Month: June 2005

Suffering from “Outrage Fatigue”

I swear, it’s getting to the point where there’s just so much bullshit it’s mind-numbing. (Which, I suppose, is the point)

Today’s batch:

Exxon-Mobile was instrumental in shaping the Bush administrations’ climate-change policy (backing out of Kyoto)

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, behind closed doors, has approved expansion of the Patriot Act that includes new ‘administrative subpoena’ authority would let the FBI write and approve its own search orders for intelligence investigations, without prior judicial approval.

…and still no mass-media coverage of the Downing Street Memo.

If you need a clearer view of what sort of country we’re living in now, check out this lovely poster which has cropped up in MARC (Baltimore to DC) commuter trains:

(…and yes, that’s real. Not a spoof.)

George R.R. Martin has announced that A FEAST FOR CROWS, the long-awaited 4th book in his SONG OF ICE & FIRE fantasy series, is finally being printed

Apparently, the manuscript got so long, he and his publisher just decided to split the book, move some of it into the next book (A DANCE WITH DRAGONS), and get FEAST out ASAP.

I’m really looking forward to this. If you haven’t read the first three books (A GAME OF THRONES, A STORM OF SWORDS, and A CLASH OF KINGS) do so, especially if you have a cynical view of huge-volume fantasy series. This one started out looking like a fairly straightforward fantasy take on the War of the Roses, but has really impressed me. I highly recommend them.

This struck me when I saw a film on TV last night….

Dan Brown has made roughly a bazillion dollars by writing The DaVinci Code, which is, I have now realized, essentially a serious treatment of the Bruce Willis film Hudson Hawk.

It’s all so much clearer now.