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« July 2008 | Main | September 2008 »
Friday, August 29, 2008 - 16:52:37
John McCain reaches Dead Zone Moment?
There is a classic scene is the movie, The Dead Zone, in which the slimy presidential candidate, played by Martin Sheen, in order to protect himself from Johnny Smith’s assassination attempt, snatches up the first object at hand to shield himself - a woman’s baby.
In selecting Sarah Palin as his VP choice, has McCain reached his Dead Zone Moment? He’s been using the POW card for months to protect himself from tough questions on the campaign trail. In choosing Palin - besides a blatant attempt to secure the votes of women - is he hoping that Joe Biden will pull his punches in a debate with her?
There is already some speculation that was one of the reasons she was chosen.
If so, the “Straight-Talk Express” has at last reached the end of the line, a complete and total intellectual train wreck.
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Quote of the Day
A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something. - Frank Capra
Thursday, August 28, 2008 - 00:36:48
Jones TV to lose primary source of programming?
With the news that Annenberg Channel programming will end their satellite feed on September 30, where will that leave Jones TV? Even assuming they can still show some of the taped programs - until their expiration dates - what will they do then?
Thank God they have all those episodes of Andy Griffith and Bonanza stockpiled . . .
To learn more about the Annenberg satellite feed situation:
http://www.learner.org/faq/faq_licensee.html
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This was almost as good as the book . . .
Every few weeks I go through my books, and donate some to local libraries. At random, I picked up my old and tattered copy of “Let Us Now Praise Famous men,” the book by James Agee and Walker Evans, about the life of tenant farmers in the Deep South. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it.
Anyway, inside is the inscription:
To Karin, the friend of whom I will speak about to my children . . .
Martha
There is something almost magical about that inscription. It makes me imagine a friendship that that was deep and strong. At the very least, it puts most of the things I have inscribed in books to shame . . .
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Quote of the Day
"Our only political party has two right wings, one called Republican, the other Democratic. But Henry Adams figured all that out back in the 1890s. 'We have a single system,' he wrote, and 'in that system the only question is the price at which the proletariat is to be bought and sold, the bread and circuses.'" : Gore Vidal - "The Decline and Fall of the American Empire"
Wednesday, August 27, 2008 - 10:17:11
oops!
Regarding my last blog:
I meant that Alan Dean Foster wrote for Power Records, not David Gerrold.
Gotta stop writing late at night!
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Quote of the Day
"Sometimes," Batman said, "the costume changes are more difficult to arrange than solving the case." Robert Sheckley, " Death of the Dreammaster"
X Files movie - a day late and a dollar short?
Who would have thought that a cultural phenomenon like The X Files (well, once upon a time, anyway) would fare so badly at the box office - both at home and abroad. I have a theory that I have been boring my friends with, that I’ll now take the opportunity to bore you with as well, if I may.
When Star Trek left the air in 1969, there was great wailing and lamentation in the land. I know, because some of it as mine. Unlike The X Files, we had to wait 10 long years before a Trek movie hit the big screens.
But to fill the gap, we had reruns (as with X Files), but there were also many paperbacks released, both adaptations of episodes, and original novels. We had the Gold Key comics - okay, they were pretty bad, but there was a certain goofiness about them, that made them enjoyable. And it was Star Trek, so we overlooked a great deal.
In 1974, NBC gave us the animated series, which holds up pretty well, even today.
Power Records even came out with audio plays (though with different actors playing the parts). They were sort of juvenile, but a few were written by noted SF writer David Gerrold, who had written the classic episode, “The Trouble with Tribbles.”
How do I know he wrote them? Because he answered an email I wrote to him, and confirmed it.
And I am just enough of a geek to still be thrilled that David Gerrold answered my email.
And X Files? What? A few computer games? A few comic books? Did 20th Century Fox not think they needed to keep stirring the pot, to keep stoking the public’s imagination?
I think they just sort of took it for granted that if they filmed it, people would come. I feel like they sort of disrespected the fan base, and now they are paying the price.
Oh, they’ll probably still make scads of money, from DVD sales, novel sales, and what have you. I just hope they make enough to warrant another movie.
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I know it must be true because Leonard Nimoy said so . . .
Back in 1975, Leonard Nimoy came and gave a talk at the UA - in the old men’s gymnasium, of all places. No doubt he’d be in some place a lot cooler, now. Anyway, he told an interesting story about how studio executives were intent on bringing Star Trek to the big screen, but hadn’t been able to make the right connections with everyone concerned yet.
