Religulous

Larry and I watched this movie on video tonight and I have to say, I liked it a lot. It wasn't as funny as I expected, but Bill Maher wasn't as snide as I expected either. It's thought-provoking, which is my favorite kind of movie! It ended rather abruptly, and felt a little homemade. And his scolding final voiceover was a bit much (the end of world is coming if we don't reject religion!) But still worth watching. I may even buy a copy so I can watch again.

Innovative desks

Fascinating story about experimental desks that allow students to sit or stand during class. A minor change that can make a big difference. Thanks to my friend Russ for sending me the NY Times article.

San Francisco Chronicle

A great paper that may fold, making San Francisco the only major city without a daily newspaper. Really bad news.

Bollywood 101

Terrific segment on NPR this afternoon (30 minutes). I heard most, but not all of it. Included several suggestions for the best films to see (of those mentioned, I've only seen Bandit Queen and Monsoon Wedding). On the website there's a list of 5 movies, but several others were discussed during the segment. I checked the local library system for about a dozen titles and they had exactly 1.

Obama speech

Loved it. Can you imagine Bush saying these things? Ha! Here's the last few paragraphs:

We are not quitters.

These words and these stories tell us something about the spirit of the people who sent us here. They tell us that even in the most trying times, amid the most difficult circumstances, there is a generosity, a resilience, a decency, and a determination that perseveres; a willingness to take responsibility for our future and for posterity.

Their resolve must be our inspiration. Their concerns must be our cause. And we must show them and all our people that we are equal to the task before us.

I know that we haven’t agreed on every issue thus far, and there are surely times in the future when we will part ways. But I also know that every American who is sitting here tonight loves this country and wants it to succeed. That must be the starting point for every debate we have in the coming months, and where we return after those debates are done. That is the foundation on which the American people expect us to build common ground.

And if we do – if we come together and lift this nation from the depths of this crisis; if we put our people back to work and restart the engine of our prosperity; if we confront without fear the challenges of our time and summon that enduring spirit of an America that does not quit, then someday years from now our children can tell their children that this was the time when we performed, in the words that are carved into this very chamber, "something worthy to be remembered." Thank you, God Bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.

Philly paper files for bankruptcy

Really sad to hear this story on NPR this morning - I was a devoted reader of the Philadelphia Inquirer during the years I lived in Philly. It's a great paper and I hope they sort themselves out and last for many years to come.

Ahhh-scar

A fun year. A few surprises. Strong contests with many fine performances and interesting films (I saw many nominees this year, more than in any recent year).

LOVED the way the acting awards were introduced with sincere praise by past winners. There were so many brimming eyes, including mine. Really affecting.

However, I was disappointed that the Best Actor presenters were all white - I guess Forest Whitaker, Jaime Fox, and Denzel were all unavailable. And I guess Daniel Day Lewis (last year's winner) was not available, but shame on him for breaking a great tradition.

I thought Kate Winslet deserved her award, but I read quite a bit suggesting that her performance in Revolutionary Road was better than The Reader (I saw the latter but not yet the former). I also heard that Harvey Weinstein pushed The Reader hard after changing the release date from 2009 to 2008, and that it was all very political. Apparently there were some hard feelings because all the maneuvering left Sam Mendes without a Best Director nod. But he'll have more chances certainly. As will others who were overlooked.

Speaking of which, for our Oscar pool, I chose Sean Penn for Best Actor (based on his SAG win), but I was honestly sorry to be right. I really wanted Mickey Rourke to win. He's gotten other acknowledgement, but you can't top "Oscar Winner."

Loved Sean Penn's speech, of course, but did he forget to thank his wife? (Maybe she's his "best friend" - mentioned first - I hope so!) I found most of the speeches heart felt and well said.

I was a bit surprised at the way Slumdog Millionaire became the early front runner - it was a good movie, but I thought there were other strong contenders. And it's a foreign-made movie with no known stars. Yes, you'd expect it to win at Cannes, but not necessarily the Academy Award. Is this the start of trend???

LOVED Queen Latifah singing "At Last" during the In Memorium segment - lovely and appropriate.

Liked some of the tribute videos - comedies, romance, action pictures - but the live tribute to musicals was overly long and excessive.

I thought Hugh Jackman was o.k., but not great. Kinda boring - not funny and not all that charismatic either. Definitely did not live up to the hype. Bring back Jon Stewart or Billy Crystal.

And why did Reese Witherspoon give the Best Director award? Totally incongruous and she did not strike the right notes, IMO.

Neither did Bill Maher, who presented the documentary awards. He came across as rather shrill, which is odd, because in general, he's funny as hell. Not in his element, clearly.

