First Five Rush Albums Reviewed

So I reviewed my first five Rush albums (not chronologically, I tried to randomly select albums so that I would be less biased by the era in which they were recorded). I will give the overall percentage score that they received, the raw score (straight accumulation of all scores on the album), and a brief overview of my impression of the album after listening to it.





In terms of scoring each song, I tried to listen to them as individual songs, as well as the placement in the album. I will not include notes on each song, but I will give the 1 to 10 score rating each song on the album got. The raw score is important, because sometimes short albums will skew high in the ratings - it is easier to rate high on an album with only 4 songs, compared to an album with 11 songs. I toyed with the idea of actually breaking up the long songs (2112, Hemispheres) and rating the component sub-pieces, but this doesn't fit for me - they wrote them as an individual song, so I should rate them as such.





As a reminder, here is my grade scale:

• 90-100% A


• 85-89 A-


• 80-84 B+


• 75-79 B


• 70-74 B-


• 65-69 C+


• 60-64 C


• 50-59 C-


• 0-49 F

Note that there are no "D"s - either I liked the song enough for it to pass, or it failed - a failure is a song I just don't want to listen to again. Obviously, the scale is totally subjective, but I am looking for how the song feels musically constructed, how interesting it is to me, how much emotional response I have to the song, and how much I would like to listen to the song again. Anything in the A or A- range would be something perfect or near perfect, that I could listen to over and over again. B songs still have a similar impact, but I might need to be in the right mood - "By-Tor and the Snow Dog" for example has good energy and is interesting, but a little long for my tastes, whereas "The Weapon" is a great song, but a bit depressing, and if I am not in the right mood, I won't want to listen to it as much. Nonetheless, I would never skip past a B graded song (+ or - included) if I was listening to an album. A C rated song kind of missed the mark. It still works, is a decent song, but may be misplaced on an album, be too trite for what I like, and I may consider skipping it if listening to an album - this would still be a rare occurrence, as I would still like the song well enough to listen to it, just not enough to go out of my way to find it.

An F is a song that I would skip. End of story, no questions, just don't like it - the varying scores from 0 to 4.5 rate the relative severity of the fail... a zero has nothing I like at all, while a 4.5 is decent through most of it but has something that just rubs me the wrong way. I cannot think of any Rush songs that would fit in this category - that is why they are one of (if not my) favorite bands.

So here goes nothing:

2112

• Raw Score: 50.5 out of 60


• Percentage: 84.17%


• Grade: B+


• Track 1: 2112 - Rating: 10


• Track 2: Passage to Bangkok - Rating: 7; Good song, but doesn't really fit after a song as epic as 2112. Even if you had to flip over the album, a much clearer transition, this song is too trite for Rush lyrically, maybe it fits on an earlier album, but not here.


• Track 3: Twilight Zone - Rating: 7.5; just slightly to long for what it is, but an interesting attempt.


• Track 4: Lessons - Rating: 10


• Track 5: Tears - Rating: 6.5; Decent song, but it is misplaced on the album - it could have fit better as the last song, I think.


• Track 6: Something for Nothing - Rating: 9.5; Near perfect song, this is why Tears could not be the last song... the only thing that hurts it is that the intro is slightly too long for my taste, and the technique of fading out a song is something I generally do not like. The fadeout here still works, however, because it is not just the same riff repeated at the end, but is intricate enough to want to keep listening as it fades.


• OVERALL: With two 10s and a 9.5, this is an album with great songs, including a great epic song in 2112. A few hit and miss songs take this album into the B+ range (just barely), but that would have been my impression without scoring the album.

Power Windows

• Raw Score: 70.5 out of 80


• Percentage: 88.125%


• Grade: A-


• Track 1: The Big Money - Rating: 10; A perfect opening song; great keyboard, guitar, and bass.


• Track 2: Grand Designs - Rating: 10; Great riff, fantastic lyrics, good transitions, great finish to the song.


• Track 3: Manhattan Project - Rating: 9


• Track 4: Marathon - Rating: 9; great bass-lines, good supporting guitar work, great transitions within the song.
  Track 5: Territories - Rating: 7.5; Decent song, but a bit too moody for my taste all the time - that is all that keeps it from an A- is the emotional tone... the song itself is very solid.


• Track 6: Middletown Dreams - Rating: 7.5


• Track 7: Emotion Detector - Rating: 8.5


• Track 8: Mystic Rhythms - Rating: 9


• OVERALL: A really, really good album, bordering on a great album (A, not A-). Starts of strong, near perfect, but dips a little in the latter half and comes back with two really good songs to end - this is a great progressive rock step for Rush, though I know a lot of "hardcore" Rush fans swear by the seventies and early eighties Rush, but for my money, they really hit stride in the eighties with the Prog Rock sound, while the seventies had a great hard rock/early metal sound. It is like comparing Alien to Aliens in quality - they are both great movies, but too different to compare to one another.

