Bushinations: Words mean what we want them to

The logic used by a Florida federal judge in his decision upholding the Defense of Marriage Act escapes me. Apparently “the government has a legitimate interest in allowing states to ban same-sex marriages, namely to encourage ‘stable relationships’ for the rearing of children by both biological parents.” This assertion flies in the face of the facts on the ground, namely that permitting same-sex marriage does not impact opposite sex couples who continue to commit adultery and physically and emotionally abuse each other, which are much more damaging to any children living in a household.

Further, the statement is a logical fallacy in that it contradicts itself: How can a person who is (regardless of how one might understand the word “is”) attracted to people of the same gender provide a “stable environment” (in the words of an Indiana judge who announced a similar ruling yesterday) for his or her children and spouse? That person can hardly be stable without being emotionally torn apart by the conflicting demands and–though exceptions exist as they do with every rule of human behavior–is generally demonstrated by the vast number of knwon cases.

So we have yet another example of how the Bush Crew (the Florida verbiage, at least, is taken directly from the brief filed by former Attorney General Ashcroft) ignores reality in favor of the desired outcome. I have yet to see or hear a single objection to same-sex marriage (or more generally, any same-sex activity between consenting adults) that is base on anything other than emotion or questionable understanding of a religious text. This is a good reminder of what America can look forward to for the next four years, or more if we’re not lucky.

Working in the modern age is like pushing toothpaste back into the tube

A recruiter posted an opening for a Launch Strategy Manager to one of the job groups I read. The location is Midwest/East Coast which, while covering a potentially huge chunk of the country, is probably not geographically suited for me and therefore subject to my piercing wit.

Because the Qualifications, Business Skills and Technical Excellence which comprise the listing, 16 bullet points in all, never actually explain the work the person hired will actually freaking do! Sounds like marketing from the job title but the bullets gives more of an engineering or even operations flavor. My two favorites are:

  1. Implements creative solutions to meet staffing requirements that support cross department initiatives.
  2. Creates consensus around new ideas and initiatives, building confidence in the outcome.

In other words, you won’t get much in the way of budgets or authority but if the work doesn’t get done–on time–kiss your tiny little cubicle goodbye.

File under Small World Department: Got an email today from the webmaster of Fender Players Club, a guy I was friendly with back in college! Over a decade before the Worldwide Web was a glemgleam in TBL’s eye.

Letter to the editor: Herbert’s Out of the Darkness

Again I write but find no taker at the other end of the channel. This letter is in response to Bob Herbert’s Jan. 17 column Out of the Darkness:

I would ask Bob Herbert the same question I have asked myself and others who wonder “Where are today’s voices of moral outrage?” Why are you, Mr. Herbert, asking the question instead of providing the answer in the form of your own efforts? Years of writing, from a perspective with which I generally agree, demonstrate a terrific understanding of problems and an ability to reason out good answers. I look forward to reading your final Times column, soon, in which you announce your candidacy for political office.

Jan. 2005 TV Review

Following in the series… KC reminded me I was past due to add some recent premieres.

Alias: At the end of last season the producers pretty much blew up the existing framework–again!–and so no surprise that the opening episode put Sidney, Vaughn and friends in yet another arrangement where they can fight off evil. This time in an unacknowledged black ops unit of the CIA, each of them with cover stories showing employment elsewhere, with Sloane nominally team leader. A couple of interesting episodes so far, but JJ Abrams is getting mighty busy with the addition of Lost and the next Mission: Impossible movie also claiming time and creative energy not to mention Jennifer Garner’s film career (wonder if the box office flopperino of Elektra will get her attention back to the show?). Hopefully the episodes will get stronger in the next few weeks now that all the major character moves are done, otherwise I might start wondering when The WB will be airing fresh episodes of the MIA Jack & Bobby…

Battlestar Galactica: KC certainly was impressed with the first two hours; I enjoyed them enough to keep watching and see where Ron Moore and his writing crew go with the intriguing characters and their potential conflicts. Plus the new metal Cylons are a truly cool design.

24: Jack may not be at CTU any more, he may have a rocky relationship with the unit’s new Director but when there’s big time trouble (at least in the Greater Los Angeles area, where all four “days” have been located) he’s the man to save the day. I like the fact that even after five hours into Day 4 I have no real ideas about where Navi Araz is leading Omar and the other terrorists after the Heller trial. I like the fact that daughter Kim and Tony are gone, though Michelle is missed. Is Chloe really done so soon or are she and Driscoll creating a cover and, I ask you, is the bit with career-minded Marianne just a bit too obvious? We know there’s someone on the inside who’ll turn out to be a bad guy but I’m pretty sure it isn’t her.

