Sorry guys, I'm riding around reporting today. The house is yours. Be cool.
Oh, and I just saw that Blindside trailer again. I think part of the problem is a structural one. The movie really seems centered on Sandra Bullock's character. Having read the excerpt, but not the book, I didn't get the sense that she was the protagonist. She was a very important character, but the story felt a lot more collective. At the time, the Times Magazine literally had a cover with all the people, black and white, who'd made Oher possible. Mass market movies just tend to be more reductionist.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
All due to the difficulty of financing big budget movies, and their reliance on star power to mitigate possible losses. Hence Sandra Bullock being so prominent. Her presence got the movie made and will bring the butts into the seats. In theory.
I read the book and thought the same thing. The trailer makes it look like the movie is about the "adoptive mother" character. This is really twisting the story to fit casting a "star".
In reality, that part should be a supporting role.
I loved the book, but the trailer makes me not want to see the movie.
I haven't read the book, but this kind of reminds me of what happened to "The Prince of Tides" when Barbra Streisand got involved in it. Suddenly the psychiatrist, a minor role in the novel, became a major role in the movie, overshadowing the story the novel told. I loved the book, and was quite sad that they had screwed it up for the movie.
When I saw that trailer, all I could think was: "What this boy needs is a honky!"
I could see there were threads in there that would make it fascinating and beautiful, but I can't get past "Sassy Blond Saves The Poor Downtrodden Negro."
Like sandpaper on my brain.
If there were nine movies of the story, one of them should be the one the trailer offers: a middle-aged white woman moves from clueless to less clueless while her luxurious community tries to keep her from making the move.
Being a woman that age, regularly in the company of women who live that privileged country club life, living an equally comfortable privileged coffee-house life myself, I'm looking forward to the rare movie that isn't driven by romance or guns, but by the work of growing up after forty.
The problem, I think, is an industry that tells such stories regularly from the angle of the male coach, only this time from the angle of the sports-mom, and never from the other angles that are part of how life actually happens. Maybe there's not a money-making audience for the other angles--but maybe the industry doesn't even think of making that kind of movie in the first place.
On another subject, there is this:
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/nov2009/db2009112_606442.htm
Excuse me, but WTF?
The regional distribution has been ten kinds of fucked. My mom doesn't have the vaccine and she's the caretaker for my immunocompromised dad. I guess she should've worked at Goldman Sachs.
I think it's less an issue of regional distribution and more one of not enough vaccine to go around, due to production issues. Global vaccine production is fairly fixed, in part, strangely, because there are only so many hen's eggs out there. Some years ago, problems at a single UK vaccine plant threatened to jeopardize the US flu vaccine supply. And that was in a year that seasonal flu alone was the major player. This year, vaccines in large numbers are needed for H1N1 in addition to seasonal flu. The lags are more predictable than surprising.
But the manufacturers are still giving contradictory information, and different states are distributing differently. It's a scant resource, but that's what makes the bizarre allocation so frustrating.
My mom is immunocompromised as well, and ended up getting H1N1 from my Dad who travels a lot. Luckily she seems to be fine now which is a relief. However, many large businesses distribute the vaccine for free to their staff so I don't have a problem per se with using those employers as a way of getting the vaccine to high risk individuals. Better than having hundreds of people crowded and in line at just a few places. My wife hasn't been able to get it either despite being pregnant, and I know her OBGYN is pretty pissed at this point.
The biggest problem is that they were extremely optimistic on how fast the vaccine could be made. I don't know a single person in the industry that believed they'd even get close, we're talking about their projections being higher than the best case scenario. At least in San Diego it seems if you're very persistent the vaccine can be had.
Since they are offering it to people who should be at the front of the line anyway by medical criteria, this doesn't bother me so much. I noticed a vaccination station at my local airport recently (behind security, no less... TSA must go nuts with all those needles). It was late and thus closed, but it seemed like a cleverly novel way to make the vaccine available.
The majority of people that are determined to be at risk and should be at the front of the line cannot get the H1N1 vaccine. There is an extreme shortage.
The idea that very very wealthy people working for elite corporations are basically cutting in front of medical practitioners and hospitals in determining who gets it first is all kinds of wrong. These people are at the front of the line because they work at powerful corporations.
From the article (italics mine):
If they were receiving disproportionate amounts of the vaccine or administering it to people who weren't at high risk, yes, they would be cutting in front of the line. But they're not. They're giving it to high-risk people who also happen to be their employees.
Maybe they are giving it only to employees who do not eat swine. That would be somehow fair?
from W.James' A Certain Blindness in Human Beings:
Let me take a personal example of the kind that befalls each one of us daily:—
Some years ago, while journeying in the mountains of North Carolina, I passed by a large number of 'coves,' as they call them there, or heads of small valleys between the hills, which had been newly cleared and planted. The impression on my mind was one of unmitigated squalor. The settler had in every case cut down the more manageable trees, and left their charred stumps standing. The larger trees he had girdled and killed, in order that their foliage should not cast a shade. He had then built a log cabin, plastering its chinks with clay, and had set up a tall zigzag rail fence around the scene of his havoc, to keep the pigs and cattle out. Finally, he had irregularly planted the intervals between the stumps and trees with Indian corn, which grew among the chips; and there he dwelt with his wife and babes—an axe, a gun, a few utensils, and some pigs and chickens feeding in the woods, being the sum total of his possessions.
The forest had been destroyed; and what had 'improved' it out of existence was hideous, a sort of ulcer, without a single element of artificial grace to make up for the loss of Nature's beauty. Ugly, indeed, seemed the life of the squatter, scudding, as the sailors say, under bare poles, beginning again away back where our first ancestors started, and by hardly a single item the better off for all the achievements of the intervening generations.
Talk about going back to nature! I said to myself, oppressed by the dreariness, as I drove by. Talk of a country life for one's old age and for one's children! Never thus, with nothing but the bare ground and one's bare hands to fight the battle! Never, without the best spoils of culture woven in! The beauties and commodities gained by the centuries are sacred. They are our heritage and birthright. No modern person ought to be willing to live a day in such a state of rudimentariness and denudation.
