Crashing

I'm not sure why, but my Firefox browser has been super-crashy the past few weeks. Very irritating. Crashtacular. I've actually taken to using Google Chrome now and again, just because it's usually less likely to crash. Usually. Something changed the past few weeks, that's for sure, because I went from zero crashes to several a day, maybe more.

Lightning

Wow, another Midwestern monsoon blasting through the city. We've been having some wicked storms lately. This one hammered through here around 1:30 a.m. CST, lotsa lightning. We just had a big storm the other day, too. They keep coming through. The lake's levels are growing -- it's definitely higher than I've seen in years.

Apparently all these storms in the Midwest are causing problems in the Gulf with dead zones -- all the runoff going down the rivers is leading to tons of nitrogen and phosphate agricultural runoff (something like 70% from agriculture) that is causing algae blooms in the Gulf, which then sucks out all the oxygen in a region, creating a vast dead zone (last I read, the biggest dead zone down there is larger than Rhode Island and Connecticut, something like 3,300 square miles, I think). Yikes.

Great. Oceans getting more acidic, and dead zones spreading. Just one more thing to worry about on our road to extinction as a species.

And on that note, back to sleep for me! Hah!

SYTYCD

They had Lady Blah Blah on SYTYCD as a judge, although, to her credit, she seemed to be enjoying herself, for what that was worth.

The dancing was very strong last night. Melanie, my favorite, was running away with it, as ever, although Nigel was also keen to talk up Sasha, who is a good dancer, too, although I don't think she's in Melanie's league, although when they paired them in the final routine, it might've been to undercut Melanie a bit, because the lithe and nimble Sasha makes Melanie "the Rock" look a bit stocky and ungainly by comparison (not in her moves -- she's a magnificent dancer and performer -- but just in her appearance, relative to the elfin Sasha)...



It gets tricky at this point, because so many of them are so good, and are dancing their hearts out.

Tadd has managed to really shine among the guys, curiously enough. He's got a natural fluidity and has keen performance chops that make him a natural for the stage. I don't think he's got enough support behind him to dethrone Melanie, who seems so well-placed to run away with this season, but he's very likely to be a finalist. So much at this point depends on who can motivated audiences to call in.

If Melanie wins, it will be an unsurprising thing, because she has shone from so early on. She killed last night in her first routine, which was just perfection, got a standing ovation from the audience, and made Lady Gaga go ga-ga...



I imagine Caitlynn, Jess, Mitchell, and Jordan will be vulnerable this week. I just see them as being the ones less likely to get enough support to carry them through. Jordan is very good, but she's overshadowed by Melanie. Caitlynn is very good, but is overshadowed by the other women. Mitchell and Jess are good, but the former lacks the performance chops to distinguish himself onstage, and Jess just feels overshadowed by Tadd and Marko.

I loved Tadd's routine, which was just smooth, and certainly took cues from Jacko without being derivative of him...

Da Bills, Da Boys

I love online bill-pay. It rocks! Chicago's got a hit-or-miss postal service, and has for years, so bill-paying is sometimes a dicey proposition (usually at the worst possible moments). But online bill-pay, barring, say, some nasty solar flares or other EMP-related shenanigans, lets one neatly bypass that. Love it.

I got the boys haircuts the other day, and the stylist gave B2 a fauxhawk with some gel, and he loved it. It cuted me out. He said "I LIKE my fauxhawk, Daddy!" He's already a little fashionisto, it cracks me up.

He's also amazingly sharp. He doesn't miss a beat, and he draws interesting comparisons between things. A few times, he's made some kind of kid-point about something, and his logic is impeccable, and I say "You know what, you're right." I'm impressed at his ability to connect the dots on things in novel ways. He loves books, too -- loves the interplay of stories and words. His vocabulary is already far ahead of his peers.

I'm going to work on teaching the boys some languages. I think that'll be a useful summertime project for them, get their feet wet on that. B1 is already learning a language at his school, but I think the boys need to be multilingual, like people used to be in the old days. It's a real asset, and in this globalized world, it may be a vital thing to know. So many Americans can barely speak English, let alone know any foreign languages. Anyway, that's something I'm going to work on with them.

