Ralph Kramden

"Foreigner by C. J. Cherryh" cover art

2011-11-11T19:01:00.000-08:00

Wikipedia says, "Although drawn by different artists, the cover art for the series maintains a fairly consistent look and feel."

I guess there's no accounting for taste, but I beg to differ. There is a great deal of variability in the cover art to my taste. Four cycles (1000+ pages each) into this saga, readers have built up mind-pictures of these vivid characters, shaped by the cover images. The reader develops a visual canon along with the story, so subsequent covers will either build on or clash with the readers' images.

Michael Whalen (1,2); establishes forever the mind-picture of Jago and Bren in the Invader cover (my favorite cover of the series by far, until recently, maybe)
artistry 4/5; portrayal of Atevi: 4/5; portrayal of Bren: 4/5 (Invader much better portrayals)

Michael Whalen again (6,7,8): below the standard of Invader, but hey, he's Michael Whalen. Still gorgeous.

artistry 4/5; portrayal of Atevi:3/5; portrayal of Bren: 4/5 - "Pretender" Bren looks like Will Porter (in 10 yrs!)

Dorian Vallejo (3): Whelan is a tough act to follow - but this gives us a wonderful Ur-image of Mechieti

artistry 4/5; portrayal of Atevi: 3/5; portrayal of Bren: 4/5

Stephen Youll (4,5):

sorry, really don't like the hard sci-fi style

artistry: 1/5; portrayal of Atevi: 3/5; portrayal of Bren: 3/5

Donato: after Whelan again, a vague but evocative cover... lots of promise

artistry: 4/5; portrayal of Atevi: 2/5; portrayal of Bren: 2/5

Todd Lockwood: a return to the Whelan style, but with an individualistic sense I really like - I don't think he's really got Bren down yet, but the Conspirator and Deceiver scenes are magnificent
artistry: 5/5; portrayal of Atevi: 4/5; portrayal of Bren: 3/5

RFK

2008-11-04T21:35:00.000-08:00

1968 was a rough time in many ways, and Robert Kennedy symbolized for me the one best hope for a path though the situation the nation was in.

I pray that Obama will be, at long last, a fulfillment of that hope - that he will govern with a sense of thoughtfulness and resourcefulness, and inspire and lead Americans in working together for the betterment of our nation and our world.

McCain's speech was a gracious and earnest expression of true patriotism. It was the most inspirational speech I have ever heard him give. I hope that instead of fading quickly into the background, McCain continues his call for unity throughout an Obama administration, not with an eye towards capitulation, but allowing an honest and respectful consideration of Obama's policies and actions in office.

In Memoriam

2008-07-26T14:27:00.000-07:00

Maya Stein 1995-2008
A lovable dog. A fine and faithful companion.

"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went." - Will Rogers, 1897-1935

Wine with football?

2007-12-15T12:17:00.001-08:00

"Gary Vaynerchuk of Winelibrarytv.com is a rabid Jets fan, and he
talks to NPR's Scott Simon about how his beloved Jets will beat the
unstoppable Pats. And, of course, what wine goes with the game."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17282995

His answer - a white wine! What a oenie!

I'm having Harpoon IPA. My prediction 17-6 Pats.

My afternoon at Fenway in August

2007-09-16T18:47:00.000-07:00

I don't get a chance to attend many MLB games, but the one game I love to go to as often as I can is the "August weekday afternoon rescheduled April rainout game" at Fenway Park. There seems to be one of these games almost every year, and if the weather report is good, I'll play hookey from work, go to Fenway and stand in line for a same-day ticket (all Fenway games are "sold out", but they do sell a couple hundred same-day seats - a bit more with a rain-out game). This year's game came on August 17th. My wife and I went and stood in line for a couple of hours, made some friends, talked some baseball, talked about Boston with some visitors, got to the front of the line and got seats behind home plate in the last row of the grandstand. Very nice!

It turned out that today was the major league debut of Red Sox prospect Clay Buchholz, called up specially for this double-header start. Before the game, I was returning to my seat from a beer run and was walking up the aisle behind a cute girl with a "Buchholz" t-shirt. I remarked, "Wow, you really came prepared. Where did you get the t-shirt? Pawtucket?"

