perfidy

That time again, kids.

Beloit College has yet again released its "Mindset List" for the class of 2008.

The list is sometimes spun as a guide for helping faculty and administrators better understand their new undergraduates. With a more thorough appreciation of the cultural and experiential gaps between teacher and student, older and younger, ripened and fresh, a better education is possible. Or something. I take it as a poke in the eye for anyone over 25, and that's quite probably the proper interpretation.

Forthwith:

1.  Most students entering college this fall were born in 1986.
2.  Desi Arnaz, Orson Welles, Roy Orbison, Ted Bundy, Ayatollah Khomeini, and Cary Grant  have
always been dead.
3.  “Heeeere’s Johnny!” is a scary greeting from Jack Nicholson, not a warm welcome from Ed
McMahon.
4.  The Energizer bunny has always been going, and going, and going.
5.  Large fine-print ads for prescription drugs have always appeared in magazines.
6.  Photographs have always been processed in an hour or less.
7.  They never got a chance to drink 7-Up Gold, Crystal Pepsi, or Apple Slice.
8.  Baby Jessica could be a classmate.
9.  Parents may have been reading The Bourne Supremacy or It as they rocked them in their
cradles.
10.  Alan Greenspan has always been setting the nation’s financial direction.
11.  The U.S.  has always been a Prozac nation.
12.  They have always enjoyed the comfort of pleather.
13.  Harry has always known Sally.
14.  They never saw Roseanne Roseannadanna live on Saturday Night Live.
15.  There has always been a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
16.  They never ate a McSub at McD’s.
17.  There has always been a Comedy Channel.
18.  Bill and Ted have always been on an excellent adventure.
19.  They were never tempted by smokeless cigarettes.
20. Robert Downey, Jr. has always been in trouble.
21.  Martha Stewart has always been cooking up something with someone.
22.  They have always been comfortable with gay characters on television.
23.  Mike Tyson has always been a contender.
24.  The government has always been proposing we go to Mars, and it has always been
deemed too expensive.
25.  There have never been any Playboy Clubs.
26.  There have always been night games at Wrigley Field.
27.  Rogaine has always been available for the follicularly challenged.
28.  They never saw USA Today or the Christian Science Monitor as a TV news program.
29.  Computers have always suffered from viruses.
30.  We have always been mapping the human genome.
31. Politicians have always used rock music for theme songs.
32.  Network television has always struggled to keep up with cable.
33.  O’Hare has always been the most delay-plagued airport in the U.S.
34.  Ivan Boesky has never sold stock.
35.  Toll-free 800 phone numbers have always spelled out catchy phrases.
36.  Bethlehem has never been a place of peace at Christmas.
37.  Episcopal women bishops have always threatened the foundation of the Anglican Church.
38.  Svelte Oprah has always dominated afternoon television; who was Phil Donahue anyway?
39.  They never flew on People Express.
40.  AZT has always been used to treat AIDS.
41.  The international community has always been installing or removing the leader of Haiti.
42.  Oliver North has always been a talk show host and news commentator.
43.  They have suffered through airport security systems since they were in strollers.
44.  They have done most of their search for the right college online.
45.  Aspirin has always been used to reduce the risk of a heart attack.
46.  They were spared the TV ads for Zamfir and his panpipes.
47.  Castro has always been an aging politician in a suit.
48.  There have always been non-stop flights around the world without refueling.
49.  Cher hasn’t aged a day.
50.  M.A.S.H. was a game: Mansion, Apartment, Shelter, House.

BBC is running a "this day in history" thingy.

Today is the anniversary of the German invasion of Poland, and the outbreak of World War the Second. If you are a victim of a public school, or under the age of 65, that's the one with the Nazis.

This will expecially please Minister Buckethead, late of Ohio:

Besides bringing the Yankees one game closer to losing the division to my beloved Red Sox, my slightly less beloved Indians handed the Yanks their worst loss in the history of the team. Moreover, the 22-0 score matched the record for worst shutout beating since 1900 (the Pirates beat the Cubs by the same score in 1976). That's right: these beatings happen once a century. The last time a team got beaten worse than 22-0, William McKinley was President. [I'm still trying to find a hard cite of this last-worst beating].

More unseemly gloating from Phil Dennison.

I hear that the Iowa delegation to the Republican National Convention is handing out T-shirts reading "God's Own Party."

Huh... How's that read in Arabic?

