Random: February 2005 Archives

I went and saw Caroline, or Change a month or so ago. I thought it was good, yet perhaps not as amazing as all the reviews I'd read of it had led me to believe. (I'm a bit particular about my musicals, especially ones with singing children.) Still, it did do a good job of capturing the squeamish relationship between well-meaning liberals and the black people who work(ed) for them. Or so I thought. This letter-writer to the J. thunk different:

My wife and I went to see the highly acclaimed play à ¬Caroline, or Change à ® (Jan. 21 j.) yesterday and were deeply offended by the gratuitous exploitation of Jews.

Jews and their love of money serve as a convenient backdrop for the playwright ­s unsuccessful attempt to work out his own guilt-ridden angst about being a modern Jew.

This play, really a mini-opera with no memorable tunes, is a missed opportunity where the two groups, Jews and blacks (both with a history of slavery), never connect.

I almost walked out when Caroline says the harsh and unnecessary line à à ®Hell is the place where Jews go when they die. à ®

At a time when Israel fights for its very survival, and Jews again are experiencing global anti-Semitism, this play further feeds the flames of Jewish stereotypes by depicting Jews as more concerned with pocket change left in the basement à ­s washer where the maid Caroline works than with the internal struggles of the black protagonist.

Readers should save their precious time and avoid this play.

Um... Did he expect Caroline to suddenly stop in the middle of the action and give a speech about the Ãeternal solidarity between blacks and Jews? Did he not notice that the little boy called her names too? Did the context ³ the South in the early 1960s à ³ totally pass him by?

Just how narrowminded and narrowsighted do you have to be?

Fox had to run a disclaimer at the beginning of the Simpsons because it featured a storyline about gay marriage? Did they ever run disclaimers about any of the other episodes? Does anyone really think children watch this show? I bet if they did a survey, the average age is 20-something, at least.

I'm sorry, but easily offended people have got no business whatsoever watching the Simpsons. Geez. The show has been on almost two decades already.

In Fox's attempt to be inoffensive, they've offended me and a hell of a lot of other people...

Here's some pictures of Harvey Pekar talking at WonderCon in San Francisco yesterday. He's got a new book out, Our Movie Year.

As I expected, he's quite a character! Very blunt and no-nonsense about his life and his opinions on things. He still doesn't think too highly of David Letterman...

The funniest part was when he opined that the comics world was in a bit of a decline. Its heyday was apparently in the early 1970s, with a brief revival in the 1980s, but now... not so much.

So someone raised their hand and asked, "What about so-and-so?" "Oh, he's all right."

A second person gives it a shot. "What about this other artist?" "Eh... I'm not familiar with his work."

And so on. I thought about raising my head and asking about web comics (I'm quite enjoying Hereville) but chickened out.

Eventually he admitted that the independent comic book retail scene in Cleveland isn't quite what it should be. Perhaps that would account for the lack of familiarity?

Anyway, later on I went to Keith Knight's booth, and while browsing his books, noticed some words of praise from Pekar. So there is a modern cartoonist he likes!

More later.

Sign spotted at WonderCon registration desk today:

Trust them to have a rather scholarly entry on the origin of Goatse.cx. (Don't ask.)

Etymology

The intended meaning of the site's name is not known for certain. It is commonly interpreted as a word play on the phrase "goat sex", although no goats are involved anywhere on the site.

Found this story on BoingBoing. What a magnificent example of post-9/11 paranoia, incompetence, and I don't even know what.

Take a photo on MUNI, go to jail. Or get stuck in a really long, time-wasting discussion with employees and cops who have major issues.

While we were on the platform waiting for our train I figured I à ­d grab a few photos of the crowds. There has been talk of a fare increase and you never know when some current Muni photos might sell.  Check out one of the images that I took, and tell me if you think this presents a security threat. And they weren à ­t even good photos!

ÃAs soon as I snapped the first shot, a SF Muni Fare Inspector admonished me to stop taking photos. I won ­t go into detail here as you can read my ROUGH DRAFT letters of protest to San Francisco Municipal Railway and San Francisco Police Department (both in PDF format). These letters are a good account of what happened. However, the short version is that The Fare Inspectors tried to prevent me from taking photos under threat of citation. When I refused to stop, they tried to cite me but couldn à ­t find any relevant code, regulation or law to cite me. Enlisting the aid of the SFPD and BART Police officers also yielded now results. No citation was issued.

The details are fascinating and infuriating.

Officer Primiano expressed extreme frustration with me as soon as I began speaking of my rights to photograph in public places. She wanted to debate the wisdom of my taking pictures and asserted that in the wake of the Sept 11th attacks on our country, I should be more interested in aiding officials in their efforts to increase security than my rights as a citizen or journalist. Despite my calm statement of my side of the issue, Officer Primiano waved her hands in the air, stated, "This guy is really pissing me off", and walked away, leaving Officer Ryan to talk to me. Luckily he exhibited a more rational, professional demeanor.

Not for long!

