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I know he did poorly in the debate last night, but it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Herman Cain were the Republican nominee. His “9-9-9 plan”, based on this Tax Policy Center analysis that Krugman linked to, seems to be the last word in regressive taxation, and his ability to blend nearly Randian contempt for the poor with Christian rhetoric is something to behold.

He seems to me to be the most devout believer in Republican ideology of all the candidates. I hate to quote myself, but I wrote awhile back that “it’s impossible to honestly believe all of the things in the Republican party line without being a rather confused person.” Perhaps “confused” is not quite the right word; but what I mean is that people like Cain, who are capable of fusing the two very contradictory aspects of the party line with total confidence, as if it all makes perfect sense, are unusual and hence, very striking when they show up on the political scene.

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Here’s an interesting story: a Pew Research center study reported that Obama has received the most negative coverage of all the 2012 candidates recently.

One thing I like about the CBS News story linked above is its claim that this report “cuts against the widespread conservative claim that the ‘liberal media’ aides [sic] Mr. Obama…” No, it doesn’t. I don’t believe there is anything whatever that could cut against that claim in the minds of Conservatives, because anything that does must necessarily be a product of same “liberal media”, according to the Conservative way of thinking. It’s an utterly un-falsifiable concept.

Nor is there a major pro-Conservative bias in the press, however. I think the study found what it did because, as President, Obama has to actually do things that have measurable effects, as opposed to simply talking and being talked about like his prospective opponents.

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“Plans are nothing; planning is everything.”–Dwight Eisenhower.

Conservative blogger and Herman Cain supporter Robert Stacy McCain actually makes a good point, in passing, while discussing the name of Cain’s website:

“Just like “9-9-9,” the phrase sticks in your mind: Easy to say, easy to remember…” 

People have been wondering, now that he’s the front-runner: does Cain have a chance at winning the nomination? I think he actually does, for two reasons.

First, as R.S. McCain says, the “9-9-9 plan” is easy to remember. As far as I can tell, Cain is the only one who has a plan like that. What’s Romney’s plan? It has no catchy name. 

Now, of course, until yesterday I knew nothing about the “9-9-9 plan”. Then I read this excellent post by Nameless Cynic, who says:

“[Cain’s] current big campaign promise is the 9-9-9 tax plan (9% income tax, 9% business tax, 9% sales tax). A plan which is basically hated by everybody, Democrat or Republican, except Herman Cain… basically, the rich get taxed less, the poor and middle class get taxed more, and the government gets less money.” 

Well, that sounds bad. Unfortunately, I don’t think the typical voter gets down to details like what a plan actually is, or what its probable consequences are. The important thing is that they can, on being asked “what does Herman Cain want to do”, respond readily with “the 9-9-9 plan!” It makes it sound like they know what’s going on.

The second reason is more simple: it is that Conservatives are tired of being accused of racism, and they reckon that supporting Cain makes it harder for that charge to stick.

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The Empire set on the Sun
And no one there heard it fall.
O’er desolate cities and vistas
Andromeda casted a pall. 
When the heavy bombardment  
Had aught but ended
The Things of the Blackness
 From the Cosmos descended.
The shallows, now empty,
Still speak of their presence.
Their footprints, not faded,
Shall fade some millennia hence.
Past the blaze of the ritual fire,
Past the encircling rock,
Past the Gods and their wards,
They sped to the black in a random walk.
Where’er the Second Law holds sway
There the Natives will have cause to grieve.
And as they go to old, dead castles,
Will ghosts turn lights out as they leave?


So, for fun, I was attempting to do some sort of Lovecraft-like poem, in the vein of Nemesis and Nyarlathotep. I don’t think I succeeded, but the end result is interesting anyway. The last line reminds me of the Arthur C. Clarke story “The Nine Billion Names of God“.

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Via Hacker News comes a fascinating article by Tim Rogers on the decline of video games. It’s quite disturbing.

The closest thing I’ve played to one of these “social games” was Animal Crossing, which was quite enjoyable in its way, but after playing it regularly for about a year, I’d had the experience and have never since felt a desire to play a game that simulated doing everyday activities.

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I don’t know much, but I know that it never pays to argue with someone about what is considered “good” weather.

Most of the people I know seem to hate all weather that is not at least 75 degrees fahrenheit and sunny. I’m unusual in that I like cool, dark, rainy weather. I also think snow is very beautiful, although it is an impediment to driving and walking, and I can see why people hate it for that reason. But sun and heat–heat for me being 75 and over–I find very unpleasant.

I’m not writing this because it’s very interesting by itself, but rather because it poses a problem. When it is 75+ and bright out and people say to me “it’s a beautiful day”, my instinct is to say “No, it isn’t. It’s too hot. I don’t care for it.” But that seems a bit too argumentative, and after all, if they enjoy that sort of weather, I don’t want to argue with them. Likewise, when it is cool and rainy and they say “it is cold and there is moisture in the air! AGGGHHHHHH!”, I don’t like to say “it’s lovely”, since I can’t help but feel a touch annoyed when they say the same to me in warm weather.

