Five Movies

 The Five Year Engagement with Jason Segal and Emily Blunt. It was funny and sweet while at the same time showing relationship problems in a realistic light; Segal can craft a quality script. However, I would say that the last half hour was Hollywood tripe - in the real world the relationship would have ended where it temp. did in the film. Lisa disagreed and liked it start to finish. I grade this romcom a B+

Casa de mi Padre is a spanish language spoof by Will Ferrell that treads too carefully down the middle; too little comedy to make it worth your while for laughs, not enough dramatic substance to flesh out what what had the makings of a decent story. I'm glad I rented it, but I'm equally glad I didn't pay to see it in the theaters. Grade: C-

I found Intruders to be a genuinely frightening and well done Boogeyman tale. It's the story of two children, separated by language and geography (the boy in Spain, the girl in the UK) who write a story about a figure they call Hollowface, who then enters their world to terrorize them. Lisa was not as enamored of the film as I was, but I thought it was intelligent and, at the very least, certainly well filmed. [Note the brief but intrusive intervention of the Nanny State once NHS is involved; it made me ill]. Grade: B

The worse thing about The Corridor is that one of the actors looks like Bradley Cooper's slightly less attractive brother, and another sports a fake bald head that looks like it was crafted with Elmer's Glue and yarn in my kids Kindergarten class. Beyond that, the movie was OK. Nothing earth-shattering or original: some buddies on a camping trip find an alien 'corridor' in the woods, with predictable results. The bulk of the movie, like I said, was OK, but the opening sequence, where one character has gone nuts and assaults the others over the corpse of his mother, was damn engaging. Grade: C+

I also watched "Ted" one morning. It's ridiculous and low-brow, vulgar and devoid of any plot points you haven't seen 1000x before (well, maybe not the teddy bear on cashier sex; that was new). My verdict? Funny as hell. I LOL'd time and again and had tears streaming down my face. I didn't wet my pants laughing, but that's probably just because I was dehydrated. Grade: A

Reviews: Dark Shadows, That's My Boy, Outlaw Platoon

Two recent bits of fascinating trivia from a copy of Archaeology (Sept/Oct ’12) magazine that arrived in the mail Saturday:

As much of 4% of the sand currently on the beaches of Normandy isn’t sand at all. It’s actually tiny bits of shrapnel leftover from the D-Day invasion, along with iron and glass beads formed by the intense heat of explosions that June morning. 4% of all the sand on the beach, even after 68 years of weather and waves. Wow.

Behind a pub in Shoreditch in the UK archaeologists have uncovered what remains of the Curtain Theatre. The predecessor to Shakespeare’s more famous Globe Theater, the playhouse in all likelihood hosted the very first performances of Henry V and Romeo and Juliet.

****

Animal Practice has been cancelled by NBC. Three remaining episodes will air before being replaced by the much-maligned Whitney – which means that yes, the ratings were THAT bad. As luck would have it this week’s episode [Who’s Afraid of Virginia Coleman?] was the first that I felt really captured the characters and provided solid comedy. Sayonara.

****

Lisa and I watched the Johnny Depp film version of Dark Shadows. I know it was generally scorned by diehard fans of the show, and one ‘super fan’ I know refused to even see it. But I think if you approach the movie without preconceived notions about how it should interpret the storyline (and I had none, having seen one episode at most) then I don’t see how you walk away without liking the flick. The acting was top-notch, the story was more than up to par, and the laughs were genuine, not at the expense of the characters or plot. It’s safe to say Lisa and I both grade this an unexpected A.

