P.S. A Column On Things

Four Things on the Glorious Fourth

First of all, have a glorious Fourth of July!

This week, I got a little 'get to know you better' e-mail.

Four things about me that you may or may not have known in no particular order.

The idea is that you take this list, replace my answers with yours, and forward it to a bunch of friends, as well as returning it to the person who sent it to you (in this case, me). Everyone gets to know everyone else better.

A) Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Computer programmer
2. DJ at an AM underground rock station--and a skating rink
3. junkyard attendant
4. typesetter

B) Four movies I would watch over and over (or have watched over and over)
1. Groundhog Day
2. Citizen Kane
3. Deadline USA
4. Ace in the Hole

C) Four places I have lived:
1. Winthrop, MA
2. Hartford
3 . Portland, OR
4. San Francisco

D) Four TV Shows that I watch:
1. Simpsons
2. Family Guy
3. Boston Legal
4. Dr. Who

E) Four places I have been:
1. Kyoto, Japan
2. Haut de Cagnes, France
3. Golf, Ill.
4. Disneyworld

F) People who e-mail me (regularly):
1. John
2. Richard
3. Peter
4. Dan

G) Four of my favorite foods
1. cherries
2. duck
3. Peanut butter
4. Soft frozen yogurt

H) Four places I would rather be right now...
1. riding a bike
2. Next to an ocean--anywhere
3. London
4. Playing tennis


I) Four friends I think will respond:
1. John
2. Richard
3. Peter
4. Dan

J) Four Things I am looking forward to in 2008:
1. Portland
2. LA
3. Catalina
4. Bodega Bay

K) Four things I would like to do more of:
1. writing
2. Video editing
3. exercise
4. Tenor sax

L. Four things I'd like to change
1. The educational system
2. The health system
3. The party in the White House
4. The Supreme Court

Great Idea, Abruptly Rejected: Children of Jeopardy Contestants Tournament

I was on Jeopardy in 1985. My daughters are now 23 and 27. The fact is, I doubt either of them would try out, even if my idea were adopted. But I had what I think is this great idea: a tournament of the children of former Jeopardy players. There must be thousands of them by now. I floated this past the Jeopardy! people and got a dismissive answer. I admit, I got an answer, which is something, but I am chagrined the idea was rejected out of hand.

If you agree with me that there should be a tournament of the children of Jeopardy! contestants, write to:

Rocky Schmidt
Supervising Producer
Jeopardy!
10202 West Washington Blvd.
Culver City, CA 90232-3195

Thanks for your support!

Kerry's Majority, Gun Control, Disgusting Yoo, Bush, Cheney, And Co-Conspirators Support Communist Devised Torture As Interrogation Method

Kerry's Majority

First, it was the Ukrainian Orange Revolution, supported by the U.S. because of the disparity between exit polls and reported results. This spring (culminating in the "sham election" last week) it was Mugabe in Zimbabwe whose lies were exposed by the equivalent of exit polling. Is there no one with a sense of irony, or a memory that extends back to the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November in 2004?

A lot of analysts have been quoting the "fact" that a Dem has not won over 50% of the popular vote since about 1976 and only once since 1944. This is incorrect.

Over 50.1% of the vote was cast for John Kerry in 2004--if all the votes cast were actually counted.

The liberal blogosphere, and the Democratic Party, has been unwilling to unable to realize or acknowledge that simple fact; the facts were established by reporting independent of exit polling. The facts were also established by the national exit polls

***

Gun Control

Justice Scalia's majority opinion in the Second Amendment case is a stunning example of activist judges legislating and re-writing the Constitution. It is also a stunning rejection of the so-called "Originalism" doctrine which Scalia had been smilingly offering and unctuosly proffering in a farcically reassuring manner as a facade for his judicial activism. This excuse was on display just a few days earlier on PBS. For purposes of his tortured reasoning, he erased the first words in the 2nd Amendment ("A well regulated milita being necessary to the security of a free state" - those words no longer exist in the 2nd Amendment - courtesy of Karl Rove, Al Gore, and John Kerry). Here's an artist's rendering of that action.

Save on gas this summer, instead of visiting the Wild West, just go to Washington, D.C. - remember to bring all of your guns. The Founders could not possibly have had in mind banning personal use of weapons based on fizz and fuse. So, remember to bring yours, it's what the Founders intended.

