Rereading favourites: Robert Ludlum’s ‘The Icarus Agenda’

Off we go with the first post.

Seeing how I’m now past 20, I felt it was about time I started rereading some old favourites. What to expect then? There’ll certainly be Tolkien, there’ll be Ludlum (beginning: here) and there’ll be Clancy. Obviously, I’ll write about Atlas Shrugged (but then I consider that an ongoing process rather than rereading) and there’ll be others (maybe even Harry Potter!). Let’s begin with The Icarus Agenda, though.

About three years ago (summer of ‘05) I bought a couple of Ludlum’s novels. I had read the Bourne trilogy the summer before (2004) and liked it, so when it was time to do some reading in English for exam purposes, I decided to go with Ludlum. I’ll talk about some of the others later but The Icarus Agenda was my favourite.

About a week ago, I received my new copy of the book (the old one had fallen apart) and went through it rather quickly (finished Sunday morning at 1:40 a.m.). I still like it, I certainly got more out of it than I did last time and I also saw more of its flaws than I did last time.

Let’s begin with the good stuff. According to Wikipedia, it was written in 1988 (seems plausible) and is the sequel to The Chancellor Manuscript (obviously, considering how Inver Brass plays a major role). The plot is summed up rather quickly: American congressman goes to Oman to singlehandedly solve a hostage crisis, comes back successful, is secretly put into the spotlight of the political arena and hunted by enemies. In the end, he wins, gets the girl and loses some friends.

There, tons of spoilers but that’s not the point (it’ll get much worse, trust me!). I like the main character – Evan Kendrick – a lot. Not entirely sure whether he’s still appropriate today but I’m quite confident that he is. A bit more thoughtfulness towards the Middle East wouldn’t hurt and even though it mostly stays at the surface, the book’s rather refreshing insofar as it isn’t explicitly anti-Arab (it’s rather quite pro-Arab, in fact). I enjoy that. Obviously, there’s probably not too many Ahmats left (a pro-American, young sultan) but on the other hand Bin Laden isn’t so different from the religious nutjobs in the book.

Khalela is an acceptable character as well. Ignoring that she was raped as a student (seems to be a thing with Ludlum, having his main heroine raped, if I remember another one correctly (probably the next one I’ll reread – The Sigma Protocol)) and that comes across as a rather cheap ploy to make her character seem more complex, she still offers great insights. It’s probably mostly the hopeless romantic in me (usually plays a rather small role next to the cynic) but I find the relationship between her and Kendrick very exciting and extremely, well, pleasant. A strong woman and a strong man – eventually, I guess, it represents what I consider a proper relationship. It’s exothermic – I came up with another example when thinking about it (Tucker Max says there’s three kinds of people: those that take from the table, those that come out about even and those that add to the table – in a relationship you’d want the last kind of person as your partner) but this one’s better. They go out and come back exhausted and being together doesn’t take additional energy but rather gives back to both of them. A non-zero-sum game, a win-win situation. A fortress against an unpleasant world.

Manny, of course, is just plain delightful. Very interesting, very funny. There’s quite a few more interesting characters throughout the book (it’s actually filled with them) – MJ, the Inver Brass crew, Ahmat, Bobbie – the list goes on and even though the book has more than 800 pages (at least my version does), you know there’s much more that could’ve been said about them.

Now, after a lots of praise, let’s get to the parts that I didn’t like too much. Characters: The evil guys don’t get enough depth. Their motivation basically boils down to “money”. That’s about as unexciting and simplistic as you can get – I guess Ludlum used all his powder on the Arab terrorists (who, consequently, come out much more multi-layered). The worst offense in terms of character, though, is two-fold: first, Evan Kendrick’s conversion to willing pawn needs more work, and secondly – more importantly, for me personally, Gerald Bryce is an absolutely shitty character. He plays one of the major, albeit very silent, roles in the book and gets basically zero motivation. Nada. It hurts and it shows. Why would he do what he does? An additional offender in this regard is Milos – why not give us his background? Which country, what happened, how’d he get out? IIRC, there’s some link to The Chancellor Manuscript but I can’t exactly remember it and it wasn’t that deep (his father played the same role, I think). Not enough – the basic problem is lack of convincing motivation.

