For better or worse, the Affordable Care Act (the new health care reform law) has been dubbed “Obamacare.”

Here’s  another neologism: Perrycare.  It is  is defined as health care inside a state which has refused Medicaid expansion despite generous financial incentives to do so. It is characterized by skyrocketing health care premiums and overall costs for individuals who fall below  138% of the federal poverty line. Named after Texas Republican governor Rick Perry. 

Here are some other characteristics:

• The population between 19-26 have the highest level of poverty. On the other hand, they are still eligible to be on their parents’ plan (that is, if their parents have a plan!). In general, people in this age range are healthy and would require care mainly for emergencies (or giving birth).
• The population between 26 and 30 have high rates of poverty. They are no longer on their parents’ plan; on the other hand, it is assumed that their income will have risen a bit depending on how long they have been in the workforce. Females are particularly at risk here because these are generally the child-bearing years.
• The population between 30-65. More likely to have savings, but on the other hand, more likely to have serious conditions and require several visits.

The Kaiser Foundation has prepared a health care rate calculator. Note that it provides two estimates: the estimate under Obamacare and Perrycare. According to the site’s FAQ, “The federal poverty level varies by family size. In 2013, it is $11,490 for a single adult and $23,550 for a family of 4. The poverty level is estimated for 2014 based on Congressional Budget Office projections of inflation.”

On a positive note, medical underwriting  will be prohibited on Jan 1 2014 under Obamacare, so very low-income individuals will be able to purchase a plan without having to go through underwriting; they just won’t be able to afford it!

Update: Here’s a cost estimate from Kaiser about just how much money Texas is not going to spend and not going to receive:

TEXAS (population: 26 million) 

Without Medicaid expansion, between 2013-2022, feds would spend 228 billion and TX state would spend 159 billion on Medicaid for Texans.

With Medicaid expansion for 2013-2022, feds would spend 305 billion and TX state would spend 168 billion on Medicaid for Texans.

In other words, spending 9 billion dollars more on Medicaid in Texas will prompt the feds to spend 77 billion more dollars on health care for Texans over the next decade.

New York (population 19 million)

Without Medicaid expansion for 2013-2022, fed pays 468 billion, and NY state pays 451 billion for New Yorkers.

With Medicaid expansion for the same time period, feds pay 553 billion, NY state pays 433 billion for New Yorkers.

In other words, because NY already  pays a greater amount  into Medicaid,  Obamacare will cause New York to spend 18 billion dollars less on Medicaid,  while the feds will spend 85 billion dollars more on health care for  Medicaid in New York.

A Rand analysis estimates other effects from deciding to opt out of Medicaid expansion.

If 14 states decide not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act as intended by their governors, those state governments collectively will spend $1 billion more on uncompensated care in 2016 than they would if Medicaid is expanded. … In addition, those 14 state governments would forgo $8.4 billion annually in federal payments and an additional 3.6 million people will be left uninsured… “State policymakers should be aware that if they do not expand Medicaid, fewer people will have health insurance, and that will trigger higher state and local spending for uncompensated medical care,” Price said. “Choosing to not expand Medicaid may turn out to be the more-costly path for state and local governments.”…

…
Researchers also outline how failing to expand Medicaid could have more than financial consequences. Based on earlier research showing that past expansions of Medicaid has led to decreases in deaths, the study estimates that an additional 19,000 deaths could occur annually if the 14 states studied do not expand Medicaid.

My rough  ballpark estimate is that Texas accounts for a third of the population of those states opting out of Exchanges and Medicaid  expansion. Therefore, applying the Rand’s data to Texas, we could say that Perry’s decision not to expand Medicaid will cost Texans somewhere in the range of  $300 million and result in 6000 more deaths.

Houston Dining Index by Mike Riccetti (2013), Tempus Fugit Press.180 pages.(Author Website)

Ebook Edition: $3.99  (Buy at Amazon, and  BN)

Summary: great restaurant review book with lots of useful lists (such as restaurants near Metro Rail stops), but it is somewhat  difficult to browse by neighborhood or region.

The author is a Houston native who has been reviewing Houston restaurants for a long time.  He and I went to high school in Houston together, and I have fond memories about his taking classmates to an obscure and crazy Asian jazz restaurant where he ordered all kinds of crazy and delicious things for the table. Mike’s enthusiasism for food and fine dining is evident in his book which collects lots of information about Houston’s amazing restaurant scene. In addition to writing regular restaurant reviews for the Examiner and Houston Press, Riccetti has already written one Houston culinary guide. This volume  updates and improves upon the previous one.

The book seems to be targeted to the out-of-town traveller. He gives three dollar figures under price: average dinner cost (including 20% tip), entrée price range and average entrée price. Also, he begins by talking about restaurants in areas frequented by out-of-towners (the airports,  downtown), I have looked up about 30 restaurants I know very well and found that his reviews are succinct, fair but not overly positive and  good at capturing what is unique and interesting about the restaurant in question.  Most of the listings include its neighborhood and/or its culinary type, but this is not always done consistently.

The  excellent introduction gives an overview about Houston restaurants and trends.  This book has some incredible “extras”: a listing of local pubs and microbreweries, a review/list of Bistros (I didn’t know Houston had so many!)  a review/list of restaurants in hotels,  a listing of restaurant without walking distance of the Metrorail (! — this will be even more useful after Metrorail is expanded even further in 2014). There is a section for “restaurant rows” (small pedestrian-friendly areas full of restaurants). Perhaps the oddest section was “Seen on TV” (restaurants which were reviewed or featured on various food shows).

I like the fact that this book covers a lot of budget restaurants and that it contains a lot of lists (Late Night, Sunday Brunch, Uniquely Houston Restaurants). Its coverage of Vietnamese restaurants was  particularly good.  But it can be hard to browse the book by location. The book highlights certain areas (e.g., “West Houston — Energy Corridor and Katy”) but for the most part you have to browse by culinary type and then look at individual listings to see where they are located. Also, there was not a special section for Galleria (where I live, a common destination for visitors). There is not an index  but a section for “Location” near the end (which is useful but easy to overlook). It would have been even more  helpful for the Location section to actually link to the place in the book where the restaurant was  reviewed.  As a practical matter, you will have to use the ebook search feature to find a specific restaurant.  One tip I have is creating ebook bookmarks for the most useful sections (which I found to be “Metrorail”, “restaurant rows,” and “Locations” ) so you can access them later  more easily.

This raises question about whether restaurant books still matter in an age of Yelp and B-4-u-eat. Although raw feedback from  review  websites are great, they can overwhelm you with extraneous information  In contrast, restaurant guidebooks like this are more practical and concise and give you a better overview of what’s here. Houston has some incredible restaurants, and books like this help the visitor and  longtime residents to discover new and wonderful places.

********************************************************************

Disclaimer: Mike and I were high school classmates. More on Disclaimers and Reviewing

In preparation for my book on music collecting, I signed up for emusic and  starting downloading (and paying for) digital music.   At first glance it’s hard to get what emusic is all about. Its website is  slow, you can’t stream  easily, plus there’s a membership fee. You may initially not see what the big deal is (especially because as a non-member, you only see non-member prices). But look further.

Comparison of Prices for Digital Music Albums

 About the prices listed on this table. I wanted to show the dramatic price differences between emusic and everybody else. I picked these albums here at random — making sure to include a mix of Top 40 (Pink, fun) with some rather obscure new works (Kid Koala), obscure semi-oldies (Sleater-Kinney)  classics (Francophonic, Close Encounters) and some series (Rough Guides). As you can see, member prices for emusic are dramatically lower than most other  music sellers. Top 40 and “hot artists” are somewhat lower on Amazon. In addition to these “normal” lower prices for popular albums, Amazon will occasionally offer 1 day sales on bestselling albums for $1.99 or $2.99 which are definitely worth watching.  Google Play store does this occasionally too.  Also, Amazon has a special section for select golden oldies/best sellers  with regular prices of  $5 (“Dolly Parton’s Greatest Hits”,  Jeff Buckley’s “Grace”,  Black Keys’ “Magic Potion”, ) which beats emusic and all the others.  Each  store will have its special sales and promotions, but on the whole, unless the album is currently “hot,”  you can find it on emusic for 10-20%  less than anywhere else.  Emusic has lots of  low-priced compilation albums (see below for my recommendations), and so does Amazon, although not the same ones.  Amazon has a good number of budget classical music compilations, while emusic has more and cheaper  pop music compilations.  Both services offer lots of free samplers,  with Amazon.com probably offering slightly more.

For emusic you pay a membership fee which applies to your purchases. Usually when you sign up, you receive some kind of introductory gift certificate (mine was $25).  You are given several membership tiers, but you shouldn’t worry worry about that too much. Just decide how much want to spend, then sign up for the appropriate membership level. You can downgrade or even cancel later. I’ll let you in on a secret. If you do cancel, they will dangle a free month worth of credits – how awesome is that?  If you sign up for higher tiers of membership, you get bonus credits. If you pay $134 for a yearly membership, you get credits totalling $204.   Emusic’s member  prices are almost always 10-20% lower than itunes and Amazon, and sometimes even more. (Its non-member prices are basically the same as Amazon and itunes).  Besides having cheaper prices, emusic also has a higher percentage of music-savvy consumers. Emusic staff write a lot of  reviews, and these are often great picks – not only for new releases but also  obscure music and jazz stuff.