CTU Director Driscoll is played by Alberta Watson, who was terrific as Section One’s Madeline for most of the run of the TV version of La Femme Nikita (which was done by most of the same creative crew: Joel Surnow, Robert Cochran, Michael Loceff, Jon Cassar), so I expect her to bring on the tension driving the office side of the show while dealing with her mentally ill daughter. Who was just brought into the CTU medical clinic and my first thought was “potential hostage.”

Carnivale: If anything, the second season of this wickedly dark tale from creator Daniel Knauf is off to an even more surreal jag than the first. And that’s pretty damn surreal, confusing and mystical. But the twisted build up to an off in the distance, perhaps not for years yet confrontation between Ben Hawkins and Brother Justin is developing a unique visual vocabulary and conversational palette that has me hooked.

MI-5: Resolving a cliffhanger in the first episode that rolled straight into a huge cast development in the second, this British spy drama does a nice job integrating the emotional strains generated by the job’s demands and the way personal life is strangled by them. For my money the writers ought to back off their dependence on inter- and intra-agency politics but I suppose the current intelligence environment only offers so many useful and realistic yet dramatic plots. One true pleasure is the overall lack of a single dominant character in favor of a strong ensemble. (Note: A&E renamed the show from its UK name Spooks and has already announced renewal for a third season)

Muder in Suburbia: A British variation on Cagney & Lacey set in a middle class English ‘burb, our leading ladies are DI Kate Ashurst (Caroline Catz, familiar from supporting Ken Stott in The Vice) and DS Emma Scribbins (Lisa Faulkner). Much lighter in tone than, say, MI-5 or 24 and more concerned with using murder to explore the same residential psychological vein as Desperate Housewives without the fleshy focus and, while amusing, never reaching the level of dark humor or intrigue of the American hit. Enjoyable and I’ll be looking for the next round of episodes.

Committed: Not catching my attention so far though it’s been onscreen for all or most of three episodes here. Maybe the writers need a little more time to adjust to the truly strange characters they’ve created and the actors need to adjust to the definitely not your normal sitcom characters they’re playing. Or maybe somebody at NBC was drinking a bad cup of tea when s/he greenlighted production. If there’s anything else on that interests me in the least, my TiVo remote will be pressing the change channel button.

Extra bits: ABC swapped time slots of life as we know it and extreme makeover so that’s out for now at least. Also, Fox has announced the half decent that Tru Calling has ended production though the six remaining produced episodes will be shown at some point and HBO has deeply saddened me with the all but confirmed rumors that The Wire will not be back for a fourth season.

Compassionate conservatism? Where…

The new UN Millenium Project report on specific actions, programs and costs to “halve extreme poverty and save the lives of millions of children and hundreds of thousands of mothers each year by 2015” is exactly the kind of effort I was dreaming about when I wrote Land of the Penny Pinchers. I truly hope that an effort led by Jeffrey Sachs, one of the most well-known and intelligent economists today, has a decent chance of success though I note with sadness:

“Britain itself [host of a related conference later this Spring] has pledged to double aid by 2013 to 0.7 percent of its national income. The United States, which currently allocates less than 0.2 percent for aid, has not made a comparable pledge.”

Wouldn’t a pledge by the American government, in response to the release of this report, to increase foreign aid in support of the efforts laid out be a great message to send during the week in which Bush is re-inaugurated?

Last night’s movie: The Cooler

Vegas is a changed city; from the ’50s through the late ’80s/early ’90s it was THE place to go for adult entertainment and kids were a nuisance best left home with Grandma. Steve Wynn, who’d grown up partly in the city as his father tried to break in with a bingo parlor, had one of those rare $50 billion insights that can create waves of change in even the biggest industries: Las Vegas can be a destination for the whole family.

So he took control of Circus-Circus, built The Mirage, with its working volcano out front and purpose-built theater for Sigfreid and Roy, and proved his concept. He went on to expand and print money with it through several more hotels including Excalibur and the Bellagio finally selling those off at huge profit; but I suppose the lure is too great and so he bought the old Desert Inn, demolished it and in a few months will open a megaresort topping even the Bellagio, initally named La Reve after a favorite Picasso painting but now known as simply Wynn Las Vegas.

The Cooler is a film about a few people in the last place on the Strip unwilling to acknowledge the power of Wynn’s vision but are forced to nonetheless. Alec Baldwin is the casino manager, set in his ways and happy with them. William Macy, the title character, is a childhood buddy of Baldwin’s and a sad sack on a losing streak so long he can barely remember its start, and his job is simply to show up at any table or machine that’s paying out to the rubes, because his luck instantly changes the results.

