Thursday, October 30, 2014
Don Lemon interviews NBC photo-journalist Ashoka Mukpo on his recovery from Ebola, and on state health department quarantines, on "CNN Tonight"
On Wednesday night, CNN’s Don Lemon (on “CNN Tonight”) aired
a half-hour interview with NBC contract cameraman Ashoka Mukpo, who contracted
Ebola shortly after starting to work for NBC News in West Africa. The main
video link is here. Mukpo was interviewed in his somewhat spartan
apartment in Providence, RI.
Mukpo says the onset came suddenly. He felt a deep backache when stopping at his
apartment, took his temperature, which was 101.3F, and knew immediately he
faced a rough two weeks.
He says that Ebola is far worse than any flu, causing
weakness that is profound. He had
difficulty with the transfusion of plasma from Dr. Brantly, but the next day
began to feel better. The anecdotal
evidence really does suggest that plasma with antibodies does help more
patients, which will put people who have recovered into the position of dealing
with repeated plasma donations, which are possible. In fact, in the early 1980s, there was a
large public push to recruit plasma and marrow donations, and this died off
once the HIV epidemic became known. (Gay
men were banned from donating blood, but the pressure for blood donations from
anyone became much less for several years, at least as I saw when living in
Dallas.)
Mukpo suggested that states are being unreasonable in
quarantining people without symptoms and negative tests. That will discourage more health care workers
from volunteering.
Mukpo speaks without an accent, and no one has indicated
what language his name comes from (Russian?).
Earlier this week, Anderson Cooper had interviewed Ryan
Boyko, who is under quarantine in Connecticut despite the fact that he did not
go near Ebola patients when in West Africa. In factm Boyko is one of two quarantined
graduate students written up in the Yale News, story here.
A Providence newspaper reinforces Mukpo’s story here. Mukpo may know that nearby West Warwick was
the home of Gode Davis, who passed away recently. His film “American Lynching” remains
unfinished (I’ve personally seen some of the footage), but discussion goes
on. Davis was very active in local
civics, including the response to the 2003 West Warwick disco fire.
CNN reports on Thursday morning thay Kaci Hickox went on a bike ride near her home in northern Maine and state police followed her, but she has not been arrested as of now. This will wind up in court.
Wikipedia attribution link for West Warwick, RI park
picture.
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
"Witnessed: The Iran Hostage Crisis": documentary on CNN recalls this incident 35 years ago
On Oct. 28, CNN aired a 35-anniversay special, “Witnessed:
The Iran Hostage Crisis”, commemorating the event of Sunday, November 4, 1979
when “student rebels” took control of the US embassy in Teheran and took 52
people (actually 66 at first) hostage. The basic link is here.
Most of the one-hour film consists of interviews of the
hostages who remain alive today, and who are largely in their sixties and
seventies now. A number of them expected
to be killed, and some thought that others had been killed.
CNN says that this was the first time that militant Islam
was politicized. That may not be
completely true: the Arab Oil Embargo in the fall of 1973 was certainly “political”,
but this was the first time that civilians were targeted, although
overseas. An embassy is technically the
soil of the owning country – the US, so in a sense this was like a domestic
attack.
Imagine what it must have felt like, to know that your own
government was helpless and had to “negotiate with terrorists”.
The seizure was motivated by anger when the United States
allowed the former Shah of Iran into the uS for cancer treatment. The militants wanted the Shah to stand trial
in Iran, but he died anyway.
For a while, the new Iranian government under Ayatollah Khomeini supported the militants. Originally, it had been expected that the holding of embassy employees would only last a couple of days, but Khomeini escalated the crisis.
For a while, the new Iranian government under Ayatollah Khomeini supported the militants. Originally, it had been expected that the holding of embassy employees would only last a couple of days, but Khomeini escalated the crisis.
Over time, the hostages became a burden, and some militants
wanted a way out. Hatred of Jimmy Carter
seemed to be the common denominator. (Carter had angered them by praising the Shah in 1978.) The
plane taking the hostages to Germany left the moment that Ronald Reagan was
inaugurated on Jan. 20, 1981. The
hostages were held for 444 calendar days. A military attempt had failed in April 1980
when a chopper crashed in a sandstorm and the casualties had to be abandoned.