Then I said to the mountaineer who was driving me, "What sort of people are they who have to make these new clearings?" "All of us," he replied. "Why, we ain't happy here, unless we are getting one of these coves under cultivation." I instantly felt that I had been losing the whole inward significance of the situation. Because to me the clearings spoke of naught but denudation, I thought that to those whose sturdy arms and obedient axes had made them they could tell no other story. But, when they looked on the hideous stumps, what they thought of was personal victory. The chips, the girdled trees, and the vile split rails spoke of honest sweat, persistent toil and final reward. The cabin was a warrant of safety for self and wife and babes. In short, the clearing, which to me was a mere ugly picture on the retina, was to them a symbol redolent with moral memories and sang a very pæan of duty, struggle, and success.
I had been as blind to the peculiar ideality of their conditions as they certainly would also have been to the ideality of mine, had they had a peep at my strange indoor academic ways of life at Cambridge.
ps interesting interview with the director of precious on fresh-air:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120092180
Really interesting. Sorry - is there a connection between this passage or book and the movie 'Precious'? I don't know what that movie is about.
I wasn't intending a link, was listening to the radio while posting the other which was sparked by TNC's use of "blind" and our themes here of trying to understand each other without being blinded by our pre-judices. But there seems to be some common ground in the possibilities of being open to "the whole inward significance of the situation". What struck me about the interview was how empty his answer (slavery) was to Terry's absurd question of what causes domestic violence in general as compared to the rich/evocative, and compelling discussion of his own life experiences with violence. Not unlike what we saw here when people shifted from a pretty banal tit for tat on free-will vs conditioning to a moving series of descriptions of their own experiences with football. maybe more or less than you were looking for but either way thanks for asking.
Wow. This story on stumps as blight vs triumph of labor reminded me powerfully of a conversation I had, maybe a decade ago. I was visiting my grandma and we were chatting in the kitchen. She was telling me about one of her brothers and casually mentioned "he chose his plot and cleared the land". Her blithe comment was followed by other things that reiterated the notion that 'a man can do what he likes with the land and what he should do is clear off all the nature and start fresh'. My reaction to her pronouncement of "cleared the land" was so visceral I almost threw up.
.
After calming my stomach, my first thought was how 2 generations had changed the baseline assumptions of what is and isn't good. I thought about how I'd been raised in the era of Greenpeace, and she'd been raised in the era of farming family land. And yet still today, we clearcut areas for sprawling suburbs. Every time I fly over tracts of big box stores, strip malls, and cookie cutter housing developments, all I can think of are anthills (and termite mounds). No matter where the ants live, they build bumps or stalagmites of sand in which to live. Then they build satellite hills until all you can see is a field or forest interrupted by heaps of sand. I then wonder if it's better for them to build the tall towers that look alarming but allow for the original grasses to grow around them, or if it's better to have infititely more smaller hills that so sand the lot that nothing really grows there much anymore. City vs. Suburb if you will.
.
Even ants and humans each have as much of a right to the planet as each other, and predators must kill prey to survive. But why can't we, as humans capapble of reflection, do better than the ants and resolve to leave some places untouched while we concentrate our building in one area so that another can survive less-scathed? Why do we need this sprawl? Granted, a city girl like me who hated being a teen in the suburbs is not the spokesmodel for suburbs. I think they're more barren wasteland than the fallow or factory farmed field they may be replacing. I get that "he cleared the land" cramp to the gut whenever I fly over Phoenix, for instance. Because I just can't see the need.
My mother saw The Blind Side last night at a preview in Baltimore. She said it made her cry and that it was inspirational and apparently one of the critics agreed when she was speaking to them after the screening. Of course, she also said I should see it in Baltimore because the audience went nuts at any Ravens mention, so I'm sure there was some bias going on.
Hope Floats: With Black People!
Welcome to Obama's America
Am I alone in thinking this World Series sort of shines a light on why A: The DH sucks (as if we needed that light, right?), and B: The All-Star Game determining homefield advantage is unfair to the NL because four games at home is a much greater advantage to a team that employs a DH than it is for a team who has a few pitchers who know how to lay down a bunt.
Two out of the Yankees' four wins in the Series were decided by runs knocked in by a player whose roster position the Phillies don't even have. I know this sounds like sour grapes, but the DH sucks. And it indesputively gives an unfair advantage to AL teams.
By the way, I don't mean to hijack, I read this as an Open Thread. Not one necessarily devoted to Blind Side.
I'm pretty sure it's an open thread.
I don't have strong feelings about the DH, but using an All-Star Game to determine homefield advantage is just an awful idea.
True, but maybe a necessary response to the infamous tie game when the public finally realized the players and coaches and MLB didn't give a crap who won the All Star game?
I like how the homefield advantage has added to the All Star game, but agree that it sort of screws up the World Series. But before homefield just went back and forth between the AL and NL, so the difference is pretty small.
Small? When was the last time the NL had homefield advantage? They haven't won the All-Star game since the 1990s.
For the record, I know that 'indesputively' is not a word. I just wanted to know if you guys knew. ;)
"Two out of the Yankees' four wins in the Series were decided by runs knocked in by a player whose roster position the Phillies don't even have."
I'm kind of a baseball idiot, so take this as you will, but didn't the Phillies also get to use a DH when they played in NY? So they could pick good hitters to bat in place of their pitchers, too, right?
I definitely don't understand this passionate dislike of the DH. Sorry that the American League just has better teams :)
(Please note: I was rooting for the Phillies.)
Yes, technically, NL teams get to use a DH when in AL parks, but the NL does not have a roster position for a DH. That means their DH is somebody who doesn't get a lot of playing time. They are on the roster as a pinch-hitter or a defensive backup. Hideki Matsui had something like 450 at bats and 28 home runs this season. No National League team has anybody on the bench with stats anything like those, so their DH, if they're lucky, will come in with maybe 150 at bats and 5 homeruns over the course of the season. In short, their DH is a DH in name only.
