Poetry Update: On the difference between credentials and qualifications

Papers, Please

No es difícil fabricar un certificado que asegure con timbres y estampillas, que se es turco; no es fácil, en cambio, nacer en Turquía. – Manuel Rojas, Hijo de Ladrón

Papers, please. Credentials, sir, and proof of worth.
No exceptions, I’m afraid, and please don’t start
on proof and fact and claim
your mere existence proves itself.

We know, we know, but we do not believe:
the deeply rooted need for certainty
will overcome the truth
and I don’t make the rules,
so show your papers please.

Poetry This Week: Getting and Spending

Getting and Spending
Ask the serious men who study joy and bring to bear
the rigor your old profs would praise.
They know what works – It’s not pretty,
but spreadsheets rarely are.

You’ll find a template in the better academic rags:
Daily measurement of function, frequency, lability, and depth.
Careful record kept of enlightenment anticipated
and the extent it gets achieved.

From there, it’s quick enough (as these things go)
to find the measure of your heart’s desire,
show cost-basis, year-to-date, of what you’ve felt,
and chart your benefits and costs.

And when you’ve mapped your course and all that’s left
is living it — seek other counsel, perhaps your own.

Jeff Jacoby: Still a Chump

While we’re at it, let me make fun of the way Jeff Jacoby uses his latest column to insult the American Booksellers Association and defend predatory dumping.

This time, he’s not quite as wrong as he usually is – the line between aggressive discounting and destructive predation is blurry, after all, and the ABA has some silly arguments about how discounting hurts the prestige of books as such.

Nonetheless, he’s wrong: Give Harry Potter away below cost to draw traffic which might buy t-shirts, and you’re going to destroy the businesses that sell a variety of books beyond the top 40. That’s not good.

Whether this instance counts as illegal predation I will leave to the courts, but Jacoby seems to be implying that no such thing exists. That’s entirely false. He may not be wise or cogent enough to remember the lessons of Standard Oil and the trust-busters, but if not, he doesn’t deserve his job. And if he is, and he’s lying, then he definitely doesn’t deserve his job.

… And once again, we return to the central mystery of Jeff Jacoby: How the hell he still has a job. I could do twice his work for half the money. A quarter of the money.

You want an economic stimulus? Reallocate whatever money goes to Jeff Jacoby and spend it on strippers. It’ll do more good for society. Not kidding.

Range Rover: The SUV for the unlettered swell

This week’s New Yorker has an ad for Range Rover featuring a claim that it has eyes in the front, back, and side of it’s head.

People have been fired for a lot less than a misplaced apostrophe in an expensive ad campaign, particularly one targeted at presumably well-read consumers.

Then again, if you’re going to sink that kind of cash into that kind of clunker, maybe you’re not the sort to quibble about grammar. Or build quality.

Call the bluff on the party of no

Mr. President: We want a public option. Olympia Snowe’s vote isn’t worth a bad bill. I’d love to see a good bill (i.e. with a public option) come to the Senate, and I’d love to see progressives dare the Republicans to filibuster. Go ahead. Make my day. Stand up and admit you’re the party of no. And watch that filibuster get crushed, and watch health reform pass over your objections, and watch your party of hubris and idiocy and reactionary greed burn.

Revised 10/21: Barnacles

I didn’t like the close on that first version. This seems cleaner, but I’m not 100% satisfied.

Barnacles
These are not accomplishments:
Surviving a year, falling in love, making a promise, taking a loan.
Granted well-timed birth, propensity to books and worry,
proper schools, I passed by luck
(and care and wealth, not mine)
through the shoals of idiot youth–
I’ve done precious little on my own.

A man thirtyish, married and mortgaged —
As notable as a barnacle who’s found a hull.
And yet of note: In all the sea we’ve found our place,
latched on, and won’t let go.