What? Frantic*

All film directors, whether famous or obscure, regard themselves as misunderstood or underrated. Because of that, they all lie. They’re obliged to overstate their own importance.
François Truffaut (1932–84), French film director

This case seems a bit strange to me. Roman Polanski, film director, was in court pressing a libel claim against Vanity Fair. The article reported that he alleging tried to seduce a woman while on his way to his slain wife's funeral in 1969. Sharon Tate was murdered by followers of the Charles Manson clan in 1969, when she was eight-and-a-half months pregnant.

The director had to testify via video link, in order to avoid the possible risk of being extradited from Britain to the United States after pleading guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977. He cannot be extradited from his native France for the crime.

This is the part that gets me. Unless they had an open marriage, I find it hard to believe him.

According to the article by Reuters: "This was the worst thing ever written about me. It's absolutely not true. But I think it was particularly hurtful, because it dishonors my memory of Sharon," Polanski said. The director admitted he was sexually unfaithful to Tate before and during his marriage, but took offence at the allegation he had used her name to seduce the woman.

One passage in the Vanity Fair article, published in July 2002, quoted him promising the Swedish woman: "I will make another Sharon Tate of you." Now that is some promise considering how she died.

Asked whether he had seduced another woman within four weeks of his wife's death, Polanski replied: "Maybe I was seduced by someone. I never considered sex, particularly at that pre-AIDS period, as something harmful. Quite the contrary."

This just seems like a frivolous lawsuit that should be thrown out.

*What? And Frantic are two Polanski movies

On The Mark -- This Is What I'm Talking About

I'll take this straight from the Associated Press:

"A T-ball coach allegedly paid one of his players $25 to hurt an 8-year-old mentally disabled teammate so he wouldn't have to put the boy in the game, police said Friday."

The 8-year-old was hit in the head and in the groin with a baseball just before a game, and did not play.

Why? "The coach was very competitive, he wanted to win," said the police. You see, kids at this age have to play a minimum of three innings in each game. It's supposed to be a point in their lives when they have fun and see if this is a sport they want to pursue.

Just when you think you've seen the worst regarding youth, adults and competitive sports, something like this comes along.

Disgusting.

An Accident Waiting to Happen

This is why America is going to hell in a handbasket:



When you can go into a store and purchase a "swivel saucer" to better hold your burger, fries and drink WHILE YOU DRIVE, you have seen the beginning of the end of civilization.

I know people eat and drive, talk on the phone and drive, shave and drive, apply lipstick and drive... but creating products to not only enable people to do this more efficiently but in addition to encourage such behavior borders on being an atrocity.

Where will you be, COPCO, when car accidents are on the rise because of morons attempting to eat a double-double while they merge onto the freeway? Where will you be when idiots reach for their drink and slam into a tractor-trailer?

Shame on you, COPCO.

Batman and The Spirit?

Now that Eisner's dead, DC is remaking The Spirit. They claim that he approved of the idea before he died... but I dread the havoc that will no doubt be wreaked.

We'll first see the new Denny Colt in a team-up with Batman, and then in his own new series, reinterpreted somewhat for modern times.

Fair and Balanced Reporting

If there's one good thing I can say about the Los Angeles Times, it's this: at least it's not the Daily News. This is an example of the Times' balanced reporting on Israel: note the headline on the left, in a story abot terrorism in Iraq which left thirteen people dead. Now note the size of the headline on the right, in which Israel's attacks against terrorists resulted in six dead terrorists. The "six-dead" headline is twice the size of the other headline.

So what does the average reader (who reads only headlines) get from this page? Simply this: "Israel kills six people! Israel kills six people!"

The Misanthrope – Sunday’s Lighter Side

It is the overtakers who keep the undertakers busy.
William Ewart Pitts, British policeman

Coffee and a CD to Go. Starbucks is becoming the new record store because of all its outlets around the country, almost 7,000 outlets in the United States and approximately 3,000 internationally. Now, if you are a world famous musician where are you going to want to have your CD available for sale? Duh! Starbucks. However, as a consumer where do you want to buy your CDs? Not at Starbucks.

Carole King’s new live CD The Living Room Tour looked mildly interesting since I never purchased her gazillion-selling Tapestry album or CD. Starbucks had the CD listed for $17.99, but Target, the department store, had the same CD for $11.99. It’s a no brainer.

