Just Give Her A Pair...

Lady arrested for offering sex on craigslist for Phillies World Series Tix.

She might have dropped double entendres in her Craigslist ad but never explicitly offered sex, her lawyer William J. Brennan said.

The 43-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate student wanted to take her husband to a game between her beloved Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Yankees. The self-described "buxom blonde" said she was simply trying to score tickets online, as she had in the past.

I wonder what she is studying.

Damn

Peggy Noonan asks whether Americans are losing heart. She's onto something.

I talked with an executive this week with what we still call "the insurance companies" and will no doubt soon be calling Big Insura. (Take it away, Democratic National Committee.) He was thoughtful, reflective about the big picture. He talked about all the new proposed regulations on the industry. Rep. Barney Frank had just said on some cable show that the Democrats of the White House and Congress "are trying on every front to increase the role of government in the regulatory area." The executive said of Washington: "They don't understand that people can just stop, get out. I have friends and colleagues who've said to me 'I'm done.' " He spoke of his own increasing tax burden and said, "They don't understand that if they start to tax me so that I'm paying 60%, 55%, I'll stop."

He felt government doesn't understand that business in America is run by people, by human beings. Mr. Frank must believe America is populated by high-achieving robots who will obey whatever command he and his friends issue. But of course they're human, and they can become disheartened. They can pack it in, go elsewhere, quit what used to be called the rat race and might as well be called that again since the government seems to think they're all rats. (That would be you, Chamber of Commerce.)

and this

We are governed at all levels by America's luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they're not optimists—they're unimaginative. They don't have faith, they've just never been foreclosed on. They are stupid and they are callous, and they don't mind it when people become disheartened. They don't even notice.

Ouch.

A Big Movie

Watched Amadeus in the theater last night. First time I'd seen the film all the way through. An interesting film...because on the one hand, it's a great movie - really strong point of view, excellent craft, well told story, innovative editing (loved, loved, loved the SMASH cuts across time from testing a note or two and blam into the performance)...but on the other hand, I know it my gut I didn't love the movie. It some respects, it felt dated. There was a weird aspect to some of the writing where obvious exposition was repeated to audience once we already understood the situation. There were several, but the most memorable is when we're introduced to Mozart prancing around and playing with his lady friend and Salieri is spying on the situation. We all know this is Mozart. And if it weren't, why is Salieri spying on him? Who does Salieri think this is? Just some baffoon? But only at the end of the scene when Mozart realizes his music is being played, does Salieri realize this is Mozart. On a technical level, this writing is serviceable, although a tad repetitive. I felt like saying..."I get it, already." And this moment wasn't a big deal, but a preview of more moments to come throughout the movie when I'm feeling like "I get it, let's go..." It's not a slim movie, either, watching it after a long day's work is no easy task. A re-cut could take a look at the theatrical cut of Miami Vice and how Micheal Mann introduces us to characters we already know - Crockett and Tubbs - that's a modern character introduction. "F--- you--smart ass audience- we know you know who we are and this is what you caught us doing right now. Boom. Middle of the operation stalking a pimp."

But the other issue is a larger one - the point of view towards artist or genius. Malcolm Gladwell wrote an excellent article on different types of artists - the prodigy vs. the late bloomer. The examples he used were Mozart and Manet. Amadeus celebrates a tired overused trope - the artist/genius-as-prodigy, born with innate talent far far superior to those mediocre poseurs like Salieri. Maybe Amadeus originated this trope, but it feels like a vestige of the 70s - a post-watergate/vietnam distrust of authority and celebration of the lone artist who struggles against an unfair, conspiratorial world against him. In hindsight, this notion feels rather convenient for the great filmmakers of the 70s (many of whom, like Milos Forman were directly imported from the european new wave movements or the americans who were heavily influenced by them). Isn't it easier to say they were broken by the system or by jealous rivals conspiring against them than to acknowledge running out of artistic steam? Does anyone actually believe Coppola, Lucas, and company had more in them after the 70s? Their knees went. We'd love to see great movies from these guys. But did anyone see Tetro? I feel like more people read my blog.

Nevertheless, this is the best movie I've seen in the theater in awhile. Compared to The Informant or Where the Wild Things Are, the level of quality isn't comparable.

Thank You, The Onion

U.S. Continues Quagmire-Building Effort In Afghanistan

We've spent a lot of time and money fostering the turmoil and despair necessary to make this a sustaining quagmire, and we're not going to stop now," President Barack Obama said in a national address Monday night. "It won't be easy, but with enough tactical errors on the ground, shortsighted political strategies, and continued ignorance of our vast cultural differences, we could have a horrific, full-fledged quagmire by 2012."

Let's hope.

We Are Douchebags - watch more funny videos

I'll Read It

A new biography on Agassi.

