Month / August 2005

by Edward Champion

Miéville Alert

It’s out, it’s here, and it’s in my hands. Sui generis fantasist China Miéville has a new collection of stories called Looking for Jake out. Some previously collected stories, such as the excellent “Reports of Certain Events in London” (which originally appeared in one of the Chabon-edited McSweeney’s compilations) are here. Others are quite new to me. This collection even includes a comic called “On the Way to the Front.”

The book has been issued here in the States in trade paperback, but don’t let that stop you from sampling the goods.

by Edward Champion

Break in the Storm

Okay, like you, I haven’t been sleeping. This Katrina thing depresses the hell out of me. And yet I am drawn to these horrible events because I have been obsessed with apocalypse since the age of four, which was when, I believe, I first learned about the Holocaust. Perhaps the much beloved churchgoer who once told my mother, “There’s something of the devil in that boy” (when I was five, no less) had a point. Although in my defense, I suppose this was probably because I dared to bring up the concept of reincarnation in a Sunday school classroom.

But I don’t want to become some fearmonger like Lileks or a warmonger like Reynolds or a hatemonger like Malkin or LGF. And I also don’t want this devastation, as severe as it is, to transform this blog into a place without humor or hope. So I’m going to limit “Katrina Headlines” to a once-a-day offering so that I can maintain my sanity. There are several other fine places to go if you really need the goods.

Because it boils down to this: Like B, I feel like the luckiest bastard on Earth. And you should too. Just be sure to donate to the Red Cross while you’re at it.

by Edward Champion

Katrina Headlines XXI

  • Daily Kos performs crazed self-immolation of credibility.
  • Strategic oil reserves opened; economists fear major gas crisis.
  • Some good news in light of lootings and price gouging and general displacement: Millions have been contributed in relief.
  • Interesting info about Bush: “Bush cut short his working vacation in Texas by two days — even though aides have long contended that his duties are uninterrupted when he spends time at his ranch in nearby Crawford, which has White House-level communications capability.”
  • Death toll in Miss. remains unknown.
  • More info on Miss.: “A 30-foot (10-meter) storm surge in Mississippi wiped away 90 percent of the buildings along the coast at Biloxi and Gulfport.”
  • Current estimate of people trapped in New Orleans: 80,000.
  • More: Dozens of carjackings overnight, with people firing at rescue helicopters.
  • The name of the oil company that will be receiving the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is unknown. Anybody have a good guess?
  • In the Glenn Reynolds universe, you shoot first and ask questions later. Apparently, Reynolds doesn’t understand that a major disaster often causes people to resort to crazy behavior, both authorities and looters.