Here’s the downside.  You don’t get particularly good deals with Top 40 stuff, and you can only download it once or twice. Emusic’s website kind of sucks and it lacks a  cloud solution and doesn’t even stream music well.  So when you download, you must backup your files to Amazon cloud player or Google Play cloud player. Also, there are holes in emusic’s music catalog –  though most of the time it’s only compilations. One customer pointed out that emusic doesn’t list the bit rate for the mp3s — which is also a bummer, but I have to assume that the mp3s for sale are almost always high enough quality.

Before I describe my emusic purchases, I want to make three  general observations about my music collection habits.

First, the things I buy on emusic are things I couldn’t obtain cheaply as CDs.  Hey, music labels, if your digital  prices were cheaper than the cost of used CDs on half.com or Amazon, I would stop buying used CDs altogether.

Second, because of the lower price, I take a lot more chances with the things I download/buy. I’ve made some mistakes (see below), but I’ve also found some amazing things.

Third, I also pay $5 per month to use RDIO’s streaming music service. I can often stream entire albums and later decide whether I want to buy them on emusic.     One might ask if the album is available already on Rdio, why not just listen to Rdio and never  buy anything? The answer is simple: streaming services pay shit to artists!

Each month I get $17 worth of credits, so I’ll tell which ones I get each month.  My main rule for buying is that I need to buy at least one album by a living/still performing artist — it’s really easy to focus on the old stuff, and it’s important to put money into the hands of artists now so that they can perform and record tomorrow.  I won’t list half-albums below if I have already bought portions previously.

May 2013:

1. El Inolvidable by Tito Rodriguez is a great and almost comprehensive collection of vocal hits by the Puerto Rican mambo singer (i.e., the other Tito). Note that this album is identical to another album Anthology which is slightly more expensive. The 12 minute intro number introducing each performer is rather insufferable but quaint too, but even so, 107 minutes for $6.50 is an amazing deal.
2. Ima by BT  is an early 1990s trance album by BT with some great soaring moments (Loving You more) and a sampling of Tori Amos which was wildly popular (Blue Skies).  The first album ESCM is also legendary (though somewhat New Age dreamy by contemporary standards). Unfortunately the album itself is not for sale digitally, but I made a youtube playlist of it.
3. A certain smile, a certain sadness by Rocketship is a vivid and retro mellow electronic album in the style of Stereophonic.  This album (their only one) first came out in 1996.

Now here’s the rest of the albums which I had been purchasing since December 2012.

