Curmudgeonly Desires

Ok, here it is. I want to get kicked off Slashdot. I want to know how to do it. I thought being a Windows guy would be enough, however, it seems that the LinApploids are more clueless than I thought. Anybody having any real ideas on this should speak up now.

Hillary Clinton is the NEW James Bond

Walk with me Hillary... I like you. Or at least I think I like you, and I’d sure like to know I like you. I suppose that’s your first hurdle. Bill’s time was a long time ago, memories have faded, and if I recall, you did your best to be a non-issue after a rough first few years as the first lady. Does that track with your memories? Probably not, especially given the scandals, but like I said, it seems like a long time ago.

I’d caution against is playing to the nation the way you play to your New York constituents. Really, you need to start from scratch. So although it might seem laborious, it’s actually a real advantage. I suppose I’m just trying to drive the point home that despite your name recognition, we know your husband, not you. Your husband is the reason you enjoy National relevance. Maybe that hurts to hear. But again, it’s not a bad thing.

Think about it this way. You, Hillary Clinton, are the new James Bond. Now 007 enjoys quite the fan base. It’s also a known entity. People paying to see the newest James Bond movie have a very good idea what they’re paying for, and doubly so if the actor playing James Bond is reprising his role. And Hillary, we liked Bill as James Bond. At the same time, it doesn’t hurt the buzz around the franchise when a new James Bond is introduced.

Take Daniel Craig. He’s the newest James Bond. His first 007 movie, Casino Royale, premiered back in November 06. But that’s far from the beginning of the story. When it was announced that Daniel Craig was going to be the new James Bond, well before filming even started, some of the 007 faithful staged a popular revolt. It gained enough momentum to be entertainment news. They even created a website entitled; Daniel Craig is not Bond. Sound familiar? Can you relate?

The thing of it is, Daniel Craig was the new James Bond, like it or not, and there really was nothing to be done about it except hope that he was up to the task. The same goes for you. Like it or not, now that you’ve decided to run, you’re the new Bill Clinton--the sequel. What’s more, you have the potential to be a better Bill Clinton. Last I heard, Casino Royale broke all box-office records for a Bond movie. I’m guessing Daniel Craig proved good enough for a majority of those doubting fans. But having seen the movie, and personally considering it the best 007 of the lot (not that it was perfect), I suspect that there was a little more too it than just Daniel Craig stepping up.

Casino Royale, like Daniel Craig, proved a bit different from what a fan might reasonably expect. It was still 007, but without shying away from its predecessors, it one-upped them with its realism, its lack of polish, its blood and pain. It recognized that its audience had matured and become more sophisticated. In short, it gave Bond fans a Bond that didn’t date them or require them to suspend reality.

Your campaign, not your potential presidency, is the sequel. Everything leading up till now has just been buzz and tilting at windmills. Now is when we find out if casting you was a mistake, or a masterstroke. You’re not George Lazenby, Shawn Connery, Rodger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Bronson, or even Daniel Craig. But you are the new James Bond, and if this country isn't ready for a Bond that doesn't require it to suspend reality, you're probably better off not leading it.

Hello from Exile

Just checking in.

Hi guys. This is Geoff. Sorry about that whole "Fray Thing." I'm not here to talk about it. I'd rather give you a personal update and I would like to request a personal favor.

Law school has been a disconcerting but valuable experience. I lived a relatively austere first year. I spent a lot of time at home; reading, playing computer games, reading, watching cable, reading, engaging in colossally verbose arguments with friends, family, professors and colleagues, reading, drinking too much, reading.

About half way through that year, I was asked to come on board Slate. My GPA was doing well, and it was a hard proposal to refuse. I did decide to drop Mock Trial, which was sad. That was kind of fun and going well. The team did just fine without me.

School ended. I spent the first part of the summer in Brooklyn, bumming around. Then I went to San Francisco and Oakland, and slacked off with some dear old friends.

