Dreadful Murder

This week's articles are, if I'm counting correctly, all here. My favorite, about halfway down, has been copied in its entirety because it is Just That Awesome. You should probably put down any beverages you might be consuming when you read it - especially if it's milk - because you will certainly do a spit-take if you don't. It's seriously that hilarious. A preview: a murder suspect is described as "a fine young man."

However nihilistic it might be, "How the planet will recover from us" explores global warming from an epochal perspective. Rather than using this longest of long-term analysis to decry the "myth" that humans are causing the Earth's climate to change dramatically, however, the author examines periods of rapid carbon and methane gas release, long before the dinosaurs, that led to mass extinctions. The fossil record gives a surprising - but very clear - picture of how life on Earth strives to hold on as the planet rights herself into a stable biosphere once again.

In "Two legs good, 24 better," NS interviews Aimee Mullins, an actress/model/athlete who also happens to be a double amputee. Mullins also happens to be more articulate than your everyday model, and discusses passionately why equal rights for persons with disabilities hinges on viewing them apart from their disabilities and seeing what they can do - which, incidentally, is a lot.

The new "Chicago School Violence Plan" hopes to prevent off-campus shootings of students by assigning statistically-calculated "high risk" kids with life coaches, psychological counseling, job opportunities, and other things that, hopefully, will lead them to see the error of their gang-banging ways. It'll be interesting to see how this turns out, especially since there are far more kids actually "at risk" of being involved in a shooting than the program's $30m will initially be able to reach.

So, yeah, it's a New York Times article, but I think it's pretty important and the one New Yorker piece below is really long and involved, so... yeah.

"The Last Mission" is a highly detailed account of Richard Holbrooke's rapid rise - and subsequent decades-long plateau - in the ranks of the State Department. Now on the verge of retirement, he's answered President Obama's call to oversee State's mission in Afghanistan and Pakistan, or Af-Pak, as he's dubbed it. Of equal interest to me is the conspicuous system of patronage and apprenticeship at State, the network of people who care as much about who you know and have served under as what you know and where you were stationed when you learned it. It worries me a bit that I'm not coming out of Yale or Harvard, but I know that I can connect with my superiors and force my way into that web of who-knows-who if I get the chance.

On a much lighter note, "There's gold in them there bacteria!" Apparently, there's a certain class of bacteria that's allergic to gold, and has evolved a way to break it down in its system to neutralize its harmful effects and, due to the law of conservation of energy (or something), this process causes them to emit a light which prospectors can then use to determine whether or not a particular patch of soil holds a gold deposit.

And on a more dreadful note, The Economist has transcribed its first issue and published all the articles online. For some reason, they decided not to do the ads. I feel like this is a huge oversight; very few things in this world are more entertaining than pre-Victorian print ads. Except the stories running alongside them. This one is short enough that I'm actually going to paste in the full text.

Dreadful murder

Sep 2nd 1843

Since Tuesday morning the beautiful seat of the Earl of Darnley, at Cobham park, near Gravesend, in Kent, its village, and the surrounding suburbs, have been the scene of much excitement in consequence of the perpetration of a murder, attended with circumstances of a truly distressing character. The victim is Mr Dadd, sen., 55 years of age, a person who a few years ago carried on a most extensive business at Rochester, as a chemist and druggist. He had lately, however, retired, and had gone to London, where he has since resided, in Suffolk street, Pall-mall East, and gained some notoriety by the manufacture of an improved oil for artists. He was found lying by the roadside, with his throat cut, and a knife not far from his body. It has since been ascertained, beyond a doubt, that the murderer of the unfortunate gentleman is no other than his third son, Richard Dadd, a fine young man, 24 years age, and that he committed the act whilst labouring under an aberration of intellect. He was an artist of some celebrity, and has gained several prizes at the Royal Academy. A year or two ago this unfortunate youth accompanied Sir Thomas Phillips, the late Mayor of Newport, on a tour through Italy, Switzerland, Germany, &c., for the purpose of improving himself in his art. Owing to his arduous studies and constant exposure to the sun, his brain became affected to such a melancholy extent as to produce insanity. The circumstances attending the dreadful deed have not yet been correctly ascertained, nor has the youth been apprehended.

I hope I never live in New York long enough to be this uppity. Some New Yorker blogger decided to do his weekly column on the recently-published list of art the Obamas have pulled from the national collection to display in the White House, and judge them, heavily, for their choices. They like what they like. Deal with it.

