When the Teacher is Willing ...

...the student will appear -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
In continuing my "Boomer Lit" series, I just completed A Lesson Before Dying, by Earnest Gaines. Cards on the table -- this isn't precisely a "boomer" book. At Borders, it was on the same table with other boomer books as recommended summer reading. In fact, it came out more recently in 1993 and was promoted by Oprah's Book Club in 1997. I grabbed it along w/ several other books on the table; its themes concerning racial strife and human dignity certainly put it in a category close to boomer lit.

Set in fictional town Bayonne, Louisiana in the late 1940's, Lesson is about a poor young black man, Jefferson, unjustly convicted to die in the electric chair. Jefferson is witness to a liquor store robbery and ends up being held (wrongly) as the killer. Jefferson's defense lawyer, a bombastic white racist, refers to Jefferson as a "dumb hog" and the main line of defense is that Jefferson is too slow and stupid to have orchestrated such a thing. Jefferson's surrogate parent, his godmother Emma is mortified that her godson has been so maligned. She beseeches her best friend, Emma for help. She asks Emma if her gifted young school-teacher nephew, Grant Wiggins, will meet with Jefferson on death row to teach him something, give him some erudition in his last months of life.

Grant is dubious about the benefit of such an exercise. He is agnostic and doesn't see much point in his teachings or the ministerial visits of Emma's friend, the Reverend Ambrose. Jefferson himself is very depressed and reluctant at the outset, referring to himself as a "hog" and turning his back to visitors. In dealing with racist wardens and local politicians, Grant sees firsthand the elements that doomed Jefferson. He sees in the age-lined faces of his Aunt Lou, Emma and the Reverend Ambrose a wisdom and spirituality that comes from decades of living and not from a college diploma. In the last chapters of the book, Grant is transformed into an advocate for vicitims' rights, and more deeply spiritual (though still not necessarily a Christian). Jefferson becomes a highly composed, dignified man who has no fears about his afterlife -- he is by far the most composed person in the death chamber, in the final chapter of the book.

Lesson is a book about transformations of the soul, transformations that come about when you embrace a situation closely rather than staying a cool, convenient distance from something unsettling. What all of us might carry away from this Lesson is that God walks in the unlikeliest of places, and gives credence, life and meaning to the "lowest" among us. That's quite a lesson to learn for any of us -- and we don't have to be on death row to glean something from the words in the book.

© 2007 blogSpotter

Rage on the Road

This will teach you to honk -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I'm not usually violence-prone, but there is nothing that enrages me more than somebody blaring their horn at me in traffic. I was looking at new cars on Sunday and parked my Toyota in the drive of the dealership -- they had a gate to prevent me from driving into the parking area. When finished, I looked cautiously to see if anyone was coming and began to back my car into the empty, right-most lane. Along came a red SUV, in the next lane. She didn't merely toot her horn; she leaned into it and blared it really loud. I don't normally make big mistakes in my driving, but will take my lumps if I do make a mistake. On the other hand, if I know what I'm doing and some sanctimonious person decides to correct me with a rude honk, it makes me really mad. In this case, my car wasn't going anywhere near her lane -- she overreacted in an almost neurotic way. Car honks are mostly jarring -- there's hardly one that says "pardon me" or "watch out". In this case, I had to suppress my urge to kill.

This calls to mind another horn-honking story. About a year ago I was sitting at an outside table at Starbucks on Lemon & Knight Street here in Dallas. A car was turning right from Knight on to Lemon. At the same time, a north-bound Honda was doing a U-turn at roughly the same spot. It was clear that the two cars might have a conflict (though they didn't need to). The Honda veered into the path of the other car. In the few seconds where hand-eye coordination is critical for control, guess what? The Honda driver decided to blare his horn. It was more important for him to express his indignation than it was to steer or apply the brakes to prevent an accident. In this case, Mr. Honda crunched his fender and lost a bumper. It served him right, but the other driver didn't need to suffer so much grief.

