I have received a very nice gift from Catherine at unrequited narcissism (thanks again, Catherine!). She passed along to me an invitation to establish a GMail account. This is the email service that Google has just started. If you'd care to email me there, the address is "randomjd at gmail dot com". I'm curious to see how the thing works. The premise is that Google will provide you with 1000 MB of space in return for which you agree to accept that their computers will scan your incoming email and, based on word recognition, place advertisements for you to read along the margin when you open that email. Privacy advocates are, as expected, in quite a snit. I have no problem with it since I consider email to be the electronic equivalent of a postcard anyway. By which I mean, everyone can read your email just like everyone can read the back of the postcard. Your employer probably does or at least can do it. So, if you don't want your email coming back to haunt you, treat it like a postcard and put nothing that could embarrass you on it.

And as one my clients can't seem to learn, don't send drunken emails to your former employer telling them, in detail, what you perceive their sexual inadequacies to be. Friends don't let friends write drunk.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:23 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I just whipped through The Devil Wears Prada. I was curious about it and it was about $7 at Costco. I was willing to take a chance for $7 since you pay more than that in NYC to go to the movies. This was not a good book. It was not well written. It did not sketch a reasonably good explanation for how the protagonist let herself become so totally submerged to the point where her ego became almost zilch. In fact, almost none of the characters were well developed. If you don't know about the book, it's a thinly veiled fictional account of the time the author spent as the personal assistant to Anna Wintour at Vogue. (Another excuse for reading this, by the way, is that I represent a former employee of Vogue in litigation with the publication and its corporate parent). So, basically, the book as a book really sucked.

That said, it was an amusing, light, easy read and a perfect guilty pleasure. Take it to the beach. If it gets wet, no big loss.

If you're still reading, let me give you a link to a very interesting review of the book that I found from the National Review. It contains a great little dig at the NY Times for savaging the book based on at least one totally self-interested reviewer.

UPDATE: John Bruce kindly points out that the National Review link doesn't work. Let me instead give you this link to a Google search which should bring up, as the first result, the National Review article which you can go to from the Google search page.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:11 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Today is the 100th anniversary of the travels of Leopold Bloom in James Joyce's famous work, Ulysses. It will be celebrated at Symphony Space and if you happen to be in NY and can get up there, it looks like it will be a lot of fun as more than 100 actors read selections from Ulysses, including performances by Frank McCourt, Malachy McCourt, Stephen Colbert and Fionnula Flanagan as Molly Bloom.

Sadly, I will slave away here and miss it.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:03 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I came across a startling assertion in the NY Times last night on my way home from work and I have not been able to get it out of my mind. Let me put it in context first, I'm sure you are all aware that China is in the midst of a super hot economic boom. Not news to anybody following the papers, right? In fact, all of the discussion of late has been about how China is going to try to slow the expansion down, to create a soft landing without bringing the whole thing down like a pack of cards. As I said, I've been aware of this been perhaps did not fully understand the significance of the boom. That changed last night. The article in the Times was about the building of a new opera house, or something like it, and the reporter noted that since 2000, floor space in China has doubled. This was without reference to any statistic or any support, but, taking it at face value anyway, this is staggering! I cannot really wrap my mind around it. They doubled the size of the entire built environment in 3.5 years! Can anyone really comprehend the significance of that? No wonder they want to cool things down. How can anything continue at that pace?

Posted by: Random Penseur at 07:54 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I want to chat about Magna Carta (the Great Charter), signed today in 1215 by King John at Runnymede. Well, I did want to chat about it, but I don't think I can improve much on what the British Library has to say about it:


Magna Carta is often thought of as the corner-stone of liberty and the chief defence against arbitrary and unjust rule in England. In fact it contains few sweeping statements of principle, but is a series of concessions wrung from the unwilling King John by his rebellious barons in 1215. However, Magna Carta established for the first time a very significant constitutional principle, namely that the power of the king could be limited by a written grant.

King John's unsuccessful attempts to defend his dominions in Normandy and much of western France led to oppressive demands on his subjects. Taxes were extortionate; reprisals against defaulters were ruthless, and John's administration of justice was considered capricious. In January 1215 a group of barons demanded a charter of liberties as a safeguard against the King's arbitrary behaviour. The barons took up arms against John and captured London in May 1215.