And while I'm complaining, I'll say that I resented Will Smith's remarks about action movies being the only ones that have fans. That really annoys me. I'm a huge movie fan - just because I don't pay to see the same movie 7 or 8 times, I still deserve to be acknowledged!

As for the dresses - I was happy to see some color this year after the last couple of years with too much beige. And very glamorous.

Favorites:
Natalie Portman in pink
Alicia Keyes in purple
Kate Winslet (what would you call that color?)
Meryl Streep in grey
Amy Adams in red
Bridget Fonda in red
Virginia Madsen in red
Rachel Evan Wood in cream
Jennifer Grey in black
Diane Lane in black
Robin Wright Penn in black
Angelina Jolie in black (though the earrings were a bit much)
Viola Davis in gold
Freida Pinto (from SDM) in blue
Queen Latifah in blue (the one she arrived in)

Hated these:
Marisa Tomei in cream excess
Jessica Biel in cream weirdness
Sophia Loren in gold excess
Whoopie Goldberg in animal print
Vanessa Hudgens in black excess
Phoebe Cates in unflattering red
Queen Latifah in blue (the one she performed in)
Sarah Jessica Parker (not sure what to call that, and too much boob)
Myley Cyrus (not sure what to call that)
Amanda Seyfried in red (I was never a fan of big bows)

Can't decide:
Melissa Leo in brown - a pretty dress but it didn't seem to suit her perfectly
Penelope Cruz in white that was on the border of too much
Marion Cotillard in black & blue that bordered on too much
Reese Witherspoon in black & blue that bordered on too much
Taraji Henson in cream that bordered on too much
Beyonce in black and gold that bordered on too much
Tilda Swinton was on the border of too weird
Heidi Klum in red that wasn't especially flattering
Anne Hathaway in silver - flattering but on the border of too much

"The end of the purple dream"

Thought-provoking essay by Jonathan Alter regarding the cynical maneuvering by the Repugs over the stimulus bill and the early death of bipartisanship.

"When numbers deceive"

Great book excerpt in The Week about how uninformed people are regarding statistics and their interpretation:

We often talk of social statistics, especially those that seem as straightforward as age, as if a bureaucrat were poised with a clipboard, peering through every window, counting; or, better still, had some machine to do it for them. The unsurprising truth is that, for many of the statistics we take for granted, there is no such bureaucrat, no machine, no easy count. What is out there, more often than not, is thick strawberry jam, through which someone with a bad back on a tight schedule has to wade—and then try to tell us how many strawberries are in it.

I was taken aback, though, by the final paragraphs, asserting (with glee) that people change their position on the abortion/choice issue once they are correctly informed about the number of abortions that occur:

Few of us spend our leisure hours looking up and memorizing data. But many of us flatter ourselves that we know about these issues. And yet …

On abortion and immigration, says Ranney, about 80 percent of those questioned base their opinions on inaccurate information.
[ . . . ]
The students’ estimates for the number of abortions varied widely, but the middle of the range was about 5,000 for every million live births. The actual figure in the United States in 2006 was 335,000 per million live births—67 times higher than the typical estimate.
[ . . . ]
The good news: Many respondents found the correct answers so surprising that they adjusted their political views on the spot.

25 random things about me

This is a Facebook thing:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/fashion/05things.html

I worked on my list for a long time. I started with much more personal stuff, like "My dad was married 5 times." and "I've never met my older brother." But I kept tweaking it until I came up with something more appropriate.

1. When I was 5 years old, I broke my left leg playing in my neighbor's yard. I was wearing black cowboy boots that day and afterward, I thought they were haunted.

2. My left foot is 1 1/2 sizes bigger than my right foot.

3. I've studied 3 foreign languages - German, Spanish and Hebrew - and I don't speak any of them worth a damn.

4. I've been doing research of various kinds, in various places, for 25 years now. Wow.

5. My dream job is political pollster or working at the Brookings Institute.

6. I spent 12 years in the Army National Guard. It took me 12 years to get my Ph.D. and 12 years to pay off my student loans (12 seems to be an important number for me).

7. People who don't vote really drive me crazy - it's our civic duty as citizens of this great nation and it's the major priviledge of democracy.

8. Of all the housework tasks, the one I hate the most is dusting.

9. I have two tattoos, a butterfly on my back and a flower on my ankle.

10. I can't stand it when people litter, especially when they throw cigarette butts out their car window.

11. I think it's utterly tragic that my husband and kids never met my dad.

12. I'm all about the cinema. Before I had kids, I used to see *at least* one movie a week - in a movie theater, on the big screen, in the dark, as god intended. That rocked! Now I struggle to get to my Must See movies each year and I always miss many more than I can bear.

13. When I started riding the train to work at Temple University, I had so much time to read that I just worked my way down the fiction shelves at the school library. I so loved that. Someday (when I retire I suppose) I hope to again have that much time to read.