Finally, there was an entire issue full of good Economist articles, but the ones that I want to share are "How many Mexicans does it take to drill an oil well?" and "Please do feed the bears", mostly because of their titles. The first is about Mexico's state-run oil companies and their rapidly declining production capability. The latter is a caveat to government regulators to remember that it was bulls, not bears, that caused the market bubbles. Their trading habits should not be restricted, nor should their frequents portents of financial disaster be ridiculed without careful examination of their reasoning. A good policy to hold in general, I'd think, but sure, let's keep it to just the stock market for now.
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Busy little bee...

Another busy sort of week. There's that whole thing about pictures and a thousand words, so... here's me first thing Thursday morning, and a bonus picture of my current work in progress.

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Toward a Red

Two weeks ago, I went back to Mandala with my friend Michelle so she could sell some books, and while I was there, I, as I do, found another postcard to add to my collection. The reason for its extreme delay is that I have found, amazingly, something that is not on the internet. Anywhere. For real. I have searched high and low, working with the artist's name and the title of the painting given on the back of the postcard, to figure out if this abstract piece is meant to be viewed vertically or horizontally. I have googled his name, its name, both of their names; combed wikipedia for any reference to it, and even gone to the website of the museum that printed the postcard to see if they had a picture - nothing. So, I present, with a 1/3 chance of correct orientation, Sam Gilliam's Toward a Red.

If you know think you have a good eye for aesthetic sensibilities, let me know which way you think is up. You should be able to click the picture and be taken to a much larger version, if you'd like to study it more in-depth.

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Oddly refreshing...

Today I woke up at 7:30 and left for work a little after 8. I spent the next four hours as tense as a pregnant cheerleader's boyfriend at the father/daughter purity ball, trying to review everything I'd ever learned about international politics in my head while making copies of rich people's tax forms. The only thing that got me through it - and only just, at that - was cranking up Ben Folds' Rockin' the Suburbs and dancing the Charleston to "The Secret Life of Morgan Baker." Seriously, ask my dad. It was one of the more raucous one-girl dance parties an Ormond office building has ever seen. So I left just before noon, stopping only to get gas (um, also discovering that my gas cap is missing? I feel like that's something I would have noticed last month when I bought gas. (Oh yeah, that's right, I bought one tank of gas in September. 320 miles was all I drove, bitches.)), and pushing Bea for the first time above 70mph to get to the Foreign Service test in Orlando.

She handled it well enough, though I guess four years of not driving very often made me forget that just under 4000rpm at 80mph is normal for a stick - that worried me for a while. The test itself was alright, and by law I'm not allowed to tell you ANYTHING that was on it, but I think I'm allowed to say that I was not asked to write either an awesome essay nor an articulate tirade about corporate greed responsibility (winkwinknudgenudge). I'm slightly less confident about the biographical section, insofar as it really comes down to whether they're looking for entry-level people or those with more practical experience for higher-level positions. I'm betting the recession made them slow down on their new hires, so in the next year, when I'm hoping to be placed, all the old entry-level kids will be promoted, leaving lots of openings for me!

Anyway so that was my FSOT adventure in a smallish nutshell. Now that it's over, I need to make a new deadline for a big project to keep my motivation up. I work so much more efficiently under pressure than without. Stupid college.
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I don't think a brisket really counts as an ethnic recipe. Right?

It's been two weeks since the last articles post and although I was collecting their links, and for some, even got around to writing responses, I couldn't get around to posting them. Too much other stuff was in the way... hello, I had a FAVICON to make? But seriously, the reason the last two weeks of articles is being folded into a three-day-late weekly update post is that this weekend, my computer died. Entirely. It's a long and complicated story involving the power supply and the battery, but it's on right now because I literally forced it into place, and everything important is all backed up to an external and all that... but it's been time-consuming, and I honestly wasn't motivated to write posts on my dad's ancient Windows ME laptop (complete with Firefox version 1.0!). Plus side- I rediscovered (for the umpteenth time) an old DOS game called Lexicross, which running on a semi-modern processor is like Wheel of Fortune and Scrabble's crack baby, on speed, and meth, and... you know, those genes that gave Superman his super speed. Good times.

I also had a four-hour brisket to make on Saturday, as well as apple bread for dessert, in honor of either Rosh Hashanah (if you ask my grandmother) or my sister coming home for the weekend (if you ask her). It turned out splendidly, I think, and because the recipe calls for a cup of red wine, I had (almost) an entire bottle to myself to nurse for the afternoon while it roasted. Extra good times.

So with all that, I forgot to mention that I started writing actual! scenes! of screenplay. I'm still completely unsure about the beginning, so I decided to just skip ahead a bit and write a crucial intermediate exposition scene. I'm actually remotely satisfied with the way it's coming out so far, although it's very awkward getting used to the screenwriting software. It helps you autoformat everything more easily, so you don't have to spend so much time typing mundane things like the characters' names over and over. Theoretically a good idea, but apparently the guild-approved format calls for reentering the character's name after they have direction and speak if you want to add more direction. Anyway, perhaps when it's finished I will put it up. (Probably not.)

