Although both houses were in session early Sunday night, it looks as though they both shut down around 7:30 PM because of the distraction of the Washington Redskin's divisional title championship game with (and win over) the Dallas Cowboys on NBC.
Monday, December 31, 2012
President Obama addresses nation during soaps, says "deal is within sight but not there"
President Obama appeared on network television around 1:40
PM Monday, New Years Eve, 2012, to say “A deal is in signt, but it is not yet
done”. He was surrounded by members of
middle class families who would be affected by the Fiscal Cliff, especially the
loss of unemployment benefits.
The president still points the finger at some Republicans,
whom he says simply refuse to join in the shared sacrifice (a Ross Perot term
from 1992) that could be expected by those with high incomes.
The “horizon deal” would raise taxes on couples making over
$450000 a year (marginally) or individuals over $400000. It would preserve tax cuts for families with
children.
The president talked about a “responsible, balanced approach”
but didn’t get into entitlement reform or discussion of the debt ceiling. He
didn’t mention the AMT, but it is almost certainly in the legislation.
The markets reacted negatively right when the president said
that we would have to negotiate deficit reduction “in several steps”.
The FICA payroll tax holiday of 2% will almost certainly
expire tonight.
Although both houses were in session early Sunday night, it looks as though they both shut down around 7:30 PM because of the distraction of the Washington Redskin's divisional title championship game with (and win over) the Dallas Cowboys on NBC.
Although both houses were in session early Sunday night, it looks as though they both shut down around 7:30 PM because of the distraction of the Washington Redskin's divisional title championship game with (and win over) the Dallas Cowboys on NBC.
A critical point in NBC’s “Days of our Lives”, where Nick
and Gabbie (and Will) almost told a priest “the truth” about Will’s baby was
skipped. It would be available online on
NBC tomorrow.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Obama explains "quick and dirty" Fiscal Cliff "deal" sought today on NBC "Meet the Press"
David Gregory, on NBC “Meet the Press”, has just interviewed
President Barack Obama this morning on live television.
Obama said that there were three possibilities: (1) a deal (2) no deal, but an “up and down”
vote on keeping taxes the same for the middle class (and a few other emergency
items like the AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax) levels for 2012, unemployment and
milk, or (3) retroactive fax fix shortly after Jan. 4, which the President
thinks the GOP cannot resist.
The President said we cannot solve the problems on the backs
of senior or college students, but he
didn’t really promise really significant entitlement reform.
The link for the interview is here. A video will probably appear today.
Tom Brokaw, in the post-interview discussion, pointed out
the destructive effects of gerrymandering, which has seriously hardened the
positions of some GOP congressmen (see Movie reviews, Oct. 30, 2010). He also said that the vote needed to finish before
the Redskins’s kickoff Sunday night (against the Dallas Cowboys).
Brokaw spoke out indirectly for means testing of
entitlements, as well as gradually raising eligibility ages. He said that a lot
of selfish adults want to keep their money for themselves and don’t care about
the next generation (is that only the childless?)
An earlier discussion on ABC criticized the idea of tax cuts
for the rich because of small business, but failed to mention that it is
possible to carve out lower rates for money put back into closely held
businesses. People even in my own family
circle (and probably Republicans) tell me the carve-out is pretty easy to do.
There was brief discussion with the president on
Newtown. Gegory was reprimanded by the
DOJ for showing a magazine clip
illegally on an earlier MTP show.
The president did mention the repeal of "don't ask don't tell" in 2011 as an example of progress on social issues.
The president did mention the repeal of "don't ask don't tell" in 2011 as an example of progress on social issues.
My take on the Cliff Notes: do the math on everything. Do the “LOMA 9” (actuarial) calculations on
the FICA tax contributions to Social Security that can be at risk.
The Huffington Post has a partial transcript of Gregory's interview, and its own "do these things" list here.
The Huffington Post has a partial transcript of Gregory's interview, and its own "do these things" list here.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
ABC's "Back to the Beginning" Part 2, gets into the collapse of the Kingdom after Solomon, looks for the "supernatural" Ark of the Covenant
On Friday, December 28, 2012, ABC 20-20 aired Part II of
Christiane Amanpour’s “Back to the Beginning”, link, another two hour segment.
The documentary picked up with the story of Moses and traced
“The Land of the Bible” through the end of the period of the Kings and the
capture of the Jews and their eventual captivity.
She is shown riding on modern highways in the Sinai, with a
driver dressed as a Bedouin. There are serious security problems with bandits
in the area.
One of the interesting controversies concern how quickly the
Jews recaptured territory after return from Egpyt. Many were disheartened by physical hardship
and wanted to return to slavery. The
archeological evidence suggests a gradual settlement, as in Judges.
Somewhere during this history the Ark of the Covenant was developed,
and said to have supernatural powers, to be alike a weapon of mass destruction.
Much of the documentary concerned efforts to locate the Ark
today.
The documentary says that David is the first king for whom
we have actual proof of his existence.
