Relevant History

Grover Norquist on the Greatest Generation

[T]he age cohort that is most Democratic and most pro-statist, are those people who turned 21 years of age between 1932 and 1952--Great Depression, New Deal, World War II--Social Security, the draft--all that stuff. That age cohort is now between the ages of 70 and 90 years old, and every year 2 million of them die. So 8 million people from that age cohort have passed away since the last election; that means, net, maybe 1 million Democrats have disappeared--and even the Republicans in that age group....

This is an age cohort that voted for a draft before the war started, and allowed the draft to continue for 25 years after the war was over. Their idea of the legitimate role of the state is radically different than anything previous generations knew, or subsequent generations. Before that generation, whenever you put a draft in, there were draft riots. After that generation, there were draft riots. This generation? No problem. Why not? Of course the government moves people around like pawns on a chessboard. One side spits off labor law, one side spits off Social Security. We will all work until we're 65 and have the same pension. You know, some Bismarck, German thing, okay? Very un-American. Very unusual for America. The reaction to Great Depression, World War II, and so on: Centralization--not as much centralization as the rest of the world got, but much more than is usual in America. We've spent a lot of time dismantling some of that and moving away from that level of regimentation. (Grover Norquist, quoted in the Weekly Standard)

It reminds me a bit of the scene in Dr. Zhivago where the military commander and political officer of the unit that Zhivago was dragooned into are arguing over whether the doctor should be released or not. The political officer warns that in the future, every soldier will be judged not just by his service, but by his political purity, too. Never mind what you've sacrificed: do we think you have the right politics?

Forget saving the world. They became Democrats. They deserve to have their Social Security privatized.

Neal Stephenson at Keplers

This evening I went to Keplers, my local independent bookstore (as they keep reminding me), to hear Neal Stephenson read from The System of the World, the final volume of his Baroque cycle.

The crowd was what you would expect for a science fiction/early modern history reading: a mix of people who knew each other at Xerox PARC during the glory days of the 1970s; a few escapees from a Dungeons & Dragons convention; a sprinking of gentle-looking, grey-haired folks who memorized every second of Neil Young's Decade; and a fair number of twentysomethings who memorized every second of Radiohead's Kid A. And then me.

Neal was pretty entertaining: laid back but energetic, and good with the questions. When asked a question about his female characters, he replied, "That would require some self-analysis. I don't do that, out of fear that it might break something." (Or something close. All quotes are approximate.) A number of people asked questions about how he writes, to which he replied that writing isn't a "lofty art," but instead is "more like a craft, or an athletic event." I couldn't agree more.

He also writes two or three hours a day, no more. And yet he can write 1200-page books.

Pictures may come later, though they're not terribly exciting. Basically, there's one of Neal signing a book. Then there's another one of him signing another book. Then, there's an out of focus one of him signing a book. Then, a picture with someone's back obscuring Neal signing a book.

It was fun to go to the event. He's been to Keplers several times, so I now have autographed copies of all three volumes of the series. Though their status as precious artifacts has probably kept me from rereading them as aggressively as I might; I'll have to buy the paperbacks and start over again.

I have a hard time following all the plot lines, and the intricacies of who is who; but at the same time, I think the books are one of the most brilliant explorations of the connection between natural philosophy and finance, and of the deep intellectual currents that link early modern science, technology and commerce, that I've ever encountered. And while I'm not an early modernist, I've read more than my share of that stuff, going back to Merton and Hessen. For many authors, the connection between science and commerce existed at a pretty high level: Hessen's argument that Newtonianism was a response to the problems of long-distance trade and a burgeoning military is characteristic. Of course, a younger generation has made this picture more complex, but I think Stephenson's work still stands out for its argument of subtle similiarities in the way some savants came to look upon money, information, and nature.

And maybe in this volume I'll finally find out what's up with Enoch Root (whose appearance in the first pages of Quicksilver immediately got me hooked on the series).

Signs of overspecialization in the consulting business

From Craigslist:

Nude Economic Consulting to trade for?????

Musicals as religion

I'm not sure what this explains:

Academic claims musicals are the new religion

It's God who really has the best songs, according to a University of St Andrews theologian - at least, if you disregard The Sound of Music.

