I seem to recall he got into some sort of kerfuffle over misuse of jets. It was a hilarious indictment of Republican corruption. My guy Loudon Wainwright III even wrote a song about it.
Somehow I think the Pelosi thing is going to be somehow less funny. Just like it's less funny when Obama bumps his head on Marine One.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Time Sink for Classic Movie Fans
Sent via Ron of...what is it? Fluffy Stuffin'? I don't want to know who "Fluffy" is and with what he/she/it is being stuffed, much less why. I just go about my Internet business without looking too hard to one side or the other. Especially when Ron tweets that this "Fluffy" entity is running around like Dr. Manhattan. (I hesitate to enquire which aspects of Dr. Manhattans behavior or lack-of-dress "Fluffy" is imitating.)
Anyway, Ron--or perhaps "Fluffy"--sends this blog called Greenbriar Picture Shows, which is a treasure trove of old movie--not all classics--minutiae.
It's an engrossing read for fans of the cinema.
Anyway, Ron--or perhaps "Fluffy"--sends this blog called Greenbriar Picture Shows, which is a treasure trove of old movie--not all classics--minutiae.
It's an engrossing read for fans of the cinema.
When Nerds Grow Old
My mother e-mailed me today:
I need to get some software off the mainframe for my Nike Plus....
Heh. The "mainframe".
I need to get some software off the mainframe for my Nike Plus....
Heh. The "mainframe".
Manic Monday Apocalypso: Watchmen
I would hate to judge an author by the film adaptations of his work, but if I were to do so for Alan Moore, I would say he was a nihilistic misanthropist who was far enough left to make Chosmky blush. And also that he was an idiot. But while the latter would probably be true of assessments made of most authors based on screen adaptations, there may be some merit to the former.
This is the guy who gave us V for Vendetta after all. Also League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but I have to believe that's not as stupid as it sounds, and it couldn't possibly be as dumb as the movie made it out to be. I just have to believe that, if I'm to have any faith in humanity at all.
Let me back up a bit and just talk about the movie: This is a decent superhero action flick, surprisingly entertaining for its length (two-and-a-half hours, not counting credits). The story takes place in an alternate 1985, and the premise is that masked heroes started appearing ca. World War II, and a second generation appeared in the '60s and helped the USA fight (and win!) the Vietnam War. (As if we lost that war for military or even enemy morale reasons.)
This win, and apparently the use of our five superheroes by President Nixon allows him to seek a fifth term--1968, 1972, 1976, 1980 and 1984--and somewhere around his third term, he makes masked vigilantism a crime. So our heroes are retired (a la Incredibles, which probably took a little inspiration from here) and either working clandestinely or not at all.
The story begins with one of the heroes, the Comedian, being killed. The Comedian's kind of a psychopathic Punisher type who really enjoyed Vietnam, and in one appalling scene opens fire on a crowd of protesters while screaming about the American Dream having come true. Jeffrey Dean Morgan does a fine job playing this "nuanced" character.
The hyper-violent Rorschach, who most reminded me of The Question, suspects foul play. Or rather, suspects fouler play than just a random burglary. He warns the Nite Owl, reminiscent of the Blue Beetle, but really evocative of a clunky Batman (complete with lots of money and toys), and the Nite Owl warns Ozymandias, now a super-successful businessman who's working on a cheap power source with the help of Dr. Manhattan.
Dr. Manhattan was exposed to some super-science thing that allows him to see into his own future and past, and apparently to give others the same power. Like his girlfriend, the Silk Spectre, who seems to be the only hero who inherited the position from her mother. Anyway, Dr. Manhattan's superpowers don't include giving a damn, which puts a strain on their relationship.
Anyway, there's lots going on, and director Zach Snyder keeps the action coming so that the story never gets bogged down. I'm always amused by the sort of critical reception of movie like this gets: Apparently it confused the poor dears. It's actually not at all confusing; it is, however, high volume, and some things are done shockingly poorly for such an A-level production.
The acting is largely top notch. I mentioned Morgan as the Comedian, but Patrick Wilson (most known to me as the guy who gets tortured by Ellen Page in the neat little horror flick Hard Candy) does a very fine job as Nite Owl, and Billy Crudup does well with a difficult role as the subtly emotional Dr. Manhattan. I found Malin Akerman, who plays the Black Canary-esque Silk Spectre, a little grating and occasionally radiating a kind of bimbotude, which was just tragically wrong for that part.
Once again, though, newly reborn Jackie Earle Haley (Bad News Freakin' Bears!) just kicks ass as the uncompromising terror, Rorschach. And he does it, for the most part, through a completely opaque, featureless mask. (Featureless except for the shifting pattern on it.)
So, while the acting is overall quite good, there is some wicked bad makeup. The makeup for the Nixon and Pat Robertson characters, for example, is just ostentatiously bad. Carla Gugino, who plays the original Silk Specter, does a fine job, but her old age makeup reminds me of that episode of the Brady Bunch where Peter plays Benedict Arnold. (Maybe I'm just hyper-critical of old age makeup and maybe I was turned off by the Nixon caricature after Frost/Nixon, but that's how it seemed.)
The familiar let's-open-an-action-scene-with-a-pop-song approach takes a beating here, too. The Hendrix version of Along The Watchtower is used, for example, and it fell flat with me. Worst of all--people are talking about this one a lot--was the use of Leonard Cohen's version of Hallelujah.
People, it was a dubious choice to have Leonard Cohen singing in the documentary about his own life, I'm Your Man. Putting his voice and the ridiculously clunky Hallelujah Chorus Singers that grace his recording of that song over a sex scene--not subtly in the background but loudly and insistently--was ridiculously tin-eared.
The other thing I'm on the fence about is the fact that, with the exception of Dr. Manhattan, they're all just regular heroes, not super heroes. That is, they have no powers. Except that they sort of do. I mean, in the opening scene where The Comedian is fighting his assailant, walls and furniture get smashed through. Rorschach scales walls as though attached to wires. Ozymandias is faster than a speeding bullet. And so on.