[wik] The appropriate antidote, complete with disturbing rabbit mask, here.

[alsø wik] Further evidence that the GOP's tent would have me sleeping out in the rain is that one Sheri Dew gave the invocation the opening night of the Republican National Convention. Who is Sheri Dew? Well, in the first link there, she writes on the threat of gay marriage thus: "At first it may seem a bit extreme to imply a comparison between the atrocities of Hitler and what is happening in terms of contemporary threats against the family—but maybe not." So she's sort of a walking Godwin's Corollary of Mormon Christ-love.

[alsø alsø wik] Naturally, our next President of the United States Norbizness has more on the inimitable Sheri Dew. Remember: civil unions are like Hitler, and the Log Cabin Republicans are perfectly welcome in full view of the TV cameras on the convention floor.

According to the Associated Press, The US Department of Justice has dropped the charges against a suspected Al Qaeda cell in Detroit. Karim Koubriti, Ahmed Hannan and Farouk Ali-Haimoud were arrested on September 17, 2001 (alleged ringleader Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi was arrested in November) in was trumpeted as the first clear victory in the newly minted "War On Terror."

In a dramatic reversal on the eve of President Bush's nomination acceptance [zing!], the Justice Department acknowledged its original prosecution of a suspected terror cell in Detroit was filled with a ''pattern of mistakes and oversights'' that warrant the dismissal of the convictions.

In a 60-page memo that harshly criticizes its own prosecutors' work, the department told U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen on Tuesday night it supports the Detroit defendants' request for a new trial and would no longer pursue terrorism charges against them. The defendants at most would only face fraud charges at a new trial.

The Justice Department had to spike its own case, citing instances of prosecutorial misconduct serious enough that the government had "no reasonable prospect of winning" the case. ''In its best light, the record would show that the prosecution committed a pattern of mistakes and oversights that deprived the defendants of discoverable evidence (including impeachment material) and created a record filled with misleading inferences that such material did not exist. . . ."

All of which is what I feared would happen. Not to come over all negative-nellie, but I haven't exactly been confident of the current administration's abilities in any arena, before or after 2001. (Man, thanx to those tax cuts, the economy's really crankin'! Iraq sure cut the heart out of international terror! And Afghanistan? I plan to vacation there next year!) The War on Terror tastes to me exactly like the War on Drugs (can you still get drugs for cheap?) and the War on Poverty (been panhandled recently?), which is a shame. So far, the public failures of the WoT look like unserious responses to serious problems that leave everyone with egg on their face and just makes it harder to fight the actual, important battles that come up. These four guys were very probably terrorists, but now we'll never frickin' know.

Nice work, guys. Tommy Chong rots in prison while murderous fanatics walk free. Good to see we all have our priorities straightened out.

[wik] Days like today just underscore the importance of winning this thing. In the space of 24 hours, a suicide bomber killed ten and wounded 50 outside a Moscow subway station, Iraqi goons beheaded twelve Nepalese citizens for no good reason outside of murderous pique, Palestinian suicide bombers blew up two buses in Jerusalem, killing 16 and wounding at least 80, and, in the most twisted variation yet on the suicide-hostage riff, Chechen rebels wearing bombs have invaded a Russian grade school, taking 200 schoolchildren and their teachers hostage on the first day of school.

Canadian MP: We "damned American" "bastards" [sic] are now also a "coalition of idiots. Jeez... if you want the Stanley Cup to stay in Canada, field team that can play already...

Drunken Georgia man hits telephone pole, decapitates friend, drives home with headless body. Sez loyal reader #00017 EDog, "“Gee, I thought he was kind of quiet on the drive home…”

Not even in Montana can you festoon a fence with bras and expect to get away with it. All your property rights are belong to us.

Further proof the Republican Party is painfully unhip, possibly through not fault of their own: "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the Convention, star of screen and smaller screen, Ron... Sil-ver!" Ron Silver? Now that's Star Power!

Mark Kleiman pays ruminative homage to the grammar behind the word (say it with me: it feels good on the lips) "perfidy."

I've been watching the Republican National Convention on the news; and while I have no real desire to turn this into some sort of simulblog experience, I was struck by the tribute to 9/11 that happened immediately following McCain's speech. It was moving. One thing in particular - Deena Burnett said (I'm paraphrasing) that heroes were not created that day, but that the lifelong practice of virtue led to their actions - the decision to do something. This is true.

