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March 02, 2005
 In addition to being the secret power that runs huge multinational corporations, one of the things I do for cash to buy my yachts is create and review business continuity plans. These are the documents that companies can show to auditors and say, "Yes, we have a plan in case our building is attacked by an amorphous blob from beyond the stars and the servers go down."
Here in New York such documents are a bit more important. There's a section in the plan I'm currently reviewing that summarizes the results of past recovery efforts--power outages, burst pipes in the server rooms, that sort of thing. But there's one effort that tops the list: "Terrorist attack on NYC on 9/11/2001." I was here in this very building on that day, and it's strange to see it so casually mentioned, one sentence out of a 160-page document. Five words and a date... 3,000 lives, dust, smoke, fear, powdered gypsum in my bicycle chain, and drifts of finely shattered building crunching beneath my tires as I fled downtown Manhattan between the fall of the first and second towers.
Since then: war abroad, in Afghanistan and Iraq. A fragile new order in the former, the toppling of Hussein and the killing of his psychopathic progeny in the latter. The defiance of insurgents by millions of purple-fingered Iraqis. The disclosure and dismantling of the Libyan nuclear weapons program. The withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon. The resignation of Lebanon's pro-Syrian government. The Syrian government's handing over of Hussein's half-brother and other Iraqi insurgent leaders who formerly enjoyed safe haven in Damascus. Democratic-sounding noises from Egypt, the Palestinians, and even Saudi Arabia.
Even if much depends on our keeping the "tipping points tipped," as Thomas Friedman wrote, it must be a truly difficult time for the flagrantly pious.
This is history on the move: a sudden burst of human activity, a conflagration of change, conflict, and turmoil that wil merit at least a sub-heading in the crappy high-school textbooks of the future. If I look out of the windows in the southeast conference room, I can see a small sliver of where this all started, neatly framed by two nearby buildings: 16 acres that were once full of death and burned steel, into which the cornerstone of a new tower has already been laid.
On the drive to the train station this morning, I listened to an NPR interview with a "prominent" Democrat who voted against the use of force in Iraq. Referring to recent events in the Middle East, the interviewer asked (and I'm paraphrasing, here), "Doesn't this give some hope for long-term reform in the region?" The Congressman's response? "We won't know for ten years, whether this will take hold or not," and, apropos of nothing, he also managed to work in "The Administration claims that 140,000 Iraqis have been trained, but 88 of 89 batallions are not properly equipped, and have limited mobility." It was important to him that the public knows that barely two years after the total upheaval of every aspect of Iraqi society, and one month after Iraq's first free elections in decades, 140,000 new troops are not properly equipped. And despite the interviewer's dim amazement at his "ten years" estimate, I don't recall anyone ever saying that the Iraq campaign would be quick, or its eventual consequences soon realized. In fact, just this past January someone fairly high up on the org chart said, once again, the clear and exact opposite:
The great objective of ending tyranny is the concentrated work of generations. The difficulty of the task is no excuse for avoiding it.
Even Daniel Schorr is admitting that "Bush may have had it right when he said that a liberated Iraq could show the power of freedom to transform the region." But to this Congresscritter, whose name I didn't recognize then and can't recall now, the prospect of a 10-year wait and the importance of pointing out that the Administration's language isn't quite accurate outweighs all of the other currents that are sweeping through the world.
God save us from these blinkered mental punks.
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It turns out that the punk in question was Michigan Senator Carl Levin. Infamy Or Praise details the Senator's spin. NPR broadcast link here. [Via Mr. Green.]
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James Taranto has more intellectual midgetry on display.
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Ten Fingers 6 Strings comments. And, it really is OK to link to me. Honest. It's all part of the plan, you see...
March 04, 2005
This week's onomatopoeia is:
Brought to you by Observe The Twitching Man, in theaters this Spring.
March 05, 2005
I have a little HTML technical blegging to do--if anyone in my vast and brilliant readership has the answer to this problem, shoot me an e-mail using the address on the left there.
Basically, most of my pages look like this one, with the left and right columns neatly fitting on the screen.
However, on some of my pages, like the January 2003 Archives, the right table column extends off the screen. This only happens in Firefox, not IE.
Every archive page uses the same template as the main index, and I can't seem to find any HTML in any of the individual entries that might account for this problem showing up in some pages but not others.
Any ideas? Anyone? Bueller?