EDS, however, under Ross Perot, had launched a commando raid
to free two employees earlier in 1979, when they had been arrested in Iran in
1978 (story). The EDS property on Forest Lane in
Dallas (now belonging to Trinity Industries) contained a public sign counting
the days the hostages had been held. I
often drove past it, as I was living in Dallas at the time.
The hostage crisis suggested to militant Islam that it can “get
away with it”, although this was Shia Islam. The crisis was also the subject of the film "Argo" directed by Ben Affleck (movies blog, Oct. 14, 2012).
Wikipedia attribution link for DOD picture of hostage
return.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Anthony Bourdain: drinking the muscle milk from the Masai people of Tanzania
Anthony Bourdain’s Part’s Unknown continued Sunday with “Tanzania”,
with much of the show taking place in an ancient volcanic basin (Ngorongoro
Crater) with its own ecosystem, and some attention to saving big cats – lions. These magnificent beings may be lost forever to
poachers, link here. Bourdain stays in an odd resort in the Crater that has hobbit-like huts. Bourdain also focuses on the Masai people, and consumed
their high-protein food, which included a bizarre kind of yogurt and “muscle
milk”. He said they are the most
physically fit people in the world.
He’s about 3000 miles away from the horrors of Ebola, but
the terrorism of Somalia and Kenya, and the rabid anti-gay world of Uganda is
much closer.
In the earlier part of the show, he visits the island of Zanzibar.
I do recall a coworker who took his wife on a honeymoon safari in the country in 1973.
Wikipedia attribution link for volcano crater in Tanzania.
Saturday, October 25, 2014
"Emily the Musical" will apparently hit hard the lack of opportunity for some minority kids
A random check of PBS yielded a show called “Heroes”, where
the first words from an African-American girl were, “all my life, I’ve had to
take care of someone else.” There were
other interviews with kids about even having an opportunity to get a full
education because of family circumstances.
The kids seemed to be producing a musical in Harlem called “Emily the
Musical”. There were some embedded
very-short films called “Where Is He?” (that is, Dad), and “Memoirs of a
Superwoman”. That is Clark Kent now
bends genders.
The director seemed to be Jack Alpert.
Remember how in the move “October Sky”, the older brother
offers to go to work in the coal mines when the father gets black lung, leaving
Homer the freedom to dream about rockets.
I remember showing that to a physics class when subbing.
But indeed many parents indenture their older kids to help
support the siblings that the parents had.
Friday, October 24, 2014
"Mystery in Orange County": the murder of Mirabel Ramos, Iraq war veteran, in 2013 on NBC Dateline
On Friday, October 24, 2014, NBC Dateline aired a one hour
true life investigation, “Mystery in Orange County”, about the disappearance
and murder of 36-year-old Mirabel Ramos in May 2013.
The broadcast shows the other side of “The O.C.” when compared
to the version of the popular Fox series a few years ago: hardworking
immigrants. Maribel had served in the
Army, in combat in Iraq, to earn money for college and then had majored in
criminal justice.
She had a male roommate, Kwang Chol Joy, who would
eventually be convicted of second degree murder. Apparently he had a “crush” on her and killed
her and hid the body after an argument.
Police took the computer and cell phone in his apartment, forcing him to
use the public library, where “it’s free”.
Police had originally suspected other clients on the site “Plenty of
Fish” (maybe “free fish”), but all had alibis.
Police got a warrant to track the keystrokes of Kwang at the library, leading
them to a tree in an LA County canyon (Sanitago Canyon) where Mirabel had been
buried. The OCReigster has a story on
the incident here.
Both Mirabel and Kwang had made bizarre 911 calls.
Much of the story is told by her sister Lucero
Gonzalez.
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
"Women in War" opens "Makers" Women Who Made America" for PBS
PBS has started a new series, “Makers: Women Who Made
America”, with a one hour episode “Women in War”, link here (with video).
The show starts with women saying they were brought up in
the “Betty Crocker” era. In the 1950s, a
women’s magazine actually wrote, “Whom would you rather have a college degree,
you or your husband?”
Until 1967, women were held to 2% of the Armed Forces and
limited with a ceiling of O6 (COL) grade.
But in the 1950s, some women had noticed that the military did offer the
idea of a career with equal pay, at least up to the maximum grade. The 50’s saw the comedy film “Never Wave at a
WAC”.
Women gradually increased combat roles during the Reagan
years, as a female general led an effort in Central America, and sometimes were
in command during the Persian Gulf War.