Disgusting Yoo

I am disgusted that I pay John Yoo's salary with my California tax dollars. Hhe "teaches" law (!!???!) at the University of California, Berkeley. Here's a man who wouldn't know a straight answer if it bitch-slapped him. Asked if it is legal for a president to bury someone alive as part of an interrogation, Yoo responded, "No president would do that." Now, I don't know about you, but where I come from, that doesn't answer the question. But, apparently, it is legal for a president to inflict any pain that is not the equivalent of death or organ failure, according to a memo which Mr. Yoo helped draft. Also, apparently, he does not know the meaning of the word implement, judging from his sworn testimony to Congress. I don't know about you, but I don't want my lawyers trained by a man who doesn't know the meaning of the word implement. Or, for that matter, the meaning of the word "torture." Gosh, I hope no enemy of the United States ever captures Mr. Yoo; I wouldn't want to be there when he's interrogated.

***

Pick your headline:

Bush Supports Communist-Devised Torture As Interrogation Method
Republicans Support Communist Devised Torture As Interrogation Method
Bush, Cheney, And Appointees Support Communist Devised Torture As Interrogation Method
Bush, Cheney, And Co-Conspirators Support Communist Devised Torture As Interrogation Method

Here's the headline the New York Times chose: China Inspired Interrogations At Guantanamo

Guantanamo interrogators trained to use methods in chart of techniques used by Chinese Communists during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.

The third paragraph was the so-called "money" graf. Kudos to Times which usually puts what passes for news in the last paragraph. "The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency."

McCain votes to enable/support this conduct while saying something quite different; actions speak louder than words. One wonders why the Times did not hold this story until 2009 out of fear it might affect an election (i.e., inform the electorate). Remember the story about warrantless wiretapping held from October 2004 to December 2005).

Sen. Carl Levin (D. - Mich.), current chair of the Armed Services Committee, voted against the Authorization For The Use Of Military Force Against Iraq. He therefore was opposed to this conduct from the start; he has standing to comment. He said, after reviewing the evidence, "every American would be shocked" by the torture chart. He also said: "What makes this document doubly stunning is that these were techniques to get false confessions. People say we need intelligence, and we do. But we don't need false intelligence."

It has been previously reported that at least one U.S. military intelligence training officer began each class by deflating those who were about to become intelligence officers in one of the U.S. military services by reminding them: "There are three kinds of intelligence: human, animal, and military. In that order."

***

Briefs

• From the People Who Brought Us Judith Miller and George Bush. A harangue against the NY Times.
• Where Will the Republicans Go? (That is, how low will the go?) John Kerry with a Tan is going to look like statesmanship by the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

• As if the whole DOJ "no liberals need apply" scandal wasn't sickening enough already, here's some gory details about Esther Slater McDonald. Keep your motion sickness bag at hand. The networks, of course, are MIA on this issue.
• Bill Clinton: Obama will have to kiss my ass to get my support
• Wingnuts: Only Bush And Rove Are Allowed To Question McCain’s Military Record
• Iraq fails to ink deals with global oil majors
• Hersh on Iran (also Hersh with Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air.
• NY Times: Amid U.S. Policy Disputes, Qaeda Grows in Pakistan
• Judges cite nonsense poem in Guantanamo case

• Eager to Tap Iraq's Oil, Industry Execs Suggested Military Intervention. "...In the months leading up to the war, the suggestion that the U.S. would launch a war based on oil was treated as conspiracy theory and relegated to the far corners of the Internet..."

• The Real John McCain
• Electoral Vote Map: Looking Good, but still close enough for the GOP to steal, again.
• Nuclear weapons: you CAN set them off by hitting them.
• Andrew J. Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston University. His new book is "The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism." He wrote an op-ed piece for the Boston Globe, What Bush hath wrought
• Welsey Clark was Not impugning McCain's patriotism or record--just pointing out that being shot down and imprisoned is not a qualification for the presidency, any more than Obama's lack of military service is a disqualification.
• Milt Bearden, a 30-year veteran in the CIA's Directorate of Operations, served as senior manager for clandestine operations. He is the author, with James Risen, of "The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown With the KGB." For the website Washington Independent, he wrote Truth Is Out on CIA and Torture: Spy Agency Continues to Carry Out White House Policy

