Twitter Tax

I'm usually up-to-date, give or take a few months, of new technology except for those which require large expenditures of time or money (e.g. hence why I'm about 20-30 years behind video games). But communication tools are my wheelhouse and that's why I'm an avid email/web/cellphone/blog user. I haven't been able to upgrade to a blackberry because I don't have the money (same thing with an iPhone, although my bad experience with the iPod, specifically the incompatibility with PCs, have militated me against mapple).

Yet there are two current tech-trends that I have not leapt on: texting and twittering. Texting is possibly a generational thing, or manual-dexterity thing, but I have a feeling it's also from personality difference. Despite my fishbowl professions and my public presence, I am jealous about my time-management and private space. So even back in the 90s, when texting was called "IM," I didn't do it. It's against my brainworks to be at someone else's schedule or hierarchy of topic importance. IMing also would crash my OS.

True, because I don't value IM/Text/Twit, I then expand that devalue to disdain - for the mechanism and even for its advocates. The message quality of IM/Twit is meager and made more for speed than comprehension.* Who needs that.

But that brings us to Twitter. As some random dude I read on a blog comments page (I think Balloon Juice, who have great commenters) Twitter exploded because the iPhone made it easy to do - that 'platform' is a key gateway to technology acceptance (an example, from me, for this is why DVDs caught on swiftly even though they replicated the {much more expensive} laserdiscs). So no iPhone for me, no twitting.

But it appears to be a slightly expanded form of Instant Messaging and I say the hell with it. [See the second pic to get the reference] And I think Twitting has been accepted by the mainstream codgers with a relish that feels creepy; it's almost as if journalists scoffed at blogs, found out that soon blogs were eating their lunch, and didn't want it to happen again so they vowed to indiscriminately accept the next new tech tool. Twitter was next up the pike, so they grabbed it.

A different theory is that journalists and politicians actually do think in 140 character bursts.

In either case, I'm annoyed by any reference to twitter, twitting, tweeting, twooting, or what-have-you, and I've decided to add a Twitter Tax to any company that broadcasts proudly that I should follow them on Twitter. Yeah? You really think I'm so dim that I will eagerly invite you to pour 140-character spam into my phone/laptop? A tax on you!

*=link to a good NYer article by Louis Menand on text-culture. Pic from here, a similar curmudgeon. Second pic from here but originally from NewYorker.

Shakshuka

The theme of the recent issue of the New Yorker is 'food' - a topic I know little about, being a penny-pinching, congenitally hypertensive shomer-kashrut consumer. This eliminates many food options that most of the world lusts over (pigs, alcohol, fat, sugar, shelled-seafood). But I truly love food (see my anguished posts about fasting to see the transposition of this obsession).

Anyhoo, Anthony Lane (one of my favorite NYer writers) deals with the versatility of eggs for those hungry people who can't cook but who need a quick meal (Improvisations: Eggs"). An example of egg necessity, described by Lane:

"... oeufs en meurette, a recipe where eggs are poached with onion, carrot, mushrooms, bacon and a half bottle of red wine. It is a classic ad-libber’s meal, in that, even when it goes right it looks like something that has gone terribly wrong."

I know the truth of which he speaks not from this random disquieting French recipe but from my encounters with Shakshuka (pictured above).

I confronted Shakshuka often during my years in yeshiva in Israel. Do let the appearance fool you - it was often as disgusting as it looked. As far as I could tell, the de-factor recipe was fried eggs with tomatoes. Sounds fine, no? Yet, as Lane says, "when it goes right it looks like something that has gone terribly wrong."

In my first year in yeshiva, when this was often on the dinner menu, it seemed to come direct from the cruel soul of the kitchen-capo, a youthful Sabra named "Shachar." His name literally means "dawn" - which should be pleasant, even pretty - but the combined phonemes just sounded like a spat curse. Much as shakshuka looked like it.

See here for a recipe (it's also where the picture is from).

I Just Lost US$4.7 Million!

