It's now apparent why, unlike his contemporaries George Washington ($1 bill), Thomas Jefferson ($2), Alexander Hamilton ($10) and Ben Franklin ($100), John Adams is not portrayed on any US currency. If he was anything like the simpering wimp currently being portrayed on the HBO mini series, it's a wonder he was elected President followed not too long after by his son John Quincy? Is there some historical precedent here? If Abigail had been born 200 years later she would easily have been the first woman to attain that office (also a first lady!).
More fun from Oliver Stone--The director of JFK, Nixon, Platoon, etc. is making a movie about the "formative years" of the current President, with Josh Brolin cast as W. Actually, Oliver should lighten up. Who better to portray Bush 43 than Will Ferrell, who did a devastating sendup on Saturday Night Live? He might need to tone down the unfair portrayal of the President as a boob.
In the games department, I could understand why in this era of violent video games and total impatience on the part of Gen X, Gen Y and Gen Z'ers (???) with the slow pace of baseball , it has been replaced by pro football as our unofficial national pastime. But now they have both been eclipsed by March Madness and the millions of people entering NCAA brackets online and elsewhere. Great knowledge of college basketball not necessary. A 10 year old of my close acquaintance is beating me (so is most everyone else). This latest obsession will probably lead to a Las Vegas type sports book in every office and school.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
Random Thoughts
Wouldn’t the perfect running mate for Barack Obama be Silda Spitzer? Like an even more famous current candidate, she’s an Ivy League educated lawyer who has years of experience closely watching a superstar politician husband. She would attract the same humiliated woman sympathy that many white women feel for Hillary and to boot she’s a Baptist converted to Judaism, which would attract even more constituencies. But first, she’d have to dump Eliot. We can’t have him only a heartbeat away from being first lady.
I wonder why more political campaigns don’t travel with a resident veterinarian. There seems to be an epidemic of “hoof in mouth” disease. Every other day, it seems, either the candidate (McCain) or their advisors (for Obama and Clinton) are saying something so stupid that the spin doctors have to work overtime. Makes you sort of dizzy, doesn’t it?
Interesting that Bear Stearns offices were in the then relatively new World Trade Center when the 1987 stock market collapse caused them to move out, thus fortuitously removing them from the consequences of 9/11. The current implosion at least didn’t cost any lives. Unlike 1929, most office building windows don’t open. Otherwise, some disenchanted investors and employees might be tempted to do some pushing of the current version of Masters of the Universe. That term was coined by Tom Wolfe in his classic Bonfire of the Vanities written in, believe it or not, 1987. We never do learn from history, do we?
I wonder why more political campaigns don’t travel with a resident veterinarian. There seems to be an epidemic of “hoof in mouth” disease. Every other day, it seems, either the candidate (McCain) or their advisors (for Obama and Clinton) are saying something so stupid that the spin doctors have to work overtime. Makes you sort of dizzy, doesn’t it?
Interesting that Bear Stearns offices were in the then relatively new World Trade Center when the 1987 stock market collapse caused them to move out, thus fortuitously removing them from the consequences of 9/11. The current implosion at least didn’t cost any lives. Unlike 1929, most office building windows don’t open. Otherwise, some disenchanted investors and employees might be tempted to do some pushing of the current version of Masters of the Universe. That term was coined by Tom Wolfe in his classic Bonfire of the Vanities written in, believe it or not, 1987. We never do learn from history, do we?
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Movie Musings
Every critic (this one too) agrees that Karl Markovics gives an outstanding performance as the protagonist in the Oscar winning foreign film The Counterfeiters. Why then didn’t he receive a nomination from the Academy? After all, Marion Cotillard won the Oscar for her performance in a foreign language film La Vie En Rose. Could it be the dreaded “great roles for men but few for women” syndrome?
After all the Brits and Aussies who play (always very well) Americans in movies set in the Colonies (OK the States), it was a refreshing change to see a movie set in England. Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day, featuring Fargo’s Frances McDormand playing a Brit—a vicar’s daughter no less. Maybe it’s me but somehow our English accents don’t sound as authentic as their American ones do. Must be the quality of education.
To slightly change the subject, isn’t it sad that we’re so security conscious (terrified) that movie theaters are now locking all their doors from the outside once the last movie has begun? What happens if there’s a family emergency? If you call, you’ll get a recorded message with the show times. The next step will probably be locking the patrons in so they can’t leave even if the movie is awful.
After all the Brits and Aussies who play (always very well) Americans in movies set in the Colonies (OK the States), it was a refreshing change to see a movie set in England. Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day, featuring Fargo’s Frances McDormand playing a Brit—a vicar’s daughter no less. Maybe it’s me but somehow our English accents don’t sound as authentic as their American ones do. Must be the quality of education.
To slightly change the subject, isn’t it sad that we’re so security conscious (terrified) that movie theaters are now locking all their doors from the outside once the last movie has begun? What happens if there’s a family emergency? If you call, you’ll get a recorded message with the show times. The next step will probably be locking the patrons in so they can’t leave even if the movie is awful.
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