By 10 June both parties met and held negotiations at Runnymede, a meadow by the River Thames. The concessions made by King John were outlined in a document known as the 'Articles of the Barons', to which the King's great seal was attached, and on 19 June the barons renewed their oaths of allegiance to the King. Meanwhile the royal chancery produced a formal royal grant, based on the agreements reached at Runnymede, which became known as Magna Carta (Latin for the 'Great Charter').

I would like to add this, though. Prior to the signature of this document, it was understood that the Kings ruled by divine right given from God. Upon the signature of the Magna Carta, the divine right of Kings was curtailed by Man. The significance of this development cannot be overstated and should be evident to all.

While you are at the British Library web site, assuming you've followed the link, I highly recommend taking a moment and exploring the treasures of the British Library. There are some fascinating things there.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 03:19 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Been awhile since I posted a good time suck, but I give you the Postmodernism Essay Generator. It will give you a different postmodern essay filled with the finest in scholarly gobbledygook with every visit or every time you hit refresh.

Jut think, you may get a gem like this:

If one examines the pretextual paradigm of discourse, one is faced with a choice: either reject the posttextual paradigm of reality or conclude that reality is unattainable, given that Debord's essay on the pretextual paradigm of discourse is invalid. However, the subject is contextualised into a capitalist materialism that includes consciousness as a whole. The characteristic theme of Bailey's[1] analysis of neostructuralist depatriarchialism is not discourse, but subdiscourse. From "Expressions of Futility: Dialectic narrative, feminism and the pretextual paradigm of discourse", by Hans Tilton and Stefan D. de Selby.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 11:12 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Up and down all day long in a small cabinet the size of two or three old fashioned telephone booths. If you are lucky, you have the place to yourself for the trip. If not lucky, you've caught the local on the way down and it feels as if you've stopped on every floor for someone to get on or for someone to hold the door open until it buzzes while they're waiting for their friend to catch up.

What button is worn down to the plastic cover on an elevator in NY? The "close door" button. Not the open door, the close. In fact, you regularly hit the close door button before you push your desired floor button. Helps to keep the rif-raf out, don't you know.

What happens if you end up in the local -- crowded or otherwise? The etiquette is interesting. First, the make up of the cabin helps determine the etiquette. Perhaps your fellow travelers include the nice woman from the African country UN Mission a couple of floors up. Well, then you chat with her in French. You discuss only the weather. Nothing more, nothing less. You hope you do not see her more than once in a day. If you do see her, hope that the weather has changed in the meantime. Maybe the elevator contains the mailman or the FEDEX guy. These guys you say hello to. You know them and it's important to be friendly. To them, a quick word about sports is in order.

Then you may have a cabin filled with strangers. What do you do then? Again, while it depends on the kind of stranger, you can't go wrong following the general Urinal Rule. Men will be familiar with this rule. The Urinal Rule means you look only down or up and never to the side. Translated for the elevator, you look only at the floor indicator as it changes or down at your watch or keys or shoes. No eye contact. Do not check out the young woman no matter how little clothing she may be fashionably almost wearing. Not polite and probably even vaguely threatening to her when she's locked up with you in that small space. Try to tune out other people's cell phone calls or conversations. The exception is the messenger. The messenger always wants to talk. Maybe he doesn't get a lot of human interaction. Whatever the explanation, he'll want to pass the time of the ride in conversation of sorts. Indulge him. It's safer that way.

The thing I've noticed the most though is that when strangers are thrust into close proximity with each other in a confined spot like an elevator cabin in a big city, mostly, they all pretend that no one else is in there with them. They pretend so hard, that they are clearly acknowledging the other people.