The Rev Ian Bradley from the school of divinity believes musicals like Les Miserables and The Lion King provide their audiences with a distinct philosophy of life, as well as entertainment.

So what does this make Andrew Lloyd Weber? Our Augustine?

Voting in Flordia

Another amazing article about voting in Florida, and how a blend of new technologies, political jockeying, and a long tradition of creative voting are coming together to create a very large mess.

[via Wired News]

Is this real?

Is there really, as reported by New York Press, a new holiday on May 1-- Loyalty Day?

What's next? A mandatory citizen's guidebook titled Famous and Cherished Sayings of George W. Bush? Wait—we take that joke back. The last time we made a joke about "what's next," we got Operation Iraqi Freedom and the Healthy Forests Initiative.

Good grief, it's true.

How did I miss it? Living in California, I suppose.

Our visual age

This is pretty weird...

Boing Boing: Iraq visual language survival guides for military personnel

The images are functional icons, like highway signs or web UI buttons, so they reflect a simplified aesthetic -- like early childhood storybooks. The subject matter is violent, but the look is "see spot run" or "happy Lego people at play." The most surreal one is a two-part diagram in which a man is asked to remove his toupee so the interrogator can determine whether or not weapons are stashed beneath.

I especially like the fact that the motto of Kwikpoint, the company that makes the visual guide, is "Communication is the key to world peace."

It's like something from Get Your War On, brought into the real world.

Oh wait, that happens all the time.

Got laptop?

A sign at Denver International Airport, which you see after you pass through security and head toward the terminals.

I wish they'd had one of those in Tahoe.

SIMS lecture series

It's probably silly to puff a lecture series that you've spoken in, but I'm very impressed by the fall lineup for UC Berkeley SIMS' Distinguished Lecture Series. It's a very diverse, interesting group of speakers, and a good audience-- even though Berkeley has SO many different things going on, it's easy for people to get overloaded and just hang out at Cafe Milano. Check it out if you're there.

Hey, participation in democracy!

Whatever happens in the November elections, this article from Salon is good news:

New voters are flooding local election offices with paperwork, registering in significantly higher numbers than four years ago as attention to the presidential election runs high and an array of activist groups recruit would-be voters who could prove critical come Nov. 2.

Are families companies?

Slate has a critical piece on Dr. Phil's new book on parenting.

Having worked in a company that was described by its employees as a dysfunctional family, I was struck by the fact that

The guiding assumption of Dr. Phil's "step-by-step plan" to help parents become "system managers" at home is that families are just that: systems, in which everybody—from hubby on down to baby—has a role to play. In place of Spockian empathy, we have corporate efficiency for the dual-income family whirlwind. The manual features seven parenting "tools," checklists to fill out, "audits" to conduct—and even a downloadable "behavioral contract" so parent and kid can spell out a disciplinary deal, in the hope that neither will get angry or whiny when a party fails to comply. "Accountability" along with "consistency" are the watchwords of the behaviorist approach.

But the existence of such tools doesn't automatically mean that good results come out: you can have Enrons as well as Intels.

And is it the case that maybe, just maybe, some parts of our existence shouldn't be subject to the kinds of rules that we have in the workplace? Discipline and consistency are great-- I try to have them at home, too-- but I'm deeply skeptical that my kids would benefit from having signed contracts. You want your kids to internalize these kinds of things, not depend on external tools for them.

And contracts are renegotiable, and rarely can be comprehensive enough to cover all contingencies-- a fact that most children are really good at discovering and exploiting. The end result, ironically, can be a world in which you no longer act according to moral precepts and judgments, but according to explicit rules: a world in which you have no fixed rules, nothing you can't potentially get away with.

New bike

This weekend I got a new bike, a Specialized Rockhopper. The frame of my last bike was about four inches too big for me: I settled for it because it had the front shock absorbers that I wanted, and it was on sale. But I've spent the last four years or so straining to reach the handlebars. This time, I got one that fits.

It's my fourth or fifth Rockhopper, I can no longer quite keep track. It's a bit like buying a Honda: not the most incredibly exciting choice, but one that you know you'll never regret. And, if properly cared for, it'll last forever.