I dunno. A certain amount of "super" heroism is pretty much standard in action films. It was better than bogging down the film with a bunch of origins stories. (I had a minor but similar sort of feeling about the technology used by the Nite Owl. It was so clearly of today and not of the '80s; I would have liked to see future tech as imagined in the '80s.)
Overall, a flawed, but engaging movie.
The Boy pronounced it "Entertaining. But it had a message, and I don't know what it was. It would have been better without it."
But, of course, I knew what the message was, and I'm sure it seemed so incredibly profound back in '86 when this was written, that a lot of people are clinging to the story's "greatness" now without observing the irony that it was terribly, self-indulgently wrong. See, the authors proceeded from the standpoint that the human race was on the brink of destroying itself in '85, and built themselves a story around that concept.
Man's capacity for self-destruction is, of course, a fond topic for writers, as well as how to diver that energy elsewhere. Ray Bradbury wrote an upbeat little story called "The Toynbee Convector", for example on how a time machine saved humanity. This wouldn't be that story.
No, this is a story where imperialist America goes unchecked and--you know, when you get down to it, the villain is none other than Richard Nixon--brings the world to the brink of destruction.
Heroes are made from sadists and neurotics and mass-murderers, and the desire to create a "nuanced" story turns--as it always does--into a soap opera's celebration of pettiness. Dr. Manhattan gains incredible knowledge and wisdom, and as a result becomes detached from his humanity--not so detached that he can't cheat on his wife with a younger woman, but detached enough that he can't decide whether humanity is worth saving. The climactic scenes work--they vary from the graphic novel--but they don't bear much thinking about.
It's not that there aren't a lot of conflicting messages here, because there are, and there are supposed to be. You're supposed to make your own moral, which is what good artists allow the viewer to do. But the backdrop that that decision is supposed to made against is false, and rife with ugliness and ennui.
I haven't read the graphic novel; The Boy and I both eschewed that, feeling that the movie should stand on its own, and I think it does. Ultimately, whether the grim world view presented--and the few upbeat notes therein--are the influence of Moore (who had his name taken off the production) or Snyder or Gibbons (who illustrated the comic) doesn't really matter.
It's so very '80s, though, like Blade Runner, American Psycho and The Dark Knight Returns. The '80s generation, in its own way, is insufferable as the '60s generation was: Faced with unprecedented wealth and the demise of the great threat of our time, everyone was just so freaking convinced the world was coming to an end. (At least the Dark Knight embraced the notion that hard times meant heroes had to be even more heroic, on an even larger scale.)
Just in case you thought it mattered which Republican was in the White House.
So I give it a reserved recommendation--but you might find yourself a little embarrassed. There was talk of a sequel--I don't think the movie will do as well as predicted--but that would only be slightly less stupid than a sequel to Snyder's last film: 300.
This is the guy who gave us V for Vendetta after all. Also League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but I have to believe that's not as stupid as it sounds, and it couldn't possibly be as dumb as the movie made it out to be. I just have to believe that, if I'm to have any faith in humanity at all.
Let me back up a bit and just talk about the movie: This is a decent superhero action flick, surprisingly entertaining for its length (two-and-a-half hours, not counting credits). The story takes place in an alternate 1985, and the premise is that masked heroes started appearing ca. World War II, and a second generation appeared in the '60s and helped the USA fight (and win!) the Vietnam War. (As if we lost that war for military or even enemy morale reasons.)
This win, and apparently the use of our five superheroes by President Nixon allows him to seek a fifth term--1968, 1972, 1976, 1980 and 1984--and somewhere around his third term, he makes masked vigilantism a crime. So our heroes are retired (a la Incredibles, which probably took a little inspiration from here) and either working clandestinely or not at all.
The story begins with one of the heroes, the Comedian, being killed. The Comedian's kind of a psychopathic Punisher type who really enjoyed Vietnam, and in one appalling scene opens fire on a crowd of protesters while screaming about the American Dream having come true. Jeffrey Dean Morgan does a fine job playing this "nuanced" character.
The hyper-violent Rorschach, who most reminded me of The Question, suspects foul play. Or rather, suspects fouler play than just a random burglary. He warns the Nite Owl, reminiscent of the Blue Beetle, but really evocative of a clunky Batman (complete with lots of money and toys), and the Nite Owl warns Ozymandias, now a super-successful businessman who's working on a cheap power source with the help of Dr. Manhattan.
Dr. Manhattan was exposed to some super-science thing that allows him to see into his own future and past, and apparently to give others the same power. Like his girlfriend, the Silk Spectre, who seems to be the only hero who inherited the position from her mother. Anyway, Dr. Manhattan's superpowers don't include giving a damn, which puts a strain on their relationship.
Anyway, there's lots going on, and director Zach Snyder keeps the action coming so that the story never gets bogged down. I'm always amused by the sort of critical reception of movie like this gets: Apparently it confused the poor dears. It's actually not at all confusing; it is, however, high volume, and some things are done shockingly poorly for such an A-level production.
The acting is largely top notch. I mentioned Morgan as the Comedian, but Patrick Wilson (most known to me as the guy who gets tortured by Ellen Page in the neat little horror flick Hard Candy) does a very fine job as Nite Owl, and Billy Crudup does well with a difficult role as the subtly emotional Dr. Manhattan. I found Malin Akerman, who plays the Black Canary-esque Silk Spectre, a little grating and occasionally radiating a kind of bimbotude, which was just tragically wrong for that part.
Once again, though, newly reborn Jackie Earle Haley (Bad News Freakin' Bears!) just kicks ass as the uncompromising terror, Rorschach. And he does it, for the most part, through a completely opaque, featureless mask. (Featureless except for the shifting pattern on it.)
So, while the acting is overall quite good, there is some wicked bad makeup. The makeup for the Nixon and Pat Robertson characters, for example, is just ostentatiously bad. Carla Gugino, who plays the original Silk Specter, does a fine job, but her old age makeup reminds me of that episode of the Brady Bunch where Peter plays Benedict Arnold. (Maybe I'm just hyper-critical of old age makeup and maybe I was turned off by the Nixon caricature after Frost/Nixon, but that's how it seemed.)
