My friend Toni told me about a recent dream. She was driving in her car with John Waters, the iconoclastic creator of such films as Pink Flamingos and Serial Mom. This was very exciting for Toni, because she really likes him. Maybe because of this or maybe just because it is what anyone would do while chauffeuring John Waters, she crashed the car in through the front window of a neighbor’s house. Then she jumped out of the car pointing at Waters. “Look!” she said, “John Waters!”

This contrasts with my dreams. The most common motif says a great deal about me. I am walking down the street. But the street gets steeper and steeper until I am grabbing onto the street to keep from sliding off. This probably goes along with constant fear that I’m going to fall up. To this day, I can’t lie on my back and look up to the sky. It makes me anxious.

Dreams say a lot about you. Toni’s shows that she is a well adjusted person. And mine shows that I am FUBAR. Apparently people know this too. Celebrities never appear in my dreams.

Has pop music advanced in the last three decades? Let’s look at the evidence. Here from just three years ago, is a song that, given what it is, is quite good:

And here is pretty much an identical song from 26 years earlier:

This occurred to me today when a motorcycle drove past me blasting what I originally thought was Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) but turned out to be Bad Romance. This is not an attack on Lady Gaga—she gives the people what they want. I suppose it is an attack on the people.

Like I said, there is nothing wrong with Bad Romance. God knows, most mega-hits don’t even come close. And I’m not that keen on Sweet Dreams. But both represent about the best of their time’s meta-hits. That they are so similar[1] does not speak well of the culture. Maybe in that way, we have reached the end of history.

[1] I will allow a couple of things. First, Sweet Dreams was made on a semi-pro 8-track unit, most likely with similarly primitive effects. That makes the accomplishment all the more impressive, but the sound quality is not great. Similarly, I think the video was very good for its time, but there is no doubt that music videos have made major advances since their infancy.

There is something unethical at the core of conservative thought. I even saw it in myself when I was a libertarian. At that time, I really did not want a lot of people voting because I knew that they would not vote along with my Loony Tunes ideology.

This came to my mind this morning, reading Eric Alterman at The Nation on Show Us the Money. In the article, he talks about the Center to Protect Patient Rights.

The Center to Protect Patient Rights. That sounds really good. It sounds like they go into hospitals and make sure that the patients aren’t abused.

But that’s not what they do.

Instead, they do whatever they can to stop the 50 million people without healthcare from getting it in the future. In 2010, they spent $55 million getting right wing fanatics elected. Yeah! Another do-gooder nonprofit corporation!

I don’t bring this up because it is a big surprise. “I’m shocked—Shocked!—to find that gambling is going on in here!”[2] It is just that I don’t know of many liberal organizations who hide their purpose in their names. But it seems the vast majority of conservative organizations do. Admittedly, “The National Organization for Marriage” sounds a lot better than “The National Organization to Limit Marriage Rights.”

The problem, as I see it, is that when it comes to individual issues, people skew liberal. So conservatives have to hide their intentions. You can’t say “Lynch the blacks!” But you can say, “States’ Rights!”

In addition to hiding the hateful intentions of such groups, this practice makes the policy of correctly naming groups invalid. If you set up a group to make life easier for people in wheelchairs, you can name it “People in Favor of Making Life Easier for People in Wheelchairs.”

But who would believe you?

[2] Shocked!

I just finished Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang. It is refreshing to read an economist who attacks the free trade movement. I’ve long said that I look forward to a time when I disagree with Paul Krugman. The truth is that we disagree about some fundamental issues. But our political system is so out of balance that an economists who is at best a centrist is considered some kind of wacko leftist.

Ha-Joon Chang’s thinking is more in line with my own. A Reader[1] at Cambridge, I suspect despite his brilliance, his heterodoxy will trump all and he will never win the Nobel Prize.

In Bad Samaritans, Chang argues that the neo-liberal philosophy of free trade hurts developing nations. He shows that selective protectionism is good for weak countries trying to nurture new industries. Two primary examples of this are Japan and their protection of their auto industry and Finland with Nokia. As he points out, if these countries had allowed free trade, Toyota would now be at best a small subsidiary of GM.