David vanquished enemies, but Solomon courted them. But Solomon’s
successors would be done by “idol worship”, by the unwillingness of the people
to accept personal submission to Jehovah. That might be the most startling point in the film.
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
"Days" honors PFLAG, but writers will have to get Will past an honesty crisis
Today, on NBC’s “Days of our Lives”, Will’s dad, Lucas
Roberts, gave a donation to PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians
and Gays), in front of everyone, including Sonny. Earlier in the Boxing Day episode, Will and
Sonny had kissed under the mistletoe. This was a three-day Christmas.
But the plan for Will to keep his parentage of Gabbi’s baby
a secret will soon fall apart. It’s hard to understand why Nick Fallon is so
proud of playing father to (as Nick puts it) that “gay boy”.
Political correctness, and adventurousness, would say that
the secret gets out, and somehow Sonny gets over Will’s dishonesty in hiding it
from him, and that Will and Sonny raise the child as gay dads. Sonny certainly has the business acumen to
make enough money. He seems to be the
smartest character in the show (given the previous fall of Nick).
You can try the “AfterElton” blog for more, here. I wonder what this affair is doing for
the show’s ratings. Everything else going on right now is pretty silly.
On Dec. 27, Eric (*the priest) tried to get Nicole to "volunteer" at a homeless shelter to "ring in the New Year, to give his new employee "something to do" so she "wouldn't be alone". This is an interesting take on volunteerism.
On Dec. 27, Eric (*the priest) tried to get Nicole to "volunteer" at a homeless shelter to "ring in the New Year, to give his new employee "something to do" so she "wouldn't be alone". This is an interesting take on volunteerism.
Monday, December 24, 2012
Piers Morgan re-interviews Rick Warren
Piers Morgan seems to be weathering the efforts of pro-gun
forces to gather petitions to get him deported back to the UK. (as in the movie
“Like Crazy”).
Tonight, Piers Morgan interviewed Pastor Rick Warren (a
second time), for Christmas Eve.
There were a lot of juicy quotes in tonight’s interview:
“Make me famous. The purpose of influence is to speak up for
those who have no influence.” He says this is based on Psalm 72.
“It’s not a sin to die rich. It’s a sin to die rich.”
“Worry says, I’m assuming responsibility God never intended
me to have. “ That was an important idea
in his book “The Purpose-Driven Life”. Assuming responsibility can mean legitimate fame and recognition, however.
“Opposites attract, but in marriage opposites attack.” He
discussed the practical importance of marriage counseling.
“Love is a choice.”
He also said that Jesus commands that “we love everybody”.
Piers Morgan quizzed him again on gay marriage, and at one
point Warren apologized for some uncivil remarks on an earlier show. But he said that “moral laws in the Bible don’t
change” even if ceremonial law can. “Love between two men or between two women
isn’t wrong. But it’s the sex that’s
wrong.”
Morgan asked why LGBT people don’t or shouldn’t have the
same rights to marry adults of their choice that straights do. Warren seemed to sidestep the idea of a
separate kind of person or “separate creation” (Chandler Burr). But he could not explain why the Bible would
regard sex between two adults of the same sex who love another wrong. There seems to be a nebulous idea that allowing
that dilutes the commitment to create and raise the next generation. He did punt by saying that you can’t change
the essential meaning of a word describing a social institution. But he hasn't cleanly explained why people who are probably, at some biological level, brain-wired differently to respond to certain kinds of emotion should make such a special sacrifice for everyone else.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
CNN: Morgan interviews Summly's teen founder; Zakaria's "Tough Decisions; Gupta, Lemon on psychopathology
Tonight, CNN had an interesting pre-Christmas Saturday
evening, and I didn’t venture out into the cold winds and snow flurries.
The most interesting and upbeat item was Piers Morgan’s
interview of the British teenager, Nick D’Aloisio, now 17, who “innovated” the
content summary service called “Summly”.
I have to admit that I will need to try it myself soon (I have a
Motorola Droid under contract, not an iPhone, not sure yet if it works – but Nick
said his summaries fit any size screen.
Now Google has already formatted Blogger
content to fit nicely onto smartphones.
I don’t know if further summaries are necessary. Nick seems to be a programming prodigy on the
level of Mark Zuckerberg. He earned
venture capital at age 15, the youngest ever.
Earlier, at 8 PM, Fareed Zakaria aired “Tough Decisions”
(link ). Zakaria first interviewed Donilon
about Obama’s decisions in tracking down Osama bin Laden (which we’ll see a lot
more of soon when “Zero Dark Thirty” is in general release Jan. 11). He then interviewed Paul O’Neill, who
implemented a “perfect safety” policy at Alcoa when he became CEO of the
company, to gave confidence of his workers.
He also interviewed Henry Kissinger as to the clandestine bargaining
that led to Nixon’s visit to Red China in 1972, shortly after the Maoist
Cultural Revolution. Sunday Zakaria added another "tough decision": how the Obama administration decided to bail out the auto industry in 2004.