The familiar let's-open-an-action-scene-with-a-pop-song approach takes a beating here, too. The Hendrix version of Along The Watchtower is used, for example, and it fell flat with me. Worst of all--people are talking about this one a lot--was the use of Leonard Cohen's version of Hallelujah.
People, it was a dubious choice to have Leonard Cohen singing in the documentary about his own life, I'm Your Man. Putting his voice and the ridiculously clunky Hallelujah Chorus Singers that grace his recording of that song over a sex scene--not subtly in the background but loudly and insistently--was ridiculously tin-eared.
The other thing I'm on the fence about is the fact that, with the exception of Dr. Manhattan, they're all just regular heroes, not super heroes. That is, they have no powers. Except that they sort of do. I mean, in the opening scene where The Comedian is fighting his assailant, walls and furniture get smashed through. Rorschach scales walls as though attached to wires. Ozymandias is faster than a speeding bullet. And so on.
I dunno. A certain amount of "super" heroism is pretty much standard in action films. It was better than bogging down the film with a bunch of origins stories. (I had a minor but similar sort of feeling about the technology used by the Nite Owl. It was so clearly of today and not of the '80s; I would have liked to see future tech as imagined in the '80s.)
Overall, a flawed, but engaging movie.
The Boy pronounced it "Entertaining. But it had a message, and I don't know what it was. It would have been better without it."
But, of course, I knew what the message was, and I'm sure it seemed so incredibly profound back in '86 when this was written, that a lot of people are clinging to the story's "greatness" now without observing the irony that it was terribly, self-indulgently wrong. See, the authors proceeded from the standpoint that the human race was on the brink of destroying itself in '85, and built themselves a story around that concept.
Man's capacity for self-destruction is, of course, a fond topic for writers, as well as how to diver that energy elsewhere. Ray Bradbury wrote an upbeat little story called "The Toynbee Convector", for example on how a time machine saved humanity. This wouldn't be that story.
No, this is a story where imperialist America goes unchecked and--you know, when you get down to it, the villain is none other than Richard Nixon--brings the world to the brink of destruction.
Heroes are made from sadists and neurotics and mass-murderers, and the desire to create a "nuanced" story turns--as it always does--into a soap opera's celebration of pettiness. Dr. Manhattan gains incredible knowledge and wisdom, and as a result becomes detached from his humanity--not so detached that he can't cheat on his wife with a younger woman, but detached enough that he can't decide whether humanity is worth saving. The climactic scenes work--they vary from the graphic novel--but they don't bear much thinking about.
It's not that there aren't a lot of conflicting messages here, because there are, and there are supposed to be. You're supposed to make your own moral, which is what good artists allow the viewer to do. But the backdrop that that decision is supposed to made against is false, and rife with ugliness and ennui.
I haven't read the graphic novel; The Boy and I both eschewed that, feeling that the movie should stand on its own, and I think it does. Ultimately, whether the grim world view presented--and the few upbeat notes therein--are the influence of Moore (who had his name taken off the production) or Snyder or Gibbons (who illustrated the comic) doesn't really matter.
It's so very '80s, though, like Blade Runner, American Psycho and The Dark Knight Returns. The '80s generation, in its own way, is insufferable as the '60s generation was: Faced with unprecedented wealth and the demise of the great threat of our time, everyone was just so freaking convinced the world was coming to an end. (At least the Dark Knight embraced the notion that hard times meant heroes had to be even more heroic, on an even larger scale.)
Just in case you thought it mattered which Republican was in the White House.
So I give it a reserved recommendation--but you might find yourself a little embarrassed. There was talk of a sequel--I don't think the movie will do as well as predicted--but that would only be slightly less stupid than a sequel to Snyder's last film: 300.
Kirk Fury!
The Fury is on right now. This was the first movie I ever saw where someone got "blowed up real good". My mom took us to see it without really knowing anything about it. (We were up in the woods, and the only theater was a second or third or fourth run joint.)
Not a great movie (though maybe one of De Palma's better ones). But Kirk Douglas is in it, and whatever his acting skills, he's 62 years old in this thing and jumping around in shorts like a kid. Looks ten years younger. (He's 64 in Saturn 3, where Farrah Fawcett plays his girlfriend at 33--and she looked a lot younger, too.) At 70 he would be in Tough Guys with the also preternaturally vigorous Burt Lancaster, though Lancaster (at 73) was starting to show his age.
Seriously, Kirk is like swinging from signs and jumping across trains. Not as many stunt men as you might think.
Random connections: Director De Palma, of course, got his big start from--and gave a big start to--Stephen King with the iconic Carrie. The Fury was written for the screen by John Farris, who adapted it rather faithfully from his novel. It's the story of a couple of telekinetic kids who are chased after by the government and ultimately taken to a black ops hideout for military purposes. Kirk Douglas plays the father of one of the kids and he uses his talents as a super-agent to try to break them out, even as they're tearing up the installation.
Later, Steven King would write a book called Firestarter about a pyrokinetic kid who is chased after by the government and ultimately taken to a black ops hideout for military purposes. George C. Scott would play the super-agent who befriends the kid with the ambition to kill her, even as she starts tearing up the installation.
I read about three of Farris books right in a row back in the '90s and all three were similar to books that Stephen King would write several years later. Not making plagiarism accusations, mind you, I just thought it was interesting. It's probably more indicative of a "horror gestalt", revealing our collective fears, or at least what horror writers think those fears are.
Farris would publish a sequel to this book in 2001 (but before 9/11) wherein terrorists would attack America (with airplanes, even, if I'm not mistaken), as part of a master plot to make Americans give up their rights out of fear.
Other digressions: The Fury features an early role for Dennis Franz, a small role for 18-year-old Darryl Hannah and Alice "Large Marge" Nunn. At 25, Amy Irving is completely convincing (and quite lovely) as the ostracized high school girl.
Not a great movie (though maybe one of De Palma's better ones). But Kirk Douglas is in it, and whatever his acting skills, he's 62 years old in this thing and jumping around in shorts like a kid. Looks ten years younger. (He's 64 in Saturn 3, where Farrah Fawcett plays his girlfriend at 33--and she looked a lot younger, too.) At 70 he would be in Tough Guys with the also preternaturally vigorous Burt Lancaster, though Lancaster (at 73) was starting to show his age.
