P.S. A Column On Things

Letting Other People Write It

Heck, even the great Herb Caen regularly ran columns written by other people--in dribs and drabs. I didn't see any movies this week, didn't have any epiphanies, insights or flashes of brilliance. So, some political briefs and some letters and links, and away we go.

Political Briefs

• The prosecution of George Bush for Murder. The DA who got Charlie Manson goes after GW
• Break up the banks!
• It's official; according to the US 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals: "Victims of extraordinary rendition have no recourse to sue Washington for torture suffered overseas, appellate court rules."
• Navy veteran and U.S. Representative Eric Massa calls for an end to the war
• Mary Landrieu disinvited over cloture uncertainty
• How To Get The Republicans To Back Down (a speech by a pro-life Congressman - check the end of the last clip)

• Calif. power company seeks higher rates for energy efficient customers

• Wall Street's Naked Swindle
• Afghanistan: Groundhog day
• Warren Buffett and the G20

• Defending the Arsenal: In an unstable Pakistan, can nuclear warheads be kept safe?

• Sen. Joe LIEberman (Connecticut for LIEberman - CT) Whips Up Anti_American Hysteria
• The Predator War
• Thomas Fingar On The Politics Of NIE/NIAs

Wolfe on the Holidays, Reynolds Checks In, Jon Carroll Cat Column, Chuck Carroll's Wife's New Book, Dan Grobstein File

The ever-delightful Marjorie Wolfe checks in with a holiday column: During The Holiday "Sezon," Does "VD" Mean Volume Discount?

Craig Reynolds checks in:

• Who needs cable TV service or TiVo?:
  
  Apple’s iTunes Pitch: TV for $30 a Month
  
  This idea keeps popping up, in fact the spin in this article is maybe its time has finally arrived. I talked about it back in 2006 and cited another blog post from 2005.

• Seattle team wins $900,000 in Space Elevator Games

Those of you who do not live in San Francisco, but who love cats as I do, will not want to miss The Mouse In The House, Jon Carroll's latest cat column.

My friend Chuck Carroll writes:

Most of you know that my charming spouse Nannette has just published her first book, The Communication Problem Solver.
It shows how to improve interpersonal communication at work.

According to her first review, the book’s message promotes better outcomes wherever people are talking, not just at work.
And the reviewer said Nannette’s style reminded him of Malcolm Gladwell!

Dan Grobstein File

• OPINION
| November 04, 2009
Paul Krugman: I'm not sure what the moral of this is, but ...
By Paul Krugman
Dire warnings from the distant past.
[We're in a liquidity trap, and it was predicted back in 1982.]
• Apparently, Dick Armey is a jackass
• It seems we DID know that Glass-Steagall repeal was stupid
• OPINION
| November 05, 2009
Paul Krugman: The lost generation
By Paul Krugman
On the right, the politically correct thing is to pretend that nothing good happened until Reagan came along.
• For Back to the Future Fans: the importance of Nov. 5
• James Fallows notes the NY Times in Washington DC apparently has a later deadline than the Washington Post.

End Novmber 9 Column

Political Briefs

• Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey thinks that U.S. civilian courts are not proper venues for terror trials. Why? Because they’re an administrative hassle.
• Homewrecker Sally Quinn joins BillO the Clown and the Right Wing attack on Rep. Grayson.
• One of best lines of the week by Stephen Colbert about Sen. Joe Lieberman (Connecticut for Lieberman - Conn.): approximately: "Stick to your principles Joe and as soon as you know what they are, let us know." Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert Take On Joe Lieberman and his Public Option Filibuster Threat
• Early Morning Swim: Glenn Greenwald and Rachel Maddow Take Down Joe Lieberman
• Eleven Ways The House Bill Is Better Than The Baucus Bill
• Confirmation from an MIT faculty member of PSACOT's earlier reports on the necessity of dividing very big banks into much smaller banks:
• Does Ben Bernanke Have The Facts Right On Banking?
• Naming Systemically Dangerous Firms
• The Democratic leadership Thinks We're Stupid
• What is wrong with this picture when Buchanan raises reasonable questions? If the neighbors (China, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Krygyzystan, Uzbekistan) did not deem it in their national interests to invade their neighbors (Afghanistan and Iraq) or to offer much, if anything, in the way of assistance, why was it (and why is it today) in the best interests of the United States?
  
  The Fruits of Intervention

Astroboy

2.5 stars out of 5

Great voice talent. Fantastic CGI animation. A beloved Anime character from the 1960s. All in service of a limp story. I was never a hard-core Astroboy fan, so this film was only of mild interest to me. It wasn't Little Nemo in Slumberland bad (the touchstone for animated lousiness in our family), but it wasn't all that good either. I didn't feel like I needed a bath or refund afterwards, and at the end of my life I'll probably only apply to get 45 of the 90 minutes of my life back that I invested in watching the film. At least it wasn't too long.