As far as the music on the CD is concerned, it’s okay, not great. I have a hard time with silly chatter on a live CD because you have to hear the same thing repeatedly each time you listen to it. But, even worse is disingenuous chatter, such as “Sing with me. Oh, I have goose bums.” Please. Frankly, there is far too much audience participation on the CD. If I wanted to hear choir music, I would buy the Moron Tabernacle, which I could never imagine doing in this lifetime. My recommendation: do not buy.

Post Vacation Blues. It’s so hard to go back to work after living what should be a normal life for two weeks. I wonder if it’s harder for the teachers and professors to go back after 60 plus days off? Thankfully it was a rather slow week, which has allowed me to gear up for the onslaught to come. Maybe there is some prayer chain we can start to help me win the lotto. Once I win, I will gladly help with your prayer chain, hell, I will even hire people to help pray for you.

Traffic. There was not a single day this week that I was not blowing the horn at some &%$#. Thursday, I had gotten off the freeway to buy gas in the San Fernando Valley where it is about 10 cents a gallon cheaper then in my little suburb, when I started to get on the freeway on ramp, going up the two lanes narrowed that merge into one, this $%*^&%^$#*%& sharply cut me off. Unfortunately for my mother, she was on the phone with me when I blurted out my very spirited language. I quickly told her I would call her back and the damn road rage game was on. I got around him and kept him from changing into the lane he wanted. Then he got around me and did a little swerve in my direction. I was going to let it go, but the little jerk in the big four by four looked too satisfied with himself. So, I got on his bumper, pretended to take a picture of his license plate with my cell phone, and acted as if I were text messaging it to somewhere. He was flipping me off and I could see his mouth moving a mile a minute. That pretty much ended the situation until I had to have the last word and went around him and cut him off.

I have been trying very hard to practice what I call Zen driving and not to get into this crap for many obvious reasons such as in Los Angeles guns are as accessible as soda pop, so you never know who’s packing. It’s also just stupid. I would not be the least bit interested in hurting someone, if we pulled over, and even less interested in getting hurt, which would most likely be the case. I am going to once again attempt to allow idiots their space and not get angry or try to teach anyone manners.

Emergency

What kind of emergency would require an emergency ass? That would be one weird-ass emergency.

Cool Hand Luke Redux

"Small town, not much to do in the evenin'. "
Cool Hand Luke, 1967 Paul Newman movie. Luke, explaining why he cut off the heads of parking meters

I read this story and could not help thinking of the movie Cool Hand Luke with Paul Newman.

Police in Casselberry, Florida arrested a drunken driver who knocked over 17 street signs in a neighborhood near State Road 436 early last week. Now, think of Luke (Newman) cutting the heads off of parking meters, as I recall it was because he was drunk and wanted to, as the movie opens.

This driver, 26-year-old Phillip Strange, did it on a dare, apparently. Someone offered him $45 to knock over the signs. He succeeded. Strange knocked over 17 signs in a 10 block radius.

Then with a sock over his head, Strange, who is living up to his last name, walked out while the police were mulling over the one of the knocked down signs, with a sock over his head and said, “I’m the one you want. I’m right here.”

Strange was charged with driving under the influence, criminal mischief, and driving with a suspended license.

The Oslo Syndrome

Rick Richman's Jewish Current Issues has a great post today about Kenneth Levin's new book titled The Oslo Syndrome, which compares Israel and the Palestinian terrorists to hostages and their captor, or a battered wife and her husband.

You'll probably want to read the full post (it's short), but enjoy this excerpt from a similarly-themed piece by Douglas Feith:

[Many] supporters [of the Oslo peace process] -- like so many distraught battered wives -- simply cannot be persuaded that there is no romance, there is no peace process. And despite Arafat’s cynicism, contempt and hostility they cannot be persuaded that their man Arafat -- their ‘peace partner’ – is a gangster and a liar who is just no damn good... This kind of irrationality is bad enough in a relationship between two private people. It can be disastrous if it dominates the national security policy-making of a state.

Guerilla Gorilla:Stinky Human Feet

[It's Friday, and that's means it's time for Guerilla Gorilla again. This week he seems to have left behind deeper political musings for matters of a more mundane nature.]

Guerilla Gorilla went to restaurant yesterday. Fun had by all. But what Guerilla Gorilla does not grok is why fat lady in booth next to him had to take shoes off and put her naked smelly human feet up on seat for all to see.

That not right.

Keep your fat, stinky human feet in their fat, stinky human shoes where at least Guerilla Gorilla will not be able to see them and wonder if that is sanitary in this fine eating establishment.

