Vox Popoli

It’s not easy to find the right sort of critic to review this kind of art:

Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself “as often as possible” while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.

It’s rather a pity that the noted Dutch film critic M. Bouyeri isn’t presently at liberty to display his own striking form of performance review. Actually, I expect this to turn out to be the usual collegiate fraud.

UPDATE: Yep.

Her art project includes visual representations, a press release and other narrative materials. She stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages. The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body.

How did I know? Because if a college girl is saying something that has drawn media attention, the probability that what she is saying is untrue rises towards certainty in correspondence with the amount of media coverage. If you haven’t figured this out yet, you simply haven’t been paying attention.

JD asks about good books for children:

My little nephew is learning to read, and I want to provide him with good reading material in the years ahead. I remember you referring to the introductory books about Greek philosophers you read as a child, such as Aristotle and Demosthenes, and I was wondering if you remembered the titles of this series or who printed them.

I can’t and I find that very annoying. They were a series of mid-sized hardcovers without dust jackets; each book was a different color and was arranged according to theme. Tom Brown’s School Days and some Jack London was included in the brown book, while abridged Greek classics were in the green one. I think poetry was orange. The trim was always black. If anyone can identify this series, I’d really love to know what it was. I seem to recall there were somewhere between eight and twelve books in it.

UPDATE: CL nails it precisely. Based on the cover images I’ve seen, ours must have been the 1960 deluxe edition:

I believe that the set you referred to in your blog was The New Junior Classics published by Collier. My parents had a set that I read when I was a child in the 50’s, and I later bought an earlier (and superior) set published in 1938 for my son as part of my scheme to shield him from our contemporary anti-intellectual, anti-male cultural milieu, I hope with some success, as he is presently a National Merit Scholar and first year Physics major on full scholarship at Baylor) .

The set can be found in book stores and obtained at Amazon.

I am almost disturbingly excited about finally learning this. It’s interesting what one remembers, as ten volumes would appear to be right between eight and twelve. Highly recommended.

1. Your base of operation is the bar. If you’re not actively doing anything else, that’s where you should be at all times. It’s where a lot of the real players are.

2. Make a few friends based solely on personal compatibility, not professional synchronicity. Always try to at least have lunch with them, it’s good to take a break from the incessant business blather. Go out of your way to introduce them to your contacts that might be interested in what they are doing, and whom they might find useful. These friendships will make future conferences FAR more enjoyable.

3. Blow off the afternoon sessions if there’s nothing you’re really interested in and work out at the fitness center instead. You’ll feel much better and have more energy. In combination with a second afternoon shower, you’ll be far fresher and less run-down than everyone else over the course of the evening.

4. The first night and the last night are the nights to close down the bar. Don’t go out with the strip club/casino crew. Stay away from the beer, red wine, shots, and chick drinks. White wine and screwdrivers will keep you feeling good and functional in the mornings. Don’t skip breakfast either.

5. Make a list of who you want to meet at the conference and try to meet them all by the middle of the second day. If you know someone who knows them, ask them to track them down and introduce you. But don’t be a stalker and manufacture lame excuses, just be straightforward about your interests.

6. Try to keep the maximum number for dinner down to four, eight if at least six of the diners know each other well. One random hanger-on is fine if he’s not a drip, but two is too many.

7. Stay away from the sort of people who look around when talking to you. Avoid the people who throw around huge numbers relating to past and present accomplishments in the first two minutes of a conversation. They’re almost always full of it and even when they’re not, they’re too self-centered to hear a word you say anyhow.

8. If a group of guys are buying shots for a woman of your acquaintance and you suspect one or more of them to harbor nefarious intentions, it is your duty to surreptiously get rid of them for her without their knowledge. This rule supercedes #4. It’s also okay to order a chick drink if doing so will cause particular embarassment to the guy ordering the round for everyone.

9. Carry a fire-starting implement and always spend a portion of the evening outside with the smokers. Even if you don’t smoke, your acknowledgement of their primary need will render your company welcome.