Presto

• Raw Score: 102 out of 110


• Percentage: 92.73%


• Grade: A


• Track 1: Show Don't Tell - Rating: 10


• Track 2: Chain Lightning - Rating: 10


• Track 3: The Pass - Rating: 10; One of the best Rush songs ever. Literally. If it is not my favorite, it is in the top 2 (with Cold Fire). If I had a rating higher than 10, I would give it. In fact this song does go to 11.


• Track 4: War Paint - Rating: 10


• Track 5: Scars - Rating: 8.5; The first "dip-down" on the album, the song is slightly less than perfect, but still phenomenal nonetheless.


• Track 6: Presto - Rating: 9.5; Again, near perfect, but can't quite hold up to the first 4 tracks. The fadeout at the end isn't too bad, but takes a bit away from the song. Again it is interesting enough as it fades to want to keep listening, it isn't just the same riff repeated at the end - the worst way to end any rock song. Rush never does that.


• Track 7: Superconductor - Rating: 10; WOW!!!, just when the album seems like it can't attain the perfection of the first 4 tracks, it does, and it is like starting a whole new album.


• Track 8: Anagram (for Mongo) - Rating: 8.5


• Track 9: Red Tide - Rating: 8


• Track 10: Hand over Fist - Rating: 9


• Track 11: The Wind Can Carry - Rating: 8.5


• OVERALL: WOW!!! This is a freakin' great album. I have always thought that, but after reviewing this, I just put the album on again and listened to it in its entirety. 5 songs with a rating of 10, only one that dips into the B+ range, this is a must in any collection. It also has one of my "11" rated special songs that would give it a revised raw score of 103, percentage of 93.63%, but I don't know if I should actually change my score...

Fly By Night

• Raw Score: 66 out of 80
• Percentage: 82.5%
• Grade: B+
• Track 1: Anthem - Rating: 9; Good opening song, lyrically meaningful (based on Ayn Rand's only good novel, Anthem - where allegory is used appropriately and there are no ridiculously didactic diatribes)
• Track 2: Best I Can - Rating: 10
• Track 3: Beneath, Between and Behind - Rating: 9
• Track 4: By-Tor and the Snow Dog - Rating: 7; solid rock'n'roll, with a little D & D flair, it just goes on a bit too long for what it is.
• Track 5: Fly By Night - Rating: 10; might be the best song on the album - good choice for title track.
• Track 6: Making Memories - Rating: 7; fairly standard rock song, but just doesn't meet up to my standards for a Rush song. I know that they were young when they wrote it, and writing a song about touring was probably fun, but it just is not an A song.
• Track 7: Rivendell - Rating: 5; this is probably my least favorite Rush song (barring maybe I Think I'm Going Bald, though that song bothers me less than it used to - I wonder why?). It isn't bad, it just isn't that good either. It isn't that it is slow or acoustic, it just isn't interesting. It still is a passable song, but just barely.
• Track 8: In the End - Rating: 9
• Overall: A very solid album, very good followup effort to their first album, a great debut for Neil Peart's writing skills, just a few less than perfect songs mar the overall album, but still very listenable.

Subdivisions

• Raw Score: 75 out of 80
• Percentage: 93.75%
• Grade: A
• Track 1: Subdivisions - Rating: 9.5; my only complaint is that the guitar could play a more prominent roll.
• Track 2: Analog Kid - Rating: 10
• Track 3: Chemistry - Rating: 10
• Track 4: Digital Man - Rating: 10; how can you go wrong with the contrast between this and Analog Kid. Just as the metal/hard rock sound for Rush transitions to a prog rock sound, this is the perfect picture of their growth as a band.
• Track 5: The Weapon - Rating: 8; good, just not as great as the rest of the album.
• Track 6: New World Man - Rating: 10
• Track 7: Losing It - Rating: 9; one of their best songs in terms of evoking a mood, its only fault being that it is too good at evoking in me the sense of despair, desolation, and desperation. I can't help but being near tears every time I hear it or even when I think about it in retrospect.
• Track 8: Count Down - Rating: 8.5, this is a great counterpoint to the previous song, but I think, for me it suffers from the mood the previous song evokes in me, but still a good capper to the album.
• Overall: A great album, again, this is a requirement in anyone's collection who is a fan of good music. I remember in high school, in the back of Guitar Magazine, everyone who was trying to get a band together seemed to list "Pre-Signals Rush" as an influence. They were are and shall always be idiotic, because Signals is a great achievement! I give half the songs 10s (4 of 'em) and only one dipped into the B+ range, but just barely - Even though this got a higher overall score than Presto (by 1.02 percentage points, or only .12 percentage points if you count The Pass as an 11) it is hard for me to say it's better than Presto (which has more 10s and is a longer album, so more chances to go awry), it is at least as good, which makes it pretty damned fantastic.

There you go, have fun with it, for what it's worth.

Veganism, Healthy Diets, etc.

So, it's been a while since I've posted, mainly because I keep on coming up with tons of things to write about and I never seem to have the time to actually write them (if you haven't noticed, my posts tend to be long, rambling diatribes), but here goes.



