This is a two star book.
Thomas Harris' Red Dragon is best known for introducing Hannibal
Lecter. Maybe that is its proper place. The antagonist and
protagonist are interesting, “troubled” characters. The book
draws you along with anticipation of the next killing cycle until the
redemptive influence of a woman's love ruptures the Red Dragon. For
all the evident hard work Harris does, ultimately he skates on the
ending – split personalities fighting with themselves. Made for TV
movies don't even do that, well sometimes.
I do also want to point out a time/space continuum error. The FBI
agent in Chicago packages Lecter's ad to the Red Dragon for shipment
to Washington and suddenly we find out that in the distant future the
agent will show the ad to his children during a tour of FBI
Headquarters. That was an uncomfortable time shift. How did that make
it into the book?
George Parker
Thoughts About Stuff: “Quidquid praecipies, esto brevis." (Whatever advice you give, be brief.) ― Horace, Arte poética
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Thursday, January 31, 2013
The Shadow Factory by James Bamford, published by Doubleday
Following is a book review whose subject deserves attention.
The Shadow Factory by James
Bamford, published by Doubleday
2.5 of 5 stars
If you didn't know the United States
Government is listening to all you voice communications and reading
all your emails and monitoring all the web sites you visit, then
shame on you. Do you think the government didn't watch Arron Burr and
other long before and after? Governments have always watched their
own. Back in the day they use to go to the library and see what you
were reading now it is easier to pull that information off the fiber
optics the telecommunications industry charges you to use.
The Shadow Factory delineates
the external and internal monitoring changes made post 9/11 by the
various US alphabet agencies at the behest of the Bush
administration. It has often been said by supporters of this type of
broad reach surveillance that "If you're not doing anything
wrong, you have nothing to worry about." This is a book review
so I won't argue that point but here is a link that will
http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/government-might-know-youre-reading.
In the early parts of The Shadow
Factory Bamford succeeds in presenting a story line that stands
on solid ground and feels like fact. As the book progresses though
the factual feel begins to slip away and we're left with what seems
to be “water cooler talk.” I wish he had been able to maintain
that earlier story strength.
For me the real success Bamford has is
in portraying the poor management and often mismanagement of these
various spy projects/systems. The incestuous moneyed relationships
between government agencies and their contractors that he presents
are enough to make Monsanto and the Department of Agriculture blush.
I recommend that you read the early
sections of The Shadow Factory.
George W. Parker
Friday, December 7, 2012
Something Happened
No, this is not about the Joseph Heller
novel. Although I did read it once upon a time, I don't remember
anything about it. Which, in and of itself, is my review of it.
This is about yesterday. Yesterday was
a Thursday which I believe is the worst day of the week. But
something good happened which proves the vagaries of life. I used
aplomb in a sentence for the first time ever.
Now that may not seem like much of
anything special to you. And maybe it just doesn't take much for me
to have a good Thursday. But it was exciting for me.
Everyone has multiple vocabularies. We
have our reading vocabularies, writing vocabularies, speaking
vocabularies, and subsets like work vocabularies and children's
vocabularies. Yesterday's use of aplomb was exciting as I took it
from my reading vocabulary, added it to my writing vocabulary, and
then added it my speaking vocabulary. Kind of a triple play.
Now that may not still seem like much
of anything special to you. But you need to know that I am a poor
speller, poorest of the poor. Yesterday as I'm writing I snatch
aplomb (It's meaning) out of my reading vocabulary deck and try to
slam it down into my writing list. I couldn't spell it. In place of
the pl I kept trying a b. It wasn't in my speaking vocabulary so I
wasn't pronouncing it out correctly. I probably spent a half hour
searching out that correct spelling before putting aplomb on hold and
moving on with the story.
Last night I was talking with my middle
daughter, who can spell, and asked her how to spell the word. Well,
as I wasn't pronouncing it correctly, she couldn't spell it
correctly. But that conversation put me back in the hunt.
I skimmed through synonyms looking for
it. Words like witty, pithy, reassured, and smooth.
Finally I looked at savoir-faire which led me to
poised and then, eureka, aplomb.
All told I spent at
least an hour actively chasing that word. And when I wasn't chasing
it I was thinking about chasing it.
So I learned two
things yesterday: how to spell aplomb and that I liked
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/
the best of all the online dictionaries.
George W. Parker
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
The Pipe
“Read The Pipe.”
I don't remember what I was doing the
other day (not uncommon) but “Read The Pipe.” was my
response to it.
The Pipe is Chapter XXX from
Herman Melville's Moby Dick. It took me a few days to get
around to pulling out my copy of Moby Dick and re-reading that
section. But the need to do so was never out of my mind that entire
time.
I was surprised to find it located in
the first quarter of the book as I think of the last quarter as
holding all the best parts of the story. It is a short section of
about 275 words. I'll quote part of it here to help pad out my word
count.
