Books, Pop Culture and Political Humor from J.D. Rhoades, best-selling author, attorney, and award-winning newspaper columnist.
"Like [Lee] Child, Rhoades dishes out one airtight action scene after another, mixing in just enough character-building moments and holding our interest in a full cast of nicely developed supporting players."-Booklist
Sam Vimes has always been my favorite Discworld main character because he's easily the richest and most complex: a good man and a good copper who's always aware just how thin the barrier is between that and becoming bad. It doesn't help that he's taken on a rider in his head (possibly imaginary, but very possibly all too real) who would cheerfully give him a shove through that barrier.
In this book, Vimes takes a holiday at the insistence of his adoring (and incredibly rich) wife Sybil. Vimes being Vimes of course, it's not long before he's neck deep in murder and corruption in a place where no one knows him or cares that he's the Commander of the City Watch.
There are some of the usual pointed and witty observations here, as well as some good suspense. Pratchett does seem to indulge his penchant for beating you over the head with the book's message a little more than usual, but once you get past that, it's an amusing, fun read. I would have liked to see more of Vetinari (my second favorite Pratchett character), but then I feel that way in every one of the Discworld books. I just love that magnificent bastard.
Once again, here are our predictions for the year ahead (assuming that the Mayans weren't right):
JANUARY: Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich fails to place higher than third in the South Carolina primary, then throws an on-camera tantrum in which he claims that he has the right to subpoena all of the voters in the state to come to Washington and appear at a hearing to explain themselves.
FEBRUARY: A firestorm erupts on Fox News, talk radio, and the right-wing blogo-sphere when President Obama wishes his wife a "happy Valentine's Day." Bill O'Reilly devotes 30 minutes of his news show to ranting that the exclusion of any mention of Saint Valentine "just proves that President Obama has declared war on religion." Anti-Muslim blogger Pamela Geller shrieks that the omission of the saint's name is "the most compelling evidence yet that Obama is secretly an Islamofascist trying to impose Sharia law on the United States."
MARCH: Scientists discover a new faster-than-light subatomic particle whose only function seems to be to allow Kim Kardashian to get divorced a split second before actually being married.
APRIL: The first day of spring sees the return of a perennial rite of the election season: flag-pin mania. Michele Bachmann, still gamely hanging on despite low delegate numbers, gets the ball rolling when a picture of President Obama taken on a Hawaiian beach shows him without a flag pin. "A president who was a real American would figure out a way to attach the pin to his chest, even without a shirt," Bachmann proclaims. This sets off a war among the GOP candidates to see who can most ostentatiously display the largest flag pin. Tragedy brings the contest to an end when Rick Perry attempts to nail a seven-by-five-inch pin to the center of his forehead and ends up in a coma.
MAY: Rick Perry miraculously comes out of his coma, but dramatically changed in that he can now remember more than two things at a time. His rebounding poll numbers drop precipitously when Republican primary voters turn against him for "acting like he's smarter than us."
JUNE: TLC announces its new fall schedule and causes controversy with its new program "Celebrity Cannibal," a reality show in which D-list celebrities compete in various contests, with each week's loser cooked by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey and devoured by the rest of the cast. In the show's end-of-first-season cliffhanger, all those in the remaining cast (Hulk Hogan, Courtney Stodden, Stephen Baldwin) face expulsion from the show when they refuse to ingest former rock singer Courtney Love.
JULY: Canceled due to budget cuts.
AUGUST: The Republican Party holds its nominating convention in Tampa, Fla. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney finally gets enough delegates to clinch the nomination when the head of the Massachusetts delegation rises and delivers these stirring words: "Romney, I guess. Whatever. Can we go to the beach now?"
