First, a question. I keep wondering if I'd enjoy Umberto Eco's The Name of the
Rose. Any opinions? From what I've heard, it's hard to guess and I haven't
come across any bookstore copies I could browse through lately. (Actually looking
for the book last time I was in a bookstore would have helped, of course.) I don't
particularly mind philosophical discussions diguised as fiction, but I insist on
being entertained -- that is, it has to be a good disguise. I'm not willing to
spend the effort to think about the author's issues unless I can do so in the
company of a character I like. If it helps, I can report that I love Dorothy L.
Sayers' Gaudy Night, but I found A.S. Byatt's Possession a bit slow,
and -- not shallow but -- I somehow never felt I got under the surface of the
novel into its heart. If it has one, of which I'm still not quite
sure.
Next, a lack of logic in three vignettes.
This
morning, I saw a man at the gym doing overhead presses on a Smith machine. He was
sitting on an exercise ball while doing so -- this is supposed to bring the core
muscles in the back and stomach into play, to keep all that weight balanced. But
he was wearing a weight belt -- which, these days, they are not recommending
specifically because with its support you *don't* work core muscles.
Huh????
One of my state's Congresscritters was saying on the news
yesterday that the faulty intel on WMD in Iran was because we chose to depend too
much on high-tech survaillance instead of on old fashioned human agents (a.k.a.
spies). He said we just need to spend more money on training people and sending
them over rather than on satellites and such. Now look, I know the average
American supposedly has the attention span of a flea and is assumed not to be able
to remember a news item from one day to the other. I happen to think a little
better of my fellow citizens, and to believe I damned well have a right to expect
better of someone who'se actual job is national and world affairs. I remember, if
he doesn't, back a six months or a year ago when they were saying we'd had trouble
penetrating Afghanistan just because we couldn't get in there with spies -- we
didn't have enough people who looked like natives, or who spoke the language with
native fluency, and besides, a lot of the relationships in the organizations we
wnated to get into were built on long relationships, by men who were related or
who had known each other most of their lives. That's clearly something we might
want to work on but it's not as simple as flipping a switch to send money here
instead of there.
The third piece of illogic is not as bad as the
above, since it has no consequences. I've seen a meme floating around various
blogs, asking questions about winning a million dollars. Who would you tell? What
would you do? Would you give it away or invest it? I don't get this. A million is
not that much anymore; for perspective, you could live comfortably but not
extravagantly on it for ten years if you didn't live anyplace expensive, like NY
or San Francisco; you could put about 7 students through a top college IF they all
graduated in four years and tuition didn't go up again (unlikely!); or you could
buy five middle-class houses in my area, two in San Francisco, three in New
Hampshire, or half of an NFL player's house most places. Granted, you wouldn't
want to hypothesize a billion dollars with these questions, because that really is
enough money to do everything at once, but since you are dreaming, why not dream
bigger? I want to be awarded thirty imaginary millions -- at least.