He told an amusing story that at one point, the studio wanted Paul Newman and Robert Redford to play Kirk and Spock. I believe that, too.
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Quote of the Day
Optimism can make you look stupid, but cynicism always makes you look cynical. - Calum Fisher
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Seriously, this guy needs a hobby . . .
Once upon a time, in a kingdom far away, there was a fairy tale romance, of lovers fair and true - oh, you've heard this one already? Well, what if I told you the kingdom far away was New York City, and that it wasn't all that long ago, but a mere two decades ago?
Of course, in Television Time - which is sort of like Dog Years, if you take short seasons and abrupt cancellations into consideration - it might as well have been hundreds of years ago.
In 1987 Ron Koslow created "Beauty and the Beast" for CBS, featuring one of the most interesting stories the small-screen has ever seen unfold. It told the story of corporate attorney Catherine Chandler (Linda Hamilton - "The Terminator," Children of the Corn,") who is mistaken for someone else, and almost murdered. To her rescue comes Vincent (Ron Perlman - "Hellboy") a mysterious cloaked figure who literally slashes her assailants to death before taking her down to his home below the city to nurse her back to health.
Vincent lives in an underground world of misfits and artists who have fled the cruelties of the outside world and created their own society - one based on Utopian principles. They are guided by man known as "Father" (Roy Dotrice) who fled the upper world after some sort of incident in the red-baiting 1950s. The Below World is a fine fantasy creation. Just think of parts of Fayetteville's culture during the 1970s, only without the benefit of sunlight, and you'd have a pretty good idea of how cool a place this really is.
Oh, and more thing. Vincent? Well, he sort of looks like a lion. He stands on two feet, and recites poetry, but he's got claws (and knows how to use ‘‘em!) And his features are more catlike than human. It is never resolved in the series as to how Vincent came to be, or where he came from.
It is sometime before Vincent allows Catherine to see his true face. By then, of course, she has fallen in love with him.
After she is healed, Catherine returns to the outside world, where she joins the staff on the District Attorney, working for Assistant District Attorney Joe Maxwell (Jay Acovone), and becomes a sort of crime fighter.
The first season is fairly action oriented, though with heavy emphasis on the growing love between Vincent and Catherine. Much is also made of the emotional/spiritual bond between them, which enables Vincent to sense whenever she is in danger, and come to her aid.
In the second season, the decision was made to try and move away from the action-oriented stories and develop more "relationship" stories. In essence, this is the Harlequin Romance season, with many actual scenes seeming to ape romance novel book covers.
This season might also be known as the Sappy Season. Though my wife might tell you otherwise, I like romantic stories as well as anyone, but you can go back to the well a little too often.
And herein lies the problem with DVD collections - when you watch a season on DVD - and watch several episodes a week - the flaws jump out and can't just be ignored, whereas they might be when the series was just shown on a weekly basis.
That being said, there were several excellent episodes that second season, including one haunting episode on child abuse which is still powerful twenty years later.
At any rate, at the end of the second season, the producers moved back into high gear, telling stories about Central American death squads, and drug dealers, and giving Vincent several chances to flex his claws.
At the beginning of season three, Linda Hamilton departed the series, and was killed off in the opening episode, after giving birth to their son, who is promptly kidnaped by a truly evil character named Gabriel. The pursuit of Gabriel takes most of the short season.
The truth is that the Catherine/Vincent relationship had been getting stale. He'd go up to her balcony and read poetry to her, they'd sit under city grates (only on TV would they not stink) and listen to concerts in the park, and he'd sit around the underworld (his version of the Batcave, I suppose) looking pensive until the bond between them would alert him to the
fact that yet again Catherine was doing something stupid and putting her life in danger.
Vincent to the rescue!
A new woman was brought into the mix in the third season - Diana Bennett (Jo Anderson), a sort of police profiler assigned to solve Catherine's murder. Though the series only lasted a handful of episodes that third season, it's pretty exciting and well-written. A new sense of purpose seemed to have been found by the writers, and one thing it isn't is stale.
Fans don't like it when characters leave, even when the show may be just as good, if not better. Look at "X Files" when Mulder left.