Seriously, Kirk is like swinging from signs and jumping across trains. Not as many stunt men as you might think.
Random connections: Director De Palma, of course, got his big start from--and gave a big start to--Stephen King with the iconic Carrie. The Fury was written for the screen by John Farris, who adapted it rather faithfully from his novel. It's the story of a couple of telekinetic kids who are chased after by the government and ultimately taken to a black ops hideout for military purposes. Kirk Douglas plays the father of one of the kids and he uses his talents as a super-agent to try to break them out, even as they're tearing up the installation.
Later, Steven King would write a book called Firestarter about a pyrokinetic kid who is chased after by the government and ultimately taken to a black ops hideout for military purposes. George C. Scott would play the super-agent who befriends the kid with the ambition to kill her, even as she starts tearing up the installation.
I read about three of Farris books right in a row back in the '90s and all three were similar to books that Stephen King would write several years later. Not making plagiarism accusations, mind you, I just thought it was interesting. It's probably more indicative of a "horror gestalt", revealing our collective fears, or at least what horror writers think those fears are.
Farris would publish a sequel to this book in 2001 (but before 9/11) wherein terrorists would attack America (with airplanes, even, if I'm not mistaken), as part of a master plot to make Americans give up their rights out of fear.
Other digressions: The Fury features an early role for Dennis Franz, a small role for 18-year-old Darryl Hannah and Alice "Large Marge" Nunn. At 25, Amy Irving is completely convincing (and quite lovely) as the ostracized high school girl.
Friday, March 6, 2009
All You Need Is Loaf?
For February, The Boy's blood sugar averaged 155. In the last two weeks of February, about the time we started with the water, it averaged 122. He seems to be keeping it in that low range, despite having cut his mealtime insulin by 25%.
This is good. The doctor reminds us that he's not actually on the program yet. He's just gearing up with the water and the green drink. (The "green drink" is basically a bunch of leafy greens fed through a juicer. Tastes as good as it sounds.) He's been doing some changes in his diet, as well, though that's been milder than it probably will need to be once we're actually on the program. But besides blood sugar, he's been sleeping well, and longer. The sickness passed last weekend, and he has only a mild nausea (also predicted by the doc).
As for me, well, the phenomena mentioned in earlier posts continue to persist. I didn't really mention the energy thing because "I feel so alert and full of energy" is such a cliché, and easily the most placebo-influenced effect at all. (Really: Change up your diet and exercise and start a new plan, and you'll find morale-related effects kick in immediately, even if the diet and exercise aren't very good.) A very concrete effect I've noticed is that after a difficult night (which is not rare when you have a bunch of kids) that gets cut short, I can still function very well and without the mid-afternoon drowsiness. I'm still tired and I fall asleep in the evening if my sleep is cut short, but my awake time is not overwhelmed with the urge to go unconscious.
There are also things I didn't mention because I'm not Titus. (Suggested in the title of this post.) Things have definitely improved in the area of his favorite subjects.
In the interest of full disclosure I should point out that I just lost a tiny piece of a molar. No pain; it just came out while flossing. The tooth pain I described earlier that went away is still gone. (Hmmm, but this piece is on the same side so I need to get to a dentist to figure out what's going on.) The mouth phenomena could be a complete coincidence.
Also, I'm feeling somewhat "acidic" at night, which, given the changes in body chemistry the water and juice might be bringing is worth watching. (The doctor wants me to do the full program at the same time, but I'm not sure I want to shift the focus away. On the other hand, the tests involved keep you from going too far one way or the other.) Come to think of it, though, this may be akin to the nausea the boy is feeling.
And, while it's not easy to drink this much water and still eat enough to maintain one's weight, I'm in there pitching. Still haven't lost anything. Heh.
This is good. The doctor reminds us that he's not actually on the program yet. He's just gearing up with the water and the green drink. (The "green drink" is basically a bunch of leafy greens fed through a juicer. Tastes as good as it sounds.) He's been doing some changes in his diet, as well, though that's been milder than it probably will need to be once we're actually on the program. But besides blood sugar, he's been sleeping well, and longer. The sickness passed last weekend, and he has only a mild nausea (also predicted by the doc).
As for me, well, the phenomena mentioned in earlier posts continue to persist. I didn't really mention the energy thing because "I feel so alert and full of energy" is such a cliché, and easily the most placebo-influenced effect at all. (Really: Change up your diet and exercise and start a new plan, and you'll find morale-related effects kick in immediately, even if the diet and exercise aren't very good.) A very concrete effect I've noticed is that after a difficult night (which is not rare when you have a bunch of kids) that gets cut short, I can still function very well and without the mid-afternoon drowsiness. I'm still tired and I fall asleep in the evening if my sleep is cut short, but my awake time is not overwhelmed with the urge to go unconscious.
There are also things I didn't mention because I'm not Titus. (Suggested in the title of this post.) Things have definitely improved in the area of his favorite subjects.
In the interest of full disclosure I should point out that I just lost a tiny piece of a molar. No pain; it just came out while flossing. The tooth pain I described earlier that went away is still gone. (Hmmm, but this piece is on the same side so I need to get to a dentist to figure out what's going on.) The mouth phenomena could be a complete coincidence.
Also, I'm feeling somewhat "acidic" at night, which, given the changes in body chemistry the water and juice might be bringing is worth watching. (The doctor wants me to do the full program at the same time, but I'm not sure I want to shift the focus away. On the other hand, the tests involved keep you from going too far one way or the other.) Come to think of it, though, this may be akin to the nausea the boy is feeling.
And, while it's not easy to drink this much water and still eat enough to maintain one's weight, I'm in there pitching. Still haven't lost anything. Heh.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
An Observation Regarding Free Markets And Socialism
Have you ever noticed that every noble goal desired by socialists is achievable with a free market economy? Think about it: welfare, disability, care for the elderly and orphans, health care, shoring up of financial institutions, etc., can all be done in a free market system.
The reverse is not true: In a socialist government, the fundamental problem is that the state takes up most of the capital. Even if we can imagine a free-market socialist state that simply drained most of the money out of the system but otherwise left the world unregulated, there'd be no capital to do anything with.
