Taiyesha Baker Fired from Indiana University Health

As has been discussed previously many times you do not necessarily have First Amendment protections if you say or write something widely considered to be offensive and your employer lets you go. This may get a tad more complicated if your employer is a public (governmental) entity and not a private one. But even with public employers, if you run afoul of laws or employer policies regarding speech that is harassing or hateful you can often find yourself unemployed. The First Amendment is about disallowing the government from preventing you from saying something disagreeable. It's about preventing the government from putting you in prison or fining you for your speech. You are free to say whatever you like. But your employer is also free to decide that your speech is not something with which it wants to be associated. Just as social media has made people more comfortable with sharing a lot of private and personal information, many people seem to forget that social media is NOT you talking to your spouse, relatives, close friends, boyfriend, girlfriend, or even long term business associates. Many of these people probably share some of your world views. And even those who don't usually won't take something you told or wrote to them in confidence and tell everyone without your permission. But when you post something on social media you're sharing it with the world.

Taiyesha Baker, a former nurse at Indiana University Health, apparently forgot that when you're not independently wealthy you occasionally have to consider whether the entire world needs to hear your unedited opinion on sensitive issues.

Movie Reviews: Sweet Virginia

Sweet Virginia
directed by Jamie Dagg

Every now and again I watch some of the true crime re-creation shows on the Investigation Discovery cable channel. Trashy I know, but I blame one of my cousins for introducing me to this stuff. As she jokes if I ever come up missing, thanks to her experience with this channel she'll know where to start searching for the killer. One of the homicide detectives whose case work is recreated on the show is a very deadpan fellow. He points out, and I doubt that he originated this bromide, that people are quite predictable. The detective says that when people kill someone it's usually for one of just three reasons, sex, money or revenge. Find the motive and you'll usually find the killer pretty quickly. Sweet Virginia is a noir drama that shows the truth behind that saying. Sweet Virginia is a very dark film. I don't mean in terms of subject matter. I mean that the director has chosen both a color palette and sound levels that can make it challenging to both see and hear what's taking place. This makes sense if only because everyone in this movie has secrets and hidden agendas. They aren't necessarily truthful with themselves let alone other people. 

The other thing which was notable about this movie was that it was something of a throwback to classic films of the sixties and seventies. There were a lot of long unhurried takes showing people engaged in mundane everyday activities. From time to time there would be something referenced that later proved to be critical, but this was rarely done in such a way that the viewer would pick up on it immediately. Or perhaps I should write that this was rarely done in such a way that I would pick up on it immediately. You may well be ever so much smarter and perceptive.

Movie Reviews: The Signal

The Signal
directed by William Eubank

This low budget older film is a science-fiction thriller that in the same way as the original The Matrix film asks what it means to be human. It's relatively light on action/violence so it might be worthwhile for those people who prefer films without a lot of explicit carnage. There is some violence here of course, but most of it is either implied or cut away from at the last minute. One problem with the film is that because most of it takes place in only a few rooms it really would have worked better as a "Twilight Zone" or "Tales From The Crypt" episode. The Signal occasionally felt like the story was being stretched to meet a certain running time. I can't say that I saw the ending of the film coming from a mile away but probably more attentive people will. I thought the creators of The Matrix probably should have called it a day after the first movie. The Signal has room for a sequel. I would like to know what happens next, but only if the next chapter installment moves more quickly. 

If you are the sort of person who demands that a film be self-explanatory and complete in itself this may not be your cup of tea. There's a lot that isn't clear. And multiple viewings won't necessarily help. Some people will find this deep, challenging and impressive. Others will find it irritating and pretentious. I can't call it, but if you decide to watch this film know that all your questions won't be answered. Or maybe you are super intelligent and will find this film's answers obvious and silly. The film is good looking with pristine cinematography and colors. Of course it probably helps that as much of the film takes place in a medical facility of some sort, everything is shiny white. There's a detached, clinical feel to the film which is often used as counterpoint to the emotional volatility of the main characters.

Movie Reviews: Blade of the Immortal, Downsized

Blade of the Immortal
directed by Takashi Miike

When I watch these stylized samurai action films either in their original Japanese form like this one or in the American homages like Kill Bill, I always wonder why doesn't anyone wear armor. It's probably because as an arrogant and somewhat loony character in a Joe Abercrombie novel disdainfully stated "Wearing armor is admitting the possibility of being hit." And all of these warriors, assassins and magicians are convinced that their awe-inspiring skills preclude anyone wounding or killing them. Most of them are wrong of course. The real reason that armor is often non-existent or non-functional in these movies is so we can watch the blood sprays when arteries are severed and internal organs are pierced by cold unyielding steel. And this movie is all about the violence. It is a true vision of bloody mindedness. Obviously if violence is not something you care to watch then this movie isn't for you. It is based on a manga.

The storyline suffers a little bit from the brute force overemphasis. Blade of the Immortal only occasionally displays the dramatic tension and release which is essential to really good revenge themes, whether played straight like Man on Fire, Kill Bill, True Grit, The Hound demanding chickens in Game of Thrones, or deconstructed in films such as Gran Torino or Unforgiven. This movie lacks the emotional center that normally animates such films. It's very rare in this movie that there's a sense of impending bloodshed and the apprehension that accompanies it.