I'm here in Philly and an adoptive Phillies fan, and I think the Yankees were flat-out the better team this year (as well they should be, at that price), and certainly better when it counted. But your point about the DH is well-illustrated by this series. The Phillies moved Ibanez to DH to have a big bat there, and put Ben Francisco in at left field. Francisco is a better fielder but basically a black hole at the plate. So now you have added a poor hitter to the line up when every at-bat really counts. This is pretty common - what NL team is going to have a serious hitter sitting on the bench all year just to have a DH in the Series?
The All-Star game thing is so dumb, it boggles the mind. It makes no sense at all, except as laid out below by Southerner.
And the DH certainly does reduce the quality of the game from a strategic standpoint. It's nice to see old pros get a few more years in at DH, but really... didn't those guys just hang out as pinch-hitters before that?
Of course the Yankees are a great team. They beat the Phillies twice in Philly. They are a very good team without the DH. I pull for NL teams because of the DH, but even with the DH, I would have been okay with the Yankees winning had it not been the DH who played such an instrumental role in the series. These were two great teams. But the DH is a handycap. And if you have two basically equal teams out there, and give one a handycap and they then win by that handycap, then the other team sort of got screwed.
Don't get me started . . . (Actually, I'm glad you did).
Re. the DH, it's ruined the American League game since it was started in 1971 (wasn't it?). It eliminates much of the strategy of the game. The pitcher usually is the weakest hitter in the lineup. One of the most difficult and potentially game-changing decisions a manager must make is whether to insert a pinch-hitter for his pitcher late in the game with runners in scoring position.
It's even more difficult a decision if the pitcher is doing well and your bullpen maybe isn't strong. So do you put in a pinch-hitter who has a much better chance of driving in those runs, but in so doing have to rely on your weak bullpen to get you through the rest of the game? Baseball games are won and lost by these kinds of decisions. And the DH destroys this.
Re. the All Star Game determining homefield advantage in the World Series, if one more reason was needed to send Bud Selig to hell, I say use this one. It's one of the most pernicious changes in the game, and it was done only to generate interest in the All Star game after the tie game a few years ago. It was pushed by Fox, which undoubtedly feared that ad revenues were going to decline because there was nothing at stake in the All Star Game and they had to manufacture something. Your observation tying the DH to a World Series advantage because of the All Str Game is very insightful, something I'd never thought of.
But don't think that the DH or the All Star Game/World Series connection is going anywhere. The Player Association will never, ever allow the DH to be dumped because it allows aging sluggers who can't chase down those long fly balls anymore to hang on, thereby creating roster slots that wouldn't be there.
And if I may add a rant of my own, I'm sick of the World Series not ending until the snows of November. And that's another obscene marketing move. The extended postseason playoffs generate huge interest and revenue because instead of only having two teams and two cities interested in the season-ending pennant races, we've got eight. And then we've got as many as 12 postseason games leading up to the World Series, and that's more revenue and fan interest. Add the World Series, and you've got as many as 19 postseason games, whereas in the old days you had only a possible maximum of seven.
MLB could still have its stinking postseason playoffs without running the risk of being snowed out and making us watch these ridiculous games in which players wear caps with earflaps and blow on their hands to keep warm between pitches. All they'd have to do is start playing double-headers again. In 1958, the Phillies played something like 18 double-headers, and the Yankees played 21.
Now, double-headers are played only to make up games lost to rainouts.
If MLB would add only 12 doubleheaders per team to the schedule, the regular season could end around mid-September and the playoffs and World Series could be over by mid-October. But that would mean giving up 12 regular-season dates and revenue, and that won't happen.
So we're stuck with this crap, and I hate it.
Hear hear! I miss double-headers.
Also, the DH sucks.
Finally, today has been a Murphy's Law kind of a day for me, and I blame the Damn Yankees.
That is all.
Double headers were awesome! I wonder how many people would take the time to just sit and relax and watch two ball games in a row for that long anymore?
The DH - meh. I would call it a very slight advantage to the AL team, but it would be better if both leagues had the same rules. I'd prefer no DH for either, but it should be equal.
The reason the Phils lost was a lack of consistent pitching, and Howard's record-setting 13 strikeouts. I don't know how someone who bashed the ball as well as he did during the two League Championship Series' could go so cold so fast.... but even without his bat if we'd had the Cole Hamels of last year we might still have won this thing.
As a casual fan, I'm disappointed FOR the team, but not disappointed IN the team....
That being said, all props to the Yankees for playing better baseball than the Phils in the World Series.
Yeah, Howard had a bad series. But how many homers did Utley hit? That guy was a monster. In the end, this series wasn't decided by pitching. These are two of the best hitting lineups in MLB history. Pedro held the Yankees to 3 runs in the Bronx in Game 2. That's a good pitching performance. It's not dominant, but it's solid. Two of the runs he gave up in Game 2 were on Matsui homers. Those two runs were the difference in the game. Matsui had six RBIs last night. Take him out of the lineup and replace him with somebody with comparable number to what the NL has to put up as a DH, and you have a very different series. The Yankees could have easily still won. They're a great team. But to call it an insignificant advantage is to not think about it very much. It drastically changes the nature of the lineup and the game.
Well, of course it was decided by pitching, in the sense that the Yankee pitchers came through at critical times and the Phil pitchers didn't.
Or, the Phils just went cold at the wrong time. Matsui was a huge difference maker, but some of his big hits came as a pinch-hitter when the series was in Philly anyway. Maybe the Yanks couldn't afford to keep a hitter like that around as a pinch-hitter if he weren't the DH, but uh... we are talking about the Yanks.
The Phils pitching has been a problem a lot of the year. This wasn't new.
As a Phillies fan, I have to agree with Mr. Shrimp. The DH stinks and it put the Phillies at a disadvantage, though I can think of at least one NL team that could have had a pretty decent DH: The Dodgers picked up Jim Thome as a pinch hitter. But the Phillies didn't lose this series because of the DH.
