June 3rd, 2014
0 comments“How can you let others decide for you?”
“But you see, I’m not sure, Harry. I’m never sure of myself. I don’t know whether I’m as good as they all tell me I am. I wouldn’t admit that to anyone but you. I think it’s because you’re always so sure that I–”
“I didn’t know it before. But it’s because I’ve never believed in God.”
“Come on, talk sense.” Hermione twisted the emerald cuff on her thin wrist.
“Because I love this earth. That’s all I love. I don’t like the shape of things on this earth. I want to change them.”
“For whom?”
“For myself.”
“Kiss me, you fool,” Hermione cried.
Harry did, efficiently. “You don’t have to applaud,” he said. “I don’t expect it.”
Politico and Political History
May 30th, 2014
I know Politico is all about up-to-the-moment politics, and doesn’t have time for weird historical nuggets from the Cleveland administration or what have you, but I was struck by this piece today on Obama and the problems in the VA system:
There’s a well-worn Obama playbook: Let conservative critics burn hot, put off decisions during a fact-finding mission, quietly set up a procedure that starts to tackle the problems. Count on his allies on the Hill to have his back. And definitely, definitely don’t appear to be cowed into firing people.
April of 2012 was a long time ago and everything, but does anybody at Politico remember Martha Johnson?
This doesn’t even require you scrap your lede! All you have to do is replace “definitely, definitely don’t” with “almost never allow yourself” and it’s fixed.
0 commentsAyn Rand and Harry Potter
May 29th, 2014
It’s genius. My favorite lines:
Voldemort began to melt. Harry lit a cigarette, because he was the master of fire.
And:
1 comment“I made myself, Ron,” Harry said firmly.
Dept. of Bait and Switch
May 27th, 2014
I paraphrase from The Daily Beast: Okay, so maybe gay marriage wasn’t really about creating equality within the institution of marriage. And yes, all that stuff about “how does gays getting married change your marriage” was a smoke-screen. Because marriage is probably going to change. A lot. But don’t worry–it’ll be great!
As Lando once said, this deal is getting worse all the time.
3 commentsReparations Watch
May 27th, 2014
In the course of discussing the Greatest Piece of Journalism Ever (the Ta-Nehisi Coates reparations opus, obviously) Rachel Lu notes, “Coates has a gift for affecting more nuance than he really offers.”
I can’t tell whether or not she’s being sarcastic, and I haven’t read the Coates piece. But I do remember what he wrote about Middlemarch: “I finished up Middlemarch two days ago, and had a good debate about it on Twitter.”
You’re probably thinking, Well, maybe he really did have a good debate about it on Twitter! Here are some of the highlights:
“I thought she was all ‘Gimme the loot, gimme the loot, gimme the loot.’ And she got it.”
“She has a total handle on language, but I just thought she couldn’t bring it all together, as you say.”
The first tweet was about Rosamond, the second is his final verdict on Eliot.
2 comments
Proposed:
May 22nd, 2014
Ken Watanabe’s “Let them fight” in the new Godzilla is the most courageous line read ever performed by a great actor in a disposable pop-corn flick.
And not only is it courageous–heroically so, given not just the dialogue itself, but the circumstances surrounding it–but it’s also entirely triumphant. For me, it’s the moment that makes the movie.
4 commentsPossibly My Favorite Piece of Tech Pessimism, Ever
May 21st, 2014
Quinn Norton, writing about why software cannot be secure:
Your average piece-of-shit Windows desktop is so complex that no one person on Earth really knows what all of it is doing, or how.
Now imagine billions of little unknowable boxes within boxes constantly trying to talk and coordinate tasks at around the same time, sharing bits of data and passing commands around from the smallest little program to something huge, like a browser — that’s the internet. All of that has to happen nearly simultaneously and smoothly, or you throw a hissy fit because the shopping cart forgot about your movie tickets.
We often point out that the phone you mostly play casual games on and keep dropping in the toilet at bars is more powerful than all the computing we used to go to space for decades
NASA had a huge staff of geniuses to understand and care for their software. Your phone has you.
Plus a system of automatic updates you keep putting off because you’re in the middle of Candy Crush Saga every time it asks.
Because of all this, security is terrible.
Two Gifts for You
May 21st, 2014
The first is from Galley Friend Joel Engel, a fantastic, only-in-LA story about cinematographer Gordon Willis. The payoff is pure gold.
The second is the transcript of a commencement address given by Galley Friend Mary Eberstadt earlier this week at Seton Hall. It is, by turns, beautiful, magisterial, inspiring, and amazingly–not to say wickedly–subversive. The only possible improvement would have been closing with “Rumeal sends his regards.”
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