Sanjay Gupta today laired “Inside the Violent Mind”. The three patterns are “traumatized,
psychotic, and psychopathic”. Gupta
interviewed Dr. Schouten, and them Andrew Solomon, author of “Far from the Tree”. Gupta discussed many of the specific
cases. In many of them, it seems as
though the thought patterns included nihilism (typical of terrorists), but
generally we don’t have details as to what they people had been doing before
their attacks. In general, in most
cases, there seem to have been considerable evidence of very severe mental
disturbance of some kind for a long time.
Schouten discussed the idea that psychopathy is not an officially
diagnosable mental illness. It probably
has a biological basis, but it is viewed as “evil”.
Gipta made the point that a lot of severe schizophrenia appears in young adulthood (roughly ages 18-26). I have known personally hundreds or thousands of people in this age range in my life, and have yet to know of a single case in someone I know, however -- that is, apart from other patients at the National Institutes of Health when I was "hospitalized" in the latter part of 1962, none of whom I had met in my "own" life.
Friday, December 21, 2012
ABC presents "Back to the Beginning", starting at Genesis, with Amanpour; The Flood was like the biggest tsunami ever
Christiane Amanpour (who normally reports overseas for CNN)
presented the first two hours of her “Back to the Beginning” subseries for ABC
20-20 Friday night on December 21.
The film started with a visit to the Church of the Nativity
in Bethlehem, with a mother and son from North Carolina.
But then she discusses attempts to find the location of the
original Garden of Eden, which might be in southern Iraq where the marsh Arabs
live today. The most important part of the documentary might be the exploration
of the probability of The Flood around 5000 BC when the Mediterranean
overflowed into the Black Sea (maybe after an earthquake) and flooded villages
along the Black Sea up to 400 feet.
Divers (who had explored the Titanic) found evidences of pottery and
even buildings on the sea floor. This
disaster would be the equivalent of a 400 foot tsunami today, without the water
leaving. Katrina, on the other hand, flooded areas about 10 feet below sea
level. Nevertheless, it sounds unlikely that the Ark could have wound up on a 16000 foot mountain in the land of the Kurds.
Amanpour then explored the possible route of Abraham, and
then focused on Joseph, who insulted his brothers with his “smarts” when he
told them his dreams. The documentary
presented excerpts from the musical “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”,
which I saw at the National Theater in 1994 (on YouTube here ). Apparently Joseph's dream geek-work impressed the Egyptian Pharaoh, who made him privileged (and an Uncle Tom) in a land where his people were enslaved. He might have been regarded as a mooch on his own people today.
The last part of the documentary looked the enslavement of
the Israelites in Egypt for demographic reasons, and the act of civil
disobedience by a nanny that led to saving the life of Moses and his rearing in
the court of the Pharaoh. There is a
Nile park in Cairo that simulates what the area of Moses’s rescue might have
looked like.
The scenery in the 2-hour special looked sharp in plasma high-definition. Still, "go big or go home".
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Nightline covers undercover work by Va Tech survivor Colin Goddard, and presents tight school security, maybe even arming teachers
ABC Nightline, on Dec. 19, covered two critical stories of
the gun issue.
One is the suddenly increased security in schools all over
the country, with Middleton Elementary School near Chicago.
|
|
The school has a system that can perform an instant
background check before one enters the school.
The concept may not be so different than the TSA’s.
Nightline discussed the proposals that teachers and
administrators should be armed, at least if they are licensed. Now it seems to me that, besides the obvious
possibility of abuse, it could lead to a world where you have to be capable of
acting as a soldier or policeman to teach.
Wichita Falls, TX already allows teachers and administrators to be
armed, and in Virginia, Governor Bob McDonnell ® has made a similar proposal. I used to substitute-teach. I simply cannot protect others from violence,
and that is not my calling. Does that in
itself mean I should not be a teacher or should not have been allowed to
before?
Then Nightline covered the work of one of the Virginia Tech
survivors, Colin Goddard, who appears fully recovered but has three bullets in
his body. Goddard not only works for the
Brady lobby to strengthen gun control, he also went undercover and demonstrated
how easy it was to buy weapons in Virginia at gun shows without background
checks.
Nightline also demonstrated the relative power of military
weapons (the automated M-16) and a semi-automatic based on the M-16
design. When I was in the Army
(1968-1970) I fired the M-14 (which also had Drill and Ceremonies) but not the M-16; I was barely too early for it. I have not held a weapon in my hand since
discharge from the Army.
Piers Morgan hosted a panel discussion on CNN on gun control tonight, and it got heated and out of control. Conservative Will Cain tried to question whether new measures (closing the background check loophole and banning assault weapons) really worked and will work now.
Labels:
ABC Nightline,
gun control debate,
Piers Morgan
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Piers Morgan tears up guest over gun policy (tossing "insults"); Bradley Cooper "reveals" himself to Ellen
On Tuesday December 18, 2012 Piers Morgan interviewed Larry
Pratt, head of Gun Owners of America.
