Deus X Makina

It seems to me that the Maryland court faces the tremendous, impossible task of preserving the freedom of speech by limiting it.

The first thing we must do when examining this issue is to admit that free speech must be limited, and has been by the Supreme Court of the United States. You are not free to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, nor spread the credit card numbers of your customers, nor speak falsehoods about others that successfully defame them.

The question, however, is what you can say anonymously. Well, when examining the above examples, anonymity or even the expectation of anonymity is irrelevant. The argument that speech is not speech unless attributable to a speaker is faulty: speech is constructed when information is distributed to others, and the anonymous internet poster is no different. The First, Fourth, Sixth, Ninth, and Fourteenth amendments of the Constitution offer no protection for, in this case, defamatory speech.

What is at issue, however, is the feasibility of enforcement. We cannot allow the Courts to be flooded with suits that seek discovery into the identity of anonymous posters. Besides the fact that international posters almost certainly make up a significant portion of these posts, the advent of the library usage or "internet cafes" which allow or even encourage anonymous use make it impossible for the judicial branch to entertain requests for identity inquiries. The idea of a plaintiff's response to an anonymous post qualifying as notice or service of process is naive and short-sighted.

If the State of Maryland wishes to prevent anonymous defamatory speech, the burden rests mostly with the legislature: enact laws that require identity verification and documentation at all establishments that offer internet access, including libraries, internet cafes, hotel lobbies, and school computer labs. Plus they would need to direct purchasers of internet distribution devices (Wi-Fi) to disable unsecured access to their service by assigning liability for individuals for any traffic sent from their IP address. Ludicrous? Probably not for the State of Maryland. But federally this would be a massive effort.

The other option is also available only to the legislature: limit liability for anonymous speech under the umbrella that the reasonable person should not give weight to such speech, and those that act on its credibility do so unreasonably and, most importantly, unforeseeably from the point of view of the anonymous speaker. That would be a constitutional regulation of speech that would allow feasible internet usage to continue throughout the State, and boldly tell Dunkin Donuts to do what everyone else does: respond with their own anonymous postings praising the taste of their heavenly donuts, admiring the cleanliness of their magnificent facilities, and ridiculing the original poster as a inbred simpleton with multiple venereal diseases.

Case closed.

1. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
2. Abbey Road
3. The White Album
4. Revolver
5. Rubber Soul
6. Magical Mystery Tour
7. A Hard Day's Night
8. Help!
9. Please Please Me
10. With the Beatles

4 STARS

Upon completing this book, I am pleasantly reminded of the ultra-suspense I was feeling upon finishing The Relic, Preston & Child's first. I very much enjoyed that book (even though I describe it to others as "monster loose in a museum") along with The Cabinet of Curiosities, book three of the series. I view Reliquary (Book 2) as good but not great, primarily because I was hoping to find a lot more of the science and evolutionary theory present in The Relic.

I came [to Amazon.com's user reviews], however, expecting to find four star reviews or higher: I find that I am much more critical of books than most. It was very surprising to me to find several prominent reviews complaining about the villain's unbelievable origins and powers. My question: what series have you been reading? I will not spoil Still Life with Crows, but if you happened to skip ahead in the series, please stop reading this review.

The Relic's Mbwun travels nearly five thousand miles to wreak havoc on the museum. Reliquary's monsters devour a fully-armed squad of Navy SEALS. The secret for immortality is revealed to Pendergast in The Cabinet of Curiosities. And you are seriously upset because this villain runs pretty fast? Wow. Just... wow.

Needless to say, I found the explanation provided, albeit brief, fully within the realm of my suspension of disbelief, and I am not someone who swallows fiction whole (see also: The Likeness by Tana French). Another reviewer complained about Pendergast's vision into the past, used in this book and the last. Please! It's a simple plot device used to manually and fully recreate the clues that have been provided throughout the book. The reader didn't truly care about the mystery of the Ghost Warriors until Pendergast connects it, and without the vision, it's doubtful that we would have noticed the significance.