I've got the boys tonight; Exene was supposed to, but had something workish to deal with, and asked if I could have them, offered a day trade. I said "Sure." I'm always happy for more time with my guys, and made a point for Exene to note that I banked a day swap with her, so she doesn't forget. The boys'll be stoked.

SYTYCD tonight! Woo hoo! This season has been comparatively tame on the routines; they haven't gotten too weird (yet). Hopefully they'll do some wild ones, because those are always fun to watch.

Beautiful

Picture-perfect summer day today. Just gorgeous. Right amount of warmth and sunlight, and breezy-cool off the lake. Much better than the crazy-hot stuff we had the past several days. Downright pleasant.

I've been working on assorted writing projects. Summer is never ideal writing time, in my book (pun intended), relative to fall and winter, but it has to be done, and so I'm doing it. It doesn't hurt that the piece I'm working on right now is set in the summertime, so I can just feed the heat into the pages. Heh.

Prickly

My boys were wanting cactus plants, so we went to the plant store and I had them pick out a cactus plant they liked. B2 originally picked one cactus plant, then settled on another, and B1 suggested I take that plant, too, so it wouldn't feel bad at not getting picked. Anyway, it's cute how much the boys are loving their plants. I put'em on the sill, and named my plant Stickler. B2 named his "Giant Red Spikeler," and B1 named his "Spikeless."

Left to right: B1's, mine, and B2's cacti.

It's cute how much B2 loves his cactus. Also, the lemon seeds I planted are sprouting, so we have some seedlings growing, too, along with the other plants. I like for the boys to have their own lil' plants like that. B2 keeps checking out his cactus, told me its nickname is "Jabber."

Amazing that my boys have grown so much over the past couple of years -- B1 has grown 5 inches in the past 2 years; B2 has grown 4 inches in the same time. They're growing so quickly.

Endgame

So, we're about a week from economic helter-skelter, yes? Kinda curious how this all pans out. We have the neofascist Tea Bagger faction hell-bent on killing Social Security and Medicare by any means possible, and clearly willing to destroy the economy to do so (and adopting the oddly contradictory stance that raising the debt ceiling will destroy the country, but failing to do so will cause no problems whatsoever -- so, paying our bills is cataclysmic, not paying our bills is fine?? Right, guys.) We have the establishment Republicans squirming, trying to deliver results their Wall Street masters wish for them, and we have the ever-keen-to-appease Democrats bowing and scraping to this rabidly partisan faction, trying to offer a number of sweetheart budget deals that would eviscerate the Democratic base and screw poor folks in general, and still the Baggers turn their noses up at it. It's a curious situation. I know the GOP's strategy of keeping Obama from getting anything accomplished they pursued when he won is central to this approach, but it's still curious to see how far they'll take it.

Because I think the political fallout of their recalcitrance in the face of Obama's supine negotiating posture (to date) is going to make them look like the neofascist dogs that they are, and will banish them to the electoral weeds for a generation. I mean, the worst thing they could do to Obama would be to approve the invidious budgets he offered them, because they would scuttle everything Democrats still pretend to stand for -- it would tar the Democratic label worse than ever. That would be a political deathblow. But the reactionaries are so partisan that they are willing to frag the nation's economy in an effort to get at Obama.

I mean, they lose their shit over Obamacare, which is the most pro-corporate, pro-private insurance "reform" ever foisted on the American people. It's no illusion that it's Romneycare under a new label, which says everything about how pro-industry it is. Obama isn't a socialist, isn't a Marxist; he's a right-center Democrat, which is effectively Republican Lite -- Obama is governing like a Reagan Democrat, circa the 1980s. He's nowhere close to LBJ, JFK, Truman, or FDR. He's far closer to Reagan or Eisenhower in his governing approach, sorry to say. But the Tea Baggers have goose-stepped so far off to the right that they can't even see it -- because Obama is to their left (and, at this point, only the Nazis stand to the right of these Tea Baggers), they cry "socialist" without a shred of evidence behind it. Ludicrous. Insane.