I have actually spoken to two acquaintances (both high-testosterone males) who admit to having a fender crunch to prove they were in the right. I don't like stand-offs or matches like that of any kind -- if someone wants to force a point and is willing to wreck their car for it, I'll probably yield. Who knows what you're up against? In north Dallas a year ago, a British tourist was shot dead in a road rage incident. It's suspected that his only "crime" was going too slow in the left lane of a construction zone. You never know what frame of mind the other guy is in, or what weapons he might carry. When I was a young lad of 25, an older model pickup truck cut in front of me on MOPAC in Austin; I blared my horn to express my outrage. What made this awkward is that it was on an empty stretch of highway and it looked like three Banditos in the cab. My clothes were drenched with sweat by the time I was able to pull off -- fortunately they didn't seek revenge.

Bottom line? "Drive Friendly". Also drive defensively and use the greatest of commodities -- common sense. Be as nice to someone in a car as you would be to them on foot -- on a promenade or in a hallway. It's a person in the other car after all. It's not worth the loss of property, and certainly not life, to make a gesture of unctuous outrage.

© 2007 blogSpotter

Return to Muscle Beach

Girl Fight! Girl Fight! -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I wanted a light-hearted, fairly short movie to download to my iPhone -- just something to show people how movies look on it. I found the perfect movie with 1964's Muscle Beach Party, the 2nd in a series of five beach movies starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. The movie was directed by William Asher (also known for Bewitched) and like many 60's era movies it shows teen behavior from a hilariously square adult viewpoint. I'm reminded of Brady Bunch where Sherwood Schwartz thought that "groovy" was a perfectly good word for a 1970's teen. By 1970, "groovy" had been deprecated to a terribly square phrase of the unhip. The kids in the cast tried to tell Schwartz to no avail. Thus, part of the giggle factor when watching beach movies or Brady's are things like "Johnny Bravo", songs like "A Boy Needs a Girl", and the word groovy.

A couple of things strike me immediately w/ Muscle Beach: Frankie and Dee Dee are supposed to be teens, but both are well into their mid-20's. Avalon is a heart-throb leading man, but is so petite he's barely taller than half the women in the cast. Like Mad, Mad World, there are some social sea changes since 1964 that would make much of the dialog and plot devices unlikely today. The women are sitting around mooning and pining over their men; they even have the occasional cat fight over a man. Nowadays, it's decidedly uncool to depict a woman in that way. Current day plots more frequently have the woman in the driver's seat -- leaving a man, attracting a man, or doing whatever she might do to a man in the active mode. From a purely stylistic standpoint I have to observe that Dee Dee (Funicello) has the highest hair I’ve ever seen, where it wasn’t intended as a self-parody. It was easily 5 inches high.

Don Rickles plays Jack Fannie, a gym manager on the beach. I forgot that in his late 30’s Rickles was not yet an obnoxious, fearsome insult-meister. He was perfect as the low-IQ and oddly vulnerable gym manager. His muscle men are depicted as preening divas wearing satin trunks (alternately pink or purple) with white thongs on their feet. Attitudes toward body building have evolved – it’s more mainstream now. The very concept of a “muscle beach” could evoke laughter in 1964, and would more likely get straight-faced queries of interest in 2007.

Last but not least in this movie was Luciana Paluzzi playing an Italian Contessa, Julie, who is smitten with Frankie. Her Italian accent is alternately charming and funny. The “cat fight” between her and Dee Dee makes the movie worth watching all by itself. Buddy Hackett is perfect as Julie’s business manager – Hackett was in his comic prime, having recently done Music Man and Mad, Mad World.

In sum, Muscle Beach Party is the perfect diversion if you want to laugh and have purely a good time. The simple stereotypes and implied “truths” might annoy people nowadays – most girls don’t aspire just to be “Johnny’s Girl”. The music, except for one song by a 13 year old Stevie Wonder, is largely forgettable tripe that leverages off of the styles of Leslie Gore or the Beach Boys (take your pick). The dialog is hilariously contrived; nobody would say these words, ever. For a 90 minute guilty-pleasure laugh fest, that should not be a problem. Pick up a copy of this movie and indulge yourself in a blast from the past.

© 2007 blogSpotter

Mid-September News Digest

Greenspan, telling it like it is? -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I'm behind on my blog, and there have actually been a couple of newsworthy events worth mentioning. It seems OJ Simpson is in jail for a strange scenario in Las Vegas. He's alleged to have committed armed robbery to take back sports memorabilia that he thought was rightfully his. Now, that's a wrongful way to go about setting the situation right, even if his claim is true. The story is all over the editorial pages. One camp says that he has guilt over being found innocent of the 1994 double murder of ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman. Maybe he wants to get arrested for something. Another camp thinks that OJ may have a God complex and thinks he can pretty much escape any punishment, ever. Let me remind OJ that notorious gangster Al Capone was finally nabbed for income tax evasion -- nobody ever said that poetic justice has to make the best sense. If I were OJ, I would mind all the P's and Q's; some people would love to haul him in and throw away the key.

