Detroit's Last Stand

As you may have heard about or read here in a previous post the City of Detroit is broke. The Mayor and Council have been unable and unwilling to fix the problem. The state review board has certified that Detroit is a hot mess. This started the legal process for Governor Rick Snyder to seek either a consent agreement between the city and state or to impose an emergency manager. The consent agreement is "emergency manager lite". Under a consent agreement the mayor and council would still have some fiscal influence, just not very much. A financial board would be set up to run the city's finances. Members would be appointed by the governor, the mayor and the city council. Union contracts could not peremptorily be thrown out. Under an emergency manager law, the mayor's and council's authority to do anything would be eliminated, not trimmed and union contracts could be reopened or rejected. Detroit has just a few days left before the city is obligated to either be in an consent agreement or the governor must impose an emergency manager. 

As you might imagine, this being Detroit nothing gets done easily or on time. Although the governor has said he doesn't want an emergency manager, he has refused to rule it out. But the Detroit political establishment also doesn't want a consent agreement and has so far refused to sign the agreement offered by the state. They are working on a different document, which they call a financial stability agreement but is a consent agreement by another name. This could come out today. This document pointedly refuses to give any review board final say over finances. So this is, obviously a sticking point. City Council member Kwame Kenyatta said the state-city relationship was akin to a "master-slave" one.


There were public meetings on the process to declare a financial emergency and of course people showed up to comment as is their right. One such person who got some attention was local activist, gadfly and New Black Panther Party member Malik Shabazz who said, well, just listen:

VIDEO INTERVIEW

As you might imagine this didn't go over very well with many people in or outside of Detroit. The general response from outside of the city about threats to burn it down seemed to fall into three categories:

• Go right ahead
• That's how we know you're insane
• How would we tell the difference?

SE Michigan remains one of the more racially divided population tracts in the US. It is what it is.
So after all the shouting, moaning, and testifying is over Detroit is really stuck with a number of unpleasant choices

1. Bankruptcy
2. Consent Agreement
3. Emergency Manager

That's it. Of course this being SE Michigan it is possible that the numbers are all awry and that Detroit actually has enough money to make it for another 3 months or another 6 months or more. It is possible that the state or federal government might create a bailout plan. 
It is possible that some liberal billionaire could write a check to bail the city out. 
It is also possible that I may win the lottery today.


But planning on such things is not how intelligent people organize their life.
There is of course no guarantee that a consent agreement or even an emergency manager will solve the problem. Detroit may be too far gone for that. The unfortunate truth is that there is not enough income and too much out-go. This spiral of higher costs and lower revenue has been obvious for at least the past decade. One needn't sign on to every last single right-wing austerity meme to recognize that unlike the Federal government, Detroit can't print money and can lose high numbers of citizens to areas that have better services, lower taxes and lower levels of crime.


Racism scars people. I understand that. It is extremely unpleasant for Detroiters to consider a future in which their elected officials have their authority trimmed or eliminated. But as I've said before, getting upset about such things now is like getting peeved when the bank decides to repossess the car that you haven't made payments on in 6 months. Sure, you can contact a bank rep and call her all out of her name if you like. It may make you feel better. But it doesn't change the underlying reality. Councilwoman JoAnn Watson can continue talking about what the state owes Detroit. But no one who cares is listening. It's EXACTLY like having a boss who promises you a raise but then the company runs into trouble and your boss leaves for greener pastures. The new boss tells you that not only are you not getting a raise but that pay cuts are imminent. I've been there. Ranting on and on about what you're owed doesn't make a dime's bit of difference. And for what it's worth it's not (just) a race thing. A predominantly white Detroit suburb may be getting an emergency manager as well. Things are tough all over.


QUESTIONS
1) If your city was at the brink, would you rather burn it down than accept an emergency manager/consent agreement?
2) Should the state of Michigan have refused to get involved?
3) Is bankruptcy a better option than state control?

Book Reviews-LA Confidential, Why is Sex Fun?, Weapons of Choice

L.A. Confidential
by James Ellroy.
I don't know what James Ellroy really thinks of black people or what he's like in real life. Absent other evidence, as readers we should be really wary of assuming anything about authors. On the other hand I think that over time you can and indeed must make some judgments about people based on what they write. It's tricky though. SM Stirling quote:
"And a special acknowledgment to the author of Niven's Law: There is a technical, literary term for those who mistake the opinions and beliefs of characters in a novel for those of the author. The term is 'idiot.'"

I would like to provoke ambiguous responses in my readers. That's what I want. There's part of me that would really like to be one of Dudley Smith's goons and go back and beat up some jazz musicians, and there's part of me that's just appalled. I figured out a while back that I'm an unregenerate white Anglo-Saxon Protestant heterosexual. So are my men. Their racism and homophobia is appalling, but it's germane to their characters, and people will either get that or not get it. That's that.* Ellroy Quote

Also, so that we would know exactly what he thinks of people that have a problem with his prose style Ellroy thoughtfully shared this. 
In L.A. Confidential, Ellroy tells a multifaceted story of good and evil (perhaps lesser evil and greater evil or better yet different kinds of evil) in post-war Los Angeles. His primary protagonists are three LAPD officers. They make Daryl Gates look like Michael Dukakis. The men also almost exactly line up with id (White), ego (Vincennes) and superego (Exley) and rather less well with the old D&D alignments of Chaotic Evil (White), Neutral Evil (Vincennes) and Lawful Neutral (Exley)

