Blagdaross

Fantastically ugly word. This I suppose conclusively proves the term progressive has arrived.

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Through one of the obscurest quarters of London, and among haunts little loved by the gentlemen of the police, a man, evidently of the lowest orders, was wending his solitary way. He stopped twice or thrice at different shops and houses of a description correspondent with the appearance of the quartier in which they were situated, and tended inquiry for some article or another which did not seem easily to be met with. All the answers he received were couched in the negative; and as he turned from each door he muttered to himself, in no very elegant phraseology, his disappointment and discontent. At length, at one house, the landlord, a sturdy butcher, after rendering the same reply the inquirer had hitherto received, added, “But if this vill do as vell, Dummie, it is quite at your sarvice!” Pausing reflectively for a moment, Dummie responded that he thought the thing proffered might do as well; and thrusting it into his ample pocket, he strode away with as rapid a motion as the wind and the rain would allow. He soon came to a nest of low and dingy buildings, at the entrance to which, in half-effaced characters, was written “Thames Court.” Halting at the most conspicuous of these buildings, an inn or alehouse, through the half-closed windows of which blazed out in ruddy comfort the beams of the hospitable hearth, he knocked hastily at the door. He was admitted by a lady of a certain age, and endowed with a comely rotundity of face and person.

“Hast got it, Dummie?” said she, quickly, as she closed the door on the guest.

“Noa, noa! not exactly; but I thinks as ‘ow–”

“Pish, you fool!” cried the woman, interrupting him peevishly. “Vy, it is no use desaving me. You knows you has only stepped from my boosing-ken to another, and you has not been arter the book at all. So there’s the poor cretur a, raving and a dying, and you–”

“Let I speak!” interrupted Dummie in his turn. “I tells you I vent first to Mother Bussblone’s, who, I knows, chops the whiners morning and evening to the young ladies, and I axes there for a Bible; and she says, says she, ‘I ‘as only a “Companion to the Halter,” but you’ll get a Bible, I think, at Master Talkins’, the cobbler as preaches.’ So I goes to Master Talkins, and he says, says he, ‘I ‘as no call for the Bible, –’cause vy? I ‘as a call vithout; but mayhap you’ll be a getting it at the butcher’s hover the vay, -’cause vy? The butcher ‘ll be damned!’ So I goes hover the vay, and the butcher says, says he, ‘I ‘as not a Bible, but I ‘as a book of plays bound for all the vorld just like ‘un, and mayhap the poor cretur may n’t see the difference.’ So I takes the plays, Mrs. Margery, and here they be surely! And how’s poor Judy?”

“Fearsome! she’ll not be over the night, I’m a thinking.”

“Vell, I’ll track up the dancers!”

So saying, Dummie ascended a doorless staircase, across the entrance of which a blanket, stretched angularly from the wall to the chimney, afforded a kind of screen; and presently he stood within a chamber which the dark and painful genius of Crabbe might have delighted to portray. The walls were whitewashed, and at sundry places strange figures and grotesque characters had been traced by some mirthful inmate, in such sable outline as the end of a smoked stick or the edge of a piece of charcoal is wont to produce. The wan and flickering light afforded by a farthing candle gave a sort of grimness and menace to these achievements of pictorial art, especially as they more than once received embellishments from portraits of Satan such as he is accustomed to be drawn. A low fire burned gloomily in the sooty grate, and on the hob hissed “the still small voice” of an iron kettle. On a round deal table were two vials, a cracked cup, a broken spoon of some dull metal, and upon two or three mutilated chairs were scattered various articles of female attire. On another table, placed below a high, narrow, shutterless casement (athwart which, instead of a curtain, a checked apron had been loosely hung, and now waved fitfully to and fro in the gusts of wind that made easy ingress through many a chink and cranny), were a looking-glass, sundry appliances of the toilet, a box of coarse rouge, a few ornaments of more show than value, and a watch, the regular and calm click of which produced that indescribably painful feeling which, we fear, many of our readers who have heard the sound in a sick-chamber can easily recall. A large tester-bed stood opposite to this table, and the looking-glass partially reflected curtains of a faded stripe, and ever and anon (as the position of the sufferer followed the restless emotion of a disordered mind) glimpses of the face of one on whom Death was rapidly hastening. Beside this bed now stood Dummie, a small, thin man dressed in a tattered plush jerkin, from which the rain-drops slowly dripped, and with a thin, yellow, cunning physiognomy grotesquely hideous in feature, but not positively villanous in expression. On the other side of the bed stood a little boy of about three years old, dressed as if belonging to the better classes, although the garb was somewhat tattered and discoloured.

