Television Reviews: Power (Season One), The Strain (Season Two)

Power (Season One)

This was a gift from my brother. I liked it more than I thought I would although it was crammed full of plotholes, unrealistic writing and leaps in logic. Nevertheless it sort of grew on me like a mosquito bite. You could say that this series was a reworking of Superfly and many other blaxploitation films but I suppose you could say that about a great many movies or tv shows. In this story, as in many other stories, the hero -or to be accurate-the protagonist is faced with moral conflicts, challenges and betrayals. The action of the story comes from how he deals with these issues or in some cases if he even knows about them. The setup is simple enough. James St. Patrick (Omari Hardwick) is the owner of a very popular and extremely profitable NYC nightclub named Truth. Truth has become the "it" place to be among the NYC beautiful people class. Models, actors, musicians, wannabes, heirs and heiresses and anyone who wants to be seen as coming up all try to get into Truth. James is a dedicated and hands on owner. He leaves nothing to chance. If there's a problem he's on it immediately to fix it. Nothing is beneath his notice. However his zeal for work is starting to cause a problem with both his wife Tasha (Naturi Naughton) and his best friend/business partner Tommy (Joseph Sikora), albeit for slightly different reasons. Tasha is concerned that James is neglecting her and the children for his club work. Her mother (Debbie Morgan) warns Tasha of the temptations that a sharp dressed wealthy man like James faces. Tommy is concerned that James is abandoning him for a higher class of people and forgetting why they (Tommy is a secondary and silent partner in the club) opened the club in the first place. You see James, known as Ghost to his wife and Tommy, and Tommy aren't just club owners. Tommy in particular only cares about the club to the extent it allows him to run game on women. No James and Tommy are partners (James is the leader) in one of the city's largest drug distribution rings. James originally opened the club as an avenue to launder money. His wife is fully aware of her husband's activities. She provided both detailed and some unspecified assistance to James when he was coming up. Tommy is constantly irritated that James is skipping out on business meetings/sitdowns to handle club issues.

A chance meeting with Angie (Lela Loren), a woman he grew up with and more importantly The Old Flame Who Broke His Heart And Got Away, causes James to ponder what he's doing with his life, what he wants and what it all means. Needless to say it also causes him and Angie to take up where they left off. Whatever was there before was still there. They both have an itch that needs to be scratched. And they scratch it often. In the morning. In the night. Lying down. Standing upright. On the floor. By the door. Against the wall. In the hall--well you get the idea. The problem with this, besides the little matter of James' marriage vows, is that neither of these two lovebirds know what the other one really does for a living. Angie tells James that she's a lawyer but in fact she's an assistant district attorney involved in a task force to take down a Mexican drug kingpin who just happens to be James' main supplier. And Angie is good at her job. And obviously James isn't going to explain that his club is just a front, particularly since Angie is incredibly impressed that he's left his old knucklehead days behind. I found this to be a little unbelievable. If your long lost girlfriend tells you she's a lawyer chances are you'd ask at which firm. The chances are also quite good that James, who shares some of the same social networks as Angie, would have heard about her hiring as a prosecutor or I don't know SEEN HER IN ACTION WHEN SHE'S TRYING TO CONVICT SOME OF HIS ASSOCIATES!!! You would have to be the DUMBEST drug dealer in NYC not to know who the prosecutors were, especially since that is all public information. And a Hispanic woman prosecutor would be news, even today. I guess we're to expect that James never heard of Facebook or Linkedin. 

Anyway sleeping with the enemy isn't even James' biggest problem. His network is under attack. Some of his dealers have been murdered. If he can't find out who's doing it and stop them his dealers may turn on him, turn on each other or find different suppliers. And his Mexican boss makes it clear that if THAT happens James and Tommy will not be long for this planet. James gets advice from his incarcerated mentor Kanan (50 Cent). The show has a few interesting points to make about quiet racism and microaggressions. Some of James' upperworld white business rivals can barely hide their amazement that a black man can tie his own shoes without help. Power has a lot of eye candy for both genders. Perhaps it's explained more in Season Two but it also seems unrealistic that neither James nor Tommy have seemingly spent any time in prison. It's difficult to get where they are and not have been busted a few times. But even if they hadn't been, quite often police or other law enforcement groups know who the players are. I would have liked to see the show go down that path more. This is very slicky produced by 50 Cent. We're definitely meant to identify with James. With a few exceptions we don't see the negative impact of the drug life. We don't see addicts. Most of the settings are filled with beautiful people with tight bodies, white teeth and expensive clothes. Tasha is a bit pushy though I guess she has her reasons. This is nowhere near The Wire or The Sopranos in quality but is fun. Sikora's Tommy is brimming over with energy while Hardwick's James tries to think things thru before reaching for the gun. You definitely want a Tommy on your side if things go down hard, but he's not the one you want making executive decisions or being required to do too much thinking. On the other hand James isn't as smart as he thinks he is either. This is a glossy semi-soap opera that can probably appeal to anyone looking for some escapism.
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The Strain (Season Two)

