The crowbar protocol -- An environmental plea

Those of you who know me know that while I'm in favor of environmentalism, I'm not exactly a hardcore tree-hugging, bunny-coddling, Gaia-worshipping, vegan eco-guerrilla.

I admit that plastic and concrete have their roles to play in life's rich pageant and that if we want computers, flat screen tv and air travel, there will always be some industrial wastes and fossil fuel to deal with. I admit that I could do more, but I recycle, I take public transport almost everywhere (easy to do in Tokyo) and try to avoid excess packaging (very tough to do in Tokyo). I don't think eating meat or using disposable diapers or throwaway chopsticks made from farmed poplar make me an evil person.

I think that if women must wear cosmetics, which going by most of the women I see, they must, then I'd rather the stuff be tested on cute lil' fluffy bunnies than third world children. I think the Kyoto accord is good, but could go farther, and would love to have an electric or fuel cell car.

In short, I would consider myself a moderate environmentalist.

So it may shock you to know that I am very close to taking a crowbar to some windshields in this city on the basis of my environmental beliefs.

Tokyo is situated in a sort of coastal bowl that traps warm wet air in a thermal inversion. In summer temperatures in the mid 30s are the norm, with humidity around 80 to 95 percent. Smog builds up to the point that on bad days the sky can be a brownish yellow and the government advise old people and children to stay indoors. Obviously changing the geography and the weather patterns are not really options, so you would think cutting down on air pollution would be a priority. And for some it is.

But for the truck drivers, delivery people, tradesmen, salesmen and taxi drivers of Tokyo it clearly is not. Like many people in this country, they spend long hours at their jobs, not working, but sleeping. Obviously when you work 12 hours a day, every day, a little siesta at lunch or even on company time is a nice thing. People in my office (you know who you are) regularly nod off at their desks. But what about those who aren't in the office? What do those who spend their day out of the office do for a place to sleep and dodge work? Use a park? Go to a movie? Spend an hour getting coffee at Starbucks? Nope.

They get in their cars, vans and trucks, roll up the window, crank up the air conditioning and sit there with the engine running. For hours at a time, pumping filth into the air, driving up the temperature and making more smog.

Few things piss me off more than to walk along the sidestreet next to my home and find it nearly bumper to bumper with cars parked with their engines running, spewing exhaust into the air and radiating heat. What is worse is seeing the same vehicles there when I come home two and half hours later.

I'm thinking of getting a small notice printed up in Japanese to ask them not to run their engines, but I fear the response will be to dismiss me as another annoying foreigner who doesn't understand Japanese ways.

That's why I'm leaning more and more to the crowbar protocol idea. A notice that reads: "Turn off your engine you lazy, inconsiderate, selfish shithead or I'll smash your windshield with a crowbar. You are poisoning the air I breathe and I will consider it self-defense to smash the hell out of your car and even you if that is what it takes to get you to shut off the engine. If you need an air conditioned nap so badly, go home or to the mall or the donut shop -- because if I see your vehicle here ten minutes from now, with the tailpipe smoking and heat dissipation haze hanging over the hood and your white socked feet up on the dash and you snoring in the driver's seat, you will soon be picking windshield glass out of your hair."

Then all I have to do is walk along the row of parked cars, tapping tires and maybe windows, very gently with my three-foot tempered-steel crowbar and smiling a crooked smile.

Of course I could opt for the cyber vigilante method and email time-stamped digital photos of the snoozing employees to their companies head offices, since the company name is often on the door of the car or van. Sure, it would probably lead to fewer confrontations with drivers upset that their nap has been disturbed and far less police involvement, but there is something so satisfying about the crunch of a heavy iron bar on supposedly shatterproof glass that I just don't know if I can deny myself the pleasure of pursuing my own Buford Pusser/Steven Segal style of environmentalism.

Hornby's 'Long Way Down' not up to scratch : Book Review : Features : DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE (The Daily Yomiuri):

Hornby's 'Long Way Down' not up to scratch
Kevin Wood / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer
A Long Way Down
By Nick Hornby
Riverhead Books, 352 pp, 24.95 dollars

Perhaps it is the result of seeing so many liberties taken in adapting his previous works for the silver screen (About a Boy, High Fidelity), but Nick Hornby's latest novel, A Long Way Down, reads more like a preliminary draft of a screenplay than an actual novel.