A couple of weeks ago, theperfectline came up for a gaming/racing weekend, and spent a good amount of time lecturing us on our diets and obesity, diabetes, etc. While I understand the intent behind his sentiments; he was motivated out of concern for his friends, he was wrong on a number of points. I didn't really want to get into it too much that night, because it would have distracted from the gaming festivities, but what the hell - online I have all the time in the world.



First, people who adopt a vegan lifestyle do not do it for health. It was started as an ethical movement and has since had people try to justify it with health benefits, but there is scant evidence of actual health benefits of veganism. In fact, the only study on longevity and diet has the vegan lifestyle and the high meat diet tied for the lowest lifespan (0.94) and a balanced diet with more fish than meat being the baseline (1.00). Even that study did not actually deal with controlling all the variables, but it is the best one out there right now. There is a study from the 7th Day Adventists that tries to justify the choice to be a vegan, but it is not a scientifically rigorous study because it does not control the other variables involved in life expectancy.



Vegans are very prone to vitamin and mineral deficiency; perfectline, you can look all you want, there are no sufficient non-animal product that produces B12 in sufficient quantities. It is a bacterial byproduct (this is how herbivores generate B12). Vegans also do not get enough DHA (an omega-3 fatty acid), iron, calcium, and iodine. They tend to be more prone to osteoporosis later in life, and if the veganism is imposed to early, the lack of fatty acids can lead to brain impairment and late onset puberty (because the fatty acids are necessary to make testosterone and estrogen).



Veganism is purely an ethical choice (there are a number of papers dedicated to this, but I do not buy the ethical equivalence between humans and animals - that is a purely metaphysical stance and is only a matter of religio/philosophical belief). Health benefits are accrued from a balanced diet, and human beings are naturally omnivorous. We have nutritional requirements that can only be met with animal products.

Here is the crux of my argument. Theperfecline has made a classic mistake in confusing weight with health. My brother, for example, is inordinately skinny, but he still has high cholesterol. My cholesterol levels are well below the dangerous levels and from a blood serum perspective, I am far more healthy than he is. He weighs about 140 lbs and is 6' 1" tall. I am between 6' 2" and 6'3" and weigh about 225. For my frame, this is significantly overweight (though it might not be overweight for others - another common misconception is that there is one ideal weight for all men of a given height and one ideal weight for all women of a given height).

I also raised the issue of the eating disorder, and perfectline immediately poo-pooed that idea, but given his lack of close relationships with the people he claims to be healthy, I would wager that he has no idea who may or may not have an eating disorder. In fact, men and women with eating disorders are notoriously good at concealing these disorders. Approximately 10 million women in the US have an eating disorder (that is "have", not have had - this does not include people who have undergone treatment and recovered). That is about 6% of women in this country, and most experts think that this is a low estimate. Something like 30% of women have or have had an eating disorder, and given the image conscious L.A. area, it is likely that the rates are significantly higher there.

An eating disorder is an characterized by an abnormal emotional response to food, rather than one based on hunger, health, or appropriate body image (appropriate is an important qualifier - most eating disorders actually have a form of body dysmorphic disorder where they feel that they never look good enough, thin enough, or attractive enough). Many young women adopt veganism or other similar diets to mask an eating disorder. Since Veganism (capitalization is important, as it really is a religious belief, not a health-based belief) is a socially acceptable choice (lauded by many, as you have seen, perfectline) it is an easy mask for an eating disorder, and I would warrant that a good percentage of the people you know who are Vegans have an undiagnosed eating disorder that they are either aware or unaware of. Veganism is such a good mask for the eating disorder that it is easy for young men and women to believe that they are doing the right thing and use this to bury the obsession with an emotional imbalance towards food.

In terms of practice, Veganism is quite varied, but at its heart it seeks to end the exploitation of any animal. Oddly enough, within the community of Vegans, there is some debate. Some people say that it is okay to have honey because bees nervous systems are so undeveloped - they make an arbitrary cutoff based on nervous systems of skeletal animals, but then get into trouble, because that would clearly indicate that crab, lobster, etc would be okay to eat. It would also mean that cephalopods would be fine, even though it is demonstrable that they are clearly more intelligent than cows and sheep. It really is ultimately an all-or-nothing argument. If you accept the tenets, then you should also not take diabetes medications (containing animal hormones and using animal research) or many other medications for that matter. You should not use anything containing any animal by-product or product - no honey, fish oils (which are very good for you), no traditionally grown produce (where animals are used to till the fields). I would argue that according to the philosophy against animal exploitation, they should not eat any plants in which animal labor was used. Of course since humans are animals, this precludes the use of human labor as it is inherently exploitative - even if farm workers are paid, they often have little to no choice in their professions - ask migrant farm workers if they can choose another profession. So, really, a true Vegan should only eat wild food that they can collect themselves.

Obviously, this is a ridiculous extension, but it is a logical conclusion of the philosophy to which many Vegans lay claim - some try to say "minimize impact" on animals to get out of this ethical conundrum, but then you admit that your life requires exploitation of other species. Since bacteria are more similar to animals than plants (they do not produce their own food), one could make the case that even the use of your own internal bacteriological systems are exploitative, and that B12 supplements should not be consumed, even though they are required for human health. Again, a tad ludicrous, but not a large logical leap.