• Panel Questions State Dept. Role in Iraq Oil Deal

Craig Reynolds Techobriefs

by Craig Reynolds

Privacy: several items about Our Paradoxical Attitudes Toward Privacy. Like Google's attorney, I am "disappointed the court granted Viacom's overreaching demand for [YouTube] viewing history" although this case (Judge Orders Google to Turn Over YouTube Records) seems to be more about Viacom going after Google's deep pockets rather than the sort of "retail harassment" of individuals the music industry has specialized in: YouTube order: Does it threaten your privacy? The shoe is on the other foot in this case: Groups Sue U.S. Government Over Mobile Phone Tracking where civil liberty advocates seek to find the extent of government surveillance of cell phone users. A lot of his passionate supporters got quite annoyed when Obama decided to go along with a sleazy deal to help the Bush administration retroactively weaken the FISA law meant to protect Americans from government surveillance: Obama Voters Protest His Switch on Telecom Immunity. In fact it got me off my duff to complain on the campaign's community blog. As mentioned here last month, Google had been violating a law of its home state. It has now stopped: Google Changes Home Page, Adding Link to Privacy Policy.

Personalized medicine: as in the item mentioned here last week, there is new excitement about advances in medical treatments produced for a single individual. Here is more along those same lines: New test could track tumors in 'real time' and New Test Could Allow “Real Time” Tracking of Cancer Tumors.

Fast-living chameleon: OK, so there is some interesting science (From a Chameleon With a Short Life, Aging Insights?) about the life-cycle of Furcifer labordi (images). But I mention it mainly to be able to cite this article: Violent sex means chameleons die young. How can you not love that headline?

Yoga genetics: the idea that yoga and other forms of meditation can relieve stress has been recognized for hundreds of years, and in the scientific world since I was a student in the 1970s. I remember learning to meditate from an article in Scientific American ("The physiology of meditation", or was it a review of "The relaxation response"?). Now there is news of what goes on at a molecular level in the cells of your body: Meditation, Yoga Might Switch Off Stress Genes and Train Your Mind, Change Your DNA. Here is the scientific paper itself (available free to all because it was published in PLOS, an open access journal): Genomic Counter-Stress Changes Induced by the Relaxation Response.

Technobits: more than half of Internet Explorer users use an obsolete version: Does Your Browser Need an Expiration Date? --- Mac OS X market share surges 32% in one year --- I have never been a fan of Flash-heavy websites, they don't navigate in the typical way, its harder to get URLs from them, and they did not get indexed properly. Now that later problem has been fixed: Google Now Crawling and Indexing Flash Content (see also: Official Google Blog: Google learns to crawl Flash) --- some research indicating its the cell phone conversation that is the real problem and is not addressed by California's new law: What might the hands-free law accomplish? --- Laugh at High Gas Prices With a 282-MPG VW --- "...positive psychological effects of psilocybin...last for more than a year...": Psilocybin Study Hints at Rebirth of Hallucinogen Research --- a coworker sent around a link to an article about box-shaped watermelons in the context of a sappy homily about thinking outside the box, then another coworker replied with this: Funny Shaped Japanese Watermelons.

WALL-E

4 stars out of 5

Is this the summer of great animation, or what? The academy is going to face a difficult choice at Oscar-time, with all the world class animation. Great stories, great animation, great voice acting.

The latest in the series is Wall-E. So many things are swirling in my mind after watching this film. First of all, years ago a commentator I respected said if the film is entertaining and you can follow it with the sound turned off, it's good animation. This is good animation. For that matter, the short cartoon that precedes Wall-E, "Presto," is just about perfect. Not a word of dialog. Hysterically funny. I am frequently late to movies. Don't be late for this one (and stay for the credits too; as usual, Pixar does cute stuff during the credits). I have the same feeling I have after almost all Pixar short subjects--I want to see these characters again.

Speaking of the "dialog not needed" rule for good animation, back in the 80s, when Disney was am premium channel and my daughters hung on it dearly, most of the programming was old Disney cartoons. Watching them as an adult made me realize that most early Disney cartoon shorts were almost entirely without dialog. It was only in the late 30s and beyond that Walt caved in to orthodoxy and had everyone talking all the time.

Another thing swirling through my head was that Pixar follows the old Warner Brothers animation rule: simple stories and bright colors for the kids, sly political and social references for the adults. Clearly, the Pixar people have a sense of history and are taking the best ideas of those who have gone before. In the case of Wall-E, Fred Willard as president of the Buy N Large stores, who also becomes President of--the country? The world?--uses the phrase "stay the course" during a speech and is depicted as not too bright. No kid is going to get that, but I laughed out loud. Also, the Autopilot is a direct homage to HAL from the move 2001, as is the music (Thus Spake Zarathustra) to which the captain crawls in a critical scene.