An email arrived, entitled "Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection..." in it, I learned this (verbatim):

We hereby bring to your notice that a consignment been delivered at your residence by two diplomats.

They had been stopped by us. There is a security measure put in place by United States of America, check terrorism and money laundry through the sale of illegal drugs locally and internationally.

After examination, we found out that the consignment contained the sum of US$4.7 Million, which upon further investigation revealed that the fund was your inheritance.

Consequently, the diplomats will deliver your consignment at your residence after all protocols have been observed.

However, in order to proceed we need you to reconfirm the following information,

Full Name: ....
Residential Address:....
Date of Birth: ....
Occupation: ....
Telephone/Mobile Numbers: ....

We await your response.
Regards,
Jason Ahern.

This is so tragic. I just missed my inheritance money! Note, this implies that someone just died, and it's pretty mean of this spammer (and, uh, I assume it is) to assert that 4.7 million dollars worth of loved ones have just died in some poorly translated accident.

Anyway, I recall this excellent New Yorker article on spam (August 6, 2007, by Michael Specter, found here) which stated that "Spammers usually need to send a million e-mails to get fifteen positive responses..." This was eye-opening - that there actually are people who respond to these things! 15 from a million is a very small number (0.0015%!) but that still means that there are 15 people too stupid to understand spam yet smart enough to type.

Pic from here. Backpost finished 2009-11-30.

John Updike, Dead at 76

The obituary: from the New York Times

Update: From Sullivan, a set of links of online works by Updike:

1. Atlantic
2. The New Yorker
3. New York Review of Books
4. The New Republic
   

Miscellaneous from My Files, part 1

I'm dedicating today to writing & blogging so here's some stuff from my unsorted inbox, basically brief links/commentaries:

1. Sept 9 2008; from Huffy herself, inventing a great image, Sarah Palin as a Trojan Moose.
   
   
2. Sept 10 2008; Why Obama will actually beat the poll numbers, because of his incredible ground game. And see here.
   
   
3. From the Atlantic, the GOP dirty trick machine of 2004.
   
   
4. Sept 11 2008, from the NYTimes, about vote suppression/dirty tricks in 2008 Mississippi.
   
   
5. Sept 10 2008, from McClatchy [the best single news organization in the world, IMHO], about how the U.S. is in similar danger from al Qaida in 2008 as we were in 2001.
   
   
6. Sept 11 2008, the Washpost describing an underhanded smearing tactic by McCain.
   
   
7. From Salon, how CBS capitulated in 2004 and did not show a documentary about the Bush Administration lies about the Iraq War.
   
   
8. Sept 13 2008, from Digby, more about voter suppression.
   
   
9. Good New Yorker humor about Palin.
   
   
10. Excellent piece by Ezra Klein about the problem with political reporting. Shorter EK: "I think one aspect of the modern press that doesn't get enough attention -- either among folks in the media or folks critiquing it -- is the transition from the fundamental scarcity being information to information being in abundance and the fundamental scarcity being mediation." It's especially sweet because his target is the fatuous Marc Ambinder - who over this election season has been twisting himself into pretzels to be 'even-handed' first with Hillary and now with McCain. His only value comes from his stature allowing him to receive equal opportunity leaks from all camps. Otherwise, he's a dolt.

Satire Compare and Contrast

Everyone's agog over the New Yorker cover which depicts the biggest smears against the Obamas. I was holding off from writing about it on the blog until I got my copy so I could see the title of the piece, which is "The Politics of Fear." As such, the cover isn't as tasteless as it first appeared. It's just stupid. Or, to put a specific term to it, it is a botched joke. And like other recent botched jokes (cf. John Kerry in 2006, Don Imus, or even Michael Richards) the fact that you WANTED to be funny, doesn't exonerate you from actually not being funny.

A botched joke isn't bad, many comedians suffer through them, but when the subject of the joke is a taboo (Kerry: Democrats talking about soldiers; Imus & Richards: whites about blacks), then the botched-ness shows a maladroitness in not only delivery but in judgement. Taboo humor is like live ammunition. Leave it to the professionals.