On the other hand, on Lisa’s birthday we watched Adam Sandler in That’s My Boy, which should be more accurately re-titled The Epitome of a Bad Movie. Lisa claims to have enjoyed it, and called me out for laughing a few times. It’s true, there were a few laughs. I loved Vanilla Ice’s role, I want the full back New Kids on the Block tattoo, and a few odds and ends were amusing. Big wup. I don’t understand why Sandler thinks talking like a speech-impaired whino for 90 minutes is supposed to be funny in movie after movie. Plus, every joke could have been written by a middle school kid with a C average, and, oh, yeah, there’s the whole “this movie glorifies and excuses statutory rape and pedophilia” thing. I grade this a miserable F

I’ve finished reading Outlaw Platoon: Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan by Sean Parnell (with John Bruning). It’s a memoir of Parnell’s time as a motorized infantry platoon leader in eastern Afghanistan.

 It’s the first book of any kind I’ve read on either the Iraqi or Afghan war, and found it informative and enjoyable. Parnell (well, Bruning) has a good flair for putting you right there in the heat of the battle. Still, at times the ‘warrior’ mystique is shoved down your throat with all the finesse of a B movie WWII flick. That’s fine I guess, but even taking that into account there’s the occasional hyperbole that makes you roll your eyes.

All things are relative, to be sure; for instance, if someone throws a punch at me today it will be enough of an affront to my world to inspire a blog post or two. Likewise, the skirmishes and ambushes Parnell encounters are awful, certainly by the standards of my life and probably yours as well. But having been groomed on tales of WWII and Vietnam. . . another platoon is attacked and the horror of it shatters their moral; in the attack a single American is wounded, shot in the foot. Chapters are devoted to horrific attacks that spawn not a single American killed or wounded. Wave after wave of the enemy are wiped out for literally hours – resulting in about 40 enemy dead. The back of the book compares the number of men wounded in Parnell’s platoon in a year to “a [casualty] rate not seen since Gettysburg”.

All love to the Parnell and the platoon, but you are 30 men. Should you stumble into your own Alamo, it still won’t come remotely close to being worthy of comparison to Gettysburg.

Like I said tho’, it is informative and entertaining. I grade it a B+/A-

Book #81 of the year

Quote

“The refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil. The Tragedy of our time is that those who still believe in honesty lack fire and conviction, while those who believe in dishonesty are full of passionate conviction.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen

Happy Eleventh Birthday YaYa!

Happy 11th Birthday YaYa! May you celebrate 100 more! Isn't she beautiful folks?

Can we Make a Difference? I'd like to think we can.

In this, The Year of The Comeback, we have made it our goal to try and devote a small part of our lives to giving back to others in our community. We’re doing this not only because it is the good and Christian thing to do – and I don’t say that tongue in cheek – but because the mere act of giving will empower you. It says to your soul that you are not a victim, that you are no longer relegated to the sidelines and that you can make a difference in the world. You might remember our ill-fated charity walk for the local food pantry. Our efforts have been small since then; a donated can of food here, a dollar or two to a charity drive here. We don’t have much to give.

 This past Friday however, I got a catalog from Heifer International. Since 1944 Heifer International (HI) has assisted in livestock and agricultural training and assistance to alleviate hunger and poverty around the world. Their goal for the people they help is self reliance, which is important – I am, after all, a Republican – and what the catalog allows you to do is simple but breathtakingly powerful.

For a set price, you can provide a family halfway across the globe with an animal that will help that family provide food and fertilizer, and in some cases provide products the family can sell to gain a better financial footing. There are some pricy gifts; the top of the line is $25,000 for a gift that will provide acreage and schooling for a community; then there is the $5,000 ‘Ark’, which provides a pair of 15 different animals to families, who are then obliged to ‘pay it forward’ by donating one of the pair’s offspring to another needy family.

Obviously I can’t afford $25,000 or even $250 for that matter; good intentions be damned, someone still needs to pay the mortgage and utilities. Even so, we can still do some good.

A sheep, goat, or pig is $120 – a ‘share’ of one purchase is $10.

A trio of rabbits is $60 – a share is $10

A gift of honeybees – which provides not only food but a potential income – is $30.

So sometime early next week I’m going to call a family meeting. We’ll all decide on what our goal will be, and hopefully by Christmas that gift will be on its way to some deserving family.

