The Genghis Khan Guide to Management

Five reasons you might wish your manager was a megalomaniacal dictator with a taste for world domination:

1. Profit Sharing


2. Hated Office Politics


3. Ran a Meritocracy


4. Embraced Change


5. Thought Ahead

Bad Hair Day

Between the rain that started at 5:30 AM this morning and the mist that it has been alternating with, it's no surprise that this squirrel is having a bad hair day:

China Relieved, Disappointed

China is relieved to learn that the Great Wall of China is visible from space, so it won't have to change its textbooks.

A photograph taken from space appears to confirm that China's Great Wall can be seen with the naked eye after all.

China was disappointed, though, "because lots of other things such as Egypt's pyramids and even various airports can be seen, too."

Beware the Unitarian Jihad!

A coworker sent this to me.

The Unitarian Jihad from Jon Carroll of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Greetings to the Imprisoned Citizens of the United States! Too long has your attention been waylaid by the bright baubles of extremist thought. Too long have fundamentalist yahoos of all religions (except Buddhism -- 14-5 vote, no abstentions, fundamentalism subcommittee) made your head hurt. Too long have you been buffeted by angry people who think that God talks to them. You have a right to your moderation! You have the power to be calm! We will use the IED of truth to explode the SUV of dogmatic expression!

Cool Digital Collection

The New York Public Library has a Digital Gallery with tons of interesting images.

NYPL Digital Gallery provides access to over 275,000 images digitized from primary sources and printed rarities in the collections of The New York Public Library, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints and photographs, illustrated books, printed ephemera, and more.

Miss Marple

I am looking forward to checking out the new Miss Marple series on Mystery! on Sunday. This time around, Miss Marple will be played by Geraldine McEwan (Mapp & Lucia). Guest stars include Derek Jacobi, Joanna Lumley, and Simon Callow.

Pythons on the move

Looks like many of the Monty Python folks have been busy.

Terry Jones has two recent books out - Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror, a collection of columns, and Who Murdered Chaucer: A Medieval Mystery.

Last month, Eric Idle's The Greedy Bastard Diary: A Comic Tour of America came out, a diary of his whirlwind tour of America.

Michael Palin has completed his most recent travels, and his Himalaya is now out.

And John Cleese is preparing for a new show this fall in New Zealand.

Who Reads What 2005

The 2005 Who Reads What celebrity list is out. I haven't read a lot of them (Huck Finn excluded), but do have The Kite Runner in to "To Be Read" pile.

I was actually most intrigued to learn that Dirk Benedict (Face on the old TV show A-Team) is also an author. From the reviews, they sound interesting, so I'll be checking them out.

Favorite Mysteries: Old Crimes

I love the mystery subgenre where a detective looks back and tries to solve a historical crime. The classic in this area is The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, where Grant Allen, stuck in a hospital bed recovering from a broken leg, distracts himself by investigating the mystery of the Princes in the Tower.

Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse had his own stay in the hospital in The Wench Is Dead, where he looked into a 19th-century murder on the river.

Agatha Christie tried her hand at this kind of mystery, too, in Elephants Can Remember and Five Little Pigs.

Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini collaborated on Beyond the Grave, where Muller's character Elena Oliverez looks into a mystery first investigated in 1894 by Pronzini's PI character Quincannon.

Lee Harris has written a whole series in this subgenre, where former nun Christine Bennett is an amateur detective looking into old mysteries.

A matter of conscience

A German officer, Major Karl Plagge, has been recognized for his efforts to save Jews during World War II (BBC News has the story here).

Maj Plagge sheltered about 1,200 Jews at a vehicle workshop, safe from the SS annihilation of the Vilnius ghetto.

Plagge, who died in 1957, was honoured by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.

Living fossil

Will the Oregon State Legislate make Metasequoia the state fossil of Oregon?

I don't know how a fossilized tree can compete with California's saber tooth cat, Washington's wooly mammoth, or Utah's allosaurus. You'd think we could come up with something a little more interesting.

Roses

Today I planted a rose - a Lyda Rose that I ordered from Heirloom roses. I like shrub roses, especially those with single blossoms like a wild rose.

I picked this one because it supposedly will bloom well in shade, and with my black walnut tree, my small yard only gets good sun in the winter and spring before the tree leafs ouit. It hasn't even started yet, so the rose has a bit of time to enjoy the sun and get established.

Homefront

I have a weakness for stories set in the WWII homefront. My favorite classic movie of the genre is Mrs. Miniver with Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, and Teresa Wright.

Recently I've been watching Foyle's War. Much more realistic than the Mrs. Miniver (which couldn't escape its Hollywood roots); I'm really enjoying them. I just wish they were based on books as I think I'd really like to read books with these characters.

Good library blogs for science librarians

These are the ones I check regularly:

scitech library question - Occasional postings of interest to engineering and scitech librarians

Confessions of a Science Librarian

Christina's LIS Rant

EngLib - for the scitech librarian

Going to the Oregon Coast?

One of my favorite places to stay when I just want to relax is the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport. The rooms are themed by authors - Edgar Allen Poe, Jane Austen, Ernest Hemingway, etc. There's a restaurant (Tables of Content) with excellent dinners and breakfasts (breakfast is included with the room). It has a library with comfortable chairs and a panoramic view of the ocean.

If you are budget-minded, there's a women's dormitory with 4 pairs of bunk beds available for $25 a night.

Some of my favorite mysteries

Mysteries are one of my favorite genres. They are comfort reading for me, and I have a number of old favorites I fall back on when I'm not in the mood for something new.

Rest You Merry by Charlotte MacLeod

Dorothy Sayers - all of her mysteries (I'm listening to The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club during my daily walks), but I particularly enjoy Murder Must Advertise and Gaudy Night

Killer Dolphin and Night at the Vulcan by Ngaio Marsh

Unfortunately, Sarah Caudwell only wrote 4 books before her untimely death; The Sirens Sang of Murder is my favorite (there's an orgy scene where the narrator's actions are probably close what to my own would be in that situation)

I'll post some more of my favorites later - mysteries that look back on old crimes are one of my favorite subgenres and deserve their post.

Recommended Website

If you haven't read Jamie R. Reads the Illiad and Jamie R. Reads the Odyssey (a work in progress, currently up to Chapter 17) you should check it out. Hilarious summaries of two of the classics of Western Lit.

Not for the faint of heart

Why you shouldn't wash your face in a freshwater stream

I'm not particularly squeamish, but the description of how the doctor discovered the leech freaked me out.

The original article in the Hong Kong Medical Journal is available in PDF here (includes photos).

Dictionary of the Khazars

I recently finished this book by Milorad Pavic, which comes in a female edition and a male edition.

Dictionary of the Khazars is a great book, hard to describe. It purports to be the recreation of an earlier dictionary of the Khazar language, bringing together Khazar dictionaries created by Christians, Jews and Muslims. It has demons, dream chasers, princesses, warriors. The two editions differ only by 17 lines.

If you like the writing of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I recommend you check it out.

Not the comedians

No, this blog is not devoted to Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, fine comedians though they are. I've just been asked "Where's Hardy" for most of my life when people learn my name is Laurel.