These three generally unlikable men all have some small commitment to justice. There's Officer Wendell (Bud) White, a frightening enforcer who lets his fists and nightstick do his talking. White is among the LAPD's most violent cops. The department leaders use his skills to obtain confessions from hardcases or send a message to criminals. Out of town mobsters who arrive in LA are given a brutal meet and greet by Bud White and other members of an anti-hoodlum squad set up by Captain Dudley Smith and tolerated by Chief Parker.
As a boy White watched his father murder his mother. Now White spends his spare time visiting men paroled for domestic violence and putting the boot to them. White may not even bother "talking" to them. He always has a throwaway gun ready to plant on someone he killed in "self-defense". White is well aware that his bosses see him as a dumb brute. He hides that he's smarter than people think. White wants to be a detective. The quickest way to get hurt badly by White (besides calling him Wendell) is to insult or harm a woman. God help you if you raise a hand to a lady in his presence.

Chief Parker:LAPD



There's Lieutenant Detective Edmund Exley, a strait laced police officer and war hero who is caught up in Oedipal competition with his father Preston Exley, a former police officer and wealthy businessman.  Unlike White, Exley prefers doing things by the book. He usually avoids open profanity, racial slurs or abuse of authority, certainly not because he thinks any more of certain despised groups (blacks, hispanics, gays, prostitutes, etc) but rather because he has extreme confidence in his own intelligence and ability to get what he needs from people without the rough stuff. Exley and White hate one another because Exley testified against White and White's partner in a savage Christmas beating (this happened in real life) of defenseless Hispanic suspects. Exley's no nice guy though. He manipulates the rules to help his own rise and harm that of his rivals. If he does the right thing it's usually because that's what the law or code says he should do, not because he has any huge desire to protect citizens. When pushed to his limits his ability for violence may rival White's.
Lastly there's Sergeant Jack Vincennes aka Trashcan Jack. Jack is neither an open thug like White nor is he obsessed with rules, procedure and doing the right thing like Exley. Vincennes is a narcotics detective who works the Hollywood beat. He is the LAPD liaison for a Dragnet like TV show. He uses his film and music industry contacts to enrich himself and his friends, most specifically Sid Hudchens, the owner and publisher of the gossip magazine Hush-Hush. Blackmail and information is Vincennes' stock in trade. He knows which stars are drug addicts, rapists, pedophiles, or closeted homosexuals. He knows who's engaging in adultery or miscegenation. He knows all the pimps, prostitutes, pornographers, junkies and pushers. 


Vincennes channels this information back and forth to Hudchens and others, both for personal profit and to smear political rivals. Vincennes is pleasantly corrupt and goes along to get along whenever possible. He's self-interested and doesn't want to do anything to jeopardize collecting his full pension upon his swiftly approaching retirement. Vincennes is an alcoholic and not above sampling the drugs he confiscates. He has other more shocking hidden dirt. He may even have a hidden conscience.



James Ellroy

All three men are pulled into a nightmarish and complex case which starts with a gangland style massacre at the Nite Owl restaurant. Black hoodlums are blamed and soon after killed. This should be the end of the story. However for different reasons and at different times, all three cops pursue leads that suggest that the black hoodlums weren't the killers. In fact there may be a nexus of multiple conspiracies between the LAPD, business leaders and local organized crime that really explains what happened. Ellroy anticipated the Gary Webb Dark Alliance story. Eventually the officers team up and then the pillars of heaven start to shake. All three men have to compromise and change to crack this case. It requires each of the trio's special talents.

This is a very deep book. There are at least 7-8 different storylines that are going on. It's easy to get lost. Ellory has a staccato writing style. He uses short direct sentences. L.A. Confidential has so much going on that like the classic noir novels it's modeled on and surpasses, you may have to go back and reread a few chapters. Things are never what they seem. Just when you think you've got something figured out Ellroy writes a twist that shows you that no you didn't. I like that sort of writing. A recurring theme is that justice may require getting your hands dirty. There aren't always easy answers. Sometimes evil is required to defeat evil. Exley's father warns him that if Exley is, as he says, unwilling to shape a case as the prosecutor sees it, shoot a fleeing felon in the back, plant evidence on a guilty man, or turn a blind eye to brutality then he needs to find a line of work where he won't have to make those choices. Everybody gets a little dirty in the world of L.A. Confidential. Hypocrisy is the name of the game.


The racism, sexism, and contempt for homosexuals is of the times.  Reading this I was wondering if Ellroy was trying to prove that he could use every racial slur against blacks that had ever been invented. If he didn't reach that goal, it certainly wasn't for lack of trying. Again though this is appropriate when writing a story about the 1950's era LAPD. So, if you like hardboiled noir, where the cops are tough, the hoods crack wise and the dames are all playing different angles, this could be for you. But if you like stories with clearly defined good guys and bad guys where everything is neatly wrapped up then this is definitely not a book for you. It is however a masterful piece of writing. The movie was excellent in a different way but definitely softened the uglier attitudes that are present in most of the characters.
*Ellroy Quote

Why is Sex Fun?
by Jared Diamond

This question might seem to answer itself of course but someone like Jared Diamond isn't satisfied with just leaving queries like that on the table. Diamond is a biophysicist, biologist, anthropologist and in general an all around smart guy. I suggest reading his book Guns, Germs, and Steel.
In Why is Sex Fun?, Diamond seeks to answer that question by looking at the total path of human sexuality. He examines how sexuality, posture, and brain capacity make us different from our nearest relatives, the great apes.

