Le Guin Unloosed

The Fantastical Canon: The Books and School of all Ages http://www.newstatesman.com/200612180040 Amongst more general edifications and pleasantries, a major clue to Le Guin's beautifully clean and clear English style reveals itself herein. I think she owes much in this regard to the best writers of "children's books." They have helped her to evade three serious temptations: excessive intellectualizing, vain verbal peacockery, and solipsistic obscurities. I, of course, am prey to all three. In some sense, though, her diction may constitute an availed luxury of her chosen genre, perhaps even a precondition of its success. Yet a clear river does not alone suffice. It must float one through the realms of gold, and in company of characters who do not beggar the imagination, but fulfill various of its finer latencies. Here, too, she finds mastery at her fingertips--in counterpoint to Tolkien, that arch-incompetent among fantasists. He keeps his river relatively clear, I concede. However, it slows to the degree that it seems sometimes a lake and the reader finds his company merely seems since Tolkien never persuades us that it could be. Mayhaps, though, in the end, we ought to be grateful to him for inspiring others to believe they could do his work, but better. After all, when an author achieves supreme transcendence in a given genre, he often manages thereby to kill it. Shakespeare's tragic plays (and not only his tragic plays) have so whelmed and pervaded the minds of his successors (especially those heir to his language) that they’ve scarcely so much as attempted to write such grand drama in the last 400 years. So too did Milton kill epic poetry with Paradise Lost, only excepting the exuberant eccentric Blake. Tolkien was a mere mapmaker, not a master. He reminded his successors of what might be found through new adventures and, unintentionally, fortified their self-confidence too.

The Lost Principle of Accountability

An excellent article, much after my own taste: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/opinion/24ricks.html   I especially liked the comparison of the private and the general. This is a pervasive and hugely destructive problem in our society at large. Leaders are simply not held to account for their failures. We see this in the Gulf oil spill, we saw it in the financial crisis, we see it perpetually among the management of unsuccesful publicly held companies. This is what America has lost in the last 50 years and what will ultimately destroy it if not recovered: the interlocking values of self-reliance, personal responsibility, and accountability.

Our Communist Bastion

This is an interesting article on the influence of the communists in Hollywood. It's telling that their greatest success in Hollywood appears to have been a matter of excluding anti-communist films from being made. They had virtually no success in popularizing pro-communist films. I attribute this partly to the visceral anti-communism in American popular consciousness and partly to the inherent difficulty of making any kind of political propaganda into entertainment or art. In the end, it's almost comical: communists have had an enormous presence in Hollywood since the 30s--but, their influence on the American people looks almost trifling given their control over the heart of American popular culture. They deserve failure. They have always been both intellectually and morally bankrupt.   http://reason.com/archives/2000/06/01/hollywoods-missing-movies/

BP Attacks America

There are two basic strategies to prevent these disasters caused by corporate or governmental incompetence:

1. Write and enforce effective regulations to minimize the risks and to adjust risks and rewards in a cost-effective fashion.

2. Impose accountability upon responsible parties, whether they are government officials, business executives, or any other decisionmakers.

Both ought to be followed. Natheless, as was the case with the financial meltdown, we have utterly failed to pursue either of these strategies.

Result: America is robbed blind by the Wall Street barons, leading to the election of Mr. Change--then, the oil barons destroy an ocean, with all the environmental, commercial, and cultural treasure that ocean once supported.

We've done nothing on financial meltdown risk-mitigation. How likely is it that anything will be done to ward off future oil spills?

Compared to Bush and Katrina, Obama has played the PR side more conscientiously--but, he has displayed even more incompetence than Bush. And, to me, this is a much more serious affair than Katrina was. BP looks absolutely abominable in their management of this crisis, with their endless stream of lies and continuous incompetence.