Ouch!

"At Andover, George W. Bush writes a morose essay about his sister's death. Searching for a synonym for 'tears,' he consults a thesaurus and writes, 'And the lacerates ran down my cheeks.' A teacher labels the paper 'disgraceful.'"

Via Slate's Burning Bushes - A reader's guide to Kitty Kelley's The Family.

Apex

Anniversary Song

Have you ever seen a sight as beautiful
as that of the rain-soaked purple
of the white birch in spring?

Have you ever felt more fresh or wonderful
than on a warm fall night
under a Mackerel sky,
the smell of grapes on the wind?

Well I have known all these things
and the joys that they can bring
And I'll share them all for a cup of coffee
and to wear your ring

Have you ever had the pleasure of watching
a quiet winter's snow slowly gathering
like simple moments adding up?

Have you ever satisfied a gut feeling
to follow a dry dirt road that's beckoning you
to the heart of a shimmering summer's day?

Well I have known all these things
and the joys that they can bring
And I'll share them all for a cup of coffee
and to wear your ring

And I don't know how I survived those days
before I held your hand
Well I never thought that I would be the one
to admit that the moon and the sun
shine so much more brighter when
seen through two pairs of eyes than
when seen through just one

Have you ever seen a sight as beautiful
as a face in a crowd of people
that lights up just for you?

Have you ever felt more fresh or wonderful
as when you wake
by the side of that boy or girl
who has pledged their love to you?

Well I have known all these things
and the joys that they can bring
And now every morning there's a cup of coffee
and I wear your ring

-- Anniversary Song
-- Cowboy Junkies

-- My and Mrs Cleek's wedding anniversary, Sept 14^th

iPod woes

After a mere seven months, the battery in my iPod is starting to fade. When it was new, it would hold enough charge to run for nine hours or so. Now, it barely makes seven hours: less than a whole work day. That sucks.

So, my choice is to buy an extra dock or a new battery. $40 either way. That also sucks.

New Toons

Oh boy, it's time to do another list of new music.

Thanks to iTunes, I picked up the following:

• No Knife : Riot For Romance.
  Found one song by these guys on someone's playlist on the iTunes music store, liked it, bought the album. These guys have a nice mix of sounds: along with a energetic and angular indie-pop style that's all their own, they work in some Spoon-esque minor-key messy minimalist pop, a little emo, and scattered all throughout are Discipline-era King Crimson-styled guitar bits. The album's fun to listen to and I imagine they'd be fun live.

• Kings Of Convenience : Riot On An Empty Street.
  This is a nice set of laid-back and breezy pop songs. Most of them have minimal instrumentation: nearly-whispered voices and tasteful guitars, maybe some low-key drumming, occasionally keyboards or a horn. Some songs almost sound like classic Simon and Garfunkel - nice harmonies with guitar backup. A couple of songs approach Belle & Sebastian's twee Euro-pop, but they don't get into the lilting effeminate preening the way B&S sometimes does. Very pleasant stuff. Fits nicely between Iron And Wine's Our Endless Numbered Days and Joni Mitchell's Court And Spark...

• Joni Mitchell : Court And Spark
  This is bigger and richer than her amazing Blue, and not as immediately catchy - except for that damned "Help Me", which has been stuck in my head for a week (thankfully, Elliot Smith's "Waltz #2" just popped up on the iPod, which disproves my earlier assertion that it never plays Elliot Smith, but also promises to push "Help Me" out of my head, since "Waltz #2" is one of the catchiest songs I've ever heard). Anyway... The songs on Court and Spark are more complex and jazz-flavored and the early 70's production and arrangements date the songs much stronger than the more folky, sparse and intimate Blue of just 2 years prior. So, it's a bit harder to get into. Her lyrics and voice are really the most interesting parts of her songs to me, but there's so much other stuff going on she kinda gets lost in all the action. It's something that may take a little effort to fully appreciate.

• The Cure : The Cure
  Well, I broke down and went back to The Cure. I had given up on them when Wish came out (because of the accursed "Friday I'm in Love" and "Doing The Unstuck" (let's get happy!)), after years of adoration. But I read that they'd gone back to their old ways on this new record. Did they? Yeah, sortof. There aren't any attempts at commercial hits like the aforementioned abominations, but they didn't make it all the way back to their glory days of angst and gloom either - except lyrically, where Robert Smith reuses lines, phrases and constructions from older songs. There are some B+ songs here but I wouldn't put it up there with anything from their Faith through Kiss Me records.

• Merge Records : Old Enough To Know Better
  This is a 15 year, 3-CD, Best-of-Merge collection. It features all the big Merge bands: Superchunk and Portastatic, Neutral Milk Hotel, Polvo, Spoon (with a surprising cover of Yo La Tengo's "Decora"), etc., and of course lots of their lesser-known bands. And, amazingly, the whole thing cost the same as a single CD. It's a good way to sample a lot of good bands, and support a great little label at the same time. I bought this one in real, physical CD form, as should you.

Best opening lines for an album

Opiniatrety has a post looking for the best opening lines from an album. There are some great ones already submitted there (while I like what I submitted, I think the truly great were already posted). I was going to copy the good ones here, but I found I had picked like ten or twelve. So, go look for yerselfs!

Leadership

I've been hearing various political types trying to advocate a new definition for the word "leadership". Their new definition goes something like this:

Real Leadership is sitting back and letting your subordinates execute the Existing Plan.

Ensuring that your subordinates are holding up under the stress of a catastrophic situation, that they are playing nice with each other and that they're actually following the Existing Plan is a plain waste of time. Something as simple as getting out of your chair to make sure that the Existing Plan is applicable to a completely unexpected and novel situation would be a demonstration of obsessive micromanagement and could even be seen as a very un-leaderly display of panic. A Real Leader reacts to sudden catastrophe by sitting still and silently fidgeting.

A Real Leader is not someone who directs, manages, coordinates or rallies his staff around his vision, but rather he is someone who allows others to make and execute their own decisions as they follow the Existing Plan, and so earns the trust and respect of those beneath him. By doing nothing, he ensures all is done correctly; and we trust that he'll do nothing. His very existence is optional - only the idea of The Real Leader is required. And so the Real Leader becomes a disinterested, silent but comforting totem.

And at the same time, the Existing Plan is infallible and its execution requires no supervision, even in times of great stress. All contingencies have been planned for, and the staff could execute the Existing Plan in its sleep; real-time adjustments are never necessary.

Look around. See the people not taking charge of anything ? Notice how they do not direct your actions, but allow you to execute the Exiting Plan without distraction or guidance? They are Real Leaders.

--

Well, I'm not sure I agree with that. Could you tell?

--

Update: I see the Medium Lobster has a much more specific and hilarious take on the issue.

The Civyl Wor

This page is full of misinformation; and it's actually kind of funny. But, since it already pops up on the top of Google searches about a certain war, I won't say any more about it - mustn't encourage abuse of Google's ranking system.