It's odd. But at least, usually, it smells better that the urinal.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:44 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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A mural, painted by Jewish children deported by the Nazis during WW II was desecrated in France. This makes me sad. First, the Nazis took these children from their parents and sent them to a transit camp. While at the camp, I gather, the children painted a mural. They made a record of their existence on this planet. They set their hands to the wall with paint so the world could remain, however mute, a witness to their suffering. Then, I assume, they were killed. The mural remained. The French put up bars around it to preserve it. Then someone came along and, again I am assuming, motivated by hatred tried to wipe out the memory of their lives and their passing. This person killed them again, it seems to me. What else can you call the attempted eradication of memory? Murder by proxy. Denial that these children existed.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 05:06 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Borrowed time in the botellon, by Michael Carlin, a Fulbright Scholar living in Spain is a rather savage indictment of Spain, Spanish society, and the Spanish response to the tragedy of 3/11. At heart, his view is that another 3/11 is inevitable and that Spain, such as it is, is rotting from within. I don't have enough background to know whether I agree, but I thought it was an interesting read.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 03:49 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Usually, when you and the radio come into contact, it's by way of you turning on the radio and tuning into a particular station or even program. It's not usually because someone calls you on the phone, from the radio station, to request that you listen to that station. I just got a call from Z-100 to tell me that if I listen and hear a certain song it could be worth $1000 to me. I explained that I was at work and not really able to listen to her station and she thanked me and got off in a hurry. I mean, she'd have to be in a hurry, wouldn't she? She must have over 7 million other New Yorkers to call to beg to tune in.

How crappy does a radio station have to be if they call you and ask you to listen?

Posted by: Random Penseur at 03:23 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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In the spirit of the truly random, I share with you a few things which happened today in history:

*1623 1st breach-of-promise lawsuit: Rev Gerville Pooley, Va files against Cicely Jordan. He loses
*1642 1st compulsory education law in America passed by Massachusetts
*1775 US Army founded
*1777 Continental Congress adopts Stars & Stripes replacing Grand Union flag
*1801 Benedict Arnold dies in London
*1834 Sandpaper patented by Isaac Fischer Jr, Springfield, Vermont
*1850 Fire destroys part of SF
*1876 1st player to hit for the cycle (George Hall, Phila Athletics)
*1900 Hawaiian Republic becomes the US Territory of Hawaii
*1923 Pres Harding is 1st US president to use radio, dedicating the Francis Scott Key memorial in Baltimore
*1940 Auschwitz, largest of the Nazi concentration camps, was first opened near Krakow, Poland. Before its liberation by the Allies in 1945, over 3 million Jews would be exterminated there.
*1940 German forces occupied Paris during WW II
*1942 Walt Disney's "Bambi" is released
*1944 1st B-29 raid against mainland Japan
*1951 1st commercial computer, UNIVAC 1, enters service at Census Bureau
*1952 Keel laid for 1st nuclear powered sub the Nautilus
*1953 Elvis Presley graduates from LC Humes High School in Memphis, Tenn
*1961 Boy George O'Dowd was born (Culture Club)

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:28 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I hope you all had nice weekends. The weather here in NY was beautiful -- high 70's and barely a cloud in the sky. It was perfect. Marred only by the slight runny nose the boy child had. Slight runny nose for the little portable germ warfare factory translates into near death experience for me. I have a sore throat, runny nose, head ache, extreme tiredness and am whiny and feeling sorry for myself. The boy, of course, seems fine.

We had a mini reunion this weekend. All four of us who lived together in college for all four years got together this weekend at my house. R has moved himself out to the middle of Indiana where, for like six bucks and a collection of old bottle tops, got 14 acres of land and build himself a palace of a house. He came for the weekend without wife or children. M lives in New Jersey in a very tony suburb. He came with wife and two children. We took them all to the beach to watch the kids run around and ooh and aah over the dead jellyfish.

It was interesting to see how, 15 years after graduation, my friends have changed. None of the important things have changed. They are both the same fundamentally decent guys they always were. R has become more satisfied with himself. He is a lawyer in a small city in Indiana and does mostly personal injury work, not the kind of work that is necessarily intellectually stimulating. Also, living in a smaller more homogeneous place has left him without any of the daily challenges to his world view and value system that life in NY throws at you where you may have a dozen different languages and cultures in your face on any given day. He's happy, I think I'd find it stultifying. He showed us a video of the house though and that was like a playhouse gone wild: 6500 sq. ft., a wine cellar, an office with a smoke eater for his cigars, a fire pole down from his office to the second floor, a gym, a full bar next to the entertainment center with a massive big screen television. And I swear, in comparison to NY, he got the thing built in exchange for three packs of chewing gum.

M is someone I see regularly, actually. Not as regularly as I'd like, but still regularly. He's an up and coming executive type at a major life insurance company. His wife is charming and their kids are beautiful and smart. He works too hard but he's got the whole package. He is also the nicest guy I've ever known.

