a regular links feature might be cool Archive

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For reading

By
Tom OHare
– April 3, 2012

Elizabeth Kolbert has an interesting piece up at the New Yorker about the morality of child-rearing, in which she reviews three different books on the subject. While I personally find procreation abhorrent, insofar as it promotes the Baby Name Book industry, the How To Not Ruin Your Child Book industry, and the Here Is What Idiot Babies Are Like Book industry, I do think I’d like to father a child at one point (assuming a woman will ever have me). The tl;dr is that a utilitarian makes a stupid argument, some other dude argues that living a life of blowjobs and gourmet meals is worse than never being alive if you ever stub your toe when you’re unfortunate enough to be alive you big fat jerk (seriously), and the last dude is a libertarian who, of course, suggests that you should have all sorts of babies as much as you want just like God intended because Ron Paul.

Hamilton Nolan went to a KKK meeting in Arkansas or some other stupid state and wrote about it over at Gawker. The tl;dr for that is that the Klan now hands out Skittles and Arizona Iced Tea at their powwows to mock Trayvon Martin, who was a child who was killed by a racist recently. Yay! Oh, and who could forget? Jews!

Finally, here’s a simple explanation of why Canada is awesome and why pennies suck. Eat it, pennies!

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Three Things to Read

By
Tom OHare
– November 14, 2011

1) Via I-forget-who (maybe M.? definitely M. Bouffant, who showed up to correct my error in the comments, because this blog is nothing if not peer-reviewed), this takedown of Frank Miller’s laughable screed against Occupy Wall Street is couched in an examination of Miller’s uber-popular “300,” which happens to betray his authoritarian mean streak by being completely historically inaccurate.

Look, artists get a lot of leeway. At least in this society of freedom they do. (They sure didn’t get any slack in feudal times, dominated by warrior-caste bullies.) Miller and the makers of the 300 flick were entitled to emphasize the Spartans and their martial spirit, even though their brave “sacrifice” at Thermopylae accomplished absolutely nothing, except to make a fine tale of futile bravado. A one-day delay? We’re supposed to be impressed by a one-day delaying action?

(I’ll admit, it certainly offered a great excuse for ninety minutes of homoerotic prancing!  In fact, 300 gets full marks as a lavishly choreographed dance number. And for terrific painted-on abs.)

But there comes a point when artistic emphasis turns into deliberate, malicious omission.  And then omission becomes blatant, outright-evil lying propaganda. “300″ not only crosses that line, it forges into territory that we haven’t seen since the propaganda machine of 1930s Germany. White is black.  Black is white. Good is defined by the triumph of will.

2) On a related Occupy note, I was trying to think of a way to engage with this Aaron Bady piece about the Occupy Berkeley protests, but it’s probably best to simply let its excellence speak for itself:

As part of my ongoing private project to be less scared of police — because I am scared of police — I said to her, in as level and direct a tone as I could manage, “This is why we don’t trust you.” And she again elected to say nothing. She didn’t have to. The truth of power, in this situation, is that the policy is what the police will use their force to enforce. They don’t have to have a legitimate reason, nor are they embarrassed when it is shown that the “grass is closed” only because someone with authority said so. And the grass only became open because someone with more authority said so. Such people are not to be trusted.

3) Lastly, here’s Edith Zimmerman, on what it feels like to be 28 and on the irreversible path toward irrelevance and death:

Many years ago, my grandmother took me to McDonald’s for lunch, and the toy that came with the Happy Meal was a cricket that chirped when you spun its wings. (A “Mulan”-related toy, if that matters.)

“What do you mean it chirps?” my grandmother asked me.

“Wait, what do you mean?” I asked. “It’s chirping right now!”

Then there were about 30 seconds of me grinding its wings and holding it out as she tilted her head and listened.

“It’s not chirping,” she said.

“Yes it is!” I said.

We were both confused. What’s happening?

But then she decided that I wasn’t making it up and that it was just one of those high-pitched noises that her ears couldn’t hear anymore.

All of these are worth reading in full.

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Three Quick Hits

By
Tom OHare
– October 26, 2011

It’s cold suddenly, and it might snow tomorrow. So, here’s some quick hits before I go get some wings.