1. Best Of Mushroom Jazz, Vol 1 – 5 by Mark Farina.  Farina makes these slow and funky jazzscapes full of random samples and spoken words.  It blends together very well, and actually it’s soothing enough that it doesn’t distract.  I have fallen asleep to many of these unending mixes.  I would have rather bought each volume separately, but this is a good sampling. Sometimes things sag and slow down, but  like  Gong’s soundscapes  (see below) it’s always headed  to interesting places. Ultimately, I bought this more for novelty’s sake than any other reason, but I was not disappointed.
2. One Day I’ll Be on Time by The Album Leaf. I have no idea why I bought this ambient instrumental album other than it had a dreamy meditative quality and it still had vestiges of a rock band  (drums, guitar, etc). It’s more mood music than anything melodramatic, but almost every track has a rhythmic energy that keeps things chugging forward.
3. Selections from Hotel Hell and Stand Up and Fight by Richard Lee Wilson.  Richard Lee Wilson is a great blues guitarist  whose rough and roaring melodies will remind you of his idol, Stevie Ray Vaughan.  Highly recommended even though some of his tracks have an uncanny resemblance to Stevie Ray. Hey, sometimes it’s ok to be derivative!
4. Call the Doctor by Sleater-Kinney. Shrill 90s Grrl band. This album was highly recommended in multiple places, but I couldn’t get into it except for maybe 2 or 3 songs.
5. Pirates Choice by Orchestra Baobab. I have become a sucker for anything by this Senegalese band. They combine many styles: mbalax jazz with danceable Cuban rhythm.  A saxophone is front and center of almost each performance, and singers alternate between Spanish and Oolof.  This was a one-session album from the 1980s (“Pirate’s Choice “ ironically refers to how often their albums were being bootlegged). Highlights include   bluesy Ndiaga Niaw and the slow and deliberate Ultrus Horas. Highly recommended.
6. Selected Ambient Works by Aphex Twin (1985-1992): This early electronic album has been called an early groundbreaking work of electronic music. Personally I found it too minimalist for my liking. Not bad, but it had a tinny and cheap techno feel sometimes. It’s certainly a good listen, but it doesn’t compare to the richer symphonic creations of Tangerine Dream (see below).
7. Pragamatic by Praga Khan. Praga Khan provides the turbocharged electronic energy behind the ground-breaking underground band, Lords of Acid. All of his 90s albums are great (I have them as CDs).  Classify under hard-hitting /house/dancey band with a European feel.
8. Rehearsals for Departure by Damien Jurado. One emusic editor recommended this acoustic singer-songwriter, and  for the hell of  it I decided to buy this early album.  Jurado has a distinct and fragile voice, and his  country  songs are rich, tightly written and arranged with traditional harmonica and guitar. I think the poetic  lyrics are more interesting than the melodies (which are slow, lilting and heartfelt). But the whole package is so pleasant and sincere that I am able to overlook the fact that the songs aren’t particularly hummable.
9. Best of Douglas Sahm & Sir Douglas Quartet (1968-1975) .  Tom Moon of 1000 Recordings to Hear before you die ranked this Texan singer’s compilation CD  as one of his fave recordings. Doug Sahm plays a lot of downhome country songs with a slight Tejano and polka  feel. A pleasant addition to the  traditional mix  of instruments is a jazz sax; however, the songs demonstrate a variety of styles and instruments  ranging from rock blues (I’m not that Kat anymore), country ballad (Texas Me), funky pop, and even 50s rock and roll. Everything feels simple and  old-fashioned (even for 70s music) but I think his best songs are these slow, understated  upbeat country songs like Mendocino and Sunday Sunny  Mill Valley Groove Day.
10. Tangerine Dream: The Virgin Years (1974-1978). I was only vaguely familiar with Tangerine Dream, but I heard that their early electronic  stuff was more interesting and intense. This double set includes 4 complete early albums; that’s enough to get an idea about the  ground-breaking stuff they were doing.  The music has enough  momentum and keyboard crescendos to take your breath away.  It’s exhilarating, eerie, perplexing and spacey without sounding too abstruse. Highly recommended.
11. (Real Love) (Optimo Remix)  by Factory Floor.  Here’s a dynamite single track recommended by the NPR music editors.
12. Nothing but the Blues and Texas Swings by Herb Ellis.  Herb Ellis is an easygoing jazz guitarist who plays lovely melodies. His rendition of “American the Beautiful” is one of the most beautiful I’ve heard, and he has collaborated with many immortals (Getz, Hampton, etc). I bought Texas Swings a long time ago, and it was one of my favorite easy listening tapes. Nothing but the Blues is  one of his best  collaborations.
13. Rough Guide to Psychedelic Africa  Rough Guides are a steal (especially on emusic). They usually contain 2 CDs worth of music, and are impeccably chosen. I check out a lot of them from my public library, but this one was conspicuously missing. The featured performer is Nigerian Victor Uwaifo, whose 10 tracks here show the jazzy highlife sound. Other highlights include great tracks by Orchestra Baobab and other performers unknown to the west. Noteworthy about Uwaifo was the prominence of the flute in his mostly guitar-driven songs. By the way, you can subscribe directly to Rough Music albums. 2 albums per month at 10$ a month (minimum 12 months).
14. Submarine Bells by The Chills. Wonderful 80s New Zealand band who play these incredible soft rock ballads. This album is just perfect – lots of different styles, most of it lowkey synth rock with laid back qualities. I’m thinking of the Eagles/Fleetwood Mac/Police, but really I don’t think the US has any real equivalent. Highly Recommended.
15. Shoes – 35 Years: The Definitive Shoes Collection 1977-2012.  I heard a piece on NPR about how the Shoes have basically been ignored by the public despite being loved by music critics. When i heard an excerpt of their  “easy listening” sound,  I thought, “that’s just like The Chills!” I didn’t immediately love this compilation; the sunniness of the songs can grow tedious after a while, and the singer’s voice doesn’t have a lot of emotional range. Songs like Too Late, Girls of Today, Curiosity,  Feel the Way I do and Three Times are interesting  (and catchy) songs, but they feel a little meandering. Over time I have come to appreciate  the fine textures of both the vocals and instrumentation. These songs are not supposed to overwhelm you, but they have surprisingly intricate rhythms and melodies; I just wished the songs were more memorable.
16. Best of “Rock El Casbah” by Rachid Taha. This Algerian singer does a variety of rock and dance styles while preserving the Middle East feel.  I didn’t love this album as much as I thought I would – it seemed too mainstream and pop, but it still had great moments.
17. Classic Titles by Boubacar Traore  Traore is a great singer from Mali, and I forgot why I bought this man’s music.  He sings these  slow and  gorgeous ballads with a solo guitar. His voice is always plaintive and yet the expressive guitar counterbalances the melancholy.  Aside from the fact that the songs from this album all seem to resemble one another,  they are powerful, intense and by far my most remarkable find on emusic. Highly recommended.
18. Live at the Old Quarter by Townes Van Zandt  This live recording is supposed to be Van Zandt’s best album, and it has some interesting qualities – the small talk in between songs for example. Van Zandt has a great voice, and his songs are earnest and gentle – more country than blues. But no particular song stood out in my mind. Contrast that with Steve Goodman’s comedy songs (see below)  whose songs always made me  say, “Wow.” I realize it’s unfair to compare comic songs with serious ones and that I’m supposed to love this intimate presentation of Van Zandt songs.  But to tell the truth, I don’t think any of the songs came close to “moving” me.  Let’s  compare and contrast Boubcar Traore with Townes Van Zandt. They both have beautiful voices and a soulful style; unlike Van Zandt  (who gives the guitar a mostly accompanying role), Traore integrates the guitar deeper into the song and uses it more expressively.  Traore’s guitar almost overshadows his voice in importance to the songs.
19. Very Best of Toot and the Maytals. Imagine Ray Charles or James Brown singing reggae songs. The songs on this compilation album are funky but also seem laid back for reggae; perhaps one could call slower songs like Never Get Weary or In the Dark  gospel or soul. Toot knows how to rock with fast songs like 54-46 That’s my number or Monkey Man or Pressure Drop or Pomps & Pride.  It’s hard to imagine a reggae singer not being overshadowed by Bob Marley’s memory, but these songs seem less political, more about faith and good feelings. To some, this underlying message might seem bland, but at least it shows that Toots is not simply trying to head down the same path Marley did.
20. DJ Rap Presents Propa Classics Volume 1 . I’m a big fan of DJ rap’s stuff from the 1990s, but this isn’t my favorite album of hers.  I really dug Deep Inside and the downtempo Spiritual Aura 2001 (which ended the album). But the faster version of Aura was really fun too, and so was Diggable Bass. Hardstep was funky and good dance stuff. But I thought there was way too much chitter-chatter on tracks in the middle, especially Your Mind and The Lickshot. (Update: I am really liking some of her more recent stuff, including the $1.96  In the Lazers EP).
21. World of Daevid Allen and Gong CD 1 and CD 2  So far I’ve bought 2 CDs of the 3 CD collection which contains the best of Gong from the early 1970s. When I first listened, I admit I wondered if this freeform jazzy/prog stuff was pulling my leg – it just sounds like a long drug trip. But the slow and emerging melodies always go to interesting places. It sounds like a more colorful and less dark Pink Floyd. Highly recommended — just for the experience.
22. Steve Goodman Anthology.  Goodman is a legendary folk singer who sings these fun songs about baseball, TV,  sex, food.  This great compilation album includes lots of great live performances and  hilarious songs with guitar accompaniment. The songs are catchy, upbeat, and clever. This double album costs 11.98 on emusic vs. 17.98 on Amazon.  Highly recommended.
23. Curve EP by Last Charge of the Light Horse . I used to know one of the performers from high school, so it was a treat to hear this album. Jean-Paul Vest has an interesting voice, and the jazzy instrumental touches really make these songs for me. The best and most accessible song is the lyrical Lately track…a real winner. The other pieces are moodier and less about the lyrics or the singing than about the winding instrumentals and silences.
24. Pop På Svenska + Plan 714 Till by Komeda.  Komeda is a great Swedish electronic/punk band that combines dazzling special effects (a la Stereophonic) with strange rhythms and beeps, and lovely warblings by its lead female singer. Their later stuff was more palatable for the masses (one song even was played on a Powderpuff Girl cartoon). But this album (actually 2 albums re-released later ) consists of their juvenalia when they were still experimenting with styles and forms (oh, yes, the singer sang only in Swedish).  This album isn’t perfect, but it is bold and dazzling and even mind-bending.
25. 100 Jazz Essentials  by John Coltrane.  This amazing collection of Coltrane includes both the familiar and unfamiliar. At the low price of $6, it’s a must buy.
26. 100 Disco Hits of the 70s, 80s and 90s .  ($6) Some have criticized this  (and other) collections for not including original recordings. A number are  “one off recordings” (By that, I mean “different recordings of the same song by the same artist). Let’s not split hairs. 75% of the time, I couldn’t tell the difference, plus I enjoyed the grabbag of stuff from three decades which combines the well-known with the obscure.
27. 100 Greatest Gospel Classic.  ($6) I totally loved this collection for $6, although it seemed to emphasize African-American gospel a little too heavily. Sound quality is ok considering that it contains lots of stuff from 30s, 40s and 50s.
28. 100 Greatest Motown Hits . ($6) A lot of “one-off” recordings, plus a lot of singers I’ve never heard of before mixed with Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, etc… Still, I enjoyed it.
29. 100 Original Blues Kings.  ($6!) Some of the specific recordings sound terrible, but there’s enough variety and stuff from little known artists to make up for it.
30. Lounge Top 100 ($6) This is my favorite big compilation, especially because I haven’t heard of any of the musicians. Lounge/downtempo jazz is a genre totally unknown to me, populated by lots of South Americans and Europeans. Highly recommended.
31. Number 1 Latin Jazz Album Ever!  (6$) This compilation  of 100 Latin jazz tracks has a lot of odd selections – quite a number from 1940s and Big Band era and Desi Arnaz?  and I suspect that these are quite a few one off recordings. Still it’s a lot of fun.
32. Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Original Soundtrack by John Williams. One late evening I awoke from bed and felt various melodies from Close Encounters flow through my head. Aside from the amazing interplay of the musical motif  between spaceship and humans in the final scene, there is a lot of good incidental music along the way. This soundtrack was nominated for an Oscar for best musical score, but lost to John Williams’ Star Wars soundtrack (which I consider a lesser work by Williams). Of course, these are programmatic symphonic works, but it’s fun to compare and contrast with Holst, Debussy, Ligeti… Highly recommended.
33. Wild Ones by Flo Rida. (recommended by nephew).  This collection of middle-of-the-road  techno-rap tracks   has sweet spots  (especially in the Sweet Spot starring Jennifer Lopez samples, Good Feeling  and Let It Roll tracks).  Clever instrumentals and good and catchy dance tracks, but its repetitive format gets old very quickly. Also,  it seems a victim of the loudness wars; everything is at a constant volume and can be exhausting on the ears. I think the duets between Flo Rida and females work especially well, and as long as you don’t listen too often to these tracks, they will seem great.
34. Overexposed by Maroon 5 (recommended by nephew). These songs are described on allmusic as “soul groove,” and that’s as fair a category as any (although it inevitably includes some electronic kicks).  Highlights include: Daylight and Lucky Strike  and Sad (an interest  slow number). This album sounded a little too fashionable and prosaic for my tastes and really didn’t leave much of an impression on me.
35. Some Nights by fun.(recommended by nephew).  I was pleasantly surprised at how engaging this pop album is.  The main vocalist Nate Reuss reminds me of Freddy Mercury — naked, boyish, expressive, full of attitude (though not as histrionic as Queen). The songs are catchy, never overproduced and always have interesting lyrics.  The sunny Why am I the one? sounds so much like the Afternoon Delight/Sara Smile  easy listening of the 1970s that it’s refreshing to hear something so unapologetically retro.
36. Various albums by Sergent Garcia.  I saw French-born Cosmopolitan singer perform at a Brazilian international festival in Houston. He and his band sung in so many genres that I had trouble catching up. I ended up buying $8 of his 49 cent songs from 3 different albums, and got some great stuff especially from the Mascaras album. He fuses reggae with salsa and cumbia and everything else and a rapid rapping vocal accompaniment. They were amazing in live performance. Highly recommended because of the band’s  versatility.
37. Nortec Collective Presents Clorifila: Corridos Urbanos is a great and funky  series of electronic jazz pieces with occasional cameos from horns and accordians. Everything has a tribal/ industrial/synthesized feel to it, but the occasional vocals (Naked Ladies), and the dreamy  downtempo songs (Nicole Ya No Baila Aqui and 4:15) make it clear you can’t categorize this album very easily.  This complex pieces are actually collages of Mexican folk with electronic bursts and lots of percussion (almost too much at times).  Highly recommended if only because of their ground-breaking sound.
38. Politico by Mexican Institute of Sound

I want to mention some other titles which I bought on Amazon, Google Play and other indie sites. Generally, emusic has everything cheaper, but Amazon has some amazing prices on compilation albums and occasionally “flash sales” for 1 day on Top 40 albums.

1. Anthology by The Clean. I bought this amazing double album for $7 on Google Play when it was on sale. (now it’s selling for $11.50).  The Clean is an important New Zealand alternative band who at times  resembles  a good rowdy grunge/garage band (Side On, At the Bottom), and at other times sounds like 60s  psychodelic pop. Try the mind-blowing Outside the Cage, Point that Thing.  Franz Kafka at the Zoo.  I guess they’re a kind of Velvet Underground, only smarter and more  obsessed with producing good guitar riffs than meaningful vocals. I liked this album so much that I listened to it continuously for 3 or 4 days and did not feel bored once.  Highly recommended.

I am linking to it casually (and making only superficial comments), but this  professional code of ethics I have developed about working for the energy industry is one of my most important (and most expensive personally). 

I live in Houston, which is basically the center of many energy companies, most of which deal with fossil fuels. I would estimate that 80% of the technical job opportunities in my field (Technical Writing and Instructional Design) are in the oil and gas field. I have turned them down without exception – no matter how lucrative or promising. I generally have to explain myself to HR people and recruiters; usually people’s response to my declaration that I could not work for any oil and gas companies is absolute amazement – and almost hilarity.  “Is this guy crazy?” they must think.