Quick Thoughts On Issues Of The Day

Healthcare - Not convinced we're in a crisis. The costs are rising too fast, but largely due to better drugs and technology available. I'd guess life expectancy and general health is much better today than 25 years ago. Why? A lot of factors - general preventative knowledge, better drugs, better procedures. Guess what? The drugs and procedures innovations cost money. Don't trust the idea that government can step in and make the system more efficient. If this were the case, they'd fix medicare and make it so good and efficient, others would want to opt in. If there were a simple fix, I'd bet on Walmart figuring it out long before Obama. Also think there is an entitlement issue going on - we invent expensive/awesome procedures and everyone expects they'll be able to afford. They won't. It's as if the term "I can't afford it," is no longer in the American lexicon. Well...it's something we REALLY need to bring back. (okay that wasn't so quick)

Afghanistan - Don't see why the only two options are going "all in" or "pulling out." What's wrong with keeping the Taliban and AQ off balance with a light footprint? It seems to be working so far as AQ hasn't attacked us or been able to regroup since 9/11. Don't think we can nation build over there.

Bank Bail Out - It was blackmail, pure and simple. They said, "you have to bail us out, or else, the world economy crashes." It's like a James Bond criminal came up with it. Bullshit. You can't respond to blackmail. We ought to have let them fail. This is easy for me to say - a single dude without much in the way of assets or anything. If I had a family and secure job and a mortgage and the whole nine, maybe I'd feel different. But I don't. They ripped us off and will do it again.

Foreclosures - Let 'em happen and let 'em happen now. The govt is propping up real estate prices. We ought to let them drop so the market can feel functional. Right now, everyone is just standing by, waiting for the next shoe to drop. This is the reckoning and it's going to be painful for a lot of people who overpaid. Tough shit. The solution is not kicking the can down the road for other people to continue overpaying. Plus, I want prices low so I can get in and get a deal. Do I want to kick people out of their homes? Not really. But what's so wrong with renting? I do it. Why is this a narrative about becoming homeless? You aren't homeless if you sell the house you overpaid for. You simply rent or buy a cheaper house.

Yanks-Phillies - I don't care who wins.

Alex Smith as the Niners QB - Like the ceiling. Timing is right. Shaun Hill is better suited as a trustworthy back up than an actual playoff quarterback. And yes, the niners should be going for the playoffs.

TV vs. Movies - I am more into tv right now - because of the price point/value/convenience issue. Just finished Deadwood. It's the rambunctious younger brother to the Wire and the Sopranos. Not quite as good, but in the same category. Watching Parks, the Office, 30 Rock, Bored to Death, Curb, and sports. What's the last movie I liked? I can't remember off the top of my head.

Swine Flu - A little bit worse than the regular flu. Not the end of the world.

Obama vs. Fox News - Petty. Very petty. Not Presidential. Raises the profile of Fox. Glad the other networks stood up for Fox when White House tried to ban from press conference. Shows that news folks still got some salt left.

The Economy - Does not look good. Fundamental problems not resolved. Will only get through it by keeping heads down and working hard. Good numbers are an illusion, a result of government stimulus and cost cutting by companies. Job rate is lower than reported due to furloughs and discouraged workers. Real Estate still inflated. We're collectively in waaaay too much debt.

Uh Oh

Stressful jobs that pay badly - film producer.

I quit.

Guns, Guns, Guns

This story makes me want to buy a gun.

Am I crazy or does it seem like this type of thing only happens to people who actually carry guns? No one I know carries a gun and no one I know has been held up at knife point at a video store. Is this just luck? Or location?

Co-Ed Sports

Obama only golfs with men.

There was a time when I had a small amount of contempt for co-ed sports because...well, come on.

I played in co-ed indoor soccer leagues and the level of play was atrocious and teams were whiny, soft, and didn't know the rules of soccer. It wasn't just the presence of girls, it was the guys who played with girls. Co-ed was like playing girls high school soccer - the type of game that is played as a social activity, where the girls don't pass to girls they don't like, they complain about hard (but fair) play, and don't mind being cheap and finicky. Players pout when things don't go their way and the whole thing is frankly, lame.

So yes, I am contemptuous of this Girl-Power-I'm-Gonna-Prove-I'm-Equal-but-not-actually-behave-equal attitude. And sadly, a lot of co-ed sporting is exactly this.

But not all girls play sports this way. And I've always known it, but let the majority and my experience dictate my attitude. There are girls who like to play with the boys and can hang with the boys. We had a girl on our men's league soccer team who laid out dudes on opposing teams. We play bball with girls every week who hang with the guys. I play tennis and golf with girls - friends and family - all the time.

It doesn't change the fact that most girls aren't good at sports and don't play the games right, which could explain why Obama plays golf with only men.

Here We Go...

Alex Smith named the staring QB.