You don't have to have science degrees to understand this book as it appears to be quite deliberately written for the non-scientist. It's a very short fun read that tries not only to solve the title question but offers investigation into which animals have the oddest sex life, what men are good for, what signals we send purposely and unwittingly, why humans even have sex when there is no chance or desire for reproduction, why we have concealed ovulation, why privacy is important and several other questions or quirks that make humans quite different from other animals and other mammals. Why is paternal care for the young so rare among mammals?

This was written back in 1997. It has a very strong helping of evolutionary biology which some people may find problematic. Some of the information may be dated. But that's an argument for another day. Culture and biology work together and feedback to and reinforce each other. Diamond tries to avoid "just so" stories, which is what a lot of evolutionary biology is accused of being.

People with the relevant scientific backgrounds or of political persuasions that leave them skeptical of evolution or biological differences may find holes in some of this book's examples, logic and reasoning. It is a short book. It's just 160 pages. But I found it cogent, concise and well argued. YMMV.

Weapons of Choice 
by John Birmingham

Time travel may well be theoretically possible (at least going into the past) but as far as we know no one has ever done it. But what if someone did? And what if that someone were a 2021 multinational and multiracial carrier force, led by Americans and full of Navy and Marine personnel, that was sent back to 1942 just before the American - Japanese Midway battle?

You've likely seen stories like this before but Birmingham does a bang up job of making this book (the initial in a trilogy) really come alive. He does this by the simple fact of including human nature as a character in his book. The Americans from 1942 are initially happy to have assistance from the Americans of 2021 while the modern Americans are delighted to give it.

However this starts to change almost immediately as many of the 1942 Americans have zero use for feminism, racial equality, modern fitness techniques, non-smoking or any of the other ideas we take for granted. They become very wary of and coolly hostile to their countrymen and countrywomen from the future. They view the idea of taking orders from women of any race or blacks of either gender with profoundly deep disdain. They don't get why a carrier is named after a woman President (The USS Hilary Clinton)  And they are desperate to prevent these ideas from spreading. For their part the modern Americans think that the 1942 Americans all sound like actors from old Warner Brothers movies and are generally eager to change things as quickly as possible.

However not all of the multinational ships made it through the wormhole in one piece or under American or allied control. The 1942 Japanese, Germans and Russians have gotten their hands on some of the modern military technology and worse yet, on history books. So Stalin, Tojo, Hitler and others are able to see what mistakes they made. And the countries that had nuclear programs or were thinking about them are ecstatic or frightened to find out that not only are such weapons possible, but the future Americans have them.

This entire book is an example of chaos theory in action on political, scientific, military and even romantic relationships. Some members of the 2021 multinational force that came through the wormhole are Japanese or Indonesian. They're not sure they want to be fighting their own great grandparents or fighting on the same side as the 1942 British and Dutch who intend to reestablish white colonial rule in SE Asia. This was a really fun book that was crammed with realistic characters. You can probably pick it up for cheap. I did.

Gene Simmons Attacks Rihanna

When announcing their tour together KISS frontman/bassist Gene Simmons and Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee found it necessary to gratuitously attack Rihanna for alleged lack of musical ability.

"We're sick and tired of girls getting up there with dancers and karaoke tapes in back of them," Simmons told the crowd at the press conference, reports Billboard.com. "No fake bull***t. Leave that to the Rihanna, Shmianna and anyone who ends their name with an 'A.' "

The ironic thing of course is that although KISS was a fantastically commercially successful band in their heyday they were not considered then or now to be excellent or frankly even good musicians. They were known for exalting the stage show above any other consideration. Simmons (born Chaim Witz) in particular was known to be a greedy SOB who cared much more about the dollar signs and over the top stage performances than anything having to do with music. In short they were EXACTLY what they are accusing Rihanna of being.

And that goes DOUBLE for Motley Crue who really were the 80's equivalent of The Osmonds, The Partridge Family, Peter Frampton, etc. :something musically lame but that was loved by many teen (mostly white) girls and sold bazillions of records because of that. Few people speak seriously of Motley Crue's skilled musicianship. Motley Crue had about as much musical talent as your average saltine cracker. People talk about the various groupies they had, what they looked like in their tight pants, eye liner and long hair, and their copious consumption of drugs and alcohol. They were EXACTLY the sort of band that was mocked and (temporarily) killed off by the 90's grunge movement. They were known as hair bands and replaced by groups like Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, etc.

I am not a Rihanna fan. I don't like or dislike her music. It's just not my thing. She's very easy on the eyes but I just haven't heard much of her music. To each their own.

But there is an underlying racism and jealousy that you see in a lot of white rock bands. On the one hand they claim to be of greater musical integrity as compared to pop/dance. But on the other they are insanely jealous of the fact that dance-pop/R&B is what is in right now. It must be somewhat frustrating to have spent all your time ripping off people who ripped off people who ripped off black musicians only to find out in your old age that tastes changed.