In August, I returned to Southern California and had all my assets drained from my bank account. After an unpleasant week, all was made good, but I got the new academic year off on a wrong foot. I was troubled by my position in the power dynamics of my encounter with a hapless bank manager. I snatched up an unpleasant and overpriced apartment within days of school's start. I had missed several deadlines for participating in the paid summer internship interviews. I was stressing out and doubting my own integrity.

I had either a divine revelation or a nervous breakdown. I was literally walking through the streets of West L.A. weeping. I eventually reached my breakthrough point. I've since begun attending Mass on a weekly basis. I made confession for the first time in twenty-two years. I'm working up the courage to actively pursue the Sacrament of Confirmation. There's a long and complicated list of reasons and explanations, but the truth is, I've surrendered my ambition to understand.

Anyhow, things got a little surreal after that. I got an interesting call that led to a delicate situation. For a brief period, I found myself dialing lawyers to discuss a personal problem. In the world of personal stuff, some other good things happened (dating). And I got a phone call from a guy interested in putting together a new non-profit.

I like his idea - to create a site where people can discuss the positives and negatives of their experience in the healthcare industry. Ideally, the site will provide a place where users can teach and learn from one another. It would also serve a bridging function between healthcare professionals and their patients - an airing place for what works and what doesn't. If we receive enough participation, we also hope to use the site and Foundation for research purposes. It would also be a source of information for policy makers, where they could hear from patients themselves about the healthcare industry (right now, there is no dedicated consumer advocacy group for healthcare patients).

I've been giving him advice on a volunteer basis. My GPA's holding up (though it ain't what it used to be), so when I was asked last week to serve as Executive Editor, I agreed. It is still an unpaid position, and I'm not quitting either of my other day jobs. I have Slate's blessing to pour my energy into this (make of that what you must), but this is absolutely not associated with them. Some incredible graphic designers I'm privileged to know have agreed to work on the site for free. I'm lining up some top-notch Silicon Valley programmers to help with the implementation. And I'm asking you to please consider sharing your healthcare stories with me.

I can't get this project off the ground without content. I consider many of you personal friends. You're some of the best damn writers I know, coming from an enormous range of backgrounds and positions. If you think this project is worth a shot, please send us something at info@americanassociationofpatients.com. I'm not doing the membership thing (the plan ultimately contemplates offering members services), but if joining interests you, I can get you in. If that's not your cup of tea, I'd still appreciate your help with the stories. If you're interested in taking an active role helping, we'd welcome the extra hands.

If I can do you any personal favors, short of the impossible (i.e., Fray-related) please let me know. I'm stretched kind of thin, but I like to be of use. I'm pretty excited about this idea... I feel like it is a chance to do some good... I'm hopeful (trepidation, too) that you might agree.

Off Topic

Get your load of unfiltered JohnMcG thoughts here....

• An NYT op-ed that didn't find its way to the iraqwarit feed. Regular readers know where I stand on this issue.
  
  The reaction to the news that there may be less ethically troubling sources of flexible stem cells is interesting. If everyone were about finding cures, it seems that this would be universally celebrated. We can have our cures and not eat embryos, too. But no, it's not.
  
  
• Prediction: Colts over Patriots
  Bill Simmons writes today about how quickly we want to dispose of dynasties. I'm not so sure.
  
  First, I don't buy that the Patiots are a dynasty. They've won three Super Bowls, but the combined winning margin for those three victories doesn't creep into double digits. They've taken advantage of other teams' mistakes. Their only player who can make a claim for true greatness is Tom Brady, who specializes in driving his team to the 20 yard line in tie games to set up a winning field goal. Has he had a transcendent moment? They're the NFL version of the Spurs and the Devils. If nobody else does anything special, they'll win.
  
  Second, the greatness of the Patriots is built upon management more than anything else, which people aren't going to be that excited about. They have a knack of replacing players who have become overpriced with cheaper alternatives. That might delight an MBA, and it seems to be the best way to run a team in today's NFL, but it's not too much to cheer for. The celebrated dynasties -- the Jeter-O'Neill-Bernie Yankees, the Kobe-Shaq Lakers, the Aikman-Emmitt-Irvin Cowboys, the Jordan-Pippen Bulls, were anchored by stars with staying power. Simmons said rooting for the Patriots is like rooting for the house in blackjack. I say it's like rooting for Wal-Mart. In spite of being under the cap, we won't match the market price for our only play making receiver and still be successful! Woo hoo.
  