(This, by the way, is why taxation is so, so bad. Even the tiniest bit of it reduces the amount of potential in the system. Raising taxes--or spending in such a way as to necessitate raising taxes--should be viewed as anathema.)
But, of course, the state can't just take all our money, they have to squash the competition. So it is that the state of New York must sue the doctor offering people a year's worth of service for $100 plus a $10 co-pay, and the President seeks to limit charitable contributions. The presence of any competing service at all shows up the state's incompetence and thereby threatens its security. The Canadians who set up their medical system understood that perfectly when they made non-government-sponsored medical treatment illegal. (A situation which is finally reversed, I believe.)
So, that's the secondary barrier.
The socialists are fond of telling us that they are the wave of the future: Progressivism carries the concept in its very name. If that were true--if the socialists actually believed their own rhetoric--they would welcome a free market. With history and the population so overwhelmingly on their side, they'd hardly need the government to force anyone to do anything. And, sort of amusingly, the great enemies of the people, the stovepipe-hat capitalists, do seem to be on the side of Big Government these days.
So, why don't they just set up these systems on their own? Get the population that agrees with them to contribute to their social programs. If the government pared down on its demands--something that it could easily do if it weren't expected to run its own programs--all that extra money could go into things that people really believed in.
Not only that, there'd be a chance--a good chance--that those programs could work, and far better than government programs. In fact, there's plenty of historical evidence that such programs have worked in the past, despite far worse income disparities than we face today. With modern communication systems, they could be set up very effectively to minister to poorer areas with money from richer ones.
And, you could set up a membership system to keep out the free riders. I mean, the free riders that weren't the ones you were trying to help.
So what does it mean that socialists don't take this approach? A poor opinion of humanity (i.e., "people won't contribute")? But if so, how does their system--which depends on people being hard working, honest and integrity-ful for no apparent gain--work at all?
Or is it perhaps because the not-so-noble goals of socialism--that the socialist's sense of fairness is never violated, that people be made to do the right thing, whether it be helping others or not endangering themselves, and that the state be the final arbiter of all issues of morality--are actually more important to some than feeding the poor and helping the weak and so on?
I don't actually think there are many people walking around with that notion. Unfortunately, I'm left to believe that a whole lot of people think they can shunt things off to the government without any attendant loss of freedom. Unfortunately, if Europe is any indication, the point at which people learn that lesson is somewhere in between the soft fascism of Western Europe, and the hard fascism of Eastern Europe.
The reverse is not true: In a socialist government, the fundamental problem is that the state takes up most of the capital. Even if we can imagine a free-market socialist state that simply drained most of the money out of the system but otherwise left the world unregulated, there'd be no capital to do anything with.
(This, by the way, is why taxation is so, so bad. Even the tiniest bit of it reduces the amount of potential in the system. Raising taxes--or spending in such a way as to necessitate raising taxes--should be viewed as anathema.)
But, of course, the state can't just take all our money, they have to squash the competition. So it is that the state of New York must sue the doctor offering people a year's worth of service for $100 plus a $10 co-pay, and the President seeks to limit charitable contributions. The presence of any competing service at all shows up the state's incompetence and thereby threatens its security. The Canadians who set up their medical system understood that perfectly when they made non-government-sponsored medical treatment illegal. (A situation which is finally reversed, I believe.)
So, that's the secondary barrier.
The socialists are fond of telling us that they are the wave of the future: Progressivism carries the concept in its very name. If that were true--if the socialists actually believed their own rhetoric--they would welcome a free market. With history and the population so overwhelmingly on their side, they'd hardly need the government to force anyone to do anything. And, sort of amusingly, the great enemies of the people, the stovepipe-hat capitalists, do seem to be on the side of Big Government these days.
So, why don't they just set up these systems on their own? Get the population that agrees with them to contribute to their social programs. If the government pared down on its demands--something that it could easily do if it weren't expected to run its own programs--all that extra money could go into things that people really believed in.
Not only that, there'd be a chance--a good chance--that those programs could work, and far better than government programs. In fact, there's plenty of historical evidence that such programs have worked in the past, despite far worse income disparities than we face today. With modern communication systems, they could be set up very effectively to minister to poorer areas with money from richer ones.
And, you could set up a membership system to keep out the free riders. I mean, the free riders that weren't the ones you were trying to help.
So what does it mean that socialists don't take this approach? A poor opinion of humanity (i.e., "people won't contribute")? But if so, how does their system--which depends on people being hard working, honest and integrity-ful for no apparent gain--work at all?
Or is it perhaps because the not-so-noble goals of socialism--that the socialist's sense of fairness is never violated, that people be made to do the right thing, whether it be helping others or not endangering themselves, and that the state be the final arbiter of all issues of morality--are actually more important to some than feeding the poor and helping the weak and so on?
I don't actually think there are many people walking around with that notion. Unfortunately, I'm left to believe that a whole lot of people think they can shunt things off to the government without any attendant loss of freedom. Unfortunately, if Europe is any indication, the point at which people learn that lesson is somewhere in between the soft fascism of Western Europe, and the hard fascism of Eastern Europe.
Treadmill Desk, Week 9
Friday: 400 minutes
Monday: 75 minutes
Tuesday: 340 minutes
Wednesday: 240 minutes
Thursday: 300 minutes (so far)....355 in total.
To round it out to 1400 minutes or...23 hours and 20 minutes. Close to what I did back on Feb 5th.
Lubed the 'mill today. Weird thing happened: I couldn't find the lube in the stores, and the lube from Sole hadn't arrived. Since I was starting to hearing--probably imaginary--noises come from the 'mill, I decided to get some overnighted from Amazon.
This morning, the package arrives and it's not at all what I ordered. It doesn't look like the right brand, there's no applicator want, and the "instructions" consist of a folded up paper that don't look like they apply to my machine.
So I call Sole, give 'em my sob story, they say, it's okay, just use the tube, it'll be fine. (There's some scary stuff about warranty voiding in the manual.) And, by the way, I should've got the shipment yesterday by FedEx. But they'll send out another.