I would love to remain in Houston, but it’s becoming harder to make a living here and stay true to these core ethical principles I have articulated on that page.  The irony is that I genuinely enjoy the field of technical writing – plus I think I am really good at it,  but if most   of the jobs in your city are in an industry you find abhorrent,  then what does it matter that a particular type of work is interesting or well-paying? 

I have been working on a much longer blog post about the ethical question, “Is it ethical to work for an oil and gas company?”  Stay tuned!

Here’s some dumping from Facebook onto my blog.  (Warning: very long!)  (This is the 2nd installment. See the first linkdump)

Political/Economic

Retired high school teacher warns colleges of the generation who were educated under the "No Child Left Behind" obsession with tests.

Desmogblog reports that Tobacco and Oil Billionaires were responsible for creating the website for the first Tea Party.

BLOOMBERG POLL: Only 6% of Americans surveyed answered correctly that the "federal deficit is getting smaller." 62% WRONGLY said that the deficit is getting bigger and 28% WRONGLY said it is staying the same.

In 2005, 76% of Texas voters voted to ban same-sex marriage. This is a reminder of the ugly bigotry which pervades Texas and the cynical politicians who took advantage of it. This vote makes me embarrassed to be a Texan… What I wrote about the issue right after the election: "We have defined our state in terms of intolerance. We have shown to the world that the only things we tolerate apparently are unprecedented incarceration rates, inequities in educational expenditures and underfunded health programs."

(After a Tea Party conservative raises the spectre of Polygamy, I make this remark): Polygamy is a frequent bogeyman used by SSM opponents to scare people. (IIRC, no STATE has ever allowed polygamy although some territories allowed it before becoming a state). I think it would be hard for you to demonstrate that the slippery slope to polygamy starts with protecting the rights of gay people to have formal monogamous relationships. The States (and implicitly the feds) have decided that polygamy is not a valid family structure. This prohibition is universal and nondiscriminatory. I am willing for the sake of argument to consider the possibility that a state might legalize polygamy, but that hasn’t happened yet… By the way, an argument might be made that polygamy DOES threaten monogamous marriage — mainly because if one person marries another without knowing that the other is already married, that could result in harm. I would assume that any state sanctioned polygamy would have to include the requirement that any person getting married would have to disclose to the partner that he is also married to someone else). I do not believe that pro-polygamy laws would prima facie be unconstitutional, so if Vermont wants to pass a pro-polygamy law, maybe we’d have to consider it. But my limited imagination makes me unable to imagine a scenario where a state would legalize polygamy.

ROBERT REICH: Allowing more legal immigrants into the US would solve the looming Medicare and Social Security problem.

Voting turnout rates in apartments is 25% — compared to 45% for home dwellers. (according to  political analyst Chuck Kuffner)

I am in a state of shock that sequestration finally happened and now even seems to be the normal state of affairs. Can’t Congress do anything? (I posted this on FB at the beginning of March. How naïve I was to believe that Congress would certainly solve it by month’s end!)

Here’s a 6 minute video about wealth inequality that has been making its way around  the Net. QUOTE: "The top 1% of Americans have more wealth that what 9 out of 10 Americans say that the top 20% of Americans SHOULD have. " Paul Solman did a good news report about this in 2011 (transcript here)

ECONOMIST EMMANUEL SAENZ: Between 2009-2011, earnings of the top 1% grew by 11.2%; earnings of the other 99 percent declined by 0.4 percent.

Here’s a a good list of pundits with questionable conflicts of interest. Started by Yasha Levine & Mark Ames of Exiled Magazine. (For something less snarky, see Sourcewatch). Example:

REGARDING MEGAN MCCARDLE: In 2003, McArdle attacked economist James Galbraith as "paranoiac" and critic Eric Alterman as "nuts" for suggesting that the Iraq war could cost $2 trillion. McArdle declared the Iraq War "is not going to run us several trillion dollars (though even if it did, that would work out to less than 0.1% of GDP over the next 20 years.)…But making up ridiculous numbers in order to support your predisposition isn’t helpful — and when the war doesn’t cost us $2t, people are going to remember that the next time you talk about the costs of a program you don’t like." In 2008, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz calculated that the Iraq war cost at least $3 trillion.

Country singer Mindy McCready killed herself. Another victim of gun violence.  (I should report that many gun nuts assaulted this post. Here’s some of my commentary this 4 word post—note I am concurrently writing a post about this topic).

The world will never know if McCready would still be alive if there wasn’t a gun nearby. Unfortunately though, when there is a suicide by a loved one, that increases the chances that you yourself will try suicide….. One TV doctor said, ""When I heard she was struggling, I did reach out to her and urged her to go to take care of herself, get in a facility if she felt she needed," said Pinsky, who hosts his own program on CNN’s sister network HLN. Her biggest fear was the stigma of doing so and what people would think if she, God forbid, took care of herself. And this to me is the most distressing part of this story. She is a lovely woman, we have lost her, and it didn’t have to go down like this."

To lower suicide rates, keep suicidal people away from guns.

I had not intended to start a political discussion here, merely to make the banal observation that this suicide was caused by a gun. However, because of the interest, perhaps I should address these things.

First, policymakers and critics focus on the wrong question. Instead of focusing on the macro question of whether there should be gun control laws, they should be focused on a more basic question, Does having a gun in a household increase suicide and murder rates more than not having a gun? In other words, if you are a parent, do the benefits of having a gun to protect your household from an outsider outweigh the harm of having an increased risk of suicide or murder being committed by a family member? In the case of the McCready family, the risks outweighed the benefits. I think every parent of a mentally disturbed child who later goes on to kill someone honestly believes that the gun he or she bought would never be used for malicious reasons.

These gun-owning parents may honestly believe that gun ownership reduces risk, but does the objective evidence bear out this belief? I will not challenge your right to own a gun for reasons of protections, but I personally would find it incompatible with being a good parent. I would never allow cigarettes or guns in a household I was a parent of. It seems like an unnecessary risk. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t maintain that guns deserve credit for some results and NOT deserve blame for other results. All results need to be considered – no exceptions.

Here’s some good research on gun ownership and suicide. These are all from peer-reviewed studies (mainly medical journals). Particularly noteworthy was the study that rates of suicidal tendencies among gun owners is not substantially different from nongun owners. But the likelihood of success when that population does try is higher. From the NYT article cited above: "Guns are used in more than half of all suicide fatalities, but account for just 1 percent of all self-harm injuries treated in hospital emergency rooms, a rough proxy for suicide attempts, Dr. Miller said. Overdoses, which account for about 80 percent of suicide attempts, are responsible for just 14 percent of fatalities."

In the case of the country singer, the biggest risk factor was not gun ownership (many mentally stable people own guns), but her history of depression and addiction and her history of suicide attempts. (She tried overdoses, but none of them worked, but using a gun finally worked). Also, knowing somebody who committed suicide is also a huge red flag because it impairs the coping skills of survivors. Mindy was lucky enough to have access to mental care, but apparently she was not supervised closely enough.

The most mysterious thing about this is why her latest boyfriend killed himself. Was he a basket case or what? I’ve seen no good explanation or even a guess about why this happened. I’m just speculating, but without any clear indication of motive, I wonder whether it could have been just an impulsive act? If so, availability of a gun to do the deed might have played a role. Availability certainly plays a role. As the NYT reported, "In a 2001 study of 13- to 34-year-olds in Houston who had attempted suicide but were saved by medical intervention, researchers from the C.D.C. found that, for more than two-thirds of them, the time that elapsed between deciding to act and taking action was an hour or less. The key to reducing fatalities, experts say, is to block access to lethal means when the suicidal feeling spikes."

If Mindy (and especially her boyfriend) didn’t have guns around, they would still be alive. Sure, both people probably could have found a way to commit suicide, but the question is: was this an impulsive act whose motive might have faded after a good night’s sleep? Or was it something dependent on easy access to a tool to execute the deed? My guess (and I am definitely speculating wildly) is that the boyfriend’s act was impulsive and therefore avoidable (because he didn’t have a history of mental illness or violence) but that Mindy’s act was mainly a copycat way of grieving/commemorating her boyfriend’s death (in which case she would have eventually found a way). Again, I really have no idea! I’m just guessing!

From the NYT Article cited above.

“Yes, many may find another method,” said Catherine Barber, director of the Harvard center’s Means Matter public health education campaign, “but will it kill them?” …Citing statistics from emergency rooms and death certificates, she said, “Nearly everything they substitute will have lower odds of killing them, sometimes dramatically so.” Reducing access to lethal means has worked in other countries. An intervention in Israel preventing soldiers from taking their guns home on weekend leave, a time when many soldiers’ suicides occurred, helped reduce the suicide rate among them by 40 percent. " Later on: " In a 2001 study of 13- to 34-year-olds in Houston who had attempted suicide but were saved by medical intervention, researchers from the C.D.C. found that, for more than two-thirds of them, the time that elapsed between deciding to act and taking action was an hour or less. The key to reducing fatalities, experts say, is to block access to lethal means when the suicidal feeling spikes. "

Let me summarize: If an adult wants to keep a gun in the house out of some subjective sense of empowerment, that’s their prerogative and constitutional right. If an adult wants to use a gun to commit suicide, I guess that’s the individual prerogative as well (although the state and survivors ends up having to take care of the aftermath). But if you believe that keeping a gun in a US household has no effect on the likelihood or the success rate of suicide rates by household members, you’re seriously fooling yourself.

