As a philosophical / linguistic matter, I have problems with the logic that singles out one or another skill as so pivotal that not having it makes it impossible for someone to be able to perform the duties of the presidency. There just isn't a job description for being president that includes anything all that specific. Plus, in terms of basic physical abilities, there are so many assists for problems (e.g., Braille and cd's allow a blind person to "read") that I can't think of any abilities whose absence would flatly disqualify someone.

In recent days the Obama campaign has fired ads that say that McCain doesn't use e-mail or spend time online and therefore is clearly too old and out of touch to be president. But in an interview in the NY Times earlier this year, we learn that he does read e-mail, it's just that he doesn't send e-mail nor read newspapers online and for two pretty interesting reasons. Here's the first:

Q: Do you use a blackberry or email?
Mr. McCain: I use the Blackberry, but I don’t e-mail, I’ve never felt the particular need to e-mail. I read e-mails all the time, but the communications that I have with my friends and staff are oral and done with my cell phone. I have the luxury of being in contact with them literally all the time. We now have a phone on the plane that is usable on the plane, so I just never really felt a need to do it.

He doesn't read papers online but for a reason that's not a bad one since his interest would largely be the impact of events and the cited "prominence of the story" is a function of the editors' opinions and therefore would tell him something about the attitudes and opinions that influence people:

Q: You read newspapers then.
Mr. McCain: I read them most all every day.
Q: You and Obama are both newspaper and book readers. Do you read them in the old paper version or do you read them online?
Mr. McCain: I love to read them in the print form, and the reason why I do is because so much, the prominence of the story matters. If I read a story and say, Oh my God, did you see this? But it’s back on A26, it doesn’t have the impact of what are still – even though it’s declining – what are still, what are hundreds of millions of American picking up an looking at today.

And it turns out there's another reason he doesn't send e-mail. An article on Boston.com points out that he doesn't type comfortably because injuries to his arms and hands "prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes." But "he passed the Navy physical" after extensive physical therapy.

Presumably he can be at the independent ready by keeping his hair short and wearing non-tie shoes and having voice-recognition software.

Incidentally, I found this information by typing "McCain email using" into the ask.com search bar, so why didn't the Obama people find it too? Don't they fact-check? Will Obama have to make a statement amending the ad, as he amended Burton's first reaction to Palin? And since this is the third or fourth time they've had to backtrack, do you suppose it's possible that someone in Obama's campaign is sabotaging him?

Labels: 2008 election, reading

From Small World Reads (via Semicolon) I learned that Joanna at Lost in a Good Story is hosting The New Classics Challenge and it sounds wonderful! It's all based on Entertainment Weekly's list of new classics - which is an odd list to say the least - but it's all in good fun and who can argue with picking bunches of books to read and talk/write about, right?!

The Rules:

1. Copy the list, post it and bold the titles that you have already read.
   
2. Choose at least 6 other books from the list; read and review them between 8/1/2008 and 1/31/2009.
   
3. Go back to Lost in a Good Story and post links to your reviews.
   
4. In January 2009, cast your vote for which one of the 100 books on the list is your favorite (and write a post on why). The winning book will be sent to a lucky winner chosen by the scientific method favored here in the blogosphere, i.e. names in a hat.
   