Meanwhile, I'm getting ready to fire off a nasty review on Amazon, but first I lube the 'mill up and...a package from Amazon arrives. It contains the exact thing I ordered.
Light bulb goes on.
Oh, right. The "crappy lube" must've come from the company. (I didn't receive the package and it wasn't in a FedEx envelope.)
Called Sole back, apologized for being an idiot. Life goes on.
Monday: 75 minutes
Tuesday: 340 minutes
Wednesday: 240 minutes
Thursday: 300 minutes (so far)....355 in total.
To round it out to 1400 minutes or...23 hours and 20 minutes. Close to what I did back on Feb 5th.
Lubed the 'mill today. Weird thing happened: I couldn't find the lube in the stores, and the lube from Sole hadn't arrived. Since I was starting to hearing--probably imaginary--noises come from the 'mill, I decided to get some overnighted from Amazon.
This morning, the package arrives and it's not at all what I ordered. It doesn't look like the right brand, there's no applicator want, and the "instructions" consist of a folded up paper that don't look like they apply to my machine.
So I call Sole, give 'em my sob story, they say, it's okay, just use the tube, it'll be fine. (There's some scary stuff about warranty voiding in the manual.) And, by the way, I should've got the shipment yesterday by FedEx. But they'll send out another.
Meanwhile, I'm getting ready to fire off a nasty review on Amazon, but first I lube the 'mill up and...a package from Amazon arrives. It contains the exact thing I ordered.
Light bulb goes on.
Oh, right. The "crappy lube" must've come from the company. (I didn't receive the package and it wasn't in a FedEx envelope.)
Called Sole back, apologized for being an idiot. Life goes on.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Why IMDB Movie Ratings Need To Be Taken With A Grain Of Salt, Vol 1
Poll question for today:
Only three directors have won the Academy Award for Best Director three times or more. Which one of these guys is your favorite filmmaker? (Suggested by "Mister_Milich")
The three filmmakers are Ford, Capra and Wyler. Among the options are "I love them all" and "I don't care for any of them" and, the number 1 answer, given by 36.3% of the 12,000-plus votes?
I am not familiar with these directors.
And these are people who bother to both register on IMDB and to vote in their daily poll. So, you know: movie fans.
The three filmmakers are Ford, Capra and Wyler. Among the options are "I love them all" and "I don't care for any of them" and, the number 1 answer, given by 36.3% of the 12,000-plus votes?
I am not familiar with these directors.
And these are people who bother to both register on IMDB and to vote in their daily poll. So, you know: movie fans.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Everything You Need To Know About Socialism...and Communism
Everything you need to know about statist "solutions" is encapsulated in this one little story that won't get much national coverage. Executive summary: Michelle Obama and David Axelrod ran a program for the University of Chicago hospital that shunted off poor patients to other hospitals, and sold this program by telling everyone how great it would be for both the patients and the hospitals.
It also tells you a bit about capitalism and the free markets. And that Michelle and David "don't care about black people".
What can we learn:
Just as when the Republicans had power, they abused to enrich themselves at the cost of the rest of us, the Democrats have done the same. It is the nature of state power, and why the Founding Fathers put so many limitations on the state. "The Founding Fathers could never have imagined...." people often start out their plea for the expansion of state power. They then go on to say something that might or might not have been imagined by the Founders.
But guaranteed, they understood clearly the nature of the state to grasp, and having grasped, to clutch.
It also tells you a bit about capitalism and the free markets. And that Michelle and David "don't care about black people".
What can we learn:
- If the state provides a service, it will set the price for that service, and that price will be out of whack with the market.
- The market itself will be out of whack because of the presence of the government. This will result either in skyrocketing prices or the death of the non-socialized areas of the market.
- Success in a free market can require a broad strategy of lowering prices, cutting costs, raising quality, raising awareness, positioning, etc. Success in a socialized market requires giving the wives of politicians $317,000/year jobs.
- Because a socialized market has all the same drives that power and sometimes corrupt the free market , a socialized market tends to have all the same flaws as a free market--unless you count "an embarrassment of riches" as a flaw (and some people do)--but with scant hope of correction, with such rare corrections being temporary and the result of political opportunism.
- The state doesn't care about the well being of citizens; it cares only about crushing its enemies, and is a million times more ruthless than a Gates or a Rockefeller. And the state can live for hundreds or thousands of years.
- The state has no shame. It will say "there is no pork in this bill" or "this will help the poor" even as the opposite is apparent to anyone with the integrity to look.
Just as when the Republicans had power, they abused to enrich themselves at the cost of the rest of us, the Democrats have done the same. It is the nature of state power, and why the Founding Fathers put so many limitations on the state. "The Founding Fathers could never have imagined...." people often start out their plea for the expansion of state power. They then go on to say something that might or might not have been imagined by the Founders.
But guaranteed, they understood clearly the nature of the state to grasp, and having grasped, to clutch.
Camorra, Gomorrah
The Boy was recovered enough to take a trip to the movies, though the pickings are slim, with the Oscar films still clogging up the screens. It's hard to sell even the high rated films that are out now: Two Lovers, Bob Funk, Medicine for Melancholy (some asshole ripping off Bradbury's title again), and Must Read After My Death ("Imagine if Revolutionary Road had been a documentary!"). There are a few mainstream releases out we haven't seen, but he's very particular about those. (I don't know that he makes the distinction in his mind, but he's at an age where he has an aversion to stupid, and that rules out a whole lot of movies.)
Then there's Gomorra, a mixed-reviewed gangster flick about the Naples crime syndicate. Well, The Boy likes himself a gangster flick, though I myself run cold on them.
And, well, it's a sprawling mess of a film, unfocused and a bit hard to follow, not because any individual scene is complicated but how they tie together is. The movie concerns: A gang war with "secessionists" trying to split from the Camorra, a boy who wants to join the gang, a couple of phenomenally stupid young men who are trying to be independent outlaws, a dress counterfeiting operation, a toxic waste dump operation, and a man who either collects the protection money or distributes retired gangster's pensions (or both).