Now on another front, ex-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has ruffled Republican feathers by dissing the Bush Administration. In particular, he faults the current President for not vetoing the many pork-laden bills that came through on his watch. Greenspan also raised eyebrows by complementing the Clintons and worse -- suggesting that the Iraq War is all about oil. The last claim has been a favorite of liberal bloggers all over. In a major feat of damage control, Greenspan appeared on NBC Today with Matt Lauer yesterday and did a "Jimmy Carter" back pedal. He changed the focus to Saddam Hussein -- he said that Saddam was indeed trying to take over the Straits of Hormuz and choke world oil supply. In the TV interview, Greenspan said that Saddam needed to be taken out, and that the "Oil War" was not the fault of W Bush's administration. To me, the tone and content of his TV appearance veered dramatically off of his book's message. Mr. Greenspan, do you need some Evian water to wash down the crow you're apparently eating?

On the technology front, Steve Jobs was true to his word and offered a $100 in-store coupon to early adaptors of the iPhone. However, the offer is only extended to iPhone customers who've activated their phones thru the AT&T service. Many iPhone customers are put off by this -- it should be of no concern to Apple how the purchasers use the product. It should only matter that they purchased it. This AT&T stipulation may lose as much good will as it engenders. I'm figuring the AT&T contact would run me $70 across 24 months, or $1,680.00. That's a lot of money -- think I'm still coming out ahead with my non-AT&T, $599 iPhone.

That's all the news that's fit to print today. There's a lot going on -- a prime interest rate may be reduced today, and that could be a boost to the stock market. The technology, tabloid and finance fronts are all pretty eventful these days -- we'll have to stay tuned for further updates.

© 2007 blogSpotter

Meet the Fockers

From Cupertino ... -- Picture courtesy Apple Inc.

by blogSpotter
I've now had my iPhone for almost two months. In that length of time, I've discovered almost all of the iPhone quirks. Let me first give the expected "holy sh**" over the fact that Apple slashed the price from $599 to $399. They've offered a $100 store credit to early adaptors, but we who paid $599 are still not amused. A $200 cash refund would be better. Industry observers say that such a big price drop on a new product line is unusual for Apple -- they may have been trying extra hard to sell their one millionth unit by September 30th.

I used an internet hack to activate my phone. The cheapest AT&T plan would be $70 plus/month with taxes and fees; there's no way I could justify that expense when my RAZR's T-Mobile pay-as-you-go averages maybe $150 per year. So I did the hacktivation which gives me a very expensive iPod without phone capabilities. Having done that, I could never get YouTube to work on my hacked phone -- turns out to be a known problem. You have to replace three files in the /Lockdown directory on your phone. Before you do that, you have to "jailbreak" your phone and then make the changes using iFuntastic (for Macs) or iBrickr (for Windows) -- these are iPhone file browsers. Until last week, "jailbreak" was a terribly difficult, convoluted 10-step process that involved command line interface and other super-tech acrobatics. I was too "faint of heart" to risk my iPhone with that process. NullRiver has just this week blessed us with a software app called "AppTap" that circumvents that horrible 10-step process with a simple one-step install. I effectively "jail broke" my phone, installed iBrickr on my Vista laptop and installed the files necessary to fix YouTube. I spent much of last evening checking out YouTube now that it's working. Now many more hours can be wasted! :-)

iPhoneSimFree (a newly formed company) is now offering software to unlock the iPhone Sim card. The software is being offered thru resellers -- I bought mine from an Aussie company for $50. The order is still being processed; am hoping to turn my iPhone into a T-Mobile Go-phone. Between this and the AppTap addition, my iPhone is starting to have the flexibility and usability of a Palm Treo. Excellent! Isn't this what Apple should've aimed for to begin with? Something that was open, intuitive and easy to customize? Apparently they wanted to protect the phone function from bumbling fingers, as well as look after the interests of their business partner AT&T. Well guess what? Some of us don't want to use protection! (Somehow that doesn't sound right :-) )

Let's see, what could mess up this picture of hacking nirvana? Apple could do things to disable hacks with future software releases. Or they could just kick over our ant hill by making us reinstall prior cumulative hacks. If they want to keep hackers happy, they will do neither of those things – they’ll make future releases "play nice" with others. And ex-nay on the price drops unless you want zero attendees at your next breakthrough event. Enough said? Okay, it's time to go play with YouTube some more. I wonder if they have Carrot Top?

