came on. I’d forgotten where I was, and when I turned to Jenn, she just whispered, “That was the most amazing show I’ve ever seen.”She’d been lost, too.
Friday’s show wasn’t a transformative experience like that earlier one, but it still ranks with some of the best. Fletcher’s is a tiny club and it was completely sold out. The opening band (Calla) had to cancel for some reason, so there was a guy playing an acoustic guitar and a keyboard (someone said it was John Mayer, but I can’t really be sure…) Luna came on around 11:30, Dean Wareham looking really skinny and (relatively) new bassist Britta Phillips looking really gorgeous. They didn’t say much, just launching into a set that covered most of my favorites, with the exception of “California” and “Chinatown.” They hit a high point in the extended “23 Minutes In Brussels” and if it weren’t for the distraction of water suddenly pouring out of one of the track lights in the black-painted ceiling right next to us, I think I would’ve been spirited away once again.
Still, this show (and Aimee Mann at the Recher Theater in Towson last month) made me realize how much I miss going to shows. So, I think I know what my first real New Year’s resolution is…
January 26th, 2003 — groupmind
In an article in the most recent Mother Jones magazine [full article unavaialble on the web], there’s a table which delineates some of the recent acquisitions of organic and natural food producers by some of the biggest conglomerates. It seems that the big food producers have seen the light, and realized that at least some of their customers are interested in natural or organic or meatless foods. So, instead of attempting to build a brand synonymous with trust and purity, they’ve simply bought the companies.
While I’m not a big fan of the corporate world, I’m also not one to believe that corporations are inherently evil. Still, I wish it was easier to find out where your food dollars are going. I love Boca Burgers, but I’m going to have a hard time buying them now, knowing that they’re owned by Kraft, which is in turn owned by Philip Morris.
Since Mother Jones didn’t include the table on their website, I’ve adapted it and posted it here.
Continue reading →
January 26th, 2003 — impolite company
On Tuesday, in an event likely to be watched by fewer Americans than this afternoon’s Superbowl, President (and I use the term loosely) Bush will give his third State of the Union address. One day after the UN weapons inspection team gives its report to the Security Council, Bush — with Britain’s Tony Blair tagging along — is expected to signal that he has run out of patience, and that the war is on.
Despite the administration’s assurances to foreign leaders that the report will not signal the start of war, I am not reassured. If it doesn’t begin on Tuesday, it will begin soon after. Our coalition of the willing will march into the desert before the full Iraqi summer bakes the battlefields. (But don’t rejoice if summer starts and the war hasn’t — Newsweek says that since the US fights at night, the heat of the day isnt such a great deterrent.)
Bush will also tell us that his “class warfare stimulus” package will make the economic woes of average Americans all better by allowing them to imagine that one day they will be rich and will then benefit from their share of the US$600bn boondoggle.
I keep hoping that one day, my fellow Americans will wake up, but then I read articles like this one which reminds me that 52% of people questioned in a recent Knight-Ridder poll believe that at least one of the September 11 hijackers was an Iraqi.
You can’t wake up from ignorance. We’ll buy whatever he’s selling.
January 22nd, 2003 — time-wasters
At least someone in the judicial profession has a little sense. US District Court Judge Robert Sweet today threw out a case which blamed McDonald’s for causing obesity and obesity-related illnesses in children.
“If a person knows or should know that eating copious orders of supersized McDonald’s products is unhealthy and may result in weight gain … it is not the place of the law to protect them from their own excesses,” the judge said. “Nobody is forced to eat at McDonald’s.”
Yeah! Not like the tobacco companies, forcing all those people to smoke, and hiding the information that smoking is dangerous right there on the pack for nearly 40 years.
January 22nd, 2003 — why, daddy?
In an excellent and lucid blog entry, Anil Dash takes on the diamond industry for its numerous sins. Not only does he go after the trade in terrorist- and civil war-supporting “blood diamonds“, but he also correctly pegs the sellers of diamonds as
fucking pigs [who are] heavily invested in selling a world where men are insensitive, thick-headed incompetents transparently trying to dupe women who are vain, superficial, materialistic fools.
He skewers their ads, their assumptions about their clientele and their pathetic attempts to continue the artificial scarcity of diamonds. And the commenters on his blog go even further, linking to a 3-part Atlantic Monthly article from 1982 on the invention of the diamond engagement ring “tradition”, pointing out the origins of the engagement ring itself as a territorial marker around a man’s chattel — his wife.
An excellent alternative view.