Earlier Tuesday, Virginia governor Robert McDonnell (Republican) had
suggested that principals (maybe teachers) in Virginia schools be armed. I had actually tweeted that to Piers
Morgan. On the show, Morgan called Pratt
“stupid” at one point, and then later said, “I know about role models, and you’re
not one of them.” You let Piers Morgan
interview you at your own risk.
Will Bob McDonnell go on the Piers Morgan show? I haven’t heard “those Republicans” say much
except let everybody carry their own weapons. The GOP is suddenly mum this week.
Dr. Michael Weiner from NYU spoke about the ominous nature
of an outburst like what happened this weekend.
Mehmet Oz discussed the blog entry “I am Adam Lanza’a Mother”
on CNN after AC360, with regard to the difficulty in getting mental health
services for young people with certain issues, blog source link here. Petula Dvorak had discussed the item today in
the Washington Post.
Today, Ellen DeGeneres said that this was her first show
since the incident, and wanted to keep it light. She had Bradley Cooper as a guest (the world’s
best looking heterosexual man), and did some dirty dancing with him. Then Bradley, sufficiently challenged and
tempted, “revealed”, pulling apart his
shirt, then his sleeve, his pantleg for
outer banks, to show three extra “nipples”.
How did he do the makeup through the hair?
Bradley did give a good explanation of his troubled character in "Silver Linings Playbook" (Movies blog, No.v 24). Ellen showed a clip from the Hemmingway book scene, and Bradley depicted his character as in dire straits with bipolar disorder, but his problems look less significant now in view of the tragedy that apparent mental illness has brought.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
President addresses nation from Newtown Sunday night, says we are all parents
On Sunday night, I was concluding supper at a sports bar,
Thirsty Bernie’s, in Arlington VA, where Sunday night football was on the
plasma TV’s. The broadcast was
punctuated when President Obama appeared at an Interfaith service in Newtown,
CT to address the nation.
The gathering in the bar became completely quiet.
CNN has a story on with videos, here. CNN has made the videos unavailable for
embedding, an unusual step for this media company.
I have not yet found the complete text online. I expect that it will appear soon at “whitehouse.gov”.
The president did not mention gun control specifically.
However he said that parents cannot raise their children all by themselves, and
that the nation would have to work together to make the environment safer for
the next generation. He made a
particularly interesting statement, something like “We are all parents for all our children”. Check the text when
it appears for the exact wording. That statement would include the childless,
and give them some responsibility for the actions of others. He went on, "This is our first test, caring for our children. If we don't get that right, nothing else matters." He also said that becoming a parent is like feeling your heart go outside your body. The love of one's own kids takes one into spaces larger than oneself. I did wonder how that applies to non-parents.
The president allowed himself a little humor, saying that one child offered that he knew karate (like a younger Taylor Lautner).
The president allowed himself a little humor, saying that one child offered that he knew karate (like a younger Taylor Lautner).
There are a lot of other issue that, at least indirectly or in a sense of commons, affect the ability of parents to provide safety for their children besides just the
availability of weapons to ordinary Americans.
I’ll save talking about the Second Amendment or the effectiveness of gun
laws for another time (although someone from the NRA did tell Piers Morgan on
CNN tonight that another armed civilian may have helped stopped the incident in
Oregon, a fact that I had not heard yet.)
Some of the other issues that affect the common good would
include violence in media, and the possible dangerous effects of unsupervised
user generated content that may in practice may be very hard for parents to
monitor. That could get into the Section
230 issues that I’ve talked about on my main blog.
It also raises the question of how any one of us might react
if suddenly confronted with an unexpected challenge caused by the danger to
someone else, whether by accident, natural disaster, or wrongdoing of
others. That possibility doesn’t wait
just for people to become parents.
The president used the word "comfort" at least twice. That concept was mentioned in conjunction with Psalm 42 in church this morning. The president did refer to his Christian faith several times.
The president used the word "comfort" at least twice. That concept was mentioned in conjunction with Psalm 42 in church this morning. The president did refer to his Christian faith several times.
Friday, December 14, 2012
Rock Center presents noted children's author (Osborne); On "Take It All" don't trust the smooth!
NBC Rock Center last night offered an interview with
children’s author Mary Pope Osborne and her “Magic Tree House” chapter books,
explaining their enormous popularity with kids and parents.
Osborne has refused to sell the rights to her books or
characters to the movies, unlike the case of J. K. Rowling. There’s one exception: she sold rights to
make an animated film in Japan.
The episode certainly reinforced my own sense of
interpersonal distance from people as a writer.Children's books can sell, but a long way from me.
Rock Center also covered the recovery of pianist and
composer Petra Anderson, from the Aurora tragedy. She was shown playing piano in simple fashion
in the episode. (See “Drama blog. Aug. 1, 2012).