However Officer Ryan was of the opinion that I should not be taking photographs. I explained to him that I didn't want to argue the wisdom of my taking photographs, or the efficacy of a ban on photography in the MUNI System should one exist. All I was concerned with was the legality of my actions. If I had in fact committed a crime by taking photographs, I should (and in fact wanted to) be cited under the relevant law so that I could then pursue the matter in the courts and assert my First Amendment rights. Officer Ryan told me in a very straightforward manner that he did not wish to allow me the opportunity to assert my constitutional rights in court. After walking over to the group of Fare Inspectors and BART Police Officers, Officer Ryan returned to speak to me.  He expressed his frustration at the situation and me by saying:"Would it have been so difficult for you to just stop taking photographs when these guys told you to stop? If you weren't on your soapbox, I'd be out fighting real crime rather than standing around here dealing with you."

Hey, they were the ones that chose to start this mess!

 He expounded further, "Even if there is no law forbidding photography in the MUNI System, the Fare Inspectors have the right to refuse you service for any reason they choose, including taking photographs. Once they refuse you service they can swear out a citizens arrest for trespassing. I, or other officers, will book you and you'll spend the rest of your weekend in jail. It won't be for taking photographs, so your weekend would be ruined yet you'd never get a chance to argue the matter of taking photographs before a judge."

Taken to its logical conclusion, we'll soon no longer be able to take pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge. Certainly the cable cars, being a major part of MUNI, are right out. Leave your pictures, take only memories!

And I found these two from a road trip a couple years ago. These were taken somewhere in the desert in Southern California, or possibly just over the border in Nevada. You find the best road signs out in the middle of friggin' nowhere...

My friend Monica's husband Jeff and I were particularly amused by the Bun Boy sign, for some reason. We'd keep saying, "BunBoyBunBoyBunBoy!" over and over in weird voices, and Monica would look at us as if we were nuts. I have no idea why she would think that, really!

(I'll be darned. Bun Boy has its own entry in Wikipedia!)

Mosquito Eating Shrimp Control Dengue Fever

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why reputable authorities recommend hyphenating your compound adjectives before you stick them in front of your nouns.

(I was just picturing two mosquitos having a conversation. "Lily, my doctor told me to eat more shrimp and it's doing wonder for my complaint!" "Oh, but Sharon honey, you know I don't eat shrimp, it gives me a terrible rash and I'm trying to keep kosher anyway.")

President Bush's protests to the contrary, we are "rendering" suspects to governments which will torture them.

And the FAA, and seemingly everyone else in the Bush administration, ignored countless warnings that Al You-Know-Who was up to something huge involving planes and explosions and killing people. Duh.

And scientists are being pressured to alter or suppress reports that would lead to, g*d forbid, endanged species being protected. Do I have to mention who is applying the pressure, or that the name rhymes with "tush"?

And yet more evidence of what a complete scam Social Security privatization is...

The Long's Drugs near our house just remodeled its interior (apparently based on a new marketing and merchandizing plan), and redid all its aisle signs.

The new signs are an object lesson in the perils of labeling and categorization.

What is "FEMININE NEEDS"? Why is there "FEMININE PROTECTION" right underneath? What happened to "FEMININE HYGIENE"? What the heck was "FEMININE HYGIENE" anyway?

What are "NEW AGE DRINKS" when they're at home?

One aisle has something called "READERS". I kept expecting to see a shelf of little people deeply engrossed in their novels.

And what the heck is "ADULT NUTRITION"? Is it different from "MEAL SOLUTIONS"?

(Michael didn't believe me when I told him about the "ADULT NUTRITION" sign. I had to drag him back and point it out.)

Who comes up with these things? Is it really going to make it easier to find stuff?

Oh well. At least they spell "INCONTINENCE" "INCONTINENCE" and not "INCONTINENTS" like some stores do... how embarrassing.

Go start a sick cult on another planet and stop bother us with...

This

Rabat---Thousands of 'Islamists' took to the streets, yesterday in Rabat, in support of Attajdid newspaper, which is close to Morocco's moderate Islamic Justice and Development Party (PJD). The newspaper had called the Tsunami's disaster "an act of divine retribution" for South-East Asia's sex-tourism industry. The paper also outraged 'moderates' by implying that Morocco risked the same fate because of a growth of prostitution and sex tourism in the kingdom, a phenomenon it described as a "calamity".

And this

à The tsunami that ravaged southern Asia last month was God ­s punishment for world support for Israel à ­s plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, a former chief rabbi has claimed.

à ¬When the Holy One, Blessed be He, is angry with the nations of the world that don à ­t help Israel à ± but want to evacuate and disengage, and interfere in our affairs and harm us à ñ then the Holy One, Blessed be He, claps his hands in sadness, and this causes the quake, ® former Israeli Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliahu told the ultra-Orthodox Ma à ­ayanei Hayeshua magazine.

And this

At this morning's 109th Congressional Prayer Service, Tom DeLay stepped up to the podium and decided to read this timely little piece of the Bible:

A reading of the Gospel, in Matthew 7:21 through 27.

Not every one who says to me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven; but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

Many will say to me on that day, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?"

Then I will declare to them solemnly, "I never knew you: depart from me, you evil doers."

Everyone who listens to these words of mine, and acts on them, will be like a wise man, who built his house on a rock:

The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew, and buffeted the house, but it did not collapse; it has been set solidly on rock.

And everyone who listens to these words of mine, but does not act on them, will be like a fool who built his house on sand:

The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew, and buffeted the house, and it collapsed and was completely ruined.

And this was apropos of... what, exactly?