If you're looking for a stable, happy, mature relationship, stay away from bibliophiles*.

If, on the other hand, you're interested in

"shallow, flatulent, obsessive, incontinent, hypertensive, hostile, older than 100, paranoid, pasty, plaid-festooned, sinister-looking, advantage-taking, amphetamine-fueled...residents of mental institutions"

then, perhaps, a book lover is the mate for you.

* My wife agrees.

"People don't read the books anyway. They just like to know that there are famous books that they don't have to read."

- Gore Vidal on why he doesn't like like lists like The 5000 Best Books of All Time Wesley United Methodist Church, Washington, D.C.
17 November 2006

Growing up in a small Texas town, you quickly learn that if someone refers to a work of art - be it film, music, literature, whatever - as "just weird", that it's probably something you want to run right out and see. Sure, it's not always good, but probability is heavily in its favor.

Adam Kirsch's review of Thomas Pynchon's new book, Against the Day, in that great literary barometer, The New York Sun, starts off with a spit of chewing tobacco, a tilting of the neck, and the drawled words, "it's just weird."

His summation, though, is what clenches it for me:

In fact, however, his attitude towards violence is childishly sentimental, and ruthless in a way only possible to a writer whose imagination has never dwelt among actual human beings. Mr. Pynchon's heroes (the poor, the workers, Anarchists) assassinate and blow up his villains (mine owners, Pinkerton thugs, the bourgeoisie) with no more qualms than the Road Runner has about dropping an anvil on the Coyote. In the novel as in the cartoon, good and evil are unproblematic, death is unreal, and sheer activity takes the place of human motive. The silliness of "Against the Day" about the very subjects where we are most urgently in quest of wisdom proves that, whatever he once was, Thomas Pynchon is no longer the novelist we need.

I'll take two, please...

And you thought your boss was a jerk.

It’s teeth-chattering time for aides to Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.). Per the Congressman’s policy, each staffer must turn in a letter of resignation pronto and then — cringe! — wait to hear whether they’ll be re-hired to work for Jackson in the next Congress, which begins Jan. 3.

A staffer in another House office, who wished to remain anonymous, overheard Jackson stating his office policy in what sounded like a conference call. The unnamed aide said he heard Jackson say, “Pursuant to our office policies for the 109th Congress, all staff will be required to submit at will their resignations. Everyone will be required to submit a résumé for consideration for the next Congress.”

The good news is that the eavesdropper heard Jackson add, “I can tell you now that I will be accepting more résumés than I will be rejecting.”

The aide who overheard Jackson had popped into Jackson’s temporary office in Cannon (while his permanent one in Rayburn is being remodeled) to look at the Cannon office space for his own boss in this week’s office lottery. The unnamed aide realized he had picked the wrong time to office-shop for his boss, so he high-tailed it out of there.

“I think what we heard was Congressman Jackson firing his Congressional staff en masse and that he is making them re-apply for their positions for the next Congress,” he said.

Well, he was right: That is exactly what the Congressman was doing.

Jackson’s spokesman, Frank Watkins, confirmed that Jackson did tell his staff during a conference call Monday that everybody had to cough up a letter of resignation. Watkins says that has been Jackson’s personnel policy since he was first elected in 1995. Everyone tenders a resignation, he said, and Jackson “either accepts it or rejects it.”

Watkins pointed out, though, that Jackson has “one of the most stable offices on Capitol Hill.” And many of the aides working there today, including chief of staff Kenneth Edmonds and Watkins himself, have been with Jackson since his first term. Watkins wasn’t sure how many, if any, resignation letters would be accepted.

From Heard on the Hill, Roll Call

A defense lobbyist explains why lobbying reform is a bad idea.

“If lobbyists are required to put on their lobbying reports their fundraising activity and the offices that we go to, it would be impossible for any of these members to solicit money from any of these lobbyists that lobby their office,” said one defense lobbyist.

- Some defense lobbyists see win in a Murtha loss, The Hill

Between swigs of claret, my good friend Navin clued me in to this wonderful collection of lectures available in podcast. Readers of such outstanding commentary as is found in Carefully Selected Garbage will surely delight in such a stimulating treasure.

I write letters...

Sir,

I am a long-time reader of Arts & Letters Daily, though this is my first suggestion. With all due respect, I would like to see a moderation in the Commentary-Weekly Standard-Opinion Journal-New Criterion-etc. links. One of my favorite things about Arts & Letters Daily over the years has been the diversity of viewpoint represented. That said, though I have not done any empirical testing, my impression is that the links have, over the years, become heavily weighted towards a particular worldview. I am by no means suggesting that more articles from The Progressive or The Nation be added in order to provide some sort of mathematical balance, but it would be nice to see more articles from sources that don't have such obvious ideological axes to grind. Surely you can find interesting and engaging thought from someone other than an AEI "scholar." I look forward to years more of Arts & Letters in which I hope to see not just diversity of viewpoint, but objectivity as well.

I was supposed to attend a lecture on climate change by a polar glaciologist from the National Science Foundation. Unfortunately, I did not make it as I spent most of the day at the vet learning how to care for my now diabetic cat. I guess this means I'll have to cut down on the Claus von Bulow jokes.

The Michelle Malkin Controversy Test

A general rule of thumb regarding controversies like this is to count how many posts Michelle Malkin has about the issue, and to note that there is a positive correlation to how trivial the matter is and how many posts she has about it.

via Hit & Run