I suppose that with a track record like this, the marketing people at Specialized would describe me as having "brand loyalty." I've always found something a little unsettling the use of the term "loyalty" to describe consumers' choice of products. For me, the term "loyalty" is one that has some richness to it, and signifies a deep relationship: I'm loyal to a small number of people, a couple non-human beings, and a couple institutions; and to some degree, the feeling is reciprocated. And if that bond no longer existed, we'd notice.

In contrast, if I stopped buying from Specialized, or Apple, or Mazda, or Lands End, or whoever makes Pert, they wouldn't be able tell; nor would my web of social contacts and relationships be made poorer. There's no loyalty here, just a transaction marked by preference and convenience.

This explains everything

This from a list of weird things....

"PAYBACK" - ALL HURRICANE EYES TARGETED BUSH COUNTIES *PIC*

[T]he eyes of the hurricanes all "targeted" Bush Counties exclusively.

Was this "PAYBACK TIME" to those who had voted for Bush back then? And if so, who or what was steering those 3 hurricanes which such incredible pin-point accuracy?

God, or the Military, or some other black op? You tell me.

It's about time...

Good news from the BBC: Shaun, the sheep from Wallace and Gromit's "A Close Shave," is finally getting the respect he deserves:

Shaun the Sheep gets his own show

Shaun the Sheep, the woolly star of the Wallace and Gromit short "A Close Shave," is to get his own show on CBBC, the BBC's digital channel for children.

The 40-part series, commissioned from Aardman Animations, begins production at the end of the year and will be transmitted on CBBC in 2006.

The show will follow the adventures of Shaun and the rest of his flock as they join in with his madcap schemes.

Aardman are currently working on a Wallace and Gromit feature film.

I hope it's suitable for young children. My daughter now finds "A Close Shave" to be too scary to watch.

Florence of Arabia

I just finished Christopher Buckley's latest book, Florence of Arabia. It's much like his earlier Washington books: wonderfully sharp in the details, with great characters and some very funny bits; then about 2/3 through the book, things spin out of control-- the characters end up getting their lives turned upside down, and the book itself threatens to crash through the guardrail (how's that for a metaphor).

In a couple of his earlier books, things go off the rails during court cases that go on for too long; eventually Buckley has to invoke some deux ex machina (conveniently available in the form of the more shadowy, cloak-and-dagger elements of our federal government) to straighten things out. But it worked well enough for the Greeks (the classics live!), and I'm sure there's some subversive criticism of the national security state worked in there.

Anyway, Florence of Arabia is pleasant enough fare, and a decent warm-up to the next Terry Pratchett, which should be out soon.

I don't have time for Ecto 2

There would be a new version of Ecto out for the Mac, of course. Actually, it came out last month, and I'm just slow to notice it.

I've only played around with it a bit, but feels like it's really good.

I might have to buy a new Mac after all.

[To the tune of Projections, "Rival Cruise," from the album Between Here And Now.]

Back home

I'm back in California, and back at work.

Field notes of the fashion challenged

Something struck me during my last trip to Denver, and I noticed it again today: a curious disparity in the dress code for men and women, at least of a certain class. In the airport, I saw several guys walking around in jeans or sweatpants (a level or two down from business casual), whose their spouses looked like figures from the back pages of Texas Monthly: carefully but not overly dressed, looking like they were heading off to a benefit lunch at the art museum.

To my eye, it's a weird mismatch. But I probably do it myself all the time, and have just never noticed.

The unbearable lightness of Power Point

I did a talk today for a paper and graphics industry group-- it's why I'm in Denver for the day-- and the process has made me figure out that doing a conceptual, high-level Power Point, and doing it early, has lots of advantages over the "outline-of-my-talk-with-graphics" style.

First, it will give you something to send to the conference organizers, who are always keen to have copies of your talk earlier than you want to send them. But it will buy you several other things besides the goodwill of your hosts (or perhaps amusement at their confusion).

It'll give you flexibility to revise the talk substantially, up to the last minute. Since this is something I always do, anyway, it allows me to just concentrate on the ideas and argument, and not have to worry about making corresponding changes in the slides.

