{ Monthly Archives }
January 2009
- PETA - The good people at PETA may be idealistic, but they aren’t stupid. The only thing better than running a Super Bowl ad is having your ad rejected by the network, in which case you receive the kind of publicity that can’t be bought, even for $5 million a minute. The commercial currently in question is this one, which makes the explicit though warrantless claim that vegetarians enjoy their coital relations to a greater extent than do omnivores. Luckily, the recent news cycles have allowed enough slack for this assertion to be fact-checked.
- Commercials - Ads for The International ask the question “What would you do…if your bank…was using your money…for murder?” Honestly, I think the task of answering that question requires additional information, such as the bank’s liquidity levels and service fees. Then again, if those in charge of the bank are too feckless to hide the fact that they’re pilfering account-holder’s funds, then I suppose I would find myself another bank.
Also, I see that Bride Wars has begun advertising itself with a comparison to the humor of “last summer’s Sex and the City.” It’s such an absurd tack that I cannot provide an appropriate yet humorous analogy by which to put the comparison into context.
- Roundup - Here are a few items too predictable to really be considered news:
- Yesterday, the Illinois State Senate unanimously convicted Rod Blagojevich, concluding his impeachment proceedings and term of governance. He has been succeeded in office by Pat Quinn, who has significantly less hair than his predecessor.
- Earlier this week, the House of Representatives passed an $819 billion stimulus bill, at President Obama’s behest. Voting split almost precisely down party lines, with absolutely no Republican support. As an alternative, Republicans offered a tax-cut package. Perhaps they’re unaware that one of unemployment’s few benefits is a 100% drop in income tax deductions.
- President Obama signed what’s known as the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law yesterday, extending the term during which an aggrieved party can sue his or her employer for discriminatory wage practices.
- Expectations - If you have half an hour and can afford to register for a free login, then you ought to read this article from the New York Times Magazine. Not only does it rightfully espouse the benefits of being a global leader in education and the need to regain that role, but it also offers that idea that the delay of relief from the Great Depression until World War II doesn’t rebuke the effectiveness of the New Deal but rather illustrate the extent of government spending necessary to reboot an economy.
On a somewhat related and nakedly humorous note, this relative non sequitor expounds on the need to manage national expectations. As my brother once told me, “If at first you don’t succeed, take it as an omen.”
- Palin - I’ve occasionally toyed with the idea of incorporating a non-profit organization to benefit the very small demographic that is me, but it’s not an endeavor for which I have adequate cajones. Sarah Palin, on the other hand, appears to have no such scruples. The latest chapter in the satirical novel of her life includes SarahPAC, a political action committee whose name really does say it all. She really is the gift that keeps on giving.
- Blagojevich - In the interest of equal time, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge the existence of Rod Blagojevich. Compared the Palin’s ongoing embarrassment, he’s a flash in the pan, but he’s doing what he can to make that flash blinding. While the state senate he inaugurated earlier this month is deliberating on his impeachment, he’s out making appearances on any media outlet that will have him. Although I reserve the right to revisit this topic, I have no more to say about it at the moment.
- Stimulus - The big news on Capitol Hill has to do with haggling over the president’s proposed stimulus bill. First, they removed the rather absurd clauses funding a refurbishment of the National Mall and increased efforts to promote family planning among members of low-income households. Now, the argument is moving into the question of how much relief should be offered by spending and how much should be a matter of tax cuts. This question is much more normative than substantive in derivation, as is the matter of whether to expand the government to build its own material infrastructure or contract that work out. As this article outlines, the former practice is the more effective of the two, one’s opinion of “big government” notwithstanding.
- Computer - Hearkening all the way back to last week may make me feel like an old-timer, but this explanation, inspired by the existence of a presidential Blackberry, is worth reading. At first blush, the question of whether or not Obama will have a personal computer in the Oval Office might seem a silly one. Most people use computers to get stuff done, and the president most assuredly has a lot of stuff to get done. The question gains traction, however, once one considers the potential national security implications/risks of a private presidential window to the internet. Suffice to say that leaking certain intelligence could be much more damaging than yet another email offering male enhancement.
- Sex - In certain circles, there has been much discussion of this article, outlining a few fronts in current research into the sexuality of human females, from the current edition of the New York Times Magazine. Much of what’s said about that research contradicts the underlying argument of the particular brand of women’s rights activists whose case for equality between the sexes relies on claims of overwhelming similarity rather than principles of ethical fairness and functional democracy. Perhaps I’m abstracting a demographic that ceased to exist sometime in the past 30 years, but you’ll see what I mean if you take the half-hour to read the article in question.
In sunnier news for gender equality — and discrimination lawyers the country over — the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act has passed the Senate and been sent back to the House for a vote on the version in question.
- Review - If you went into Wanted having already seen the first two installments of the Night Watch trilogy, then you probably weren’t too surprised, since all three films had the same Russian director. What may have surprised you, instead, was learning that he didn’t write Wanted, as he had the other two movies. All three flicks are driven by their action and effects rather than their narrative virtue, which is questionable at best, or plausibility, which is strictly non-existent. If you’re of the disposition to dissolve into a somewhat dark and completely impossible realm of fiction, however, these pictures will do you right.
Viewing Wanted with no expectation of narrative value, my primary complaint has to do with the number of occurrences that fail to conform even to comic book physics, most notably the [Spoiler Alert!] bullet that not only travels a circular trajectory but does penetrates multiple skulls in the process without ever losing either velocity or altitude. I won’t even venture into the thought process related to this sentence: “A bridge over a bottomless chasm between two tunnels through sheer mountainsides is about the most inopportune place a train could possibly derail.”