And as I sit here watching the Fruit Chan horror film "Dumplings" (laden with very interesting social commentary - I highly recommend it), I recall one of my more vehement oppositions to Veganism. It is not that it equates animals to humans, it is that it elevates them above humans. Vegans are so adamant that animals not be exploited that they do not care if humans are exploited to produce the food that they want. While some will adhere to strictly "organic" food (what the hell that means is debatable, but that is for another blog), even organic farms will use migrant workers for very little pay. They never think of these consequences, however, as Veganism is largely a "feel-good" philosophy - I feel like I am doing something good and just whether I am or not.

Which brings me to a final thought. I wonder how many Vegans are in support of embryonic stem cell research. To my mind, this is a clear violation of there ethics unless humans somehow occupy a lower rung on the animal totem pole. If you won't even eat an egg - an unfertilized chicken ovum, how could you justify the use of fertilized ova in experimentation?

Also, the assumption that we eat like that every day is specious at best. You go out drinking every weekend, are we to assume that this means that you cannot refrain from drinking during the week. Alcohol is far more addictive than food, and I would be more concerned about someone who needed to drink every weekend than someone who had a few donuts on the weekend - and since they are calorically similar, who is really less healthy. Couple this with extremely risky behavior behind the wheel of an automobile, Mr. "I've been in 10 accidents" and tell me who really has a riskier lifestyle. And, yes, because you and supergoober are my friends I am concerned by the way you comport yourselves behind the wheel on the road - not on the track, it is much safer to do it there - not because you are bad drivers, but because not everyone on the road will respond appropriately. A ninety mile per hour collision is much more deadly than a little fried food every weekend. As detective Frank Dreben said, "You take a risk getting up in the morning, crossing the street, or sticking your face in the fan."

Please stop sticking your face in the fan, and remove the plank from your own eye before examining the mote in mine.

The Best Rush Album

I suppose anyone reading this knows that my favorite band of all time is Rush, and I pretty much like to love everything that they have done. I find them musically intriguing (as much as an untalented idiot like myself could appreciate the musical aspect), lyrically compelling, and just overall fantastic. I find myself emotionally and intellectually engaging the music, and I think that this is a sign of the true greatness of the band. I know that there are probably a lot of other people who feel similarly, but I am going to make a bold statement of which album of theirs is my favorite.

The best Rush album (according to me) is ... DRUMROLL, PLEASE ... "Counterparts". Of course, if you read my last few blogs, you would already know that answer. The album is simply wonderful. I am not going to attempt to analyze it from a musical perspective, I can't - I simply have no talent in that direction. But I will say that I love every song on that album and whenever I put it on, I listen to the whole thing - I do not think I have ever skipped a song by clicking forward on the CD. I happened to be talking to a friend about this, and he thought that he would listen to and rate all of the Rush albums. I am going to attempt to do the same thing in the next several days. Again, realize that I will rate a song on the overall impression that it makes on me, encompassing lyrics, music, and emotional reaction - if a sad song makes me feel sad, then it is a successful song (like "Losing It" - second to last song on Subdivisions, eh ntt's brain?)

But then I thought, "How should I rate them?", and I immediately answered myself, "Of course, I'll use the same scale I use to grade math problems at school." Let me explain. I have always hated math problems that are worth 4 points and the teacher takes off a point if you screw up a negative sign or make a trivial copy error. This is not to say that those errors are unimportant, I just would like teachers to know the weight that they give a particular problem. In the aforementioned example, if a kid transcribed the problem wrong and a teacher took of 1 point out of four, the teacher is tacitly sending the message that copying the problem correctly is more important than doing the math correctly. The student has achieved a 75% on that problem, a C in most classes in high school, so that transcription error takes someone from excellent to average. That is appropriate if that is what the teacher wants to emphasize, but I think many teachers do not even think that far ahead (even math teachers, for whom the numbers should make the most sense). To counter this I put together the following scale:

90-100% A
85-89 A-
80-84 B+
75-79 B
70-74 B-
65-69 C+
60-64 C
50-59 C-
0-49 F

Each problem on a test is worth 10 points (on rare occasions 5 if the problem doesn't warrant that much weight in the scope of the overall test), and then when I make a point deduction I am completely cognizant of what grade I am giving. For example, if a problem has a trivial mistake with a minus sign, I might take off half a point or a point, and the student still has an A on that problem (9.5 = 95%, 9 = 90%), however in a problem where that negative means direction or decreasing versus increasing rate of change (topics where understanding the implication of the negative are important) dropping a negative could warrant a much greater penalty, like 3 points - taking that problem score from an A to a B-.

So back to Rush. I am going to listen to every song on every album and attempt to rate them all on this scale of 0 to 10. I will then add up the scores, divide by the number of songs, and multiply by 100 to get a percentage score, then make a list of the albums that I like most to the ones I like least, and have the score with it. I may also post how I rate each song, but I am not sure. Keep in mind that I am a huge Rush fan, so I will be as objective as I can in rating my subjective response (kinda silly thought, huh?), but it is unlikely that many songs will receive below a 5.