Jazz, blues or classical musicians could make the same accusations of musical fraudulence about rock in general and KISS/Motley Crue in particular that Simmons and Lee are making about Rihanna. Music is not a competition. The fact you like one type of music doesn't prevent me from liking a different type of music. I may think your tastes pedestrian or silly but I don't necessarily need to share that with the world or insult you or your music.*

The underlying idea here, and this goes back a while, is that any music which is danceable is by definition less challenging and of little utility. Race plays a HUGE role in this. Post Beatles, most white popular music or rock has not been danceable. There's also a dose of sexism there to boot. Many of the greatest musicians are men but great singers are found equally in both genders. And most of today's greatest singers are women. I don't know if Rihanna is a great singer or not. But I know she's better than Simmons. Listening to him sing is like listening to a drunk hippopotamus break wind. I mean you could do it but why would you?

A band that is primarily known for the number of porn stars or Baywatch stars they slept with and the multiple sex tapes they made with these stars doesn't get to impugn the talents of a singer.

A multimillionaire senior citizen who dresses up in makeup, leather, high heels and spits fake blood and fire has no room to say anything about someone else's musical integrity.

And anyone with the mellifluous moniker of "Chaim Witz" certainly has no business making fun of anyone else's name.

Give it to me straight doc!

Well Shady on the last trip to Budapest you must not have protected yourself. You have Chaim Witz syndrome. It's incurable...

*Unless it's country or certain forms of rap music which have been scientifically proven to primarily be listened to by people who are missing chromosomes and/or the normal number of teeth...

QUESTIONS

1) Why do people feel it necessary to tear down other people in the same business?

2) Have you ever listened to any Motley Crue or KISS songs?

3) Does Simmons have a point? Is modern pop too fake?

Companies Demand Facebook Passwords!



"We're watching you"

One of the nice things about being a blogger or frequent blog commenter is that you get the opportunity to build an online persona and interact with people literally all over the world. This online persona may be close to your "real life" personality or it may be 180 degrees apart. You may decide to be totally and completely transparent with readers and co-bloggers or you may hold on fiercely to your "secret" or "online identity" and associated privacy.

Now imagine if a would be employer did an online search for you and found your Facebook page. They looked at the public views and didn't find anything objectionable: no racist jokes and calls for bloody revolution, no fond memories (and pictures) of Copenhagen orgies, no five star reviews of Tijuana brothels. You're good to go right? Not so fast. Let's say that the would be employer is not convinced that you're not hiding something. After all EVERYONE is hiding something. And this employer is a watchful, distrustful sort.

So the interviewer politely asks you for your various and sundry passwords from your Facebook/disqus/yahoo/gmail/hushmail/google/linkedin/amazon/etc accounts so that they can log on as you and review all of your private pages, emails, instant messages, associates, and what you've been viewing, reading or watching in your personal time.  

• After all, you might be a terrorist or worse, an ACLU member. 
• You might have friends of friends who said something negative about the company two years ago. 
• You might belong to "problematic" political or cultural groups.
• Maybe you've sent naughty instant messages to your spouse, significant other or friend with benefits. 
• You may have neglected to mention certain medical conditions you have.
• Maybe you got a thang going on with Mrs. Jones.

Like I said, EVERYONE is hiding something. But if you're NOT hiding anything then of course you won't mind the company looking, right? RIGHT????

SEATTLE (AP) — When Justin Bassett interviewed for a new job, he expected the usual questions about experience and references. So he was astonished when the interviewer asked for something else: his Facebook username and password. Bassett, a New York City statistician, had just finished answering a few character questions when the interviewer turned to her computer to search for his Facebook page. But she couldn't see his private profile. She turned back and asked him to hand over his login information..

Bassett refused and withdrew his application, saying he didn't want to work for a company that would seek such personal information. But as the job market steadily improves, other job candidates are confronting the same question from prospective employers, and some of them cannot afford to say no...

Back in 2010, Robert Collins was returning to his job as a security guard at the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services after taking a leave following his mother's death. During a reinstatement interview, he was asked for his login and password, purportedly so the agency could check for any gang affiliations. He was stunned by the request but complied.
"I needed my job to feed my family. I had to," he recalled,
After the ACLU complained about the practice, the agency amended its policy, asking instead for job applicants to log in during interviews.

Link 

Robert Collins

I think this is just a sad state of affairs. As so many people have been apathetic or quiet about the government invading their privacy without cause whether it be NYPD/FBI spying, FISA or Patriot Act or TSA searches, it only makes sense that companies would want to get in on the act.
I can't imagine working for a company that would even have the nerve to ask me something like this. The answer would be no. I would end the interview.  Of course I'm not currently desperate for a job and I matured before online personas had become so ubiquitous. What would I do were I younger or if I needed to get some money pretty doggone quickly to avoid eviction or repossession? I would still stand on principle and tell them to attempt airborne copulation with a revolving pastry. I've got to be free. But that's just me. How about you? You may need to think about this.

And the sign said "Long-haired freaky people need not apply 

So I tucked my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him why  

He said "You look like a fine upstanding young man, I think you'll do"  

So I took off my hat, I said "Imagine that. Huh! Me workin' for you!"   

Questions

1) Would you agree to give a company passwords to your Facebook, emails, blogs, etc?

2) Should this be illegal?

3) Do you think a company would ever have any valid reason to ask for this information?

