A podcast about books & life — not necessarily in that order
Sorry for the paucity of posts this week, dear readers. I’ve been pretty burned out from work. Plus, we spent last night picking up my wife’s new Mini Cooper S, which has her pretty excited. Pix to follow this weekend.
Your Unrequred Reading is carefully hidden away under that “more” link!
Continue reading “Unrequired Reading: Dec. 8, 2006”
(You know you wanna check out the pix from my meanders in Toronto on Friday)
Home from Toronto a lot easier than my boss, whose flight home on Friday got cancelled due to “the airspace over Boston,” according to his pilot. He asked if this meant the bad weather & high winds we had all over the northeast, and was told that it did not. So, after 4 hours in an Embraer 145, he was allowed to leave and headed back to our hotel, where he sat in the bar and watched hockey.
Meanwhile, official VM buddy Sam and I went to see the Raptors play the Celtics in what Sam called “battle of the worst coaches in the NBA.” Since the Raptors have a game tonight against the Knicks, we figured maybe it’s a round-robin tournament.
We had fun at the game, but it was despite the action on the court. Sam’s now been to two NBA games with me (we hit a Dallas game against Orlando in April 2005), and he’s convinced I have NBA-Tourette’s, in which a constant stream of analysis & invective pours forth from my mouth during professional basketball games. We joined up with my boss after the game for a drink or two. He seemed pretty exhausted by the hurry-up-and-wait. I admit: if I were stuck in an Embraer for 4 hours, I’d probably go bananas.
Earlier in the day, after I visited Sam’s company in Oakville and toured the company’s produciton facilities (not as heavy-duty containment suiting as I wore on Thursday), I wandered around Toronto a little, while the weather was clear.
Unfortunately, this wandering didn’t coincide exactly with the clear weather, and I was stuck in some darned cold rain for a while. Early in my meander, I stopped at the Roots store in the Eaton Centre to get a hat and gloves. But then I decided that they were kinda pricey and, besides, the weather was okay now, so it would stay that way forever.
From there, I exited onto Yonge Street, which I forgot was an interesting amalgam of high-end retail, good record stores, and low-rent strip clubs. I headed off from there to a used bookstore I remembered from a past trip, but didn’t find anything.
I decided I’d walk through the University district and visit the famed comic store, The Beguiling. I spent a while there, hoping the weather would clear again and trying to justify spending $240 (Canadian) for a limited print by Sammy Harkham of a golem walking in the forest. I held off (I’ll wait till the USD appreciates against Canada’s dollar, and I’d probably be fine with a panel from The Poor Sailor anyway).
One of the nice things about having started doing yoga is that rambling ambles like this one don’t seem to give me the slight mid-back pain I was getting the past few years. I’ve only been on it for a few weeks or so, so hey.
During this walk, I came across two things I didn’t take pictures of: the Bata Shoe Museum and the Robarts Library. The former looks entertaining enough, and I bought a postcard from there for Amy, to give us yet another reason to take a long weekend here in the springtime.
The Library, on the other hand, is one of the most overwhelmingly depressing buildings I’ve ever seen. It may’ve been worse because of the rain and gray skies, but I can’t imagine a scenario which the appearance of this building inspires anything but fear and dread. Don’t let 1970s architecture happen to you!
After I left The Beguiling emptyhanded, it was time for another overpriced cab ride back to the hotel. I was amazed by the cost of cab rides in this city, as well as the ones I had to take to the pharma companies, which were outside the city. The flat-rate limo-y cars were also awfully expensive, including $51 CAD for the 20-minute ride from downtown to the airport.
In keeping with my recent post about accumulating all sorts of change and foreign currency, I returned home this morning with about $47 in Canadian bills and change. I feel like George Soros.
Anyway, a really neat thing happened during the short (54-minute) flight today. We completed our initial descent through the cloud cover, and all I could see were brown-gray hills and a few houses and a winding road or two. I thought, “We’re only 15 minutes from landing, but I have NO idea where we are right now.” It looked like Pennsylvania farmland, or far western NJ.
Then I noticed the Sheraton Crossroads to port, and it hit me: I was looking down at my morning commute! Sure enough, Rt. 17 threaded away from the Sheraton, southeast to Ramsey. Our plane followed Rt. 208 for a bit, as I picked out landmark after landmark (the Nabisco plant, the Ikea across from Garden State Plaza, even the Lukoil I stopped in last week). I’ve only had this perspective from a plane once before. Usually, I come home at night, or on different flight paths.
It helps to see things from different angles. Except Raptors/Celtics games.