Finally, let’s get to the ugly stuff. It’s mostly in “Book Three”. Why the hell would there be a new Mahdi? There’s no point and it acts entirely counter to the other development – arms dealers being killed and less arms being delievered. One’s supposed to be hopeful, the other’s supposed to highlight how fucked up the situation still is. If you wanted to get that done, you’d have to do it the exact opposite way around – let the plan against the arms dealer not work out and show some “rational” Arab kill the new Mahdi.

The whole arms dealer part is extremely stupid anyway. It feels kinda like the air raid on Tokyo in Pearl Harbor – the story works fairly well without it (very well, actually) and there’re plenty of possibilities to bring the story to a satisfying end. Have Khalela and Kendrick get married, have a baby, Kendrick being elected Vice President and getting some hopeful deal with Ahmat and an Israeli. Something like that. This just doesn’t work and feels terribly forced. One more thing: the whole scene on the island – yeah, that could’ve used some work.

The bottom line: I still very much enjoyed this book. It makes for an exciting read and especially the first part feels very well thought out and finely executed. Leave the Inver Brass stuff out and it makes for a great book on its own. The second part isn’t quite as strong and rests mainly on the shoulders of the Evan-Khalela relationship (as far as I’m concerned, that is) plus some other good characters (Manny, MJ etc). The third part is just plain ugly (then again it’s only 40+ pages). All in all well worth the time (and you’d better be prepared to spend a couple of hours unable to put the book down once you’ve proceeded halfway through it).

4/5

“Major Changes”

I had half a huge post worked out, about corporate discounts and stage-gate-processes, being able to kill a project and how the parts are sometimes worth more than the whole.

Then I decided: fuck it. If some major corporation can do it, so can we.

So, instead of a spin-off and other major stuff, I’m just gonna change around some categories and stuff.

We’re back in business, baby.

What’s new, then?

A couple of entertainment categories, so far. And a “nonsense” category. That’s where all the stupid youtube vids are supposed to go.

Jordin Sparks ft. Chris Brown – No Air

Post 150 and probably the last one before it’s back to proper posting (a few more days, be patient and you shall be rewarded!).

A couple of notes on the above vid: actually, just one: I am old.

Chris Brown is more than a year younger than I am, Jordin Sparks more than a year and a half (almost 20 months!). These people are already making shitloads of money.

Sure, in the long run I have a fair shot at making more – it’s what education is all about. Pick the right one and you’ll make lots of money. But damn do I need to hurry up (don’t worry – I’m right on schedule;)).

Blatant Marxism

Holy fuck. Via Club for Growth.

The Philosophy of Liberty

Via Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty.

Teairra Mari – La La

Ah, the good old days of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. I fondly remember them.

Ron Paul’s Campaign For Liberty

I’m only gonna post the video for now. Longer post coming up, though. Not necessarily only about this but also about Bob Barr and why he needs to get your voice instead of John McCain. I’ve reached the conclusion that we can survive four years of Barack Obama. Coming up – end of June-ish. Needs some research to illustrate what I’m trying to say and I lack the time for that right now.

RSS Feeds

Let’s give this another try. So far it has always failed miserably. 27 feeds seems manageable and the worst offenders are still Firefox-only.

What’s my problem? I find it far easier to ignore shit in Firefox than in the feed reader. We’ll see how well RSSOwl does. The major problem probably would’ve been Empire Online – I only read about 10-15 percent of what they post (because I quite frankly don’t give a shit about the rest).

Of the ones I do have in RSSOwl now? Timothy Sykes might be dropped rather soon-ish. Again, only about 20% read. Cato-at-Liberty – maybe 40-50%. Reason’s Hit & Run – 70-80%. There’s a few more (Kristin at E!, Daily Paul) but this might just work out this time round.

Feminism in the 21st Century

So, browsing the “recently posted” feature on the Dashboard I found the following post (and, consequently, the accompanying blog).