It'll prevent you from just reading the slides, which is the kiss of death for any presentation. The problem with putting words on a slide is that if you care about what you say, you'll put some attention into the phrasing of the slides-- which will only make reading them seem more sensible. But it's dull to hear. If you've got a more conceptual presentation, in contrast, you have to be more conversational, even if you spend 48 hours rehearsing every last line.

Complete the following phrase

"I'm being followed by..."

A) a moonshadow, moonshadow
B) Homeland Security agents.

Wasn't that weird news?

I'm sitting....

...in Denver International Airport, under a large Intel Centrino banner that says "wireless internet access here." (I see that they spell "internet" with lower case now, just like Wired.)

And I'm not getting any signal at all.

Apparently there's something about the phrase that I'm not getting, some way that "wireless internet access here" actually means "there's no wireless internet access here."

Must ponder.

Just a post to assure myself I still exist

This is probably the longest I've gone without posting anything since the blog began. But, having survived last week's Week From Hell, I hope I can get back into it.

I go to Denver tomorrow to give a talk. It'll be insane. I'm flying out at dawn, giving a talk in the afternoon, having dinner with family, then flying back to San Francisco that evening, and getting in around midnight. It's nuts. The things we do.

The Nutcracker

Don't get what I'm about to write wrong. I love culture. I pledge to KQED (or, well, my wife does for the household), I used to drive a Volvo, and my household has got tons (literally tons, as the last moving company that we hired will tell you) of books.

I also think it's great that my daughter loves to dance, though Angelina (the mouse) and Zoe (the Sesame Street character) are more her models than Nijinski (which, now that I put it that way, I realize is perfectly fine). Still, at her age, a fascination with ballet is entirely appropriate, and I justify the classes to myself on the same grounds that all parents who enroll their girls in ballet but want them to become surgeons use: it'll build grace and elegance, and all our friends are doing it, too.

But I think I'm about to get into something that's over my head. As the winter season begins, the notion of holiday theatricals begin to float through the air. None I suspect, is as ambitious, or can ask so much of parents, as "The Nutcracker."

My daughter is an angel in it. And of course, all my daughter's friends are in it, so she can't not be part of it.

Light is just beginning to dawn on the reality that this is going to be a lot of work.

The performance is in December. We're already getting pieces of a rehearsal schedule that looks like the SAS training program at Hereford, and it's just the end of September. In addition to whatever commitments we've fallen into to take her to extra rehearsals, there's the backstage stuff, the need to help sell tickets, etc., etc.: a replay of all the stuff you had to do for high school plays, except you no longer can fob some the work off on your parents.

Last night we had to think up the names and addresses of ten people who might want to buy tickets. Of course, part of me chafed (do I know ten people?), but I also don't want the theatre to be empty. Friendster and viral marketing people have no clue compared to those who put on ballets featuring elementary school-age children.

But since I love my daughter, and want her to be able to look back fondly on the time when she was an angel in a holiday production of one of the most famous ballets of all time (rather than, say, think about how all her friends got to be in it while she had to watch-- a memory that bubbles up right before she slashes my tires on the way to her weekly therapy), I have no choice, I must obey. Now I know why it's called "the nutcracker."

Anybody interested in tickets?

Back in Berkeley

I'm in Berkeley this afternoon, to give at talk at SIMS, the School for Information Management Science. Basically I'm arguing that emerging technologies are going render the entire notion of "information science" obsolete. It should be fun.

I'm in Cafe Milano, of course, charging up with a double espresso. I probably drank about a thousand of these when I was a postdoc here. Though my favorite table is taken. It's like other people come here, or something.

It's very nice to be in Berkeley, and if only for a couple hours, to play the role of academic again, especially given how the rest of the week has gone.

I'll probably post the talk later.

What kind of star?

All you need to know about design, in a nutshell.

Where's that insurance comment spam?

--because I should take some life insurance, on the chance that my job kills me in the next two months.

Some of it is my own fault. I've got a talk at Berkeley this Wednesday, and then one in Denver at a trade association the following Wednesday, plus my usual commitments (the Red Herring column, some freelance work). But I've also got a giant project whose deadline is the end of the month, and another, equally important but vastly different one, that wraps up in mid-November. The future never fails to be interesting. And there's an awful lot of it.