To say that this was something of a disappointment would be an egregious understatement. Even to say that it was a dumpster fire of a season wouldn't fully capture the horrid nature of the writing (and less frequently) acting on display here. I can't believe that the uneven but potent promise of Season One deteriorated into the mess that was Season Two. It's even more unbelievable because the people who wrote the books were also intimately involved in creating and producing the television series.The fundamental problem with this story is that it lost its internal logic. There were wild and wide shifts in characterization depending on what the writers or show runners wanted to do in any given moment. The viewer should be prepared to accept some B-movie shoddiness. That was actually part of the initial charm in Season One. As I wrote previously the major theme of The Strain was that it was a shift back to vampire as monster. It was a reaction to the overdone current idea of the vampire as bi-sexual goth pretty boy/girl or moping Byronic love interest of a misunderstood heroine. That was all well and good but once you got past that welcome change, The Strain had nothing much to say. And it continued the horror genre convention (or maybe this is just a Hollywood convention) of having weak African-American characters who are either stereotypes or die quickly. For example in two seasons or so the primary African-American characters have been (1) A rock star's female manager who was last seen running away, (2) an incompetent, cowardly, weak and possibly corrupt mayor who blusters a lot and dies, (3) a holier than thou Sacrificial Negro who dies to protect one of the most irritating child characters ever conceived and (4) a greedy thug with silver teeth who has evidently watched Escape from New York too many times and fancies himself to be the Duke. And that's pretty much it. Out of all the black people in NYC and the surrounding areas the only black people who get more than a few lines are clownish, thuggish, cowardly or apparently eager to sacrifice themselves for white people. This is about par for the course. Although this stuff irritates me more and more as I get older I might have been more willing to give The Strain a reluctant pass were the stereotypes a few discordant notes in an otherwise exquisite symphony of horror. No such luck.

Do you remember the panic over Bird Flu and more recently Ebola? Although the impact on American citizens proved to be less than minimal, many people (to be fair including yours truly) were worried about transmission of these diseases into the United States and to their loved ones. The President was forced to address the nation and be seen to be taking action, though each crisis was largely a false alarm. Now I want you to imagine a world as described in The Strain, in which NYC, the financial capital of the world and the largest city in the US, has been placed under attack by a confirmed "virus", if you like, that raises people from the dead, can turn living people into ravening monsters with six foot tongues, has no cure, is not stopped by any natural immunities and is spreading like a proverbial wildfire. Imagine sudden and persistent attacks on online and electronic systems which make communications difficult and cause stock prices to plummet. Now wouldn't you think that all of this together just might get the attention of the New York Governor and the President of the United States? Wouldn't the Army and National Guard be in the streets? Wouldn't you think that the proven display of people rising from the dead to feed on their loved ones would have religious figures tripping out?  Not to mention that billions of people watching this all occur on live television might start secondary panics of their own? Wouldn't transportation be even more hopelessly snarled than before as millions of New Yorkers tried to leave the city?

Well apparently in the world of The Strain, everyone gives a ho-hum and leaves NYC to its own affairs. Even New Yorkers are still trying to go about their business. One Indian-American family is still trying to run their restaurant-including night time delivery service. Yes, the city is overrun with vampires who come out at night but these brain surgeons are still offering night time delivery. There's a quarantine, except when there's not one for the writers' purposes. At the end of Season One the intrepid vampire hunters discovered that the head vampire was apparently immune to sunlight (at least in small quantities). Depressed they dealt with this in different ways. Professor Setrakian (David Bradley) spends all of Season Two searching for a legendary magical book about vampires which he is sure is conveniently hidden in NYC somewhere. Dr. Eph. Goodweather (Corey Stoll) and his main squeeze Dr. Nora Martinez (Mia Maestro) try to create a disease that will kill vampires. Renaissance Man Vasily Fet (Kevin Durand) likes killing vampires by hand because that means he gets to show off his large phallic weapons to hacker/cliche action girl Dutch (Ruta Gedmintas). Unfortunately for Fet, Dutch goes both ways and is unsure if she's ready to drop her girlfriend for Fet. Eldritch Palmer (Jonathan Hyde), the old billionaire financing the vampires' attack on NYC discovers love with his personal assistant/secretary, the ridiculously named Coco (Lizzie Brochere). He also starts showing a bit too much independence for the liking of the number two vampire, Eichhorst (Richard Sammel). And Sammel might tell the ominously named Master. Sammel is the best thing about this series. Well that's not hard to accomplish because he's about the only good thing. City councilwoman Justine Feraldo (Samantha Mathis) attempts (generally successfully) to bypass the mayor and impose her own vampire fighting plan.  Never mind separation of legislative and executive authority! A stereotypical Mexican gangbanger named Gus (played completely charisma free by Miguel Gomez) rounds out the main cast. His primary role to is look tough and snarl "Say what white boy?" every so often. Well I should say he rounds out the main adult cast. Goodweather has a pre-teen son Zach (Max Charles) who must be the single most irritating and unwholesome youngster in the history of television. 