Senator Franken Apologizes to Leeann Tweeden

Often what's done in the dark is going to come out in the light whether we want it to or not. Harassment and bad behavior is not limited by political considerations. Democratic Senator Al Franken apparently behaved badly on a 2006 USO tour with one Leeann Tweeden, then a Playboy, FHM and Fredericks of Hollywood model, now a radio show host. Although I'm pretty sure that we are only finding out about this now because of the brouhaha over embattled Alabama Republican U.S.Senate candidate Roy Moore, it's still a potent reminder that people (by which I mostly mean men) need to be careful about what they do. It's such a simple thing to get consent first. According to Tweeden, Franken, then a comedian, did not have consent to kiss her or grope her. If this picture had come out before Franken's successful 2008 campaign to become the junior Senator from Minnesota, it's a good bet that he wouldn't have been elected. 

The answer to these sorts of issues isn't necessarily to demonize half of humanity, though some folks would like to do just that. Rather it has to be drummed into some people's heads that even though they work in the entertainment or political arena, they still need to get consent to do certain things, just like everyone else. 

Roy Moore Child Abuse Allegations

It would be ideal if we all could soberly and objectively judge allegations based on evidence and how truthful we think the accused and accused are being. That's difficult to do even in a court of law. It's almost impossible to do outside of it. This is especially the case when the time between the alleged crime and the reveal of the alleged crime has been years. So we shouldn't immediately believe the worst of people that we don't like for political reasons or even prejudicial ones. At the same time we shouldn't dismiss allegations against people that we do like or people who share certain immutable characteristics with us. It can be true that victims can wait for years to speak out for valid and understandable reasons. It can also be the case that people make accusations that aren't true. My automatic belief of an accuser's story is limited to my relatives, loved ones or people that I know pretty well. With other people having some evidence besides their word is a good thing. In cases where the alleged crime is long past I want to know if the alleged victim told someone about the crime at the time it occurred or made a change in his or her behavior. If that happened then I'm more likely to believe them. Abuse of a child is one of the most heinous crimes out there. There is nothing to excuse it. And yet we excuse things like that all of the time. There are too many musicians to name who have had "consensual" relationships with groupies under the age of consent. There are some filmmakers who have sexually assaulted people. We still recognize their artistic talent. Maybe that's starting to change? Or maybe this breaking news is all a conspiracy. That's certainly what some will believe.

Leigh Corfman says she was 14 years old when an older man approached her outside a courtroom in Etowah County, Ala. She was sitting on a wooden bench with her mother, they both recall, when the man introduced himself as Roy Moore. It was early 1979 and Moore — now the Republican nominee in Alabama for a U.S. Senate seat— was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney. He struck up a conversation, Corfman and her mother say, and offered to watch the girl while her mother went inside for a child custody hearing.

“He said, ‘Oh, you don’t want her to go in there and hear all that. I’ll stay out here with her,’ ” says Corfman’s mother, Nancy Wells, 71. “I thought, how nice for him to want to take care of my little girl.” Alone with Corfman, Moore chatted with her and asked for her phone number, she says. 

Play Reviews: Titus Andronicus

Titus Andronicus
by William Shakespeare
Sex and gore that would make Tarantino squeamish

You can make an argument that there is very little that is new under the sun. Shakespeare's play Titus Andronicus would be a good exhibit for that point of view. At various times creative artists as disparate as Stephen King, George R.R. Martin, Quentin Tarantino, Rob Zombie, Robert Bloch, Tom Six, Marilyn Manson, Lady Gaga, and Richard Laymon have been accused of playing to the cheap seats, of marketing cheap sex and grotesque violence for no other reason than to shock people. Some of those accusations are true. Some of them are not. But certainly Titus Andronicus is a rebuke to those who believe that humans have radically changed over the centuries or to those who still hold that Shakespeare only wrote high minded comedies/tragedies designed to uplift the human spirit. Shakespeare could be as nasty and dirty as any modern splatterpunk novelist. This play was apparently when he wanted to be way out there. Titus Andronicus was so out of the ordinary for Shakespeare that for the longest time some scholars refused to believe that he wrote it. Others argued that everything was so ridiculously over the top that Shakespeare meant this to be a comedy.

If I recall correctly there isn't any incest or homosexual activity in Titus Andronicus, but Shakespeare includes almost every other taboo in the play, his first tragedy. There's adultery, murder, rape, lots of mutilation, cannibalism, and filicide. There's also a big scary black man who does evil for evil's sake and makes a (white) Queen his willing sex slave. There's a fair amount of racism, often portrayed uncritically. This is a part of Shakespeare's contribution to the Western canon as much as Hamlet or The Tempest. Almost no one in the play is likable. Anyone who is good seems to get it in the neck almost immediately. The story feels modern. It is set in pre-Christian times or at least semi-Christian times. None of the characters are familiar with the Golden Rule or wish to turn the other cheek. The highest values in Titus Andronicus are not to love thy neighbor as thyself and return good for evil but rather to unquestionably follow the orders of your family head and avenge yourself sevenfold upon any who assail you.