Doing Battle with Tom Jones, Part 2

At number 5 of The Guardian's 100 Greatest Novels of All Time sat Tom Jones. He seemed innocent enough. He'd even won an Oscar. How bad could he be?

Beginning the book on October, 15, 2005 (in pursuit of the quest of reading all of The Guardian's 100 books) there is no way I could foresee that it would be April 3, 2006 before I finished its nearly 1000 pages. Although not the fastest reader around, my book journal revealed nearly 40 entries for 2005 before Henry Fielding's most notable work was opened.

This title is in no way more challenging than others I've attempted, but there was just something that kept me from sticking to it. Luckily my Type-A personality finally kicked in at the end of March and I slogged through the second half of it in a couple of weeks (enjoying only brief moments of the effort).

Maybe it was the travel. Although it accompanied me to a family vacation in Florida at the end of October and business trips to San Diego and Las Vegas, only a few pages passed during those flights before my eyelids instinctively drooped.

But I can't really blame traveling, the ramped-up intensity of work, or even the holidays. The book just blows. At the time of its publication, I'm certain the bawdy activities of its hero, the hypocrisy of his antagonists, and the overall theme of the Christian necessity of subjugating women were all enertaining themes. But today, it's just tame, tired stuff. And Fielding really didn't have much else to offer besides boring political and personal axes to grind.

That's a lot of garbage to spread across 1000 pages.

But I gladly accepted the final blow on this one — thanks to the film. After successfully crawling through the tome, I decided to watch the Oscar-winning movie — a complete farce that may be the worst entry to ever take the best pic nod.

Albert Finney — in the title role — is at least 10 years older (and about 15 pounds chubbier), than he should be, and the lineup of paramours he conquers is about as purposefully anti-Bond girl as you could get in the sixties.

If you're up for a memorable romp, grab a 12-pack and this DVD on a Friday night and wallow in its cheerful awfulness. If Fielding inspired nothing else, at least his work eventually succeeded in taking the air out of the Academy's stuffed shirt. Oscar wasn't so bamboozled again until The Lord of the Rings came along, but that's another story.

Oh crap. Guess what holds spot number 64 on The Guardian's list?

Doing Battle with Tom Jones, Part 1

So this sounded like a fun idea: read all the novels in The Guardian's 100 Greatest of All Time list. And all was well until Henry Fielding fell in my lap.

The notion came to me as I was finishing up A.J. Jacobs' fairly silly book, The Know It All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Guy in the World. Jacobs decides to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica while writing a smart-alecky (although mostly entertaining) book about the venture.

But I liked the idea of choosing a lofty, personally-enriching goal and taking the journey to achieve it. I love novels, and my formal education missed a lot of spots in the complete history of the form, so I decided to pursue an extensive reading list. Why The Guardian's top 100? It seemed the most varied and complete — and it was the first one I looked at.

I decided to make a serious go at the list, but I did accept some concessions. For instance, there was big trouble at number 1: Don Quixote. In addition to its wieldy length, my research revealed that Cervantes' grand experiment with this emerging form was a lot more valuable in concept than execution. Instead of reading it, then, I ordered up the unabridged CDs from the library. One of the legends of audiobook narration, George Guidell, was at the microphone, so I knew I would be in capable hands.

George's voice and I have shared many a commute together, but Quixote provided a listening challenge unlike any other I'd faced. Guidell gives it all he has, but the material finally becomes too oppressive even for him to overcome. Plodding would be a kind word for the pace this book achieves at about its one-quarter point . . . the signpost at which I declared, "Okay, I get it!" and ejected CD #9 from the deck.

I realize that giving up on the first book of the list was not the best sign for completing the remainer of the task, but I actually would have been quite surprised if I had endured all 40 CDs of the narration, so my disappointment was tempered with realism. I believe it was Faulkner who claimed to have reread Quixote every year, which explains plenty (As I Lay Dying lurks as a landmine at #52 on the list). Another Cervantes devotee was Henry Fielding . . . but more on him and his evil deeds later.