After the beach, we all adjourned to my house for the kids to nap together and the adults to drink some wine. At least we managed to drink the wine. The two little girls played in my daughter's room instead of napping. I believe that copious amounts of old Easter candy were consumed. Wrappers were discovered later. But they got along like two peas in a pod, which augurs well for future time together. I really wanted them to get along. It makes things easier for us all.

We all went out for an early dinner. Indian food is not readily available in R's corner of the world. My daughter fell and cut her lip during dinner. She was very brave and let me hold and ice cube to it to cut the swelling down. Then she noticed that she had gotten blood all over her shirt. She wanted to get down off my lap then and go show "Mr. R" and M her shirt. For some reason, she decided that R should be called Mr. R. Maybe because he's over 6 foot 5 inches tall. Either way, she walked over and stood between R and M and showed them her shirt and they made all of the appropriate noises about how brave she was and she just stood there and gleamed. It was an interesting and kind of odd feeling watching these two guys, people I've known in all sorts of stupid situations, interact with my daughter. It was kind of surreal. But very sweet.

Eventually, of course, all tired children melted down, we cut things short, over tipped and left.

Other than being sick today, it was a nice weekend all around.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:07 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I was reading the Atlantic over lunch today and came upon Mark Steyn's piece on the death of the Duke of Devonshire. Apparently the Duke came up against the Inland Revenue Service in the matter of some death taxes (80% of the value of the estate) and he fobbed them off for 17 years. Why, you may ask, did it take 17 years to close this estate? Because the Duke noted how long it took the Inland Revenue people to answer his letters. He then adjusted his calendar by taking the same amount of time to send his reply but subtracting one day from that period. Genius. Pure genius.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 01:36 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Was I ethnically insensitive today when I laughed out loud while walking past the Polish Consulate upon spying a young woman who, after exiting the consulate and while chatting on her cell phone, put a cigarette to her lips and promptly lit the filter? Was I engaging in the worst kind of ethnic bad joke propagation? Or am I doing that now?

Posted by: Random Penseur at 01:32 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I read the following article in the NY Times some days ago about celebrity assistants and was immediately reminded of P.G. Wodehouse's fictional Club for Gentlemen's Gentlemen: The Junior Ganymede. The big difference is that the members of the Junior Ganymede were required to jot down embarrassing details about their employers and the Celebrity Assistants' Association would never tolerate such indiscretion. Or so they say.

I do love P.G.'s books and short stories.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:28 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I heard on the radio this morning that Sammy Sosa, the mighty home run slugger for the Chicago Cubs, has been out of the lineup since last month with a strained ligament in his back. He's not expected back in anytime soon. Ever see a picture of this guy? He's huge and very powerful looking.

Then the DJ told us how Sammy hurt himself. He pulled that ligament in his back while sneezing. That must have been one hell of a sneeze, huh?

Good to see all that strength training doesn't come at the expense of stretching and flexibility.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:47 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Came across this article about the growing gap between the EU and the US economies. It references a Swedish study which has some fairly startling results. Apparently, according to the study, "Europeans are at a level of prosperity on par with states such as Arkansas, Mississippi and West Virginia", not exactly the leading US economic powerhouses among states.

This leads to the question, also posed by Robert Kagan in his book, Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order, which was an expansion of his essay here, if you don't feel like buying the whole book, which is: Can Europe afford to play the heavyweight in international affairs? Mississippi certainly cannot.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:43 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This was a beautiful story about a dying young man and the relationships he formed.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:32 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This was an interesting and thought provoking look at anti-Semitism on the UC Berkeley campus: The Berkeley Intifada.

I would consider reading that in conjunction with this article, which is a long piece from the NY Observer about the rise of modern anti-Semitism. This is a very well written and terribly sobering piece.

You may ask yourself, why should I care about this? You may think, I'm neither Jewish nor Israeli and it's a world away. Someone much more clever than I once said that the Jews are like the canary in the coal mine for the world. When the atmosphere turns poisonous for the Jews, it's only a matter of time for everyone else.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 08:23 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Every dog owner already knew this, but, according to the NY Times, Research Shows Dogs Can Comprehend Words. Hell, our old dog could understand commands in English, French and Norwegian. The only command I wished I had ever changed to another language, though, was: "Don't hump the guests!" That one, our un-neutered beast, only understood in English and we usually had to give it before the unfortunate guest knew what the dog was thinking. We could discern a certain twinkle in his eyes when he looked at certain guests. . .

Posted by: Random Penseur at 02:12 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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