(check out a couple of pix from my Toronto walkabout)
I spent a chunk of the day wearing containment gear during a visit to a drug manufacturing facility near Toronto. Unfortunately, I had to sign a confidentiality agreement before the visit, so there was no way to take photos of myself in this amazing get-up.
My guide for this tour told me that the facility’s policies are for redundant safeguards against contamination (there’s some high potency materials in this site), so we were overdoing it for the sake of added safety. Even so, we didn’t enter any of the production suites where the material actually gets handled; the staff in those rooms wear full rebreather gear on a daily basis.
So, as you can tell, I’ve started another trip. This one’s pretty brief: I’ll be visiting one more drug manufacturer tomorrow, then hitting the Raptors/Celtics game with my contact at that company, official VM buddy Sam Ricchezza, last seen writing the Raptors report in our NBA preview, and goofing on me for not coming up to visit him and see his company.
Right about now, I’m hitting up the minibar for a caffeine fix. I’m also eyeing the pod-coffee machine pretty suspiciously, but it might be necessary to keep me awake till dinner, which we’ll be having at Rain, which “was once the site of Toronto’s first women’s prison,” according to the site.
Anyway, I took Shakespeare Wars with me (hardcoveritude be damned!), and have enjoyed the first 50+ pages. I’ve also got my Yoga for Regular Guys with me, since I’m trying to make a habit/practice of that. The weather’s pretty grotesque, so I doubt I’ll be able to take any good pictures. It’s a pity, since Toronto’s a kinda neat city. It’s my 3rd trip here, and it’s always struck me as a pretty good place to be. Admittedly, I know nothing about the economics of the place.
It’s the Black Friday edition of Unrequired Reading, dear unreaders! Amy & I are skipping out on the shopping chaos, since we took care of a bunch of it during our Paris trip. Plus, what with these here internets, we can get plenty of holiday shopping done from the comfort of the old fainting couch! Without further ado:
Here’s a BW piece on how the Analog Meat Market is performing. No, it’s not an article about offline dating services, it’s about The Rise of Tofurky!
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Michael Kinsley has decided that, because “the market” doesn’t set “the right price” for a share of stock in a company, capitalism is inherently flawed.
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Poor Kinsley. If only the state could become more involved in determining how companies do business. Well, actually, there was significant legislation passed during the Clinton administration to “shame companies” into doing the president’s idea of the right thing:
Clinton’s brainstorm: Use the tax code to curb excessive pay. Companies at the time were allowed to deduct all compensation to top executives. Clinton wanted to permit companies to write off amounts over $1 million only if executives hit specified performance goals. He called [Graef Crystal, author of a book on corporate greed] for his thoughts. “Utterly stupid,” the consultant says he told the future President.
Now, 13 years after Clinton’s plan became law, the results are clear: It didn’t work. Over the law’s first decade, average compensation for chief executives at companies in Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index soared from $3.7 million to $9.1 million, according to a 2005 Harvard Law School study. The law contains so many obvious loopholes, says Crystal, that “in 10 minutes even Forrest Gump could think up five ways around it.”
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Even when people try the old Robin Hood routine, it goes awry (thanks, Faiz)!
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Charles Krauthammer doesn’t like Borat.
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When I first saw the Beth Sholom Synagogue designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, I called it “Battlestar Judaica.” Here’s a piece about the architecture of houses of worship, which seems to be an excuse to post a sldeshow of neat photos.
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I really need to sit down and read the Aeneid sometime.
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I’ve long contended that Paul Allen has the anti-Midas touch, but I had no idea that his Portland Trailblazers have the most incredibly messed-up business situation in professional sports. This one’s long, but it makes for pretty entertaining reading, if only to find out that a man worth $22 billion should never come along with you to negotiate buying a car.
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I don’t have any pity for car salesmen, esp. after the guy at the Mini place tried scamming Amy into buying a $550 stereo system. Looks like they’re under plenty of pressure.
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And, in honor of Black Friday, a Christmas display you won’t forget (thanks, Tina).
What we see at Ground Zero and what we will see:
When the towers first fell and, in practically the same moment, so many turned to imagining their replacement, I was appalled. Later, when I started to write about the site, I avoided proposing designs of my own, both because they were banal and impracticable — I thought it would be cool to flood the bathtub — and because I felt such activities were beyond the scope of a responsible critic. I would often say, however — as I think I wrote or at least implied here once — two things: that the ultimate form of the reconstruction was unimportant as long as the process to achieve it, from the first planning session through the ribbon-cutting, was conducted with dignity; and second, that New York should be left to be New York.
t was as obvious then as now that those two ideas were in absolute conflict — that the city could in no way be the one we love and also comport itself with a special reserve — so I concocted a third idea, one that has proved remarkably durable, by way of resolution.