I really feel this is a good program and something worthwhile. I hope we can make a difference in someone’s life. 

A Predator Revealed - A Pediatrician from my Youth

In the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on Saturday (Oct 20^th, 2012) there was some shocking news. My childhood pediatrician, Dr.Thomas Kowalski, had admitted to sexually abusing Boy Scouts while serving as a Scout camp doctor in the late ‘80’s – the same time I spent part of the summer at camp.

 [the name of the camp where he served was not named in the article and may not have been the same one I attended].

Specifically, two teens reported he masturbated while fondling them in the infirmary. While he admitted the actions to the Sheriff, Scout officials, the D.A. and others, the parents of the teens agreed to keep quiet and not press charges if he attended psychiatric counseling and was reported to the Medical Examining Board.

That medical board denies any report was ever filed with them. Worse yet, the suppression of the truth extended to the media. Scout documents state that a publisher of Milwaukee newspapers knew of the situation but did not reveal the information to his editors.

When questioned by the LA Times last month, Kowalski said the following. “Had that been publicized, I would have been out of business, reputation destroyed, and I don’t know how I would have faced people in church.”

He is correct. And more to the point, that’s what he deserved. The fact that the system – Scouting, law enforcement, the DA, the media – all conspired to protect his reputation is sickening, and of course Kowalski is just a notable local example of a widespread problem in past decades.

Yes, these were ‘teen boys’ and for all I know were nearly full grown, if that makes a difference (it shouldn't). Maybe, as he claims, he sought the counseling and never re-offended.

But the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior, and without an established record of his actions we have no way of knowing if he’s telling the truth. Maybe no one else was hurt. Maybe he left dozens of victims behind. Thanks to a legitimate conspiracy to suppress the truth, we may never know.

Here’s what I do know. I know that my Mom was fed up with Kowalski and dropped him. He never showed up to our births, wouldn't return calls over the years, etc and my Mom just had enough. We soon switched to the late,  great Franscisco Mabini and his wife.

But I still saw Kowalski occasionally, when Mabini was unavailable, and you know what my impressions were of the bow-tie wearing doctor? I thought, even as kid, that he was creepy. That isn't a retroactive observation. Had you asked me the day before I read the article I would have said the same thing. Something didn't seem right with the man, and it made me uncomfortable. I think my Mom had an inkling of the same feeling, although she never came out and said so.

With Kowalski now revealed, it appears my childhood, unbeknownst to me at the time, was a minefield of predators. My grade school music teacher? An admitted abuser. A popular priest at my high school? A disgusting child rapist. My pediatrician? An abuser. There are a couple more that spring to mind, but lacking concrete knowledge of their convictions in my head I won’t list them here.

  

I am Catholic. I was both a Cub Scout and Boy Scout, and I have loyalty to both organizations. But while the Church is not something you can easily walk away from, and in its own way was handcuffed by philosophical and spiritual beliefs in forgiveness, repentance, and the sanctity of the confessional, what’s Scouting’s excuse?

I know, the current organization is not the same, in policy or personnel, as the one that suppressed the truth. But then as now it was a volunteer organization centered on helping young boys grow into able, healthy men, with “morally straight” being a part of that creed. I can see no way in which the well being of the organization, its mission OR ITS CHARGES was aided by promoting a culture of silence and suppression. Quite the opposite.

Again, I don’t hold the current roster as liable for the sins of the past. But it makes me all the happier that, following the recent dustup over Scouting’s refusal to allow gay leaders or members, we pulled our son out of Cub Scouts. A children’s organization that sat on its hands for decades while boys were hurt, an organization that now somehow finds it acceptable to segregate and exclude children because of their sexual preference (which is *not* something the Church does), an organization that fails to note the bitter irony of their interpretation of ‘morally straight’ - well, that’s not an organization I want influencing my son.

And Mom – thanks for getting rid of Kowalski. I mean it.

Justin Beiber - In Concert

Lisa is taking LuLu to see her favorite artist!

