A good friend and loyal reader writes:

I'm shocked that you still have a ratio of almost 3:1 for political posts compared to most anything else. I'm also shocked that culture posts come in at #2. I would have thought that economic posts would be #2 or #1.

He's right. I should bring all categories to 10 posts each before I post again on politics. (Shannon Elizabeth posts notwithstanding, because that was meant to be tongue-in-cheek all along.)

To wit: eight "books" posts in a row, of which this is the first.

-----

I'm watching A Scanner Darkly, the film adaptation of the novel by Philip K. Dick. I hate his books, but love the films based on his books, Blade Runner, Screamers, Minority Report, parts of Total Recall. I find this to be more common as I get older, preferring movies to novels. Why?

The easy answer is that my life is filling up: family, work, commute, home ownership. A 90-minute film is an easier pill to swallow than a week-long book. But this is almost too easy. Lives are always full. What was my excuse before? And you have to account for the national decline in readership overall.

I think the real answer is that film is improving while books are not. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind would never have worked as a book. In the book version of Jesus' Son -- and this is hard for me to admit, because Denis Johnson is a first-tier writer -- your heart does not break when Michelle gets the abortion. It is still tempting for me to cry when I see Samantha Morton on screen.

Sometimes I watch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Amores Perros without subtitles. On that latter film, all of the parallels between the characters and their pets would have been pretentious and overwritten in fiction. On screen, it is brilliant.

There are exceptions to every trend. The King by Donald Barthelme is my favorite novel, and would never work as a motion picture. The English Patient was excellent in both media. I am nervous about the upcoming film adaptation of Life of Pi. And on adaptations, Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation of The Orchid Thief was terribly flawed.

New York City symbolically banned use of the word n****r on Wednesday, the latest step in a campaign that hopes to expunge the most vile of racial slurs from hip hop music and television.

The City Council unanimously declared a moratorium that carries no penalty but aims to stop youth from casually using the word, considered by most Americans to be the most offensive in the English language.

Source. Emphasis and editing marks are mine, and not of the original.

Some unassorted thoughts on language:

1. I would have thought the word "motherfucker" was the most offensive in the English language. But look which one I felt compelled to edit, and which one I didn't.
2. In the privacy (and safety) of our home, my wife and I playfully address each other with some of the cleaner racial slurs. (That is to say, cleaner than the N-bomb, and there are several.) Even though we are both white, we do not call usually call each other "cracker," which somehow comes off as too clean. We do not allow each other to refer to the kids this way, and neither will we allow the kids to refer to us -- or to each other -- that way when the time comes. Too disrespectful.
   
3. Liberals often bristle when conservatives call them liberals, but the reverse is never true. Why? Certainly a liberal wields the word "conservative" as an insult, just as a conservative wields the word "liberal." And certainly each side knows this of the other.
4. More on that: I am a libertarian, but am not offended when a liberal calls me conservative. I chafe greatly, though, when a liberal calls me a Republican. (I haven't been called a Democrat in 15 years or so, even though I voted for Al Gore in 2000.)
   
5. It is said that dogs do not really recognize language. A dog cannot distinguish between "sit," "spit," "skit," or "slit." Try any of those tonight, with your otherwise normal non-verbal commands. Quite frankly, to get my dog to sit, I have knock the legs out from under her.
6. At one time or another I have studied Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, Russian, and Arabic, listed in order of least-perplexing to most-perplexing. Speaking of dogs, Arabic was actually more difficult to learn than the sound of my dog barking was. Over the years, I have been able to sort her barks into categories such as, "we have human company," "we have animal company," "people are walking by," "I'm hurt," and "I'm outside and want inside." In spite of my study, I still can't understand a single word of Arabic. Not one word. At least to the degree that civilization is world view and world view is language, it is impossible to deny that the Arab world and the west are suffering a clash of civilizations.