Books to Read While the Algae Grow in Your Fur, October 2022

Attention conservation notice: I have no taste, and no qualifications to opine on public administration, political philosophy, social epistemology, or the aims and methods of sociology. Also, most of my reading this month was done at odd hours and/or while bottle-feeding a baby, so I'm less reliable and more cranky than usual.

T. Kingfisher, What Moves the Dead

Mind candy: a re-telling of Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" as (is this really a spoiler?) parasite-porn horror. Amusing, and pleasingly creepy. §

Jeffrey L. Pressman and Aaron Wildavsky, Implementation: How Great Expectations in Washington Are Dashed in Oakland: Or, Why It's Amazing That Federal Programs Work at All, This Being a Saga of the Economic Development Administration as Told by Two Sympathetic Observers Who Seek to Build Morals on a Foundation of Ruined Hopes

I realize this is some sort of classic of the public policy / administration literature, so I am very late to this party, but it's really good. One way to expound this --- not Pressman and Wildavsky's, except once in passing early on --- is by an analogy with computer programming. When legislators (or dictators or executives, whatever) proclaim a policy, they state objectives and resources, and provide a sort of sketch of how they think the resources should be used to achieve the objectives. This is like getting requirements for a program and maybe some vague pseudo-code. The job of the programmer is then to implement, to actually come up with a program that runs. In the course of doing so one may discover all sorts of things about the original specification which will often call for it to be revised. If multiple programmers need to implement different parts of the specification, they will have to coordinate somehow, and may find this hard. If the program has to rely on other programs, let alone on other systems, well, good luck coordinating. §

(Link is to the 3rd edition of 1984, which is in print, though I read the 2nd of 1979, and haven't had a chance to compare the two.)

Nathan Ballingrud, Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell

Horror mind candy; all six stories (the last two are really novellas) share a common mythology. Usually-reliable sources had praised Ballingrud's work, so when I ran across a cheap copy I picked this up. I understand the praise, because these are skillfully written (with an exception I will get to below), but I didn't love it, for some mostly-me reasons:

1. While many of the props are Lovecraftian (ghouls, sanity-destroying artifacts, subterranean English cannibal cults), the underlying metaphysics is much more Christian-heretical --- "Hell" is meant very literally, and human laws and interests and emotions have great significance (if not necessarily validity) in Ballingrud's cosmos-at-large. As I have said before, I have standards for my cosmic horror, and the merely Satanic does not cut it.
2. I think it's fair to say that basically every human emotion is depicted as a snare of Hell, love very much included. In some moods I could go along for such a ride, especially if it were presented with a lot more satirical humor, but as this went on I merely found it unpleasant.
3. Ballingrud's endings here are generally abrupt and weak. ("Skullpocket" is a notable exception.)

So: some real merits, but I will not be seeking out more. §

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else)

I picked this up because I'd liked one of the essays it was was based on, but wished Táíwò would elaborate on the argument. (I also had hopes of using it in the inequality class.) I was, however, disappointed. The book is no clearer th