This is what I get for reading biographies of T. H. Huxley and Alexander the Great in my spare time. I need to find some biographies of people who weren't workaholics, compulsive writers, megalomaniacs, or capable of existing on a couple hours' sleep a night. Maybe that new Paris Hilton autobiography would restore some balance to my life.

This is one of the occupational hazards of studying the Victorians: you run the risk of picking up some of their work habits and attitude.

News to make your head explode

If they'd had newspapers in the late days of the Roman empire, this is the kind of story that would have run.

New York Daily News - Daily Dish & Gossip - Rush & Molloy: Gotti's siege of Paris averted by Lizzie

A feud between Victoria Gotti and Paris Hilton would be good enough. But when you toss in Lizzie Grubman as the peacemaker, you know you're in tabloid heaven.

The battle of the blonds broke out the other day in Miami when Victoria brought her "Growing Up Gotti" sons Carmine, 18, John, 17, and Frankie, 14, to the nightclub Mansion - specifically to meet their fellow reality TV star Paris.

[via Gawker, of course]

Headlines you definitely have to read twice

Dog wiggles paw free to shoot Florida man

A man who tried to shoot seven puppies was shot himself when one of the dogs put its paw on the revolver's trigger.

Guns don't people. Puppies kill people.

Just call me Dr. Cool

One of my friends sent me a couple CDs for my birthday: Royksopp's Melody AM, and Projections Between Here and Now. (Thanks Victoria!) They arrived at home, and naturally I was excited to listen to them.

Trouble is, I don't have a portable CD player any more. There's the 5 CD changer on the stereo, but the kids weren't likely to approve of the music ("Want Cinderella!" my son was likely to yell throughout, a reference to a Disney CD that we often-- no, constantly to the point of obsessively-- play in the car). Besides, I hardly use it: ever since I moved by music collection onto my Mac, the CD player is much more likely to have Baby Mozart and the Lilo and Stitch soundtrack than my stuff. And my old Sony Discman gave up the ghost a while ago.

So, had you come in this evening, you would have seen me at the living room table, working on my latest Red Herring column, grooving to deeply cool electronica... played on a pink CD player decorated with a crown and the word "Princess" in fancy script. My daughter's CD player, which she last used to listen to The Wiggles.

But hey, it still sounds good.

My birthday

As the clock turned over and my birthday began, I was online, helping a friend configure Ecto so his partner could post to one of my blogs.

Ah, marvels of life in the twenty-first century....

Actually, there are worse ways to start a new day-- or a new year-- than helping a friend, even if only via instant messenger.

It almost makes me wish I were back in Chicago

Keyes Says Christ Would Not Vote For Obama

Illinois Republican U.S. Senate candidate Alan Keyes... said in a radio interview at the Republican National Convention that Jesus would not vote for Obama....

Keyes called Obama a "socialist and a liar" on a cable access news show on Monday.

As Josh Marshall comments, "So much for secret ballots!"

Hope for me yet

I'm rereading Peter Green's astonishing Alexander of Macedon, a biography of Alexander the Great. I've read it a couple times before, and find it alternately hilarious (believe it or not, his accounts of Alexander's parents and the Macedonian political situation before Alexander's rule are very funny) and chilling (Alexander's exploits make for bracing reading).

As a writer, I'm also amazed at how consistently great a performance it is. Every paragraph is beautifully crafted, for over 500 pages.

Tonight, I stumbled upon the biographical note. I knew that Green was a classicist at University of Texas, but hadn't realized what else he'd done with his life:

After a short spell as Director of Studies in Classics at Cambridge [where he'd received his BA and Ph.D.], he worked for some years as a freelance writer, translator and literary journalist and as a publisher. In 1963 he emigrated to Greece with his family. From 1966 to 1971 he lectured in Greek history and literature at College Year in Athens; in 1971 he came to the University of Texas at Austin.

In other words, though he eventually ends up as the Dougherty Centennial Professor of Classics, earlier in his life Green is a model of the non-traditional scholar. The first book mentioned in his biography is a volume of essays published in 1960. The Alexander biography was published in short form in 1970, and the full-blown version in 1972-- when he was 48, in other words (he was born in 1924).

So perhaps there's hope for me yet.