I also began reading a book I purchased a few years ago, right after the author was promoting it on the Daily Show, Imperial Life in the Emerald City. Aside from having an awesome title, this very well-researched book exposes the realities of both life in Baghdad's "secure" Green Zone in 2004-05 and the political conflicts that did not just hinder, but visibly set back the progress of rebuilding Iraq as an independent nation. The author lived in Baghdad, across the river from his interviewees, all of whom were employees of the various US agencies represented in the occupation government. The storytelling is so smooth that it reads almost like a novel, and I'm excited to jump back into it tonight. So I'm going to. Below the cut are links to the articles I did end up reading (and, in the case of the Economist, bothered gathering links for) and, yes, I know, it's very light on the New Yorker. Sue me.

"What to do with Moody's, S&P, and the rating agencies?" I was attracted to this New Yorker piece because I was only vaguely aware of the rating agencies' role in the financial system, not knowing much beyond the fact that they had rated AIG AAA - apparently a good rating - right before it collapsed. This article explores that theme further while demonstrating the history of increasing the entrenchment of these agencies into the system. (That very system also writes the agencies' paychecks, which is why the ratings are so slow to change.) It also advocates for a "divorce," removing the government seal of officiousness from the agencies themselves.

What's most interesting about this is the grade inflation that went on over the last three decades without anyone appearing to take notice. When AAA becomes the standard and not a way to differentiate truly low-risk investments from the rest - and when the supposedly perpetually-secure real estate busts nationally - there's no question that America's major disease is greed.

If, in high school history class, we had been given "Trial of the Century" instead of half a paragraph in our textbook to learn about the infamous Dreyfus Affair, I would almost certainly have retained enough of the details to not have clicked on a New Yorker book review to quench my curiosity. This six-page review, after giving a short summation of the book's main point - that the historical context that enabled Dreyfus to be wrongly convicted (twice) of treason by supposedly spying for the Germans before finally being allowed to return to his home - gives a detailed history lesson about that very context. The review does a very good job of it, so I won't paraphrase. Just go read it.

Normally, I wouldn't really care to read a biographical piece about the prospective new owner of the NY Nets. But any article that begins, "Being a Russian oligarch these days isn't easy" is, in my opinion, one worth taking a peek at.

"Rethinking the bees' waggle dance:" so it turns out bees might not actually be as smart and communicative as we thought. Waggledance is still fun to say, though...

"Overconsumption is the real problem" is one article in a large special feature NS published about the looming specter of overpopulation. The whole feature is good, but this is the one that spoke to me most.

"Economic Vandalism:" an anti-American-protectionism tirade. Sort of. Apparently we pissed off China by putting a tariff on shoddy tires instead of letting the market sort it out - never mind that when tires fail, BAD THINGS LIKE ACCIDENTS happen.

"The power of mobile money" explains the new trend of mobile banking in Kenya, and how it's helping jumpstart the economy there. It's a pretty nifty system; people can transfer small amounts of money from one another, which they can then withdraw at local convenience stores - useful in a nation with a very small banking infrastructure.

"Set Angela free" is a little dated now, but this piece is still an informative primer on the dynamics of Germany's multiparty government.

Last, but certainly not least, "The Best of the Ig Nobel Prizes" is best described as the Razzies for science. Two of them involve innovative applications for alcohol, so... just read it.
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Puppy

I sort of forgot to do SPT yesterday, what with all the excitement of creating the favicon, and today I made sure to keep my camera with me at all times - but I never really found a good opportunity for a shot. Until my family got back from dinner and our dog, Lucky, looked more adorable than usual on the top of the couch. (Yes, she's fully-grown; yes, we sometimes think she's a cat. In actuality, she's half Chihuahua, half Yorkie.) She's not normally this shy, though. Maybe she just didn't like the flash...

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Drumroll, please...

I guess it's finally time to declare goal 42, Learn how to program a website, officially underway. First, I tweaked the code for this blog in the weeks before launching it. Then, I completely modified a different template for my friend Chelsea's blog. And now, I am proud to present, for your bookmarking pleasure, the official Swingsets and Cathedrals favicon! Apparently, that is the term the internet, with its seemingly infinite ability to portmanteau, has thought up to label the little icon next to the web address up in the address bar there, and on your bookmark toolbar. Look! See! Isn't it adorable? It was actually surprisingly easy to add to the blog; much more difficult was the actual making of it in Paint.

Anyway, time to hit up at least a thousand grains of rice's worth of capitals before bed. Bamako, Mali! Antananarivo, Madagascar! Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia! Conakry, Guinea!
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