The guy is still only 25 years old. He looked damn good last week and completely unprepared to lead the Niners on that final drive. Per the article, he worked with Crabtree the past two weeks to bring him up to speed.

The Smith/Crabtree/Morgan/Davis throwing offense has potential. Playoff potential. I don't know if I can say the same of Shaun Hill, much as I like the guy.

What's A Subaru?

Bored to Death is a confounding show. It hits upon a George Constanza premise...when George pitches "the show about nothing" to NBC, the executive says, "Why would anyone watch it?"

George responds, "Because it's on TV."

I watch Bored to Death because it is on. I get home Sunday night and like to watch a few shows. It is a habit. It started with The Sopranos, then Entourage, then The Wire, Generation Kill, Hung, and now Bored to Death and Curb. Bored to Death is both annoying and watchable. I can't explain why I watch the show. It feels rather inane, the entire premise and the show really isn't very funny or crazy. In fact, my average weekend is probably a bit more interesting than Jason Schwartzman's in the show. And that isn't saying too much. I like the side characters - Zack whatever his name and Ted Danson. But basically, I watch it because it's on and is short. The quirky, hipster element of the show should annoy me, but it doesn't turn me off enough to stop watching. Yet.

And Curb last night. Huh? It was one of the weirdest episodes ever. But funny. Jerry is good in the show. "White gloves, white gloves. I'm white gloves." Very funny. The flashback to the 60s and blood splattering everyone and ending the episode with grabbing onto the flab. Jesus. What a wacky episode. But a great lesson in humor with the short shirt. Re-doing a simple, small joke over and over can yield increasingly funny returns. By the end of the episode, the girl wearing the short shirt was making me laugh harder and harder even thought it was the exact same joke over and over.

How The Digital Revolution Ruins the Social Fabric of Society

The vast majority of people do not respond to Evites. Every evite I visit, more than 1/2 and usually upwards of 2/3 do not bother to respond. Every week, I play basketball with a group of people and the organizer never knows how many people are going to show up because no one responds. Also every week, I play soccer and the team captain needs to send email reminders to rsvp, followed by phone calls, text messages, and other ways to chase people down just to figure out if we have enough people to play on Sunday.

Email response time is uncertain and erratic. Often, people respond right away. Sometimes it takes days. It's not quite as rude to not return emails as not return phone calls...but it is still clearly rude. Granted, a lot of email communication is inane and superfluous. I stopped gmail chatting because it was such a waste of time and a distraction when bored friends would send messages:

Wurd up?
hi!
poke

Particularly if I was...you know...working. It's rude to them because they're like, jesus, man, just respond it takes two seconds and you have no idea what's going on at the other end. Is the person super busy? Are they twittling their thumbs and acting cool? Is an intern sitting at their computer pretending to be them?

Anyhow, back to my point. Email is so goddamn easy. Evites are so easy. And perhaps it is exactly because they are so easy, people don't feel compelled to respond. Or they don't know their response and then later forget. Or are just lazy and stupid and inconsiderate.

But how does this effect the social fabric of society?

Most of what holds society together is not government or police or laws or NGOs, or community organizing or Senate committees. It is the small things - families, friends, work places, teams, schools, etc. People gather and peaceably interact with each other because of common habits of politeness, decency, shared interests, and so forth. We do this in all sorts of local institutions - restaurants, movie theaters, parties, sports leagues, book clubs, happy hours, lunches, christmas parties, etc.

These small things are under assault by the digital revolution and the fickleness of communication in the digital age. The organizer of my local soccer team does a great deal of work - they register and communicate with the league, they wash jersey's every week, they send out emails to remind of game times and keep track of whether enough players will show up, they collect money to cover costs. What do the players contribute? They don't respond to emails until the last minute, don't pay league dues until midway through the season, don't show up to games because they're hungover, or decide to watch NFL Sunday Night Football instead of showing up to the game.

This drives the organizers crazy. And sometimes the organizers are out of town or too busy and they need to recruit someone to step in their shoes. Part of me feels responsible to help out, the other part of me is sane. I never agree to help. Why should I? Do I want to spend part of my week chasing down people to respond to emails? No thanks.

I'm one of those borderline host/organizer people. I do it more than the average, but not much more. I used to organize basketball in the past. I used to have a lot of parties from college until I hit 29 or so.

But nowadays, I barely bother. I like to host and think it's a real skill to bring together the right group of people on a team or a party. It's also key to pick the right kind of food and drinks and music to make a party fun. Nothing disgusts me more than tossing out trader joes hummus and boxed wine and cheap drinks with crappy mixers at a party. I hate those kind of parties. And this isn't being snooty and about spending more money, like I need Ketel or microbrews or food from Dan Tana. I just like to know a little care went in. Serve all PBR and hot dogs for all I care. But at least put out sauerkraut and chopped onions and mustard. You know? Get some details right. Make a choice - get cheap vodka - but good bloody mary mix and limes and make bloody mary's the only drink of choice. Or make only stirred margaritas.