And the girl said "I got it made custom in Texas. I'm Clay's mom." So I met Clay's mom and sister and grandparents, just in from Texas, first visit to Fenway Park and to Boston. Absolutely wonderful people. They were thrilled and a bit awed to be here. Clay's mom was just going around the ballpark, looking around, taking pictures. I wished for this to be the first of many, many visits to Fenway for them.

Clay's first pitch was a ball. As were the next 5. He has a 94 MPH fastball that a batter must respect, but he's also got nasty off-speed stuff that he wasn't throwing them for strikes. Then he started locking in and throwing strikes. He got out of the inning with only one run scored (unearned), and the Sox put up 6 on John "Running Dog" Lackey. In the end, Clay did them proud: 6 IP, 8 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 5 K and a win.

Great game.

The Lineup Toy

2007-01-13T12:32:00.000-08:00

Creating a batting order has long been an interest of mine. Around this time of year, baseball fans start discussing and thinking about lineups for their teams, and the question is always "what lineup would be best to use". So I made a little toy program I call The Lineup Toy to help answer the question, or at least provide a useful starting point.

In baseball, runs are generally scored by players getting on base and other players knocking them in. So it makes sense to put the best players at getting on base in front of the players who are best at knocking them in.

The players at the top of the batting order get more plate appearances than the players lower in the order. The higher a player's OBP, the fewer outs that player makes. Since the length of your game is limited by 27 outs, putting high OBP guys on top of a lineup gives your team more plate appearances as a whole, and more chances to score runs.

This suggests a fairly simple-minded strategy for constructing a reasonable lineup:
1. Put the best OPS in 3rd
2. Put the best remaining Slg in 4th
3. Put the best remaining OBP's in 1st and 2nd (with the better Slg in 2nd)
4. Arrange the remaining players in order of descending Slg

Now, this might lead to some pretty strange-looking creations. But like I said, it's a simple-minded method. The Lineup Toy doesn't take into account factors like speed and stolen bases. Take the Lineup Toy's suggestion and use some common sense to tweak it.

No on (Massachusetts) Question 1

2006-11-06T17:40:00.000-08:00

I'm voting no on 1 for Liberal reasons. The retail liquor businesses in this state are small businesses by law. Yes, the laws give them special protection. But I think that's a good thing. You might ask, why doesn't the same principle apply to flowers or baked goods? Because they're not controlled substances. Well then, how about cigarettes or prescription drugs?

I say bring it on!

Imagine what it would be like if the "three store per company" rule applied to drug stores (or bakeries or florists or banks or gas stations)? It certainly would be less efficient - much less convenient. It would be more time-consuming and energy-consuming to purchase "controlled" goods. Probably more expensive, too, for those of us living outside cities. But there would be more independent pharmacies, bakeries and florists, which I believe would provide more good jobs and more opportunities for local business ownership.

And more people would be able to afford their white wine and brie. (Oh, I forgot cheese shops. Them too!)

Libby indicted for doing Cheney's bidding

2005-10-28T10:18:00.000-07:00

Libby indicted.

But there's an important point here:

Why was Libby *allowed* to resign?

Cheney's failure to FIRE Libby is a *tacit admission* that Libby was operating with Cheney's approval.

Rest in Peace, Rosa Parks

2005-10-25T16:49:00.000-07:00

Diverticulosis and tomato sauce

2005-09-04T07:56:00.000-07:00

My wife has an intestinal condition known as "Diverticulosis", and her doctor has recommended that she alter he diet to avoid many things with seeds. This means she has had to give up many things she loves: poppy seeds, strawberries, raspberries, and worst of all, tomatoes. It makes eating at Italian restaurants almost impossible - unless the restaurant guarantees that it strains its tomato sauce, she can't have her favorite dish - veal parmesan.

(An aside - my header says "judaica". For the benefit of people who don't know - veal parmesan is NOT KOSHER. Salach lani - forgive me.)

So I have taken it upon myself to learn how to make good veal and chicken parmesan at home. There is a canned tomato sauce that is strained - Hunts Tomatoes Sauce. But you have to spice it up a bit to make a really good tomato sauce for pasta or parmesans. Here's what I do:

Crush and dice 2 cloves of garlic. Dice half a medium-sized onion.
Saute the garlic and onion in some olive oil for a couple of minutes in a 2-quart saucepan.
Add 2 15-oz. cans of Hunts "Tomatoes" sauce
Add half a teaspoon of sugar, a teaspoon of oregano and a teaspoon of basil
simmer over low-to-medium heat, stirring occasionally.

