If it ain't Baroque

I finished The System of the World today, which is to say I finished Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, which is something of an accomplishment. I read the last 80 pages or so on a bench by the reservoir, looking up from time to time to see autumnal trees wavering upside-down in the water amid coins of gold sunlight. As soon as I slammed shut the cover my iPod chose to play Led Zeppelin's In the Light, which was as appropriate as could be wished, and lasted just exactly as long as it took me to walk home.

Mr. Stephenson is not above spending 4,000 words on a description of the bailey of Newgate Prison, or 500 on a particular padlock, and while I enjoyed every diversion, digression, and divagation it did take some time to tunnel through them all. (Those who complain of the digressions have rather missed the point, I think; there's a reason it's called the Baroque Cycle, after all, and while it could be pared down to a single 3,000-page story it would not succeed nearly so well.) But the book did end satisfactorily, and somewhere toward the end I suddenly realized what all those pages had been about, more because he told me than because I am particularly clever. Most of my questions were answered (including some I had left over from Cryptonomicon), and all the plotlines, as far as I can remember, tied themselves off with a tidy bow. Mr. Stephenson, in fact, added a chapter of Epilogs to this one, to head off the complaints he's gotten re: earlier books and the way they end a bit abru

Telephone bureaucracy

"Criminal case? Hold on, let me send you across the hall."
"Is it a felony? You want the felony desk. Please hold."
"No, you want the prosecuting attorney's office. Here's her number."
"Let me transfer you to Witness/Victim."
"Thank you for calling Witness/Victim. If you'd like to leave a message..."

After all that, I did almost immediately get a call back from Sharon at Witness/Victim, and she was extremely nice and helpful. Apparently, they've been looking for me, even though I left my phone number with Detective Stoner a month ago: "We were just talking about you!" said Sharon.

The long and the short of it: they don't know whether I'll have to testify on Monday or Tuesday, jury selection being unpredictable, so they've booked me a hotel room at a Comfort Inn (across the street from the Briarwood Mall) for Sunday and Monday night both. Looks like I'll be spending the better part of three days on this. *growl* Perhaps I'll have some time to roam around downtown, at least, maybe see a friend or two, buy some Pocky at Wizzywig, stop in at the State. Nevertheless: *grrrrrowwwwllll!*

Winning the war

Bush slammed Kerry a couple of days ago for daring to say that our goal was to reduce terror to "nuisance levels." We must, sez our Prez, eradicate terrorism. We have to win the War on Terror. (All this despite saying, several weeks ago, that we probably couldn't win it. But never mind.)

Will somebody, somewhere, please step up and say Kerry was right? There's no way to "win the War on Terror." That's not defeatist; that's self-evident. Terrorism is not a dragon, which will die when you cut off its head; it's not even a hydra, which will die when you've cut off all its heads. Terrorism is self-generative: after fifty terror-free years, or five hundred, all it will take is a single frustrated kid building a pipe bomb in his basement, or a single oppressed minority to get fed up, and terrorism will live again. Anyone, anywhere, can reinvent terrorism. I could do it this afternoon.

Terrorism is an act, not an institution. Winning the War on Terror is as impossible as winning the War on Murder, or the War on Rape, or the War on Whelk-Pestering. We can work to create a world in which terrorism is rare, one where it's not seen as a viable solution (not that the Administration has achieved stage boo of this), but we can't Win. Not without Big Brother, universally applied.

(Oh, wait. I think I just figured out the Plan.)