The interview with Ambassador Susan Rice lightly stepped on
the issue that her initial scripted (but misleading) remarks about the attack on
Libya tended to make amateur “free speech” look like a bad thing.
Earlier Thursday
night, I sampled the reality show “Take It All” on NBC. At the end, the young woman and young man
seemed to agree to “Keep Mine”. The
young man double-crossed her. He was
like Jacob in the Bible. She shouldn’t
have trusted him. After all, “he ‘th’mooth”. Bring back those days at Fort Eustis in
1969. Back to the Bay!
Picture: there is some natural scenery in Metro billoards.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Barbara Walters interviews her "10 Most Fascinating People" for 2012; Anderson Cooper explains his "second coming" (out, as gay) on "The View"
Wednesday December 12, Barbara Walters interviewed her “10
Most Fascinating People”, leading off with King David Petraeus, “The Most
Fascinating Person of 2012”. Hillary Clinton follows. Hillary said that Iran is the most dangerous
country in the world.
The basic link is here and it has a text transcript of the
entire broadcast.
Walters also interviewed President and Mrs. Obama, and the
president owned that taxes would grow up, and that if Congress doesn’t act,
everyone ‘s taxes will go up. She also used to the show to announce the US official
recognition of the rebel group in Syria.
She interviewed Ben Affleck, the director of “Argo”. Affleck mentioned that actors sometimes sleep
with directors (and so do screenwriters).
He also said that with the head shaved or buzz cut, Matt Damon had
regained the title of sexiest man alive.
(Remember, in “Dogma”, Matt and Bee (who have a stage play named after
them) lived together as angels in Wisconsin.)
Other interviewees include Gabby Douglas, Honey Boo Boo,
Prince Harry, NJ Governor Chris Christie, Seth McFarland, and the boy band One
Direction. She showed Chris Crhistie
paraodying himself on SNL and did discuss his being overweight. Christie
said he would rather belong to the E-Street Band than be President. For Prince Harry, the most important observation was not his chest in Las Vegas, bu this "paying his dues" as an Army lieutenant in Afghansitan. He had to be like everybody else then.
On “The View” today, Anderson Cooper, and discussed his
self-outing. He says he was out as gay in college, but kept a low profile (with
respect to his personal life) when he became an international journalist as a
young man, because he traveled in countries where gay people are often
executed. So his recent statements amounted to what I called in my first "Do Ask Do Tell" book, a "second coming". Anderson had covered the new
theory about epigenetics and sexual orientation on his AC360 show Wednesday
night on CNN.
Anderson also discussed his temporary blindness in one eye after exposure to UV on a cloudy day on the ocean near Portugal. He woke up a few hours after the exposure with a feeling of sand in his eyes.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
"General Hospital" explores book authorship, publication, copyright issues today
In the DC area, “General Hospital” now comes on earlier, at
2 PM, and the story apparently has long since taken in some characters from
“One Life to Live”, especially McBain (Michael Easton). It’s supposed to take place in “Port Charles,
NY”. But “Port Charles” was at one time
a half-hour soap (an offshoot of “General Hospital”) , but ended suddenly in
2004 with a woman changing into a vampire (and a tiger), and a man marrying her and not knowing he
would become a vampire, too. (That
sounds like the “Twilight” series doesn’t it. Taylor Lautner wasn’t old enough
yet to be in it.)
Today, I noticed some interesting themes. A couple (heterosexual) is having a baby with
the fertilized ovum planted in a surrogate mom, who develops a rash from a food
allergy. It seems as though she is not
as careful with the baby as she might be.
Another young woman has written a novel, and a businesswoman
“steals” it from her. The young woman
says people write to personal expression, and the businesswoman says that
people write to get published (by others) and make money. It seems as though she hasn’t heard of
Internet self-publishing or print on demand.
ABC’s link for the soap is here
As for “Days of our Lives”, I won’t rehearse the
complications of Will, Sonny, Gabi and Nick – and Chad, and Sonny’s lawyerly
dad right now. I have a feeling that
Will and Sonny could wind up as a gay couple raising Will and Gabi’s baby after
all. Chad (who, very tall and slender, is cute himself) is
spilling the beans, although he could go to the pokey himself. Gabi is an awful person. Sonny seems to be the sanest and most stable
character in the show. I actually know
someone who looks and acts exactly like Will.
I suppose that could be a flattering comparison.
“Days” loves to bring dead people back to life. I don’t get how they did this with
Stefano. They’ve done it before. Even “Revenge” does it with Victoria
Grayson.
Update: Dec. 19, 2012
"General Hospital" explores the book publishing angle further. The mother finds the girl's revised book manuscript and objects to all the sex; but the girl says that the publisher added it to make the book sell. The title was changed from "Love in Maine" to "Lust in Maine", with the help of Stephen King.
Wikipedia attribution link for Lake on Mt. Katahdin, ME: I climbed this far in July 1974 and encountered a peaceful black bear on the trail.
