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The Appalachians
I just finished watching The Appalachians on PBS. On the whole, it was good, but had a few glaring flaws namely:
- Why was it funded by the Department of Veteran’s Affairs and NASA?
- The failure to draw the conclusion that successful unionization was the cause of the increased wages for the coal miners, hence the increased mechanization (and safety) of the mines, and also the drop in the people needed to work the mines. The producers treated these as unrelated events.
- No music past the Carter Family, which is quite notable since there is much footage of Clarence Ashley and Doc Watson available.
- No mention of traits that carried over from Scotland and Ireland, namely a desire to be on the far edge of society (and I’m sure many others, such as whiskey making) Instead they concentrated just on the music as the only carryover. While important, it was hardly the whole thing.
- No mention of bluegrass music; they stop at string bands.
- They omit the details of the modification of the banjo over time. Originally it was a four sting instrument made from gourds. It evolved into a 5 string instrument made from cats, and now leather. They present it as coming into existence fully formed as a 5 stringed instrument. It’s an interesting progression and on that stuck out by it’s absense.
- And most importantly, they omit the importance of the cultural factors and the terrain in explaining the hardness of their lives. They wanted their independence at any cost, and living on land inhospitable to mankind was the price they paid.
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Something worth reading
I finally checked out the website of Michael Yon. He’s a photographer and a former special forces officer who’s rambling around Iraq not embedded with any American unit. The commentary is quite different than what one ordinarily sees (it’s more a here’s what I did today in Fallujah) and the quality of the photography is unmatched.
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Fascinating and horrifying
I recently read this interview with a terrorist recruiter in the UK Prospect. It’s quite long but worth reading. The recruiter is some unassimilated Pakistani Brit who seems quite terrifying in his certainty. It brought to mind two things.
- It is uncanny how accurate Eric Hoffer was in describing this sort of person in The True Believer as rootless, no strong family, no national identity, no sense of self etc.
- The current situation seems to be similar to the international(ist) unrest Trotsky had in mind before he was forced out by Stalin. That is to say; having active agents throughout the world with no strong connections to the center of the movement. The Global Guerillas blog calls this Open Source Warfare.
And now I see this article on the French deporting radical Muslim clerics. Hmm.
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New Gallery
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Gallery Update
I’ve finally updated my gallery area to get rid of the pop-ups and added a back and next button, which will hopefully make that area a much more useful area.
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Coolness
I find it really cool that my grandfather has his own letterhead and envelopes.
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Thursday rapid fire
- Reveal Microsoft product keys – could be quite handy, from LifeHacker
- Create a VodCast – kind of cool I suppose.
- Jury Nullification – from The Agitator
- Wireless Jammers – inevitable I suppose
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Odd from Microsoft
You now have to “validate” your software to use Windows Update. Hmmmm.
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Adventures in stereotyping
I’m sure by now all of you have heard my “balloon” anecdote, which was the origin of my useful description of someone as a balloonist (someone who is more concerned with assigning blame than solving problems, often to the point of bringing in third parties simply to have someone to blame.
I now get a new one. For people who are perfectionists in dealing with other people, let us call them teleporters. The source of all this was a discussion of the LP‘s recent date with reality regarding Iraq. From Men’s News Daily, via Q and O, in response to something by Lew Rockwell.
Let’s instead scrunch our eyes tight, stick our fingers in our ears, and wish really, really hard. Then we can magically teleport to where we want to be instead of doing actual work to get there. And even better, if someone takes a step towards a freer society, let’s kick his legs out from under him rather than have the ideals and purity profaned by anything resembling an interaction with real life.
Perfectly put. To paraphrase Hoffer, most people would rather have a perfect excuse than an imperfect accomplishment.
Teleporter has a nice ring to it doesn’t it?
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I see the Luxury Kings rehearse and
All I get was one good picture out of 15. Oh well.
On another note, the photo framing (or treatment technique anyway) is called Southern Preserve Plaquing (where the photo is mounted on beveled black wood and then coated with a non-gloss protective coating). Has anyone heard of it?