But it wasn’t until 2013 that practically all combat positions were made
open to women.
The documentary showed the indoors of the CIA premises at Langley, as they were in the 1990s when the Al Qaeda threat was becoming more apparent.
The documentary did not mention lesbians in the military or
the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that was in place from 1993-2011, or the “older
ban” on gays in the military.
Monday, October 20, 2014
CSI shows the dangers of high school chemistry lab class
One time when I was substitute teaching, the lesson plan was
to show a couple of “CSI” (“Crime Scene Investigation”) episodes to a math
class (from the Miami series).
Last night, CBS did air an interesting episode “The Book of
Shadows” (set in Las Vegas) about a male chemistry teacher (Carl Messner) who
suddenly runs down a high school corridor while burning to death. It is pretty gruesome, as he is completely
charred. George Eads and Ted Danson star
as forensic detectives.
Right before, a couple of students are speaking mockumentary
style and filming in videocams, as if making “Cloverfield”.
We find out that the teacher, deeply in debt, had
connections to both drug dealers and the Satanism community, and that the
mother of the kid shooting the video is involved. The kid has cancer and limited life
expectancy, despite his wholesome manner in the show.
The best CBS link went private. Let's try this one.
I did have Honors Chemistry and AP many times, especially in
2005, when I substitute taught. I never
had lab. But I sometimes wondered if
something could go wrong. In the
episode, the chemicals involved are red phosphorus (it’s the white form that
burns) and potassium chlorate.
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Anthony Bourdain visits Hue, Vietnam, site of Tet Offensive and American bombings during the days of my own draft
Anthony Bourdain’s “Parts Unknown” paid a visit to Hue,
Vietnam. That city was a focus in the
1968 Tet Offensive by the North Vietnamese, which actually occurred shortly
before my own induction into the Army in 1968.
Bourdain, visiting a woman who had survived it, pointed out that the
North Vietnamese imprisoned, executed, or even buried alive citizens whom they
believes had been cooperating with the South Vietnamese. US Marines captured it
but the city was practically destroyed.
Later, Bourdain visits a network of tunnels south of the
DMZ, extending from the coast well inland. Many families lived in them for six
years, with children born. They were
like the tunnels that the Jews used in Ukraine in WWII (like the film “No Place
on Earth”, Movies blog. Feb. 14, 2014).
The tunnels provided a refuge largely from American bombing. On family, in a scene shot on the coast,
depicted what it was like to be able to live outdoors and fish again after six
years underground.
All of this bears on the issue of “whether we should have
been there”, for those of us who went through the military draft.
The show did give some attention to the rather eclectic
light food.
Update: April 8, 2017
Bourdain visited Hanoi (Ho Chi Minh City) and Barack Obama paid a surprise visit. The war is largely forgotten. He toured an area of mountain cliffs on the beach by French steam; it looked like Pandora on :Avatar".
Update: April 8, 2017
Bourdain visited Hanoi (Ho Chi Minh City) and Barack Obama paid a surprise visit. The war is largely forgotten. He toured an area of mountain cliffs on the beach by French steam; it looked like Pandora on :Avatar".
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Mike Rowe and "Somebody's Gotta Do It": raising birds in MD, making signs in TX
On Wednesday, Oct. 15, CNN aired two segments of Mike Rowe’s
“Somebody’s Gotta Do It”, a sequel to an older series “Dirty Jobs”. The title does suggest karma management,
doesn’t it!
The first half hour took place at Patuxent Wildlife Research
Center ( link ), NE of
Washington DC, near the Beltway and Baltimore-Washington Parkway. I have been near there many times but never
on the premises, so I’ll try to visit it soon myself since I live in the DC
area. The segment presented efforts to
preserve the whooping crane, including a woman who walks baby birds hours a day
so they learn to survive on their own.
The second segment presented Evan, a neon sign manufacturer
in Austin, TX. He is actually a graduate
of Yale with an English major and did not go to trade circle, and making
1950s-style signs is a kind of art and sculpture. This sort of individual enterprise is popular
in central Texas. But making the signs
involves enormous skill, as the bending of the glass, the recharging of it with
electricity to clean it and filling with inert gas or mercury is dangerous
work. The segment did go into the debate about trade schools.
On Saturday, Oct. 18. Rowe visited the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas to see how the underwater show is set up by the stage manager Dale. The male divers were all absolutely hairless -- head and body. "Josh" dove 80 feet into 20 feet of water. In December 1997, I went to a show "Atlantis" at the Luxor, where men hung over the audience.
