Wickersham's Conscience

I have complained about missing my 300mm f2.8 lens. Olympus loaned me another, but the substitute just wasn’t as crisp, especially when used with my 2.0 teleconverter. But the big glass is back, after a trip to California, New York and Tokyo. And I’m pleased to report it is as sharp as ever.

Yesterday I drove down to the Delta Barley Project, 12 miles southeast of Delta Junction, and checked spring hawk migration. The raptors were there, especially Rough-legged Hawks. 89 raptors in all. Very nice, and the nicest possible Redpoll relief. The Roughies were very spooky, hard to approach and even harder to photograph, but I got a few shots that may be keepers.

The Red-tailed Hawks were, as usual, more approachable and cooperative.

It was too early for much in the way of waterfowl, but I look forward to swans and ducks next weekend.

In the meantime, there’s a lot of satisfaction in having my favorite lens back in my backpack.

War, whoa, Lord
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me.[1]

The Alaska Legislature today, by a vote of 35-23, rejected appointment of Wayne Anthony Ross as Attorney General of the State of Alaska. Ross, who refers to himself as “WAR,” may be the single worst idea Governor Palin has had. And that shouldn’t be an easy call.

In the end, it wasn’t his virulent opposition to gays (he has called gays “degenerates”). It wasn’t his highly controversial positions on Native rights. It wasn’t even the specter of the potential chief law enforcement lawyer saying, “It seems to me the most important thing that can be done by the Senate is not argue with legal or illegal but to appoint somebody to represent Juneau.” Although the idea that the chief law enforcement lawyer saying legal and illegal don’t matter is scary.

No, what brought WAR down was his silly attempts to deny he had said legal and illegal don’t matter. When he was recorded saying pretty much those exact words. Even when those words were played back to him. Our legislators, it seems, don’t mind homophobes or racists, and will even tolerate incompetence, but they do draw the line at damn fools.

I’m mildly surprised.

If I may quote Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong one more time, and Edwin Starr’s magnificent version of their song,

But Lord there’s gotta be a better way.

Say it again.

[1] “War,” by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, as interpreted by Edwin Starr, 1970.

I don’t remember an Alaska politician in recent decades whose instincts were worse than Sarah Palin’s. Or whose motives were more transparent and obvious. I’ll take two recent developments to illustrate my point.

First, there’s the federal stimulus funds. You initially announced you were declining to accept “almost half of them.” When you actually did the arithmetic, why darn it, it was only about 30%. And you told us you didn’t want the money because it came with “too many federal strings attached.” The State House conducted pretty thorough hearings on the stimulus funds. And it turned out there weren’t any strings. Oopsie. So you announced the “strings” were that the state would get dependent on those federal monies, and even worse, they’d add to the deficit.

I’m not sure what state you think you live in, Governor. Alaska is hopelessly dependent on federal monies, more so than any other state. For decades, our governors, including you, Sarah, have submitted wish lists to Uncle Ted. And he delivered. And those funds contributed to the federal deficit. And they came with far greater strings than the stimulus package. Feathers or lead, Sarah? Transparent political pandering or impulsive ignorance?

A cynic would say you were posturing for your national audience and personal ambitions, and not really looking after Alaska. I guess I’m a cynic.

The second example is your decision to travel to the Vanderburgh County Right to Life dinner in Evansville, Ind. on Thursday, April 16. That’s governing Alaska, you betcha. With the legislative session wrapping up, this is the time to reach compromise on spending bills, including the budget and the capital budget. Your claim that “you will only be gone a day” rings hollow; in fact, your absence will give you the ability to deny involvement. And that will allow you to make vetoes. We already know about the regional bias in your vetoes. Combined with your avowed intent to use the federal stimulus funds to “replace” monies you veto, your absence smells funny.

And your claim, “Please, don’t make me feel that I have to ask you permission, lawmakers, to leave the capital city,” is a clumsy straw man argument. The real issue is whether you will work with the Legislature to adopt compromise budget, or leave, making compromise impossible, and then grandstand with your veto pen again.