New York, I Love You

4 stars out of 5

The unofficial followup to Paris, I Love You, this film contains 12 short films and more stars than you can shake a stick at. Every one of the vignettes is clever, funny, moving, original or all four. There are too many great moments to list, and anything I could say about the plots would end up being a spoiler. Suffice it to say that about a quarter of the time you'll figure out where the sketch is going, and the other three-quarters of the time you'll be surprised. That's a better batting average than O'Henry.

Neal Vitale Reviews: The Damned United

4 stars out of 5

It's risky to base your expectations of a film on the quality of the team that created it, but the key collaborators on The Damn United have one of the best track records going, and this effort is no exception. This true-life story of British soccer coach Brian Clough brings together a compelling screenplay by Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon, The Queen), the crisp and straightforward direction of Tom Hooper (Longford, HBO's series "John Adams"), and a core trio of fine actors in solid performances. Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon, The Queen) shines as the aggressive and brash Clough - Oscar consideration would not be out of the question - and is supported by Timothy Spall (Harry Potter, Sweeney Todd, Enchanted), as Clough's behind-the-scenes partner Peter Taylor, and Colm Meaney (The Commitments, Layer Cake, and many TV roles), as Clough's  rival on the football pitch. The Damned United provides a vivid portrait of hubris and ambition, the marks they can leave, and the intriguing, often contradictory, forces at work in professional sports ownership.

Neal Vitale Reviews: Where The Wild Things Are

3 stars out of 5

I was ten years old when Maurice Sendak's slim illustrated children's book "Where The Wild Things Are" was first published by Harper & Row, and I never read it at the time. It was a good forty-plus years later when I was finally exposed to the text, reading it to my daughter. At the risk of harrumphing, the story never made much of an impact on me, and I approached this film - an enormous expansion of the brief original tale by director/writer Spike Jonze (Adaptation, Being John Malkovich) and writer Dave Eggers (Away We Go, books such as "A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius") - with only minimal enthusiasm. (In fact, I might not even have gone to see Where The Wild Things Are but for the inclusion in the film's trailer of the wonderful, uplifting Arcade Fire anthem, "Wake Up," from their 2004 debut album, Funeral. Sadly and annoyingly, the song is not in the movie.) There are moments in the film that are captivating, capturing the confusing, contradictory, and often inexplicable actions, impulses, and emotions of childhood and life. Jonze imbues a fantastic story with feelings that read as genuine and realistic. But, for me, these high points are too infrequent, and I'll continue my decades of harrumphing.

Craig Reynolds Checks In, Dan Grobstein File

Craig Reynolds checks in, apropos of last week's item about old-time radio (and a few others)

• In Friday's post in my lab notebook I made passing reference to the golden age of radio (http://www.red3d.com/cwr/texsyn/diary.html#20091023, see the text to the right of the fourth image in the post). Funny that you brought the topic up a few days later.
• From the same folks, formerly the MIT Leg Lab, who brought you BigDog: be sure to catch the segment at about 1:30 where BigDog almost loses its footing on ice then artfully recovers.
• This sort of breathless prediction has a poor track record, so I'd rewrite the head: New Technologies That Will Change Everything, or not...
• A bold move for L.A., a boost for cloud computing, a slap in Microsoft's face: L.A. City Council votes to outsource e-mail to Google
• In Industry First, Voting Machine Company to Publish Source Code

Dan Grobstein File

• From The New York Times:
  
  Historians Reassess Battle of Agincourt
  
  Some historians are doubting the Battle of Agincourt’s status as
  perhaps the greatest military victory against overwhelming odds, while
  also drawing some modern comparisons.

End of November 2 Column

Radio Memories

I was born in 1952, the year television (if not many television sets to watch it on) arrived in my home town of Portland, Oregon. We got a set in 1955 or 1956; I am told I preferred the commercials to the shows. My mother apparently listened to radio while it was still radio, with comedies and dramas and quiz shows, and even Stan Freberg. I have no distinct memory of that era (which ended on Nov. 25, 1960, when CBS radio killed off its last soap operas and entertainment shows). "Real" radio stumbled on for a while in Portland; KOIN didn't kill off its 41-year-old morning KOIN Klock show and fire its orchestra until August 25, 1972--after I had gone off to college.