10. Don’t attempt to leave in the afternoon or evening of the last day. Some of the best meetings are the leisurely ones that take place after everything is over. Take it easy and leave the next morning, or better yet, the next afternoon.

11. Learn from the wisdom of the old vets and big dogs. One reporter commented that he didn’t need a card from me or an older friend of mine who happens to be a senior executive at a very large technology corporation, since he knew he could always find us at the next conference holding down the fort at the corner of the bar.

“Allow me to correct you,” answered my friend, a sophisticated citizen-of-the-world sort who exudes effortless cool. “We are merely here to take our evening espresso. In a moment, we shall retire to the most comfortable chairs in the area being served by the most attractive waitress, and there we shall hold our court.”

The startled reporter didn’t quite know what to say and glanced over at me. I just laughed and said “kiss the ring, baby.”

If you don’t find this funny:

An Italian woman artist who was hitch-hiking to the Middle East dressed as a bride to promote world peace has been found murdered in Turkey. The naked body of Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo, 33, known as Pippa Bacca, was found in bushes near the northern city of Gebze on Friday. She had said she wanted to show that she could put her trust in the kindness of local people.

It’s seldom pretty when utopianism collides head-on with the vagaries of human nature. One way or another, it usually seems to end in bloodshed. While one might well harbor doubts about the deceased’s judgment, one must also credit the scientific spirit that led her to put her hypothesis to the test. I should be very interested to know if any utopian idealists plan to replicate this empirical experiment in the essential goodness of Man.

Feminists are always metaphorically running to Mommy one way or another:

I usually delete crappy, sexist comments like that, but my trigger finger is itching to publish this asshole’s email and IP address. That isn’t something I’ve ever done, because I don’t believe in putting peoples’ personal information out on the internet just because I disagree with them, no matter how vile their views.

Amynda concurs: Publish the information. I think you relinquish your right to me keeping information you gave me private when you threaten me physically, which is the implication of his comment.

Very well, my dear feminists. You have made your wishes quite clear. Henceforth, every threat, implied or explicit, emailed to me by a feminist shall be published complete with all the private information that I have hitherto refrained from releasing. Because we’re all equal, right?

Il cavaliere returns to power:

Huge, perhaps historic, victory for Berlusconi’s “Popolo della liberta’ ” (which translates a bit awkwardly as “the people of liberty;” maybe it’s better to call it “the freedom folks”). It’s considerably worse than AP lets on. Berlusconi defeated Walter Veltroni’s “Democratic Party” by a full 9 points in both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. And since the Italian electoral system gives a bonus to the winning side, the margins are very big and stable: 340 to 241 in the Chamber (with another 36 for a couple of small parties), and 167 to 137 in the Senate (with 5 to three little parties), which was expected to be a photo finish. Eighty percent voted, down about three percent from last time.

The big news is that the Communists are gone, for the first time since the end of the Second World War. Really gone. They didn’t win a single seat in either chamber.

Another thing that you won’t find is that part of the unpopularity of the Prodi government was its ties with the EU. Now that the Communists are gone, it would be wise for Berlusconi to begin pulling Italy out of the clutches of their intellectual successors. Unfortunately, Berlusconi is probably far too corporatist to embrace the obvious.

The allegations of abuse of a girl is no excuse for kidnapping hundreds of children and breaking up their families:

The leader of the Yearning For Zion Ranch says he doesn’t understand how the government could sweep in and seize all their children based on an unproven allegation.

“This whole situation is abusive and out of hand,” said Merril Jessop, a presiding elder in the FLDS Church. “The nearest thing I have ever seen comparable to this, even on the TV shows, is Nazi Germany.”

“The only thing we ask of the governor and citizens of Texas,” Jessop said, “is to give every man, woman and child due process and an attorney before they destroy their lives.”

As usual, good intentions pave the road to Hell. The irony is that those who are supportive the government seizing these children on the basis of allegations of a sexually abused fifteen-year old are often the same people who argue a fifteen-year old girl is mature enough to have sex and get an abortion without parental consent. Now, I’m not a big fan of the Mormon religion or its variants myself. But that doesn’t mean that it is right to look the other way as these Americans’ unalienable and Constitutional rights are trampled and their children are forcibly kidnapped by government agents!

