My Thoughts Exactly

Net Neutrality Nearer? Maybe

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Some promising noises out of the FCC and Congress lately–even from President Obama– about preserving Net Neutrality. However, the Telco & other retrograde forces out there have lots of money, lobbyists, and influence. Free Press’s “Save the Internet” campaign has some good things going on, including an astonishing $100,000 matching contribution fundraiser sponsored by an anonymous donor. Chip in what you can. And contact your congresspeople today.

Julie/Julia/Johnny

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I saw the movie Julie & Julia last week & liked it very much. It interweaves the story of how Julia Child, the wife of a USian diplomat stationed in Paris, came to write Mastering the Art of French Cooking with the story of how Julie Powell, a twenty-nine year old woman who worked on a telephone hotline for people affected by the World Trade Center attack, came to prepare all 524 dishes in Child’s book over the course of a year and blog about doing it.

Over coffee the morning after seeing the film I noodled around the internets reading reviews and was surprised by a theme that cropped up in many of them–that the parts of the film featuring Meryl Streep as Julia Child were engaging, as was their subject, while the parts featuring Amy Adams as Julie Powell were a bore, and their subject (Powell) was at best negligible, and at worst, a narcissistic leech. Many of these reviews (some of them written by “professionals” on major sites, others by bloggers on less well-traveled sites) were distinctly snotty in tone. Roger Ebert, for example, started his review

“Did you ever want to take a three-day bus trip sitting next to Julia Child?”

and the guy at Cinema de Merde entitled his review “Get your own life” and summarized Julie and Julia thus:

[It compares] a modest woman of inner resources who accomplishes something monumental through hard work, and another who feels a lack in herself because she’s not as accomplished as she thinks she should be, and ends up accomplishing something entirely trivial that is made possible by our culture of paying attention to meaningless personal drama.

Robert Wilonsky’s review in the Village Voice is called “In praise of the Julia half of Julie and Julia”; in it he praises Streep & Child and deposits mild scorn on Powell (while tossing a crumb or two to Adams). In SFGate, Mick LaSalle goes gaga over Streep/Child and says things about Powell that I consider too churlish to repeat here.

Unlike many reviewers, I liked both the Julia story and the Julie story; I liked the entire movie, and indeed I liked both women.

Below, a few observations on the Julie/Julia story (but not a movie review proper) intermixed with some grand philosophical musings on The Meaning of Life, Snotty Reviews, Reactions to War, George Plimpton, My Own Delusions & Narcissistic Compulsions & What They Have Cost Me and Others, Roger Banister, and Writing.

UPDATE: Since originally posting this I’ve made a minor edits for clarity and emphasis. I may make a few more.

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Obama's plan: Another corporate bailout?

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Representative Kucinich makes good points.

We need to keep standing behind progressives to make sure that the bill reported out includes real reform, not a mere windfall for the insurers and drug companies. As Rep Kucinich says, it’s not yet time to say he’ll vote “no” on the final bill. But he’s not very optimistic.

I do take to heart the advice of my Wetmachine colleague Harold Feld, who constantly reminds us that whining and hand-wringing don’t help. What really matters is getting involved and supporting the people who are doing the right things. As soon as I post this I’m going to call Rep. Delahunt’s office. He’s signed the Progressives letter to President Obama saying he won’t vote for a bill that doesn’t have the American Option (AKA “public option”), and in general I’m very happy with his voting recordd. But his name doesn’t appear on the Progressive Caucus letterhead, so I’m not sure if he’s in danger of “backslidin’”. Now’s the time to dig in, sez I.

Hey Verizon: You hijack my url, I hijack your customer support

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If you get Internet from Verizon (as I do) you’ve probably mistyped an URL from time to time and been redirected by Verizon to their “did you mean” spamo site. If you’re like me, this has probably pissed you off.

Well, Dennis Jerz is like me, and over on his Jerz’s Literacy Weblog he’s written an amusing account of how he got rid of the Verizon intruder, and cost Verizon a few dollars for so doing, just to make things fair.

The blog is generally interesting on other topics as well. Check it out.

Hanging out on Martha’s Vineyard with Barack & Michelle

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As all six of my regular readers know, I live on Martha’s Vineyard, where, among other things, I’m a volunteer firefighter. So today, on facebook, I put up a tweet about the Tisbury Firefighter’s Association Dinner last night.

Almost immediately I got a private message from my pen pal the Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam, who distilled the hard-won wisdom of his decades in the journalistic trenches into two pithy sentences:

Be posting on Obama, bro!

that’s what the people want

Well that made me laugh. What the hell do I have to say about Obama? That my wife saw three helicopters flying over our house on the day the “First Family” arrived? That I know where Blue Heron Farm is, where Nancy’s is? Other than that I got nuttin, Honey, I wrote back to Mr. Beam. I suggested that maybe I should go interview Cindy Sheehan instead. But Beam was having none of it.

let me rpt: all obama, all the time.

Well, it’s not every day that a distinguished professional curmudgeon like Alex Beam swoops into my life to give me free wisdom bits, and upon reflection I realized that Beam was right: since I have been hanging out with Barack & Michelle I do have a story to tell, and The People not only want to hear it, The People have a Right to hear it. They are, after all, The People.

And so, below the fold, the true story of my recent time with Mr. & Mrs. President on the little bit of Paradise that I call home: Martha’s Vineyard.

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Vuze: the new Gator

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Several years ago (seems like a lifetime ago) in a misguided attempt to help my younger daughter legally download free music, I installed something called “Gator” on my home computer.

Almost immediately I realized I was stuck in the equivalent of the innocent young couple in the movie Pacific Heights, in which Michael Keaton (perfectly) plays the role of their charming, evil, smarmy, horrible evil tenant that they cannot get rid of (until the climax, when he meets a very (to the audience) satisfying end).

Gator was just like the Keaton character. It pretended to be friendly and charming, but really it was from hell. It took over everything and fucked up everything. I don’t know if I ever got rid of it or if I simply went out and bought a new computer. I had frackin nightmares about Gator.

Then things changed and along came MP3s and there was standardization and itunes and everything was groovy.

A few months ago a friend of mine installed the peer-to-peer program Vuze on my machine. Since then I’ve used it to download a bunch of old films. Some obscure French films and some porno from the 80’s. About 7 flicks, total, I think. Recently it got hung, so I deleted and downloaded it & reinstalled it again tonight. And then I did a Mac OS & Safari software update & rebooted.

And now there is a Vuze toolbar in both my Safari and my Firefox. It’s late and I can’t figure out how to get rid of them. I’ll figure it out tomorrow.

But for now, when I see Vuze I’m seeing Gator, and I’m not liking it one bit.

Fuck you Vuze. Who told you you could mess with my browsers? By what right do you come in and mess with my stuff? Fuck you Vuze, you pigs. Fuck you vuze. Fuck you, Vuze. I don’t care what you say. This is malware tactics. Bite me.

I guess it serves me right for violating the sacrosanct copyright of 40 year old movies. But damn, does it piss me off.

Vuze, the new Gator. Sheesh.