Despite knowing that his mother Kelly (Natalie Brown) is a vampire and seeing her KILL people, Zach spends the entire season alternately blaming his father for not saving his mother and attempting to get his father to reunite with his mother. This includes actions like opening the door of their hideout to vampires. Personally I would have thrown young Zach to the wolves a long time ago. Even for a kid he's insufferably stupid. This sarcastic little s*** gets people killed. Key plot points are raised for one episode and forgotten the next. For example the vampires all carry millions of tiny worms. Just being touched by a vampire, let alone being close to a wounded one with worms spurting out of its body is deadly. The worms can infect you without a vampire bite. Despite this our mostly unlikable heroes spend the season in close combat with hundreds of vampires. For the most part only the secondary characters get infected. This is about as plausible as engaging in a boxing match without getting your opponent's sweat on you. The aforementioned idea of infecting vampires is inexplicably dropped after initial success. Finally there is a retread plot from Del Toro's Blade 2 but it's not worth detailing here. I won't be watching Season 3. The pacing, writing, and themes just weren't very good. This worked better when it was medical bio-horror mystery and not lesbian love triangles.
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Recap: The First Democratic Debate

Five democratic candidates for President of the United States took the debate stage in Las Vegas last night to face off over the issues for the very first time. Lincoln Chafee, Jim Webb, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and Martin O'Malley introduced themselves to the American people and then got down and dirty in the political mud.

No topic was off limits. Gun control. Hillary Clinton's Emails. Benghazi. Syria. Russia. The Economy. Black Lives Matter. The candidates covered it all. Well, at least some of them did, and that is where we have a problem, if you don't like your candidates chosen for you.




Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders clearly had more debate prep than any of the other candidates on the stage. And by debate prep I mean Clinton's failed 2008 run when she endlessly debated then Senator Barack Obama despite having no chance at the nomination, and Clinton and Sanders' storied histories in the halls of Congress. As for the other candidates, they barely registered in the key arguments being put forth in the debate. It was the Hillary and Bernie show.

One of the most contentious issues early on was gun control. The gloves came off between the old Senate fellows. Hillary Clinton said Bernie Sanders wasn't tough enough on gun control. Bernie tried to argue that there is a difference in the perception of guns in rural areas versus more urban areas, and while he is technically right, that technicality doesn't matter when you consider the students and teachers of Sandy Hook were teaching and learning in a rural area when they were massacred by a madman.

The debate on gun control quickly devolved into a debate about war and who would be a better Commander in Chief. Hillary Clinton was painted as too quick to press the button considering her voting record on Iraq. Bernie Sanders was painted as a pacifist, and the other three candidates pontificated about how they would have voted had they been in Congress, and what they will do once they become the President of the United States. Only Jim Webb could really speak about what it's really like to be at war considering his Marine background, but he squandered his chance to silence, and then complained that he didn't get enough time to speak.

From war the natural progression of the debate led to Syria, Russia, and Benghazi. This brought the marquee moment of the debate when Senator Bernie Sanders exclaimed, "We're tired of hearing about the damn emails." Hillary Clinton appreciated the vote of support from her socialist rival. The debate carried on and came to two of my favorite topics. Let's start with the economy.

On this topic the Democrats did what the Democrats always do. They blamed the Republican. In this case they blamed Bush. The campaign tactics of 2008 and 2012 when Obama ran were employed in earnest with a couple new twists. When the conversation turned to restoring Glass-Steagall all the candidates supported the move except Hillary Clinton. I wonder why? The obvious and only reason that Mrs. Clinton cannot support the restoration of the one piece of legislation that would keep investment banks separate from commercial/community banks is because it is the key piece of legislation her husband took pride in dismantling in the name of deregulation, trimming the fat, cutting the tape, and balancing the budget. While I'm sure President Clinton was well meaning in his actions back in those roaring 90s, it got us Millennials a lot of heartache in the aughts.

Instead of supporting the restoration of Glass-Steagall Mrs. Clinton promoted the failed pansy bill that is Dodd-Frank and promoted progressive capitalism with checks and balances. Bernie Sanders called her on her B.S. and Martin O'Malley, Lincoln Chafee, and Jim Webb wept. Or at least they should have for their silence.

Last night's debate was hosted by CNN in conjunction with Facebook. That means questions were taken from real people to see if the candidates truly know what's going within the pulse of the country. The first question posed was a simple one, but an important one (especially to this here blogger) "Do Black Live Matter or Do All Lives Matter?

All of the candidates stated why Black Lives Matter. Whether they believe in the movement and goals of the grassroots civil rights campaign or not they gave politically correct answers. All except for maybe Jim Webb. He stumbled around his work with the Black community and came up with I've been working with African Americans and their situation... Mr. Webb, what exactly is our situation?

The Black Lives Matter questions raises a broader issue, not just among the Democratic candidates but for the entire 2016 campaign on both sides of the aisle. Unless the next President is Ben Carson, then our next President will be forced to have a "black agenda." An agenda President Obama could not, does not, and can not outwardly have for the simple fact that he is Black. For the first Black President to have an explicitly Black agenda, while necessary, will be to some too explicitly racist and at very least pandering. I know. The psychology of our country is backwards. However, what Obama had to do through Attorney General Eric Holder, and now Attorney General Loretta Lynch Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump can do on their own. They can put forth a plan to promote the equality of minorities among the greater hegemony and by "pandering" if you will they get the minority vote they are looking for.

