I used to be quite the mystery reader, having cut my teeth on the Hardy Boys and Sherlock Holmes stories while still in grade school, then progressing through Agatha Christie, John D. MacDonald, and Dashiell Hammett in high school, to Rex Stout, James Ellroy, James Crumley, Robert Parker, Sue Grafton, and Andrew Vachss in college. But sometime in the early 90s I jumped off the mystery train, as well as curtailing my science fiction and fantasy reading, largely in favor of jumping around from new interest to new interest. While there would be an occassional genre book, it was usually due to a choice of authors (I tend to read every new Iain Banks, Pat Cadigan, or Jonathan Carroll book that comes my way).

And this is why I had missed Ian Rankin's series of Scotland police procedurals featuring John Rebus, which I've discovered has quite the following, and after trying this novel from the middle of the series, I can easily see why. Perhaps it was my lack of mystery reading for awhile, but this book sucked me in about 30 pages into it, and I kept looking forward to reading more--which is something I can't say about too many recent books I've read. I picked it up because we're traveling to Scotland for holiday next month and we try to read the literature recommended by the guide books before we go. Rankin's Edinburgh and Aberdeen, as described in this book, is not likely any place that we'd want to visit, the general feel for Scotland as a place different from the States does come through.

The majority of this book concerns oil platforms out in the North Sea, and Rebus does get to visit the Shetlands, which we won't get to see, even though we'd like to. Rankin also, like James Ellroy in The Black Dahlia, uses an actual murder case as the core of the book, then layers on additional mysteries that both inform and interact with the facts as generally known. And, because it's a police procedural, a quarter of the book is concerned with how Rebus is shafted into an ugly assignment as well as hounded by a news magazine for a previous conviction that might have sent an innocent man to jail, that ends up opening an internal police investigation into his and his partner's methods. This is the kind of thing that Ed McBain made popular, but Rankin's take on it is slightly less by-the-numbers and, as such, seems a little more real.

I enjoyed this tremendously and am seriously considering reading the whole Rebus series from the beginning--I'm just not sure I can do that in the next month before we leave to visit Rebus's stomping grounds.

Old Dominion Brewpub wasn't bad. I had the Wheat special, but J's nitrogen-charged red was better.

We left Silver Spring around 3pm and had no trouble either with the metro or the security checkpoint--I was a little worried that the crowds might be heavy, but not at that time of day. The Smithsonian Folklife Festival is happening on the Mall right in front of the Smithsonian castle, so we set up our blanket in some tree shade near there, planning to move to the center of the mall nearer to showtime. But Mother Nature decided to throw a little show of her own. As we were sitting there playing cribbage, a red cross worker came up with the weather report: a storm with 50 mph gusts and hail was moving in quickly, and he suggested we evacuate to one of the museums. We had our cooler with us, and weren't sure we were allowed to take that into a museum, so we went to get under one of the tents when the police came by in their cruisers, telling folks to evacuate the mall. We found shelter in a museum by the Freer gallery, and after an hour, had to exit out to Independence street, which required that we go through security again. However, all-in-all, it was probably a good deal, because the seats that we ended up getting were perfect for the fireworks.

I picked this up on the recommendation of a travel guide book, as an example of good writing by a Scottish author. The writing is very good, but the Scottish nature of these stories is near to non-existent. What connects these stories together is their theme of adultery, a theme that is fairly common to mainstream literature these days (I've an aunt-in-law who used to complain that it was a criteria for Oprah's Book Club), but one that I had heretofore avoided in my own reading diet. Unfortunately, the saliciousness of these short stories was fairly mild, and while I found Kennedy's writing quite admirably, at the end of each story I found myself saying, "So what," a common complaint I have with modern short stories, which tend to be heavy in style and character and light in plot or substance. I did end up reading every story, so that's something of a recommendation, in the sense that if plot isn't necessary for you, you might find this book quite worthwhile.