Update: Dec. 19, 2012
"General Hospital" explores the book publishing angle further. The mother finds the girl's revised book manuscript and objects to all the sex; but the girl says that the publisher added it to make the book sell. The title was changed from "Love in Maine" to "Lust in Maine", with the help of Stephen King.
Wikipedia attribution link for Lake on Mt. Katahdin, ME: I climbed this far in July 1974 and encountered a peaceful black bear on the trail.
Monday, December 10, 2012
AC360 previews "Zero Dark Thirty": does the film falsely show that the US needed torture to get Osama bin Laden?
On AC360 tonight,
Anderson explored the allegations that the first part of the film “Zero
Dark Thirty”, about the assassination of Osama bin Laden, directed by Kahtryn
Bigelow (Columbia Pictures), inaccurately showed the use of torture (“extreme
rendition”) by the military and CIA in order to locate Osama. Analyst Peter Bergen, an unpaid consultant
for the film, appeared.
The AC360 report suggested that the public will come away
with a false impression that torture (waterboarding) was needed to find bin
Laden, and this could affect future operations. Anderson noted that the FBI was
also involved in the location of bin Laden as well as the CIA.
Anderson has already seen the film, which is getting awards,
even though it will open only in New York and Los Angeles on Dec. 19, and not
open in wide release until Jan. 11, 2013.
Arch Campbell of WJLA in Washington DC has also reviewed it.
Since Washington was also hit on Sept. 11, 2001, why doesn't Columbia Pictures do us the courtesy of opening here on Dec. 19 along with NY and LA, even if at only one theater (like Loew's AMC Gerogetown, or Landmark Bethesda Row). Or perhaps Regal's Potomac Yard or AMC Shirlington, the closest theater complexes to the Pentagon.
Since Washington was also hit on Sept. 11, 2001, why doesn't Columbia Pictures do us the courtesy of opening here on Dec. 19 along with NY and LA, even if at only one theater (like Loew's AMC Gerogetown, or Landmark Bethesda Row). Or perhaps Regal's Potomac Yard or AMC Shirlington, the closest theater complexes to the Pentagon.
Peter Bergen has an op-ed on the question at CNN here.
On Tuesday, Dec. 11, the Washington Post has a story (by Greg Miller) about the young female operative who helped trck down bin Laden's location from a courier, here. The article describes the CIA as "middle school with clearances". Detached, schizoid personalities are common. I could probably have done her job the same way had I been employed there. The Post offers a video interview of director Bigelow.
On Tuesday, Dec. 11, the Washington Post has a story (by Greg Miller) about the young female operative who helped trck down bin Laden's location from a courier, here. The article describes the CIA as "middle school with clearances". Detached, schizoid personalities are common. I could probably have done her job the same way had I been employed there. The Post offers a video interview of director Bigelow.
Anderson and Sanjay Gupta also presented a new treatment for
childhood leukemia, in which HIV is modified to carry immune modulators against
the leukemic cells to T4 cells (but not to destroy T4 cells permanently). It
was successful in at least one girl, and temporarily in some other
children. It is still very brutal
treatment but less costly than bone marrow transplant.
CNN’s report on the experiment was not posted as if this
writing, but MSNBC has a similar story from NBC Nightly News.
Sunday, December 09, 2012
CNN's Soledad O'Brien reports "Who Is Black in America?"
On Sunday, December 9, 2012, CNN aired Soledad O’Brien’s
report “Who Is Black in America?”, as followup episode in a long-standing
series. O’Brien is of mixed ancestry
herself. The episode was also called simply "Who Am I?"
Tonight’s report discussed the informal “one drop rule” and
presented a number of mixed-race families.
“You decide what you are”. Well,
Census considers “North African” heritage still to be “white”. (Census doesn’t consider Hispanic to be race
at all.) 7% of the children born in the
US today are said to be of “mixed race”.
My own parents, of earlier generations, believed the “one drop rule”
The CNN entry for the program is here.
It would seem that the “one drop rule” would make shreds of “affirmative
action” admissions policies, is with a lot of recent litigation in Michigan,
where some race conscious admission by the state university system is
permitted. Similar debates go on
elsewhere, as at the University of Texas.
Scientifically, we are all “black”, as the first humans
appeared in Africa about 100000 years ago.
As people migrated farther from the Equator, they often lost pigment as
an adaptation to less sunlight in order to get enough Vitamin D. Humans also lost most body hair originally,
in order to remain cooler (than competing species) when hunting and foraging in
daytime tropical heat. In colder
climates, male members sometimes got some of it back, and it came to be seen
(like the beard and lower voice) as a secondary sexual characteristic that
could be viewed as attractive for mates.
Update: Dec. 14
There is a book by Deborah Watts, "101 Ways to Know You're 'Black' in Corporate America", self-published in 1998, presented at a forum at ReliaStar (now ING) insurance in Minneapolis that year.
Update: Dec. 14
There is a book by Deborah Watts, "101 Ways to Know You're 'Black' in Corporate America", self-published in 1998, presented at a forum at ReliaStar (now ING) insurance in Minneapolis that year.