Rowe also visited Lelilah's "Hair Museum" in Independence MO (oddly, home of an offshoot of the Mormon Church which I visited in 1982).
On Saturday, Oct. 18. Rowe visited the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas to see how the underwater show is set up by the stage manager Dale. The male divers were all absolutely hairless -- head and body. "Josh" dove 80 feet into 20 feet of water. In December 1997, I went to a show "Atlantis" at the Luxor, where men hung over the audience.
Rowe also visited Lelilah's "Hair Museum" in Independence MO (oddly, home of an offshoot of the Mormon Church which I visited in 1982).
Thursday, October 16, 2014
EJ's "death" and "no funeral" instructions inspire controversy (on NBC's "Days of our Lives"); actor Freddie Smith injured in crash
An interesting and perhaps disturbing sidebar appears in the
“Days of our Lives” episode on Tuesday, Oct. 16. EJ has been shot and killed after an
encounter in the park. Mysteriously, on
Monday, Kristen has injected something into the arm of EJ’s corpse at the end
of the episode. Of course, we know from
the past that on “Days”, people have a way of coming back from the dead (as in
2004, when many of the characters wound up on a replica of Salem set up in the
Caribbean, after Marlena had supposedly killed many of them).
On Tuesday, an unidentified man brings an urn which he says
contains the cremated remains of EJ. The
synopsis is here. Of course, Sami makes the interesting
comment that EJ had instructed that he be cremated and that there be no funeral
service. That’s provocative – why? Is it because he “had it coming to him?” That sounds like it could encourage more
hits. Is it because he expects “resurrection”
and that this was planned?
It’s important to note that in my own experience, some
relatives have cremation and a short graveside ceremony (fifteen minutes), and
a memorial church service later (with no casket, but music, testimonials, and a
reception). (Some services even include
communion.) Others have a longer
graveside service, with testimonials, but no formal reception (sometimes an
informal private lunch).
I’ve actually thought about this in my own life (I’m 71),
and written something on one of my Wordpress blogs, here. We all die of something, and that isn’t
controversial. But when a death is ugly
or contemptuous – and a mob hit as in this soap, is certainly “ugly”, it
matters. My own will recognizes this
possibility, and there are consequences in the distribution. I think when a loss of life is connected to a
political or some kind of power struggle, very great discretion should be
followed in the observance that follows, and it should be simple and
low-key. This may sound like “giving in”,
but I think it is a way of recognizing serious problems in somone’s life, which
may be affecting many other people.
As for the rest of the storyline, John seems to be letting
Theresa off the hook for putting him into a coma, even though he knows. I want to see Theresa get caught and led away
in handcuffs.
Will and Sonny are working through their same-sex marriage
relationship, but Will is finding his integrity tested as he accepts new paid
writing assignments that will affect other people in the family. (Guy Wilson is becoming convincing as Will; Freddie Smith was recently injured slightly in
a car accident in his home Ohio (story). People have said that I write about
family in my own books, sometimes in sensitive areas (like the eldercare
chapter in DADT-3.
Sami (Allison Sweeney), a drawing card for the show’s
ratings, is said to be leaving soon, and that her departure will be
catastrophic – she may be the next to be murdered, perhaps as a hit. I don’t quite see the plot that will take her
out, though, yet.
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
"League of Denial: The NFL's Concussion Crisis" online at PBS Frontline, puts football as a sport on notice
PBS Frontline “League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion
Crisis” aired Oct. 8, 2013 but is available to cable subscribers at this
link. (You have to be logged on to your
cable provider’s site first.) The film
is narrated by Will Lynn and directed by Michael Kirk.
The film starts with the account of the death of Mike Webster ), formerly of the Pittsburgh Steelers, at 50, or heart disease. The “Autopsy that Changed Football” (by Dr.
Bennett Omalu) started with the feet and legs, which looked like an old
man’s. His body was racked by
cellulitis, but the worst damage was in his brain, from “getting his bell rung”. It was of normal size, but his history suggested
progressive dementia. “Mike wasn’t
Mike”. Later the autopsy showed long term damage to the brain, chronic
traumatic encephalopathy (“CTE”), with lesions in tau proteins which would
choke brain cells.
The film shows a brain autopsy, and the brain looks a bit
like old hamburger. But it is also our closest object showing who someone was.
