Master and Commander: The Far Side of Randandom

Some interesting bits, submitted for your perusal...

From the New York Times (link requires registration) , an article on "part of the fledgling field of Darwinian literary studies, in which scholars try to draw connections between literature and evolutionary science." The article is specifically about a case study in which women were asked to read passages from the works of Sir Walter Scott , each describing a "cad" (i.e. the proverbial bad boy) and a "dad" (i.e. the proverbial nice guy), and select which one they prefer. The Yeti wrote a rather scathing rebuttal to the article , but I couldn't get that worked up about it. I mean, the article asks ""Are you surprised that women are attracted to cads?"

Er....no.

Salon.com's 'above-the-fold' feature today is a piece on Tolkien and C.S. Lewis (link requires you to sit through a brief but annoying add), and the influence each had on the other. Not much new there if you're a long-time fan of the two. But the article does mention a new live-action movie of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe that is currently in the works.

John Le Carre, famed spy novelist, doesn't much care for the current U.S. Administration. Well, fair enough - everyone's entitled to an opinion - but when you use overblown rhetoric and idiotic comparisons like the following...

On an attacking on the neo-Conservative "junta" that he said dictated American foreign policy, Le Carré compared himself to the German-Jewish writer Victor Klemperer, who hid from Nazi persecution in a Dresden cellar. "I'm waiting for the real Americans to come back," paraphrased the British author.

...I simply can't take your opinion seriously. The average Iraqui citizen lived a life a lot closer to Klemperer's than Le Carre ever did or will. And until there's an American Night of the Long Knives, comparing the Bush administration to Nazis is just so much hysteria that trivializes the evil of the real Nazi party.

I think Curt Schilling is going to do just fine here in Boston. Check this out:

Fear of failure, he says, is a great motivator, and his pregame preparation reflects an attention to detail that very few pitchers approach. From Maddux, he said, he learned that the key to preparation is understanding when a hitter is going to swing at a pitch and when he is going to take one.

"Once you understand that," he said, "the key is throwing a strike when he's taking and a ball when he's swinging. It can be done. Hitters are creatures of habit. They do things on certain counts and in certain situations that they don't in other counts and in other situations. For a freakin' $13 million a year, is it too much to ask me to know when that is?"

Oh, I like him already and he has yet to throw a single pitch in a Boston uniform.

And finally, Bunny sent me this - 71 days to Opening Day.