The financial markets of the world have to be watching this and thinking "America is losing its fucking mind." And we are. The country is having a nervous breakdown. Needlessly, I might add -- the Baggers are a loud, media-manufactured minority with an incoherent agenda centered only on seizure of power, nothing more. They want "less government" but favor "more military" (FYI, dumbshits: the military IS government), they want their piece of the action but don't want to pay for it through taxes, they favor lower taxes for the rich (and, sadly, the vast majority of the Baggers aren't even among the top 1% they worship), blah blah blah. Pathetic.

They are a faction, and, as Madison pointed out, long ago, faction is deadly to a republic. What a faction wants is contrary to what the rest of the country wants, and that is exactly the pickle they find themselves in. Their ideas run counter to what the majority of Americans actually want, so the Bagger solution? Destroy the country, rather than change their tune.

Anyway, should be interesting. Will the Democrats come up with an even more craven, conciliatory slab of gristle to offer the American people in their effort to please a rabid minority that only wants Democrats to be destroyed? Will the various establishment Quislings find some way of appeasing their corporate masters with some "compromise" the Gliberal Media will solemnly pimp to Americans as a statesmanlike way out of the headlong charge into the abyss? Will Obama show some leadership and either nix the debt ceiling unilaterally and/or come up with a ballsy budget that raises revenue and sticks a thumb squarely into the eyes of the reactionaries? Or will we actually plunge into the abyss? Stay tuned.

Cap'n America

I saw "Captain America: The First Avenger" last night, and enjoyed it. It was just a fun summer "popcorn movie," that was entertaining without taking itself too seriously, but which had the right amount of explosions and grand CGI graphics to make it a fun bit of fluff. After so many overblown blockbuster type movies, this one did what it had to do well. Hugo Weaving was great as the Red Skull -- he oozed venom, and it's another notch in his villain case, to be sure (he and Mark Strong really excel at playing villains). I wished that the Skull and Cap had crossed paths a little more -- for a 2-hour movie, it went by pretty quickly, was well-paced, although there wasn't a real sense of the Skull and Cap really properly crossing swords enough for my tastes -- they jump to a montage sequence too early, which advanced the story maybe too much. But the quality of the actors sprinkled throughout it (like Stanley Tucci playing a dissident German scientist in American employ -- didn't see that coming), and the general retro sheen to it made it entertaining. I already know my boys will love it -- B1 will love the Red Skull's apocalyptic Flying Wing. I haven't seen all of the Marvel lead-in movies for next year's "Avengers," but the audacity and scope of the effort is impressive -- I just really hope the story and writing is there to make up for it. We'll see. But as the latest link in the chain (figuratively and literally), this one was a good effort. I was amused by the appearance of the Cosmic Cube -- that's a bit of Marvel lore that only folks who read Marvel Comics might have a clue about (in fact, I've seen some reviewers wonder what that cube was). That's a nice tie-in with the Red Skull, who was in possession of a Cosmic Cube at one point. It's the kind of a comic geek detail that they didn't really have to even put in there, but I was tickled that they did. I purposely didn't see the 3-D version of it, not wanting to pay extra money for it, and being annoyed at 3-D mania, anyway.

It's kind of weird to have Cap coming to this day and age -- his "Aw, shucks" and "Gee whiz" kind of Americana persona up against late-era, decline-and-fall Amerika? Kinda ironic, and beyond the scope of what these movies can even be about, but Cap would look at today's America and think "Holy Moly, the fascists WON World War II??" The Red Skull has the last laugh, I guess!

Its Your Loosing Lightening

Alright, people, seriously, it's time for the Grammar Police. I just see these way, way too often:

Its vs. it's

Its = possessive

Example: Our political culture has lost its mind.

It's = contraction, it is

Example: It's crazy how often people fuck this up.

Your vs. You're

Your = possessive

Example: Don't lose your marbles.

You're = contraction, you are


Example: You're making me angry by getting this wrong so often, people.

Loose v. Lose

Loose = not tight

Example: You've got a screw loose if you use "loose" when you meant "lose."

Lose = to not have something


Example: You're going to lose your ability to speak and think clearly if you keep fucking these words up.