1 Hour Until Bieber!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Update: Bieber about to take the stage . . .

bad seats, decent zoom n big screens, lol - Lisa

A Mass Shooting in Brookfield

mass shooing at the Azana Spa in Brookfield, a Milwaukee suburb. Multiple dead, dominating conversation among the kids at YaYa's party :(

I Mourn For You, My Beloved 2012 Yankees

What happened to the Yankees in their miserable 4 and out loss in the 2012 ALCS? Four of their regulars stopped hitting (Cano, Swisher, Arod, and Granderson), a fifth broke his ankle (Jeter) and their manager crafted his lineup card from a Ouija board. It’s hard to win with a third of a lineup and no one sane in charge.

Add to that the scapegoating of Alex Rodriguez and this is as miserable a Yankee post-season as I’ve seen since ’04. Benching him while letting Cano and company skate with their 0-fer’s was a sin. Keeping him on the bench when it came time to pinch-hit was criminal. Criticizing him for allegedly flirting with a fan is ludicrous (at least a Yankee made an attempt at hitting something in the ALCS). Letting the press slice and dice the man because hating him is a convenient meme, is, in my opinion, a moral failing of my beloved Yankees. 

In the press Friday Rodriguez said his time in New York has featured great highs and terrible lows. It’s a disgusting shame that those lows he refers to are because he is was – and is- being cannibalized by his own team.

Why is he so hated? Because he made a ton of money for being really, really good? Cry me a river. 

Here are the stats [quoted from BaseballThinkFactory] from the original, ten year contract that sports bloggers fume about in their Mommy's basement. 

99/394/577, 150 OPS+, 424 HR, 1130 runs, 1236 RBI, 69 WAR

Egads, how awful!

Let's put it another way. During his time with the Yankees he has: 

Earned two MVPs, hit 302 homers, carried the Yanks on his back to a World Series title, notched a 141 OPS+ and yes, made $247 million over nine seasons.

Even after his original contract was renegotiated after 2007, he continued to perform up to and past monetary value. In the first season after the re-ink he led the league in slugging, put up a 150 OPS+ and amassed 6.5 WAR. In 2009, the regular season was only average - A-Rod average, mind you - but he hit 6 HR in the playoffs and was clutch time after time. 

What a crap player, eh?

But, but  . . . the heck with his numbers. The payroll his check consumed handcuffed the team around him (pre-Yankee) from making any moves, thereby hurting them in the long run. 

Uh-huh. Let's check the numbers during his time with the Rangers, shall we?

2001

ARod: 8 WAR, $22 million

Rest of team: 19 WAR, $90 million

2002

ARod: 9 WAR, $22 million

Rest of team: 20 WAR, $111 million

2003 

ARod: 8 WAR, $22 million

Rest of team = 11 WAR, $102 million

Who was the better value??????

Deep, calming breath Dan. Deep calming breath. 

Anyhow good luck to the Tigers: I hope Prince and company annihilate whatever NL team meets them in the Series. 

Flowers by Lisa

Lisa's been  taking a floral design course taught my Michael Gaffney. Here are a few examples of her work

The End of Newsweek as we Know it

Newsweek has announced they will cease print publication on NY Eve after 80 years, publishing in the future only in a digital format.

A Wanted Man, Rock of Ages, and Airborne

Recently I watched a History Channel documentary called “The Third Reich: The Rise” which used contemporary footage to chronicle not Hitler’s rise, but the growing acceptance of Nazism in the ‘30’s. It was a powerful film, and well done. You should try and catch it the next time it’s on TV.

Two points however: the doc stresses that Jews accounted for less than 1 out of every 13 German citizens at the time Hitler took office. That’s less than 8% of the population, and one has to figure that the majority of that 7+% were women and children, and a fair number were no doubt poor or living paycheck to paycheck. The documentary closes with text stating that the funds confiscated from these [German] Jews funded approx 30% of the cost of Germany’s war effort.  That’s 30% of the cost of a six year, total war fought on three continents. That’s a staggering sum, and it raises some questions:

One – how accurate are the figures presented in the documentary? Are they limited to just the German Jews, as implied, or does it include the citizenry of occupied lands?