And we have seen over the last couple years a growing reluctance to remember the events of 9/11. It is a virtue to look reality in the face. Many have criticized the the Republicans for an expected focus on 9/11 at the convention, saying that it is almost sinful that the Republicans are draping themselves with the events of that terrible day for political gain. But as I think on it, I am truly awestruck that the entire Democratic convention made so little reference to the single most important event of the last decade - and one of the most important in our history.

Naturally, there is political gain for the Republicans in reminding America of the events of that day. And Democrats are naturally leery of bringing up a subject that will bring to mind images on the whole favorable to their opponents. But this is completely beside the point. If our elections are in part referendums on the direction our nation should take - and they should be - then discussions of 9/11 are not merely acceptable, but necessary.

But Kerry has made a thirty year old war the focus of his campaign and convention. Talking about 9/11 focuses us on the realities of this world and its future. Talk about Vietnam (from Kerry or his critics) not only tells us nothing about the future and Kerry's plans for it, but actively distracts us from it. Not talking about 9/11 creates an intentional delusion; one where we forget that we were brutally attacked without cause, forget that there is a real threat not eliminated by our many victories, and where we pretend that history has ended.

I think also that the controversy over Vietnam is strangely appropriate. Given the way the Democratic primaries played out, and the protests - there is very much a sixties feel to the left side of this election. The fact that a large part of Kerry's support looks like they are attempting to channel the antiwar movement of the sixties makes it seem important to define where Kerry actually stands on the issues of that time. But if Kerry is to make any headway and reverse his recent slide in the polls he will have to offer something more than four months of combat and saying that everything the president does is wrong.

"I mentioned early on that I recognize there are hurdles, and we're gonna achieve those hurdles." Special Johno crony and drummer Big Dig Jay has offered this rich batch of Presidenty (Presidentiary?) quote-mangling for your pleasure. No matter what you think of the guy, this is funny: "I believe that people whose skins aren't necessarily -- are, you know -- a different color than white can self-govern."

It occurs to me that I should clarify some intellectual slippage in my post on the music of the early 1990s. Why is it better, subjectively, that Kurt Cobain draw on the Pixies “Doolittle,” than for, say, Franz Ferdinand to pretend that Gang of Four didn’t do what they do first?

Up front, I will say this: I don’t know. Aside from murky arguments about aesthetic purity, integrity, and honesty, all of which amount to so much handwaving, there is no concrete reason that one should be considered better, more legitimate than the other. At the end of the day, all music is derivative. It has to be. Just as there are maybe a dozen stock plots that drive 99% of all the popular novels and TV shows out there (not to mention all Shakespeare’s plays, etc. etc.), all of which are clichéd and hoary, there’s only so far you can go with twelve notes and four beats to the bar.

In fact, music should be derivative. If it weren’t, it wouldn’t be enjoyable. Without ties to prior experience, a piece of music exists in a cultural/historical vacuum, and people don’t like that. By nature and by training, people prefer to experience things that remind them of other things. I’m not enough of a philosopher to posit this as true for the entire range of human experiences, but even when people “try something new,” they enjoy it best when it can be tied in some way to something they already know.

Just look at Mozart. Although arguably the greatest composer of the high-Classical period, he wasn’t doing much that was terribly new. The rules of harmony he clung to were codified by Bach, he took lessons from the brother of Haydn, and his melodies relied on certain stock constructions that, though his own, he reused time and time again. And yet the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts.

When music is consciously totally new, it tends to either suck, or gain a cult/academic following that proves the rule that most people like new things. Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg, for example, saw twelve-tone serial music as not only the conscious next step in the evolution of Western music, but as a total and revolutionary break with the past. The results are, to the average listener, at best unlistenable and at worst aggressively off-putting. It is not too often these days that you hear serial music on the radio.

This is so because purely serial compositions eschew any connection with the past save one: the acceptance of the twelve tones of the chromatic scale. Later composers, of course, went farther. In college, I was a big fan of a piece by French/Greek composer Iannis Xenakis that sounded like an air duct. But, again, I was a music major and have spent a lot of time seeking out ostensibly “new” sounds. I’m an exception that proves the rule.

The debate, then, is really about the balance between "just novel enough" and "boring." Nirvana: just novel enough. Sum 47: boring. Truth: subjective.

[wik] I’ve written about related matters [url= here, and have been carrying on a conversation in my own head for at least ten years now. I probably need to get out more.