You could've made this a miniseries, with the six stories each being its own 22-minute episode--or you could have fleshed them out into 48 minutes for an hour show. This would've worked better, I think, because the stories didn't really overlap, so telling them cut into pieces just made them hard to follow, without any added dramatic benefit.
The movie runs two-and-a-quarter hours, but even so, you don't get a satisfying resolution to the young kid's story. Here's how it could've been better: The boy delivers groceries to a woman who is also chummy with the money carrier, and has some connection with the secessionists, or at least is imagined to. The boy is also trying to get chummy with the local, low-level Camorra thugs. This woman could've served as the focal point of the whole story, crossing paths with the tailor and the toxic waste managers--I think she was actually connected to one of the idiots doing random thuggery.
She could've been a good anchor for the story which, unfortunately, comes off as sort of "inside baseball".
There is no beauty in this film; where the Godfather saga dressed up mob antics in gorgeous colors and impeccable fashion in opulent surroundings, the ruffians in this film wear cheap track suits or t-shirts celebrating sports teams of other countries, and live in housing that would embarrass trailer trash. I don't recall any music whatsoever. There's no dramatic lighting and the camera work is straightforward, though fortunately avoiding the dread shaky-cam.
I suppose then, this is a "realistic" film. But a little artifice could've gone a long way to make it a truly great film.
Then there's Gomorra, a mixed-reviewed gangster flick about the Naples crime syndicate. Well, The Boy likes himself a gangster flick, though I myself run cold on them.
And, well, it's a sprawling mess of a film, unfocused and a bit hard to follow, not because any individual scene is complicated but how they tie together is. The movie concerns: A gang war with "secessionists" trying to split from the Camorra, a boy who wants to join the gang, a couple of phenomenally stupid young men who are trying to be independent outlaws, a dress counterfeiting operation, a toxic waste dump operation, and a man who either collects the protection money or distributes retired gangster's pensions (or both).
You could've made this a miniseries, with the six stories each being its own 22-minute episode--or you could have fleshed them out into 48 minutes for an hour show. This would've worked better, I think, because the stories didn't really overlap, so telling them cut into pieces just made them hard to follow, without any added dramatic benefit.
The movie runs two-and-a-quarter hours, but even so, you don't get a satisfying resolution to the young kid's story. Here's how it could've been better: The boy delivers groceries to a woman who is also chummy with the money carrier, and has some connection with the secessionists, or at least is imagined to. The boy is also trying to get chummy with the local, low-level Camorra thugs. This woman could've served as the focal point of the whole story, crossing paths with the tailor and the toxic waste managers--I think she was actually connected to one of the idiots doing random thuggery.
She could've been a good anchor for the story which, unfortunately, comes off as sort of "inside baseball".
There is no beauty in this film; where the Godfather saga dressed up mob antics in gorgeous colors and impeccable fashion in opulent surroundings, the ruffians in this film wear cheap track suits or t-shirts celebrating sports teams of other countries, and live in housing that would embarrass trailer trash. I don't recall any music whatsoever. There's no dramatic lighting and the camera work is straightforward, though fortunately avoiding the dread shaky-cam.
I suppose then, this is a "realistic" film. But a little artifice could've gone a long way to make it a truly great film.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Click!
A disadvantage I have when it comes to teaching my children is that I, myself, was taught very little. No one can really explain how I learned to read--skeptical nursery teachers pulled a thick book from the shelf to prove my father wrong and were shocked--and I had a grasp of positional math when I was shy of four, and I received an adding machine for Christmas. (Whether I learned from the machine or knew some other way and simply demonstrated on the machine, I don't recall. I remember finding the whole thing very intuitive.)
Being an autodidact has its advantages when you couldn't possibly focus on the slow-moving lessons teachers deliver. (Most repeated embarrassment in school for me was "read aloud" time: When the teacher called on my I was pages and pages ahead. No clue where I was supposed to pick up.) My parents at least leaned toward the same style of learning so it never occurred to them to teach, I don't think.
My kids are not like that at all, and it's fascinating to me to watch them struggle with things, and then suddenly click into it. The Boy, brilliant though he was (and is), struggled with reading till he was relatively old. I've noticed this with a lot of kids not my own, too: Montessori schools apparently have a at-your-own-pace approach, and I knew a kid who didn't "click" till she was eleven or twelve. And then, became a very good reader overnight.
From what I've heard my mom describe, she didn't really click until she was in college. (She was a mathematician which, as rare as it is now for a girl, was way rarer back then. But she clicked on a college reading course for children's literature, and probably would have changed her major had she been a little bolder.)
On the other hand, the Institutes is all about teaching babies to read; they view the time as lost and, more importantly, consider the early age critical to reading quickly and, for lack of a better word, I'll use natively.
If you read natively, you're not reading "in your cortex", basically. Late learners tend to sub-vocalize or to hear a voice reading to them. Intriguingly for me, I used to never hear that voice as a youngster, but I did as a I got older. (Now it sort of comes and goes, depending on various environmental factors.)
I started reading music at about four years old--playing piano, and even though I was not very good at piano and a very sporadic player, that knowledge survived and worked when I took up the guitar, and then later in music classes where you had to read scores for various reasons. There was no conscious process at all.
It's not at all limited to traditional school subjects either. Being a good fighter involves something not quite conscious--or cortical, perhaps, is a better word. If you're a programmer, you confront new paradigms all the time. If you're a painter, there's a point where your cortex shuts off and you just draw what you see.
Anyway, today reading clicked with The Flower, and she did a couple of months worth of work in an afternoon. So, victory there. Now she's on to math. She has a real competitive streak as far as her schoolwork goes: She likes to time herself doing the work and try to beat her own best times.
One of the things they don't do at the Institutes is run down the professional teacher. It's amazing, they say, given twenty to thirty different kids with different levels of understanding and abilities that they manage to teach any one to read.
And looking at my kids, I'd have to agree. They've all been wildly divergent. That in itself has been incredibly educaitonal for me, and I hope if my kids take something for the future, it'll be that understanding they can apply when they raise their own kids.
