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Book:  The Modern Temper by Joseph Wood Krutch

A very excellent book about metaphysics and Western civilization.  I cannot summarize better than the author himself:

The universe revealed by science, especially the sciences of biology and psychology, is one in which the human spirit cannot find a comfortable home.  That spirit breathes freely only in a universe where what philosophers call Value Judgments are of supreme importance.  It needs to believe, for instance, that right and wrong are real, that Love is more than a biological function, that the human mind is capable of reason rather than merely rationalization, and that it has the power to will and to choose instead of being compelled merely to react in the fashion predetermined by its conditioning.  Since science has proved that none of these beliefs is more than a delusion, mankind will be compelled either to surrender what we call its humanity by adjusting to the real world or to live some kind of tragic existence in a universe alien to the deepest needs of its nature.

Writing and Money

Does money make one a better writer?

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Book:  Paris Trout by Pete Dexter

A good read.  Oddly relevant given the recent news with the mass theater shootings.

I Like That Idea

Creating an infrastructure of resistance.

Oakland A's

I said it earlier in the year after watching them play, if they hadn't traded away their two best pitchers from last year, and got one more bat, they'd be a decent team.  I guess I was wrong.

They are a decent team and are a bat or two away from being a good (ie wild card) team.  Also, let's face it, they are hot and their run differential suggests that over the long run, they are a little above .500 team, not quite wild card caliber, especially in a division with the Rangers and Angels.  But still, the A's are a lovable.  Always have been.  Also, the Coliseum is a pitchers ballpark, so it always skews pitching stats.

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TV:  Breaking Bad, S.5, Ep. 2

Another fantastic episode.  This year is getting really exciting.

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Film:  Beasts of the Southern Wild

I really enjoyed this film.  Very much deserves the praise.  It is a good palette cleanser from the mess of Margaret from the night before and an example of how the spirit of independent film in American still lives.  The film is about living.  I recognize the fight and the humanity in these people, whereas I don't recognize the characters in Margaret -- people who have conceded and surrendered even before the battle of life begins.  They are caught up in litigation and assigning blame to accidents and excusing small duties, whereas the characters in Beast face such gigantic obstacles of death, the modern world, eating, the destruction of their homes with verve and panache and courage.

Beasts is a good example of the notion that the audience does not know what it wants.  The movie doesn't pitch itself - a magical realist tale in post-Katrina New Orleans about a 5 year old who being taught to survive by her dying father.  Not my cup of tea.  But in watching it, I was immersed and enjoying myself.  One of the best debut films by an American filmmaker in awhile.

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Film:  Margaret

Not an enjoyable film.  Tedious, 3 hour director's cut, hailed by some NPR critic as an American Masterpiece.  I wasn't a fan.  I don't recognize the people in this world -- the upper middle class east coast liberal -- similar the the world of Girls.  Are people really like this?  Do teachers let kids get away with cheating in school?  Do parents give advice to their kids to not tell the truth to the authorities about an awful, tragic event?  Do bus drivers who run over people lie to the police about it?  Do teachers allow their students to flirt with them shamelessly and then have them over to their apartment and have sex with them?  Do teachers catch kids smoking pot, let them get away with it, and then allow the kids to mock them?  Do drama classes really entail the teacher insisting all the kids bring up their public grievances with one another?   Do dad's living all the way across the country abruptly cancel their summer vacation plans with kids they don't see because they don't "feel" like going?

Maybe they do.  But then the question is:  does this make good drama?  I don't think it does.  What was I rooting for during the film?  The honest truth: for it to be over.  Not a good sign.  I just don't see who sees this movie.

UPDATE:  Another thought on this subgenre of film/tv - the exploration of upper west side New York post Seinfeld and post Woody Allen -- what annoys me about this setting is how the characters in these films think they are worldly and just-about-the-most-sophisticated-people-on-the-planet and it almost couldn't be further from the truth.  These characters are narrow and almost provincial in their attitudes and concerns -- and they don't realize it.  At least rednecks know they are rednecks.

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Film:  The Dark Knight Rises, Ride Lonesome

The plotting and story telling is all over the place in the Dark Knight and you can barely understand Bane speaking, but overall, for a summer event movie, I enjoyed myself.  The theater was only half full - my favorite Westwood Bruin theater for event movies - during the day on Saturday.  Felt like less of a let down than the 3rd Act of the last Dark Knight movie.  The thing that stands out to me in these Batman movies is a bit how much Christian Bale seems to recede into the background.  He isn't the first thing I think about in these movies and he is obviously a skilled and great actor.  Take, the Fighter, for instance and it is his performance that really makes the film, but in Batman, he is a bit of an afterthought.

Ride Lonesome is perhaps the best Boetticher/Kennedy/Scott film.  The final shot is one of my favorite in all of cinema.  Saw a gorgeous print (I think) at the Billy Wilder theater.  Wish I wasn't tired and half drunk watching it -- but still enjoyed the film quite a lot.  "She ain't ugly."  Still for my money, one of the great lines in any Western.

Lunacy

What has the world come to when a man wants to turn himself in for rape for having drunken sex with his wife?

How Does She Do It?

Terry Gross gets a truly revealing interview out of Aaron Sorkin.

Sorkin talks about his own corniness, his lack of story-telling strength, his lack of action, his lack of visual awareness.  Remarkable in that, it doesn't feel like she is criticizing his work, and yet, the interview it totally revealing about Sorkin as a writer.

I'm not a big fan of his work.  I'm not a fan of the flourishes of dialog, which I think embody the type of people depicted in the recent "Busy Trap" article.  Basically, yuppies trying to ward off existential despair through constant busy-ness.  Sorkin's character ward it off by talking too much and being concerned with credentialism and other forms of status and power amongst people-just-like-them.

He talks about the West Wing "walk and talk" which was invented because the scripts were boring to watch.  I knew this without him saying it.

His training was the theater and listening to the stylized dialog of playwrights.  Very telling.  His writing is not cinematic and it took the great visual artist Hollywood has - Fincher - to Sorkin his Oscar.

And yet, though the interview, I came to like Sorkin more.  I'll never revere his work like others, but I respect his craft and the span and duration of his career and his concerns of what he calls "heroes who don't wear capes."  So good on him for being open.

Segregation

How elites build America's economic wall.

Really interesting piece.  And as a person who has basically always lived in these elite places where people are obsessed with not building and regulating the development of the areas, the results are clear: existing homeowners see the price of their property skyrocket and no young families or middle class people can afford to live there - see Marin, see Santa Monica.