It's still a long road to go for both the Democrat and Republican ticket, and though I hate to admit it Hillary Clinton was the strongest candidate at the podium last night. I don't like her sense of entitlement, and I don't care for her deceptive scandals but she did make several compelling arguments and the other candidates, save for Bernie Sanders didn't put up much of a fight against her machine. Especially Martin O'Malley. He's running for Vice President. I'm sure of it.

Questions:

1. What did you think of the Democratic candidates' debate performance?
2. If the election were today who would you vote for?
3. Do there need to be more candidates in the race?

Book Reviews: Dead Men's Boots

Dead Men's Boots
by Mike Carey

I like authors who work magic and the supernatural into the everyday mundane affairs of modern humans. Jim Butcher, Nicholas Kaufman and Neil Gaiman are some of the better writers who can do this. Mike Carey also deserves notice as part of that crew. Carey has created a timeline in our world where a great many of the things that scare people are real. Ghosts, zombies, were-creatures, demons, devils, the whole nine yards. Carey's trick is that most people aren't all that disturbed by this, at least after a few years of hysteria. So this series (written in first person) is really more of a detective/mystery series than something which requires a tremendous suspension of disbelief. Carey's sardonic smart mouth world weary hero is straight out of classic noir. He's not particularly wealthy, good looking or fast with his fists. But Felix Castor is one of the UK's best exorcists. He's one of those rare people who are able to see ghosts and what's more bind them or dispel them. Every exorcist does the binding and dispelling in different ways. Some wordy people like to use long incantations. Some more physical people may use interpretive dance. Felix's particular interface with the supernatural revolves around music. He's able to get a fix on a supernatural being through music: rhythm, harmony and melody. Felix likes to use a whistle to play the song to dispel a ghost but in a pinch almost any instrument or surface will do. He can even sing the melody himself. Like most detectives Felix has a strained relationship with the police. One senior detective uses Felix on some important cases but another detective has made it widely known that she would be very happy to use fair means or foul to put Felix in jail. Her dislike stems from a misunderstanding about a murder case which wasn't what it seemed. Even though Felix was innocent Detective Basquiat is not a woman who likes smart-alecks or lets go of grudges easily. And she's surprisingly handy with her fists. Felix can also count on, well at least as long as his interests don't conflict with theirs, occasional assistance from his friends associates Nicky and Juliet. 


Nicky is a hacker's hacker who pretty much believes every conspiracy theory and has proof of a lot of them. If you looked up paranoia in the dictionary there would be a picture of Nicky. And since Nicky became a zombie he's only become more suspicious and watchful. For obvious reasons, zombies usually aren't too friendly with exorcists or the living (as zombies try to avoid all viruses, bacteria and anything else biological because exposure increases the rate at which their bodies rot). Nicky has so far made an exception in Felix's case but that could easily change. Juliet (that's a translation of her real name) is a blindingly beautiful woman who can have any man or woman she wants. She's also a 17,000 yr old demon from hell. Juliet is a succubus who feeds on male lust, bodies and souls. Having sex with her is the most wonderful thing and the last thing any man will ever do. She was originally summoned to kill Felix. After he managed to temporarily defeat her a few times, in desperation Castor cut the chain which bound her to the summoner. As demons always hate the person who enslaved them more than their target, this act somewhat endeared Juliet to Felix. She agreed not to kill and eat him (or other men) and he agreed to train her to be an exorcist. This deal has so far held. In this book Juliet has her own exorcism business. And she has even found something approaching love with another woman. 

All the same, Juliet is not human and has little patience for or understanding of most human emotions or practices outside of lust. And she takes everything very literally. This is both a cause of amusement and fear to those around her. Dead Men's Boots has three seemingly disparate storylines. But you know in detective novels nothing is every truly independent is it. Felix ignored calls for assistance from a fellow exorcist, John Gittings, partly because he never liked the man, partly because he was busy and partly because he used to have a thing for Carla, John's wife. But shortly afterwards John killed himself. And now, a strange lawyer has showed up to claim the body over Carla's outraged objections. Carla asks Felix for help. He can't say no this time, particularly as John's ghost is haunting Carla's home. Felix also gets hired to consult on a murder case in which all the evidence points to an American serial killer who's been dead for years. Felix must stop a possibly innocent man from going away for life. Felix is fighting to keep his friend Rafi (who's possessed by the devil Asmodeus) from being taken away for scientific experimentation. And oh yes, there's the little matter of someone trying to kill Felix. I liked this book. Felix is burning the candle at both ends throughout. The more he peels away the mystery the deeper the foulness seems to go. There's a lot here in this book about the hurt that people do to each other. Juliet in particular gets fleshed out as a character. You may even sympathize with Juliet on occasion as she struggles to understand a particular human custom or practice. Carey provides a lot of back story about ghosts and why they might attempt to hang on to the physical world. The only weakness is that Juliet might be used a bit too much as the cavalry coming to the rescue. The story addressed this somewhat by bringing in other characters from below who are not at all scared by Juliet. This book was pretty good though it occasionally beat you over the head about some social issues. If you are a fan of detective stories this is worth having in your library. It is third in the series but stands alone. You can definitely read this without having read the prior two books. Carey brings you up to speed very quickly.