Lightening v. Lightning

Lightening = to make lighter, whether by weight or by color

Example: Lightening the load makes the car drive better.

Lightning = giant arcs of electricity shooting through the sky during storms

Example: Lightning will fuck you up if you're not careful.

Proper use: It's amazing how often you're going to find people lightening their cranial loads with the greased lightning of bad, loose grammar, which wends its way through people's speech, causing them to lose the ability to express themselves with clarity.

Improper use: Its amazing how often your going to find people lightening their cranial loads with the greased lightening of bad, loose grammar, which wends its way through people's speech, causing them to loose the ability to express themselves with clarity.

Makes my teeth ache, seeing that -- and, if you actually parse that second sentence, you'll find that the meaning is different from the proper sentence!

Lucky 13

I am watching "Assault on Precinct 13" (the John Carpenter original), and haven't watched that since I was a kid. Have to say that Laurie Zimmer was hot in it in a B-movie Lauren Bacall kinda way...

Laurie Zimmer. Mrrowl.

Still shots don't even fully do her justice. Her 70s "smolderingness" is better in motion. Her apricot turtleneck amuses me, too -- so damned 70s!

Interestingly, she bailed from acting after only four movies. One of her friends actually made a documentary about her, a long time later. I think Jenny Wright (another ill-starred actress who fell out of the industry for whatever reason, at the height of her game) kind of filled in the niche Zimmer left behind -- that pouty-mouthed, sultry-eyed dirty blonde...

Jenny Wright. Mrrowl.

Soundgardening

Soundgarden right as they began.

I saw Soundgarden with some buds last night, at UIC Pavilion. Great show! The band looked great and sounded awesome. I've never seen a band at UIC, which always seemed conceptually like a bigger venue than it actually is, although that made it perfect, that right blend of size and intimacy that can make a show great. I'm all sore and hoarse from the festivities. This was the first show I've been to in years that actually had moshing, so I'm glad I wore my venerable steel toe boots; it was nice to see some actual crowd enthusiasm, since so many shows have kids just standing there like statues. Not last night; it was lots of thrown elbows and shoulders, putting the boot in, drunken hooligans and ditchweed, tough cookies and bellowing bruisers.


Even though it was a reprise set they played, covering their older songs, it was great, just the same, and they rocked every one of their tunes. Cornell said they're working on a new album, which should be out next year, and that they would certainly come back to Chicago, etc. I broke my usual rule of not spending more than $20 to see ANYBODY in order to catch Soundgarden, but had no regrets about it. It was definitely worth it. Somebody filmed one of the quieter moments of the show, "4th of July," below...



I'm hoping somebody filmed when the crowd went apeshit, during some of the other songs. Cornell really worked the crowd nicely, seemed to genuinely enjoy himself.

Trinity

Happy 66th Birthday to the Atom Bomb, everybody! Woo hoo!

Of course, this video below is merely an atomic cannon shell fired in the 1950s, but it's a good clip, anyway, communicates the power and devastation nukes represent...



Especially since there have been some moves to bring tactical nukes back into the vogue as possible usable weapons, scarily enough.

Anyway, there you go. We've got something like 10-12,000 nuclear warheads in the US, and nuclear weapons are slowly proliferating to other nations. Even though in the face of changing political realities in this century, that hulking shadow from last century is still very much with us.

SYTYCD

Whew. They finally got rid of Ryan. There were some strong dances on the show, and the chaff was definitely getting weeded out, and audience voting seemed to reflect it, and the judges couldn't fan Ryan on without losing some of the stronger other dancers, so she fell this time.

This was the last week of the established couples dancing; henceforth, it'll be individual scoring, the dancers paired with "all stars" from past seasons (debatable point -- I saw the names of some of the "all stars" they chose, and I have problems with a number of them, who are shameless attention hounds and stage hogs -- I almost pity the contestants who have them for their partners; you'll see).

These are my favorites of this week...