About the only positive thing you can say about it is that unlike Waco, the government forces didn’t kill them all. This is not America, this is the decaying corpse of what was once America. How long will it be before the first child is seized based on evidence of abuse that consists of ownership of a book that advocates the “hitting” a misbehaving child?

Here is Charles Krauthammer’s Holocaust Declaration referred to in today’s column:

It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear attack upon Israel by Iran, or originating in Iran, as an attack by Iran on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon Iran.

This should be followed with a simple explanation: “As a beacon of tolerance and as leader of the free world, the United States will not permit a second Holocaust to be perpetrated upon the Jewish people.”

This policy — the Holocaust Declaration — would establish a firm benchmark that would outlive this administration. Every future president — and every serious presidential candidate — would have to publicly state whether or not he supports the Holocaust Declaration.

In other words, Krauthammer wants to establish the United States as the Praetorian Guard for the Jewish people, risking its national interest in order to pretend that it is a beacon of tolerance. As I noted in today’s column, this is a complete non-starter for a variety of reasons… chief among them the fact that Israel is not, as Krauthammer describes it, an “allied democracy”. It is not an ally at all. The idea that the USA has “no more pressing cause” than defending Israel has far more to do with Krauthammer’s loyalties than it does with anything even remotely resembling reality.

You can seldom reach more perfect heights of nonsense than when atheists attempt to cite historical justification for their paranoid projections about the Christian thirst for atheist blood. Since it’s hard to say whether they’re weaker on logic or history, combining the two makes for the ultimate entertainment. From ExecutedToday, courtesy of the Carnival of the Godless:

1689: Kazimierz Lyszczynski, the first Polish atheist

On this date in 1689, in a Warsaw marketplace, Kazimierz Lyszczynski had his tongue torn out, his head struck off and his body burned to ashes which were shot from a cannon — all for scratching a few words with the whiff of atheism.

Consider a few facts:

1. Poland is generally considered to have converted to Christianity in 966.
2. The first “atheist” was executed only 723 years later.
3. Kazimierz Lyszczynski vehemently denied being an atheist and there is no evidence that he actually was one.
4. Pope Innocent XI condemned the affair.

Naturally, this sad incident is cited as some sort of example of the dire danger which theists pose atheists should a new Dark Ages of religious oppression ever arise. Never mind that the Lyszczynski execution took place 689 years after the Dark Ages are considered to have ended, if they had ever existed at all. Which, according to the historical consensus of the last 70 years, they didn’t.

Mr Kohnstamm, whose book is titled Do Travel Writers Go To Hell?, said yesterday that he had worked on more than a dozen books for Lonely Planet, including its titles on Brazil, Colombia, the Caribbean, Venezuela, Chile and South America.

In one case, he said he had not even visited the country he wrote about.

“They didn’t pay me enough to go Colombia,” he said.

“I wrote the book in San Francisco. I got the information from a chick I was dating – an intern in the Colombian Consulate.

This doesn’t surprise me at all. Most readers would be shocked at how little editing takes place in the publishing world. Based on my experience with one of the largest fiction publishing houses, I can say that while they’ll spend eighteen months making a decision about publishing a book proposal for which they approached YOU in the first place, once you turn in the first and final draft, they’ll let one underpaid editor fresh out of college spend a week or two going over the manuscript. If you’re lucky, a second one might line-edit it and correct your punctuation errors.

If you don’t believe me, just consider the size of the first Harry Potter book compared to the last one. Do you really think it got any editing? Does it read like it was edited?

There is no way a travel book gets fact-checked. It would cost too much. I’ve lived in Europe for a decade and I don’t think I’ve looked at a travel book since the first year we were here and we visited Florence and Verona. Unless you like reading them for the fiction, they serve little point now that you can look up hotels on the Internet.