I read a fascinating study about suicides at the Golden Gate bridge and other bridges, and there is strong evidence that putting barriers removes any impulse to do it. Apparently, the opportunity does evoke the inclination in people not normally prone to suicide. It’s a no-brainer to put up barriers on bridges and buildings when practical and inexpensive. The subway question is a genuine concern. Lots of people jump in front of trains or subways, and there really is no practical way to stop that.

In 1995 the suicide rate in Russia was 45 per 100,000 people. (That was 50% higher than the country with the highest rate, South Korea). That’s unbelievable and the sad legacy of communism. South Korea and Russia have much higher suicide rates than the US for reasons that have little to do with gun control or gun availability. I think it could be shown that presence of guns is a risk factor for suicide, but it certainly is not the primary risk factor. (In the case of Mindy McCready, the biggest risk factor was not guns but 1)her history of depression and 2)the fact that her boyfriend did it recently and she was unsupervised.

SURVEY: Nearly half of the 1,200 Texas voters polled, or a member of the polled person’s family, own at least one gun, results showed. Out of those who say they own a gun, 19 percent said they and their families own one firearm, 44 percent said they own 2-5, 20 percent said they own more than five guns, and the rest chose “prefer not to say.” (Doing the math, 10% of Texas voters in the poll say they have more than 5 guns in their household….)

Climate Change Science/Technology

Here on average is what Texans use to power their houses (as of 2011): Coal/lignite: 39%, Natural Gas: 40%, Nuclear 10.6%, Renewable Energy 8.8%, Other 0.7%

Number of minutes in CNN news coverage given to climate change during the last three months of the US election: 23 minutes. Number of minutes in CNN coverage given to the Carnival "poop ship" in a single 24 hour period: 758 minutes!

Here’s Bill Gates bookshelf about energy books. Actually I’ve read and reviewed better climate change books than Gates did.

This eye-catching 2 minute vid makes the case that carbon polluters are refusing to pay for their pollution, and so everyone else is left to foot the bill. Related: World Bank study shows that the US subsidizes fossil fuels significantly more than any other country …$502 billion in subsidies.

Someone suggested that the symbol for climate change should not be the polar bear, but the map of Bangladesh, the country which is expected to suffer its worst effects. It’s half the US population, the size of Iowa which already has 6 million climate refugees… I’ve always felt that the thing that oil companies have to fear most is a transnational lawsuit by a 12 year Bengali girl who through no fault of her own (or her government) has to live in a homeland likely to be ruined by climate change…

I assumed that there are not enough charging stations in my neighborhood to make it convenient to have an electric car. As it turns out, there’s a public charging station a mile from my house and a high power fast charging station 2-3 miles away.  Related: Some guide to buying an electric car.

Here’s a good 5 minute video summarizing what we know about permafrost and climate change. In a nutshell: permafrost will start releasing GHG after a 1.5 C temperature increase from pre-industrial levels. (we are currently .6 or .8 degrees C above pre-industrial levels).

Can you spot the real scientist (reprinted from Slashdot):

GOOFUS has a PhD.
GALLANT has a PhD in a field unrelated to his research.
GOOFUS gets little respect as a scientist outside the scientific community.
GALLANT gets little respect as a scientist inside the scientific community.
GOOFUS drives a beat-up old car.
GALLANT drives a BMW unless his chauffeur is driving.
GOOFUS wears street clothes to work, maybe a lab suit on occasion.
GALLANT wears three piece suits at all times.
GOOFUS is employed by a "university", a "hospital", or a "laboratory".
GALLANT is employed by a "Coalition", an "Institute", an "Association", a "Foundation", a "Council", or a "White House".
GOOFUS earns $30000 per year unless they cut his funding.
GALLANT earns $200000 per year but makes his real money from speaking fees.
GOOFUS lives anywhere in the country.
GALLANT lives in a wealthy area near Washington DC, but may have additional homes elsewhere.
GOOFUS may sometimes be filmed standing in front of big melting icebergs.
GALLANT may be filmed sitting in front of a bookcase or standing behind a podium at a $2000 per plate fundraiser, although there may be ice melting in his drink.
GOOFUS is a dues-paying member of several scientific grassroots organizations.
GALLANT is on the payroll of several scientific astroturf organizations.
GOOFUS gets summoned for jury duty but is never picked as a juror.
GALLANT claims "the jury is still out" on evolution or global warming, since he considers himself to be on the jury.
GOOFUS maintains the world is five billion years old.
GALLANT isn’t really saying, but creationists distribute his pamphlets all the time.
GOOFUS claims the world is warming as a direct result of human activity.
GALLANT either claims that climate change doesn’t exist, or if it does, that humans have nothing to do with it.
GOOFUS and his graduate students do the dirty work of collecting raw data and looking for conclusions to be drawn from it.
GALLANT does the dirty work of discrediting GOOFUS by manipulating his data in Excel with statistically invalid techniques.
GOOFUS writes scientific papers and grant proposals.
GALLANT writes the nation’s environmental legislation and a column for the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page.
GOOFUS draws scientific conclusions from the data he collects that usually come out in agreement with the scientific consensus.
GALLANT paints the scientific consensus as being entirely political in nature and enjoys comparing himself to Galileo.
GOOFUS is heavily trained to be a skeptic and to treat information from all sources with a skeptical mind.
GALLANT is heavily marketed as a skeptic but reserves his skepticism for GOOFUS.
GOOFUS isn’t paid much attention by the press since his opinions are commonplace among scientists.
GALLANT holds maverick opinions for a scientist which keeps him busy running from one balanced talk show to the next.
GOOFUS has no PR skills.
GALLANT leverages his PR experience all the time, although he has access to paid PR staff.
GOOFUS claims the sky is falling and we have to take painful steps to reduce CO2 emissions now.
GALLANT claims the free market will take care of it and recommends solving the problem by conning Zimbabwe out of their pollution credits.
GOOFUS advises his kids not to go into science.
GALLANT advises the president.

  Here’s a recent jump in atmospheric CO2. The biggest single year jump in CO2 levels won’t translate to temperature increase for another 30-40 years. That means in 2040-2050 people will wonder what the hell people in 2013 were thinking.

Here’s a great graphic about climate change and CO2. So great I copied a copy of the graphic onto my own website.

CLIMATE SCIENTIST JAMES HANSEN: If we burn even a substantial fraction of the fossil fuels, we guarantee there’s going to be unstoppable changes in the climate of the earth.. We’re going to leave a situation for young people and future generations that they may have no way to deal with.

This is really good news. Up until recently, Apple’s data centers had a terrible environmental record. Apple was one of the last of the IT giants to go green on web hosting.

Climate sensitivity was covered in a long Economist article. Joe Romm gives a detailed response. Although Romm is a little polemical, all of his points are basically right. There is a tendency even in highbrow business news reporting to report that the problem ain’t as bad as originally as thought. Here’s a better and more detailed explanation by a climate scientist.

Techy Stuff

Printer cartridges have a lot less ink than they used to.

A technical author notices that Google News is excluding a LOT of news sources. As a result, Google News is practically useless for everything pertaining to news….

"When I type in "Catalonia", Google says there are 83 news items. When I ask Google to show me "all 83 news sources", it gives me a list of only 16. You can try this at home. Down at the bottom of the page, Google has a little disclaimer that says it omits some entries that are "very similar to those already displayed". And this is probably not the right time to discuss wire services and the sad fact that a single mediocre story with no byline about a small, new far away country might be reproduced verbatim, with no fact chacking, in 80 or so American newspapers. But I digress. But if you click "repeat the search with omitted results included" Google still only displays 25 items. There is no way to see all 83."

I tried doing what she suggested. Google News said there were 13 news sources about Catalonia, but it decided to show me only 2.

Don’t you love it how online statements for credit cards never seem to show the interest fees — only the transactions (The interest fees can only be found in those pesky PDF files)…

Call me annoyed, but I just noticed that my blog no longer comes up on top of search results for my name. Instead the linkedin profile appears as #1. Stupid #$##$$ SEO @#@#@# change in algorithms! Looking on the bright side, I am still beating out the Nagle Law firm, Rob Nagle the country singer, Robert Nagle (the "Irish Indiana Jones"), Robert Nagle (the Hollywood Stuntman) and Robby Nagle, the European gay porn star.

I have noticed that Google is definitely not showing the love for bloggers anymore. Often they are conveniently “hiding” search results from my blog that I know should ONLY land on my blog.

I shudder whenever I see it, but I always found the phrase "kernel panic" to be hilarious… Looks like MC Frontalot already did a song about it.

Here’s a brilliant math tutorial/meditation by Vi Hart about the 12 days of Christmas. Also: here’s her mathematical complaint about Sponge Bob, Number Games,  , and LOTS of other rapid discussions on mathematical and biological and musical concepts. Here’s her website ;  she’s now working at Khan Academy.

SXSW may have peaked, and that is probably not a bad thing.  My favorite comment:

"After last year, and based upon the last three years I’ve gone, I decided never again to attend the Interactive portion. Not only does SXSW control all the hotels in town during those three weeks, it is impossible to go anywhere nearby unless you walk, and never mind trying to park even a few miles away. It is nothing but thousands of hipsters staring down at a device, walking around inside, sitting on the floor, during a panel and presentations, or even in front of a urinal. The same thing is going on outside waiting in a line, or walking down the sidewalk. Everyone is so disconnected with the event itself and focused on their device, their rudeness is embarrassing and annoying. imagine attending a panel but spending the time on your laptop and phone. Sorry, not my idea of an enriching experience."