Panel one, Gore in front of his slide show presentation which shows the cyclical CO2 trend for the last thousands of year, where the last fifty years goes off the chart so much that you have to add more screens to capture it. Caption: "Gallant is worried that in the near future, the oceans will rise 20 feet, flooding many major cities and forcing people to relocate their homes and lives."

Panel two, Mr. Bush standing in front of his hand-picked audience of clergy and conservatives, speaking behind a podium with the presidential seal. Caption: "Goofus is worried about two men loving each other and making a formal commitment."

The differences have never been more clear.

ps. Oh, yeah, if Bush was all for "saving marriage," he'd outlaw divorce. But since a majority of Congress are divorcees, that probably would be even less popular than his current proposal.

There's nothing about the science presented in An Inconvenient Truth that is new. Even those things that Gore presents to his on-screen audience as "an image that not many people have seen before," have now been seen by quite a number of people (including the increasing number of people seeing this movie). What makes this movie, and Gore's presentation, so effective is that he puts it all together, in a coherent story, that effectively showcases each puzzle piece in both time and importance. The seeds of doubt that have been so effectively manipulated by those who do not wish to deal with global warming grow in the thin soil of radio talk shows and late night soundbites. Given an hour-and-a-half, Gore's argument and his passion for his subject overcome those limitations, answering both his critics and the critics of global warming.

For this documentary is about Al Gore as much as it is about the inconvenient truth of the title, for Gore provides the human side of this scientific equation, standing in for every American who has to understand how much of an inconvenience this is. He connects it to an early accident involving his son, that helped him step back from his life and examine what he considered important. He connects to his family's legacy as Tennessee tobacco farmers, who knew about the dangers of tobacco, yet continued to grow it until smoking caused the death of his sister, forcing them to evaluate their choice. And he connects it to the last five years, by revealing global warming as a threat that is as important, if not more so, than global terrorism.

Moreover, rather than simply being the Chicken Little that he and his global warming scientist friends are portrayed to be, Gore shows that, while the sky may indeed be falling, it's not the end of the world. The warning signs are there, but it is not irreversable. There are things that we can do. And this is where the inconvenience of the title comes through the clearest because the choices we make to reverse global warming are not convenient. As he states in his presentation, "It is amazing to me how so many people go straight from denial to despair," referring to how so many people, once confronted with the reality of how humans have affected a global system proceed to throw up their hands and say that nothing can be done. Gore's call-to-arms is in stark contrast to his former opponent's own call-to-arms in his war: Bush, on the verge of the "war against terrorism," when asked what the country could do, encouraged people to go spend, so as to keep our economy strong. Gore admits that in fighting global warming, the actions will be more difficult, but he compares this to the great battles of our past: the American Revolution and its hardships, the great cost of the Civil War, and the rationing and victory gardens of World War II. When faced with a great challenge, Gore says, Americans have come together and overcome it by their collective action before, and they can again. And, in the case of global warming, he shows that it is our moral imperative as citizens of the country that is contributing the most to this problem, not to mention our ethical response as human citizens of the world.

I'm sure that Sunday morning will be filled with pundits blathering on about "Gore's crusade" and environmental extremism, as will the nattering nabobs of negativism on the radio. Rather than making your decision based upon their opinions--for you have no idea where their real motivations lie--I urge you, instead, to go see Mr. Gore's movie, to spend just 90 minutes on a subject that has real consequences for all of us. Freed of his political aspirations and provided with another six years of hard data that matches the scientific model forecasts, Gore is able to speak with mounting passion about global warming in such a way that reveals to everyone his emotional core. That is why this movie will win an Oscar, and--I hope--will help people come to grips with this very inconvenient truth.