Dune

One evening in Colorado I happened upon AMC showing the David Lynch movie Dune. I went through a phase in my youth when I re-read the book constantly: I could open it up, read two lines, and know exactly where I was in the story, and what came before and after. Not exactly an Ambrose-level performance, but an indication that I knew the book pretty well.

I saw the film when it first came out, so it's probably been 20 years since I watched it from beginning to end. Still, my impression of it this weekend was unchanged: what a train wreck. Is there a worse movie? It's like a recipe for disaster.

First, start with spectacularly cheesy special effects. All that's missing is the director's wife's dentist walking around with a cape over his face, like in Plan 9 From Outer Space after Bela Lugosi died.

Add some great actors (Patrick Stewart, Max Von Sydow, Jose Ferrer, Linda Hunt), but give them dialogue and delivery that makes Tonto sound like Snoop Doggy Dogg.

Stir in, excuse me, Kyle McLachlan and Sting?

Add a mystifying combination of ridiculous deviation from the plot of the book (sound guns? rain at the end?) and the literalist inclusion of some of its more obscure parts. Who are those two little kids who keep showing up in the later scenes? They're Paul's adopted sons, but that's never explained, but still there they are.

Decorate with bizarre sets and costumes. Why does House Atrides dress like Nazis? Is Lynch trying to make a subtle point, or did they get a great deal on stuff rejected from the Ian McKellan 1930s version of Richard III? And if so, why do the Fremen look like deflated Michelin Men?

My day care

I'm running a little ad hoc day care today: one of my daughter's classmates is spending the day here, part of a program to handle the week-long interregnum between sumemr school and the start of the regular year.

I have a sense of how the day is going to work. I suggested that they go outside and play in the backyard, since it's going to be incredibly hot today; they listened politely, then ran into my daughter's room. Now they're back in the living room, playing with the Little People circus. I, meanwhile, have plugged up my iPod, and turned it up loud enough so I can't hear their conversation. Just because I'm watching them doesn't mean I have to listen to them.

Later we're going to go over to my in-laws and swim. Swimming has emerged as my favorite sport because 1) the kids like it, and 2) it makes the kids tired.

I'm amazed at how much time my wife and I-- and many of our friends-- spend trying to manage our childrens' metabolisms and energy levels. You want to time activities so they get tired, but not so tired that they get cranky. You want them to sleep well at night, not go to pieces in the afternoon. They need regular injections of food and drink, but you want to avoid either the encouragement of bad habits or public censure of your parenting skills. (A large amount of my time in public with my children, it occurs to me, is spent keeping them from doing things that will leave the impression that I'm a Bad Father.)

Some of this tendency to micromanage-- or at least to remain in a position to regulate-- their lives reflects American bourgeois parent culture, with its playdates, obsession with safety, and worry that any choice will have unintended yet unpredictable consequences (will she get into Yale if we take that gymanstics class?). However, a lot of it is also a function of age: it's harder to let young kids entertain themselves. Presumably I'll be able to just turn them loose when they're a little older, with only small risk to life and limb.

Unless, of course, they're incapable of being turned loose because they're so programmed to believe that it's my job to entertain them.

My daughter just asked if we could make ice cream, something we haven't done in months. But it would be entertaining, especially on a hot day. Besides, she did it with one of her other friends on a playdate-- about a year and a half ago. She can't remember to not tease her brother, but she can recall things she did with friends when she was four.

It'll be interesting to see how long it takes for them to declare that they're bored. Maybe I can take them to Starbucks, and do some work while they eat muffins.

One of these things is not like the other

From the back page of a Target circular in this Sunday's San Jose Mercury News:

Tide with Downy, $6.79
Viva paper powels, 2 pks for $12
The Passion of the Christ, $19.99

The camera

Today on the way home from the airport, my father-in-law referred to my camera as "Madison." Serves me right for making a joke. But at least it proves that my family doesn't just read the kids' blog.

Back from Colorado

We all made it back from Colorado, with all luggage and family ties intact. I have to admit, the word "vacation" holds a vastly different meaning when you're, say, 26 and going biking in Cape Cod for a week (what I did after turning in my dissertation-- it's all I could afford after all that money spent on xeroxing and UMI fees), than it does when you're taking your kids to visit their grandparents. In fact, I wouldn't mind a martini about now.

