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Literary Production Numbers

British literary critic James Wood reviews The Oxford English Literary History, Vol. XII: 1960-2000: The Last of England?, and sharpens his knives:

Mind you, Stevenson’s three lines on A House for Mr Biswas make one glad that the rules [of the Oxford guide regarding what constitutes an “English” writer] allowed him to venture no further: “The novel uses its broad range of characters and their conflicts for comic effect, but they also offer extended insight into a complex, multiracial society, both hopeful and fearful for its future.” That sentence might be a Rorschach test: if you find nothing much the matter with it, you are an unsaved academic. Apart from the inconvenience of being largely untrue — there are almost no non-Indians of any significance in the novel — and its grating habit of sounding less like criticism than an AGM report, it is almost morally offensive that this should be the only description of that marvellous novel.

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The Cosby Show

Evidently, Bill Cosby’s got some strong opinions on lower-class black families. According to the Washington Post, Cosby unloaded at a recent event commemorating the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Ed.:

“They’re standing on the corner and they can’t speak English,” he exclaimed. “I can’t even talk the way these people talk: ‘Why you ain’t,’ ‘Where you is’ . . . And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk. . . . Everybody knows it’s important to speak English except these knuckleheads. . . . You can’t be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth!”

There’s more. Scroll down from here.

Update: Cosby defends statements that he really shouldn’t have to waste his time defending, in the New York Times.

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Delirious Seattle

The new public library building in Seattle just opened. Designed by Rem Koolhaas, it’s drawn rave reviews, including this one from Herbert Muschamp at the NYTimes (you have to be registered to read it, I tihnk). It includes the priceless line:

“[W]hat kind of adult would deprive a child of the memory of a spectacular encounter with space?”

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Sudan

VM reader Elayne mentioned that there’s a resolution in the House of Representatives (H. Con. Res. 403) condemning Sudan and calling for the UN to start an investigation into crimes against humanity. The resolution was introduced by Rep. Frank Wolf, the ranking representative from Virginia. I wanted to e-mail him directly, but his site won’t let you do that unless you’re from his district.

As I read about the resolution, I found that there was a concurrent bill in the Senate (S. Con. Res. 99), cosponsored by 21 senators (including both from my home state of NJ). It appears that the resolution is passed but “Held at the desk.” I’m afraid I don’t know enough about the workings of our Senate to know what that means. If anyone else does, please fill me in (hit the Comments section below).

I’m not sure of the status of the resolution in the House, but it appears that my representative isn’t among the 94 reps who have supoorted it. So I wrote to my representative, Scott Garrett:

Please support Congressional Resolution 403, condemning the Sudanese government for supporting attacks against the citizens of Darfur.

What’s going on in Sudan is genocide, and the U.S. needs to stand against it. Our representatives and senators need to make our support of human rights known. Both senators from NJ have cosponsored the concurrent resolution in their house (S. Con. Res. 99).

We’re in a new world. I support our actions in Iraq as being the best way to bring that area of the world toward modernity. But we can’t let atrocities like what’s transpiring in Sudan go undeterred and unpunished. If we do, it’ll turn into another breeding-ground of evil.

Stand up and support Resolution 403.

Thanks,

Gil Roth

If you wanna send a message to your representative on the quick, you should go here. It’ll give you info on the bills, and you can put in your zip code and get a pre-formatted letter sent to your rep (or you can edit it if you like).

The group that runs this site is Church World Service. According to the disclaimer at the bottom of the site’s home page, “Church World Service is a cooperative humanitarian ministry of 36 Protestant, Orthodox, and Anglican denominations, providing sustainable self-help and development, disaster relief, and refugee assistance in more than 80 countries. CWS is part of the ecumenical family of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.”

I’m not pushing Christ on anyone (talk about an opiate…). I’m a Jew (but not a very religious one). I’m going to look into CWS and I hope that it doesn’t turn out that they have some really monstrous, repressive agenda. It doesn’t look like it, at first glance. You can read a little about them at their FAQ page.

I’m glad they’re taking such an interest in averting the Sudan crisis. My girlfriend and I recently tried to figure out what sort of humanitarian fund or group we could donate to that wouldn’t raise the possibility of our money getting funneled into a U.S.-bashing program. I proposed that we start raising funds to buy guns for the displaced Sudanese. She thought we might be able to find used fighter jets on Ebay.

I know this stuff has to be getting tiresome to some readers. My eyes glaze over when Andrew Sullivan starts writing about gay marriage, and I support the guy. Anyway, if you’ve read this far, thanks for sticking with it. I appreciate whatever support you can muster for this cause. I know we all have enough in our lives, without having to worry about the fates of people thousands of miles from here.

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Sudan Crisis

Doc Rampage is as pissed off as I am about both the genocide taking place in Sudan and the American media’s lack of interest in covering it.

Here are some more stories about what’s happening there:

PBS

Telegraph

BBC

Again, if you have good ideas about what we can do (and that don’t involve sending contributions to the UN), send me an e-mail.

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Viva

A few months ago, I wrote, “[Las Vegas] is actually an alien theme park of planet Earth. Which helps explain both the laser beam [from the top of the Luxor] AND the proximity to Area 51.”

In The Nation, Marc Cooper writes about Vegas as the new capital of America (figuratively speaking, of course: y’know, the way various cities have been emblematic of various stages of our history). He writes:

What a turnaround it has been for once lowly Las Vegas–and for the nation around it. Barely fifteen years ago, the august Citicorp was queasy about publicly admitting that its major credit-card processing center had been relocated to an unincorporated suburb of Las Vegas. A deal with state authorities allowed the banking corporation to postmark and camouflage its mail as coming from “The Lakes, Nevada” instead of from sinful Vegas. Today, that same neighborhood sports several high-end casinos and luxury hotels. And Citicorp’s own credibility, in the aftermath of the great Wall Street accounting scandals, ranks somewhere below that of a midtown three-card-monte hustler.

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Wow

Some of my friends (the non-sporting kind) don’t get why I “waste my time” watching pro sports. The Spurs-Lakers playoff game last night had one of the most exciting finishes I’ve ever seen. Three lead changes in the last 12 seconds, after one team blows a 16-point lead. Two impossible shots going in, the second with no time left on the clock. Just a tremendous game, even though the wrong team pulled off the win.