Let’s start with the post. As may or may not have become clear I’m “pro-choice”. Why? Well, it basically boils down to the Randian argument. Valuing actual life more than potential life. On the other hand, we get something like this:

In other words, this essentially allowed doctors to treat women and human beings who can think for themselves and make their own decisions, especially when it came to their bodies and their reproductive rights. We were no longer viewed as animals incapable of free thought and I’d like it to remain this way, for my sake and for my future daughters-should I have one- sake.

Which so hilariously misses the point it’s not even funny anymore. The gist of the argument by opponents is that abortion is murder. Now, personally I don’t accept that – partly because there’s no science to back it up (Christian nutjobs burning to prove me wrong: fuck off already) and partly (more importantly) because the fetus is a “parasite” latching onto the woman. It’s incapable of surviving outside of the woman’s body, it’s basically still part of the woman. Or, in the words of the Ayatollah: it’s only a potential life, not an actual life. Obviously, there comes a point where the fetus is capable of surviving outside of the woman’s body but seeing how rare those cases of late-term abortions are, I’m not really bothered by them (and the lack of justification for them) – just have the abortion already if you’re going to have it. (Incidentally, I’d personally only consider an abortion in one case – and in that one case I’d push real hard for it (think: it’s me or the baby). What case? Well, I’ll let Tucker Max say it:

Her “NO! You’re mean! What would you do if you had a retarded child?”
Me “I’d bash it’s head against a rock, and have another kid.”

Yes, I’m a horrible person.)

Anyway, back to our warrior-feminist. There’s obviously no case of human beings “thinking for themselves” when we’re talking about murder – while I might consider someone dying a good idea, that’s not really a choice I can make. So, the major point really isn’t addressed at all – if it’s a person, then you can’t abort it. If it isn’t – then you can. Why does it bother me? Well, terms like “reproductive rights” are bound to make my head spin.

Which brings us to the more general problem. What the fuck is it with feminism in the 21st century? What’s the bloody point? I really don’t get it. It might be a case of confusing positive with negative freedom (more on that later) but basically this is about as silly as the Iranian delegate to the UN’s human rights council telling Switzerland they really ought to improve their human rights situation. It’s strangely entertaining in a sick way but it really misses the point.

Let’s look at what feminists might complain about in the west today – which is what they enjoy doing most, not making reasonable claims about some backwater shithole (read: Muslim countries, African countries) doing all kinds of horrible shit.

• Women get paid less than men.

First of all, I consider this to be freedom of contract. There’s obviously no real reason to do this – apart from the fact that women really want to have their cake and eat it too. Let’s be honest: you can’t have a career and be a really caring mother. Sure, you might muddle through (I expect to) but if you want to live up to the high standards you’ve set, you won’t be able to put in the kind of hours that’s necessary for a real career. Obviously, my vision of a real career might differ somewhat from your’s. Solution? The Japanese way. Offer a motherhood and a career track. Give women a real choice. You want to have children? Well, we’re not gonna pick up the tab. You want to play with the boys? Sure, be our guest but NO CHILDREN.

That’s about everything I can come up with, too. There’s probably some other stupid bullshit about religion keeping women down (leave the church already – I’m in the process of doing so myself (or as a friend put it last night: so you’re lazily thinking about it)), husbands being evil shits who don’t do any work around the house, general attitudes in society being bad towards women, and going in all kinds of whacko dircetions from there, complaints about everything from pornography to women being whores and getting called out while men can sleep around and be respected for it.

Anyway, let’s finish this one. I basically consider feminism evil for the same reason “black pride” is evil: it’s collectivist. It’s about a (made-up) group rather than the individual. You want something special qua being female. This is where positive freedom comes into play. The government “oughta do something”. This leads to such rich stories as there being more female graduates than male graduates and yet men get all the decent jobs – here’s a hint: Women’s Studies isn’t gonna land you any kind of decent job. It’s a dead end.

Here are another ten worthless majors. And here are some more.

Interesting to see how many engineering majors are on that list. Or economics. Biology. Chemistry. What, you don’t see them on there? NEITHER DO I!

Most of those majors listed are incredibly popular with women and emos. The same people who bitch about the world. See the fucking link?

God Bless Capitalism