I think the story for the Phillies was that 2008's strengths were 2009's weaknesses, specifically Cole Hamels and Brad Lidge. The Phillies had one starter that beat the Yankees, Cliff Lee, and nobody else. The bullpen was weak. The closer was anxiety-inducing. And Howard got cold at the wrong time. The Phillies had to win these games 8-6 and they just didn't generate the necessary runs.
If you pay attention to Ryan Howard, he is a very streaky player. If he was always hot, his numbers would be astronomical.
Nothing Matsui did in Philly mattered nearly as much as the eight runs he knocked home in the Bronx. It's not like the Yankee pitchers dominated. No, I probably wouldn't have trusted Pedro to carry the load considering what he has been able to offer the Phillies since suiting up in mid-season, but he pitched pretty well in Game 2. Not so much last night.
Again, Utley tore Yankee pitching apart. There were a number of Yankee hitters who didn't have a great series. The DH gives them a handycap. They can more easily afford to have a few big hitters have a lack-luster series.
And as for keeping somebody like Matsui around as a pinch-hitter, if he were playing in the National League he wouldn't be a pinch-hitter. He'd be a first baseman. Or maybe he'd still be in leftfield. A DH is not the same as a good pinch-hitter. A good pinch-hitter comes off the bench maybe once every one or two games. They do not get to play very often and its almost always in a high pressure scenario. And no, the Yankees would not waste a guy capable of 28 homeruns in a season as a pinch-hitter. Nor would a guy capable of doing that waste his time sitting on the bench.
I think it was all about the pitching. The phillies had only 1 reliable starter in this series (plus 1 1/2 if you count Pedro "6-inning match" Martinez). Hamels was awful and blanton was never any good. Add to that, the bullpen was a mess.
Pitching depth won this series for the Yankees. The DH helps the AL team a bit but it was not the determining factor in this series.
You can't say it's pitching when the two pitching staffs have to deal with drastically different situations. In the Bronx, the Phillies had to pitch to a lineup with 244 homeruns. In Philly, they had to pitch to a lineup with 216. The Yankees had to pitch to a lineup with 224 in both Philly and the Bronx. They're essentially evenly matched teams in Philly (where the Yankees took two of three), and heavily slanted to the Yanks at home (where the Yankees took two of three completely on the back of the DH).
The DH was the determining factor in both the games the Yankees won in the Bronx. Pedro was not even pitching that poorly in Game 6. He was not pitching great, but he was getting outs.
He couldn't get past Matsui. He couldn't get past the DH. And Yankee pitchers had the luxary of not having to deal with a genuine DH. Instead, they got somebody who rarely played. Somebody who's only slightly more reliable at the plate than a pitcher. The Phillies, like most NL teams, were forced to replace a hole in their lineup with another hole. Meanwhile, the Yankees put in a guy who knocked 28 homers in the season. I'm sorry if I am not moved by the argument that the Yankees simply had better pitching. They did shut Howard down. But the Phillies shut Tex down. A-Rod's series was kind of ho-hum (compared with the rest of his postseason). Swisher? Cabrera? Jeter, Damon, and Matsui all had a good series. Utley had a great series. Worth had a good series. Put somebody in the Philly lineup with Matsui's numbers, and the whole lineup changes. Anybody who doesn't think putting another big bat in a lineup doesn't drastically change the entire lineup simply doesn't know what they're talking about.
I'll go with timely hitting as the main reason the Yankees won. It seems like every time the Phillies did something, the Yankees answered and kept the momentum. The most obvious examples are Game 4, when Feliz hit the game-tying shot and the Yankees came out in the 9th and won it on Damon's SBs/A-Rod's double, and Game 6, when Rollins' sac fly made it 2-1 but the Yanks came back with Matsui's bases loaded single to make it 4-1.
Where does Damon's double stolen base go down in World Series history? Has to be way, way up there.
Look at it this way, in 2009 the Yankees had 244 team homeruns. The Phillies, who had four guys in the lineup with more than 30, had 224. That’s a 20 homerun difference. Hideki Matsui, the Yankee DH, had 28 homeruns. As far as hitting is concerned, they’re essentially evenly matched if you take away the DH. So yeah, timely hitting. By a guy who gets to bat every day, four times a day, without taking the field.
movies are reductionist because "mainstream" moviegoers often prefer movies headlined by stars rather than ensemble casts. and because sandra bullock probably cost more than all the other members of the cast put together.
Isn't it about audiences, really? Audiences relate to stories through the characters in them that most resemble themselves. (See "suture theory" for a micro-temporal version of it.) Good marketing is to foreground the right character for the right market, and great marketing (if you can afford it) is to split it up for multiple markets: Sandra Bullock in white markets, Quintin Aaron for black audiences, etc. Ultimately, narratives for the mass market tend to become demographic Mary Sues. Which is, of course, a shame - but I also blame the death of art-genres and the capitulation of thinking people to popular dreck for this.
Mayhill Fowler's awesomeness:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mayhill-fowler/bittergate-the-untold-sto_b_346342.html
The bittergate piece, at the time, drove me crazy. Obviously it did major damage to my chosen candidate. But Fowler is such a good writer, and it was a great piece of journalism. I remember TNC did a post about how journalists' arrogance had allowed the blogosphere to make gains. Fowler should be writing for the Times, at worst. Sheer quality.
That link was hard to read, but I'm glad I read it: the back story for Bittergate. Interesting that Obama was merely repeating a New York Times Magazine meme, and that that meme was originally crafted on a lark for an intentionally-stereotypical quote.
But something about that text just didn't flow. I think Fowler's timeline was tough to follow.
definitely agree. her writing was less than clear. she probably could have edited it down a bit too. but it was a very interesting story.
I wonder whether the movie itself is as Bullock-centered as the trailer? Even Hollywood tearjerkers are sometimes more nuanced in the 90- than in the 2-minute version.