Most comment spam is trying to gain eyeballs for websites that are competing to sell things themselves, such as the ever popular purple pill, herbal remedies that do the same, or porn. But there's another group of comment spammers that seem to be growing: those who want eyeballs so that you click on the ever-ubiquitous Google ads. I just had a trackback the other day that linked to my recent review of The Book of Bourbon. The language of the trackback looked genuine, if somewhat commercial, as it was about tours of Tennessee and Kentucky bourbon country. And the page that it came from looked, at first glance, to be genuine. The format was generic blogspot with a header, a main column of text and a column of menu items. What gave me pause, though, was the menu seemed to be quite blank, and the text, while individual sentences made sense, none of the sentences connected to the ones before or after. That's when I noticed the ads, which matched what I had come to the page about (bourbon). This was a dummy page whose goal was simply to grab readers searching for bourbon information, finding nothing on the page, and, rather than going back to the search, click on the Google ads, thus generating pennies of kickback to the spammer. Enough pennies, and it becomes worthwhile for them.

What really burns me about this is that, supposedly, the Google AdSense program vets the web sites that they allow the ads to run on. In fact, two years ago when Google started the program, I applied to see if I could run Google ads on immediacy (I've been writing these reviews and comments for over fifteen years without much* monetary compensation, so I thought I might see if the ads would provide a little remuneration) and was rejected because my site was a "personal site or diary." Pfui. I can only assume that they have lifted some of their restrictions on what kind of sites run their ads, have reviewers who are easily fooled or sloppy, or are being taken by bait and switch operators.

Of course, in the sour grapes category, I wouldn't run their ads now just based on the principal of the thing. Who needs their Internet-destroying revenue stream? Hrmph. However, I wonder if a coordinated campaign to direct their attention to their facilitation of comment spam would get them to start a program review?

* I have received a modicrum of kickback from Amazon through their referral program, on the order of about $30 per year in Amazon credit.

In this case, comic means humor (or humour, since this is a collection of British stories) rather than sequential art. Although, given the low laugh quotient, the definition of comic as humorous may not be exact either. It is a problem with any anthology of this type--that is, trying to cover such a broad range in both time and style--that the reader isn't going to find every story to their liking, but this one for me didn't even come close. I'd hesitate to actually term more than a third of these stories as smile-inducing, and only about a tenth actually had me laugh out loud.

I picked this up mainly to see if there were an author or two that I wasn't aware of who wrote the kind of thing I liked; I knew that I would enjoy the stories by Kipling, Wodehouse, and Kingsley Amis. To my surprise, I didn't like the story by Amis. The big surprise was the story by Saki, which I laughed the loudest at, and had to read a section out to my partner:

"Dullness I could overlook," said the aunt of Clovis: "what I cannot forgive is his making love to my maid."

"My dear Mrs Troyle," gasped the hostess, "what an extraordinary idea! I assure you Mr Brope would not dream of doing such a thing."

"His dreams are a matter of indifference to me; for all I care his slumbers may be one long indiscretion of unsuitable erotic advances, in which the entire servants' hall may be involved. But in his waking hours he shall not make love to my maid. It's no use arguing about it, I'm firm on the point."

"But you must be mistaken," persisted Mrs Riversedge; "Mr Brope would be the last person to do such a thing."

"He is the first person to so such a thing, as far as my information goes, and if I have any voice in the matter he certainly shall be the last."

I enjoyed just a few of the other stories, including Julian Barnes' "The Stowaway," about some animals that you don't think of as being on Noah's Ark, not to mention some of the other details that got left out of the official version; V.S. Naipaul's "The Night Watchman's Occurrence Book," about what goes on overnight in a tourist hotel in India; and "Raymond Bamber and Mrs Fitch," where the dullest member of a cocktail party gets something of a comeupance.

I paid less than $10 for a hardback version of this, so I regret more of the time spent with the stories that I didn't care for as much more than my monetary outlay. On the whole, I'd suggest a pass on this. Even if your tastes are opposite mine, I don't think this will likely fill what you expect from the title.