  • Apple has successfully patented the “Slide to Unlock” feature on iPhones and iPod Touches. Yglesias has some good points (this sort of patent is not in the public interest, e.g.), but most damning of all may be that the patent was likely awarded erroneously, since the feature existed for two years before Apple got around to “inventing” it.
  • Since we’re all #OWS around here all the time, Matt Taibbi has a pretty great post over at Rolling Stone. The thesis boils down to this: People aren’t angry at Wall Street because its employees are rich; they’re angry at Wall Street because everyone there cheated to get rich, then whined (mostly successfully) about rules designed to curb cheating.
  • Following on the above theme, Joshua Holland has a piece up at Alternet arguing that Occupy Wall Street has already achieved quite a lot in its short history. To wit, “[i]n just one month, the protesters have shifted the national dialogue from a relentless focus on the deficit to a discussion of the real issues facing Main Street: the lack of jobs — and especially jobs with decent benefits — spiraling inequality, cash-strapped American families’ debt-loads, and the pernicious influence of money in politics that led us to this point.”

Since I like to deliberately mislead my audience, here’s a fourth link to Jay Rosen’s takedown of NPR over their firing of Lisa Simone. Simone, if you haven’t been keeping up, hosted NPR’s opera show, World of Opera, and she made the mistake of joining Occupy DC without concealing her identity — which is apparently a fire-able offense for the host of A FUCKING SHOW ABOUT FUCKING OPERA. Anyway, Rosen’s title alone is worth your click through, so I won’t spoil the fun.

We are Brutish&Short. All “Occupy X,” all the time. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go get some wings.

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The Week is Over, and One Day No One Will Remember You

By
Tom OHare
– August 19, 2011

I am quite possibly going to drive to southeastern Massachusetts and spend the weekend partying in a vacation house. So that should be a quaint, gentle time. Assuming you’re going to be stuck babysitting or something equally atrocious for the next couple of days, here are some things to read, to lift your spirits. They won’t lift them too high, as they all generally acknowledge the fundamental absurdity of our mortal days — the fact that we’re slowly trodding toward inevitable death and destruction — but maybe they’ll help you accept that fact, rather than fear it.

This is the best track from that Kutiman ThruYou project, which I recently re-watched because of…. something. I forget what. It doesn’t matter. It’s amazing.

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Hot Links

By
Tom OHare
– July 14, 2011

We appreciate the great cool down today, Mother Nature. Here’s some links as a polite merci (the French shows our culture):

Hot links? Hot Rats.

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The Week is Over

By
Tom OHare
– July 1, 2011

Various obligations came up and I didn’t give this spot as much attention as I would’ve liked to. What can I say? I had to build a fence. The fence isn’t done yet, but that’s only because the scheisskopfs at Northeastern Fencing sold me these weird 4.5 X 4.5s, and nobody makes fence post caps that fit them.

Here is a list of what you missed.

All lies and glosses, of course, but I really do wish we’d published something about how people with hair implants are statistically 700% more likely than the merely balding to be criminals. Some lies are so funny that they’re true.

I’ve posted this song before, and I’m posting it again, because it reminds me of Montana, and crossing the Burnside Bridge on a hot Portland morning on my way to work, and waking up in Bombay scared and… scared-er.

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A List of Things to Read Elsewhere on the WWW, Because I’ve Got Shit to Do

By
Tom OHare
– June 14, 2011

Somehow, these things always end up taking an hour, though. Let’s go quick. Now. Get ‘er done!