5. Have fun! :-)

The List
Bolded titles I've already read; I've asterisked ones I thought were especially good.
Orange titles are on my list for the Challenge.
1. The Road , Cormac McCarthy (2006)
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (2000)
3. Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987)
4. The Liars' Club, Mary Karr (1995)
5. American Pastoral, Philip Roth (1997)
6. Mystic River, Dennis Lehane (2001)
7. Maus, Art Spiegelman (1986/1991)
8. Selected Stories, Alice Munro (1996)
9. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier (1997)
10. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (1997)
11. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer (1997)
12. Blindness, José Saramago (1998)
13. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1986-87)
R4. Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates (1992)
15. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers (2000)
16. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood (1986)
17. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez (1988)
18. Rabbit at Rest, John Updike (1990)
19. On Beauty, Zadie Smith (2005)
20. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding (1998)
21. On Writing, Stephen King (2000)
22. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz (2007)
23. The Ghost Road, Pat Barker (1996)
24. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry (1985)
25. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan (1989)
26. Neuromancer, William Gibson (1984)
27. Possession, A.S. Byatt (1990)
28. Naked, David Sedaris (1997)
29. Bel Canto, Anne Patchett (2001)
30. Case Histories, Kate Atkinson (2004)
31. The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien (1990)
32. Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch (1988)
33. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion (2005)
34. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold (2002)
35. The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst (2004)
36. Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt (1996)
37. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (2003)
38. Birds of America, Lorrie Moore (1998)
39. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri (2000)
40. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (1995-2000)
*41. The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros (1984)
42. LaBrava, Elmore Leonard (1983)
43. Borrowed Time, Paul Monette (1988)
44. Praying for Sheetrock, Melissa Fay Greene (1991)
45. Eva Luna, Isabel Allende (1988)
46. Sandman, Neil Gaiman (1988-1996)
*47. World's Fair, E.L. Doctorow (1985)
48. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (1998)
49. Clockers, Richard Price (1992)
50. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen (2001)
51. The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcom (1990)
52. Waiting to Exhale, Terry McMillan (1992)
53. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon (2000)
54. Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware (2000)
*55. The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls (2006)
56. The Night Manager, John le Carré (1993)
*57. The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe (1987)
58. Drop City, TC Boyle (2003)
59. Krik? Krak! Edwidge Danticat (1995)
60. Nickel & Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich (2001)
61. Money, Martin Amis (1985)
62. Last Train To Memphis, Peter Guralnick (1994)
63. Pastoralia, George Saunders (2000)
64. Underworld, Don DeLillo (1997)
R65. The Giver, Lois Lowry (1993)
66. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace (1997)
67. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (2003)
68. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel (2006)
69. Secret History, Donna Tartt (1992)
70. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (2004)
71. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Ann Fadiman (1997)
72. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon (2003)
73. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving (1989)
74. Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger (1990)
75. Cathedral, Raymond Carver (1983)
76. A Sight for Sore Eyes, Ruth Rendell (1998)
77. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
78. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert (2006)
79. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell (2000)
80. Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney (1984)
81. Backlash, Susan Faludi (1991)
82. Atonement, Ian McEwan (2002)
83. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields (1994)
84. Holes, Louis Sachar (1998)
85. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (2004)
86. And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts (1987)
87. The Ruins, Scott Smith (2006)
*88. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby (1995)
89. Close Range, Annie Proulx (1999)
90. Comfort Me With Apples, Ruth Reichl (2001)
91. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (2003)
92. Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow (1987)
93. A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley (1991)
94. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser (2001)
95. Kaaterskill Falls, Allegra Goodman (1998)
96. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown (2003)
97. Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson (1992)
98. The Predators' Ball, Connie Bruck (1988)
99. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman (1995)
100. America (the Book), Jon Stewart/Daily Show (2004)

Hope some of my own rare readers (as Alan would say) will join me.

Labels: blogs (mine), blogs (others'), books, reading, writing

I read this book to one of T2CGITW last night. It's so good I can't begin to praise it adequately. Zen Shorts by Jon Muth. The story is terrific and so are the watercolor illustrations. The little girl I was reading to was entrance by some of the illustrations herself, not something that often happens with *little* children, but they are beautiful, frameable.

I discovered Jan Muth linking from some other book, basically browsing online at Barnes & Noble - something I haven't done particularly successfully very often because I'm more familiar browsing in a physical store. Anyway, I'm a convert now because this is an amazing experience. On the surface, it's a story about a big panda named Stillwater and the three children who meet him because he's sitting in their backyard under a red umbrella. They visit him at his house, and play with him, and he tells them three stories. The essence of the book is to inculcate in one's mind a quietness that welcomes thoughts and ideas. The almost-4-year-old I was reading with last night liked the book so much that after we read it and played with cut-outs for a while, she asked me to read it again. And then she asked her father to read it to her at bedtime. Three times in a couple of hours. What greater compliment is there?

Labels: books, children, reading, reflections, t2cgitw, writing

I need to vent. Recently I read a blogger's diabtribe about best sellers and it reminded me of how frustrated I get when people act all high and mighty about what they read, or (more often) about what others read. Some people actually make apologetic excuses if you ask them what they're reading and it turns out to be a best seller. My father wouldn't let me read what he called "trash" (i.e., Nancy Drew and other popular novels) so I grabbed a flashlight and became a secret Nancy Drew reader. When he found me out, he took all the novels out of my room and made a deal with me that I could read one of my choices every time I finished two of his. The result of which was that I stopped reading for pleasure. My mother had me read aloud to her to surmount the onus of the requirement. Thus I read Ivanhoe, The Black Arrow, Christians Courageous, and Master Skylark and came to adore all of them.

My father was a noted professor and an avid reader. He read so quickly that he could polish off a small novel in a couple of hours without any trouble. So he read mysteries and spy stories the way some of us watch Shark or CSI. And yet, despite his passion for, and ability to wax thoroughly rhapsodic on the wonders of good mysteries and spy stores, he was an inveterate snob about best sellers, like the blogger I encountered the other day.

I fail to understand a snotty attitude toward best sellers. Despite that dreadful patch with my father which led to a period where I didn't read anything for pleasure, I now read voraciously and anything that strikes my fancy, both "good" and popular. I asked people why being popular *must* equate to being lesser but never get a satisfactory answer. Popular really isn't necessarily bad. In fact something being popular may mean it has some merit. Pasta is popular. Apples are well-liked. Blue jeans are hugely popular. Are any of these bad for people? Of course not. And as far as reading goes, not everyone can work up interest in the smells of a small pastry or a mother's shawl. Proust's prose is certainly graceful and stirs more qualitative and evocative images, more so than Danielle Steele. And Sartre demands responses from a reader, whether in agreement or not. And Shakespeare requires engagement. And Jane Austen wraps you in her arms. All of which is wonderful and unquestionably more refined and smart, more likely to enhance the reader's cleverness and perceptions of life and people than, say, Jackie Collins or John Grisham.