14. I prefer the mountains to the beach.

15. Before I die, I want to eat sushi in Japan.

16. I lived in Israel for 7 months in 1984. It was one of the highlights of my life. I can't wait to take my husband and kids there.

17. Another place I really want to see again is Greece (I wanted to go for my honeymoon, but we couldn't afford it). I also want to take my family to Costa Rica - what a gorgeous country, "the Switzerland of Central America."

18. All those years I lived in Arizona and I didn't go to Mexico until I moved to the east coast!

19. I've now lived more years outside of Arizona than I spent living there. That's really shocking to me - I never planned to be away this long.

20. I'm the kind of person who sticks to you, if you let me. My longest continuous friendship has lasted 40 years (yay, Diane!)

21. I have no musical ability at all. I'm in awe of my husband - he can play music by ear. I really hope my kids take after him.

22. In a couple of months I will have gone a decade without eating wheat. (That makes me sorta proud and sorta sad.)

23. I get choked up at television ads, like those Johnson and Johnson "a baby changes everything" ads.

24. I never wanted any pets, but I've adored all of them.

25. I just don't understand people who don't like chocolate.

30 years since high school

How old does it make me feel to get information about the forthcoming reunion of my high school class in 2010??? Freakin' old!

Peanut Corporation of America

It was absolutely sickening (pun intended) watching this asswipe take the Fifth before Congress when asked why his company shipped peanut products that they knew were contaminated with salmonella. People died. This guy better go to jail or I've completely lost faith in the justice system.

"The cough and sniffle question"

I saw this article when looking for something else at the NY Times website, but didn't read it, thinking that schools and daycare centers have specific rules and therefore there is little more to know. But I did read it later, because my friend Lynda sent it to me, and I was so glad that I did - it should be required reading for nervous parents. (It was one of the top emailed stories at the site today.) I certainly appreciate the perspective that germs are there all winter and there is no particular reason to fret about the kids with runny noses or persistent coughs. Too many germ-phobes with not enough real worries are convinced that they can actually protect their kids from germs, as if this were even desireable.

P.S. I read Perri Klass's memoir about her time in med school, A Not Entirely Benign Procedure which was excellent and I can't recommend it strongly enough.

A-Rod and steroids

What do I care about a bunch of over-paid men who play children's games? Nothing at all, but children are influenced by the behviors of famous athletes and that's the relevance. I was disappointed, but not surprised, by Alex Rodriguez and his "apology" for both using steroids and lying about it. I enjoyed this discussion on NPR's Talk of the Nation - two sports writers made several interesting points. Professional football treats steroid use like a PR problem - it's widely known and there is very little, if any, hand-wringing over it. On the other hand, in football, personal stats are less central - the number of yards or touchdowns are noticed, but in baseball, stats are central and so "cheating" is more scandalous. Bottom line, the fans of all sports don't seem to care - they certainly don't buy fewer tickets when these scandals emerge whether in baseball, bicycling or the Olympics. I guess I was most offended that Alex Rodriguez told a bald-faced lie in his primetime Katie Couric interview* and therefore to his fans. I find that much more reprehensible than the actual drug use. I mean, "everybody's doing it" is not an acceptable excuse, but it's a better excuse for using performance enhancers than it is for lying. What's worse, lying or cheating? I supposed it's a toss up. In any event, thanks A-Rod for setting such a fine example. The parents of America are indebted to you.

Here are two quotes from that interview:

Re being "tempted" to use drugs - "I've never felt overmatched on the baseball field. I've always been a very strong, dominant position. And I felt that if I did my work as I've done since I was, you know, a rookie back in Seattle, I didn't have a problem competing at any level. So, no."

Re the Mitchell Report - "Katie, you're putting me in a tough spot. I mean, these are guys that I play with. They're my teammates. If anything comes of this, I will be extremely disappointed. And it will be a huge black eye on the game of baseball."

'Frozen River,' A Study In Oscar Marketing

Great story on NPR - I'm so glad I happened to be in the car and I caught this.

'Frozen River,' A Study In Oscar Marketing
by Nate DiMeo
Listen Now [4 min 1 sec]
All Things Considered, February 9, 2009 · With its Oscar nominations for Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay, Frozen River is emerging as this year's "Little Indie Makes Good." Its producers deftly negotiated the movie marketing game and now are planning to capitalize on this opportunity.

Stimulus bill partisanship

I find myself sort of ranting and raving about the stimulus bill to anyone I talk to about it. I'm just so mad at the Republicans for their smug righteousness and hypocrisy. Among other things, several of them required absurd earmarks be added to the bank bailout bill in order to secure their votes for it, and there was very little teeth-gnashing over that. Now the Repugs act like the sky is falling because of all the shameless padding of the stimulus bill. Of course I would prefer that the bill be perfect, but the truth is, this is the way that legislation is passed EVERY every time, and the Repugs are no more pure than the Dems - they're just more willing to stand in front of a microphone and express their fake outrage. Shut the fuck up is basically my response. Even if I object myself, I can't stand their bullshit and I end up defending the whole process.