The premise is pure Hollywood pitch meeting: Four disparate characters, all intending to kill themselves, meet by chance at the top of a London high-rise on New Year's Eve, form a bond and proceed to try to fix each other's lives. It's sort of like The Breakfast Club meets Harold and Maude meets The Apartment.

The quartet of would-be suicides are: Martin, a disgraced, sarcastic and self-loathing TV host; Maureen, a middle-aged single mother who has devoted her entire adult life to caring for her apparently vegetative adult son; Jess, a lovelorn and disturbed attention-seeking teenager; and JJ, a failed American musician whose band has broken up.

Hornby tells the story in first person, switching perspective among the four characters every few pages, occasionally giving more than one version of the same events. The problem is that the four voices are not sufficiently different from one another.

Hornby has tried, unsuccessfully, to vary the tone and style, but the variations seem cosmetic, like a storyteller varying the pitch of their voice to suggest dialog by different characters: Martin is self-involved and caustic, but erudite. JJ is a bit bland and needy. Jess is invariably foulmouthed while Maureen is bothered by and never uses obscene language to the extent that she bowdlerizes the salty language of the others when recounting conversations.

And there are plenty of conversations. The majority of the book consists of the four characters describing their various meetings and interactions, with little time spent describing what they do on their own. For the most part, Hornby gives us a series of set-piece meetings of the four told from shifting perspectives, interspersed with expository monologues by each character detailing their reaction to the meetings.

Each of the four protagonists seem to serve fairly transparent nonnarrative purposes for the author, especially JJ, who, as an American and a musician, allows Hornby to make a number of comic observations on the absurdities of British life, rock 'n' roll and the music business. Martin's fame and disgrace allow the author to tee off on the tabloid media and the shallowness of television. As Hornby is himself the father of a severely autistic child, some of Maureen's frustration can be read as autobiographical.

Oddly enough, it is Jess, the character Hornby bears the least evident resemblance to, who rings the most true. With her, the author presents a believable portrayal of the attributes of a troubled teenage girl without resorting to maudlin cliches or stereotypes. Jess is alternately spoiled and ignored by her upper middle class parents, whom she affects to despise. She is both naive and knowing, tender and vicious. Jess is the one who pushes the others forward along the arc of the story.

Hornby takes what on the surface promises to be either a very dark and emotionally harrowing story or an inspirational story about the power of love and friendship and refuses to allow it to become either one. Darker moments are leavened with black humor and comic asides, and Hornby's innate cynicism keeps him from allowing things to get saccharine. In the hands of a lesser craftsman, this book could have been a disastrous moan-fest or a sappy Hallmark card. It is neither.

Nor is it a complete success. Hornby seems to have solved the problem of walking the tightrope by not moving too suddenly or too far. He keeps the precarious balance between laughter and tears by not delving too deeply into either. Dividing the narrative voice among the four characters seems to water down the emotional investment the reader makes in each of them. By the end of the book, we are not really that bothered about whether they jump or not.

In High Fidelity, the reader is amused by the digressive riffing on pop music and the smart dialogue, but is made to care about the eventual fate of the main character. While the tangential discourses in A Long Way Down on everything from the nature of rock stardom to the benefits of anonymous chain coffee shops are entertaining, Hornby fails to draw the reader far enough into the heads of his four protagonists to build an emotional attachment. It is as though the author is waiting for actors to breathe real life into the roughly drawn characters he has presented. Ultimately, A Long Way Down fails to live up to the promise of Hornby's earlier work.

Canada names new Governor General

Don't you wish your head of state was more like this?

"At just 48 years old, the award winning journalist will become one of the youngest governors general ever, the third woman in the job and the first black person to call Rideau Hall home.

Jean, a journalist, is probably best known to English Canadians as the host of The Passionate Eye and Rough Cuts on CBC Newsworld.