Just for reference, here are the 18 albums I will be rating. I will not be dealing with live albums (though these are truly masterpieces as well) or the cover-tune album that they did a few years back (again, good covers of songs they loved as kids, but not in the purview of this list). So here are the albums, in the best chronological order I can muster from memory:

• Rush
• Fly by Night
• Caress of Steel
• 2112
• Farewell to Kings
• Hemispheres
• Permanent Waves
• Moving Pictures
• Signals
• Grace Under Pressure
• Power Windows
• Hold Your Fire
• Presto
• Roll the Bones
• Counterparts
• Test for Echo
• Vapor Trails
• Snakes and Arrows

Should be an interesting undertaking (for me, maybe not for you), but at least you won't have to read about politics today.

PS you may have noticed that I do not include Ds in my grade scale - this is because I don't believe in them. They exist mostly to alleviate a teacher's guilt at not having done enough or to avoid the hassle of giving a failing grade to a student. It is my job and the student's job to make sure that s/he knows enough to pass the course. To get an F, you actually have to prove to me that you deserve it. You have to demonstrate to me that you know nothing of the course and you want to do nothing to pass the course. Since I also allow retakes of tests, there is no reason anyone shouldn't pass my course. (I allow retakes because I don't care when you learn it necessarily, I care that you learn it. Of course, to incentivize learning it earlier, there is a maximum of a 70%, a B-, that you can earn on a retake.)

Does Obama Really Want Cost Control, or Just Government Control?

Don't worry, this will be quick. I just want to highlight one more point of hypocrisy on the part of the Obama-style health care reform. I will address other topics in a later blog, as I am rather busy right now, but I just had a quick thought on which I had to write.

About a year ago, if memory serves, some Republicans tried to put forth a health care reform bill. They had tried several times before with the same style of legislation, but health insurance companies have strong lobbies that influence both Dems and Repubs. The basics of the plan that they proposed, which seem reasonable to anyone I have ever posited them to, was that Americans should be able to purchase health insurance from any provider, rather than just be limited to insurers in state. This would allow actual competition and is generally not favored by states because they have a vested interest in keeping the insurers under state regulation (and in keeping insurance lobbying money flowing to state and federal officials). Incidentally, Obama voted against this.

Even the most ardent liberal cannot fail to see that an expanded availability of competition reduces prices (that is the argument they use to favor a government "option"). This is a very common sense and simple reform that does not gain traction for the aforementioned reasons, even though many health reform organizations and doctor organizations favor this.

Of course, this raises the question, "Why would Obama oppose this if he is in favor of controlling costs?" Simple, he is not about controlling costs as much as he is about a government sponsored and run health care plan. He has shown far left tendencies in virtually every aspect of his governance, and this is no exception. It is no surprise that I do not agree with leftist agendas, and I would not have a problem with it if he had been elected on these agendas, because clearly, the will of the people is for that agenda. But he was elected on a centrist platform, and he is doing little to live up to that.

If you want to read more, just check out old bill's sponsored by Shadegg (I think this is the spelling, I am going from memory). He tried the same thing several years in a row (in a Dem controlled congress - guess they didn't really want Health Care Reform all that bad, did they?)

Dead Snow and Regret

So, I went to the Roxie last night and saw the Norwegian movie "Dead Snow". In truth, I was not exactly sure what to expect - but with the tag line "Ein, Zwie, DIE!", how could I resist. In truth, it was a fun little film in the style of an "Evil Dead II". There were a lot of funny moments and lines, and, all-in-all, I really enjoyed the film. I won't go into too much detail, but I think that I can highly recommend this film. Was it great? No. Was it a fun Nazi-Zombie-Comedy-Gore-Fest? Hell, yes. 'Nuff said.

The day before, we went to the Samurai exhibition at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. And here is where the regret comes in. I had a wonderful time at the exhibit - virtually all of the samurai relics were from the Hosokawa dynasty (I believe that these are all from the old Higo province, if my knowledge of Japanese history and Nobunaga's Ambition serves me correctly). It was a fascinating look at an interesting piece of cultural history. What I really liked the most were the older charcoal brush painting and calligraphy. The swords and armor were all well and good, and I did enjoy seeing them, but the artwork is something that has always fascinated me.

Charcoal and water are terribly difficult to work with as a medium. They are completely unforgiving, and any mistake is glaringly obvious. (Trust me, I've tried to do this, and I keep trying - it is tough.) You have to commit fully to each brush stroke and you also have to have in mind exactly what the piece of art should look like before putting brush to page. In essence, the whole picture is contained in the first brush stroke. So as an art form, this is particularly intellectually engaging to me.