Football is destroying the brains of NFL players. For the
NFL, this was unprecedented bad news. This had not been suspected for a
helmeted sport. It was fundamentally
safer than boxing, it had been thought.
Malcolm Gladwell has
raised the same issue over high school and college football.
Later, the wife of a disabled and then deceased player,
Perfetto, was denied admittance to a player’s meeting.
The book is “League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the
Battle fort Truth”, by Mark Fainaru-Wadu and Steve Fainaru, by Three Rivers
Press (in Pittsburgh), link here.
By 2010, CTE had been found in the brains of 19 of 20 deceased NFL players. Then the case of Owen Thomas, who hanged
himself without a history of concussions, showed CTE, from sub-concussive hits
that are part of the game.
Then an 18-year-old athlete Pelly died and showed CTE in the
frontal lobes. Bring back Malcolm
Gladwell’s arguments. This was just from
high school football. Dr. Ann McKee
(“the woman who would destroy football as we know it” link)
Robert Stern of the Boston University CTE Center does
discuss the need for large enough and random samples of autopsy brains.
NIH got involved with the case of Junior Seau.
The $765 Million settlement by the NFL with retired players
did hide the NFL’s own “research” putting it in the position that resembles
that of tobacco companies. The most
popular sport in America is on notice, or as we sometimes said in the
workplace, “on discipline.”
No wonder I resisted being “forced” at age nine or so to try
to play football – tackle – at least once.
The film can be rented for $1.99 on YouTube, or played through your Cable provider (depending on your contract).
Update:
PBS aired an update of the film on Dec. 22, 2015.
Update:
PBS aired an update of the film on Dec. 22, 2015.
Monday, October 13, 2014
AC360: Anderson Cooper traces his southern roots on his dad's site: a lot of southern "Whites" might find out they are "black" with enough DNA comparison to slaves
On Tuesday night, Anderson Cooper traced his own roots (“Our
Journeys Home”) on his AC360 program, for about a half hour. The basic link is
here.
His mother’s side is the Vanderbilt side, but he was more
interested in the Cooper side, his father (Wyatt Emory Cooper), who was an actor and screenwriter, who grew up along
the Mississippi-Alabama border (which he visits) and then lived in New Orleans,
where Anderson found his dad’s report card in a school that had been damaged in
2005 by Hurricane Katrina. On the Cooper
side, Anderson had ancestors who had fought for the Confederacy during the War
Between the States, and at least one major Union General. Even though his southern ancestors were not
rich, at least one had owned slaves.
Anderson is going to allow some DNA testing of his own blood to be compared
to the slaves, which could show that he has small fraction of slave blood. More people would turn up this finding that
they realize. Imagine how this
technology could have affected the South in the 1960s, during segregation, when
having even one black ancestor made one “black”.
Anderson said, you don’t get to choose the family you’re
born into, but you should get to choose how you live your own life. That would not have been as easy for him had been born a century earlier.
PBS has a map of Anderson Cooper's family tree here.
Wyatt Emory Cooper's book is "Families: A Memoir and a Celebration", 1975, Harper Collins, link here.
PBS has a map of Anderson Cooper's family tree here.
Wyatt Emory Cooper's book is "Families: A Memoir and a Celebration", 1975, Harper Collins, link here.
Picture: near Natchez Trace Parkway in NE Mississippi near Tupelo; my visit in May 2014.
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Designer babies on Lisa Ling's "This Is Life"; Bourdain discovers mandatory mixed marriage in the history of Paraguay
Lisa Ling’s “This Is Life” series continued Sunday night
with an exploration of generically designed babies (rather like “Brave New
World”), call it eugenics, the episode called “The Genius Experiment: Designer
Babies: Creating the Perfect Child.”
A preview video is here.
Lisa Ling described the theories of Robert Graham, but then
presented the life of one particular young man, well built, working in manual
labor as a roofer, because he already had a record as a felon, for growing
marijuana. He said he was ahead of his time. He also got a girlfriend pregnant as a teen
but is determined to support his kids.
He had plenty of books in his library and was teaching his older son
chess.
The pressure that parents feel to have their kids wind up on
top was well documented in the 2004 book “The Cheating Culture” by David
Callahan (March 28, 2006).
As a former substitute teacher, I can say that teens who
grow up in upper middle-class homes seemed to have a tremendous advantage over
less lucky peers and often over-achieved them in multiple areas. But this didn’t
seem to be matter of deliberate genetic design.