Jean has received many awards for her own documentary work including the Amnesty International Journalism Award, the Anik Prize and the Galaxi Award for best information program host. "


She speaks five languages and has studied at universities in Canada, France and Italy.

And she's a total babe.

More guitar porn

Very kinky in this case, but check out the gorgeous archtops too

I guess this is the axe to use to play "Hey Bartender"

Fylde Guitars in the UK does a whole line of very nice acoustics, but have recently started making guitars out of old single malt whisky barrels. I dunno what they sound like, but they look cool and just imagine the mojo!

Nice guys and bitches

Bitch Ph.D talks about "Nice guys and bitchy women"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"And yet, we know that "nice girls aren't pushy"--at least, not in public--and we've seen more than enough situations where ambitious women have been crapped on for being "abrasive" or "well she should have known" or "lacking tact"--much of which simply boils down to "being a woman"--so, in public, there's this constant stress of trying to balance your ambition with not wanting to shoot yourself in the foot by admitting that you're ambitious."

This is sexist nonsense -- the truth is that nice people aren't pushy, abrasive, ignorant or lacking in basic tact and civility. Ambition is not best served by being confrontational and getting in everyone's face over every little thing. It has nothing to do being a woman or a man. I work with people -male and female- who fit this description of "ambitious" who are never going to get anywhere because they piss too many people off with their arrogant behaviour based on the belief that they deserve promotion regardless of merit, ability to get along with co-workers or evident judgement.

And nice guys of the first variety are mostly just the descent ones, "the good ones," who got a bit lonesome and desparate and are trying too hard to make a good impression. Very few turn into abusive stalkers as Bitch Ph.D alleges. Women so often complain that men are commitment averse, but when they meet nice guy #1 who is looking to get married and soon -- they run like hell, just like guys run from women who bring up the kind of wedding they'd like or kids' names on the third date.

As far as the romantic gestures go - some women want and appreciate them, some don't. Those that like them often complain that men don't appreciate romance, don't present any tangible evidence of their affection. Some men like to demonstrate their affection in this way -- others view it as "paying for it" (the latter group being assholes, not nice guys). To make the generalization that a man who brings a woman long-stemmed red roses is somehow a jackass because it indicates he thinks all women like roses is kind of obtuse. Most people acknowledge red roses as a sort of standard romantic guesture and so giving them as a gift makes a kind of standard, if cliched, emotional statement, much like offering to cook a meal says "I want to take care of you", giving flowers means "I like you, and not in the I-really-just-want-to-be-friends kind of way"

Graphic story of one of history's biggest lies
Kevin Wood / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion

By Will Eisner

Norton, 148 pp, 19.95 dollars


Europe has a long history of anti-Semitism, but the crimes perpetrated against Jews in the first half of the 20th century comprise one of history's darkest chapters.

Among the justifications given for the widespread discrimination against Jews, from the czarist pogroms and the efforts of the Nazis to exterminate the entire race to the prejudice and hatred faced in daily life is the notion that Jews are engaged in a massive conspiracy to dominate the world.

The proof cited for this despicable theory is a document purportedly written by Jewish leaders at the end of the 19th century that describes in detail their plans to take over the world--The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Late legendary comic creator Will Eisner's last work, The Plot, is the latest in a long line of debunkings of The Protocols.

As has been conclusively proved elsewhere, The Protocols were first written by Mathieu Golovinski, an employee of Czar Nicholas II's secret police, as a propaganda tool to discredit liberal revolutionaries.

In his signature monochrome comic style Eisner shows how the bulk of the work of propaganda was plagiarized from a French book, The Dialogue in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, written in 1864 by Maurice Joly and intended to liken Napoleon III to the infamous author of The Prince and reveal his dark plans to dominate Europe.

Eisner follows the history of The Protocols through their role in inspiring the murderous policies of the Third Reich to their persistance among modern anti-Semites ranging from Middle Eastern enemies of Israel to American white supremacists.

Ironically, perhaps intentionally, in his efforts to denounce The Protocols, Eisner's text and drawings take on the character of propaganda as he hammers home the same points again and again.

