wombat_socho

So I slept in when I should have gotten up at 0300 to do Live at Five, which meant the garbage didn't go out either. One more thing to take care of Sunday night. Had coffee, knocked out an In The Mailbox post, and went up to Chantilly for chikuns*; after that, headed in on 66 to the VA, making use of the Google Maps navigator. This works well enough for me that I doubt I'll ever bother to invest in a Tomtom or similar device, especially since the nagging from this app when it thinks I'm going the wrong way is annoying enough.

Anyhow, I drew a third-year med student from Georgetown this time, and he asked all the right questions. Quick consult with Dr. Laredo (King of the Leg Cutters!) resulted in Mepilex instead of Medihoney, because the latter has been melting all over everything, and an order for a new set of support stockings. Booyah.On the way back, the navigation app seemed bound and determined to stick me in the slow-moving flow on 695/295, but I fooled the app - got off 695 at 6th Street, doubled back on M to South Capitol, and instead of getting trapped in another mess on 295 where South Capitol splits off, I followed my memories onto Overlook Drive, which runs along the west side of Bolling AFB/NRL until finally dumping you onto 295 near Blue Plains. I made much better time on Overlook, and by the time I finally got onto 295, it was moving well enough that I got from Anacostia to Springfield in about twenty minutes of high-speed freeway driving.

Unfortunately Old Keene Mill was slow and poky all the way from the Byrd Library to Rolling Road, but there was no way to make a move for most of the way.

Not a lot of Ingressing today.

Larry Correia posted the seventh Christmas Noun story.
They'll never make it into a movie, unfortunately.

The Administration's actions on Cuba are despicable and pathetic, and I wish i could say I'm surprised, but I'm not.
The same goes for Sony and The Interview, although it's Hollywood and one expects them to be spineless when not confronting conservatives.

*The WGW wasn't in, but service was excellent and food awesome as usual.

ursulav contemplates literature and its lack of stupid people among the ranks of heroes and heroines. Her task is complicated by misunderstanding the Bertie Wooster stories, in which Bertie supplies the POV but the real hero is invariably Jeeves. I mean, Wodehouse had this down to a formula: Bertie has a problem, usually inflicted by one of his annoying relatives (although sometimes the product of his own well-intentioned thickheadedness) and needs Jeeves to save the day with his +5 Brain of Awesomeness. The fun, of course, is in trying to figure out exactly how Jeeves is going to save the day, or just enjoying the ride while waiting to see how Jeeves is going to get Bertie out of this one*.

I think the problem is really more basic. People like to identify with the protagonist/POV character, and very few of us like to think we're dumb. Most of us prefer to think we're equipped with at least average smarts, or at least have above-average skill in something that makes up for conventional paper-pushing braininess**. Most of us even enjoy stories about heroes or heroines who are smarter, tougher, and/or better looking than ourselves. But put somebody in the protagonist slot who is demonstrably stupid, and people will tune out. Even in "Flowers For Algernon", the main character moves along the arc from slow and dull to supergenius and then back to slow again, and therein lies the tragedy that makes the story work. If Charlie stays dumb all the way through, where's your story? Even in an ensemble cast, the dumb guy (or gal) isn't going to be the lead; they're going to be a glorified spear carrier or the Boy Blunder whose screwups require the rest to bail him out of trouble.

So, no. You're not going to see stupid people carrying the story, or of you do, nobody's going to like it unless it's an obvious parody.

* I might go so far as to argue that Bertie's not really dumb, he's just plagued with the kind of relations who pose the kind of problem that only a genius can solve. Otherwise, he's a solid English stereotype gentleman who might be a distant cousin of Ron Weasley.
** We tend to overrate the bookish, intellectual skills in this culture, often to our detriment.

Having finished this morning's blogging, I am killing some time before throwing laundry in so that I can greet the shrink in the festive colors of our tribe. I'm not sure what the shrink and I will find to talk about, given that I think the current tussle with the black dog is all about the current situation rather than anything inherent in my mind, though I seem to be in the minority on this. A rather close friend recently expressed the opinion that I seem happy to not be happy, and there may be something to that. I certainly don't hold the pursuit of happiness to be my Prime Directive; there are things more important than simple pleasure. If, as Camus says, life consists of doing your job, then hedonism isn't a terribly useful philosophy.

level_head has an interesting post in which he clarifies Ayn Rand's objections to altruism in a very useful way. Anything else I said about it would only ruin it, so go RTWT.

Finished McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom, which is not bad; probably the best single-volume history of the Civil War out there. I found a lot of the political preliminaries to the war extremely unsettling and depressing; far too reminiscent of current events. Battle Cry of Freedom is available on Kindle. Bruce Catton's This Hallowed Ground is also available on Kindle, but I'm not sure it's better than his Civil War trilogy, which is not; Bruce Catton's Civil War: 3 Volumes in 1: Mr Lincoln's Army, Glory Road, A Stillness at Appomattox is well worth buying used.

Also finished Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, which seems to have acquired a new cover - and is also available on Kindle. Hm.

Making slow progress getting things packed up; managed five boxes on Monday and three yesterday, but two of those were clothes - mostly T-shirts, extra linens and clothes that don't quite fit yet or that need repairs. I expect I'll be tackling the hall closets today, though I am running out of places to stick boxes.