Melanie and Marko 1

Melanie and Marko 2

Melanie and Marko had two strong routines, naturally. The first one, a tango, went very well, of course. Their chemistry nailed it, but their moves were solid as ever. The second one was the drippy kind of contemporary dance routine that judges and audiences love. I mean, they danced it beautifully, and the routine was solid, but the emo contemporary stuff always chafes at me. I always feel like lyrical contemporary (or whatever they call it) is an easy category for them to dance, because you just crank up the emo and if you're halfway good at dancing, you can nail it. Since Melanie and Marko are both very good at it, it's a sure-fire win for them as a category.

Jordan and Tadd 1

This was one of my favorites of the night. Trippy and rhythmic. Jordan is not one of my favorites this season, but she's very good, just the same, and they nailed it with this piece. This was the darkest piece of the evening, and was just coolly conceived and executed. Nicely done.

Caitlynn and Mitchell 2

They pulled out the stops on this raunchy number, with Caitlynn busting about every move she had. And it worked very well with Janis Joplin's singing. This was easily the most brazen number of the season, but they carried it off well, and I think audiences dug it. Caitlynn's not quite as good as Jordan or Melanie, but she brings an athletic prowess to her style of dance and has that competitor's instinct that makes her a dark horse favorite. I don't think she can actually dethrone Melanie or Jordan, but she may get close.

Clarice and Jess 2

Clarice is another dark horse. She's better than Caitlynn, but I think is not quite up to Melanie and Jordan level. She is beautiful, and is very good, however, and definitely connects with the audience. The judges didn't quite like the above routine so much, but I dug it, thought it was dynamic, fun, and energetic, and Clarice owned it, and Jess partnered very well with her (Jess is the best showman of the guys, easily. Strong dancer with great performance chops). The above number was hot on its own merits, versus the overt bump and grindery of the Caitlynn and Mitchell number.

Sasha and Alexander 1

Sasha and Alexander danced well, but I feel like they are doomed. Neither of them is enough of a performer to secure a proper foothold with the audience, in my view. That's unfortunate, but it's abundantly clear -- Jess can mop the floor with Alexander, and Sasha's willowy razor-blade style comes up short against the petite riffola of all of the other gals, rather than standing out, somehow. In the above piece, Sasha totally makes Alexander her bitch, which probably cost both of them votes, in terms of audience expectations and what-not. Sasha looks like she would be comfortable as a dancer in Thunderdome or something.

Snicker

This made me laugh...

PMAAS

I have to hand it to the creators of the Pippa Middleton Ass Appreciation Society. What a genteel institution to honor such a noble rump!

P-Middy. *cackle* I love that this blueblood will be forever known for her stellar ass, and how she actually managed to upstage her sister's royal wedding with it. Damned funny.

Jamming

I'm amused at the fall of "The News of the World." Rare to see a Murdoch media property suffer the consequences of its morally bankrupt administration. I doubt anything could sink Faux News -- although who knows?

Speaking of ignoring reality (tip of the hat to global warming, which scientists agree is happening, which the weather is bearing out, but which remains somehow controversial in the US, captive as we are to the petroleum industry), the storm that blasted through here yesterday was pretty intense -- it knocked out power for ~600,000 people! By last night, 490,000 people were still without power. That's one serious storm! I was amazed at how dark the skies got, how quickly, and how fierce it was. Of course, I had left my apartment windows open, so things got soaked that were near the window. D'oh!

We actually had a proper power outage in our building (and/or neighborhood, I couldn't tell), like for about 45 minutes. I have flashlights for the boys and me, so we went into the hall and talked with neighbors, and then the boys and I went upstairs to the deck, where a number of the neighbors had gone to wait out the outage. That was fun, as it was nice and breezy up there, and everybody was in bemused good spirits about the outage (since those happen rarely in my 'hood -- this is the first one I recall in at least five years; other 'hoods in the city are less fortunate, have power outages more frequently). Anyway, the boys and I sat on some lounges and just enjoyed ourselves. I'd already called ComEd to inform them of the outage (as had others, clearly), so we just had to wait it out, and 45 minutes later, the power was back on. It's all good.