March 07, 2005
Back in September of 2003, I wrote about Frédéric Beigbeder's self-indulgent, pretentious, and crass attempt to elevate himself with his novel concerning the events of September 11, Windows on the World. Here's what he had to say for himself:
"In the face of American self-censorship, I wanted to give form to this tragedy," [Beigbeder] said, adding that American television viewers saw "an asceptic, almost clinical" version of events. He said he wanted "to reinject colors, smells, noises, to reintroduce the human dimension that has been carefully removed," adding, "A novel should enter forbidden territory."
Now there's an American who has written a novel about the same events, titled Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Here's what 28-year-old Jonathan Safran Foer has to say for himself:
“Both the Holocaust and 9/11 were events that demanded retelling,” Foer said. “With 9/11 in particular I wanted to read something that wasn’t politicised or commercialised, something with no message, something human.”
The book concerns
... a nine-year-old, Oskar Schell, who is haunted by his father’s death. In Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, published next month, the boy roams New York looking for a lock that fits a mysterious key of his father’s.
Mr. Beigbeder's concept of "the human dimension" is that it is "forbidden territory" where, apparently, doomed people have sex before they're asphyxiated by smoke and crushed by debris. Author Foer's concept of "something human," on the other hand, involves delving into the concepts of loss, grief, and the obsessions of childhood.
To me, this perfectly illustrates the primary difference between those who dwell with their heads puffed up into the airy clouds of highly politicized literary theory, and those who live on the ground with the rest of us and are concerned primarily with the craft of telling stories. For the theoretician, telling a story about people is transgressive. For the genuine storyteller, that's what you're supposed to be doing. The first produces material that's masturbatory and ridiculous; the second produces human drama with depth.
In a larger sense, these works encapsulate two opposing attitudes towards the events of September 11, and, in fact, to any tragedy of such scale. One regards the casualties as a portion of a group, ready to be pulled and twisted and shaped to fit into some abstract political construct as the observer sees fit. The other regards the same casualties as individual human beings, with meanings and lives that fit within the panoply of human experience. There are exemplars of each attitude on both sides of the Atlantic.
Three years, five months, and 24 days on, I certainly know which attitude I prefer.
Don't panic: HTML fiddling (thanks, Ben!).
March 09, 2005
March 11, 2005
March 14, 2005
Dear Astonished Head readers,
Greetings and salutations. My name is Reginald Bastard, company secretary, who has had enough bits at this point to warrant his own category archive but for some inexplicable reason does not have one. I feel that some explanation is in order.
Ian Wood, our illustrious founder, Editor, CEO, etc. has apparently gone missing. After hurling abuse at the staff on Wednesday last, he donned a pith helmet and high-tailed it out of the parking lot in his Bentley, shouting incoherantly, leaving behind only the laboriously computer-rendered note found on that day's posting.
Since then, we have been receiving instruction via carrier pigeon and sewer rat.
We are, apparently, to post whatever he sends to us via non-electronic means, for the foreseeable future. Such as the following poorly-spelled missive, received today in a box full of swamp grass and dead frogs:
Before anyone asks--no, I do not think this has anything to do with me. I have little involvement with cured meat products of any kind.
Please accept my apologies. And feel free to browse other blogs during this hopefully temporary period of uninspired lunacy on the part of the Editor.
Best Regards,
Reginald Bastard
Company Secretary
(I've got an MFA you know)
March 17, 2005
Greetings--
Reginald Bastard here again.
This arrived this morning taped to the back of what our entomologist assures me is a fine example of Gromphadorhina portentosa, also known as the Madagascan Giant Hissing Cockroach:
Honestly, I've no idea. He may still be somewhere close by, hiding. Or perhaps he's hired someone to deliver his messages. Someone who's got access to the office doughnuts.
Or, more disturbingly... perhaps he has access to some very smart roaches. And I think you all know just what that might mean.
We're starting to get a bit worried. If you see him, do drop us a line.
--RB
March 20, 2005
The Astonished Head supercomputer has suffered a massive operator - caused hard drive failure.
No, really - - we're posting this from a web - enabled cellphone.
With luck, we'll be back in operation by Wednesday.
- - Astonished Head IT Support
March 24, 2005
OK - - my time in Windows Hell being given a boiling acid colonic by pasty - faced demons with unfashionable glasses and bad haircuts may be nearing an end. I'm actually posting this from my BRAND NEW MAC MINI which ROCKS UNTO THE SKIES and is supposed to be entirely dedicated to music production, so as to keep its drives tidy and its OS lean and speedy. So I won't be doing any more posting using it.
Hopefully, I've sacrificed enough bulls, and sent enough of the choicest bits wrapped in belly fat to Redmond, so that my entreaties will be heard.
And this right in the middle of a bit, too. Had to cut my shenanigans short and come back to deal with this. Feh!
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