Rob Halford Defends Chick-Fil-A On Free Speech Grounds

Nice pic of Rob on his vehicle of choice, too.
BTW: thaadd, you can stop asking me if I know he's gay now. ;)

On Obama's recent recess appointments. I really should have remembered this from Constitutional Law - well, that was back in 1987. Maybe not. The same post has some interesting observations about the evolution of both parties away from the precinct-level political clubs who used to do all the heavy lifting in election campaigns. He doesn't go on to draw what seems like an obvious conclusion: as the parties become more and more under the sway of professional political types and their consultant allies, the acrimony and vileness ratchets up, because those of us involved in politics aren't dealing with our neighbors any more. We're dealing with Those Assholes Over There. You know, Them. If the Coffee Party wasn't so obviously an astroturf attempt to pull in and smother the Tea Party, I'd have more sympathy with its aims, but it is and I don't.

On the Marine urination kerfluffle. He's led men in combat and I have not, but we agree - these may not be the brightest bulbs on the tree, but they can fight, and we need Marines who can fight. God knows the Taliban have done far worse to those unfortunate enough to fall into their hands, though the media and our Cabinet officials seem blissfully unaware of this.

I ran out of cash, isk and time all about the same time last month, and since the fall semester is underway I think I'm just going to take a break from EVE until after finals.
This doesn't have anything to do with the generic malaise that seems to be affecting the game at the moment, it's just me needing to exert time control and do what I'm supposed to do during my waking hours instead of pissing my time away on fun but unproductive things.

Found a used copy of Keith Laumer's The Glory Game on Amazon and ordered it last week while I still had money. I was surprised how old it is; the copy right is 1973, just three years after "Message to an Alien", which is the second half of the book. The first half is something rare - a look at the Concordiat's Space Arm from the inside, with all the political skulduggery that implies. I don't think it would be much of a stretch to say that Commodore Tancredi Dalton's tale is a Retief story except without the flippant humor that's the trademark of those story about diplomatic hijinkery.

Supposed to rain with occasional T-storms all week here, and I guess the parts of Alexandria I don't visit that often are going to get a tad wet.

Worth reading: Cobb's Thinking Too Much About America.

Sinfest reads from the book of love.
Terminal Lance examines re-enlistment incentives.
Moe Lane spotlights a deplorable truth about steampunk.

...a couple of things of interest from around the Intertubes.

Jersey Shore Gone Wilde. (GVDL)

Vietnam: Historians At War. Truth will out, no matter how diligently liars try to hide it. (Maggie's Farm)

The results of the Auditing final were posted; got an 89 and a C for the class. Better than a poke in the eye, etc.

Hung out with Mark T. yesterday; he insisted on showing me the first three episodes of the HBO series A Game Of Thrones, based on the George R. R. Martin series of the same name. Man, I haven't seen a show with so many characters I wanted to see die in a fire in ages. Awful, awful people. Dire wolf puppies v. cute though, especially when they grow up to be v. protective critters. All the Byzantine political maneuvering reminds me of the more unpleasant parts of Drake & Stirling's Raj Whitehall novels; Westeros in general gives off a strong vibe of 13th century England with a heavy injection of the Eastern Roman Empire where it needed it the least, but that's the way it is. I may have to read the books, once they're all out.

Took some time this afternoon to head down to the VEC office and see what happened with my unemployment, and it's a good thing I did. Will go back tomorrow to resubmit my job apps for the last two weeks and hopefully will get paid Thursday. We'll see how it goes.

Well, I apparently did quite well on the Intermediate Accounting final: there's a B posted for the course. :)

Don't expect to do that well on the Cost Accounting final tonight, but that's okay. I'll settle for a C in that one, and hope I never see any of that stuff ever again.

Another example of two things I don't care much for individually, but combined...well, I think I'd pay money to see The Brothers Mario.

UPDATE: They closed the college at 3 PM today, so no final exam tonight. WTF?
School closes out the fall term next Thursday, so I wonder when we're going to be able to take the final.

UPDATE UPDATE: All classes/tests scheduled for today rescheduled until tomorrow. Okay, then.

Egg on Their Faces by Steven Malanga, City Journal Summer 2010:

According to Scientific American, growing research into carbohydrate-based diets has demonstrated that the medical establishment may have harmed Americans by steering them toward carbs. Research by Meir Stampfer, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard, concludes that diets rich in carbohydrates that are quickly digestible—that is, with a high glycemic index, like potatoes, white rice, and white bread—give people an insulin boost that increases the risk of diabetes and makes them far more likely to contract cardiovascular disease than those who eat moderate amounts of meat and fewer carbs. Though federal guidelines now emphasize eating more fiber-rich carbohydrates, which take longer to digest, the incessant message over the last 30 years to substitute carbs for meat appears to have done significant damage. And it doesn’t appear that the government will change its approach this time around. The preliminary recommendations of a panel advising the FDA on the new guidelines urge people to shift to “plant-based” diets and to consume “only moderate amounts of lean meats, poultry and eggs.”

Via Transterrestrial Musings and Ace. There's some especially good comments at TM about the gubmint/ADA diet recommendations that are spot on with respect to Type 2 diabetics; there may be some at Ace's place too, but the link there is to the Overnight Thread, and the comments there are tl;dr.