"It's A New Day"

How did I miss this wonderful video??? Here's some lyrics, but you must watch the video.

I WENT TO SLEEP LAST NIGHT
TIRED FROM THE FIGHT
IVE BEEN FIGHTING FOR TOMORROW
ALL MY LIFE
YEAH I WOKE UP THIS MORNING
FEELING BRAND NEW
CAUSE THE DREAMS THAT IVE BEEN DREAMING
HAS FINALLY CAME TRUE

ITS A NEW DAY (5X)

VERSE 1
ITS BEEN A LONG TIME COMING
UP THE MOUNTAIN KEPT RUNNING
SONGS OF FREEDOM KEPT HUMMING
CHANNELING HARRIET TUBMAN
KENNEDY LINCOLN AND KING
WE GOTTA MANIFEST THAT DREAM
IT FEELS LIKE IM SWIMMING UPSTREAM
IT FEELS LIKE IM STUCK IN BETWEEN
A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE
WEVE BEEN THROUGH THE HEARTACHES
AND LIVED THROUGH THE DARKEST DAYS
IF YOU AND I MADE IT THIS FAR
WELL THEN HEY WE CAN MAKE IT ALL THE WAY
AND THEY SAID NO WE CANT
AND WE SAID YES WE CAN
REMEMBER ITS YOU AND ME TOGETHER

CHORUS

VERSE 2
ITS BEEN A LONG TIME WAITING
WAITING FOR THIS MOMENT
ITS BEEN A LONG TIME PRAYING
PRAYING FOR THIS MOMENT
AND HOPE FOR THIS MOMENT
AND NOW THAT WE OWN IT
CLOSER IMA HOLD IT
AND I WONT LET IT GO
THIS IS FOR OUR FATHERS,
OUR BROTHERS, OUR FRIENDS
WHO FOUGHT FOR FREEDOM,
OUR SISTERS OUR MOTHERS,
WHO DIED FOR US TO BE IN THIS MOMENT
STOP AND CHERISH THIS MOMENT
STOP AND CHERISH THIS TIME
ITS BEAUTIFUL AINT IT
WE DID IT FOR HER AND HIM AND HE AND SHE
AND YOU AND ME TOGETHER

CHORUS

YEAH I WOKE UP THIS MORNING FEELING BRAND NEW
CAUSE THE DREAMS THAT IVE BEEN DREAMING FINALLY COME TRUE
YEAH I WOKE UP THIS MORNING FEELING ALRIGHT
CAUSE WE WASNT FIGHTING FOR NOTHING
AND MALCOLM WASNT FIGHTING FOR NOTHING
AND MARTIN WASNT DREAMING FOR NOTHING
AND LINCOLN WASNT TRYING FOR NOTHING
AND CHILDREN WASNT CRYING FOR NOTHING

ITS A NEW DAY (7X)

I'm so dissapointed

I can't dispel the sinking feeling I have that our government has really let us down. And not just Bush and the Republicans - the Dems controlled Congress for the last two years, they were the heads of the Banking and the Finance and the Commerce Committees. What were they doing all this time? How could they let this situation get so dire? This is serious - people are losing their jobs and homes. Many people. Businesses are failing, and so far, nothing is helping - the insane amount of money handed over to banks and Wall Street firms has not stemmed the tide.

Now the stimulus bill is flailing. My progressive pro-Obama friends are asking why condoms and digital cable coupons are included in this bill. This vital opportunity is being squandered by doing things in the same old partisan way. I totally support sex education, but don't torpedo an important piece of legislation this way. This is not a game - people are suffering. Yes, we won, and we should get our agenda passed, but let's keep our priorities straight. The American people want to build roads and schools, not pass out condoms. They want the government to invest in activities that produce jobs. Within that framework, there's plenty of room to push an agenda. But let's make sure that the money that we'll be borrowing from the Chinese (!) is used for the most impactful purpose!

Frost/Nixon

Another terrific movie - it's a good year (2008). Larry and I both enjoyed it and so did Frank and Betsy. I was sorry we had to wait so long for this movie to come to town. All the performances were really superb and the translation from the stage avoided stage-yness. Langella really deserves the Oscar - it had to be hard to play such a troubled and conflicted character without going over the line into pathos or caricature. But I think it's Sean Penn's year, and of course he's deserving too. I still have a few movies I want to see, but I feel like I've made respectable inroads into the Oscar fodder this year.