Friday, December 07, 2012
"The View" hot topic: Ending the "War on Men"
Lightning stirkes twice. On Friday Dec. 7, ABC;s :The View:
had another “hot topic” when conservative columnist Suzanne Venker appeared as
a guest and said that women are driving away men from wanting marriage when
women want to “have it all”. Quit the "War on Men" she advises.
But other members of the View (like Whoopi) suggested that
most women can’t afford to let themselves become dependent on their
husbands. And in today’s economy, you
have to count your blessings when either spouse has a good job.
Does the CEO of Yahoo! (Marissa Meyer) set a good example
with the way she handles having a baby?
Try the Huffington Post story here.
The ABC link for the View report today is here and the comments are as interesting as the
video and article.
I found it perplexing, when I was a young man, that I should
be “attracted” (I could be more blunt but this is public) to someone who was
supposed to become dependent.
Then, in 1980, when I was living in and working in Dallas, a
female consultant asked me if I could change a flat tire for her (at the time,
in the Zale Building parking lot on I=35 – that was the building in “Logan’s
Run”). I couldn’t. She gave me a lecture
on how men were supposed to do physical things for women. (I was 36 at the
time.)
George Gilder ("Men and Marriage") would be delighted.
Thursday, December 06, 2012
ABC's "The View" previews the movie about the West Memphis Three
ABC’s “The View” presented an extended preview of the new
documentary by Peter Jackson and Amy Berg, “West of Memphis”, about the gross
injustice perpetrated by the mob mentality in 1993 after the savage murder of
three boys. Three young men, one retarded,
were picked up and framed merely because of their interest in the occult.
Prosecutors were determined to punish someone, if even the wrong people.
The full episode can be watched here.
The film starts in many theaters Dec. 14.
One of the freed men, Damien Echols, appeared on the
show. A young woman who left her life in
Brooklyn and married him while he was on death row also appeared. Damien said that there were no outdoor periods
in prison; the one hour “exercise” was just removal to another cell.
If such an injustice were done to me, I don’t think I would
survive. I would simply be paying for
the sins of others. I would be gone
forever because others had taken me away.
Some things you cannot make all right.
The men were freed only by an Alford plea, rather than
overturning of convictions, even though there is now solid evidence to convict
someone else.
There has also been extensive tv coverage of Ken Burns's film about another breach of justice, in NYC in the late 80s, "The Central Park Five".
Wikipedia attribution link for eastern Arkansas river lands
picture. I was there im December 1992.
See also July 23, "The Exonerated".
See also July 23, "The Exonerated".
Tuesday, December 04, 2012
History: "Mankind" The Story of All of Us" and the New World
Tonight, I tried the History Channel’s “Mankind: The Story
of All of Us”, two hours, covering much of the critical history of the
explorers to the New World.
Visually, the most interesting section concerned the Aztecs,
with Tenochtitlan, built on canals through an ancient lake in what is now
Mexico City. Animation showed the city going up. An early sequence shows the Aztecs capturing
a warrior from a competing tribe for sacrifice.
The empire may have housed 25 million people and was as advanced as the
Maya, which had already fallen. When
Cortes came, the people turn on their own ruler. Six months later, half are
dead from smallpox, to which European invaders had immunity. Dr. Mehmet Oz explains the accidental “biological
warfare”.
The film also showed the sacking of Christian Constantinople
by the Muslim Turks, the first time a walled city had been destroyed by modern
trebuchets.
It describes how the Spanish made silver a worldwide
currency by chemical innovations with the mines at Potosi, Bolivia, one of the highest cities in the World.
It rather briefly describes the Pilgrims, but then explains
how slavery, motivated by the sugar trade, started in Africa.
The film also describes the "bubble" in the poppy market in the Netherlands in the 1600s.
The last portion depicts the building of the Taj Mahal in India as a monument to a king's bride.
The last portion depicts the building of the Taj Mahal in India as a monument to a king's bride.
The film series reminds me of CNN’s “A Thousand Years of History”
with one episode per century. Aired in late 1999 just before Y2K.
Wikipedia attribution link for model of Tenochtitlan. I visited Mexico City (including the
big archeology museum) Labor Day weekend of 1974, just before I moved into NYC.
Sunday, December 02, 2012
CNN Heroes for 2012: Child caregivers who drop out of school, kids who don't swim among the people helped
Pushpa Basnet was named CNN Hero of the Year for 2012
tonight, in a ceremony on CNN hosted by Anderson Cooper.
The basic link for the show is here.
Pushpa started a children’s center in Nepal to help kids
whose parents are incarcerated, and who often live with their parents in
prison.
Thulani Maldondo set up a program to provide academic
support to children in Kliptown, South Africa,
In a typical hut, up to ten children sleep in one room, several sharing
one bed.
