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The Daily Dose/March 8, 2008
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
   
Coming back strong after another reader-depleting and not-as-productive-as-we-were-frankly-hoping-for hiatus, your Daily Dose returns with all the usual stuff you used to know and love: a Capsule Book Review, On This Date, the ever-popular Trivia Question plus the usual witless commentary on events that have already passed. Plus the Column Four Foto: Alyson Hannigan!
CAPSULE BOOK REVIEW: Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present, By Peter Hessler: Oracle Bones does a real good job of not doing anything at all. Hessler talks about Chinese history via work at various archaeological sites and research into oracle bones, real bones that have survived the centuries with inscriptions that are the earliest examples of writing in eastern Asia, and introduces us to an oracle bones scholar, Chen Mengjia. He tells the story of several of his former English students, all of whom leave their small towns for a better life, which they don't always find. He tells the story of Polat, a Uighur from western China who ditches his life as a currency trader and wholesaler of brand name knock offs to move to the United States, where he finds odd jobs in Washington, D.C. while waiting for asylum, which isn't easy after 9/11.
What The Hell's Going On Here?: These, honestly, are not people you would expect to see featured in a book, at least not any book you would consider reading. These people are not extraordinary, except for the fact they are not satisfied with the life others expect them to lead and feel compelled to do more with their lives.
Now Hear This: Through the lives of these very ordinary, everyday Chinese, however, Hessler weaves a compelling and informative story. It is also a very leisurely story. Hessler is no rush to make his points and his writing style is more like a slow ride down the Yangtze than a white water rafting trip, though it should be noted I am a slower reader than most, but even by my usual slow standards it took me a while to get through this.
The readers patience is rewarded though. Hessler has written an engaging book, with characters you are glad you got to know. Anyone with an interest in Chinese culture, its history and its present will find this well worth their time.
Standard Internet Disclaimer: Though Gaylon is better read than most of our fellow humans, he's not a scholar for Pete's sake and, in fact, barely graduated high school, though it should be noted this was back when graduating from high school actually meant you had some skills and didn't require remedial college classes. He not only makes no claims to being a professional book reviewer, but does not even warrant that the reviewed book is current or even being read for the first time.
We Interrupt This Program For A Word From The Ratings Department: Following Is The Official Writer's Shack Rating scale:
EX - Excellent; as good as the medium can produce in every respect.
VG - Very Good. Well worth your time.
GD - Good. More or less worth your time.
AR - All Right. Not completely without merit.
SP - Nothing of substance; a steaming pile, utterly without merit.
Overall Rating: GD. Oracle Bones was good. I enjoyed it, enough so that it will occupy an honored place in the Writer's Shack library and not be re-gifted. If you have no interest in China, its past or how your average Chinese goes about constructing a useful life, Oracle Bones probably wont interest you, though.
WHILE WE WERE OUT: The New York Giants won the Super Bowl, defeating a previously unbeaten New England Patriots squad. Don't blame Tom Brady, though. The Patriots quarterback did what he always does in the Super Bowl, lead his team to a late score and have them in position to win.
Thanks For The Bulletin There, Gaylon: We mention this simply because we wanted to point out that Tom Brady, for the fourth time in his career, led the Patriots to a late fourth-quarter square and had them in position to win the Super Bowl. It would have been nice if he could have been bothered to look like he was enjoying himself, or even looked like he was doing something more than playing an exhibition game. Good gravy, judging by the look in his eyes you'd've thought he was being bothered.
Delayed FunFact: It was the third Super Bowl win for the Giants, and their seventh NFL title.
IN OTHER BREAKING NEWS: Congress continued to but into the baseball steroids scandal, holding a hearing on Feb. 13 that starred pitcher Roger Clemens and his former trainer Brian McNamee in a fiasco where everyone said what they had been saying all along and nothing got solved, except Congress decided to get another government agency on the matter to get to the bottom of this whole mess.
FunFact: None of the substances athletes took (and still are taking) add talent. All they do is allow an athlete to get the most out of his body, which, honestly, is pretty much what we expect our athletic heroes to do.
Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before: Though admittedly we've been out of it for a month or so, we would like to take this opportunity to restate our position that athletes should be allowed to put whatever they want into their body. It's their body, if they want to exchange a few more home runs for a few years of their life - which they may or may not be doing, depending on the supplement and the dose - then they should be allowed to do so. If athletes who are not willing to make that bargain miss out on hearing the anthem or a contract, tough noogies. Life has never been fair and it ain't going to start now. Athletes have been trying to get a chemical advantage since, at least, the very first Tour de France in 1903 when riders would take ether to help numb the pain of riding through the Alps and Pyrenees on roads that were nothing more than tightly packed earth. Modern testing techniques have not kept pace with the advances made by drug designers, and while some are calling for a level playing field by continuing to harass performance enhancer users, we say level the playing field by legalizing everything.
AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT: What the hell's happened to presidential campaigns? We had hoped to provide some insightful, useless analysis on the just revving up campaigns upon our return to duty but we can't do that because one is over and the other is down to two people.
Get Out Your History Books: There was a time when the New Hampshire primary didn't even happen until mid-March. We are not making that up. A long time ago, 1956, in a country far, far away, the New Hampshire primary was held on March 13. This year it was held on January 8th and the Iowa Caucus, allowed to precede it because it's only a caucus, was on January 3, before college football season even ended!
This is insane. The three remaining major candidates all announced in early 2007 and have already gone through the longest presidential campaign in history and no one's won anything yet because the election is still 242 days away.
THIS SHOULD GO OVER WELL: On this date in 1765 Britain's House of Lords passed the popular Stamp Act. It was the first British attempt to tax the colonies and required a tax to be paid on all legal documents, permits, commercial contracts, newspapers, wills, pamphlets and playing cards. It went over so well it was repealed 53 weeks later.
Oh Hell: On this date in 1936 the first stock car race was held in Daytona Beach, Florida. It was held on both the beach and highway A1A that parallels the beach and was won by Milt Marion of New York. Future NASCAR founder Bill France finished fifth out of 27 entries.
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: The first Olympian to defend a title won at the Summer Olympics in the Winter Olympics was Swedish figure skater Gillis Grafstrom. Grafstrom won the gold medal in figure skating at the 1920 Summer Games in Antwerp and defended the title at the first Winter Games in Chamonix, France in 1924. A couple of days later, the Canadian ice hockey team would duplicate the feat.
Today's Trivia Question: Who were the winners in the 1956 New Hampshire primaries? - Answer next time!
Threats? Recipes? Trivia question answers? Email The Writer's Shack Here!
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