  So I don't think we have to apologize for our unwillingness to celebrate the Pats.
  
  
• Saints over Bears
  I don't get it -- the Bears needed overtime to beat a banged up 9-7 team that has a great home field advantage and only won the previous week because of a dropped field goal snap, and they've exorcised all their demons? I'm unconvinced.
  
  
• One more McGwire point
  A lot of the rhetoric out there seems to be that anybody who at all enjoyed the 1998 home run chase but doesn't support McGwire's HOF candidacy is a hypocrite.
  
  To me, this seems like arguing that anybody who enjoyed Borat but doesn't support it for the Best Picture Oscar is a hypocrite.
  
  I think Bob Costas nicely captured the nuance many are missing:
  

  
  
  "But I also had to appreciate the circumstances surrounding the home run race of '98 ... I was in the ballpark that night in St. Louis in September of '98, and (saw) the grace and decency with which McGwire carried himself. In a time of crassness and exhibitionism, he showed a real appreciation for the game's history. Now I realize there's an irony there because he and others who have excelled in that era have, whether it was their intention or not, distorted that history."
  
  He was rolling now: "This is a complicated subject," Costas added. "But he was more than respectful of Roger Maris, a man whom history had treated wrongly up until that point. The way that evening played out in St. Louis, even down to the groundskeeper ... it captured the whole spirit, not just of that home run chase, but just the way people relate to baseball in St. Louis.
  
  "The whole feeling that night cut against the general sensibility and the general tone of much of what plagues modern sports."
  
  Still stumbling over his words, Costas pressed on: "... But as almost always happens in modern media, if it can't be reduced to a cartoon or a sound bite, we have no use for it. So in 1998 he was a hero. And now he is a cardboard villain. But the truth, as always, is much more complicated than that."
  

  
  I think a lot of us knew there was something amiss about what was going on, but we weren't going to let that stop us from enjoying the moment.
  
  The Hall of Fame election gives us an opportunity to consider not just whether we want to celebrate the achievement, but confer a timeless honor on it. It doesn't seem outlandish that there would be different standards in place.
  

Dawn's Latest Get-Rich-Quick Scheme:

This won't hurt a bit

Five More Thoughts (unoriginal edition)

I've got to get those social and economical thoughts out of my head, lest I gain a reputation for a political deep thinker or anything. Here are five thoughts that flirt with seriousness.


1. Big sigh everybody, more about housing.
Like it or not, new home construction is, if not a key economic indicator, an oft-cited one. New home construction is up, the economy is saved! Now it's down, and we're all sinking with it. Why is it so important?

The housing market, we're frequently told, is an economic bellweather. From the bottom view, having an economy built on real estate means that people occupy homes and service businesses come to employ people and pay them, and as such, the Starbuckses and Wal-Marts that follow the population also sustain them. It seems a little like a perpetuum mobile, complete with corporate demons, but value really is being created. It's generated in developing the real estate from idle fields into valuable homes, and it's generated in moving those services near to them. The problem is, there is only so much real estate, and only so many people to occupy it.

New home construction, to my mind, is one of those easy-to-identify bubble quantities. Yes, the population changes (grows, natch), as does the fraction of it that rents, or the number of people per home, or even the number of houses that people own, but there are still some hard limits to the number of homes that can be sustained, correlated to the actual number of people. Growing an economy on real estate seems to work by picking up the market and moving it somewhere else, again and again ...until there is nowhere else to put new ones. And what a nasty, sterile shithole my kids will be living in then.

Shouldn't we be creating new markets by creating new technology? New services?

unoriginal: I've rediscovered the obvious. Also, it seems every third post of mine is on this subject

2. I've heard this before.
Listening to NPR last week (as I usually do on my inexcusably long commute), I caught a piece in which the U.S. ambassador to Iraq (or possibly it was the Iraqi ambassador to the U.S.) was talking up Bush's bold new surge. Paraphrasing the radio interview from memory:

"What does this surge change on the ground? What will you do differently now?"