SEPTEMBER: Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin gives an interview on Fox News in which she announces that "it's not too late" for her to enter the race for the 2012 GOP nomination. "Who knows what might happen in the future?" she chirps to an incredulous Gretchen Carlson. Despite the fact that the nomination has already been awarded to Romney, contributions pour in to Palin's campaign headquarters. Palin uses the contributions to purchase a yacht, which she christens the "One Nation" and uses on an extended "campaign tour" of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
OCTOBER: Apple announces its latest innovation: the iWash, an Internet-enabled washer/dryer combination. Despite the fact that no one at Apple can coherently explain why a washer and dryer need an Internet connection, record-breaking crowds of "early adopters" line up around the block at various Apple stores to purchase the device. Rumors that a security problem in the iWash's operating software could allow hackers to remotely steal your underwear fail to affect sales.
NOVEMBER: America goes to the polls, but the turnout among a dispirited, unenthusiastic, and battle-weary electorate is the lowest in U.S history. Barack Obama wins over Mitt Romney, with a national tally of 400 votes to 275 - in the popular vote, not the Electoral College.
DECEMBER: Dec. 21, the supposed date upon which the Mayan "Long Count" calendar (and therefore the world) ends, comes and goes without the expected cataclysm. The American economy receives a massive boost as merchants are deluged by people realizing they're going to have to do their Christmas shopping after all.
And so, once again, I offer you my traditional New Year's greeting, courtesy of Ogden Nash: Duck! Here comes another year!
You might try to comfort yourself by thinking that Frank Bill's exaggerating for dramatic effect in these short, tightly written tales of country meth addicts, domestic brutality, dog-fighters, unpredictably vicious rednecks, and rural ultra-violence. You might try to tell yourself that things this grim and lurid could never happen in real life. But I can tell you, they do.
This is not a book for the faint of heart; it's pure distilled essence of redneck noir, and there are few happy endings. But the quality of the writing keeps you coming back for just one more page, then another, until it's all gone, like a bottle of cheap whiskey that you can't put down and that's gone all too soon.
I got this book for Christmas, and Frank Bill just made it to the top of the "Buy As Soon As It Comes Out list."
Well, here it is, December the 25th. Christmas Day. Since I can assume the first thing most of you did was NOT run out to the driveway, get your copy of The Pilot, and run inside to read this column, I figure the stockings are empty, the presents all opened, the turkey or ham or whatever your choice of holiday meat is either in the midst of cooking or resting comfortably in your tummy. Unless you're Jewish, of course, in which case I hope you have a good day and are enjoying your Hanukkah and the Chinese food.
Some pedantic souls are fond of pointing out that it's highly unlikely, based upon the account in the Gospels, that the actual birth date of Yeshua bar-Yosef, aka Jesus, was December 25th. For instance, shepherds in first century Israel did not "abide in the fields and watch their flocks by night" in the wintertime; that happened in the spring, when the lambs were born. In the winter, the sheep were kept corralled, and the shepherds stayed home. The angels would have had to come to the door and knock to announce the birth of the Savior in the City of David, like some sort of divine Western Union. It's a much less compelling image, to be sure, than the one of the Heavenly Host filling the sky with praises.
No, we're told, the December date was much more likely picked to coincide with (and hopefully take the place of) already existing pagan festivals. They'll point to the fact that sometime in the fourth century A.D. the Roman Emperor Aurelian announced the feast of Sol Invictus (The Unconquered Sun) which took place on December 25th.
Or perhaps the celebration of Christ's birth was meant to occur at the same time as an older Roman holiday, that of Saturnalia, a week-long debauch beginning December 17th. During Saturnalia, people exchanged presents and partied in a fashion that makes even the rowdiest office Christmas party look like an ice-cream social.
In addition, the normal social order was turned upside down; masters served their slaves at the dinner table, and the slaves could boss them around for a change--carefully, one would imagine, since they'd be back on the bottom of the pile next week.
Others suggest that our Christmas was meant to overlap Yule or other Northern European holidays celebrating the Winter Solstice. Those are the holidays from which we get our traditions of bringing evergreen plants indoors, of mistletoe, and of the blazing Yule log (fa-la-lalala, and all that).