The broader picture is of a world in with major countries impose policies on minor countries that give advantages to big companies over small companies. This isn’t surprising, of course. But it is chilling. I wonder if the people will take control of their world before the neo-liberal free trade fueled corporate zombie “people” destroy the whole system. How would I choose to die: from an untreated infection on a subsidence commune or from starvation inside a cardboard box in a ally in San Francisco? They both have their appeal.

Meanwhile, Chang’s 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism just arrived. Now the question whether I will read it or what I should—Walter Johnson: Baseball’s Big Train. Maybe a little of both.

[1] In the UK and other places, Lecturer is what we in the states call an Assistant Professor. A Reader is an Associate Professor. And Professor is a Full—or what we always called Fool—Professor.

For the first time in decades, I watched The Wizard of Oz. When I was a kid, I didn’t like it. The Kansas scenes seemed so bleak and the Oz scenes scared me. It was pleasant to see that it is a wonderful, ridiculously sentimental film. It reminded me of a Powell and Pressburger film, but you know… for kids!

One thing that really stands out in the film is the moving camera. It looks like they were going for long takes too, but for whatever reasons they cut them up. For instance, during Somewhere Over the Rainbow, there is a disconcerting cut away to Toto. Overall, the film looks great. The Oz part is a bit too colorful for my modern eye, but I can’t help but love it. And the Kansas part is consistently gorgeous.

I even liked the choreography. It is the perfect mixture of professionalism and silliness. And you can’t complain about the songs. Of course, I would think that, given If I Only Had a Brain is probably my favorite song ever.[1]

It is a tired observation that the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion exhibit the strengths they claim to lack. Although it is true, there is one character who has the most intelligence, heart, and courage: Toto. And so I was very interested in what happened to him in a way I never did when I was younger. Sadly, I didn’t find out. Almira Gulch (AKA The Wicked Witch of the West—the best part in the movie!) still had her warrant from the police for Toto. Or if she didn’t she could get one again. Who will protect Toto?

Perhaps I should ask that of us all. In 1910, L. Frank Baum wrote The Emerald City of Oz. In it, Dorothy brings Aunt Em and Uncle Henry to live in Oz after a tornado destroys their farm, leaving them penniless. Interestingly, a hundred year old book takes a closer look at economic instability than the majority of political and economic nonfiction today.

We’ll always have Oz.[2]

[1] This isn’t what I was thinking of. I couldn’t find Livingston Taylor doing it, who I associate it with even more than Ray Bolger. This is Elvis Costello and Bill Frisell:

Oh hell, here are Ray and Judy doing their thang:

[2] That’s my second film reference. I hope you’re impressed.

I grabbed a copy of Sayed Kashua’s Second Person Singular yesterday because of its cover:

I like it because of its connection to Rene Magritte. But the novel sounds very interesting. This is from Amazon:

Unfortunately, I have too much else to do to read it right now. But maybe soon.

[1] The Kreutzer Sonata is a novella that tells the story of a man who stabs to death his adulterous wife. Get it? And here is Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata, which plays such an important role in the adulterers’ affair—played in Jerusalem (!) by Eugenia Pikovsky (violin) and Julia Gurvitch (piano):

As I wrote yesterday, I’m reading University of Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang’s Bad Samaritans and I’m waiting for his new book 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism.

Here is a taste of his thinking:

I read this joke in Bad Samaritans. It is a good example of how you can find a joke funny because you learn something rather than because it reinforces your knowledge. Here is my telling:

Finland, Finland, Finland! The country where I want to be!

I just read a remarkable book, Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman. It tells the story of the centuries long effort to reconstruct the New Testament. Along the way, he provides a lot of information about the early Christians. I find this stuff fascinating, because when I was growing up, the Bible was such a dogmatic thing. It was what it was and, if you were a believer, it was the word of God and no one should brook any disagreement. Thankfully, biblical scholars have shown this not to be true.

Ehrman is an interesting specimen—the kind of scholar I tend to respect. He started off as a Born Again Christian, but his work caused him to become an agnostic. I didn’t know this before I read the book, but his spiritual journey is implicit in the book. And after I finished it, I looked him up on Wikipedia. It impresses me when facts cause anyone to change their opinions, because this so rarely happens.

Misquoting Jesus discusses the various old copies of the New Testament. These include those in the original Greek, as well as translations into Latin, Syriac, and Coptic. Although there are fragments of the New Testament dating back to the first half of the second century, our only complete books date from the end of the third century. Thus, the vast majority of what we know of the original New Testament is taken from copies—probably many generations of copies—of the originals.

