Book Review: Butchery

A couple of friends and a few random mentions sent me to hunt down Storm Front: Book One of the Dresden Files a couple months ago. Then finally, with a luxurious day all to myself, I read the whole thing.

The Short Version: Harry Dresden is a wizard and a detective in Chicago. Together, he solves crimes.

My Take: Mark Twain said, "When you catch an adjective, kill it." Butcher seems to be no fan of Twain's.

Jim Butcher bolts together a decent tale, and his writing clunks like something bolted together. I'm told the books get better. I've actually started reading book 2... something about werewolves... but but with my goldfish attention span, I don't see myself finishing it. It's not gotten good enough for me to want to wait through it when I could be reading better, more enjoyable books.

Einstein's religion

This is a follow-on to last Saturday's post. It's not exactly part 2, but a continuation of the thought process.

In May, the Telegraph printed a short article concerning a letter written by Einstein about a year before he died, detailing his thoughts about God and religion. From the article:

In the letter, dated January 3 1954, he wrote: "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.

"No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this."

The New York Times reported that it sold for $404,000 at auction, 25 times its estimated auction price.


Einstein is the icon of the Smart Guy, and you gotta listen to what a smart guy says, right?

Riffing off the 20th century concept of scientist as modern prophet, religious types have tentatively employed the big E's many mystical statements as subtle, science-approved backing of their religious beliefs for a while now. Because if Einstein believes in some bigger presence beyond the sky, then who are you, Mr. Fancy-Pants Hitchens?

I can spot at least two things wrong with that scenario, and I'm pretty sure there are more.

My time in Ballard

Last week, the New York Times travel section did a bit on Ballard and Fremont, two wonderful neighborhoods in my former home, Seattle. I've often said I'd only need half a reason to move back to Seattle. Living in Ballard could easily be half of that half a reason.

I lived in Ballard for about six months back in my Seattle days, and although my housemates were troublesome, the house and neighborhood were fantastic.

Ballard is quiet, affable, and liveable. There are rows and rows of neat houses, owned by neat homeowners. It's walkable, and there are things you might want to walk to -- a marked difference from Germantown. There was even a game store a couple blocks from where I lived.

The Chittendon Locks are a fantastic place to spend an afternoon in summer or fall. You take a picnic and watch the boats rise and fall, chatting with the yacht owners stuck on their decks slowly, slowly coming up to meet you. The salmon churn themselves up the fish ladder, their soulless fish eyes sometimes appear suddenly, startlingly, out of the murk and froth.

As evening arrives, and the sky fails to darken since you are living on the 47th parallel, you head over to Golden Gardens Park, where there are sandy beaches and volleyball nets, and windsurfers packing up their flimsy-looking gear after spending a day dodging seals in Puget Sound. There will be parties there before too much longer. You will have, of course, brought a grill and some burgers and a frisbee.

When I lived there, I worked in Bellevue, which meant a daily commute over the 520 bridge, which is partially a pontoon bridge -- a floating parking lot twice a day, and subject to occasional flooding.

Though I lived in and loved Ballard, none of my other friends did. They still dwelt in Renton, an uglier, more modern suburb south of Seattle, home to the now-dwindling Boeing megaplex. It was a 45-minute drive to see anyone I knew, which sucked pretty hard.

One night I was taking one of my quiet long walks around Ballard. I was thinking about whether to move back south. My roommate situation was terribly stressful, and I had no local emotional support. As I sauntered up a back street behind a grocery store, a couple of shaggy looking bums were sitting together on the sidewalk. "Leave Ballard!" one of them shouted to me.

I don't usually take my cues from drunk, homeless people. But this one was telling me something I needed to hear. I moved soon after.

My friend, Erik, lives in Ballard now, and he also commutes to Bellevue every day. I pity his commute, but I envy his arrival at home.

How I title blog posts these days

For years, I've attempted to cleverly title my posts here. Puns mainly, but under inspiration, I've slipped in a triple entendre or two and subtle allusions that I doubt anyone else gets or cares to get.

But I've changed my thinking recently, because I find, as I browse the archives, that I have no idea what some titles refer to. I'm not getting my own in-jokes anymore.