I had planted some seeds with the boys a month or more ago, and was pleased to see a tiny lemon tree seedling sprouting in B1's planter. B2 was, of course, flummoxed that nothing had grown in his planter. I told him it happens sometimes, you can't predict whether a seed will grow or not, but can only plant it and water it and hope it grows. But it was nice to see the seedling -- now my Clementine sapling will have a buddy. I can't even remember how long I've had that Clementine. I'll have to dig back through this blog and see. It's been a year or two, at least. It's now about 5 inches tall, I think.

Saw a variety of buskers on the Mag Mile -- some hippie-looking guy with a purple guitar, playing Hendrix-on-Quaaludes groovy jazz kind of stuff (think the opening of "Little Wing," but not as good, of course. He just kinda meandered musically. Then another block or two down from him were a couple of chicks, one with a violin, one with a cello. The cellist looked like a refugee from a Tim Burton movie -- bright red hair and black-and-white striped stockings. Couldn't hear their music, as I was on a bus, but that was an atypical pair of buskers (there is an Asian father-daughter violin duo I used to see, very Suzuki Method kind of thing, the girl sawing away with mechanistic virtuosity while father/grandfather accompanies her). Also, there's this cowboy-hatted guitar guy who frequents one of the tunnels and plays an augmented guitar thing (like he's got one of those miniature karaoke machine things that "accompanies" him). He looks like a cross between Stanley Kubrick and my old school principal Vaclav, which is kind of disarming when I pass that guy. I've been meaning to photograph him at a distance, as his presence in the tunnel in silhouette, leaning against the tunnel wall, looks kinda cool.

Amazed how deep into July we are. How quickly this summer is going by.

Speaking of culture jamming, this piece is interesting. The section on aesthetic brutalism (and the sound clips) particularly amused me.

Unstuck

Today doesn't feel like a Sunday to me for some reason.

I'm catching Soundgarden next weekend. That should be fun.

Been feeling under the weather the past week, which has preoccupied me. Bleah.

Making the Casey

I'm not going to say another word about Casey Anthony after this post, but just looking at her pictures, you can see she has the psychopath eyes thing going, that flat aspect, the eyes of a person devoid of compassion, empathy, or shame. Psychopaths always have that "tell" in their eyes, that inner emptiness at the heart of whatever superficial glibness and serpentine charm they may possess. The eyes say it all.

Not to say they can't cry crocodile tears when it suits them. In fact, psychopaths are known for that, to be able to conjure up the tears when it suits them, but the emptiness of their gaze is something they have a tougher time concealing. In that respect, the eyes really are the mirror into the soul. Odds are that the rather short neuronal path from brain to eye (borne out of evolutionary necessity, no doubt -- you need that visual information FAST), it's probably transmitting faster than the psychopath can react, or they likely have to consciously mask it to try to conceal that emotional emptiness, and maybe it's hard for them to do. Just watch out for folks with those empty, flat eyes...

Ryan's Hope

I figured out why the judges gush over Ryan -- it's because she's a student/protege of one of their choreographers, Mia. Probably accounts for why Ryan got a bit dance part on "House," as well. Makes me feel like there's a bit of a conflict of interest there with her, relative to the other judges. Of course, "America" votes on the people, but if the judges are there to gush about Ryan's performances, they can lead some of the voters. And what's more, if Ryan ends up in the final three (as she did last night), they can choose somebody else, giving her yet another chance. I was intrigued to see Ryan in the bottom three, given how effusive the praise was from the judges. The thing is, she's not as good as the other women dancers. She's a good dancer, but she's up against several great dancers, and I think audiences can tell, even as the judges give Ryan standing ovations and what-not. We'll see how long they can float her.

I was pleased that Melanie and Marko skated through again. Clearly Melanie remains the best of the women, although some of the others are definitely doing their best to try to keep up. This season has more leg lifts than I recall in past seasons, like all of the other women are keen to not cede that ground to Melanie, who can get her leg straight up without so much as a tip of her torso. The other women dancers are doing them, too, like "See? See? I can do that, too!" Melanie's still got great performance chops. I will be very surprised if she doesn't win this season.

Melanie and Marko

Of course, the costuming and Lady Gaga song made me wonder -- "America is a whore?" Bahah! But they performed the dance well (and note Melanie holding that arabesque before they start, still as a statue).