Agreed - the trailer looks so bad that it's hard to believe it really represents the movie. Sometimes it seems like movies are almost promo'd as worse/more simplistic than they are, to get the butts in seats. Wishful thinking? Maybe. But I wouldn't count all possibility of nuance out until/if I actually see the flick.
Ok, I have a proposal for America. The Republicans have released their health care bill. Why not have a national election to determine which bill America wants? The Dems can step back and improve their bill, fix some of the things that have been gutted, strengthen the public option. The CBO can score both bills. And then we have a national election, like they do with these state-wide propositions. And have both parties in congress agree that they will ALL accept the results of the election, and unanimously vote for whichever bill the American people choose.
I don't generally like the idea of direct democracy, where everything is put to a vote. But in a case like this, where so many corporate interests are involved, it could be a way to give the power back to the people.
In reality, I think we already had this election a year ago, and the choice was clear. But it is too easy to now say that this isn't what people wanted when they voted for Obama(despite what the polls say). I think it would be interesting if someone proposed something like this, just to see what the response would be in Congress. Whether they think that their plan actually has the support of the majority of the people.
Except that isn't the way legislation gets done at the state level. I live in MA; our health care bill was hacked out by the legislature and signed by the governor. We certainly did not vote for several competing plans.
And the health care morass is part of why I don't believe in direct democracy--we need to hire someone (our rep) to hire people (her staff) to figure out the details of this and make them work. If we're voting on competing health care and road repair and counterterrorism plans I really don't think we're going to wind up with the best plan, just the best marketed. CA is a good example of the terrors of direct democracy. (I vote that the state shall provide service X and taxcut Y.)
As for what people chose a year ago that wasn't a specific plan. (For those who realized that the specific plan on each candidate's website would need to meet the Congress.) There's a big difference between voting "we should improve the counterterrorism agencies" and "we should raise these taxes by this much to undertake these specific steps while not doing these other things." Getting agreement on the first is easy. All the people who signed on at that stage will not be on board for the specific proposals to address their agreed-upon problem.
I think the example of California's ballot initiative process shows that this is a nice idea in theory, but in practice it wouldn't have a better result. In fact, it plays into corporate interests really well, because it relies on marketing without even having to go through a legislature, the members of which may have demands which once in awhile may align with the best interests of regular people.
As a native Californian, I couldn't agree more. The Golden State's ballot initiative insanity is a lesson in the perils of direct democracy.
Bob Ehrlich was on a radio show this morning and all but said that he will run against O'Malley in the next election. He will be making this decision because, in his words, Tuesday's results show that people are unhappy with Obama and the environment is right for Republicans in traditionally Dem states (like NJ in his example). What a damn jackass. I hope his misread of the situation leads to an embarrassing loss.
I hope he reprises his running mate. I'm not really a fan of O'Malley. I think I've brought this up before but Ehrlich is alum of my high school. He once showed up with Steele and assembly, and Steele got into a policy debate with an autistic kid. I don't want to say it was funny, but...
Beyond the question of whether or no "America is fed up with Obama" Erlich does not seem to realize that on balance, Marylanders dont like him .
LCrawfty,
Reunion part two tonight although I doubt it will entertaining.
Housewives of OC are back tonight and someone is getting evicted.
I'm actually more curious to hear what you all think of the previews for the movie "Precious" which is coming out in select theatres this weekend.
I am going to see it and am glad that I ran to Costco two weeks ago to stock up on tissue.
Terry Gross is interviewing the director, Lee Daniels, on Fresh Air either today or tomorrow (I'll catch the podcast probably next week).
I'm a little bit fascinated by this movie, but I'll probably wait for DVD.
Btw, did Spike Lee have this particular movie in mind when he blasted Tyler Perry? Or was that more Madea and all the plays?
It was the Madea movies and the plays.
Spike is my boy and all but he seems to think that he's the only Black film maker and his approach is the only correct one. Never ever dis the chitlin circut. Meanwhile I heard a loud BING when the Hughes bros said the Spike needs to go to finishing school so he can learn to make better endings to his movies.
I think Spike Lee was referring to Tyler Perry's "Medea" films and the tv shows. Perry's only involvement with this film is that he and Oprah have teamed up to promote it.
I liked "Diary of the Mad Black Woman", but then the subsequent films seemed to be a variation of the same basic themes, so I got bored and stopped going to see them.
@zinjathropus,
BING. Actually a lot of Spike's cleaner endings are adapted from books or real life (Malcolm X, Clockers, 24 Hours, Summer of Sam) so maybe there's something to that.
Not that the Hughes Brothers can really talk. From Hell? Dead Presidents? C'mon.
The AV Club has an interview with Lee Daniels and the girl who played Precious, Gabby Sidibe. It's pretty funny.
http://www.avclub.com/articles/lee-daniels-and-gabby-sidibe,34991/
Could someone please read Armond White's takedown of "Precious" from the New York Press and let me know if he's being serious? http://www.nypress.com/article-20554-pride-precious.html He writes, in part: "Excellent recent films with black themes—Next Day Air, Cadillac Records, Meet Dave, Norbit, Little Man, Akeelah and the Bee, First Sunday, The Ladykillers, Marci X, Palindromes, Mr. 3000, even back to the great Beloved (also produced by Oprah)—have been ignored by the mainstream media and serious film culture while this carnival of black degradation gets celebrated." I get "Akeelah" and "Cadillac Records," but what kind of movie critic holds up the likes of "Little Man" and "Meet Dave" as worthy examples of black cinema? I must say I don't read White regularly and only found this review via Roger Ebert's Twitter feed.
And Norbit? Worthwhile black cinema?
Ditto on Norbit. Plus, I think it's a stretch to say "Cadillac Records" was ignored. I recall a fair amount of coverage, culminating in Beyonce doing her Etta thing at the inauguration.
Oh, he's serious. Being a contrarian is like his anti-drug. He aims for esoteric but comes off as Damon Wayans' inmate character from "In Living Color."