For my money, the Jo Anderson character had a lot more potential than the Linda Hamilton character ever did. She was smart and tough, and didn't really need to be rescued every week. But not only does she not get pictured on the DVD box for season three, her name isn't listed. That's her thanks for job well done.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - 00:09:49
Issue Forums and the Fairness Committee: It only got this complicated in the first place thanks to City Hall
Reading - and rereading - the editorial in the NWA Times Monday, I got the distinct impression that somebody just wasn’t paying close attention to the whole situation. Of course, it is kind of hard to keep track of the whole matter, what with all the excitement since the Coody administration dropped the bomb on the Fayetteville Government Channel issue forums some months ago.
The suggested Fairness Committee might seem a little unwieldy - as it may well prove to be, at first, until the kinks are worked out of the system. But it’s a pretty good compromise that has come out of a lot of hard work from the Telecomm Board sub-committee that it emerged from. I have no doubt that the members of the committee would represent their community well, and take their responsibilities seriously - and get their work done in a timely manner, under whatever guidelines might be set.
Of course, there is a simpler, far more elegant solution.
Simply put the old system back into play.
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Drill Here! Drill Now! Pay Less! - On what planet?
As we were driving through Fiesta Square last week, we passed by an SUV with so many bumper stickers I thought the poor guy must have spring a leak. One large bumper sticker read:
Drill Here! Drill Now! Pay Less!
He really must have been taken with the idea expressed on the bumper sticker, since it appeared at least once more on the vehicle - along with large National Rifle Association emblems and McCain stickers. One bumper sticker read, “Annoy a liberal . . .” but he turned off before we were able to read the rest of his vehicular wisdom.
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Quote of the Day
There are times when silence has the loudest voice. - Leroy Brownlow
Monday, August 25, 2008 - 00:22:24
Superior Industry news - so you get a press release and don't even think of asking any more questions?
One of the security officers at the Fayetteville Superior plant would often say to people on their way out the door, “Have a Superior day!” Guess they aren’t having such great days now, with the news that there will be only three Superior plants left operating in the United states.
This interesting paragraph was in the NWA Times article on Saturday:
In addition to the plant closing, the company said in a press release that it would lay off 65 employees at other plants and not fill 90 open positions.
Neil G. Berkman, a spokesman for the company based in California, said," All we're willing to say is (the layoffs ) will be spread out across our employment base in the United States," Berk- man said. "We're not disclosing how many employees we're going to lay off at each individual plant."
And that, as far as the newspaper was concerned, was it. Nothing more to see here, folks. Just move along, now. Because, after all, a press release written by a PR flack is gonna tell all the story, isn’t it?
Maybe the reporter could have written about the Superior plants located in parts of the world, other than Mexico?
Or - and this might have been a lot of fun - maybe someone could have spoken to some of the actual hourly employees here in Fayetteville, to hear what they have to say on the subject, and how concerned they are for their jobs?
Because they are . . .
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The Day when the Snow Turned Green
I remember the first chemical leak from the Superior Chrome plant in Fayetteville, back in the mid-1990s. Nickel (I believe it was) on top of snow is a pretty shade of green. There were all kinds of media outside the plant gates that day. A plane even flew overhead, getting aerial shots of the garish snow.
Now we can’t even get reporters to look up past the press releases.
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War on Crime - Just be glad you ain’t naked!
Standing around the county courthouse in Sayre, Oklahoma, on Wednesday, and a group of prisoners were herded in for arraignment. I guess the county couldn’t afford to keep clean uniforms on hand; some of the striped outfits looked pretty filthy.
And ill-fitting, too. It looked as if a few of the guys’ pants would fall down on the spot.
Nothing like stripping an inmate - whether they’ve been convicted of a crime or not - of their essential human dignity.
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Quote of the Day
Scientists were rated as great heretics by the church, but they were truly religious men because of their faith in the orderliness of the universe. - Albert Einstein
Tuesday, August 19, 2008 - 01:30:53
On the road again . . . II
Next few days - not nest few days! This will teach me to write when I am exhausted.
Nancy Allen and the Golden Boys
Gaylord Willis
Perceptions of Reality
I guess this means that Dan Coody won't be at any more workers' rallies this year.
Telecomm Board Subcommittee comes up with workable plan
KFSM - Who needs news when you've got spaghetti?
105 in the Shade - Hey, Coach - wanna join us?
Coody War Room: Quick, find a Famous Person! Somebody! Anybody!
Moshe
You know why I hate Wal-Mart?: Chapter 59
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