The drama comes out of the collision between a change in Macy’s fortune (Maria Bello! Showing that even art house movies are subject to the ridiculous age gap rule) and the arrival of a hotshot MBA (Ron Livingston, playing a role closer to Lewis Nixon in Band of Brothers than Office Space‘s Peter Gibbons) with a plan to rebuild the Shangri-La into a modern behemoth. Macy’s instant love affair turns his luck 180 degrees at exactly the wrong time for Baldwin, who needs to fend off his boss (Arthur Nascarella, a New York City cop for 20 years with a longrunning second career playing wiseguys). Livingston has brought along a scale model of what he plans to build.

Early on we get a taste of how Baldwin operates, in a few quick scenes with an old school crooner (Paul Sorvino, who definitely shows his singing chops) never able to kick his drug habit. And the explanation of Macy’s limp, part of the price he paid–to Baldwin–for running up a casino debt too large to cover. One of his better efforts, Baldwin earned Best Supporting Actor nominations for both the Oscars and Golden Globes.

Co-writer/director Wayne Kramer (not that Wayne Kramer) throws in some good plot twists and interesting characters–but what happened to the son and his girlfriend?–and I like the way he uses dirty, darker sets and lighting; enough bits of humor that earn The Cooler entry into the black humor wing. Heck, I think the motel where Macy lives is the same one used in the Tarantino starrer Destiny Turns on the Radio. The stacked endings create a nice crescendo of tension, release, tension, release and again, with a very emotionally honest confrontation to resolve the Baldwin/Macy relationship.

recommended

You know there’re too many cable channels when one of them is running 40 Most Shocking Hair Moments in primetime Saturday night. Preceeded by How Thin is Too Thin…

MLS SuperDraft 2005

FSW broadcast the first hour of today’s MLS SuperDraft 2005 earlier (I’m about halfway through watching now) and moderately useful commentary was supplied by network regulars Sean Wheelock and Allan Hopkins. The strange thing is that after giving commentary on each pick, they both turn to the camera and put such motionless, unemotional looks on their faces that I mistook them for robots.

The Earthquakes selected midfielder Danny O’Rourke, this past season’s Hermann Trophy winner (college MVP) out of two-time NCAA champion Indiana University, with their first round pick. He looked good in a brief chat with Wheelock and Hopkins, has the credentials, and likely the skills and maturity to step right into the starting lineup.

Which is really important given the loss of Landon Donovan and so many other key members of last season’s team. San Jose traded their two first round slots (#6 & 29) to FC Dallas to move up two places to take O’Rourke. FSW didn’t show us at the time, but the web listing does now, is that involved in the swap are starting MF Richard Mulrooney and youngster Arturo Alvarez, a winger who couldn’t earn much playing time in his two seasons with the club, going to Texas while coming our way is MF Brad Davis. With the remaining picks, we chose:

  • D Kevin Goldthwaite, Notre Dame (2nd round)
  • MF Victor Arbelaez, UNLV (3rd)
  • F Orlando Ramirez, Fresno Pacific
  • D Craig (CJ) Klaas, University of Washington
  • F Antouman Jallow, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (4th)
  • D James Twellman, Stanford (brother of Revolution goalscorer Taylor Twellman?)

The three 3rd round picks were consecutive (30-32 overall) as were the two 4s (41-42); none of these players are teenagers.

Real Salt Lake opened the league’s 10th draft by taking U.S. U-17 star defensive midfielder Nikolas Besagno, who might be a terrific player but showed none of the polish and charm we saw from the even younger Freddy Adu after he was last year’s first pick overall. Get ready, the New England Revolution come to San Jose on Opening Day, April 2, to face the Quakes!

Amusingly, Microsoft Outlook 2003 (SP1 with the latest junk filter update) categorizes email from Hotmail Staff as junk. Of course it is simply marketing dreck that I have little interest in reading but you’d think the company would allow its own mailings through…

Today’s movie: Sin noticias de Dios

A Spanish movie released in 2001, Sin noticias de Dios (titled Don’t Tempt Me in this subtitled English version) is a conflation of the end of the world and love triangle in a humorous vein written and directed by Agustin Diaz Yanes. Penelope Cruz and Victoria Abril are beautiful angels sent from, respectively, Hell and Heaven to fight for the soul of a boxer named Manny (Demian Bichir); the Rebellion is beating the forces of Heaven so badly that if Manny goes Down, the side of Good will finally be beaten and God is unreachable to give a hand.

I often wonder how well subtitles are translated, especially when dialog is intentionally subtle, and that was certainly true for me on this film. While Yanes’ main intents came through well enough, I felt a small level of surreality creeping in when some of the peripheral characters had focus and when characters spoke longer bits of exposition. Acting, movement, imagery were all well done, nothing to really complain about, but the subject matter was so large that these other apsects were overwhelmed.

not recommended for non-Spanish speakers