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Last week in this space, I mentioned that Donald Rumsfeld is more than just The Guy Who Blew the Iraq War. He also tried to revolutionize/transform the U.S. military. This profile on him in the New Yorker is more charitable than I expected, or at least more willing to see the grays than to place him in a Manichean context.
And he blew the Iraq war.
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Look, kids! An interview with writer, critic and Official VM Buddy Paul Di Filippo!
What do you use for note-taking, capturing ideas and tracking submissions? Are you a proponent of pencil and notebook; do you favour proprietary software; or is it open source everything for you, even though your initials are PDF?
I am old-fashioned enough to still stick with pen and paper for my note-taking. I have a pocket notebook brand that I love, Oxford Memo Books, because it’s sewn together instead of employing a metal spiral, and so when you sit on it, it doesn’t imprint your butt like something out of a Re/Search tribal scarification volume.
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From science fiction to science disappointment: the 25 worst tech products of all time.
8. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (2001)
Full of features, easy to use, and a virtual engraved invitation to hackers and other digital delinquents, Internet Explorer 6.x might be the least secure software on the planet. How insecure? In June 2004, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) took the unusual step of urging PC users to use a browser — any browser — other than IE. Their reason: IE users who visited the wrong Web site could end up infected with the Scob or Download.Ject keylogger, which could be used to steal their passwords and other personal information. Microsoft patched that hole, and the next one, and the one after that, and so on, ad infinitum.
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If you’re a professional basketball fan, and you like getting some idea of what goes on behind the scenes in player negotiations, you really need to read this long and candid interview with the owner of the Minnesota Timberwolves, Glen Taylor.
I can tell you that Chauncey [Billups] left not because of Kevin [McHale, the team’s GM] but because of Flip [Saunders, the Wolves’ coach]. Now, have we said that? We didn’t want to say that about Flip because he was here at the time. But I think since then it’s been stated that Kevin asked me if I would pay for Chauncey. I said I would. Kevin said he would, went to Chauncey, Chauncey said he would stay, because we were going to offer him the same [money] as Detroit. But then Chauncey went to Flip and said, would you play me, and Flip — I’m not saying that Flip said the wrong answer, but he said, “I’m not sure that I think that you’re our starting guard.” Chauncey then went back to Kevin, and Kevin says, basically, we’re going to be truthful. Kevin could have said to Chauncey, “Oh, we’re gonna start you.” And I know some GMs do that stuff. Then they get the player but they have an unhappy player. But Kevin doesn’t do that.
Unfortunately, it looks like questions about the remarkably stupid tampering arrangement with Joe Smith were off limits. This is a pity, because you can pretty easily make the case that the T-Wolves would’ve been in much better shape if they had draft picks over the years. But losing those picks and having a salary cap-buster like Garnett on the team meant they had to be the most creative team in the NBA. And with Kevin McHale running the show, that made it a recipe for disaster.
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Amy sent me this great post by Dan Jardine on the varieties of cinematic inexperience:
I am not of the Pauline Kael School of film criticism that argues that your initial impression of a film is the only one that matters, and to revisit and reevaluate a film is a fool’s errand fraught with the potential for emotional and intellectual dishonesty. Indeed, I can think of plenty of legitimate reasons to take stock of a film anew. What if there were mitigating environmental factors — such as problems with the projector or the sound, or even with the audience itself — that hampered your ability to enjoy the film? What of format issues? I mean, what if, like me, your first experience with Lawrence of Arabia was on television, in full screen format and interrupted by commercials? Or what if you were in the wrong head space after a fight with your partner or a bad day at work and weren’t able to give the film the attention and scrutiny it deserved?
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Witold Rybzcsinski on the decline of architecture magazines:
A reduction in intellectual content in the glossies was largely the result of an increased reliance on photography, especially color photography. There’s something about a color photograph that glamorizes its subject, and architectural writers soon adopted the slightly breathless tones of fashion reporters. You are more likely to find tough architectural criticism in the New York Review of Books, the New Republic, and The New Yorker than in any of the major architecture magazines.
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Victor Davis Hanson sings “I left my appendix in Tripoli”:
Libyans seem to talk nonstop. It’s as if they have been jolted from a long sleep and are belatedly discovering, thanks to their newfound Internet, satellite television, and cell phones — many carry two to ensure that they are never out of service from competing companies — that there is indeed a wide world outside of dreary Tripoli and beyond the monotonous harangues of government socialists on the state-owned TV and radio stations.
