Hmm. It seems Angelina Jolie has signed on to the film version of Atlas Shrugged.

I’ve read Atlas Shrugged. Twice. (Shut up. I was nineteen. I outgrew it.) The plot: Socialists and collectivists are evil and hamper the truly brilliant in their efforts to make money, which would somehow benefit us all. John Galt, the epitome of all human virtue, convinces the best and brightest people in the country to go into hiding so that society collapses under the weight of its own bureaucratic incompetence. The plot sort of grinds down as the society does, so I imagine the screenplay will need some punching up.

There are lots of things to hate about the book, so I’ll present them as a Top Ten list.

10. No one would ever say “Oh, who is John Galt?” in frustration.
9. The pace is glacial.
8. Like any good demagogue, Rand scorns university education. One young metallurgist approaches Hank Rearden and says something like “Can I work with you? I have a degree from university — I know it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on…” All the education you need comes from the School of Hard Knocks!
7. If anyone ever has any altruistic motives in the book, they’re portrayed as craven weaklings.
6. Ayn Rand disses soy! How could she?
5. The love scenes are excruciating. I seem to remember one between Dagny and Hank where Hank gives her kisses that leave a ‘trail of bruises’. What?
4. John Galt’s climactic speech is Sixty. Pages. Long.
3. In the book, the rich are the only ones who produce anything useful; that’s why they’re rich.
2. There were hardly any environmentalists in 1957 when the book was published, but Rand finds an opportunity to bag them. “They’re just the kind of people I hate,” says noble Dagny.
1. Printing 1,100 pages of “Greed is good” over and over again would have been cheaper and easier, and only slightly less tedious than the actual plot.

So if the film adaptation is any good, it will provide even more philosophical justification to ignore those ignoble souls who just can’t make it in this world and shouldn’t exist. Also there will be more Objectivists on the net. Listening to music by Rush. Just what we need.

On the other hand, it’s going to be a three-parter, so perhaps the first one will be sufficiently grim that the rest won’t get made.

One of the great things about being an aspiring academic is that people think you have information that they don’t. This is somewhat true. And lately I’ve gotten the opportunity to design my own courses and present them to intelligent and nice people through the magic of UWA Extension.

The latest course of my own designing is a four-week unit called “Swearing: The Wild Side of Language”. I’ll be talking about taboo language — why people swear, what the worst words in English are, what swearing is like in other languages, and where swear words come from (besides Hell).

It’s an interesting topic, and not one that a budding linguist would shy from. Plus I don’t really like using filthy language, so my discomfort at saying (e.g.) ‘motherfucker’ out loud will no doubt be a source of mirth for the studentry.

Did you know that:

• the worst phrase in Russian is “Deliver yourself to the devil”?
• the f-word comes straight from Proto-Indo-European?
• 3,000 French people rioted at the premiere of a Beckett play that contained an obscenity?
• the King James Version of the Bible contains the word ‘fart’?

If you didn’t know all that, it’s because zero percent of these things are true. I just made them up. I’m going to actually have to do some research to bring up the fact ratio. But when I do, there will be factoids, history, and pragmatics aplenty.

And swearing. Oh, yes. There will be swearing.

(Warning: angry Sunday post)

I read a truly distressing article about a multiple homicide involving children. I won’t dwell on the details — I could have picked any atrocious story. But get this:

On Sunday, the community turned to prayer to understand the slayings at a service for the slain family.

“This is an opportunity for people to turn to God,” said Debra Kenton, a member of the New Life Community Church. “Who else can explain things like this?”

An opportunity? You mean you see this kind of thing happening and you think, “Hmm — maybe this’ll bring people in the door”? Sometimes Christianity seems blissfully ghoulish.

Well, if God can explain this, I’d sure like to hear the explanation. He watched the whole grisly spectacle and didn’t do squat. Why would you turn to prayer? Why wouldn’t you instead say, “Hmm — maybe we’re on our own here”?

Another thing. I don’t think we’re getting the results we should be from an omnipotent being. Can we vote him out? Is there an ombudsman process in place or something?

I used to dismiss the ‘problem of evil’ argument by saying that protecting people directly isn’t God’s job, and he allows people the agency to do even horrible things so that they can be appropriately judged. But if he can help affluent Christians find their car keys and direct his Church on the earth, couldn’t he spare a thought for the children when they were being killed? I’d at least do that if I could, and me being evil, surely God would do more. (I borrowed that argument from Jesus. Bread and stones. Check it out.)