But any reading stimulates the imagination. Babies read Pat the Bunny - a humungous best seller, by the way - and move on to Eric Carle and 1001 Tales and Madeleine and libraries-ful of wonderful fantastic books. If they're lucky, they proceed to Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames and Judy Blume and eventually Norton Juster and Tolstoi. What matters is that their imaginations are stirred. If one adult likes so-called trashy romances and another prefers history and biography, is either a better person? Possibly more aware of facts and events, which is useful and good to know, but beyond that?

I'd love to know what any rare readers of this page read and what they think about best sellers.

Labels: books, history, reading, reflections

I watched the Maggie Lawson Nancy Drew movie the other night. Written by Amy Mann, daughter of Michael Mann of smart and fabulously popular tv fame ("Miami Vice"), it was not even remotely as bad as some reviews led me to expect. Lawson's Nancy has vigor and charm in spades, and the mystery itself was certainly passably interesting, and that's really what she's all about. I loved the camera showing us her desk top piles of favorite books and photos - they were wonderful (Sherlock Holmes, Dorothy Sayers, her parents, and others), identifying the person those of us who love her know well. Now that I think of it, perhaps for a dyed-in-the-wool Drew fan, any telling of one of her stories is just fine. Which brings to mind that t2cgitw still have The Secret in the Old Clock ahead of them . . . lucky girls!!!

Labels: books, entertainment, family, movies, reading

Several current news stories puzzle me.

Gotbaum - Carole Anne Gotbaum may indeed have been a "wonderful woman" and a good mother and her death is horrifying, to say the least. One expects police and security guards to safeguard people, not endanger them. BUT. She was en route to rehabilitation and was alone. Why on earth was she alone? If she was in the delicate mental condition that her husband maintains, and if she was "plagued by a history of drinking and depression," because of which he says he made several calls to the police who were holding her, how could they have let her travel across the country by herself? Since irresponsibility and emotional imbalance are famous hallmarks of both alcoholism and depression, it seems unbelievable that she was traveling so far and so importantly, alone. Not that it's any of our business and I don't even particularly want to know, but there is more to this story than we are hearing. The people I really feel miserable for are her children who have to have dealt with her, leading up to this, and now have to deal with their mother's death as well as the weird stories.

Madeleine - The disappearance or abduction of Madeleine Mann is another horrifying event in recent news. Her kidnapper(s) should be imprisoned for decades. BUT. It is difficult to get beyond the parents' strange affect of self-righteous indignation, not to mention the mother's remarks in her diary that the children were driving her nuts. Or why on earth the parents had gone to dinner out of the building in which the children were sleeping. I understand that Europe feels more homey and less ominous than America, although I doubt that feeling is based on facts. In any case, children as young as 3 and 2 cannot possibly guard their own safety and there is no way it made sense to leave them alone even if one assumed a maid or front desk person was attentive and helpful. Babysitting at long distance is simply not babysitting. So I conclude that kidnapping is possible, although unlikely since there would have been physical evidence in the room and hallways, but that it's far more likely, most unfortunately and sadly, that the parents were complicit whether on purpose or by accident. Which goes back to my first point about their affect. And, by the way, which is a better conclusion? her parent killed her or she's in child slavery? How incredibly sad, either way.

Interesting that both of these stories deal with guarding physical safety and leaving people alone who should not, under any way of making such decisions, be left alone.

Rudy - Much much much less important in terms of personal safety, but I'm baffled that Rudy could have thought there was any logic whatsoever to answering his cellphone during his speech the other day. Sure, this is a non-story in many ways. But I can't imagine what I'd think if I was listening to a speech and the speaker's phone rang and he answered it!! First, I'd assume the person's children and spouse had been in an accident and needed his immediate attention. When that turned out to be clearly not true, and if it turned out to be some kind of weird joke, I'd be appalled and think the guy was mildly insane. Maybe, like many candidates before him, Rudy is shooting himself in the foot, but I'd hate to seem him lose the election by stupidity or foolishness.

Larry Craig - In one of the most absurd news item of the day, apparently Larry Craig has been chosen for induction into the Idaho Hall of Fame. Although the nomination was made in March, before all the broohaha of his mens room escapade, he was already more than dubious for such an honor since his voting record is doctrinaire and judgmental, and the rumors of his personal hypocrisy and unkindness to his family have long abounded in Idaho, if not nationally until recently. Hardly the stuff which any hall of fame might honor, seems to me. Which leads me to the conclusion that hardly anyyhing makes any sense any more.

Which, in turn, leads me to recommend Laura's recent post and conclusion that we're cracking up.

Labels: headlines, reading

Do you ever find yourself utterly bored with the things you've been reading on a daily basis - in the news and current events categories? Back when I didn't especially like my apartment, I would invariably channel this vague discomort into re-laying-out furniture. But I like my house now, and (most of) the furniture layouts, so that would be silly and unfortunate since I'd just have to move everything back where it was. So I need new input. There so few news sites and news papers. What to do, what to do? If any dear and/or rare readers have any suggestions, I'd be most appreciative.

Labels: headlines, reading