| "All this stuff about scones - it might as well have been written in Sanskrit!" |
[Jan. 3rd, 2008|08:33 am] |
I understand writing to deadline means occasionally choosing ideas in haste, but I question a book review which emphasizes your ignorance:No doubt the publisher's trepidation arises from how very English "Darkmans" is. Some of the discrepancies can be more or less managed by a game American reader with Internet access. For example, one point of plot hinges on a set of antique "tiles" stolen from a condemned historic building; it wasn't until a character climbs up on a roof and begins pelting passersby with the tiles he finds there that I figured out that these tiles are a type of terra cotta shingle (for which the region of Kent, where the novel is set, is famous), not the ceramic stuff covering my bathroom floor. Elsewhere reviewer Laura Miller assumes the publisher must be hesitant to back the book because it "hasn't even been re-typeset -- it comes with its Britishisms ("focussed," "colour") intact" which makes me sad to realize such things are done for Americans. I remember I got the British Edition of one of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books and when I read the American version a line where Arthur Dent is called a "kneebiter" had been excised completely altered and other words excised (sorry, shaky memory). It made me wonder what else was missing. |
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| Trivial Pop Culture Defiance |
[Jan. 3rd, 2008|03:00 pm] |
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Jay Leno can piss off. Not only is he a scab, but he gave a loving platform to a crypto-theocrat wannabe. I don't watch the Tonight Show, but now I'm actively not watching it. Stick it sideways Leno, even if you gave a similar public BJ to Dennis Kucinich there's no going back. |
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| Cornfed Self-Aggrandizing Bastards Shouldn't Have This Power |
[Jan. 3rd, 2008|04:17 pm] |
US Population 18 years and over, as of 2004: 221,285,099
Typical quote about the Iowa Caucuses: "At least 130,000 Democrats and 80,000 Republicans are expected to participate."
122,000 Voters. Less than .06 of the voting population.
Estimated white population of Iowa: 94.6%
No disrespect to residents, but fuck Iowa. In fact, fuck any individual state - everyone should be forced to hold the primaries on the same day. Because no state represents the nation, especially not less than one percent shit.
EDITED TO ADD: People have convinced me a primary which resembles a final election would be unwieldy and unconstitutional as it would further solidify the two party domination which is not supposed to be part of elections. Iowa's outsized influence is just one of many reasons a bipartisan only governance is a bad thing.
The current nomination process isn't even the result of a single plan, but an ad-hoc, piecemeal system driven by conflicting agendas over many years, resulting in entropy which works against democracy. It's hard to remove the influence of big money and big media when the underlying structure is a patchwork of tradition and tacit assumptions.
The ideal would be to jettison the two party system, but in the meantime increasing the level of minimal coherence is required for it to function. In 2007 the parties barely bothered to control the rush by states to leverage clout via early primaries in imitation of Iowa and New Hampshire. This can't continue.
A few set primary dates which rotate every 4 years would be a good start. |
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