Jazzy Women's Closing Routine

I hate that they call'em "girls." Also, note how they are sure to catch a lot of Ryan shots during the rehearsals. "Quick! More Ryan shots!" And they also put Ryan on the wing of the actual performance, and in the front row, just so you can be sure she gets a lot of camera time. Sucks to be a non-Ryan dancer this season.

SYTYCD

"SYTYCD" was good last night, although I didn't think the numbers were as good as the week before, at least Sonya wasn't on there. She's my least-favorite of their choreographers (and it was interesting to contrast yet another zombie dance routine -- Sonya's fell flat [although they blamed the dancers and music for it, as ever] but this week's zombie routine was much stronger, better-conceived [can't remember the choreographer for that one]).

As ever, the judges seem to love Ryan -- the fraggle-haired blonde. They really love her, and I'm confused as how this protege of choreographer Mia managed a bit part on "House." WTF? Is this playing into their fanning her through and gushing over her performances? I dunno. She's not nearly as strong a dancer as poor Miranda was. And she's definitely not in the league of Melanie, or even Jordan or Caitlynn (surprisingly, Caitlynn has been bringing it, although she's not in Melanie's league). Anyway, Ryan has the favor of the judges, for some reason I can't determine. It is bugging me.

Casey Closed

The one thing Casey Anthony will have to reckon with, beyond, say, book deals and what-not, is that the Mark of Cain is a real thing, in the sense of people's awareness of who she is and what she (allegedly) did. She'll have to go somewhere far away, where there are no televisions, will probably always have to look over her shoulder, will be haunted for the rest of her days. And since she's going to get some prison time for lying to the police (and why DO people lie to police officers? That seems like such a foolhardy gambit), Casey Anthony is going to have to watch out, because somebody in that prison is likely to want to have a go at her. Anyway, she got away with it, somehow, but she won't get away with it, too. It's like OJ and his declaration that he'd never rest until he found his wife's murderer(s) -- I imagine he thinks that every time he looks in the mirror. Ha.

Casey

Not much to say about the Casey Anthony case, except repeating what my lawyer stepdad would always say: "Juries are stupid, and are prone to manipulation." So, there you have it.

Looks like it's going to be a frickin' hot day, although maybe some storms are pending. We'll see.

I had the boys last night, as Exene had some bike woes she needed to take care of, and asked if I could take the boys. I was happy to, and they were happy to have me mind them last night, anyway. B2 conked right after I'd made them dinner. Little man was tuckered.

Fairness Doctrine

Good piece in the NYT, the evolutionary roots of fairness in human beings. Nothing that surprises me, particularly, but it does show how maladaptive reactionary ideology is with regard to a functional society.

'Our rise to global dominance began, paradoxically enough, when we set rigid dominance hierarchies aside. “In a typical primate group, the toughest individuals can have their way and dominate everybody else in the group,” said Dr. Wilson. “Chimps are very smart, but their intelligence is predicated on distrust.”

Our ancestors had to learn to trust their neighbors, and the seeds of our mutuality can be seen in our simplest gestures, like the willingness to point out a hidden object to another, as even toddlers will do. Early humans also needed ways to control would-be bullies, and our exceptional pitching skills — which researchers speculate originally arose to help us ward off predators — probably helped. “We can throw much better than any other primate,” Dr. Wilson said, “and once we could throw things at a distance, all of a sudden the alpha male is vulnerable to being dispatched with stones. Stoning might have been one of our first adaptations.”'

Trust, reciprocity, mutuality -- higher functions versus lowbrow primate functioning like bullying and dominance hierarchies. Big shock. Kind of puts the whole reactionary ethos in a new light -- they're not only retrograde in their ideology, but are actually retrograde on evolutionary lines, too. Old primate thinking, truly hidebound in their outlook (since "trust" is not a cardinal conservative virtue -- and studies bear that out, too, how fearful, paranoid, and distrustful reactionaries are).