Theater Shooting

Horrible, of course.  I used to have stronger reactions to these inexplicable acts of mayhem and violence, especially the Columbine shooting.  The fear of such things, of course, is that they could happen more frequently and allow nutjobs to dictate how we live our lives because of the availability of powerful guns, etc.  But from a systemic perspective, such events could never happen a lot - in fact they only are able to happen because they are infrequent.  If such events happened often, people would simply start carrying around guns and put an end to it quickly.  9/11 demonstrated this - within 45 minutes of the first plane being hijacked, passengers on United 93 had already figured out the counter-response.  And it didn't even require trained experts or governmental authority to use force.  The story of United 93 is so amazing every time I stop to think about it - how ordinary people within the span of such a short time, in this day and age, went from ordinary folks into heroes.

I suppose the finger pointing will commence for the next couple days and then we'll all remember there are disturbed people who will always do insane things for the same old reasons people have always done insane things.

Ouch

Peter Thiel kills Google's Eric Schmidt in a debate over what Google is.

I did not know Google is hoarding $50 Billion in cash - that they have no clue how to spend.  Thiel tries to get Schmidt to admit Google is no longer a tech company -- because they have zero new ideas.  Ouch.  The proof is in the pudding -- Google no longer makes new products, they just tinker endlessly and pointlessly on the existing ones (like blogger).

Google is a utility now.

IDEA:  Maybe they could pay down our Iraq/Afghanistan War debt.

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Film:  Act of Valor

Wanted to see this film mostly out of curiosity, not expecting it to be good.  They should show this film in film schools to demonstrate how technical ability does not translate into cinema.  You will come out of it appreciating the basics a whole lot more:  acting and writing.

Another Red Box selection.  I've figured something about about Red Box - they make their DVDs so you are required to watch previews and advertisements.  I find this quite annoying, but it partially explains why they are so cheap.

Old David Brooks Column

I like how David Brooks is sort of the "tolerable conservative" for the NY Times.

He observed some student discussions and makes a good point:

The discussion also reinforced a thought I’ve had in many other contexts: that community service has become a patch for morality. Many people today have not been given vocabularies to talk about what virtue is, what character consists of, and in which way excellence lies, so they just talk about community service, figuring that if you are doing the sort of work that Bono celebrates then you must be a good person.

Indeed.

LeBron Laughing

This Dwight Howard nonsense has got to be relaxing LeBron James quite a bit this offseason.  Look out, league.

Uhhhhh

Bane=Bain.

Maybe I just won't vote.

A Sign of the Times

Movie critics threatened by internet commenters with violence.

Strange times, indeed.

Found via Instapundit.  Ouch.  Romney makes a compelling case.

The Progressives

A liberal humanist critique of Obama's Life of Julia.

A perennial question that divides the political left and right is this: what sort of beings are we? Do we have an immutable, perhaps transcendent, nature that will surrender everything utopia for autonomy, agency, and freedom (Elvis)? Or is there no inherent nature, and humans are just socially constructed, plastic, seeking nothing but safety and a reliable sense of well-being (Julia)? Political Science, Psychology, and Anthropology cannot answer that question, and the sciences can only measure what is measurable. The liberal arts and humanities, however, insist that we are like Elvis, and that those who trade liberty for comfort always live to regret it.

I grew up in liberal Marin County. The reason the public schools were good isn't because of Federal Grants. They are good because the citizens of Marin pass a parcel tax and locally tax their own property more to help the school system. It obviously helps that the community is well to do and the parents insist on good public schools, etc, but it has very little to do with Federal money. Some other school districts may be different, but my basic understand of education is that it is state-funded and run.

I went to college and grad school. Yes, Federal loans were available and yes, they also inflated the tuition costs. I basically consider this a wash. In grad school, I received grants and stipends. I think that money came from private people donating back to the cinema school. That was a lot more valuable in dollar terms than loans. 

In school, I got mandatory health care by paying for it through the school. Afterwards, I got health care from my employers, not the federal government. There was a brief period where I paid for it myself unhappily.

When I'm old, I'll get Medicare and Social Security. But along the way, I get money taken out of every single paycheck on the way there to pay for these things, so it's not like President Obama is exactly doing me a grand favor by taking money I earn and then giving it back to me without any interest after 35 plus years. I participate because I have to and view it as sort of a social insurance, but it isn't exactly some great deal. For alternative examples, I pay for car insurance and when I've gotten in an accident, it has paid for it. This system works without the Federal Government.

I have yet to get any sort of Federal backed small business loan or mortgage.

I do appreciate the FDIC insurance on my bank account.

I appreciate the military and the FBI keeping Al Queda off my back.

I appreciate cops keeping the streets safe.

I appreciate roads and bridges being free, but it isn't as if we couldn't figure out how to build roads and bridges like they are some sort of invention of liberal governance.

In any case, I suppose I'm bringing up the Life of Greg to contrast with the life of Julia only because the life of Greg happens to be real and the Life of Julia some theoretical construction of how Obama's policies are helping people. The liberal retort will be something along the lines of - well there are other people not like Greg who need help from these Federal programs. I'm sure there are. I'd like to hear their stories. In fact, I'd much prefer those stories to some fake progressive cardboard cut out figure.

A RANDOM ASIDE: Two major goals of progressives are a return to more financial equality and better public education. I would like to point out how women entering the workforce in large numbers have the unintended side effect of hurting both of these goals. One, women are no longer financially dependent on men and therefore the divorce rate is much higher. This is good for women's rights, but arguably bad for the well being of children. One can go into the nuances of the debate, but it is a pretty safe thing to say, women getting equality opportunities to men has coincided with higher divorce rates. I imagine this will probably be true throughout countries all around the world. It probably hurts the financial prospects of children as well, as splitting up all the assets make the kids worse off in a financial way and this may hurt their opportunities in addition to any psychological or emotional problems associated with a split home (some kids are barely effected, while others are, I imagine).

The second reality is that American public school education used to be better because overqualified women became teachers. Is this unfair? I suppose it is unfair for the women to have less opportunities, but the beneficiaries of this unfairness were kids getting a better education from top-minded women, who now are more likely to go into more lucrative or rewarding fields of work. This isn't suggesting that I favor a policy of making women have fewer opportunities, merely pointing out that our educational system was benefitting from it.

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Film:  Ghost Rider 2, Spirit of Vengeance

There is about a 25% of a good movie in this film.  My favorite scene, by far, is toward the beginning when Nicolas Cage is interrogating some thug while trying to restrain the Ghost Rider from coming out.  Laugh out loud.  Cage - you kind of have to admire the guy just for his sheer insanity - I think some spirit from beyond or the animalistic portion of our minds (whatever your ontological view) motivates his acting choices.

Among my dream jobs is to write a Nic Cage action movie or a James Bond film.  Better yet, why not both in the same movie?

Good

Matt Forte and Ray Rice got contracts.