As for voice talent, Eve and Wall-E are voiced by unknowns, who do a great job with the very minimal dialog assigned to these characters. John Ratzenberger, Pixar's good-luck charm, provides voice talent once more, this time as "John," the first person knocked from his floating chair by Wall-E. I am a huge fan of Sigourney Weaver, the voice of the computer--her casting itself is a very inside cultural reference, given her starring roles in Alien and Galaxy Quest."

First class fun for the whole family. Go see it.

Wanted

3 stars out of 5

Speaking of old Hollywood, as I was in the previous review, I like the fact that "back in the day," actors had a persona, and they either played it or played against it, as opposed to the chameleon-like character of most modern actors and actresses (what's a Dustin Hoffman role? A Meryl Streep role?). By this I mean that Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Betty Bacall, Joan Crawford and Katherine Hepburn, no matter what their role, were nearly always playing a variation on themselves--or at least on their screen image. Sometimes, Stewart, for example, played the "anti-Stewart," but that just made the role more effective, because you had trouble accepting that a guy that nice would do something so evil.

We may be returning to those days. In Wanted, James "King of Scotland" McAvoy, Morgan "I narrate everything James Earl Jones doesn't" Freeman and Angelina "Bad movie-proof" Jolie all riff on their previous screen images, to good effect. The film is formulaic, but McAvoy is sweet and innocent, Freeman God-like and Jolie a sex bomb. That makes them fun to watch.

It isn't art; you aren't going to change from having seen about it, nor are you going to talk about it after you get home (unless you're me). But it is diverting and entertaining and the special effects are Matrix-level amazing (and derivative, for that matter). If it's playing around the corner--or Wall-E or Hancock is sold out--go ahead and give it a try.

Neal Vitale Reviews: WALL-E

[Ed. note: Neal's review and mine crossed in the e-mail; I figured there was no harm in us both having our say!]

4 stars out of 5

As embarrassing as it may sound, I was so looking forward to WALL-E that my wife and daughter arranged to take me to see it for my birthday. That level of expectation is almost always a recipe for disappointment and, while I liked WALL-E  a great deal, I had hoped for more.This latest writing/directing effort from fellow Bostonian and Red Sox fan Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, A Bug's Life) and the gang at Pixar is a charming delight, recounting the adventures of winsome robots (and a resilient roach) as they try to aid bringing life back to Earth in a post-apocalyptic future. The film's first forty-odd minutes are dialog-free and a brilliant exercise in anthropomorphism, as we are beguiled and charmed, first by the behavior, mannerisms, and sounds of the title droid (including "his" fondness for Hello Dolly), then by the "romance" that ensues when a probe robot arrives to explore Earth via a noisy rocket landing. But while the messages about environmental abuse, exploitive big business, and sedentary American culture are developed nicely over the balance of the film, and there is the requisite climactic battle of good vs. evil, much of the rest of the film frankly drags. What makes this film so worth seeing is the magic of that opening sequence, WALL-E at its best - warm, clever, and completely original. (That is, along with the wonderful short, Presto, which precedes WALL-E, in standard Pixar fashion.)

Outsourcing Journalism, Clay Felker, Dan Grobstein File

Silly me, I always thought you couldn't outsource journalism: OC Register to outsource some editing to India

My mentor, Edwin Diamond, served as Clay Felker's right-hand man for years. We lost Edwin a decade ago, and now Clay's gone too.

California requires hands free phones while driving as of July 1.

Dan Grobstein File

• BUSINESS
| June 30, 2008
Solution, or Mess? A Milk Jug for a Green Earth
By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM
A simple change to the design of the gallon milk jug keeps the milk fresher and holds costs down.

• The War on Tourism
• Harvey Weinstein's Trash
• Someone stole the copper plumbing from one of the [Detroit's] most visible landmarks. A six-figure repair bill for a few bucks in scrap metal.

• Christopher Hitchens tries waterboarding and says it is torture. Maybe Rush "I think waterboarding is not even close to torture...worse things happen during frat house initiations" Limbaugh would like to try it.
• Pac Man cake with cupcake ghosts

• Contrasting Obama ; Mcsame:
  "As everyone knows, Democrats have struggled for generations with the perception that they're out of touch elitists. Barack Obama is no exception."
  and
  "By contrast, John McCain is an all-American regular guy who, like most people, earns his keep by marrying an heiress."

End July 7 Column

So Good It Gets Its Own Item: I'm voting Republican

I'm Voting Republican about sums it up for me.

