Tortured logic

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I love the Economist for its distinctive combination of excellent reporting and crazed editorial logic. Here’s an example from the latest issue. First the email ‘teaser’ from the Editor:

Imagine a democracy where politicians representing only a tenth of the population can frustrate the will of the majority, where the legislature is divided up into absurdly gerrymandered seats, where money politics is rife, where bipartisanship has disappeared—and where nothing ever gets done. With Congress failing to do anything about health care, climate change or the deficit, that is how an increasing number of Americans see Washington. Meanwhile businesspeople and politicians in the emerging world contrast this paralysis with China’s autocratic efficiency. In our cover leader we look at the idea that Washington is broken.

So far, so good. But then:

We argue that it is wrong to blame the system, not least because it lets Barack Obama off the hook. The main reason why his laws are not passing is because they are unpopular. He has done too little to win over independents and Republicans.

Eh? These are the same republicans who are determined to vote down anything and everything proposed by the Obama administration.

This is par for the course with the magazine. Its intellectual contortions over the banking catastrophe were comical beyond belief. On the one hand it could not do otherwise but report the stupidity, venality and systemic madness of the system. On the other hand, it couldn’t bring itself to admit that really radical changes in our regulatory arrangements might be necessary.

Anonymous Kindling

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Following my post about Charlie’s Brooker’s views on eReaders, I got this lovely email from a reader:

Reminded me of the strange phenomenon I observed in Japanese bookstores….
Without fail, and I really mean without fail, every bookstore… when you purchase a book, the attendant at the point of sale, will fit an opaque dust jacket, providing you with ‘paperback camouflage’.
I reckon the kindle and the ipad are going to be big in Japan.

Why the dust jackets? Anonymous reading my wife assures me… is culturally very important..?!?

The (other) Book of Jobs

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According to today’s NYTimes,

SAN FRANCISCO — A handful of presumptive biographers have, over the years, tried to tell the remarkable story of Steven P. Jobs: the youthful visionary who, after being ousted from Apple, the company he helped to found, triumphantly returned to lead a new era of high-tech innovation.

But those efforts lacked one important ingredient: cooperation from Mr. Jobs himself.

Now Apple’s chief executive is set to collaborate on an authorized biography, to be written by Walter Isaacson, the former managing editor of Time magazine, according to two people briefed on the project.

The book, which is in the early planning stages, would cover the entire life of Mr. Jobs, from his youth in the area now known as Silicon Valley through his years at Apple, these people said.

Mr. Jobs, who will turn 55 on Feb. 24, has invited Mr. Isaacson to tour his childhood home, one person with knowledge of the discussion said.

Hmmm… Wonder if Mr Isaacson has checked his blood-pressure recently. He’ll need a stable reference point for the coming months.

There’s nothing quite like a powerful idea

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Fed up lugging round power-bricks for charging your various bits of kit? Or of having to plug them into a laptop simply to recharge? This is what every hotel-room and conference centre should have — powered USB in the wall socket. Thanks to Glyn Moody for spotting it.

Only available in US power format at present from here. But surely someone will do a UK version soon. (Hope springs eternal, etc.)

Technological camouflage

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Lovely column by Charlie Brooker on why he’s an ebook convert.

But the single biggest advantage to the ebook is this: no one can see what you’re reading. You can mourn the loss of book covers all you want, but once again I say to you: no one can see what you’re reading. This is a giant leap forward, one that frees you up to read whatever you want without being judged by the person sitting opposite you on the tube. OK, so right now they’ll judge you simply for using an ebook – because you will look like a showoff early-adopter techno-nob if you use one on public transport until at least some time circa 2012 – but at least they’re not sneering at you for enjoying The Rats by James Herbert.

The lack of a cover immediately alters your purchasing habits. As soon as I got the ebook, I went on a virtual shopping spree, starting with the stuff I thought I should read – Wolf Hall, that kind of thing – but quickly found myself downloading titles I’d be too embarrassed to buy in a shop or publicly read on a bus. Not pornography, but something far worse: celebrity autobiographies.

And coverlessness works both ways: pretentious wonks will no longer be able to impress pretty students on the bus by nonchalantly/ demonstratively reading The Journals of Soren Kierkegaard, at least until someone brings out an ebook device with a second screen on the back which displays the cover of whatever it is you’re reading for the benefit of attractive witnesses (or more likely, boldly displays the cover of The Journals of Soren Kierkegaard while you guiltily breeze through It’s Not What You Think by Chris Evans).

And another advantage of the technology — you can read at night without disturbing anyone. I’ve currently got E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View on my iPod, for example, and, finding myself awake in the small hours last night, was able to continue reading without switching on a light.

The way we live now

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Watching RyanAir cabin crew struggling to serve overpriced canned drinks to customers on a packed airborne cattle-truck yesterday I was struck by the memory that there was a time, in the 1950s and 1960s, when socially ambitious Irish parents used to pray that one of their daughters would become an ‘airline hostess’ on the national carrier, Aer Lingus. That way, you see, they’d be sure to meet a rich man and marry well. It wasn’t an entirely daft idea, either: airline travel was an expensive and socially exclusive business at the time — and flying was often a pleasant experience. I remember catching an Aer Lingus flight from London to Dublin in the late 1960s and finding myself upgraded to the ‘First Class’ part of the plane (curtained off from the hoi-polloi behind) — where I was served with a glass of champagne, if you please. Ah, those were the days. Sigh. Er, did I ever tell you about the Boer War…?