I used to have no sympathy for pro sports players.  I figured even if a guy got paid $1 million per year (a low salary in pro terms), the guy was getting paid to play sports and he was a lucky bastard.  I no longer see it that way.  I see it as a ruthlessly competitive and stressful occupation that requires an inordinate amount of work and luck.  And, these guys have ridiculously short careers that can end at any moment due to injury or even just losing a step or two.  Running backs in the NFL have it the worst.  They do a tremendous amount of work on offense and are easily replaced.  Their salaries relative to other positions are significantly lower.  To add on top of that, I know these guys are paying huge management fees and are likely carrying many relatives and friends.  A contract like Forte and Rice just got gives these guys financial stability for life -- unless they get injured (NFL contracts are not guaranteed) or do something stupid with their money.  People who perform at their level deserve this.  Certainly a lot more so than the TV executives or league executives or legal counsel who seem to get similar financial stability and have much less rarified gifts and talent.

Lost Generation of Homeowners

On why millennials are not buying homes.

There is a simple reason: we can't afford them.

I suppose there are many, more complicated reasons for why we can't afford them - mainly - the economy pushing out middle class jobs, underemployment, a general insecurity about future employment (I'm leaving out unemployment because even though it is high, most college aged millenialls are not suffering), taking longer to settle down because of many factors (longer life expectancies, cultural expectations, etc), prices overvalued relative to renting (in my case, I live in Santa Monica in a rent controlled apartment and to live in an equivalent location as an owner would cost maybe 3 times as much plus a down payment).

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Film: Savages

It isn't very good, which I suppose shouldn't be a surprise.  I get easily fooled by trailers for classical action movies.  Basically, if I see a trailer for an original action movie, my mind automatically thinks - oh, maybe that'll be good.  Even though common sense and experience should tell me better.  For chrissake, I though the Tourist looked good.  And I justify all these things by saying - oh, well, it's The Lives of Others director or maybe Oliver Stone has something left in the tank, rather than reading the writing on the wall.  Maybe it is just that hard to make a good movie and the system has pivoted just enough in a funky direction to make it all but impossible.  I don't mean to say this as some sort of "movies-are-going-to-hell" old man diatribe, but you do find, more often than not, disappointed at the movies rather than delightful surprise.  Only really two films have delighted me recently - The Grey and Knight and Day - and these aren't even very recent, when I was like "holy shit, those were actually pretty damn good movies."

Tim Riggins doesn't play on the big screen.  Sorry, Riggins!  He seems to lack intelligence, if you ask me.  And to carry a movie, I think you need to come across as bright.  Not intellectual, but bright.  Think of how smart Bruce Willis is in Die Hard.  Even Schwarzenegger and Stallone, who in essence made their bones by being "dumb action heroes," if you analyze it and examine their works, are actually much cagier and smarter than a trailer of their films would have you think.  Stallone - you can tell - is just playing dumb.  Mumbling, ugh, ugh, Adrian, I'm not so bright.  Yeah, right, dude.  He knows what he is doing.  Same with Schwarzenegger.

As for the rest of the movie, Benecio is watchable, but there are too many characters doing too simple and too stupid of plans.  The POV is strange and at times you are way ahead of your main characters.  There is a totally annoying voice over.  Blake Lively is bleh.  The 3-way relationship makes no sense to anyone whose been in any type of relationship.  Anyhow, I could go on, but really, what's the point?

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TV:  The Real Housewives of the OC, Breaking Bad S. 5, E. 1

Thank god Breaking Bad is back.  Something fun to watch on Sunday nights.

I hope Hillary Clinton has her state department employees watch Real Housewives.  It seems to me an interesting and complex dynamic that could be useful in foreign affairs.  One of the housewives has a new boyfriend who is unpopular with the other friends and this causes riffs and strange alliances.  He accuses one of the housewives of giving his girlfriend the "evil eye" after she made a comment and it explodes into a chaotic episode of shifting alliances and betrayals and is very complicated.  One can easily see how WW1 broke out.  Clinton should study this show.

On Friendship

Interesting thoughts on friendship.

I'm no communist, but this is rather interesting:

Writing in the Times Comments Section, he sees the demise of friendship as a result of late-stage capitalism: "Life has become increasingly isolated for more than a century now. This happened when we left the large extended agricultural family and community for the economic competition of our growing urban centers.

 We are increasingly encouraged to live single lives and the single life has become a growing trend. Romantic coupledom and lifelong unions are decreasing radically in favor of serial monogamy. We are alone more often than ever before.

 This is simply an economic condition of consumerism. Solitary consumers need more goods than family groups which shares its appliances, cars, housing...." And "[a]s everything in our lives becomes commodified (time, leisure and relationships) we become less generous and less skillful with others."

Yikes!

Obama keeps talking like this, and he's losing my vote.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

Spoken like someone who's never built anything of value in his life. I suppose the lesson here is...what?...don't bother building anything because even if you do, you didn't? Ummm...I'm confused. On some level, I get what he is trying to say, that it takes a village and we are standing on the shoulders of giants and all those other cliches. But perhaps, and this might be the problem with professional politicians, is that having not built anything themselves other than their own image, they do not understand what it means to have created something from nothing and feel no guilt and shame from taking money from productive activities and spreading it around however they see fit.

Disgusting

A 40 year old Brooklyn mom tells all about her reversion.

When “Girls” hit this spring, I was shocked by how true the show rang to my life—not my old life as a post-collegiate single girl but my new one, as a married, monogamous, home-owning mother. My generation of moms isn’t getting shocking HPV news (we’re so old we’ve cleared it), or having anal sex with near-strangers, or smoking crack in Bushwick. But we’re masturbating excessively, cheating on good people, doing coke in newly price-inflated townhouses, and sexting compulsively—though rarely with our partners. Our children now school-aged, our marriages entering their second decade, we are avoiding the big questions—Should I quit my job? Have another child? Divorce?—by behaving like a bunch of crazy twentysomething hipsters. Call us the Regressives.

These folks are in competition for the worst people on the planet. A slot is opening up now that most of Al Queda is dead.

I Wants To Go There

Bikini clad Israel woman soldier dangles her machine gun while catching some rays.

Makes me feel a little soft.

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Film:  Zidane a 21st Century Portrait

Glad I finally got to see this movie.  An interesting experiment, but nothing profound.  In fact, I found the filmmakers to be a bit annoying and clueless as to what they were attempting to say.

One of my commenters got mad I found Pam Grier's face boring in Jackie Brown.  You want to watch a face?  I give you Zidane.  That is a face.

And...can you name anyone else who pull off bald so good?  Good lord, if Zidane had won that second World Cup, I swear to god, people would've started going faux-bald.

WASPs vs. Meritcrats

David Brooks on why our elites stink.

The best of the WASP elites had a stewardship mentality, that they were temporary caretakers of institutions that would span generations. They cruelly ostracized people who did not live up to their codes of gentlemanly conduct and scrupulosity. They were insular and struggled with intimacy, but they did believe in restraint, reticence and service. 

Today’s elite is more talented and open but lacks a self-conscious leadership code. The language of meritocracy (how to succeed) has eclipsed the language of morality (how to be virtuous). Wall Street firms, for example, now hire on the basis of youth and brains, not experience and character. Most of their problems can be traced to this. 

