Happy birthday, iamgerg

Universal basic income would be like vaccination. It would have a lot of the same enemies.

Thanx to andrewducker

Magnificent essay by Ursula K. Le Guin. One main theme reminds me of Doris Lessing’s GoH speech at the ICFA, pointing out that realism, the supposed be-all-and-end-all of Serious Lit, was in fact a passing fad in a modest part of the world. Lessing won the Nobel; so should Le Guin.

Thanx to File 770

Which is your favorite thunderword?

Thanx to Follow Me Here

Scott Alexander on developmental steps past Piaget’s.

Thought-provoking article about the decline of Twitter. It starts with Walter J. Ong’s theory of orality, which is a good place to start.

Thanx to Metafilter

I must admit that I like Real People Fic. I appreciate Guy Gavriel Kay’s argument about respecting the privacy of those who’ve gone even centuries before, but I wallow in scabrous imaginings about the unlibelable dead. James Ellroy’s American Tabloid is a particular fave. (Come to think of it I’d favor a Koch/cruz D/s, though I wouldn’t actually read it.)

A few years ago Thomas Mallon wrote a book with the irresistible title of Watergate: A Novel, which it lived up to. With a few truly fictional characters and some inspired conjectures about nonfictional ones, he told a delightful tale. He even managed to make Pat Nixon interesting.

Now he’s back, with Finale: A Novel of the Reagan Years, and he’s done it again. A fine selection of viewpoint characters, including the deposed Nixon, the promising young journalist Christopher Hitchens, and the First Lady’s astrologer (in fulfillment of the prophecy in Stranger in a Strange Land), tell us a fascinating story.

I voted (subtle hint in userpic).

Happy birthday, fengi

How about some “evils of the modern world” art that doesn’t focus on smartphones and fat people?

Thanx to andrewducker

Fred Thompson’s death is reminding people that he was the one who asked the question that revealed Nixon’s secret tapes. I loved conspiracy theories even before Illuminatus!, and that’s one of the two things I still wonder about:

1. I still suspect that when James McCord botched the Watergate break-in, letting the burglars get caught, he was acting as a loyal CIA operative.

2. Thompson’s question came from a staffer interview with Alexander Butterfield, which to me reads like this:
Staffer: Blablabla
Butterfield: That comes from the secret taping system.
Staffer: Yes, but blablaba.
Butterfield: OMG, I accidentally revealed the existence of the secret taping system that you’re not supposed to know about!
Staffer: Oh! What about the secret taping system?

Ahmed Chalabi, who lied us into the Iraq disaster, flushed from the bowl of history.

Against subtlety

Thanx to Arts & Letters Daily

Happy birthday, don_fitch and szpress_svo

Software is made of decisions. Long and complex

Thanx to andrewducker

Wallflower at the orgy

Thanx to andrewducker

Happy birthday, dazoa78, eeyorerin, and winterknight

40 years ago today, I finally got my hands on the final volume of the Illuminatus! trilogy and read it. Like the authors, I knew that half of it was BS, but I wasn’t sure exactly which half. One part that was true was that it programmed me in ways that weren’t obvious for months or even years, and unlike W.C. Fields and the woman who drove him to drink, I thanked the authors for it.

Happy birthday, amieroserotruck, grendel1031, and rafaela