You'll notice if you save leftovers in the refrigerator overnight, it's better the second day!

And a couple more white wines

2005-08-30T16:31:00.000-07:00

It's hot and muggy. One of the good things about hot, muggy days is cold, sweet white wines. And so I have two more "cheap" white wine recommendations:

Pepi Sauvignon Blanc (Napa, 2004) is a great find! A California screwtop for $9 - it's crisp, fruity, refreshing, slightly sweet, uncomplicated. But flawless for what it is. That's exactly what I look for in a cheap wine - nothing great but nothing disagreeable. Pepi delivers.

Kreuznacher Kronenberg kabinett (Nahe, 2003) is a nice introduction to German Mosel wines. For Kabinetts, it's medium dry, but it's still a "sweet" wine to me. And it's only $8 - quite a find for the money.

Outrage of the day

2005-08-30T16:06:00.000-07:00

Isn't someone paying attention to homeland security?

"It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

-- Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004.

Cool day - red wine

2005-08-25T18:47:00.000-07:00

Hey, I got me a reader! On wine, so let's build on that.

It was a cool day today, and I discovered I was without a "cheap" red wine to drink. I have a few more expensive reds around, but this wasn't a celebration, this was just a day. So I went to my wine store and bought a few $10 reds. I know, $10 shouldn't be "cheap" - I remember when these wines were $6 or so - but they're $10 now. Sigh.

An aside - there's still a couple of <$10 wines I know of that are worth trying once to see if you like them. There's Charles Shaw's red at Trader Joe's, affectionately known as "3 buck Chuck". The first couple of swallows of this wine were bearable, but after that, I just didn't want to drink it. ("This is not a wine for drinking - this is a wine for laying down and avoiding!" - Monty Python) There's Yellow Tail Shiraz. Not bad, but I don't like Shiraz in general. So for me, that's out. Remember, your mileage may vary, and these bottles are cheap enough to buy and try.

So, back to my old stand-by "cheap" reds. I really like the wines of the Rhone valley, and 2 of my favorite everyday wines are Cotes du Rhone. Parallele "45" from Paul Jaboulet Aine, and Perrin Reserve Cotes du Rhone Rouge have been consistently my favorite everyday reds for about 6 years now (vintages 1998-2003), and the first good "cheap" wines I tried after my "Merlot" phase. (In the late 90s, even half-decent Merlots doubled in price, and were no longer "cheap".) The Cotes du Rhone wines are bright and young, and are light enough to go with most dinners, even chicken and strongly-flavored fish. There's a hint of the complexity you'll find in the finer wines of the Rhone region.

Each of these wines come from producers of much more famous, much finer and dignified offerings. Paul Jaboulet Aine produces Hermitage la Chappelle, which in good years can be the best wine in the world. Perrin also owns Chateau de Beaucastel, which makes a Chateauneuf de Pape which will change your whole appreciation of wine. (I've got one more bottle of the 1998 - I bought 3 and had 2 of them young, which made me a wine fan forever. I'm told I shouldn't open the last one for a few years yet, so I won't. But it's tempting.)

When it warms up a bit, I'll go back to whites. More next week.

Wine

2005-08-14T16:25:00.000-07:00

Time out from politics. It's hot, it's the weekend, and I'm drinking wine.

The best thing about being a wine snob is knowing how to find quality at fairly low price points. If your price point is around $10, it's pretty easy to find good wines, as long as you don't expect too much complexity.

The wine that inspired this post is a white Burgundy - a 2003 Macon-Lugny Les Genievres ($10). Funny thing about this wine - when I drank it right after I opened the bottle, I hated it! Nice bouquet, very fruity, but very bitter aftertaste. So I put the cork back in and tried it the next day and the aftertaste had disappeared, and it was a very nice wine. The fruity fragrance was still there, and the taste was pear, a bit sweet and syrupy and very refreshing. A good match for grilled chicken.

More wines later in the week.

Will this be on the test?

2005-08-03T16:43:00.000-07:00

So I have a question - this Intelligent Design, will it be on the test?

As part of No Child Left Behind, the Bush administration has instituted a wave of testing across the nation. Will ID be part of a national science curriculum?