"Well, we must reduce violence in the streets if Iraq is to be a soveriegn yada yada blada blah blah..."

"Interesting. And so what are the goals of the surge?" [And NPR has the good interviewers, right?]

All this surge talk sounds awfully familiar to me. If you've worked in a company with sufficient turnover in management, you've heard it too. Once or twice a year, the newer leaders prove their meddle by organizing some kind of corporate initiave, and whether it's for "excellence," or "super value," or "world class organization," or some similar pleasing-sounding but meaningless bullshit, it's first greeted with great fanfare, causes a few extra meetings for a while, and then it's clean forgotten in about five weeks. The initiatives result in precisely zero lasting change in anything, and us working stiffs learn to ignore them after the first few iterations. (Maybe the company's going under because we just don’t believe hard enough.)

Your MBA president, everyone.

unoriginal: I got excited and posted this last week as a comment on the lovely hipparchia's blog.

3. Ten bucks an hour to do what?
Don't tell them there's a war on or anything, but our daring Democratic congress made it an agenda item in their first hundred hours to raise the minimum wage. (Did they get it through? I meant to write this two weeks ago.) Long live the donkey, the poor are saved!

I'm pretty ambivalent about the minimum wage. I'm not too happy about people being underpaid, mind you, and empathize with anyone who's in the unenviable position of trying to subsist on one. The problem that I have with it, is that some jobs aren't made for subsistence. Johnny Q. McDipshit should be able to work after school peddling gas or sweeping warehouses for beer money, and not bankrupt his employers while doing so. Mrs. Kathleen O'Frazzled should be able to make a few bucks on the side as she hides from her children a couple times a week. The problem with minimum wage jobs (assuming the liberal anecdote is true) is that people rely on them to live. Maybe that low unemployment is thanks to the greeters at those new suburban Wal-Marts, or the foam wiper at the shiny new Starbucks. Is our economy ever fucked, or what?

In any case, in a head-slapping moment, I realized that the minimum wage is about redistribution. That's a loaded word of course, but it's not like we don't have our share of upward redistribution. The minimum wage is designed to make employers spread out more in wages than to shareholders or CEO bonuses or lobbyists or graft. It's to compensate rampant inequality. But I doubt it actually works much. Not only do I think it targets the wrong employers, but if you're in a position where an extra buck an hour can save you, you've still got it pretty rough.

unoriginal: I've rediscovered the obvious again.

4. Another head-slapper
So I was assigned a little light reading a couple weeks ago about the U.S. health care system. When confronted with gigantic problems like that, it's my inclination to try and reduce them to the clearest possible representation that I can get to without actually doing any actual research (ahem). One important question among many: can the government administer medical insurance effectively enough and responsibly enough for a single-payer system to be effective. Though I'm as distrustful of government as anyone, I can't help but note that even if other countries aren't quite as stratospherically super-dee-duper in their top-tier medical technology, then they still look like they're getting more care for their euro or their loonie. Would we be better off with Medicare?

Believe it or not, Medicare is less expensive to administer. One serious detractor was only able to come to the conclusion that the difference, while extant, wasn't as big as advertised, and that was by taking care to include the either sort of provider's administrative costs. Medicare does something that the private companies don't, however, which is include anyone. In fact it insures a segment of society that is far more likely to be sick. What does private insurance have that Medicare doesn't? Well, I'm pretty sure they hire more actuaries. Those extra costs are to find ways of not paying insurance.

(But I am not at all certain that Medicaid works.)

unoriginal: hipparchia got this one out of me too

5. Fuck the po-lice
It's that time of year again:

"Mr. Resident? This is Bubba from the fraternal order of--"

"Not interested."

"Don't you want to support the po--"

"I don't take phone solicitations."

"But this isn't a solicitation." [Which, parenthetically, is of those statements that categorically can't be true when it passes someone's lips.] "If you pay just fifteen dollars, you'll get a sticker that--"

"Fuck you. Goodbye."