The dialogue doesn’t sound like modern cockney at all in my ears. I should look into it.

I didn’t know this style of writing was invented as early as 1830. Teh author was quite popular in his day, so maybe he’s even the inventor of the style.

Like Neil at Ezra Klein’s place, I think 2008 represents a golden opportunity for progressive change, and I’m afraid the Democrats will piss it away. I also, like Neil, think the likelihood of Edwards pissing it away is considerably smaller than Clinton (obviously), but also Obama.

Edwards has gone way to the left since the last primaries, probably out of conviction, esp. since lots of people have, but presumbably also to some extent because he, correctly I think, believes the political situation has changed. Most other candidates, including Obama, doesn’t. Obama is no populist, and hasn’t endorsed any bold or risky policies. The way you run your campaign will shape your presidency, but more importantly, what a candidate’s think is a winning political strategy will influence their presidencies as much as their idea good policy if they become president.

There are reasons to strongly prefer Edwards, even though Obama isn’t obviously less progressive in his beliefs. (I think he at least is more of a esablishmentarian.)
Clinton, meanwhile, I suspect of being a bit of a DLC ideologue, who won’t be too leftist even if she thinks it’s good politics. More clearly, she’ll be very inflexible in her beliefs of what’s a winning formula, even in the face of mounting evedence the 90s are in fact over.

Alex is distraught that we’re losing to some racist nutcases in the 2006 Weblog Awards. Weirdly, Haloscan thought my comment was spam, so I’m putting it here instead.

Dude, these are the wingnut awards. Unlike the liberal Koufaxes, they aspire or pretend to be non-partisan; they have a bunch of non-wingnut nominees, and non-political categories. This works out fine for them, because the liberals don’t link to them, so the wingnuts always win against the more popular liberwal blogs, and not too overwhelmingly. They never get to win in the Bloggies, since progressives are more popular.

It’s so wonderfully illustrative of the the wingnutosphere in general, and their whole modus operandi.

No need to feel bad about losing them. No one takes these awards seriously, anyway.

Last week when I was walking in a park, I saw swans eating from an old man’s hands. I’ve never seen anything like it. Two adults, and they’re gray, already big children, and I think literally hundreds of ducks, but I don’t know if they got any food.

Swans are beautiful, fierce creatures, wild animals that one should have a healthy resopect for. He must have come to the park every day for months and developed their trust.

One of the wonderful things about Nynäshamn is that it’s chockful of swans. If you walk by the water (we’re surrounded by the ocean on three sides), a swan pair will eventually turn up, always a husband and a wife. I’ll move to Stockholm pretty soon. I’ll miss this place.

Matt Yglesias thinks universal healthcare for kids wouldl grow the contituency for more systemic reform in the long term. I’ve thought of a similar idea. Instead of just covering kids, devise a plan where everyone under 25, and everyone over 60 is covered.

The cutoff point shouldn’t be 18, because it will feel less real and painful, because 18-year olds are like that, and a lot of them will be covered by their parents for a while, and also it will be wrapped up with becoming responsible for yourself in general, and not seem unfair.
If it runs out when you’re 25, you’ll be more concerned and aware of it. If you cover some adults the pressure to expand coverage will be stronger.

The fact that it’s more arbitrary will make it harder to get passed, but also make it more likely it will get expanded. (The youngest and oldest workers do need UHC more the most, so it’s not completely arbitrary.) After all, the US already have UHC for seniors, and it hasn’t created much pressure to get everyone UHC. It seems non-arbitrary, and like a different thing even though it’s not, and the same may be true of UHC for kids too.

(Adapted from a comment on Yglesias blog.)

Cunt

Cave Thinkers

The wikipedia article on John Brown is exhaustive

Cherubina de Gabriak

Jim Woodring has a weblog, where he posts a  lot of his art.