The next three entries on the list: Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, and Swift's Gulliver's Travels were elementary and action-packed in comparison to Cervantes. Robinson Crusoe, the only true "novel" of that group, was an incredible surprise: not only was the writing very modern in tone, Defoe creates moods of suspense, fear, desperation, and joy that are unforgettable.

Surprised and energized by blowing through three books in just a few weeks, I picked up the doorstop that is Tom Jones on October 15, 2005 with a high degree of anticipation and confidence. I was already looking forward on the list and anticipating knocking out the first ten titles by the New Year.

If this blog were accompanied by a laugh track, guffaws would be inserted here.

Headline writer comes through again

Davenport, Iowa's Quad-City Times, never accused of either subtlety or wit, may have finally ignorantly topped itself.

The bombing of Libya in 1986 inspired the previous QC Times shameful headline champion. That raid — which killed 15 civilians, including a 15-month-old baby girl — moved the Times to festoon its front page with a single towering word from gutter to gutter: Gotcha!

Now that's the kind of boorish behavior that earns all of us flyover victims our rube stripes. Thanks for representin', Quad-City Times!

So what's the deal with today's headline? Why would a simple announcement of a candidate declining to run for office demand a reaction?

The candidate in question, Democrat Lane Evans, has represented western Illinois' 17th district for 20 years, and the fact that he Won't Run shouldn't be a big deal except that the dude has Parkinson's disease and is giving up his seat because his health has deteriorated dramatically. Evans not only won't Run, the poor guy probably will never walk again.

Yes, there is a good degree of black humor in the situation, and I can appreciate that, but (full blog disclosure) as a former employee of the venerable Times, I know firsthand the journalistic and intellectual integrity that is lacking by the armload in that newsroom. Ignorance is kind of a badge of courage at the Davenport rag, and once again, it's been fully earned.

Beyond the dopey headline, there is a real news story here. Evans has been one of those model Union democrats in this part of the country where many union retirees of farm implement plants have made his reelection campaigns coronations. Add to that his ability to meet individual needs of constituents and remain strong on military issues, and Evans has been a strong presence for the Democratic party in the House.

But now, for the first time in 20 years, that big seat is up for grabs and Illinois Dems (perhaps in microcosm to the situation that faces the party nationally) are caught with no real backup plan. Not a good situation for a party that is basically counting on making big seat gains this November.

So watch for Republican money to start flowing into western Illinois as their leaders target this district for takeover. Luckily for the Democrats the Red candidate is one with many personal negatives and no governing experience. As long as the old Union guys and Vietnam vets come out to pull the blue lever in Lane Evan's memory, the Democrats should still squeak out one more term on the legacy vote.

Distant Rumbling Becoming a Roar

Big business begins push to shut down the Internet as you know it.

Keeping up with the world that moves at a faster pace than the one we enjoy out here in flyover land would be impossible without the Internet. The wide-open variety of content and lack of structure matches our own proclivities for disorder and liberty. But the wild west days of the Internet might be coming to an end if the world's largest phone and cable companies get their way.

As early as 1992, cable companies were petitioning the FCC for more control over who uses their "pipes" and what data is streamed through them. Now things are heating up. Recent articles in The Nation and PC World hint at just how far these companies would like to go in their control of Internet content and fees.

It boils down to this: the companies who own the hard lines that Internet data streams through don't feel they are getting enough compensation for their services. In fact, they are ticked that other companies are making money providing Internet content and not giving the pipeline owners any of it. As a result, the communications companies seem to want to turn the Internet into a pay to play, proprietary entertainment and commerce network. That means an end to the open forums, special interest sites, and certainly, insurgent and open political discussions.

What they'd love to do is not only charge us for basic connection, but also make us pay for the amount and kinds of data we download and stream, as well as charge licensing fees to businesses who do online commerce.

But there is another, more sinister layer here: how do they accurately charge us for our data use? They use something called "deep packet inspection" to keep track of all online activities.

Now we're not reknowned for our sophistication out here in the heartland, but we do realize this is already happening to many of us. Illegal government surveillance is still something that can't be openly admitted, but the communications companies are asking to take these privacy invasion practices and make them a part of ordinary business. Hmmm, that ought to make things a little easier for the folks at Homeland Security.