Speaking of professionals, compare the cover of the New Yorker to Jib-Jab's latest on the campaign (from Slate). Jib-Jab goes even further into taboo territory than the NYer, but because its so skillfully done, the jokes work:



Pic nicked from gawker.

The Hagiography of Russert

Jack Shafer, one of the best things about Slate magazine, agrees with me about the selfish wasting of airspace and attention of the death of Tim Russert (for an example, see Remnick at The New Yorker.) Basically, they are treating him as an important world leader when, basically, he's just another of the pack of journalist-talking heads who emphasized the horse-race over real substance. Every prominent journalist who was working from 2001-2008 should be ashamed about what they let the Bush Administration get away with.

Here's a choice quote from Shafer's piece, The Canonization of Saint Russert:

I wonder whether the media grievers gave a moment of thought to how this Russert torrent they produced played with viewers and readers. Did the grievers really think Russert was so important, so vital to the nation's course, and such an elevated human being that he deserved hour upon hour of tribute? I wonder whether any of the responsible journalists paused to think, Hey, this is really weird. We're using our unchecked editorial power to soak the nation with our tears about our friend, and that's unseemly!

On days like this, I, too, hate the press.

Join the club, Jack.

Pic from here. Backpost finished 2009-12-06.

Jeffrey Goldberg

I have not been a fan of journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, stretching back to his writing about Israel in the New Yorker which was followed by shallow articles on American Politics - two topics I know a lot about. But he's a new blogger at the Atlantic. And he made this website about jewish rock musicians (something I am also interested in).

Let's see if he redeems himself in the blogger-dome.

Good New Yorker Funnyness

Great humor piece in this week's New Yorker by some dude named 'Yoni Brenner'. Note the gratuitous use of monkeys.

The author is probably this guy, because he can write this about himself:

When I first decided to enter the priesthood, believe me, I lot of people told me I couldn't do it. "You're too young," they said, "You're Jewish," they jeered, "You're a woman!" they cried. And then they would say, "Oh, sorry," and, "You were far away, we couldn't tell," and, "You've got to admit, you've got a really high voice." But naysayers be damned, I did it.

French Politics

Without fear of later contradiction, I can say with confidence, that I have not been nor am currently, interested in the French or French politics. However, they are going to have an election soon (for president, premier, Frogger in Chief, what have you). I do know that there are three candidates, but it stops there. According to Martin Peretz, the Gaullist candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, is supposed to be friendly to both the US and Israel. If so, then it'd be nice if he wins. If not, it just may not matter one way or the other.

[Update, 4-19-07]
Here are two stories to expand on this, from the New Republic and the New Yorker.

Who is this Hertzberg Clown?

Good question, airless void. Naturally, I went to the online Oracle, and here's what the heilige Wiki says about my geriatric interlocutor:

The son of Sidney Hertzberg, a Jewish journalist and political activist, and Hazel Whitman Hertzberg, a Protestant professor of history and education at Columbia University, .... In 1977 he joined the White House speechwriting staff and was Carter’s chief speechwriter for the final two years of his term.

This explains it; Hertzberg is the product of an intermarriage and was the spokesman of the worst years of the worst Democratic goofball since William Jennigs Bryan attacked Darwinism in Tennessee.

No wonder he hates Lieberman and makes Joe's religious belief the point of attack - and no wonder I instinctively reacted to Hendrik's venom.

However, as my worried father asked me after I read him my exchange, "do you think they'll ever publish you in the Newyorker?" Well, considering that Hertzberg was also responsible for the worst years of the Newyorker [as the Wiki states: "In 1992, when Tina Brown became editor of The New Yorker, she recruited Hertzberg as her executive editor, and he helped her redesign and revitalize the magazine"] I may be considered a hero.

Suuure.