Let’s see, which will play better for your ambitions? And which would be better for the economic health of the State? Which one involves governing Alaska? And which one might benefit no one but a presidential aspirant?

Say, if you do go to Indiana, could you take your whole soap opera act extended family and just stay there?

Astral Weeks Live At the Hollywood Bowl, Van Morrison
Released February 24, 2009

Most rock fans would have Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks” on their list of the best 10 or 20 albums ever recorded. Recorded in just two days, it fused rock and jazz into something completely new. As I wrote in my review of that album, it’s a song cycle that never fails to cheer me up, that never grows old, that never fails to give me something new, even after hundreds of listenings.

Forty years later – forty years! – Van performed “Astral Weeks” live at the Hollywood Bowl, the first time, ever, he has performed the album live.

It’s superb. From the first bars of the title cut, with the ageless Jay Berliner again on guitar, playing counter melody to David Hayes’ bass, I was entranced. The wildly enthusiastic audience helps, too. This is a great artist revisiting his seminal work, and finding new meanings and new interpretation.

Van Morrison concerts are dicey. He has a rocky relationship with his audience. He has an even worse attitude towards his band. More than once he has walked off stage in a huff. But sometimes he transcends himself. As great as he is in the studio, there are times he can be even better live. This was one of them.

If you don’t like jazz-inflected rock; if you want thrashed heavy metal; try someone else. If you want superb acoustic music that is still influencing artists 40 years later, this is an album for you. If you know and love the 1968 album, you’re going to enjoy hearing a forty-year older Van revisit those songs, still improvising, still growling through “Listen to the Lion,” still glissading through notes. Still telling us,

And I will never grow so old again/
And I will walk and talk in the gardens all wet with rain/
Oh, sweet thing, sweet thing

The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox, by Barry Hughart
ISBN 1596062002(2008)

Here you can find all three Master Li and Number Ten Ox novels in a single volume. If you haven’t yet sampled the pleasures of Barry Hughart’s “China that never was,” then you have the chance for a rare treat: an enthralling, superbly written, nearly flawless set of stories that are at once intensely humanistic and delightfully funny.

In “Bridge of Birds,” we meet Number Ten Ox, a Chinese peasant whose village’s children are stricken by a plague that can count. When the few copper coins he has can’t buy a distinguished scholar to help him, he has to settle on Master Li, who has a slight flaw in his character. The mystery they set out to solve turns out to be just a part of an older, far more important crime against Heaven itself. Through a rollicking set of adventures, involving some of the most amazing characters in fantasy, they charge into the problem. The ending will simply amaze you. (“Bridge” in it’s stand-alone volume has 171 reviews; 151 of them giving it 5 stars. Perhaps that will help persuade you.)

In “The Story of the Stone,” Number Ten Ox has become an assistant to Master Li. When the abbot of a remote monastery arrives and tells Master Li that insanely homicidal Laughing Prince has returned – and he has been dead for centuries – Number Ten Ox and Master Li set out to deal with the matter.

And in “Eight Skilled Gentlemen,” Master Li and Number Ten Ox are asked by the very highest Taoist scholar in China to investigate a series of mysteries, not the least of which is a vampire ghoul that appears at an execution. A critical time is coming again, and it takes all of Master Li’s cunning and Ox’s strength to save China.

Hughart is a brilliant, lyrical writer. His plots are simply astonishing, and his ability to paint wonderful characters in a few sentences is outstanding. My test for superb fantasy is simple: when you finish the story, the ordinary world you return to should seem a duller, mundane place. Hughart’s work easily passes that test.

The only mildly disappointing part of this otherwise excellent edition is the jacket cover; there Hughart explains, carefully and honestly, why there won’t be any more Master Li novels. It’s a shame, and I hope he will reconsider. These are the best novels you haven’t read.

My very highest recommendation.