  • M. Bouffant reminds me that I need to quit smoking. So does the cough, folks, so does the cough.
  • Michele Bachmann (R-Crazypantsland) wants to do away with the EPA, because jobs (duh, sheeple) and also because WHAT HAVE THEY EVER DONE FOR ANYONE EXCEPT STUPID OZONE LAYERS AND STUFF.
  • The Bruins won their sporting event last night. Now, if they could just figure out a way to win in Vancouver.
  • Obligatory link to interesting thing (in this case, the Playboy Bunny Employee Manual from 1969) from Jason Kottke. If you guys would just go ahead and subscribe to his blog, I wouldn’t have to whore for him so much.
  • “I do worry that if this bill goes through, the number of companies going public will fall even more, and the investing public will have access to even less of the investable universe than it does at present. Is it a good idea that only VCs and plutocrats have access to asset classes like fast-growing VC-backed companies? Probably not. But I’m also not sure that’s in and of itself reason to oppose this bill. The key constituency here is the SEC: if they’re OK with this, it’ll go through. And maybe Facebook won’t go public after all.” But I want Facebook to go public and ASPLODE, Felix Salmon. (Actually I would probably buy one share at $150 and watch my money double in two hours, and then SELL! SELL ! SELL! Actually, who am I kidding? Poor people don’t invest in the stock market.)
  • Advice for the Boston Bruins, many of whom read this blog on the regular. (No one with more fervor than the doubly first-named Tim Thomas, who also gets his hair cut and playoff beard tidied at a barbershop owned by the same guy that owns the barbershop my friend Dan gets his haircut at. The bar is set very low for discussions at bars.)
  • I try to boycott the Huffington Post because it is terrible, but the fact that it’s also a shitty employer is another reason to stop giving it pageviews. Writers don’t get a lot of credit in this society, even though we now arguably read more than we ever have. My mother worked as the editor of a small town weekly newspaper, and watched with dismay as it was repeatedly bought and sold by corporate charlatans who didn’t give a shit about the lives of the people working there, or the fact that they often worked 60-hour weeks on paltry salaries to produce a thing of value to the community. Nah, instead it was, “Well, we’re just going to have to do more with less,” and similar horseshit, despite the fact that local news was one of the few bright-ish spots in a generally declining industry. Anyway, she quit, and she’s got a better-paying job now, but her passion was always the news, and writing about it, and it’s a damn shame that the people who make money off of writers’ backs are so often tightfisted pricks about it.
  • Conversely, Matt Yglesias somehow doesn’t understand that people deserve to be paid for their labor. He’s a likable enough guy, that Yglesias, but he’s also friendly with Megan McArdle. Which says what it says. As Loomis mentions at the link, “A 22 year old today wanting to write about politics simply can’t become what Yglesias became. I don’t see the problem in just admitting that.” We’re all 27, which makes us even later to the party. But, fuck it! It’s fun enough! I guess.
  • While we’re on the topic of the common man/woman: sucks to be in the working class!
  • Finally, last night Dan Savage got some much deserved love last night for the “It Gets Better” campaign. Also, it is never too late to Google Santorum.

Off to eat chicken tikka masala. If nobody’s looking and I get drunk enough, I’ll eat with my hands. INDIA BIG UPS!

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Assorted Links, For The Discerning Internet User

By
Tom OHare
– June 8, 2011

I worked all day. Sorry! Here are some things that are worth reading.

I would love to tell you that this website will work, that we’ll entertain you five days a week and blend sports and pop culture successfully. The truth is, I don’t know for sure. This site will keep changing over the next few months just like Jimmy’s show kept changing in 2003, hopefully for the right reasons and not the wrong ones. We are still hiring people. We are still finding writers. We will eventually have a sports blog and a pop culture blog (launching next month), user comments (later this summer), a podcast network (ditto), a quarterly publication we’re doing with McSweeney’s (four a year, starting this winter), and who knows what else. You figure out what works, you figure out what doesn’t work, you keep moving. That’s the next nine months for us. Eventually, we will evolve into what we are. Whatever the hell that is.