Movie Reviews: Playing It Cool, The Impostors

Playing It Cool
directed by Justin Reardon

Romantic comedies are usually pretty cliched. You (with the occasional exception of films like Annie Hall, 500 Days of Summer or Don Jon) pretty much know how these things are going to go down before you even start to watch them. Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy has to do some serious self-examination and internal rework. Boy has to do something desperate or humiliating to win girl's love again. This last part normally includes a sprint through the train station, bus station, airport or for films set in earlier days, the port so that he can tell his baby just how he feels before something horrible happens and the star crossed lovers are forever separated. So for the most part when you watch movies like this you probably aren't looking for too many surprises, violent conflict or really out of left field writing. Most romantic comedies are formulaic. The skill on display with romantic comedies, as with similar seemingly simple styles such as haiku or blues music, comes with being able to say something new and entertaining while using a relatively limited palette of emotions, story lines and characters. Playing it Cool did this well enough. It will definitely remind you of similar entries in this field. I don't know that it stands head and shoulders above its counterparts. If you can't stand this genre then obviously don't even bother watching this film. I can't stress strongly enough how much this film relies on a number of well worn cliches and tropes. To the extent that it works it does so because of the relentless cheerfulness and completely unconscious narcissism of the lead character, only ever identified as Me (Chris Evans).

He's a screenwriter/novelist who hangs out with a circle of writer friends of varying levels of success. This group includes his depressed and nihilistic ex/friend-with-benefits Mallory (Aubrey Plaza), Lyle (Martin Star), an itinerant who lives in his van, Scott (Topher Grace) a gay man whose gaydar doesn't work as well as it should, and Samson (Luke Wilson), an older writer with some grudges and some wisdom. These people all argue incessantly and don't necessarily always like each other. But they provide advice and commentary for each other's struggles, professional and romantic. When the chips are down they're there for each other...as long as one of them doesn't have a really hot date. Evans' character is not a man who believes in love, primarily because his mother abandoned him when he was a child. Raised by his crusty grandfather (Phillip Baker Hall), he's a resolute devotee of the love em and leave em style. But this starts to change when he meets a woman only ever identified as Her (Michelle Monaghan). She's beautiful, witty, and sexy. The problem is that this woman already has a fiance (Ioan Gruffudd) But does any hero worth the name let a little thing like a woman being engaged to someone else stop him from running his game? And it just so happens that this man, who previously didn't believe in love, has also been tasked by his agent (Anthony Mackie) to write a romantic comedy screenplay. The quality and progress of the screenplay vary with the couple's happiness or sadness.

Humor and cliches ensue. The lead character is only able to listen to other people's stories by imagining himself in their positions. This is funny. Sometimes. He also imagines that his heart is a chain smoking black-and-white film noir tough guy who is always apart from himself. This was a decent movie but certainly nothing earth shattering or that reworks the genre. It throws a few curve balls here or there. If you're in the mood for something light and frothy this might work for you.
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The Impostors
directed by Stanley Tucci

Speaking of light and frothy this older homage to 1930s and 1940s screwball comedies is a funny film that I like a lot. It's not perfect but with one or two exceptions has aged pretty well. The writing is tight, the acting delightful and everyone looks like they're having a lot of fun. With so many American comedies trying their best to be as crude and disgusting as possible it is somewhat refreshing to look back to a film like this and realize that there is a different way to get laughs. Now make no mistake, I wouldn't claim that this is a roll on the floor belly laugh type film, though there are one or two scenes that get me, at least. And it is a R rated film though by today's standards it would be PG-13.  But whatever the film misses in outrageous setpieces it more than makes up for in just general craziness. The story is more Laurel and Hardy, Marx Brothers or Charlie Chaplin than Three Stooges. The film is set in the 1930s but with very minor changes it could happen at any time. The stories and situations are timeless. There are always going to be depressed people, people in love, people with secrets, desperate starving actors, silly people, crazy people and people who are completely clueless to everything that is going on around them. Tucci's direction, much like his work in Big Night, (this movie shares some of that film's cast) is that of someone who really likes film. Very little is rushed.

Arthur (Tucci) and Maurice (Oliver Platt) are best friends, roommates and actors whose acting career hasn't really worked out that well. They have little money and less food. And to quote bluesman John Lee Hooker, their landlord doesn't need to be bothering them about the back rent. Heck their landlord is lucky to get any front rent! They protect their egos, as many do in such situations, by reasoning that they are ahead of their time and have too much integrity to lower their acting chops to more pedestrian standards. They also protect their egos by attending performances by much more successful but wholly untalented actor Jeremy Burtom (Alfred Molina) and disrupting them or making fun of Burtom. However Burtom is as unstable as he is untalented. When Maurice makes a particularly broadly humorous interpretation of Burtom's bad acting, Burtom loses it. Seeking to avoid a beatdown or worse and reasoning that they could deal with a change of scenery anyway, Arthur and Maurice stowaway on an transatlantic ocean liner. Of course as it turns out that happens to be the same ocean liner Burtom will be travelling on. Arthur and Maurice try to avoid Burtom. In the meantime they make an ally out of the forward looking feisty ship social director Lily (Lili Taylor). The ship first mate, the German (and Nazi) Meistrich (Campbell Scott) is on the lookout for the stowaways. He's also trying to put the moves on Lili, who has no use for him. There are some funny subplots involving a mad bomber (Tony Shalhoub), a sad exiled queen (Isabella Rossellini), a clinically depressed lounge singer (Steve Buscemi), a gay deranged tennis pro (Billy Connolly), the distracted audition director (Woody Allen), a depressed debutante (Hope Davis), a gangster (Richard Jenkins), and an African prince (Teagle Bougere). Arthur and Maurice aren't the only people pretending to be someone that they aren't. There are any number of plots and plans going on that Arthur and Maurice don't know about. This film always brings a smile to my face when I watch it. The film's fun is not necessarily in its dialogue but rather the situations.
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Facebook Threat Posts: Pebbles and Bam Bam