So, I mostly just smile and nod. Maybe I am wrong, but I feel that there is no way to tell someone their perception is the opposite of my perception without seeming a little rude.

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I’m re-reading Lovecraft’s The Shadow Out of Time and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. And I’m about to spoil parts of them, so beware!

Both books deal with men who, by supernatural means, acquire vast knowledge by speaking with people and beings from distant times. One man does so deliberately, the other accidentally, but in both cases the theme is the same.

It’s easy for me to forget that in Lovecraft’s time there was no internet, but when you think about it, the amount of knowledge opened up to us with its advent is probably nearly as overwhelming as that which is gained by the characters in these stories. Upon thinking of this, I realized that the amount of knowledge acquired by the characters in these stories must have seemed even more fantastic at the time they were written.

Overwhelming knowledge is a common theme in Lovecraft’s work. For instance, the opening passage from The Call of Cthulhu:

“We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”

We are capable today of “correlating the contents” to an extent Lovecraft never could have dreamed of. And yet, as anyone will tell you, the internet is not being used to its full potential. J.E. Sawyer and Freddie DeBoer have both recently written fine articles on this subject.

I find the case for a technological singularity at some point in the future quite persuasive. But on the other hand, technology currently enables people to have much more knowledge than most of them actually do, which makes me wonder if the mere fact it might be possible really means it will happen.

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Ordinarily, on hearing news like this, I jokingly post something to the effect that H.P. Lovecraft’s stories are actually true. (And I still sort of did do that in the title of this post. I couldn’t pass it up.)

However, in this instance, there’s also a somewhat more serious side to it. This article by Brian Switek at Wired does a good job describing how the story has been over-hyped by the mainstream press.

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While I’ve been on the topic of scary stuff–it is Halloween month, after all–I realize that most of my focus has been on books, games and movies. I haven’t talked much about scary music. To be honest, that’s because I don’t know of much.

Probably the most unsettling music I ever heard was the main theme to–you guessed it–The Omen. (I know I keep citing it, but there’s a reason it’s my favorite horror movie.)

I can think of many frightening musical motifs from the Star Wars franchise, both movies and games, and there are some pieces of classical music that are quite effective at evoking fear. Of course, except in the last case, all the pieces I can think of are associated with some frightening character or scene, which makes it more difficult to assess how effective they are on their own.

I wonder: can a piece of music be really frightening by itself, or does it need to complement something else?

(Hat Tip to Thingy for setting me thinking along these lines with this post.)

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One of the greatest writers and game designers of our day, Chris Avellone, has often said that even his best stories aren’t as good as the stories which players make for themselves just playing his video games. As he himself put it in an interview with Iron Tower Studio:

“[A]s a narrative designer, I can’t compete a player’s story about how their dwarf fighter with 3 hit points exploited a crack in the canyon terrain and the limited range of motion of orcish axes to lure 20 orcs to their death one by one. Simple, but that’s a legend being made right there.” 

I’m not sure that this is always true; as Avellone’s stories are, to me, some of the best I’ve ever seen in any medium. But it’s probably true for most video games.

However, as I was thinking about this post some more, it occurred to me that audience experience might be more vital to a work than people realize, even in media like books and films. Obviously, such passive forms don’t offer the same opportunities as games, but there is still room for spontaneous occurrences in the audience’s experience.

Let me give an example of something that happened to me once that illustrates what I mean. I was listening (with headphones) to an audiobook of some horror novel. I was getting to a suspenseful point in the narrative when I became conscious of an odd sound, barely discernible, in the background. I thought it might be my imagination, so I kept listening to the story.

The sound gradually built just as the story began getting really ominous, eventually becoming an outright roar, until I became certain it was not merely my imagination. A moment later, I realized it was also not a sound effect in the book. At this same moment, the narrator of the story announced the arrival of the monster.
Simultaneously, I removed my headphones and realize that this roar I’d been hearing was… merely an aircraft flying over my dwelling.

This is a minor incident, and it took only about 30 seconds to occur, but it worked with the story well enough to dramatically increase the effectiveness of the scene I was listening to. And it was something that neither the novel’s author, nor the audiobook people had any control over.

True, they could have put in some sound effect to achieve the same effect, but it’s hard to create the same effect with something deliberately planned as opposed to something spontaneous. Even if you succeeded, it would only work the first time somebody listens to it.

I’ve written before about reading books and watching films at particular times of year, and under particular weather conditions. Perhaps this is another important element in the horror genre: getting the external conditions right to allow for spontaneously scary experiences.