Books and Spin

[Hogeye]

I've noticed that some books get a reputation or spin that is undeserved or misleading. One example is "Collapse" by Jared Diamond. At a family get-together, my mother ("liberal") and my cousin ("conservative" who works for an oil corp.) were talking about "Collapse." Both parties took "Collapse" to be a "liberal" anti-oil-company pro-govt-intervention book. And yet, as I told my cousin (who hadn't read it) later, that characterization is not quite right. It may have some bias that way, but part of the book covered Diamond's visit to two oil-drilling operations. The first was in southern New Guinea, actually a part claimed by Indonesia. The Indonesian government ran the operation, and they did everything wrong. It was awful - oil spills everywhere, some burning, wide swathes of clearcut for roads, ugly derricks and equipment strewn everywhere - it looked like a wasteland, and was. Wildlife was basically gone, extinguished. Then Diamond went to an operation run by Chevron (or was it Shell?) in northern New Guinea. It was an environmental showcase operation. It appeared to be a refuge, and was. People were not allowed to hunt or fish. One couldn't see evidence of drilling unless one was right on top of a drill site and knew where to look. The few roads were narrow, allowing wildlife to pass over. Diamond saw birds and animals he'd never seen before in any other part of New Guinea. The book was quite different than its rep. I'm not saying it's the opposite, just that its bias was nowhere near as pronounced as reputed.

Another book like that is "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man." Its reputation is ultra-anti-capitalist. In fact, I'm ultra-pro-capitalist, an anarcho-capitalist no less, and I enjoyed it immensely. I learned a lot from John Perkins' observations of the "corporatocracy" and related experiences, and agreed with much of what he had to say. I did disagree with most of his prescriptions, but that was not the bulk of the book.

"State of Fear" is another book with a skewed rep. It is considered by those who have not read it as braindead anti-earth blasphemy. Yet, Michael Creighton emphasizes that climatology is complex, and that different parts of the earth may have vastly different temperature readings, so you can't judge earth's temperature on the basis of local phenomena. (In many reviews, the reviewer claims that Creighton says the opposite; this is a dead giveaway that the reviewer has not even read the book!) Another theme is that science can become politicized. It is actually a book that even greenies would enjoy. It is basically a James Bondish world-traveling mystery-suspense book, cliffhangers and all, with a science edge, as one would expect from the author of "Jurassic Park." You wouldn't know that from its rep among some people!

Do you know of other books that are different from their "spin?"

[Savonarola]

Yet, Michael Creighton emphasizes that climatology is complex, and that different parts of the earth may have vastly different temperature readings, so you can't judge earth's temperature on the basis of local phenomena. (In many reviews, the reviewer claims that Creighton says the opposite; this is a dead giveaway that the reviewer has not even read the book!)

And there it is again. Good times.

[Hogeye]

Oh, I get it. It's a spelling nazi thing. Michael Crichton. Good catch.

[Savonarola]

Oh, I get it. It's a spelling nazi thing. Michael Crichton. Good catch.

Yes, Hogeye, let your rabid attraction to anything remotely supportive of your points completely block insignificant things like paying attention to details or the even name of the author of the book you're drooling over. Darrel has posted his name spelled correctly numerous times, yet you don't learn. Surely, if you've done any research on it, you've seen his name spelled correctly hundreds of times. (You have done research, right?) You're a huge fan of the ideas in his book. Yet you haven't learned how to spell his name. Frankly, if I gave such a damn about the ideas, I'd learn how to spell it. Instead, you don't care; you sing the praises of this book repeatedly, all the while making it clear that you care nothing about anything besides your pet beliefs.

But -- oh no! -- I've been called a spelling nazi! I feel so terrible and mean now!

[Dardedar]

SAV
But -- oh no! -- I've been called a spelling nazi! I feel so terrible and mean now!

DAR
Good heavens SAV, "Michael Creighton" is the correct Ozarkian spelling. How it is spelled in your statist, fake money, tyrannical, socialist hell, hardly matters.

D.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Are you sure the Ozarkian spelling isn't "Cretin"? (OK, cheap shot, but I couldn't resist.)

[Dardedar]

A little insight into Crichton's character. Surprise, suprise.



***
Global Warming Denier Michael Crichton Fictionalizes Critic as Child Rapist

By Paul Kiel - December 14, 2006, 11:45 AM

The battle between anti-global warming activists and their critics is frequently uncivil. Name calling, put downs, you name it, they fling them.

But this marks a new threshold, I think.

This March, Michael Crowley wrote a cover story (sub. req.) in The New Republic hitting blockbuster novelist Michael Crichton's very public denials that global warming was a proved phenomenon.

That was the last he'd heard from Crichton until he picked his latest novel, Next. Here's what he found:

Alex Burnet was in the middle of the most difficult trial of her career, a rape case involving the sexual assault of a two-year-old boy in Malibu. The defendant, thirty-year-old Mick Crowley, was a Washington-based political columnist who was visiting his sister-in-law when he experienced an overwhelming urge to have anal sex with her young son, still in diapers. Crowley was a wealthy, spoiled Yale graduate and heir to a pharmaceutical fortune. ...

It turned out Crowley's taste in love objects was well known in Washington, but [his lawyer]--as was his custom--tried the case vigorously in the press months before the trial, repeatedly characterizing Alex and the child's mother as "fantasizing feminist fundamentalists" who had made up the whole thing from "their sick, twisted imaginations." This, despite a well-documented hospital examination of the child. (Crowley's penis was small, but he had still caused significant tears to the toddler's rectum.)

In an article posted to the New Republic's Web site today, Crowley responded:

The next page contains fleeting references to Crowley as a "weasel" and a "dickhead," and, later, "that political reporter who likes little boys." But that's it--Crowley comes and goes without affecting the plot. He is not a character so much as a voodoo doll. Knowing that Crichton had used prior books to attack very real-seeming people, I was suspicious. Who was this Mick Crowley? A Google search turned up an Irish Workers Party politician in Knocknaheeny, Ireland. But Crowley's tireless advocacy for County Cork's disabled seemed to make him an unlikely target of Crichton's ire. And that's when it dawned on me: I happen to be a Washington political journalist. And, yes, I did attend Yale University. And, come to think of it, I had recently written a critical 3,700-word cover story about Crichton. In lieu of a letter to the editor, Crichton had fictionalized me as a child rapist. And, perhaps worse, falsely branded me a pharmaceutical-industry profiteer.

link

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

It's in the R tradition - the only difference is Crichton's stuff is sold as fiction. That, of course, doesn't keep the R's from quoting it as fact, but he is at least honest enough to label it what it is. But then, the R's don't seem to know the difference between fact and fiction anyway. Remember attacks on Webb based on passages from one of his fiction books - and as for their Iraqi "welcomed with flowers" fairy tale!