Two – if a tiny portion of your population can fund 30% of such a bottomless hole, it should raise the question of whether the anti-semitism and racial profiling of the Nazi’s was simply an sick, elaborate smokescreen for what amounted to class warfare.

Was institutional mass murder just the result of old fashioned greed?  Oddly, that sounds almost worse, doesn't it? I almost prefer the barbarism of religious and racial hate, because then at least the motives, while horribly wrong, were at least hot-blooded.

*****

I’ve finished reading Lee Child’s latest Reacher novel, A Wanted Man. Reacher hitchhikes on a lonely country road and is picked up by a car just as the local sheriff orders roadblocks on the highway. It seems there’s been a murder, and the killers are almost certainly on the road, but what are the odds the killers would take the time to stop and pick up everyone’s favorite former MP/hitchhiker? This is a good adventure novel from the great Lee Child. The stakes escalate exponentially, and for a second I thought Child was going to go wobbly and venture into paranoid conspiracy land, but he reined it in nicely – if you view world-endangering espionage and armed assault as ‘nice’. Grade: A Book #80 of the year

Yesterday Lisa and I watched “Airborne”, a low budget horror film set on a sparsely occupied trans-Atlantic flight where things begin to get a little crazy. Of special note: it features Mark Hamill in a supporting role. He does an admirable job, even if he does look like a chubby old man the Force forgot, but no movie featuring the man should have a character named “Luke”. It’s an insult. As to the movie itself, I was surprised by how entertaining and nearly intelligent it was, with the ‘nearly’ sneaking in during the third act, when the plot is fouled by the introduction of an ‘ancient curse’. Scratch that crud and you’re looking at a B/B-; with it I can’t give them better than a C+

Finally, Lisa and I rented Rock of Ages, the film version of the Broadway musical. There's only the thinnest thread of a plot, and what there is of it is recycled from every rock and roll film ever made, but the all-star cast was great and the music spawned a sing-along in our living room. Tom Cruise, all his zaniness aside, is an incredibly talented man - his performance as Stacee Jaxx made the film for me. Kudos also to Diego Boneta and Catherine Zeta-Jones. It's cheese, but it's good cheese. Grade: B

My first month on FB - pt 2

Just to head off the inevitable reports about how Fox is evil for not carrying yet another talk by the Prez - here's the scoop. As the article explains, when the conference was originally scheduled for 8pm CST NBC was going to skip it and run their own program. Now Fox had to make the call. It all depends on how much $ is invested in the programming set to be bumped. Business is business.

Fox picks 'So You Think You Can Dance' over Obama news conference - JSOnline

It's all business, as the broadcast network had already scheduled a new two-hour edition of "So You Think You Can Dance," one of the most successful summer "reality" shows.

July 22, 2009 at 10:46 am

Pearl Jam's new song "The Fixer" is on the web. I'm (happily) suprised that it has a strong pop sound, w/ kind of an '80's vibe. Or so I gather while sitting here wrestling with the baby for possession of a bag of tortilla chips . . . .which she just dumped all over the floor. Curse me for reproducing so often. If only I wasn't so good at it.

July 22, 2009 at 12:02 pm

What's up with all the miltiary jets coming out of Mitchell today? They keep buzzing overhead, even with the current rain showers.

July 23, 2009 at 1:48 pm

I know some of you on this site will recognize the name and his work, even if, like me, you've never read his novels.

E. Lynn Harris: Dead At 54 - Entertainment Newswire | Black Voices

A Random House executive has confirmed to BV Newswire that best-selling author E. Lynn Harris has died.He was 54. Harris was on tour, promoting his 11th novel, 'Basketball Jones,' which involved an NBA ...