Every time someone goes on a shooting rampage the people who knew the assailant are either shocked and heartbroken (usually the assailant's parents) or they are not surprised at all. The people who weren't surprised only wonder why the assailant took so long to crack. These folks are often seen on television interviews smugly declaring they knew so-n-so wasn't right in the head, and never felt safe or at ease around him. Folks who fall into the second category are often the assailant's co-workers, spouse or significant other, or anyone else who is able to evaluate the person without looking through the rosy lens of motherhood or fatherhood. A challenge that we have in a supposedly free society is that we want to protect ourselves and everyone else from crime or violence without arresting and convicting people for what they might do. Our idea of justice normally includes the requirement that we only punish people for what they've done. There is a huge gray area/exception to this, obviously. Planning to perform a crime is usually a crime and something for which you can be arrested and charged. If you and your buddies get together every Thursday after work to plan your multi-million dollar bank robbery but are discovered and arrested, it's not much of a defense to say that sure you might have been planning multiple felonies but you never did them. But is talking junk on Facebook or other social media something which is or should be a crime? If I say someone gets on my nerves so much that I could kill them is that hyperbole or an actual threat? Your perception of that depends on your perception of the person making the statement. The average man or woman saying something like that probably doesn't mean it. But there are some people, either through mental instability or actual past criminal or violent history, who make statements like that and must be taken seriously. And there are other people, who while they may have no rap sheet or known psychological issues, say or do things which are so outrageous that they also must be closely watched if not arrested and charged. Former Washtenaw County mental health/disability worker Grady Floyd falls into that last category.

A deleted Facebook post likely saved a man who brought two handguns nicknamed "Pebbles and Bam-Bam" to his Washtenaw County job from facing any criminal charges, a police report shows. Detectives attempted to retrieve any evidence of a threatening post seen by many of Grady Floyd's co-workers at Washtenaw County Community Support and Treatment Services, but since Floyd deleted it, prosecutors declined to authorize charges.

Floyd admitted to police that he wrote a threatening post so colleagues would stop talking bad about him, according to the police report. He also admitted to changing his Facebook profile picture to one of him holding a shotgun and an AK-47 with a grenade launcher to intimidate co-workers. Floyd was in possession of two handguns when he was arrested the morning after his co-workers contacted authorities about the threatening Facebook post, the report says.These, he explained to detectives, were "Pebbles and Bam-Bam," not the long guns.

While prosecutors declined to authorize criminal charges, Floyd still lost his job, something he is contesting in recently filed lawsuits. Washtenaw County Sheriff's Office Det. Mark Neumann wrote in the police report that when he looked at the Facebook profile on Feb. 11, the picture was still up, but the message had been deleted.

Co-workers who saw it summarized it thusly, according to the report: "I'm just going to put it out to my so-called co-workers at CSTS. I am not putting up with this (expletive) (expletive) anymore. I am tired of people hating on me. I have two kids named pebbles and bam-bam who can deal it. I am going to shut you up permanently. Once they go off you are done, you are dead. You know you are. I do my (expletive) job. You haters need to leave me alone."

LINK

I can certainly sympathize with someone feeling put upon at their job, overlooked, demeaned, discriminated against, bullied or knowing that they just aren't a good fit. But I don't think it's too much to ask that people who have those feelings leave their job, find a way to deal with the issues, work with the appropriate authorities to resolve the problems, talk it out with mental health professionals or do any number of other things short of going on social media to threaten people. Floyd's threat reads depressingly like any number of other paranoid rantings by other workplace gunmen. I am surprised that the county prosecutor is so far not going to authorize charges but I'm more surprised that Floyd is suing to get his job back. To me Floyd's statement is the very definition of a hostile, unsafe workplace. Think of the worst boss, co-worker or direct report you ever had. And then think of them posting a death threat to you on Facebook. Would you want to come into work the next day? Or would you wake up the next morning and get yourself a gun? I don't see this as a free speech issue.

Should Mr. Floyd be prosecuted?

Should he get his job back?

What's the worst experience you ever had at work?