Even the hardcore libertarians (I'm a softcore one, I guess) agree that internal justice and security are legitimate functions of the state. And it's not that I don't support the cops in principle, or even that I object to policemen's charities. The problem is the damn sticker. For one thing, I don't think it's going to get me anywhere if I'm stopped doing 80 along the backroads, but more to the point, I oppose it on principle. Those strong hints are to suggest that the cops are going to give me (or beningly neglect some) extra cop service for supporting them with their goddamn decal. That's crossing the line from a civic service to a protection racket.

(Don't forget to ask me about red light cameras.)

unoriginal: These are my words, but I'm pretty sure I read a similar rant ten years ago on another forum. I'm annoyed enough to regurgitate it.

Keifus

Teaching Update

Some folks may remember my post about Tom Moore, a friend who teaches in the Bronx. He has a really good editorial in the Times, a smackdown of Hillary Swank and of movie portrayals of teachers. One of many problems, he points out, is that we think movie versions of teachers should be the goal of educational policy.

New York Times.

New York City has made some proposals regarding teaching -- making it harder to gain tenure, for example. I don't know Tom's take, but I'm all for it. More to the point, I'm for better teacher training and support, so that it doesn't feel like a dead-end job.

Meet our Heroine, Dr Helen MacMurchy

What her nicey nice wikipedia entry doesn't tell you is that she was -- and ladies and gentlemen, I shit you not, this was her official title -- Inspector of the Feeble-Minded for Ontario. She was also, in the words of the Canadian Encyclopedia "the person who did more than anyone to persuade Canadians of the need for eugenics."

You see, I'm being re-edumacated -- my employer having decided, ahead of possible Provincial legislation, to make my job require a certain level of education. I could go on about the stupidity of this, but never mind -- I'm being paid to attend a college course, so I suppose it would be churlish to complain [too much].

Anyway, so I'm sitting through the first class on Tuesday, and because I was late I had to sit up near the front (d'oh) so I had to restrict my doodling and note-passing, and I'm trying to look politely attentive, when we get to the bit about the MacMurchster in the text book -- rife with ripe 'n juicy quotes from the good doctorette about "the menace of the feeble-minded" -- and how "the stream of national life is being polluted at the source" -- and that the majority of retards come from a small group of families responsible for producing an inordinate share of the "insane, epileptics, criminals, paupers, unemployed prostitutes, inebriates..." (note I scribbled in the margin of text-book during class: Unemployed prostitutes? As in, the employed ones are okay? Nothing worse than an idle whore, I suppose) and how "sterilization is the great and only solution."

So I'm sitting there in class, hoping my growing excitement isn't showing on my face, and I'm thinking, "This is gold, baby, gold!"

I mean, I'm immediately envisioning a kind of Sax Rohmer-esque pulp thriller, with our brave hero (and, of course, plucky sidekick/narrator) shuttling around WW1-era Toronto trying to prevent retards from having sex, and battling the insidious Supervillain Retard (have to work on this, but I'm thinking six-foot-five with a bicycle helmet, coke-bottle glasses, wispy chin hair and a lisp) and his many sinister retarded minions...

So my question is, will it sell? Whaddaya guys think? Dr MacMurchy & the Menace of the Feeble-Minded -- is it a hit, or are we talking destined-for-the-bargain-bin, here?

The Ugly Genius of American Idol

•Psychosomatic Virus Causes Exaggerated Belief In Singing Ability
•"NO NO I SWEAR I'M GOOD LET ME TRY A DIFFERENT SONG PLEASE I'M BEGGING YOU"
•By switters™
Posted Wednesday, January 17, 2006 at 3:15 PM CST

What is it, like, the 7th season already? Remember the very first one? That shabby little Gong Show/Star Search knockoff with a has-been, a who-again?, and a never-was?