BTW, I think there is a very valid use for ID in a national science curriculum - as an example of what science is NOT.

Charlie Pierce is a national treasure

2005-07-18T17:09:00.000-07:00

Here's Charles, vamping on Karl Rove.

But hey, is it The Prospect that makes Charles unavailable on Alterman any more? Say it's not so!

Bob Kuttner, mensch

2005-07-17T17:24:00.000-07:00

It's a tough thing to admit you were wrong. It's easier, I guess, when you're dealing with matters of fact - if the facts show you're wrong, then you're wrong. In matters of opinion, though, changing your mind can be seen as a weakness, especially if you are an opinion leader.

In my view, it shows courage and confidence and strength of character. In yiddish, this is known as "menschlichkeit".

Which brings me to Bob Kuttner of The American Prospect.

A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Kuttner penned an op-ed for the Boston Globe "Politics Taints Probe of CIA Leak", in which he speculated that Fitzgerald might be politically motivated in the way he's conducting the Plame leak inquiry. I found this column to be uncharitable and unfair to Fitzgerald, and I wrote Mr. Kuttner to tell him so. To my surprise (after all, who am I?), Mr. Kuttner responded to my email! We swapped a couple of messages, and a day or two later, he wrote this article in the online Prospect, allowing how he could have been mistaken. And later, in the same space as his original article, he wrote this column, explicitly expressing his "second thoughts".

Now, I'm not claiming I had anything to do with Mr. Kuttner's change of heart - I'm sure he had quite a bit of comment about that first column. But Mr. Kuttner's very public change of mind shows his courage and thoughtfulness.

Bob Kuttner is a mensch.

Once again

2005-07-17T07:45:00.000-07:00

Congressman Roy Blunt says on Face the Nation that Plame might not have been under cover. And the host Bob Schieffer just sits there!

Once again, Plame must have been under cover. Otherwise Fitzgerald's investigation would not have gotten past square one.

(And this idea that Rove is owed "an apology"? Puh-lease!)

Oh, and Schumer rocks! A fount of plain good sense. (I can barely watch Mehlman.)

Applying some logic to the Plame case

2005-07-16T20:12:00.000-07:00

The Plame case continues apace, and commentary flows from the right and the left of the commentariat. But there's plenty of illogic to go around. There's little info available from Fitzgerald - leaks from his office have been few and far between. But let's assume Fitzgerald is a competant prosecutor, and analyze what logically flows from that assumption.

Right now, a couple of silly story lines are making the rounds -

A popular line from the right, echoed in much of the mainstream media, is that no crime has been committed, since Plame was not a protected secret operative. This makes no sense at all. Early in the investigation, Fitzgerald interviewed officials of the CIA. The first order of business of a competant prosecutor would be to determine whether or not Plame's identity was indeed legally protected. If not, Fitzgerald's investigation would have been done months ago. He's not done. Therefore, Plame's identity was indeed protected, and knowingly revealing it would indeed constitute a crime.

From the left, there's the growing speculation that Judy Miller might be guilty of more than just contempt. Billmon writes: "if Judy revealed Plame's status as a NOC to anyone not legally authorized to know it, she deserves a nice long stretch in a federal pen for espionage". Well, yes, BUT - if Miller was guilty of such a crime, she wouldn't be in jail right now for contempt. She would have a clear 5th amendment right not to testify.

I hope Fitzgerald wraps up his investigation and the grand jury hands down indictments where indicated. Until then, speculate away, but let's clear up the thinking out there, shall we?

Why do journalists keep bad sources confidential?

2005-03-07T17:21:00.000-08:00

I understand why journalists keep sources confidential. I haven't figured a general rule to judge the "ethics" of journalism regarding criminals, but when there's no criminality involved, it's pretty clear that confidentiality of sources benefits our society greatly.

EXCEPT when the journalists keep confidentiality even when the source LIES to them!

Who benefits then? Not the public. Not even the journalist, really - the source knows he's got a patsy, and the public, if they're paying attention, should know that as well.

So why are there stories like these?

A Sign of the Apocalypse?

2005-03-06T17:06:00.000-08:00

Atrios, Daily Kos, Little Green Footballs, Powerline agree?

See how this administration is promoting unity?

But I have a question - if the FEC is looking into regulating blogs as "in-kind" contributions. why aren't they also looking into LImbaugh's 20 hour a week contribution to Bush (just to name an obvious radio example)?