Book Reviews: Off Color, Impaired Judgment

Off Color: The Violent History of Detroit's Purple Gang
by Daniel Waugh

Although the Purple Gang has passed into infamy and is mostly forgotten now, for a brief period of time it was probably the most violent, if not the most powerful or largest, organized crime group in Detroit and the surrounding areas of south east Michigan. The Purple Gang had a spectacular rise and fall from its post WW1 beginnings to its Prohibition ascendancy and its slow decline in the thirties and forties. This decline was helped along by lethal internal squabbling, the growing power of the Detroit Mafia or "Partnership", and the utter inability of some Purple Gang members to adapt to new ways of doing business. The Purple Gang was a very loose knit conglomeration of primarily Jewish gangsters who engaged in various crimes, including but not limited to burglary, auto theft, hijacking, labor racketeering, bootlegging, narcotics importation and trafficking, murder for hire, extortion, and bookmaking among others. In a time before mass transit by airplane Detroit gangsters were uniquely positioned to bring whiskey across the river and lakes from Canada. Organized crime groups in Detroit supplied high quality (and sometimes not so high quality) liquor to their counterparts across the Midwest and East Coast. They had a few violent conflicts with the Detroit Mafia but many more business dealings. The Purple Gang hijacked more whiskey than they made or imported. Off Color details the genesis of the Purple Gang in Detroit's Little Jerusalem neighborhood where members got their start robbing pushcarts and icemen, doing home break-ins and performing assaults or worse for money. Later the nucleus of what would become the original Purple Gang, centered around the four Burnstein brothers (Abe, Joe, Raymond and Izzy), hooked up with gangsters/disreputable businessmen Charles Leiter and Henry Shorr. Shorr and Leiter, among other ventures, supplied sugar for citywide liquor distillation. Their headquarters was the appropriately named Oakland Avenue Sugar House. To an extent Leiter and Shorr were initially the legitimate leaders or at least less violent faces of the Purple Gang. But if they were ever the undisputed bosses, that era ended in 1934 when Shorr went on a ride with some of his gangland friends but never came back. Though the Purple Gang always had a very loose hierarchy with fluid membership, the Burnstein brothers, especially Abe, became the acknowledged first among equals. It wasn't healthy to cross the Burnsteins.

When people think of organized crime cities like New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago come to mind. Well those cities weren't the only places organized crime flourished. Off Color details how different the cultural expectations of the time were, not just in the obvious racial or ethnic conventions and protocols but also the gender ones. For example, shortly after a gangland murder when an infamous Purple Gang hit man is stopped and questioned about fresh bloodstains in his car's backseat, he cavalierly explains the blood away by saying it was nothing serious, he just smacked his girlfriend too hard. The police let him go.
Waugh, a Detroit native, has written an extremely detailed book. It's probably a little bit too detailed at times. Sometimes it reads like a version of Dragnet. On such and such a day at 9:23 AM Hyman shot his former friend Paul twice in the stomach and once in the chest before dropping the .32 revolver and proceeding up Woodward to the Blue Cheer diner where his boss Simon was waiting for a report. And so on. But as a Detroiter who grew up in the general area which was once the Purple Gang's home turf, I enjoyed reading about all the things which happened in neighborhoods or streets with which I was intimately familiar. The Collingwood Massacre, which had the same local impact as the more famous St. Valentine's Day Massacre, occurred within a short walking distance of my home. One of the participants in that crime was arrested on the very next block from where I grew up. Off Color also delves into the relationship between the Purple Gang and several corrupt police officials, judges, politicians and prison officials. When one of their benefactors was threatened by the possibility of a state senator testifying, the Purple Gang murdered that state senator. Off Color gives the lie to the idea that Detroit only became corrupt in the seventies. The entire police department was for sale to people like the Purples. The book is just under 300 pages but it is lavishly detailed with a massive number of footnotes and photographs. It can be somewhat repetitive in that one wonders why the various victims of (occasionally literal) back stabbings and one way rides would ever get into a car with certain people or let other people into their home but to paraphrase Henry Hill, your killers come to you with smiles and hugs. This is a worthwhile historical view of departed time. I didn't know that Shorr's son later became the owner of a noted local electronics audio shop. The smarter Purples (e.g Abe Burnstein) went semi-legitimate or completely straight, parlaying their ill gotten gains into stocks, bonds and businesses. Still others became decidedly secondary associates to the burgeoning Mafia. Most of the other Purples wound up where most criminals do, in prison or murdered by their "friends". 






Impaired Judgment
by David Compton

Sometimes you can find books in used bookstores that while they aren't exactly the missing Great American Novel, certainly are worth picking up. Impaired Judgment is a political thriller/mystery/legal procedural novel which probably won't make you bounce out of chair in surprise but will keep you turning pages to see what happens next. It's a great book to read while you're waiting to get your hair cut, have work done on your car or pick someone up at the hospital or airport. It was a little over 400 pages but it was a pretty quick read. Although it was written way back in 2001, the characters, especially some of the men, are written such that they could easily fit in today's headlines. Jim Candler is the newly elected President of the United States. He's a Virginia native who has big plans for the country. He's nothing if not a straight shooter. President Candler's wife Paula is a federal judge. Paula, with Jim's fierce support, has declined to resign from her position as judge. She doesn't think women should give up their careers for their husbands, no matter what the husband's job may be. Del Owens is President's Candler's primary political adviser, his Karl Rove, his Valerie Jarrett, his Walsingham all rolled up into one. Del doesn't like the idea of Paula keeping her job. He thinks it sets a bad precedent and makes the President look weak. Del can't really express this to the President any more but still lets Paula know every chance he gets. Del knows where all the bodies are buried. And he always has one eye on the latest polls. Tony Remalli is a fugitive Mafia boss who's wanted for labor racketeering and the murder of a female federal judge. When he's arrested and arraigned most people in law enforcement consider it a forgone conclusion that he will be found guilty and receive the harshest sentence possible. This is even more the case when Judge Candler, not known for being soft, is assigned the trial.