They talked about their new gadgetry, and much else, with infectious optimism. As one hopeful Libyan travel entrepreneur with friends in the government explained, there might be some irony after all to Libya’s long, self-imposed insularity. Yes, he conceded, foreign investment declined. Oilmen left. Petroleum production nose-dived from more than 3 million barrels to never more than 2 million. But there was a silver lining: Did all that not have the effect of saving Libya’s precious resource to await the return of the present sky-high prices? Yes, Libya had banked a sort of strategic oil reserve that now was to be tapped at its most opportune moment. Yes, it was Libya’s grand strategy to deny Westerners its petroleum treasure for years, until they finally came around to pay what it was really worth
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At Slate, Daniel Gross discusses the trend of foreign companies to buy U.S. brands that are on the wane:
[T]o these foreign owners, the U.S. market represents the holy grail. American consumer-oriented firms that have saturated the U.S. market, such as Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and Nike, look to developing markets for their growth. But these foreign buyers see a different kind of opportunity here — an unmatched combination of wealth and growth that doesn’t exist in Germany, or China, or Denmark. The U.S. domestic market, 300 million people strong, is composed of wealthy consumers who routinely spend more than they make.
But iconic American brands only tend to come up for sale when they’re damaged.
It’s funny to me is that, for more than a century, China has been the holy grail for U.S. & European companies, along the lines of, “If we just get [x]% of them to go for our brand, we’ll be rolling in dough!”
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Dare to dream and all that, but I still don’t believe Rem Koolhaas’ Chinese Television Authority building is going to stand up.
As you know, I’ve been interested in the development of the new Airbus A380 (the really big plane) and all the production problems Airbus has been having with it. The fact that I fly between 25,000 and 35,000 miles each year is a key contributor to this interest.
Barbara Peterson at Popular Mechanics takes care of my addiction with an article on the engineering issues Airbus is running into:
Will the A380 be the next Concorde — an engineering breakthrough with little chance of breaking even? Certainly, the problem the jetliner was supposed to help solve — airport gridlock — still exists. The world’s major hubs already operate at full capacity during peak hours, and traffic is expected to increase 4 percent annually, from 4.2 billion passengers in 2005 to 7 billion passengers in 2020. Building new airports or significantly expanding existing ones, though, is a practical and political nightmare.
The Airbus solution: Increase capacity with a plane that carries up to 900 passengers — nearly twice as many as the 747. “It is this big monster,” says Hans Weber, president of Tecop International, a San Diego-based aviation consulting firm. “And Airbus has struggled with the nightmare of making something this big economically efficient.”
Meanwhile, Boeing has gambled that the market is most interested in a fuel-efficient, midrange widebody that gives airlines flexibility. Its flagship project became the 250-passenger 787 Dreamliner, slated to go into service in 2008.
Virtually all experts agree that the A380 will eventually join the civilian fleet. (The plane’s maiden voyage — a planned Singapore Airlines flight to Sydney, Australia — was recently pushed back, again, and is now slated for late 2007.) But the problems facing the most expensive, ambitious nonmilitary aircraft project in history are mounting.
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The AV Club interviewed Steven Wright this week. Turns out he and I share thoughts on travel:
AVC: What are the best and worst parts of touring?
SW: The best is definitely being in front of the audience, that rush in front of all those people. And then the other part is, “Oh my God, I’m in another hotel.” I say to my friends, if I won some contest, it would be like, “You have won five weeks in your own house!” Oh my God! I’d be jumping up and down hugging the host, hugging the other contestants.
AVC: So you’re not a fan of hotels?
SW: There’s just so many of them. It’s not that I don’t like hotels. This sounds kind of simple, but it’s true: The fact that you’re in a hotel means also that you’re not home. So as the time keeps going, and the experiences keep going, it’s like, “Man, I have not been home in this giant amount of time.”
I wonder if he was really enthusiastic and energetic in the interview.
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Five teams of finalists have been named by the New Orleans Building Corp. for the project of rebuilding the city’s waterfront. Unfortunately, Frank Gehry’s on one of the finalist-squads.
The potential development zone includes a largely derelict 4.5-mile stretch of the north bank of the Mississippi River between Jackson Avenue and the Industrial Canal, which now includes mostly wharves and port facilities. It borders the Lower Garden district, the warehouse district, the French Quarter, Marigny, and Baywater.