You know what — I think I want this God job. You can have all the power you need, let awful things happen on your watch, and no matter what, the faithful will defend you despite there being no evidence that you’re doing anything at all.

Then I realised that this is the kind of setup George W. Bush has.

Then I realised: this is why the Religious Right are Bush’s strongest supporters. It takes very little energy to flick their irrational support for God over to another authority figure.

Unless George Bush is God. Come to think of it, they’ve never been photographed together. And even though I like a lot of things about the world, there are enough piles of corpses in recent history to make me think this place is controlled by someone who could be doing a lot to help, but mysteriously doesn’t give a shit.

A busy week means light posting. Not that there isn’t a lot to talk about.

Bush is trying to ‘clarify’ how far he can hurt people before it’s classified as torture. Reminds me of the eternal question of my youth, “How far can you go with a girl and still be considered ‘morally clean’?” But I never asked anyone that question because they’d know I was trying to get away with as much as I could. Heh heh. And Bush is the same. He’d love to go ‘all the way’, but then he’d be in trouble. And you don’t respect the person you’re torturing the next day. I guess the answer is “Listen to your heart, and if you feel good about it, then that means it’s true.”

Never mind. I’m running a Quiz Night tomorrow, and here are some easy questions to whet your appetite.

1) What is the 2nd highest mountain in the world?
2) What was the name of Napoleon’s first wife?
3) How many strings are there on a ukulele?
4) Which ocean is named after a mythical city?
5) Who was the first man to orbit the earth?
6) How long before other countries decide to try some fair-play torture on Americans?

Oh, sorry.

A new talking animal story has hit the news. And what’s the latest species to magically develop the gift of speech? A cat? A lemur? A paramecium?

No, this time it’s an elephant.

Let’s rank the headlines from worst to best.

Elephant Speaks Human Language in Seoul
No, he does not. Human language requires skills that even intelligent animals do not show.

South Korean elephant knows eight words
And how do they know that? Were there any attempts to test the elephant to see if sounds and concepts were linked?

Park workers said it’s unclear if Kosik knows the meaning of the sounds he makes.

Oh. I guess it would help if the headline writer read the article first.

South Korean amusement park showcases ‘talking’ elephant
Scare quotes? That’s better, but mimicking isn’t the same as talking.

First Parrots, Now Elephant
This might be okay, if they meant “First, parrots were mistakenly thought to have language ability, and now an elephant has been mistakenly attributed with the same skill.”

South Korean Elephant Mimics Human Sounds
Now we’re getting somewhere. This headline gets it right. Elephants can imitate sounds, including trucks, but imitation a language does not make.

Talking Elephant Surprises Scientists
Aarg! That’s worse! No scientists are even mentioned in the article! And ‘talking’ is too strong a term.

You can click the link for an audio clip, if you want to hear for yourself. But beware of uncritical reporting mixed with specious statistics:

Spectrograms show that Kosik’s voice frequency is very similar to his keeper’s when he makes human sounds with 94% accuracy!

What journalist uses exclamation points in a news story?

International Talk Like a Pirate Day it be. Ya harr.

If ye be unsure how t’ speak pirate, a few tutorials there be.

One movie at YouTube

And Chris the Pirate Ninja is always helpful.

Arrrr.

There are two great disappointments in life I have learned to live with. One, the Smiths are never getting back together. And two, Al Gore is not running for president in 2008. Not happening.

And yet…

Although saying he has no plans to run for president in 2008, former vice president Al Gore has nonetheless left the door ever so slightly ajar. It’s a good bet that door will swing open a good bit wider come next May.

That is when Gore is scheduled to publish his next book. With no fanfare, he signed a few weeks ago with Penguin Press to write “The Assault on Reason.”

As described by editor Scott Moyers, the book is a meditation on how “the public arena has grown more hostile to reason,” and how solving problems such as global warming is impeded by a political culture with a pervasive “unwillingness to let facts drive decisions.”

I like the tone of the book. All my life I’ve been surrounded by people who said, “If it feels good, then it’s true.” And now that I’ve learned enough about reason to see why that’s not good enough, they’re shocked. Bring on the facts! I’ll be interested in the book.

But the possibility of another Gore run? Tantalising. Too good to be true. Strangely hope-inspiring.

Having Gore tour Australia reminded me of what it was like to have grown-ups in charge. Can you imagine? People who have thought carefully about solutions to problems, and who are educated enough to use sound reasoning to tell good ideas from bad. It seems a million years away from this new-Dark-Age religiosity. Let’s have more scientist, less priest.