Certainly companies ought to receive fair compensation for the services they provide, but silencing a vital means of a nation's transactional communication is not the answer.

There are a few entities beginning to organize for the fight. The ACLU has been on this issue since the beginning. Also, Common Cause has a serious push on, as well as commercial arms such as Amazon and Google.

The communication companies want to end network neutrality and pull the plug on the open roadway the Internet has provided for information, entertainment, commerce, and debate. We know a few things about open roadways out here, and there's nothing quite like them. It would be a shame to lose any of them, paved or electronic.

Sunshine Week! (It's not related to Spring Break)

Open Government is good government.

This is the second annual Sunshine Week — a bipartisan effort to encourage open government, protect the alarmingly eroding Freedom of Information Act, and to generally raise awareness that a population that is not vigilant about keeping its government from behind closed doors is asking to be kept in the dark.

Information is power, and it's important that we all let our government know that the ever-increasing levels of secrecy at the highest levels is not acceptable. "Being at war" is neither a good excuse for subterfuge nor a pleasant opportunity to take steps toward dictatorship. Check out the excellent Sunshine Week Web site to find ways we can all take action.

And remember — someone's always watching you, but who's watching them?

Boys and Reading

Are certain types of books really gender specific? Slate.com's Emily Bazelon seems to think so.

Despite her liberally-tuned bravado, she's labeling with the same intensity as those she attempts to criticize. Her thrust here is, I think, that as emerging readers, boys are curious for information and girls are interested in narrative.

Now there's no flyover angle in this topic, but it's worth pursuing because any time a liberal or conservative puts forth a gender-based, developmentally-linked hypothesis, skepticisim is immediately called from the wings and invited to hold center stage.

But skepticism isn't even required here, because like many feature-oriented items in Slate these days, the central conceit is completely flawed and aimed at an information consumer who expects to devour unexamined discourse along with her ham on rye during the lunch hour.

So why the gender identification in this story? If you love literature and identify with it as a youth, you love it all, whether you admit it or not . . . Little House, Harriet the Spy, A Little Princess, All Creatures, etc. Those were the books late Boomers and Gen Xers had on the shelves, and that's what we all read read. Big deal. We also read tons of nonfiction about nations of the world, inventors, Ripley's Believe it or Not, Guinness Book of World Records, and Mad Magazine.

The gender-specific nature of book publishing came along as a result of marketing departments, not reader preferences. Who's reading Harry Potter these days? Everyone, of course, so why not a column about why girls are reading "boy" books like Potter, Snickett, and (going back to the beginning of this genre phenomenon) R.L. Stine's Goosebumps?

I will agree that the outstanding work of Richard Scarry, Stephen Biesty (Cross Sections), and David Macaulay (The Way Things Work) are particular to the male interest in that they tap into the inherently ordered, logical, curious nature of the emerging young boy's mind, but that shouldn't discount the need for that same mind to pursue narrative, and yes, even emotional, storylines. What's the Bill Murray line from Stripes — "All right, who cried at the end of Old Yellar?" That's just what boys do — gleefully give in to emotionally charged material when our young brains are ripe for any sort of attention or connection. Most of us loved that stuff, even if we'll never tell you about it.

But back to the misguided Slate piece. It's classic, expected liberal drivel . . . the same kind of sanctimonious goop you see on the Today show every morning. It's an expectation of what the core reader base will identify with, even if that expectation is based only on innuendo. I do agree with Rush Limbaugh on a few points in life, and one of his core nuggets has always been that liberals at the top of the cultural or media ladder have little respect or regard for anyone else who isn't in that position, so they inevitably talk down to those perceptually below them. As a result, their discourse does not reflect what the rest of the nation thinks, but what they believe everyone else thinks . . . or should think. Usually that presumption results in pedantic, unrealistic, goopy presumption.

Now, as contrast, take a look at a similar piece from the International Reading Association, which is a far more serious, fair-minded look at the issue of boys and literacy. Oh, and after you've read that, ask yourself, "Why didn't Slate's Emily Brazelon credit this piece as completely being the basis for her own (which it clearly was)?" But what's a little sourcing among friends? I'm sure she's enjoying her $250 check for her adaptation of the IRA article. Enjoy your dinner, Emily.