I'm reminded of blog advice I've seen at various places. Most of those articles are tiresome. I don't care about making this blog optimized for search engines; I'm not interested in selling ads here. But I do want to optimize for human reading. Some of the same principles apply:

• Keep it short.
• Pull the reader into the first paragraph.
• Make it sensible so that if a reader is picking it out of an RSS feed, he or she can get a sense of it.
• Provoke.

These principles are also good to keep in mind because although I don't want to make money here, I am slowly, slowly gathering momentum to try to make some money off blogging. That ship has sailed several times by now, but there's room for more ships to come in. So while I wait, I'm learning to craft better post titles.

Why I don't talk much about politics

I rarely have much to say about politics. I rarely have enough information to make useful concrete statements.

When I've tried to pay close attention to political speaking and writing, I get confused quickly. Advocates for a candidate or cause seldom also advocate for honesty or fair-mindedness. To some extent, that's what advocacy is for. It's understandable, though unhelpful.

Finding true things takes time and effort, and is hard work even when professionals aren't working full-time to counter clarity. And that's just the cynical view. Partisans can be genuine (I'm told), and opposing viewpoints can equally claim legitimacy.

But I'm not of the mind that truth is malleable. If I find legitimate, meaningful, opposing viewpoints, then I haven't found truth yet. I've just found a hard place.

Elections so often come down to voting against someone, or "sending a message." I loathe playing those games. I want to be in favor of things, people, ideas.

The small solace I've found in presidential elections is that there's usually someone out there running with an agenda that I can get behind. That candidate has no chance to win. But if more people voted for someone they wanted to vote for, rather than Brand X or Y, politics might mean something again. That's my maverick hope.

Commentary after election night

Philadelphia has had an exuberant week. Winning the World Series last week caused us throw a 2-million person parade on Friday that shut down the city. Today won't see a parade, but the party mood carries on thanks to Obama's victory.

I talked to our furnace repairman last night, who told me he couldn't fix our furnace today because he was taking today off. He would be celebrating if Obama won, or mourning if he lost. Either way, far too busy for work.

For Philadelphia, Obama's victory reminds me of Nutter's mayoral victory last year. They're both effective, disciplined African-American men who mean to get something done. And Philadelphians want to follow them. We yearn to follow these leaders. We will even cut them slack, something we have not wanted to do with our executive-level leaders for a while.

Philadelphia could theoretically find a more beloved presidential candidate than Obama to support, if Will Smith got some political experience.


McCain's face had become noticeably grim and gray in the late stages of the campaign; his smiles looked like rictuses. But during his concession speech last night, he looked rejuvenated and relaxed. The speech seemed honest and frankly, relieved. Several of us watching CNN remarked that we would have liked to have seen that one running for president these last few months, rather than the tight, angry warhorse lumbering from podium to podium, conjuring increasingly strained vituperatives.

He seemed more like the long-lost McCain of 2000/2004, emerged from under a wicked spell, now magically broken with his defeat. I wonder how wrong that simile is... the Republican party has become strangely witch-like in the last decade or so. Anyone subjected to their ministrations might well suffer a similar fate.

Even though he won't be president, it's nice to have McCain back.


Time was, we needed a couple months between an election and an inauguration. It took that long to get the word out, for the new guy to collect all his brass tacks so he could get down to them. In these modern times, when you can call the election exactly one second after the west coast polls close, these 77 days seem like a vestigial appendage. Bush is still president in case anyone asks, but Obama has basically already started the job.


I'm uncomfortable with a Democratic majority in Congress. As useful as a president is, it's the legislative branch that gets shit done, according to our beloved Constitution. Our current messes would be less messy if we'd had a Democratic congressional majority eight years ago, because the Republican machine would not have had its way every time it glanced toward Capitol Hill. Mind you, the Democratic machine is no more benign or trustworthy. However, the electorate is more wary... and punchy. That might be balance enough. It better be, since that's all we've got now.

Fjurthermore at 260

I know people have been clamoring to hear more about Fjurthermore in the last few weeks, stopping me on the streets, calling me after 10 p.m., especially with the collapse of Iceland.