These copies were not exact. Before movable type, books had to be copied by hand. As such, they are riddled with errors. Most of these errors are simple and understandable: misspellings, missed words, repeated words. In total, there are at least 200,000 disagreements between the various versions of the New Testament—and it could be as high as 500,000. This is a lot when you consider that the New Testament has only 138,020 words in it. But not all the differences are trivial.

Ehrman lists three major errors in the New Testament, but it is clear that these are just the shining examples. One is a story that liberals love to quote. It is the story of The Woman Taken in Adultery in John 7-8. Jesus is at the temple and a group of Pharisees come up to him and present a woman who they caught in the act of adultery. (Where was the man?) They think they’ve got Jesus because he’s in a double bind. If he says she should be forgiven, he is breaking the Law of Moses. But if he says she should be stoned to death, he shows himself not to be the merciful guy he pretends to be. Jesus thinks for a moment and then says, “Let the one who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her.” One by one the Pharisees leave having been defeated. Jesus says, “Woman, where are they? Is there no one who condemns you?” She replies, “No one, Lord.” So he says, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”

That’s a totally cool story. Unfortunately, it is a later addition to John. It isn’t in the earliest and best versions of John. The style is unlike the rest of John. It uses words that are not used anywhere else. Ehrman claims that pretty much all scholars accept that the story was a later addition.

Misquoting Jesus is filled with many such rich discussions of the New Testament and its history. He goes on to discuss major publications of the New Testament, how changes come to be made, and most important of all, why those changes where made. In particular, he talks about theological battles between the proto-orthodox Christians (those whose followers became Christians as we know them today) and three competing groups: Adoptionists, Docetists, and Separationists. Adoptionists believed that Jesus was all human and was adopted by God when Jesus was baptized. Docetists believed that Jesus was all God, and often believed he was a different God from the one in the Old Testament. Separationists believed that God lived inside of Jesus and thus allowed him to perform miracles and so on, but that God left before the crucifiction.

Ehrman lays his case on the line: if you are a Christian who wants to get his theology directly from the Bible, you have a lot of work to do:

Misquoting Jesus is an enlightening and fun read. I learned a great deal. But I can see why such knowledge would turn Ehrman into an agnostic. The book has to be difficult for Christians, although I can think of a number of ways one could accept the book and still move forward. Regardless, from an intellectual standpoint, this knowledge is exciting and mind opening.

Joseph Stiglitz has written an excellent article, The Price of Inequality over at Project Syndicate. He argues that economic inequality makes the economic system less stable. I’ve been seeing this point argued a lot more over the past year. It should come as no surprise that I find the argument compelling. You should really check out the article. It isn’t very long—maybe 1000 words.

I don’t want to talk about it, though. Something else is on my mind because of a line in Stiglitz’s article, “There are market economies that are doing better, both in terms of both [sic] GDP growth and rising living standards for most citizens.”

This is the kind of error that one sees all the time online. You will find it all over this site, for example. And you’ll find worse. Earlier today, in the article A Really Big Problem, I wrote, “And as ridiculous as there [sic] opinions are, they do care about these young people.” Ouch! But I forgive myself just as I forgive Stiglitz. It’s online; the turn around time is fast. Peephole except that they’re wheel bee Eros.

The problem is with books. But not just any books.

In the world of small press publishing, writers know that editors exist to introduce errors. Galleys are never provided. Corrections are never made between printings. (Well, sometimes the price is increased.) People should take pity on us—the toilers in the $1000 advance ghetto.

The problem is with books from major publishers. I have gotten to the point where I’m impressed if I note only 5 errors in a major book. End This Depression Now! had more than 5 errors and it was very short. Um… had an embarrassing number of errors—over 20. What is going on!?

I think the problem is that book publishers live in the Internet Age. There are just as many good copy editors as there ever were. But now they aren’t given the time. What’s more, last minute changes are made so the book can be as up to date as possible. That’s how you get errors like the Stiglitz quote above; errors like mine are just carelessness.

Things will not change for the better. In fact, they will get worse. Books have become the magazines of yesterday. And soon they will become the blogs.

You can think of me like this: