Technicalities!

This is a small but lively bit of writing wisdom I discovered today when I said it out loud:

"Just" is the equivalent of "very" when you're trying to communicate simplicity.

I Like My Name Is Earl

We’ve been watching season 1 of My Name is Earl on DVD, and it’s not the bestest ever comedy, but I’m entertained. Plus, the guitar part from the theme song is lodged in my head like a shell fragment.

What’s even more interesting to me though, is how much the show resembles a meditation on living a life trying following Christ, and how Earl’s (I don’t want to be so grandiose as to call it a journey) journey toward redemption parallels the behaviors and thought processes of a new believer.

Except Earl is following karma. Off and on, he refers to karma as an active force, something that pays attention and rewards him when he does good things, and punishes him when he slacks or rebels.

Earl’s grip on the subtleties of karma is loose, but he has a firm, manly handshake with moral behavior. He has a list of all the bad things he’s done, and he’s checking them off as he makes amends for them.

When his brother was trying to convince him to blow off the list on a technicality he said, “It doesn’t work like that. The list isn’t stupid.”

This is a guy bent on repentance. If this weren’t a sitcom, it would be the story of a guy running headlong at God. Hell, it still could be.

There are times when Earl mouths the word “karma” but is clearly talking about the living God. Other times, he treats karma like a cosmic vending machine. The fact that God set up in the universe in this Garbage In/Garbage Out kind of way makes this an understandable stopping point on the way to wisdom.

I’m fascinated and occasionally edified watching this show. Holy crap.

Meredith has pointed out that Jaime Pressley is the most believable person on the show, and she’s right. Jason Lee is funny and likeable, but I never quite buy that Earl is all that reprehensible. It’s partly the writers, who probably can’t make Earl as horrible as he should be, and partly because -- you can tell -- Jason Lee is just not one of these redneck people. He don’t got that jenny say kwa.

Jaime Pressley as Joy on the other hand, is thoroughly reprehensible, gleefully white trash, and packs comedic chops you never saw coming. She weaves between being Earl’s ally and enemy, an inept, yet menacing bitch, who somehow maintains a sympathetic humanity.

Don’t run out and watch My Name Is Earl. But when you get a chance, don’t pass it up.

BONUS: The List, in incomplete numerical order.

Rice Boy

For the most part, I feel like I've got the Internet down--not technically, but culturally. I'm hip to all the cool memes. I read Boingboing, Fark, Metafilter, and Slashdot with varying levels of regularity.

Yet, every so often a new thing heaves into view, and I learn it's been around for a while, and I knew Jack-minus about its existence.

Enter Rice Boy. This is the latest thing that makes me feel strange and my brain juices fizz. It's an epic story about the savior of a fantastic world and his adventures and supporting cast.

Been happening since April 2006, but I only learned of it two days ago. I was absorbed. Read the whole thing in one sitting, despite pressing freelance obligations.

Creator, Evan Dahm says it started, "as an exercise in surrealism, and has evolved into a wandering psychedelic epic."

I can't say for sure you'll like it. But if you like the kinds of things I like, you'll love it.

A Slow Year for Peace

So Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize, and my first thought is... him? Why?

I would like to have done hard research on this, but Wikipedia is convenient, and probably right, so that’s where I’m getting most of my facts.

According to Alfred Nobel’s will, he left the peace prize decision-making process to a “Committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Parliament (Storting),” to be given, “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

Pretty clear! What did the Committee say for itself in 2007? First, let’s clarify that the award went not just to Al, but also to the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The reason: “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”

Wow fellas! Way to stay on-mission!

I got nothing against Mr. Gore, but he’s basically been a barker. A movie star. An “advocate” in less charged language. That doesn’t seem peace-prize worthy to me, and the Other Al (at least his will) would seem to agree.

I looked at the last 10 years of Nobel peace prize awarding to see Gore’s contemporary laureates line-up. The hyperlinks below go to the recipients’ pages on the Nobel site.

2006 Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank "for advancing economic and social opportunities for the poor, especially women, through their pioneering microcredit work"

2005 International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei "for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way"

2004 Wangari Maathai "for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace"

2003 Shirin Ebadi "for her efforts for democracy and human rights. She has focused especially on the struggle for the rights of women and children."

2002 Jimmy Carter "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development"

2001 United Nations, Kofi Annan "for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world"

2000 Kim Dae-jung "for his work for democracy and human rights in South Korea and in East Asia in general, and for peace and reconciliation with North Korea in particular"

1999 Médecins Sans Frontières "in recognition of the organization's pioneering humanitarian work on several continents"

1998 John Hume, David Trimble for their efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland"

1997 International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Jody Williams "for their work for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel mines"

So what, are we out of Jimmy Carters and John Humes? The prize has gone unawarded some years, during major wars, or for undisclosed reasons. The Committee could have just given it a bye this year if there were no suitable candidates.