The Plot provides a facinating insight into the creation of one of history's greatest lies in a format well-suited for those interested, but unwilling to wade through the extensive original source material--think of it as a sort of introduction to the history of propaganda.

(Jul. 24, 2005, The Daily Yomiuri)

Shaking all over
Whoowee! We all felt the earth move here yesterday when we had a magnitude 5 earthquake (nearly a six on the Richter scale). A few thing fell off the shelves and I must confess to having been a bit nervous. My daughter slept through it, showing she clearly has my "could sleep through and earthquake" gene. Anyways, our home here on reclaimed land did not slide into the Bay and everyone is fine.

funny videos
check out Jack Black's exceptionally crude take on Lord of the Rings and assorted beer ads, especially the "My Beer" and "Beer Goggles" ones at Video Humor

Send in the clones
Kevin Wood / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer
The Island

2.5 stars out of five

Dir: Michael Bay

Cast: Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson, Steve Buscemi, Sean Bean

As any movie critic knows, the problem with summer isn't the heat, it's the stupidity. Summer is the season of the big-budget action blockbusters, the special-effects spectaculars and the gross-out teen sex comedies all intended to sell popcorn with a mindless combination of car crashes, comic book violence and cleavage--not that there's anything wrong with that.

So what then should we make of The Island, a high-concept science fiction thriller starring legitimate thespians instead of bodybuilders or martial artists that promises to raise all sorts of interesting philosophical questions about identity and bioethics?

Ewan McGregor attempts an American or at least mid-Atlantic accent as Lincoln Six-Echo, a young man living in a sealed facility surrounded by foreboding crags and stormy seas with other apparent survivors of a biological holocaust that no one but the staff can quite remember.

This is the world of 2019: a utopian lifeboat in an ocean of contamination, where everyone but the security guards wears white, works at inexplicably simple lab jobs, and has every need catered to by the staff.

There's no sex or alcohol, and health and diet are strictly monitored, but there are plenty of cartoons, video games and designer drinks. There are even regular public address announcements assuring the white-clad survivors that they are "special" and reminding them that one day they will win the lottery and be sent to the one place that escaped the bio-contamination, the pristine Eden known simply as the Island.

McGregor does a pretty good job of playing the pampered naif in the brave new world who forms a friendship with the attractive and slightly sassy Jordan Two-Delta played by Scarlett Johansson.

But Lincoln has problems. The doctor running the facility, played by the reliably sinister Sean Bean, is concerned about Lincoln's recent tendency to ask disturbing questions. Lincoln's secret acquaintance, a techie "from another sector" played for laughs by Steve Buscemi, hints that things aren't what they seem.

Before long, Lincoln's world unravels when he discovers the Island is a hospital where lottery winners have their organs harvested and that he and his fellow survivors are surrogate mothers and walking spare parts for the so-called sponsors who have provided the genetic material Lincoln and his peers have been cloned from.

He and the latest lottery-winner, Jordan, make a break for it, emerging from underground into a ruined desert landscape

It's a promising opening 20 minutes. Despite blatantly ripping off science fiction classics Logan's Run, THX 1138, The Prisoner and Coma and subjecting the audience to an endless parade of product placement shots, director Michael Bay has managed to get this far without a single car chase, explosion or gratuitous bikini-clad starlet. Could this be that rarest of Hollywood creations--the summer-movie-with-brains?

Absolutely not.

Bay is still the man who made Bad Boys, The Rock, Armageddon and Pearl Harbor. If he were somehow hired to direct a film version of The Cherry Orchard he'd put three car chases and a shoot-out in it.

Naturally, Lincoln and Jordan's escape poses a host of problems for the people running the secretive facility, and the hired goons are quickly put on the case. After a brief comic interlude and some plot explanation with Buscemi, the film descends into an hour of predictable reality-defying zoom and kaboom as the goon squad pursues the heroes with all the subtlety of the Allied invasion of Normandy. It's the same quick-cutting shaky-camera stuff we have seen plenty of before. Bay even repeats the main highway chase from his own Bad Boys 2.

Johansson, while looking more fetching than ever, goes from a promising start to full damsel-in-distress, can't-even-run-for-her-life-without-holding-the-hero's-hand mode, and after the first 30 minutes is given little to do but look sexy and terrified at the same time.