Footnote: I already bought the light green video nano – my old nano will go to a relative in Austin. Some things you can’t do without.

© 2007 blogSpotter

A Mad, Mad Changing World

Look for the Big W at Santa Rosita Park -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Last night, I watched a 1963 movie (now beautifully rendered in high definition wide-screen format): It's a Mad, Mad, Mad Mad World. The director Stanley Kramer is known for much more serious fare like Judgment at Nuremburg and Inherit the Wind. He did one other social comedy of note, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner in 1967. However, Mad, Mad World was his only "magnum opus" screwball comedy. The movie featured a star-studded cast including Jimmy Durante in his last appearance, and Spencer Tracy in one of his last few appearances.

In a nutshell, the plot centers on roughly eight people who witness a tragic car accident in Southern California -- a man (Durante) drives his '58 Ford into a deep ravine. The other motorists, shocked by what they've just witnessed, park their cars; they climb down the ravine to offer help, but the man is too gravely wounded. Before he dies, he tells them of a fortune ($350,000 hard cash) buried in Santa Rosita Park. The witnesses include a dentist and his wife (Sid Caesar and Edie Adams), a van driver (Winters), a health food salesman with his wife & mother-in-law (Milton Berle and Ethel Merman as the in-Law) and two friends (Buddy Hackett and Mickey Rooney) sharing a red Volkswagen. When they can't agree on how the money should be divided, they embark on an insane race to see who can get there first.

Each group is remarkably incompetent in its efforts to find speedier transportation, get help from others without spilling the beans, or basically anything at all. I won't give away the ending, but this movie kept me riveted and laughing in spite of its 2 hour 40 minute length. It took me back to 1963, and caused me to ruminate about how times they have a'changed. Ethel Merman plays an over-bearing loud mouth, and the men in the group call her an "old bag" and an "old bat" to her face. Nowadays, such dialog in a movie would result in Congressional hearings on sexist language. Another scene shows a black couple run off the rode, their faces expressing stereotypical "wide-eyed" terror. This too, would be considered objectionable by current standards -- it wouldn't even make a final cut. Terry Thomas plays a British cactus collector; he goes into a couple of anti-American, anti-Madison Avenue diatribes that would probably be considered too divisive or too intellectual for current audiences. Sad, but true – we don’t won’t to be challenged with thoughts.

Mad World offers fascinating glimpses of a world 44 years in the past. The movie shows several new Chrysler and Chevrolet vehicles with bright red, bright blue seat covers -- I forgot that vehicle interiors were ever anything but brown, gray or black. They show rotary telephones and Mobile Oil gas pumps that look prehistoric. The women all have bouffant hair, high heels and bows -- they resemble life-size Barbie dolls. Some of it I remember fondly and wish we could get back to "innocent" times -- never mind the Vietnam War or the Kennedy assassination. The movie is still hilarious. It's too bad that modern movies have to mine all their humor out of sex and dialog contorted with political correctness. Mad World showed us how humor can be tapped from virtually any situation, and all these years later the humor is still vibrant.

© 2007 blogSpotter

In His Image

Hitchens talks about God -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I just read one atheist book, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. I found some points of common ground, but on the most important of points (belief in God), I had to differ. I like the way some of these atheist writers get me to thinking. I'm now listening to Christopher Hitchens' God is Not Great. Hitchens is a staff writer for Slate on-line magazine; in this world of strange bedfellows, Hitchens is politically conservative, pro-W Bush and in favor of the Iraq War. In fact, part of the motive for this book was his distaste for Islamo-fascists and the whole concept of religious jihad.

Hitchens makes some interesting points about how we color in the outline of God. We were made in his image, so it's said, but Hitchens believes we have it backwards. With our avid imaginations, we've created God in our own image. And what kind of God have we created? Apparently a very insecure God -- he wants us to bow, scrape and pray to him on a regular basis. He wants us to beseech him for favors, beg forgiveness and make monetary if not human and animal sacrifices. He's the God of tasteless practical jokes -- how else to explain his commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son and then calling it off at the last moment? The God described in the Bible is punishing and vengeful -- even in the New Testament he displays more of a wrathful than reasoned approach.