I think, however, that the argument that late December isn't the "real" date of Jesus' birth and that it's really just a date co-opted from paganism kind of misses the point. All of those seasonal pagan celebrations have one thing in common: they take place during the coldest and darkest time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, the time when the night seems endless, the cold seems eternal, and it seems as if nothing will ever grow again. But they don't curse or bemoan the darkness; they look forward to the return of the light. They're celebrated with candles and firelight and evergreens. They remind us that however long the winter may seem, spring always comes back. They're holidays dedicated to hope when everything looks hopeless.
And that's why it's the perfect time to celebrate the birth of Jesus, no matter if it's more likely that He was born sometime in the spring. Whatever your belief as to the divinity of the person known as Jesus, it's undeniable that He was born at a time of great darkness and cruelty, in a country beneath the boot of an empire so brutal that they routinely nailed people to pieces of rough wood then hung them up to die slowly as punishment. And yet, His message was one of peace, of healing, of love, and of hope. It was a message of light in the darkness.
So, no matter what your beliefs, or lack of same, I wish all those things for you today.
I have plenty of gifts, because I have the most towering intellect and the farthest-reaching vision in America right now. Possibly in the entire universe. Tell you what, since I’m a guy with a lot of ideas, let me give back by sharing a few with you.
Note to staff from S. Claus: We need to make sure Newtie gets his meds adjusted.
Dear Santa:
We’re willing to give up Christmas presents this year if we can just borrow the elves to pick our crops. Since this crazy immigration law came in, all the Latinos left. The locals can’t stand a day of this kind of work. Plus, I figure the elves are built low to the ground so they don’t have to stoop over.
Dear Commissioner: Sorry, but elves don’t have identity papers. I don’t have time to keep going down there and bailing them out of jail. You’re on your own. Signed, S. Claus.
Dear Santa:
I want three things for Christmas. One, I want to be the front-runner again. Two, I want people to realize I’m not brain-damaged. Three, I ... dang! I can’t remember. Oops.
— Love, um ... Rick. Yeah, that’s it. Rick.
Note to staff from S. Claus: Maybe this is why Mitt Romney made that $10,000 bet with Rick. He assumed Rick wouldn’t remember it.
Dear Santa:
In 2007, we controlled 34.6 percent of the wealth in this country. Since the recession began, that percentage has grown to 37.1 percent. We’d like the rest of it. And we demand that people stop saying mean things about us.
— Sincerely, the 1 percent
Note to staff from S. Claus: They get coal in their stockings this year.
Note from staff: OK, but they already own most of it.
Dear Santa:
Can you bring me some more pepper spray? I’m all out, and I keep seeing people sitting down. They’re all over the place. There’s just something about people peacefully sitting down that really makes me want to give them a face full of the old pepper.
— Love, Lt. John Pike, UC-Davis campus police.
Note to staff from S. Claus: Coal.
Note from staff: Already on it, boss.
Dear Santa:
Both Newt Gingrich and I once supported an individual health insurance mandate and cap-and-trade legislation. Now, I have to convince Republican voters that those things are dangerous socialism. What I need for you is to give everyone in the country amnesia.
Oh, and while we’re at it, the next time I sit down next to some old white guy at a diner for what looks like a surefire photo op, can you make sure he’s not a gay war veteran who proceeds to hand me my head on a platter in front of everyone? Thanks.
— Love, Mitt
Note from staff: We should probably hold off on gifts for Mitt, boss. He keeps changing the list.
Dear Santa:
We want the influence of money out of politics. We want regulations to reform the banking system, like restoring the law separating investment banks from commercial and savings banks, so that crazy investments don’t take your savings with them when they fail.
We want investigation and prosecution of Wall Street financial fraud. We want to do away with the law that regards corporations as “people.” We want lobbyists to stop being the ones to draft legislation that benefits the industry they’re lobbying for. Thanks.
— Sincerely, the Occupy movement
Note to staff from S. Claus: Wait, what? All I keep hearing is that these people don’t know what they want.
Note from staff: That’s what the media want you to think. They’re owned by big corporations, remember?
Note to staff from S. Claus: Glad I’m not.
Note from staff: Us too, boss. Us too. Merry Christmas.
Snuff by Terry Pratchett