McGregor has a few amusing scenes playing opposite himself after Lincoln and Jordan track down his sponsor in the hope he can help them expose the clone arrangers, and pronto, so Lincoln can free the slaves.

But for the most part, the final 90 minutes of The Island are typical summer fare. Bay betrays the semi-promising opening by leaving loose ends and holes in the plot that resemble the craters on the moon in both size and number.

If action is all you are after, The Island delivers. If you want interesting characters and a smart script, wait for the studios to wheel out their Oscar hopefuls in November.

The Daily Yomiuri (Jul. 21, 2005)

A two parter
Well, what with the wife and kids out of the apartment this morning, and what with the fact that the humidity in Tokyo is going to be in the 80 to 90 percent range for the next few months I decided I needed something to amuse myself, so I shaved my head. Not right down, but to the 1.2 cm measure on my clippers. If more than a half dozen people post comments requesting it, I will post pics.

peace and quiet
A rare moment of peace and quiet in the Woodshed this morning as the Missus is out with the kids and I'm on the nightshift. At last a chance to blog:

Item the first - Bob Dylan, Super Genius
Just finished reading "Chronicles" Bob Dylan's stab at autobiography - it's well written, but a bit scattered and tragically doesn't deal with the making of any of his early classic albums. He does talk a fair bit about how things were when he first came to New York and his early days in Minnesota. At one point he talks about how important folk songs were to him and how when he started playing the coffee houses he noticed that most singers were trying to put themselves across to the audience, but he was more interested in putting the song across.
This got me to thinking about how much I love early Dylan, so I dug out my copy of "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" and tried to listen to it with a fresh ear. Go thou, and do likewise.

Remember what was on the radio at the time this record was created - Johnny Mathis, Frankie Avalon, Ricky Nelson - this is before the Beatles, Beach Boys and Rolling Stones. This is before Peter, Paul and Mary - Mitch Miller was hip! Forget for a moment the iconic status of "Blowin' in the Wind" and just listen to the song. This was before anyone had heard of Vietnam, a good old Pete Seeger-style anti-war song. Genius.

Now listen to the rest of the songs, from the wistfulness of "Girl from the North Country" to the venomous "Masters of War" the goofiness of "I Shall Be Free" the smooth "Corrina, Corrina" the nostaligia of "Bob Dylan's Dream" the subversive and sly "Talking World War Three Blues" and "Bob Dylan's Blues" - the other instant classics off the record "A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall" and "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" (one of my all time desert island must-have favorite songs) . Listen to these songs and tell me that if this record was made today, note for note the same way, that it wouldn't still be an instant million seller. He was 21 when he made this record. Even if he had never recorded again, never made albums like "blood on the tracks" "love and theft" "Highway 61 revisited" or "Blonde on Blonde" this album alone would have made him a legend. I have an old friend who makes a living of sorts from performing classic rock albums more or less note for note and I can't see them doing this one, because it really isn't reproducible- it would be like trying to pick up a handful of mercury. Say it with me now..."We are not worthy"

I'm now listening to the Bob Dylan live official bootleg series #6 the Concert at NYC's Philharmonic Hall from Oct. 1964, with Joan Baez joining him on stage. Dylan complains a bit in his book about being branded the "voice of a generation" and people expecting him to lead them. Listening to this record I'm amazed he wasn't elected world president by 1966.

Item the second - I'm a better harp player than Van Morrison
Based on his harmonica work on his newest album, the extremely good Magic Time, I'd blow Van the Man right off the stage in a blues harp contest. Of course, he is a better singer, songwriter, guitar player, saxophone player and all-around human being than I am by so many orders of magnitude that it would take scientific notation to write it down and I'm not smart enough to figure out how to do that on this computer. But when it comes to the Mississippi saxophone, the chrome biscut, the harpoon - I'm better, me, the Rev. Paperboy, I'm the boss harp player between me and Mr. "Here Comes the Night". And while I'm bragging, I'm a way better driver than Ray Charles.

