Martin Wisse

Schadenfreude, or how quickly free marketeers lose their faith

economic crisis
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The Moustache of Understanding is frantically calling on Obama to save the economy. As is expected of Friedman what he urges Obama to do is inane –apparantely Obama needs to be a true leader and urge the American public to “go shopping” to save the economy, the idea that people without a house, car or job not quite being in a position to restart the global economy by buying more Christmas presents not yet having penetrated his thick skull — but there is an extra franctic tone to his appeal. I wonder why:

That’s because the author’s wife, Ann (née Bucksbaum), is an heir to the General Growth fortune. In the past year, the couple–who live in an 11,400-square-foot mansion in Bethesda, Maryland–have watched helplessly as General Growth stock has fallen 99 percent, from a high of $51 to a recent 35 cents a share. The assorted Bucksbaum family trusts, once worth a combined $3.6 billion, are now worth less than $25 million.

Ah.

No wonder the guru of neo-liberal globalisme, the arselicker of the new world order, is now reduced to stupid pleas for someone, anyone to save him. Funny how soon even the most rabid free marketeer loses their religion when it’s their money on the line.

Driftglass — Samuel R. Delany

books and books review, science fiction
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Cover of Driftglass


Driftglass
Samuel R. Delany
318 pages
published in 1971

Samuel Delany is one of my favourite science fiction writers and in my opinion one of the best science fiction writers ever. Considering the cover blurb on this collection of short stories, I’m not alone in that opinion. According to Frederick Pohl, not a bad writer himself, “Delany may be the only authentic genius among us”. High praise indeed, but Delany deserves it. Everything I’ve read of his, including his earliest novels, displayed a mastery of both language and story, a lively imagination and ability to create novel but believable world and most importantly a grasp of the importance of culture that’s rare in science fiction, especially when he first started writing.

He is however more of a novelist than a short story writer, having written not nearly as many short stories as his contemporaries. in fact, Delany debuted with a novel at a time when science fiction was still largely a magazine driven field. It was only after he had established himself as a writer that he started publishing some of his short stories. Driftglass was his first collection, containing work written between ’65 and ’68 and published between 1967 and 1970. It’s a great collection, with two absolute classics in it: the Nebula winning “Aye, and Gomorrah…” as well as “Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones”, which won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards. Not to mention several other excellent stories.

Read more…

Who watches the Watchmen? I will

Comix
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I’m way too excited about this. To be honest I never believed this could be filmed and keep even ten percent of what was in the book, but after seeing V for Vendetta a few years back, which managed to work as a movie while keeping the important parts of Moore’s story intact (even if Moore didn’t like it himself), I have good hopes for Watchmen.

And you?

Sucking the fun out of Holland

Amsterdam, Dutch politics
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Apropos of my post on the predicted end of the coffeeshop by 2010 comes this interesting summation of all the nanny state measures that have been implemented or proposed in the past year or so. IT comes from a Llamasoft message board of all places and it’s far from complete, but it gives a good overview of the current moral climate in the Netherlands.

You may not believe it when you only know Amsterdam by reputation, but there’s a strong puritanical streak in the Dutch character as well as a long tradition of tolerance, and the pendulum has swung towards puritanism again. The people in power this last half decade have all been Mrs Grundys at heart, wanting to force their ideas of what’s right and proper on the rest of us. As with most of their ilk, they’re not so much concerned here with morality as with propriety. They’re less concerned that e.g. closing down legal brothels will drive prostitution back into the underworld with al the dangers that go with it (sex slavery, increased risk of STDs, undsoweiter) as they are with the idea that the Red Light district is an eyesore and would be much better if it was filled with trendy fashion boutiques and artist workplaces… It’s this attitude that has led to the vertrutting, the disney-fication of Amsterdam.

A policy initiative that should’ve been proposed on September 19th

economic crisis
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Jamie has a modest proposal on how to reclaim much of the public money ownded by tax dodgers:

Tell me, is there any practical reason why we can’t just invade Jersey and the Isle of Man, sequester the money in the various tax evasion accounts and filter it through the appropriate regulations, disbursing the remainder to its owners once tax at mainland levels had been excised – obviously relating only to those funds liable to British taxation.

I know money can be transferred at “a touch of a button” but I’m not talking about a full dress Operation Overlord here. Get a couple of battalions of Royal Marines, stage a nocturnal amphibious landing in conditions of absolute secrecy, secure the relevant premises, isolate key personnel – or rather concentrate them in school halls and the like with no access to communications devices – secure the account passwords and there you go.

With Dutch marines already stationed near or in our own tax havens (Aruba and the Dutcdh Antilles) I could see this picked up by our own politicians easily if Britain gave the right example. Especially if you can sell it to the PVV (Party of Freedom for those people not too brown coloured) as sticking it to the “Antillians”, their second favourite target after “Moroccans”.