MY RESPONSE: Just how is that different from how it has been in EVERY PREVIOUS YEAR?" FYI: I stopped going from 2010 on….. Obviously, the downfall of SXSW must have occurred as a result of my decision not to attend. Or maybe it started when SXSW started letting people vote on panels. Once people became able to marshal marketing/social media tools to encourage people to vote for their panel, suddenly there was an influx of panels about social media and marketing….

Here’s a silly 4 min comic sketch about a party where you get to meet Facebook, Google, Reddit, etc. Pretty clever….

Pop Culture

QUESTION: Is it possible to stay friends with an ex? ANSWER: Mostly no. Unless both of you are part of a sitcom with 6 seasons left. (stolen from QUORA)

Here’s the magic trick which Penn and Teller says stumped them the most. Some magician posted the complete solution here. It will blow your mind! Other solutions for the Penn & Teller Fool Us Show  are here.

"Before Nixon fell, …all American puns rhymed perfectly and snappily, as if the whole country were a Cole Porter musical.” (More).

On Facebook: God has received 527,000 likes. "The Devil" has received 726,000 likes. C’mon people. Fulfill your moral and religious obligations by saying you LIKE God!

"THREE’S COMPANY" HUMOR: In March 2001, after being notified by a viewer, Nick at Nite quickly edited an episode ("The Charming Stranger") where John Ritter’s scrotum skin was briefly visible through the bottom of a pair of blue boxer shorts. The most famous quip about this issue was uttered by John Ritter, who told the New York Observer when they asked him about the controversy: "I’ve requested that Nickelodeon air both versions, edited and unedited, because sometimes you feel like a nut, and sometimes you don’t.. (found on Wikipedia).

Boingboing uncovered a new “lost” pilot episode with different female actors. Part 1 and Part 2.

KING OF THE HILL HUMOR: HANK: I thought you were busy teaching girls to blow up basketballs. When did this turn into a desire to ruin wrestling? PEGGY: Oh, give me a break. I don’t see how having a girl on the team would ruin it. Did a woman judge ruin the Supreme Court?
HANK: Yes, and that woman’s name was Earl Warren.

If there is one Star Trek species I’d like to meet, it would be the Sheliak species. (See "Ensign of Command" TNG Episode 3×02). If you have already watched this episode (Spoiler Alert), you will LOVE watching this video excerpt again.

People may scoff at Star Trek Voyager, but the Projections episode (in season 2) poses a great ontological conundrum: if you are the Emergency Medical Technician on the holodeck, how could you differentiate between Metaspace and Virtual Space (and the world of dreams, etc)? Not by perceptions, but simply by searching for logical contradictions within each competing reality until only one remains…

Jeri Ryan (the actress who played the Borg on Star Trek) divorced her politician husband because he wanted her to frequent sex clubs. As a result, her husband (who had been heavily favored to win the Illinois race for US Senate) resigned, providing an opportunity for a virtual unknown to run for Senate. The name of that "virtual unknown" was Barack Obama. So you can argue that Obama’s ascendance to power was a result of the Borg’s machinations to assimilate Planet Earth. . Of course, a true Borg would never file for divorce…. (Incidentally, Jack Ryan, Jeri’s ex-husband was a Republican).

Speaking of Borgs,there’s a great and hilarious female character in the short-lived sitcom Better Off Ted played by Portia de Rossi. Rossi played Ted’s boss; she was domineering, uncaring and capable of occasional great feats. She’s a combination of Mr. Burns (from the Simpsons) and Seven of Nine; too bad she didn’t win an Emmy.

Movie Critic Mike Barrett makes some good off-the-wall observations about Argo.  QUESTION ASKED OF TONY MENDEZ (THE SPY WHO INSPIRED THE MOVIE "ARGO") "What does it take to be a good spy?" ANSWER: "Deadly Boring!" (Here is Tony Mendez’s declassified memoir on the CIA site and here is a lengthy Wired article about it).

There is a classic TNG episode on the "Is this real or is this the holodeck" theme where at the end — after everything is wrapped up, Barclay says, "End program" and there was a tense pause — and I seriously wondered what was going to happen… (That’s the famous Moriarty episode aka "Ship in a Bottle" in Season 6)

Believe it or not, I watched two Speed Racer episodes last weekend. I never was a huge fan of this show, but while watching again, I was struck by the quality of the writing and voices. This episode (Pt 1 and Pt 2)  were very psychological — I appreciate it more as an adult than a child…. If this 2 part episode doesn’t freak you out, also check out "The Race Against the Mammoth" episode…

David Dylan Thomas asks: Why are there no slavery films by black directors?

11 Points shares 11 Random Observations from my trip to the Oscars.  Also, here’s a great and funny read about the much lampooned Snow White musical number at the Oscars 24 years ago.  BTW, my last 3 predictions for Best Picture have proven correct… 3 for 3!

"These anti-drunk driving ad campaigns are not going to work. People are still going to drink and drive no matter what." This is a classic example of the "Nirvana fallacy."

Here’s the secrets to every single sitcom romantic comedy. If these secrets became better known, TV (and Hollywood itself) might cease to exist. NOTE: Romantic Story Arcs on TV and Romantic Story Arcs in Meatspace may not overlap…

Strange tale of an Iranian English prof who was mistaken for a political martyr. It’s a good example of how one false fact can be distributed and multiplied and syndicated practically everywhere.

Here’s a good rundown of creationist arguments and responses.  Such a site reminds a person how useful online collaboration can be for gathering and organizing information. Here’s another site that does this.

My favorite neologism: Lucky Duckies. Wikipedia quotes a WSJ intern’s offer to his boss:

I will spend a year as a Wall Street Journal editor, while one lucky editor will spend a year in my underpaid shoes. I will receive an editor’s salary, and suffer the outrage of paying federal income tax on that salary. The fortunate editor, on the other hand, will enjoy a relatively small federal income tax burden, as well as these other perks of near poverty: the gustatory delights of a diet rich in black beans, pinto beans, navy beans, chickpeas and, for a little variety, lentils; the thrill of scrambling to pay the rent or make the mortgage; the salutary effects of having no paid sick days; the slow satisfaction of saving up for months for a trip to the dentist; and the civic pride of knowing that, even as a lucky ducky, you still pay a third or more of your gross income in income taxes, payroll taxes, sales taxes and property taxes

Literary/Capsule Reviews

DAVID GELERNTER: "The internet’s insatiable demand for words creates global deflation in the value of words. The internet’s capacity to distribute words near-instantly means that, with no lag-time between writing and publication, publication and worldwide availability, pressure builds on the writer to produce more. Global deflation in the value of words creates pressure, in turn, to downplay or eliminate editing and self-editing. When I tell my students not to turn in first-drafts, I sometimes have to explain, nowadays, what a first draft is."

STEFAN ZWEIG: "Art still exists to give shape to multiple ways of being…"

Here’s a great (but woefully incomplete) guide to literary culture in about 30 cities. Amazingly, I don’t see anything written about Houston though….

EDWARD HOAGLAND: Aesop would perk his ears, pick up a pen at this thicket of still current figures of speech. But what he, Aristotle, Linnaeus, Darwin, Emerson, Kipling would make of what’s going on should give us pause. I don’t mean whether they would like e-mail and “the cloud” so much as the price in demolitions paid, the dramatis personae wiped out. Even Isaac Newton, sitting in his apple orchard, might wonder, “what have you done with the birds?” — was it a fair trade? Will Robert Frost be the last great poet to notice that leaves are gold before they’re green? And his beloved stars; where are they? Would Newton need to fly to Australia or the Andes to gaze at them as before — and feel the magic of the plane was worth it? So much of creation has gone up in smoke to produce glass skyscrapers flocks fly into, superhighways, on-demand electronics, seven billion people in flabbergasting densities, that it’s anybody’s guess what these luminaries would say. Would they prefer what used to be called “God’s green earth?”

Music/Youtube

Monk Turner and Alanna Lin win the Happy Birthday song contest. I wrote a long interview with Monk Turner and even about the Happy Birthday song contest. Although I’m delighted that Turner won, I thought some other songs entered in the contest were better.

Live performance  by Potap and Nastiya of a fun Ukrainian pop song which has been spinning in my head all day. I can’t think of any equivalent boy-girl upbeat rap-singing duo in US music. I don’t know hip-hop or rap very well, but the only good successful duos I can think of are 2 females or 2 males, and the male duo song seem too angry or vulgar to really have any musicality. In that respect, Potap and Nastiya have a real unique sound. (Maybe there’s something coming out in the High School Musical generation, I don’t know….) (Here’s another example of their upbeat rap).

Robin Daggers’ song "PS I love you" is a good song, but it’s no "Let’s Go to the Mall."

Delighted to hear that the makers of Sifl & Olly Show have started producing new episodes. It’s now a  6 minute show that reviews videogames. Here’s a typical episode and a hilarious NSFW song to promote the new show. BTW, Sifl and Olly creator Liam Lynch has also written a lot of rock parody songs and just cool songs in general. (See: United States of Whatever).

This cool & goofy 70s soul classic song by the Dramatics  is hipper than hip, uplifting, proto-disco with slight gospel overtones. Haven’t decided whether the best place to hear it would be in a church or in a disco.

"He plays tricks, begins with kicks
So beware, my brothers and sisters.
Next thing that you know, you gotta Jones… Look out!
Here comes the pusher."