The RFQ calls for new commercial, cultural, park, and transportation uses for the area, and for maintaining cruise and cargo operations. This, says Cummings, could include a continuous park with walking and bike paths, museums, a large performance venue, a culinary university campus, and modern cruise ship terminals. He stresses that the area will be oriented to public facilities, not â€Âcondominiums and private property.â€Â
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In the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” category, Sheldon Silver helped shut down the West Side Stadium project, for which I’m quite thankful. As this City Journal article points out, Rep. Silver’s done a lot of stuff I don’t agree with:
Until last year, New York had an 80-year-old law that held auto-leasing companies ultimately responsible for accidents caused by drivers who leased or rented their cars. The law made about as much sense as, say, holding Chrysler responsible for accidents caused by the customers who buy and drive their vehicles. The law drove many auto-leasing companies out of New York, and it forced those that stayed to protect themselves by asking customers to jump through expensive legal hoops. The law had no constituency save the trial lawyers.
But the law stayed on the books thanks to Silver, who used his control of the assembly to block its repeal repeatedly. Silver said that he got in the way to protect victims of car accidents. But the more likely explanation for his obstructionism is that he himself is a trial lawyer and is beholden to the trial lawyer lobby. In fact, it took blanket federal legislation last year to nullify the auto-leasing law and similar if more limited laws in a few other states.
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Rumsfeld et al. obviously mangled the postwar planning for Iraq, but I think he had some revolutionary ideas about how to execute a war-plan itself, sorta like being a good in-game basketball coach who has no ability to manage his players between games. The Iraqi army, one of the largest in the world, with months of preparation, was flat-out annihilated by a relatively light force of troops. That’s nothing to sneeze at, even with all the disastrous consequences. I think military theorists (and practitioners) will have plenty to learn from his mistakes and his successes.
Victor Davis Hanson goes a lot further in his praise for Rumsfeld.
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Speaking of the election, Brandon Arnold at the Cato Institute contends that gerrymandering is still a major force in Congressional elections:
Consider that there were 435 races in the House and Senate with an incumbent trying to retain his or her seat. Only 26 — 6% — of challengers in these races have won. That’s pretty low for a “throw the bums out” election. Pending the outcome of three or four yet-to-be-determined races, this year’s 94% incumbent reelection rate appears to be slightly higher than the 90% rate of 1994.
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Pop music stars should not write children’s books. Only Ph.D.’s formerly at contract research organizaztions should write children’s books.
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According to Theodore Dalyrmple, New Zealand once had excellent used bookstores but now has a crappy penal system.
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And finally: “A chicken, with two asses!” (thanks, Tina!)
Official VM buddy Mitch Prothero sent over a news item about how the Washington Wizards’ two centers got into a brawl last week. He was amazed that Brendan “Brenda” Haywood showed some fire, body-slamming Etan Thomas.
I, on the other hand, was amazed that Haywood “[tore] out at least two of Thomas’s dreadlocks in the process.”
Now I seriously regret my decision to skip the Washington/Orlando game last night. I would’ve been close enough to get pictures of Thomas’s bald spot!
While the rest of America has to make up its mind about which way to vote tomorrow, I have to figure out if I want to spend $100 for a ticket to an Orlando Magic game, then spend $100 on cab fare to and from the arena, since I’m currently in the Disney Protectorate of Lake Buena Vista.
Which is to say, it’s not looking good, dear readers.
Fortunately, I found a bar that serves some high-end gin. So I have options, is all I’m saying.
Becaues we’re in Mauschwitz, the keynote address for our conference was a 45-minute presentation by a representative from the Disney Institute. He discussed innovation issues, and how what Disney does can translate into practices for the healthcare industry.
Which means, I guess, that drug companies should “lobby” members of congress into extending drug-patents indefinitely into the future, the way Disney has done with the copyright for Mickey Mouse. That’s innovation!
The last NBA divisional preview is up! Go, Northwest! (It’s still a preview even though the season started a few days ago, right?)
Thanks to all who contributed to this year’s preview: Tom Spurgeon, Craig Sirkin, Sam Richezza, and Adam Taxin! I promise to coordinate this thing better next year! As is, you’ve gotta be happy that I bumped it over to its own page!
I’ll be down in Orlando for a conference from tomorrow morning through Tuesday afternoon, so I’ll try to head over to the O-Rena to catch that Washington-Orlando matchup Monday night. If I get close enough to the bench, I’ll pretend I’m trying to serve Gilbert Arenas with a subpoena. Wish me luck!