Movie Reviews-35 and Ticking, Lucky, Attack the Block, Quarantine 2

35 and Ticking
directed by Russ Parr

Nicole Ari Parker is one of the world's most beautiful women. She's not a bad actress either. Given those two facts I'm befuddled as to why she hasn't had at least as much success as similar or lesser talented actresses like Zoe Saldana, Thandie Newton or Halle Berry. Good Roles for black actresses are hard to find though.


So when I saw her on the DVD cover I had to check out this romantic comedy. 35 and Ticking has an ensemble cast which includes people such as Megan Good (another actress of noticeable beauty), Mike Epps, Keith Robinson, Jill Marie Jones, Tamala Jones, Kevin Hart, Clifton Powell,  Kym Whitley, and Wendy Raquel Robinson. The story is older than dirt but I liked the execution. Or maybe I just liked Nicole Ari Parker. Either way this was a humorous movie with a few over the top events. It wasn't quite at the level of "gospel plays" or some of Tyler Perry's less subtle work. It's not really lowbrow but it's not afraid to occasionally go for a few cheap laughs. OK, maybe more than a few.

It follows the adventures of four childhood friends, who having reached their mid thirties, have discovered that they aren't quite where they'd like to be in life, either professionally (in some cases) or romantically (in all cases).
Phil (Keith Robinson) struggles gamely along as a hard working water delivery driver and extremely dedicated father and husband, who silently suffers and broods over his wife Coco's (Jill Marie Jones) intensely disrespectful and dismissive attitude.
Zenobia (Nicole Ari Parker) is an unmarried local TV sports anchor who is always getting hit on by obnoxious entitled sports stars like Nick West (Darius McCrary), but is so picky that she worries she may have priced herself out of the marriage marketplace.

Victoria (Tamala Jones) is married but it's not exactly a happy union as her husband Austin (Dondre Whitfield) has done just about everything short of taking out a newspaper ad to announce to the world that he does not want children. Victoria wants children very badly. The group's last member is Cleavon (Kevin Hart). He's a single man who doesn't really have romantic problems because he's usually too shy to talk to a woman, let alone convince one to be his girlfriend. There's also the little matter of Cleavon not having a job. He makes his living by legal but rather pathetic methods (this is the source of much of the movie's cheap humor and was actually used a few times too many). Mike Epps and Wendy Raquel Robinson also provide laughs as a perpetually battling and reconciling couple who live across the hall from one of the four major characters. Is there anyone who does deadpan better than Mike Epps?

 Yeah You!!!!!

I'm glad I saw this movie. It reminded me of Hav Plenty and Loving Jezebel. It's not often that we get to see black people on screen just being people with all of the good, bad, and ugly that that implies. Although the Nick West and Coco characters come close there aren't really any over the top sexual stereotypes. Watch for Clifton Powell in a hilarious cameo as an older man trying to impress his date. This was not a super high budget movie but neither was it a film that looked like something a pushy cousin is trying to sell you at Thanksgiving either. I suppose you could say the whole thing could have been an elongated Friends or Seinfeld episode but sometimes that's okay.  TRAILER





Lucky
directed by Gil Cates Jr.

The normal way to describe independent films like Lucky is to say that they are quirky. So, yes this is a quirky film. It's weird. It's offbeat. It's clapping on one and three in one measure and two and four in the next. It worked for me, not just because of the acting which is never anything but natural but also because of the writing which takes a LOT of chances. Not all of them pan out but enough do. So I thought the film was worth mentioning. Similar to 35 and Ticking, this is not a big budget movie. However because I liked the writing and acting I never noticed any other issues.


Lucy (Ari Graynor) is a plain jane executive assistant at an accounting firm. She is also the side dish of one of the firm's up and coming young partnership track go-getters. Lucy is a very material sort of girl. She's not deceptive. She's just open and honest about being attracted to male ambition, status and money.
Lucy's childhood acquaintance Ben (Colin Hanks-who looks almost exactly like his Dad) also works at the same firm but he's even lower on the totem pole than she is. He delivers mail and fixes printers. Ben has always carried a torch for Lucy but she only notices him when he's in her way. Well life is like that sometimes. Ben is a wimp and loser. Lucy doesn't go for wimps or losers. Ben has no ambition or status. And he certainly doesn't have any money.


But things suddenly change. Lucy's paramour thinks he can do better and drops her. This sets her off in a ranting screaming temper tantrum. Lucy is later terminated when she decides to crash a meeting chaired by her former flame so that she can share some highly unpleasant personal and sexual details with everyone in the room. But soon after her termination, Ben wins $36 million in the lottery. Dollar signs in her eyes, now it's Lucy who starts doing her best to show up on Ben's radar. This doesn't take long, as Ben is pretty desperate to have female intimate contact. He still lives with his enigmatic mother Pauline (Ann-Margret in a role that shows that for some women beauty fades with age but never quite disappears). In short time, Lucy and Ben are married and have a regal home of their own. For most stories that would be the end but not here.