I think I'm a big fan of open thread. It's kind of fantastic to see such a random assortment of interesting odds and ends jammed up on each other.
We started watching Reconstruction: The Second Civil War, a PBS documentary, on DVD last night. I can see why TNC is fascinated with the period-- the good guys win, there's a glimmer of a happy ending, and then it all goes horribly wrong for the next several generations.
So anyone have suggestions for further reading about (a) the meeting between Stanton, Sherman and the 20 black ministers prior to Sherman's field order 15 (40 acres and mule), or (b) Tunis Campbell and the Georgia freedmen? I have some long plane trips coming up...
Is it too soon for the Festivus Police? A substitute teacher in CA is trying to have everyone experience Christmas music in the schools. (Because Lord knows there's no other way one can be exposed to it during the holiday season.)
In her experience as a substitute teacher in schools in largely Latino, largely Christian neighborhoods in Southern California, she had not often encountered people who do not celebrate Christmas. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a Jewish child in one of my classes,” she said. “If so they never said anything.”
This is via the Plank, where the first commenter had wisely noted that there is Christmas music all over stores in China at holiday time, and it does not appear to be converting anyone.
I enjoy Christmas. I love Christmas music, or at least a choral subsection of it. But I cannot stand this attitude that people can't properly celebrate a religious holiday unless all retail stores, schools, and other public places are gotten on board with appropriate songs, greetings, and decor. It seems to thoroughly undermine the religious reasoning--Rosh Hoshanah and Ramadan are celebrated without it.
Come on, we all love those cheery Yom Kippur songs blasting out of every mall and gas station during the high holidays.
And the way every checkout clerk wishes you "Happy Day of Atonement!" as you purchase your socks and yard waste bags.
By the way, wasn't this a special Christmas episode of South Park? Where's Sheila Broflovski when we need her to step in and say "WHAT, WHAT, WHAT!?"
That would be hilarious. I wish they would do that!
It's just astonishing how certain brands of Christians seem to feel all oppressed/slighted/persecuted without their faith being continually reinforced in the public sphere. One wonders if they're really as secure in their beliefs as they claim.
This person is deeply ignorant if she thinks she can use the initiative process to backdoor religious instruction into public schools. And pivoting off what Deborah and Mr. Shrimp wrote elsewhere, this is an abuse of the California initiative process itself. The part that makes me laugh is her claim not to have encountered many Jewish children. In southern California? Fine, so maybe they weren't in her classes identifying themselves as such, but did she even think that maybe not everyone would be enthusiastic about this idea? California is one of the more secular states in the country, and maybe for her, that's a problem she seeks to solve. So what about California's other problems?
If she was my teacher and I was Jewish, I sure wouldn't self-identify as such. Ick.
The thing I don't understand about the whole war on Christmas thing, is why do they want to associate the religious with the mass-consumerism of the secular Christmas. When I think WWJD, I don't think "get upset because some sales clerk wished him Happy Holidays..."
The "Christians" who get in a lather over the "war on Christmas" stopped asking WWJD some time ago.
Truth:
Too funny.Two of the last four years, the first Christmas tune I happened to hear, before friggin' Halloween in one instance, was George Michael's Last Christmas. That has to be a lesser known sign of the Apocalypse.
I was shopping for a piece of my daughter's Halloween costume mid-last week, and yep. Target had the Christmas carols going.
I don't even care as a Jew any more -- I'm just sick.to.death. of the songs!
Here in madtown there's already one radio station that is 24-7 x-mas songs. Weeks before Turkey day- what are Thanksgiving retailers to do?
I would like to add my voice to those who note the fairly consistent level of excellence of the postings in TNC's comments section. Even when debates flare up, things seem to remain pretty respectable, at least compared to most other comment threads around the web, which to me are often akin to looking under the couch to see what nastiness lurks. For instance, I enjoy some of Megan McArdle's pieces in the dead tree version of The Atlantic, but her blog is so often overrun by the kind of talk radio callers-turned-blog commenters that keep me away from most threads. I have a few ideas on why this may be the case, but does anyone else have some thoughts on how TNC manages this and someone like Megan does not? It has to be more than laying down the hammer once in a while. Or is it that simple?
You lie!
(Someone had to say it. And I have no idea how to keep one's comments section clean, but I expect a diligent policing is where it starts. If you don't read all your comments, like Marc "Iatropic" Ambinder, then trolls will run amok. It's a lot of work, and I'm glad TNC does it but can see where others prefer to just post and ignore the commentary.)
TNC wields a very heavy ban-hammer. I really like the results- this is a one of the few blogs where the comments are as good as the posts. Even on a day like today, where he's out of the office, I'm still checking in to see what everyone has to say.
As for McArdle, she does very minimal policing. Just read a post where she references Sullivan if you want to get a taste of the worst. Some of her commenters apparently think a perfectly valid argument against him (seemingly regardless of the subject) is a link to a gay porn site. I've tried repeatedly to follow her, but every time I read the comments, I realize why I don't do it more often.
Is it just viewpoint bias- I like having conversations with people who more or less agree with me? Or has TNC managed to develop a real community here where respectful discussions can play themselves out without devolving into a flame war?
The comments other people make about Sullivan make me understand why he doesn't have comments. It gets nasty.
I hope it's the latter!
There is an element of viewpoint bias among a lot of us I bet, it's sort of natural. I mean some of the comments here *do* get pretty nasty sometimes when we're talking about someone we almost uniformly dislike such as Rush Limbaugh, or if we're talking about something like, in general, racism or bigotry, but I feel that we don't cross the line here, that most of the comments stay respectful and substantive.
The mix of different types of comments is great, too.
Yeah - I'd agree w/ other commenters in giving Coates most of the credit for his respectful and smart comments sections. He has said that he spends a lot of time reading and moderating comments, banning people whenever he feels it would be conducive to the dialogue, and continually setting the tone for thoughtful and generally respectful discussion. It's natural that he'd attract like-minded readers and commenters.