Here’s on youtube is the full concert which Selena did in San Antonio in 1991 when she was 19 years old.  (Open in new window to see playlist properly). This is her great San Antonio concert — right when her career was taking off. (Among Selena’s rabid fans — and I count myself among one of them) — this was during Selena’s "cow costume" period of her career. The dress is both hideous and eye-catching, and I think she pulls it off — as only Selena would). BTW, Selena was killed March 31, 1995. (Here’s an earlier post I did about her Youtube footage).

Related: Here is an amazing & powerful 30 minute documentary about the making of Gregory Nava’s classic Selena film — told 10 years later by the cast and Selena’s own family members.Some remarkable details from the vid: The father never learned until the script was written that it was Selena — not Chris Perez — who suggested they elope. Although most family members were there for the shooting, Chris never did — except for one scene where he did a tricky guitar solo scene.

Here’s an early gem from the Throwing Muses. When I asked Kristin Hersch about this song after a Houston concert, she said she had written it when she was 17. It’s a very angsty song, but Hersch has done several versions, each with a different mood. Eventually, the song made its way into the song Shark.

In this 8 minute mindless & frenetic 90′s techno remix, there is a dizzying "wow" moment — you’ll know it when it hits….. Bonus points if you can guess what the singer wants. Related: Weird Al’s This Song’s Just Six Words Long.

Lately I’ve become enamored of a peppy Swedish electronic band called Komeda. Here’s one of their 90s hits. Here’s another peppy hit from a later album. They definitely have a jazzy Stereolab sound with a little Rock Lobster thrown in. Although they sing in English, I’m flipping over "Pop På Svenska Pop Pa Svenska & Plan 714 Till”, an early album sung entirely in Swedish.

I’m absolutely enchanted by John Williams’ Close Encounters soundtrack. Here’s the complete playlist – note, you must open  in a new browser window). Lots of Debussy-like melodies. Just spectacular! It was a real scandal that this score didn’t win the Oscar for best score. Instead it was beaten by some brash score for an indie sci fi flick called "Star Wars"… written by somebody named "John Williams".

I’ve become a recent convert to RDIO, an online music streamer. Basically free, with unlimited desktop streaming for $5 a month. Good for previewing albums before deciding if to buy them.

Looking for 90 minutes of relaxing pulsating music? Here’s a long electronic piece by lectronic composer MAD73751. It is soothing, complex, interesting but not too distracting. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve returned to this piece during fits of insomnia or moments where I need to eliminate distraction.

I have been buying “Big Boxes” from Amazon consisting of 8+ hours of classical music digital files. Generally  good quality though variable. The price varies. It starts out as 99 cents, and then after that initial period it goes to 3 or 10 dollars. So far I have bought Big Bach Box, Bigger Bach Box,  Big Mozart Box, Big Schubert Box, Big Beethoven Box, Big Baroque Box, Big Vivaldi Box, Big Handel Box, Big Mahler Box, Big Gustav Leonhardt Box, Debussy Ride of the Masters,  Mozart’s Best Operas. I’ve also downloaded the “Haydn Symphonies” and am eagerly awaiting the Big Haydn Box which should be upon us in the next week or two.

Musician: "by my calculation it would take songwriting royalties for roughly 312,000 plays on Pandora to earn us the profit of one– one– LP sale."

Here’s a 1995 Cantonese song by Sammi Cheng which I heard LONG LONG ago and finally found on youtube. It slowly goes and goes and then it hits the jackpot near the end. It’s a really wow — golly, did she just do that? kind of song.

Here’s the most bizarre & amazing cover song I have ever heard. This Austin psychedelic 60s garage band is a Precursor to Devo and B-52s. Rock away! Rock away!

Here’s a great article comparing the music cloud services. I’ll add my two cents: Amazon Cloud only accept unmatched music files in mp3 or m4a – not OGG format. Second, Amazon Cloud doesn’t allow uploads of music files which are UTF/non-Roman alphabet. Outrageous!

RIP Norma Zentano, Houston Latin Jazz performer.

SXSW: The New Torrents are here!

Speaking of Mindy McCready, I wasn’t that familiar with her music, but last night on Rdio I listened to her latest album which was beautiful. The irony of being in the arts is that when you make your best work, the world rarely notices..

Personal

Something totally bizarre. Stepped on a mustard packet in my apartment, and it squirted onto my wall 5 feet away. PS, does anyone know how to remove mustard stains from a painted wall?

As nutty as it sounds, I just passed on my bike a shirtless Jesus carrying a giant wooden cross on the sidewalk. Occasionally, when the cross swung too far onto the Westheimer road, cars would have to swerve away. I realize that it was a "happening," but still it was disconcerting to see him on the extremely busy Westheimer street.

Here’s my next batch of capsule book reviews.  Now that I’ve figured an easier way to lay things out, I hope to post book reviews more frequently. Next batch will have more indie ebooks, I promise! Here’s an index to my other book reviews.