  • “It’s not every day I read an essay that provokes me to say of an anti-Semite and woman hater ‘this guy deserved better.’ Carnavale ‘accuses’ Dahl and his work of being macabre, unpleasant, and filled with unhealthy sexuality, which is a little like accusing Hemingway of being terse. Carnavale knows that this is the point of Roald Dahl, but can’t let anything get in the way of  his argument Or perhaps I should say, get in the way of his observations. The post is researched the way a junior high school student researches a report about the tides: the act is accumulation, not construction.” — I like this Freddie deBoer fellow who occasionally blogs at Balloon Juice. I am also of the opinion that Dahl wrote the best children’s literature of the 20th century.
  • Timothy Geithner is the reason that unemployment is at 9.1%. I’m beginning to think that this song may be The Seminal Protest Song of our generation.
  • Happy 10th Anniversary of Bush’s Tax Cuts Day!
  • Ctrl+F “Career-o-Matic” over at Slate, and type the name of a Hollywood actor into the little box. Voila! Critical reception of his or her career, in chart form, courtesy of the good people at Rotten Tomatoes. It’s like Google Ngrams for the Us Weekly set!
  • “In the space of three short years, then, drugs had become available to treat what at that time were regarded as the three major categories of mental illness—psychosis, anxiety, and depression—and the face of psychiatry was totally transformed. These drugs, however, had not initially been developed to treat mental illness. They had been derived from drugs meant to treat infections, and were found only serendipitously to alter the mental state. At first, no one had any idea how they worked. They simply blunted disturbing mental symptoms. But over the next decade, researchers found that these drugs, and the newer psychoactive drugs that quickly followed, affected the levels of certain chemicals in the brain.” The NYRB discusses the epidemic of mental illness.
  • I don’t quite understand this, but it’s beautiful.
  • Finally, here’s an excerpt from a particularly smart Redditor, on why biodiversity among trees is important.

When you have a tree farm, you wipe out probably >90% of all of the species that live in something like an old growth forest, and the repercussions are huge. You’re essentially saying that the majority of life on earth isn’t important, and that all we need is oxygen and lumber from our forests, and maybe some Christmas trees. However, what you really get is a tremendously sterilized environment, and the loss of the diversity that leads to constantly better scientific understanding in fields like genetics, chemistry, medicine, biology, biomimicry, evolutionary processes and possibilities, and so much more.

And it isn’t just the loss of those species. It’s the loss of what those species might become. The concept of species isn’t just a what, but a when. All species are transitional, between what they evolved from, and what they will one day evolve into. Some may not, because they are optimal, and every mutation is worse and dies off, but many – probably most – always have room for improvement, especially as things like climate and neighboring prey/predators change through evolution or migration.

Speaking of trees, my friends Will and Brian climb the shit out of them. Big ones. Crazy ones. Ones in foreign countries and stuff. Will once guided me up a hundred foot beech tree in our front yard. It was amazing, but let me tell you: climbing a tree is hard. It’s really hard. You pretty much thrust your way up it — like, you quite literally fuck the air on your way up the tree. That’s how you propel yourself. Anyway. Just thought I’d give their project a plug. It’s pretty damn cool.

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I’mma Let You Finish, But These Links Might Be the Hottest Links of All Time

By
Tom OHare
– June 2, 2011

You know what has probably never been joked about before on the Internet? Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift several years ago at some awards show no one cares about. You know what else? I’m gonna give you some links. Unlike last night I have nothing better to do tonight other than rage on the Internet, so I’ll likely be back later to, you know, rage and stuff — but here is something that will, at the very least, get the word “Weiner” off the top of the page. Hmm. Victim of the fallacy it seeks to correct, that last sentence there. Whoops.

A real shame, if you ask me.

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Here Are Some Goddamn Things To Read

By
Tom OHare
– June 1, 2011

Quick hits, because it’s been a long day and I’ve got better things to do than rage on the Internet:

  • Here you will find a physicist discussing whether or not this shot was real. His conclusion? Inconclusive! (But it was real.)
  • Here you will find Matt Yglesias unconvincingly trying to justify his support for the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals. (I’m sure somebody at LG&M will be on the case soon enough, so you can read it there.)
  • I guess Sarah Palin and Donald Trump had lunch somewhere and people on television pretended to actually care, which made people on the Internet care, which means I had to read about them caring, which resulted in the singularity, which we’re currently undergoing here in Massachusetts by listening to the rest of you fucks get swallowed up. Y’all sound like thunder when you get swallowed. (Just so we’re clear, time and space work all weird-like during the singularity. Also, no link for that one. You’ll just have to trust me.)
  • Did the New York Times hack Goldman Sachs’ ‘Fabulous’ Fab Tourre? Oooh! Intrigue at the link!
  • Is it ever okay to double dip? NOT IF YOU’RE A RECESSION, IT ISN’T!
  • Finally, Weezer covered Paranoid Android? Wha? When did that–? Anyhow, it went okay. (On second thought, here’s the video. Sorry, Kottke, you get enough traffic.)