SV:
I agree, but you just hit on my biggest concern: "He spends a lot of time..." What happens if the blog continues to grow in popularity and he no longer can keep up with reading and moderating? McArdle's comments section wasn't always the sewer it is now - back when she first started, it was pretty interesting and well-argued. I wonder if after it started getting popular, she just threw up her hands and gave up and the crazies took over.
I worry that will happen here over time....
I am not too concerned about this place turning into a sewer. Why? Well, we as commenters have little patience for trolls and will call them out immediately.
You notice trolls don't stick around here too long.
I would expect that, if the blog grew that much in popularity, The Atlantic would gain more ad revenue & positive exposure from it, and would therefore be justified in giving Coates an intern or two like their current superstar blogger Sullivan has.
Why didn't that happen with McArdle? I think it's because the *type* of commenters who go there, their quality if you will, is lower than it is here, in part because she did not moderate/ban people when they got ad hominem and worse, for whatever reason. I suspect philosophical reasons, like she feels comment sections should be as free-form as possible; I think the same idea exists over at libertarian Reason Magazine's Hit & Run, which I used to read (and where there are still smart commenters, albeit not many who aren't dicks about everything) and where there was a similar devolution of comment threads over the past year or two. Part of the reason too, I suspect, is that conservatives (or "C"onservatives or whatever) have a tendency, especially these days, to simply be angrier about things, frustrated and dismayed about the direction the country seems to be taking, etc. Hit & Run - even the posts themselves - turned into a daily Obama bashing that got more repetitive and less substantive as the election season inexorably wore on. It used to be more interesting.
(And I have no problem with Obama-bashing as long as it's done in a fair-minded way and as long as it's based on something interesting and real rather than just incredibly snarky and unsubstantiated insinuations about corruption and evil plans and silly decades-outdated generalizations and exaggerations about LIBERALS etc.)
forgot to clarify that i think this blog is likely to be as trafficked or more than McArdle's, and that therefore her comments section problem is one of quality (jerks who were not deterred early on dominate it) rather than quantity (too many people go there for her to manage its moderation). i suppose she's posted about this at some point in the past, but i'm too lazy to find out or to go over there and see how many comments she tends to get.
I would attribute it to writing that challenges the reader rather than targeting the lowest comment denominator, combined with engaged and sustained moderation that is as consistent as anything involving human judgment can be. He or she who trolls here gets the wrath of the ban hammer. There aren't many online communities that don't turn into Lord of the Flies without that. What's great is that dissent is not just tolerated but welcomed, as long it's accompanied by a modicum of civility.
Hay all. Take a look at this review of "Precious" on Salon.com. It's painful when the liberal elite completely miss the boat. I mean Stephanie really has no clue how isolated and small her world is. Really, no clue.
http://www.salon.com/entertainment/precious/index.html?story=/ent/movies/review/2009/11/04/precious
I'm confused-- where is she missing the boat?
If Stephanie Zacharek dislikes it, then it's a masterpiece. IMHO she rarely "gets" the movies she reviews."if some of these dire circumstances had been dialed down just a bit. Makes me want to slap her. She's always prattling on like that. I have my problems with the book too but the last thing I want to read is Nancy Drew's take on the crack epidemic, or Jah Rule's take on the deficit.
See, I read it as 'this movie is too bleak to be watchable,' rather than 'this is unrealistic.' Am I giving her too much credit?
I didn't read the review, so I may be talking through my hat here, but from what i have heard, I could not sit through seeing Precious. I'm glad it was made, and I hope it shines a light on the horrid life many women suffer through, but I can no longer absorb that kind of movie. It just hits me like a sledgehammer, and I have nightmares for months, even years, about what i saw.
i was not able to bring myself to watch Slumdog Millionaire either, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
BTW, was this movie made with Oprah's involvement somehow? I have nightmares when I think of her early life as well.
A sports movie with a huge racial component is coming out on December 11 and has been generating a lot of Oscar buzz. "Invictus" is directed by Clint Eastwood. It stars Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar. Pienaar was the captain of the South African Rugby team (the Springboks) in the 1995 Rugby World Cup. A true feel good story. You can see the trailer here:
http://invictusmovie.warnerbros.com/
This story from Sports Illustrated (July 3, 1995) tells the story:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1006782/1/index.htm
I think Freeman can do Mandela. Pienaar is 6-3, 230. Damon is 5-9.
Invictus is predicted to get Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Director (Clint Eastwood), Best Actor (Morgan Freeman) and Best Supporting Actor (Matt Damon).
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2009/10/oscar_futures_invictus.html
Before Mandela was released from jail, he was the most hated and feared man among white South Africans. Now some polls show he is more popular among white South Africans than black South Africans (although hugely popular among all South Africans). A true political genius.
I think the best thing Mandela did was step away. Most revolutionaries cannot exit the scene. I think the success of the US owes a lot to George Washington stepping away. I think Nelson Mandela understood that. Got out of jail, became president, then decided to enjoy life. A truly great man.
I wonder if Sarah Palin's ever heard of Cincinnatus?
Didn't she go to a college there?
Isn't that a publishing house? What kind of advance will they pay her? How much would she have to fork over to one of their ghost writers?
An awful lot of the book was about football in a way that was interesting to read but wouldn't make a movie story. Once you take that out of it (assuming Hollywood's not quite ready to produce the definitive history of the left tackle), the character of the mom was definitely one of the most interesting in the book, although yes, a minor character. She's shown in the book as...single-minded? I'm not quite sure what word I'm looking for.
But most of the people in the book had the normal range of complexities. They'd like to help this boy, but not if it takes them too much out of their way. They'd really love it if he could give them a winning football team, but it's probably too hard to make that happen. Just basically your average people. But she was the kind of person who saw a kid walking in the snow in shorts and tracked him later and took him shopping; who insisted on driving him home and when she realized he had no bed, took him home with her to live, indefinitely; who realized that he knew nothing of what he should know and found him someone who would tutor him four hours a day. Lots of people in the book did a little bit--a normal little bit. But she was the person in the book who made me think, wow, how does one become that kind of person?