The Pendergast series is full of the mystical and unexplained (see also: Enoch Leng). If you didn't suspend your disbelief for the first three, why are you reading the fourth? The only area where Preston and Child continually lose stars from me is that this is "action fiction": that is, the same relationship the television show "24" has to "drama". Characters come and go, live and die, experience different motivating factors, but none really change or grow. This really limits the depth of the books.

But I don't mind. It's great suspense. On to the Diogenes Trilogy!

1. Careerbuilder.com: It May Be Time, okay, that was a little funny. A little.
2. Bud Light: Conan O'Brien's Swedish Commercial, wow... and I thought last year's commercials were bad.
3. Priceline.com: Shatner in your Ear, making fun of Shatner never gets old.
4. Coca-Cola: Heist, Peter and the Wolf makes this somewhat entertaining.
5. E*TRADE: Talking Babies Skins Takedown, golf humor! Yay!
6. Hulu: Alec Baldwin, the script is a little light, but Baldwin delivers it perfectly.
7. Bridgestone: Jump Around (the Moon), again, the music makes the ad.
8. Pepsi: Forever Young, Bob Dylan is cool, but comparing Gumby to Shrek and James Belushi to Jack Black kills it.
9. NFL: Story behind the Story, I dig this line of ads.
10. Cash4Gold.com: Featuring Ed McMahon and Hammer, the dawning that they weren't serious made this ad for me.

3 STARS

I have to admit that I began this book with very high expectations. After reading Into the Woods, French's first, I found the prose so meaningful and immersive that I simply assumed that she would find an editor or some kind of mentor who would help with her story construction and fine tune a few of her characters. Unfortunately, she fixes a few problems to find a few others.

The first star French lost right off the bat: this book is pure fiction. That is, to say, that it requires a suspension of disbelief which we all possess, to some degree, and use when we experience fictional work. Luke Skywalker didn't really live in a galaxy far, far away. We choose to leave our ultra-rational, sensical sides behind when we start reading or watching, and choose not to ask certain questions when faced with simple inconsistencies: "If he lived in a galaxy far, far away, how did we find out about it?"

French chooses a premise for her second work which stretches that beyond measure. A woman who closely resembles the supporting character from Into the Woods, Cassie Maddox, is murdered and Cassie chooses to be put undercover as the woman, spinning a tale for her friends that she simply went into a coma and lost a lot of her memories about the stabbing. This is, of course, ludicrous. French tries to supplicate you by showing Maddox multiple films of her likeness in her daily life and having Cassie work super-hard at memorizing minor facts about the victim's life. It doesn't work: at the end of Act I, I still resoundingly found the idea of someone stepping into another's life and hoping no one would notice unbelievable.

If, and that's a big "if", you choose to suspend your disbelief a little longer than I could, there is a reasonably good book underneath, which is quite enjoyable. Again, French shows her tremendous prowess in flowing passages about Cassie's anxiety and longing for the relationship the victim, "Lexie", had with her four roommates. It's very good, just like the last book.

Unfortunately, French loses the second star due to another simple story construction problem which plagued her previously: tipping her hand at the wrong time. We immediately receive information about Lexie that's conflicting and provokes intrigue, and French does a great job of tittering the reader along as Cassie uncovers clues. Unfortunately, French establishes the "why" of the crime near the midpoint of the book, and finishes the climax with the "how". Why someone didn't stop her and say, "Hey, you've got a great story here. Why not combine the 'why' and the 'how' into the climax together?" It's a huge letdown when we find out who the killer is, but realize that we had known for some time what happened, sans details.

Overall, another quality addition by French, but I just can't help thinking that there must be something better in her arsenal. I finished the book as quickly as I could after realizing that there was nothing else to find. The character "Daniel" is quite fascinating and French again does a great job penetrating the mind of Cassie for the reader, and she obviously has a very deep command of Cassie's persona. I look forward to her next adventure, hoping that it will be French's third book that really floors me.