But further than this, it is an art form that engages me on an emotional level - in many (not all) cases. I find the intellectual concept of one well-defined, decisive stroke creating an artistic impression to be intensely moving. I do not get this response from many painting styles - either I am incapable of appreciating them, or they are so far out of the scope of my affordability range that I will suppress any emotional response so I do not experience the regret at not being able to get that response by regularly interacting with that piece of art. For me this emotional response is not just limited to visual art, but it is also a way that I interact with some music. For example, I am huge fan of the band, Rush. My favorite rush album is "Counterparts" - an album that came out in 1993 (I know that this I might be the only Rush fan to say that, but for me, this album is intensely moving). I actually get chills just thinking about listening to the album - it does that much to me every time I listen to it.

This is an uncommon phenomenon for me - as a result of lifelong struggles with mood disorders, I have spent years suppressing and managing my emotional responses. It is very difficult for me to get legitimately excited or frightened; this is one of the reasons I gravitate things like the horror genre, thrill rides, rock climbing, combat sports, etc. So when I encounter a piece of art that moves me in this way, I generally will want to purchase it, especially if the art is within my means. The piece that I saw at the museum store had a price tag of $350, well within my price range (I have $400 set aside for blackjack in my upcoming Reno trip, and I would have gladly used this instead of playing blackjack with it). Supergoober and ntt's brain both advised that I sleep on it and having done that for two days, all I am experiencing is regret at not purchasing this piece.

Was it overpriced? Probably... it was for sale at a museum store - the markup was probably 1.5 to 3 times what it would have sold for in a gallery. Would this have been worth it to me? Absolutely. I think, given my normally rational approach to things, my friends simply assumed that I was succumbing to an impulse buy kind of phenomenon. I do not begrudge them this - they clearly had my best interest at heart. That they do not know this about me is, again, my fault. I have not taken the time to discuss these matters with them - it can be difficult to discuss my emotional states as being overly managed because of a tendency of mine to overreact - these are just not topics that come up in everyday conversation. So, first, I would like to apologize for not revealing this aspect of myself, and second, I am going to go back and see if I can get a hold of this piece ... hopefully I do not get more disappointment and regret.

Again, thanks, guys, for looking out for me, and my apologies for not really explaining what was going on.

Sonia Sotomayor - Lacking Judical Temperment?

First, supergoober, re our hour-long conversation that kept you from your darling wife, I will blog on that soon, and apologize again for me - I did not mean to keep you talking quite so long (manic, anyone?). But as for Sotomayor, I have been wanting to blog on this for a month and a half, ever since I first heard her name bandied about as a candidate for the Supreme Court. I vaguely remember her first appointment and some controversy for the 2nd circuit court of appeals, so I did a bit of research, and I do not believe she has the temperament to be any kind of judge (in fact, she would not actually pass the standard to be a juror in most districts in the U.S. - more later).



Here is my problem, in a nutshell. First, the issue with the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund is not an issue. I do not care whether she is liberal or conservative personally. The fact that she is liberal is fine, she has that right as an American, and as a liberal lawyer she should take up liberal causes. That is what lawyers do, and even if the Fund is extremely leftist, or whatever, that does not matter. She was a lawyer, and was doing what fit with her conscience and belief system. That is what any person in any job should be doing. The fact that she had a socialist quote in her 1976 college yearbook - so what. How many kids coming out of college are enamored with idealistic ideas, or in love with the social justice aspects of socialism. Again, this is a non-issue. She was even on a board and on a website of an international socialist organization (she has since been removed from that at her own request) - again, a non issue. So what if she is a socialist. Last I checked the country is free and you can have whatever political affiliations that you like. And did anyone really expect Obama to nominate a conservative? Of course not. Whoever he nominates will be, on the political spectrum, decidedly left of center. Politics are politics, and always will be.



But a judge is supposed to be able to take those personal biases and set them aside. This is part of the symbolism of the judicial robes - they are meant to obscure class, race, and all other potential biases. They are currently a symbol of fairness - the person in the robe does not matter, they are supposed to be an impartial arbiter of the law. Compassion and empathy are not supposed to be part of the equation...



Now, before the hue and cry of, "WTF are you talking about?!?!?", hear me out. A judge should be able to find in favor of a plaintiff or defendant that s/he does not like. Sympathy for one party means that you are no longer an impartial arbiter of justice. This was the case a hundred and fifty years ago and is still the case now. If a judge from the 1800s had sympathy for a white man, and antipathy for a minority, justice was not served. This happened far too frequently and was fundamentally unfair. The person of color was not receiving equal justice under the law. When we have sympathy or empathy for one party in a court situation, that is fine, but a judge or a jury cannot afford that luxury. In fact, many judges have said that the cases of which they are the most proud is the ones where they found in favor of someone they did not like. Experiencing these emotions is inevitable - it is what makes us human, but putting them aside in the cause of fairness and justice is what takes us to a more transcendent state of being - a bit dramatic, yes, but I sincerely believe this.



Sotomayor is sorely lacking in this department. Her history of judgements are colored by personal biases. The most recent controversial one is the one about the firefighter who got a high score on an advancement exam - she threw out the exam because too few minorities did well on it. She ignored the fact that the white fireman was a minority (dyslexic - a minority in terms of disability) that was underrepresented as well (not that this matters) who went to great personal expense and effort to prepare for the test because he really wanted to advance as a firefighter. Even other Clinton appointees think that this decision was asinine, and even her supporters give a terrible reason for the decision. I have heard her defenders say that she was concerned that the city would get sued if she found any other way. If this is actually the case, then there is no way she should be a judge. A judge is not supposed to be swayed by the impact of his/her decision - they are supposed to make a judgement on the merit of the case and the law. If a judge can be swayed by outside forces, then the whole idea of jurisprudence is out the window.