I understand the reservations and it's probably a really Hollywood movie. But the woman who inspired the Sandra Bullock character really is kind of an amazing human being.
She sounds like a wonderful, courageous person. I'm glad her sacrifice is being celebrated alongside Michael's resilience and achievements.
I'm not a sports person, but is there really not a movie to be made in the definitive history of the left tackle?
"But she was the person in the book who made me think, wow, how does one become that kind of person?"
Yup. Being interested in her story was one of the reasons I decided to buy the book. Getting shipped to me today. I totally get all this stuff about the movie poster and movie theme, but it just seems like the usual Hollywood BS to me. The book is always better than the movie.
Who is up for a reincarnation of memetics fairly soon?
Only because you wrote "always better than the movie," I have to disagree, since what is possibly the best and most famous American movie - The Godfather - is far and away better than the book in almost every imaginable way. I think it's true that it's not very often that great literary books get turned into films that are better than those books. But that is often quite a hurdle to jump, because adapting what is often a 400 page novel into a 120 page screenplay by it's very nature is reductive.
One of the "truths" of Hollywood is that bad books more often make better movies than "good" books - because the best novels often have a complexity and depth that is difficult to achieve in a film. Or they have narrative or structural aspects that in a book make them fabulous, but that make it very difficult to translate to screen. The Great Gatsby being a great example, as even Coppola himself had lots of trouble "cracking" the novel, in the sense of doing it justice on screen. It's just easier to take a simple yarn like The Bridges of Madison Country and turn it into a film than it is to adapt something like Michael Chabon's Kavalier and Clay, which is an amazing book that is not gonna be easy to turn into an amazing film. Love to see it though!
But there are plenty of examples where the movie came out "as good as" a great book. Some of my favorites are Ang Lee's version of Rick Moody's The Ice Storm, or the Hollywood version of James Jones' From Here To Eternity, or the Coen Brothers adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's No Country For Old Men. Or say The Big Sleep, or even Sean Penn's version of Into the Wild.
I think the form best suited to a really good novel is the miniseries, with Roots and Lonesome Dove probably being the best examples. With the success HBO has had in its various series, like The Wire and the Sopranos, I'm a little surprised that they haven't taken on a big novel and tried to do it justice.
The Godfather - you got me there! Very true. Your other examples aren't bad either - I especially agree with No Country for Old Men. Not sure about The Big Sleep or Into the Wild. Okay, I was being an elitist snob. Not uncommon for me!
I went to check Andrew and there was a post about everyone in the coffee shop watching the girl surprised by her dad and crying, and I scrolled down and clicked and now I'm crying. And I'm not a cryer. Crying in the good way.
Wow. Definitely worth the repost. Thank you. And if you'll excuse me, I need to go find some tissues.
That didn't make me cry. nope not at all. sniff. If I did cry then it was "manly tears" sniff. Hell yeah, Manly Tears of masculinity. But i didn't cry. naw, that was dust.
From a report on the Fort Hood shootings:
"A law enforcement official identified the shooting suspect as Army Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan. The official said Hasan, believed to be in his late 30s, was killed after opening fire at the base. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly.
The official says investigators are trying to determine if Hasan was his birth name, or if he changed his name and converted to Islam at some point in his life."
Here comes the ugliness.
yeah, maybe we here can rise above all of the coming ugliness and speculations and just leave it at saying RIP and our hearts go out to all involved.
There is no possible race or religious affiliation the shooter could have that would not be spun into an ugly "just like those people" rant by some group.
sure deborah, but we don't have to sink to their level. i'm begging folks not to trade on this nightmare to make various points or counterpoints, there will be all too many other times and events for all of that.
Fallows has a good short piece.
deb, that is an excellent piece, thank you.
dmf, I have no desire to get into an ugly debate over this. It's already begun elsewhere, though, so what I'd be interested in is a discussion of how we, who consider ourselves to be progressives, should proceed when something like this happens in post-9/11 America. I don't mean as far as respecting the families involved, I mean as far as understanding and combating xenophobia.
b.y., I appreciate that you don't have a taste for getting into this moral morass. Respecting the families, and the depth of the the tragedy, is part of creating the understanding that will weaken the xenophobia. I think that we should just keep doing what we do here, trying to create a civil discourse that is willing to reflect on the uglier parts of life without reflecting them, which has a sense of humor, and also a deep respect for suffering. Which is more concerned with getting things right, making things right, than being self-righteous. People will say ugly things that will make us feel angry/crazy but we can support each other to channel all of this into action, take part in community building, visit a VA, and such. This kind of change takes a long time and we will need encouragment and care for the long haul.
Don't forget Bladerunner vs. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (or some such awful title).
Michelle Malkin has a post up about "Muslim soldiers with attitude."
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/11/06/the-massacre-at-fort-hood-and-muslim-soldiers-with-attitude/
Am I reading too much into this by thinking she's riffing on NWA? The implication obviously being...
I throw up in the mouth whenever I see that name. I will refrain from writing what I feel about that.... person
Something that makes the movie adaptation so tough is that the natural protagonist, Oher, is basically a cipher almost all the time. You can't build a narrative around him as the driver (unless you want to make an Oscar movie) so it falls to either of the Tuohys for that job.
Bullock's character is the more interesting of the two, despite the fact that really her husband would make more sense from a structural point of view (he is involved in the football, while she isn't..and the movie is apparently all about the high school football team.) If they had to choose between the Tuohys, I think they made the right choice, although it will mean that they have to change parts of the story to give her more presence in the football world.
The big problem is that people who really liked the book will probably want more than another "Remember the Titans." There is a fascinating social commentary running throughout the book, and the Oher character could be dynamite with different producers and a gifted young actor (perhaps the same actor). But they obviously went in a different direction, which is unfortunate in my opinion.