Sparkler

Happy Independence Day! Last night was kind of surreal, because I could see all the fireworks displays at the horizon, in the suburbs, which makes for a trippy kind of vista, fireworks in the distance, literally at the horizon, rising over the city. Chicago itself didn't have any fireworks this year, owing to budget woes, although I think they did the usual launching of them at Navy Pier, the weekly summer firework fest that happens there (which kind of drives me bananas -- fireworks every weekend? It's like celebrating Christmas year 'round. It takes the fun out of it! You need some downtime, or else it becomes a slog.)

Have to go on a grocery run today, but the boys should enjoy that.

I watched "The Way Back," a Peter Weir movie, and although it was highly rated, and Weir had done a few good shots with memorable images, I found the movie to be not what I had hoped it would be. The movie was supposedly inspired by real-life happenings, but there wasn't enough going on in the movie plotwise, nor characterwise, to make the trip worthwhile. Guys escape a gulag in Siberia and cross Siberia by foot to freedom. Seemingly inspiring tale of survival, but it ended up just a picturesque slog, with people dying along the way. Grand vistas, tough terrain, but mostly just people walking, and not even talking, and the ending strove for some poignancy, but was robbed of depth and meaning by the lack of characterization. I mean, the characters were all wretches of various stripes, victims of Soviet repression, one way or another, but the story just dipped its toes in the lives of these characters, so you never got a real sense of who they were, what they were doing, how they got put in the gulag, and so on. They needed to rewrite the story and delve deeper into the characters. And even the trip itself got glossed over in parts -- I mean, the guys cross Siberia, Mongolia, lurch into Tibet, confront the Himalayas, and then the camera skips over that and they're in India, at the end. They skip the Himalayas?? WTF? We see them slogging over desert and dying of hunger and thirst in the desert but we don't see them managing to walk their way over the fucking Himalayas? Cinematic robbery! The problem the director faced was that so much time had been wasted on the front end of the story, that by the time they reached the Himalayas, it was like "Oh, and they made it over. The end." Bahah! Have you ever read "Going After Cacciato" by Tim O'Brien? That is a great, picaresque war novel about guys literally walking away from the Vietnam War. It's a very cool novel, and that epic sense of travel is wonderfully conveyed. I had hoped that "The Way Back" was going to be like "...Cacciato," but it wasn't. It was just drawn-out and boring and dismal, without enough characterization for the trip to matter to the viewer, and without enough plot for the trip to be particularly exciting. We hear about things (like dangerous peasants who get bounties for capturing prisoners) but we never see them, there are no encounters with them. Anyway, the movie got great reviews, but I wasn't impressed by it, and I wanted to be. The raw material of the movie could've made for something truly grand and epic (I mean, even the concept of it inspired: "Crossing Siberia in Stalinist Russia. On foot!"!) but it so wasn't. Fail.

Oh, and Mark Strong was in this one, too, amusingly enough, although his role is small and largely inconsequential. But I was like "Holy shit, there's Mark Strong again!"

Morning

I had the boys at the tennis courts this morning, teaching them the basics of tennis. B1's height gives him a good opportunity for strong play, and while he's left-handed, he's somewhat ambidextrous with tennis, favoring his right hand for swings. I got B2 a little racquet of his own, and while he's got a natural sense of hand-eye coordination and speed, was more inclined to be ball boy, which was cute. The boys enjoyed themselves; I'll take them out weekend mornings for that, weather permitting. I haven't played tennis since the 90s, but since the boys are old enough and big enough to start that, I'm going to do that with them.

Speaking of that, I'm watching Djokovic v. Nadal on Wimbledon at the moment.

This article amused the hell out of me: Magneto and Charles Xavier, a love story? Apparently the sexual subtext in that new X-Men movie is pretty thick.

July already?

Ugh. The new neighbors were up incredibly late last night, partying and smoking. Kept me awake, so I'm bogging a bit. I'll come out from under the sleep-daze.

I'm kind of amazed it's July already. WTF? Wow. When the first day of summer arrives, I always get bummed, thinking "Well, now the days'll start getting shorter." Not that it bothers me so much; I like all seasons, in truth. But it still hangs in the back of my head.

Working on a short story this weekend, something that popped in my head the other day. I haven't worked on a short story in some time, have been focused on novel-writing. But it's nice to delve into the lean-n-mean story structure requirements of a short story, after working on long fiction for so long.