And this is where Sotomayor is an abject failure. She has been criticized by both liberal and conservative judges. A BRIEF ASIDE -As much as most conservative pundits love to say this, most liberal judges do not create law, they interpret the law that is there on the books already. Their interpretation may not be as strict as constitutional constructionists think that it should be, but there is a very small minority of judges (on either the left or the right) that simply make up law. Similarly, there are very few excessively conservative judges that simply chuck out precedent and decide against cases that have a long history of case law even if the constitutional justification is a bit fuzzy. In short, most people on both sides get up in arms over very little when it comes to judges, and they really just don't like if they think that a judge won't decide in favor of their side, rather than wanting what the Constitution demands - that is good judicial temperament. All history and protocol demands that this be the thing on which senators decide, but that has not really been the case since Bork (both sides are guilty of this, by the way, but I tend to notice the ones on the left as doing this far more frequently, especially in the Bush administration's appointees). - ASIDE ENDED. Sotomayor is one of those rare judges who seems to have no sense of proportion and makes asinine statements and decisions based not on precedent but on prejudice. By prejudice, I mean the true nature of the word. She seems to have pre-judged her cases - she comes to the conclusion before hearing the facts and either fails to cite precedent, or reaches back to the most obscure precedent available that backs up what she says. Two examples that are worrisome, one you have probably heard of, the other not:

1) The firefighter discrimination suit. People in the court tell of her harassing tone, her bias against the person bringing the suit and her general demeanor throughout the case as seeming like her decision was a forgone conclusion. Her unpublished opinion (this is not an uncommon occurrence, many decisions are not published to the public, so I will not fault her for that) contains, from what I understand, no citation of precedent. She was grilled about this in the senate hearings, and though she responded well to the bit about the opinion being unpublished, that was ancillary to the question. The questioner wanted to know why she did not cite precedent and she refused to answer. This is not the temperament we want from any judge, let alone a supreme court justice. Another judge on the same circuit court of appeals, his name eludes me, but he was a Clinton appointee as well, basically said that he thought her decision and the unpublished opinion that she wrote was one of the worst decisions he had ever seen. Everyone makes a bad judgement now and again, but she has had, in my opinion made many (like deciding that the EPA could not use a cost-benefit analysis in addressing clean water issues - one of the stupidest decisions I have ever read, and another one involving a class action suit which was barred by law, where she just decided to disregard the law - the Supreme Court turned her down 8-0 on that fiasco)

2) The next case ignores a lot of case law and reaches into the early annals of US case law, and this should be troubling to people on both sides of the aisle, as it shows a tendency to judge based on personal opinion rather than on facts and precedent. In a lawsuit on New York gun control laws, she cites precedent that says that the 2nd amendment does not apply to state or local laws, but only to federal restrictions. She cites case law from the 1870s and 1880s for this judgement. Here's the problem, however. For about the first hundred and twenty ish years of our nation's history, the Bill of Rights was deemed to only apply to the Federal Government. That means that states, or even local municipalities or towns could actually establish religions, restrict free speech, ignore due process, pursue cruel and unusual punishment, etc. While she is absolutely correct in her assertion that the two cases she cited did deal with the constitutionality of applying gun control laws on a local rather than federal level, and there is little other case law in any other direction, she has ignored a hundred and twenty plus years of gradual transference of the Constitutional protections of rights protecting us against state encroachments as well. It is this trend that actually removed state sponsored religions (which this nation had - there were states that were Catholic, and others that were Protestant - no state ever adopted Neo-Paganism, sorry acupuncturist), gave us Miranda rights, the right to privacy, the right to due process on a state level, etc. Formerly, all of these protections were only that the Federal Government could not encroach on the rights established in the Constitution. The 14th amendment went a long way to redressing some of the inequities in freedoms, but because it is subject to interpretation, some judges, especially in the late 1800s, tried to circumvent it.

A brief refresher: I have included section 1 of the amendment, below.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Of course, I introduced the bold-faced, red part, because I think that it spells out rather clearly that states cannot take away constitutional rights of citizens. Sotomayor's decision ignores that fact, and she sides with court opinions that were made by Courts that were trying deliberately to limit the power of the 14th Amendment.

Here's why this is worrisome for both sides. If she is willing to violate the 14th Amendment and find obscure case law to validate that, she could do that for any other cause that she espouses. Let's not forget she is a Latin Catholic (most people call 'em Roman Catholics, but what even most Roman Catholics don't know is that we are actually Latin Catholics - the Roman bit is something of an insult handed to us by the Protestants). We do not know where she stands on gay marriage or abortion - she has not made many decisions on these, and if she actually decides that she can flout precedent, she could easily justify the eradication of the so-called "right to privacy". This could lead to an interesting situation on the high court.

