'Going Rogue': The Index

'Going Rogue' does not have an index. Various theories as to why not were promulgated, including the notion that it was an evul ploy to make Washington insiders actually read the book rather than just check the index for references to themselves or their overlords.

Some readers here may know that I'm a book editor who also writes indexes. I think the reason for omitting an index was simply time. The publisher wanted speed. Including an index would have added at least two weeks to the schedule.

Nonetheless, two smarty pantses have provided their own indexes. Here's a sample from Slate:

Alaska
________autumn bouquet of, 1
________robin's egg sky of, 2
________superiority to Lower 48 of, 1-413

Who knew that indexing could be fun?

h/t Andrew Sullivan.

'Going Rogue' Goes Rogue

And, in case you didn't get the other book reference (comme moi), here's a linky.

via Joe.My.God

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be bikers.

Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be bikers
Don't let 'em pick fights and drive them old choppers
Make 'em be doctors and lawyers and such
Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be bikers
They'll never stay home and they're always in gangs
Not to mention, often in jail ....

Not to generalize or anything, but this chilling news item from the BBC about biker wars in Ontario reminds us that before street gangs became la cause du jour, bikers were the outlaws you avoided as in-laws.

Six members of a Canadian motorcycle gang have been jailed for life for murdering eight fellow bikers found shot to death in deepest Ontario. What lay behind the massacre? ...

The motive for the bloodshed lay in a deep schism that had developed within the Bandidos' Canadian chapters.

The victims were members of the Toronto chapter, who were sponsored by the gang's Scandinavian wing but were not recognised by the Bandidos' head office in Texas.

Peter Edwards, a journalist with the Toronto Star and expert on the case, explained: "There was a chapter based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, who came under the auspices of Toronto. "But Winnipeg were not granted full patches by Toronto. They
effectively had no job security and they grew really frustrated."

Who knew that it was basically a labour/management problem that went terribly, terribly wrong?

Cats on Dimitri Soudas: Why Does He Hate Us?

Fur flew, the claws came out and by the end of it all, a large hairball had been coughed up.

Though it all started innocently enough with a text message, not even a tweet.

"Thatcher has died".

That texting triggered a cascade of embarassing communications which ended with an ailurophobic remark.

Had it not actually happened, one might assume it was a brilliant Monty Python sketch, just as memorable as the dead Norwegian Blue parrot.

But it did and it was reported by the BBC in its characteristic pithy style.

Let's do 'The Time Warp' again

One year ago, DAMMIT JANET! was launched and, as dBO reminds us in her
anniversary post earlier today, she led off with a confession related to the name of the blog.

My inaugural post consisted of the lyrics of the song after which we named this little blog-thingy.

Well, now I'm ready to make a confession of my own.

When DJ! was proposed as a name, all I knew of the phrase was that it was in pretty common use. I did not know it came from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Because I am probably the last person in the western world NOT to have seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Way back, when it became a cult hit, some of my friends -- and one very annoying one in particular -- were in the van of the avant garde. They'd do the whole toast-and-costumes bit and head off to midnight screenings.

Worse, at the drop of a hat, they'd sing the songs, recite the dialogue, and generally rhapsodize about what sounded pretty damn dumb to me.

So, natch, the more they bugged me to come with them, the more I dug my heels in.

Besides, why bother when I could have an impromptu, albeit amateur, performance of it any time I liked?

Let's jump in the time machine and fast-forward to a year-and-a-bit ago, shall we?

The name was proposed, your humble scribe here liked the sound of it, completely forgetting where it came from, and so it came to pass that I'm contributing to a blog commemorating and celebrating a cult classic movie that I've never seen.

Is that irony? Or simply comeuppance?

Where's The Cake?

Well. Time sure flies by when one is having fun.

DAMMIT JANET! is one year old. This was my inaugural blogpost.

When I turned to the weird world web for blogging inspiration, I found this, The Rocky Horror Picture Show in 30 seconds, re-enacted by bunnies!!! Could the WWW actually be ... Alice's Restaurant?

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant.

Absolutely, and all the rest of it too, as Arlo Guthrie set it down here. While reading those lyrics you might get a feeling that someone pushed the fast forward button. Because everything old has become new again. The authoritarianism of the 50's is being lovingly restored by Stevie and his Harpocrats - It's the New™ Government, peons!!!

There's an article in Ottawa Magazine (sorry, articles are not online, not even the table of content) this month about the changes on The Hill. It confirmed that Harper Conservatives are not your parents'; the PM has never debated a bill - in the Parliamentary definition of debate rather than the obfuscation his MPs practice - in the House of Commons. Never.