Prior to visiting Kentucky, I looked for travel books on the region and its whiskey industry. Surprisingly enough, there's not a travel guide dedicated to Kentucky--the usual suspects such as Lonely Planet cover it by merging it with a number of other states, including Tennessee--and a "whiskey trail" book hasn't really been done, although this book by Gary and Mardee Regan is close. I found this ten-year-old book earlier this year during one of my used-book searches for cocktailian tomes. It had two things going for it: I knew the author, and it filled a gap in my library of bachannalia on this quintessential American liquor. While it didn't prove as useful as a guide to the state, it was invaluable in my education on how American whiskey is made, so that when I did make it to the Jim Beam and Maker's Mark distilleries, I already knew much of what their short films and tours showed me, so that I could concentrate on the first-hand experience and the fine details, rather than starting from scratch.

Describing how whiskey is made is a third of this book. One third is given up to covering as many of the labels existing at the time (1995), including not only tasting notes but extended histories that cover who originated the label/recipe, if it changed, and, finally, who owns the rights to it. Due to both the economy of scale needed to produce bourbon, the limited audience (as opposed to, say, wine or beer), and the after-effects of Prohibition, around ten companies are responsible for the whiskey that you can purchase in your local liquor store. Even Maker's Mark, which prides itself as a family-operated business, is owned by the same larger conglomerate that owns Jim Beam.

The final third of the book provides recipes for cocktails and food that can be made with bourbon. There's nothing there that's much different than what you can get in a standard Bartender's bible for cocktails, although it's useful if you already are feeling like something with whiskey in it to be able to pick up this book and have all the recipes fit your desire. All in all, this remains a useful book, although the whiskey industry has changed enough in the last ten years that an updated version would be different enough to justify a second printing.

As has become tradition, we hold a little betting session between my wife, her parents and myself where we all pick a horse. The person whose horse comes in last of the four is responsible for dinner (buying or cooking) the next time we four get together. This year, J's horse, Jazil, came in 4th, mine came in 10th (Seaside Retreat, above) and her parents had the 16th and 17th place horses. They're coming back from attending a wedding in New York on Monday. Can't wait to see what J's dad is going to make. Yum!

I may no longer live in DC, but I'll be damned if I don't continue to fight for their rights.

No, why I'm posting this is because you can hear the whole concert, along with opening act Martha Wainwright, courtesy of NPR. There you go, Polytropos, never say I never got you anything, because this link's for you.

(Of course, I didn't find it on my own, I 'fess. Found via The Ghost of Gordon Sumner.)

My buddy William, the Tex Italian chef, passed this on to me to see if I'd support it, otherwise I'd have been culturally offline once again.

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I think I expected a French version of Alias, and perhaps Nikita the TV series is such, but this movie from 1990 was much darker and, in actuality, more interesting than I expected. It was still a little bit violent for our tastes, including the opening sequences where you are "introduced" to Nikita. I have to use quotes on that introduced, because this is one of those movies where nothing is ever explained, partly because that adds to the hip and stylish nature of the camera work and the dialogue (both of which are great) but also because it helps put the viewer into Nikita's place, where she doesn't really know anything either. That method of always showing and never telling, though, is also what fascinated me about the movie. It would be interesting to see the American version of this movie, Point of No Return, and see if that version maintained the mystery.

Quick recap of the story, without spoilers, if you've never seen this. Nikita is a young woman who kills a police officer, so the government "kills" her and offers her a chance to make amends by becoming a special operative. After years of grueling training, she's "released" to the world, given a fake cover, told her operative name, and informed that she would be called for her first mission in six months. She then goes about becoming a real person (something I would have said she wasn't before she killed the policeman) and things are just swell until that call comes and she is forced to live a double-life. All in all, this is a superhero plot and movie--the first half is the origin story while the second half is the actual plot of the movie. The ending is one of the better for this type of story, and we also liked how, in this movie, people not only got killed when they were shot (unlike most movies of this type where bullets are sprayed everywhere and no one ever seems to get hurt) but they also run out of bullets (see previous comment).

I'm not sure I really liked the movie, but I didn't hate it either, and there was much more a chance of the latter with a film of this type.

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