Tea Leaves

The other week I made a mistake and read some things on the Internet. In particular, I was sucked in to following a contretemps (read: “flamewar”) with the nickname of “Racefail 2.0″. The premise of the flamewar is that a writer, Patricia Wrede, wrote a book called The Thirteenth Child which was an exemplar of racist writing. The book takes place in a 19th century-America (”Columbia”) where magic is real, where megafauna roam the plains, and where the First Peoples never crossed the land bridge from Asia. The claim of racism, specifically, is that Wrede’s writing is an eliminationist fantasy which has erased the First Peoples from the face of the planet.

Something bothered me about this argument, but I wasn’t really following it very closely, and I hadn’t read the book, so I tossed off some sarcastic one-liners on Twitter about it (something along the lines of “When you’ve written as many books as Lois McMaster Bujold, you get to complain about this.” Bujold had gotten involved in the discussion, and was tarred and feathered by some of the participants along with Wrede). My friends Nat and Laura rightly called me on this as wrong-headed, as appeal to authority doesn’t settle the issue. I resolved to not comment on the issue again until I’d read the book.

I’ve read the book now. And now I know what was bothering me about the discussion: it was led, as near as I can tell, by people who were offended by the premise of The Thirteenth Child, rather than by the book. But premises aren’t books. Read the rest of this entry »

If I have any hobby that does not involve the gratuitous exchange of money for material goods, it is the observation of the dork in his natural habitat. It’s not just that I was educated by dorks at a school that was mostly dorky. Or that I work with dorks in an industry whose products are primarily concerned with parting dorks from their dork cash. The fact is that even without these advantages, I spend all 24 hours of every day in the head of a dork (mine), so there is nothing I know better than what drives the dork psychology.
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My recent experience buying a car has taught me a few lessons that I hope I remember next time. I’m going to write them down so I don’t forget.

Let me acknowledge up front that these lessons are colored by my personal hangup about “not getting ripped off”, where “ripped off” is defined as “paid too much for a given new car, by some semi-objective standard.” If you don’t share that hangup, a lot of this won’t apply to you.

Also, many people believe that the best way to avoid paying too much money for a new car is to buy a great used car. I am sure that this is true. However, I’m too stupid about cars to pick a good used car, so someone else will have to help you with that, if that’s how you want to go.

So warned, please read on. Read the rest of this entry »

Good news! This will be (probably) my last post that mentions cars. While the whole car exercise has opened up entirely new and previously unmined avenues of comparison Internet shopping, you just can’t keep up that kind of enthusiasm for a consumer item that you only buy once every five to ten years. And no, surprisingly enough I did not get a Prius. But therein lies the story.
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As I type, the Bulls and the Celtics are going into their fifth overtime period in the series. Whatever the outcome of this admittedly excellent series, one thing is for sure. If the Celtics can barely beat this team there isn’t much hope for them in the later rounds. The D has been spotty. The bench is the worst since Greg Kite was their “sixth man”. It’s actually been hard to watch.

Oh well, at least it’s not pick and roll pick and roll every damn time down the court.

I hate my optometrists. Or should I say, I hate my ex-optometrists.

I’ve worn glasses since I was in fourth grade. I’ve never been able to handle contact lenses, and to me there’s also something refreshing and liberating about having a little mask that I put on when I wake up and take off when I go to sleep. Eyeglasses are, perhaps, my only concession to the world that there is this constant public dance called “fashion” and that I participate in it.

The problem with glasses isn’t in the objects themselves, but that buying them is such an exercise in consumer frustration. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll keep this short, because no one could possibly be less interested in my continuous car shopping than you guys. But in my previous missive I forgot to list the questions brought up by this exercise. So here they are now.
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I’ve been looking at cars lately. I have never really shopped for cars in the past because for reasons that are too complicated to get into we’ve always just bought minivans. But, the current van is reaching the end of its useful life and for various other reasons that are too complicated to explain, it’s time to find a car for me to use as a commuter. I have found the experience to be both enlightening and confusing. Maybe you in the intertubes can help with the confusing parts.
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Stop what you’re doing and go see it right now.

Seriously. It’s that good.

You probably want to watch that instead of A Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn:

I am a fan of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. I know that at times I can sound ambivalent about this, but that’s more a reflection of the generally declining state of Classical Music as a cultural compass. In reality, I have no ambivalence about the PSO. I think they are consistently one of the top bands in the country, and it’s readily apparent at the shows that they have a strong connection with the audience and the community.
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