Real Impeachable Offenses

2005-03-06T14:39:00.000-08:00

There are those who claim that the Social Security trust fund will be empty in the middle of the next decade. Since the trust fund holdings are US Treasury bonds, those people are saying that the US will not honor the obligation to make good on those bonds.

If those people are sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution, they should re-read Amendment 14 of that document:

"Amendment 14, Section. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. "

Congressman Jim Gibbons (R-Nev), Un-American!

2005-03-04T20:31:00.000-08:00

Dear Congressman Gibbons,

You are reported to have said:

"I say we tell those liberal, tree-hugging, Birkenstock-wearing, hippie, tie-dyed liberals to go make their movies and their music and whine somewhere else".

This statement is deeply un-American. In this country, we have the right to wear our Birkenstocks and tie-dye and make whatever kind of music and movies we like. I'm surprised I have to tell you that - you being a congressman and all.

Where exactly do you want me to go? And just how do you propose to accomplish that? I'm an American; I'm not going anywhere and I propose you just get used to it.

Perhaps YOU can go somewhere else where you can dictate exactly who can and who can't have freedom in your country. Take your un-American thoughts somewhere else. Somewhere like North Korea.

And I don't even care that you stole this speech from someone else. We Americans are used to conservatives not being able to think for themselves.

A sincere, liberal American,

Stephen Z. Stein

Friday cats, look out!

2005-03-04T20:22:00.000-08:00

In a shameless attempt to garner attention via trackbacks to much more popular blogs, here is Maya the Wonder Dog's response to Friday Night Cat Bloggers:

You have been warned!

Bill Moyers: They govern like there's no tomorrow

2005-02-16T16:29:00.000-08:00

This Bill Moyers article has been reverberating around my corners of the 'net for the past week or so. The thesis is that the Republicans have long had a large streak of fundamentalist Christianity, and these fundamentalists are expecting The Rapture real soon now, so there's no need to conserve the environment, or save for the future, and they govern like it.

He even has a quote from James Watt before a congressional committee to that effect.

The thing is, the quote, originally from an article by Glenn Scherer of Grist, apparently never happened. Which, of course, set the hounds that inhabit the right wing of the web a-baying. Whether or not the thesis has merit, a paragon of the left did one little thing wrong, so he must be hunted down. (But that's a topic for another day. Soon.)

As far as the thesis itself, I think it's over-wrought. I am instictively repulsed by the demonization of a religious group, which I think is a healthy instinct to have.

I'd much rather indulge in the demonization of Republicans. There's no need to invent a religious conspiracy theory to explain the governance of this administration. It's what they do naturally: loot the treasury, drain natural resources, enrich their friends. Not because they're religious fundamentalists; it just looks good on a short-term balance sheet.

Eric Alterman and Cathy Young

2005-02-15T19:28:00.000-08:00

The latest Eric Alterman/Cathy Young battle erupted when the Boston Globe published Ms Young's essay "Saturday the Rabbi Went Nuts", featuring this gem about a recent Alterman quote: "Call it self-hatred or something less psychoanalytic; the bottom line is, this is the kind of rhetoric that, coming from a non-Jew, would be clearly seen as anti-Semitic." (Alterman's original quote is here.)

Dem's fightin' words. If Young's not Jewish, I'd say doubly so. Totally inaccurate, and way over the line.

Alterman wrote back to the Globe of course. But the Globe refuses to publish anything more than two short paragraphs of Alterman's response. Reason (Ms Young's web publisher), to their credit, publishes Alterman's response in full, with a response by Young.

I read both of these people habitually (I was going to say "religiously" but let's not go there). The irony is that I agree much more often with Alterman EXCEPT, generally, on Israel, where I side much more often with Young. But Young, here, needs to have a much more nuanced understanding of the difference between anti-semitism, anti-Zionism, and just disagreement with the 90's Likud policies. Until she acquires that understanding, she should stay away from throwing mud like this.

Alterman and Young will have at this for a while, I'd guess, and bully for them.

The REAL villian of the piece in my mind is the Globe. Shame on them for not allowing a response at length by Alterman. What arrogance. I am totally disgusted with them.

I'm looking forward to more from Dan Kennedy on this! Don't let me down, Dan!