So what have we devised here? A person like this God would be: vain, insecure, intolerant, short-tempered, inappropriate, cruel, nasty and vindictive. A person with these traits would be on the "do not invite" list. And yet we have no qualms ascribing these exact traits to our Higher Power. I myself depart from organized religion on these points -- the God of my own understanding is not a blustering egomaniacal rage-a-holic.

Imagine if you will, the traits that make for an excellent human. These might include: humility, self-assurance, understanding, forgiveness, deep insight, kindness and love. Depending on how human you want to make him he might also have a sense of style, adventure or humor. My God would never ask me to kill my son, not even as a test. And he's not so insecure about my fealty or belief in him that I must ritualistically recite chants or face a certain direction. He made me and knows every nook and cranny of my mind.

I'm only a couple of chapters into the book, so more may be revealed. Hitchens speaks of a road checkpoint in Belfast where the armed soldier asks him his religion. "Well, I'm an atheist," he replies. The soldier is not satisfied in the least. "Are you a protestant atheist or a Catholic atheist?" The nonsensical nature of this exchange will be obvious to a secular believer such as me -- and it will make perfect since to an Islamo-fascist. I'm sure Hitchens, like Dawkins will part ways with me in some fundamental topics further on, but so far he makes some good points.

© 2007 blogSpotter

I'm Not a President but I Play One on TV

Not so well said, Fred -- Picture courtesy Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Before I talk about Fred Thompson, I'd like to briefly mention the Larry Craig fiasco. It appears that Arlen Specter has encouraged Mr. Craig to rejoin the Senate and fight for his position. To me, this is a "no win" for Senator Craig. The very fact that there is a "he said/he said" discussion of what went on in a men's room is pretty well career-ending for a "values-based" conservative. I find it interesting that two bloggers have said that Craig is guilty of "weakness" rather than "hypocrisy". Craig has vehemently condemned gay behavior and yet does it himself, in airport bathrooms no less. The "weakness" proponents remind me of Roman Catholics who believe it's alright to be gay as long as you don't act upon it -- thus putting homosexuality in the same category as pedophilia, necrophilia or bestiality. It's a love that dare not speak its name, and only then at a men's urinal if it must be spoken at all. Thank you for the clarification, Catholics (and some fundamentalist Protestants). It's attitudes like this that turn gay men (who should have nothing to apologize for) into lying, sniveling, lavatory freakazoids.

"Weakness" my ass. Larry Craig is demonstrating h-y-p-o-c-r-i-s-y and deceit at its very worst.

Now to Fred Thompson. This 65 year old sometimes senator, sometimes "Law and Order" actor is finally going to join the race for president. He's already missed about 5 Republican debates -- don't think this has gone unnoticed by the other candidates. Thompson has a hard-charging wife, 24 years his junior who is serving as his quasi-campaign manager. There are some murmurings that she's more interested in the Presidency than he is. Others say that Thompson is too lackadaisical to run for president. When he was a Senator he missed many sessions and hated the 16 hour meetings that covered points of order and other mundane things. To be a good president, you need to love long meetings and policy discussions. Bill Clinton was a 'policy wonk' and it did the whole nation good.

Fred Thompson is a gifted actor, but without a script he is said to be dry, dull and uninspiring. He so far has avoided discussion of any real issues at all. When asked about his platform he gives bland generalities about strong borders, free markets and states' rights. States' Rights? Are we the Dixiecrats circa 1948? The very expression has been nearly purged from the political vocabulary, but Mr. Thompson has brought it out of retirement. As long as he doesn't suggest segregated water fountains I guess we're OK.

Will Fred take us by storm with his Tennessee folksiness and actor looks? Time will tell. Conservative Republicans are suspicious of him because they thought he played "too nice" with Democrats while serving as a U.S. Senator. He'll need to show his chops in some debates and overcome his lethargic speech as well. No one else has taken the GOP by storm, so Thompson may stand a better chance than anyone thinks. We'll have to stay tuned, and see if another actor lands the role of a lifetime.

© 2007 blogSpotter