Well, geographically-challenged onlookers, don't fret. Thanks to Norway's rich resources and enormous capital reserves, Fjurthermore has continued to grow even in these Tough Economic Times. The pace has slowed, but new residents and industry still arrive nearly every day.

The city has grown large enough that investments are sometimes required into the transportation network. Try it out! Adding transport won't add to the size of the city, but it'll fill those Scandinavian coffers for future growth.

And of course, you can visit anytime to the city proper.

Monster making

Since last year, I've alluded to my continuing hobby of plush monster making, but haven't said much.

The link in the sidebar, Monsters for the Home, leads to my sparsely stocked Etsy store, for which I have more stock, but not more gumption to list the stock. With Art Shop coming up in a month, I'm more inclined to save my stuff for direct sales anyway.

Monster making uses an all-different part of my brain, one I don't use much. I'm an abstract thinker; I like fiddling with ideas and symbols, and have little facility with stuff.

But making monsters is all about assembling stuff. For some reason, it's not strange and boggling when I sew, it's just strange.

I have a few patterns, but I get bored with the same thing after one try. So I launch into new things all the time, which takes thought. I used to doodle geometric shapes in work meetings where I didn't have much involvement (all of them). Now, I draw crude 3D models of whatever cotton problem I'm trying to work out. I imagine this is what it's like to be an artist.

Saturday I made my favorite monster yet: Cycloptopus. It's not actually that tricky, but it does embody the sudden, unexpected confluence of a lot of things I've learned about plush, and I'm proud of it.

Very little of my output is unusable -- it's hard to screw up something that's meant to look monstrous. But I see more blemish than finish in most of my production. This guy is different. I might not sell him yet. Might keep him around as a trophy.

Double dog daring

We have another dog, Autumn. She's a 5-month old something-or-other, from the shelter again, but this time, young enough that she hasn't been near-ruined by a previous owner's neglect.

She has seen trouble though. Roughly a month ago, a cop found her in an alley in north Philly, her left eye huge and distended. She's still kind of bug-eyed on the port side, but heavy doses of antibiotics have reduced the swelling from gross to merely unsightly.

She'll probably always be blind in her left eye. Nobody knows what happened, but the consensus seems to be "trauma", i.e. someone poked her in the eye. When we took her to have the shelter vet check her out last week, some thick dude with armloads of tattoos saw her and said, "I think I recognize that dog. I think she used to be near where I live. I'm glad you've got her." Words dense with meaning.

Dylan is less afraid of Autumn than he was Merit. She's more his size, and shows him respect -- especially since he's nipped her a couple of times to get her to back off. Merit drew blood from Dylan (and from me). We don't expect those problems again.

Autumn is spazzy and mouths things and pees indoors like you'd expect from a puppy. But she seems to be learning and fitting in. I think we've got a keeper.

Science vs. religion: why religion loses

I recently hit on the reason why the concept of evolution is so divisive. Theists who accept God as creator of the universe get all pissed when you tell them their God didn't do it.

Which is not what evolution says. But it is what many evolution proponents want to say out of their personal theology, and so they try to use their scientific theorem to say it for them.

The theists pick up on this understated intent handily, and want to fight this clear, unspoken challenge to their God's sovereignty.

The problem rears when theists respond with the same tactics. Using legal and intellectual rhetoric, they try to refute the implied meaning (a challenge to God's existence) by winning the surface argument (evolution's factuality). So theists fight the shadow war on their opponents' ground. That's the roadmap to Losertowne.

Look, using scientific principles to determine God's involvement in nature has so far been unprovable. (Other principles render God more apparent, but dogged materialists demur the evidence of unmeasured experience.) Therefore, suggesting that a set of observations obviates God is in fact, empirically unknowable. And to a serious rational atheist, it's intellectually dishonest. So, end of argument. Whatever else an aggressive unbeliever brings to the table after that is bear baiting.

Theists: Don't be bears.
This is what theists need to bring to the table: bread. Break it with the unbelievers and relax.

For my branch of theists, hearken: Jesus is revealed more eloquently in what you do than in the best-rendered arguments. We are here to win hearts, not fights.