If Guerilla Gorilla wanted to see and smell stinky human feet, Guerilla Gorilla would have become podiatrist. Or kinky sex gorilla. [grunt]

The Twelfth Resume

Had a conversation the other day in which the person with whom I was talking suggested that a possible reason there are more men than women in business is that more men are interested in business careers.

My response was that traditionally women couldn't get such jobs, which has made an environment not exactly conducive to hiring women. I was willing to imagine that more resumes come in from men than women -- "Those first ten or eleven resumes may be from men," I said -- but that it was worth waiting to see more resumes if you could hire a woman or minority.

"But it's more expensive to interview more people, and to wait longer... it's sometimes just easier to hire men," he says.

"But it's worth it," I say. "It's worth it to wait for the eleventh or twelfth resume if you can get a candidate with the same qualifications, the same skills, but a woman or member of another minority."

He asked why. Here's my answer:

(1) A business environment of just white men is not the sort of company that makes sense anymore. It's not a place where you'll find a diversity of opinion or ideas, and it's not a place people will want to be.

(2) It helps create a society in which we don't have gender- or race-based inequality, until such extra effort is unnecessary. Take the time now, and you create an environment where people expect to see women and minorities, where it's not harder to hire them, where we're all on a more even footing. Waiting for the twelfth resume creates a world where you won't have to wait or search or struggle to find such candidates. And that's the kind of world we should be working toward. Just like affirmative action programs should create a world in which they are no longer needed.

I don't even care why companies do it -- in this case, transforming expectations and building a better world is too good a thing to let slide. Even if companies just pay lip service to the idea of diversity today, it creates a situation that we can't ever leave. Because once a woman runs a Fortune 500 company (or a black woman serves as Secretary of State, for instance) no one can say (without sounding like an idiot) that it can't be done. It can, and we can make it happen.

Wait for the twelfth resume.

Turd Blossom Has History of Dirty Tricks

I highly recommend reading War and Piece’s items on Karl Rove. It seems that controversy has followed the ethically challenged adviser to the president for years; Father Bush even fired him once for leaking information to Robert Novak.

Happy Birthday to the Love of My Life

Because I know she reads the blog... and because I know she digs public professions of love... and because she is, truly, the best thing that ever happened to me...

Happy birthday, motek; I love you.

Bush and Rove Respond to Public

Revenge is a kind of wild justice; which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.
Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626), English philosopher



Note: Neither photo was altered.

UPDATE

And here's proof; a clip of the video the still is from...

And here's a link to the whole clip, with audio!

Cry Me a River

As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59), social philosopher

Bernard J. Ebbers, the founder and former chief executive of WorldCom, was sentenced to 25 years in prison today for his role in the record $11 billion accounting fraud that brought down the telecommunications company in 2002.

Ebbers' greed is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
I have no sympathy for this man or his wife. They never thought twice about employees or investors. This case is just the most egregious corporate thievery, but day in and day out executive management teams are frequently generously rewarded because they happened to be in the right place at the right time and know the right people.

I am not saying that many don’t work hard, but their efforts hardly warrant the types of bonuses, stock options, and salaries they receive. Company mergers are another bonanza for management. If you happen to be one of the lucky few all your bonuses, stock options and salary are multiplied by three years. If you are lucky enough at the time to be say, 52, you immediately qualify for all your retirement benefits, which could include lifetime health care, a very big deal today.

WellPoint earlier this week agreed to pay $198 million to settle two class-action lawsuits by more than 700,000 physicians who charged the company with systematically underpaying them. Big deal, look at what Wellpoint's CEO received in the merger. Wellpoint’s CEO Leonard Schaeffer, according to SEC filings, received $27.5 million in severance pay and a special executive pension with an added boost of $10.5 million. He could cash in stock shares and options estimated at about $250 million, with early vesting as soon as the merger closed.

His special executive retirement plan (SERP), valued at about $45 million, would be paid all at once soon after he left WellPoint. Schaeffer would also get country club memberships for 48 months and financial counseling, office space and secretarial support for five years. This does not even include the rest of the management team.

Something needs to be done about this legal stealing from the public. No, I have no sympathy for Ebbers, John Rigas, Dennis Kozlowski, Jeffrey K. Skilling, Ken Lay, and I was sorry to see Richard Scrushy from Health South go free.

Unwired

First things first: my life revolves around my wife and kids; they are everything to me. That said, pretty much everything else in my life depends on a computer.

