Triscribe

Back to blogging; the hiatus, due to the fact that
(a) been busy – work can be exasperating;
(b) I did do two blogs on 3/15 – and even added that postscript on 3/16, so that wasn’t good enough for you? Eh;
(c ) did you really want more pointless rambling from my messy mind that soon anyway?; and
(d) spent last night on-line shopping on Barnes and Noble – got to take advantage of the discount that was good until 3/21. I bought yet another Learn-Chinese (Cantonese) item, as part of the neverending-yet-to-be-fulfilled quest to improve my pathetic Chinese language speaking ability.

I was watching first round NCAA basketball tournament, Division I, as we speak – and I was actually (gasp) rooting for Princeton. Yeah, I’d root for the alma mater rival, just to see the not-likely-hope of seeing an Ivy League team progress in the March Madness – but that was just a dumb move on my part, as usual (N.B.: Princeton, seeded 14, lost to Texas, the 3rd seed; fortunately, what I had actually put down on my brackets was Texas, but I was still hoping for Princeton, so that part of my brackets wasn’t completely screwed). But, if you really want to see a school with great academics and athletics, you’re better off rooting for Stanford or Duke, I guess. I’m still waiting to watch some part of my brackets go bust by the end of tonight.

And for timeliness, Slate.com’s Explainer explains “Why is it Called ‘March Madness’?” There are tidbits in that article to amuse trademark law enthusiasts.

Slate.com tends to have moments where there are lacking of articles to note and then strange bursts of great reads. The last couple of days were some of the greater reads days. Among other things, check out Dahlia Lithwick’s “Jurisprudence” articles for yesterday (Lithwick notes how some members of Congress apparently do not understand the concepts of having three branches of government or having checks and balances, as demonstrated by their proposing a bill to “veto the Supreme Court” – or, as the bill is officially called, “The Congressional Accountability for Judicial Activism Act of 2004”) and for today (Lithwick’s comments on Justice Scalia’s memorandum explanation for his refusal to recuse himself in the case against VP Cheney).

Fascinating NY Times article on the whole issue of social promotion of NYC grade school kids (recap for those not in the know: NYC Mayor worked his way to have the Panel on Education (the ex Bd. of Ed.) to vote to approve his end-to-social-promotion policy). For me, the article encapsulates a problem: we debate about “issues” but the reality is that we keep changing how we frame or define the issues anyway and, the bottomline is that, by constantly framing the issues differently, we can’t even abide by our own discussions and thus we have no answers to real, perennial, social problems.

As the article notes, political liberals say that the issue is about “nurturing kids” (ending social promotion = bad; repeating 3rd grade is humiliating) and political conservatives say that the issue is about “mastering basic skills” (ending social promotion = good; get left back and you’ll finally learn how to do math and read). But, real education experts cut through the chase and say that it’s neither/nor – it’s about what services do you provide for kids. This is a question to which the usual partisan politicians have no real, easy answer (after all, they’re thinking that saying “I don’t have one quick solution” is not what they want to tell the voters – and that assumes that they believe the voters are so stupid as to reject the complicated, grayer answer).

Fascinating NY Times article on language and world views: contrasting how China and Japan view their own places in the global neighborhood and noting how such world views are expressed in their respective written languages. The Japanese language apparently distinguishes between who are Japanese and who aren’t (even if one is of Japanese ancestry), while the Chinese language apparently considers overseas Chinese as, well, Chinese (even if one is as incapable of speaking the mother tongue). My conclusion: there’s no such thing as a monolithic “Asian.” China and Japan have their own self-perceptions to deal with.

Food articles!… Ed Levine on Cheesecake! (the debate on what’s the best cheesecake in NYC will never go away), and Nigella Lawson on cooking for one’s own comfort (I’ve read the criticism about Lawson as a foodie writer, but I’ve enjoyed how she really displays the comfort in comfort food).

Now back to the brackets…

So it’s nearly 2am, working to get a presentation out for 9:30am meeting. Looks like winter still hasn’t left NYC. Meanwhile, it is cold here in Taipei but am getting ready to go back to California.

Working late and all the way until I fly out. It’ll be weird.

Seems like everyone is busy, no time to blog for 4 days hmmmm.

=YC

I finished reading the latest Star Trek: New Frontier book, “Stone and Anvil” (2003, hardcover edition). I read Star Trek books depending on the plots and characters and writers writing (and how frustrated I am with “Star Trek: Enterprise”). I’ve enjoyed Peter David for his good humor and fascinating characters. They do tend to get cartoonish and outlandish – but if done right, his writing is good reading.

Basically, “New Frontier” follows the adventures of the crew of the USS Excalibur (yeah, there are some blatant allusions to the Arthurian mythos), led by Starfleet Capt. Mackenzie Calhoun – a Capt. Picard protege who was M’k’n’zy of Calhoun on his home planet Xenex. When he was a teenager, M’k’n’zy led his people to overthrow the alien overlords, the Danteri, who were never the nicest of people. Since then, Calhoun, as he is now known to the humans and so on, is barely holding onto the grips of modern civilization and Federation ideals of diversity, democracy, exploration, and so on. Reminding him of those things is his sidekick, Elizabeth Shelby (best known as the tough blonde Starfleet officer of the “Star Trek: the Next Generation” penultimate Borg episode, “Best of Both Worlds” (wherein Picard became a Borg)).

In “Stone and Anvil,” Calhoun is confronted by the sad reality that one of his most loyal officers, Ensign Janos, is a murderer of one of Shelby’s subordinates. But, how did this happen and why; and meanwhile, Peter David (as usual) shifts from the storyline taking place in the present to chapters where we examine Calhoun’s past – how “Mac” got through Starfleet Academy (struggling) and came to accept his destiny as a Starfleet officer (grudgingly, yet loving the idea of command) even if it meant moving away from the love of his life (and, fortunately for him, regaining her later on; but it took about 11 books to get there).

The book is very much about one man’s journey (Calhoun), in parallel to another man’s downfall (Janos). I had quibbles about Peter David’s writing of the “Now” parts (i.e., the Janos storyline, wherein the Excalibur crew try real hard to help him) – the humor got a little overdone (Calhoun, you see, has the strangest crew on this side of the galaxy); but the “Then” parts (i.e., Calhoun’s past) were nicely portrayed – Calhoun was such an imperfect young man and he knew it – sort of, but he learned it the hard way. I still think that Peter David’s portrayal of Shelby tended on the Ally McBealish side, but I liked how she had her more sensible moments (in both the “Then” and “Now” parts). All in all, good subway reading.

Postscript (I thought I’d make this a comment, but, nah…): if you’d like, you can check out my thoughts on the previous New Frontier book, “Gods Above”, wherein Calhoun and Shelby deal with Beings who say they’re gods, but sure are mean about it. Thankfully, “Stone and Anvil” ended without the usual cliffhanger – heartwarming/heartbreaking ending. Peter David really ought to give his New Frontier books endings like these more often.