Hendrik Hertzberg vs. the Styx

In the last post, I made refence to this article by Hendrik Hertzberg, where he said some nasty, ignorant things about Lieberman.

Well, I couldn't let that stand. So I wrote a letter to the Newyorker. The tone of my letter was a bit strong because for all the years I've read the NY I have seen them only publish 1 or 2 an issue, and the only people they print have the status level of college presidents and heads of state; hence I assumed I was just sending off a hot email into the echo-less void.

Turns out, hey, they actually sent my email to Hertzberg and he responded to me. I reprint below the complete interchange. Comments for clarity are in italics.

I. Letter to New Yorker, Friday July 21, 6:54 pm (20 minutes before Mincha at shul)

Subject: Hertzfeld went over the line

Yes, I spelled his name wrong in the subject line, even though I spelled it correctly in the text of the letter; this is foreshadowing

To the Editors of the New Yorker:

Hendrik Hertzberg's article about Senator Lieberman in the most recent New Yorker (found online here) was an open an attack on an Orthodox Jew that I have seen in a mainstream magazine. There is much to criticize Lieberman about, but Hertzberg's article is filled with such bile that I found it as frightening as reading Pat Buchanan.

A prime example of Hertzberg's hatred is when he makes a moral equivalency between Bill Clinton's adultery and Lieberman's divorce (an absurd claim on its face). Hertzberg states that Lieberman: "had the gall to cite differing 'levels of religious observance' as the only specific reason he was willing to give for the divorce."

Gall?! Why is that gall? I guess it is when you discredit religious observance in general and use it as a subterranean attack against honest people (like Lieberman). Who's next?

Hertzberg should be ashamed of airing the darkness of his mind and the New Yorker should show more judgment into allowing such things to be printed without a caveat ("Warning - Ignoramus Alert" would be nice).

Respectfully submitted,
[The Styx]

II. Hertzberg's response, Monday, July 24, 2006 10:25 AM

Dear Mr. [Styx]:

Your letter (appended below) was forwarded to me by "The Mail." Thanks for writing.

I see your point about "a moral equivalency between Bill Clinton's adultery and Lieberman's divorce." You're quite right. On the face of it, divorce is of course worse. Divorce tears a family apart and forces the children to shuttle back and forth between one parent and the other. Adultery is awful too, and it's hard on the kids too (especially when sanctimonious holier-than-thou types drag it out into public view and rub the kids' faces in it), but on the face of it it's not in the same league as divorce. Adultery, per se, is more a bump (or a big, nasty pothole) in the road, a road to which both spouses are committed "till death do us part," in contrast to the sort of person who is more committed to "religious observance" than to his own flesh-and-blood family.

Sincerely, Hendrik Hertzberg aka "Hertzfeld"

III. My Response to Hertzberg, Monday, July 24, 2006 11:30 AM

Dear Mr. Hertzberg

First, thank you for your reply.

Second, I do wish to apologize for spelling your name wrong in the subject line of the email I sent.

As someone whose name is frequently misspelled, I too feel the pain and shame of having a misspelled name.

I am sure you agree that having one's name misspelled or misattributed is actually a far worse moral crime than adultery or divorce combined.

Third, after seeing your reasoning below, I have come to agree with you. I no longer think you are an amoral bigot with underdeveloped abilities in reasoning and judgment. Any thoughts I had that you should not be allowed to offer opinions or analysis - based on your substandard quality - have been changed. Even though the rise of blogs has shown that opinion and analysis no longer be sought in the mainstream media where antiquated notions of authority and ability hold sway, I no longer think of you as one of those obsolete clowns.

Good luck to you, sir, in the years ahead

[The Styx]

Blast from the Past

Nicholas Lemann, The Iraq Factor: Will the new Bush team's old memories shape its foreign policy?

A New Yorker piece from January 15.... 2001!

Seymour Hersh's Exposure of Abu Ghraib

From the New Yorker: Torture at Abu Ghraib

More Passion Commentary

This one from The New Yorker: "Nailed" by David Denby.