As it turns out Ben didn't actually purchase that winning ticket. No, you see Ben is a serial killer who takes items from his victims, who are all young blondes, just like his wife. On their honeymoon, Lucy discovers this unpleasant fact about her hubby. The film's balance depicts Lucy's internal struggle between greed, morality, self-preservation and most irritatingly, love. It also shows that Ben, killer though he is, also instinctively understands some things about love and commitment. After all, isn't marriage about living together for better or worse and learning how to deal with another human being's failings? This won't be everyone's cup of tea but if you don't mind something different check this out. The violence is generally not explicit. The sound was pretty good. Sometimes that's a problem with indie films like this. I liked the soundtrack as well. Mimi Rogers and Jeffrey Tambor also have small roles. TRAILER





Attack the Block
directed by Joe Cornish

This is a British sci-fi/horror/comedy film that combines some social criticism with alien invasion and "kids save the world" storylines. This can occasionally be jarring as the film lurches back and forth between very explicit R rated violence, humor directed at or about children, understated sarcasm, and sci-fi cliches. It takes place primarily in and around a South London council estate, what Americans would recognize as "the projects" and what the residents refer to as "the block".

A multiracial group of teen thugs, led by Moses (John Boyega), mugs a young white woman Samantha (Jodie Whittaker), who had just moved into the block. The mugging of Samantha is interrupted by a car crash which heralds the arrival of a tiny (3 foot) alien creature, which is quickly and efficiently beaten and stomped to death by the gang. Sam takes the opportunity to escape and call the police. Eventually the police arrest Moses (his mates escape) and he is identified by the outraged Sam. However, while Moses is being packed away into the police van a new alien group arrives in force. These aliens are much larger and nastier. They're either the adult or male counterparts of the alien that was killed. They want payback. They kill the police and only miss killing Moses because of the intervention of Sam and his gang. The aliens start to rampage in and around the block, looking for the kids.

For these kids an alien invasion is just another day at the office as they already spend their time trying to avoid run-ins with bigoted police and violence prone older gangsters. They especially want to avoid the brutish Hi-Hats (Jumayn Hunter), the murderous local top hoodlum who is exactly who Moses will be in about half a decade or so if he doesn't smarten up. There was an unfortunate misunderstanding with Hi-Hats. So in addition to the aliens, Hi-Hats is also hunting the teens. Time will tell if Moses, his group, Sam and a few comic relief young kids looking to make a name for themselves can hang together and survive the night.

This movie wasn't as smart as it thought it was. There are more than a few holes in logic and pacing. I wonder if Boyega can avoid future typecasting as a surly thug.
The humor and violence are an uneven mix. But all in all it wasn't a bad film. I'd say it's a worthwhile rental. The accents were occasionally a little hard to get but weren't that bad. Lots of apparently current British slang was used but the meanings are generally apparent from context. The funny parts are funny, which is all you can really ask for from a movie, right? It's produced by the same people who did Shaun of The Dead so if you found that movie humorous you could do worse than check this one out. TRAILER



Quarantine 2
directed by John Pogue

Sometimes sequels are better than the original but usually not. Despite an interesting beginning and good premise, this movie wasn't as good as the original. The original itself was a remake of the Spanish film Rec. 


When I was growing up in the Pre-Cambrian era, flight attendants were called stewardesses. They were generally younger attractive women. Unfortunately (from my POV) before I was old enough to do anything about this, times changed and so did the demographic profile of stewardesses flight attendants. It happens. Quarantine 2 evidently takes place in an alternate universe where nothing like this took place. Two young shapely stewardesses are in the back of a limo being driven to the LAX airport. They are changing clothes and putting on makeup as evidently they are also groupies, who just did the usual activities to get backstage and party with their favorite rock band. I always thought that's what stewardesses did in their spare time and now I have proof.

We like do this all the time

The brunette, Jenny, (Mercedes Masohn) who is the only actor I even care to identify by name here, is tasked with watching over a young teen passenger (of course he's too smart for his age) who is visiting one of his divorced parents. She and her blonde partner in crime also make goo-goo eyes at the young doctor on the plane. The rest of the plane's passengers pretty much touch on all the demographic cliches-there's old cat lady, old couple, yuppie scum couple, fat guy, foreign couple, black chick, black guy, and maybe one or two others I've forgotten. BTW, if your name is black chick or black guy in a cheap horror film, you probably won't make it out alive. Just some friendly advice.

What do you mean no more peanuts!!!

The plane's co-pilot has a cold. The doctor has a case of rats (he insists they're hamsters) which he somehow got past security. As the plane is leaving LA someone notices that there was a quarantine at a LA apartment building and states how they're glad to be getting away from that. Of course they aren't getting away from it. It's already on board in the form of an infected co-pilot and someone else. This infection turns people into drooling raving berserk cannibals. In short you could call this "Zombies on a Plane".  Believe it or not if they had stayed on the plane for a while longer and ramped up the tension, this movie might have worked. But the claustrophobia and paranoia drops dramatically once the plane makes an emergency landing and so did my interest in this film. Jenny has to try to keep her head and protect her charge. She's dealing with zombies on one hand and government agents enforcing a quarantine on the other.  The first movie was better done. The camera work was more realistic and made you think you were there. If you like zombie movies this one might marginally be worth checking out but just barely. Masohn does her best with limited material.  TRAILER

Homeless Hotspots Coming Soon!!!

Have you ever run into a dead zone and are unable to connect to the net? And maybe you're too far away from a Starbucks or other Internet cafe? Or maybe your neighbor has shut you out of their Wi-Fi network?

Never fear. Just sidle up to the nearest homeless person in your neck of the woods. Because there's a chance he might be an actual "Homeless Hotspot". Yes, 21st century America is all about getting EVERYBODY plugged in and empowered. Be the change you seek in others. Yes we can! The world is flat!


At the South by South by SouthWest convention, an ad company BBH, decided to think outside the box.