“Some moments passed, during
which the thick vapor came from his mouth in quick and constant
puffs, which blew back again into his face. "How now," he
soliloquized at last, withdrawing the tube, "this smoking no
longer soothes. Oh, my pipe! hard must it go with me if thy charm be
gone! Here have I been unconsciously toiling, not pleasuring- aye,
and ignorantly smoking to windward all the while; to windward, and
with such nervous whiffs, as if, like the dying whale, my final jets
were the strongest and fullest of trouble. What business have I with
this pipe? This thing that is meant for sereneness, to send up mild
white vapors among mild white hairs, not among torn iron-grey locks
like mine. I'll smoke no more-"
He tossed the still lighted pipe
into the sea. The fire hissed in the waves; the same instant the ship
shot by the bubble the sinking pipe made. With slouched hat, Ahab
lurchingly paced the planks.”
Ahab had sought and received solace
from his pipe for probably his entire life. Now he discovered it had
merely become a habit, not a movement of his own volition. Only
conscience Ahab decides what Ahab does. He does not admit to or
submit to any other orders.
I doubt that anything as powerful as
that was going through my mind when the need to re-read The Pipe
jumped into my head. If anything I was probably wishing I had
something to smoke. But I did find it interesting that the need
didn't go away until the deed was done.
George W. Parker
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Texas Secession
Two things you need to know about
Texans:
- Most of us subscribe to the “I wasn't born in Texas, but I got here as fast as I could,” dictum.
- “You can always tell a Texan, but you can't tell him much.”
The 2012 U.S. Census projection, aka
“the Texas count,” is 25,145,561 citizens in the Lone Star State
(Republic). The current count on the secession petition located at
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petitions (You have to click through a few screens.) is 116,181 names. By my
math (Let me get the calculator out. Sorry, I was educated before no
child was left behind.) that is 0.46 hundredths of 1 percent of the
“states'” population.
Of those 0.46% names on the petition I
wonder how many voted in the November 2012 election? I wonder how
many of those names would have been allowed to vote under the new
Texas voter fraud guidelines that the U.S. Supreme Court put on hold.
(My guess is 102% of them.)
Please do not misunderstand me, I am
proud to live in Texas. I am proud that my children are natural born
citizens of Texas, none were delivered by Cesarean. But if Texas
should secede from the Union I am moving to Austin. Their petition to
secede from the secession is currently at a 0.45 hundredths of 1
percent count.
George W. Parker
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Flaubert vs. Chandler
Fundamentally a car is a means of
transportation. A motor and seats on wheels you use to get yourself
around town. Ultimately it is judged by its ability to fulfill that
function. If your Lamborghini has starter problems, or a grind in the
gear box as you shift into third, maybe even a rattle in the door at
180 mph, you may not find it a satisfying ride despite all its style.
A novel is in a similar situation. It
should tell a story and tell it well. Regardless of the first
person-third person structure, or its stream of consciousness, or its
exotic locale, a novel without the foundation of a solid story will
leave you dissatisfied.
Often in “literature” it is okay to
have style but no substance. I tried to read Flaubert's Bouvard
and Pecuchet last month. Maybe I stopped too soon but after a
while I got tired of the title characters. They stopped being funny
and Flaubert started looking mean to me.
On the opposite side I reread Raymond
Chandler's Lady in the Lake
this week. Although Chandler ties the story together all too neatly
and in too short a time frame I still found the story and characters
interesting, although I've read it multiple times.
I'll
give you that the two stories are not on the same plane. And that
they have different artistic goals. But if you don't finish reading a book
did the author do a good job of writing? If the goal was a Lamborghini or a Chevy does it matter if the car won't start or if you
can't make it to the grocery store?
A
broken Lamborghini is still, after all, just a broken car.
Friday, November 16, 2012
The Second Half of Infinity
∞
That is the symbol for
infinity (Alt+236 on my Windows 7 system.) Besides the counter
clockwise rotation is there any difference between it and an 8? They
are both like a Hot Wheels over and under race track aren't they? And
that over and under race track is my point.
I am sure that what
happened to me is nothing new in the world. But when something new
happens to you personally, it is new. My epiphany was simple.
It was a remembrance of my walking along a tree lined street in
Fayetteville, Arkansas.
The importance of that moment was that
I then and there decided not to attend college. That day led directly
to this day. (I understand that everyday leads to the next day but
you know what I mean.) That was the proverbial first step in the
thousand mile journey. (According
to auto odometers its been more than a thousand miles.)
So where am I now? That's where the
over and under race track comes in. The epiphany was that my current
spot was directly above that previous spot. One and the same place
put spatially separate. From those spots I can view that section of
the journey. That is the spot where what went around came around.
What does all that mean. Who knows? But
it was weird. Now to take a look at the other loop.
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