Connie Siskowski
maintains “No child in the U.S. should have to drop out of school to
take care of a family member”. The idea
that this would even happen sounds shocking to me; I comes out of the early
scenes in “October Sky”. She started the
American Association of Caregiving Youth. At least 1.3 million children do
caregiving in the U.S. and some sacrifice their education and childhood. Sometimes the caregiving is not just for
parents, but even siblings, whom the parents were morally responsible for
bringing into the world (rather than the other siblings). The website for the organization is this. One of Lady Gaga’s disco songs (“Bad Romance”) was played during this
segment.
One of the most interesting ideas was from Wanda Butts, who
arranges for children to get swimming lessons.
Studies show that African American children disproportionately do not
learn to swim. As I happen (by
coincidence) to discuss on my main blog Dec. 1, I did not learn either as a
boy, in a time when upper income school districts and many colleges require
swimming proficiency as part of physical education. (I could say, “let gym
grades count”, but that would be another topic.)
Razia Jan, through the Zabuli Education Center, provides
free education to girls in Afghanistan. CNN mentioned the story of Malala Yousoufzai
in Pakistan, who is now being treated in Britain after an attack by the Taliban
when she was outspoken about girls’ education.
Could I do anything like what one of these individuals
did? It would have to come out of my own
unique skill set; I couldn’t just join
somebody else’s cause, no matter how compelling, unless it had something to do
with how I had lived.
Going overseas and working on an infrastructure project (like water) for people in the developing world sounds like a great first job for any engineering college graduate. Related would be rebuilding (prudently) in storm (hurricane, fire) ravaged areas in the U,S
In the pre-show, Anderson interviewed Ben Stiller, about his
program in Haiti, including film school training, in a country with no movie
theaters.
This all sounds rather like Rick Warren ("Purpose-Driven Life", "It's not about you"....) . But sometimes it is about "me".
This all sounds rather like Rick Warren ("Purpose-Driven Life", "It's not about you"....) . But sometimes it is about "me".
Saturday, December 01, 2012
ABC 20-20 covers underground hotel, repo, and towing practices in "True Confessions"; do you tip the hotel maids?
Last night (Friday, November 30 – pardon me, that’s December
0), ABC 20-20 aired an episode called “True Confessions” and focused on the
unseen behavior of hotel employees with regard to tip expectations, and later
on repo men (like in B movies) and towing companies. The link for the episode is here.
I usually stay in Choice Hotels when I travel outside NYC
and do pretty much everything myself. I haven’t encountered any tipping
situations. But last time, I
wonder. The room ($99, in Weirton WV)
had plumbing noises. And in Charletson
WV I was unable to get a non-smoking room in July, and there was a terrible
odor in the room.
In NYC, I’ve tried a variety of places, but usually carry my
own stuff - - pretty light – just a bag for clothes and laptop and
electronics. My favorite spot has been
the Yotel, on 10th Avenue, where you stay in a spaceship cabin, as
if it could be your last night on Earth.
I did not care for the Park Central (but Com Ed had an explosion nearby
that night, can’t blame them); the Hotel Pennsylvania did not have its own
Internet in every room and I had to ask for it – and got it (without a tip),
since the Amtrak ad promoted it. (I have often reserved rooms through the
Amtrak website, usually about 25% off, and expect the hotels to deliver what
they say.) The Holiday Inn Express in
Chelsea actually has an old fashioned cable Ethernet Internet service, which is
very fast.
As for valet parking, some places have only valet parking
and I presume a tip is expected. There
is one place where you park yourself, but you’re expected to back the car in,
and sometimes the attendant parks you – I don’t know if a tip is expected. And it goes valet if it is full – is a tip
expected then? I tried to visit a bar in
Detroit in August called the Gold Coast, and the valet lot looked so difficult
and dangerous to get into that I chickened out.
I don’t know what I missed (see GLBT blog, Aug. 7, 2012).
At the Hotel Angelino on the 405 in Los Angeles, where I
stayed in May, all parking was by valet.
There was no indication whether tips were expected. But as I noted few hotels where I stay have
it. It’s hard for me to know what the
hotel practices are in other communities.
The ABC program talked about “revenge” practices (as if
motivated by the ABC series) from staff, who keep track of which guests are
good tippers and share with other hotels .
(There can be an “offline reputation”).
One trick was to give the person room 1212, which often gets rogue calls
from other guests.
Is tipping of the hotel maid staff expected? Only about 30%
of people do it (and I have to admit that I don’t).
There is controversy as to whether hotel staff is a risk to
take electronics left in room. This hasn’t
happened to me. There is a concern that
one particular brand of hotel magnetic key (with the Arduino microcontroller) is
vulnerable to hackers, link here.
The episode noted that extra charges (like the honor bar in rooms)
can often be waived if requested.
The episode (with Chris Cuomo) then focused on the practices
of “repo men”, who troll social media to see when debtors will show up at specific
locations. One repo man took cars of
both bride and groom at a wedding.
The episode also covered the way towing companies make
certain parking spaces look “legal” and then troll them to pick up tows.
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