However, since I've got to improvise a week of child care for my daughter, whip up a new round of pieces for my Red Herring column, and catch up with work, the martini will have to wait. Until approximately mid-November, by my reckoning.

First Class

No, it's not how we flew today-- we were in coach, in the very back of the 777, occupying an entire row-- it's a reference to Debra Dickerson's piece in Slate on raising biracial children, and it is terrific.

I don't think of my children as black or white, so I can't take the world's attempt to superimpose its silliness on them seriously, though I know that as they get older, I'll have to.... I couldn't care less what my kids look like. What I begrudge them is their privilege. Race schmace. The real issue is class.

Listening to my 3-year-old go on the other day about motor boats, preschool, lake houses, Vietnamese food, and skiing at Steamboat Springs, I felt a moment of vertigo followed by panic.... My kids are the ones that made poor kids like me embarrassed of our threadbare lives. My kids, God help me, are rich, that birth defect for which I have only begun to forgive a chosen few.

Birthday present

I got a new digital camera for my birthday (which technically is Wednesday): a Sony 4 megapixel, which thanks to it being new makes it about 100 times better than the one I got for my birthday three years ago.

I love it. I'd call it my new child, but I wouldn't know whether to name it Madison or Conor, which is the law now.

In Colorado

I'm now in Evergreen, at my folks' place. The Pang compound is now wireless from top to bottom, so it's like computing heaven. Unfortunately, my dad's idea of a laptop is a ThinkPad that weighs about as much as my son. Still, it was better than bringing my own out.

The trip out was perfectly fine. The kids are excellent travelers, and except for a small episode where the younger one was kicking the seat in front of him, thus ruining the life of the misanthropic harridan in front of us and threatening to cause a rift in the space-time continuum, went off without a hitch.

Travel with kids is interesting: it's much less like travel when you're single, and more like an extended effort at creating a mobile version of the little bubble that your kids live in, and which keeps them predictable and reasonably happy. We travel 1200 miles, are in one of the most beautiful spots on Earth, and in the car, the kids are in their regular car seats, drinking apple juice and listening to the same Disney Princess CD that they always do when we drive.

Though the one thing different is that it's a nicer car, as Elizabeth pointed out. After driving it around for a while, she asked me, "Daddy, why can't we keep this car?" She does know her own mind.

I'm now watching a slightly absurd Jean Reno movie called Wasabi, which I'd never heard of before tonight, but was on the shelf. It's a French film that takes place in Tokyo; it's an interesting view into Japanese pop culture, with the obligatory Yakuza vs. Tough Foreign Cop story line. Not bad for decompressing after a day on the road.

C. Wright Mills on blogging

Well, not quite. But Alex Halavais sees a great apologia for academic blogging in C. Wright Mills' argument for why sociologists must keep journals.

Then Alex had to go off and break Wikipedia like that.

Going to Colorado

I'm off to Colorado tomorrow, for a long weekend. For reasons that now completely escape me, I'm also taking my two children with me, and my wife is following on Friday. This means I get to navigate airport security, SFO, DIA, getting the rental car, and then getting up to the mountains, with a five year-old and a two year-old, on my own.

I guess at some level I wanted to feel like I earned this little vacation.

I may or may not be online between tomorrow and my return on Monday.

This is your brain on drugs

This headline pretty much sums it up:

Dennis Hastert on Dope: Two heartbeats from the presidency, an absolute nut job.

It almost makes you glad that Tom Delay is the real power in the House....

Replying in Gmail

There are a couple really interesting things about the design of Gmail. One of them is that you seen entire threads of e-mail correspondence on a single page, rather than (as with conventional e-mail programs) clicking through one message at a time.

At the bottom of the page, there's space to write a reply to the last message. This is one of those little design differences that-- for me, anyway-- has a substantial behavioral impact. I'm finding that I'm a lot more likely to immediately reply to a message that I get through Gmail than any other account, thanks to that little box.

Of course, hitting the "reply" button isn't a high barrier to replying; but the box at the bottom of the screen is just a little easier, in a way that makes a behavioral difference.