Nine-to-five I work at my computer pumping out graphic design. Most of the freelance work I do to pay for those little extras is finished on computer, if not wholly created on one. My photos, videos, attempts at biographical narrative… these are all on computer.

I watch movie trailers on the computer. I correspond with friends. I find new music. I blog.

My life depends on computers; in a significant way, the computer defines how I spend my days. Not who I am, but what my life consists of. (Again, with the family disclaimer mentioned above.)

How does this happen? How can I so completely rely on hardware that costs a couple of thousand dollars and access to the Internet at an additional forty bucks a month? And how different must my life be from someone without a computer, without the wherewithal to have constant, unfettered, fast access to the entire world at their fingertips?

I am ignoring, of course, the actual needs of food and shelter – these outweigh any technology’s importance. But what kind of divide is in place between those who are willingly tied to computers and those who can not afford the same luxury? What does it mean that there are still the “have”s and “have-not”s in our society? What will this mean as technology takes an even firmer hold on our lives in days to come? What will happen to those who are not wired/unwired?

On The Mark -- Ain't Nobody Gonna Steal My Next Wife

Did you happen to catch the World Wife-Carrying Championships last weekend? No. Ah, you missed a great sporting event. I wish I would have known about this event before some clown came in and (temporarily) stole my ex-wife.

This from “The Australian”:

THE "Estonian carry" has once again triumphed in the world wife-carrying championships, held last weekend in the remote Finnish village of Sonkajarvi. Margo Uusorg and friend Egle Soll (the carried do not necessarily have to be the carrier's wife) were first over the 253.5m-long obstacle course beating 40 couples from 10 countries. They completed the course in 59 seconds using the "trademark" Estonian Carry, with Egle "hanging upside down with her legs clenched around his neck", to win the eighth straight title for the country.

"Like so many of the world's more bizarre events, wife carrying has its origins buried deep in the bosom of an age old local tradition -- in this case, the 19th century practice of wife stealing," said Send2Press.com noting former US basketball player Dennis Rodman was among the competitors, although not a contender. Uusorg's prizes included "his partner's weight in beer and a high-tech mobile phone", reported Reuters. "It was his fourth victory, and the third in a row for his family. Brother Madis won in 2004."

Futility Room

This could be the door to my office... but it's not. Anyone out there share the sentiment?

Notes on Baseball's All-Star Game

"The only bad thing about winning the pennant is that you have to manage the All-Star Game the next year. I'd rather go fishing for three days."
Whitey Herzog, former baseball manager

On The Mark and I were talking late this afternoon wondering why the National League was even going to show up for the baseball All-Star Game. American League players are just so much better.

On our elevator news channel, I saw that USA Today mentioned that 27 million hot dogs were going to be consumed this baseball season. I guess that is what you call job stability for current and future heart surgeons.

The Most Valuable Player of the game was Miguel Tejada from the Baltimore Orioles. For winning MVP he was awarded a brand new, fully loaded Chevrolet Corvette, which is probably on the high side worth $60k. He makes $10.7 million a year. I wonder if he really cares about the car? Chevrolet would be better off donating the car or the money the car would cost to a charity.

The game was a nice diversion from thinking about how corrupt and self-serving our politicians are on both sides of the aisle.

On The Mark -- Order in the House

A trial concluded recently in Southern California. A 13-year-old boy was found guilty of murder. He clubbed a fellow baseball player in the knees and then over the head with a baseball bat. The sentence hasn't been handed down yet, but he'll probably get the maximum of 12 years.

The convicted boy was wrong, of course. But, based on testimony, the circumstances leading up to the incident demonstrate some of the points I've been making over the past several months regarding discipline and following the rules. Apparently, again based on testimony for the defense, and reported by local news media, the victim was alleged to be a bully. He was known to throw his baseball helmet. He was known to throw his bat at infielders. He was known to double flip off umpires if he didn't like a call. If you read the reports, it appears that he got away with much of these antics without repercussions. Apparently, the victim was picking on the 13-year-old and this boy couldn't take any more.

When I played baseball, if I threw my helmet, I was suspended for one game. If the manager didn't do it, then my dad did it for him. If I had flipped off an umpire? Well, let's just say I would have been reading a lot of books that summer.

As I've stated many times before, and I know it makes me sound like a republican, but rules are too lax now and people are taking advantage of it -- young and old. Racing through red lights, even with baby strollers in the crosswalk, firecrackers going off from 3 July to 5 July in fire danger zones, and so on.

We need to get some order in the house.