The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
Harlot’s Ghost, by Norman Mailer
Ten years ago, when I used the library to check out books, I took this home. I started it, loved it, and for some reason I put it down. I renewed it, then put it down again so I had to return it. This is one reason that I stopped checking out books from the library.
A few years later, I found it again on eBay, so I picked it up. I started over, loved it and put it down again. It sat on my shelf for years. I picked it up again this summer and started over.
The main character, Harry Hubbard, is second generation CIA. His father and his godfather are both well-known and old school. Harry is cool because he is not a super-star, not a loser, and the nepotism thing rolls off his back.
We learn at the beginning that Harry ends up having an affair with his godfather, Harlot’s, wife Kittredge. And after that, he marries her. Harlot ends up dead – suicide, murder or fake for the purpose of defection. And the wife runs off with some other guy. I am all jazzed with the “what happened here?”
Then we get the history.
The history of the CIA, and the lifestyle that Mailer presumes, is really well done. The politics and the competition with the FBI are a common thread throughout. The theme, however, is that of the dual life. Both as a matter of espionage and a matter of human nature. Kittredge has a theory of the two selves, Alpha and Omega. The theory is too complex and heavy-handed for my taste, so I didn’t bother to understand it fully, but the point is that we all have two sides to our nature. Almost two totally different personalities. While Kittredge layed the psychology on really thick, I do appreciate the concept.
Anyway, we follow Harry through a thousand-plus pages of his adventures including many historical figures. Unlike what I imagine to be the target audience, I was bored to tears by the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis. However, one of Harry’s assignments is to get into the pants of a character clearly based on Judith Campbell so as to keep up with the dirt on the Mafia and, to an extent, candidate Kennedy. That was fun..for awhile.
Perhaps in our post Cold War-whatever, I just can’t appreciate the drama. But what really ticked me off is that at the end – which was a To Be Continued that wasn’t – we still don’t know what really happened to Harlot, or Kittredge. Or why that one guy died or what the hell Dix Butler was up to. It was really abrupt, as if Mailer got bored and dropped it.
I’m glad I finally finished it, anyway.
Gaming with Alex
Alex’s mom and sister were out of town today, so Scott decided that this would be a good time to try to get Alex to eat Chinese food. Didn’t fly. He asked if he could eat carrots.
Before lunch, we played his football game. Actually, it was more like toy soldiers on a football field. There were red guys and blue guys. I take some blue guys and just as I am figuring out that I can’t teach him to line up an empty set because there are only two wide receivers, he tells me that first we have to “Say all their names”
Me: “We have to what?”
Him: “Say all their names. Go on, Aunt Anne – you know all their names.”
He wanted to introduce them, like at the start of the game.
Me: “OK, but I am getting my camera. I am so blogging this.”
I do not, in fact, know all of their names. And these figures do not have the same numbers as the Bears. And that is when Alex very patiently explained to me about pretending. OK, I’ll play along. Then I found something that resembled a linebacker and declared him Brian Urlacher.
Alex informed me that Brian Urlacher is not number 55.
As I called the names, he made sure all of the little football soldiers got high fives. When we were done, he told me to say all of the names of the ’49ers.
I was getting ready to declare the halfback Man in Motion when Alex knocked all of the players into a pile, swept them off the field and declared a rain delay. He rolled up the tarp, and took this picture.
Me: Alex. There is no rain delay in football.
Alex: I’m pretending.
Scott: (walking back into the room) Are you done?
Me: Your son has declared a rain delay.
Scott: Alex. There are no rain delays in football.
Alex: I’m pretending!
And that was all for the football. Later, I got to pull out the “I’m pretending” line when Alex hassled me for coloring Thomas the Tank Engine purple. Then he decided that he wanted to watch a DVD. He asked for the camera so that he could take a picture.
Me: Why do you need to take a picture of the DVD player?
Alex: Just in case.
OK, then.
Moldmoldmold
We have seen the mold guys are were informed that every living, breathing creature must vacate the premises while the work is being done. Seven to nine days. And I am pretty sure he meant working days.
Do you know how hard it is to find someplace for two women, one dog, one cat and one bird to live all at once at the same time without going broke? I briefly considered getting a short term lease on an apartment.
Ugh. We think we have it worked out. In the meantime, Shadow went to the vet because we think he might be fighting an infection, too.
Mold is the most horrible thing on Earth. But here is a picture of Kiwi, taking her medicine without complaint.
How many times a week do you think a Grey can have McDonald’s?
What Was the Point of That?
I came home today to meet a guy about removing all of the mold from my house. I went up the stairs, thinking I would start a load of laundry. Then I saw this:
Damn. What did I leave in my garbage that the dog found? Then I saw this:
It was a full bag of cat food. We had left it on top of the cat’s scratching post, which was idiotic because Shadow can totally reach that. I pick up the bag and realize that it is mostly full. In fact, there were more than three pounds left in a 3.5 pound bag.
What the heck? Shadow suddenly decided that he doesn’t like cat food? I called my mother, because that is what we do wen one of the animals has behaved badly.
“I don’t know why I am more bothered,” I say. “Because he did the deed or because it is so freakin’ out of character for him to not finish the bag and make himself sick.”
She says, “I’m worried because that bag was sitting there for two weeks. Did he just now discover it?”
Weirdness all around.
Good & Fruity
Next to the Good & Fiery were Good & Fruity! Apparently it was gone and there was some kind of petition to bring it back. I bought a box for nostalgia’s sake.
Big disappointment. My initial reaction, which seems to be the opinion of Bloggers everywhere (seriously, Google it) is that they are less the Good & Fruity of old and more Mike and Ike.