From a purely biological viewpoint, interracial marriage and
childbearing may be desirable because it tends to increase genetic variety a
reduce the risk that children will receive multiple copies of problematic
genes. (As Anthony Bourdain pointed out in his “Parts Unknown” segment, “Paraguay”
tonight, it has sometimes been required, rather than forbidden.) Bourdain visited Paraguay partly to trace his own roots for a CNN series, and that would imply he has a slight fraction of indian blood.
I had reviewed a film on eugenics “Homo Sapiens: 1900” on
Feb. 14, 2014.
Thursday, October 09, 2014
"The Bronx": A "part unknown" is right next door for Anthony Bourdain
Some critics are claiming that the second episode this
season of Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown, “The Bronx”, misses most of what
matters, like the Latino community, and seems patronizing, as this piece in
Huffington, “Still Doesn’t Know the Bronx”, link here.
Bourdain sounds aloof when he says he lives in sight of it
but had never really visited it. (He does explain its history, how it became a borough, and why there is a definite article in the name.) He grew up in New Jersey. He probably never cared, until somehow it got
his attention. It’s odd to find a “place
unknown” less than ten miles from your own luxury pad. That’s not to belittle his other work, where
he has indeed gone into hot zones, and I suspect we’ll see more of that in the
future (maybe even about Ebola). He does cover the hip-hop scene, as well as graffiti art on the subways. He says he has already been everywhere in the World.
Some of the "food porn" in this segment was routine: dining at "White Tower". Remember "Little Tavern" in Washington DC in the 1950s?
Some of the "food porn" in this segment was routine: dining at "White Tower". Remember "Little Tavern" in Washington DC in the 1950s?
Beyond Yankee Stadium (where I went to a game this summer),
there is the Bronx Zoo, and Botannical Garden, which I visited when living here
in the 1970s, and Pelham Bay Park, leading to “City Island” (the name of a
movie, reviews on Movies Blog May 25, 2010), which I also visited at least once. There is also Van Cortlandt Park. A few
times I rode the Amtrak train through the South Bronx, which looked horrible in
the 1970s.
I'd use one of my Harlem or Riverside pictures here, but I notice they're in Manhattan!
The most specific CNN reference seems to be this.
The most specific CNN reference seems to be this.
Wiki[edia attribution link for Pelham Bay Park, here.
Wednesday, October 08, 2014
CNN: "Vanished: The Mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370"
On Tuesday night, CNN aired the one-hour documentary “Vanished:
The Mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370” (or “Vanished: MH370”) at 9 PM
EDT, with primary link here.
The flight left Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for Beijing around
midnight before March 8, 2014 started and disappeared from all radar and air
traffic control system detection less than an hour after takeoff.
The discovery of “handshakes” from a British satellite company
Inmarsat many weeks later would show that the aircraft had to have changed
course and flown SW toward the Indian Ocean (story ) .
The background investigations of the pilot, copilot, crew
members, and passengers has not revealed anyone with a suspicious background or
ties to terrorist groups.
CNN's Miles O'Brien has a separate video on a new theory as to why MH370 might have disappeared. The particular Boeing aircraft has an unlocked compartment outside the cockpit with access to control systems, which someone could have entered, link here.
CNN's Miles O'Brien has a separate video on a new theory as to why MH370 might have disappeared. The particular Boeing aircraft has an unlocked compartment outside the cockpit with access to control systems, which someone could have entered, link here.
Pictures: Lunar eclipse, pre-dawn, Oct. 8, 2014 (mine).
Tuesday, October 07, 2014
"Selfie" says a lot about social media circles, and increases fear of flying (especially now)
I sampled ABC’s new series comedy “Selfie” this evening. The
Pilot is available through Hulu on Imdb.
While pesky, the series doesn’t use the mockumentary technique of “Modern
Family” and has some stylistic affinity with “Transparent”. The series is created by Emily Kapnek and the
Pilot is directed by Julie Anne Robinson.
It’s about sales culture, all right. Eliza (Karen Gillan) is a sales rep for a
pharmaceutical company who uses social media for her job well. She has thousands of Facebook friends, but
few real friends (the show has a line “Being friended on Facebook doesn’t mean
making friends”) On a business trip, she
has cruised Ethan, but when she notices his wedding ring as she sits next to
him, she vomits into air basg, twice, and spills them over herself and other
passengers on the way to the lavatory. I
wonder if anyone knew about Ebola while filming the Pilot.