Keith Colquhoun's Novel "Beyond Reason"

British author and journalist Keith Colquhoun has written several novels, including one about journalists (Goebbels Gladys) and two that have journalist characters, Killing Stalin and his recently released Beyond Reason (Solidus Press-- An ex-journalist appears during the last chapter in a cameo).

He has been kind enough to conduct an ongoing e-mail correspondence with me, which included an early look at his most recent novel, which features the relationship between two Anglican priests, one a plodder, the other a cipher. The phrase "can't put it down" is frequently bandied about, but I used it here without reservation because it is literally true. Once I picked up this novel, I devoted full time to it (putting me even further behind in my New Yorker reading) because the plot pulled me in--I wondered where we were going, and was satisfied with the answer.

Given that I'm an ex-journalist and one of my best friends is an Episcopal (Anglican) priest, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Well-written, fast-paced, entertaining, and, like his other works, endearingly eccentric. If you are interested in a good novel that doesn't read just like every other novel, and some thoughtful chatter about the state of religion, wrapped into an entertaining package, you'll like Beyond Reason.

Political Briefs

• Charlie Black, McCain's advisor, says a terrorism attack would help McCain. McCain offers a hand slap, which sounds more like "don't tell people what we're thinking," than "we don't think that." [McCain Distances Himself From Top Adviser's Claim That Terror Attack Would Help McCain]
• Blackwater using cache of AK-47s. Murdering people abroad, violating the law at home:
• The Large Hadron Collider will not eat the world. The fears are ridiculous. Big black holes have big gravity because they are big objects made small whose mass remains the same. The gravity exerted by the tiny particles in the Hadron collider will have the same gravitational pull as a cherry sitting on the table next to you. Are you irresistibly drawn to the cherry? I think not.
• McCain advisors step away from Bush, but not too far

Get Smart

3 stars out of 5

Mel Brooks and Buck Henry's silly and trivial idea from the 60s (a stupid, bumbling spy), gets refurbished and, with no offense meant to Don Adams and Barbara Felton, greatly improved with Steve Carell as Maxwell Smart and Anne Hathaway as Agent 99. Summary: Not as bad as the reviews (whereas, according to my daughter, Love Guru is as bad as its reviews, which makes me sad for Mike Myers, whose work I generally love).

In this iteration, Smart is not a bumbler and an idiot, but a naive genius. It still works for me. Several reviewers said there was too much action-adventure and too little humor. I'll agree with the first part; less blowing things up would have been fine. And we could have done without some of the touchy-feely. But there was plenty of laugh-out-loud fun too. Maybe you had to have been there for the original television series, as I was (I admit it--huge fan. Also loved its serious doppelganger, Man from Uncle). In this society, we get trained to laugh at comedy catch phrases (Wanna buy a duck? You eeeediot! Schwing. Now cut that out! Hey, Abbott! Tain't funny McGee) regardless of their context. So, that could be part of it. I admit, there were times when I laughed alone. But there were also enough times when all of us, young and old, laughed together that I can't believe it's just TVLand reruns.

Get Smart (the movie) is funny, good but not great. Go rent some of the TV episodes. Now that's Mel Brooks/Buck Henry at their unbridled best. Would you believe, their second best?

Roman De Gare

3 stars out of 5.

Boy, there's nothing the French like better than a confusing non-linear narrative huh? That will show Hollywood! The audience--we spit on the audience. Let them follow the "plot" if they can. Or so it seems. Anyway, while this subtitled mystery flummoxed me, they at least offered an explanation at the end (no spoilers here), which is more than David Lynch would have done. And, best of all, it was one of those rare French films which featured neither Gérard Depardieu nor any of the other old familiar faces (except Dominique Pinion, the ghost writer, who has been in quite a few French films that made it to these shores). Entertaining if you like being both baffled and perplexed, and don't mind being poked every few minutes by the person sitting next to you, looking for an explanation. Entertainment? Maybe. Art? Maybe. Brain-teasing? For sure.

Up the Yangtze

3 stars out of 5

This is a documentary so good it makes you wonder if it is really a documentary. I mean, how can they find people as perfect as "Cindy" and "Jerry," and how did they get some of the footage? No spoilers here, but there is at least one scene that is amazingly out of left field, and makes you wonder how the filmmaker was allowed to be in the room, or allowed to use the footage. Three cheers for Yu Shui as the reluctant Cindy, Chen Bo Yu as Jerry, and Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Yung Chang, for preserving the look and feel of the banks of the Yangtze river before it disappears behind the Three Gorges Dam. A masterpiece of long-form documentary work. See it if you care either about good documentary work, or the Chinese countryside.