Well, last night's 2 hour premier of AI blew the roof off the joynt in a spectacle worthy of an Emmy. Ironically, using "Baba O'Reilly" as the backdrop during the opening montage/retrospective was a stroke of genius. I wonder how much that check to Pete Townsend was? "Baba" was genius because while it wasn't used in American Beauty proper (I don't think, anyway – the last jogging scene was "The Seeker"), they did use "Baba" in the special features featurette which I believe was called "Look Closer". But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The open was picture-perfectly edited. AI could quite possibly be the only reality show that actually learns from its mistakes and capitalizes on its strengths. I.e., the video and music editors are actually listening both to you and to pop culture at large. Here's how I know this.

•Prince was highlighted, very tastefully, having performed (and killed) at last year's finale, and it was an ideal transition into the first round of auditions being held in his hometown of Minneapolis.

•Speaking of which, starting off the auditions with a complete and total meltdown is almost never a good idea, unless the contestant is being judged by one of her idols, in this case Jewel, whom I love. Not so much the music as the gal. So you've got this chubby chick from rural Minnesota basically channeling Meryl Streep's character from A Prairie Home Companion, and she's got the temerity to sing a Jewel song. And it's, well, not very good, which she's told by her idol, Jewel, whom I love. And right there, right there in front of us, in the span of about 45 seconds, we're treated to nothing short of the 5 stages of grieving:

"Really? Really? But… but… Really? No… No…"
"Yes, I can sing, I can, I really can!"
"Wait, please, let me do another song, please."
[uncontrolled public sobbing on primetime national television]
"I'll continue to sing for my own enjoyment while I'm ice fishing and being cold a lot, or whatever it is exactly that we do in rural Minnesota."

That segment should be required viewing for every Psychology 101 student, not to mention people who think they can sing but can't.

(•I really love Jewel. She looks great. Didn't she marry like a rodeo dude or something? Did they break up? Is she available? One thing I really like about her is the fact that she didn't get her teeth fixed.)

•Then, a black guy comes out dressed as Apollo Creed in Rocky 3, complete with matching boxing gloves, and sings an aria. Apparently our beloved judges are fans of neither the Rocky franchise nor opera.

•Cue crack baby. Damn. In comes this 16 year-old black chick with a sad story and an even sadder mother, apparently. As the judges are chatting her up I'm muttering, "Oh please, dear god, please let her be able to sing, please." Emotional pornography in one of it's more pure forms, because she can, and she's going to Hollywood.

•Like 6 rejected kids in a row pushed the wrong door upon exiting, at which point the judges say, "It's the other one." Hey, dickheads: put up a sign or something. They don't know that. Assholes. They can't read your minds. Fortunately for them.

•Not quite enough emotional manipulation yet? Let's bring in the enlisted guy in his sailor uniform. "Oh please, dear god, please let him be able to sing, please." He can. Tears streaming down my face.

•"Pitchiness", like "truthier", is, thanks to AI, one of those words that's not actually a word, yet everyone knows what it means. Thanks, Randy. Retard.

(•This is the point at which I switched over to CBS's The Unit, a pretty darn good little show itself.)

•Then all of a sudden in sweeps the gay orphan dude with the thing on his nose, he launches into "California Dreamin'", I chime in with the authentic Mamas and the Papas harmony parts, and it turns out all 5 of us are going to Hollywood. (Gay orphan dude, me, dog 1, dog 2, and cat.)

(•I love Jewel. I love her.)

•Still not emotionally drained? Bring in the short chubby soldier girl. "Oh please, dear god, please let her be able to sing, please." Ka-ching!

•I guess, rundeep, since what's-her-face ripped off Monheit's arrangement of "Somewhere Over The Stairway To Flower People", we're going to have to listen to it all season long. Again. Okay.

•Switch back to The Unit, which jars me back to reality because there's a bunch of oriental men with guns standing by a goat. Weird.

That's plenty for now, don't you think? Maybe even too much.

It'll be tough to top last season, which to these ears and eyes was one of the better ones. Let's hope the house band's as motivated as they were the last go-around. Oh, and just think about it: There's another 2 hours of the shit on tonight! I love this time of year! (Sad, really. See? Not just because the holidays are over and I'm not dead. Again. If I'm moved to do so, I'll nest tonight's rundown under this post, for those of you as addicted to the mellow drama that is American Idol as I am.)

Let the games begin!