Being an autodidact has its advantages when you couldn't possibly focus on the slow-moving lessons teachers deliver. (Most repeated embarrassment in school for me was "read aloud" time: When the teacher called on my I was pages and pages ahead. No clue where I was supposed to pick up.) My parents at least leaned toward the same style of learning so it never occurred to them to teach, I don't think.
My kids are not like that at all, and it's fascinating to me to watch them struggle with things, and then suddenly click into it. The Boy, brilliant though he was (and is), struggled with reading till he was relatively old. I've noticed this with a lot of kids not my own, too: Montessori schools apparently have a at-your-own-pace approach, and I knew a kid who didn't "click" till she was eleven or twelve. And then, became a very good reader overnight.
From what I've heard my mom describe, she didn't really click until she was in college. (She was a mathematician which, as rare as it is now for a girl, was way rarer back then. But she clicked on a college reading course for children's literature, and probably would have changed her major had she been a little bolder.)
On the other hand, the Institutes is all about teaching babies to read; they view the time as lost and, more importantly, consider the early age critical to reading quickly and, for lack of a better word, I'll use natively.
If you read natively, you're not reading "in your cortex", basically. Late learners tend to sub-vocalize or to hear a voice reading to them. Intriguingly for me, I used to never hear that voice as a youngster, but I did as a I got older. (Now it sort of comes and goes, depending on various environmental factors.)
I started reading music at about four years old--playing piano, and even though I was not very good at piano and a very sporadic player, that knowledge survived and worked when I took up the guitar, and then later in music classes where you had to read scores for various reasons. There was no conscious process at all.
It's not at all limited to traditional school subjects either. Being a good fighter involves something not quite conscious--or cortical, perhaps, is a better word. If you're a programmer, you confront new paradigms all the time. If you're a painter, there's a point where your cortex shuts off and you just draw what you see.
Anyway, today reading clicked with The Flower, and she did a couple of months worth of work in an afternoon. So, victory there. Now she's on to math. She has a real competitive streak as far as her schoolwork goes: She likes to time herself doing the work and try to beat her own best times.
One of the things they don't do at the Institutes is run down the professional teacher. It's amazing, they say, given twenty to thirty different kids with different levels of understanding and abilities that they manage to teach any one to read.
And looking at my kids, I'd have to agree. They've all been wildly divergent. That in itself has been incredibly educaitonal for me, and I hope if my kids take something for the future, it'll be that understanding they can apply when they raise their own kids.
Manic Monday Apocalypso: Atlantis
The Sun ran this story on Atlantis a bit ago. Basically, people fooling around with Google have found a pattern that looks like a city, and it's about where Atlantis ought to be. (I guess. I always figured Atlantis was in the Mediterranean.)
Of course, it's not really Atlantis, as is obvious if you look at it for a while. First of all, it's way too big. I mean, it's huge. Second, the "streets" don't respect the terrain at all. It's nice to have straight streets, but they seem to straight even when going over hills and the like.
But real or not, Atlantis is just another reminder of how fleeting civilization is. In the first volume of Story of Civilization, Our Oriental Heritage, Will Durant skims through the entirety of world history up to Greece and spends some time on India, China and the Middle East. One thing that stood out for me was a great empire that apparently ruled the "known world" (i.e., the Middle East) for over 200 years.
I don't remember the name of the civilization; Durant only spent a couple of paragraphs on it. The only reason we know about it is a passing reference in some contemporary writings and a few artifacts. The desert swallowed it, just as the jungle swallowed that huge civilization that used to occupy where the Amazon is now, and the seas claimed that ancient Indic civilization they just turned up.
It's not so much Atlantis being present or not that matters, than it is keeping in mind that we know only a fraction of history, and what we know is a constant reminder of the fragility of civilization.
Of course, it's not really Atlantis, as is obvious if you look at it for a while. First of all, it's way too big. I mean, it's huge. Second, the "streets" don't respect the terrain at all. It's nice to have straight streets, but they seem to straight even when going over hills and the like.
But real or not, Atlantis is just another reminder of how fleeting civilization is. In the first volume of Story of Civilization, Our Oriental Heritage, Will Durant skims through the entirety of world history up to Greece and spends some time on India, China and the Middle East. One thing that stood out for me was a great empire that apparently ruled the "known world" (i.e., the Middle East) for over 200 years.
I don't remember the name of the civilization; Durant only spent a couple of paragraphs on it. The only reason we know about it is a passing reference in some contemporary writings and a few artifacts. The desert swallowed it, just as the jungle swallowed that huge civilization that used to occupy where the Amazon is now, and the seas claimed that ancient Indic civilization they just turned up.
It's not so much Atlantis being present or not that matters, than it is keeping in mind that we know only a fraction of history, and what we know is a constant reminder of the fragility of civilization.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Janet Leigh-Palooza.
There's some fascinating stuff about having a blog, but one big factor is the randomity of it. If you're casually blogging (as I am) and having a low-traffic blog (as I do), your traffic can reflect sudden dramatic changes that are...unexpected.
Like, I get a bunch of hits on "barbarian sex" and "cowboy sex", which just makes me feel guilty. Last week, I got a swarm of Alex Lotorto hits. (Thanks, Alex! And thanks to Andy Levy for tweeting that awesome video.)
Yesterday? All of a sudden, everyone's mad about Janet Leigh! Weird.
Well, give the people what they want, I always say. (I also say, "No one will vote for a flattend-out rabbit skin" but that's another story.)
Like, I get a bunch of hits on "barbarian sex" and "cowboy sex", which just makes me feel guilty. Last week, I got a swarm of Alex Lotorto hits. (Thanks, Alex! And thanks to Andy Levy for tweeting that awesome video.)
Yesterday? All of a sudden, everyone's mad about Janet Leigh! Weird.
Well, give the people what they want, I always say. (I also say, "No one will vote for a flattend-out rabbit skin" but that's another story.)
Blog-ui
That's not a good neologism blogui. I was trying to combine blog with ennui.
It's not that I'm bored, it's that I've written 3 or 4 posts in the last few days that really suck, so I haven't posted them. And I have low, low standards.
Hmmph.
It's not that I'm bored, it's that I've written 3 or 4 posts in the last few days that really suck, so I haven't posted them. And I have low, low standards.
Hmmph.
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