BBH's experiment, dubbed "Homeless Hotspots," launched during the South by Southwest tech-and-entertainment confab in Austin, drawing complaints from critics who viewed the gimmick as exploitative.

In an interview with The New York Post, BBH chairman Emma Cookson said the company has pulled the plug and will not go forward with plans to continue the project in New York."We have no definite, specific plans yet, in New York City or elsewhere," she said. "This was an initial trial program.""We are now listening carefully to the high level of feedback, trying to learn and respond, and we will then consider what is appropriate to do next," she added.  

At SXSW, more than a dozen homeless people were outfitted with wireless routers and T-shirts declaring: "I'm a 4G hotspot."While the effort, which was not associated with the festival, was crafted to provide a digital connection for SXSW Interactive partipants and a charitable service to the city's homeless, outrage quickly gained momentum on social media and among homeless-rights activists.The four-day trial concluded on Monday afternoon, with the door left ajar to expand the project into various cities. But that's a no-go, for now.Users would ask the homeless hotspot for an access code, and were encouraged to donate $2 to their walking Wi-Fi zone for every 15 minutes spent online.

Emma Cookson: Visionary or Cruella DeVille understudy?

So I guess the latest plan to make money off the homeless cure homelessness won't work. So if a homeless man walks up to you and asks for $2, chances are he's not actually a "Homeless Hotspot" but is just a run of the mill beggar.  You should feel free to do whatever you normally do in situations like that, whether it's to offer the money, refuse, give a long lecture or pretend you didn't see or hear the man.  But on the other hand what makes this offer degrading? People have long hired homeless people to pass out flyers for strip clubs, concerts, political rallies and so on. You name it, someone has tried to save on marketing costs by using homeless people. It's not like Ms. Cookson was the first person to use this logic. I guess she reasoned that as long as people were going to be homeless they might as well make themselves useful. Were the people who were complaining about this going to offer a homeless man a job or place to live? Well some of them, maybe. But generally probably not.

Questions
1) What's your take? Was this degrading?
2) Was this an attempt at innovative marketing or a remarkably stupid idea?
3) If this brought more focus to the problem of homelessness was it a good move?

Book Reviews- Rising Phoenix, The Historian, Best of HP Lovecraft

Rising Phoenix
by Kyle Mills

This is what I call an airport book. It is quick to read; it's not super challenging but not a horrible story either. It's perfect for wasting away a few hours but it's not something you would kick yourself for not reading. The story is not too far fetched although the execution and characterization might need a little work. Then again it WAS the author's first book so who am I to be critical?

Anyway the story opens by describing two government law enforcement officials with quite different ideas about the proper way to interrogate suspects. DEA agent John Hobart doesn't see anything wrong with starting with a beating and moving on from there. FBI agent Mark Beamon isn't above smacking an insolent known mob enforcer but he is disgusted when he discovers his partner Hobart in the process of breaking a junkie's arm, primarily for kicks. Beamon turns Hobart in. But Hobart is a MUCH better political player than Beamon is and manages to avoid serious sanction by resigning while Beamon gets a reputation as an untrustworthy maverick. Fast forward a decade and change. Beamon is still just a few levels above where he started while Hobart is the VERY well paid security chief and troubleshooter for the right-wing televangelist Reverend Blake (think Pat Robertson) who uses the loyal and completely amoral Hobart for all those jobs he'd rather not know about.

Blake preaches against sin -especially drugs- and is devastated when he finds out his own son was smoking marijuana. Out of a sense of bombast and pride he starts to discuss with Hobart the best way to stop usage of illegal drugs. The completely pragmatic Hobart suggests poison. The Reverend doesn't want to know details but gives Hobart the go-ahead after publicly firing him.
Hobart recruits (evidently he had been thinking about this for a while) a group of specialists (and virulent racists) to poison the supply of illegal drugs (cocaine and heroin only). They intend to stop people from using drugs and if they happen to kill a bunch of minorities that's a bonus for them.  Drug use starts to drop but this is not popular with the Colombian Cartels or American Mafia (who are seeing their revenue drop) or the FBI (who are being mocked in the press). The FBI calls in Beamon to lead a task force (and be a sacrificial lamb if need be). Of course as he gets into the case Beamon starts to pick up a sense of familiarity about his unknown opponent's moves. The President is caught between a rock and a hard place as he wants to look competent while at the same time keeping an uneasy eye on the growing political support that the poisoning of the drug supply is getting.

As I mentioned this was not a great novel but I didn't expect it to be. The author is the son of a former FBI agent and has some useful insights into how that bureaucracy works. Unfortunately, except for Hobart most of the characters are pretty flat. I did like reading about the (ahem) ever so slightly different research techniques of the Colombian Cartels and the FBI, the rivalries between different law enforcement agencies and petty but dangerous office politics. The Mafia hoodlums and street hoods are not written that well. But the book moves swiftly and all in all is a fun read. Hobart is not a mustache twirling villain and doesn't do stupid things just to move the plot forward.




The Historian
by Elizabeth Kostova

This is a story about an unnamed woman who is the daughter of a widowed history professor. One night while scrounging through her father's library she finds a strange book that is mostly blank but has the picture of a dragon in the middle and has the words "My Dear and unfortunate successor..". She shows this to her father and the not so dynamic duo (she's a teen and her father must be in his early fifties) embark upon an adventure across Eastern Europe and Turkey, in search of the historical (and current??) reality of that most notorious member of the Order of the Dragon, an enthusiastic but doomed defender of Christendom, Vlad Tepes, known better as Dracula.