If you read the e-mails from the Libor scandal you get the same sensation you get from reading the e-mails in so many recent scandals: these people are brats; they have no sense that they are guardians for an institution the world depends on; they have no consciousness of their larger social role.

I used to articulate this by saying our elites needed more of a sense of shame to self-regulate themselves.  But look, I'm part of my generation and interact with people who will become the elite (a bit young, yet), and yeah, I don't have a lot of confidence in people doing the right thing time and time again.  I do have confidence in lots of them "getting ahead."

The Busy Trap

On why yuppies are always busy.

Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day. I once knew a woman who interned at a magazine where she wasn’t allowed to take lunch hours out, lest she be urgently needed for some reason. This was an entertainment magazine whose raison d’être was obviated when “menu” buttons appeared on remotes, so it’s hard to see this pretense of indispensability as anything other than a form of institutional self-delusion.

Busy yuppies are totally annoying.

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TV:  Aborted attempt to continue with Girls

There is nothing on TV.  At lunchtime, when I'm eating, I like to turn something on and take a break from the computer, but there is really nothing.  So I tried this week to pick up again with Girls on the episode when she goes home.  Over the course of five days, I've turned the episode off 5 times.  I find the show to be unwatchable, but thought it deserved a second chance basically because of all the shop-talk amongst the chattering classes.  Why does the show make me cringe so?  My only feeling while watching is just "get me out of here."  In that respect, it resembles my experience trying to watch torture porn movies - they just don't interest me.

In some sense, I find relief in this, and hopefully will find myself in no more debates about the show.  My repulsion is primal and similar to the smell of bad milk.  I don't feel no need to debate or explain why I don't want to drink bad milk or why it is bad.

Michael Keaton

Great interview.

I just laughed my ass off at one of the Nicholson stories.  Oh man.

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TV:  Louie s.3, e.3

Louie goes gay.

I suppose this is pretty obvious to say, but this show is thematically and character-wise heavily influenced by Seinfeld and Curb.

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Film:  Jackie Brown

Oh boy, do I hate to say it, but this film does not hold up as much as I hoped.  There are a few great moments and obviously a fantastic soundtrack.  But the story?  The heist itself?  The ridiculously long takes on Pam Grier's face?  Come on now.  This is a fetish film and I suppose such films can be good from time to time if you are in the mood.

I really loved this movie when it came out, perhaps it was just like morning sex with Pulp Fiction, I don't know.  Also - and I didn't remember this at the time - they clearly cut out an entire storyline with Pam Grier and Michael Keaton having some type of borderline romance going on that gets referenced throughout the movie and then casually alluded to in one dinner scene.  I guess when spend 30 minutes on long tracking shots with single characters (no action), you need to find cuts elsewhere.

It certainly isn't a disaster and I watched the whole 2.5 hours even though I wanted to go to sleep and intended to just watch until DeNiro had sex with Bridget Fonda and then I found myself waiting until DeNiro killed Bridget Fonda and by then, I was like, might as well see what happens.

Robert Forester should be in more movies.  What the hell?  Do directors realize how old this guy is?  Can someone put him in some more movies before he dies?

Underemployment

Someone is going to write a great book years from now about the effects of underemployment on the long term earnings potential and lives of young people (if they haven't already).

They talk about students falling behind in school - I imagine underemployment has the same effect.  It makes you less attractive to future employers, less skilled, and less confident.

Interesting Genre

A review of a movie called People Like Us.  I've been paying attention to this film since I saw the poster - a glossy picture of Chris Pine with the other actors smiling and the title "People Like Us" at a mall - and started immediately laughing uncontrollably.  I figured there was almost no way this could be watchable.

Here is the reviewers take:

Call them Lying Dingbat Procrastinator movies: films in which a main character, motivated by selfishness, cluelessness and fear, postpones telling the truth to another main character and winds up digging himself into a huge hole.

Well put. Your Sister's Sister also falls within this genre.

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Book:  Twilight of the Elites:  America After Meritocracy by Christopher Hayes

A really good diagnosis of the problem and really underwhelming solutions.  More redistributive taxation?  Estate tax?  These are considered big ideas?  Does anyone actually think this magically solve the problems in America?  Gimme a break.

The solutions to these problems, I imagine, are going to be much more localized and specific.  This huge, nation-wide efforts are just not the way to go.  It's all theoretical.

Why do all these "smart people" try and focus on making, say...eduction in America better?  Or solving the healthcare problem?  Wouldn't their energies be better spent, say, making one public school in one underserved area into a really great school.  And I don't say this flippantly, like this is some really easy task.  I actually think it is an incredibly hard task.  But you have an author saying we need more meritocracy and meritocracy starts with equal opportunity to education -- so why not employ all your genius and be a teacher to kids that need it and help them and then spread your wisdom to the school -- and then go from there.  Or likewise, rather than having some big time expert opinion on how to resolve the healthcare problem -- make a functioning, profitable hospital.  Just one.  Is it just me or isn't this the way to actually fixing things?  These people just want to be pundits and I'm not convinced we need any more pundits.

In my industry, the equivalent of this type of "too large" thinking is people who think about re-imagining the entire studio system or say things like "movies are dead" or perceive an entirely new way the movie business need to work or people who say things like "the digital revolution" and this type of stuff.  I've come to think that thinking in these terms is avoidance of the infinitely more difficult and more needed project of just making one good movie.  And making one at a time.  That's all this business is, really, a bunch of people working on one movie at a time.  In any case, I suppose what I'm saying is our thinking ought to be less broad and perhaps more focused and precise when it comes to dealing with any sort of problem.

Logging

TV:  The rest of the Newsroom pilot

Bastard.  The second half of this ridiculous pilot is strangely watchable.  Sorkin...what a slutty romantic bastard...with his soft gloss (not in Newsroom, whose look is actually grainy) but content-wise this guy is borderline Capra cheese.  The second half of this show is the American President.  He mocks "second year undergraduate poli-sci majors," but that's who Sorkin is at heart, just one of those guys in US Congress class who talks a lot and loved Paul Wellstone.

It's weird watching a news show about actual news that happened two years because well, the urgency feels, I dunno, two years ago?  I fail to see how this can explore any territory that hasn't already been covered by Network, Broadcast News, or the Insider.  Then again, he's doing his best to rip off all three.  (Network's meltdown, Broadcast News relationship, the Insider corporate paranoia)

Logging

TV:  The next 10 minutes of Newsroom first episode

Who are these people?  Is it just me or does everyone in the show talk like a hysterical homosexual?  Am I allowed to say things like that?  Between this and Girls, who is ever going to want to live in New York?

Libor

This huge British banking scandal is just another in a series out outrageous behavior by the "meritocratic elite."

What a fraud all these people are.

Beyond Bailouts

Forms of cronyism.  Free market competition is for suckers.  That's the message.