But although I had watched two broadcasts of KOIN Klock as an eager high-school radio engineer in the late 60s, my heart lay with KEX 1190, the 50,000-watt "Call of the Northwest." Like many people, I woke up to Barney Keep's "Keep Time" because I went to sleep the night before listening to the Portland Beavers. Barney used to read the Oregonian's daily chuckle every morning and then add, "Chuckle, Chuckle, Sob." He held down the morning slot from 1944 to 1979 (people used to LAST in the old days...), and he woke me up until 1968.

That's when I stopped listening to the Beavers (too much homework) and Barney (I had to get up before his show started) and switched to the new-fangled FM dial. I loved KINK (sister station of KGW), which introduced Album Oriented Rock to Portland. I was hooked on the semi-automated station and its laid-back chief announcer, Jeff Douglas. And, of course, the "wow" factor of a clock radio with FM on it (it was a tube radio, of course, so it had to warm up each morning). In my junior and senior years, I had to be up around 5:30 in the morning. I distinctly recall listening to Russ Ward anchoring the NBC World News Roundup every morning at 5:37 (what an odd time!) The NBC World News Roundup was not as well known as its CBS counterpart, but I was a KINK guy, and that was the schedule.

Something put me in mind of those mornings so long ago this week, and I spent hours down the Google hole trying to confirm the time of day that Russ was on in Portland back then. I couldn't, but it was such a warm bath of nostalgia to look back on the long-gone radio of my youth, that I thought I'd share a few memories. And if Russ or Jeff are out there, and know when the show was on, let me know. Maybe I slept in later than I recall...

Political Briefs

• Report: Iran incapable of producing nuke within six to eight years
• Moody's Sold Its Ratings and Sold Out Investors
• Obama in the process of dropping another ball and missing another opportunity to the detriment of Americans for decades into the future
  Brethren At The Bar and the Senate Confirmation Process
• Move Along
• The Quiet Coup While the U.S. has sent soldiers all over the world it seems the biggest threat to the country was right at home on Wall Street.
• Who Is Carlos Slim?
• Chief (crack)pot Karl Rove calls kettle black Fox News Slams White House
• Confirming previous PSACOT reports: Frontline Investigates The Roost Of The Financial Crisis
• Does Citigroup Need China?
• Why Is The Chamber Of Commerce Defending Big Banks?
• Retired General calls Cheney ‘incompetent war fighter’
• Cheering The Fox Takedown
• Things are worse in Honduras than you're hearing
• McCain Rediscovers His Passion For Screwing us with Bad Telecom Policy
• Big Banks Fail and Too Complicated To Work

Chuck Carroll notes Apple's Tablet, Craig Reynolds, Dan Grostein File

Chuck Carroll forwarded a Newsweek story that starts out about Apple's forthcoming tablet, and morphs into a meditation on the death of print.

Craig Reynolds checks in:

• This technology could be used by firefighters to find people trapped in burning buildings, or by Terminators to relentlessly track down their human victims: http://www.unews.utah.edu/p/?r=100509-1. more: http://span.ece.utah.edu/radio-tomographic-imaging
• Obama to deliver clean energy speech Friday at MIT
• The Boston Globe ran this collection of Saturn equinox pictures
• Crystals hold super computer key
  Tiny crystals could hold the key to creating computers with massive storage capacity, scientists believe
• Record 12-Million-Digit Prime Number Nets $100,000 Prize
  Mersenne.org Wins EFF's Cooperative Computing Award

Dan Grobstein File

• From The New York Times:
  
  When Love Is a Schlep
  
  With singles living all over New York City, willingness to take a
  couple of subways for a date can be a token of high esteem.
• US
| October 18, 2009
In California, a Fight Against Faux Disabilities and Fake Permits
By JESSE McKINLEY
Officials say masses of people are falsifying, misusing and abusing special license plates and placards meant to provide easy access to parking for disabled drivers.
• BUSINESS
| October 19, 2009
Media Decoder: Times Says It Will Cut 100 Newsroom Jobs
By Richard Perez-Pena
The New York Times says it will trim 100 newsroom jobs by the end of the year, a reduction of about 8 percent.
• OPINION
| October 19, 2009
Paul Krugman: All right? Not alright, if you ask me
By Paul Krugman
The Who versus The Times.
• From The New York Times:
  
  ON THE RECORDS: He Was There. Now His Papers Are, Too.
  
  Walter Cronkite remembered the University of Texas at Austin in his
  last will and testament, even though he dropped out as a junior and, by his own admission, was not a stellar student.
• ARTS / TELEVISION
| October 23, 2009
Soupy Sales, Slapstick Comedian, Dies at 83
By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN
Mr. Sales's zany television routines turned the smashing of a pie to the face into a madcap art form.

End of Oct. 26 Coumn