Finland had to lower their high taxes on alcohol a couple of years ago, because of smuggling, and this week there’s a new study saying the effects was catastrophic, a marked increase in the number of alcoholics. We’ve also lowered our alcohol taxes because of smuggling and legal imports two-three years ago, though less drastically IIRC.

Technically it’s saturday. I’ve always favored the coptic calendar, where the day begins at six in the morning.

Questia. I should read some classic.

Robert Kaufman ’s memoir of his time as scientoligist is online.

A classic.

Grandpa Bush violated Geronimo’s skull. Better link to this while Sploid is still online.

Fra Mauro Map

I just realized all the TV shows I’m translating is good fodder for a blog post. All the old stuff is for DVD:s if you’re wondering.

Huff. Five episodes from the 2nd season. Awesome! Especially the Oliver Platt character. Great performance. Also Huff’s wife. Typical that the Izzy actor got an emmy, her character has the only tugging at heartsrings stuff. Very entertaining show.

Dallas. I used to watch Dallas as a kid, I think starting right before Bobby was killed. This is earlier, and at least this episode it’s way more of a proper drama than I remembered. It’s a lot of emotion, and it’s all pretty real and believable, and surpriisingly subtle at times. Lucy’s having an abortion this episode, and Pam’s ambivalence is subtly handled.
Bobby’s not particularly angelic. Sue Ellen is tragic. J.R is a very compelling character. Even the soap opera elements makes them show people as pragmatically calculating in a way that’s real, and absent from most dramas, certainly in 70s television.

MacGyver. Two episodes. First one kinda meh, featuring Amish. Other one, where MacGyver’s boss gets tested, goofy fun. Neither features barley anything of the invention gimmick, oddly.

Prison Break Episode in 2nd season. What a silly show, sometimes awesomely so. I hate black helicopter shows though, though maybe the sillinness would redeem it. I wouldn’t have understood much of what’s happened, without doing research, and using a Television without pity recap. Tip for subtitlers, they’re very useful when you don’t have a script.

Penn and Teller: Bullshit! My sister likes this show, so I thought it was cool to translate something she’d watch. I’m not sure she’d like this though, since it’s about pets, and Teller’s contemptuous of people who care about them too much, and she’s a huge animal lover. Penn’s shtick is being an asshole, and well, he sure is an asshole. In this case, some of the stuff about the cat show kind of crossed the line into vicious, and those were real people. The show in general is so obviously driven by Penn (and Teller’s?) need to feel superior of people. No surprise he’s libertarian. Most was mildly entertaining, though, esp. the stuff about the guy who sold testicle prostheses for dogs.

The Unit. Original premise: A “realistic” (compared to James Bond) take on military special operation unit, like the Delta force. Execution is kinda meh, though. Not bad exactly. The geopolitics is as ludicrous as usual. Bizarrely, David Mamet is the creator of this not very serious show. WTF?

Subtitling entails a much more intense, attentive watching of the films than normal, unless you’re a film major writing a thesis or something. Will sometimes make for a v. different viewing experience, in this case it may have influenced how I viewed Dallas in particular.

I guess this won’t be a Osneresque blog after all. Writing about works of arts is hard! I’ve started writing about a book, and even if the posts are brief and unpretentious, as I planned, it takes more effort thtan other types of posts. Also, I probably don’t read enough books.

Luckily, I don’t have much to say about Persepolis, so it’s not as hard to put it in writing. I read the first volume last month, and my tentative verdict is: Pretty decent, but hardly a masterpiece. One thing that did surprise me, that I don’t remember anyone noting, is how clearly influenced its storytelling techniques to the far superior Epileptic by David B, who also wrote the introduction.

The dream sequences, most obviously, but generally David B’s startling ways of showing his inner life, as well as telling his parents story, and incorporating narration. Maybe the art too a little, though Satrapi’s art is much simpler (and fairly undistinguished). Maybe reading Persepolis first would make Epileptic seem less impressive and original than it is.

She manages to convey the time and place, but even though it’s often all about her inner life (the David B influence), it’s oddly impersonal, you don’t get too close to her, and certainly not any other characters.