Streaming?  Not So Fast

DVD still accounts for 47% of revenue for movies in the UK.

The BVA says it expects discs to remain consumers’ preferred option, “for the foreseeable future.”

Until someone has everything I want to watch On Demand, DVD rentals still work the best.

Discord at the Supreme Court

Oh, great.  It sounds like a sewing circle, not the greatest legal minds on the planet.

In any case, the prior post is shaping all the realities.  Health care costs are high because there is too much labor involved with health care (ie cost).  Soon, technology will make health care cheaper, but then of course, the jobs will be the issue.  Lovely.

I've Been Saying This

We are entering the post-employee economy.

We need X number of people to operate the economy and X*2 people want to work to make money and have a sense of purpose.  This is a problem.  The Amish ask this question and they are not wrong to.

Sounds Good

Brzenenski's new book.

Hillary

"Assad's days are numbered."  Is it stupid to point out if Bush said something like this, he would be considered brash, dumb, and overly aggressive?

Nevertheless, if the Assad regime falls it will be Iraq, Egypt, Libya, and Syria in 8 years - four major autocracies in the Middle East gone and replaced with fledgling democracies.  Maybe the Arabs aren't "capable" of democracy as many here (and there) believe, but we're going to find out.  And I rather think they deserve at least a shot at it.  Dictatorship will always be able to return, if the experiment fails.

Imagine 10 years down the line when Iran and Saudi Arabia are surrounded by democracies, oil consumption is dropping and we get most of our stuff from fracking fields in the US and Canada.  Is that foolish to hope for?

Logging

TV:  The first five minutes of Newsroom

Maybe I'll watch this show.  I need to justify the 10-15 bucks I spend each month on HBO.  Sorkin is talking about an issue that concerns me: American malaise.  He is wrong and stupid and bullying of course about the whole thing, but maybe he'll slip in some insights here and there.  Even a broken clock, right?

In the Daniels opening lecture he says "people hate liberals because they lose."  Ugh?  Really?  I guess he forgot we have one of the most liberal presidents in modern American history.  No...the issue with liberals is not that they lose, it is that they are lazy and don't have any answers for the problems facing our nation.  They bring out tired old cliches born out of the 1960s to solve our present problems.  They misread the role of government in American society.  They don't like to address the big questions and instead focus on the smaller ones.  They are cynical.  

And they keep self insulating themselves from the realities facing Americans today.  They misdiagnose their own problem.  Sorkin thinks liberals are right and are just too big of wusses to force their arguments down everyone's throats.  That isn't the issue.  Good ideas are good ideas.  If the ideas don't speak to people's experiences, people won't swallow them.  Liberals can support unions all we want, but if the jobs are dying and disappearing, what good will the unions be at all?

Logging

Film:  Red Belt

Don't get tired of this film.  Love the ending.

Arresting Adrian Peterson

I would not want to be the cop trying arrest AP.

Logging

Film:  Silence of the Lambs with Commentary

One of the more unique commentary features with five different people featured on it - Demme, Foster, Hopkins, Tally (screenwriter), and John Douglas (the FBI consultant on the film).

My favorite part was Hopkins saying how he imagined Lector being like Hal from 2001.  You can kind of see it...

TV:  Louie S3, E2

The Melissa Leo episode.  Not one of the better ones.  A good test to see how much you like the show. I imagine enjoying this episode means you'll enjoy whatever Louie chooses to do.

Da Burger

Five Guys vs. In and Out.

I'm liking Five Guys right now, probably just for the change of pace.

Netflix Streaming

I just cancelled because the service is garbage.  I may start back up again with DVDs at some point.

Real Tax Rate

An argument that the "real" tax rate is 75% on middle class people.

And he doesn't even mention sales taxes.  The government does take a bite.

Worth A Try

Local governments and an investment fund to seize underwater properties and re-finance.

Try it small.  See if it works.  Go from there.

Logging

Play:  The Exorcist

At the Geffen theater, with Brooke Shields.  Started off bad, but in the end, it was all right.  A decent night out.

Ochocinco

Wants to play until he's 40.

Me too.

Logging

Film:  Red Road (dir. Andrea Arnold)

A 2006 indy film, did the festival circuit about a CCTV operator who becomes obsessed with a mysterious man she sees through surveillance.  Mysterious and tense for awhile, the end was ultimately anti-climatic.  But still, a good film festival movie in the truest sense.  No stars.  Small.  Economical.  Modest filmmaking.  Per Wikipedia, this got her compared to a young Von Trier and Michael Haneke. It strikes me in thinking about this, the indy world does the same thing Hollywood does, picks their favorite sons and does what it can to self protect and self promote.  I suppose that is the business we are in.

Anxiety Nation

America.

When did we become such a bunch of babies?

Dying Business

Am I in a dying business?

Logging

TV:  Louie, season 3, episode 1

Louie's wife is black.

My favorite part of the episode was the puzzling over the rules for parking.  Chaplin-esque, without the physicality.  A great example of the problem with the modern nation-state.  Gives me little hope for Obama care.

Good Question

How does the film industry make money?

Euro Final:  Spain 4 - Italy 0

Disappointing game.  Very boring, almost sad, to watch.  I suppose Spain are that good.

Logging

Film:  Fright Night - 2011 Remake

Ehhh.

Girls Conversation

Had an interesting conversation about Girls, the controversial Lena Dunham show today after breakfast.  Here are the bullet points:

-I don't think Lena Dunham likes her own characters (hence, why should we?)

-The only reason Lena Dunham is considered "brave" for getting naked is the fact that she is not good looking.  If she were good looking, she would be a more more educated (but not necessarily more intelligent) Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian.  Has anyone ever called Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian "brave" for releasing a sex tape?  Why not?

-People who like the show often cite the realism and say things like "this is what 24 year olds are really like."  And yes, perhaps some 24 year olds are like this in the same way some people probably have the same POV as ridiculous Aaron Sorkin characters.  But I'm not really willing to believe all 24 year olds are naturally selfish, entitled, self-centered brats.  Not even all the ones living in New York.  I guess what I'm trying to say is: the POV of the show and characters isn't all that age-specific.  I think Lena Dunham at 35 won't have much of a world view shift.  Nor at 45.  The continued living lives of unexamined privilege will go on and on, much like Woody Allen's neurosis, Michael Mann's obsession with lonely men finding solace in their work, and Ed Zwick's continued quest to marry social issues and big action movies.

-I would argue that a bit of this show's popularity stems from misery loving company, that it is more cathartic to watch the painful, awkward sex, when that is the sex you know.  And while this is certainly a valid reason to enjoy the show, I do not envy those in such a position.

Meritocracy and Religion


Interesting blog post about the book I'm currently reading.