Sounds like it would be right up my alley yes? Well no. This is NOT a horror novel though it has some minor elements of that. Vampires evidently do exist. This is an extremely well researched literary novel with lots of gothic, travelogue, and romance elements. I wouldn't say I hated this book but it just wasn't what I was looking for. You could almost say for six hundred pages "And then nothing happened". The author is quite talented but like all too many writers these days could have used a stricter editor. Her love of history, reading, and the peoples and cultures of Eastern Europe shines through.

Things change. Perhaps it is no longer important to some people that the city known as Istanbul which today is in the country of Turkey was not in its origin Turkish but Greco-Roman. At one time it was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. It became a center of Christianity and lore and named Constantinople. But it was savagely sacked, first most treacherously by Western Christian crusaders in 1204 and later by Turkish Muslim invaders in 1453. We tend to think of colonialism as something that Europe has done to others. But for centuries the Turks were the brutal colonial power in Eastern Europe. In some aspects there's still bad blood today because of this. Kostova fills in some details. But the characters and pacing simply aren't strong enough to really give this a great rating. It is being made into a movie. I suspect that the movie will be more entertaining than the book was. To be fair, if you are into the idea of conspiracies, secret societies and the like, you will at least be somewhat positively inclined to this book. Again, though, it's NOT a horror story. The obvious comparison is to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.

I love hanging around libraries, bookstores and restaurants no one else knows about. I love the thrill of discovering esoteric knowledge or new food dishes. But I don't necessarily want to read 600 pages about doing those things. The one character who DOES come across vibrantly is the beautiful and mysterious Helen Rossi, another historian, and the narrator's mother. Rossi's story and that of the narrator's father unfolds in old letters and diaries which are found. The joy, wonder and yet sorrow that we may feel when we read letters or writings of departed parents or grandparents is captured well here. It is always somewhat amazing and slightly unbelievable to me to look back through time and realize there was a point when you didn't exist and your parents had other interests. And of course, as the narrator discovers, there are some things about your parents that you probably didn't want to know.

The Best of HP Lovecraft

If you read a representative sampling of H.P. Lovecraft stories a few truths about the man become rapidly apparent. (1) He was a racist with an especial hatred for black people. (2) He wasn't big on dialogue. (3) He never wrote a short sentence when he could use a longer one instead or used a modern word when he could use an archaic word.(4) He loved New England. (5)The man was one of the most influential horror writers the world has seen. Stephen King himself wrote that "H.P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the 20th century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale".

Lovecraft came from a old American family that had fallen on hard times. Both of his parents suffered from mental instability and died in mental wards-his father may have had syphilis. His grandparents didn't properly handle the small money his parents left behind. Additionally Lovecraft had a nervous breakdown and dropped out of high school. As a writer he was constantly impoverished throughout his life. The yawning gulf between his real life circumstances and what he thought his race, intelligence and heritage should have entitled him to was a source of constant frustration to him and ironically was likely a source of some of his best (albeit most racist) work. Lovecraft was a somewhat shy scientific atheist who famously pronounced himself rather indifferent to sex. This dislike of intimacy and distrust if not disgust of the feminine pops up in all sorts of interesting places throughout his work and may be worth examining in some future blog post.

Okay. So what stories are contained within? Well the book is titled The Best of HP Lovecraft and it lives up to its title. "The Colour Out of Space" is pure sci-fi and foresees the effects of nuclear radiation when a meteorite hits an isolated Massachusetts farm. "The Shadow over Innsmouth" tells the story of a fishing town fallen on hard times that makes deals with evil beings from the ocean but in fact it's a well disguised description of Lovecraft's id fears about immigration and interracial mingling.  "The Thing on the Doorstep" is the best body snatcher story I've ever read bar none. "The Dreams in the Witch-house" ponders if advanced physics are merely catching up to what evil sorcery had done years ago. "The Dunwich Horror" is almost a parody of Biblical stories, with a half-human "savior" figure trying to bring his father, a God from Outside, back to earth, not so that humanity can be saved but rather that the earth can be "cleared off".

"The Rats in the Walls" shows off Lovecraft's profound debt to Poe, while "The Silver Key" does the same for Dunsany. "The Call of Cthulhu" is probably the best known story contained in this collection. An evil alien God that was ancient before humanity even existed has been trapped at the bottom of the ocean. But every so often the stars are right and he awakes and attempts to free himself from his watery grave. And so on. Lovecraft did write a few traditional ghost stories e.g. "In the Vault". In those he actually used more dialogue than was his normal practice and showed, or he would write shewed, a good skill at capturing the idiosyncrasies of Yankee accents.  Lovecraft was a materialist. Most of his evil Gods were "evil" in the sense that a developer destroying a habitat is "evil" from the animals point of view. The developer couldn't care less-that is if they are even aware of the animals impacted. If you are tired of horror, sci-fi or fantastic stories that are little more than exercises in trying to write the most explicit sexually and physically offensive material possible you might want to go back to the beginning and give this collection a chance. Of course you will have to overlook some occasionally unpleasant political points of view but the man was after all born in 1890. But for creepy atmospheric gothic AND modern horror, no one did it better.