But I won't throw a party today unless I feel compelled to. I'm not spending money, going through effort to make food, pick the right drinks, craft a good guest list only to get 1/2 (if I'm lucky) of the people to just respond Y/N/M. Fuck that shit.

Maybe a couple years ago, I would organize a softball team, but I won't do it now. No way am I chasing around people trying to get them to join, covering the league costs hoping to get paid back, and then sending out emails every week no one responds to.

I'm glad there are still some good people out there who do these things. And I try my best to be responsive and return emails and respond to invites. These inventions, in theory, should make this type of thing easier. But I'm a borderline/on-the-margin participater in these type of projects and frankly, too tired to do it. I imagine there are a lot of others out there in the same position and society is much worse off because of it.

**Side note - Facebook plays a role here. Are people more and more organizing parties, social events, etc on facebook? I wouldn't know. Is the lack of email response due to a competition on facebook? I doubt it. In fact, facebook might be making parties/sports teams/etc less "necessary." Since everyone feels constantly connected to everyone else via facebook, why would one even need to socialize or join a team or go to party to catch up? This of course, is the end of society as we know it, so I hope we're not headed there.

Funny Ass Shit

Sex acts men don't actually enjoy.

The lede:

Men look at sex the way dogs look at bacon: The object is to get as much as possible in any form or by any means before our inevitable deaths.

Some of the more inventive people in our society have come up with a variety of sex acts intended to improve the pleasure of sex. But messing around with sex is like trying to improve the taste of bacon; you can try, but, ultimately, bacon is just good. Some sex simply sounds much better on paper than it turns out to be, often leaving guys wishing they’d just gone with some basic intercourse instead.

Irony

On Ayn Rands influence.

Ayn Rand was the greatest popularizer of libertarian ideas of the last 100 years. Many more people have read Rand’s books than have read all the works of Friedman, Hayek, Mises, Nozick, and all the other modern libertarian thinkers combined...

...Being remembered primarily as a great popularizer would have angered Rand. As Burns’ biography makes clear, Rand saw herself as a pathbreaking original thinker who had discovered important philosophical and political truths that had previous been ignored or at least underemphasized. Rand believed that her theory of Objectivism was the only possible moral grounding for a free society.

Ahhh...the great divide between what you set out to accomplish and what you do.

And Also Why The Fall of the Berlin Wall Ruined the Olympics

Bill Simmons and Isiah lament the competitiveness of 80s basketball.

After settling on an uneasy truce about his job performance, we started remembering those unforgettable Celtics-Pistons clashes from the eighties: how their mutual hatred was palpable, how that competitiveness has slowly eroded from the league because of rule changes, money, AAU camps and everything else. Today's rivals hug each other after games and pull the "I love you, boy!" routine. They act like former summer camp chums who became successful CEOs, then ran into each other at Nobu for the first time in years. Great to see you! I'll talk to you soon -- let's have lunch! When Isiah's Pistons played Bird's Celtics, the words "great to see you" were not on the agenda. They wanted to destroy each other. They did. There was an edge to those battles that the current ones don't have. I missed that edge and so did Isiah. We both felt passionate about it, passionate enough that -- gasp -- we were legitimately enjoying the conversation.

I guess they forgot about Isiah and Magic having gay sex on the court...I mean making out...I mean kissing before a playoff game.

But seriously, the issue of competitiveness and hatred as valuable in a sporting context is true. I can't even watch the Olympics without 300 lb East German swimmers with whiskers. Damn I miss those days.

A Rather Lovely Piece

Yes, I used the world lovely.

Sullivan can write at times...this one is about America...through the eyes of an Englishman.

The English, lulled by their marination in American pop culture from infancy, and beguiled by the same language, can live out their days in this country never actually noting that it is an alien land - stranger than you might have ever imagined, crueler than you realized, but somehow also more inspiring than you ever thought possible. This is the America I am trying to make my home, after 25 years. It is not the America of Pat Buchanan's or John Derbyshire's fantasies.

US to Support Anti-Blasphemy Law

Yikes. I guess we decided to toss freedom of speech under the bus in trying to win favor with the Arab Street.

God forbid we should live in world where non-PC speech or unpopular attitudes toward religion should be allowed.

Hope and change.

Hmmmmm

Does this mean the Iraq War is over?

"There are obviously enormous opportunities for our countries to do business together," Obama said. "I just want to congratulate Prime Minister Maliki on what I'm confident will be a successful conference, and to re-emphasize my administration's full support for all the steps that can be taken so that Iraq can not only be a secure place and a democratic country, but also a place where people can do business, people can find work, families can make a living, and children are well-educated."

Sounds like a better future than the one Saddam had in mind.