Logging

Film:  Blue Velvet

Don't think I've watched this film since college.  I'm not sure if it is Lynch's best film, but it is certainly his quintessential film.  I don't love the movie.  I think the movie means more to people who saw it in 1986 in the barren landscape of commercial cinema at the time - and especially if they were disposed to the avant-garde - or just at an impressionable time in their lives.  I'd argue Blow Up has the same quality.  Say you saw it in 1966 in some art theater in New York and the week before you were watching the original Fantastic Voyage or whatever else was out (just looked it up and actually The Good, The Bad, The Ugly came out that year).  But I think these movies mean more to people who viewed them in such a context versus me, who saw Blue Velvet as a douchy college student who really wanted to like it knowing the critical revisionism and late celebration of the film.  And I like it, don't get me wrong.  I just don't love it.  I don't get joy from it.  A telling thing for me, was what I remember from the movie.  I remembered the ear, the closet, Dennis Hopper sucking god knows was gas from that mask, and Isabella Rossellini seducing Kyle Mclaughlin at knife point.  Watching it the second time, I think I'll remember the same exact things.  They are the highlights of the movie.  Oh yeah, and the scene with Dean Stockwell.

People LOVE this film.  I wonder what that is about.

Logging

Film:  The Avengers

The birth of the uncool.  Somehow, this movie is the 3rd highest grossing film of all time and yet, no one talks about it.  It was as if the whole thing was just one big giant preview and marketing campaign. Think about this - 30% of the box office for the entire year thus far is the Avengers.  And yet, I've yet to hear one single conversation about the film.  To this day, if you are simply out and about you will hear the words "oh...that was like that episode in Seinfeld."  With respect to the Avengers people will say "oh did you see it?"  And another will answer "yeah."  And that's all anyone has to say.  Perhaps if they are a teenage boy they'll say "it was awesome."  Sure, I guess it was awesome.

Can someone tell me what the aliens were trying to accomplish?  Why did they just start attacking office workers in downtown Manhattan?  If I were an alien trying to take over earth, that seems like a pointless strategy.  Do these office workers pose some sort of existential threat to the aliens?  Why not just land and walk around in the middle of the street.  It isn't like the office workers are going to fight you.  And if they did, you could shoot them with your super high tech guns.  But why just wantonly destroy buildings?  Because the CGI is at a good price point?  Seriously.

Good Analysis

Of the Roberts decision.

Logging

Film:  The Collector by William Wyler

Great example of a small movie.  Terrence Stamp is damn good.  A bit long and slow in pacing, as was the style back then.  Highly recommended as a good old fashioned psychological thriller that doesn't feel cheap.  Maybe one of the first movies like this.  Nods to it in Silence of the Lambs.  Bears similarity to Misery, without the humor.  Based on a book by John Fowles, a writer I'd be interested in checking out.  Also, one of Wyler's last films to direct.  I need to revisit him and John Huston and some of the other great classical era directors.

Euro 2012:  Italy 2 - Germany 1


This game reminded me of 1998 France defeating Brazil in the World Cup final.  Everyone thought Germany was the better team coming in, but on the field Italy was just better.  It wasn't like they got lucky, they are just sneaky good.  They got better chances, had a few moments of brilliance, and exposed the weakness in the German defense.  How fun is Pirlo to watch?  The guy is like Chris Paul the way he leads his team.  When he raises his hands, wanting the ball, the other Italians give him it immediately.

They could beat Spain.

Well...

The Supreme Cour upholds Obamacare, barely.  They cite Congresses right to tax people without insurance.

I've tried following this thing a little bit and don't understand the impact.  As far as I can tell, the changes to the current system are:

1.  Kids are under their parents until 26
2.  Insurance companies cannot deny for pre-existing conditions
3.  Everyone who can afford it, must buy health insurance or face a fine

I don't see how this changes much.  The issue with healthcare is the ridiculous cost.  I fail to see how forcing a few more people into the pool helps with the cost.  Spreading out the cost would work if the expenses were stagnant, but they aren't stagnant nor transparent.  I imagine the costs increase of covering everybody will ultimately fall on the rich and upper middle class in some way or another.

Good analysis here at the Atlantic.

Euro 2012:  Spain v. Portugal

Portugal is playing a brilliant game so far.  Overplaying the passing lanes, allowing Spain to go over the top, and it is totally disrupting the Spanish style of possession.  Trusting Spain can't win balls in the air 1 v. 1 up top or w/ speed on through balls.  Working so far.  Spain is amazing, though and still is getting chances.  But Nani is dominating his side and when Ronaldo gets the ball, the whole world stops and watches.

I'm starting to really like Ronaldo.  His cocky fury is much more attractive than Kobe simply because he backs it up.  Kobe is an annoying volume shooter.  Ronaldo makes the correct soccer play almost the entire time - even when it means taking on 3 guys because he can actually do it and be dangerous doing it.  He is a superior player to many, very, very good players with whom he shares the field.  He has skill in the air, on either foot, has touch, speed, and is strong.  He is so clearly the LeBron James meets Kobe Bryant of soccer and perhaps the only thing more unbelievable is the fact he isn't the best player in the world, that somehow God decided to make Messi.

The ref is terrible.

UPDATE:  Into overtime now.  How good is Iniesta?  Jesus.  Portugal either needs a moment of brilliance from Ronaldo or PKs.  Teams are wearing down.

Zimmerman Passed A Lie Detector

Maybe he used the George Constanza method.  "It isn't a lie, if YOU believe it."

Woody's True Genius

Might be his productivity as opposed to any single work.  He is Lou Gehrig, not Mickey Mantle.

Getting Older, Getting Better?

One advantage of playing sports into a later age is the deterioration.  I am slower than I used to be and cannot rely upon my speed and quickness the way I used to.  It has forced me to adapt to playing against younger, better players.  One thing I now do on defense rather than just blindly try and "shut down" or "challenge" my opposing player is to outthink him as well.  I watch the guy and see "what he wants to do."  Most players have something they want to do.  Basically, they want to go left or go right, or get around you.  Robben on the Netherlands is a good example.  You know he just wants to cut in and make a diagonal run.  I would now simply back off Robben two steps and angle my body to force him to go right.  He could easily do so, but it would be out of his comfort zone.  He would go right and I'd let him try and get a right footed cross or go left and I would tackle him.

If a big guy wants to pin me on defense, I don't let him.  I back away and don't play him tight.  I just try and throw off his balance.  Then I mix it up.  It is psychological.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Winner Take All Society

The grumblings will eventually start, if they haven't already - LeBron won the championship by stacking the deck.  This is why people were so upset with the Miami trade.  It offended their sense of "fair play."  What people and the media don't get - it's partially their own fault.  All you hear, ad nauseum, is that they only thing that matters is rings.  You're nothing unless you have a ring.  What's more, you can't even enter the discussion of greatness unless you get 4, 5, 6 rings like Jordan.  Such thinking is ludicrous, of course.  Winning rings depends on tons of uncontrollable factors - teammates, injuries, competition, luck, David Stern fixing games.  Our value systems, however, are so out of whack when it comes to competition and sports and how we treat these athletes in the public eye.  It smacks of little man syndrome, a cultural-wide Napoleonic complex.  When did we become so obsessed with winning at the exclusion of all else?  And not just winning - greatness.  Look at how we celebrate - Kobe Bryant - an unloveable, borderline sociopathic rapist, betrayer, bad teammate, who coasted on Shaq and Gasol's shoulders while trying to steal all the credit for himself.  This is who we celebrate?  Why?  Because he has 5 rings?