A co-worker Henry (John Cho), offers to coach her in her
social life, while insisting that their relationship remain platonic and
professional. He gets an award from the
company for reversing the bad publicity from a nasal spray gone wrong, and his African-American
male boss kisses him. So she presumes he’s
gay. She winds up playing bridesmaid at a wedding.
Episode 2 “Un-Tag My Heart” (Oct. 7) has Henry admitting he isn’t
on Facebook, but relies on Linked-In instead, as if unaware that you can no
longer lead a double life online. So he
fixes that quickly.
ABC’s site for the show is here.
You have to deserve adulation before taking a selfie.
Monday, October 06, 2014
"Transparent": Amazon Studios makes successful dramedy series about a transgendered professor
As an Amazon Prime member, I tried Jill Soloway’s “Transparent”
this evening, the Pilot, that had aired in late August. It’s just a half-hour show and has some of
the wit, if not the mockumentary style, of “Modern Family”.
In a well-to-do Jewish family in Los Angeles (the Pfeffermans),
a retired former professor Mort (Jeffrey Tambor) and family patriarch, after
divorce, plans his transformation to female.
He needs to tell his adult kids, but when he tries, he goes awry, letting
the kids wonder if he has cancer and start wondering how the inheritances might
go. (Oh, there’s that left wing
objection to inherited wealth.)
There are plenty of other tender mercies among the adult
kids in the 30-hour pilot. Netflix and “Amazon Studios” are rapidly getting
into the business of underwriting direct-to-video series on their own, it
seems, to the delight of critics. It’s something that a nouveau author with
ideas of getting a movie made needs to heed.
In one scene, Mort says he has "dressed up as a man" his whole life, and what you see now is "who I am." -- or "This is me."
In one scene, Mort says he has "dressed up as a man" his whole life, and what you see now is "who I am." -- or "This is me."
The official site for playback or rental is here.
Saturday, October 04, 2014
"The Mystery of Johnsburg Road" on ABC 20-20: the loss of Brian Carrick, questionable conviction of Mario Casciaro
ABC 20-20 Friday night presented the case of the murder of
Brian Carrick, a retail stock worker who disappeared on an Illinois road in
December 2002. The episode is called “The Mystery of Johnsburg Road”, with the
main link here.
A well-spoken young man, Mario Casciaro, 31, is serving 26
years for murder, but a key witness Shane Lamb, says that his testimony was
coerced by the district attorney, as he told ABC News shortly before the report
was filmed. The defendant had been tried
twice since the jury was hung the first time. The body has been found.
Kathleen Zellner, who had defended Ryan Ferguson, who was
wrongfully convicted in Missouri (Nov. 18 and Nov. 24, 2013) is working on the
case. There seems to be no DNA evidence
to support the conviction.
The report shows that it is rather easy for an ordinary
person to get framed in a bizarre set of circumstances.
Wednesday, October 01, 2014
ABC's "Forever" gives a new take on reincarnation and body-snatching
What would it be like to be immortal? Dr. Henry Morgan (Ioan Gruffudd, a Welsh
actor who is 41) ries to find out as he works in a morgue, in the new ABC series "Forever" that started Sept. 23.
I sampled the series with Episode 2, “Fountain of Youth” last night in the ABC Series, as a wealthy
elderly man shows up in the morgue, having taken a steroid drug “Aterna”. It gives him the body of a 30 year old man
(at autopsy, his chest is muscular but absolutely hairless) and the brain of a
110-year-old.
The script says that the trouble with these illegal PED’s
and steroids is that they actually work.
No wonder people want to use them.
Morgan provides an unusual take on reincarnation or even
body-snatching. When he “dies”, he
re-awakens in a nearby body. His first
death had occurred two centuries ago when he worked as a doctor in the African
slave trade. In his progressive lives,
he finds he doesn’t age, and might get younger (like Benjamin Button).
Suppose I could wake up with another’s 18-year-old body
tomorrow morning? I’d say, peak at Morgan;s gams.
As I used to think, some men seem to “freeze in youth”. I didn't get to. I had "lost it: before I was in the game.
The ABC link is here.
Picture: NYC Pride, June 2014.
Labels:
Forever,
medicine,
spirituality,
television series (dramatic)
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