But although Remalli may look like a dumb thug you don't reach his level of power without having more than muscle in your toolkit. Remalli's ace in the hole is the defense attorney Don Russ. Russ may be a "mob lawyer", but he tries to tell himself that he's upholding a more important principle. In any event both Russ and his beautiful investigator Julia Menendez will stop at nothing to win their cases. And they've found some dirt on Judge Candler, something so explosive it could destroy her husband's Presidency before it even has a chance to start. Battle is joined. And some secrets will be revealed. As mentioned, the story moves pretty quickly. This may be fast food but it's good fast food. If you like thrillers or mysteries this is a decent book to have in your library.

Ben Carson is a bigot

Black conservatives often complain that people, by which they mean liberals and/or other black people (and those two groups are not mutually exclusive), try to question their blackness or expel them from the black community because they have conservative views. Well all "blackness" really means in the American context is that you are apparently descended in whole or in part from people who recently originated in what's commonly known as "Black Africa". It's a circular definition. Blackness, however defined, definitely doesn't automatically imply anything about an individual's voting patterns, his views on sexuality, religion, preferred music, stance on economics, feelings about whether nature or nurture are more important in human development, favored sports teams or anything else. So I agree that one shouldn't assume that blackness automatically means you are or should be beholden to a specific political theory, party or way of life. On the other hand, given the black experience in America, which only in the past fifty years has fitfully moved beyond formal exclusion, it is a little jarring to see a black person enthusiastically take up bigoted ideas that were just recently used against him and his. Dr. Ben Carson, famed surgeon, Republican presidential candidate and nutcase extraordinaire, has been providing us a clinic on this sort of dissonance.

Washington (CNN) Ben Carson says the United States should not elect a Muslim president.

"I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that," the retired neurosurgeon and Republican presidential candidate said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Carson, meanwhile, was asked Sunday whether a president's faith should matter to voters. "I guess it depends on what that faith is," he said. "If it's inconsistent with the values and principles of America, then of course it should matter. But if it fits within the realm of America and consistent with the Constitution, no problem." Asked whether Islam is consistent with the Constitution, Carson said: "No, I don't -- I do not."

This isn't the first time that Carson has said something stupid and/or offensive. I didn't expect too much intelligent discourse from someone who believes that the theory of evolution was inspired by Satan. I will say that every individual voter can decide on his or her own whether to vote for someone based on any number of reasons or characteristics, be they petty, bigoted or downright silly. You get to decide. Judging by their commentary, jokes, emails, letters, placards, and insults over the past seven years a sizable proportion of conservatives weren't thrilled with having a black man serve as President. No the real problem with Carson's declaration is not just that he reveals his inner bigot. No it's that Carson and his defenders don't seem to understand that Carson's implicit endorsement of a religious test for the office of President is directly contradicted by the United States Constitution, Article VI, paragraph 3: The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

So that is that. It looks like it's not Islam that is incompatible with the Constitution but Carson. But there are some questions for Carson and those of like mind. If they think the Presidency should be off limits to Muslims shouldn't citizenship also be off limits? Should Muslims have lower expectations for privacy and civil liberties? Should Muslims be deported? And if so where? If Islam isn't compatible with the Constitution, should conversions be banned? And what about interfaith marriages? Shouldn't we stop those as well? We certainly don't want our fair Christian maidens marrying those devious Muslims SOB's. Right?  And if, by contrast, Christianity and Judaism are compatible with the Constitution does Carson think that a Christian President should live by Jesus' directive to resist not evil? I guess we could get rid of the Defense Department and all local police departments. If a Jewish President has a drunk disrespectful son is Carson going to be the first to call for a stoning, as is explicitly ordered in Deuteronomy? Hmm. Or maybe, just maybe Carson recognizes that a Christian or Jewish person is not a mindless automaton who lives by every last single word in their holy book. Or maybe Carson does want to live by the Holy Bible and is projecting his desires onto Muslims.

The Republican Party has relied overmuch on hating the other. It has relied overmuch on wedding itself to a specific type of pugnacious evangelical. No matter how much Carson and his fellow candidates such as Huckabee might wish otherwise, the United States is not a theocracy. Taking gratuitous shots at an entire religion simply alienates members of that religion who might vote for you. And for someone like Carson, who was born before Brown v. Board of Education, when segregation and white supremacy was the law of the land, to engage in religious bigotry to seek favor with people who haven't wholly left behind racial bigotry, is beyond pathetic.