I'm going to come out and say it - why do we give a shit about rings?  My high school baseball coach was obsessed with winning pennants in our league.  Unsurprisingly, like many people who obsess about such things, he had never won.  He gave a speech about winning and got us meathead high school baseball players excited - "when you win, it's something no one can ever take away from you." While I was there and part of the team we won the league 4 years in a row.  Guess how much this effects my life?  Zero.  Zilch.  This did not boost my confidence or make me a better person.  It did not help me succeed in life.   And basically no one from that team, with all their dreams, went on to play at a high level of baseball.  In fact, I might have been smarter to play soccer more full time.  I might have been able to play at a tiny bit of a higher level than I achieved - maybe D1 instead of D3.  Maybe our D3 team gets to the tournament one year if I'm a little better.  My soccer team never won a championship while I was in high school -- but our competition was the high school equivalent of Spain's national team.  Of course we didn't win!  Does that make the experience less?  Of course not.  In fact, it makes it better.  It was awesome to get to compete against good players.

Of course LeBron stacked the deck.  It is the only way to even come close to meeting the expectations of the chattering class.

Here is something to think about...we are becoming more and more a nation of cheaters, or if not overt cheaters, people who stack the deck, just like LeBron.  We see others do it and it deflates our sense of decency and morality and yet we participate in it during our own lives.

Our financial elite rig the market to their benefit and treat the average investor like a suckers.  High school students take expensive test prep courses to game SAT scores in their favor.  Baseball players used PEDs to improve their chances at winning.  Politicians manufacture half-truths to get elected.

We get what we pay for, I guess.

Logging

Film:  The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

It's good.  The first half is really good.  Then it gets saccharine and obvious, but clearly satisfying for a mass audience.  Much better than The Help.  The first sequence is a clinic in good old fashioned dream-factory ensemble character establishment and then getting them all together - great shot.  A lock for an Oscar nomination.

Logging

Film:  Hangover 2

I watched 4 scenes.  Flat from the get go.  A good example of why movies fall fail on a very technical, craft, writing level -- no action.  Each scene is just people talking with zero objective.  In one, Ed Helms and Bradley Cooper are in Ed Helms dentist office and there is activity, ie he is giving him a teeth cleaning, but no action.  Neither one wants anything in the scene.  It is pure exposition.  You cannot call Bradley Cooper wanting a hit of nitrous an objective.  He barely tries and I don't believe him anyway.  Then he steals the prescription pad as a coda, but this joke doesn't work.  Is the idea that Bradley Cooper wants drugs?  But then why is Bradley Cooper getting a tooth cleaning from his friend?  It makes no sense.  There are other ways to achieve this objective, if it were truly his objective. The blocking is terrible - because there is nothing to do.

No Such Thing As "Having It All"

A good response to the ludicrous, overwritten cover story on the Atlantic this week.  I particularly like the following examples as to why people cannot "have it all."

Imagine if this article had been written by a kindergartner: "But I want to go to my gymnastics class and I want to go Rosie's birthday party and they're both on Saturday morning!" rails the 5-year-old journalist. "Why can't girls have it all? This is so unfair! Somebody has to make it possible for socially ambitious girls like me to be at gymnastics and Rosie's party! The solution is to accommodate me by moving Rosie's party or the time of my gymnastics class. I want justice, because no girl should ever have to feel trapped like this!"

and this:

Would a man be taken seriously if he wrote a 15,000-word article stating that he's entitled to both marriage and the freedom to have sex with any woman he wants? Or would he be told to grow up and get real?

I'm reminded of the Seinfeld episode when Banya puzzles with Jerry whether to eat their second meal at Mendy's or try a new place. Jerry grows annoyed and says "I get it. You go to Mendy's and it'll be good, but the same. If you go somewhere else, it'll be different, but maybe not as good. It's a risk, I GET IT!

 Speaking of Seinfeld, this is a very funny article.

Pretty Funny

Woody Allen's new film - My Wife Doesn't Know As Much About Jazz as This Beautiful Italian Prostitute.

Oil

Why is oil both a good and bad investment?  If prices go up, your stock goes up.  If prices go down, you save money at the pump.  I suppose you can call oil a hedge.  A stabilizing investment.

Logging

Film:  Heat with director commentary

Despite seeing this film over 10x, I never watched the director commentary on the later DVD reissue.  Fascinating stuff.  I think critics of this film cite the over plotting and Al Pacino playing it "too big."  I don't see it.  Pacino's over-the-top scenes are played purposeful, to throw his CI's and other rats off.  They are strategic from a character standpoint.  As for the over plotting, this film pre-dates The Wire and other realistic novel-dramas we are now accustomed to watching on TV and is interested in building the same type of fully realized world.

Someone in film school called this a "beautiful, flawed film," to me, damning it by faint praise.  I believe the film grows in stature with time and I personally prefer watching it to The Godfather, which is probably the best film of all time.  And also, just to be a prick, I think Thief is a better movie than Taxi Driver.

UPDATE:  Think about the ridiculous number of actors in the film who are principally known for other things (now or then) as either stars or huge character actors.

Al Pacino - Michael Corleone
Robert DeNiro - Travis Bickle
Val Kilmer - Iceman, Jim Morrison
Tom Sizemore - common character actor
Ashley Judd - star of a series of female thrillers
Tom Noonan - The Tooth Fairy and other serial killers and creeps
Ted Levine - Buffalo Bill
Bud Cort - Harold and Maude
Jon Voight - Joe Buck
Wes Studi - any Indian Chief in any modern movie
Dennis Haysbert - the President in 24
William Fincher - common character actor
Mykelti Williamson - Limehouse on Justified
Amy Brenneman - Private Practice
Natalie Portman - child actor turned Oscar winner
Hank Azaria - Bart Simpson
Danny Trejo - B movie star via Robert Rodriguez
Henry Rollins - musician, radio program host
Tone Loc - musician
Jeremy Piven - Ari Gold

That's 20, not even counting Diane Venora.

I Love the A's

Fantastic Grantland article about the A's, post Moneyball.  My biggest sadness about not living in the Bay Area, aside from seeing my family less, is not being able to follow the A's.  I know I could get MLB pass or whatever people do to follow baseball, but it simply isn't as fun without living in the city. I read about the A's, but living the Bay Area, there is a different quality to it.  You get into conversations with people about the team.  Which players they like.  Who is looking good.  You go to games on Wednesday night and spend less money than going to a movie, taking the Bart over directly from the city.  Someone you know stumbles upon a skybox and you get invited to join.  You go to a bar to catch up with friends and the game is on in the background.  Your friend has a Sunday afternoon barbecue and puts the game on the TV and you watch the new relief pitcher try and close a game.  It is effortless to follow.