Not that I think that one person will overturn abortion or undo gay rights, but it is something that should concern people on the right and the left - she has shown repeatedly her willingness to ignore precedent in favor of her opinion.

And this is not to even mention her speeches, where she has repeatedly said such foolish things as

• a "wise Latina" can make better decisions than a white man
• there are "physiological, emotional, and sociological reasons" that a Latina will make better decisions than a white man
• that appellate courts are "where policy is made" and that judges should essentially be making social policy (this is obviously under the purview of legislators)
• that empathy is an important quality for a judge, and that empathy can and should override logic and adherence to precedent and case law.

There are many more, but I think you can see that she would not even qualify to be a California juror with these opinions. For your edification, the summary of what California jurors are required to do, as well as the jury instructions:

The process of questioning and excusing jurors continues until 12 persons are accepted as jurors for the trial. Alternate jurors may also be selected. The judge and attorneys agree that these jurors are qualified to decide impartially and intelligently the factual issues in the case. When the selection of the jury is completed, the jurors take the following oath:

"Do you, and each of you, understand and agree that you will well and truly try the cause now pending before this court, and a true verdict render according only to the evidence presented to you and to the instructions of the court?"

As a juror you should think seriously about the oath before taking it. The oath means you give your word to reach your verdict upon only the evidence presented in the trial and the court's instructions about the law. You cannot consider any other evidence and instruction other than those given by the court in the case before you. Remember that your role as a juror is as important as the judge's in making sure that justice is done.



(http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/jury/step1.htm)

If she can't even pass the juror qualifications, what makes us think that she can be on the high court of the land. And just to be clear, if I encountered these same qualities in someone who agreed with my positions, I would still oppose that person. (In fact, she may share some of my views on abortion, but I would not approve of her flouting the 14th Amendment to restrict access to abortions.)

How Could I Forget...

... Bisping vs Henderson. I watched the on demand free content on the interviews of these two, and I came up with some interesting conclusions. Henderson, while he is a great fighter is inconsistent and near delusional in his thoughts on training. He maintains that since he has been training wrestling since he was a child that he is clearly a superior wrestler. Bisping does not argue that point, but argues that he has trained to stop takedowns for a long time, and does a good job of it. Henderson then makes the statement that his standup is as good as Bisping's. This is just silly. Just like Henderson has trained wrestling since he was a kid, Bisping has trained in striking since he was a kid.

And here is the real difference. It is pretty easy to stuff a takedown or pop back up after one. The hard part of wrestling is learning to take a guy down and keep him down. Henderson has this in spades. Bisping, however, does have very good takedown defense, and should prevent most of the attempts and probably won't get too roughed up on the ground. It is much harder to get proficient at defending yourself in a striking match. In striking, offense is easy to learn, in wrestling defense is easy to learn. If Henderson thinks that he will be able to stand and bang with Bisping, he is sorely mistaken, and he could get knocked out. Bisping even predicts this (of course). Henderson's camp thinks that this is the height of absurdity, citing that he was not KOed by either Wanderlei Silva or Quentin "Rampage" Jackson. But neither of those men are truly what I would call striking specialists. They are both powerful, but their technique is weak - they make up for this with aggression, and that is why both are exciting fighters; you know that they will beat the crap out of someone and probably get beat around themselves. Look at Machida or Anderson Silva if you want to see real striking specialists - they feint, not with an arm or a leg, but with their bodies. They move at angles, they set up punches with kicks and kicks with punches. They block, counter, and evade. Bisping fights like this as well, and if Henderson does not get inside and try to take him down, he will lose, likely by knockout. Take a look at Nogueira vs Mir. Nogueira had never been knocked out and a life long striker did it with ease. Anderson Silva makes opponents look silly with his striking prowess. Anyone can learn to throw a punch or a kick, but it takes time to learn how to do it well so that you don't get smacked with a counter.

This is where BJJ and wrestling proponents miss the boat. They get a taste of what it feels like to throw a great punch or kick with power, and they think that this makes them a good striker. It takes as much training and technique to be great at striking as it does to be great at BJJ or wrestling. However, any idiot can throw his hand out there, and if it his the hand of a muscular idiot, it can hurt a lot. Try checking way back in the archives - Maurice Smith vs Mark Coleman (UFC 14 or 15 if I recall) - I remember Smith saying that Coleman punched like a girl, and that an experienced kickboxer like him wouldn't even notice those blows. He was right, and won that fight, with ease if I recall. It takes real skill to be a good striker, and that is why you see them starting to dominate the UFC.

The BJJ and wrestling advocates write off the skill level of strikers at their own peril, beacause a good strong striker who learns a bit of takedown defense becomes very dangerous indeed. One need look no farther than Anderson Silva and Lyoto Machida to see this. I am not saying that wreslters and BJJ guys can't be great strikers, or can't beat great strikers, I am saying that they have to recognize that striking is a lot more than throwing an arm or a leg out like you ar swinging a club. There is a reason why boxing has long been referred to as the "Sweet Science".