Smells like politics. Smells like -- despite the Committee’s protestations -- a feeble attempt to bop George Bush on the nose. That shit is tired, Oslo. I expect better from you.

Tough Customer

I was taking pictures of various items I no longer wish to own* and transferring them to my computer.

Looking through the dozens of pictures sleeping in their electronic cocoon, I found this picture of our corgi, Dylan.

I am not, typically, a post-pictures-of-pets type of blogger. But what the hell. It's a good picture.


*If you would like to own some of my items, I am selling them on eBay.

Iraq Problem: SOLVED

The other day I figured out our Iraq withdrawal strategy. We just let our newly-democratic friends in Iraq vote on it.

What an excellent show of faith in their ability to self-govern!

If they vote to run independently, then we make some historic speeches and begin leaving things in their competent hands. Call us if you need anything!

If they vote to keep the U.S. army around, then we encourage them to step up their own financial and human support. Since they've ASKED us to stay now, clearly they're ready to be better hosts. Perhaps they'd like to invite some European countries to join the party as well?

In either case, the U.S. saves face, the Iraqi democracy gets to flex some muscle, and we throw less into this ruinous money hole. Everybody wins!

Mr. President, I believe the NSA has my number. You know how to reach me.

Recognizing the Whiteboard

If you are not my wife, then perhaps you have been spared my Hubris-of-Scientists tirade. Let's fix that.

I enjoy science, but practitioners of science tend to love the certainty that mathematics can bring, and then love of certainty begins to occlude impartial judgment, and next stop is ridicule for not agreeing with everything that leaves their mouths, and hey, no thanks.

An unnerving number of scientists act as though what we know about science is carved in stone, and they are the various Moseses bringing it off the mount. The loudest priests of this religion would deny the metaphor, but that fitting shoe calls the kettle black and now they have to lie in it.

The reality is that science is written on a whiteboard, ready to be erased, revised, rewritten as soon as better data show up. At best, you can circle part of it and mark it DNE, but really, if someone else needs that space, they're gonna take it out.

I find this ignorant certainty especially galling in astronomy, where they make shit up on a regular basis, but seem to forget that many of their hypotheses are best guesses. (And frankly, not even I want to get started on anthropology and paleontology, so I won't.)

Which is the point of this American Scientist article, Modern Cosmology: Science or Folktale. I'd recommend you read the whole thing, but the chances of you being as interested in this as I am are comically small. So here's the summary, taken from the article:

...modern cosmology has at best very flimsy observational support.

I'm just glad somebody's saying it is all.

Gender Blender

Started work on another monster tonight, and I felt really girly sitting on the couch sewing. But then I also noted that I was watching Tony Jaa smash the living crap out of some mook in Ong-Bak, which was totally, like, DUDE.

I've Created a Monster

Most of yesterday evening involved putting together this little dude by hand. I have named him Ulorg. Behold Ulorg!


I've been interested in plush lil' monsters for a while. A few months ago I got a bag of fleece scraps from a friend, and now I'm starting to play with it.

Meanwhile, Dylan, our Welsh Corgi, leaves a grisly trail of fluff as he maims his toys. Sometimes I re-stuff it for 5 more minutes of dog fun. Or just throw it away.

But I hate throwing things away when I think I could USE them. So like a Doctor Frankenstein hellbent on homemade kawaii, I inserted spare fluff into Ulorg here.

I'm happy enough with how he looks, but he's definitely a starter monster. I know what I'll do differently next time.

Ideally I'd like to get some identifiable, standard monster shapes and styles together and sell them on Etsy. We'll see.

Lessons learned:

• I used hot glue to put the face on. If I do that again, I'll do it after I stuff the thing.
• I'll make it bigger next time. He's 4" tall. It's hard to get the details I want at this size.
• Subtlety isn't as cool as large strokes. If I'm going for an effect, make it big and weird.
• I have a lot to learn about sewing -- e.g., different stitches, how to achieve points vs. curves, how to knot the thread so it doesn't slip off the needle.
  
• I read somewhere to leave the last bit that you sew inside an indention... an armpit or something, to help cover your finishing strokes. I left Ulorg's crotch open. The reverse enema was cognitively ooky.
  
• Finishing well is difficult.

If I make any more, I'll post pictures, maybe offer them for sale to the half dozen people who read this blog.

Finishing School

Rob Schrab did a semi-surrealist comic book in the '90s, called Scud the Disposable Assassin. It's a sci-fi comic full of ideas I wish I coulda had.

Schrab moved on to other things, and left the story hanging, but to hear him talk now (full interview at Newsarama.com), he seems more inspired and productive than ever.

Now he's finally finishing Scud, following his own instruction. Advice I would like to learn too:

And always finish what you start. Even if it sucks, it’s better to have a complete project than an incomplete project. And it’s better to have a complete piece of ____ than nothing at all. Finish. Finish everything. Never leave anything unfinished.