July 24, 2009 at 6:36 pm

At Job Prior I was a business rep on the design team for the project in the article. A "$1.5 million . . . streetscaping project on a 4.5-mile stretch of the roadway, from College Avenue to Kinnickinnic River Parkway."

I've very sad to read that since I left the job the artwork has changed, as I designed one of the early logos. It seemed to fit the bill quite nicely.

F* it. The street is an economic mess, and it will take more than some new hardscaping to turn it around.

27th Street fighting for survival - GreenfieldNOW

Greenfield — Some changes along South 27th Street - a $1.5 million streetscaping project, for one - are certainly going to happen.

July 24, 2009 at 8:34 pm

I'm a dork.

On Baseball Think Factory there's an article about Yankees' security with the headline "Beware the Toasties". Naturally I commented with the following:

"IIRC, the New Kids on the Block have an unreleased song from the '80' entitled Toasties. Just thought I'd share."

The first comment after it: "Just thought [you would] share? Why??"

NKOTB Rare Song

Rare NKOTB song, "Toasties"

July 26, 2009 at 6:07 pm

I've said before that David Tennant was in grave danger of passing Jon Pertwee as my favorite Doctor ever, and now I think it's official. Plus, after seeing the two part "Human Nature", I think I now have a new favorite episode, possibly the first that I'll ever force Lisa to sit down and watch. Best. Sci-Fi. Series. Ever.

ps. Martha Jones aka Freema Agyman . . . my word.

July 27, 2009 at 11:12 am

The Journal is asking me to write a column that I'm sure would lead to (more) hate mail and serious flack. Hell, I got hate mail when I wrote about SNOW. They asked for volunteers, and when no one raised their hand she wrote me and asked if I'd please d

July 28, 2009 at 12:05 pm

Well, the Journal settled matters. The editor sent out a mass email announcing I'd been assigned the column before I even said yes. yee-haw. Great.

July 28, 2009 at 3:40 pm

For all my b*tching and moaning, the column poured out onto the page easy-peezy, and it's already in the editor's mailbox. So what to do with the rest of the night . . .

July 28, 2009 at 11:21 pm

Given the fact that the seven defendants are accused of "plotting violent jihad overseas, and are charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim and injure" I'm reckoning the FBI had no need of the stunt she alleges. And if they for some reason did pull a fast one on her, well and good - better that then a single life lost, even if it does jeopardize a potential court case.

Wife and mother of terror suspects says FBI tricked her - CNN.com

A woman whose husband and two sons are accused of plotting "violent jihad" overseas said federal authorities tricked her into leaving her home so they could search it.

July 29, 2009 at 7:15 pm

To those who continue to be in denial about the BoSox, and believe only my belovd Yankees were cursed by PED's . . David Ortiz say's hello.

David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez tested positive for steroids in 2003 - MLB - SI.com

Slugging stars David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez, who helped deliver the Boston Red Sox their first world championship in 86 years in 2004 and a second title in 2007, are among the names on the list of 104players ...

July 30, 2009 at 1:08 pm

I will give you one, no TWO, scooby-snacks if you are willing to do my dishes before Lisa returns home with the kids. Ok . . three?? Anyone???

July 30, 2009 at 2:16 pm

I did jack today, other than play with the baby and write. I'll try to hit the dishes after work. I did, however, mail out the party invites and bake the brownies as a treat for the kids tonight.

July 30, 2009 at 2:53 pm

I've always enjoyed his column, and I wish him well.

Cuprisin ends column on TV, radio and what it all means after 15 years - JSOnline

It's fitting that my last column runs the day that the federal government ends its coupon program for digital TV converter boxes. The digital transition is complete. But the end of Inside TV & Radio is part of a much broader transition that's affecting everything we read, watch, and listen to.

July 31, 2009 at 1:14 pm

Former Philippine President Corazon Aquino Dies

Former President Corazon Aquino, who swept away a dictator and then sustained democracy by fighting off seven coup attempts in six years, has died, her family said Friday. She was 76.

July 31, 2009 at 4:50 pm