Public Embarrassment & Privacy, Part 2

Rock Island, Illinois, isn't much of a city these days. There's little industry or retail, and the geography prevents residential expansion. But there are bars . . . quite a few of them. And they create problems.

There was a time when Rock Island was a transportation and manufacturing hub. Farm equipment was the major industrial player, as well as trade in lumber and other building materials. Those were endeavors that created tax revenue, but throughout the 70s and 80s, those industries finished their exodus. Today the city relies upon its downtown "arts and entertainment district" to generate the majority of its commercial tax revenues.

They can label the area whatever they want, but here's what it boils down to: Rock Island — one of several small cities in the "Quad City" area that straddles the Mississippi River — keeps its bars open until 3 a.m., which is 1-2 hours later than any other local community. It's a goldmine for bar owners who welcome Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa, bar-hoppers on the weekend and the city opens its arms with a 1% liquor and food upcharge on the sales tax just to make the welcome complete.

As you might expect, there is a price to be paid when drunk people from around the area converge on a few city blocks to finish off their weekend reveries. Yes, fights break out, low-lifes abound, and people do lewd things on the streets. To this point, city leaders have asked bar owners to participate in a voluntary — and then mandatory — annual fee for extra police presence on the weekends. Now they've taken the extra step that many other communities have pursued: blanketing the area with security cameras.

It's an interesting dichotomy for a City Council that has been controlled by a strong mayor (who regularly spouts "moral" ideals) for nearly 20 years. Late night liquor hours invite trouble, the kind of trouble that is expensive to regulate. So the city welcomes the tax revenue the after hours drinking provides while passing most of the security costs along to the bar owners who are the very ones who make the municipal fiscal windfall possible.

So, predictably, security cameras have suddenly become the easy answer to downtown problems. The city is spending $17,000 to have an unspecified number of cameras installed by June 1, just in advance of the busy festival season — a cost that will ultimately be passed along to local bar owners, no doubt.

The decision to proceed with this plan was made just a few nights ago amid (what seems) very little opposition. Although video surveillance in public places has yet to attract federal regulation, it's a practice that will undoubtedly eventually come under legal scrutiny.

The Supreme Court has steadfastly held (most notably in Katz v. United States 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.CT.507 [1967]) that there is no expectation of privacy in a public place, and it's difficult to disagree with the point that when you are in public, you forfeit your rights to privacy. But now that question has become more difficult. We are near (or are already on top of) technology that can basically perform an electronic strip search at a hundred feet. The devices in use are surpassing simple video surveillance, and the courts will eventually need to become involved in these issues.

The ACLU, on its Web site, provides 4 well-argued reasons for opposing public video surveillance. The most persuasive might be the first: that video surveillance has not been proven effective in deterring crime. The most compelling reason, though, is the last: that video surveillance will have a chilling effect on public life. This outcome, which is the least quantifiable, may prove be the most important and the one that most deeply affects quality of life in a democratic society.

Out here in flyover land we value our liberties to a degree that people in major cities may have surrendered long ago. We're not up to no good, we have nothing to hide, but we just feel a comfort in knowing that the freedoms this country was founded upon are alive in their purest form out here. We're not ready to give up our daily movements to constant surveillance.

When communities in our own backyard begin to experiment with public video surveillance, it makes many of us more than nervous . . . it makes us wonder what's next. And that's the question this whole issue of public, traffic, and corporate surveillance begs: what is next? The ACLU, in all of its liberal glory, is telling us to imagine the next step, and even though they haven't spelled out the future explicitly, we've all read the books, and we know.

Maybe a few cameras outside bars in the middle of the night will help us find out who started a couple of fights a year, but is that information valuable enough to put mechanisms in place that create a society under the microscope in all public places, at all times?

Or is it just this simple: you keep your bars open until 3 a.m., you're going to have a few drunken fights a year. Want to change that behavior? Think about altering your drinking hours instead of threatening more of your citizens' civil liberties.