Item the third - New Asylum Street Spankers stuff
The Spankers have a new web site on line and a new live record coming out soon! go buy it! In fact while you're at it buy everything they have ever done. Twice, and then give the second set as gifts to other people. Apparently they have a new DVD in the pipeline too.

stay tuned to the woodshed for two reviews later this week, first of the summer blockbuster scifi film "The Island" and second, comic book god Will Eisner's debunking of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in graphic novel form, "The Plot".

Work just keeps getting weirder

I thought I was hallucinating when I looked up from my desk and saw a bevy of cheerleaders trooping through the office. Sorry, no photos.

Where did all the money go?

By way of Tbogg, we see an excellent expose in the London Review of Books of financial responsibility in Iraq

Philosopher takes on fertilizer
Kevin Wood / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer
On Bullshit

By Harry G. Frankfurt
Princeton University
67 pp, 1,500 yen

Humbug, claptrap, mahooha, quackery, bunkum, hooey, balderdash, shinola, malarky, baloney, nonsense--they all mean the same thing.

We all think we recognize it when we see it or hear it. According to Harry Frankfurt, moral philosopher and Princeton University professor of philosophy emeritus, "One of the most salient features of our culture" is that there is so much of it.

In his trenchant philosophical pamphlet On Bullshit, Frankfurt combines tongue-in-cheek high seriousness with academic style in examining the nature of his subject and how it differs from outright lying.

Frankfurt makes the case that while liars deliberately make false claims about what is true, truth is irrelevant to the BS artist. Writes Frankfurt: "He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are."

Admittedly, some of the appeal of this brief book lies in seeing sharp-edged scatological expressions scattered through formal academic prose like cow patties through a pasture, but Frankfurt also manages to cite Ezra Pound, Ludwig Wittgenstein and St. Augustine to support his erudite arguments.

Why is there so much of it? Frankfurt posits: "Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about...This discrepancy is common in public life."

While criticizing those in public life for being full of hot air, the author also notes the "conviction that it is the responsibility of a citizen in a democracy to have opinions about everything" as a contributing factor.

Additionally, Frankfurt slams the growth of various forms of skepticism which deny the ability to perceive objective reality as aiding the proliferation of male bovine feces.

Frankfurt's book should be required reading for anyone whose speech or writing are intended for public consumption. Despite his subject, he is definitely not full of it.

(Jul. 10, 2005)

Pick of the Pickers
There was a strong thread over at Eschaton the other day in which a number of us were knocking about the idea of "Who is the best acoustic guitar player?"

Naturally the idea of a "best" in this area is very subjective but we did come up with a pretty good list. We (okay, I) limited the to living players to avoid getting into long lists of deceased bluesmen.As a result Robert Johnson, Jerry Garcia, Mississippi Fred McDowell and Django Reinhart and other luminaries are not included.

The list we came up with, in no particular order:
Tony Rice
Leo Kottke
Kelly Joe Phelps
Jorma Kaukonen
Doc Watson
John McLaughlin, Al Di Meola & Paco De Lucia
David Grier
David Bromberg
Pat Metheny
John Hammond
Ry Cooder

others I would add upon reflection

Taj Mahal
Bruce Cockburn
Kotaro Oshio

Add your comments, complaints and further suggestions below

The witless wisdom of the American Taliban
See all a collection of charming sentiments and pithy quotes here but I've lifted a few of my favorites


"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."
-George Herbert Walker Bush



“George Bush was not elected by a majority of the voters in the United States, he was appointed by God.”

-Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, U.S. Army

"I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good...Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism."

-Randall Terry, Operation Rescue

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
The Observer | International | Revealed: grim world of new Iraqi torture camps

you get tar, I'll get the feathers
Fox newscreep John Gibson wonders why there is so much anti-Americanism in Canada, and why we feel so "smugly superior" to the Americans. Could it be because jackasses like him write essays likeMacleans.ca | Canada Switchboard | Essay | Un-Happy Birthday, Canada

I wonder why they call it Black Sturgeon Lake?
CBC News: Manitoban struggles 90 minutes to land huge sturgeon

And he had the class to let the big fish go. My nominee for Canuck of the month!