	The Dead Zone by Stephen King. After viewing the sci fi TV series based on the novel, I decided to read the original source material. Many original elements from the TV show are here (albeit in smaller form). The book did a good job of bringing the plot to a personal level; the book called more attention to the struggle between John Smith and his parents. Because the book used fewer supernatural effects, it was actually more plausible and inward-looking. At the same time, the heavy emphasis on plot and dialogue made this story ready for TV. Aside from the protagonists, none of the characters seemed compelling or seemed to have complex struggles. This book was a train wreck, and even though I'm not a fan of Stephen King's works in general, I feel sure he must have done better than this later on. (I thought Misery was brilliant though overdone and needlessly sadistic). The premise here was great -- and so was the research about brain function, but I don't think the plot or the characters rose above cliche. As a book, it didn't work; however, some of the pop culture details from the 1970s were fun enough to make the book occasionally tolerable.
	The Failure by James Greer. Great comic novel about an ill-fated attempt to rob a Korean check-cashing store and one brother's attempt to make a bundle off some Internet scam. The plot is outrageous, and full of strange characters and comic diversions and narrator long-windedness. The "Korean check-cashing fiasco" is announced to be a failure from the start, but it was delightful to hear it in excruciating detail. The book consists of many short chapters with funky titles ("Marcus, Guy's Brother, Contemplates what might have been, standing at the window of his office in Cambridge, the same day as the Korean Check-Cashing Fiasco") and lots of hilarious asides (See the one in Chapter 47 about the "plight of the underappreciated writer."). The book is about the vagaries of wealth and success and how the Internet-driven economy only makes everything more unpredictable. It's just as hard to know whether the check-cashing scheme has any chance of success as the latest Internnet technology which no one quite understands. As zany as it seems to pair a California novel with Irish narrator Tadhg Hynes, the audio book published by Iambik Press works because Hynes easily can adopt a tone of derision, pettiness and cynicism. Hands down, the audiobook was one of the funniest things I'd heard -- it ranks up with Rob McQuay's narration of Bill Bryson's "Walk in the Woods." Highly Recommended. (Also: Here's a revealing interview between Miette Elm and the author.)
	Cooler, Smarter: Practical Steps for Low-Carbon Living by the Union of Concerned Scientists . This nonfiction reference guide provides good consumer information about how to reduce your carbon footprint. Out of the 300 page book, 30 pages are end notes, 20 pages are resources and author bios (!?), 50 pages are an introduction to climate change (unneeded by now, I think). That leaves about 120-150 pages of good stuff about home heating, food production transportation, electronics, and bringing green living to the workplace. I thought the food section had good and new information, and the home heating/utility contained useful information for home-owners. I would have liked to see more discussion about the value of organic products and more formulas for calculating footprint; for example, how do you estimate the carbon footprint of an ipad produced overseas? How do you estimate the carbon footprint of bus travel? How do you convert between different measuring units and scales? How does recycling lower your carbon footprint (if at all)? The book is the best on the market, but there really needs to be a better and more comprehensive guide on the subject. Related: I highly recommend No Impact Man (the book) by Colin Beavan and Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard.
	Brothers by Yu Hua. This remarkable picaresque and satirical novel about the rags-to-riches tale of two Chinese brothers against the backdrop of modernization has a lot going for it. An engaging style, two well-drawn out characteristics, and a lot of political and social subtexts. It brims with scatological humor and lots of episodes and hilarious dialogue. I listened to the audiobook and confess that parts were electrifying -- either sad or humorous or both. Yu Hua's satire is so caustic that one is almost shocked to find something so daring from China. (Its far-flung reach is reminiscient of Journey to the West). One critic described it as Rabelais Meets Horatio Alger, and I think that's fair. The central character is Baldy Li, an aggressive, blunt boy whose effrontery translates into being a good businessman. His older brother Song Fanping is more modest and enlightened; at the same time he is crippled and even emasculated by his willingness to follow the traditional paths to success. The novel is more about Baldy Li's outrageous behavior and how it helps him to succeed. I liked Book 1 (which describes how the two brothers were orphaned as a result of the Cultural Revolution and how they both fall in love with the same girl). As the book goes on and focuses more on Baldy Li's business success, the plot becomes more ridiculous -- whores and incurable diseases and opulent living. I read the book as Chinese society's naive introduction to business success. The rags-to-riches fairy tale; is often unrealistic and maudlin. Many characters aren't quite sure how you make money in a privatized system, and only Baldy Li's shameless pursuit of wealth seems to be working. My favorite moment comes when Baldy Li seeks investors for his new business. Several people buy shares on the basis of Baldy Li's bluster. But when it appears that Baldy Li may not be bringing a return on their investments, suddenly these ordinary Chinese realize that capitalism itself might be a scam. This novel was ostensibly written for laughs -- and it's probably unrealistic to hold it up to a standard of realism; at the same time, I suspect that the larger-than-life character of Baldy Li doesn't seem plausible to most readers; more people probably identify with this older brother who would be in the grips of poverty were he not connected to Baldy Li. The book ultimately takes things to ridiculous heights -- to the point where I no longer cared about the outcome. I don't particularly like this novel as a whole, but it did reveal the variety of attitudes (both naive and sophisticated) that oridinary Chinese had towards privatization and dreams of prosperity. Baldy Li is really a horrible person, but the book never really hints that Baldy Li's life may not be the paradise it seems. And Baldy Li's foil (his older brother) is too impotent and bland to stand out as a credible alternative. Everyone loves a funny and boorish literary character, but I have to wonder if the author loves Baldy Li too much. The audio narrator, Louis Changchien, does an outstanding job at bringing the book to life. It's just too bad that the novel becomes a ridiculous concoction.
	Puddnhead Wilson by Mark Twain. This funny postbellum novel about a nitwit and a wealthy white man who learns unexpectedly that he was actually born black. I liked the early chapters , but as the plot became complex and the Negro dialect became thicker, it became harder to follow. The story proceeds haphazardly; it almost seemed thrown together. Twain's style and humor is unmistakable, but I would have preferred a more focused novel.
	1000 Recordings You Must Hear before you Die by Tom Moon. At first glance, this nonfiction book seems to be a typical reference guide of best albums. But the book contains lots of unusual recommendations, lots of connections between musicians in different genres. Reading this book is pure delight. Succinct, full of collector's notes and recommended recordings and great layout for easy browsing. Every time I flip open the book, I learn some new thing both about the artist and the context in which the album was released. Even the indices are useful (they even have a "mood index" where you can find music in categories like "Music to inspire Reflection" and "Cardio Workout" and "Headphone Journey.") Unlike Dimery's book (which actually aims to be a boring reference guide), Moon's book feels more personal and less inclined to list historically important albums. Unfortunately some albums listed here are not easy to find, and Moon -- anticipating this -- does a good job of describing what you're missing. You can download a PDF listing all the recordings, and the website/blog for the book has lots of related commentary. Such a reference guide will by definition go out of date quickly, but it still will be a delight to peruse long after. Highly Recommended (though avoid the ebook edition -- which isn't as browsable or as well laid out).
	1001 Albums You must hear before you die by Robert Dimery can easily be confused with Moon's classic, but they are like night and day. Dimery's book tries to be a chronological reference book, and even though the choice of albums are predictable and not particularly interesting, it is still useful to have this reference guide as a counterweight to Moon. This is the kind of book you'd want to give to your son or daughter to give them a conventional introduction to pop music from previous decades, but it won't open your eyes to much. This sounds like I'm knocking this book, and in a way I am. But as long as you don't expect cutting edge recommendations here and simply a timeline of famous albums, you'll be fine. Still, read Moon's book before this one.
	Rock Snob's Dictionary by David Kamp and Steven Daly . This slim mock-reference book sounds fairly easy to write, but I wanted to mention how well the authors manage through the format of a glossary to discuss many overlooked musical styles and persons. It explains a lot of cultural terms which even well-informed listeners might miss. Also, some of the glossary items are satirical. Example: "Plangent" is a "standby rock-crit adjective used to lend a magical aura to any nonaggressive guitar-based music (even though the word's primary meaning is"loud and resounding. Perhaps this guide might merely amuse those knowledgeable about music, but I found it very informative as well. Highly recommended.
	Christgau's Consumer Guide: Albums of the '90s . (also Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s and Rock Albums Of The 70s: A Critical Guide) By Robert Christgau. Christgau has been reviewing albums for a long time and has perfected a manner of writing of writing capsule reviews of most of the major musicians. Many of Christgau's reviews seem peremptory or missing the point of the music; on the other hand, Christgau does seem to get British punk and rap/hip-hop and is generally good at identifying duds. Despite the fact that I disagree with a lot of Christgau's reviews (he overlooks or belittles some gems), often his snap judgments can give you a sense of where to place individual albums. I'm happy to report 2 things. First, Christgau wrote a great introduction to his 90s edition which is worth reading for its own sake. Second, reviews from all of Christgau's books (and even ones published later) are easily accessed from Christgau's website. His essays are a lot more sympathetic and consumer-oriented. Finally, although Christgau covered the 90s pretty well (despite being generally unsympathetic to alternative music), I've noticed how many titles never get reviewed by Christgau. We have to be grateful that Christgau tried to review as much as he can, but the 2000s, the music world had become too large and complex even for Christau.
	Hitler's Last Secretary: A Firsthand Account of Life with Hitler . By Traudl Junge. This autobiographical account of Hitler's final days became the basis for the magnificant German film "Der Untergang" (aka "Downfall." ) This book gives even greater detail, starting with the lavish parties Eva Braun used to throw in various summer houses. Junge writes long after the fact, so she occasionally throws in postscripts about what happened to some of the major and minor actors. Generally though, she writes through the naive eyes and ears of her younger naive self, describing everyone's foibles and predelictions in this typical awestruck way. This of course is a stylistic conceit, because Junge has spent the rest of her life trying to atone for her blindness, but it was important to convey without a guilty tone both logistics and the smaller events that intruded on German politics and war-planning. Probably most fascinating about the book is the afterward by Melissa Muller which describes her life post-Hitler. (For about 10 years she labored under the cloud of her past, and later, she became well known as a liberal-minded editor and publisher). She describes horrifying events (such as the various suicide pacts and the disappearance/death of her friends) with matter-of-factness. She even does not go into detail about her marriage (encouraged by Hitler) to a soldier who falls in battle. One book review mentions that Junge almost never witnessed Hitler's emotional outbursts, and in fact towards his staff he was considerate and paternalistic. I saw the movie first, read the book, and then insisted on watching the movie again. I recognize that a secretary's account of Hitler and the Nazi Party is likely to be blind to many ugly realities, but if anything it dramatized how for incurious people inside the reassuring bubble of Naziism, work and family life seemed perfectly normal ... except perhaps for secondhand reports of casualties. Ultimately, the plight of Traudl Junge is more important than that of Hitler; it's eye opening to read about how ordinary and basically good people become caught up in a totally evil system. Highly recommended. (PS, I read this book in 2 days!) Note: This is available as an ebook for $1.99. Great buy!

I am embarrassed to admit this, but one of the reasons I haven’t posted book reviews in a while is in wordpress it is difficult to make tables well.

A good 2 column table is the perfect format for displaying capsule book reviews. The left cell contains the cover art; the right cell contains the actual review. In my previous capsule book reviews, I did put everything in a table; it looks ok (but rather crappy). At the same time, it was tedious and confusing to make just a two column table. The rich text editor strips paragraph tags and puts br tags in strange places.  In the source html you can format things perfectly, but if you want to edit it in the rich text editor, you can only edit the table stripped of paragraph tags. You’re constantly trying to guess what the rich text editor will do to your original source.

The other problem is proper styling. It’s not easy to make css for just that table, especially if your class declarations are rather complicated. Also, it is hard to add images in the rich text editor for a table you are editing on the desktop. It also provides a decent preview mode

I’ve just spent the last hour testing Tablepress, a wordpress plugin which is designed to solve precisely these problems and more. It provides a better table wizard (and some cool javascript tricks for sorting rows and colunns). It also gives you option for importing tables (HTML or CSV)  and for inserting images or accessing the rich text editor from the table editor.  I think its primary use is to display tabular data, but it also is a time-saver for making simple tables whose function is simply to display text more efficiently.

My method now is to create the table offline, import the file into the Tablepress plugin, and then within Tablepress table to manually insert the images. All this looks relatively easy to maintain, with the only down side being that the tables aren’t actually included in posts, but inserted as shortcodes into posts.  I suspect that will cause migration issues if you are migrating into another CMS, but then again, I’m almost feeling that wordpress will be here forever.

Two weeks ago I was horrified to discover that creating the simple three row table in the middle of this blog post took hours to get right. Partly it had to do with the fact that the theme I was using had messed up CSS, but it was also cumbersome to test properly. I still need to update the shopping cart page, and preliminary efforts ended up breaking the original table.

You wouldn’t think that HTML tables are very important any more, especially not ones you have to make manually. But having the ability to make boxes and two columns really makes layout easier, and wordpress just makes simple tables impossible to do right. One underlying problem is that WordPress expects bloggers to use the rich text editor inside the browser instead of a special desktop client.  Tiny MCE is good and powerful, but there are many times when I want to use neither the visual editor or even the text editor within the browser. Tablepress lets me import code directly, and that is good.

Anyway, expect much more book reviews (and something very soon!)

Update: I did produce the book review page, and it was very easy to do, but I noticed some oddities. First, Tablepress translated line breaks literally instead of ignoring them within a P tag.  So you need to make sure you eliminate all carriage returns. (My Oxygen XML Editor does a “pretty formatting” for XML which apparently enters carriage returns). Second, importing tables into Tablepress ignores the custom classes. Third, Tablepress has a button to open the Advanced Editor, and I ended up doing this a lot. Fourth, I didn’t bother to make code for images in my table before importing. I just added the graphics to Tablepress (which was pretty easy).