I can't follow the A's in LA beyond just reading about them.  It is too much work.  No one else gives two shits.  No one cares about Josh Reddick and Yoenis Cespedes make a half decent middle of the order.  Or, if the A's had money and were able to keep three of their best young pitchers this year, they might actually be competing for the AL West or the wildcard.

I was an A's fan as soon as I started understanding baseball.  This is a bit strange since most folks from where I live are Giant's fans.  I asked my dad why and he had no idea.  I just started liking the A's.  The heart wants what the heart wants.  This was the Mike Davis A's, a very mediocre team after Rickey Henderson went to the Yankees for 4 years.  There is no explanation for it.  Soon came the Bash Brothers and Rickey's return and I was set for life, basically.  After that era - the LaRussa era - there was a dry spell and then Billy Beane and Moneyball and Hudson, Zito, Mulder, Giambi, and Tejada.

These A's might get to .500 this year.  Somehow, the team, the organization, always overperforms.  They are the 3rd most successful franchise of all time behind the Yanks and the St. Louis Cardinals.  People don't know this.  There is something special about the A's.

Yikes

A full description of what happened on the night of Trayvon Martin shooting.  A hell of a lot different than was reported when it initially happened.  Will any of those who rushed to judgement apologize or change their behavior in the future?  I doubt it.  Especially because they choose the narrative first and try to wiggle stories into it.

Euro 2012:  Spain 2, France 0

What was France supposed to do?  Disappointing they benched several of their most exciting players - Nasri, Evra in favor of playing a more conservative game.  But perhaps in doing so, they kept themselves in it and hoped for a bit of luck.  Did they have 1 shot on goal the entire game?  Pretty unimpressive from a team with that much talent up top.  Spain just forces you to play a strange way.  Remarkable how confident they look with only a 1-0 lead.

Ramos and Alonso in the back are under appreciated when discussing Spain.  They are super solid in the back.  Just a great team, not much more else to say.

Euro 2012:  Germany vs. Greece

This is a ridiculous game.  Germany is so much better.  Greece is terrible.  I dislike their style - slide tackling all over the place.  I suppose it is all they can do being outmatched as they are.  But I still find it irritating to watch.

Miami

I was rooting for Miami in this series for some reason.  I'm glad they won.  I grew annoyed with the grief the public laid upon LeBron and glee with which people wanted to see him fail.

I Don't Normally Do This

And post articles I have not read in full, but this one is about how women are out achieving men in America today.  I've known this to be anecdotally the case for years - the majority of my bosses have been women and my female friends, relatives, etc, for the most part, achieve just as high or higher success than my male equivalents.

I somehow doubt feminists and women in general will cry as loud for "equality" when they are the one's in the drivers seat.

The Chattering Class

Ah, yes, my wikipedia entry of the day - the chattering class.

a politically active, socially concerned and highly educated section of the "metropolitan middle class," especially those with political, media, and academic connections. the term has "connotations of idleness, of useless talk, that the noun 'chatter' does. [...] These people don't amount to much — they like to hear themselves talk."

In America, they watch Girls and read the New York Times.

Logging

Film:  Ondine

Neil Jordan's version of E.T.  Well, that's my definition anyway.

Game 4


Wow.  I just caught the end of that game.  Westbrook 43 points.  James out with cramps.  Chalmers scoring 25 points.  Well, if Miami was to win the series, they'd have to get a game changing performance from Chalmers or Battier or Haslem at some point, I guess tonight was the night.  Couldn't believe Westbrook having such a brilliant game and then a colossally stupid play towards the end fouling Chalmers when the shot clock was at 3.  I guess OKC's youth has been revealed in this series.

Harden is not playing well and it is killing OKC.  They are getting stuffy at the end of games, trying too hard just to give the ball to Durant.

Parenting and Prestige

Is it less fun and less prestigious to parent these days?  Is it a problem?

Logging

Book:  In The Garden of Beasts:  Love, Terror, and An American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larsen

It's good to read history and non-fiction once in awhile.  In particular, the period before and during World War 2 makes one appreciate the problems of today.  This was the story of the American ambassador to Germany in 1933-1934 when Hitler was first in power and his attempts to navigate the madness of early Nazi Germany.  Crazy time.

Good Ideas

A new book diagnoses the failure of America's meritocracy.  Some proposed solutions by the article writer:

• Write simpler regulations. Complexity advantages the people at the top, who are always best positioned to exploit its vagaries. As Kevin Drum once put it, "Dumb, blunt rules are the only kind that can work in the playpen of modern finance. We simply don't understand the world well enough to pretend that we can regulate things in minute detail, and we sure as hell don't have regulators who are either smart enough or can move fast enough to stay ahead of the rocket scientists trying to outwit them. That's not just impossible in practice, it's pretty much impossible even in theory. It's just plain impossible. But dumb-as-rocks rules about capital requirements and trading limits and collateral requirements and term structures? Yeah, that can work."

• End the War on Drugs, the most extreme example of rich and poor being punished differently for the same behavior.

• One way elites "pull up the ladder" is through credentialism. So how about doing away with the many unnecessary professional licensing laws that disproportionately hurt the economic prospects of the poor?

• Tax test prep courses, and use the proceeds to subsidize test prep for anyone eligible for free school lunch.

• Move the Supreme Court to Omaha, Nebraska, or Salt Lake City, Utah, or Portland, Oregon. And transition to an e-Congress, so that House members spend more time in their districts, being required to cast votes from among the people they represent. One way to decrease the social distance between elites and citizens is to better disperse the elites among the people.

• Stop subsidizing college tuition. Instead, take the total sum spent on that enterprise and divide it equally each year among all graduating high school seniors, who can use it for more education, trade school, or more professional development as they see fit. 

• Stop subsidizing mortgages.

• Privately funded media does a great job covering rich people culture. Why should NPR do the same? Publicly radio and television ought to be given a mandate to cover, serve and seek programming feedback from the lower reaches of American earners and the long term unemployed.

Home Ownership

Are high rates of home ownership a good sign for a country?

Logging

Film:  Sanctum

The Australian 3D film executive produced by James Cameron about cave divers.  I watched on HBO and so didn't get to experience the 3D.  As for acting caliber, story, etc, we are talking about a tv movie here.  But there are some gnarly parts of the film and they must've at least done some filming in actual caves.  In any case, I appreciate an adventure film like this over the faux-intellectual Your Sister's Sister kind of nonsense.

Surreal

A surreal video by Obama's ex-law professor pleading with progressives to not vote for Obama in 2012.