Eh. Because I ditched the box and wanted a picture for you, I went online – where I found the petitions and angry reviews. Then I found this:
Check out this Candy Blog. Very open-minded and detailed review. Nice schtick for a website, I think. I might have to read more.
Diner Dash
It sent me to the Internet and said I could play four times before purchasing. At $19.95 or something ridiculous. Seriously, I could have sworn that I’d seen this game at Half Price Books for five bucks. Whatever.
I played for two hours. Those guys are tricksy, with their loss leaders and their “must have it but it’s the middle of the night so I will pay $19.95”. Good thing I have some self-control. (snort).
So today, I went to Half Price Books. Five bucks. Or Diner Dash and Diner Dash 2 for seven bucks. Hah.
Plus the four books I had to have right now. (sigh)
I am never going to get to those 17 episodes of Chuck.
Kiwi and Food
The good news is that she likes to eat corn on the cob. The bad news is that she prefers shredding it all over the floor.
Also – I got her to take her medicine the other night. By injecting it into a McDonald’s french fry.
What’s the Matter with Kansas?, by Thomas Frank
Book 28
It is no secret that my politics are sometimes confused. I have been known to vote for people because I just them better. My initial dislike of Bill Clinton was really dislike of his wife. So…as fickle as the next lazy American. On top of that, I was raised in Cook County, where politicians were either part of the Chicago machine or they were Republicans. So we were Republicans.
My father, who is the very definition of the lily-livered, East Coast hippie/yuppie, called himself an Independent. But he voted for Republicans the entire 20 years he lived in Cook County.
But for the past several years, I have listened to the Republicans and wondered what in the hell has happened. So I read, What’s the Matter with Kansas?, by Thomas Frank.
Frank isn’t exactly talking about me – voting for Republicans even when I believe rather strongly in a woman’s right to choose and a homosexual’s right to marry. He is talking about the working class and small farmers in Kansas, once a “hotbed of radicalism” and wondering how they all became Republicans when to do so is absolutely opposed to their economic interests.
The answer is, in a word, backlash.
The entire time I was reading this, I remembered Michael Douglas giving a speech in the press room in the film The American President. He said that the other guy was only interested in “Two things..making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it.” Apparently, a bunch of really rich old men have picked up this mantle of conservatism, knowing that they are never going to win back Roe v. Wade, to hoodwink the masses into voting to make them richer. The fact that they are never going to win back Roe v. Wade means they will forever be the individualistic underdogs. They will be forever under attack by the haughty Ivy league types, and that suits their purpose just fine.
A lot of time is spent in this book on the abortion issue. I was fascinated because I remember voting for Bush I in 1992, mostly because I didn’t like Bill Clinton. I was asked several times how I could do such a thing when President Bush was against abortion. First, I would make a joke about how Barbara would never let him cross the rhetorical line, then I would say something like, “The Supreme Court has already ruled. No one is going to take away my right to choose, so I will not be making this an issue when I vote.”
That was sincere. Arrogant, but sincere. What I didn’t realize at the time is that people have found ways to chip away at Roe v. Wade. It took 30 years, but the court swung in the other direction and limits have been placed. I’m not saying that there isn’t a point in a pregnancy where it is just too late to change one’s mind. I’m not making a statement on whether that point should or shouldn’t be legislated. I’m saying that I don’t think those lawsuits were making an honest effort to find the line. I think they were just trying to chip away at Roe v. Wade.
Anyway. The theory is that the way the Republicans pulled off this coup was to stop talking about economics per se and create an anti-intellectualist class war. By the end of the book, the argument was getting heavy handed, but I am buying it. Frank makes a bunch of interesting points, but one stand out: He says that if you ask the Democrats how it happened, they will say that it is really just racism by another name. Frank disagrees. Kansas isn’t racist, he says. They don’t care a thing about race, as long as one goes to the right church.
This week, I read this book and watched three poli-sci lectures on Academic Earth. I must go back to the novels now.
Stupid, Stupid Aspergillus
Last Friday, after learning that Kiwi was fighting off aspergillus in her system, I went to get my allergy shot. Shots, actually. We separated them into two because several weeks ago, I starting having a skin reaction and I wanted to figure out which of the allergens was making me mad. Saturday, I found out – aspergillus. My allergist is dialing back my treatment.
Yesterday, the mold inspector came to the house. We knew there was some mold in the basement. Getting it waterproofed was the official project of the summer. There was a bit in my mother’s bathroom. And then some in the garage. The good news is that our attic is in great shape, which means that nothing is coming through the ceiling into the bedrooms. We will have the full report on air quality, types of mold and whether it is going to kill me on Monday.
In the meantime, twice a day I am spending 10 minutes arguing with Kiwi the Grey about taking her medicine. She has only bitten me once, but she keeps spitting it out. My powder room looks like someone took a super soaker filled with Pepto Bismol into there. Tomorrow, I am taking two birds into the vet for the Refuge and plan to grill him about this again.
Hating the mold.
Cell Phone Courtesy Month. Seriously.
According to Google, July is Cell Phone Courtesy Month. They gave us a link to a wikiHow on cell phone etiquette. Here is my favorite part:
Don’t talk on the phone in any enclosed spaces, even if you’re more than 10 feet away from anyone. They can still hear you (because it’s an enclosed space) and usually, they’re forced to just sit there and listen.
o Elevators
o Waiting rooms
o Auditoriums
o Buses
o Trains
I would add bathrooms to this list. But I don’t even think that talking should be allowed in bathrooms.
They also had a reminder that it is impolite to take someone’s picture without their consent. I wonder how many more impolite things we can invent for the use of cell phones.
The Next Dark Age 